573 thoughts on “Sunday 17 November: Taxpayers are tired of this spending contest between the parties”

  1. Transcript: Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal. Sat 16 Nov 2019

    Andrew: On that particular day that we now understand is the date which is the 10th of March, [2001]I was at home, I was with the children and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose sort of four or five in the afternoon. And then because the Duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there. I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy so therefore I was at home.

    Morning everyone. I have zero interest and take no moral stance in this matter but he’s lying. Like most liars he cannot resist the urge to reinforce his own narrative.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/16/transcript-prince-andrew-on-the-epstein-scandal

    1. ‘Morning, Minty

      If he had never been upstairs in Ms Murdoch’s flat, how did he know that that incriminating photo showing his arm around that 17yo was taken upstairs? He said it at least twice.

      Yes, he was lying all the way & Maitlis, who could have shot many open goals, was surprisingly intimidated by him.

  2. Good Morning, all

    Nothing much in the newspapers worth talking about

    SIR – The increasingly bizarre speeches emanating from the EU can only make it more likely that people will vote Conservative to ensure that we leave at the earliest opportunity.

    Donald Tusk’s recent contribution, suggesting that Brexiteers longed for a return to empire, followed hot on the heels of Guy Verhofstadt being wildly applauded at the Liberal Democrat conference as he outlined his dream of a European empire.

    Clearly, empire is at the forefront of the minds of EU the bigwigs, whereas the Brexiteer’s 2020 vision is purely of a newly independent, dynamic, free-trading democracy.

    Tim Coles
    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    BTL:

    John Villiers 17 Nov 2019 6:14AM
    Tim Coles reminds us that empire building is at the forefront of minds in the EU heirarchy.

    Indeed, a German-led empire along the lines of the EU has been a recurring theme since the beginning of the twentieth century. Now they’ve finally achieved it, but how long will it last? German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg wrote this in 1914.

    “We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties…. All its members will be formally equal, but, in practice, will be under German leadership and must stabilize Germany’s economic dominance over Mitteleuropa.”

    Niall Ferguson wrote that if Germany had won World War I, Europe would “have been transformed into something not wholly unlike the European Union we know today.”
    ************************************************************************

    For someone who never served in the army, Bethmann-Hollweg was quite dressy
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg_in_uniform%2C_1915.jpg/220px-Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg_in_uniform%2C_1915.jpg

  6. Subject: Royal Air Force Salute

    Look at this carefully…

    When the British government scrapped the Harrier fleet, on their farewell formation fly past over the Houses of Parliament they gave the government a message.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f25b9ccccbacbbca69c7876656cead7b4f5f635d9f16edb36d6fe82aea1c7d8a.jpg

    Lean back a bit from your computer monitor and squint. Seriously…push your chair back a couple of feet.

    My hat is off to the man that was leading this Squadron.

    1. ‘Morning, Nanners. False, I’m sorry to say. Search Snopes for ‘Jets spell f*ck off’…for some reason I can’t copy/paste the link.

  9. PETER HITCHENS: We’ll laugh at these sensitive students and their virtuous opinions – but one day these mini-censors will lock us all up

    I enjoy being banned, or demonstrated against, by intolerant students. In some ways, I wish it happened to me more often. So should we worry much about the Policy Exchange report showing that a huge number of today’s students are either against fully free speech, or too easily persuaded to give up on it, on the grounds of ‘sensitivity’?

    So far, the problem seems trivial. Many universities still hold to proper free speech. When they don’t, it is usually quite easy to make them look foolish and crabby. It’s even possible to get round it with a bit of ingenuity. I did this once by holding the meeting in the open air.

    And it’s not new. The first time it happened to me was at a student conference in Blackpool 20 years ago. Even then, I was still trying to argue against the mad policy of legalising marijuana.

    Some jack- in-office switched off my microphone and ordered me from the stage because I had been falsely denounced by a screeching group of zealots – who reminded me all too much of my own Trotskyist days in the 1970s. My fellow-speaker and fierce opponent, the convicted drug-smuggler Howard Marks, responded like a proper British gentleman by declaring in his lovely rumbling voice: ‘If he’s going, I’m going too.’

    He then put his arm round my shoulder and marched beside me through the protesters. I almost wept. Much as I disagreed with Howard, I ever afterwards regarded him as a fundamentally decent person, however much I differed with him about drugs. He placed liberty of thought and speech above practically every other possession of our civilisation, and instinctively defended it.

    So no-platforming can be fun. But I am also frightened by it. Slowly, it is winning. When these mini-censors begin to fan out into the law, the media, the Civil Service, the legal profession and schools, they will be a real threat. Unlike Howard Marks, they have never been taught to value their liberty.

    They genuinely think their own opinions are so virtuous that they are entitled to silence others. I have read the attacks on me that have been circulated in these seats of learning, and they are enough to make the blood run cold. They look like charge sheets in some revolutionary show trial – a trial which I increasingly fear I may one day face in reality. Someone has usually spent days looking for things that I have said in the past, and then twisted them to give a false impression to the ill-informed.

    The people involved clearly think they are doing a good thing. They sincerely feel that I should not be allowed to say the things I say, or write what I have written here. Many of them, I am sure, would like to see me punished for having said them, preferably after a public confession of wrongdoing. Interestingly, many of the passages they have twisted come from some years back, when speech in this country, especially on the sexual revolution, was undoubtedly freer than it is now.

    And that scares me too. How much that we can freely say now will be regarded as borderline illegal ten years hence?

    And I suspect my opponents do not have any objections to prosecuting people for things which were legal when they did them, but are not now. And when they come hammering on my door, I fear there’ll be no Howard Marks to take the side of liberty.

    ***********************************************************************************
    In a few short words the diaries of the deceased old gossip Kenneth Rose have said far more about David Cameron than his breezeblock of a biography ever will.

    ‘I am deeply disturbed by the conduct of David Cameron, the PM, who has declared a planning free-for-all in the construction industry, apparently in return for huge donations to the Conservative Party. He is not a true Tory at heart but a spivvy Etonian entrepreneur.’

    I think the concreting over of so much of our countryside will be Mr Cameron’s main memorial, remembered with a bitter sense of irrecoverable loss long after all the rest is forgotten.
    ***********************************************************************************

    Don’t scream, but Olivia HAS got a Left-wing face

    My old friend Charles Moore, biographer of Margaret Thatcher, has been in a bit of trouble for saying that the actress Olivia Colman has a Left-wing face. Of course she does. And she has now declared in the Radio Times that she has a Left-wing mind behind it. I once said the same thing about another thespian, Andrea Riseborough, who was hopelessly miscast on TV as the young Mrs Thatcher a few years ago.

    You can’t easily explain it but perhaps people like me (who certainly have Right-wing faces) are especially able to tell. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t be watching Colman, left, portray the Queen in the new Netflix series of The Crown. It simply isn’t believable, and all the signs are that this fancy soap opera will once again be seeking to rewrite the past.

    At first I thought this habit, of portraying the past through a politically correct and generally radical lens, was mildly annoying. Various aspects of it couldn’t be criticised without risking stupid, false accusations of bigotry. So weird things, way out of their right time and place, which would normally have been mentionable became unmentionable. But now I have begun to think it sinister, another aspect of a fast-accelerating cultural revolution in which almost everything I value in this country is being wiped out of existence and memory. Most of our history is simply not taught to most children, so it is easy to introduce rubbish into their minds.

    As George Orwell wrote in words often only partially quoted from 1984: ‘If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” ’

    More painfully, he also described his hero, Winston Smith, despairing ‘within twenty years at the most… the huge and simple question, “Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?” would have ceased once and for all to be answerable’ and the new revolutionary rulers could insist that they had improved life ‘because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested…’

    That is what comes to mind when I see dramas that portray a Britain that never existed, and when important books that I know well, such as War Of The Worlds, are altered and edited to wipe out all memory that the past was different from now. This is what is going on. It is not as trivial as it looks.

    Welby still won’t do the right thing

    It is a shocking thing to say, but it is true that it is fortunate for the late Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who died last week, that he was falsely accused while he was still alive. Had the attack happened years after his death, as was the case with the comparably great Bishop George Bell of Chichester, the law would not in the end have rescued his reputation.

    You can say what you like about the dead, and nothing will happen to you. The accusations of terrible sex crimes made decades after his death against Bishop Bell have been comprehensively shown to be mistaken, to put it charitably.

    But some people, most notable among them the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, Justin Welby, continue to refuse to admit they were mistaken when they first accepted them.

    He claims sulkily that there’s still a ‘significant cloud’ over Bishop Bell. By behaving in this way, Mr Welby shows he does not properly understand the faith of the church he heads.

    1. The main achievement of Welby has been to show that it was possible to have a far worse Archbishop of Canterbury than Rowan Williams.

    2. The same people that prevent freedom of speech at university must be the same people that infest Facebook political groups, they get very nasty, I enjoy winding them up, while it is still possible.

    3. But now I have begun to think it sinister, another aspect of a fast-accelerating cultural revolution in which almost everything I value in this country is being wiped out of existence and memory.

      Yes. Part of it is a natural evolution in human affairs but a great deal of it is orchestrated!

      2. Morning AS,
        “But a great deal of it is orchestrated”
        The terrifying thing is many of the peoples are aware of that but will not acknowledge that
        awareness via the polling booth.
        Party before country.

  10. Morning all

    SIR – So far the election campaign has been a race to the top of the spending charts, with politicians trying to outbid one another.

    As a taxpayer, I’d like to hear how a responsible party is going to tax less and spend less. It would still be possible to improve services.

    Mike Metcalfe
    Glastonbury, Somerset

    SIR – Instead of talking about creating wealth and improving opportunities, the parties are all promising the earth – funded through taking and borrowing.

    This is not the way to encourage entrepreneurs and businesses to stay in Britain.

    Julienne Salem
    Altrincham, Cheshire

    SIR – Labour’s policy-makers must assume that voters won’t see the inconsistency of their announcements.

    Reducing the working week without reducing pay, reducing the top-rate tax threshold from £150,000 to £80,000 while promising to spend £6 billion more than the Conservatives on the NHS – it does not take a genius to see that the extra money is not going to match the wage bill for the staff required to compensate for the 20 per cent cut in the length of the working week.

    Alastair MacMillan
    Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire

    SIR – Sajid Javid recently referred to that most hated and unfair of all taxes: inheritance tax.

    If the Tories offered to scrap it in the next Budget, it would be a real vote winner – Brexit or no Brexit.

    Eric L Parrish
    Pevensey, East Sussex

  11. SIR – How efficient is the NHS (Letters, November 10)?

    Earlier this month, my daughter decided that she must investigate a lump on her breast. She went to the surgery on Monday. The doctor agreed that investigation was appropriate and made an appointment on the spot (though not an emergency one).

    On Tuesday my daughter went to the clinic where mammogram, ultrasound and blood tests were carried out. The consultant advised her that there was no cancer, and told her to speak to the doctor about her blood test results. Finally he asked: “Do you have a dog that jumps up at you?” The answer was yes: the dog was causing the scarring.

    My daughter lives in Belgium and, like everyone else there, she has medical insurance. Look how well it works. In less time than it can take to get an appointment with a doctor in Britain, her concerns were resolved.

    Robert Heath
    Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

  12. Here’s a letter that could not be more ill informed were the writer trying.

    SIR – Your report about the onshore wind farm review explains that it was launched by Andrea Leadsom, the Business Secretary, in response to concerns from local groups that the countryside is being “concreted over”.

    The arguments for renewable energy have never been more compelling. Scientists and environmental researchers across the globe have surely now demonstrated that the earth is heating up, and unless we act now there will be catastrophic consequences.

    All renewable energy sources have their place. Yes, we should continue to build offshore wind farms, but we need more onshore ones, too – particularly if the Government’s environmental target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is to be achieved.

    For some, wind farms may be a blight on the countryside, but for others they are graceful structures that represent a future for our children and grandchildren. Far from embarking on a review, the Government should be setting each council targets for wind farms, requiring a specific number of megawatts to be generated each year.

    Dean Ashton
    Leicester

    1. The arguments for renewables are hardly compelling, no scientist anywhere in the globe has demonstrated man made warming and the solutions to this imagined peril are dangerous dirty and lethal.

      1. One thing I have found when trying to debate the climate change scam with people that have swallowed the lies is that the whole issue has become a religion for them, for merely trying to present an alternative opinion you get called denier and ignorant and worse.
        As I see it there are two issues, the first is climate, are changes in parts of the world down to humans? well of course it is, all living creatures since the dawn of time have played a part in creating the climate we have now, humans with their rapid population rise, concreting over the planet, cutting down the forests and jungles for farming and habitation and all the other activities that go with civilisation have speeded things up a bit.
        The second most important issue that never gets debated is are all the measures that we are taking any good or worthwhile? hundreds of billions spent on first world Western civilisation destroying technology that doesn’t work and just causes more pollution with the unintended consequences.
        All it has done is transferred jobs, industry and technology to the other side of the world and leaving the free democratically elected West with less influence and control over protecting the planet and in the hands of totalitarian regimes and world government globalist billionaires who will be far less caring I expect.

        1. Germany is already cutting back on wind farms which are pathetic in their supposed value, polluting the land with noise and lethal blades, necessitating the cutting down of trees and and the mining of rare metals. About 600 tons of concrete goes under each one.

    4. Dean Ashton should read the article linked to below before expounding the idea that councils should impose the abomination of a wind farm on local people. The paragraph below explains why if we must have them imposed on us they have to be located well away from people.

      In mid-2015, graziers Clive and Tina Gare at Hallett, SA, told Senate Estimates that they’d been getting $200,000 (£105,000) a year since 2010 for hosting 19 turbines of 2.1MW for AGL, ie. $10,500 per turbine. Their literal windfall totalled $1million at the time and presumably nearly $2million by now. But the ‘unbearable’ turbine noise destroyed their health and lifestyle, they testified, even after massive extra insulation of their farmhouse. ‘I will probably just go slowly deaf,’ Mrs Gare said.

      Full article here: Conservative Woman – When Wind Turbines Die

    5. What a Silly-Billy, to paraphase he of the bushy eyebrows.

      We experienced yesterday – with a brown-out – the results of the current (ha ha) energy maestros.

      1. A few too many power brown-outs and black-outs will hopefully cause a large number of very different brown-outs within the PTB as the public becomes very, very angry when they realise the impact the impending power generation disaster will bring.

  14. Morning all,

    Flying back from Rhodes at 33,000ft the view over Europe, especially Germany and Belgium was blighted by wind turbines.
    Approaching the coast of the UK I was struck by the sheer numbers sited offshore, ugly scars to my mind.

    1. Clacton-on-Sea, a rather blighted area in Essex, has been further knocked back by the siting of one of these monstrosities off of its coastline. Also there is a small wind farm a mile or two inland. On a very clear day I believe one of those in the Thames estuary is visible from the promenade.

      2. We crossed the coastline south of Clacton-on-Sea and I could see the monstrosity mention.

          1. Yes Anne.
            Do you remember the hot dry summer, with the BBC constantly whining about climate change, about how this country would be hot and dry for the foreseeable future. I remember.

        2. Taking gigawatts of energy out of the global wind must have some effect. After all, we are constantly told that the balance of the earth in all things is on a knife edge.

      2. Good morning ,

        Is that for real.. can’t be true, how?

        We only have one small turbine here .. and that is near Puddletown, so I am not familiar with large stuff like that.. Lots of solar farms in these parts though.

        1. ‘Morning, Belle.

          It looks as though that’s out at sea. – early morning mist & all that.

          At first glance I thought it was 3 Qantas dreamliners racing to be first to Sydney.

        2. When the air temperature is very close to the dewpoint, a small drop in pressure (as downwind the blades) will cause water condensation & so clouds to form. They are all squirly from the turbulence generated by the blades.
          /Engineer pointyhead

          1. Aha , and good morning OB

            Now then , with your engineer head on, so all that water condensation become cloud makers, yes?

            Do you think that arid areas in much hotter climes could benefit from the same ?

          2. Unlikely. Not enough water vapour in the atmosphere, too high temperatures at ground level. Way away from dewpoint, most of the time.

  15. Priti Patel’s demonisation of Gypsies is an attack on the vulnerable for political gain. George Monbiot. Wed 13 Nov 2019

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c96c155fa8def2d1d7fbba413450f9933b59dff235f364e5981eff55440de8ef.jpg

    This is how it begins: with a theatrical attack on a vulnerable minority. It’s a Conservative tradition, during election campaigns, to vilify Romany Gypsies and Travellers: it tends to play well on the doorsteps of middle England. But what the home secretary, Priti Patel, proposed last week is something else. It amounts to legislative cleansing.

    I like this conflation of Romany Gypsies with their cute horse drawn vardo’s (there’s even a picture Lol) and Travellers with their huge caravans, nose to tail convoys, petty crime and illegal and aggressive occupation of private land.

    Only a Socialist could have dreamed up such an exhibition of duplicity.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/priti-patel-demonisation-gypsies-prejudice-bigotry

      1. Morning Anne. In what I hope is a rare exhibition of juvenilia can I wish that a gang of Travellers ensconce themselves next to Mr Monbiot’s residence!

    2. We watched BBC4’s programme on climate change.

      More interesting and balanced than we expected.

      However every seven minutes or so they went to George Monbiot who told us what we should be thinking. Very strange comments. Very strange!

      We felt he had either been taking drugs or was insane.

    3. We watched BBC4’s programme on climate change.

      More interesting and balanced than we expected.

      However every seven minutes or so they went to George Monbiot who told us what we should be thinking. Very strange comments. Very strange!

      We felt he had either been taking drugs or was insane.

      And the thought that the BBC were paying him licence payers’ cash to spout these weird comments made our blood boil.

      3. Morning Janet. He certainly has some odd views but they are I think a product of Socialist thinking. When reality does not meet your expectations fantasy will intercede!

  17. Morning, Campers.
    I’ll kick off the day with a spot of Rod Liddle.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/my-charter-of-fundamental-rights/

    My charter of fundamental rights
    Rod Liddle

    “I was chatting to a young medical student, a very bright chap from West Africa, who was nonetheless perplexed by a certain element of his course. The puzzle, for him, was the point of offering cervical smear tests to men who had transitioned to become women. The course module was very clear, he said, that these people must not be left out, despite not possessing a cervix. I hope a later part of the course teaches him how to behave while carrying out a cervical smear test on a non-existent cervix, so as not to cause offence. Poke around a bit with that spatula thing in whatever has recently been excavated, and perhaps comment admiringly, along the lines of: ‘My goodness! What a splendid cervix. I don’t think I have ever seen one quite so robust or pristine. You should, as a lady, be very proud.’ We should thank God that at least the NHS has not adopted this policy yet.

    I tried to explain to the lad that we are now living in a world which could best be described as ‘post-real’, where truth and fact have no purchase and that, for the sake of his career, he had best go along with it all unless he wanted to be outed as a fascist bigot, or a bigoted fascist, whatever. One day, not too far down the line, he may be faced with the problem of treating a man who identifies as a unicorn and presents with a complaint relating to his fetlocks. The temptation to nail some horseshoes to his feet may be close to irresistible, but he should resist nonetheless. Go along with the game and offer reassurance.

    All this occurred at a rather uplifting meeting held in a delightfully renovated former whorehouse in central London, organised by a group called Turning Point UK. This lot are the British wing of an American organisation which is attempting, with some success, to turn the tide of political idiocy on US campuses, and I think they deserve your support. Their MO is to approach a university and then organise a meeting at which interested students — usually 30 to 40 at a time — can be reassured that it is not always necessary to hate capitalism to complete a degree, and that their opinions are valid even if they do not find accord with whatever deranged harridan has recently been -elected by a minuscule percentage of the student body as the local NUS chief. Turning Point UK is broadly conservative, although not party political — which was how I was able to be speaking there, as a representative of the Social Democratic Party.

    Their chief problem at the moment is getting access to universities — they are often no-platformed, as occurred recently at the ultra-woke University of York. The authorities there feared that Turning Point UK might bring ‘reputational damage’ to the college as a consequence of their links, in the USA, with the Republicans. It is a mark of the totalitarianism of our times that an organisation can be blackballed because its sister organisation contains some people who quite like the President of the USA. But that is where we are right now, sadly.

    My job was to unveil the SDP’s new Charter for Academic Freedom, which my party will be rolling out in universities across the country, beginning with a gig at the -Buckingham University Free Speech Society in January. The charter will enshrine a series of fundamental rights for both students and lecturers which I think we might all agree on:

    fundamental right to express your own opinions without being silenced by those who disagree with you.

    fundamental right to be grotesquely offended by what other people might have to say, and then quite quickly to get over it.

    fundamental right to be treated as equal, no matter your colour, creed or gender. No protected characteristics.

    fundamental right — indeed a duty — to challenge established orthodoxies.

    fundamental right to an education which is politically broad and comes from a wide variety of viewpoints.

    fundamental right, if you are a female student, to enjoy privacy from the other sex and to compete in sports against other people of your own gender.

    fundamental right to be able to hear outside speakers at your university who possess a wide variety of views.

    fundamental right to be judged by your lecturers purely according to your academic ability, regardless of how greatly your political views might differ from theirs.

    I might add to that: a freedom to show appreciation by loudly banging your hands together in the traditional manner known as ‘clapping’, or by waving your hands in the air if that’s what floats your boat.

    The temptation is to give up on the universities, with the lament that they are always left-wing and nothing really changes. That would be a mistake, I think. It is true that universities in modern times have always been somewhat to the left of the general political mindset, and to be honest I have no great problem with that. But today they have become metro–liberal echo chambers where dissenting views are not merely brushed aside, but those who hold them are penalised and vilified.

    This charter enshrines what would 20 years ago, I think, have been unquestionable rights which have since then been -eroded. And the students will know that there will always be one party, the SDP, -supporting them in their right to express modern -heresies, even if as a party we might disagree with some of those heresies.

    But there is also this. Politics devolves from culture. You cannot change the politics unless you first address the culture; and at the moment this intolerance of — particularly — socially conservative views is present in the media, the judiciary, our schools, the House of Commons. Here’s a way we might start to change all that.”

    1. ‘Morning, Anne, such a pity that he – or his SDP – are still confused with the differences between gender (a grammatical term) and sex (a medical term).

      Apropos the medical student’s confusion with giving a cervical smear to, and through, a manufactured vagina; this stupidity is also rife in the US, where under Obama Care, everyone has to be insured against everything – women are insured against prostate cancer, cancer of the testicles, impotence et al and men are insured against cervical cancer and all with increased premiums putting healthcare beyond the reach of most people but making it illegal not to pay for it.

      Small wonder people voted for Trump but he has yet to remove Obama Care.

      1. ‘Morning, Tom.

        Just to be pedantic for once, I have to say that one takes a cervical smear, one does not give it.

        1. ‘Morning, Peddy, Liddle has that medical student having to offer a cervical smear – in my book, offering is an adjunct to giving, not taking; but then if someone would offer to take Corbyn to the loony-bin, I might change my mind.

          1. When I was a student, I was known for bringing pompous consultants to their knees on ward rounds.

        2. Grammatically you are correct; but the woman with her feet in stirrups on the receiving end of cold a speculum might beg to differ.

          1. Well, she’s not likely to yell “Gimme more! Gimme more!” now, is she?

            ‘Morning, Anne.

          2. Well, she’s not likely to yell “Gimme more! Gimme more!” now, is she?

            ‘Morning, Anne.

          4. Depends on the time of year, I suppose.

            During a hot summer in a stuffy ward a cold speculum can refresh like an ice lolly.

          6. It was a good’un. I think I’ll copyright it.*

            *Watch while the möchtegerne pedants have a feeding frenzy on that one1

      1. No, Richard, that would be cultural appropriation – another reason not to wear black socks.

        Good morning.

    3. For poor and indigent NOTTLers: mind you, if we weren’t shelling out for this nonsense, possibly more would have money for a DT subscription.
      And, thank goodness, in the days when I took the ‘Eagle’, rather than ‘Girl’, this carp hadn’t been invented.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/meet-detransitioners-women-became-men-now-want-go-back/

      “Meet the ‘detransitioners’: the women who became men – and now want to go back

      ‘How could I remove my healthy breasts when I’d seen my mother lose one of hers to cancer?” asks Charlie Evans. Until recently, the science writer from Margate identified as transgender, convinced, along with increasing numbers of young women, that she had been born in the wrong body.

      After undergoing a ‘social transition’, for which she changed her name from Charlotte, as well as her pronouns, her passport and driving licence, in order to live as her chosen sex, she refused to go through with the gender reassignment operation that would give her the sexual characteristics she thought she wanted.

      But earlier this year, at 28, she faced coming out for a third time in her life: having announced in her youth that she was a lesbian, then trans – now, finally, she is a ‘detransitioner’.

      It’s a phenomenon that’s almost as new as transgenderism itself – but one that the movement in Britain rather you didn’t talk about.

      Charlie says there were a series of epiphanies that lead to her not so much coming out, but going back in. It was around the age of six that she convinced herself she was actually a boy. “I liked football, I liked trucks, I liked girls,” she says, “therefore I was a boy.”

      This was no mere childhood phase, one that would fade faster than an obsession with One Direction. Charlie now realises, after extensive therapy, that the feelings of gender dysphoria that developed were the result of what she is only willing to describe as “abuse” outside the family.

      It began when she was eight and cemented within her a loathing of her female body. “The trauma exacerbated and accelerated feelings that were natural for a child who didn’t conform that, I now see, I would have outgrown,” she says.

      “I feel like a young woman who got lost along the way”

      After appearing on television to talk about her experience of detransitioning, Charlie began to talk more generally her gradual realisation that “you can’t be born in the wrong body – it’s our minds that need treatment, not our sex”. She has since been contacted by several hundred others who are undergoing a similar recalibration.

      They come from across the UK, as well as mainland Europe, Canada and Mexico, are generally under the age of 25 and conform to a transgender “trend” reported across several western countries. It sees more adolescent girls than boys identifying as trans for the first time, and in ever expanding numbers; over the past decade, the UK has experienced a 4,400 per cent increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment.

      Having identified since her teenage years as trans, Charlie, who is about to embark on a PhD, now lives as a bisexual woman. She decided to detransition this year after the scars left by her mother’s mastectomy prompted her to question why she would want to have her own healthy body parts removed. This realisation was backed up by a trip to Ghana where insisting her pronouns were respected seemed like such a first world problem.

      Key to her epiphany was also undertaking long-term counselling with therapists who weren’t gender specialists. “Unpicking what happened to me as a child was enough to take the edge off me feeling so uncomfortable with the body I wanted to be chopped apart,” Charlie says. “I wouldn’t have got that if I’d gone to a gender identity clinic, because they have to affirm your belief.”

      Other who have contacted her since she became the poster girl for this band of brothers who are now sisters once more, have embarked on hormone treatment, leading to beard growth in females and permanent lowering of the voice. In males, there is a softening of features and breast growth.

      A few have undertaken full surgical reassignment: double mastectomies, hysterectomies and oophorectomies – removal of ovaries. At least one woman has had phalloplasty: Debbie (formerly Lee), in her early 60s and a victim of extensive childhood trauma including sexual abuse, had flesh removed from her arm to make a penis. She now wants it removed and to be given implants to simulate the healthy breasts she had excised when she was 44.

      “So many of these women describe a mental state where I do not believe they could have consented to these surgeries,” Charlie says.

      Most, according to Charlie, report remarkably similar characteristics and experiences: eating disorders, autism and social awkwardness, childhood trauma sometimes as the result of sexual abuse, mental health problems. Charlie herself suffers from generalised anxiety disorder and depression. Lots are lesbian and possibly experiencing homophobia, even their own internalised attitudes.

      All, she claims, were “sold this idea that transitioning was magically going to solve their problems”.

      “I’m in communication with 19- and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved. They don’t feel better for it.”

      While there is no doubt there are growing numbers of people suffering gender dysphoria whose feelings of incongruence with their birth sex are improved by reassignment, according to those making contact with Charlie there are a significant number who have been left desperately disappointed – and with nowhere to turn.

      “I feel like a young woman who got lost along the way,” says Keira, a 22-year-old from the south-east who contacted Charlie’s newly formed charity, the Detransition Advocacy Network, having undergone a mastectomy in 2017. It was part of her search for an identity she now realises never existed.

      Describing a metaphysical no-man’s land, Keira says: “I was changing my body, but I knew I didn’t want to have phalloplasty, so I felt stuck between the two sexes. Then, as I moved into a better space mentally, dealing with my childhood issues, my whole perception suddenly shifted, along with my view of life. I realised no matter how much you change your body, you’ll never change your sex.

      “I started to think about children for the first time, too, which I’d been vehemently against when I was at the adolescent gender clinic,” she adds.

      Keira attended the Gender Identity Development Service at London’s Tavistock and Portman Trust, the only NHS facility for transgender young people. She says that when she was 16, after just three appointments, she was referred to an endocrinologist for puberty-blockers. Prescribed to “press pause” on puberty for children distressed by their developing bodies, the hormones do, however, carry health risks including to bone density and cognitive development.

      For Keira, who had already started puberty, the effect was to halt future development and stop her periods. She then moved on to cross-sex hormones – testosterone for biological women transitioning, oestrogen for males – and appointments at the adult clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London. Her voice deepened, she developed body hair and grew a beard. At the age of 21, she had her breasts removed.

      But, after realising her mistake, Keira had her last testosterone injection at the start of this year – yet she is still having to shave and is routinely mistaken for a man.

      It is not just a permanently lowered voice that is the legacy of Keira’s foray into gender reassignment, however. “I am so angry and I can’t see that going away,” she says. “Nothing was explored that may have better explained the way I felt about myself than that it must have meant I was born in the wrong body.”

      She describes an unhappy childhood, deeply affected by her parents’ divorce and her mother’s alcoholism, leading her to retreat into a world where being a boy felt like it offered escape.

      Now, she says, “I feel sick, I feel like I’ve been lied to. There’s no evidence for the treatments I’ve had, and they didn’t make me feel any better. It was maturity that did that.”

      Her view is echoed by Sue Evans, a psychoanalyst who used to work at the Tavistock and is now crowdfunding to bring a test case against the trust to establish that children cannot give their informed consent to what she describes as radical, experimental treatment. Evans will be speaking about her case at the Detransition Advocacy Network’s first event in Manchester at the end of the month, the first ever public meeting for what is likely to be a growing demographic.

      However, there is as yet no data on the number of people unhappy in their new gender, or those who seeking to detransition.

      “I’m about the science, the research and evidence-based good practice in medicine,” says Evans. “And it just doesn’t exist when it comes to how we treat trans patients.

      “This has been moved out of the medical domain and has become political and ideological,” she continues. “But the problem is it absolutely is a medical issue, because you’re about to launch people on a pathway that chemically and medically interferes with the basis of their body, who they are and their identity.”

      As Charlie, Keira and Debbie have all found, there is plenty of help available for people who want to transition – but precious little for those who then change their minds.

      There is so little acknowledgment that not everyone who transitions remains aligned with the opposite sex that Keira cannot easily undo her gender recognition certificate, which leaves her as legally male; she would have to apply for another one to ‘transition’ back to her birth sex.

      “There’s a lack of interest in detransitioner studies and outcomes and data, because it doesn’t really suit the people pushing this ideology to know about the bad outcomes – even the doctors who are following a protocol with their head in the sand,” says Evans.

      “Part of the trans message is you’re the consumer, you make a choice about your gender and we will curate a body for you to fit in with your requirements,” she continues. “Detransitioners are the rejects that go into the seconds shop. They’re not the good examples from the production line of bodies that transition. In a sense, they’re the damaged goods no one wants to acknowledge.”

      1. God, Almighty, can’t we stop this nonsense. 99.9% of people have the sex that was displayed as they left the womb – get over it and live with it. Let’s shut down the idiots trying to tell children that they might not be the right ‘gender’. “Oh, sorry, I’m the wrong noun.” If you’ve got a willy you’re a boy, if you haven’t, you’re a girl. The only male creature that appears to give birth is a sea-horse.

          2. ‘Morning, Mags, my electronic training in the 60s, taught me that transistors replaced thermionic valves.

    2. Last time I looked Richard Braine was Leader, and former leader Gerard Batten Deputy Leader, but it seems this is no longer the case, and someone else I’ve never heard of now claims that title today.

      In order to assist readers, here is the roll of honour:
      Alan Sked (1997)
      Craig Mackinlay
      Michael Holmes
      Jeffrey Titford (2001)
      Roger Knapman (2005)
      Nigel Farage
      Malcolm Pearson (2010)
      Jeffrey Titford (2)
      Nigel Farage (2) (2015)
      Diane James
      Nigel Farage (3)
      Paul Nuttall (2017)
      Steve Crowther
      Henry Bolton
      Gerard Batten
      Piers Wauchope
      Richard Braine
      Patricia Mountain (2019)

      1. Morning JM,
        It could be plain to see the open treachery of the UKIP NEC, when backing Batten to then turn around and seeing the success he was making with leading UKIP to say he was “not of good standing” within the party.
        The NEC select who can stand in any future elections for NEC members, so much as with the lab/lib/con pro eu cartel, corruption / PC / Appeasement, rules,OK.
        We now have a leader chosen by the NEc who is for “steering the ship” IMO she is for stirring the sh!t the NEC way.

  20. As sure as eggs is eggs, our police help a nation of narcissists take offence
    Rod Liddle

    I was once sitting on a fairly crowded commuter train when a flea jumped out of my hair and started hopping about on the table, presumably searching for a more congenial host. “Ha, look at that little fella go!” I said, trying to cover my mortification. It was 5.30am, Salisbury to London. Everybody saw the flea. Nobody said anything. They just looked repulsed. Fair enough, I suppose. If I had had my wits about me, I would have reported them to the police for putting on a “bad face” and thus discomfiting me.

    The flea wasn’t my fault. My then wife had taken in a vile cat, which was ridden with them. It later got flattened by a Mondeo on the A36. I thought this entirely just and held a small party, with wine and crisps.

    I suppose it is antisocial to sit on a crowded train while ridden with fleas, but at least I didn’t do so knowingly. Far worse, I would argue, is the behaviour of Erika Stoter, who routinely eats boiled eggs on her 6am commuter train from Chelmsford to Liverpool Street in central London. A woman called Samantha Mead quite rightly told her that this was disgusting: foul for the people around her. Did Stoter look shamefaced? Not a bit of it. She reported Mead to the police for racially aggravated something.

    There was not even the vaguest suggestion that Mead’s comments had been occasioned by Stoter’s race (she is apparently Brazilian). It was about her antisocial habit and, perhaps, her utter lack of regard for fellow travellers.

    Stoter’s excuse was that her diet required her to eat boiled eggs at precisely that time. This is the point. Her fatuous diet took precedence over the sensibilities of all her fellow passengers: me first, you don’t matter.

    If you are me, and slightly unhinged, you might argue that this is evidence of a dystopian, atomised and narcissistic society in which communal togetherness has been sacrificed for an indulgent and infantile “don’t judge me!” liberalism, to the detriment of us all. If indeed there is such a thing as society, to the modern mindset — rather than a random agglomeration of disconnected individuals, all of whom are determined to Do Their Thing, and sod everyone else. That is a very modish way to live your life, especially in cities with their transience and lack of communities.

    Or you might just think Stoter is selfish. Whatever, Stoter also complained that Mead put on a “bad face” — which I think means she looked annoyed — and Mead was fined £750 and ordered to pay £750 to Stoter, which should keep her in boiled eggs for the next year or so. I think Mead should have been made an OBE, but that is not the gist of this piece and you may disagree.

    Why in the name of Jesus H Christ was this allowed to come to court? You may be pro the eating of eggs on crowded trains — in which case, please don’t get on mine — but even so, we can agree on this, surely. Being moaned at by a grumpy woman (it was very early) may be unpleasant, but in what possible way is it worth the considerable expense of bringing the case to court?

    And yet this is the thing with our police these days. They have somehow become convinced that the greatest threat to social cohesion is not burglaries, muggings or being stabbed in the throat on your way home from the pub, but an almost endless litany of stuff that is actually of no real consequence, engenders no real loss or injury, but merely causes momentary pique or is responsible for having “given offence” to people who have skin more easily violable than is the surface tension of water.

    Perhaps the police find these imaginary crimes amenable because, unlike burglaries, they require very little in the way of investigation. As with those largely imaginary hate crimes online — it’s easy to find the perp from your desk in the local nick. No dusting for prints, no forensics.

    But it is also the modern mindset of the Old Bill, which now believes that these political crimes (as they used to call them in the good old Soviet Union ) are vitally important, far more so than the loss of property, for example. We have “woke” police who no longer inhabit the real world, who cannot tell right from wrong. In this they have been aided and abetted by elected police commissioners who have politicised each force over which they preside — a truly awful innovation that we should do away with right now.

    Increasingly, the real crimes go unsolved while the coppers scurry around protecting the sensibilities of narcissists. And just wait until there’s 20,000 more of them, avidly rooting out every imaginary offence.

    Farage keeps election promise

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F431c3ed0-0893-11ea-b74d-6ffd84f3cc00.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=685

    Hold your horses
    Bang on cue, Nadhim Zahawi MP has proved that the Tories are the party for ordinary working people. It has re-emerged that he was hauled up for claiming more than £5,000 in expenses for heating his stables.

    Having been found out, Zahawi said he was “mortified” by the error. No kidding. Next week we’ll discover some Tory MP has billed taxpayers a few thou for dry-cleaning the costumes for the unicorns that pull his carriage around the constituency.

    I keep being told that the only sensible thing to do is vote Tory. But they don’t make it easy, do they?

    Students act with grace under fire
    Kate Tunstall is the interim provost of Worcester College, Oxford. Her Twitter feed contains exactly what you might expect: moans about white men, Conservatives (disgusting, xenophobic), Brexit and Donald Trump.

    She recently tried to change the tradition of saying grace before meals in the college common room. It might be better if students chanted meal blessings from across the world, she suggested, rather than stale old Christian grace.

    I don’t know what sort of stuff. Maybe the Hindu blessing: “This ritual is One. The food is One. We who offer the food are One. The fire of hunger is also One. All action is One. We who understand this are One.” Or to save time, the Teesside injunction: “Get that scran down yer neck, you radgie.”

    Whatever, the students voted to tell her to get stuffed. They wanted the tradition kept as it was. We complain about ludicrous student “wokeness”. But how much is imposed upon them by their even more ludicrous lecturers?

    Living high on the hog in Italy
    Truffles? Forget that — wild boar in Italy have moved on. They recently found a stash of £17,000-worth of cocaine buried in the countryside, and snorted the lot. The coke, which would once have got Elton John through at least half of an afternoon, is believed to have been buried by an Albanian drug gang.

    If you’re walking in Italy and see some feral pigs acting in a bumptious and arrogant manner, all of whom have rotting septums, you’ve probably found the miscreants.

    1. But it is also the modern mindset of the Old Bill, which now believes that these political crimes (as they used to call them in the good old Soviet Union ) are vitally important, far more so than the loss of property, for example.

      They are the Stasi. The thought police!

    2. At least the ‘bad face one’ was unlikely to bop Plod on the nose.
      Unlike, say some stationary ‘traveller’ caught nicking a quad bike at 3.0 am.

    3. We had a wretched white South African trainee nurse, who permanently failed to qualify, because she thought she had found her niche for life & who moaned about everything. If anybody brought egg sandwiches/hard boiled eggs/kedgeree (my sin)/scotch eggs for lunch consumed in the social room, she would go absolutely ballistic as soon as she smelt them.

      1. Reminds me of an obnoxious SRN who decided to top up her qualification by adding 18 months psychiatric to her CV.
        On every ward, she had failed to endear herself by constantly sniping at us nut house nurses by denigrating our efforts.
        Blissfully, she failed her finals – twice.
        She then stirred it on the ward where I was working. I called a ward meeting where I – shall we say – did not hold back (I had just dressed the mouth of a cancer patient that ‘super nurse’ had studiously ignored on every shift she attended).
        Madam went off sick for a week.

        2. I saw that sort of thing several times during my hospital stay 2 years ago; i.e. unpleasant tasks being left for the next shift.

          1. Tell us about it.
            On geriatric wards even jobs like the pm shift ‘forgetting’ to wash out tights caused havoc on the morning shift.

  21. Repost from late last night

    DT Headline

    Boris Johnson: ‘Every Tory election candidate has pledged to back my Brexit BRINO deal’

    What better reason is needed to vote for TBP?

  23. My latest contribution to John Redwood’s Diary.

    RAF
    Posted November 17, 2019 at 9:35 am | Permalink

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    The same with open door immigration as practised by Blair: more potential Labour voters. Ditto with votes for children…

    Is this, in part, a recognition by the Labour Party that their traditional tribal support is waning? Abandoning your natural support base by taking them for granted and ignoring their very real concerns is not very clever in the political scheme of things. December 12th will give us direct evidence of whether or not the Labour Party is in serious decline.

    The same could be the fate of the Tories a few years down the line. Should Johnson deliver the UK into the rapacious grip of the EU rather than delivering complete freedom from its clutches the Tories will be committing the same political crime as Labour.

    Labour under Corbyn deserves to fail and fail massively because it poses a direct threat to the people and culture of this Country. Likewise the Tories if they attempt the great sellout.

    2. Free checks for oral cancer have been included in a check-up for the last 10 years or so, in fact cancer in the entire head & neck area. Nothing new in that.

        1. Maybe I didn’t express myself too well. I meant that cancer checks are already included in the standard check-up at no extra cost.

          2. He should have examined your oral mucous membranes, i.e. lips, cheeks, sulci, hard & soft palates, tongue & floor of the mouth. Then he should have checked your lymph glands on head & neck down to the clavicles (clothing permitting).

            I always gave my patients a running commentary so they were in no doubt about what I was doing.

          5. I wasn’t happy with my NHS dentist so went privately..
            I will ask about the cancer check…thanks.

          6. I think it’s automatic during a checkup with any reputable dentist who was trained in one of our teaching hospitals.

      2. My dentist was telling me that he’d noticed one on another patient a couple of years ago, and indeed after a visit to his patient’s GP, it was confirmed and dealt with successfully.

        1. During my 40+ year career I detected & referred about 1/2dozen cases of cancer. 1/2 dozen lives saved.

  25. Malvern Harper can obviously afford to stick his oven on max just to get a crisp skin on his microwaved jacket potato – a skin which is subsequently thrown away. I have a cheaper solution….a blowlamp.

    1. I give my large baked poatatoes 90 minutes on 220Cfan to get the skin nice & crisp & I eat the skin.

      Tip – scrub the potato, dry, prick all over, rub with olive oil & salt. Result: super.

      1. I found a McCains one in a box at the back of my freezer the day before yesterday. I duly set the microwave for the regulation 4 mins. But at 3.5min, there was a strong smell of burning and the top of the potato turned burnt black. Moral: Use them within their sell by dates, even if frozen. This one had a use by date of Aug 2016…

      2. Morning Peddy, I just microwave mine and sling the skin, I will happily save my skins and send them to you to put in the oven with the rest :o)

      3. If it’s just for me, I micro wave.
        For others, I initially microwave and then use the oven. And I always make sure the rest of the meal uses the oven as well.

  26. Dean Ashton says councils should be given targets for windfarms requiring a specific number of megawatts to be generated each year. His mentality is questionable – do councils have power over the weather? Yes they generate a lot of hot air but wind…no!

  27. Never mind the borng cookery comments how about some useful DIY tips ? ………Barry Bucknell where are you?

    I have a leaking tap. Call out for a plumber £50…..

      2. She turned the isolater valve to ON at 0.58 then turns it OFF at 5.13 – ho ho get someone in who knows what they’re doing

      3. I don’t have ‘normal’ taps…,,where you replace the washer!

        Mixer taps……. mystery how to get to the washer….!

        Thanks..

        PS I don’t have a wrench…..

        1. That being the case, it almost certainly won’t have a washer as such. They tend to use cartridges and they are not standard.

          There are lots of youtube videos and it is fairly straightforward to do, but vital that you have the correct piece.

          1. Sounds like a plumber job!
            Look on the bright side. Yesterday i fixed the gate and saved myself a bob or two!
            The Lord giveth and taketh away…

          2. If its leaking at the joint between fixed base and movable bit, there might be a small grub screw on the rear of the fixed bit. Loosen and pull off mixer to reveal a washer. Do not loose the grub screw down the sink or you will be screw**. If the leak is from the tap, there is normally a screw and a nut that releases the unit to access the washer…… be sure to turn off the mains water before releasing, otherwise you might join the Yorkshire folk in having a Christmas that goes swimmingly well. Maybe a hunky plumber is the answer to your prayers and he will fix the tap as well.

  28. Listening to – rather than watching – last night’s interview with Prince Andrew, overall it didn’t tell us more than we already suspected.
    He is not the brightest or most reflective of men. He and his ex-wife are not burdened with scruples over money or good taste. And that he has reacted against a somewhat restrictive palace regime by dabbling with the demimonde and some very dubious characters. So far, so junior royal; Princess Margaret or Edward VIII, anyone?
    However, it is clear that boredom is the great enemy of those not in direct line to the throne. The men seem to enjoy their time in the armed forces, but are taken out from their jobs far too early for fears about their safety. It is very noticeable that Princess Anne, who had no doubts about her chances of ever becoming monarch, has simply got on with her life and supported the Firm.
    If the Royal family and the British government made it perfectly clear that a ransom will not be paid to buy back any captured royal prince, then they could continue in their careers until their proper retirement age. Ditto injuries or death – which, I suspect – neither Harry nor Andrew ever worried about.

  29. Good morning, all.

    Finally got the chance to watch Prince Andrew’s much talked about interview with Emily Maitlis and I was not impressed. This one part especially struck me as odd.

    “I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time and that was…was it…yes, I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falkland’s War when I was shot at and I simply…it was almost impossible for me to sweat.”

    A peculiar medical condition indeed and long-lasting apparently, since Prince Andrew was still suffering from it twenty years on. It’s not a something I’ve ever come across or even heard of before. Far be it for me to doubt the Prince’s story but I have to say that I too, was ‘shot at’ in the Falklands War – quite a lot, in fact – and while I admit it does give one a certain ‘adrenaline rush’ at the time, it’s never prevented me from sweating like a normal, healthy human being, nor have I heard of any other veterans who were afflicted by this strange condition.

    But I musn’t rush to judgment. Who knows – perhaps it’s all in the genes and like haemophilia, this condition has been passed down the Royal line from Queen Victoria.

    2. I didn’t see it…only heard snatches on the radio. Why did he do the interview? And why was he so ill prepared for the hatchet job?
      Didn’t he learn anything in the Navy…?

    3. I didn’t see it…only heard snatches on the radio. Why did he do the interview? And why was he so ill prepared for the hatchet job?
      Didn’t he learn anything in the Navy…?

      1. It isn’t impossible, but I don’t buy it. Did you see the interview? Every lie was followed by a look to see if it had been swallowed.

        I spent 40+ years reading patients’ faces.

        1. That’s the part of the story that I find least believable.
          I very much doubt that people moving in Princess Beatrice’s social circle would have their child’s birthday party at a Pizza Express.

          2. Very stupid if so.
            If it is true, I should imagine every member of staff at the PE would have remembered it and the BBC would have corroborated it. I haven’t heard of anyone doing so.

          3. I distintly rememmer a posh gen’leman comin’ into our Pizza Parlour wiv ‘is frien’s that night. ‘E woz wearin’ a coronet an’ a Admiral’s uniform. Luvverly ‘e looked, but ‘e didn’ arf ‘onk of sweat.

            — Sharon Boggins (Pizza Express, Woking)

          5. I don’t know.
            Never under-estimate the upper echelons desire to appear ‘normal’.
            This is the age of the dead common man.

          7. Apropos Epstein, that’s another funny thing. Andy hadn’t been in touch with the bloke for several years, so why go to the trouble of contacting him & staying 4 days in his house, just to terminate the friendship? Usually friends just drift apart or write farewell letters, unless there was a blazing row.

  30. The Latest Lib-Dim Migration Policy

    They want a totally open door policy plus they want to bring in 10,000 so called unaccompanied children a year

    I would guarantee almost none of them are unaccompanied children. Many will be adults and other will only be claiming to be unaccompanied as it increase the chances of them getting into the UK. Their parents will then turn up several month later to claim asylum and their children

    WE cannot even care for all our own children let alone another 10,000 a year and imagine the cost of that

  31. YouGov survey

    It shows Conservatives up 3% but the other parties are only down 2%. I assume this is down to rounding

    What we are seeing is the Conservatives gaining ground at the expense of the minor parties but the Labour vote is surprisingly holding up. The issue here I think is the Brexit Party is making no impact as its campaigning in my view has been abysmal. Lets hope they get their act together as they would take votes from Labour

    Con 45% +3%
    Lab 28% n/c
    Lib 15% n/c
    Brexit Party 4% n/c
    Green 3% -1%
    Other 6% -1%

  32. Free lunch for EU is over!’ UK to take back 60% of British fish by kicking out EU boats

    BRITAIN’S fishing industry will take back sovereignty of its waters after the UK leaves the EU, preventing the bloc from taking 60% of our fish.

  33. Ben Habib thinks Brexit Party will have 20 MPs

    Unfortunately based on current polls the Brexit Party are unlikely to get a single MP. Rather than see a bounce once the General Election was announced they have seen a continual fall in the polls, Some polls have them down to 4%

    They have to get their act together with their Campaign which so far haves been incredibly poor. Even their election tours meetings have left people no wiser as to the Brexit Parties policies

    BEN HABIB insisted he will be surprised if the Brexit Party does not win “at least five” seats in the upcoming election, before adding he hopes his party will win 20 seats

    Mr Habib added he is “torn” over how to vote in his own constituency of Chelsea and Fulham where there is no Brexit Party candidate.
    But he said he “may” vote for Tory Greg Hands or alternatively spoil his ballot paper.

    Meanwhile, the MEP said he thinks staying in the European Union would be better than going ahead with Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement.

      1. It would be nice for the Brexit party to get a few MP’s but based on their current performance in the polls they have about a zero chance

  34. I despair. Of our “local candidates”, the Conservative candidate is from a different part of the county (Harpenden and Hitchen – Hitchin is 26 miles away), and the only non-Liblabcon candidate is a Social Democratic Party candidate from even further away, in the NE part of the county (we are in the SW). Hertfordshire is a big county – what is the point if your MP is miles away, and probably knows nothing at all about your area.

    Only the Labour and LibDem candidates live in the area, which may well increase their share of vote – especially as they are the only candidates that have even posted leaflets, as far as I am aware. What a farce.

    1. Morning HL…….
      Our “local man” is the Labour man – and he is a good local MP. I could never bring myself to vote Labour, though. the Limp dim has stood aside in favour of the ghastly Green MEP (who is about to lose her job) Molly Scott Cato. The Tory girl has sent us a pamphlet but nothing yet from the others. Not sure if we have a BP one or not.

      1. Morning J,

        If you search under Statement of Persons Nominated and your constituency, you should be able to find out who is standing – that’s the only way I just found out who is standing in my constituency.

      2. In my view a Candidate should have to live of work in the Constituency and have done so for at least 3 years (This stops someone just registering a nominal home address in the constituency just before an election)

      3. We have a Liberal and a Green in Hammersmith. The Conservative candidate is called Xingang Wang.

          2. “The dead are rising from Hell and voting Conservative.”

            Now we know that there is something wrong with this deal. 🙂

    2. Hertfordshire is one of the smaller counties, It is not that big, The largest County is North Yorkshire. The smallest is the City of London but I would not really count that as a County. Hertfordshire is just a bit bigger than Greater London

      1. I have a map of the City of London from 1874 which identifies it as “the City and County of the City of London”.

        2. And London no actually embraces two counties and parts of several others. It gets very confusing as the Royal mail kept the old Postal address’s So you get Enfield Middlesex and Barnet Herts, Both being in London

        3. I guess back then it would have been what ewe would regard as a County ie an area that covered a significant number of towns and villages

          Another thing that can be confusing now is that technically many villages are now Hamlets and many hamlets are now villages. IT gets confusing

          3. The Local Government Act 1888 changed things a great deal, often for the better. More than can be said for the Grocer’s LCA 1972.

          4. Wilson must take some of the blame for Heath’s reorganisation. He appointed the Royal Commission that made the recommendations.

      2. – and in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.

        ……. I’ll get me anemometer.

      3. I have just seen that somebody has given you a downvote for this. I can’t imagine why someone would downvote you for an innocuous post.

        Hertfordshire does have quite a few people though, and my point was relative to my county.

  35. Pizza you say??
    Is that a thin crusted message that if I get prosecuted I could spill an awful lot of beans??

  37. Want to know the real Boris Johnson? Well, it’s all there in his novel, in graphic and horrific detail. Sat 16 Nov 2019.

    But less squeamish women, willing to tolerate a leader who combines an apparent aversion to precautionary measures with a history of matchless infidelity, could yet recoil from the inescapable message of Seventy-Two Virgins: that Johnson evaluates their entire sex, and not just his unfortunate intimates and colleagues, according to their fuckability on the – sometimes eccentric – Johnson scale. Does this priority promise much interest in addressing, for instance, sex discrimination, harassment, the gender pay gap? There could, however, be a dentistry upside.

    One of the reasons that writers are so reluctant to appear in public is that at some time early in their careers that will have shown someone something they have written and been shocked at the result. This is because of the non-writers unthinking assumption that all that is written is autobiography in one form or another. It’s not true of course. Bram Stoker was not a Vampire and Mary Shelley did not conduct experiments on cadavers in the attic of the Villa Diodati. While Johnson is not in this league and it is true that authors do occasionally put their libido’s into their work this is usually just after puberty and before Social Consciousness encourages discretion. Boris may be all sorts of things, philanderer, liar, misogynist, fantasist, even traitor but these things are not revealed in his fiction.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/16/want-to-know-real-boris-johnson-all-there-in-his-novel-in-graphic-and-horrific-detail

    1. Morning Minty

      This is what you have to look forward to this evening (11:05pm ITV)

      https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/11/17/02/21049844-7693809-Arcuri_was_flamboyantly_dressed_in_a_fur_trimmed_cloak_frilly_wh-m-53_1573956150234.jpg

      Portrait of a heartbroken woman who loathes the limelight?

      Pausing to remove an errant dab of pink lipstick at the corner of her mouth, she checked her reflection in the lobby mirror. Then, furtively, she glanced out of the hotel’s side entrance and caught a glimpse of the waiting paparazzi.

      At this stage, it would have been easy to slip out of the side door unnoticed.

      But if anyone thought Boris Johnson’s pole-dancing, rumoured ‘lover’ Jennifer Arcuri was going to make a discreet exit from the Royal Horseguards Hotel on Friday morning they could think again.

      With a defiant toss of her tumbling blonde mane, she adjusted her movie-star dark shades (despite the gathering rainclouds) and clacked across the marble lobby floor in her £800 gold-embossed Ferragamo boots…….

  38. New Boundaries

    If the new boundaries had come in the Conservatives would have an even bigger lead., Scotland & Wales and London have a disproportionate number of seat currently

    Under the new proposals this is the likely outcome

    England

    Con – 5 seats
    Lab – 24 seats
    Lib – 3 seats

    Wales

    Con -3
    Lab -6
    Plaid -2

    Scotland

    Con -1
    Lab -0
    Lib -2
    SNP -3

    NI

    DUP -0
    SF -0
    Min -1

    1. As one reply put it a day or two ago when this first appeared: “Invite in everyone but the English.”

          1. Erm, only fools and horses go by the rule book. The PTB have one for us – and a totally different mindset for themselves.

        1. I was dodging the CalBots.
          They can be somewhat picky over English English.
          Try mentioning the English version of meat balls.

      1. In latest News, it seems no suicide bomb attacks are being planned by Buddhists. No Sikhs or Hindus have carried out machete attacks on the streets and there have been no suggestions that any are planned. No Jains have been suspected of the grooming and rape of children.
        Should the Police not be working to correct these failings?

  41. Not happy about this –

    Panorama, War Crimes Scandal Exposed is on BBC One at 21:00 GMT on Monday 18 November.

    1. British government and army accused of covering up war crimes.

      The year-long investigation claims to have found evidence of murders by an SAS soldier, as well as deaths in custody, beatings, torture and sexual abuse of detainees by members of the Black Watch.

      That is all it seems to consist of “claims” and “accusations” I can find no reference to anything actual that can be tracked down. It’s a BBC/Sunday Times investigation so make of that what you will!

      https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/17/british-government-army-accused-covering-up-war-crimes-afghanistan-iraq

      1. It is revealing that these lawyers will travel thousands of miles, to turn over every stone and listen to every false accusation, in a desperate attempt to find something that could be labelled as abuse.

        They could just wander 170 miles up the road and they would find 10,000’s of cases.

        1. The damning evidence of inhumane treatment meted out to innocent civilians by British soldiers lies in two thick files kept under lock and key behind the barbed-wire security fences of the Trenchard Lines military base overlooking Salisbury Plain.

          Afternoon Meredith. This would seem to imply that they haven’t actually read them so Electoral sh1t stirring?

          https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-the-evidence-of-war-crimes-ministers-tried-to-bury-6x2fb63ts

    2. And yet, I don’t think we ever did get to see the Panorama programme that looked at scandals in “Charidees” – possibly because it (allegedly) included a none too flattering look at Children in Need?

      1. David Miliband’s exorbitant salary of £680,000 has made me resolve never to give any money to a charity whose employees earn more than I do.

  43. Afternoon all.
    I’m sure this has been discussed already today but … what a byline “I couldn’t have slept with … because I was at Pizza Express”! What a disastrous PR effort. The other thing is – do we care?
    Just off for a walk round the lake, lovely sunshine but chilly. Slayders.

    1. Would have sounded better for a member of the British Royal Family to go to a fish and chip shop for their supper.

      Pizza isn’t food. Vile stuff.

        1. We can buy one called Pizza Regina.
          I like it, it’s made on site at the supermarket and is very tasty.

    3. “I couldn’t have slept with … because I was at Pizza Express”!

      Just think of the effort behind that! They had to check that it was actually there in 2001. That the staff had changed. That they were open on that day (Saturday). That Eugenie and Beatrice were home that weekend. That’s why it took six months Lol!

      1. A lot of folk over in the US apparently think that there may be a degree of confusion with the ‘Lolita Express’

        1. Will they ever admit that Epstein’s death was the result of murder rather than suicide.? And can any stories – both for and against Prince Andrew – be believed?

          I haven’t a clue about The Duke of York’s antics – but it is interesting to note that one of the problems with the EU is that Napoleonic precedent has resulted in a system whereby an individual on a charge has to prove his innocence whereas under the British system of habeas corpus the state has to prove his guilt. This is a crucial distinction which we shall prbably lose along with fishing rights and everything else under Johnson’s disgraceful proposed surrender BRINO!
          .

      2. 2001 A Right Royal Oddity.

        All I can remember from 2001 are the dates of my birthday, our wedding anniversary, my wife’s birthday and I think Christmas was on the 25th December. Which restaurants I visited, when, with whom and what I had to eat are matters of historical mystery. But I do not keep a diary and maybe Yorky has an underling who does that mundane task.

        2. Their lives are booked up years ahead; so there are probably diaries and security schedules to be checked.
          All I can remember about 2001 is that it was the year our two (sadly late) Jack Russells were born.

    2. Actually, it’s rather nice in Norf Essex.
      A bit of sun and very still. Ideal for a bracing walk; or at least taking the dog out.

  46. Cold NE air flow, but the sun is now out.15C in my outside sun trap. Enjoying large cigar after a great lunch. A wonderful 2014 Medoc.

    1. So (© Cathy Newman) what you’re saying is that you had a liquid lunch, Johnny. Beats Pizza Express, I suppose.

      1. Pan fried fillet steak with tomatoes, parsnips, sprouts and carrots new pots.with butter jus.plus a small glass or two of medoc, with pale and dry sherry to start with nibbles.

  47. Good morning all. I see that Boris has got every one of his candidates to sign up to support his ‘oven-ready deal.’ Great, that means we can be absolutely clear that if we vote for him we are voting for his EU Treaty. Still no real analysis from the media about how it signs away our fishing waters, defence, intelligence and money. All they can do is attack Farage.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/16/boris-johnson-every-tory-election-candidate-has-pledged-back/

    1. Good Morning JK
      The failure of the MSM – and especially once respectable newspapers like The Daily Telegraph – to examine objectively both the pros and the cons of the Boris Brexit BRINO deal is a disgrace.

      As you correctly observe much of the ‘Boris deal’ is pure surrender and in my view Mr Johnson will go down in history as a traitor.

    3. I love what you can find out with the internet when you are “ambling” on a lazy afternoon. The light from that galaxy NGC 772 that we see now, has been on a long journey to get here. The galaxy is 125 million light years away, so the photons have travelled through intergalactic space for that long, just to fall into our eyes at this moment. We are seeing the galaxy as it was 125 million years ago.

      When the light left there, the dinosaurs were still roaming the land here. They died out 65 million years ago (+/-.) The first krill were appearing in the seas and our world looked like this:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f728b290363bb0018268cbc35f4113b25da4637429cc25dd8270247a3181e32.jpg

      Before the internet you would need a good collection of books to find out that information. What a world we have here at our fingertips. 🙂

      1. Names on there take me back to a college project I did back in 1970 on Pre-Mesozoic Tectonics. I drew a large map using old-fashioned drawing pens and Indian ink on a lovely piece of waxed blue linen. The Armorican Mountain Chain formed part of the detail, I recall, located at the junction between Gondwana and Laurasia. Part of it survives as the Armorican Massif in North-west France.

          2. Can that be right? All the land over at one “side” would make rotation unbalanced, unless the axis of rotation was different.

          3. Oberst – You are stretching my knowledge there as this is not my field, but I think it would not matter which “side” the land was on as we are all sitting on “plates” that shift around over time. Obviously, where those plates “rub” up against each other are where we get most earthquakes and volcanoes.

            As the Earth is a sphere with different layers of rock (which are very thick and “heavy”) going down to the molten core, then the little bits pointing out above sea level would not have a big effect compared to the rest of the planet overall.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef76965d106d2160312b941a3121511c328c30c91f1a6343cfec6f7907ffb941.jpg

          4. The further from the axis, the greater the unbalace effect.
            I”d think that the axis went somewhere else other than where it is today, or, like in bowling, the planet would wander off to one side.
            Maybe that explains orbits…?

          5. Orbits around the Sun are complex and are affected by different factors, especially over 100’s millions of years. It is only as I am trying to define it that I realise how many different Sky at Night and astronomy books that I have read over the years. 🙂

            When a planet gains a moon for example, that can effect the orbits of other moons that are already there. Our own Moon for example is moving slightly further away each year, so orbits are not cast in stone. There is also something called “Precession” which does effect our orbital “tilt” and is also complex. Here is an article if you want to look at the idea:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

            As for where the land sticks up, that is minor as the seas have the same solid rock under them as the land does, just with some water on top of it. The depth of the rock is massive compared to the puddles that we call Oceans and Seas that are on the surface.

  50. Straying onto PT’s territory, The Prat of the Year 2019 competition is now open:
    “The situation in Britain is nearly as bad, if not worse. We’re knee-deep in prats. Theresa May is gone, thank God, but she wasn’t even a prat to my mind, just a compromise candidate who couldn’t even do a decent job of selling out her own country to the unelected minions of the United States of Europe. She was a disgrace both as a PM and a supposed representative of a gender egalitarian country”
    Rules for nominations, and the good/bad news is there’s no limit to the number of Prats you can nominate, can be found here:
    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/84361/

  51. DM Story
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7693927/Anyone-allowed-identify-black-according-Left-wing-university-leaders.html

    “Anyone should be allowed to ‘identify’ as black regardless of the colour of their skin or background, say university leaders”

    However nobody should expect to be taken seriously if, as I do, he identifies himself as a white, heterosexual, elderly, middle-class, public school and university educated man.

    Indeed by which should I be most embarrassed – my sexuality, my race, my age, my social and educational background or my sex?

    (A question of grammar: Please identify the error in this DM headline)

      1. No, ‘their’ is correct in this context. ‘Anyone’ makes the subject generalised, therefore ‘their’ is correct.

        “one should be allowed… …one’s skin” would have been correct.

    1. I really enjoy the change of seasons. Much more noticeable in Norway than the UK. Each season has its own wonders.

    2. Afternoon Jtl,
      Do not complain to much, and may I suggest no more photo’s as nice as they are.
      Think land developers, multiple tongues, tower blocks etc,etc.

      1. None of that stuff around here. The nearest thing we have to developers are the local house builders. And the only speakers of “foreign tongues” are Jill and I, still having what the locals call English accents – the local accent being more Beverly Hillbillies than Beverly Hills.

          1. We are definitely out “in the sticks”, all the houses being on well and septic, which means the county insists on large plots of land. The local towns have some low rise blocks but that’s it. Also West Virginia’s demographics are old fashioned, i.e. White, European, Christian, plus the state has a very low level of benefits, etc., so it’s not at all attractive to immigrants.

          2. Jtl,
            My sister is in Chesapeake has been out there getting on 50 years, I got a feeling she will stay.

          3. We’ve only been in the US 40 years. Most of it in the DC suburbs, only been here 11 years and change. We should have been here sooner but it took rather longer than expected to build the house. Neither of us can contemplate “going home” – it’s a very, very different country from the one we left. Probably your sister thinks the same way.

          5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia#Demographics

            In many ways it’s a very comfortable environment for us – the people are very friendly and welcoming and you end up chatting to anyone and everyone.

            Last congressional election, our local congressional seat was open and the Republicans put up a candidate who had just moved to the state, specifically to stand. The local Democrats labelled him a “carpetbagger”, as he was not born and bred in the state. Remember this is where the famous Hatfield/McCoy feud took place.

      2. Yes and no. We own the land down to the river, but there’s a 100ft or so cliff in the way, and the land below the cliff is floodplain so no building allowed there. There’s a common pedestrian access to the river for those who live on our cul-de-sac, at a point where the drop is much less which allows us to walk along the river bank if we want to. Our daughter’s family cart their canoe down there from time to time.

          1. Yes – we are about 70 miles NW of Washington DC, in West Virginia – the other side of the river is Maryland.

          3. You can. I don’t – never had that gene. We see a lot of fishermen when the weather is nice. There’s a public boat ramp about 5-6 miles away, which gets pretty busy in the summer. Personally, I wouldn’t eat what comes out, though people do – too much cr@p gets in it upstream for my liking.

            But it is a lovely river, by and large: https://vimeo.com/118233315

          4. I didn’t realise how big the Marine Corps Memorial was. I wonder if you’re near Marlowe, and is it named after Marlow on the Thames.
            Good video, thanks.

      2. Nice kitty….

        We get a lot of deer – see them almost daily, the odd black bear (not seen, but their droppings are large and easily identifiable), plus ground hogs, opossums, squirrels. raccoons, foxes, etc. We hear the odd coyote but only ever have had one near the house. Local raccoons tend to be rabid, so they are given a wide berth.

        Letting domestic cats out to roam here is pretty risky because of the foxes.

        1. “the odd black bear (not seen, but their droppings are large and easily identifiable)”
          Always in the woods, no doubt?

          1. Probably, but I found the giveaway load on the lawn. Stopped mowing just before it got sliced and diced. The other “happening” was that our bird feeder – metal feeder on a a solid steel post – was bent flat to the ground. Definitely not squirrels. Unless they were very large and very mutant…

            Neighbours reporting the same thing. Never caught one on our “critter cam” tho’. All that ever catches is the deer – or me cutting the grass.

          2. I was caddying for my father in Nova Scotia, in the late 1950’s, and a black bear wandered across the fairway in front of us.

            More than a little bit disconcerting, but it took not the slightest interest in the golfers and disappeared into the woods.

            I didn’t notice if was carrying bog-roll.

  55. ‘Morning All

    Reading down the comments I note that the like of Liddle and Hitchins are worried about free speech in the future

    Too damn late maties,the problem is here and now,dare to mock and criticise organisations like Tell Mama (you know,the one that had its funding temporarily removed for egregious lies) and bang goes your front door

    I commend this piece in full

    “After about five minutes or so of these officers banging on the front

    door and issuing threats to break it down and officers menacingly

    patrolling my back garden, an officer, who at this point I cannot

    positively identify, brought up what looked like a battering ram. The

    officers were shouting through the door ‘we are going to break the door

    down now’.

    As the officers said they would, they smashed the lock on my front

    door causing approximately £100 worth of damage. At least three

    officers, one of whom was PC Choudhury, rushed into the house and into

    the kitchen at the back of the house. PC Choudhury then cautioned me,

    arrested me for ‘Malicious communication and racial and religious

    hatred’ and put me in handcuffs. They guided me out into the front

    garden where they searched me and then put me in the back of a police

    van and took me to the local police station. Whilst I was being searched

    in the front garden my son escaped from his Mum and ran downstairs to

    the front door and say his daddy being searched and taken away by

    police. If I recall correctly I turned to my son and said to him ‘don’t

    worry, it will be all right, daddy loves you’. He’s been asking me ‘are

    the policemen going to come back again?’ I will never forgive or forget

    the trauma that these officers put my child through.

    Before I was put in the police van I noticed that a considerable

    amount of police resources had been put into this arrest and there were

    at least two police cars present along with the van. I found out later

    that PC Choudhury and his Met Police civilian assistant, had traveled up

    the night before, distance of 150 miles and had stayed, at the

    taxpayers expense, in one of my city’s poshest hotels at a roughly

    estimated cost including meals of at least £150 per night. It’s good to

    know that Sadiq Khan’s ‘hate crime and hate speech’ unit is spending

    Londoners’ money so sensibly isn’t it? Maybe the Met has run out of real

    crime? Do I need a sarcasm sign here, no I don’t think so.”

    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/11/uk-jewish-conservatives-door-broken-down-he-is-handcuffed-and-jailed-on-suspicion-of-islamophobia
    Almost inevitably this case will be quietly dropped as I suspect there is no case to answer,this is more lawfare,the process is the punishment with a nice chunk of added intimidation
    Edit
    Here’s the update on the case,yup it’s lawfare all right
    Now for the update. It’s been, at the time of writing, approximately three and a half weeks since I was arrested for ‘hate speech’. Since that time I have heard nothing from the police, no request to have an additional interview, no phone calls, letters or emails. There’s been no bullying communication to try to get me to disclose the passcodes of the IT equipment that the police took and zero requests for any further information. I have not, as yet, had any intimidation visits or communication from the police to try to stop me talking about this issue, something I expected. I have also had feedback from some of my contacts whose contact details were held on one particular device that was seized that there has been no attempt by the police to contact them or ask them for statements. This last point I find particularly odd as I know the Metropolitan Police can call on highly trained IT forensics experts who would find it quite easy to open any device no matter how fiendishly well password protected and would find it not much problem to open the device concerned.

    I am still on unconditional bail pending investigation and have not been charged with any offence nor brought before any court. This sort of delay I’m afraid is par for the course in British ‘hate speech’ cases, where the State seems to see delay and obfuscation as normal. In Britain the process of investigation of these ‘hate speech’ ‘crimes’ is taken to be part of the punishment. Even if someone is able to convince a jury to acquit them at a trial, the ‘offender’ has still been punished by way of the process of investigation and prosecution. It’s the sort of procedure that we used to see in the countries of the old Iron Curtain but which has become common in Britain since the passing of ‘hate speech’ laws.
    https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2019/11/17/update-on-arrest-of-uk-blogger-fahrenheit211-for-hate-speech-17th-november-2019/

    1. Hello Nottlers!

      A few days ago I received a message on my fairly new laptop saying something to the effect: Google Chrome is using the webcam. I clicked and found a way to disable the webcam, which I duly did.

      Has anyone else had this happen, and do they know what it means?

      1. I occasionally get spammers (when I check the spam folder) saying they have viewed me doing something unspeakable in polite company……… so I know it’s porkies.

      2. Hertslass – When my new laptop arrived, the first thing that I did was blu-tack a piece of paper over the camera before I even switched it on. These days doing something like this is as automatic as putting the seat belt on when you get into a car. It is still covering the camera now.

        When it comes to my mobile phone and its camera, it is slightly easier. I mainly use it as an alarm clock and to remind me of events. So I leave it face upwards under an image so eldritch and horrific, that the Cthulhu-induced nightmare it invokes would drive the watching policeman screaming from his building.

        2. Thank you Meredith,

          As it had never occurred before, I didn’t even think of it. Can’t any intruders still hear you, though?

          1. It would depend on what type of security you had on your computer, which Operating System you were using, and how much you knew about setting up the tracing of all incoming / outgoing “data packets” on your computer. It was easier in the old days to spot something odd, as the “authorities” were not so slick. I would not worry about it too much though, unless your are doing something naughty, in which case leave the phone / computer in another room. 🙂

            With the security services that they would like to bring in, they don’t need actual evidence. If they really want to get you then they will just make it up. So live free with a smile on your face and say “Sod ’em.” 🙂

          2. Well I haven’t done anything naughty and we have Kaspersky. It was the computer itself that alerted me, through the Kaspersky warning system.

            So sod ’em – but they are an increasing pain, aren’t they?

            P.S. Thank you for your advice.

    2. Here’s the update on the case,yup it’s lawfare all right.

      Morning Rik. Yes most of these cases are some form of intimidation either verbal or actual and of course their effect is extended through the publicity! Goodbye Freedom!

    1. OK, but if they don’t know what they are talking about, why don’t they wait a bit until they do ?
      Should be easy enough to find out.

    1. Three is optimistic i would have thought. The election will be fought over many issues. AGW is probably not one of them.

  58. MIGRATION

    Other than the Brexit party non of the parties seem to have any sensible migration policies, They all make excuses to avoid reducing migration
    The statistics don’t really indicate that we need any net migration. WE have 1.4 M registered as unemployed but on top of that there will be people looking for work but not registered as unemployed plus people claiming to be sick but capable of working which probably gives us at least 2M unemployed

    The number of vacancies is registered as 750,000 but is likely to be overstating the true number of vacancies so probably nearer 600,000

    WE do no that we do need more nurses but the figure is not as high as claimed, This is because the NHS has been losing nurses to agencies who then return to the NHS as agency staff so the number of unfilled jobs is quite low but difficult to estimate but at an educated guess I would say perhaps 5,000 to 10,000
    No clearly the N HS’s approach is simply not working. They have been recruiting abroad for decades and it has not solved the problem. A lot of the problem is down to mass migration. For every 300 people who come to the UK only 1 might be a nurse

    The answer is we need to train more nurses

    1. For every 300 people who come to the UK only 1 might be a nurse.

      80 of them are African marijuana growers.

      40 of them are unemployed Jihadists.

      30 Of them are Pakistani rapists

      20 of them are Albanian gangsters and 10 are West Indian drug dealers. The rest are largely useless!

    2. BJ,
      How about UKIP have always wanted
      CONTROLLED immigration, and not
      mass uncontrolled immigration that has got peoples killed / raped & abused etc,etc, and is still called for today via the ballot booth & every lab/lib/con voter.
      Tell me what makes you so sure of the farage take on it ?

      2. Evening B,
        I think it was before tennis was known of, after the chariot race I believe it is gladiators do questions & answers.

    5. I was looking for something else about Ben Hur when this trivia point came on the screen:

      “During the 18-day auction of MGM props, costumes and memorabilia that took place in May 1970 when new studio owner Kirk Kerkorian was liquidating the studio’s assets, a Sacramento restaurateur paid 4,000 dollars for a chariot used in the film. Three years later, during the energy crisis, he was arrested for driving the chariot on the highway.”

      1. Sat at a junction for nearly five minutes waiting for a woman to cross in front of me. Then she turned left. We all could have gone if she had used her indicators.

        Same at a roundabout. Chap sits there, patiently waiting, another berk sits on the far side, idling the time away and then… turns left! We could all have gone but for his laziness.

        Anyone who doesn’t indicate should be fair game for shooting with a gatling cannon.

  60. Free stuff for absolutely everyone. What could possibly go wrong with that? Sun 17 Nov 2019.

    There is a spectre haunting this election campaign – and it is the last election campaign.

    I’m not certain whether Rawnsley meant to write:

    There is a spectre haunting this election campaign – and that is that it is the last election campaign

    or

    There is a spectre haunting this election campaign – as it is the last election campaign.

    Either would be more accurate than his nonsensical original. Whatever we must all surely know by now that any promise from any party is essentially worthless. They have no intention let alone the wherewithal to implement them and worse, like Cameron with his Gay Marriage Act, will simply pass whatever they feel like once in Office. While its form lives on the Spirit of Democracy in the UK is dead! Very soon they will discard the Form and we will have entered a new Dark Age where Freedom in all its aspects will Survive or Perish at the whim of our new Rulers!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/17/free-stuff-for-absolutely-everyone-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-with-that

    1. Afternoon AS,
      By adhering to the same voting pattern
      as in shuffling the same deck / parties by an electorate that in itself is not, by a long chalk, a full deck then in the near future it will all be down to what your local imam dictates.

      1. There is a problem here with this valiant UKIP loyalist in that he cannot write in Queen’s English, seemingly using an alien version of my mother tongue.

        Being an Englishman born and bred, what I like to shuffle before a game is a pack, not a deck.

        2. You don’t get much more English than
          a born & bred Man of Kent, so dick eye chavvy I would lay money you personally have dealt of
          off a few deck / pack bottoms.

          1. What language has this Man of Kent adopted since abandoning the Garden of England? Dick is a spotty delicacy we used to be served up at school; lay is something chickens do; a deck is something I walk on at sea, and a bottom is something I sit on.

            I admit to being not quite English enough. True, I was born in Middlesex and grew up in Surrey, where my father’s family came from, but my mother was descended from a family of Welsh clergymen, which is clearly not very English.

          2. JM,
            Rhetorically, dick can also be attached to the top of a torso as your post are clearly showing.

        3. Probably eats mac ‘n’ cheese, the rotter! As for me, seeing as how I’m not, after all, standing for the BXP, I’ll give UKIP another chance on election day.

          2. My uncle from out there in Gunland once asked me how to replicate Stilton using local ingredients. I suggested a 50/50 mix of American Blue with Gorgonzola.

            It would not occur to them to ship in some Stilton from Huntingdonshire. Actually, under EU rules, it is forbidden to make Stilton cheese in Stilton.

            Edit – just looked up the territory of the Macdonald clan, from which the ubiquitous burger was inspired. It is on the opposite side of the country from Aberdeen and Angus, where the beef comes from.

          3. As is well known, when we leave the EU, we’ll all be forced to eat horrible American cheese.

          4. Though there were cheesemakers in the village of Stilton, what we now know as “Stilton Cheese” was never made in there.

    2. You… you… you mean that those voting don’t know what they are voting for? Say it isn’t so!

  61. Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett has made a stunning observation: with a market cap of $1.17tn, AAPL now has a greater capitalization than the entire US energy sector.
    Disney is now bigger than market cap of the 5 largest European banks – BNP, Santander, ING, Intesa and Credit Agricole.

    1. Any day now, Pop goes the bubble.

      If Trump is lucky it will be after the 2020’s. If America is unlucky it will be before and then they’ll get Warren.

        1. Warren?
          Any recession will be made worse because taxpayers won’t be able to afford the policies.

          1. That’s what they said about FDR, but he turned out to be probably the greatest American president ever.

            But Warren? Nope. Nor any of the other Dem contenders. The “B” team if ever there was one.

          2. When the social media archaeologists are poised with their search engines, why would anyone of any independant thought ever want even to try?

          3. That’s what Jill always says – Who in their right mind would run for office these days?

            If she’s right, that means all those who do run are not in their right mind…and there seems to be plenty of examples to choose from.

      2. There surely has to be a scientist working on using the gene from a Narwhale that produces it’s amazing horn like tooth and is contemplating getting it to grow out of the forehead of a horse..

      3. We have just taken evasive action. Our feet were starting to fill chill winds. It has been high for a long time now. Get out now, folks.

    2. A very old pal and sometime employee bought into Apple back in the 1990’s. No wonder he keeps buying new Beemers…

  62. Queen Elizabeth II annus horribilis: How 2019 could be another hellish year for monarch.

    Harry, Meghan and baby Archie are spending Christmas at Pizza Hut….

      1. I would like to think that in seats where TBP has withdrawn Nigel Farage will advise his voters to support UKIP

        1. Afternoon R,
          Since there is a rodent
          element within the UKIP Nec pro farage, & farage has tried to kill UKIP off, I do believe you would have more success shoving butter up a porcupines bum with a hot knitting needle than farage putting anything UKIPs way.

  67. Emily’s fantasy dream:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56a30c95b81ad13ab181189605e9f60db8050fa715fa4c99d6be9f5a6292b5b2.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71cfaab3178ead25be7267039688e744069f81ebd93aa561a2fc850b08fb5c8f.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99881e0b038ba6411f6d28931add73b9dba8b55b4e654e56385cf904c1545e19.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b17b08bb2d21f361055edfd5b8e995b041b3f213e08ad3e084a4e70c2701f0c5.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0197030abb407e0655944922f37ba8b3428ef2b455936f58171ed30d337dedd.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1b49848d743470198b37c98c58e195014ce630c5c9e10036458ddc9d481aea9.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bca88ce7803162546e6b4022faf3274ac562c05efc77eed737897751dc07906.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed6f560313c80556b12b13ccdbeb950231cac7b50bc89e5350319b5f027b106b.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/639668895a625b3337abac16d4eba9fa0f5413a0f7c28d737e8b185caf355b8b.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9cd88d4e82560bdaafad0287081e670b1ae115dcea3e2557b6a079ba302717b.gif https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e5409654f2df9d6baf7cdb30ca7aea865162b1be9762967f3e8bff0f35ec2bb.gif

  68. So, 3 weeks on Thursday then. And I’m no closer to deciding between Tory and BP than I was weeks ago.

    What to do….

    1. There used to be a concept called morality which encouraged people to remain with certain acceptable bounds that evolved throughout the millennia. That idea is long flushed away and people now act as they please. Trouble is that many cannot cope with the mental turmoil of a world without rules and we now see an explosion of ‘mental illness’. It was known that disruptive lads often flourished in the Forces as there were rules and boundaries. Good luck to yer snowflakes, you reap what you sow.

      2. ps KP

        nondisruptive lads often also flourished in the Forces as there were rules and boundaries.

      3. Agreed, up to a point.
        We (wider society) are reaping what they sowed, and regrettably they sowed the wind so we’re getting the whirlwind.

      4. The Frankfurt School has based much of its premise on this hypothesis, with astonishing accuracy.

      6. Evening K,
        Especially since the Margret Thatcher era the lab / lib / con
        pro eu coalition have brought in bumper harvest, without fail.

        Edited for taking the eye of the crop, AKA coming a cropper.

    4. I saw the headline earlier and “passed by on the other side”. Incidentally, while I confess to no longer being at all religious, I do think the effective removal of the Christian religion from society has led to all this weirdness, not to say perversion. Trouble is, religion got removed and nothing replaced it. Now no-one seems to have any absolute concepts of right and wrong any more. It’s all been replaced with relativism, which over time allows anything. How long before not indulging in bestiality or incest is considered as merely an old fashioned concept?

      1. “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in everything.” – G.K. Chesterton

      2. I don’t think it will be very long now, we are on the way, transgenderism being a marker on that route. I am not particularly religious myself, but I have always known that once Christianity was pushed out of the door then barbarism (in the form of islam) would waste no time in running in, indeed they have passed each other over the threshhold. I cannot believe how quickly this has happened. The adherents of the Frankfurt School must be stunned and delighted with the result.

  70. Brexit Party Policies

    Provide Free Base Level Broadband for Every one. – I disagree with this one. Broadband for most people is perfectly affordable to most people so just provided targeted help

    Reduce business rates to 0% outside of the M25 for retailers – Disagree with this one, Reduce business rates a bit but reducing them will not make much difference. Shopping habits have changed and we now have about 20% to many shops for current needs

    Abolish interest on student loans – Partially agree. I would reduce the interest rate to about 2% but in addition have variable tuition fees to encourage the take up of course where we have the greatest need . So nursing course could be say £1000 a year whilst a Golf Course management course would be say £9000 a year

    The fees could be reviewed annual to ensure they aligned with our skills needs but would not change for those that had already commenced a course

    Scrap HS2 – Agree

    Scrap IHT – Partially agree . I would scrap it for estates with a value of up to £1M the limit being increased each year in line with inflation

    Invest a £100B in road and rail schemes in regions outside of London & the South East Agree

      1. Dinky toy collection, carpet bought last year, BMW estate, hi-fi system, …soon mounts up.

    2. No.
      I’ve been and worked in Saudi. Wouldn’t give them the steam off my piss, let alone money.

        1. My Muslim friend was offered an extremely well paid job there but turned it down. His reason was that “they own you.” He didn’t want to be owned.

  72. Here’s one for you: if it is ok to call a male priest “Father”, what is the equivalent form of address for a female priest? Mother is already taken…

    4. Google that question – the answers are all over the place. Used to be when I were a lad, that Father was a Catholic thing, C of E’s were Reverends. Our headmaster was a C of E ordained minister and his official title was Rev., but for us “inmates” it was definitely Sir! The Catholics solve it by not having women ordinands. Some of the US churches use “Pastor” as the address regardless of gender. For others the title is Brother or Sister.

    5. Leaving aside the RC church, which JTL has already addressed, in the Anglican church, the term “Father” is generally only used by spiky Anglo-Catholics, who tend to be somewhat resistant to female priests. Meanwhile, had a lift from our Rector today, who was ranting that official guidance is now that he should never address a group as “Ladies and Gentlemen”, since that would be assuming people’s gender, and tantamount to a hate crime. Truly, the world has gone effing mad… :-((

      He conjectured that he could simply address a gathering as “People of Various Genders”, until I pointed out that this would doubtless offend anyone present who identified as (say) a giraffe.

      1. Sometimes I think the people of the world deserves to go to hell in a handbasket for quietly accepting all this carp going on around us, unfortunately they are taking the likes of us with them.
        My 12 year old granddaughter tells me in her year at school there is a person who they are told to address as it not her for all the reasons we know about, FFS!!!

    6. An interesting comment! In the Armed Forces, the appropriate term was Padre and, as far as I can recall, was used for all the denominations. Is a female “padre” still called padre or is it Madre? Goodness knows what the Services use for women Hindu priests in uniform.

      Edit for typo

  73. 39 migrants found off Kent coast crossing the Channel

    I would be amaze if they were coming across the channel in dinghy’s, particularly at this time of year. I am pretty certain they are coming across in larger boats and being dropped of in dinghy’s off of the coast

    Dozens of migrants have been found off the coast attempting to cross the Channel in inflatable boats, KentOnline understands.
    Border Force officials were called to four incidents in less than three hours as 39 Iranian nationals attempted to travel towards the UK.

    They were first alerted to a boat carrying nine people at about 4.40am. An hour and 20 minutes later, Border Force officers intercepted a second vessel carrying five more. A third boat with 11 Iranians on board was found about 7am. And just 30 minutes afterwards, 14 more migrants were found.
    All of them identified themselves as Iranian and were taken to Dover to be medically assessed before being interviewed by immigration officials.

    A police spokesman confirmed officers were called to the fourth incident just before 7.30am. They attended Dungeness lifeboat station after the vessel was brought to shore. An eyewitness told KentOnline this morning that a “massive” search was conducted off Dungeness and that several migrants had been found.

    A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency also said its officers had been called to “a number of incidents” off the coast.
    She added: “Search and rescue helicopters from Lydd and Lee-on-Solent, RNLI lifeboats from Dover, Dungeness and Hastings, and Border Force vessels Seeker and Speedwell have all been sent.

    “We are only concerned with preservation of life, rescuing those in trouble and bringing them safely back to shore, where they will be handed over to the relevant partner emergency services or authorities.”
    This comes three days after 17 migrants were found off the coast and brought to Dover for interviews.

    2. BJ,
      How do we know the share out between the lab/lib/con parties in regards to membership / voting will be fair

    4. ‘Brought to Dover for interviews’

      How nice for them. I hope they were well turned out with a decent suit, shiny shoes and nicely-knotted tie.

      First impressions count for so much at interviews, you know.

      1. According to a recent study, the first seven words are crucial in succeeding in an interview. “I claim asylum, benefits and a free house”, apparently.

      2. Afternoon B,
        they are lined up & someone disreputable enough to be in current authority goes along the line saying lab,lib,con,lab,lib,con.

      3. Well they did phone ahead to let the border force know they were arriving so that they could have their accommodation set up for them and for the benefits office staff to go around to get their benefits organised

      4. They always said that adding Border Farce patrol boats to the channel would end up as nothing more than a free ferry service.

  74. Night night dear Nottlers,

    I don’t have enough time to catch up on all your comments. Unfortunately not enough energy to answer some, with anything that encloses links to useful information, like (I hope) I sometimes used to do.

    I still love reading your posts, I wish I could contribute more. I’m sure I will again soon,

    1. I know the feeling, me too, Hl. I just seem to have enough time to pop in for a few minutes, get rubbished! – and then pop out again. Rinse and repeat, twice daily. What has happened to our lives, why is time speeding up exponentially, I wonder? Will we ever know peace of mind in our time again? Nighty-night, sleep well. Tomorrow is, fortunately, another day filled with possibilities…..

  77. I’ve just wasted an hour of my life. I watched the first episode of the BBC serial of the “War of the Worlds” by someone of whom I’ve never heard, based on the book by HG Wells. Politically correct, edgy, feminist and ignores the laws of physics. You cannot get a big item like a Martian war machine inside a capsule that is smaller than it. Metallic spheres cannot hover. The distance from Mars to Earth cannot be travelled in two days. Although the hour that the programme took, it felt like several days, so maybe…

    3. I read everything when I was young, whether I understood it or not. And just everything of H.G. Wells.
      I have always felt that reading these classic books should be compulsory, and watching film versions prohibited.
      And changing the plot for convenience or because modern day chavs would not understand the original should be
      punishable by death.

      1. I agree with you to a point.

        I would exclude Kipps from the reading list. A truly dire book that was my compulsory read for my O Level GCE.

        1. Ouch !! Kipps !! Yes, we did that at school; never had a clue what it was about.
          Funny how the schools always chose the less enjoyable books by the best authors.
          The Trumpet Major for Hardy ( it at least got me reading his proper books, in my spare time. )

    8. If you could use HG Wells’ Time Machine and travel back to 1895 you could ask him how it was done.
      It is of course science fiction therefore anything can happen.
      We live about a mile from the sandpit and although, in real life, Woking was not destroyed the Council is now doing so on a grand scale. The carnage has been going on for about 2 years and it likes like it’s got about another 5 to go.

    9. I agree. WOTW is a classic read and this new BBC rendition pays no respect to the original. Instead, it seems to be a vanity project for those who produced it. Trashy and self-indulgent.

    10. I saw a warning about this show, i.e. that it was the usual BBC subversion to meet its pc agenda….and didn’t bother.

  78. Having looked at the description of the external cladding of The Cube In Bolton (what a silly and fatuous architectural name) I see that it is HPL or high pressure laminate. This material comprises highly compressed layers of paper and melamine glue and as such is likely to be highly combustible in external use on a tower block.

    An alternative more expensive but safer cladding will been ‘Trespa’ assuming the architect wished the building to appear as a potentially collapsing pack of coloured cards.

    I have more or less lost all faith in the current architectural establishment and recently resigned from the RIBA despite having been elected in 1979. I would not commission a building from any fashionable young firm of architects. They seem mostly to be uneducated and more interested in following fashion or ‘style’ as opposed to building sensible and robust buildings for the future.

    I despair.

    1. It appears to me that any new design these days is more about getting the architect an award from bodies with dubious judgement of such things than producing a good looking building whose prime purpose is to perform its intended function.

    2. Fortunately, the fashion for tilted rectanular buildings has passed in Norway. They all look dull, at best. I think we’re just over the cantilever, too.

  81. Up to pump bilges so DT & I are sat up in bed with an early morning mug of tea.
    Took empty milk bottle out and what a lovely clear night it’s been with a slightly gibbous waning moon.
    Are we going to get a few dry days at last???

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