731 thoughts on “Sunday 10 November: This general election is about Brexit – which only one party can deliver”

    1. My dog decided to wake me up at 04.45 and then he wouldn’t go back to sleep. He occasionally gets restless nights, but I could have done without this being one of them.

  3. PENSION SEX.

    Two men were talking. ‘So, how’s your sex life?’
    ‘Oh, nothing special. I’m having Pension sex.’
    ‘Pension sex?’
    ‘Yeah, you know; I get a little each month, but not enough to live on!’

    LOUD SEX

    A wife went in to see a therapist and said, ‘I’ve got a big problem, doctor. Every time we’re in bed and my husband climaxes, he lets out this ear-splitting
    yell.’
    ‘My dear,’ the shrink said, ‘that’s completely natural. I don’t see what the problem is.’
    ‘The problem is,’ she complained, ‘it wakes me up!’

    QUIET SEX

    Tired of a listless sex life, the man came right out and asked his wife during a recent lovemaking session,
    ‘How come you never tell me when you have an orgasm?’
    She glanced at him and replied, ‘You’re never home!’

    SEX & ARGUMENTS

    A husband and his wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary The husband yelled, ‘When you die, I’m getting you a headstone that reads: ‘Here Lies My Wife – Cold As Ever’.’
    ‘Yeah,’ she replies, ‘when you die, I’m getting you a headstone that reads: ‘Here Lies My Husband – Stiff At Last.’

    WOMEN’S HUMOROUS SEX

    My husband came home with a tube of K Y jelly and said, ‘This will make you happy tonight.’ He was right. When he went out of the bedroom, I squirted it all
    over the doorknobs. He couldn’t get back in.

    ELDERLY SEX
    One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo and found her 92-year-old husband in bed with another woman. She became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their 20th floor, assisted living apartment, killing him instantly.
    Brought before the court on the charge of murder. the judge asked her if she had anything to say in her defence.
    She began coolly, ‘Yes, your honour. I figured that at 92, if he could have sex…He could also fly.’

      1. The downvotes seem to be rather Mary Whitehouse-ish. Perhaps there are several, but one is either female or an emaculated male.

        1. No Lass, and Good morning.

          The coward seems to have taken agin me and generally targets the funnies. That’s not to say that other posts don’t get down-voted indiscriminately. But, it deters me not, so what the purpose of the exercise is, one cannot say. Certainly the coward cannot voice it’s dislike, so I can only assume it’s illiterate as well.

          1. I have known one of the types of person who downvotes in this way for many years. They have nothing real in their lives. They have no power, influence or prospects. They find that “real people” shun them and they don’t know why. It is their lack of character and unpleasant attitude towards others.

            It is sad to say that they take great delight when people talk about them being a “downvoter” because, to them, they are having an influence on real peoples lives. Far more than they could ever get anywhere else. If you ignore them and don’t even mention them at all, they get very frustrated and go away in a huff.

            There are other types as well, but that is a common one.

          2. ‘Morning, Meredith, I generally do ignore it for precisely the reasons you give but I guess I was just bored and it had been quite quiet recently on that front but had just started up again, yesterday I think.

            I’m actually trying to turn-off the down-vote viewing extension. I’ll keep trying.

          3. Ahh – I should have added, If you are having fun “playing” with them, then that drives them up the wall even more. 🙂

            Ridicule is poison to these sad individuals. People laugh at them in real life, so they do not like it when it happens to them online as well.

          4. Good morning, Tom!

            It’s nothing, compared to the rest of us who appreciate your ability to give us the oasis of a smile, in this howling wilderness of political treason.

            The twit seems to take on whatever is within its eyesight, perhaps it has a quota. Let’s see if I get one.

            Nya, nya, downvoter, come on, downvote this.

    1. Morning clyde

      As was noted yesterday, Martin Howe QC was also on the candidate list for Beaconsfield (his recent overt support for BoJo’s WA travesty in the pages of the DT and elsewhere was a pre-requirement to even get on the list – Howe sold out before he even realised he had a price-tag around his neck for the mere bauble of perhaps standing for parliament – Grieve had a majority of some 24,000 at the last election when standing as a ‘Conservative’)

      Joy Morrisey has an ‘interesting’ background. Her Dad ‘leads a church’ in Ohio (shades of May?), she went to LSE, married a Brit, boasted on Twitter that she signed a petition to ban Trump from visiting UK, went on an anti-Trump Demo, and thinks all the Calais ‘refugees’ should be welcomed into the UK, In a brief career on the silver screen, she co-starred in a ‘comedy bonk fest’ Geek Mythology. Obviously a LibDem in CCHQ clothing.
      https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article10564002.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Tory-candidate-rode-a-man-like-a-horse-in-smutty-film.jpg

      Things were much the same at the Conservative Party candidate selection meeting in the Corn Exchange, Devizes yesterday afternoon. The local Brexit Party candidate has stood down so those of us who have done much to persuade the appalling Claire Perry to clear off and seek pastures new are faced with little choice. There were six names originally on the slate, three local Leavers (my favoured candidate being ex-army and a proper farmer) and three from CCHQ. Over the past couple of weeks, CCHQ disqualified all three locals for spurious reasons, the Chairman resigned in disgust, and there was a grumbling hum as 350 souls gathered in the Corn Exchange. Numerous ‘Points of Order’ were dismissed out of hand. The three hopefuls then took their turns on stage. First up was a woman (Remain voter) from Hampshire who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Next up was Sir Ashley Fox from Bristol (Remain voter and former leader of Tory MEPs – Treeza knighted him when he lost his seat in the elections for the Euro talking shop) who gave a wooden CCHQ approved performance. Last was Danny Kruger (from Lunnon, Leave voter, and Prue Leith’s son; speech writer for Cameron and now for Boris). Some people ‘wrote in’ local candidates on the ballot paper but obviously Kruger won in the first round; he was the only Old Etonian.

      1. Perhaps I have given my support too soon. Not an”ardent” Brexiteer then.I am sure the Brexit Party team will be watching these new consevative candidates closely. [edited to complete sentence]

      2. Eddisbury has adopted the remain campaigner Edward Timpson to succeed his remain campaigning colleague, Antoinette Sandbach. Talking to people it seems like “pin a blue rosette on a donkey and hope history doesn’t repeat itself” time.

      3. zxcv3 – information such as this is very useful. The teenagers in CCHQ, with their “One Europe” vision, have crammed the party with Remainer MP’s before. It would appear that they are doing it again. The rot still runs deep. What is the point of replacing one hard-core Remainer with another one? You will still have an MP who will work to stop us leaving the EU while wearing a blue rosette.

    2. In mine we have a bar steward who has a degree in politics. I was a Sun reader, so I’d vote for Ms. Morrisey to run the country.
      PS. He looks 22-23

  5. Good Morning, all

    A blast from the past

    SIR – The appeal from Ian Austin, the former Labour MP, to the electorate to vote Conservative calls to mind the February 1974 general election, when Enoch Powell left the Conservative Party and joined the Ulster Unionists because of his implacable opposition to our membership of the European Economic Community (as it then was) and his visceral dislike of Edward Heath, the prime minister.

    Powell urged voters to support Labour, stood down as a candidate for re-election in his Wolverhampton South West constituency and said he would vote for the Labour candidate – my sister Helene, now Baroness Hayman. Labour, then in government, went on to hold the 1975 referendum. Ian Austin says that he will not become a Tory; Powell said that he would always be a Tory.

    Déjà vu? Not quite.

    Laurence Middleweek
    London NW3

  8. SIR – As the general election campaigns gather pace, coalitions are mooted and considerations of tactical voting emerge, there is one simple truth. This election is unique and exclusively about Brexit. It is, in effect, a referendum by another name. A vote for a party other than the Conservatives will strengthen the probability of a government led by Jeremy Corbyn, and a continuation of the Brexit debacle forever.

    The only tactical vote worth considering, which demands head over heart, is to vote on this occasion for a Conservative majority. Subsequent elections could then be taken as a reflection of the real political map of the country.

    Charles Holden
    Micheldever, Hampshire

    1. The only tactical vote worth considering, which demands head over heart, is to vote on this occasion for a Conservative majority. Subsequent elections could then be taken as a reflection of the real political map of the country.

      Since the Conservatives are not offering BREXIT it would require you to hold both your nose and your breath. Subsequent elections would have no effect on a decision taken to implement BRINO. Vote Brexit Party. Everything else is a lie!

    2. Charles, if people vote Conservative they will get May’s deal with Boris’ tweaks. What they will NOT get is Brexit.

  9. Morning all

    SIR – Having lived for many years in north-west Colorado in America, and having been part of an energy group which gave detailed consideration to fracking, I am dismayed that the British Government has called a halt to fracking operations in this country.

    After careful investigation, trials, analysis, and testing, our group concluded that any dangers to the local community, environment, and water table supply, were very minimal. Minor earthquakes were nothing out of the ordinary. The local and state governments agreed with our findings and granted licences for fracking in various locations. The local communities were engaged in consultation discussions and the authorities imposed some tough conditions on the drilling operations, with severe penalties in the event of non-compliance. The shale gas operators themselves understood and accepted their responsibilities, and went to great lengths to allay any concerns.

    Britain needs to become its own energy supplier, and fracking can be a way towards that end.

    William Cousins
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – The determinant for shale gas production is the permeability of the shale, and this varies widely. The first test results from Cuadrilla, the oil and gas exploration company, were published a few months ago and the flow rates were not viable.

    There will be no more fracking in Britain. This has nothing to do with the environment or the protests – just plain old geology.

    V T Evenson
    Didcot, Oxfordshire

    1. The protests against fracking come from the environmental fascists who seek our decline and fall as cold kills off those that disagree with them and no doubt a good few of those that do.

    2. Actually, fracking could be carried out in the North Sea*. No worries for those who live above the workings concerning their houses.

      *per Professor of Geology speaking on radio a couple of years ago on radio in car. No link.

  10. Morning again

    SIR – I hope that this weekend the country remembers a “forgotten” war in Italy. Seventy-five years ago this bloody campaign was coming to a successful conclusion for the Allies – but not before many thousands had been killed or wounded.

    Having begun in Sicily and advanced north, the real battle started at Monte Cassino. Then came the landings of Allied troops at the resort town of Anzio. My uncle took part in the latter and eventually participated in the capture of Rome and Florence before being killed in the Apennines on the Gothic Line.

    During this time the Normandy landings were taking place. Those soldiers came home heroes while, unfairly, the Italian campaigners were ridiculed as D-Day dodgers.

    I have just returned from Faenza where I visited my uncle’s war grave, exactly 75 years to the day after he was killed. He was aged 21 and died two months before I was born. I had a guided tour of the Gothic Line and saw for myself the inhospitable terrain where our brave soldiers fought in atrocious weather conditions. In many respects it was far worse than the war in western Europe.

    My lasting thought is how genuine, even today, the heartfelt thanks of the Italians is, for the sacrifices the Allied army made for their country.

    David Hartridge
    Leicester

    1. I don’t believe that the Italian Campaign is forgotten, nor that it was coming to a successful conclusion. The decision for Normandy was undoubtedly correct.

      1. My father-in-law fought in Italy and he described it as very grim. Mountainous terrain with rivers running across the peninsula was not ideal tank country and he was in 6th Armoured Division. It really was a road to nowhere but it did tie down many German formations that would have been useful in Normandy.
        As for coming to a successful conclusion, anyone can speculate with ifs, buts and could have beens. However, many senior officers involved, including Americans, were appalled at Mark Clark’s decision to change the direction of his 5th Army so as to take Rome instead of cutting off the retreating German Army and destroying it. That move allowed Clark to become the first conqueror for centuries to take Rome from the South; a dubious success when the other option was the destruction of your enemy. Worse for Clark, he took Rome and a day later Overlord commenced and his success was short-lived in the public’s eye. General Alexander, Clark’s commander, should have ordered him to cut off the Germans but that was not Alexander’s style.

        1. Having seen the terrain in Sicily and around Sorrento, I can only admire their bravery. The land is bad enough without Germans bombarding you night and day.

        2. Just reading a book about that episode which comes to the same conclusion. Clark wanted to take Rome at all costs, so allowed the German army to retreat in good order. It prolonged the fighting considerably.

          1. Greetings Conway. Taking an “Open City” should never be the first priority, when the opposition is in full retreat from said city.

            (edited).

          2. I’ve always considered the priority to be destroying the enemy and his capacity to fight back. But then, what do I know? I wore RAF blue 🙂

          3. Manila was declared an “Open City” but the Japanese military decided to annihilate ~900,000 civilians during their exit from the Philippines (100,000 within Manila proper)… .

          4. Conway, Clark was a bloody disgrace in throwing away the sacrifices made at Anzio and further South, just to massage his vanity and Alexander completely failed in his duty as Army Group Commander in not ensuring that the Germans were trapped and defeated in detail. Clark could then have had his moment in Rome with the added kudos of having seen the Germans off in Italy.

          5. Apparently, they bombed the monastery at Monte Cassino thinking the Germans were using it as an observation post. They weren’t, but once it was ruined it became a strong defensive position for them.

      1. I first heard this song being performed by Hamish Imlach in a small folk club in Ashington in 1969.

    5. Apparently, someone involved in the Battle of Anzio prayed, “Dear God, help us! Come yourself; don’t send Jesus – this is no place for children”.

  11. Telegraph this morning.

    Prime Minister to quadruple the number of migrant workers that can take up seasonal jobs on British farms next year

    These people, according to the article, are NON EU immigrants and only amount to 7,500.

    Not much support BTL for this Johnson initiative.

    ========================================================================================================================
    BTL

    Simon Groom 10 Nov 2019 7:58AM
    We cannot sustain this. It’s already been proven that our population has risen from 59 million in 2001 to around 80 million today.

    Why do you think the Government abolished the ten yearly Census?

    Pierre Sauvon 10 Nov 2019 7:53AM
    Mass migration through another innovative Tory door. No border checks as to who is coming in or out.

    Why not say to young people who are unemployed–here’s a job, take it or leave your benefits behind. We have a population of c. 70M and there must be enough to work in the agricultural industry.

    Telegraph – Johnson to Quadruple Non EU Seasonal Workers Next Year

      1. Terrorist loving HARD LEFT Jeremy Corbyn friend of Jerry Adams .
        Jew hater English hater and Muzzie lover.
        Chose your PM .

        1. Corbyn does seem to favour the more uncivilised people. It’s probably deflection – he is so inadequate himself that he only feels comfortable with people of his own ilk, and what he might perceive as lower.

          1. Even the most uncivilized people these days know
            the difference between good and evil.
            The man eating tribes of Borneo thought eating other
            humans was quite acceptable until western influence
            suggested it wasn’t quite right and now they don’t eat people.
            Corbyn is far too comfortable with people who lack
            humanity or any sense of morality.

          2. Quite – he has very little of either, himself. In his case for “morality” read “dogmatism”.

    2. The so-called Conservatives are in favour of: climate change legislation, mass immigration, transgender in primary schools, political correctness and hate speech laws. They are trying to outbid Labour on spending on the NHS without any hint of reform. They are not recognisably conservative.

      They are trying to fool us with a ‘Brexit in name only’ EU treaty. They are not the party of Brexit.

      Why should any conservative or Brexiteer vote for them? We would just be voting for more of the same shiiittte we’ve had for the last thirty years. Forget tactical voting. Vote for a party you actually believe in. At least you will feel clean.

      1. Why vote Conservative ?

        Because the Conservative Party is the stop Jeremy Corbyn Party.

        The BXP is not.

    3. The amount of migrant labour needed for crop picking is very low. It is increasingly being automated and it is only seasonal work. I most cases as well the same workers will go from farm to farm to pick crops so the amount of equivalent full time jobs is low . If you count vacancies it can seem high though

      1. During the 1950s, the pea picking season turned Coggeshall into an English Dodge City.
        ‘Travellers’ rocked up for those weeks. Foremen had to check every sack as the workers would shovel loads of earth into them to quickly bring them up to weight.

        1. Now days peas are mainly picked by machine. They will go from the field to the processing plant and be frozen within 24 hours. Most frozen pears are fresher than those you buy at a greengrocers will if you have one. They can be weeks old

      2. According to what I have read, many “temporary” farm workers are neither temporary nor full-time. They insist on being part-time so that they can claim benefits for the hours they don’t work. I believe 20 16 hours/week is enough to entitle them to benefits.

        1. That also applies to office jobs. I remember a personnel assistant who claimed she couldn’t work more than 16 hours because she was a single mother with a young daughter. This went on for 18 years and her employers knew darn well that the girl had her own latch key and a succession of temporary ‘uncles’. The only way to get rid of the woman was to make her job redundant.

          2. The benefits system needs reform it encourages part time work. You can be better off working part time and collecting benefits

    4. Talking to someone who works on a farm and employs workers there, she was very clear: the natives don’t want the job, they don’t work very hard and they’re lazy.

      The ‘Europeans’ she takes on are motivated, arrive on time and do the job happily and well.

      From her perspective she just doesn’t want the natives. She’s tired fo dealing with the welfare scammers.

      1. The answer is not to import Europeans, or anyone else. It is to kick the “welfare scammers” up their sit-upons.

      2. Too many of the natives have been coddled and spoilt for too long.
        Having said that, we have some “natives” working very hard re-laying our patio, after they’ve just finished weeks of hard work on a neighbours garden. Less planting, more excavating.

    5. Most people (at least those that count) live in towns and cities and think food grows in supermarkets.

      I support the use of temporary visas for seasonal workers. It requires rather better border controls than we have right now. Is it really so hard to issue `NI numbers for such workers, to stamp their passports in and out, and have a mechanism for pushing out those lacking the correct documentation before clever lawyers insist that all non-approved migrants must be supported indefinitely, along with their extended famillies?

      It seems to me more a Treasury matter – we do not believe in the “Big State” and therefore leave such things to Serco and G4S, who will take the money and then leave it to a depleted army to sort out properly,

      1. A local fruit and top notch asparagus grower already has seasonal workers from mainly, I think, Romania.
        They live in permanent caravans on the site; they arrive approx March (I was amused to see several crates of beer being unloaded – must keep the right priorities) and leave in October. There is one woman whose English is good enough to serve in the shop; from a hesitant start, she can now engage in chit chat and even smile!

      3. Currently crop picking is used as a back door way into the UK and some of the figures given out as to how many people are need to pick crops is vastly exaggerated

    3. It is as if Nature is flipping a light switch on and off here in Cornwall. One minute blinding sunshine that forces you to draw the curtains to be able to see the computer screen, the next dark clouds blanket the sky. Here comes the Sun again.

  14. “Funnelling money to stop Brexit at the ballot box”…..

    Goodness me, I wonder who would do such a thing ?

    1. At the moment Pol, there’s a fairly broad choice from anyone in th eestablishment who’ll lose out.

  16. The NHS

    It is back to being a political football. A big problem is no accurate data is available. It is commonly claimed that the NHS has a 100,000 vacancies and this is used to try to justify mass migration. WE don’t actually know how short of staff as there are no central records and the 100,000 is based mainly on the number of vacancies identified but there is a lot of duplication and out of date data

    Another factor is the 100,000 does not mean their are a 100,000 jobs being done. These post are filled by temporary and bank staff so the number of positional actually unfilled is quite low

    Poor management with in the NHS has allowed the use of temporary and bank staff to escalate out of control in fact many new nurses once they have completed their training leave and return s temporary staff. Temporary in many case being misleading in that they may will have been doing the same job for several years on a temporary basis

    Other problems with the NHS are poor to non existent long term workforce planning.

    Yest another problem is the NHS has just drifted into the approach of being reliant on migrant staff but with migrant staff you get a high turnover and the NHS has almost exhausted the supply of migrants it has become more and more difficult and expensive to recruit them

    Yes another problem is the failure of the NHS to train staff in fact under the Coalition government they actually reduced the number of training places by 6000 even now there are about 5 times as many applicants as training places yet the NHS has no real plans to scale up the number of training places

    Yet another problem is health tourism and the failure of the NHS to charge non UK residents for their treatment this starves the NHS of scarce finance

    Yes another problem is mass migration. Only about 2% of migrants that arrive will work in the NHS and many of those in non medical roles

    Further problems are the inherent inefficiencies in the NHS and the poor processes and procedures. In Europe an out patient can be seen and treated the same day, In the UK it is typically a long drawn out process involving several appointments and endless letters

    Yes another problem is the very poor procurement and supply chain in the NHS

    1. Yes another problem is the NHS attempts to make it family friendly. This has led to most nurses and only working 9m to 5pm with the other shifts and weekends having to be filled by bank and temporary staff. IT is not unusual for Nurses to work for the NHS part time and then do temporary or bank work

      1. I don’t think so. They decided to go for 12 hour shifts, which means that they get 3 days on, 4 days off, but work extra shifts to make more money. That’s led to overtired nurses and lack of care continuity.

        1. One nurse in NHS Borders could work in three different wards in the course of a normal week, as standard practice. This is because HR give employees what they want, aka family friendly, work/life balance, preferred hours, part-time work.
          It is a management nightmare, both on the wards, and in terms of allocating costs of salaries etc to correct Cost Centres.
          Nor is this scenario exceptional, far from it.

    2. The NHS needs to go back to some of the old rules such as restricted visiting hours, restricted number of visitors and strict senior nurses [matrons?] This will give nurses and cleaners time to get on with their vital work.

      1. …and forget ‘Graduate’ nurses. Train them on-the-job as used to be done under Sister Tutor. Much more effective and leads to a greater dedication to Nursing rather than climbing the greast pole of promotion after promotion with no other thought thant to get up to the next step – and sod the patient-care, they’re just a distraction.

        Good morning, Clyde.

      2. A neighbour, an ex-nurse confirmed to us what we already thought, i.e. that with the requirement to have a degree to go into nursing meant that the nurses don’t get ward-based training, and that they don’t view basic patient care as being part of their job. They want to specialise, become a ward manager, and sit in front of a pc. Patients are a nuisance…

  17. ‘Completely bizarre’: Grieve campaigns to overturn his Tory majority. Sat 9 Nov 2019.

    The former Tory MP, who was stripped of the Conservative whip by Boris Johnson for trying to stop a no-deal Brexit and in effect barred by his local association from standing for the party again, is not going quietly. To the horror of Conservative HQ, Grieve, the articulate and charming former attorney general, is contesting as an independent the normally safe Tory seat of Beaconsfield, which he has represented for his former party since 1997 – and he seems to be in with a chance. The constituency has included Marlow since 2010.

    It’s quite clear from his behaviour since the referendum that Grieve was never a Conservative. He is and always has been the EU representative for Beaconsfield, in fact even his standing now as an Independent is a lie. He is campaigning for the EU!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/09/dominic-grieve-campaign-trail-beaconsfield

    1. “….the articulate and charming former attorney general, ”

      I must admit that his shocking bad looks and very ugly, dismal face prejudice me against Grieve but one thing he certainlyis not is charming – he is petulant and socially gauche.

      1. Remember that he went to the Lycée in South Kensington and that his late mum was French. As far as I can tell, he is entitled to French citizenship should he ever wish to apply. And Dominic is a Catholic christian name, although he is Anglican.

        1. Well, did he do French National Service?
          A pupil in my class was called up by the French. He had never been to France.

          1. good point.
            If Mr Grieve’s mother was still a French citizen when he was born, he may claim citizenship. He is now too old for national service, and in any case there was a civil alternative, eg social work.
            The Australians take dual nationality seriously with regards to members of parliament.

    2. In Beaconsfield, he stands a fair chance of getting in, notwithstanding. It was a very close thing in the referendum, and I’m not sure that the constituents will vote out someone who has been their MP for nearly a decade. I’m also not sure if, and if so, who the Tories are fielding.

      Edit – just seen who they are fielding below.

      2. If people who call themselves Conservatives will still vote for Dominic Grieve, after all that he has done and still wants to do, then there are some serious problems in the grass roots as well as the party machinery. I can only put it down to a lack of understanding of what his goals are and what they will do to the United Kingdom.

        Voters such as these are the real threat to the future of this country. Many Labour voters have realised what has been done to their traditional party and won’t vote for Corbyn. But many of them are in the “front line” and can already see the future of this country if we do not get out of the EU as their towns and cities are being overrun.

        I hope the Conservatives can realise what has been done to their party as well. We do tend to have far more life experience and ought to be able to see “a good hosing” when we are being given one.

        1. I guess your last sentence depends on where the Conservative voters live, whether they personally are affected, and if not, whether they look to the greater good of the people in this country rather than just
          themselves. I have found the the last of these criteria has applied to most of the remainers I know, of whatever political persuasion..

        2. I think that there are indeed some serious problems with some of the Conservative grass roots, l as well as the party machinery.

    3. My father was born and bred in Marlow.
      I hope the current Marlovians (?) have inherited his quiet common sense.

  19. Don’t forget to look out for Delboy in the parade past the Cenotaph. At 6’4” he might stand out.

    1. It is almost as if some people are seeing the real “internal poll” numbers and not the fake ones that the media use. They realise that MP’s who will actually work to get us out of the EU will be getting elected and that is causing them to panic. So they are asking those who want us to Leave the EU to step down altogether. Hmmm.

      But surely, if the polls that we are fed are true, then The Brexit Party are no threat at all. There was even one they talked about last night that put TBP dropping to 6%… If that were true then there would be no need to beg them not to stand as MP’s.

      That was an outstanding moment last night though. With people on the comments pages of Conservative papers and sites shouting at Boris to work with Farage to get us out of the EU, to now actually pretend that only 1 in 20 members of the population would vote for The Brexit Party shows some nerve. Especially with the Labour Party exploding in front of us, and their chances in the North being wiped out, yet they are still getting 26% of the vote?

      I am reminded of those famous final days in the bunker with failing Adolf ordering non-existent units into battle and thinking that he could still win. The Remainers must be desperate to be reduced to the point of asking Brexit Party candidates not to run against them at all.

      1. I was interviewed by an ID-carrying pollster. Afterwards I realised that they knew something that I hadn’t told them.
        Scary. My guess is that all polling companies are secretly obliged to share information with the authorities, and may use the cover of polls to gather information.

      2. Good morning, Meredith

        If one looks at the Top Comments under each and every article about Brexit in the Daily Telegraph one will see that they are all in favour of a proper Brexit rather than BRINO and can see that the only way to get that will be if Farage and Johnson make a pact.

        I would summarise the situation as something like:

        i) Without a Con/BP pact:

        VOTE TORY get BRINO
        VOTE BREXIT PARTY get Lab/Lin/Dem/Green

        ii) With a Con/BP pact

        VOTE TORY/BP and get a Conservative Government and a proper Brexit

        Why is Johnson incapable of seeing this? I can only conclude that he would rather lose the election than have a proper Brexit.

        1. I am more optimistic and believe that God/Fate/Fortune will shine down upon the United Kingdom, as has happened so many times before, and one of two things will happen:

          1: Boris will completely wreck the election and we will have a hung Parliament with the Brexit Party being able to remind the Conservative MP’s what their job really is. The Brexit Party has lots of older, more experienced people in it and the “wet behind the ears” new Conservatives may need guidance. This will lead to Boris and other Remainers being bypassed and our country getting the real Brexit that Nigel Farage is trying to offer them now.

          2: The realities of how bad this EU-written Withdrawal Agreement is will become common knowledge among Conservative voters and they will join the exodus of Labour voters and the Brexit Party gain the same success that they achieved in the recent European Elections. It happened only a few months ago and only we can stop it happening again. Then we can wave goodbye to the EU without Boris, the Labour Party, or the failed Remain Alliance being able to do a damn thing to stop us. 🙂

          I do not believe that voting for The Brexit Party will lead to a “Remain alliance” getting into power at all. They are fighting like rats in a sack already. The Remain vote will split all over the place. But the pro-eu media won’t breathe a word of that.

          Voting for The Brexit Party will stop Boris getting the majority that he needs to overturn the Referendum result and lock us under EU control until our invasion is complete. It is as simple as that. Freedom or EU suppression.

          Our ancestors had to fight to be free. We just need to put a cross in a box. This Withdrawal Agreement betrayal must be stopped.

    2. Just had an irate email from a chum who actually watches the programme.
      I value my blood pressure.

  22. A late good morning to all my friends after a long lie in.

    Here is Hanan’s anti-Farage article and my comment beneath it

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/10/nigel-farage-would-rather-scupper-brexit-let-somebody-else-deliver/

    Nigel Farage would rather scupper Brexit than let somebody else deliver it

    Donna Jones organised the Leave campaign in Portsmouth in 2016. She did a good job: that patriotic naval city voted to come out by 58.1 per cent. Now, Donna is the Conservative candidate in Portsmouth South.

    Yet, according to the latest poll, she is currently trailing the Liberal Democrats – because of a Brexit Party challenge. The latest local poll in Portsmouth South has the Lib Dems on 30 per cent, the Conservatives on 27 and the Brexit Party on 14.

    Other Tory Brexiteers find themselves in the same position: Caroline Ansell in Eastbourne, Maria Caulfield in Lewes, even Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford. The Brexit Party could, paradoxically, give all these seats to candidates who want to annul the referendum.

    Remainers, naturally, are delighted. They have always secretly thought that Eurosceptics are dunderheads. Their newspaper, The New European, carried a picture of Nigel Farage in a Stop Brexit hat. Its headline? “Remain’s Secret Weapon”.

    Why, at the moment when Brexit is about to be delivered, is something called “the Brexit Party” fighting an election at all? That party cannot deliver Brexit, but could yet prevent it.

    While that might suit some Brexit Party MEPs, who are enjoying the attention and the expenses, it surely can’t be what most Eurosceptics want. Farage, who isn’t standing himself, insists that he is targeting Labour Leavers; but that is not the effect of his campaign.

    As Sir John Curtice puts it, “If you look at the transfers at the moment, something like for every one person who switched from Labour to the Brexit Party there are two that switched from the Conservatives.”

    On current numbers, according to Electoral Calculus, if the Brexit Party contests every constituency, it will fail to win any MPs, but it will forestall a Conservative majority, pushing seats such as Cheadle, Cheltenham, Cornwall North, St Albans and Taunton Deane to the Lib Dems while gifting Hendon, Northampton South, Pendle, Pudsey and others to Labour. So why not offer Farage a pact?

    Two reasons. First, it wouldn’t increase the Eurosceptic majority in Parliament. The Brexit Party is not in a position to win seats, and the sorts of constituency where it is keenest to stand are precisely those which the Conservatives might take from Labour.

    Second, Farage is insisting on something he knows to be undeliverable, namely that Boris Johnson abandon a deal supported by the vast majority of Leave voters. Many Brexit Party politicians had decided in advance that any deal Boris brought back from Brussels would be unacceptable.

    First, they claimed that his agreement kept us in the Common Fisheries Policy. It doesn’t: Britain becomes a coastal state, like Iceland or Norway.

    Then they asserted that it would keep us in an extended transition for years. Again, it doesn’t: the transition ends on Dec 31 2020.

    Now they argue that the subsequent trade deal will commit us to EU standards. But that won’t happen – unless they succeed in weakening Boris’s majority.

    Boris’s deal. which brings back control of our laws, trade and taxes, is “not Brexit”? Seriously? Try putting in a Lib-Lab-SNP government. Then you’ll see what “not Brexit” looks like.

    I had hoped that the Brexit Party would, to borrow Farage’s favourite phrase, “put country before party”. But it looks as though he would rather lose Brexit than see it delivered by someone else.

    Like the Remainers, he is now paradoxically depending on Leavers being too dim to see their own interests. I suspect that, like the Remainers, he is wrong.


    Daniel.

    You overlook the fact that Boris’s deal is offering BRINO and not Brexit.

    Boris is being offered the support of the leader of the British party with the largest number of seats in the EU parliament but he is rejecting that offer.

    The person who is trying to ruin Brexit is clearly Boris Johnson: i) by not offering a proper Brexit; and ii) by snubbing Nigel Farage’s offer of help.

    1. Whilst a Free trade deal would in my view be the best option we are where we are largely down to May. There is very little support for the sol called No deal approach from either the electorate or the politicians

      Remember as well Boris’s deal has not gone through so their is still scope to make changed to the political document

      The Remain parties with the exception of Labour are working together. This could have some impact on the result. If Labour where to joining in Boris could be in real trouble

      Boris and Nigel need to see sense and work together

      1. What numbers ( seats ) does Nigel Farage in parliament,
        In terms of being able to help the Conservative government.
        The House of Commons is stuffed full of Labour / SNP/ Lib Dems /
        Greens ( just the one ) and the others with the exception of
        The DUP. What electoral reality do the Brexit Party actually
        have unless they have seats to counterbalance what
        Is the collective voting patterns of Remain Mps in
        The House of Commons. If the Conservative Party have
        even less seats and Labour do a deal with the SNP
        they will stop Brexit in it’s entirety and we will
        still be blessed with a HARD LEFT
        dangerous,intolerant and extreme totalitarian dictatorship.

        1. What you have written sums it up. Without seats the Brexit Party can just make noises from the sidelines. If it gains a reasonable number of seats say 10 it could have an impact but on current polls the Brexit Party is set to gain Zero seats as it is only on about 10%. with a deal with the Conservatives though that could gain them some seats

          A problem the Brexit part has and Nigel has failed to address that is that it has no policies other than Brexit and that’s costing them support

          The other issue is tir has become even more the Nigel Far rage Party than UKIP was. . The Brexit Party have some excellent people and speakers in it but they are not really being used

        2. Even if the BP win no seats at all they can still take enough votes to scupper the Conservatives.

          We must never forget that The Conservatives are offering a BRINO which will enslave Britain to the EU for the foreseeable future. A Con/BP pact would lead not only to a Conservative government but also to a proper Brexit.

          Is it vanity and hubris that stops Johnson from seeing this or is he really determined that Britain remains a vassal state and does not get a proper Brexit?

          2. But what good does it do being enslaved to the EU through a BRINO which could well be even worse that staying in the EU?

          3. That is a grross exaggeration. WE will be out of the Single Market and the Customs Union and in most cases the ECJ with the exception of NI where some differences apply

          4. We can be trapped for many years. Barnier, Juncker and Tusk are already gloating at the prospect.

          10. Bill quite often does not know what he is talking about. The day that I witnessed him bluffing and making “factual statements” that were complete lies was the day that I stopped reading his comments. I skip them now to read the responses. It is entertaining when he is caught out talking to someone who knows far more about a subject than he pretends to. 🙂

            I would call him Cliff Clavin, but that character was more amusing at times. Now for lunch.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4967715a75805392fb345f105c83796a112a3df7494977f1ba03c5720ef21ceb.jpg

          11. “…out of the Single Market and the Customs Union and in most cases the ECJ…”
            You know that is complete fluff.
            The EU will determine our trade relations within the EU and without. Level playing field and all that. They will be legally able to set our customs duties and tariffs. ECJ supervises and arbitrates. That covers “Single Market” and “Customs Union”. There will be no change to the reality, except for the worse. It just won’t be called “Single Market” and “Customs Union”
            The ECJ remains the Supreme Court for everything related to trade and commerce. It will cease to be the Supreme Court in respect of criminal and domestic civil cases, that’s all.

          13. Good question. The answer involves a finger sliding across a throat.

            We could always ditch Corbyn, but not vassalage.

          14. It means remaining in the EU, with the chance to leave – with the price of a Labour government for five years.

          15. Oh come on. Without seats there isn’t any actual authority
            to actually influence, as it is there are too many leftist
            leaning parties who predominate the House of Commons
            and try and gerrymander a legitimate vote.
            If Nigel Farage wants to help he can win some seats and
            offer to help afterwards,otherwise it’s just pipe dreams
            and as useful as a chocolate teapot.

          16. I think you miss my point which is that, even without winning any seats, the BP could ruin the chance of the Conservatives winning enough seats to form a government.

            Many avid Brexiteers see the Boris BRINO as even worse than staying in the EU and think that it would be better to start again from scratch rather than being imprisoned by the octopus like tentacles that the EU will wrap Britain in with the Boris Balls Up.

            How many Westminster seats did UKIP have when Farage led the referendum campaign to leave the EU? And how many seats did the BP have before winning more seats in the European Parliament than any other British party?

          17. But this isn’t about the European Parliament, it’s about
            our parliament that isn’t representative of the electorate –
            all of them will always vote against the government on
            Brexit, they have the votes and power to do so.
            There is also the additional issues of having
            a potential government made up of Labour
            and the Lib Dems.
            If Nigel Farage gets his wish and stops the Conservatives,
            I assume he’ll stick around and deal with the alternative
            or is he like a fox in a hen house and will run off smiling.

          18. Afternoon R,
            I have no trust in farage
            at all, but let us remember when he was posing as UKIP leader he offered his services to may in regards to Trump etc,etc & was turned down.
            This is not an anti brexit group, ogga1 is pro brexit group.

          20. Afternoon A,
            I am well aware of that, what I was pointing out was that the ersatz tory party had knocked back common sense help before as in, them staying true to the eu.

      2. BJ,
        Whatever title they like to call it there is only one that is sound
        and honest.
        Total severance.

    2. Haven’t read what you’ve said as I’m in a rush. Hannan started backtracking on College Green at 10am on 24th June 2016. He was a plant just like the rest of the lead Tories on Vote Leave.

      1. We (UKIP members who campaigned for leave under the Vote Leave banner) were convinced VL had been given the official designation because they didn’t really want to win the referendum and actually leave.

        1. We’ve already had this conversation, matey. Good to see your memory is worse than mine, which takes some doing. I didn’t know there were other groups I just went for the “official” one and worked it out that that was why they got the authority, as they were there to fail.
          This article which I’ve posted a million times tells you all you need to know.
          Did you go to bed?
          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3665146/SARAH-VINE-Victory-vitriol-craziest-days-life.html

          2. Should have taken him out for a walk and tired him out. But I was on about going to bed on the night of 23rd June 2019. Michael went to bed at 10.30pm.

    3. “…a deal supported by the vast majority of Leave voters…”
      That flat out demonstrable lie destroys this article.
      Article 50 says nothing about a “deal”. It’s only one page. Any reference to negotiation puts the onus on the EU not the departing country.
      The idea, the proposition, the suggestion, the preparation, the connivance of the EU, the presentation, of a “deal” all came after the Brexit Referendum.
      We have not been asked about a “deal” and nor should we be. We voted out.
      The “deal” came after the vote so any comments about support or other wise are unfounded speculation, and are lies.

    2. Poor man – to live to see what he fought for, and some of his comrades died for, reduced to this snivelling cesspit of EUphile traitors and lickspittles in Parliament.

        1. Hello Ogga,

          That wasn’t my point – which is a serious one. Lay off when it comes to this subject, please. It’s too sad for point-scoring.

          Edit: I have just seen that you have two downvotes. Just to assure you that neither of them came from me.

  24. Jeremy Corbyn didn’t attend the ceremony of remembrance
    the other evening, had other engagements probably.
    Just hope and pray that he isn’t prime minister on
    Friday 13th December .

      1. Oh I think it does. Both the hard left and the EU are
        totalitarian dictatorships, it’s the difference between
        a cyanide pill and a shot gun.
        Jeremy Corbyn shared a platform with terrorists who’ve
        said Israel has no right to exist. Corbyn was allegedly a member
        of the KGB. He supported the IRA. He wants to remove
        our nuclear deterrent, we wants to disband our army.
        He wants immigrants from the middle East to bring
        their relatives over. He wants to stop us detaining
        asylum seekers from Calais and much much more .

          3. Hmm, she has the ear of the 48% remain vote,
            she might be Prime Minister on Friday 13th December.

          4. Any Anglophone country prepared to offer asylum to a ‘mature’ Violet Elizabeth Bott?
            Pretty please.

  25. Spiked on the EU censorship of the net

    This will have serious consequences. For a start, an EU-wide takedown

    order issued by a court in one EU country must therefore be enforced

    throughout the EU. But there is more. What was said about

    Glawischnig-Piesczek was not only fairly tame by most people’s standards

    — it was also protected speech under the First Amendment in the US, and

    probably under free-speech legislation in numerous other jurisdictions.

    Yet, according to the ECJ, it is now quite acceptable for an EU

    national court to issue orders about what Americans and others can can

    view in their own countries, regardless of their own free-speech laws.

    And it’s now quite acceptable for the ECJ to threaten sanctions against

    any company with a European presence that disobeys its orders. Not

    surprisingly this has already caused outrage among American free-speech advocates. But it should also worry anyone in the UK concerned with keeping the internet open and border-free.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/06/the-eu-a-menace-to-internet-freedom/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17641067631f063ddcd8a66ae8510400d8ccd1cd4c8070778f6358f02bd685d5.png

    1. Real nomenklatura stuff, worthy of East Germany and the rest of the USSR. But the UK already marched down that road when it decided to enable prosecution of alleged secks offences worldwide (but outside of the EU).

  26. Outrage after Jeremy Corbyn fails to attend Festival of Remembrance for war dead

    He is doing himself no favours. It will probably have little impact on his London bubble supporters but outside of London it will have a significant impact

    TWITTER erupted in outrage last night amidst unconfirmed reports Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn failed to attend the festival of remembrance in Albert Hall.

    The annual event commemorates British service personal who died in the line of duty. Pictures confirmed the attendance of Boris Johnson, his partner Carrie Symonds and a number of leading royals.

    However there was no sign of Mr Corbyn or shadow chancellor John McDonnell, sparking outrage on social media.

    1. Arguably that is one hypocritical act they did not do, then. They don’t care about the fallen. They don’t care about the British population now. THEY DON’T CARE.

      1. He did turn up at the Cenotaph but having no senior representation from the Labour Party at the Albert Hall is not good

        1. Lady Nugee was there. I wonder what her real thoughts were?
          I’m no admirer of her, but I suspect she does respect the proprieties.

    2. BJ,
      Some would see it as an act of personal honesty,seeing as there are
      a multitude of politico bastards that instead of laying a wreath at the cenotaph should in all honesty take a leak up against it.
      This shower of lab/lib/con political
      hierarchy sh!te, on leaving the ceremony should trigger a shower of
      very,very rotten eggs.

    3. Was he attending another affair, such as a personal funeral?

      If none of the front bench went then that’s a slight against the event. If some went, but Corbyn could not attend – rather than chose not to – that is an insult.

    4. Was he attending another affair, such as a personal funeral?

      If none of the front bench went then that’s a slight against the event. If some went, but Corbyn could not attend – rather than chose not to – that is an insult.

  27. Farage’s Brexit Party is working on Boris election pact – but with one important condition

    NIGEL FARAGE’s close ally Arron Banks has claimed the Brexit Party leader is holding secret talks with Boris Johnson’s Tories in a bid to arrange a pact over the general election.

    2. Lots of nonsense talk is rattling about .
      Without actual seats in parliament to vote against the
      predominant Remain parties then how can Nigel actually
      help, apart from being a type of guru figure ?
      If Nigel Farage wants to help, let him win some seats
      and enough to be of influence in parliament and then
      he can offer to help otherwise it’s just hot air.

      1. By standing BP candidates in the Labour strongholds that the Tories haven’t a hope in h*ll of winning. Boris is either a complete hubrick* or is a secret Remainer, which is why he has so far refused to come to an agreement with Farage.

        *That’s a new word I’ve coined.

        1. Nigel Farage is actually hoping he’ll split the vote, it’s his
          plan, others are all aware of that. Nigel Farage is about
          throwing stones influencing governments by actual
          votes in parliament .
          Edited ..( sorry had to visit the bathroom so didn’t place the last few words )

        3. Nigel Farage is actually hoping he’ll split the vote, it’s his
          plan, others are all aware of that. Nigel Farage is about
          throwing stones influencing governments by actual
          votes in parliament .
          Edited ..( sorry had to visit the bathroom so didn’t place the last few words )

          1. I’m going to give you an up vote for that. But the next time I see you going on about Johnson you’ll get a down vote.
            But did you wash your hands before you placed them?

          2. I second rastus’ comment.
            He’s offering a pact, the same as the Remainers are doing, and has offered it several times. It’s the Tories who are rejecting it. They may have good reasons, they may not.

          4. Aberrant – I am just off for lunch, but I was distracted by that eye-catching comment from Aethefled which shoots off the “utter B/S” scale. 🙂

          5. Yes really. Nigel Farage had his chance with UKIP,
            even when he returned from the US and his failed attempt
            to get a job with Fox News . He could have worked with
            UKIP but it’s not about working with others.
            Nigel Farage is a lone player, almost Presidential.
            He doesn’t work with anyone, people across the political
            divide know this.

          6. I met him once. Right spiv, with dodgy pinstriped suit. Without his philosophy he could have been a typical Member of Parliament.

          7. That’s true. Batten was not enamoured, and hinted at a dark side to Farage, but would not elaborate.

          8. But Nigel Farage has offered that his party will stand down wherever the Conservatives are fielding pro- proper Brexit candidates. What more do you want and what better could he offer?

            All the generous electoral offers have come from Nigel Farage and none form Johnson. Does this not make you wonder if Johnson really wants a proper Brexit at all? And do you not fear that the Johnson’s BRINO would leave Britain enslaved for the foreseeable future?

          9. Offers, pacts, coalitions come after a general election
            in an event of a hung parliament, afterwards is the
            point. Who starts anything from a point of weakness that
            puts ammunition into the hands of the enemy,
            Labour would never tolerate even the SNP to speak in that way,
            even with Jeremy Corbyn as leader .
            Nigel Farage’ s aim was to try manipulate Boris Johnson
            and do so with much public grandstanding.

          10. Remainers parties have formed a pact, to get more Lib Dem seats. The Leave side has to do the same. This is not a normal GE, and could be our last chance of getting a proper Brexit.

  28. The First Two Brexit Party Tours are on Monday

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 11 (12:00 pm)
    Best Western Grand Hotel Hartlepool – Swainson Street, Hartlepool, TS24 8AA

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 11 (07:00 pm)
    Sedgefield Racecourse – Racecourse Road, Sedgefield, TS21 2HW

  29. From Bosnia to Sierre Leone,in Iraq and Afghanistan the Rules of Engagement imposed by the UN and our own politicians (card alpha) have cost us many unecessary casualties and all too often caused missions to fail

    I know James Blunt was a bit marmite for some of you last night,as a young officer in Bosnia the ROE forced him to stand down while villages burned and the inhabitants were raped and massacred

    After Bosnia he resigned his commission in disgust,this song is his cry of agony about those days

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xThA9lZWH3A

      3. Stupid woman. She probably also thinks ‘celebrating’ means to take pleasure in remembering a tragic event.

        1. She’s a dumb, stupid Lefty who takes everything for granted because she’s never had to earn it.

        2. She probably thinks everyone there is dancing around yelling “Kick the Krauts. Whop the W0gs. Woweee …. let’s have another go at the Eyties and the Nips.”
          Stupid bint. She is totally incapable of understanding the emotions behind remembrance.

      4. Even if only one serviceman is killed or injured in the line of duty they should be honoured.

        It isn’t just the Great War or WW2.

        It is every war and peace-keeeping tour since the Cenotaph and all the other memorials around the world were created. Those service personnel are the people that have prevented the Toynbees of the world from having their throats slit or their bodies mutilated by those who would do us harm. God knows there are enough of them out there. We can stop when the killing stops.

        Claiming that we bring it upon ourselves because of our involvement in places like Afghanistan doesn’t hold water as far as the troops on the ground are concerned. They go where the politicians send them.

      5. Go serve, you stupid harridan. Go and fight for this country. Hopefully you’ll die but should you survive, then tell me that we shouldn’t remember the sacrifice of those who fought -not yours, fo course, you wretched cow.

        You can die. You’ve done nothing. You’re just a useless sack of manure sponging off a tax avoiding hypocritical trust fund, pontificating form a pulpit without consequences or consideration.

          1. I was being nice. She is the epitome of hypocrisy, privilege and typifies the spoiled, arrogant, ignorant stupidity of the Left.

      7. “Surely it’s time to lay to rest the empty, vainglorious memorialising of war beatification of every so-called ‘Liberal’ by the Guardian Editorial Board.”

        (Greetings, Rik).

    2. From Bosnia to Sierre Leone,in Iraq and Afghanistan the Rules of Engagement imposed by the UN and our own politicians (card alpha) have cost us many unnecessary casualties and all too often caused missions to fail .

      Afternoon Rik. We don’t actually have an independent Foreign Policy! Most of these deployments are not attempts to achieve security for the UK but simply to gain political Brownie points from the EU or Americans. The people we lose are usually poorly equipped, insufficient in numbers and sacrificed to the ambitions of Westminster politicians!

      1. I was taken to task by a commenter on here because I said that we should not take prisoners, Geneva Convention and all that.
        I stand by my view. Many of those we face are not “official” combatants of a recognised country. They do not adhere to the Geneva Convention, even if they have heard of it. Anyone who plays rugby knows that they will receive no special treatment from the opposition if they stay on the pitch while injured. This is correct. Anyone on the battlefield is liable to be killed. Anyone who is not prepared to be killed should get rid of their weapons and stay at home.
        When ISIS first arose, I stated that the state should be recognised by the UK Government. This would make treating them as an enemy much easier. It would have made dealing with those from the UK who went both Middle East to support ISIS much simpler and more clearcut.
        If we have soldiers whom we put in harm’s way, then we must give them the ability to deal with things, in weaponry and authority to act.
        I wrote to the MoD asking if any British soldiers had ever been captured and tortured by the Taliban/Afghans. I was told no. I am not sure I believe this.

    3. Look up Roméo Dallaire.
      He was in charge of UN peacekeeping in Rwanda and was prevented from taking action by UN bureaucracy and ineptitude.
      Dallaire is now a highly respected member of the Canadian Senate.
      His book Shake Hands with the Devil describes the events, it will make you weep.

    5. I once heard a radio interview with James Blunt at a time when he was highly popular – he was so pleased with himself that he had sneaked the F-word into the lyrics of one of his songs.

  31. A multitude of politico’s in power, or in the waiting room of power, don’t give a toss about the living let alone the dead ( unless in postal votes).
    Ask that old Chindit, 100 shortly, just got out of his wheelchair to march, his views.
    There are some of his ilk but not in the number as was, with bollocks the size of cannon balls, IMHO.
    https://twitter.com/AgainBraine/status/1193505989129121798

    2. Cameron: ………”It is your decision as to whether or not we remain in the EU. Nobody else’s. Not Parliament’s.
      May: ……………..”No Deal is better than a bad deal. We shall leave the EU on 29th March”
      Johnson: ……… “We leave the EU on 31st October – Deal or No deal”

      If this is how the leaders of the Conservative Party keep their word then why should anybody trust them?

      And why should Nigel Farage trust them?

      He has offered to withdraw BP candidates where the Conservatives have a chance of winning in order not to split the Leave vote and only to stand in places where the Conservatives have no chance of winning? All he asks for in exchange is the proper Brexit for which the voters voted in the referendum.

      Nigel Farage does not want to be prime minister – he doesn’t even want to be an MP. He wants a proper, honest Brexit and would be quite happy to lose his generously paid job as an MEP – he is far more trustworthy than Cameron, May or Johnson.

      1. R,
        Sorry, no. Every picture tells a story as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1JReyGsdOA
        “And why should we trust them ?”
        ” Why should nigel farage trust them ?”
        Why should a great number of us trust them or nigel farage ?
        I truly cannot think of a reason.
        May one ask at the latter end of your post who told you what nigel farage wanted ? was it nigel farage ?
        This is not an anti brexit group post, ogga1 is
        pro brexit group.

      2. Trump 2020 with Nigel Farage fully involved in
        Rally’ s and Fox News interviews.
        Shortly after the referendum vote ( days ) Nigel Farage
        went off to the US to help Trump.
        January 2020 after our general election – plans are
        surely in place for Nigel Farage to be present in the US
        again. A man with fingers in many pies.

        Of course Nigel Farage doesn’t want to be Prime Minister,
        or even a politician, he likes throwing stones and keeping
        his options open. I know he loses his MEP job but
        I am sure he’ll get a generous pension and also
        makes a fair bit of money from the US trips .

        I suppose he can Skype the UK, if he’s not too busy.

        1. To me a proper Non Surrender non Vassal State Brexit is more important than either Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage. What Johnson offers is BRINO – Farage would like to fight for a proper Brexit.

          You remind me of ogga who seems to think that UKIP is more important than Brexit. The Conservatives cannot be trusted and no longer even pretend that a proper Brexit is on the table.

          1. R,
            Brexitexit via the referendum IS UKIP only a Multitude of treacherous fools / supporters / voters B@llsed it up.
            The farage by his on tongue proved he cannot be trusted.

          2. To me: A proper Brexit is more important than Nigel Farage or the Conservative Party.

            Are you prepared to say: “A proper Brexit is more important to me than UKIP”?

          3. Good afternoon, Ogga.

            ‘….only a multitude of treacherous fools/supporters/voters b@llsed it up.’

            Where did most of those come from? So called UKIP supporters are as
            much to blame as anyone.
            Please don’t be so free with your insults; there are many people in this
            Country who are genuinely concerned for its future, your continual
            insults give no one any help and serve only to ridicule the very Party
            you purport to support.

          4. As I keep trying to tell you what is important is BREXIT.

            Quite frankly if Farage can help bring about a proper BREXIT then good luck to him. His character defects are a different issue.

            Boris is determined to thwart BREXIT and keep us in the thrall of the the EU with his May/Johnson BRINO. I am on the side of anybody who can stop this abject surrender to the EU and give us a proper BREXIT instead.

          5. Evening R,
            Please answer me a question, what reason is there for ANY / ALL of those currently politically involved in brexitexit in brussels to exit ?
            NONE to date have proved trustworthy.

          6. R,
            You will not find any post of mine to be anti Brexit as for toxic the trio I am also not one of those that has been supporting & voting in a party first and foremost manner, the very vote pattern that has got us as a nation into such an odious state.
            Realisation has come somewhat late to many
            voters that the toxic trio political hierarchy are out & out eu assets.
            UKIP has been Exitbrexitteers for 27 plus years through blitzkrieg, type sh!te storms ie hate / smear campaigns. the only credible party with not a hint of treachery towards the UK,and they are still standing.
            I do not trust farage, I have no reason to, as I have said before that does not mean I am anti Brexit, far from it.
            If you wish to use him then abuse him I will not hinder you in any way, he may even understand it.
            Post brexit I do believe most firmly there is a place for UKIP, without any doubt.

  32. For too many people in too many countries, democracy isn’t working. Simon Tisdall. !0 November 2019.

    Protesters say the political elite is corrupt and incompetent – and demand a wholesale clear-out, with little idea what comes next. Another Saddam Hussein, perhaps? In Iraq, democracy has become so discredited that its survival is in danger. The same might be said of Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Syria and Venezuela where hopes of democratic change were raised, then cruelly dashed.

    Illiberal regimes like those in China, Russia and Egypt actively exploit democratic principles. They pretend to hold free elections, direct or indirect. In practice, results are pre-determined, with only token opposition allowed. But even phoney polls confer a degree of legitimacy.

    Morning everyone. This is an impressive piece of journalism since it was clearly written while several large UK elephants were barging around the house in which the writer was sitting! If he had spared the time to look he would have seen that they had names like REFERENDUM, PETERBOROUGH, BREXIT and FREE SPEECH stamped on their rumps! In this long, contrived (I like the way he sandwiched Russia between China and Egypt) and miserabilist diatribe against the Other. The Cultural Marxist Police State anchored just off the coast of Europe receives a get out of gaol free card in the first paragraph.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/09/for-too-many-people-in-too-many-countries-democracy-isnt-working

    2. Morning AS,
      I like the “even phony polls defer a degree of legitimacy”
      As does supporting / voting lab/lib/con.

      1. “even phony polls defer a degree of legitimacy”!!
        If they didn’t, they’d be no use as the manipulation tools that they’re used as, SMH.

      2. Mr Silverback, I think the majority of people
        are aware that Corbyn is a hard left IRA, Hamas supporting
        and antisemitic loon. Dangerous, intolerant and extreme-
        those things make Corbyn wholly unsuitable as Prime Minister.
        He also wants to form a leavers alliance to stop Brexit but
        I think those things above alone make him and his HARD
        LEFT hob nail boot wearing true Marxist thugs totally
        unsuitable for anything. You will be given a choice of
        Prime Minister and you are free to chose Jeremy Corbyn
        If you think that he and the SNP leavers alliance
        Will deliver Brexit or that they are good people to govern
        the UK in it’s entirety .

        1. Morning A,
          I do agree with your post, but the way I see it
          overall is that the whole lab/lib/con shebang is
          a pro eu asset.
          This has been so since the ruling political segment of these Isles realised the value to them of the brussels golden trough.
          All that have supped there in the past the
          HOC in-house brussels pension holders politico’s swear by it.
          In my book the odious woes of this country are in equal parts shared by the governance parties,lab/lib/con.
          Mass terrorism, mass rape & abuse, mass knifing / acid throwing mass,mass,mass in everything but true justice, decency, & and in many respects, self respect.

        2. Does Corbyn want to form a leavers (sic) alliance to stop Brexit? I would have thought he was concocting a remain alliance.

      1. The old “lets-do-nothing-and-the-world-will-be-a-better-place” line.

        You are Neville Chamberlain and I claim my £5.

        1. I’d sooner have been Neville Chamberlain than the warmonger Churchill who was going behind the British government’s back from 1935 with FDR to start a war against Germany.

    5. The problem is you read it and the authors idea of what democracy is and real democracy shine through.

      ‘Foreign interlopers’ – this obsession with the Russians interfering because the Left cannot conceive that people genuinely dislike the EU.

      ‘European democracy institute’ referred to as a ‘nice thought’ but of course, the fundamental problem.

      The there’s the expected and tiresome reference to the ‘far right’, or, as they’re really called – democrats refusing the statist grip on nations. That’s why there’s no real change. The Left set about an agenda and when it’s rejected, they blame someone else.

      Then we move on to ‘an antiquated electoral college system’ and Donald Trump. It wasn’t antiquated whe it elected Obama, was it? Now because they didn’t get the result they wanted, suddeny it’s antiquated.

      ‘The authoritarian, anti democratic model is spreading’ yes, in the form of the EU.

      ‘authoritarian powers are now banning opposition groups or jailing their leaders, dispensing with term limits and tightening the screws on independent medi’

      Yep, see Facebook, Twitter and the supreme court and the continued jailing of Tommy Robinson and the Catalan ministers. The hard Left are everywhere.

      ‘Many countries that democratised after the cold war have regressed in the face of rampant corruption [and] anti-liberal populist movements,” it says.’ Ah, the boo word of ppoulist, which means democratic and anti Liberal being anti Left wing, big state. In short, he’ blaming people sick of the Left for fighting back. The corruption, ofcourse, comes form the ‘liberal progressives’.

      ‘ostensibly designed to combat online fake news, hate speech and terrorist plots that, in practice, are used to extend state supervision, harvest personal data and facilitate official propaganda’ Yes, and the Guardian has lauded all these plans as good and right – the ndless assault on news you dislike branding it ‘fake news’. The BBC has done that same.

      And the absolute expected, tedious kicker: ‘Russia is a top covert online “influencer” of other countries’ elections and politicians. That’s why, for example, Boris Johnson’s Trump-like refusal to publish an investigation that reportedly discusses Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit referendum has raised suspicions.’

      Because there have been none. An investigation was carried out. Just because you didn’t like the result doesn’t change the facts: we wanted to leave the EU. Just because you can’t conceive of that fact doesn’t mean someone brainwashed us. It means you’re the ones who are brainwashed.

      ‘whether elections are honest and participation is safe.’ As momentum thugs stand outside polling booths and block people from going in to polling stations and the Left stand against voter ID.

      ‘voting makes any difference in broken electoral systems that, too often, appear structurally incapable of delivering change – or even a genuine contest.’ That’s because the Left want the deck stacked in their favour. Incapable? Just look at the effort put in to fighting Brexit by the paid Left. With BBC and media bias?

      Again, the Guardian deliers an article that seems to completely ignore reality while purporting to be relevant. I understand the author wants to sell the content, but the level of deliverate fraud here to blame anyone but themselves for this situation is comical

  33. Maybe Polly’s mails to all and sundry helped !

    From the Mail on Sunday, November 10, 2019……………….

    “Tories have called for an urgent Electoral Commission probe into George Soros’s American organisation after The Mail on Sunday discovered that it funnelled money into a campaign trying to block Brexit at the ballot box.”

    1. BREXIT now off the table. May’s BRINO on offer instead

      And no ditch – not even a ha ha.

  35. A propos the poor chap who left his very valuable violin on a Tube train, but luckily got it back.
    “Why have elephants got big ears?”
    “Because noddy wouldn’t pay the ransom.”

  37. Taking an elderly friend to ceremonies. It’s the least I can do, considering the number of distinguished military figures in my friend’s family lineage.

  38. Here’s a thought – I’ve had a dangerous moment and committed it to pixels.

    Farage continues to urge Johnson to join with the Brexit Party and destroy the Labour Party. An almost total wipe-out of Labour MPs leaving a rump of around 100 diehards would be a service to this Country. Why is Johnson fighting shy of what could be a political turning point in this Country?
    Well, could it be that Johnson, along with many of his party, are happy to have the ‘old enemy’ sitting across the aisle in the HoC rather than have an unknown band of less ideological MPs there?
    The Labour Party,even under a tool like Corbyn, is pretty much a known quantity and able to be managed; vice-versa also applies. The two main parties operate almost as a cartel and radical change to that happy situation could be something that neither party would welcome. In his zeal to not ally with Farage, Johnson is showing that he, at least in his refusal to seriously damage Labour and therefore maintain the status quo, is a Conservative.

      1. A Conservative only within the limits of maintaining the two party cartel. Not sure what he is outside of that narrow definition, probably your ‘politician’ is as good as any.

  39. Afternoon, all. Just been to a Remembrance service in a different church – what a contrast to last year! Uplifting sermon about sacrifice and the fight for freedom.

  40. I don’t think this has been posted so far:

    Max Bonamy 10 Nov 2019 4:06AM
    I hope Tory strategy is not simply to rely on ‘Spectre of Corbyn’ to evade, avoid and duck the serious misgivings open minds have about the Boris deal.

    Boris has dubbed the election ‘the Brexit election’. Fine – ergo, voters are owed a clear exposition by him as to how the WA & PD treaties amount to a meaningful Brexit when May’s deal – of which Bojo’s retains 95% – was, in his words at Chequers, “a t*rd”. He needs to convince sceptics his lick of varnish has turned the t*rd into the polished diamond he now claims.

    In this endeavour it would be reassuring, at a minimum, to see ‘No Deal’ (WTO terms) left foursquare on the table as our negotiating backstop. Moreover, to know that every Tory candidate has pledge their commitment to this backstop.

    Meanwhile, Gove has said we will be out by December 2020; in a speech in Lisbon Barnier responded that was absurdly optimistic and the earliest conceivable exit is December 2022. Boris must clarify.

    In the context of Remembrance Sunday, it would also be reassuring to hear that in no circumstances whatsoever will the allegiance of our armed services to our monarch (who is formally the ‘Supreme Head of our Armed Forces’) ever be compromised by Brussels-imposed obligations to the EU Army taking shape.

    Boris has his work cut out. If he hides behind behind the skirts of Obfuscation and Spectre of Corbyn, many would conclude it’s a tacit admission Britain will never regain its independence under the Tories; moreover indeed, with Tory blessing, Britain will leach more of its national competencies to the EU.

    1. At the moment, ‘no-deal’ is still the default position come 31st January 2020. Parliament needs to approve something else (extension to Article 50, a ‘deal’) to prevent this happening. Wishful thinking – Boris wins a majority and does nothing – opposition parties propose Bills which are all voted down. We leave on 31st January on WTO terms.

      It isn’t going to happen. If the Conservatives gain a majority – Boris’s deal goes through. Hung Parliament – anybody’s guess. Possibly even Revocation of Article 50. If that happens, it will become even harder (perhaps impossible) to leave the EU in future.

      1. In other words, whatever happens next, and irrespective of the election result ( no overall majority ) we will still be in the same foul mess as the Conservative Remainers created.
        Better go to Amazon and buy some hard hats.

      2. If Boris’ ‘deal’ goes through we’re stuffed.

        If anyone else gets in, we’ll never be allowed to leave the EU.

        The election is pointless. It isn’t about Brexit. we voted to leave. Parliament has fought us at every step to hinder that.

    2. Boris is following in May’s footsteps, paying to have our sovereignty taken away and attacking Corbyn rather than trying to explain his dreadful, wretched policies. It didn’t work for May and it might not work for Boris. Following in Remainer footsteps, can’t think of anything positive to say about his policies only what’s bad about the opposition’s.

      1. The saddest thing to my mind is all the Tory Boys on forums such as this who comes out with just one line of argument, vote for Johnson or get no Brexit.
        They never ever even consider his deal is a dreadful deal for the country. I put them in the category as Corbyn zealots, to have a closed mind to others point of view, or perhaps they are really remainers in disguise.

        1. We won’t get Brexit either way.

          The only sensible option is WTO. Brexit is so fundamental to our future that it’s destruction by greedy, selfish, poisonous individuals must have some measure of retribution against them.

          Boris’ deal is May’s with lipstick on. Barely that. It will humble and humiliate this country. We cannot allow it to pass.

      2. “Boris is following in May’s footsteps, paying being paid to have our sovereignty taken away…” In my opinion.

        1. My point was that we the taxpayers are having to stump up £39 billion for the EU to benefit from a £90 billion trade surplus. And yes he undoubtedly has been paid off as has Martin Howe QC.
          Three successive Tory PMs making promises they had no intention of fulfilling. Cameron, May and Johnson and you can add Major to this cabal. I will never vote for a MSPP again.

          1. I know. There is no trustworthy political party at a national level. The lying is blatant, (and sanctioned by the Scottish courts).

      3. The longer the electioneering goes on the more the electorate will realise they are being played for fools.

    3. We keep being told that his “deal” isn’t perfect, but it’s the best and only deal.
      Well, as far as I’m concerned, on the scale of turd, turd rolled in glitter, and a perfect diamond, it’s the turd rolled in glitter. It doesn’t come close to perfect. It’s not even a flawed diamond.

  42. The biggest heists and attempted heists on Britannia………………………………..

    55 BC

    1066

    1588

    1815

    1914

    1939

    Just because tanks aren’t rolling doesn’t mean there is no heist for control of Britannia happening right now…….

    This time it’s different, the heist is taking place in the shadows and darkness with money replacing tanks, and ”billions spent…. to undermine the nation state”. The objective being an all powerful ”Europe” and Britain reduced to a region.

    The same is happening globally via the UN………. all in the interests of……………….

    Globalism is a malign ideology, totalitarian in effect and execution. The aim is a world without nations and one central administrative government regulating every aspect of public and private life. It is about the dismantling of everything we know to be true and real and replacing it with lies and delusions.

    The globalist world is created and run by certain billionaires who frequently use the power of money to achieve their aims whether through bribery, blackmail or otherwise.. Those who refuse to participate are to be deceived, re-educated, intimidated or silenced if they continue to resist. Such issues as national security and love of country are dismissed as quaint old-fashioned notions that no longer apply..

    Globalism has at it’s heart an evil & narcissistic desire for power and control, it is about the destruction of the individual and the submission of populations for profit to the powerful and wealthy.

    Needless to say, the EU and UN are central to the globalism dream because the influencing of global policy through supra national organizations has trillion dollar profit opportunities, resulting in a vast transfer of wealth to the controlling billionaire elite.

    2. But what’s the point, Polly? These organisations are there, and it is taking common sense to reject them – which is comically scaring the Left out of their trousers.

      Yet they’ll continue to exist so what’s the options?

  43. The UK’s next census will be its last—here’s why

    Tracking mobile phone traces *

    This is a challenge because the ONS is now experimenting with data from entirely new – and surprising – sources.

    In the summer of 2017, the ONS trialled the use of mobile phone data to infer the movement of commuters across London. Commuting flows are
    included in the existing census survey – however, the results are often inconsistent and lacking in detail. The ONS needed a method that was as
    accurate as a survey, but quicker and less resource-intensive. Mobile phone data could allow statisticians to provide more up-to-date information and bring in topics not already covered in the census.

    *Just for the Census of course (there will not be day to day tracking, (Pink Porcine Squadron Airborne)

    https://apolitical.co/solution_article/uks-next-census-will-last-heres/

  44. The suicide rate among transgender teens is shockingly high

    Sources of data on this are limited as there is an inbuilt desire by politicians and the LGBT community to shut them down

    The other consideration is the sample size is quite small as until a few years ago you could count the number of transgenders on two hands

    No real long term data is available but the limited data available suggest we could have a rapidly growing problem , With transgenders mental health is a big issue and there are health problems particularly those that have under gone major surgery. There is also very limited data on the health impact of dosing males with high levels of female hormones and females with high levels of male hormones

    Transgenders in my view should be subject to say an annual health check so that accurate date on both their physical and mental health is monitored but that is simply not happening

    WE also now have very young children being given high doses of drugs to suppress puberty with absolutely no idea as to the impact of these children physical and mental health. Quite often as well it is the parents influencing it. Young children have little idea of gender other than knowing girls and boys are different

    large new study that analyzed survey data from adolescents has some disturbing findings about teens and suicide. The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed data from 120,617 teens that was collected over nearly three years. Overall, researchers found that nearly 14 percent of all teenagers who participated in the survey said they had tried to kill themselves.
    The numbers were much higher for transgender or nonbinary teens: Slightly more than half of transgender male teens (50.8 percent) said they had tried to kill themselves, while 41.8 percent of teens who identified as neither male nor female, and nearly 30 percent of transgender female teens said the same thing. About 28 percent of teens who identified themselves as “questioning” their sexual orientation also said they had tried to kill themselves.
    Those numbers are starkly higher than those for cisgender female and male teens, who reported rates of 17.6 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively.
    The findings echo the results of a huge survey of transgender people released in 2016 by the National Center for Transgender Equality. That survey found that 40 percent of the 27,715 transgender people who were surveyed said they had tried to kill themselves at some point.
    Unfortunately, this isn’t anything new. Stories of transgender teens committing suicide have made headlines for years. In March, a mother shared the suicide letter left by her son, Eric Peter Verbeeck, who was transitioning into a woman named Hope, with the People magazine. “I felt that I could no longer live my life as a lie, living as a boy instead of the girl I knew I could become,” the letter read. “I was losing hope in the world and could not see my way out of the wrong body so I decided it was time for my life to end as a whole. Please forgive me for lying to you and any and all sins that I have committed.”
    In 2017, Leo Etherington, a transgender male, took his life because “he was angry with [his] school,” which wouldn’t allow him to change the name he was born with (Louise), his father told the Guardian.

    1. Being fed potent sex hormones and discovering, after the fact, that you were actually quite happy as your original sex but surgically it’s all too late, wouldn’t make anyone a happy bunny.
      Anyone – parents, surgeons, endocrinologists, social workers etc….. involved in the sex change of anyone under the age of 25 is guilty of child abuse. They are as guilty as the harpies who slice up little girls’ undercarriages.
      The human brain is not fully wired into adult mode before the mid-twenties..

      2. It used to be as it should be very difficult to transgender so we had very few transgenders,. They had to have a physical exam and a lot of physiotherapy for about a year to start with. Then they had to live as the gender they wanted to be for a year and were closely monitored particularly mentally and then they could be considered for changing their gender. Now it is pretty much an on demand process . In my view it is likely to cause huge problems in the future

      3. Greetings, Anne. As I’m sure you’re aware, the word “minor” comes from the Roman term Minor viginti quinque annis, one less than twenty-five years of age. Someone over the age of 25 was considered to have reached the age-of-majority under Roman Law.

    3. If I go to the docs and say ‘Doctor, I’m a goat. I demand you give me medicines to make me into a goat. He’d look at me funny and ask if I was ok and suggest therapy.

      Yet for some bizarre reason, if man goes ot a doctor and says ‘I want to be a woman’ he’s lauded and praised. They’re mentally ill. They need support and assistanc eot live a normal, healthy life. Not a sham one.

      1. That’s precisely the point that Germaine Greer made. She said, “I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that won’t turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel”.

    4. Sounds like a bad case of eugenic experiments, the likes of which would have had Mengeles in constant orgasm.

    5. Children at school get terribly, terribly angry at things. They have not learnt to control their angers, which is part of growing up. Some never learn, most do learn to a greater or lesser extent.

  45. I think we’re in for a bloody cold night! 16:00, the sun is well below the hillside and it’s already down to 2°C.

    2. 6 degrees here in Leeds (1700Z) Very cold. It was 3 degrees three hours ago when we were out and it was not yet dark.
      Not a drop of rain all day. Leeds weather forecast for today, yesterday, showed it to be raining cats and dogs all day.
      I do not believe anything or anyone any more.

      1. 5’c here. Interesting. I thought it was just me being a bit of a wimp what with the immobility and all. Turns out my cold feet really are cold.

    3. I’ve spent most of the day getting my plants in – the conservatory (our dining room) now looks like a jungle.

  46. ‘Morning All
    I am struggling to express my thoughts this morning,shortly,like most I imagine I will be watching the Remembrance Sunday ceremony
    I shall see wreaths laid by political leaders who by their words and actions over many years clearly despise everything those wreaths stand for,they will wear their poppies and solemn faces for the cameras only because they dare do nothing else.
    Tomorrow it will be business as usual supporting every group that hates us and prosecuting brave men THEY sent to do impossible jobs under Rules of Engagement written by politicians that have never been up the sharp end.

    2. I don’t care about the politicians and their disrespect, like I don’t care that the birds don’t stop flying & tweeting during the two minutes silence.
      I care, and am delighted, that “ordinary” people do care, and that’s what matters.

  48. Is it possibly the case that our Government, our legal system, police, prosecutors and judges, are going very easy on the criminal muslims in the country because the government of Saudi Arabia buys weapons from the UK? Could there be secret codicils to armaments deals?

    (We have even watching “Spiral” where the plot theme was that the police were told to hold off investigating Chinese gangsters in Paris because the French Government had sent officials to China to negotiate a trade deal.)

    1. The Criminal Justice system in the UK is as corrupt as every other arm of the British State, only more so.

    2. We’ve been watching that – much better than most of the BBC rubbish and you have sub-titles for the hard of hearing. I gave up on the abysmal “Dublin murders”.

    1. They announced at the start of the programme that you can cut out the commentary by pressing the red button.

  50. Seeking help.
    Does anyone use ProtonMail? Does it work? Is there a downside?
    Does it stop adverts flooding in?
    I received a popup from Yahoo Mail (Verizon) which forced my acceptance of their third parties in order to finish writing an email. I now wish to change my email provider. ProtonMail looks OK, but I don’t know anyone who uses it.

    2. Forced acceptance? You’ve a right to refuse their access to that data.

      For a mail client I just use gmail web. It’s ugly, annoying, inefficient and awkward but increasingly emailis just ‘there’.

      If you want a client for imapping it, try thunderbird? Or Mail on a mac? A ‘good’ web mail provider is gmx. Their webmail is clean and sensible – well, it was when I looked at it five or so weeks ago.

      1. I use gmail and Thunderbird – I don’t put my contact list on webmail but they are stored on Thunderbird. Gmail keep telling me there is a security breach but I fell for that once and it was a nightmare to get Tb back.

      2. Thanks. I could not go forward or back until I had dealt with the request. Hence my intention to leave them. Google, Yahoo, and others, all in Verizon. Not good.

  52. Wearing my Jill B hat.
    There is currently an anti-islamophobia march in Paris. There are 13,500 people there, muslims and supporters. This was in response, apparently, to some bloke firing a gun outside a mosque in Bayonne a week or so ago. No one was injured, or even targeted, and the bloke is in custody.
    Compare and contrast with our response to the Manchester Arena massacre, tea lights, teddy bears, and solidarity with, and sympathy for, muslims.

    https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/la-marche-contre-l-islamophobie-a-paris-part-de-la-gare-du-nord-a-13h-20191110

      2. We have already built it. Now our ghastly politicians are putting us and our country on it. Now it only needs a match or two.

        1. The ineffectiveness of Roman military responses from Stilicho onwards has been described as “shocking”, with little evidence of indigenous field forces or of adequate training, discipline, pay, or supply for the barbarians who formed most of the available troops. Local defence was occasionally effective, but was often associated with withdrawal from central control and taxes; in many areas, barbarians under Roman authority attacked culturally-Roman Peasants.

          Corruption, in this context the diversion of public finance from the needs of the army, may have contributed greatly to the Fall. The rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits. They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church. At a local level, from the early fourth century, the town councils lost their property and their power, which often became concentrated in the hands of a few local despots beyond the reach of the law.

          The fifth-century Western emperors, with brief exceptions, were individuals incapable of ruling effectively or even of controlling their own courts. Wikipedia. The Fall of Rome.

          Toward the end the system breaks down in general disorder.

          1. The difference is that there were no multi-billionaire globalists waiting to pounce and take advantage of the disorder, then.

          2. The difference is that there were no multi-billionaire globalists waiting to pounce and take advantage of the disorder, then.

    3. I wonder how a gay pride march coming the other way would be treated.

      The useful idiots might have to make their minds up who they protect.

    4. As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, a phobia is an irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about fearing islam.

    5. I wonder how a gay pride march coming the other way would be treated.

      The useful idiots might have to make their minds up who they protect.

  53. You know, tv viewing figures across the board are falling. BBC programmes may soon be on iPlayer for 12 months and not 30 days. So, will putting the same programmes in a different place encourage you to watch them? Is it just that viewing habits are changing?

    3. BBC could increase their viewership by:

      1). randomly selecting 1000 postal addresses across the UK,
      2). sending them all iPhones,
      3). asking them to video-record interviews of their family, friends and neighbors, then
      4). posting the content on iPlayer.

      We’d get more real stories and less “BBC-executive”-driven propaganda.

    5. I read that the proposed streaming service would censor older programs to make sure no-one is offended. I thought the purpose was to be able to watch older programs? If I could not watch Till Death et al – and probably much of Python, or even Fawlty, what’s the point? I used to watch UKGold on visits years ago. Sitting there with a glass of vino watching the Sweeney as Regan and Carter beat the sh1t out of miscreants.

      Incidentally the last time I saw Fawlty on PBS here, the major’s comments about Indian vs. West Indian cricket players were uncut.

    6. Evening Sue. I no longer watch the BBC so I can’t comment on their timing. I don’t see this making any difference since the system appears to have not the slightest intention of getting rid of it whatever its shortcomings, which is unsurprising since it is the main propaganda outlet for them. So your pension should be safe for the foreseeable future.

  55. Rainbow Six just made an interesting comment –

    “You’ve obviously read all my comments from day one and all the
    conversations that they were concerning, as have all the others who’ve
    had a downer on me from my first comment. Vicious? You really are an old
    woman if you think my comments are vicious, I haven’t gotten out of
    first gear. You lot can give it but you definitely can’t take it. You’re
    all biatching behind my back all the time and the moment I respond you
    go cwying to the mods.
    As I said before, get a petition to ban me
    but I’ll put the case for banning me because few of you have gotten the
    necessary skills, maybe Hertslass could do it.”

    Just in case you missed it.

      2. So you read all the comments, just like “Tony” and his gang and my other detractors. The only reason I’ve seen this comment thread is because somebody told me to look for another comment he’d made.

    2. What has this person ever achieved in his/her life? Apart from adopting the title of a very iffy Tom Clancy video game as a nom de plume.

      1. So calling yourself jackthelad is superior to using the name Rainbow Six? Rainbow Six is the code name of the agent played by Willem Dafoe in Clear and Present Danger. So tell the world what you’ve achieved in your life and let’s compare.

    4. If you want his posts removed you need to flag them – we mods don’t have the time to read everything.

      1. Evening N,
        The only time mine find opposition is when they are true facts, have you noticed that ?

          1. They remind me of the grandchildren – often wish I could send them both to their bedrooms until they can play nicely together!

        2. Well somebody has got it in for you more than they have me. What’s the secret of your success? Note I mention you in despatches above.

          1. RS,
            No big secret, just honest truthsaying when
            dealing with truth deniers.
            If you told peoples that for years they have been wrong with their voting pattern ie party before country keep in / keep out three monkey voting mode, then don’t expect to be flavour of the month.

          2. Some here think Johnson is the saviour. Yet on BB, DM and GP he’s been rumbled. It’ll be harder for them to accept that Farage is a wrong un.

        1. Thanks. I’ll have to think about this bent out of shape bit, maybe a Norwegian saying. The other day I took exception to ogga1 being abused, sworn at and bullied so I went to his defence but he’d buggered off and left me to it. Same as people having a go at Miss P. Why? I like engaging with people with differing views to improve my line of argument. You may have noticed my chat with a Troll called Kol.

      3. Please do not encourage flagging.

        The best way for people to see what type of individual they are dealing with is to allow posts to stand, so that they can judge for themselves.

        And it makes work for the moderators.

        Many moons ago, Stig and GG asked for volunteer mods, and many of you stood up, and many thanks for doing so.

        However, I would hate to see “mod wars” where what is acceptable to ModA is unacceptable to ModB and people get banned/modded out for no reason other than conflicting opinions over what should and should not be flagged.

        1. If a post is flagged – whichever mod sees it first will either allow it or delete it. I don’t think there are any mod wars – I can’t think of a time when one mod disagreed with another’s decision. But as it is the only way to bring an unacceptable post to attention, then it’s no point anybody just complaining. We used to have a lot of complaints about the moderation on the old site by people who were just troublemakers.

          1. Here, it’s not ” an unacceptable post “. It is non-stop rudeness. The posts would not be unacceptable if they were polite.
            Some know-alls are not very good at expressing themselves !!

          2. He’s a bit rough & ready, but then so are some others. Perhaps he doesn’t do polite. You could try ignoring him.

          3. It’s an interesting study in how people see others, and the assumptions they make, based on whatever.

          8. I may be wrong, but I get the impression that some posts pass “A” that don’t pass “B” and it’s luck of the draw what, and more importantly, “who” disappears.

          9. Very few “whos” have disappeared since we left the old site. Cochrane in his latest guise was one.

            I don’t think Mod B would overrule mod A. If a post is deleted it stays deleted and vice versa if allowed.

          10. That’s actually my point. If Mod A says go, you’re gone. Mod B won’t say return. (NB not being a Mod I’m not entirely sure how it works.)

            The new site certainly has fewer stirrers.

            I don’t know whether AC/JSP/gb (who has returned) TETMD were banned or left of their own accord.

            I guess it might well be that as I’m one of the more rebarbative posters that I get and give more abuse than most, so I notice sparring partners leaving.

          12. It’s a good word.
            It describes me to a “T” when roused.

            I was amused when someone (?DuncanMac?) posted solipsistic the other day. I’ve used that one often to describe certain of our posters.

          13. Tet was banned by Geoff when we moved. AC was banned when he caused a bit of a scene just after we moved. Gb came back (he was banned some time ago on the old site for foul language.) and so far all’s well. JSP seems to have given up but is not banned. The coffeecake got himself banned (not by me) for rudeness. Those are the only ones banned so far apart from a few obvious trolls. We don’t yet seem to have attracted too much troll attention – the old site was often plagued by coordinated troll attacks.

          5. Carry on ogga1, you’re the best recruiting sergeant for lib/lab/con/BP/PC/SNP, in fact anyone other than UKIP.

            I’ve voted UKIP in the past, never again; you’ve ensured that single-handedly. I suspect I’m not alone.

            Your constant illiterate abuse of anyone and everyone ensures that UKIP loses votes every time you appear. Keep up the good work. Destroy UKIP utterly.

          6. I would lay money on where your vote will go
            within the polling booth, as with many more.
            We could never have got to where we are today as a country without those votes.

          7. If they put up a candidate it will be the Brexit party.

            If there isn’t a BP candidate I will spoil my ballot paper.

            Whatever happens I will send in my vote.

        3. Once you start blocking people, where do you stop ? Flagging someone who is just an unpleasant pain in the neck is too subjective.
          But someone who is just obssessive and nasty, continuously, needs a word in his ear. It’s not an easy one.

          1. You can block him if you don’t want to see his posts at all. You can flag posts you want the mods to check. That’s the way this system works. He’ll only be banned if he oversteps our very accommodating marks. Most things are acceptable here except personal abuse.

          2. From time to time, I block that parrot who posts utter rubbish, often gleaned from nutso US conspiracy theory sites.

          3. From time to time, I block that parrot who posts utter rubbish, often gleaned from nutso US conspiracy theory sites.

        4. The best way for people to see what type of individual they are dealing with is to allow posts to stand, so that they can judge for themselves.

          I agree. Ignore the comment(s) as I do. I am quite indifferent as to whether the troll is in first gear or in overdrive.

          1. I have found that a policy of “silence is golden” is the most effective way to deal with someone that you really do not have time for. Don’t read the comments, don’t reply. Let them wear themselves out. They are the ones who have time to kill typing endless banal comments.

            I am referring to unpleasant posters in general over the years, not anyone specific. It works for all brands, especially Russell.

  56. ‘Selfish twentysomethings stole our train seats so we pensioners were forced to stand’. KATIE MORLEY CONSUMER CHAMPION, 10 NOVEMBER 2019

    Dear Katie,

    I travelled from Birmingham to Chepstow in a group of four to attend a music festival. I booked the tickets so we were sitting together.
    But when we boarded the CrossCountry train we found that our seats were already occupied. We pointed out our reservation and asked the people to move, but they refused. They were all in their 20s and we are all in our 60s. We called the guard and explained the situation to her.
    She asked them to move but again they refused. She then turned to me and said: “If they won’t move, there’s nothing I can do”.

    I can remember seeing something like this almost forty years ago when I caught a train to Scotland to go Munro-bagging. A gentleman had reserved (there were actually tickets on the headrests) two seats and found them occupied. The inhabitants wouldn’t (the train was packed) move and the Conductor/Guard couldn’t move them either. I had some sympathy with the latter. What was he supposed to do? Kung Fu them and then hurl them from the train into an oncoming express? The lesson I learned from this episode is not to reserve seats on British Rail! It is a way of charging you for a non-existent service!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/katie-investigates/selfish-twentysomethings-stole-train-seats-pensioners-forced/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. Pull the communication cord and take it in turns pulling it, there are four of you.

      Someone will eventually do something about the squatters, even if it’s other passengers fed up with the lack of progress.

      The problem we have is that people see others get away with minor infringements and then do the same themselves.

    2. Looked to book rail from LGW to Tiverton this Christmas. A seat reservation was mandatory.

        1. Cheaper than car hire – £600 for a Fiesta for a week (over Christmas, and with rail strike…).

          1. You’re on holiday. Relax. Let somebody else take the strain. Why have the hassle of hiring a poxy Fiesta? How many people? How many cases? 180 miles 3 hours in a decent taxi with an albino driver.

    3. They should know better. Simply thugs who need a beating.

      Carry one fo those electric shock things and zap a couple of them.

    4. I travelled extensively by train back in the ’50’s. Reserved seats cost money and the inspectors would turf out squatters – or get the railway police to do it.

    6. Yet sit in First Class with a Standard ticket and the guard will call the Transport Police.

      1. I suppose that if you could prove that somebody had taken your reserved seat and that BR had refused to do anything about it you would win your case by justifying sitting in a First Class seat?

        1. Nothing, but nothing justifies sitting in a First Class Seat – unless you have paid an exorbitant amount for it. According to the train companies.

          I remember when there was some kind of disruption. The standard class was so packed that people could not get on the train. Yet there were first class seats which were empty. The guard said that was too bad – people who could not get on would have to wait for the next train…I was already (standing, crushed) on the train, but I was totally disgusted by this pathetic little jobsworth.

          1. I have paid a supplement (not a huge amount) to sit in First Class when the train has been crowded and there were no seats in Standard. There was no bother. Perhaps it depends on the company (or the jobsworth).

          2. Sorry if I was unclear – I mean that you have to pay extra or not be able to travel at all, if there is no room in standard.

          3. It certainly can depend on the jobsworth. A conductor can (and sometimes will) declassify the train, so that people can spill into 1st class without extra payment.

            Also no seats is not quite the same as people literally not being able to get on the train at all, in standard, and having to let the train go and wait for the next one (maybe 30-40 minutes later)..

      2. Having a First Class ticket is no guarantee of a restful journey. Returning to London from St Helen Auckland my late boss Sir William Whitfield drove me to the station and purchased a First Class ticket for me. When the train reached Doncaster four filthily-clothed British Rail employees barged noisily into the compartment, dumped their rusty tea cans on the tables and proceeded to play clattering dominoes all the way to London.

        1. That is one of the disgraces of working for the railways. You (and your whole family) get free 1st class travel anywhere, on any line. For life, even after you retire.

    7. I had a similar situation when taking a group of pupils abroad. We’d booked the seats on a group ticket, but two drunken Scotsmen had removed the reservation ticket and refused to move. As the carriage was packed and there was nowhere for the staff to sit with the pupils, I went off to see the guard/conductor, who was useless and just told me to write a complaint! Fortunately, as he walked through the train, the two men must have thought he was coming to evict them and got up and left.

  57. God Heavening all.

    Just watched Graham Norton on catchup and he had Olivia Coleman, Helena Bonham-Carter on. Very funny. Then he brought on Lady Glenconnor, Lady in waiting to Princess Margaret. She is a natural. She had you roaring with laughter and then bringing you close to tears.

    1. Did he not have the ghost of Princess Margaret on too, so she could finish her conversation with Helena?

    2. Am I alone in not being able to stand smutty pants Norton? It’s an immediate off-button for me.

      1. You are not alone. But….he does know how to put guests at ease and there have been some memorable appearances of people telling very funny things about themselves.

      2. I found that Graham Norton could be very good at getting guests to “open up” and relax them to the point where they were really enjoying themselves and it showed. That was a good side. If you think his BBC show was smutty, you should have been watching back in the old days when he was still on Channel 4 very late at the weekend. (Yes I have been watching him for that long. 🙂

        I will not go into what he had on his show back then, but one young lady had an interesting method of firing ping pong balls across the room.

        However, I have really gone off Mr Norton since he gave an interview in Ireland completely laying into those “stupid bigots” who voted for Brexit. He believes we should not Leave the EU at all. He is now a BBC employee, so what a surprise. He is also often highly abusive to any pro-Brexit figures in the news, when he does his introduction to the show.

        So these days I only record the show to watch it if there is a guest that I want to see. That way I can fast forward the introduction and the music act that is often quite bland. They had Madonna on it recently who was very rude to Sir Ian McKellen (whom I had tuned in to see.) He rose above her petulance in the way that a Master corrects an errant student.

        By the end of the interview, even Sir Ian was losing some patience with the faded US singer, who did not like being on the sofa with someone more famous than she was. 🙂

        1. I went off Norton when he invited Brand & Ross on his show after they had tormented Andrew Sachs.

          2. Yes, I had forgotten that. I have not seen such smugness as I witnessed from those two men since a group of “student actors” (very loose use of that word) wandered into a party that we were having back in the day. Some of us were laughing so hard at their “affected preciousness” that we decamped to another place to avoid shattering their fragile little egos. We were too kind back then.

          1. Agreed. Though he didn’t know how to cope with guests that misbehaved themselves. Rod Hull and Emu. And guests who chose to turn up drunk.

        3. I managed to get tickets to see Sir Ian at the Harold Pinter Theatre recently. Nice cosy place. He was charm personified. He mingled afterwards with the audience.

          Four large G & T’s £74.00 :o(

          Richard Wilson was sitting a few seats away in one of the boxes. I waved and he waved back.

          I’m starstruck now……

    3. Hello Phizzee, is it Glenconnor or Glenconner? I actually see it spelled both ways online (although the second spelling is quite a bit more frequent).

      1. Good evening to you.

        Prob with the ‘E’ but i don’t know for sure. Where is King Peddy of Pedantia when you need him?

  58. –So the Party that puts Party before country wants the Party that puts country before Party to stand aside for the sake of their Party.

  59. I presume the pressure to stop celebrating “Remembrance Sunday” and the 11th hour on 11/11 will grow as the proportion of the population whose ancestors took no active part (I include here the Home Front/protected occupations etc) in WW1 or WW2 grows. This proportion must hhave grown massively since 1990.

    1. Whilst we still have PMs such as Blair, there will still be a need for Remembrance Sundays.

    2. I have on occasion reflected that our family and ancestors were born at just the right time to avoid being in WW1 and WW11. We did not lose a single relative. My Dad could not enlist with any of the armed forces as he was a type 1 diabetic, so home guard – guarding the captured enemy was his remit. Sometimes Remembrance Sunday makes me feel like a voyeur into other people’s grief, a national ceremony in which I cannot fully take part but be merely an onlooker. However, I am eternally grateful for the heroism and sacrifice of our nation’s, and the Commonwealth’s young people. The message that comes across is simply this: freedom isn’t free. And our elder son has done his bit – five tours of duty in Afghanistan. Yesterday I did the rounds of three supermarkets, living rurally this meant a journey of 40 miles in total, to make my contribution to the British Legion – where are they this year? Our village is usually visited by poppy sellers on behalf of the British Legion, this year no-one called.

      However, I digressed! – yes, I see this ceremony dying out over the next twenty-five years as WWl and WWll fade into untaught history.

      1. My family all escaped unscathed through both world wars; father and his brothers were in protected industries (mining and steel production), mother’s brother survived RAF service in charge of the kitchens. We didn’t lose anybody in WW1, either, as far as I know.

      2. I don’t think you should feel like a voyeur as surely all the resident UK populations of the years 14-18 and 39-45 and many in the colonies were part of the war effort or affected by its privations (which lasted well beyond the war years).

        1. I must say that as a child I did not feel like a voyeur, I felt part of the whole thing, paying my respects. I understood this very, very early in my life, from about the age of four. I remember the substantial canvas poppies with the equally substantial black button in the centre and wiry stalk – I was very proud to wear it as a young child. I recall rationing and ration books – I understood what it was all about. I have felt like an onlooker only since the bbc have taken to emotional manipulation.

          I was just thinking today it feels as though the country is now governed by the bbc rather than the elected government of the day – it tells us what we should think, what we can and cannot say, who it thinks we should marry, for whom we should vote, and what under any given circumstance we should feel. Which is why we view very, very little of its output.

      3. My father and two of his brothers fought in the First World War.

        The eldest of the three, Geoffrey, was killed in action aged 19.
        His younger brother, Leonard, was awarded with the Miliray Cross for bravery.
        My father, Christopher, broke a leg playing rugby for his regiment – his leg was badly set by a drunken doctor and so it had to be re-broken and reset. While he was convalescing the whole of his unit was wiped out so he survived and my sisters and I owe our existence to that drunken doctor.

      4. Not so sure, pm. I reckon half of our village population turned out at the War Memorial this morning. All ages were there. Frankly, the last two or three years, I’ve found it more emotional than was once the case. Probably because the poor bastards who died. wasted their lives. We’re handing the whole bloody country to the Germans, lock, stock and barrel. :-((

    3. Roy Philip Hallowell-Carew, my mother’s brother. Not a glorious death and I only discovered these details recently.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ecdb5e49a0cacdb0d4112056c90158bc6620383d4f847df4da6f11fc6608a01.jpg

      RAF 1932-37 (Flt-Lt)
      Address in 1940: Cedarcroft, Sticklepath, Okehampton, Devon
      Postings: 2FPP, 1FPP, AFTS as Instructor, 16FPP
      “Good multi-engine pilot, though inclined to be nervous, particularly in bad weather.”
      “Not over stable financially.”
      Reprimanded for disobedience of Standing Orders on 3 Apr 1942
      [Contract Terminated by ATA 11 May 1942 – Disciplinary Reasons]
      Died in a flying accident, 23 July 1942 when a Test Pilot for MAP. His Spitfire V W3958 of 1 CRU (Civilian Repair Unit) at Cowley crashed at Cumnor Hill, 3.5 miles West South West of Oxford.
      Buried Epsom Cemetery.

    4. If the Remembrance covers all those who have died or been maimed in wars, whichever side they were on, I suspect it may continue for some time yet.

      In my view, it’s something that can bring the surviving people together as much as define which side their loved ones fought on.

      1. Sadly, I feel that a lot of that sentiment went out of the window in the past 5 years since it became all about the centenary of the beginning/end of The First World War and a bandwagon started to roll. It turned into an industry with competitors vying for the largest/most artistic/ornate poppy display and all the other wars went out of the window in a Blackadder-fest.

        The simple dignity of the commemorations at the War Memorials at Whitehall and all around the country seems no longer to be enough for the emoters.

        1. People generally have zero interest in history, and our immigrant population only has interest in history where it can be used to beat Great Britain with. Even our students are now indoctrinated to remember, with hate, colonialism. Time has moved on, and the two world wars and the holocaust are in the same time span as the Trojan War.
          Sad.

          1. sosraboc – I am just off for the night now, but I have noticed something that I will impart. You have been losing 1,000 to 1,200 votes a day at a consistent rate. But your vote has gone UP by 135 in the last 24 hours. This would lead me to believe that either we have had a “significant day” where the Disqus staff were not in the office to run their vote stripping program, or the guy who normally does it has gone on holiday.

            I have noticed this with some others who were always falling as well. If your count starts dropping again tomorrow, then the staff are back to a normal 9 to 5. If it keeps rising for a week before it starts falling again, then he is lazing away on some beach somewhere.

            Have a good night everyone, and don’t let the slow-witted bite. 🙂

  60. ConWoman

    TODAY is Remembrance Sunday. In

    Whitehall, the great and the good will bow their heads in recollection

    of the fallen. They should also bow their heads in shame for the low

    status conferred on that memory in the Government’s National Curriculum

    for History in English schools.

    Neither World War One nor World

    War Two is required teaching. Instead, these nation-defining events are

    relegated to the status of ‘Examples (non-statutory)’ that ‘could’ be taught to children. This contrasts with a statutory requirement to teach either Islamic history, West African history or central American history.

    Lord Tebbit has observed that, ‘Lest we forget has become lest we remember.’ He is right. The full extent of the betrayal is set out in a pamphlet I wrote for The Campaign for an Independent Britain.

    ‘Britain should stop wallowing in past traumas and move on,’ Simon Jenkins, a former chairman of the National Trust, told Guardian readers in 2017. ‘Next year,’ (2018) he urged, ‘we should draw down the curtain and have a Forgetting Day, a Move On Day, a Fresh Start Day.’

    Last Thursday, Polly Toynbee punched home the case for national amnesia and for the destruction of our identity. ‘It’s fine to shake tins for veterans – but surely last year was the time to say goodbye to all that, to look ahead not back.’

    Toynbee

    is nothing if not condescending when it comes to the poor bloody

    infantry who, along with sailors and air crews, did the fighting and

    dying for us. ‘We remember their sacrifices,’ she opines, whilst

    ‘conveniently forgetting that victory required the greater heft of US

    and Russian allies’.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/remembrance-no-our-valiant-years-are-being-erased/

    1. Fortunately Canadians view WW1 as a significant turning point in our history, it was the first time that Canadian troops were allowed to fight together instead of simply being sacrificial lambs under an empire flag. Schools still include the world wars in history classes and tomorrow will see many school children ag out cenotaph for the remembrance service.

      1. That’s heartening to hear. Unless that changes, my grandchildren will be able to learn about part of their own heritage. (I suspect my beloved daughter-in-law and under-the-thumb son have no intention of giving any such information)

    2. We were not taught anything about the wars in our history classes either.

      The first few years rushed us through various Georges, Edward’s and other oldies. When we got to serious O level studies it was English History from 1815 to 1910 and the course did not stray from that narrow curriculum.

      1. I had four years of 1815-1939, bored me rigid, hated it. Political History GB and Europe. Now I’d pi$$ it.

      2. When I did A Level History it was British History 1815 to 1911 and European History from the end of the Hundred Years War to 1914.

    3. Toynbee should be soundly beaten, her property taken from her and given to Help for Heroes.

      It is only by their sacrifice that she enjoys the lazy, fat, petulant life she has.

    4. Remembrance is not just for distant conflicts but all lives lost in conflict, past and present. If the bint thinks killing is going to stop anytime soon she is living in a different world.

    5. When I took NUJMB “O” level history back in the ’50’s, the curriculum ended before WWi. The whole thing was battles and dates – intensely boring IMO.

      I expect back in those days the assumption was that we knew a lot about WWI (and especially) WWII from relatives who were there.

      1. I concur. I have extreme difficulty with numbers. No wonder I failed! I begged to be allowed to take another language or if I had to do history at least to do a different time period. No joy.

      2. Ditto my history lessons in the sixties. WW2 was too recent to feel like “history” and we never got much past the middle ages that I recall. I got stuck learning social history rather than political history, which I would have preferred.

      3. Ah, NUJMB, the National Union of Jam Makers and Boiler workers. At least that’s what it said on my copy of the log tables they used to dish out. It’s funny the things one remembers. The cover was pink, like blotting paper.

        1. We ‘ad to buy us own log tables. Tan in colour, IIRC. Bought from Philip, Son and Nephew in Liverpool. A treasure trove of a bookshop back then with a big educational department. Bought my first slide rule there and a decent set of drawing instruments – compasses, dividers, pens, etc. Still have both items, amazingly enough. Both heavily used when I spent a couple of years designing things.

        2. I took Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board papers as well. They were reckoned to be one of the hardest boards.

        3. I took Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board papers as well. They were reckoned to be one of the hardest boards.

        4. We ‘ad to buy us own log tables. Tan in colour, IIRC. Bought from Philip, Son and Nephew in Liverpool. A treasure trove of a bookshop back then with a big educational department. Bought my first slide rule there and a decent set of drawing instruments – compasses, dividers, pens, etc. Still have both items, amazingly enough. Both heavily used when I spent a couple of years designing things.

    6. I had no idea that the history curriculum had changed so much. Are we the only country in the world that is not required to teach its history?

    7. One of the congregation remarked to me that she wondered if schoolchildren ever got the opportunity to sing the National Anthem in school. I suspect she had a point.

          2. They’re not all they’re cracked up to be. My fish pies are far better than any commercial product.

          3. Yours sound very nice and you are quite right .
            But white sauces and I, sometimes they are okay and
            sometimes they go badly wrong. Once made Mousaka
            with a sauce that became scrambled egg, it was awful .
            Yey the sauces with lasagne are very good.

        1. I quite enjoy a fish finger sandwich occasionally. Four fish fingers gently fried until crisp – two slices of toasted bread covered with tartare sauce on one side each and hey presto! A gourmet lunch!

          1. Erm…No. Not a gourmet lunch. A posh student who can afford baked beans and toast is what you have. Don’t tell me they were Birdseye ! :o(

  62. Time is fast running out for a Boris/Nigel deal. The very latest date is early on the 14th

    WE are also waiting to see the parties manifestos not that they are worth a lot as once elected they just ignore them

        1. Tony Blair went for a game of tennis.
          Someone asked if he needed a racquet,
          He said, ” Funny, that reminds me of something”

      2. He has no sense of guilt – that is expunged every time he goes to confession. Why do you think he became RC?

        2. I’m reminded of The Godfather when the Mafiosi thought to absolve themselves of sin by attending Roman Catholic church services.

        3. Absolution is only effective if the intention is not to sin again. Otherwise it is null and void.

          3. But would Blair recognise that he had sinned?
            He has such a Messiah complex that it wouldn’t occur to him that he had done anything wrong.
            So nothing to repent.

        4. Absolution is only effective if the intention is not to sin again. Otherwise it is null and void.

  64. Utter Scum

    A man who disrupted a Remembrance Sunday event with fireworks has been rescued from angry veterans by police.

    The

    fireworks exploded into the sky as hundreds of people stood in silence

    at 11:00 GMT and listened to the Last Post at the cenotaph in Eccles,

    Salford.

    A man had set them off from a window ledge in a disused pub across the road.

    Angry

    veterans gathered outside shouting, “Get him out!” and trying to break

    down the pub door before officers rushed the man into a police car.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-50367340

    1. I can already hear the sound of fireworks, even before dark. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that it is disrespectful to let off fireworks on Remembrance Sunday?

    2. I can already hear the sound of fireworks, even before dark. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that it is disrespectful to let off fireworks on Remembrance Sunday?

    3. By the look of his arm he does not know what respect is – only respek (which of course he expects for himself and his ilk).

  65. Keith Vaz is standing down as the labour candidate for Leicester East. Perhaps he wants to spend more time selling washing machines. Eh Jim?

    Good riddance to one of the slimiest hypocrites I can think of.

    1. They are nothing but Bird and Bat munchers, they rot the soil
      beneath them and they are God awful ugly, a blight upon the
      countryside.

      1. We have a single wind generator on high ground at Hundon, visible from our property across the Stour Valley. The damn thing is mostly stationary and a blot on an otherwise beautiful landscape, a landscape with skies beloved by Constable and a river beloved by Gainsborough.

        Most do not realise that the electrical energy generated has to be connected directly to the National Grid. It is presently impossible to store the energy in batteries. The available method in these parts is in a few cases either under-grounding of cables at depth across agricultural fields or else overhead via enormous pylons striding across an otherwise tranquil landscape and AONB.

        These inefficient machines are despoiling vast areas of our beautiful countryside. They have to be situated away from major habitations simply because the blade tip speed can fling ice formed on the blades a mile or more. They kill birds such as kites and buzzards and affect our hearing with their repetitive groan. The overhead cables are a known source of brain defects in those living under them or in close proximity to them.

        There are no real positives to on shore wind farms.

        2. I know that area, its about 45 mins away from us,
          It’s utterly immoral how such landscapes are vandalised
          by not such green obsessives.

  67. The Cabinet Office report as leaked to the Guardian today,,,,,

    “The figures, which were prepared for a secret internal government review
    earlier this year, reveal a system in crisis as tens of thousands of
    women are reluctant to pursue their alleged attackers when faced with
    invasive disclosure demands, a lower likelihood of securing a conviction
    and lengthy delays in seeing their case brought to court.”

    Tens of thousands of women raped ? That’s more than Bosnia and Kosovo combined. Where do these crap statistics come from ?

    3. I have seen estimates that 500,000 young girls and women may have been raped over the last 40 years by the newcomers to our shores. That they were sexually assaulting these females on an industrial scale has been admitted.

    4. Blame the Police and CPS for prosecuting men where they deliberately withheld evidence that would have cleared them.

    1. If people have agreed that their data be used in this way, so be it.

      I doubt many thought it would be. Almost none really understand how mobile networks work, nor how deliberately cheap and thin (in bandwidth terms) they are.

      As for using the census data – I imagine it’s irrelevant because most people in London it was posted to were not those living at the address.

    1. About 12,000 directly employed at Faslane plus tens of thousands of people whose jobs are indirectly linked to the base might have some thoughts on that.

      1. They have expressed themselves in the past. The SNP do not care. There are far more people involved in fishing and farming, activities which will be trashed if the SNP block Brexit, or take us back into the EU after an indieref.

        1. I really don’t understand it all.

          We have the Conservatives who started the referendum calling the withdrawal bill, which is simply slavery leaving.

          We have a Labour man desperately against the EU saying he will do things to get elected that the EU would forbid campaiging to remain.

          We have the ‘Liberal Democrats’ making back door deals to prevent competition on seats to force a remainer only advantage, proving themselves neither Liberal nor Democratic.

          We have UKIP who are… goodness knows what.

          We have the Brexit party, a young upcoming, enthusiastic motivated group who… aren’t saying anything.

          All of them are making huge spending commitments that are utterly unbelievable.

    2. About 12,000 directly employed at Faslane plus tens of thousands of people whose jobs are indirectly linked to the base might have some thoughts on that.

    3. Yep. That’s the way our democratic system works. You may have noticed that a bunch of Remainers, overt and covert, have just cancelled the vote of 17.4 million people.
      The Trident system, the subject of a still secret deal with the US, is now not nearly as undetectable as it was 30 years ago. Nor is it the most efficient way to deliver nuclear weapons. Stand-off air delivery (maybe from airliners) is possible. Our Astute class submarines can launch nuclear armed Cruise missiles with a range of 800 miles plus.

  70. Tyranny: Vladimir Putin is trying to lock up Russia’s most prominent Libertarian. November 10, 2019.

    When Vladimir Putin wants to lock you up and shut you down, you know you’re doing something right.

    Mikhail Svetov, one of the most prominent figures in Russia’s Libertarian Party, was interrogated by the state’s Investigative Committee over allegations of so-called “sexual misconduct against a minor.” According to the Moscow Times, the criminal case stems from an Instagram post Svetov shared in 2012 that featured “a sexually suggestive photo” of his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia Starodubovskaya, who was 16 years old at the time, thus meeting Russia’s age of consent.
    Svetov, a social media star, and Libertarian activist, was released by authorities on Thursday after an extensive interrogation that included a humiliating urological examination.

    This as might be expected has nothing whatsoever to do with Vladimir Putin but represented a propaganda opportunity that could not be ignored. That said the authors have stuck their heads out more than a little to drag his name into it. The girl was sixteen in 2012 and Svetov was twenty seven. I would like to see them defending such a relationship between a politician and a minor either here or in the United States. The feminist lobby and the MSM would have their guts for garters!

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/tyranny-vladimir-putin-is-trying-to-lock-up-russias-most-prominent-libertarian

    1. The feminist lobby and the MSM would have your guts for garters!

      Not necessarily. In the U.S., Jeffrey Epstein’ antics and his associations were studiously ignored by both.
      Ditto the UK, where certain groups and individuals get a complete pass.

  73. Another mindless attack on Nigel Farage – this time by Nick Timothy who helped Theresa May lose her majority in her absurd general election.

    (I print the article below my comment):

    You, Nick Timothy must be worried sick.

    Boris Johnson must be worried sick.

    The Conservative Party must be worried sick.

    The Daily Telegraph must be worried sick

    What else explains these constant attacks on Nigel Farage and those who want a proper Brexit rather than BRINO?

    You could all end your worries by keeping the promises about going for a proper Brexit and making an electoral pact with the Brexit Party.

    The TOP COMMENTS under each and every DT article about Brexit are ALL in favour of a proper Brexit rather than BRINO.

    Why should this be – is it that the majority of DT readers want a proper Brexit and can see that this is not what the Conservative Party under Johnson is offering?

    If you don’t believe this – just look at all the TOP COMMENTS under all the DT Brexit articles for yourselves and buy plenty of lavatory paper….. you’ll need it.

    Nigel Farage has tragically turned into the Frodo Baggins of Brexit NICK TIMOTHY

    The Brexit grandee’s bizarre move to unseat Tory Leavers could ruin everything he has worked for
    In Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins undertakes an epic journey and battles all as he seeks to destroy the One Ring, which gives absolute power to whoever wears it. When Frodo finally reaches the Fire of Mount Doom, he succumbs to temptation and chooses not to destroy the ring, but keep it for himself.

    Recently, friends of Nigel Farage have taken to comparing him to Frodo. Mr Farage has spent a lifetime campaigning to get Britain out of the European Union. He overcame incredible odds to become one of the few who can say they made Brexit happen. But now Britain has the opportunity to leave the EU, he risks upending all he has worked to achieve.

    This Friday, Farage will launch the Brexit Party election campaign. Despite his supporters’ boasts – that they can win in Labour’s Brexit heartlands where the Tories cannot – Farage will be not be in Sunderland or South Yorkshire, but the Conservative-held constituency of Walsall North.

    It is a curious choice. Three quarters of voters in Walsall North voted to leave the EU, making it the second most Eurosceptic constituency in the country. But voters there are not represented by some Labour Remainer, like Hilary Benn or Yvette Cooper. They are represented by Eddie Hughes, a Leave-supporting Tory.

    Hughes is in many ways the New Model Tory. He comes from a working class family. He speaks with a Brummie accent. His political interests are not about tax cuts and the pursuit of individual freedom, but tackling real problems for ordinary people in places like Walsall. He has campaigned for better protections for people in rented housing, secured a new train station in his constituency, and won funding for a new Accident and Emergency department at his local hospital. He is a successful local MP, and a committed Eurosceptic: he resigned from his government position to vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Yet now he finds himself in the Brexit Party’s sights.

    While Remainer campaign groups are encouraging tactical voting against Brexit, Farage is deliberately splitting the Leave vote. According to polling, the Brexit Party could win 22 per cent of the vote in Walsall North. With only a little tactical voting, Hughes might lose to a Labour MP who will vote for a rigged second referendum, allowing Jeremy Corbyn to keep Britain in the EU as well as wreck our economy.

    And why is Farage doing this? He insists that the deal Boris has struck with Brussels is a “Remainer’s Brexit.” But this is ridiculous. Forget that Boris was the Leave campaign figurehead in 2016, and is therefore no Remainer. Forget that his Cabinet is full of ministers who are signed up to delivering Brexit. And forget that almost all lifelong Eurosceptics – including many of Farage’s own candidates and colleagues – say that Boris’s policy is the real deal. Examine Farage’s arguments, and it becomes quickly apparent that they are fatuous.

    The Brexit Party claims the new Withdrawal Agreement means “Britain remains under EU rules, but with no vote, no voice [and] no veto.” But this is true only during the transition period, which is due to end in December 2020. From that point, a new trade agreement will govern the relationship between Britain and the EU. This agreement is described in the Political Declaration that accompanies the Withdrawal Agreement. And Farage’s claims about that are completely bogus.

    He argues that EU judges will still rule over Britain, and that we will not control our fishing, will be unable to trade as we choose, and will not be allowed an independent foreign or defence policy.

    None of this is true. British troops will not be “in EU battlegroups … under foreign command.” We will be free to pursue our own foreign and defence policies. We will be out of the customs union and the single market, meaning we will be free to strike our own trade deals and change our laws in all manner of ways. We will reach an agreement with Brussels about fishing in British waters, but what we agree will be up to us.

    In some narrow aspects of policy – such as the rights of EU nationals who came to Britain while we were a member state – European judges might have some influence over our laws, but even then their influence will be indirect, and come via a panel of British and EU members. This is why even veteran Eurosceptic legal campaigners, like Martin Howe QC and the Tory MP Bill Cash, decided to support Boris’s deal.

    So why is Farage campaigning against it, and against Leave-supporting Tory MPs? Some who know him believe – after years of being despised, ignored or patronised by senior Tories – he has a pathological determination to destroy the Conservative Party. But others insist he is motivated much more by ego. Drunk on his own publicity, and surrounded by sycophants, he is incapable of taking yes for an answer. And so he keeps campaigning for a “real Brexit”, even though in so doing he risks destroying the real Brexit that Boris is trying to deliver.

    In swing constituencies, polling shows, the Brexit Party picks up twice as many votes from the Tories as from Labour. On this basis, the Brexit Party would hand Gedling to Labour, and Portsmouth South to the Lib Dems. This is a danger we have already witnessed in two recent by-elections: in Brecon and Radnorshire, the Brexit Party let in the Lib Dems at the expense of the Tories, and in Peterborough, they let in Labour.

    And what, anyway, does Farage hope to achieve? The Brexit Party is on around ten per cent in the opinion polls, which according to independent analyses might not win them a single seat. But it might well be enough for the Tories to lose the likes of Cheadle and Taunton to the Lib Dems and Pendle and Pudsey to Labour.

    And if that happens, we face the misery of another hung parliament. Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister. Brexit might be stopped. And everything Farage has fought for will be lost.

    In Lord of the Rings, good fortune means the ring is destroyed despite Frodo’s submission to greed and vanity. But in real life, we cannot wait for a stroke of luck. Farage needs to stop, before he kills his greatest achievement.

    2. “In Lord of the Rings, good fortune means the ring is destroyed despite Frodo’s submission to greed and vanity.”

      But the good fortune was another character’s submission to greed; Gollum bites off Frodo’s finger and with it the ring but falls into the Crack of Doom.

      Who will be Gollum?

    3. MrTimothy may be right about Mr Farage. Farage may be the ultimate egotist, “…Drunk on his own publicity, and surrounded by sycophants,…” but he is entirely wrong on his interpretation of the unnecessary, EU-serving Withdrawal Agreement.
      Although, to describe a party that is intent on independence as being composed of sycophants is maybe a bit of a stretch?

    1. If something can’t work without ongoing massive subsidies, look for alternatives that don’t need them.
      By all means subsidise something that is at the research stage, to get it off the ground, but stop the subsidies the instant it is up and running and let it fend for itself

      1. But that’s the problem with green. It cannot survive without massive subsidy. It doesn’t produce enough electricity, the things cost a fortune to build and site and the return in a competitive market is practically negative. Without the government forcing us to pay for them via massive green taxes they simply wouldn’t exist.

        Worse, the government deliberately taxes coal and gas and nuclear to ‘level the playing field’ so green looks remotely sensible. When they talk about wind surviving without subsidy this si simply a lie – and notable, the google seaches for wind subsidy all return that wind is not requiring subsidy – it is, never pretend it isn’t. The difference is that subsidy is coming from taxes on other fuels, so in reality it is four to five times more expensive to use green than normal energy sources.

      2. That’s electric cars done then. Without subsidies at purchase and avoiding ongoing fuel taxation, no-one would buy one.

        1. It’s odd that one.
          Around us charging points are popping up everywhere and they are certainly more popular.

          A good friend was very high up in EDF and he swears by his car and proselytises harder than a born again Jehovah’s witness on speed. His wife hates the car!

          1. As a sometime ex vehicle design engineer who once worked on an electric car project (many, many years ago, I admit), I like the idea, but we are still at the point where an EV costs an awful lot more than the equivalent petrol car, when subsidies are removed. And no-one yet has explained how electrics will pay road taxes (fuel, etc.) equivalent to petrol or diesel vehicles to provide funds for road maintenance. Or how “green” electric power is achieved. Or how the national grids will be upgraded to cope, etc., etc.

        2. Electric cars are weird.

          I like the idea of one. Stop and go cart syle driving, no gear hassles, ‘easier’ to maintain.

          Yet they’re appalling for the environment. The batteries are toxic. The materials to make them better used in a combustion engine car.

          Now,burning petrol to move about is a bad thing. With so many vehicles it’s even worse. What we need is a completely different fuel source. Something genuinely radical such as helium 3, hydrogen or fusion.

  75. Nothing new here but worth repeating…

    The impact of Britain’s foolish university drive is truly disturbing
    TOBY YOUNG 10 NOVEMBER 2019 • 2:00PM

    It will come as a surprise to few that 54 per cent of 18-24 year-olds plan to vote Labour in this election, compared to just 13 per cent for the Conservatives, according to YouGov. More intriguing is the striking parallel with data for university lecturers; 56 per cent of the latter support Labour and 11 per cent the Tories. This chilling synergy may have something to do with the fact that over half of young people now go to university.

    That our higher education institutions are churning out record numbers of ill-educated, Left-leaning graduates is no secret. But a poll which a few years ago found that 70 per cent of young people have no idea who Mao Tse Tung was spells out how appalling the situation has become.

    This particular example chimes troublingly with our metropolitan elite’s disgraceful ignorance of Communism’s worst horrors. Last year, Corbyn praised China’s Great Leap Forward in an interview with Andrew Marr – Mao’s policy of forced collectivisation of agriculture caused the deaths of 45 million people.

    That the majority of young people would vote for a party led by someone who arguably endorses the policies of the greatest mass murderer in history isn’t the only reason why the massive expansion of the higher education sector was a mistake. According to the Office for National Statistics, 31 per cent of graduates are over-qualified for the jobs they do, which amounts to about a sixth of the entire workforce. The number of vacancies in skilled occupations such as advanced manufacturing is projected to rise to 3.6 million by 2022.

    Churning out graduates who cannot find jobs to match their degrees isn’t a recipe for social cohesion. Historian Lenore O’Boyle, the reason there were so many revolutions in Europe in 1848 was because too many young men had been educated for a small number of prestigious positions, committing many of them to either unemployment or jobs they considered below their capacities. We have a similar situation today, only with the addition of large doses of neo-Marxist gobbledygook like “gender studies” and “critical race theory”.

    Thankfully, our era’s unemployed graduates mainly confine their revolutionary zeal to social media, where they can vent their frustration by “cancelling” people who deny that transwomen are women. Those that do find jobs can satisfy their yearning for “social justice” by policing their workplaces – by insisting on mandatory “unconscious bias” training and so on.

    However, there is a risk that today’s graduates could become tomorrow’s state enforcers of progressive orthodoxy. The police detained and questioned nine people a day on average in 2016 for “non-crime hate incidents” on social media, e.g. “misgendering” someone on Twitter. Free speech organisation We Are Fair Cop recently reported that Humberside Police now include these “non-crimes” on people’s records when they request an enhanced DBS check, potentially preventing them from working as teachers or care assistants.

    One gets the disturbing sense that this is just the start, and we could feel the social impact of Britain’s reckless university expansion for years to come.

    ******************************************************
    BTL:

    Fay Kendall 10 Nov 2019 2:41PM
    The expansion of ‘education’, to include those who would never really benefit from it, was only ever designed to be a means of indoctrinating the young in accepting the ‘progressive’ globalist agenda.

    It was the Blair plan that the state should get a majority of the young to pass through these Common Purpose sausage machines disguising themselves as universities, because the students would all come out the other end saying, thinking and doing all that was required of them. They would be intellectually neutered.

    So far, the plan appears to be on track.

    Phil the Fluter 10 Nov 2019 4:00PM
    Most of these new graduates have been groomed by the Left since they were 4. My kids were frog-marched off to Auschwitz by their left wing teachers to show them the potential consequences of voting for “right wing” ie. Nazis ie. Tory politicians.

    They weren’t told about the joint invasion of Poland by German and communist Russia. They weren’t taught that Stalin and Mao, as mass murderers, made Hitler look like an amateur.

    2. You give Blair too much credit. Getting everyone to go to university did exactly what it was supposed to do – it reduced the “official” unemployment rate. Tactics, not strategy.

    3. The toxic trio are of the same ilk churning out certificated pelt, paper tigers, rubber stampers, there will come a time when a tap washer needs replacing.
      Example, I was in Hima, Uganda, when the brains were kicked out ( Asians)
      Jukebox in the bush bar jammed up, no more music in that bit of Africa.

  77. Labour’s spending plans don’t add up…..BBC news.

    Chancellor Sajid Javid said Labour’s proposals would leave the UK “on the brink of bankruptcy”.
    But shadow chancellor John McDonnell condemned the report as “fake news”.

    Who left the note after Labour’s defeat in 2010….?

    Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money.
    Kind regards.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a85c7cf3365b015e556119704fe6d81487cb174e4bbd882b3b19a67c3cfbb2d8.gif

    2. Actually if the public accounts had (like companies and pension funds) to show assets and future liabilities we’d have been able to see that whereas in 1997 we were neck high in debts (index-linked public pension liabilities plus free health for the future ageing population and other generous benefit payment rules) by 2010 we were like a 3-year-old who couldn’t swim in the deep end of the pool. The situation in 2010 was a great deal worse than Liam Byrne’s “there’s no money left”. The public accounts were and are totally misleading because they fail to show future UNfunded liabilities ….

      1. Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money.
        Kind regards – and good luck! Liam

        Liam Byrne’s note to David Laws

    3. Labour’s spending plans never add up. Every Labour government (Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair, Brown) has left us in debt. Unfortunately, these days the “Conservatives” are fiscally incompetent as well and can no longer sort out Labour’s mess.

      1. To a large extent that is because of the enormous sum of money we have to send to Brussels every month. Here we are, strapped to a trading block with which we have a trading deficit, whilst meanwhile paying them billions for the privilege! Absolute madness! Out now please.

    4. I thought were already on the brink of bankruptcy. God know what personal debt comes to but the National debt is about £2 trillion isn’t it. Not exactly the picture of financial health. But, hey, they don’t even have to print money anymore they just create it electronically.

  78. It’s useful watching the TV for a guide to modern life. This afternoon a LinkedIn advert gave me an understanding of Linkedin.in the UK.

    Apparently, as the well-groomed ethnic guide informed me:

    1. LinkedIn is really good for career/job progression
    2. 70% of its users are darker skiinned
    3. 30% are white (of whom one-third are dwarfs)
    4. Everyone who gets fixed-up is a smiler who would lift any workplace

  79. Hmm, I would rather not receive any more down votes
    as a Conservative Voter ( a rare thing on zee internet thingy )
    so for the next month the Saxon Queen shall keep her opinions
    to herself and speak of other things instead, for the sake of peace and harmony.
    Such as my white sauce with the fish pie is at the bottom of the dish
    and the fish is floating above it..,husband isn’t looking forward to
    eating it later.. might try and rescue it.

      1. It’s very thin and watery, might add thickening granules
        and give the husband some white wine so he’ll not notice;)

        2. Take it out of the oven, pour off the sauce into a saucepan, add your granules plus a dash of white wine, bring to boil and reduce.

          Put fish back and potatoes back on top (or whatever you’ve got there). Finish baking, adding a little time (10 minutes or so).

        3. Evening A,
          Add a level tablespoon full of Blue Circle, should do the trick.
          Don’t go swimming after meal.

          1. There is no need for cornflour in a Lasagne. Putting cornflour in makes you feel bloated afterwards.

            Fry onions first and before they brown add a splash of white wine vinegar. Add garlic and herbs and cook for 2 minutes.

            In another pan fry your minced pork and beef. Preferably ground by your own fair hand. It doesn’t go clumpy and grainy if you make your own.

            Chuck the onions all back into the same pan and throw in a splash or two of red wine.

            Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a squirt of Tom Puree. Reduce for a few mins and then add a large dollop of butter.

            I like to make my own pancakes and make a version of Cannelloni rather than shop bought dried lasagne pasta.

            Make a decent Béchamel and top with a cheese of your choice. (Parmesan)

            This tutorial has cost you £50.00.

    3. Who is/are the down voter(s)?

      If I disagree with someone here I post my points openly.

      It strikes me as rather cowardly to down vote someone and then remain anonymous.

      2. The only time I down vote is after I’ve accidentally up-voted myself – wouldn’t want to be accused of trying to restore my diminishing total.😎

        1. You don’t need to downvote yourself – just click on the upvote arrow again and it will delete your vote.

          2. Sometimes the only way to see who upvoted you is to upvote yourself. Then click again to remove your vote, otherwise you look like a self serving plonker.

          3. Sometimes the only way to see who upvoted you is to upvote yourself. Then click again to remove your vote, otherwise you look like a self serving plonker.

        2. I’ve done that – sometimes it’s nice to see who supported one’s view. I think if you click on the up arrow a second time, it’ll take away the first uptick.

      3. Dunno. I’ve had them from time to time, as have most of us, I think.

        Perhaps if we ignore them, they’ll go away – after all if someone doesn’t write in response to a post of mine I don’t know what they are objecting to with their down vote.

          1. Quite right P-T, it’s not your fault they are wrong.
            I like my outlook regarding down votes, I have been insulted/ignored/downvoted by loosers for so long it makes no difference.

          2. True, but you can see them under your under your post – you don’t need to look for downvotes.

          1. Really, I never saw it. I’ll have a look at my notifications and see if it got through. Maybe the subject-matter was too near the knuckle.

      6. Personally, I never count votes of any sort. I still don’t know how, I am happy to say. I post what I want and am interested in actual replies. I do look at who upvotes me when there are a number. I need to know who the other intelligent people are…..

      8. I got a downvote for that comment. That was either Lottie or the nightstalker DiK. I see you got one too.

      9. You’re far too straight talking and honest for that 🙂

        Bizarrely, I once got banned from Conservative home
        for defending Nigel Farage – many years ago.
        Another time it was because I am a Right Wing Conservative
        and wrote a rather dark Nordic poem about Cameron and the EU.
        and more recently it was because I defended Boris Johnson
        and his Burka letter box remark.
        Mr Goodman who knows my feline Christian name tells
        me I’ve nearly used up all my nine lives.
        My point is I am not one for blind devotion but have my
        reasons to think the way I do. And i understand your reasons
        for thinking the way you do. I would’ve preferred a hard Brexit
        but am compromising. And think it’s best to agree to disagree
        and accept different people’s views without me going on and on
        for a month 😉

    7. I think we should strip you of your crown. Ethelfleda would never worry about up or down votes.
      You keep pushing Johnson so expect to get slated, he was a plant on Vote Leave and he’s no where near as good at lying as May.

Comments are closed.