Sunday 31 August: The Chancellor should think again before penalising landlords further

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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658 thoughts on “Sunday 31 August: The Chancellor should think again before penalising landlords further”

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, as ever, to Geoff; you say that your eyesight is not the best of late, so are you able to read my thanks to you? If not, I'll restrict myself to just "Good morning all" in future. Anyhow, today's Wordle was a Par, which is much better for me than of late.

    Wordle 1,534 4/6

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

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      I also got it in four, but can't be bothered to go back and post it, especially as everyone else will come along later flashing their ones and twos! 🙂

      1. Who wants to see their ones and twos?

        A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says "number one" and "number two" are from the late 1800s, citing Joseph Manchon's 1923 Le slang: lexique de l'anglais familier et vulgaire.

      2. We'll just have to take your word then, BB2. I can tell you that for the next five days I will get an Eagle – you'll just have to take my word for that.

          1. Well if you can’t take it seriously by posting your results, then you’ll have to put up with me not being serious either.

  4. Good morning, chums. And thanks, as ever, to Geoff; you say that your eyesight is not the best of late, so are you able to read my thanks? If not, I'll restrict myself to just "Good morning all" in future. Anyhow, today's Wordle was a Par, which is much better for me than of late.

    Wordle 1,534 4/6

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

        1. A thousand a day entering Britain and a thousand jumbo jets a day of Britons leaving. They'll call the policy "one in, one out."

          1. Apart from a few of the very rich, are there many ordinary Britons leaving and, if so, to where? There seems to be few, if any, countries that don’t have much the same problems as the UK.

          3. Although I am bilingual – I speak English and perfect bullshit – I have no aptitude at all for learning a foreign language, which rules out both Hungary and Japan for me. I favour Singapore, although my finances would probably not be enough to ensure a decent lifestyle.

          4. I am a linguist, but I struggled to remember what Japanese I did learn and the older I get the worse it gets.

  10. Demo and counter-demo protest near migrant hotel

    Image caption,
    Anti-migration protesters carried signs reading "stop the
    30 August 2025
    Groups of anti-immigration protestors and counter-protestors have gathered outside a hotel housing asylum seekers.

    About 120 people on both sides had assembled by 14:00 BST outside the Ibis in Barnwood, Gloucester on Saturday.

    Anti-immigration protestors carried Union flags and England flags, while the counter-protesters held signs with messages including "love thy neighbour", and "refugees are welcome here".

    Gloucestershire Police said there would be an increased policing presence in the Barnwood area on Saturday.

    More news stories for Gloucestershire
    Listen to the latest news for Gloucestershire
    Attribution
    Sounds
    Speaking to BBC Gloucestershire, Chloe Turner, leader of Stroud District Council, said: "Refugees, asylum seekers are not the problem. We understand that many people feel that this country is not in the place it should be at the moment.

    "But refugees didn't cause the cost of living crisis, refugees didn't put all the sewage into our rivers, they didn't bring the NHS to its knees."

    She said she understood people's concerns about migrants being housed in their communities, but added: "I hope we can all rise above that and show compassion and understand that these people are fleeing really terrible things."

    "We understand that no one becomes a refugee lightly."

    Image caption,
    Counter-protesters outside the Ibis hotel in Gloucester

    Christopher Faulkner, who joined the anti-immigration protest, said he was concerned about "unvetted" migrants being allowed in.

    "We are paying the French millions to stop them and they're still not doing anything. In four years I don't think there will be an England left."

    When asked what the government should do with migrants instead of placing them in hotels, he replied: "I don't think they should be here in the first place."

    "Why are they giving them all these perks? It's really winding the country up."

    Image caption,
    Councillor Chloe Turner said people need to "show compassion" to refugees

    Mr Faulkner added: "And it's the tax payer who's paying for it."

    Assistant Chief Constable Arman Mathieson said the force had prepared for the protests.

    On Friday he said: "I'd like to reassure people in our communities that we are aware of and are well prepared for the planned protest tomorrow.

    "Police liaison teams have spoken with individuals from the groups due to attend and their co-operation has helped us put suitable plans in place.

    "However, we would like to stress that any disorder will not be tolerated in our county and we will take immediate action against anyone who breaks the law."

    2. "But refugees didn't cause the cost of living crisis, refugees didn't put all the sewage into our rivers, they didn't bring the NHS to its knees." Excuse me – thousands of illegals receiving benefits and being housed at taxpayer's expense didn't contribute to the cost of living crisis? Didn't contribute to the NHS being overwhelmed?? And what about the sewage on our streets? They aren't refugees if they passed through several countries not at war to get here!!

      2. What does that have to do with the price of tomatoes? Different discussion completely.

      3. The left seem to think that the refugees live on air, consuming no resources.
        But if you come from abroad with a private medical insurance, you're told you're not allowed to use scarce NHS resources, even when your insurance is ready and willing to pay for them.

        1. There is a strong Green presence where I live too, but I wouldn't tar them with the same brush as some of their inner city sisteren, eager to compete with Corbyn. Mostly they are wistful romantics closer to Trumpton and Camberwick Green than to Lahore and Lagos, a sort of Enid Blyton utopia with craft centres and organic cafes, trying to imagine that this is what most folk can actually afford when they shop in Aldi.

          1. As a local Councillor, Chloe is OK and gets things like potholes repaired. I just don’t agree with her politics.

          2. I remember a few years back, the Green Party fought an election on the premise that one could house the world's dispossessed in cardboard boxes covering over the English countryside. "Slums" they used to call them as sound Victorian terraces were swept aside in the name of Progress. That their Leader at the time could go through a general election campaign without mentioning the environment seemed to confirm that the Greens were not immune to modern politics' propensity to offend their core vote.

    5. Chloe Turner is mostly right when she says "But refugees didn't cause the cost of living crisis, refugees didn't put all the sewage into our rivers, they didn't bring the NHS to its knees." Others did this, and this is not even the diehard flagwaving protesters are accusing them of.

      Overwhelming and destabilising local communities' infrastructure and culture – she chooses not to consider that.

      The answer is not getting so much compassion fatigue (and anyone that has to sit through TV begging ads every ten minutes must know what that is) that one becomes hard and merciless in order to protect oneself; it is surely that they should feel comfortable enough in their homes to make any exile down to self-protection a trickle, rather than a flood. Then we can give them the sanctuary they need.

      There are consequences when trashing whole cities and expecting the rest of the world to pick up the pieces. Netanyahu and Putin and their backers are kidding us that theirs are victimless crimes, and that is before we get started on the Muslims.

      As for importing hardworking poached labour from abroad, I note that Malvern Hills College (which specialised in adult education) is still closed, and Poles are still better dentists and builders than we are.

      1. They didn't help the NHS problems. Indirectly they don't help the cost of living crisis either because the government hikes taxes to pay the massive bill for them. As for sewage in the rivers, extra outflow can't help, but then they do tend to deposit it in parks and on the streets.

    6. Difficult to read with all the picture captions and other text in the way… and, screw the refugees, 'cos they aint. They are bandits, paedos and pirates and should be shot when illegally crossing the border.

      1. Sorry – that was me trying to copy and share the link on my phone. It was on the BBC website. But it’s local to here – just outside Gloucester and as I said I often attended meetings there.

      2. Shooting them might lead to a diplomatic incident it any turn out not to be a bandit, paedo or pirate. What happens at Heathrow? This place cannot even make tourists or even British born-and-bred feel welcome. I'm sure their talents can be deployed elsewhere.

        The problem with the Ascension Island is that it is too far out to sea, and we'd be stuck with them. I know there's not much left of the British Empire, but there must be an island somewhere within swimming distance of somewhere far enough away that could cater for their needs. We used to have Aden, which was a fine place to send our undesirables.

    7. Nobody becomes a refugee lightly? These aren't refugees! France is not a war-torn country. They're illegal benefit scroungers.

  11. 'Morning All
    Weekend Medley
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  12. 412096+ up ticks,

    Good question,
    No good asking the politico's they'll be long gone and the leading lights of the remaining opposition will, i'm certain, be saying " well the old mussies ain't so bad after all".

    ALL eggs one basket criminally risky, back up safety net party seriously needed

    Look to the farmers for proven through time patriotic leadership.

    https://x.com/MarkHeath45/status/1961878307835695182 https://x.com/MarkHeath45/status/1961878307835695182

    1. How? Narwhal tusks, fire extinguishers, and any other other improvised weapons.
      Be careful though.. Muslim Bruvhood within Prevent will put you on the Terrierrrrist list.

      A Kent man regarded as a hero after he fought off terrorists has been put on an anti-terror watchlist.

    1. Grifting, projection and chutzpah are being seen to pay in politics these days. People vote for it, or at least are given no alternative that can stand up to it.

  15. 412096+ up ticks,

    Do we really need one of these at this moment in time ?
    highly likely to be future governing material.

    Dt,
    Turkish trans drag queens among foreign ‘talent’ handed British visas
    178pc increase in annual applications for permit is cause of ‘urgent’ concern, critics say

    1. Wasn't it the Labour Party that once put up Eddie Izzard as representative of England?

        1. I have just bought myself some new wellies. Am I a parody of a countryman?

          I actually find wellies on a woman far sexier than stilettos.

          2. Izzard is not a woman – that’s why his dressing up is a parody. You can wear what you want. Wellies are practical.

          3. Every pantomime dame is a grotesque parody, but that doesn’t stop them playing the leading role in a Christmas show. You wouldn’t want to bet on its horse in the Derby though, and I also prefer a practical woman in bed. Wellies are optional.

    1. Nothing is impossible, but the gritty hussy has to be admired for trouncing all the bods who gained expensive impressive qualifications .. but got nowhere .

      So I guess anyone can become King , Queen , PM, Princess , CEO, President , Brain surgeon, bogus scammer, Revolutionary leader ..

      She flashed her fancy and and became a modern Jezebel .. and made lots of money, why, because she had the looks .

      An anti heroine in the style of the late Diana ?

      1. No. Not like Diana in the least.
        She seems to be an updated version of John Prescott, there to keep the working class Labour supporters happy.

          1. I just searched to see if I could find any links between AR and those shadowy international organisations, and I can’t find one. Can you imagine Klaus Schwab welcoming Ms Tatts’n’Vapes Rayner into one of his WEF young leader programs?
            So if she’s not having her ego buttered up by hobnobbing with billionaires like her boss, the only thing she can be offered is money. The question is, does she have any integrity? they got rid of Prescott’s conscience by stuffing his mouth with Jaguars, is Rayner the same? Is she going along with the current government because she’s too stupid and uneducated to understand the implications of what they’re doing? Or could she really be a hope for the future?

          2. Your penultimate suggestion stands out by a mile. Coupled with just good ol' fashioned greed.

          4. You're more forgiving than I am then. That comic awfulness is going to cost me and the country I love dear.

          5. They are all malevolent clowns, but our problems are more to do with half a century of money debasement than with the current government.

          6. Money has been debased before (eg Henry VIII who added copper to silver in coins in order to fight some of his egoistic wars). The governments can help or hinder – they have chosen to hinder.

          10. Your penultimate suggestion stands out by a mile. Coupled with just good ol' fashioned greed.

      3. I suspect she was one of the first women to make a fortune out of the Only Fans website.

        She should join the advertising campaign with the slogan:

        The Only place to show your Fanny is on the Only Fans site!

    3. A hardworking person, no doubt.

      Anyone that does not do that is a loser and deserves to be taxed.

  17. Joris Bohnson
    19h
    I hope all those who still claim you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide and routinely ridicule those who disagree are sitting comfortably. They may think they have norhing to worry about until the police come knocking and search through everything they own and the contents of their computers, messages, photographs etc hoping to find anything they can use to paint their victim in the required light to justify prosecution. This is exactly what happened to a former Kent policeman whose bookshelf was subject to particular scrutiny apparently as evidence of him being 'one of those' Brexit supporters aka far right. The fact that they failed in their mission and were forced to apologise is cold comfort for an innocent person who was subect to such a horrendous and protracted ordeal but maybe that's the real intention behind such policing. It's amazing how easy it is for those in power to abuse that power when the MSM are so highly selective about what they cover and what they choose to ignore or distort.

    1. They set a legal precedent with Horizon. They can do what the hell they like now.

      So much for justice. There is little connection between the law and justice since it was reformed; it is all about procedure. Maybe when they talk of those fighting for their country, this is as good a place to start as any.

  18. Correct me if I am wrong , but when we were married and Moh was serving in the RN, he said he wasn't allowed to vote in elections .

    Is that because we moved around or was it a rule in the1960's, 70's that service people weren't allowed to vote .

    Things have changed in recent years , and I was surprised to read the link below.
    https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote-armed-forces

    1. I can't remember ever voting whilst in the RAF but that doesn't mean I didn't or wasn't allowed to.

          3. When I was first married I tried to join the mobile library as our hiring was in a small village and I didn't drive. The librarian said I had to have my husband's permission as I was under 21.
            I've never forgotten that humiliation.

          5. My sisters both married at the age of 20 and started their families immediately. I married at the age of 41 and so Caroline not only became an aunt but a great aunt when we married in 1988. She is now a great great aunt but is yet to be a grandmother.

          7. My mum too.

            My “little girl” is just 22. She’s lovely, hard working. But cannot imagine her being married.

          9. When the boys were small, I had to get MB to sign any hire purchase agreements. I assumed it was because I wasn't earning although that particular purchase would still have been with my money. It was humiliating but I could also see the reasoning behind it if – IF – it was merely a financial reason.
            The pendulum appears to have now swung too far the other way.

          11. I was the youngest voter in the constituency when I first voted. The General Election was held on my 18th birthday.

      2. Like you, I can’t recall ever voting while in the RAF although I don’t think that it was forbidden. I think that the main disincentive to voting was that the turbulence of Service life caused difficulties in getting on to an electoral roll. I was stationed in Germany at the time of the Common Market referendum and we were certainly allowed to vote on that. My impression is that most service people, at least those stationed in Germany, voted to remain in the CM.

  19. One thing leads to another.

    REES-MOGG investigates SUSPECTED ASYLUM SEEKER SITE in Somerset

    by-election in North East Somerset before the next general election.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg tipped to leave Tories for Reform

        1. Reform will deliver the death blow after Labour has brought the country to its knees.
          TPTB know that we wouldn’t accept digital id slavery from someone we hate – therefore it has to be a “hero” who imposes them.
          The current Labour government are so villainous it’s comical – and that did not happen by chance. 2TK wouldn’t be running a whelk stall if it was left to his own talents, let alone all the career “achievements” that have been put his way. I’m sure his membership of the Bilderberg group is just coincidental.
          First you destroy – then you re-build. Reform are the re-builders.

        2. I suspect that many of us here like the idea of a Reform Party but are not happy with the reality that it is being led by a megalomaniac narcissist.

          1. Good morning Richard ,

            Yes I agree with you . I have met Farage , met him at a meeting years ago in Dorchester with a large group of prospective Brexit followers ..

            Our feelings then were he regarded himself as a Messiah, but we felt he was useless in his MEP position as Fisheries bod ..

          3. Good morning Richard ,

            Yes I agree with you . I have met Farage , met him at a meeting years ago in Dorchester with a large group of prospective Brexit followers ..

            Our feelings then were he regarded himself as a Messiah, but we felt he was useless in his MEP position as Fisheries bod ..

    2. He should think carefully before joining Reform – he should bear in mind that Farage does not like to have competent people with 'a high profile' too near him as he is paranoiac about being displaced. JRM should look at how Farage treated Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib.

      1. JRM should look at how Farage treated Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib.

        A better example would be Suella Braverman.
        Farage Red Flag #19 Reform PR puts it out there that 'Suella Braverman was not a team player, her record show she is just too disruptive.'

      2. And he should join Ben in the 'Advance' Party which is now backed by Elon Musk whom rightly, has given Farage the cold shoulder.

      3. That is always the big question mark.
        NF does seem to shed competent characters like autumn leaves.

    3. He should think carefully before joining Reform – he should bear in mind that Farage does not like to have competent people with 'a high profile' too near him as he is paranoiac about being displaced. JRM should look at how Farage treated Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib.

  21. Good Morning!

    Today we move from betrayal and bent Judges to Broken Britain, Scotland in fact, which Nanumaga suggests is probably the most broken bit of it. In The United Kingdom and a tale of Scotland he gives us a detailed account of what is going on up there – and it's a tale worthy of MacBeth!

    ECHR Chains and the Epping Betrayal is, of course, about the arrogant, politically controlled judiciary bringing the law into disrepute, the rigging of the court with Starmer and Hermer comrades and cronies, and the now official government policy that illegal alien's rights are superior to ours and the use of a foreign court and its laws to encourage mass illegal immigration.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 13.3%; Solar, 5.8%: Wind 46.4%; Imports, 12.8%; Biomass, 5.7%; Nuclear 13.6% and Miscellaneous, 2.4%. Very unusually we are importing no power from France but exporting 1.3GW to it. Has France imploded?

    freespeechbacklash.com

  22. Morning all🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 🙂😊
    Sunny Sunday and our 51st wedding anniversary.
    A group lobotomy is a better option for the government front bench.

    5. How would we tell the difference? TwoTierKeir acts like the WEF version of Joe 90, and the #KeirmerRouge are as mentally adept as the cabinet members in the 'Spitting Image' sketch featuring Maggie and her vegetables.

      Happy Anniversary!

  23. SIR – Matthew Lynn (report, August 28) describes Porsche customers as “speed and status-obsessed playboys”.

    At the age of 82, I’m hardly a playboy, and, as for status, it’s true that most of the 33 cars I have owned over the years have been German. This includes my current Porsche Macan, for the simple reason that I find that the quality of German vehicles is second to none.

    French cars don’t appeal to me, there are no British marques that are not made by Japanese or Chinese companies, and none of my favoured models of Jaguar – the marque I did prefer in my youth – are now in production.

    As for speed, the Ferrari and Aston Martin I once owned are out of place today and irrelevant on our overcrowded and camera-controlled roads. As for electric vehicles, I believe that the public has been conned into buying these overpriced, hugely depreciating and short-range behemoths.

    Martin Henry
    Good Easter, Essex

    Wow and wow again , but I expect when he was younger he was a playboy , loads of money to be able to afford a Ferrari and an Aston Martin .

    A real petrol head.

    The only way is Essex!

      1. And did it?
        The only car available amongst our group of friends in the 1960s was an aged ford thingy with most of the floor rusted away. Good if you were in to studying road surfaces at 30 mph.

        1. I had some very pretty girlfriends in those days. But I must hasten to add that it was not until I was 40 that I met the true love of my life!

          Indeed, at the speech I gave at our wedding reception I quoted a few lines from this song:

          At seventeen he falls in love quite madly
          With eyes of tender blue; at twenty-four he gets it rather badly
          With eyes of a different hue
          At thirty-five you'll find him flirting sadly
          With two or three or more
          When he fancies he is past love
          It is then he meets his last love
          And he loves her as he's never loved before.

          1. One of MB's past girlfriends made my wedding outfit.
            My mother was worried that ex-GF would deliberately botch it.
            I knew that she was already engaged to someone else, so no worries.

  24. White working-class schoolchildren punished more than any other group
    Education Secretary calls on parents to help tackle children’s bad behaviour as damning statistics are revealed
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/30/white-working-class-schoolchildren-punished-most-report/

    The worst punishment all schoolchildren – not just white working-class boys – are being hit with is the punishment which is being inflicted upon them by a sadistic education secretary who is is far more interested in socialist dogma than in education.

    BTL

    I used to teach in an independent public school where the majority of the pupils were white boys. Virtually all the pupils passed all their GCSEs and obtained good "A" levels.

    Rather than trying to cripple successful schools with her mad fits of spiteful envy shouldn't Bridget Phillipson see that the problem is not to do with boys, their background or their race but in the teaching and the schools they attend.

    If fee paying schools can do it – and many non-fee paying schools such as the Michaela School can do it just as well – then the Education Secretary should be capable of seeing that destroying what is good is the worst possible solution and white working class boys are not being helped – indeed they are being harmed by her cruel, philistine, rigid socialist dogma.

      1. My two white middle class boys who had a good start in their early schooldays at prep school etc , failed miserably at their comprehensive school , lax discipline large classes and teachers who were definitely labour indoctrinated and anti Thatcher , talking eighties and nineties .

        My white working class husband from a poor grunty background achieved the impossible, O's and A's at Grammar school and was accepted by BRNC ( officer training at Dartmouth for a Royal Navy career )

        I am so proud of his achievement , as he rose above the rest.

        1. I have a few friends who must have been at Dartmouth with your Richard.

          My best man, Joe Ruston, had a year at sea before going to BRNC in 1965. He then went up to Cambridge in 1966.

        2. My ex never left his working class roots – he went from driving tanks to driving tankers.

    2. Certainly not Richard! We can't have more young people being better educated and being able to think for themselves…dear me!

    3. Katharine Birbalsingh in conversing with this woman said that she is not open to criticism or ideas and impervious to the damage she is causing because the woman is an ideological fanatic indifferent to the consequences of her actions – damage she will do and is doing to the educational system. Birbalsingh, apparently begged her to reconsider her "reforms". She took no notice and was actually resentful of any constructive criticism.

      As an aside. I really can't help but feel that many of the people in the present government are actually evil. Starting with Starmer and most of the Front bench, not omitting Hermer, one of the most depraved. We are battling 'principalities and powers' rather than human beings who care about humanity. Indeed I think they are indifferent to the people and care for nothing, not even what they profess, it is all just tools for destruction.

      1. Of course Cooper was. The entire point of state controlled education is to indoctrinate,e not educate. The state wants, desperately to control how people think. Thus it keeps pushing it's own agenda at any cost. This is why it wanted to destroy private schools.

        The real client of the department for education is the unions, not the parents. The best approach, to permanently smash the hegemony is to just cut the state out entirely and move to school vouchers.

      1. Degenerate. What's the yellow, isn't that new in judicial get up or does it just reflect his mentality?

        1. He's just doing his job, supporting the state line.

          What the public want is irrelevant.

          If he had said no, gimmigrants cannot be kept in hotels then the government has to find somewhere for the vermin to go OR it has to prevent their getting in to the country at all.

          Big government _wants_ them here. It is revenge for Brexit.

          1. Ben Habib says we don't have Brexit. Points out that with Northern Ireland trapped in the zone we are still obligated to the EU. I posted this yesterday it is well worth watching. I don't know why this is starting in the middle. Obviously pull it back to start.

            https://www.youtube.com/wat…

    1. It would be a shame if he. or any females in his family/circle of friends, suffered some degree of perceived nuisance with prejudice.

    2. What is perceived nuisance

      A perceived nuisance is an activity or condition that is subjectively considered annoying or disruptive by an individual, but does not meet the legal or objective standard of a statutory or common law nuisance.

      What one person finds bothersome, another might not notice.

      Harassing school girls in the street is more than a perceived nuisance. It is intimidating and frightening.

    3. Looks good for a 67 year old. Must have some Cornish ancestry as one of his names is Trevanen.
      Those Court of Appeal judges can squeak and whistle all day long, but the fact is that the Directors of Somani Hotels were in breach of planning regulations in Epping, and as they operate other buildings which are supposed to be hotels (C1), the directors may have committed similar offences elsewhere.

    4. I perceive him – and his close friend – as a nuisence.
      Oh well, it's back to keyboard and dog walking.

    5. Assuming the above quotes are correct which I believe they are, people like him are the scum of society in my book.

  30. Send in the Clones
    17h
    Well done Graham Stringer. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56230de3d0289e030cb27f5deb2dfc510d28bc2be1556b6d533637fbd40b05d8.png
    jazznick1
    Send in the Clones
    13h
    Well done Graham.
    The only Labour MP I have any time for.
    Chemical scientist and anti-net zero.

    Nickerless
    Send in the Clones
    16h
    The lady that thinks 'Ethics' lies betwixt Suffolk and Kent!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b17d2e6b8bcd33458f3813329d3275312088796764cfefdb5e4747eeb9eb076b.png

      1. I think that's about right.
        She may be venal and chavvy, but they are human traits we can understand.

        1. So are greed, dishonesty and evil all human traits we can understand. It doesn't make their possessors any more less abhorrent.

    2. HatanakaHacker
      16h
      Have to hand it to "our Ange" for her scientific breakthrough.
      She's invented Schrodingers's Home", a place you live in and simultaneously don't live in at the same time.

  32. In order to save your life when confronted with danger , there are three escape rooms .

    One of the rooms is on fire , the other room is full of armed assassins , and the other is a large room full of hungry lions who haven't eaten for three years ..

    How can you escape and which room?

    2. Struggling to survive in a snowstorm with Scott of the Antarctic, the room on fire would certainly resuscitate you; if the assassins like Milk Tray, you could bribe them with a box or two.

      1. So they couldn't be hungry. Schrödinger's lions perhaps, you wouldn't know until you opened the door.

        Edited to extend.

    4. Assuming the lions are still alive, I'd wait out the burning room for the fire to go out, or divert it into the room full of assassins – who are at a disadvantage as I know they're in there and if I dressed as one of them could escape their notice. At worst they'd get in each others way as I know everyone else is an enemy.

      2. A room full of assassins might kill one another and, with luck, the final pair could kill each other.

  34. Not bad:
    Wordle 1,534 4/6

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

    1. 'Morning Per, not often I can match yours but this weekend I seem to be on a run

      Wordle 1,534 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
      🟨🟩🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  35. Good morning all! A mild day in West Sussex. I feel that since it is Sunday I should post something peaceful. Fat chance! Starting the day off with this. I was wondering about recusal but I don't know that much about English law. In the USA Lord Justice Legume would have recused himself, if not one on the lawyers would have removed him.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUO61zcs7PM&t=2s
    Afterthought, oldie but goodie. Conscience cleared for disturbing the Peace.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdPiRWIam0

          1. I know, he told me that yesterday. I was just sick. The heat was very bad for my emphysema. It didn't help the glaucoma either! Constant lung infections. In the end I turned of all the fans and air conditioning which wasn't helping, in fact I think the air conditioning caused the infections. I ended up just laying down and waiting until it got cooler in the evenings to be active. Mostly making sandwiches for the next day that I could eat in, or rather, on bed!

            All day and night I watched documentaries on the computer, if not for that I would have gone nuts! My lungs are now certainly worse but I hope that their will be some recovery during the autumn and through spring until the next heat wave. But thus it goes and what is important is that I'm always happy to be alive, even if time makes things physically worse. For me. as long as my mind and sense of humor is OK I can put up with it. I think of it all as a test, a sort of game in which I strategize in order to keep ahead. If that makes sense? How to win when you can't LOL. Anyway, that mind set keeps me going.

          2. Well done! And now that the weather is cooler you should be more comfortable, i hope so anyway. And don’t lose your sense of humour.

          3. Try this out the next time you are having trouble nodding off.

            Think of an animal.

            Take the last letter…Elephant. The last letter being T.

            Think of an animal beginning with T.

            Tiger.

            That gives you an R.

            Rat.

            Toad

            Dog.

            And repeat.

            If you can't think of many animals chose another thing like flowers.

            The mind should become focused and settled.

            Let me know if it works.

          4. I don’t have trouble going to sleep Pip. Did I give that impression? Anyway I will try your game but with plants. For entertainment purposes. But it is a useful tip I can pass on.

    2. Morning, Johnathan!
      Good to see from you. A good point – a pity there isn't a regulation that requires recusal/allows for removal, since he clearly doesn't see any problems about sitting on the case.

    3. One scours the internet for good news in vain these days! Best fall back on the Bible, as you will agree!

      I am exploring the Psalms.

      1. I do not read the Bible very much. My preference is for the Philokalia since, being Orthodox, I practice the Jesus Prayer. My intent is Theosis. Although I doubt that I will achieve it.

          1. I thoroughly recommend it. It is a book of spiritual instruction and great wisdom from the great saints and desert fathers of the past. It has been my companion and guide for many years. In the Orthodox Church there are two sources of Christian tradition, the Bible and the tradition of practice taught by the holy fathers which preceded the Bible and, in fact, formed it at the great Councils, thus in no way does it contradict the bible. In other words it is the living tradition embodied by all the saints of the past.

  36. Good morning all! A mild day in West Sussex. I feel that since it is Sunday I should post something peaceful. Fat chance! Starting the day off with this. I was wondering about recusal but I don't know that much about English law. In the USA Lord Justice Legume would have recused himself, if not one on the lawyers would have removed him.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUO61zcs7PM&t=2s
    Afterthought, oldie but goodie. Conscience cleared for disturbing the Peace.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdPiRWIam0

  37. Well chaps, it’s the last day of August/summer and the weather here is warm, sunny and a bit breezy! So our intrepid Denny Dippers are off for a swim 🏊‍♀️! We’re going to a little loch near Cumbernauld called….wait for it….Fannyside Loch! I await your comments!

      1. You should see us when we come out of the water! It’s very peaty and sticks to the hairs on your arms and legs! We look a bit like Hairy McLairy when we emerge!

    4. My memories of loch swimming were that the water was clear near the surface but very murky (peaty) below, and that a few yards away from the shore, the depth increased dramatically. And of course, the water was refreshingly cold.

  38. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/08/30/TELEMMGLPICT000437428220_17565627800840_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwVSYfRx-a0rm-wOQ3-QTCoU.jpeg?imwidth=640
    A Scottish Blackface ram with its distinctive and prominent horns at the Westruther Sheep Show in the Scottish Borders.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11f2d07f08f2ed2f350db206b48cee351351aad1e08d46f1247858f6f547a1e1.png A calf struggling to leave a slippery waterhole is given a little help by other elephants at the Addo National Park in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e854e584d763db25c3e2433a3f4ad860efbce26822c4a5b63caead4149383748.png The Knights of the Green take part in the 250th Knighthood Competition at the Southampton Old Bowling Club

    2. I wonder if the Carlow plod would like to buy this spare bridge I just have lying around?

  41. Yesterday I bought a world map, gave my wife a dart and said
    "throw it and wherever it lands we'll go on holiday"
    – we're spending 3 weeks behind the fridge.

    'Morning, all!

  42. Good Moaning.
    Bit of a bum note for a Sunday, but an interesting, if horrifying read.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/theres-nothing-ironic-about-civilisation/

    There’s nothing ironic about civilisation

    Theodore DalrympleWednesday 1 October 2025, 7:00pm

    A recent photograph on a BBC website startled me. It was of hundreds of books thrown out of a former library in Croydon on to the ground.

    It startled me because I had taken an almost identical photograph 34 years before – in Liberia. The books in the University of Liberia had been pulled from their shelves and scattered in similar fashion to those in Croydon. Of course, the books in Liberia were at a higher intellectual level.

    The capital city of Monrovia was in those days cut off from the rest of the country by the forces of Charles Taylor, and the only way to arrive was by the Steel Trader, a ship owned by a redoubtable old Africa hand, Captain Monty Jones, responsible, at his risk and profit, for revictualling the besieged city. On board was an American ex-marine, known to me only as Rambo, who sat on the stern looking for pirates to blow out of the water. (To his disappointment, they never materialised.) There was also Serge, a French mercenary who found life in France wearisome, and was engaged to train one of the Liberian parties to the civil war.

    Monrovia was a city destroyed, but in a very special way. The war had overthrown the regime of Samuel K. Doe (Dr Doe, as he was always called, once he had exchanged a timber concession for an honorary doctorate), who himself, as master sergeant in the Liberian army, had overthrown the regime of President William Tolbert, executed in the presidential palace and the last of the Americo-Liberian presidents.

    While I was in Monrovia, I visited the self-styled Field Marshal Brigadier-General Prince Y. Johnson, who had captured President Doe. Before visiting him, I had been warned that it was best to go in the morning, before he had drunk too much and smoked dope, after which he was inclined to go out looking for people to shoot. I had also watched the notorious video in which he was seen ordering the naked Samuel Doe’s ears to be cut off, so that he would reveal the numbers of his bank accounts in London. Doe died soon after, horribly mutilated. Johnson told me that his ambition was to be a pastor and, during his exile in Nigeria, he became one. He subsequently returned to Liberia, was elected senator, was twice candidate for the presidency and was granted a five-day state funeral. The destruction in Monrovia in 1991 was of a special kind. It was not just by bullet and shell, as in any war: it was a thorough and painstaking annihilation of every last vestige of Americo-Liberian civilisation, obviously hated by some with a violent passion.

    The John F. Kennedy Hospital, for example, where open-heart surgery had not long before been carried out, was nothing but a large, dark, echoing shell. There was not a single bed or member of staff present. It was deserted and abandoned, and every piece of equipment had been destroyed – carefully, meticulously destroyed. Anything with wheels or castors had had them sawn off, at the expense of hours of effort. It was as if people had gone through the building with a determination to ensure that it would never again be used for its original purpose, believing it to be evil, oppressive, alien.

    At the maternity hospital, I found that all the medical records, every page of them, had been used as lavatory paper and left on the ground. ‘This,’ the disposition of the records seemed to say, ‘is what we think of your antenatal care, your foetal monitoring, your caesarean sections and your concern for maternal mortality.’

    At the Centennial Hall, where presidents were inaugurated and other important ceremonies held, there was a Steinway grand piano. I should imagine that it was the only one of its kind in Liberia. It sat in the middle of the hall, its legs sawn off, its body on the ground. Again, this was no ordinary destruction, no mere smashing, but iconoclasm that was carefully considered and chosen. All around the body of the piano, with its legs spread-eagled, was a necklace of human faeces at regular intervals. It was not gang rape; it was gang defecation.

    I showed this to two young British journalists who had managed to make their way to Monrovia (civil wars are to journalists what carcasses are to vultures), but who had omitted to go to the Centennial Hall. They saw nothing in it, nothing at any rate of any special significance. Indeed, they found my reflections on the piano, my insistence that its treatment in this fashion was of great symbolic significance, mysterious. Why was I worried about the fate of a mere musical instrument when something like a quarter of a million people, a tenth of the population, had been killed, and an even greater proportion displaced?

    I recognised here a similar argument made against Schubert Lieder – that an appreciation of them did not prevent extermination camp commandants in Germany from committing the worst of atrocities, indeed may have assisted them in doing so insofar as being moved by them might have persuaded them of their continued humanity. If, therefore, I cared for the piano destroyed, or incapacitated, in the Centennial Hall in Monrovia, it was because I was indifferent to the quarter of a million dead.

    Croydon in 2025 is not quite Monrovia in 1991, needless to say, but it has its problems. The ex-library from which the books were so unceremoniously ejected was now intended for a community centre (whatever that might be), and for the moment it was being used to house the people considered the most vulnerable, all sources of vulnerability naturally being equal. What are a few books to set against the lives of the most vulnerable?

    There are more pressing practical needs than those of civilisation, and there always have been. The very word civilisation is now suspect, and in the writings of decent academics is usually provided with quotation marks, to indicate that the word can only be used ironically. Was not the medal given to all surviving British soldiers of the first world war inscribed with the words ‘The Great War for Civilisation’?

    1. "They hate us."

      (Once I dared to ask someone about Dr Dalrymple's theme and that was the reply)

    2. In the light of some of the medical experiments carried out in Africa by big pharma companies, one ought perhaps to know the full story of that.

      Here's the photo from the BBC website:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/835a35ded7c5ee1cec6f8bbe177e50a7b722a194054e32c55ed1a809d588ceb0.png Yes, I guess we can say that civilisation in Britain is definitely over now.
      The man in the background seems to be looking through the books. Must be a recent migrant, hasn't yet figured out that he's not supposed to read books.

      1. Apparently apart from the initial blast, courtesy of Israel, the place was also a munitions dump. Very stupid place to hold a meeting. I can't help but wonder what the disc shaped thing is that sails on top of the blast. Would love to know.

        2. Possibly just part of storage facility, to look like storing something but actually something else. Netanyahu on a bit of a roll atm.

      2. Apparently apart from the initial blast, courtesy of Israel, the place was also a munitions dump. Very stupid place to hold a meeting. I can't help but wonder what the disc shaped thing is that sails on top of the blast. Would love to know.

    3. Has anyone told IDF that there are regular meetings of Hamas and Houthis supporters at 10 Downing Street? They could earn many Brownie points and the thanks of most Nottlers if they could do the same there.

  46. That's actually got something done, at last.
    Put the scaffolding away.
    Tidied up the old beehive stands.
    Prepared to trim trees that are beginning to be damaging to the farm buildings (got the 2-stroke fuel, sharpened the saw chain), but couldn't cut the grass (rain stopped play). Set up for ction, in case the rain stops… now enjoying a pint of local (Aas Bryggeri) IPA.

    1. Hanging about waiting for juice from Sonny Boy Snr's grapes to reduce. Having been caught out some years back with just a sludge at the bottom of the pan, I'm up and down like the Assyrian empire checking on progress. It needs reducing, but …..

    1. Travis Kelce (Pronounced Kel-see). According to Wiki, 6ft 5in and considered one of the greatest tight ends in history. Kneels for BLM and
      also shown support to the LGBT community. In 2021, he called for more acceptance of homosexuality in American football and discusses social and emotional effects of racism against Black men. Lucky Taylor Swift!! Will he be her husband or her wife?

      1. Taylor Swift is a completely fake propaganda construct for brainwashing little girls into accepting things that will destroy them. Repulsive person.

  50. From the UN, civilian death statistics:
    Ukraine, war-related deaths at 39 month
    UK, 42 deadly stabbings per month
    Now, the population numbers will affect this, but initially, it looks like it's safer to live as a civilian in Ukraine, despite the war, than live in the UK.
    Scary!

    2. AI suggests 69 million approximately in the UK, 38 million approx in Ukraine in 2025.

        1. Further:

          The ONS projects the UK population to grow to about 72.5 million by mid-2032, driven almost entirely by net international migration (approximately 4.9 million people), while natural change (births vs deaths) remains close to zero
          The Standard
          Office for National Statistics
          Reuters
          .
          Longer-term projections show the UK population passing 75 million by mid-2041 and continuing upward toward 76–79 million by mid-2046

          1. That is as maybe, it wasn't that that I was questioning, is was the comparative death rates.

    3. 412096+ up ticks,

      Afternoon O,

      ALL incorporated in the governing political bodies fear & suppresion, successfully running campaign.

    1. You've removed the bit I was questioning.
      You effectively stated that per capita that it was twice as bad in the UK.

  52. See reply to your slightly earlier comment. I got it the wrong way around.
    Still pretty shocking results when comparing a war zone with a country at peace.

    1. I totally agree. The UK figures reflect very badly on the state of our society.

      I don't know, but strongly suspect that the vast majority of the stabbings are carried out by our ethnic enrichment.

      2. No, we're not. And for these men – actually all these people, because women are complicit – rape is a weapon of war. it has nothing to do with sex, or libido, or love, It is a means of humiliation and subjugation. Just read the litany of horrors perpetrated both against the little girls in this country and what they did in Israel on 7th October nearly two years ago now – still celebrated on our streets with government and media complicity.

      1. Why do these fools say these things? They don't believe them. They just hate other people.

        1. Clue: Study face of lady on left.. some wear a Birkin bag.. this lady wears a smug belief that she has higher moral values than others.. besides she doesn't have to suffer any of the consequences.

        2. They just want to popular amongst similar shallow people. But it is now beyond a joke.

      2. Fast forward six months.

        How does Arabella feel about being gang-raped last week?

        “Wasn’t expecting to get raped on my own street walking home this evening. Friends if you’re going to walk and text PLEASE be vigilant!
        “Just want others to learn, we all walk around like Zombies and wonder why people take advantage.

        “I’m sure the guy who did it was more desperate than bad and I’m glad it happened to me not someone who would have been badly affected by it.”

        Credit: Tommy Corbyn interview after Islington attack

      3. Stupid women , don't they understand that Muslim men insist on raping pure little girls , and then they punish their women by insisting on Female Genital Mutilation and other cruelties like covering up and getting rid of girl babies !

        1. Move gimmigrants in with them. Don't let them refuse, just dump a dozen in their house and forget about them.

      5. "Love thy neighbour". Unfortunately, Islam teaches no such thing. It is "Love thy neighbour provided he is a Muslim. If he isn't, kill him".

  55. A security guard at the Essex migrant hotel at the centre of anti-immigration protests has been suspended after social media posts showed him posing with guns and cash.

    Amjad Khan, originally from Pakistan, worked at the Bell Hotel in Epping. He posted pictures on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat including images and videos of a black shotgun, a handgun and an assault rifle.

    The pictures appear to have been taken while Khan was in Pakistan and have since been deleted.

    Divided image showing rifles and cash.
    The Bell Hotel is owned by Somani Hotels and managed by CTM (North) Ltd under a contract with the Home Office. Security guards are provided to CTM by a subcontractor called Supreme Facilities.

    On Saturday evening Andy Lane, the managing director of Supreme Facilities, confirmed that Khan had been suspended and an investigation had been opened. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/bell-hotel-security-guard-posed-with-guns-and-cash-on-social-media-l875qfrjx

    2. Suspended. What happened to good old fashioned sacking (now only applied to white people).

    1. Muslims pray five times a day, with each prayer lasting approximately 10 to 15 minutes, though the exact time varies depending on the specific prayer and individual. These mandatory prayers, known as Salah, are performed at specific times throughout the day, beginning with the Fajr (dawn) prayer and concluding with the Isha (night) prayer.

      Muslims as a group are not inherently more or less efficient in the workplace; efficiency depends on individual factors and the specific work environment. However, research indicates British Muslims have high levels of job satisfaction, trust in colleagues, and positive attitudes towards work. Challenges to their workplace efficiency often stem from discrimination, lack of understanding of Islamic practices by employers, and systemic issues such as barriers to training and employment.

      Lack of accommodation: In some workplaces, a lack of understanding or accommodation for religious practices, such as daily prayers or leave for religious holidays, can affect employee morale and productivity. Studies suggest that accommodating Muslim employees' needs can improve their performance.

      Meaning they don't get any work done !

    2. They clearly don't love their young, female neighbours who get harassed regularly by migrants (like my daughter).

    3. But not enough to actually put an illegal or two up in their own homes…

    5. Who do they expect will force the change of tyrannical governments in those countries from which the 'refugees' emigrate if not the same self 'refugees'?

  57. Then send the gimmigrants to live with them. Especially the women. Five or six to a house.

      1. The trouble is even if they don't requisition your bedroom, what they wish will cost. And WE are the ones who will be paying for it.

  58. The latest source of tension between Sweden and Norway has Russian ancestry, honks like a rusty gate and is on the run from a team of marksmen. https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/norways-contract-to-kill-rogue-goose-enrages-swedes-30srggwd9

    Swedish conservationists have expressed outrage after the Norwegian authorities put a contract on the head of an endangered lesser white-fronted goose that had strayed north over the border from Sweden. There was no mention of hunters attempting a kill — yet.

    At the heart of the dispute is Sweden’s efforts to revive an endangered Arctic population of the birds, which the Norwegian authorities say encroach on their turf and spread dangerous and undesirable habits among their own geese.

    The species, which has vivid orange legs and grows to a modest length of about 25in, was once common at breeding grounds around the fringe of the Arctic Circle, from the western coast of Norway to the Bering Strait. In the winter it flies south to more temperate climes, including Britain.

    https://x.com/snook_magg88153/status/1962128498752897400

    1. "spread dangerous and undesirable habits"
      "it flies south to more temperate climes, including Britain."

      Don't we have enough people here already doing that? Obviously a very loose goose.

      1. Afternoon Mola ,

        Many a true word spoken in jest .

        Here we are with pox outbreaks and inbreeding coloureds clogging up the NHs with malformed children , and a crisis of mega proportions with sickle cell and other equatorial diseases , yet our own like you and I and millions of others are not fast tracked , and just left to rot .

    2. That makes no sense…how can the bird be a native of Sweden but a threat in Norway?
      Perhaps one of our local NOTTLers can shed light.

  59. It'll happen sooner than later.. there are a few vids on YT questioning the scam that is the religion of Islam.
    Shine a light on it.. a UV light preferably.
    Jordan Peterson started but then held back.
    We all know what plagerised means.. taking the work of someone else and pass it off as one's own.. for malevolent reasons.
    If it's so robust why the meltdown when it's critised?

    Sam Shamoun is just the man for the job. LOL
    .
    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/voQetBYBIBk

    1. Plagiarise,
      Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
      Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
      So don't shade your eyes
      Just plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise.

      (But be sure always to call it research.)

      [Tom Lehrer]

  62. Just been having an online chat with Sue E on Messenger…….. she's getting a bit more mobile but has some fluid on her lungs. They gave her fentanyl for the pain……………

    3. Tell her to be careful not to turn into St George – no, not the one whose flags are flying 😀

  63. The latest legal ruling over the Bell Inn being used to house illegal immigrants without getting relevant planning permission appears to be more about making life easier for the government rather than a legal decision based on law.
    So it looks like from now on that the government can successfully argue that any law can be broken if it is going to cause them severe problems and inconvenience to obey it.
    A dictatorship in other words.

  64. Epping hotel judge ‘reported to conduct office’ over bias allegations

    Barrister claims Lord Justice Bean has links to Left-wing causes that ‘advocate’ for migrants to stay

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1eb4e4bfde3b098b590ff30495d1c3147689cc576c7fed652dca218f0efc67e3.png
    30 August 2025 5:40pm BST
    Michael Murphy

    The judge who ruled that asylum seekers can remain in a hotel in Epping has been reported to the conduct authority for alleged “bias” over links to Left-wing causes and organisations.

    On Friday, Lord Justice Bean and two other Court of Appeal judges ruled that an injunction banning the Bell Hotel from housing asylum seekers should be overturned.

    The ruling was a legal victory for the Home Office and has prevented the Government’s asylum policy from being plunged into chaos.

    Steven Barrett, a prominent barrister, on Thursday said he submitted a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office arguing that Lord Justice Bean “should not have heard the Bell Hotel appeal” because of apparent conflicts of interest.

    Those included his status as a founding member of Matrix Chambers which, Mr Barrett claims, is “firmly associated with advocacy in favour of allowing migrants to stay”.

    Other members of Matrix Chambers include Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, and Philippe Sands KC, the lawyer acting for Mauritius in its case against Britain for sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Both men are human rights lawyers and long-time friends of Sir Keir Starmer.

    Cherie Blair KC, the wife of Tony Blair, former Labour prime minister, is another prominent member, Mr Barrett noted.

    ‘Labour member for 28 years’
    Barristers at Matrix Chambers practice independently and do not necessarily share the views of the organisation or one another.

    Mr Barrett highlighted that Lord Justice Bean had been a Labour Party member for 28 years, had formerly served as deputy chairman of the Society for Labour Lawyers, and is a former chair of the Fabian Society, a socialist think tank “which advocates in favour of migrants”.

    The barrister alleged that in presiding over the case, “Lord Justice Bean erred, in failing to properly consider, or if not fail to consider, fail to properly apply, the test of ‘apparent bias’”.

    Mr Barrett cited a definition of apparent bias established in a case involving Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, which holds that it can apply if a judge’s “conduct or behaviour may give rise to a suspicion that he is not impartial, for example because of his friendship with a party”.

    Mr Barrett said: “In my opinion, Lord Justice Bean has erred in agreeing to hear such an important case, when it involves his friends in Labour.”

    Lord Justice Bean was approached via the Judicial Office for comment.

    Residents of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, celebrated on Friday after the Court of Appeal overturned an injunction that would have stopped 138 asylum seekers from living there.

    Several of the migrants “thanked” Keir Starmer after the controversial ruling allowed them to remain at the hotel.

    The temporary injunction was granted earlier this month after Epping council claimed that Somani Hotels, which owns the Bell, breached planning rules by using it to house migrants.

    The hotel became the epicentre of protests that swept across the country last month after an asylum seeker living there was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

    Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, from Ethiopia, told a 14-year-old girl he wanted to have “Jamaican babies” with her after she offered him a slice of pizza, a court heard this week.

    Mr Kebatu allegedly attempted to kiss the girl and get her to drink a beer with him.

    When she told him she was too young, he replied: “Age doesn’t matter”, Chelmsford magistrates’ court heard.

    The 14-year-old girl said: “He said he wanted to make Jamaican babies, and said that if you come back to the hotel, we can have sex and have lovely babies… It really creeped me out about that because anything could have happened.”

    ******************************
    Adrian Ja
    19 hrs ago
    So Bean stated clearly that the government has a legal duty to allow asylum seekers into the UK and stop them from being destitute , strangely he made no mention of the governments legal duty to protect the UK citizens of Epping . This is a total gift to Reform at their conference next week …….expect the polls to show another massive leap for Farage…….great work for Reform Mr Bean

    Sean Madigan
    18 hrs ago
    Reply to Adrian Ja – view message
    Asylum seekers who have gone against the UN Charter for Refugees by leaving the safe haven of France to come here. Suggesting that this Judge had a political bias is no surprise to anybody. I assume that is exactly why he was chosen by Cooper, Starmer et al.

    Michael Mulroy
    20 hrs ago
    Whatever the outcome the wonderful thing is the govt's credibility has been utterly shredded over this. AND EVERYONE KNOWS!!! To them the supposed rights of illegals are MORE important than the indigenous population. God help the women and girls of England!!!

  66. Kathryn Porter
    Norway’s electricity crisis is about to hit Britain

    European countries like the UK have become too reliant on cheap hydro from Scandinavia

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/729a2fd0da6cf467c92cbff405efa2e5826d2b072b0ed0521132f7619e5858e3.png Reservoir levels in Norway are now well below the 20-year average – and heading towards 20-year lows

    Kathryn Porter
    Stop someone on the street in London and ask them about interconnectors and chances are they will look at you blankly. But in Oslo, energy trading through these massive undersea cables has become a major issue. And one with huge implications for Britain.

    There is a real chance that Norway will run out of water this winter, meaning it will not be able to maintain electricity supplies to Great Britain. Norway could be forced to restrict exports under new powers which allow them to be restricted if there is a prospect of hydrological shortages. And not just once the shortages manifest.

    With elections to the Norwegian parliament on Sept 8, this is a hot button issue – as low water levels lead to high prices for consumers.

    Reservoir levels in southern Norway are now well below the 20-year average and heading towards 20-year lows. This is hugely concerning. Norway has almost no pumping capability which means that once the water has been used, it will not be replaced until it rains or the snow melts.

    The south of Norway is the main region of tension. This is where the interconnectors to Britain and Germany land, and where the population is highest.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/519ca5ccd94509c2494bd6534ede3372e76f195c6681c281a587a90c0e17fcfa.png
    Since these two interconnectors opened in 2021, the region has seen higher prices. The issue of high and volatile prices has led to them becoming an issue of concern among the general public.

    Earlier this year, the governing coalition collapsed when the Centre Party left over disagreements with the Labour Party over interconnectors and energy policy. The Centre Party opposed implementation of the EU 4th Energy Package which is a legal requirement, and wants to cancel the interconnector deals with Britain and Germany.

    Even the Labour Party agreed to defer implementation of the Energy Package and not to approve any more interconnection in the face of widespread public opposition.

    Almost all of the parties competing in the upcoming election are against interconnection promising either no new cables, or the cancellation of existing ones.

    Notably, there is consensus that two of the Skagerrak links with Denmark which are coming to the end of their lives in the next year or so will not be renewed, which will cut cross-border capacity with Denmark by almost a third.

    This is highly significant – Norway cutting electricity trading with one of its Scandinavian neighbours reflects the strength of public opposition to the cables. But Denmark also acts as a transit country for electricity exports from Norway to Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, so this move will have a wider impact.

    What happens next if water levels continue to drop remains to be seen, but the risks are real. In recent years, wet weather in late autumn has eased tight hydro balances, but experts are doubtful this will be repeated this time – if autumn rain follows the pattern of the past few years, hydro levels will fall to 20-year lows and the authorities will be forced to act.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79d839cd819d4b813f10b445d9deb53031fd8b8f54acdbccb2e1c31e60522c89.png

    There has only been a handful of days this year that Norway was a net importer of electricity. Other than to Sweden, from whom Norway tends to import, Norway exports electricity almost all of the time.

    European countries like Britain, Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have come to rely on cheap Norwegian hydro – but what happens if the water runs out?

    The answer is rationing. Under amendments to Norway’s Energy Act, Statnett and local grid operators are legally required to prepare rationing plans in case water runs critically low.

    These plans are not published, but the last time Norway came close to rationing was in 2003, when a prolonged drought forced Statnett to consider emergency measures. If water levels fall critically low, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (known as NVE) will implement rationing.

    Of course, in scarcity conditions, prices will rise, and Norway should attract imports which could stress neighbouring grids.

    Britain and Germany have become accustomed to receiving 1400 megawatts of Norwegian imports – approximately the size of two large gas power stations.

    What Norway should do is impose export tariffs to raise the price of Norwegian electricity exports. This may sound protectionist, but it would correct a distortion in the current pricing method.

    There is also a basic question of fairness here: Norwegian hydro resources should primarily be used for the benefit of Norwegians. Not just because they paid for the reservoirs and dams in the first place but because they also lack alternatives.

    In a highly electrified society, electricity rationing could cause real hardship – we saw in the Iberian Peninsula blackout earlier tis year how 11 people lost their lives in very benign weather conditions. A blackout or power rationing in a Norwegian winter would be far more dangerous. Asking Norwegians to endure that so German industry can keep running is politically toxic.

    The EU complains that restricting exports would be unfair and violate trading rules unless shortages are actually taking place. This is not entirely true – countries are allowed under international trading rules to protect domestic stocks in order to prevent shortages.

    With parliamentary elections in just over a week’s time, and a real prospect of electricity rationing this winter, it’s time that Norwegian politicians put Norwegians first and stop pandering to European neighbours who have chosen to under-invest in their own generation capacity.

    And British policymakers should take note – even if Norway does not make a political decision to suspend exports, a lack of water will have the same result.

    Whether by politics or by physics, Britain cannot rely on Norwegian hydro this winter.

    Indeed Norway might have to import two gas power stations worth of baseload generation from Britain this coming winter, essentially doubling the adverse impact on our grid.

    Policymakers must face that reality now, not when the lights flicker.

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

    Nigel Robinson
    5 hrs ago
    It is totally absurd, no, absolutely insane, that this country has to import its energy from anyone.

    Miliband, Johnson and all the other net zero extremists, should be in prison.

    BB

    Burlington Bertie
    5 hrs ago
    Reply to Nigel Robinson – view message
    Imagine if a foreign country had sabotaged our North Sea oil and gas production.

    It would be seen as an act of war.

    But if our incompetent politicians do it, it's just hunky-dory.

    Phillip Bratby
    6 hrs ago
    Thanks to the Marxist zealot, Red Ed Miliband and his Nut Zero scam, the UK is doomed to blackouts and high energy prices. There will be riots and the economy will collapse.

    1. It'll be worse than that, Mr Bratby. We use energy to clean our water. We use energy to maintain our hospitals. Hell, we use energy for everything.

      Forcing back energy use is not just blackouts: it's the end. It's millions dying. It's not high prices, it's slaughter.

      Milioaf must be stopped, completely, permanently and the entire green con burned – and all it's miserable, impoverishing, psychotic, misanthropic hangers on expunged, eradicated and incinerated just to be sure.

    2. If you ask people in London about interconnectors it’s more likely they won’t speak English.

    3. C N Phillips
      44 min ago
      Politicians have squandered UK's greatest potential polution-free major power source, Nuclear Power. We invented and have benefited from it for 50 years. However the political ignorati of all parties have chosen to ignore the fact of the well announced limited life spans of all reactors and not invested in replacements. When finally pushed they discover that all the UK expertise has dissipated due to lack of projects and they rush to employ the Chinese or French at unbelievable costs, extended time scales and often failures to complete.

      The legacy of 1960's Ban the Bomb brigades has a part to play but political ignorance is chiefly to blame.

      Solar doesn't work at night. Wind farms don't work on calm days.

      Rolls Royce have medium size nuclear power plants waiting to be commissioned but, as yet, nothing planned to save this county's descent into the darkness as all of our sources of constant supply of electricity are dying.

      PC

      Paul Cornish
      1 hr ago
      Don’t worry, we have got thousands of windmills desecrating our once beautiful landscapes which will come to the rescue.

      After all, the wind always blows…doesn’t it?

      1. I started my working life in nuclear power, looking at reactor integrity. I was part of the safety case for Hinckley Point C, which has yet to generate a milliwatt – and this was back in 1988! 38 years… It'll need a refurb and upgrade before even coming on the bars!
        An example of why the expertise is missing on parade.

    2. From the woman who has made sure parents can't spend money on their children's education.

  69. Andrew Doyle
    Woke is on its way out. What follows will be even more terrifying

    We might be sleepwalking into a future in which religious conflicts become significant drivers in the political sphere

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2298350d4b2918b4f761984e306546b1e03206ed04194cfe823c5fd11106cd21.png
    BLM protest at Parliament Square in June 2020

    31 August 2025 9:00am BST

    Woke is on the way out. The scandal of “gender-affirming medicine” continues to be exposed; multiple sporting bodies have barred trans-identifying males from competing in female categories; the Black Lives Matter movement has been largely discredited due to revelations of fraud; and corporate DEI initiatives are being dismantled quicker than you can say “intersectional paradigms of structural oppression”.

    But what comes next? Wokeness was a war on reality. It prioritised individual “ways of knowing” over objective truth. It demanded conformity through authoritarian means. Such traits, however, are common to most ideologies: we should not suppose that a post-woke world will necessarily be any more appealing. Indeed, early indications would suggest that we are following the usual human habit of leaping out of frying pans and into fires.

    What would happen, for instance, if the next dominant phase of authoritarianism enjoyed popular public support? If a government’s immigration policies were so reckless as to admit numbers at an unmanageable pace from countries where free speech and liberty are considered dispensable follies: might this not create the conditions by which democracy could be its own undoing? Is it not feasible, in other words, that a radical shift in demographics could result in citizens voting for less freedom?

    The fear is not as histrionic as it sounds. A recent poll by the Henry Jackson Society found that 52 per cent of British Muslims would make it illegal to display an image of the Prophet Mohammed. A further 32 per cent would like to see the implementation of Sharia law, and the same proportion would support establishing Islam as the national religion.

    An extensive survey conducted for Channel 4 in 2016 found that 39 per cent of British Muslims believed that wives should always be obedient to husbands, 31 per cent agreed that bigamy was acceptable, 47 per cent said that gay people should never be allowed to teach in schools, and 52 per cent thought that homosexuality ought to be criminalised.

    Such figures remind us that multiculturalism has often proved a barrier to assimilation. Rather than make integration a condition of citizenship, many countries have simply relaxed their own standards and implemented parallel systems.

    In the UK, this reached its grim nadir with the grooming gangs scandal, in which authorities failed to grapple with the systematic sexual abuse of children out of fears of being accused of racism. And yet it is difficult to imagine anything more racist than holding migrant communities to lower moral and legal standards.

    Freedom of religion, though hard-won and often contested, has become a defining aspect of our constitutional history. But the liberal values that underpin our society might well be upended if two-tier policies persist and multiculturalism wins out over equal citizenship; we could very well find ourselves sleepwalking into a future in which religious conflicts become significant drivers in the political sphere.

    It is already happening. The Labour Government, eager to win back Muslim voters who were alienated by its supposedly soft stance on Israel, is persisting with its plans to adopt an official definition of “Islamophobia”. This slippery term is regularly applied to those who exhibit genuine anti-Muslim hatred. But it is also often used against those who simply exercise their right to criticise or ridicule a belief-system that they do not share.

    Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Muslim support service Tell Mama, has warned that this will be tantamount to a “blasphemy law by the back door”. The group has launched a campaign to oppose the Government’s plan called “Keep the Law Equal”.

    For many believers, religious authoritarianism has an obvious appeal. This woke movement did not represent an equivalent threat because it was only ever endorsed by a small minority of the public. The statistics are unequivocal. Polling data reported by the Economist found that support for woke causes began to grow in 2015, peaked in 2021, and has been steadily dropping ever since.

    A recent study by the think tank More in Common revealed that those who fulfil the definition of “woke” comprise between eight and ten per cent of the UK population. These were the faddish “luxury beliefs” – to use a term coined by the American sociologist Rob Henderson – of the ruling class, imposed from the top down.

    We will soon discover whether the vacuum left by woke will be occupied by a new form of intolerance, one driven by religious rather than “intersectional” convictions. This could be avoided with a steadfast commitment to equality before the law and an end to two-tier protocols that patronise immigrants and native-born citizens alike. Successive governments have failed to uphold our fundamental values. If this trend continues, it may be that the culture war could evolve into something even more destructive.

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

    tony platts
    4 hrs ago
    Eventually, the tolerant will cease to tolerate the intolerant.

    That point is within sight now.

    Robert Adams
    4 hrs ago
    Reply to tony platts
    Visible on the Epping High Road.

    4 hrs ago
    Reply to tony platts
    Better to have mass deportations of all foreign troublemakers, criminals and welfare sponges. Better to save the UK. We don’t owe the world a living. I don’t care if our bent public sector gave them a passport of convenience. Track down the person that issued the passport and sack them and confiscate their pension.

    1. More worryingly, the same people who brought us the diabolical woke agenda are now giving us leaders who they claim are Christians.
      One of the most dangerous is JD Vance.
      What better way to kill Christianity than to have a so-called Christian oppressing people in the US? That could happen if Vance becomes the next President.

        1. He is a protegé of Peter Thiel, the main man behind Palentir, which is the data company that’s currently hoovering up Americans’ data into the technocratic nightmare of one giant database with access to private and public data, thanks to doge.
          This is not a good reference. This is not freedom.
          Part of building Vance’s image was the book “Hillbilly Elegy” – it is carefully crafted PR designed to make consumers like and support Vance.
          He came from nowhere, his book was a bestseller and made into a film too, I believe. Nobody gets that kind of publicity in the machine without a reason.
          He converted from atheism to Christianity. I think it is quite naive to believe that the protegé of a powerful man, who is being groomed and backed to become Vice President, converts for private reasons. The likeliest explanation is that it’s a vote-winner with his target audience.
          However, there is another suspicion and that is that Vance and other high profile converts like Russel Brand are destined to fulfil/support some kind of Handmaid’s Tale scenario that will turn the masses against Christianity.
          It seems likely that Vance will use the VP role as a springboard to run as President. If anything happens to Trump, he would automatically take over anyway.
          There is a strong spiritual element to this technocratic international fascism/marxism movement, and it is satanic and anti-Christian. Hence all the whistle blowers about satanic rituals etc that run alongside the honey-pot operators like Epstein and others. We’ve already seen Christian leaders that appear to be compromised and in thrall to marxism rather than Christianity. So a direct attack on Christianity is actually a likely development.
          That’s speculation of course, but very little about Vance is as genuine as he makes out and the Palentir connection is a very bad one.

          1. I think you need to seek help, BB2. You cannot go on like this. Any sign of positivity or hope seems to be further confirmation of doom according to your posts.

            I do, though, agree that the existential war is a spiritual war.

          2. I have plenty of hope, thank you, but it doesn’t centre around public figures that the technocracy tells me to regard as heroes.

    1. The bbc don't have advertising so they obviously are trying to compete by adding diversity to other events.

      And it still goes on and not just Vienna.

    2. Of course there were Africans deciding the future of England. They were the Angola-Saxons.

      2. Of course it is! It is one of those things formerly known as “jokes” which we used to be permitted to enjoy.

  74. Stuart
    4h
    “A flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, is due to leave from Barcelona on Sunday to try to “break the illegal siege of Gaza”, organisers said.”
    Oh please let her into Gaza, and don’t let her out.

    1. Israel has heard NoTTLers' prayers!

      Israel hatches plan to throw Greta Thunberg in terror cell

      Swedish activist on board largest Gaza-bound flotilla yet
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2025/08/31/TELEMMGLPICT000437779495_17566479900630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUgehH7knIs2mL4LO-crfgv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=1280
      Jotam Confino
      Tel Aviv
      31 August 2025 3:05pm BST
      Plans are being drawn up to detain Swedish activist Greta Thunberg in “terrorist-level conditions” as she departed Spain on Sunday on the largest flotilla yet bound for Gaza.

      Ms Thunberg is joined by Liam Cunningham, the Game of Thrones actor, and Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona, among others, on what they refer to as the “largest solidarity mission” in history.

      Dozens of other ships are expected to set sail for Gaza from Tunisia and other ports in the Mediterranean Sea on Sept 4 to join the Global Sumud Flotilla, which aims to break the siege of Gaza in a symbolic protest against the war and dire humanitarian conditions.

      But Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, is planning to present Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan to detain the activists in harsh “terrorist-level” conditions in the Ktzi’ot and Damon detention centres for females, according to Israel Hayom, one of Israel’s biggest newspapers.

      The plan also includes seizing dozens of vessels and using them to establish a “maritime force for police operations”.

      Israel Hayom quoted individuals close to Mr Ben-Gvir saying: “Following several weeks at Ktzi’ot and Damon, they’ll be sorry about the time they arrived here. We must eliminate their appetite for another attempt.”

      Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza’s waters to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Hamas and other terror groups. The country has also been accused of manufacturing a famine inside the Strip by blocking aid as part of war plans to flush out Hamas and its hostages.

      Ahead of the departure from Barcelona port, Ms Thunberg told Iranian Press TV that the flotillas aim to “deliver humanitarian aid and break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza and open up a people’s humanitarian corridor”.

      The Left-wing activist said that more than 26,000 people signed up to join the mission to break the siege on Gaza.

      She said: “This project is part of a global uprising of people standing up… when our governments fail to step up, the people will take their place, and that their atrocities and their complicity in the genocide in Gaza right now.. is not something that we can stand for.”

      The International Court of Justice has not ruled on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

      Ms Thunberg also rejected accusations of anti-Semitism ahead of her departure, telling Sky News: “It is not anti-Semitic to say that we should not be bombing people, that one should not be living in occupation, that everyone should have the right to live in freedom and dignity, no matter who you are.

      “For every politician that is fueling the genocide further, environmental and climate destruction, and further colonisation and fascism, there will be people escalating the resistance against that.”

      Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona, is also part of the Global Sumud Flotilla

      Israel is expected to stop the flotillas long before they reach the shores of Gaza.

      In June, Ms Thunberg joined the Madleen flotilla along with 11 other activists. But their flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli navy 115 miles west of Gaza, where they handed out water and sandwiches before being escorted to the port of Ashdod in Israel.

      The activists were also offered to watch footage of Hamas atrocities from Oct 7, which they refused, according to Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister.

      Mr Katz said at the time: “When they saw what it was about, they refused to continue watching.”

      Israel’s foreign ministry said the activists “attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity. There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies.”

      Israel also said that “unauthorised attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts.”

      Ms Thunberg, who was later deported on an Israeli plane to Paris, claimed the group of activists “were kidnapped in international waters…We were well aware of the risks of this mission. The aim was to get to Gaza and to be able to distribute the aid.”

      The claim of kidnapping was ridiculed in Israel, which is fighting to free 48 hostages from Gaza.

      Donald Trump, the US president, also weighed in on Ms Thunberg’s previous mission to Gaza, saying: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg. She’s a young, angry person… I think she has to go to an anger management class.”

      Israel said: “The IDF enforces the security naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and is prepared for a wide range of scenarios, which it will act upon in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.”

      The Telegraph has reached out to the Foreign Ministry and the IDF for a comment on how Israel plans to handle the dozens of flotillas departing for Gaza.

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

      Brett Dawson
      22 min ago
      I hope Gary Lineker is also on board.

      2. The Israelis would take Thunberg as a hostage, but they know that no-one would want her back!

      3. Israel should allow them all into Gaza.
        Then confiscate the boats.
        They can make their own way out.

    1. I suspect the legal 'berg would be vastly larger, C1, being around 90% of the total under ECHR. If Farage elected, possibly a chance, possibly not. Feel quite hopeless about it tbh.

    3. Starmer and Labour will be in office until 2029. Only massive public disorder, terrorism, murder, mayhem and the rebellion of a substantial number of the police and armed forces will prove otherwise.

  76. Stuart
    3h
    What’s interesting is how “Ange” has accumulated all the cash for these properties.
    “Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Angela Rayner’s Net Worth is around £4.7 Million as of 2025. Angela Rayner earns an annual salary of £159,584 from Deputy Prime Minister of the UK.

    Shes been an MP since 2015, in the shadow cabinet since 2016, and Deputy PM since 2025. Her salary in that period would never add up to £4.7 million. If we had any investigative journalists worth their salt, then perhaps we would learn of how this wealth has been accumulated.

    Bananarama
    Stuart
    2h
    There is a rumour that at some point in the past, she sued the NHS.

    wroughtironron
    Bananarama
    29m
    gotta be brain damage – "There is lots of houses available in the UK – There is a shortage of houses in the UK"

    1. Last year when we were thinking of buying a very small stop gap property while we sold our house (which we ended up not doing) we had to prove that we could pay for the property we were thinking of buying, and also prove where the bulk of that money had originally come from! (It was a relatively small inheritance from my brother, but still…I had to prove it). I wonder if Ange had to jump through such hoops?

      2. Meanwhile the criminals are all using monero and laughing while law-abiding citizens have to account for everything.

    2. "Angela Rayner earnsgets paid an annual salary of £159,584 from Deputy Prime Minister of the UK". Fixed it!

      1. Gross, remember. Of course, she slaps practically everything on expenses because she's a pig in trough, so trousers as much of our money as she can.

    2. I’ve been following the story but am confused. Seems both the girls (via exploitation through a Gypsytraveller) and the Bulgarian are in the wrong? Have I got that right?

    3. Thank goodness I've paid little attention to this. Sounds like a complete waste of time for those who became invested.

  79. Saw this in a French newspaper:

    Billions of pounds will be pumped into the UK economy following Norway’s decision to select British warships for their Armed Forces – securing thousands of jobs in Britain for years to come.
    The UK, in its biggest ever warship export deal by value, will supply Norway with Type 26 frigates designed for anti-submarine warfare in the deal worth £10 billion announced today, a clear example of this Government is delivering on its Plan for Change.
    The deal will support 4,000 jobs across the UK supply chain until well into the 2030s, including more than 2,000 at BAE Systems’ Glasgow shipyards. The programme is also expected to support 432 business.

    Which pals of Starmer and Co have been given the contract?

      1. Moh says , but we have no steel industry , we have nothing , we don't have any marine architects, welders , techies , shipyards , nothing , Vosper Thornycroft used to build warships , I reckon Britain will outsource everything to China , so Moh suggested .

      1. For a copy 'n paste with some modifications, those are awfully long project durations. HMS Glasgow, 2017 and not yet fitted out.
        We in oil n gas can start the design concept for a totally new design and have it in the field producing in under 7 years, depending on complexity.

    3. Well that is good news, though it must have happened in spite of the government rather than because of them!

  80. Afternoon all. Have been to church and then stocked up the larder as I had virtually nothing to eat, let alone make a meal. Sermon today was on how God would put down the mighty and exalt the humble. I wish He would get on with toppling Starmer and co.

    I don’t know about think again, Reeves hasn’t thought in the first place!

      1. And the meek shall inherit the earth. Trouble is, there won’t be much of it left to inherit.

    1. Nasty couple.
      His wife laughed and stashed the cap away in her carrier bag.
      They certainly deserve each other.

  82. Enough of depressing videos of angry talking heads telling us the end of Britain is nigh. Here's Britain when it was alive and well, with sturdy working men and the plummy middle-classes getting grimy together at a celebration of one of this island's singular achievements. Martin Young narrates on a Nationwide report from Shildon, County Durham, at the Rail 150 festival in 1975.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/czdd0ng7d0wo

    Fifty years ago today, the great cavalcade took place. Health and Safety was but a toddler back then. The cordoned-off spectator area looks secure enough but a bit further down the line spectators were almost standing on the rails, many of them children placing pennies on the track. Some of that can be seen in this poor quality still from a film from the Yorkshire Archive.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de9cd0acb80e19043e6fb33ac11fe01cfd81046a8649bc4c18717539c464f8b6.png
    The film: https://www.yfanefa.com/record/26965
    Not all is about the cavalcade. That's from about 2:30 to 7:30.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58343af3579eecd333f2772b5935eca71ce4feb414eb6e17e8aa8448ebf4b4dc.png

          3. My RN neighbours went up for the Tattoo. 30% off for veterans. First class from Kings Cross and food all the way. They had the Haggis which was piled up cheffy style. Caught the Caledonian sleeper back. The bastards !

          6. After seeing the pic of you and your friends i’m not sure i would survive the experience. Let alone the night !

          13. Hobby hubby, perhaps?
            What a wonderful name – Morag! With a slight tongue-roll on the "r". How sexy is that? And the lady it labels – whichever one in your picture of equally lovely ladies she might be!

    3. She's probably wearing a very tight belt and trying to pretend she's a starving Paliterrorist.

  84. As promised, pics from our dip! The weather was warm and sunny, but it was blowing a hooley! There was a windsurfer on the Loch who spent more time in the water than on it!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4eaf91e1ad32f2c9ef02c18cbae5719ef3adb3b20f79f5b567ff415ad8016573.jpg This is me, struggling with my poncho in the howling gale! Fortunately no one got the photo when I sat down and my camp chair had blown over!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea13c6d59927be388868840730bc1e5a68898cb0ae30e3d94fa86a9b7a8717b6.jpg We had a ball and giggled a lot! A real buzz as the water was a lot cooler than last time we were up there!

        1. Oh, we are! The two on the right are sisters, I’m on the left and Doreen is next to me!

          10. I do have a short one but it really isn’t chilly enough yet! It was 19c in the sun!

          14. The waves made it very hard work to swim, so we bobbed a lot, and kicked on my back! That’s why I don’t wear a woolly hat!

    2. Which one of you is Sue Mac? I can't see anyone wearing a poncho, let alone struggling with it.

      2. That's Ash 'I'm quite literally a Communist, you idiot' Sarkar – although her ire was directed at Piers Moron, so maybe she aint totally bad (apart from the fact that she is)……

  86. Wordle No. 1,534 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 31 Aug 2025

    Blade for Birdie Three?

    2. Well done – at one stage I thought this was going to be the same word as yesterday, due to some sort of logistical cock-up, so just went for a change of the first letter….. not quite! Par again…..

      Wordle 1,534 4/6

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

    2. Norway is having second thoughts about selling us energy. If they say no, we're using more gas. Which Miliband, because he's a bastard, taxes at about 300% all told.

      Norway has a severe drought, I think, and their hydro power is suffering. This was always inevitable. As soon as there's a problem in X, the buyer in Y is told 'tough'.

      1. Not severe drought, but summer was drier than usual. Rain is catching up now, but it'll be a while before it's in the reservoirs. We're expecting an early winter, that will stop most water getting to reservoirs, so shortage of electricity generation… and the country runs on electricity. No gas heating or cooking worth talking about, a few have oil, so electricity is the thing. Run out of that, and there will be problems, especially as winter can be cold.
        We also have an election in September, where many of the parties are against exporting the electricity as this costs us in higher prices.

          1. There will be a huge political fallout if the lights/heating goes off.
            We have wood stoves and a reasonable stock, but the interweb will stop, as will all business. Politicians should be shitting themselves. In the end, the interconnectors will be disconnected.

          2. Part of me says “good”.
            The sooner this greeniac mania is shown up for what it is, the better.

            When the general public gets hit very hard, while the promulgators of the garbage carry on on expenses and free accommodation, is the time they will react.

            Dump Miliband, in shorts and a tee shirt, in a Scottish croft mid winter with only renewables for heating lighting etc.

    2. The car is 20 years old, and passed its MoT test on 19th August, so perhaps the video is out of date.

  90. Sob story in the DT – comments are pretty hostile……….
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/08/31/i-swam-to-majorca-now-i-want-asylum-in-britain/
    Samuel Deng was slowly closing in on the beaches of Majorca and his dream of landing on the shores of Europe when his small open-topped boat broke down.

    As it drifted aimlessly, the 21-year-old from South Sudan, who fled war to set sail from Algeria, had no options left.

    So he jumped into the water and started desperately swimming north. “I almost died. But God did not give up on me,” he said.

    1. I'm tired of these hard luck stories. Don't set out in an untrustworthy boat next time.
      What happened to the others in the boat, because I do not believe for one moment that he was alone, if there is any truth in his story.

      2. Article mentions 22 others. I’m just sick of the words “migrants/asylum seekers/those fleeing war/famine” and the rest of the sob stories. In fact have mercifully avoided most ‘news’ over the last few weeks as we’re living at our daughter’s house while the bungalow is being bashed about a bit. Should only take one more week. Then it will need a deep clean. (Not by us, she says hastily!).

        Then have to put everything away again in cupboards etc. etc.

        3. We stayed at home when entire bathroom, kitchen ceiling & floor, and playroom/mini-dining room floors were replaced, plus stairs and landing floor.
          Mega-mess… cement dust everywhere, still being wiped up. One or two small points to close out, then we're done.

  91. I see that the French are holding back on the possibility of the Bayeux Tapestry being loaned and coming to London. I'm wondering if the are worried after seeing the recent bbc 1066 series, that some of the faces of the soldiers might be altered.

    1. That would be one in the eye for the French – it might even be considered a stitch up.

    2. He's got the Union flag upside down. Unless he is trying to say he is in distress after he discovered the offer was for housing migrants.

    4. Seven year contract? That contradicts Starmer’s promise to stop Hotel accommodation for illegal migrants “within this Parliament”. Starmer is a fucking liar.

      1. 412143+ up ticks,

        Morning C.
        I do agree wholeheartedly, I believe he has been well awarded for it via the WEF / NWO and has a royal seal.

  93. I have just filled in a survey for Advance UK. They have asked for me to share it, but I suspect it won’t work unless you have an account with them.

    Edit. As i suspected. It was all about free speech, however.

  94. Douglas Carswell in USA makes an interesting point.. he says..
    ..perhaps the flag waving movement of the working class is a consequence of having for the first time ever a voice in media thanks to Musk's X. Prior to the X take over every single media outlet voice was run, written or filtered by public school boys.
    .
    https://youtu.be/uXmsoeqYtAs?t=1042

    1. That is very likely, but is only half the story. X is a very controlled platform; things don#t just go viral unless Musk wants them to.
      I do wonder why Musk is riling up the British public. Maybe it is because he genuinely loves freedom and wants to influence the UK positively, or maybe it is because he knows that the government wants a diversion from looming financial crisis.

      1. Do you think he is riling up the public, or are the public so hacked off with the ghastly bunch ‘in charge’, that anyone they see as agreeing with them, and backing them up, is OK?

        1. Well that certainly seems to be how people are taking it, but Musk is not any poster. He has privilege on X – he’s posted lots of comments recently drawing attention to injustices in Britain and criticising the government, and every comment gets millions of views and lots of upvotes. Such powerful external influence in a country is almost an act of war.
          Yet Starmer seems to see nothing wrong with it, because the government hasn’t complained publicly to my knowledge.
          For someone to have such power on an international public platform like X is something new.

          1. Probably the nearest we've had before to one man possessing international power to influence people was the really powerful mediaeval popes.
            They could countermand monarchs by interdict, thereby breaking their power over the countries they ruled.

      2. He seemed to get pretty upset with Jess Phillips, perhaps from there investigated Starmer & Co. Fairly rich pickings perhaps.

  95. My attention was first drawn to Anthropic when an article appeared reporting that bad actors had used its AI product for malicious pusposes.

    This article raises some concerns about how extended comversations with AI products like Claude® could conspire with those with malicious intent to aid and abet their criminal activities:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2025/08/29/openai-acknowledges-that-lengthy-conversations-with-chatgpt-and-gpt-5-might-regrettably-escape-ai-guardrails/

    1. One thing that we can pretty much guarantee is that the bad actors will infiltrate AI

      "Dear AIBot,
      How can I be absolutely certain that you haven't been infiltrated by criminals?"

      Edit for a spelling mistook.

    1. They certainly are
      Grooming up, terrorism up, gimmegration up, cost of benefits up.
      Quality of life in the UK, down, down, down.

      1. I think what has happened is they have threatened mass riotsong lasting damage and the given consequences all over the British Isles. And our useless political idiots and others have sucked up to them.

    4. "And so, my fellow Muslims: ask not what you can do for our country – ask what you can take from my country.

      Apologies to JFK

    5. They sure are; women are being harassed and worse, people are being beheaded, blown up, mown down and murdered. Areas of our country have become third world ghettos and no go areas – foreign enclaves, in fact.

      2. 412096,

        Evening C,

        You got it, he is running a very successful destruction program, in point of fact he is out for making it the final endgame, there is no
        returning for labour… EVER.

        1. Starmer is a mere puppet. The end game is social disorder and the imposition of a Central Bank Digital Currency with universal ID and a social score system as is practiced in China.

          The pro Muslim shit is a distraction served up to annoy us further. It is as though our own king has converted to Islam by the way. We now hate and distrust Muslims just as they have always hated and distrusted us. We just happen to be more tolerant and refrain from detonating bombs in public places, raping children and young girls etc., etc., etc.,

  97. I was just about to leave for home having spent the usual weekend sorting out mother's things- tv, tablet, washing, shopping, bills etc and have found a front left flat tyre 🤨

    I came back inside to change clothes to start changing the wheel but Ma persuaded me to call the AA (I didn't know they came out for flat tyres.)
    ETA 2000h – I hope its straightforward.

        1. I hope you stressed you were "a woman alone" that gets you priority service (after a woman who broke down was murdered while waiting for assistance).

          1. Errr…
            This is Stormy you're conversing with.
            She slaughters males stupid enough to mess with her!
            She never asks for special treatment.

    2. Good to know you’ll get what you pay for! Hope it goes well! Will he be on a motorbike and wearing a peaked cap? I still have my key for opening AA boxes!

        2. I believe that one reason for that was so that, if they failed to salute you, it meant that there was a police speed trap ahead.

          1. Gosh, that brought back memories, I had forgotten that.

            Was it a speed trap or a general traffic offence catcher?
            I'm not sure they had radar guns in the days of saluting members.
            Oddly enough, I thought the saluting was RAC rather than AA.

          2. I seem to recall my father was in the AA and we were saluted by patrolmen on motorbikes.

      2. I still have an old I-Spy book that I bought for the boys when they were little , very battered , but it was a real asset for entertainment and sharp eyes when travelling on long journeys.

        AA badge somewhere in a box in the loft!

        1. Is it the one with the wings on? The modern, square ones are rubbish. I think you're lucky if you get a sticker these days.

    3. Depends on whether you've got Home Start or not. They won't come out to your home whatever your problem is, if you haven't. If you're away from your registered address you'll be fine.

    4. Phizzee would suggest the solution was
      to give it a blow job
      But you know what he's like…

      };-))

    1. I'm similar, doesn't make us cheapskates…just have other priorities, dog food/vet bills…

    1. Silly move.
      If they want to cause trouble.. get a few hundreds cars to block every slip road into the M25, M1 & M4.. until Starmer is forced into an election.
      Throw in a demand for the abdication of KC3.
      Non-negotiable unconditional surrender.

        2. The problem is that modern cars have rubbish jacks in them – you need a bloody degree to work out how to put them together, where to put it under the car, and how to jack it up.
          The AA man has one of those things you just slide under the car and jack it up in no time at all!

          1. Stormy would have loosened and removed the bolts, lifted the car with her right hand, removed the wheel and replaced it with her left.
            Replaced and tightened the bolts and driven off.

            She listened to her mother because she's a good gurl.

          3. Well. AA chappie has just arrived. Just as well I called – I haven't got a spare wheel! I changed the car in Apr – Sportage for Sportage. The last car had a spare – I assumed this one did too.

            Turns out the valve is leaking – he's rummaging around for a replacement.

          4. We had guests in our gite who had a very similar spare wheel problem.
            They went to change it, oops, no spare.
            Luckily the repair people were able to get them back on the road.

            Three hours after the call.

            Safe driving, or if they have to, safe towing.

          5. Should it have a spare or is it reliant on an emergency one (which is missing) or a "repair kit" which is useless if your tyre has split?

    2. That's annoying but dont fret, they're very very good (when they eventually turn up!)

  105. Lots of St.George's Cross Flags going up where I live
    The trouble is they have fixed them upside down

        1. Explain.

          There have been many comments recently regarding people not knowing it was a distress sign.

    2. You are a Very Silly Sausage, Bob3. It's only the Union jack (flag) which can be flown upside down. Now go to the naughty step. Lol.

    3. TAs I was driving home around the Oxford ring road, I saw a group of blokes on ladders on one of the roundabouts putting up flags on the lampposts. I honked the horn – I hope they realised it was in support.

  107. Just finished our dinner……….lamb tonight. About to have some yoghurt with raspberries and strawberries.

    1. I had scrambled eggs with an avocado and cherry tomato salad and a garnish of grated cheddar and parsley. Get me! I acquired a Keto cookbook last week and the recipes are simple enough for me to do provided I have the ingredients (hence my shopping trip this afternoon). The toms were home grown.

      1. I bought an avocado the other day and didn't use it…….. sadly most of it was beyond use tonight. What there was I had with cherry tomatoes and and a bit of left over smoked salmon. Then the lamb with roasted peppers and courgette and new potatoes. My toms have done well this year.

        1. I was given a lot of plants, but mostly they are small cherry ones. Fortunately, that's what the recipe called for. It should have been feta and spring onion garnish, but I was given some (award-winning!) parsley at church and I only had cheddar. I debated whether to have a ripen at home avocado or one that was ripe and ready. I opted for the latter and boy was it ripe! I'll have to use the other one up tomorrow.

          1. There's a recipe for tuna cakes that uses avocado, so I'll try that. Nottl is seriously bad for my culinary lack of expertise!

          2. Not alone, Conway 🙂 No longer cook other than air fryer. Eat a lot of various mixed salads, and fruit.

          5. It was ripe when I bought it last week and didn't use it – so almost beyond it tonight.

    3. Lemon sole fillets new spuds and aspergers
      Waitrose fish counter deep discounts today the sole £12 a kilo rather than £31 also cod loin £11 a kilo rather than £29 the freezer is now well stocked

        1. Surely that's Tourette's? With Asperger's it wouldn't have wanted to interact at all, I would have thought.

      2. I used to love Waitrose's reductions, especially at the fish counter. (They got to know me and would often weigh what I'd asked for and chuck in the rest for good measure.)

        I miss that!! No-one ever reduces meat or fish over here. 😢

  109. Goodnight, all. I didn't have a very good night last night, so I'm going to turn in early again.

    1. I'm so sorry to hear this, Conners. I do hope that tonight proves to be a better one for you – and for Kadi and Winston.

    2. I'm so sorry to hear this, Conners. I do hope that tonight proves to be a better one for you – and for Kadi and Winston.

    3. My French is mediocre, at best, but I did not hear her say Europe, European or Belgium. Who, here, has French of a standard sufficient to correctly translate what she says into English?

    1. Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Hooper said: “We know the strength of feeling in Epping regarding a very important issue.

      “And to reiterate what we’ve repeatedly said, we always remain impartial – this is the role of policing.

      “Turning next to the arrest of a woman shortly after 7.15pm tonight.

      “She was arrested on suspicion of breaching a Section 14 order as we sought to de-escalate a highly emotional situation.

      “To be very clear, despite suggestions we’ve seen on social media, she was not arrested for flying a Union flag on the Civic Centre.”

      https://www.itv.com/news/2025-08-31/three-arrested-after-epping-hotel-protesters-march-on-council-offices

      1. I was watching Tousi TV on this. Plod wasn’t helping his cause at all. Especially with the pepper-spraying.

    1. Good night, Ndovu. Don't let the bastards outrage you again tomorrow. Instead, focus on the good things in life; there are many.

    1. A world without politicians is not compatible with the modern world. We'd live as clans or tribes with elders directing and ordering us. Each community would be no more than a few hundred strong. The United Kingdom would not exist, nor each of its constituent nations.

      2. 412143+ up ticks,

        Morning S,
        So in your view we are heading for full circle
        as in, return to the past, each mini realm with a protective militia, you could very well be right.

      3. I think fairly soon the politicians / State will give up and citizens will be invited to subscribe to one of a number of a Mega Multinationals to look after their wellbeing…..

        Afternoon Stig & all….

  114. Well, chums, it's now my bedtime. I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright and early tomorrow.

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