Sunday 14 June: The dangerous illusion that defacing statues can bring about meaningful social change

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/13/lettersthe-dangerous-illusion-defacing-statues-can-bring-meaningful/

852 thoughts on “Sunday 14 June: The dangerous illusion that defacing statues can bring about meaningful social change”

      1. I think “bitch” is the right word, Peddy, she must think that Churchill is a dog who sells insurance!

        1. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to meanβ€”neither more nor less.”

          ‘Morning, Elsie. Com’estas hoy?

    2. If ever proof were needed, of the abysmal standard of education in the UK, this clip provides irrefutable evidence.

      1. I guessed what it was like. Too early to raise the blood pressure by actually watching it.

    4. It’s very reassuring to see that Cathy Newman is reduced to interviewing terminally dumb tarts such as this. She deserves no better.

  3. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4e0e3a3a0eb0ff6f610d152eea315e51ad2802f1d3a4983bee6978f3710b681.jpg

    Morning everyone. This picture has caused considerable comment both here in Nottl and in the MSM so I’ve put it into Paint and examined it. Aside from being; as Sos pointed out yesterday, very convenient in there being only a single shot, (why didn’t the photographer wait for him to turn around) the photograph is interesting in itself. The first thing that strikes you about it is that there is no tension in his body. He’s just stood there feet flat to the ground, legs relaxed, left foot next to the plinth and the toes of his right about an inch from the wall. There’s no sign of urinary stress. In this position he would have urinated on the top of the wall (not in the corner) and been caught in the splashback. No man would be standing in so close. There should also be splashes and runnels down the face of the wall of which there are none. The amount on the pavement is suggestive as well, it’s not only clear (the reflection of his right shoe can be seen in it and his left is on top of it) but there’s quite a lot and it’s had time to run across and into the gutter. One would have thought that he would be long gone in the time taken for this to happen..

    Now what I think has happened here is that the photographer has poured a bottle of water into the corner (the only splashes are in the bottom four inches next to the wall) and then waited as it ran off and also to ensure that the scene was clear of witnesses, he then called up his co-conspirator (whose socks are wrinkled and shoe laces are untied which suggests that he changed for it) and posed the picture.

    2. Regardless of whether this was staged or not, the fact remains that we are meant to believe that the cretin was pissing on the memorial to a fallen police officer. and, symbolically, he was!

      For that fact alone I would have shot the twat where he stood. My shooting of him could then be regarded as a symbolic reaction to my abhorrence of his symbolic act.

          1. Re the Guardian – they’re quick to label those they hate but never those they support. Such bias is repugnant, but expected from the Left.

        3. assuming it is a man having a wee, the simple fact is it’s disgusting. There are plenty of shops nearby to nip in to.

          It’s indicative of a decadent, lazy culture where ‘I’ll do what I want’ takes precedent over ‘I must do what is right.’

  4. Ten-year jail sentences for desecrating war memorials. 14 june 2020.

    Demonstrators who desecrate war memorials could face prison sentences of up to ten years, under plans being considered by ministers after the Cenotaph and a statue of Winston Churchill were boarded up to protect them from violent protests.

    Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, are understood to be discussing proposals to make it easier to prosecute people who damage monuments to those who died during wars. The measures under discussion could also cover some of the statues currently being targeted by activists.

    This is just pabulum! The country is disintegrating around their ears!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/ten-year-jail-sentences-desecrating-war-memorials/

    1. Enforcing the existing laws on vandalism might be a good start. Quicker and more effective than making new laws that don’t get enforced, either.

      1. Morning Oberst there are more than enough laws on the books. This is just to pretend that they are doing something!

        1. It’s typical of government. They seem to be of the opinion that if two laws don’t work, then all they need is another and people will miraculously comply.
          Morning!

    2. Anyway, they will wriggle out of it by saying that statues aren#t war memorials.

    3. Talking of war memorials, Google has just updating its officially approved list of war commanders during WW2.

      On the approved list, with photographs, are:
      Adolf H*tler
      Joseph Stalin
      Benito Mussolini
      Harry S Truman
      Dwight D Eisenhower
      Hirohito
      Douglas Macarthur

      The image of Winston Churchill has been removed for being “inappropriate”, and Franklin D Roosevelt is missing altogether.

    4. Is there a sentence for boarding them up rather than demanding their defence as well?

      1. A soft corn taco. The secret of not getting the contents everywhere is to fold it like a Chinese wrap.
        Madras curry paste, coleslaw, soured cream – delish.

    2. Morning Peddy. Good choice. I went for Chinese buns filled with mushrooms.

      Morning, everyone!

      1. Morning, ATD.

        The usual two pints of water for me. [Pork pie (minus the crust) and salad for me dinner at 1300hrs.]

        1. My goodness, that is restraint! I try to minimise carbs as I am too fat, and generally can take or leave pastry, but a raised crust pork pie is very heaven!

          1. I know. Trouble is I’ve tried many times in the past to lose weight and have invariably failed. This time I’ve been more resolute and it is paying off. A lack of carbs means a lack of hunger so it is working (15kg so far).

            I only have two of my home-made pork pies left so I’ll have to bake another batch in a few months’ time.

            The promise I’ve made is that when I (eventually) reach my target weight I shall once again enjoy the full spectrum of food, but not to excess. I shall regard each morsel as an occasional treat.

  7. SIR β€” Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock: it’s time to stop destroying our economy and take some risks.

    Look at how Europe is navigating its way out of lockdown: schools are back, tourism and industry are on the move and restaurants are reopening. Yet our Government seems to think that these many millions of people are wrong.

    We are the ones who have got it wrong, with our head-in-the-sand politics. I predict a very serious split in the Government. God help us when Brexit needs to be negotiated.

    Tony Brook
    Malvern, Worcestershire

    How dare you, Tony, use the pages of a national newspaper to spout your common sense? No one in government is listening!

    As far as I am concerned, though, yours is the best letter of the past week. Well said, sir.

    1. Indeed, Grizz, and good morning!
      I, and those around me, cannot either believe or understand what’s wrong with the UK. Why are they so bloody useless? What’s with the travel quarantine, for example, when the virus problems are waning – why didn’t they do the same as others, and stop travel right at the start? All that crap about protecting the NHS by dying at home of something treatable? What’s with the schools now – everybody else is back at school, pubs and bars open (even if you do have to maintain a little awkward distance), and why, FFS, did the UK have to gold-plate as usual the distance recommendation and make it 2 metres rather than one? Are they all blithering idiots? (NTTL excepted, of couse, as these questions have already been raised here).
      My gast has never been so flabbered with how utterly useless the country has become. Shit, even the police are grovelling in front of demonstrators – when I was a student in London, the SPG sat in armoured Transits just around the corner, and that wasn’t with elstoplasts and feather dusters (rainbow coloured) in hand, either.

      1. Morning, Paul.

        More evidence that clearly shows the progressively deteriorating brain power of the human species. The UK is a small island group that contains a whopping 67 million humans.

        Grizzly’s Law states that the higher the concentration of stupid people you have in any small area, the higher the probability you have of electing stupid politicians to lead you.

        QED.

      2. I share your disgust. Other countries just want to get back to normal, and the British government are fiddling around with 2 metre distancing while a mob dismantles our history.
        Get the schools back, in order to get the teachers out of the BLM marches, I reckon they would collapse overnight!

    2. Quite right, Grizz. The country is bleeding to death financially, and yet ministers are just blinking in the headlights. Like others, I had some hope that Johnson would get a grip, but he’s turned out to be a busted flush, and his 80-seat majority will vanish at the next election. What a waste. I fear that history will not smile kindly upon his term of office, even allowing for Covid-19.

      1. I’m slightly more positive.

        He’s getting Brexit through hopefully under WTO rules.

        He’s dealt with fire, flood, plague and war. He’s had more manure in his tenure than any other Prime Minister.

        Yes, I’d have liked more leadership condemning the racist violent thugs but he can’t do that without provoking an already aggressive mob. What he needed was a co-odinated police response and that didn’t come. The police have become too entrenched in their Left wingery.

        The second the mob went on the street he should have demanded riot control measures and water cannon to split the mob up and remind them that society will not tolerate their abuses.

        1. Khan flogged the Water cannon that Boris bought – how’s that for foresight?

          1. I imagine it was obvious against whom it would be used. Of course he’s not going to allow such tools to be used against his favoured children.

          2. Khan likely knew it’d be his voting bloc who he’d have to use it against so set about removing the option.

            The man is scum. His continual deceit, the lies when confronted with facts are almost comical in their absurdity.

    3. What will be interesting is seeing the incidence of covid 19 after all the rioting has finished.

      That will show, clearly that the lockdown was unnecessary.

      1. I’d also add that if the virus does nobble all these racists wailing on about black lives then they should be denied medical care and left to rot.

        It’s time they paid the price for their actions – just like George Floyd.

  8. I wonder what instructions the police were given to control the “far right thugs” who went to Westminster to protect the statues. I expect it was on the lines of “no holds barred, stir them up and arrest as many as possible” 100 plus were arrested and 6 police were injured. Job done. The demonstrators/ statue protectors fell into the police trap. In contrast the BLM demonstration a few yards away was peaceful. [BBC Radio 4 report of the statistics]

    1. Indeed. Reading between the lines of this piece of brazen propaganda was the idea that perhaps the violence in this case came largely from the police, and was politically selective.

      It reminds me of the Wapping disturbance in the 1980s, when the politicised police went for noisy, but reasonably benign trade unionists attending a rally addressed by Arthur Scargill, whilst agents provocateurs coming out of the Wapping building and probably employed by Murdoch (or possibly brought in by Thatcher herself) were causing a disturbance at the platform, forcing stewards to take action, which was seen by the police as evidence of trade union thuggery.

      I don’t go in for identity politics, and will criticise the police whether their target be trade unionists of the Left, or “far right thugs” protecting statues.

    3. The reporting in the MoS is as bad. Boris condemns the “racist thugs” apparently, whereas BLM peaceful protesters are so big-hearted that they rescue even the evil racists from violence, while the evil racists pee on memorials.

      All to try and hide the great replacement!

      1. Was the person who urinated on what looked like a lamp post or through railings an evil racist? The memorial is a plaque at ground level which was not violated and no doubt the local dogs will take an interest in it. I think if the poor lad gets a good solicitor he will be found to be Not Guilty. It is not an insult to relieve yourself in a house with a Blue Plaque on its wall.

        1. I think the DM is making the worst mistake since they supported Hitler in the 1930s.

  9. There were those far left anarchists who want to bring down authority for their own agendas
    There are the deluded and uneducated BLM with a massive chip on the shoulder who want to erase history
    There are the police who are not enforcing law and order and going against the home office .
    There are those who are ordinary patriotic English people who want to defend the statues and our culture
    There are those who were there for a good old punch up with the police because they ” got form with the plod ”

    What could possibly go wrong.

    1. “… Hold my beer …”

      A unified and strong response from the police was all that was needed. The mob must be reminded it has no voice and will face society’s censure.

      Instead what did we get? A bunch of panby kneeling running away wimps. What message did that send the thugs?

  10. Plumbers Π― Us

    Isaac and Yetta had been married for forty years and had got pretty used to caring for each other, to the extent even that, after visiting the bathroom, he would leave the seat down for her, and she would leave the seat up for him.

    One day, however, Isaac had other things on his mind and forgot to lower the seat. So the next time Yetta went in there, she sat down as usual and got firmly stuck! She called to Isaac for help, but try as he might, he was unable to free her.

    “It’s no good, Yetta, I’ll have to call the plumber,” he said.

    “But I can’t have a stranger seeing me all exposed like this,” she wailed.

    So Isaac took off his black yarmulke and placed it so as to preserve her modesty. He then called the plumber, who came along and told him to wait outside the bathroom. There was the sound of much pulling, pushing, tugging and shoving until finally the plumber came out and said “I have good news and bad news.”

    “What do you mean?” asked Isaac.

    “The good news is that your wife is now free,” said the plumber.

    “And the bad news?” Isaac asked anxiously.

    The plumber replied, “I’m afraid we lost the Rabbi!”

  11. Morning all

    SIR – Already the country of our grandchildren is much more culturally diverse than that of their great-grandparents. This is reflected everywhere: in schools, universities, hospitals, offices and homes. Thank God for it.

    However, social change needs time: it cannot be imposed overnight. It will certainly not be helped by those wishing to rewrite our history, defacing our statues and monuments, and attempting to expunge facts that do not accord with their views. Our history happened, for better or worse. Let us recognise and understand it.

    Shirley Lane

    Castle Cary, Somerset

    1. Shirley Lane is evil or stupid.

      Edit: Having done some research on Shirley I may admit the possibility that she is well meaning but deluded.

      1. I think she represents the Tory sheep.
        People are increasingly realising that the Conservative party exists purely in order to get elected, not to uphold any standards.

        1. 320113+ up ticks,
          BB2,
          Many have the party before Country voting virus a three party three chair
          voting lament, as in the keep in / keep out, locked in close shop syndrome.

          1. This is a mentality that I despise, and the main reason why I often don’t get on with Conservatives in real life.

      1. Castle Cary is a pleasant little town/large village….swarms of Lib Dems/lefties….I used to live nearby in Bruton, almost as bad.

  12. SIR – Blinded by ideology, many of the Black Lives Matter protesters are disregarding the democratic norms of law and order, respect and tolerance.

    Above all, they have lost belief in the power of consistent, peaceful pressure, supported by reasoned argument. Their demand for instant change contrasts sharply with the patience and persistence of the great William Wilberforce.

    Barrie Taylor

    Highcliffe, Dorset

    SIR – While we condemn racism in all its forms, we must not rip down public monuments, shatter the fabric of our society, attack our institutions, tolerate criminality or make people feel anything other than pride when it comes to British culture and heritage.

    The recent protests have been dominated by criminals who are undermining the very real fight against racism by burning flags, vandalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers. This has caused outrage in our newly won constituencies in the Midlands, the North and Wales. It’s time for these subversive individuals to be arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law.

    The Government must send a clear signal that the Conservative Party is the proud party of law and order, will protect our culture and heritage, and will not stand idly by as our democracy is dismantled in this way.

    Blue-collar Conservatives have put forward a Desecration of War Memorials Bill, seeking to bring specific sanctions for those who deface and damage war memorials and monuments, as happened with the statue of Sir Winston Churchill.

    We hope that we will have the Government’s support.

    Lee Anderson MP

    Brendan Clark-Smith MP

    Esther McVey MP

    Philip Davies MP

    Matt Vickers MP

    Gareth Bacon MP

    Sarah Atherton MP

    1. BLM has no shred of moral justification or high ground. They are running with a fake victim narrative, doing the the globalist movement’s work for them.

    2. “Racism in all its forms”? Baloney.
      Tell, me how is it that second- even first- generation immigrants can become MPs?
      How are our schools filled with blacks and coloureds receiving free education?
      Why are the pages of the BBC website dominated by stories about, and by coloured folk?
      How can it be that it is national policy in every organisation in the UK to prefer a coloured job applicant over an equally qualified white one?

  14. Morning again

    SIR – I like to think Churchill would see the irony that, without his efforts and those of the service men and women remembered by the Cenotaph, the protesters who defaced them would probably not have been allowed to protest in the first place.

    Philip Samengo-Turner

    Cirencester, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Where do the protesters go next? Do they focus on the industrialists of the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly mill owners, who made their labour forces work in atrocious conditions for a pittance? Where do you draw the line on practices that prevailed in the past but are considered unacceptable today?

    David Felthouse

    Coventry, Warwickshire

    SIR – The premise of Professor Gill Evans’s article (Comment, June 10) about Edward Colston is that you can’t judge people of the past by the standards of the present.

    What she overlooks is that the statue of Colston was erected in 1895, 174 years after his death and 62 years after the abolition of slavery. So the good people of Bristol were perfectly aware of the wrongs of slavery but chose to ignore Colston’s role in it. Instead, they portrayed him as a philanthropist.

    David Agrell

    Winchester, Hampshire

    1. 320113+ up ticks,
      Morning E,
      In reply to D Felthouse,
      You draw the line in front of Pentonville prison entrance
      and fast track, after a fair trial those who wish to cross.
      Run a same day Tommy Robinson campaign only this time on an honest basis.

  15. SIR – Jay Hambro (Letters, June 7) is unrealistic in his ideas for new and untested ways of solving Britain’s future energy demands.

    To meet the Government’s implausible and unwarranted target of a carbon-free society, he suggests that we could burn waste (inefficient), use more wind and solar generation (expensive), invest taxpayer funds in tidal power (extremely expensive) and extend the grid to piggy-back on private industry’s energy resources (how exactly will that be programmed?).

    What we actually need to do is provide an energy backbone drawn from clean nuclear power stations, large and small, with variable demands quickly met by coal and gas-powered generators. We also need to start fracking as soon as possible.

    Robert Jones

    Bruton, Somerset

    SIR – Mr Hambro describes tidal power as β€œtried-and-tested”. He is right, but whether it is remotely practical or economically viable on a large scale is another matter.

    There have been many trials of different types of wave power. The most successful, the barrage system at La Rance, has been producing power since 1966. However, several engineering companies have tried and failed to make economic sense of tidal power. The most well-known was Siemens, with its turbine in the waters of Strangford Lough. This was subsequently sold to Simec Atlantis, which decommissioned it. Other trials in Britain have also been unsuccessful.

    The late Sir David Mackay, former chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, calculated that to meet 4 per cent of our current energy consumption with wave power would require 300 miles of Atlantic coastline to be filled with wave farms – both impractical and undesirable.

    P A Lacey

    Cowes, Isle of Wight

    1. The idiot thinking is that there is only one way allowed to generate energy, and all others have to be abolished for not conforming with the norm. Why not use all of them, and devise a few more, as appropriate and locally sustainable? Of course using wave power on Rutland Water is going to be a waste of time, as is putting solar panels on the London Underground. I wouldn’t put it past the gold-platers on a contract insisting on them though.

      1. We have to look at the return on investment. Solar is hideously expensive, however if it provides an opportunity for houses to be more self sufficient, go for it. Combine with something like the Tesla powerwall and most electricity could be ‘home grown’. making the nation far less reliant on the grid.

        However business, the real energy user needs to do something similar and here gas turbines are a good choice as are micro reactors.

        Personally I see nothing wrong with having a recycling plant powered by burning the waste it cannot recycle.

    2. Heriot-Watt University has been very active in the field of tidal power. Wave power has been the focus for decades. Every attempt to make electricity from bobbing buoys has been turned to broken and twisted rust within months.

  16. 320113+ up ticks,
    Morning each,
    You can compare the stature / obelisks that are being desecrated in comparison with trashing your homestead, the place in many cases that
    the parents have over the years fought to protect and build on as in destroying the parents legacy.
    Let us witness now those that are proved WITHOUT DOUBT fast tracked
    Tommy Robinson style through the courts are given a sentence that will shake them & their ilk to the core.
    The continuation of following the submissive pcism & appeasement line
    has killed an will kill again in greater numbers.
    The framework is in place nigh on for a civil bloody war and the only knee bending then will be to pick up arms in pursuit of destroying the body of
    fellow Countrymen.

    1. ‘Morning, pm.

      My breakfast has been revealed. Shepherd’s pie for supper.

      1. So you’re saying (Β© Cathy Newman) that you are planning to go out and shoot a couple of shepherds later today?

        :-))

        1. You’re out of date. Elsie. Current method is to hunt them down with a Subaru 4×4, quickly and humanely dispatch them on the field with a swift slice of the curved knife and into the white van to be processed.

        2. I hope his shepherd’s pie is made from lamb, otherwise if it’s made from beef it would be a cottage pie.

          3. If you like I can make you a delicious German apple cake, Grizzly. First of all, I have
            to go out and catch half a dozen Germans!

            :-))

    2. Good morning PM

      I was just thinking the same The licence funded far left political party the BBC, will throw at us distortions and untruths which in turn will give Khan more strength to his bow . Khan has caused so much trouble , he is responsible for everything

      No mention of the death of the veteran who had his throat cut whilst protecting Churchill ‘s covered statue.

      1. I am shocked, I heard nothing about that (the veteran). How did you find out about it?

      2. Throat cutting is considered “peaceful demonstration” by those that matter. It’s halal, and it’s hip-hop.

        I trust the veteran was arrested for affray and posthumously charged for failing to take the knee.

  19. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/475b84cc042c09e8c3d2df15e662ba786e76a928bb5fe7b71200827040420ef1.png A further example of how the powers [sic] that be are sitting with their thumbs up their arses whilst alien influences tear down the fabric of society with impunity.

    What we need is an Untouchables squad, similar to the one in 1920s Chicago. The difference being here is that I would round these gangs up and shoot them without trial. That would send out an immediate message of intent to all similar groupings who possess an intent to destroy British society.

    A failure to act, decisively, only gives these gangs the succour they crave.

    Or do you think my approach would be too radical?

    1. It certainly is radical, Grizzly, but I seriously believe you are right. We have gone too far down the road of lawlessness for even “zero tolerance” to effectively solve the anarchy and chaos evident today. In the past 20 years my point of view has changed by 180 degrees.

      1. Spartie and I met a dog walking chum while pottering around nearby fields.
        Like most of our generation, in the course of her working life, she has worked with all types.
        As she said: “I wasn’t racist before, but I sure am now.”

        2. Do you think that racism is often very generalised, but not held at an individual level. I find all the nonsense we have been subjected to makes me think – if all these BAMEs feel like that about our country for God’s sake and ours go elsewhere, but then you meet perfectly decent sensible hard working individuals, whom you get on with perfectly well. The constant nonsense spouted about racism by the media must make life much more difficult for those coloured people just wanting to get on with their lives.

        3. I was more or less booted off a Catholic blog last month for being a racist, (“a Catholic cannot be a racist” -Editor).
          When I was little, coloured people were objects of curiosity. Until I went to London, I had seen maybe a dozen coloured people in my whole life.
          I had no sense of special superiority to people on the grounds of colour. I was smarter than anyone else though. As a schoolboy I was not infrequently subjected to rudeness and occasional violence solely on the basis of my Catholic school uniform. When I left school I looked for a job. Some very large and prestigious businesses in Edinburgh would not employ Catholics. Full stop.
          The years rolled on. I employed a Nigerian girl as my secretary. I hired black warehousemen. We invited foreign students to our house to stay over for Christmas. (For the benefit of the children, partly, as where we lived there were no coloured faces). Students who could not afford to return home for the holiday. The nicest ones were Malaysians. The Italians were horrid.
          The only times in my adult life when I have been threatened with physical violence, apart from on the rugby pitch*, were in London on public transport by black men.
          Am I racist? Depends on the definition, but very probably. Because, you, see you have to be just one thing. You can’t discriminate between the black accountant I worked beside, and the half-naked thug with a baseball bat on the Tube.

          * Sometimes by my team-mates…

      2. When our armed forces are sent into situations to deal, effectively, with threats to the Realm, they do so without fear of favour. Why then, should the civilian police pussyfoot around when a similar threat to the Realm is being openly conducted by undisciplined gangs of foreigners who have no historical right to be here?

        Their swift, clinical, removal from society will only benefit us all.

      1. Morning, Maggie.

        I don’t know. I didn’t live in the 1960s East End of London.

        1. You realise I was addressing you as if you were wearing your previous hat , but assuming you had a cynical take on all things criminal ?

          1. I’ve not worn my previous hat for three decades, so I’m a little bit out-of-touch with current mores.

            [I will always remain out-of-touch with current thinking in ‘crime management’.]

      2. 320113+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I believe they were successful in removing trouble among their own kind and heard say
        things were safer on the streets.
        In my book could AKA politicians with guns.

    3. When did Albania join the EU?? Clue.it didn’t
      When these gangsters flash their cash and guns on Faceache all that is required is instant arrest and instant deportation without trial or appeal.
      All the laws are already in place all that’s required is the will
      Oh wait……………………..

    4. Morning all πŸ˜•

      Whilst Dickie and Kahnt fiddle Rome is still burning.
      Who will rid us of them ?
      More knee injuries today ?

    5. I’m still at a loss to understand how we get Albanians resident in this country. They are not EU members and yet we have them and, seemingly, can’t get rid of them.

      1. I have posted this question a couple of times n the last year or so. Drugs and child slavery/prostitution is what the Albanians do. The answer is twofold, bribery and fear. Police are being well paid, as the Albanians can afford it as a cost of doing business. The police are afraid to attempt arrests as the Albanians are ruthless, and really are armed and dangerous.

          1. Poor old Zog failed. Apparently he did not put up sufficient monuments to Norman Wisdom.

      1. 320113+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,
        I am getting a very distinct impression that the
        brussels broadcasting co are intentionally misleading & downright liars, and on these grounds have not paid a licence for years.

      1. Strangely enough, Google images doesn’t seem to have pikkies of dark chocolate teapots. (Ponders deeply)

  22. Rayshard Brooks: protesters set fire to Wendy’s as police officer is sacked. Sun 14 Jun 2020 07.03 BST.

    Protesters have burned down the Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta where a black man was shot by police as he tried to escape arrest, and blocked a major highway in the city.

    Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead on Friday night after police were called to the restaurant over reports that he had fallen asleep in the drive-through line.

    Just a reminder to everyone that the revolution is not confined to the UK. While the consequences here are serious they may well be calamitous in the United States. A coup or the assassination of Trump is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Even if he should last to win the election the process would continue until he is hounded out of office. There appears to be no way out for reasonable men. You can let your imaginations run riot knowing that anything is possible.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/rayshard-brooks-shooting-protesters-set-fire-to-restaurant-where-black-man-shot-dead

    1. Ah Bless,the selective Guardian at its best
      No footage of the very large black man,drunk or drugged up resisting arrest,stealing a taser from an officer,opening fire on an officer with said taser………………
      No thought not

      2. Churchill was the last white man to be called Winston – ironic that he should be called a racist

        1. The fact is forgotten by the mindless morons that so many people from the Caribbean were named Winston after Churchill because he was so much loved and respected.

  24. I had this response from HMRC concerning my inquiries regarding pilfering from the Royal Mail’s Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre at Langley by customs staff, and the failure to monitor the whereabouts of mail intercepted by Government officials:

    “Dear Mr Morfey

    Thank you for your enquiry regarding your parcel.. I apologise for the delay in our reply.

    Unfortunately I cannot give you information on when Border Force will release your parcel if it is held for inspection.

    When it is released, if there are no issues with the contents, it will be given to Royal Mail for delivery. You should continue to monitor their tracking system
    for more information.

    This information is based on our current guidance at this time, please check our website regularly for updates.

    If you have any further queries regarding Excise, Customs and International Trade please refer to the guidance on our website, https://www.gov.uk.

    Yours sincerely,

    HM Revenue & Customs
    Customs, International Trade & Excise”

    1. I have now sent an email to my MP Harriett Baldwin:

      “Dear Harriett Baldwin

      I have heard back from HMRC as regards my concern about the failure of HMRC to monitor mail intercepted by customs staff at Royal Mail HWDC at Langley, along with worries that pilfering is rife and going unregulated by Government officials. I have read reports elsewhere of parcels being routinely taken to auction and put up for sale on Ebay.

      As you can see the response is quite inadequate. Would you please now initiate a Parliamentary Inquiry.”

      I will let peeps know if I get a response from her. It seems they are most reluctant to investigate maladministration these days.

      1. You’ve got no chance JM, they can’t even cope with the obvious.
        I expect they’ll be grabbing another 10 grand tax payers top up soon as well. Stress, dyslexia, mental health issues,
        no hand wipes, all the usual pathetic excuses for not getting the job done.

        1. The difficulty with crime emanating from Government departments is that they have legal immunity. They know this, which is why they can simply blackball me (am I allowed to say that without being done for gross criminality?).

          They don’t usually bother with excuses, since this implies guilt. They give instead “clarification”, usually answering a question I have not asked with an earnest promise to aim to deliver what I am asking of them.

  25. ‘Morning All

    Google has pissed me off on many occasions but like most I was too lazy to do anything about it

    Not now,they can shove their browsers,search engine and email where the sun don’t shine

    (Scroll across)
    https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=ZoXlXvmqJvSLjLsP6Y-DiAk&q=british+prime+ministers&oq=british+p&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgUIABCDATIFCAAQsQMyBQgAELEDMgUIABCxAzIFCAAQgwEyAggAMgUIABCxAzIFCAAQgwEyBQgAEIMBMgUIABCxA1DBDFidQGDsV2gAcAB4AIABRIgBugSSAQE5mAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab

    2. Good morning, Rik.

      Which one do you suggest? Others I have tried
      are equally boorish and selective.

      1. I just checked duckduckgo images for British Prime ministers,Churchill still exists there
        That’ll do me for a startpage
        Edit
        Manners morning Big G

      2. DuckDuckGo is an independent search engine company, whose selling point is that they don’t store your data or spy on you.
        They get their money via legitimate advertising – of course, it’s a fraction of what Google can harvest from your searches, but they are financially stable.
        As far as one can believe in anything, they seem to be genuine.

        The quality of their searches is pretty good – if I can’t find what I’m looking for, I will very occasionally go to google – but then I can see the advertising bias in the top few results.

    3. Google are evil. They sacked a software developer for daring to point out that women are less likely to choose software development as a career because they are inherently different from men.
      Use DuckDuckGo as your search engine. Never touch Google again!

    4. Oh no…

      Winston’s been boarded up, and he’s missing completely from 1940 – 1945 !

      Although they also missed out Harold Wilson from 1965 – 1970 so perhaps it’s not deliberate.

    5. I haven’t used Google as a search engine for years. I much prefer ixquick.com (now Front Page).

  26. I think the coming weeks are fairly easy to predict.

    1. The media will go in to a fit of hysteria about β€˜far right’ violence and the rise of racism. The Book Burners will accelerate their work and Black Lies Matter will be rammed down our threats – not because they care, the purpose is to humiliate people.

    2. Ordinary British people will lose complete faith in their institutions concluding they live under a rigged system and quietly and in increasing numbers turn to people who will protect them.

    June 13th – the day the British people lost all faith in their establishment.

    1. Nahh. I lost faith in the state decades ago. It became obvious under Brown and Blair’s tenure that government’s only interest was in robbing the worker, rewarding the feckless and parading that arrogance and waste down our throats.

      When Cameron got in he formed a coalition. No one voted for a coalition. He didn’t bother to ask us. He just did it and robbed us of choice in favour of power. The upside I suppose was exposing the Lib Dems as liars and frauds, but Cameron did nothing to undo the damage Labour caused because it was politically risky.

      You ask the state for support and if you’ve worked, saved and tried, it robs you. It is a degrading, offensive, arrogant organisation that has even stopped lying because it knows it doesn’t have to. That old people’s stipend that hiked council tax? It went straight into trougher salaries. We all know it. They didn’t give a stuff.

      No. The state is not a safety net. It’s a couch for the waster and a spike filled pit trap for the decent, honest and hard working.

    1. They will of course include the ‘Talking Head’ who explained the the bombs they wer dropping on our ships did not have sufficient Flight Time, for the ‘likkle pretty propella’ on the front to do enough rotations to align the arming mechanism.

  29. No, defacing and vandalising a statue – as the racist Left are doing – *should* not bring about change.

    However, couple that with an abusive, antagonistic, arrogant Left wing state and it does because that state machine either actively hates society and like the racists wants to re-write history or is so desperate to follow the crowd of irrelevant minority that it does so blindly.

    This is where if mayors, MPs, senior civil servants and so on could simply be removed without notice we just wouldn’t have this sort of mess. As it stands, Khan is a divisive, deceitful, obviously racist abuser. A Pakistani asian Muslim complaininng about racism while ignoring that he is mayor of London. Perhaps it shows just how detached London is from the rest of the UK. London is, after all, a toilet. He’s just another floater.

  30. Without my woggle, I might have tried my hand at some truly idiotic activities
    Rod Liddle
    Sunday June 14 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    What a pleasure it is to see Lord Baden-Powell back in the news. His re-emergence into the spotlight came when grown men wearing shorts, strange hats and woggles sat around his statue in Poole, Dorset, to prevent him from being chucked into the sea by lefties suddenly enraged at his questionable beliefs and colonial record.

    B-P informed much of my early life, as I was a cub scout with an Akela for a mum. I was rarely happier than when crouching down and shouting β€œdyb dyb dyb” and promising that I would do my duty to the Queen and to God, and to be obedient and do my best.

    Baden-Powell began the scout movement partly because he was terrified that young boys would masturbate themselves into imbecility. He wrote of the practice: β€œThe boy after a time becomes weak and nervous and shy, he gets headaches and probably also palpitations of the heart, and if he still carries it on too far, he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot.”

    There you are. If only someone had warned Gavin Williamson’s mum and dad sooner, our kids might be back at school.

    Even in the late 1960s, when I joined a cub pack, scouting was seen as a little de trop. There was a leftish rival organisation called the Woodcraft Folk that didn’t go in for any of the paramilitary obedience stuff, but probably held keening sessions for the victims of Israeli oppression, practised veganism and so on. We hated them, just as we hated the Boys’ Brigade (of which Baden-Powell was a joint founder, but left after a schism, probably over woggles).

    The scouting imperatives of discipline, competition, devotion and loyalty, derived directly from Baden- Powell’s Victorian and Edwardian sensibilities, and are not terribly fashionable qualities these days. Still less fashionable is Baden-Powell’s idol, Rudyard Kipling, who is surely next in line for one of these Year Zero, end of history defenestrations.

    More’s the pity, in both cases, I think. Scouting has survived because, unfashionable though its imperatives may be, they are nonetheless useful and compelling in their blank, unquestioned certitudes: there is nothing wrong with imposing a strict moral code on the young. Scouting will survive this latest assault without very much difficulty. Hell, it survived Operation Yewtree.

    Most of the allegations made about Baden-Powell are absolutely true. He was indeed a fan of Benito Mussolini and enjoyed nothing more than relaxing of an evening with a copy of Mein Kampf, written by the arguably controversial Austrian politician, Adolf Hitler. He was not alone, in 1920s Britain, in being attracted by fascism β€” far from it, of course. Hitler later outlawed the scout movement, thinking it a bit pinko and un-German, but there’s no doubt that Baden-Powell had fascist tendencies.

    No doubt, either, that as part of the British Army he was probably a little, um, vigorous in quelling uprisings in our empire (the Ashanti people of Ghana remember him well). I’m sure he was a white supremacist. In the UK in 1910, who wasn’t? Back then, white supremacy was not seen as an odious conceit, but as a bland statement of fact. The British empire was at its zenith. Baden-Powell, like everyone else, was subject to the malefactions and the misconceptions of his time β€” beliefs that were, in those days, inescapable and intrinsic.

    I would reckon that he clung to those now abhorrent beliefs with perhaps more fervour than most. But he also left something rather wonderful behind, which has given pleasure and guidance to untold millions: the scout movement. We are surely all better than our worst acts; we are all more than the sum of our delusions β€” whenever we lived.

    There was this game we played in cubs every so often, a game nicked from Kipling: Kim’s game. We would be presented with a tray on which were placed 20 objects. Then the tray was taken away. The task was to remember every item on the tray. To remember all of the items, every single one. Not just the ones you liked. You had to remember all of them.

    Trump support for minorities

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fa10fd754-ad89-11ea-a162-e62c6152f801.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    Left-field attack
    Many on the far left still appear to think that people from ethnic minorities who do not agree with their views cannot, de facto, really be from an ethnic minority. This seems to me the very essence of racism.

    After the home secretary, Priti Patel, spoke of the racism she endured as a child, a Labour MP, Naz Shah, accused her of β€œgaslighting” other ethnic minorities. Gaslighting, like mansplaining, is one of those spurious terms used by people who don’t like what they’re being told.

    Naz Shah’s previous contributions to racial harmony include suggesting that Israel should be moved to the US and liking a tweet which insisted that the child victims of Asian grooming gangs should shut up for the sake of community relations. Both of these were β€œgenuine mistakes”, she said.

    Virus’s sequel waits in wings
    Depressed and alone, Covid-19 is drowning his sorrows in a bar somewhere and wondering if, please, he might get called up for I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!. (Or maybe Celebrity Love Island, where the possible proximity of other viruses might make things more congenial.)

    The latest statistics reveal that only one in three of us are scared of ol’ corona any more, whereas back in March and April we were all frit as hell.

    My suspicion is that we are simply bored of it all and have new things to occupy our sense of outrage, not that its actual threat is any the less. Perhaps corona will make a comeback, much as Les Dennis did in Ricky Gervais’s Extras, when winter heaves into view.

    Or perhaps right now, somewhere in the world, probably China, some bloke is taking home for his family a delicious dish of deep-fried bat, within which resides a microscopic newcomer with a profound sense of destiny and a lethality of which his predecessor could have only dreamt.

    Ban is music to my ears
    Alongside Little Britain and Gone With the Wind, something else to be cast into purgatory is the phrase β€œno can do”. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, it should be banned because it was used in the 19th century to mock the speech patterns of Chinese immigrants to America. If this means most of Hall and Oates’s mid-period catalogue will be removed from the airwaves β€” well, I can go for that.

    1. Maybe I am odd. At my primary school we had an asian kid and a black kid. To me they were Akshay and Harry.

      We ould play tanks (by linking arms) in the playground and chase each other about. I didn’t think of them as different. When Akshay went to Gresham’s after primary (his parents were both doctors) I lost touch with him but eventually ran into his younger brother Guatam. We would talk about comics.

      It just didn’t matter what colour they were. It doesn’t.

      1. Oh dear, they’ll be coming for you Wibbers.

        You are guilty of not recognising their cultural identity, according to the woman on QT on Thursday who complained of just that.

        Definite eating cake and having it going on. One minute you’re not allowed to describe someone by their most obvious identifying characteristic, next minute your denying their identity if you dont.
        I can’t keep up.

      2. My children were in the minority at an English primary school, and the Asian boys tried to kiss my son in the playground. We were told by the teachers that this was normal, and nothing could or should be done about it.
        We left the UK shortly afterwards so that our children could be educated in a sane, normal atmosphere.

    2. When I went to prep school we were all enlisted into the cubs. Through sheer personality, grit, charm and application before reaching the age of eleven I was made a sixer – the leader of my little group of cubs.

      However at the age of eleven I became a boy scout and I was soon rumbled by the scout master who saw me for what I really was – a cynical, indolent fraud who preferred the Just So Stories to the Jungle Books.

      I never made Patrol Leader. I never won any stars. I never won any badges for keeping camp tidy, polishing my woggle, saluting in a unvulgar fashion or being clean in thought word and deed. During the Easter school holidays we had to do ‘Bob-A-Job Week’ but I had a very jolly old cynical uncle who slipped me a ten bob note and together we then had fun inventing jobs and people to fill in on the record sheet so that I could return to school with something for the scout master’s pot.

  31. Ref: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418253/Boris-Johnson-drops-plans-make-gender-change-easier.html

    Good. A man being able to say he is a woman and then intrude upon women’s only spaces is disgusting. We had one of these men in a dress at our offices. He would waltz into the women’s loo and stand up to pee – because he was a man. When the women – in the five other offices in the building – complained he demanded to be treated as a woman.

    I will respect – but not accept – anyone’s right to identify as they wish to. That’s entirely their choice. What cannot be permitted is for that individual to force their perspective on everyone else. Down that road leads oppression. Those people have got to then respect – but not accept – the views of others.

    2. If a man wants to have the privilege of being treated as a woman, he should at least make a reasonable effort to behave like one.

      1. In that case it may have been sponsored by the harridan dwarf’s narstie party!

      1. Morning Mr. Tastey! You must have been looking in the Scottish pretendy parliament!

    3. Good thing it wasn’t some hideous hate crime slogan like “It’s OK to be white.”

      1. In my case “a white English woman living in Scotland”! How hateful is that??

  35. Douglas using easy words and short paragraphs for the DM readership ….

    DOUGLAS MURRAY: Anarchy is breaking out – Where are the brakes on this thing? Does anyone know?
    By DOUGLAS MURRAY FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

    PUBLISHED: 23:02, 13 June 2020 | UPDATED: 01:25, 14 June 2020

    Today, a rabble of overweight, tattooed thugs hurled insults, cans and bottles at the police. Officers with shields and riot gear scrambled to contain the violence a short walk from the heart of government.

    This was co-ordinated law-breaking. We are supposed to be in lockdown, remember, confined to our homes while the R-rate hovers close to one.

    But the rioting was all too predictable from the moment the police, politicians and other prominent figures decided to indulge the Black Lives Matters (BLM) demonstrations all around Britain last weekend.

    At the start, many of the BLM campaigners had a noble cause. Yet their gatherings were in defiance of lockdown guidelines and spilled over into violence and destruction.

    Police officers were injured. Property was destroyed. The smell of double standards is hard to avoid.

    Yesterday, the police behaved as they should. Properly equipped, they contained a lawless mob and protected public property. Politicians and commentators were outspoken in their criticism of the thugs.

    But where were they last weekend? The politicians were calling the protestors β€˜peaceful’ or even praising them.

    And the police in some cases not only kneeled before the mob but then, as it turned violent, ran away from them. No wonder people were angry at that sight.

    Permitted lawlessness only encourages more of the same. And adds to the madness in the air at the moment. Anarchy is breaking out. Where are the brakes on this thing? Does anyone know?

    Why is it that the Cenotaph in Whitehall must be boarded up, and the statue of Winston Churchill? How did a debate on police racism in the US turn into an attack on almost everything in Britain’s past, not to mention protests – and now counter-protests – and rioting across European cities? This is a very dangerous moment.

    Yes, some part of the current unrest is a reaction to the lockdown. There are consequences when you consign the whole country to our homes for nearly three months.

    It is also true there are segments of the population who feel racism is the single most important issue in our country. They portray Great Britain as a hell-hole, a vile society, with β€˜white supremacy’ and β€˜institutional racism’ everywhere.

    An even greater part of the population profoundly disagrees. But where is the debate?

    How did protests against a policeman killing an unarmed black man in Minnesota last month lead to the cancelling of Fawlty Towers, the destruction of statues and assaults on the police by two different sets of thugs? The fact is that police chiefs set a dreadful example last weekend, standing by in the face of mass law-breaking.

    Why? Because like our whole society they fear that opposing any action by BLM will lead to accusations of racism.

    And now we see the consequence of this retreat from reason. The destruction of our monuments, mob rule on our streets and festering hatred on the internet.

    What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis was appalling. The arresting policeman’s actions were callous, brutal and indefensible. But why have people decided to apportion the blame so far and wide? These protestors are using the actions of a policeman in Minnesota (currently charged with murder and awaiting trial) to push for the erasure of British history and culture.

    What we are seeing is nothing less than an attempt to reshape Britain in the image of militant groups and the ideologues of the Far-Left.

    And to do so they are crushing debate and punishing dissent using classic tactics of moral intimidation.

    Across the country, people fear that remaining silent is somehow to support the violence meted out to George Floyd: an oboe recital on Radio 3 was interrupted by a trembling speech about his killing; a presenter on the BBC2’s Springwatch used the return of the wild beaver to Cornwall to use as a counterpoint to events in Minnesota.

    Speak out against BLM – as Nigel Farage did last week – and you might lose your job. As he did.

    People learn from such punishments and shaming, and most of the media – like everybody else – has been intimidated into agreeing with the protests, for fear of seeming to condone racism.

    Why has our culture become like this? Are we Communist eastern Europe, where people have to condemn people with whom they are associated in case they are condemned in turn? Whatever happened to polite disagreement? Or healthy debate?

    The crowd behaviour at the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol last weekend was deranged. Whatever the rights and wrong of the statue, the manner in which it came down was shocking.

    It was a clearly organised, pre-planned event. But look at the heat of that crowd, jumping up and down on the toppled statue, as though he had been a dictator who had oppressed them all their lives.

    Even more shocking was the fact that the police stood by, with police chiefs justifying that decision and the city’s mayor congratulating the mob on their actions. That move was deeply significant. Because we know from history that at such moments crowds of this kind are interested in one thing above all: testing the limits, seeing how far they are permitted to go.

    In failing to realise this, the police’s top command have been cowards.

    Since then we have seen attempts to bring down statues of the founder of the Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell and the renaming of a building in Liverpool named after Gladstone. And the anti-statue movement has spread outward.

    Gone With The Wind has gone from streaming services for wrong-think, as have comedy series like Little Britain and The League Of Gentlemen.

    Can anyone explain convincingly why things made only a decade ago are now so threatening? No. Any more than we can explain how any child in Britain – of whatever ethnic background – is going to benefit from this demented cultural purge.

    Members of Minneapolis City Council have announced their intention to β€˜dismantle’ the city’s police department. As though American cities have not just had a taste of what a loss of law and order looks like.

    One member of the city council – Jeremiah Ellison – announced a β€˜dramatic rethink’ on β€˜how we approach public safety’.

    Perhaps he and his colleagues could set up a Committee on Public Safety, as Robespierre and Co did after the French Revolution with such striking success. If pushed, America could well find itself amid another revolution.

    As it is in America, so it could be here, not least because there has been a near-total absence of authority so far. This country needs to recognise what we are facing.

    Yes, there are some people genuinely protesting because of Minnesotan policing. Others are just happy to get out of the house and be praised for their nobility in doing so.

    But among them lie people with the most hostile imaginable view of this country, people who will not stop until they have trashed all of our history and forced everyone into feeling some undue sense of shame over it.

    They – and the vacuum left by our political leaders – have now created a counter-force. One that thanks to its thuggery will give further ammunition to their opponents.

    Well count me out. I am proud of our history. Like millions of other British people I have my own attitudes and criticisms towards parts of it, and am open to debating it all. But I don’t see why these cultural revolutionaries should be able to push their one-sided, hostile version of our country unopposed.

    If they do, I worry deeply about what greater reaction they might produce. This nation has been an extraordinary force for good in the world.

    If it hadn’t been, and we weren’t the tolerant country that we are, then why would people from all over the world have come here and want to come here still?

    Like all countries – including America – there are things we can do to improve.

    Nobody doubts that.

    But we cannot leave our future to the rule of mobs – neither to the thugs of yesterday, nor to the β€˜anti-racists’ who would destroy our economy and erase every aspect of our culture that isn’t to their liking.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418209/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-Anarchy-breaking-brakes-thing-Does-know.html

    1. “Gone With The Wind has gone from streaming services for wrong-think, as have comedy series like Little Britain and The League Of Gentlemen.

      Can anyone explain convincingly why things made only a decade ago are now so threatening?”

      Clear evidence of the urgent need to immediately clear-out all those occupying influential positions in broadcasting. To hesitate is to lose. To vacillate is to throw in the towel.

      1. If you do not repent, your career and livelihood will be trashed. Difficult, if you still need an income. I probably would not publicise many of my thoughts on the more sensitive matters if I was still employed by a large (ex) travel company.

        1. There are only a few trusted friends I would ever discuss politics with. I never talk about politics at work.

          1. I had the added disadvantage that all my conversations we on tape, and you couldn’t get more than one person in the loo (unless you were romantically inclined).

    4. As I saw it, the BLM racists set about vandalising, looting and destroying. The police, ratheer than confront this lawlessness instead pandered to it.

      To represent society another group set about to protect society. The police then attacked *them*. That’s twice the police have let down the public.

    1. 320113+ up ticks,
      That would be the lookalike name rustling tory’s would it not ?

    2. The pyschology of our country has been damaged .

      Our national security has been compromised by creeping Marxism .
      Our culture is under threat.
      Our police force is not for purpose
      We are ripe for a take over… the police use an expression called Cuckooing .. where by criminals take advantage of vulnerable people by pitching in on their properties and using the address for nefarious activities .

      Britain is being Cuckooed by parasitic cultures who mean to harm us and take away our identity

      We will never mend , or be rescued , will we.

      3. The historical analogy that springs to mind is C15 England, years that known as The Wars of the Roses.
        Weak government that turned sections of a reasonably cohesive society against each other.

    3. The Conservatives have lost contact with the electorate to such an extent that they will probably never win another general election. The party certainly does not deserve to do so any more than the Labour Party does,

      Our democracy – indeed the country – is in a state of crisis. Now is surely the time for a new Thatcherite party to come to the fore with people such as John Redwood, Owen Paterson and Nigel Farage at its head.

      1. They will, because if people elect Starmer, they will regret it, and there’s no other choice.
        Let’s face it, democracy stopped working in the UK with Theresa May’s shameful speech of capitulation to Blair in about 2001.

  37. Unions champion bad cops and dud teachers

    When the worst are protected, it is the vulnerable who pay the highest price
    Dominic Lawson
    Sunday June 14 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    Derek Chauvin, the cop facing a murder rap over the death of George Floyd, probably shouldn’t have been in a position to brutalise anyone β€” or at least not as a police officer. In two decades with the Minneapolis police department, he had faced at least 17 misconduct complaints. Yet his career was unaffected, save for two letters of reprimand.

    Mark that up as another triumph for America’s police unions, which ferociously defend the jobs and privileges of their members. That is, obviously, what trade unions exist to do: it explains the fury of the local police union president when his colleague was charged with murder. Lieutenant Bob Kroll β€” himself the subject of 29 known complaints β€” declared this to be β€œdespicable behaviour” by the authorities, and accused them of β€œselling out” his members.

    Kroll’s shock was understandable. Were it not for the happenstance that Floyd’s agonised final minutes were captured by a smartphone, it is inconceivable such action would have been taken. In recent days, American newspapers have been reporting how, nationally, the police unions have used their influence with politicians (not excluding financial support for their campaigns) to negotiate ever more protection against disciplinary or criminal proceedings. But a superb Reuters investigation three years ago, examining 82 police union contracts in cities across America, had already exposed what it called a growing β€œpattern of protections”.

    It observed that β€œa majority of the contracts call for departments to erase disciplinary records, some after just six months, making it difficult to fire officers with a history of abuses”. And it revealed that β€œover the past 40 years, cities have bargained away the power to discipline police officers, often in closed negotiation meetings with local unions”. In many cases, this was conceded by cash-strapped municipalities in return for not meeting the union’s demand for pay increases.

    But the consequences of brutalisation by insouciant police officers β€” something that would disproportionately, but by no means exclusively, be felt by African-Americans β€” outweigh any marginal gains from lower local taxes. A culture of impunity in an armed police force is a mortal threat to everyone. This is also a consequence of monopoly power in the provision of services. If this were the private sector, the employer (in this case the local authority) could sack the provider and find another, better one. Or the public themselves could say: we’re fed up with the service we’re getting from this lot; we’ll pay a competing policing business to do the job.

    This helps explain why unions are so strong in the public sector, and so much less constructive than those operating in the private sector. In the latter case, the availability to the public of a competing service means they understand that to cripple the business with unreasonable demands would be to destroy their own jobs.

    The most heavily unionised profession in this country is teaching, which overwhelmingly takes place within what was until recently an effective monopoly in the public sector. If you think it’s difficult for a poorly performing US cop to get the sack, just try getting rid of a bad teacher in the UK state sector. The same is true in American state schools, by the way: in both cases, the people who suffer most are the educationally failing children of poorer parents, for whom the alternative of private sector provision doesn’t exist.

    The different behaviour of schools across this divide, during the lockdown, has been salutary. In the state sector, the main teaching union, the NEU, has actively discouraged its members from using live-stream technology to teach children shut up in their homes. The leader of the NEU, Mary Bousted, insisted β€œteachers cannot be working as though they are [sitting] in front of a class”.

    But as a friend, the head of a private school, told me: β€œThe unions have discouraged online classes on safeguarding grounds. In normal times that would be a consideration. But these have not been normal times. The real reason for the NEU’s opposition is that remote teaching is difficult. It has been a huge effort for our teachers to make this work. The unions don’t believe their members should have to make that effort. And now they are arguing there should be a moratorium on exam results next year, because they want to disguise the effect of what they have been doing. Or rather, not doing.”

    Given the NEU has been in the vanguard of blocking a mass return to school, more out of concern for their own safety than for that of the children β€” Bousted was recorded in a Zoom meeting telling colleagues that younger pupils were β€œmucky, who spread germs, who touch everything, who cry, who wipe their snot on your trousers or your dress” β€” this refusal to make an effort with β€œremote teaching” is all the more selfish. Or, as that head put it to me: β€œThe NEU is locked into institutional cowardice and laziness, apparently content for children to suffer as a result, exposing them to far greater harm β€” ranging from boredom to abuse β€” as a result of becoming invisible to safeguarding professionals.”

    A similar opinion is held by Katharine Birbalsingh, a remarkable head teacher with a particular concern for the education of black boys within the state sector. She set up a non-selective free school, Michaela Community School, in the London inner city, to provide the rigour in teaching she felt the unions had for decades conspired to destroy. The first results, last year, were outstanding, especially as, according to Birbalsingh: β€œI don’t have any white middle-class kids in the school.”

    She has more power to fire bad teachers than would ever be the case in a maintained school under the control of a local authority (which means, in practice, the unions). So I asked her last week: is it far-fetched to compare the inability of American municipalities to fire bad cops with the effectively permanent tenure of bad teachers in the UK maintained sector?

    Her reply was emphatic: β€œNo, it is exactly the same. Unions don’t distinguish between good and bad teachers when fighting against dismissal or disciplinary measures. And this demoralises the many good teachers. Bad teachers, just like bad cops in the US, are not held accountable. Those who suffer most are the already disadvantaged, those with the least choice. And they are very often black folk.”

    This is not a criticism of the effectiveness of American police unions, or the NEU in this country. They do a terrific job for the most incompetent, indolent and dangerous employees in two vital public services. The only people who lose out are the rest of us.

    dominic.lawson@sunday-times.co.uk

    1. It isn’t in teacher’s interests not to work. Many I know have been trying to anyway. Aside from difficulties in communicating with students there’s no reason teaching cannot continue.

    2. Well there is some truth from Bousted where she claims that teachers cannot be working as though they are sitting in front of a class.
      Online teaching is much harder, you need to find new ways to challenge and question the students understanding. It was bad enough with adults, it must be really tough with a mob of disinterested teenagers. There again if public school teachers can find ways . . .

  38. Q: Are you satisfied with government plans to bring in sentences up to 10 years for the damaging of public monuments?

    A: Only if it applies also to Khan, his committee of diversity cronies, and those councillors round the country who are also following this path.

    1. 320113+ up ticks,
      Morning LD,
      Only if it is where possible deportation is inclusive.
      Reality dictates it is in rhetorical form only as
      submissive pcism & appeasement will block it.

    2. Racially aggravated criminal damage currently carries a tariff of a maximum of 14 years, and a fine.

      1. But only if appeasing plod can get off his/her knee quickly enough to catch the vile scum.

      2. BLM aren’t racist, according to the entire left wing establishment including the Prime Minister. So that’s OK then.

        1. I am pretty sure that if it ever come before a British jury they would get their comeuppance. But it won’t of, course, as they are not likely ever to be arrested.

    3. And in the case of politicians such as Khan an extra five years and no remission.

    1. Yet Boris says the people supporting “ALL LIVES MATTER” are racist thugs, and the people supporting “BLACK LIVES MATTER” aren’t.
      I think this is the worst day for news that I can remember in my life.

  40. barbican β€’ 44 minutes ago
    I once had a boyfriend who was an “Old Harrovian” and a huge fan of Winston Churchill.
    He took me on the Churchill tour, to Harrow School where his sweet letters to his mother and father were on display. Mostly they were of his understanding that they hadn’t been able to attend the events he was so looking forward to seeing them at. Time after time that poor kid was disappointed. Reading those letters brought tears to my eyes. Remembering them still does.
    Then there was Bleinheim Palace where the great man declared his love for Emmeline, proposed to her and who was the great love of his life.
    And on to Chartwell, their lovely house in Kent where their family grew.
    And then there was “The Cabinet War Rooms” museum where the great man could direct the War underground when the Nazis were Blitzkrieging London.
    And, finally, the great man’s final resting place in the cemetery at Bladon. So modest.
    And our current Prime Minister, the fat, sweaty appeaser, has the gall to accuse the people who want to stand up to protect Churchill’s statue from being torn down as “Racist Thugs”.
    He disgusts me.

    12

    https://going-postal.com/2020/06/larrys-diary-week-forty-four/#comment-4953516139

    1. Forget cricket at Lords – in this particular Eton v Harrow match the winner undoubtedly is Harrow.

      Apart form seducing women with very little taste or judgement, what is Boris Johnson actually good at?

        1. Shades of Benny Hill! Mocking the Chinese for their inability to speak English is hilarious shameful!

  43. Here are the 2 BTL comments that I promised to post. Apparently David Walsh lives in one of the street next to Parliament Square.

    “David Walsh

    14 Jun 2020 8:08AM

    @Andrew K Smart The police came armed yesterday and had created pens for the white protestors, causing them to be pushed together. There was WAY less than the previous weeks in terms of trouble. And they left at 5pm as requested, having cleaned up everything. The BBC are reporting this as worse and making out there was significant trouble.

    Simply not true, The previous weeks was anarchy.”

    “David Walsh

    14 Jun 2020 8:07AM

    I live in Westminster by the main square. I walked around throughout the protests yesterday. Apart from around 1 hour of pushing and shoving, compared to the BLM protests, there was nowhere near as much violence.

    Nothing was vandalised, although one idiot did urinate by the memorial for the PC. The police were geared up immediately, they have installed numerous pens and barriers that were not there for the BLM protestors, causing people to be pushed together.

    I have videos of over 20-30 BLM supporters kicking a white guy on the floor etc.at Waterloo last night which are shameful.

    The white protestors, tidied up their cans and rubbish and put them all in bags at the end of 5pm and left peacefully. BBC would have you believe this was 10 times worse than last week. Yet 20 meters away hundreds were picnicking in the part. Honestly I despair of th Biased Broadcast Corporation and the MSM at large.

    Nothing was vandalised, although one idiot did urinate by the memorial for the PC. The police were geared up immediately, they have installed numerous pens and barriers that were not there for the BLM protestors, causing people to be pushed together.

    I have videos of over 20-30 BLM supporters kicking a white guy on the floor etc.at Waterloo last night which are shameful.

    The white protestors, tidied up their cans and rubbish and put them all in bags at the end of 5pm and left peacefully. BBC would have you believe this was 10 times worse than last week. Yet 20 meters away hundreds were picnicking in the part. Honestly I despair of th Biased Broadcast Corporation and the MSM at large.”

    2. Naturally CNN and the Canadian CBC lead stories of happenings in London with headlines about far right extremists.

      We will see how far my comment questioning why yesterdays protesters were called extreme right.

    4. Any one living in London would have been able to witness on call rentamob in action for at the very least 2 plus years.
      The government through MI5 or 6 would know what is going on. But they need to get their fingers out with the media and stop all this fake news being spread around the networks.

  44. I think we need to prepare for conflict. The state has been talken over by left wing zelots at all levels..

  46. Hitchens

    “For the past few weeks have also

    demonstrated that all the pillars of British freedom and civilisation

    are hollow and rotten, and that we are ripe for a sweeping cultural

    revolution as devastating as the one Lenin and Dzerzhinsky launched in

    Petrograd in 1917.

    Except that this

    time there will be no need to storm the Winter Palace, seize the railway

    station or the telephone exchange or the barracks. The Left are already

    in control of every lever of power and influence, from the schools the

    Tories are too weak to reopen to the police, the Civil Service, the

    courts and the BBC.

    It is regime

    change. Do not worry too much about the statues which are now coming

    down. They mean surprisingly little. Worry more about the ones they are

    soon going to be putting up, and what they will represent. Perhaps our

    grandchildren will find the courage to pull them down”

    .https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8418399/PETER-HITCHENS-Left-controls-lever-power-face-regime-change.html
    He’s wrong of course,the idiot Leftards will be first up against the wall as the demographic Islamist wave hits its stride,our great granchildren wont be pulling down statues they will be standing on the slave blocks or sent to the Jannissaries

    1. It’s the end innit? I really did think that I would be out of here by the time it got serious. What really galls me is that it was all so predictable. A child could have seen it coming.

  48. I call bullshit,the black square over Churchill 1950/55 and his omission entirely during the war years is no coincidence nor an accident.

    Google tried going woke got caught and are no doubt getting a furious backlash from the general public,now they are in damage limitation mode

    https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1272042229394104322
    Pile in twitterers

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c341be04ae36a2c910e46a8ca73dfca1336311eb5e9a2a1e4c383bc75680b21.jpg

    1. These people are all in it together. They push the boundaries and if nothing is said it stands. If anyone objects they pull back and wait!

      1. Sounds familiar
        “Stab with the bayonet,if you meet steel pull back,if you meet no resistance push forward”
        Stalin I think??
        ‘Morning Minty

    2. Not just his image, according to your Twitter image. Just who was Prime Minister between 1940 and 1945? “Just doing his job” was the official response from Google for this bit of censorship.

      They’ll be stopping us using fivers next… oh wait!

    3. It’s interesting but Google is right here – it’s a question of indexing. However notable that such hasn’t happened previously.

      Also notable that Google, youtube, twitter are all proven to have a Left wing agenda and ar eno longer trusted to return the truth. Try googling Rohinga Musim violence against Buddhists. It’ll be pages and pages of how the Buddhists have attacked the Muslims, but nothing about the decades of Muslim abuse toward the Buddhists.

      Admittedly much of this is people gaming Google’s algorithim to ensure this is the ‘party line’ but it’s still egregious. Heck, the BBC put out a page – changed soon after – playing the Muslims as saints when they were – as always – the perpetrators.

  49. Here’s an invitation I can resist. Just popped into my inbox from Chef and Brewer.

    “We’ve been working hard behind the scenes at Greene King to make sure that when we reopen our pubs, we make them as safe as possible, whilst also following the latest government guidelines.

    That’s why we’ve developed 5 key promises to you, our loyal customers, as well as our dedicated teams, to keep everybody safe. We also have some small but important requests for our customers which will help us look after everyone in our pubs. We’re all in this together, after all. It’s all part of our new PUB SAFE scheme, which we’ve launched in all of our pubs and

    are displaying proudly, so that wherever you see the logo, you know we’re doing everything we can to protect both you and our teams.

    These promises and requests mean you can enjoy some well-earned time in our pubs, whilst still being safe.

    Training them in accordance with the latest government guidelines for safe working

    Giving them everything they need to work safely, including training on social distancing and hand hygiene

    Temperature checking them at the start of every shift

    Carrying out full risk assessments on our pubs, including deliveries to protect both our teams and suppliers

    Respecting our teams and any requests they have, to keep everyone safe.

    Following the latest social distancing government guidelines

    Marking them out to help customers and our teams use them

    Giving you the opportunity to book a table before you visit, so you know you have a safe space to enjoy it

    Laying out tables to ensure safe spacing

    Managing and monitoring queues to make them as smooth and easy as possible

    Signposting our toilets, meticulously cleaning them and following social distancing measures

    Follow these social distancing measures so everyone can enjoy their time with us.

    Asking customers to use our Order & Pay app and contactless payment methods

    Using screens around our tills to protect both you and our teams

    Delivering food & drink to your table in the safest way possible

    Using disposable menus, so they can be recycled after your visit or taken home to use for your next takeaway order

    Displaying all allergen information online for our food, so you can check it from your own device

    Using the technology we have available to minimise contact with our teams wherever possible.

    Having hand sanitisers at entrances and throughout our pubs

    Regularly checking and sanitising handwashing facilities in toilets

    Making sure there is hand sanitiser available where tills are accepting cash

    Please maintain your own personal hand hygiene to protect everyone.

    Check everyone is safe

    Wear a unique uniform so you can easily find them

    Are responsible for additional cleaning and making sure tables are cleared properly.”

    2. 320113+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Anne,
      May one ask, can you still get p!ssed and is a song
      out of the question ?

    3. Phew, think I need a beer after taking all that in. Perhaps those who have had CV should wear a hat proclaiming immunity and have the honour of propIng up the bar.

    4. Good afternoon, Anne.

      Other than he social distancing and temperature
      testing shouldn’t the rest be hygienic practice anyway?

      1. If you have a raised temperature you won’t feel well enough to go out. That’s usually how it works, apart from some heroic souls who insist they’re too important not to turn up at the office.
        Epidemics are spread by people who don’t go to bed when they should, and by people who go to bed when they shouldn’t.

    1. It did significantly change the fashion industry through. People understood a genuine cause and supported it.

      No one was harmed and real change was enacted peacefully.

      1. The idiots let out the mink and coypu. They have become a menace in the wild because they don’t have any natural predators.

      1. They were extremely stupid, Just like the ivory burners of today. Try economics 101 – Law of supply and Demand.

  51. Rod Liddle
    A rabbi stabbed, but no hate crime?
    13 June 2020, 10:39pm

    A mystery has occurred. In The Affluent People’s Republic of North London, a rabbi was stabbed on the street multiple times by a knifeman.

    Rabbi Alter Yaakov Schlesinger was rescued by two builders and a Deliveroo driver and is now in hospital, where hopefully he will recover. Apparently no robbery was attempted. The police, however, have said that this was not a terrorist incident, thus suggesting – by extension – it was also not a hate crime. A crime of love, or indifference, then? Who knows? All a mystery. A familiar mystery.

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

    BTL:

    MaryR β€’ 13 hours ago β€’ edited
    It really is beginning to feel that we have shifted into some alternative reality. Despite a Conservative government with a large majority it really feels as though the other lot won the election.

    Scatman Crothers MaryR β€’ 12 hours ago
    The other lot dominate the media, arts and education institutions. I think the odds are heavily stacked against our government having much of an impact at all on anything.

    Rousseau Scatman Crothers β€’ 12 hours ago β€’ edited
    They should try. In voting for them despite a media sh*to storm to try to derail Boris’ campaign, the public has shown that there is no reason for the government to kow-tow to the media. No-one believes the MSM any more – but if this continues the Conservatives will join the list of public figures we no longer believe are really what they say they are either.

    Captain Detterling β€’ 13 hours ago β€’ edited
    And amid all this, a young black man was shot dead in Shepherd’s Bush on Monday night. The police found a Range Rover burnt out in Ealing. Yet scarcely a whimper from the national news media.

    It’s almost as if they assume it was black on black violence; and therefore doesn’t… what’s the word? Matter?

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-rabbi-stabbed-but-no-hate-crime-

    1. 320113+ up ticks,
      C,
      replying to Mary R,
      “The other lot” AKA a segment of the coalition.
      lab/con name rustlers of parties of decency up until the mid 70s when rubber stamping become more profitable
      for the political wonga rodents.

    2. Too late, Rousseau. We already know that the Cons are not what they purport to be.

    1. What could possibly go wrong ?

      Well, it’s sponsored by Bill Gates so just about everything !

    2. The BAMEs seem to be in need of it most of all. I’m sure they can provide The numbers after the rioting.

    3. I would certainly want to know more about this vaccine. I think I’ll keep taking Zinc, Vit C and Vit D and let others try the vaccine out first.

      1. 320113+up ticks,
        Afternoon BB2,
        I read “others” as being the 650 overseers.
        Your intake is followed by many I believe, ogga being one of.

        1. Have you watched Professor Dolores Cahill talking about coronavirus vaccines?
          If not, it’s very interesting. She said that if the Irish government tried to make any vaccine compulsory, she would take them to court.

      1. 320113+ up ticks,
        Afternoon RE,
        If anyone has a right to feel “needled” it is one Gerard Batten having been stitched up so many times, casualty of the suppression of
        the truth / honesty campaign.

      1. 320113+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        Exited out the window long ago along with decency, common sense, integrity, self respect in many cases, long ago.
        It was replaced by submissive pcism & appeasement also a large amount of party before Country in the ballot booth.

  53. Just an update on the chaos that was experienced by this area over the past few weeks!
    Extreme measures.

    *LATEST UPDATE* The car park at Durdle Door is currently open, however visitor numbers are being limited. From 10 June you will need to pre-book your parking ticket via the JustPark App – the location code is 510420 – visit the Lulworth Estate website for further information. Any cars parked illegally will be dealt with accordingly. There are no rubbish bins, therefore all visitors should take their rubbish home with them.

    Durdle Door is one of Dorset’s most photographed and iconic landmarks. It is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. It is an extremely popular beauty spot and is currently experiencing high numbers of visitors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Advice is to think twice about visiting right now and come back later when the beaches are quieter.

    Access to the pebble and shingle beach is on foot via a path and steps over the hill from Lulworth Cove or down from the Car Park (charges apply) which is located on the cliff top at Durdle Door Holiday Park. There is a half mile walk (approx 30 minutes) along a steep path downhill, plus a further 150 steps down onto the beach. There is only one set of steps to access the beach, therefore you may have to queue to ensure social distancing of 2 metres.

    There are no toilets or any other facilities on the beach. Toilets are located within the car park area (approx 30 minutes walk uphill from the beach).

    At the base of the chalk cliffs a number of caves can be seen which have been carved out by the sea. Please do not enter them as cliff falls are common.

    Bathing is possible in places, however the beach shelves steeply in places, therefore please supervise your children at all times as there is no lifeguard.

    Dogs are allowed on the beach all year, however please be sure to pick up after them.

    1. So internet access and a card transaction are required in order to visit the beach? How very depressing.

      3. Don’t worry. plenty of furloughed builders at the moment who could put it right.

      3. An essential knot to know as it might save your life one day. Easy to tie and is slip-proof.

  56. Man arrested over urinating on PC Keith Palmer memorial. 2 hours ago.

    The Met Police said officers had arrested a man on suspicion of outraging public decency.

    He is currently in custody in Essex after presenting himself at a police station.

    Well we should learn something from this though whether it will be what they want us to is another matter.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53040301

      2. Is there any suggestion that he knew what was next to him? There are no public loos, no pubs cafes or shops so you pee where you can. His posture and demeanour do not suggest anything other than unintentional offence.

        1. I agree. It’s what I said yesterday. I doubt he even realised the plaque was there or had read it. He wasn’t urinating on it, he was next to it. Urinating on memorials is not what the Football Lads were there for. This is fake outrage from people who would sooner forget Keith Palmer (the media) if they could, just as they have with the majority of other victims of terrorist attacks.

        2. Given that these demonstration were going to take place, why were portaloos not sited conveniently nearby?

    1. Social distancing gone wrong and all the cops can do is try to sing and old Beatles song.
      🎢Get Back🎢
      Funny how they can beat the crap out of people who have ‘FAR RIGHT’ stamped on their foreheads but only try and plead with the real criminals.

  58. All I’ve seen on the news for the last 2 years is wildfires, flooding, Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter.

    Am I the only one still fighting the scourge of plastic drinking straws?

    1. I have always believed that the menace from plastic is real and is not a difficult problem to reduce or solve.

      1. Though my post was an attempt at humour i agree with you. Just look at what the supermarkets managed to achieve and are still looking at other ways to cut out plastic.

        On the other hand i don’t believe the U.K is responsible for the enormous rafts of plastic in our oceans. India, China and Africa are the worst offenders by far.

        1. ‘Afternoon, Philip, I think the biggest cut that can be made would be to World Population. The next big fight is going to be over fresh water.

          1. Now is the time to invest in reverse-osmosis desalination plant manufacturers.

          2. Good afternoon, NoTo. That has been on the cards for a long time. Given what we know of E.U diktats about fast tracking migrants into the U.K and their not allowing us to build new reservoirs i’m not sure where they are going with this.

        2. Sorry, its all getting a bit serious and I missed the thrust! Waiting for tonights murder mystery, similar to Midsomer Murders but with Russia providing the suspects. The Beeb at 9.

          1. I looked at migrating to Russia. Just like Hungary one has to be able to pass an oral test to become a citizen. They, like most of the Western world have seen births drop among the population. What neither of them want is a massive influx from the third world.

    2. Paper straws are basically non-recyclable, whereas plastic ones are recyclable. Just don’t throw the blasted things into the environment!

  61. THE UK Government scrapped its β€œanti-pandemic” committee when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, it has emerged.

    The team, which included Michael Gove, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson, was disbanded six months before the current Covid-19 crisis hit the UK, an investigation by the Daily Mail found.

    The Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) was designed to ensure the UK was prepared for a pandemic – but it was mothballed by former Tory leader Theresa May so the Government could focus on Brexit efforts.

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/18515726.covid-19-boris-johnson-binned-pandemic-team-months-crisis/?ref=twtrec

    1. ..but in reality they closed it down because they’d globalized the response to Bill Gates and the WHO.

      2. I once saw the little, fat, short-arsed, bald poofter wearing a pink romper suit and banging on a drum kit on a so-called television comedy quiz. As a result of that unedifying spectacle I resolved never to watch “Little Britain” and I never have watched it.

    2. Will Matt Lucas apologise for sending up white working-class girls in his role as Vicky Pollard?

  65. Good morning, all. Just passing through. Day of leisure at resort. Maybe some gentle dead-heading.

    The “news” is so dire – and the lack of grip by the so-called government so totally depressing. – I shall avoid heart failure and concentrate on my crossword.

    Have a jolly day.

    1. We have chums coming round tonight for a meal, so a happy day of cooking and posh table laying.

      1. I hope that I am not too late to remind you to get out your yardstick and space the table settings at the correct distance.

    1. If you read the Twitter thread of John Cusack (Hollywood actor, so no one’s really paying attention to what he says), the Left are convinced that Trump is deliberately orchestrating the riots, etc, to get himself re-elected, or something, couldn’t quite make out the logic. Everyone on the Twitter feed seem to have missed the bit where this is all happening in Democrat-run cities, with Democrat mayors, city council’s, etc.

    2. 320113+ up ticks,
      Afternoon PP,
      Seconded,
      Have a good one Donno, don’t mind if I call you donno do you, No, thought not.

    1. Funny, but we’ve already had the discussion, below [and a ‘granny’ knot is a bad knot since it slips and is not fast]. 😘

      1. As I discovered when I read down.
        Sonny Boy will have to send his cartoons earlier!

  68. EVGENY LEBEDEV: As a child of the USSR, I fear these pictures of Stalin show where Britain is heading…

    In the eyes of Black Lives Matter protesters, Sir Robert Peel and William Gladstone are no longer reforming liberal premiers, but villains through association with their slave-owning family.

    Our history is being rewritten before our eyes. Free individuals are forced to submit to the revolution. The pressure on individuals, organisations and brands to declare their support for a movement that aims to undermine British culture and history has been immense.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418159/As-child-USSR-fear-pictures-Stalin-Britain-heading.html

  69. Has Covid-19 forced you to wear glasses and a face mask at the same time?

    If so, you may be entitled to condensation.

    1. Don’t I know it!

      Here in France we all have to wear masks when we go to Mass. As you probably know, I play the organ in my local church and our priest immediately said that I wouldn’t have to wear a mask during services; he could see what happens when I do!

      Fortunately there are still some people out there with common sense.

      1. You could always play by ear and then apologise later for having played in an innovative key! πŸ˜‰

          2. Can I ask you a question about language and the Dutch? How do the Dutch manage to be so good with languages, Caroline? Is it natural, is it to do with the education system, or…? I am insanely jealous, not even being reasonably proficient in English (lost the best bits when I learned Norwegian).

          6. I can’t speak for the Dutch in general – in my case, it comes down to an English education! Out of my fifteen years at school up to the age of 18, twelve were spent at schools where English was the main language – these schools being in India, Iran and Spain – and also one year at an English school in the Netherlands. I did O levels and A levels at a British school in Madrid, followed by an undergraduate degree and a postgrad (for my teaching certificate) in the UK. So not much to be jealous about, I’m afraid; just the circumstance of my father’s job which sent him travelling around the world – and my parents’ decision not to send their daughters to boarding school. My Dutch is getting more and more rusty every year and my sisters always fall about laughing when I try to practise on them.

            However, my Dutch nephews are based in the Netherlands and their spoken English is really quite good, although their written English is weaker. This may have something to do with the fact that all TV programmes are subtitled – no dubbing at all. So all your English / American films, series etc. are broadcast in English, unlike here in France where everything is dubbed. This means that Dutch children hear English more or less as soon as they are born and I think that might have a lot to do with the speed with which they learn the language when they are finally taught it at school.

            There is also a mindset behind this. I think the Dutch have a tremendous sense that theirs is a very small country and their language is not likely to be one that foreigners will understand. At the same time, they have a tremendous sense of their own importance (having once, like the British, had an empire) and so they feel that everyone should understand what they say! The educated classes therefore all speak at least English, often German as well and, less frequently, French. My elder sister lectures at universities and always does so in English – on the basis that there might be students present who do not speak Dutch; my eldest nephew had to write his dissertation (for a degree in the Netherlands) in English – and asked Richard and me to look through it to correct the spelling and make it more idiomatic!

            (edited because I can’t do sums, not in any language!)

          7. A friend has just completed her Ph.D in Germany – all in English. Norwegian universities will now normally teach in English, because foreign students are not likely to be strong enough in yer Weegie to manage a degree successfully. And Norwegians are usually good in English for the same reasons as you mention – much travel and undubbed tv programming.
            Coming to Norwegian in middle age means I’m not so fluent, but it’s OK – better than my colleagues, who after living in Norway for nearlt 20 years absolutely cannot pronounce the words or write a sentence. sigh

          8. It also helps that Dutch (like Swedish – my Swedish friends’ English is FAR superior to my Swedish) is not a world language. The incentive to acquire a lingua franca that is more or less universally understood and which is required for jobs like aviation is strong. There isn’t the same incentive for native English speakers.

    3. Very good, Grizz. However, in the real world when cutting slabs, pavers etc condensation on safety glasses is a bloody menace.

      1. I’m plagued with it in my workshop. Whenever I attempt to wear both a breathing filter and goggles when using my table saw, router or sanders; the goggles steam up immediately.

        1. I get a similar problem with swimming goggles.
          Try a tiny amount of washing up liquid smeared over the inside of the goggles.

          Saliva can also work fairly well..

  70. As a child of the USSR, I fear these pictures of Stalin show where Britain is heading. 14 June 2020. Evgeny Lebedev,

    Now I fear this nation heading in the same direction as the one I left. The comparisons are clearly visible: a zealous revolutionary spirit, an egalitarian ideology and the desire to rewrite national myths.

    After the November revolution, the Soviet Union set about erasing Tsarist history. Statues were toppled, books were burnt and the Romanovs themselves executed in 1918. Under Stalin, the new Soviet Tsar, newspapers were muzzled and critical voices were silenced.

    There’s no doubt we are headed for a Globalist/Marxist state and it’s probably unstoppable now. The Man of Blood is at the moment hidden but he will certainly be in the next government (coming shortly) awaiting his opportunity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418159/As-child-USSR-fear-pictures-Stalin-Britain-heading.html

    1. Additional BTL:

      Andrew McNeilis β€’ 5 minutes ago

      Add Edward Pellew Viscount Exmouth who freed 1,200 Christian slaves taken by Barbary slavers.

      Strangely no mention of this by the BBC β€œ history”

      1. Another BTL:

        Andrew Fish β€’ 3 hours ago
        Perhaps we should take a lesson from the Romans. They made a lot of their statues with interchangeable heads so that when the political climate changed you could swap in a more acceptable face without replacing the whole statue.

        1. The Romans always wore a toga, so worked OK. How would Nelson Mandela look in 18thC dress?

  74. BAME – Black and Asian Minority Ethnic.

    Why not just Minority Ethnic, or indeed POCAME (I thought we weren’t supposed to say ‘black’ but ‘people of colour’).

    Edit: BAME – Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic.

    1. I think it’s questionable whether they are really black. If they were compared to a Munsell colour chart I’m sure they would turn out to be a very dark brown, so they have missappropriated the term ‘black’.

        1. My mother used to have reels of cotton in her sewing box that were just that shade.

        1. I never go brown nor do I linger very long in the sunshine .. blue eyed and fair skinned.

          Moh tans very quickly and can be mistaken for , oh well never mind , the golf course can be very weathering !

    3. A few years ago, my wife had her DNA analysed by one of those ancestry web sites. It turned out that she has a tiny amount of Indian/South Asian DNA and my guess is that almost all of us would have small amounts of BAME in our genetic makeup. In other words, to paraphrase Dr Keinz Kiosk, we are all BAME. Some are probably more Bamier than others and, in the determined-to-be-offended stakes, I do not know if, for example, someone who is a transgender slightly Bame trumps a full-blooded Bame. There needs to be a table of Bameness so that we know exactly where we stand in the Bame pecking order.

      1. I was thinking about buying a DNA kit and was debating whether to spend the money.
        Fortunately, my BiL bought one for Christmas for my sister so I’ve just read her results instead πŸ™‚

    4. Actually, if the movement t were renamed POCLM, I might get behind it. I’m a POC. I’m certainly not white, rather a pinky beige.

      2. I am only white in winter, I develop a Mexican tone in summer. I have no idea where I fit in with this hogwash.

    2. Munroe Bergdorf
      mbergdorf.com
      Munroe Bergdorf is an English model and activist. She has walked several catwalks for brands including Gypsy Sport at both London and NYC Fashion Weeks. Bergdorf was the first transgender model in the UK for L’OrΓ©al, but was dropped within weeks after a racial row.Wikipedia
      Born:
      Munroe Beaumont, September 11, 1987, Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England
      Occupation:
      Model, activist
      Years active:
      2014-present

      She is a white supremacist and has a beef with L’Oreal.

      1. She’s mixed race, mother white, father Caribbean.
        She’s a mixed race, anti-white supremacist, and racist. Her mother must be very proud.

        2. She’s HE’s mixed race, mother white, father Caribbean.
          She’s HE’s a mixed race, anti-white supremacist, and racist. Her mother must be very proud.

      1. No, it is not a hoax. They’ve re-hired Munroe Bergdorf, who made those comments five years ago at which point L’Oreal had to fire her/him/it because of the backlash.
        She/he/it is a vile racist.

        1. Unfortunately the idiot tw*tter brigade are furiously virtue signalling all over the place!

          3. Aye, they’re loud, but they’re shouting into an empty room. No one cares what they say.

          7. It’s not that they’re loud, it’s that the MSM chooses which voices to amplify. And, having done that, those voices on Twitter gain greater traction. Rinse and repeat.

            To put it another way, the MSM push a narrative which is picked up on Twitter. The MSM then refers to Twitter (as if the MSM hadn’t largely invented the issue to start with) thus further magnifying the original narrative.

        2. Sounds like their decision to hire a trendy ‘person’ came back to bite them on the proverbial…

    4. How far back are they wanting to go? Just their own potted history or the long reality back to Arab slavers? The Roman empire? Aztec? Besides, the ‘race’ is the human. No other division is relevant.

      1. Back to the Arabs. No wait! Hang On! We won’t be able to run our fuel-guzzling 4x4s if we cut ourselves off from the Arabs…

    5. Fake. White lettering is too “square” to the frame and show non of the reflections in the rest of the image.

    7. Their marketing research team must have come up with the figures to show that people of colour spend more on L’Oreal products than bad old whitey. Being woke is so much better for the bottom line than taking whitey’s money.πŸ˜•

        1. No, the UK has always been different. Equality is irrelevant. Yes, tolerance means just that. I tolerate people who are my superior. I don’t have to like them.

        2. Yes – this comes from a racist man insistent upon pushing their own twisted narrative, not the truth.

    10. Who on earth is Munroe Bergdorf, apart from being a very privileged, rich, nasty person of course?

      I don’t use L’Oreal because they’re too big corporation for me, and I’ll make sure my daughters see this.

      1. It’s a black man pretending to be a female model, who fell out with L’Oreal over racist tweets! You really couldn’t make it up!

        1. Ah. I have some personal experience of how deep that particular rabbit hole goes, so I can imagine the rest.

    12. Oh well, that’s another one off the list; not that I used them unless they were on special offer.
      I think I’ll survive.

  76. Interesting isn’t it that yer Perlice dressed up to the nines in riot gear for a few hundred ‘far-right’ protestors, yet wore short sleeves and ran away from a few thousand far-left protestors.

      2. It is the culmination of years of infiltration by the left into all our institutions, led by the ‘Common Purpose’ outfit. They cannot win via the ballot box, so they are instead attempting to destroy our society.

        1. 320113+ up ticks,
          Afternoon J,
          Sad to say they have won substantially in the past with b liar the master latch lifter kicking off the downhill race, and bare in mind it is their turn next, that is how a close shop coalition operates.
          Currently via abuse of the ballot booth
          there are very few politico losers.
          With the same voting pattern being adhered to the only losers are the
          electorate… guaranteed, it has been proved year on year.

      1. The article does actually give you a chance to comment but you have to click first.

  78. Somewhat off-topic, but we’re watching an antiques buying programme on ‘t telly, and they are in Yorkshire (Leeds). Much to my surprise, came over all emotional at the sound of a Leeds accent, and sight of a railway works. Lovely! God’s own County, even now.

    2. I love how they pronounce the number 44 in Leeds: “fohtty-foh” [the ‘o’ sound rhyming with ‘o’ in “top”].

  79. We don’t want to see a summer of discontent , but it looks as if it is heading that way.

    What happens when the shops open , will we see looting when the shutters come off?

    1. Probably. Having appeased the rabble their innate savagery will be given exercise as per usual. We have seen it all before, Toxteth, Brixton, London again only now with several million Muslims added to the diabolical brew.

      White flight from London is taking many rural properties. You can sell a two up, two down terraced house in Hackney for a million and buy a good sized barn conversion in Essex.

        1. Sadly, they will bring their urban values and urban ways with them and find it difficult to integrate.

    3. Everything appears to be in short supply in the building trade with the social distancing suppliers cannot keep up with demand, I guess when the shops open they will run out of stock and we will have to wait

  80. Enjoyed the last hour listening to Haydn’s “Nelson Mass”. Now I am going to smash the CD, because, of course, Nelson was an imperialist, racist slaver.

        1. “Thank God I have done my duty.” He is said to have repeated before he died.

  81. That’s me for the day. Dead-heading; ladder-work (OK = phew!); Bordeaux Mixture on tomatoes and potatoes; watering.

    Time for a relaxing drinky poo.

    A demain, one hopes.

    1. Something is munching on my Strawberry plants !

      Next year i’m going full on plastic. That will get the little critters.

    2. That’s easy to solve, for piano music at least. Just take out all the white keys.

  84. Racism … or Racial Hatred?

    The vogue word β€˜racism’ is tossed around ubiquitously these benighted days but a good number of people bandying the word about are conveniently, but illogically, using it as a synonym for racial hatred which, of course, is a vile concept to be avoided at all cost. Racism and racial hatred are not conspecific.

    When it comes down, simply, to racism, all humans β€” of whatever race, pure or mixed β€”have it naturally programmed into them! We intrinsically look after our own race.

    It is a fundamental law of nature that all species look after their own kind, first and foremost, and fight off threats from all outside agencies. Animals are genetically programmed to protect the immediate members of their own family grouping. Those that live in packs will fight off any attempts to fight them by other similar packs of the same species. If the potential usurpers are from a different race or tribe then the determination to repel boarders will be more intense.

    It is the same with humans. In primitive societies family groups would fight off attacks by other family groups. The protection of one’s own kind is paramount and is demanded by nature. As human development progressed, people would naturally group together, for safety as well as familiarity, with those of their own race and type. They would be naturally suspicious of outsiders, especially those of different colouring and customs. Throughout history, many wars have been fought between sets of combatants from different areas, assorted tribes, manifold races, sundry customs, diverse cultures, multifarious belief systems, dissimilar religions, disparate politics and various countries. Conflict is rife throughout the animal kingdom (of which mankind is an integral part) and the fight for survival is innate in all genera, species, races and tribes.

    As a result of advanced civilisation, most humans have come to terms with the fact that we live together in an eclectic mix of races, customs, cultures, belief systems, religions and politics; not just within the same country, but often within the same street, job, or place of leisure. Most of the time we co-exist fairly amicably but tensions do arise at times, just as tension often arises between two-or-more members of the same family, sex, tribe, race, or community, etc. It always has and it always will.

    Laws in civilised societies exist to prevent a member of one racial stereotype being gratuitously offensive to a member of another race. This is called racial hatred and is, quite correctly, outlawed. However, it is simply impossible to legislate against one human having ingrained feelings of protection for his own kind against any outside agency, including members of his own species that may be of a different race, tribe, country, culture, politics or religion. Such feelings are innate within us all and to deny this is to deny nature.

    No one will ever remove this fundamental human instinct. By all means outlaw and prosecute those who are guilty of ad hominem and unprovoked attacks on others for no other reason than they are of a different race; but don’t, ever, even attempt to legislate against inherent and instinctive human nature.

    1. But this is where all the β€œhate crimes” are invoked for exactly the reason you mention – and only whites commit hate crimes! It was always a ridiculous law to introduce by our β€œbetters”.


    2. most humans have come to terms with the fact that we live together in an eclectic mix of races, customs, cultures, belief systems, religions and politics; not just within the same country, but often within the same street, job, or place of leisure.

      That’s a very recent circumstance, mostly imposed by politicians and activists. America is an exception, perhaps, but either way, recent events have shown that we still revert to tribalism under stress and the right conditions.

      1. You simply cannot change the fabric of an organism’s being. It would be like teaching a cougar to graze or forcing a tree to go hunting.

      2. Only when forced on us, and even then we keep to our social groups.

        I’ll have almost nothing in common with a tattooed Millwall supporter. I also have little to do with these black thugs rioting in London.

        However last night half a dozen of us had a barbecue – a Japanese fellow, his Polish wife, my neurologist chum and his terrifying 4’10 partner various small people and dogs.

    3. Bill Hamilton’s work on kinship theory demonstrates this. Some of it is considered ‘awkward’ as it is about genetic fitness (think of the ‘e’-word). Daft Dickie Dawkins was greatly influenced by Hamilton; his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ was inspired by his work.

    5. Excellent thoughts, Grizz.

      Your words would be lost on the thugs of the left, that’s if they were capable of reading them.

      I think that many people see the human race as having no relationship whatsoever with the animal kingdom, that humans are distinct, special even.Tell these people that we share DNA with chimpanzees – although we are not, as some ignorant people suppose, descended from them – or an oak tree and they will think you mad.
      In fact the human race is special because it has developed special talents: art, writing music, literature, a lust for knowledge and scientific endeavour etc. No other species has designed anything to compare with the vehicles that have left this planet. That we humans are all the same species is not in dispute but races have been/are separated by huge chasms in development.

      When the European people were building the Industrial Revolution most of the people in Africa hadn’t got around to inventing the wheel. How did that come to pass? People separated by a few thousand miles but separated by a few thousand years in development is surely a mystery that needs explaining. However, in today’s PC mindset that would be a taboo line of enquiry.

      That’s not to say that some people of colour haven’t contributed to more recent developments but has that happened because the white races moved forward and dragged the others along with them? Left isolated in Africa would the people there have remained trapped in their level of development?

      History shows that the early people in India had a high culture, the same can be said of China, Meso and South America, and the Middle East and Egypt but what happened to their development? It appears that it stagnated and mostly died off. Some remnants of their knowledge filtered into Europe but their cultures faded in to history. The white i.e. European people, stagnated for over a millennium due to the control of the religious fanatics but the thinkers eventually prevailed and we have the modern World, for all its good points and its failings. Now, the white races are under threat from the very people that they brought into the modern World. The claim that people of colour built Great Britain is risible but the rewriting of history, should it succeed, will show that falsehood as fact.

      1. Thanks, Korky

        The rewriting of history will only happen if reasonable people sit and daydream whilst others, with nefarious intent, carry it out under the noses of those daydreamers.

        In order to preserve our heritage we need to fight for it.

        1. That’s what I like about this blog. Some deep articles, smutty jokes, fish puns, puns in general, advice, experience, it’s got the lot.
          At 71 I wouldn’t be much good in a fight but I could certainly sharpen a few pitchforks for a literal fight or help campaign for a party that’s for the people who believe in this Country’s future as a free entity. Colour and race wouldn’t concern me as long as they have belief in our nation and culture.

        2. If we try the racists and oppressors will scream and shout.

          As we’ve seen, the state will support, endorse and condone them.

      2. Recommend ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond.
        “In Guns, Germs, and Steel,
        Jared Diamond outlines the theory of geographic determinism, the idea
        that the differences between societies and societal development arise
        primarily from geographical causes. The book is framed as a response to a
        question that Diamond heard from Yali, a charismatic New Guinean
        politician.”
        One of his conclusions is that the fact there were so many independent states in Europe stimulated the developement of western society. A pretty good argument for leaving the EU, if we didn’t have sufficient already.

        https://www.litcharts.com/lit/guns-germs-and-steel/summary

        1. Diamond’s main mission is a heroic effort to claim that the difference between Europeans and others is they were just lucky – over and over again. Lucky with weather, with animals, with crops. Africans were just unlucky, Amerindians unlucky and so on. Evolution? Never heard of it.

          Those other guys coulda been contenders but they couldn’t catch a break.

    6. Just as political parties don’t let those of opposing beliefs into their parties, generally. You have to be a party member to vote, how very exclusive. Very tribal.

      1. We’re all tribal by nature, Grumps. It can never be bred out of us no matter how hard the socialists try.

        1. Doesn’t what has happened over the last few weeks demonstrate how tribal they are and attack those who disagree. Pot calling the kettle black.

    1. and a teacake in Accrington is what I know as a bap – magic with oodles of freshly cooked bacon!

        1. They are indeed but ‘teacake’ is the local vernacular, in Lancashire, for what you call a bap, I call a cob, and other people around the country call a bun, roll, batch, breadcake, and a dozen other names.

          3. A barm cake is a soft, round, flattish bread
            roll from North West England, traditionally leavened with barm. Chips
            are a popular filling, sold in most fish and chips … Thats what I call them.

        2. I’d need a side by side tasting to judge that… no hardship, mind πŸ™‚

        1. Mum always referred to yeast as ‘barm’. She called a radio a ‘wireless’ too.

    3. Toasted teacakes with sultanas, lots of butter and lashings of morello cherry or raspberry seedless jam.

      Pikelets are flatter, wider crumpets and only need butter.

    4. Butter is very bad for your health and will clog your arteries.

      Go for extra virgin olive oil instead.

      1. Nought wrong with butter but if you think oil is an improvement then British cold pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil is better for you.

        1. Maybe, I use rapeseed oil in cooking sometimes but I find it doesn’t combine so well with other ingredients, so generally I stick to EVOO.

        1. Lots of eco probs with avocados. Deforestation, diversion of water supplies and loss of habitat.

          So I try not to use them too often.

    5. Butter is not bad for your health, Paul, it is good for you and does not clog your arteries. There is ample, up-to-date medical science proof of that nowadays.

      Those who still believe that eating Frankenstein food, such as margarine, in place of butter are deluding themselves.

      2. Agree 100%, Grizz.
        All those who believe a type of food you eat will be the same after digestion – fat making you fat, for example, should expect to have potatoes growing out of their arses!
        Processed sugar is the main problem. And other chemicals.

  86. Socialism in action The Taxpayer Alliance

    This week we exposed the astronomical number of London City Hall bosses enjoying six-figure salaries at taxpayers’ expense. Dubbed the City Hall Rich List our research team revealed that 654 employees of the Greater London Authority and its various offshoots received pay packets in excess of Β£100,000 in 2018-19.

    Transport for London (TfL) had 518 staff taking home wages of over Β£100,000. Of these, 114 were paid more than Β£150,000. TfL boss Michael Brown topped the rich list enjoying a taxpayer funded wage slip to the tune of Β£508,301! This comes just weeks after TfL received a Β£1.6 billion bailout from the taxpayer, saying emergency funding was required to prevent it going bust.

    Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, reaped in more than Β£150,000 in salary, bonuses and benefits. But it doesn’t end there. Incredibly, 16 of his staff got more than Β£100,000. Meanwhile, Londoners have seen their average council tax precept increase by 9 per cent in the last four years. Click here to find out more about City Hall fat cats.

    Our report received so much media coverage that it’s fair to say every ratepayer in London heard or read about it. Notable highlights include the Daily Star, Daily Telegraph, LBC and talkRadio.

    In fact, talkRadio presenter Mike Graham was so incensed by these sky-high salaries that he tore up his notes live on air when speaking to my colleague Sam Packer. But he didn’t stop there! The following day Mike discussed the report with London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey. Both highlighted how ridiculous these salaries are especially in the light of so many failures by TfL on Crossrail.

    These stupendous salaries are a huge burden on ratepayers across the capital. London has many talented public servants working hard to keep the capital running. But the massive rise in ‘premier league’ pay packets suggests Sadiq’s City Hall is far more expensive than it needs to be.

    What do you think about these six-figure salaries?

    2. 320113+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AtG,
      The wage total alone is enough reason to kick of a civil war, it amounts certainly enough to finance one.

        1. Sorry, WS. Don’t understand. I get email notifications of flagged posts, ‘cos that’s how I’ve set up my Disqus profile. So, on the basis of Ndovu’s post above, I assume your problem is a Disqus issue?

    3. It seems to come and go, there may be an issue with the browser you are using.

      I keep getting regular notifications from previous days telling me that a turd has floated to the surface, yet again.

        1. Oh look, it’s floated to the surface yet again.
          Between clients are you?
          Your pimp must be making a fortune.

          1. Fortunately it’s Monday tomorrow so try those numbers for immediate help.

          3. I don’t have problems, Sos, but you obviously do.. so follow up those local numbers first.

          4. You don’t have problems?
            That’s a laugh
            !
            You shill and whore for Soros regularly on blogs.

            You troll and stir and try to wind people up.

            You are an attention seeking little bitch who has probably been disowned by her father and is taking it out on the Nottle blog.

    1. That’s reality, not a joke! We have been shopping twice now – all the joy has been sucked out of it. Buying clothes is now akin to facing a busy out of town supermarket on Saturday morning when you only want a pint of milk. After two shops, you are ready to head home.

      1. I try to avoid shops that are set up like that. We have, fortunately, a couple of supermarkets not too far away which don’t have a one-way system where the queues are relatively short and sometimes non-existent. I’d rather pay more for items to have that sort of shopping experience than save money and have to wait and go miles extra to get the items due to having to negotiate a maze.

      3. I try to avoid shops that are set up like that. We have, fortunately, a couple of supermarkets not too far away which don’t have a one-way system where the queues are relatively short and sometimes non-existent. I’d rather pay more for items to have that sort of shopping experience than save money and have to wait and go miles extra to get the items due to having to negotiate a maze.

  91. I haven’t got the time to go through all the posts here. However, earlier today, I was told by a former military man that one of the soldiers who was in the group determined to protect monuments had his throat slashed and he died. This was captured on video and my brother has confirmed the existence of the video and the assailant is seen. None of this has made the MSM but the Metropolitan Police deny this incident happened.”A spokesperson for the police said: “We are aware of social media posts reporting a stabbing at today’s protests. We have not received any reports of a stabbing in relation to today’s protests.” And: “Also if you watch the video in its entirety the man can be seen getting up after the punch.” So, who knows?

    1. Hi Nick! I saw that video early this morning. I think it was a Twitter link in a comment on Breitbart. It was pretty horrifying and I didn’t note the feed.

        1. Well there wasn’t a lot of blood! But then I also had grave doubts about the fat bloke peeing next to the memorial and then appearing in another video just as a flare was hoyed at the police!! Very strange!πŸ€”πŸ€”

          1. Yes, I noticed that too, fatty seemed to get more than average representation.

          2. There was another with two thugs stamping on a white mans head! Lovely chaps!

    2. Hey, Dean.

      Them scoop bozos sitting around those Wapping and Fleet Street campfires are sending out their smoke signals on a bad wind, Dude.

      We need new medicine men on the top table, Man; this is the time for a war council, not in six moon’s time. We need new scalps hanging from the clock-tower totem. Pronto!

      1. Hey Beatnik, that Fleet Street scene is the wisecracker line, not hip to honest joes and truth but sons of the old phonus balonus and all the groupthink news fit to preach from their latte encrusted towers of psychobabble.

    3. I received a round-robin headline on FB saying that a ‘patriotic’ individual had died but can not find a trace of the story when searching online. curious.

    1. But it’s not a United Kingdom anymore, is it? A large proportion of the population has no roots in it nor loyalty to it; some hate it. And not all of them are foreign-born. Even some of what we might call the ancestral British have been poisoned against their own land.

      1. 320113+ up ticks,
        Evening WS,
        Surely this is the consequences of decades of
        party before Country voting pattern voting in a keep in / keep out mode.
        We are witnessing the results of decades of
        giving carte blanche to the same political close shop failures.
        I do not believe that if we had 100% indigenous
        voting the same way over the same time span
        things would have been different, the overseeing politico’s are working from a different agenda and it is NO WAY beneficial to the United Kingdom.

      3. Especially that flucker “historian” – the half-caste Nigerian who loathes everything to do with imperialist, racist, slavist England – but was happy to accept an OBE.

  93. Any grouping of people, anywhere in the civilised world, attempting to pull off a mass rioting stunt like these Lefties are doing (in the UK, USA, Australia and elsewhere) at any time in history prior to the end of the 19th century would have been treated as enemies of the state intent on starting a civil war.

    They would have been dealt with by the use of lethal force by those defending that country. The question is: why is that not happening now?

    1. 1848 was a year of rioting and rebellion in Europe which was generally suppressed with great barbarity.
      But not in Britain. We had a relatively advanced parliamentry system at the time which defused potential copycat behavior.

      How times have changed. As has the population mix. And a lot else.

    2. Because the people in power are just like Chamberlain and Halifax in the 30s. wet weak and not a clue of the real world. These people cannot and will not fight back.

    3. ‘Romanian’ and ‘Eastern European’ are often PC codewords for Gypsy. It’s a bit like if a gang of London based Yardies set up operations in Romania and the Romanian media called them ‘British’.

    1. When Laura wasn’t a well known name , that was a pretty song.. My sister Laura emailed me to tell me about his death . She was given the record by a boyfriend long long ago.

  97. I wish to make a little point.
    There are some UKIP people ( as were Nigel FΓ rage ) taking an opportunistic point of labelling
    BLM the same as Islamic terrorists. The hard Left are of course guilty of terrorism but I am
    not speaking of them ( nor was NF ) he made a point of comparing BLM with Islamic Terrorism .

    BLM are somewhat tyrannical in their delusions and utterly disrespectful and badly educated
    people who think knocking down statues will rewrite history .
    Islam is a soulless inhuman death cult more interested in blowing up people then knocking
    down buildings. To compare BLM to Islamic Terrorism let’s Islam off the hook and disrespect
    the victims of the murderous cult. Never miss an opportunity Nigel Farage.. shame on you.

    2. From the BLM Manifesto :-

      β€œWe’re guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world.”

      They want to destroy all that is good about our society using violence and intimidation as a first resort, that makes them terrorists in my eyes.

    2. I’m suffering at the moment. I’ve been on my knees pointing up some brickwork and at my age I should know better. Finished now but a couple of hours for each session is a literal pain. As for taking the knee, they can FOAD, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

    3. You can get Ibuprofen Gel 5% on NHS prescription from your GP. Works much better & is far cheaper.

    4. Is there any restrictions buying enough quantity to satisfy the demand of the Metropolitan and Avon & Somerset Police forces?

        1. No chance of a bulk order to help plod ease β€œtaking the knee” induced pain then.
          Oh dear, oh dear, never mind.

  100. HAPPY HOUR – How D’Ya Like Your Eggs In The Morning……..🎢

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ea52857f68f619ba4e5318bde94d5d4bf45c9d930db51e4bfc5bf3fccba5b88.jpg

    A woman has hatched three ducklings called Beep, Peep and Meep from eggs she bought in Waitrose.
    Charli Lello, 29, from Hertfordshire, put the Clarence Court eggs in an incubator as an experiment to pass the time after being furloughed.She said the ducklings would live “a very happy life” with her pet chickens.

          2. It’s OK, thanks, Maggie.

            Lots of things which are different; not least that the steering wheel is on the wrong side!

            Two big differences. There is virtually NO storage space (the Kangoo had three overhead lockers and two underfloor ones in the back). And NO spare wheel.

          3. Now that you’re not supporting two homes, I guess you have less need for generous storage space. The packing for the transits between Fulmodeston and Laure are the stuff of legend.

          4. Your Kangoo sounded a really useful workhorse.

            I have a Peugeot 307 sw… spacious estate for its size and I have a large dog box in the rear.. which would fit three or four spaniels .. I have 2 and they curl up and sleep as I motor along , no fuss .. It was a seven seater, but we took the rear seats out .. I have transported chests of drawers and chairs and all sorts of things , plus stuff to the tip.

          5. …. the steering wheel is on the wrong side!

            Are you sitting in the passenger seat…?

          6. Can you buy a spare wheel? But this would take up even more of your less-than-before storage space. We bought a spare wheel for our Honda and it lives in the boot underneath a false floor. There was no way we were going to depend on that foam stuff – take-you-fifty-miles-if-you-are-lucky if we got a flat tyre 200 kms from anywhere on an autoroute in France

          7. No room, PM. I am wondering about buying a box
            to go on the roof to put a spare in when (IF) we go
            to France.

          8. We had a top box when travelling through France, it was the only way we could transport all our stuff (where did it all come from? I do wonder now….. simply stuff I could not possibly leave behind under any circumstances….. ). Anyway, our topbox was made by Thule and had excellent aerodynamics, if that is the right word. It ran the length of the roof of the car, and slightly overlapped front and back but in no way did it impede our vision at the front, we simply weren’t aware of it. It was somewhat elegantly coffin shaped, which did give rise to some jokes en route and indeed you could have transported a body within. Very occasionally it hummed if the wind should be in the right direction. Highly recommend. Do not travel through France without a spare – you know what will happen if you do. And once you have that spare…. you’ll never need it.

  101. Nigel Farage is reportedly set to relaunch the Brexit Party as the Reform Party, according to British tabloid the Sunday Express, as fears mount over Boris Johnson’s ability to secure a proper Brexit.

    ( Breitbart)

    2. Good grief. The β€˜leading London activist’ is as thick as pig shit. No surprise there then.

      Where do the MSM find these idiots and why do they impose the views of these stupid idiots on us?

      1. Where do the MSM find these idiots and why do they impose the views of these stupid idiots on us?

        β€œPolitical correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

  109. Very amusing how there are all these rules on NTTL…. and then one of the mods votes for someone who consistently breaks the rules….

    So maybe the rules should be binned ?

    Sounds a good idea !

          1. He was truly remarkable and a very brave man, and, if I may say so knowing what has happened, so are you, Sir.

          2. Not especially. I made a decision to draw a line under my weekly visits to the Diabetic Foot Clinic. There’s not much I can’t do (ladders are a bit of an issue, along with the organ pedals). I can walk for several miles, and I never need to cut my toenails. I never get sweaty feet. What’s not to like? I am eternally grateful to the Douglas Bader Rehabilitation Centre at Roehampton, though…

          3. I am an admirer of Sailor Malan (hello, Sailor!) and his ten rules of fighting. I particularly like the one about waiting until you see the whites of their eyes – could come in handy under current circumstances πŸ™‚

          4. As distinct from the BLM militia rule book which says that you wait until you see the eyes of the whites!

          3. Steal it more like. Our wealth, such as it is, will likely be appropriated sometime: for the good of all, you understand.

      2. Its BLM that are the racists. They will turn so many people agaist them with their attitude.

        1. I know several people of mixed marriages who now have what are regarded as BAME children.

          Even they are starting to say that the current protests are turning them into bigots. It’s very sad.

          1. Why does Prince Harry’s wife self-identify as black when her father and her husband are white?

          2. Fashionable. The permanently-outraged victims of their own uselessness..

          3. Because it’s the non white side of mixed race people that gets the abuse.

            It’s not just from whites, it also comes from “pure” blacks. And that’s why they are more conscious of the racism. I don’t like Meghan, but she will certainly be getting undeserved abuse.

            It’s interesting talking to the white grandparents of mixed race grandchildren.

            When they talk to each other without their parents about they appear to be far more open about what they experience. Oddly enough I’ve heard many times that the children don’t actually experience all that much racism, but because their “leaders” constantly complain they become aware and start to look out for it.

            Essentially the view is that the problem is with race-baiters (Lammy and the like) and not with what they see in their daily lives.

        2. The people who will really suffer are black people who will find their white friends become far less friendly as a result of the BLM nastiness.

      3. I saw a number of tweets this morning from football fans who are livid about their clubs’ decision to have BLM on their shirts. Spurs and West Ham fans mainly. All declaring that they will not renew their season tickets.

        1. I gave up being a football fan when the players seemed more concerned about their hair than winning the ball.

        2. Just as well the games next season will be played behind locked doors.

        3. Any club putting BLM on their shirts are deluded. If the silly player fuckers start taking the knee their revenues will fall further. These clubs have been ripping off their loyal supporters for too long.

          Most sensible people realise that this BLM movement is a putsch and most are sick and tired of it already. It has now run out of steam and is seen for the disregard it shows towards our indigenous population.

        4. Starve the buggers of as much cash as possible. It is the only thing these mercenaries understand

        5. I hope they don’t. BLM is profoundly anti-Christian, anti-family and just plain wrong.

    3. Unable to afford help with vetting? Or, the BBC said ‘py us more or we’ll stack the deck against you’.

      The BBC is grossly overmanned. It’s much like the civil service. A team of 20 has over 18 managers.

    1. Thanks for that, OLT. What a wonderful way to end the evening. Goodnight once again to all on this site. See you all tomorrow.

  112. Evening, everyone. Destroying statues will bring about significant social change, but not necessarily of the right sort. On a personal level, I rode a full dressage test (Prelim 2) for the first time in about five years today. Not competition, but just something to engage the little grey cells. The first time I rode the complete test, but the Connemara was too rushed, uneven and we did a transition too early (at P instead of F), but otherwise not too bad. At the second attempt, which was to try to improve, the Connemara was much more settled, much less giraffe-like and we were bang on the markers (accuracy is important). Unfortunately, I had brain fade and missed out the canter right 20m circle at C, which would have been an automatic elimination in competition – blast! For those of you who have never ridden a dressage test, think learning to drive and juggling the gears, clutch, brake, accelerator and steering, trying not to stall the engine, while having to memorise a route involving roundabouts, sharp turns, changes of gear and having to make sure you do it at the right lamppost or street sign – oh, and the car has a mind of its own as well πŸ™‚ The letters around a 20mx40m arena are AKEHCMBF (you always enter at A). In a 20×60 arena the letters are AKVESHCMRBPF. The test lasted about 6.5 minutes and at the end I was absolutely dripping with sweat – not all of it because it was a muggy day!

    1. I’ve only done the odd bit of jumping and cross country at a very low level.

      I’ve always regarded the horse dancing section of the events as the most difficult for anyone who isn’t a really competent rider.

      Respect!

      2. Thank you. I did the jumping and cross country things when I was a lot younger. The last involuntary dismount convinced me I don’t bounce as well as I used to and I’m much better off trying to keep as many feet on the floor as possible πŸ™‚

        1. Ah!
          What you need is a Falabella, horse and you can keep feet on the ground simultaneously…

          };-O

    2. I have no idea of what you write, Conners, but vaguely appreciate the mental effort required.

          1. That was what I said after I realised I’d missed out the last 20m canter circle!

          4. A few years ago I designed some Stables for a wealthy London lawyer in Alphamstone. He had failed to obtain planning permission for an Ameican Stable because his land was within an area designated as AONB.

            I achieved the planning permission with a scheme based upon loose boxes arranged around a courtyard, set behind a bank of mature trees and more or less invisible from the road.

            The client took my drawings, produced in good faith, and built my scheme using some contractor from Great Dunmow, thus avoiding having to pay my fees.

            This sort of situation caused me to cease working for such bastards.

          5. Surey that is theft of intellectual property? Is there no means of legal reddress in such a situation?

    4. Greetings, Conners.

      I have nothing but admiration for anyone who climbs up onto a horse’s back. I did so on one solitary occasion and I learnt an immediate and unforgettable lesson: the horse instinctively knows that it has an idiot on its back!

      No matter that I followed the instructions (to drive the thing) given to me by the competent horsewoman alongside me, the horse just continued to please itself and, at one point (and I think, deliberately) attempted to impale me on the broken branch of a tree. I know it knew what it was doing: pretending to find some juicer grass to graze on didn’t fool me for a second!

      After a while, when my heart rate had lowered to nearly normal and I had “walked” the horse for about a mile, I was encouraged to let it go for a trot! Trot? Good job I was wearing three pairs of underpants (on good advice) since my undercarriage took an almighty clouting, even though I was standing up in the stirrups.

      Next, the teacher asked if I wanted to attempt a canter. That was when I said I’d had enough and wanted to go home. I was informed, much later, that cantering is easier on the body than trotting. I simply didn’t believe them since trotting was much too fast for me. At least my bicycle has gears, pedals and brakes with immediate response and no mind of its own.

      Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) I haven’t felt the urge to climb up an a horse since. 😬

      1. I hate encountering a horse and rider on the road – nasty, smelly and unpredictable things – and the horses are no better.

        Just joking!

      2. She was absolutely right about the canter.

        I was lucky in that our instructress moved us to the canter very quickly. One feels far more “at one” with the horse and it develops confidence.

      3. It’s true that canter is an easier pace to sit than trot (unless you are riding an Icelandic horse who will tΓΆlt or a pacer). Some horses are more comfortable in canter than others, though.

      4. As a child in a remote boarding school in the centre of Argentina I was once taken out on a horse ride with several schoolmates by a local gaucho. All I learned about the horse’s movements was that it succeeded in throwing me up in the air, then it’s back lowered itself before rising once more just as I was descending – WHAM! This, of course, continued throughout the entire hour-long ride. It put me in mind of that famous (Oxford University?) speech about the man who raised a pulley holding a barrel of bricks. Just as the barrel reached the top the bricks toppled out and fell on his head, at which point he let go of the rope, which caused the barrel to fall… etc. etc. etc. I have never wanted to go horse-riding ever again.

      5. As a child in a remote boarding school in the centre of Argentina I was once taken out on a horse ride with several schoolmates by a local gaucho. All I learned about the horse’s movements was that it succeeded in throwing me up in the air, then it’s back lowered itself before rising once more just as I was descending – WHAM! This, of course, continued throughout the entire hour-long ride. It put me in mind of that famous (Oxford University?) speech about the man who raised a pulley holding a barrel of bricks. Just as the barrel reached the top the bricks toppled out and fell on his head, at which point he let go of the rope, which caused the barrel to fall… etc. etc. etc. I have never wanted to go horse-riding ever again.

        1. I have a small black and white photo of me somewhere sat on a donkey in Abergele aged 4. It was the sum total of my equine experiences.

      1. Thank you. I don’t feel the ache in my muscles so much as when I first started back, thankfully. It takes a while to get back to fitness after a long break and the only way to get fit is to ride.

        1. Why not in alphabetical order? To make it difficult to remember the sequence? and how does the horse cope??

          1. You learn them with a mnemonic (All King Victor Edward’s Strong Horses Can Manage Really Big Puissance Fences). The horse can’t read – as long as he doesn’t take exception to them at the side of the arena and the white boards that mark the enclosed space there isn’t a problem πŸ™‚

          2. A likely tale.

            The horse has done it so often it knows its way around.

            It’s teasing you…

          3. Not this one; I’m the only one who does dressage with him (and the tests do vary, you know). In his former life he used just to go hunting – point and go as fast as possible. He still has that mindset, which is not ideal for dressage πŸ™‚

          8. I have been trying to find it on my notifications, but it was so far back I’m having trouble.

          12. No, he’s called Coolio (his name is over the door). Tilly was the name of the horse in the video (which was somebody else doing the same test as I rode to show what was involved),

          14. Ah, I see. They never removed the name of the previous occupant. It’s a coincidence that the video also featured a Tilly.

  113. SPOOKY, the policeman’s house in the Skripal story is the exactly the same design, colour and orientation as mine! I knew there was something more to the tale.

  116. Black Lives Matter: ‘Much more that we need to do’ to tackle racism – PM

    Writing in the Telegraph, Boris Johnson said he was setting up a commission to look at all “aspects of inequality”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53045349

    Commission? Well done, Boris, kick it into the long grass.

    Or…perhaps health is about income and attitude – and my guess is that there are more poor white people than black…

  117. There is an organisation called Kick Racism Out Of Football. Surprisingly, it isn’t known by the acronym “KROOF”.

    While musing upon this, my mind was inexorably drawn to my own version:

    Keep
    All
    Football
    Free of
    Institutionalised
    Racism.

    Oddly enough, it never took off……..

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