Sunday 30 March: Reeves should abolish the OBR and trust in British enterprise to revive the economy

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

540 thoughts on “Sunday 30 March: Reeves should abolish the OBR and trust in British enterprise to revive the economy”

  1. Good morning all
    Wordle 1,380 3/6

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  3. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,380 4/6

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      1. 7:53 ?
        My (non-smart) phone takes up to a day to update its clock from the network, but Windows10 is telling me the later time.

          1. There was a wonderful line in The Glums, when Pa Glum (Jimmy Edwards) said "Where's that axle grease? Ma's got her hula hoop stuck around her waist." (Good day, Herr Oberst, btw.)

          2. I remember the one where Mr. Glum wanted the black leading because Mrs Glum had run out of 'massacre'.

          3. Alma Cogan, who often sang on the Take It From Here show, always played the role of Ma Glum in the Glums Family segment.

      1. …and usually comes in a plastic tub instead of a paper or foil wrapper. Not sure that the tubs are recyclable.

    4. We used 'spreadable' for a few years but went back to proper butter about five years ago. Morrisons cheapo is fine. We leave it in a covered dish on the side in the kitchen.

    5. Agreed 100%
      We have Peak Dairies butter, locally produced in Tideswell and delivered to order by our local milkmen.

    6. I buy Finnish butter because it is the only butter available here that is not infected by the addition of a 'culture' which, to me, tastes rancid even when fresh. If butter is not made from just churned cream with the addition of a little salt I don't want it.

      I do, occasionally, make my own butter.

      1. Firstborn has restarted making his own cheese from the neighbouring farmer's unpasteurised full milk. A Caerphilly-alike, very good it is too, much demand amongst friends and colleagues. Small hiatus in production currently, due to running out of culture.

  10. NHS cancer care

    SIR – The comedian Katherine Ryan has questioned whether the NHS would have diagnosed her skin cancer (report, March 23). My experience is very different to hers.

    In the past two years, I have had three concerning mole/growth treatments. In each case my GP sent a photograph to the consultant at the local hospital dermatology department. I then saw the consultant, and this was followed by the removal of the mole/growth. Results of tests confirming whether it was malignant or not came in a follow-up letter.

    I think there is cause to have more faith in the NHS.

    Kenneth Weir

    Your GP obviously wasn't a locum. They rarely have any relationship with the local hospital or Consultants.

  11. SIR – I write to congratulate the NHS. Two Saturdays ago at 10.30, I noticed a problem with my vision. I attended the ophthalmic emergency department, was diagnosed with a retinal detachment, and was operated on at 9.30 on Sunday. My surgeon qualified in Greece, and did his postgraduate training at Moorfields Hospital in London. The operation was carried out under local anaesthetic (I was offered general, but there would have been a delay as the on-call anaesthetist was busy with an arterial case). I was even offered coffee and ginger biscuits afterwards.

    Acute medicine has advanced since my days in hospital in the 1960s, and I can only commend the eye department at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

    Although I received excellent care, there remains the difficulty of seeing a GP, and inordinate delays caused by waiting lists for non-acute surgery.

    Dr Malcolm Freeth
    Boscombe, Dorset

    I wonder if being a Doctor yourself had anything to do with your timely treatment.

    1. Round about 1960, a work colleague had a detached retina. None of us had ever heard of the condition.before then.
      He was in Moorfields for 3 weeks, most of it lying very flat and still waiting for the stitched back retina to heal.

        1. I wasn't. But then they had not fully developed the art of creative stitching.

          2. It’s something medical science is still working on, but I imagine they’ll come up with a cure for grumpy-old-manism before I am too far gone.

      2. They (including Dr. Daughter) use lasers nowadays.
        Ironically, pioneered where she is currently working, up in the Newcastle RVI.

      1. 6
        Historical term for the feudal assembly of tenants-in-chief (4,5)

        I ended up down a rabbit hole of feudal and Anglo-Saxon terms.
        Baron, Court and Witan came to mind.
        Obviously Wapentake and Scutage were wrong.

    3. A Scot went into his local and saw 4 of his friends at the far end of the bar, they were trying to complete a crossword. One of them saw him and shouted, Jimmy what's nine letters and trapped on a desert island ?
      He calls back it's Marrooned…..
      They all shout back we'll have four pints and a four chasers.

    4. It's Aula Regis – if you are stuck you can always type the clue into Google and there are a number of sites who will provide the answer (I use DanWord)

  13. Good morning Nottlers, 9°C, dry and breezy on the Costa Clyde. Should make for some interesting golf shots. I'll just focus on the bacon buttie and coffee to follow in the clubhouse.

        1. Yes! The theorbo is usually on the extreme right hand side of the Wigmore stage. I guess so that it isn’t poking anyone:-))

          1. Now you mention it, the player was almost on his own. Two brave cello players and a bassist were in his proximity.

        2. Yes! The theorbo is usually on the extreme right hand side of the Wigmore stage. I guess so that it isn’t poking anyone:-))

      2. 10/10 and a Gold Star. We got distracted trying to work out how the heck the player carried it around.

          1. Morning Bob.

            I wrote a comment in 2009 , and I believe there was genuinely good in his heart , but was naive and greedy in the end .

            That was a bad business.

  17. Good morning all,

    Was a very chilly night , dull day here , patches of blue . Birds are busy on the feeders .. and blackbirds are chasing each other around the lawn .

    Strange thing is , I fill my feeders up with seed late afternoon , and am puzzled why so early in the morning that the feeders are barely full, many are empty .. why?

    3. Rats.

      Edit: We have just had "rat trouble", hopefully recovering….. They jump up (fling themselves!) from the window sills to the feeders attached to the windows higher up. I've seen them do this when it gets dark, I've heard them thump-thump when they jump down when I go into the kitchen. We are getting the problem under control, but it has been so difficult to persuade poppiesdad to remove the bird-feeders. We have a bird restaurant out there in the garden as well as attached to the window. Fatballs, seeds of varying types are delivered in sacks. We have had the pest rat/man out and tried to deal with it ourselves. I've seen them climbing in the bushes outside the kitchen window – it seems they live in next door's compost and under the greenhouse and oil tank but they burrow under the fence to get into our garden to feed seemingly. They also burrow under our lpg tank. Next door saw them in their apple trees. In all the time we have been here we've never seen anything like it.

  18. Dear me! I got distracted!
    Good morning all!
    An almost warm 9°C outside on a bright and sunny morning.
    A decent night's sleep for a change!

    1. Good morning, it's 9oc here too and with bright sunshine.

        1. Brightens the day up but alas some clouds are forming.

      1. A passing acquaintance!
        He's a local craftsman who, ironically, builds wood-shelters and sheds!

  19. Oh well; that's a nice morning and the effects of an enjoyable concert last night well and truly dissipated.
    The Parliamentary Watchdog is a toothless mutt with bad breath at both ends.

    "A Labour MP has claimed back £900 from the taxpayer in “pet rent”.

    Taiwo Owatemi, a government whip and the MP for Coventry North West, made the expenses claim in August last year, a document published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) revealed.

    Ms Owatemi’s landlord at her second home in London issued the extra charge in order to let the MP’s dog stay at the property, according to The Times newspaper.

    Parliamentary authorities paid the expenses claim, which is not in breach of the rules governing MPs’ expenses.

    Labour defended Ms Owatemi’s expenses claim, with a party spokesman telling The Times: “MPs are required to work in two locations, and this is a requirement for living in this house."

    “It is the same for many other MPs and has been approved by the parliamentary expenses watchdog.”

    This is possibly even more gobsmacking.

    "Ipsa told The Times it agreed to fund the pet rent surcharge for Ms Owatemi, but “gave incorrect advice as to how it should be described”.

    Hint: known as telling the truth. Ooops.

    2. The landlord did not "issue" an extra charge. He IMPOSED it. Grrr (not you, Annie – The Grimes)

    3. Lord Farquard
      17h
      Dear Luftwaffe… do you still have the co-ordinates for Coventry? If not we can send them over.
      Please hurry….

  20. Morning, all Y'all.
    Raining – properly, for the first time this year. That should bring the green out in the garden!
    Lots of dust from the gravelled roads and paths to be washed away, soon the place will look lovely and fresh again!

  21. Good morning, all. Nice sunny start to the day.

    I see the real menace to British society are the Quakers. Might have known it.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bright with high broken cloud double figures later on our mother's day.
    OBR just another office spending our taxes on fantasy.
    How are the government going to compensate for all the job losses in the steel industry and the loss of local revenue in the town of Scunthorpe.

  23. My mother passed away when she was still quite young but happy mothers day to all mothers passed and those still with us .

          1. I put the longevity down to her having a sherry every evening at 5pm and never having worked
            She broke her thigh when 100 and had to come and live with us but she ended up in a care home for her last year.
            Edit – forgot to mention she didn't want me and even told everyone that even when I was looking after her

          2. My mother was 90 and she, too, had a regular sherry each day. She did work, though. She told me I wasn't planned, unlike my brother who was wanted. Make of that what you will.

          3. I definitely wasn’t planned. I had 2 sisters 10 and 12 years older than me and she was enjoying a free(ish) lifestyle when I came along at the beginning of the war which put an end to her social life.

          4. I put the longevity down to her having a sherry every evening at 5pm and never having worked
            She broke her thigh when 100 and had to come and live with us but she ended up in a care home for her last year.

        3. Wow…..mine was 90. Her eldest sister 96 lived near Brisbane.
          Younger sister 90 as well.

      2. Mine's still going at 96, but daft.
        Flowers sent to her in her care home – with a small teddy to accompany them and deliver the hugs that I'm not well located to do.

        1. My dad similar, slightly younger. No longer recognised me, but had a good time in his home. Last visit, he was dancing ballroom style with one of nurses – I had no idea he could do that!

          2. I see a lot of that when playing in the care homes – in fact the staff have to fight off the gropers.
            Not to mention the 90 year old groupies who are after my body but can't remember why!

          3. Laughed out loud, Alec…probably shouldn’t, we’re likely to end up similarly. They were all locked in their rooms at night, all doors and windows permanently locked. Dad regularly had a fist fight with one of the female residents there (she was bigger than him tbf). I would send him new clothes complete with name tag only to see someone else wearing them. The food was good – cooked on the premises. Staff told me no-one lived longer than two to three years after first living therer and all sedated to some degree otherwise bedlam. The end was a series of three injections, followed by Funeral Service staff who had to come in to collect bodies at night when other residents locked in rooms otherwise mayhem ensued. Good for you, anyhow, going in there and playing for them. I wonder if the 90 year olds were like that when younger…are the gropers men or women…..or both!

          4. Both actually Kate – even I've been groped a few times.(thankfully not by men)
            Thankfully my late wife was in a wonderful home and so well looked after

          5. Very good read about Mrs Alec 🙂 I remember corresponding with PetaJ, her husband’s previous wife had died in a nursing home (France), the comparison with England was quite something, the care sounded top class. Dementia can be difficult to deal with, possibly we live too long today.

        1. Congratulations to Ma 🙂 I wonder if she's lived a life similar to my nan who lived to similar age, never smoked, never drank alcohol, always cooked home grown food. My uncle bought her a twin tub washer, she put a doily on it she'd crocheted and a vase of plastic flowers (very proud of those, showed she was 'with it')…carried on using her old way of doing laundry..

      4. Mine was young, 66…second aneurysm, medics said first one due to smoking, artery went again later but in a different section. She carried on smoking for a few years after the first aneurysm, finally gave up after I had my second baby who was sneezing due to smoke from her cigarette.

        1. Mine was a smoker – till her last few months, whe she finally stopped. But it was an early sign of her illness, that she lost the taste for it.

          1. That’s interesting, Ndovu. I worked with a woman who always had a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. One day, didn’t come to work – died, cancer throughout her body. Quite rare to come across a smoker now, mostly vapes. To say nothing of modern diets reportedly killing us.

          2. Maybe smoking went out of fashion when it got so expensive and also the death messages on each box might have put people off.

          3. I think so. I’ve worked part time in pubs when I was younger, the early morning smell in Tap Rooms quite something. Once people stopped smoking, they realised how much their clothes smelled of smoke if they came across another smoker…aaarghhh…:-D

    2. Mine died aged 97 in Jan 2013. I used to send Mothers Day cards to her sister (who had no offspring of her own) until she too died, aged 100 in March 2020.

      2. 🤣🤣

        One of my favourites read: "Mother. If you were a flower, I would pick you!" She read it the same way I had (emphasis on the 'pick' 😈), and no-one else could understand why we were both cackling with laughter…

    4. My mother was 70, killed by the hospital thanks to MRSA. She went in for a minor operation.

  24. Chagos hottin up.

    Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Tehran would strike the Diego Garcia facility with ballistic missiles and suicide drones in retaliation for any US “hostile action against the Iranian nation” and has banned direct talks with the US, saying: “No problem will be solved by negotiating with America.”

    Big chance for Starmer to make an incoherent conflicting statement at the lectern..
    "I am determined to protect British sovereignty, our borders, our people, our way of life, our precious freedom-of-speech The base on Diego Garcia is vital to UK and US security and plays a crucial role in maintaining regional and international security.”

    1. Not so much "built" more like knocked up and cobbled from what I had available and made to fit the available space.

  27. When are pencils✏️ … and diamonds💍💎 … going to be banned?

    Their carbon content is off the scale making them a clear and present threat to the planet.

    Time for the governments of the world to take action. I can provide safe storage for them.

    1. I nearly forgot. When are living things going to be banned?

      All life is carbon-based and that is clearly the biggest threat to the planet!

      1. Can we think who might be first on the list….and those who would be almost last…..

        1. Simple. First: The sausage-Harmer. Last: All female members of NoTTLe.

          I had to say that to show no favouritism!😊

    3. I was stabbed with a pencil at school. I think they should be banned like knives and swords. It is far better to be forked!

  28. I see there are rumours that JFK Jnr has been leaned on & successfully neutralised.. politically.

  29. Good Morning Folks

    Looks sunny and breezy out there

    Had an extra hour in bed it seems, don't feel any better for it.

  30. Reeves should abolish the OBR and trust in British enterprise to revive the economy

    Is this another of Blair's legacy quangos ?

    2. The one thing they will never do is leave people alone to revive the economy without government meddling.

      1. Need Thatcher #2 for that, BB2. There are videos online of her speaking, younger people appreciate them – if today's CP and especially leader were similar, they might just possibly gain more support.

    3. Have you seen his Institute online, Bob…in it for the long haul, influencing future generations, he never went away and has no intention of ever doing so.

    5. George Osborne’s, apparently. Mind you, he is as left-wing as they come

  31. Reeves should abolish the OBR and trust in British enterprise to revive the economy

    Is this another of Blair's legacy quangos ?

  32. Reeves should abolish the OBR and trust in British enterprise to revive the economy

    Is this another of Blair's legacy quangos ?

  33. The Lucy Letby appeal rumbles on, now apparently it is claimed that the scientific statistical evidence wasn't properly gathered and presented, whether mistakenly or on purpose, the effect was to make it look like Letby was guilty.
    For some strange reason her defense never challenged it.
    So much for all those people that say follow the science, this case proves that statistical evidence can presented to prove anything with a lack of proper scrutiny.

    2. Thanks for your post, Bob – I've followed her case ever since I saw Dr David Livermore questioning her guilt. From what he said, the whole place was dysfunctional, and the babies were often fragile. With all the evidence presented by David Davis and his associates, her case should be re-opened and fully investigated, and I hope that happens pdq. Will follow with interest.

      1. From the bits I've read, the hospital was dealing with babies that it was not equipped to treat.
        Apart from things like filthy taps and leaking pipes.

        1. All of that, anne – add in staff not qualified to nurse/operate on vulnerable babies. If half of Davis report true, it should be treated as a national scandal, not shoved under the carpet. Hope situation has seen improvement. If not, yet another investigation/report/recommendations……

        2. One of the consultants moved to Australia after the Letby case, possibly the male with the sub-optimal hairstyle.
          My mistake, it looks like Dr Ravi is still in the UK.

        1. That’s true, but some of the others may have with different treatment was the outcome from Davis’report. I think it’s still online somewhere, if it’s not under the carpet.

          1. There is an article in The Sunday Grimes by Jonathan Sumption (I know he is a bit "marmite" – love him or hate him) but he suggests that (a) there ought to be a review of the scientific evidence presented by the Crown and (b) that there won't be because the courts hate interfering with the decision of a jury.

            I am summarising, of course but that is the gist.

          2. Thanks Bill, I like Sumption very much (find him easier to listen to tbh)…will look out for him:-)

        1. I doubt we’re alone, Alec:-)…Morecambe Bay been similar. My daughter had a young friend go in there for a cesarean operation, woke up to find her womb etc removed at the same time, so no more babies for her. I’ve heard similar rumours about Barrow. My daughter was placed in a birthing pool, baby born suddenly with only junior staff present, s-i-l thought he might lose both wife and baby. Lists on the wall about what to do. Very different to my own experience, two staff nurses ran two wards with the help of junior staff. NHS been D-E-I’d or similar, likely at great expense monetarily and otherwise. I try to steer clear as much as possible.

    3. Good morning Bob, isn’t there a quote “lies, damn lies and statistics” ? Hope you don’t think i am being flippant, as I do agree with the concerns raised by those far more intelligent than I.

    4. it is claimed that the scientific statistical evidence wasn't properly gathered and presented, whether mistakenly or on purpose, the effect was to make it look like Letby was guilty.

      Richard Gill and Norman Fenton have written cogent demolitions of the misuse of statistics in the Letby trial.

  39. 404010+up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    You mean, they the political "elite" were in ignorance that an islamic coup had been triggered, as with England and is in success mode in its latter stages.

    The only claim to not knowing by both Countries political "elites" is that they were NOT paying attention at davos when the
    political atrocities were clearly outlined on the future agenda.

    ‘We’re being taken for fools’: How soaring migration came back to bite Ireland’s political elite
    With finite housing and overstretched public services, the government’s ‘cack-handed’ border policies have triggered a wave of public anger

    4. And…From the same hospital…

      Bosses at Blackpool Victoria Hospital have launched an urgent review after a doctor was caught filling in post-op paperwork to say a patient was recovering well – before she’d even had the procedure.

      The systematic “pre-populating" of medical documents came to light during an inquest into the death of 36-year-old Sabina Wood, who was found lifeless in bed after discharging herself from the hospital.

      https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/health/urgent-review-at-blackpool-victoria-hospital-adds-to-litany-of-issues-4664237

    6. Oh well that ll right then.
      An easy mistake to make. How culturally insensitive to bring the prosecution in the first place.

  42. The UK Environ Mental Office has threatened this area with Floods.

    It is sunny, not a cloud in the sky, the drainage ditches are not full.

    I predict that the whole of UK will be flooded with aliens species before Starmer the Harmer is booted out of No 10

  43. Captain Sensible
    17h
    A shark can swim faster than me. I can run faster than a shark. So, in the triathlon, it'll all be down to the cycling.

    Mars Attacks
    Captain Sensible
    15h
    Put me down for .50p a mile.

  45. Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes
    Can German cars survive Donald Trump?
    30 March 2025, 5:30am – Spectator.

    I hope not,
    German car drivers are terrible, they drive like the very personification of Trump

    1. "German car drivers are terrible …"

      ALL continental car drivers (lorry drivers, van drivers, bus drivers …) are terrible.

        1. They are just as bad over here. Swedes being among the worst.
          Driving while talking on a mobile is a national pursuit. Driving while straddling the centre white line is a must.
          Pulling out in front of you is actually taught. Turning before indicating is thought ‘normal’.
          Meeting one driving towards you in your lane is a daily occurrence.

  46. Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes
    Can German cars survive Donald Trump?
    30 March 2025, 5:30am – Spectator.

    I hope not,
    German car drivers are terrible, they drive like the very personification of Trump

  47. Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes
    Can German cars survive Donald Trump?
    30 March 2025, 5:30am – Spectator.

    I hope not,
    German car drivers are terrible, they drive like the very personification of Trump

  49. Reading about the problem Ireland is having with its immigration and was idly wondering why we don’t put ALL our illegal in camps in the border with Ireland.

  50. Cutting my mother off was one of the most liberating moments of my life. 30 March 2025.

    After decades of physical and emotional abuse at her hands, I chose estrangement. What followed was a mix of guilt, grief and freedom.

    It is a sine qua non of life that our mothers are wonderful and love us dearly. To state otherwise is risky. You can find yourself on the sharp end of real hostility. I learned quite early on to keep my mouth closed. I was quite surprised to see a couple of comments supporting Mr Dolan.

    My own mother was an absolutely dreadful person. She was selfish in the extreme and had no conception of the idea that others might have their own views or needs. The world in its entirety revolved around her. What was yours was hers and what was hers was hers alone.

    I stopped talking to her sometime around when I was twenty five. I’m not sure that you can do it until a certain age. I have never regretted it because it saved me endless angst. I actually laughed when my sister told me that she had cut me out of the will. It showed her true nature. This experience has paradoxically made me exceptionally aware of the value of functional and loving families. I used to visit a friend when I was living in Tasmania and literally bask silently in the warmth of his household. It seemed like very bliss.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/30/eamon-dolan-estranged-from-mother-cut-off/

    1. Rather poor taste by the Telegraph to publish this on a day which is supposed to celebrate the bond between mother and children.

    2. It is a sine qua non of life that our mothers are wonderful and love us dearly.

      Quite so. I have never estranged myself from a family member, but what I suppose I have to call my lived experience makes me bristle when it is assumed that one's attitude to one's parents must- must– be one of uncritical adoration. I shall say no more on the matter.

  51. Cutting my mother off was one of the most liberating moments of my life. 30 March 2025.

    After decades of physical and emotional abuse at her hands, I chose estrangement. What followed was a mix of guilt, grief and freedom.

    It is a sine qua non of life that our mothers are wonderful and love us dearly. To state otherwise is risky. You can find yourself on the sharp end of real hostility. I learned quite early on to keep my mouth closed. I was quite surprised to see a couple of comments supporting Mr Dolan.

    My own mother was an absolutely dreadful person. She was selfish in the extreme and had no conception of the idea that others might have their own views or needs. The world in its entirety revolved around her. What was yours was hers and what was hers was hers alone.

    I stopped talking to her sometime around when I was twenty five. I’m not sure that you can do it until a certain age. I have never regretted it because it saved me endless angst. I actually laughed when my sister told me that she had cut me out of her will. It showed her true nature. This experience has paradoxically made me exceptionally aware of the value of functional and loving families. I used to visit a friend when I was living in Tasmania and literally bask silently in the warmth of his household. It seemed like very bliss.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/30/eamon-dolan-estranged-from-mother-cut-off/

    1. Mr Blue Sky
      4m
      This will be the worst government on record for increasing household disposable income. And that's according to the left leaning Resolution Foundation, who estimate the average household will be around £900 a year worse off by 2030.

  54. Labour-run council has been accused of violating free speech by attempting to ban Christian street preachers.

    Rushmoor borough council, in Surrey, sought an injunction to ban Christians from preaching, praying and handing out leaflets in the town centres of Farnborough and Aldershot.

    The local authority claimed preachers were being “offensive” and caused “alarm and distress” to passers-by.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/29/rushmoor-council-injunction-christian-street-preachers-ban/

    Someone else can say the 'argh' word. My computer has used up it's monthly quota of those letters

    1. They should kneel down in the High Street with their bums in the air.
      Nobody would touch them.

      1. Or march with placards stating "Behead the unbeliever" and "We hate democracy – Islam will rule the world" – that would be fine, no threat there.

        1. Precisely.
          "Love thy neighbour" would have your front door splintered before you could close your Bible.
          As for "Suffer the little children" …. well, your career as a paediatrician would be nixed.

    2. They should kneel down in the High Street with their bums in the air.
      Nobody would touch them.

    3. This struck me as odd because Aldershot is not far from me and it just strikes me as highly unlikely. Combining the two towns the Muslim population is only 2,477. The Buddhist population (Gurkhas) is 4,727. Hindus (mostly Gurkhas) are 5,724. Christians 42,436. I have to conclude that since the Council is Labour and almost all white it is an initiative of idiot liberal politicians who think that Buddhists and Hindus feel slighted. In other words the typical misguided dogoodism of the ignorant. I have never come across a Buddhist or Hindu that wasn't up for a religious festival if fun was involved and I have met 100s of them if not thousands and neither population are offended by Christianity.

      By the way. I also looked at Eastleigh because of the Easter cancelled in school controversy. Only 1% of the population is Muslim. So this again seems to be something driven by The usual Marxist white woke morons.

    4. This struck me as odd because Aldershot is not far from me and it just strikes me as highly unlikely. Combining the two towns the Muslim population is only 2,477. The Buddhist population (Gurkhas) is 4,727. Hindus are 5,724. Christians 42,436. I have to conclude that since the Council is Labour and almost all white it is an initiative of idiot liberal politicians who think that Buddhists and Hindus feel slighted. In other words the typical misguided dogoodism of the ignorant. I have never come across a Buddhist or Hindu that wasn't up for a religious festival if fun was involved and I have met 100s of them if not thousands and neither population are offended by Christianity.

      By the way. I also looked at Eastleigh because of the Easter cancelled in school controversy. Only 1% of the population is Muslim. So this again seems to be something driven by The usual Marxis white woke morons.

  55. Having read a bit more (though not much) about the "brutal" police attack on Quaker Meeting House – it seems as though the people inside were of the Just Stop Oil ilk – who were planning widespread (but – natch – peaceful) disruption in London.

    The plod were – natch – excessively stupid in smashing the door of the Meeting House – just IMAGINE the uproar had they smashed the door of a peace loving mosque……but maybe the knew what they were after.

    Just a thought.

    1. I did wonder.
      An overreaction after being slated for allowing the twerps to bring traffic to a halt on Dartford Bridge.
      And chucking tinned (TINNED!!) tomato soup over paintings. I mean, how common can you get?

          1. That sounds interesting. I will give it a try. Let’s face it … how hard can painting be?

  56. Two good lectures by Douglas Murray. Pretty strong stuff as it should be. You might want to take a break between them. Of course if this was Tommy Robinson talking he would be thrown in jail for what Douglas Says. For the first one you need to click where it says: "Watch on YouTube" You might want to start with the second one first. It's specifically about the UK.

    They TERMINATED BROADCAST When Douglas Murray Exposed THIS About Islam
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHdL1P-shwI
    "Something WORSE Than Prison Camps Coming" – Murray's Last Warning
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n73_WgEvY6U&list=TLPQMzAwMzIwMjVGlIHuSAipdA&index=2

      1. No. As I say above. Click on where it says: "Watch on YouTube" You will be taken directly to the video.

    2. Saw it. Didn't I already post this maybe two days ago? But a different version.

    3. Saw it. Didn't I already post this maybe two days ago? But a different version.

    1. 42 mins.. please be succinct.
      And when I hear.. "We need to have a conversation.."

      Undo Blair, Cameron, Brown & May. Repeal every Act of parliament on Day One. No discussion. (David Starkey)
      Go in on a Sunday evening and take control of every Civil service executive office. (Dominic Cummings).
      Close down the Mayoral offices. (Thatcher).
      Round up and deport. (Rupert Lowe).
      Make all progressive liberals wear a pink conical hat with a spinning rainbow flag on top.

      1. Round up and hang: Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron (and Clegg), May, Sunak and Starmer.

        Johnson to be given a sound thrashing and Truss pardoned for being the victim of a coup.

        1. How about administering a sound thrashing to all of them before doing anything else?

      2. I would, in all fairness. Observe that we can be succinct because of the hours and days of work that people, like the ones you mention, have researched, thought and and taken time to communicate all for our sakes. Hence the expression "standing on the shoulders of giants".

      3. You don't need to wait to Sunday evening to take control of Civil Service executive (or any other) offices. After 3 pm on a Friday onwards will do – plus many opportunities here and there during the "working"[sic] week.

        2. I mostly work form home. I went into the office once and found it incredibly distracting and confusing. Far too many people talking about inane, pointless things, people walking around disturbing you. Utterly impractical for getting things done.

          The problem with the civil service is not where they work, it's that most of what they do doesn't need to be done. I imagine most of their day is meetings about things no one wants, needs or gives a stuff about.

          1. It’s horses for courses, wibs. I am not sure that a lot of ordinary clerical civil service jobs need the kind of quiet atmosphere that your kind of work does – the proof is surely if the service generally is on the whole a lot slower and worse than it was before lockdown?

            Apart from that, yes meetings are so often a complete waste of time.

    2. 42 mins.. please be succinct.
      And when I hear.. "We need to have a conversation.."

      Undo Blair, Cameron, Brown & May. Repeal every Act of parliament on Day One. No discussion. (David Starkey)
      Go in on a Sunday evening and take control of every Civil service executive office. (Dominic Cummings).
      Close down the Mayoral offices. (Thatcher).
      Round up and deport. (Rupert Lowe).
      Make all progressive liberals wear a pink conical hat with a spinning rainbow flag on top.

  61. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c20b49f37c1d3cd5f7669b2f7ee9291f67d3ddc6b5c6e7d0795e1bff75c8ffe6.png The Walt Disney Corporation is in discussions about a remake of their famous fairy story film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

    Snow White, a pale-skinned Caucasian with jet black hair, will be replaced by Soot Black, her negative in every sense with dusky skin and blonde hair.

    Discussions are ongoing for the title of the finished project. So far the working titles of Soot Black and the Seven Homies, Soot Black and the Seven Soap-Droppers and Soot Black and the One Million Fighting-Aged Male Boat People have been mooted.

    At this stage the Disney Corporation has refused to comment.

      1. Instead of singing "Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's off to work we go", they will chant (rap-style) "Innit Yo, Innit-Yo, It's off to dole we go".

  62. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c20b49f37c1d3cd5f7669b2f7ee9291f67d3ddc6b5c6e7d0795e1bff75c8ffe6.png The Walt Disney Corporation is in discussions about a remake of their famous fairy story film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

    Snow White, a pale-skinned Caucasian with jet black hair, will be replaced by Soot Black, her negative in every sense with dusky skin and blonde hair.

    Discussions are ongoing for the title of the finished project. So far the working titles of Soot Black and the Seven Homies, Soot Black and the Seven Soap-Droppers and Soot Black and the One Million Fighting-Aged Male Boat People have been mooted.

    At this stage the Disney Corporation has refused to comment.

  63. Good morning, nottlers!

    The disgusting, autocratic little toad Starmer selling us out to the EU. Again.

    Britain sleeps as Starmer sells out – Starmer’s democracy-denying pact with Brussels on foreign affairs, defence and the defence industry that he plans to have signed and sealed before the end of the year.

    EVERY WEEK, I have every intention of writing a shorter, more concise TCW week in review; and every week, I get carried away and fail. However, an email from a (sadly now former) reader, which told of how all the articles on the site were too long, too depressing and had just got too much for her, has concentrated my resolve.

    Though I can’t promise much on the ‘depressing’ front, I will cut to the chase on the incredibly important lecture I went to last week at the House of Commons’ Portcullis House. It was on Labour’s big defence sellout to the EU, right under our noses, seemingly without any awareness or opposition. But for this wake-up call presentation by Lt Gen Jonathon Riley (the distinguished soldier, military historian and defence analyst whom we have the good fortune to have writing for us), I for one would still be in the dark about what Starmer is up to and its significance for our sovereignty.

    It was my first foray into Portcullis House, Parliament’s office block annex, since Labour took office. Looking through into the ground floor atrium, I was struck by just how scruffy the inmates have got: poorly groomed Labour MPs and their even scruffier spads, I assume. It was hard to spot a suit; hardly a sight to command any foreign politician or visitor’s respect, I thought. Upstairs along the committee room corridor, some suits did indeed come into view, those of mainly Conservative Peers and MPs waiting for the doors to the committee room open.

    As I was to find out, their attire was deceptive. It did not clothe sagacity nor an urgency commensurate with Jonathon Riley’s wake-up call.

    Their lack of response to Riley’s dissection of Starmer’s democracy-denying pact with Brussels on foreign affairs, defence and the defence industry that he plans to have signed and sealed before the end of the year, was shocking. A pact which, Jonathon said, is ‘a mechanism to make the UK subject to the orders of the EU Commission on foreign affairs and defence policy [and] as far as the EU is concerned, a carbon copy of that proposed by Theresa May in 2018-2019’. We would no longer be in control of our defence industry or investment.

    Such a sellout was the part of May’s withdrawal agreement that the Lt Gen and others led the resistance to in 2019 and succeeded in getting Johnson to drop (the one decent thing he did). Now, this replay (which is worse for a variety of reasons) will make us a non-voting, but subordinate, participant in a giant new EU defence architecture. Back to the future, destination pre-Brexit. This is Starmer’s reset with the EU, the surrender of our sovereignty. Without an army, you cannot call yourself a nation. If the EU goes to war with Russia, so do we. Not even a vote.

    Bar one or two responses, the Lt Gen’s wake-up call catalysed little concern. Nor, depressingly, did there seem much appreciation of a detailed and dedicated research and analysis that rightly should have been the urgent task of the Commons Defence Select Committee. It was a tour de force, but this is the Westminster bubble. I was right there in it, I realised ruefully. Why expect anything but defeatism or disinterest from ‘Conservatives’ who unquestioningly signed up to the Climate Change Act, to Covid scaremongering, compliantly accepted Lockdown, and now faced with this real threat to the nation – Starmer’s sell out to the EU – all but said ‘nothing to see here’. One even suggested the Lt Gen’s ‘alarmism’ was not the best way to proceed. The ‘polite’ cop out on all issues of real principle.

    You will be the judge when we publish in the coming days two articles the Lt Gen is writing for us, based on his slides and speech. Oh, and by the way, who do you think he told us is in charge of Starmer’s surrender squad? None other than our old friend (now Sir) Ollie Robbins. That unelected and unaccountable civil servant May had running her Brexit team. Talk about a deep state.

    I was still fuming (yes it annoyed me) when I arrived at the farewell party at Brooks’s Club in St James for another man infinitely superior to his pliable peergroup. Yes, it was quite a day out for me. Finding myself amongst old allies, I knocked back a couple of glasses of white wine to calm myself down – that’s my excuse, anyway! And no, none of them had been aware of Starmer’s sellout to the EU any more than I had. Where has Reform UK been on this?

    Onto Dr Benny Peiser. It was his ‘do’. For those of you who don’t know, he was appointed by Lord Lawson to run the Global Warming Policy Foundation when he set it up in November 2009 and has done so since, turning it into the most potent academic policy force in this country and arguably around the world against climate insanity.

    In a decent ‘polity’, he should have been saying goodbye with the reward of a gong for his heroic work. He has fought the Establishment narrative with science and sense unwaveringly over the years, drawing together distinguished (sceptical) academics from the fields of physics, chemistry, engineering and more; questioning, commissioning and publishing their critiques of the received religion of man-made climate change and the Net-Zero energy revolution that the ideologues believe can halt it. Always against the zeitgeist. It’s not easy; there are no rewards.

    A brave and modest man who’s retained his calm and commitment to scientific rationality in the face of deplatforming, defamation, cancellation and even physical attack of GWPF premises. If there is greater awareness today of the climate cult’s irrationality, it is much down to this man and his quiet, measured but persistent challenge to it. His ‘retirement’ fortunately does not mean he’s retired from the fray; any more than the courageous and equally modest Lt Gen Riley has.

    With men like these still around – men with brains, principles and moral courage – there’s still hope.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/my-tcw-week-in-review-britain-sleeps-as-starmer-sells-out/

    1. Reform are asleep at the wheel, uninterested in making any positive changes but expecting to get into office on the crest of the popular vote – which they're doing nothing to earn.

      Folk shout 'vote Reform' as if it were a battle cry, when it's really a desperate hope – a hope Farage is clinging to. They need to present workable policies – ones I've suggested (maybe not the mass executions), for example.

      1. Indeed. It is difficult to reconcile the fact that Reform could potentially get a considerable proportion of the vote from people who are thoroughly fed up, with the pussyfooting about immigration and lack of co-ordinated structural coherence of both policies and composition of the party itself, that are so depressing.

        Letting Zia Yusuf appear to buy his way into prominence as Chairman was NOT a good move. But then, Farage has form on making poor choices.

  64. I've just finished brunch which was a very large kipper, poached eggs, toast and my favourite Italian coffee. All was very nice, always look forward to the Sunday brunch – unless having a roast for lunch .

    2. We had sausages and yorkshires. Some would call it toad in the hole but as they were separate and mostly from the Waitrose I beg forgiveness

      1. Toad-out-of-the-hole is by far the best since both parts of the dish cook much better.

        1. Unless you happen to like the soggy, sausagey bits of batter in toad in the hole… 😈

    1. They all look pretty good for their age.
      Just read this piece in the DT https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/ageing/healthy-years-discrepancy-blackpool-cheshire-covid-obesity/
      How many healthy years do you have left? Use our tool to find out

      When it comes to the number of ‘good years’ we can expect to live there’s a huge discrepancy across the UK – are you in a health black spot?

      Gloucestershire

      Average healthy life expectancy for women 64 years
      Average whole life expectancy for women 84 years

      How your area compares 65th of 216

      I've exceeded the healthy lifespan and hopefully will manage to exceed the whole life as well. But then I don't smoke or take drugs, am not overweight and don't live on junk food.

    2. I don't have to wonder. Like many others here these would be our mothers and fathers. What much of what they had to say would be unprintable. The rest would be controlled disgust about what the politicians had done to the country they fought for at the expense of lost friends and relatives who were killed. In short they would feel betrayed.

    3. I asked Junior. He said (I'm paaphrasing as it came out in a jumble) : 'How great it would be to sit at that table and listen to how things were, their hopes, dreams and plans for the future.'

      I've omitted the questions about jet packs and flying cars.

  66. Well, that's the stairs measured for new facings. Two staircases, and not one single step is the same as any other. Taken me forever, not helped by getting a decimal in the wrong place, so back to basics, stick to one unit of measurement only, no conversions…

    1. In the block of flats where we lived in Cap d'Ail for two years, contractors were employed to renovate the corridors. They did this with great skill – the result being that the floor level was raised by one centimetre.

      THEN they discovered that none of the lift doors opening onto the corridors could be, er, opened………….

    2. Are staircases in older houses in Norway the same as here in Sweden? So steep its like climbing up a ladder! The one I have here (in my cow-house conversion) is a nice and easy UK–standard 42º.

      1. Fjordy-tva?
        More importantly, 42 is famously the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, which to me implies that builders may have descended from beings with superior intelligence.

      2. Fjordy-tva?
        More importantly, 42 is famously the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, which to me implies that builders may have descended from beings with superior intelligence.

      3. Properly old houses have stairs like a ladder. My place, they are at a comfortable angle, just hockey-stick shaped – so each stair is a different shape and size.

      1. 404010+ up ticks.

        Afternoon W,

        People Power NO MEANS BLOODY NO.
        If the political twisted twat “forces it on us”
        then I would agree with the S(TOOL) and say, well deserved.

  68. Back again after computer problems and b.hard work clearing fallen trees,
    Wordle 1,380 4/6

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

    1. Me too (except for the computer problems and hard work)
      Wordle 1,380 4/6

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

    1. I was thinking the the solution to this is to say to her (and her jailed partners in crime) you will stay in jail for the rest of your life until you and your partners return the monies……

      1. The DWP were clueless. It was a Bulgarian policeman who wondered why the town was suddenly awash with money.

  70. Afternoon All
    Not so long ago we were protected by a strong triumvirate of the judiciary,parliament and the crown all working in the interests of the people
    Now??
    A judiciary stuffed to the gills with unelected leftards feeling free to make the most egregious ridiculous rulings and huff that they are beyond criticism
    A parliament turned feral that seems to hate the electorate determined to tax us to death and destroy what remnants of business and industry remain
    A crown that has turned totally Weffy-Washy and a sickly green colour
    It's not looking good is it??
    Weekend Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be0510139b56ebe44e8f091789e82c5262539e7c835ce137e85702fd4f1d7a8f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3aaa8b619edb27a1c2c432cd11758c0e933f510a71520ebb2df2ca1f1b474cef.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8fb8fede3bfdd8cc326372bd1aaddea4e794a26d826a67eb4a924a4f57ab6089.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41927aca26ba7d31554674d63f38e51ad33291ac246ee7bbcc254b9e9262c9b1.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51a39d67e39e8a88769d542550511d18622e3b3bf850de77474d738247edf59c.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1f2b9a8e03d101320cfd3a696ec27547e391860d7b8e296b39e94732bd4d63f.png

  71. From Coffee House the Spectator

    29 Mar 2025
    Coffee House
    Matthew Lynn
    Give holiday home owners a break
    29 March 2025, 5:47am

    If you have had your eye on a bungalow along the Devon coast, a cottage in the New Forest, or a tastefully painted terrace in one of the sea-facing villages in Norfolk, this could be your moment. Many holiday home owners are choosing to sell up to avoid a hike on council taxes. From next week, local authorities will be allowed to charge double the normal rate for second home owners. Average bills are set to rise from £2,280 to £4,560.

    This crackdown is likely to be popular. After all, who has sympathy with those who own two homes, when many young people are struggling to get on to the housing ladder? Despite the temptation, we should resist joining in the cheering: instead of declaring war on second home owners, why don’t we encourage people to own holiday homes? After all, the UK has very few of them.

    The reality is that, for all the concern that communities are being hollowed out by second home owners, the UK has remarkably few holiday homes. They account for just 3 per cent of the British housing stock, compared to 10 per cent in France, where a country retreat is completely normal for many, not just for the very wealthy. In Norway, as many as a quarter of homes are second properties, while in Sweden, 54 per cent of the population either has a second home themselves or has access to one through their family.

    People like to moan about holiday home owners, but they can be blind to the benefits that they bring to communities. With their owners’ constant redecorations, and their enthusiasm for a ‘not exactly value-for-money’ farmer’s market over the local Lidl, second home owners bring lots of cash into areas that might otherwise have very little spending power. Perhaps most importantly, we shouldn’t forget that having a second home adds much to the quality of life of those fortunate enough to afford it.

    So, spare a thought for second home owners as councils hit them where it hurts. After all, we mustn’t forget that going after these home owners is an odd target. We would think it strange to have a ‘war’ on people who owned a second pair of shoes, or a second TV, or a second anything else for that matter. So why are homes any different? Of course, it is legitimate to worry that people owning two homes might make buying a property tougher for local people. But if we wanted to fix that issue then – let’s all take a deep breath at this outlandish suggestion – we could try building a few more houses instead. That way, there would be enough for everyone.

    Instead of building, the government has picked an easy target. Locals will say a crackdown is overdue. The ‘weekend crowds’ price ordinary people out of the market, they argue, forcing up prices in pubs and restaurants, and leaving places feeling soulless and empty from Monday to Thursday. There is perhaps some truth in those complaints. But if you’re fortunate enough to live somewhere idyllic, then you can hardly complain when others want to move in too.

    In Britain, we not only live in homes that are very overpriced, and typically very small, by most international standards, we also don’t have anywhere to escape to. So instead of trying to tax second homes out of existence, perhaps we should try something more radical: we could encourage them instead.

    Doing so would unleash a wave of growth, ‘level up’ the country, and add enjoyment to many people’s lives. It is hard to see what exactly would be so terrible about that. Give holiday home owners a break!

    Written by
    Matthew Lynn
    Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’

    1. It doesn't matter how many homes you build, they will be filled with gimmegrants who get priority. To free up homes, you need to reduce the population (and hence the demand for housing).

    1. Plastic-faced narc. She really should be put in a box, tied up with a ribbon and taken somewhere remote.

  73. Caption Contest (Pocket Money Pincher Edition)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8705b27ecf72adabcbdf18ab2cb5698e76c653aa79404d45f8d239bb8b5c7c57.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0138a01ba45c7c8e54ef3f7d2d83e25e682d0eb0fd61f96d3537c403817a3d28.png
    Beebsplaining
    2d
    "Hands up who thinks I'm out of my depth"

    Satan Claws
    2d
    Quentin Letts: Rachel Reeves' voice was adenoidal, as if pumped from a distant cellar through rubber tubes. The delivery was mechanical but operators had forgotten to switch on her arms. It was therefore a little like watching a speech by the Venus de Milo.

    The face was intermittently animated. Devoid of emotion for long passages, it occasionally flew into tics and spasms when confronted by tricky jumbles of consonant and vowel.

    Imagine someone eating vichyssoise in which the occasional chicken bone has been concealed. One moment she was zoned out and impassive. The next, oi! Her nose swerved to the left and her upper lip yanked rightwards. Then she said 'on current trends' and the left eyelid slammed shut.

    Give her a pipe and she could have been Popeye the sailor man.

    Mook
    2d
    "So that's how many for Oasis in the corporate box?"

        1. She might have been, inside, but a critical instinct might have prevented her from ever showing it. D never thought his mother was proud of him, but I was talking more than once some years after his mother's death to his aunt (his mother's sister) who said how proud his mother always spoke about him. She just never showed him that.

          There are some dreadful human incapacities around…

        2. She might have been, inside, but a critical instinct might have prevented her from ever showing it. D never thought his mother was proud of him, but I was talking more than once some years after his mother's death to his aunt (his mother's sister) who said how proud his mother always spoke about him. She just never showed him that.

          There are some dreadful human incapacities around…

          2. I left home at 18 and only went back for the occasional visit. My mother threw out a lot of my stuff while I was at university.

          3. I left home at 16, my mother immediately threw out everything I had, Dinky toys, Meccano set (the big one), Hornby 00 train set, bicyle plus a lot more

        1. Just been watching/listening to Roberta Flack ‘First time’….bit more uplifting for me, Alec…:-)) glad you liked your boob job tho..

    2. I've just finished stacking the Pantry Stack.
      We're still burning the Holly Bush Stack, but expect to stop burning in a week or so.

    1. Matt

      PS. I heard that the fire at Heathrow took so long to put out because the firemen were only allowed through with 100ml at a time.

    1. Tony: working class East Ender. (Leave). Never vote Tory again. LOL.
      John: wet Tory. (Remain) of course.
      Neil: Liberal Democrat. Confused & complete mess.       LOL.
      Peter: Angry Commie. (Remain) of course.

      Ads may ruin viewing.

    1. Precisely – while we pay to keep their empty buildings ready and warm (just in case someone might turn up).

  80. Starmer’s petty hatred for private schools is about to take a sinister turn

    Two-tier Keir is about to play his next card in the total humiliation of educational excellence

    Michael Mosbacher
    30 March 2025 6:00am BST

    This Labour Government is not yet done with its assault on aspirational parents and educational excellence. Imposing VAT on school fees is seemingly not enough for them.

    The Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill will almost certainly enter the statute books this week. The House of Lords is still insisting on amendments that would gut the Bill, but it will almost certainly buckle.

    This technical-sounding legislation strips private schools – and private schools alone – of mandatory charitable business rates relief. All charities receive an 80pc discount on their rates. From April independent schools will have to pay the full whack whilst no other charity does. Most new laws do not come into force on the day they receive Royal Assent, but this one will.

    Warwick School, Eton and St Paul’s will all face tax demands estimated at over £1m and around another 60 schools will be paying £500,000 or more. This will add a further cost of up to around £1,000 per pupil per year for schools with large grounds.

    Much of this will inevitably be passed on to parents in the form of yet higher fees. The affected schools will have a powerful incentive to sell off playing fields to reduce their rateable value. Who exactly will this benefit?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/labour-attack-private-schools-far-more-sinister-vat-raid/

    Unlike the VAT raid – which disproportionately hurts smaller, poorer establishments – those most adversely affected by the latest move are the grandest public schools with the largest grounds.

    The amounts of money raised are much smaller, indeed on a national scale they are trifling. The move seems designed not to boost revenue but rather solely to enviously punish establishments of which Labour does not approve.

    There are over 170,000 charities registered in England and Wales – to be precise, as of this month, 170,828 main charities plus 14,137 linked charities. Of the UK’s around 2,400 independent schools, around half have charitable status. So what Labour is doing is singling out less than 1pc of all charities for discriminatory treatment.

    Two-tier Keir has found something else to be two-tiered about. At a time when the UK is facing myriad problems, it is using precious parliamentary time to pursue a petty hatred.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/labour-attack-private-schools-far-more-sinister-vat-raid/

    Labour’s initial plan was to scrap charitable status entirely for independent schools, for many decades a demand of the Left. But Starmer decided to be cannier than that in his assault on independent education. The VAT exemption on school fees was unrelated to charitable status, charitable and for profit establishments enjoyed it alike. VAT could be imposed without getting into the legal quagmire of revoking charitable status.

    Any moves on this status would certainly have been challenged in the courts under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. Starmer, being an expert in the field, feared he would lose.

    As George Trefgarne has written for The Telegraph, Labour’s VAT hike is being brought to the High Court this week by a group of parents who are hopeful of success. The chances of the Government losing if it had tried to withdraw charitable status would have been considerably higher.

    So instead Labour has chosen the sneaky option. It is not stripping schools of charitable status, but rather removing one of the main benefits of it. Starmer seems to excel at finding a way around his cherished human rights laws when he wants to.

    For the moment, only public schools are singled out for this second-tier status. But now the principle that all charities should be treated equally has been breached, where will it end? Among the 170,000-odd charities, there are plenty for anyone to disapprove of, regardless of individual tastes.

    No one is likely to be enamoured of both the League against Cruel Sports and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. I would never dream of giving a penny to donkeys, but over £30m is left in legacies to the Donkey Sanctuary each year. The beauty of UK charities is that they are so diverse, not that they simply support causes of which a given government approves.

    This is a dangerous game to get into. If one government penalises charities it dislikes, what stops a future government of opposite persuasion picking on its own pet peeves? A Left-wing administration may decide that family foundations, those grant-making bodies usually endowed by one wealthy person with a board drawn from their nearest and dearest, are undeserving. How long would reliefs last for refugee charities under a Reform prime minister?

    There are issues with mandatory charitable business rates relief. It is partly to blame for the plethora of charity shops clogging up our high streets. An independent retailer will find it hard to compete with the charity chain shop next door paying a fraction of its rates. But this Government and its predecessor have sought to ameliorate the issue by offering some relief to the small shopkeeper, not by overturning long standing exemptions.

    Labour has unfortunately opened a hornets’ nest with this mean-spirited attack on public schools. It is not just those paying school fees who will be worse off.

    ********************************

    Robert Robert
    5 hrs ago
    There is a video on-line of Rayner (bog-standard Comp; no qualifications) addressing a Party meeting and to cheers, promises to legislate an end to private education. On the platform with her, applauding along, is Reeves.

    These people are evil Marxists.

    Stephen Ganter
    4 hrs ago
    Pure spite.

    No private schools, no small family farms, the elderly bundled off to their sunset.

    The Left is fuelled by pure hatred. They build nothing good, just vent spite.

    P J Ashe
    4 hrs ago
    This is Marxism, plain and simple. Nothing, not even the likelihood of war, can be allowed to obstruct any vindictive and spiteful imposition being imposed on perceived class enemies. edited

    PM Dee
    4 hrs ago
    If you don’t believe in the value of education look no further than our deputy prime minister

    1. Thou shalt not covet.
      Thou shalt not steal.
      The schools need to rebrand themselves as madrassas.

  81. It would be interesting to know the system inplace for the crew of returning Nuke Subs when getting to their home port

    A few years ago, after the boat docked, the crews were not allowed to go straight home – they had to spend time in the Hooley bar, to unleash pent-up anger and a fairly Teetotal existence, before going home.

    Seemingly, the crews used to take any pent up anger, emotions etc on the wife or family

  82. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81133f94cff1e18f8fc13e2190af89d5ca22cdd1598185c509603de0facafd43.png Geoff Graham, David Wainwright, Bill Thomas and Richard Tracey assemble before the initial opening of the NoTTLe forum. The main item of discussion for those four codgers was whether or not to permit female folk or lowly servants on the forum.

    Keir Starmer is right: we don’t need a ministry of men. We need several.

    For too long the nation’s Geezers, Lads, Blokes, Chaps, Codgers and Guys have bumbled along without the support and guidance they need from the state. Oliver Pritchett (father of Matt) shares his ambitious eightfold action plan. Sunday Telegraph, 30 March, 2025.

    Sir Keir Starmer was absolutely right this week when, in an interview on Radio 5 Live, he spurned the idea of setting up a “Ministry for Men.” One measly government department to cover the many varieties of the British male is absurdly inadequate. How could it possibly encompass all the different needs of blokes, chaps, guys, fellows and geezers? What about the old codgers? And obviously there is a world of difference between a gent and a gentleman. Come to that, where do the lads fit in?

    I estimate that we need a minimum of eight ministries. Here are some suggestions:

    A Secretary of State for Guys would have overall responsibility for gyms, seeing that there are an adequate number of mirrors to meet the needs of guys and ensuring that the standards of tuneless whistling in the showers are maintained. He (or she, indeed) would set up a regulatory bureau to oversee designer stubble and prepare legislation to ban unkind thoughts about lycra’ed highspeed cycling groups.
    As these are hard times, it may be necessary to have just a single ministry to cover the needs of both lads and blokes: let’s call it the Department of Blads. This would, in fact, be a “super ministry,” as it would be responsible for the concerns of football fans – concentrating, particularly, on the plight of the away supporter. It would foster the creation of away supporter support groups and ensure that adequate counselling is readily available to those fans whose teams are in the relegation zone. The minister would also be tasked with setting up a body to oversee the quality of songs and chants on the terraces.

    A Ministry of Chaps would take over the running of the SPSB (the Society for the Preservation of the
    Saloon Bar) and would tighten the regulations covering the buying of rounds. It would also oversee the merger between the British Jogging Authority and the Brisk Country Walk Council. And it would set up a Royal Commission to consider measures to make baby buggies more father-friendly.

    The Ministry of Geezers would not have a fixed headquarters, but would “pop up where you least expect it”, in the words of the man who is expected to be its most senior civil servant. Its main responsibility would be the creation of a national register of
    The Ministry of Codgers would oversee 500,000 new public benches tattoos. Many of its other functions would be confidential.

    The Department of Fellows would undertake to ensure that attendances at reunions were maintained at satisfactory levels. It would also appoint a committee to make a detailed study of crosswords and examine claims that there are too many anagrams these days. And it would take on the work currently performed by the Coarse Knit Jumper Council. Of course, the department could not concern itself with issues concerning fellas, who are an entirely different category. Their interests, along with those of dudes, would be handled, on a temporary basis, by the Ministry of Lads and Blokes.

    MoC stands for the Ministry of Codgers, devoted to the interests of the elderly male citizen. It would set ambitious targets to oversee the creation of 500,000 new public benches over the next three years and draw up plans tocreate designated “reminiscence facilities” in all public parks. It would also oversee targeted weather forecasts for all male pensioners.

    As I mentioned earlier, the ministries for Gents and Gentlemen would be entirely separate. The Gents Ministry would set up a system to monitor the loudness of tweed checks and set rules for the ideal amount of handkerchief permitted to protrude from jacket breast pockets. It would also monitor jokes told in pubs, and would be in overall charge of the Register of Golfing Anecdotes. A section of the Ministry of Gents would, of course, devote itself to making sure that there is a good supply of high quality public conveniences for men throughout the country. In this work it would liaise closely with the Ministry of Codgers.

    The brief of the Department of Gentlemen would be to establish an authoritative National Guide to Etiquette to clear up all the confusion of a multitude of other guides. It would also be required to study all government legislation to ensure that it is doing the right thing and playing the game. If some proposed law were deemed not to reach the required standard it could issue a “steady on” notice. I realise that setting up these ministries would mean several thousand extra civil servants. I don’t see that as a problem.

    2. In the words of Basil Fawlty when he wanted to have a special gourmet meal at his hotel and placed an advertisement in the local paper:

      "No riff raff!"

    1. I hope they still had some bollocks in March 1940, when the clocks went forward!😉

      Were British people castrated in 1945 when they voted in Attlee's Labour government?

  84. Can we ditch the mp and keep her doggie, please?

    That phrase, “She’s broken no rules” has just been trotted out. No, of course she hasn’t. These scoundrels write the rules to suit themselves.

  85. 2Tier is such a nasty lying prick. He has lied throughout. He does know what he wants to do but is very bad at doing it.

    Labour set to align Britain with EU net zero laws

    Government wants to rejoin bloc’s carbon market meaning accepting decisions from a foreign court and pressure to mirror Brussels’ policies

    James Crisp Europe Editor
    30 March 2025 12:00pm BST

    Sir Keir Starmer is poised to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and align with EU rules to hit net zero.

    The Government wants to rejoin the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) carbon market, which it left when Brexit took effect at the end of 2020.

    But The Telegraph can reveal it will mean changing British rules to match EU laws, accepting decisions from a foreign court and pressure to stay in lockstep with Brussels’ net zero policies.

    Britain set up its own UK ETS, which also aims to incentivise companies to pollute less, but its carbon price is much lower than the EU’s larger and more successful market.

    Rejoining the EU ETS will increase the UK carbon price, making it more expensive to pollute and cutting emissions further and faster, which will help reach the net zero goal but could increase costs for consumers.

    It could also save UK companies from looming EU green tariffs, and stop Northern Ireland having to impose the new carbon border tax on British goods because of the region’s Brexit deal.

    Olof Gill, European Commission spokesperson for EU-UK Relations, told The Telegraph that linking the market could have “benefits for climate action”. But he warned: “The ambition and the scope of a potential linking would be assessed in light of the EU’s climate ambition.”

    The prime minister has sought to forge closer economic, trade and defence ties with the EU. Senior EU sources have said alignment is the price for the veterinary and chemical deals that Sir Keir wants as part of his post-Brexit “reset”.

    A Government spokesperson said that the UK and EU had “agreed to consider linking our respective carbon pricing schemes and to cooperate on carbon pricing” in the Brexit trade deal.

    But Labour ministers and MPs have already made clear they will sacrifice hard-won Brexit freedoms and accept EU rules and regulations to reach net zero by 2050.

    Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen
    Sir Keir Starmer has sought to forge closer economic, trade and defence ties with the EU Credit: Getty Images/Benjamin Cremel
    Both carbon markets work by capping total emissions that can be released by polluting industries, which receive permits to emit greenhouse gases known as emissions allowances.

    Allowances can be bought and sold on the market. The higher the carbon price, the greater incentive not to pollute and to sell the allowance instead.

    On Friday, the carbon price per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent in the UK ETS market was about £40.16, compared to £59.57 in the EU.

    Plans to link the markets were discussed at the last meeting of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in Brussels this month.

    “We do need to have closer alignment and a strong, stronger relationship in that space,” Marsha de Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea and head of the UK delegation, said after the talks.

    Lord Livermore, a Treasury minister, recently told peers: “We recognise that alignment with existing regimes can reduce administration burdens, so we will align where appropriate.

    “We also continue to explore all options to improve trade and investment with the EU, which includes the UK and EU giving serious consideration to linking our emissions trading schemes.”

    Experts told The Telegraph that the UK would have to accept that the ECJ was the final arbiter of questions related to EU law governing the ETS.

    “I imagine that would be seen as a strong requirement or pre-requisite, especially if there is still regulatory divergence,” said Sam Van den plas, policy director at Carbon Market Watch.

    “You need to ensure the maximum amount of regulatory alignment, or realignment,” he said, adding it was important for market supervision and compliance.

    Parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are subject to ECJ jurisdiction. However, the trade agreement and UK involvement in the Horizon programme resolve disputes through independent panels.

    Baron Duncan of Springbank, now a Tory peer, was the lead MEP on reforms to the EU ETS before Brexit. He told The Telegraph that the pressure to align with EU policies would be intense.

    “Everybody is out of step. So when you come back into the fold, you have to adapt very quickly to these EU initiatives and also be bound by the European courts, which will agitate the Brexiteers,” he said.

    He added that British businesses would not necessarily be ready for the “judder” of a steep increase to the EU prices if the UK rejoins.

    Pressure to stay aligned
    The UK and EU both have the same goal of net zero by 2050, although the jurisdictions have different staging posts in the timeline to reach that target.

    Simply linking the two markets will not tie a future government’s hands over net zero, although there will be pressure to stay aligned.

    The UK ETS covers energy-intensive industries such as steelmaking, power generation and aviation.

    From 2027, the EU will also introduce carbon pricing on road transport and building, making 75 per cent of the bloc’s emissions covered by a carbon price.

    When the UK ETS was set up on January 1 2021, it was basically a copy and paste of the EU system, but there has been divergence in the rules since.

    The UK offers more allowances in some industrial sectors than the EU, which would have to be removed.

    The British mechanism to remove surplus allowances to the market and protect it from financial shocks is also slightly different to the EU’s and will have to change if the UK rejoins.

    There is another incentive for Sir Keir to align with Brussels; the EU’s plans for a carbon tariff border wall, which will come into force in January.

    The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) imposes tariffs on imports from outside the EU to prevent unfair competition with products made under lower and cheaper environmental standards.

    British businesses risk finding themselves on the wrong side of the tariff wall and vulnerable to increased costs. A UK CBAM is not scheduled until 2027, a year later.

    Rejoining the EU ETS could help reduce costs and simplify compliance for British exporters of products including fertiliser, cement, aluminium and hydrogen.

    It will also help avoid another politically toxic headache over Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal.

    Under the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland would have to apply the EU’s carbon border tariff to British imports even though it is also part of the UK.

    Formal negotiations on linking the two markets have not yet begun. EU governments must first give the Commission a mandate to start talks.

    There is a UK-EU summit on May 19, which could pave the way for those negotiations, as well as trade talks, a possible youth mobility deal, and a defence pact.

    2. What bit of "we voted to LEAVE" don't they understand? All of it, it would seem. Words fail me to express my disgust with them.

      1. At least you are close to the EU, Canada has been sniffing around EU membership for about a year now.

  86. As the warmongers howl ever louder a small dose of reality,I'm watching a PBS doco on weapons production in WW2 how weapons production was decentralised and spread around not only the large engineering firms but thousands of small engineering works and then the parts assembled
    Where are those firms now??
    In fact bugger that where's the steel to make any of it??
    These people live on fantasy island……..

  87. Phew! Two cubic metres moved and stacked. Looking at the heaps – I'd say another six to go. Pretty tiring work, actually: bending, picking up, standing up, moving , stacking – repeat ad inf….

    Very satisfying, though. Especially when Gus came to inspect. The woodstore is in "their" part of the garden, where they hunt and climb. He was concerned that we might be interfering with his habitat!

    1. I'd say you're providing a good habitat for mice, so it will benefit the cats!
      Picking up from the ground is a pain. Some of our wood is delivered, the farmer we buy it from leaves his trailer in our yard to unload from which is much more comfortable.

      1. The mice are there. G & P discovered that the first day they went outdoors – over four years ago.

        The picking up problem arises from having the trees on our estate. Colin fells them and cuts them into logs – which are split and left in heaps. It is easier when the MR is able to help with the picking up and passing to the aged person doing the stacking!

      1. You think I didn’t know that?

        While we were having lunch, Gus indicated that he wished to go out. The front door was wide open. No – he preferred the french window in the sitting room…. Muggins went and opened it for him. A short time later, Gus was in the porch (onto which the open front door opens) – asleep in one of the three baskets we provide for him and his brother…

  89. Re Eid Mubarak:
    Go fuck yourselves you stone age savages.
    Remember this gentlefolk of this parish, Eid Mubarak means the hideously cruel slaughter of millions of animals around the world, streets will literally flow with the blood of terrified animals dying in agony.

  92. Wordle No. 1,380 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 30 Mar 2025

    A share for Birdie Three?

    1. Not sharing your optimism

      Wordle 1,380 4/6

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

    2. Well done, par again for me.

      Wordle 1,380 4/6

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

    3. Well done! Careless error on guess 3 cost me a birdie (must be the jet-lag….) – another par.

      Wordle 1,380 4/6

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

      2. Well done.
        Wordle 1,380 5/6

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

      2. I am planning on leaving.

        There is nothing we can do because it is the people who should be defending us are the ones doing it.

        A new government of any stripe won't make any difference.

      4. 404010+ up ticks,

        Evening C,
        Organised mass NO, currently the construction eng. / suppliers in the lake district are refusing, build on that.

      5. The very least.. would be to chip in £20 to Rupert Lowe's c r o w d f u n d campaign to expose the you know whats.
        Cant post link.. this site will flag as "pending".

  94. Prevening, all. A lovely, sunny day today and it was even warm! I took the dogs to church with me for Mothering Sunday (they are my family, after all). Then we went to a local stately home garden to enjoy the daffs and flowering shrubs. On the way back, we stopped at a dog friendly cafe where I enjoyed a cappuccino and the dogs each had a puppaccino. I took the opportunity to relax and read an edition of Cheshire Life as well. When I came home, I lounged in the sun until it went in. A thoroughly pleasant day. Reeves won't rely on anything other than socialist (and therefore useless) dogma.

  95. That's me for today. Very satisfactory log work. More tomorrow – and onwards until it's done. Two hours at a time is enough…! (I am a pensioner, you know!!)

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. One hopes.

    1. I hear ya, Bill! I chainsaw, drag out, cut to length, split, and stack about 10 cords a year.

      It's one of the jobs that I've yet to put time into age-proofing for when I get older!

      1. I have always been scared stiff of chainsaws – ever since a client of mine, up a tree on a Sunday morning “pruning”, had the misfortune for the saw to “buck” on something in the branch, slice into hie femoral artery – and – watch himself die in front of his wfe….

        So I pay people to do the sawing and splitting. The rest I can still (pushing 90) cope with. We have three cubic metres (or stères_ felled each year.

        1. That’s terrible – no wonder you have that state of mine. So would I.

          I do safety-up with the gear, and also carry hemostatic bandages – but there’s always going to be a degree of risk I agree. I find myself using the 40v electric chainsaw more and more – and limit the Stihl to situations where there is no other option.

          1. If I need to do any chainsawing at height I get a pal of mine to do it – he has a Stihl which extends to 4 metres so he can do it from ground level

          2. I generally limit myself to ground level. Mostly, I’m relying on recent deadfall – or soon about to be deadfall. Anything up high I’d also leave to the specialists!

  96. ust wondering whether the Monopoly board game company have updated their go to jail policy based on Starmer’s two tier colour chart sentencing policy coming in on April 1st.
    I suggest for whites males only – Go two jail, do not pass go, do not collect £ 200 you cannot leave until you throw a double seven

  97. Guardian editors ‘helped cause Southport riots’

    Lord Sewell claims publication fanned flames of discontent by ignoring plight of white working class

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/03/30/TELEMMGLPICT000418350164_17433503535850_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqXVkZStvwOiQCdCTQ0jK0xGeHmdnIZXEbV1mfi0dqMrY.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Lord Sewell said the newspaper helped create the conditions for last year’s disorder Credit: David Rose for The Telegraph
    Craig Simpson
    Arts Editor
    30 March 2025 5:15pm BST

    The peer, who previously led an inquiry into racial disparities in Britain, said the “liberal elite” had ignored the plight of the white working classes for too long.

    Lord Sewell said it was “inconvenient” for publications like The Guardian to cover struggling white communities and instead preferred to promote ideas of racial “victimhood”.

    He argued that the elite disregard for struggling white communities helped to fan the flames of discontent and fed into the riots that took place following the Southport attack in 2024.

    Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, partnered with The Telegraph, he said: “Those riots came out of [a] combination of two people: Guardian editors and arsonists”.

    He added: “That kind of blinkered attitude, that liberal elite, that loves to go: ‘I like my multiculturalism, I like my dining table conversion’. That kind of stuff, that goes on particularly in north London is fine – but it’s not the same if you live in parts of Liverpool.”

    Lord Sewell said a dismissive or hostile attitude toward the white working classes was part of a “toxic mixture” that created the conditions for rioting.

    He said he entirely condemned the disorder, which led to more than 1,000 arrests, but added: “I don’t think white working class people should be blamed for this.”

    Newspaper ‘interested in victimhood’
    The riots took place in deprived areas like Hartlepool, as well as Blackpool, Sunderland, Southport, Manchester and other locations.

    In some instances, migrant hotels were targeted by rioters. More than 800 charges were brought against those who took part in the unrest.

    Lord Sewell chaired the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was launched to assess the claim that Britain was a racist country in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.

    In 2021, it concluded that Britain was not institutionally racist.

    He added that research showed that white working class males had far worse outcomes than many ethnic minorities.

    Lord Sewell said The Guardian had led the backlash against this conclusion, saying: “They wanted to know more about victimhood, more about racism, more about how these horrible white people are oppressing black people.”

    Libel payout
    It comes after the newspaper group agreed to pay “substantial” damages to Telegraph columnist Douglas Murray to settle a libel claim relating to the 2024 riots.

    Kenan Malik, a writer, claimed in the Observer that Murray had spoken in favour of the riots during an interview with John Anderson, the former Australian deputy prime minister, on his podcast.

    The claim rested on Murray’s comment that “The British soul is awakening and stirring with rage at what these people are doing.”

    Malik claimed that this showed Murray was supporting the summer unrest. However, the interview was from 2023 and took place before the Southport attack and its aftermath.

    The Guardian has been contacted for comment.

    1. "In 2021, it concluded that Britain was not institutionally racist" against blacks, but it is institutionally racist against the white indigenous population.

    1. :grumbles about 10" of fresh snow, freezing rain, ice-pellets, plague of locust o'er the land and narrows eyes:

      2. Us southerners just have freezing rain, I could skip the rest.

        Are the mosquitos/horse flies/deer flies out yet?

        1. Nothing yet, mate. The snow fleas are out on the big compost heaps that are already cooking at around 135F, kickstarting the process – but nothing else at this time.

    2. :grumbles about 10" of fresh snow, freezing rain, ice-pellets, plague of locust o'er the land and narrows eyes:

  100. North Ontario. The winter is the price I pay for choosing to live in the 1950's. 🙂

    1. Lots of grizzly bears, I'm sure it's chilly but delightful. I'd love to have lived in the 50s .

      1. It was a great time to live. Police on the streets, only two genders, no Stonewall, you could speak to your neighbour and shared a culture with him/her. Just a few of the delights.

        1. It was safe for a young child to walk to school along the A38. My father died, my Mum had to work so she was not at home when I arrived home from school. But we had good neighbours and I would go next door on the dark evenings and have a cuppa and a bit of telly. In the summer I pleased myself when I got home, I could play with friends on the way.

        2. Yes, I researched my bolt-hole like a major project, C!

          No crime, cheap land, no petty Government (search for Ontario Unorganized Townships if you're interested), like-minded people, limited services, home schooling, kids that play together outdoors rather than stare at phones, locally grown/raised food, barter, self-sufficiency in water, energy, and food – and firearms.

          2. Good! We have a creek running through the property, and we have a couple of lakes nearby if I want to get more variety into the freezer – especially when it’s winter. Trout, yellow Perch, Pike, Walleye and Bass are pretty much there for the taking. Salmon fishing is within 100 miles, so more of a hobby/vacation than a simple source of everyday food.

            It’s hard to to find enough space for true fly fishing though, without being out on a boat. But that’s another pleasant distraction in itself.

          6. For the last 20 years we've been in SE Cornwall. Sea fishing from boat and shore was excellent up until 7 or 8 years ago, plenty of pollack, cod and bass (not freshwater bass). Not so good now. Fly fishing is mainly on stocked reservoirs or lakes. I live less than 100 yards from what was a good salmon river, the Tamar, and run by a fishing syndicate with a waiting list of years. Only 2 salmon were caught in our 2 mile stretch last season.
            I'm hoping to get as many trips in as possible this year on a very good charter boat I've used for the last 20 years. The skipper has turned to commercial giant bluefin tuna since their numbers have increased dramatically over the last 10 or 12 years, but he still takes a few old customers out.

            Edited tears to years. Hmmm, my subconscious trying to tell me something?

          7. Ahh! What a beautiful area. My 90 year old Dad and 84 year old Mam, plus my sister, live just to the west of Looe.

            Wishing you tight lines for the seasons ahead, Mola!

          10. From my (poor) memory, I think I remember that their local butcher was in Pelynt. And a damn fine Old School butcher it was too.

          11. Ha, returned to Gunnislake after fishing the Fowey estuary on Thursday (a blank) through Pelynt.

          12. Hah indeed! It’s a small world, pal! I had to search for it after mentioning it, and found it was indeed Pelynt, and the butcher is O’Keefes. I remember walking in to a decidedly scruffy looking small shop, with stuff stacked in the aisles in cases – and then right at the back, was the meat counter and a fella and his son who knew their stuff, no doot aboot it (as we say up here).

          14. I tried to Google that, thinking it was a work of literature. As a result, I’m guessing it was actually a reference to your kid and their life.

            Good for them! It’s not for everyone, but it works for those who work at it.

        3. Hardly any telephones (our dentist had one with a separate ear piece attached to a 12 inch high column that one spoke into); the lamplighter carrying a ladder disappearing into the silent gloom of a winter dusk; very few cars; unlocked doors; children playing in the street….

      2. Heh heh. No grizzlies – our bear is the black bear. A big old softie usually, unless of course you get between them and their cubs!

        p.s Are you the same Audrey that plays in the jazz band? (From the other place known as GP)

  101. I've given up chocolate for Lent but have ordered a very large Belgian easter egg for
    Easter Sunday .

  102. It's been a glorious day out there today! We got a bit of work done outside. Now dinner is cooking.

  103. My word it was just like stepping out side from our front door south of Adelaide today. I'm referring to the over 40 degrees in our green house.
    Our number one's father in law popped in we had a coffee and a chat together. We are on the same wave length.
    I'm knackered now after spend most of the day carrying out much needed garden maintenance work. But I really enjoyed the local blackbirds whistling while I work.
    I'm not turning in yet, it's twirly, but I'll be back tmz.

    1. Oh! My dad and niece are en route to Adelaide from Perth on the choo-choo train. They were in Kalgoorie yesterday/earlier today.

      1. I've been on a train in Oz, bet that's a nice trip.

        Whoops, Edit; Meant to say "I've never been on a train in Oz, bet that's a nice trip."

      2. I think Kalgoorlie is where the huge open mine is.
        We lived just south of Adelaide.
        Morphet Vale and later Christies Beach. Only ten minutes out of town.

  106. From the Mail

    DR MAX PEMBERTON: Los Angeles is now a hellscape crawling with deranged psychotics. It's a warning of what we face in Britain if we don't take this crucial step…
    I've just returned from Los Angeles, where I spent a few days doing research for my next book. Walking around the city of an evening, I was struck by two things. The first was the shocking number of mentally ill people who were clearly experiencing psychosis, languishing on the streets, untreated and uncared for.

    While the UK is far from perfect and the NHS has many faults, the things I saw late at night in Los Angeles would never happen here.

    For example, walking down Hollywood Boulevard – the street where stars of the silver screen and TV have their names embedded in the pavement – I saw an elderly woman, slumped in a wheelchair, wearing an oxygen mask which was not attached to anything.

    Los Angeles is experiencing a health crisis, with people languishing on the streets, untreated and uncared for
    Los Angeles is experiencing a health crisis, with people languishing on the streets, untreated and uncared for
    It was about 2am. There were police nearby so I approached them, explaining that I was a doctor and was worried about her. I expected them to call for an ambulance. Instead they asked if she had been harassing me. No, I explained, she didn't appear to be conscious and I was simply worried about her. Their response was chilling: if she was not causing a disturbance, then they would do nothing.

    I had only walked a few hundred yards further when I came across a man, entirely naked, looking up at the sky, screaming. He then crouched down and defecated on the pavement.

    'What is this place?', I wondered. Time and time again I saw people in the throes of severe mental illness, talking to themselves, shouting, distressed and disturbed, yet there was no help at hand.

    I even saw one person who appeared to have 'posturing'. This is a severe symptom of psychosis where the person holds an uncomfortable pose for a prolonged period.

    It's quite rare to see this in the UK, as people generally receive treatment before it reaches this stage. In Los Angeles, it's common.

    I have worked for years in outreach projects with homeless people, often accompanied by the police, picking up those who were clearly mentally unwell and in desperate need of medical attention. I mentioned this to a doctor I met, asking why the same wasn't happening in Los Angeles. His response: 'Who would pay for these kinds of projects?'

    Dr Max has been involved in outreach projects which proactively help homeless people. In Los Angeles (pictured), a doctor he was interviewing said: 'Who'd pay for these kinds of projects?'
    Dr Max has been involved in outreach projects which proactively help homeless people. In Los Angeles (pictured), a doctor he was interviewing said: 'Who'd pay for these kinds of projects?'
    Police help a man believed to have overdosed in Los Angeles
    Police help a man believed to have overdosed in Los Angeles
    The whole experience was chilling: an edifying lesson in how cruel and uncaring a privatised medical system can be.

    But the second thing that struck me is surely linked to the above: the stink of cannabis, which has been legal in California since 2016.

    People smoke it everywhere and, by the evening, you can't get away from the acrid stench.

    Los Angeles hardly seems a good advert for what happens when this drug is legalised.

    The link between cannabis use and psychosis is very well-established and it seemed clear to me that California's permissive attitude to marijuana is fuelling an explosion in serious mental illness.

    Portugal also saw a huge surge in cannabis-induced psychosis after it decriminalised the drug in 2001.

    A street in Los Angeles filled with tents due to the homelessness crisis in the city
    A street in Los Angeles filled with tents due to the homelessness crisis in the city
    The more people who use this dreadful poison, the more lives will be ruined.

    Of course, not everyone who smokes cannabis will experience psychosis or mental health problems. But research shows that regular use of the drug doubles the risk of experiencing a psychotic episode or developing schizophrenia, which significantly increases the risk of anxiety and depression.

    Another doctor I was interviewing joked that legalising cannabis has been a boon for psychiatrists in Los Angeles, as so many people now need medical help thanks to the change in the law.

    Now, cannabis may have a role in treating some medical conditions, from MS to arthritis.

    It can be useful therapeutically, but the plant's active compounds need to be isolated and turned into medication prescribed by doctors and dispensed by regulated pharmacists.

    This is what happens with other medications derived from nature, including the potentially dangerous drug diamorphine (which is derived from poppies).

    Recreational use is altogether different. And it's not just about the devastating mental health problems it can lead to.

    A study last week found that young people who use the drug have a six times greater risk of experiencing a heart attack compared to those who never or rarely do.

    Worryingly, the increased risk was observed in patients under the age of 50 – a group typically considered to be at low risk of heart problems.

    I fear that we are far too late to crack down on cannabis use – the horse has bolted. There isn't the political interest in tackling it. I suspect we are heading towards legalising it in Britain, too. At least the drug could be monitored, though; regulations placed on its sale; and controls introduced around who is selling it.

    But I still believe we are setting ourselves up for a host of problems due to our increasingly liberal approach to cannabis. Too many people think of weed as harmless when, as my experience in Los Angeles shows, this couldn't be further from the truth.

    1. Interesting piece from the Mail today. I was in Los Angeles for five weeks over Christmas. Went to Hollywood quite a few times and spent some time in downtown LA, went to the Athletic Club one evening for a Jazz Concert. Quite a bit of homelessness downtown, but this article makes me think that things have really gone downhill since I left. Hardly recognisable as the same place- A kind of Back to the Future part two when Biff became boss of the town. Did Trump do this?

    2. My friend’s husband was a regular user of cannabis at university and thereafter.

      He was lucky enough to survive a heart transplant last year (aged 58).

      1. Was cannabis responsible for his heart problems?
        My dad died at 59 of lung cancer and he used to smoke a lot. Lots of his friends died young too and they were all smokers. But his best friend, a sportsman and life long non smoker ( not even cannanbis) died during a rugby match where he was referee when he was 62. i know all kinds of old guys who've abused drugs and alcohol all their lives and they're still kicking.
        Another friend a doctor, keen on jogging , went one morning for a run and had a heart attack and never came back. 42 years old. Never indulged in harmful activities( except jogging perhaps)
        You take it day by day no one's guaranteed survival not even on the short term.

        1. Mick Jagger and his mates, for instance, soldier on. You can never tell what is around the corner. I made the point the other eve that you need to sort out your affairs with family before you decline or suffer a stroke.

        2. My Grandfather started smoking at twelve years of age and smoked twenty a day sans filters until he died aged eighty six. I hope I have his genes.

          1. My English grandfather lived to 84 smoking a couple of packets a day. And never missed an evening in the pub.
            My American grandpa lived in the country, strong as an ox, never smoked or drank alcohol. Made it to 89.
            You pays your money and….

      1. The existence of a public health service, although it may be perceived as imperfect, does make a huge difference. My impression over the years when walking about downtown LA,is that the squalor and homelessness amongst tramps is mainly due to poor care, or better said, abandon, of disturbed and/or maimed service veterans.

        1. But yet again, the writer is drawing a false comparison between “the NHS or no healthcare for poor people”
          Many social healthcare systems in other countries prove that there are better models than the NHS.
          What I really meant though, was that the NHS financial model is at particular danger of failing in the current climate where public finances are being driven into the ground. There’s no strong infrastructure of controlled health insurances to pay hospitals’ and doctors’ bills in place, just handouts from government.

          1. I wasn’t referring to the NHS. I said public health care which exists in most first world countries outside the US.
            Americans even in liberal California tend to believe that the misfortune of poverty and homelessness is due to the sloth of the victims and they do not deserve help.

    4. Not just democrat cities.

      We were in Savannah this month. Tt used to be a very hospitable city where you could wander round the squares and back streets without a care in the world. No longer does it feel safe, on many street corners and certainly in the majority of Charlestons wonderful squares you would see a lot of deranged individuals shouting and cursing at nothing in particular. I don't know if they were on drugs or just homeless individuals having a bad day but it certainly was not a nice feeling and a big step back from only five or six years ago.

      Almost as bad as Vancouver is reported to be.

      1. That was not my impression of Los Angeles.The downtown area seemed no worse than other years, there are stores with signs refusing admission if you aren't wearing shoes and a shirt just as there were ten years ago. Places like Venice and other beach towns along the coast seem to change population very quickly after dark, they only come out at night as they say. But this is the same as it's been over the last ten years. Hollywood seems as safe as ever, a baseball cap more expensive than it was. What cost me 5 dollars a few years ago ouside the Dolby theatre was now 35 dollars. but I went to China Town (very safe) and bought one for 5 dollars with no tax if you paid cash.
        Melrose can sometimes be a little boisterous, funny people walking around but really peaceful and safe this year. Worth going to for the hamburgers in Pink's.
        This article, I'm sorry, was just click bait.

  107. Husband-murder postponed whilst i catch the end of a programme on BBC2 with Steve Backshull canoeing down a river in the Himalyas (which was on when i arrived home).

    I like Steve Backshull.

  108. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    In 2003, Donald Trump took delivery of a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, a $450,000 German supercar that blended precision engineering with Formula 1 bravado. Photographed grinning over its bodywork in Manhattan, he looked every bit the unabashed playboy flaunting a new toy. Two decades on, he’s threatening to hammer the very firm that built it – and Germany’s car industry as a whole – with a 25 per cent tariff on European auto imports.

    Germany’s post-Cold War boom was built on a single assumption: that ever-deeper globalisation was here to stay. As we explore in our book Broken Republik and its German sibling Totally Kaputt?, the country’s carmakers made an all-in bet on the so-called End of History. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the eastward expansion of the EU, they surged forward on a tide of open borders, cheap energy, and liberal trade rules. Made in Germany vehicles – engineered to perfection and exported at scale – became global icons. But the world they were built for is crumbling.

    Trump’s proposed tariffs could wipe out billions in revenue and a quarter of future profits at firms like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. Signature models like the 911 and S-Class are suddenly vulnerable in their most important market. And if the EU retaliates, German-built cars produced in America for export back to Europe – including BMW’s South Carolina SUVs – could be caught in the crossfire. The delicate geometry of globalisation is coming undone, and for export-dependent Germany, there’s no Plan B.

    An S-Class sedan, gliding through the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, was built, unsurprisingly, in Sindelfingen – a long-time stronghold of Mercedes manufacturing just outside Stuttgart. But Germany doesn’t just export cars to America – it builds them there too. That gleaming BMW X6 under the glass roof of BMW Welt in Munich? Not Bavarian, but made in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and shipped back across the Atlantic. A Mercedes GLE crossing a Shanghai intersection? Built not in Stuttgart, but in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This global ballet of production – optimised for efficiency, not borders – is under siege.

    And Germany’s car giants have few options. Trump’s push to bring advanced manufacturing back to the US leaves them stranded. In the short term, they can raise prices and hope Americans will pay for the Made in Germany chassis stamp. If not, they must either take a profit hit or cede market share, in the worst case both will happen. The long-term alternative – shifting more production stateside – is costly and unravels decades of finely tuned logistics. Every option is a retreat from the system they perfected.

    At Porsche, the situation is already dire. Profits are slumping due to high costs and sluggish pricing, partly due to a price war in China. It’s now worth less than half its peak value after Volkswagen’s crown jewel was partially listed on the Frankfurt exchange in 2022. It’s cutting 1,900 jobs as part of a plan to revive margins, which were once the envy of the industry. Volkswagen itself has threatened factory closures, and BMW and Mercedes are also enacting cost reductions. Battling with Chinese competition and a structural shift away from combustion engines, Trump’s tariffs could not come at a worse time.

    For Germany, the trouble of its automakers isn’t just about an economic pillar weakening. It gnaws at a key aspect of postwar identity. The industry employs over 780,000 people, with entire regions built around it. Streets and squares bear the names of automotive pioneers such as Rudolf Diesel and Carl Benz. The motorway network, with its famous limit-free stretches, is a symbol of national pride, immortalised by Kraftwerk’s ode to fun, fun, fun on the Autobahn. After the shame of the Nazi era, cars transported a more peaceful message about the German Volk. One commentator even controversially summed it up by saying the Mercedes-Benz star had replaced the swastika as the national symbol.

    So Germany’s auto woes cut deep and reflect profound fissures in the economic model. Shielded by American security and fuelled by Russian gas, the former Exportweltmeister honed industrial efficiency to a fine art. But now, with Ukraine at war, China flexing its industrial might, and protectionism resurgent, that model looks dangerously outdated.

    The signs have been visible for years. Dieselgate destroyed the moral high ground of German engineering. Volkswagen and Mercedes were exposed for using software to cheat emissions tests. The cost ran into the tens of billions, but the reputational damage was worse. The 2015 scandal marked the beginning of the end of Germany’s postwar self-image: competent, honest, unassailable.

    The industry’s struggles haven’t stopped. Coddled by the German government, the automakers were slow to pivot electric cars and looked at the transition as a powertrain issue rather than an overhaul in the entire idea of what a car is. It struggled for years with over-the-air updates that Tesla and Chinese rivals had long mastered. Too slow moving and stuck in a tradition of horsepower and handling to adapt to tech-style development, German carmakers struggled to keep pace.

    Amid all this upheaval, there was the trusted US market. Americans still liked big powerful cars and were willing to pay for them. High-margin gas guzzlers and premium badge appeal kept sales and profits buoyant. But even US consumers have their limits, if a German badge suddenly costs 25 per cent more.

    Economic anxiety in Germany has already propelled the far-right AfD to replace the centre-left Social Democrats as the dominant working-class party. And amid the political convulsions of a massive spending package, the nationalist party is nipping at the heels of the centre-right CDU. Germany’s once-reliable postwar political duopoly is crumbling and a more volatile era is emerging.

    Trump’s tariffs are just part of the reckoning

    The deeper malaise lies in the global retreat from the liberal order that once powered Germany’s economic engine. As Chancellor Olaf Scholz toured the country in late 2024, trying to revive his reputation after years of economic stagnation and political gridlock, he was met with frustration that cut across party lines. Disillusionment with the status quo was palpable, as voters questioned whether Germany’s leaders still had the vision – or the tools – to chart a course through mounting global headwinds.

    The 23 February election confirmed the growing disillusionment. A third of voters backed parties outside the mainstream. The Social Democrats and Christian Democrats are struggling to cobble together a centrist alliance that offers little in the way of new ideas. Similar ‘Grand Coalitions’ backed three out of Angela Merkel’s four terms in an era when problems like aging infrastructure and an inadequate energy system were allowed to fester.

    Merkel was known as the ‘auto chancellor’ for her accommodative stance toward the industry. She had long given lip service to electric vehicles, but never backed that up with policy that would have prodded the manufacturers to innovate. She allowed Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW to develop dangerous dependencies on state-owned companies in China, operating under the assumption that German engineering excellence would always have an advantage.

    Those assumptions have proven to be naive, and Germany is beginning to pay the price. Trump’s tariffs are just part of the reckoning. It’s not that Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes are disappearing, but their dominance is no longer assured. And the same goes for Germany itself—unless both the nation and its flagship industry embrace bold innovation and reinvention. The road ahead is uncertain, but if Germany is to lead once more, it must rediscover the spirit that made it great. The future belongs to those who push forward—Vorsprung durch Technik.

    WRITTEN BY
    Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes
    Chris Reiter is a senior editor at Bloomberg News in Berlin. Will Wilkes is automotive and industrial correspondent for Bloomberg News in Frankfurt. Their book Broken Republik: The Inside Story of Germany’s Descent Into Crisis was released by Bloomsbury on 6 March. The German edition, Totally Kaputt?, was published by Piper Verlag on 27 Feb.

    1. The Americans are blatantly stealing German manufacturing to make up for China having stolen theirs. Destroying Germany's gas pipeline, forcing the price of energy up and then offering companies incentives to move to the US. Tariffs are just the latest attack.

  109. Yvette Cooper blames weather for record number of small boat crossings
    Number of ‘red days’, when calm conditions are conducive to small boat Channel journeys, has increased this year
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/30/small-boat-crossings-yvette-cooper-good-weather-migrants/

    So when the weather is fine it is the weather's fault that so many immigrants come across the Channel.

    But last year Sunak said he was getting on top of illegal immigration when in fact fewer illegal arrived because of stormy weather.

    1. They'll blame anyone but themselves. In her defence, the Tories blamed the same. They're all utterly pathetic. None of them are willing to do what needs to be done and change the law to return and stop these criminals.

      In fact, for 30 years the entire state has set about refusing to implement the law in favour of creating new law that surprisingly doesn't do what the public actually want.

  111. 48 toilet rolls lasted 3 weeks. Either this family is full of [beep] or we need more cloths lying about for spills.

    Same for ruddy shower gel. 6 500ml bottles lasted 2 weeks. I've put both on subscription. Ruddy people are more expensive than the dogs!

    1. I tend to use toilet paper as kitchen roll but in a tiny studio flat, the bathroom and kitchen are small and close together. One source of paper will do.

          2. I am mate. Like I said I’m meeting up with Twinkle from the other parish.

          3. Oh nice! You did mention you would be meeting up with a Puffin, but didn’t call them out. Tell them I said hi! Safe travels!

      1. Hopefully, they are admitted on the basis that a rational evaluation shows they can contribute.

  113. About to hit the sack, just a few minutes to listen to the best jazz vocalist ever – Louis Armstrong.
    Just after Firstborn came to be an independent person (premature and about the same weight as a bag of sugar), I went home and played "Wonderful World" by Louis, and cried like, well, a baby. Even now, it gets me all out of sorts. Like now, remembering.
    Firstborn is now a massive and hugely capable bloke – big beard, farm, you name it.
    https://youtu.be/VqhCQZaH4Vs?si=-JC1t-v37YklUHbh

    1. Now if I'd seen this comment before your one below, I wouldn't have run off to Google "Life In The Country. Author: Firstborn." in fear of exposing my utter lack of knowledge of that well-known classic author Firstborn.

      Well done to him, and well done to you. Life on a farm is all about what you can put in, not what you can take out. And I say that as a clean-shaven, bald-headed, 3-years from 60 year old.

      2. He's a self-made man. Some advice and help from his parents (well, mostly Mother) from whom he gets the love and talent for cooking and food. His inability to be attractive to women, he gets from me. As well as his abiliy to argue any point, not accept the BS one is told, and inability to believe broadcast media – making up his own mind.
        He's damn good shot, too, with rifle, shotgun & handgun. He has my old 1941 Walther P.38 that I bought in 1980 or so. Damn fine handgun, that.

        1. Is that you, Dad? 🙂

          I had to smile at the women bit as well as the food reference and several other points. Batchelor till my 40’s. Done food from oil rigs, to mining camps, to overseas Embassies, fine dining, and self-employment. Always take the counter-view to improve the strength of my own opinions, but keep those same opinions loosely-held. However, compared to Mrs DC, I’m shit with a handgun and shotgun. But do seem to have a knack for the rifle. Maybe there is a ‘type’ that eventually realizes that complaining doesn’t work for them, and decides to just GAFDIY. (Go and flipping it do it yourself.)

          I get the impression I would enjoy a beverage with your lad, and learn a lot in the process.

          1. Would be good to set it up.
            He doesn't drink much, but can hold his liquor… much better than I can.
            Dead proud of him, so I am. A smart, hard-working, inventive and kind man.

  115. Tomorrow's Letters Page is now 'Open'

    The DT people have ignored the onset of ST

  116. Maybe this would help folk sleep…
    A joik is a Samisk (aboriginal folk in Norway & Sweden) song to do with the spirits of the forest and mountains, so I guess kind of religious… One Joiks something or someone as an expression of love, as best I can understand it. Kind of spiritual in an open landscape-kind of way. Imagine yourself sitting on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere, with just nature round you, so many stars above that the sky is grey with them, and otherwise utter silence… then this music comes creeping into your head…
    https://youtu.be/tCL9FiAuezk?si=xWAzhp1y6HQdaXSm

  117. Maybe this would help folk sleep…
    A joik is a Samisk (aboriginal folk in Norway & Sweden) song to do with the spirits of the forest and mountains, so I guess kind of religious… One Joiks something or someone as an expression of love, as best I can understand it. Kind of spiritual in an open landscape-kind of way. Imagine yourself sitting on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere, with just nature round you, so many stars above that the sky is grey with them, and otherwise utter silence… then this music comes creeping into your head…
    https://youtu.be/tCL9FiAuezk?si=xWAzhp1y6HQdaXSm

  121. Well, it's just after 11 pm, so I'm now off to bed. Good Night to you all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all fully rested early tomorrow.

  122. Ugh. Dark and horrible again. Still at least we get more daylight (sic)

  124. I wanted to go out at 4am so I went to wake up big boss by standing on his head. Girly growled at me but I am very big so don't really care. As Big boss was curled up with Smelly I stood on his tummy and leg as well.

    He did complain and grumble but refused to get up and let me out at notnightnotday so I drooled on him and farted. Grumpy got up as well and tried to push me off but stood on Smelly.

    Smelly did wake up and that made big boss get up too. When I got downstairs I saw small boss had already opened the door and was waiting. I hadn't meant to wake him up. I like small boss.

    Either way, I got to go outside in notnightnotday.

    Morning everyone, it's Mongo.

  125. Obviously I hope that a certain lady in Australia will make a full recovery from her injuries, but I cannot help wondering when, where and why HRH Prince Andrew learned how to drive a school bus.

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