Sunday 6 September: Paying the price for the invaluable right of free speech

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/05/letters-paying-price-invaluable-right-free-speech/

788 thoughts on “Sunday 6 September: Paying the price for the invaluable right of free speech”

  1. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Yesterday we bought two copies of The Daily Telegraph, the first incomplete, thanks to Extinction Rebellion, and then a second, when the full version was available. It was a price worth paying for free speech.

    David Harrington
    Weeley, Essex

    SIR – Churchill said: “Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force.”

    Boris Johnson must be aware of this quotation. Does he realise that, every time he wishes that Extinction Rebellion would just go away so that he can concentrate on something else, he is, in fact, giving in?

    Thomas Hamilton-Jones
    Monmouth

    SIR – Any sympathy I might have had for Extinction Rebellion’s cause evaporated with yesterday morning’s mist when my copy of The Daily Telegraph failed to arrive.

    Their action in preventing the printing and distribution of daily newspapers must alienate the very members of the public whose support they crave.

    Peter Moss
    Faringdon, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Should the late lamented Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker’s spinning in his grave have slowed a little over Brexit, I’m sure he has gone into overdrive with Extinction Rebellion’s latest attack on democracy, while using climate change to justify their actions.

    Phillip Wade
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – I was unable to read my Telegraph yesterday owing to protests by climate change activists. A Merseyside police spokesperson was reported as saying: “Officers are speaking with members of the group.”

    If I am ever caught speeding on Merseyside I look forward to an officer “speaking” with me about it.

    David Garstang
    Preston, Lancashire

    SIR – Why was Piers Corbyn fined heavily for a peaceful anti-lockdown demonstration, when the Extinction Rebellion idiots are allowed to wreak havoc once again? How many £10,000 fines will be levied on them?

    Stella Wilson
    Tandragee, Co Armagh

    SIR – I support the action taken by Extinction Rebellion UK at your print works. The climate and ecological emergency is the most important crisis facing our planet and should have much greater coverage and honesty in your publications.

    Rachel Emmett
    Beeston, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – A small group of woke nutters now believes that among other powers that it ought to have is the right to decide what newspapers should publish and what readers must read.

    What a strange place my homeland has become.

    Geoffrey Reynolds
    Camborne, Cornwall

    1. I wrote this in the small hours, before today’s page came up, so here it is again:

      “The daft thing is that the printing presses had their power back in the day of the Wapping strike back in the 1980s, when Murdoch and Maxwell and their chosen political cronies ruled the day, and the police used to escort agents provocateurs employed to break up the rally protesting against new technology.

      These days, XR would be better off blockading Twitter.

      May I suggest that one way to stop them might actually be to address their concerns?

      I do believe the young, like the rest of us, are pretty sick of being told by the institutions and those who do very well out of them, that they must sort out their own concerns, even when they are caused by the incompetence and corruptions of the institutions that rule over them.

      How we can expect young people to act responsibly or even respectfully to their elders when we cannot even educate them properly?

    2. Why was Piers Corbyn fined heavily for a peaceful anti-lockdown demonstration, when the Extinction Rebellion idiots are allowed to wreak havoc once again? How many £10,000 fines will be levied on them? Stella Wilson.

      I have no great regard for Piers Corbyn, but it’s hard not to see this as yet another example of “selective policing” – punish those that the PTB don’t like, while ignoring all sorts of illegal activity by groups with a “stay out of jail” card!

    3. Poor David Harrington, perhaps he is unaware that the Telegraph publishes free speech in accordance with their donors, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

    4. Why was Piers Corbyn fined heavily for a peaceful anti-lockdown demonstration, when the Extinction Rebellion idiots are allowed to wreak havoc once again? How many £10,000 fines will be levied on them? Stella Wilson.

      I have no great regard for Piers Corbyn, but it’s hard not to see this as yet another example of “selective policing” – punish those that the PTB don’t like, while ignoring all sorts of illegal activity by groups with a “stay out of jail” card!

      1. Message to all angry people who want to take a pop at our democracy – pick a ’cause’ that you know that the perlice will do little or nothing to maintain public order, and Bingo! you are on to a winner. Partial policing, it would seem, is here to stay and will prove to be a complete disaster.

        ‘Morning, SB.

      2. There are some protests that suit the agenda of the governments of the day, and are allowed to proceed as a “public relations” exercise.

        I saw this three years ago in Vienna. The old Habsburg Empire has a long history of conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Today we have in office neo-Habsburgs in Vienna and neo-Ottomans in Ankara, so suspicion between Austria and Turkey is bound to re-emerge.

        Walking around Vienna, while on a musical pilgrimage, I stumbled on a protest rally outside the State Opera House, one of the most sensitive buildings in Vienna. They were Kurds, angry about Turkish intervention in Northern Syria, especially over atrocities in the province of Afrin, where ethnic Kurds were fighting it out in the midst of a civil war, where the Turks were supporting the Islamists, who were terrorising the Kurds there. The Kurds were quite noisy, singing songs, waving Kurdish flags and chanting “Erdogan – Murderer!” and similar sweet talk.

        In attendance was an Austrian police car. I have not seen such chilled-out coppers since I was in Amsterdam. It was clear to me that the Austrian authorities were perfectly relaxed about Kurds protesting outside their Opera House.

        I doubt whether Erdogan’s militia would have been quite so accommodating.

        1. Interesting. The Germans on the other hand, have a list as long as your arm of Kurdish organisations that are banned or observed. Now, this may be justified, as they may all be fermenting bombs, however, when I saw it, I couldn’t help wondering if this list had been agreed as part of good relations between Germany and Erdogan’s government.
          We all know that Erdogan thinks Germany is an overseas province of the Ottoman Empire.

      3. Message to all angry people who want to take a pop at our democracy – pick a ’cause’ that you know the perlice will do little or nothing to maintain public order, and Bingo! you are on to a winner. Partial policing, it would seem, is here to stay and will prove to be a complete disaster.

        ‘Morning, SB.

      4. It backfired, of course, because the mob rallied round and, overnight, raised £12,000.

        Thus no deterrent.

        1. If they try that one on Tommy Robinson, he will get the 10K even quicker, I should think.
          At least we have some way of fighting back.

        2. The £12,000 was raised for Corbyn Major? Good.
          These current shenanigans make for strange ideological bedfellows; I never thought I would think raising money for a Corbyn would be a Good Thing.

          1. There we must differ. Anyone who organises a meeting where large numbers assemble in blatant disregard for public safety needs to be fined heavily AND gaoled. Whether it is a drugs do, a rave or a “political” demonstration.

      5. I like him. He’s a genuine British eccentric, and this fine was a disgrace – especially if you consider how the law that allowed them to fine him 10K was passed – without parliamentary consent, and the day before the demonstration.
        Very sinister.

    5. SIR – I support the action taken by Extinction Rebellion UK at your print works. The climate and ecological emergency is the most important crisis facing our planet and should have much greater coverage and honesty in your publications.

      Rachel Emmett
      Beeston, Nottinghamshire

      No, Rach. Your letter is the token one from the batch that they inevitably print from just one Pinko nutter. Today’s Pinko nutter is you.

      What your lame excuse for a brain fails to comprehend is that the “climate” is NOT the “most important crisis facing our planet”; that is the unregulated breeding of humans. But you, and your gormless ilk, are far too imbecilic to understand that.

      1. You underestimate her understanding; I’m sure she supports population control among white people.

      2. I see someone’s plagiarised an idea from your comment:-

        Robert Spowart
        6 Sep 2020 10:31AM
        I see Rachel Emmett’s letter has been selected as today’s Pinko Nutter offering.

        I wonder what relevant knowledge her directorships as an Arts Manager have contributed to her experience in Climatology?
        Delete4Like
        Reply

        Fils de Clouseau
        6 Sep 2020 10:37AM
        @Robert Spowart

        ‘The Scream’, painted by Edvard Munch … an artist so very much ahead of his time … as his painting so clearly reflects/depicts most, if not all, the facial expressions and feelings of most, if not all, those Muppets and Numpties !!

        FlagLike
        Reply

    7. None, Stella – what a silly question! Oh, dear, Rachel. There’s always one, isn’t there? I hope you’ve stocked up on essentials for when XR return us to the stone ages. I’m amazed you sympathised with a bunch of eco-loons, Peter. Glad you’ve seen the light.

  3. Protest against our new State of Fear is banned… by order of a Dead Parrot Parliament. 6 September 2020.

    We have ceased to be a parliamentary democracy. There was no military putsch. Nobody passed an Enabling Act allowing rule by decree.

    But the House of Lords and the House of Commons are now the Dead Parrot Parliament.

    They are dead because they do nothing to hold the Government to account.

    They are parrots because, when asked, they obediently confirm decrees Downing Street put into effect, sometimes weeks before.

    We used to jeer that the so-called parliaments of Communist and Fascist states were mere rubber stamps. Well, we cannot jeer now.

    Morning everyone. Well with all due respect to Mr Hitchens NoTTLers had already figured that out. What the Forces of Darkness lack at the moment is the machinery to enforce their Diktats. They are trying of course with the amateurish police but we have as yet no real Stasi or KGB. This is not to say it is not on its way!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8701699/PETER-HITCHENS-Protest-against-new-State-Fear-banned.html

      1. Has anyone noticed that a lot of the women supporting BLM are somewhat corpulent? One might even say: Black Wives Fatter,

        2. I don’t think it’s confined to bleks, Rastus. I had to stop and let a large woman waddle through a narrow entry this morning when out walking with the dog; she took up more space than the dog and I did!

    1. Morning Minty ,

      No mention of the pro migrant groups who have no idea that Britain is full up, and that we are incapable of growing yams, bananas , rice and other migrant staples?

      1. If only we were more like Australia, with access to migrants from places such as Papua New Guinea, who bring in their own supplies on the boats. They call it “long pig” and it tastes like chicken, so I am led to believe.

          2. I don’t think that dodgy meat and lots of spices (plus questionable hygiene) are positive factors, personally.

    2. And violently attacked by the police farce – while the same police farce kow-tows to the mobs in London.

    3. Hi AS, I see they managed to force in some anti – Trump rhetoric as well as all the ‘far’ ‘extreme’ etc.

      “ Later, with the port blocked, some could be seen waving QAnon flags, the Donald Trump-backed antisemitic conspiracy theory”

  7. The fightback begins.

    SIR — Apart from never being cowed, laying out the arguments and publishing the facts (Editorial, September 6) the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, for so long the flagship of the centre-Right, must take the fight to the heart of government and begin the campaign to rid the country of the unregulated factions of the Left that are now destroying every institution in the country.

    The insurgent and destructive Common Purpose mob who have infiltrated every aspect of British society; including the police, the judiciary, the news media, health, all political parties and — especially — education; must be weeded out and removed by whatever means possible. Failure to act decisively, will mean total capitulation to the Marxist forces of evil and the death of a free society. The Telegraph group must be in the vanguard of this uprising against those who seek to destroy us and they must start with a concerted and unremitting attack on current government policy.

    A Grizzly B

  8. 323395+ up ticks,
    “Paying the price for the invaluable right of free speech & the result on the 24/6/2016”
    Lest we forget.

    1. The risible Merriam-Webster dictionary is the reason why Americans speak an idiotic slang called Americanese and not English.

      The clown, Noah Webster, ruled that many English words were spelt in such a way as to be confusing to Yanks so he set about altering them. Most were accepted but a few were not. That is the main reason why Americans, these days, speak and write gobbledegook.

        1. “Like Webster’s Dictionary I’m Morocco bound”

          And there we have, by serendipity, a solution on where to place (dump) our 50k illegals.

    2. Why does this seem only to apply to men who think they are women? You never hear of women who think they are men insisting on playing men’s sports, being convicted and doing time in a men’s prison, complaining about the Gents toilet, invading men’s spaces… Do women who think they are men just get on with donning the Y-fronts and trousers, and live as like a man they can, or are they essentially not nutters?

      2. F -> M transgender is a big thing. But they tend to be more convincing than M -> F, therefore less noticeable. They can just grow a beard, and nobody’s going to think they’re a girl. Plus they don’t try to enter men’s sports, as they would obviously never win anything. Plus they don’t constitute a threat to men in men’s loos, so nobody complains them.

        (Feel compelled to add that the vast majority of trans women are not a threat in women’s loos either – most of them just genuinely want to pass as women)

        I don’t think they have different psychological issues.

        1. They could always enter horse sports – there people (of whatever gender) compete on level terms.

      3. Is this forum, today, full of rhetorical questions; or does no one have the ownership (or be arsed to use) a dictionary?

        Again, Chambers to the rescue:

        male² māl, adj masculine; of or relating to the sex that begets (not bears) young, or produces relatively small gametes; staminate (bot); adapted to fit into a corresponding hollow part (machinery). — n a member of the male sex; apparently, a father (Shakesp).

      4. I was wondering that too. You can’t just define something as the opposite of something else!

        1. I wonder whattheir definition of mentally ill is?

          Someone confused over their identity to the point of defining themselves as the opposite of what they are?

          1. The Chambers Dictionary says:

            opposite op’ǝ-zit, adj placed, or being, face to face, or at two extremities of a line; facing on the other side; directly contrary; diametrically opposed; opposed; corresponding; (of leaves) in pairs at each node, with the stem between (bot); of floral parts) on the same radius (bot). — adv in or to an opposite position or positions. — prep in a position facing, opposing, contrary to, etc; as a leading performer in the same film or play as (another leading performer). — n that which is opposed or contrary; an opponent; opposition (Milton).

          2. I find that confusing, but then I am still attempting to think logically. I’m sure the left can get their heads around it without a problem.

        3. Dictionaries will become like (local and central) government departments and quangos, passing you from one word to another without ever giving a real answer …

          1. They lost all credibility when they changed the definition of marriage to support the change in the law, attempting to obliterate the heterosexual marriage contract to protect children conceived from heterosexual sex in favour of a soppy bit of paper saying that any two people love each other (unless they’re related).

      5. Why should ‘female’ be defined in relation to ‘male’?

        Why not define ‘male’ as the opposite’ of ‘female’?

        1. Both are the opposite of each other.

          Why do actresses clamour to call themselves “actors” yet have a female wet dream about the possibility of being named as “Best actress in a leading/supporting role” at the Academy Awards (Oscars)?

        2. The North Downs are so-called because they are north of the South Downs. The South Downs are so-called…

      1. Only if someone stands up and says ‘Wear make up. Put on a dress. Take drugs. It doesn’t change the fact you’re just a male drug addict in a dress.’

        However, one way to change it is to give a man in a dress a female amount of anaesthetic or novocaine.

        When the man wakes screaming in agony, he’ll swiftly be reminded that his delusion is bounded by reality.

  10. SIR – Journalists and some others may find working from home satisfactory – but there are good reasons why most workers outside manufacturing, construction, services and similar occupations are gathered together in offices. Trainees learn from working with and observing their superiors.

    More telephone lines are available; colleagues can take a call and hold it while you are already on two, and if the job involves markets then much can be learnt simply from the activity (or otherwise) of other people in the room.

    Civil servants need to be in their departments for the short chat next door, as well as for the short-notice official meeting – and not least for the “Minister [or permanent-secretary], can I come and see you for five minutes?” moments.

    Stephen Garner
    Colchester, Essex

    The failure of a significant number of snivel serpents to return to work does not bother their union(s) in the slightest, and in fact is just another opportunity to indulge in government-bashing. Examples of poor service or no service at all from government departments are currently legion, so generally it would seem that, in many cases, working from home does not appear to be working!

    1. SIR – K L Parsons (Letters, August 30) voices concern for the future of small retail outlets that rely on office workers for their income if everyone is working from home.

      My concern is also for those office workers when employers realise that, thanks to modern communications, “home” could easily be in India.

      Terry Lloyd

      Derby

  11. Protest against our new State of Fear is banned… by order of a Dead Parrot Parliament. 6 September 2020.

    We have ceased to be a parliamentary democracy. There was no military putsch. Nobody passed an Enabling Act allowing rule by decree.

    But the House of Lords and the House of Commons are now the Dead Parrot Parliament.

    They are dead because they do nothing to hold the Government to account.

    They are parrots because, when asked, they obediently confirm decrees Downing Street put into effect, sometimes weeks before.

    We used to jeer that the so-called parliaments of Communist and Fascist states were mere rubber stamps. Well, we cannot jeer now.

    Morning everyone. Well with all due respect to Mr Hitchens NoTTLers had already figured that out. What the Forces of Darkness lack at the moment is the machinery to enforce their Diktats. They are trying of course with the amateurish police but we have as yet no real Stasi or KGB. This is not to say they are not on their way!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8701699/PETER-HITCHENS-Protest-against-new-State-Fear-banned.html

    1. We had a foretaste with the EU pretendy democracy; their parliament was nothing but a talking shop to give a false sense of democratic accountability. The real decisions were taken in the commission by unelected commissars.

    1. They should both be sacked. Just what have we come to where the police kneel to the mob.

    2. That photograph typifies everything wrong with modern Britain.

      A braying mob, clearly racist, in violation of law and two of the people employed specifically to prevent the mob kneeling before them in supplication.

      No wonder the police aren’t respected and lost control over the street. Instead of kneeling, they should have kettled 5 at a time, smashed some heads in and chained them together while the rest were tear gassed with flash bangs going off. AS soon as they start to run – because Lefties are cowards at heart – run them down with cavalry charges, break a few bones, chained them up.

      When the entire lot are cuffed neck to neck and ankle to ankle – including the no doubt frantic BBC reporters – remind them that law is paramount and racism will not be tolerated.

  16. Charles Moore late yesterday… so may not have been seen by many – with apologies if already posted. “There are times when the subject of race drives people mad.” You are not wrong there, Charles!

    The Civil Service Code says the “core values” of the Civil Service are “integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality”. It explains the word “impartiality”: you must not “allow your personal political views to determine any advice you give or your actions”. You must not “act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests”.

    The Code also justifies whistle-blowing: if you “believe that you are being required to act in a way that conflicts with this code, your department or agency must consider your concern, and make sure that you are not penalised for raising it”.

    But what happens if your department’s leaders are themselves breaching the Code and actively encouraging their staff to do the same? Who will then be brave enough to trust the Code’s claim that you will not be penalised for blowing the whistle?

    Last week in this space, I gave examples of how some permanent secretaries (the top post in each government department), in tweets and internal messages, approvingly used the hashtag Black Lives Matter (BLM) following the killing of George Floyd in early summer. Sir Stephen Lovegrove at the Ministry of Defence was one. Jonathan Slater at the Department for Education was another. Mr Slater advocated “tackling the whiteness of senior Whitehall”. These messages clearly expressed personal political views. They appeared to discriminate against white people. Imagine the justified outcry if Mr Slater had attacked “blackness” in Whitehall.

    This week, the new Cabinet Secretary, the man in charge of all Whitehall departments, has been announced. He is Simon Case, aged only 41, and endowed with an enormous brain. He will need to apply it fast: his service’s impartiality is seriously in question. As with the BBC, this phenomenon is already well known in relation to Brexit, but today – also as with the BBC – it is even stronger in relation to race.

    The mandarins’ endorsement of BLM was not an idiosyncratic “one-off”. It is – to use race-relations jargon – “systemic”. Behind it lie organisations and ideologies within the Civil Service which advance under friendly words like “inclusion” and “diversity”, but leave simple fairness far behind.

    Take the Civil Service Race Forum (CSRF). Although 100 per cent of its members come under the Civil Service Code, it sees itself as a group within government entitled to lobby for particular policies and interests. Thus it tells the Department of Health to follow its recommendations in relation to Covid-19 disparities between white people and ethnic minorities.

    On June 5, the CSRF declared: “We unequivocally support the global Black Lives Matter movement.” Unless civil servants “recognise their own biases” their conduct “risks complicity in upholding racial inequities”, it warned. A second Civil Service organisation, Project Race, born out of the CSRF, was instigated in 2015 by the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Richard Heaton, another senior praise-singer for BLM. It promotes “critical race theory”, based on five “tenets”. These include the idea that “colour-blindness” and “meritocracy” are tools of maintaining white power; opposition to the notion that it is a good thing when the interests of white people and non-white people converge; and the claim that “mainstream” school curriculums are white, middle-class conspiracies against ethnic minorities.

    Out of Project Race come a stream of “race ambassadors” within the Civil Service – 50 in the Ministry of Justice alone – who commit to spending two days a month (at taxpayers’ expense) on their task. The ambassadors bustle round the Civil Service disseminating their woke tenets and collecting “intelligence on the ground” about departments and individuals who are not pulling their weight. Project Race makes sure that senior civil servants are taught about “unconscious bias”, “white supremacy” and “micro-aggressions”, etc.

    When he was foreign secretary in 2018, Jeremy Hunt launched a “reverse mentoring” scheme to crown the glories of Black History Month. Senior British diplomats are taught by young ethnic-minority officials how to think properly (“help challenge ingrained views”). Reading lists circulate, recommending books like Why I Am No longer Talking to White People about Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge. The temptation to take Ms Eddo-Lodge gratefully at her word and not read her book must be irresistible.

    And so it goes on. Somewhere inside all this, the worthwhile idea that people from different backgrounds can enrich this country and give differing perspectives which will be useful to serving the public has vanished.

    The test case is Black Lives Matter itself. What is it? (A question, by the way, that no official has ever sought to answer, even in favourable terms, in their streams of communicated support this summer.)

    If you look at the UK Black Lives Matter fundraising website, you will see both its general aims and its specific policies. The former include the desire to “dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain”. In the eyes of BLM, that must include dismantling the Civil Service which pays the wages of all the people being incited by their bosses and race ambassadors to support it. After all, “the oppressive structures we live under” must go.

    As for the specifics, these include “defunding” the police, an end to all border controls and the “decriminalisation of black students in the classroom” (without explaining how they are criminalised at present).

    I expect all these policies are seen by the majority of the population as wrong and dangerous. More relevantly, from the point of view of Civil Service propriety and therefore of public trust, they are clearly personal political views rather than the policy of the Government which civil servants are duty-bound (as their name implies) to serve. So they blatantly fall foul of the Civil Service Code. Yet no one in the system dares object.

    One unmistakable aspect of these doctrines is that they are explicitly anti-white. They identify all the problems of black people as deriving from white people, all the goodwill of white people as bogus or useless, and all the evils from which black people suffer as inherent in white people simply because they are white.

    That sounds quite like racism to me; and not just to me, but probably to any white person – not to mention non-activist black people – in a work environment where these doctrines are preached. BLM followers complain of “micro-aggressions”. This talk is a macro-aggression.

    There are times when the subject of race drives people mad. I fear we are living in one such. In apartheid South Africa, the desire to maintain white Afrikaner power drove the ruling party into a crazy quest to define everyone as white, black or “coloured” and settle their fates accordingly. Now it is a similar madness the other way round.

    This week, Jessica Krug, a black professor of African-American history at George Washington University and an activist (nom de guerre, Jessica La Bombalera), admitted that her romantic tales of descent from Angola and Brazil were utter fiction. She is actually a white, bourgeois Jewish woman from the suburbs of Kansas City. “I have built my life on a violent anti-black lie,” she said. She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.

    Perhaps Prof Krug has unique personal problems, but there are signs of collective madness in the desire of many in our bureaucratic elite to abase themselves before a creed which despises them. They should not be allowed to do so on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

    1. “I have built my life on a violent anti-black lie,” she said. She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.

      I may be mistaken, but I would have thought that she built her life on a violent anti-white lie.

      She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.
      Indeed so, a type of mental incoontinence.

    2. As I explained below, and have done so over the last few weeks, I believe there is institutional breakdown under way in this country.

      If we do not address this burning of the Reichstag immediately, the consequences could be extremely nasty.

      1. BLM people are panicking because they are so over bred, with out pedigree , they need to divert attention because they are not confronting their own demons and weaknesses.

        1. In which case, we must rely on the French Resistance to do the ground work to put them back in the zoo. Maybe Jeremy Corbyn had it right all along, even if he lacked the intelligence to distinguish the monsters from the tigers?

    3. More names to list for the upcoming night of long knives. The enemy within is showing himself more & more.

    4. “I have built my life on a violent anti-black lie,” she said. She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.

      I may be mistaken, but I would have thought that she built her life on a violent anti-white lie.

      She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.
      Indeed so, a type of mental incoontinence.

  17. We have a couple of friends round for a meal tonight. I was wondering how to pass the time when we were not actually eating.

    “They were not just having an argument and then fighting, it was straight into fists being thrown. There was not much talking going on.

    “Drinks were being dropped, bottles that they had obviously bought in the club, rings were falling off so jewellery was going everywhere, clothes were being torn.

    “One of the males actually ended up with his hair being pulled out and left with a bald patch.”

  19. “Welcome to the new Dark Age” indeed.

    Janet Daley:

    I must say I didn’t think it would come to this. I really believed that the leadership of this mob had more political nous than to try to shut down the press. Arrogance and purblind narcissism have always been a feature of professional activism but there has generally been a recognition of the parameters within which public debate is conducted in a free society.

    But I suppose we should have seen it coming. The move from thinking that your opponents are not just wrong but wilfully wicked to believing that they must be eliminated is a very short leap. Eventually, carried to its logical conclusion, it ends in the terrible ideological crimes of the twentieth century when it becomes permissible not just to prohibit the dissenting opinions but to eliminate the dissenters themselves.

    Yes boys and girls, this is the real thing: the tyrannical impulse that, given its way, would prohibit the expression not just of disagreement with the prevailing orthodoxy but even of a considered and careful critique of it – which is pretty much all that the newspapers which are now being blockaded were engaged in. Welcome to the new Dark Age.

    Presumably the next step would be for all proposed newspaper copy on the subject of climate change to be submitted for prior approval to – whom? The keepers of the Accepted Doctrine? And to whom will they be responsible? Themselves? And what happens when they – as radical movements always do – have schisms and splits over points of doctrine? Will they appeal to a higher authority – as the medieval papacy believed it could – and resolve their differences behind closed doors while we all await their judgement?

    Of course, the press could easily adopt the opposite solution. Perhaps it has not occurred to these thugs that the easiest way to avoid their totalitarian diktat is simply never to cover the subject at all. If every word that is published on climate change must be submitted to the censors, then we can undermine their power quite easily – by not printing anything about it. That would mean the end of climate change as a public issue of course (which is precisely what the XR protesters claim they are promoting). This is not something most newspapers would wish to bring about. But given the choice between silence and submission to tyranny…

    And what a revenge that would be – because publicity is what this is all about. Extinction Rebellion has lost out big time in the race for front page headlines since the Covid epidemic. Hence this desperate, stupid move against the press with which newspapers will have to engage in a very publicity-worthy fight.

    In fact, XR has not only lost the star role on the public stage for the duration of the present emergency – it has actually lost some credibility. Many commentators have pointed out that even the drastic decline in air travel – severe enough to bring about the collapse of the airline industry and all the employment that it entails – has not made much of a dent in the level of carbon emissions. So what exactly would it take to produce the falls that XR is demanding? A return to pre-industrialisation with all the poverty and social backwardness that went with it? An end to the social and geographical mobility that modern economic freedom has enabled?

    Given what even this tiny reduction in pollution has cost – socially and economically – the prospect of what XR proposes is devastating. Yes indeed, it’s been a bad six months for the eco warriors who once looked as if they could take over the world with their child saints and their apocalyptic warnings. And, of course, as the demonstrators have made clear, this is not just about climate anymore: they are blockading the distribution of newspapers with which they disagree on a whole range of subjects: the usual litany of causes – immigration, wealth distribution, capitalism, blah-blah. In other words, they will shut down any form of public platform that does not agree with their views.

    How did we get here? Is this a monumental failure of education? Have we managed to produce a generation – or at least a notable proportion of a generation – who know absolutely nothing about what democracy entails? Have the most fundamental principles of free speech been denigrated to such an extent that there is a whole cohort of young people who can be led into such absurd and pernicious behaviour?

    Earlier generations of protesters who fought against racism in the United States or what they believed to be evil wars were often militant and they sometimes broke existing laws when they believed them to be unjust. But they did not, as a rule, try to shut down debate and free speech. (Indeed, the original Berkeley student revolution was called the Free Speech Movement.) Argument was what it was all about. Without argument, democracy is dead and what takes its place is something much, much worse.

    No, it is not just self-interest that makes the newspapers enraged about this display of idiocy. Thomas Jefferson, one of the great authors of modern democracy, said that if he had to choose between having elections without newspapers or newspapers without elections, he would take the newspapers without the elections. Because without public debate and the liberty to disseminate differing opinions, there is no future for democractic societies. They are the rock on which liberty rests. Even when the opinions are offensive or contentious – in fact, even more so when they are, as in the Charlie Hebdo case – the right to voice them must be protected to the death.

    Leading BTL comment:

    J Atkins
    5 Sep 2020 11:51AM
    So a bunch of political activists are allowed to disrupt the lives of a large proportion of the lives of the rest of us.

    The Police do nothing to prevent it and offer platitudes

    The NHS keeps entire hospitals empty in case Covid should need treating,about 800 patients in all. People are dying from treatable disease.

    The teachers have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to work

    The Civil Service has decided that it is going to work from home regardless of instructions to the contrary from the Prime Minister.

    The Border force lets in thousands of illegal immigratnts and puts them up in hotels complete with pocket money

    The rest of us are paying for this shower, and by all accounts are going to pay a lot more.

    The politicians should undertand that there will eventually be a backlash to all this and it will probably be quite nasty. For goodness sake get a grip on things.

    1. As someone who actually supports the XR understanding on the perils of catastrophic disturbance of climate patterns caused by human interference on a scale proportional to the increase in human population in my lifetime, I would welcome an open debate on the subject.

      It cannot be an open debate if the views of my opponents – those who dismiss the concept of anthropomorphic climate change – are not aired, examined and tested in full.

      1. ahem…perhaps you should consider the capacity for understanding and rational thought of the average XR protester and have a re-think…

    3. Let’s not forget that the Telegraph is partly financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, as is the Guardian.

  20. Police in Birmingham declare ‘major incident’ after multiple stabbings in city centre. 6 September 2020.

    West Midlands police have declared a major incident in Birmingham city centre after a series of stabbings.

    Police said there were a number of victims, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately known. It urged people to stay away from the area, which is cordoned off, and warned of a greater police presence.

    Officers were initially called to reports of a stabbing at about 12.30am on Sunday, with “a number of other stabbings” reported in the area shortly after.

    Breaking News. It will begin something like this!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/06/birmingham-stabbings-police-major-incident

    1. The BBC says the police can give no figures or information and speculation would be inappropriate. Must be bad if they need to get their story straight!

    2. Probably that lunatic ceremony where they slice themselves up to commemorate the death of Mo’s grandson.

      Move along, nothing to see here.

    4. Putin had the right idea about how to control this sport among hormone-infused young men of fighting age. They go off into the local woods to play, like good little teddybears.

      Their Queensbury Rules are fairly straightforward – if you are still conscious and not laying into your opponent, you are not playing the game. The only excuse for not putting up a fight is because you are in intensive care or the morgue.

  22. I have just discovered that the DT paywall has again been removed today, so fill yer boots…

    1. Great news! Fraser Nelson and Andrew Neil seem to have spotted a gap in the market, and have the authority and the history to offer up a credible alternative to the BBC, Sky and Netflix.

      As a former editor, it would be interesting to hear what Boris Johnson makes of it.

    3. Thanks for the link, JN. In particular I found the Oxford professor near the start of the programme (name escapes me now) to be very clear and very credible.

    1. HJ,

      Good morning from here , where the distant rumble of the combine harvesters are bringing the ripe maize harvest in.

      The headlines of your link were enough for me to read .

      Do you and others feel as if Britain is sinking fast , plunging into an abyss?

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        Good morning from here , where the distant rumble of the combine harvesters are bringing the ripe maize harvest in.

        When I see a sentence like that, I have to think that we’ve already sunk waist deep.

        1. Good heavens Peddy, please.

          I cannot comment on food recipes or wine , I can only comment on what I am hearing at that moment ..

          Why the big put down?

          2. Good morning, Maggiebelle

            Peddy is fallible too. He dropped an aitch in one of his posts a couple of days ago (he wrote ‘as’ when he should of have written ‘has’) and I shall not let him forget it because he scours all my posts in search of my typos!

          4. Maggie was eddicated in an era where we knew better. (Remembers the late Mrs. Lock and still trembles.) But … fast typing, ortokrekt and dodgy keys can make grammatical eejits of all of us.

      2. Morning Belle. Yes. The “reassuring” aspect is the whole Anglosphere is going down with us!

      4. 323395+up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        Not being damp blanket TB but I see it as Atlantis and the question being will it ever rise again.

    2. The pictures editor needs to review the catalogue and update the stock photos. Desert cam DPM hasn’t been worn for ten years — it was replaced by MTP.

    3. The MOD is not run by service people. It is an arm of the Syphilis Serpents with a few token Generals and Admirals thrown in to give it an air of respectability. Those selected are political appointees and generally of a ‘woke’ disposition, followers rather than leaders.

      There are approximately 60,000 civilians in the MOD and fewer than 150,000 active servicemen and women (excluding reserves and auxiliaries). That’s more that one pen pusher for every three front line troops. We don’t even have an army – an army requires a minimum of two corps (typically 3 or 4), we only have one and a bit. The UK is not capable of defending itself if attacked in numbers. With no defences and a Pansy Police Farce these islands are open to invasion. Too late! I hear you cry. I am inclined to agree.

          2. You are not that old… My father’s demob suit was tweed plus-fours. He never wore the trousers – though the jacket lasted some time.

          5. Absolutely – the title is taken from the Book of Proverbs: Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.

    5. Oh well, soon they’ll be learning how to burn people alive in cages and behead the UnPC with a blunt pen knife.
      That’ll really show respect for people’s differences.

    6. The pictures editor needs to review the catalogue and update the stock photos. Desert cam DPM hasn’t been worn for ten years — it was replaced by MTP.

  26. Good moaning.
    Handy information from a chum.

    “Thought I should pass on that Covid19 virus testing can now be done at home with a result in minutes. I am sure your email followers will find this very reassuring.

    How it’s done :-

    1. Pour a glass of your favourite tipple, if you can smell it you are halfway there.

    2. Drink tipple, if you can taste it then it is pretty conclusive you are virus free.

    You may want to repeat this regularly throughout the evening and may find you need to repeat the test again the next day. A headache is also a symptom of Covid19.”

      1. We are meeting up this evening; after we’ve experimented researched, I’ll get back to you in the morning. Or lunchtime. Or the afternoon … evening …. Tuesday.

      1. As I said yesterday night Boris Johnson and the members of his government should be compelled not only to read but also to understand and act upon much about which Douglas Murray writes.

    3. I thought that Dick Head of the Yard had told her “officers” not to make thispolitical gesture.

      1. The same Dick Head who, solely for PR reasons, saw fit to ignore distancing rules on Westminster bridge?

        ‘Morning, Bill. We live in very strange – nay, dangerous – times…

        1. Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
          BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

          Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
          Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
          A sight so touching in its majesty:
          This City now doth, like a garment, wear
          The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
          Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
          Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
          All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
          Never did sun more beautifully steep
          In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
          Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
          The river glideth at his own sweet will:
          Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
          And all that mighty heart is lying still!

    4. I suppose taking the knee is the modern equivalent of the stiff right arm salute of the last century. A disciplinary offence if you don’t do it with enough enthusiasm.

    1. How he shows up both Trump and Biden.

      He underlines how quickly the world is going backwards.

      1. And the scare stories about a mere actor becoming president.

        Reagan seemed to have a way with foreign leaders. Reagan was a friend of then Canadian PM Mulroney, they were known to end state banquets with a raucous sing song.

        So different to Trump and pretendy PM Trudeau.

        1. I was doing my MA in Essex while Reagan was President. I well remember the lefties wetting themselves at his being in charge. In my view, he was darned good – so good the lefties wanted to take him out!

          1. One of Trumps best points, he is showing Trudeau for what he is.

            But they still vote for pretendy PM and comments in our newspapers show that he still has a lot of support despite repeated corruption charges.

          2. It was like that for us when Blair was Prime Minister. The nightmare seemed to go on forever, as our country collapsed around our ears.

    2. Ah the good old days when the grown ups were in charge.
      Some of those jokes are uncomfortably close to the situation in Britain nowadays.

  31. I know I had a rant last evening – and I’ll only say it once more.

    It is time that wanqueur politicians were told that tweeting their views is NOT the same as taking action to remedy a situation.

    It started with the Babbling Poltroon who became notorious for instant tweets that had to be reversed or deleted the next day. Now they are all at it. And they also fail to understand that a tweet deleted is not a tweet that is gone for ever.

    So – Mr Johnson, Mrs Awful, Mr Halfcock, should you read our well-informed forum – ACT on the mobs and terrorists.

    Now I’ll go and make the porridge.

      2. Blessings of HS2. Those fewer minutes getting from London to Brum will mean the cities can be easily confused.

        1. Actually the time taken getting out of Euston and Curzon Street takes up any time saved by a straighter line.

          The main point of it is the transfer of public money to select private interests, and sowing the seeds of the next project – the comprehensive redevelopment of the more exclusive and formerly prettier parts of the Chilterns and Warwickshire, as soon as troublesome nimbies are removed from the picture by Robert Jenrick under Boris’s ‘Build! Build! Build!’ investment opportunity scheme.

  35. Russia’s aggression against its neighbours and the West ‘risks a new Cold War’. 5 September 2020

    Russia’s aggression towards its neighbours and the West risks a new Cold War, Nato’s Secretary-General has warned.

    Mr Stoltenberg first learned of the probability that Alexei Nalvany had been poisoned with a chemical weapon in a private briefing with Angela Merkel a week before the German Chancellor announced the findings to the world.

    What matters now is that Russia has to answer some very serious questions,” Mr Stoltenberg told The Telegraph.

    I don’t recall the Russians asking for explanations or threatening war when Dr David Kelly was murdered!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/05/exclusive-russias-aggression-against-neighbours-west-risks-new/

  37. Now that pupils are returning to their classrooms our branches in London, Birmingham, Leicester, Blackburn, Bradford, Burnley and dozens of other towns throughout Britain are offering reduced prices on certain products. Don’t be afraid – get yourself a blade. You know it makes sense.

    https://scontent-cdt1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13920636_1786495661583338_4726358535536943670_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=V_VsRAttLFYAX8KqOa0&_nc_ht=scontent-cdt1-1.xx&oh=4028b41ae1f754f614f0171202724708&oe=5F7870F2

  41. Afternoon everyone .

    I have returned home after having a lovely couple of hours exercising the dogs on Purbeck heathland, the sun was shining, patchy cloud , it looked as if heavy weather was coming in from the West .

    There were loads of cyclists cutting through the countryside cycling on very well worn footpaths .

    I walked quite a way , the heather is fading , not many swallows or housemartins swooping , so I wonder whether they took advantage of the moon cycle and reasonable weather to fly across the sea?

    When I decided to turn around and head back along the route taken earlier , calling the dogs in , I met an elderly lady who was on her own , she had a pair of walking sticks , but she was dressed sensibly for a good walk and the dogs greeted her , and she me.

    With out sounding boring , she commented on the weather , and the people who don’t bother to stop and say hello. I said it is always lovely to stop for a quick chat .

    The dear lady could have been an elderly Nottler . She had a home in Bournemouth , but also a home in Guernsey which she couldn’t get back to because of Covid.

    For those of you who have been to Guernsey, you will agree with me how lovely it is .

    Her late grandfather had been a General in WW1.. and had been born and bred in Guernsey.

    She commented on the people coming ashore from Calais on little boats to Kent and Sussex, and recalled her Grandfather saying that the NAZIS took Guernsey by surprise , they arrived in small numbers and took control straight away , they took over the large houses , burned the furniture for fuel , commandeered everything , homes, fuel , cars , food and made slaves out of the Islanders causing huge hardship and starvation for all Guernsey people , the Nazis even took the family pets and ate them .

    She said the Islanders were so hungry that they scavanged from the seashore , eating the small shell fish and seaweed etc .

    She was an elegant elderly lady who as a youngster during WW2 , heard and saw the results of great deprivation after the war when she returned to Guernsey must have been a shock to the system .

    Am I recounting old stuff to you Nottlers , I expect most of you know many things.

    On a sunny Sunday morning , I listened to a first hand account of how things were all those years ago from a stranger who was just out in the sunshine for a nice country walk.

        1. I always stop and chat with other dog walkers if they seem amenable. But mostly what we talk about is the dogs. Oh, and the weather.

          1. Talking about the weather is known as a phatic conversation – it’s essentially meaningless, but it allows a point of contact. Just don’t do it if you’re a woman in an Arabic country – I’m sure other Nottlers can explain 🙂

        2. I recall a long conversation with SWMBOs maternal grandmother’s friend, many years ago. Shortish & tubby, she was absolutely enthralling. Worked in SOE in the war (mentioned by GMiL). Could have talked with her all day.

    3. There’s a few stories in today’s free Telegraph about the Blitz, Belle, in the same vein.
      Maybe some real hardship needs introduced, to regain a sense of proportion.

    4. 323395+up ticks,
      TB,
      There are a zillion untold story’s among the decent peoples, good to hear.

      1. Spot on .

        Yep , I believe so as well, the conversation led to Turkey and many other WW1 campaigns as well as her home in Guernsey, and she did mention de Lisle as the family name .

        She was a remarkable lady , and she must have walked quite a long way from her car , we had a very interesting conversation for a while.

        1. Thanks Belle. I’ve been too busy the last twenty years or so to do more than scan the Daily Mail before rushing off to work. NOTTL regularly expands my horizons. That’s a horrific story.

    7. It’s a connection to the past, Maggie. I got wet when I took the aged hound for a walk this morning; I chanced it by not taking a mac and was punished for it. Not much of a problem, though, because it was reasonably warm (about 20 degrees C). I’ve been wet before and no doubt I’ll be wet again 🙂

      1. Everyone has a story , don’t they Conway

        I googled the name the lady gave me and if it is the correct name , I was talking to the elderly grandaughter of a very famous family and what a history.

        Doesn’t matter who one has a chance encounter with , everyone is interesting.

        A few weeks ago I was unlucky enough to be having a walk with the spaniels on the same territory as today , and a couple probably 150 yds away from me shouted …” We don’t like dogs , don’t let them near us” .. and of course Moh was with me on that walk , the couple were waving their sticks around , and naturally their shouts attracted the attention of the dogs!

        We called the dogs in put them on their leads , but the irony of the matter was there were grazing Devon reds , donkeys and horses on the same heathland in the direction the couple had walked from.

        My dogs don’t jump up or bark, they are too busy sniffing rabbit poo or investigating burrows to bother with people.

        I believe there are many dog haters, and even more anti cat bods, I often wonder what happened to make them feel like that.

        1. In my view, there’s something wrong with people who don’t like animals! Mind you, I think there’s something wrong with people who like animals to the total exclusion of people 🙂 While the more I see of people, the more I love my dog, I don’t hate people (except the likes of Blair).

          1. I like people , but I tread warily .

            I like dogs, as long as they are controllable , and I hate dogs charging towards me . I hate it when owners say .. oh but he loves every body as I am knocked to the ground !

            Horses give me that white of an eye look , I used to ride when I was a teen ager , the horse galloped far to fast and I was dragged along one foot in a stirrup . not pleasant . I respect anything on four legs larger and taller than me.. and steer clear of trouble.

  42. BTL Comment from The slog:

    Bobby47 on September 5, 2020 at 8:35 pm
    I’m praying nightly to our omnipresent God that Miss Kamala Harris doesn’t become Vice President, because, within only a matter of a few months Dead Joe’s living corpse will finally submit itself to its heavenly calling and join its Holy Spirit in the hereafter, thus rendering him officially deceased and subsequently making her the President of the USA. For me personally, this is problematic.
    What many don’t know, mostly because the Mainstream media have hitherto always backed off ever reporting upon her needs and personal fixations is that she can’t keep her hands off men. Attractive men! Now seeing as most if not all women find it impossible to keep their hands off me I know that if ever she pops into an Ale House in Wallasey and spots me supping Ale with Paul Cardin of Wirral In It Together, she’ll feel compelled to deploy lawful and necessary federal force, restrain Cardin and whip me up to my room at The Wellington and subject me to hours and hours of ungodly sexual gratification.
    That’s what she does. She’s done it to others and she’ll do it to me and that’s why I’m going for Trump. He’s far less likely to take me up to my room and subject me to his manly love. In fact, I’m dead certain he wouldn’t and that’s why I urge everyone who’s entitled to vote and who diligently recycle their rubbish to vote for President Trump.
    A vote for dead Joe is a vote for a woman who’ll have presidential authority to do what she wants to whoever she wants and whenever she wants and according to the lads in my Ale House, good lads one and all, she’s very likely to want to do it to me.

  43. Ever been had?

    “Every day we are informed of a worrying rise in COVID cases in country after country, region after region, city after city. Portugal, France, Leicester, Bolton. Panic, lockdown, quarantine. In France the number of reported cases is now as high as it was at the peak of the epidemic. Over 5,000, on the first of September.

    But what does this actually mean? Just to keep the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900 hundred ‘cases’. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.

    In stark contrast, on August 16th, there were 3,000 cases. Fourteen days later there were 26 deaths. Which means that, in March, 36% of ‘cases’ died. In August 0.8% of ‘cases’ died. This, in turn, means that COVID was 45 times as deadly in March, as it was in August?

    This seems extremely unlikely. In fact, it is so unlikely that it is, in fact, complete rubbish. What we have is a combination of nonsense figures which, added together, create nonsense squared. Or nonsense to the power ten.

    To start with, we have the mangling of the concept of a ‘case’.”

    Dr Malcome Kendrick:

    More here:

    https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/04/covid-why-terminology-really-matters/

    1. The truth was distorted by the powers granted by the Coronavirus Act. At least when they killed your actual elderly person , they paid for a funeral and instant cremation. I call it grannycide.

    2. He’s never suggesting that the figures are – in some mysterious way – FALSE?

      Must be fake news – HMG is never out to mislead.

        1. Afternoon Stephen. I don’t even bother to read articles with the word “cases” in them since it is essentially meaningless!

    2. That would be suffragettes who blew up people’s houses and smashed shop windows and confirmed that women were too daft to be given the vote?
      As opposed to suffragists who campaigned for the female franchise via reasoned argument.

  45. Good morning fellow Nottlers

    Free to read Telegraph article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/06/brexit-talks-will-days-unless-eu-realises-britain-serious-no/

    Brexit talks ‘will be over in days unless the EU realises Britain is serious about no-deal’

    I share Cynthia Taylor’s misgivings expressed under the article:

    “It is good to hear that Lord Frost is not afraid of no deal and will walk away from talks if the EU don’t drop their unreasonable demands, but I still worry that there’s a catch somewhere.

    May’s WA remains largely intact, and there are conflicting reports of continued adherence to EU restrictions. We voted for full sovereignty. Nothing else will do.”

    I am becoming more and more convinced that the reason why Boris Johnson refused to tell us, before the election, what was in his WA and the fact that it was almost identical to May’s Surrender WA was that he knew that if the voters knew this they would never have voted for him. Why else did he refuse to be interviewed by Andrew Neil on live television? Why also was it so important to eliminate the Brexit Party?

    The tragedy is that Nigel Farage caved in. He should have fought all the Conservative seats where the sitting MP was a remainer. Boris Johnson owes his election success to his lack of honesty over the WA and to Farage’s capitulation. Poor old Nigel has not even received one word of thanks which shows that Johnson is an ungrateful yob and is more incompetent as PM than even his critics imagined he would be.

    1. Morning all. Seems we all share the same misgivings over Boris and his WA. However, I think Nigel Farage has played a big part in things, al thought not necessarily in a Brexit way. Why did he withdraw candidates standing up against Conservatives? Even had they not won it would have given others the chance to vote either for or against Brexit. Was it a colossal mistake or was something else behind it?

      Anyway, Boris has totally lost his get up and go. We are just bumbling along to, probably, ending up pleading to be allowed to rejoin/stay in the EU after all. He will have trashed our economy for nothing (Covid reoverreaction), created unemployment, ushered in socialist universal wages, allowed ER and BLM to create havoc and chaos, still not got a grip on illegal immigration/invasion, condoned “green” policies which cost industry, what’s left of it, billions and so on and so on. Sorry, I’m rambling. But you get the gist!

      1. If a horse was entered for a race, became the firm favourite. with fortunes staked on it, one would think it a bit odd if it was withdrawn, without explanation, the day before the race was to take place?

          2. I think that’s the highest deduction that can be made under Rule 4 – a very short-priced favourite withdrawn at the start and no new market formed.

          3. My segued? joke taken too seriously. But thanks for the technical explanation. I only bet on outsiders and only on the Grand National, providing I like their racing colours. Everything else is beyond me. I have a chum who carried a holdall every Saturday. It contained his notebooks and a couple of serious reference books, as well as the “Sporting Life”. I’m not sure that he ever had a big win or came out on top over the year.

          4. I don’t bet, although I have a share in racehorses and follow the racing. To have any sort of chance I think you need to follow the form, but even then, that isn’t a guarantee. I read the results every day and am struck by how many non-favourites actually win.

      2. I know that UKIP entered some candidates (I campaigned for the Eddisbury one), but Bojo did such a good con job that it was really a waste of time and money.

      1. I would really like to talk to Farage, and ask him if he stands by that comment, and if he thinks I am a tattooed skinhead or thug? (I was on that march).

        1. He upset me (who had supported him by campaigning and fund-raising) by his attitude to UKIP members. Sod off, Nigel.

        2. #metoo
          Farage was upset by Batten giving prominence to TR/SY-L/NHRN on the march and made the reference on that basis.
          However, the issues that TR has been highlighting are very serious concerns to his supporters and by continually refusing to address those concerns, the Establishment and Authorities left an open goal for the more extremist groupings NF and BNP.

          1. I’m not bothered about the NF or the BNP. None of them can spell, they are never going to get anywhere.
            I’m more bothered by the wanton giving away and destruction of my country.

      2. Good morning ogga

        Nigel Farage is not infallible.

        When I disagree with him I say so just as I say so when I agree with him. It is not personal.

        However you have a vindictive personal hatred of the man whether you agree with him or not and this, I think, could cloud your judgement.

        1. 323395+ up ticks,
          R,
          You are really coming across as a regular user of the three monkey trio, and the refusal to accept an act of self confessed treachery as in the
          umpteenth time video link.
          I hate no one, your words yet again.
          The “nige” was tried & tested and found eventually to be treacherously wanting.
          “Personal hatred” I think not, there was 30000
          plus suffered from his LBC rant.

    3. The huge problem we face this autumn is not Barnier’s intransigence – we always knew the French are chauvinistic and they’re not going to change now. It is that our institutions are not up to the job of honouring full sovereignty, and are actually breaking down as I write.

      Unless this is tackled, never mind the French, we won’t have a nation worth having this time next year.

      1. 323395+ up ticks
        Morning JM,
        Thanks to the succession of treacherous
        politico’s / parties & their continuous support we
        barely have a nation worth having this year.

          1. 323395+ up ticks,
            Morning PT,
            Especially over the last three decade no one party is to blame, it has been / is a joint effort
            as in a coalition.

          4. 323395+ up ticks,
            PT,
            The latch lifter supreme, the rest followed suit &
            the wretch cameron after promising, vowing & pledging to reduce the intake numbers, with great gusto, raised them.

    1. Crumbs. Can you tell me exactly what time the sky is going to fall on our heads, so that I can get the washing in first?

    2. I love the total irony of the complete lack of logic that eradicating the past will allow better understanding and education for the future. What a moron.

    4. A couple of weeks ago the proprietor of this Blog offered the theory that when any Prime Minister was elected they took him down into the basement where a bald headed man with a white cat explained to him what he had to do. Geoff is of course not the only one to be puzzled by the strangeness of political life in the UK. I’ve constructed several theories to explain it and all of them would make hardened conspiracy theorists blench. But here’s the Rub. One of those theories or something very close to it is the truth!

      2. 323395+ up ticks,
        AS,
        Much of it is encapsulated in a dung coloured
        envelope and each is allotted a time span in which to fulfil their self interest coffers.

        I can still see the carrot top ( up north) waving a 13K payback check ( tip of an iceberg) regarding the political exs. scandal.

      3. My own suspicion is that any incoming Prime Minister is sat down and it is explained to him that if he decides to go off piste various influential power brokers will ensure that there is such a run on the pound that it will make Mr Soros’s bets against the £ Sterling look like a kindergarten tea-party. In short the country will be utterly bankrupted. (It’s not such a daft scenario given the current volume of debt on the country’s books)

      4. The bit I genuinely don’t understand is how utterly back to front their policies are.

        For example, immigration. It’s bad for the immigrant, it’s basically endorsing modern slavery, it is bad for crime, for society, for housing for basic economics.

        On the Lefty green lark – yes, we do use too much. However a better solution is not to prevent what we use, but to recycle – ideally offering alternatives such as encouraging bamboo packaging or recyclable plastics.

        Yet we’re wedded to big state, control freakery from the hideous EU that has our excess waste dumped in the seas but we get a nice certificate.

        On energy – it’s only going up (see immigration). Forcing down usage is wrong. ust hiking taxes hurts the poorest and oldest most. That’s unfair. Those paying for home improvements are forced to pay while those contributing nothing get it for free.

        Then we get basic economics. It’s obvious truly, school boy economics – that if you force up the price of things, less is bought. That will destroy jobs, crushing demand the end result is more tax demand from welfare.

        I just don’t get it. It’s as if every wrong thing that could be done is chosen to do instead of any single right thing.

    5. It appears to me that our great insitutions have been infiltrated and taken over by Common Purpose / Agenda 21…

      The Agenda is a commitment to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030 world-wide, ensuring that no one is left behind. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda was a landmark achievement, providing for a shared global vision towards sustainable development for all

      It introduced principles relating to participation and the importance of specific groups for sustainable development (Principles 10, 20, 21, 22).

      1. Not to eradicate poverty but to equalise it – ie the same level of poverty for everyone…..dire! (except for the globalists)
        Morning Maggie

        1. We old cynics remember socialism from the last time round. New words, new generation of gullible idiots, same old dictatorial ideas.

      2. The Cultural Marxist “Long March Through The Institutions”.

        Ironic that, as we were so intent on defending ourselves from the Communists of the USSR, we left the back door open to Communist infiltration of the Establishment.

        1. Communists have always been with us. Until Operation Barbarossa, they were actively sabotaging our war effort.

      3. And of course, the desperate forcing of agenda and ideology is why it must be stopped. Sod sustainable development. This country was already until the Left imported 8 million people who immediately began (in)breeding at a rate nearly 6 times faster than the natives.

        Scrap child benefit. Scrap housing benefit. Cut taxes. Shred the state. Markets work and must be allowed ot do so naturally, without crushing oppression from failed fascist ideology.

    9. Truth has become frightening to the Left. It scares them.

      Lenin desperately wanted to re-write history, Hitler sought to destroy the intelligent and education, Mao sought to erase any form of human identity.

      It’s funny really – if it were not so terrifyingly dangerous. This is why the Left *must* be crushed. They caused 6 million deaths the last time and can never, ever be allowed to sink their fangs into society again.

  48. This is interesting reading, the article is free to read today.
    The comments are even more interesting considering the readers are historically presumed to be dyed in the wool Tories.

    Councils must stop abusing my green roads cash
    We must not ignore the increasingly vital role of walking and cycling, which the covid pandemic has thrust up the priority list
    GRANT SHAPPS
    5 September 2020 • 9:30pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/councils-must-stop-abusing-green-roads-cash/#comment

  49. Question to NOTTL: what do we think about Unherd? Is it good?
    I just read a couple of intelligent articles on their website, and noticed another one by Douglas Murray.
    Is it another fence-sitting site that talks about free speech but goes along with the status quo and proves their lefty credentials from time to time?

      1. Something I was thinking about this afternoon. While walking Spartie I saw what appeared to be ‘normal’ mushrooms, but I am a complete wimp when it comes to fungi.

        1. I have a very good book on fungus identification but, like you, I would be very cautious in using it to select something to eat. I rely on the experience of greengrocers, market stall holders and supermarkets for that.

    2. Just goes to show the whole lockdown thing was a complete over reaction, initiated by WHO. No one in Government had the presence of mind to challenge them and say “Hold on a minute, what’s going on here?”

  53. Le Figaro has reported that two French soldiers have been killed and one injured by an IED in Mali. Can someone please remind me why we have just sent 250 British soldiers to Mali?

    1. The UK is sending 250 soldiers to Mali to join the UN peacekeeping mission in 2020. The UN mission has been described as one of the most dangerous in the world: over 200 peacekeepers have
      been killed since it began in 2013. The deployment is in response to
      increasing insecurity in the wider Sahel region in west Africa.

      1. Um, yes. That is indeed the reason given. But what has that to do with us? Why do we pay any attention to the UN?

    3. Well, Mali must be one of the starting points for the cross Sahara migration that ends up in Blighty, so perhaps the Border Farce is expanding their taxi operations?

    4. Why? Because both remaining barracks are vastly overcrowded. The rest have been sold to Barratt’s for the construction of social housing with minarets and state funded mooslim skools.

  54. MPs pay consultancy £7,000 to design ‘unconscious bias’ course on woke-friendly language and history… taught by a giant blue PUPPET
    Parliament has paid Challenge Consultancy £7,000 to design the MP’s course
    The course will school MPs on words they should avoid and woke-friendly history
    It uses a giant blue puppet called UB as part of the unconscious bias training

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8701859/MPs-pay-consultancy-7-000-design-unconscious-bias-course-taught-giant-blue-PUPPET.html

    Be alarmed , very alarmed

    A new political party inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement plans to contest seats at the next General Election, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Among those spearheading the Taking The Initiative Party (TTIP) is Sasha Johnson, who has been whipping crowds into a frenzy during recent protests.

    Wearing camouflage trousers, a black beret and a stab-proof-style vest, she told supporters at last weekend’s Million People March in London that the TTIP ‘will be the first black-led political party in the UK. We want representation. This is what democracy looks like’.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8701509/Now-VOTE-Black-Lives-Matter-new-political-party-plans-contest-seats.html

    2. Some suggestions for advice to MPs from the consultancy that could have saved £7k:

      1. Avoid telling the truth at all costs, the truth could undermine government lies obfuscation statements.
      2. Develop the “administrative oversight” excuse for everything that goes wrong. Build on the excuse that the exam algorithm fiasco was an administrative oversight.
      3. Don’t award yourself pay rises, make such changes optional allowances like the 10k work from home award for upgrading your hifi, wifi and garden duck house. The fact that you all take up the allowance is irrelevant.
      4. Never take ownership of a problem, that way you can avoid any responsibility for cock ups and get some hapless civil servant sacked to protect yourself.

      I’m sure NOTTlers can come up with others.

    4. A revival of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, but with black faces to match the shirts, is a democratic expression of BLM paramilitarism. Even though I don’t support them at all, it is only right that it should be put to the test electorally.

  56. We have a couple of friends round for a meal tonight. I was wondering how to pass the time when we were not actually eating.

    “They were not just having an argument and then fighting, it was straight into fists being thrown. There was not much talking going on.

    “Drinks were being dropped, bottles that they had obviously bought in the club, rings were falling off so jewellery was going everywhere, clothes were being torn.

    “One of the males actually ended up with his hair being pulled out and left with a bald patch.”

  57. Here’s one for you.
    Is it good or bad to be woken early on Sunday morning by a black & white woodpecker hammering vigorously on the newly-painted planks on the side of the house? Like the police demanding entry, so it was!

        1. My method is more effective. You have to be firm with disturbers of the peace!

          Edit: Ah, I’m a bit slow this morning. I only just realised that your last post was a pun.

        2. My method is more effective. You have to be firm with disturbers of the peace!

          Edit: Ah, I’m a bit slow this morning. I only just realised that your last post was a pun.

  58. Hamilton only 7th in the Grand Prix – what a pity.

    Report also says ‘There apparently was no Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel at the
    anti-racism protest, but both drivers were on the grid for the national
    anthem a few minutes later.’

    Did Hamilton forget? The matter is supposed to be close to his heart.

    1. He must have gone to sleep in the race, as I think he was in pole position yesterday. Perhaps he knows nobody can catch up with him now.

    4. Perhaps it was to demonstrate that the honkeys will kowtow even if the emperor isn’t present.

  59. ‘Chairman Xi’ seeks only to purge and subjugate. That is his weakness. 6 September 2020.

    Why is Xi behaving so aggressively? Perhaps he genuinely fears for the country’s internal security, cohesion and unity as it evolves into a global superpower. Cai Xia, a Beijing professor expelled from the party for criticising Xi, likened him to a mafia boss. His centralisation of power and purging of party rivals had made him a more formidable figure than Mao, she said, but he still felt insecure.

    Or perhaps Xi does what he does simply because he can – because he’s lost sight of the national interest and ideas of justice and equality, and covets a personal legacy as the great unifier of the new China. There’s nobody to stop him, nobody to say “no”.

    It’s the blindness and hubris that comes with absolute power. It usually ends in tears.

    Yes usually for everyone else!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/chairman-xi-seeks-only-to-purge-and-subjugate-that-is-his-weakness

  60. An anxious pensioner writes:

    Please tell me I am not alone in finding Susan Calman the least funny person in the world.

    2. Afternoon Bill – I find her humour quite self deprecating but funny. Her father is Sir Kenneth Calman one of Scotland’s distinguished sons. He has been Chief Medical Officer of Scotland and CMO of the UK. He has also been Chancellor of my Alma Mater, Glasgow University, one of the oldest universities in the world. I suspect he frowns slightly about his daughter’s profession

        1. She’s a Glaswegian through and through. She was on an old edition of “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” at lunchtime today

    3. “Least” is pushing it,the competition is soooooooo strong on the box
      Romesh Rangabang et al have to be in with a shout

        2. Count yourself lucky,even mind-bleach wasn’t enough to wipe away memory of this sullen pouty chip on both shoulders terminally unfunny leftard
          Needless to say he is now essential to every Al-Beeb “comedy” show

    1. There is a ‘climate, not emergency, but certainly need to act’. However it’s fundamental component is utterly ignoring the stupid, gormless and utterly wrong demands of globalist organisations. It is hte fault ofthe EU that our oceans are clogged with plastic, after all.

      What we need is recycling plants. Lots of them. We also need to end massssive uncontrolled immigration as they simply have too many children for our idiotic ideologically insane Lefty policies to support.

          6. Our last cat – Mousie – still alive, 15 – living with a friend – was free. The two previous ones, Bob and Thompson were a tenner each at the RSPCA in 1995.

          7. Indeed. Moggies are usually free, but pedigree cats aren’t – especially when they are becoming fashionable.
            Anyhow, Mother is trying to aboid death duties & inheritance tax. When she remembers who she is, that is.

  63. SIR – I was unable to read my Telegraph yesterday owing to protests by climate change activists. A Merseyside police spokesperson was reported as saying: “Officers are speaking with members of the group.”
    If I am ever caught speeding on Merseyside I look forward to an officer “speaking” with me about it.
    David Garstang

    I might look forward to an officer speaking to me.
    I speak with my mouth, tongue and breath.

    1. The spokesperson may well be right, the officers could be part of the group by now chanting in unison with XR.
      Expect to see plod superglued taking the knee in pictures plastered all across the media.

      1. Good morning Bill

        As the MR should be able to tell you, the intransigent defiantly object to understanding the intransitive.

      3. Good morning Bill

        As the MR should be able to tell you, the intransigent defiantly object to understanding the intransitive.

  64. I see they are still ramping up the ‘fear factor’ with all these new ‘cases’ everywhere. They don’t tell us if these people are ill, or need hospital treatment. Of course they are going to find more with the increase in testing.

    ttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-france-cases-deaths-tests-local-lockdowns/

  66. On a light hearted note , and because I can read the Obits all the way through, I just thought that below was an interesting read.

    I know there are other very worthy obits to ponder over, so if this seems shallow , so be it .

    Joe Ruby also wrote the sci-fi thriller series Planet of the Apes (1974).

    Joe Ruby, co-creator of Scooby-Doo, one of television’s best-loved cartoon characters – obituary

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2020/09/04/joe-ruby-co-creator-scooby-doo-one-televisions-best-loved-cartoon/

        1. It’s certainly looking that way, Belle. He and Pretty Awful share the same problem (all bark and no bite).

        2. It’s certainly looking that way, Belle. He and Pretty Awful share the same problem (all bark and no bite).

      1. It’s that cunning ‘covert racism’ that you need to squint at to see, takes training. And that’s just what we’re all going to get.

          8. ‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
            Knocking on the moonlit door;
            And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
            Of the forest’s ferny floor:
            And a bird flew up out of the turret,
            Above the Traveller’s head:
            And he smote upon the door again a second time;
            ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
            But no one descended to the Traveller;
            No head from the leaf-fringed sill
            Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
            Where he stood perplexed and still.
            But only a host of phantom listeners
            That dwelt in the lone house then
            Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
            To that voice from the world of men:
            Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
            That goes down to the empty hall,
            Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
            By the lonely Traveller’s call.
            And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
            Their stillness answering his cry,
            While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
            ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
            For he suddenly smote on the door, even
            Louder, and lifted his head:—
            ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
            That I kept my word,’ he said.
            Never the least stir made the listeners,
            Though every word he spake
            Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
            From the one man left awake:
            Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
            And the sound of iron on stone,
            And how the silence surged softly backward,
            When the plunging hoofs were gone.

            [The Listeners Walter de la Mare]

  69. Jacob Blake speaks of ’24-hour pain’ and calls for change in video from hospital bed. 6 September 2020.

    Jacob Blake, whose shooting in Wisconsin on 23 August has reignited the Black Lives Matter protests over police violence and racial injustice in America, also called for change – and warned how quickly the things people take for granted in life can be taken away.

    “There’s a lot more life to live out here… your life, and not only just your life, your legs – something that you need to move around and move forward in life – can be taken from you like this, man,” he said, snapping his fingers.

    “And I promise you the type of s*** that you will go through; staples… I got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach. You do not want to have to deal with this s*** man.

    “Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours is pain… it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side to side, it hurts to eat.”

    Perhaps if he’d just stood still when the copper told him too it wouldn’t hurt as much!

    https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-blake-speaks-of-24-hour-pain-and-calls-for-change-in-video-from-hospital-bed-12065033

    1. “”Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours is pain… it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side to side,”

      I have the same problem, When is the BBC gonna send a team of reporters to my bedside? On second thoughts, cancel that. I don’t want them in the same country as me.

    3. And to think that corporal punishment is banned because of the humiliation and the pain inflicted. If perhaps miscreants in early youth had experienced a degree of corporal punishment they might, just might have a greater respect for authority and not transgress in future.

      1. I wonder if one of the reasons why I am such a well-adjusted outstanding person is because I was the most regularly beaten boy in my house at public school?

        1. You post this information fairly frequently.

          I have a sneaking suspicion that you may have enjoyed it.
          Does your good lady know?

          };-O

        3. We were never beaten, nor were the boys. Our teachers’ punishment of choice was to make us stand in the yard all through lunchtime with our arms outstretched.

        4. Did you take the blame and punishment for everyone in your form , Richard .

          Was your beater a sadist , and what did he beat you with , a black board ruler, slipper or cane?

          1. Err….

            As an independent observer I think you may be taking rather too much vicarious pleasure here.

            Perhaps you should sign up to one their French courses and beat him, to both your heart’s content?

            };-O

          2. Sos

            When I attended primary school in Surrey for a short period, our form teacher might have been a sadist . He took the black board ruler to a boy who wore calipers ( polio) . We all cried with pity for him ( us girls) then Mr G would walk along the aisles of desks , tapping our hands with his ruler if we didn’t hold our pens properly.

            Mr G was very keen on throwing his blackboard chalk rubber outer at anyone .. it is a wonder no one was killed . We were an A stream for heavens sake and young 11 year olds!

          3. I certainly recognise that!

            We had a nun as a teacher, she used a metal sided ruler, which she rapped across the boy’s knuckles.

            9 times out of 10 she drew blood.

            I hated that school with an absolute passion.

          7. Sinbad is moving better but still a bit wobbly on his front paws. He is on the lookout for food all the time and is now able to go outside for his ablutions. He is looking a bit more like his old self but time will tell.

            I reckon his initial medication was strong but this will in part be reduced slowly this week. We have received a very detailed diagnostic report which we do not fully understand and he will be checked over in two weeks and will have another scan if necessary.

            Thankfully his fits have ceased for the present and he is attentive and more mobile than the day we brought him home. His movements resembled a drunken sailor initially.

          8. That’s good news. My aged hound was on a very high dose of steroids at first (he has a problem with the discs in his spine because of his age), but now he’s reduced to half a tablet every other day.

        5. One would have thought you would have sussed out why you were getting beaten and done something to avoid it!

          1. Nah. Housemasters were paedos.
            My Prep school was closed down when one master was outed as a paedo (after I’d left). He always seemd creepy.

  70. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9b16f393027c126322f3ad3810837150eec1cae103b8c87207ec3ea66376cfc.png
    This is the sort of official photograph which results, these days, when a smartly-dressed retiring police sergeant is presented with his certificate of service and meritorious conduct by a Common Purpose-brainwashed ‘chief constable’ who routinely turns up for duty dressed like a down-and-out bum.

    Me, being me, would have asked the cretin why he didn’t feel the necessity to wash, shave and put on a proper unform for the occasion.

    No wonder the country is going to the dogs.

    3. Hang on – surely the retiree is on the left, holding the certificate? Even then surely he’d come in in a suit and tie?

    6. If one didn’t know, one might have thought the Sergeant had just presented an award to a “have a go” citizen who had stepped in to help a policeman.

  72. Off out soon for 19th birthday dinner for Second Son. Italian, La Trattoria Popolare in Oslo, if you have the chance to drop by & take a libation. Delayed from April, where all was closed.
    :-))

    1. Hope you all enjoy it.

      Save a place for me. I’ll just check if the airbridge is still up.

      Yes. it’s up but Sky scanner says the return flights are from £11. I’m not falling for that one again.

      Say Happy Birthday to Mini Oberst from the Nottlers.

      1. Love Italian food, and SS loves going out to dinner.
        Looking forward to him paying… it’ll be about £250 for the 4 of us.

        1. Last Christmas, he did buy me a pint in the pub in Instow – symbolic first pint. With money I gave him.
          Sigh…

          5. My bill at Simpsons on the Strand was more than that and that was for two people. I’m off to the Smoke again this month with a mystery Nottler and i’m looking at £1000 with no change.

            Life has to be lived and i’m trying my hardest.

          8. I could manage dinner for two in London for less than that even with airfares.

            Oh hang on, there would be a two week delay when I get home and as you say, life is for living.

          9. There are thousands of cheaper places to eat where the food is good but it was these particular venues that i wanted to try at least once. Bucket list stuff.

          10. I haven’t been to Rules since 1966. Let me know whether it has changed much. The menu (online) looks remarkably familiar!

          11. As i haven’t been before i will not be able to tell you if it has changed much. I expect they have at least changed the straw.

          12. I had a very good meal with a friend that cost me less than £24 (with drinks) on Friday. The benefit of living in the sticks, obviously.

          13. A very nice restaurant local to me does a very nice set menu two courses £13.95. Fro lunch.

            Simpson’s was more about having the experience than the money. They still wheel out the big trolleys with huge joints of roasted meats on them.

            Though with me the bill is normally quite steep because of cocktails and wine.

          19. I have always maintained that if you walk into a place as if you own it some people will think that you do.

          20. I agree. When I was in hospital, the MR came to visit dressed extremely formally. No one was sure whether she was a consultant or not. One fellow inmate did say that my “daughter was looking smart”…!!

          21. I agree. When I was in hospital, the MR came to visit dressed extremely formally. No one was sure whether she was a consultant or not. One fellow inmate did say that my “daughter was looking smart”…!!

          22. That’s the way. I always take care of my appearance when going out. In this case a smart burgundy suit and polished pointy shoes. For the cocktail evening you will have to wait for a picture. You will probably need to put on dark glasses to view it.

            Clever of the MR to do that. People can be unnerved and give in to requests easier. Must try that next time i try to visit the Doctor and get past the Dragon guarding him.

          23. That’s what my mother always said…
            “You’re not paying for the food or drink….you’re paying to keep certain people out; you have to pay for peace & quiet”…

        4. Last Christmas, he did buy me a pint in the pub in Instow – symbolic first pint. With money I gave him.
          Sigh…

          1. First time number one and only treated us to dinner he followed up with a plea for help in paying off his student loan. He bought the meal, we coughed up $5,000.

          3. He got off very lightly. Two daughters, two house deposits, some student fees relief and finally two weddings within 6 weeks of each other!

          5. “Wife to husband: “We had something precious once. What happened to it?”
            Husband to wife: “You spent it….”

          7. When we first went to Germany, we were at a car boot sale and second son, who was about 7, came up to me and mumbled something about Can I have my Flohmarkt money, Mum?, and held out his hand. All the Germans nearby burst out laughing and one said “It’s the same in every language!”

          8. As a bloke I met last year said:

            “One’s Children – the gift that keeps on taking….”

  74. There was a reference earlier to the 200 Mammoths that passed away waiting for security checks at Mexico Airport. As it happens at 8:00 pm this very evening on Freeview Channel 57 there’s a programme explaining how they got to America from their original homeland in Namibia. (I’m guessing it wasn’t in rubber Dinghies).

    1. What did the Mexican mammoth say to his pal ?

      “Learn to relax, Pedro; let the ash fall …”

    1. I read somewhere (TPA, probably) that they are still expecting the taxpayer to cough up for their mega mansion renovation. Time to fund it themselves and give us a break.

          1. As a matter of idle curiousity;

            Whatever made you think that I believe anything I read, let alone everything?

            {:-O

          2. It was a figure of speech – there are some on here that seem to wish to believe the worst of Harry. Look at the wedding photographs – he looks far from happy, his face is congested as though he has been crying all night, his whole appearance makes me think he may well have been on valium or suchlike to get him through the day. Much that is released by the media is from MM’s PR, not by investigative journalists and only very occasionally by Kensington Palace. Look at recent video releases – ask why Harry’s eyes have suddenly become brown…… and are they videos that are spliced? There is something strange about the perspective and the quality of the videos…… and is that man we see accompanying her in the US really Harry? I don’t think so. A body double and where necessary to create the ‘story’ – photoshop. And is there really an Archie? Does he actually exist? The fact that there are these questions to be asked is surely indicative that there is something not right. If the media are eventually to take MM down then Harry has to go down with her otherwise the race card will be thrown at the RF by those who wish to see the RF removed from the United Kingdom. The RF is probably the last bastion that stands in the way of the globalists, the glue that holds us all together whether or not we are by nature loyalists, royalists or republicans.

      2. Rumour has it that it was never lived in, from people who lived and walked near by. The media want us to think otherwise. As in other situations.

    2. I am withholding judgement on that until we learn whether the Mail was just stirring the pot. Some readers are getting rabid though. If true as they have reported it, it would be a lousy thing to do – but there are several other possibilities.

        1. Yes! I think this was a minority opinion in the DM comment though, as most commentators seized on the story like rabid wolves.

    3. The Mail seems to me to be obsessed with this odd couple in much the same way they were obsessed with the late Diana.

      Victoria Beckham’s sister would telephone the papers with the simple message “David and Victoria will be in the VIP lounge for Concorde at 10.00am tomorrow: Be there”. I strongly suspect that this Meghan bitch employs staff to perform the same vital publicity service and feed the tabloids with their juicy titbits.

      1. One does notice that in the pictures of them Harry is looking ahead bu she knows exactly were the cameras are and is looking at them.

    4. The Mail seems to me to be obsessed with this odd couple in much the same way they were obsessed with the late Diana.

      Victoria Beckham’s sister would telephone the papers with the simple message “David and Victoria will be in the VIP lounge for Concorde at 10.00am tomorrow: Be there”. I strongly suspect that this Meghan bitch employs staff to perform the same vital publicity service and feed the tabloids with their juicy titbits.

    1. Yes, the demonstration today, and how it was treated by the police, has lost Priti Patel the last shreds of her credibility. Shame, she looked as though she had potential once. But I don’t underestimate how hard it must be to deal with the assorted rogues and traitors at the Home Office.

      1. 323395+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        I do not believe that Country comes before party
        & certainly not before self interest with all of them, been like that for years trouble being many of the peoples refuse to believe it.
        Then there is a great many that grip the nostrils, others the best of the worst, choosing a governance party in that manner got us to where we are now.
        It would take decades to change individual politico’s & there ain’t decades left.

        1. Yes, your last words are something that people don’t seem to get. Conservatives are so used to complaining about the left’s antics, but letting them pass, that they don’t seem to realise that we are in the end game now.

          2. 323395+ up ticks,
            BB2,
            Precisely, all the time they are fighting each other as in, must not let tory / lab in they are being outflanked, the black comedy is that none of these party’s hold allegiance to GB first & foremost the eu & Dover must surely prove that.

            To confirm it look at who is gaining power positions nationwide.

            You cannot have a more pointed alarm call than that of the instruction manual between the dispatch boxes and the parliamentary canteen menu.

      1. 323305+ up ticks,
        R,
        Certainly NOT it will be covered by the
        unwritten Submissive pcism & appeasement rulings adhered to by the lab/lib/con coalition party.

    1. I’ve seen another clip showing just before that assault he called on the coppers to “Take a Knee” to the veterans as they did for BLM

      Seems they took offence,the gits

    2. Annoy aaway. Jokes, story telling and memories are de rigeur at this time of day. Before the evening crew arrive.

    3. We could do with some proper rain, we have had light sprinklings , and we have been watering all the pot plants , everything is so dry, we seem to be in a little micro climate this week despite the dreadful flood last week .. and it is quite warm at this time of the afternoon.

    4. I got my sport over with earlier this morning, then had a nap, enjoying the sleep of the innocent.

  83. “A manhunt is underway for a young, black “Somalian” murder suspect behind a spate of stabbings in Birmingham city centre.

    On Sunday night, police released footage of the suspect, whom the

    public has been warned not to approach, pacing the street shortly before

    2am.

    Dressed in black jeans, with a black hoodie and black cap, he had

    already stabbed most of his victims, killing a 23-year-old man.

    Detectives quickly ruled out terrorism, saying there was “no

    suggestion” that it was a hate crime or that gangs were involved. They

    said the stabbings appeared to be random, with no obvious links between

    the victims.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/06/multiple-stabbings-birmingham-city-centre/
    The usual total bollocks,they haven’t caught him how the hell can they rule out ANY motive……………..
    On another point how incrediblely embarrassing it would be if he turned out to be a new dinghy arrival………….

    1. I imagine that when (if) they catch him there will be a narrative in place to cover it. The police have already gone on record that it is not terrorism or gangsterism. So I suppose it is a lone nutter, just like in Glasgow (now forgotten). NTDWI.

      1. These murderers are not lone nutters but a part of a worldwide Islamist network set on the destruction of our country. Nobody but a fool would surmise otherwise.

        1. 323395+ up ticks,
          C,
          Would that be the same network that is taking a grip within the UK whilst the peoples are fighting their, vote tory keep out lab,vote lab, keep out tory war.

      2. 323395+ up ticks,
        HP,
        I heard early on they tried to pin blame on the fall out from covid as in stress etc, I am serious.

    2. The Police certainly took their time in reacting to this vicious primitive and yet more time in releasing the images of the wog responsible.

      The Police really need to get their act together. They should drop the cringeworthy ‘taking the knee’ and other Rainbow bollocks and start doing the job we pay them vast sums for viz. law enforcement.

      Edit: If these blacks can call me honky I can call them wogs.

    4. The Police certainly took their time in reacting to this vicious primitive and yet more time in releasing the images of the wog responsible.

      The Police really need to get their act together. They should drop the cringeworthy ‘taking the knee’ and other Rainbow bollocks and start doing the job we pay them vast sums for viz. law enforcement.

      Edit: If these blacks can call me honky I can call them wogs.

  85. ‘Night All
    Today’s random collection
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34ba75657ab70c90934d80a815c3993564038815ce43fdaa9074a6efc52b6d95.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/353ef7211fd3248cfd707599e18ca46681070777be88351f647c5056bced8e54.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f9b7736b470b59c948d998d23646e87a417a5ba52af02b5949dd4c07b9846f7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76c31ef518bebfbfccd798d7c7828c883bac1ced24a2e839b02f5943ab71f69b.jpg

    1. Jesus!
      Who is the last one? That needs a warning, I’ll have nightmares all night now
      :-((

  86. Q: what if there were a full-scale terror attack with guns in Birmingham City Centre?

    A: you mean because WM Police failed to stop the carnage, with one suspect, which began at 00;30 was still ongoing at 2:20. However, any potential terrorists should know we’re certain to get pictures of them on CCTV.

    1. This murder and carnage was utterly predictable. We have seen the young African men arriving in dinghies on a daily basis in their hundreds and any sentient English person can see that this invasion is deliberate.

      We also know instinctively that these imports are disingenuous, equipped with designer clothes and top of the range mobile phones. We worked out years ago that most mean to harm us. Successive Home Secretaries and Prime Ministers have been and remain complicit in this harm to our country.

      Urgent action is necessary to stop all boat and lorry migrants and to ‘track and trace’ the Somalians and other primitives who have gained unlawful access to this country. A job for Dame Dido Harris, the jockey, or perhaps not.

    4. Nice one.

      Serious question. Is a goff (sic) ball, that only you have touched, likely to be contaminated with Covid-19?

          1. If it is possible for the Satan bug to move from a hand to the ball, which I rather doubt, then if you have it you could transfer it to the ball and if someone else then picked up the ball they could transfer it to their own hands.

            They would then need to ingest it somehow, all within the life-cyle of the virus on a surface that it probably can’t live on for any length of time anyway.

            Yet another example of total overkill to try to scare the beejayzuz out of a gullible public.

          2. …or rub their eye, or mouth, or even pick heir nose with a finger contaminated from the ball.

          3. And that was the point of my use of “ingest it somehow”.

            I don’t know how much golf you have played but even with my levels of hayfever I don’t think I would pick up a ball and immediately rub my eyes, pick my nose or touch my mouth.

            It is unlikely in the extreme that every necessary set of circumstances would occur in the appropriate timescale AND that there would be sufficient “viral dose” to survive AND that the body’s natural defences could not deal with the tiny amount likely to be transferred.

          4. As a clinician, key point cross-infection, I have a different understanding of ingestion & a somewhat more cautious attitude to contamination, but put that down to my training.
            I saw the light & gave up golf when I was 19. Took up horse riding instead.

          5. Make an equation.

            How many times in your entire career did you catch things from your patients?

            Subtract from that number the number of times that your patients caught something from you.

            My betting is that the patients as a whole caught more from you than you caught from them.

          7. Good evening Hugh,.
            Thank you for the down vote.
            Is there any chance that you could explain what you disagreed with?

  88. The odd couple of Downing Street will soon face a severe stress test. 6 September 2020.

    Boris Johnson told the most recent meeting of his cabinet that they had been “sailing into the teeth of a gale” before promising them “there will be brighter days and calmer seas ahead”. Which would make me very nervous about venturing out on a boat with this prime minister. He clearly does not check the weather forecast. What lies ahead is not calmer seas, but even more turbulent waters. The government is heading into a storm the like of which neither he nor anyone else on his inexperienced crew has ever endured.

    There is a vast black cloud massing on the near horizon. It is the looming horror of mass unemployment. The virus-induced slump has already had a nasty effect on many Britons, but for quite a lot of voters the experience has not yet been as horrible as they may have first feared. The impact has been softened by improved welfare payments, job-retention schemes, business rescue packages and other emergency measures. This has delayed the reckoning. Though the public has taken an increasingly dim view of the government’s handling of the epidemic, Tory MPs have been able to clutch to the consolation that their party has maintained a lead over Labour on economic competence. They cannot be sure that will endure as support schemes unwind. One veteran Tory remarks of the cabinet: “This is a generation of politicians who have no experience of mass unemployment. If we go into Christmas with three million people unemployed, that will be beyond ghastly. The psychological shock will be enormous.”

    I hold no brief for Rawnsley but this is the truth and it may very well be an underestimate!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/06/the-odd-couple-of-downing-street-will-soon-face-a-severe-stress-test

    1. If we go into Christmas with only three million unemployed, it will be little short of a miracle, or the scheming bastards will have discovered a way to hide AND massage the true figures.

        1. And university students have to wait until they’ve paid off their loans before they can join the unemployment figures?

        3. A man was found dead, floating in Sydney harbour. All he was wearing was a Wallabies shirt, stockings, suspenders and high heels.

          A police spokesman said, “We needed to make him look respectable before we informed his wife; so we removed the Wallabies shirt!”

    2. It’s obscene this not being willing to describe violent attackers because of race or colour. It’s totally destroying any trace of belief of impartiality in police or politicians.

        1. We need to mount a rearguard action against Cultural Marxism and wipe it out. Failure to do so is to capitulate.

          1. We need to mount a rearguard action against Cultural Marxism and wipe it out. Failure to do so is to capitulate caliphulate

      1. ‘The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) David Jamieson
        said police would be working with the council to see if there were “any
        further measures that need to be taken in the city centre”, following
        the stabbings.

        A rise in violence was “almost inevitable” due to
        the pandemic, when people were suffering “pent-up feelings” and some
        were unsure of their futures, the Labour PCC said.’

        Have to say that when I was made redundant some years ago I somehow resisted the temptation to knife complete strangers.

    1. We are in the Bullshit Era! Never has there been a time where lies are so prevalent as they are now!

  92. Well, I have just spent a delightful half an hour picking raspberries. 2½ lbs. We grow a variety called “September” and, by golly, it is living up to its name. We have already had about 15 lbs – and there is a lot more to come. Easy to maintain – though it does grow to 6ft – so needs support.

    We – that is to say, the MR – made several pounds of damson and rasp jam – very palatable. More preserving tomorrow..

    I’ll leave you now – wishing you a peaceful evening.

    A demain

      1. Dear boy – damson jam; damson jelly, damson and rasp jam – the larder shelves are groaning.

          3. TBH you probably wouldn’t know it was gin when it’s done whatever it does! Macerates perhaps?

          7. Coolio doesn’t wear a bit (I ride him in a hackamore), but once a week I have 15 hands between my legs 🙂 Actually, Coolio is 15.2, but that would spoil the joke!

          9. An old work colleague once gave me a bottle of damson wine that he’d made. It was one of the best home-made wines I’ve ever drunk. Another excellent one was a beetroot wine made by another old friend.

          10. My great aunty Ethel made an extremely lethal Polish sherry, with potatoes and sultanas!! Actually, that might have been polish sherry!

          13. One of my friends made an extremely lethal pea pod wine. It was deceptively smooth, but packed a punch like a mule!

      2. Hmm… prefer gooseberry myself, maybe rhubarb – but very sharp. Damson is excellent, I agree.

    3. If you have the space, two delicious fruits, Boysenberries and Loganberries, my father grew them in Hertfordshire and they were even more productive than his excellent raspberries.

    4. My raspberries grow to six foot, but support themselves – September must be wimps! 🙂 I have been given some damsons, so must make the effort to make them into jam. I have at least eight pounds of raspberries in the freezer awaiting jam making. I can’t eat the stuff quickly enough! My neighbours have all been presented with bags of raspberries – they are sated, too!

    5. I went blackberry picking today with my mother. The berries were a bit small but we got enough to make two crumbles.
      I reckon they’ll be perfect in another week.

    6. That’s the variety I’ve got too – the fruit is marvellous, I get tired of them before the canes do! but the 6 foot canes that need supporting are a pain!

  93. For God’s sake grow up you stupid bastards. Look at the figures without your tin-foil hats.

    Scotland has recorded its highest daily increase in new cases of coronavirus in four months.

    The 208 positive cases, up from Saturday’s figure of 141 people, takes the weekly total of confirmed infections to 1,079 – the most over a seven-day period since May 6.

    The last time more people tested positive for Covid-19 was May 8, when there were 225 new cases of infection.

    No new deaths have been registered, according to the Scottish Government.

    The 208 positive cases account for 2.3 per cent of the 18,418 tests carried out.

    EDIT My bold underline

    1. As I have pointed out to the point of boredom. The number of new “cases” means nothing whatever. There is a total of 224 people in hospital in Scotland with Covid-19. (So maybe around 21,000 empty beds including ICU.). As hospitals don’t want to know until you are ceasing to breathe*, only serious cases will be in hospital. I’d guess a serious case would be in hospital about 10 days, so we are looking at 20 new hospital admissions every day, in the whole of Scotland. (I new case per day per 300,000 people. Is that bad?)
      The number of tests carried out daily is around 20,000. So a few % test positive. But is the test reliable and specific to live Covid-19?
      No one ever asks these questions. How are “cases” disposed of – hospital, home, forget it?

      * See NHS Scotland advice. “Do not call us unless you cannot breathe. If it is worse than that get someone to make the call for you.”

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53511877

    2. No deaths and no hospitalisations. Who cares about cases, many of which have no symptoms and are the result of increased testing.

  95. A knife-wielding, black Somalian, aged 20-25, rampaged in downtown Birmingham from 00.30 until 2.30, killing one and injuring six, in several places in the area.

    WTF were the WM police doing ?

  97. There was a terrorist attack in Tunisia this morning in which a national Guard officer was stabbed to death and another badly injured. Three terrorists were shot dead and a fourth accomplice has been arrested.

    In Tunisia, a 98% Muslim country, there is total outrage. The President visited the scene, followed by the Prime Minister

    The President said “Every shot fired by a terrorist will be met with a deluge of bullets”.

    The Prime Minister said “Do not be afraid of parasites … there are lions who protect the homeland.” He also described terrorists as ‘germs’.

    Oh! For some Tunisian cojones in the UK! No wokeness and liberal hand-wringing in Tunisia! And no Cressida Male-Anatomies in charge of the police !

    1. Is the outrage as it is in Europe?

      If the police kill the prepetrators everyone is up in arms here.

      If the terrorists survive, all the powers of the legal aid scam will be out to protect them.

      1. The outrage is genuine and the entire population is in total support of the authorities who deal with terrorists, in the way that such evil people should be dealt with. However, those who are arrested do have legal rights but, if convicted, have absolutely no sympathy from anyone.

        The time has long gone when the Tunisian population did not understand the damage that terrorists do to their country and how their outrages undermine the well-being and prosperity of even the most humble citizens.

        2. I always liked working with Tunisians (in SEREPT), and in Tunisia. Practical folk, with clarity of thought. Professionals were well educated, several languages at high level. Polite and courteous.
          Good food, too.

    3. Slightly off topic.
      I greatly appreciate your perspectives on what is happening in that part of the world.
      It’s always interesting and informative to hear from you. I suspect I’m not alone on NoTTLe.

  99. It seems that neither Boris Johnson nor his cabinet are up to the job of governing our country. Their collective incompetences are staggering.

    I suggest that the 1922 Committee warn these idiots and threaten them with a rebellion and more effective replacements if they are unable to get their act together.

    Enough is enough. I remain disappointed at the idiocy and lack of firm government both in policy and positive action.

    1. 323395+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      This has been the accepted type of government for at least the last three decades.
      They are taking positive action but it is positively NOT beneficial to the UK.

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