709 thoughts on “Sunday 15 December: Boris Johnson’s energy and vision have won disaffected Conservatives back to the cause”

  1. A ‘Tory’ victory? Pity the Conservatives are now the main Left-wing party in the country. Peter Hitchens. 15 December 2019.

    Mr Johnson’s mind is not conservative. He is a North London bohemian, a social liberal who can barely understand the arguments for lifelong marriage. He is rich enough to have no idea how bad, and how crammed with indoctrination, state schools actually are.

    Like all senior politicians he is secluded from crime and disorder. Since he was Mayor of London he has surrounded himself with aides who encourage funky Leftish thinking. One of his closest advisers, Danny Kruger – now Tory MP for the deluded people of Devizes – is a keen enthusiast for legalising the dangerous poison marijuana.

    Morning everyone. Mr Hitchens has clearly made up his mind about Boris and I’m not unsympathetic to his views. I am nevertheless waiting to see what the new Tory government freed from Labour and Remainer influence actually is. I shall have a pretty good idea when I see what form of Brexit they adopt so it won’t take long. If it’s Brino then I will know that it’s just another gang of traitors and to expect all the usual policies (albeit disguised) more immigration. less defence, more Hate Crime etc. Now if it’s a Hard Brexit then I will allow myself to Hope.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7793551/PETER-HITCHENS-Pity-Conservatives-main-Left-wing-party-country.html

    1. The interesting coincidence about the legalization of marijuana, and the introduction of amnesty, a Boris policy, is who wants both ?

      George !

  2. Good morning, all. Bright but chilly start in Laure. Never mind – the warm feeling from Friday morning runs and runs!

    I see everyone is having a go – still – at Mr Johnson. Bad losers to the core.

        1. Welcome back, Bill. Yes, Friday provided a much-needed tonic after the antics of the wreckers and betrayers for 3 years. Part 2 will be the hugely enjoyable spectacle of Liebour tearing itself apart yet again, kicked off by Agent Steptoe remaining firmly in denial and refusing to sling his hook (for now).

  3. Good to see that the ghastly Tusk and the Hair-cut Git – who interfered in the election so much on behalf of the Illib Undems – got their noses bloodied.

    1. Welcome back to the NoTTL site, Mr Bill, Sir, from The Master (Mr Harry Lime) and myself. I was personally very upset not to be visited at home by a LibDem activist nor to spot one when I visited my local polling station. I was thus denied the opportunity to tell them to their face “Bollocks to the LibDems!”

  4. Morning all

    SIR – It was quite something for me to cast my vote for my Conservative candidate on Thursday. The last time I had done so was very reluctantly in 1992; since then, as a campaigner to leave the EU, I was not inspired by a single Conservative leader – until Boris Johnson arrived.

    Back in the dark days, when John Major was destroying the Conservative Party, I wrote to him many times, warning that he would lose my vote – and that, if lifelong Tory voters like me deserted the party, he was in trouble.

    Mr Johnson has clearly won back many traditional Conservative voters, and we look forward to a return to true Conservative principles, getting out of the EU 
and restoring our standing on the world stage.

    Derek Bennett

    Walsall, Staffordshire

    SIR – Once the Government has implemented Brexit, it will have the opportunity to get the country back on the path that it should never have left – of being a truly global nation.

    The idea of geographical proximity being a determining factor in international relations is outdated. It is cultural affinity that really matters. Britain must strengthen its ties with the English-speaking worlds of the Anglosphere and the Commonwealth, leaving the EU to continue its decline to irrelevance.

    By the time of the next general election, Britain’s success as an independent nation will have exposed the warnings of the Remainers as no more than tales told to frighten children.

    Colin Bullen

    Tonbridge, Kent

    SIR – Anyone who has knocked on doors in marginal seats over the past month will have met many lifelong Labour voters switching to the Conservatives, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Having believed Labour’s 2017 manifesto promise to honour the Brexit referendum, they were no longer willing to be ignored and insulted by an elite and remote establishment in Westminster.

    With Labour and the Liberal Democrats wholly bereft of humility, leadership and vision, this transformational election victory – like Benjamin Disraeli’s in 1874 and Margaret Thatcher’s in 1979 – represents a once-in-a-century opportunity for the Conservatives to reinvigorate aspiration in working-class communities by reducing taxes, reforming services, building more affordable homes and providing state-funded help to buy. The party’s future electoral opportunities have rarely been so fortuitous.

    Philip Duly

    Haslemere, Surrey

  5. SIR – A message to all the political leaders: “Thank you for visiting us up here in the North. See you again at the next election.”

    Robert Mitchell

    Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire

  6. SIR – The “silent majority” who didn’t know what they were doing when they voted Leave in 2016 have done it again.

    Maybe Tony Blair, Sir John Major and others will now see that they are past their sell-by date and quietly retire from public affairs.

    Tony Gadd

    Southport, Lancashire

    1. I suspect Blair and his nefarious crew will not give up. He will be plotting with his EU cronies to disrupt and prolong the EU negotiations for the duration of the next 5 years with the expectation that the UK people could drift back into the claws of the EU. Boris should be prepared to walk away.

      2. Spot on, clydesider. All of the usual suspects will put their oars in and try and muddy the waters and worse, Al-Beeb, Sky News, C4 etc, will give them a platform to spout their bile.

      1. It is remarkable that the elite – despite polls, campaigns etc – completely failed to understand the way that the man in the street thought about (a) them and (b) leaving the EUSSR.

        1. It’s one of those situations where you just have to accept that there are people whose minds are set that way.
          It is impossible to understand – let alone empathise – with such blockheads.

  7. SIR – After an election the losing party will usually hold an inquisition to find out the reason for failure.

    This time Labour doesn’t need to. It’s Jeremy Corbyn.

    John Roberts

    Wokingham, Berkshire

          1. Good grief, Uncle Bill, Sir. The rest has done you good. You return to this site and immediately agree with the “pushy nurse”! :-))

  8. SIR – We must remember that, without Nigel Farage, this election might not have gone the way it did.

    With his tenacity and intelligence he would make a good ambassador for this country.

    Joan Elson

    Harling, Norfolk

  9. REJOICE!

    The Common Sense majority of the UK defeated the brainwashed Common Purpose- and Frankfurt School-trained, minority ‘Remain’ brigade to restore clarity and intelligence to this proud country.

    Those people screeched, incessantly, in a shrill and strident fashion for a “People’s Vote” as well as a second referendum. Well, let me tell them: they just got both!

    The time is now right to afford these sad people a proper education and to show them that the intelligent people who voted for a strong and independent country are not “thick”, “racist”, “bigoted”, “little Englanders” or (risibly) “far-Right” simply for disagreeing with their warped, venomous, Marxist and institutionalised viewpoint.

    Time was (in recent memory) when the defeated politicians and supporters of a party in an election simply shrugged their shoulders and got on with life until the next election. These days, the whining ‘victims’ of defeat will not accept their defeat with any form of grace. They march and threaten true democratic winning voters with threats of violence and demand a repeat election, or as many elections as it will take until they eventually win. Losing is not on their agenda, since they are convinced their way is best.

    Maybe this new breed of Social Justice Warrior and compulsive Virtue Signaller would be best advised to stop reading the idiotic drivel in publications such as The Guardian and The New York Times and, instead, start giving themselves a proper education about the reality of the world they inhabit. Their narrow-mindedness does them a disservice and isolates them from reality. They have become nothing more than puppets of the globalists and multi-national corporations who pull their strings.

    It is more than significant that hordes of decent working class men and women are sick and tired of being bullied by rich, metropolitan, middle-class socialists who have treated their erstwhile voters with contempt as they entertain their vacuous friends in their Tuscan villas.

    The founding fathers of the Labour Party will be squirming in their graves at the antics this cartel of self-serving Trots who despise the real sons and daughters of toil. Labour was once the go-to party for the working class. It no longer is. Over the period of my lifetime, my standard of living has only been raised under Conservative administrations. Every time that Labour has been in power I have found myself poorer (as most people have) as a result of the clueless, hapless and gormless members of that party serially bankrupt the country.

    No Briton possessing more than a few neurons would ever wish to be led by a spoilt middle-class Trotskyite who was brought up in an imposing country manor house and has never done an honest day’s work in his entire life. As one perspicacious observer mooted about him: “A snotty Islington weirdo who hates Britain like vegans hate Sunday roasts”.

    For those who don’t know (or refuse to know), here is a catalogue of reasons why he should never be permitted to gain power in any form.

    Allegedly, Labour’s despicably treacherous Jeremy Corbyn:

    Invited two IRA members to parliament two weeks after the Brighton bombing.

    Attended Bloody Sunday commemoration with bomber Brendan McKenna.

    Attended meeting with Provisional IRA member Raymond McCartney.

    Hosted IRA linked Mitchell McLaughlin in parliament.

    Spoke alongside IRA terrorist Martina Anderson.

    Attended Sinn Fein dinner with IRA bomber Gerry Kelly.

    Chaired Irish republican event with IRA bomber Brendan MacFarlane.

    Attended Bobby Sands commemoration honouring IRA terrorists.

    Stood in minute’s silence for IRA gunmen shot dead by the SAS.

    Refused to condemn the IRA in Sky News interview.

    Refused to condemn the IRA on Question Time.

    Refused to condemn IRA violence in BBC radio interview.

    Signed EDM after IRA Poppy massacre massacre blaming Britain for the deaths.

    Arrested while protesting in support of Brighton bomber’s co-defendants.

    Lobbied government to improve visiting conditions for IRA killers.

    Attended Irish republican event calling for armed conflict against Britain.

    Hired suspected IRA man Ronan Bennett as a parliamentary assistant.

    Hired another aide closely linked to several convicted IRA terrorists.

    Heavily involved with IRA sympathising newspaper London Labour Briefing.

    Put up £20,000 bail money for IRA terror suspect Roisin McAliskey.

    Didn’t support IRA ceasefire.

    Said Hamas and Hezbollah are his “friends“.

    Called for Hamas to be removed from terror banned list.

    Called Hamas “serious and hard-working“.

    Attended wreath-laying at grave of Munich massacre terrorist.

    Attended conference with Hamas and PFLP.

    Photographed smiling with Hezbollah flag.

    Attended rally with Hezbollah and Al-Muhajiroun.

    Repeatedly shared platforms with PFLP plane hijacker.

    Hired aide who praised Hamas’ “spirit of resistance“.

    Accepted £20,000 for state TV channel of terror-sponsoring Iranian regime.

    Opposed banning Britons from travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS.

    Defended rights of fighters returning from Syria.

    Said ISIS supporters should not be prosecuted.

    Compared fighters returning from Syria to Nelson Mandela.

    Said the death of Osama Bin Laden was a “tragedy“.

    Wouldn’t sanction drone strike to kill ISIS leader.

    Voted to allow ISIS fighters to return from Syria.

    Opposed shoot to kill.

    Attended event organised by terrorist sympathising IHRC.

    Signed letter defending Lockerbie bombing suspects.

    Wrote letter in support of conman accused of fundraising for ISIS.

    Spoke of “friendship” with Mo Kozbar, who called for destruction of Israel.

    Attended event with Abdullah Djaballah, who called for holy war against UK.

    Called drone strikes against terrorists “obscene”.

    Boasted about “opposing anti-terror legislation”.

    Said laws banning jihadis from returning to Britain are “strange”.

    Accepted £5,000 donation from terror supporter Ted Honderich.

    Accepted £2,800 trip to Gaza from banned Islamist organisation Interpal.

    Called Ibrahim Hewitt, extremist and chair of Interpal, a “very good friend”.

    Accepted two more trips from the pro-Hamas group PRC.

    Speaker at conference hosted by pro-Hamas group MEMO.

    Met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh several times.

    Hosted meeting with Mousa Abu Maria of banned group Islamic Jihad.

    Patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign – marches attended by Hezbollah.

    Compared Israel to ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

    Said we should not make “value judgements” about Britons who fight for ISIS.

    Received endorsement from Hamas.

    Attended event with Islamic extremist Suliman Gani.

    Chaired Stop the War, who praised “internationalism and solidarity” of ISIS.

    Praised Raed Salah, who was jailed for inciting violence in Israel.

    Signed letter defending jihadist advocacy group Cage.

    Met Dyab Jahjah, who praised the killing of British soldiers.

    Shared platform with representative of extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

    Compared ISIS to US military in interview on Russia Today.

    Opposed proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

    Attended conference which called on Iraqis to kill British soldiers.

    Attended Al-Quds Day demonstration in support of destruction of Israel.

    Supported Hamas and ISIS-linked Viva Palestina group.

    Attended protest with Islamic extremist Moazzam Begg.

    Made the “case for Iran” at event hosted by Khomeinist group.

    Photographed smiling with Azzam Tamimi, who backed suicide bombings.

    Photographed with Abdel Atwan, who sympathised with attacks on US troops.

    Said Hamas should “have tea with the Queen”.

    Attended ‘Meet the Resistance’ event with Hezbollah MP Hussein El Haj.

    Attended event with Haifa Zangana, who praised Palestinian “mujahideen”.

    Defended the infamous anti-Semitic Hamas supporter Stephen Sizer.

    Attended event with pro-Hamas and Hezbollah group Naturei Karta.

    Backed Holocaust denying anti-Zionist extremist Paul Eisen.

    Photographed with Abdul Raoof Al Shayeb, later jailed for terror offences.

    Mocked “anti-terror hysteria” while opposing powers for security services.

    Named on speakers list for conference with Hamas sympathiser Ismail Patel.

    Criticised drone strike that killed Jihadi John.

    Said the 7/7 bombers had been denied “hope and opportunity”.

    Said 9/11 was “manipulated” to make it look like bin Laden was responsible.

    Failed to unequivocally condemn the 9/11 attacks.

    Called Columbian terror group M-19 “comrades”.

    Blamed beheading of Alan Henning on Britain.

    Gave speech in support of Gaddafi regime.

    Signed EDM spinning for Slobodan Milosevic.

    Blamed Tunisia terror attack on “austerity”.

    Voted against banning support for the IRA.

    Voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act three times during the Troubles.

    Voted against emergency counter-terror laws after 9/11.

    Voted against stricter punishments for being a member of a terror group.

    Voted against criminalising the encouragement of terrorism.

    Voted against banning al-Qaeda.

    Voted against outlawing the glorification of terror.

    Voted against control orders.

    Voted against increased funding for the security services to combat terrorism.

    To actively wish for such a traitor and enemy of the State to lead the British people is certifiable madness.

    The millions of British people, from all echelons of society right across the social spectrum, who voted for a decent and reliable Conservative government are not “woke”. We are awake!

    2. A majority ?

      Are you sure, Drizzly ?

      If you tot up the votes, it looks like Britain and Brexit have been saved by FPTP.

    7. Keep them out of power for decades, every time you meet a Gaurdnia reader agree with them that if only Labour had doubled down and got Eddie Izzard to communicate their gender neutral toilets policy to former coal miners they would have stormed to power.

  10. Boris Johnson to enshrine £34bn NHS spending pledge into law

    The prime minister is expected to use the first Queen’s Speech of the new parliament to underline commitments made during his victorious general election campaign to support the health service.

    The Conservatives said it would be the first time any government has made a legally-binding spending commitment over several years.

  12. Radical Reform of the Civil Service Proposed

    In my view long over due. The civil service operates in a very outdated mode and lacks the skills needed in most cases

    It will review the way officials are hired, while some departments could be abolished and civil servants replaced by outside experts.

    1. Maybe also rescind, or at least stop, the ‘Curs’ that are automatically awarded for piloting a desk for thirty years.
      Over-mighty snivel serpents have been the bane of this country for at least twenty years.

    2. And with all the extra money for the NHS, perhaps its time for a review of that institution to make sure the money actually makes some difference. Who could possible argue with that.

  13. Nice put-down from Andrew Castle on LBC this morning. While discussing the Labour leadership, “…are we going to get Rebecca Long-Bailey or someone sensible?”

    1. At the top of the Labour Party Momentum are still firmly in control so other than Corbyn going I dont see much changing. It will still be a London focused Momentum party in fact probably even more so as they have lost a lot of their Non London MP’s

  14. Great Western Railway (GWR) are to shorten Cardiff to London journey times by up to 17 minutes

    Possibly the time may be improved a bit more one the electrification work is complete, Currently the line is partially electrified

    Typical journey times on its twice-hourly Cardiff to London service will be shortened by 14 minutes to one hour and 53 minutes.

    GWR will also add a new rush hour express service between the two capitals with trains running non-stop between Bristol and Paddington, cutting journey times to one hour and 42 minutes.

      1. If I read that correctly, you will only be able to get on the train at Cardiff and Bristol as it does not stop anywhere else.

        1. Other than the Express service most trains will stop at all the current stations they serve ie Reading. Swindon Bristol, & Newport a few mainly peak hour services also stop at Didcot & Severn Tunnel Junction

  16. OFWAT 2019 price review

    Ofwat intends to publish its final determinations for PR19 at 7am on Monday 16 December 2019.

    1. Given the massive levels of Repeats on the BBC channels it should at very least be scaled back to say 2 TV channels at most. National Only channels should be devolved so S4C would be taken out of the T licences and WAles would have to fund it how they do that being down to them . The same with Alba in Scotland

    1. Morning Anne. That’s a nice little reminder of the Rodents that have been exterminated by the election Mousetrap!

    2. Wow. That’s quite seismic really when you’re reminded of what might have been. And thank goodness for that,

      Good morning by the way everyone. Let’s hope the Cons become proper conservatives once more, as in encouraging aspiration and self responsibility.

  19. PETER HITCHENS reveals fresh evidence that UN watchdog suppressed report casting doubt on Assad gas attack. Mail. 15 December 2019.

    The global chemical weapons watchdog is facing renewed questions after fresh details emerged about how it suppressed the findings of its own inspectors who raised serious doubts about an alleged poison gas attack in Syria.

    The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a senior official at the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) demanded the ‘removal of all traces’ of a document which undermined claims that gas cylinders had been dropped from the air – a key element of the ‘evidence’ that the Syrian regime was responsible.

    To those of us who are interested in this stuff, and there aren’t many and even less now that Assad has won the war, this is obvious. The OPCW has been subverted and is now simply another mouthpiece for Western Propaganda. All these attacks were faked by the Brits with the assistance of the White Helmets. The only question that might be asked, since chlorine and not a true chemical weapon was used is, did they go it alone for some reason?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7793253/PETER-HITCHENS-reveals-evidence-watchdog-suppressed-report-casting-doubt-Assad-gas-attack.html

    1. Funny Old World
      NoTTLer’s were all over this fakery at the time,about time the MSM caught up
      ‘Morning Minty

  21. The first sign that we are not really leaving the EU is if we go ahead with their pan Europe fast train network project and keep HS2 against all common sense.

    1. I’m waiting to see what Boris actually does with his victory before I return to the Tory fold.
      The Tory Party needs to know that it isn’t just the Labour heartlands that have lent it their vote.

      Let’s see how the Playing fields of Eton pan out.

      1. Like you PT my heart will not return to the Conservatives unless and until and if and only if Britain manages to get completely free of the EU and we are not fobbed off with more borisbolocks.

    2. I would not read anything into that even whilst we are in the EU we are not in Shengen. It would be no different to the channel tunnel there will be passport checks etc. With the Channel tunnel the French checks are made in the UK

    3. Morning B,
      Nothing confirmed as I see it, I believe it is to be put into a siding on hold, waiting maybe……….
      Trust none until you witness the action
      not the rhetoric.

    2. Well done. I just finished making Eau De Vie from my apples. Also just bought a bottle of Adnams pink Gin. It’s supposed to be the next ‘big thing’.

      1. Thank you, Phil. As for Adnams’ Pink Gin, I think a bottle of Gordon’s plus some angostura bitters would achieve the same result for less money.

        1. I normally buy whatever Ollie (with the Trolley on Saturday kitchen) recommends. If you like red wine look out for Barolo 2016 which is released next Spring. It is supposed to be a cracking vintage. They had a mild Winter, an early warm Spring and a long hot Summer. It’s supposed to be the best vintage since 1987.

          They keep Barolo in the bottle for four years before release. It will be ready to drink but even better if you lay it down for a couple of years.

      1. How to keep the kiddy-winkies occupied for hours.

        1) Tell then it’s a schools project.
        2) Give them each a tupperware container full of sloes.
        3) Tell them there is an element of danger and not to tell Mommy (legalised naughtiness) and they bmust wear marrigold gloves.
        4) Give them a bodkin to make holes in the berries.
        5) Pop the sugar and berries in a bottle or Kilner jar.
        7) Tell them to fill the bottle with the magic water.
        9) Leave for 12 months, turning occasionally (the hard part).
        8) Job done.

      2. ‘Morning, Bill, depends on their age (and I’m not talking bottles but kiddies). My eldest is rising 54.

    6. Preparing for armageddon were we! Now to be thoughtfully disbursed. I’m waiting for Seville oranges in Jan when my years supply of marmalade will bubble into life.

    1. That looks like just the kind of party that can come back to bite one many years later.

      Ask Prince Andrew.

        1. Ah, I was just about to comment on that. Just shows what a tart he is. Lipstick on for whoever’s on top.

        2. I didn’t read the whole article, but the names I saw suggested that “only connect” fans might have a field day making scurrilous connections to people like Maxwell and Epstein and Andrew himself; after all his daughter attended.

  26. FORMER speaker John Bercow was paid up to £60,000 for his election coverage on Sky news despite just 46,000 people tuning in to watch the broadcaster’s results programme. https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1217437/john-bercow-sky-news-pay-election-2019-results-speaker-commons

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c44d42887b309dfd4a14bf2aa6dc8408410ac85501f6a79eda8cf24df2cf479.jpg

    Not to worry John I expect there’s a peerage in the post…..

  27. What Should the TV Licence be replaced by ?

    The origin of the TV licence dates back to the first days of TV. The needed to a simple way to pay for the programs. This was long before the days of computer and the internet so the idea of a TV licence was conceived. Back then it made sense. If you watched TV you watched the BBC there was no other TV to watch
    The first sign of change was when commercial TV came along that though only offered one channel and the BBC invented the concept of public interest to justify keeping the TV licence the idea being a lo of the BBC content would be what was regarded as non commercial things such as religious broadcasts, Arts programs , Schools programs and Opera etc. Nearly all of this though has now been ditched by the BBC or very much scaled back

    We now have multiple TV channels and multiple ways of delivering content such as the Internet. The BBC audience numbers are now quite low relative to the numbers watching on other channels and other media

    One option could be to significantly reduce the size of the BBC say take it down to 1 UK wide TV channel, It could have a small amount of opt outs for Local news etc. It could also have 1 UK wide radio station

      1. The entertainment side could be covered by subscription.
        But if the BBC intend to contine their alternative broadcasting as the Voice of Britain to the World, then we should not have to pay a subscription – that should come out of Government funds. They would then be responsible for what they say and not be allowed to promote left-wing opinions and bias.

        1. We in Norway pay for BBC through the cable tv package. UK propaganda should be funded by the FO as begore, not people who don’t listen or watch.

      3. The BBC commissioned a drama about a previous Monarch. Starring Olivia Coleman as a lesbian Queen. It was disgusting. Netflix commissioned a drama about our present Queen starring Olivia Coleman. It’s rather good. The BBC should be ashamed of itself.

      1. “Ita dico vobis gaudium erit coram angelis Dei super uno peccatore paenitentiam agente”
        — Luke 15:10
        ;¬)

  30. NHS to Administer Hormone Blockers to 12-year-old Trans Child

    I totally disagree with this. such young children are incapable of making such a life changing decision. By suppressing their puberty they are in no position to make such a decision and usually there is a lot of parental pressure with these things. It could potentially ruin that childs life

    The National Health Service (NHS) will administer hormone blockers to a 12-year-old trans child said to have been born in the “wrong body”.
    Ashley ‘Ash’ Lammin, whose name has been legally changed by deed poll, has claimed to be a girl born in a boy’s body since the age of three, if mother Terri is to be believed — and it seems this idea has never been discouraged.

    “I never thought it was a phase, Ash was just Ash. When she was three she said to me, ‘I’m a boy because you gave me a boy’s name – it’s your fault’. I remember feeling horrible, because she blamed me,” the mother told the Metro.
    “I’d never come across it before and I just went along with it. I just thought at the time “if he’s happy, well that’s the main thing”.”

    Terri Lammin, who homeschools her child, also told the newspaper she would “like to see the subject of transgender people included in some lessons, like there are about same-sex families.”
    The Metro article makes no reference to Ashley’s father.

    Dr David Bell, in report, warned children were at risk of “long-term damage” as a result of the NHS clinic’s “inability to stand up to pressure” from transgender activist groups such as Mermaids UK.

    1. “When she was three she said to me, ‘I’m a boy because you gave me a boy’s name – it’s your fault’.”

      That rather suggests it might be a mental health problem.

      1. I thought that Ashley was a boy’s name – it certainly was in “Gone With The Wind”, but latterly it has been given to girls. Signed: Confused of Colchester”.

          4. NtN, Sir (or Madam), you are a Very Silly Sausage. How can “Ashleigh” possibly be the male version of “Frances and Francis”? :-))

          1. My idiot son Olaf Junior played Kim’s Game, a memory test, when he was in the Boy Scouts and Kim was a boy’s name. Now that Kim is a name for women he has a different concept of the game, hence his regular boat trips with his Viking pals to foreign parts for a spot of R & P.

      2. I would suggest it’s the mother who has a mental health problem, Munchhausen’s Syndrome by Proxy writ large!

        1. Indeed.
          It shows it is possible to overcome such traumas.
          };-O

          I wonder how many girls have been given job interviews and then obtained the job because they had a boy’s name but might have been rejected pre interview stage because they had a girl’s name?

          2. Don’t even think that they do that. I have the feeling that they simply take the top six CVs from the pile.

          3. They skim through the summary so that part is important on CV thy do the initial selection that

          4. My apologies, Ndovu, I think I was getting you mixed up with 2cv (or whatever their name is).

        3. ‘Morning, J, certain names are androgynous; I have cousins named Hilary (male) Noel and Vivyan (both female). Others come close enough to cause confusion – Francis and Frances. No reason to confuse one’s own sex.

    3. Another job for Boris’ Education Secretary – remove all this transgender and sex-education nonsense from Primary Education and limit ‘Sex Education’ for secondary pupils to the facts of natural, heterosexual life.

      1. It seems to me to moire of an attempt to almost brainwash these primary school chlldren. Young children have little real concept of gender let alone to understand transgender

        1. It’s bluddy sex not gender which is a grammatical construct, mainly lacking in the English Language.

          1. Both exist Gender is related to genetics. In English sex and gender are used interchangeably well at least until the LGBT brigade tried to change the meaning of gender or perhaps to be more correct Gender had two meanings one related to one sex and the other meaning when used with grimmer which is not that relevant to English as we dispensed on giving objects a gender many years ago

          2. ” when used with grimmer”
            As Jeremy Corby said: ” Things are getting grimmer every day “.
            What’s next on the agender ?

          6. Mianda, my boat, is certainly a she.

            Have you ever studied Latin, French, Spanish, German?

          7. I have, Richard and speak four languages very badly but one, very well.

            I never have got the hang of those genders particularly in French; Le Vagin (masculine) and Le penis (also, and rightly masculine).

          8. You can get the hang of ‘le penis’ simply by measuring the angle of the dangle.

            … I’ll get me protractor ….

  32. How Many more Crap Karaoke Singing Programs Can the TV Companies Invent. WE have had X-Factor the Band and now there is some kind of Blindfold Karaoke singing program. What next Naked Karaoke, Singing in the bath Karaoko , Perhaps Pub singing Karaoke ?

    3. Naked Attraction Karaoke in the Pub Bathroom (Blindfolds optional, earplugs recommended).

      1. Ah but what way around. Would you decide you want o here them sing based on their body or would you here them sing and then want a look at their body?

        1. Good question, Bill. From the glimpses I’ve had of comedians, singing contestants and others as I surf through Freeview channels looking for stimulating intellectual content I’m fairly sure that I would go for both earplugs and blindfold . Although, one might ask the pub landlord to turn the TV football commentary to maximum volume.

        1. Non-U. But when was the last time that you heard a snowflake say “lavatory”? (PS. I was simply rearranging Bill’s excellent suggestions without further thought.)

          On a cruder note, I was in a youth hostel in France, not recently, and whispered to one of a group of raucous Germans lads, “Excuse me, can you tell me where the lavatory is, please?”.
          Whereupon he bellowed to the entire room and the entire town, “Wo ist das Scheißhaus?”. I don’t think Germans are big on polite restraint and subtlety.

          1. I think it might also be due to the way “shít” became a much stronger/taboo swear word in English, although modern regular usage has changed that somewhat. I remember the sense of shock 50+ years ago when my father referred to someone as a nasty little shít during an open discussion.

            We find French people use the word “merde” far more frequently than ever British people would use the English equivalent. I think it’s just an expression, rather like we use: “I’ll be damned”

          3. When little I always found the Americanism “John” entertaining, as I knew several lads called John.

          5. Possibly the origin but I don’t think so.

            John was the equivalent of bog or toilet not príck.

          9. Indeed, another good example.

            If I had said that I would have been enjoying a washing up liquid mouthwash in very short order.

  33. Joy was out last night – bags of it, at least in the town where I live.

    I’m sure if those who fear for our future outside the EU dragged themselves away from their tellies on a Saturday night and saw some ‘real people’, most of their fears would evaporate.

  34. Next Big Scandal

    I can see a lot of court cases in the future where children have been given blockers to suppress their puberty

      1. I agree, apart from the “not a bad actor” bit – I thought he just “played” Hugh Grant all the time?

        1. It is very noticeable that his most successful roles have been as an ageing sleaze bag (Jeremy Thorpe and Mr. Florence Foster Jenkins).

    2. Yo HJ

      Sadly for Grant, {but not for us} his desires did not come to fruition as Johnson’s Tories swept to a landslide victory with an 80-seat majority. Photos of Grant taken shortly after the exit poll came out showed him looking glum with his wife Anna Eberstein at a high-end restaurant in Central London.

      Soon after, he tweeted: “There goes the neighbourhood.”

      {He might be famous for starring in hit movie, Notting Hill – but Hugh Grant is more likely to be spotted in Chelsea after purchasing a £17.5million property there. According to The Sun, the 58-year-old actor bought the six-bedroom semi-detached home at the end of last year.

      The 59-year-old has never held back in his criticisms of Brexit, Johnson, and the Conservative Party, previously describing their as a
      bunch of “masturbatory prefects.”

      “You will not fuck with my children’s future,” Grant declared after Johnson laid out his Brexit plans. “You will not destroy the freedoms my
      grandfather fought two world wars to defend.       Fuck off you over-promoted rubber bath toy. Britain is revolted by you and [your] little gang of
      masturbatory prefects.”

      (but he all for is giving us back to the Germans)

      .

  37. Now that it’s all over, can we now have a period where there is NOTHING in the media about the Election, or about the Labour Party, or any of the Cabinet’s intentions ? Just talk when they actually DO something, and take Gove’s silly face off the screen. (Is he Greta’s first cousin?)

    1. I agree. The Election put a real crimp in my Anti Anti-Russia Propaganda Program. I cannot make bricks without straw! There were no articles like, Vlad Ate my Poodle or Russians Annex the Isle of Wight. Complete silence. I think the propaganda machine was diverted onto Boris. Perhaps the name fooled them! They thought he worked for Putin! They are all probably sobbing into their Pink Martini’s! The Kremlin won again!

    2. Another disgraceful attack on the struggling proletariat by the heinous Tories.

      If Boris hadn’t brazenly won the election, these honest, horny-handed sons and daughters of the Peoples Revolution wouldn’t be getting their P45s.

  40. Karma’s a bitch 2

    “The comedy club that banned anyone who voted Tory from its stage has been axed in the face of an overwhelming backlash.

    Comedy-by-Bow, a free weekly open-mic night gig in an East London

    pub, yesterday vowed that anyone who voted Conservative was

    ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with its values and would not be welcome to

    perform.

    However, following a barrage of criticism, the bar has pulled the plug on the night.”

    https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2019/12/13/44998/axed%3A_the_comedy_club_that_banned_tory_voters

    1. “People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they’re not laughing now.” Bob Monkhouse.

    2. “People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they’re not laughing now.” Bob Monkhouse.

        1. He took a gig at a Christmas party for a large group of moneybrokers and fx dealers and foolishly started off by taking the micky, somewhat crudely.

          These men and women were seriously funny, knew every gag, comeback and put down known to man and were very quick with the banter. Being mainly Eastend barrow-boy types they were even cruder than he was.

          Add to that mix plenty of booze and it was the stand-ups worst nightmare come to life.

          BM walked off stage as he was teased, mimicked and heckled mercilessly. He lasted only a very few minutes.

          1. I always suspected that behind the mask of that professional comedian lurked someone who was fundamentally unpleasant!

  41. the Queen’s Speech will be largely the same as that delivered in October before parliament was dissolved for the election, it is expected to include a number of additional measures.They include changes to the justice system after Mr Johnson promised serious offenders would not be released early following the London Bridge terror attack.

    There are also expected to be measures to ensure minimum services operate during transport strikes, new protections for renters and a ban on local authorities boycotting products from other countries, like Israel.

    1. They had one of the few Labour people that I respect on Sky News the morning after the election – Kate Hoey. She wanted a real Brexit and to deliver what the voters had chosen, so she was hounded by the Corbyn thugs obviously.

      She said that the Conservatives owed their victory to Nigel Farage and should thank him. The Brexit Party took a massive number of votes from Labour allowing the Conservatives to squeak in. There was a graphic on the screen of the vote share of one of the former Labour seats that had switched. It said Conservative +1%, Brexit Party +10%.

      So Mr Farage has had a massive effect on our country and those who pour scorn on him really need to extract their heads from their fundaments.

    1. Some people never learn. At least they will stay un-electable while they keep thinking this way. It is only one step away from being mentally sub-normal.

      As a Cambridge lecturer he falls nicely into that category.

  47. Sometimes the BBC comes up with something wonderful,. It is like opening a door into a secret garden. The BBC is reporting the sad death of Anna Karina who appeared in a number of nouvelle vague films of the 60/70s. I watched many of these films on BBC2 World Cinema, a series that the BBC has not equalled in quality since then. Only Moviedrome with Alex Cox came close, and he acknowledges his debt to World Cinema. Oh, it was real, was World Cinema, no cowboys and no Indians, but real people working in (French) shops, or being bored in a strict (French)schools, being sliced up on a dusty Japanese street, or dragged around Italy in a gypsy caravan looking for stolen bicycles.
    The BBC provided the link to an interview with Raymond Cauchetier who took photos on the sets of the French films. He is interviewed by a very beautiful lady who does not interrupt, but whose name is not mentioned. The photos of Raymond Cauchetier are the secret garden. They are crisp, composed, evocative.
    They are exactly what made me abandon my attempts to take photos, to catch forever that elusive “decisive moment”. I wasn’t good enough, not nearly, not even remotely. But Cauchetier is, and that’s enough. It’s enough just to know that it can be done. Even if it has taken 60 years to find out.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50799366

    1. Afternoon Horace. The Apogee of the BBC was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It surpasses even the recent movie version. It is a source of great personal regret to me that I have to call for the closure of this once wonderful organisation that entertained and educated, yes educated, two generations of Britons. It is now a mere Cultural Marxist propaganda outlet condemned by its own mediocrity.

        2. The Night Manager is very good. I have just finished Kenneth Branagh’s version of Wallender and realised that his sidekick Tom Middleton is the hero in the Night Manager.

    2. The BBC could have continued to buy in the continental films, most Saturday nights there was one on BBC2 ,but they decided to devote our cash to paying ‘celeb’s instead. That’s when I stopped paying them.

    1. Thanks for posting, an interesting 16mins.
      On a personal note, the last time I visited family in Australia in 2017, most informal drinks and BBQ’s with family and their Aussie friends turned to Brexit. The conversation normally included “right wing extremists” winning the Brexit referendum. These conversations were not with metropolitan residents of Sydney or Melbourne but country folk such as farmers etc. I had to explain what I considered the issues were with Brexit and what I and many more felt about self determination and sovereignty for example and why the Leave won.
      It turns out their MSM differed very little to ours over Brexit, not much impartial balanced reporting at all.
      I am pleased to say I took every opportunity to show them that Brexiteers were not necessarily racist extremists as reported by their MSM, but normal people like they were.

      1. That was one of the better ones, along with Little Healers.

        Fenning’s Fever Cure and Cod Liver Oil would see many parents these days up before the beak for child cruelty.

          1. I only vaguely recall that but well remember Wright’s Coal Tar soap teaching me a valuable lesson at an early age – i.e. don’t let your mum catch you swearing.

          2. “A Patent cure for female hysteria.”

            That line alone would cause left wing females to become hysterical and be in desperate need of a massage.

      1. Too right. Make sure Mom and Pop drop off the perch twenty years sooner and grab your inheritance.

  50. May one ask, being a practising Christian & long term indigenous person, plus most definitely an
    anti PC / Appeasement user. Will these personal attributes be held against me as in for instance, denying
    diabetics personal test monitors & tabs.
    The medical fraternity was told in 2017 to withdraw these
    essential items, these are the same politico’s in charge
    in the main, now, as then.
    Plus seeing as diabetes is rampant within these Isles, & fast outpacing murder / paedophilic rape / abuse will these items be returned to the public arena for the benefit of the sufferers.
    PS, I would imagine that India, China, etc,etc, have ample via overseas aid.

    1. This is ‘olds’, rather than news, ogga. The medical fraternity have long held the view that we proles don’t know what to do with the results if we self-test. It is, of course, patronising bollocks. Easiest way to get strips is to be on insulin…

      1. Afternoon GG,
        Yes G I did realise it has been on the cards for years and not current news, The dia. nurse gave me one monitor kit of a six needle type & tabs followed a few months later another type with 200 lancets & tabs.
        Only to have the supply withdrawn some years ago.
        What my post was asking is as this is a growing
        medical issue of such a serious nature, & not so much the medical fraternity stopped the supply but NICE
        & local councils.
        By the by check out
        Dr David Unwin on Youtube.
        PPS this bloody machine post’s itself.

    2. The answer is no. A few years ago NICE made the ruling that only type 1 diabetics and I think type 2 on insulin would get free metres and test strips Different GP practices are quite lenient but mine is strict. The strips cost £20 – £25 for 50. I take my blood sugar test every other day so it costs me about £90 per year. Incidentaly you qualify for a limited number of Viagra tablets/ month.

      2. I’m told that the viagra tablets are all the same colour and must all be used with the same girl.

        1. Some diabetics take them on their prescription each month then sell them on. One of the side effects is sudden death. So beware

  52. Timmy writes to Santa Claus

    Dear Santa,
    How are you? How is Mrs. Claus? I hope everyone, from the reindeer to the elves, is fine. I have
    been a very good boy this year. I would like an X-Box One X with Call of Duty
    IV and an iPhone 11 for Christmas. I hope you remember that come Christmas Day.
    Merry Christmas,
    Timmy Jones

    * * *

    Dear Timmy,
    Thank you for your letter. Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the elves are all fine and thank you for
    asking about them. Santa is a little worried all the time you spend playing
    video games and texting. Santa wouldn’t want you to get fat. Since you have
    indeed been a good boy, I think I’ll bring you something you can go outside and
    play with.
    Merry Christmas,
    Santa Claus

    * * *

    Mr. Claus,
    Seeing that I have fulfilled the “naughty vs. Nice” contract, set by you I might add, I
    feel confident that you can see your way clear to granting me what I have asked
    for. I certainly wouldn’t want to turn this joyous season into one of
    litigation. Also, don’t you think that a jibe at my weight coming from an
    overweight man who goes out once a year is a bit trite?
    Respectfully,
    Tim Jones

    * * *
    Mr. Jones,
    While I have acknowledged you have met the “nice” criteria, need I remind you that
    your Christmas list is a request and in no way is it a guarantee of services
    provided. Should you wish to pursue legal action, well that is your right.
    Please know, however, that my attorneys have been on retainer ever since the
    Burgermeister Meisterburger incident and will be more than happy
    to take you on in open court.
    Additionally, the exercise I alluded to will not only improve your health, but also improve your
    social skills and potentially help clear up a complexion that looks like the
    bottom of the Burger King fry bin most days.
    Very Truly Yours,
    S Claus

    * * *

    Now look here Fat Man,
    I told you what I want and I expect you to bring it. I was attempting to be polite about this but
    you brought my looks and my friends into this. Now you just be disrespecting
    me. I’m about to tweet my boys and we’re gonna be waiting for your fat ass and
    I’m taking my game console, my game, my phone, and whatever else I want.
    WHAT EVER I WANT, MAN!
    T-Bone

    * * *
    Listen Pizza Face,
    Seriously, you think a dude that breaks into every house in the world on one night and never
    gets caught sweats a skinny G-banger wannabe? “He sees you when you’re
    sleeping; He knows when you’re awake”. Sound familiar, genius?
    You know what kind of resources I have at my disposal. I got your shit wired, Jack. I go all
    around the world and see ways to hurt people that if I described them right
    now, you’d throw up your Totino’s pizza roll all over the carpet of your mom’s
    basement. You’re not getting what you asked for, but I’m still stopping by your
    crib to stomp a mud hole in your ass and then walk it dry. Chew on that, Petunia.
    S Clizzy

    * * *

    Dear Santa,
    Bring me whatever you see fit. I’ll appreciate anything.
    Timmy

    * * *

    Timmy,
    That’s what I thought you little bastard.
    Santa

    1. Do any children send letters to Santa still – even when they have a fire and chimney to send them up? My grandchildren were very dubious of sending a letter via the fire. Do any Nottlers remember what they wrote as a child. I have one very early memory of writing to Santa – as I hadn’t yet learnt to write I drew what I wanted – a doll. My older brother’s comment on my missive was – you need to put some arms on it or Santa will bring you a doll with no arms.

      2. I saw kids of 7 or 8 queueing up to speak to Santa in the Shopping Precinct yesterday so he is obviously a reality to some!

        1. There is a Santa, at least he is bringing me most of what I asked for, indirectly of course. 😀

          https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.garybarker.co.uk%2Fimages%2Fnigel-farage-caricature.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.garybarker.co.uk%2Fnigel-farage-cartoon-caricature.html&docid=T98bj-ek4-NRFM&tbnid=sxt9kpuuBB5QOM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiZ8uChrbfmAhWHN8AKHSXkAlQQMwhDKAEwAQ..i&w=550&h=389&client=safari&bih=697&biw=1112&q=farage%20caricature&ved=0ahUKEwiZ8uChrbfmAhWHN8AKHSXkAlQQMwhDKAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

        2. Maybe it’s like people clinging on to their chosen religion.
          Don’t make unnecessary enemies.

        3. We told our boys that Father Christmas only brings presents to boys who believe in him – they still believe in him and now they are respectively aged 26 and 24.

      3. I remember sending a note up the chimney at Christmas. I also remember once when my mum, wearing her best Sunday togs and just about to go out was struggling to get the fire going.

        Paraffin, I thought, would do the trick and I duly obliged. Whoosh, it did, but not only the fire but the chimney as well.

        Let’s just say I wasn’t flavour of the month that day.

  54. I see the Metro has a page on “How to cope if your mental health is suffering because of the election result”

    https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/13/cope-mental-health-suffering-election-result-11896602/

    Not a lot of sympathy BTL, but one response stands out:-

    I think that this is a prime indication of how emotionally tied up The Left become to their ideas and causes.
    Because their response is almost entirely emotional, they lack the ability to take that mental step back, accept that they’ve lost and then coldly, dispassionately and pragmatically look at their ideas & those of their opponents to try and see where they went wrong.

    There are a couple of latin phrases they would do well to study:-
    In utramque partem disputare “In both sides of the Dispute”
    A means of coming to terms with and better understanding an opposing argument is to learn to “argue the opposite case”, thus being better armed to dismantle your opponent’s arguments.

    “Audi alteram partem” “listen to the other side”, sometimes quoted as “Audiatur et altera pars” “let the other side be heard as well”
    Give your opponent the chance to put their case. By doing so you can examine their arguments, identify the weak points and better develop your own arguments.

    Of course it is entirely possible that, by taking note of and listening to their opponents arguments, they might actually realise the fallacies of their own argument, but that, of course, is a sign of maturing into adulthood.

    1. Afternoon Bob,
      Let us not forget on many fronts they were a coalition party.
      We ain’t out of the woods yet by a long chalk, I still hear echo’s of 25/6/16 as in
      “job done leave it to the tories” look what happened there.
      I am waiting for the slamming of the Brexitexit door & us practising
      Total severance.

  55. Morning Each,
    This time these Isles have had a reprieve, there will not be another in the future we are at the point of sh!te or bust out completely ie, total severance.
    This time lets remember to place Country before party as we can plainly see the damage the reverse has caused over the last 4 decades.
    Keeping in mind also many of the same politico players that led the country down the pro eu path are still active and in positions of power.

  56. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL1T1EuX0AAoBAh.jpg

    Six psychologists who resigned from England’s flagship National Health

    Service (NHS) child transgender clinic have raised concerns over its

    treatment of children with the mental disorder gender dysphoria, saying

    that they felt pressured to ignore psychological treatment and begin

    hormone treatment for minors.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/15/nhs-is-over-diagnosing-transgender-children-psychologists-warn/

  57. Facts and figures of the election..

    Tory etc Votes – 14.805.631

    Labour etc Votes – 16.662.454

    Love ❤ FPTP ❤

    1. Breakdown of Labour support by Region

      London 49
      South East 8
      West Midlands 15
      North West 41
      East Midlands 8
      East of England 5
      South West 6
      North East 19
      Yorkshire & Humber 28
      Wales 22
      Scotland 1

    1. The Lords went wrong when Tone booted out the hereds so he and George could have more power..

      So bring back the hereditary peerage !

    2. I would agree that it represents nothing but it should! There are sound reasons for having a second house to scrutinise legislation! The Lords has been corrupted as has everything else!

      1. Hereditaries, bishops and law lords only.
        Abolish the Supremely Biassed Court.
        Funny how this country jogged alone reasonably well before the Blair creature and his catam chums decided to modernise everything.

        1. ‘Morning, Anne, as I’m sure you know – my sentiments exactly.

          The Lord’s composition being thus, will allow it to fulful its rôle as so ably described by Minty, earlier.

        2. The befrocked folk should not be in the House.

          “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders
          believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong –
          faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles
          and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush
          until it’s too late.”

          ―

          Frank Herbert.

        3. Having random people in there is just daft. You need people with relevant expertise such as Lawyers, Finance people, Quality people & Engines

          1. Many of the hereditary lords have such qualifications and experience.
            They also think beyond the next five years.
            Many of the Life Peers are lawyers etc….. I can’t say their presence has improved the red benches.

          3. But most do not and the Lords should be dramatically scaled back. About 200 of them is more than enough not 800 odd

      2. The Lords is now packed with failed politicians. I can’t work out whether it was used as a blueprint for the EU or vice versa.

      3. Morning AS,
        Many of the lords cartel are made up from recommendations of corkscrew type party leaders bent on having peoples of the same odious ilk as themselves still having a shout.
        I still maintain that the keep in / keep out voting mode has wreaked major damage on these Isles, the Country must take precedence
        over the party.

          1. Apparently, Einstein said “To do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result is a sign of insanity”.

          2. So he did, Herr Oberst, but I don’t see how that applies here. Do they have a bicameral legislature where you live?

          3. No. Not in Norway.
            Surely one role of the Opposition is to scrutinise and criticise legislation?

          4. ‘Morning, Paul, but give the upper chamber the power and authority to delay faulty legislation for one year, as the Lords used to have such ability, it can work wonders that an opposition cannot execute.

    3. UK Lower House 650 upper house 300 population 65 million
      USA Lower House 435 upper house 100 population 340 million

      What are we doing wrong P.Polly or would you like some of our dead wood ( please)

        1. ‘Morning, Uncle B.
          Which is why we should rid ourselves of that federalism, by removing the costly devolved Assemblies and the Wee Pretendy Parliament and taking the responsibilities for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland back to Westminster, thus allowing us to become the Free, Sovereign and United Kingdom we once were before all this devolution nonsense got out of hand.

      3. The US also has greatly de-centralised governance. Each state has its own legislature with its own Governor. Hence there is no need for a large centralised Government.

      2. When we used to have “O” levels there were CSEs for the less academic children. Greta Thunberg would probably have been in the CSE stream.

        Mind you, a top grade in CSE counted as an “O” level pass. A friend of Caroline’s took CSEs at a very bog-standard comp, passed them all at the top grade went on to do “A” levels and then went to Bath University and got a 2.1 in Engineering.

    2. Deutsche Bahn said: “Dear #Greta, thank you for supporting us railroad workers in the fight against climate change! We were pleased that you were on the ICE 74 with us on Saturday. And with 100 percent green electricity. 1.2”

      And then went on:

      “It would have been even nicer if you had also reported how friendly and competent you were looked after by our team at your seat in first class. #Greta 2/2”

      So she does a Jeremy Corbyn by sitting on the floor between coaches, posing with some random luggage to shew just how green and hard-done-by she is. We’re not fooled you stupid, abused little Thunderbug.

      1. What the silly little git doesn’t realise is that it could be argued that the trains are overcrowded because so many people are wanting to travel ‘green’.

        So her sit-down protest is an Eigentor – an own goal.

  61. I just read the write-up in the Times of what Boris is planning to do. I am aware that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but it is excellent and he seems to have all the right ideas. Whether the rest of the crowd just sit back and let him get on with it will be interesting to see.
    I suspect he has found a few good ways to make more enemies, but I suppose he can cope. Maybe the girl and the dog will help him.

    1. He is in quite a good position he now has a healthy majority over the opposition parties and he drained the swamp of the rebels in the party and given what has happened to the rebels I suspect the few that might be left in the party will think long and hard about rebelling as if they have the whip withdrawn that’s their political career finished

    3. T,
      Actions speak louder than words let us not forget that he was part & parcel of the political tripe that condemn us to
      live in a cesspit of a nation compared to ,not long past, what it once was.

      1. I said, lets see what he does. If he is an opportunist, he has the opportunity to do the right thing. Don’t kick a man when he’s up.

        1. T,
          I am not of the “if he gets it wrong he get it right next time, Gerry Raffety brigade, his past does not instil confidence in one for the future.
          We must make sure he carries no pen abroad.

  62. Heehee – my glee continues unabated and I’ll let it run until reality kicks in. Our local ( to Bristol ) online lefty paper ran an article on some protesters who didn’t like the outcome of the G.E. , comments are allowed on their articles and sometimes run to 4 or 5 desultory cider soaked grizzlings , considering Bristol’s very Labour makeup I was delighted to see that this piece has attracted 93 comments so far all saying in so many words FOAD to the protesters, oh happy days.

    https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/boris-johnson-protests-broadmead-cabot-3643837#comments-section

  63. In the harsh light of this

    brilliant new dawn, the Labour Party has never looked more ugly. Jeremy

    Corbyn is writhing defiance made flesh. Despite leading his party into

    the worst defeat since 1935, he growled in his final speech that his

    manifesto policies had “huge popular support”.

    His frontbench henchmen are out in force on the BBC, whining nasally

    about the difficulties of “cutting through the noise of Brexit” and

    conspiracy theorising the power of “the Murdoch Press”. Meanwhile

    Momentum is squirming stupidly like a snake that has been drained of its

    venom. Its leader Laura Parker can only grudgingly hiss on the airwaves

    about the need for a “period of reflection”.

    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z1hBL2mTET4J:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/14/no-way-back-now-pulverised-pig-headed-labour-party/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b-d

    2. That would be The Glasgow Magdalene Institution (Glasgow’s Magdalene Institution for the Repression of Vice and Rehabilitation of Penitent Females) then.

  65. Good Morning Folks,

    Sunny and bright out, but a bit chilly.

    Might put the outside Christmas lights up today and maybe shovel up the leaves that have turned to sludge on the drive.

  66. I was just thinking when Boris makes his first speech in the new Parliament that he should begin with, ” Now since Mrs Thatcher was so rudely interrupted -“

    1. And then in the same vein:

      ” ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error,
      may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where
      there is despair, may we bring hope’ … … . and to all the British people—howsoever they voted—may I say this….

      3. But a little gloating first wouldn’t go amiss. Just like with forgiveness, both sides have to want it. Labour are still in denial.

    2. Perhaps he should start by saying “Victory is sweet”. That will p*ss off Labour, LibDems, SNP, Plaid Cymru etc.

        1. He did mastermind a very successful campaign, though he prefers to remain modest and in the anonymous shadows about that!

  69. The Future of the Car Industry

    One can reasonably say the car industry is a mature market and is not going to see growth in fact the greater probability is it will decline as there will be a move to public transport in the larger urban areas. Tax changes may also affect the market

      1. I dont think we are talking that extreme but it will certainly decline. In rural areas a car is pretty much essential as little public transport will exist but in the large towns and cities I can see car travel declining rapidly

        If you take London if they keep going don the battery powered car route there is the practicability of it. Most home in London dont have garages or driveways so just charging the cars presents a big problem

  70. Almost threw my cofffee cup at the TV .. Marr and the disgusting McDonnell .. the latter in full snide mood .. and not accepting responsibility for the Labour collapse ..

    Serves me right for putting Marr on .

    1. Yo T_B

      Muck D is distancing himself from Corbynski

      He will sit on the Backbenches, until he decides who his next glove puppet will be

      As we used to say

      Nowt to do wiv me Chief: A big boy did it an runaway

    3. I love Marr! Isn’t it fantastic how he still doesn’t understand? That stroke must have destroyed more of his brain than we thought.

    4. Why do you bother?
      Start the day with tea, coffee and snuggled-down dogs.
      Works better than any pill.

    5. We stopped a while ago. Our Sunday mornings are much improved.

      Good morning to you and R, Maggie!

    1. Lower down this forum, I see she has said that the claim was “a lie”.

      Being a politician, I don’t imagine Lady Nugatory even knows how to tell the truth.

        1. Thank you. It was a pleasant break – I did try the odd comment on a couple of other forums – but the people were SO RUDE.

          Nah – house still unsold. Two young people came today on behalf of the girl’s mother – they liked it and thought she would. Another couple coming tomorrow….

          1. Do you have a link to an estate agents site, Bill? A friend is looking around down there, might be worth a punt…

          4. It is, Missus. We have had 35 wonderful years. But life moves on. We have huge plans for the next 35 years…. staying alive being foremost! Lots of travel to other places. Whoever buys this house will love it as we do. But we will not miss it. End of chapter, new page etc etc.

          6. Thanks. We know! The girl who came round today (on behalf of her mother) is an architect and was well impressed (as they say these days).

          9. I trust that you and the Most Recent will have the final two photos framed and hung in your UK house to remind you of your French garden Trombetti plants.

            :-))

    2. Almost certainly didn’t say it but veery single onne of those scum thinks it. They’re sanctimonious sewage who need a beating.

      1. Hindsight is a wonderful thing !

        Labour’s Emily Thornberry quits over ‘snobby’ tweet
        21 November 2014

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30139832

        Emily Thornberry has resigned from Labour’s front bench after sending a tweet during the Rochester and Strood by-election which was branded “snobby”.

        The shadow attorney general apologised for the message, which showed a terraced house with three England flags, and a white van parked outside.

        UKIP said she had “sneered, and looked down her nose at a white van in Strood with the cross of St George on it”.

        Labour leader Ed Miliband was “angry” at her, a senior figure told the BBC.

        The resident of the house, Dan Ware, said Ms Thornberry – the MP for Islington South and Finsbury – was a “snob”.

        Mr Ware, a car dealer, said he would never vote for Labour in the future, adding that it did not “matter” who was in government.

        “I think they (Labour) need to get out of their mansions and visit the working class. Her and Ed (Miliband) should come and say sorry to me.”

        Ms Thornberry posted the image on Thursday, while voting was taking place in the by-election in Kent. Alongside the picture, she wrote: “Image from Rochester.”

        Labour came third in the high-profile poll behind UKIP, which won the seat and saw its second MP elected to Westminster.

    1. Politicos of colour want to be ‘Britains’ Obama’? Whatever happened to genuine aspiration?

  77. There are some bastards about, and not just in the Labour party.
    A small dog was found in a plastic bag, dumped in a stream, with her paws taped together.
    Fortunately, she survived following treatment at the Vet School, and is well again. The owner has been arrested and interviewed by the Police, and the case isn’t closed, but the dog has been rehomed.
    https://www.budstikka.no/dyr/hund-teipet-og-dumpet-i-bekk/555438!/

    2. For such a crime, you skip all the nonsense of a judge and you just flog them. I dunno, 2, 300 lashes? To the face?

      In fact I tihnk that’s being nice, so I won’t say what i would do to them. It’s probably illegal. A hot poker up the arse would be a starting point, following by to each eye… no, then they couldn’t see you cutting off their toes, knuckle by knuckle.

      So yes, the eyes last. Once they’ve no fingers, toes, the knees are smashed with a lump hammer and of course, castrated. Using a wire wound around it and a truck.

      I’ll stop there as I’m probably giving away how horrible I am.

  82. Douglas Murray

    As it happens, I share the views of the

    majority of the country. I have seen the Leftist robots up close for

    years. I have sat in halls and studios with them and been insulted by

    them just as the rest of the general public have.

    They

    have called me a ‘Little Englander’ because I happen to think that our

    country isn’t a good fit with the EU. They have called me a ‘racist’ and

    ‘scum’ because I’m concerned about too-high levels of immigration. They

    have called me a ‘bigot’ and a ‘transphobe’ because I refuse to pretend

    that biological sex does not exist.

    And

    amazingly, at the end of all that, I felt no more desire to vote for

    them than I had beforehand. I suspect the general public have the same

    view.

    Needless to say the message still hasn’t sunk in.

    Immediately

    after Thursday’s exit polls emerged, the former journalist Paul Mason

    declared that the Conservative victory signalled ‘a victory of the old

    over the young, racists over people of colour, selfishness over the

    planet’.

    During demonstrations in

    Westminster on Friday night, other sore losers congregated to attack the

    police and insult our democracy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7793275/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-Britains-divide-ugly-intolerant-Left-rest-us.html

    1. But so deranged are many on the Left that they think that the BBC is right-wing and Brexit-supporting. It really is quite astonishing.

    2. A BTL from the above article

      Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead 15 Dec 2019 5:36PM

      Bad losers. The beeboids and all the rest of them.

      (Bill Thomas)

          2. Sosraboc and Phizzee: You two are perhaps the most objectionable NoTTLers on this site. Or have you both taken drink tonight?

    3. I can remember buying a pair of crepe soled shoes that came back in the 70s, bit heavy but really nice to walk in, wouldn’t mind another pair now

    4. I read they’d been No Platformed at the University of Stupidity. They even banned a sole singer the other week.

      1. Ungrateful foreign git more like…

        He was given everything here – paid for by our taxpayers. The sooner he b***ers off the better. Unfortunately, he won’t. It’s too cushy here.

        1. Adonis (what a misnomer) is not about to give up his attendance allowance and expenses from the House of Lords, nor the multiple lucrative business opportunities open to him through his access to politicians.

          His vanity and self-interest won’t permit him to leave the UK – in Cyprus, he’d be just another ‘Bubble’.

          1. I went to see him at a local meeting, just to see what he was like. A good speaker, admittedly but out of his mouth came misquotes from Churchill and general cr*p He lied his way through his talk, but did it entertainingly..

        2. Just like Babbling Brown,how many times has she promised to leave……………….
          Smug lying cow

    2. What happened all those of Irish heritage who, after the referendum, were applying for Irish passports?
      Has the Irish population doubled yet?

  87. Sorry to be the skeleton at the feast, but Boris needs to justify why we only seem to give “sanctuary” to muslims – the belief that wants to take us over.

    Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: Europe’s Solitary Defender of Persecuted Christians
    by Giulio Meotti • December 15, 2019 at 5:00 am

    “Those we are helping now can give us the greatest help in saving Europe. We are giving persecuted Christians what they need: homes, hospitals, and schools, and we receive in return what Europe needs most: a Christian faith, love and perseverance”. — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Daily News Hungary, November 28, 2019.

    “Our estimation is that more than 90 percent of Christian have already left Iraq and almost 50 percent of Christians in Syria have left the country”. — Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church.

    European leaders, rather than being embarrassed, should make the condition of Christians under Islam the starting point of their conversations with Muslims.

    “The fate of Eastern Christians and other minorities is the prelude to our own fate.” — Former French Prime Minister François Fillon, Valeurs Actuelles, December 12, 2019.

    In Europe, there is a solitary defender of persecuted Christians: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom the mainstream media love to attack. No other European government has invested so much money, public diplomacy and time on this topic. (Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Getty Images)
    “There is an ongoing persecution of Christians. For months, we bishops have been denouncing what is happening in Burkina Faso” Bishop Kjustin Kientega recently said, “but nobody is listening to us.” “Evidently”, he concluded, “the West is more concerned with protecting its own interests”.

    In a recent series of a transnational tragedies, 14 Christians were murdered in an attack on a church in Burkina Faso, 11 Christians were murdered in an attack on a bus in Kenya and seven Christians were murdered by Boko Haram in Cameroon. These three deadly attacks by Islamists in the same week give an idea of the intensity and frequency of global anti-Christian persecution.

    Bishop Kientega was reporting a fact: the West is not listening to their plight. “While the Belgian government decided in 2011 to send F-16s to Libya to protect civilians threatened by Gaddafi, in 2014 it took no concrete measures to help the minorities in Iraq”, wrote Le Vif.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15285/viktor-orban-persecuted-christians

    2. The civil service is incapable of being reduced.

      Yes Minister got it right, exposed all the tactics decades ago.

      Look at council tax. Every year it goes up. Every year pay is frozen (for the ground troops), more money is taken but none of it goes to the service it was supposed to. All that happens is more people get hired to administrate the extra cash.

      The civil service gets bigger, less efficient, which demands more money which then is spent hiring more people to be even less efficient and ultimately nothing gets done at all but a large number of utter unnecessary jobs are created at immense cost and the fat cats get fatter. Executive salaries only ever rise. Put council tax rises commensurate with executive level pay reductions at a 1:10% ratio and council tax won’t go up for decades. It’s just plain greed.

  90. That’s me for today. Miserable weather forecast tomorrow – just when I planned to take down the tomato frame.

    Perhaps God will change his mind overnight.

    TTFN

      1. I need ’em broader but not longer. It appears that my feet have got wider, or they’re making shoes more slim.

          2. Yes, and slightly better since they were reintroduced after a period of unavailability. It’s a good idea to buy at least a half size bigger than you need and if necessary insert a support sole or space filler. My ordinary (town) shoe size is 10 but with these I’ve had 11, 10½ and 11.

    6. Buy dead mans shoes on ebay or amazon. You can get real decent shoes that would cost you £200 for £20. Plus you are doing the widow a favour.

      1. Hotter shoes are good.
        From a girlie point of view, they are still colourful and stylish while being (dread word) comfortable.

          1. Are they? I knew there were wide fits, but didn’t realise they were for girlies only.
            Both MB and I find their shoes light and comfortable without sacrificing the fun element.

    8. I went for Crocs over 10 years ago. I have over a dozen pairs & rarely wear anything else on my feet. Really comfortable.

    10. It’s difficult to find shoes that fit me at 40. Oddly despite having a specific set of shoe sizes which define length, width and so on, they actually don’t conform to those standards so a 13 by one maker is a 12 in another. Stupid and pointless having a fixed measurement.

    1. R3’s Christmas around Europe EBU relay is playing an arrangement that carol in Serb as I type!
      Beautiful.

      1. Thanks for the tip. I have to admit for all its political bias, the BBC’s Sounds website is marvellous for getting an instant replay. So I’m able to enjoy the carol as I type.

    2. She has a nice voice but she is an IRA supporter and then became a Nun and then converted to Islam. She’s as mad as a box of frogs and i wouldn’t pay for her music.

    3. A deci-polar person

      She is an Independent Catholic priest, rejecting the authority of Rome. She is openly bisexual,[2] and has four children, each by a different father.[3] All her four marriages ended in divorce.[3] She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005.[3]

      She has released nine studio albums. Her most recent album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? was released in 2012. She released the second single from it, “4th and Vine” in February 2013.

      In October 2018, O’Connor she had converted to Islam, calling it “the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey.”[4][5]

      https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor

      3. You can find humour in the darkest of places at times:

        “Muslims Plead With Catholic Church To Take Sinéad O’Connor Back. (November 10th 2018.)

        After two weeks of having Sinéad O’Connor as a member of their faith, Muslims have already had enough and have asked the Catholic Church to take her back. The Irish singer has been posting all sorts of profanity filled nonsense on Twitter over the last few days and the initial warm welcome by her legions of new Muslim followers is fading rapidly.

        Imam Ali Bin Mustafi of the Dublin Islamic Centre said this morning “Em, yeah, come to think of it Islam probably isn’t right for her. It seemed like a good idea at the time but we prefer our women to be a bit more non-sweary. A bit more in the background and a bit less in your face. Sorry it didn’t work out but thanks for applying and best of luck in your future endeavours.”

        This afternoon the Catholic Church in Ireland issued a statement in response to the request to take Sinéad O’Connor back which simply read “LOL! She’s yours now lads. Have fun.”

        http://irelandoncraic.com/muslims-plead/

        1. (Just in case anyone didn’t guess from the last paragraph – it is not a serious website. 🙂 But it was quite funny, as was their “follow-up” story:

          “Sinéad O’Connor Converts To Hinduism After Realising Muslims Don’t Drink.

          Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor has become a Hindu after spending just a few days as a Muslim. The troubled star said she thought Islam was the religion for her until she suddenly discovered one aspect of being a Muslim that she wasn’t previously aware of.

          “Did you know those people don’t drink? Why didn’t anyone tell me Muslims don’t drink? I mean seriously, I know I’ve had mental health issues but sweet mother of Jaysus I haven’t gone completely fuc*ing mad.”

          Meanwhile the Hari Krishna Society of Ireland have decided to shut down their temple in Dublin and pull out of the country with immediate effect after strong rumours began circulating that they’re next on the singer’s list.”

  95. “Emily Thornberry consulting lawyers as she denies ex-Labour MP’s claim that she called Leave voters ‘stupid'”

    I don’t know why she is bothering. It is a complete misunderstanding.

    Leave Voters called her stupid.

    1. She’s probably upset because she called Leave voters far worse than “stupid” and doesn’t want to be thought to be too soft on the Tory scum!?

    5. Reminds me of the British actor about to film a love scene who used to say to his leading lady “Forgive me if I do, and forgive me if I don’t”.

          4. No. It’s Sarah Olney.
            The ‘new’ MP for Richmond. She both preceded and succeeded Zac Goldsmith.

    3. That could just as easily be the result of smoking ordinary tobacco – it rots the gums & the teeth drop out.

  99. For those with some persistence, I reckon this is a presciient and rewarding analysis from late-October:


    The closing of the conservative mind: Politics and the art of war

    Rather than being the creation of a fanatical Eurosceptic minority, Tory populism is a sign that the Conservative Party is reinventing itself again just as Britain becomes ungovernable.

    BY JOHN GRAY
    The current parliament has run its course. Fuelled by a mix of calculating opportunism, ideological immobility and rancorous emotion, the House of Commons has slid into factionalised anarchy. In the course of this descent, politics has become an exercise in irregular warfare.

    A common response to this situation is that it reflects a crisis of conservatism. The Tory party has become a revolutionary sect under the control of the Robespierre-like figure of Dominic Cummings. The solution to Britain’s ills, some have argued, is to return to true conservatism as expressed in the enduring verities of Edmund Burke. Instead of abstract ideas and principles, politicians should rely on the slowly accumulated wisdom of past generations. Practice and tradition, not theories spun from the conceit of human reason, should be the basis of government.

    No discussion in polite society of the state of politics is complete without a reverential genuflection to the 18th-century parliamentarian. Get rid of Cummings and Boris Johnson, along with the right-wing libertarians in the cabinet, recover Burkean moderation, and all will be well.

    It is a familiar narrative in the opinion-forming classes, and all the more appealing for being baseless. The notion that Conservatives have ceased to be conservative ignores transformations in other parts of the political spectrum. Labour has also abandoned any small-c conservative disposition and become a vehicle for anti-Semitism and a version of Marxism that deems working-class values of place and community racist when they are expressed as concern about continuing mass immigration. The Liberal Democrats have become hyper-liberals, making the nullification of a clear democratic mandate their signature policy. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is not simply a right-wing splinter movement but a response to a state of affairs in which large sections of the population are unrepresented. Rather than being the creation of Boris Johnson and a fanatical Eurosceptic minority, Tory populism is a sign of the Conservative Party reinventing itself – as it has done many times before – in order to survive.

    Burke has been resurrected by self-styled moderates because he lets them off the hook. Having previously supported the American Revolution, he reacted to the French Revolution in his celebrated Reflections of 1790 with uncomprehending horror. Burke was unhinged by the revolution in France because it subverted his Whig belief that incremental progress was part of a providential design ordained by God. Prescient in predicting the Terror, he ended up regarding the French Revolution as divine punishment for human sinfulness. The ideas that fuelled popular discontent were demonic lies, used by wicked demagogues to appeal to the base instincts and low intelligence of the masses. The people had been prised from their proper deference to higher minds, and chaos and tyranny ensued.

    For centrists rattled by the rise of populism it is a flattering tale. No responsibility for the condition of politics is ascribed to them. Reason has been tossed aside because the masses – encouraged by amoral rabble-rousers – have been allowed to vent their ignorant passions. It is not hard to detect the reek of class hatred in this ruling liberal narrative. But there is something more powerful here than mere snobbery: the belief that politics can be governed by formulas derived from some large theory. In the past, such theories were derived from Marxism and positivism, utilitarianism and Fabianism, among other ideologies. Today they emanate from the prevailing variety of rights-based liberalism promoted by philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. The key feature of this liberalism is that it transfers decision-making from political to judicial institutions. Liberals are turning to law to entrench values and policies for which they cannot secure democratic assent.

    When Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the Prime Minister acted unlawfully when he prorogued parliament, it argued that it was simply restoring authority to parliament, and in particular the House of Commons. In this sense, the judgment can be interpreted as a conservative ruling. Yet it would be disingenuous to pretend that the Supreme Court has left everything as it was. Until the court’s verdict, there were no legal standards against which the prorogation could be assessed; a significant body of expert opinion believed and still believes the question was not justiciable. By setting a precedent for further judicial intervention, the ruling has initiated a fundamental shift in British government away from the executive and towards the legislature and the courts.

    Inevitably, there will be more lawsuits attempting to overturn what were once accepted to be political decisions. As a consequence, it may not be long before judges are chosen by a political process, as in the United States. In a recent speech in the Commons, the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox raised the possibility that Supreme Court judges could be appointed after being questioned in parliament.

    Pressure for a written constitution will increase. But since a trusted institution where such a document could be written cannot be found or established when politics is so intensely polarised, the process will be bitterly contested. Given the beliefs and attitudes of many lawyers, the likely upshot would be to entrench today’s version of liberal values, which large sections of the population do not share. In that event, the descent of politics into warfare, ever more nasty and brutish, will continue.

    ***

    Since liberals exculpate themselves from any responsibility for this situation, it is only to be expected that they should pin the blame on an ideological takeover on the right. My own earlier work may have played a minor role in shaping this curious view. In The Undoing of Conservatism, a pamphlet published by the Social Market Foundation in 1994, I argued that conservative thinking had become an unstable mix of neoliberal economics with cultural traditionalism. The effect of free markets is to subvert inherited ways of life. The restless mobility of capital and labour makes any strong attachment to a particular place or company dysfunctional. An unceasing stream of new technologies undermines life-long careers, while the privileging of choice in the market promotes a transactional view of human relations throughout society. Friedrich Hayek and his followers promoted an ideology in which economic life could be a vortex of creative destruction while communal, familial and personal life remained governed by traditional norms.

    It was a fantastical combination, and something had to give. Conservative movements would fracture, some holding to doctrinaire free-market ideology and others embracing reactionary nativism, as has since happened on the American right and in European countries such as Sweden and Germany. In power, conservative parties would try to combine the two, but the balancing act would be difficult. The scale of social dislocation produced by unfettered markets would unleash powerful forces, which conservative parties and governments could not control. I did not suggest that “true conservatism” – if such a thing ever existed – could be recovered. Rather, I suggested that if conservative thinking was to have a future it would have to renew itself in a post-liberal form – one that renounced hyperbolic market individualism while securing personal freedom and social cohesion under the aegis of a strong state.

    Since then, the undoing of conservatism has been completed by the centre right. David Cameron and George Osborne promoted a neoliberalism more extreme than any entertained by Margaret Thatcher. While Osborne oversaw an austerity campaign that ravaged core structures of the state – the police and the armed forces as well as welfare services – Cameron’s deadly mix of the Brexit referendum with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act has left Britain in effect ungovernable. It was these self-styled modernisers that led the country to its present impasse, and it has been the ultras of the extreme centre that have locked us into it.

    Centre ground: Edmund Burke is venerated as a moderate conservative and anti-populist

    ***

    The proximate cause of the breakdown in British politics is the extreme lengths to which the Remainer elite has gone in their attempt to derail Brexit. Hard Brexiteers also sought to derail Theresa May’s agreement because they wanted no deal; but most proved ready to compromise when the time for a final decision arrived. In contrast, for the haute-Remainers that dominate many public institutions there can be only one rational position. For them, Brexit is not a political issue but an eschatological struggle between light and darkness.

    The haute-Remainer mind is an example of what the 20th century’s subtlest and most original conservative philosopher called political rationalism. Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) used the term to describe totalitarian ideologies such as Leninism and National Socialism, but he was clear that any kind of political tradition could succumb to rationalist ideology – including conservatism. (His own version of conservatism – an ultra-liberal variety, in which the ideal role of the state was that of an umpire – itself did.) The core of rationalism in politics is an idea of politics itself. Rather than being a practice in which people negotiate the terms on which they co-exist with one another, politics means the imposition of an idea. The idea is self-evidently true; anyone who questions it is ignorant and stupid, or else wilfully malignant. Though they claim to embody reason in politics, haute-Remainers cling to a view of the EU in which facts are secondary or irrelevant. They fulminate on the dangers of Brexit without ever mentioning that Paris has been convulsed by riots while Barcelona has become the scene of mass demonstration, burning streets and police violence. No mere fact can be allowed to cloud the vision of a sacred institution.

    This kind of thinking underlies many of the absurdities of politics at the present time, on left and right. When the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt praised the EU as an emerging empire at the Liberal Democrat conference last month, the assembled delegates could hardly restrain their enthusiasm. The dream of a future European empire supplies an alternative patriotism for progressives who despise the nation-state. In practice the European project has itself become a variety of nationalism, though it celebrates a nation that does not exist. The reality throughout the continent is the onward march of nationalists of a more familiar kind. Like much of the rest of Europe, Verhofstadt’s native Belgium is rotten with far-right movements, which his hyper-federal project would only further empower. Preferring not to face these realities, the liberals who cheered him are possessed by a grand idea.

    Oakeshott understood politics as a practical skill. In a celebrated essay, he wrote:

    In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel; the sea is both friend and enemy, and the seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behaviour in order to make a friend of every hostile occasion.

    It is a poetic and (to my mind) true image of the open-ended nature of politics. The flaw is in Oakeshott’s understanding of tradition. He writes as if there is a body of practice, uncorrupted by theorising, to which conservatives could revert. Here he is not unlike Burke. During the dozen or so years in which I knew and talked with Oakeshott he rarely mentioned “the founder of modern conservatism” and never with approval. He disliked Burke’s Whiggish faith in progress and much preferred the cool scepticism of David Hume. But Oakeshott’s idea of tradition has many of the difficulties of Burke’s defence of what he described as “just prejudice”. Both of them preferred the tacit knowledge embodied in practices to the abstractions of rationalist intellectuals. They passed over the fact that tacit knowledge often consists of fossilised remnants of fashionable ideas.

    The experience of the French arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) may be worth recalling. At the start of the 19th century he was sent to Russia as a diplomat. An ardent opponent of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, he hoped to visit a country that had not been “scribbled on” by intellectuals. What he found was aristocratic elites babbling about Voltaire and Diderot. Then as now, there was no traditional wisdom to which a conservative could default.

    Today the tacit understanding of liberals in all parties is that the world would be far more civilised if the grubby business of politics was replaced by the legal adjudication of justice and rights. The evidence for this view is – shall we say – patchy. In the US, Donald Trump’s capture of the White House enabled him to begin reshaping the judicial system, including the Supreme Court. When political issues become the province of courts, the law is politicised. At the same time, because so many are unrepresented and the void left by liberal legalism must somehow be filled, politics becomes more polarised and vicious.

    ***

    It is a meme among bien-pensants that Britain’s disorder is the work of Dominic Cummings, among others in the Johnson government. Cummings’s penchant for the ancient Chinese text The Art of War is cited as showing his disdain for traditional ways of conducting politics. Yet he is not alone in thinking of politics as a branch of warfare. Putin’s close adviser, Vladislav Surkov, the postmodern media guru, pseudonymous novelist and theorist of hybrid warfare; Steve Bannon, the head of Trump’s presidential campaign and short-lived White House consigliere; Seamus Milne, Wykehamist, Bolshevik and chief architect of the crumbling Corbyn project – each of these have approached politics as an exercise in warfare. What is significant in Cummings is not any supposed commitment to hard-right ideology. While he may admire Bismarckian statecraft, the more important point is that for him strategy takes priority over any ideology.

    There is nothing singularly British in this development. Though the term political technology first emerged in post-communist Russia to describe the use of new media in military-style strategies of deception, it is something practised in many countries. The mutation of politics into warfare is contagious in much the same way that freedom was once supposed to be contagious.

    The technologists of power are today’s true rationalists. That superior intelligence is found among the practitioners of populism is a fact of our time. When liberals talk about reason they mean a mishmash of ideas they picked up at university. Scraps of Rawls, Dworkin and Thomas Piketty, together with a smattering of modish conspiracy theories, form the folk wisdom of the thinking classes. Rationality means deferring to this ragbag of ephemera and ignoring enduring truths about the deciding forces in politics.

    Liberals have become what John Stuart Mill, describing mid-Victorian Tories, called “the stupidest party”. Stupidity in politics is not an inert condition. It is dynamic, inventive and cumulative. The Remainer elite believe they can reverse Brexit by bypassing democratic politics: incessant legal challenges and procedural machinations in the Commons will be followed by a referendum without a no-deal option; an all-Remainer “government of national unity” will oversee the process. Of course, this would involve a good deal of political chicanery, particularly between the SNP and Labour. But the aim is to return to a sunlit place where politics is once again under the control of higher minds. Some Brexiteers have bought into this story, seeing haute-Remainers as diabolically clever conspiracists who have succeeded in denying the people what they voted for. The chief feature of the story, however, is that the politics do not add up.

    An enduring Remainer coup is a fantasy. The EU cannot negotiate with a shifting coalition of opposition MPs or a recklessly partisan Speaker, nor could it rely on a jerry-built “temporary government” the largest part of which would be a chronically divided party, whose leader will likely be gone in months. A rigged referendum excluding no deal may be the plan, but it would also exclude around a third of the electorate. Like a written constitution, a second referendum would have to be drafted by a body that is trusted to be impartial – a type of institution that, the monarchy aside, no longer exists. Any idea that a “confirmatory” referendum cobbled up by the Remainer political classes could bring closure to Brexit is laughable. Equally, the predictable result of revoking Article 50 – in the event there were ever a Commons majority for such a move – would be to trigger a major populist challenge to the legitimacy of parliament.

    ***

    The Remainer elite has been guided by the ruling philosophy of liberal legalism, which is essentially anti-political. But sooner or later, politics is bound to assert its primacy over legal and procedural manoeuvres. Despite talk of a pact with the Liberal Democrats, Tory Remainers are all but extinct as an electoral force. Driving them out of the party may be a prerequisite of its continued existence as a party of government. Without the constant threat of a mutinous faction, Johnson is more likely to achieve a workable majority. If he can attract most Brexit Party voters, he could win by a landslide.

    The most serious electoral threat to the Johnson government comes from Nigel Farage. Under the leadership of Corbyn and Milne, Labour has reached a dead end. Becoming an all-out Remain party will not help. It is too late. There already is a party for the woke bourgeoisie – Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats. (Though it is unclear what the party’s reason for existence will be once Britain has left the EU. If it becomes a Rejoin party it could end up a bien-pensant version of Ukip, beached on the fringes of politics.) Labour’s economic programme – the only part of the Corbyn project that was ever popular – has been superseded by Johnson’s strategic break with austerity. But Johnson needs to go further if he is to defuse the threat from Farage. Brexit Party voters are the key to winning a majority, and many belong in the social group most hostile to globalisation.

    Ukip in its earlier days contained a faction that was critical of corporate capitalism. But Farage has never wavered in his commitment to libertarian economics, and today this is a clear vulnerability. Johnson has to show he is committed to using the power of the state to repair the damage inflicted on society by markets, something that Theresa May and her adviser Nick Timothy briefly aspired to do.

    ***

    The future of the British state is at the heart of the crisis. Remainers repeat that no deal would mean the break-up of the United Kingdom. But if Brexit were reversed through a Labour deal with the SNP, another Scottish referendum could have the same result. The break-up of the UK may be the price of staying in the EU. Remainers point to the threat of a hard border in Ireland in the event of no deal. But a hard border will be imposed by Brussels, in order to protect the single market, not by Westminster or Dublin. Whether the EU wants to keep an unstable and obstructive state in the fold is another question.

    Though they have yet to recognise the fact, Britain’s haute-Remainers have ceased to be useful allies for the EU. If Remainers persist in their wrecking tactics and their delusion that Brexit can be reversed by another referendum, they will find themselves cut loose by Brussels with the same ruthlessness with which Johnson despatched the DUP. One way or another Brexit is going to happen, and for the EU the best way is via the swift passage of Johnson’s deal. The effect of any further delay will be to increase the prospect of a disorderly exit. The EU will be extremely reluctant to incur the responsibility for no deal. But its leaders are notably more intelligent than haute-Remainers, and recognise that continuing uncertainty is the worst outcome of all.

    As Thomas Hobbes learnt from the English Civil War, the deciding factor in politics is the need for a state with the power to act. Hobbes thought of the state as a way of escaping what he regarded as the natural human condition – continuous mistrust and conflict. Paradoxically, the upshot of British politics over the past several years has been an artificial state of nature. It is possible that Britain will continue to drift, a semi-failed state without a functioning government. But if the impact of Brexit is to reconfigure British politics, victory will not go to the forces that have paralysed government. The winner will be the party that can act resolutely and secure a period of peace.

    John Gray is the New Statesman’s lead book reviewer. His latest book is The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/10/closing-conservative-mind-politics-and-art-war

    3. “The Tory party has become a revolutionary sect under the control of the Robespierre-like figure of Dominic Cummings…Get rid of Cummings and Boris Johnson, along with the right-wing libertarians in the cabinet…and all will be well.”

      He’s partly correct…

    4. Are these Guardian commenters?

      As it reads like a child laying on the floor of Tesco having a tantrum for not being able to have one pack of sausages over another.

      It is petulance writ large.

      Perhaps it’s a terror of a future where they are rendered irrelevant and proven both hysterical and idiotic?

  102. Non-payment of TV licence fee could be decriminalised

    Makes no real difference. Few people are jailed for non payment in spite of the medias claim. You would only get jailed if you just refused to pay
    Even if decriminalized action could still be taken under civil law in fact it may make it easier as the bailiffs could be sent in

    1. Maybe its a ploy, as when the courts are filled with non payers, the next step is to suggest getting rid of the fee. Nothing to do with the Beeb, of course, just to save on court time. A nudge is as good as a wink….

    2. “You have a TV receiver capable of getting live broadcasts,you are guilty,pay up”
      “Do you own a car Mr Capita?”
      “Yes”
      “Can it do 100mph??”
      “Yes”

      “So if I issue you a speeding ticket you’ll pay it??”
      “That’s different”

      1. Not correct it is a common myth that having a TV capable of receiving TV programs is an offence. IT is not although the BBC tried to claim it was at one time. The BBC have to prove you are watching TV without a licence (It does not matter what station). With the demise of CRT screens it is quite difficult as detector vans can no longer work most never did and were dummys. With CRT screens it could be done but is not easy and in many cases although they could detect a TV they could not prove what house it was in

        1. I can assure you Bill that at least the 1980s crop weren’t dummies and they definitely worked but as you needed to do up to 3 ( number of channels at the time) low speed runs back and forth per channel in a great lumbering Dodge van with the last run generating photographic evidence (L.O. Spectrum) on a Polaroid camera mounted on a spectrum analyser – well needless to say any offending set had long since disappeared over the back fence before the process was complete.

          1. Some did some were just dummys . The accuracy of the equipment was not good even today if we take GPS it is only accurate to about 7 metres

            Most of the TV licence enforcement relied on bluff. To get an accurate fix on a TV in an urban environment you would need to use triangulation

          2. The GPS we put in cars may be inaccurate, and I’m sure that you are right on this. The GPS used for positioning supply ships next to oil platforms is accurate to within 2 or 3 centimetres. it is rather more costly than the things sold in Halfords, which are really toys for motorists. (In my opinion, having only ever used maps.). Supply ships and oil platforms are expensive so it is worth paying th extra.

          3. My phone knows whether I’m at the front or back of my house and can track me down the garden, that’s accurate enough for me!

          4. Exactly.
            While the US military insisted on degraded accuracy, you would set up a beacon on the location, and use Differential gps to get cm accuracy on location.

          5. That’s because presumably they use differential GPS, which can be as accurate as 10cm. It requires GPS receivers on both the rig and the ship. Taking the difference in the signals removes most of the uncertainty in path length caused by the GPS signals passing through the atmosphere.

          7. Thanks AA/Oberst. I’ve not paid attention to details, although SiL sometimes has the job of parking next to oil rigs. He is an officer on a supply boat and that kind of parking required extensive training. The “boats” weigh up to 5000 tonnes so even a small dunt would be a bad thing.

          8. I worked , maintained , operated and calibrated (weekly) that particular fleet. The accuracy was very good ( it had to be to be admissible evidence ) for location but not height or depth but I will be the first to admit it was unreliable and as far as I know was never used in a prosecution as evidence so for all intents and purposes it might have well have been a dummy, I wish it had been because the aerial system was an absolute bitch to calibrate and maintain.

          9. Because any decent expert witness would pull the BBC claim to pieces

            They were useful for bluff for example in later years they hew who ha a licence and who had a TV. So pull up near the house and point the aerial towards the house

          10. If the tv isn’t on then they couldn’t detect it anyway. The enforcers can come to your door but you don’t have to let them in (it says so on your licence). I can’t imagine them coming to my area it’s so sparsely inhabited and the local facebook page would quickly advise people without licences to turn off their tv

          12. I believe they used to pick up radio signals from an oscillator in the TV set.
            On that theme, I did hear a tale that a rather savvy Coastal Command aircrew caused the Germans a few problems during his post capture interrogation.
            The German U-boats had been using a detector to warn them of radar equipped aircraft with considerable success for a period when, quite suddenly, U-boat losses began to mount again.
            When questioned, the airman let slip a cock & bull story of how the aircraft were equipped with sensitive detectors that would pick up the radar detectors on the U-boats, causing the Germans to order their U-boats to stop using the detector.
            In reality, Coastal Command had moved to a new radar system that operated on an extremely high frequency, much higher than the old system.

          13. 10/10 – the 7/80s detectors relied on the radiation ( non-ionising of course ) of the TV’s local oscillator which was as I remember about 35Mhz below the transmitted frequency. I believe the urban myth about carrots being good for the eyesight had similar origins to cover the early WW2 radar success.

          14. But that was the old BBC, so we didn’t mind paying. As soon as LCD TVs became common, with no EHT to emit RF, they were dead.

        2. Remember when they used to detect people from the yawning sounds they made watching all those repeats over the Christmas period ?

          1. The other favorite lie of the BBC was they had the right of entry. They do not without a court order and to get that they would need to provide evidence that a TV was being used without a licence . Just saying the house had no TV licence and they had been notified that a TV had been purchased would not get them a court order

      1. There’s still time for him. He is 35 and if he makes it to 70 then he is only half way through his life.

        With the current levels of migration into the West, the world is going to look very different in 35 years time. One way or the other we will know how the religious war for survival turned out, if it is finished by then.

  105. A posting in ConHome.

    “Rosa Prince, Telegraph

    “If you do not change course, Anne Milton, a former minister and MP for Guildford warned, the Remain-backing Surrey town would be lost for the Conservatives at the next election.

    “Well Guildford will have to go then,” was the Prime Minister’s response. The bluntness of his retort came as a shock to those gathered at No 10 – and was greeted with alarm by fellow Tory Remainers, taken as a sign of hubris from a new prime minister who would have been wiser to build bridges within his party rather than pick fights.

    Three months on, and it is clear that those seven words spoken to Mrs Milton were the first glimpse of a brilliant strategy which has delivered to the Conservatives their biggest majority since the Thatcher era.”

    Anne Milton is a disgrace to the NUSA – National Union of Sensible Annes.

    1. Rosa Prince failed to notice that Milton came fourth. Around these Guildfordy parts we reckon she only stood as an Independent so she could lose, and claim her redundancy package.

    1. The start of a new career for Bercow? Personally, I think he’s more suited to this one:-
      “Order! Order!”
      “Chicken Chow Mein, Mushroom Chop Suey and Egg Fried Rice, please. And don’t bother about the prawn crackers – no-one eats them anyway”.

      1. Totally agree.

        A great man and a worthwhile cause.

        I was lucky enough to play rugby with a previous winner, over several seasons.

        Best all round sportsman I ever met but modest with it.

    2. “One of the very few heroes of the UK election campaign is James Mitchinson, editor of the Yorkshire Post. Mitchinson’s email to a reader who would not believe a (true) story about a sick child left to wait on the floor of a Leeds hospital is a model of both public service journalism and how to debunk a lie. “

      When the ‘facts’ comes from one partial source, in this case the child’s mother, I would take this particular ‘truth’ with a large grain of salt.

        1. The key question is whether the editor put as much effort into checking the veracity of the original story.

    2. John Simpson is, sadly, an idiot; his article in the latest Radio Times shows he is an MSM apologist, not a true journalist. As for “liberating” Kabul (?) …

  116. I hope that Boris Johnson will have the testicular strength to reduce the size if the House of Lords dramatically. If he does then there will no longer be any refuge or sinecure for failed politics once we are out of the EU and they can’t be sent to Brussels either.

      1. Dogs have four legs to better distribute their weight. They shouldn’t be encouraged to move or stand like that.

    7. £800! £800!

      Good heavens. Wiggy took three visits, an interview and adding on another two hundred!

  120. The House of Lords is already composed of many more Liberal Democrats by ratio than other parties thanks to Cameron and Nick Clegg, a marriage made in hell.

    There are far too many Lords. The House of Lords appears to have become a receptacle for failed politicians of all sorts. A revising chamber should be composed of educated persons with distinction in a number of fields of activity relevant to its revising scope and capacity.

    Simply stuffing the House of Lords with failed politicians in order to ensure their own livelihoods is a disgrace and should be halted forthwith.

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