Sunday 17 November: Small farms across the country will be broken up if the Government’s tax plans go ahead

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

674 thoughts on “Sunday 17 November: Small farms across the country will be broken up if the Government’s tax plans go ahead”

  2. Good morning Chums, and to Geoff too.

    Wordle 1,246 5/6

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

    PS (at 5 pm): This is most odd, chums. I got today's (Sunday) Wordle in 6 (just!) but somehow what came up when I posted is yesterday's (Saturday) Wordle.

    1. Good morning Elsie and all.
      Lucky guess here!
      Wordle 1,247 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  3. Good morning Geoff and All, back from Plymouth.
    I hadn't realised what a vibrant, modern city it has become.
    At least in the Centre, with the University.

    Today's Tales:
    “Doctor, doctor, what’s the best thing to take when you are run down?”
    “The registration number of the b@stard that hit you.”

    Pete’s blood tests had been mixed up with those of another patient.
    The doctor scratched his head and said, “Either you’ve got Alzheimers or Aids.”
    “Golly!” said the patient. “What’ll I do?”
    “For the time being, if you can find your way home, don’t screw your wife.”

    Gerry was seeking sex counselling from his doctor. His wife was losing interest in sex.
    “Next time you get home from work, bring home a box of chocolates, kiss her passionately, sweep her off her feet, give her one on the lounge room rug and you will be surprised at her reaction.”
    When Gerry next visited the doctor, he was asked how it worked.
    “Yes, she was certainly surprised,” said Gerry, “and so were all the members of her Bridge club.”

  7. 397063+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    I tread warily on hearing ANY rhetoric from the HOC especially from one I consider to be a political pressure relief valve.

    This nigel chap has a very chequered pedigree, when one bothers
    instead of claiming he is a saviour,checks it out.

    What would give his rhetoric more credence would be if he had
    true unity with Tommy Robinson.

    https://x.com/Inevitablewest/status/1857864393809391803

    1. He has parliamentary priviledge. Can say what he likes in the House, without fear of arrest or retribution.
      Or is he bullshitting us?

      1. There are many possibilities, including that the whole thing was a false flag, ie it never happened.
        That we have been told the truth, is less likely than that!

      3. In which case let's hope he gets his own back on the repulsive Chris Bryant who used Parliamentary privilege to lie about Nigel Farage and refused to say what he said outside Parliament because he knew he had lied and criminally defamed Farage.

        1. Sarah Owen, Luton North MP, made a cheap little remark about Russia in the HoC when Farage was responding to the budget.

  8. Russian spy ship escorted away from area with critical cables in Irish Sea. 17 November 2024.

    Concerns over critical infrastructure around Europe have been raised on multiple occasions this year after the alleged sabotage of the Baltic gas pipeline and undersea internet cables between Finland and Estonia. In August, China admitted that a Hong Kong-flagged ship damaged the pipeline but said it was accidental.

    Lol.. Alleged? The pipeline was sabotaged for real. Conflating it and the internet cables with a side swipe at the Chinese? Only someone who knew the truth that it was the US would construct this paragraph so carefully. In its own small way it shows how compromised the MSM is; that even this minor article has to comply with the Globalist zeitgeist. .
    ,
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-ship-escorted-away-from-internet-cables-in-irish-sea

    2. My hate register goes through roof every time I see him or any of them.
      Why can't we have a fair system if three or four different parties put together clock more votes than one other major party the majority become the government. Not this vindictive hate filled shite we have now. It wouldn't have happened.

    1. One comical aspect is that presumably the 470 delegates don't realise yet that their jetsetting days will be over when global marxism is imposed (if we don't stop it)…there is no seat for them at the top table.

      1. One assumes that each of the 470 delegates are frantic sycophants desperately hoping that

        they will be one of the (very) few selected for the top table.

  13. Good morning, all. Blue sky. Chilly.

    I see that, having trashed the Rwanda plans, Pencil Monitor and Cur Ikea are doing similar deals with Kurdistan and Vietnam!!! Tossers.

  14. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    Light cloud overhead McPhee Towers, wind North-West, 6℃ goining up to 9℃.

    Of course it is. He's read the script. So has Trump. All the World's a stage and all the men and women merely players.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08ee4cab3972993120fc044c6f0cf487d740b2b371e9bd653e946e34aa207a67.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/16/war-will-end-sooner-with-trump-in-white-house-says-zelensky/

    What a shame about all those dead men on both sides in this white Christian vs white Christian Slavic brother war. Getting on for three-quarters of a million now. And it could all have been over in April 2022.

  16. Free Speech has a new article, the third in Iain Hunter’s series on the mess Britain’s political system is in , how and why it got that way, and what is to be done about it. Today’s article is about the capture and corruption of the democratic process, and argues that that something alien has intervened between electors and elected, between legislature and Executive, something that deflects the working of representative institutions – and that thing is the Party System. Knowing how this works and how it happened is essential if we want to build a real democracy, avoiding the mistakes of the past.
    Related to the mess Iain Hunter describes, the two articles posted yesterday are still attracting attention: one calls for Essex Police heads to rol l following the sinister use of non-crime hate incident investigations to stifle free speech, and in the other FSB asks ‘ Do you need a VPN ’ for your online safety.
    Again, we urge everyone to write to your MP, we have a template letter here, and make as much noise as possible against this sinister attack on free speech.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

  17. Morning, all Y'all.
    Sunny, not freezing temperatures! Replacing the ceiling lights in the kitchen today.

    2. Are you using LED? We have changed most of our lights to LED over the years but we will be moving soon and leaving them all behind.

        1. We have wall lights in the sitting room and have dimming candle bulbs in them. We’ve found Philips give the best light.

  18. Continuity wet-Tory Kemi Badenoch insists; "Our justice system is fair, there is no two-tier law."

    Meanwhile Nigel Farage is to mount a private prosecution against Fahir Muhammed Amas for windmilling a police officer.

    The Reform UK leader is expected to announce the move tomorrow to highlight what he regards as a 'two-tier justice system', in which Right-wing activists are singled out by the courts for harsher treatment.

  19. SIR – Some years ago on a visit to Prague we were taken across country to another town. I asked our guide why the land looked so uncultivated and sad. Her reply was that under Communism it had been collectively farmed and now the native farmers no longer had the skills.

    If our family farms are destroyed by this silly tax then the same will happen here and decades of knowledge and expertise will be lost.

    Victoria Cockburn
    Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire

    All intended. They can give it a name like 'rewilding' but what they really want is to weaken and impoverish us.

    2. I think rather the situation behind the Iron Curtain was the product of a combination of delusion and ignorance, rather than an intention to weaken the nation. They actually believed they were doing the right thing and making the state stronger.

        1. I remember once an earnest student discussion comparing the merits of Swedish meatballs with what was on the menu “Spaniard’s meaty balls” (the writer also came up with gems such as “artic roll” (heavy eating) and “muchrooms” (for improvement).

          What’s your favourite delicacy?

    3. Where have all the Dollars gone?
      Short time passing
      Where have all the Dollars gone?
      Short time ago
      Where have all the Dollarss gone?
      Democrats have nicked them every one?
      Oh, when will they ever learn?
      Oh, when will they ever learn?

      Morning Michael and all

  21. 'Morning All
    Lighter Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eee9d7c85db2fcee72f016ffffb81af18885a54b38eba4a78ec12470d6e3e40c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9648329c5cf4c8c3555cd63aa47edd08e73d95c641623f34ae278c509b2988cb.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53466e57a2604e0c08dd98e7dd2e90083b70cb8150c80f70ba289f1e52558646.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9273da1bda0175f2e38faaffd0a3890c2728b0f4b24e7b81f77203e30304a74f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d3f4bc0c10ec0595c47ba9a4d6e40c671154ee0cc33fdb6547020c6e9ae2112.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/055bb2b3f4a2c958171fc8e9ba379bb6deede4c7e1ef00626c6f8c4ed0361237.jpg
    https://i0.wp.com/uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58513a902068dedd18f8724b01881dcf7d76348e39395fe2cfc3e864286e4877.png

    3. I would have saved the picture of the dogs, but when the police come for my computer I would be condemned out of hand.

    1. Where did you find that cartoon?
      I haven't seen an Adams cartoon since the Starmer 100 days one, has he moved from the Standard?

  23. Letters to the Editor
    Small farms across the country will be broken up if the Government’s tax plans go ahead
    Letters to the Editor 17 November 2024 12:02am GMT

    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer’s attack on small farms is not in the interests of the UK and our food security.

    Labour has suggested that because farmers have the usual inheritance tax allowances that we all have, most small farms will be exempt because of the extra £1 million allowance. This is misleading. The normal IHT allowances only apply to residential property and estates under £2 million. So whatever the value of your farmhouse, you only have £ 1million allowance for your land before paying IHT.

    The average price of arable land is £11,300 per acre, so £1 million buys you 88 acres. Thus any farm larger than 88 acres will be hit by IHT, and possibly broken up. The average farm size is 217 acres, so it is clear that many will be affected.

    The Government should think again, cancel the tax raid, or at least increase the allowance to around £5 million to protect small farms.

    Michael Carrier
    London N5

    1. If the government's aim is really to stop people from investing in farmland as a way to avoid IHT, then they could make IHT only applicable if the land has been in your family for less than twenty years.

      1. It is perhaps rather too hopeful for any correlation between what the Government says in PR and what they actually legislate for. The Government loves those that invest in farmland as a way of avoiding taxes, so long as they are rich enough and well enough connected with the city to employ the right lobbyists.

        What Labour cannot abide is those who pass on their livelihoods and expertise down the generations as opposed to doing as they are told and working directly day-to-day.

    2. This Government's intention, as it was with its predecessors is to transfer national assets to a select group of big business interests, who employ lobbyists to grease the right palms. The declaration that large pension funds are to be transferred away from investing in small business and towards big business by centralising them and managing them more vigorously from Whitehall, exposes their intent. No doubt, farms are considered small businesses and ripe for takeover by mega infrastructure corporations, especially operating in the property development and energy supply sectors. Elon Musk must be lobbying hard through Trump's diplomats for his cut of British assets, since he clearly must feel he is not yet rich enough.

      For all the big banners of "CHANGE" upon which this Government claims an overwhelming mandate for their 20% popular support, it seems to me that nothing has changed.

      1. Just keep in mind that Bill Gates, the largest owner of agricultural land in the USA, visited

        Keir Starmer at No.10 only two weeks before the Budget.

        I wonder whether it was a discussion about buying up cheap farmland?

        I wonder?

        1. I slipped in to be provocative. Why should Elon be spared criticism because he’s “one of us” (although I hardly identify myself with an American multibillionaire)?

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Usual weather again, although we have been 'bashed over the head' with snow forecasts, at 7 degs, its not going to snow is it ?
    Every single time I see a politician's face on TV or in other forms of media they make me feel ill. Surely there must be some form of compensation for this.

  25. The folly of a trade war

    SIR – It bears reminding that there are no winners in a trade war (“No 10 looks at retaliatory moves against Trump tariffs”, report, November 10).

    The unique nature of the spirits sector makes it counterproductive to target with retaliatory tariffs. The US, EU and UK spirits sectors are interconnected, with companies owning a range of European and American distinctive spirits in their brand portfolios. Slapping an additional tariff on American whiskeys will directly harm the EU companies that own those products. Additionally, it could reignite a retaliatory tariff from the US on EU and UK spirits, leaving these EU and UK-based companies hit twice.

    Prior to these trade disputes, US and EU spirits exporters enjoyed more than two decades of tariff-free access to each other’s markets. This has significantly benefited UK, EU and US distillers, farmers, and the hospitality industry on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in increased jobs, community investment and consumer choice. It’s critical to ensure that tariff-free market access for distilled spirits continues.

    Chris Swonger
    President and CEO, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States
    Washington DC, United States

    Dear Chris…wake up !

  26. No incentive to work

    SIR – Paul Caruana is not wrong about poor productivity in the Civil Service (Letters, November 10).
    During my 30 years in the Home Office I spent half that time managing immigration case working groups. There were two problems, one being that there were more HR and management-type people around than there were caseworkers available to do the work.

    The second problem was that the caseworkers were terrified by the “time and management” mentality which focused on targets. They knew that the harder they worked, the more cases they would be expected to handle. Encouraged by the unions, they took the entirely rational approach of slow working. New recruits would usually pitch in and deliver really well until they realised that they were being ostracised by their colleagues until they came into line.

    I cannot help thinking that incentives and rewards would be a better motivator than targets.

    Carol Kellas
    South Croydon, Surrey

    SIR – I cannot let Paul Caruana’s letter go unchallenged.

    I worked in Defra at the same time as Mr Caruana, and my experience was completely different from that which he describes. Staff were monitored in respect of their output, and there were checks and balances in place to ensure that staff were doing the jobs that they were paid to do; that still happens today.

    Mr Caruana paints a very unfair and untrue picture of Defra – and, by extension, the Civil Service as a whole.

    David Waller
    Gillingham, Kent

    Who to believe? Hint…it ain't Davey boy.

    1. Well David, at Defra your job was to make life as difficult as possible for the private sector; reducing productivity, wasting their time on useless, if not positively harmful requirements and then glorifying in the damage done.

      1. A lady farmer that we knew died. It was a small farm but registered with Defra.

        Her husband tried to get the farm re-registered in his name. Over a long period of correspondence he discovered that

        ELEVEN departments were required to be informed, and if they weren't informed in the right

        order the re-registration was automatically rejected.

        He could not discover what order these departments wanted to be informed

        so he had to hire an agricultural agent to do the work for him.

        You as taxpayers are paying for this nonsense, one assumes as a ploy for covering the

        over staffing of Defra.

        ………and Mr Waller claims that this kind of thing goes on throughout the Civil Service????

        1. I wonder which department of the civil service is the most wasteful. There is stiff competition.

          1. This one is pretty good
            "UK Ministry of Defence personnel 2024 | Statista

            1 Oct 2024 In 2024, there were 148,370 service personnel in the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, with a civilian support staff of 61,620 people.
            That one civil servant for every two and a half service personnel, ot thereabouts.

          2. How many of those service personnel were Admirals, Generals and Air Marshals driving desks? Quite a lot I suspect.

          3. You can't move around here without bumping into a retired Admiral. Quite a few get published in the DT. They don't seem to have anything else to do.

          4. I have difficulty knowing whether people are retired, on benefits or shirking from home. It’s also difficult, when you see two grey haired people, to know if they’re parents or grandparents. :-))

        2. Sorry to read about this experience. Bet a pound to a pinch the husband not alone in this experience. March quite well attended in Wales yesterday, or so I read. Wait to see UK march. I have no sheep here, no longer classed as 'small farmer', and balance not good post-vaccine, but with them in spirit.

          1. Do you remember when sheep dip was 'harmless'? Of course, organophospates never affected anyone at the Min of Ag.

          2. Do indeed. Know someone affected by it, for a long time. Why the heck any government of any stripe worth its salt would put food supply at risk is a puzzle…unless of course they were thinking of it coming in over the Channel, and/or handing some or all to the lovely Mr Gates.

        3. Reminds me of the constant dribble of money during the 6 months when moving from Allan Towers to the Dower House.
          Cost us thousands – apart from the £16,000 we had to give the government to piss up the wall.

      2. A lady farmer that we knew died. It was a small farm but registered with Defra.

        Her husband tried to get the farm re-registered in his name. Over a long period of correspondence he discovered that

        ELEVEN departments were required to be informed, and if they weren't informed in the right order the re-registration

        was automatically rejected. He could not discover what order these departments wanted to be informed so he

        had to hire an agricultural agent to do the work for him.

        You as taxpayers are paying for this nonsense, one assumes as a ploy for covering the over staffing of Defra.

        ………and Mr Waller claims that this kind of thing goes on throughout the Civil Service????

    3. We were due a fairly decent tax refund during first lockdown…blood out of a stone, phone call after phone call…imo, Civil Service is the real government, they're permanent, know it and run things accordingly, occasionally throwing a bit of red meat to keep us in line.

    4. I worked in the Snivel Service for a short period. Fridays after lunch, you needed to bang on someone's office door and give them time to wake up & compose themselves, to avoid mutual embarrasement…

  27. I mentioned yesterday that Norway's richest man, Olav Thon, he of the red benny hat, has died. He started out as a goatherd – literally. The boss of the company I work for, he owns the whole group, started work as a deckhand with minimal education, and there are / were several others similarly in Norwegian business life – literally, rags to riches.
    I was wondering: a man whose first business transaction was selling foxskins (prepared by himself) to German soldiers in the 40's, what he'd have achieved if he'd gone into politics? The relentless energy, talent, capacity for hugely hard work, foresight…
    I was also impressed by how there seem to be so many in this little country who were able to run the rags to riches life. 3.1 million population in 1945, 4,5 million in 1998, no aristocracy, and a poor country living on timber and fish up th the late 1960s, so no rich relatives to push these guys on.

      1. If he had a university education, there's a good chance it would have been in England …. (certainly up to the 1970s many Norwegians studied here.

        1. We had a Norwegian doctor staying with us when we took EFL students.
          Apparently they all train in Germany.

      2. Copied from Nottl a while ago:
        He was an uneducated youth. He left school at thirteen and there weren’t too many job opportunities available to him. The only thing going was the job of a Public Toilet cleaner.
        “Fill out this form,” said the prospective employer.
        “But I can’t write,” said the boy.
        “Well,” said the prospective employer, “you don’t qualify for this job, so be on your way.”
        On the way home, the lad bought a box of apples for £2. He sold them around the neighbourhood for £6. He developed this idea and years later, finished up with a chain of 20 fruit and vegetable markets.
        One day, his bank manager asked him to sign some papers.
        “Can’t write,” he said.
        The bank manager was amazed. “You can’t write? My God! What would you have been if you had been able to write!"
        “A Public Toilet cleaner,” came the reply.

    4. Why did he take his first wife's surname? And he gave away most of his fortune to a Foundation some years ago, according to Wiki.
      As for aristocracy, feudal Japan placed warriors farmers and fishermen above the merchant class. In Europe successful warriors were traditionally rewarded with land, and thence they gradually formed an aristocracy.

  28. Tidy minds

    SIR – Shrivenham and District Women’s Institute has a Clippers Group which combines caring for our parish Rights of Way with litter picking (Letters, November 10).

    We having “working parties” three times a month through most of the year and aim to cut back undergrowth and keep the Rights of Way open as well as pick up litter.

    I’ve put “working parties” in inverted commas because it doesn’t seem like work: we have a great time with lots of chat and, being WI, usually finish with tea and cake (or sausage and bacon baps).

    Jane Archer
    Swindon, Wiltshire

    Jane Archer should be a Nottler !

      3. Well, yes, it keeps a certain demographic away, useful in that and delicious for the rest of us.

        1. I expect the police would think the cooking and smell of bacon within a mile of a mosque would be considered a hate crime.

  29. Good morning all.
    Dr. Daughter is still occupying the living room, so again exiled to the laptop, sitting up in bed alongside the DT who is sneezing her head off.
    A 0°C start with beautiful sunshine lighting the brown leaves on the trees opposite and scarcely a breeze to disturb them.

      1. And here..one of the first things I do after breakfast is go to my grandmother's old barometer hanging on the wall, tap it to see what the needle does…down with a bang today…not usually wrong, maybe bad weather on the way..

  30. SIR – Is pipe smoking making a comeback? Twice within the last six months I have seen this, an activity I had thought long extinct.

    These smokers, both men, seemed not much older than 40. What might explain its re-appearance: enthusiasm to rediscover a fashion from an analogue era, or a desire to find a more environmentally friendly alternative to disposable vapes?

    Peter Gray
    Belfast

    The answer you are looking for is narcissist.

        1. In my misspent youth i smoked weed. I'm thinking of revisiting the habit. Cheaper than cigarettes at least.

          2. Happy talkin', talkin', happy talk
            Talk about things you'd like to do
            You've got to have a dream
            If you don't have a dream
            How you gonna have a dream come true
            Talk about the moon floating in the sky
            Looking like a lily on a lake
            Talk about the bird learning how to fly
            Making all the music he can make …

          4. Gawd, the one really cringy moment in South Pacific.
            Basically, Bloody Mary is hawking her daughter off to a Yank.

          7. I don't use it but, as I said, I used to grow it for my neighbours for free since I had greenhouses, now defunct because I can't look after them anymore. A lot of people with various aches and pains, maintain Mary Joanna is the best thing for them. Better than any prescribed drug.

          8. The right variety is important. I stopped when a long time friend started to become really angry and aggressive over things which didn't justify his response.

          9. You have a point, Phiz. I’ve read some of it laced with meth these days. Yes, what Peta used to call her ‘ciggies’ being priced out of market and into back of van/down the pub sellers. I’d smoke again in a heartbeat, family go bonkers (might just be worth it….)

  31. SIR – Iain Green of Animal Aid (Letters, November 10) commends the National Trust for imposing veganism on customers to its cafés.

    Several times a year, my wife and I travel down to the south west to walk the coastal path. As National Trust members, we look to start and end our walks at a Trust property so that we can take advantage of the free parking and enjoy a post-walk snack. On our last visit we decided on a traditional Cornish pasty. I was greeted by a cheerful volunteer who, on taking my order, apologetically told me that the only pasties left were the vegan ones. “They’re very nice”, she assured me. I politely thanked her and left.

    The Trust’s decision to make half of the produce in its food outlets plantbased is not based on customer wants but on ideology. We have decided to not to renew our Trust membership and will plan our future walks around cafés that meet our needs. I suspect many more people will follow suit.

    Barry Gray
    Bournemouth, Dorset

    Veganism is not an 'ideology'. It is a symptom of a damaged brain caused by eating vegetation. Humans who are naturally carnivorous have fully developed brains and are relatively free from all manner of disease and other ailments. Veganism should be treated as a notifiable disease.

    1. Most vegans have developed the disease in later life and were not brought up that way. Vegetarianism does tend to run in families though.

      1. It does, depends on what you're fed by family adults. Vegans are easier to control, imo, as various cults seem to have found out – was quite a fashion at one time, not heard too much about it recently.

        1. "Holy Anorexia" is what kept nuns so obedient.
          Their very basic diet and interrupted sleep for nighttime services kept them in a constant state of exhaustion.

          1. Thanks, anne – hadn’t figured that one…and there’s me thinking they were all like the ones in Oliver Reed’s film (can’t recall title, Devil or something, didn’t stay for it all). I have an interesting (arty) contact, initially apprenticed to a shop front sign writer, and also some time in a convent. She’s a very gentle person. Following her skill at signwriting in reverse on glass when she was an apprentice, she now paints plants/flowers etc in reverse on glass. Her work is very beautiful and well rendered. Yanny Petters is her name. I just bought her calendar for next year.

          2. I think the regimes in Blighty are now less cruel.
            Spartan by our standards, but not designed to deliberately break the soul.

          3. There was a small convent nearby, a few decades ago. Eventually sold as private dwelling, presumably the last few inhabitants moved elsewhere.

      2. Vegetarians are easy to cater for, though their dependence on dairy can prove problematical -t them – if they have a cold.

    2. 'morning Grizzly…do you remember the Hari Krishna street walks, the pale lanky man in saffron robes, chanting as they shuffle along….vegans I believe?

          1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4166fec495b179e7657d072b3de511ec51049a3392867f508d3a21e5665f3bf4.jpg Sorry, Katy, I thought you knew: I never eat breakfast. It was John Harvey Kellogg who said that you must eat a hearty breakfast (of his over-processed maize crap) every day to keep you healthy and stop 'impure thoughts'.

            Since I discovered this is pure hogwash, I started eating healthily and I now thrive on just four substantial meals a week (as a wolf or lion naturally does).

            Today's meal (just taken) was two fillets of cod, fried in butter the with a helping of shrimps stirred into the butter before serving. The peas are only there for a bit of colour. Pudding was a wedge of brie.

            My next meal will be a home-made steak-and-kidney pie … which I shall enjoy at the same time, on Tuesday.😘

          2. Thanks Grizz…probably did know, memory slowly returning but still have gaps, sorry….I read your reply to Him Indoors, he says 👍👍👍…quite interested in your pastry receipt please?

          3. Suetcrust Pastry (my favourite): 225g self-raising flour (or 200g SR flour and 25g fresh white breadcrumbs); pinch salt; 125g shredded beef suet (I use Atora but only the proper beef suet, NEVER the poisonous 'vegetable' pseudo-suet!); 100–110g of cold water (or milk).

            Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix in the suet then add the water, a little at a time, until the pastry comes together. Roll out to around 10mm thickness.

            Shortcrust Pastry[Pâte Brisée]: 225g plain white flour; pinch salt; 75g lard; 75g butter; 2 Tbsp cold water.

            Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the cubed fats with hands until the mix resembles breadcrumbs (or pulse in a food-processor). Slowly add the water until the pastry comes together. Shape into a disc then wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out to around 4mm thick.

          4. Thanks yes, easiest to make, need cold hands (warm heart?) ..reminds me of when I made snake & pygmy pud for American friend…he loved it so much, took the recipe home so his ma could make it for him…my mum made the best pastry, somewhere between short and flaky, no measurements involved:-)

    3. You will be pleased to know (or not) that i am having steak again today. With a rocket side salad !

      With Parmesan shavings obviously.

        2. Good morning.

          Liver and onions is a childhood comfort dish for me. However it was pig liver not lamb. When i was served lamb liver as an adult it misfired in my brain. I didn't like it.

          Now i eat calves liver whenever i can.

      2. Two fillets of cod, fried in butter, and finished off by stirring in a small bag of shrimps.

        Who the hell lives near the world capital of watercress, but chooses to eat massively sub-standard revolting rocket instead?

          3. But that dusting of flour would do absolutely nothing to improve the flavour of a delicious fish sautéed in delicious butter.

      3. We are having random carp taken out of the freezer. Purple something, brown something, fried potatoes, mushrooms, last Christmas’s turkey leftovers and some leftover trimmings.

    4. What I don't understand is why vegetablists are so eager to tell you they are. It's almost as if, uncertain of their choices they have to seek your agreement to reinforce their own ideology.

    5. It is vegetation, but not as we know it, Grizz.
      Rather like cocaine is very far removed from the original coca leaf.

        1. Loathsome stuff.
          It has the after taste of an aperiant that my brother and I had inflicted on us every Saturday night.
          It was called Lixon, so I suspect CocoCola has liquorice lurking amongst its ingredients.

  33. Good Morning all. Same sort of day as yesterday, the day before and the day before that etc, gloomy and still not a breeze of any sort. Anyhow, I hope all are well.
    Thought I would copy this article for the benefit of those without a sub to the Telegraph. Also thought that his last couple of sentences were rather pathetic since this evil started with David Cameron a supposed Conservative PM. And, by the way, Philip K Dick is one of my favorite authors I recommend a book by him, VALIS, interesting idea that we are the early Christians and the authorities are the Romans persecuting the Church. He is one of those people who can make you start thinking that what he is saying is believable.

    Toby Young
    Policing ‘hate speech’ is just the latest method of enforcing Left-wing orthodoxy
    Recording ‘non-crime hate incidents’ does nothing to prevent real hate, the evidence suggests

    One reason the police officers who turned up at Allison Pearson’s door on Remembrance Sunday refused to tell her what they were investigating her for might be that they didn’t want her to burst out laughing.

    That was the reaction of barrister Sarah Phillimore three years ago when she learnt that the police were investigating her for a tweet in which she described her cat as a Methodist. Was she guilty of stirring up hatred against a group based on their religion, a criminal offence under the Public Order Act? In the end, the police concluded her comment wasn’t in fact a “hate crime”, but recorded it as a “non-crime hate incident” (NCHI).

    This particular form of policing – dutifully recording “non-crimes” – is more widespread than you’d think. According to FOI requests submitted by The Telegraph in 2019, the police in England and Wales had recorded 119,934 NCHIs since 2014 when the concept was first devised by the College of Policing, and that number has probably doubled since then. That’s an average of about 65 a day. Little wonder that in parts of Essex, where Pearson lives, 93 per cent of car-related crimes last year went without a single suspect being identified.

    NCHIs sound like something out of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the writer who deserves the most credit for anticipating them is Philip K Dick, who came up with the concept of “pre-crime” in Minority Report, his 1956 novella that later became a film starring Tom Cruise. In Dick’s nightmarish society of the future, specially trained telepaths are able to foresee serious crimes and a division of the police is tasked with arresting the “perpetrators” before they have a chance to commit them.

    NCHIs are a form of “pre-crime”, with the idea being that if you put the frighteners on someone guilty of saying something “hateful”, but which isn’t against the law, you deter them from taking the next step, which would be to commit a hate crime.

    That was the rationale provided by Paul Giannasi, a retired police officer and now the Hate Crime Policy Lead at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, in a witness statement he submitted on behalf of the College of Policing when it was being sued by Harry Miller. Miller, an ex-cop, sued both Humberside Police and the arm’s-length body after an NCHI was recorded against him in 2019.

    “Failure to address non-crime hate incidents is likely to lead to their increase, and ultimately increase the risk of serious violence and societal damage,” said Giannasi.

    In his witness statement, Giannasi said this supposition – that NCHIs, if not “addressed”, would inevitably lead to more and more serious crimes – was based on the work of Gordon Allport, an American social psychologist, who wrote a book in 1954 called The Nature of Prejudice. According to Allport, there’s a pyramid of hate – a five-stage model – with disparaging remarks about “out groups” at the bottom and what he called “extermination” at the top. Failure to tackle this nexus of hatred when “stage one” rears its ugly head can lead to genocide.

    When Harry Miller discovered the guidance the police were following was based on this 70-year-old book, he submitted an FOI request to the College to see if it had any evidence to substantiate this hypothesis.

    Had any research been done to see if the number of hate crimes being committed in England and Wales had declined since NCHIs were introduced in 2014? No, was the answer. They couldn’t undertake any research of that nature because the data is all held at a local level. He was told to direct his query to individual police forces.

    Harry dutifully sent off FOI requests to all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Had any data gathering been carried out? The answer was no again. Those forces that bothered to reply all used the same phrase to explain why no such work had been done: hate crimes and NCHIs were “separate and distinct” and therefore couldn’t be compared.

    You would have thought that if the police are spending so much time investigating and recording NCHIs – 65 a day! – they’d be more curious to find out if it’s having any beneficial effect. But apparently not.

    Which brings us to the nub of the issue. The reason Essex Police dispatched two officers to interview a middle-aged journalist about a year-old tweet on a Sunday morning wasn’t because they genuinely believed she might embark on a crime spree if her “hateful” behaviour wasn’t nipped in the bud, or that she might incite racial hatred. It’s because those responsible for devising national police policy – people such as Paul Giannasi – believe that if you openly flout the new woke public morality you should be punished.

    Say something that upsets or offends a member of a minority group – or one of their self-appointed guardians – and you might get a visit from the police.

    That’s why you’re more likely to have an NCHI logged against your name if you’re Right-of-centre than Left-of-centre. To date, an ex-Conservative home secretary, a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party and the ex-deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives have all had NCHIs recorded against them, but I don’t know of a Labour MP who’s suffered the same fate.

    Those hailing from the Left who have been investigated, such as Ian Austin and Julie Bindel, have generally diverged from progressive orthodoxy.

    This goes to show NCHIs are a way to keep people in line and persecute heretics, not prevent crime.

    The last Conservative government could have got rid of them, but chose not to. Let’s hope that if the Tories ever get back into power they put a stop to this thought policing.

      1. Good morning Audrey. Yes it is. Have you joined the free speech union? I would encourage you to do so because, the more money they have the more lawyers to go to bat for us.

    2. I wonder whether a significant number of people from the centre-right could come together and overwhelm the system with complaints.

      Judicious examination of incidents from the left and so-called minority groups could produce evidence of the type of NCHI that gets followed up.
      The group could then inundate the police with similar complaints regarding those people, for example there are daily comments from race-baiting individuals and far left journalists that cause offence due to their attacks on the indigenous people and hundreds of sermons in mosques that are highly inflammatory when they get highlighted.

      1. The nutters are protected though. Plod are so scared of telling the Left wing nutjobs that they're nasty, brutish, bitter characters who need to grow up that they simply don't, and thus they do for the decent, law abiding white folk.

      2. I would go for that sort of activity but they take all your electronic devices away from you. Being more or less housebound I would be in deep trouble. No way to order food, pay bills or much of anything else. That, to tell the truth, is my main fear. if it wasn’t for that I would be going hell for leather on this because I regard this behaviour on the part of government and the police, as the most fundamental act of deliberate subversion of our liberties imaginable. This land is the mother of freedom. We gave birth to the freest societies in the world. Now evil people full of malicious intent are out to destroy us. ands, I believe, although I would never continence violence, the noose is a justifiable punishment for such wicked people. What are we to do when even to be within the law our actions are to be persecuted and silenced by such depraved people. We live in Stasi Starmer dystopia.

      3. They would be rebuffed as not worth investigating under two-tier policing.
        An example was when the Revd David Robertson reported an anti-Christian hate incident. The following blog posts record what happened. (Sorry, I don't have the time to write a precis of the events.)
        https://theweeflea.com/2018/10/02/the-hate-police-are-now-here/
        https://theweeflea.com/2018/10/03/19824/
        https://theweeflea.com/2018/10/30/the-political-police-part-2-and-a-brilliant-letter/
        https://theweeflea.com/2018/10/31/hategate-the-police-respond/

    3. Non crime hate incidents only came about since the violent savages were forced on us and began carrying out actual crimes. The 'fact checkers' only came about when the truth could be found and that different from the state line.

      Thoughtcrime – which is what these absurd things are – ais simply a state's weapon to control what people can think. They are the latest, desperate system of control. Invented by sociopathic, mindless, thoroughly evil creatures who want to force others to think as they do.

      They are simply Orwellian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

      '…sychological monitoring allows the Thought Police to detect, arrest, and kill thought criminals, citizens whose independence (intellectual, mental, and moral) challenges the political orthodoxy …'

      Consider:

      Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc

      A man can be a woman. 'we have not raised taxes on working people'. All lies. All deceit. All controlled to force you to ignore the truth of your eyes and ears.

    4. Non crime hate incidents only came about since the violent savages were forced on us and began carrying out actual crimes. The 'fact checkers' only came about when the truth could be found and that different from the state line.

      Thoughtcrime – which is what these absurd things are – ais simply a state's weapon to control what people can think. They are the latest, desperate system of control. Invented by sociopathic, mindless, thoroughly evil creatures who want to force others to think as they do.

      They are simply Orwellian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

      '…sychological monitoring allows the Thought Police to detect, arrest, and kill thought criminals, citizens whose independence (intellectual, mental, and moral) challenges the political orthodoxy …'

      Consider:

      Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc

      A man can be a woman. 'we have not raised taxes on working people'. All lies. All deceit. All controlled to force you to ignore the truth of your eyes and ears.

    5. Maybe the plod are guilty of ailurophobia.
      Those poor pu ….. um, felines with their hurt feelings.

    6. Bright sunshine and clear skies here in Stevenage. It's a lovely autumnal day… for the time being, at least.

    1. I'd wake them up and remind them that everything they believed was an idiotic nonsense, the evidence being the wealth and happiness of all those around them.

    2. Thanks to Nut Zero, the cost of cryo won't affect their suspended bank balance. Well, not for 6 months of the year.

  35. The British Mk V 13.5"/45 naval gun fired a 1,400lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,491 feet per second, using 297lbs of MD45 cordite as propellent. At a range of 20,000 yards the striking velocity was 1,332 fps.
    In the event of the shell piecing the armour plate and (due to the ballistic arc it would be the thinner deck plating) coming inboard it would almost certainly ruin you afternoon when it, to use the idiom, functioned.

    A and B turrets on HMS Benbow: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ef4be09e896c9def4d7d265d1aa4d3bf1d3c6ad0bbf1d7f44c2f0c829c3392e.jpg

        1. No, imperial really is an absurd system of measurement. Watching my mother using a laser range finder convert 2143mm into feet and inches is idiotic, as her measurements were wrong. The plumber asked for them in metric anyway.

          1. To me metric is the absurd system. It's totally invented (on a wrong premise). Imperial measurements are much more people friendly.

    2. the shell piecing the armour plate (and due to the ballistic arc it would be the thinner deck plating)

      The quickest way to disable and sink a heavily armoured battleship in a ship to ship action.

      A criticism of the final battle with the helpless Bismark was…

      Rodney closed to point-blank range and continued to engage, starting to fire full broadsides into Bismarck on a virtually flat trajectory, and added three more …

      A full broadside from HMS Rodney was nine 16" shells from her main armament. I have thought that the continued close range pounding of the Bismark was in revenge of the sinking of HMS Hood. The former was doomed from the moment her steering mechanism was damaged by an air-launched torpedo.

      GFRQ, thank you for these snippets.

  36. Macron’s barbarous neo-colonialism is frustrating the fight against climate change
    Azerbaijan stands with the oppressed peoples of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Mayotte, Corsica, Réunion, Guadeloupe and Martinique
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/16/macrons-barbarous-neo-colonialism-is-frustrating-the-fight/

    BTL The sooner the 'fight against climate change' is abandoned the better.

    Man-made climate change is a myth; carbon dioxide is both necessary and beneficial to the planet; Net Zero is a scam which will grossly enrich a few and impoverish the rest of us.

    This is just my opinion and I am not a scientist. However I like to think that my antennae are well-enough tuned to detect governmental fraud and mendacious propaganda!

    But the science is not settled – science is not, and by its very nature cannot ever be settled. But what is alarming is the way in which scientific evidence by reputable scientists has been brutally suppressed when It contradicts what the state wants people to believe.

  37. There's an even simpler solution to this farms tax. Simply scrap inheritance tax. It is money already taxed, used to invest in an asset. The suggestion government has a right to that is absurd.

    Equally it doesn't have a right to the earnings of a business, fuels, energy, insurance, valuation of assets bought with income, school fees or, really anything we buy. Tax income at a flat rate, say 18%. Leave people the first 15,000 and sod off. If government cannot do everything it needs to with that then it must learn to do less, or more with less.

    It could stop the largesse of painting plod cars gay. It could say to the citizen – you'll have to contribute toward your healthcare. When departments are told to make savings they immediately put forward cutting front line services, so sack the people who do that as a message that while the state loves waste, it won't be tolerated.

    So much could be done but isn't. The theft of property – pensions and land – is simply socialist insult.

  38. Good morning, all. Sunshine.

    Re Nigel Farage's statement on the Southport atrocity.

    The Speaker of the HoC:

    Speaker Gags Parliament on Southport Atrocity

    Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Labour’s Speaker of the House of Commons, has imposed a sweeping gag order on any mention of the Southport tragedy in Parliament.
    Apparently, the very people we elected to speak on our behalf are now barred from voicing the concerns that every corner of Britain is desperate to hear.

    From Wiki:

    According to parliamentary rules, the speaker is the highest authority of the House of Commons and has final say over how its business is conducted.


    The speaker's powers are extensive – much more so than those of the speaker's counterpart in the House of Lords, the Lord Speaker. Most importantly, the speaker calls on members to speak;[29] no member may make a speech without the speaker's prior permission.

    IMO Farage has dangled a suggestive statement that has had quite an effect by putting the PTB right in the frame re a cover-up of quite some importance. Farage has probably done as much as he is allowed to do, in public at least, but he has informed the people that there is much more to this scandal than meets the eye and that somehow he has managed to acquire that information.

    Going public at this time may not be the best idea politically or in the interests of the grieving families and Southport in general.

    However, what is to stop a keen whistle-blower believing that the restrictions do not apply to him/her eventually releasing more information. Just saying!

    1. Mr Hoyle isn't an idiot. There must be a reason why he forbade not being able to talk about the murder of children by a muslim terrorist.

      1. Watching Hoyles confected ‘outburst of anger’ at Labour releasing budget details ahead of the official announcement, lead me to think I was right about him from the start.

      2. If and until, we the people, are confident that the truth has been revealed the speculation will continue.

  39. Has anyone read article 10 of the HRA? I'd note that it includes the right to shock and annoy/anger the state. Thus those jailed, who did nothing must, by definition be released. There was no action from their words. The Left wing just wanted to punish people who disagreed with it.

    1. If that's the case the people who have been locked up, surely should be compensated directly from labour party funds.

      1. I think everyone should be compensated from Labour funds. In fact, I think Starmer's pension and Reeve's and the slapper's property should be first to go. They were all paid for with public money, after all.

        1. Absolutely agree, they like most of them are only taking part in politics for they they can get back.

    1. Thing is, this doens't solve anything. Plod will come for him now as he posted the video. He can lie about who was in the film but that's criminal damage.

      Ultimately though, the muslim scum khan will just force up taxes and buy more cameras wasting more of public money. He has to be stopped democratically. That, unfortunately, means flushing the sewage out of the Augean stables by removing his voter block. That's not difficult. Scrap welfare. Having a few million foreigners suddenly finding whitey isn't paying for them any more and they'll up and leave but that also requires a government willing to do what needs to be done.

      1. When i was last in town the cabbie was railing against Khunt. He also said only 50% of Londoners bothered to vote.

          1. For local elections, that percentage is almost achieved in Colchester's more civically minded wards.
            Above 40% is considered a good turn out.

          2. Well you know what cabbies are like. The thing they like most is their own voice. And complaining about something comes a close second.

      2. Yep. These guys are stoopid and asking for a jail sentence. In China the voice track alone would be enough for AI to trace a postcode & email then cross referenced with contact lists and you've got the lot of em.

    2. It's across the board.. Places that industralised & urbanised plus the fact that all wimmin are independent savvy & employed make it very very expensive or difficult to have children.

      Which is why, I guess, the powers that be decided that low IQ Africans would be ok to breed because they are not independent savvy & employed.

    3. I'm sure that it's a coincidence that the nations with the lowest fertilty rates, such as Malta, Greece

      and Cyprus, are the ones suffering most from "irregular" migration.

      Perhaps they feel that it would be irresponsible to bring children into that world?

      1. Not that noticeable in Malta. Though there was one a few weeks ago waving a sword in Paceville.

  43. Downing Street finally apologises for Diwali debacle. 17 November 2024.

    Oh dear. It is more than a week since Steerpike broke the news of Downing Street’s Diwali debacle. Many Hindu attendees at the No. 10 reception were horrified to be served alcohol and meat at the event, which aimed to improve the links between Labour and the British Indian community.

    You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/downing-street-finally-apologises-for-diwali-debacle/

          3. For my party i tried to do gluten free vol au vents. In fact i tried twice. The damned things wouldn’t rise so i binned the lot. I said to my neighbour Karen next door who happens to be the gluten intolerant and she said ‘oh, yes, i had that problem too’.

            I am in no way a violent person but then we can always fantasise !

            In my mind was Road runner and Wile E Coyote.

            I did find a brilliant gluten free choux bun mix. That’s what i put the Jalfrezi chicken in. Did you manage to get one before Geoff scoffed them all?

    2. If i were a Hindu and was offered a glass of Champagne i would politely decline. I don't think i would be horrified.
      On the other hand…if i were a muslim and was offered a bacon sarnie i would have no alternative but to stab 5 year old girls.

    3. I have worked with a few Hindus over the years, and none of them abstained from alcohol. One of them was to be found in the pub at lunchtime on most days.

    5. Didn't mention the "horror" and apology for those Christmas cards on the mantle piece, and that disgusting "butcher's apron".

  45. Liam Halligan
    Reeves’s tax on farmers carries a strong whiff of class prejudice
    Farming protests have brought us to the brink of collapse before – it’s time for a rethink

    17 November 2024 8:00am GMT Liam Halligan

    Back in September 2000, British farmers working together with truck drivers brought the UK to the brink of collapse. Protesting successive sharp rises in petrol and diesel prices, farmers and hauliers blockaded roads, fuel shipping terminals and oil refineries, putting huge pressure on Tony Blair’s New Labour government.

    Blair declared an “NHS red alert”, invoking “emergency powers” to ensure essential fuel deliveries in a bid to sway public opinion. But many voters, equally sick of spiralling fuel costs, staunchly backed the farmers even as slow-moving rows of tractors thwarted motorway traffic.

    Having secured a landslide just a few years before, Labour suffered badly. As petrol stations closed and supermarkets began food rationing, the party’s poll-rating plunged from a 10-point lead over the Tories to a five-point deficit in a single month.

    Blair and Gordon Brown, then-chancellor, were forced to back down. They unveiled a range of measures to ease the tax burden on motorists including a freeze in fuel duty, which was the protesters’ main demand. These were policies that ministers had previously dismissed as “impossible”.

    This Tuesday, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) is holding a mass lobby of MPs, with 1,800 members gathering in Westminster – three times the original number planned. The same day, a separate farmers’ rally is taking place, also in central London – which has had to move location because of growing support.

    At issue, of course, are the changes to inheritance tax announced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget. Unless the Government changes its mind we’re likely in for a rerun of September 2000, with the related economic and political fall-out.

    Labour had pledged not to change agricultural property relief (APR), which has long allowed farming families to pass on agricultural land to the next generation without paying inheritance tax.

    But in Labour’s first Budget for 14 years, Reeves broke that promise, announcing APR would be capped at £1m from April 2026. Assets above that value will attract inheritance tax at an effective rate of 20pc.

    The Treasury claims the £1m threshold will protect smaller family farms. But the NFU insists that many will have to be broken up, becoming economically unviable, as land is sold to pay inheritance tax bills that could easily amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

    While the Chancellor keeps citing Treasury analysis that 73pc of farms will be unaffected by these APR changes, her figures are contradicted by numbers from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the branch of Government specialising in farming matters. These suggest that only 34pc of farms are valued at less than £1m – meaning almost two thirds would be impacted by this change.

    “Very few viable farms are worth under £1m,” says Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU. “That could buy 50 acres and a house today. But no viable food-producing business is 50 acres – the average UK farm is over 250 acres.”

    Bradshaw says the Treasury’s numbers are “wrong” as they include “a substantial number of small holdings” and are based on past APR claims without considering some also claimed “business property relief” on other vital aspects of their businesses.

    The NFU highlights the plight of older farm owners, with just a few years to live, who will not be able to use the “seven-year rule” to keep family farms intact – the ability to pass on assets free of inheritance tax if you survive the gift by seven years.

    “I’ve heard some really upsetting accounts of what this tax would do to family farms,” said Bradshaw last week. “Men and women who’ve spent years building up farm businesses now wondering ‘why carry on?’ when it’s going to be ripped apart.”

    Labour’s APR tax changes strike me as ill-conceived and rushed with a strong whiff of class prejudice, as an overwhelmingly urban party takes aim at thousands of farming families perceived to be wealthy but actually seriously cash-strapped.

    I’d like to make three points, as senior ministers, despite their denials, consider how to defuse what could soon become a deeply disruptive set of protests that would be far more damaging to the Government’s authority than backing down and showing some leniency towards farmers.

    British family farms are already stretched to breaking point after a decade of spiralling prices for fertiliser and other vital inputs, and extreme weather events. Most farms, squeezed by powerful supermarket buyers they dare not criticise, operate on acutely thin margins of less than 5pc. They don’t have vast reserves of cash.

    Secondly, the Treasury may be right to want to clamp down on the growing ranks of “non-farmers” who have been buying agricultural land solely to avoid inheritance tax. So why not just say that APR only applies to estates left by individuals who can demonstrate at least a 10 or 15-year track record of active, daily engagement with agriculture. That is how to exclude land-owning City financiers and private equity bosses with no real stake in farming.

    The final point is that Labour is already taking serious liberties with the UK’s energy security – the decision to close down new North Sea oil and gas production borders on insanity. Is this really the time to take risks with our food security too?

    Between July and September – Labour’s first three months in office – the economy stalled, growing by just 0.1pc, sharply down from 0.5pc the previous quarter. A prolonged fuel protest and the related disruption could shatter consumer and business confidence even more, pushing the UK into recession.

    This Government’s treatment of farmers is shabby, will stoke food price inflation and could seriously undermine this country’s ability to feed itself. Ministers will soon be forced to change their minds. It is better for everyone – and Labour’s poll-ratings – if they do so sooner rather than later.

    1. The farmhouse and buildings on their own will amount to £1 million – especially in the south.
      Adding equipment and acres of land to that parcel will make even the smallest of farms worth more than that amount.
      This is basically class war. Stick it to the kulaks is the motivation.

      1. Labour doesn't understand the countryside and how it works; for them it's a theme park (and racist, to boot).

  46. Good Moaning.
    Turned out nice again, so we're all doomed. I intend to make things worse by driving to the nearest cash point.
    Last night, MB and I were dead cultured; we went to a town centre church to hear Colchester Choral Society perform Mendelssohn's "Elijah".
    I now realise I'm shallow; every time a soloist did their bit – helping along the story, setting the scene – I was mentally thinking "get on with it, we could do with a good rousing chorus".
    Fortunately, there are plenty of those. Every time the choir rose from their seats I could feel my spirits lift.
    Very English, I like the noise music makes, I don't intellectualise it.

      1. Ssssh ……. horribly ….. no, I can't … just can't ….. bring myself to utter the "w" word.
        Worse still, Felix M would not be welcome in Tower Hamlets.

    2. 🤣🤣 I love your mindset! Makes me want to come and bellow solos at you until you guve in and admit they work..
      😉🤣🤣

    3. When I first read your post Anne I was trying to work out whether ‘dead cultured’ was like ‘dead naming’ ie you were revealed as having previously come from another culture. Then it all fell into place.

  48. 15 November 2024 237 4 0
    16 November 2024 425 9 0

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats-last-7-days

    The ‘Great Replacement’
    A downloadable version of this page can be accessed here.

    “Proponents of the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ theory argue that white European
    populations are being deliberately replaced at an ethnic and cultural level through
    migration and the growth of minority communities” – ISD, 2019 https://www.isdglobal.org/explainers/the-great-replacement-explainer/

    1. You don't need to be "Far right" to see what's happening to our country (and others) especially in the cities. London is no longer English.

    2. Maybe that's because the UN issued a document talking about "Replacement Migration" a few years ago?

    1. Missing the point though.. aren't you Allison.

      Trying to debate & protest in a logical way with someone who want you ethnically cleansed. It doesn't work.
      Still thinks the police & courts haven't been captured. How quaint.
      In any case this has been going on since 2014.. where have you been?

    3. Absolutely brilliant!! I only realised it was a spoof towards the end – note the "MP"s name is S Pineless!!

  55. Boris Gump
    2d
    Reeves was born in 1979. She obtained a PPE from Oxford. She joined BoE in 2000. Therefore she was 21 and a fresh faced graduate when she joined.
    –
    She also has an MSc from LSE too. I wonder when she did that, what it was in and whether it was full-time or not.

    Her linkedIn CV changes from Economist with Bank of Scotland 2006-2009 to Retail Banking with Halifax for the same period whereby she moved to Leeds.

    She was elected MP for Leeds West in 2010. So she's not got a lot of banking experience and the step down from BoE to Halifax is a big one so why the move?

    Jan
    Boris Gump
    2d
    Perhaps some of her ex colleagues could fill in the blanks.

    Massey Ferguson
    Boris Gump
    2d
    The step down from BoE to Halifax is a big one so why the move? Indeed so. Unless.. no.. couldn't be…
    Unless in the real world outside of Rachel's c.v world she wasn't an economist at the BoE at all, but possibly part of the back room support staff.

    Then of course the role at the Halifax wouldn't be such a huge step down at all and everything would make sense career wise?

    Evelyn
    2d
    In the UK, lying on a CV is illegal and can have serious consequences, including:

    Criminal charges
    Lying on a CV is considered fraud under the Fraud Act 2006 and can lead to a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and/or a fine. The prosecution must prove that you intentionally lied or gave false information to get the job.
    Employment termination
    Even if you don't face criminal charges, your employer is likely to fire you if they discover you lied.

  56. Your'e correct but you will find if you go to quite a few suppliers of seed they will have notes on the medicinal use of M and what works best for what type of problem. Just type into your search engine:"marijuana seed for sale uk" and lots will turn up.

    I'm more interested, now a days, in micro dosing psylocibin which has all sorts of benefits apparently. Micro dosing means you take such a small amount you do not hallucinate or that you are particularly aware that anything is different while you are taking it. Of course it is highly illegal here. Another case of the law being an ass.

  57. Gender-neutral title ‘Mx’ soars in popularity on driving licences
    Number of people choosing the honorific has risen by 600pc from 2022, says Department for Transport

    188
    Gareth Corfield
    Transport Correspondent
    16 November 2024 4:55pm GMT
    Gender-neutral titles are now some of the most commonly used on driving licences, data show.

    The gender-neutral title Mx is the ninth most popular honorific on driving licence applications, according to Department for Transport figures showing the 20 most frequently requested titles.

    More than 7,000 drivers asked for Mx to be used on their licence in applications and renewals over the past three years, between 2019 and 2023.

    This compared with a total of 6,500 using lord, lady or sir. It is also only slightly less than the roughly 7,500 applications for professor.

    Use of the Mx title is rising, having increased by around 600 per cent from 2022 when just 944 drivers were registered with the title.

    It reflects the rise in individuals self-identifying their gender as neither exclusively male nor female.

    There are 262,000 people living in England and Wales who identify with a gender different from their sex registered at birth, according to the 2021 census.

    The number of women choosing Ms, which does not reveal marital status, has jumped from 159,000 last year to 1.6 million this year.

    Having first been used in print in the 1970s, Mx is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a “gender-neutral title” that is often used by transgender people or “those who do not identify themselves as male or female”.

    Mr is the most common honorific, with 27 million people opting for the title over the period, while some 12 million chose Mrs.

    The DVLA said there were a number of pre-defined titles that driving licence applicants can choose from, such as Mr, Mrs and Ms. People also have the option to write a title of their choice in the “other” field.

    1. “There are 262,000 people living in England and Wales who identify with a gender different from their sex registered at birth, according to the 2021 census”.

      And these few people have tried to bully us all into believing that male can be female and female can be male.

  58. Not bad,
    Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

    2. Now they have become old, and most have died, I'm not sure this happens any more, but the graduating year from High School here in Norway used to have lectures on the Holocaust, from the participants, followed by a half-term trip to Germany by bus to visit Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka and other camps. Parents as escorts, I went with Firstborn's class, and SWMBO went with Second Son's class.
      If you have an ounce of humanity, it's powerful stuff.
      I recall two things particularly. One is where we were being lectured by a guide in Auschwitz, and the young girls were being a bit rowdy, finding it boring. They all sat down, and didn't stand up when asked to do so. The guide then pointed out taht the white flecks in the grass where they were sitting were remains of bones from the cremated bodies… they stood up very quickly, and fully understood the purpose of the visits then.
      The second was the display cases full of leather suitcases of all sizes, with the owners names painted on the outside, and the cases of poor, broken shoes. It made the whole thing so much more personal. After that, who could not be on the side of the Jews?
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eeb6fa71f7d9b7a35a6dd7503c621782ce13792c95d234479ec5cf86b4be5729.jpg

      1. I remember in New York, when married to my first wife, who's parents lived in Forest Hills a then Jewish quarter, seeing older people with numbers tattooed on their wrists. All of them I spoke to were wonderful people. I could not then and I cannot now, understand why anyone would want to harm such good people. I learnt a lot from such people and because of them I will always support Israel and the Jews against all commers.

  60. Just fitted the new kitchen lights! They work, too, and my God it's bright in there…
    No shocks, no tripped breakers… Proper job!

      1. Picking up the bottles of booze at Scunthorpe on Friday, I noticed a stack of soft drink crates and asked about them.
        "Oh, they're going to be thrown out," came the reply, so, as they were a rather substantial crate, I scrounged four of them for Welder Son to use to stand on when doing work at his house!
        With hindsight I wish I'd grabbed the other half dozen!

      1. 🙂
        Dead chuffed, so I am! Got something finished!
        Now to wash the pressure barrels for cider storage.

      1. They could go by train. London to Berlin to Moscow to Baku. Well maybe a few years ago that would have been possible, shame about the little contra temps in Ukraine.

        the big boys (including biden and our village idiot) are missing because they are down in Lima having a little jolly of their own. Trudeau took his our cheque book with him – $35 million for women's reproductive rights in Peru! Food banks back here are not amused.

      1. How many Airbus A380 loads is that delegation?
        Answer:
        The British Airways Airbus A380 typically has 469 seats in a four-class configuration. Here's the breakdown:
        First Class:
        Located on the lower deck, with 14 seats arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration.
        Club World (Business Class):
        Found on both decks, with 97 seats in a mix of 2-3-2 and 1-2-1 configurations.
        World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy):
        Located on the upper deck, with 55 seats in a 2-3-2 configuration.
        World Traveller (Economy):
        Split between the upper and lower decks, with 303 seats in a 3-4-3 configuration on the main deck and 2-4-2 on the upper deck.

  62. That's another 1½h done getting the fire re-lit and clearing bramble runners and digging the roots up.
    Going to have to take Dr. Daughter to Chesterfield for the train just the back of three. She did plan driving, but had a bit of a mishap at Woodall Services on Friday when she was heading here.
    Coming out towards the sliproad to rejoin the motorway, she realised that the car behind her had not turned her headlight on, so slowed down with her 4-ways flashing, only for the driver to ram her backend!
    Instead of getting here about 7ish, by the time the RAC had picked her car up and the taxi arrived, it was turned 22:30 before she arrived here!

    1. That's a right bummer for her, Bob.
      More proof that no good deed goes unpunished!
      Hope her insurance will stump up for a rental car whilst hers is in the ER…

  63. A quiet, still moment on a Sunday lunchtime, and playing this – a piece that has special and powerfully emotilnal connections for me. I just came to the realisation that life is too busy just now, and doesn't have enough meaningful music in it – so a remedy, is slow down, play those tracks!
    https://youtu.be/7O049oi2Dxw?si=7eJHpSSvtiPQKeS_

        1. You don't have to play an instrument to learn a piece of music. You can familiarise yourself with it by listening intently and with concentration, to the point where you can play it in your head whenever you want.

          If you read music, following the score helps, but it's optional.

          1. Before I retired, I occasionally used to amaze people at how often I'd pick up on where a random bit of music came from!

          2. Bob, you *continue* to amaze people across all fields of music or indeed most activities… 🤣🤣

          5. I cannot play an instrument; I cannot read music. But I have stored in my pore brane, hundreds of pieces of classical music – so that when I hear one such start, I know exactly how it will go on until the end! Funny thing…

          7. Slightly off the main topic; when I'm playing music in the car, I know exactly what the next rack will be.
            If I were made to write a list of that sequence, I'd be flummoxed.

          9. We have an outstanding musician on this forum: Fallick Alec aka Spikey.

            He has an array of keyboards and his arrangements are excellent – from time to time he can be persuaded to post his creations on this site. What a talent!

          11. Oh I’m very musical in my head and I can read music. It’s the sound that comes out of my gob when I attempt to sing that’s a problem.

          12. MyY musical talent reaches as far as the shower. I am normally accompanied by cries of dismay by t'other who fails to appreciate my talents.

        1. Younger daughter and I are going to learn the trumpet together. She is musical, I am not. But I figured the trumpet is the most idiot-proof instrument apart from the triangle!

      3. Good afternoon Eddy

        Some years ago we went to see Ismael Ledesma, a Celtic harpist from Paraguay, perform in Dinan. This song is beautiful and one of our best friends, (our Henry's godfather), has worked out a beautiful arrangement for organ which Caroline is working on.

        I have worked out a simple finger-picking arrangement for the guitar of one of his songs, Lena s'endort, and I am sure that you would find it interesting to work out your own arrangement. The song is about his daughter going to sleep when she was a little child. On the video I attach the grown up Lena accompanies her father. The tune is one of the prettiest tunes I know.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FQ9-xOFAbk

    2. We heard some surprisingly good music last night. The Classical Station broadcast a Mozart concerto that was played by Benny Goodman.

      I had not been prepared for big band jazz player to be so adept with the classics, it just went to show how wrong I was.

    1. Very tempting to share it with a man I know who is over 50 and calls himself Tina. I doubt that many of the normal men of my acquaintance need to be told.

    1. Afternoon Eddy. In essence No. There's no detail or explanation of who these people were. It is always safest to assume that the PTB are lying.

    2. Afternoon Eddy. In essence No. There's no detail or explanation of who these people were. It is always safest to assume that the PTB are lying.

    9. I thought that the European human rights courts tied up all attempts to deport illegals, did the Tories lie about this?

    10. If this is true why aren't they publicising this at every opportunity in order to deter more illegal immigrants?

  66. Bugger.
    Went out to carry on working for a while before dinner and it's Rain Stopped Play.

      1. Nah.
        Has dinner then too Dr. Daughter to Chesterfield for the train.
        Bloody weather's turned foul this evening though.

  67. The news today on BBC Breakfast that a farmer in his seventies living with his wife who was suffering from dementia tragically book his own life having pondered the implications of recent Government decisions on changes to inheritance tax.

    This brings to mind that a farmer's death before the legislation becomes effective in two years time means that there is a window of opportunity for a farmer to commit suicide before the legislation becomes effective. A possibility of gaining a substantial financial gain also arises should a beneficiary of a farm estate be faced with a judicial decision on an early asssisted death of the farm owner at an inappropriate time.

    1. That's awful.
      Poor man – having to decide whether to leave his poor wife, or the farm.
      Starmer and his gobshites have blood on their hands.

    2. Where does that leave his wife? OK she will avoid the tax but how does that help a woman suffering from dementia.

      Maybe murder suicide would have been the cleanest solution to that terrible dilemma.

    4. Perhaps We need to have a referendum in the UK to ask the people if these people are fit to govern.

      1. Reminds me of the scene in the Scottish play where Malcolm tests the mettle of Macduff by painting a very foul picture of himself. At first Macduff tries to argue that small vices do not necessarily make a man unsuitable to rule until Malcolm paints such a picture of himself as a corrupt, immoral man full of lust and avarice that Macduff can stand it no longer:

        MALCOLM :
        If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
        I am as I have spoken.

        MACDUFF

        Fit to govern?
        No, not to live.

        Many people are beginning to think that Starmer and his repulsive coterie are completely unfit to govern.

        1. The sensible and wise among us knew that Starmer and his pathetic crew were unfit to govern even before the election.

          Problem is: a cretinous electorate will elect a cretinous government.

  68. Pity Allison Pearson made up parts of the story that everyone believed. Doesn't advance her cause.

      1. It is in the Sunday Grimes today – here is part of the article:

        "However, yesterday, Essex police took the unusual step of publishing an extract of Pearson’s conversation with the officers, taken from body-worn cameras, to dispute her claim that she had been accused of a non-crime hate incident. According to a police transcript, one of the officers said: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.”

        The force added in a statement: “Essex police supports free speech. It does not support inaccuracy. If an alleged crime is reported it is investigated. There is no public interest in falsehood.”

        The Guardian has reported that the tweet under investigation featured an image of two Asian men holding the flag of a Pakistani political party flanked by smiling police officers.

        Pearson appears to have confused the flag with that of Hamas, which is banned in Britain, and retweeted the post last November, mistakenly accusing the police of siding with “Jew haters” during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests in the UK. She deleted her post the next day when others pointed out the error.

        The person who complained to the police told The Guardian: “Pearson tweeted something that had nothing to do with Palestine or the London protests … Her description of the two people of colour [holding the flag] as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory.”

        The complainant originally reported their concerns to the Metropolitan Police but the case later ended up at the force in Essex, where Pearson lives.

        Some lawyers believe the tweet would not meet the charging threshold for a criminal prosecution, arguing that it was directing anger at the police rather than at a specific racial group. The CPS confirmed that it was providing early investigative advice to police.

        Pearson said she may have misheard what the officers had told her. “I was pretty shocked,” she said. “I wish I’d recorded it; I wrote down as much as I could remember of what the police said just after they left. My tweet was definitely not racist. I was criticising the police not a protected characteristic group. It is perfectly legal to criticise the police.”

        1. Bill, I believe it’s been established that the Guardian report was incorrect. They didn’t have information regarding “the tweet under investigation”. The person making the complaint appears to have confused another Allison Pearson with the journalist.

          3. The one elled Alison's tweets may shock
            The two elled Allison's in the dock
            But should a three elled Alllison mock
            The wokish policemen's bull and cock?

          4. This isn’t about the Grauniad. AP set out her version of what was said. The transcript shows that she was wrong – and she now says she was “mistaken”.

            I do not for a moment believe that she did anything wrong a year ago. But her account this week is misleading and does not advance her cause.

          5. Indeed, Bill. It makes it all too easy to rubbish her position, and he position of anti-police state.
            A pity, that. Things were building nicely.

        2. Population of Pakistan is estimated at 240 million, which includes 200 Jews. Pakistan de facto offered sanctuary for Osami bin wotsisname.

    4. Moral of story is, if talking to anyone in authority announce that you are recording the conversation for training or monitoring purposes.

    5. There's a lot of wires crossed on this story.

      All you need to know is..
      David Cameron's infamous College of Policing Hate Crime Operational Guidance manual of 2014 is completely out of control.

      All it takes is one random complaint from the "right sort of victim" of a perceived hate.. even if you've done nowt.. and if you are the wrong sort of journo then you may be on the receiving end of an order that could.. depending on how the Stasi feel:

      be arrested
      put in jail,
      have all yr devices removed,
      receive a stalking protection order.
      banned from internet.
      assigned an offender manager.
      require permission to send an email.
      have police to enter yr home 8am to 8pm to check devices.

      if you dont believe this then just ask journalist & writer Caroline Farrow.

      And believe it or not.. the police won't even care if the claimant is clearly a pyscho trans nutjob with a violent history.

    6. There's a lot of wires crossed on this story.

      All you need to know is..
      David Cameron's infamous College of Policing Hate Crime Operational Guidance manual of 2014 is completely out of control.

      All it takes is one random complaint from the "right sort of victim" of a perceived hate.. even if you've done nowt.. and if you are the wrong sort of journo then you may be on the receiving end of an order that could.. depending on how the Stasi feel:

      be arrested
      put in jail,
      have all yr devices removed,
      receive a stalking protection order.
      banned from internet.
      assigned an offender manager.
      require permission to send an email.
      have police to enter yr home 8am to 8pm to check devices.

      if you dont believe this then just ask journalist & writer Caroline Farrow.

      And believe it or not.. the police won't even care if the claimant is clearly a pyscho trans nutjob with a violent history.

  70. The label of Coca Cola indicates that it contains sugar, phosphoric acid, caffeine, caramel, carbon dioxide and some "extract". This extract and caused questions, writes DiasporaNews. … The raw material for cola is the roots of licorice, or liquorice

    1. I'm sorry.. but these 15 min long drawn out desperate for clicks AI generated "Scoops" are tiresome.. at least to me.

      1. Few YouTube videos, these days, are free of the AI scourge. Sometimes one has to put up with the crap in order to see/hear the full message.

      2. I suppose when one finds the subject matter interesting it is more enjoyable. Just ask Huw Edwards.

        :@(

    2. I do have admiration for Mr Elon Musk.

      Parking a rocket booster FFS.

      I have previously employed PR companies. That film would have bankrupted me. Slick.

  73. Moral of story is..

    Your country is completely falling apart just like the USA under Biden.. and you urgently require Trump & Musk to bring down the government. And never let Labour or the Wet Tories near power ever again.

  79. Asking for wisdom…Not Bill Thomas obviously…he charges by the word.

    When my blood pressure rises i go deaf. Is this normal?

    1. My new friend, ChatGPT, says:
      "What You Should Do:
      Consult a Doctor: Hearing changes related to blood pressure should be evaluated to rule out serious conditions like vascular problems or ear disorders.
      Track Your Blood Pressure: Monitor your blood pressure during these episodes and share the data with your healthcare provider.
      Audiological Evaluation: Consider seeing an audiologist to check for underlying hearing conditions.
      When to Seek Emergency Care:
      If your hearing loss is sudden, complete, or accompanied by symptoms like severe headache, dizziness, vision changes, or numbness, seek medical attention immediately."

        1. Dunno.
          Just had to correct it about G-ASGO, a Vickers VC-10.
          GPT thought it was a Piper propeller plane, not the second most beautiful jet aircraft ever made. Ended it's life in 1974, a PFLP attack at Schiphol.

  81. Oldies' lunch today.
    Nibbles, five excellent courses, plenty of wine, aperitifs, fizz, digestifs, chocolates and coffee.

    All free, just because we're old.

    2. When my friend and I were walking along the Forth Clyde canal near Rough Castle last week, we saw a cormorant! Given our location in the middle of the country we thought it must be lost, but decided it probably came from the Forth estuary!

      1. Cormorants are seen inland quite often now. They've been on Rutland Water for some time.

        We had a shag in Wellingborough earlier this year. They are rare away from the coast.

        (No sniggering at the back, please…)

      2. I walked up to Rough Castle when I visited the Falkirk Wheel. It was a lot farther away than I expected!

        1. But at least it’s flat! The first time I walked to the Wheel from here I was expecting to see it round every bend! It’s not far when I drive it!

    3. Took a second to realise there were two photographs!! Couldn't think why there was a grassy barrier in front of the boat!!

          1. Not in the least. I’d had enough of being a foreigner. Most Brits who say they love France are holiday visitors and have not experienced the travails of permanent residence. Having said that, Mrs Kobeans would move back there tomorrow but of course she didn’t have to deal with the constant challenges of French bureaucracy. After 12 years I’d had enough.

          2. Our boys were born in France but both have settled in England. Le Grand Osier has been our home for 36 years – this is more than half of Caroline's life and I have never lived anywhere else so long.

          3. Interesting – I was about to e-mail you but was uncertain of your address. The only one I have ends in gram.net. Could you drop me a mail at your leisure?

  83. Just back from dropping Dr. Daughter off for the train. Didn't realise that the hotel beside the station has been demolished. Wonder when that was done?
    An absolutely foul evening, very cold, almost freezing, rain yet, surprisingly, still not much wind though.
    Had a brief pause on the way back at the Farm Shop at Kelstedge.

      1. Back in the pre-speed camera days, driving my old Trannie, I’d knock it out of gear at the top and coast down!!
        Could get up to over 80 on the way down!

        1. In the middle of the night, at the high point of the A619 at East Moor, near Wadshelf, I could switch off the engine of my car, put it in neutral, and coast the 4.5 miles to the West Bars roundabout in Chesterfield. There is only one short uphill section on that run, where Baslow Road becomes Chatsworth Road, but the momentum takes you over that and the rest is a slow downhill cruise into Chesterfield.

          2. From Mudcat:-

            CHRISTOPHER AND ALICE

            Inside the yard at Buckingham Palace,
            Christopher Robin went down on Alice.
            "Dear little Christopher knows his stuff,
            At 'Trying the Beard' and 'Noshing the Muff.'"
            Says Alice

            Inside the yard at Buckingham Palace,
            Christopher Robin's still gobblin' Alice.
            "One more time, then after lunch,
            I'll reciprocate and 'Munch the Trunch.'"
            Says Alice

            Christopher Robin is getting his knob in,
            Alice is down and gobblin' Robin.
            She won't say a word while 'Tonguing the Tool,'
            "Cos it's rude to talk when your mouth is full."
            Says Alice

            They're plating away at Buckingham Palace,
            Alice plates Robin and Robin plates Alice.
            They're laying down upon the turf,
            "Nothing compares with a Soixante Neuf."
            Says Alice

  84. An accountable Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,247 3/6
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par for me today.

      Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

    3. Well done! Back to reality today with a par….

      Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

    4. Well done, par again today.

      Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

      1. I'll join you
        Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

    5. Par here
      Wordle 1,247 4/6

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

    2. It's only 6 degrees C here now. Time to light the Rayburn. When I was driving I thought it looked like sleet on the windscreen, but it didn't come to anything.

      1. I don't either Sue, I just followed the link, refers to Starmer/DPP.. to add to Rotherham girls….maybe try clicking on 'Show more…'hope it works, Kate x

      1. The reader context rests on the mismatch of names but that’s explained by the man having been given a new identity with his leave to stay here.

    5. Here it is in Full.

      Ok so I am an American and I am just speculating based on the information that I have been gathering. The man accused of the Southport killings is an immigrant’s son. Apparently, Rwanda tried to get the dad extradited in 2002 for over 100 murders. Instead he was given a new name and new life in the UK thanks to his lawyer at the time – Keir Starmer. So if the father had been extradited, as he should have been (my opinion), then the son would never have been in the UK to (allegedly) commit the murders in the first place.

      I hope the UK can wipe Starmer off the bottom of it’s shoe, but the smell will take awhile to go away unfortunately.

      But, seriously, can this actually be true? The problem is that Starmer is so repulsive that it could well be.

    7. Titania McGrath
      @TitaniaMcGrath
      So what if Alphonse Rudakubana committed genocide?

      My sister got caught stealing a croissant on her gap year in Marseille, and we forgave her & let her back in.

      WE ALL 👏 MAKE 👏 MISTAKES 👏

  87. Gosh – it is as diverse as your hat outdoors. Feels like midnight. I am signing off now.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain (and the cold weather…)

    1. Yes, I managed to overdo some stuffed peppers in the oven today. They were also rather diverse. I apologised for the state of them and D very kindly said Never mind, that "is our strength" isn't it?

  88. England vs Republic of Ireland: Irish fans boo God Save the King at Wembley
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/17/england-vs-republic-of-ireland-live-score-latest-updates/

    The Irish hate us as much as some people in the Middle East hate us.

    Perhaps the recent hooha about on-line hate crime should make us question whether people who hate us should be allowed to come and settle in Britain and whether those who hate us who are already here should be told to leave.

    1. Irish republicans can live in this country and vote in our elections. It's time to remove this privilege.

      1. It's been a long time since that privilege should have been removed. They can have their travellers back, while we are at it.

      2. Nah. Long may it continue. England or rather London has been nicking their talent for decades. Also that border issue will one day help to bring down the EU when everybody switches to the Canada/USA/Mexico boom.
        Lastly, Ireland has long been the most racist country in Europe.. and there is no way a small nation can absorb that many migrants, especially those crossing over from Liverpool.

    2. Telegraph 4:56PM
      The players are out at Wembley
      England’s last match of what has been a tumultuous 2024. The next time they play in March, the Thomas Tuchel era will begin for real.

      Reflexive boos for the Ireland anthem from England fans. Ireland fans respond with emerald pyro and some boos for God Save the King in return.

      2. I wonder if the English fans recognised that it was the Irish National Anthem. Many years ago when we still had a Far East Air Force, our RAF base held a big party/dance in Johore just across the causeway from Singapore. Towards the end, the local band played the Malaysian National Anthem but we all thought that it was the last dance. Ignorance rather than disrespect!

        1. Well, given that there were two teams representing their countries, and that they traditionally play both anthems before the game, and that the visitor’s anthem is always played first, the only other reason could be that the English fans weren’t sure if it was theirs or not?

          1. Depends where the English fans actually came from – bearing in mind the number of undocumented immigrants these days.

    4. English football 'fans' booed the Irish National Anthem (as they do with every visiting nation's National Anthem). Football fans are as thick as pigshit. It wouldn't happen at Rugby Internationals (and I speak as someone who played football and not Rugby).

  89. A couple of short items from Peter Immanuelsen. The French are implementing border controls, but they appear to be unwilling to take back some of the immigrants that have been escorted by them into British waters, despite having been paid £millions. Rather hypocritical…

    "IT BEGINS: Open borders agenda collapsing
    The Netherlands is imposing border controls from the 9th December.
    Peter Imanuelsen
    Nov 17

    Something big is happening in Europe lately. It seems like the open borders agenda is crumbling as more and more countries are implementing border controls.

    Not long ago, Germany announced they would implement border controls to protect their country. Then France has done the same.

    Now the Netherlands has announced they will implement controls on their land borders as a part of wider crackdown on the open borders agenda.

    After right-wing Geert Wilders won the election last year, they have officially requested to opt-out of the EU migration pact.

    Netherlands announce ”strictest asylum policy ever”
    Peter Imanuelsen
    ·
    Oct 29
    Netherlands announce ”strictest asylum policy ever”
    Big news coming from the Netherlands right now. Last year saw a shock election result, with right-wing Geert Wilders winning the election.

    Read full story
    ”It is time to tackle irregular migration and migrant smuggling in a concrete way. That is why we will start reintroducing border controls on the Netherlands from the beginning of December” said Dutch Migration Minister Marjolein Faber.

    The new right-wing government in the Netherlands has promised ”the strictest asylum policy ever”, coming with new policy earlier saying that asylum seekers from ”safe” parts of Syria would be deported.

    We are increasingly seeing the open borders agenda being rejected in Europe. Hungary has long been very strict on this issue. In Italy the number of asylum seekers coming to the country is down 60% the last year.

    In Austria, the right-wing Freedom Party won the recent elections. They oppose the open borders agenda.

    I will keep you updated on further developments about what is happening in Europe!"

    1. Latest is…KS proposing paying countries to take back migrants…what could possibly happen? Thick as mince.

      1. Yes – it will be a new source of income for them. Thicker than mince, if that is possible…

        Perhaps it will even become a reason for being allowed to stay "I can't go back because my government will fine me the money they got for taking me back"…

    2. Sinister beyond belief, safer to stay away from online as much as possible.

  94. I never get used to darkness at 4.30pm, at that time I usually have tea in the garden.

  95. Richer, safer, at peace with itself and its neighbours – what Trump might do for America and the world

    The US election has resulted in meltdowns among global progressives. But don't fall for the Left's caricature of the returning president

    Douglas Murray – 16 November 2024 – 2:36pm GMT

    Few people in history have had more words written about them than Donald Trump. And perhaps it is in the nature of things that much of what is written is uninformed, half-informed or malinformed.

    But reading British reactions to Trump's historic re-election landslide this month, it is still striking how little effort there is in this country actually to understand what Trump is about or what he wants to achieve.

    Just one reason why this is strange is that Trump tends to say what he wants in very plain English. And then he does what he says he'll do.

    So if he gets to achieve what he wants in the next four years, what will the world be like?

    The first thing is that America will have secure borders. And who knows, perhaps other countries might learn that they could do with them too? The millions of illegals flowing across the southern border in the early 2020s cost America billions of dollars and worsened security in almost every major city.

    Trump doesn't even have to finish building the border wall for his deterrent effect to be felt. But if he and his border tsar, Tom Homan, get their way, millions of people who would have come illegally will be deterred from doing so. And those who came to America illegally in recent years will be forced to return.

    This isn't just about the welfare costs and the national security vulnerability of an open southern border. It is about a basic idea of American life: which is that if you make it to America then you contribute. But if you cheat? You've broken the pact.

    Trump has always been consistent about the free market and tariffs. He is for free markets, but he isn't in favour of America being taken advantage of. For decades now, cheap imports from China and other rivals have been like a drug for the US – short-term satisfying, long-term disastrous. Those countries who want to operate in the US market will be able to, but not if they undercut American industry or are actually (through one route or other) subsidised by the American taxpayer.

    Energy independence is one of Trump's signature policies, and if he can make America the great exporter of energy as well, then that would benefit not just America, but also the wider world. What good did it do Germany and Europe in the early 2020s to be so reliant on Russian gas? It did Vladimir Putin plenty of good. But what did it do for Europe? Or the American taxpayer whose dollars do so much to subsidise Europe's security?

    Depending on whether or not the Starmer government is wise, there is a caveat to the trade-wars, which is that Trump has long wanted to do a big, beautiful, mutually beneficial trade deal with this country. He has a great fondness for this country in spite of the undiplomatic behaviour of MPs from most main parties.

    If the trade deal that was being worked on in the 2016-2020 period can be picked up again and signed, it would be a tremendous boost for Britain as well as America. But that is in the hands of the UK.

    Boom times for America could lead to boom times for Britain. At a time when Europe is economically stagnant, America's economic success will have major repercussions for the UK. But if Labour decides to make an enemy of America, then that too can all go another way.

    What an extraordinary stroke of fate it is that the success of the UK economy in the next four years relies on Rachel Reeves & Co playing nicely with Trump.

    Domestically, the issue of federal government waste is one of Trump's major policies. Like President Milei in Argentina, Trump sees government bureaucracy as not just costly, but a cause of sclerosis in the free market – as well as the back door for a lot of the anti-American, anti-Western ideas that have been pumped into the American mind for the past few years.

    If his Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, can indeed shave a couple of trillion of the annual federal budget, it won't just save money, it will also allow the socialist, radical-Left policies that dominate the Department of Education, among others, finally to be stripped out and dispensed with.

    On the world stage, all of Trump's core ideas centre on not just America First, but also peace through strength. Every American politician who wants to get elected says that they will strengthen the American military. Some want to do so in order to use the military. Trump realises that the best thing about having a strong military is that you hopefully don't have to use it – that its existence is deterrence enough.

    On the foreign field, Trump has made his policies plain. He wants Russia to end its war in Ukraine, and believes that Putin can be deterred without the use of force. He wants not just peace in the Middle East, but an extension of the Abraham Accords which did so much in his first term to normalise relations between Israel and its regional neighbours. Depending on what happens in the next few months, and whether the Iranian mullahs stay in power, there is an opportunity for a wider rapprochement across the region.

    When the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran is strong the whole region suffers. When it is weak – as it was when Trump was throttling them with sanctions in his first term – they are quiet. Depending on whether the mullahs stay in power, perhaps Iran could even be added to the Abraham Accords by the time Trump finishes his second term in office?

    Elsewhere, the main aim is to deter rivals. There is a contradiction in some of the America First movement – people who want America to be top dog but don't want it to be engaged in the world. Trump understands that you can't have both. But his idea of engagement on the world stage – whether it is the Chinese Communist Party or other competitors and enemies – is to deter them rather than allowing America to be dragged into a confrontation with them.

    Some of the effects of Trump's success can already be felt. Certain provocations by the West's enemies have already been reined in. And the corporate world which pandered to the radical Left already looks like it might be ready to do a reset. If this does happen, then something truly extraordinary could happen in the next four years.

    Because whether in Britain, Europe or America, the West has spent recent years mired in decline. Economic decline, certainly. But a social decline as well. We have been intimidated by hostile anti-Western voices in our own midst as well as outside. Mass illegal foreign immigration has radically undermined our societies. Countries which were once coherent have become, at root, incoherent and febrile. Equally bad is that voices from within have sought to undermine one of the central facts of the West – which is that people want to come here for a reason.

    They don't try to break into China illegally – and the CCP wouldn't allow them to even if they did. But only in the West have new generations been told that there is something not just bad about us, but uniquely bad about us – all while the world still tries to pour in here.

    Trump may be an unusual leader for many people, but he might have the opportunity not just to turn American anti-Americanism around, but also Western anti-Westernism too. Perhaps we might even be able to regain a justified pride in ourselves again.

    But then four years is an age today, and the world will happen – as it always does. Trump has said very clearly how he intends to act. But events tend to scupper the dreams of all people – even politicians with landslides.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/16/richer-safer-peace-trump-for-america-and-world-us-election

    1. “Trump has long wanted to do a big, beautiful, mutually beneficial trade deal with this country”. This would be a first – any deal that the US makes with another country has been and will be to the benefit of the US and any benefit to the other country will be purely coincidental.

    2. "Just one reason why this is strange is that Trump tends to say what he wants in very plain English. And then he does what he says he'll do." There is no surprise; that is a totally alien concept in politics. They can't get their heads round it. As for Starmer's government being wise – hollow laughter!

  96. Fun Fact: Greater Manc Police has handed case file regarding Fahir Amaaz, his brother Muhammad Amaad to CPS.
    CPS are still making considerations. However under Sub-section 2 of Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 Reform will bring a private prosecution against the brothers on Monday.
    However, DPP can immediately take over the case and shut it down.

    1. I understood that GMP handed the case file to the CPS in August (or possibly even in July). The CPS are waiting for the IOPC outcome so that if the police officers are charged they can downplay the charges against the others.

  97. Fun Fact: Greater Manc Police has handed case file regarding Fahir Amaaz, his brother Muhammad Amaad to CPS.
    CPS are still making considerations. However under Sub-section 2 of Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 Reform will bring a private prosecution against the brothers on Monday.
    However, DPP can immediately take over the case and shut it down.

  98. Zambian glamorous granny becomes fashion icon
    Granddaughter’s fun snaps of Margret Chola go viral on Instagram

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/11/16/TELEMMGLPICT000402000575_17317677885780_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqENh0amqpuv8Z5e8_LKlob00LoKc4qSRYG1k6EyxQm_I.jpeg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/11/16/TELEMMGLPICT000402000751_17317682760360_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgmFsEjQK2M33nnfQ31Q2_4O2JF_w593QGlWaWVZxraI.jpeg?imwidth=680
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/11/16/TELEMMGLPICT000402018980_17317695609600_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-IWLY18X4-CzgyIcjLEAj_SVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=680

    3. Now how I came to get this hat 'tis very strange and funny
      Grandfather died and left to me his property and money
      And when the will it was read out they told me straight and flat
      If I would have his money I must always wear his hat

      [Chorus]
      Where did you get that hat?
      Where did you get that tile?
      Isn't it a nobby one and just the proper style?
      I should like to have one just the same as that
      Where e'er I go they shout: "Hello, where did you get that hat?"

      [Verse 2]
      If I go to the op'ra house, in the op'ra season
      There's someone sure to shout at me without the slightest reason
      If I go to a "chowder club" to have a jolly spree
      There's someone at the party who is sure to shout at me:

      [Chorus]
      Where did you get that hat?
      Where did you get that tile?
      Isn't it a nobby one and just the proper style?
      I should like to have one just the same as that
      Where e'er I go they shout: "Hello, where did you get that hat?"

      etcetera…etcetera.

  99. I guess you all know that the gennycider Rwandan warlord and his barrister fought tooth & nail for him to be in this country.
    His barrister was a man named Keir Starmer.

    1. Farage also alludes to the cover up story of another Arabic man running around with a machete on the night of the Southport riot threatening to kill British women and children. It was this that enraged many of the protesters.
      He was arrested. Yet never reported in the media.

      This has to bring down Two-Tier Free-Gear Landing-Gear Starmer.

      2. The truth always comes out eventually. It’s better it comes out now, i would suggest.

  100. Welsh Government vows to change ‘beliefs and behaviour of the white majority’

    Labour’s anti-racist action plan aims to ‘build an inclusive society for all our black, Asian and minority ethnic people’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/16/TELEMMGLPICT000396035813_17317695787420_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680 Eluned Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, is committed to creating ‘an equitable society’ Credit: Andrew Crowley

    Craig Simpson
    Arts Editor
    16 November 2024 3:33pm GMT
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/16/welsh-government-vows-to-change-beliefs-of-white-majority/

    Michael Currie
    1 day ago
    Listening to Starmer calling Wales the shining beacon, his template, made me throw up. Living here in Barry, the health ( my sister has just coughed up £17000 privately for a knee replacement – cos the waiting lists are over 2 years!) service is third world, education has no vigour or learning – and now white people are second class citizens.
    I hate what this country has become. Hate it.

    Rob Britton
    1 day ago
    Reply to Michael Currie – view message
    I had to laugh when I heard that (ironic laughter!). The dystopia that is modern Wales will be visited on the rest of the country over the next five years. edited

  101. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    In the months before the general election, the Labour party had an internal debate about starting a ‘national conversation’ on assisted dying. Keir Starmer had promised Esther Rantzen, the veteran broadcaster with terminal cancer, that if elected he would hold a vote on it. Wes Streeting, in the health brief, argued that it might be the time to start a wider debate with the country on the thorny issue. However, he faced pushback from those in the shadow cabinet mindful of the fact there could be an election within months. Talking about death wasn’t exactly the feel-good change factor they were aiming for. ‘We didn’t want to become the death party,’ recalls a colleague.

    ‘It could basically blow up the family courts. Is that such a good idea?’

    Now, some in the party are wishing that the conversation had got under way sooner. Starmer has made good on his pledge to Rantzen: a vote to legalise assisted dying is due this month. But it’s not clear whether his government or party are convinced. ‘The politics has been off,’ says one Labour MP first elected this year. Backbencher Kim Leadbeater is using her private members’ bill to try to change the law so terminally ill patients with less than six months to live can opt for assisted dying. Technically it is a free vote – but given Starmer’s well-established position (he was one of the 118 MPs to back the 2015 effort for legalisation), the party believes it knows what the leadership would like to happen. ‘There will be soft whipping,’ predicts a cabinet minister.

    There had been a sense that the bill should pass comfortably. The combination of Starmer’s support, the large Labour majority and an influx of new, modern MPs means this parliament looks very different to the one that rejected the idea in 2015. Yet the tension within Labour between social liberalism and a more blue Labour approach remains strong. There are also MPs of faith, such as the Christian backbenchers Rachael Maskell and Stephen Timms, who oppose the measure. And then there are the MPs upset by the way in which Starmer has gone about it.

    Starmer is not the first prime minister to try to bring in a significant change early on outside of government legislation. Labour’s ban on smoking indoors was realised through a conscience vote – as was the latest Tory clampdown on the habit. But here, the concern is that a topic as thorny and knotty as this requires more careful thought than a private members’ bill and five-hour debate can offer.

    The decision to give a matter of life and death such short shrift in the Commons chamber has brought about the unlikely alliance of Diane Abbott, Ed Davey and Kemi Badenoch, who have all raised concerns. One influential Labour MP suggests the whips could delay the vote on the assisted dying bill. One criticism is that a decision that could lead to thousands of people ending their lives voluntarily has been given just five hours of debate time. Whips could intervene and choose to allocate government time to it.

    Now not even Starmer seems sure whether he will back it. The Prime Minister has gone from saying publicly ‘I’m personally in favour of changing the law’ to refusing to offer specifics this week to the travelling lobby as he headed to a climate summit in Azerbaijan. ‘Either he was always being bullied by Esther Rantzen or he’s lost his nerve,’ says one MP. He has reason to pause for thought: in an ominous sign for the viability of the bill, both the Health Secretary and Justice Secretary, the two ministers who would be responsible for the implementation of assisted dying in the United Kingdom, have said they will not vote for it.

    Shabana Mahmood’s views are long established and based on her faith as a Muslim. As she first told The Spectator last year: ‘I feel that once you cross that line, you’ve crossed it forever.’ Streeting has been torn on the issue, deciding a few weeks ago that he could not in good conscience back the bill. He has warned that ill patients could feel ‘guilt-tripped’ into ending their own lives and questioned the ability of the state (a regular complaint from Labour ministers these days) to support assisted dying. Those in favour of the bill are frustrated Streeting has been so vocal in his criticism given the Cabinet were told not to engage in a public debate. But as one government aide puts it: ‘It’s impractical. Of course ministers are going to be asked about it on media.’ Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, is the latest member of the Cabinet reported to be minded to vote against the bill.

    Leadbeater published the bill this week, setting out its safeguards. Yet many questions remain unanswered. A member of the public who pressured an individual into assisted suicide could face a jail sentence of 14 years – but a doctor under pressure at work and short on time can suggest it to a vulnerable patient. Might that not lead to some patients feeling under pressure to end their lives?

    The High Court must approve all applications. But there are currently 18 High Court judges in the family division, who are already overloaded with cases. There are concerns in the Ministry of Justice – which is facing spending cuts following Rachel Reeves’s Budget – that the implementation of assisted dying will only add to a court backlog. Applications for assisted suicide will, by their very nature, be treated as emergency requests and skip the queue – meaning there will be consequences elsewhere. As one government source puts it: ‘It could basically blow up the family courts. Is that such a good idea?’

    All this adds to an anxiety among MPs that assisted dying is not so much a necessary social change as a more a complex issue with no easy answers. ‘It’s hardly gay marriage – not many MPs want to be associated with this,’ says a party figure.

    Why rush something so delicate? Given Starmer so far seems to be struggling with the basics of governing, questions are being to asked as to whether this is another instance of the new Prime Minister biting off more than he can chew.

    If the first Commons vote in nearly a decade on the issue fails, the bill’s supporters would put the defeat down to poor planning. It would also suggest that Starmer needs to get to know his party better.

    Watch more on SpectatorTV:

    Katy Balls
    WRITTEN BY
    Katy Balls
    Katy Balls is The Spectator’s political editor.

    1. "Starmer is not the first prime minister to try to bring in a significant change early on outside of government legislation."

      The Bill has been introduced as a Private Member’s Bill to avoid the King being compromised between his apolitical position as Head of State and his position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This is why the proposed Bill was not in the King’s Speech or the Labour Party manifesto. This repeats the process used to protect the Queen in 1967 when the Abortion Act was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by David Steel.

        2. Yes, that's the point. King Charles can give Royal Assent claiming it is not his government introducing it.

          2. No, it’s a Private Member’s Bill – with a free vote. Everybody knows what’s happening – this is just the mechanism for giving the King an ‘out’.

          4. Yes, given the publicly stated conflicting opinions within the Cabinet, I see no reason why it wouldn't be properly held.

          5. Given MPs' attachment to going up in the world via party allegiance, I see every reason why pressure would be applied to vote the way their promotion lies.

          6. The "out" is technical. KCIII may be tarred with the moral responsibility of giving Royal Assent, and it may bring to the fore the whole question of the point of a Royal Assent – and by extension, the point of the monarchy. It is supposed to be a constitutional safeguard, (together with the Monarch also being the Head of the Armed Forces and of the Anglican Church) but cases such as this will highlight just how little of a safeguard the monarch actually is.

          8. Consider a Private Member's Bill introduced by a Conservative MP in this parliament. Would you consider it was on behalf of the government?

          9. I understand the concept of the royal assent being a mere formality. But if it is considered that the King forms part of the legislative process, that without his consent it cannot become law, then surely the King is ultimately responsible for the legislation.
            I think for this reason the Belgian king temporarily abdicated whilst Abortion was being approved in the Belgian legislature.

    2. We all know what will happen to the "safeguards" because we've experienced the slippery slope following the Abortion Act. This is not speculation, it's based on evidence.

      1. Canadians are getting assisted dying for many reasons. There is a trend of assisted dying being approved where viable medical care is feasible but not available where the patient lives. Even though US hospitals within fifty miles can provide treatment in a timely manner, it is often wait two years for your cancer treatment or go for the easy way out. It even goes as far as veterans who are unable to find housing and mental health support being offered assisted death even though they have no underlying terminal illness.
        They are now talking about mental illness being acceptable as a reason for death.

        I hope that when it is close to my time I will have the option of a quick exit over a painful exit but it would have to be my choice and not based on some bean counter restricting available treatments.

    3. "‘Either he was always being bullied by Esther Rantzen or he’s lost his nerve,’ says one MP."

      Sums up Starmer to a T!

  102. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and I was keen to have A Complicated Life.

    Here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities I had anticipated

    From my twenties to my fifties I appeared on it several times; my last outing was in 2016, as – like most other institutions – it was captured by the trans cult, leading to the show’s best presenter, Jenni Murray, leaving in 2020. Since then, the programme might more accurately be named What Is A Woman’s Hour. As Mumsnet noted, around 43 trans activists have been invited on to the programme over the years, compared with just 13 from the gender-sceptical side.

    After half a century of listening – in which my emotions have run the gamut from longing to contempt – I decided to listen to a solid week of it and give the show an MOT. The lead item on Monday was about what Kemi Badenoch’s appointment might mean for women. I was pleasantly surprised that the presenter, Clare McDonnell, didn’t nag; she mentioned ‘structural racism’ but that’s practically mandatory on Radio 4 programmes – I fully expect the Shipping Forecast to slip it in soon.

    The next guest was Julien Alfred, the St Lucian Olympic-champion sprinter. It was lovely to hear ‘race’ only being used to mean a thing that one aims to win; lovely to hear a story of female triumph without any moaning. It was like being back in the 1980s. Next up was the young writer Eliza Clark speaking up in favour of putting content warnings on books, including her own; here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities that I had anticipated, chucking a bucket of cold water over any idea of female resilience.

    On Tuesday, we were asked what gendered words annoyed us. Mine would be ‘cervix-haver’, but of course we’re only allowed to get upset by the old, dying, sexist terms rather than the new, thriving, non-binary kind. Pointless mention of trans rights complicated a discussion about the wisdom of holding a women’s tennis championship in Saudi Arabia (which is full of men in dresses anyway), as did the attempt of a female contributor to align the USA with a land where women practically need a guardian’s permission to breathe.

    Wednesday’s show aired as it was becoming obvious that the Blessed Kamala was heading for an early bath. There was a lot of predictable blather about Roe vs Wade but a resolute refusal to engage with the simple fact that Donald Trump had won the US election because he talks to ordinary people whereas Kamala Harris – like Hillary Clinton before her – talks at them. That the Democrats have facilitated male cheats in women’s sport and rapists in women’s prisons was completely ignored.

    The alleged comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about anxiety, grief, the trauma of fame and her dog dying. The presenter tittered like a smitten schoolgirl. Gadsby is a they/them, which seemed accurate, as she did strike me as a composite of a dozen really dull people. So smug were Gadsby and her fangirl that it made me wish I were a US citizen so I could have voted for Trump.

    There was masses more Trump Derangement Syndrome on Thursday, and an attempt to inject some ‘laughs’ by asking the question: ‘Do you have a first date red-flag question?’ Personally mine would be: ‘Do you think women can have penises?’ Friday brought yet more Trump, as the programme dealt with the inconvenient fact that the President-elect had just appointed the first ever female White House chief of staff, 67-year-old grandmother Susie Wiles. Hang about, I thought he only valued women for their youth and beauty?

    What a week of woe it was. Woman’s Hour has become a circle-jerk of miseries licking their wounds and picking their scabs. Do weird teenage girls still dream of appearing on it when they grow up? No – no one’s that weird.

    Julie Burchill
    WRITTEN BY
    Julie Burchill
    Julie Burchill is a writer living in Brighton.

    1. I used to listen to Woman's Hour in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s I was working full time – never went back to it after I retired. Clearly I'm not missing much.

  103. From the Daily Mail,

    I was asked to publish this the other day but found it behind a paywall. However it seems to be open now.

    ANDREW NEIL: Starmer wants to tell us what to eat, what to drive and how to heat our homes. His climate change obsession will be his downfall
    By ANDREW NEIL, DAILY MAIL
    PUBLISHED: 17:29 GMT, 15 November 2024 | UPDATED: 18:51 GMT, 15 November 2024

    Keir Starmer and his Minister for Green Zealotry (Ed Miliband) made a flying visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, this week where yet another shindig on global warming was being staged. A staggering 470 British officials went along for the ride, suggesting Whitehall really is full of folks with too much time on their hands.

    The Prime Minister went in person and mob-handed to impress on everybody how Britain 'leads the world on climate change', a typically pathetic and untrue conceit to which British politicians are all too prone to these days. Nobody else agrees or even cares.

    To underline his credentials, he even unveiled a new target: Britain will aim to reduce its CO2 emissions by 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035. There seems to be no limit to the cost and pain this government is prepared to inflict on ordinary households to allow ministers to grandstand on the world stage.

    Starmer would have us believe this is 'climate leadership' in action. The only problem is that the rest of the world is already going in the opposite direction to him. The Pied Piper of net zero is bereft of followers, no matter how loudly he blows his pipe.

    For a start, almost nobody else who matters bothered to make it to Baku to follow his lead. Not President Biden. Not President Xi of China or Prime Minister Modi of India, whose coal-fired electricity generating stations continue to churn out record CO2 emissions.

    Not President Macron of France or Germany's Chancellor Scholz, who had more pressing matters to attend to on the home front. Even the President of the European Union Commission, Ursula von der Leyen – who's usually up for a jolly at the drop of a hat – couldn't be bothered to turn up.

    France in fact stopped its environment minister from attending after the host attacked it for 'colonial crimes' in the Pacific. Argentina's President Milei, something of a climate sceptic, allegedly ordered his 80-strong delegation home so they did not have to be involved in agreements with which he did not agree.

    No wonder even the Global Green Blob is beginning to wonder aloud if the whole COP process has run its course.

    Keir Starmer was the major leader present at COP29, where he stated that Britain will aim to reduce its CO2 emissions by 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035
    Keir Starmer was the major leader present at COP29, where he stated that Britain will aim to reduce its CO2 emissions by 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035

    Starmer is the only major leader who still takes these green jamborees seriously, even though it's clear they've descended into a farce. Known as 'Conference of the Parties', COP Baku was like the last in the United Arab Emirates – held in a fossil fuel state which has no intention of cutting its oil and gas output.

    Fossil fuels account for 90 per cent of Azerbaijan's exports. Its dictator welcomed delegates by describing its oil and gas reserves as a 'gift from God'. The local deputy energy minister was caught helping to facilitate oil and gas deals, which was also a feature of the UAE's COP28. A farce indeed.

    En route to Baku, Starmer made three claims: One, securing £1 billion investment in offshore wind is a major step forward in our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower; Two, it will fire up our industrial heartlands and break down barriers to growth across the country; and three, we will lead the world in industries of the future.

    All are untrue. Note he didn't make a fourth claim – that his dash for renewables would reduce household energy bills by £300 a year before the end of the decade.

    It was a pledge made during the election campaign which no longer passes ministers' lips because it is not going to happen. The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates household bills will soon rise by another £120 a year in green levies to subsidise the expansion of renewable capacity. Labour politicians must have known at the time that the promised cut was mission impossible.

    The extra £1 billion for offshore wind Starmer is so proud of is a mere drop in the North Sea compared to what is required to meet Labour's target of decarbonising the electricity system by 2030. Tens of billions more will be required in wind turbines and solar panels – and tens of billions more on top of that to build pylons and cables for a national grid which will need to be reconfigured to carry renewables, which are intermittent and unreliable.

    The consumer – households and business – will bear the cost. The UK already has some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world to finance subsidies for renewable energy. They are about to get higher. This week the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm in the Moray Firth became the fourth UK wind farm to collect more than £1 billion in subsidies. It will rake in about £2 billion in the course of its 15-year lifespan.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility calculates that subsidies for renewables will add £12 billion to fuel bills for this year alone – and that's before we include future renewable subsidies and the £100 billion needed to upgrade the national grid for decarbonisation. No wonder industry is either closing down or fleeing to America, where energy prices are a fraction of Britain's.

    The Democratic thumping in America is a warning of what happens when a governing elite loses touch with the people ¿ a warning that Starmer will ignore as long as he remains in thrall to Miliband, and which might well mark his ultimate downfall, Andrew Neil writes
    The Democratic thumping in America is a warning of what happens when a governing elite loses touch with the people – a warning that Starmer will ignore as long as he remains in thrall to Miliband, and which might well mark his ultimate downfall, Andrew Neil writes

    COP29, in Baku, was like the last in the United Arab Emirates ¿ held in a fossil fuel state which has no intention of cutting its oil and gas output, Andrew Neil comments
    COP29, in Baku, was like the last in the United Arab Emirates – held in a fossil fuel state which has no intention of cutting its oil and gas output, Andrew Neil comments

    We are witnessing another great bout of British deindustrialisation in which, inexplicably, a Labour government is a willing partner. Households, which unlike business cannot flee, will need to get used to tightening their belts for yet higher fuel bills.

    The claim that renewables will usher in an era of cheaper electricity prices is one of the great lies of the Green Blob. The other is that renewables will create a plethora of well-paid jobs.

    Politicians on the Left and Right have often made this claim, none more so than the hapless Miliband who, a decade ago, promised a million new green jobs by 2030. It is fantasy economics. What Starmer thinks will be the industries of the future – such as carbon capture and storage – are untried and could just as easily be the turkeys of the future.

    We now have the latest official data for 2022, which claims there are 600,000 jobs in green industries. But more than half that total includes all manner of jobs – waste collection, double glazing, forestry, water supply, nature protection – which have been around long before climate change and renewables moved up the agenda.

    Jobs created by efforts to decarbonise our energy supply and the dash to renewables have risen from under 58,000 in 2014 to around 98,000 in 2022 – an increase more than wiped out by the loss of jobs in industries that could not compete because of our high energy prices.

    The Green Blob, of course, has done alright for itself. In 2022 there were 78,000 jobs associated with green charities, lobbies, consultancies and government agencies. Nice work if you can get it, but hardly a career route for unemployed steel, chemical or oil refinery workers. And even if they were tallied, you're still nowhere near Miliband's million.

    The obsession with net zero is now in retreat almost everywhere bar Britain. It won't just be America under President Trump that will opt instead to expand its fossil fuel output. Liberal-Left Canada and social democratic Norway are planning to do the same. Only Britain is refusing to grant new oil and gas licences.

    Germany, which once led the march to renewables, is pulling back sharply even under its current shaky centre-left coalition. A new centre-right government will take power in Berlin next year even more hostile to net zero. France, secure with its massive fleet of nuclear power stations, was never that keen in the first place. Only Britain has a madness-gripped government which almost seems intent on impoverishing us to reach net zero at any cost.

    Starmer said this week that he had no interest in telling people how to live their lives. That was yet another untruth. There is no way he can meet the tougher decarbonisation targets he outlined in Baku without forcing us to switch to electric vehicles, swap our gas boilers for heat pumps and eat less meat. So much for the light footprint he promised he would impose on our lives.

    Telling us what to drive, how to heat our homes and what we should eat will make the Government more intrusive than ever, which is probably why it appeals to so much of the Labour Party.

    But the Democratic thumping in America last week is a warning of what happens when a governing elite loses touch with the people – a warning that Starmer will ignore as long as he remains in thrall to Miliband, and which might well mark his ultimate downfall.

    France
    Azerbaijan
    Labour
    Germany
    Share or comment on this article: ANDREW NEIL: Starmer wants to tell us what to eat, what to drive and how to heat our homes. His climate change obsession will be his downfall

    1. Why would the leaders attend a Pacific Rim leaders meeting just finished in Peru, G20 meeting j/ party ust starting in Rio.
      Certainly beats tame islamic Baku

  104. Bericht: Biden erlaubt der Ukraine, russische Ziele mit Langstreckenraketen anzugreifen
    That'll help nobody except the arms manufacturers. And make it more difficult for Trump to broker a peace.

    1. Never, never let your gun. Pointed be at anyone. That it may unloaded be. Matters not the least to me.

    2. That's going to smart, although it's a good job he wasn't facing the other way.

  106. This is not good…

    DT Headline:

    "Biden allows Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russia"

    3. Just what they need, they can now lob big bombs from both sides with impunity.

      Who cares who wins or loses, it needs Trump to just bring it to a halt and if lots of Ukraine becomes Russian well just count the lives that will be saved.

    4. How on earth he can make such a strategic decision when he's on his way out is unbelievable. There truly are some deeply evil people in his administration (and beyond) – perhaps they are hoping for their much anticipated nuclear holocaust with all the financial opportunities that offers.
      May they all rot in hell – along with the rest of us, it would seem……..

  107. Evening, all. Just back from a confirmation service (half a dozen from our church) presided over by the Bishopette of Shrewsbury. We were treated to her Trump Derangement Syndrome during the sermon where she also said she was knocked back by Welby's resignation. These revelations were received in silence – if the others were thinking what I was thinking it would have been "no politics in sermons" and "perhaps the Church will move on now Welby's gone – unless they appoint a woke black woman". Talking to others from my church they certainly agreed with the first thought and some of them were sure Welby had known about the abuse and covered it up. She epitomises what's wrong with the CofE; too woke for words and out of touch with people's lives.

    As for the war on farmers, the break up of small farms is exactly what they want. More land for solar panels and gimmegrants.

    1. This morning Marcus illustrated what’s wrong with the CofE with the fact that the Diocese of Truro has 41 diocesan administrators and 39 clergy. At the notices, Sarah, our Safeguarding Officer was asked to stand up.

      1. I hope that Truro's administrators are better than ours; the woman in charge (the secretary) keeps changing the meeting dates without consultation of the plebs who have to drive to Walsall for 09.30.

    1. Those little girls were killed because Starmer enabled the killer's father to settle here. Their blood is on his head.

        1. Psychopaths only care for one thing.
          Three little children butchered, thousands of young girls raped and abused in our cities matter not a jot.

    5. Understand what you're saying Alex, but that's a great photo – look at the different shades, a painting in itself 🙂

        1. Hopefully prepared, Alec? I had three boxes of salt delivered yesterday, could be a hard winter we’re due one. Looks pretty but better on Christmas cards 🤶

  110. From the Daily Mail

    President Joe Biden has for the first time authorised Ukraine's use of US-supplied long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The decision is a major US policy shift and comes as Biden is about to leave office and President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to limit American support for Ukraine and end the war as soon as possible. The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea's decision to send thousands of troops to Russia in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, according to one of the sources. Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns. The first deep strikes are reportedly likely to be carried out using ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles.

    1. Has this been done to sabotage any possible future Trump peace initiative? He lost the election, now he wants to throw his toys out of the pram and plunge us into direct conflict with Russia.
      Everybody was happy thinking that Trump might get us out of this. But no, the ultimate revenge of a bitter old man.

      1. From the Daily Telegraph

        Biden allows Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russia

        US president signs off on deploying ATACMS rockets, raising expectations that Britain may authorise similar use of Storm Shadows

        Joe Biden had feared the use of ATACMS rockets could escalate the war

        Joe Biden has given approval for Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles for the first time.

        In a major policy shift just weeks before he stands down, the US president signed off on the use of ATACMS rockets within the Kursk region.

        Mr Biden’s decision will raise expectations that he is also set to drop his opposition to the use of British-made Storm Shadow missiles within Russia.

        Donald Trump, the incoming president, has vowed to scale back support for Ukraine and has said he will push Kyiv to sue for peace with Moscow.

        David Sacks, a close ally of Elon Musk and major donor to the Trump campaign, criticised the decision as anti-democratic.

        “President Trump won a clear mandate to end the war in Ukraine. So what does Biden do in his final two months in office? Massively escalate it,” he wrote on X.

        US officials told The New York Times that Mr Biden had changed his mind after North Korea sent troops to support Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

        The decision comes after Volodymyr Zelensky spent months urging Britain, the US and France to allow him to use long-range missiles on Russian soil.

        Sir Keir Starmer is known to be in favour of the use of Storm Shadow missiles, as is Emmanuel Macron, the French leader. But Mr Biden, who has a veto because the targeting system for the rockets is US-supplied, has until now resisted pressure to give his consent.

        Ukraine captured several settlements in the border region of Kursk in a surprise offensive in August, which it is now defending against Russian counter-attacks.

        American officials said that Mr Biden had been persuaded to authorise ATACMS strikes by the intervention of North Korean troops in the war. There have been reports Pyongyang could send up to 100,000 soldiers to support Russia’s invasion, which could tip the balance of the conflict.

        US missiles would initially be used to defend Ukrainian positions in Kursk, the New York Times reported.

        Mr Biden is said to have been swayed by warnings that Ukrainian forces there would be unable to hold out without extra aerial support.

        Kyiv has pleaded for the use of long-range missiles so it can target Russian supply lines and command centres, as well as airbases used to launch jets firing glide bombs at its troops.

        The White House has allowed Ukraine to fire US-supplied Himars rockets, which have a 50-mile range, over the border, but it has prevented the use of the 190-mile ATACMS missiles for fear of escalating the war.

        Mr Biden’s decision comes just two months before Donald Trump is to take office. Mr Trump, who won a landslide victory in the US election, pledged during the campaign to secure an end to the war on his first day in office.

        He has previously said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin rather than fighting back against the invasion, launched in February 2022.

        But he also called the Russian leader earlier this month and urged him not to escalate the conflict further, according to the Washington Post.

        Ukraine hopes to swap the territory it holds inside Kursk in any peace deal with Russia. However, analysts close to the Kremlin have said that Putin will not begin negotiations until Ukrainian troops have been ousted from his lands.

        Sir Keir will hope that Mr Biden’s decision could unlock the use of Storm Shadow missiles in Ukraine before Mr Trump enters the White House.

        Downing Street was last night waiting for full details of the US decision.

        James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, told The Telegraph: “This is a very significant move by the US and one that I very much welcome.

        “I hope this will now lead to Ukraine being granted full freedom of operation for all the weapons they’ve been supplied with, including Storm Shadow.

        “I’m particularly pleased that the US appear to be responding directly to the supply of thousands of North Korean troops joining the Russian side, confirmed by the US state department this week as being actively engaged in battle in Kursk, a strategic escalation that we have to respond to.”

        Mr Biden’s decision will also heap pressure on Germany to drop its opposition to supplying Ukraine with its long-range Taurus missiles, which Mr Zelensky has repeatedly asked for.

        US President Joe Biden embraces Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, in the Oval Office of the White House

        Joe Biden, the US president, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, have disagreed over the use of weapons Credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

        The Prime Minister and the outgoing US president are expected to meet in Rio de Janeiro this week as both attend the G20 summit.

        Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir said he was “going to make shoring up support for Ukraine top of my agenda as we go into the G20”.

        He warned: “Recently we’ve seen the addition of North Korean troops working with the Russians, which does have serious implications.

        “I think on the one hand it shows the desperation of Russia, but it’s got serious implications for European security and for Indo-Pacific security.

        “That’s why I think we need to double down on shoring up our support for Ukraine and that’s top of my agenda for the G20.

        “There’s got to be full support for as long as it takes and that certainly is top of my agenda, shoring up that further support for Ukraine.”

        Russia launches huge attack

        Sir Keir would not be drawn on the potential use of Storm Shadows within Russia, saying that he was “not going to get into discussing capabilities”.

        He added that he had no intention to speak with Putin, who will not be at the summit, with Russia represented by its foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

        Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has been heavily criticised after he decided to hold a phone call with the Kremlin leader last week.

        Mr Biden’s decision to authorise the use of long-range missiles came just hours after Russia launched one of its largest aerial bombardments of the war.

        In an attack lasting several hours, the Kremlin launched about 120 missiles and 90 drones against targets across Ukraine, killing at least nine people.

        Mr Zelensky said the assault was aimed at further crippling his country’s energy grid, which has been relentlessly targeted by Moscow.

        “The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is damage to objects from hits and falling debris.”

        1. It's perverse – just as Trump is ready to broker peace talks as soon as he takes office. It will enable him to spite Trump and kill many more people.

          1. On a smaller scale, that is the same kind of thing that Theresa May did in her last weeks in office – by signing the Barcelona Agreement – the dismal old bint.

          3. On a smaller scale, that is the same kind of thing that Theresa May did in her last weeks in office – by signing the Barcelona Agreement – the dismal old bint.

  114. Clearly they want to provoke war with Russia and were worried that Trump would bring peace to the area.

  116. # No farms No food .
    Support farmers and farm shops even if supermarket shelves are bare .

  117. Just said good night to our number two son his lovely wife 5 year old son and 18 mth old daughter……my word they keep us on our toes and busy. But as an ex assistant chef at Glen Eagles he cooked us a lovely dinner of Moroccan chicken. With (my) his daddy's help.
    All quite on the western front. Phew. And nearly bed time.
    But of course we love it really. 🤗🤭

      1. I don't know Sue he wasn't there long about six months.
        It was when Gabby Logan married her husband.
        I drove up with our youngest son to collect him and stayed in the lovely hotel overnight. I've never seen such a massive layout for breakfast.

          1. We stayed one night in a B&B, went to the hotel played on the 9 hole had dinner and overnighted excellent breakfast. Then I drove them home.

    4. 97063+ up ticks,

      Evening JN,

      Twins of evilness, could the tool be the other chap in the park public toilet when miranda was on a cottaging mission,

  119. Been feeling lousy all day – a sudden streaming cold started overnight. Will be having an early night shortly.
    Been reading the posts but only replying to a few. Still – I managed to cook roast lamb and veggies with roastie spuds and we washed it down with a glass of Merlot.

    1. We had the first half of Butterfly with our dinner – Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann. Made me feel much better. The lamb and roasties were good too.

    2. I had roast lamb, veggies and roasties washed down with Merlot on Friday. It should have been fish and chips, but I cooked that on Saturday instead.

        1. Yes, I probably eat more lamb than any other sort of meat. Pork doesn't agree with me so that doesn't feature among my culinary achievements.

    2. I was the Project Architect for and designed much of Richmond House by the by. Richmond Terrace is a retained facade opposite the Air Ministry Building, otherwise known now as the Ministry of Defence.

      I doubt access will be allowed.

    3. I was the Project Architect for and designed much of Richmond House by the by. Richmond Terrace is a retained facade opposite the Air Ministry Building, otherwise known now as the Ministry of Defence.

      I doubt access will be allowed.

  121. 397063+ up ticks,

    Tis only right in many respects we the indigenous have put up with all sorts of horrific abuse since" amanda" welcomed the criminality of the world to live among us.

    This has morphed into what, via the lab/lib/con uncontrolled / governing controlled, mass morally wrong invasion and successful coup.

    What we are witnessing is " To the victors the spoils"

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1858247509627301972

  122. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Joe Biden has 64 days left in the White House – and clearly he intends to make the most of them. The President has tonight allowed Ukraine to use American missiles to strike deep inside of Russia. For months, Kyiv has been asking for permission to use ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) – capable of firing long range missiles up to 186 miles. The weapons – which have already been used at least once to hit targets in occupied Crimea – will enable Ukraine to target a wider range of bases, storage facilities, and logistics hubs. It comes seven months after the Pentagon confirmed the missiles’ arrival in Ukraine on strict instruction that they had to be used in Ukrainian territory only.

    Today’s reversal of that initial decision is a significant shift in American policy. Officials in Washington had been divided on the wisdom of allowing this move. Some had concerns about escalation, with others pointing to the dwindling stockpiles of the weapons. Biden’s green light will raise expectations that Britain, the US and France could swiftly authorise Kyiv to use Storm Shadow missiles in the same way. Both Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have privately advocated this, with the Conservatives tonight urging the Prime Minister – who is on his way to the G20 in Brazil – to follow the example of his American counterpart.

    Biden’s U-turn today is a timely one, given Kyiv’s casualties in Russia’s recent counter-offensive. Hailing Biden’s announcement tonight, President Zelensky told Ukrainians in a television address that this weekend marked ‘one of the largest and most dangerous Russian attacks in the entire war’. Some 12,000 North Koreans have already been deployed to the arena, as part of Pyongyang’s efforts to aid Putin. Their clash in Kursk marked the first time in centuries that there has been a direct military confrontation between armies of a European and Asian country in Europe.

    Overshadowing today’s decision of course is the looming return of Donald Trump. He has repeatedly claimed in recent months that he will end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours, boasting on the campaign trail that he will strike a deal between both sides – but without offering any specifics. Trump’s advisers are split on whether America’s supply of weaponry ought to be contingent on Zelenskyy agreeing to immediate peace talks. Ukraine’s supporters will just hope that tonight’s move will strengthen Kyiv’s hand if such a scenario does now arise.

    James Heale
    WRITTEN BY
    James Heale
    James Heale is The Spectator’s political correspondent.

    2. There are no North Koreans in the Russian offensive. The language problems make this a totally mad delusion of the equally mad Zelenskyy.

      The weapons provided by the UK, France, Germany, Poland and the US can only be operated and launched by the technical military staff and operatives of those countries. The Ukrainians are unable to launch a potato in the direction of Moscow or St Petersburg left to their own agrarian devices.

      Putin has made it perfectly clear that he will consider that such countries will be considered opponents in war.

      The fact that we have a communist Prime Minister with multiple skeletons in his cupboard from his time as DPP and a prominent Humans Right lawyer, representing murderous scumbags and facilitating their acceptance into UK citizenship, ignoring hundreds if not thousands of Pakistani rape gangs in our northern cities, should make everyone quake in their boots.

      The very same idiot, Starmer, is all too willing to donate Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine and put us all at risk of Russian vengeance. Whether Milliband or Starmer or both destroy our country is evens betting odds at present.

      I have never been so depressed by our political class and their pathetic posturing on the supposed ‘world stage’. I have no wish to shut down oil and gas fields, fracking and coal mining. I wish to see our nuclear expertise revived on a large scale. We should also ignore the EU and construct new dams and exploit hydroelectric power.

  123. The front page of the DT caught my eye today when a health column reported that a marked increase in strokes of people in their 50s had been attributed to being obese, having a poor diet and not getting enough exercise.

    it was suggested that all these things contributed to high blood pressure.

    What I object to is the way the medical profesion blindly follows the edicts of the World Health Organisatiin which has a history of changing its mind about what a target blood pressure should be.

    The human body regulates its blood pressure according to balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
    The former governs the flight or fight responses through nervous conduction which can respond within a hearbeat to a stress threat. The latter, being governed by the vagus nerve, requires a far longer, perhaps hours, to settle the hearrbeat into a resting rate.

    It is therefore far more likely that ones heart rate is elevated rather than being in a resting state and since one's blood pressure is directly proportiinal to your heatrate your blood pressure can hardly ever be measured when it should be – at a resting state.

    Recent findings suggest that just an occasional several minutes of elevated heart rate are necesary for sufficient exercise and sitting down a lot could be good for maintaining a resting heart rate.

    As far as diet is concerned I suggest that because the gut is closely connected with the vagus nerve, heart rate (and therefore blood pressure) is likely to be connected with how and when you eat rather than what you eat.

    Being obese can obviously be used by the medical profession to justify putting the whole working population on a diabetic drug (which also acts as a slimming agent) and therefore gets big pharma an excuse to help the Government get people back to work.

    So you see that I don't agree with the DT's report on the experts findings on the reasons for high blood pressure.

    High blood pressure may in fact be linked with a condition recently discovered by doctors and caused by the stress of using smart phones on the toilet known as bog bum – reported in the Daily Star.

    2. I wouldn’t mind betting the experimental gene therapy jabs have something to do with more strokes.

  124. The front page of the DT caught my eye today when a health column reported that a marked increase in strokes of people in their 50s had been attributed to being obese, having a poor diet and not getting enough exercise.

    it was suggested that all these things contributed to high blood pressure.

    What I object to is the way the medical profesion blindly follows the edicts of the World Health Organisatiin which has a history of changing its mind about what a target blood pressure should be.

    The human body regulates its blood pressure according to balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
    The former governs the flight or fight responses through nervous conduction which can respond within a hearbeat to a stress threat. The latter, being governed by the vagus nerve, requires a far longer, perhaps hours, to settle the hearrbeat into a resting rate.

    It is therefore far more likely that ones heart rate is elevated rather than being in a resting state and since one's blood pressure is directly proportiinal to your heatrate your blood pressure can hardly ever be measured when it should be – at a resting state.

    Recent findings suggest that just an occasional several minutes of elevated heart rate are necesary for sufficient exercise and sitting down a lot could be good for maintaining a resting heart rate.

    As far as diet is concerned I suggest that because the gut is closely connected with the vagus nerve, heart rate (and therefore blood pressure) is likely to be connected with how and when you eat rather than what you eat.

    Being obese can obviously be used by the medical profession to justify putting the whole working population on a diabetic drug (which also acts as a slimming agent) and therefore gets big pharma an excuse to help the Government get people back to work.

    So you see that I don't agree with the DT's report on the experts findings on the reasons for high blood pressure.

    High blood pressure may in fact be linked with a condition recently discovered by doctors and caused by the stress of using smart phones on the toilet known as bog bum – reported in the Daily Star.

  125. The front page of the DT caught my eye today when a health column reported that a marked increase in strokes of people in their 50s had been attributed to being obese, having a poor diet and not getting enough exercise.

    it was suggested that all these things contributed to high blood pressure.

    What I object to is the way the medical profesion blindly follows the edicts of the World Health Organisatiin which has a history of changing its mind about what a target blood pressure should be.

    The human body regulates its blood pressure according to balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
    The former governs the flight or fight responses through nervous conduction which can respond within a hearbeat to a stress threat. The latter, being governed by the vagus nerve, requires a far longer, perhaps hours, to settle the hearrbeat into a resting rate.

    It is therefore far more likely that ones heart rate is elevated rather than being in a resting state and since one's blood pressure is directly proportiinal to your heatrate your blood pressure can hardly ever be measured when it should be – at a resting state.

    Recent findings suggest that just an occasional several minutes of elevated heart rate are necesary for sufficient exercise and sitting down a lot could be good for maintaining a resting heart rate.

    As far as diet is concerned I suggest that because the gut is closely connected with the vagus nerve, heart rate (and therefore blood pressure) is likely to be connected with how and when you eat rather than what you eat.

    Being obese can obviously be used by the medical profession to justify putting the whole working population on a diabetic drug (which also acts as a slimming agent) and therefore gets big pharma an excuse to help the Government get people back to work.

    So you see that I don't agree with the DT's report on the experts findings on the reasons for high blood pressure.

    High blood pressure may in fact be linked with a condition recently discovered by doctors and caused by the stress of using smart phones on the toilet known as bog bum – reported in the Daily Star.

      1. I doubt they voted for him but voted Labour. Stick a red rosette on a donkey and they’d vote for it as the last election proved.

  128. The afternoon soap called Doctors has been pulled by the BBC, I think it ran for 24 years .

    Here is my soliloquy on the soap.

    Doctors was a lovely warm kind informative soap , full of human pathos, but enjoyable and the characters that came and went showed us the variety of everyday life of people amongst us . The series was well thought through and dare I say comparable to the Radio 4 Archers .. Just everyday stories of people in our communities . Doctors had none of the venal viciousness that a current BBC portrays about the East End which is unwatchable trash . Many people, especially friends are really annoyed that Doctors has been pulled . The cast were brilliant . I do hope the BBC has a rethink and realises what a valuable asset Doctors has been .

    1. Conway I did not get a chance to answer your question about my garden because the post was 'locked'. Why that is done after two days I don't know, although I have asked. So, in answer to your question.

      My garden has a small proportion of flat land and that is covered by greenhouses. The rest of the garden is so steep it is prevented from slipping into oblivion by a retaining wall. If that happened to go I would be living in the woods at the back of the house. Which I would be quite amenable to. 😊 My front garden is small and fenceless, so that is out too.

      1. Thank you for the reply. I asked because I have no idea what is possible for you, but I know how beneficial owning and caring for a pet is, so I thought I would ask in case it was a viable proposition.

Comments are closed.