Saturday 4 January: Sluggish progress on social care reflects a Government unwilling to shake up the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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712 thoughts on “Saturday 4 January: Sluggish progress on social care reflects a Government unwilling to shake up the NHS”

    1. Minty came here 4 minutes before you, roughcommon, and I have just arrived (5 minutes after you). I guess the rest of the gang will arrive shortly. Have a nice day.

  3. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe page. Enjoy your weekend.

    Wordle 1,295 5/6

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  4. How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up. 4 January 2025.

    Reform UK’s Rupert Lowe has called a “full, free and fair public inquiry” that will “show the British people the facts, and let them decide”.

    “No stone must be left unturned” in holding the guilty to account, “including those who acted to cover up these atrocities”. For the guilty, Lowe’s prescription is simple: “deportations and prosecutions, lots of them”.

    A Public Inquiry is probably the route the government will decide to take. As we can see with the Iraq, Dawn Sturgess and Covid sittings they are comparatively easy to fix. The trick is to get the initial question right and then let is stew for several years. We would probably all be dead by the time this one reported.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham/

  5. Up at night once again worrying about how much it costs these days just to stay still. Council Tax and standing charges alone swallow up much more of my pension than Income Tax and NI combined, and 20% of anything I buy goes in VAT.

    It seems that more than 60% of Council Tax goes towards adult social care and children's services for which I get no benefit, and the former only until I am down to my last £23,000 and even then I have to jump through all sorts of hoops designed to exclude my sort and reward those agile enough to try it on.

    it is the law, so I am told. Or it is "business" as someone diddled out of her life savings by some legal shuffling from the corporate owners of a static caravan site. "Deregulation and Growth" have come to mean much more of this sort of thing, and the blame placed on "Lefties", who have been corrupted to comply.

    Maybe the only way I am permitted to live modestly is to become a net contributor to society and top myself. I have had a letter from Pure Cremations a special discount if I book early.

    I am feeling grumpy because I have spent the festive season hunting for a document I need before i can sell a flat ,which is due to be lumbered with double Council Tax and a hiked-up Service Charge in April. I last saw that document ten years ago, so I remember. My piles of paper and legal documents and junk mail grow year by year, and I gave up trying to sort it after I cleared out my bathroom and completely clogged up my spare room in around 2017. Since then, it all piled up during Lockdown when I had no energy even to pick the piles off the floor. I should be able to rely on seams being in chronological order, and that 2012 should be somewhere in the middle. The trouble is that previous attempts at ordering the heaps only shuffle them, and now stuff from the 2010s is mixed in with stuff from the 1990s, and that 2012 document could be anywhere. I also have memories of someone in the recent past asking for it, and I may or may not have lent to them and then forgotten about it.

    In a previous life, I was an administrative officer with the Civil Service and well used to keeping papers in order, but I was younger then and my mind not so gummed up with decades of wear and neglect. How on earth do those who are not administrators by trade cope?

    My father, when he got into this state, would heap it all into a bonfire, burn it off and start again. I lost many a precious item in the past because of this, which might explain my hoarding now. At least I know it's somewhere in there, whereas before I could keep searching for years, not knowing it was lost.

    2. The council tax that you physically hand over equals an average of 25% of the local council's income. It barely covers the pension liabilities.
      The 75% that actually provides local services comes from general taxation; i.e. it is stolen from your other pocket.

      1. I thought George Osborne cut the direct subsidy to local government from 60% to zero between 2014 and 2020, which is why so many are on their uppers now. They still get the odd bail-out, but the instruction now is to put an extra levy on the Council Tax. Keeps the “headline rate of tax” low for your typical household.

      1. Unless you are at risk of being done for tax fraud, in which case you need to keep your paperwork for 20 years I think lol

    4. I feel the same,JM, only maybe not quite so acutely.
      Do you use a computer? It was suggested to me to invest in a scanner then if I have the odd day when I feel up to a bit of sorting, to scan anything I came across that was important to keep and set up a new filing system on the pc.

      I have started doing that and have made a tiny dent in it and will prob have a bit of a go tomorrow too for an hour or so.

      Little by little does it.

      1. Thanks for the encouragement and for not underestimating or belittling the task in hand. My mother (100 this year) still thinks that all I need is a day’s work of just doing it, she says “have you done it all now?”, because she is anxious that I divert my energies to care for her. “Just” is such an iniquitous word! She feels frustrated because she would like to help me, but really she knows that this is one thing she cannot do at her age, and frankly I doubt she ever could provide what I most needed. I am on my own here.

        Your idea of a scanner is a good one. Many years ago, my nephew suggested I use a digital camera to take copies of vital information, and I do do this quite often.

        So much is in the mind. `I start simply by litter picking the bedroom, the stairs, the landing and the bathroom. That is encouraging, and encouragement when utterly downhearted is what is most needed, not an assurance that I am a superman and can do in three days what I have neglected in thirty years.

        As I get on with that, I get the courage to dive into the piles in the hunt for that legal document. It’s not turned up yet (although I’ve found countless legal packs for the tenancies there over the years). There is this one large yellow container full of job applications between 1997, when I left college and 2008 when I decided I’d had enough and retired. Destroying these will finally put a seal on the end of my career forever and will be so liberating. Britain must be full of people of working age who have had enough. It’s one thing to be hardworking and conscientious, and quite another to be constantly shat upon and then judged as inadequate by society, including by one’s former loved ones. It is very long time since I said “I love you” to someone, or someone has said that to me. I think it was in 2010. Such things used to be taken for granted when people loved one another!

        There are all sorts of time bombs buried under there. Love letters of the past from those I have never forgotten. I came across an envelope from an encounter in 1997 with a once-in-a-lifetime match a girl who exceeded the best points of all the women I have ever loved, physically, mentally, in personality and in common interests and values, and it seemed at the time I matched her dreams so much she declared her love for me at the time. She wanted someone like David Bellamy. Well, I was a rustic bearded country lover studying botany at the time! She is now, in her forties, a postgraduate student with a grant to study English traditional culture in the theatre, and considering that Pat Shaw was my mentor when I was a teenage actor with the RSC, even today she hit square on my lifelong interests in the arts. Yet, just one taboo mismatch brought the whole affair crashing down catastrophically. I know I must try to forget her, but in truth I have never been able to love anyone properly since.

        A drawer full of divorce and child contact proceedings between 1991 and 2002, and another file with the annulment of the same marriage from 2007. Another drawer full of family videos taken that I have not played in decades and wonder if I have anything still working I can play them on. Sorting them is for a later stage – there are easier things to decide on, and hopefully this will buy me some room to move and some encouragement to go in deeper.

  6. 'Morning All
    Some musing from Cynical Rik this morning yes yes it's all very exciting to see the upsurge of outrage at the Muzscum rape gangs and their enablers in politics and the police by social media and even elements of the MSM (not the Al-Beeb of course) but why now??
    I'm not seeing new stuff at all the stories of Police Chief Constables being skewered over arresting rape victims etc etc date from years in some cases decades ago so I ask again why now??
    Cui Bono??
    Mark Steyn is equally cynical……………
    https://x.com/MarkSteynOnline/status/1875148697584926981

  7. 399551+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Payed off well in the dangerously negative way, four decades of alternately voting in the close shop trio, didn't it ?

    The islamics were not only building mosques they were building
    an opposing opposition whilst indigenous tribal fools looked on.

    It is NOW clear to see the SHIT or BUST era has been triggered
    Either get off the karzi or submit.

    Why Labour can’t afford to lose more Muslim votes
    Re-emergence of grooming scandal raises further issues between party and its key voter bases

    1. 399661+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      So, in point of fact the NI scam has been in place for decades, may one ask, how many indigenous man,women & children
      would / could have been saved these last four decades ?

      ADD that number to the raped & abused children
      country wide for a true picture of the nation we are currently living in.

      Inside the ‘priority’ NHS services for migrants
      Asylum seekers receiving ‘preferential medical treatment’ despite increasing wait times for Britons.

    2. 399661+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      So, in point of fact the NI scam has been in place for decades, may one ask, how many indigenous man,women & children
      would / could have been saved these last four decades ?

      ADD that number to the raped & abused children
      country wide for a true picture of the nation we are currently living in.

      Inside the ‘priority’ NHS services for migrants
      Asylum seekers receiving ‘preferential medical treatment’ despite increasing wait times for Britons.

    1. 399661+ up ticks,

      Morning Rik,

      Must have been reading OGGA1 comments been doing that for ages, so bloody,bloody true.

    2. Dim but nice Spectator deputy editor Freddy Gray.. asks Douglas Murray, "I hear there's something or other been going on about grooming. I hadn't noticed, been busy campaigning for Rishi.."

      Douglas Murray knocks this one out of the park.

      1. Brilliantly captures the anger of this hideous cover up.
        The metaphor of the Wall's vanilla ice cream being poisoned with the Muslim flavour is spot on.

    3. Familiar to NOTTLers, but bears another outing.

      The Beginnings.

      It was not part of their blood,
      It came to them very late
      With long arrears to make good,
      When the English began to hate.

      They were not easily moved,
      They were icy-willing to wait
      Till every count should be proved,
      Ere the English began to hate.

      Their voices were even and low,
      Their eyes were level and straight.
      There was neither sign nor show,
      When the English began to hate.

      It was not preached to the crowd,
      It was not taught by the State.
      No man spoke it aloud,
      When the English began to hate.

      It was not suddenly bred,
      It will not swiftly abate,
      Through the chill years ahead,
      When Time shall count from the date
      That the English began to hate.

  11. Morning, all Y'all.
    Totally still outside, not a sound except for a couple of magpies chacking. No movement of cars, not a breath of wind. Six inches of snow, roughly, in some interesting wind-blown shapes. Quite chilly. SWMBO still sleeping, cats insisting on being fed, so they have been.

    1. Normally warm and bright in the morning in Los Angeles although it can get surprisingly cold after dark or during the day ifit becomes very foggy or cloudy.
      A curiosity, something I have never seen before but appearing most mornings in the garden are hummingbirds.

        1. We were at Union Station yesterday. Didn’t see that spectacular explosion of flowers of course, in the dark in January but saw the oldest buildings in LA and the enchanting colourful market in the old city.

        2. Looks like Pretoria in spring. Better still is Salisbaury/Harare with these in October and Flamboyant trees with their scarlet blossoms the following month. One thing I found in Joburg was that Jacaranda blossoms and the first rains after the winter drought combined to make motorcycling lethal – more slippery than oil.

  12. Good morning, all.

    Last evening the sky was crystal clear and the waxing crescent Moon with Venus to the right and slightly higher made a wonderful sight. The frost that the clear night produced remains but the sky is now the familiar overcast.

    This video of Andrew Gold (Heretics) and Patrick Christys (GB News) is long, around 71 minutes, but is well worth the time. Plenty of insights and snippets of information. Especially interesting is the segment around 38 to 41 minutes inclusive, re the Gaza ceasefire situation.

    https://x.com/AndrewGold_ok/status/1874673951177425196

      1. Just returned from Newhaven it was -1C at home +5C short distance big difference in temp.

    1. OK, Mt Redwood, but is it right or is it wrong? Calling out hypocrisy is fun, but can be a bit of a distraction.

    2. And at the same time never mentioning Gates who seems to have had more influence on our kneeling government than anyone.
      Whilst Elon Musk himself is a great example of how someone from the third world (South Africa) can be successful in life.

      1. It is an utter scandal that political creatures such as Clegg can grift millions upon leaving office.
        Jimmy Carter must be rolling in his grave.

  18. POLL: Reform Predicted to Win 120 Seats

    Reform is predicted to seize 120 seats at the next general election, leaving Labour with 278 MPs, according to an MRP mega-poll by Stonehaven for The i. The survey points towards immigration driving voters away from Labour and toward Reform, with 55% of Labour-to-Reform switchers ranking immigration and border control as their top issue. Labour’s red wall continuing to crumble…

    It’s happy reading for Farage, with the poll putting Labour at 23%, the Tories an even thinner 20% (157 seats), with Reform polling at 17%, translating to a whopping 120 seats for the UK’s newest party. An unhappy start to the New Year for Labour…

    3 January 2025 @ 16:13

    1. Wonderful.
      A Lib-Lab Green goo.
      Even worse than undiluted Labour.

      Be careful what to wish for.

    2. Amazing that so many voters still consider that Labour is doing a good job.

      No wonder Ms. Philipson was so rudely arrogant in her TV interview.

      If they still have this number of supporters after the last six months they can certainly win the next election

      with the help of a largely compliant media.

  21. Good morning all.
    I woke up at 6 and thought I'd have another half hour.
    Looked at the clock 2 minutes later and it was 8 o'clock!!
    Anyway, a dull and gray day, no rain but very still and calm air and temperatures hovering around zero. Currently 0.7°C with a max of 7.1° and min of 0.1° indicated by the thermometer.

    1. Labour needs to be thoroughly beaten and hammered so far into the ground that their sorry arses poke up somewhere in the Australian outback.
      And no, we do not need an "Independent" Mudslime Party as a replacement.

  26. Solved printer problem. I think. Isn't it heart-warming that the OIk Sweeting should "advise" us to turn up the heating and wear an extra pullover?

    I'd never have thought of that on my own…..

    1. Of course he doesn't need an extra pullover – he just turns the heating right up and slaps it on expenses!

    2. I remember as a youngster my father piling a few extra logs on the living room fire and a neighbour knocking on our front door to tell us that the chimney was on fire. The result on that particular boxing day was the red vehicle parked outside and four firemen standing in our house with cups of tea and mince pies.

  27. Morning all 🙂😊
    Very frosty again but brightish the met weather are still advertising snow pushing up from the south west ?
    Who in the previous government knew that if they were to wreck our precious NHS, many of the people who have worked hard there for many decades would leave and move into the private sector. Thus making the NHS unworkable, especially with hundreds of thousands of illegal invaders turning up for free treatment and then blame the elderly for the terrible consequences.

  28. How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up
    The child victims of rape were denied justice and protection from the state to preserve the image of a successful multicultural society
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham/
    With headlines like the above, cui bono? Why is it all happening now? Is this leading to the loss of slammer support to Labour, and thus collapse of the Labour government and a new election? And, will a new party spring up for that election called something like "The Islamic Party of the UK"? The start of the move to the running of the UK on Islamic lines?

  30. Good morning dear Nottlers.

    We both had a bad sleep , woke up at 5am , and couldn't get back to sleep.

    Very cold overcast morning , frosty and quiet, no baaas from the lambs, they most likely have wandered off through to another field .

    Son running in Weymouth 5k Park run shortly and Moh away playing golf in a competition .

    Will it snow, I dunno, more likely will rain.

  31. A Allan
    23 min ago

    The excuse was that the Madeira police suggested the queue jumping (security – I would suggest the PM is in more danger in Blighty).

    What stopped Stoma or Victoria Sponger from politely declining the offer?

    Apparently he got back in the limo and the children went on the ride.

    His children would have been perfectly safe queuing for the ride because Madeira isn't stuffed full of paedo Paki rapists and stabby Windrush generations.

    2. Something Blair never thought of.. Introduced by: Nick Clegg.

      In any case Charles 3 would probably give Starmer another 10 years if he could.

      1. In the current situation, I reckon Blair would not want an election, which Labour would lose badly. He'd want to reorganise Labour to get better polling figures before the next election, so I expect he had thought of this kind of situation.

        1. In its first term, the Blair administration kept its promise to keep to the Tories' spending plans, which nobody expected the Tories to do had they won in 1997. Indeed, Brown ran a budget surplus in two years.

          To be fair, he inherited a Rolls Royce economy from the Tories. To be even fairer, that was because the central plank, as they say, of their economic policy had collapsed.

    4. I knew at the time the fixed term Parliament act was a bad move. Mind you, Charlie doesn't support his subjects so no help will come from that quarter regardless.

  33. Warren Sheehy

    1 hr ago

    Wes Streeting on the top photo, looks like he's thinking about what's for dinner and hoping that his Ministerial car isn't far away.

    I expect he was thinking about sucking his boyfriend's cock.

    1. Apparently he's related to the Krays; the last people to be imprisoned in the Tower of London
      Time return to the family tradition, only seventy years later make it the entire Labour Cabinet.

    1. Maggie Oliver should be rewarded generously , and she should be lauded more highly .

      Knighthoods will mean nothing these days , the quality of the recipients shows lack of judgement .

  35. SIR – I am not interested in Elon Musk’s opinion on the refusal of the Government to investigate grooming gangs in Britain.

    He has not been elected to any political position in this country. Does being very rich give him some sort of insight into British politics that no one else has?

    Ian Rennardson
    Tunbridge Wells, Kent

    SIR – Andrew Gwynne, the health minister, says Elon Musk should concentrate on American affairs.

    This argument might carry more weight had not large numbers of Labour Party staff travelled over the Atlantic to campaign for the defeat of Mr Musk’s favoured presidential candidate last year.

    Fred Fearn
    Burton Bradstock, Dorset

    Comments

    DAVID DAVIES
    6 min ago
    Ian Rennardson doesn't want unelected foreign billionaires influencing UK politics.

    Strange that in his letter he only mentions Elon Musk.

    Last October Bill Gates met the PM at Downing Street.

    Perhaps Mr Rennardson doesn't mind if the unelected foreign billionaire is one who shares his views.

    1. Sir –
      Ian Rennardson is happy to sacrifice English girls to the vices of Pakistani men to silence Elon Musk.

    2. SIR – I am not interested in Ian Rennardson's opinion on the refusal of the Government to investigate grooming gangs in Britain.

      He has not been elected to any political position in this country. Does being very stupid give him some sort of insight into British politics that no one else has?

      sosraboc
      one time inhabitant of Royal, if you don't mind, Tunbridge Well, Kent

  36. From Guido

    David Barratt
    16h
    The most shameful episode in British history is now trending worldwide, not just on social media, it is being commented on all over the world.
    Labours decades of ignoring it, covering it up, smearing those who spoke out and finally censoring and incaserating has come back with an absolute vengeance.

    And it's not over yet, Kief's involvement with the "Cardiff" family has yet to come out and it is (allegedly) ex…spl…osive.

    Wobingson knew exactly what he was doing when he played his banned documentary to the public, by doing so he forced out into the open the whole shameful sordid affair and even better, Kief and Labour's attempts to go to ANY LENGTHS to stifle it.

    Better still, Kief sowed the seeds of his own downfall. When he sent his 6th form staffers over to support Harris the stage was set, the clock began ticking.

    I suspect Musk is outraged at the events( have to choose our words carefully) and decent person would be…..but this is also REVENGE, Trumps storm….trooper let loose, and it is a joy to watch.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1ffbed17da3468355bc42a57d08385d987b85f9f22037102bc9e31b011d66d0.png

  37. Morning all,

    Our leading article at FSB today is the first part of Iain Hunter’s exploration into our Common Law , the best defender of our freedoms there is, and something we all need to understand, as it is being eroded and usurped by the Globalists to give primacy to laws ultimately derived from foreign jurisdictions. Please read and join the debate.

    Yesterday’s article on How to Deal With Islam generated an interesting debate if you missed it. And we have plenty to debate, with the NHS giving preferential treatment to illegal immigrants, Labour’s lies, reliance on Muslim votes and the Pakistani rape gang cover up, all providing topics needing debate.

    Energy watch 08:45: Demand: 330936GW. Supply: Hydrocarbons 51.9%; Wind 14.6%; Imports 7.7%, Biomass 6.7% and Nuclear 114.6%

    Once again we see that, after billions and billions of misguided ‘investment’ into wind farms, it can only produce 14.6% of a relatively low demand. Solar does not feature as statistically significant. Last night at 21:35, with wind producing only 9.9% of demand, they were importing 16.2% of our electricity requirements. This morning, it seems that imports are not so readily available, so they’ve had to crank up the gas stations. Lunacy reigns.

    1. Common Law hasn't stopped people getting into trouble for sending the wrong sort of tweet. The way things were got us into our present mess.

      1. The author would argue that it was ignorance of common law that got us into our present mess.

      2. That's largely because when we voted to "leave", the PTB enshrined all Corpus Juris into English law (and it still took precedence over Common Law).

    2. How to get rid of Starmer's odious government?

      Maybe nature can intervene and give us the sort of freeze we had in 1962 -63.

      We would not only have no wind and very little sun and minus zero temperatures for weeks on end but with no heating and no electricity the government would surely collapse.

    3. One of the main reasons for my voting to leave the EU was to restore Common Law because it underpinned our freedoms; Corpus Juris (EU law) puts all the power in the hands of the state. There were other important factors, of course, like being able to vote out those who make our laws, but freedom was the prime one.

  38. Will the relentless barrage of Musk tweets be enough to bring down Starmer & Phillips? Labour government?

    No. But Trump tariffs may be a start.
    Then there's a selective oil & gas embargo threat.
    If the global oil or nat gas $ price is viewed as untenable the US President courtesy of power enacted back in 2015 has the authority to suspend exports of all raw crude & gas. Then within hours we have oil prices north of $200 per barrel for most countries.

    1. We needn't worry about that kbhoy.

      Britain has more than adequate supplies of gas and oil, so we can rest easy.

      Oh wait………………….

      1. The airport is good fun as the wind often changes direction. A quick change of ends happens.

        1. Apparently pilots have to be specially trained to fly there.
          I remember the frequent crashes before the airport was extended.

          1. We stayed here, fantastic https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=87afc4972da45d378c4a2336c9e90c6d9e35a905ee3972d1c1e43b664d659626JmltdHM9MTczNTk0ODgwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=2ecd665d-8f67-6118-0549-73348e61607a&psq=hpb+madeira+map&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaHBiLWluc2lnaHQuY28udWsvcHJvcGVydHktcG9ydGZvbGlvL2VuY29zdGEtY2Fiby1naXJhby9kZXRhaWxz&ntb=1

          2. We used to stay at a Quinta (an old merchants house) overlooking the harbour.
            Can't remember the name, but we loved it.
            An easy potter into Funchal as well.

    2. The last time we were in London for leisure, we used our bus passes to travel around. Sat in one shelter waiting for the bus. After 15 minutes it arrived and all the other newly arrived passengers just took priority and we didn't get on. But had to wait for the next bus. They just pushed us back.

      1. I am constantly astonished by how civilised queuing for the bus is here in Buenos Aires. People automatically prioritise those less able to stand or walk; it's like it used to be when I was young.

        I can't get my Argentine friends to believe that this is no longer the case in the UK.

  40. Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission Involves Government Departments in Tulip Siddiq Investigation

    As Westminster cranks back into gear one minister is on precarious ground. Guido revealed late last month that City Minister and Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq was under investigation by the Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission…

    In the days before Christmas “sources close to” Siddiq told the Sunday Times that the allegation she co-ordinated meetings with Bangladeshi and Russian officials are “trumped-up charges” and “completely politically motivated” as the paper provided details of her meeting with the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Ethics team. This included an explanation that Siddiq was pictured at the signing of a £10 billion nuclear power plant deal with Vladimir Putin becase “she visited Moscow… to see her aunt because it was easier to fly to Russia than Bangladesh.” That is where the British press has left it…

    Last week the Bangladeshi ACC involved several other government departments in its investigation, contacting the Chief Adviser’s Office, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), Election Commission, and the Department of Immigration and Passports to seek information on Hasina and her family. The BFIU has been asked for “all documents related to local and international transactions” of Siddiq. Bangladeshi investigative paper the Daily Star adds:

    “An ACC official said the investigations team has sought personal information about these individuals from the EC and the passport department.“

    Labour has been careful not to comment too widely on the matter while Siddiq herself has only penned a small article on her low-profile local activities over Christmas. Starmer is in an awkward position – will Tulip be allowed to continue in her brief as corruption minister while being officially investigated by the Bangladeshi government for corruption?

    3 January 2025 @ 15:46

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96450bb0c6c8bd3a5ef2defdeb35132b595cb493bbdcd708610ec33f65bc9f9b.png

  42. BasilFawlty
    14h
    Labour want to dissolve local authorities into huge uni authorities presided over by Sadiq Khan style mayors.

    20% of the electorate voted for them. 80% don't want this. They have to be forced out. They can't be allowed a full term.

  43. WINTER NANNYING

    SIR – Is it really necessary to put out health alerts about the present chilly weather (“Do not go out at night … or morning, NHS warns”, report, January 3)?
    It’s called winter.

    Alexandra Elletson
    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    SIR – Having reached the age of 65, I was so grateful to receive the advice about the cold weather.
    I would never otherwise have considered wearing shoes with grip if I went out in the snow, turning the heating on or getting food in from the shop.
    I really don’t know how our parents and grandparents managed.

    Stuart Gould
    Peterborough

    It is not called 'nannying'. It is called 'voting into positions of power and influence a non-stop roundabout of inept, useless wankers'.

  45. An article in the spectator this morning that is a must read on the rape gangs of Rotherham by Louise Perry.
    I haven't seen anything so bravely written on this subject by anyone outside of Mr T Robinson for many a long year.

    1. It's too late. The pakistani muslim child rapists have already committed their atrocity. The state already looked the other way. Big government has already done the damage. Chances are the abuses are still going on. The Left do not like being told no and the gimmigrant doesn't care about this country.

      Organised crime is rife everywhere in car washes and 'barber' shops. All money laundering fronts. I wouldn't be surprised if there was also a system of moving victims around in the flats above these places.

      Big fat state does nothing. It arrests the innocent who upset it, but protects the vicious, violent, savage rapist muslim.

  46. Michael Deacon

    Labour giving the vote to five million more immigrants would be a gift to Nigel Farage

    If Sir Keir Starmer wants to see off the threat of Reform, he must reject this deluded Left-wing plan

    With turn-out at elections plummeting, and distrust in politicians festering, British democracy is in perilously poor health. Thankfully, however, help is at hand. The Institute for Public Policy Research – which describes itself as “the progressive policy think tank” – has just published a special report, filled with ideas that it believes can help save our democracy and see off the terrifying threat of populism.

    No doubt it’s only the purest coincidence that practically all the ideas it proposes would heavily benefit the Labour party.

    For example, the report urges Labour to honour its promise to give the vote to 16-year-olds. It suggests scrapping the requirement, brought in by the Tories, for people to show proof of ID before they can cast their vote. And it recommends “limiting individual and corporate donations to political parties to £100,000 a year” – alongside “a clampdown on foreign funders”. Which, rather handily, would prevent Elon Musk from donating millions of pounds to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

    Still, it would seem that the IPPR isn’t entirely opposed to foreigners influencing the outcome of British elections. Because its report says that the right to vote should be granted to the approximately five million foreign nationals living in Britain who are not citizens of the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth.

    It’s a funny thing. The IPPR says the Government must “combat populism”. Yet, in practice, its plan would surely cause populism to surge – because Nigel Farage would have absolutely no problem presenting it as the most breathtakingly cynical establishment stitch-up.

    Far from strengthening democracy, he could thunder, this plan will suffocate it, by making it all but impossible for anyone to challenge the party currently in power. First, because Labour will have all the money. And second, because Labour will hoover up most of the new teenage and foreign voters.

    He could also warn the public that the plan will cause immigration to rise higher than ever. Because Labour’s message, he could say, is: “Come to Britain, and, no matter where you’re from, we won’t just give you everything from housing to healthcare. We’ll also give you the vote. And, to show your gratitude, you can use it to keep us in power…”

    How might that idea go down with the millions of British people who are already furious with mainstream politicians, and their constant broken promises to reduce immigration? We can of course only speculate. But I would politely suggest that, instead of seeing off Mr Farage, it would play right into his hands. Because the angrier that people get with the status quo, and the more deeply they become convinced that what he calls “the political class” is deliberately working against their interests, the better his chances of success.

    More top tips from our NHS
    To ensure we stay safe and warm during the cold snap, the NHS has been issuing the public with helpful advice. Apparently, if we’re going outside when it’s icy, we should consider wearing “shoes with good grip”. We are also advised to wear “several layers of clothing”, and to try to “reduce draughts in your home”.

    I’m sure the country will be grateful for these invaluable suggestions, because cold weather is highly unusual in Britain at this time of year, and most of us would simply never have thought to take such precautions ourselves. So, in the same spirit, I hereby offer the following suggestions of my own.

    1. To help elderly members of your family avoid injury on slippery pavements this weekend, suggest that they refrain from wearing roller skates or travelling by unicycle.

    2. Although Britain’s beaches are likely to be significantly less crowded this weekend than they are in summer, nude sunbathing is not recommended.

    3. In an effort to keep warm, do not attempt any of the following:

    Setting fire to your trousers
    Sticking your tongue in a toaster
    Rubbing chilli oil into your naked eyeballs
    Placing yourself on a baking tray in the middle shelf of a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes at 220C (fan 200C, gas mark 7)
    Bungee-jumping into a live volcano.

    4. To ensure that your home stays as warm as possible, try to avoid pumping it full of liquid nitrogen.

    Age concern
    While we’re on the subject of helpful advice, I was intrigued by the warning printed on the packaging of a present I gave my wife for Christmas. The present was a set of six sherry glasses. And the warning read: “Not suitable for children under three years old.”

    A handy piece of guidance for any parents who were planning to treat their newborn baby to a drop of Harveys Bristol Cream. Presumably, though, if your child is aged three or over, sherry glasses make a perfectly acceptable gift.

    Well worth bearing in mind. Any time your four-year-old is having a screaming fit because he can’t find his favourite Jellycat, simply sit him down in front of Teletubbies with a delightfully dry oloroso, or a nip of manzanilla.

    This early introduction to the finer things in life should have a wonderfully civilising effect. He’ll be like a pre-school Niles Crane.

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

      1. Haven't people been given a free holiday at state expense for expressing such thoughts… just sayin' !

        1. 3 square meals a day and no heating bills.
          Given the 'swift justice' meted out to those who question the Stomocracy, we should be enjoying the King's hospitality in time to cover most of this winter.

  47. Louise Perry
    The Rotherham cover-up
    Why did so many turn a blind eye?
    4 January 2025, 5:30am

    You all know what I mean by the word ‘Rotherham.’ In The Spirit of Terrorism, Jean Baudrillard observes that there is no true synonym for ‘9/11’ – no one refers to the ‘World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks’ or the ‘Bin Laden attacks’, but just to the date itself, typically in its abbreviated form. Perhaps, he suggests, this is because the events of that day were so shocking, and so significant, that they must be described abstractly. We cannot find the right words.

    There is no true synonym for ‘Rotherham’, either. ‘Child sexual exploitation’ (CSE) is the sterile term favoured by most institutions. ‘Child sexual abuse ring’ or ‘grooming gangs’ is more common in the media. None of these terms are satisfactory.

    When I use the word ‘Rotherham’, I am talking about the rape and sexual torture of thousands of underage girls in Britain over many decades by Muslim men from the Middle East, East Africa, and South Asia (predominantly Pakistan). The men targeted these girls because they were white and non-Muslim. Authorities failed to investigate the crimes for fear of being called racist. There is no disputing the fact that the motivation for the crimes was – and is – explicitly anti-white. Many of the perpetrators have said as much in both court testimony and police interviews.

    ‘Rotherham’ has become a catch-all for sex crimes that took place across the UK, not just in the town of Rotherham. The journalist Charlie Peters has described this as the biggest race hate scandal in 21st century Britain, having identified at least 50 places in the UK in which these gangs have operated, and are continuing to operate. Notable among these is Oxford, a city in which predominantly Pakistani areas in the east abut predominately poor white areas at the very edge. Excerpts from the sentencing remarks relating to the 2013 conviction of members of an Oxford gang have been circulated on Twitter this week. They tell the stories of girls between the ages of 11 and 16 being anally raped, branded with their perpetrator’s initials, forcibly injected with heroin and trafficked across Britain to have sex with more men.

    The details of this deprave and calculated exploitation – and other exploitations very similar to it – have been in the public domain for a long time. Julie Bindel first wrote about the subject in 2007. But outrage at the ‘Rotherham’ phenomenon has been ignored and very effectively suppressed by local officials, the government and much of the media, which means that most people – including most Britons – do not know exactly what happened. Rotherham only returned to public conversation after Elon Musk joined a discussion on X.

    For my sins, I already knew the details. From 2016 to 2018, I worked for a charity in Oxford that supports victims of sexual violence. This was in the wake of Operation Bullfinch, the police investigation into a gang that had been operating in the city since at least 2004, which included the individuals whose depravities have recently been circulated on Twitter. A 2015 serious case review led to the creation of a specialist charity and police unit (the Kingfisher team). I didn’t work with so-called ‘CSE victims’ directly, because that was not the role of our charity, but I did attend a lot of multi-agency meetings which were focused on CSE.

    I never witnessed anyone failing to follow the procedures formally demanded of their role. What I did witness, however – many, many times – were charity workers and (to a lesser extent) social workers and police officers clamouring to insist that ‘the stereotypes’ about CSE were not true. That is, that the victims were not always white girls, and that the perpetrators were not always Muslim men.

    Which, technically, is true – in large part because the definition of CSE adopted by government agencies came to be so expansive that it included all sorts of sex crimes that had nothing to do with what ‘Rotherham’ represents. Teenage boys groomed into sending naked photos to adult men on the internet, for instance, was a kind of crime that I repeatedly saw categorised as CSE. ‘People of all genders sexually assault people of all genders’ was a phrase one of my colleagues was fond of repeating. It was all obfuscation. They must have known that.

    The specific kind of crime that ‘Rotherham’ represents is absolutely racialised, and it is not rare. Rotherham itself is a small town. By a conservative estimate, 1,400 children (the vast majority girls) were abused over a 15-year period, representing a very substantial minority of white girls living in Rotherham at the time. A 2020 study by academics from Reading and Chichester universities estimated that 1 in 73 Muslim men in Rotherham were prosecuted for their involvement in the abuse, with an unknown additional number evading detection. Almost everyone in Rotherham knows someone involved, either as victim or perpetrator. It should not surprise us that, during last Summer’s race riots, the town was the site of some of the most serious violence.

    But a post-industrial northern town like Rotherham feels a very long way from Westminster. ‘Rotherham’ as a synecdoche doesn’t just represent the racially-motivated sexual torture of adolescent girls, it also represents catastrophic elite failure.

    It was a failure, in the first instance, to permit the culture clash that resulted in ‘Rotherham’. Anyone with an ounce of sense should have realised that the post-sexual revolution culture of Britain and the very conservative sexual culture of a Muslim country like Pakistan would not mix happily. The men who participated in the rape gangs were clearly not good Muslims, not least because they drank alcohol. But they nevertheless conceived of themselves as ethnically and religiously distinct from Britain’s majority-white population, whose daughters were understood to be legitimate targets of sexual violence.

    This, too, in the era when online porn became widely available, which surely contributed to the sense that white girls (‘white slags’ and ‘white whores’, as the perpetrators described them) were fair game. The predominance of white and East Asian women in online porn means that it effectively functions as racist propaganda, teaching men across the world – including those who have never actually met a white or East Asian person – that these women are as pornography represents them: desperate for pain and humiliation.

    Men whose sexual tastes had been trained on this propaganda found themselves in the midst of a sexually liberated culture in which adolescent girls are not fiercely guarded by their male relatives, and most girls are not supervised when they go out, even at night. They targeted the girls whose supervision was most lax, particularly girls in foster care who could disappear for days on end without provoking much in the way of adult action. Very many teachers, carers, and NHS staff had a sense that something was going on, since they saw underage girls in the company of ‘older Asian boyfriends’. But this was typically written off as behaviour characteristic of the British underclass. They were just white slags.

    The authorities did not want to know. Not only did these crimes go uninvestigated, but victims and their families were frequently stonewalled or persecuted by the police. The father of one 15-year-old girl in Rotherham, whose attack had been so brutal she later needed surgery, was told by a police officer that the experience would ‘teach her a lesson’. Again and again, adults in positions of authority discovered what was going on, and yet decided that these underage girls were making their own decisions – that they were demonstrating agency – and so took no action. During this long period of failure, at least three victims were murdered: Laura Wilson (17), Lucy Lowe (16), and Charlene Downes (14).

    It’s awful, I know. So awful that it’s tempting to dismiss it all as exaggeration, or even as a malicious invention by the far-right. When Suella Braverman announced the creation of a Grooming Gangs Taskforce in 2023 when she was home secretary, even so many decades after the problem first emerged, one Guardian writer accused her of inflaming ‘Islamophobic and xenophobic prejudice’. Dismissing all of this evidence as lies has been the preferred coping mechanism of the British elite – the people with no social connections to places like Rotherham, who are all eager to believe in the success of our multicultural project. The establishment did not want to know about ‘Rotherham’ – still does not want to know about ‘Rotherham’ – because it upsets that fantasy.

    But this is hard history now, beyond dispute: police forces across the country prioritised the prevention of race riots over the prevention of the sexual torture of tens of thousands of children. Almost all of the media and political class turned a blind eye to it (with some important and admirable exceptions), precisely because so many of the perpetrators were motivated by anti-white animus. That fact is so shocking, and so significant, that we cannot find the right words.

    A version of this article first appeared on Louise Perry’s Substack

    Louise Perry is the author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution and host of the podcast Maiden Mother Matriarch.

    1. No, it's not awful. It's heinous. It's so utterly disgusting, so completely revolting, so sickening that your only possible reaction is refusal.

      No, it's not pornography that's to blame. That's deflection. It's muslim. A savage, barbaric stone age civilisation pandered to by the very systems that should oppose it.

      At every single level the state failed. It failed by letting these scum get here in the first place. For that, Blair should have every penny of property confiscated, sold and then chained in a sewer to be forgotten about forever.

      The muslim must be removed. There's simply no other option. The diversity infest everywhere and everything.

      1. It's more than heinous, it's downright evil.
        Most of us recognise evil, even if it is a subconscious feeling of unease.
        Presumably, our politicians and their lickspittle fellow travellers either miss that frisson or ignore it in the interest of "community relations" – and their bank balances.
        God, I hate what Britain has become.

      2. This sort of behaviour goes all the way back to Mohamad. To make "sexual liberation" in the West the culprit is just an excuse for those who know little about Islam. Sexual jihad in about dominance, about denigrating and subduing the non-Muslim. It is practiced in Pakistan and other Islamic countries by the kidnapping of Christian or other non-Islamic young women. Forcibly raping the victim and forcibly marrying her. The message is clear, you, non-Muslims, are there merely to serve us and to be shown who is superior. This practice was graphically exemplified by the Muslim general who, on the defeat of the Zoroastrian army of Persia, executed the Persian leader in front of his defeated troops and then literally raped his widow in the blood of her husband whilst the army was forced to look on. The message is clear. You are defeated, subdued and to be treated with contempt unless you convert to Islam.

        1. I think, looked at honestly, muslim is like any religion. It's waffles out nonsense and people cling on to it.

          The problem with muslim that Christianity got over some 500 years ago is realising it just isn't relevant in a modern, civilised society.

          It, and it's lunatic followers, have got to leave.

          1. I can’t agree with you because history shows quite clearly that a civilizations ethics are derived from the religion it follows and, that when a civilization abandons its religion it abandons its own civilization and the rot sets in. The ethics of the West are built on Christianity and it is obvious to any reasonable person that those ethics are superior to Islam. But we now have abandoned Christianity and in so doing allowed Islam to take hold. There is no such thing as a civilization without religion and because we are foolish enough to attempt it we have invited our own destruction. You are free because you are made in the image and likeness of God and our whole system is based on that premise. Islam does not have any regard for such niceties, you are a slave of Allah and have no freedom. You obey or you commit shirk and go to hell.

          2. No, it isn't a religion; it's an ideology, in much the way as national socialism was; it teaches its adherents that they are the master race and all must submit to its tenets. Non-muslims are "lower than cattle".

    2. No, it's not awful. It's heinous. It's so utterly disgusting, so completely revolting, so sickening that your only possible reaction is refusal.

      No, it's not pornography that's to blame. That's deflection. It's muslim. A savage, barbaric stone age civilisation pandered to by the very systems that should oppose it.

      At every single level the state failed. It failed by letting these scum get here in the first place. For that, Blair should have every penny of property confiscated, sold and then chained in a sewer to be forgotten about forever.

      The muslim must be removed. There's simply no other option. The diversity infest everywhere and everything.

    3. "Not good muslims"! They may have drunk alcohol (but probably it didn't touch their lips so they still saw themselves as "good muslims"), they were following the dictates of the koran.

  48. Louise Perry
    The Rotherham cover-up
    Why did so many turn a blind eye?
    4 January 2025, 5:30am

    You all know what I mean by the word ‘Rotherham.’ In The Spirit of Terrorism, Jean Baudrillard observes that there is no true synonym for ‘9/11’ – no one refers to the ‘World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks’ or the ‘Bin Laden attacks’, but just to the date itself, typically in its abbreviated form. Perhaps, he suggests, this is because the events of that day were so shocking, and so significant, that they must be described abstractly. We cannot find the right words.

    There is no true synonym for ‘Rotherham’, either. ‘Child sexual exploitation’ (CSE) is the sterile term favoured by most institutions. ‘Child sexual abuse ring’ or ‘grooming gangs’ is more common in the media. None of these terms are satisfactory.

    When I use the word ‘Rotherham’, I am talking about the rape and sexual torture of thousands of underage girls in Britain over many decades by Muslim men from the Middle East, East Africa, and South Asia (predominantly Pakistan). The men targeted these girls because they were white and non-Muslim. Authorities failed to investigate the crimes for fear of being called racist. There is no disputing the fact that the motivation for the crimes was – and is – explicitly anti-white. Many of the perpetrators have said as much in both court testimony and police interviews.

    ‘Rotherham’ has become a catch-all for sex crimes that took place across the UK, not just in the town of Rotherham. The journalist Charlie Peters has described this as the biggest race hate scandal in 21st century Britain, having identified at least 50 places in the UK in which these gangs have operated, and are continuing to operate. Notable among these is Oxford, a city in which predominantly Pakistani areas in the east abut predominately poor white areas at the very edge. Excerpts from the sentencing remarks relating to the 2013 conviction of members of an Oxford gang have been circulated on Twitter this week. They tell the stories of girls between the ages of 11 and 16 being anally raped, branded with their perpetrator’s initials, forcibly injected with heroin and trafficked across Britain to have sex with more men.

    The details of this deprave and calculated exploitation – and other exploitations very similar to it – have been in the public domain for a long time. Julie Bindel first wrote about the subject in 2007. But outrage at the ‘Rotherham’ phenomenon has been ignored and very effectively suppressed by local officials, the government and much of the media, which means that most people – including most Britons – do not know exactly what happened. Rotherham only returned to public conversation after Elon Musk joined a discussion on X.

    For my sins, I already knew the details. From 2016 to 2018, I worked for a charity in Oxford that supports victims of sexual violence. This was in the wake of Operation Bullfinch, the police investigation into a gang that had been operating in the city since at least 2004, which included the individuals whose depravities have recently been circulated on Twitter. A 2015 serious case review led to the creation of a specialist charity and police unit (the Kingfisher team). I didn’t work with so-called ‘CSE victims’ directly, because that was not the role of our charity, but I did attend a lot of multi-agency meetings which were focused on CSE.

    I never witnessed anyone failing to follow the procedures formally demanded of their role. What I did witness, however – many, many times – were charity workers and (to a lesser extent) social workers and police officers clamouring to insist that ‘the stereotypes’ about CSE were not true. That is, that the victims were not always white girls, and that the perpetrators were not always Muslim men.

    Which, technically, is true – in large part because the definition of CSE adopted by government agencies came to be so expansive that it included all sorts of sex crimes that had nothing to do with what ‘Rotherham’ represents. Teenage boys groomed into sending naked photos to adult men on the internet, for instance, was a kind of crime that I repeatedly saw categorised as CSE. ‘People of all genders sexually assault people of all genders’ was a phrase one of my colleagues was fond of repeating. It was all obfuscation. They must have known that.

    The specific kind of crime that ‘Rotherham’ represents is absolutely racialised, and it is not rare. Rotherham itself is a small town. By a conservative estimate, 1,400 children (the vast majority girls) were abused over a 15-year period, representing a very substantial minority of white girls living in Rotherham at the time. A 2020 study by academics from Reading and Chichester universities estimated that 1 in 73 Muslim men in Rotherham were prosecuted for their involvement in the abuse, with an unknown additional number evading detection. Almost everyone in Rotherham knows someone involved, either as victim or perpetrator. It should not surprise us that, during last Summer’s race riots, the town was the site of some of the most serious violence.

    But a post-industrial northern town like Rotherham feels a very long way from Westminster. ‘Rotherham’ as a synecdoche doesn’t just represent the racially-motivated sexual torture of adolescent girls, it also represents catastrophic elite failure.

    It was a failure, in the first instance, to permit the culture clash that resulted in ‘Rotherham’. Anyone with an ounce of sense should have realised that the post-sexual revolution culture of Britain and the very conservative sexual culture of a Muslim country like Pakistan would not mix happily. The men who participated in the rape gangs were clearly not good Muslims, not least because they drank alcohol. But they nevertheless conceived of themselves as ethnically and religiously distinct from Britain’s majority-white population, whose daughters were understood to be legitimate targets of sexual violence.

    This, too, in the era when online porn became widely available, which surely contributed to the sense that white girls (‘white slags’ and ‘white whores’, as the perpetrators described them) were fair game. The predominance of white and East Asian women in online porn means that it effectively functions as racist propaganda, teaching men across the world – including those who have never actually met a white or East Asian person – that these women are as pornography represents them: desperate for pain and humiliation.

    Men whose sexual tastes had been trained on this propaganda found themselves in the midst of a sexually liberated culture in which adolescent girls are not fiercely guarded by their male relatives, and most girls are not supervised when they go out, even at night. They targeted the girls whose supervision was most lax, particularly girls in foster care who could disappear for days on end without provoking much in the way of adult action. Very many teachers, carers, and NHS staff had a sense that something was going on, since they saw underage girls in the company of ‘older Asian boyfriends’. But this was typically written off as behaviour characteristic of the British underclass. They were just white slags.

    The authorities did not want to know. Not only did these crimes go uninvestigated, but victims and their families were frequently stonewalled or persecuted by the police. The father of one 15-year-old girl in Rotherham, whose attack had been so brutal she later needed surgery, was told by a police officer that the experience would ‘teach her a lesson’. Again and again, adults in positions of authority discovered what was going on, and yet decided that these underage girls were making their own decisions – that they were demonstrating agency – and so took no action. During this long period of failure, at least three victims were murdered: Laura Wilson (17), Lucy Lowe (16), and Charlene Downes (14).

    It’s awful, I know. So awful that it’s tempting to dismiss it all as exaggeration, or even as a malicious invention by the far-right. When Suella Braverman announced the creation of a Grooming Gangs Taskforce in 2023 when she was home secretary, even so many decades after the problem first emerged, one Guardian writer accused her of inflaming ‘Islamophobic and xenophobic prejudice’. Dismissing all of this evidence as lies has been the preferred coping mechanism of the British elite – the people with no social connections to places like Rotherham, who are all eager to believe in the success of our multicultural project. The establishment did not want to know about ‘Rotherham’ – still does not want to know about ‘Rotherham’ – because it upsets that fantasy.

    But this is hard history now, beyond dispute: police forces across the country prioritised the prevention of race riots over the prevention of the sexual torture of tens of thousands of children. Almost all of the media and political class turned a blind eye to it (with some important and admirable exceptions), precisely because so many of the perpetrators were motivated by anti-white animus. That fact is so shocking, and so significant, that we cannot find the right words.

    A version of this article first appeared on Louise Perry’s Substack

    Louise Perry is the author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution and host of the podcast Maiden Mother Matriarch.

    1. Supposed etymology
      It is often stated that the phrase originated from the use of a brass tray, called a "monkey", to hold cannonballs on warships in the 16th to 18th centuries. Supposedly, in very cold temperatures the "monkey" would contract, causing the balls to fall off. However, nearly all historians and etymologists consider this story to be a myth.

      I used to believe this to be true until I read the full story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquialism)

        1. Talking balls.

          There is a battlement just outside Portsmouth harbour called the hot walls.
          From the beach it is around 50 feet high.
          I always thought it was called the hot walls because when you sat in front of it you could feel the heat from the sun radiating from it. Quite a pleasant feeling.

          It turns out not to be true.

          At the top of the battlement were a line of braziers where once lit would heat up the cannonballs prior to firing them at whichever French or Spanish ship might be trying to access the harbour.

          The cannon balls would be glowing red and caused a great deal of damage.

          Shame we can't deploy them at Dover.

  50. How the useless hierarchy covers its on going and terrible mistakes.
    They must have realised that we had a problem, still on going and somewhat accelerating. But as usual to cover up they'll blame anyone but themselves. They stink. All of them.

  51. Grey and icy overnight.
    Good start today:
    Wordle 1,295 3/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  52. G'morning all,

    Just back from the market and the shops. It's still -1℃ and cloudy outside McPhee Towers. Snow this evening.

    Here's David Starkey doing more of what David Starkey does best. This time he's exposing the fraud and incompetence of Rachel from Accounts. Enjoy folks.

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

  53. Good Moaning.
    So blasted cold I actually rummaged through a chest and discovered warm socks that hadn't seen daylight since we moved from Allan Towers. (2 years on Valentine's Day, 2025)

    A helpful guide to surviving snow bomb/cold snap/Ragnarok from Michael Deacon in the DT.

    "More top tips from our NHS

    To ensure we stay safe and warm during the cold snap, the NHS has been issuing the public with helpful advice. Apparently, if we’re going outside when it’s icy, we should consider wearing “shoes with good grip”. We are also advised to wear “several layers of clothing”, and to try to “reduce draughts in your home”.

    I’m sure the country will be grateful for these invaluable suggestions, because cold weather is highly unusual in Britain at this time of year, and most of us would simply never have thought to take such precautions ourselves. So, in the same spirit, I hereby offer the following suggestions of my own.

    1. To help elderly members of your family avoid injury on slippery pavements this weekend, suggest that they refrain from wearing roller skates or travelling by unicycle.

    2. Although Britain’s beaches are likely to be significantly less crowded this weekend than they are in summer, nude sunbathing is not recommended.

    3. In an effort to keep warm, do not attempt any of the following:
    Setting fire to your trousers
    Sticking your tongue in a toaster
    Rubbing chilli oil into your naked eyeballs
    Placing yourself on a baking tray in the middle shelf of a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes at 220C (fan 200C, gas mark 7)
    Bungee-jumping into a live volcano.

    4. To ensure that your home stays as warm as possible, try to avoid pumping it full of liquid nitrogen."

  54. Interesting observation from Dan Hodges.

    Hodges assertion that some Labour MPs and Cabinet members are becoming concerned about Miliband's freedom of movement in both spending vast sums of money and the direction that he is taking the Country i.e. to certain rack and ruin, begs the question: is it conceivable that run-of-the-mill Labour MPs are not in on the agenda, let alone some Cabinet members?

    https://x.com/NetZeroWatch/status/1875201191535313357

  55. Labour accused of misleading public over private school tax
    Billions raised from VAT raid will not be ringfenced for state school funding, despite Rachel Reeves’s claims
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/labour-accused-of-misleading-public-over-private-school-tax/

    BTL

    It is a myth that VAT on school fees will raise money. This imposition was based entirely on envy, spite and callous disregard for the welfare of children being, as it was, brought in in the middle of the school year.

    When the cost to the state of educating all the thousands of children who have to leave their private schools is taken into account it is very unlikely that the net revenue from this VAT crime will raise any money at all. Indeed it will probably lose the state money and damage the state's education system.

  56. January 6 was part of an attempted coup d’etat in America. Don’t let Trump and his allies tell you otherwise. Arwa Mahdawi. 4 January 2025.

    Four years on, it’s the most astounding case of collective amnesia. That so many seem willing to normalise that anti-democratic outrage is frightening.

    This is the sort of reasoning that when you meet it in real life you should by now have learned to quietly walk away without saying anything. No argument or relation of facts is going to get you anywhere. The author quite shamelessly misquotes and misleads in an attempt to make her case. Indeed Ms. Ardawi refutes her own first premise as she proceeds.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/03/january-6-donald-trump-coup-america

    1. Refer also to the Louise Perry excerpt posted earlier. “It’s awful, I know. So awful that it’s tempting to dismiss it all as exaggeration, or even as a malicious invention by the far-right. When Suella Braverman announced the creation of a Grooming Gangs Taskforce in 2023 when she was home secretary, even so many decades after the problem first emerged, one Guardian writer accused her of inflaming ‘Islamophobic and xenophobic prejudice’.

      Grauniad writers, and by extension their readers, have lost their moral compass.

  59. Hallo all. I have not posted very much because on November 24 my brother died and I really did not want to discuss it because, at that time on NOTTLERS we were discussing assisted suicide, so I thought it would be unfair to bring it up. So I have been coping with his death and the fact that it makes me the last member of my family which brings up all sorts of feelings that are difficult to explain. Who is going to bury me, who do I leave things to? A whole host of questions that in ordinary circumstance you don't have to think of because, of course, normally, family takes care of all that. But please no sympathies or condolences. I only post this as explanation for why I have been absent.

    So, onward and upward.
    I have been saying, along with ogga, what a despicable egotist Nigel Farage is. He put that on display at his latest Reform conference by throwing Tommy Robinson under the bus in what, I think, is the most scurrilous way. Please listen to the first 20 minutes of the following comments by Paul Thorpe about the incident. I agree with Paul that Farage should be removed as leader of the party. He is not driven by the welfare of this country but by his own ambition and ego and is quite indifferent to whom he betrays in his ambition to become Prime Minister. Which, I think, would be a disaster for someone with his moral character. It is despicable that after Robinson urging people to vote Reform, which they did in their thousands, that Farage would behave in such a vile and dismissive a fashion toward someone who helped him to be where he is. Seems that Farage is fond of stabbing people in the back.

    I can NEVER support Farage again
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81oyNqTbed8&t=1064s

    2. I am very sorry to hear that, Johnathan. I understand your concerns. I have appointed good friends as executors of my will (with instructions about my burial and my order of service) and another good friend as my heir. I hope you might manage to make similar arrangements.

      1. Thank you Conway. At the moment II’m having real problems trying to figure it out because almost everyone I trust lives in the USA. People here, in England, are more acquaintances than friends. That is due to my returning here after such a long while away that I really don’t know anyone here and, if you get to a certain age you really don’t make new friends. That is a fact that you are probably aware of, it has been remarked upon by psychologists ad nauseum. Quite why that is, I don’t know. The psychology of age seems to prohibit such close bounds. even if you are a friendly type of person.

        1. Yes, I can understand that. I am lucky in that I’ve lived here more than 40 years. My executors I’ve known for about twenty of those. My heir I only met by chance about 8 years ago, but we hit it off at once (common interests in horses) and then it became like a surrogate parent/child relationship where I’m looked after and cared for as if I were an actual family member. I do feel very blessed. My blood family aren’t bothered about me at all.

  60. If you haven't already read enough today on the subject…

    Starmer 'guilty as anyone I know', says grooming gang whistleblower

    Ex-detective Maggie Oliver thinks PM must bear some responsibility for widespread failure to bring those responsible to justice

    Martin Evans Crime Editor, Susie Coen US Correspondent
    3rd January 2025 4:57pm GMT

    Sir Keir Starmer is as "guilty as anyone" over failures to address grooming gangs, the whistleblower who helped expose the scandal has said.

    Maggie Oliver, the former Greater Manchester Police (GMP) detective, who helped uncover widespread abuse in Rochdale, said she had no faith that the Prime Minister wanted to get to the truth and it was time for those responsible to be held fully accountable.

    Labour has blocked a national public inquiry into the grooming scandal in which thousands of vulnerable girls were raped and sexually abused by gangs of mainly British Pakistani men. Previous reports have been published into the failures of the police and local councils to prevent abuse in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford, with officers and prosecutors avoiding taking action for fear of being called racist or Islamophobic.

    But there are growing calls for a statutory national investigation to examine wider failings, including by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) where Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP) between 2008 and 2013.

    Elon Musk, the US billionaire and ally of Donald Trump, accused Sir Keir of failing to prosecute child rapists, suggesting that safeguarding minister Jess Phillips had rejected Oldham council's calls for an inquiry in order to protect him.

    Sir Keir has addressed the CPS's failings over the scandals, admitting that the vulnerable girls were let down while he was in charge when a case was dropped against a rape suspect despite overwhelming evidence pointing to their guilt.

    Ms Oliver, who now runs a foundation supporting abuse victims, said that, while previous inquiries had led nowhere, she did believe it was now time for a fresh independent investigation into grooming. She added that as a former DPP, Sir Keir had to bear some responsibility for the widespread failure to bring those responsible to justice.

    Writing on X, she said: "Those leading these 'enquiries' have always wanted to cover up the truth, to hide it. And I'd say it's become even worse in recent months with those who dare to speak out finding themselves in prison within a couple of days… when victims wait 6/7/8 years for a trial! Corrupt and just wrong. I firmly believe we need totally independent people who will ensure it's not just another attempt to delay and hide the truth.

    "Radical change and overhaul of all our public bodies. And bring in criminal accountability for all our senior police and public officials who have turned a blind eye. Those with vested interests who pop up when this hits the headlines then fade away again when it all dies down will not bring change. They're in it for themselves, I believe.

    "Conservatives and Labour are all equally to blame [in my opinion], and Keir Starmer as former DPP is perhaps as guilty as anyone I know in where we find ourselves today. We all know what's going on, but I don't trust a single one of those who to date have been entrusted with keeping our children safe and prosecuting serial rapists. They've failed. Repeatedly. Knowingly. Criminally."

    She was responding to Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor for the North West, who charged dozens of men with grooming offences and rejected calls for a national inquiry. He claimed he and Ms Oliver were in agreement that another lengthy investigation would be a waste of time when previous recommendations had not been implemented.

    The Government is under growing pressure to grant an inquiry, with further calls coming from senior Trump allies in America. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman urged Mr Trump to "consider appropriate sanctions against the UK" over its handling of the grooming scandal.

    The former Democrat donor, who endorsed Mr Trump in the wake of the first assassination attempt against him, shared a Telegraph story about Labour blocking the inquiry into Sir Keir's conduct as the head of the CPS while investigating the Oldham child abuse ring.

    The outspoken hedge fund manager questioned why the scandal had been able to continue while those who raised alarms about it were accused of "stirring up racial unrest".

    Accusing Sir Keir and King Charles of "doing nothing to stop this madness", Mr Ackman added: "Where is the international uproar? What are the UK and international rape victim groups doing to stop these horrendous acts? Why wouldn't Donald Trump consider appropriate sanctions against the UK until these concerns are addressed?"

    It comes after Mr Musk, who has been a vocal critic of Sir Keir and his Government in recent months, said that Ms Phillips deserved "to be in prison" over her decision. He wrote on X: "Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008–2013.

    "Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer [sic]. The real reason she's refusing to investigate the rape gangs is that it would obviously lead to the blaming of Keir Starmer (head of the CPS at the time)."

    On Friday, Wes Streeting branded Mr Musk's comments "misjudged and certainly misinformed". Asked about the row, Mr Streeting told ITV: "This Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the inquiry into child sexual abuse. We will do that in full. We will get on with the job. And some of the criticisms that Elon Musk has made, I think, are misjudged and certainly misinformed."

    The Health Secretary also said the entrepreneur should "roll his sleeves up" to help tackle child sexual exploitation, as he said that social media firms have "got a big part to play". He added: "We're willing to work with Elon Musk, who I think has got a big role to play with his social media platform to help us and other countries to tackle this serious issue so if he wants to work with us and roll his sleeves up, we'd welcome that." It came after Andrew Gwynne, a health minister, suggested Mr Musk "perhaps ought to focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic" rather than intervene in British politics. [That's right, Mr G. We must all stick our fingers in our ears.]

    Meanwhile, the father of one of the victims of the Rochdale scandal backed calls for a national public inquiry into "Britain's untouchable grooming gangs". Girl A told police she had been raped following her arrest for smashing up the counter of an Indian takeaway in the town in August 2008.

    But despite identifying her attackers and even giving detectives her underwear containing her rapist's DNA, the CPS dropped the case after concluding she was not a reliable witness. Two years later, after reviewing the case, the men were successfully prosecuted, and prosecutors were forced to apologise to Girl A.

    Speaking to The Telegraph, her father claimed the police and the Government were continuing to turn a blind eye to the topic of Asian grooming gangs because it undermined their notions of social cohesion.

    He said: "A public inquiry is long overdue because we desperately need to know the reality of what's happening on our streets. At the moment, we seem to have returned to the same sort of denial that existed back in 2012 when my daughter was raped and groomed. Back then, people refused to accept that it was going on, and today we're no further forward.

    "Police are more interested in investigating so-called hate crimes than the reality of young girls being attacked. It's scandalous because it's effectively added another layer of political correctness – and that can only feed the far-Right and Nigel Farage. [Pardon me Mr. A, but you're well off target there.]

    'Whether it's true or not, there's certainly an impression that there's a cover-up and that ordinary people aren't being told the truth."

    He went on: "The last thing I want is for other kids to go through what my family went through with our daughter. Rather than have the authorities keep covering things up, we need as a nation to be told the absolute truth. That's why I think victims of grooming will be 100 per cent behind the setting up of a new inquiry."

    The father believes that any new inquiry should focus not only on historical grooming but also – and more importantly – on the crime as it exists today.

    "Yes, an inquiry might answer once and for all whether Keir Starmer and the CPS held back on stopping the gangs because they were more concerned with social cohesion, but it would also shine a spotlight on what's happening now. You can't tell me that there aren't still grooming gangs in places like Oldham, Bradford, Leeds, London and Birmingham. Just because it's not centre stage any more doesn't mean it's not happening."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/03/starmer-ddp-grooming-gangs-police-maggie-oliver

    1. I wonder what the Falkland Islanders make of it? Would they like to live in the Malvinas.

        1. Only after Starmer and Lammy have worked out how much the UK should pay in compensation for taking them.

          10 times the value of any oil and gas discovered seems about right, judging by the Chagos fiasco.

      2. I would suspect that because of where they are they live mercifully free of bureaucracy and would not welcome being part of Argentina and be forced into speaking Spanish. Especially having the children forced into being educated in Spanish and indoctrinated into the lies that the Falklands are Argentinian, which they never have been.

      3. Who is going to take any notice of the the Bennies would like? TTK will just hand them over and pay for the privilege.

  62. Nicked Comment
    Bang on target
    Sozzinski (Not 'Probable Spam') on X (formerly Twitter… — http://disq.us
    It doesn't surprise me that an awful lot of the political class and media types are gunning for Musk. One of the things that's always struck me about the leftist middle-classes in this country – especially what is now termed as the 'metropolitan middle-class', in other words, the spawn of the Fabians – will completely ignore any fact that upsets their surface 'gentility' or 'niceness' which they see as reasonable and civilised. The leftist middle-class are the backbone of our political elites, they ARE the Uniparty, and we can see this operating right now. They have ignored and utterly stifled the smouldering fires of the grooming and rape gangs that are a direct result of the establishment's open borders immigration policy because the whole subject is thoroughly 'unpleasant' and isn't happening to their children, anyway. Besides that, it's all a bit 'embarrassing' but it's only happening to white working class girls 'up north' who, they've decided, are probably 'sexually active' at the age of twelve anyway. Oikophobia is never very far away when we're talking about the leftist middle-classes that inhabit our establishment. Now Elon Musk – that brash, obscenely wealthy American (*shudder*) is pissing the truth all over the place. It's significant that the word the assembled politicos and media class are using is 'toxic'. X is toxic because it's allowing people who are not 'us' to tell the truth, and this cannot be allowed to continue. I started off as a leftist myself, many, many years ago. Even then I had an innate loathing of the middle-classes, although I didn't have the experience to understand where that loathing came from. Now I understand it's the innate hypocrisy inherent – build into – the class structure of the UK. These people, who have known about rape gangs for years, and have done their best to bury the whole thing, are actually monsters. They think they are 'better' than the daughters of the white working classes who – paraphrasing one Labour MP – should 'shut up' for the sake of diversity.

    1. The MP was Naz Shah; Labour representative for Bradford West.
      She is certainly representative of her twisted electorate.

    1. Ann Cryer on R4 back in 2009, MP for Keighley – she knew what was happening even back then. Now we're on the next generation.

  65. I am very sorry the chap is dead, but isn't this stretching "connections" rather too far?

    "New Orleans terror victim was stepson of William and Harry’s nanny"

    2. "I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales is a 1927 song by Herbert Farjeon and Harold Scott written at the height of the popularity of Edward, Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. It was inspired by a 1920s incident at the Ascot Cabaret Ball, at which Edward asked ballroom dancing champion Edna Deane to dance with him nine times”. (©️Wiki)

    3. There has to be more to this coincidence, he has been referred to ad nauseum on Radio 4 today. Every news bulletin, even the very short ones, contained a detailed account of his demise and his royal connection.

      1. It's just a very lucky golden squirrel to distract attention from so many other bits of news.

  66. Well, that's a loaf baked, the Times and Telegraph crosswords completed, and the printer isshoo sorted out. And it is still before noon….

    2. A dishonest, useless and utterly incompetent wanker …

      … who was awarded a knighthood by his Lefty cohorts and a prime ministership by a gormless electorate.

      The country is completely and utterly moribund … and morally bankrupt.

          1. Yes. But we can retaliate by telling the truth and not be cowed because we fear consequences. If all of us were to do that they could not empty enough prison cells to accommodate us all. It isn't just Tommy Robinson, it's all of us. Our freedom is on the line. Don't beat around the bush and call a spade a spade too.

          2. Which is why I wasn't happy with the platitude that it was about a "balancing act". We need to stand up and be counted.

        2. Make sure people, to spread this video far and wide. Send it to anyone that you can think of.

          1. Am sending link to others, johnathan…many thanks to anyone doing the same to the ones they know…cheers, Kate x

          4. Send it to Farage!

            It would do Farage a great deal of good if he came out against the treatment and use of illegal lawfare against Tommy Robinson. He could and should do this without having to say that he would welcome him into the Reform Party.

          5. Please see the video I posted by Paul Thorpe. It shows Farage throwing Tommy Robinson under the bus. A gesture I would expect from the despicable egotist that Farage is. Disgusting individual!

          6. Actually, Rastus, I don’t think Farage has a principled bone in his body. To me he is beyond the pale for his conduct regarding Tommy Robinson.

        3. For what it's worth I've posted it on Facebook which I only use to wish old work colleagues (from all around the world) a happy birthday or whatever. Some of the 213 'friends' are Muslims.

          1. Be interested in any and all response/s you receive, mola – if you’d like to post them? Cheers, Kate x

  68. Police seek 'stalker' in Spider-man mask.

    The Daily Telegraph — Saturday 4 Jan 2025

    A man filmed leaving unwanted parcels on a doorstep while wearing a Spider-Man mask has prompted a police investigation.

    Sussex Police released CCTV footage of the suspected stalker leaving packages three times at a property in Hailsham in the dark. The first incident was last February and the second, six months later, was captured on a doorbell camera. The third, on December 29, shows the same man returning in the evening and again leaving a parcel.

    The force, which has begun Operation Cursor to help identify and track down the suspect, has urged the public to come forward with information.

    The force has initiated "Operation Cursor" in order to track down a chap who has done no more than leave three (unwanted, though evidently not dangerous) presents in the span of a year?

    Meanwhile burglaries, robberies, shoplifting, assaults and car thefts are routinely ignored.

        1. If it were Grizz, those parts would be cooked with a nice jelly wrapped in shortcrust. Probably not him then……………..

          2. Well. Given how snowy and bleak it can be in Sweden this time of year he is probably in his studio repainting and improving on the Mona Lisa.

            Or doing jigsaw puzzles like the rest of us.

          3. I play Mahjong online..(very) young relative the champion 🤔😂 …isn’t it the pits when you have one piece missing….😱🤯

    3. The property owner is a black widow, apparently, which might be the reason they're being so dutiful.

    1. It's still dithering, trying to decide whether to obliterate Shropshire. So far, it's done nothing.

  70. I was disappointed to switch on LBC radio this morning, they are still trying to smear Musk while still not tackling the accusations against the regime that allowed all these atrocities against young girls for ideological reasons to go on unchecked for decades.
    Shame on them.
    Musk should tackle these radio stations next that have helped in the cover up with their slippery biased reporting

    1. So if it is wrong for a person or country to interfere with the democracies of other countries they must be consistent. So:

      Why not criticise Starmer for sending a team to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris?

      Why not criticise Obama for warning Britain that the UK would be at the back of the queue if they voted for Brexit

    2. So if it is wrong for a person or country to interfere with the democracies of other countries they must be consistent. So:

      Why not criticise Starmer for sending a team to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris?

      Why not criticise Obama for warning Britain that the UK would be at the back of the queue if they voted for Brexit

  72. The Leftwaffe seem more upset at Musk highlighting the torture rape and murder of young British girls by Pakistani muslim men than the torture rape and murder of young British girls by Pakistani muslim men.

    1. These girls couldn't have been treated any worse if they were living under a Nazi German occupation

      1. In a way they have, Bob3, successive generations. Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, 2009..and on, and on…

        1. Ann Cryer voted against the Blair government on many occasions and was a member of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group during her time in parliament. Cryer voted with the government to increase detention without trial to 42 days for terror suspects. She favours nuclear disarmament.

          Cryer attracted media attention, and death threats, for speaking out against forced marriages, honour killings, calling on immigrants to learn to speak English before entering the country, and for being amongst the first people to talk about the issue of gangs of Asian men sexually abusing children in Yorkshire.

          She is still with us at 85. She had some good points.

          1. Thanks, Per. What’s changed is that it’s grown, and will continue to. I suspect not just gangs of Asian men, many others knew.

    2. By combining Dry January and Veganuary you can have twice the amount of misery for the price of one.

      1. If the current Mrs Mola is anything to go by, it should be called Ginuary.

        Edit; Or Dry Ginuary.

      2. If the current Mrs Mola is anything to go by, it should be called Ginuary.

        Edit; Or Dry Ginuary.

    1. Interesting list – including Tulip Siddiq, Ed Davey [of Post Office "fame"], Lisa Nandy and – of course – Two Tier himself!

  76. Quickly checking in from Riyadh. 5 minutes only. Weather lovely, city still lacking a little charm

      1. It is such a tonic having sun sunshine. Not too warm but warm enough for me. We are 3 hours ahead so 5:30 pm now, but of course dark

    1. As i said earlier

      Who in the previous government knew that if they were to wreck our precious NHS, many of the people who have worked hard there for many decades would leave and move into the private sector. Thus making the NHS unworkable, especially with hundreds of thousands of illegal invaders turning up for free treatment and then blame the elderly for the terrible consequences.

    2. BREAKING NEWS

      Labour to offer young white girls on the NHS for the sexual gratification of illegal immigrant males.

      /sarc

      1. Really not funny, sos…suspect there may be more than a grain of truth in what you post, nothing to do with the NHS, but others.

        1. It wasn't meant to be funny, it was to highlight the utter travesty of what the Government/NHS is doing.

    3. There may be a TINY smidgeon of justification where a migrant in A&E needs the services of an interpreter whose costs are met by the NHS.

      These services do not come cheap so, perhaps, this queue jumping is a means of keeping these costs to a minimum

      Which, of course, raises a 2nd important question.

      WHY does the NHS, alone in the whole of Europe, pay for these services and not the immigrant?

      1. A good friend of ours was a front of desk receptionists at a GP practice and the stories she has told us about the disgusting abusive demanding behaviour from immigrants on the phone and in person.
        She's moved to 'back of house' now.

      2. One time when I was waiting to see my optician at a Boots branch, a woman who couldn’t speak English turned up demanding to be treated and thrusting her phone at the receptionist to speak to her husband who said he would interpret. The senior optician, a Frenchman, refused to see her. Philippe said it simply wouldn’t work if the patient couldn’t speak for herself. He might have told her to go to A&E at the Western Eye Hospital but he just said “No”.

      3. Tiny Bob, but if we travel abroad with out very expensive travel insurance we would be hammered for costs if we were ill.

      1. You should use your name in advertising – you'd make a mint!

        Don't hurry though, there's plenty of time.

      2. The current Duke is a cousin of the late Duke, I believe. I heard him speak once – proper Sarf Effrikan – which looked odd as he was wearing a kilt and all the trimmings.

  79. In a dramatic filing on Friday afternoon the Justice Juan Merchan denied Trump's motion to dismiss his case and throw out the guilty verdict against him.. and said the Republican president-elect may appear for sentencing in New York on January 10.

    Keep digging.
    It will take the Leftie LibtardDems many election cycles to recover from their corruption of the justice system.
    Same goes for UKs Pdf-protector.

      1. Yes, the Mail does this as well. It's a violation of GDPR. The problem is the regulator is useless.

        Try ublock origin. Often there's a cookie banner blocking list that simply removes that nonsense.

    2. There's a thing…always thought the SNP knew everything about Scots/Scotland. Funds still missing, far as I know.

          1. I’ll take your word for that, it doesn’t look to me as though she’s wearing an over-shoulder-boulder-holder.

  83. The arctic weather is so cold that the frost has almost all disappeared. Funny that…

    1. It's a very good question. Malfeasance in Public Office carries up to life imprisonment.

    3. Send the list of readings to Charlie. It might just possibly make him reassess – on the other hand …

  86. Is it not now time for GB News to show some testicular strength and beg Mark Steyn to come back so that he can resume the campaign to draw our attention to the Pakistani Rape Gangs?

    This issue – combined with his campaign to expose the damage done by the Covid jabs – led to the craven surrender of GB News which sacked him.

    Steyn was a lone and powerful voice in the media on the subject of the rape gangs and his sacking was done at a time when the Conservative Party was in government.

    So we don't just need Steyn back – we also need grovelling apologies from the Conservative Party as well as GB News.

    1. TBF: OfCom is trying every trick in the book to close down GBN.
      Foul means or fair – preferably foul.
      The quango is made up of BBC apparatchiks.

      1. Ofcom needs an Ofcom inspection performed an Ofcom which has sacked all its current employees and replaced them by those with no connections with the BBC or the PTB.

    2. I read his column at steynonline.com Rastus – I don't think he'd want to come back to the UK, he might make a vid or two for GBN but I suspect he may not want to do that either. Big fan. Remarkable and odd he also lost the 'hockey stick' judgement.

  87. Gobble, gobble…… burp …… gobble, gobble …… slurp …. burp ….. gobble, gobble …. pass down the trough.

    "Rachel Reeves has charged taxpayers £10,800 for her second home council tax bill over the last five years, analysis shows.

    The Chancellor was one of 41 Labour ministers to claim back the expense, with Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, and Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, wracking up £14,800 and £13,400 bills respectively.

    In total expenses claims for second properties from all MPs came to £506,000 last year alone, according to analysis by The i Paper. This was up from £480,000 in the years 2022-2023.

    MPs with constituencies outside of the capital are allowed to expense accommodation in London or their seats and the associated costs including council tax………

    ……. Living in Downing Street the Chancellor is also receiving income from two rental properties. Ms Reeves and her husband started letting their former family home – a four-bedroom property in south London – for around £3,200 a month when they moved into Number 11.

    In addition her husband Nicholas Joicey, a senior civil servant, is believed to have let his central London two-bed flat since 2011. It now has a market rental value of nearly £3,000 a month, according to property website Bricks&Logic. It is unclear which property she claimed back council tax.

    She also rents a property in her constituency of Leeds – for which she expensed the council tax bill, according to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

    Ms Reeves came under fire last year for claiming £4,400 of taxpayer cash towards her energy bills before axing winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.

    In the past five years alone, she has claimed £3,700, Telegraph analysis revealed. Since 2019, 162 Labour MPs have claimed £425,000 on expenses for home energy use, according to IPSA."

    1. Assuming the council tax is some £250 a month, double for Leeds council's vindicitive second home tax, this is simply the tax payer being charged twice.

      She does the same with energy – they set their bill at double what it should be then trough and pay two homes' costs. It's putrid.

    2. And remember she receives these benefits without having to pay tax on them. Most of us have to pay heating bills and council tax out of taxed income.

      So if, for example, she receives £10,000 in benefits for things other people paying 40% in tax have to pay for themselves then the equivalent of her receiving £10,000 would be £16,667 for a taxpayer paying income tax at 40%.

      £16,667 Income before tax
      minus tax at 40%
      £ 6,667
       =
      £10,000       needed to pay the bills.


    3. No wonder there's a black hole; she's partly the cause of it. Could have funded the WFA, which would have been far more useful.

    1. I have never believed that she got into New College, Oxford on her own merits. She is blatantly thick. There must have been some other below-the-radar consideration.

      3. Don’t universities accept ‘underprivileged’ children? (I don’t know her background. Will look it up). But it could be a result of dumbing down that’s been going on at universities.

        ETA: Reeves’ parents Graham and Sally were teachers and she was educated at a London comprehensive, Oxford University and the London School of Economics. That would explain her Budget!

  89. Biden set to award George Soros with Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    What a despicable human being is Biden.

      1. No worse that all the "knighthoods and Dame awards" given to useless, corrupt UK politicians.

        3. In a way, it is worse Bill – because they're bankrolling the President to get what they want. Someone called it bribery, I couldn't possibly comment.

    2. Possibly an established connection, johnathan, going back a number of years. Biden's not the only one. Supporting Trump this coming week.

  92. Afternoon, all. Snowmageddon still hasn't arrived, despite repeated dire warnings. Although the outside temperature is now about 3 degrees C, so within the likely range. Sky has 10/10 solid light grey cloud cover, so it may be lurking. Read an article on looking after your pet on a winter walk (just for curiosity – it didn't say anything that wasn't common sense, but definitely erred on the side of caution), where they advised not going out if the temperature was 7 degrees C or less! Considering Charlie went out when it was minus 14 degrees C and suffered no ill effects (he lived to be nearly 17.5 years old), I think they are a tad wimpish.

    Labour is not interested in fixing anything that's broken, only breaking it still further.

    1. It's simpler than that: they can't see beyond their own incompetence. I imagine Reeves (and the Treasury) just thought cash from private school fees would come rolling in because in his mind they're all evil rich people.

      Of course, that has backfired.

      Education is a human right. It's not a luxury. I'm waiting for the first legal challenge to rule VAT on education to be illegal and government to have to pay massive compensation to the schools, the teachers made redundant and the children and parents.

      1. I think the money was irrelevant; what she wanted was to sock it to people who wanted a good education for their children.

      1. Our pets are probably as hardy; it's just a lot of people, particularly first time owners who acquired one in lockdown, tend to treat them as family members rather than livestock.

        1. Ha. My dog goes out, lifts his paw, looks at it with a 'wtf is this' glance, then licks it, decides he likes it, toddles off looking for more.

          1. Kadi gets to the door, looks out and if it’s raining or snowing turns tail and runs back to a warm spot!

          2. Very sensible. Patterdale won’t go out at all. Border goes out, disappears into far reaches of garden, barks for me to trek out and find her. Who’s the one in charge here, Conway, I ask myself…….

          4. Just two minutes ago discovered the attraction…bucket of salt being used to de-ice drive. Who could it be left the lid off…yes the one now watching MotD. Luckily didn’t rain today 🙃 😄

  93. They changed the hours to make Parliament more family friendly.
    Nobody who lives within, or whose constituency is within, "normal commuting distance" of London should be permitted to claim for travel, housing or subsistence etc.

  94. The dream of a free Middle East is coming true
    Iran’s vile regime is weaker than ever. The extremist house of cards may soon come tumbling down
    Jake Wallis Simons : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/dream-of-a-free-middle-east-is-coming-true-iran-israel/

    Naïveté thy name is Jake Simons!

    BTL

    Should we have the same number of mosques in the UK as they have churches in Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries? Much is said about the equivalence of cultures and that no one culture or religion is superior to another.

    If this is the case then treating Muslims, their mosques and holy book in the UK in the same way as Christians, their churches and their Bible are treated in Islamic countries would not be racist or Islamophobic – it would just be a case of cultural equivalence.

    1. If Islamic 'culture' is so superior, why are they all fleeing their own countries and falling over themselves to get to Europe and more particularly, the UK?

      1. Because the aim, as it says on the tin, is "submission". They've already made their own hell holes submit, now they intend to take over formerly functioning societies.

    3. When you run out of money, Rastus..you're broke. We'll see how this pans out. Be very good for Iranian women to again find their place in Iranian society. Israel, under Netanyahu, has recognised this as an existential issue.

  95. It is not a leap from the original post, but from a comment made about a balancing act. Sometimes, a softly softly approach risks losing everything. Appeasement, so popular before all hell broke lose, was a "balancing act". That didn't end well, did it? If you don't think we and our culture are under threat, where have you been?

    1. Divots lots of divots:
      Wordle 1,295 5/6

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

      1. Wordle 1,295 6/6

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

    2. Your score is showing as a birdie, Rene?

      Continuing the feast or famine of the year, a fortuitous birdie!

      Wordle 1,295 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. 4 here too, although I made a schoolboy error on 2nd word.

      Wordle 1,295 4/6

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

    4. Four for me too.

      Wordle 1,295 4/6

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

  97. Last night the moon was cosying up to Venus. Tonight it is sitting in conjunction with Saturn.

    3. Poor old moon, out of luck. Doubt it will be any better with Saturn. Seriously…thanks Grizz 🙂

  98. I see Thieves' statement that the money from the VAT raid on private schools would directly benefit state schools is another lie – the Treasury say the VAT receipts will not be ring fenced!

  100. I don't give a toss. I don't like people who think they're superior with no reason to back that up.

      1. Why ever would I think that? Look at his posts – superior, arrogant, calling people a "simpleton" (takes one to know one, so they say). I would be astounded if you ever did that.

        1. I think our friend was having a bad day. I deleted his comment and also one from Stephen. He's closed his account and gone. It's not the first time he's done that.
          He's been a good friend to Tom so I hope he will be back when he's calmed down.

          5. The last time he flounced off was because Citroen upset him. I hope he'll be back. It's not good for him to just stew in silence.

          6. I thought the whole point of this forum was debate, not to be an echo sounder. If you don't agree, surely it's perfectly valid to argue one's point as long as one does it politely.

          8. I know a chap who is very mild mannered, a bit of a div actually, who gets extremely arsey whenever he drinks bourbon. The local won't serve it to him. All the more for me… hic

        2. I do know some swear words, usually reserve them for dog to hear, but he’s deaf so it doesn’t count. Also quite big on kicking doors shut….😆

    2. Thanks, Paul. I have a raven here now, after many years….'nevermore'…yope not…:-) very handsome birds, but possibly another omen of harder winter ahead.

  102. Why Labour can’t afford to lose more Muslim votes
    Re-emergence of grooming scandal raises further issues between party and its key voter bases

    (Left to right) Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting and Sir Keir Starmer all have high proportions of Muslim voters in their constituencies )

    Muslim communities have long been seen as key voters for Labour, which is not surprising given the perception that they are most sympathetic towards minority groups.

    But this relationship is also a fragile one, as Sir Keir Starmer found during the general election when Labour’s stance on Israel’s actions in Gaza pushed swathes of the Muslim vote elsewhere.

    As Labour’s popularity plunges, the party can hardly afford to lose any more of one of its key voter bases.

    But the re-emergence of the grooming scandal this week, and Sir Keir’s involvement as the director of public prosecutions (DPP) at the time, has raised further issues between Labour and a once strong supporter base in Rochdale, Oldham and Rotherham – areas with significant Muslim populations.

    It emerged that Jess Phillips, safeguarding minister, had refused to fund an inquiry into the Oldham sexual abuse scandal a decade ago, a decision critics say was taken to protect Sir Keir.

    Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, also called for a new national inquiry into “rape gangs”, saying that one is needed to help councils and police forces to “join the dots” between the cases.

    Many in authority now admit that action was not taken against groomers because forces were concerned about looking racist by pursuing cases against Pakistani men.

    Even Sir Keir admitted in 2012, when he was DPP that there is “clearly an issue of ethnicity that has to be understood and addressed”.

    There were 3.9 million Muslims in England and Wales at the time of the latest census, up 42.9 per cent over the decade since 2011. Today they make up just over one in 20 members of the electorate.

    The number of those identifying as Christian, meanwhile, fell by 17.1 per cent.

    Islam is, as a result, the fastest-growing faith in Britain (although the number of people answering “no religion” to the voluntary question is going up even more quickly).

    Muslims generally tend to live in urban communities, meaning their impact on elections is often exaggerated because first-past-the-post rewards concentrated support.

    Muslims made up just 6.5 per cent of the British population in 2021 overall, but account for a far greater share in some urban areas.

    In both the Labour constituencies of Bradford West and Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, over half of all residents identify as Muslim, for example.

    Notorious grooming gangs have been exposed in Labour strongholds with large Muslim populations, such as Rotherham and Rochdale.

    Many of the areas where child grooming gangs were found to have been operating also have above-average Muslim populations: Rochdale (30.2 per cent), Oldham (26.6 per cent), Derby (13 per cent) and Rotherham (10.3 per cent).

    In Rochdale, for example, nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape in 2012. Eight were of British Pakistani origin and one was an Afghan asylum seeker.

    Since then a further 33 men have been convicted, and Greater Manchester Police has apologised for failing to investigate earlier allegations more thoroughly.

    Former Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk said he had been warned by senior Labour figures not to mention their ethnicity, because it could affect the party electorally.

    A 2020 Home Office study found there are “significant limitations” to linking perpetrators’ ethnicity to child sexual exploitation.

    However, in individual areas, inquiries have been more willing to draw out conclusions.

    A 2022 report into Oldham noted the alleged grooming was carried out by “predominantly Pakistani offenders”.

    An independent inquiry also found the Telford abusers to be of “southern Asian heritage”.

    While he was in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service, Sir Keir made it plain that it was wrong to discount the links with perpetrators’ ethnicity.

    He said: “In a number of cases presented to us, particularly in cases involving groups, there’s clearly an issue of ethnicity that has to be understood and addressed.”

    The article is lengthy , I feel really tearful reading all this stuff .
    It is as if previous governments have introduced a disease with out any cure .. Unforgivable malfeasance, is that the correct word?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/03/why-labour-cant-afford-to-lose-more-muslim-votes/

    1. He may have understood the issues but he did nothing to address them. Hence we are now where we are now.

      1. A cynic such as I might say

        he may have understood the issues but he did nothing to address them,

        precisely because he did understand them and how they might affect the Labour party.

        2. It's more important that these issues affect the country and especially young girls, than how they affect the Labour party.

          1. It is to us (and all right-minded people, I would suggest), but not to those who could do something about it.

        3. There is plenty of (to my mind) compelling evidence that Oldham council (Labour dominated) was not only complicit in all this but also contained some prime movers and cover-uppers. Hence the folly of them conducting any kind of investigation.

    3. The reference to grooming gives the impression that these men were running dodgy nail bars. I guess that’s intentional. They were rapists, torturers and in some cases murderers.

    4. "There were 3.9 million Muslims in England and Wales at the time of the latest census, up 42.9 per cent over the decade since 2011. Today they make up just over one in 20 members of the electorate."

      That's just the number that filled in the Census though, Belle.

  107. Right – I am orf for tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to be mild and wet. Though the Wet Office is still threatening snow…..

    Have a spiffing evening – making sure you are wearing an extra woolly.

    A demain.

    1. I have been listening to the BBC and the Met Office so…..

      I have already donned my furs of fox, badger and otter. I am perfectly warm and quite waterproof. Shame they are now all extinct in my area…

        1. It was so unnecessary. If he felt it was beneath him he could have found somewhere more congenial. I amazed myself by refraining from suggesting that!

        2. Tee hee! I will refrain from posting the "needledick" comment I was toying with, then. Maybe he has health problems which make him crabby?

      1. Not if you subscribe to the nanny-state approved ones, which apparently should have grippy soles (as if we didn't know). I have two pairs of wellies, one very expensive neoprene-lined top of the range Aigle – divinely comfortable and warm (but seriously difficult to get on and off) and another Dunlop rubber embarrassing pixieboot pair (less than fifteen quid) which is extremely easy to don and remove, though not warm enough long term. The Dunlops are my everyday go to (pre-warmed on the Aga, a size too big so thick socks friendly).

        2. I have a pair of black Hunters, bought MUCH against my will as wellies really don't fit my concept if living in a South American city 🤣🤣 – but when the torrential rains happen, they're the only way to get across some of the roads here on foot.

          1. Try the Dunlop pixie ones, ashes. you will look ridiculous (although something tells me you never could look anything but stylish) but boy, are they lightweight and comfortable.

          2. I gets what I can over here! I was lucky to find these in one of my usual second-hand emporiums.

            It seldom occurs to me to think what I look like! 🤣🤣

        3. I have a pair of Dunlops (I keep them in the motorhome). For posh occasions I have a pair of Hoggs of Fife.

    3. It’s been so long since we had snow in West London, my wellies perished and had to be thrown out.

      1. A proper Waitrose for life plastic carrier bag, with Brillo pads Gorilla-taped to the bottom, worn over your shoes would probably suffice in London, as an alternative.

        1. Personally i think he is off his head.

          How could anyone think someone with your avatar name could possibly be so spite laden, venal and a complete bastard is beyond me. :@)

          1. He is the destroyer. He undermines river banks. Kills saplings and is generally destructive. Oh sorry. I thought you said voles.

  112. I think he lost his family in tragic circumstances. Sue M and Geoff probably know the details.

  113. “Ukraine is now ruled by an oligarch who increasingly relies on foreign aid. A state where corruption is rampant and there are no real democratic structures,” former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, cited by news agency V4NA.

    2. Shame he was unaware of Nottle before Black Ops, American Corporations, Black Rock and the Bidens got involved.

      Naivety or blindness or kickbacks. Who can say. What we can say is incompetence at the highest levels of government.

  114. Labour's plan for the Lords is a socialist attack on Britain's glorious past

    I would rather have hereditary peers than an upper house full of Keir Starmer cronies

    William Sitwell
    3rd January 2025 8:00pm GMT

    What a time to be a socialist! Particularly of the cork-popping kind. Picture them in their artillery emplacements, machine-gunning the bastions of conservative Middle England.

    Down go the elitist private schools, bullets cut through the tyres of the Land Rover Defenders belonging to so-called "lifestyle farmers", sending them into a ditch. Next publicans, restaurateurs, the deviant entrepreneurs running small businesses and, just over the hill, there are the trail hunters.

    Then out come the bayonets to finish off the worst of them: the hereditary peers. These snooty toffs, down to their last 90, can finally be put out of their misery. So here's a good skewering to the viscounts, earls, barons and lords.

    The latter plan being, in fact, the least surprising of Labour's Britain-hating policies. As trumpeted in the party's manifesto, the Government will remove the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The precise way of doing this being to repeal section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999, removing the exemption under which hereditary peers have membership of the house.

    As it happens, those who do currently sit do so having been elected by their peers; a little dose of democracy (the Wetherill Amendment) which acted as a stay of execution. Until now. Or at least sometime in spring or early summer. At which point the bill will have completed its stages through the Houses of Parliament and the arcane indefensibles will have to clear their desks.

    They can have a last drink in their subsidised bar before handing in their passes, saying a final "good night" to the policemen at the Peers' Entrance by Black Rod's Garden and shoving their ermine into their Waitrose bag for life; the robe now only good for fancy dress parties, or Halloween.

    And, of course, few will mourn them. Giving anyone the power to legislate based solely on the circumstances of their birth seems anachronistic in modern, democratic Britain. Except. Except that this absurdity, the confluence of centuries of history, the trickle-down of our unique past, does, or rather has, actually worked. In the same way that the monarchy, when it isn't either eating itself or being devoured by a hostile media, also works.

    Because, if you are one of those rare elected hereditaries who currently work in the House of Lords – among whom 42 are Conservative, three are Lib Dem, two are Labour and 28 are crossbench (non-party aligned) – you do so with a nagging noose around your neck called duty. And, devilish scoundrels aside, of which I'm sure there are some, this uniquely British state of mind has a habit of making someone incorruptible.

    So they do their job of manoeuvring around the machinations of legislation in the manner of a spring butterfly; untethered, earnest and aware of the shortness of their lifespan. They owe their official positions to the House of Lords, unlike the shackled donkeys – such as the 30 new Labour peers gifted an early Christmas present by Sir Keir Starmer last month – who must never forget who put them there, among them Sue Gray, the PM's chief of staff for five minutes, and a bunch of ex-Labour MPs.

    Starmer is, of course, only doing what previous Conservative prime ministers did: stuffing the upper house with loyalists so he can get his legislation through. It is an act of revenge. But it is also the height of hypocrisy to disparage an institution and then use it for your own ends.

    Anything is permitted, it seems, in the name of socialism. Thus, VAT is added to private school fees in spite of the damage it does to families, children, bursaries (and therefore the state sector it pretends to be in aid of) and societal cohesion. Employers' National Insurance is hiked in spite of it being a disincentive for small businesses to recruit people, ditto the National Living Wage increases deterring hirings in hospitality.

    Inheritance tax reform for farms will destroy family businesses. And the removal of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners who couldn't fathom the 30-odd page application form for Pension Credit has many shivering as we speak.

    At least the Tories seemed to war-game their policies and actually argued the specifics of their most unpopular policies, from council tax to welfare reform. This Labour government are socialist robots who introduce policies but neither debate the detail nor face the actuality. The Soc Bots, led by their PM and Chancellor Daleks, simply repeat their mantras of "fixing the foundations" and dealing with £20 billion black holes, while Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, is the Soc Bot who has sipped too much Red Bull and gone haywire as he traverses the nation, planting wind turbines and laying solar panels; notes fluttering in the wind from his £37 billion budget.

    Labour's House of Lords plan is a policy of bitterness laid with no plans of wider reform save retiring the old codgers at 80 and some smudge about removing "disgraced members". This week the Earl of Devon described it as "a smash and grab raid on the constitution".

    So in come the cronies, a flotilla of partisan planks ("This way, M'Lord for your ermine, then straight on for the media training") to rubber stamp Left-wing lunacy and extinguish the eccentric, functioning flair of traditional Britain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/03/labour-plan-for-the-lords-attack-britain-past

    1. I regret the passing of the hereditary peers in the HoL. Far better they than the self-serving placemen that will replace them. At least they had a stake in the future of the country.

    2. There should be a set number agreed, just a few more than the house can hold then new peers created only when one leaves.

  115. Just got back home from a lovely supper. Juicy roast pork and excellent crackling. Apple sauce was a disaster though. That will teach her to stop following James Martin recipes.

    I think we all know what apple sauce should be with roast pork. Martin put curry spice in his. Sounds to me he is competing with Jaimie Oliver as to how do we fuck up classics that have worked for decades.

    The Du Pape and the white port were exceptional.

    Didn't come close to the dessert i contributed though. A cheesecake made with crystalised ginger and Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps Liqueur. Blew their heads off so it did.

    But as Sos will tell you or anyone for that matter i like to blow people.

    Sorry…I meant…..AWAY !!!

          3. To be fair he could have been completely innocent Sugar. But the minds of the interpreters is a differnt matter!
            On second thoughts you were absolutely right!

          4. To be fair he could have been completely innocent Sugar. But the minds of the interpreters is a differnt matter!
            On second thoughts you were absolutely right!

    2. I wouldn#t have thought it was possible to mess up apple sauce, but you've just described how to!

    3. Simple stuff here a classic cottage pie with butter sauted aspergers washed down with a couple of glasses of wine club spanish red
      No puddy required

      2. Been a while since i had a decent cottage pie.

        The Aspergers come to the table every time i do. :@(

        Not sure where it came from but i served a Long Red. I think it was Chillian. It all went !

        I am past the point where Nottlers who visit me no longer require name badges but i still have no idea what gifts they have brought or what Art Deco items they have pocketed. :@)

          1. I don’t know any more. Though what i do know is it has to be a ‘Showstopper’.

            With sprinkles !

          2. Nope in my lost life before I went bust my favourities were the 1963 and 1966 Delamain late landed cognacs given my current state Steve's home distilled is very acceptable

          3. You are welcome to it. Max said he had never seen so many bottles. He clearly hadn’t opened any of the cabinets and sideboards or looked at the stacked wine racks hanging from the ceiling or the …erm…other places.

            And people still arrive with bottles of booze.

            Lucky i only drink half lager shandy on the rarest of occasions. That’s what i tell my Doctor and he is perfectly happy to accept that….er.

      1. Comment above written because I saw votes and at the time you had not posted, either way, Happy New Year.

      2. Your place or er your place.

        I didn’t think you fancied me that much,…. but hey….i’m free !

  116. I feel sorry for him, that’s just me I guess. Hope he changes his ways. Not always easy to know what’s going on in someone’s life, maybe just being mean for whatever reason. Kind of playground stuff.

    1. I think he may be manic depressive and today was clearly not a good day. He's a good man though. He went to see Tom in hospital and has been a good friend to him.

  118. I agree completely. The hereditaries are the last ones I'd kick out of the HoL. It's just a sham now. James Delingpole's latest article on this subject is spot on – he points out that they've all sold their souls and won't challenge the establishment.

      1. For me he lost the plot when he decided that people who share his take on Christianity, not the Jews, are the real Children of Israel. James Delingpole, George Galloway and David Icke all make sense on some issues, in the manner of a broken clock that’s right once a day.

        1. I think they all smoke too much dope, Sue. It's a shame. because they are all intelligent and all started with an incisive intellect.

  119. They are trying to remain relevant. It is possible to improve on classics but not by changing them beyond or trying to make them more appealing to the very people that don't eat pork.

    You can find a better sugar for instance but you don't add curry powder FFS.

    I have been experimenting with coconut and palm sugars which both have a more toffee flavour but why serve apple sauce to your guests with roast pork? It just makes people confused.

  120. Bill Badger formerly AA_Bill
    41m
    Have a look at who has been elevated to Assistant Chief Constable – Director of Operational Standards at the discredited "College of Policing"
    He is one of those that tried to cover up the true extent of the abuse of young girls and an example of why an overarching national enquiry is absolutely necessary.

    Rogerborg ⬛🟧
    Bill Badger formerly AA_Bill
    15m
    Ah, Tom Harding, mister "It might be happening a bit, but hardly enough to matter".

    2. Hmm methinks i smell the stench of Common Purpose they always fail upwards see the social workers in rape gang councils for more details

  122. The tartness balances well with the richness of the fat. A hint of spice of cloves but my host turned it into an aloo.

    I have left her hanging upside down from my flag pole to impress and underline the fact i like to eat unmessed about scran.

  123. Why all the fuss about the new kid on the block, Musk interfering in UK politics?
    Why just Musk and not Gates, Klaus and Soros?

      4. Musk is a genuine maverick. I don't believe that he dances to anyone else's tune. My kinda guy, right or wrong.

    2. Oddly enough, I agree that Musk shouldn't be getting as involved as he is.
      I would stop them all, although I have no idea how it can be done!

      Two wrongs only make a socialist.

      But, until they can do do the stopping of them all:
      Go Elon go, rip their blasted balls off.

    3. Why is Musk suddenly interfering in UK politics? Why is this technocrat, who could be bankrupted in 5 minutes by the kind of people who control the western governments and media, suddenly highlighting crimes that were kept secret for years and played down after that?

      1. Perhaps he is more friendly with Trump and Farage than we know. Good on him, IMO. Why should he be silent when evil is being done?

    4. Because he doesn't play the same game, Bob3…different rules…'Take a step back and fuck yourself in the face' is not something you'll ever hear from Gates, Klaus, or Soros (although that is what they say on the qt).

  124. Somewhere in the Left wing psyche, they are probably thinking that the abuse of these grooming gang girls goes somewhere towards repaying the debt for colonialism and slavery

    3. Africans in Africa , Indians in India , and well just about everywhere , there are male predators who love young flesh ..

      One thing that puzzles me , how come there are so many Muslim taxi drivers?

        1. Plus lots of lucrative contracts with local councils, ferrying one’s own children to school and back

        2. A pretty anti social job, flogging around in the small hours. But if you dont drink and the wife is as ugly as sin, ideal employment.

          1. I think it's more an easy way to kidnap trusting young girls, KP. My own daughter fell prey to such a deception, many years ago. These people are the scum of the scum.

      2. Many categories of work are perceived by mohammedans as 'haram' (unclean, or hard) . Supermarket shelf stacking for example, which might mean handling pork products, alcoholic beverages or simply lifting heavy boxes. Driving a taxi means that the moslem is his own boss, and he can earn money whilst seated. So do not expect Mo to become a tradesman in the construction industry, because he might have to do a day's work for an unbeliever (aka normal human being) and besides ramadan is a darn nuisance for managers in the West.

      3. Many categories of work are perceived by mohammedans as 'haram' (unclean, or hard) . Supermarket shelf stacking for example, which might mean handling pork products, alcoholic beverages or simply lifting heavy boxes. Driving a taxi means that the moslem is his own boss, and he can earn money whilst seated. So do not expect Mo to become a tradesman in the construction industry, because he might have to do a day's work for an unbeliever (aka normal human being) and besides ramadan is a darn nuisance for managers in the West.

      4. Infiltration of council licensing only Muzscum get them Woking is 100% Muzscum taxi divers.I am amazed no rape scandal has emerged

        1. Guildford is as bad, Rik. Living in a taxi desert, it's often worth taking the train to Guildford station and taking a taxi from there. There are more licences than taxis – the poor guy who picked me up from Guildford last week had waited six hours for a fare. I've yet to meet a indigenous taxi driver. Ditto Uber, though I've given up with that platform. The drivers accept a ride, then reject it 20 minutes later, just when they are due to pick up. And they're not always cheaper than Hackneys.

          1. Geoff, you are a bloke. Trust me, it's different. Especially these days and with our new unwelcome ethos.

          2. Last time I took a taxi, the chap who picked me up was English (and had a sense of humour). He was singing from the same hymn sheet as us nottlers.

  126. Looks like we've got a bit of that snow they promised.
    Fish pie's in the oven for dinner and the log fire's burning.

    1. Look on the bright side
      Better that than the log's in the oven, and the fish pie's burning.

    3. Snow forecast for now, but nothing as yet.
      In fact it's nearly 3°C at the moment.

  127. If I didn't cut the fuse, Phizzee's comments would blow your minds.
    It's my duty to protect you all!

  128. It's not the Conservatives who have most to fear from Reform – it's Labour. Here's why

    Look at Britain's electoral arithmetic and see where Nigel Farage's party is now faring best – it's Keir Starmer who should be scared

    Paul Goodman
    3rd January 2025 4:55pm GMT

    Almost the first words on Reform's website are about a rival. "Join us as we consign the failed Conservative Party to the history books," the site proclaims. Advertising the opposition is an unusual marketing ploy.

    Then again, it is all of a piece with Nigel Farage's plan to bamboozle the Tories into a nervous breakdown. The boasts of bigger membership, the hints of tens of millions from Elon Musk, the social media snaps of the Reform leader with young people – all are crafted to send a message: out with the old party, as 2025 opens, and in with the new. The Conservatives, like last year's Christmas turkey, are history.

    However, there is a problem with this well-ventilated claim: namely, that there isn't a word of truth in it. Indeed, the latest evidence suggests that Reform, rather than being a hindrance to the Tories is, strangely, a help – a prop as they begin the long walk back towards power. And that the party which Reform threatens most is Labour, not the Conservatives.

    Consider three pieces of evidence.

    First, what people say they would do. There have been some 23 opinion polls since Kemi Badenoch became Tory leader. Labour has averaged 27 per cent, the Tories 26 per cent and Reform 20 per cent of the vote. The percentages each gained at the last general election were 34 per cent, 24 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

    Yes, those findings conceal churn between these parties and others. (And please note, by the way, that the polls have a recent history of overstating Labour and Reform, and understating the Conservatives.) But the lesson is unambiguous: Reform is garnering more votes from Labour than the Tories.

    Second, turn from what people say they would do to what they are actually doing. In the 80 seats in which Reform has fielded a candidate in local government by-elections since last June, it has won almost 10 per cent of the vote – pushing the Conservative share down by 3 per cent and Labour's by 9.

    Again, the same pattern.

    Finally, consider the parliamentary constituencies in which Reform is second. There are 98 of these. Labour holds 89 of them. The implication is obvious.

    Mind you, being the runner-up in a constituency only tells one so much. Consider, for example, Barnsley South, Makerfield, Hull East and Rotherham – the four Labour-held seats among all those in which Reform won its highest vote share last June. Labour's share of the vote in each respectively was 47, 45, 44 and 45 per cent. Constituencies like these are formidable mountains for Reform to climb. Are there easier ones to scale? I believe so.

    To work out which these might be, put oneself in Farage's shoes, and ask: in which seats are Reform best placed?

    Begin with those in which the party gained, say, a fifth of the vote last July – a promising platform from which to build. Then calculate a target ambitious enough to be feasible, but not so demanding as to be impracticable. As a start, you might settle on constituencies in which Reform took that 20 per cent of the vote and the victorious party won, say, 40 per cent.

    There are 90 such constituencies – 49 held by Labour, 41 by the Tories. Twenty-five of them are in the Midlands, stretching north and east from the old Enoch Powell country – Dudley, Tipton and Walsall – through Warwickshire into Staffordshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. This clump of seats almost touches a second cluster: most of rural Lincolnshire.

    Then, in the south, two Reform-friendly corridors of constituencies run from the sea towards London on either side of the Thames estuary. The first begins in Farage's Clacton seat, drops through south Essex, and bends west before petering out in Romford, and Hornchurch and Upminster. The second starts in Sandwich and turns west through north Kent to Dartford, Bexleyheath and Crayford, and Old Bexley and Sidcup.

    The constituencies in Essex are all blue, those in Kent largely red. Many tend to be what James Kanagasooriam, the political pollster, has called "elastic seats" – in other words, exceptionally volatile constituencies that have flipped back and forth from the Conservatives to Labour in recent elections. They hold exactly the kind of eruptive voters who, feeling that they've tried everything else without result, may give Farage a go in 2028.

    Apply those recent opinion poll and council elections trends to those seats, and what do you find? More or less what two big MRP surveys discovered recently: namely, the Conservatives winning back many of these constituencies as Labour slumps, Reform surges – and their own vote remains static.

    In short, Reform drags Labour down below the winning line. All in all, Labour drop down to 250 seats or fewer, the Conservatives rise up to 220 or fewer – and Reform surge to 70 seats or so, with the Liberal Democrats similarly placed.

    I know, I know: the next general election may be over four years away, and anything can happen in politics, especially in these times. Perhaps the AfD will enter government in Germany, Marine Le Pen will win in France, J D Vance will succeed Donald Trump in the White House – and Farage will break through the electoral glass ceiling altogether, smashing the 30 per cent opinion poll barrier.

    In the meantime, Reform will surely win the Runcorn by-election and advance spectacularly in South Wales, even if postponements deny it a clear breakthrough in England's local elections this May. But the picture that the polls paint is scarcely surprising.

    England and Wales now have a continental party system and a British electoral one – in other words, Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Reform, and the Green/Islamist coalition are competing for votes under first-past-the-post. Hung Parliaments are the most likely outcome. Through the mists, one can vaguely glimpse the outline of two eventual parliamentary alliances: one red, yellow and green, the other blue and turquoise.

    If I can work this out, then so can Reform – which is why its real plan will be as follows. First, to pile as much pressure on the Conservatives as possible. Then, if they fail to fold, to mount a reverse takeover – perhaps after the next election, if the Right fails to form a government, and Tory and Reform activists become so maddened with Labour that they are willing to put up with each other.

    For all his braggadocio, Farage knows the score. And he understands that the next election will be his best – and probably last – chance to gain ministerial office. For come the one after next, he will be in his mid-70s. But will the Commons numbers ever be right for a reverse takeover?

    Isn't the opposite more likely: that the Conservatives eventually swallow up Reform, as they once did the Liberal Unionists and the National Liberals?

    Interrogating the richest man in the world is above my pay grade. None the less, I wonder if Musk knows how long the odds are on the Conservatives collapsing altogether, as the Italian Christian Democrats did during the 1990s.

    But whether he does or doesn't, the message from cold, hard, present electoral facts is clear: for all Reform's bluster, reports of the death of the Conservative Party are greatly exaggerated.

    Lord Goodman of Wycombe is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange (and a Tory peer).

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/03/its-not-the-conservatives-who-have-most-to-fear-from-reform

      2. I think he ignores the muslim enclave vote. With Northern voters abandoning Labour for making their lives miserable, some will robotically still vote for them but more will stay at home leaving the muslim parties to start getting in.

    2. Until Reform start doing the hard work of building up the party and understanding how to win vulnerable seats (the infuriating business of statistics and campaigning) and getting a manifesto that can be fought on: 5 or so pages of headlines of what they will do, pinching good policies from other countries, like school vouchers. Talk openly about immigration and why it hasn't been stopped. Not with the bombastic 'British people!' table thumping but rationally with a clear plan AND awareness of what might stand in their way and what will be done.

      They radically need to reform the tax situation in this country as we pay so much for so little. Get Jon Moynihan directly involved and start listing what needs to be dismantled and binned – the DIE and ESG drivel for a start.

      Be open and say that the entire state machine is designed to ensure nothing changes and that real change is damned hard work. Admitting the problem is vital but talking about what needs to be done and how they'll do it – how about flat rate taxes for a start, making the case to the average Millwall supporter about the damage high taxes on businesses do to employees.

      The battle is not uphill. It's not even vertical. It's going to be climbing thin air, while under fire, without a rope. The resistance Reform will face from the state is going to be unimaginable.

  132. Read down and you'll see he's closed his account again. I deleted one of his posts, which was offensive.

  136. Two decent walks in two days, docs yesterday and I popped in to see my elder sister who lost her hubby late November. Legs aching, so a recognised achievement. Early night is looming. Not just yet but good night Nottlers 😴

    1. If you suffer from leg cramps and don't have an allergy, tonic water in the evening is a good preventative.

      1. Yes but she stayed oop narth with her lovely family. It’s all the paperwork that is involved now. It’s ridiculous.

        2. I do so miss the flounces. It teaches me all about triggers. Not forgetting that Triggers are a wonderful thing………………I think i got that right. :@(

          6. Ernie gifted Phiz £700 or so he reported with a peel of bells.

            A mere £175 for me and £100 for Carol. Mind you neither of us retain the maximum holding.

          7. Ernie gifted Phiz £700 or so he reported with a peel of bells.

            A mere £175 for me and £100 for Carol. Mind you neither of us retain the maximum holding.

    1. perm any one from 20?

      Made in Britain, who I believe flounced off as a different Nottler some time ago.

      1. Yes. I do pay attention you know !

        Seems strange to me that all these Northern folk are softer than they would like us to believe Southerners are. We all had ice on the insides of our bedroom windows !

      1. I am sure that your government will be giving advice on how you can spread water on a baking tray, leave it to freeze (any pensioners flat will do) and end up with a nice translucent sheet of ice that can be used instead if glass.

    3. It weren't a window – it were more like a hole in t'wall – we used to dream about windows………

        1. Well, when I said walls I meant more just a pile of stones on t’floor.

          And if you tell that to youth of today, they’d never believe you…..

  141. Good grief!
    I've been somewhat distracted on other sites today and have just found out I've a backlog of 315 comments to catch up on.
    Let's see how far I get!

      1. I still believe you are a nice man. Though i think Hannibal Lecter has a few garments he no longer requires. Perhaps we could arrange a fitting?

  143. As the UK is hit with freezing temperatures, some households may be eligible for a special payment for cold weather.

    If the mercury drops to 0°C or below for seven days in a row in a particular postcode, people living there could qualify for a special payment of £25 to help with their heating costs.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/full-list-of-postcodes-eligible-for-cold-weather-payment/ar-AA1wX6mH?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=eb458b16573d47a7b7053b59ff4319e2&ei=22

    2. Just like the PostCode lottery ! How fabulous. I pay £12 a month for the postcode lottery. And last month i and my neighbours (who bought in) won….£12 ! ! !

      I think they should introduce the same thing for the NHS. Ambulance arrives at A & E. Buy a ticket. Throw all tickets into a tombola. Then the winner waits 24 hours for the Consultant to sober up and he remembers he has to work two mornings a week.

      1. If you came here illegally you get preferential treatment (seen within 15 minutes at A&E, according to Black Belt Barrister, who checks his facts). It's like ERNIE pulling their number every time.

    4. Scrap bloody net zero and use our own oil and gas resources and we’ll all be warm. At far less expense.

      1. Last time I came back from abroad (before Covid) I thought it a damned cheek that people who had no connection with the UK were scrutinising my passport and ordering me about.

    4. Next up, she appeals to the ECHR, wins and we're stuck with her and have to pay compo.

      1. Oy Wibbs, when is your party. Might warm the house up if you invite enough of us! We'll club together to get the war queen out for the night.

    5. It is a rather surprising decision whilst, I believe, that we have accepted many others who went to fight. I dont support her case because she has a Dutch husband and she should go there.

      1. One day we may find out the full horror of what she actually did, which made even our then Muslim Home Secretary go pale and become resolute – resolute that she had no place here. The husband was probably not a legally recognised fixture according to UK law – but, hey, who cares these days.

        1. Muslim wives are legally recognised here (no doubt on the say-so of the people concerned) so why shouldn't muslim husbands be?

        2. Muslim wives are legally recognised here (no doubt on the say-so of the people concerned) so why shouldn't muslim husbands be?

        3. Indeed. Another scandal the authorities are desperate to keep quite, like the “grooming” (sic) gangs scandals. But you can only suppress the truth for so long.

      2. Do you mean that if Begum didn't have a Dutch husband, you would support her case? She has dual nationality, why shouldn't she go to Bangladesh? Why is your opinion based on her husband's nationality?

        1. Bangladesh has, IIRC, made no bones about what they would do with her (hint: they retain the death penalty). But they don't want her, either.

          3. She can do what the heck she likes as long as it has nothing to do with us or this country.

        2. No, I dont support her returning here but I find the decision surprising as so many others have been allowed to return. Her British citizenship was revoked, so if she wants to stay around her best case is her marriage to a 'Dutch' citizen. Ideally, she can be packed off to Where her parents originate from, seems like she regards a prison camp is a better bet than Asia.

          1. Maybe it was the high profile of her case that made the then government make an example of her.

      3. Do you mean that if Begum didn't have a Dutch husband, you would support her case? She has dual nationality, why shouldn't she go to Bangladesh? Why is your opinion based on her husband's nationality?

      1. …and their wives and offspring. Right to a family life, and all that – it's the decent thing to do. For the rest of us.

    8. What, yet another bloody appeal? Who is funding all this – other than the British taxpayer! I’m sick of hearing about this blasted woman I really hope this is the end of it.

    1. Bart is making the classic failure that it's the energy companies. This is what government wants you to think. That it's 'them', not us gov.

      If Bart read his blasted electricity bill he would see that 2 thirds of it is taxes, levies or subisdy.

      This is the problem. People are just dumb. It's not the providers. It's the government. It's the climate change agenda. It's AR6. Our bills trippled when the windmills went up.

        1. The dumbing-down of our population has been very successful…(that is, of those who had an IQ larger than their shoe size).

      2. Most things go back to poor government but his list just puts it into perspective and compares to other countries.

    3. "Absolute perfection in all four senses." Sight, sound, taste, but what is the fourth? Smell?

    4. “Out of sorrow, splendour”. This is the description I remember when a lot of musical critics in America wrote this symphony off.

      Friends of mine thought that Britten was heavily influenced by Mahler. Britten’s master was however Frank Bridge. Britten’s ‘Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge’ are testament to this fact.

      If you ever heard Mahler symphonies performed by the Czech Philharmonic under Vaclav Neumann in the seventies you died and went to heaven.

      I bloody well wish I was there now given the hideous state my beloved country, England, now finds itself in.

      Every single thing we hold dear and cherish is under threat by a Mickey Mouse government of ignorant and utterly incompetent fraudsters posing as ministers.

      God help us all.

  150. Right; the Rayburn has been stoked and is starting to burn up (i e it hasn't gone out!), the hot water bottles are filled and warming the bed. The clock has been wound and my laptop is warning of 2cm of snow tonight, so I am going to turn in. Goodnight, all. Sleep well.

  151. Watching 'Valdez is Coming' while I wait for my rye sourdough loaf to bake. Ay Caramba!

      1. You're up late. This film is the basis of plots for many films to come. Looking at recent films there are only about 4 or 5 plots that they are all based on. Give me an original any day. The Simpsons are always worth watching. Having said that, I haven't watched an episode for 7 or 8 years. Are they still good?

  152. Good night, chums, it's nearly tomorrow and – yet again I have overslept. Sleep well and see you all in the morning.

  154. At last it's happened, two inches of snow one set of tyre tracks and foxy footprints.
    It will bring the country to a standard still.
    All those keen reporters will be wetting themselves 😂😅

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