Sunday 31 July: The next Tory leader must restore the party’s confidence in conservative ideas

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

558 thoughts on “Sunday 31 July: The next Tory leader must restore the party’s confidence in conservative ideas

  1. Morning, Peeps.  A very humid night here, and the cool breeze has arrived too late to assist.

    Today’s leading letter:

     SIR – There is no country on Earth that has generated robust year-on-year growth, strong investment and generational wealth with a large state and high taxes.

    The calls, as the Conservative leadership contest progresses, for forensic analysis, and proof that any proposed tax reductions will be evidentiary and directly “funded”, miss the point. A minimised state will be intrinsically more efficient, and a low-tax regime for businesses and individuals will immediately attract national and global investment, which in turn will create job opportunities, confidence and higher tax revenue to pay for public services.

    We are free to do this, as well as to negotiate international trade deals, now that we are no longer tied to the EU. It is a well-established phenomenon that raising taxes beyond a certain point will lower revenue, discourage investment and destroy confidence and jobs, leading inexorably to recession and a crisis of investment in public services.

    Labour’s instinct is to have a large state and high taxes, as these lead to state dependency. The problem the Conservatives have is their own crisis of confidence, combined with a lack of vision, ironically resulting in a similar outcome. We are offered only reactive politics, mired in the misconception that lower taxes must equate to uncontrollable inflation, while higher interest rates and taxes are the only tools in the box.

    This punitive approach is based on a lack of trust in British businesses and individuals. But history shows that low taxes, enterprise and trade are the only path to sustainable growth, excellence in public services – and a confident, outward-looking country.

    Thomas Gent
    Chichester, West Sussex

    A supportive BTL comment:

    John Kirby 6 HRS AGO

    “There is no country on Earth that has generated robust year-on-year growth, strong investment and generational wealth with a large state and high taxes”.

    I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Gent

    He states basic Conservative Party doctrine.

    Why have 357 Conservative MPs not followed this?

    The present parliamentary party has betrayed the voters,,why?

    Was Mr Toad able to make them abandon Conservatism?

    I hope to see many of them lose their seats (and deposits)

    at the next General Election.

    They deserve everything that is coming to them.

    * * *

    In order to follow Conservative doctrine the MPs need to be proper Conservatives, surely?  And there is little sign of that.

  2. SIR – At the hustings in Leeds, Mr Sunak was asked if he supported the return of grammar schools.

    “Yes,” was the reply. My heart leapt. At last – a real Conservative with a real Conservative policy.

    Later his team issued a “clarification”: he only meant he supported grammars where they already existed. So that’s Tory leadership nowadays, is it? Pathetic.

    Francis Bown
    London E3

    Yes, Francis Brown, truly pathetic, like all these post-appearance ‘clarifications’.

    1. What does Sunak think the words, “…the return of…” mean? If everything our political leaders spout in answer to questions has to be vetted and corrected by the ‘team’, what is the point of inviting questions? We know they lie and now we have to wait for corrections to find out what they really mean. I suppose that could be taken as an improvement over uncorrected blatant lying. 😕

  3. Good morning all.
    The last day of July and the overnight rain has paused giving a dull and damp start with 13°C on the yard thermometer.

  4. SIR – Your report struck a chord with me.

    My end-of-terrace house was built just 12 years ago, with fully triple-glazed windows, thoroughly well-insulated walls and roof, low-energy lighting throughout, solar panels, and a state-of-the-art (at that time) air source heat pump (ASHP).

    As part of the process for obtaining a partial grant towards replacing the original heat pump with an even more efficient one, an up-to-date energy performance certificate was required.

    I was disappointed and surprised to be awarded only a “C” energy rating. When I queried this, the qualified assessor’s response was: “The EPC classes ASHPs as poor as they run on electricity which is the most expensive way to heat a property. Even though the Government are pushing everyone to go electric!”

    David Argent
    Crondall, Hampshire

    This BTL poster isn’t surprised…if he’s not a Nottlr perhaps he should be:

    Ian Lander5 HRS AGO

    RE: Air source heat pumps. The assessor is stating the obvious that any straight thinking person knows. They don’t work and require as much energy as they draw to effect the heat transfer. Net zero, renewables and ev’s as currently exist are a con being perpetrated by the companies profiteering on making money at our expense. There are too many energy transfers going on to make a viable power source.

    All the constraints, subsidies and green levies should be channelled into research into a permanent and stable, controllable energy source such as fusion and also reinforcing the distribution grid when this is available. Propping up the failed solar pv and windmills experiment has not worked and will not work.

    Cut our losses, open North Sea reserves, research viable alternative and please strengthen the grid in preparation for that event.

    1. Even though heat pumps don’t work do people still buy them for the same reason that people still wear masks and buy electric cars?

      1. Our experience of air-source heat pumps in NOrway, early winter 2 years ago, is that they do work.

  5. Freedom for all means freedom for nasty people. Peter Hitchens. 31 July 2022.

    Today I need to defend a person I do not much like. I will explain why I do not like him in a moment, but that is not the important bit.

    What matters is this: if the Government can just reach out and ruin a man’s life, without any need of a fair hearing or a guilty verdict, then we do not live in a free country. This is what has just happened to the video blogger Graham Phillips.

    The danger is that, because Mr Phillips is so hard to like, the Government will get away with it. And then, when it uses the same powers on somebody else, it will be too late to protest.

    As the great US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said: ‘The safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.’

    Some of Mr Phillips’s activities have been questionable, though he firmly denies many of the charges against him. For me, his worst action was his cruel and stupid questioning of a badly wounded Ukrainian prisoner of war. Others have condemned his interview of Aiden Aslin, a British citizen who had been fighting with Ukrainian armed forces and was captured by the Russians.

    It has been suggested that the interview was a breach of the Geneva Conventions. Mr Phillips, contacted in Lugansk, says Mr Aslin asked for the interview himself, has never complained, and has given several other interviews since.

    Be that as it may, last week Mr Phillips was placed on the UK Government’s sanctions list. The Foreign Office, which is in charge of this process, no longer answers the phone, and replies only once to emails, with bland official statements, so I do not have some of the details that I would like to have.

    But as far as I know, he is the first British citizen to be treated in this way. His assets have been frozen. His bank accounts are blocked. He also cannot pay those to whom he owes money.

    For example, his home insurance has now been cancelled because his insurers are forbidden to accept his premiums. All his bills will now bounce, the utilities at his London home will soon be cut off. He cannot even pay his council tax. He will face incessant claims for debts, which he can do nothing about.

    As he says: ‘How can I pay these debts when I don’t have access to funds? If it goes to court, how can I defend myself when I won’t be able to pay for legal representation? Actually, how will I even find the money to travel to the court without money, or even feed myself?’ Franz Kafka, the great Czech author of The Trial, a classic about oppression, could not have invented a legal mantrap as inescapable as this.

    Leading British lawyers have accurately described the objects of this action as ‘prisoners of the state’. Very well, you may say, this is how we must act against money-launderers and terrorists abroad.

    You might equally well say that such powers could be used against officials of the Russian government, or officers in the Syrian Army. And if you look at the list of people treated in this way under the Sanctions and Money Laundering Act of 2018, that is who you will find.

    Of course, none of these people is a former UK civil servant with a British passport, as Mr Phillips is. As long as they stay out of our reach, the sanctions are just an inconvenience to most of those placed under them.

    But for Mr Phillips, they mean actual ruin. Whatever you think of him, is this a proper use of state power? Is it allowed by Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, let alone by the ‘human rights’ the Foreign Office claims to be so fond of?

    The official declaration says Mr Phillips is being sanctioned because he is ‘a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence of Ukraine’.

    Well, so what? None of these actions is or ought to be a crime under British law. These are catch-all charges, of the sort Stalin used in his show trials in the 1930s. Any protest against or criticism of a foreign state (or our own) could be said to do these things.

    Lots of us have pretty critical views of the way various foreign countries behave, and of our own government.

    Britain is not, in fact, at war with Russia. So there is no legal duty on any of us to support that war or refrain from saying things which upset the Kiev government.

    This is the dictatorial use of arbitrary power by the State against an individual it does not like. It is a straightforward outrage against the rule of law. If the Government gets away with it, who will be next?

    If we do not protest against it now, and stop it, then we should shut up forever about being a free country or fighting for freedom elsewhere.

    The thin end of the wedge! It’s worth reflecting that Mr Hitchens himself is the subject of a D Notice that prevents him commenting on Ukraine and the War. One wonders just how many people are being silenced by these methods which would do credit to the old Soviet Union?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11065067/PETER-HITCHENS-Freedom-means-freedom-nasty-people.html

    1. When the Nazis came for the communists,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a communist.

      When they locked up the social democrats,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a social democrat.

      When they came for the trade unionists,
      I did not speak out;
      I was not a trade unionist.

      When they came for the Jews,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a Jew.

      When they came for me,
      there was no one left to speak out.

    2. What they are doing to Graham Phillips is very sinister. Never seen any of his work, but he is in a foreign country with which we are not at war, and there is no justification for punishment without trial, let alone destroying his life in the UK.

  6. The next Tory leader must restore the party’s confidence in conservative ideas

    hahahahahaahahahaha waaa hahahahaahaah waaaaa hahaahahaah

  7. Good morning, all. Overcast here in N Essex. The ‘promised’ 90% chance of rain overnight did not materialise. I, along with many, am disappointed.

    This article re the USA has a speculative component and if only partly true, is depressing in the extreme. However, it does cast a spotlight on what is definitely happening i.e. children are disappearing in large numbers and then speculates what could be happening to many. Here in the UK we have had rumours about secretive organised paedophile rings and the blatant paedophilia of the ‘grooming gangs’. The latter ignored until the evidence became overwhelming and token action had to be taken. There can be little doubt that there exists a degenerate class with our society.

    Children Contracting Monkeypox

    1. Good morning Korky. Very wet overnight here and still a very faint drizzle.

      An interesting article.

    2. Good morning, Korky. I did in fact rain lightly at 3 am, but nothing since.

  8. SIR – We should look to the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda for solutions to water shortages.

    This small island (21 square miles) has no rivers or reservoirs, meaning that each household must collect rainwater for all personal use, including washing, cooking, flushing the lavatory and watering the garden.

    Each property is built with collection tanks, and the rain from drainpipes is directed into underground storage. Turning on a tap activates a pump from the tank.

    We are building thousands of new homes in which this system could be integrated, even just for “grey” water. We could also learn from Bermudans’ attitude to water: they value every drop, rarely taking baths, never leaving the tap running while cleaning their teeth and only flushing when necessary.

    Lesley Boardman
    Rustington, West Sussex

    Quite right! 

    SIR – When I lived in Japan over 20 years ago, my lavatory tank also served as a sink.

    When the lavatory was flushed, the water used to refill the tank came through a tap, so you could wash your hands as the supply was replenished.

    This technology is readily available here in Britain, and could be a requirement for all new homes, thereby reducing water consumption as well as encouraging hand-washing.

    A Cooper
    Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

    Another sensible suggestion!  DT readers are certainly ahead of the planners.

  9. Good morning, all. It DID rain in the night! Quite a bit, judging by the colour of the ground.

    1. Good morning, Bill. You must live some distance away from Korky and I – oh, you do!

  10. SIR – John Greaves (Letters, July 24) mentions the SA8O rifle.

    In the military it was known as the “civil servant”. It did not work and you couldn’t fire it.

    John Waller
    Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire

    I’m assuming that he is referring to the L85A1, although during 20+ years firing both this and the much-improved A2 I never came across the ‘civil servant’ reference.  And the latter is still in use today, having proved itself in several conflicts. Besides, the A2 was manufactured by Heckler and Koch, the Royal Small Arms Factory having produced the A1. This closed in the late 80s, hence the switch to H & K. More recently there is an A3 in production now, but retirement prevented any experience of this updated version.

    1. To be precise: H&K too all the A1s and reworked them into something that was useful.

  11. Good morning dear Nottlers.

    What about this then ?

    https://twitter.com/johnredwood/status/1553625751102144512

    “Rishi’s latest big idea is a £10 tax for every missed GP appointment. I can believe that from the man who introduced plenty of new and higher taxes in office. Pity he didn’t have more success controlling spending.”

    We all wait for weeks for a GP appointment .. by the time the day comes , one could be nearly dead ..

    UnicornsAreReal
    @GBates76034889
    Replying to
    @GBNEWS
    So you call to cancel your appt and you cannot get through, despite multiple attempts and you end up with a fine. Great idea to make more money
    @RishiSunak

    1. In Germany, they tried implementing a 10 euro charge for visting the doctor. It was payable once a quarter if you had a medical appointment in that quarter, and was supposed to deter people from making unnecessary appointments.
      They had to abandon it because it made so much extra work, and didn’t really do the job, because the people whose hobby it is to visit the doctor made multiple visits every quarter.

      I should think this proposed no show fee will cost more to implement than they will collect. They can’t even be bothered to process foreign insurance cards when people want to pay, so what chance do they have of collecting from no-shows?

  12. Great and the good celebrate Boris and Carrie Johnson’s wedding at festival-style party
    The Prime Minister and his wife throw a bash at Daylesford House in the Cotswolds in a long-delayed celebration

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/30/boris-carrie-johnson-celebrate-wedding-festival-style-party/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    In the idyllic grounds of an 18th century country estate in the heart of the Cotswolds, the Johnsons celebrated their wedding party surrounded by family and friends.

    “Eco-friendly” South African food was on offer, and guests could enjoy the scenery while relaxing on hay bales set up around a large marquee.

    Rum punch was also available to guests, as was barbecue chicken and beef with salad. Handmade ice-cream from a family run dairy farm in the Peak District was also served, adding to the laid back atmosphere at Daylesford House, Gloucestershire.

    The guests, who included several Conservative MPs, began to arrive at the estate at around 5pm. Australian actress and singer Holly Valance, who is married to British property developer Nick Candy, was also pictured arriving at the estate in a Rolls Royce.

    More elusive and camera-shy guests preferred to arrive by helicopter, landing on a helipad positioned in the grounds of the estate. They were then ferried to the garden party in a black Range Rover.

    Mrs Johnson is thought to have worked closely with Lady Bamford to organise the event and set the theme of a South African-style barbecue laid on by Corby-based Smoke and Braai, with the 200 guests served from eco-friendly street food trucks amid hay bale benches.

    On the menu was grass-fed British beef braai boerewors rolls, masa corn tortilla tacos, smoked barbacoa lamb and what was described as “ancient grain salad”.

    Daylesford House
    The marquee being set up in the grounds of Daylesford House CREDIT: Lee Thomas
    The firm was established three years ago by Simon Chiremba, based in Corby, Northampton, who attended a private school in Zimbabwe before studying culinary arts at University College Birmingham. His recent events have included the Silverstone Grand Prix.

    Smoke and Braai have served a host of wedding parties, film crew bashes and vintage car shows in recent months, with dishes including lime and mint-infused pineapple, loaded barbecue skin-on fries, cherry wood-smoked pork with honey and mustard slaw, locally-sourced Aberdeen Angus ox cheeks, and wood-smoked vegan barbecue cauliflower.

    “We have lived in, travelled and experienced both cultures of BBQ and Braai and one thing they all have in common is that they bring people together and make everyone happy,” Smoke and Braai says on its website.

    Adding to the festival atmosphere, for dessert there was ice cream courtesy of Dalton’s Dairy, a family-run dairy farm in the Peak District which produces handmade ice creams, including wild strawberries and cream, pineapple, and amaretto and black cherry.

    How Green is all that.. Carbon footprint Zilch

    Always the case of don’t do as I do , but do as I say

    1. As this seems to have been happening at random throughout the country,
      Luckily the hay bale seating didn’t burst into flames during this bout of hot weather and no other fires caught due to the BBQs and possible smoking of cigarettes and cigars.
      Amazing the difference between the classes in this country.
      And hopefully when all these important people sit down and watch the ladies football final at Wembley today, the amount of people in the stadium is roughly the same as the same upper classes aka our useless government have allowed to set foot on our shores, since Mr ‘king Johnson became PM.

    2. Food flown in from SA (God knows, they need the sales)
      Guests arrive by helo
      Sounds all very green to me

  13. Britain is broken and hungers for reform. That’s why I’m backing Liz Truss. Daniel Hannon. 31 July 2022.

    Rishi Sunak is far better than people think, but Ms Truss has the vision and skill set required to deliver now.

    Britain is on the verge of a breakdown. Our economy has not recovered from being put into an induced coma for the better part of two years. Our currency has been debased. Our tax levels are at a 70-year high. Our bureaucracy is dysfunctional. Our healthcare system is an international embarrassment. Part of our country is governed by the EU – and the rest retains most of the Brussels regulations which we were supposed to have scrapped by now. Our trade unions threaten aggressive strikes. We may be heading for a full-scale sterling crisis.

    And that’s the good news! Hannon is just another one looking for a job!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/30/britain-broken-hungers-reform-why-backing-liz-truss/

    1. Reading the above I had to ask myself, “Why would anyone want to take on the job of PM at this moment in time?”
      Well, mending the Country appears to be as close to an impossible Herculean task as one could get but continuing from where Johnson left off looks to be a stroll in the park by comparison. All the talk of ‘levelling up’ and the other tripe that flows from both Truss and Sunak sounds similar to Johnson’s waffle and he didn’t deliver anything of note. My expectations are set very low and I don’t think that I’ll be disappointed.

  14. Morning all 😃
    I believe we had some rain over night. But no steam rising, perhaps there could be at Wembley today, is there something on ? ⚽️

  15. The NHS is being put in peril by a fall in funding and the rise of private care. 31 July 2022.

    Everyone expects to get good care because they need it, not because they can afford it. I find this miraculous, but the miracle will not survive the deterioration of standards of care now becoming apparent. Once it is clear that those who can pay will get better care than those who can’t, equality disappears and we are back to poor services for the poor, as in the US, for example.

    This matters profoundly and is why the growth of private care will in itself undermine the NHS, quite apart from the economic forces that come into play once the NHS is not the dominant provider of healthcare, the setter of standards of excellence and innovation and the place where clinicians want to work, as it has been in the past. The NHS has been starved of resources and needs to be rescued, otherwise we will lose it.

    Actually it’s rotting from within. Go Woke. Go Broke!

    https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2022/jul/31/observer-letters

    1. I wondered when they would come after private health, as a challenge and a total embarrasement of the NHS God.
      Looks like it’s started already.

    2. The slow but sure demise of the NHS has been planned for sometime.
      And I’d guess the government thought no one would notice what they are upto.
      And I imagine millions of brits are waiting to hear what the idea of all this illegal landing of migrants is about.
      Not a word has been spoken about it yet. How can this have happened ?

    3. It’s certainly not been staved of resources, billions of our tax money goes to it each month,

    1. Thomas Sowell should be taught in schools instead of ‘Critical Race Theory’

  16. Norwegian King Harald (helmsman and skipper) and his crew came in 10th in the World Sailing race in Switzerland yesterday. Not bad for an 85-year-old recovereing from cancer op!

    1. Yo Ol

      Next week, will he come first in the sand-yacht racing in the Arctic

  17. Morning, all! Well rested and refreshed after a stay in a friends’ luxurious house in Winchelsea. Found it hard to fish myself out of a bath scented with Santa Maria Novella bath oil, but tea on the terrace, overlooking the lush gardens, did the trick in the end.

    Windy and overcast again. Ah, summer! I can take the black clouds if there is some respite – the grey-white eternal nothingness is what sucks the energy out of me. I only recall such skies in the last couple of years – have they happened on a regular basis before and I’ve just forgotten?

    1. Never understood bath oils. They leave a nasty ring around the bath since they don’t mix. I shall stick to Badedas. Things happen after a Badedas bath, I am assured.
      And talking of mindworms, I for some reason keep remembering the old tv ad. Every mornink I drink Warnink’s. Warninks Advocaat…

      1. These ones smell so gorgeous the cleaning -up is worth it, for once. I use their bath salts for preference, but only when someone is kind enough to give them to me (oof; the price).

        Drinking advocaat in the mornings might explain a lot of Nottl! 🤣

      2. Ah, reminds of the two Englishmen, looking for breakfast in Holland.

        They asked fot two eggs and do you have kippers?

        The waiter soon arrived with two large Scotches and an eggnog, which he placed on the table, announcing, “Two Haigs and de Kuyper.”

        Be careful what you ask for!

  18. Saving water

    There is old technology for saving water in flushing loos: the *Earth Cludge at the bottom of the garden, as used by those
    living in farmhouses for years. In highly populated areas, you often got the two/three seaters

    The added advantage, is that they will be familiar to the endless stream of new arrivals reaching our shores

    *A hut, with a bench like seat with a hole it in, resting over a pit

    PS. I used these at my grandmother’s farm

      1. The dunnies in the out back in Oz are pretty efficient. They arrive with a large drilling rig on the back of a truck drill a few holes in a certain are, place the corrugated iron cubicle over the hole and the pan with the lid.
        No pun intended job done.
        We once arrived at a sheep station and had use the dunny my good lady came back to the kitchen and asked if the holes in the rear and lower section of the sheet iron were for ventilation……. No replied Ron the station owner. That’s were I shoot the snakes 🐍🪱 🤠
        And of course always lift the lid and seat with your foot, it’s where the spider’s 🕷 like to hide.

      2. When I was a child, we moved into a farmhouse with an outside loo.
        When we demolished it, we discovered a prayer book tucked into the woodwork.
        We were undecided whether the user had been an atheist or a true believer.

    1. Billy Connolly had great stories concern this method of group evacuation in the Clyde-side, ship-building toilets.

  19. Mandy Rice Davies has been busy today on the Letters , under pen names:

    Sir Peter Luff Pershore, Worcestershire, Mminster forDdefence Equipment

    Jim Steer Board member, High Speed Rail Group London SW1

  20. I don’t know who advises this clown, but suitability for the top job reduces by the day.

    Prince Charles accepted £1m from family of Osama bin Laden. Prince had private meeting at Clarence House — and seven-figure donation from Saudis followed.
    Link – with 12 foot ladder paywall embedded – https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fprince-charles-accepted-1m-from-family-of-osama-bin-laden-7pd55sgn6
    The Prince of Wales accepted a £1 million payment from the family of Osama bin Laden, The Sunday Times can reveal.

    Prince Charles secured the money from Bakr bin Laden, the patriarch of the wealthy Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq. Both men are half-brothers of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda who masterminded the September 11 attacks.

    Charles, 73, had a private meeting with Bakr, 76, at Clarence House in London on October 30, 2013, two years after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan.

    The future king agreed to the donation despite the initial objections of advisers at the Clarence House and the Prince of Wales Charitable Fund (PWCF), where the money was ultimately deposited.

  21. I don’t know who advises this clown, but suitability for the top job reduces by the day.

    Prince Charles accepted £1m from family of Osama bin Laden. Prince had private meeting at Clarence House — and seven-figure donation from Saudis followed.
    Link – with 12 foot ladder paywall embedded – https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fprince-charles-accepted-1m-from-family-of-osama-bin-laden-7pd55sgn6
    The Prince of Wales accepted a £1 million payment from the family of Osama bin Laden, The Sunday Times can reveal.

    Prince Charles secured the money from Bakr bin Laden, the patriarch of the wealthy Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq. Both men are half-brothers of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda who masterminded the September 11 attacks.

    Charles, 73, had a private meeting with Bakr, 76, at Clarence House in London on October 30, 2013, two years after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan.

    The future king agreed to the donation despite the initial objections of advisers at the Clarence House and the Prince of Wales Charitable Fund (PWCF), where the money was ultimately deposited.

    1. Will Charles be cancelled in the same way as the vlogger who (apparently) supports Russia against Ukraine, with all funds frozen?

      1. When you think of how Ukraine has treated its Russian population its a wonder Putin waited so long.

    2. He is completely unfit for the role of king but so is his son. His mind, such as it is, has been taken over by woke nonsense and globalists.

      I am beginning to think that both the Conservative Party and the monarchy are finished. We need a constitutional, non-executive, non-political president elected every five years so we are not lumbered with him or her for too long. The French and the US presidential systems are the very last things that the UK needs.

      1. Worse than that, he campaigns tirelessly for the success of the WEF agenda that includes depopulation. He chose Jonathan Porrit as his adviser, who campaigns for “optimum” population.
        Face it, Charles probably wants 7/8s of us dead – and his family still on top.

      2. Johnson (cough).
        Nixon (cough).
        Clinton (cough).
        Biden (cough – and possibly a sneeze and a fart as well).

      1. There is time for Prince Charles to be brought to heel and instructed on the changes he will need to abide by when he is crowned. As far as I am aware he is not taking the donations for his own good. He should listen carefully to the other side of the climate change argument and the wokery nonsense.
        His mother would be upset if she thought the Monarchy was to be abolished on her death. It is still better than a political presidential position.
        Charles, William and George need to be better prepared for being Kings. Give them a chance

        1. Good grief, Clyde – Chas has had 70 YEARS to get prepared…..

          William is just a sloane buffoon. Thick as planks and repeats what the last person he spoke to said.

      2. Sadly I agree Bob. It seems a destiny that’s been lined up to take place.
        Shame Anne can’t step in and take over.

      3. Trouble is – what are you going to replace it with? A president, elected every 5 years at enormous cost, cast in the mould of Blair, Prescott and/or Corbyn? Heaven forfend.

        Yes, Anne is the best possible choice, above and beyond her silly, woke brother and his equally silly and woke son(s).

    3. Charles is just one of the shady super-rich that hang around in Davos. He has converted me to being a republican.

  22. I see in yesterday’s Murdoch Rag that the RHS has discovered wokery, having appointed an Inclusivity Ambassador. Not unexpectedly its name is unpronouncable, but then Whitey never gets a look-in for a seat on the diversity gravy train. Furthermore, this individual is saying that RHS gardens are much too English in style and layout, and some foreign input would increase the BAME numbers….

    That’s it, membership now cancelled.

    1. Gardeners’ World has been woke for a few years now and it’s getting worse. Oh, for the days of Percy Thrower.

      1. I had to stop watching it years ago. Telling you what to do alll the time I still use peat and slug killer.

        1. If ONLY one could get proper slug killer. The bastards thrive on the modern rubbish.

      2. These current presenters like the viewers to believe they invented everything.
        I’d stick my neck out and suggest they don’t actually do any of the work off screen.

        1. I have a few of Geoffrey Smith’s books on gardening … and I was once acquainted by his daughter.

  23. California, an embryonic dystopian NWO concept. Newsom has, allegedly, aspirations to become President.

    An extract from Dr Robert Malone’s Substack.

    Not a National Model—a National Warning

    Gavin Newsom’s bravado about California is undermined by reality. July 28, 2022

    After years of mask mandates, school closures, and pervasive lockdowns, Californians must be wondering what limits exist on state government intrusion into their lives. Nonetheless, they can’t help but notice the newfound freedoms that criminals and street homeless have enjoyed in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the rule of law has eroded at the hands of activist district attorneys.

    Meantime, Californians who vote with their feet are fleeing to Florida in record numbers. From 2010 to 2018, California lost an average of 1,000 people to Florida per year, according to IRS taxpayer migration data. Then, from 2018 to 2019, California lost 4,800 residents to Florida. And from 2019 to 2020—the first IRS data that cover the early pandemic months—California lost 11,500 residents to Florida.

    California’s outmigrants are bringing lots of income with them. The state shed an average of $270 million of annual income to Florida from 2010 to 2018. The annual loss jumped to $1.2 billion from 2018 to 2019, and then to $2 billion in 2019–2020. California’s losses, and Florida’s gains, have almost certainly accelerated in the intervening years. And Florida is not the only state picking up California exiles. The Golden State’s losses are at or near record levels with other states, too—in particular, states like Texas that Newsom targets with criticism.

    Newsom wants Americans to believe that he has it figured out in California, and that the new American model for freedom is a progressive one. Yet his state’s aggressive population pivot has coincided almost precisely with his tenure as governor, making Newsom the first California leader to preside over a shrinking state rather than a growing one.

    No amount of political rhetoric can mask California’s reality under Governor Newsom. Low-income students are being left behind, the rule of law is eroding, and residents are leaving in record numbers. The many former Californians watching Newsom’s ads in Texas and in Florida can only marvel at the hubris of the man.

    Dr Robert Malone’s Substack – California Here They Go

    1. The really disturbing thing is that no doubt all of those Californian emigrants will arrive in Florida and continue to vote Democrat.

      1. I think it’s correct to assume that within the leavers’ numbers there will be those that have Republican leanings. However, as we’ve experienced here, many immigrants leave their shit-hole stating they want a better life and then when ensconced here set about turning their new home into a replica of what they fled.

  24. Just sauntered round the garden – it is still drizzling – and there was some quite useful rain overnight. Many of the shrubs which had been suffering have perked up a bit.

    1. The heat up here is almost unbearable – I’ve had to come in from cleaning out the gutters

  25. Guess what? I never had any reply from the alleged chairman of the CONservative party.

    1. Must have a lot on their mind such as: Will I still have this job when the new Leader is anointed?….

      1. Well, he hasn’t rushed out to congratulate Untrussworthy. Unlike the two “military” men….

        1. It is becoming obvious that the top echelons in politics have taken the ‘Bash Street Kids’ as their training manual….

    2. I got a reply from the Attorney General on House of Commons headed notepaper. And she managed to grab the local GP service by the scruff of the neck and give it a shake. Result.

      1. Yes but – that is a good constituency MP doing what she is supposed to do.

        I asked the Chairwazzock to ask the oily one and the thick one six simple questions. Because – as neither is my MP, I cannot put those simple questions directly to them.

        1. As Bill said she is a constituency MP but Suella Braverman does involve herself in local issues and is contactable. Mercy mother you also get a response.

  26. I’m sure it could have been done in fewer than 2,300 words but the point is well made.

    ‘Our fixation with feelings has created a damaged generation’

    Addiction therapist, mental health advocate and author Gillian Bridge discusses the cause behind a whole range of societal problems

    Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Gillian Bridge caught the end of a BBC segment on “how young people can deal with their anxiety over Ukraine”. “This was young people in the UK, you understand,” the teacher, therapist and author says slowly, narrowing her eyes and pausing for effect. “Yet there was this expectation that they were going to be enormously distressed – and about something that was not affecting them directly. Meanwhile, what were they doing in Ukraine? Living in bomb shelters; giving birth in cellars. But we were supposed to worry about the ‘anxiety’ young people were experiencing here? Frankly, I found that terrifying.”

    Terrifying, but “not surprising”, she adds with a sigh. “And you’ll notice that just like other political subjects that have prompted huge emotional outpourings on and off social media of late, things have now gone very quiet on that front. Once we’ve had these ‘big’ emotions, we are no longer particularly interested, it seems.” She cites our celebration of the NHS as another example. “People were virtually orgasmic about their pan-banging, but how many of them then went on to volunteer or do something tangibly helpful?” It’s in part down to our gnat-like attention span, says Bridge, “but also the fact that a lot of the time we’re not interested in the actual subject, just the way we feel about it.”

    As an addiction specialist who has worked “with people’s brains” in schools, prisons and on Harley Street for decades and lectured on the subject of brain language and behaviour, the 71-year-old has watched our “fixation with feelings” balloon out of all proportion, eclipsing reason, and predicted how damaging it would be, especially for the young. However, even Bridge was shocked by figures showing that more than a million prescriptions for antidepressants are now written for teenagers in England each year, with NHS data confirming that the number of drugs doled out to 13 to 19-year-olds has risen by a quarter between 2016 and 2020.

    Child mental health services are reported to be “at breaking point”, with referrals up by 52 per cent last year and some parents even admitting that they have been sleeping outside their children’s bedrooms in order to check they are not self-harming. There is no doubt that we are dealing with an unprecedented crisis – one that was definitely heightened by the pandemic. “But Covid cannot be held responsible for all of it,” cautions Bridge. “And while antidepressants can be very effective, we need to be asking ourselves how we reached this point? Because whatever we’ve been doing clearly isn’t working.”

    At the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference in 2019 Bridge told the 250 independent school heads in attendance what she believed to be the root cause of this mass unhappiness: “This focus on ‘me, myself and I’ is the problem… It’s taking people who are vulnerable to begin with and asking them to focus inwards.” And in Bridge’s ground-breaking book, Sweet Distress: How Our Love Affair With Feelings Has Fuelled the Current Mental Health Crisis, the behavioural expert explains why too much emphasis on emotion is as bad for our health as a surfeit of sweet treats. Indeed the “empty calories contained in some feelings” have only helped our “sense of self-importance to grow fat”, she says. Hence the “emotional obesity many are suffering from now”.

    The book – which kicks off with Bridge’s assertion, “We’ve been living in a gross-out world of personal emotional self-indulgence and sentiment for decades now … decades which have seen the nation’s mental health worsening” – is a succession of equally magnificent declarations. Magnificent because she has pinpointed the cause of a whole range of societal problems, from mental distress and the determined fragility of the young to the woke chaos of universities and cancel culture.

    First of all: how did we get here? When did the feeling fetishisation begin? “Many would point to Freud and therapy,” she says. “Certainly the touchy-feely approach to things had already started in classrooms back in the 1970s. But then you also have people like Diana, who gave feelings a new legitimacy, and Tony Blair with his ‘people’s princess’ speech.” Flash forward to today, when every boss can be silenced by an employee starting a sentence with: “I just feel that …”

    The great value of feelings today, Bridge tells me, “is that no one else can ever deny them … so if you feel offended then someone has genuinely harmed you”. Celebrity culture has promoted this new way of thinking as much as social media, “where you can witness people actually gorging on themselves, getting high on the strength of their own feelings just as they do on sugar – self-pleasuring, basically. And listen, it may feel good in the short term, but it’s very bad for us in the long run.”

    Take the Duchess of Sussex, she points out, and her litany of “heartfelt” complaints. “Just last week there she was explaining that she didn’t lie to Oprah about growing up an only child, because she felt like one, so it was, as she put it ‘a subjective statement’.” Bridge laughs; shakes her head. “We really are tying ourselves up in knots now, aren’t we? Because it’s all about me, myself and I, and someone like Meghan has made it so much easier for people to follow in her footsteps, when the reality is that feelings are not immutable. They are not fixed, an absolute. They are not fact. And they are certainly not something that must override everything else.”

    Yet there is a natural neurological process whereby the brain is able to turn feelings into fact, Bridge explains. “If you revise, rehearse, repeat and reinforce, then you create a fact, and that fact will then be embedded in your memory: ‘your truth’. Going back to Markle, that’s crucially a truth that no amount of counter-evidence can challenge.”

    Encouraging that process goes from concerning to dangerous where children are involved. “The worst possible thing you can do with a child is to give them a fixed idea that they are feeling a certain way,” she says with aplomb. So those “emotional literacy” classes that started in California and are now being taught at schools here in the UK? The ones using a “traffic light” system, with pupils as young as four being asked to describe their “happiness levels” accordingly? “A terrible idea,” Bridge groans. “Feelings are simply physiological sensations mediated by cultural expectations; they go up and they go down!” Yet thanks to the pervasive narrative that every feeling should be given weight, “instead of enjoying the limitless health and optimism of youth” many youngsters “are now entrenched in their own misery”.

    The desire to feel significant (either by embracing victimhood or by other means) is hardly new where young people are concerned, Bridge reminds me, and her tone is notably empathetic. “Let’s not forget that people used to have a role in life assigned for them within their communities. You might do an apprenticeship and then go and work in a factory or go into your father’s firm, or you might be preparing to get married and have babies. Now people have to find their role, they have to choose an identity, and that is much more complicated for them.”

    According to the British Journal of Psychiatry, 7 per cent of children attempted suicide by the age of 17 last year, while almost one in four admitted to self-harming, and I have often wondered whether the loss of that vital “moment’s pause” is partly to blame for these appalling statistics. The “this too shall pass”, “it’ll all look better in the morning” mentality my parents instilled in me.

    “The reason ‘everything will look better in the morning’ is so important,” says Bridge, “is that just like the children who did well in [Walter Mischel’s famous 1972] marshmallow experiment, they were able to predict the future based on their past.” That ability to delay and see the bigger picture is closely associated with the development of the hippocampus, she explains, “which is memory, navigation and good mental health. Yet by immersing ourselves in feelings and the now, we’ve blotted out the ‘OK so I’m feeling bad, but tomorrow will be another day’ logic, and we’re trusting the least intelligent part of our brains. As parents, we should all be discouraging this in our children. Because a child has to believe in tomorrow.”

    Sweet Distress explains that altruism is actually good for our brains. So ironically, on a purely selfish level, it might be an idea to embrace it. “Studies have shown that it protects us from mental decline in our later years, but that the self-involved are more likely to develop dementia.” Learning and a sense of history are equally important when it comes to brain health. “Yet again we seem to be distancing ourselves from the very things that we need to thrive. We’re so threatened by history and its characters that we try to cancel them! When you only have to read something like Hamlet’s ‘to be, or not to be’ speech to understand that it encapsulates all of the issues and irritations we still suffer from today. And surely knowing that gives you a sense of belonging, a sense of context, continuity and, crucially, relativity?”

    It stands to reason that when we have no sense of our place in the world, we feel lost – insubstantial. And Bridge says there’s a great deal of evidence from young people who have either tried or thought about suicide, “that they don’t actually realise it’s the end of them. Instead, they are almost able to view it as a melodrama that they can observe from the outside. Which is a deeply distressing thought.”

    Before I was even halfway through Sweet Distress, I wanted the woman brave enough to write what so many of us are thinking to be made an MBE, an OBE, a CBE. Make her a government “tsar”; put her in charge of schools or universities. Given the breadth of her knowledge and experience, who could be better equipped to deal with the current mental health pandemic? Born in Nottingham, Bridge studied English at Sussex University before doing a diploma in addiction therapy. After having worked in Harley Street and with people with brain damage and autism, she spent four years working with drug or alcohol-addicted prisoners in five different prisons across the South West, later writing about her experiences in her 2016 book, The Significance Delusion: Unlocking Our Thinking for Our Children’s Future.

    Although it’s hard to condense everything she learnt about the criminal brain during those years down to a tidy sound bite, “what was notable and important in this context,” she says, “was their fixation on themselves. So the more a person looks inwards at the me, myself and I, the more they’re likely to run afoul of everything, from addiction to criminality. In a way, the best thing you can do for your brain is to look beyond it.”

    She tells me about a prisoner she was working with “who came up to me and said: ‘I’ve got mental health’ – as though that were a disorder. Because people have become so ‘into’ the problem that the phrase is now only negative. That’s surely one of the most worrying developments of all. And it’s why I refuse to use or accept the term ‘mental health’ unless it is prefixed by ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”

    Bridge concedes that some of the “sensitive voices” out there – the ones she likens to Just William’s insufferable, lisping neighbour, Violet Elizabeth Bott – “probably won’t agree with much of what I say”. Yet she stresses she “has never encountered negativity anywhere I have spoken”. Yet another reason why Bridge isn’t about to dampen her argument.

    “I think people understand that it’s time for some tough talking,” she writes in Sweet Distress. “There is increasing evidence that families, schools and universities are being overwhelmed by an epidemic of mental ill health.” So whatever we are doing isn’t just “not helping”, but harming? “Absolutely. But I am seeing more and more people speaking up about this now. The narrative is changing. Just look at what the Coldstream Guards fitness instructor, Farren Morgan, said last week about body positivity promoting ‘a dangerous lifestyle’. He’s right.” She shrugs. “It’s no good saying ‘it’s OK to be any size you please’ when we know that if children have bad diets, that can in turn lead to obesity – which in turn makes it more likely that they will suffer both physically and mentally later on.”

    She mentions the new smart dress code implemented by the head of Greater Manchester Police – the one that, according to reports last week, helped turn the force around into one of the “most improved” in the country. “These officers were performing better at work because they were dressed smarter. So what does that tell us? That if you have a disciplined life and if you accomplish the things you set out to do, that gives you self-esteem – which makes you happier. But of course none of this happens if we are just sitting around ‘feeling’ things.”

    How do we get people out of themselves when they are so entrenched, though? How do we root them when they are flailing to such an extent? “By giving them a sense of being part of history! By getting them to see that if they want to cancel someone who lived 50 or 100 years ago, then in 50 or 100 years’ time someone may have entirely ‘valid’ reasons to cancel them. By building the inner scaffolding that will keep them standing throughout life’s ups and downs. And you know what that inner scaffold is called?” she asks with a small smile. “Resilience.”

    Sweet Distress: How Our Love Affair With Feelings Has Fuelled the Current Mental Health Crisis (and What We Can Do About It) by Gillian Bridge is out now, published by Crown House

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/fixation-feelings-has-created-damaged-generation/

        1. I mused national service by a few years as well but I am not too sure that was a good thing.

          I went from school to university to work without a chance to mature and grow up, the idea of a gap year was beyond my financial ability.

          1. I took a gap year, during which I worked full time, but I’m not sure it helped me to grow up. That was a process that just happened naturally between about 28 – 35.
            When I was at university, I thought that the world belonged to the people who already knew what they wanted out of life at 21 – the Michael Goves, Boris Johnsons and Jeremy Hunts. They were already scheming how to get ahead while the rest of us were trying to figure out how to put our shoes on and where the starting blocks were.

          2. I took a couple of years after graduating doing temporary jobs before I went into teaching.

        2. I did my (voluntary) 10 years in HM forces and, as well as teaching me self-discipline, it taught me an electronics trade that I expanded upon through Production Planning, Purchasing and the like to have had a well-rounded grasp of modern (1970s to 2015) industrial practice enough to make very good money as a consultant advising on the many facets of industry. Which is why my Autobiography, entitled Not A Bad Life is now available.

    1. Gillian Bridge should be given an advisory role in government for her common sense approach to this topic. It is time that parents and teachers were given lessons in common sense too; otherwise this generation of FUL (Flaccid Upper Lip) milksops will continue to flourish.

    1. I guess it will all come to light one day.
      I have absolutely no interest whatsoever what is going on in Ukraine.
      It all looks and has from the start, been suspicious and very suspect.

  27. Rumour has it that this day in 1970 was last issue of “The Tot” to the RN – actually rather glad I missed it! There have been occasions since when the order “Splice the Mainbrace” has been issued, but always as a one off.

    1. Sorry, Bleau, when I first read that, I assumed that ‘The Tot’ was a publication for Registered Nurses (RN) about toddlers.

      “Splice the mainbrace.” sort of gave it away! What would the Royal Air Force know?

    2. I was invited to lineup and join the crews for “Splice the Mainbrace” with 208 Sqd RAF Honington, probably 1975, they were flying the Buccaneer S2s.

  28. Good Moa Afternoon.
    🎶
    “Grey skies, Making me smile ….
    Nothing but grey skies, Mile upon mile” …….

    But, please, begs Temperate Zone Girl, could we also have a spot of rain?
    Maybe I should give the Noddy car a bath.

      1. We always reckoned there was a special A1 shaped cloud that permanently hung over the road.

  29. OT
    Excellent racing solitaire yesterday, in the top 3,000 out of half a million entrants.

  30. Afternoon all.

    Just read a piece on DM about a 13 year old who “thought she was a boy” and went through puberty blocking medication, double mastectomy, more medication and who now, years later, wishes the Tavistock Clinic had not done what she wanted. This clinic has now been ordered to close by Spring next year (why not instantly?). Nowhere in the article did it mention her parents or guardians.

    Another medical experiment. So sad for her. She now identifies as female again.

    1. There is officially only one allowed response from her parents or guardians, and that is “We are delighted with our son.”
      Had they said anything else, she could have been removed from them by social services.

      1. And a voice from the heavens announced:

        This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

    2. Families of trans people go through absolute hell in my experience, as the system validates and encourages abuse.

      1. We are probably lucky to have never knowingly come across any trans people let alone their families.

        1. Our neighbour’s lad is becoming a “woman”. He brushes up nice in a frock and heels, but one wonders what level of compulsion / fashion / mental instability drives this.
          I hope he doesn’t regret it. He’s a nice lad.

          1. Believe he still has tackle, and anyway has XY-chromosomes. So, a bloke. Despite the frocks.

  31. Suggest you take your BP medication before reading this in full.

    For some months, the TPA has been keeping a keen eye on Northumberland County Council. It comes after its finance officer ruled that the chief executive, Daljit Lally, had received unlawful payments. We’d previously called for the money to be repaid to local taxpayers.
    But late last week we received shocking information. Instead of paying the money back, Ms Lally was set for a £209,000 taxpayer-funded golden goodbye! Naturally, we didn’t delay in putting together a campaign.

    This weeks bulletin fro the Taxpayer’s Alliance.
    https://mailchi.mp/ced4fc0e223e/weekly-bulletin?e=51589105f7

    Edit – add Break the law and get a reward for doing so. Will probably move on to another council.

  32. I see there are reports that Biden has tested positive for Convid yet again! Luckily he has had loads of vaccine so all is well [/sarc]

        1. We already know, George that the corona-virus fungus, is so teeny-weeny small that it passes unhindered through 99.9% of face nappies.

          1. Edit – I’ve left my glasses in the car and, since it hurts to walk that far, there may be typos.

          2. Not yet, Paul, Sunday, Flowton to Wetherby (Services).

            Tomorrow, Monday, Wetherby to Moffat.

            Then I have to persuade the van driver – with a £50 bung, to move everything up to the flat.

    1. I suspect that this is a cover story for his ever declining Mental Health. It keeps him off the rostrum and out of the Public Eye!

      1. That was my immediate reaction. They are keeping him out of the way of microphones and cameras.

      2. It was obvious from even before his election that he wouldn’t be able to serve a full term as President. Just how long the Dems will be able to postpone his eventual retirement due to ‘ill-health’ is debatable. Anyone care to open a book?

        1. When can Harris get two terms as President after taking over? It’s about 2 years in, ins’t it?

  33. I have just returned from an outdoor C of E church service.

    Thoroughly enjoyable , but oh dear the Nicene Creed.. what have they done with it.

      1. I have, Bill and instantly reverted to that which I know and love from my childhood. I have a voice that carries, and make sure I pronounce every line. including, “Or Father which art in Heaven…” He’s not a who (person) but is unknown, in the loudest and most firm voice I can. Remember, I used to a Drum Major and was used to being heard.

          1. Well, I am a singer, not professionally and more choral, folk and show tunes- but yes….we can project.
            Have listened to you on YT and splendid!

          2. The MR used to go the other way – become very quiet – and say, “I am VERY disappointed…”

          3. Well I didn’t do it with the kids- they didn’t need it. Stupid adults however….

          4. I bet it is.
            I sang Strange dear but true dear from Kiss Me Kate to my now husband- blew him away. Do a pretty good Voi Che Sapete- Cherubino’s aria from Marriage of Figaro too.
            When in the mood and the wind is in the right direction;-)

      2. Our non-binary gender being, who art in heaven,
        hallowed be thy pronoun;
        thy safe space come;
        thy woke be done;
        on earth as it is in heaven.
        Give us this day our daily multi-grains.
        And forgive us our thought passes,
        as we forgive those who thought pass against us.
        And lead us not into temptation;
        but deliver us from Donald.
        For thine is the safe space,
        the power and the glory,
        for ever and ever.
        Amen.

          1. There was one at my college. The young ladies were always missing their floor and getting stuck in the roof space. Oh how we laughed. Especially in the student Bar.

          2. My ex, when away on a business trip, managed to get stuck in the lift twice in the same evening.
            When they came to release him the second time, they said, “Oh hell man, not you again!”

          3. This was in US and most hotels are many storeys… so I doubt it. He was more careful I guess after that. Silly sod.
            He ended up in the monorail terminal at Atlanta airport as well- couldn’t figure out which button to press for his stop. Embarrassing as he’s a degreed Electrical Engineer.

          4. Yeah. That’s what they made me/convinced me to go on as a mature student but all i wanted to learn was cheffing. The intake for the catering course was 17 year olds. Probably thought i would show up the 20 year out of date has beens teaching the course.

          5. Me too! Said I was overqualified to do 706 1/2! I did do a bit of lecturing to a 706/1Tops course! Remember them?

          6. I have trouble remembering anything now.

            I know i wasn’t qualified to do the management course because most of my peers had A levels. I was expected to know about microbiology as regards a kitchen set up. Though i did learn a lot it was way above me. I dropped out for the second time and sold up. Moved South and found other things to do.

            All of the stuff they were teaching was well out of date.

          7. I like them. Great fun!
            Never dared to stay in one as it passed the top floor, in case it came down the other side upside down… :-o)

          8. I went over the top of our one – it was OK as long as you stayed still.
            We were warned not to go under the bottom though, as if there was a fire, you would be trapped apparently.

          9. There is indeed. I used to take my life in my hands every time I used it, particularly if I was carrying an armful of books.

          10. If I had to use one of those things, I would first say “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen”.

          1. Does it make any difference considering where we are? Though my meme post was satire.

          2. I thought it was serious! I think the trans lot have come up with dafter things than that. Satirists must try harder!

          3. Tasteless jokes and satire are being buried. Little boys laugh at fart jokes. Older boys who haven’t grown out of it too. Rugby club had/has a rep for tossing Dwarfs who were very happy for the money. Frankie Boyle and others can be deeply offensive but they still seem to be able to sell tickets.

            You can add all the isms to a series of TV in bad taste but it doesn’t mean a section of society won’t laugh their arses off it. https://youtu.be/S9K8tiI0nMA

    1. When we say the creed, I use the BCP version. It’s what I believe (credo); I can’t speak for anybody else (we believe).

  34. More stunning news from the beeboids:

    “BBC chiefs blocked plans to bring back The Fast Show’s coughing Bob Fleming… over fears his affliction may offend Covid sufferers”

    What will they think of next?

    1. Would they still show the Two Ronnies phantom raspberry blower sketches because they might offend Curry eaters?

      1. They have banned comedy programmes because people with no sense of humour may be offended.

          1. I had all the Goons’s songs on an LP and played that one for a couple of kids who were visiting with their parents. The youngest one laughed so hard I thought he might either wet himself or pass out!

    2. Never seen it, but wouldn’t coughing Bob Phlegming be more appropriate?

      1. The Fast Show (see YouTube) was the last genuinely funny, politically incorrect comedy programme on beeboid telly.

  35. Long Covid causes erectile dysfunction and hair loss as symptoms list widens. 31 July 2022.

    Hair loss and erectile dysfunction have joined the list of long Covid symptoms, according to new research.

    The study found that while the most common symptoms include loss of smell, shortness of breath and chest pain, others include amnesia, erectile dysfunction, hallucinations, an inability to perform familiar movements or commands, bowel incontinence and limb swelling.

    Patterns of symptoms tended to be grouped into respiratory symptoms, mental health and cognitive problems, and then a broader range of symptoms.

    Really? They used to blame that on masturbation. Lol!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/long-covid-symptoms-hairfall-erectile-dysfunction-b2135021.html

    1. In a recent situation update, Ontario public health officials noted that evidence is emerging SARS-CoV-2 can cause “immune dysregulation,” a vague term that’s used when the immune system isn’t behaving normally.

      White blood cell counts may be off, immune cells don’t work the way they should, inflammation is higher than it should be. “Long story short, COVID-19 leads to lasting, and possibly permanent changes in immune cells in some, but not all, people,” McMaster University immunologist Dawn Bowdish said.

      With somewhere around 80 to 90% vaccinated, is this a result of vaccine or virus?

      1. Before the vax rollout, many independent scientists claimed that messenger ribonucleic acid gene therapy had hitherto been abandoned as a treatment for SARS because in animal trials it had caused antibody dependent enhancement, which basically wrecks the natural immune system. It seems too great a coincidence?

        1. It seems an awful lot of people are dying of coincidence. A regular at one of our churches died on Friday. Hadn’t been ill. I was talking to him only last Sunday. Bet he was fully vaxxed and boostered…

      2. “Immune dysregulation” aka “Shit, we boobed big time but don’t want to pay for it”.

      3. Hmm, could it be that ‘all of the above’ is due to the vaccinations Gene Therapy?

    2. So to hell with a couple of thousand plus years of medical research. If you have ANY symptoms of illness, it’s Covid. The anger of the gods of Mount Olympus was a more feasible explanation. Zeus will be happy with some high profile sacrifice.

      1. I will say also that the emphasis on covid and shoving “vaccines” left, right and centre and abandoning regular treatment of patients will have a long term and lasting effect. My health is compromised, as is my husband’s, because we were not able to see a doctor last year even.
        This government has blood and more on its hands.
        I shall probably have to see the quack soonish as summat’s not right; if he mentions the word covid, I will go apeshit!

      2. AND – “tests” will confirm it. Be sure to take your test today….”You never know…”

    3. On the plus side, it gives many ‘victims’ an enhanced ability to shirk from home.

    4. … old age, alcohol, and God-knows what else.
      Long Covid, my left buttock.

      1. The best description of brewer’s droop comes from Macbeth’s Porter:

        MACDUFF :
        What three things does drink especially provoke?

        Porter :
        Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
        urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
        it provokes the desire, but it takes
        away the performance: therefore, much drink
        may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
        it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
        him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
        and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
        not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
        in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

  36. Kemi Badenoch: Civil servants prevented me learning truth about Tavistock clinic
    Former equalities minister claims her enquiries into the child gender identity clinic were hampered by leaks.

    DT: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/30/ministers-transgender-clinic-probe-led-civil-service-obstruction/

    BTL

    Like him or loathe him Dominic Cummings was determined to sort out the blob and make the civil service fit for purpose.

    Sadly Boris Johnson was not strong enough to stand up to his wife and so Cummings was sacked and her bestest chum, Sajed Javid, was invited to rejoin the Cabinet.

    Will Truss have the ovarian strength to sort out the civil service? I doubt it.

  37. Birdie today…
    Wordle 407 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. May I join you?

      Wordle 407 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Half of yesterdays paltry effort.

      1. A bogey Five for me …

        Wordle 407 5/6
        ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
        🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
        🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
        Bad choices in Three and Four …

    2. Well done! Amazingly…
      Wordle 407 3/6

      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Wordle 407 2/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  38. Riski Sunhat on his day off playing No.5 for the All Blacks in the rugby sevens.

  39. Did you hear about the Jewish Kamikaze fighter pilot.
    He crashed his plane into his brothers scrap yard.

    Bernard Manning

  40. Just been to see the goats. The three kids are now quite large (in a smallish way) and were lying together in a little heap!! Sweeeeeet!!

    Cycling back – with 100 yards to go – the skies opened Amazing how wet one can get in thirty seconds… Sun out now, of course…!

        1. There are a herd of them near us, but it’s awkward to walk to from where we live.
          I’m surprised some of them have not been (perhaps they have) stolen. A few sheep have been. Not mentioning any names or forms of ID of course.

      1. The goats are very sweet. In a curry too. Which is what they are there for. Ask Bill if he recognises any from last year !

  41. Wendy ball starts soon good luck England, I just hope the ref isn’t french.
    No shortage of water at Wembley I expect the Welsh ( a local West Hendon reservoir) Harp is suffering.

    1. There could well be a surfeit of water at full time – it may well end in tears (it’s the Germans, after all).

      1. I’m quite confident they will be victorious. Happy and glorious. After watching in parts, some of the earlier games i was quite impressed with their style and sheer determination. It took me back to the earlier days of Men’s league games. Now the best actors and divers win.

        1. I hope they do well. If only they wouldn’t do that stupid knee-bending before the kick-off…

          1. Yes i haven’t seen that, thanks for the warning, it is absolutely stupid.
            Not long now. Slayders. 3-2 ? 🤔⚽

    2. There could well be a surfeit of water at full time – it may well end in tears (it’s the Germans, after all).

  42. I am now signing off early. I am under instructions from the MR (who has no interest AT ALL in soccer – but who is determined to watch) to view the girlies’ wendyball (sorry, Laydees foopball) world cup final (or something). I gather that our pony-tailed Mädchen are under orders to stick it to the Hitlerines.

    So I wish you all a jolly evening. Good luck to the XI.

    A demain.

    1. There will be quite a lot of Scousers watching and running out of tissues when they do the slow motion. Also…why don’t they swap shirts at the end…Kleenex could literally clean up….. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>runs for cover.

      1. Extraordinary thing – there is some tart in her underwear pretending to sing…. I thought I had selected the wrong channel….

  43. filched from BTL

    Re, “…the SA8O rifle.

    In the military it was known as the “civil servant”. It did not work and you couldn’t fire it.

      1. Shouldn’t the referee be from a ‘neutral’ country, Bill?

        That is the norm in most sports …

          1. We won a Mutley million pound second rate eurovision song contest ! I have no idea what you are complaining about.

          2. Nobody loves me,
            Everybody hates me,
            Sitting in the garden eating worms

            Long, thin, slimy ones,
            short, fat furry ones,
            juicy, juicy, juicy, juicy worms.

            The long, thin, slimy ones,
            Slip down easily.
            The short, fat, furry ones stick.

            And when the short, fat, furry ones stick between your teeth,
            That’s when the juice goes , “Shluuuurp.”

            Re-written for your delight.

          3. If you’ve never heard it Ann, you deserve to throw up at dinner – my children used to sing it.

          1. Sadly not, Maggie; its been two weeks:

            No replies to emails;
            No answer to Land Line;
            Mobile calls get:
            “Your number has not been recognised”.

            I don’t have any contact with her daughter in Bristol.

            I am concerned for her wellbeing.

          2. Her mobile message box is not full, which would indicate that Plum is accessing them.

          3. Her mobile is still taking calls and the message box on her voicemail is still taking messages. I wrote to Maggie last night, telling her that Plum had returned a call last week.

          4. Why isn’t my reply to you coming up? I had a garbled call from her, returning my call to her, last Sunday.

          5. So am I, Lacoste , she alwas seemed reliable and there as clockwork .

            When should one feel that there is real cause for concern?

          1. Referee
            Kateryna Monzul UKR

            Assistant Referees
            Maryna Striletska UKR
            Paulina Baranowska POL

      2. Wales. There must have been a discussion at half time now we’re playing 14.

    1. Sister , Moh and me … watching the England / Germany match .

      Sister also has been following the cricket on the laptop.. 20 /20 disasterfor England .

      The referee is biased.

          1. Not that i follow wendyball but my neighbour is a lifetime supporter and member of Pompey.

            It’s all a bit like Game of Thrones !!!

    2. The Swiss referee in the semi-final was one of the best I have seen: authoritative and fair. This female clown is clueless.

      [Not Dutch: she was Swiss!]

      1. When I first check on Google to see which nationally the ref was it came up as e Welsh.
        I didn’t expect the German players to be so ill disciplined. It was bordering on cheating.

  44. A weekend Rodder’s read:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-keir-starmer-s-got-wrong

    “What Keir Starmer’s got wrong

    I see that Cricket Scotland is an appalling institution riven with racism. It has just been subjected to ‘the most devastating verdict to be delivered on any sporting institution in the UK’, having treated a whole bunch of players of Asian heritage to prejudice, discrimination and racial abuse. As a consequence there will be inquiries into the governing bodies of all the other sports Scottish people play with great enthusiasm but a marked shortage of talent. I daresay they will find similar nastiness within these McKu Klux Klanneries, a vicious and festering spite borne of inferiority complexes and facilitated by the fact that the governance of the entire country is built upon racism.

    Nationalism in the end teeters into racial hatred. If you live in a country where every possible ill that befalls your nation is blamed on the awful people living just to the south of you, and have been subjected to a poisonous narrative about imperialism and persecution, then racism across the board will come very easily to you. One moment you’re standing on the A69 at the border, waving a claymore and screaming Pictish oaths at diseased English folk daring to visit your heavily subsidised, mountainous, morphine-soaked satrapy, the next you’re shouting at some poor Asian spin bowler. Sigmund Freud would have been greatly interested in the Scottish National party; I think its visceral hatred of the English is rooted in an oedipal ambivalence (in the psychoanalytical sense) towards the father figure.

    We English undoubtedly have our own psychological problems, but it is hard to argue that an inferiority complex is one of them. For sure we believe, perhaps wrongly, that we are better than every other people on Earth, but we don’t hold this against our inferiors. Instead we try to encourage them, and give them money. That may be a patronising approach, but it is surely better than the Scottish disposition – which is to sling a rope over a tree as soon as they espy anyone lacking ginger sideburns and a beer gut. It is looking increasingly likely that the maniacs of the SNP will soon be helping to run our country, which is not something that fills me with very much confidence or happiness.

    The SNP’s ascent to power will be to clamber on the back of a much improved Labour party performance at the next general election. That Labour has already improved markedly is beyond contention: right now, Sir Keir Starmer’s party is nine points ahead in the polls and I am not overly convinced that the advent of Truss or Sunak will do very much to halt that trend. Traditionally the greatest threat to Labour winning an election has been the behaviour of the Labour left, both in parliament and beyond it. On this issue Starmer has been every bit as ruthless as Tony Blair and now has a largely competent front bench to back him up.

    Junk the woke rubbish and you’ll find an awful lot of support in the country

    If you have any doubt as to what he is up against from within his own party of deluded leftists, take a look at the video of him being screeched at by an appalling Scouse matron called Audrey White about how he has ‘betrayed’ the working class. (She later described Labour’s 2019 manifesto as ‘fantastic’.) If I were Sir Keir I’d stay the hell away from Liverpool, which has always displayed a penchant for far-left charlatans, perhaps because the likes of Derek ‘Degsy’ Hatton and Jeremy Corbyn are prepared to indulge their fairytale claims of perpetual victimhood.

    But there are two areas where Starmer may have got it wrong – and which may prevent him maximising his vote in those famous old Red Wall seats. The first is that he is still stupidly woke – which is, for Labour, the modern equivalent of Clause IV. Junk the woke rubbish and you’ll find an awful lot of support in the country, even if you are being ripped apart internally by the metropolitan middle class that joined the party after 2015.

    The second is that he has ditched much of the populist, radical economics which was John McDonnell’s contribution to that otherwise dreadful 2019 manifesto. Knocking on doors at the last election, I found few working-class voters who were agin the nationalisation of the railways and the utilities and a higher level of taxation for the very rich. In fact, these policies found a lot of favour – it was the rest of the stuff the old Labour voters despised, rightly.

    Now, though, Starmer is flip-flopping on that nationalisation issue, having at first ruled it out completely. That was a strange decision, seeing as nationalisation of the energy companies would be an extremely popular move right now, according to the polls. Perhaps the ever-cautious Human Bollard worries that taking the energy companies into public ownership will merely create a rod for his own back. Future price rises will no longer be seen by the voters as being the consequence of rapacious and profiteering private companies, but of the callousness of the government which controls them. Better, Starmer may think, simply to milk them for windfall profits from time to time but keep the issue at arm’s length. A mistake, I think – because by the time the companies are nationalised, oil and gas prices will have seen the worst of their rises and may be inclined to fall.

    It is the bigger picture, though, where I think the Labour leader has got it wrong. His front bench have been repeating the mantra that they do not wish to see a ‘bigger state’ – and yet, as John Gray pointed out in the New Statesman recently, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that those Red Wall voters in the north of England are very much in favour of a larger state and see nothing to fear from it.”

    1. With respect, Anne: too long, too boring and mistimed (English gals are playing Wendyball, just now …)

      I shall probably not read it tomorrow!

    2. The stuff about Scotland is vicious tripe. The report on racism does not stand up to scrutiny. It was carried out by a dubious company who made up the standards for processes that they would use to audit Cricket Scotland. They made them up! Because Cricket Scotland did not have processes for dealing with racism, they were found to be racist. Rather, there is no racism so processes were not required. All the complaints, mostly unspecified, are coming from a couple of aggrieved players.
      This is a con trick, in my opinion.

      1. Rodders doing his usual stirring up. Never knowingly understated.
        I got the impression that some Scottish cricket chap (or chapess) had failed to fill in an interminable form.

      2. I mean it’s not as though these Pakistani cricketers are racist, is it?? What with all their Pakistani and Indian leagues? Not a white face amongst them!

      3. The same happened in England – at Yorkshire CCC. It seems as though an allegation of racism is accepted as proof that the whole sport is institutionally racist. Cue mass resignations and sackings. It’s a modern-day witch-hunt.

    3. Nationalisation rearing its head, seriously? I suppose that the Labour party will recruit the management teams from the same well of excellence that provides the NHS with its managers.

    1. Because there’s no control over them. This is why council tax keeps soaring – the money just pours into trougher salaries.

    2. I bet the diversity (conformity) managers don’t ensure there is the proportional number of white people employed in relation to the population.
      I can’t think why they should need anyone in that role.

  45. 354766+ up ticks,

    The little Boston girl murdered, will she just be another stat. ? will the candle makers make profit ? we really must be nigh on world leaders in the murder / crime stakes courtesy of the governing party’s / supporters / voters.

    The twisted Oliver’s ( seeking more of the same ) will be asked shortly to choose from two already selected by the political kapo’s,
    the new hydra head behind whom the “Oliver’s” will surely get a closer look at the bottom of the PAN.

    The killing comes as police-recorded “high-harm offences” have surged, with homicides, in particular, up 25 per cent to 710.

    Crimes of violence against the person, meanwhile, are up 18 per cent to approximately 2.1 million, with knife crime up 10 per cent 10 per cent to 49,027.

    Crimes of a sexual nature have also risen sharply, with sexual offences up 32 per cent to fully 194,683, including 70,330 rapes — the highest number since comparable records began in 2002/03.

    Officials have tried to suggest that the apparent breakdown of law and order in Britain is due to more people coming forward to report crimes and better recording — a common deflection in the face of worsening statistics — but it is hard to see how this could account for things like the 25 per cent increase in homicides.

      1. 354766+ up ticks,

        Evening OLT
        Would the raise in numbers have started when willy watcher b liar
        ex PM, lifted the latch ?

  46. England Girlies throw match away.

    As with the Rugby World Cup, the England XV (as with the Laydees XI) played their best match in the semi-final.

        1. What was the REAL, end result – I see many conflicting posts here. Did they WIN or LOSE?

  47. I don’t like soccer, I don’t care about it but YIPPPPEEE!
    Well done Lionesses.
    A rendition of Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory?

  48. Wrong again.

    The laydees certainly made us suffer….!! They should have gone for a second goal as soon as the first was in the net, instead of resting on their laurels. (An expert writes)…

    Und zo, frauen,for you ze match ist over…!! Goodness, how sad.

    Pity there wasn’t a man of the match. My vote would have gone to the England goalkeeper. I thought she was stunning. And a very good goalie, too….{:¬))

      1. All Cannings is an idyllic English village with a splendid pub – the King’s Arms which has hosted some impressive gigs:

        “Since 2012 the Kings Arms has been the home of Concert at the Kings. A series of stunning musical events raising funds for cancer charities and local good causes. With a maximum capacity of 5,000 people, these concerts have welcomed some of music’s legends: Brian May, Roger Taylor, Jeff Beck, Squeeze, The Boomtown Rats, Billy Ocean, Alison Moyet, Steve Harley, Wilko Johnson, Dr Feelgood plus many more…”

        1. Haven’t you told her, Steph?

          She’s my favourite to:

          Lock me up;
          Shack up with me;
          Share coffee in the morning …
          Explore our horizons!

          1. Steady on old chap – I haven’t seen her again since I took the photos. But rest assured when I next see her I will let her know that ‘somewhere in Scotland is a chap who’s fallen head over heels to meet you’!

  49. I’m loving the Wembley celebrations. What a lovely evening of celebrations 🍾 😍 🙌
    And a little drinks winks. 🥂 well done you lovely girls.

  50. There is a persistent rumour doing the rounds that Serbia is invading Kosovo. Surprising if true – I’d have thought Russia would hold back on that one until they’ve got their commodity-backed BRICS currency launched (I don’t want to suggest that the NATO-backed Kosovo split is not a big deal – it is).

      1. Dear God! Didn’t think of that. Perhaps the Russians have a sense of humour.

        1. Have they stopped laughing yet over the appointment of Dear Liz as Foreign Secretary?

    1. Diversion from tactics by MSM on account of losses in Ukraine.

      We can all see through the propaganda tactics.

    2. They have to keep the anxiety going otherwise the flock may fall out of their covid mass formation hypnosis.

  51. Right, I am off to bed. Can’t keep going these days.
    MH has appointments tomorrow so sleep is needed.
    Sleep well Y’all.

  52. Sod it. I’m off to bed too.

    After a month of inactivity on the wall front, I has a session this morning and have done as much as I can without putting another length of concrete base in. So it’s going to be a bit of digging to do for the next bit.

  53. Good morning all – Monday’s new page is here.

    Unfortunately the DT hasn’t posted a new letters page yet. I’ll keep checking in, and update the link when the Letters Editor wakes up.

    Correction: the letters appeared while I was writing this post. Grrr…

Comments are closed.