Sunday 2 January: It’s time to overhaul the testing regime and get Britain moving again

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

491 thoughts on “Sunday 2 January: It’s time to overhaul the testing regime and get Britain moving again”

  3. It’s time to overhaul the testing regime and get Britain moving again

    No it’s time to cancel the testing regime and return to sanity for the new year ahead.

    1. Good morning, B3. This BTLer agrees with you…

      Carolyn Bates
      45 MIN AGO
      Mr Tarver of Buckinghamshire is absolutely correct.
      Testing needs to be scrapped as it is causing more damage to the country than the virus itself. All it is doing is over-inflating case numbers of the virus and keeping millions of people away from the workplace just as we thought we were seeing restrictions coming to an end.
      Since when do we need to test for a virus that causes nothing but the common cold? Even more puzzling, why do we need to self-isolate for a cold?
      The one thing this Government has shown us since the inception of this crisis is that they are not following the science; had they followed the advice of the British signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration back in May 2020, this crisis would be long over.
      With the despicable news today that our children are once again to be forced into wearing face masks in the classroom, this just proves that we are going backwards.
      When our own Government is causing us far more harm socially and economically than the virus itself, it is time for them to be removed. This must now be done with a sense of urgency before 2022 becomes the year this country is lost forever.

    2. The ‘government’ wants us all to do 2 tests every week. Not those who have even the slightest symptoms (common cold in reality), but everyone.

        1. We never have. The only reason I would submit would be if I had to go into hospital (though it seems patients are more likely than not to catch it in there).

          1. They insist on a pcr test before hospital admissions.
            If my trip to Kenya goes ahead next month I will have have pre travel ones at huge expense.

          2. Good luck!
            Part of me hopes we can’t travel to Canada until all the stupidity of testing ends. Even if tests are no longer needed at this end, track record of their government suggests they will keep the process going – a country (Ontario province) that mandates 3 year olds in kindergarten wear muzzles in the classroom!

          3. Good luck!
            Part of me hopes we can’t travel to Canada until all the stupidity of testing ends. Even if tests are no longer needed at this end, track record of their government suggests they will keep the process going – a country (Ontario province) that mandates 3 year olds in kindergarten wear muzzles in the classroom!

    1. I second Korky’s good wishes – and thanks again for checking to see that Peddy is OK.

      1. Thank you Elsie, and for passing on the address. I am just pleased to have been able to assist in setting people’s minds at rest, and without that vital piece of information and your input it would not have been possible. Peddy wondered how I knew where he lived so I had to confess, but explained how you had passed on the information so he need not be overly concerned – I didn’t want to get you into trouble! I was not a completely unknown quantity as we have exchanged a couple of emails in the past but he nevertheless was surprised to see the written world collide with the real world!

        1. Thanks for your attempt to ensure I didn’t get into trouble. I shall see whether or not your attempt succeeded when Peddy is back in touch. If it didn’t succeed, then I may possibly get a “You are a Silly Sausage” message from him. Lol.

          1. It is possible Peddy may get hundreds of Christmas cards next year, from us and the lurkers behind the scenes..! I think he thought we were all silly sausages for being concerned. But it is how we are, if one of the gang doesn’t report in for a while for no reason, and we know we are all getting on, it is concerning.

        1. Thank you NtN. I have had a lovely day – as we left the restaurant the heavens opened and the rain splattered down, the roads were flooded. We thought we wouldn’t get to the second half of the entertainment, the Wimpole Hall NT lights, but as we got nearer and nearer to home (where we were going to have a reviving and celebratory glass of crémant and cake) the torrential rain lessened and stopped as we parked up chez nous. So with wellies and gloves and scarves – and the rest – we got there, and for an hour and a half of we sloshed around a fantasy woodland walk. It was actually very good. I am now polishing off the remains of the cake…. and the crémant.

          1. Well done, Mum – overcoming hardships in true NoTTLer style. Sleep well tonight, replete in cake and crémant

          1. I meant to include that it was built in 1911 to commemorate the coronation of King George V.

  6. Good morning, everyone.

    PS – One Clarissa has just posted (7.07 am). Mods please deal with this Troll.

  7. ‘Morning again.

    This is a multi-sig letter mainly from 18 Conservative MPs. The point is, rather than writing to the DT in the hope of changing the energy policy (hadn’t realised there was one!) there must be a better way of achieving this? If, on the other hand, they think that Johnson isn’t listening, surely their best bet is to ‘send a letter’ to the 1922 Committee?

    SIR – It is becoming increasingly clear that the country will face inflation in 2022, and with it cost-of-living pressures for our constituents.

    It would be easy to dismiss these as due entirely to international cost pressures that all economies are facing. However, we have almost uniquely caused our energy prices, through taxation and environmental levies, to increase faster than those of any other competitive country. High energy prices, whether for domestic heating or for domestic transport, are felt most painfully by the lowest paid.

    Once the current domestic energy price cap is reassessed for implementation in April 2022, the likelihood is that domestic tariffs will increase hugely, feeding directly into a cost-of-living crisis for many and pushing them into what is bluntly called “fuel poverty”.

    We are appealing to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to use the levers we have to mitigate some of these price rises. Two are available: first, the removal of VAT on domestic energy – a 5 per cent reduction, although small, would be a step in the right direction; and, secondly, the removal of the environmental levies on domestic energy, which in the case of electricity amount to 23 per cent of the bill.

    The Climate Change Levy on business energy use is similarly making UK energy-intensive businesses uncompetitive, and again increases the costs to consumers on virtually everything. There seems little point in levying against consumers and businesses, only to pump money back out to those consumers and the market – the understandable call by energy companies as the crisis grows. This amounts to a pointless circularity of artificial taxation and support.

    On the net-zero strategy, gas and oil will continue to play a big part in our energy needs for a generation. We are seeing the effects of high gas demand and limited supply in the international markets, pushing wholesale energy prices to historic highs. We hardly need to point out the risks of relying on other countries for our energy needs, especially those hostile to us.

    This is an appeal for a new approach to our energy security. This leads to the inescapable conclusion of the need to expand North Sea exploration and for shale gas extraction to be supported. It is no accident that American consumers pay a mere tenth of what we do for gas. There seems little sense, on any environmental assessment, in importing gas and thereby reducing energy security, increasing risks of price volatility, adversely affecting our balance of payments and exporting jobs.

    1. Most ‘Conservative held’ constituencies will vainly look at that list for their MP’s name.

    2. Good morning, that’s too sensible, it will never catch on. Doris is committed to the net zero impossibility, Carrie told him to stand firm or else.

    3. The point is, writing to the DT in the hope of changing the energy policy (hadn’t realised there was one!)

      Where HAVE you been? The Government has artificially ratcheted up business energy costs with their “Green Levies” to pay for the development of Unicorn Fart based energy to the point where the UK’s Aluminium Industry is almost none existent.
      This is the start of a paywalled report:-

      Aluminium Production in the UK industry trends (2016-2021)
      Companies in the Aluminium Production industry have struggled over the past five years. The biggest impediment producers face is high energy prices, which, in such an energy-intensive industry, impose prohibitive costs. EU-led drives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions have placed significant pressure on energy-intensive industries such as this one. As a result, production has increasingly shifted from the United Kingdom and most European countries towards the Middle East. The industry is also heavily affected by changing downstream demand and fluctuations in the global price of aluminium. Operators are therefore highly exposed to global economic conditions, which affect demand for, and the price of, aluminium…

      https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-research-reports/aluminium-production-industry/

  9. Well said!

    SIR – Matthew Lynn is right. Our Government’s capitulation to the anti-fracking minority denied us the chance to be self-sufficient in gas, meaning we now rely on expensive and environmentally harmful imports.

    This is just one example of our politicians’ tendency to yield to those whose influence is disproportionate to their numbers. The views of the quiet majority are being overridden by “liberal” activists, who are tolerant of everything except criticism.

    William Fleming
    Frimley, Surrey

      2. Depends on your definition of ‘nice’! Given a free hand it would be anything but…

        ‘Morning Tryers.

    2. No idea where this was but very good news. The only ‘good’ spammer is a dead (preferably with suffering) spammer.

    2. Thank you King Stephen! And that would make an excellent birthday present! Top banana!

  12. Riddle-me-ree

    Q: What do a Rubik’s cube and a penis have in common?
    A: The longer you play with it, the harder it gets.

    Q: What does Mike Tyson smell like after sex?
    A: Pepper Spray!

    Q: What’s the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
    A: the taste!

    Q: What’s the difference between a circumcision and a divorce?
    A: With a divorce, you get rid of the whole prick!

    1. Happy Birthday pm! Hope you have a wonderful day with the family and enjoy the light walk! It sounds lovely!
      🎂🍾🎉

          1. Thank you, Ndovu! I have had a lovely day with our family, I felt enveloped by family warmth and love. This is the alcohol talking, I am polishing off the remains now, but It is enabling me to get in touch with those feelings that might otherwise remain under a warm cosy layer.

    4. Grattis på födelsedagen, Poppiesmum. Hope you have a lovely day. 😘🎂🥂👍🏻

      1. Thank you, Grizzly. The start of the year’s round of birthdays once again. The 2nd Jan is not always a good day for a birthday but when it occurs on a Sunday it is brilliant, people still want to party (there is still some atmosphere when one ventures forth) as the season is not yet finished because they get the Monday off work.

        1. Have a bit of sympathy for Student son. Born on the 31st of December.
          His birthday always gets swamped by Christmas & New Year.

          1. One of friend’s birthday is 7th. December.
            We make point of giving her two presents, three weeks apart.

          4. I quite understand. Birthday’s around Christmas can be a non-event, family has to make an extra effort to get celebrations off the ground.

        2. You share your birthday with William Fox-Pitt (Badminton Three Day Event winner, Olympic medallist, winner of 14 Grand Slam titles). You’re in good company 🙂

      1. Thank you, Garlands. I am looking forward to meeting up with family later this morning at Ickleton.

    6. Happy Birthday Poppiesmum! Sung with all the gusto of one enjoying the morning after the morning after x

      1. Thank you, ashesthandust! I can hear you from here…. are you still on your windswept field?!

        1. Happy Birthday!
          As I said on yesterdays page before opening todays, you look FAR too young to be 75!

          1. That is very kind of you! Slight confession, my avatar photo was taken three years ago now. I avoid the camera where I can, I am definitely not a ‘selfie’ person.

          1. Thank you! We are home now! I’ve had a lovely day – I am sitting here with a glass of crémant in my hand now, a piece of birthday cake on a plate and Poppie is beating up her long dog.

  15. #CovidClownWorld

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/094/665/628/original/9d95d065a39f05eb.jpg

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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec255e9f8b2d9c4541693ac659ac369473a596f5262dcb253dffab5926f1e147.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1b232d2c3c3fb0ed39f4c7ccdabecf82c7d6cff6ecd85c3dc905dc82fed2d98.jpg

  16. Good morning all. Getting light and, at a 4½°C, a little cooler than past couple of days. Not raining at the moment.

  17. The Observer view on Britain’s climate crisis targets. 2 January 2021.

    Britain’s electricity generation went through an unfortunate phase last year. According to the UK-based website Carbon Brief, it got dirtier for the first time in years as renewable sources failed to provide sufficient power to help the nation’s economy recover from lockdown restrictions. More coal and gas had to be burned to generate electricity.

    This jump occurred – in part – because 2021 was notable for its low winds. Wind farm output dropped by almost 15% from 2020, despite the fact that more turbines had been installed across the nation. At the same time, nuclear power generation fell by almost 10% because of problems with ageing reactors.

    Low winds! Who would have thought it? Just as a matter of curiosity how many wind farms would make up for no wind at all?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/02/observer-view-britains-climate-crisis-targets

    1. When we are aboard Mianda and at anchor we have a petrol powered battery charger so that in winter we can still use our lights, our fridge, our heating system and all the other electric gadgets we have. When we are berthed in the marina we connect to shore power.

      The politicians who want to impose their virtue signalling policies upon us ought to spend a week aboard Mianda at anchor in winter without the assistance of petrol or diesel powered electricity generation as the solar panels and the wind generator produce virtually nothing when it is most needed.

    2. When we are aboard Mianda and at anchor we have a petrol powered battery charger so that in winter we can still use our lights, our fridge, our heating system and all the other electric gadgets we have. When we are berthed in the marina we connect to shore power.

      The politicians who want to impose their virtue signalling policies upon us ought to spend a week aboard Mianda at anchor in winter without the assistance of petrol or diesel powered electricity generation as the solar panels and the wind generator produce virtually nothing when it is most needed.

    4. Morning, Araminta.

      Your last question will have the green zealots booking all the super-computer time available for months. They ARE that stupid.

    5. I prefer to call them windmill farms, as the only thing they seem to ‘create’ is more windmills.

  21. Dr David Martin on steroids. Dr Martin sets out his plan for indicting the perpetrators of the ‘pandemic’. As usual he doesn’t pull his punches and his presentation is full of facts. There is a religious slant to the video, especially towards the end, however, those not holding religious beliefs should not be deterred from watching this brilliant man and equally brilliant orator.

    Dr David Martin on Indictments re Pandemic

  22. BTL Comment:-

    RS Robert Spowart
    JUST NOW Message Actions

    The Multi-Sig letter makes a VERY good point.
    “The Climate Change Levy on business energy use is similarly making UK energy-intensive businesses uncompetitive…”
    We have already lost our aluminium industry, all but lost what was left of our steel industry, are in the process of losing our brickmaking industry because of the energy levy.
    Which energy intensive industry will be next? Cement perhaps?

          3. Ah, cubic metres does seem a more realistic measure of volume. Good point, well made.

  23. The “Fact Checkers” are jumping all over this one…….

    C S Lewis didn’t write this they froth indignantly

    Perhaps he should have done……………it reads very Screwtape Letters

    Young man to the devil: “How did you manage to send so many people to hell?”
    • The devil: “Through fear.”
    • The young man: – Good for you! And what were they afraid of? Wars? Hunger?
    • The devil: – No … Illness.
    • The young man: “Did they get sick? Did they die? Was there no cure?”
    • The devil: “They didn’t get sick. They just died. And there was a cure …”
    The young man: – “I do not understand…”
    The devil: “They believed that the only thing they had to keep at all costs was Life!”
    • They stopped hugging, stopped greeting each other. They left all human contacts … They left everything that was human!
    They ran out of money.
    They lost their jobs.
    They chose to fear for their lives, even if they had nothing to eat.
    They believed what they heard, read newspapers, and blindly believed they were reading the truth.
    They gave up their freedom.
    They never left their home again.
    They didn’t go anywhere.
    They never visited friends and family again.
    The whole world has become a huge prison with convicted volunteers.
    They voluntarily accepted everything! All this to experience another miserable day …
    They did not live, they died every day! It was too
    easy to take away their miserable souls … ”

    ~ CS Lewis, “Letters to the Soulmaster” (1942)

  24. Schools in England told: wear masks in class as fears mount of Omicron surge. 2 January 2022.

    All pupils in secondary schools in England should return to wearing masks in classrooms, ministers said last night, as fears grew that the new term could trigger a huge spike in cases of the Omicron variant.

    Keep that fear going! An outbreak of Athlete’s Foot is expected shortly.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/01/schools-in-england-told-wear-masks-in-class-as-fears-mount-of-omicron-surge

    1. A policy demanded by the teacher unions. The only effect will be reduced concentration from the pupils continually breathing in stuffy air with inadequate oxygen levels.

  25. Good morning all; an advert from Elsie McSelfie’s krew for testing popped up as I was perusing elsewhere. They are STILL chasing people to have tests before heading out for the day.
    It’s as if they need to create numbers by any means necessary to maintain the fear and keep their greasy mitts on the control levers. Oh, wait…

    It’s mainly dry here, ideal for testing…testing how far into the rough I can place a golf ball.

    1. My daft brother thought it was ‘sensible’ to take a LFT before coming to us for Christmas. Not in the slightest unwell. We see each other every week or two, and he has never thought it necessary before. He has fallen for the hype of getting tested frequently to ‘stop the spread’. No wonder there are no tests available (waste of our tax money anyway).
      I hope you took a test before golfing otherwise you’d be selfish, haha.
      Happy golfing!

      1. I’m so ‘selfish’ that I’ve never tested and am mask-free. I did have a stinking head cold a few weeks back; stayed in, kept warm, drank lots and popped some paracetamol. Job done.

        A few of my golfing buddies should wear a mask on the course, but that’s because they are bandits.

  26. Good morning all; an advert from Elsie McSelfie’s krew for testing popped up as I was perusing elsewhere. They are STILL chasing people to have tests before heading out for the day.
    It’s as if they need to create numbers by any means necessary to maintain the fear and keep their greasy mitts on the control levers. Oh, wait…

    It’s mainly dry here, ideal for testing…testing how far into the rough I can place a golf ball.

  27. As the testing frenzy with lateral flow tests moves into overdrive as children return to schools how is this not headline news in every MSM outlet???

    “The same tests have been used by UK hospitals, care homes and

    schools since last year to reduce asymptomatic transmission of the

    virus.

    The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has raised

    concerns about the accuracy of the Innova rapid self-administered

    lateral flow tests.

    The FDA has instructed US citizens to stop using the tests amid

    “significant concerns that the performance of the test has not been

    adequately established, presenting a risk to health”.

    A letter issued to Innova by the FDA explained that the US had concerns around a lack of market authorisation and the reported “Clinical

    Performance” of the tests. It is concerned that the test may be

    providing false-positive and false-negative results and therefore posing

    an increased risk to the public”

    https://nursingnotes.co.uk/news/clinical/us-recalls-lateral-flow-tests-amid-significant-accuracy-concerns/
    Oh wait……….no mass testing and it’s all over,can’t have that can we??

    1. There is no proof that widespread use of the tests has allegedly reduced asymptomatic transmission.
      Is there even proof of asymptomatic transmission in the first place.

      1. It is such a serious problem that you need to test to know you’ve got it; unlike colds where a sore throat, tickley eyes and nose and a general feeling of being below par gives a clue.

      2. When they build such an elaborate structure of lies, it become hard to demolish, because you have to get people to accept that so many things they thought were true are false.

      3. It happens but was vanishingly rare. Since mass vaccination, it is now far more.common, as the jabs reduce symptoms but do not stop transmission.

          3. In my case, my father.
            The most repeated was whenever my mother made junket (remember that?).
            We would all wait for the inevitable: “Ah, Junkers 88”.

          6. I didn’t mind it. By and large, I liked milk puddings; possibly not pink blancmange.

          8. Someone posted on mumsnet years ago that every time they drove down the A303 and passed a certain town in Hampshire, her husband would say to the children “Andover the money!”
            It always makes me laugh.

  29. Good article in today’s DT:

    Myopic politicians are wilfully blind to the truth about green energy

    How bizarre that politicians will lecture us on poverty, and will then propose to drive up household bills to reach carbon reduction targets

    ROSS CLARK
    1 January 2022 • 6:00pm

    In June 2011, 18 months before going off to serve Her Majesty in another capacity, former energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne made a remarkable speech in which he asserted that the Government’s green policies, far from costing households, would actually save us money. “Green growth,” he said, can protect the economy by “reducing our exposure to price shocks”. Moreover, the cost of low carbon policies up to 2020 would amount to “just one per cent on the average household energy bill” – and even that assumed that we could always buy oil at “last year’s cheap rate of $80 a barrel”. If, as he expected, oil prices stayed high and gas prices rose to meet them “then our consumers will be winning hands down from our energy policy”.

    To be fair to Huhne, he was not the only minister to hold this conceit. It has been a received wisdom among many in government, opposition and in the great green blob that switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy would make us better off. How laughable that claim seems now.

    We have had the green energy revolution which Huhne advocated. Last year the Government claimed that for the first time more of our electricity was generated by renewables than by fossil fuels (although only if you count as “renewable” the filthy practice of burning wood chips to generate electricity – an industry which Huhne himself went off to promote post-prison). Coal-fired power stations which in 2011 were still generating 31 percent of our power are now down to 2.1 percent, and will be gone for good by 2024.

    But where is the green dividend? Adjusted for inflation, average household electricity bills rose by 19 percent between 2011 and 2020 – from £451 to £571 per year at 2010 prices. But that is just for starters. Far from being protected against price shocks in global energy markets, consumers are looking at their bills possibly doubling in April when the Government’s price cap is revised upwards.

    As for the claim that green polices would only add one percent to our energy bills, Ofgem calculates that 25 percent of our electricity bills are now made up of social and environmental levies – ie subsidies for green energy as well as insulation schemes for low income households. We pay a further 2.5 percent on our gas bills.

    It is true that the current energy crisis is a global phenomenon precipitated by rising demand from a rebounding global economy. But in Britain it has been made much worse by energy policies which for a decade and a half have doggedly pursued the objective of cutting carbon emissions without any regard to the costs. For years, Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems have all attempted to blame rising energy prices on greedy, profiteering energy companies. It never was true – deregulated gas and electricity markets have always run on tight margins – but with dozens of energy suppliers having gone bust in recent months it is an argument that has become impossible to sustain. Neither can you blame fossil fuel markets for rising bills – a barrel of crude oil costs less now than it did when Huhne made his speech, even before adjusting for consumer inflation.

    We are paying more than we need be for our energy because the Government has loaded fossil fuels with carbon levies, switched electricity generation to much more expensive renewables, and deprived Britain of what could have been by now a very productive native shale gas industry. The government folded in the face of environmentalists who were determined to squash the nascent industry by ramping up fears of ‘earthquakes’ – or rather minor tremors, most of which cannot even be sensed by humans on the Earth’s surface.

    Traditional oil and gas extraction, too, is being deterred by subjecting listed companies to punitive decarbonisation targets. Shell, which should have been developing the Cambo field off the Shetlands, has been driven to pursue other avenues, like providing my broadband. The result is that we are becoming ever more dependent on imported gas – shipping in refrigerated shale gas from Qatar that we could have been producing ourselves. The trouble is that in recent months energy-hungry China has been outbidding us for it, driving up prices.

    Ministers love to point out that the unit cost of generating electricity from wind and solar has fallen over the past decade, but that ignores the intermittency problem. Consumers are having to pay through the nose to fire up dormant gas and coal plants to provide power at times when, as in recent weeks, the sun hasn’t been shining and the wind hasn’t been blowing. At one point in November, energy suppliers were forced to stump up £2000 per MWh for electricity – around 40 times the usual wholesale price.

    Conversely, when the wind does blow we are forced to shell out to compensate wind farm-owners ordered to turn their turbines off – last year we collectively paid £282 million in so-called ‘constraint payments’ when the national grid was unable to absorb all the electricity they were producing.

    We are in this position because we have built more and more wind and solar farms without properly addressing the issue of energy storage. The Government set up so-called “capacity auctions” in 2014 to try to create a market for energy storage by offering subsidies to anyone who can supply large amounts of energy at short notice. But the lucky winners have tended to be owners of gas and coal plants, with just a handful of battery installations.

    Why? Because storing energy is horribly expensive. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US puts the “levelised’ cost of storing energy in large lithium battery installations (that is taking into account capital investment and running costs over the lifetime of an installation) at $336 (£260) per MWh. That is five times as much as the usual wholesale price of electricity – and we have to pay it on top on the cost of generating electricity in the first place. There are times in winter when our wind turbines and solar panels produce next to no power for days on end, yet we only have enough storage capacity to meet 38 minutes’ worth of national electricity demand.

    But if consumers are heading for an energy shock in April when price caps are raised it is nothing compared with what is coming later. In 2026 installations of new oil boilers will be banned, followed in 2035 by new gas boilers. From then on, the only practical way to heat most homes will be in the form of electric heat pumps, which cost £10,000 a time, are more expensive to run than gas and which won’t succeed in keeping many older, less-well insulated homes warm.

    Motorists, too, will be prohibited from buying new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 – forced to buy electric vehicles which currently cost around half as much again. Forget the spin that they will be on a parity with petrol and diesel cars by 2024 – that’s just another piece of Huhne-style optimism. Surging prices of rare metals needed for their batteries have already led to one Chinese manufacturer jacking up the price of electric vehicles by 20 percent this month.

    With living costs creeping up on all fronts, there could not be a worse time to jack up taxes. In April, just as higher energy bills are landing on our doormats, National Insurance rates will rise by 1.5 percent. Labour did at least oppose that, but otherwise where is the opposition? All that Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and Nicola Sturgeon are offering are even more expensive energy policies. Ever desperate to make herself look more “progressive” than Westminster, Sturgeon has committed to cutting emissions by 75 percent on 1990 levels by 2030 – a target which could only be met by a massive replacement of existing domestic heating systems.

    How bizarre that politicians who on one day will lecturing us on poverty, and energy poverty in particular, and on the next day will be proposing to drive up household bills to reach carbon reduction targets. The only way they can try to square this impossible circle is to pretend, like Chris Huhne did, that reaching zero carbon will actually save us money. Or by trying to dismiss the issue of cost by claiming that climate change is so serious it will kill us all unless we eliminate all carbon emissions by 2050 sharp.

    Sorry, but no. As most people will correctly work out for themselves when they receive their inflated energy bills this spring, the biggest danger they face is not being fried or drowned in a slightly warmer world – it is succumbing to hypothermia because they cannot afford to heat their homes.

    * * *

    Typical of the BTL responses:

    DAVID DAVIES
    13 HRS AGO
    We voted Conservative and ended up with Extinction Rebellion.
    He has to go.

    Geoffrey Kolbe
    13 HRS AGO
    Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims – such as the claim that human-induced climate change is, or soon will be, irreversible and catastrophic for our environment – need extraordinary proof.
    What is extraordinary is that the political elite of all stripes have swallowed whole the claims of a very vocal group of environmentalists who have based their conclusions on very little evidence. Why?
    Something else that Carl Sagan said was that we had contrived to create a society that was exquisitely dependent on science and technology, yet we are overwhelmingly ruled by people who know nothing about science and technology. This potent mixture of ignorance and power was bound to blow up in our face one day…

    Jasper Derbyshire
    13 HRS AGO
    You can add to this the fact that the rest of the world is gradually giving up on the carbon zero scam. India and China signalled their rejection at COP26. Biden has just failed to get his plans past Congress and the Europeans have decided that gas is a renewable resource(!).
    Of course the one thing they have in common is that they haven’t legally mandated zero carbon so they can backslide with impunity (especially as they’re all noticing that none of the predictions of climate armagedon have ever come true).
    So just us then.
    The patsy.
    And our sacrifice will make no difference to the earth’s climate whatsoever.

    Steven Moxon
    11 HRS AGO
    The greatest U-turn ever is now fully on the cards, and they are going to have to do it damn fast, with simultaneous measures to hugely increase gas storage, get cracking with fracking, build our own thorium nuclear reactors, resume developing breeder reactors and lean-burn coal technology, plus scrapping the entire electric car and heat pump charades, with the latter being fundamentally hopeless and the former two decades too early given the foreseeable battery technology improvements being an order of magnitude less than we need. Without an all-encompassing massive U-turn it’ll be a richly deserved political Armageddon.

    1. 2 years of fearmongering, running down the economy and causing untold mental and physical health damage hasn’t been enough to get people (in numbers that even a politician would understand) on the streets. Will this huge hit to a vast number of families’ energy bills be enough to see a revolting population?

    2. Meanwhile, I noticed as I drove past the garage this morning that petrol has gone up another 2p per litre.

    1. As if people were not dumb enough already Johnson and his cronies want them to be even dumber.

      The best teachers are dedicated and inspiring and I have had colleagues who were first-class. There are good teachers and bad teachers in most schools but it does seem that government measures over the years have succeeded in demotivating teachers completely. Neither Caroline nor I would want to teach in England again.

      1. I gave up at the end of the ’90s and would NEVER even contemplate going back! No effective sanctions, meddling in the way we had to teach (by people who’d never faced up to a class in their life, let alone 3 C last thing on a Friday afternoon), mixed ability language classes and constantly changing goal-posts – no thanks!

  31. Britain must lead from the front on Russia

    Putin is testing the West. The UK should seize this opportunity to galvanise Europe into action.

    This would be the Europe that includes the French who are stealing our fish and aiding the flow of Migrants across the Channel? An EU that is doing its best to separate Northern Ireland from the UK and break up the Union ?

    Russia and Vladimir Putin are not the enemies of the British People. They are our natural allies against the ruling elites! Vlad has no doctrine or philosophy to sell. He is the leader of the last significant Christian Nation State. He is seeking to protect his country from a Globalist Conspiracy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/01/britain-must-lead-front-russia/

    1. I am beginning to find Johnson as loathsome as I found May.

      I think it is the self-serving indifference to the fact that he is lying to us and is completely insincere which most provokes my disgust.

      1. And he doesn’t seem to care that increasing numbers of proles actually know he is lying.

        1. Why should he care what the proles think?
          He’s almost impregnable, only his own backbenchers can oust him, and I doubt that they think that there’s a better alternative.

          2. I think they probably know that they are already in danger, particularly the “red wallers”.

            If Johnson pulls off the Covid recovery they will be better placed than from getting an even more controlling replacement as PM, to carry on lockdowns etc ad infinitum. Johnson seems to be the only one stopping the freaks.

            My view is that the only thing that might save the Conservatives is a bounce back and that won’t happen while we carry on with the Covid mania.

      2. He certainly appears to have lost his common touch since getting the top job.
        It always happens to politicians, but not usually so quickly.

        1. A Happy New Year to you, Anne

          You are right. He has not only lost the common touch he has lost touch with everything and everyone.

        2. He’s also lost his reasoning and analytical powers. I reckon he was always a creature with no real backbone and no real (certainl not conservative) principles.

        3. He simply wanted to be PM. He thought being PM was a doddle. He had no concept of the amount of work the job entails (if it is done properly).

        4. IMO he never had a common touch, just an ability to act for the attention of those he was with. Like many conmen, he fails when talking stops and action is needed.

  34. Good Moaning.
    And Happy birthday Poppiesmum.
    I hope Poppy brought you breakfast in bed and is taking you out for a nice lunch.

  35. 343433+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Startling news,

    https://twitter.com/Rothbard1776/status/1477011251976937477

    Followed by MORE startling news,
    the
    mass controlled illegal immigration, paedophile umbrella, political PIE / BLM
    sympathizers are doing the same countrywide, with the indigenous peoples support / consent via the polling booth.

    New Years revolution clean out the westminster political stables ie lab/lib/con/greens or SUBMIT.

    Advice put a few country miles between yourself and “YOUR” mp.

    By the by the welfare of childr en is rating high among the political overseers more is the pity it was NOT SO prior to the JAY report, very long term cover up by largely overseers employees.

    ,

    1. If you pardon the unfortunate pun, IMO their need to oppose Trump, who supported its use, trumps reality and the interests of the people.

    1. Whilst the lead is on Green zealotry, driven IMO by control, filling a hole in someone’s life or just hurting people they envy or feel are better than them, I think he’s wrong on cannabis. IMO he’s got it the wrong way round, as predominately cannabis smoking is something that bad or evil people are more likely to do not something that makes people bad or evil. Correlation may be a symptom, not causation. Note that I say predominantly, as cannabis use can cause mental health issues. Furthermore, in context, if these people weren’t taking cannabis then they’d be taking far worse drugs, notably alcohol.

        3. A Happy New Year, Grizzly

          Sometimes even a futile gesture is better than no gesture at all!

          1. Happy New Year, Rastus.

            Maybe that is the case, but we all know the foregone conclusion.

    2. The one good thing to come out of this would be if public revulsion forced Johnson to resign and so, by honouring the odious Blair, he was destroyed by his misguided act of sycophancy towards the Blair Devil.

      This reminds me of one of the fables of Aesop:

      A Farmer walked through his field one cold winter morning. On the ground lay a Snake, stiff and frozen with the cold. The Farmer knew how deadly the Snake could be, and yet he picked it up and put it in his bosom to warm it back to life.
      The Snake soon revived, and when it had enough strength, bit the man who had been so kind to it. The bite was deadly and the Farmer felt that he must die. As he drew his last breath, the Farmer said to those standing around:

      Learn from my fate not to take pity on a scoundrel.

      1. 343433+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        A lesson that refuses to be learnt by the electorate on
        giving succour to snake upon snake upon snake.

  38. Farmers are launching a campaign to promote eating meat during “Veganuary” to counteract “misinformation and false truths” on social media.

    The Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) says it wants to “give farmers a voice” in January – a month filled with adverts promoting a vegan lifestyle.

    The group says the “We Eat Balanced” campaign is not about competing with the vegan movement but it hopes to encourage people to think about how they can have a balanced diet, while also doing their bit for the planet by buying British produce.

    The National Farmers’ Union says the stark reality is that “it really isn’t as simple as saying plant-based food is good and animal-based food is bad”. Climate campaigners say people should eat less meat to help protect the planet.

    The AHDB campaign includes an advert on Channel 4, ITV, Sky and ondemand services. The advert focuses on a girl, Nancy, with her grandfather learning about red meat and dairy as a natural source of vitamin B12, produced to “world-class standards”.

    Liam Byrne, from AHDB, said: “We are giving farmers a voice to present the facts about food from the UK.”

    Wishing a very hearty Happy Carnuary to all those brain-dead and malnourished Weedists.

    1. Arghhhh, I thought I was doing well missing Veganuary this year, and here it is popping up on 2nd January!
      Good action by the farmers though.
      I will certainly not be buying any overprocessed vegetable fat riddled muck from the supermarket in January, but will be tucking into properly farmed free range meat!

    3. Be like me, a majority vegan/vegetarian, where for most of the time I’m vegetarian or vegan. For example, I had bacon butties for breakfast, where the majority bread was vegan, and sausages, chips and mixed veg for dinner where most of the ingredients were vegan/vegetarian. Almost all of my drinks are vegetarian, often vegan.

      1. That reminds me of the time a couple vegetarian friends visited us in Bavaria – finding even vegetarian food was tricky, but luckily they ate fish, cheese etc. At one mountain hut we asked if they served anything vegetarian – the answer was Goulash soup, on the basis that there “wasn’t that much meat in it”.

      2. And another added bonus is the the vast majority, if not all of the animals available on the butchers counters, are vegan as well.
        Win Win.

      3. I have no desire, whatsoever, to be like you, a “majority vegan/vegetarian”. My diet consists of: meat (lots of it); meat broths, stock, stews, hash and casseroles; fish and fish products; eggs; cheese; some nuts; some fruit; dairy; only the bits of vegetables that grow above ground.

        I was born an omnivore and I have become much healthier since I adopted this diet.

  39. Leading group of girls’ schools says it ‘will not accept transgender pupils over fears admissions policies based on gender’ will ‘jeopardise status as single-sex institutions’ – as union calls on Government for new guidance

    DM article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10361677/Leading-group-girls-schools-says-not-accept-transgender-pupils.html#newcomment

    BTL

    Surely a rule should be applied which states clearly that neither boys nor girls who have penises will be admitted to be pupils at the school. Each school must stress that this rule is not sexist or anti-trans – it is just against both girls and boys with penises.

        1. The Victorians had the right answers to all this garbage that the reasonable and sane amongst us are expected to endure, endorse and even tolerate in these dark and current times Loony Bins. AKA lunatic asylums.

    3. While their decision is entirely rational, why have we even got to this point?

      It should be obvious – are you biologically a man? Yes, then you are treated as a man. No ifs, no buts.

      A bloke in a dress doesn’t get to go into women’s changing rooms. He doesn’t get to go into swimming pool cubicles with women. He doens’t go into a women’s prison or a women’s refuge.

      Why not? Because he’s not a woman! It really isn’t difficult. Stop pandering to the mentally ill. By all means, let someone pretend they’re something they’re not, but let’s not indulge their fantasy that putting on a woolly coat makes them a sheep.

  40. An offering from the book of Dad Jokes,

    I have been so bored I memorised 6 pages of a dictionary.

    I learned next to nothing.

      1. 343433+ up ticks,
        Morning BA,
        Been the same for decades the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition supported by hordes of dangerous fools continuing to back politically content rubber stampers.
        The design & triggering of the referendum hurt the political class a great deal consequently the innocent suffer.

  43. I learned a new fatuous food-freak phrase yesterday. Begone dull “vegan”. I am, “Plant based”…..

    2. FFS stop the inane demands that are impossible in our law-based western democracies. Stopping or arresting migrants with boats on [edit: to be clear, in French] beaches is illegal race discrimination. The RN & Marines can’t endanger immigrants in inflatables by trying to stop them. The lawyers and courts have completely tied government hands. The only way is repeal all human rights legislation, return migrants and let them suffer the consequences of their own actions; good luck with finding any politician willing to do that.

      1. 343433+ up ticks,
        Morning D,
        Stopping a morally illegal invasion on our shores should be the duty of EVERY indigenous person.
        The protection of children
        from foreign molestation ie paedophilia for starters.

        People power gave these political cretins the power of dictators so that can be reversed.
        People power works as the referendum result proved it needs the electorates backing.

      2. Hold on then – let’s ask why these criminals have got this far. Why have the countries they’ve walked through not stopped, processed and returned them?

        Also, they are non-persons. Criminals, entering the country illegally. We are perfectly entltled to prevent them access.

        It’s notable that when the state wants to do something it finds a way to do it. Look at the compulsary purchase of vaccines, the lock up enforcement. If lawyers want to fight it then remove legal aid in select cases. As for not endagering migrants by trying to stop them, they’re endangering their own lives.

        If a politician wants to be popular then removing and returning the gimmigrants – by any means necessary – would win them vast appeal. Bleeding heart Guardian readers might want more gimmigration, but they are a tiny minority – the same ones who, if Abdul, Mohammed, Syeed and Faisal and their 20 brothers were moved in with their daughter or Owen Jones would swiftly change their minds.

        Get rid of them.

    3. I don’t mind the asylum claims – as long as they’re done from the first safe country. Not Kent.

    1. Pointless, of course – but would it not be brilliant if they got a couple of million signatures?

      1. And more importantly, WHY suddenly after all these years of him being ignored in the honours listings why now ?
        Has ‘Mr Bung’ been in action I wonder ?
        Shame all those ‘D’ Notices he instigated can’t be investigated.

        1. I believe it may have been a smokescreen to stop Camilla’s appointment to the Garter being centre stage in the honours list.

          It’s part of finally removing the taint of Diana so that Camilla will become Queen rather than consort.

          1. The DofE said that Blair would be honoured over his dead body.

            The Fat Oaf and his assorted acolytes didn’t even pause for a respectful period of grace to remember the Duke’s life before honouring the murdering, murderous traitor Blair.

            Anne Widdecombe thought there was something of the night about Michael Howard but I am sure she would agree that there is nothing of the Knight about Blair!

          3. He started young, when he was caught importuning in a public toilet and gave his names as Anthony Lyton.

          4. The Speaker wants all previous PMs to be knighted. He’s getting above himself. A petinion to get Blair’s knighthood rejected and is getting a lot of support.

          7. Good point, i’ll bet Brenda was bullied to agree with this, she’s done her best to stop it for the past umpteen years since he moved over for the next useless labour PM. Daft Vader.

  46. “The predators in the Palace and how Andrew let it happen
    Nobody knows the real background to the Duke’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell, but it could be considered unwise at best.”
    and
    Prince Andrew will probably avoid the potential fallout of a perjury case against Ghislaine Maxwell
    Legal experts now believe it is unlikely that perjury charges against Maxwell will lead to a new trial

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/02/predators-palace-andrew-let-happen/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/01/01/prince-andrew-will-probably-avoid-potential-fallout-perjury/

    The best to be hoped for is that if Prince Andrew is brought down by this that he will take the Clintons, Bill Gates and many others down with him.

  47. https://dailysceptic.org/2022/01/02/letter-from-a-teacher-to-the-conservative-party-about-mask-mandates-in-classrooms/#comments

    This push for children to wear masks all day is child abuse!

    This reintroduction of masks in classrooms is the last straw. I simply
    can’t see any future in which this doesn’t become an annual event, if
    you believe current conditions require it. As a teacher, I find this
    intolerable. Our pupils often leave home a little after 7 in the morning
    to travel by bus and return after 5pm. The winter weather does not
    often make it desirable to go outside.

    1. The PTB are determined to crush the,population one way or another.

      Fear not, there will soon be a new – unknown – variant along to start it all over again.

      1. Wearing a mask feels stuffy for all of us, feels like being in an unventilated over-warm stuffy room, gives me a headache. Not surprised to see such shockingly high carbon dioxide levels under the mask.
        Pure cruelty for children of any age, especially as there is no real benefit (other than general hygiene benefits such as preventing them coughing without covering their mouths, picking their noses and preventing disgusting teenage boys from spitting.)
        No wonder my 3 year old grandchild prefers playing out at kindergarten – masks are mandatory for even the youngest in Toronto schools.

  48. Morning all and belated Happy New year to Nottlers and Happy Birthday PM I hope you have a lovely day.
    Busy with the grand children, I might be be back later. Who knows.

      1. When we play snakes and ladders he always wins 🤔 It must be the way he drops the dice instead of throwing it 🤩

  50. New Year greetings from Hat. (aka Sputnik one)

    Happy Sunday Sos I wish you & family all the best in the coming years. I am a lot better than I was for the last 18 months of severe lower left back, neck & ankle pains, but old age, illness and looking after my 96 year old mother who has severe Dementia has taken its toll & sapped my strength, but I shall survive ! Please pass on my fondest regards & best wishes for a safe, healthy & happy new year to all Nottlers !

  51. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b189e70fce2aaedd4bab0e7f1a5b22b0265c5b29090a5bd1ae8524bb8e3b462.png Absolutely spot-on Mr Marriott.

    I’ve been watching the Christmas editions of University Challenge and two things are abundantly clear:

    1. Most of the contestants are hand-picked BBC Lefty luvvies who love to display just how much they are as thick as pigshit.
    2. Many of the degrees that these clowns have gained are contrived bits of nonsense that no sensible employer (i.e not the BBC) would even dream of looking at in a job interview.

    On-the-job training is the only way to progress. It is time that more employers told the majority of graduate candidates to stop wasting their time (and money) on frivolous confetti “degrees'” and get a proper apprenticeship or training programme.

    1. We take on an apprentice every year. They are worked to within an inch of their lives, if not by the planning and cabling and then social aspects then it’s training to get properly qualified.

      Of our five, four have moved on to other companies and are doing very well. The current one is a young lass struggling to get through the exams, so we’ll help her set up a proper lab internally, then re-purpose the kit.

      It’s stupid companies advertising for a graduate role and demanding 3 years experience, or a list of qualifications and technical experience while paying peanuts.

  53. DT headline: Secondary school pupils forced back into face masks in lessons

    “But the move risks triggering another Tory backbench rebellion when Parliament returns on Wednesday, with senior MPs accusing the Government of caving in to teaching unions.

    Robert Halfon, the chairman of the education committee warned that it would have a “significant impact on children’s well-being”. He pointed out that Will Quince, the children’s minister, had told MPs only in December that there was “very limited evidence as to the efficacy of masks in educational settings”. ”

    Sits back, opens popcorn and twiddles thumbs.

    1. 343433+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Anne,
      The masks of today are the stepping stones of the burka of tomorrow.

    1. Does the individual’s ability to construction a coherent sentence go as payment with getting a twitter account?

      1. 343433+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        May one ask, if in broken
        English you go makum fetch bring fireman the tower block was burning down would you be inclined to accept his comment before your bum melted ?

        ent ?

    2. So they are bringing compliant people in from India to replace unvaccinated Britons?
      Our government really hates us, don’t they.

      1. 343433+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2, being a long term so far right, knuckle dragging UKIP as was, fruitcake member , we have known this for years.
        the imbeciles in the electorate only regard blacklegs as a blm ID.

        WE are truly on a war footing and the sane element are taking casualties injuries / death
        inflicted on them by, in the main, foreign political bodies.

  56. I think I heard rumours about this before Christmas.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/guardian-pulls-poll-after-jk-rowling-wins

    “Guardian pulls poll after JK Rowling wins

    Oh dear. There seems to be something of an ongoing campaign against JK Rowling at the moment. The Harry Potter writer has dared to continue speaking out about her views on sex and gender in recent months, earning the ire of the Twitter commentariat in the process.

    First, her credit was downsized to being barely visible in the trailer for the forthcoming Fantastic Beasts sequel. And now the Guardian has pulled entries to its online ‘Person of the Year’ competition after Rowling proved to be the runaway favourite from supporters writing in to nominate her name. Whoops!

    The newspaper launched its poll on 15 December in an article about Time magazine’s decision to award Elon Musk the title of ‘person of the year.’ At the end of the article was a poll, asking readers ‘Who would be your 2021 person of the year, and why?’ Responses flooded in, with Rowling quickly taking the top spot.

    But then the Guardian mysteriously closed all entries, deactivating its submission form without any reason or explanation. Could it be because right-on hacks wanted to be spared the embarrassment of recognising Britain’s most famous living writer? Graun hacks themselves have strong views on this issue – as Mr S has reported previously in 2021.

    Disapparation isn’t just confined to Hogsmeade it seems.”

    1. There was also a full-page piece in yesterday’s DT about her being a “National Treasure”.

    2. Nice to see the strong support for Rowling among the youngsters who starred in the films and have made pots of money from her work – oh, wait…

    3. They should do what TV companies do with public voting for their contests: fiddle the results.

    4. BTL:

      Owen_Morgan • 4 hours ago
      The Guardian adopts the tactics of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin – what a surprise. In 1934, at the communist party congress, Sergei Kirov won more votes, in the election to the Central Committee, than Stalin did. Details of the precise voting numbers were suppressed and Stalin was declared the winner. Before the year was out, Kirov was dead, assassinated in his office on the 1st of December.

      Lucky for JK Rowling that she can afford security and that, despite its tradition of employing KGB assets, the Guardian lacks a paramilitary wing.

      Barry Paterson Owen_Morgan • 4 hours ago
      Although they have 3 training wings: ER, BLM and LGBT+Qxyz.

      1. To give him his birth name: Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili.
        Surely the socialist paradise that Lenin and he created wasn’t prejudiced against Georgians? I thought racism was the vice of white capitalists?

    1. It’s not what they tell us, it’s what they don’t say that tells us all we need to know. If these vile crimes were being committed by ethnic British men, we’d be informed in no uncertain terms.

      1. Revoke the Race Relations Act and give white people back,The Right to Freedom of Speech and Opinion…..
        Without Fear or Favour.

    2. It’s funny, the police capture statistics on everything possible. Now to avoid the most obvious one is snark inducing. Look, accept the problem. Confront it. Acknowledge it and then deal with it. Stop pandering to the Pakistani muslim rapist paedophiles.

  62. ‘Tidal wave’ of new solar farms will ruin the countryside, say campaigners
    Plans for a plant in Oxfordshire have sparked fears of a ‘massive industrialisation’ of rural areas

    Countryside campaigners have warned that swathes of rural southern England face being ruined by “massive industrialisation” if plans for one of the country’s largest solar farms are given the go-ahead.

    I have added, in Best Beloved’s name, the following BTL comment:

    ENSO is one of those wishing to despoil this area of Mid-Suffolk, together with EDF and StatKraft, they plan to cover some 500 acres of crop-producing arable land with solar panels and they try to call them ‘Solar Farms’, grow grass under them and allow sheep to graze.

    The truth is that they prevent grass from growing under them (lack of sunlight) compact the soil, causing rainwater run-off onto nearby single-track roads and it would be the last place any sane sheep-farmer would put his flock to starve.

    At the same time, while we import 39% of our food, they will prevent real farming from growing wheat, sugar beet, turnips and parsnips and the oil-seed rape oil so beloved of the greenies.

    This says nothing of the Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) required to hold, charge and discharge the power, to the nearest sub-station from containers, stuffed full of Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries that are well-known to overheat, self-combust and cause fires that the local fire brigades find difficult if not well-nigh impossible to put out, because of the thousands of gallons of water required and there is no mention of the noxious gases given off, requiring the evacuation of many households in the stricken area.

    We, at CARE Suffolk are working with the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) to object vigorously to Mid-Suffolk and Babergh Planning Committee in order to reject these proposals.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/02/tidal-wave-new-solar-farms-will-ruin-countryside-say-campaigners/

    2. BTL comments suggest that once the panels are installed, the land can be designated industrial and is ripe for future redevelopment of a more profitable kind.

    3. Something else our political classes and civil service have no real concept of and will soon eff up. Hundreds of Thousands of tons of concrete holding up thousands of wind turbines is not green in any stretch of the imagination. Nor is building thousands of new homes for thousands of immigrants on green belt land. Something they have already Effed up.

        1. Kris Kristofferson. I laughed at the spoof (whence Plastic Chicken);

          Hello, hello, this is Plastic Chicken, go off?

          That’s “come on” – what’s your load, Plastic Chicken?

          Er, well it would have been quick-drying cement, but the rain got in – do you know anybody who wants to buy a three-ton brick?

  64. I see a new variant . . . its name is Rho and it has no symptoms whatsoever
    Rod Liddle
    Sunday January 02 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    I see that French charlatan Michel de Nostredame has been touting his predictions for 2022. It’s the usual stuff — world war, asteroid attack, global warming, swarms of locusts. I’m surprised people still take any notice of him after 465 years of the same old alarmist guff.

    Mind you, this time round he does predict an invasion of France, apparently. What a shame, then, that, because of supposedly anti-Covid (but really anti-English) Macronisms, Brits will be not allowed into the country to bail the French out as per usual. Well, you made your lit, Emmanuel. I wonder who will invade. Liechtenstein is my bet — Paris by Easter, you gallant, dwarfish, Alpine menschen!

    Meanwhile, for those of you who have learnt not to place very much trust in Nostradamus but still wish for some guidance as to what lies in store, let me point you in the direction of Old Mother Liddle’s Les Prophéties — mercifully not constructed in poetic quatrains.

    January
    On the first day of the new year many people report the symptoms of a mysterious new ailment: headache, lethargy, nausea, inability to tolerate the jabbering of children. Sage pronounces this a new, extremely dangerous variant of Covid and demands the closure of the entire country. After a virtual summit meeting with Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden says: “This time I rilly laid down the law to, uh, that Russian man. Let him know what would happen if he mussed with that other country, the one near Russia.”

    February
    Speaking from a balcony in Kiev, President Putin announces the total success of the Red Army’s campaign to liberate the Ukraine from “fascism”. Western leaders pronounce themselves “really cross” and the EU announces plans to convene in June to formulate sanctions. Lithuanians are said by a Times correspondent to be “looking a bit nervous”. So are the Taiwanese. The England cricket team leave Heathrow, “raring to go” in their next Test series.

    March
    JK Rowling’s publisher announces that her name will no longer adorn the cover of Harry Potter books. Instead each volume will bear the names of iconic transgender people, including that bloke who wins all those swimming races against women. A valiant fightback on day two ensures that England narrowly avoid following on in the first Test against the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Sage announces the discovery of another new variant of Covid, which it calls Rho. “This is the most dangerous we have yet faced,” an ashen Susan Michie tells the press. “It is almost impossible to detect as it has no symptoms whatsoever.”

    April
    Russian tanks are moving towards the Lithuanian border. The new foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announces that the UK will “stand behind our Lithuanian allies”. Lithuanians wearily start packing up their stuff. Antivaxers march on Downing Street to protest that a disproportionate number of their kind have died in the past two years, claiming “medical discrimination”. Students at the universities of Durham, Oxford and Edinburgh pronounce the act of learning things to be “discredited performative fascism” and insist that they should no longer be required to “collaborate”. Emmanuel Macron loses his presidency and is last seen hunched in a ball, rocking backwards and forwards, screaming things about “feesh”.

    May
    The British public is shocked by a new investigation which reveals that Boris Johnson “told the truth” several times during 2021 — though “he may not have known that he was doing so”. The newly formed Association of Red Wall Voters (ARWV), largely elderly men with no teeth on mobility scooters, announces it has lost confidence in the PM. President Putin makes his first address since the victory seated in the Palace of the Grand Dukes in Vilnius, smirking and stroking a white cat.

    June
    The entire UK population now has the Rho variant. Scotland and Wales are under permanent lockdown. Asked what the point of this is, Wales’s first minister, Mark “Charisma” Drakeford, says: “Better safe than sorry.” The EU announces its stringent new sanctions against Russia, which include a complete ban on the export of chives, all joke shop products, including clown shoes and false plastic breasts, and Cherry Menthol Tunes. “Let’s see how they get through the winter without Tunes,” a defiant EU spokesman gloats.

    July
    The England cricket team’s Test series against Taiwan, in which they are 3-0 down, is interrupted by a sudden Chinese invasion. The England team are imprisoned, to a marked lack of outrage back in the UK. In a New York court Prince Andrew’s attempts to convince the jury that he “never sweats” are jeopardised when he sees the Duchess of York sitting in the public gallery with a come-hither look on her face.

    August
    In the UK seven Extinction Rebellion protesters glue themselves to Grant Shapps and later file charges that he touched them inappropriately while they were so appended. An opinion poll reveals that 62 per cent of people could correctly identify a photograph of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, the sample group comprising entirely members of his own family. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, announces the successful trial of the feared Bai Yun hypersonic missile system, which has the ability to flatten New York by depositing upon it thousands of rotting pandas.

    September
    Joe Biden returns from his first face-to-face summit with Vladimir Putin, in the newly liberated Riga, with what his spokesmen describe as a “healthy glow”. Estonians can be seen paddling in small boats across the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki. There is jubilation when researchers at Oxford develop a vaccine that protects people from contracting an entirely symptomless disease.

    October
    Russian tanks roll into Tbilisi. Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson denounce the Harry Potter films for “racist, transphobic and disablist messages” and apologise for having taken part in them. “Almost everyone at Hogwarts was white, and there were no disabled access ramps anywhere,” an emotional Watson explains.

    November
    The England football team arrive in Doha for the World Cup. Their first game is played in a stadium in which hundreds of slave workers lost their lives, against a backdrop of gay people being lashed. “We have to respect the indigenous culture,” Gareth Southgate explains, while insisting that his players will continue to take the knee. The successful rollout of the Oxford vaccine against nothing whatsoever leads Nicola Sturgeon to announce that vaccinated Scottish people can henceforth meet other vaccinated Scottish people, but only singly, masked, up a mountain.

    December
    As Yerevan falls, Joe Biden — glowing like a Belisha beacon while standing in the ruins of New York, with bits of panda all over his suit — announces that the fight against totalitarian aggression continues unabated. The EU broadens its sanctions against Russia by adding raffia baskets to the list of embargoed products. In the UK, Christmas comes and goes amid a certain feeling of gloom, as the MiGs streak overhead.

    Hogmanay celebrations move to England

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F538681b6-6b03-11ec-bb37-1b2eed73c283.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1010

    2. Rod is an optimist. He predicts that Biden will still be POTUS next December. Actually, I agree with Rod, even if he is dead, Biden will remain POTUS. He will be embalmed and rolled out when occasion demands: who would be able to tell the difference?

      1. The Brezhnev Audience.
        Dashed clever, those Ivans – when it comes to science, the west can’t hold a candle to them; cremating small dogs in space, starving the bourgeoisie to death, realistic embalming methods for aged pols ….

  65. A Sunday Special here from Independence Daily……

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-ongoing-betrayal-sunday-2nd-january-2021-a-new-year-sunday-special/

    I was going to put my feet up today as it’s Sunday,
    not just an ordinary Sunday but the very first one in the New Year.
    However – needs must. There were some reports in today’s Sunday
    broadsheets which are just too delicious to pass up.

    First off, there’s a true gem of the species
    ‘scare the pants off the peasants’, published in the DT. The author is
    Paul Nuki, the ‘global health security editor’ of that paper. Looking at
    his brief wiki entry one notes with amazement that he’s got no
    education in science whatsoever – but he once was “the founding chief editor of NHS Choices, the web portal of the UK National Health Service” (link). Ah. Any suspicions that this is why he’s the lockdown promoter in chief at the DT are of course totally uncalled for!

      1. Well, that’s odd! There were no comments allowed last night, then they opened it and now it’s closed again! Very strange, eh?

      2. Paul Nuki is a senior British journalist and editor. He is currently Global Health Security Editor at The Telegraph newspaper, London.[1]

        In previous posts, Nuki was Focus editor, deputy news editor,
        money editor, personal finance editor, consumer affairs editor, deputy
        Insight editor and reporter at The Sunday Times, which he joined in 1993. In May 2007, he left The Sunday Times to become the founding chief editor of NHS Choices, the web portal of the UK National Health Service.[2] He was also co-founder and CEO of Stepjockey, a London-based digital health business that promotes stair use.[3]

    3. Yo Nd

      ‘scare the pants off the peasants’

      Looking at his briefs

      Above statements are below the belt

  66. Afternoon, all. It’s time to STOP testing and go back to using common sense about colds and ‘flu.

    1. It won help.

      Our lot have run out of test kits and are restricting their use. Even though they cannot test, they still announce ever increasing numbers of infections every day.

        1. They must be. Maybe they have hospitalization and ICU numbers but there is no way they can be getting real infection counts.

          1. They are just guessing them here, too, as LFT tests ran out days ago. Whatever figure they come up with, apparently real infection numbers are at least 10 times that.

  67. Just in from an hour and a half in the garden pottering about. Very agreeable, Raining very shortly. Fine day tomorrow for our outing to Wivno. Then it turns cold. But – also – sunny. Allegedly.

    1. The fear of a Labour Government has diminished in the last 2 years because JC has gone, hence the bogeyman factor has gone as well. Secondly people are starting to feel they have a Labour Government in all but name now so why not give Johnson a kick at the ballot box.

      1. There isn’t apparently any difference between today’s so-called “Conservatives” and Labour; same ineptitude, same dislike of the country and desire to wipe out the indigenous culture, same fiscal incompetence, same high tax, waste and spend, big state policies, same “hate crime” legislation – plus we got gay “marriage” thanks to the Loon Cameron. Rather like vegan bacon – might as well have the real thing.

        1. Don’t forget eco-freakery, bans on everything sensible – © Carrion – who not only pulls BPAPM’s strings, but appears to be an important part of government. It would not surprise me to find she attends Cabinet meetings – to see that her policies are implemented. (This is a serious comment).

          2. Quite. My very point. Her obvious influence as an un-elected hanger-on (and the way her coterie of like minded pals have infiltrated No 10) is dire for the country.

            I cannot think of any spouse of any PM who has taken such a front seat in policy-making and its implementation.

        2. Exactly my point and that is what we will end up with because of Johnson and his “Conservative” Government. How many points is Sir Cur leading by now, and that is before the consequences of net zero hits home.

          1. I fear a huge swing to the even worse Limp Dumbs – whose policies for years of austerity and shortages outstrip Con/Lab.

          2. I am starting to think a period of severe suffering is the only way the to show voters exactly what the Lumps and Lab would bring them.
            A period out of power may be what is needed for the Conservatives to become conservative minded again.
            A pity that those who already know would suffer the consequences as well.

  70. Two years on since Brexit Day, so many hopes are yet to be realised
    2022 will be critical for the next stage of Britain’s journey as an independent nation

    Nigel Farage : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/02/two-years-since-brexit-day-many-hopes-yet-realised/

    In my view Nigel Farage should have the honesty and the humility to admit that he let Johnson off the hook at the time of the general election and that this allowed Johnson to backtrack because he never believed passionately in Brexit as Nigel Farage did and does.

    The Buffoon is no more than a opportunist who saw at the time of the referendum that with no other committed Brexiters in the Conservative Party this gave him an opening. Since then, if Johnson had truly believed in Brexit he would have worked with Farage rather than against him

    BTL

    Nigel Farage made one crucial mistake: he did not hold his nerve at the general election and withdrew Brexit Party candidates from Conservative held seats. Not only did he get no quid-pro-quo from Johnson but this let many Conservative remainers back into Parliament.

    The Brexit we have is a mess – look at the presence of the ECJ in our affairs and the ECHR; and look at the shameful Northern Ireland Protocol the existence of which allows the EU to pour scorn and contempt upon us. And every time Johnson gives even more ground on fishing to France Macron just sneers at him and demands even more.

    1. Main stream politicians can’t be seen to be cosying up to Nigel Farage because they and the MSM have tainted him as a bigot, racist and extreme right wing. None of which are true, but that’s the way politicians act in survival mode. Ukip’s 2015 General Election manifesto was an excellent one.

  72. https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/the-uk-new-normal-dictatorship

    Disquieting long read here about what’s in store for us.

    The UK Government has used the claimed Covid-19 crisis (or pseudopandemic)
    to quietly establish all necessary components for a UK dictatorship.
    The construction phase is nearing completion and, unless the people
    engage in mass non-compliance and petition their representatives to stop it, the UK dictatorship will be in full force soon.

    The Global Governance Dictatorship

    A dictionary definition of “dictatorship” is:

    Government by a dictator […] A country governed by a dictator […] Absolute authority in any sphere.

    1. 343433+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      As Mr Kelly was condemned by the political fraternity, supporters / voters of the close shop, so are these Isles.

      You hold a current
      lab/lib/con membership
      card then you condone their actions.

    2. We would have to go back to the Tudors – possibly even the Wars of the Roses – to find this country so degraded and corrupt.

  76. Petition to strip Sir Tony Blair of knighthood surpasses 200,000 signatures. Rachel Wearmouth – 8h ago

    A petition to strip Sir Tony Blair of the knighthood given to him by the Queen in the New Year honours list has reached over 128,000 signatures.

    Of course I would like it to succeed but I know how the system works! To reverse the decision would encourage the Hoi-polloi to think that their opinions mattered!

    Petition to strip Sir Tony Blair of knighthood surpasses 200,000 signatures (msn.com)

    1. Evening Minty.
      Over 267,000 at 6:35p.m..
      This must be one of the fastest building petitions, all in under 48 hours.

  77. That’s me for today. Very nice one was had by all hereabouts. The cats love a mild, sunny day and were up and outdoors from 5 am until 1 pm when they came in for food and their siesta. Dear little chaps!

    Tomorrow to Wivno. Then the big freeze – ie: normal, chilly winter weather with a risk of a touch of frost. Expect endless warnings from the Wet (sic) Office about the risks and dangers of leaving your house… A couple of frosts give the garden a treat.

    Have a jolly evening. (If you want a miserable one – try watching ‘The Lost Daughter’ on Netflix…endless gloom and doom enlivened by a great deal of gloom. And Olivia Colperson making much play of her gloom-laden face…)

    A demain.

  79. By his friends shall ye know him.
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/prince-andrew-lose-title-sex-abuse-lawsuit-b974611.html
    Prince Andrew could be stripped of his Duke of York title if he loses a sex abuse lawsuit brought by a victim of Jeffrey Epstein.
    The duke is being sued by Virginia Giuffre for allegedly sexually assaulting her three times when she was a teenager. He strongly denies the allegations. Last week Andrew’s close friend Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, was convicted of sex trafficking and recruiting young girls for the disgraced financier. She faces decades behind bars. According to the Sunday Times, royal courtiers have discussed what to do about Andrew if he loses the case.
    One measure is to ask him to stop using his title, while another would be to force him give up his remaining links to charities.
    He would also be asked to scale back his housing and would no longer be able to travel internationally due to the risk of extradition.
    A palace insider said: “If he loses the case, the question is: what do you do with him?
    “You can’t make him resign like you would a normal person but he would be asked to put his dukedom into abeyance.
    “Andrew is still patron of a heck of a lot of charities and they would have to go as well. He couldn’t go abroad because of the risk of extradition so there would have to be a form of internal exile. He would need to scale back on his housing.”
    A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “This is speculation and the comments are without foundation. We would not comment on an ongoing legal matter.”
    On Saturday, Prince Andrew suffered another legal blow after a US judge denied a motion from his lawyers to halt proceedings in the lawsuit while an issue of where his accuser lives is dealt with.
    Earlier this week Andrew’s lawyers had called for the case against the royal in the US to be stopped because Ms Giuffre is “actually domiciled in Australia”.
    Judge Lewis Kaplan, in a ruling in New York dated December 31, denied Andrew’s lawyers’ request, stating that Ms Giuffre’s legal team has previously received “at least one comprehensive request for documents relating to her domicile, to which responses are due, and have been promised, by January 14”.
    The judge added that his ruling was being made “without determining the merit, or lack of merit” of an assertion by Ms Giuffre’s team that Andrew’s lawyers’ motion was “a transparent attempt to delay discovery into his own documents and testimony”.
    Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew, and was pictured with the royal and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell during the period the alleged intercourse took place.
    Ms Giuffre has alleged in the past she had sex with Andrew in London and New York when she was aged 17, a minor under US law, and again aged 18 on a private Caribbean island owned by Epstein where an orgy took place.
    Andrew has denied all the allegations.
    Oral arguments via a video teleconference on the prince’s request to dismiss the case are scheduled for Monday in the US, the Associated Press reported.
    Maxwell, 60, was convicted in the US on Wednesday of helping to entice vulnerable teenagers to the properties of Epstein, her former boyfriend, for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.
    She was labelled “dangerous” by the prosecution and faces the rest of her life in jail.
    Her friendship with Andrew has seen renewed scrutiny of Ms Giuffre’s civil claim for damages against the duke.
    Andrew was photographed, for the first time since Maxwell’s conviction, driving himself in a Range Rover towards Windsor Castle at lunchtime on Friday.

    1. “She was labelled “dangerous” by the prosecution and faces the rest of her life in jail.” – so, until about Easter, then. Arkincide…

    2. I don’t understand this ‘sex trafficking’ claim. Normally, sex trafficked victims are locked up so they can’t escape, yet Ms Giuffre apparently kept going back repeatedly on her own volition. Isn’t that more the actions of a prostitute?

          1. Yes, thank you. The verdict is irritable bowel syndrome, as the blood tests were “pristine” and the x-ray showed nothing wrong with my tummy. The doctor actually said that if the tummy pain reoccurs, try a laxative! I’ve been miserable, dizzy and in extreme pain but there isn’t a physical explanation. I do at least know that I’m not infectious, as that would have shown up on “the bloods”.

          6. If I can butt in Sue and maybe help – for nearly 30 years I had what many doctors said was IBS, all sorts of remedies and potions were prescribed without any improvement. Then I saw a piece on line from a lady who had the same symptoms and she had gone gluten free. I was willing to try anything so cut out gluten – within a couple of days all symptoms had disappeared and have never returned. I can eat almost anything now without wondering where the nearest bog is and it was my conversion to, in particular, gluten free bread which I make myself. Maybe worth a try you may be gluten intolerant

          7. A neighbour who’s had similar problems has given me a gluten free loaf. I’ll give it a try. I’ve a cousin who has celiac disease and always has gluten free but I thought I could eat anything!

          8. I found the same when I started low-carbing. I didn’t even know it might be beneficial for IBS at the time; just realised after a week or so that I had had no more attacks.

          9. Sixty-one years ago, Sue, the night before a Uni exam, I had a ‘tummy bug’; my local landlord prescribed ‘port & brandy’ – on the house – it worked a treat!

        3. Absolutely, Sue! It has been said that her father set her up!
          How are you feeling p?

        4. Absolutely, Sue! It has been said that her father set her up!
          How are you feeling p?

        1. What they are playing at, and have been all along, is playing us for fools. I said to MH tonight- you can see what the TV stations think of the general public by all the dross they show on TV. They think nobody has a brain and we must be treated like small children.
          And, to some extent, they have been proven right as so many have followed all the diktats slavishly and all this unnecessary testing gives further emphasis to the stupidity of so many.
          I do think that the govt and whoever is giving it its orders, are trying to destroy our country, our culture and our heritage. Sod the bloody lot of them!

          1. We have been isolated by virtue of a false Brexit , we are now being manoevered into a position where we are being outflanked by foreign influences ..

            Our manufacturing base , retail , infrastructure , fishing , power, water etc etc have been acquired by God knows who and soon we will have nothing left ..

            We have a Globalist minded Indian chancellor, our capital city has a slum dog millionaire Mayor, and virtually every city in Britain has golliwog type in charge . There are tower blocks of foreigners who breed and breed , goodness how much they are costing the country in benefits .

            Our newspapers are full of murders, knife crime and fraud, and the foreign b######ds who are grooming and raping young girls have turned this green and pleasant land into a type of Sodom and Gomorrah .

            We are being culturally erased very quickly .

            I feel very depressed , there is no one batting for us . My parents will be turning in their graves .

          4. Just been reading about them tonight. It wasn’t a hit and run, as portrayed in the film, apparently. N was carried into the guardroom and identified there.

  82. Trans prisoners ‘switch gender again’ once freed from women’s units
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-prisoners-switch-gender-again-once-freed-from-womens-units-qjjsd0nlx
    Female prisoners in Scottish jails have told how transgender inmates serving sentences alongside them switched back to their male birth gender after being released. The disclosure — in a study published in the British Journal of Criminology — has raised fresh concerns about self-identification of gender posing a risk to women’s safety as first minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to press ahead with gender recognition legislation this year.
    Well, colour me surprised! Cons run rings round the intelligentsia… who’d a thunk it?

    1. If they want to be transferred to a female prison, the answer is simple – remove their wedding tackle.

      1. I am sure, that there some ladies of a certain mindset, who would be pleased to accept the tackle, by transplant

    3. Bloody asking to happen. Seems to me that everyone in any position of so called authority nowadays has to qualify as an imbecile first.

    4. And as usual, mainly working class women suffer, but what is a few women being raped compared to the opportunity to virtue signal about how woke we are?

        1. Yo Ol

          My feeling exactly.

          Perhaps, thoughts, rather than ‘feelings’ would be more aptesterer

    5. Convicted criminals are generally dishonest, often uneducated, but rarely completely stupid.
      For example, if someone claims to be a drug addict, there are perks available.
      As for pretending to be a portable radio in order to get access to females, it´s clearly worth a try. And after release it´s a lady´s prerogative to change its mind.

  83. Trans prisoners ‘switch gender again’ once freed from women’s units
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-prisoners-switch-gender-again-once-freed-from-womens-units-qjjsd0nlx
    Female prisoners in Scottish jails have told how transgender inmates serving sentences alongside them switched back to their male birth gender after being released. The disclosure — in a study published in the British Journal of Criminology — has raised fresh concerns about self-identification of gender posing a risk to women’s safety as first minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to press ahead with gender recognition legislation this year.
    Well, colour me surprised! Cons run rings round the intelligentsia… who’d a thunk it?

  86. Sod it!
    Catching up with comments and got White Screened when I upvoted someone.
    So that’s me off to bed.

    A fairly productive day. Took the sack barrow over the road to the ruined forge that was used as a dump by a long defunct building company and made a start on dragging some of the usable concrete blocks over and getting them up the “qarden” for the lower terrace wall.
    Also grabbed a lovely lump of dressed basalt that will fit quite nicely into the random stone facing. If the weather holds tomorrow I might use up the last of the sand I have to do a mortar mix to get a bloody great limestone slab cemented into place as part of the facing.
    Must remember to take camera up and take some photos for stop Bill from whinging.

  88. Ye gods- go on You Tube and watch Michael MacIntire Fortune Teller, full sketch. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  89. In 2018, and for the first time, we imported more doctors than we trained. In 2019, this figure rose to 60%. This year, it is set to climb still higher.

    Meanwhile tens of thousands of students with the required A-level grades and aptitude have failed to gain entry to our medical schools because places are strictly limited by cost.

    The UK cannot continue to import an ever-increasing number of doctors from low-income nations to plug manpower gaps in the NHS.

    Poaching foreign doctors is both immoral and unethical, as they are desperately needed in their own countries to provide essential services. It is also against a WHO code of practice which states that that “member countries should discourage active recruitment of health professionals from developing countries facing a critical shortage of health workers”. For context, it is estimated that India has a shortage of 600,000 doctors and Pakistan a shortage of 200,000 doctors.

    What’s more, though it goes without saying that some foreign trained doctors are among the best, it is rarely asked if this recruitment pattern is in the best interests of the NHS.

    The majority of doctors who qualify abroad must pass the General Medical Council’s Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board exam (PLAB) in order to register with the GMC. But this exam is far from perfect. It tests only communication and history-taking skills. There is no proper, structured clinical exam, and no interaction with an examiner. In short, it is little more than a box ticking exercise. Research from two UK academic departments of medical education published in the British Medical Journal in 2014 concluded that the pass mark in PLAB needed to be raised by 30% to reach equivalence with British graduates. Yet the pass rate did not change, and recruitment of doctors from abroad has more than doubled since 2016. Regrettably, this means it is likely that doctors with sub par knowledge and skills are slipping through the gaps.

    Another concern, confirmed by GMC data in 2019, is that 70% of PLAB graduates are between 30 and 49 years of age and 3% are over 50 years. Not only will they spend less time working for the NHS than British graduates, but most are too old to begin training in hospital specialities which take at least six post-graduate years.

    The UK needs to double the number of medical school places as a matter of urgency. We have made a start: in 2018, Jeremy Hunt, then Secretary of State for Health announced five new medical schools which will graduate a total of 1,500 doctors annually from 2023/24. And last year, the number of medical school places was expanded to 9,000 (although this was mostly due to grade inflation and some candidates were asked to defer their place due to insufficient teaching slots).

    The Covid pandemic has thrown the UK’s lack of doctors into sharp relief. But that does not give us the right to poach doctors from low-income countries. We have a moral obligation to limit and stop this practice and turn our minds instead to nurturing home-grown talent.

    J Meirion Thomas is a consultant surgeon

    Related Topics https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/02/have-become-reliant-foreign-doctors/

    1. Setting up a new medical school, training the trainers and then running a batch of intelligent motivated youngsters through to their being able to practice medicine will take so long that we will not see any benefit in the polls at the next election.

      So the powers will not even consider the right thing to do.

      1. That is precisely why it took 40+years to address the retirement age/longevity issue.

    2. British Universities have invested heavily in teaching facilities abroad.

      Bristol University has strong links with Malaysia and other major universities in the UK have similar links with foreign countries.

      Edit: The government of Malaysia believe that it will be less expensive for them to have their own teaching hospitals, on the British model, than to remain obliged to import expertise from Western Countries.

    3. I hate the modern climate where the only possible protest is by virtue signalling. Many foreign doctors have no idea about our culture, and no sympathy for it either. Worse, they are racist and lose no opportunity to put white people down. But nobody dares say it in public.

      When a doctor’s mistake killed my mother, the only doctor who told me that a mistake had been made was the only white British doctor on the team. All the others were more concerned with trying to find out whether anyone in the family was a lawyer. My older brother was also killed by a foreign doctor’s mistake. How many British people are being killed by foreign NHS staff?

  90. A late night ‘joke’ that I found when I trawled through my old e-mails

    The following is purported to be an exchange of correspondence between a customer and the Irish Railway
    Company (Iarnród Éireann).

    Gentlemen,
    I have been riding your trains daily for the last two years, and the service on your line seems to be getting
    worse every day. I am tired of standing in the aisle all the time on a 14-mile trip. I think the transportation
    system is worse than that enjoyed by people 2,000 years ago.

    Yours truly,
    Patrick Finnegan
    ——————————–

    Dear Mr. Finnegan,

    We received your letter with reference to the shortcomings of our service and believe you are somewhat confused in
    your history. The only mode of transportation 2,000 years ago was by foot.

    Sincerely,
    Irish Railway Company
    ———————————–

    Gentlemen,

    I am in receipt of your letter, and indeed I think you are the ones who are confused in your history.
    If you will refer to the Bible and the Book of David, 9th Chapter, you will find that
    Balaam rode to town on his ass.
    That, Gentlemen, is something I have not been able to do on your train in the last two years!

    Yours feckin’ truly,
    Patrick Finnegan.

  91. A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, ‘Father, I have a problem.

    I have two female parrots,

    But they only know to say one thing.’

    ‘What do they say?’ the priest asked.

    They say, ‘Hi, we’re hookers! Do you want to have some fun?’

    ‘That’s obscene!’ the priest exclaimed,

    Then he thought for a moment…..

    ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male
    talking parrots, which I have taught to pray and read the Bible…

    Bring your two parrots over to my house, and we’ll put them in the cage with Francis and Peter.

    My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship,
    And your parrots are sure to stop saying… That phrase… In no time.’

    ‘Thank you,’ the woman responded, ‘this may very well be the solution.’

    The next day, She brought her female parrots to the priest’s house….

    As he ushered her in, She saw that his two male parrots
    Were inside their cage holding rosary beads and praying…

    Impressed, She walked over and placed her parrots in with them…

    After a few minutes, The female parrots cried out in unison:

    Hi, we’re hookers! Do you want to have some fun?’

    There was stunned silence…

    Shocked, One male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and says,

    ‘Put the beads away, Frank, Our prayers have been answered!

  92. Zen sayings

    1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me for the path is narrow. In
    fact, just piss off and leave me alone.

    2. Sex is like air. It’s not that important unless you aren’t getting any.

    3. No one is listening until you fart.

    4. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else..

    5. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

    6. If you think nobody cares whether you’re alive or dead, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

    7. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away
    and you have their shoes.

    8. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

    9. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

    10. If you lend someone £20 and never see that person again, it was probably well worth it.

    11. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

    12. Some days you are the fly; some days you are the windscreen

    13. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

    14. Good judgment comes from bad experience ….. and most of that comes from bad judgment.

    15. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

    16. There are two excellent theories for arguing with women. Neither one works.

    17. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

    18. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

    19. We are born naked, wet and hungry, and get slapped on our arse … then things just keep getting worse.

    20. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

  94. More than half of UK’s black children live in poverty, analysis shows
    Exclusive: Labour party research also finds black children at least twice as likely to grow up poor as white children

    A black child’s hand held up in a school class
    Labour’s analysis shows the number of black children in poor households has more than doubled in 10 years. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Alamy
    Andrew Sparrow
    @AndrewSparrow
    Sun 2 Jan 2022 22.00 GMT
    More than half of black children in the UK are now growing up in poverty, a new analysis of official data has revealed.

    Black children are also now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children, according to the Labour party research, which was based on government figures for households that have a “relative low income” – defined as being below 60% of the median, the standard definition for poverty.

    And over the last decade the total number of black children in poor households more than doubled – although that increase is partly explained by the overall size of the cohort increasing too. The proportion of black children living in poverty went up from 42% in 2010-11 to 53% in 2019-20, the most recent year for which the data is available.

    The figures were released to the Guardian by the Labour party, which described them as evidence of “Conservative incompetence and denialism about the existence of structural racism”.

    Latest figures estimate about 14.5 million people in the UK are in relative poverty after housing costs (22%), including about 4.3 million children
    Ministers have no clear plan to tackle child poverty, say cross-party MPs
    Read more
    The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has already committed the party to passing a new race equality act, if elected, to tackle structural racism. Further details of what this would entail are expected to be fleshed out in 2022.

    The party produced its figures by cross-referencing data from the Department for Work and Pensions’ reports on households below average income with population statistics.

    In 2019-20 4.3 million children (defined as people under 16, or aged 16 to 19 and in full-time education) were living in households in poverty. They accounted for 31% of the UK’s 14 million children.

    But there was a wide variation among ethnic groups. The Labour research covered nine categories and it said Bangladeshi children are the poorest, with 61% of them living in a poor household.

    The figures for the other groups were: Pakistani children (55%); black African or Caribbean or black British (53%); other ethnicity (51%); other Asian (50%); mixed ethnicity (32%); Indian (27%); white (26%); and Chinese (12%).

    There are 2.9 million white children living in poverty, making them by far the largest ethnic cohort, comprising 68% of all children living in poverty. Black children are the next biggest group: with more than 400,000 living in poverty, they comprise 10% of the child poverty total.

    The Labour figures show that, among some ethnic groups, children are just as likely now to be living in poverty as they were a decade ago. In 2010-11, 61% of Bangladeshi children were living in poor households – exactly the same figure as at the end of the decade.

    For Indian children, the chances of living in a poor household have fallen from 34% a decade ago to 27%. For Chinese children, the figure has fallen from 47% to 12%.

    But for white children, the figure has risen from 24% to 26%; for Pakistani children, it has gone up from 50% to 55%; and for black children it has increased from 42% to 53%.

    Overall, 27% of all children were living in poor households in 2010-11; the latest figure is 31%.

    Anneliese Dodds, the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, whose office produced the figures, said the Conservatives should be ashamed of what they revealed.

    “There is little wonder that child poverty has skyrocketed over the last decade when Conservative ministers have done so little to tackle the structural inequalities driving it,” she said.

    “Conservative incompetence and denialism about the existence of structural racism are driving black children into poverty. Labour has a plan to lift them out of it, with a new race equality act to tackle structural racial inequality at source.”

    Labour announced its commitment to a race equality act as it published a review last year by Doreen Lawrence, the peer, into the disproportionate impact of Covid on minority ethnic communities.

    The party has not said exactly what its act would contain, but the Lawrence recommendations, which the party has accepted, would shape its contents.

    Although much of the Lawrence report focused on Covid-specific issues, it also said the virus had “thrived on structural inequalities that have long scarred British society”. Its recommendations included forcing large employers to publish data on ethnicity pay gaps, having clear targets to close the attainment gap for children and implementing a race equality strategy that has the support of minority ethnic communities.

    Halima Begum, chief executive at the Runnymede Trust, the race equality thinktank, said the Labour figures, although not surprising, were nevertheless “cause for considerable concern”.

    She said: “These are not cyclical inequalities that are being flagged, but systemic shortcomings that must be reversed quickly.

    “But the problems are nuanced. Black children face racism and poverty. But poverty is not defined exclusively by race. So, for more than a decade, the Runnymede Trust has argued that you can’t simply solve the issue of racial inequality without also addressing socio-economic disparities.”

    In response to Labour claims that the figures were an indictment of its record, a government spokesperson highlighted separate figures showing that in 2019-20 there were 300,000 fewer children living in absolute low income, after housing costs, than there were in 2010.

    Absolute low income is defined as below the figure for 60% of median income for 2010, adjusted for inflation. People can fall out of absolute low income if their incomes rise by more than inflation, but can remain in relative low income – the more commonly used benchmark – if other people’s incomes rise by proportionally more.

    The spokesperson said: “The latest official figures show there were 300,000 fewer children of all backgrounds in poverty after housing costs than in 2010 and we continue to provide extensive support to reduce this number further.

    “This includes putting £1,000 more per year on average into the pockets of the lowest earners through changes to universal credit, increasing the minimum wage next April to £9.50 per hour and helping with the cost of fuel bills.”

    Never mind , they will all grow up to be footballers , sad they come from feckless multibreeding mothers , oh well, that’s politics for you. Probably better to be poor in a welfare state than sheoless in the back streets of Jamaica or Lagos .

    1. Someone should send The Guardian another copy of the Sewell report. They obviously lost their first one.

    2. “…although that increase is partly explained by the overall size of the cohort increasing too”

      So even more stabbers and stabees?

    6. More than half of UK’s black children live in poverty, analysis shows
      Exclusive: Labour party research also finds black children at least twice as likely to grow up poor as white children

      About the same proportions as those appearing in TV adverts then

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