Thursday 1 February: The ultimate Conservative failure is the demise of Britain’s work ethic

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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546 thoughts on “Thursday 1 February: The ultimate Conservative failure is the demise of Britain’s work ethic”

  3. Europe is finished, condemned to death by its deluded, third-rate elites. 31 January 2024.

    It’s time to mourn the demise of old Europe. The rot is too far gone, the decline too pronounced, the welfarism, decadence, pacifism and self-hatred too ingrained, the doom-loop unstoppable. Once the world’s richest, most advanced continent, Europe is finished, its humiliating fall all too obvious to the rest of the world, if not to deluded Europeans.

    Its self-inflicted pathologies – catastrophic economic failure, near-total geopolitical irrelevance, a migration and integration crisis, and a gaping democratic deficit – have now metastasised. They have become too complex, too daunting for Europe’s third-rate elites even to consider tackling, and especially for the selfish, demagogic politicians who have presided with such insouciance over its social disintegration, “degrowth”, Potemkin militaries and appalling demographics. Germany, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere are on the brink of social explosion, with farmers the latest to have become radicalised.

    All this, and the rest, is true. The problem is that the UK is in an even worse state.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/31/europe-is-finished-condemned-third-rate-elites/

    1. The comedy is in thinking the political class want to do anything about it. They caused it. To think they expected a different outcome is laughable.

    2. It is true, however the continent’s biggest asset, which is the intelligence and ingenuity of its people, is being purposefully wasted by a spiteful ruling class opening the floodgates to invaders.

  4. Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well and enjoy your day. (Btw, White Rabbits and A Pinch And A Punch – it’s February and the daylight hours are getting better.)

    Wordle 957 4/6

    And now for today’s Wordle result. I made it in four. Because I was so focused on not moving the first letter (which was in the right place) to a different place as I had done before, I ended up leaving the fourth letter (correct but in the wrong place) in fourth place as before. Doh!

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

    1. Don’t know if it is connected, but I’m finding I have more energy as the days get lighter.

      1. You do – sunlight tells your brain to ‘wake up’ basically. The more and earlier you see it, the more energy you have.

        Despite all our efforts at technology, despite all we can do, humans are still primitive chemical drones.

    2. Wordle in 2 today. Good starter word.
      Wordle 957 2/6

      🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. From a promising start (same as yours by the look of it), an uninspired four here!
        Wordle 957 4/6

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

  7. Good morning all,

    A lovely dawn at Castle McPhee with a very clear gibbous moon. Wind going North-West, 4℃ up to 7 or 8℃ today.

    Of course, I didn’t have to click on this story but I did.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e9a7b3bb2e0b9a0cd502f4e3c07e8bd7045efd56e49e6de2e90b74ea8d0448cb.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/31/acid-attack-clapham-latest-news-mother-children-injured/

    The sheer evil is beyond words. We know which demographic likes to throw corrosive liquids around, don’t we?

    2. As usual no mention of the attacker in the article whatsoever which defacto points to those responsible. Only when the media are honest about the problems massive uncontrolled immigration has caused will anything be done about it.

      1. Because they are trying to cover their stupid mistakes and their own R sez. Our officialdom has adopted a pathetic logic. And it ain’t working.

  9. Tory MP Mike Freer to quit frontline politics after death threats. 1 February 2024.

    In an interview with the Daily Mail, the 63-year-old said he had been subject to a decade of intimidation, culminating in a suspected arson attack on his constituency office in December.

    His family were so concerned by the incident that Mr Freer decided over Christmas to step down, he said.

    His husband Angelo had become “incredibly jittery” over his safety, and he was advised by police to wear a stab vest during events in his constituency, he told the Mail.

    Goodbye. Good riddance.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/31/tory-mp-mike-freer-quit-politics-death-threats-israel-gaza/

    2. Let us put aside the matter of his sexuality, and see if there’s a pattern when it comes to death threats and violence in general. Is it usually from the right? From Christians?

    3. He and his ilkhave only themselves to blame. They not only invited the savages in for a party, they gave them the knives and ignored the blood of others.

      No one wanted massive uncontrolled invasion except the political class. It has done untold damage to the country. MPs are only just realising because it’s affecting them.

      1. And neither should you (we). I bristle. It’s wrong.

        F&@cking Cameron and his “proudest thing he’s ever done”. What a f£&ckwit.

    6. There is a bigger picture.
      How many MPs now worry who is coming through the door when they hold their surgeries? How many feel unsafe when out canvassing?
      This is a deliberate tactic by the peaceful ones, to ensure that those ‘sympathetic’ to them are the only ones who feel safe enough to enter politics.
      I agree that spineless politicians from all parties have allowed this to happen but that doesn’t alter the fact that those supporting any other belief system are now targets for these homicidal loons.
      I bet the likes of Tulip Sadiqqi don’t have to worry.

    7. There is a bigger picture.
      How many MPs now worry who is coming through the door when they hold their surgeries? How many feel unsafe when out canvassing?
      This is a deliberate tactic by the peaceful ones, to ensure that those ‘sympathetic’ to them are the only ones who feel safe enough to enter politics.
      I agree that spineless politicians from all parties have allowed this to happen but that doesn’t alter the fact that those supporting any other belief system are now targets for these homicidal loons.
      I bet the likes of Tulip Sadiqqi don’t have to worry.

    8. If you read the letter, he’s wittering on about what an honour it has been to serve such a diverse and vibrant community.

      He was parachuted in by Central Office if I remember rightly, who overruled the local party’s candidate that had already been chosen. Freer profited out of that action by becoming an MP. He then voted with Cameron to legalise gay ‘marriage.’

      Freer has been fully on board with everything that’s destroying our previously stable society, so I can’t really bring myself to feel too sorry for him being on the receiving end of the inevitable result of it, even though the implications are worrying.

      1. I was sent a random email yesterday from a recruiter, wondering if i wanted to employ a “Diverse Female” whose “salary expectations” as my junior are £125k. She has about 4 years’ experience. I have 30 plus and am lucky to earn that much.

        Edit. It was written like that, capital D capital F, Diverse Female. They are lucky i didn’t throw my computer in the bin.

      2. I was sent a random email yesterday from a recruiter, wondering if i wanted to employ a “Diverse Female” whose “salary expectations” as my junior are £125k. She has about 4 years’ experience. I have 30 plus and am lucky to earn that much.

        Edit. It was written like that, capital D capital F, Diverse Female. They are lucky i didn’t throw my computer in the bin.

    9. “His ‘husband’ Angelo”? Are there a lot of muslims in his constituency? He should take flying lessons.

  10. Good morning all. Hope you all slept well.
    A bright start to the day with a tad over -1°C outside after the rain last night.
    Off to Stoke to see Stepson today.

  12. David Cameron is giving succour to our enemies. Con Coughlin. 1 February 2024.

    His job gives him the opportunity to draw on the vital experience he gleaned during the six years he spent in Downing Street. Among the highlights was his prominent role in overthrowing Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan, and the controversy generated by his attempt to launch military action against Syria over the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, which was rejected in a crucial Commons vote in 2013.

    This is ludicrous even by Coughlin’s lamentable standards. Cameron is a moron. We were still in Afghanistan ten years later. The attack on Libya was a disaster. Thank God Parliament voted against his Syria policy which would have created even more problems.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/david-cameron-palestinian-state-britains-enemies/

  15. Morning all 🙂😊
    Good start, sun’s popped up and sky clear.
    Conservatives not worth conserving.
    A failure in UK politics, my own opinion is someone else has been and still is ‘pulling their strings’ they way they are behaving by not taking any interest in public opinion and the fact that a previous failure, wokey Cameron has been reinstalled.
    And the way radicals like Andrew Brigden are being treated. Even the old codger Ken Clarke had something to say about it all.
    I think they are taking orders from the Davos Mobsters.
    Not what we vote for.

      1. He ‘went out of the window’ for me when he left his young daughter in a pub after a rigged meeting with whoever, nobody else would have done that.

        1. Oh I don’t know, Eddy. There’s one of my daughters who I’d happily leave behind in any pub, salubrious or otherwise, if I thought I could get away with it. She knows who she is.

          1. Same here. Used to leave youngest baby outside the butcher’s shop (ok, in plain view and more of a big village than a little town). But I knew that just one night would have seen the taker make absolutely sure they took the baby back!

          2. I used to leave my bawling brat outside shops as well……. wouldn’t be allowed these days! Life was very different 50+ years ago, wasn’t it!

          3. I remember as a toddler being left in the pram in our front garden for naps. No idea how old I was but prams were big enough for 2+ year olds to sleep in. Mum told me I would sit up and ‘chatter’ to anyone passing. I named my first big doll after one such lady, ‘Lulu.’ (Long before the singer of that name)

          4. I expect we were all left out like that in our prams – not sure i actually remember it but there are certainly photos of me in mine. My mum told me I stamped through the bottom of my pram, so I must have been fairly hefty by then. It was an old-fashioned coach-built one. She sold it to a needy neighbour.

          6. There was once a school master whose wife left the baby in its pram in the garden. All night.

          7. I bet that baby slept well too. It is supposed to be good for babies to sleep outside – though that advice is intended for daytime naps. 🙂

        2. Early done when several families and cars are involved.
          Just being a smug greeniac twerp does it for me.

      2. Him and Shapps; when you see that dream team being brought in, you know something really bad is going to happen.

    1. Oh dear…..
      Our Po-lice farce. Seemingly just another bunch of infestation we have to pay for. Along with the house of Lards, not-Whitehall and Wastemonster

    2. Good morning,
      Overkill for so many to turn up to a non-threatening, non-criminal situation with a young girl. No wonder there are supposedly no ‘officers’ available when a regular house burglary is reported.
      I noticed the defensive arms-crossed pose by that wet policeman in the clip. What a drip.

      1. Harmonie London was not going to give Plod a well deserved poke on the nose.
        Bullying, pure and simple. (With a side order of Christianophobia.)

        1. Agree. Had it been a group of savages kneeling down to their ped0 leader blocking a busy pavement or even road, you can bet they wouldn’t have been stopped. Though any decent bystanders would have been ‘spoken to’.

  18. Good morning all

    10c here , cloudy and sunny.

    Garden birds are busy , so many blackbird pairs carrying dried grasses and little twigs for nest making .

    1. I was woken by a yelping fox advertising his wares at 2:30 am.
      It must be that time of year again.

        1. I thought he was looking for a mate.
          It’s not the first time it’s happened over the years.

          2. I thought so. 😊
            I’ve put some chicken wire across the gap at the bottom of one of my sheds. They tried to move in a couple of years ago. But we had lovely Lottie dog then.

  19. Journalist sacked for being critical warns over UAE takeover of The Telegraph
    Reporters would not be able to speak freely under proposed new Gulf state owners, says co-founder of the Art Newspaper

    Dominic Penna,
    POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    1 February 2024 • 12:01am

    A journalist has revealed how she was sacked for criticising the royal family of the United Arab Emirates as she warned that Telegraph journalists would not be able to speak freely if a planned takeover by the Gulf state went ahead.

    Anna Somers Cocks, the co-founder of the Art Newspaper, urged the Government to block the takeover as she discussed how they made her a “non-person” in retaliation for unfavourable coverage of the UAE.

    RedBird IMI, which is 75 per cent funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the UAE, is trying to take control of The Telegraph and its sister magazine The Spectator.

    Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, has ordered Ofcom to further investigate the attempted takeover amid concerns about editorial independence, to which RedBird IMI says it is “entirely committed”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/telegraph-sale-sacked-journalist-warns-over-uae-ownership/

    PD

    Patricia Davies
    1 HR AGO
    This does no need any enquiries – it is madness. Free speech is of vital importance to what is left of a free society. What is proposed is one of an increasing number of nails in the coffin. EDITED

    Comment by Mirza DATOO.

    MD

    Mirza DATOO
    1 HR AGO
    Allowing Arabs to own British Broadsheets will muzzle free speech & journalism – one only has to look at how they control news broadcasting in their own countries.
    The Arabs will impose upon us Sharia Laws & further Muslimify the UK.

    Comment by Fred Bloggs.

    FB

    Fred Bloggs
    1 HR AGO
    Whether trendy lefties, or present day tory mps who are exactly the same – trendy lefties, like it or not, the DT is a British newspaper for a British readership. We are not part of and have nothing to do with Gulf Arab culture. We do not want a foreign state owning part of our way of life.

    Comment by Carl Thompson.

    CT

    Carl Thompson
    1 HR AGO
    Will be sorry to cancel my subscription, but if this happens there’s no choice.

    Comment by Paul Crawford.

    PC

    Paul Crawford
    1 HR AGO
    With Dave at the Foreign Office and his mate Osborne advising the UAE do not be surprised if this is allowed to go ahead.

    Sir Winston Churchill once said ” Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things

    2. I seem to remember that their cartoonist couldn’t speak his mind either before the Arabs took over.

    2. 382680+ up ticks,

      Morning P,
      WEF reasoning is he needs keep fit for the next in line
      kicking / victim.

      1. Good morning.
        Hopefully the next victims will be the people who allowed him to be released.

    3. Any of these paranoid schizophrenics who commit a violent crime should never be allowed freedom.
      Even if they are deemed fit to be released from a secure mental hospital, it should only be direct to a high security prison.
      Is paranoid schizophrenia more prevalent in those with African blood (this one and the recent Nottingham madman are clearly from those origins) than whites?

      2. The answer is yes – at least one study in the USA has found blacks to be at least twice as likely to develop schizophrenia than whites.

        1. They may dominate European running teams but their IQs have been shown to be below average.

      3. On MB’s ward was a paranoid schizophrenic. Intelligent, well-spoken chap. Also well over 6ft. tall and well built.
        For 11 months of the year, he was fine; …. but, when he flipped, he was a potential killer. And nobody knew when he was going to flip; there were no warning signs, no behaviour in the days leading up to his outburst.
        So, he had to live on the locked ward for the safety of the general public.

      1. As i recall it was posted to a private group of mates. Though one of them shopped him/published. It was a joke. He didn’t post it on FB or X for public consumption. He should not have been punished.

  23. On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
    Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
    Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
    And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

    WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

      2. There were daffodils in bloom in the east-facing front garden of a house I passed a couple of days ago. Not the dwarf ones, either, that usually bloom first.

          1. Unusually (agh! It’s climate change!) I have full size daffs nearly ready to burst into flower. Normally that doesn’t happen until March.

      1. I sent it to my husband (sitting next to me) and discovered it had sound! I cried with laughter again!

  26. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3047a172c065c1269db1cee5e66c08d490cd1273ff79c63f84d49fcb09eff747.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/01/31/labour-regret-greedy-raid-on-private-schools-keir-starmer/

    This is the same Old Labour politics of envy.

    The state is not subsidising private schools – parents who send their children to private schools are subsidising the state system: not only have they paid for state education with their taxes but for every child who is educated in a private school does not have to be educated at the state’s expense.

    Mitterrand tried to abolish private schools in France – he failed because it was brought home to him that the state system in France would be swamped and could not cope with all the children in private schools having to go into state schools. Teachers in private schools unanimously said they would leave teaching altogether rather than teach in state schools.

    Is it because they are frightened of seeming to be conservative that the Conservative Party ministers are so feeble? Private education is just the sort of private enterprise that they should be standing firmly behind and supporting.

    1. My brother’s best friend at his private school was a boy from a single parent family (the mum was widowed when her children were still in infant school). He was there in the 1960s & 70s under an assisted places/direct grant grammar scheme. Without that, the boy would have been at the local sink school.

      1. Eliminated by the left and never addressed by the “Right” – it probably suited them to keep the lower classes in ignorance.

      2. One of the very first cruel things that Blair did was to abolish the assisted places scheme which allowed intelligent children whose local schools did not provide the facilities they needed to flourish to be sent to a private school which did. Of course Blair said that ‘the money saved’ (not that there was any as Starmer will now soon find out) would be earmarked for providing facilities for bright children in state schools. Of course he was appealing to envious and jealous Old Labour voters and in 1997 the electorate had not woken up to the fact that Blair was embarking on the most mendacious premiership that Britain had ever seen

        I spent 15years teaching in private schools and these schools offered special scholarships and bursaries which were means tested so that children from poor families could win them. Not only that but the schools allowed state schools to use their facilities. How very different from the mean-spirited philosophy of Labour!

        One of the most successful entrepreneurs and inventors in Britain, James Dyson, went to Gresham’s School (where we sent our older son, Christo) in Norfolk. His father taught Latin at the school and died when his two sons were young. The headmaster allowed the Dyson boys to go through Gresham’s without paying any fees. What a sound investment that was – James Dyson has, out of gratitude, given the school several millions of pounds over the years and has recently given another £35,000,000.

        1. Liebour – peddling the policies of spite and envy. They most definitely do not represent the needs of hard working, aspirational families.

          1. We cannot afford a new Range Rover so we are buying a bottom of the range Dacia Jogger; when I was a student I yearned to have a Jaguar XK 150 but I could afford neither the purchase price nor the insurance so I bought a 9 year old MGA and I was very happy with it and proud of it!

            Good luck to those who can afford a new Range Rover; good luck to those who can afford a vintage Jaguar sports car.
            I do not resent their having things I cannot have and I don’t want to stop them having them

            The Labour policy has always been based on envy, spite and jealousy and it tries to stir up these negative feelings of resentment in voters.

          2. My car was new when I bought it in 2007. These days I prefer to spend my money on travel to see wildlife before it disappears and I’m too old to do so. At 75, each trip could be my last.

          3. We bought our minibus new in 2001 – we still have it and will continue to use it until it fails the MoT. I use it as a tractor and for collecting heavy things in the trailer.

            We bought our Fiat Panda new in 2006 – Good for shopping and local trips.

            7 seater Dacia Jogger arrives next week: to carry the students around and for long trips.

            (The minibus is a good runner but rather dented, scruffy and shabby like me. A new car, like Caroline, will not be shabby! And by the time it is shabby we shall not be running courses any more!)

          4. And that’s just how it should be. We’ve worked hard for what we have, and I’m proud of that. When our boys were young, we ran old banger cars, and had furniture that really needed replacing, but we had all the necessaries and a decent home and that all-important time for our children. I wasn’t prepared to return to work full-time, with the boys having to go to full-time nursery then child minders before & after school plus school holidays.
            As the boys were into their teens, we could have afforded better cars, fancy holidays and all sorts but we preferred to save to help our children through university and put money aside for retirement as we knew our pensions might not be enough.
            Spendthrift friends on similar incomes who ‘lived it up’ are now having to be extremely careful managing their retirement. We can relax on that front.

          6. Unfortunately, many do. They may have improved their lot, but are dyed-in-the-wool liebour supporters. Plenty of them are STILL banging on about Thatcher.

    2. One of the few things I agree with in socialist France is that their idea of wealth distribution is to provide government subsidies so that private schools can provide places for the less affluent.
      It seems our socialists have not cottoned onto that.

        1. True.
          My son was in the last cohort.
          But the grammar schools were closed well before.
          And the Tories did sweet F.A.

    1. It’s a climate emergency! We need to implement stricter, faster net zero measures. Quick, raise taxes. That will stop nature.

      1. And put more than 3 thousand steel workers out of a job.
        But more than double the size of Luton Airport.
        So many people now have the need to attend climate meetings…..

    2. That’s such a terrible shame when that happens. Norfolk is having terrible problems like this as well.

  30. They do it in Germany too. It’s only fair actually – the private schools get the money that it would have cost to educate the child in the state sector. It’s Britain that isn’t fair, where private school parents are paying twice for their children’s education, and now the mean socialists even want to remove the school’s tax advantage to increase fees even more.

    1. Good morning, Less in More and BB2.

      We sent both our boys to Catholic private primary schools and we had no fees to pay.

      The state gives private schools the amount of money the state would have had to spend on each child’s schooling. Ergo, a well organised private school does not have to charge fees to parents.

      Eight years ago I had a hip replacement done in a private clinic. The full cost of this was covered by my obligatory state insurance scheme.

      The French have this strange idea about education and health: if you have paid your taxes you are entitled to receive what you have paid for. For the state to take from you something for which you have paid would be robbery.

      1. If you’d had your hip done in the UK you might have been lucky and referred to a private clinic and had it done on the NHS. But it’s a bit of a lottery. My husband had his shoulder surgery done at the Spire hospital in Bristol – via the NHS.

        A couple of years later, he needed surgery for bi lateral hernias, and had it done privately at an NHS hospital locally – but this time he had to pay.

  32. Morning all. Beautiful day here. Slowly cooking bacon to make it completely crispy, wonderful smell. For Lunch a baguette, butter, tomato and the bacon, my favorite home style sandwich. I do miss American Deli sandwiches, they make the best sandwiches in the world.

    I do not like Russell Brand but listening to him in this interview with Tucker Carlson, I have to say my esteem for the man has really gone up tremendously. Very worth listening to.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1752466469454061656

    By the way. The reason I listened to this interview is because this article in the Telegraph about this interview is such an obvious and disgusting smear against Brand. It’s nothing more than an assassination attempt in order to make his opinions invalid when, in fact, it’s just the opposite. That truth comes across loud and clear in this interview. Brand has clearly grown up.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/31/russell-brand-tucker-carlson-allegations-hurtful/

      2. He’s very articulate, but it sounds so odd – I think I’d have preferred to read a transcript as his accent is very distracting, and detracts from the message he’s conveying.

        1. Agreed. His accent makes him appear to be less intelligent and articulate than he actually is.

          1. He does the accent on purpose – he could easily modulate his voice to be less annoying if he wanted!

          2. Does he come from Brum? I ask because research showed that when people listened to passages read in different accents and they “scored” the intelligence of the speaker, those with a Brummy accent were considered of the lowest intellegence (even below “rustics”).

        2. Agreed. His accent makes him appear to be less intelligent and articulate than he actually is.

      1. Thanks Pip I have saved that and will try some of the sandwiched out. Have you ever been to a New York deli?

        1. Not that i recall. When i lived in London i used deli’s. Probably Jewish because i always ordered bagels and lox.

          1. A trip to New York is worth it for the culinary delights of New York Deli’s. I had a salmon salad in one that was so delicious that I will remember until the day I die. I still hanker after it decades later, never tasted anything to rivel it. Then there’s pastrami on Rye bathed in juice, heavenly!!! The salmon was a Chinese Jewish Deli. Yes, there are Chinese Jews. As for bagels and Lox. Used to go after an all nighter to a bagel manufacturer that did bagels straight out of the oven with lox and cream cheese exclusively for the locals at 4 in the morning. My wife and I spent many nights scuttling down there for that treat.

    5. I think both Brand and Carlson are part of the establishment’s gateway network. Lots of circumstantial pointers, plus the giveaway when TC started promoting the aliens red herring, which has since disappeared because nobody took it seriously.

      I do enjoy listening to a good conversation though, and judge it on its merits even if I am sceptical about the motives of the participants.

      1. I agree, and that also makes me wonder about others, whom I would dearly wish to believe in. I think they will have to abandon the aliens spectacular, having dipped a toe in the water twice. They are finding out that even the masses are not as gullible now as they thought.

        1. When they started putting stories about aliens in the media, about 4-6 months ago. I think we were supposed to believe that the White House is hiding evidence of aliens landing. It’s not 1950 any more, people just ignored it.

          1. The stories are actually years old in the American media. What is different is that the military has finally admitted that the exist but they don’t know what they are. Even President Carter, President from 1977 to 1981 tried to get the military to come clean but they wouldn’t. So it isn’t anything new really. In the American media/press, it has been going on for decades so I don’t think it has anything to do with misdirection or some sort of cover up for other things going on. That just doesn’t work anymore thanks to the internet.

  33. Nice market this morning. Chilly but sunny. The Morrisons 5p off a litre of petrol offer was a bit of a con. Last week they wee charging £1.42 a litre. Today it is £1.46 – so the “offer” might amount to 1p “saving”.

    Cats slumber in sunshine – indoors, of course!

    1. I’m not usually one for excessive regulation, but that kind of offer seems like sharp practice to me. There should be a minimum period – more than a week – when a higher price must prevail before a reduction is described as a special offer of some kind. That’s not to say they should be forbidden from reducing the price within that period but it ought not to be promoted as some kind of good deal until the minimum period has elapsed.

      1. At least Bill was able to use his coupons – there’s no Morrisons fuel station round here so the ones I get are useless.

      2. “Sale” prices are indeed regulated in that way, but the retailers get around the law by calling their discount a ‘price reduction’ or similar!

      3. When I worked in Selfridges in the 80s the rule was 28 days so alongside genuine reductions, cheap stock was purchased and put on the sales floor artificially marked up for 28 days before being reduced to actual price for the “sale”. Common practice unfortunately but the stock still sold well.

        1. I thought it was 28 days; often chains will sell it at the higher price in one very distant shop.

    3. Petrol price fluctuates wildly. This time last week I filled at Morrisons for £1.42, then got my 5p off that.

        1. Long way to go, though. There is a place on the Fens between Guyhirn and Eye selling it always about 10p lower than anywhere else. Handy if you live there or are passing through…not otherwise.

  34. Belated Good Morning, all y’all. Day off work, with stress. Beautiful & sunny, and a tropical +7C!
    Seems like Viktor Orban got what he wants from the EU. Reported an hour ago that the EU will hand over 50 billion Euro to Hungary. I expect he’ll now allow the EU to give similar sums to Ukraine. Oh, goody.

      1. It got to me yesterday. Discipline Lead blasted me in a meeting with the Client for raising an issue directly related to my work, and not knowing this had already been agreed by the Client. Problem was, he (DL) hadn’t bothered to inform me that it was agreed late last year! That man’s ability to communicate is nil, so he blasts me in public for something he didn’t inform me about, despite that I’m working with it! Bastard! Spent most of the night fuming and thinking out many ways of extracting his head through his arse, so by morning, I was wrecked. Mush zedding has restored the usual sunny humour. But, he’ll hear about it tomorrow.

        1. Sympathy. I’m currently working with three colleagues who all have giant egos. One is good and nice, but frequently forgets that he isn’t my supervisor. One constantly criticises my work to big himself up. The third one simply takes random decisions about my work and executes them without bothering to talk to me, and generally behaves as though he is my boss. Fed up with dealing with them.

          1. From the age of 34, I always worked for myself. So I missed all these exciting treats that you have to put up with. Thank God.

          2. I am getting very fed up with working in companies. There are various routes to working alone – getting paid for maintaining open source software, independent game development, or just being such a monumental a*hole that your colleagues leave you alone, then producing code that nobody else can maintain so that the company can never get rid of you. I have worked on a team with someone who did that.

      1. Not here (thank God), but about half-way up the country, west coast. Blew the cobwebs (and quite a few windows and roofs) away, and bowled people over in the streets.

          2. I think because they might have run out of expletives they’ve made up for it with silly names for storms.

    2. I was told that word originated from a notice placed on a door for privacy.
      Fornicating Under the Consent of King ER

    3. In Madrid there was once a Chinese restaurant called Fu King or Foo King, I cannot remember which.

      2. In Mile End, London, when I was a student there, there was the Foo King Chinese takeaway.
        And my Father brought back a visiting card from Fiji for the Wan Q restaurant…

        1. Beat me to it. Always caused a much needed titter as we inched our way along the road in an humungous traffic jam.

  36. Hooties attack British ship. Well aye the noo, if you go and poke a large stick in a nest of raving rag-eds, its not difficult to guess the result. I note the rest of the world apart from the US are standing well back. The good laird Cameron might enquire how many years the Saudis been bombing this lot seemingly to no effect.

    1. Saudis are utterly useless – it beggars belief that they can breathe without mechanical assistance. So, their military needs reinforced by a band of Girl Guides to actually do anything, let alone do it effectively.
      And God gave them all the oil in the world. ‘E was ‘avin’ a giraffe.

    1. Stop releasing Muslim terrorists and rapists would be a good start. And when some schizoid murders someone don’t release them after two years because they started taking their medicine. Let them rot in Broadmoor.

  38. Right that’s my letter to the greedy vile insidious bastards who are trying to double the size of Luton airport completed and emailed. Net Zero ??? obviously a complete joke.
    Coat hat gloves and comfy shoes on and off for a walk again.
    Slayders.

        1. I use to be fit, we actually lived at the top of one of the long 45deg slopes 32 years ago.

  39. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7184dde954a070310afe98521fa6a3e2df8f19a9/0_0_4576_3051/master/4576.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=80311d780ad31eeb0cc2e531c9df2958
    Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland
    Members of the Up Helly Aa Jarl Squad [Elsie’s cousins] behaving appallingly

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7bf452d595b8b9f0119dcaf9f611d77357eee8f2/0_0_5744_3829/master/5744.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=b2dcdc91c8b59d44448e1035db865865
    The opening night of LIFE, an immersive light and sound experience created by the British installation artist Peter Walker, at St Martin-in-the-Fields church

      1. Subsequently most BBC programmes have gone Belly Up!

        Afternoon Stormie and all.

        Bridge this morning then sourcing materials to build a few more shelves for the local Primary schools library. It’s the last time as they’ve run out of room for more shelving and I can expand upwards as the poor little mites won’t be able to reach the books!!!

  40. There’s more than one type of power cut. 2,500 homes in Ratby and Kirkby Muxloe in Leicestershire have been without gas since Tuesday because a water main burst and flooded gas mains. More than 20 miles of pipework is having to be pumped out. Every property affected will have to be visited. by engineers. More than 100 contractors have been called in from across the MIdlands and are being accommodated in local hotels and b&bs. Good thing it didn’t happen in a seaside town…

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-68158511

    3. I wonder if there was already a fracture in the gas mains, otherwise how would water enter the pipe? Or did a digger bucket damage the gas pipe whilst trying to fix a water leak alongside?

  41. Police name man wanted in Clapham chemical attack. 1 February 2024.

    Police have named a 35-year-old man wanted in connection with a chemical attack in Clapham.

    Superintendent Gabriel Cameron said Abdul Azedi was last seen in the Caledonian Road area and had travelled down from Newcastle.

    He said Azedi may have been known to police but is not local to London.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/clapham-acid-attack-live-latest-news-corrosive-substance/

    3. Police described the injuries as ‘life-changing’ rather than ‘life-threatening’.
      I suspect that ‘life-changing’ means blinded and disfigured.

      1. Used to work with someone who’d got their face in the way of acid. Not a pretty sight, and that was after the surgeries.

  42. Seems as if a suspect named Abdul Azedi or similar named as the attacker in the South London in acid attack.
    Someone knows where he’s hiding.

    1. Poor bloke living with two possible diseases to think about.

      These “miracle” cures are seen as wonderful at the time. But, just a few years later, there is uncertainty and worry for the patients.

      I thank God I never took anything for morning sickness, just got on with it. I have often said to Alf that medicine is a lifelong experiment.

    1. “Fake news intended to cause non-trivial harm” – so in their parallel universe, that might include spreading research papers that demonstrate vaccine harms, thus causing people to decide against taking vaccines, causing non-trivial harm to pharma profits?

    4. “Fake news”. Or, in other words, information the state doesn’t want publicised. What worries me is so few people really understand security and how to retain and protect it that the state will get it’s way. Folk will be left only able to listen and hear to the state line – kept informed by underground presses passed around by furtive characters frightened of the great hand of the state disappearing them.

      I suppose if ‘Uniparty’ becomes merely ‘The Party’ then we’re already living in the hell of 1984.

    1. Somme offensive: 4 1/2 months, and about even deaths at 160.000 for the Allies and the same for the Germans.
      Utterly horrible statistics.

        1. Yes. All the war talk in the media is reminiscent of the run-up to WW2. It scares me, frankly.
          From Wiki:

          Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilian fatalities) are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine.

          And that with

          In 1939, there were about 2 billion people in the world. The best estimates indicate that between 62 and 78 million of them would die due to WWII—more than 3% of the world’s population.

          from Wiki. And that was without the inevitable recourse to nuclear, chemical and bio weapons taht would be the result of a world war now.

          Why would anybody want that?

          1. The globalists intent on depopulation may want to speed things up if their bioweapons were not working as well as they intended.

          2. And also to hide the evidence of their crimes (which they thought they would get away with) amidst new hysteria, death and destruction figures. I have long since thought that WWl was a depopulation event, this was a red flag for me to consider at the start of the vaccination blitz on the population. Regarding WWll, I am not so sure.

      2. I always think of the years of love and hard work that the parents put into producing each piece of cannon fodder; gone in flash.

      1. All the cemeteries and memorials get me between the eyes. Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz is one that always reduces me to jelly.

        “The Devonshires held this trench – the Devonshires hold it still”

        We are going in June to see the new Normandy memorial at Ver. It is 40 years and more since I was in that part of France.

        1. LotL’s account of she and her family’s visit to the war graves always gives me goose bumps whenever I think about it.

          1. The MR used to take 14 years old children to the Somme or Flanders. In a Flanders’ cemetery is buried the young man whom my mother was to marry.

            I used to gather the children round – explain about the soldier and then say that – had he lived,and they had married – I would not have been there to tell them about it.

            It always took a minute or two for that penny to drop!

  46. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) list
    SHORT & SWEET – BUT NOT VERY PC – 2
    Top tip; if you’re camping in the summer and the attractive girl in the next tent tells you that because it’s so hot she will be sleeping with her flaps open, it’s not necessarily an invitation for casual sex.
    Wish me luck; I appear in court next Monday.

    I took my Biology exam last Friday. I was asked to name two things commonly found in cells. Apparently “Blacks” and “Pakis” were not the correct answers.

    A fat girl served me food in McDonald’s at lunch time. She said ‘sorry about the wait.’
    I said ‘don’t worry fatty, you’re bound to lose it eventually’

    I walked past a black kid sitting at a Bus Stop as I came out of the Bank. He looked at me and said ’Any Change?’ I said ‘Nope! You’re still Black’

    Snow in the forecast! The TV weather gal said she was expecting 8 inches tonight.
    I thought to myself “fat chance with a face like that!”

    An Irish boy stands crying at the side of the road. A man asks ‘What is wrong’? The boy says ‘Me ma is dead’
    ‘Oh bejaysus’ the man says ‘Do you want me to call Father O’Riley for you’?
    The boy replies ‘No tanks mister, Sex is the last ting on my moind at the moment’.

    I have a new pick up line that works every time. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous or out of my league a woman might be, this line is a winner & I always end up in bed with them.
    Here’s how it goes ‘Excuse me love, could I ask your opinion? Does this damp cloth smell like chloroform to you?’

    Years ago it was suggested that an apple a day kept the doctor away. But since all the doctors are now Muslim, I’ve found that a bacon sandwich works best!

    Japanese scientists have now created a camera with such an immense shutter speed that it is now possible to take a photograph of a woman with her mouth closed.

    I hate all this terrorist business. I used to love the days when you could look at an unattended bag on a train or bus and think to yourself ‘I’m having that’

    Man in a hot air balloon is lost over Ireland. He looks down and sees a farmer in the fields and shouts to him ‘Where am I’? The Irish farmer looks back up and shouts back ‘Ya canna kid me ya flash bastard. You’re in that feckin basket’.

    My neighbour knocked on my door at 2:30 am this morning; can you believe that 2:30 a.m.?
    Luckily for him I was still up playing my Bagpipes.

    I sat on the train this morning opposite a stunning Thai girl. I kept thinking to myself, please don’t get an erection, please don’t get an erection…but she did.

  47. Islamism is destroying British democracy. 1 February 2024.

    Mike Freer’s decision to step down as the MP for Finchley & Golders Green – a north London constituency with a sizeable Jewish population – is yet another victory for Islamist aggressors against British liberal democracy.

    Well with Islam on one side and the Political Elites on the other it is pretty well over. All the little people can do is keep their heads down. And join Nottl of course.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/mike-freer-islamism-british-democracy/

    1. Oh the irony. The MP who was imposed by Central Office over the locally selected candidate doesn’t represent democracy!

    2. Make like the French. Some fabulous videos of recent riots protesting the attak on farming.

  48. We tried to order more coal to top up the bunker ..

    There is no such thing as house coal now , so we have been informed .

    We were informed that burning coal is now illegal , and we will be receiving smokeless fuel , no hearth flame , advised not to burn logs etc etc.

    1. We need a Bonfire of the Vanities for all these stupid regulations. Doubtless a silly question but does it make any difference to the hearth and chimney if you burn wood instead of coal?

      1. We had a daft conversation with the coal merchant we use , HQ based up in Sheffield, that is the main headquarters for sorting out distribution and billing .

        Local coal yards are no longer because they have been developed into housing estates .

        Global warning you know , we had a delivery of coal from near Russia last year ..

        Little UK , responsible for coal smoke pollution , well you cannot make it up !

        https://thecoalhub.com/kazakh-seaborne-coal-exports-surge.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20nine%20months%20of,t%20(%2B0.6%20mio%20t).

      2. I think the ideal is that your hearth is a different shape for coal as opposed to wood, but otherwise I don’t know.

    2. It all started with crash helmets ans seat belts.. I said at the time its your right to do so or not.

      1. I don’t necessarily agree, JN.
        It would only be OK if the transgressor paid for hospital treatment after a car accident

        1. Ah, but. If we’ve paid NI then we’ve paid for hospital treatment when we need it and where do we draw the line with regards to how far our health or lack of is due to our behavioural patterns and lifestyle choices.

    3. I’m glad I stocked up when I did, then. I’ll burn logs (I had a tree come down while I was on holiday last year and I haven’t burnt it all yet). Resistance is imperative.

      1. We’ve nearly run out of the neighbour’s pallets, and our old roof battens……. but we still have logs waiting to go into the woodshed and then some large ones needing the chainsaw. Enough to keep us going for a while yet.

  49. So , as I remarked earlier , nice black warm welcoming house coal is banned , bullie dogs are also banned unless they are under control and muzzled , neutered , licenced or what ever , our free speech is monitored and our last broadsheet newspaper is not British anymore , our water /electricity/sewerage / books newspapers tv adverts / In December 2023 the Secretary of State announced that the Government would raise the licence fee by 6.7%, in line with inflation, taking effect from 1 April 2024. This will bring the cost of a colour licence fee to £169.50 per year and a black and white licence fee to £57 per year.

    What has happened to us ..

    1. Bugger. Not to worry, here is my Yorkie filled with oxtail stew today.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30fdbdf52ce786e4702c643d28cda5ccf7273cb3011e323ca1cbf67f74ca672e.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e883ba83c470cd2f6fe322eecc5070fcac6e216f60eed93269424435934b7959.jpg

      As you know, seldom is the occasion when I eat sugar or carbs. I succumbed to temptation today, though, not with just the Yorkshire, but with a pancake (just one) made from the left-over batter drizzled with fresh lemon juice and a little Lyle’s golden syrup.

      It were gradely!😋

        1. Not sure about the peas. I think i might have put them on afterwards.
          Your batter pud looks good.

          3. I am sorry. Though it might taste superb it really doesn’t appeal. Was that the one that killed the dinosaurs?

          1. Colman’s English on a Yorkshire pudding (or a dumpling) is necessary, Paul. In fact it’s vital!

          1. I went out to lunch (as opposed to usually being out to lunch) with friends. Roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by a raspberry pavlova.

    2. 382680+ up ticks,

      Afternoon TB,
      A tribal war of stupidity these past three plus decades raged via the polling stations,

      “Yer gotta vote this to keep out that, yer gotta vote that to keep out this.

      ALL political contenders of the treacherous trio of governing parties of the same political ilk.

      That’s what happened,and is still ongoing.

    3. We’ve been run by the WEF since 1997. That does it. For what I watch on TV I am going to switch to ITV X and watch the racing on the Internet.

    1. Predictably, there are some dissenting comments: “White people do this as well, you know.”

      However, there has been a sizable population of Yemenis on Tyneside since the early 20th century.

      1. Could the twitter poster claiming white folk do it please name six such attacks in the last, say… 5 years?

        1. The first arrived in the 19th century but their numbers were small until the first years of the 20th.

  51. Unexpected afternoon off.
    I went to the dentist earlier and was going to WFH afterwards. I’ve been trying to log in for half an hour with out success so have sacked it and am going to take TOIL

    Oh what to do now with this sparetime I have…

          1. This Lieu???
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/218fa518afe2ce029f1c2f2c323eb477005afbb717daa864513b452b42c82884.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d138c2f438db3af6856c8e522bcef79a77732ff9898b55e4627e92cc966b240.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/573b27b2b919a467a5cafaba0004a5e582dff68b8266b50953c404088112d76c.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6de50a031599104bd045ba306b7c2f9204220d9a2e9f8563468713297f1b7793.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/556f6396667bc26ab7585d58ab414a377fdf3058fd7d18b5e9a41af5ec05e7ee.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/003ebab221bb555a5ebf0566e31eea1526463f6b2fd2a6b99550355fff8b957d.jpg

    3. If you’ve been to the dentist, the one thing NOT to do with your afternoon is check your bank balance.

  54. Sturgeon could ‘cry from one eye if she wanted to’, Scottish Secretary claims

    Alister Jack told the Covid Inquiry he ‘didn’t believe for a minute’ the former First Secretary set aside independence aims during pandemic

    Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    1 February 2024 • 1:18pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/02/01/TELEMMGLPICT000364791708_17067921969800_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqriSYtHfv6SGXs9GZraJ0GMqu_hAYo4yrUR9mtp1r2f4.jpeg?imwidth=680
    The minister also accused Ms Sturgeon of bringing in different Covid rules for Scotland ‘for the sake of it’ CREDIT: PA

    Nicola Sturgeon could “cry from one eye if she wanted to”, the Scottish Secretary has said, as he suggested she was faking tears at the Covid Inquiry.

    Alister Jack said he “didn’t believe for a minute” that Ms Sturgeon had not sought to politicise the pandemic to boost the cause of independence, which she vigorously denied when she gave evidence on Wednesday.

    The cabinet minister also accused Ms Sturgeon of bringing in different Covid rules for Scotland “for the sake of it” as part of a political agenda and claimed the SNP hid an early virus outbreak in Edinburgh from the British government.

    Mr Jack was asked about a passage of Ms Sturgeon’s evidence, in which she became upset at the suggestion she had sought to seize upon the pandemic to boost support for independence.

    Ms Sturgeon claimed that she had been able to put aside her constitutional convictions and insisted she had never thought about independence less than she had during the early days of the pandemic.

    “I watched that yesterday and I saw that passage, and I don’t believe it for a minute,” Mr Jack said.

    “I looked at that passage and I thought back on my experiences and looked at her performance, and I thought ‘she could cry from one eye if she wanted to’.”

    Independence aims created ‘tensions’
    The Scottish Secretary, who was in post for the entirety of the pandemic, said the SNP’s constitutional aims had created “tensions” throughout the crisis.

    He claimed that the Scottish Government would meet with the UK Government and find out what their plans were, and then work out how they could do the same thing but “just slightly differently”.

    He said he believed this was a “political manoeuvre on their behalf”.

    “My job is to go out and sustain and strengthen the United Kingdom and I do that every day of my working life,” he said.

    “She at the time saw her job as a leader of a nationalist government to break up the United Kingdom.

    “That’s what the Scottish National Party exists to do. So it was inevitable that there would be tensions and there always are in government.

    “Devolution works very well, but it works very well when governments want to work together.

    “When one government wants to destroy the United Kingdom and destroy devolution, then there are tensions.

    “Those tensions existed before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and they exist now today.”

    ‘Burning desire’ for sovereignty
    During seven hours of evidence, Ms Sturgeon emphatically rejected the suggestion that she had sought to politicise the pandemic.

    She said that despite her “burning desire” for Scotland to become a sovereign nation she had learned “for a fact” that she had been able to separate this from her decision-making in a public health crisis.

    However, she was confronted with evidence which suggested otherwise.

    This included a cabinet minute from June 2020 which showed SNP ministers agreeing to consider “restarting work on independence and a referendum”. The document said that the case for separation should be updated with “experience of the coronavirus crisis”.

    Meanwhile, an email from her deputy John Swinney’s office raised concerns that Spain should not be added to an exemptions list for foreign travel, as Madrid could ruin an independent Scotland’s application to join the EU.

    Mr Jack also told the Covid Inquiry that he was not told about a virus outbreak at a Nike conference held in Edinburgh in late February 2020.

    Mr Jack had met with then-Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman and Matt Hancock, the UK health secretary at the time, in Edinburgh on March 12.

    He said: “Another thing that had happened at that meeting that had come to light in May, that despite being with the health secretary for two hours, at no point did she mention that they had discovered an outbreak at the Nike conference in Edinburgh.”

    He said that Mr Hancock only discovered the outbreak when newspapers had contacted him about the issue.

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

    Albert Swift
    3 HRS AGO
    The blocking of Sturgeons gender bill by Alister Jack began Sturgeon’s demise. He has done more for the Union than any politician since Blair introduced dead duck devolution.

    K Poole
    3 HRS AGO
    I like honest straight talking from politicians. Thank you Mr Jack.

    1. …. “cry from one eye if she wanted to”. New expression me, but, like “get mediaeval on your Rse” it needs no explanation.

    1. Yes, after a few toughies…

      Wordle 957 3/6

      🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  56. Testing testing
    Withdrawn.
    Try this …..yes it works !
    https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=5468ce229127365aJmltdHM9MTcwNjc0NTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0xOWQwZjE4My0zNzM4LTYxYTctMmJlNy1lNTk1MzY4MzYwODMmaW5zaWQ9NTIxNA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=19d0f183-3738-61a7-2be7-e59536836083&psq=candace+owen+on+slavery&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g_dj1OT193bWl4WEJkRQ&ntb=1

      1. It’s Candice Owens talking about the myths of slavery.
        It open for me second time.
        Try it on Google it’s worth the effort.

  57. The downbeat IMF economist who is persistently bleak on Britain

    Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas believes the UK cannot afford tax cuts in the upcoming Budget

    Tim Wallace and Eir Nolsøe
    1 February 2024 • 2:00pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2024/01/31/TELEMMGLPICT000304074992_17067297653070_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRFUHE0-ILI6vkc9liYeUHYTPD5foJ9o3wuqP2tL5Yek.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas was a fervent critic of Brexit CREDIT: OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP

    Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has warned Jeremy Hunt not to implement tax cuts, saying Britain can ill-afford giveaways given creaking public finances.

    It is not the first time the Frenchman has offered his two pence on the British economy: Gourinchas was a persistent critic of Brexit.

    Two days after the Brexit vote in late June 2016 Gourinchas was among 24 leading economists to put their names to a column outlining what they saw as the many ills the decision would bring.

    “Britain voted to leave the EU. This is terrible news for the UK, but it is also bad news for the eurozone,” they warned. “Brexit opens the door to all sorts of shocks, and dangerous political snowball effects.”

    In another article released nearly a year after the vote, Gourinchas admitted there had been “no immediate economic slowdown” after the referendum. But he and co-author Galina Hale warned the decision would suppress the potential growth rate in coming years and result in a smaller than otherwise economy with a weaker currency.

    “The agglomeration effects that made London a pre-eminent global financial centre will weaken,” Gourinchas and his colleague wrote.

    Some such warnings are no longer seen as controversial – the pound has yet to regain its pre-referendum strength – but many of the most dire pre-referendum forecasts made about Britain’s future outside the EU, including massive job losses in the City, never came to pass.

    Pessimism about Britain’s prospects has persisted in IMF forecasts since Gourinchas became chief economist in January 2022.

    Only a year ago the IMF said the UK would be the only advanced economy to fall into recession in 2023, shrinking 0.6pc. Gourinchas warned Britain was in for “a sharp correction.”

    Instead, the UK grew by 0.5pc, according to the IMF’s own estimates published this week.

    This was similar to the eurozone and well ahead of Germany, which shrank by 0.3pc.

    Montpellier-raised Gourinchas is very much a member of the global economic establishment. A graduate of MIT, he has held teaching positions at Stanford and Princeton, and edited a range of prestigious economic journals.

    He was named France’s best economist under 40 in 2008, an accolade that perhaps helped him catch the eye of François Hollande, who in 2012 hired Gourinchas as an adviser when he won the French presidency.

    Gourinchas is currently on leave from University of California at Berkeley, where he is a professor, while he works at the IMF.

    A downbeat stance on Britain is something of a tradition at the Fund.

    Telegraph analysis shows nearly all of the IMF’s forecasts since early 2016 have underestimated the UK’s growth rate. Four-fifths of its predictions for UK growth in the same year of the forecast have proved too pessimistic.

    The IMF’s own analysis of its performance notes that its predictions were not dissimilar to those of British institutions, including the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.

    A spokesman said: “Our analysis shows that IMF growth forecasts, on average, have not been below those of other forecasters.

    “For instance, during 2012-19, the IMF’s average annual growth forecast error was slightly below that for consensus. This relativity also broadly obtains for the post-pandemic period, and with other forecasters.”

    That said, IMF leaders have had to eat their words in the past. Former managing director Christine Lagarde, who now heads up the European Central Bank, faced calls to express regret after underestimating the strength of the British economy in the face of austerity.

    Like Gourinchas, Lagarde too was a Brexit critic. She warned that leaving the EU would be “pretty bad to very, very bad” for the British economy and could prompt a technical recession.

    Gourinchas is extremely well respected by IMF veterans. Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard University and former chief economist at the IMF, says Gourinchas “has been doing a superb job on the World Economic Outlook (WEO)”.

    “More generally, Gourinchas has been providing great leadership in guiding the long-term research program of the Fund, whose job it is not only to deal with short-term crises, but to look ahead for problems others are not yet thinking about,” says the professor.

    Olivier Blanchard was chief economist while Gourinchas was editor-in-chief of the IMF Economic Review. Now professor of economics at MIT, Blanchard says his successor “is doing a great job”.

    “The quality of the WEO is as good as can be,” he says. “To be immodest, as good as it was when I was there.”

    It was Blanchard who said George Osborne was “playing with fire” by keeping such a tight grip on the public purse strings.

    This experience taught him the hazards of commenting directly on British government policy.

    “Making statements on UK policy is dangerous,” says Blanchard. “Ironically, I got into trouble with the UK press and UK treasury by sending the opposite message [to Gourinchas] in the early 2010s, that fiscal austerity was not at the time the best idea.”

    Gourinchas’s comment this week that he would “advise against further discretionary tax cuts” may on the surface look like the very opposite of Blanchard’s austerity criticism. But the former IMF economist supports his successor.

    “In my view, it is completely right to say that given the spending needs that have been identified – defence, health, global warming – tax cuts are not the best idea,” Blanchard says. “The idea that tax cuts lead to much higher growth has been consistently debunked empirically: sometimes it helps a bit, but rarely is the effect noticeable.”

    Gourinchas is “not an idealogue, but a pragmatist”, he says. “And he is not a politician”.

    For MPs in Westminster, that will be little comfort.

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

    Anton Deck
    2 HRS AGO
    Anyone in the IMF not French ? With France having huge interest in UK being in EU where they take our money and hand it to their farmers, and generally set regulations to dilute our competitiveness in favour of theirs.

    Tim Haig
    1 HR AGO
    Reply to Anton Deck
    So what you’re saying is the UK isn’t in the toilet economically?

    SZ Clark
    1 HR AGO
    Reply to Tim Haig
    That doesn’t follow at all. Are you Cathy Newman?

    3. Thing is, since the vote to leave the state has done every single thing possible to bring about the carnage it said would happen and business has refuted it, continuing to progress despite the abomination of ESG, DIE, climate change scams, net zero tax scams, inflation – caused by debasement of the currency, a huge expansion in state waste, tax hikes on imports and exports.

      The idea that this oaf thinks government needs the money for public services is proof he’s a career statist. The less money big fat state has, the more efficient it is, the better the quality of provision. The less power it has the more it focuses on those services rather than itself.

      The IMF itself is evidence of an entirely unecessary government body when the gold standard did an infinitely better job. It is the epitome of a useless, inefficient waste of private wealth.

      1. Ah, the IMF – is Christine Lagarde (she of the creative financial accounting) still in charge? I thought she’d had her collar felt. We should give them the Agincourt salute.

    4. Does it much matter if economic predictions do not often materialise? Some might say that these predictions affect business decisions and that gloomy prognostications might dissuade would-be investors. However, if a pattern of pessimism is more often than not unfounded, why would anybody in the know do anything other than take them with a pinch of salt and not use them to influence investment and business planning.

      1. I should have thought that gloomy predictions would act rather like future (but as yet unrealised) plans – such as major rail projects – that cause housing blight.

    5. Has anyone ever explained what’s so dangerous about Brexit? All I see is expressions of dismay, no actual, definite, problem.

      1. If we could make a success of it (despite our politicians), others would see that there is life outside the institution so it would collapse and then – oh, the horror! – there would be no nice sinecures with low taxes and subsidised perks for the “elite”.

  59. Prevening, all. There is no improvement so far in Oscar (but I keep telling myself that it’s early days yet), although, amazingly, I got a clean bill of health with the scan of my kidneys (a bit of a surprise seeing as I was diagnosed with Stage 2 CKD several years ago) and my bladder shows signs of a previous infection (I could have told them that, but it was years ago), but nothing now, which also was a bit of a surprise since the sample I had to provide showed there was an infection there. I still feel washed out.

    The ultimate Con failure is to fail to arrest the decline of the work ethic begun by Labour and their client state. If they had made it more profitable to work than to live on benefits, people would have bestirred themselves. As it is, they have been happy to grow the state, remove personal responsibility and tax and waste just like Labour. In addition they have imported hordes who think kuffars should pay them jizya simply to live in a muslim state. Once you destroy the Protestant Ethic you are on the road to Hell.

  63. That’s me gone for today. Sunny but cold. Took G & P for their annual jab (anti cat ‘flu). From the way they acted during the ten minute drive one would have thought they were being slowly cooked alive….!

    Tomorrow is supposed to be milder – up to 12ºC – but windier. I may risk some gardening.

    Now time for my evening medicine.

    A demain.

      1. had a flu jab once – never been so ill. Never again. Vit D3, and no colds or flu. Works a treat.

        1. It does – we both had a cough that started sometime after Christmas – it was gone within a week – no need for any medication, didn’t feel ill. That was the first ‘thing’ since January 2020, apart from a sore throat in 2022, that didn’t develop into anything.

          1. The reason i refused sedation on my procedure. I thought was it necessary. NO. Gas and air i knew from experience gave me a sore throat so i said NO. It was very uncomfortable and at times painful but i went through it without any drugs.

          2. Well done – it must have been quite an ordeal, and the very thought of it beforehand must have kept you awake.

  64. Moh bought a steering wheel cover for my recently purchased car, from on line , no consultation ..

    He fitted it today , I have just come back from a drive to the shops and walking the dog , and the smell from the cover is chemical, horrible smell on my hands , my eyes are still watering , I couldn’t stop coughing , and can still smell the chemical smell in my nostrils.

    He has shouted at me for being ungrateful and neurotic , he says he cannot smell a thing, but he has no sense of smell anyway.

    Has anyone here had a similar experience , I asked him to remove it , and he screamed blue murder at me .. it feels like varnished polystyrene to touch . I am quite sensitive to strange fabrics / smells / textures etc .

    1. He sounds like the one who is ungrateful and neurotic, to be honest. Also inconsiderate. How long have you been married? He should know by now your sensitivities.

          3. Disregarding this particular thread it is wise not to get too emotionally involved as i tend to when i have had a drink. We never know all the facts and i have broken my own rule about being on here after 7pm.

          4. We may not know ALL the facts, but I think from his attitude when he was here and various incidents that Maggie has mentioned (I don’t think she makes things up), I suspect we have a fair idea what goes on. I have met people like that before.

    2. Probably made in China and dowsed with something to stop the weevils gnawing at the leather(?) before the tanker docks at Felixstowe.
      As Conway has said, he has had long enough to know your sensitivities. Maybe you could fit it onto his steering wheel, as no form of sensitivity seems to feature in his life.

      1. Anne ,

        No joke , my face and lips are still burning , and my breathing is rather tight , I really felt the effect of it after about ten minutes , felt woozy as I was driving and needed the window down , which upset Moh because he has a bald head .

        He said I disliked it to annoy him , because I didn’t choose it , not leather by the way but cost over £40 +

        I really feel ill .. as if I have been zapped .. it smelt like a mixture of flyspray, fire lighter and polystyrene , texture was padded and horrid to grip .

        He yips about things that displease him , yet … Oh I give up .

        1. Just get rid of it. If he kicks off, start looking at places to go! You don’t actually have to leave, but make sure he thinks you would.

          4. Find a nice hotel retreat and leave him to fend for himself for a fortnight. The penny might then just drop.

            I was taught that civilisation is defined by the way in which men treat women. This is why we know that most Islamists are living in the Dark Ages. They treat their women as mere chattel.

    4. It was a nice thought that didn’t work. Don’t be hard on the poor man – maybe he’ll never buy anything for you again, if he gets a reaction like that.

      1. He doesn’t buy things normally except golf stuff , and plenty of that, he bought the cover he wanted for my car . No discussion .

        What reaction , I didn’t kick off , I just stated it smelt and didn’t feel nice to handle , and you should have witnessed me almost choking to death.
        These Chinese are killing the planet with pollutants , I don’t think there are any regulations in situ , we are importing more and more C##p.

          1. Hush. Getting involved between a man and slave is …sorry…what was i saying…have to go now.

      2. Years ago, on the way home, I bought SWMBO a bunch of flowers – quite expensive they were, too, and I felt daft walking down the street clutching them.
        Got home, and handed them over, trying to be romantic. Her reaction? “What have you done now?” – the answer was nothing, only buying flowers for the woman I love, but you can forget it in the future if that’s the kind of reaction I get to lay out of about £20 (this was the early 1990s). Never bought her any after that.

        1. My ex husband bought me a bunch of flowers on our 20th wedding anniversary. I bawled my eyes out. We separated before the 21st one.

          5. No – I forget what they were exactly – the usual kind of gift bunch you can buy at the supermarket….. but not roses.

          9. I got all sorts of household things like that as presents – laundry basket, slow cooker, kitchen clock. I bought my own present sometimes.

          12. I only buy jewellery for my wife Carol. There was a time when I bought Liberty silk scarves and French Hermes shawls as gifts and often buy clothes she likes but gold and jewels have longevity.

            I never send her cards or flowers but buy plants of which she approves.

            I never seek nor desire gifts from my wife simply because she does enough for me as matters stand.

    5. New car things do tend to have chemical smells and can make you feel ill. You say he doesn’t want you to open the car window,,,

      He’s trying to kill you.
      I’m defriending you on facebook now as i don’t want to be interviewed by the police as to your last walk in the wood.

      1. Its not a new car Phizzee, just a new steering wheel cover which emitted a horrid chemical pong .

        Ha ha , F/B well , you aren’t very visible on there .

        2. I said new car ‘things’.
          As far as Facebook goes why would i be, seeing as your husband routinely uses your accounts.

        3. Hang the cover out on the washing line for a few days (while R is at golf), the smell should gradually disappear. And ring the manufacturer and ask how you can get rid of the smell – they may be able to send you another which doesn’t smaell so bad.

          2. What? I’ve been in bed with a kind of flu -type thing for the last week or so. What are you babbling about, dear? xxx

        4. Years ago, I bought a second-hand “smart”phone on eBay. It stank of cigarette smoke. I found a solution online, and placed it in an airtight food container, suspended above some white vinegar. Couple of days later, the stink had gone.

          Just saying…

      1. My new car has a small steering wheel , Peugeot 2008 .. it is smooth and cold and he doesn’t like the feel of it .

        My old Peugeot 307 had a lovely textured leather cover , and a much larger steering wheel .

    7. Examples of not being appreciative of hard work…..maybe because my talent made it looked easy and rapidly completed. Sometimes you or one just can’t win.
      Just popping off to wash up and tidy the kitchen. 😉🤭🤗

      1. All done and tidy as usual 😉
        Prog to record later bbc 2. 23:15 Putin Vs the West.
        Come on Vlad…..

        1. Vlad is an intelligent man with a keen knowledge of history. He is the supreme politician and understands, finally, the evil forces reigned against him. The same vile forces are reigned against us, the little people.

          We should support Russia and try to hamper western government efforts to attack Russia. The true enemy is our own illegitimate government, the unelected EU Commission and the illegitimate OBiden government in the US.

    5. For goodness sake, whatever next. I suppose with named “heatwaves” they will start at 20degrees. Have MPs nothing more important to talk about?

  67. Did I mention my three today?

    Wordle 957 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too – just picked the wrong word or it would have been 2 :o(

      Wordle 957 3/6

      🟩🟨⬜🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. I was very close too.

        Wordle 957 3/6

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

    2. I stopped on my way into work to take a photo of the sunrise. It was lovely.

      Edit. I have posted it below. Taken at 7.15 am. Hammersmith Bridge.

        1. I do miss fishing the Thames, further upstream though, Richmond to Sunbury. Early mornings on the river can be glorious.

    1. I hope his eye damage makes him scream in pain for the rest of his (hopefully short) life. Bastard.

    4. I do hope any NHS staff have protection from the police or bodyguards when they are doing their job. Probably not. Hopefully a Muslim Doctor can calm him down.
      PS. I hope he’s blind.

      1. As is the passport office, border force, councils, baggage handlers and security at airports.

        1. It’s always annoying when the people who check your legitimacy at an airport would have been from the same backgrounds as those who want to harm us.

          1. It was the same when I joined “The Queue” to pay my respects to our deceased Monarch. Everywhere one looked, there were rude, shouty stewards of anything but indigenous persuasion.

          4. And in the queues hardly any of the spotlighted diversity figures shoved in our faces at every opportunity.

    2. It can be revealed that Ezedi was convicted of a sexual offence at Newcastle Crown Court in 2018. He was handed a suspended sentence for “sexual assault/exposure” with an unpaid work order, a source said. It is understood that this was completed in 2020 when Ezedi was discharged from probation supervision. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/abdul-ezedi-fugitive-convicted-sex-32023662?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    1. He looks content. Could post photos with the old laptop, but haven’t mastered them with this one. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.

      1. They like them. Any time we had to take our dogs off to wash them, they seemed a bit lost!
        How are you, pet? 💕

        2. I’m OK thank you. I have been invited to my god-daughter’s wedding in Portugal and my mum and dad are going, so I am going to take some time off work in May which will be nice.

          I have a 2 hour appointment tomorrow afternoon with the wonderful John Rose, optician, to see if he has a solution to all the migraines I have been getting in the last few months. (It’s time I moved my optician to London as my previous one is still back at home). John Rose has been doing my daughter’s eyes since she was little (she had visual processing problems) and what he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.

          I have also got work to persuade Bupa to let me book my annual health assessment at the end of March (for tedious reasons they weren’t going to let me do it till April), so things are grinding forward slowly. I am curious to see what they have to say.

          1. Oh crikey! What a coincidence! We are going to a wedding in Portugal in June! What a joy to be able to go with your Mum and Dad! Where abouts is the venue?

          2. Vale do Lobo….does that sound right? Her husband to be is a very good golfer (and a football talent scout).

          3. Val de Lobo has Ballesteros designed golf courses. It’s a beautiful (very up market) place!

          4. Oh crikey! What a coincidence! We are going to a wedding in Portugal in June! What a joy to be able to go with your Mum and Dad! Where abouts is the venue?

          5. Ordinary headaches could be indicative of an underlying condition or infection. I know nothing.

      2. They like them. Any time we had to take our dogs off to wash them, they seemed a bit lost!
        How are you, pet? 💕

      3. No, i often take it off but my husband then starts saying things like “that’s not my dog, he doesn’t have his collar on” etc and it all gets terribly tedious….

        1. I leave my dogs’ collars on all the time. The collar has their ID on it. If they were to escape (unlikely, but you never know) it’s illegal for them to be in a public place without a name and address on their collar.

          1. There is a lady round here who runs with her lab every day and he never wears a collar and she never picks up his stuff. Drives me mad. I would only take his collar off in the evening. Though to be honest, he has a very thick neck and he does look better in a collar!

          2. People like that give responsible dog owners a bad name. I’m afraid if I see someone fail to pick up after their dog I remind them to do it (and if they haven’t got a bag, I say, “that’s okay, here’s one” and give them one of mine).

    6. He’s a beauty. He looks pretty big too. What ‘make’ is he, I’d guess at some northern heritage?

      1. We don’t know what he is. I am tempted by doggy DNA but I suspect it won’t tell us. He has a lovely curly tail, like the Japanese dogs.

        1. I’ve been looking through photos of Oscar and Kadi, but when I try to post them, they are refused because they are either not in the right format (they are, they’re .jpgs) or too big. I’ve tried resizing but they are still rejected.

          3. Sometimes on first go mine are rejected. On second go it works. Also, there is a click and drag option.

  76. Yes, we used to bump into a guy every morning when we were walking the dog, who used to walk for exercise. He had been a keen fisherman in his youth and had always lived in the area. He was fascinating and taught us a lot about fishing on the Thames.

    Edit. We lost sight of him during lockdown and we suspect he didn’t come through. He loved chatting and had no family.

  78. Oh dear.
    Just been trying to catch up with the 200+ comments I missed today and got white screened when I tried to upvote someone.
    I think I’ll log off and head for bed.
    G’night all.

  79. Oh well I mustn’t push it. I’ll be off to bed within half an hour I can’t wait.
    My earlier post re bbc2 Putin VS the West 23:15 seems to have vanished.
    I’m pressing the record button now.
    Good night all.

  80. Well, it’s almost bedtime for me. So, Good Night all, sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  81. Well that’s the second episode of the 1984 miners strike watched. Notwithstanding any discussions on the rights and wrongs on how the opposing sides behaved in the battle of Orgreave I wish the present day police would behave in the same way when confronted by the ‘free Palestine’ scum – but of course now they are just big girls blouses led by idiots and cowards.

    1. In the first episode they featured a miner called Peter Barton who refused to strike. He lived with his wife and family in a caravan while he built his house. That was in the village of New Houghton, just outside Shirebrook. Barton would go to work each day and was barracked by all the village’s women (the men didn’t have the bottle to face him).

      After this, I was one of a team of six officers who were tasked to work that village in an attempt to bring it back to some semblance of normality. The villagers were sick and tired of having hordes of foreign-force coppers telling them what to do. I would patrol the village, on foot, with one other from our team of six and initially we were regarded with suspicion and we took a lot of verbal abuse. Gradually, though, the villagers came round to accepting us as “their” local bobbies and a sense of normality returned.

    2. In the first episode they featured a miner called Peter Barton who refused to strike. He lived with his wife and family in a caravan while he built his house. That was in the village of New Houghton, just outside Shirebrook. Barton would go to work each day and was barracked by all the village’s women (the men didn’t have the bottle to face him).

      After this, I was one of a team of six officers who were tasked to work that village in an attempt to bring it back to some semblance of normality. The villagers were sick and tired of having hordes of foreign-force coppers telling them what to do. I would patrol the village, on foot, with one other from our team of six and initially we were regarded with suspicion and we took a lot of verbal abuse. Gradually, though, the villagers came round to accepting us as “their” local bobbies and a sense of normality returned.

    3. In the first episode they featured a miner called Peter Barton who refused to strike. He lived with his wife and family in a caravan while he built his house. That was in the village of New Houghton, just outside Shirebrook. Barton would go to work each day and was barracked by all the village’s women (the men didn’t have the bottle to face him).

      After this, I was one of a team of six officers who were tasked to work that village in an attempt to bring it back to some semblance of normality. The villagers were sick and tired of having hordes of foreign-force coppers telling them what to do. I would patrol the village, on foot, with one other from our team of six and initially we were regarded with suspicion and we took a lot of verbal abuse. Gradually, though, the villagers came round to accepting us as “their” local bobbies and a sense of normality returned.

        2. 12 pm doesn’t exist. Do you mean midnight or midday?
          12 is the meridian and cannot be either post or ante.

    2. Thank goodness Caroline did not desert me on our wedding day! She turned up at Lyme Regis Catholic Church on 2nd April 1988. I saw the Daimler approaching from the the window of the pub opposite and had to make a dash for it to be there before the bride arrived.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=do+not+forsake+me+oh+my+darling&oq=Do+not+forsake+me+oh+my+darling&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyBwgBEC4YgAQyBwgCEAAYgAQyBwgDEAAYgAQyBwgEEC4YgAQyBwgFEC4YgAQyBwgGEAAYgAQyBwgHEAAYgAQyBwgIEAAYgAQyBwgJEAAYgATSAQkxMjMyOWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:53cee543,vid:A4a_1UhwgFU,st:0

    1. I’ve never tried eating my home. I’ve stayed in places with the option of half or full floorboard.

    2. Unforeseen expenditure?
      Have the all had their bloody eyes shut and ears closed. Sack the lot of them.

  90. What a coincidence. I had my bagels and lox at 4am too. An all night cafe in Old Compton St after the clubs.

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