Sunday 8 December: Sir Keir Starmer’s record shows he can’t be trusted to stand by his latest pledges

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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686 thoughts on “Sunday 8 December: Sir Keir Starmer’s record shows he can’t be trusted to stand by his latest pledges”

    1. Biden has been such a disaster that he is being quietly shelved by the Democrats.

      The Democrats are hoping and praying that the voters will have forgotten by 2028.

      1. The Clintons and the Obamas have kept such a stranglehold of control over the Democrats that there's a dearth of young talent coming up to take their places.
        Bit like the Tories under Michael Gove, and don't even bother saying that Gove was never the leader of the party!

        That's what happens when a party sells its soul.

      2. The Democrats are hoping and praying that Biden lives long enough to gift blanket pardons for all of those guilty of skullduggery over the past few years.

    2. The oubliette of history.
      Would that the whole nightmare that is Blighty's recent history and apparent future disappear down the same Black Hole.
      (Which costs more than £22 billion)

    3. Didn't they leave Biden in Angola after his inconsequential visit? We haven't seen him lately.

      instead of pardoning his sycophants how about he grants Trump immunity as a move towards easing cross party tensions? No I thought not but it would really miss of Kamala and co.

    1. Presumably, each military EV will carry its own diesel generator and diesel fuel for charging.

      1. Reading it more cloely, it's hybrid drive. However, that has problems of its own as hybrid engines are more complicated. Some cannot operate without both components in sync. It's just the latest gormless, dangerous, stupid Left wing idea to pour from a bloated, incompetent, lazy state.

      1. 398310+ up ticks,

        Morning Ped,

        Small additive , large consequence, ” stupid, very dangerous people”

  8. Good Morning Geoff and Readers
    Early stuff to do today, so had to buzz off for a shower.
    Some of us, tapping <Refresh>, began to think you might not be well. Hope that's not true.

    Today's Tale is a Blonde joke
    A young blonde was on vacation in the depths of Louisiana. She wanted a pair of real alligator shoes in the worst way, but she didn't want to pay the high prices the local vendors were asking. After becoming very frustrated with the "no haggle" attitude of one of the shopkeepers, the blonde shouted, "Maybe I'll just go out and catch my own alligator so I can get a pair of shoes at a reasonable price!"

    The shopkeeper said, "By all means, be my guest. Maybe you'll luck out and catch yourself a big one!" Determined, the blonde turned and headed for the swamps, set on catching herself an alligator. Later in the day, the shopkeeper is driving home, when he spots the young woman standing waist deep in the water, shotgun in hand. Just then, he sees a huge 9-foot alligator swimming quickly toward her. She takes aim, kills the creature and with a great deal of effort hauls it on to the swamp bank. Lying nearby were several more of the dead creatures. The shopkeeper watches in amazement. Just then the blonde flips the alligator on its back, and frustrated, shouts out, "Darn, this one isn't wearing any shoes either!"

    1. Within a few hours there'll be lots of Syrians at Heathrow.

      The wealthy ones will have gone to the USA, France or Canada, the poor ones to Britain.

  12. So where was Starmer at Notre Dame?
    Would he self combust if he entered a church?

    Has Trump shrunk, or has William put on a growth spurt?

    3. Was he invited?

      Prime ministers are NOT heads of state whereas presidents are. If Ursula Fondalyin was not invited maybe it was because the EU is not a proper state

      (Remember the ignoramus Jack Straw described Blair as the Head of State.)

      1. I thought Fonndalyen had been moved to the IMF where she could ensure the EU never, ever went bankrupt?

        It's her appointment that is so dangerous for the UK as she and those like her will force rechaining to the hated EU as part of any monetary adjustment. No doubt it'd be 'raise taxes' any way.

        The globalists have to infest these institutions as otherwise their ideology would die away.

    4. Trump is 6'2, William 6'3. However, Bilybob is much thinner, so looks taller by perspective.

      1. Also one loses height as one gets older, the spaces inbetween the discs in the spine get smaller. I used to be 5'6"; I am now 5'4". I am the same age as Trump.😩

  16. 398310 + up ticks,

    "miranda" fall out clearly showed that labour was criminally untrustworthy if an idiot was not sure rotherhan, rochdale, etc,etc,etc, mass 16 plus year cover up paedophilia rape & abuse surely proved the point.

    The conservatives proved no better both parties mainstays of a pro eu / pro islamic / anti Brit coalition party.

    These governing politico's combined gave substance, supported by the majority voter to, "suffer little children" and via Dover, do they not, BIG TIME ongoing.

    Sunday 8 December: Sir Keir Starmer’s record shows he can’t be trusted to stand by his latest pledges

  17. Americans are just realising that big-corp have been selling them poisonous foods contributing to obesity & early death.
    Then, just weeks before Trump & Kennedy assume office, the FDA has a sudden flash of insight…

    FDA Toxic Red Dye Ban Across America's Food Supply Chain

  18. Americans are just realising that big-corp have been selling them poisonous foods contributing to obesity & early death.
    Then, just weeks before Trump & Kennedy assume office, the FDA has a sudden flash of insight…

    FDA Toxic Red Dye Ban Across America's Food Supply Chain

  19. 'Morning All
    Grim news day Assad reported killed Israel invades Syria jihadists will rule
    What could possibly go wrong…………
    Oh Wait it'll be a great democratic success just like Iraq,afganistan and Libya

    1. My latest book club book (if you were paying attention last week) is about Gertrude Bell. I am nearing the end and it’s getting interesting, geo-politically. We are in the 1920s and they are carving up the Middle East; all today’s troubles stem from that (presumably) but the area was a mess then anyway, courtesy of the previous corrupt Turkish administration. Seems there are no “answers”.

      1. The Middle East was a mess in Biblical times. It has always been a mess; it will always be a mess.

    2. That's bad. More instability now, while the criminal mafia that runs the US will bleat about "democracy" and our treacherous leaders will back them up like nodding doggies, just in case there is anyone left in the world who doesn't hate the British enough.

      1. Indeed – bad timing to get rid of that nasty shit. If Trump were POTUS just now, it might be less hysterical in Middle East.

    3. As usual the UK backed the wrong side in the Middle East and, as usual, the consequence have been disastrous. This will embolden more coups and how long before these coups occur in Europe where mass immigration has given a large supply of ready recruits.

    1. There is no limit to the number of indigenous people who can be murdered by illegals.

      In fact, i would say it’s being actively encouraged. So they can imprison all the natives who dare to protest about it on Facebook. Or hold a placard up.

  21. Well, thanks to the brilliance of the MR we were able to see the Notre Dame Show last night live on BFMTV (where I shall watch the first Mass today at 9.30 UK time.

    Like many things French it started late, and went on slightly too long! Toy Boy and his Mum greeted all the Nobs as they arrived in sequence (the traffic management must have been a nightmare) and were then photographed with the west front behind them. The evil Zelensky was there in his "military" sweatshirt – they all clapped him, too, grrr.

    There were several very moving moments. When the Archbishop knocked three times on the great west door. When the organ was consecrated (though, to me, that was just a touch pagan!). When the service was about to begin, we wondered about a great space left in the nave. Shortly after, all the sapeurs-pompiers of Paris who took part in fighting the fire marched in, wearing their full hi-viz kit and carrying their highly polished helmets – to be followed by many of the craftsmen and women who had done the amazing restoration. A lengthy ovation greeted them.

    To give credit where it is due, Toy Boy spoke extremely well. The children's choir – about 70 young people – was extremely NOT diverse (hooray). Mr Trump behaved perfectly. Woke Willy looked as though he wondered where he was.

    The commentators blamed the rain on the English! It was a remarkable bit of religious history (and theatre) And Fond of Lying did not attend: nor did Cur Ikea Slammer; nor did Welby. Nor did the Pope.

    2. Good morning Bill,

      The restoration is truly the best ever that modern skilled craftsmen and women have perfected in recent times.

      What an achievement .

      Beautiful, and where and how do craftsmen suddenly become so skilled .. Where does one start.

      1. They are always there – but rarely does one know of their work. One of the top carpenters who worked on the cathedral roof is a former Royal Marine!

        1. I remember on guard patrol round 8 Field Squadron at Perham Down, that pimple on the backside of Tidworth, I found the Squadron Sergeant Major in the G10 stores making a panelled door for the house he was doing up for his demob.
          From what I saw he was making an extremely good job of it!

    3. Welby has his P45 so no reason for him to attend. Why should President Trump not behave perfectly?

        1. So am I. I said tonight that he can't get inaugurated soon enough and then we'll see steps towards peace.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Still very windy and obviously been raining.
    How can a single storm last so long it's very unusual. Have the 'THEY' Been seeding the clouds again?
    And one who recommends someone one like the most recent recommendation for a Knight hood certainly can never be trusted.

  23. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    Still blawin' a hooly at Tighe-McPhee, 5℃ all day, dry right now but a wet afternoon expected.

    Makes you proud, doesn't it, to know that the British state's security services are now openly anti-white British racists? Will the next Bond movie feature a brown Islamic 007 taking orders from an iMam?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58cfbaa2322ea0ddccefdf248c801159ed6a93c20ac23563e2e9221b5529b734.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/07/white-british-not-able-apply-security-services-internship/

    1. What they mean is they don't have enough staff with the multitude of languages that they now have to monitor to 'keep us safe'….

  25. On our way to Southampton to visit daughter and assess the storm damage from the last storm (rotten soffit boards fell off). Plus to “lend” her my cake tins….i “borrowed” the best casserole dish ever off my mum when I was my daughter’s age, nearly 40 years ago, and my mum never fails to comment on it when she comes to visit (invariably I have cooked a stew in it for tea).

    Anyway. Interesting article in the Terriblegraph today by Michael Morsbacher (?) about MPs all being middle class now, and how we are all worse for it. I have, of course, long blamed Bliar for destruction of the HoC – “family friendly” sittings, essentially pariah-ising having a proper job, “professionalising” politics to get a “better type of MP”. It was nonsense then and now we see how it has panned out.

    1. Blair weeded out the working class MPs from Labour because Islington hates them and Cameron and Gove incidentally weeded them out from the Tory side with their "A-List" of candidates who wouldn't embarrass George Soros and Klaus Schwab Tory Central office by speaking any truths. Once you start something like that, it tends to be self-perpetuating.

    3. I borrowed a large cake tin from my sister in law. Then her marriage broke down and she moved out of the family home. Shame about the marriage but i'm keeping the tin !

    5. The wind blew my barge board off the side front of the gable. As if I don't have enough to do!

  28. By treating (not a fan) TR In such a manner it only brings more attention to him. Surely the opposite of what they actually want.

    3. We are told that the Bashar was a brutal tyrant. Prisoners being tortured and killed. Why are we not seeing any evidence of these supposed atrocities? Surely this would be a justification for his overthrow?

      Why are the British media calling them rebels? They are Jihadis.

      Will we be taking Christian Syrian refugees or just the Islamic ones?

      Because of this and the previous governments policies we now have 48,000 suspected terrorists on a watch list. Not counting the tens of thousands sitting in four star hotels.

      It won't be long before the UK ends up just like Syria. A caliphate run by Islamics.

        1. Makes no difference. They will blanket ban alcohol, pork, singing, dancing.

          We will lose our freedoms and then our heads.

    4. Hushed mutterings already to suggest that Syria might go the way of Iraq and Libya and descend into islamic chaos. I would say it is a racing cert, standby for the rest of the population to pitch up on our shores after the maniacs in charge start murdering all and sundry.

    5. Biden monitoring "extraordinary" situation

      You have to be joking. It is the mouth of the person with their hand up his backside that is calling the shots/gunfire

    6. Biden monitoring "extraordinary" situation

      You have to be joking. It is the mouth of the person with their hand up his backside that is calling the shots/gunfire

  30. PS

    Notre Dame – it was (and is this morning) just wonderful to hear the great bells ringing over Paris. BFM2 TV live on your computer. Now!

    1. Wopnderful that a great Parisian church has been successfully restored. But then I remind myself of the Grenfell tower block as an example of the British 'can't do' attitude.

    2. Wopnderful that a great Parisian church has been successfully restored. But then I remind myself of the Grenfell tower block as an example of the British 'can't do' attitude.

  31. Good morning Nottlers, 4°C, dry with a northerly wind on the Costa Clyde. An extra layer required for golf this morning. With fronts opening in Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, and now Romania, Biden's MIC chums are desperate for an escalation in the struggle to draw Russia into a war.
    I'm surprised that Biden can find the time, as rumours abound that he intends to pardon Fauci and Co, before the lawyers descend.

      1. Good morning Mr T and everyone.
        "Mind your balls aren't blown away." Which is precisely why golf courses have bunkers.

    2. It's a shame that they can't monitor how many people like my self who turned it off as soon as they saw her.

      1. But you should have listened to her ignorant waffle .. Black hole mentioned several times . Millions of homes .. no infrastructure .. All soundbites.

          1. No business would want to make their lives harder. It's difficult enough. Labour have never done anything. None of them have ever worked. None of them have produced anything, run a business, achieved anything.

            Thus they just see business as a tax cow with no consideration or interest in the damage this does. They're thick, mendacious, vicious, arrogant small minded stupid students.

        2. Already heard her BS Maggie, it’s all she’s got. All of them are the same.
          There aren’t the materials available to build all those houses she talks about, 16 plus thousand bricks in an average three bed house. Multiply that by 1.5 million. That’s only one of the many components.
          Let alone the skilled labour. Schooling hospital services water gas electricity household waste etc etc.
          She is just another habitual and pathological liar.

          1. There is only one practical solution but none of them have the courage to impalement such a programme. Deports a couple of million people, at least, who have no business being here.

  34. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for today's site.

    Wordle 1,268 6/6

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  36. Good morning all.
    Somewhat late on parade today. T'lad stayed overnight so I was unable to access the computer and eldest daughter had my laptop for watching DVDs.
    A dry and bright start, but still rather windy.
    About 6°C today, having a bit of thermometer trouble so not quite certain. I've realised the tube on the repurposed pantry instrument has been mispositioned and is not very accurate, so have had to use another thermometer to check.

  37. Assad suspected of fleeing to Russia as plane from Syria disappears off radar. 8 December 2024.

    “According to information from Syria, the capital of this Arab country has been captured by terrorists, who are backed by external forces led by the United States. They stubbornly want to destroy the Syrian state and destabilise the entire Middle East, bringing more suffering to the Arabs,” the statement said.

    Not far amiss one feels. I hope Assad made it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/08/assad-suspected-fleeing-russia-flight-disappears-off-radar/

    1. What is terrifying is the emboldenment that this coup in Syria will give to the rebels.

      With an ever-growing immigrant population in Europe ripe for radicalisation how long will it be before there are such coups in Europe?

      2. History shows that the USA and the West always back the wrong side so it must be deliberate.

  38. Assad suspected of fleeing to Russia as plane from Syria disappears off radar. 8 December 2024.

    “According to information from Syria, the capital of this Arab country has been captured by terrorists, who are backed by external forces led by the United States. They stubbornly want to destroy the Syrian state and destabilise the entire Middle East, bringing more suffering to the Arabs,” the statement said.

    Not far amiss one feels. I hope Assad made it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/08/assad-suspected-fleeing-russia-flight-disappears-off-radar/

    1. It's about preventative medicine. I refused it because the last time I had it I got the most crushing flu imaginable.

  41. 398310+ up ticks,

    Just musing,

    This electric vehicles for war zones was prompted by
    " All quiet on the western front"

    I believe that it has found much support from the House of Lords
    linked with the noise abatement and a good sleep society,
    we wake any of them up in a working day, AT OUR PERIL.

    1. Good morning, Eddy. I thought it was one of the workmen on the roof of the Notre Dame who against all regulations had a crafty smoke and dropped a cigarette. Am I mistaken or have people simply forgotten?

      1. At the time it was described as an electrical fault.
        I’ve worked in construction all my life and at anytime the slightest smell of smoke has raised an alarm. In sych a building extinguishers would have been sited all over. And fire would have been rectified before any real damage was done. Like the damage caused at Grenfell, it’s easy and the best thing to do to find another cause even though it doesn’t really add up. In that particular case ‘they’ have convinced the public that the cladding was primarily the problem.
        And now ‘they’ are warning people with cladding to take (impossible) certain precautions. Scare mongering.
        More than 90% of loft conversion have the same insulation,cladding as was used in Grenfell.

      3. The workmen had gone home for the day. Someone climbed the scaffolding to the roof and set off a flare. The glare was more intense than a cigarette.

  43. Went out last night with friends and had a pelican curry, very tasty but the bill was enormous

    2. Galahad Threepwood was a very active member of the Pelican Club a bohemian club for the rich and idle.

  44. If the Syrian government forces surrender, I would guess that rockets will be heading over the Golan buffer zone into Israel within the New Year.

        1. I think it’s in the balance KJ.

          Despite all the media hype and armchair prognosticators waxing lyrical about how Israel can’t eradicate Hamas or Hezbollah you could argue that Israel is actually winning now. Hamas severely degraded, Hezbollah with a bloody nose and looking for a ceasefire. Then there’s Iran sabre rattling about how the mighty Allah will bring destruction to all, making the war to end all wars upon us all, who instead have sent a few rockets across followed by a timid wimp out. I tend to think a few rebels in Syria would be better employed trying to hold on to their modest gains before launching new aggressions against the ‘Arch Satan’.

          1. I hope you’re correct, James – I just wonder if it seems to be spreading..Syria, Turkey. To be hoped America doesn’t get more directly involved, which it may well do if Russia shows its hand. Maybe it’s just my mood, have been informed this morning I have to go to a ********* pantomime again this year…

          2. Just because Syria and Turkey haven’t been in the news doesn’t mean they went away. That’s been bubbling along for well over a decade.

          5. Groan…Jack and his ******* beanstalk….last year bit of a disaster, he got a fine for driving through something called a ‘Bus Gate’…who knew :-DD

    2. The Asaad government was good in a perverse sort of way. Tyrannical it may have been but since its members were members of a minority sect it protected all the others, Christians, Druze, and Yazidi, who were cruelly persecuted by Islamic State. The successors to Asaad's Alawites are fanatical Sunnis from whom we can expect nothing better than persecution of all minorities in Syria. So really, there is not much, if anything, to celebrate at Asaads fall.

      1. The M E is not like Europe. It needs a strong man to keep the lid on things. As with Saddam and Gadaffi, once you remove the strong man, all hell breaks loose.

  45. Blue sky , pink clouds , very strong wind , 7c.

    Our heavy garden bench , facing North was blown over during the night , so the strong wind must have veered around from the West and tipped it over ..

    Thank goodness , no damage locally .

  46. ‘My daughter is the last British Gaza hostage. Every morning I ask for a sign she’s alive’
    More than 400 days have passed since Emily Damari was kidnapped by Hamas. Her mother Mandy will not rest until she’s home.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/08/mandy-damari-i-say-to-emily-send-me-a-sign-youre-alive/

    BTL

    That so many people in the UK take the side of Hamas – the sub-human rapists, murderers, kidnappers and genocidists who wish to exterminate the Jews – makes me think that a significant part of the UK population has itself become sub-human.

    1. 138 days have passed since..
      Manchester Airport victims Fahir Amaaz, his brother Muhammad Amaad were hurt in a windmill accident.

    2. No, not sub human, antisemitic. It's a sad attitude of the Left that they get into bed with anyone who hates the same groups they do.

      Thus Lefties love muslim not because of any rational reason, but because the vastmajority of normal people are not happy with beared, apron wearing, tea towel behead, bin bagged women in their country.

      Thus the Left hate everything and just seek support for their spite. For some reason they especially hate Jews.

    1. The obvious is 'yes, I do feel sad that they're fleeing war but when there are dozens of countries far more apprpopriate to their cultures between them and us, why must we take them?'

      1. Benefits quite the draw, wibbling, for starters. Free health care, for another. Housing..etc…etc..

      3. I don't feel a single pang of sadness for any of them. We only know they are 'fleeing war and terrorism' because they tell us so. They then come here and wage war and terrorism on us.

        Tough shit!

  48. Good morning Richard ,

    Yes , the UK population now compromises of a dilution of our genes , and the warmth that ran through the majority of us is slightly indifferent to the demolition of National Courage, intelligence and patriotism .

  49. Morning all. Interesting headline from the Torygraph there. It's almost as if they believe "the pledges" make a blind bit of difference. Whether we believe him or not is irrelevant, since the managerialist dunce will only serve up a new set by the end of January.

      1. Hello Jonathan, just the one at the top of this page. I'm assuming they're referring to the Starmer 5-minute mission goals, which run to about thirty utterances since about 2013 now don't they? Fancy taking him seriously like that.

      2. Hello Jonathan, just the one at the top of this page. I'm assuming they're referring to the Starmer 5-minute mission goals, which run to about thirty utterances since about 2013 now don't they? Fancy taking him seriously like that.

    2. Morning, James 🙂 It's possible we'll all be worrying more about the ME as the days go by, before the end of January. Still, chin up etc..x

      1. They’re all waiting to see what Trump will say. Nothing new will happen before March.

        1. He’s already said all hell’s going to break loose if it doesn’t settle down. Who’s listening, tho?

          1. Oh, everyone’s listening. Remember that we are only here in the first place because Biden opened Pandora’s Box when he got in after Trump had done a good job of choking the ME.

  50. Morning all. Windy, rainy, dreary and grey skies.

    OT you may know that Alf has fractured two toes. He got up in the night for the bathroom, didn’t quite open the door far enough and banged into the narrow part, and X-ray a few days later confirmed fractures. (very ouch). Anyway, he is currently going around indoors with one sock and slipper on and not wearing a slipper on the offended foot. I giggled and thought of that nursery rhyme My son John. Had to look it up as couldn’t remember how it started.

    Diddle diddle dimpling
    My son John
    Went to bed with his trousers on
    One sock off and one sock on
    Diddle diddle dumpling my son John.

    Wonder if parents chant nursery rhymes these days?

    1. Please pass on best wishes to Alf. Hope the broken toes don't stop him posting on NoTTL!

      1. Thanks Oberst. Paracetamol, ice packs and elevated foot. Just right right for watching/falling asleep to rubbish on telly!

    3. Me as well , I loved all our traditional nursery rhymes , still do , because Moh was hobbling around last night , one sock off one sock on and I burbled that very rhyme to him.. and he said to me how on earth do you remember such trivia ..

      I hope Alf isn't too uncomfortable .. must have been so painful for him when it happened .

      PS
      We don't have any grandchildren , and I do love having a peep at babies in prams and I love watching the antics of toddlers, especially those who have a strop in a shop, and when I give them my YOU MUST behave glance , I swear their mothers also shiver and shake !

      I learn't my glare from my mother ..sadly the only thing I can recollect .. my dear much missed father used to grind his jaw when he was annoyed , and I do the same .. not too often though ..

      1. Grandchildren are vastly improved by adding another 15 – 20 years.
        Then they can do all the heavy lifting and thinking.

      2. We both stop and talk to babies in trolleys when shopping and smile when we hear kids having a tantrum and feel sorry for the mum trying to pacify/ignore them.

    1. Ben Battle was a soldier bold
      And used to war's alarms
      But a cannon ball took off his legs
      So he laid down his arms.

      [Thomas Hood]

        1. And another of Hood's young men called Ben was the carpenter who was press ganged into the navy.

          He loved a girl named Sally Brown who was just as faithles as Nelly Gray. When he returned from the seas she had found another:

          But when he call'd on Sally Brown,
          To see how she went on,
          He found she'd got another Ben,
          Whose Christian-name was John.

          My father used to quote this verse when one of my sisters decided to marry a man named John. She eventually decided to dump her first husband and then married another man, also called John!

  52. Morning all. Dull day. Feeling somewhat our of sorts, still, not everyday can be good, I suppose. Thus it goes. Hope all are well, including Sir Jasper? It's the sort of day that I yearn for some colour outside, bright eyed primroses would be nice.

  54. Yo all from a Wet and Windy C d S

    Studying English

    Prof Gail Marshall
    University of Reading

    To complete the 3R's, are we going to get a University of Riting and a University of Rithmatic?

  56. Bl**dy wind!
    Wordle 1,268 4/6

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  58. True, but celebrating the fall of Assad and not acknowledging what will soon take place is like celebrating the arrival in the UK of hundreds of thousands of people who have no intention whatsoever to integrate and several of whom will be keen to do us harm, in the name of Islam.

    2. The reason, as Mr Wormbrain made a profit from the contracts, he will not need any of the money, being made available to Cabinet Ministers, by the very rich Socialists, who have bought control of the country

    1. I am not aware of any Christian militias rising up and over running great areas of land recently whilst driving armoured jeeps and firing AK 47s into the air. The islamists, on the other hand, have some form here and seem to have funding to procure all these weapons and finance all those fighters. Islam will not miss the opportunity to put another brick in the wall.

    3. The Druze and Christians were safe under Assad, the legally elected President. They will be in trouble when sharia law is applied.

    2. That was a long time ago. I suggest you get someone to change your pants and wipe your arse. With practice you should become able to do it yourself – but don't leave it so long next time. In the meantime stop crapping on the pensioners and farmers, you are only making it worse for yourself and others.

    1. Of course not – a short religious civil war will end with Syria becoming an Afghanistan.

    2. No. But the Druze are very tenacious, been around for a long while. I''m sure they wont go down without a fierce fight.

  68. This is a very long interview but it is absolutely jaw-dropping. I have listened to Mike Benz a few times but in this discussion he puts together the whole narrative as to how we have got into the horrible mess we are in- and it has all been by design. It seems that without the purchase of X we were well on the way to being totally captured by some very scary forces. These forces were mobilised from the start of the Covid nightmare and this was a huge psyop- and the MSM has been trained to turn facts into misinformation and conspiracies. Mike Benz himself over the years has collated and collected the alarming information behind this shocking creation and plays numerous clips where we see these tentacles being wrapped around various aspects of our lives- and the huge financial benefits that accrue from being complicit to this- both from a monetary and career/power standpoint. Utterly despicable and the huge effort that needs to be made to roll this back. I hope this can be watched and forwarded to others – it is that important.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrJhQpvlkLA

  69. Mass is proceeding in Notre Dame – for the first time in 5 years ad 8 months. The altar was consecrated, the relics deposed and sealed and the altar oiled. Must be pre-Christian actions.

    More follows.

  70. CynicsRUs
    1d
    For those of you who have not seen the reply to the petition “Call a General Election” it is posted below.
    Caution is advised when reading it as it may cause hypertension, hyperventilation, nausea and other distressing symptoms related to a government who don't have your interest at heart.

    The usual Snivel Serpent double speak and word salad is included in the reply.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/09997b4debd069fe140a472a2df115d495abd07d1757e3506281e63266a1d363.png

    2. Yes, I received it yesterday. No mention of the fact that the petition has reached almost 3 million signatures.

      The repeated lie about the Reeves's black hole* and mendacious propaganda.

      "The Prime Minister can call a general election at any time of their choosing."

      Why not 'his'? (or even his or her)?

      When we could talk of man without excluding women just as we talk about dogs without excluding bitches this grammatical nonsense is the fault of feminists who think that the terms mankind or man exclude them. And of course the corrupted CofE has now buggered about with the Herald Angel whose message is now not for all mankind but for all humankind!

      *This calls to mind King Lear's misogynistic outburst about his daughters' nether regions:

      Down from the waist they are centaurs,
      Though women all above.
      But to the girdle do the gods inherit.
      Beneath is all the fiends'; there’s hell, there’s darkness,
      There’s the sulphurous pit— burning, scalding,
      Stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie, pah, pah!
      Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
      To sweeten my imagination.

    3. This non-reply merely repeats the propaganda. Plenty of catch phrases – "fixing the foundations"; "£22billion black hole"; "clean energy super-power"; "mission-led government"; it's a totally meaningless word salad that doesn't address any issues implied by the petition and the fact that nearly three million people agree with it.
      Was it written by AI?

    7. I can sum it up; we've got a massive majority and it's nearly five years until we have to even think of pretending to pander to you again, so "up yours".

  71. I am surprised that anyone would think that the Government response would have been any different.
    You get what you pay for, and brother are we going to pay.

  74. 398310+ up ticks,

    When the likes of gates,starmer & mirander cannot answer credible they resort to blaming conspiracy theories as many would / did in regards to the holocaust / jay report /and 90% of starmers reign.

    Dt,
    How your pint of milk found itself at the centre of a new conspiracy war
    Cattle feed additive found to be safe yet alarmist rumours are circulating online

    First they came for the farting cows, then for the shopper who did NOT obey the one tin of Heinz beans per family ruling.

    I would like it duly noted I was a, as the wretch cameron called us, long term fruitcake.

    1. 398310+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Asses deeply everything these governing criminal political reprobates say, as a health link to living longer.

      2. Well I learn something every day. First, Schubert died in 1828 aged 31 in Vienna; and second, that he is buried (now) next to Beethoven. I did not know Beethoven had a connection with Vienna. (Edit. It seems obvious, now, thinking about it).

        “Syphilis kills in many ways. At one extreme is what happened to Robert Schumann (and Al Capone!): a slow and inexorable descent into physical ruin and madness. But it can kill suddenly and unexpectedly as well, as in the case of Schubert. That Schubert’s death was a result of tertiary syphilis is almost certain. However, the immediate cause of Schubert’s death was the collapse of his immune system and consequently, a bacterial typhoid infection. Notes Professor Peter Gilroy Bevan of the University of Birmingham, “the advanced stages of syphilis would have triggered an immune deficiency syndrome of the kind associated with modern AIDS.”

        1. In the 1970s, the male geriatric wards would contain the odd patient who seemed rather younger than average.
          They were middle aged men who had caught syphilis during their youth in WWII. The treatment then was one almighty dose of the newly developed penicillin. The initial symptoms disappeared and seemingly nobody thought, "well, that happens anyway". Having seen the size of the syringes, I suspect punishment, as much as curing, was behind the treatment.
          Years later, the disease would return and land the by now middle-aged chap in with patients old enough to be his father.

          1. I remember reading a while ago, anne – that modern antibiotics were no longer curing syphilis as they once did, perhaps the Covid vax did the trick instead 🙂

        3. When, at the age of 18, I left my all-male boarding school in the 1960s the apocryphal message we were all expected to pass on to the next generation was that when all the leavers were assembled and given their valete address by the headmaster we would be told not to wear the Old Boys Tie when visiting a brothel and that only the Pope and the Archpillock of Canterbury could get VD from a lavatory seat.

    2. Bow de See Ah or Boo Dicker ?

      I was brought up with the former pronunciation but it was changed to the latter when I was in my teens.

  77. Final report. Mass has finished – the clergy processed out of the west door on to the "parvis" – the open space to the west of the cathedral. The rain briefly held off – but has restarted. Towards the end, the choir (NOT diverse – hooray) sang the Hallelujah Chorus in ENGLISH.

    A memorable event – the like of which will NOT be seen again in our lifetimes.

    Chapeau to France 2 TV.

  78. FT reports the great UK/EU reset about to commence..
    Precursor to even start talks include:
    fishing rights total control..
    No cherry picking..
    Rights to reneg NI protocol gone forever..
    cash..
    Anything they wish..

    In return for: Nothing really. Visa exempt travel.

    Rumours suggest this has nothing to do with Farmer-Harmer-Starmer but a new Treaty drafted by Whitehall. Kneeler to rubber stamp.

    1. We're sure that the intention is for Starmer (or, rather the British taxpayer) to bail out France and Germany, and

      he will get extra house points in Brussels.

  79. Think I'll take a constitutional around the lanes here, now that the rain's gone all intermittent. See you later.

          1. Have you tried Normacol Plus or Senna? And why is it that BM become a topic at our age? Diet, how is that?

          3. I think what doesn't help is not being ambulatory enough. For me 50 feet is a bit much so obviously the lack of exercise and the inability to do so contributes to the lack of 'tone' that keeps everything ticking along smoothly. But besides my suggestion above, drink lots of liquid. I Drink 2L per day, or try to. Eat lots of fruit too. And. for some reason, 6 or more Medjool dates work miracles.

          8. I think what doesn't help is not being ambulatory enough. For me 50 feet is a bit much so obviously the lack of exercise and the inability to do so contributes to the lack of 'tone' that keeps everything ticking along smoothly. But besides my suggestion above, drink lots of liquid. I Drink 2L per day, or try to. Eat lots of fruit too. And. for some reason, 6 or more Medjool dates work miracles.

          14. Norwegian tax year is January 01 – December 31… I'll copy you my tax assessment, Tom. Guaranted to cause all kinds of looseness…

          15. Try drinking a lot more water, Tom – no caffeine drinks, no alcohol. Should relieve both problems.

          17. It does and it can be, Tom. Try for three or four days? My father suffered constipation for many years. After I left home I couldn’t afford meat, became vegetarian, my mother did similarly so he had to too…resolved his problem. So another solution is cooked veg, anything to increase fibre – porridge etc too. Your choice tho :-))

          18. I live alone, Kate and can only do one item in the Air Fryer. Veggies don’t figure very high on the menu.

      3. Sorry about that old bean. I just got back. Timed just right, since the blobby wet came down just as I turned in to my drive.

  80. Mr Wallace,, is reported to have made inappropriate remarks about the weight of people working at a Nestle factory Credit: BBC.

    Mr Wallace is a Non-Woke and must pay the price for his awful behaviour

    1. I just feel that the bbc have singled him out and made reference to his unproven actions because he no longer fits in with their current and Dopey Wokey adgenda. I'm not a fan of Wallace and mainly avoided seeing him. As they have obviously become very selective, maybe the bbc should try pay to view. And allow the viewers to be selective as well.

    2. We only recently started to see that Inside the Factory program over here and now I guess that I am supposed to not watch because Wallace engages in banter that would have been typical just a few years ago.

  81. It was very interesting to compare and contrast the actions, words, comportment and obvious very deep Christian faith of the Archbishop of Paris with those "bishops" in the Church of England who are simply out for themselves.

  83. 398310+ up ticks,

    Who is to say with great certainty one way or tother, especially viewing some of today's violent, evil actions, tis down surely to ones own beliefs.

    Dt,
    Exorcism is back – this chilling real-life case explains why
    The death of Anneliese Michel shocked Germany, yet demonstrates our enduring obsession with demonic possession

    1. I was listening to a podcast the other day – for the life if me I can’t remember which one – where it was explained that the “elite” are all into the occult.

      Maybe it was Irreverend with Rod Dreher.

  84. 398310 + upticks,

    O2O,

    And yet: just before the turn of the 20th century, something strange started to happen. Though Western countries were rapidly secularising, the idea of the permeable soul or mind, subject to outside forces, not only survived but flourished. Fascination with the unseen spirit world returned; a great, unexpected wave of occult spiritualism swept through. Ouija boards sold out, séances were common, and mediums made good money conjuring up departed spirits on demand. For those who couldn’t afford a medium, popular books explained how to empty and fill oneself with spirits in the comfort of one’s own home.

    1. "… popular books explained how to empty and fill oneself with spirits in the comfort of one’s own home." I don't need a book; I just go to the drinks cabinet.

  87. Utterly off topic.
    I was watching the pendulum on my long case clock and wondered how far it would have travelled if the total distance was in a continuous line rather than merely back and forth.

    I was staggered to calculate that it would be over 1 million miles.

  88. Gosh – that's a great relief:

    "Angela Rayner said the UK would prioritise working alongside the UN to achieve “stability across the whole region” after Assad’s alleged resignation."

        1. Islam is the problem. Death and destruction follows every time they win ground. And now they are here.

        2. Given the way that Islamic countries have huge influence in the UN, they are both huge parts of the problem.

      1. The last time this kicked off, my previous church joined a scheme to “house a Syrian refugee family”. A woman in the congregation asked the vicar if it would be a Christian family. He later boasted that he’d laughed in her face. He’s since been promoted to Dean of St Edmundsbury.

          1. Could apply to the rectorette; she seemed quite proud of the fact that during covid she wouldn't let the grieving relatives touch the coffin to say goodbye (not a practice I am particularly keen on, but I know it makes some people feel better).

        2. I've not attended church for around half a century…a friend and neighbour attended (religiously) every event, whilst many others left to attend what was called 'one o' them happy clappy places', apart from local weddings/funerals (some comics think they're same thing) and christenings. CofE changed with female vicars, although congregation numbers were already falling locally, now there's a rota every three weeks or similar. Sunday School is no longer, now called 'Messy Church' (i.e. 'playschool'). Apologise in advance if I offend anyone, it's just how I view the situation.

          1. They are not all like that, thankfully. Our (woman) vicar is very good and the sermons are understandable and tied to Biblical references. The children go to Sunday School in the side chapel. One of them recently got confirmed.

          3. It is in a town. Compare and contrast with the church I left (i e was forced out of due to the rector's actions). That's in a large village/small town (lots of house building). Congregation has collapsed, no choir, no decent music, no vestments, rambling sermon (last time I went) and the coffers are empty. She's happy clappy "modern". QED.

          5. It is often the case that the more vociferous and ardent Christians often behave in a far less Christian manner than kind-hearted agnostics and atheists.

            Indeed, one of the kindest, most considerate and gentlest men I know was the deputy headmaster of the school in which I used to teach – he was an atheist.

          6. As the traditional Priest, Father Reilly, observed about one of the pushy members of his congregation: "I never wanted to be a mother; I cannot understand why Ermintrude Blenkinsopp wants to be a father."

          7. Same here, KJ, exactly the same. 'Messy Church' which I find so disrespectful, and a vicarette who follows Woke instead of Christ.

          8. ‘morning ‘mum x…did you also have a locked church during ‘the time of covid’…talk about true colours….

          9. Indeed, it was firmly locked, and I so desperately wanted to get inside for a sense of unchanging normality – we live only 50 yards from our village church.

  90. Just a thought, if we we are duty bound to return the ancient Greek Elgin marbles to the country that is now modern Greece even though they were purchased fair and squarely back in the day
    Then why not send all our communists and socialists back to Russia and Germany as well, they are the ones that are so keen to cancel our historical past and all our antiquities.

    2. Just send in a request.. any request.. on headed notepaper and HM PM will duly oblige.
      All demands & wishes will be accommodated no matter how spurious.

  93. Parents, farmers, car workers – no one is safe from the scourge of Starmer
    By Laura Perrins

    December 4, 2024

    IT WAS only a few weeks ago when I called Kathy Gyngell and said, this is what people need to know about politicians and priorities. When they drag the lectern out to make a speech, that’s a topic they really care about. If they don’t drag the lectern out, then they don’t care.

    For instance, I had to endure the Irish government dragging the old lectern out to tell us all how they were recognising Palestine as a State. Palestine for the Palestinians is the cry over here, but Ireland for the Irish is considered racist. And who could forget Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer dragging out the lectern to tell us how he was going to put the Far-Right Thugs in the clanger quick smart. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

    And covid – it was lecterns at dawn, was it not? Every flipping day PM Johnson and his motley crew of ‘Scientists’ stood behind those wretched lecterns and told us how they were going to run and ruin our lives and the country.

    So, I nearly fell off my seat when I saw Starmer dragging out the lectern to tell us, finally, how bad the immigration numbers were. The PM insisted Britain can no longer be a ‘soft touch’ after huge revisions to official data showed net inflows were 906,000 in the year to June 2023. That’s just net, remember, the gross figures will be way above a million.

    Not even Starmer can ignore it any more after the outrageous figures were released last week, right at the height of the assisted dying debate. What a coincidence.

    Sounding much like Nigel Farage did about ten years ago, Sir Keir told us that actually the far-right people were right all along. This was a plan.

    Sir Keir said: ‘What the British people are owed . . . is an explanation. Because a failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck. It isn’t a global trend. Or taking your eye off the ball. No – this a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed . . . deliberately . . . to liberalise immigration.’

    He continued: ‘Brexit was used for that purpose, to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders. Global Britain – remember that slogan. That is what they meant. A policy with no support.’

    Boris Johnson celebrated the huge increase in immigration after Brexit, saying it showed Brexit was working. I didn’t notice Starmer arguing that point.

    So this explosion in immigration, this transformation of the UK, was actually planned, Starmer says. It was done deliberately. That is a pretty big admission right there. I don’t remember him saying this when he was leader of the opposition. But he feels the need to say it now. Better late than never.

    This is not a mere U-turn. This is an admission that there has been a concerted plan to destroy the British state, culture and national inheritance for years.

    And why are the UK numbers always revised up after a few months? I seriously object to the headline figure being net migration, like one retiring Brit who flees to Benidorm is the same as the Albanian who moves in next door in Luton. My family of six will be swapped out for six Somalis. I leave it to the readers to say if they think this is a fair cultural swap.

    There is something about seeing Britain and its slow but steady economic and cultural decline that really hurts. People here in Ireland would call me a West Brit, and that’s fine by me. I have five members of my family who are British, so I don’t think I am being unreasonable. But the endless bad news stories of over the last few months have cut deep.

    Perhaps it started with Southport, a dagger through the heart. The act was horrific itself, beyond words, but to witness the media and political reaction afterwards, the ‘containment’ of genuine grievances, daring law-abiding decent British people not to ask the question that everyone should ask. How did it come to this?

    Things got steadily worse after that. It is not the same level of evil of course but there is something telling in the attacks on the backbone of the British middle class. First came the assault on parents who had the resources (somehow, given the tax burden) still to send their children to private school. How very dare they? So Labour punishes them by adding VAT to the school fees, something that could not be done had Britain stayed in the EU as Starmer wanted. (The EU rightly deems it deranged to slap VAT on the provision of educational services.)

    Then they came for the farmers. Farmers live far away from Islington, and often vote Tory. They are attached to the land. It has already been said that the beautiful British countryside is in fact racist so the logical extension is to make life difficult for their children who will inherit the farm they worked so hard on. It mirrors the attack on the children of the parents who attend private school. This is the poisonous and wretched politics of envy, jealousy and bitterness. I can’t have what they have, so let’s tear them all down.

    Not even the car manufacturers and their employees are safe. You would think this group would be protected by Labour; the clue is the name. But no. They must be punished as they are producing cars which are bad for the environment. The sun gods and Greta Thunberg aren’t happy so let’s set up some mad scheme that puts the car manufacturers out of business.

    The closure of the Vauxhall plant in Luton will cost the town about 3,700 jobs and have a £310million impact on the local area’s economy, a council leader told BBC Politics East.

    Hazel Simmons, the Labour leader of Luton Borough Council, said this was ‘devastating news’ for the area and that she had talked to trade unions and was planning talks with the Vauxhall owner Stellantis. The Department for Business and Trade said it was a ‘concerning time for the families of employees at Luton’. Is that so, press secretary at the Department for Business and Trade? Losing your job is ‘concerning’?

    It isn’t concerning, it is devastating. It is a criminal act to close such a factory in an area like Luton. Abhorrent. This will not just have an economic impact – that’s the tip of the iceberg. This will devastate the workers, their families, and the workers of linked jobs who lose their employment. It’s not just the loss of income, it’s the loss of status, the long-lasting impact this will have on their mental health that is ‘concerning’. And it’s all so unnecessary.

    These people are willing to work, unlike so many others. Official forecasts say that the number of people claiming incapacity benefits is expected to climb from a pre-pandemic figure of around 2.5million in 2019 to around 4.2million in 2029. Last year there were just over 3million claimants.

    These numbers are so ridiculous that again even Starmer has dumped all the language of ‘compassion’ and blaming the evil Tories, coming after the sick people to talk instead of ‘bulging benefits bill blighting our society’.

    And that’s before we get to the old folk. They had their winter fuel benefit cut, which might push 100,000 below the poverty line by 2030. ‘Internal government modelling shows the decision to remove the benefit from millions of pensioners will push about 50,000 more people into relative poverty next year, and another 50,000 by the end of the decade.’

    No wonder last week was concluded with the passing of the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Commons. It was notable that many on the left of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting, came out against it. Even London Mayor Sadiq Khan, also on the left, said he wouldn’t support it if he had a vote. Say what you want about the socialists, but they could see this for what it was: an attack on the old, infirm, sick and vulnerable.

    With the creaking NHS, social care, an ageing population and tanking fertility rate, the way things are people will be banging down the door to get out. People will be claiming in ten years that the requirement that you have only six months to live is discriminatory against the ‘not dying but miserable’.

    It has been a bad few months. I’m just holding out for some good news. Just in time for Christmas.

    1. "Brexit was used for that purpose, to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders"

      In other words Harmer Starmer cares not a jot about immigration. He just wants to perjure Brexit and suggest closer ties with the EU where it can be better controlled. The man must think we're all retards if he thinks we believe any of his shoddy 6th form debating society rhetoric.

      The evidence of "planned" immigration in fact goes in the other direction when it comes to the EU. I bet the people of Eire are loving its open borders inside the fold and Angela Merkel of course is the archetypal exemplar of what EU planning for member states involves when it comes to immigration policy.

    2. 3.28 million visas granted 2023. Around 5ooK for work so that it less than a sixth of them. 800,000 were visitors. No problem with that, of course – except for the fact that we have no real exit and entry checks. Many will come to visit but stay and you can bet they are not the ones who will be law abiding or UK friendly.

    3. "He continued: ‘Brexit was used for that purpose, to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders." What planet is he on? Brexit was partly a result of the EU's open borders. We were full and wanted to turn the taps off (as well as vote out those who made our laws and return to Common Law). We have never had Brexit other than in name only.

  94. The fall of Assad is a disaster for Putin. 8 December 2024.

    This is a disaster for Putin, given that he now has no warm water naval access. Tartus is now or soon will be surrounded by enemies and the Bosporus is closed to Russian warships due to the ongoing Ukraine war. Putin’s illegal Ukraine invasion has closed off access to the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea bases of Odesa and Sevastopol – which he no longer controls – and Novorossiysk. Russian warships can now reach the Mediterranean only by departing from the Arctic or Baltic on a long trip around Europe via Gibraltar. The fledgling Russian base in Libya is now seriously compromised.

    Vlad did his best to try and hold the floodgates against the Jihadists. That is all gone now. Soon there will be a refugee crisis that will dwarf anything that has gone before.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/08/assad-fall-syria-putin-disaster-iran-mullahs-threat/

    1. Putin's was NOT an illegal invasion. Check out the Minsk Agreement and the US involvement in the overthrow of an elected leader.

  95. Syria has a population of about 25 million. More than 2 million are non-Islamic. I predict a million or more deaths in the near future. Anyone who cannot flee or hide their religion will die. Murder rape and pillage will soar. The West will do nothing except increase the number of people imprisoned for hurty words and refusing to submit to the Lefties demands. The world has just got even more dangerous than before.

    1. If i were a Jew, Christian or Yadizi i would either flee or convert to Islam. There is no other choice.

      1. Ah, the Religion of Peace, and Tolerance.

        If only we could be as saintly and beatific as all our muslim friends and colleagues. Etc etc.

        1. I pointed out on a TwitX thread that the Christians will be slaughtered and a Moslem replied, “Well if you disobey God and worship an executed blasphemer, what do you expect”. The ignoramuses who make excuses for these people deserve to go to Hell with them.

        1. Some people are too poor to get out. And there will be checkpoints. They don't have the money to pay bribes.

          1. Don't worry. If any of your family ever managed to get a Canadian passport, Trudeau will have us pay for flights to Canada and offer living costs on top of that.

            Not that any self respecting Christian or jew would want to move to this bankrupt den of Muslim terrorists.

  96. Long, but worth the read. More two-tier politically-motivated Ploddery and more evidence of corruption in the judicial (sic) system. First, they came for TR and I did not speak up because…etc.

    “The Daily Sceptic
    Justice For the Tooting Four!
    BY NICK ARLETT 8 DECEMBER 2024 9:00 AM

    I am truly astounded by what has happened to me. Approximately two years ago, myself and other like-minded individuals decided to resurrect an existing Facebook Page, Action Against Ulez, as we were horrified at the prospect of the expansion of the Lez scheme to Outer London boroughs. The daily cost to drive ‘non compliant’ cars was obviously the main issue, but we were also stunned by the questionable communications between Deputy Mayor Shirley Rodriguez and Imperial College over Sadiq Khan’s claim that without the expansion of the Ulez scheme 4,000 premature deaths would occur every year. In fact, as the Jacobs Report made clear, the Ulez expansion would have a negligible impact on air quality and would have a disproportionate effect on the less well-off. We were not only deeply concerned about the financial cost but also the emotional and mental wellbeing of those whose lives would undoubtedly be changed by the scheme. To top it all, the ‘consultation’ process was deeply flawed and the results ignored.

    In the early days, along with others, I attended various meetings, including those at City Hall, to express our unhappiness at the looming expansion. Sadiq Khan chose to use insulting language about our group, particularly after a meeting in Ealing, labelling us “far Right” tory voters and accusing us of being “Covid deniers” and “Nazis”.

    We decided to arrange a variety of demonstrations aimed at raising awareness of these issues. Our group membership had grown in size and the Facebook page now had around 46,000 followers. The demographics of our membership was predominantly people aged 50 plus, many of whom had never demonstrated about anyting before in their lives. I organised a GoFundMe to fund placards, leaflets, banners and other materials we would use.

    We decided to organise what we dubbed “Awareness Days” as we discovered that many people were completely unaware of the looming expansion and how it would effect their lives. Upcoming events would be advertised on the Facebook page and at every event local police were there to meet with myself and others to discuss what our plans were, what time our group would turn up and how many were expected. Our Awareness Days were always a family affair. Some of us would dress up as dinosaurs, dancing in the streets, and a group of women created a vocal unit called ‘The Ulezettes’ and regularly performed at these events. Awareness Days were often attended by local politicians who seemed to enjoy the very good natured atmosphere. Local police would occasionally assist us with setting up and we made a point of leaving every venue clean and free of any litter. The locations were chosen by us, also taking suggestions from the Facebook members. We held events at Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, Marble Arch and outside the BBC with others being more local. Over the last two years we have probably held about 75 of these events, none of which caused any problems, We supported Howard Cox, Khan’s anti-Ulez opponent in the Mayoral election, and would use our events to promote his campaign.

    It is common knowledge that Sadiq Khan lives in Tooting, and while we know the name of the street he lives on, we don’t know his house number. In the summer of 2023, we decided to hold an ‘Awareness Event’ on Tooting Common, which is opposite his street. This event involved a barbecue, family fun and entertainment. It was a weekend event, and as usual, local police officers spent time with our group and raised no issues at all. We also held an event outside Tooting Broadway tube station.

    We decided to have one of our last events before the Mayoral election at the junction of two streets, one of which was Khan’s. We expected this event to be no different to any of our previous ones, either in Tooting or elsewhere. This was likely to be one of the final opportunities to voice our opposition to the Ulez expansion scheme and campaign for Howard Cox. We were not at all concerned about the location and fully expected the event to go as well as it had done before.

    On the day itself several members of the group arrived before 12pm, the advertised start time, and began setting up. We were soon joined by the local police who, as normal, were friendly and chatty, walking around engaging in conversations with various people. The event continued as normal, although several latecomers told us they were concerned at the high numbers of police vehicles assembled in side roads. As these vehicles disgorged their occupants, some of them appeared in our midst and it became chaotic and confusing. While there appeared to be suggestions that we should disperse and relocate to City Hall, no formal announcement was made to the crowd and no specific time for leaving the location was indicated. However, it was clear that the police wanted us to leave and we began the process of packing up.

    Then, without any warning, five people were arrested in quick succession – including me!

    I was walking on the pavement near where I’d parked my car. One of my jobs as to collect up the banners and placards and take them home with me in my car, ready to be produced again at the next demo. I was beckoned by an officer to follow him into the road where I was arrested using a level of force that was quite unnecessary.

    Another man, Lloyd Dunsfored, was arrested just for filming my arrest

    Alison Young was arrested as she sat on the floor removing her dinosaur suit.

    Martin Whitehead was arrested as he was taking his own placards to his vehicle.

    The fifth person to be arrested eventually had the charges against him dropped.

    Later, we were charged with causing harassment, alarm and distress to Sadiq Khan.

    When we received our charge sheets, we were astonished to discover that the police claimed to have interviewed all of us, shown us all the bodycam and CCTV ‘evidence’ they’d gathered, and claimed we had all given “no comment” interviews. In fact, none of the Tooting Four had been interviewed before being charged. This had all been invented by the police and it took several requests from the magistrates for this finally to be admitted. In our naivety, we felt that the case would be thrown out at this point, but it wasn’t.

    We were released that evening, with bail conditions to keep away from Tooting and the surrounding area. We were called to Charing Cross police station weeks later where we were charged – again without being interviewed. The plea hearing was held in early August before Justice/Judge Turner. We all pleaded “not guilty” and Turner discussed the prospective length of the hearing and then checked his diary and suggested he would be available for a trial date of November 27th.

    To our surprise, we learned that in fact we were not going before Judge Turner at Westminster Magistrates Court but someone else, District Judge Sternberg. As this had been dragging on for months we were keen to progress – two of us said we would be happy to continue with Sternberg, one was not happy to proceed and one wanted Sternberg to be asked about whether he was able to be impartial in his approach, given that there was some evidence he was friendly with the Mayor. Naturally, he confirmed that he wouldn’t allow this to sway his judgment and the trial went ahead.

    Nine police officers were called to give evidence for the prosecution and provided bodycam footage. In the case of seven of these witnesses, the claims they made of road blockages and protestors supposedly preventing an emergency vehicle accessing the road were not supported by their own footage.

    Once the prosecution had presented its case, our representative asked the Judge to dismiss the case as the evidence of the senior officers had not been supported by their bodycam footage and had been contradicted by the two local police officers who had been at the scene from the outset.

    But to our total astonishment, Sternberg said he felt there was a case to answer and the trial would continue.

    While I am no legal expert, it seems that the case relied heavily on the content of the placards and banners we carried. One officer swore on oath that he had seen a placard saying “FUCK KHAN”, even though there was no such placard. When one of the defendants was questioned he confirmed he had a “FCUK KHAN” sticker on his hat – clearly a play on the advertising campaign of French Connection many years ago. The police officers said there were placards with blood on them, the event was advertised as “Khanage at Khan’s” and I had a high-viz jacket with the words “STOP THE KHANAGE” on it. It was implied that all of these could cause alarm and distress to Khan.

    In my own cross examination, I explained that the placard with blood mentioned said “BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS” – clearly not a threat to Khan.

    In his summing up, Sternberg referenced my high-viz jacked and the name of the event, stating that “KHANAGE” refers to the killing of many people. While it isn’t my intention to go into the summing up any further, I hope this gives an indication of Sternberg’s mindset and how the case really rested heavily on the signage.

    We were found guilty and I was found to have a higher level of “culpability” than the others and ordered to pay a total of £1,310, comprising a £750 fine, a £300 victim surcharge and £260 of legal costs. Outside the Court, we pointed out that a group of Just Stop Oil protestors, who staged a demo outside then-PM Rishi Sunak’s Kensington home last year, were charged with harassment, but were all acquitted by a judge at Stratford Magistrates’ Court, following a successful submission that there was no case to answer.

    We intend to appeal.”

    1. That's what a Police State looks like. Until they get to the camps and the killing of course.

      1. A more pertinent fact would be who is directing the police action and what instructions have been given to the judiciary, because this doesn't all kick off because a bobby on the beat has seen a crime being committed.

  97. Britain’s MPs are all middle class – and we are poorer because of it
    It may sound preposterous, but our parliamentarians are steadily being immiserated
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/britain-mps-middle-class-poorer/

    Bow Down you lower middle classes

    BTL

    Possibly the best MP in the House of Commons is Rupert Lowe.

    Why is this the case: because he entered Parliament at the age of 67 after having had a brilliantly successful career in business. Unlike the majority of the other MPs he has experience of the real world, is competent and efficient. He also is a normal human being – not an automaton like Starmer.

    He would make an excellent PM.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxAHnJD7LE4

    1. Immiserate : cause to become poor or impoverished – earliest evidence for immiserate is from 1956, in Solicitors' Journal.

      What a coincidence that a new verb, to make poorer, should originate in a solicitors' journal.

  98. 398310+ up ticks,

    May one say,

    Are we so blinkered as a nation to not be realising the very same could be asked about the remains of the United Kingdom.

    Why the next twist in Syria could bring greater horrors than Assad
    The 13-year rebellion against Bashar al-Assad’s regime may be over, but Syria’s civil war may not be

    Why the next twist in England could bring greater horrors than
    starmer ?

        1. Yeah, no, yeah. They’ve been deporting the indigenous for years – the disingenuous “net” migration figures show that the whole thing stank from the start.

      3. 398310+ up ticks,

        Afternoon HL

        It is not to late and would be a sure winner via the polling stations even now, for the lab/lib/con coalition party.

        Mass deportation would have immediate mass beneficial effect on education/ medication/ accommodation /incarceration and without doubt save lives.

        1. Of course it would. But how many human rights lawyers (how many of those are immigrants or immediate descendants of immigrants) will use our tax money to fight it. I think many “lawyers” practising here should be looked into.

          1. 398310+ up ticks,

            Evening HL,

            Then by sheer weight of numbers Via indigenous peoplewise ( while we are still in front)a law stating that
            any case involving UK illegal enterers must be heard post deportation outside of United Kingdom territorial waters.

          2. Yes. But we have to have the mechanism with which to do that. And current governments don’t do that – I’m not even sure that Reform would, at the moment. I| think it needs to be persuaded just how much immigration means and that the takeover of our country has to be stopped. Historically it was the stronger (not always nice) people who took over a country. Now we are being taken over from bottom up, by people who largely have little to give us and take much too much.

  99. OOh a three – I'm laughing today!
    Wordle 1,268 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟨🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I burst a blood vessel laughing.

      Back in 1995 when I mistakenly invested in Windows 95 every time I typed my surname Bill Gates’ auto correct would suggest I try this word. That was when the damned thing was not telling me that I had performed a “fatal exception” and that my computer would be shut down.

      Wordle 1,268 2/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I was into crying
      Wordle 1,268 5/6

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

    3. Well done Herts, I got one as well – a birdie that is! – if we do this for about 100 years we may get as good as Lacoste!

    3. Frightening to think she's anywhere near having her hands on the levers of power, never mind being deputy.

    5. Don't know if it is my speakers or not but she sounds like she has the flu. Hopefully one of the deadly strains.

      1. Fortunately I didn’t hear her or even know she was being interviewed. Radio? Telly? Years ago, a scriptwriter friend came up with an expression which I’ve always remembered, and she fits the description perfectly. She is an 'expert on ignorance'.

        1. She seemed to think that continually repeating the same phrase would work. That might work at the student union because people end up getting bored and going off to the student bar but this was television !

          Are these people really that detached?

          In answer to my own question i don’t think so. Her round table meetings with many businesses were corporate. She didn’t want to be pinned down when saying the name of the Devil.

          She didn’t speak to any small or medium sized businesses because they would have roasted her alive.

          The witch she is would deserve that fate.

          Labour. The party of the workers for fuck sake.

    1. 398310+ up ticks,

      SJ,

      As shown via the polling stations
      these last three plus decades, our
      own country folk can’t.

  103. Evening, all. Ave atque vale again as I'm about to brave the elements to drive into Shrewsbury for a carol concert. The power didn't go off last night, but the barge boards on the gable end are now in the garden. An insurance job, I reckon. There were several trees down when I went to church, but they'd been cut up and the roads were clear.

    The headline letter is the sanest and most accurate I've read in a long time!

    1. When you employ a bit of rough don't be surprised when he behaves like a bit of rough!

      1. Quite, presenters of a pretty uninteresting TV activity are hardly going to be the shy and retiring types if they can turn the programme into a popular institution.

  105. I've just watched a fascinating archaeology programme on BBC2.
    Ancient Invisible Cities.
    Well worth an hour, it was on Athens.

    1. It was amazing wasn't it? I went up to the marble mine on Mt Penteli a few years ago and the track they used to get the huge blocks down to the city was spectacular! No wonder they lost a couple! There is also a huge cave called Davelis which means ‘thief’, and a rather lovely little chapel.

    2. There's a punch line in there somewhere – all I could think of was;

      'Dad, the Invisible Man is at the door!'
      'Tell him I cant see him'……

  106. Well this guarantees another civil war and more immigrants, it seems to me.

    Former al Qaeda chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani led overthrow of Syria's Assad

    BEIRUT (Reuters) -As the commander of al Qaeda's franchise in the Syrian civil war, Abu Mohammed al-Golani was a shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

    Today, he is the most recognisable of Syria's triumphant insurgents, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group and emerging as the de facto ruler of rebel-held northwestern Syria.

    The transformation has been showcased since rebels led by Golani's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as the Nusra Front, swept through the nation and declared they had ousted Assad on Sunday after seizing the capital Damascus.

    Golani has featured prominently in the takeover, sending messages aimed at reassuring Syrian minorities who have long feared the jihadists.

    "The future is ours," he said in a statement read on Syria's state TV, urging his fighters not to harm those who drop arms.

    When rebels entered Aleppo, pre-war Syria's largest city, at the start of their sweep to Damascus, a video showed Golani in military fatigues issuing orders by phone, reminding fighters to protect the people and forbidding them from entering homes.

    He visited Aleppo's citadel accompanied by a fighter waving a Syrian revolution flag: once shunned by Nusra as a symbol of apostasy but recently embraced by Golani in a nod to Syria's more mainstream opposition.

    "Golani has been smarter than Assad. He’s retooled, he's refashioned, made new allies, and come out with his charm offensive" towards minorities, said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

    PR EFFORT?

    Aron Lund, a fellow at think-tank Century International, said Golani and HTS had clearly changed though still remaining "pretty hardline".

    "It's PR, but the fact they are engaging in this effort at all shows they are no longer as rigid as they once were. Old-school al Qaeda or the Islamic State would never have done that," he said.

    Golani and the Nusra Front emerged as the most powerful of the multitude of rebel factions that sprang up in the early days of the insurgency against Assad over a decade ago.

    Before founding the Nusra Front, Golani had fought for al Qaeda in Iraq, where he spent five years in a U.S. prison. He returned to Syria once the uprising began, sent by the leader of the Islamic State group in Iraq at the time – Abu Omar al-Baghdadi – to build up al Qaeda's presence.

    The U.S. designated Golani a terrorist in 2013, saying that al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad's rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria, and that Nusra had carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.

    Turkey, the Syrian opposition's main foreign backer, has designated HTS a terrorist group, while supporting some of the other factions that fight in the northwest.

    Golani gave his first media interview in 2013, his face wrapped in a dark scarf and showing only his back to the camera. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he called for Syria to be run according to sharia law.

    Some eight years later, he sat down for an interview with the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service's FRONTLINE programme, facing the camera and wearing a shirt and jacket.

    Golani said the terrorist designation was unfair and that he opposed the killing of innocent people.

    He detailed how the Nusra Front had expanded from the six men who accompanied him from Iraq to 5,000 within a year.

    But he said that his group had never presented a threat to the West. "I repeat – our involvement with al Qaeda has ended, and even when we were with al Qaeda we were against carrying out operations outside of Syria, and it's completely against our policy to carry out external action."

    MESSAGES TO MINORITIES

    Golani fought a bloody war against his old ally Baghdadi after Islamic State sought to unilaterally subsume the Nusra Front in 2013. Despite its al Qaeda ties, Nusra was regarded as more tolerant and less heavy handed in dealings with civilians and other rebel groups compared to Islamic State.

    Islamic State was subsequently beaten out of territory it held in both Syria and Iraq by an array of adversaries including a U.S.-led military alliance.

    As Islamic State was collapsing, Golani was cementing the grip of HTS in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, establishing a civil administration called the Salvation Government.

    Assad's government viewed HTS as terrorists, along with the rest of the rebels.

    With the Sunni Muslim rebels now in control, the HTS administration has issued statements seeking to assure the Shi'ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities. One statement urged the Alawites to be a part of a future Syria that "does not recognise sectarianism".

    In a message to residents of a Christian town south of Aleppo, Golani said they would be protected and their property safeguarded, urging them to remain in their homes and to reject the Syrian government's "psychological warfare".

    "He's really important. The main rebel leader in Syria, the most powerful Islamist," said Lund.

    He said HTS had displayed "logistical and governance capacity" by ruling its own territory in Idlib for years.

    "They have adopted the symbols of the wider Syrian uprising… which they now use and try to claim the revolutionary legacy – that 'we are part of the movement of 2011, the people who rose up against Assad, and we are also Islamists'.”

    (Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)

    1. "Former al Qaeda chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani led overthrow of Syria's Assad" – and who has welcomed Assad's fall in UK – none other than the quarter witted Two Tier Kier! What does he think will happen to Syria now?

      1. "Former al Qaeda chief. To make an observation. The leopard does not change his spots.

        1. Sickening. More CIA wheeling and dealing with blood-stained hands, and ordinary people suffer, as usual.

      2. Why on earth would he open his mouth about this? If Putin pulls Russian troops out of Styria, they could be deployed to Ukraine – surely Starmer doesn't want that.

        He shouldn't need the Muslim vote for four years, he shouldn't give a toss about Syria. Time to go see what our idiots are doing about this, they normally pick the wrong side.

  107. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ca5fe66993c7b9bf98a22f6814ec1fe37d9750a7fb1a6ba5816f6037aef6b1b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/efdfda5deb47a153126f083df916ba1f871b819c2b01f4f110b2e5406167b7a5.png As I have explained in the past, Christmas, in Sweden requires a ham. These come in four types, all of them boned and plastic-wrapped: 1. Raw and unsmoked. 2. Boiled and unsmoked. 3. Raw and smoked. 4. Boiled and smoked. My preference is for (2). Curiously there are no large cured hams on the bone to be had anywhere here.

    There are unpteen various brands of ham for sale of differing sizes, the choice can be somewhat bewildering. Last year, however, I discovered the tastiest ham that I have enjoyed since leaving England. It is produced on organic farms on the large Baltic island of Gotland. I enjoyed it so much that I actively sought it out again this year and was pleasantly surprised. My ham weighed 3·554kg [7lb–13·36oz], which was priced at SEK109/kg [£7·84/kg] and therefore cost me, in total, SEK387·39 [£27·87], which I thought was reasonable for such a high-quality ham.

    I did not want to waste all the delicious ham jelly inside the packaging so I soaked some dried peas and then boiled them in this jelly to produce a yummy pea soup. I then transformed this basic pea soup into a pea-and-ham soup by the addition of numerous tiny chopped chunks of ham, together with some sautéed onion and garlic in butter, finishing off with a teaspoonful of oregano and a good dash of black pepper (no salt required). This has made enough soup for at least eight large portions, one of which I've just enjoyed for my main meal.

    I sliced four very thick (22mm) slices from the middle of the ham to be frozen and used later as gammon steaks. The rest of the ham I sliced up on my meat-slicing machine and got a yield of 34 decent thickish (3mm) slices for Christmas and later use during winter and spring. I have frozen them in packs of four slices each.

    2. Looks good! I think I would have gone for the smoked. Soup looks good and tasty. So your frozen slices are all ready-cooked.

      1. It was bought ready-boiled, preference (2).
        There is around a 50/50 split on preferences for smoked or unsmoked. I'm a fan of unsmoked.

  108. We had a discussion over coffee afterwards about the sermon (about ten of us) and we came to the conclusion that when it comes to making decisions and knowing the right thing to do, all we can do is pray and trust in God.

    2. I only have a couple more to write. Then I have to tackle wrapping the presents and decorating the house and outside trees (putting that off until the wind has died down!).

    3. Canada Post have been on strike for four weeks and not many people have missed them. What an ideal excuse for not doing cards this year.

      Well there are supposedly 150,000 passports that the government cleverly mailed the day before the strike, I guess that the intended recipients miss the Mail.

    4. Same here! And made Christmas cakes today – two of them. One steamed and the other in the Dutch oven, both on top of the stove.

    7. I've printed the cards and brought them downstairs.
      It's a start.
      Like the diet, the job starts on Monday.

      1. I am posting three cards this year. No need to post to Nottlers. I know how much you love me and how a little less i think of you.. sorry…must switch the Dame Edna AI off.

  110. The cancellation of Romanian democracy. Spiked. 6 December 2024.

    We saw this happen in the US and the UK after 2016, when political and cultural elites tirelessly and tediously claimed that both Trump’s victory and Brexit were the products of Russian interference. And now we’re seeing it again in Romania. But this time, the establishment has succeeded in overturning a democratic result it didn’t like. As Lasconi, Georgescu’s rival in the now-cancelled presidential run-off, has said of the annulment: ‘Today is the moment when the Romanian state trampled over democracy.’

    This is a dark day – not just for Romania, but also for the West, where elites are struggling to even pretend they give a damn about democracy.

    Not something you would see in the MSM one imagines. It is pretty obvious that the Western Political Elites have turned against their own people. Apart from Trump that is. We have all our eggs in one basket here. We need him not just to save the United States but the entire West from their Marxist programs. Fortunately Musk seems to realise the dire state of the UK and since he has Trump’s ear we can at least allow ourselves to hope.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/06/the-cancellation-of-romanian-democracy/

    1. I fear Trump is destined to disappoint you. He's an actor, and he's definitely under their control.
      I'd be very happy to be proved wrong about that.

        1. Conway, I think you have a little dog, Ollie? (although as with Japanese book, could be mistaken yet again)…anyhow if you do have a dog, do you also have experience with different dog foods…my dog been on same food for years but suddenly seems to really upset him (diarrhea)…wits end, any ideas/advice?

          1. Yes, I have a dog (only one now, Oscar had to be put to sleep in February). Oscar suffered from pancreatitis so the vet prescribed rice and chicken. The rice went straight through him! If nothing has changed and there's a sudden problem with loose stools, you might want to get it checked out in case it's a symptom of something underlying.

          2. Thanks, Conway – confess I hadn’t thought of that, have already sent vet a message and I reckon she’ll respond with that tomorrow. Did you cook the rice and chicken, or was it a purchased dog food? (they seem to contain a long list of strange items)

          3. No, I cooked it. White fish as well. The meat/fish was okay, but the rice was definitely a mistake!

          4. Thx..reading online reviews, seems a number of dogs have similar problems, a number of ‘grain-free’ types but others ‘chicken and rice’ which have similar problems. Starting to think he needs purely protein, meat and fish diet. Price of dog food is high, as are vet bills, doubt I’ll have any more dogs :-(( I’ve had quite a few rescue dogs in the past, rescue centres were happy if you left a donation but now there’s a charge to take one. I was told many years ago by the vet I then saw that many rescue dogs and cats were euthanised. During lockdown, some (usually women, sad to say) were breeding dogs and selling pups at whatever price they could get, usually from their homes. Man’s (and woman’s) best friend, but not always the best friend to dogs, sadly.

          5. I got a pack of white fish and cooked bits at a time (it was frozen fish). I am probably the world's worst cook, but Oscar managed to eat it. I have fed mine on "working dog" meat and kibble. It has the advantage of being VAT free. Charlie lived to be 17.5 on that diet and his pal was either 15.5 or 17.5 depending on how old he actually was when he was "free to a good home". They were, however, mongrels. Oscar, although a rescue, was a pure bred fox terrier.

          6. He loves fish so I’m definitely going to try him on that. Suspicious mind today – I went to bed early a few nights ago, and husband let him out…told me dog disappeared for around 20 minutes, not like dog to do that so possibly he found something to eat. Seems bit better today, will see how he goes and what vet has to say. Thanks again Conway for your help, advice, and kindness x

          7. I hope it’s only that. You can give him fish as a treat even if things settle down, which I hope they will. No problem. I’ve just had to calm a friend down; she very kindly took me shopping and when she got home, she couldn’t find her bag with a purse, etc. I had to walk her through what she did and reassure her that it couldn’t have dropped out anywhere because there was no chance. She rang me back shortly afterwards in less of a panic to say it had got caught up with something she’d taken into the house and she’d found it. Phew!

          8. First off..dog…been giving him a teaspoon full fat plain yogurt on the hour, now greatly improved so fingers crossed, ‘probiotic out of home fridge’…vet offered me probiotic tabs likely £xx plus taking dog for examination which he hates….secondly, your friend – been there and done that – when I go shopping now I have a shopping bag and also now a small over the shoulder bag which contains my personal stuff/cards/purse etc..my husband lost his wallet a couple of years ago, cancel cards/new replacements…all takes time. As you say..phew!

  112. I haven't bothered with decorations (ie Christmas tree) for the last couple of years………I think 2020 killed off the last vestiges of enthusiasm.

    1. I love Christmas. I'm just a big kid, really. Now I'm single again (I was married to someone who made Scrooge look positively festive about Christmas) I'm making the most of it!

      1. I also missed Christmasses while I was married – any attempt at celebrating was met with scathing put-downs. I enjoy it now!

    2. I find Christmas a waste of a good holiday, over hyped and diverted from its real meaning. I have always said I would go on holiday for the period but its all over priced…. did I mention Scrooge..

  113. I haven't bothered with decorations (ie Christmas tree) for the last couple of years………I think 2020 killed off the last vestiges of enthusiasm.

    1. Interesting, thanks. The website is funded by the Heinrich Boell foundation. I still haven’t read “Ansichten eines Clowns” despite the fact it was on my university reading list and owning the damn book for the past 35 years. Maybe next year?

      Random project extract. [side note: there’s gold in them there carbon tax credits]:

      “The company plans to grow seaweed in the open-ocean, collect it, press it and sink it into the deep ocean in order to sell carbon credits. In the Caribbean, Seafields aims to establish three commercial farms by 2025 and up to 100 farms in the region by 2030, once sales channels (carbon credits, biostimulants) have been established. Target: 6,000 km² of farm area in the region.”

  115. Just received a 180 day ban from Facebook for falling foul of their community standards. Such as they are.

    I have never posted anything on there that could be considered such. In fact i only post to chat to friends and none of us have been saying kill the jews or lets burn a mosque. I think Bezos and facebook access my other social media. That amounts to Nottle. I'm not on any other platform.

    1. Whatever did you say? I haven't seen much of you on there. I avoid politics on Fb – as far as I'm concerned, it's just for friends and photos.

    2. I got banned from Instagram, mostly follow art stuff, for mentioning might not be healthy to wear masks. Now, I can look, but I can't make, receive or comment on other posts. I think Ig is a Meta product, and so is F/b?

      1. I got banned from Instagram because they asked for a phone number and I didn't reply quickly enough.
        Still miss the art.

        1. I just remembered B..mine started after similar requests for email address and phone number…I asked why, got no answer..then I was cobbed off and I thought mask thing. A number of young Asian females seem to like wearing masks. I was asked to re-register so I did, have you tried that? I wonder if Ig was spammed. Do you have a favourite form of art, btw? no probs if you’d rather not say 😊

          1. I upvoted a few things like just_an_artist_questioning, but I stayed off politics on insta. Maybe that was enough to get my card marked, I don’t know.
            I followed mainly figurative artists – people posting historical paintings, people posting twentieth century figurative art – there is such a lot of really good stuff out there that is half forgotten. Contemporary Japanese and Russian painters too. Contemporary British figurative art. Florence life painting school. Jonathan Myles Lea – he had such a good instagram site, nobody else fills his place.

          2. I just took a look at mine..apparently following 322…ranging from Liam Halligan to Japanese Art to Israeli Bat Sanctuary to various politicians and old BBC comedies (Young Ones etc) Chris (CJ) Horrocks quite good on various artists. Think mine might have got a bit out of control……..

        2. I was banned from Twitter for five months in 2020 because I couldn't send or receive a text on my dead phone which I hadn't got round to replacing. Even after I replaced it they still wouldn't reinstate my account.

      2. I have an Instagram account but hardly ever use it. They are all Meta, except X. That is the only free speech platform now.

      3. Yes. Elon doesn’t ban people but Bozos does. If you wish to continue use a VPN and a new email address.

        1. It eventually worked, Phiz…likely another time and I will take your advice then. What a drag to change details….🤢

    3. Interesting. I am mostly here, occasionally on Spiked and Guido.

      I don’t care.

      I have asked Father Christmas for membership of the FSU for my present. How did it come to this???

      2. Titans fighting. Billionaires wanting to own everything. Gates wants to control our health and medications and Elon wants to take us to the stars.

      3. FSU is like house insurance; totally necessary.
        Under the Sturmer terror, you need quick access to a lawyer.

        1. I know what the acronym/abbreviation stands for, but what does it offer and why should one join?

    4. I am shocked by that , poor you. I have never ever ever seen anything / or posts you have written and I follow you as well as Tom and Julien .

      There must be a huge mistake , a pinched identity perhaps .. please check , Phil.

      1. You do know how difficult it is to cancel Facebook don’t you? I’m glad. When they send me a reminder that it is open again i will give them the same response i did this time…’Up Yours Bezos’.

      1. I didn't 'say' anything. I think i got banned for not watching what 'they' wanted me to watch.

  116. I'm not sure the rectorette has really got the hang of Christianity; she'd only had a "Road to Damascus" moment ten years ago and then was fast-tracked into the priesthood during covid. Presumably because the likes of Welby was desperate for numbers.

  117. Who will you be sharing it with? Christmas is about families………. well I have just J and the two sons, who will put in an appearance. I'm more on the Scrooge side of the meter, I think.

    1. Kadi of course. I expect I shall be seeing friends as well over the Festive Period. I'm serving in church on Christmas Eve. Then Boxing Day I'll go to the meet and see lots of people I know.

    2. Ditto..😄…I hate shopping generally, only give to close family – and they prefer payment into their bank a/cs. I have to go to annual panto soon…will that pleasure ever end…🤯

    3. So am I J,

      I have a huge empty void in my life .. Moh doesn't bother with Christmas thoughts apart from Golf lunches , Jerry is busy with keeping fit and his running progress takes precedence , and Mike and his pal are tucked away on the Isle of Wight .

      My cousins are in North Yorkshire , not close relationships , and my siblings have a glorious life in South Africa .. we are the just about getting by here , and getting older .

      Veterans lunch on Tuesday .. I organise that , bought stuff for raffle and have cards to write , and hope and pray the numbers turn up.

      So many branches have closed down countrywide, people get older ..and one of the sad things is , the conversations revolve around a different time in history .. my leadership has been over 22 years .. or rather just tying people intogether .. I was in my early fifties when I tried to get bods together .. (Because I was a little girl out in the Suez crisis when hell broke out, and Mum and I were evacuated by flying boat with other expats and my father and many British expats , engineers , surveyors , marine experts , padres, doctors etc were taken prisoner and interned in Cairo for three months , and released after Christmas .. I have many photos that were given to my father of sunken ships in Suez , and the final evacuation .

      So because I had photos , and a slight memory as a 9year old of the trauma , I was asked to help Suez veterans , and so I did .

      Strange how life goes on because when I was an RN student nurse in my second year , based in Malta 1967.. a terrorist attack in Aden in June 1967, caused grief , deaths and great injury to many of our service men , trapped in army vehicles . bad burns , fractures , shocking mess , and they were flown to Malta , Royal Naval Hospital Bighi .. and we just cried and and tended to them until a few days later they were flown onto Germany , to Army military hospitals .

      Last Christmas , our much loved Standard bearer for the branch died .. I knew nothing about all the old now non existent regiments when I was enticed into helping bringing ex service people together ..

      I was so amazed with the variety of branches , positions that were involved , even those who were Para's , Royal Marines , RAF, a few RN.. even soldiers who drove steam trains who kept supply lines going in the Middle East .. those who had served in Jordan etc , and a few who had served in Korea , Malaya and Cyprus ..

      Now a few Aden veterans have joined us, .. they are also getting older .. so it goes on.

      If any of you meet me , I am just a fairly easy going fluffy thing , I might sound noisy re my political rants , but I am not , I just cannot bear what politicians have done to our solid strong hold that was safe and sound .. where we bumped into people we knew , and were familiar with our habits and manners …

      Sorry to rabbit on .. but I think we have been betrayed badly, darlings .

      2. My wife’s family would invite themselves to ours every Christmas and expect to be waited upon. I suppose they were attracted to the cottage itself with its wide inglenooks, one occupied by the Aga and the other by the wood burner.

        Her sister, a spoilt brat and her equally spoilt husband would come along and bring his greedy parents to boot. I felt a stranger in my own house at times.

        Now that my in-laws have passed we thankfully retain little contact with any of them.

        As far as my family goes my father died in 1978. I only once fetched my late elderly mother from Bath to spend a few days over Christmas with us. I had to collect her and return her by car which of itself was a bit wearing.

        My eldest brother lives in a Guiness funded retirement home in Bath and I dissuade him from attempting to drive here simply because he is unsafe on the motorways. My younger brother is estranged and I have no contact with him.

        Both of my elder sisters have passed.

        The long and short of it is that I relish a quiet Christmas with my wife without the hassle.

      3. You’re right………and it’s good work you do to bring those old veterans together.

        We’re lucky to live in a quiet enclave with good neighbours around us.

        I don’t have many relatives left, apart from the two sons. All my first cousins died – aged 61,60, and 57. I’ve written and posted the cards to their other halves today. I heard last week from my second cousin in Devon – her mother (my father’s cousin) is now in a care home – having collapsed on the kitchen floor just over a year ago. She will be 99 in February. I found those two via my family history research. My third cousin in New Zealand was the catalyst for finding them.

        My life as an army wife was brief – but I divorced him in 1992 after two years separated. Married too young and he was not a good choice – but the boys will go and see him while they’re here. He’s now 80, and J will be 82 on Wednesday.

        I’m well but J has been struggling to shake off a coughing bug which has left him washed up. Hopefully he’ll manage some of the dinner I’ve got cooking. Chicken etc.

        1. Funny how things work out , isn’t it J.

          I hope J’s cough fades soon, I have had mine for months and months , it gives the others a headache with me hacking away , and me an even bigger one in the left hand side of my head when I cough.

          You are so lucky re neighbours , we have nice neighbours , but everyone has family and their own interests.

          To tell you the truth about us here .. we don’t drink , haven’t done for decades . The B/P pills we are on seem to make any alcohol an unattractive prospect .. so we must seem very boring to many !

          I used to enjoy a nice glass of wine , sadly no longer.

          1. His cough is not so bad now, after over two weeks, the last day or two it’s much reduced, but he’s washed up and exhausted. Off his food and eating very little, though he did eat some chicken this evening. And a prawn starter.

            Neither of us is on b/p pills, though he has other things…….beta blockers and blood thinners. . I’m not on any medication. He did have a glass of wine this evening with dinner, and I enjoy a glass or two.

            Have the docs said anything about your cough? I think you were having chest xrays and so on a while ago?

          2. Apparently x ray is clear , no further action , but I have been coughing sneezing , eyes running , and totally exhausted , and not much of an appetite either .

            Do you know what, I reckon , in the very beginning of Covid , some of us were pumped full of Pfizer , Astra/Zeneca and all the stuff.. as well as flue jabs /shingles jabs / and everything else… no covid boosters for us since 2022.

            What sort of a virus lingers this long , nearly a year . Our local chemist says there are lots of viruses doing the rounds .

            When we go overseas , we have to be up to date with jabs, as I expect you were when you went to Brazil and Africa.

            So what viruses are these boat people and legal migrants bringing in to the UK .. we are becoming like a hugely infected Petri dish , aren’t we?

      4. Utterly fascinating, Belle! Not rabbiting at all! Had you thought of writing it all down, and publishing a book? That kind of life experience has gone now; my Father had some interesting times in Nigeria during civil wars, but unfortunately that's all lost now, as he died 27 years ago… when the Brits got on and made countries in Africa and the Middle East, out of piles of thornbush, sand and camel shit.
        Don't let your experiences vanish, Belle. It's valuable to the world.

  118. My local bank has been robbed. I withdrew some cash last night and now I have read in the paper that the cash machine was blown up and the contents stolen. There was also a fire but it was brought under control by the pompiers. I also found out that there had been an attempt on another nearby cash machine four days ago. This is only a very small town but there has been a steady influx of Middle East and Africans in the past ten years and a recent increase in the number of barbers. I can't imagine who would do such a thing in a peaceful, remote place like this. It's a mystery.

    1. I was in an American sports bar some while ago when there was a fracas and all the diners flew to the floor. My Brit colleague and I sat looking askance and asked a local what was going on. There has been a hold up and a shooting in the pub. We also joined the masses on the floor in a jiffy not having recognised gunfire in a restaurant. We were all ushered to leave the premises heads down whist the robbers were dealt with ( both were shot but one ran for it). My only regret…. I had just paid the bill.. shucks.

    1. Took me ages to get this in par.

      Wordle 1,268 4/6

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

    2. This looks better than it is. I was completely non-plussed and checked out every clue site before the penny dropped.

      Wordle 1,268 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. If it makes you feel better
        Wordle 1,268 5/6

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

    3. Eagle here. My starter word gave me no sensible choices but this one. I posted earlier that the word was prompted by Windows 95 every time I typed my surname.

      Wordle 1,268 2/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

          4. Dont you worry, my old friend – you just keep leading the line, it’s much appreciated!

    4. Nice one Rene! – #MeToo

      Wordle 1,268 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  120. A group i am on does airfryer recipes. Other than that i use messenger to friends and some family. Never anything contentious. I sometimes comment on your and Belles posts and you know those don't contravene standards.

    The media recently was accusing China of cyberattacks. China said they should stop doing it themselves.

    I think we are under attack from our own side because we don't accept the official narrative.

    1. A good friend of mine (now sadly late) was often banned for short periods because she would argue with ignorant people on the Royal Family pages (she was a great Royalist) but never anything as long as 180 days. You should appeal or ask what you have done to deserve this.

      1. I say things on here. I say nothing on Facebook. They suggested if i wanted to appeal to provide a selfie.
        NO bloody way. I'm appearing on the cover of GQ, Vogue and Attitude next month !!!

          1. Yes it is. That's why i give those mags to my staff. Not only to show them how magnificent i am but also it saves me money on recycling.

          3. Little bundles of joy and little bundles of sparkly poo. If i am going to reach down it must look fabulous hanging from the tree i just flung it in to. Christmas is coming !

            Note to self…stop feeding them edible glitter. Looks really naff in January.

        2. I can’t think why you’ve been banned. Why would you need a selfie to appeal ? Doesn’t make any sense at all.

          1. Me saying i was on the cover of those mags is a phizz joke of course.

            I don't post much on Facebook and don't post pics of me. I assume they need more data.

        1. Don't leave egg shells at the top of the recycle bin.

          You will get
          🎵
          Five Police Cars,
          Four Ambulances,
          Three Hazmat Suits,
          Two Social Workers
          and a Lengthy Prison Sentence 🎵

  122. Cereal it is then, Tom. I have air fryer, will cook veg eg brocolli, carrot, onion, potato. Do I get the impression you’re trying to swerve …:-DDD

  125. We had a spate several years ago, where cash machines were being pulled from outside walls of petrol stations, other shops etc, never to be replaced. Apparently some kind of digging machine used, similar to the ones used on building sites.

    1. We had the same in North Essex Suffolk border.

      I recall a cash machine being yanked from the wall of a listed building in Earls Colne which almost brought the building down. At about the same time the same occurred to a beautiful brick facade in Halstead wrecking the front of the building.

      The Co-operative in Clare was similarly attacked.

      These occurrences were probably performed by the travelling folk, yet another protected species, because the diggers used had been stolen and left behind after the theft.

        1. Yes I do recall similar. Nowadays the diggers and tractors are difficult to steal because they can be disabled with the key fob.

          The premises are now also protected by steel bollards.

    2. We had the same in North Essex Suffolk border.

      I recall a cash machine being yanked from the wall of a listed building in Earls Colne which almost brought the building down. At about the same time the same occurred to a beautiful brick facade in Halstead wrecking the front of the building.

      The Co-operative in Clare was similarly attacked.

      These occurrences were probably performed by the travelling folk, yet another protected species, because the diggers used had been stolen and left behind after the theft.

    3. I seem to remember that the East Anglian Coop was particularly badly hit.
      I'm not sure if their machines were badly installed and were easier to extract.

      1. Was just watching Isabel Oakeshott talking to Mike Graham, about recent incident in Iceland – filling bags and walking out, also tube ticket incident some guy followed her had no ticket – staff not a bit bothered when she told them. We need a private army who deliver, and get paid on results.

  126. 398310+up ticks,

    Just making an honest observation, in my belief it would have to be a very strong wind indeed to obstruct a nuclear power station output, those wind money making mills, & solar mirrors, are expensive sissies.

    Storm Darragh: At least 200,000 still without power
    Met Office warns travel disruption and electricity cuts likely to continue across England and Wales

  127. Right, that's me done for today. A gale and rain all day. Slightly less gale forecast for tomorrow. The great joy was being able to see – live – the inaugural Mass in the gleaming Notre Dame. Quite literally unique event. Seeing the relics (I know, I know) being placed in the freshly consecrated altar and then the lid going over was astonishing. With luck and a fair wind, they'll be there for the next 800 years. What a thought.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  128. https://twitter.com/_RealSuperhuman/status/1865722834011484499 Ed McGuinness
    @EJ_McGuinness
    ·
    6h
    REMINDER: the Foreign Secretary,
    @DavidLammy
    , voted against military action against Assad, and his use of chemical weapons, in 2013…

    The Man with the Plan
    @rg4cgyqknh
    ·
    6h
    Just when you think the world cannot get anymore fucked up, the numskull for Ashton-under-Lyne welcomes the military victory of islamic militants who may gain access to stockpiles of Sarin. 🙄

    We are governed by psychopaths.

    Lee Mcaulay
    @LeeMcaulay4
    ·
    6h
    Remember, it was a labour government that bought down Sadam. The middle east has never been the same since. And also remember the only qualification this woman has is a night course in sign language and a total of zero GCSE's so world politics is never gonna be a strong point.

    Tony Angel
    @TonyAngelUK
    ·
    6h
    It went well in Libya and Iraq did it not when we took down Dictators who kept the Islamists in check?
    Quote
    Tony Angel
    @TonyAngelUK
    ·
    18h
    Replying to @Paul1Singh and @MA_Brickwork
    Sometimes it is Better the Devil you know. Removing Hussein was the most stupidest idea at the time followed by dissolving the military and police. Hussein kept the Islamists in check.

  129. Everybody loves a story..
    Are you sitting comfortably?

    This is where you are now. Now just imagine 2029.

  131. Very chuffed! I have just made two Christmas cakes without using the electric oven.
    One was steamed on the top of the woodstove. I put the mixture in a watertight cake tin and tied greaseproof paper of the top – then steamed for three hours.
    The other was in the Dutch oven – cooked for six hours on top of the woodstove.
    The steamed one was slightly damp – I let it cool and dry off, and have soaked it in brandy before wrapping it up – hopefully it won't go mouldy over the next two weeks. It's an experiment.
    Very few of the ingredients came from the supermarket – the flour I bought direct from the mill. Eggs from the egg farm, and they also sell spices from an independent importer, and citrus fruit direct from the Spanish producer. Dried fruit from an independent organic grocer. Candied peel I made myself.
    Lovely Christmas cake smell in the house now!

    2. Fab. You do need to let them cool properly though. My advice is to just keep adding more Brandy until the day you serve it. :@)

      1. I hope I let it cool enough. It’s made with a gugelhopf tin so that it would cook more quickly, so there is no centre to hold the heat.
        As a guglhopf Christmas cake would be untraditional and therefore wrong, I’m thinking of filling the centre with layers of marzipan and goodies like chopped dates, walnuts, ganache etc. all packed down as a little surprise in every slice.

        1. They've connected you to Phizzee.

          Still, it could be worse

          You might actually be connected to Phizzee

  134. Thought for the day.
    Gather up all those Syrians people celebrating the fall of Assad and send them back to Syria.

    Hell's teeth, we're about to be inundated with fleeing Syrians, so it seems a fair exchange.

  136. Edit for block quote

    ANDREW NEIL: This is a disaster for Iran and the ayatollahs have never been more vulnerable. The smell of regime change is now in the Tehran air…
    The biggest losers, by far, from the collapse of the Syrian dictatorship yesterday — other than the brutal Assad family and its thuggish acolytes — are the ruling mullahs of Iran.
    Their dreams of Middle East hegemony are now in ruins, their genocidal aim of wiping Israel off the map now mission impossible, their ability to supply their murderous proxies across the region with weapons and boots on the ground now crippled.
    There are, of course, other losers.
    Brutal Russian military might, along with Iranian proxy forces, saved Bashar al-Assad's skin when civil war engulfed the country after the 2011 Arab Spring. Now, in a humiliating loss of face, President Putin has – in effect – had to admit that Russia has suffered so many losses of men and materiel in Ukraine that it is incapable of sustaining combat on two fronts.
    Indeed, far from rushing to Assad's aid again, Moscow has been withdrawing much of its military personnel and equipment from Syria to bolster its Ukraine-based forces, in the process hanging al-Assad out to dry.
    Russia will still try to keep to its Syrian naval and air bases, which allow it to project power in the eastern Mediterranean. But the Kremlin has lost an important client state which enhanced its influence in the region.
    The Chinese are losers too. Syria joined its Belt and Road initiative, designed to spread Chinese power and influence across the globe, in 2022. Beijing is in a joint venture with Syria's national oil company. All this must now be in jeopardy.
    But, in truth, China's Belt and Road play is running out of steam and Syria is marginal to China's wider interest. Unlike the regime in Iran, for whom Syria was central.
    The evil al-Assad has fled Damascus – destination unknown as I write – leaving the ayatollahs to wonder if their days are now numbered too.
    Iran's decades-old strategic ambitions have gone up in smoke. There is said to be a growing sense of panic in Tehran among the ruling elite. No wonder. If Assad can be so easily toppled, what chance their survival?
    When Hamas terrorists surged across the Gaza-Israel border on October 7 last year to carry out a barbarous killing spree of innocent civilians, few saw it as the precursor to a fundamental redrawing of the balance of power in the Middle East.
    Rather, it was yet another terrorist atrocity in a region already infamous for them, even if this one was especially brutal in slaughter and scale.
    In reality, it has upended the geopolitics of the Middle East, whose modern history can now be divided into two parts: before October 7 — and after October 7.
    Just look at the seismic developments since that fateful day. Hamas, armed and financed by Iran, is all but destroyed as a fighting force, its Gaza base in ruins.
    Hezbollah, the most powerful of all Iran's proxy forces, came to the aid of Hamas with rocket attacks on Israel from its southern Lebanon bases. Israel retaliated by crippling Hezbollah too.
    In little more than a year, Israel decapitated the high commands of Hamas and Hezbollah, killing thousands of their most battle-hardened fighters.
    Iran built them up, at huge expense, to be omnipresent threats to Israel on its very borders, the advanced guard of its mission to engulf Israel with enemies and destroy it. These threats are no more.
    When Iran's puppet regime in Damascus started to totter in the face of a renewed rebel onslaught last month, Hezbollah (like Russia) was in no shape to come to Assad's aid, as it had in the past. Tehran reluctantly realised that the regime was beyond saving.
    Instead of deploying its own forces to prop up its client dictator, Iran's diplomats and military personnel scuttled for the exit. Assad's days were numbered. But Iran didn't just abandon Syria. It has effectively abandoned Hamas and Hezbollah too, for without Syria it is much more difficult to rebuild and rearm them, as I will explain.
    Years ago, I remember the then young King of Jordan (he'd just succeeded his father) explaining to me how the aim of Tehran's ayatollahs was to become the dominant power in the Middle East by creating a huge arc of military power and influence stretching from Iran through Iraq into Syria and down into southern Lebanon.
    Iran was a Persian, Shi'ite Muslim force in a largely Arab, Sunni Muslim world. But it would rally the region by being the most virulently anti-Israel voice, thereby staking its claim for the leadership of Political Islam, with powerful proxy forces to lean on the unconvinced.
    Progress was impressive. It helped the Shi'ites take control of post-Saddam Iraq, it came to the aid of Assad (whose minority Alawite clan is a Shi'ite sect) when his regime was threatened with civil war and it built up Shi'ite Hezbollah to become the most powerful force in Lebanon. Yet what took decades to build has been undone in a year.
    The loss of Syria is the most serious blow yet. It was through Syria that its supply chain of weapons reached Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian terrorists on the West Bank and, through Syrian shipping ports and airports, its proxies in Yemen and beyond.
    Revolutionary Guard bases were established on Syrian soil further to intimidate Israel. These bases and supply chains are now shattered as Iran's network of proxies and clients across the Middle East crumbles.
    Israel stands vindicated in its uncompromising stance post-October 7. Palestinians who thought Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran were the routes to a better future have, yet again, made the wrong call.
    It is worth noting, before fashionable opinion sweeps it under the rug, that Iran is now reeling because Israel ignored the foreign policy pressure of its Western allies and their liberal media echo chambers to hold back.
    Washington, London and Paris all urged Israel to show restraint against Hamas and not to open a second front against Hezbollah. The New York Times, the BBC and Le Monde piled on the pressure for Israel to back off by constantly highlighting the humanitarian cost of the conflict, usually with suspect Hamas statistics.
    But Israel took only cursory notice, pursued its own interests and did us all a favour.
    Israel today can feel that bit safer. America is happy that the Assad regime is no more and Iran has been put in its box. But, like its European allies and Israel, it worries about what now fills the vacuum in Syria.
    Donald Trump is anxious to avoid foreign entanglements and, in truth, there is no appetite on either side of the aisle in Washington to get involved in Syria.
    But there are still 900 US troops in the south of the country, Assad leaves behind a stockpile of chemical weapons and a new Islamic State cannot be allowed to take root. So the Trump administration cannot entirely wash its hands of post-Assad Syria.
    But the bigger headaches are in Tehran. Its foreign policy is in ruins, its reputation in the mud and its options limited. It could eschew the sabre-rattling and try to become more accommodating. That would be wise given the collapse of its allies and the formidable alliance — Israel, America, the Sunni Arab Gulf States — now arraigned against it.
    But for the hardliners, the best way to regain the initiative and restore national pride is to up the pace of Iran's nuclear programme. Last week, US intelligence reported that Iran had now accumulated enough material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons.
    The people of Iran, of course, might have their say first. They have never shared the regime's anti-Semitism, its obsession with Israel, its imperialist expansion, or its passion for mediaeval theocracy.
    They have watched billions squandered (as everyone can now see) on the likes of Hezbollah, while their lives are blighted by soaring inflation, high unemployment, failing public services and overall repression.
    I do not claim the ayatollahs are yet tottering. But they have never been more vulnerable. The smell of regime change is in the Tehran air.

    Sorry Mr Neil, but the reality is that it's all about Islam, and I will bet my pound to your brass farthing that the new Islamic rulers of Syria will continue to strive to wipe Israel (and for that matter all Western civilisation) off the map; AND that they will accept support from Iran with open arms.

    WAKE UP MAN!

    1. My thought, too. I wonder what he's been drinking to think islam won't become the top dog and it will be business as usual (Christians killed and Israel attacked).

    2. I don't suppose you could put all that in bullet point?

      Angela Rayner and Jess Philips will be okay because the sluts are already prepared to spread her legs for gain.

      When the one thousanth cock has fucked their corpses they won't be thinking anything.

      Even Jess at her election wasn't prepared to call them out just like the attackers on police at the airport.

      The only reason her office hasn't been firebombed is because she believes. She doesn't actually think.

          1. Got yourself a new partner?

            Well done, enjoy Christmas.

            Obscurity is an unusual name for a goat.

          2. You are aware of course that the more enfeebled you become how easier it will be for me to bash you with my crutches and run you over in my E-Scooter.

          3. I'm confident that the pygmy goats at the top of the road will distract you long enough for me to make my escape.

        1. I wouldn't suggest such a thing though the CEO health Insurance gained a lot of support…gunned down.
          People are stupid if they think the new emporer will make everything better.

          2. This from Wiki – "In 1991, the Pugwash cartoonist John Ryan successfully sued the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers for inaccurately claiming that some Pugwash character names were double entendres."

      1. Not completely.
        He often puts up a very case.
        However, that might make me a complete moron for agreeing with him occasionally!

        1. I agree with him occasionally, but I think he's wrong more often than not and in this case he's deranged. Syria is going to be a basket case and how the UK ended up supporting the "rebels" [aka radical Islam] is beyond me.

          1. Agreed.
            My money is on rockets into Israel in the early part of the New Year, if not sooner.

            Possibly to coincide with Channukah.

    5. Putin had no alternative but to remove from fighting on behalf of the Syrian Army for it is they who failed to turn up.

      As with most subsidised Arab countries fraud and corruption becomes rife in their military structures.

      1. As with Libya, their armed forces will see which way the wind is blowing, then, if necessary, change sides.

      1. Definitely. It occurs to me that Moscow is a bit nippy at this time of year but of course they don’t have net zero. There’s a centralised system that literally heats the entire city. No one freezes at home.

        1. Helped along by triple glazing, stoves rather than open fires and no worries about wearing furs.

      1. Not the Christians, they're up for slaughter. Whatever the truth of the matter, Assad ensured they lived together peacefully, or without slaughtering each other. In order to do so, he needed an iron fist. These people are not like us. How weak we must seem to them.

        1. Indeed ‘mum. We have little to no influence either personally (unless family there) or politically. If Starmer’s the answer what could the question be.

      1. Exactly so, Grizz. As Sir Humphrey would say 'Permanence is Power, Prime Minister'. Thatcher's favourite TV programme 'Yes, Minister'. During lockdown/s I used to get occasional mg from a CS (not certain but I think a DS one), not heard for a long time tho. I'm a Reform member now, last arrow in the quiver.

        1. And may it be loosed and fly true. I'm worried about moles trying to divide the party though.

        2. KJ: You say you used to get occasional mg from a CS (not certain but you think a DS one). Any chance of you explaining what this means?

          1. Sorry Elsie (my dear grandma’s name, 😍) in a rush as ever CS =civil servant and DS = Downing Street, Kate x …I think they were bored during lockdown, or perhaps hung over from the partying 🥴

          5. Ah, now I understand, KJ. I had imagined that you were a man, but I now see that you are a lady called Kate who sends a kiss to people who interact with you. I hope you haven't taken offence at my apparent bafflement; I am regularly confused by other NoTTLers' posts with (to me) incomprehensible collections of letters.

      2. "Democracy is a complete hoax."
        That was obvious before even the Thatcher era where Government policies, once interpreted by the Civil Service, often had the opposite effect to those desired.

  139. Trip to Shrewsbury was okay if a bit slow; missed the first part of the concert. The Provincial Grand Chaplain (a real padre with medals) made sure there was some "fun" so apart from jokes in his sermon, he made us all stand up and sit down during the singing of The Twelve Days of Christmas; verse by verse – all, light blues (masons without Grand Rank), dark blues (Masons with Provincial or Grand Rank), members of Chapter (a higher degree), guests (non-masons), women, men, those not sure – oh no, sorry, he left that out 🙂 – south side, north side. I was exhausted; as I came under many different categories.

  140. As much as we, I love our four beautiful grand children they have just gone home and I'm knackered and going to bed now. Perhaps it was the wine with the delicious meal.
    Goodnight all, back in the morning 🤞

  141. Just been watching Trump/Notre-Dame ceremony, greeting everyone, handshakes, smiles – everyone happy, really good to see.

      2. Precisely. The same ‘world leaders’ seeking to rub up to President Trump were rubbishing him just a few weeks ago.

        I thought those politicos in attendance were the very globalist monsters President Trump has promised to defeat. Most of the assemblage would be better suited to attending Davos than pretending to a Christian ceremony in a Christian church.

      3. I think so, similar to other Washington ones. A few hints already….get your popcorn, Kaypea 🙂

  142. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The astonishing and abrupt fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus is a moment of historic importance for the Middle East, in which the shifting of tectonic plates can be plainly felt. But which plates in particular? And what are the immediate implications?

    Firstly, it is important just to contemplate the dimensions of what has just taken place. The Assad regime’s beginning is usually dated to 1970. In that year Hafez Assad, father of the now deposed Bashar, launched a coup to topple his former ally, Salah Jadid, and proclaimed himself president. His family then ruled Syria, uninterruptedly, until this week. But it’s worth remembering that the Ba’ath party, through which both Assad and his predecessor emerged, had ruled Syria since 1963. So the fall of Bashar represents the end of 61 years of uninterrupted rule in Syria of this party.

    The Assads of course long since emptied the structures and institutions of this party of any real role or content. Theirs was a family regime. The more meaningful broader foundation on which they rested was the support and cooptation of the Alawi community, from which the family hailed. The fall of the Assads represents the end of Alawi ascendancy in Syria, and the return of the domination of Syria’s Sunni Arab majority, from which the uprising emerged.

    The end, when it came, was brief. A lightning dash by the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) militia, down the spine of cities which fell like dominos in an astonishing ten days. First Aleppo, then Hama, Homs and finally Damascus. All with minimal resistance from the regime’s forces.

    Assad had survived the civil war launched against him in the period 2012-20 not because of the strength of his own forces, but because of the power and loyalty of his allies. Specifically, Russia and Iran stepped in to save him during those years. Within a year of the launch of the uprising, Bashar was on the ropes. The decision in 2013 of Iran to deploy its proxy militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan plugged the gap in loyal manpower that would almost certainly have led to Assad’s downfall at that time. His army was large on paper. But it consisted mainly of conscripted Sunni Arab Syrians. Much of it therefore couldn’t be relied upon for use against an insurgency raised from among those communities.

    The Iran-supported militias, Hezbollah among them, were able to stem the rebel tide. Then in late 2015, Russian aircraft were deployed for the first time over the skies of Syria. They successfully stopped a rebel advance toward the western coast under way at that time, which would have threatened the Russian airbase at Khmemim, and the naval facilities at Tartus and Latakia.

    Thanks to these interventions, the regime was able to roll up rebel areas of control over the following three years. By 2019, only one zone of insurgent control remained, in the north west. This area proved impervious to the regime’s ambitions, because of the presence of Turkish forces in the area, and the guarantee they offered.

    As it now turns out, the Turkish President’s decision not to entirely abandon the remnants of the insurgency was a historic choice. It made possible the quiet incubation of HTS military strength in the subsequent years, and its eruption southwards this year.

    Reporting in Syria in those years, I observed the feebleness of Assad’s forces up close, and took careful note of it. On the ground in Damascus in 2017, I saw the helplessness of the local police force when faced with the antics of armed Russians on the streets of Syria’s supposed capital, and the crucial role played by Iran-created militias in carrying out daily security tasks there. Damascus didn’t look like the capital of a regime that had successfully defeated an insurgency. Rather, it looked like a city under foreign occupation, with the empty shell of a local regime maintained for convenience’s sake.

    In 2019, in the Tal Tamr area in Syria’s north east, my colleagues and I similarly observed close up and with astonishment the decrepit state of Assad’s line infantry battalions sent to help defend against an expected Turkish push southwards at that time. In the positions we visited, the troops lacked basic provisions and medical supplies, and begged for these from neighbouring Kurdish units.

    So it was plain that Assad continued to ‘rule’ because of Iran and Russia. Which raises of course, the question: why didn’t they help him this time? Why haven’t we just witnessed a repeat of 2013, and 2015, in which Iranian proxy manpower and Russian aircraft intervene to stop the insurgent march southward?

    The crucial difference between those years and what has just transpired is that none of the forces which had saved Assad in the past were able to help this time.

    Russia is committed to the strategic quagmire of its war in Ukraine, which is consuming thousands of lives every month. There was nothing to spare for the long standing client on the Mediterranean.

    Iran, meanwhile, is reeling from a serious of blows inflicted by Israel in the course of the last two months. Most significantly, Israel’s crippling of Hezbollah left Tehran bereft of its most powerful proxy instrument. Jerusalem’s counter attack on Iran itself on 26 October left Tehran without air defence and unable to continue or escalate the direct confrontation with Israel. Recent events in Iraq have revealed that Iran’s client militias too were keen to avoid any possible clash with Israel, following an oblique Israeli threat of possible direct retribution for the militias’ not very effectual efforts to launch drones and missiles at the Jewish state.

    The upshot was that Iran’s proxy militia system, which mobilised and saved Assad in 2013, was unavailable a decade letter.

    Without any help from his friends, Assad’s hollow regime rapidly dissolved. Its demise is testimony to the determination of the Sunni Islamist insurgents, HTS’s Abu Mohammed al Jolani chief among them, and their backers in Ankara. But the absence of Assad’s allies, reflecting the current weakness and vulnerability of Iran, is the single most significant factor behind the dramatic events of recent days.

    WRITTEN BY
    Jonathan Spyer
    Jonathan Spyer is a journalist and Middle East analyst. He is director of research at the Middle East Forum and the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict.

    1. I strongly suspect that all that has happened is that Iran had swapped sides.
      We shall see.

      1. Afghanistan fell and 40 million people were delivered into the clutches of a horrible regime but the US and its allies simply ignored their plight. Ukraine population 40 million was invaded by Russia and we were expected to feel righteous indignation. Israel is treated as a genocidal state because it defends itself against terrorism. Now Syria has fallen to Islamists and we are told that it is a liberation.
        We are too befuddled to decide what is right and what is wrong.
        The BBC and CNN have to decide for all of us.

        2. The real test will be if all those asylum seekers that fled to Europe will return home. Some chance eh..

  143. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Gradually, and then suddenly, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has collapsed. This century’s most evil tyrant has fled Syria, and Damascus has fallen to the opponents of the regime. Across the country, a new political reality reigns. In towns and cities across Syria, the regime’s torture chambers are being opened, and the prisons liberated.

    Men whose adulthoods have been stolen from them by the tyrant are emerging into the fires of day. Brothers are being united after being separated for 40 years. They were separated when one was 18 and the other younger, because the elder of them fell foul of a regime patrol and was taken away for torture for the remainder of his natural life.

    There is a mother who lost her son 15 years ago, because he was accused of daubing some anti-dictator graffiti, or not reciting the right words in school, or conspiring to run a radio station that did not sing the praises of the leader, or demonise his enemies, or was conducted in a banned language, or contained the wrong history, the unapproved history, the things you were not then permitted to say.

    The petty criminals, denied a stake in the economy because of their race or faith or region of birth, imprisoned for so long their whole families have died of old age and grief. They’re coming out now, with nothing left to live for.

    Into the depths of Syria’s prisons have disappeared more than one generation. The refugees one speaks to, the people still in the country’s north, all have a detainee they know: someone they pray for nightly, someone whose fate is not known, someone they hope against all logic is still alive and might soon be photographed leaving somewhat anti-climactically through a newly sprung prison door.

    The prisons are hell on earth. They cannot be described in ordinary language. I could give you estimates of the numbers held and tortured. I could tell you of the hundreds of thousands starved, beaten, and maltreated to death. There are, of course, thanks to the efforts of the defector codenamed Caesar, photographs of thousands of emaciated bodies fresh from the torture chambers.

    You still wouldn’t believe me.

    A decade ago, this was already said to be the most documented mass-killing in world history. That is still the case.

    One day, Syrians told me and each other, for over a decade, we will open up the dungeons of Sednaya, the prison of all prisons, the Lubyanka of our own country, and we will make of it a museum.

    Guides will show people the cells that were once filled with bodies in various states of dying and decay. We will read, with melancholy signs attached to translate, the final messages scratched into walls with ripped fingernails.

    Many have died who might have told of what happened to them. They cannot testify. But all of this was recorded. Ba’athist states, of which Syria was one, suffer from bureaucracy like some suffer with a chronic illness. For a decade, foreigners have been told that if the international courts and tribunals decide to turn their hands to Syria, they will have so much evidence to weigh and to adjudicate that the inevitable trials will be difficult to stage-manage.

    So many killings, so much torture. So many hands visible in the issuing of the instructions. If any of them are alive and captured, the people at the top will be easy, even a delight, to prosecute. Their indictments, their condemnations, already fill warehouses.

    But I will make a prediction. The regime has fallen and its jails are opened. If they are kept, and not burnt down by their liberated inmates, and, temporarily, teary-eyed reporters and their camera crews mill about in these prisons, and document it – and people see all this on their phones and shed hypocritical tears about man’s cruelty to man – we will still, very easily, forget all of this.

    Polite society forgot it for a decade. Easily and energetically, they forgot it for a decade.

    People live fantasy lives. They make up their reality. Evil is a hard problem. Better to pretend it doesn’t exist. There is no evidence that can convince ordinary people that evil has been done, if peace of mind requires that they disbelieve it.

    WRITTEN BY
    James Snell
    James Snell is a senior advisor for special initiatives at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. His upcoming book, Defeat, about the failure of the war in Afghanistan and the future of terrorism, will be published by Gibson Square next year.

    1. "A decade ago, this was already said to be the most documented mass-killing in world history." Really? I do hope not, because if so it's really beyond comprehension – The Holocaust in Nazi Germany? Mao? Pol Pot? Stalin??

    2. It isn’t possible to be a pacifist and keep Islam in check. Egypt has been saved from the Muslim Brotherhood by killing or imprisoning them. There is no other way. The Middle East needs hard men to defeat the savages.

    3. I suspect President Putin is presently kicking himself for trusting an Arab and investing in Assad. He will also be furious with Erdogan who has used his Jihadi proxies to gain a foothold in Syria where he wishes to return the many Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.

      Iran is temporarily weakened and Israel temporarily strengthened by the fall of Assad. I doubt this change in the balance of influence will last long.

      Expect a few million Syrian Christian refugees on our doorstep in the next few months.

    4. I suspect President Putin is presently kicking himself for trusting an Arab and investing in Assad. He will also be furious with Erdogan who has used his Jihadi proxies to gain a foothold in Syria where he wishes to return the many Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.

      Iran is temporarily weakened and Israel temporarily strengthened by the fall of Assad. I doubt this change in the balance of influence will last long.

      Expect a few million Syrian Christian refugees on our doorstep in the next few months.

    5. I honestly wonder how much of that is true and how much of it is rolling off the propaganda machine. Impossible to know after so many lies.

    1. Oh my gawd. I don't normally watch these interviews, but that's indescribably awful. She's such easy meat for Trevor Phillips.

  146. Eddie Stobart, who has died aged 95, was a Cumbrian agricultural contractor whose name became an icon of the road haulage industry and a source of truck-spotting entertainment for generations of bored car passengers.

    It was in fact the second of Eddie’s three sons, Edward (1956-2011), who created the Stobart “superbrand” – while Eddie himself, a devout chapel-goer, was content to run a modest village-based business distributing fertiliser, doing contract work for local farmers, running a farm shop and wheeling and dealing at local agricultural auctions.

    Young Edward grew up to be a lorry enthusiast with big ideas for the haulage side of the family enterprise, which operated just eight vehicles when his father gave him charge of it in 1976. Soon afterwards, they agreed an amicable split in which Eddie and his daughter Anne continued to run the non-haulage activities, as Eddie Stobart Trading, while his son Edward moved to a new base at Carlisle to realise his ambitions under the banner of Eddie Stobart Ltd.

    Thus it was that Eddie’s name was eventually emblazoned on more than 2,000 trucks that were also distinguished by their shiny green and red livery and their well-dressed drivers, trained to honk cheerfully at other motorists who waved at them. The trucks were adorned on the drivers’ doors with individual female names – Edward’s early choices having included “Twiggy”, after the model, “Tammy” (Wynette) and “Dolly” (Parton) – giving rise to a children’s craze for spotting them on motorways.

    That in turn led to the creation of a fan club with thousands of members, and a thriving sideline in Eddie Stobart model trucks and other branded merchandise.

    Eddie himself, meanwhile, sold most of his trading interests in 1980 to invest in an industrial warehouse near Carlisle – with Edward’s lorry depot next door – which gave him an easy-to-run business for semi-retirement, allowing him to devote more of his time to evangelical work.

    Edward, as a fully fledged entrepreneur, told his father: “Thanks, Dad, I can manage now,” while Eddie told the author Hunter Davies: “I never aimed to devote my life to work… I am by nature fairly laidback compared to Edward. I used to think to myself, what’s the point of all his worry and rush? We are here to serve God, not Mammon… I was still a director of Eddie Stobart Ltd, but board meetings consisted of me sitting in an armchair at home while Edward was ringing me from somewhere on the M6 telling me what he was doing.”

    Edward Pears Stobart, always known as Eddie and sometimes Steady Eddie, was born on April 18 1929. His devout Methodist parents, John and Adelaide, farmed a 32-acre smallholding with eight cows at Hesket Newmarket, south of Carlisle. At 14 Eddie left the nearby Howbeck village school to help his father on the farm and with occasional horse-and-cart work for Cumberland County Council.

    From the age of 10, Eddie suffered a severe stammer which he attributed to the shock of catching his thumb painfully in a door. But it left him just as suddenly at 17, when he was asked to stand up and speak in chapel for the first time: “God took me by the hand. God helped me to cure it.”

    That handicap did not hinder Eddie’s entrepreneurial instinct. He bought his own first horse for 33 guineas, trained it to pull farm machinery, sold it for 66 guineas and invested the profit in hens and henhouses. In the 1950s, he and his father and brother built a business that undertook ploughing, threshing, ditching, carting and spreading fertiliser for other local farmers.

    The first Stobart lorry arrived in 1960: Eddie had it painted Post Office red and Brunswick green, with “E.P. Stobart” on the cab door. But he never believed there was money to be made in haulage, seeing his small fleet simply as “a tool for my main business”, which was distributing slag, the fertiliser by-product of industrial steelmaking.

    In later years Eddie watched his son Edward’s fortunes rise to an estimated £100 million – and fall again in difficult business conditions in the early 2000s, when the haulage business was bought out by a partnership led by Edward’s younger brother William. The breakdown of Edward’s first marriage was also a sadness to his deeply religious parents.

    The Eddie Stobart livery in 2011
    The Eddie Stobart livery in 2011 Credit: alamy
    “Edward’s got everything money can buy,” Eddie observed, “but he lacks what money can’t buy.” Edward died of heart problems – reportedly bankrupt – aged 56 in 2011.

    Eddie Stobart was prone to remark that he would never have set up a business under his own name if he had known how big and famous it would become.

    He married, on Boxing Day 1951, Nora Boyd, who came from the neighbouring village of Caldbeck and whom he had met at a Bible rally in Carlisle. In retirement they lived in a bungalow outside Carlisle and were active members of the Free Evangelical Church, having helped fund its new building at Wigton.

    Eddie was an occasional preacher, while Nora devoted many years’ work to the Gideon Bible movement. As well as Edward, they had two other sons, John and William, and a daughter, Anne.

    Eddie Stobart, born April 18 1929, died November 25 2024

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/12/06/eddie-stobart-haulage-lorries-road-transport-cumbria/

  147. Well, chums, 11 pm approaches so I will now head to bed. So Good Night, sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

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