Sunday 14 January: The PM’s scare tactics won’t stop voters punishing the Tories for their treachery

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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586 thoughts on “Sunday 14 January: The PM’s scare tactics won’t stop voters punishing the Tories for their treachery”

    1. I don’t quite get the cartoon – American XL Bullies seeing off an American AWOL bully?

    2. Compare and contrast the government push to grow our own food during the war (the Women’s Land Army, Dig For Victory).

  4. Sir Tony Blair had close links with Fujitsu BEFORE he became Prime Minister and signed off on the £900m Post Office contract with the firm in 1999 despite being warned that the Horizon accounting software looked ‘increasingly flawed’

    Tony Blair had a relationship with Fujitsu and met its bosses in Japan and Britain
    He was PM when contracts were awarded to Fujitsu, including the Horizon deal

    Post office scandal victims have accused Sir Tony Blair of having a cosy relationship with the Japanese IT firm behind the software that ruined their lives.

    It emerged the former PM signed off on the £900million Post Office contract with Fujitsu in 1999 despite being warned that the firm’s Horizon accounting software looked ‘increasingly flawed’.

    Now the MoS can reveal Mr Blair had close links with the firm going back years. He travelled for private briefings with Fujitsu bosses in Japan in 1996, a year before he entered No10, and met its executives in his Sedgefield constituency.

    He went on to oversee several billion-pound Government contracts handed to Fujitsu while he was in power. Last night, victims said Mr Blair had ‘very serious questions to answer’.

    Chris Trousdale, 41, who was convicted of fraud, said Mr Blair’s relationship with the firm was ‘extremely tight’. He added: ‘The Horizon system was known to be flawed, but Blair chose it anyway. We deserve to know why.’

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/14/00/79980481-0-image-a-17_1705191325042.jpg

    Last night, former postmistress Wendy Martin, 53, who was left bankrupt, said: ‘Tony Blair had a very cosy relationship with Fujitsu. They were in each other’s pockets. He should be held to account.’

    Fujitsu operated a plant in Mr Blair’s Sedgefield constituency, and the politician met with the site’s new manager there in 1995. The following year, he flew to Japan, where Fujitsu’s bosses briefed him instead of the Tory government in power at the time about its plans to set up new laboratories in London.

    Two months before he signed off on the Horizon deal in May 1999, Mr Blair wrote a letter to Fujitsu’s chairman Tadashi Sekizawa praising the company’s ‘deep and longstanding commitment to the UK’.

    A spokesman for the former PM said: ‘Mr Blair had nothing whatever to do with awarding contracts to Fujitsu, which presumably were awarded under normal procurement rules. It is now clear the Horizon product was seriously flawed, leading to tragic and unacceptable consequences, and Mr Blair has deep sympathy with all those affected.’

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

    What hideous people the Blairs are. They’ll be advising Kneeler in No 10

    1. Blast, beat me to it.
      What an evil soul that man has. At least he now looks worse than the picture in the attic.

      1. I hope he does in hell when he dies. And I hope he dies soon. I know it’s not Christian, or charitable. But that man is evil.

  5. Good morning, chums. Enjoy your day.

    Wordle 939 5/6

    I did it in five today.

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

      1. Janice Nicholls was not on the BBC’s Juke Box Jury. She was on ITV’s watered-down version, ‘Spin-A-Disc’, which formed part of their Thank Your Lucky Stars Saturday night programme.

    2. Four here. That’s a cheat imo, they never put words like that in! I only tried it because it fitted the remaining letters
      Wordle 939 4/6

      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
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      🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. How can we be giving money and weapons away to others, when so much of our heavy taxation goes to pay interest on our nation’s huge debts? How are we embroiled in an Eastern European shambles which 99 per cent of the population do not even understand, when our Navy is shrinking visibly, from neglect of its ships and from the growing unwillingness of anyone to serve in it? I can’t bring myself to mention the state of the Army, so embarrassing has it become.

      There should be, in this country, a great wave of outrage and frustration, big enough to sweep the existing political parties off the map and start again. But the only passions which engage anyone are futile ones, especially the dreadful cult of Net Zero. And, of course, the great political standby, another bloody foreign war.

      So say we all. Except for the Elites of course.

    2. Good morning Michael and all.

      The lights are going out all over Britain

      From the same 5th Column:

      “What Mr Phillips is accused of doing is in some way ‘destabilising’ Ukraine, or ‘undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine’. Personally, I doubt whether Mr Phillips’s crude and minor output could destabilise a child’s spinning top. Nor has it helped the Putin war effort. The wording is obviously a catch-all.

      And here’s what I think is the key bit of Mr Justice Johnson’s judgment, where he says it is ‘foreseeable’ that ‘a person who positively supports Russia’s propaganda war against Ukraine (for example by parroting Russia’s propaganda narrative), rather than simply expressing an independent view which happens to align with Russia’s interests’ might also face having his assets and income frozen.

      Well, I regard my position on the Ukraine war as an entirely independent one. I never even read or listen to Russian propaganda on the matter. But I am, even so, almost daily accused on social media of ‘parroting’ Russian positions, and if someone like Liz Truss or Lord Cameron or James Cleverly decides, without any form of trial, to accuse me of such ‘parroting’, then I too could be sanctioned.

      I might say I was (in the judge’s words) ‘an objective independent and fair-minded journalist’ who had happened to say things that ‘did not align’ with UK Government policy. But how would I prove it? The Government would be its own prosecution, judge and jury, and my only recourse would be to take the matter before someone, well, like Mr Justice Johnson. Be warned. These are dark times for dissent.

      1. One could be parroting Russian propaganda without knowing it, having picked it up from some seemingly independent website. They’re cunning, these Russkies, you know!
        Many people parrot NATO or WEF propaganda that they pick up from the corporate media every day. The relevant law would appear to be Thou shalt parrot only the correct propaganda!

      1. Yep. And when Frederik accedes to the throne today perhaps he’ll become King Bruce (Vivat Barry Humphries)

    4. For almost 300 years, England was an epicenter of Viking activity. From raiding in small groups to launching massive armies carried over the seas in hundreds of boats, England suffered at the hands of heathen warriors out to plunder, pillage, and destroy the Christian institutions that underpinned English authority. It was a time of great upheaval when thousands suffered, new fortunes were struck, and lands switched hands as the kingdoms of England fell afoul of the greedy invaders. The Vikings in England were brutal and without mercy. This was the age of Vikings, and Anglo-Saxon England was the focus.

      In 1066, as every British schoolchild knows, the Normans conquered England. But then, after several centuries of Norman/French rule, the place just quietly went back to being English again. How exactly did that happen?
      That’s not exactly what happened.

      First, the Normans weren’t really “French,” as the concept of a French national identity didn’t exist then – Normans were Normans first and last, and paid lip-service fealty (if that) to a relatively weak “King of the Franks” in Paris. They descended from Vikings who were given the Duchy as Danegeld (bribe to stop raiding), intermarried with the local population, and produced a new, hybrid population and culture.

      Duke William invaded England in the autumn of 1066 intending to add it to his Continental holdings. As it happened, though he defeated the English king Harold Godwinson and was crowned king himself, every time he thought he’d subdued the remaining English resistance and could return to Normandy, some other revolt would flare up and he’d have to go back on campaign. As a result, he clamped down hard on his new subjects both militarily and administratively.

      Meantime, the Norman lords, soldiers, and cleric-administrators who had come with him discovered there were many more and greater opportunities in England than there were back home. Rebellious English lords were either killed or dispossessed, which left their holdings up for grabs. Widowed English smallholders needed new husbands. Norman clerics employed to keep records could move up rapidly as William implemented more and broader taxation schemes and surveys.

      At the same time, though, the English were assimilating the Normans in return. For example, a Norman lord might marry an English widow and have sons with her that had Norman names and titles, but also learned English language, history and culture from their mother.

      So England was never “French” and never “quietly went back to being English.” Instead, as their Viking ancestors had done in Normandy, the Normans created a new blended culture, the Anglo-Normans. Within a century or so, except for some areas like Wales, Cornwall, and Yorkshire, “Anglo-Norman” culture had become the “English” culture. It was different than what it had been before 1066.

      1. All true, but you’ve evidently got that from some American source. “Epicenter”, “different than”, and other such abominations give it away.

          1. It is historically correct, Maggie, I can’t fault that. It seems that few people are actually aware that the Normans were Vikings a few generations down the line.
            This means that at the battle of Stamford Bridge, in 1066 it was, effectively, Vikings v Vikings (or, “Our Harold is harder than your Harald!”)😘

          4. I’ve spent a lot of time in Normandy over the years. It’s clear they are the Norsemen – there’s even a brewery that produces ale that references that.

      2. Time to lower the tone with a very old joke about another leader of the Liberals:

        Q. What do William the Conqueror and Jeremy Thorpe have in common?
        A. They’re both f*cking Normans!

      3. I can recommend several well made Viking series made fairly recently. ‘The Last Kingdom’, based on Bernard Cornwell’s historical novels revolving around Alfred the Great’s time. Also ‘Vikings’, followed by ‘Vikings, Valhalla’, both go into what the Vikings did in Britain, and Europe, including the Scandinavian divisions. Not 100% accurate of course, but includes a lot of real events and battles.

  10. SIR – Rishi Sunak’s attempts to scare former Tory voters away from backing Reform UK at this year’s general election – for fear of letting Labour into government through the back door – are a waste of his breath (“‘A vote for anyone other than Conservatives is a vote to put Starmer in power’”, report, January 7).

    We’ve heard it all before.

    We were taken for granted by David Cameron; taken for fools by Theresa May, who was out of her depth; and, although it pains me to say so, deceived and grossly let down by the underperforming, pantomime PM that was Boris Johnson – a failed messiah if ever there was one.

    All betrayed our trust with breathtaking displays of arrogance and downright dishonesty, which have left lifelong Conservatives and Leavers like me feeling exploited and abused.

    There’s no reason to believe that Mr Sunak’s promises will be any more trustworthy than those of his three immediate predecessors. His pleas will not stop us voting for Reform UK, whatever the short-term cost may be. The day of retribution is upon us.

    It’s time for this soulless and gutless shell of a once-great Conservative Party to be either dismantled and reconstructed or replaced – while Labour spends the next five years demonstrating its innate and ruinous incompetence to yet another starry-eyed generation of soon-to-be disappointed and disillusioned youngsters.

    Adrian Barrett
    Haywards Heath, West Sussex

    Nuff said

  11. We’ve sent an unambiguous message to the Houthis: your attacks have to stop. David Cameron. 14 January 2024

    There’s no more important a decision a prime minister can make than to send British forces into action. I never thought I would be part of another Cabinet discussing this, still less watch another prime minister weighing up such a decision.

    I never thought it either. Tell me how it is possible that Cameron could write this? Has Libya just slipped his mind? The total collapse of the country. The destruction of the irrigation system and the means to repair it! Its descent into civil war? It becoming a pathway to incomers from Central Africa into Europe? Is he a complete psychotic looney or just irretrievably and profoundly stupid? I would genuinely like to know.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/13/unambiguous-message-to-houthis-your-attacks-have-to-stop/

    2. How can such an idiotic, empty-suit, abysmal failure like David Cameron be promoted beyond his abilities yet again?
      One suspects that the ‘very senior Royal’ who told the Cons to elect Cameron as leader because he was so talented might be KFC.

    4. Shapps and Cameron are fools mouthing off to Iran in the most undiplomatic language of the public school playground.

      Instead of wasting billions on putting warships in harms way and firing equally expensive cruise missiles at the desert we should leave the Houthis to their own devices.

      We should accept that shipping owners will either reroute their cargoes or else same owners have the option of employing mercenaries to protect their vessels. Many forget that the Suez Canal was closed for a decade following the Israeli war yet other routes were utilised by the shipping owners.

    5. He was asleep at the back during his history (and geography) classes at Eton. Just another entitled pillock, but a dangerous one.

  13. Sir Ed Davey is a toxic liability even to the feckless Lib Dems

    His behaviour over the Post Office scandal has been idiotic and arrogant

    SIMON HEFFER
    14 January 2024 • 7:00am

    Do you remember how things used to be when Conservative ministers appeared responsible for even the smallest misdemeanour? Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, would fight his way on to any television or radio show that would have him (or explode over social media like a demented teenager), baying for that minister’s resignation.

    It may be a while before we hear such self-righteous claptrap again. Sir Ed now sits at the political heart of the most shocking scandal of our time: the Post Office’s branding of hundreds of its employees as thieves, and wrecking their lives, to conceal the failures of the useless computer system it chose to operate. When matters in this slow-burning atrocity continued to be dire – from 2010 to 2012 – Sir Ed was minister in charge of the Post Office.

    He initially refused even to meet Alan Bates, the heroic ex-sub postmaster who has led the campaign for absolution and restitution. Sir Ed claims he was lied to “on an industrial scale” by the Post Office. That may well be true.

    But did he investigate why this institution was having so much trouble? Did he ask the right questions about what he was told – the detailed questions those who understand the true nature of responsibility must always ask, whether running a village post office or part of a department of state? Apparently not.

    This may be because of stupidity; and indeed the way Sir Ed has comported himself in recent days suggests that he might indeed be utterly obtuse. He refused ten times in an ITV interview on Friday to apologise for his obvious dereliction as a minister. Or, it may be down to breathtaking arrogance: Sir Ed acts blithely as if he were beyond reproach and born to rule. God help the ruled.

    One recalls the Lib Dems’ joy in getting a taste of power when David Cameron asked them into a coalition in 2010. Suddenly, officials greased up to them; red boxes made them feel important; the chauffeur called every morning. After decades as nobodies they were, briefly, somebodies.

    It appears, however, that no-one told them this entailed more than rubber-stamping what officials told them.

    They also had to exercise their intelligence on the matters before them, and, under our constitution, be ready to take responsibility for them. That, however, would entail hard work, and be far more demanding than the grandstanding, preening and virtue-signalling in which they had had years of practice.

    It is no surprise that Sir Ed behaved like this, and continues to do so. Those who have had a Liberal Democrat-controlled council inflicted on them know that is how the party works: they crave power, but haven’t a clue how to exercise it properly if they get it.

    Around Britain’s local government today, there are numerous Lib Dems, posing and posturing and making a shambles of everything they touch, but regarding the problems they create as somebody else’s mess to clear up. Sir Ed’s own notions of the constitutional role of ministers wouldn’t even get him a politics GCSE.

    His grotesque apparent failures may have taken place years ago, but their toxic legacy persists. His cowardice, evasiveness and idiocy remain rampant. He is a liability his already inadequate party hardly needs. In an election year, he is their dose of arsenic. Sadly for them, he appears to be too thick or arrogant to see that either.

    1. BTL:

      rodders lmao
      21 MIN AGO
      Let’s hope he suffers a “Jo Swinson-esque” like humiliation at the next GE and loses his seat!

      P Verdon
      24 MIN AGO
      And don’t forget this is the moron that banned hydraulic fracturing for gas; instead of which we now have to import most of our needs from the USA and Qatar (ie HAMAS).

    4. Is he not also responsible for the Net Zero Climate Change Act? I wonder, has he had a heat pump installed at his home – or homes? And did he claim it on expenses?

      1. When Layla was released by the combo, “Derek and the Dominoes”; Eric Clapton played the rhythm guitar part. The lead/slide guitar part was played by his good friend, Duane Allman.

    7. North Shropshire has an LD MP. She’s always in the papers (and sends round a “newspaper”), but as far as I can see, she seems to be jumping on other people’s bandwagons (someone else’s petition about closures or other people’s efforts to save a community pub). She is, however, always prominent in the photo shoots.

  14. Good morning, all. Still quite dark here, for some reason. I did wonder for a minute whether I had got up an hour early!

  15. Taiwan told to ‘prepare’ as Vladimir Putin action sends ’signal’ of Chinese aggression. 14 January 2024.

    Taiwan has been told to “prepare and plan for aggressive action by China” after Vladimir Putin sent a “signal”, a former Navy Rear Admiral has said.

    Admiral Mark Montgomery told Jacob Rees-Mogg on GBN America that the KMT’s message does not “convey the reality of aggressive, authoritarian China”.

    GB News has become a sort of parody of the MSM. It takes unrelated events and transforms them into absurd terrifying threats by nonentities. This is particularly sad of course because we all hoped that it would become a vehicle for the truth. Alas it has been “got at” by the Globalists.

    https://www.gbnews.com/news/taiwan-prepare-putin-chinese-aggression

    1. I think the plan from the start was to let it develop and then remove all the truth tellers, labelling them as unstable far right extremists. Neil Oliver is the Peter Hitchens or Richard Littlejohn of GB News at this point, the lone voice who suckers in dissatisfied citizens to get their dose of propaganda from the other GB News presenters. The corporate media has removed people who strayed too far off the official line over the years, like Katie Hopkins or Neil Lyndon if you go back far enough.

      At least it gives Neil Oliver a platform.

      1. … For now.

        I thought Farage was bomb-proof on LBC when he had Trump as a phone-in. Even if they hated him, I thought they would know that none of the others had comparable clout.

        Then they sacked him.

      2. … For now.

        I thought Farage was bomb-proof on LBC when he had Trump as a phone-in. Even if they hated him, I thought they would know that none of the others had comparable clout.

        Then they sacked him.

      1. Some of their commentators and panellists are so puerile that it is hard to understand why they are given any airtime.

        Just when you think they could not find more childish idiots than Amy Nickel and Benjamin Butterworth they produce hordes more people who are even worse.

  16. Good morning all,

    Grey skies over Ty McPhee, wind in the North-West 2℃→5℃ so a tad less chilly today.

    Isn’t the top letter the truth? I suppose we should say well done, ST, for publishing it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48244b1faf1a6c33ff6f87f654f930e1b759693d8d7201f90eb94ae550f1c1a5.png

    The hapless Truss doesn’t even get a mention yet at least she was elected to the Conservative leadership by the party members. Her removal was clearly plotted by TPTSB so that they could install their puppet PM. With his half-mast trousers and sausage-skin jackets all he needs is a white face, red nose, wig and battered hat and the circus-clown image would be complete. Although there is nothing funny about his giving away to the corrupt Ukraine regime another £2.5Bn of tax-payer money we haven’t even earned yet. There is something slippery and deeply inauthentic about Sunk.

    1. Mr Barrett is about twenty years too late getting angry. If he and his ilk had got angry when Theresa May made her “nasty party” speech, perhaps we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today.

      TPTB won’t be worried in the slightest by Mr Barrett’s letter. They’ve got Labour and Reform lined up not to upset the apple cart whichever way people vote at the next election. Mass migration, net zero, removing land from food production, promoting society-dividing issues like trans rights and islam, 15 minute cities, digital ids, CBDC plans etc will all carry on unabated.

      1. Only while we just sit here and whinge into cyber-space about them. If we actually all got up and did something now…..

        1. I think the time is past for national campaigns. Individuals have made a great dent albeit temporary in the plans, for example Farage leading Britain out of the EU, or Wolfgang Wodarg shooting down the swine flu in Germany, which finished it worldwide.
          At this point, the crash of the dollar in a sea of debt is inevitable. It’s inevitable that there will be an army of young men with no women and no families who will riot when their bennies stop. It’s inevitable that there will be shortages, and it’s looking inevitable that there will be a third world war this year – TPTB seem desperate to have it.
          So all we can do is build our local networks and prepare as best we can.

  17. Who said we had a mental health crisis in this country? Don’t worry…the Civil Service is ‘Leading beyond Authority’.WE’RE PAYING FOR THIS PERVERT

    Children wanting to transition ‘can ignore parents’, says Civil Service diversity ambassador

    Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale, a transwoman in the Department for Work and Pensions, compares puberty blockers to taking the contraceptive pill

    Steven Edginton
    13 January 2024 • 7:49pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/01/13/TELEMMGLPICT000362395835_17051698647440_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqJJo5K0Omu92gLp5v4Dw_lOiFP16DH80NvTQC4S5bO7A.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale says the belief that sex is binary is not ‘the modern
    scientific view’

    A Whitehall diversity ambassador told civil servants working in schools that trans children’s demands for puberty blockers should take precedence over their “parents’ will”.

    Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale, a transwoman civil servant in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), told colleagues that children who want to transition have the right to ignore their parents’ wishes and compared taking puberty blockers to taking the contraceptive pill.

    The official also claimed that the belief that sex is binary is not “the modern scientific view” and that “there are as many genders as there are individuals because we’re all unique individuals”.

    Ms Tweedale, who acts as the DWP’s National Diversity Ambassador on trans issues and is the co-chair of the cross-Civil Service LBGT+ network, gave an online lecture to DWP civil servants on 26 October 2023.

    The talk, which focussed on gender identity and pronouns, was given to the National Group of Support for Schools Advisers, a group of officials in DWP who offer career advice in schools.

    The diversity ambassador told colleagues: “What really gets me is when you’re challenging a trans child’s knowledge of who they are and say that parents’ will take precedence. That poses a big danger to women and girls because it challenges Gillick competency.

    “If a child isn’t old enough to know the consequences of their medication treatment because they’re trans, then how does a girl understand the consequences of taking the pill, which it [sic] was the basis of Gillick competence or indeed needing an abortion etc?”

    “Gillick competence, it’s very clear, if a child is old enough to understand the consequences of the medication and treatment they are asking for, their will takes precedence over that of the parent. And that applies whether you are trans seeking puberty blockers, or whether you are a girl seeking to take the pill. And when you are challenging the right of trans children, that undermines the right to Gillick competency.”

    The concept of Gillick competence originates with a legal case from 1986 in which the right of children under 16 to have medical treatment without parental consent was affirmed if the child “had sufficient maturity and intelligence to understand the nature and implications of that treatment”.

    Postponing puberty in children
    Puberty suppressing hormones (PSH), also known as puberty blockers, are medications that have been used to postpone puberty in children who believe they are transgender. They work by suppressing the production of sex hormones including testosterone and oestrogen.

    However, in June 2023 the NHS issued interim guidance that bans the prescription of puberty blockers for children unless in “exceptional” circumstances, or for use in research.

    The NHS guidance says: “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

    Kate Harris, co-founder of LGB Alliance, a gay rights charity, told The Telegraph: “The Civil Service code lays out its four key values – integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality – but it seems that senior leaders at the DWP and other departments have lost all sight of this.

    “No civil servant should be advising anyone else on their political beliefs, especially if, as in this case, they damage the rights of others.”

    “Parental consent or not, neither the NHS nor private GPs should be using experimental drugs on children. There is no such thing as a ‘trans child’. There are only children – most of whom are likely to grow up lesbian or gay if left alone – who have been confused by adults with their own agenda and are led to believe that they are ‘born in the wrong body’. To see a DWP ‘ambassador’ promoting something so harmful to children is deeply repugnant.”

    “We call on Simon Case and [DWP Permanent Secretary] Peter Schofield to end this untenable situation and restore some integrity to the DWP.”

    In May 2023 Ms Tweedale tabled a motion at a conference of the Public and Commercial Services union in Brighton calling for the body to produce campaign literature “which highlights the links between the far-Right, religious fundamentalist and gender-critical ideologies”.

    Gender-critical campaigners
    The civil servant, who was acting in their capacity as a union representative, also claimed that gender-critical campaigners had welcomed “the presence of far-Right activists” at rallies in Australia, “even when they gave Nazi salutes”.

    The allegation is disputed by gender-critical activists, who say their rally was gate-crashed by a far-Right group.

    Dr Hillary Cass’s independent review, published in February 2022, into NHS treatment for children with gender dysphoria described puberty blockers as having short-term side effects including “headaches, hot flushes, weight gain, tiredness, low mood and anxiety” as well as a “reduction in bone density”.

    Dr Cass raised concerns about the “unknown impacts on development” of the drugs which could impact children’s “brain structure, function and connectivity”.

    Ms Tweedale also told career advisors that it was not a “legitimate concern” to want “single sex spaces, mainly toilets in schools” because negative incidents stemming from trans people using the opposite sex’s bathrooms were rare.

    A DWP spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on individual staffing matters.”

    3. What do you expect if you insert Brian May’s genes when cloning Jimmy Savile, in an attempt at improvement?

    7. 381802+ up ticks

      Morning C,
      “Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale, a
      twattranswoman in the Department for Work and Pensions, compares puberty blockers to taking the contraceptive pill”

      Just prior to the half brick hitting home.

    9. What a false comparison. When women stop taking the pill they can get pregnant. Puberty blockers do just that; block puberty.

  18. Only one month to go.

    I’ve just had an email from a company persuading me that if I buy a glitter pink tumbler in the shape of a tube of Pringles, it will make me irresistible to women on 14th February. Anyone tried this?

    2. Pink canisters of Pringles enclose a potato product marketed as ‘prawn cocktail’ flavour crisps. Sounds suspiciously Freudian.

  19. Good morning all!
    A totally clear sky has given a beautiful start to the day, all be it a cold one with -3°C on the Yard Thermometer.
    I think I’ll be donning my long johns when I go outside.
    I’ve still got to tidy up some of the firewood I’ve been dragging down the hill, a lot of it from an abandoned fort that Still @ Home son built 1½ decades ago with his mates.
    I think it’ll be seasoned ready for burning by now!

    1. Good morning Bob the Log, and everyone.

      Dragging down the hill? Hast thou never heard of gravity and gravity shutes?

      1. Yes, good idea.
        PROVIDED there is sufficient to bring down at each location to warrant the effort of setting one up in the 1st place.

      1. Nope. Slice of bread, rashers, slice of bread.
        SWMBO likes ketchup… (YUKK) but, she’s wrong.

        1. I like HP Fruity sauce on a bacon butty. If it’s on a plate with fried eggs it gets the Henderson’s treatment.

    1. Morning! They’re desperate to sterilise European and American children while at the same time accusing Israel of attempting genocide against the rapidly increasing Arab population on her doorstep. One can only surmise that they believe the Mohammedans can be used as a stepping stone towards communism. Ignorant fools.

    3. Is it me or does it/ze/that bear an uncanny resemblance to the late great Jimmy Savile?

      I think we should be told!

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Broken cloud cold weather advice possible sunshine.
    Being ‘encouraged’ to help get on with certain things as we have a family birthday lunch later.
    And what a shame we can’t give most of our useless political classes what they actually deserve. A week in the Stocks and a damn good daily thrashing. And I mean that.

    1. 381802+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      In my book if the politico’s thought that is all they would receive for their treachery rendered, then many would surrender NOW

      T really am looking for long term incarceration for the guilty parties after a fair trial, a commodity their victims NEVER received.

    2. Quite frankly, we need Bluff King Hal or Good Queen Bess.
      Whatever their other faults, they were on the side of this country.

  23. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy cold start here.
    There appeared to be a lot going on in the centre of London yesterday, nothing really on the news about it.
    I didn’t see anything just people heading to the protest with flags and a lot of roads blocked off by the police.

  24. 381802+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 14 January: The PM’s scare tactics won’t stop voters punishing the Tories for their treachery

    Surely the voters time would be better spent instead of seeking revenge via the polling stations, in mass voting one chosen candidate, the chosen candidates name freehand written on the voting paper.

    Seeking revenge plying one misgoverning WEF party with votes against the other, again, strikes me as the heighth of
    lunacy.

  26. Good morning, all. Bright and calm (despite what I’m commenting on) here.

    Here we go again. The wishes of, I presume the judge(s), who ordered the deportation and probably the vast majority of the people who want criminal scum removed from the UK thwarted again by passengers on an aircraft. And all Cleverly can do is berate the do-gooders rather than show some backbone and do his job. One Home Secretary after another caving in to the wishes of a few passengers on aircraft cannot be a coincidence. Truly, something is rotten in the political class and it isn’t split on party lines: they’re all in it together.

    Mail on Sunday report.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5a2d9125172f7cb872cb06d2d00e0ffbb459af483252e846f429f1eed0b0e8b.png

    https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1746437444273152221

    3. Then stop trying to deport them on commercial flights and use military ones. Rishi Sunk has a couple of helios going spare.

  27. Some years ago my work/life pattern allowed me to start reading the Telegraph online, and the Letters page was my first port of call after glancing at the headlines.
    Nowadays I often head directly to nttl and cut out the middlemen.

  28. Some years ago my work/life pattern allowed me to start reading the Telegraph online, and the Letters page was my first port of call after glancing at the headlines.
    Nowadays I often head directly to nttl and cut out the middlemen.

  29. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story (next Tuesday 16th, The Joke Book dies)
    POSTMAN PAT
    It is Postman Pat’s last day at work and everyone is marking the occasion with gifts, home baked cakes and cash. He takes the post to one particular house and the door is opened by a stunning blonde in a very short negligée. She takes him by the hand, leads him upstairs and treats him to an hour of the best sex he ever had. Down in the kitchen she makes him the full English, with tea and toast. As he is sipping his tea, he notices a ten-pound note in the saucer.
    He says, “look, I’ve had a lovely morning, everyone has been so kind and you, well the sex was incredible and the breakfast, but why the money?
    She said “well, the breakfast was all my own idea but when I asked my husband what we should do for your retirement he said “F— him, give him a tenner”!

  30. Q. How much money will Labour raise by ending the tax breaks on private education and private equity? OK, chuck in taxing the non-doms. How much?

    1. Why has the Conservative Party been so feeble?

      The state is not subsidising private schools. The private schools are subsidising the state schools.

      By educating children whom the state would otherwise have had to bear the full cost of their education private schools are saving the state far more than stealing their VAT exemption will do.

      The Conservative Party used to be the party of private enterprise and small businesses. Private schools are precisely the sort of thing that a Conservative government ought to support.

      And yet the slimeball Cameron took his own children out of private schools when he was PM and put them into state schools and then the oleaginous grease ball hypocrite put them straight back into private schools as soon as he left politics.

      And now he has been recalled by Sunak to be foreign secretary?

      2. Very true. In Germany, the state recognises this by paying a proportion of the fees of registered private schools.

        If Labour abolish private schools, where will they send their own children?

        1. In France for each child it educates a private school receives from the state the same amount of money as it costs the state to educate a child in the state sector.

          Our two sons went to private primary schools which were so well run that we had to pay no fees.

          8 years ago I had a hip replacement done in a private clinic clinic but I received the same amount from my compulsory insurance scheme as if the operation had been done in a state hospital.

          British socialism is considerably nastier than it is in other countries. The French think that if you have paid for something with your taxes you do not lose that entitlement if you use a private school or a private clinic.

          I am rapidly becoming convinced that Britain is on the verge of total moral collapse with a sadistic, avaricious state with the appetite to punish its own people.

          1. Since the war, Britain seems to have implemented everything worse than the Europeans did – including EU legislation!

    2. Why has the Conservative Party been so feeble?

      The state is not subsidising private schools. The private schools are subsidising the state schools.

      By educating children whom the state would otherwise have had to bear the full cost of their education private schools are saving the state far more than stealing their VAT exemption will do.

      The Conservative Party used to be the party of private enterprise and small businesses. Private schools are precisely the sort of thing that a Conservative government ought to support.

      And yet the slimeball Cameron took his own children out of private schools when he was PM and put them into state schools and then the oleaginous grease ball hypocrite put them straight back into private schools as soon as he left politics.

      And now he has been recalled by Sunak to be foreign secretary?

    3. Net loss is my guess. They’ll have to educate the kids from the closed private schools at state expense.

      1. 381802+ up ticks,

        Morning G,

        Same as I, it needs doing that way as there are those that can only learn by rote.

      2. “This chap” is Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer vice-president for allergy and respiratory disease research.

        1. Is he one of us, or one of them?

          Was he still with Pfizer while they were engaged in producing the genocide poison?

          2. He is very much one of us now. He knew Vallance when they were both young researchers and called him out very early in the scamdemic, publicly accusing him of lying. No legal action was taken by Vallance from which it is safe to deduce that he knew he would not win a lawsuit. Have a listen to this:

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47905621f39f733b231d24f1379ef54726f0c1afdac50b07e9b46bb80e26d4c3.png

            https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/2023-06-10_Yeadon:c

  32. Good morning all

    Low cloud , grey day and 2c.

    No 1 son was up early , off to Devon, he is taking part in the Axmouth challenge .. running 9 miles .. it is a good day for a great run . https://www.axevalleyrunners.org.uk/axmouth-challenge-2024/

    I said a very sad farewell to my car yesterday, the wretched emissions nonsense has killed off a reliable solid little car that was comfortable and reliable , 172,000 on the clock and still a sweet engine .. no muck coming out of the exhaust, so why did it fail .

    1. Have you had it tested at another garage, after a long drive.
      They must be able to identify the reason for failure, ie Catylist

      1. It’s probably too old for a catalyst – mine is. Mine passed MOT ok last month. 16 years old and still low mileage at 47,000. A bit battered but the engine is fine.

        1. Catalysts have been around a lot longer than that – low mileage tells me it’s doing short journeys and it would benefit from a long high speed run which will clear the crap and give better emissions

          1. There was nothing wrong with the emissions on mine – it’s TB’s car that failed. But my car has no catalyst.

      1. Islamophobia! The irrational fear of a barbarian savage follower of a stone age religion who happily blows himself up while looking for the loo and a snack bar.

        Nothing irrational there!

    2. I have posted quite a few times on Islam in this forum. I think my New Year resolution is going after Islam at every opportunity. Muslims in the West, you are well aware support the Palestinians but not content with that they are now demonstrating on behalf of the Houthi. At every turn these savages, now embedded in our society show their contempt for Democracy and demonstrate their hatred of the West. Contrary to what is being said below about Covid “The biggest crime in history is happening right now.” The biggest crime is government allowing this non stop flood of Muslim immigrants into our countries. We will be extinguished soon along with our civilization if we allow government to do nothing other than sit back and allow this cancer to spread.

    3. Something i would like to see if HMRC being sent a bill for the time wasted on hold. If the same were possible for insurance companies and banks then all those ‘your call is important to us’ lies would disappear post haste.

    4. This horrific incident has been reported in Le Figaro. In spite of the threat she did go to the police to report what had happened – let us hope the aggressors will be caught and punished . Castration should not be out of the question.

      This clip has now been taken down. Reporting the barbarities of Islam is now off limits on Twitter (or X).

    5. This horrific incident has been reported in Le Figaro. In spite of the threat she did go to the police to report what had happened – let us hope the aggressors will be caught and punished . Castration should not be out of the question.

      This clip has now been taken down. Reporting the barbarities of Islam is now off limits on Twitter (or X).

  34. Good morning one and all.

    I woke up this morning with, guess what, net zero on my mind! Yes I know, bonkers huh. Anyway. What occurred to me was to submit a FOI request as follows:

    1 How many MPs over the last two years have installed a heat pump?
    2. How many MOs have installed new gas boilers over the last two years?
    3 How many MPs have claimed either on their expenses?

    Next thing is, to whom should I send it? Or can anybody suggest something better?

    3. Does the MPs’ expenses office answer FOI questions?

      if yes, then you could ask how many have claimed for each item over the last two years?
      On the other hand, the fact that someone else is paying for it might make it more likely that they would install the white elephant.

    4. The expenses you can find out. But, for some numbers, £30,000 is regularly claimed for MP’s second homes energy bills.

      While they’re not all scamming the tax payer – some are going to have some decency after all, like Mogg; I imagine ithe vast majority of the troughers scamming off the climate change hoax are happily slapping their bills on us. After all, that’s why they’ve gone into politics.

  35. The ‘diversity and inclusion’ ideology is fast becoming dangerous
    The concerning consequences of the prioritisation of DEI over almost everything else have become disturbingly clear

    ZOE STRIMPEL

    In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell’s essay on the moral harm done by linguistic fudges and jargon, we learn how the powerful use grandiose, empty phrases to hide their true meaning, or simply to cover the fact that there is none. “The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness,” he noted. And when multi-syllabic, Latinate words of murky meaning are favoured over shorter, clearer turns of phrase, the results are often politically sinister.

    This is an ingenious analysis not only of the political currents of Orwell’s day, but of ours. Indeed, nowhere have these absurd linguistic gymnastics and their acutely harmful effects been clearer than in the spread of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) ideology.

    This is the latest short-hand for the system of belief that, as the American journalist Bari Weiss has put it, “replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad)… People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues.”

    “Diversity”, “equity”, “inclusion”, “social justice”, “intersectional awareness”: when any of these words are spoken by woke theorists and their followers in Western institutions, they almost never seem to mean what they would appear to. Instead, they have become tools for enforcing a particular political project on the rest of us.

    Over the past few years, the concerning consequences of the prioritisation of DEI over almost everything else have become disturbingly clear. Diversity and inclusion – which you would think ought to mean that members of every group have the same chance to succeed based on their talents – has become the opposite of meritocratic. And what must inevitably follow when ability, performance and practical outcomes are downgraded in favour of a political ideology can only be toxic.

    Even companies like Boeing – one of the world’s most important manufacturers of aircraft, whose purpose ought to be singularly clear – appear to have been captured. Elon Musk suggested that it prioritised DEI over safety on social media last week, after a document emerged that seemed to show the company had started rewarding executives for hitting climate and DEI targets in 2022, shifting away from a sole focus on areas such as product safety and quality.

    There is no suggestion that this has had any real-world impact. But it made for uncomfortable reading in a week in which some of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 planes were grounded after one of them lost a section of fuselage as an Alaska Airways flight was departing Portland.

    Grim examples of how the jeopardising of quality and safety follows absolute deference to the politics of DEI have been well documented in the medical profession – especially in America, where the trans agenda has interfered with medical lecturers’ ability even to talk about “women’s” health or flag sex-specific medical risks.

    A similar scandal is afflicting the American Ivy League universities.

    On the one hand, they risk an obvious plummeting in academic standards if more and more students are admitted not based on their academic potential or quality, but because their ethnic or sexual identity accords with notions of “marginalisation” (a word that would certainly have made Orwell squirm).

    This may even be affecting academics and universities’ leadership. It looks increasingly likely that Claudine Gay, the ex-president of Harvard, could have been hired because she represented the DEI worldview. Certainly, the quality of her scholarship is up for debate amid accusations of plagiarism.

    There also appears to be a creeping culture of seeking to spare the feelings of students, lest any constructive criticism or attempt to raise academic standards be branded a “micro-aggression”. A professor at Harvard told me recently that he cannot award grades lower than a B+ because the students can’t handle it, psychologically.

    And then there are the Jews. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology – like intersectionality and social justice – never seems to include Jewish people. Not only that: it positively acts against us, making us the eternal “privileged” enemy.

    Since Hamas’s invasion and killing spree in Israel on October 7, the total adherence to DEI ideology by American universities has shown for all the world to see how it facilitates the rankest abuse of Jews.

    When pro-Palestinian activists began taking over campus with megaphones, signs, open letters, intimidation, classroom interference, and physically intimidating “protest” – including calling for the genocide of Jews and the total destruction of Israel – all too many university leaders did nothing.

    Gay herself was a particularly extraordinary example of this. When asked in Congress if calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s policies, she said that it “depends on the context”. Harvard is now facing a major law suit by Jewish students, accusing it of gross, persistent and endemic anti-Semitism.

    This sorry turn of events is surely a direct result of the embrace by Harvard and the rest of the American institutional and educational landscape of a system of ideas that expresses itself in the bureaucratic – and dangerous – cadences of totalitarianism.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/13/diversity-and-inclusion-ideology-fast-becoming-dangerous/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    1. DEI was dangerous from the moment it sprang out of deranged WEF fanatics’ brains. In fact, its danger to us was its raison d’être!

    2. I do wish folk would stop letting the Left decide what to say. They’ve always abused language to suit their own ends.

      The acronym is DIE, and it should be put to death, merit restored, the weak expunged and forced to accept that they simply aren’t good enough and to face improving on that basis. The more we keep excusing the incompetent the more of it we create.

      Bluntly, DIE really means division, intolerance and exclusion. That’s what the Left have always done. They want to set the rules and don’t like it when annoyances like merit, decency, competence and ability get in their way. Besides, if you dmb down and protect the failures, you can enrich yourself from that provision. That, ultimately is their plan.

  36. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98ddc04e00bd1c9d771edd418f249e10fceed84d1a2e3f351e24bcca3f63181c.png

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-ongoing-genocide-the-world-ignores/

    And what does the Archpillock have to say about this?

    BTL

    Muslim asylum seekers would prefer to go to Christians whom they despise but do not fear rather than to their co-religionists whom they not only despise but of whom they are also terrified..

    We are not kind, humane, Christian and virtuous in welcoming those who want to bring the hell holes from which they are fleeing with them to establish new hell holes in Britain. We are, as Mr Powell said and was not heeded: “mad, literally mad“. And not just mad but suicidal with it.

    They made a series of films in the USA starring Charles Bronson called: Death Wish 1, Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, Death Wish 4 and Death Wish 5.

    They ought to make a film called: Death Wish X – The Death of the Cross showing how an evil Archpillock, the Cof E’s chief executive, supported by his nominal Head, the mentally deranged Idiot King, led an anti-Crusade to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth.

  37. We watched a film last night.. trashy and violent .

    Imagine that one of the boiler room scumbags from “The Wolf of Wall Street” bankrupted Jason Bourne’s mother. That’s more or less the starting point of “The Beekeeper,” which stars Jason Statham as a wraithlike ex-commando who metes out Old Testament vengeance against tech bros who use the latest inventions to rob people online.

    In screenwriter Kurt Wimmer’s world, a beekeeper isn’t just a beekeeper but is also a trained assassin, part of a hive protecting the queen bee, which means that the FBI agents on his trail are forced to, you know, read books on beekeeping to get to the bottom of this.

    A goodie v badie film.. anway we watched it , and looked away when the going got tough.

    1. You would think that they have done these plot lines to death, wouldn’t you? There isn’t really a storyline, just look at the violence and mayhem and feel good that the bad guys get their comeuppance.
      Perhaps some ex-special forces son of a jailed sub-postmistress will enact it all out and blow away the guilty parties in the Post Office debacle.

    3. We started watching the Post Office drama. OH is in charge of the telly and the controllers and hadn’t been able to find it up to then. He’d rather be watching the snooker or footie.

  40. 381802+ up ticks,

    Yes,yes,yes BUT, they don’t realise it but, we have captured them already, we are not silly.

    Houthis and Hamas Terrorists Praised as Thousands Protest Against America, Britain, and Israel in London

    4. That’s Britain. That’s why we are the greatest country in the world. That’s what every where should be like.

      1. Grey sky & over 3′ snow on the ground, although +3C now.
        The contrast with spring/summer is lovely. Especially with the longer days…

          1. It may have come to mean that through popular usage but its etymology states otherwise. Bill Bryson (in Troublesome Words) informs:
            celibacy. ‘He claimed he had remained celibate throughout the four-year marriage’ (Daily Telegraph). Celibacy does not, as is generally supposed, necessarily indicate abstinence from sexual relations. It means only to be unmarried, particularly if as a result of a religious vow. A married man cannot be celibate, but he may be chaste.

  45. 381802+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Theresa May backed Paula Vennells’ CBE ‘in face of warnings’
    Ms Vennells handed back her CBE amid the fall-out of the storm, in which more than 900 Post Office workers were wrongly prosecuted

    She would wouldn’t she,

    She backed everything that was anti English.

    1. I don’t know what the Post Office scandal has to do with anti-Englishness. Or is it that the scandal as a whole wasn’t anti-English but Paula Vennels is/was individually so? Or, more precisely, was the award of a CBE to Paula Vennels anti-English? If so, how?

      1. It was a betrayal of our country to promote and encourage a dishonest, incompetent diversity hire in a top job.

        1. I do not get the specificity of anti-English. I believe there were victims in Wales and Scotland, too. And for those who do not believe that immigrants and their offspring can ever be English, there were post-masters and post-mistresses with an Indian sub-continental heritage also wrongly tormented.

          2. ? what does the ethnicity of the victims have to do with it? I think you’re splitting hairs, sometimes someone will say ‘english’ even though it also applies to Scotland, Wales, Northern Irelands, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands too – people are way too sensitive these days!

          3. Once upon a time, “English” encompassed everybody in the UK – and then, along came Blair …

      2. 381802+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW,
        Anything backed by may is decidedly iffy, the lady in question was warned there could be repercussions, she by her own post award action agrees.

        I do believe she was more deserving
        long ago of a CDM, (don’t come Monday)

        1. I can certainly see why this scandal fuels anti-May feelings but, if the Post Office, Paula Vennels and/or Theresa May are/were anti anything, anti-British is a better candidate than anti-English. Anti-decent, honest, hard-working people fits the bill even better.

    2. The Sunday Telepraph today quotes from an independent IT consultant that the company supplying the Horizon system was

      ..,failing to meet good atandard industry practice…>

      There are international standards for the achievenment of quality assurance in systems management and these include configuration management during software development. These are embodied in ISO9000 and include the concept of creating a full backup of software to record ‘milestones’ during its deveoplmemt. Together with a record of version changes as software evolves means that system errors can be eliminated by backtracking – if necessary to the last milestone.

      Reports of ‘off the record’ changes to Horizon software suggest a disorganised approach to the Horizon system development which was reported to Tony Blair before he signed it off for the Government as being politically expedient.

      All those involved in the following debacle trusted the integrity of the Horizon system to the extent that discrepencies in the accuracy of a computer could only have arisen through criminal activity of postmasters and postmistresses.

      1. 381802+ up ticks,

        Afternoon AO’E

        “trusted the integrity of the Horizon system to the extent that discrepancies in the accuracy of a computer could only have arisen via criminal Activities”

        Didn’t they just, BIG TIME.

        1. You wouldn’t believe how much faith people have in something that doesn’t work.

          However that is why placebos work! 🤔

          1. I find it astonishing that the default was ‘the postmaster is stealing’, never ‘is there a bug. It’s as if there was absolutely no testing whatsoever.

  46. My conscience is bothered that I don’t care that criminal invaders have died while trying to illegally enter this country to free load off welfare and no doubt eventually commit crime.

    Ah. That’d be why I’m not bothered.

    1. After a while, one just has had enough that one’s compassion is not just fatigued, but turned inside-out, and one gets pleased to hear of disaster befalling these scum.
      It questions my Christian upbringing rather strongly. And I resent them further for making me feel this way.

        1. If you ask a leftie what is a fair share of what someone else has earned, they start splitting hairs over who holds the fortune and who does the earning, the boss or the worker. Classic Marxism but irrelevant since both boss and worker pay the tax from which the bennies for the unproductive are drawn.

          2. I did, yes, thank you. The travel experience wasn’t so good but the hotel was comfortable and it was lovely to be with the family and back in York.

      2. Remember that the God who said love thine enemy is the same God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It has been suggested that far from condoning evil, he simply doesn’t want us to fight amongst ourselves?

        1. Dear God is getting old and confused; first He was helping the Egyptians, then the Jews had him on an exclusive contract, followed by the Christians and finally He was reduced to playing gigs for the Mossies. No wonder He slips up occasionally.

        2. Dear God is getting old and confused; first He was helping the Egyptians, then the Jews had him on an exclusive contract, followed by the Christians and finally He was reduced to playing gigs for the Mossies. No wonder He slips up occasionally.

  47. 381802+ up ticks,

    Make it a blanket covering , or even a duvet for ALL entering illegally,

    Dt,

    Thousands of illegal migrants earmarked for Rwanda flights have gone awol
    Official documents show that only 700 of original 5,000 people earmarked for deportation are in ‘regular contact’ with Home Office

    Gettaway, astounding.

    1. What bloody idiot stopped illegal entrants from being held in secure places so their details could be checked and recorded?

    1. 381802+ up ticks,

      Afternoon Bob,

      ” A view to the chop” is, I would imagine, an eye watering must watch”

    4. “Extreme body modification group conducted amputations on camera for pay-per-view audience”

      “Lights! Camera! Action! OK, cut!”

  50. Well, the MR’s Loopy Friend has departed. It is really very sad. She is losing her marbles even more quickly than before. Left her house in France to spend three months in Blighty. Packed a bag with winter clothes. Left it behind. Had cataract operation but now has worse vision so cannot drive. Told us she had to be in Norwich this morning to catch 11.30 bus to London and then to Portsmouth. I asked to see the ticket – knowing that she gets these things wrong. It was for the 3.30 bus – so she’ll not be home until 10 pm. Still insisted on going to Norwich in the hope that she can see three friends whom she hasn’t seen for yonks. And so it goes on. All one can do is offer a helping hand – which the MR does in spades.

    Comes to us all, I suppose. LF is 82.

    1. If the next 10 years are like the last 10 years i will be booking a one way ticket to Switzerland.

  51. And the beautiful blue sky has clouded over. I’m half expecting snow this afternoon.

  52. According to the weather forecast we will be getting snow shortly, already there are wintery showers on the other side of the loch and there are snow squalls on the surrounding roads. Woodburner lit and hatches battened down

    2. We’ve had an “amber warning” (they are obviously going to have to change the light bulb) for snow and cold temperatures. There may be “snow showers” and “flurries”. Hardly The Day After Tomorrow.

    1. The virus doesn’t differentiate between those unconcerned about the risks it poses and those who cower in fear of it.

      1. The virus itself, perhaps not. But I can’t help wondering if those most fearful of it get it worse because they are expecting it to be worse than it is, and the psychological aspects reduce their bodies’ capabilities to fight it.

        1. Fear, itself, can be debilitating. You may well have hit upon a poorly understood relationship between fear and resistance to disease. On the other hand, it’s possible, by taking measures to maximise social isolation, to reduce the likelihood of coming into contact with it. I suppose it’s a matter of evaluating whether isolation more than offsets the ill-effects of fear and loneliness.

          1. But the fewer minor illnesses one contacts the more serious/long-lasting they appear to be when one does get something.

  54. Russians struggling to access hospital services as war impact bites. 14 January 2024.

    Russians are struggling to access healthcare services as the impact of the war hits home, the Ministry of Defence has said.

    In its daily update on the war, an MoD spokesperson said: “The impact of the war against Ukraine on healthcare in Russia is highly likely being felt by the civilian population.

    “Russian media has reported that the general public is struggling to access hospital services throughout the country. a shortage of medical products is also being reported including broad-spectrum antibiotics.

    You have to laugh!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-putin-zelensky-latest-b2478336.html

      1. I’m not sure it is the immigrants although they do seem to get seen by GP’s more often than the rest of us. On my multiple hospital visits the wards have been mostly empty except for oncology and A&E.

        1. If you can’t see a GP, then getting access to hospital services automatically becomes more difficult. Every medic taken off NHS duties and used to support the gimmegrants makes the queues for the provision of hospital services greater.

          1. According to the local press our surgery is threatened with closure because of underfunding by the Welsh government. The nearest one that could possibly take over the (expanding) population is 30 odd miles away.

          2. My local GP surgery has amalgamated into Sovereign Heath. (a private concern with 3 others). They now have 40,000 patients on their books.

          5. Since we moved to West Virginia, (and before, when living in Maryland) I don’t think either of us have been unable to see a doctor when needed fairly promptly. Even during Covid.

          6. I think we’ve been fairly lucky here, too – my OH has never had to struggle to get an appointment when he needs one. I avoid the surgery for myself and haven’t needed one since 2019, when I had shingles.

          8. What happens if you cannot drive to the surgery? I would imagine if you are sick, the last thing you would want to do is travel on public transport.

          10. Strange that one of the benefits of all the immigrants is supposed to be staffing medical facilities by these highly educated and skilled incomers.

            Even here it is becoming more difficult to get dental care and to be accepted by a GP practice. We have been exceptionally lucky with ours. We’re on our third since we arrived. One retired, one moved for family reasons and the latest is new to the area. We try to consult in French but they have all spoken excellent English for the more technical things. I can’t praise them highly enough.

        2. I can tell you why A&E is always packed; you can’t see a GP. I have symptoms for which I need to see a GP; they started on Saturday night. My GP does not open at weekends. The only option is phone 111, dial 999 or visit A&E. As I don’t have any other symptoms, 111 would have told me to use the other options. As it is, I’ll be going to the surgery first thing tomorrow to get an appointment.

    2. Does Russia have to import many medical products from countries imposing sanctions or can it source them either internally or from friendlier nations?

      1. Aside from the home grown products it still has access to the Global South so one imagines it is not that short.

          1. So far as I can divine the main problem wth the war on the situation at home is that it has taken a large number of skilled men out of the employment market, plumbers etc, this has led to some domestic difficulties.

          2. China also has a successful pharmaceutical industry and Chinese relations with Russia have not been impacted by the war.

    3. Britains struggling to access hospital services as Riki Sunhat’s (TINO) policies bite

    5. Lies and disinformation. No mention of the inadequacy of Ukrainian medical services where injured soldiers go untreated. Many have surrendered to the Russians in order to ensure that their injured compatriots can be treated by the Russians.

      It is as though whatever is claimed by western media the precise opposite is the reality. The Russian Army is organised and able to swiftly attend to its injured servicemen. There are no shortages of medical supplies many of which are obtained from India and China.

        2. Is the song about what the engineer said about his wife before his decease not in your repertoire?

  56. Four migrants die attempting to cross Channel in boat. 14 January 2024

    Four migrants died overnight and a fifth was in critical condition on Sunday after trying to reach Britain from northern France despite freezing temperatures, the French maritime authority said.

    The group was attempting to reach a vessel off Wimereux when their small boat got into difficulty around 2am (0100 GMT), the maritime prefecture said.
    “We have four dead migrants and one migrant in a critical condition at the hospital in Boulogne-sur-mer,” said one official.

    No comments allowed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/14/four-migrants-dead-boat-channel-crossing-france-britain/

      1. Indeed. If they shut down this illegal criminal and dangerous method of entering a foreign country, the risk of drowning become zero. Yes it’s sad. But no one has put a gun to their head. Why doesn’t anyone ever discuss fixing the route causes of why these young men want to enter England illegally?

  57. Well, we’ve discovered C40 cities and what they are all about: stifling the lives and freedoms of their populations, and that’s the good bit.

    Now we have UK100, a sort of, at the moment, diluted C40 cities type scheme directed at local councils.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fed2759a7edb62b14b1c904ae99507797f12e4bdc5bf2d94b679f5355e8c46b6.png

    The involved councils have bought into the nebulous climate change scam and one has to wonder if this is a roundabout manner of bringing in the hated and exposed 15 minutes cities scheme? The Nudge is in play with ‘climate emergency’ on the home page.

    When councils everywhere are either bleating about being short of money, if not actually bankrupt, and hence short of resources, it’s remarkable that they can spaff cash etc on these schemes.

    There are reports of ‘green’ billionaires sponsoring political groupings in the HoP, is it therefore likely that these same people are promoting this dangerous nonsense?

    The last time I looked Colchester Council wasn’t on the list but Essex CC is. I’d be more impressed if ECC got their act together and repaired the roads and drained the gullies. It’s clear that spending time and effort on innovating schemes that will be put in place to restrict both our rights and our freedoms to move about where we see fit, are more important to some bureaucrat, who probably has trouble finding the cheeks of his arse, than leaving us alone to live our lives.

    Here’s part of page 1 of 9 of the Knowledge Hub. I doubt that I’ll find anything by Professor Plimer in the other pages.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/653dd4ff70ed36fb2e843a06568a00cfa7c1fb36ae86e50d9d9139cd8770a418.png

    UK 100

    2. My county council is fully signed up to the “climate emergency” scam. They have failed to make the expected savings needed to fill the black hole in their finances. They could have started with the climate emergency department and then sacked the diversity officers.

  58. Volcano erupts in Iceland, posing risk to fishing town. 14 January 2024.

    A volcano erupted in southwest Iceland on Sunday, posing an immediate threat to a nearby small fishing town although it had been evacuated earlier and no people were in danger, authorities said.

    Live video showed fountains of molten rock and smoke spewing from fissures in the ground across a wide area very close to the town of Grindavik.

    This is of course an extension of the recent activity. There still appears to be no sign of a truly seminal event which would impact Europe and North America.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/volcano-erupts-southwest-iceland-2024-01-14/

    1. If this volcano proves to be one with adverse impacts for the UK, I do hope its name is easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajökull.

    2. I remember the island of Surtsey being born in 1963. It was an exciting part of our geography lessons.

    1. Fujitsu should be charged with the entire cost of this fiasco – including compensation for all victims – even if it busts the business!

      Several senior, guilty politicians should be identified and punished; some should resign from all political activity.

  61. Perhaps he should be hired to deal with trannies, illegal male gimmegrants, rapists and child abusers.
    On a pay per view basis ii might cover quite a lot of the benefits currently being given away.

  62. Heading back to church for Evensong soon. Some expected our rector not to be there this morning, as his father died on Friday morning but he opted to lead the main service with the assistant priest giving the sermon and doing the notices. When my mum died, I went to work rather than sit at home and cry. Our head server this morning said she did the same when her husband died. Grief affects each of us in different ways?

    1. Yes. I flew back to Germany the day after my beloved father died, to sing Lady Macbeth in a fiendish modern opera. I had a friend warn the entire theatre not to express any sympathy, or I wouldn’t have been able to sing a note, but all I could hear was his voice in my head telling me not to be a wuss…

    2. Yes, I didn’t take the leave I was entitled to when my father died. I preferred to be working to take my mind off it.

    3. When my mother died I was too busy trying to find out what needed to be done to arrange the funeral and asset disposal that I did not have time to grieve.
      Thankfully the undertaker was very helpful and she had a wonderful sense of humour that filled those dark moments as well as making the best coffee in Brentwood.

      It only hit me about three years later.

  63. TfL is now working with the bus operator London General and manufacturer Switch to investigate the cause, which fire expert Neil Pedersen said was most likely due to an electrical fault and not linked to lithium batteries.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12961439/Fleet-electric-buses-taken-roads-precaution-one-exploded-school-run-leaving-passengers-terrified.html

    That strikes me as similar to stating that a firework’s exploding stars are not linked to the fuse.
    Don’t light the fuse and the firework remains, if not inert, stationary.
    The electrical fault was the equivalent of a fuse, unless the batteries were unharmed and not what exploded.

    1. Having followed a regular video blogger who services and traces faults on EV batteries I am convinced of his assertion that hybrid vehicles are far more prone to exploding and catching fire than pure battety electric vehicles (BEVs).

      The principal reason for this is that blocked air filters in the hybrid battery cooling system cause distortion, cell overheating.and then explosion. BEVs that are water cooled are immune from such overheating as long as the cooling/heating circuits keep the EV cells within their operating tolerances.

      1. But either way, what explodes and burns with such violence?

        My money is still on the lithium batteries.

        1. Basically EV lithium cells have to be manufactured to strict quality standards and should be treated with extreme care as if you were handling nitroglycerine.

          Nitroglycerine is however useful in treating angina and lithium is useful in treating manic depression.

    2. Mr Neil Pedersen, I have some Bridges for sale in London, judging by your comment, you must be in the market for them

    3. Only Ebuses on route 200 have been withdrawn from service. That seems strange, can the bus read the route number and decide when to explode?

  64. I would like to consult the Court of NOTTL opinion please….

    Does everyone in rural Britain when on parish business now address each other by their first names regardless of age and social status?

          7. Since we have not been formally introduced, I shall be referring to you as ‘Mr. Thomas’ in the future!!!

          11. When I lived in Norfolk, every (local) stranger greeted me by calling me ‘Boy’.

            “Y’all roight, boy?”

          14. In Plymouth a few decades back it was not uncommon to be addressed by Plymouthian men (not homosexuals) – with ” OK my lover…..” disconcerting to say the least.

          15. That would actually be ‘Bor’ Ha’ ya fadder gotta a dicka, bor? Answer that if you can.

          16. I never, in 60 years of living in and visiting Norfolk, ever heard the commonplace boy pronounced as ‘bor’. Check that ‘Singing Postman’ song posted on here, earlier. He clearly sings “Hev yew gotta loight, boy?”

          17. Yes, but he was doing it for Money. Try answering the question. The aswer is only known to true Norfolk boys,

          18. Then tell them ! If people in hospitals are being asked which pronoun or how they would like to be addressed then your opinion is at least as valid as theirs.

          19. It is universal. If one tried to “tell them,” half the day – every day – would be used up.

          20. Not sure it is universal. Whenever i get a call from pimps, whores and drug dealers and such like they use my full name. Perhaps you are mixing with the wrong sort of people.

          23. In no way but isn’t it peculiar that these types when we are in extremis would be the most likely to save us.

          25. Perhaps it is because they would offer value for money which our councils and government don’t.

          28. “I always use you full name. Philip, but I’m neither not [none of] a pimp, whore or a drug dealer.”

          30. Nor can I. I don’t even believe in telling someone my name if they ask for it unless there is a good reason.

          31. I take it you avoid Starbucks, then.

            I only ever patronise them when the ex is staying here for a few days, goes to David Lloyd, and drops me off at nearby Sainsburys on the way. I have to drink Starbucks’ apology for decent coffee to kill time, before my lift returns.

            Once, they asked for my name. “Sir”, I responded. “Same as all your male customers.”

            Needless to say, this caused their tiny brains to fall out.

        1. Well, when someone says, “Hi (another anathema) BB2” – just reply “Good afternoon, Mr Jones”…..

          1. University Challenge (under Jeremy Paxman and Amol Rajan): “Hi! I’m Davie, I’m originally from Somerset, and I’m doing maths.”

            University Challenge (under Bamber Gascoigne): “Hello. I am Tristam Cholmondely-Featherstonehaugh, from Wells, and I am reading philosophy.”

          2. University Challenge (under Jeremy Paxman and Amol Rajan): “Hi! I’m Davie, I’m originally from Somerset, and I’m doing maths.”

            University Challenge (under Bamber Gascoigne): “Hello. I am Tristam Cholmondely-Featherstonehaugh, from Wells, and I am reading philosophy.”

    2. I’m not sure what you mean by the phrase, “when on parish business”. What does that mean?

    3. If you have met them before and they have introduced themselves as John Smith or someone else has introduced you to them as John Smith then “John” should be OK.

      I’m firmly of the view it is far better to start off formally and be corrected than start off informally and potentially cause offence.

      Far fewer people take offence at respect than do at what they regard as disrespect.

      And you can almost guarantee that those who deem themselves “worthy” of your respect are often the types who look down their noses at you anyway.

          6. I suppose you do have the disadvantage that most people speaking to you would not have English as their first language (I assume, since you live abroad). I have the opposite problem because I have a foreign first name. Most people remember what letter it begins with, but I could get called almost anything after that.

        3. For me it depends on the circumstances of the introduction. In a more formal setting, eg a business meeting, I think I would too, first time, and watch the reaction await the “call me John”. If it was in a social setting, eg a church function where I was on first name terms with the introducer I would go straight to John.

          My problem is that ten minutes later I would forget anyway!

      2. We were introduced, but as usual it was ‘Christian name / Surname’

        Thank goodness, she has just resolved my question by sending me an email starting “Dear BB2′ and signed with her Christian name.

        Things are so much clearer in other languages like German with the Sie / du formal distinction

        1. You’d think. And 40 years ago you would have been correct. It’s much more blurred now.

    4. Until I am introduced I call men Sir and ask women what they’d like me to call them. I do know a Duke who insists everyone calls him Jim. In the pub he drinks at he’ll happily share a pint with his groundsmen.

      1. When I was learning the art of leadership, I was told by a man I respect that, in the pub (or wherever) the boss should be the one to open the door for the others, and buy the first round.

    6. We tend to be formal and use Cllr + surname when council is in session. We are, however, barely into the 20th century here in the back of beyond 🙂

    7. Over herein canada, the only one uses my surname is our financial advisor, apart from that one shop assistant always calls me King Richard and to another I am Sir Richard but apart from that everyone else jumps straight in with Richard.

      1. Be grateful it’s not “Watch yer Dick!”. (As old school chums used to shout out to another ex-pupil who joined the City Of London Police and was sometimes spotted on point traffic duty!

      2. Be grateful it’s not “Watch yer Dick!”. (As old school chums used to shout out to another ex-pupil who joined the City Of London Police and was sometimes spotted on point traffic duty!

    8. No parish business for me, although I was for 2 years on the committee for the Woodland Centre ( a building that is used for local events).
      All my new introductions are at the pub, on a fishing charter or perhaps at a boatyard. It’s always the informal first name or even nickname that is offered.
      Knowing surnames is useful when differentiating between different Davids, Johns, Sues and Jeans. Although sometimes an adjective will do the trick like Posh Richard and Rich Richard. Posting Christmas cards at the internal pub post box is often fraught with errors but can be overcome frequently by combining forenames, eg Dave and Sue or Dick and Sue.
      We’re not terribly formal in the village.

    10. By ‘parish’, do you mean ecclesiastical or the bottom tier of local government?

      Our current incumbent signs himself as ‘Rector’ in the weekly newsletter. As a former Army chaplain, he’s used to being addressed as ‘Padre’. So I asked at the outset: how should I address you. First name is OK, he said. Since arriving here in 2008, we’ve had three Deputy Lieutenants, two High Sheriffs and a former knighted Lord Lieutenant (now deceased). The three individuals concerned seemed happy to be addressed as Bill, Bridget and Richard. And – with the Rector floored by Covid over Christmas, the Bishop of Dorking kindly led a midnight mass and a Christmas morning service. Addressing him as ‘Paul’ seemed entirely natural (he addresses me as ‘Geoff’)…

      As for Local Government parishes, the chair of the local Parish Council is known by everyone as Bill.

      But that’s just my local experience. And in fairness, as a church organist, I’m also a colleague of most of those in the first paragraph. But I don’t perceive that the regular punters address(ed) them any differently.

      To summarise – yes they we do.

      PS Since our conversation in Horsell, I now find myself contemplating seeking office in the CoE. It would mean withdrawing from paid employment, but that would merely be bringing forward the end of my organist contract by 20 months. We should have six churchwardens in the parish. We have three. At least one intends to stand down in the Spring. We’ll struggle to find a replacement.

      There’s actually no legal bar to paid employees of a parish from standing as a churchwarden, though it might need approval at Diocesan level. I was Organist and Choirmaster at Brandon, Suffolk, and was persuaded by the (turned out to be the outgoing) Rector to stand as Churchwarden. All that is required is that theat person withdraws from any discussion regarding their ‘pay and rations’.

      1. Thank you for the explanation! I am new to some of this stuff – I’ve spent too much time on my own or at work over the years.
        I’m not in the position to take on quite as much responsibility, but have managed to find (I hope) a useful half way solution, and am trying to make myself useful.
        This book is on my wish list though: https://www.beingachurchwarden.com/

        1. I have two or three books about “churchwardening”, but they’ve prolly been overtaken by subsequent changes to ecclesiastical law.

          I wish you every success in your venture, but would caution that the current job description is less desirable than that of Sub-Postmaster.

          Best of luck, though, and if you still have my number, you can always give me a ring.

    2. Funny, there are no actual peace flags at the Palestine demos. You’d almost think that peace wasn’t what they’re after…

    3. The question has often been asked of what are British values. Well, I think its clear that the useful idiots and followers of the prophet on these huge demos, do not possess those values.

      1. It has been discovered that the useful idiots over here are being paid to demonstrate and cause mayhem. They possess the anything for money ethics of an old fashioned spiv who could always find goods on the back of a lorry.

  68. The latest outbreak in Iceland is now burning up the small town of Grindavik. Town is evacuated, but there are quite a few animals trapped there, including 30 sheep. The inhabitants can now only watch on video that their town is swamped by molten lava flowing from a huge crack in the earth’s surface.

  69. A rare visit to the London area on Friday for a family funeral. We arrived in time to get some lunch at a Harvester. Prices were so shocking we just had soup. We had booked to stay the night at a Holiday Inn so we were glad to see that the Harvester shared the same location. I checked my incoming emails to see there was one from the hotel informing me that my booking (via Booking.com) was due to be cancelled as my credit card had not been validated. An attached form requested credit card details. While my wife was paying (!) I nipped across to the hotel and was greeted by two burly Africans wanting to know what I wanted. When I told them I wanted to find out how soon we could book in they said sorry the hotel is in use for asylum seekers only. Our hotel was further down the road. When we arrived at the other Holiday Inn after the funeral we found our booking was fine and the email asking to verify the card was a scam. Otherwise I am glad to say everything went to plan. So nice to meet up with family we so rarely see.

    1. I’ve had lots of emails & messages purporting to be from HMRC – they look pretty convincing – urging me to cough up dosh before the 31st January…. I just ignore them.

          1. HMRC dont communicate by email as far as I know. Even an IHT reference number has to be dispatched by post (15 working days dont u know)

          2. You are lucky. My mob will send an email telling me that I have mail in their secure system, I then need to go through the rigmarole of their many phase login before I can retrieve the message.
            Why cannot they just send an email telling me to send more money to the tax office.

          3. We get those.
            At least it’s reasonably secure, and you can log in at your convenience, and do the necessary.

          5. No they try to get you to allow them to send correspondence by email now. I am perpetually (sic) having to opt out. Similarly, bank and credit card statements but like water meters it’s only a matter of time

    2. Any email requesting anything to do with information or money, I look at the senders email address.
      Just now there was one telling me my BankID (card verification) had run out, and to click here to renew. Huh! The email originated from BaոklD Utløpt – not the kind of email that one associated with banks.
      So, it’s blocked.

    3. My last visit to London was in November 2019 and it was similarly fraught. We had booked to stay in an AirB&B apartment that had neither been prepared nor cleaned prior to our anticipated (late) arrival.

      The floors were unswept, the lavatory was covered in recent urine stains, we had to share the dining area with another occupant (that we had not be informed of). To cut a long story short we made our bed from some clean sheets we found on a clothes horse and we eventually got a partial refund after complaining when we got back home.

      The whole episode made me think twice about returning to the UK, especially London.

      1. We usually stay with family or friends when we go to England – otherwise we use a budget hotel.

    4. Serves you right for booking a posh hotel. If you had booked a Travelodge, it wouldn’t have had any interlopers.

    5. There was a query in the Guardian’s Your Money section just before Christmas about confirmation/verification being required less than 24 hours before arrival. Turned out to be a scam. Several similar reports received, the common denominator being all were booked through Booking.com who said there was nothing wrong with their systems and there must be problems at the various hotels. I leave you to draw your own conclusion.

      1. The scam email contained the personal details only Booking.com would have had on their system in the Nederlands.

  70. I see the RN are unable to send ships to patrol the Red Sea because of the shortage of seamen – I guess we’ve all been there at some time

    1. No problem, Canadian forces washrooms have a supply of free tampons for such a problem.

      No ships and no planes so we are staying home.

      1. In France tampons are rubber stamps rather than female hygiene products.

        I must admit I was rather surprised when I first came to live in France and went into a stationery store for some paper to see a notice saying that tampons were available alongside staples and hole punchers.

  72. SIR – Although I agree with Daniel Hannan that the NHS compares poorly with other healthcare systems, his contrast with Switzerland is not the best. The Swiss spend the same percentage of GDP as the UK on health, but as the Swiss GDP per capita is twice that of Britain, Swiss spending per person is twice ours.

    It’s time to face up to the fact that we are, at best, a middle-ranking economy and cut our cloth accordingly.

    James Masters
    Bucknell, Shropshire

    No, we are not a middle ranking economy – or perhaps better to say we weren’t. Our GDP per capita has been undermined by massive uncontrolled immigration. Revolting levels of tax force a socialist attitude on the public frorm government which mistakenly believes redistribution is fair. This attitude squashes growth, employment, legislation makes moving jobs harder. Massive competition from overseas makes jobs harder to get.

    The government has made us poorer. I assume because it wanted revenge for Brexit. Recovering this carnage is simple – the state must be put through a blender and taxes radically cut, spending reduced and endless legislation repealed.

      1. Strange, we never hear our government talk about GDP per capita either, they always brag about GDP being steady.

        With one million newcomers a year, a stable gdp indicates that Canada is in deep doggy doo but our politicians are also avoiding the more meaningful productivity measure in an attempt to keep their voter base complacent.

      2. Politicians like to boast about the country’s GDP but the higher our GDP rises the poorer individual people are likely to become:

        Take our prime minister’s family background:

        India is 5th in the table of Nations’ GDP
        But India is 143rd in the table giving per capita income.

        Our GDP may grow with mass immigration but each of us is likely to become poorer which is what the WEF wants and what our politicians want.

      3. National GDP is about as useful as the average price of a house. It bears no relation to the housing market.

  73. Afternoon, all. As far as scare tactics go, the govt. has shot itself in the foot. It is now the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf or Matilda who was ignored when she really needed the fire brigade.

  74. Evening All

    Lost day after an insoniac night

    Lighter side……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a06f8a807831554c689bef560f1cd86357eeaf52974344fa2d7311b3855141af.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c344bf8f745f4af9571be39b482cddfffc7e90b29ee5e3b435b35e39002aee72.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/478e295d5257f1bc10c25174149c4743d71dc6e995b200a9646db68868968ca9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e291753b56f3fb04e41b9966ac35f5dc7559e05667b70ea4b3e0436d79dff2a0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ebf5a6738354364f7e28cec579007de93e710dc60cb131eadd4f8f009e39c1c7.jpg

    1. I really do think Sunak needs to be given the kind of drubbing that the Tories never, ever recover from. The sort of response that nets them half a dozen MPs at most.

      Oh, he’ll say “obviously this is very concerning and I am listening to what you are saying” promptly resign and sod off to the WEF.

  75. Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0dff005a38a39f0d3066fe4085b401adb96fe524b1300b7169a22a57edbac93d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed37ce52421b392cedffee8ace3becbceba666be5a0d69a059cf4e50c7484c06.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0a1bf783da7c39b9ab213d1b758fa38064bd6369e0a7883e60ec59c0e4e0482.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bc625051bc384a1305088fd70162a3b032a621e8d593036064bc28c3919feb7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36e272ba40ffb5f1f083834afed7e8e0346518f384dbb3a940c519bfe096b555.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a371552f2977974bddcbb0ca8ae55a1943321127cf47bd5abcd7dc37b753baf.jpg

    https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/voting_software_2x.png

    1. Computer software suffers from a race to market. If you don’t get it out there, someone else will. Thus the someone else cuts quality knowing they can fix it after the fact in patches and updates. You can’t rebuild a building, and fixing a lift in an existing building is incredibly expensive.

      In contrast, software patches are cheap – for the supplier. Of course, there is a point of diminishing returns but I’ve seen software go out that was either achingly slow, had massive memory holes, which ticket the wrong boxes because of a bug. Just recently my gym presented a free weekend. New website to book the classes. Except.. you couldn’t work out where to click. When you did, the ‘tickets’ had no labels or times on them. When you had selected them, you were sent an email confirming one booking. The times didn’t even match up to when the classes were being held.

      At the very end the software didn’t tell anyone anything about the venue, the class, the location (there’s 3 class ‘rooms’). And the times were wrong. I ranted about it for over half an hour because it was just a debacle. Luckily the ‘network’ told everyone else what was going on and we all just booked each other in and spread news of the times.

      2. Hell we once (that I know of) delivered an empty tape to a client so that we could meet the end of fiscal deadline for the sales reps commission.

        I ran QA for a new product many years ago. Every week we compiled a list of known bugs and then had to fight the marketing boyos about which bug must be fixed before release.

  76. I am signing off. The cold that I “had” and which had gone has – following the pattern reported by many NoTTLers – returned with a vengeance.,

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain – possibly.

  77. SNP green scheme to cost £3.5m and take almost 1,000 years to recoup costs

    Price of decarbonising office building in Elgin, which involves insulation and installing a heat pump, has spiralled

    Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    14 January 2024 • 3:43pm

    A taxpayer-funded green scheme designed to hit SNP climate targets has been branded “absurd” after it emerged it would take almost 1,000 years for taxpayers to recoup costs.

    The price of decarbonising a small Victorian Crown Office building in Elgin, which involves insulation and installing a heat pump to replace a gas boiler, has spiralled to £3.5 million.

    The estimated saving on annual energy bills is just £3,885, meaning it will take more than 900 years for the public purse to be reimbursed.

    SNP and Green ministers want all Scottish homes to have zero emissions heating systems by 2045, and have sought to sell the plans to the public by claiming switching to heat pumps will cut their bills.

    However, critics have said costs of converting will be extortionate, particularly for older properties.

    “This Crown Office scheme involves utterly ludicrous expense to the taxpayer for minute benefit,” Fergus Ewing, a former SNP minister who now sits as a backbencher at Holyrood, told the Sunday Mail.

    “According to these revelations, the annual savings will only be £3,885 and, as the total costs of the work are £3.5m, it will take nearly 1,000 years to recoup the benefits. And that may not even take account of electricity running costs.”

    The original costs of the “experimental” project to decarbonise the small procurator fiscal’s office in Elgin, Moray, was initially estimated to be £2.2 million. It rose to £3.5 million within a few months.

    The scheme was supposed to demonstrate the viability of converting Victorian buildings to operate with environmentally friendly heating systems.

    However, figures disclosed through Freedom of Information suggest the project is costing £2,342 per square metre, with the building’s annual gas bill only around £2,500 on average.

    Based on those figures, a 100-square-metre flat would cost £234,000 to convert, and a 150-square-metre house would cost the property owner £351,000. The average cost of a home in Scotland is £189,000.

    Carbon-neutral targets
    Sources at the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, said they were “obliged” to undertake measures to meet targets set by the SNP government, which call for emissions to be reduced by 2.5 per cent per year and for the organisation to become “carbon neutral” by 2040.

    The Scottish Government has set a “backstop” date of 2045 for all homes to use zero direct emissions heating systems.

    Mr Ewing added: “The astronomical costs of this misguided policy would be devastating for home owners.

    “If the costs of decarbonising older types of properties like this one are around £2,342 per square metre, people would be hit with bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

    “Plainly such levels of costs are totally unaffordable and quite absurd. It is pie in the sky to impose these madcap so-called ‘green’ wheezes on householders in Scotland.

    “The Finance Secretary in the Scottish Government needs to put the brakes on this profligate expenditure.”

    As well as installing a heat pump, renovations at the Crown Office building will include replacing windows with triple glazing and insulating external walls and the roof.

    The construction firm carrying out the work said it will become a “modern, eco-friendly and energy efficient space” by the summer.

    The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is contributing £1.15 million to the scheme, and received another £1.81 million in funding from the Scottish Government.

    The government grant was increased by £600,000 with the total budget now £3.56 million.

    The Crown Office said it was committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions and “investing in modern, environmentally efficient workplaces.”

    A spokesman added: “This investment will allow COPFS to meet Scottish Government targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2.5 per cent each year, become carbon neutral by 2040 and to help deliver Scotland’s transition to net zero.

    “All contracts are subject to a robust and compliant procurement process to ensure maximum value for money.”

    A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Reducing emissions from buildings is essential for Scotland’s just transition to net zero by 2045.”

    2. Having seen the building, which has absolutely no architectural merit, I think it would be cheaper and easier to demolish the thing and build something useful – like a ferry or 2!

        1. The one they’re building in Turkey is about to be delivered early!🤦🏻‍♀️

          1. I’ve had many enjoyable holidays in Turkey, Sue, and have warm fuzzy feelings for the secular nation founded by Kamal Ataturk. Erdogan has largely destroyed that concept, and I will never return. But they still have capable engineers, etc. I hate the fact that Ford ‘migrated’ Transit van production from Southampton to Turkey, but, on a global scale, why wouldn’t they? Paticularly when the effing EU subsidised them to do so.

    3. “The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is contributing £1.15 million to the scheme, and received another £1.81 million in funding from the Scottish Government.”

      Thank gawd, at least taxpayers don’t have to pay. Oh…

    5. Here’s a way to stop this sort of nonsense: have the public refuse to fund it.

      Government does these things because it isn’t paying. If it were unable to waste the money then this problem goes away.

  78. Have I missed Wordle world today?
    a 4 here.

    Wordle 939 4/6

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    2. Surprise three.

      Wordle 939 3/6

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    3. There were too many options with the last 4 letters.

      Wordle 939 5/6

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    4. Metoo.

      Wordle 939 4/6

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      2. I was going to post something similar. My parents used to take me to the Crooked House occasionally (Vimto and crisps).

  81. You may recall my quest to read all the books i own which I haven’t read yet. I finished “A Clergyman’s Daughter” last week, but back-to-work reality has slowed me down. My penfriend and her husband visited this weekend and we had a lovely time. We’ve known each other 43 years.

    Anyway my current book is “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby which was first published in France in March 1997. He writes of the stroke he suffered on 8 December 1995 which left him with locked-in syndrome. It was a sensation when it was published, which ks why I would have bought it back then. It is a very short book and tremendously well-written. In the chapter “Twenty to one” he writes beautifully on the remorse for lot opportunities.

    On 8th December 1995 i was just back from a big sailing trip from Mtwara in Tanzania to Nosy Bay in Madagascar via the Comores, where we got mixed up in a coup on the three independent islands and we had to divert to the French one where i watched the French Foreign Legion run around in ridiculously short shorts and tint T-shirts. I then went up to the Ngorongoro crater and then climbed Kili before going back to Dar for Christmas. Those were the days!

  82. I should add, the author was 45 and died a few days after the book was published.

  83. I’m so glad I subscribed to Amazon’s £ 25 one year subscription to the DT. Apparently, I’m in for a treat – a new Column (pun intended) will appear on sex and perversions! So Nottlers as the Columnist ‘Rachel’ says “Don’t be shy” email her today with those saucy questions you’ve been dying to ask all those years……

    Should take our minds off Illegal immigration, The PO, Ukraine, the prospects of El Supremo Starmer, Covid vaccination adverse effects, inflation , Islam, Net Zero etc etc….

    Get writing in asap!
    …Please

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/wellbeing/sex/rachel-johnson-sex-columnist-guide-relationships/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Update Rachel Johnson is Bojo’s sister… Dare anyone raise the subject of incest?

    1. The article is atrocious! If she is a journalist/writer then I’m Fanny Craddock! At least Boris wrote some very funny literature!
      The comments are a joy, although she seems to be responsible for several subscription cancellations! Well, her and Bryony Gordon!

          1. I suspect a Psychiatrist somewhere might find an analogy with the female form in the case of either a ring or jam doughnut…..

          7. When the Warqueen was pregnant with Junior she had a bonkers longing for jam and custard doughnuts. I think she went through about 2 bags a day for a fortnight.

    3. Yep. I saw that, and it has pushed me just a little bit closer to unsubscribing completely. But where is one to go for news? I read DT articles somewhat sceptically. The ‘journalism’ has largely evaporated. The articles in the “Comments” section are better. But one needs to interrogate ‘alernative media’ to find out what is actually happening in the world.

      I’ve subscribed to Tucker Carlson Network. Thus far, I’m not disappointed…

      2. Russia Today. Russian propaganda obviously.
        Press TV. Iranian propaganda…ditto.
        Except for the simple fact they both report on what is happening in Europe which the BBC doesn’t consider newsworthy.

    4. Who needs columns on sex and perversion? Isn’t there enough already? Sheesh, go boil their heads already.

  84. 381802+ up ticks,

    credit where it’s due, when they construct a stitch up it is pretty airtight, being well practised though with all those mail bags,

    Dt,
    Chairman of Post Office also headed courts service during postmasters’ appeals
    Tim Parker accused of conflict of interest over role as chairman of His Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service while leading the Post Office

    .

      1. Copy and paste this before it disappears…

        Chairman of Post Office also headed courts service during postmasters’ appeals

        Tim Parker accused of conflict of interest over role as chairman of
        His Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service while leading the Post Office

        Patrick Sawer,

        Senior News Reporter

        and

        Robert Mendick,

        Chief Reporter

        14 January 2024 • 7:00pm

        Tim Parker, the chairman, with Paula Vennells, the chief executive,
        at the opening of the Nyetimber Post Office branch in 2016

        Credit: CHRIS ISON/PA

        The former chairman of the Post Office presided over its attempt
        to block an appeal by convicted postmasters while he was at the same
        time leading the country’s courts service.

        Tim Parker has been
        accused of a conflict of interest over his role as chairman of His
        Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), while occupying the same
        position at the Post Office.

        Under
        his leadership the Post Office tried to block appeals by postmasters
        and mistresses against their convictions for theft and fraud as a result
        of the flawed Horizon computer accounting system.

        Mr
        Parker issued an apology on behalf of the Post Office when one group of
        44 postmasters finally had their convictions quashed by the Court of
        Appeal in October 2020.

        But critics have now pointed out that he
        would have previously overseen the decision by the Post Office to spend
        thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on legal fees in an attempt to block appeals.

        Mr
        Parker, once dubbed “the Prince of Darkness” for his slash-and-burn
        approach to business, was appointed chairman of the Post Office in
        October 2015, two years before 555 sub-postmasters launched a group legal action against the organisation.

        In
        April 2018 he was appointed chairman of HMCTS, which oversees the
        running of the country’s courts, including the Court of Appeal.

        Mr Parker issued an apology on behalf of the Post Office when one group of 44 postmasters had their convictions quashed

        Credit: JEROME FAVRE/BLOOMBERG

        Kevan Jones MP, a member of the Horizon compensation advisory
        board, told The Telegraph: “The fact that Tim Parker was the chair of
        both the Post Office and the courts service has certainly raised
        people’s eyebrows.

        “Mr Parker needs to say exactly what his role
        was, what he knew and when he knew it. From 2015, before Alan Bates’
        court case against the Post Office, he oversaw the spending of taxpayers
        money defending something that was indefensible.”

        Over the preceding years the Post Office had repeatedly defended the use of Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system and between 2009 and 2015 prosecuted hundreds of postmasters using flawed evidence of fraud based on the accounting system.

        While
        he gave his £75,000-a-year salary at the Post Office to charity, Mr
        Parker has been accused of doing nothing to halt the plight of the
        postmasters and allowed his chief executive to pursue the strategy of
        aggressively pursuing them through the courts.

        Following his
        appointment as chairman Mr Parker maintained that Horizon should not be
        scrapped and said that to abandon the computer system would incur
        “considerable risk”.

        ‘Horizon is not a bad system’

        In
        June 2016 he told Sub Postmaster, the official journal of the National
        Federation of Sub-postmasters: “I’ve been involved in some major IT
        transformation projects, and the amount of cock-ups, delays and problems
        we came across don’t bear thinking about.

        “I think that, for all
        its faults, Horizon is not a bad system at all and we’d incur
        considerable risks if we looked to replace it.”

        This came despite a
        confidential report by forensic accountants Second Sight commissioned
        by the Post Office having described the Horizon system in April 2015 as
        in some cases “not fit for purpose”.

        Mr Parker was also leading
        the Post Office in March 2019, when it tried to get the senior judge in
        the case brought by the group of postmasters led by Mr Bates to be
        replaced on the grounds of bias.

        The Court of Appeal threw out the
        attempt by the Post Office to force Mr Justice Peter Fraser to recuse
        himself from group litigation, ruling that the application “never had
        any substance”.

        Mr Parker, 68, has now told The Telegraph that
        because of his role as chair of both the Post Office and HMCTS he had
        recused himself from the process of trying to get the judge removed.

        The
        Post Office eventually agreed to a £58 million settlement with the
        postmasters in December 2019, after Mr Justice Fraser ruled that bugs,
        errors, and defects in the Horizon system had caused shortfalls in
        branch accounts.

        The year after, following the successful appeal
        by an initial 44 postmasters and mistresses to overturn criminal
        convictions linked to the Horizon scandal, Mr Parker issued an apology
        on behalf of the Post Office.

        He stated: “I am sincerely sorry on
        behalf of the Post Office for historical failings which seriously
        affected some postmasters. Post Office is resetting its relationship
        with postmasters with reforms that prevent such past events ever
        happening again.

        “Post Office wishes to ensure that all
        postmasters entitled to claim civil compensation because of their
        convictions being overturned are recompensed as quickly as possible.
        Therefore, we are considering the best process for doing that.”

        ‘Huge amounts of public money’

        Mr
        Jones, Labour MP for North Durham, said Mr Parker has to carry
        responsibility for the actions of the Post Office during much of the
        scandal.

        He said: “Mr Parker should have known, especially if he
        was signing off huge amounts of public money to fight the court case
        against Alan Bates and the others.”

        Mr Jones added: “For the Post
        Office to challenge the judge was disgraceful and designed by the Post
        Office to run up the costs for the postmasters. Why did they pursue the
        case in the first place when they clearly knew you could access Horizon
        remotely, as the postmasters maintained?”

        Mr Parker, who remained
        chairman of the Post Office until September 2022 and stepped down at
        HMCTS two months later, has maintained a low profile since the recent
        ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office focused renewed public and political attention on the treatment of hundreds of prosecuted postmasters and mistresses.

        Mr
        Parker did not respond to requests from this newspaper for an
        explanation of his role in the Horizon scandal, but limited himself to
        issuing a brief statement through British Pathe, the film archive firm
        he owns and of which he is currently chairman.

        The statement said:
        “In light of the ongoing Public Inquiry, Mr Parker has asked me to let
        you know that he is doing no calls with the media, at all.

        “To the
        question on recusing himself, he has asked me to tell you that that is
        correct. Also that he was appointed Chair of HMCTS in 2018, several
        years after POL [Post Office Ltd] ended prosecutions of
        sub-postmasters.”

        While serving as chairman of the Post Office and
        HMCTS, Mr Parker was also chairman of the National Trust, a position he
        was appointed to in 2014.

        He has also been CEO of Kenwood, Clarks
        Shoes, Kwik-Fit, the AA, and Samsonite, during which time he
        accumulated a fortune of more than £200 million, including a palatial
        18th Century, Grade II listed, country manor in West Sussex and a
        riverside apartment in Chelsea.

        Speaking when he was appointed chairman in 2015, he said he was attracted to the Post Office by its “strong social purpose”.

    3. ‘Night, Tom.
      Can we get you a new joke book? Can’t be starting the day without a new joke…

    2. Too many yoptions
      Wordle 939 5/6

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  88. Seems that the dumbassery is spreading: Oslo bus company admit that they bought a WHOLE FLEET OF ELECTRIC BUSES without that anybody had tested the fcuking things in a cold operational climate!
    The result is chaos: these idiot machines have less than 50% range, and break down all the time.
    Jesus wept!

    3. The advantage is, if they are not working they are saving electricity, so are even more ‘green’.

    4. Could have just asked Edmonton. They bought 60 Electric buses at the bargain price of $1,000,000 each and most are off the road and are not repairable because the manufacturer went bust.

      That’s before this weekends -40 temperatures.

    5. Surely such a costly venture must have undergone some cost benefit analysis. Or was it purely a bit of virtue signalling and screw the cost?
      Edited for bad spalling.

      1. That would be the positive side of the bus company’s action, provided it was spread far and wide…

    8. That is what you get when politicians, media and business reps get together at DAVOS. All for your own good of course.

    11. Has happened in a lot of (cold) places. Edmonton, Alberta and Juneau, Alaska immediately spring to mind.

  89. The trouble with cost benefit analysis is that it shares initials with Can’t be Arsed. I think the “Powers that Be” have difficulty differentiating between the two…

    1. A ‘Starchamber’ of interests not elected by anyone making decisions for everyone. Science fiction become fact.

  93. Just reduced to jelly.
    Watching Lewis, failing to revive some lass who gassed herself in her car in a garage. And, yes, I know it’s telly.
    A friend of mine did that, around 1999, pills and exhaust. Husband, two lovely wee boys… I wish she’d confided in me about how bad she was having it. Difficult to get past that – I could have been a better friend, and maybe stopped it.
    Take care of your mates. Nobody else will.
    This event changed me fundamentally. Hopefully for the better.

    1. So sorry, Paul. No-one close to me has ever taken the coward’s way out. Though a very near neighbour (3 doors away) to my parental home in Carlisle managed to ‘off himself’ with a shotgun. Wasn’t pretty.

      As for your friend, you weren’t responsible, nor could you have gussed the outcome. Consider yourself exonerated…

      1. It’s the equivalent of “survivor’s guilt”. You always feel you could have, should have, done more, but I know from my own experience (close friend who told neighbours she was going away for the weekend, then went to work, sat at her desk and killed herself with drugs she’d ordered off the Internet) that if someone is determined, nothing you say will make any difference. I offered what help I could, but it was rejected. The only email I got when she re-established contact, was to say goodbye.

      2. Geoff, you are right that Paul was not responsible for his friend’s suicide. But you are wrong to state that what she did was “the coward’s way out”. It is depression and despair which leads to a person taking their own life.

      3. I don’t know if it is exactly the coward’s way out. One’s whole instinct is to survive – it must take something to overcome that instinct – I would not say it was cowardice.

        To cease upon the midnight with no pain to use Keats’s expression is easier said than done. I couldn’t do it.

        1. That is what I asked to be put on the flowers. I have been in the situation where it seemed like the logical answer to my problems. Fortunately, by the grace of God, I was saved.

      4. Disagree with the cowardice. Not sure I could have done anything, but could have comforted myself in that I tried.

  95. A study from Turkey discovered that female rats injected with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines gave birth to offspring exhibiting symptoms of autism and lower neuronal counts in the brain.

    The peer-reviewed study, published in the Neurochemical Research journal on Jan. 10, examined the links between COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, with a focus on autism. It analyzed the offspring of pregnant rats injected with Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during gestation. Researchers found that the vaccines had a “profound impact on key neurodevelopmental pathways,” with the male offspring exhibiting “pronounced autism-like behaviors, characterized by a marked reduction in social interaction and repetitive patterns of behavior.”

    “Furthermore, there was a substantial decrease in neuronal counts in critical brain regions, indicating potential neurodegeneration or altered neurodevelopment. Male rats also demonstrated impaired motor performance, evidenced by reduced coordination and agility.”

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11064-023-04089-2

        1. If it produces those effects in offspring, there is no reason why it couldn’t affect adults.

    2. Well there’s certainly a lot of autism like lack of social interaction between the younger workers nowadays.

      Sonny boy works from home most days, has his groceries delivered, doesn’t know neighbours inbhis apartment building and rarely goes out with friends. We went out with him for dinner last week, his world vision is mainly work topics.

  96. A somewhat peed off John Ward:

    “What much of the First World has today – as an unacceptable alternative to these elements – is lax parenting, politicised education, cheap credit, antithetical ”settled science” nonsense, an almost manic desire to conform, and the silly idea that putting ethnic minorities into TV ads is somehow useful. Educators no longer take pride in bringing out the best in their students [in whatever useful form] – they function totally on the basis of exam ”results” and hitting targets set by pc quangos for entrance gained to the University system.

    And the Output? Wars that can’t even be excused by human incompetence or foolishness, because two sides plan it all cynically in advance….and nobody likes either combatant. Israel’s Benny casually watches as Hamas plan a ”surprise” attack, makes sure he has Biden’s go-ahead, and then blasts forward in search of genocide. Then a Hamas bigwig in London says ”We must learn to normalise massacres”, and a whooping crowd yells Allah Aqbar and nobody in authority does anything. First there were Peace Flotillas, now we have incitement to genocide called Peace Marches. In a neglected grave somewhere, George Orwell grinds his teeth.

    Far to the North, thanks (edited) clown Grant Shapps, yet more of our already stretched tax money deepens our involvement in a war provoked by treaty-breaker and Washington whore Vlodomor Zelensky…a war he cannot win against a Russian leader the US despises. It’s purpose? To save Biden’s feckless ass. Yes, it’s that wunnerful thang the Special Relationship emerging once again from its coffin.

    Simple conclusion: over-exposure to, and alliances with, the depraved will never restore decency….whether those depraved Caligulans be Bourse bankers, Climate insect sellers, Brussels, big Pharma, Hamas, Netanyahu, Zelensky or Biden. The sole achievement of UK involvement in these conflated emergencies has been to destroy our economy and flood the once Green and Pleasant Land with the undesirable dregs unwanted by their own countries.

    And on that note, I wish you all a relaxing Sunday, and the very sincere hope that you all wake the fuck up.” (< J Ward wrote the last sentence!)

    1. “flood the once Green and Pleasant Land with the undesirable dregs unwanted by their own countries.”

      Most will be just that, but there will be a cadre amongst them that will be well trained in Jihad.

  97. In the absence of SOMA – I shall have to try to make do with some somnia….. Good night folks!

  98. In the absence of SOMA – I shall have to try to make do with some somnia….. Good night folks!

  99. Profound and profoundly depressing thought!

    War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
    – Ambrose Bierce

    Really going now!

  100. Davos’ debauched underbelly: How the global elite
    indulge in cocaine, caviar and champagne at secret ‘bunga bunga’ parties
    behind the scenes of the World Economic Forum

    The theme this year is ‘Rebuilding Trust’ – and will be attended by 3,000 guests

    But when guests descend on Davos, they do more than just discuss global conflicts, the economy, and the evolution of technology

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12961819/Global-elites-Davos-debauchery-caviar-champagne-escorts.html

    Rebuilding trust…………..You couldn’t make it up. The only thing missing is satanic rituals.

  102. Labour pledges money from private school VAT raid for seven different policies
    Critics question whether Sir Keir Starmer’s sums add up as some suggest the policy will not bring in as much money as predicted
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/14/labour-private-school-vat-raid-seven-policies-keir-starmer/

    BTL

    When the former socialist French President Mitterrand said he would abolish private schools all the teachers in the private sector said they would leave the profession immediately.

    The state just could not have coped with the extra burden of suddenly having to provide schooling in state schools for all those who had been in private schools and Mitterrand had to surrender.

    I suggest that private schools in the UK unite and come up with some sort of scheme to scupper Starmer!

Comments are closed.