Saturday 6 August: The Bank of England should admit that it has no real control over the inflation rate

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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453 thoughts on “Saturday 6 August: The Bank of England should admit that it has no real control over the inflation rate”

  7. I don’t think anyone posted this on the day, but yesterday was the third anniversary of the new Nottle home.

    Many thanks to Geoff Graham for all the stalwart effort and to everyone who visits, reads and particularly posts for all our entertainment.

    2. He’s a star, isn’t he! I don’t know how any of us would have got through the last few years without him! This blog is my first and last port of call every day – long may all our posters keep posting.

  9. Putin alone did not wreck western economies. 6 August 2022.

    Vladimir Putin is getting the blame for the inflationary spike overrunning western economies and putting the UK on course for recession.

    “The Russian shock is now the largest contributor to UK inflation by some way,” said Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, explaining the crunch engulfing the economy in terms which will surely delight the Kremlin.

    But it is not the whole picture. The invasion of Ukraine might have put rocket boosters under the price of fuel and food, but there is more to this stagflationary squeeze than chaos on Europe’s eastern frontier.

    Vlad has not wrecked the western economies at all! This is all self-inflicted! It is only in the last six weeks that his restrictions on gas supplies have begun to affect prices and will not begin to cause real problems until the Autumn. The real villains here are the western elites with their covid shutdowns and the release of vast sums to pay for this. This policy was probably the single most calamitous political decision made in the last hundred years!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/06/putin-alone-did-not-wreck-western-economies/

    1. It is interesting that a solution to the juggernaut of high inflation and unaffordable heating heading down the line is never considered. A consolidated effort to stop the Ukraine conflict. Boris considered increased costs as a price worth paying to support the Ukes, he will not be around when that reality bites in winter. Although covid and other factors set off the inflationary spiral, it is now sustained by high energy prices and uncertainty that the war has brought with no end in sight. If the conflict stopped today, inflation would still be with us for a while. But markets would settle and energy prices are likely to return to normal quickly. I don’t have a magic solution to get the combatants around a table but keeping the war going by pouring in weapons in not helpful. We are in for interesting times as winter approaches. It was 2.8 deg C last night in Sennybridge so global warning doesn’t seem to be helping either.

      1. Yep, spot on Kaypea. Folk can’t seem to join the dots of high energy costs and high inflation. They also can’t seem to understand why energy is expensive, either.

      2. A cold night that is likely far below the average. The MSM is all over high temperatures as evidence of “global warming” and “climate emergency”. I am beginning to suspect that there may be a major problem in the offing, not warming, but cooling. I predict a horrible winter to come.

    2. Spot on. To add to this we witnessed the calamity of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. Now a severely weakened US has managed to unite Russia and China against the West.

      Our useless politicians will have to drop their green ambitions pronto if we are to survive this winter. We need dependable energy not some promise that the sun will shine and the wind will blow.

    3. Totally agree that the west has brought it all on itself, particularly our government with its ridiculous green policies. Idiots of the first order. They will never admit the blame lies squarely on them so have luckily found Vlad to scapegoat. However anyone who actually thinks about things will know that it’s our own fault. H (when I say “our” fault I mean the government, of course).

  10. At Sos’ request:
    Re Plum

    GG or one of the Mods, could you put up a featured comment tomorrow to the effect that even if she isn’t up to posting could she click an up vote or two so we know she’s still with us?

  11. Good morning, all. Blue skies – dagnabbit.

    Feeling a bit rough. I’ll look in occasionally.

  12. Plum! If you’re looking in – please uptick a comment or two if you’re not up to posting anything. Everyone here misses you and wishes you well. We all hope you will be feeling well enough to come back soon.

  13. ‘Morning, Peeps. A nice fresh start to the day, accompanied by a bright blue sky. And yes, you’ve guessed, still no rain.

    SIR – While playing football on Wednesday evening I was knocked unconscious. No foul was given and the referee waved play on.

    Unfortunately, in my confused state I was unable to play on and was driven to Aintree Hospital A&E department. On checking in at 7:35pm I was told there was a nine-hour wait to be seen. I felt awful but I reasoned that I wasn’t dying, so decided the dire prospect of waiting in A&E until 4:35am was less attractive than any risk I had of some undiagnosed injury, and showed A&E the red card by being driven home.

    I was then propped up in bed with what felt like the mother of all hangovers but at least I was not sitting in A&E on a plastic chair wearing a surgical mask.

    The moral of this story: whatever you do, don’t get ill or have an accident, as the NHS is broken.

    Jeffrey Edwards
    Melling, Lancashire

    Mr Edwards can consider himself lucky that he survived the experience without anything more serious than a severe headache, but others will undoubtedly be less fortunate. I, for one, intend to follow as best I can the chilling ‘advice’ in his final paragraph!

    1. There was some poor soul who fell over in the street near here recently. The ambulance arrived after about 3 hours but sadly the individual had already died. Envy of the world, perhaps, if you live in the Congo…

    2. We should anchor a large, unwanted, old, poorly maintained passenger ship in the Channel.
      All ‘refugees’ could then be taken on board it, to a place of safety, together with their boats.
      Once full, the ship sets sail for the Med Ship #2 takes over its’ station.
      Ship enters Med, sails up to near Nice, unloads passengers into their boats, gives France new visitors
      Ships #2, 3, 4, 5 etc repeat the trip, until France gets the messgae
      QED

      1. Yep, that’s the obvious solution. Anyone trying to get off the boat, of course, is shot.

  14. Channel smugglers drop prices and cram more people on to boats. 6 August 2022.

    Increased number of people arriving in UK in more overcrowded vessels shows Rwanda plan not working, say campaigners.

    People-smugglers have dropped their prices and are cramming more people than ever before into already overloaded, flimsy boats, the Guardian has learned.
    This week 696 asylum seekers crossed the Channel from France to the UK in one day, the Ministry of Defence said.

    The increased numbers arriving in more overcrowded boats with cheaper crossing prices demonstrate that plans to forcibly remove some asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats are not acting as a deterrent, campaigners say.

    I’m amazed! Amazed that anyone could ever have believed in this ridiculous Rwanda plan! It makes Net Zero look sensible! You would have thought that the dimmest protester would by now have figured out that there is absolutely no intention to stop the flow across the Channel. The very opposite is actually the case!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/06/channel-smugglers-drop-prices-and-cram-more-people-on-to-boats

  15. 354915+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 6 August: The Bank of England should admit that it has no real control over the inflation rate/

    By the same token the people’s of England
    should also admit they have no control via the ballot booth, having listened to vows,promises, & pledges never to be acted on, they cast their vote to once again elect a phony party / leader, one of the close shop coalition, who are obvious marching to a covert piper who has no intentions of playing a tune beneficial to the United Kingdom.

    Courtesy of the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration, ( in your face ongoing) mass foreign paedophile, ( ongoing) activities, we are facing a future of gloom & doom when owing to Brexit Exit we should be leading the planet as an example of diplomacy & decency.

  16. SIR – We have 10 water butts strategically placed outside our house. During the recent heatwave, we watered our flowerbeds and pots as necessary, but not the lawn. By the end of that hot spell, none of the butts was empty, although some were less than half full.

    Two days of rain, followed by Cornish mizzle, have successfully refilled the water butts.

    My parents bought a house on a new estate in 1952. Every house had a store outside the back door, which was topped by a large metal water tank, fed by a downpipe from the house roof. Water could be taken directly from this to the garden.

    Why are all new homes not now built with some means of collecting and storing rainfall?

    Anne Hanley
    Gunnislake, Cornwall

    You may well ask, Anne Hanley – perhaps your question should be directed to the planners. Failing that a few water butts are easy to install and relatively inexpensive. Apart from the usual ‘saving the planet’ argument they also provide an element of pay-back too. Ideally rainwater storage should be included at the construction stage when its provision should be at its cheapest. I do wonder whether the perception that this is a generally wet country isn’t helping? This is certainly no longer the case in the south.

    1. All the storage butts etc will be excellent breeding grounds for disease carrying mosquitos, which I have little doubt are hitching rides with our new diverse friends.

      2. Small drop of washing-up liquid sees mossies off. Surface tension broken, the nasty little buggers drown.

    2. Yo All

      …and how much fresh, purified water is lost, when you need to gett water from a tap in your Combi Boiler Hot Water system.
      Along time ago, on a Chanel 4 house renovation programme, water could be re-routed through the system unti it was warm enough to use
      Us, we use a kettle, set to heat to 80 Deg C, for washing hands, pots and pans etc.
      In the last month, we have used 4 Units of gas, the standing charge was almost twice the gas price

      1. Most people seem utterly ignorant of why energy is expensive demanding it be ‘nationalised’. As with other such commentariat assaults (for example when it was clearly the fault of Whitehall for failing to take advantage of Brexit) the state mobilised to say the opposite – they’re doing the same now, demanding energy be nationalised.

        The energy shortage is deliberate and intentional. Government is forcing bill payers to pay for the inefficient, ineffective windmills while letting the windmill owners keep all the profits. It’s the worst, most offensive contract writing ever. No doubt Gummer did it for his own troughing.

        I’m sick and tired of the tax payer being screwed over so the statist can benefit. It really is time we just hauled thme into the street, beat them senseless and strung them up. When Gummer finds his feet kicking thin air he might realise how wrong he is.

    3. Same question should be asked that if climate change were really an issue, houses would now be bigger, with much thicker walls (to soak up heat and keep people cool, using less electricity to both cool and heat in winter) with large gardens and covered in solar panels. They’re not, so the state doesn’t take it seriously. Like all things, it’s a scam and a con to move money from the earner to the state.

  17. Russian propaganda works because it exploits a weakness in the West: we still tend to believe that language has something to do with truth.

    Similarly, no other country invested as much, over many decades, in infiltrating its agents of influence among political and media circles. Some of these agents of influence – most famously Gerhard Schröder, a former Chancellor of Germany – are openly paid. Some were only wined and dined. Yet others are ideologically sympathetic. All end up repeating Russian lies and providing a global echo for these lies.

    Russian propaganda succeeds because it exploits a fatal weakness in our societies. Westerners still tend to believe that language has something to do with truth. They understand (and practice) the art of lying, but tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the written or spoken word, especially when issued by officials or journalists.

    Russians, however, know that the main function of language is to weaken the enemy. Watching Russian television almost daily since the invasion, I have seen reporting become a race towards the most outrageous fibs. The best liars – those who announce that a zoophile brothel opened in Denmark or that Europeans stopped taking showers and will die of poor hygiene – have become the greatest media stars.

    It is ironic that the author having written this piece admits to watching “fibs” on Russian Television, an activity denied to the vast majority in the West!

    However many “Agents of Influence” “Trolls” whatever; that Russia has purportedly created they would still be required to act through the Western MSM. Despite Mr Leifer’s assertions there is absolutely no sign of this. There are no articles praising Vladimir Putin or Russia or the Invasion of Ukraine in the print press, let alone on television! The very opposite in fact prevails. This article is in itself a roundabout admission of the failure of the elite’s propaganda to convince.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/05/russias-invasion-ukraine-has-utter-failure-wouldnt-know/

    1. Excuse me for being a bit cynical when reading the above piece from the Daily Telegraph – a publication that lies by omission and misleads the public every day of the year, and is on record as taking the Gates shilling.

      1. Morning BB. Yes! It’s a cliche to say it but truth is pretty much extinct in public discourse! The first resort of the Elites when challenged is to lie!

    2. W’ve just been discussing the ‘plague’ of land crabs which has conveniently followed on from a swimmer being nibbled by a shark somewhere off Cornwall.
      There is a passing mention – well buried in the item – that this phenomenon is not that rare. But – hey – Project Fear must continue.
      All we need is a regular comet appearance or a blood red moon.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf07bed4d0da66dc06a4db387c68848cabbb8b564136016b16fe18fd699ab2d7.jpg

      1. SWMBO is loading her quill and parchment into her reticule at this very moment as she heads off to herd the Docs in the out of hours service.

      2. 354915+ up ticks,

        Morning Anne,
        “Hang on to your paper files.”
        And yours bums these political cretins are taking decent people’s to places they don’t want to be.

      1. Who gets to decide what is for ‘the public good?’ I’d rather make my own mind up what is good for me and my family.

  19. SIR – I have received my ballot paper for the Conservative leadership election. Included in the envelope are leaflets from each candidate setting out the reasons why we should vote for them.

    It seems that Rishi Sunak has reincarnated Project Fear, as his pitch is: vote for me or all sorts of nasty things will happen after the next general election. There are no policy commitments. This is deeply disappointing and totally negative.

    Brian Armstrong
    North Shields

    I broke my self-imposed ‘no debates’ rule yesterday evening and watched the truly awful Burley host Sky’s attempt at a debate, without the two candidates debating anything with each other. However, I couldn’t watch it through to the end because Sunak was sounding like the odious Blair*; the trite phrases delivered in estuary English, the same (pointless) hand gestures, the ritual praising of our busted NHS (when did this multi-millionaire last use it I wonder?) and the overall impression of an over-talkative and smarmy lightweight. He is very good at something though, and that is avoiding the question and merely using it as a springboard to give his pre-prepared points on a given subject. Like Blair, he is not a detail man.

    *With apologies for mentioning that name.

    1. The comparison to Blair hadn’t previously occurred to me, but it just clicked into place. Same use of a big grin to hide his thoughts too.
      (Nobody is as sleazy as Miranda/Charles Lynton/Blair though.)

  20. SIR – You report (August 4) that Parliament has dropped TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

    All Chinese companies are under the ultimate control of the Chinese Communist Party.

    How is it possible that our parliamentary authorities were blind to the dangers of opening a TikTok account?

    Robin Gardiner
    Melksham, Wiltshire

    Their stupidity is legion, Mr G, even in matters that are obvious to the rest of it.

    1. Yo HJ

      It is all part of the slow take over of the world by the SlopeHeads: Tick Tock, Tick Tock

    2. I thought that was amusing at the time. But then I am the proud owner of a very good Huawei phone and thought the rejection of the excellent Huawei networking kit for poorer performing western kit was rather silly. But it’s posturing government, not rational thought.

    3. I thought that was amusing at the time. But then I am the proud owner of a very good Huawei phone and thought the rejection of the excellent Huawei networking kit for poorer performing western kit was rather silly. But it’s posturing government, not rational thought.

    4. I thought that was amusing at the time. But then I am the proud owner of a very good Huawei phone and thought the rejection of the excellent Huawei networking kit for poorer performing western kit was rather silly. But it’s posturing government, not rational thought.

    1. Is it cracked up to be as good as this? The two hippies seem to think so.

      ‘Moaning, Annie.

  22. Morning, all! Another beautiful day near Hastings, and an online acquaintance seen but not met on the marches coming down frim London to spend the affternoon, so that should be interesting.

    Handed over a still-drying painting I’d been commissioned to do of his daughter by a gypsy I met here; they were leaving yesterday and I’d worked hard to get it done in time. She (nine) was over the moon, and he was so pleased he threw his arms around me and couldn’t let go – hugs from attractive young men were not a side effect of portraiture I had anticipated, but heck, I’ll take them!

    Have a good day, everyone.

  23. SIR – Without question, the biggest policy failure of our time concerns energy. Over recent decades, successive governments have shown incompetence, negligence and irresponsibility.

    The central role of government is to protect the nation and its people, and to intervene in the market place as necessary. Governments have consistently failed the nation on energy, so we are now dependent on our enemies and untrustworthy friends. We have no storage; when the wind does not blow we have to import; we shoot ourselves repeatedly in the foot with green policies; we import coal and gas when it is literally under out feet. This is insanity.

    If the Government is to take the public with it through this winter it must acknowledge this failure. It must then set out plans to put the country’s energy provision on an acceptable long-term footing. It must show responsibility and ownership, and demonstrate how this current catastrophic situation will never be allowed to happen again. Blaming it on market forces and external factors is passing the buck. This has to stop.

    Stuart Moore
    Bramham, West Yorkshire

    Well said, Mr Moore, but I fear your hefty dose of realism is far too late. This country is critically short of reliable generating capacity – witness the frequent use of a tiny handful of coal-fired stations during this relatively benign summer! Not for long, though…of the three such stations remaining Kilroot (NI) plans to convert from coal to gas next year, West Burton (Notts) is due to close next month (although may be extended for a few months but it is already 55 years old). That leaves Ratcliffe (Notts) as the only station not planning to convert or close.

    So many short-sighted, net zero-inspired decisions will leave this country’s power supply on a knife-edge this winter. It is truly shameful.

    1. Even a change of policy this weekend, as Moore suggests (Yorkshire Moore?) will take years to show an effect. This winter will be chilly.

  24. Good morning all

    Fine sunny morning , and not a cloud in the sky.
    Moh and son are doing the 5k Weymouth Park run this morning .

    Where do our garden birds go when they are in moult ?

    Absence of everything that has wings , twitters , sings etc .

    Off shortly for early dog walks .

  25. Good morning all. A bright sunny morning with 9°C outside.

    A much better sleep last night! Just as well, I’m off to Derby to check on Step-son who has been moved into sheltered accommodation for a few months.

  26. This must be from a Nottler!

    SIR – As Joe Cobbe (Letters, August 3) points out, our successful British female football team perfectly reflected the ethnic mix of our current population, of which perhaps 14 per cent is made up of minorities.

    However, television advertisements now display the reverse proportions of ethnic and white characters. Is there a shortage of white British actors, or are they just being denied employment in the drive for diversity?

    Sue Crouch
    Eastcombe, Gloucestershire

      1. ‘Morning, Tryers. The rest have been severely over-worked and are suffering from extreme exhaustion.

    2. The Left want to pretend the country is full of foreigners to ‘normalise’ it. Of course, it isn’t normal and they shouldn’t be here. Well over 70% are entirely indolent.

  27. ‘Morning All

    Future looks grim…………

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d11457eb6272ac7a015f87bfe8d6a2aa8dfdb7b871ce63a2933bd0b1cb3fde2a.jpg

    Not to mention food………

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7790cabcb36f9bfcb859ef63c731da0728eb252a65b281c61b4960d28208dcfe.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f17c1cd37c5f6b92425cfb0d1e21bad5d282d058a20ea9a2b84692c378c89188.png
    Canada,Ireland,Holland NZ etc a simultaneous attack on farm production with Sri Lanka as the model,this is no cock-up this IS a conspiracy these WEF swine want us useless eaters dead

    1. Yo Rik

      How does your ‘puter get all these ‘pictures/funnies’?

      Mine only seems get adverts

        1. I recommended a particular track to a chum and as they played it something else started up. I said ‘What on earth’s that?’ She replied ‘An advert. Yotube plays them automatically.’

          ‘Dear life,’ I said. ‘How annoying. Let’s get rid of them.’

          1. Sarcy political cartoons,like these

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55c6ca8b09ac9252a0ec0eadee545200f53dc7d99a972e1c6237829f5932e858.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0df329c392dbab0490eda1047c9e629dd28099b2fb8ba10d4ccc381f5bed0f50.jpg

            https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d675fc46c3c43b07adb974/1659209960566-QMJV2Q9QUWNKCMT8PXIV/Post+Mortem+200.jpg?format=750w

            Now THIS is awkward,leader of WHO is NOT vaxxed !!

            https://twitter.com/NLeespeaking/status/1554949172322869254?s=20&t=6TDVGlF0FhNkOLTtHHaK3Q

          2. I note he’s not going back to his own country, vaccinated or not, because he’s apparently wanted there on charges of genocide??

          4. meme (n.)
            “an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture,” 1976, introduced by Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene,” coined by him from Greek sources, such as mimeisthai “to imitate” and intended to echo gene.

    2. Then we should kill them first. I’m tired of this useless government making our lives worse. If they won’t impose referism, recall and direct democracy then we take one out a week and hang them. If after that they refuse to obey then we make it one a day.

    3. I saw a video clip yesterday on Twitter of a helicopter hovering over a field of frightened cattle. It claimed to be in the Netherlands. Presumably to terrify the cattle and inhibit the milk yields. This is an assault from all directions.

      I can’t post the clip because I am banned from Twitter – presumably for being spot over the truth – I am on Twitter’s naughty step for seven days and I am ‘allowed’ only to browse in that time. Being behind bars one can only watch the world go by.

    3. My best man’s father was a barrister who retired to Cornwall. He was sent shopping in Penryn and the local butcher became one of his best sources for many of his off-colour jokes which, to his wife’s despair, he used to repeat at the lunch table with particular vigour when there were ladies and children present:

      “Heard any good ones lately, Mr Pollard?” was his usual gambit when entering Mr Pollard’s shop.

      This one now seems relevant :

      “She was only a fisherman’s daughter but she had crabs on her plaice poor sole.”

      To be honest I prefer the meat of edible crabs or torteaux to that of the araignées but the spider crab is becoming ever more popular in France nowadays.

  29. Modern Life….

    https://twitter.com/Wayne57072607/status/1555669679347318790

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb6b270e8310b82e3315facda29138321de57967a5a1ffeee22f39d244e07cd0.jpg

    https://scontent-man2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/67325337_524379791635385_3312260482114519040_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=bwH4y1tKu7UAX-bsDLc&_nc_ht=scontent-man2-1.xx&oh=00_AT9otP7nQM0GcA6kudkfLFs72AvCqcHCdsXr0H7PcPQuKA&oe=63134885

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2af238615e66445cadff40ebafa1609b5ed4adfe4003823f88bd16e79d000091.jpg

    1. We went house visiting yesterday and this family had a TV that must have been over 5 feet corner to corner. It was obscene.

      2. My living room is only ever used when entertaining. It has a screen measuring 4ft on the wall. It only gets used to watch films.

        1. We bought one a few years ago and it looked fairly small in the shop, next to all the others.

          When we got it home we were surprised how huge it was, compared with the old one. Yet it’s only 3 feet wide. I’m glad we got it though, because it sits in a corner of the room and can be seen from most chairs when it’s on; it suits our aged eyes.

    2. Strictly speaking, today’s pension contributions pay for today’s pensioners, it’s a pay-as-you-go scheme, not a savings plan.

      1. Only because fetid politicians stole/wasted all the NI contributions to buy votes rather than investing the monies for the future
        Where is OUR “Sovereign Wealth Fund” !!
        I understand Norway has managed things rather better

        1. Norway never had an industrial revolution, and was a poor country surviving on fish and timber up to 1967 when oil was discovered. So, people were used to saving for rainy days, and the unexpected wealth bonus was invested, with only a small amount of the interest allowed ro be spent, by law (4%, IIRC).

      2. It’s a bloody Ponzi Scheme which, had it been a private company, would have had the directors slammed up years ago.

  32. Good morning, everyone. First time I have had a problem with the MacBook. Couldn’t fire it up his morning. Tried the usual shutdown, restart and so on. Left it and read my Kindle for 20 minutes, went back to the laptop and it worked. Weird.

  34. Today’s subject – sports strips

    Think of the Dutch, you think of orange
    Think of the Welsh, you think of red
    Think of the Aussies, you think of green and gold
    Think of the Kiwis, you think of black

    Why can’t English teams settle on a colour that all sports wear, and from one event to the next as well.

    The rugby team wears all white, soccer teams have over the years worn all white, all grey, light blue, red and white, white and navy (off the top of my head, probably more combos), I’ve seen members of the Commonwealth Games teams are wearing red, burgundy and blue and sparkly (gymnasts) so far (the gymnasts seem to all wear something different). A couple of weeks back the athletes were wearing a lilac number.

    Sor’ it aaht.

    2. Club football has a lot to answer for. There was a time when supporters wouldn’t think of wearing a football shirt to a match – they’d just wear their ordinary clothes. When clubs realised that there was money to be made from reproduction kits, the world went mad. It also coincided with the time when clubs began producing some of the most appalling technicolour horrors imaginable (see below).

      This has now spread to the international game and other sports and the simple England football kit of old (white shirts and blue shorts or red shirts and white shorts) has gone to be replaced by whatever some marketing gimp with a ponytail deems to be worth flogging.

      https://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2013/oct/10/football-kits-weird-horrendous-in-pictures

      2. Coincided with masses who travelled to away matches .

        Away supporters used to mingle with everyone , and then shirts and scarves created territorial groups , which were eventually separated into home and away supporters

        1. It would be interesting to see a top-rate schoolboys’ first XV rugby team take on the women’s England side.

          In my opinion the boys would be far stronger and would win easily.

          1. Clearly Richard you haven’t met the likes of Geniveve. She once played as a prop for the Wasps Ladies Team…

          3. 10 years ago I would have agreed with you, nowadays I’m not as sure, the women have improved out of all proportion, same with the soccer.

          4. How many of the second team would declare themselves as women so they could play for the Women’s side?

          5. The top football team would win at cartwheeling, grimacing and ankle clutching by a mile.

    5. When you say “soccer” do you mean football. Yanks call their idiotic game of throwball “football”, which is imbecilic since they don’t kick it!

      I simply hate the name “soccer”. I watch proper football (when there is no rugby or cricket on).

  35. Good Morning. Bitterly cold here. Forecast suggested 4˚ and was recorded as such this morning. Feels colder. Funny thing, average temperature is supposedly around 16˚ at night. They were quick to highlight a high temperature, but do not seem to be reporting unseasonally low temperatures more appropriate to March.

    1. I find it funny that Lefty greeniacs always proclaim that climate isn’t weather, yet when it’s hot, they squeal that it’s down to ‘climate change’ I suppose they change the facts to suit their narrative.

      As regards the cooler weather – yes please! I’m working on the Warqueen to move to Stornoway.

  36. SIR – Can we please see an end to the nonsensical idea that the Bank of England has an achievable inflation target? If it really does, how is it so far off it? Is complete incompetence to blame? No, the reason is that it does not control the factors that determine the rate, except marginally.

    Current inflation of around 9 per cent is caused by events in the big bad world outside Threadneedle Street. Consider what level of bank rate would be required to tame such inflation. The Monetary Policy Committee should pass a resolution to disband itself.

    Adrian Hoare
    Ascot, Berkshire

    BTL

    It would have been politically impossible to use interest rates to control inflation as it would have put millions of over-mortgaged people on the streets!

    The only way that this might have worked would have been if people were not allowed to borrow more then three times their salaries and that mortgage interest had been fixed at, say, 5% throughout the term of the mortgage regardless of the Bank of England base rate.

    1. A mention that crushing and evr rising taxes, QE and government borrowing are significantly responsible would also be welcome.

    2. Raising interest rates on mortgages would have been politically suicidal for the government but they managed to get away with having interest rates of several times the BoE base rate on students who were accumulating unrepayable debts before they were earning a penny piece.

      Most civilised countries either have interest free or virtually interest free students’ loans. But Britain has long ceased to be a civilised country.

    3. I recently heard of an estate agent who was suggesting that buyers take variable rate mortgages to finance their new homes because rates were lower and they could buy more expensive homes.
      That was a few months ago, I wonder how many purchasers now regret listening to the expert.

  37. Good morning NoTTLers, I am typing this from the Twitter naughty step. Last night I was put on a 12 hour ban unless I deleted two tweets…or I could ‘appeal’. I am currently awaiting the twitter wokeratti decision.

    Tweet one suggested that the German lawyers would become very busy if the Germans followed through on their intention to reinstate mask mandates, as there are currently plenty of cases ongoing from previous mask mandates.

    Tweet two said Liz Truss could state that she wouldn’t call for any future lockdowns as the decision would be taken by Schwab/Gates and the other horsemen of the scamdemic – in my ‘appeal’ I pointed out that Tedros at the WHO was pushing for the decisions on lockdowns/masking to be taken by WHO legislation, overruling national governments.

    Tick, tock…

    In other news, I’ve just finished reading the fourth book in Robert Adam’s ‘Charlemagne’ series, ‘A Special Kind of Treachery’. It continues the story around the UKs accession to the EEC and details the subterfuge and chicanery utilised by the establishment as they sought to overturn the polling which showed up to 70 percent of voters were against us joining.

    As per the previous three books, our German protagonist – in the vein of Harry Palmer, rather than James Bond – plumbs the depths of political shenanigans, none deeper than his latest dive.

    It is Robert Adam’s depth of detail that is so fascinating; the reference material is listed at the end of the book, then examples of where it is used throughout the book are shown.

    I commend his books to the house.

    Edited to correct productive sock spelling of ‘there’.

      2. ‘At the Court of Charlamagne’, followed by ‘On the Green Hill of Tara’ and ‘Under The Golden Sicilian Sun’

        If searching for his books/e-readers on Amazon, it is necessary to search under ‘Robert Adam Charlamagne’.

    2. I am also on the Twitter naughty step, for seven days. My third time…. I expect I’ll be permanently banned soon. Twitter does not like the truth.

      1. I was on a 12 hour ban, as long as I deleted both tweets. Now their pools panel have to make a decision and will inform me by email as to how naught I have been.

        1. Oh gosh, you’re up before the judge and jury! I was just informed that ‘after careful consideration….!’ and I had to delete my tweet. The tweet involved the words ‘vaccine’, ‘depopulation’, ‘desperate ‘ and WHO! I was somewhat irritated by the fact that I posted this tweet on the 29 July and it took them until 4 August to inform me. It all seems very arbitrary. My first 12 hour ban was for quoting the online Pfizer information (!!) and my second 12 hour ban was for the phrase ‘monkey see, monkey do’ and I was in no way comparing or referring to those of a darker tint.

          1. My guess is someone has trawled through various feeds until they’ve found something to get offended by.

            Some bot ‘put me on a list’ a week or two back, perhaps it was one of their 12 followers?

            As for any monkey reference, it appears that it is only racialist offendees who ever see some sort of connection.

            It’s a funny old world.

  38. Has anyone else had trouble with Disqus truncating long comments and deleting the end of them without warning after posting? It’s only just started.

    It’s happened to me several times lately, and it is quite upsetting to think out a long comment only to find much of it wiped out. I will have to start composing on a text editor and only closing after I am sure it has been posted safely.

    Possibly an “upgrade”?

  39. ‘Morning all. The first post that popped up in my Facebook feed today announced the death of Judith Durham, she of The Seekers fame. Aged 79. Not that I look at FB very much these days, as the censorship there is even worse than on Twitter.

    1. That’s no age.

      Was she beaten to death by an Australian policeman for not wearing a mask?

      1. Following the links in some of the comments attached to the FB post, there seem to be conflicting reports of the cause. You can guess my immediate suspicion!

      4. When it is time to go it is time to go. Fill your life with things that give you pleasure. Make a to do list of things that you might like to try for the first time. Lock hubby in the garden shed.

        1. Superb song, superb singer, first class group. Brought tears to my eyes -That doesn’t happen often

  42. There’s a piece lamenting the loss of the classics and arts in UK education in the DT today. A perfectly polite post I made there describing how, as well as as Eng Lang and Eng Lit, Latin was required in order to qualify for Oxbridge even for science based qualifications has been deleted by a mod!!! And we got real marks, not ‘grades’…
    Still, who cares, the editors are all as thick as two short planks.

    1. Notifications has been acting up for a week or more Grizz. It’s probably just low level GCHQ harassment!

    2. I’ve been getting them too. I think the inviter has hoovered up a list from one of “Hat’s” successor’s sites;
      If you left click on your avatar it should show who is following you, click on “followers and then click the “x” next to their name and it should disappear.

        1. I’ve done as I suggested and a new “invite” has just arrived!
          Even though it’s not a follower.
          }:-((
          New tactics needed.

  44. We have been working, ever so hopelessly slowly, to downsize. One the items that we came across yesterday was a “calling card” from a member of the Defence Debriefing Team. This referred to a period many years ago, in the early/middle 90s. We had just taken on an au pair via a London agency. The visitor, a youngish man in a grey suit, who arrived unannounced, asked a few questions, quite superficial. It became clear later that he had come to look us over, to determine who we were, what sort of people and so on. The au pair, a very nice young lady, was, we later learned, the daughter of a member of the new Croatian government in war torn former Yugoslavia. The young lady was intelligent, a former tourist guide who spoke seven languages, and was instantly loved by our children.
    She corresponded with her parents indirectly via a bank address in Zagreb.
    I now wonder if the UK government were considering the possibility of kidnap?
    The website of the DDT suggests that they are some kind of tourism bureau like Tripadvisor, but I am sure that they are not so innocuous.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/defence-debriefing-team-ddt

  45. Objections to Alan Turing statue being erected at Cambridge University. 6 August 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d3dbd20c53208cd3433421db41cd3c3c5ba990881651ab216d74639dcc23e9f.png

    Alan Turing’s statue is set to be erected in Cambridge despite Historic England warning it would “harm” the character of the area.

    The mathematician’s alma mater of King’s College applied to erect a 12ft steel tribute to Turing designed by Sir Anthony Gormley.

    Historic England warned that the “eye-catching” new monument would “be at odds” with the traditional character of the college grounds, but Cambridge City Council has voted to approve the plans.

    Turing probably does deserve a statue. His was one of the most original minds of the Twentieth Century. I’m pretty sure that neither he nor Kings College deserve this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/05/objections-alan-turing-statue-erected-cambridge-university/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

        1. This one… He is part Irish, part Kraut, ‘Left-footer’ with communist sympathies. Has applied for German citizenship,because he hates Brexit.

          https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Antony_Gormley_%D0%92%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B0_%D1%81_%D0%93%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B5_crop.jpg/225px-Antony_Gormley_%D0%92%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B0_%D1%81_%D0%93%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B5_crop.jpg

  46. Well – all entries delivered to the Village Hall for “the Show”. Results at 4 pm. Watch this space….!!

  47. A few medical notes left on patients docs
    1. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a
    year.

    2. The patient refused an autopsy.

    3. The patient has no past history of suicides.

    4. Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.

    5. Patient’s past medical history has been remarkably insignificant
    with only a forty pound weight gain in the past three days.

    6. Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady
    pregnant.

    7. Since she can’t get pregnant with her husband, I thought you
    might like to work her up.

    8. Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.

    9. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.

    10. The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a
    job as a stockbroker instead.

    11. Skin: Somewhat pale but present.

    12. The pelvic examination will be done later on the floor.

    13. Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Blank, who felt we should
    sit on the abdomen, and I agree.

    14. Large brown stool ambulating in the hall.

    15. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.

    16. By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling better.

    17. Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing.

    18. I have suggested that he loosen his pants before standing, and then, when he stands with the help of his wife, they should fall to the floor.

    19. The patient will need disposition, and therefore we will get Dr. Blank to dispose of him.

    20. The patient expired on the floor uneventfully.

    21. She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.

    22. The patient experienced sudden onset of severe shortness of breath with a picture of acute pulmonary edema at home while having sex which gradually deteriorated in the emergency room.

    23. The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed.

    24. Coming from Detroit, this man has no children.

  48. Prince Charles: Windrush immigrants will be ‘forever appreciated’ by UK
    Prince of Wales says UK owes ‘profound debt of gratitude’ to Jamaicans who served in two world wars, and helped rebuild the country

    The Prince of Wales has pledged to ensure that the Windrush generation’s contribution to Britain “is forever understood and appreciated”.

    The country owes a “profound debt of gratitude” to Jamaican immigrants who served in two world wars, and travelled to “help us rebuild our country”, he said.

    In a message to worshippers at a church service celebrating Jamaica’s Diamond Jubilee, the Prince said he had commissioned portraits of some of the surviving Windrush pioneers to mark the 75th anniversary of their arrival.

    “My hope is to use this project to honour and further celebrate that very special generation, and to ensure that all they did for this country is forever understood and appreciated,” he said. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/08/06/prince-charles-windrush-immigrants-will-forever-appreciated/

    Utter bilge , piffle, hokum, balderdash.. he is a silly old fool.

    1. “…helped us rebuild…”

      Has anyone ever produced a study of the financial and material benefit to the nation in the 50s of ‘the Windrush generation’? My suspicion is that they were just seen as cheap labour by Attlee & Co who didn’t want to pay the British the wages that they demanded after their wartime experience and sacrifice.

    2. The question is – has immigration to the UK since the end of WWII been more beneficial than detrimental to the country and its native population? Seeing the problems there are in inner cities, especially London, one might be forgiven for thinking that Prince Charles is an arsehole.

      1. Or as I would put it – he is so full of flatulence and excrement that he needs at least two anal orifices.

        1. He holds several titles – Prince, Duke, Earl, Baron, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland. A bit greedy.

          3. I only know that because a Nottler bought me a cashmere sweater with Duke of Rothesay on the box.

    4. What utter rubbish. We owe them nothing! More unwanted intrusions into politics from Davos Charlie.

  49. On the way out to timber merchants, came across a road accident at a local roundabout, at the stage where the ambulance crew were just getting out of the vehicle. Cars everywhere, people standing round the body of a young woman lying in the road, awfully still. Police hadn’t arrived yet. She looked like my statuesque Polish friend, same blonde hair and clothes style, so, panic-stricken, called the Poless – who thankfully, was plucking mushrooms elsewhere. Relief for me, but some poor young lass and her family have had their weekend plans ruined. :-((

    1. How terrible and of course distressing for you OB.

      Why were people standing around her body, surely she needed CPR or at least to be put in the recovery position?

  50. Clear still sunny afternoon ..

    We have eaten just lunch , a home made brown bread abd butter and salad cream salmon and cucumber sandwich and an apple each .

    Can you believe that a fierce current of warm air , like a mini tempest , don’t know how to describe the wind effect, capricious and gusty, blew through the garden , the trees whistled and rocked and the dogs and son came in doors from the garden .. 3 minutes later or less and it had blown through .

    I think Zephyr is the right description for the strong breeze that blew through , wrong description, not a zephyr.

    If any one of us had been sailing in a dinghy, we would probably have capsized !

    1. Outflow boundary.

      A gust front is a line of dangerously gusty winds created by certain
      weather conditions. When a downdraft from a raining thunderstorm hits
      the ground, it spreads out in all directions. This spreading air can
      move very fast, and as it spreads, it can create a gust front.

      1. Thank you Phizzee,

        That is a useful piece of info , but , no clouds in the sky ,nothing to see, unless it blew in from the coast four miles away .

        Football has started .. Moh glued to the streaming service .. Saints and Spurs .

        Why do they start in August ?

        1. So many matches to get through in many competitions, even playing twice a week. Summer is generally too hot and there is the World Cup coming up too.

      1. One night when we were asleep in our bunks aboard Mianda we were knocked completely flat by a tornado while at anchor in a bay in Turkey and our solar panels disappeared into the night sky never to be seen again.

      2. Was that the one where roofs were ripped off garages and we realised nobody actually puts cars in garages.

    1. There would be if the Left were not determined to force our economic and social progress backward. Their miserable, arrogant and idiotic stupidity is doing endless damage to the planet.

        1. I think I’ve been in it Grizz in 1969 on my way up to Binbrook from Suffolk, small place on the left heading north

      1. Well done. How did you find that?

        I was out only by a century, a continent and an ocean…

      2. How did you find that?

        I was out only by a century, an ocean and a continent…

      3. Harry and WS…what a very nostalgic (if that’s the right word) piece of music and so well fitted to the video clip. I tried asking Mr Google to listen to it and tell me what is, but it – and I – failed miserably.

  53. A woman in her 50s was knocked unconscious and sexually assaulted as she sat on a park bench after leaving Boots last Friday.

    The attack happened in broad daylight in Bournemouth Central Gardens in

    Dorset when she suffered a blow to the head and lost consciousness.

    The woman had left the Boots store on Commercial Road at around 2.40pm on July 29.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11087265/Woman-knocked-unconscious-sexually-assaulted-sat-park-bench-leaving-Boots.html

    1. Bournemouth has become really rough .

      The beaches are beautiful, the chines are gorgeous, there are many many lovely areas that are rich by legacy, but oh dear , the riff raff ruin it .

      1. Mrs HJ and I had our honeymoon (a week) in Bournemouth, it was all we could afford. It was, in ’77, a delightful place…

      2. Mrs HJ and I had our honeymoon (a week) in Bournemouth, it was all we could afford. It was, in ’77, a delightful place…

      3. And what about Boscombe, Christchurch and Highcliffe where every prospect pleases and only man is vile!

    3. But we can guess the colour of the defective “investigating” the case:

      “Detective Constable Evelyn Ahmadi, of Bournemouth CID, said: ‘We have launched a full investigation into this incident and have carried out a number of enquiries, including a review of available CCTV footage.

  55. Question: Why is a politician like a restless sleeper?

    Answer: First they lie to one side, before they turn and lie to the other side.

    They are both tossers!

  56. ‘If you take up dowsing properly, it will change your life’
    In the face of warmer summers and drying reservoirs, people are turning to the oldest method known to man

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2022/08/04/worried-drought-try-finding-water-stick/

    Divining, dowsing, witching or rhabdomancy. Whatever you want to call it, the improbable technique of searching for something hidden – traditionally water – by moving over an area while holding Y-shaped wooden sticks or two rods is millennia old.

    (Moh is a super dowser , ar least he was when he last tried over 25 years ago )

    3. Drillers from the well company that we used a few years ago were very critical of dowsing, they maintained that they could see where they would find water by just looking at the land.

      They found two good wells for us.

    1. Justin Welby and Prince Charles ought to be locked in a cell with a homicidal, homosexual, maniacal immigrant who has been told that he will not be punished in any way no matter what he does to either the Archbishop or the Prince of Wales.

    2. Lefties bash on about slavery, yet her eit is – they obviously want it, otherwise they would be returning the filth to France.

    1. I expect they are well used to it. Their missile screen looks quite effective too. You just don’t want to be caught outside.

    2. Many congratulations to you both and the committee for putting on such a traditional English activity.

      1. Thank you. And the prizes were handed over by a middle-aged local vicar whom the MR TAUGHT at Fakenham Grammar School!!!!!

        1. Just as well (ho ho) you have your own water or the hose police would be investigating.

          1. The format of the event appears to have changed very little from 1942!

            There are no hosepipe bans here. Yet.

          2. I remember one dry summer when I lived in Thetford, not only was there a hosepipe ban, but Anglian Water were flying around in helicopters looking for green lawns, and prosecuting the owners.

            While South East Water haven’t extended the ban to leafy Surrey just yet, I’m a bit worried since my back lawn (which I re-turfed last November, having first introduced a shedload of soil improver to the clay soil), insists on growing, and resolutely refuses to turn brown, despite the absence of rain, or any watering.

          4. Couple of thousand pounds an hour for a helio. Obviously they wanted to make examples of people. Hope they get caught out when they come in all heavy handed and find it’s astroturf !

          5. We’re Affinity Water and had an email saying no hosepipe bans but please don’t waste water.
            A sensible email.

    3. Wow,

      Fantastic.. congrats to your MR.. and delighted to hear she did so well.

      Amazing Trombetti.. were the press there .. I expect local gardeners had a fit when they saw that.

      1. I know Southampton lost today but I bet you and your old man are highly delighted that Bournemouth won. 😉

        2. The only football sides I was even remotely interested in were Southampton and Norwich when I was respectively at each place’s university. Mind you I never went to either the Dell or Carrow Road to watch a match but I looked up the result in the paper or I heard it on the radio.

    11. Just wondering: if that is the only trombet in Norfolk, what beat it into second place?

          1. By the time I had arranged the stuff for the photo, the MR had shifted the other constituent parts…!

          3. Nah.

            They will be appearing later in the week as (to use the sort of phrase hideous modern so-called restaurants employ):
            “A platter of chef’s selection of seasonal vegetables”. The sort of language that guarantees I would not eat there…

  61. Unusual to see the moon out at this time of day low in the south east sky

    Unless it’s a smudge on the window

  63. Quite an amusing anecdote on which to bring the day to a close:

    “You’re being unfaithful,’ says the punter’s wife brandishing a note found in her husband’s suit pocket: ‘Dorothea 07440 521321.’
    ‘No, no, darling that’s a horse I plan to back next week with its form figures.’
    Marital harmony is restored.
    Three weeks later he arrives home to find his wife on the doorstep with suitcase packed and taxi waiting.
    ‘What’s all this?’
    ‘You left your mobile in the hall. Your horse called.’

  64. That’s me for this very nice day. Feeling a bit brighter. Tomorrow will be 100% …. prolly.

    So pleased for the MR – she slaves and slaves in the garden and takes the Show so seriously. It is so rewarding to see her face when she goes to look at the tables with the winning tickets on!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Hard work rewarded with pleasure. It will also prompt others to do better to beat the Dowager Duchess of Downton Abbey Fulmodeston !

    1. I could never understand why people do this. Recetly, someone smashed up a kindergarten here, thoroughly wrecked the place. No reason.

      1. I don’t understand anything anymore. 12 year olds stopped buses running on a route near here….it’s taken the police days to track them down. Why weren’t the cops lurking and waiting for the little sods? Chucking rocks etc through the bus windows.
        This country is beyond hope, I sometimes think and then, a couple of heartwarming things occur, as I posted above.

  66. Emmerdale actor Sam Gannon dies suddenly at the age of 31 while visiting family in California
    DM Story

    No mention of his gene therapy status – but he would have had to have been fully up to date with the jabs if he wanted to visit the US. No Vax Djokovic is having to miss the US Open because he hasn’t been jabbed.

    A lot of fully jabbed people are now dying of no specified or identified cause as Mark Steyn points out on GB News each night.

  67. FORTY PER CENT of Channel migrants are from ALBANIA – not a country devastated by war of famine – secret military report reveals
    696 people cross the English Channel on Monday, the highest number this year
    Four in ten migrants crossing Channel in small boats Albanian Mail Plus reveals
    The government has spent £493 million over seven years trying to stop migrants
    To read the full leaked ‘Official Sensitive’ document visit Mail Plus

    Forty per cent of Channel migrants are from peaceful Albania – not a war-torn nation, according to a secret military intelligence report, Mail Plus reveals.

    A total of 1,075 Albanians crossed the Channel in small boats organised by people-smuggling gangs during a six-week period this summer.

    Last year a total of 757 Albanians crossed the Channel last year, according to Government figures.

    Albanian gangs are reportedly buying huge inflatable boats from Chinese factories and customising them by asking Chinese firms to make them bigger to squeeze more migrants onboard.

    Experts believe the crossings are being fuelled by social media, with people-smugglers advertising their services on TikTok and charging up to £5,500 per person.

    An Albanian police liaison officer is set to be based in Dover to help deal with the growing problem, but there is a reported shortage of Albanian translators to help.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11087569/FORTY-CENT-Channel-migrants-ALBANIA.html

    1. They should just be deported. They have no right to be here and a huge number of them are criminals.

    2. I hear Albania is quite nice this time of year now that all the criminals and chancers have left.

        1. Belle, my dear you might want to watch the film Elysium. It might give you another perspective.

    3. They came to UK to pay homage to Norman Wisdom

      Wisdom was a well-known performer in Albania, where he was one of the few Western actors whose films were allowed in the country under Enver Hoxha. According to Hoxha’s dialectical materialist viewpoint, proletarian Norman’s ultimately victorious struggles against capitalism, personified by Mr Grimsdale and the effete aristocratic characters played by Jerry Desmonde, were a Communist parable on the class war.

      1. Mr Hoxha’s speeches are something else. Things of endless wonder. Well, endless anyway.

  70. Not everyone is horrible….
    Yesterday we went to the doctor’s for my appointment. There was an elderly lady in the waiting room with a rather nasty looking, blood soaked bandage on her lower leg. She had been given a cup of water as she was clearly distressed. There were about 4 young women with her, not sitting down but standing near her.
    She said to them that they could leave as she’d be fine now. No way they said. These young women sounded English but may have been good speakers from elsewhere. I suspect this lady has fallen over in the street and they’d brought her to the nearest medical facility. I honestly don’t think they were anything to do with her- just felt responsible and wanted to make sure she was all right. She was asked by a member of staff if she would like to sit on her own somewhere but she said she was OK where she was.
    Got the bus after a visit to our bistro and I have seen less packed sardine cans! Having seen my husband help me onto the bus, a young Asian lad stood up and gave me his seat and when I thanked him, he said it was fine.
    There is so much horror out there but there are also good people.

      1. Tell me about it! I came out from a volunteering session in the the local school library in NC and got done for speeding. Total nonsense and the ticket was dismissed. Stupid cop.

  71. Four in ten migrants crossing the Channel in small boats are from peaceful Albania where there has not been a war for 25 years, a secret military intelligence report leaked to The Mail on Sunday reveals.

    The explosive document – marked ‘Official Sensitive’ – shows that almost three times as many migrants arriving on the UK’s shores from France come from the Balkans country compared to anywhere else.

    It is the first time an official report has exposed how the largest proportion of those making illegal crossings appear to be economic migrants abusing Britain’s generous asylum system.

    The report, exclusively revealed today by The Mail on Sunday, follows a surveillance operation by the Royal Navy and defence intelligence experts of nine criminal gangs believed to be masterminding the vast majority of crossings.

    It reveals:

    A total of 1,075 Albanians crossed the Channel in small boats organised by the gangs during a six-week period this summer – almost forty per cent of those identified as making the perilous crossing;
    The gangs are buying huge inflatable boats online from Chinese factories and transporting them to northern France;
    Two of the gangs – codenamed Dragon and Lotus – are customising the boats by asking Chinese firms to make them bigger so that more migrants can be squeezed on board;
    Despite Boris Johnson making a crackdown on the smuggling gangs a priority, the document reveals how the military’s intelligence-gathering operation ‘is currently limited by a lack of resource’;
    Intelligence analysts still do not have a complete picture of the gangs’ activities because the French authorities are failing to tell them when they are successfully stopping crossing attempts.
    The leaked report reveals that of the 2,863 migrants transported by the nine gangs between June 1 and July 12, 1,075 – or 37.5 per cent – were Albanian.

    Indeed, the total from Albania dwarfed other nationalities. Iranians made up the next highest total, with 373 migrants, or 13 per cent of the total. There were 363 migrants from Afghanistan (12.7 per cent of the total), 217 from Iraq (7.6 per cent), 162 from Syria (5.7 per cent) and 163 from Eritrea (5.7 per cent).

    The extraordinary figures vindicate Home Secretary Priti Patel’s view that the majority of those crossing the Channel are ‘effectively economic migrants’ and ‘not genuine asylum seekers’. Although Albania has a high poverty rate, particularly in the north, it is a peaceful country whose leaders are negotiating to join the EU.

    The document also undermines criticism from Left-wing critics – including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby – of Ms Patel’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. In a highly political intervention earlier this year, Archbishop Welby claimed the Rwanda scheme raised ‘serious ethical questions’ and cannot stand the ‘judgment of God’.

    Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith last night said the report proved that people are arriving ‘on an economic migration ticket’ and abusing the asylum system.

    He said: ‘This is proof positive that the threat we face is not an asylum issue, it’s an economic migration issue, which is leading these traffickers to abuse the asylum system. This simply cannot be tolerated.

    ‘This is absolutely clear evidence – in the face of all those on the liberal Left who cry for us to let anyone in – that this is an economic issue and, as such, it is desperate that we get on with the Rwanda programme.’

    Some 28,526 people crossed the Channel in small boats in 2021 but this total is on course to almost double this year. Last Monday 696 migrants arrived – a record daily figure for this year. Another 200 migrants are believed to have crossed the Channel yesterday.

    Amid growing exasperation at the scale of the crisis, Downing Street put the military in charge of tackling the issue earlier this year.

    The leaked document reveals that analysts at Operation Isotrope – the military’s response to the crossings – believe they have now identified nine separate organised crime groups working along the French coast. They have each been given their own codename by intelligence analysts: Dragon, Lotus, Gorgon, Behemoth, Colossus, Titan, Tiamet, Hydra and Leviathan.

    Satellites and drones are believed to have been used to identify each gang’s launch sites and track their crossings, while experts have examined theirinflatable boats for further clues.

    The military has also analysed the nationality of the passengers being carried by each boat.

    The number of Albanians crossing the Channel appears to have dramatically jumped this summer. A total of 757 Albanians crossed the Channel last year, according to Government figures.

    Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, who obtained the leaked report, said: ‘An army of well-intentioned but misguided Left-wing politicians, lawyers and do-gooders have been spinning the line that the vast majority of people who make these dangerous journeys are desperately fleeing war, persecution and terror.

    ‘If these people are not genuinely fleeing for their lives, then it is not up to the British taxpayer to support them.’

    Experts believe the crossings are being fuelled by social media, with brazen people-smugglers – who are charging up to £5,500 per person – posting videos on TikTok to advertise their services.

    In one extraordinary video, posted on July 14, a large group of Albanian men are seen unfurling their country’s red and black national flag, which features a double-headed eagle, while they are crammed on to a small boat crossing the Channel.

    The people-smuggling gang codenamed Hydra transported 302 Albanians across the Channel during the six-week period, equivalent to 62 per cent of all its passengers. The gang uses shorter boats than some of its competitors and made 12 trips, with on average 40 migrants on each boat.

    The Dragon gang was the most prolific, making 18 separate trips and smuggling 887 migrants, including 278 Albanians. The epicentre of its operation is the Petit Fort Philippe beach in the town of Gravelines between Calais and Dunkirk.

    The gang’s network is believed to have been severely disrupted by a major police operation that led to 39 arrests in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

    Astonishingly, Dragon, along with another gang dubbed Lotus, have bought especially customised boats from Chinese manufacturers.

    The boats are believed to have been lengthened and stripped of ‘unnecessary features in order to lower the cost and speed up manufacturing time’, the report states.

    The MoS understands that an Albanian police liaison officer is set to be permanently based in Dover to help deal with the growing problem. However, a Home Office source said there is a shortage of Albanian translators to help process the increased number of migrants.

    Alarmingly, the report reveals that intelligence gathering is being hampered because ‘limited to no data on boats stopped or disrupted by the French is available’. This, the report explains, prevents the UK from gaining an accurate picture of the ‘operating cycle’ of the trafficking gangs.

    It adds that its fight against the gangs ‘is currently limited by a lack of resource, co-ordination between stakeholders, and inconsistent data capture.’

    A Government spokesperson said: ‘The rise in dangerous Channel crossings is unacceptable. People should always claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, rather than risk their lives and line the pockets of ruthless criminal gangs in order to cross the Channel.  

    ‘Under our new Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, we are continuing preparations to relocate those who are making dangerous, unnecessary and illegal journeys into the UK ultimately helping to save lives by deterring others from making life-threatening crossings.’

    TOPICS NEWS

    1. The MoS understands that an Albanian police liaison officer is set to be permanently based in Dover to help deal with the growing problem. However, a Home Office source said there is a shortage of Albanian translators to help process the increased number of migrants

      I say they don’t need to be processed, they must be returned Pronto … booted out.

    2. I thought the Rwanda ‘option’ had already been tried by other countries.

      The Rwandan officials are so corrupt they simply transferred the immigrants to neighbouring countries from where the migrants proceeded to find their way to Europe.

      Let us be honest and agree that the policy of admitting hundreds of thousands of undesirables into European countries and the UK is a deliberate policy set by the corrupt UN and global elite and facilitated by our evil politicians.

    3. “…peaceful Albania…” that’s the place where the Albanians come from. Heavily armed Albanian gangs run the white slave trade in the UK brining young girls into the thr UK to be forced into prostitution. The Albanians are also heavily involved in drug dealing. Our police take no action for the usual reasons, I suppose, bribery and fear.

    1. Good night, Maggie. A beautiful piece of music with visuals to end the day, thank you.

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