557 thoughts on “Sunday 8 December: The threat to Britain’s global influence posed by a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn”

      1. In the actual fight last night the Fatty was defeated.

        Could this be a bad omen for Fatty Johnson?

        1. I don’t know what is more tacky and unseemly, the prize fighting or the prize prats fighting over Westminster.

  2. Good Morning, all

    SIR – On Friday I received the usual flier from my local Labour candidate asking for my vote.

    There is not one word about the biggest issue of our time, namely Brexit. Do candidates take us for fools?

    John C Turner
    Lea, Derbyshire

    Yes. And it’s not merely the parliamentary candidates. The entire Remainer establishment believe that the Leave vote merely confirmed that we are fools and should not be allowed to decide anything more profound than which channel to watch on telly.

    1. The Labour leaflets round here omit the name ‘Jeremy Corbyn’.
      So far. No doubt more will cascade through the letter box this week.
      (And we no longer have a parrot whose cage needs lining.)

      1. ‘Morning, Anne, there’s a shame – about the parrot – has he joined the choir indivisible?

        Or just sold as a Norwegian Blue.

  3. From the Skripals surviving potent Novichok to agents ‘determined’ to be caught on CCTV: Ex-MP NORMAN BAKER is certain Russia has killed many people on British soil… but he believes we’ve been fed a pack of lies over the Salisbury poisonings. Mail. 8 December 2019.

    We are told that the batch used on the Skripals was of a high purity, up to 97 per cent, a level that can only really be achieved by a state actor.

    We also know that Novichok was designed to take effect rapidly, within two minutes.

    Yet according to the official story, the Skripals were poisoned by Novichok that had been smeared on the door handle of their house, when they left at about 9.15 in the morning – more than six hours before they fell ill.

    In the meantime, they had driven around town and visited both a pub and a restaurant, all seemingly without any ill-effects. This is perplexing.

    Morning everyone. Now what’s this? It looks like a long post from a certain person on Nottl that points out the idiocies of the Skripal Saga and this by an ex-MP of all people. Is it genuine or is Baker acting as a catspaw for MI6 who are obviously having trouble getting the peasants to accept this ridiculous story? Well Baker as they say has form. He wrote a book on David Kelly in which he denied that his death was suicide so that’s in his favour. On the other hand one suspects that the Security Services as a whole would like to dump this incubus that is sucking the life out of their anti-Russian campaign. We will have to wait and see what the response is. A series of gradual and grudging admissions that the whole thing is bollocks will probably signal the latter while any hostile response short of Bakers assassination will tell us that he is on his own and that they are going to stick it out to the end!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7767285/NORMAN-BAKER-says-weve-fed-pack-lies-Salisbury-poisonings.html

  4. SIR – The Prime Minister claims that scrapping the early release of terrorist prisoners would stop them from reoffending (report, December 1). I doubt this. The evidence suggests that supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) are artful, fanatical and determined, and do not respond to deradicalisation or reform.

    At the end of their prison sentence they should if possible be stripped of British citizenship and deported.

    Stephen Harris
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    Not a chance. It would solely further enrich Cherie Blair and Matrix Chambers.

    1. Yo ZX

      May I fiddle a bit

      At the end of their prison sentence they should if possible be stripped of British citizenship and deported.

  5. SIR – Your feature on British tea growers in Kenya facing “Zimbabwe-style” farm invasions touches upon a very serious threat to all enterprising, hard-working people in Kenya and Africa in general.

    If the regional governor Paul Chepkwony is serious about taking over the tea farms and putting his own people on them then there will be much suffering, as the plantations will soon be unable to afford new equipment, plants and wages. Without property rights, a bank will not loan money.

    Unfortunately the British government paid compensation to the militant Mau Mau nationalists fairly recently. In my childhood we lived on a small Kenyan farm, which was attacked by the Mau Mau. Our animals were maimed and left to die. My mother, a widow, was poisoned twice but survived, so her cook was hacked to death. It was terrifying. I was eight years old.

    Sandra Dobson
    London W14

    1. I was away at boarding school in the UK, many of the girls parents including mine were expats .. some of the girls had parents in Kenya and elsewhere when Africa became a riot torn mess , prior to those countries gaining independence .. We heard some terrible stories , even though school staff tried to filter all news

      I am certain that is why I lapse into sheer anxiety when I hear about nonsense in Britain..

    2. The one fact forgotten about Mau Mau is that it was not an independence movement, but an entirely tribal conflict. A pre-independence attempt by one tribe to gain supremacy over the other tribes.

  6. SIR – GPs used to be treated as professionals and allowed to organise their own work.

    This changed when Tony Blair’s government introduced performance-related pay. Most GPs met the various targets and received a large increase in their salary. It was obvious to me at the time that these increases would be unsustainable. More importantly, it meant that GPs were working for the government rather than their patients. A lot of time was now spent collecting data. There was less time for ongoing education: our practice had to abandon its regular clinical presentations with a neighbouring practice.

    Until 2004, GPs had 24-hour responsibility for their patients. This obligation was removed by the Blair government. Most GPs opted out of “out-of-hours” care, which was valued at £5,000 a year. Within days doctors from Europe and elsewhere were flying in to do night shifts. In our area the payment for a shift from midnight to 8am was £800. We now have more doctors than ever, but most GPs work part-time owing to the intense pressure of the job.

    Finnbarr O’Driscoll
    Morpeth, Northumberland

    A fine Northumbrian name – is there anything that Blair didn’t screw up?

    1. A fine Northumbrian name – is there anything that Blair didn’t screw up?

      No! The real question is was it deliberate?

    2. The GP at Widdrington Station for many years. Looking at surgery’s staff list it seems that he’s retired now. He took over the post from his father, Danny O’Driscoll in the late 70s/early 80s or thereabouts. Danny had a soft Irish accent (Donegal?). Proper old-fashioned doctors who knew their patients by name.

      1. Up in Wooler we had Dr. Jaboor who, apparently, took over from his father who had been born in The Levant, now Lebanon.
        I not only found that out when I looked up his name on Google, but also that his sister was Mrs. Dodds of Yearle, between Middleton Hall & Wooler, who would often give me a life as I was walking home from school.

        1. People do that to me too. They shout at me from their car window as they go past, “Get a Life!”

        2. Doctor Danny, as he was known by everyone in the village was my wife’s family doctor from before she was born. He had ideosyncracies it must be said. There was a supply of medicines in the surgery, but if you went with an ache or a pain you were as likely to leave with advice to go for a plodge in nearby Druridge Bay than with a handful of pills. ‘Cold salty-water is what you want on that. Cold salty water. Go for a walk in the sea’. The practice consited of Doctor Danny and a secretary, maybe one other, my memory is hazy. Looking at their web page earlier it seems they now have 6 doctors, a nurse and 10 admin staff, including the pharmacist, but the village isn’t much bigger than when I was there in the 70s.

          I lived there for the first few years after we got married, but I’ve been blessed with good health all my life (touch wood), so I’ve had little contact with doctors. I saw Doctor Danny once or twice in 5 years and his son (known in the village as Doctor Finbarr) only once, when he started to assist at the practice before his father retired. He would have been in his 20s then, in around 1977.

          1. I remember Dr. Good & Dr. Stevenson in Newbiggin before I left in the New Year of ’62.
            Not quite friends of the family, but more than happy to stop & chat on the street.

  8. We are the BBC’s ‘customers’ so why shouldn’t we complain to them for about all the tosh they pump out?

    I hope our Susan is safe.

    BBC staff are warned to HIDE their work ID cards on the way to work to avoid being confronted by angry members of the public amid complaints of political bias from both sides
    *The broadcaster has been running a Wear It In, Don’t Wear It Out campaign
    *The corporation has been been at the centre of a political bias row recently
    *Staff get reminders of need to adhere to the advice with human resources clips
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7768155/BBC-staff-warned-HIDE-work-ID-cards-way-work.html#comments

    Best BTL comment

    Ordinary Common Man, Surat, India, 7 minutes ago

    In my country, when elections arrive, each candidate and his party gives every voter 500 to 2000 rupees. If there are more than five votes in a family, they give you fridge, washing machine, T.V. etc. Women are given saree, pressure cooker, frying pan, etc. What do your politicians give you?

    2. I hope our Susan is safe.

      She will end up in room 101 when they find out she’s a Nottler!

    3. As safe as one can be in stabby London, yes!

      The advice about not wearing BBC passes outside has been around for years. I have a very short journey to work – just down the road.

      Doubt that most of the immigrants around here care as long as they get their benefits and/or find their way to Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital or Queen Charlotte’s Maternity. We have a lot of NHS in Hammersmith & Fulham – and a lot of immigrants.

  9. December 8 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
    What is the public’s best weapon against a tyrannical ‘liberal’ elite? Bread actually
    Rod Liddle

    Iam looking at the dog. The dog is looking at me, with those deep soulful eyes that betoken a creature with the IQ of an SNP councillor. The dog is thinking: it’s raining — will he take me for a walk? I’m thinking: how best to serve her up? Curried, I imagine, would be tastiest, with nan bread and dips. Or perhaps spit-roasted.

    When the actress Emma Thompson speaks, I listen. And Emma has warned us that the threat of climate change annihilation is so severe that we will soon have to eat our pets to ward off starvation. Tough luck for those of you with only a couple of stick insects, then. I’ll be OK — Jessie’s a big dog and will keep us going for ages, as the rivers dry up and the sun rises each day with Greta Thunberg’s face on it, like that sinister baby sun thing in Teletubbies.

    Hugh Grant, meanwhile, has been out on the stump, campaigning with Labour and Lib Dem politicians to, as he puts it, stop Brexit. Emma and Hugh starred together in that godawful Richard Curtis confection Love Actually, in which Hugh’s role was a smug and vacuous prime minister trying to get his end away with Martine McCutcheon, who played Curtis’s typically offensive idea of a working-class person.

    Grant was dreadful, as usual. Emma was good, as usual. She’s a fine actress and seems a decent soul. It’s just that whenever she opens her mouth and there’s no script around, congenital idiocies pour forth, one after the other, a parade of woke inanities that show only how divorced she is from the world the rest of us live in. It’s the same with Grant — who, by the way, is now very much in favour of media attention if it concentrates on his political aspirations.

    I dare say most of the rest of the cast of Love Actually are out there somewhere spouting right-on non-sequiturs. An estimated 95% of actors and comedians and sundry performers are anti-Brexit and pro whatever fashionable cause heaves into view — Extinction Rebellion, refugees, #MeToo and so on, anything that painlessly advertises their seriousness and concern and the fact that they think exactly the same way as their colleagues.

    It is a vast echo chamber. A kind of enormous green room with pleasantly chilled drinks and formidable security to keep out the trash, no dissent allowed. I know pro-Brexit theatre producers who haven’t worked since June 2016: difference of opinion is not tolerated.

    The comedians are in this green room, too, or at least people who go by the name “comedian”. Once upon a time Britain’s light entertainers were mostly on the right — Tarby, Doddy, Morecambe and Wise, Cilla, Brucie, the Two Ronnies. But their political affiliations rarely surfaced in public. Today’s entertainers are all on the left — and, boy, do they want you to know about it.

    Last week a hugely unfunny man called Nish Kumar was pelted with a bread roll and booed off stage at a charity event for the Lord’s Taverners in London. He had blithely assumed everyone in the audience would agree that Brexit supporters must be moronic, and would roar with laughter at jokes made at their expense. Such is the arrogance and isolation of this lot that they cannot believe there are people who do not share their banal world-view. A majority of people, I might add.

    Along with the BBC, and the academics, our luvvies constitute a cultural liberal elite that has never been more out of touch with the public who pay for its existence. These are the people who have never met a leave voter and cannot imagine why anybody could possibly wish for controls on immigration, or worry that with transgenderism perhaps we’re taking this whole identity business a bit far.

    This week we go to the polls. But on December 13, whatever the result, this elite will still be in charge. And if Emma’s right, there won’t be enough bread rolls left to throw at the bastards.

    Hugh Grant out canvassing
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F90ded8b2-190a-11ea-a854-0f72236fa753.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=600

    Labour’s spending plans may be a tad profligate, but at least one senior member of Magic Grandpa’s team has a knack for saving money.

    Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald needed to hire a prominent shop for his campaign headquarters in Middlesbrough. The going price for such premises in the town is, I’m told, £400 a week. Yet Andy has leased his, from Middlesbrough council, for just £80 a week. In other words, the local ratepayers are unwittingly subsidising Labour’s campaign with mate’s rates.

    McDonald’s chief opponent, the independent candidate Antony High, has called for an investigation.

    Give pious Davey the Kingston boot
    A magnificently repulsive performance from Liberal Democrat Ed Davey on Question Time. A woman in the audience made a number of valid points about Islamic fundamentalist extremists, using those words.

    Davey deliberately misrepresented her and, puffing himself up to twice his normal size with sanctimonious virtue-signalling, insisted that the vast majority of Muslims were peaceable and absolutely lovely, he knew because he’d met them and so on. In the background you could hear the woman protesting that she didn’t question that fact for a moment. She had been talking specifically about extremists.

    And in that gap, that chasm, between what sensible members of the public know and the platitudes spouted by idiots like Davey, you have the root cause of our failure to deal with Islamist terrorism. So, good people of Kingston and Surbiton, on Thursday do what you did in 2015 — get rid of the clown.

    I fear the advent of leftie wallet thieves
    I watched my wife putting up an advent calendar in the front room. I pointed out that our daughter was 14 and surely too old to be enthralled by such a thing.

    “Don’t be silly,” I was told, “and, actually, she’s got two.” I looked a bit closer. “You mean three,” I said. “No, that one’s for the dog,” she replied.

    I have the horrible suspicion that when my daughter, and my dog, open their advent windows on December 13, they will see a photograph of John McDonnell holding my wallet in his hands, with Diane Abbott cackling in the background. And no treat.

    1. And that nice muslim man at the corner shop who sold you your lottery ticket, never forget that he makes charitable contributions to the local mosque…

  10. Morning all

    SIR – Domestic policy and the very real threat, already acknowledged by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell, of a run on the pound aside, a government led by Jeremy Corbyn would have significant and far-reaching consequences for Britain’s security and global influence.

    Mr Corbyn and his supporters have brought into the mainstream an anachronistic approach to Britain’s history and global role that threatens the continuity of our membership of international security alliances. Britain is a founding member of many of these, notably Nato.

    Mr Corbyn has a public history of direct and indirect relationships with terrorist Islamist organisations, such as Hizbollah and Hamas, and the Labour Party as a whole has developed a foreign and security policy position that is totally contrary to the policies of our allies. This is especially the case with respect to Iran, Russia and Israel. Consequently, there is a very real prospect that a government led by Mr Corbyn would compromise Britain’s trustworthiness and reliability among our key allies.

    Without this trust, we would almost certainly be frozen out of important security alliances, such as the Five Eyes. We would therefore not be trusted to receive the vital intelligence provided to us by our allies that helps us keep our people safe and supports our role in maintaining world peace.

    Colonel Tim Collins

    Lt Gen Sir Simon Mayall

    Sir John Jenkins

    Sir Malcolm Rifkind

    Tom Tugendhat

    Dr Azeem Ibrahim

    Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

    Brigadier Alistair Davis

    Colonel Richard Westley

    Lieutenant Colonel Richard A Scott

    Lieutenant Colonel P M Walker

    1. SIR – I have lived through 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland and in 1979 I witnessed at close quarters one of the worst IRA atrocities.

      Following this, Tony Blair and the Labour Party showed courage, skill and leadership in finally achieving a peace treaty in 1998. However, the current Labour Party and its leader, who has repeatedly failed to condemn outright the terrorist organisation that claimed responsibility for this heinous act, is not fit for the grave responsibility of government.

      M B Crozier

      Warrenpoint, Co Down

  11. SIR – Under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, I was a strong supporter of the Conservative Party.

    I left the party in 1992 after 17 years, when John Major was floundering on the Maastricht treaty and considering joining the euro. I supported Nigel Farage’s Ukip financially and politically, and we campaigned successfully in the European elections of 2014, winning outright and intensifying the pressure on David Cameron to hold to his promise of a referendum on our membership of the European Union. I supported Mr Farage in the Leave campaign in 2016, when we secured a historic victory. We have since had more than three years of turmoil due to Parliament not carrying out the people’s mandate.

    It has now become clear that only by achieving a parliamentary majority for the Conservative Party can we leave the EU and move on. At last we have in Boris Johnson a party leader who seems determined to get this great nation back to self-government. Let’s embrace the wider world and reconnect with our Commonwealth friends.

    Provided that Mr Johnson sticks to his word and delivers Brexit next year, I will again become a significant donor to the Conservative Party.

    Paul Sykes

    Harrogate, North Yorkshire

    1. Provided that Mr Johnson sticks to his word and delivers Brexit next year, I will again become a significant donor to the Conservative Party.

      Then more fool you Mr Sykes!

      1. The problem for many of us is very simple: our definition of Brexit and Boris Johnson’s definition of Brexit are entirely different.

    2. Morning E,
      There lies the rub PS,”providing mr johnson sticks to his word”
      In my book mr johnson is the final stage of the semi re-entry rocket.
      Hope once again enters the equation
      as in, lets hope I am wrong.

  12. Morning again

    SIR – The present system of sentencing, whereby most criminals sentenced to a term of imprisonment only serve half of the term in prison, should be scrapped. It does little to encourage convicts to respect the law.

    Never mind “time off for good behaviour” – the whole sentence should be served, with time added on for bad behaviour.

    Peter Baines

    Sale, Cheshire

    1. As should the discounts for admitting the crime, pleading guilty, expressing remorse, and other cynical fictions that allow vicious animals to get reduced sentences.

  13. SIR – “Safeguarding” appears to be the new buzzword (Sunday Comment, December 1). For 12 years I have driven three partially sighted ladies to a local church and back once a month. This is a voluntary service and I have two “enhanced certificates” from the Disclosure and Barring Service to show that I am suitable for the task.

    Recently, I was asked to complete a form stating that I am willing to continue driving, and that I have no physical or mental conditions to stop me from doing so. I was also asked to complete a “Safeguarding, Children and Adults” questionnaire and to give answers to 12 scenarios that had no relevance to the service I provide.

    I returned the form with the answer “Not relevant” against these questions, and have now been advised that I am no longer acceptable as a volunteer as I am obviously not “aware of safeguarding issues in order to protect customers”. This seems mad.

    Dennis Gambier

    Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

    1. I worked for a very large charity and had basic clearance as I had to visit care homes to discuss finances, budgets etc. with managers In a conversation with the “safeguarding manager ” of the charity, I asked if the many workmen and other essential visitors, who were generally unsupervised while they painted, joined, and plumbed, also had Disclosure clearance and so forth. He looked somewhat blank, before admitting that this was not the case. Ho-Hum. Well, he did get right on it.

    2. Quite a while ago, my mother volunteered in the same capacity. She was informed she needed all this baloney, and at her own cost. So, she stopped. More state expense to get old folk to hospital visits. Good one.

  14. 10 best responses from caddies

    Number: 10
    Golfer: “I think I’m going to drown myself in the lake.”
    Caddie: “Do you think you can keep your head down that long, sir?”

    Number: 9
    Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course.”
    Caddie:: “Try heaven sir, you’ve already moved most of the earth.”

    Number: 8
    Golfer: “Do you think my game is improving?”
    Caddie: “Yes sir . . … . You miss the ball much closer now.”

    Number: 7
    Golfer: “Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?”
    Caddie: “Eventually, sir.”

    Number: 6
    Golfer: “You’ve got to be the worst caddie in the world.”
    Caddie: “I don’t think so sir . . . That would be too much of a coincidence.”

    Number: 5
    Golfer: “Please stop checking your watch all the time. It’s too much of a distraction.”
    Caddie: “It’s not a watch sir – it’s a compass.”

    Number: 4
    Golfer: “How do you like my game?”
    Caddie: “It’s very good sir – but personally, I prefer golf.”

    Number: 3
    Golfer: “Do you think it’s a sin to play on Sunday?
    Caddie: “I’m afraid the way you play sir, it’s a sin on any day.”

    Number: 2
    Golfer: “This is the worst course I’ve ever played on.”
    Caddie: “But this isn’t the golf course . .
    … We left that an hour ago sir.”

    And the Number: 1 . . . Best Caddy Comment:
    Golfer: “That can’t be my ball, it’s too old.”
    Caddie: “It’s been a long time since we teed off, sir.”

    Bonus . . .
    An old favourite .
    . . about the Golfer who has been slicing off the tee at every hole . . …
    He finally gives up and asks his long suffering caddie . . .
    Golfer: “Can you see any obvious problems?”
    Caddie: “There’s a piece of **** on the end of your club.”
    The Golfer picks up his club and cleans the club face . . .
    Caddie: “No sir, it’s at the other end”

    1. Ha ha , Good morning Tom

      Must show that to golfing Moh .. he will pass them on .

      So sorry to read about the loss of your brother yesterday .. My deepest condolences to you.

          6. I’m sorry to hear that.

            It is little consolation but I know too many oldest’s who have outlived younger siblings

            As the oldest, I expected to go first. It seems likely I won’t be.

          7. As it happens, Sos, and thanks for the condolence, I happen to be (at 75) the youngest and now the last, of nine.

        2. I am sorry, NtN. Like most us, I didn’t know about that.
          All my sympathies go out to you.

    2. Oh dear, Tom,

      I didn’t read about your loss, either.

      I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. What can I say? Words are never enough, but you know that we are behind you and are feeling for you.

      KBO, sweetheart.

      T x

  15. Rape victims eight times more likely to get justice in some areas of the country than others.

    North Yorkshire police force is the most successful with one in seven (14.2 per cent) rapes resulting in the sex attacker being charged, according to the data for 2018/19.

    It has been consistently at or near the top for rape charging rates along with Northumbria Police for the past three years. Both are headed by women police and crime commissioners while North Yorkshire’s chief revealed earlier this year she was raped as a 15-year-old.

    For “justice” here read “yes sisters we sent some of the bastards down even if they were innocent.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/07/rape-victims-eight-times-likely-get-justice-areas-country-others/

    2. They are re-running the early episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey (on my Humax box: Channel 306 Talking Movies) latish on Wednesday nights.

      The one they showed this week was about a mentally disturbed woman who accused her boss – an MP – of rape and Rumpole had to defend him.

      I used to love Rumpole and have read all John Mortimer’s books about this gloriously seedy but lovable, poetry-quoting lawyer. We named our lovely Boxer Rumpole because his face was so very like the face if Leo McKern who was in the title role.

      1. Talking Pictures, channel 81 on Freeview. I’m enjoying The Human Jungle (1963-64) on Thurs eves also in the 9 pm slot.

        1. Thank you, Sue.
          Information passed to MB – who is now glued to The Wooden Horse (?).
          For me it’s pure bliss; real men speaking proper.

  17. ‘Morning All

    “Get Brexit Done”

    Anagram

    “Being Extorted.”
    Yes I nicked that because it’s so bloody accurate

    1. Has Boris Johnson ever explained why his EU Brexit deal is ‘brilliant’ and whether it completely liberates us from the EU’s tentacles?

      (If somebody could give a link to any actual facts Johnson has given us about his ‘brilliant’ deal rather than vacuous waffle I would be most grateful.)

      1. Has it been published in full? Or is it just the Withdrawal Agreement on different coloured paper and with a new front page?

        1. Surely the very fact that so little is actually told us about the Boris Johnson deal must explain the strong stench of rotting fish that emanates from it?

        1. The foundations for the Great Inflation yet to come were laid by the reckless creation of M0 known as Quantitative Easing. It’s not doing much at the moment, but once it gets the wind in its sails, there’ll be no stopping it. (Velocity of the circulation of money usw.)

  20. Morning, Campers.
    From ConHome. I will now take Spartie for a walk before it persists down. Play nicely.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/12/joe-baron-farage-is-a-political-titan-yet-now-he-risks-being-brexits-executioner.html

    “Joe Baron: Farage is a political Titan – yet now he risks being Brexit’s executioner

    Last updated: December 7, 2019 at 11:44 am

    The author is a teacher. Joe Baron is a pseudonym.

    I’m a big fan of Nigel Farage. He’s a political Titan. Without him, we’d still have Theresa ‘the grey’ May in number 10. That fact alone makes him worthy of a knighthood, in my book. But he has really messed up during this general election, brutally demonstrated by the defection of four of his most prized candidates yesterday.

    His excuse that Annunziata Rees-Mogg’s withdrawal was down to her loyalty to her brother Jacob was desperate, as was his conspiratorial claim that all the defectors had ties to the Tory Party. It’s been a precipitous, ugly and perhaps irrevocable fall from grace.

    He’s unconvincingly attacked Boris’s deal, and, although agreeing to withdraw Brexit Party candidates from all 300-odd constituencies held by the Conservatives, he’s continued to attack Boris, our only hope of delivering anything close to what the people voted for back in 2016, and stubbornly refused to withdraw candidates from marginal seats currently held by Labour – an unfathomably vacuous decision that could see a Labour victory as the Brexit vote splits in these crucial marginals. Brexit could be put to death. And Farage, yes Farage, could be the executioner. Hard to believe, eh?

    It could have been so different. He should have withdrawn his troops from all but a few seats in which the Tories had no chance of winning. Such a move would have been selfless, statesmanlike and, above all, rational. As things stand, he’s allowed his ego and visceral hatred of the Tory Party to cloud his better judgment. Yes, they may be arrogant, entitled, born-to-rule, sneering mediocrities who’ve gleefully attacked and disparaged Farage for 25 years. But they’re our only hope of Brexit.

    Further, if Farage had played his cards right, appeared statesmanlike and above the fray of petty party politics, committed to the betterment of his country and uninterested in personal advancement and devoid of ambition, he’d have elevated himself to greatness among Brexiteers and, perhaps, constructed a powerful springboard for a resurgence.

    The Tories are still the Tories, wet, dreary and perpetually bullied by our liberal-left media and institutions. Even after Brexit, immigration will continue unabated and loony leftist policies on transgenderism, crime and punishment and terrorism will continue to be implemented. There is a place for a modified Brexit Party, committed to finding sensible, thoughtful answers to the challenges of identity, the mass movement of peoples, democracy and statehood that we face.

    I, for one, am only voting Conservative because I believe, tentatively, that he is our best chance of realising what 17.4 million people voted for back in 2016. And because the survival of our democracy will be determined by Brexit’s fate, for me, this is a single issue election. As far as their wider policies and ideological outlook are concerned, from what I’ve seen, the Tories do not offer an imaginative, radical programme that matches the grave magnitude of the challenges we face. And I’m not talking about the largely confected threat of anthropogenic global warming. I’m talking about Islamic terrorism, mass immigration, globalism and identity, as well as the unsustainability of the NHS in its current guise, crime, punishment and education. The Tories offer no credible answers to these challenges. It’s going to be the same old same old.

    Farage had a window of opportunity. He may have blown it, though, and unwittingly stumbled into obsolescence.”

    1. He should have withdrawn his troops from all but a few seats in which the Tories had no chance of winning. Such a move would have been selfless, statesmanlike and, above all, rational. As things stand, he’s allowed his ego and visceral hatred of the Tory Party to cloud his better judgment.

      I’m not certain that I understand this! Is it me?

      I agree with the conclusion though. I think he’s blown it and with it Brexit itself!

      1. I think the writer is suggesting that the Brexit Party should stand in seats with a strong Leave electorate which is visceral anti-Tory. That way the BP would possibly win a few seats to gain some Parliamentary representation. They would then be the grit in oyster if any back sliding was considered.

        1. Did the writer then go on to suggest that the Tories stand down in those seats that are visceral anti-Tory to give the party that is in favour of Leave a clear run, of course not.
          He is just another typical Tory who puts party before Country and tries to justify his lack of honesty and integrity by writing this article.

        2. Anne,
          Nearly four years to late, 17.4 million new UKIP members on the 25/6/2016 would have been ballast not grit on any re-entry treachery, I
          can still hear the cry, “we have victory, job done, leave it to the tories”.

    2. Morning Anne,
      30000 UKIP members were, I would judge, be a tad upset after the nige rant
      abusing them & the party that helped build his image.
      Tell me, is the wonga & the personal power base better for a UK politico in
      brussels, if so why would they want to come out ?
      Cannot be patriotism surely.

    3. The fault lies entirely with Boris Johnson. He was offered an electoral pact which would not only have got him safely back into Downing Street but would have also ensured that the country got a proper Brexit and not a rehash of May’s surrender WA which keeps us inescapably bound to the EU for the foreseeable future.

      Johnson did not take that offer and we may well have to pay a huge price for this in the form of a Corbyn government.

      Basically, Johnson is a bully and bullies are always cowards. He loves the idea of bullying and humiliating Nigel Farage – with the MSM gleefully joining in – but the mere thought of getting the same sort of treatment himself from Andrew Neil has sent him into paroxysms of terror.

      .

  21. Good morning, everyone. Christmas lunch at the bowls club (we have a member who is an internationally recognised chef). I will be a waiter.

    1. Good morning, Delboy

      “They also serve who only stand and wait”,

      [From John Milton’s sonnet: “When I Consider How My Light is Spent“]

      1. Good morning Anonymous Down-Voting Troll.

        How’s your dyspepsia this morning or have you contracted a dose of the clap?

        (As my Nottler friends know, I never abuse or insult my fellow Nottlers – I reserve my invective for politicians, journalists and slebs. However an anonymous Down-Voter who cannot say why he disagrees with a point of view and cowers behind his or her anonymity is no better than a politician, journalist or sleb and is not a proper Nottler)

          1. I am quite happy for a down voter to disagree with my point of view – what is the point of a forum like this if everyone agrees with each other? However indiscriminate anonymous down-voting is surely a symptom of an immature mind which is incapable of mounting a proper case?

        2. I have found that the best way is to ignore them – they love it when you rant at them, as it fulfils a purpose in their sad little lives.

          Ignoring them, deprives them of the oxygen of recognition, which they crave(n).

    3. Tattoos and spikey hair ?

      Morning DB.. the storm ran through thank goodness, it was a really noisy one . Blue sky now .

      Have a lovely day.

  22. Al Gore 8 million beachside property
    Obama 15 million beachside estate
    Tell me again about rising sea levels you High priests of Eco-Loonery

    1. What, precisely, is a tolerant and inclusive society, Tobi?

      As if I say I don’t want to live near Muslims as they’re terrorists, would you and your ranty mob have me silenced?

      Not very tolerant or inclusive.

      As for ‘grew up with austerity’ – you grew up with incredible prosperity, wealth and waste. The taxes you are paying are because of the destructive tsunami of Labour’s attitude toward private wealth. You no more grew up with ‘austerity’ not that you’d recognise it – than I did.

      You sir, are an utterly irresponsible completely egocentric, utterly selfish oaf unable to reflect on your circumstances.

  24. I’ll take on Andrew Neil. Mail. Peter Hitchens. 8 December 2019.

    Since interviewer Andrew Neil has some free time (thanks to the PM’s refusal to meet him), may I invite him instead to have a rematch with me?

    In April 2018, Andrew tried and failed to savage me, when I urged caution over claims that Syria had used poison gas in the town of Douma.

    Now, astonishing leaks from inside the poison gas watchdog OPCW – reported here but scandalously ignored by others – show my caution was right.

    The facts I shall shortly publish about this suppression of truth are so strong that I’d happily submit to the toughest questioning he can come up with.

    I’m not certain that it is a good idea to advertise that you are in possession of information that might embarrass the Security Services. Mind you pretty well every sensible person already knows that Douma was as fake as the Skripal business.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7768245/PETER-HITCHENS-Terror-stalking-streets-ISIS.html

    1. Hitchins banging his drum, Moslem terror,nothing to do with Islam and all down to the evil weed
      Man’s an idjit in some areas

        1. I think he has a point.
          Taking my step-son as an example, cannabis use is not the harmless pastime it’s been presented as by many.

          1. Overindulgence in anything is a problem Bob,you like a pint or two(as do I) no problem
            A litre of vodka a day??………………………….

          2. Most of the rough sleepers, for whom The Observer article wants us to feel collective guilt, have either a drink or a drug problem or both.

  27. Mark Steyn

    Recently, I marked (under the headline “Diversity unto Death”)

    the tenth anniversary of the Fort Hood slaughter – the first mass

    murder in American history in which the perpetrator gave a PowerPoint

    presentation on what he intended to do, and to a roomful of military and

    mental-health professionals to boot. Some of whom felt a little queasy

    about what they heard, but not enough to prevent him going ahead and

    murdering everyone. And, in the course of our anniversary observances, I

    quoted Steyn Club member Kate Smyth’s observation that “we’d rather die

    than be thought of as ‘Islamophobic'”. Which is, increasingly,

    literally true. And so it is that we go round in circles, so that this

    year’s atrocities all seem like faded Xeroxes of last year’s atrocities –

    an attack by Saudi pilots trained in Florida, an attack on a US

    military base, an attack on London Bridge, another attack on London

    Bridge, another Saudi pilot in Florida, another US military base…

    A few days ago Kate Smyth identified another difference between the

    carbon copies and the originals. On the telly yakfests round about now,

    there’ll be earnest conversations about whether this latest member of

    Local 347 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves has any “links to

    Isis”. As Kate put it re even “conservative” media outlets:

    There’s been a very obvious shift – no doubt a

    confirmation of Islamisation itself. No ‘I’ and no ‘M’, with discussions

    limited to terrorism… What’s noticeable is that there’s both

    censorship and self-censorship as part of this shift.

    From the aforementioned link: ‘As Ayaan Hirsi Ali explained,

    because of the West’s obsession with terror, we have become blind to the

    broader threat of the dawa (Islamic proselytizing), the ideology behind

    the terror attacks — and what drives Muslims to Islamize us.’

    It follows that, as long as terrorism is contained to an ‘Acceptable Level of Violence’, we won’t hear about Islamic terrorism (let alone Islam).

    https://www.steynonline.com/9896/too-stupid-to-survive-cont

    5. This, Rik, will give Boris a chance to come through with his promise to stop this early release, just half-way through the sentence.

      First act on Friday 13th is to amend whatever Act it is that allows this nonsense to carry on.

      Boris can then be so busy, all the time up to 31st January, with curtailing the Lords down to just the hereditaries, closing down the Devolved Assemblies and the wee pretendy Parliament that, on 31st January as we leave the EU on WTO terms he can honestly say that he didn’t have time to present Mays’s WA Mk II – Sorreee!

      That’s what I would do but then…

    6. Lessons are never learned. If they were things would change. The state says these things as a pretence. I don’t think there’s anyone left who doesn’t know this.

      UNless, of course the lesson is not to identify the terrorist nutter as a Muslim. Not to say he’s a Pakistani jihadi. Maybe their lesson has been to say ‘Lone wolf’ now instead of the truth.

      Ha. Lessons are learned. Lesson the first: lie the * off your face.

  29. How ‘lifestyle’ spending choices are luring a generation into debt

    It is a big problem amongst the under 35’s who seem unable to manage their budget and dont really understand the very high cost of a most of this debt

    The prospect of buying a sofa or a new kitchen used to be an intimidating prospect for many households – a large outlay that would blow the budget. But then came “buy now, pay later” credit, which meant families could buy in store and spread payments over a few years.
    These loans soon gained a bad reputation and shrank away, but did not vanish. Now they have re-emerged, rebranded and aimed at a technologically aware generation of shopper – while also being blamed in part for the mushrooming debt that UK consumers are drowning in.
    “The rise of ‘buy now, pay later’ retailing is of great concern, as more people are being enticed into high-cost debt that they may struggle to repay,

    1. Well, The upside is that the thrifty can obtain many household items from Gumtree. Many sofas are available free, with only the trouble of collection.

      2. My first sofa was one I bought from a friend who was moving house, for a fiver. It was OK apart from the webbing supports for the cushions, which I replaced with a carefully arranged old climbing rope. That worked well enough if you were careful – if not, it worked apart and deposited the sofa dwellers on the floor – that sofa lasted until I could actually afford a better one!

        1. The only new settee we’ve ever bought is the bed settee in my sitting room that is, quite frankly, useless as a bed without an extra mattress on it!

          1. You should have gone for a Wesley-Barrell.

            Very expensive but excellent quality and the bed is very comfortable too.

          2. We bought a new bed a couple of years ago – the old one had done 45 years and two marriages.

      3. I gave away my sofas. I had had them for 25 years and was fed up with them. They took an age to clean and polish. A three, a two seater and a club armchair leather Chesterfield. They cost £1800 in 1986 from Times Furnishings. The chap that answered my free ad couldn’t believe i was just giving them away. I replaced them with two wing back armchairs from British Heart Foundation. I got lots of space and the chap got a big grin on his face.

    2. The are just following the Governments lead, only problem is that the individual will have to repay their loan.

      1. When I was small, people used to talk, with much embarrassment, of buying on the ” never-never “. Buying something that you could not afford was considered on a par with theft, or at least, very naughty.
        Times change,

        1. There was ‘hire purchase’, where there was a weekly charge and if you paid it for long enough, you owned the item. If you stopped paying, it was taken away. So you paid about double the cash price (similar to buying on credit today). This is the system the slammers use to buy things as they are not allowed to pay interest, the usual work around!

          1. There was a big deposit required, fixed by law, on hire purchase. In 1970 the deposit was one third of the purchase price. I was in the first year of my first job and on my April pay there was included a nice fat back-dated pay rise going back to the previous November. ‘Fat’ is relative, because I was only on £632 per annum. My normal take home pay was about £40 a month, but that back-dated sum added over 20 quid to my April pay at a time when ‘saving’ was a foreign land.

            It got me into my local record shop to buy a stereo that I’d had my eye on for some time, but could never afford, a Decca 603 with Garrard turntable and scratch filter. At £85 it was the second-dearest in the shop, only beaten by the Pye Black Box, but at £93 it was beyond my means. That £8 difference was a lot of money. I walked out with my stereo, a copy of Blodwyn Pig’s LP ‘Getting to This’ that the salesman had used to demonstrate the sound quality and my HP card, which recorded that on 25th April 1970 I had paid the 1/3 deposit of £28 6s 8d with lines beneath where the remaining balance would be noted as I made the 24 monthly payments.

    3. we said no to a new kitchen for the flat because at the moment she wants to change jobs, I am changing jobs. It’s too volatile.

  30. Excellent BTL Comment from DT Letters page:

    Matthew Biddlecombe 8 Dec 2019 8:39AM
    If anyone wanted to know just why some of us think John Major and Tony Blair are two rather nasty and pathetic men, a report elsewhere in the Telegraph this morning illustrates why perfectly.

    In Jeremy Corbyn, we have a potential Prime Minister who is a full-on, fully paid-up member of Communism. He is, in my opinion, a worse prospect for a Prime Minister than Michael Foot was 36 years ago when he stood in the 1983 election. Foot was many things, but he didn’t hate his country nor was he, as far as I know, anti-Semitic. In Corbyn, we have a man who will destroy the foundations this country was built upon; the royal family, our membership of NATO, our defence (such as it is now) and maybe even MI5 and MI6. He will also, in the name of the UK, support terrorism; and before the trolls start attacking me, it was Corbyn himself who said, after the latest atrocity on a London bridge last weekend, that it was a shame the police didn’t use some sort of drug to render this murdering scumbag unconscious rather that killing him outright. I wonder what his view of that would have been had a relative of his been unlucky enough to find themselves on the bridge at the time of the attack?

    Both Blair and Major are advocating tactical voting on Thursday to deny Boris Johnson a majority with which he can proceed with Brexit. Have they really stopped to think what a British government led by Corbyn, and possibly supported by Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon, would do? It would make our staying in the EU on current terms look like the Teddy Bears’ picnic on a warm, summer’s afternoon.

    I’m in the fortunate position of being able to spoil my ballot paper on Thursday (I only have LibDem, Labour, Green and a Tory MP’ who no longer acknowledges my emails and who is as slippery as an eel, to vote for). This eel does, however, sit on a massive majority and will still be there Friday morning – possibly with an increase of his already massive majority of over 15,000. Others are not in such a fortunate position, especially those with no Brexit member to vote for.

    What would I do in that situation? I’d probably hold my nose and vote Conservative even though I promised myself after 2017 that never again would I do so, having been lied so blatantly to by Theresa May and her “Brexit means Brexit” and “no deal is better than a bad deal”. Then, I switched from UKIP to Conservative because I believed (stupidly as it turns out) that Brexit would be delivered. Now, it would be a vote for Conservative because, quite frankly, it’s the only gig playing. There is no doubt about it, Boris Johnson’s deal is not what I voted for in the 2016 referendum; however, thanks to the likes of Theresa May, Olly Robbins, Philip Hammond and those in the Conservative party who never had any intention of honouring the referendum, we are where we are.

    All along, I’ve preferred to take my guidance from Martin Howe QC; a man who has analysed every twist and turn of the past three-and-a-half years and who now says that whilst not perfect, Johnson’s agreement is at least acceptable. I could cling to the wreckage of what’s left with the Brexit I originally wanted and was promised, but once that wreckage disappears under the waves then so does Brexit itself.

    Today, I accept we’ve lost the battle. Remainers have run a brilliant campaign to prevent Brexit with their tenacity and refusal to accept 17.4 million votes; the war is still there to be won. Yes, Johnson’s deal is not what I voted for, but sometimes one has to take stock of where one is and how one got there. We are where we are; Parliament and John Bercow destroyed any hope of a decent Brexit so we must now pick up the pieces of what’s left and fight on. Voting Conservative on Thursday is a dreadful prospect for many I know, but to those who are thinking of following the advice of Major and Blair, I say to you please, please think of three names in that cubicle on Thursday before placing your cross…….Corbyn, Swinson and Sturgeon. If you think the Conservatives are a bad choice, just think what one or, God forbid, a coalition of all three would do to this country of ours. Now is not the time to commit suicide.

    Martin Selves 8 Dec 2019 8:42AM
    @Matthew Biddlecombe

    An Excellent letter Matthew.

    1. It is clear and explanatory. It is somewhat convincing.
      Except it does not tell us how we then get out of the clutches of the EU. Make no mistake, the WA is a lobster creel, if we go in we are unlikely to get out.

        1. Thank you for posting this. It is exactly in line with my fears. (I cannot post pictures. Probably a thing between Apple and Disqus.)

      3. And when we object in the future, the Tories will have the nerve to tell us that that’s “what we voted for”. B*astards!

      1. Thanks for the health warning – I value my blood pressure (& stomach contents) so will give it a miss on this occasion).

        2. Lies and racism… from whom?

          Dear life, no wonder the press is dying. It can’t even tell the truth any more so partisan has it become.

    4. He’s right. Boris’ deal is not what I voted for either – but it’s the only one on offer and a Corbyn government would be the road to ruin.

      1. It may be the only deal on offer – but is it any better than staying in the foul EU?

        As far as I can see the Boris brilliant deal gives us all the disadvantages of staying in the EU with none of the advantages.

        1. Well Rastus – if everyone followed your advice and voted for Corbyn, then we face ruin, while you and sos can continue with your happy lives in France.

          1. I have never advised anyone to vote for Corbyn. I am sorely tempted to give you a down vote – which I never do here – for grossly misrepresenting what I have said.

            I despise Johnson’s mendacity and insincerity – and it is a catastrophe that he will probably continue to be prime minister – but, make no mistake about it – I believe Corbyn would be an even greater catastrophe.

          2. We don’t have a great deal of choice Rastus. We either vote Tory, holding our noses and hope that somehow Boris’ deal will get us out of the EU. It’s the only one on offer. Or we vote for TBP, as I did in the EU election, and hand the local seat to Labour.
            I don’t think BJ will get much more than a very slim majority, because he is not trusted.
            The alternative, however is damnation.
            Or of course, we could not vote at all – as a woman I value my vote and have never yet thrown it away.

          3. I think we are broadly in agreement. Corbyn would be a catastrophe but I do no trust Boris Johnson one inch. If he had made a pragmatic pact with Nigel Farage he would now be heading back to Downing Street and the country would be heading for a proper Brexit.

            I misjudged Mrs May entirely: when she said “Brexit means Brexit” and “No deal is better than a bad deal” I believed her and she turned out to be as big a liar as Blair. There is no doubt that Johnson deliberately deceived Leavers in the Conservative Party in order to win the party leadership. I also used to trust Jacob Rees Mogg, Mark Francois and Steve Baker all of whom, have proved to be totally false.

            Quite frankly I am totally pissed of with Conservative traitors and liars. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to support the Conservatives for positive reasons as we supported Margaret Thatcher – rather than because they a not quite as repulsive as Labour of the Lib/Dems?

        2. There are no advantages. It’s a communist idiocy that we’ve no control over, say in or part to bother with.

      2. There are two. There is WTO and Boris’ offer.

        Under the slavery act, we give them five years payments upfront and more over time. We cnotinue to fund their central bank. We will be beholden to all of their new laws – including debt harmonsation.

        Thus we will be slaves to the EU, with the EU calling the shots.

        Under WTO there is no massive wealth transfer. They get nothing. We negotiate as an equal partner. Not as the supplicant the EU thinks we are.

        All it takes is some guts to say no and for people like Benn, when he prevents that option to be sacked immediately, for people like Miller challenging our will to well, let’s just deal with her as the state dealt with Tommy. But it won’t, so Boris is chaining us to the loathesome cancer for the next five, possibly indefinite years.

        Heck we could just drop to EFTA. No one has considered that.

  31. NHS & Social Care

    Much of the problem in the UK is the refusal by many to accept some small payments at the point of use. Nearly all Health & Social care systems around the world have such charges

    Is it unreasonable that some in social care should pay something towards their care after all if living at home they would be paying out say somewhere between £500 & £1000 ie between £6000 & £12000 a year a month

  32. Are any of the Parties serious about reducing uncontrolled migration ?

    We simply cannot cope with the current numbers. Almost a couple of decades of mass migration have totally overwhelmed our services and also starved them of cash

    Reducing migration will reduce the strain on our services and housing as well as improving their cash flow.. Another benefit will be when companies can no long rely on an endless flow of low cost migrants they will have to invest in training and productivity and these will give real improvements in living standards

    1. BJ,
      No, not all the time a great many of the electorate keep supporting / voting for mass uncontrolled immigration parties
      as in lab/lib/con, their support / vote shows their needs.

    2. How depressing.

      Above Comment was meant for stephenroi’s excellent post BTL Comment from DT Letters page:

      No matter it’s all f*cking drepressing.

    1. You can be as afraid of spiders as you like but it’s these bastards, big or small, that give me the heebie-jeebies.

  34. When I read all the guff about how great Johnson’s deal is, I ask myself:

    Why would anyone believe that Michael Barnier isn’t just going to carry on negotiating in exactly the same intransigent way that he did to get us thus far. Except that once we have signed up to the WA & PD we will have even fewer cards than we had before and his twos can, with the inevitable connivance of the ECJ, trump even our aces.

    1. It defies belief that people can seriously think that Boris Johnson is offering a proper Brexit. He refuses to talk in any detail about ‘his brilliant deal’ and is clearly terrified of facing a serious journalist who could put him on the spot about it and pose searching questions which bluster and waffle cannot answer..

      It will be a disaster if the Conservatives lose the general election but it will be almost as great a disaster if they win it.

      We are doomed.

    2. From the news last night it would appear that Barnier/EU are going to test Johnson’s mettle by not rushing through the negotiations. Johnson has set deadlines in this election to, “Get brexit done,” and the EU are out to force him into extending the transition period. If he does extend then they know they have the measure of him, as they did with May, although she was always quite a willing partner in deceit as the WA and PD we are lumbered with prove.

  35. I see the recently privatised French lottery company is planning to bid for the UK lottery licence. I look forward to Camelot doing much the same in France. (Heavy sarcasm, in case you hadn’t guessed.)

  36. The Enfield Gazette is to drop news and sports coverage to be turned into an entertainment and lifestyle led freesheet and will make one journalist redundant

      1. I can never work out the thread of a Twitter conversation, but quite simply, you do not vote with your consciouce. You vote with your head.

        Surely doing otherwise is, by default irrational? Thus are Labour voters irrational? Quite obviously they are insane, as supporting the lunatic ideology Corbyn espouses one must be either substantially below average intelligence or a psychotic.

        As for Monbiot – the man si a fool whose proclamations of doom have not only been proven false every single time but who si clearly unwilling to live in the society he demands others do.

    2. The derangement is strong in those ones! (Lets’ spare a thought too for those poor celebs, whose letters aren’t being published – how will we manage without them?)

    3. Why are there people writing to the Guardian to defend Labour from the Guardian’s attacks upon that party?

      I cannot imagine that the Guardian would ever attack Labour. That party of nutters could happily start a nuclear war, wipe out 99% of humanity and the Guardian offices would proclaim it a wonderful event to create more social housing or some such utter tripe.

    1. Why are they wearing shoes? Dogs sweat through their paw pads. They use those same pads in the sam way we use our toes for balance – working out where we are on the floor.

      Covering them is silly. It’s a vanity of the owner that is not good for the dog.

      Even when Wiggy broke his leg we still had to be careful to unbind his paw every so oftento let it breathe.

  40. Herts County Council to charge per hour for cross-border fire service use

    Currently, Herts Fire and Rescue Service charges £322 every time it’s called to an incident in a neighbouring county, but that flat charge takes no account of the number of appliances that are involved or the number of hours they remain there.

    Now fire chiefs have drawn up plans to charge by the hour – which means instead of charging £322 per incident, the charge would increase to £322 an hour.
    And on Monday last week, the increase in the charges got the go-ahead at a meeting of the council’s cabinet.
    It’s estimated that the increased charges will bring in an additional £90,000 a year to the county council from neighbouring fire authorities.

    According to a report, over the past three years Hertfordshire was called on to give assistance to Cambridge on 337 occasions, Bedfordshire 236, Essex 364 and Buckinghamshire 91.
    In return Hertfordshire asked for far less support from their neighbours – with data suggesting they received assistance from Cambridge on five occasions, Bedfordshire 89, Essex 90 and Buckinghamshire 45.
    The data shows that Hertfordshire gave 353 hours of assistance to London fire crews – and received 24 hours of assistance back.

    2. ‘Cut back the pressure on that branch a touch, we don’t want to be putting it out too quickly’.

    1. Just a Rebranding of the Brexit Party. It was daft to call it the Brexit Party in the first place

      Cannot say I am that impressed with the name, There have been dozens of Parties with Reform in the name

      1. I owe Nigel one – he canvased for me once. (Tadworth and Walton by-election, April 2009.)

  42. BREAKING NEWTS

    A spokeslopper for the Kremly has descriled allegations of Rush-hour meddly-ho in the upcomish Britly Genital Erection as contemptibold and deep folly.

    President Putinloder has deniled any involvemold, indeel, suggesty it was a black fallolop by
    MI’s Fabled Five, all workit in the backgrove there, whispery toxish worms in gullibold
    eardrobes and spreadit dismale and disquite with flaked nudes on sociabole medians, such as
    Facebake and Twiddler.

    о да …. !

    (from Stanislav Unwinskiy – Moscold Correspondy)

    2. Clearly against the grain here, 18 upticks, but I have always wished that the fellow who started that had stuck to being a phone technician…

      1. I think the majority here enjoy Duncan’s Unwinesque posts. We all upvote him whatever he posts because he knows how to kill with his bare hands and we don’t want to get on the wrong side of him. :o)

  43. Bloody hell it’s cold out there!
    Just come in after an hour starting on getting the shed doors sorted, but now in for a mug of tea to warm up my fingers.
    Despite being beautifully bright & sunny it’s +4°C outside, but a stiff breeze that has a hell of a chill effect.

    1. It’s very windy here – Spartie and I were practically blown round on our walk – but it really isn’t cold for an East Anglian December.

      1. My uncle and cousin had January funerals – that penetrating wind would have sliced through anything.

  44. May one ask,
    Why not have jailed terrorist work for their keep as in, would the peoples who whinge about the upkeep of those in incarceration pay to see them in the flesh as in a glass sided show cell ?
    Why make a potential golden goose , a dead duck ?

      1. S,
        Lots of options see, all you need is the right peoples in charge which leaves out the lab/lib/con coalition party on account that
        PC / Appeasement is their bag.

    2. They tried that in the USSR; after Stalin’s death, it became clear that the Gulag did not produce a surplus, i.e. it was unprofitable.

      1. T,
        With the right people in charge it need not be
        & the mental anguish suffered by the terrorist
        knowing they were working for the state would prove a delight to many peoples.

    3. Not sure I’m following you ogga. If you’re suggesting that prisoners should properly work serving the community I agree. Chain gangs are a good idea. Litter picking is an obvious starting point, then clearing debris during storms.

      After ll, the purpose of incarceration must not simply be to do nothing but to serve the community they have abused.

      1. W,
        There are many that would see terrorist hanged but to my mind hanging is not an acceptable answer.
        Life means life incarceration then have them on show to the public in a demeaning manner,
        at a price.
        The very opposite to making them martyrs.

  45. British Isis captives ‘could be handed over to Assad’. 8 December 2019.

    Fears are growing that the Foreign Office has paved the way for British Islamic State captives held in Syria to be handed over to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which is accused of war crimes including mass torture and executions.

    Human rights groups argue that, as they face pressure to repatriate Britons detained in Syria, ministers’ inaction may result in the transfer of UK nationals to Assad’s forces.

    Yes and where’s the downside to this?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/08/british-isis-captives-hand-over-to-assad-fears

      1. “…might lead to executions…”

        Not just the biter, bit but sowing the wind leads to…

        …and not before time. There is a certain scum that needs to removed from the surface of humanity.

        1. …and not brought back to this country, which has done so much (at the cost – both financially from our people and our lives) for those ungrateful, horrible selves. “Out damned spot, out I say”. And stay out.

          1. Yes, before we know it, they’d all be attending secret Home Office prevention conferences.

      2. If they committed their crimes in Syria then they obviously define themselves as Syrians, not Britons.

        Thus they face Syrian justice as Syrians.

        The human rights fellows can wail all they want. The choice was made. The responsibility – seemingly – not accepted.

        Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

    3. Looking at the overall situation in Syria and the appalling mess the West has made of it since the start, I think we can forget about Human Rights on this one.

    5. This would be a most effective way of dealing with people coming across in dinghiies and the backs of lorries (also the drivers). This traffic would be dead within a week. Assad could be given a small fee per invader dealt with.

      1. What about the ones coming from other places like Vietnam? He might not want those.

        Not that I would wish them ill, but I hope the recent unfortunate episode has put a few more off coming here.

        1. It never seems to put them off, unfortunately. Perhaps if they weren’t so molly-coddled but were sent straight back to whichever country they were last in before the UK, that might have more effect. And even if they stayed here, got no support of any kind. (It’s all very well saying that we can’t let people die, but if looking after those people occasions the death of any indigenous person here, either directly or by depriving us of healthcare, housing, food etc., then I’m afraid the incomer comes a very poor second.)

          1. Those Vietnamese, who had raised large sums of money to pay for their fares, should have made sure they came legally. It’s tragic but they have themselves to blame for the disaster.

        2. Yes, I was intending to send only muslim invaders and all traffickers, including lorry drivers.

    7. All their hundreds of UK relatives will become radicalised and start killing in the UK?

      But equally the ISIS people will come back and start their own radicalisation programmes (aka teaching the Koran)

      So either way we lose and thus handing them over to Assad is the better option.

  46. Brace yourself, the flood of lies in this election is about to become a torrent. Nick Cohen. Sun 8 Dec 2019

    The late and much missed Clive James wrote: “For years now – all my life, in fact – there’s been something building up in western liberal democracy that should have been foreseeable, but perhaps was too obvious. There will be a penalty paid for prosperity and stability, and the penalty is that the young will forget. Liberal democracy in the west can die of itself. It doesn’t need an enemy, it can create its own enemies.” Nowhere is that more true of James’s adopted British home. You don’t need a Putin to subvert British democracy when it will happily subvert itself. The democratic politicians charged with protecting the integrity of the democratic process refuse to act because they fear that expanding the rule of law will force them to be honest.

    This is an oddity from Cohen though the more perceptive truth comes from Clive James. That Democracy is dying in the West there seems little doubt. The rise of the EU,which at the moment is simply a judicial tyranny but will certainly evolve into a traditional form is just one example; while it is already extinct in the UK but lingers on as a folk memory. This will become more apparent after the election when measures appear that involve both but were never advertised in the campaigns.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/08/brace-yourself-the-flood-of-lies-in-this-election-is-about-to-become-a-torrent

  47. Spiked

    By switching from

    coal to shale gas, America has dropped its carbon emissions by more than

    any other country on the planet. Carbon emissions have reduced by more

    than 10 per cent since the introduction of shale gas. That’s absolutely

    phenomenal. In the UK, we are reducing emissions but all we are really

    doing is shutting down industry here and importing everything. We’ve

    still got a huge carbon footprint.

    I think there is a big job to do to inform people about this, but

    that is difficult when you have campaigners with slogans that say all

    fossil fuels are bad. Not only are fossil fuels not bad – they are

    absolutely essential if you want to keep alive during the winter.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/06/lets-start-fracking/

    1. Once it is accepted that the Left – these ‘greens’ don’t actually care about energy at all but simply about control they become much easier to understand.

      What bothers me isn’t the arrogance or foolishness, it’s the hypocrisy. While that’s expected from the Left put bluntly until these whinging, whining Left wingers are prepared to live in the society they want everyone else to – one with barely a third of the power we have now, which is intermittent at best they should be ignored.

      No Green has ever taken up my challenge – a week without the trappings of energy. Using nothing created using energy exist just for a week. It’s cold outside. I wonder – without clothes, tools, heat, light, fuel, food, clean water… I wonder if they’d survive at all.

      Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

  48. Radio 3 currently: Mr David Nott FRCS. War Surgeon – “Private Passions” – such a brave, brave man compared with the majority of ponces in Parliament

    1. Just back from shopping. The car’s thermometer tells me it’s 10C outside, but the strong wind is raw.

  51. BBC accused of being partial on poultry with Christmas advert featuring vegan turkeys. 8 DECEMBER 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdc01afa2ecff533b751504ea94926f6df81475d552428bd3fd3b306a1883fed.jpg

    Farmers have accused the BBC of being in breach of its impartiality rules by promoting veganism with a Christmas advert featuring turkeys wearing “I love vegans” jumpers.

    There is no Woke campaign that the BBC would not espouse. It’s a home to all the crackpot schemes going. This I would not actually mind but for being forced to finance it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/08/bbc-accused-partial-poultry-christmas-advert-featuring-vegan/

    2. Worryingly, he’s right.

      What more need be said? Oh! That if we said this in the UK we would be arrested for hate crimes.

      Of course, if you want to go to jail for life you just have to say something hurty – true, but hurty – like a woman is a biological female.

    1. Despite what many Remainers claim, all FTAs have to conform to WTO rules and are monitored by them.

  56. It snowed last night

    0800: I made a Snowman

    0810: A Feminist passed by and asked me why I had not made a Snow Woman

    0815: So I made a Snow Woman

    0817: My Feminist neighbour complained about the Snow Woman’s voluptuous chest, saying it objectified

    Snow Women everywhere

    0820: The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned saying it should have been two Snowmen instead

    0822: The transgender man …..woman……person asked why I did not just make one snow figure with detachable parts

    0825: The Vegans at the end of the lane complained about the use of a carrot as the nose, vegetables are for eating, not

    decorations for Snow people

    0828: I was being called a racist as the snow figure was white

    0831: The Middle Eastern gentleman across the road demanded that the Snow Woman be covered up

    0840: The Police arrived as someone had been offended

    0842: The Feminist neighbour complained again: the broomstick the Snow Woman was holding needed to be removed,

    as it placed her (and all women) in a domestic role

    0843: The Council Equality Officer arrived and threatened me with eviction

    0845: The TV news crew form the BBC arrived and asked me if I knew the difference between Snowmen and Snow Women

    “Snowballs” I said and am now called a sexist

    0900: I was on the News as a suspected terrorist, homophobe, racist and sensibility offender, hell-bent on stirring up trouble in the

    difficult weather

    0910: I was asked if I had any accomplices: my children have been taken into care

    0929: Far left protesters, offended by everything, marched down the road, demanding that I be arrested

    By noon all the snow had melted

    Moral of the story

    There is no moral: it is what we have become, all because of Snowflakes

    2. Sadly, all too expected.

      The Grenfell cardboard burners. Bit tasteless, but their choice to do so. It sent the Left into paroxism yet those same people weren’t all that bothered by the state wasting money on those who shouldn’t have been living there, were they?

        1. “This map shows the different gas, oil, and mining resources in the Arctic. Receeding ice cover will influence accessibility to mineral and energy resources both on land and in the Continental Shelf in the future”. Only if Greta is correct…..

    2. What I didn’t think of , doh!

      Polar bears and penguins do not live together for 2 reasons. If polar bears and penguins lived together, polar bears would eat the penguins. … The main point is that polar bears live in the Arctic, which is the northern circumpolar region. Penguins live in the Antarctic which is the extreme southern polar region.

      God works in mysterious ways ..

      Now apply that to us here .. We all have our own little micro bubbles don’t we .

      Think about it.

      1. The penguins don’t need polar bears to munch them. Leopard seals are well up to that job.

          1. Mmmm. I am very impressed with pictures of orcas taking seals off Patagonian beaches.

          2. I remember seeing that. An image that often accompanied me on my night fishing trips on Chesil Beach.

          4. It was worth going. The view of the Milky Way stretching across the sky like a river of stars is breathtaking. And you get to take home fishies.

      2. And there was me thinking polar bears don’t eat penguins ‘cos they can’t get the wrappers off.

    3. “The chilling forecast came from hawkish head of the Russian Northern Fleet”
      Look, dammit, the man wants to keep his job. What do you expect him to say ?
      The Russians have, by a freak of nature, a useful part of the arctic at the top of the map.
      It’s theirs, just like the Canadian arctic belongs to Canada, etc.

  60. Some good lines in this and comments allowed because it’s not about Islam

    No amount of presents will relieve the spiritual yearning of the belief-bereft
    JULIE BURCHILL – 8 DECEMBER 2019 • 8:00AM

    Ever the contrarian, I’m keen to splash the cash all year round but December marks what I think of my brief belt-tightening time – in theory, at least. Generally a live-and-let-live type, I fume when reading about the ever-lengthening list of luxe advent calendars– a market this year outdoing itself with the unveiling of the Tiffany monster.

    Four feet tall, eleven stone in weight and costing £104,000 for 24 gifts from the jeweller, thankfully only one of these beasts is for sale in this country but you can bet your sterling silver harmonica (one of the less opulent items) that hundreds of moneyed morons will be vying for it, thus making it into a mythical beast bound to reproduce copiously this time next year. It also has the undesirable side effect of making the likes of the Jo Malone Advent Calendar look a bargain at £320.

    Hardcore feminist though I am, it must be said that women are the biggest culprits turning a Christian festival into an orgy of consumption; one often feels that if only Jesus had been born at the Soho House Cowshed Spa rather than in a stable, he’d get more airtime. It’s ironic that Christmas celebrates a singular birth but has become the retail trade’s celebration of the fact that there’s one born every minute.

    Religion has become the little donkey in the room during Advent and often the more atheistic people are, the more they crave gifts; only presents, in the lack of Presence, can make poor lost souls feel loved. If Scrooge was around today, he wouldn’t be a skinflint but a profligate poltroon who has to be taught that the real meaning of Christmas isn’t about spending money like a sailor on shore leave.

    Kanye West was recently accused of being “obsessed with God” by a fashion magazine; you could see it really rattled them in a way that him spending obscene amounts on clothes didn’t. That’s because non-believers know they’re missing out on something money can’t buy and it irks them; I suspect it’s why Richard Dawkins always seems so angry.

    You can see the yearning of the belief-bereft in such sad secular services as Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People or in the recent School of Life missive “A Replacement For Religion” which moped, “Many of us find ourselves in the situation of not believing in religion but nevertheless being interested in it, moved by it and sympathetic to some of its aims.”

    But if you can’t suspend the logic which atheism demands, you’re going to miss out on the enchantment which belief imparts; both have their pros and cons, but when I look at Francisco de Zurbaran’s Agnus Dei, I see the most awe-inspiring story ever told while an atheist sees a sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

    It’s a cliche that when people stop believing in God they believe not in nothing but in anything, but in the climate change zealots we can see an obvious substitute. The blind acceptance of Greta Thunberg’s fire-and-brimstone visions of a future hell if we don’t follow the one true path; the fury at heretics who dare question her vision of the Rapture.

    As pacifism did in the past (thus making it easier for old-style fascism to advance), atheism will only flourish in tolerant Western liberal democracies where the punishment for apostasy is not death. In some cases, the fading away of Christianity risks allowing the poisonous creed of extremist Islamist hate preachers to fill the space in young minds left craving certainty.

    That said, from evil popes to paedophile priests, the Catholic church’s many failings have played no small part in the emptying of the pews. We Protestants have our own problems – mainly to do with our leadership being wetter than a twice-used tea-bag. Being a believer has led me to volunteer a good chunk of my spare time to a good cause and to give freely of my money to the poor – but I know it can be a malign influence, too.

    Never the less I’m grateful to have faith at this time of the year especially– and just a tiny bit smug in the knowledge that I possess something far more precious than even the most expensive advent calendar in the whole of what we used to call Christendom.

    1. I can’t imagine who buys those ostentatious Advent calendars. Hedgehog ones last all year!

      As a lapsed Christian I’m glad we are now more tolerant than centuries ago when any dissent was punished on the fires of Smithfield, or Oxford, or anywhere people were brave enough to think for themselves.

      There is a memorial in Gloucester to Bishop John Hooper who was burned to death near his Cathedral.

      1. Firstborn bought an Advent calendar filled with English cheeses… from Sweden! (Yum, btw)

        1. I was given three advent calendars by a dear friend who incidently is a Mod on here. There is an enormous Lindt one. One with a chocolate liqueurs. And one with dog biscuits of all kinds. I ate the doggy one first. Dolly wasn’t impressed.

          6. I had the pleasure of visiting my Dentist last week. Wednesday at 1 o’clock. The receptionist had a wry smile on her face when i arrived. I said ‘Hello Val, am i too early?’ She said ‘No, you’re a day late’. :o(

          7. Oops.
            :-((
            I use the calendar function on the phone that is smarter than me to do the remembering & reminding – with a ding and a buzz, it works quite well.

          1. My pleasure. I have a large wallplanner in the kitchen annexe and keep the hedgehog one on my desk.

      3. Religion has been the cause of almost all war. So many lives lost for the pointlessness of one side calling their fictional sky man Colin instead of Dave. Stupid, pointless, wasteful.

        Even more offensive that often the torture has been of their own side. Truly, religion is an absurdity mankind should have grown out of. We may as well worship cereal bowls.

    3. A good article, thank you. This BTL I think is apposite. I favour using similes to get a point across and this comment is similar. I had not thought if it in that light before.

      Richard Harer 8 Dec 2019 4:29PM

      @Cali ban Personally I think religion is not meant to be taken literally (even if a lot of people do). It’s like how fairy tales aren’t real but they can still teach you something. For instance many stories (perhaps even all fiction) uses archetypes emodied as a single character, heroes and villains for instance, despite the fact that we know real people can’t be so neatly categorised.

      Religion at it’s best is supposed to summarise all the virtuous traits into a single character (Jesus or his equivalent). Stories are then told about this character and the way this theoretically perfect character behaves in the world, in order to allow people to learn from those stories by trying to emulate this perfect character.

      It’s a lot harder to logically deduce why you should help your neighbour (although still possible), but by teaching instead to effectively think “what would Jesus do” it lets people reach such a conclusion much more easily.

      It’s like teaching children, especially young children. You can try explaining the long term effects of their actions and how it will cause problems in the future in some abstract sense, or you can read them stories in which characters behave in the correct manner so they can more easily understand what they should do in a given situation.

      The purpose of religion is to teach a simpler lesson than reality in order to get the rules right, and then after that you can work through WHY it is important to act in the manner you do.

      Religion is only supposed to treated as a series of educational stories, everything else is just in order to make it easier for the limited understanding of humans to comprehend.

      2. Stories are then told about this character and the way this theoretically perfect character behaves in the world, in order to allow people to learn from those stories by trying to emulate this perfect character.

        Islam defines the ‘perfect man’ as Mohammed. Christianity defines him as Jesus. Compare/contrast – e.g. who said love your enemy, while the other said kill him. Who murdered his opponents, while the other meekly submitted to death under them. Who said that if his word was not accepted from his disciples, they should ‘leave and shake the dust from their feet’ while the other said they should be murdered – etc. etc. etc.

          2. Sloblock.

            Satan exists in every religion. He is the one god punished for knowledge.

            God, you see, doesn’t like you folks thinking. Call him Prometheus, Quetzalcoatl, Set, Sekhmet, whatever. They’re in every religion. Heck Lucifer means bringer of light. Light being knowledge. Promo brought fire. Fire? Technology. Learning. Light. What did god do to all these people?

            He punished them. Thou SHALT NOT LEARN! God said. God does not exist. Religion is a control mechanism. It controls what you think. Look at how you have defined two whole groups as good and bad.

            There is Rodney – Religion, the barrier to knowledge, to wisdom and there is Jeff he wants to keep you from – wisdom, knowing, thinking, the rational, reasoned mind based on experience, learning who you can rely upon.

            Rodney has much to answer for in silencing Jeff because, at the end of the day, Rodney was making it all up.

        2. The bible was written as a series of methods to ensure the protection of the tribe.

          One day, the oldest man in the village – we’ll called him Jeff – came out of his hut and said ‘ best get the crop in lads’
          as he knew that the thunderous skies meant heavy rain.

          Jeff one day said ‘hmm, there’s a big tiger around here. Best we shift about’
          And lo! Jeff, because he had seen tiger poo, knew there was a tiger.
          Then Jeff says ‘Hmm, that noise is funny. Get to high ground’ because he’s seen a flood before, so he saves the tribe.

          It’s all about protecting the tribe.

          Religion came about because one day some bloke called Rodney realised Jeff was a bright old spark and if he could get Jeff stuff so Jeff wouldn’t have to come out of his tent so much in the cold and wind Rodney could ‘be Jeff’.

          Thus we get religion, where the oldest man in the village gets controlled by a Rodney, Rodney then gets to not have to hunt, gets fed for free and makes all the proclamations – copying what Jeff would say BUT without having Jeff’s experience he makes a lot of crap up.

          Rodney, after a while (a few hundred years) decides to write all this stuff down (now embellished beyond reason) and is still being fed by the tribe, still controlling the tribe carries on his great larks of being a lazy fat oaf while waffling on proclamations that all stem back to Jeff. A good bloke who’d been there and new what mammoth poo looked like and that that little river would sweep away the food.

          Rodney – you can call him whatever you want – is an invention. A facade hiding the truth.

          Religion is a con. Always has been. Be it Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Love Island, dancing on a trouser press. It’s all a con designed to control people to behave in a certain way.

          All Jeff did was write down that those blokes over there shouldn’t be trusted because last season they nicked all the fruit and killed two people. Rodney made that into a battle, then a war, then a crusade then Jihad and…. we get a bunch of fools reading Rodney’s tripe when we need to listen to our inner Jeff.

      3. Well, that’s neat. Close, but no cigar. Of course the stories are terrific. They are true.

      4. There is a massive difference between being religious and being spiritual.

        “The purpose of religion is to teach a simpler lesson than reality.” Opines Richard Harer.

        This is a statement that sounds very much as if it is from an atheist. That is one innocent pleasure that occurs at this time of year. You do get the atheists attempting to explain what religion is. It is like watching a goldfish trying to read a technical manual.

        Spiritual experience is personal, and if you have not had any that is strong enough to be defining, then the default intellectual position is to be an Agnostic. Which is saying: “I don’t know if there is a God / Spirit World or not.”

        But to be an atheist and say “I know that there is no God / Spirit World” requires you be a few bales short of a haystack.

        1. I went on a school trip to the Guild Hall at Portsmouth to listen to
          what a visiting Evangelist had to say. I found it a very moving
          experience and deeply spiritual.

          I did understand at the time that i was being manipulated but i still enjoyed the experience. Not difficult to see why people become trapped in cults with such charismatic speakers.

          I overheard one of my teachers say that she wasn’t expecting it to be about religion. Silly Moo.

          1. I went to a Billy Graham one, many many years ago.
            I was staggered to watch all those in the audience as they trooped up to the stage..
            Even then I thought it was a form of mass hysteria.

          2. All stage managed for maximum enchantment. They probably also use subliminal sound effects.

        2. Well, not quite. The leap of faith is just that. There is is no sprinkling of oofle dust. There is no personal epiphany. (There may be sometimes, but it is not usual.). You have to work at it. It helps that some of the smartest people who ever lived were Catholics, so that should give you confidence. (Then there are giraffes. God has a sense of humour, unlike “natural selection”.) The absence of strong personal spiritual experiences is common amongst those whom one might have thought would have had them most intensely, e.g monks. It is referred to as the”dark night of the soul”. The”Cloud of Unknowing” By anon. can be helpful.

          1. Horace – This is why I tend to avoid religious discussions – they can be long, abstract, of interest to few and you normally don’t change peoples minds with words on a screen. So I avoid them for the sake of harmony.

            In your comment there for example, much of it is true and known by many, but there is a fundamental error that has been shown by real life experience to be incorrect. Those who are Roman Catholics tend to fall into that spiritual cul-de-sac.

            But discussing it would serve no purpose, as if you believe that what you have typed is correct, then you have not experienced the things that shows them to be incorrect. So a futile discussion. That is not to say that the other things were not right though. 🙂

          2. Of course – belief is belief.

            I’ll respect someone to hold a belief but that doesn’t change the truth that those beliefs are wrong.

          3. Giraffes’ have the neck they do because that’s where their food is.

            That’s evolution. It is – frankly – utterly undeniable. The pretence that a God created this animal is hilarious and absurd.

            If there is any consideration that evolution is not a known and provable hypothesis then that person deserves absolute derision.

          4. ‘evening.
            “Then there are giraffes. God has a sense of humour,” I think it’s you that has the sense of humour.
            I don’t recall any good jokes in the Bible. Can you quote some?

          5. God made the duck-billed platypus and you would like a funny story about the Canaanite, the Philistine and the Jew?

        3. I do not know if there is a god or not.

          I do not believe if there were a true, all powerful deity and they’ve created this mess and left us to it then they’ve the mind of the Joker from Batman, caging intelligent minds in a lunatic asylum.

          I cannot think – considering the persistence of religious concepts at completely different times in completely different places that there was not some force – an alien is the most rational conceit – that gave us a few pointers and kicked us on our way because there are too many parallels between Incan, Aztec, Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Saxon, Russian philosophy.

    4. “…when people stop believing in God they believe not in nothing but in anything…”
      GK Chesterton, “Orthodoxy”

        1. South of the Blackwater Essex girl ackshirley, the river’s an evolutionary boundary.😎

          1. I’m afraid that theory doesn’t hold water. My eldest daughter was born south of the Blackwater and she has a MMath degree and is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Mathematicians as well as Head Coach of Trampolining at one of our top sports Universities. 😉

          4. Hi, stephenroi, I didn’t reply immediately to your response as I was preparing to cook the evening meal for myself and the very special Essex girl I’ve been married to for almost 50 years.
            You clearly have a special daughter and very well done to her. You must be very proud.
            My theory, which actually isn’t a theory because I have no evidence to support it, was a tongue in cheek reply to your image of Essex girls, as I’m sure you understood. Where the stereotypical and derogatory image of Essex girls originated, I haven’t a clue: probably a tacky, low brow television programme.

            Having been surrounded by Essex girls all my life all I can say with confidence is that Cherry B and Babycham became endangered species in short order.😎

    4. So, what you are saying, is that Ms Abbot, mothered a white child when she was ‘close’ to Jewemy

      I did not think he had it in him

      OOOP it slipped out

      2. If I don’t like the outcome can I reject the result as not being reflective of the wider public mood and get everyone to vote again?

        As many times as it takes until I get a result that I like.

        1. Can we deploy the “they didn’t know what they were voting for” argument and demand a second vote If Agent Steptoe makes it to No 10??

  65. For decades, I have studied the Holocaust but never understood how it could happen… until now. 8 DECEMBER 2019.

    It cited the evidence of the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, The Jewish Chronicle, and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) which, despite a long affinity with Labour, will only now campaign for “exceptional candidates”. The editorial read: “A party that cannot be trusted in relation to Jews cannot be trusted at all.” Then the JLM’s final submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation into anti-Semitism in Labour was leaked.

    I have some sympathy with the title but my concern is not the Jews; they can after all go to Israel where they will be safe, though I would admit the parallels with the thirties are unmistakable. A Police State with an ideology that is inimical to a large part of the population, control of the media, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for thought crimes, False Flag operations to influence public opinion, the organisation of mobs to attack political opponents, the dismissal of people from their jobs for having incorrect opinions, the destruction of constitutional safeguards to achieve their ends. etc. We’ve seen all this before.

    This time we will be on the receiving end.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/decades-have-studied-holocaust-never-understood-could-happen/

      2. Afternoon N,
        A tad safer than we are from
        the lab/lib/con, mass uncontrolled immigration, PC /
        Appeasement three monkey mode of governance shown by the toxic trio.

    2. It may be scouting the borders of “idealism” but I believe that people are born “good.” Apart from a tiny number who may have multiple genetic defects that prevent parts of their brains from functioning. But they are born wearing berets and grow up to be Marxists.

      People are not born bad, they are made bad. So when you want to wipe out a group of people you need to spend years de-humanising them. Making them non-people in the minds of those who will do the killing. We obviously saw this in Germany back in 30’s, and we are seeing it again in the Labour party today with their Momentum blackshirts. If you see people as sub-human then there is no real block to killing them.

      Sadly for the planet, and the majority of those who live here, the globalists want a smaller population that is easier to control. They have a useful tool in the followers of islam, as those who take it seriously and follow its teachings have it beaten into them from birth that everyone else are infidels and only other muslims matter. Which is why they find it so easy to kill at random.

      1. We used to have this conversation during ward coffee breaks.
        Together we represented many years of working with the mad, sad and bad.
        We all could only come up with – at most – a handful of patients who we actually considered evil. And the same names cropped up every time.
        They weren’t necessarily the most floridly demented, but they had an ‘X’ factor that was difficult to pin point. They made your flesh creep.

        1. Most of that group of unemployed JobCentre customers were mad or sad, or both. Very few were the bad – but they were scary.

          1. It was impossible to quantify; it was a visceral reaction.
            I assume people who willingly walk into their trap lack that protective instinct.

          2. It took many people quite a long time to realise how evil Blair is. Mind you, following Major, who is more pathetic than downright evil, perhaps it was the contrast that fooled so many.

        3. Unfortunately for us all, there are those who are sick and twisted but have a high level of intellect, and they have learned to function in society and appear “normal” and walk among us. Our misfortune is that they choose to go into politics, to be able to twist the world into their vision of what they should be allowed to do. They have no problem with bribery or corruption and use them as normal tools to get ahead.

          Which could explain why there are so few really honest and “good” people in Parliament now. They are weeded out in the selection process so that the easily corrupted can get through and be controlled by those others who are already there.

      2. MM,
        Then why do peoples still support / vote for the mass uncontrolled immigration coalition.
        Also these same people must
        acknowledge the fact that these parties are also well practised
        users of PC / Appeasement
        coupled with the three monkey
        mode of governance.

      3. Sadly for us, the globalists would be very happy if our entire population of indigenous white English people were replaced by muslims.

        1. I would go further and say that we are a barrier to those people who want to rule us all as tyrants. So they won’t just be happy for us to go, they are actively trying to get rid of us.

          It would be so much easier for them without moral people standing up and saying “That’s disgusting. I am not going to let you do that. Put that little girl down. Now get in that prison cell.” We are in their way and they have no moral misgivings about making us go away.

          1. OT – it seems Disqus has stopped removing upvotes and they are beginning to accumuate again. It’s odd that the comment count stayed as it was, but all my history prior to the new sites starting in August, has gone.

          2. I have stopped counting them now after they started going up again, but it was useful to have been looking at them while I did. Almost everyone’s counts started going back up as normal on Saturday 9th November, and this continued until Monday 16th November when they all started going back down again.

            This looks VERY much like someone had a week’s holiday from work and did not run the vote-stripping program while they were out of the office. They left work on Friday and the votes stopped dropping until they went back to work on the Monday after the week off. It was a pattern that I would not have noticed if I didn’t have the numbers to look at. So it is likely that all of those people were on one list that was being operated by one person.

            If they were working for Disqus then this pattern was so obvious that they might have just stopped running it now for a while. It was a sad thing to have done in the first place, and typical of those on “the left” who like to make people with our views appear to be unpopular.

          3. Our views are not unpopular with the people who matter to us (or at least accepted within the framework of intelligent discourse) so whatever some stupid twit wants to do with our votes says more about their personal inadequacy, than about the merit of our posts.

          4. That is true. 🙂

            But there is a side-issue with the way that Disqus is structured. We all have a hidden “Reputation” score, and it if drops below zero then it triggers an auto-block on every site that you go to. Every comment you make goes to “pending” unless you are whitelisted. In practice large news sites do not have the time to do that with 1,000’s of comments a day, so your account is effectively censored from sites such as breitbart and other news sites. You cannot leave comments there anymore.

            That is the end goal of stripping votes down into the negative scores – censorship of our views.

        2. Yet they wouldn’t as there would – and I say this without any joy – be no one to pay their welfare.

          They are, as a demographic, horrifically, unfairly welfare dependent. In this, on inviting them in to this coutry society has failed this group.

          Of course, this was always – always – Labour’s agenda. That’s why that wretched party must be obliterated. The malice, poison and spite Blair enforced on Pakistani Muslim immigrants was nothing short of brutality.

        3. How are the globalists going to get muslims to work – to support the globalists in their lifestyle. Unless they bring back whips to whip the slaves.

          1. Some of them work………as taxi drivers etc, to further their rape gang enterprises; some of them have managed to get into positions of local powerr as mayors.

          2. Yes. but the globalists are going to need more than taxi drivers and politicalesque figures. Someone is going to have to keep the societies that the globalists leech off, running. Or will there be enough English stalwarts who will be paid fools. On present performance by our so-called elite, perhaps that is the answer. Only the sh!ts will survive.

          4. In which case, it’s probably Islam that will be the downfall of the globalists. The globalists think they can use Islam as a tool for their own purposes. They may be in for a rude awakening.

          5. I think that the globalists know what islam will do and will just rule them the way that Gaddafi and Saddam did, once they have brought down democracy and driven out Western values. They will sit at the top of the tree and just kill anyone who steps out of line below them. Those dictators were there a long time, and they were only toppled when we decided to remove them to cause massive unrest in the region and begin the tidal wave of economic migrants into Europe.

            The globalists don’t care about what happens to the people, they can be ruled with an iron rod. As long as they have the luxuries and power at the top and cannot be removed, then they are happy. No more inconvenient “democratic elections” or “populism” to remove them when they have hordes of followers who will kill their opponents without question.

          6. At the end of the day, I’m very much afraid that you are right. But – those dictators were in backwards societies. It would have to take a different format here. Unless the whole west has degenerated to such an extent, but we have too much residual civilisation to be manipulated quite so easily. I hope.

          7. We can still stop them and get our “normal civilised” way of life back. Their numbers are not too great yet. Sweden is far gone, but even it could be saved with some very direct action from their government and people. But we really do not want to keep our borders open the way that they are now, with a green light for 99% of those who wish to bring us down.

            You can see our services and safety in this country being seriously affected already. You can imagine if even just Turkey were allowed into the EU, with 70 million followers of islam who will have EU passports and free movement wherever they wish. There would not be much left after that. In the meantime the globalists will make do with the millions of refugees who are already on the move.

          8. There seems to be no particular reason for unskilled Turks to be allowed to become resident in the UK. Yet every town in Scotland now has at least one Turkish barber shop.
            Where better to organise from?

          12. We need to make life so difficult for them here (no benefits, no halal, no work) that it is simply not worth them coming here. And human rights of those be damned.

            Edit: Denmark is already starting, so it can be done. We need to get the HRA off the statute book. We are still signatories to the ECHR, so it’s no “shame”. We didn’t need the HRA in the first place – it was basically a Blair ploy (cough cough Matrix Chambers cough cough).

      4. But that has already happened. The labelling is blatant and obvious:
        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/07/voters-eu-referendum-did-not-know-what-they-were-voting-for-oona-king –
        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/30/facts-support-mps-claim-that-better-educated-voted-remain-pollster
        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-education-higher-university-study-university-leave-eu-remain-voters-educated-a7881441.html
        
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2019/jan/12/brexit-remainer-leave-voters-labour-northern-people
        https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2019/01/why-uk-cannot-see-brexit-utterly-utterly-stupid
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/vote-leave-racism-brexit-uncivil-war-channel-4
        http://socialistreview.org.uk/415/after-leave-vote-we-can-beat-back-racism-and-austerity
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48692863
        https://www.opinium.co.uk/racism-rising-since-brexit-vote/
        https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8685098/secret-civil-servant-remain-bureaucrats-undermine-brexit/
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/16/brexit-vote-to-take-back-control-means-control-by-parliament

        the fascist Left at work – dehumanise your opponent.

        They can’t help it. Hatred if the very core of their being. If they have to treat those who disagree with them as equals, they have to look at their arguments cogently. Then they see rationality, reason and common sense. As the human mind struggles with this new reality, the result is pain. Thus the Left have to make their enemies out to be savages, to be evil. It’s the only way they can protect themselves from cognitive dissonance.

        Over time, an intelligent mind looks at itself and says ‘thinking unionisation and state control is a stupid idea. It’s never worked. Why did we think it was? Then they argue, well, because we saw poverty and unfairness, we had a crap job and wanted more for ourselves. And then they say, yeah, but wouldn’t it be better ti give everyone the opportunity to improve rather than have an arbitrary role forced on them? And the mind changes for the better.
        The Left… sadly are not capable of that. Look at Corbyn. 50 years of evidence he’s wrong and he still clings to his failed ideology. Now, so do many others who have known only luxury fight the very system they so enjoy.

    3. With what went on with the grooming gangs all over the country and with the cover ups for years / decades it is quite easy to understand how the holocaust could happen.

    4. Yes, but the last time the Left enforced fascism upon the nations of the world they failed, and were driven back.

      The problem lies with the tolerance of the decent, right minded soul.

      The Left thrive on being allowed to do and say what they please.

      It is perhaps ironic that they accuse others of intolerance when it is, and always has been their own bigotry that must be defended against. But then, Stalin knew this. He said ‘accuse others of what you are… to distract them.’ This time when the Left are smashed, and the war over they cannot ever again be allowed bare flesh for their fangs. Society must be armoured against the violent predator of the Left wing mind.

    5. The article is behind a paywall, but –

      ” my concern is not the Jews; they can after all go to Israel where they will be safe ”

      You mean the entire world-wide community of Jews should dump themselves in a beautiful but alien land where they cannot speak the language, leaving their country of birth and heritage behind them, and have nobody to speak for them here about Obama’s and the EU’s insistance on assisting Iran to obtain nuclear arms to destroy them ?”

      An alternative way to solve the Jewish Problem ?

      1. Well some of them have that option. What option do indigenous Brits, who don’t have oodles of cash have? None.We just stay and get annihilated. And vote for whom? Only those who are proffered to us; that’s not much real choice, is it?

    1. I really do wish actors would STFU about politics and holier than thou causes.

      He was good in ‘Withnail and I’. Especially when nearly freezing to death in an unheated slum flat and covering himself in DeepHeat in an attempt to keep warm.

        1. It certainly was. I’m going to watch it again tonight. Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty was hilarious. And Paul McGanns reactions were funny, too.

      2. They only ever seem to speak sense when they are speaking words from a script that someone has written for them.

        I’m thinking that being an actor is a type of mental illness.

      3. Look at the facts. Lives on his own, no wife, hangs around with young male characters, waves his wand about everywhere.

        Gandalf the Gay instead of Gandalf the Grey?

    6. Especially at the Bent Broadcasting Company

      If you’r named as a man……….you play the part of a man

      That is the chat shows flucked

    7. If they do press for real accuracy then that will cut a swathe through the BBC’s historical dramas, as far as black actors/ress’s go. Most of the cast would need to be white as while there were people of other colours in the country at the time, it was not the 30% that the BBC seems to have as their diversity minimum.

      There was one amusing moment in the American adult cartoon series “South Park.” It was set in Colorado which is quite snowy and white, in many ways. They were told that they needed to put more black characters in the show and they pointed out that there were almost no black people living there in the real world. Also they already had a famous black character playing the chef. The exec’s insisted on a child as well, and so the writers relented.

      A new child appeared at the school with the surname Black. His first name was Token.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e64034cc84bfc8cc4e5303e9aa03b76040282349441d2a4ea72ac35329a9c77.jpg

  67. I roasted a chicken for supper tonight. Plus, Chicken salad sandwiches for lunch tomorrow then a Stir Fry the next day. Each time i went to the kitchen to baste the birdy, Dolly tried to trip me up. As i’m carving the birdy, she is headbutting my ankles. Whatever does she want?

          2. Not from one short twiglet, no. Anyhow, lotsa salt in mouseblood, and he has plenty of that.

    3. Snap,except I roasted the bird yesterday plenty of butter squeezed under the skin Chicken and gravy sandwich last night and did the full monty today

      1. Excellent.

        I had just finished watching Saturday Kitchen and was inspired. Matt Tebutt suggested ‘chicken fat mayonnaise’. A bit of a misnomer really as it’s the chicken juices with what fat there is after the bird has roasted, is whisked into some mayonnaise. Utterly bloomin’ brilliant. Better when still warm.

        1. I was pleased with the gravy,bird roasted on onions garlic and carrots,two half lemons and some sage up the bum
          I must try that mayo

          1. Whisk it in slowly so the mayo doesn’t split. It was fantastic.

            I like to do all my roasts on a trivet/mirepoix of veg. I then process it down then pass it through a fine sieve. Makes great gravy. No waste and no bloat from when you thicken with flour/Bisto. (spits)

      3. Try squeezing ‘Boursin’ or a similar roulade under the breast skin and under the skin of the the thighs. Serve with grapes (at room temperature). and whatever veggies you like. Personally I love sauté potatoes and spinach, steamed and coated with pepper and melted butter.

        1. Is there a sauté method in your recipe book, Tom?

          PS: Sorry to hear about your brother – my (belated) condolences.

      1. If anyone else would like it – feel free. If you want to print it, it’s formatted for A5, portrait paper.

      2. Thank you but you don’t owe me anything Nanny. Except a very large G & T when i track you down ! :o)

  73. Tory Candidate Heckled because he said many food bank users struggle to manage their budget

    He in my view is correct many do not know how to manage a budget but I am not surprised at the reaction

    I would say that with most of these people it would not be dificult to take 10% to 25% out of their budgets

    1. Baby: “Are you for real?”
      Drag queen: “Talk to the hand ‘cos the face ain’t listening”.

    3. Diversity? Over made-up monsters more like. Why are so many trannies so scary and overdone? That is not being a woman – it is being a freak.

      1. I trust if elected Boris Johnson will do something about this expropriation of a child’s life. These made up goons should be sectioned. They should not have access to children’s nurseries. They are peripheral and bent.

        I blame the idiot Cameron for allowing freaks to dictate. We live in very dangerous times.

  77. Have family planning clinics disappeared?

    ‘We are ashamed we have to do this’: Couple with seven young children open up a GoFundMe after having their benefits slashed – leaving them just £480-a-month to survive on and forcing them to rely on food banks
    Ryan Rodgers, 26, and his partner Jenny Grimes, 25, have had their benefits cut
    Couple say they have only £480 to live on for themselves and their seven kids
    They say have to rely on food banks, help from charities and offers from family

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7769875/Couple-seven-young-children-open-GoFundMe-having-benefits-slashed.html

    2. They’re totally off their trolleys, 7 very young kids and he, the elder of the couple, is 26 years old. For the 2nd time this evening I say FFS.

      2. I suggest the 7 kids were produced not out of love for each other and the joy of children but more, much more, to do with the love of and the joy derived from, the benefits accrued.

        Now that those benefits have stopped, have they considered selling six of the children to the local paedophile ring – good, alternative, source of income, doncha know. Crowdfunding? I’d give ’em a crowdfunded kick up the jacksie.

    4. Jenny Grimes (apt name) should change her name to Vickers, or Thompson, or Browning, Glock, or maybe Uzi. Her rate of fire is right up there with the best, the way she’s popping them out.

  81. There are two things Boris can do or promise to secure an election victory.

    Firstly to promise the abolition of the BBC licence fee. Those who wish to view endless repeats as well as swill for the swine can pay for it under subscription if they wish.

    Secondly, we desperately need electoral boundary reform. At present a few thousand votes for some SNP dullards will secure far more seats at Westminster in proportion to those determined by the national vote. This is plainly wrong.

    1. Much as I hate the BBC and object to the TV licence, I don’t think that such an announcement would have a positive result, unless couched in such a way that the BBC who hold the whip hand on broadcasting could do no harm, and that’s a very long shot.. There are too many people who still think the BBC is honest and upright and the Guardian of All That Is True. It’s a Golden Child, like the NHS, a National Treasure.

      The time to get rid of it is mid-term, when nobody could do anything about it.

      Boundary reform is long overdue, thanks to that knacker Clegg.

  83. Just watched another of those Peloton adverts. Would anyone seriously shed gallons of sweat around their living quarters? The books would be ruined and there would have to be a major cleanup operation to restore the finishes.

    A few years ago I visited a gym and was alarmed to witness some dolt running marathons on a treadmill. His sweat was cast everywhere. It was distressing to find the management accepted the damage done both to the morale of other users and the damage done to the equipment resulting from his obsession.

    The chap eventually suffered a cardiac arrest and has not been around for a while. Needless to say I quit the gym in disgust; that and the surfeit of canoodling couples in the spa section.

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