801 thoughts on “Sunday 18 August: The fatal consequences of a decline in the public standing of the police”

      1. A handy diagram but it’s always worth remembering; only countries have flags, anything else is just a banner.

    2. How depressing, Rik. Every time the flag is about to be burnt away, the date for its demise appears to be put back and we start all over again. I hope this doesn’t mean that Halloween is to be put back to Bonfire Night! :-))

        1. I couldn’t sleep at 4.30 am so got up, brewed a cup of tea and read emails for an hour and a half. then back to bed and got up an hour and a half later than usual. It being Sunday, I have had a very lazy day doing very little and then back to bed – gosh, I must have been really in need of a nap. Shortly I shall be cooking my tea/supper; I might even have an early night. At least, it being Sunday, I don’t feel guilty about my “laziness” today.

  5. SIR – Earlier this month the Government published figures showing that just 7 per cent of offences resulted in someone being charged or summonsed to appear at court. The Prime Minister’s announcement of harsher sentences therefore rings hollow. Penalties have never been a deterrent, as no criminal expects to get caught.

    These days, it seems, they are right.

    David Goodwin
    Lewes, East Sussex

    The Perlice don’t even try to catch the villains, only people who text what they deem to be naughty thoughts.

    1. I am get quite tired of criticisms of our current Prime Minister and his government when he has only been in office for a few short weeks. The figures, according to Mr Goodwin, refer to being published “earlier this month” and therefore refer to the (lack of) action of his predecessor.

        1. It’s not started yet, Peddy. He needs to get divorced and then married (in that order) first. :-))

    1. Good morning, your comment reminds me of a discussion between myself and my manager at the time, him “I only want positive people on my team”. Me, “ In that case I am positive I do not want to work on your team”. As you may gather, my ambitions at the time lay elsewhere.

  8. For those of us who don’t have Premium, this is one of Janet Daley’s better columns.

    The EU’s devout belief in the doctrine of integration is pushing us towards no deal
    JANET DALEY – 17 AUGUST 2019 • 1:00PM

    I’m running out of ways to say this so I’ll just have to repeat, in slightly different words and in a more exasperated voice, what I have written before on this page. It is the European Union, not Boris Johnson’s government, which is making a no deal Brexit more likely.

    The Withdrawal Agreement signed off by Theresa May has been rejected comprehensively, overwhelmingly, with record-breaking majorities, by the UK Parliament three times. It is inconceivable that a new prime minister – this one or any other – could regard it as viable. It is definitively, unalterably, irrefutably dead.

    The Johnson government has asked for further negotiations to remedy this stalemate. The EU says that there can be no further negotiations. Ergo this deal is the only one that is now, or ever will be, available. Ergo there is no other possible way for the UK to leave the EU except without a deal. So I ask you: who is being unreasonable here? (Oddly, I have not heard a single BBC interviewer pose this question.)

    There are two obvious explanations for the EU stance. Either it regards national democracy as of no consequence – simply an irritating impediment to the great supra-national project which is designed to displace it – or it actively wants a no deal outcome on the assumption that the damage it will cause to the UK economy will serve as a lesson to any other member state that might have similarly disruptive ideas.

    What unfortunate consequences there might be for the economies of the present European member states can be regarded as a necessary price to pay in the name of the larger objective: establishing once and for all that ever-closer union is a plan which cannot be defied.

    There is, of course, a third possible reason why the EU is prepared to be so unconscionably obstinate: that its heads of government and their operatives in Brussels have been led to believe by a handful of Remain politicians who are getting wildly inflated media coverage that the UK will never, in fact, leave with no deal.

    Perhaps, with little understanding of the nature of the British political character, European bureaucrats are assuming that warnings uttered by former ministers and the leaders of official Opposition parties are received with absolute seriousness by a timorous populace.

    So here it is again, that familiar theme of mine which I make no apology for repeating. When the British are threatened (or “warned”) they do not get frightened, they get angry. Or they laugh. In this case, they are doing both. Message to EU negotiators (or, more to the point, “non-negotiators”): the populace of this country, who bestow on the politicians of their choice whatever credibility and power they possess, are very hard to intimidate but are quite easily annoyed, and even more easily amused.

    When Jeremy Corbyn presented the nation with his glorious offer to lead it out of the darkness, it took three days for the hilarity to die down. The small band (at first four, and then, on second thought, three) Tory Remainer politicians who “welcomed” his overture instantly became part of the joke. Which is why they went to some efforts within twenty-four hours to make it clear that everybody had got the wrong idea – they had absolutely no intention of ever putting Corbyn into Downing Street, etc.

    What an absurd waste of time all this is, and what a perverse failure to read the nature of the actual problem. The reason that there has been such an utter collapse of good will and understanding between the UK and Brussels is not just to do with the personal vanity, or even the incompetence, of particular politicians (although, God knows, those things have played their part) but because of what is probably an insurmountable difference of opinion about the nature of politics itself.

    It is always said that the British are basically pragmatic: that they judge government policy on the basis of what works most effectively, rather than on grand philosophical principles. This is obviously true in practice but it is far too modest and utilitarian as a description. It does not do justice to the fundamental value that is the guiding premise of political life in this country.

    When we talk of finding solutions that “work”, we mean ones that deliver beneficial results for the experience of real people in their daily lives. Every governing action and decision is to be judged on a recognisably human scale. (Needless to say, some of these attempts are more successful than others.)

    This is quite distinct from the European tradition which prizes abstract doctrine for which, historically, it has often been thought admirable to sacrifice lives. In politics, as in traditional philosophy, the British (and the Anglosphere generally) are empiricists and the Europeans are metaphysical system builders.

    So when the EU defends to the death its great unification dream and condemns those who resist it as heretics, it is behaving with what it sincerely considers to be integrity. And when we insist that the actual living concerns of our current population must be the first priority of the country’s elected leaders, so are we.

    That brings us back to the familiar despairing conclusion: had the EU been simply a customs arrangement – a trade deal with concrete benefits for all the participating members – without those monumental ideological ambitions, the UK might have fitted in quite happily. But our mistake has been to assume that the theological dimension of the project was just an infuriating bit of baggage to which career Eurocrats were inexplicably attached. It wasn’t. It was of the essence.

    The Remain camp knows this – which is why they cannot make a plausible case for staying in, on the EU’s own conceptual terms.

    It is important to realise before we walk away, if we must, that this was probably inevitable. The European dream of unification and our refusal to accept it was not just a product of our very different experiences of the terrible world wars. It was a basic, and probably irreconcilable, disagreement about what politics is for.

  9. Rod is not in the loop…..

    August 18 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
    Carry on squabbling, remainers. That’s the only thing that will save Brexit now
    Rod Liddle

    I was a little surprised to see the Green MP Caroline Lucas omit black people from her “alternative government” composed entirely of women. Lucas wanted an all-female government because women are less adversarial, apparently — which will come as news to, say, Serena Williams. But then Williams is black. Perhaps Lucas thinks all black people are adversarial, even if they are women.

    I think that is a misapprehension, but at least she was thinking outside the box, much as I have been doing. My own suggestion for an alternative government formed of 25 large wading birds — yes, herons and egrets in the main, but there would certainly be room for birds of colour, such as the glossy ibis — has failed to gain much traction. But I shall persevere in thinking up new and fabulously stupid ways of stopping the British people getting what they voted for those three long years ago.

    I’ve been fairly convinced for a while that we will end up with an infantile, intellectually bereft, anti-semitic Ur-Leninist — Magic Grandpa — as prime minister somewhere down the line. I would put the probability now at 75%, so start checking out the property prices in Hungary and Slovakia.

    “People won’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn,” I keep being told — but they did in 2017, in reasonably healthy numbers, and more crucially the tilt of opinion is with him. In any case, the “people won’t vote for him” stuff is beside the point, because I suspect he will achieve the premiership without anything so tiresome and enervating as an election.

    Sooner or later the Liberal Democrats will shelve their objections to Corbyn leading an “interim government” (something that, in poorer, hotter countries, is called “a coup”) because their detestation of what the majority voted for outweighs their detestation of him. Much as it does for those hard-core Tory remainers.

    Jo Swinson’s suggestion of Harriet Harman or Ken Clarke, if he’s awake, to lead this unconstitutional government is absurd and arrogant. What possible right does Mrs Swimsuit have to choose our next prime minister? It will be Corbyn because, practically, that is the remainers’ best bet. He will sit himself down in No 10 and write those “letters of last resort” to the captains of our nuclear submarines, almost certainly — if his track record is anything to go by — insisting that they switch their primary targets to the world capitals of imperialist oppression, such as Tel Aviv, Washington and, of course, London.

    The EU’s negotiators are watching and smirking. They have no motive for ceding ground to Boris Johnson because, reasonably enough, they expect him to lose a vote of no confidence quite soon. They believe his goose is plucked and clean and ready to be cooked. Further, they understand something that an awful lot of leavers simply do not: parliament can and will stop a no-deal Brexit. Indeed, it can and will stop Brexit, full stop (which is, of course, the real aim of these supposedly pious monkeys).

    Those who insist that we must leave, it is the law, it cannot possibly be countermanded and so on have not been paying sufficiently close attention since 2016. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, a committed remainer (though of course utterly neutral, as his position demands he must be), has said he will fight with every breath in his body to prevent a prorogation of parliament. He will not let it happen. The majority of parliament will not let it happen. And so it almost certainly won’t happen.

    The only thing the leavers have to pin their hopes on is the manifest stupidity and fissiparous nature of the pro-remain caucus ranged against them in the Commons. In other words, the hubris of Chuka Umunna and friends. I think that too slender a hope to put much money on.

    It will be parliament that puts an end to Brexit, just as it was parliament that prevented us from leaving by March 29 this year. Yes, some leaver MPs, including the European Research Group, should take a modicum of responsibility for that earlier failure: they read the runes poorly. But they are not the main villains. Those would be the House of Commons and our party political system, hopelessly unrepresentative of the people of this country.
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F27ff5f64-c0fa-11e9-9c7a-44d1639b233d.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=498
    ● Public Health England is planning to ban boiled sweets. Henceforth, confectionery should contain less than 50% sugar. The other ingredients should be nutritionally uplifting — kale, goji berries, unsold copies of The Guardian and so on.

    Boiled sweets are basically 100% sugar, so that’s an end to them. I don’t suppose the outlook is much better for candyfloss or fudge. As the Institute for Economic Affairs pointed out, this would amount to “the largest extension of state control over the British diet since rationing”. And it leads to a strange paradox. These zealous bureaucrats are infantilising the nation by taking away our sweets.

    Rail users want to see Branson in orbit
    Old beardy Branson has just unveiled the Virgin Galactic spaceport, in New Mexico, where rich idiots will gather before being blasted off into space in one of Sir Richard’s exciting rockets. They will pay £200,000 to orbit the Earth for a few hours. Passengers on Virgin West Coast pay a similar amount to orbit Milton Keynes Central for the same amount of time.

    Branson’s ultimate aim is to deposit the world’s most loaded people on the moon. Since losing the West Coast franchise last week, he’ll be able to give this his undivided attention — but I wonder if, given his past difficulties in getting trains to arrive in Glasgow, it may still prove a bridge too far.

    Incidentally, for those of us sensible enough to live in the northeast of England, the train to London has improved fivefold since Branson’s paws were removed from it and the whole shebang nationalised.

    Greenland should be the 51st state
    President Trump quite fancies buying Greenland from the Danes, apparently. I’m not sure why. Perhaps as somewhere to store his wife’s shoes. The Danes have responded with sneers and contempt.

    Hmm. Denmark is part of Nato and, despite being one of the richest countries in the world, pays less towards the West’s defence per capita than any other developed country in the alliance. Further, Greenland is in North America and its original inhabitants came largely from that continent, so Denmark is the imperialist coloniser and Trump the liberator in this case. I’d put a hold on the leftie sarcasm, Jens.

  10. As always, Hitchens makes some (who???) NoTTLers sound optimistic and cheerful….

    PETER HITCHENS: Remember those useless A-Levels? The people who took them now run the country…

    If you want to tell the truth in modern Britain, you need to be very patient. More than 20 years ago, I discovered just how badly English school exams had been devalued and hollowed out. I had suspected it for some time, and had noted the dilution and then the gutting of the old O-level back in the 1970s, and its 1980s replacement by the feeble GCSE. But direct evidence came my way that showed me the change was disastrous.

    Proper knowledge was no longer required. In fact a child who had real, deep knowledge of the subject might actually be penalised for going off the script. The new exams were more like tests for Scout badges than the punishing papers I had taken in my own schooldays.

    And the grades that were being issued were like 1920s German billion-mark notes – with a face value that bore no relation to their real worth.

    I began to say so. I was immediately attacked for being unfair to the children involved. I was told sternly that they had all worked very hard for their worthless bits of paper, and shouldn’t be discouraged by cruel newspaper columnists. Actually, I don’t doubt that they had worked hard. The boring slog needed to prepare for these tests was hard without being useful, the educational equivalent of the treadmill.

    No wonder so many schoolchildren were being drugged to make them sit still, with official encouragement, with pills almost indistinguishable from illegal amphetamines – the perfect way of getting someone to endure tedious tasks, if you don’t care what happens to their bodies and brains afterwards.

    Bit by bit, the truth oozed out, though never officially acknowledged. Grandiose plans to ‘toughen’ exams were produced by Ministers – a tacit admission that they were too flabby.

    Universities began to offer remedial courses – now common and known as ‘foundation years’ – for entrants who were simply not ready to cope with college. Others checked the records and found that grades simply no longer meant what they used to. And employers increasingly hired Eastern Europeans who had been to proper, disciplined, knowledge-based schools, instead of semi-literate British school products who didn’t know it was important to turn up on time. This was in spite of the fact that the Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians mostly spoke poor English.

    More and more I think it was our failed schools and fatherless homes that led to this wave of migrant labour. If our own young people had been as brilliantly educated and well brought-up as the official announcements said, why did nearly a million of them linger among the jobless (‘not in employment, education or training’, as the phrase goes) while Poles arrived to do the jobs they should have been doing?

    Well, after two decades of lies, we now have the absolute proof. Just 54 per cent is required for an A grade in this year’s OCR maths A-level exam. Remember that this includes the over-rated private schools (which only look good because the comps are even worse) as well as state schools.

    You don’t need a maths A-level to see what that means. And if maths, where it is clear what’s right and wrong, is judged so feebly, imagine what it’s like in the softer subjects.

    Will anything now happen? No. Our teenage Cabinet (and Shadow Cabinet) are made up almost entirely of people who are themselves victims of the educational catastrophe of the 1960s, and know no better. As we shall see during the next few months.

    **********************************************************************************************************
    A crowning example of fake history
    I shan’t be watching the third series of The Crown, in which the fashionable thespian Olivia Colman will try to impersonate the Queen.

    I didn’t watch the other series either, because I was sure that a great deal would be untrue.

    I am highly suspicious of these attempts to make melodrama out of the lives of real people, and was so infuriated by the parade of falsehoods and mistakes in the film The King’s Speech that I decided not to bother with them any more.

    I shan’t be watching the third series of The Crown, in which the fashionable thespian Olivia Colman will try to impersonate the Queen, writes Peter Hitchens. (Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II in the new series of The Crown which returns to Netflix on November 17) +3
    I shan’t be watching the third series of The Crown, in which the fashionable thespian Olivia Colman will try to impersonate the Queen, writes Peter Hitchens. (Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II in the new series of The Crown which returns to Netflix on November 17)

    The worst thing about them is that many come to believe that they are seeing the truth about the past, which is almost always portrayed in these things as modish Left-wing people like to think it was.

    Foolish myths are created and perpetuated, the more useful truth is buried.

    Books are better.

    *****************************************************************************************************
    Drug deaths prompt fashionable calls for more ‘treatment’ for criminal users of illegal drugs. This thoughtless tripe is an insult to the genuinely sick.

    Truly ill people cannot choose whether to be ill, and certainly don’t need to break the law to become ill. They and their families wish to heaven they had the choice which drug abusers have.

    ******************************************************************************************************
    Is Nigel Farage either a conservative or a patriot? Or is he just a cheap crowd-pleaser?

    I’ve never been especially keen on the Brexit Party leader, especially since he mused in public (on the pro-drug BBC) about decriminalising drugs. Now he makes personal attacks on members of the Royal Family in heavily republican Australia.

    *****************************************************************************************************
    As al ‘Boris’ Johnson has swallowed every stupid cliché that there is about crime, punishment, police and prisons, you may be absolutely sure that, just like Anthony Blair’s before him, his promises to tackle crime will turn out to be ‘an attractive policy with which I can be personally associated’, rather than any use.

    ****************************************************************************************************
    One step away from a banana republic
    I once said that only two things kept us from qualifying as a banana republic – the fact that we don’t have regular power cuts, and the fact that we don’t grow bananas.

    It now emerges that the recent collapse of our electricity grid was not, as claimed, a fluke. There had been three ‘near misses’ in three months. These may well be connected with unwise reliance on wind.

    I am not in the last bit surprised, and I have been predicting it for ages, warning that our dogma-driven closures of perfectly good coal-fired power stations were worthless even on their own terms.

    I suspect that it is highly significant that the recent cuts came minutes after power companies were boasting that they were on the verge of achieving 50 per cent wind power for the first time. Did a dash to achieve this futile propaganda target blow the nation’s fuses? If so, don’t expect an official confirmation from our warmist establishment, where green dogma affects everyone right up to the First Girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. But I think a lot of people will be buying ungreen petrol-driven generators in the next few years, as power becomes less reliable.

    And what is it all for? Green campaigners Coalswarm reported last year that China then had a giant 993 gigawatts of coal power capacity, but approved new coal plants would increase this by 25 per cent. These vast, innumerable, soot factories overwhelmingly cancel out any effect from our own daft closures of coal stations, microscopic compared to China’s huge CO2 output.

    1. What Mr Hitchens does not say is that an exam paper where 60% is an A grade may well be a far better test then an easier paper where everybody gets over 60% and 30% get 90% and an A* grade. Indeed an easy paper favours the earnest plodder and punishes the more brilliant student who might make a careless mistake and lose marks on a question that is too easy.

      When I took “A” levels 25% of the candidates failed and under 5% got A grades.

      When I left university about 3% got Firsts – now 35% of candidates do.

    2. When I did my latest degree (graduated in 2008), we had visiting Polish artists. They were a revelation; properly trained in painting techniques, they were a world apart from their “installation” fixated Brit counterparts.. I reckon that even I, mathematically challenged as I am, could pass A Level maths these days!

    1. “…But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

      The modern UK where countless busy bodies both official and self-motivated plague us with endless advice and regulations about everything from diet to dimorphism.

  12. Good morning, all. Damp grey start to the day. Supposed to be brighter later, but I have my doubts.

  13. Trash’s self-aggrandisement knows no bounds

    Prince Harry and Meghan fancied living in Windsor Castle
    Roya Nikkhah, Royal Correspondent – August 18 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

    A generation of young adults has moved back to live with their parents. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex tried to go a step further — they wanted to move in with the grandparents.

    While Harry and Meghan have settled into family life at Frogmore Cottage with baby Archie, they initially had higher hopes. The couple are understood to have set their hearts at first on Windsor Castle, and are believed to have asked the Queen if living quarters could be made available after their marriage.

    The Queen politely but firmly suggested Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor estate, which is said to be her favourite home. The cottage, which has five bedrooms, was then given a £2.4m makeover.

    The Queen spends most weekends at Windsor and is in official residence there over Easter and in June. With about 1,000 rooms, including private and state apartments, it is the largest inhabited palace in the world.

    Hugo Vickers, a royal author and a deputy lord lieutenant of Berkshire, said: “There are empty bedrooms and suites in the private apartments which the Sussexes may have had their eye on, or perhaps some former living quarters in the castle grounds converted into other things. But I can see how it might not be entirely appropriate to have a young family living there.”

    Royal aides say Windsor is “a special place” for Harry and Meghan. They held a christening at the castle for Archie and were married in St George’s Chapel last year.

    Queen Victoria allowed her youngest daughter, Beatrice, to remain with her after her marriage on condition she continued her duties as the Queen’s unofficial secretary.

    Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

  14. Pity…

    Revealed: The ‘blasphemous’ scenes from Life of Brian that even the Pythons were too afraid to show including an embarrassed Joseph trying to explain the Virgin birth
    *Papers from British Library archive of Python star Michael Palin reveal cut script
    *One lost scene was Joseph struggling to explain Virgin Birth to group of friends
    *And an original note described King Herod as ‘the world’s worst babysitter’
    *Film Life Of Brian was banned in several countries, including Norway and Ireland

    When Monty Python’s Life Of Brian was released in 1979, it was met with outrage around the world.

    But the comedy classic would have offended even more people if the original version of the script had been filmed.

    Papers unearthed by The Mail on Sunday from the British Library archive of Python star Michael Palin reveal that the movie’s working title had been Monty Python’s Life Of Christ, and the script included outright blasphemy.

    The movie that was finally released carefully avoided any jokes at the expense of Jesus, who was depicted with respect in two brief scenes.

    The film-makers were anxious to avoid being prosecuted for blasphemy and cut some of the original material after advice from lawyers.

    One lost scene featured a waiter at The Last Supper trying to seat Jesus and his Disciples, telling them: ‘I can do you two tables for two and two threes.’

    In another excised moment, Jesus’s embarrassed father Joseph struggles to explain the Virgin Birth to a group of his male friends.

    Several key figures from the Gospels who were noticeably absent from the film were considered for inclusion.

    One note describes how ‘John the Baptist’s severed head keeps talking’ while another described King Herod as ‘the world’s worst babysitter’.

    Herod was also shown pondering how best to deal with the threat posed by the infant Jesus.

    As an alternative to the massacre of the Innocents, a courtier suggests: ‘Why don’t we offer a reward to anyone who brings the Messiah to us?’ Brian did not meet Jesus in the film, but that was not the case in the early version, in which he is the ‘13th Apostle’.

    Palin’s handwritten notes depict the title character as a religious figure in his own right, with references to ‘St Brian’, ‘St Brian’s Gospel’, ‘Brian Setting up the Catholic Church’ and ‘St Brian the only Martyr to die of old age’.

    One suggested ending included a reading from ‘The Martyrdom of St Brian which charted his early life; his sexual antics with some “Maidens of The Orient” and his eventual ascent to Heaven where he “dwelt amongst the Heavenly host”.’ The Pythons were also advised to abandon plans to portray Brian’s mother Mandy as a virgin.

    Life Of Brian was banned in several countries, including Norway and Ireland, and by councils across Britain.

    Aberystwyth in Wales didn’t allow the film to be shown until 2009.

    1. It was only irony,
      The funny thing is that it all could have happened and commented on by a letter in the DT had it been published at the time

    2. Yo Rik

      Read the small print

      Beef Juice Exract for color (makes it American 5h1t)

      Citrus Fruit Extracract (to maintain ‘quality’) Who says it is Quality Carp in the first place, It should say to maintain specification.

    5. It is said that food products with more than six ingredients should be avoided. If you look at the label, for anyone who speaks spanish, the words ‘No soy’ means ‘I am not’.

  16. All together now: Oh Dear, How Sad, Never Mind;
    Yes, let us medicalise the fact that he was a stroppy little s0d for whom a dose of cane and detention would have simmered him down.
    Write “I must not be a naughty little shiite” one hundred times.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/17/jihadi-jack-isis-fighter-stripped-british-citizenship-home-office/

    “Jihadi Jack: Isis fighter stripped of British citizenship by Home Office

    Telegraph Reporters

    The Isis fighter known as Jihadi Jack has been stripped of his British citizenship, prompting a diplomatic row between the UK and Canada, it has been reported.

    Muslim convert Jack Letts, 24, who had held dual UK and Canadian citizenship, declared he was an “enemy of Britain” after travelling from Oxfordshire to Syria at the age of 18 to join the terror group.

    He has begged to be allowed to return to the UK, insisting he had “no intention” of killing Britons, after he was captured by Kurdish forces in 2017.

    The Home Office has now stripped Letts of British citizenship, meaning he is the responsibility of the Canadian government, The Mail on Sunday said.

    It was reportedly one of the last actions of Theresa May’s administration.

    The decision is understood to have angered officials in Ottawa, prompting fears of a row between Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Boris Johnson when they meet at the G7 summit in France next weekend.

    Letts, who travelled to the Middle East in 2014, is now among more than 120 dual nationals who have been stripped of their British citizenship since 2016, including Isis bride Shamima Begum.

    Ms Begum was one of three girls from Bethnal Green, east London, who left the UK aged just 15 in February 2015 and travelled to Syria to join Islamic State. It was thought Ms Begum may have a claim in Bangladesh because of her family background, something Bangladeshi officials denied.

    The move can only be made against people with two passports, because international law prevents the Government from making anyone “stateless”.

    It will come as a blow to Lett’s parents, Sally Lane and John Letts, who were found guilty at the Old Bailey in June of funding terrorism and given 12-month sentences suspended for 15 months.

    In an interview after their conviction, they said: “Jack is still a British citizen and we have pleaded with the Government to help us to bring him to safety, even if that meant that he might be prosecuted in the UK.”

    A Home Office spokesman said: “This power is one way we can counter the terrorist threat posed by some of the most dangerous individuals and keep our country safe.”

    In an interview with ITV earlier this year, Letts said he felt British and that he wanted to return to the UK, but admitted he did not think that would be likely.

    “I’m not going to say I’m innocent. I’m not innocent. I deserve what comes to me. But I just want it to be… appropriate… not just haphazard, freestyle punishment in Syria,” he told the broadcaster.

    Struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s when he was at school, Jack converted to Islam at the age of 16.

    He used to attend the Bengali mosque in Cowley Road, Oxford, before he came into contact with men with a more radical ideology.

    Jack has previously admitted he was at one time prepared to carry out a suicide attack, telling the BBC: “I used to want to at one point, believe it or not. Not a vest. I wanted to do it in a car. I said if there’s a chance, I will do it.”

    He also said in the interview, which took place in October last year but was not broadcast until after his parents’ trial had ended, that he realised he had been “an enemy of Britain” but added that he had made “a big mistake”

    2. If what I’ve read recently about Canada and the muzz under Trudeau I’m surprised that this very dangerous reprobate will not be given a state welcome. Trudeau and his elite have fully bought into the muzz paradigm.

    3. If this terrorist really believes that he has made a big mistake, and wants to atone for his past actions, then let him stay in Syria for the rest of his life doing aid work to help those that he has harmed.

      No reason for him to come here at all. Unless he just wants an easy life and to produce lots of little jihadi’s to follow in his sandal prints.

    4. Yo anne

      May I fiddle a bit, with your post

      It was reportedly one of last the only action of Theresa May’s administration.

    5. Maybe there needs to be a debate about guilt by association. I can see it both ways.

      One thought is that we are all individuals, with individual consciences and we should only ever be judged as individuals, not to be made liable for the sins of our fathers, our neighbours or our associates, unless there is a conspiracy.

      On the other hand, our cultural environment that deems certain attitudes to be virtuous, may be considered by other cultures to be criminal violations. The urban ‘Street Cred’ that encourages black Americans and others to carry knives and guns and to use them to express their virility to their peers may well be anaethema in an English village. Being part of a culture, and identifying with it, does however also require taking on its codes and values. If we judge an individual for following these, he or she may well come back with the “I was only obeying orders” defence, and we are thus judging a culture, rather than an individual. In a place where all cultures, however alien, are considered equal under the law, how does one enforce this?

      Perhaps the solution is to look at Conspiracy, and how and where it can be applied? Should exile be considered a suitable penalty for conspirators, and if so, where do we exile offenders to?

  17. Morning all

    SIR – Following recent attacks on police officers, including the murder of Pc Andrew Harper in Berkshire, blame will be placed on the fall in the number of operational police officers.

    However, this is not the main problem that modern officers face in carrying out their duties. Changes in the methods of policing have resulted in officers taking a softer approach. Offences are rarely prosecuted, and when they are the modern officer often does not know how to handle the paperwork to ensure it complies with the rules on evidence and procedure.

    The public is frustrated because the police rarely deal with reported problems, and offenders have scant reason to change when they know there is little penalty if they reoffend.

    1. Back in the ‘70s there used to be, I was told, 13 Magistrates’ Courts in Surrey. The idea behind them was for Local Justice. By the time I joined in 2001 there were only four. They worked very successfully, and I believe, inexpensively under the Magistrates’ Courts Committee. A hybrid between Local Government and the Civil Service.
      In 2005 when Blair decided to dispense with the office of Lord Chancellor, only to find it was not within his gift to do so, we all became Civil Servants. Massive expansion in numbers in Whitehall, human remains department, succession planning etc. Indexed linked pensions. Gobbledegook missives from Whitehall departments that kept the printers in business as they changed name often.
      Anyway, in 2010 the Coalition came to ‘power’ and a feasibility study was carried out on court closures. The criteria being that each court must have a separate entrance for Youth andFamily matters, a separate waiting room for witnesses, access for the disabled including widening of the doors for wheelchair entry to the court rooms.
      The only court to satisfy all those requirements was…..Woking. The only court to close in Surrey, in 2011, was……Woking. Since then they have also closed Redhill. Surrey now has only two Magistrates’ Courts now, Guildford and Staines. Anyone committing an offence in East Surrey has to travel to one of those Courts.
      Are there likely to be many prosecutions, except motorists, I think not.

      And they wonder why we’ve lost faith in the police and ‘justice ‘ system.

  18. SIR – One can climb Ben Nevis, walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall, and play tennis in brogues.

    One cannot, however, be formally attired in trainers.

    Dr Bertie Dockerill
    Bishop Auckland, Co Durham

    2. Yo Epi

      Sshurley, it sshud be Tennissh, if you sshpoke in a Sshorn Konnery(isssh) brogue

  20. Children ‘so hungry they eat loo paper’

    Time some of these Charites were closed down in my view.

    SCHOOLCHILDREN IN BRITAIN are ­scavenging in bins for food and ­eating toilet paper to stave off hunger pangs, a ­charity claimed last night.

    Laurence Guinness, chief executive of the Childhood Trust, said the loss of free school meals during the summer holidays is compounding the problem for tens of thousands of parents who cannot afford to feed their children properly. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is set to hold a top level meeting to discuss ways that holiday breakfast and lunch clubs – both voluntary and local authority-run – can be made available to all families who need them throughout the school break.

    2. Children today don’t know how well they have it. They eat quilted bog paper and i had to chew on Izal. :o(

    3. I find that a bit itchy beard. I expect one child somewhere with neglectful parents did this.

      1. I am sure the odd toddler may east some loo roll if it is lying around. Toddlers will eat anything even dangerous substances if they have access to them it does not mean they are hungry though. Toddlers are inquisitive and will put anything in their mouth

    4. This is getting like studying Eng.Lit. in Soviet Russia.
      Nothing but Dickens because he was describing the conditions of modern Britain.

      1. Well the Charity has 2 employees paying themselves over £50K a year. I suspect this is for part time work and they may be on the payroll of other charities

        1. Modern UK Charities are essentially scams paying their executives vast sums for doing not much at all!

      2. How about regulating charity executives salary to just 0.1% of the charities’ income.

        As I don’t know what those incomes might be, I leave it to those that do know, to make any adjustment to the percentage

      3. Looking at their accounts there’s 2 employees (surprising considering their spend) with a lot of volunteers.

        Salary costs are £100,000 or thereabouts – £102K to be exact.

    7. Line up the parents and count the tattoos and piercings. Check expenditure on smoking, drugs, booze, monster tellies and take aways.
      If you can’t feed, don’t breed.

      2. Morning Anne

        You forgot to mention hair extensions , false eyelashes , plumped up lips, tanning studio tans, and very fancy manicures ..

        Hang on , we were talking about hungry children .. Poor things are usually deprived of food because the selfie obsessed single mothers know nothing about the correct nutritional requirements their offspring require.. Observe the wan heavy eyed look that many of these children have , and the constant whine and whinge of little ones who have no routine.

        1. Too true, TB. How could I have forgotten those essentials.
          And don’t forget the feeding bottle filled with orange liquid hanging from latest sprog’s grubby mouth.

    9. With 2 staff and 6 trustees, they have staff costs of just over £100,000

      https://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?subid=0&regid=1154032

      In all honesty, while I’m a cynic it appears that they’re not a bunch of thieves but are actually trying.

      However… we already have a massive monolithic and useless government department for this work. We need one or the other, but not both. If the government department can’t manage, then it needs to be reduced in size by 30%.

      These people also seems solely focussed on central London which, considering the welfare levels, immigrant population, unemployability, illiteracy and those who don’t speak English there it’s no surprise there’s a danger of abuse and poverty. The state created this mess. They can live in it. Stop being nice. Stop funding people who have no ability to function in our society.

  21. As It’s Sunday,

    Nicked from elsewhere.
    This interesting prayer was given in the USA, at the opening session of a State Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people.

    When the Minister was asked to open the new session of the Senate, everyone was expecting the usual platitudes,

    but this is what they heard:

    “Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says: “Woe to those who call evil good”, but that is exactly what we have done.

    * We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
    * We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism.
    * We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
    * We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle.
    * We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
    * We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
    * We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
    * We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
    * We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
    * We have abused power and called it politics.
    * We have embezzled public funds and called it essential expenses.
    * We have insitutionalised bribery and called it sweets of office.
    * We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.
    * We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
    * We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

    Search us, Oh GOD, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!”

    The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest.

    In 6 short weeks, the Church where the Minister is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls
    responding negatively.

    Bring him here to do the opening prayers at the next session of Parliament

    2. Rev. Wright said afterwards: “I certainly did not mean to be
      offensive to individuals, but I don’t apologize for the truth.” His
      staff stopped counting the telephone calls about the prayer that came in
      from every state and many foreign countries after the first 6,500 or
      so. Wright appeared on dozens of radio shows and was the subject of
      numerous television and print news reports in the aftermath of his
      appearance at the Kansas House of Representatives, and his prayer
      stirred up controversy all over again when it was read by the chaplain
      coordinator in the Nebraska legislature the following month. Wright
      later explained: “I thought I might get a call from an angry congressman
      or two, but I was talking to God, not them. The whole point was to say
      that we all have sins that we need to repent — all of us … The problem, I guess, is that you’re not supposed to get too specific when you’re talking about sin.”

      What to make of all the fuss? Syndicated religion columnist Terry
      Mattingly probably explained it best when he wrote: “The easy answer is
      that he read a prayer about sin. The complicated answer is that Wright
      jumped into America’s tense debate about whether some things are always
      right and some things are always wrong.”

      Credit. Snopes.

      1. Thanks.
        Many years ago I was at an Easter service on Malta which was also attended by numerous US Representatives, Senate and Congress I believe..
        What an almighty group of sanctimonious, self-regarding wazzocks. I thought at the time it was small wonder the USA was in trouble. They expected, nay demanded, that they should be fawned over at all times. It was all about them, not the Easter service.

        1. I’m surprised they were welcomed. The Malti dislike the Americans more than the Italians and the Italians laid siege and bombed them in WW2.

          1. I have no idea why they were there, they might have been passengers from a cruise ship.

            I didn’t get the impression that it was an “official” visit, just that the individuals and their wives regarded themselves as something really rather special.

          4. Tell me about it – the wives of officers, despite being civilians, still think they should take their husband’s rank!

          5. And be treated by us minions – who have actually achieved more in our careers than simply being a hanger-on of an officer or a partner of a large firm, or whatever. Those little women could not have got into our positions, even though we are not yet (and maybe don’t want to be) in their spouse’s position.

            I can’t stand people who bask in reflected “glory”.

        2. Years ago I asked the Archdeacon why we prayed in the Holy Communion service for HM Queen Elizabeth II (named) but only the President of the USA (anonymous); he replied that the latter was a political office.

          1. Was that in an Anglican Church, because technically she’s the head of the church.
            When Catholics do similarly do they name the Pope or merely refer to him as His Holiness?

  22. “An SAS hit squad tracked down the IRA

    terrorists who murdered Lord Mountbatten and were later involved in the

    mysterious death of a Republican cleared of the killing, The Mail on

    Sunday has been told.

    Speaking for the

    first time, Graham Yuill, a former Army security expert, said SAS

    operatives launched missions targeting the assassins of Lord

    Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7367629/SAS-hit-squad-tracked-IRA-terrorists-murdered-Lord-Mountbatten-Army-expert-claims.html
    Nearly but not quite,the real question is why two SBS (not SAS) sargeants ended up top of the IRA Death list,post Mountbatten the IRA declared the Royal Family a legitimate target,it seems the death of two IRA “godfathers” and their bodyguards in a “Helicopter crash” (a 9mm helicopter crash) caused an abrupt withdrawal of this policy

    1. If Owen Jones saw that many fit young men in uniforms he would squeal in delight.

      The followers of Hitler may have been evil b’stards who needed to be stopped, but they had the best dress sense of all socialist armies. When I look at the great Robert Shaw I always see the grizzled sea captain from Jaws, harnessing himself into that fishing chair. It is hard to think that this clean shaven man and him are the same person.

    2. Puts me in mind of travelling in Bayern in 1971; just about every Gâstehaus we stopped in seemed to have a choir practice!

    1. Fingers very firmly crossed.
      If – IF – this is truthful, I wonder what the Remainers will try next?

  27. Last week, I gazed on a truly wild land… and saw art reflected back. Kenan Malik. Sat 17 Aug 2019.

    I love bleakness. Not as a human condition but as a physical landscape. Not for me the well-tended orchards of Kent or the Constable-painted loveliness of the Stour valley. Give me, rather, the menace of Dartmoor, the strangeness of Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast, the emptiness of Ranoch Moor in the Scottish Highlands and most of all the dark, brooding allure of the Western Isles of the Outer Hebrides and the Northern Isles of Orkney and the Shetlands. These are all places that can be desolate, even hostile. Yet they are also landscapes imbued with beauty, even grace, such as that moorland in Lewis.

    There’s nothing wrong with admiring the beauty of the Highlands or the fells of the Lake District but it important to remember that these are man-made environments. In their wild state i.e. before man arrived on the scene, they looked very different to what they do now. Scotland was of course covered by the Caledonian Forest and the Lakes were rough enough to be a refuge for guerrilla fighters even as late as the Roman occupation. Nature in the raw is to some considerable degree intimidating though even this is ameliorated in that, wherever we are, we take civilisation in the form of emergency services with us. This is a loss since it makes the world a play and not a proving ground. Our ancestors despite their purported savagery were better than us. They were devoid of self-pity or ennui; courageous and intrepid, devoted to their families and tribe they strove to make a place for themselves in an unremittingly hostile world.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/17/last-wek-i-gazed-on-truly-wild-land-and-saw-art-reflected-back

  29. The following was developed as a mental age assessment by the School of Psychiatry at Harvard University.

    Take your time and see if you can read each line aloud without a mistake.

    The average person over 45 years of age cannot do it!

    1.This is this cat.
    2. This is is cat.
    3. This is how cat.
    4. This is to cat.
    5. This is keep cat.
    6. This is an cat.
    7. This is old cat.
    8. This is fart cat.
    9. This is busy cat.
    10. This is for cat.
    11. This is forty cat.
    12. This is seconds cat.

    Now go back and read the third word in each line from the top down.

  30. BC/ST. None of you worried ?

    It says the Treasury paper on preparations for a no-deal Brexit,
    codenamed Operation Yellowhammer, reveals that the UK could also face
    months of disruption at its ports, while plans to avoid a hard border
    between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are unlikely to
    prove sustainable.

    The dossier reported by the Sunday Times says leaving the EU without a deal could lead to:

    Fresh food becoming less available and prices rising

    A hard Irish border after plans to avoid checks fail, sparking protests

    Fuel becoming less available and 2,000
    jobs could be lost if the government sets petrol import tariffs to 0%,
    potentially causing two oil refineries to close

    UK patients having to wait longer for medicines, including insulin and flu vaccines

    A rise in public disorder and community tensions resulting from a shortage of food and drugs

    Passengers delayed at EU airports, Eurotunnel and Dover

    Freight disruption at ports lasting up
    to three months, caused by customs checks, before traffic flow improves
    to 50-70% of the current rateI

    4. …and I still don’t know what BC/ST is. An oblique reference to a Sunday newspaper maybe?

    5. Not remotely. It’s all scare stories. There’s plenty of of evidence suggesting that the exact opposite will occur.

      The establishment has got to realise the project fear does not work. It’s just fanaticism to scare the public into doing what it wants.

      We rejected that, so stuff it.

    7. “Fuel becoming less available and 2,000 jobs could be lost if the government sets petrol import tariffs to 0%, potentially causing two oil refineries to close.”
      So what you are saying is that if it becomes cheaper to import oil, the refineries that process oil will decide not to take advantage of this by making more profit, but instead put themselves out of business?
      NB Different oils are refined for different purposes including plastics. So N Sea oil cannot be direct replacement for imports.

      1. I have just filled my oil tank up for the winter and ordered my coal (oooh, I’m going to Hell burning that fossil fuel!). Not Brexit proofing, just what I do every summer.

        1. Yes, we are half way there. Coal piled up and about to order second fuel delivery. The price is supposed to go down in summer, but it doesn’t.

    8. I first saw reports on this “Project Yellowhammer” back in the news months ago. It was released as a scare tactic back then and it seems they are giving it another try. It was a report created by heavily pro-Remain civil servants who were asked to imagine the “worst-case” possible scenario’s, and it was dismissed as nonsense as they had magnified the down sides beyond any reasonable expectation.

      Since then even the French in charge of the ports have said these ideas are rubbish.

      The Remainers must be getting desperate to issue the same discredited propaganda twice and just hoping that the fact that they tried it before, earlier in the year, will be forgotten.

        1. But not since,I say again in this modern world what campaigner would not produce a daily video diary??

          6. Worry ye not, Rik; they are making a three hour film which will be shown simultaneously on all TV channels worldwide.

        1. I hope she doesn’t react too badly when the roof falls in. All this nonsense is nine-day wonder stuff. Soon forgotten.

          1. This is the prelude to a huge ”green” party and UN conference in New York with worldwide coverage.

            Can’t imagine who is behind it all…. ? ?

    4. What will she do when she actually has to deal with nature proper? You know, when there’s no clean drinking water and her loo doesn’t flush?

  32. Have you joined the new social media thing, specifically for people who support the Climate Change propaganda ?
    It’s called half-(t)witter.

    1. Morning PT,
      Why is that then ? have the peoples been denied a say
      over the decades ? an interview some time ago a young
      girl holding a baby said granddad voted lab, dad voted lab, I voted lab, and this baby is going to vote lab.
      The lib / dems / tories have the same types, and there lies the continuing problem.

      1. We need to ditch the EUSSR pronto and return to a sovereign state of self government.

        1. PT,
          We need to dump the eu & and the pro eu
          political parties within England / GB full stop.
          Since the mid 70s the toxic trio have taken the
          treachery trail the proof of the political pudding is seen in the current state of these Isles, year on year on year same parties.same politico’s, tweaked manifesto’s ( lie sheets), same sh!te.

      2. You can victim blame the electorate for being lied to until the cows come home, it won’t alter the fact that the perpetrators of the lies are the guilty ones.
        And it is directly analogous to blaming girls for falling victim to ‘grooming gangs’.

    2. I find it comical that there are protesters demanding the Chinese respect democracy yet also demanding that the Brexit referendum be ignored.

      1. What should the government do with the money that did not have to be paid out ? Should it be put into a fund and paid out to good causes like the lottery fund ?

    2. The sensible thing would be to allow people to choose their retirement age as they do with private pensions where you can take the pension from 55

      So the state Pension could say allow retiring from 65 but you would get a lower pension

        1. I think if they wanted to claim the state pension early at a reduced rate they would have to demonstrate they have sufficient other income to live on. Even the full state pension is no really adequate to live on

          2. If someone only has the basic state pension they can claim Income support £30-40 /week. Their rent will be paid, as will council tax. In addition they get heating allowances……………nobody in the UK only gets the state pension unless they fail to claim additions.

            2 weeks ago a Pensioner was paid some £100K in a lump sum – He retired but being a poor reader he failed to answer letters regarding his old age pension. He lived on £500 per month company pension + spending savings. The savings were down to nothing he asked for advice on releasing ££s from his home worth £250K – the salesman discovered he had never claimed his pension.
            Within 2 weeks the DWP paid out a lump sum (pension & interest) and set about paying his pension.

          3. If you have only the state pension but a couple of thousand in the bank you get zero extras – no income support, nothing.

          4. If you have £2,000 spend it, not difficult and then you will get further benefits.

          1. If they “knew” him I suggest they should head on down to the STD clinic to get their trunks dealt with.

  37. Creeekit. Good headline on the beeboid page. “England aim to extend their lead…”

    Now who’d have thought it? Gosh., we are just so lucky to have a state broadcaster with its finger on the pulse.

    1. Just like yer sports commentators that keep telling us about players that “they know what they need to do”.
      FFS, I should think so, especially the ones that are paid £0.5m a week.

  38. Owen Jones attacked outside London pub. Sat 17 Aug 2019.

    Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sent a message of “solidarity” to Jones. He said: “Owen believes it was politically motivated, and we know the far right is on the march in our country.

    “An attack on a journalist is an attack on free speech and our fundamental values.”

    Morning everyone. Jones is of course opposed to Free Speech which he conflates with Hate Speech which ought to be banned.

    Then there is the issue of how the far right have attempted to protect hate speech – specifically the right to use public platforms to incite hatred – as “free speech”. Guardian August 14.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/17/guardian-columnist-owen-jones-attack-pub-london

    1. Good to see the likes of Toynbee and Lammy prioritising this “assault” over the murder of a policeman,tells us all we need to know about them

    2. Any proof of this attack or is it just an example from the Jussie Smollet playbook?

    3. Morning, Minty. Someone should tell Corbyn that you don’t need a comma before the word ‘and’. He didn’t do too well in the GCE did he?

      1. I think that is called the Oxford comma. As such, it is correct as well as not leaving a comma before the word “and”.

        1. ‘Morning, Lass, JRM hates the ‘Oxford Comma’ just as much as I do.

          I was taught that in English Grammar, the conjunctions ‘and’ and ‘but’ have the effect of a comma, therefore, inserting the ‘Oxford Comma’ is an example of that other grammatical expression, ‘superfluity’

          As our Anne meant to say, yesterday, “Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.”

  39. The government has enacted the Commencement order. This is the official document that revokes the EU’s powers

    1. I find everything about that poster (and the warped ‘thinking’ behind it) to be completely and utterly offensive.

      Those behind its production need to be taken to task. Preferably by people who still have balls!

    3. It isn’t because they hate them. It’s because they’re not women and the men are not gay.

      I thought that was obvious?

    4. Whyever would a straight man want to date someone who was born male? Even if he/she has had the surgery etc, they will never be female.

      Anyone read the column in Saturday’s DT magazine by David Thomas? In “the wrong trousers” he’s painfully honest about his transitional process, but completely deluded if he thinks it will make him a woman.

      1. It is the denial these people are in. so you get from them daft thing such as some men have vaginas and some woman have penis’s

        The sex drive in both men and woman revolves around reproduction so both men and woman will be attracted to person of the opposite sex rather than the same sex. They can have close friendships with people of the same sex but that’s all

          3. Only if you let it be and I won’t stop using it any more than saying I am heterosexual .

          7. Well yes and that to me seems to be a brain disorder, A fetus develops as male or female(With the exception of intersex genetic disorder) Among the last thing to develop is the brain and it appear it is at this time something goes wrong. It looks as if at some point the fact that the baby is male should program the brain as male or if female it should program the brain as female,. In some case the program seem to go wrong and a male baby has a brain that thinks it is female or a female baby has a brain that thinks it is male

            The current approach of trying to change the body to align with the gender it thinks it is in my view doomed to failure as the physical baby remains the gender they were born with and no amount of surgery can change that. What they end up being with surgery in my view is more confused as genetically they are say male but physically have a part female appearance

          8. Maybe they are happier in their “new” gender but others born male or female are not fooled by that appearance.

    5. This is nothing short of enforcing homosexuality on straight men who want to be with women. No matter what label you choose to “identify” as, it does not change your genetics. If a man wants to wear a dress and live as a women, that is his own very dark path to walk down. You cannot force people into unwanted sexual behaviour unless they are your slave. Or you are their abuser. Which is what those people saying this really are. Labels are not reality.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f213e350cfa11cb4d104843a1a0d4eed8d3084f0769973359286e449b367e77f.jpg

  42. I’ll make sure our heroic police officers get the protection they deserve. PRITI PATEL 17 AUGUST 2019 • 9:30PM.

    That is why I have instructed the Home Office to urgently explore what we can do to better support the families of our brave police officers who are seriously injured, or worse, by criminals. Pc Harper began his career as a volunteer police officer. He was the very best of British policing. The bravery he showed by heading towards danger to protect the public is extraordinary.

    What is striking about this piece is the comments below the line that are almost all deeply sceptical. A view I share. This by Malcolm Marchesi is typical.

    Malcolm Marchesi 18 Aug 2019 6:58AM.

    The dreadful truth is that next week and the week after that and so on and so on , someone will be murdered by a stabbing or a beating or a shooting . There will then be cries of anguish from our politicians , their hearts will go out to the families of the victims , they will assure us that they are behind the police and then they will do nothing ! Too many people in our society no longer respect the police and certainly no longer fear either them or the law itself . That is the responsibility of successive Parliaments and Governments . What are they going to do about it ? Nothing .

    Their view is that the remedy for our society’s lawlessness is worse that the sickness.

    Until they change their minds , the carnage will continue!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/17/make-sure-heroic-police-officers-get-protection-deserve/

    1. Morning AS,
      “The carnage will continue”
      Sad to say so will the voting pattern with the reshuffled
      deck of the same politico’s.

    2. Hear Hear,also below the line is a quick practical solution

      “Patel
      – get the police to stop every traveler and demand to see a proof of
      income that legitimises the purchase of his expensive caravan and new
      top of the range SUV. And if the HMRC advise he’s paid no tax then take
      that as proof of no income and impound his vehicles under the proceeds
      of crime act.

      it would take only a handful of these seizures and
      the word would spread like wildfire around the ‘traveling community’ –
      and within a few days the lot of them would be on the ferry to Dún
      Laoghaire putting them back their home territory of Eire and out of our
      lives forever.”
      Hit these Pikey scum where it hurts

        1. Exacto,I strongly suspect convicting these swine for murder will prove impossible,time to think outside the box

          1. In the mad world in which we live, the CPS is more likely to go after the police driver of the vehicle that hit PC Archer – than the real villains.

  43. The PBS America progs (4) about Franco were fascinating. I had never realised how much influence his wife had.

    In the last prog, there was an striking, latter day, parallel with Common Purpose. The shocking interference in political life of Opus Dei.

  45. Some thing to think about when you here this claims of falling over a cliff and economic disaster if we leave the EU. Only 12% of our total trade I with the EU. With regard to exports we do more trade with Non EU countries than EU countries

    The EU’s economy has been stagnant or shrinking for many years whilst the rest of the worlds economy has been growing rapidly

    Our trade with the Non EU countries is held back very significantly by the high tariffs the EU applies on good from Non EU countries and these are the countries where the economies are growing

    There is tremendous potential for us to grow trade out side of the EU. We have established commonwealth links with many of these countries as well as with the US
    Whilst we may see some small drop in trade with the EU this would be more than offset by increased trade with the Non EU countries. We will also say Billions that we currently pay to the EU

    1. Entirely correct. The Europhiles count all trade that passes through Rotterdam as EU trade, which inflates the figures artificially.

      To the EU, trade is simply a weapon to use to control the nations of Europe. It’s not needed for actual trade at all. With the incoming tariffs making outside EU goods more expensive the idea was always to create an interdependent, isolationist bloc trading inside itself. From that, prices can be controlled. Supply and demand can be controlled and lo! A command economy. With a single currency under the auspice of a bought and paid for ‘bank’ the value can be set as well, ensuring who can have what and how much of it: communnism.

      However, the EU is rooted in the past. In the old, failed, long irrelevant models of empire building. Money is mobile. It can leave the bloc and go elsewhere. All the EU’s idiotic policies and controls will do is create mas poverty, unemployment and eventually, inevitably, starvation and chaos. Then it rolls the tanks in to keep the proles in order. It imposes rationing – for our own good, of course and then, as power supplies fail (due to a lack of investment and maintenance) infrastructure fails and we get deaths on a monstrous scale.

      Such is how it will end. However, when we leave it cannot survive, so we will hasten it’s demise. When we are successful outside of the hated EU other nations will follow. The misery of socialism averted again.

      1. Only liked by small minded, inward looking Little Europeans like Hammond, Grieve, Clarke, Spellman etc.

  46. Sarah Champion is my enemy, as are those partial editors within the BBC who push her campaign to divert Council Tax towards gender appropriate safeguarding and away from protection from stabbers and burglars.

    This morning, she made the point that those sports coaches and faith ministers who get into relationships with young people over the age of consent, but below the age of majority, are automatically abusive because there is a power imbalance.

    I suggest this may be so, but the power imbalance may well be the other way. Teenagers at the peak of their biological sexual faculties and interest may well develop a fascination with their mentors, considering them a worthy mate. The targets of their passion, who were drawn into their vocation anyway by positive feelings towards the young, must now deal with the full force of seduction from what can be a fabulously attractive person, willing and eager and fired by the power of their hormones. All they have to resist is a code of conduct, a fear of the witch hunt, and an understanding (especially with those stung by experience) that it often does not last, and may well lead later on to divorce or a knock on the door from plod on suspicion of “historic abuse”.

    More seriously, those cultures that come down hard on natural sexuality, such as the Muslims and the American mainstream, produce a far nastier approach to what should be wholesome and lovely. There seems to be an unholy alliance within the authoritarian left of “moral uplifters” from Islamists, feminists and champagne socialists (eager to divert public attention away from financial or environmental abuses). They will not hear what I have to say because ‘The New Statesman’ does not allow the public to argue with their columnists, and organs such as ‘The Guardian’ are heavily censored.

    I do wish the likes of Sarah Champion would be more considerate and balanced, rather than push the authorities into a hateful campaign of feminist zealotry calculated to vilify all men, of which I am one.

    1. Quote” Sarah Champion is my enemy, as are those partial editors within the BBC who push her campaign to divert Council Tax towards gender appropriate safeguarding and away from protection from stabbers and burglars.”

      But they keep telling us gender does not really exist

  47. Phew! A quiet 15min in the Holiday Let at Whitby.
    So far I’ve cooked breakfast for 5, walked into town for the paper, some bacon and one or two other items and have returned to drop things off & have a mug of tea.
    Plan to walk back to the station for the 12:45 to Glaisdale and ghe song session in the pub there. As I had a full breakfast I will not be partaking in the roast Sunday lunch at the pub.
    Back to Whitby for a walk up the 199 steps and a pint at the Brewery Tap at the top by the Abbey.

        1. Run/walk up at least 183 steps twice a day for 7 years while at school, secondary and sixth form. Quickest in about 45 seconds.

    3. Is Whitby the place where the women are lovely, every prospect pleases and only the men are vile?

      1. The Prospect of Whitby is a pub on Wapping Wall. I don’t know why they called it that as you can’t see Whitby from there. (They wouldn’t serve me either.)

        1. Great Maker! I think I stayed with them in their house the last time that I went up! They were not into Gothic music at all and were innocently into Science Fiction. I took them to their first night out with us “visitors” from across the country… Did I start them down this path?

          Oh well, we are all individuals and we don’t hurt anyone. We give a big boost to the local economy as well. They were dressed “normally” the last time that I saw them. They have put the effort into their clothes though, I will give them that.

          2. I am 99% certain that it is them. He has the same long hair, his bone structure is identical, he has a few more lines on his face but don’t we all after 25 years? I cannot see the ladies eyes but their height difference is the same… She created a made-to-measure suit of rigid black leather armour for me back then (for an innocent purpose.) She was a damn talented artist. That WAS a spooky co-incidence.

            Time for lunch. I must have that a photo of me in that armour somewhere.

    5. I like Whitby. The site of serious beach engineering in the past! And good pubs.
      :-))

  48. Does anyone else have the same problems with the Nottlers’ site this morning? My computer is flashing more frequently than a pervert’s mackintosh.

    3. Happy Sunday Mr. R. I am using a Google Chrome browser in preference to all other browsers when posting on Disqus with a Brave browser as my secondary browser precisely because of the constant instability of Disqus on other browser platforms such as Firefox, Edge & Internet Explorer

    5. The flashing could be a result of multiple ads being blocked at the same time causing a stutter. (It depends on your browser and firewall settings.)

      I find that it is worse the further down the page that I go. I also find that if you “refresh” the page then that clears it. Although you will lose the “5 new comments below” notifications, so you might miss what some people have typed.

        1. Heh heh. I don’t even know which blocker I have up at the moment. I have installed so many different browsers and accounts. I know that I don’t see any adverts, which is what could be causing the stuttering as they try in vain to load them. 🙂

          I know that one of my email accounts takes 10 seconds before showing anything due to trying to display adverts.

        1. As someone who has to go to other peoples computers to sort out the messes that they make when they allow virus’s in, I resemble that remark.

          You know that “refresh” is just a softer version of “have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?”

  49. The Big Mystery

    Can anyone understand why Labour and the Lib-Dems voted against May’s deal as it seemed to give them what they wanted

    2. Because they are not very intelligent and could not see how good it was for those determined to destroy Britain.

    4. The eu’s Withdrawal Agreement removed the United Kingdom’s MEP’s. So there would be no extra jobs for the boys and girls in Westminster once they were kicked out of office. These corrupt politicians wanted that extra position in the eu so they could have unlimited expenses and that 3rd gold-plated pension. They thought they could get it all by just delaying long enough. Their panic now is a delight to behold.

    1. Are any celebrations being planned, say in Trafalgar Square, with fireworks and a bonfire with the public burning of Theresa May ?

  51. Relations between 10 and 11 Downing Street plummeted last week after Sajid Javid’s dog Bailey tried to take a chunk out of the PM’s Chief Mouser Larry the Cat.

    In trademark Treasury tactics, the Chancellor’s camp tried to spin its version of events first, claiming Bailey had been provoked by the No 10 moggy.

    Dog hears it differently. ‘Bailey started it but Larry definitely finished it,’ says a source.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7367869/BLACK-DOG-Dog-days-No-10s-Larry.html

    3. “Watch out Greta!
      There’s an omniverous red tail shark off your port bow!!”

      1. You got the right side of the boat (well done!) but the red tailed shark is a tropical aquarium fish.

        1. This one has a special taste for Thunbergs which it prefers seasoned well with salt.

        2. I think it is the environmentally friendly green shark; the blue shark would be rather too Mako and would keep to the starboard side.

      1. If she knew how to really smile and enjoy life then she would not be on the left wing of politics.

        Those people really have something “switched off” in their brains when it comes to humour and living your life.

          1. As has been remarked, these films from the yacht are the nearest she has ever looked to being normal.
            Which again, raises uncomfortable questions about her home life.

  53. This topic has probably been raised already today and if so I apologise:

    “OCR takes all incidences of suspected offensive material against a religious group in exams very seriously and must apply rules which are set out for all exam boards in such cases.”

    This is truly terrifying. If you express a politically incorrect opinion in an exam you risk being disqualified.

    Has Britain now gone so far that it can never be recovered.

    Apparently the girl was reinstated but only when she claimed her objection to halal slaughter was for vegetarian rather than religious reasons.

    1. My objection to halal slaughter is on animal cruelty grounds, and also because I object to it being sold, unlabelled as such, so people do not know to avoid it. It is also served to children in schools without their knowledge or consent.

      I would be banned for those views?

        1. “If I don’t see you through the week, I’ll see you through the windows”
          — Bill Gates

        1. But shall we? How many of our politicians have the necessary testicular strength?

        2. Denmark has banned halal and kosher slaughter.
          Maybe it’s missing political spine, rather than the EU on this occasion.

    2. ‘a religious group’? Other reports claim the examiner objected to the candidate ‘expressing extreme Islamophobic views’. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but Islamophobia doesn’t exist as a legal offence – yet.

      1. Even if it did, it’s not a ‘phobia’, which is an irrational fear. It’s perfectly rational to fear a murderous cult.

  54. I think a little lunch is in order, I’ll wait until dinner this evening to have the stuffed chicken breasts I’m going to prepare; stuffed with a mix of pesto and blue cheese..

    Sorry about the proper time-naming, George, take your blood-pressure and then sit down with a mug of tea until it goes back to normal.

    Talk later.

  55. Brexit party MEPs’ links to alt-right media agenda exposed. Sun 18 Aug 2019 09.00 BST.

    It has steered away from the hard-right policies pursued by Farage’s former party, Ukip. However, several MEPs have appeared on shows that have broadcast conspiracy theories and retweeted messages from alt-right figures, according to the anti-racism campaign Hope Not Hate. It also found MEPs had retweeted prominent figures on the far right.

    I can remember back to when the main calumny was you had “links” to something or other and now it’s appearing on the same TV Channel! At this rate in a little while we will graduate to “They were mentioned in the same newspaper as Convicted Criminals”. This is another project by Hate not Hope which judging by its website, range and ambitions must be swimming in cash from Soros.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/18/brexit-party-meps-links-alt-right-media-conspiracy-theories-revealed

    1. HnH are also funded by taxpayers. They get money from many organisations including the Unions.

    1. More stupidity. We’ll need Didcott and all the others when sanity returns to energy policy.

      1. I thought you were referring to the idiotic spectators standing underneath power lines…

  58. Raising pension age to 75 would create £182bn boost for British economy, report claims

    Super, everyone works ’til they are 75…. no jobs for schoolleavers

    Those oldies at the top of ladder get paid more than those on bottom rung

    We can ‘save at least a third of £182bn, by scrapping HS2

    Let us start saving by leaving the EU. Prosecuting MPs for expense fiddling and going on fact finding missions to exotic places,

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHerester I am angry

    It would be interesting to find out, the amount of money, paid out in the last 20 or so years in Welfare benfits housing, medical expenses etc to immigrants (legal and illegal) who have never paid a penny in tax, NHS etc into the system

    i will be 75 next month and I certainly unable mentally and physically to do a full days work ………….. and why should I. From the time I started work in Sep1961 until I retired in Sept 2006, i was ‘not employed for 3 days’ ( a cokc up on holiday dates)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/17/raising-pension-age-75-would-create-182bn-boost-british-economy/

    2. There is a creeping movement in our government to eliminate old people for financial reasons. They boast of us living longer, then complain because ethical treatment of old people costs money.

    3. When we hear reports like this I always think that the decision has already been made and this is the start of the softening up process.

    4. Nobody in my male line has lived longer than my Father. He died at 72.
      Would be good to have some time to do what I want before becoming too decrepit.

      1. Just checked my direct male line and 73 was the eldest, but some of the indirect ones lived longer. The longest living male was my Gt Gt Grandfather’s first cousin, who lived to 99.

    5. I’m sure that the cold blooded people who came up with the calculation of £182 billion saving would have factored in the number of people who would not survive to draw their pension. Win, win; save billions and kill off the old ‘uns early. What’s not to like.

    7. We are living longer because of the advancement in modern medicine. Why keep us alive so we can spend more years in a nursingg home…
      Three score years and ten is enough for me…

        2. As long as I can make it to the tennis courts I’m happy…playing three sets is a bonus!

          1. My OH knackered his shoulder playing tennis last month and now he’s waiting for surgery. No more tennis or table tennis until he’s recovered from that.

          4. Is it keyhole sugery …..if so recovery is quicker.?

            I didn’t have surgery for my cuff I settled for a decompression. .

          5. Not sure yet – the consultant said it might entail a slightly larger incision, but it would be day surgery.

          9. He’d hate a cruise! He’s gone back to model railways….. the winter hobby. Will have to plan our next safari.

          10. My OH knackered his shoulder playing tennis last month and now he’s waiting for surgery. No more tennis or table tennis until he’s recovered from that.

          3. I’m 80. Theoretically and statistically I’m dead. ” You are as young as you feel ” ( No, dear, not that feel ).

          4. From some of the comments that you see on social media, from the pro-eu youngsters who think old people’s votes should be ignored, you are a meaningless pensioner once you hit 25. Poor lambs. They have so much to learn.

      2. “Dies annorum nostrorum in ipsis septuaginta anni si autem multum octoginta anni et quod amplius est labor e dolor quoniam transivimus cito et avolavimus”
        — Psalms 89:10

        No ‘labor’ or ‘dolor’ here and at 75 I reckon I’m fitter than most of the seat-polishers in Parliament so I’ve no intention of ‘flying-off’ for a wee while yet.

        Unlike our troughing MPs and ‘Noble Lords’, I’ve earned my pensions so they’ll just have to suck it up and keep paying me, much as it might irk them.
        :¬))

        1. Was speaking to a friend who’s in his eighties this evening; he said that he intended to keep drawing as much money in pension as he possibly could 🙂

      3. How come we are living longer considering we are all overweight, breathing in dangerous levels of air pollution and almost everything that we like is supposed to be bad for us, are the scientist wrong?

      4. Yo P-T

        Three score years and ten is enough for me… +5 +abit more please

        Nottlering keeps you young

          1. I’ve got glarnies.
            Tried to put an image on but it says “You must be logged in to upload an image” and I am logged in.

          3. I had that problem last night when I was using my phone for Nottl. Every time I switched from ‘notifications’ to the discussion page it told me to log in. All I had to do was click disqus and I was in but it was irritating.

      5. Maybe it isn’t enough for those who have worked until their seventies and are lucky enough to have their health and their marbles , and want a few years of life without having to slog away and pay taxes ? When I was a kid I thought 70 was ancient. Now I think it is young.

      6. ‘Afternoon, P-T, already passed three score years and ten, wrote the book of it and am now 5 years into the next one, entitled Passing Three Score Years and Ten.

    8. The problem is the state looks at taking more tax as a boost – as that is what delaying pensions really is. More money in, less going out.

      The real issue is the state has already spent the pensions money on other things. Such as the Public Health for England quango. Foreign aid and obscene six figure salaries for statists. Despite the offensive levels of tax we pay, the state just burns through it in spending.

      The state knows no concept of restraint.

    1. My own thought ever since I saw someone suck chemicals through a tube in to his lungs.

      1. One wonders whether second hand vape will turn out to be even worse than second hand smoke.

  61. I am off for the day. A recital to attend at 5 30. Then supper – then the thunderstorms.

    A demain – I hope.

    1. This is what happens when you interrupt a Marxist mid-lie. You must let them finish the maze of words that they are constructing to conceal what they really mean. It is such a complex web of lies that they forget where they were if they are not allowed to finish in one go.

    3. And this is our potential Prime Minister if/when Labour comes to power ? The problem isn’t Corbyn, it’s the number of supporters he has.

      2. Morning T,
        You will find they are on par with the other two segments of the coalition ie libs / cons.
        Without the continuing input of the odious trio over the decades we could never have sank so low as a nation.

      3. I find myself confused.

        On the one hand, he’s passionate about it. He’s trying to explain his statement. Saying he welcomes so and so to the table is fair enough.

        His attitude is someone who has no media training whatsoever – he’s never done that sort of thing before, has he? So he looked a pompous oaf. However, what would we prefer in our politics: a passionate man with poor choice of words and a bit of a temper or Blair, a slick used car salesman?

  64. Raising pension age to 75 would create £182bn boost for British economy, report claims

    “The pension age has remained unchanged for more than a century…”

    Erm, I think they mean males’ pension age. The women’s was brought into line with males’ (from 60 to 65) some years ago.

    In fact, now I come to think of it, they are all being raised a year at a time over the next decade or so.

    1. Another reason to get out of the EU, because we are the only country so far to have recognised the issues and taken some steps to cope with them.

  65. DT Article

    Songs of Praise broadcasts show’s first gay wedding
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/18/songs-praise-broadcasts-shows-first-gay-wedding/

    Guess what – no comments allowed!

    But here is a comment from the Bible.

    Leviticus Chapter XVIII vv 22,23 ( King James Version)

    Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.

    2. Yo mr t

      …… Presenters of the BBC One show have vowed that they are “not afraid of controversy” as they broadcast a wedding which is currently
      banned in the Church of England.

      Try being really controversal, stick to the Church of England ethics.

      We know how hard it is for a heterosexual man to get on in the Beeb

      just humour us a bit

      1. The self-appointed site Gestapo will be after you…

        “We don’t want that filth on here, thank you.”

      1. I was chuckling at the double entendre of “choose model”. Something along the lines of ‘me, two’ or ‘Choose model ( only for billionaires).

    6. Alien metal rods mesmerise women as hair is harvested for godless heathen rituals.

    1. It is now known that grotty teeth and gums cause heart problems.
      So there could easily have been a link between the two conditions.

  68. The story in today’s DT about pigs being used in transplant surgery reminds me of Jeremy Taylor’s prophetic song inspired by that great South African medical satirist, Dr Christian Barnard, who performed the first heart transplant nearly fifty years ago.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o89O_jIFllk

    1. Most of the legislation transposed is the same as the EU regulations. The difference is our Government of whatever persuaion can change the transposed legislation as it wishes.

      1. The point of moving EU laws onto the Statute Books was so they could be ‘cherry-picked’, as Barnier would say, or repealed. The contentious issue, IIRC, was who would do it – the Government or Parliament. As there are 9,000+ laws, it would tie the latter up for decades debating each one ad nauseum.

        1. It should be a job for Parliament. Parliamentary procedures need to be brought up to date and streamlined to speed things up. Renovation of rhe HoC should have that as a major consideration. The transposed legislation should be triaged and dealt with accordingly.

      2. C,
        Then it is time to consider changing these
        alternating governments, since the mid 70s do you not think they have done enough damage?

  70. I stand with Owen Jones. Rod Liddle. 18 August 2019.

    It is obviously wrong to kick Owen Jones’s head in. And so, much as the appalling Shami Chakrabarti has insisted, I stand ‘in solidarity’ with Owen Jones and hope he makes a swift recovery. The point is, though, does Owen Jones stand in solidarity with Owen Jones? By which I mean, does he agree that physically assaulting people because they have different political opinions to you is always odious and wrong? Nope, not a bit of it. He was full of glee when Nigel Farage was pelted with a milkshake, tweeting: ‘spare me the tears over a banana milkshake’ and praising the burger chain who were selling the milkshakes for having ‘joined the anti-fascist resistance’. But that’s not all. Jones also tweeted in support of Aamer Rahman who advised that it was morally correct to ‘punch’ Nazis. Nazis being, in Owen’s lexicon, most people who disagree with Owen Jones. Not nice, is it, Owen? Maybe reflect a while?

    Jones is a Socialist hypocrite through and through as we well know. But it was nice of Rod to point it out with this mini-article!

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/i-stand-with-owen-jones/

    2. The Independent is reporting that the Government is planning from 1 November after Brexit freedom of movement for EU citizens will end.

    3. We shouldn’t be chortling at Jones’s misfortune. After all, we’re the good guys…aren’t we?

      1. I saw Jones on BBC News. No evidence of any attack whatsoever. No black eye or bruised lump on the side of his head, just the same sanctimonious smirk of a boyish Greta Thunberg with bum-fluff and the usual diatribe against Tommy Robinson and the “Far Right”.

        1. I don’t believe a word of it. No witnesses, no CCTV evidence, no physical evidence of injury.

          Wee Owen is trying to pull a ‘Jussie Smollett’.

        3. As he is reported to have said when he tried to remember a Kenneth Williams line from the Carry On films:

          “It’s odd of me, it’s odd of me but I like a bit of sodomy.”

    1. A far more elegant time. It is nice to get dressed up like that for an evening and be with many others wearing the same. 🙂

      3. I agree, so very sophisticated times!! But I do not kid myself that I could carry that off now, particularly with high heels!!

      4. I’d enjoy it if I could wear the same thing every time like yer blokes do.
        Can’t be a*sed with shopping and make up and wearing shoes that mean you are always only two steps away from breaking your ankles

        1. If the wives of the Newmarket jockeys wore everything more than once then my wife could no longer obtain high end fashion from Newmarket Oxfam Shop.

        2. A good friend isn’t girly, she wears wtf she likes. Doesn’t care if she’s been seen in it before. Tee, sweatshirt, jeans, trainers…
          Little over 50, still sexy… (drool)

        1. As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
          For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

          No looking up on the Web. Who is struggling with the neckwear and who is his victor?

      6. I agree; it isn’t often I need to don evening dress, but I do like to be able to now and again.

    3. There was a lovely expression in a P.G. Wodehouse book where a dancer was said to have out-fredded Astaire!

    5. Lovely comment years ago from Ginger – “I did everything Fred did, but backwards in high heels”.

  72. Good morning all.
    Just been watching the girlies’ hockey. England v Ireland. Oh, my word …. the thighs, the thighs!

  73. Hammond the hypocrite is making a no-deal Brexit even more likely

    CHARLES MOORE

    In his brilliant Reith Lectures this year, Lord Sumption, a recently retired member of the Supreme Court, emphasised the importance of legitimacy. Legitimacy lies behind the functioning of law and of democracy. As he puts it: “We obey the state because we acknowledge its legitimacy.” Legitimacy, he says, is “the basis of all consent”.

    Legitimacy runs deeper than mere opinion: it means our acceptance that the authority under which we live is what it says it is. Example: you might be anti-monarchy in principle, but you would be hard put to deny that Elizabeth II is the legitimate head of state of the United Kingdom. Example: you might always vote Conservative, but you accept the legitimacy of a duly elected Labour government.

    The EU has always (here I suspect I diverge from Lord Sumption, who seems to favour it) had a problem with legitimacy. Because it moves steadily in one direction (“ever-closer union”), it is engaged in a permanent land-grab. It keeps taking powers which, we thought, belonged to us. We ceded power to it by joining and in subsequent European treaties, but we became increasingly uneasy because we doubted whether this process was legitimate. Whoever is the British prime minister, most of us accept his/her legitimacy in a way that we do not accept the legitimacy of Jean Claude Juncker. The PM is somehow ours: no President of the European Commission could be.

    So the vote for Leave in the 2016 referendum had a logic which even Remainers should acknowledge. The largest number of people in this country ever voting for a single thing decided to defy all three main party leaderships and take such a big step. That means a lot. They thus denied the legitimacy of the EU and, to use the Sumption terminology, showed they do not wish to obey the state (a United States of Europe, or thereabouts) that it has become.

    Lord Sumption hates referendums, because they are not good at paying regard to the needs of the losers. He has some right on his side there. But they would be even worse devices if they did not pay regard to the needs of the winners. And that is where we have been ever since the results were known on June 24 2016. MPs legitimised a referendum; but then large numbers of them spent the next three years trying to evade its result. They are still at it.

    At which point, I leave off this discussion of principle, and descend to Philip Hammond. This week, after a few weeks of grumpy silence, Mr Hammond said yet again that “no one voted for no deal”. This is a clever remark: it is both true and utterly misleading. No one voted for no deal, or for any deal. Neither was on the ballot. There was a good reason for this. Voters were invited to answer the one really important question: did they want Britain to be in the EU or not? They did not need to be asked anything else, because their legitimate MPs had collectively assured them that they would enact their decision. As with all legislation, it is part of the legitimate role of MPs to work out how to enact what voters want them to do.

    At first, it seemed that this was what Theresa May was attempting. But once she had called, and nearly lost, an unnecessary general election, it gradually became clear that the Government was not acting in good faith. Mrs May said no deal was our negotiating backstop but, thanks chiefly to Mr Hammond, it wasn’t. He and his allies deliberately entered negotiations without a bottom line. As always happens in such cases, we lost and the other side won.

    So Mrs May had to go. Because more than enough of the Tory party’s MPs and members recognised the nature of this disaster, they chose as her successor someone with a bottom line. Foolishly, from its point of view, the EU had already set our departure date for October 31, thus giving Boris Johnson the focus that enabled him to become Prime Minister.

    The hypocrisy of Mr Hammond’s position today extends to all MPswho, like him, opposed no deal, yet voted for Article 50 and the Withdrawal Act, both of which provide for it. That is the context of the current excitements about no-confidence motions, Governments of National Unity and Mr Speaker telling the Edinburgh Fringe he is fighting “with every breath in my body” to make sure that “the House of Commons must have its way”. These are all devices to conceal the weird but true fact that although several Commons indicative motions have shown a majority against no deal, when it came to actual legislation, no deal is what Parliament voted for.

    There are at least three consequences of this hypocrisy. One is that Mr Hammond and Co are making the no deal that they hate more likely. They are encouraging their friends in Brussels to think they can win in Parliament, and thus discouraging them from making Britain an acceptable offer.

    Another is that they have become defeatists. They have invested so heavily in the horrors of no deal that they actually resent it when business leaders – this week, Lord Wolfson of Next and the leaders of British insurers – start to say that they are ready and no deal isn’t so bad after all. Defeatism means wanting your own side to lose. Mr Hammond has become a sort of genius at that.

    The third consequence is that the Hammonds, Dominic Grieves and John Bercows who so loudly assert the rights of Parliament are in fact undermining its legitimacy. If you devote all your energies to frustrating the referendum you legislated for, going against the result of the 2017 general election in which the two main parties both promised to enact Brexit, breaking parliamentary conventions to get your way and now trying to undermine the new Prime Minister, you cannot be surprised if millions start to think you have got above yourselves and to feel a bit Cromwellian about you.

    Meanwhile, the world is changing. When I first met John Bolton more than 25 years ago, I was impressed by the rarity of an American conservative who saw clearly how dangerous the European Union was to democratic national independence in the West and how likely the project was to go wrong. Now Mr Bolton is President Trump’s National Security Adviser, and his views are widely shared in his country. This week, he was in town to hold out to Britain the possibility of sectoral trade deals when we cease to be shackled to what he sees as a dying power.

    In his article this week denouncing no deal, Mr Hammond found time to disparage Mr Bolton’s mission, too: “when our American friends talk about doing a ‘great trade deal’, they mean a trade deal that is great for America”. Of course they do! What country (except, perhaps a Britain led by Mr Hammond) seeks a trade deal that is not great for itself? But why does Mr Hammond not apply even fiercer strictures to a British deal with the EU – an entity that is larger, and far more politically and legally intrusive upon our sovereignty than the United States?

    Continentals, especially the French, have long complained about “les Anglo-Saxons”. They have exaggerated the power of the Anglosphere. But when Britain leaves, their fears may be realised. We shall have regained a sense of our legitimate interests.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/16/hammond-hypocrite-making-no-deal-brexit-even-likely/

  74. Quangos will always be in the grip of the Left. There’s no choice but to scrap them

    TOM WELSH

    Do the quangocrats never sleep? While the rest of us have been on holiday, the public bodies, executives and authorities that have assumed responsibility for overseeing swathes of national life have been busy preparing their latest barrage of pettifogging interference.

    The Advertising Standards Authority announced the first two”sexist” adverts banned under its new gender stereotyping rules. The Institute of Economic Affairs, meanwhile, released a paper finding that targets drawn up by Public Health England to cut sugar from the national diet will make it all but impossible to manufacture parma violets, Liquorice Allsorts and (my favourite) sherbet lemons.

    Steam train operators may need to spend millions in order to comply with health and safety rules ordered by the Office of Rail and Road after a passenger was killed on the (non-steam) Gatwick Express. Not to be outdone, the head of Natural England suggested that grouse moor owners should be prosecuted for the deaths of hen harriers on their land, even if they were not responsible.

    I don’t remember voting for any of this, and the successive governments that have farmed out responsibility for such frustrating meanness have assumed that most people don’t care one way or another. But that is untrue. So widespread have the quangos become that it is impossible not to be annoyed by their inevitably statist and invariably patronising output.

    Except it’s hard to identify who to be cross about. The leaders of these bodies are interchangeable members of the same Blairite “woke” BBC class who always seem to be pursuing the same faddish ideas. They also benefit from low awareness of their existence.

    The latest official report, which I assume is meant to make it easier for the public to know who is making decisions in their name, puts the number of “non-ministerial departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies” at 301, and is littered with jargon about “arms-length bodies” and “MPM frameworks” that seems more likely to confuse than illuminate.

    While they are often only operating within laws and guidelines imposed by politicians, that muddying of the waters also gives ministers a way of distancing themselves from unpopular decisions.

    It is time to take back control. Although we finally seem to have a government that is committed to personal freedom and responsibility, imposing right-thinking leaders on these bodies is unlikely to work. They are arms of the state, and “the blob” has a way of inoculating itself from even the most determined reformer. No, we need a bonfire of the quangos – and this time a real one.

    It needn’t mean the Government leaving large areas of the economy unregulated. But I would like to see the health secretary taking responsibility for reformulating the recipes of our favourite consumer products, and the environment secretary laying down the law to grouse moor owners. They might then find that the continuous drip-drip-drip of Left-liberal interventionism isn’t all that popular.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/18/quangos-will-always-grip-left-no-choice-scrap/

      2. I think he is, Tony. Might he be related to the randy van-warmer who, as well as having hot sex in the back of a van, also occasionally reaches the Top Ten in the charts? :-))

      3. NO!

        ‘Muddy Waters’ was the stage name of McKinley Morganfield, a very well respected Blues artist and huge influence for many blues and rock stars coming after him.

        He was not a ‘pop’ star and was far from being ‘horrid’.

        By the way, I am a Blues fan since it is a far better and much more pure musical form than most others.

        1. I have just bought a CD of the “Rolling Stones: Beginnings.”
          It has 25 tracks none of them by the Stones. They are all the original versions that the Stones covered, e.g “I’m a King Bee’ by Slim Harpo, and “Honest I Do” by Jimmy Reed, and yes, “I Just Make Love to You” by Muddy Waters..
          Fabulous!

    2. That “bonfire of the quangos” got doused pretty quickly. Too many high paying “jobs for the boys/girls” – and their friends.

      1. They set up a quango to look at that. It was such an enormous task a further 6 quangos were set up to report to the main quango. They were all committed to the urgency of the situation and the interim report is expected by 5 April 2037. :-))

  75. The Offensive Weapons Act

    Children as young as 12 could be placed under curfews as part of tough new powers given to the courts to tackle knife crime.

    The Home Secretary said that anyone aged 12 and over who is suspected by the police to be carrying a blade could find themselves subject to a series of restrictions, including preventing them from interacting with certain people, and banned from certain areas.

    The rules will form part of the Offensive Weapons Act, the draft guidance of which is set to be published on Thursday.

    1. Yes, but who is going to do all the hard work supervising them ? Better just lock up the ones that do something naughty for a substantial time, pour encourager les autres ( that one you don’t need a translation for ! )

    2. Why do we need an Offensive Weapons Act? There are sufficient provisions that cater for the possession and use of offensive weapons in the Prevention of Crimes Act, 1953, which is still on the statute book.

      That Act actually lists three categories of offensive weapon:

      1. An item that is specifically designed per se as an offensive weapon, e.g. a knife, sword or gun.

      2. An object that is not an offensive weapon in its natural state, but has been modified or adapted to make it into an offensive weapon, e.g. a sharpened stick, or an adapted imitation firearm.

      3. Any object that is not specifically made or adapted to be an offensive weapon but is used as one, e.g. a candlestick, or a cricket bat.

      Anyone in possession of any of the above, without reasonable excuse, when outside their place of abode commits an offence.

      1. Grizz,Grizz,Grizz,how many times in the last 20 years have new laws been passed when there was already ample statute to deal with the offences if only the will was there
        It’s not important that anything is ACTUALLY done,only that the virtue signalling politicians are seen to be doing something even if it’s just a mirage

        1. Rik, Rik, Rik; I know, I know, I know.

          It is beyond frustrating and yet more evidence of the progressive stupidity of the human species.

      2. We don’t really need it we have adequate legislation in place already and curfews can be applied. Possibly the only thing need is new judicial guidance and an increase in the minimum sentence.

        In the case of knife crime by children there is a need to involve the parents and possibly impose some requirements on them

      1. That was a nasty film. The only benefit that I can see from it’s existence is that the sheer violence in it would wipe out a cinema full of left wing snowflakes in one sitting. There are no “safe spaces” in the world that would let them recover from this. They would toughen up or die.

      2. I don’t know. When it was made, violence for its own sake (think today’s knife fights), was almost unknown. Now it’s commonplace. No difference between that and Burgess’s vision of the future.

        Still have the book somewhere. I remember when the film first came out there was a huge publicity poster for it at Liverpool Street station, which greeted morning commuters.

        1. A Clockwork Orange was initially banned in the UK. I first saw it in the Tuschinski (?) Theatre in Amsterdam on a university school of architecture trip to the city in the early seventies.

          Curiously the gang scenes were filmed in the then new Thamesmead development, another marvel of the modern movement in architecture.

    1. “He told The Sunday Telegraph that his protege during the 1979 operation
      is preparing to perform the world’s first pig-to-human kidney transplant
      “before the end of this year”, which – if successful – would open the
      door to more complex organs.”
      1979 ???

    2. Nah – slammers will get human hearts, on religious grounds. The rest of us will be left with the pigs’ hearts. Natch.

    3. For interest, the Jewish angle is this –

      “Although the early rejection of pig organs by a human recipient has not
      yet been overcome, scientists are actively seeking to solve this
      problem. If and when xenotransplantation from pigs or other animals
      becomes scientifically feasible, Judaism will look with favor upon this
      procedure to prolong or save the life of a human being who is ill or
      dying from organ failure. Although Jewish law forbids Jews to raise or
      eat pigs, no such prohibition exists for the use of pigs to cure human
      illness or to save human lives by xenotransplantation.”

      1. Always pragmatic. And with a rule book that is constantly updated and not stuck in the 15th century.

  77. Yellow Hammer is worst case scenario

    A worst case scenario should in my view be a realistic worse case and this seems way over the Top. The very worst case of course would be we would cease trading with the EU

    A realistic worst case would be say a 15% drop in trade with the EU

        1. Precisely, you have it in one,total severance then when they see sense, contact us.
          They will not be long in doing that.

        1. Well, my darling, set it to English. The civilised language. 🙂

          Good evening, Mahatma!

          1. Good evening Hertslass, not practical for me , fully 90% of the followers & Mods on my channels & Blogs are Americans . There are only 3 British English speaking channels on Disqus ( NTTL, Trollograph & Not the DT ) & as far as I know only a handful of British owners of channels – Geoff, Truth Revealed, British Awakening catering to a UK audience with Myself, Ian96 & Paul the English Mod catering mostly to Americans anyway .

    2. Pleased to see that the Hat-o-channels are growing faster than Tom Collins’ gnomes corner gnomes.

      More power to your elbow!

    1. The climate moves in cycles. It was warmer here 2,000 years ago when the Romans had vineyards across England and the Scottish were prancing about in their balmy lochs. When this current cycle switches back into the slide to chilliness, and they are chipping the ice from this monument above, they can take it and make a history program about it.

      “Behold the gullibility and lack of real education of the public in 2020. It allowed corrupted politicians to take much of the world for a roller-coaster ride with their climate-change hoax. Aided by shameless pseudo-scientists and a bought and paid for media, many businessman and politicians became rich from the taxes of the poor, who were forced to pay for a non-existent solution to this global con.”

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

      1. From the graph above CO2 is falling as the thousands of years go by. One day, perhaps soon we will try to boost rather than suppress this vital gas. The climate fraud is one of the most extraordinary examples of mass delusion and will be talked about for centuries.

        2. Someone posted an interesting link a couple of days ago, in which a scientist mentioned that CO2 is at an all time low and had been dropping for the past 500m years, which that graph nicely illustrates.

    2. Don’t we just like frightening ourselves?

      After all it sells newspapers and provides hooks on the internet to sell all sorts of things. But it also scares vulnerable little children who believe everything that’s published – particulary all the distorted graphs of CO2 levels with false zeros.

      After looking at a large number of CO2 graphs, almost all paint a very bleak picture of imminent doom and one which verges on the Chicken Licken story which is not suitable for children of Greta’s age who might actually believe it.

      However I did find one below which does have a true zero and annotated with extinction events (Greta please note).

      Yes CO2 may be going up but nowhere near the catastrophic levels associated with previous mass extinctions on this earth.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/153332ffa3b55b67b5a0b08b7ca1f35516f1dad73ee8fb8ffb87d9a28452904e.jpg

      The Story of Chicken Licken
      Once upon a time there was a little chick called Chicken Licken who lived on a farmyard in the countryside.
      One day, Chicken Licken went to the woods. He stopped by an oak tree. Suddenly a tiny acorn dropped from
      the tree – wheeeeeeeeee! And hit Chicken Licken on the head – BONK!
      Unfortunately, Chicken Licken didn’t see the acorn. He looked up the clear blue sky. “Oh, no!” he said “The
      sky is falling, I must tell the king.”
      So he ran and he ran and he ran until he got to the farmyard where he met Henny Penny.
      “What’s the hurry?” clucked Henny Penny.
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “I’d better come too” clucked Henny Penny
      So Chicken Licken and Henny Penny scurried off to find the king.
      “What’s the hurry?” crowed Cocky Locky.
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “I’d better come too” crowed Cocky Locky
      So Chicken Licken, Henny Penny and Cocky Locky scurried off to find the king.
      “What’s the hurry?” quacked Ducky Lucky and Drakey Lakey
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “I’d better come too” quacked Ducky Lucky and Drakey Lakey
      So Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky and Drakey Lakey scurried off to find the king.
      “What’s the hurry?” honked Goosey Loosey
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “I’d better come too” honked Goosey Loosey
      So Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky , Ducky Lucky, Drakey Lakey and Goosey Loosey scurried off
      to find the king.
      “What’s the hurry?” gobbled Turkey Lurkey
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “I’d better come too” gobbled Turkey Lurkey
      So Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky , Ducky Lucky, Drakey Lakey, Goosey Loosey and Turkey
      Lurky scurried off to find the king.
      “What’s the hurry?” snapped Foxy Loxy.
      “The sky is falling and I’m off to tell the king” cried Chicken Licken
      “Follow me, my feathery friends, I can help you find the king” smiled Foxy Loxy.
      So, Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Draky Lakey, Goosey Loosey and Turkey Lurky
      followed Foxy Loxy deeper into the forest.
      Foxy Loxy was just getting ready to gobble up the feathery friends when suddenly a tiny acorn dropped
      from the tree – wheeeeeeeeee! And hit Foxy Loxy on the head – BONK!
      Luckily, Foxy Loxy didn’t see the acorn. He looked up the clear blue sky. “Oh, no!” he said “The sky is
      falling, I must tell the king.”
      Foxy Loxy ran off and was never seen again. Everyone looked at Chicken Licken.
      “Are you sure the sky fell on your head” they said.
      “Well, maybe it was an acorn” said Chicken Licken!
      And they chased him all the way home to the farmyard.

      1. The question about all those peaks in CO2 and the extinctions is what else did they coincide with, which may have been the cause of the extinction rather than the CO2.

      1. Shäggy?

        Mamam’s saying to herself, “So that’s why they call it doggy, lucky bïtch.”

  83. In the Tescos. I see a chap in a motorised wheelchair sort of ‘stuck’. He wasn’t moving, despite manipulating his controls.

    I dropped down to ask him if he was ok and could I help. He struggled to reply due to his disability and I waited and eventually understood that he was ok and just waiting for someone.

    Later on, a woman accosts me for saying I shouldn’t interfere and just leave people like him alone. I was rather taken aback as she was quite vehement.

    What is the right thing to do?

      1. There’s a point where you say to yourself ‘am I rude for asking? What if it’s impolite? Am I just intruding?’

        1. For my money you did the “right” thing all along.

          I would far rather someone helped me when I was struggling than walked past.

        2. And I’ve also seen complaints that people in wheelchairs are treated as if they’re invisible.

        3. I would have done the same. Isn’t that the decent thing to do?
          What if he had been having real problems?
          If no problems, all he needed to say was “all ok, thanks”.

    4. I take it that she she is of the opinion that the emergency services (999) are a waste of public money. I hope she she never needs hospital treatment for opening her mouth.

    5. I wouldn’t have wasted a single second worrying about what this idiotic woman was moaning about. It is just yet more evidence of how humanity is getting stupider by the second.

    6. If I see someone needing help or begging on the streets my instinct is to help.

      My mantra: There but for the grace of god go I

      1. In my yoof I used to help run a soup kitchen. As I was mostly a spotty oik this involved stirring the pot.

        However, Dad would always encourage me to listen to the individual’s stories and circumstances.

      2. I have always given to beggars who have asked for money. Often I’ve been mocked by companions, “oh, they’ll just spend it on drink”. Maybe so. But I think what kind of pass would I have come to if I had to beg in the street?

    7. What you did is the right thing to do.
      The woman was probably supposed to be looking after him and had failed at her job.

    9. Tell the woman that next time you see him struggling that you’ll push him into the raod where a lawyer might run him over.

      Then tell her you know just the lawyer to do it.

      No names, no pack-drill, of course.

      1. I’m not sure I could do that. I can be a bit of a git, but I have ot assume she was genuine in her cause.

      1. I think she meant well, same as sometimes when you hold a door for someone they say “I cna open it myself, you know’.

        1. And I can let the door go in your face! SPLAT,

          Oh I hate people that have forgotten the most basic of courtesies.

    12. Few ordinary people know how to handle any kind of disability, unless they have one themselves.
      You’ve hear the question : ” Does he take sugar /?””, for example.

    15. Ignore the woman she is crazy or so far into the realms of political correctness that she is brain dead.

      If someone is in genuine need of help then they will be so grateful that you took the time to offer it. The risk of leaving someone floundering alone in case you “might” offend someone else is an easy choice to make.

      That woman was wrong, ignore her. You did the right thing.

      1. Yet if it were me in the wheel chair would I feel this brute is just embarrassing me for his own gain?

        1. When you wrote:

          I dropped down to ask him if he was ok and could I help

          That told me and I hope most others that you were genuine in your offer. I suspect/hope the man in question felt the same.

          Stop worrying about it.
          You did the right thing.

        2. No you would not. I am surprised that you would think in such a way. I have had long experience with those who are disabled. They do not want pity, but they do not want the Politically Correct to make their lives harder than they need to be. This woman was being the bully by trying to tell you what to do.

    16. Yo wibbling

      You did what 95% of the Nottlers would have done

      However (comma) you showed more self restraint than most of us would have done.

      I would have said to the baitch, there, but the Grace of God, goes you. Would you like to be left helpless

      1. No, I wouldn’t. Well, actually, yes, I probably would wait until the store has closed then hobble to the exit out of sheer stubborn pride but I am stupid.

        1. No, mate.
          You are a decent, upright human being.
          Not stupid at all. Compassionate.

    1. Europe might have been much better placed if, at the end of the war, Belgium had been given to the Netherlands.

      1. Yes it should have been split and Wallonia to France and Flemish Flanders to the Netherlands.

    2. The crowd is made up entirely of the French Resistance, saviours of Europe and influential in driving the British Forces back across the Channel, oops that was Dunkirk

    3. My father took part in the liberation of Brussels. The bastards thanked him by refusing his boarding Eurostar when he was in his 90s & turned up a few minutes after the close of boarding time, although the train didn’t depart for another 10 minutes. He had to wait, bewildered & worried, for the next train 2 hours later.

      1. Jobsworths come in all nationalities but the EU does seem to have bred some very foul ones.

  85. Umm.

    Right. On Friday I go to pick up the wife from the train station. Me, junior and dog wait at the platform for her train. She gets off. I offer to take her bag, she refuses. We pile in the car and she’s quieter than usual – admittedly her work is exhausting and the train is usuall the 8 or 9 o’clock one after leaving at 6ish.

    I plate her up from Korma I knocked up and she moves this around the plate while junior gets ready for bed. Mongo goes with him as usual and we both say goodnight.

    As we sit there eventually she says ‘I can’t do this. I want a divorce.’

    It’s funny, as those words triggered one of those life flashing things. From our wedding on the cliff top, to jumping into the sea, to our first argument over Wiggy, to choosing paints, to buying a clapped out motor for her, to meeting her mother, Christmases, anniversaries, Junior being born and the world narrows to this tiny point of black and all I can manage is ‘what?’

    She starts off by saying what happened to us, to our being together, she says she’s married the cook and cleaner not the idiot boy she knew. She asked when we had last had sex – it’s been a long time but she’s busy, she comes home exhausted has dinner, goes to work, rinse, repeat. She even complained the house was too tidy.

    We didn’t get to the root of it, but the sun came up before we stopped talking. She’s unhappy. At the top of her field, bright, beautiful and then I looked at her and realised the silly things we used to do like drinking wine through a straw and potato painting, face painting, playing the piano together (I can’t at all, but she can) and realised that the glamour model I’d married wasn’t there any more. Her eyes were hollow, grey not blue. The deep circlesunder them, the gaunt cheeks, her collar bones poke out, that mane of golden hair she had is now thinning and falling out and that the 22 year old 34Hs are now a strain rather than fun. That the cupboards of clothes are not a source of joy but a uniform for a different person.

    She slept a lot of Saturday – that’s not unusual in itself – but when she did get up there seemed no one there.

    She took the ponies hacking in the afternoon. I didn’t know whether it was right to get the jet washer out for the stables or not.

    We’re going to counselling next week perhaps to try to understand what we can salvage. She says there’s no one else and that she thinks I deserve better, to which there is no answer. I don’t deserve anything. She is the woman I swore to stand beside no matter what, til we both peg it.

    I’m hoping she just needs out. It was always a short term plan that’s gone 4 years over time – mostly as neither of us expected Junior and we agreed she’d keep her career and I’d give up mine – which was easier as I’ve a little business run by brilliant people.

    I love her. I want HER.

    Yes, I’ve got podgy as the years rolled around. The broad mind and narrow waist changed places but she’s always known my politics, my essential values and those haven’t changed – I’m too set in my ways. I wonder if it could be a mid life crisis sort of thing at 42 (her age) as mine was replacing one motorped with another. When you say you’ll do anything for her but she doesn’t know what she wants, it seems desperate, hopeless.

    At the moment her Mum has taken her somewhere in the tank.

    Anyway. Not the best weekend.

    1. Sounds as though she’s stressed out. It does strange things to your thought processes and sometimes giving up (avoidance) seems the only answer.

        1. It’s difficult, but not, I hope, insurmountable. We’ve been married just over 40 years now, but we went through a very rocky stage and nearly divorced. We worked it out.

          1. Thanks Conway she has a brain the size of a planet and we’ve usually talked these things through. Maybe we needed too but didn’t.

        2. Please let this moment rest for a few days .

          You cannot be doing with high drama this evening .

          Be comfortable now , and relax a while .. don’t think about a thing now ..except your routine evening tasks ..

          Next week will be different .

          Rest easily .

    2. Really sorry to hear that. I can’t see how a divorce will help based on the information given – it strikes me her problem is with her job, which appears to take up 100% of her waking hours. She probably needs to ask herself whether she really wants to give up her whole life to her career or whether there is more to life. Is the toll it’s taking on her really worth it? Only she will be able to answer that.

      1. That’s true. The thing is if you work for an employer, one day they invite you into the office. You maybe think its promotion, or a rise or a new project. The boss sits opposite with a half smile, embarrassed. He slides a paper across the table. It’s not promotion. It’s a letter saying that you are redundant, even though you’re a key player. Doesn’t matter that it’s a lie. The terms are enough to prevent legal action. You are out.
        Ten years, all the hours, weekends, travel on your own time. More fool you.

    3. You poor man. I wish I had some words of comfort but in my experience women can be better at empathising. We have all been hurt at some time or other and we have probably all hurt others without meaning to. We can extend fellow feeling but that may not be of much use.

      You may get people giving you cliches and telling you things you know already – but we all wish you the best and hope you come through it.

    5. Wibbling…………… you are a very brave man to open your heart on here (corrected in case Peddy is still about)

      Nottlers can sort out May, Korbynski and Boris, but you have given us our biggerestererster challenge yet

    7. From your description it sounds like your wife is worn down and worn out. The fixed routine needs mixing up. I hope you can work things out.

    1. Yes the last one was 1798. In 1814 the Treason Act dispensed with the disembowelling and just kept to hanging followed by post-mortem decapitation.. It was finally abolished in 1870 with normal hanging as the penalty for treason. Women were burnt at the stake until 1789.

  87. HAPPY HOUR – Anyone else up for it?

    Gary Lineker offers to stand as interim Prime Minister to stop ‘crooked’ Brexit.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1166921/gary-lineker-wants-stop-brexit-fund-NHS-shock-twitter
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c111c8027342885a86b5fde7ac3a84d19e7215001ac54735fb81621771e9be8.jpg
    Gary is up against Jeremy Corbyn. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a065e3afacfbb4c49056d96cc7a81623a2a484e209375ee159f43f8db9d59155.jpg
    and Ken Clarke

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce10dda63e4872676d7ee58172911b00c5de969edc875465ac9e8dae5bfbaa6f.jpg

      1. How an earth the BBC gets away with paying him that who knows. He is certainly not worth it

        1. It is an upturned wing, like the wingtips of a Learjet. There is one on each side. There is a keel that stick down in the usual way. These additions were developed to minimise the risk of capsize. This class of yachts were intended to be raced hard in all weathers with capsize a real risk, if they overegged the pudding.

      3. The picture of here the other day showed her (for the first time) with a big smile.

        Maybe she likes being cooped up with young, fit sailors…

    6. Lineker, the kind of thing one shíts, and seeing it in the bowl, one heads straight down tthe Canker clinic.

      1. Probably the main emotion was relief that the fighting was over, and that they were in the British, not Soviet, sector.

  93. “One of the more obtuse Remain contentions is that their
    methods could never amount to a “coup” because those who would implement them
    are elected. This is unsustainable. Coups will normally evolve from within an
    existing political dispensation. In a democracy such a dispensation will
    involve a finely calibrated separation of powers, and a coup occurs when one
    part of the balancing act successfully aggresses against another. It is
    perfectly intelligible to suggest that the legislature can launch a coup
    against the executive, and vice versa. That the participants are elected is
    irrelevant, more so when they have ben elected on a dishonest prospectus.”
    Been rereading Edward Luttwak “Coup d’Etat”
    He considers grabbing control of the media an essential
    ‘Nuff Said…………………..

    1. Look at how the Narsties took over. All well & democratic at first, legal, even. Didn’t end well, though.

  95. Lidl lines up suppliers to cover no-deal costs.
    Jolly good. Then when you read down , you read this BBC explanation;
    “In the event of a no-deal Brexit, tariffs on EU exports would come into force automatically, according to World Trade Organization rules.
    EU tariffs on food can be both high and complex.
    On some types of beef it is 12.8% plus 265 euros per 100kg for meat from outside the EU. The average for dairy products is more than 35%.”

    Who writes this guff? We won’t pay any EU tariffs on what we import from elsewhere. We will decide what tariffs, if any are imposed on what we import, in line with WTO protocols. The EU won’t be imposing tariffs on stuff the EU exports to us unless they go completely insane. Self-strangulation is not sensible.

    1. The BBC writes this guff, if you want sensible reading start by changing to another source, even the Beano must be an improvement, for sure it is not propaganda from cover to cover.

  97. Before I go to bed , then wake up at some dark early hour with nightmares, I just want to say how angry I am with Mrs May , her stubborn ignorance has put us all in peril, her austerity , her platitudes , her chancellor and rest of her useless Remain team .. She wasn’t fit for the job.

    Bosis is muddling on to the best of his ability .. We have had 3 years of indecisive dithering from May and her team. Her procrastination must have been deliberate.

    As project fear gathers momentum, ( thanks to the idiot media) , how can our voices be heard?

    O drat and damn and the rest .. goodnight sleepyheads.

    1. Good night, Maggie. Try to remember that May and her team’s days are over. Boris is now in charge; have faith in his determination to get us out of the EU. And sleep well!

  98. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bpxAIYrtGLw

    How to Destroy the Climate Change Hoax. (TFP Student Action)

    I came across this last night. It’s a lengthy interview with Marc Moreno, author of “Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.”
    It’s both informative and horrifying at the same time, but ties in with the meme posted earlier, of the quote from C.S.Lewis about do-gooders (posted by Rik 14 hours ago).
    I don’t know if the people pushing this agenda believe they’re doing it for the good of the planet, or whether they’re psychopaths, who don’t give a rat’s behind about the planet and everyone else.

  99. Monday – very early. ‘Morning Mods, how do I make a complaint to Disqus/Wordpress about the chunks of comments that ‘white-out’ after a few ‘show more comments’ are activated.

    It never happened on the ‘old’ site.

    I’m using Chrome.

    1. Morning, Tom.
      Afraid I have no idea. It hasn’t happened to me – yet. I’ll click around & see what turns up.

    2. Happened to me too. I switched to Firefox and it’s fine. Just a tip….you can install more than one browser on a laptop.

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