Sunday 2 April: The Government’s war on private landlords will drive them into the arms of Labour

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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542 thoughts on “Sunday 2 April: The Government’s war on private landlords will drive them into the arms of Labour”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, let’s pause for a moment and spare a thought, not only for Eddy and his Lottie but also Aeneas and his Amber.

    Now for today’s story

    Confessional Box

    A guy goes into the confessional box after years being away from the Church. He pulls aside the curtain, enters and sits himself down. There’s a fully equipped bar with crystal glasses, the best vestry wine, Guinness on tap, cigars and liqueur chocolates nearby, and on the wall a fine photographic display of buxom ladies who appear to have mislaid their garments.

    He hears a priest come in. “Father, forgive me for it’s been a very long time since I’ve been to confession and I must admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be”.

    The priest replies,
    “Get out, you idiot. You’re on my side”.

    4. She’s clearly not jaded, so I guess you produced coral, many congratulations.

    5. What a lovely wedding photo, Richard and Caroline. And congratulations for your special day.

  8. Playing to the cheap seats but it’s a relief that one doesn’t have to get it out of the vault so that it can be given a polish

    ‘No coronets’ as peers told to dress down for Coronation by Buckingham Palace

    Members of the House of Lords traditionally wear a special coronation robe but peers have been told to wear their usual parliamentary ermine

    By Tony Diver, SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR
    1 April 2023 • 7:00pm
    *
    *
    *****************************

    Oliver Turner
    Pathetic! The monarchy is one of few things that holds any meaning to most people now in this country.
    The pomp and ceremony is what the majority of British people like. The queens funeral was full of it, now for the coronation they want to dull it down to “to avoid excess during the cost of living crisis”
    A coronation full of extravagance and excess would more likely lift the mood of people , this will do the opposite, just show the world how far we have fallen as a country!
    Forget diversity and multiculturalism and stick with tradition. Make it long and excessive, give us something to be proud to be British for goodness sake!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/04/01/dress-down-coronation-peers-coronets-palace-king-charles/

    2. Is this Charles’s idea of showing he’s “one of us”? That he’s “cutting back”?

      I agree with Oliver, we need something to lift the mood. It’s hardly worth having a coronation without all the pomp.

    3. When HM got married in 1947 the govt worried that austerity Britain might be upset by a bit of regal show. The conclusion was, it was cheering and uplifting – a bright spot in an otherwise dull existence.

  9. Farmers ordered to feed cows methane suppressants to help reach net zero. 2 April 2023.

    All dairy cows will be given “methane suppressants” to stop them belching so much under the Government’s net zero plans.

    Ministers are planning to force farmers to give their livestock “compound feeds” that contain additives to reduce gassy digestion.

    Cows and other farm animals produce around 14 per cent of the total carbon emissions created by human activity worldwide.

    Methane is released into the air when cows belch or break wind and is one of the most potent greenhouse gases – warming the planet 25 times more effectively than carbon dioxide.

    You do realise that these people are crazy?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/01/cows-given-methane-suppressants-net-zero-plans/

    1. No mention of feeding the same to all humans, cats, dogs, horses, in fact anything that farts or belches.

      Yes, those people ARE crazy.

      3. Hmmm. “Compound feeds”. Do they mean bugs? Already the EU has authorised their inclusion in human foodstuffs. And as we remain totally led by the EU it will be the same here.

    3. The astonishing thing is that they don’t realise that they are crazy!

      Or perhaps these new compound feeds will contain mRNA next year? And because they are for the holy Green agenda, organic farmers will presumably be forced to feed them.

      1. Sadly, that’s where my thoughts led. Gates and co are determined to ‘feed’ us their mRNA goop by one method or another. Our food chain is an obvious angle of attack. The Dutch farmers won a number of seats in recent elections, after months of protests over Mark Rutte’s determination to close farming down. Perhaps that’ll be the alternative to the LibLabCon uniparty in the UK?

    5. Round here the cows spend from May to October grazing on the Common. Are they going to put these additives in the grass? It is a National Trust heritage site of importance. It’s the grazing that keeps the Common and the wild flowers alive.

    6. Funny how the 7% of total CO² output is human breath and is part of the natural cycle, yet animal output isn’t.
      The BBC, dont’cha lurve it.
      The article is fairly old.

      In one day, the average person breathes out around 500 litres of the greenhouse gas CO2 – which amounts to around 1kg in mass. This doesn’t sound much until you take into account the fact that the world’s population is around 6.8 billion, collectively breathing out around 2500 million tonnes of the stuff each year – which is around 7 per cent of the annual CO2 tonnage churned out by the burning of fossil fuel around the world.
      So, on the face of it, we humans are a significant contributor to global warming. But, in reality, the CO2 we’re breathing out is part of a natural cycle, by which our bodies convert carbohydrates from CO2-absorbing plants into energy, plus water and CO2. As such, we’re not adding any extra CO2. In contrast, burning fossil fuels like coal releases CO2 which has been locked up for millions of years, producing a net contribution to global warming.

      https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-much-does-human-breathing-contribute-to-climate-change/

    7. You do realise, Minty, that this may well be an April Fool’s joke? (Good morning, btw.)

    2. Never mind assaulting Russia which no sane man would contemplate, this is not enough to defend our own shores. The first duty of ANY government is defence of the realm. What we can see is criminal neglect.

      Typing as one who was in the RAF in the Cold War: I wonder where Mark got his figure of 850 front-line combat aircraft from? It was more like 650. We at the time thought it should have been 1000+. Even then we couldn’t sustain operations in one theatre without robbing another.

      More concerning back then was a quality deficiency. Not so much in the aircraft but in the weapons, self-defence equipment and self-defence weapons which would have greatly enhanced operational survivability. We were decades behind the Americans hence our reliance on ultra-low-level flying to avoid detection.

      I have no doubt those serving in the RN and the Army had similar concerns.

      1. Perhaps that’s where they are staying at the moment, hence “Back to Blighty”?

        1. “Back to Blighty.”

          Wasn’t there when I first saw it, hence my bewilderment.

          Subsequently edited.

          1. I wish that when people make a material edit to their posts they would mark it.
            I don’t mind the obvious typos, it’s the things that change the post significantly.

        1. Your comment made no sense.

          A lake in Thailand and its weather forecast?

          Why would that be of interest.?

          1. That “Lake” happens to be the Gulf of Siam, it is where I have been a winter fugitive since January.

            It, and the temperature difference I am about to experience, is actually of paramount interest to me, perhaps my boredom/interest threshold may be a little more; (what’s the polite word I’m searching for?)………………………………………….

  12. “Wettest March in over 40 years for England” So the Met Office says today. If there are water shortages it shows we are not capturing enough water and not the lie of climate change that has gone on for ever and is nothing new.

          1. That was back when The Legal Beagle and Jimmy Young worked for the BBC and they told the TRUTH.

      3. Climate change has always happened but you cannot register any change for many many years. Hardly any is man made like they lie to us about.

  13. Steerpike
    Is Kate Forbes undermining Humza Yousaf already?
    1 April 2023, 11:26pm

    It’s less than a week since Humza Yousaf triumphed in the SNP leadership election by less than 2,500 votes and already his tactical wizardry is bearing fruit. Yousaf’s first decision on taking at Bute House was to humiliate Kate Forbes, the woman who took on and almost defeated the entire party machine, by offering her the job of Rural Affairs – a significant demotion from Finance Secretary. She instead quit the government with her replacement, Shona Robison, rubbing salt in the wound by suggesting Forbes told Yousaf that she wanted to spend more time with her family.

    Such suggestions have clearly irked Forbes, who has come out fighting in an interview with the Holyrood Sources podcast. She said she had wanted to remain as Finance Secretary – a job she ‘absolutely loved and could do well’ – and noted drily that she waved ‘goodbye’ to a better work-life balance the moment she launched her campaign to be leader. Forbes also took the chance to take another pop at her party’s partners in government whom she said ‘were pretty delighted with Monday’s result’ given her criticisms of ‘the fault lines that exist between the SNP and the Greens.’ She noted that Rural Affairs would have brought significant ‘challenges’ for her owing to her reservations about the introduction of highly protected marine areas in which fishing is banned.

    Elsewhere the Herald on Sunday reports that a group of 15 rebel SNP MSPs will be snubbing Yousaf by publishing their own policy papers. This is in spite of the spirit of the party’s infamous 2015 rule change to ensure that no MPs shall ‘publicly criticise a group decision, policy or another member of the group’. The paper reports that the new group’s ‘members are understood to be mostly parliamentarians who backed the former Finance Secretary’s leadership bid.’ Looks like it wasn’t a good idea for Yousaf to try to freeze out Forbes and her supporter Ivan McKee by offering them more minor roles in his ministerial reshuffle.

    No wonder he has already earned himself a new nickname: the Farce Minister.

  15. It’s not racist to be sceptical about Humza Yousaf — I’m just a little biased against useless people

    Rod Liddle
    Sunday April 02 2023, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    Congratulations, then, to Humza Yousaf, the new first minister of Scotland, elected after an exciting contest in which candidates were challenged to show who hates the English with the most rancorous blind fury. It is a moot point which of the following most clearly shows our collective tolerance, forbearance and liberal-minded commitment to diversity: the fact that Yousaf is a Muslim or the fact that he is, by wide assent, formidably useless.

    It may be that one day being formidably useless is statemented as a “protected characteristic”, with people who exhibit this quality being given preferential treatment in job interviews. It would kind of explain the Metropolitan Police. In the meantime, Scotland leads the way.

    Much has been made of Yousaf’s religion, with various BBC correspondents chirruping about how this was a “historic day” and so on. The first UK political party to be led by a Muslim! Well, yes, sure — and I’m as happy as the next man. But of all the 1.9 billion Muslims in the world, did they have to choose that one? Couldn’t they have cast the net a little wider?

    I didn’t get out the bunting for Yousaf’s election because a) I am not, like the BBC, preternaturally obsessed with race in general and Islam in particular, and b) this Rubicon was crossed, if it is a Rubicon, with the elevation to high office south of the border of Nadhim Zahawi. Chancellor of the exchequer versus mayor of McToytown — I know which is the weightier title.

    The BBC has a tendency to judge people by the colour of their skins. When it looks at Yousaf, it sees a Muslim. I think most of us just see a not very good politician.

    This, I think, is the point. Yousaf’s accession to a sort of power elicited no complaints on the grounds of his racial background and religion. Any more than did the previous accessions of Sajid Javid, Zahawi, Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and even Sadiq Khan. For most people I suspect it was scarcely noticed that these politicians were from ethnic minorities, or, if it was noticed, it was of scant interest. So what, we all thought.

    It’s only on the liberal left, which persists in seeing this country as “structurally racist” and everybody who is not white as suffering similar persecution by the white hegemony — a ludicrous mindset — that such things are seen as remarkable. That includes the Labour Party, of course, which looks on with a kind of gnawing envy. But then it finds it hard to elect female or black leaders because it sees both groups as perpetual victims, characterised by their sex or their race.

    This country is not structurally or institutionally racist. There are undoubtedly racists living in it, but the country as a whole is not riven with racism, except the paradoxical racism of a liberal elite that patronises and condescends to ethnic minorities. Most of us have no problem. Indeed when individual acts of racism rear their heads, the country is gripped by paroxysms of fury and the stories dominate the front pages for days on end until someone is sacked or imprisoned or both. That is not the response of a structurally racist country. It is instead the response of a country that, collectively, finds racism abhorrent, no?

    How we are as a country, on this unnecessarily vexed issue, was best explained in the government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, led by the black educationalist Tony Sewell and overseen by a panel of ten people, nine of whom were from ethnic minorities. The report eschewed the notion that the UK was institutionally or structurally racist, stating: “There are still real obstacles and there are also practical ways to surmount them, but that becomes much harder if people from ethnic minority backgrounds absorb a fatalistic narrative that says the deck is permanently stacked against them.”

    The problem, though, is that the left, and the BBC, howled with fury at the report (without, I suspect, reading it properly). The black Labour MP Clive Lewis, for example, said recently that it had been consigned to the dustbin of history. All the various victimhood groups expressed their incandescent rage — and they did this, of course, because they depend for their funding upon that “fatalistic narrative” Sewell talked about in his introduction.

    Without that narrative, which divides the country into white and not-white, whole third-sector industries would crumble, as would half the Labour Party’s raison d’être. The success of Yousaf, and many other black and brown politicians, tells you clearly that this is a country at ease with diversity.

    ● A good news story! Lolita, “the loneliest orca in the world”, is to be returned to the oceans after more than 50 years in captivity in some ghastly Florida aquarium.

    Her one-time companion, Hugo, was said to have committed suicide by ramming his head against the side of his pool, presumably after one too many parties of American brats shrieked at him to do a bellyflop and “spout some goddam water, right now, dumb fish”.

    Lolita will be released into the Pacific, where it is to be hoped that in time she will be taken under the aegis of a slightly dodgy professor of cetacean literature.

    King visits German potato stall

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F4923ce84-d0a3-11ed-85a8-caaa67d15364.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=846

    Tally-ho! That’ll fox the hunt saboteurs
    In an act of devastating cunning, Wiltshire police have at last decided to remove a group of officers from the force’s investigations of foxhunting — that group being the ones who actually go foxhunting in their spare time.

    There had been some disquiet when PC Cheryl Knight was appointed to the rural crime team, as she had been posting pictures of herself on Facebook riding with the Beaufort and Avon Vale hunts.

    Incidentally, I am not sure if those two hunts follow the kindly traditions of their neighbours, the Cotswold hunt, who are accused of burying foxes alive inside a bag. Video evidence suggests that at Avon Vale, they prefer to throw live foxes into packs of dogs and watch while they are ripped apart. Lovely people, I’m sure, either way.

    Meditation with extra perspiration
    Sniffing other people’s sweat can help to alleviate anxiety, according to a groundbreaking study from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. I hate to break this to Sven and Freja, but I have known this for many years.

    Whenever I am on public transport and am suddenly gripped by a profound anxiety about, say, climate change or our country’s horrible imperialist past, I ram my nose into the armpit of a fellow passenger and inhale deeply — and my equilibrium is immediately restored (usually before the police arrive and I am summarily sectioned).

    The truth of this report, I suspect, is that we find it pacifying to know that everybody else is as miserable and terrified about everything as we are.

  16. I have a panic button in every room in case China ‘hurts me’, says Tory MP. 2 April 2023.

    A senior Tory MP has revealed she has a panic button in every room of her house because “hostile states” such as China may want to hurt her.

    Alicia Kearns, the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, said she was advised to install the alarms after receiving death threats and threats directed at her children.

    Ms Kearns, who was elected to lead the influential committee last October, is outspoken in her belief that China constitutes a threat to the UK.

    The Brides of Fu Manchu has nothing on this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/01/panic-button-in-every-room-china-alicia-kearns/

  17. Good morning.
    This is a good example of how easily confused AI is at present, and why I am sceptical of fear-mongering driving a political agenda that requires people to prove that they are human.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ba7ca7a19e3c986648f10a48a71503a7cd3c39a421a99855a8904da592d8ad7.jpg

    I use AI in my work – it suggests lines of code that it thinks I ought to write. As long as I am doing simple routines, it makes a fair guess, but as soon as I start doing anything a little out of the ordinary, for example an interface between two code modules that are written in different languages, it carries on offering solutions, but they are wildly off target.

    Our governments are beginning a transhumanism experiment (there is a document from the British and German governments available on the MoD website iirc). So proving you are human is more likely to be related to that.
    First step is proving you are human – next will be confirming which companies have altered your DNA.
    Altering people’s DNA is rushing ahead at breakneck speed with no discussion about who has a claim on you – or your descendants – once your DNA contains parts that are patented to companies like for instance Pfizer.

  19. ‘Morning, Peeps. Dry and sunny forecast here, perhaps the garden will slowly become a little less squelchy…

    SIR – Like David Sidebotham (Letters, March 26) I have spent decades in the energy sector, especially nuclear. Great British Nuclear – which will aim to provide 25 per cent of the UK’s power by 2050 – is merely the creation of another useless quango, which will achieve nothing other than impede progress and waste money.

    Hinkley Point C is not projected to come online until late 2028 and there appears be no chance of starting work on Sizewell C. So by 2030 it is likely that all that we will have is Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B, which is less capacity than we have today.

    With respect to small modular reactors (SMRs), the Government’s idea of having an international competition instead of forging ahead with a prototype Rolls-Royce solution immediately is beyond belief. Such a competition will almost certainly lead to a foreign supplier, probably French, and could not be operational for at least a decade, while Rolls-Royce has a design that has had decades of proven submarine service.

    As if this were not serious enough, this weekend two of our remaining three coal-fired plants will be shut down for the last time (High Marnham and Drax) leaving only Ratcliffe. All this in pursuit of decarbonisation and net zero. So much for boosting Britain’s energy security.

    Derek Limbert
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    Good letter, Mr Limbert. Unfortunately this government seems to be more concerned about stopping cows from belching and farting. No logic, no common sense, no urgency about the important things, just never-ending promotion of the greatest scam in living memory. CJD is alive and well amongst this shower of shysters.

    1. Limbert doesn’t say when the work for Hinkley C was started… I worked in the safety case, back in 1988, so by 2028 it will have been 40 YEARS since the project started. A whole career… beggars belief.

  20. The Government’s war on private landlords will drive them into the arms of Labour

    It feels like we have two Labour parties these days, one in government and one in opposition.

    The truth is that they are closing down all avenues whereby ordinary motivated people can make a bit of money.

    Money gives people a measure of independence from government control

  21. Good morning all.
    A dull and cooler start to the day. 2½°C outside.

    Though March, the 3rd month ended t’other day, we are only now, as of 06:00 this morning, a quarter of the way through the year!

          3. There’s talk of a tourist tax in the NW Highlands – I’m all for that if it keeps the idiot boy racers off the NC500

  22. Headline in today’s DT:

    “New law lets staff sue their boss if customers offend them

    Rishi Sunak faces Tory revolt over backing for Lib Dem Bill that could leave employers facing explosion of litigation”

    Hurty words from a customer entitles the employee to sue the boss? The Limp Dumbs are idiots and this government let it through without a vote…it is staggeringly inept. The lawyers will be looking forward to a new golden age, so much litigation they won’t be able to keep up with it.

  23. Tories are no longer trusted by the public to tackle crime, poll reveals. 22 april 2023.

    The overwhelming majority of voters are not confident that the government can successfully tackle and reduce crime, according to a new poll which suggests that a crippling lack of trust is damaging Rishi Sunak’s attempts to revive Tory fortunes.

    Both main parties have been prioritising pledges to tackle low-level crime and antisocial behaviour ahead of local elections in May. However, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer revealed that only 20% of voters have confidence in the government to successfully tackle and reduce crime, while 71% are not confident. Only 27% have confidence in the courts and justice system to reduce crime and only 31% have confidence in the police to tackle and reduce crime.

    20%? I’m surprised that it’s that high!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/01/tories-are-no-longer-trusted-by-the-public-to-tackle-poll-reveals

  24. A RN submarine is doing a silent patrol in the north sea, suddenly there is a tap tap tapping coming from the stern ratings quarters. The captain is furious as this could undermine their stealth so he ordered his EO to find the culprit. The EO went aft and the tapping stopped. The EO returned and the captain asked him what the tapping was the EO replied “It was one of the ratings playing with himself and hitting the bulkhead” The captain said “So you told him to stop?” “No sir” replied the EO “I made him take his cufflinks off”

  25. Good God. This is the man hoping to lead the UK after the next election:-

    Keir Starmer says ‘99.9pc of women don’t have a penis’
    Labour leader says he could like to know what his children are learning when it comes to transgender issues at schools

    By
    Tony Diver,
    SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR
    1 April 2023 • 7:30pm

    Sir Keir Starmer has said he should know what his children are learning about transgender issues in schools, as he promised Labour’s offering to trans people would not override women’s rights.

    The Labour leader said that “of course” he should know about the sex-education curriculum in his children’s schools, after Rishi Sunak ordered a review because of concerns about inappropriate resources such as “gender unicorn” diagrams.

    Sir Keir and his shadow cabinet have often been reluctant to discuss transgender issues, which divide his party and have led to public infighting, and he rarely mentions his own children.

    But he told The Sunday Times he sympathises with parents who are keen to find out what their children are taught.

    “Look, of course I’d want to know – I say that as a parent,” he said.

    “I would want to know and I think the vast majority of parents would want to know.

    “That’s why we have to have national guidance on it and they should try to make it cross-party, because it’s not helpful to parents or schools to have this as just a toxic divide when what’s needed is practical, common-sense advice.”

    ‘No rolling back’ of women’s rights
    The Labour leader also promised there would be “no rolling back” of women’s rights if he was elected prime minister and stressed that “99.9 per cent of women… haven’t got a penis”.

    Labour MPs were whipped to vote for Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial gender Bill in Scotland earlier this year, but allowed a free vote on whether it should be blocked by the UK Government.

    Sir Keir said: “The lesson from Scotland is that if you can’t take the public with you on a journey of reform, then you’re probably not on the right journey.

    “And that’s why I think that collectively there ought to be a reset in Scotland.”

    No, Mr. Starmer, the 0.1% of “women” with a penis are delusional men pretending to be women.

    1. Keir Starmer says ‘99.9pc of women don’t have a penis’

      Lesbians do not need one.

      The men who disown their own ‘penis’ are just Pr*cks!

    2. Keir Starmer says ‘99.9pc of women don’t have a penis’.

      That is just an indirect way of saying that transwomen are women. Which they are not. Let’s hope that the Trans nonsense does the same for Starmer as it did for Sturgeon.

      1. Agree. There is nothing more fundamental than denying people’s identity as a man or a woman.

    3. I read the Telegraph today for the first time in years, thanks to Oberst’s paywall-defeating link below.
      It’s like a parallel universe in which everything is OK, the Government is a bit incompetent but basically trustworthy and tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. Actually, it’s worse than the Mail, because it speaks in educated language that reassures you that you really are being well informed.
      Not a word about vaxx injuries. Not a word about the WHO’s power grab to become the new world government. Not a word about de-dollarisation or fiat currency instability (no surprises there). Transgender issues presented as normal problems that any middle class family might run into.
      Telegraph readers who don’t look to any alternative media are going to get a few shocks.

  26. Good Moaning.
    I will start a sunny Lord’s Day in my usual tasteful manner.
    An ‘homage’ to Arthur Askey’s penguin song, inspired by the discovery that Sir Kneeler believes 99.9% of women do not have a penis.

    “Flipperty, flopperty, flap, flap, flap.
    I’m a Labour leader such an indecisive chap.
    I toddle around in my grey, grey suit
    Everybody smiles and says ‘ain’t he cute’?
    Then along comes a trans with a great big d! kk,
    Slaps me round the kisser with his sewn-on pr …….”

  27. There is footage doing the rounds on the internet of Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary for the greedy, corrupt half-wits occupying the office of President, in which she says that countries who trade in their own currencies rather than dollars are violating the rights of US citizens and will face sanctions.

    It is a sad reflection upon our times that it’s not clear whether this is an April fool or not…
    https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1642224861450829831

    This is apparently not an April fool though. They have long since parted touch with reality!
    https://nonzero.substack.com/p/earthling-us-think-tank-advocates?utm_medium=ios

      1. She spent half her first session rabbiting on about how she was the first black female incumbent of the role.
        She has a journalistic nemesis at the press conferences though, and his name is Peter Doocy, who specialises in asking awkward questions forcing her to trot out every stupid lie and cliché in the book.

          1. Her answers seem to consist mainly of phrases from a standard reference book cobbled together, sometimes at random.
            “I have already answered that question…the President is dedicating himself to the American people…we do not talk about theoretical issues…we are cleaning up the mess left by the previous administration…we stand with every American…”

          2. ‘I have already answered that question’ is one of her favourite evasions. The fact that her ‘answer’ was unsatisfactory nonsense, deserving a follow-up/clarifying comment is brushed over. Much like her predecessor, she is merely a crash test dummy, taking hit after hit for her boss. The difference between KJP and Kayleigh McEnany, who always arrived at the podium armed with facts and answers to spike the media guns, is startling.

    2. Karin-Jeanne Pierre embodies the Biden regime’s total lack of ability. Utterly useless.

  28. 372877+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 2 April: The Government’s war on private landlords will drive them into the arms of Labour

    That really should read the governments war on private landlords is a segment of the overall killing, physically & mentally, war on the indigenous peoples of these Isles.

    As for being driven into the arms of labour the poor misguided freaks will know no difference as the three political overseeing parties are a repress,replace,RESET, WEF, NWO coalition.

    These coalition supporter / voters plainly seen as the electoral majority are in point of fact digging their own lime pits to help their segment of the coalition out, at the same time as making sure their children will be number coded and members of the living dead peasant society.

    These lab/lib/con so called politicians are anything but, they are criminals with a smattering of political knowledge successfully playing on & abusing the weak willed,very weak minded members of the voting class.

    A new type of overseer are setting their stall out via the polling booth, eventually indigenous peoples heads will tell their armpits
    they were victims of the self inflicted coup.

  29. Today’s excellent DT Leader:

    Stop this chilling assault on business and free speech
    Rishi Sunak promised to prevent Equality Act mission creep. He must be true to his word

    TELEGRAPH VIEW
    1 April 2023 • 10:00pm

    Last summer, when he was campaigning to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, Rishi Sunak described the 2010 Equality Act as “a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life” and promised to prevent its influence extending further.

    Yet far from guarding watchfully against the Act’s “mission creep”, his Government may yet preside over just such a baleful extension of its remit. If it passes unamended through Parliament, new legislation will cause havoc both for private-sector businesses and for public services, including the police and the NHS.

    What makes the Worker Protection Bill all the more extraordinary is that it is a private members’ bill sponsored by two Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, which has somehow slipped through repeated readings in the House of Commons without proper scrutiny.

    Its first reading came shortly before Mr Johnson’s administration collapsed; its second the day after Liz Truss resigned as prime minister. Eventually it was waved through the Commons without a vote on a Friday sitting when most MPs were not in Westminster but back in their constituencies.

    It is hardly as if the consequences of the legislation are not serious. It seeks to amend the Equality Act to make employers liable for staff being harassed by “third parties” such as customers or members of the public. Waiters could take coffee shops to court if conversations they overhear distress them. Doctors and nurses may be able to sue the NHS if a patient verbally abuses them. Moreover, it is feared that a defence based on “freedom of speech” protections will do little to shield businesses from potentially devastating legal costs and damages for words and actions of third parties entirely beyond their control.

    The result, worry some senior Conservatives who are now coordinating a backbench revolt against the Bill, is that workplaces will have to be run like a “police state”, with conversations scrutinised and vetted to ensure that nothing is said or done that could possibly cause offence. It would clearly have a chilling effect on free speech, already under attack on so many fronts.

    There are two explanations for the passage of this damaging Bill to the brink of becoming law: one is that the Government is determined that it should pass and has lost its political bearings; the other is that it has been distracted or not fully understood the implications of the legislation.

    We assume that it is the latter. For there is still time to review the Bill and ensure that it can never have the deleterious effect on private business, public services and free speech that it will have in its current form. Mr Sunak should be true to his word last summer and stop this legislation now.

    * * *

    A rather good BTL post:

    tony moore
    6 HRS AGO
    Who still votes for this utterly-contemptible, vapid, chaotic, profoundly pointless, deranged, stunningly-idiotic, dishonest, shameless, spineless, useless, rotten, rancid, pile of **** masquerading as a political party?
    Please. If you are tempted to, Go nail your hands to a table so you are not complicit with their wanton vandalism.
    To a man and woman, the world would have been better had they never been born.

    * * *

    Mr Moore is obviously not a happy bunny – and rightly so!

    1. I’m afraid this comes under the headings of Vote Harder/Try to change others’ opinions, referred to in Kifaru’s meme.
      We need to start ignoring the government and organising our own things.

      1. Morning, Phil. I am normally a ‘glass half full’ person but the subject matter today makes me feel quite depressed.

        1. They keep throwing this crap at us to weaken us. Divert your attention to someone more enjoyable.

        1. Doing the Pennine Way in ’85 I was bivvied down at Tan Hill when one of them went over in the small hours all lit up light a Christmas tree!

          2. Only saw the silhouette. Couldn’t think WTF it was at first, then realised it was a bloody big piston prop job with 4 engines.

    2. I was not looking forward to seeing one of the most slappable faces in public life, but that’s a great tweet by Eric Dunn!

  33. Reporting suspected sexual abuse to be mandatory for those working with children. 2 April 2023.

    The home secretary is to spell out new requirements for people working with children in England to report signs or suspicions of sexual abuse.

    The government is expected to set out details of plans in the coming days to tackle grooming gangs and better protect children.

    The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse last year described sexual abuse of children as an “epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake”.

    There is already more than adequate legislation for such purposes. It is the enforcement that is lacking as the victims of Rotherham and Rochdale can testify. This is simply more campaigning for the General Election!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/02/reporting-suspected-sexual-abuse-to-be-mandatory-for-those-working-with-children

    1. That will just make things worse. People will report stupid things that aren’t true, or else when abuse comes to light, they will lie and say they suspected nothing. People who are intimidated by their “community” will carry on being intimidated.

    2. Given the known facts that this has been taking place for decades, it underlines further gross and outrageous failures by our governments, Whitehall and the police. And the other legal departments.
      It’s not as if they don’t actually know who has been guilty of these disgusting and diabolical offences.
      It’s not a secret and never has or will be.
      Deportations are in order.

    3. “Reporting suspected sexual abuse to be mandatory for those working with children”.

      Why wouldn’t someone report suspected abuse of children?

      1. Morning Phizzee. It’s just grasping for votes. This sudden outburst of activity makes me wonder if they are going to call the election this year!

          2. I know you were and, you may be right, as they are probably getting twitchy about Reform and their and Labour’s unpopularity, both being seen as two cheeks of the same ar5e.

      3. Apparently children’s home staff were not allowed to stop their charges from going out at any time with their suspected abusers.
        To stop a vulnerable girl leaping into a taxi at 3.0 am meant instant dismissal for the carer.

      1. Who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inside are ravenous wolves. Something along those lines?

        1. That’s right. But in this case, Muhammad was no wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. A vicious, paedophile, slave-owning monster.

          2. Matthew 19:14 – But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

            “Suffer” is in the KJV of the bible, in 17th century language. Translated nowadays as – Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’

          3. As they were and have been since they invaded Spain from across the Mediterranean.

    2. The Old Testament was written well over 2,000 years ago and the New Testament, dealing mainly with the life of Christ and shortly after, will precede Islam by about 600 years, So hardly likely to mention Islam specifically.

  36. G’morning all,

    Dark start but brightening up. It’s a chilly 7℃. Not much from me for a few days – off on a short break. Have fun.

  38. So – it is all lies. What a relief. She’s never been to Bridge of Allan:

    “In the murky corner of the internet reserved for Scottish politics, a rumour has been blazing for years, warming the hearts of Nicola Sturgeon’s enemies. Scotland’s former first minister, so the story goes, has long been embroiled in a secret love affair with the French ambassador.

    Or maybe the consul. Or another diplomat. But the lover is definitely French. And female. But the whole affair might not be too loving and there have been rumours of fighting.

    By any standards, it is lurid, unfounded speculation, salted with more than a soupçon of homophobia. Finally, after enduring the flak in private for years on social media, Sturgeon has gone public and laid the myths to rest. There is no liaison, dangerous or otherwise.

    She batted away the rumour in the latest edition of BBC Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon podcast, when the presenter Glenn Campbell cheerfully threw out the question, with all the vagueness required from no known facts.

    “Which French diplomat are you having an affair with?” Campbell asked. Sturgeon, apparently unruffled, replied laughing: “I’ll tell you off camera which one it’s supposed to be. But whichever one it is, we’ve actually had a laugh about it.”

    She made light, too, of speculation about her marriage and sexuality. She has been with Peter Murrell, the chief executive of the Scottish National Party until last month, for two decades.

    “I read accounts of my life on social media, and I think, ‘It’s so much more glamorous-sounding and so much more exciting’,” she said. “You know, I’ve got houses everywhere, if you believe social media.”

    Val McDermid, the bestselling crime author and a close friend of Sturgeon, dismissed the social media stories as vindictive gossip.

    “Some of the rumours I have heard about Nicola have just been laughable in their absurdity,” McDermid said. “But people say, ‘You know, I’ve heard this thing about Nicola Sturgeon’, and they see it as . . . this terrible thing that they have exclusive knowledge of. That’s bollocks.

    “She’s been a focus for the lies as well the criticism. I think that’s deeply unpleasant.”

    Yet over the years, media outlets have contemplated sending journalists to sit for days outside expensive houses in some of Scotland’s most desirable locales; diplomatic cars have been spotted, hotel workers quizzed and policemen questioned.

    In the podcast, Campbell speculates about the reasons for gossip. So little is known about Sturgeon’s private life that people, curious to know more, invent the details. It is a point she appeared to concede.

    “It’s partly the nature of the media climate that we live in right now. It’s maybe part of the reason that I’m stepping down,” she said. “I’m not naive and I’m not of the view that I will step down one day and be completely anonymous the next day.

    “But I want to have a bit more privacy, I want to have a bit more anonymity, and I just want to protect some of what people take for granted in the lives that I’ve forgotten how to have: just the simple pleasures in life of being able to meet a pal for a coffee.””

  39. Morning all 🙂😉
    Reasonably brightish no rain until Thursday, that could change. Part of the Family in London today supporting a lovely lady running in the half marathon. She has already raised quite a few hundred pounds for charity.
    I didn’t think I would be able to cope with steps and lots of walking around.

  40. OT I gave up on the wimmin’s 6 Nations yesterday after an interminable intervention by the TMO. Sorry, girls – but there is only so much one can take.

    So I eagerly awaited The Sunday Grimes to read all about the match. Not a sausage. Not A Word. Just tucked away on page 94 – in mouse print – the score.

    Were I a woman rugby fan I’d be pissed off at the lack of coverage.

      1. Some arse who sits in a closed room with a TV and tells the referee where he went wrong; or to whom the ref can turn when there is uncertainty.

        The endless interruptions and delays are killing the game for spectators

          1. The Television part comes from video recordings of the fact that the evidence is supplied from TV Cameras.

    2. It is surprising, after all the English women have a string of Grand Slams and World Cup wins behind them and barely get a mention. Meanwhile, the English football women win a Euro Championship and it’s front page coverage, splashed all over the bBC and a visit to Downing Street.

    3. Whatever the bad news released was it has been digested by all without being noticed.
      What was that other day when it was a good time to release bad news?

  42. More news not in the Telegraph….
    mRNA “vaccines” in pigs and cattle this month in the US
    https://twitter.com/RenzTom/status/1642229969555259395

    Will any of that meat come to Europe/the UK?
    If it did, would it be labelled in the supermarket as coming from the US?
    Could this meat turn up in ready-made food?
    Are mRNA injections or food supplements going to be given to farm animals in Britain?

    I have now joined the mailing list of an organic beef farm. When they slaughter, I have pre-ordered a 6kg mixed pack of meat. I want to get onto the customer list for organic pork and chicken farms in the same way. The organic farms that I know sell their meat before the animals are slaughtered or directly at farmers’ markets, and bypass supermarkets or butchers completely.
    I want to buy from producers who themselves are not vaxxed and who are ideologically opposed to all this carp.

    I think we have to forget everything we know about the cost of food and re-calculate it if we want to avoid the mRNA/transhumanist agenda.

  43. Belated Morning All

    Sunday Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/28b3f58de671c50f251c5e7c4153c0d59d5b6ed7c10afd9dfcf3561be853f1a4.jpg

    https://scontent.flhr10-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/338473143_804375997684731_7389148842467864654_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=7uFjlZeQY_kAX8F-Wd-&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr10-2.fna&oh=00_AfDZWcQ7AO5kq43sy-mZBkR68DdUGV0uh-VOuKlq3sNbyg&oe=642C833A

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7bbee0499b4767170979bc650f50a6559132332e0919fc725a31616944a6fcb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39a9a200eec9cff9ea2e8805ee93ae39d687a0426f00c5e43546cfc6b1eb2566.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d7a48085c6959a159279c87080d0a82d4cbe0ae4b57c4bb284621f9932b3a7a.png

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66585824000d870ae08aead993f4640d76a2d3e5b208b0533a15de2aaed72b38.jpg

  45. School tells parents dress is banned to make uniform ‘gender-neutral’

    Parents of children at Huttoft Primary and Nursery School, in the Lincolnshire village near Sutton on Sea, outraged

    “This change has been brought in due to our pupil (aged 2 – 10/11) voice to make our Uniform Policy gender neutral.”

    (How do they know at this age: hands up all you Nottler Girls who were/still are Tomboys)

    The same ‘ruling’ should apply to the instigators of the edict, whatever the background to it is.

    However, for real Transgenderism, since all children are to dress as boys, the instigators should all be made to wear dresses

    !https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/01/school-parents-dress-banned-uniform-gender-neutral/

    2. “This change has been brought in due to our pupil (aged 2 – 10/11) voice to make our Uniform Policy gender neutral.”

      And who put the idea of ‘gender-neutrality’ into the children’s heads?

  46. School tells parents dress is banned to make uniform ‘gender-neutral’

    Parents of children at Huttoft Primary and Nursery School, in the Lincolnshire village near Sutton on Sea, outraged

    “This change has been brought in due to our pupil (aged 2 – 10/11) voice to make our Uniform Policy gender neutral.”

    (How do they know at this age: hands up all you Nottler Girls who were/still are Tomboys)

    The same ‘ruling’ should apply to the instigators of the edict, whatever the background to it is.

    However, for real Transgenderism, since all children are to dress as boys, the instigators should all be made to wear dresses

    !https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/01/school-parents-dress-banned-uniform-gender-neutral/

  47. Good morning, chums. I think that today I shall take the advice I proffered to BoB last night and have a restful day.

    1. That’s my trouble, Elsie, too many restful (napping) days and then I cannot sleep at night.

      1. Restful for me, Tom, means a chance to do something different such as maybe mowing the lawn – it looks like being a sunny and windy day in the main – and reading a few books before possibly going out for a drive. Previous days have been spent shredding and shredding and shredding a massive amount of unwanted paperwork.

  48. Keir Starmer says ‘99.9pc of women don’t have a penis’. 2 April 2023.

    Labour leader says he could like to know what his children are learning when it comes to transgender issues at schools

    The Labour leader also promised there would be “no rolling back” of women’s rights if he was elected prime minister and stressed that “99.9 per cent of women… haven’t got a penis”.

    This is really the next Prime Minister of the UK?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/01/keir-starmer-children-learning-trans-issues/

    1. Come on, Cur Ikea Slammer- tell us who the 0.1% are….

      Or are you talking balls?

    2. Why do these politicians think that ‘transgender rights’ matter to the voting public? Why are they so out of touch? Do they not understand that Sturgeon’s political career came to an end because of her support for this nonsense?

    3. Perhaps he means that the 0.1% are women who have undergone the F->M transition operation?

  49. British Eurovision entrant is anti-Boris Johnson Left-wing activist
    Mae Muller, who will perform I Wrote A Song in Liverpool next month, said Boris Johnson did not deserve a hospital bed during Covid
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/01/british-eurovision-entry-left-wing-activist/

    This woman does not just loathe Mr Johnson she also loathes the Britain she is going to represent and like the Labour Party and the Lib Dem politicians – not to mention most of the Conservative ones – she loathes the British people so she is probably a splendid representative for the BBC

    BTL

    We ought to take a leaf out the French book and have a mass sit down in front of the venue hosting this abysmal event so that nobody can get in and, more to the point, won’t be able to escape if they are already in!

          8. I’m not quite with it at the moment Bill.
            After yesterday’s trauma ya ken.
            But I remember being with some friends after closing time and bumping into an old mate and his new fiancee.
            Four of us stamped on the pavement and sang congratulations to them.
            Cliff’s mother was in a nursing/care home near St Albans. Our old neighbour Michael’s mother was also in there.
            He use to sit with Mrs Webb hold her hand, quite often her daughters were there at the same time.
            It’s a small world.

          1. Allisons – Lovely voices. Congratulations to you both on your anniversary. I hope you have many more.

          2. Yep, saw the first, thought it couldn’t be that bad again but it was so that was that

    2. I’d be more surprised if she were a proper Conservative, let alone a Johnson supporter.
      Being a Leftie is the default in ‘entertainment’.

    3. We will not be breaking the habits of a lifetime by not watching it. It’s a huge waste of time and money but hey – what do we matter?

      1. I switched channels to Eurovision once, mid 1990s, and it was immediately obvious that the winner would be the Irish entry; music, rhythm, great dancing, no silly lyrics. A group called Riverdance.

  51. EXCLUSIVE King’s guards forced to live in squalor: Inside the rat-infested royal barracks where soldiers who protect Charles III endure conditions ‘worse than prison’
    EXCLUSIVE: WARNING: GRAPHIC – Photos show Wellington Barracks conditions
    From urine-soaked floors, dead birds in the corridor and rubbish piled in rooms
    One former Coldstream Guard described the base a ‘worse than a British prison’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11923645/Shocking-state-British-Armys-filthy-Wellington-Barracks-revealed.html

    Hang on, The soldiers are responsible for their own cleanliness, where are the powers of the command to scrub and clean ?

    1. Hard to believe isn’t it, if it’s actually true, we know what sort of things British journalism is capable of.
      Given the fact that I will never meet any of them.If it’s true, what a bunch of pathetic plonkers they are. Do they really expect other people to clean and clear up after them. It’s not as if any of that is accidental.

    3. It is the fabric of the building that is rotting away. Not just a case of general cleaning.

    5. Who is leaving the filthy litter? Who is leaving vomit and crap all over the toilets? Who is not cleaning up after themselves?

    6. How come soldiers in the 19th and ealt 20th centuries were able to live there without fridges and indoor toilets?

    8. Orders have come from the highest Government levels to prepare military accommodation for incoming asylum seekers.
      Looks as though our service personnel are achieving their mission. 😉

    9. Disgusting though that appears, I would also point out that the W/O’s and their officers are equally culpable.

      Who is supposed to be ensuring/enforcing discipline?

  54. Chinese car manufacturer BYD and others are experiencing problems of vehicles catching fire due to the unregulated car component businesses in China. This is a problem already discovered in the UK and elsewhere and Korean manufacturer Hyundai has already recalled EVs for a traction battery replacement.

    This video made by a one time resident and driver in China shows that EV fires are still endemic in China even in the most upmarket vehicles including the type that Presedent Xi uses. The video concludes that China’s cheap EVs are a smokescreen for the county’s major investment in coal powered energy generation to make it look green.

    This just goes to show that the UK Government’s Net Zero policy which has already been deemed by the judiciary to be illegal has no realistic future:

    Warning: this video’s first four minutes is just a plug for a virus browser addon which can be skipped to see the plethora of vehicle fires showing how badly the premium Chinese EV car brands are being received by the travelling public.

    https://youtu.be/yOA7qKMcjcE

    1. “ This just goes to show that the UK Government’s Net Zero policy which has already been deemed by the judiciary to be illegal has no realistic future” . Do you have a link for this please Angie?

        1. Isn’t the correct interpretation that Net Zero will not meet the targets of the deranged Climate Change Act?

        2. I looked at the link hoping that it reveal how unscientific the Net Zero policies are. Deep disappointment unless I have completely misunderstood the ruling.

          A long long time ago Alf asked our MO what would be the outcome if HMG failed to meet its targets. Reply: The Energy Mi inter will simply come to HoC and say, sorry guys, we have not achieved our objective, sorry. And that will be it. After all, who’s going to prosecute HMG for not achieving their so called aims.

          But these people are doing their hardest to do just that, to enforce all sorts of crazy policies that will starve and/or freeze us.

  55. Chinese car manufacturer BYD and others are experiencing problems of vehicles catching fire due to the unregulated car component businesses in China. This is a problem already discovered in the UK and elsewhere and Korean manufacturer Hyundai has already recalled EVs for a traction battery replacement.

    This video made by a one time resident and driver in China shows that EV fires are still endemic in China even in the most upmarket vehicles including the type that Presedent Xi uses. The video concludes that China’s cheap EVs are a smokescreen for the county’s major investment in coal powered energy generation to make it look green.

    This just goes to show that the UK Government’s Net Zero policy which has already been deemed by the judiciary to be illegal has no realistic future:

    Warning: this video’s first four minutes is just a plug for a virus browser addon which can be skipped to see the plethora of vehicle fires showing how badly the premium Chinese EV car brands are being received by the travelling public.

    https://youtu.be/yOA7qKMcjcE

  56. Yesterday’s events For anyone (such as Uncle Bill) who may have missed it…

    The Eiffel Tower’s official Twitter page announced it would be transformed into the world’s biggest slide, and London’s Royal Albert Hall claimed that newly unearthed documents show Churchill wanted to use Hitler’s lost testicle as a propaganda tool during the second world war.

    https://twitter.com/RoyalAlbertHall/status/1642059266113634304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1642059266113634304%7Ctwgr%5E672acdf7602d536a098b33b91ceac523afa1444c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftheguardian%2F2023%2Fapr%2F01%2Fmegxit-to-mcnugget-boots-some-of-the-best-april-fools-day-2023-gags

    Full article
    https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2023/apr/01/megxit-to-mcnugget-boots-some-of-the-best-april-fools-day-2023-gags

  57. Peter Hitchens saying what we have been saying for years…

    It is regrettable but true that most of

    our media and political class are unaware of one of the biggest events

    in modern European history – that this crisis began with the lawless

    overthrow of Ukraine’s legitimately elected president, Viktor

    Yanukovych, in 2014. There is little doubt that this coup had Western

    backing.

    Peaceful protests in Kiev had been infiltrated by ultra-Right thugs.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11928353/PETER-HITCHENS-country-misled-vital-matter-wasnt-Boris-Johnsons-parties.html

    1. That was when the utterly useless (and dangerous) Ashton woman nearly started WW3 on her own.

    1. One over-arching reason why the Republicans should drop Trump.
      The Democrats and their MSM and Washington allies will do everything in their power to prevent him from accomplishing anything and a new Trump Presidency would achieve nothing, except ensure he’s followed by a two term Democrat.

      1. Not a valid reason to drop Trump at all. That is a disastrous way to think, capitulate to the tyrants would simply embolden them more. Already they are persecuting ordinary people. The persecution would simply get worse and more blatant if they were allowed to get away with this. See the video below to understand what I am talking about. Ordinary people are literally being thrown in jail for non-crimes.

        1. The point is that he’s utterly damaged goods and doing the Republicans great harm.

          Would you keep a cancer that could be cut out?

          1. Leaving everything else aside, I think it barking that a man who will be 77 in June even THINKS of running for election.

            Surely to goodness – out of the 350 million US citizens – there are someone who is suitable – and not senile or corrupt or both?

          2. Trump actually seems to be in pretty good physical health.

            I don’t think that younger Presidents have exactly covered themselves in glory, although 77 is probably too old.

          4. True, but the difference was that people could actually see that he wasn’t altogether there.

          6. I suspect that many of those who voted for him could see it, but Democrats wouldn’t care, they knew where the real power would lie: Obama, Clinton et al.

          8. Sorry but as a long term Trump reporter I reject your opinion of Trump. He has been accused of many things and not a single thing has stuck. You are actually saying that accusations are to be equated with guilt.
            That is exactly what the Democrats want you to think as it deflects from their real corruption. Corruption so blatant that they can only hide it by creating an artificial show, Trump, so that you pay no attention to their crimes. The cancer is not Trump it is people like Nancy Pelosi who have utter contempt for the people or for the legal process. Her mind set that Trump must prove his innocence in direct contradiction to how the law operates is proof of what people are the cancer and it is not Donald Trump but the Democrats and their incessant false propaganda and false accusations.

            As I said, see below video in which the jailing of innocent people is discussed. The criminalization of parents by the FBI, the threats to old people who will not comply, it goes on and on and it is all the deeds of the Democrats in power, not Trump or the Republicans.

          9. I am not saying anything of the kind.

            I despise what Pelosi and her ilk are up to, they are also a cancer and should be excised, but Trump is not the one who can do it. I have little doubt that most, but not all, of what he is accused of is false AND that it is up to the judicial process to prove any guilt, not the other way around.

            But the big mistake being made by you and the rest of those thinking Trump can return is that even if he did, he could not be effective; he would be an utter lame duck, and his continuing to try to run is splitting the Republicans. A new broom with a good chance of a two term Presidency might, just might, make a difference in sweeping out the Democrats determined to finish the USA forever.

          10. Don’t agree. The point is that Trump was not a politician and had no idea of how fiercely he would be opposed by the “swamp”. As a result he trusted people who were working against him. This time round he will know better and thus able to clear house. He was, in short, naive, he isn’t anymore. Reality is there is no one but Trump to start the ball rolling. No one else will do it or is capable of doing it. There are important reasons for this. That is he is neither financially or politically in debt to any party or persons. He is independent and need not barter with anyone. The only person in the USA in that position. It is unique in American politics. No one else has the freedom of movement to do what they must All the others, including DeSantis have that freedom. DeSantis could be a continuity President, as it were but he has neither the capability, the following or the inspirational value that Trump has. Trump is a once in a life time candidate, a visionary with the determination, ability, and clarity to implement revolution. There is no one else. Remember that I have said this because if he doesn’t win the next election, watch as the USA disintegrates, and disintegrates quickly.

          11. Where I disagree, is that I think Trump is too divisive for the swing voters.

            It’s what allowed Biden in, by bringing out people who would normally have voted.

            Trump was the principal reason the Republicans didn’t sweep the floor with the Democrats in the mid-terms.

          12. The principal reason that the Republicans did not win last time round was because of wide spread fraud in the voting system, i.e the absentee ballot system, which allowed for voting weeks before voting day and because the metal state of Biden was hidden from the American people, the fraud and corruption of Hunter Biden was also hidden, in which his father certainly was complicit in kick backs from Ukraine and China Facts were hidden from the people so that they were unaware of what a disaster Biden would be as president. The reality is that even then Trump received more votes than any other President in history whilst Joe hid in his cellar. If the facts about corruption and Hunter had come out and that people had not already voted before hand via the absentee ballot system, to soon and unable to change their vote Trump would be President.

          13. I’m not referring to the Presidential election, I’m referring to the mid-terms.
            The Republicans should have had a landslide.

          14. Well Trump did not run in that and it is irrelevant. I never thought the much vaunted landslide was going to happen, to much was hidden from the public which I already alluded to, i.e. the corruption and participation in corruption personified in Bidens son, Hunter. There were other factors too, such as BLM, ANTIFA which were used against the political right as if these things were the fault of Republicans. Also, by the way, 65% of Trumps endorsements won in the mid terms.

          15. Trump was getting involved left right and centre and that involvement did the Republicans harm.

            Instead of focussing on the issues he and his ilk were still banging on about 6 January and a stolen election.

          16. As I said, 65% of his candidates won and he was right to go on about a stolen election because it was.

          17. And the electorates of the other 35% were put off off by his antics. The Republicans should have had clear control of both houses given the state of the US, particularly on Law and Order issues and the economy.

            As to the stolen election, it’s now history. Biden for ill or ill is in the White House. (Although I still think he’ll be removed for Harris, unless they are looking to Obama standing as Clinton did.)

    2. Let the democrats focus on Trump, it is time for Republicans to focus on the next election.

      Too many middle of the road electors are put off by Trumps personality so while the Dems focus on the past, bring in someone like Nikki Haley who can appeal to a majority.

      A young woman candidate up against grandpa.

      1. Nikki Haley would never win. I like her but you can forget her getting anywhere, total waste of time.

    1. That fine old Gresley A3 Pacific celebrates its centenary this year. Built in 1923.

      Although it is no longer in its LNER Apple-Green livery (as shown here). It reverted to it alternative Brunswick-Green British Railways livery a few years ago.

  64. Afternoon all.

    So have you all heard about the spectacular April Fool’s day joke played by Phizzee on Alf and me? Best joke ever and we fell hook line and sinker. 👏👏👏

          2. No beans.

            Pink calves liver, creamy dreamy mash, smoked streaky bacon, spinach and a nice gravy. Plus a big glass of Argentinian Malbec. I savoured every mouthful.

          4. I posted yesterday that i had had a wonderful lunch at the suggested place for the Nottler anniversary. I said that no other Nottlers had turned up and i ate alone.

            Knowing full well that the dates had been put forward.

            I had some emails apologising for not being there.

            I don’t know what people expect on April 1st ! :@)

          6. You get a warm glow when it works.

            I still smart from the prank Gyles Brandreth did over the sale of the Lions at the base of Nelson’s column to pay for its upkeep.

          2. Another guest had also put some money to the Bill, Bill.
            There wasn’t all that much left to pay which is nice for all concerned. However, people did want to contribute and so that money went to Charity. Aren’t we nice?

      3. The annual NoTTLe lunch is to be held at our local pub in Horsell, Woking, and is usually on 1st April. Geoff said he couldn’t make that date so it was under discussion. Phizzee was the only one to turn up (knowing that the date hadn’t been decided). Hence fulsome apologies from Alf and me thinking we’d missed it and Phizzee had sat there all on his own. Fortunately he says it was a dry run! Phew. What a little tinker he is!and he had a good lunch thank goodness.

        1. I am most sorry to cause distress to Nottlers. If you look back at the posts from yesterday you will see it was all Bill Thomas’s fault. innocent face

          6. Leave it out, Geoff, I was born there in an Inn on the banks of the River Yare.

            Wonderful childhood.

          7. Lucky you. My first experience of Norfolk was a holiday on the Broads. Basically a floating pub crawl. Little did I know I’d end up living there. But Thetford is a long way from the Broads. Basically GLC overspill housing. It was never more than somewhere to put my head down for the night. I got involved with church music in Suffolk, and that was essentially where my social life was centred.

            I retain a soft spot for Norwich. Spent a couple of years there, building a Sainsburys in Thorpe St Andrew. Not far from the Yare. In fact, from the roof of the store, you could see the somewhat incongrous sight of a bloody great yacht among the trees. Turned out it was Bernard Matthews’ new toy, named Bellissima – ‘Bootiful’…

        2. Sorry, folks. I’ve been rather bogged down in other commitments. It seems to me we have two choices: either we regard yesterday as THE NoTTL lunch, and try harder next year (I honestly couldn’t have made it yesterday), or we reconvene at lunchtime on Wednesday 12th April at Horsell. RSVP G****DOTgr***mATgmail com. Over to you…

    3. As I posted yesterday’s page, I knowing it was April Fools Day, I was sorely tempted to put up a message saying “Good morning all – Sunday’s new page is here.” I thought better of it. I did, however, remember that an old school friend has 1/4/1957 as his birth date (that’s 4/1/1957 to any Leftpondians), so I sent a WhatsApp saying “Happy State Pension Day”.

      1. I have a friend who’s birthday was yesterday – 70 she is – and still working…….

  65. British interior minister Braverman says Rwanda is safe for migrants. April 2, 2023

    LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) – Britain’s interior minister Suella Braverman said she was convinced Rwanda was a safe country to resettle migrants who had arrived in Britain illegally but she declined to set any deadline for the first deportations to the country.

    I’m pretty sure that if she is forced to set a date it will be after the coming General Election where all the complaints of non-delivery can be safely ignored!

    Only a fool would believe this ridiculous charade!

    https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-interior-min-braverman-says-rwanda-is-safe-migrants-2023-04-02/

    1. Not a single criminal immigrant will be removed – simply, they should be returned to albania. If they’re not from albania, then they’ve a walk ahead of them.

  66. Sunny now – though chilly breeze. Ladder work calls.

    I hope to be back later.

    1. Brilliant Neil.
      Wouldn’t it be wonderful bring it all on l long to see all these fake and disgusting political monsters behind bars awaiting execution.

    3. The West Wing was intelligently written because when a Republican was taken on she was subjected to Democrat abuse and bullying for her beliefs, despite tbeing right. The character demonstrated why they wouldn’t work and led to massive waste because the Lefty government thought it knew better than the earner how to spend their own money.

          1. If you’re not a leftie by the time you are 25 you have no heart.
            If you’re not a conservative by the time you are 35 you have no head.

            Etc.

  68. Phew!
    That’s all the green ash I’ve gathered so far from the tree that the snow brought down, down the road now sawn, split and mostly stacked. There’s a small amount still to stack, but it’s time to put the dinner on.
    I’m doing pork tenderloin, cut into medallions, with chopped onion, garlic & tomato, a bag of stir-fry vegetables and a pack of teriyaki sauce, served with rice.

    As it’s such a lovely afternoon, I may go & get some more bits of that ash, but will need to be careful. The tree did not uproot under the weight of the snow, but the trunk snapped about 10′ above the ground.
    However, whilst it appears to have snapped right through, it looks that the heavy ivy growth, several stems of up to 2″ diameter, is keeping it suspended. The end of the snapped piece is touching the ground, but if I take much more than 3′ off it, it’ll be left hanging by the ivy stems.
    At least it’s now well clear of the road so I could just drop the main trunk.

  71. Just to note – we’ve Sunak, an indian, Khan, a star trek villain pakistani, Humza, another pakistani.

    The country is going to the dogs, with greed, corruption, uncontrolled immigration, waste and an ever expanding ivory tower, globalist ideology.

    I’m sure the two aren’t related.

      1. His bribe level is one sausage roll, if folk are interested. Trouble is, he’ll fuss and bother *until* he gets one, then play the absurdly happy fluffy puppy once he’s had one.

        1. That applies to some of our politicians, only their starting level is £10,000 per hour or so. Some sausage, some roll!

  72. Hello all,
    While Simon Webb is not my favourite presenter, often he draws attention to matters that others don’t/won’t.

    This time it’s the fact that so many more foreign-sounding people are becoming barristers (I think he’d find the same with solicitors), doctors and dentists. He puzzles over the fact that previously British people were, but are not now, the majority of qualifiers. (Of course many of these foreign sounding people are no doubt “British” due to our government departments handing British citizenship and passports out like confetti at a double wedding.) He then gives an example of a summer school scholarship from the Open University, but for black students only.

    That is discrimination – only one can’t “discriminate” in favour of blacks, can one? Or is that positive discrimination? Whatever it is, it stinks. It is abundantly clear what is happening and what will happen in the future. The OU has charitable status, so this discrimination against our own people is being subsidised by us through the OU’s tax breaks, as are most of the other things that are being used to destroy our society. Grrrr.

    Edit: Funnily enough, he reads out from a list of newly-qualifieds from Gray’s Inn (which was the Inn I was a member of until I changed over within the profession.) I can categorically say that the number of “foreign” looking/sounding students/barristers at Grays in the early 80s was minimal (In fact there was a rather disreputable little verse that was known around the Bar:

    Inner for the rich
    Middle for the poor
    Lincolns for the blacks
    And Grays for the whores

    (the reason for the last line being that Grays had the most women)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfN7-aLlbqg

    1. There’s an interesting parallel with the increasing ‘diversifying’ of the West that the US constitution, which states no preferential treatment for anyone was overridden based on ‘historical prejudices’.

      If such a fundamental principle as no discrimination can be so easily overwritten by judicial fiat – leading to a lowering of standards for that group the end result is going to be a truly abused and abusive society.

  74. I hear voices coming from my trousers, but I’m not worried. They are talking bollocks!
    ;-))

    1. 🤣🤣 First post I’ve seen today – how to start Sunday with a smile!! 🙂

        1. Can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm to come back! 🤣 I love it here.

    3. I’m reminded of Brian Blessed’s tale about the chap who had a steering wheel protruding from his flies. Upon being asked what was going on there, he replied, “I don’t know, but it’s driving me nuts”…

  75. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/01/panic-button-in-every-room-china-alicia-kearns/

    My default here is to squeal and wage about how MPs should behave better and be more responsible to their employers, but the reality is that this shouldn’t be necessary. What sort of group threatens an MP directly (rather than ranting on a forum)? What is wrong with that mindset? It does, sadly sound far too much like the antifa fascists though.

    Then there’s the other side where MPs have a duty to their constituents. Perhaps there are too few of them and they’re unaccountable because of that? This MP sits on a committee, where she no doubt does great work but… is it necessary? How does it directly serve the public?

    Would having one representative per, say 200 households be a better idea? Those people then elect an executive and that’s the ‘man in government’ – able to be removed at any point by the public through their rep.

    Unpopular legislation that serves no value doesn’t get a look in. A majority is irrelevant because the link to the public is too strong and *they – we* set the agenda for our country.

    1. Certainly a degree more local accountability is needed. In Germany, I could attend public meetings, ask questions, and actually get a face-to-face rresponse from the person responsible. I was shocked, upin my return to England, that this didn’t seem to be possible.

      I suppose the tricky bit is always how to balance the bigger picture (international relations, food and energy security) with local interest. I used to think we’d got the best of an equation impossible to solve; how naïve I was!

      1. I recall in the early 80s my then wife – who was working on banking reforms – was unable to contact ANY senior UK bank staff.
        She phoned a German bank, asked to speak to the bloke at the top – and was put through immediately to the chap who answered his OWN phone!

        1. It’s the class system in evidence here once again.

          It is amazing how clearly one can see the world with a G&T in the hand.

    2. The MP here who I warned about the consequences of net zero and got a glib reply, last week sent out leaflets telling people who are in a bind how to get help from the state. He’s a Doctor and ex forces so no doubt barely felt any personal inconvenience.

      1. You could say that!

        Reminded me of the Calcutta Cup years and years back which ended in fog so thick no one could see the posts!

        Late 1970s is my guess. One of the Brown brothers was playing for Scotland.

    1. He was after a bit of Rumpy-Pumpy when I looked in this morning. She said she had a headache.

    2. Ooh, Belle! The male osprey, Louis has just arrived back at Loch Arkaig! Today at about midday! Just need the female Dorcha to arrive now!

        1. A lot can happen in a double bed. (It’s the G&T talking, btw, nothing to do with me.)

    1. “Methane-suppressing feed contains additives such as seaweeds, essential oils, organic acids, probiotics, and antimicrobials that reduce the amount of methane produced during a cow’s digestion.”

      a) How will this affect the quality and the safety of cows’ milk?

      b) Dairy cows end up being eaten as meat. Do we know what the effect of these methane suppressants will be on the quality of the meat? Or is this another Mad Cow Disease in the making?

      1. These “supplementary feeds” could also be used to deliver anything else that they want in the future.

    2. I read that and initially thought it was an April fool’s joke but on further reflection it is so frigging stupid it must have come from our joke of a government.
      Livestock first, baked beans next!!!

  79. Keir Starmer says 99.9% of women ‘of course haven’t got a penis’ as Labour leader scrambles to clarify his stance on transgender issues
    Keir Starmer admits there’s a ‘lesson’ to learn from Scotland’s recent trans row.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11929653/Keir-Starmer-stresses-shouldnt-rolling-womens-rights-transgender-debate.html

    It depends how you present statistics. The Daily Mail missed a trick here. They should have said:

    Keir Starmer admits that of course one woman in a thousand does have a penis.

    1. He thinks people can’t see his weasel words. But the trans lobby is still not happy – they think he is supporting Nazi policies, and want Rosie Duffield expelled from the party.

    2. I have encountered far more dickless men, in my time, than I have encountered chicks-with-dicks.

    3. It takes a while to get one’s head around this…

      The trans lobby have now re-defined the word “existence” according to these tweets. So if you deny anything that they say about being a woman, being a man etc, then you are denying their existence.
      That is, of course, genocide…

      I haven’t come across an actual example of this in the wild.

      (Disqus is being weird – it has placed the link that I uploaded outside the text box – I don’t know if it will be in the post.)

    1. Imitation Gun

      Obviously an April Foooool actionl!

      He will be a local and he will be released without being charged

      1. Known to be a local prankster with a keen sense of humour. Adored by his neighbours. Cheeky smile and always a “hello” for the young girls…..

        1. The ‘underage’ young girls. While groping them.

          After all, the girls were dressed provocatively and that groping is normal ‘where he’s from’ and should be expected more often.

      2. If you burgle a house and get caught, the maximum penalty, on first conviction, is 14 years imprisonment.
        If you burgle a house and carry an imitation firearm at the time, that first conviction penalty rises to life imprisonment.

        No one, with any working brain cells, would argue in the darkness with a goon carrying a toy gun.

        2. If you burgle a house and get caught, the likely penalty, on first conviction, is 12 months imprisonment, suspended.
          If you burgle a house and carry an imitation firearm at the time, that likely first conviction penalty rises to 24 months imprisonment, suspended.

  84. A pretty little Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 652 3/6
    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. That was easy today

        Wordle 652 3/6

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

        1. Crappy 5 for me but then my usually helpful starter word turned out not to be. A popular starter word so I bet it was by design.

          Wordle 652 5/6

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

    2. Par.
      Wordle 652 4/6

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

  85. I saw a news clip earlier of Kabul I don’t think I’ve ever seen that aspect of the Afghan capital before. There were hundreds of cars on the roads and even more people walking around.
    I thought a great place for Geta Thunberg and her green buddies to spend the Easter weekend
    Lecturing them on the damage caused to the environment by such blatant modern day perversion.

      1. The sort that completely covers the face. They’re usually those blue ones in Kabul.

      1. Bbc I think.
        I couldn’t believe it. We have always been shown filthy narrow streets and very Shoddy medival looking buildings.

  86. Closing down time. Lovely sunny afternoon – though chilly. About to go and cover the seedlings – all doing well now EXCEPT the three trays of peppers. Not a sign of anything. Maddening.

    Have a jolly Palm Sunday evening.

    A demain – when the MR and I MAY have an outing!! If the promised sun actually materialises.

    1. April fool!

      The Left never, ever face justice. Why> Because almost all the lawyers are bent as well and they protect their own.

  88. Yesterday I cast around for April Fool jokes, and saw that Italy has banned Artificial Intelligence provider GPT. What a laugh, and absurd.

    But apparently it is true; perhaps due to union lobbying.
    Either way, it is good to see a country, apart from the UK, which is determined to adopt a Luddite policy.

    (UK chasing Net0, so we can all tilt at wind turbines)

  89. This country seems to me beyond redemption. The govt has the time to piff about with anti- fart meds for cattle; promote trans people, impose 15 minute towns, permit the rewriting of books that might offend some twerps but they can’t or won’t stop illegal immigration, get the water companies sorted, do anything to bring down prices and make the UK self sufficient with any kind of energy and etc.
    This govt is broken beyond repair as are the NHS, the police and many other bodies.
    Forgive me for being grumpy but I’ve just about had it.

    1. The other lot won’t be any better and could even be worse. It’s not a good prospect, is it? It’s lurched from bad to worse since they deposed Mrs T.

    2. Yo, Ann. I don’t post much these days. I still trawl the DT and the Speccie to keep in touch, but I’d be far better off if I just ignored all of the news.

      1. I agree but it’s tough to avoid entirely.
        How you doing, little Bro’? All well I hope.

        1. Can’t complain, Big Sis. Went up to Wimbledon last Sunday, for a ‘Come and Sing’ Stainer’s Crucifixion.
          Organist was yet another James. Speakman. Long chat in pub afterwards. He’s from Liverpool, which makes a change among London organists. How’s the nephew getting on?

          1. Emailed on Mar 8 to wish him happy birthday and in his reply he seems fine. Not quite sure what he’s up to; he was Head of Organ at Eton but I think that was temporary.

  90. Home insurance quotes are enormous , ours has gone up £300..

    Thieves and robbers all of them .. can any of you honest folk suggest a good one?

    4. Ours is a lot less than that but he can’t remember who its with – said it’s all on the computer downstairs and he’ll look in the morning. (he’s watching the snooker) but it’s only gone up £20 so we’ll stick with it.

    6. Our home insurance in November last year was £151 with LV. We also insure our car with them and that may make a difference.
      ETA: of course it all depends on the size of your home and what’s in it and where you are. But Alf looks at price comparison sites every year without fail to compare like for like.

  92. The EU will shortly be considering the introduction of the Euro 7 emission standard schedulescto be introduced in two years time and this is likely to impinge on passenger cars of all types because all new cars will have to comply with Euro 7 which will include assessment of brake dust and and tyre pollution as well as CO2 and NOx emissions. This could well result in further vehicular charging and prohibitions in towns and city environs:

    https://www.carwow.co.uk/guides/running/euro-7-emission-standards-explained?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=71700000080065409&utm_group=58700006735965063&utm_keyword=&utm_term=DYNAMIC+SEARCH+ADS&network=g&utm_account=700000001745867&gclid=Cj0KCQjwz6ShBhCMARIsAH9A0qUDFcCnVNqx8qkGOsK-HQVz2_kndXgt7mq32U6tFO-KoUHKYjSepOQaAsrIEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

    Petrol and diesel (legacy) vehicle manufacturers are all distressed financially through overstocking following mandated obsolescence and the promotion of electrified transport in the Government’s legislation for Net Zero.
    What is happening in China will inevitably have a major bearing on the future of global car manufacturing:

    https://youtu.be/j3mD3VxbmSQ

    1. In case you haven’t noticed, personal transport is being outlawed in the Western world. You’ll own nothing, be happy, and – most importantly – not travel anywhere. Enjoy your – somewhat unreliable – EV while you can. Out here in the sticks, there are no facilities within fifteen minutes. I may be rounded up at some stage and forced into a tiny urban flat. Meanwhile, I mostly travel by EV. I’m a few hundred yards from a station…

    2. Let’s hope our idiot politicians don’t decide to adopt this. But I bet they will. “To save the planet”, you understand

  93. This is a long but interesting podcast from Parallel Mike. It rambles a bit at the start, but is well worth an hour and a half (or less if you speed it up – he talks quite slowly).
    Interesting because he walks through what a collapse of fiat currencies might look like to ordinary people.
    His conclusion is that you’d better have either the means of production or enough food for at least a year, but the podcast includes a lot of practical suggestions for various different things.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hOgEIf8i24

    Considered in conjunction with the Deagel report (https://www.thevoid.uk/void-post/deagel-2025-population-and-output-forecast-revisited-essential-guide/#undefined), I take this scenario seriously.

      1. It would be interesting to see how many financial applications crash when they can’t handle the number of zeros that hyperinflation would require….

        Meanwhile, Food, water, security, barterability, shelter, wealth preservation….

        1. Since moving here in October 2020, I’ve re-laid the lawn, and tidied the borders. That accounts for 2/3 of the plot. The remaining third is a mixture of uneven paving slabs, a former greenhouse base, and weeds. It was originally my intention to lift the slabs, level off the ground and reuse the slabs (plus a few more) to make a sort of patio.

          I’m now leaning heavily towards making that third a vegetable plot…

          1. I have a paved area too. This year, I’m buying mortar troughs from the local building merchant (they are far cheaper than planters at the garden centre!) filling them with earth and putting them on the paved area. I hope the slugs will be easier to control.
            Last year I had pumpkin vines running over the paving stones.

          2. Just ask Bob to drop down and help you between his log cutting and wall building escapades.

          3. By the time Bob finishes the Great Wall it will be 5 minutes from Geoff;-))

          4. “a vegetable plot..”

            Isn’t that a euphemism for anything our government is planning?

          5. Raised beds or large tubs might be more practical, for example on the old greenhouse base.

        2. Almost none, as they’re probably based on doubles. More disconcerting is that when we hit hyperinflation – because the state continues a policy of inflation – it won’t be storing the zeroes, the currency will just be meaningles. I sincerely hope at that point that folk move away from any government controlled fiat currency and to one the state cannot control, such as bitcoin in the same way Venezuela, stuffed with a socialist government (as we are) suffering a crippled economy (as we are) and with business crippled by tax (as, err, we are) folk abandoned their own currency and went to the dollar.

          Sadly, it also created an explosion of prostitution, taxi cabs and a massive black economy.

          Makes you wonder when Hunt “We need to hike taxes to pay off the debt” will take notice.

          1. Don’t under-estimate the stupidity of software developers!

            Watch the video – it probably won’t be a calm increase in inflation.

          2. We had that fun already with stock market indexes breaking the barriers and going to an additional digit.

            It wasn’t the software itself that that caused the problem but a lot of home grown code expected 4 digit index values in the feed and 5 confused it.

          3. We had that fun already with stock market indexes breaking the barriers and going to an additional digit.

            It wasn’t the software itself that that caused the problem but a lot of home grown code expected 4 digit index values in the feed and 5 confused it.

    2. We have had a worthless fiat currency for decades now. Money only has value because of a shared fiction. This is why the state can inflate it away, devalue and debase it.

  95. Just in from America
    There is nothing that strikes more fear in a heart than looking at a “jury of your peers”. It’s time again for the annual ” Stella Awards”! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico , where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
    That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.
    Here are the Stella’s for this year: SEVENTH PLACE *
    Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
    Start scratching! SIXTH PLACE *
    Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps.
    Scratch some more… FIFTH PLACE *
    Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ’em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish Keep scratching. There are more…
    Double hand scratching after this one. FOURTH PLACE *
    Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella’s when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbour’s beagle – even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.
    Pick a new spot to scratch, you’re getting a bald spot.. THIRD PLACE *
    Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
    Only two more so ease up on the scratching.
    SECOND PLACE*
    Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the lady’s room window to avoid paying the $350 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000….oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure?
    Ok. Here we go!! FIRST PLACE *
    This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: “Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motorhome. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motorhome left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?
    $1,750,000.PLUS a new motorhome. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motorhome. If you think the USA court system is out of control, be sure to pass this one on

    1. It’s that bonkers sense of removing all sense of personal responsiblity from the events. If the judiciary continues to treat people as infantile children then that’s all they ever will be

    4. Apparently she won her case because of two factors.
      First, the drive-in where she bought the coffee boasted that it served the hottest coffee in town.
      Second, the waxed cardboard disposable mugs they used had a fault, that several customers had complained about, where if you squeezed the lower half of the mug, the base would pop out of place and dump the entire contents of the mug.

      1. Either way, what type of congenital bloody idiot drives with a cup of scaldingly hot coffee between their legs?

    1. I love donkeys. My late aunt used to take me to visit some donkeys when I went to stay with her as a child. We pulled carrots from her garden and went to see them. They were so sweet and friendly, loved the carrots and allowed me to stroke their soft, fuzzy faces.
      Lovely animals.

    6. May I take that you are on the right side of Charlie, as he faces toward us and on the left leading the procession?

      The little blonde? Yes?

      Whatever, well done.

    7. Our donkey was called Mary. When someone said she should be a colt, really, I told them she could identify as a colt and that was what happened today 🙂

    1. Deport those who have never worked. problem solved. We get rid of 3 million wasters, the welfare bill falls, social problems evaporate.

      Further, only allow British citizens – 5 generations or more – to serve in the public sector – unpaid, of course.

    2. Its up to the justice system to punish individuals by fines or prison. However dreadful the crimes were, it is not right to arbitrarily take away wealth that an individual has legally accrued.

    1. Quite scary, Maggie.

      If that’s all we can look forward to, then the sooner I’m dropped into one of their rubbish trucks, the better.

    2. Quite a worrying prospect.
      After watching Neil Oliver earlier I would love him to be leader of the much needed revolution.

  100. I’m leaving early tonight, as I’ve been awake (and partially active) since 06:00 this morning. I just hope to SLEEP!

    Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.

  101. The old ‘telling bone’ battery is in the red, I’m going to have to take an early night.
    Night all.
    Loved watching the repeat of Francesco Do Mosca (sp) Italian travels. So many wonderful places we have also visited.

  102. Football.
    More unsuccessful managers sacked.
    If only Government was as ruthless with the failures.

      1. I warned my husband some time ago what will happen if some nutter tries to stop me getting to the sausages or chicken. I shall run my cart over them and wield my stick. If plod turn up I shall feign serious injury caused by said nutters.

    2. I didn’t donate money to keep Aintree from being turned into a housing estate to have some lunatics with strange ideas stop the National.

      1. It’s not a problem, Conners. If they glue themselves to the course then they must accept that the horses’ pounding hooves will cause them some pain as they gallop over them. In case of desperate injuries then the authorities will make sure they are put down. (I’m talking about the protesters, not the horses.)

  105. Evening, all. I think the war on private landlords is more likely to drive them out of the market.

    1. That is becoming obvious.
      I’ve only got a single property, shared with the DT and t’Lad, but we take pride in providing a good home for our tenants at a fair rent.

  106. Good night, chums. I got a lot done today, but mainly in the back garden: grass mown and three lots of washing done, hung up and dried by the sunshine and fair breezes. See you all tomorrow.

  108. Signing off…. another not good day for both of us.
    But first a rhyme that you chaps will appreciate:

    It is now time to run off to bed
    I race my wife to first lay my head,
    If she falls asleep first
    I swear her snoring is worse
    Than a bulldozer losing its tread.

    Goodnight Y’all.

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