Thursday 1 June: Conservative MPs have forgotten the values they should be representing

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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448 thoughts on “Thursday 1 June: Conservative MPs have forgotten the values they should be representing”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Crossword Puzzler
    Bill is going on a trip, and when he gets on the plane, he hears the Pope is booked on the same flight. “This is exciting,” thinks Bill. “I’ve always been a big fan of the Pope. Perhaps I’ll be able to see him in person.”

    Imagine his surprise when the Pope sits down right next to him! Bill is awe-struck and speechless.
    Shortly after take-off, the Pope begins a crossword puzzle.

    “This is fantastic,” thinks Bill. “I’m really good at crosswords. Perhaps, if the Pope gets stuck, he’ll ask me for assistance.”

    Sure enough, just minutes into his first puzzle, the Pope turns to Bill and asks, “Excuse me, but do you know a four-letter word referring to a woman that ends in ‘unt’?”

    Only one word leaps to Bill’s mind.

    “My goodness,” he thinks, “I can’t tell the Pope that word! There must be another word for a woman that ends in U-N-T…” Bill thinks for a while, and then it hits him. Turning to the Pope, Bill says, “I think the word you’re looking for is AUNT.”

    “Ah! Of course!” says the Pope. “Would you happen to have an eraser?”

      1. Aargh, beggorah Sir Jasper. You mean to say dat oi came turd dis mornin’?

  6. Good Morning Folks

    Another cloudy cool start here, no flaming June yet, not even a spark

  7. Conservative MPs have forgotten the values they should be representing

    Conservative values and the global great reset are non compatible.
    At least the Left share some.

    1. They haven’t forgotten them, they are paid to support the unscientific nonsense agendas.

  10. Delivery driver banned after speeding 22 times on one road in just three weeks. 1 June 2023.

    A laundry delivery driver who was caught speeding 22 times on the same road in less than three weeks has been banned for 15 months.

    Roads were originally designed to speed official communications and ease the movement of armies in War. They now exist to produce revenue for the Government.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/01/delivery-driver-ban-22-speeding-convictions-in-three-weeks/

    1. Foreign convicted criminals including rapists given leave to stay but you break the speed limit and you’re fucked.

    4. In his defence, the limit in that road until recently was 40 mph.

  11. 372815+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 1 June: Conservative MPs have forgotten the values they should be representing

    Would one be out of line in sayin Conservative MPs forgot the values they should be representing, on the 28/11/1990 just after a satisfying curry.

    In the main they took to the new agenda as flies to a fresh cow pat.

    The supporting fools refused to recognise the fact that the peoples servants had NOT laid the tables, so much as turned the tables in a very nasty deadly manipulative manner.

    Little doubt now in the support / voting dept. if you continue to support / vote for the lab/lib/con/current ukip coalition party
    you are doing your bit for the certain downfall of the United Kingdom.

    1. I’m not too sure many understood conservative values in the first place.

    1. Like everything else, the data protection act is just another bit of EU nonsense,

    2. It would not be so immoral if there were at least the possibility to opt out of paying for the NHS.
      Selling private tax information is a new one to me. Barstewards.

      1. Ex-Pat Hong Kongers at the moment. What with the secret Chinese police stations in the UK if i were one of those people i would be looking at leaving the UK.

        1. My worry is how much influence the Chinese will have over us in the future. I fear that Britain will go seamlessly from being a US province to being a Chinese one, and our freedom will be even more compromised than it is today.

    1. Just imagine.
      If Schodefiled had worked for al beeb instead of an ad-diverse-itising channel he might well have been promoted and might be the new University Challenge quiz-masturbater.

  15. Nicked

    “Telegraph headlines today:

    ‘US asks Britain for help tracking UFOs after 800 sightings reported’

    ‘New breed of sheep accidentally created at a petting zoo’

    ‘The brutal workout that made Mark Zuckerberg share this post-gym selfie’

    Ukrainian counteroffensive going well then…”
    FFS we were only joking when we said “Aliens” were the next squirrel to be deployed……..

    1. They keep spewing out regular stuff about UFOs, mostly in the US. Some of it is quite plausible and frightening, until you remember that we’re at the point of economic power passing from the US to China.

      1. I don’t believe any of that shite, I’ll just carry on until I die and fuck yews, That’s Govt and not you BB2

      1. Apparently he is working in a pub far from uncivilisation; I hope he gets some compensation, or finds another sugar daddy.

        Correct me if I am wrong, but many large organisations have policies which cover relationships between employees.

        OK, Mr McGreevy presumably worked for a small production company, but its contract with ITV must have covered office affairs.

    3. Perhaps the Galactic Guardians are thinking it’s time to end the Earth Experiment.

      1. Good morning MM

        When we lived in Nigeria for a short while ’78/79 . PH/ Shell compound, we were just about to lock up our bungalow and secure everything early evening .. dark sky, no rain etc.. when our neighbours who were expat doctors called out to us to look up in the sky , and there were lights .. moving slowly overhead .. a vast flat area probably football field size , glided slowly..

        The doc took photographs .. by then other neighbours including all the Nigerian gardeners, housemaids /house boys were jabbering loudly.

        We wondered what we had seen , was it an airship … could have been , or even a UFO… heaven only knows . It was visible for about 10 minutes then vanished … I have looked at various cloud shapes since then , and wondered whether it was lenticular clouds , they can look suspiciously like a spaceship in low light. As a result, some people believe that reported UFO sightings may actually be misidentified lenticular clouds.

        1. Be sure, they’re watching us to to see how stupid we may be and then they’ll swoop and colonise us.

        2. That’s why the Galactic Guardians build their interstellar craft to look like natural phenomena. Beam me up, Maggie!

    1. “we have more ability to test for these viruses than ever before”

      If you say so.

      1. But, BB2, we’re all more than a little suspicious with the outpourings of Govt BS on a day to day basis.

    2. Covid is a virus and they managed to make a gloop against it. So, why not this time? ps: I won’t be taking that one, either, if it ever comes out.

    3. The covid jabs seem to have underimind many people’s imune systems. This so previously unknown weaknesses would be exposed. The results of which have been obvious.
      I believe that was the whole idea.

      1. Whether it was the whole idea or not, the Government and NHS don’t

        appear to be worrying about damaged immune systems.

        1. As i mentioned yesterday evening, i have never sneezed so much in my entire life and have had a runny nose for over three month’s which is new to me.

  17. Good morning all,

    Grey skies over the McPhee demesne but supposed to clear by 10am to be a sunny day. Wind still Nor’- East so 9℃ rising to 18℃ is the somewhat cool prospect for the start of ‘Flaming June’. Apparently there’s a cloud of depleted uranium dust drifting our way from the battlefields of Ukraine. Deep joy. Thanks, Rishi and Ben.

    I used to love reading his columns in the Telegraph before it became the Gatesograph:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/05/31/robin-page-one-man-and-his-dog-outspoken-died-obituary/

    RIP, Robin. They threw the mould away after they made you.

  18. Good morning all,

    Grey skies over the McPhee demesne but supposed to clear by 10am to be a sunny day. Wind still Nor’- East so 9℃ rising to 18℃ is the somewhat cool prospect for the start of ‘Flaming June’. Apparently there’s a cloud of depleted uranium dust drifting our way from the battlefields of Ukraine. Deep joy. Thanks, Rishi and Ben.

    I used to love reading his columns in the Telegraph before it became the Gatesograph:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/05/31/robin-page-one-man-and-his-dog-outspoken-died-obituary/

    RIP, Robin. They threw the mould away after they made you.

    1. Reminds me of a joke.
      A guy goes to his doctor and tells him every time he moves a limb upwards he passes wind. The doc lays him down on the couch and lifts his arm and sure enough off it goes, lifts his right leg, same again, left arm left leg the same thing.
      The doc goes to a cupboard and comes back with a long brass ended pole. The guys say oh dear doc what on earth are going to do with that.
      I’m going to open the windows it stinks in here.

  21. The idiot West is sleeping as the end of the world draws near. 1 June 2023.

    The most immediate risk to humanity’s survival is nuclear war. Russia may yet launch tactical nukes on Ukraine; China may invade Taiwan; or a terror attack could push India and Pakistan into total conflict. Yet the most pressing danger comes from nuclear proliferation, a slow-burn crisis that contradicts woke narratives and is thus overlooked. North Korea remains a major threat, but Iran is the real danger: it keeps enriching uranium and wants to annihilate Israel. Where is the anti-proliferation Greta Thunberg?

    Oddly Heath does not mention the real danger of mass immigration, which is a work already in progress and now unstoppable. Within twenty years it will turn the most advanced and civilised parts of the globe into dysfunctional tyrannies little different from the Middle Ages where Technocratic in place of Aristocratic Elites will rule. We have seen the Best. Now the Worst is to come!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/31/humanitys-annihilation-more-likely-than-we-dare-contemplate/

    1. Good morning Minty

      Sorry to be crass, but the planet of the apes springs to mind .

      The Base instincts we are witnessing , are more common than ever .

      1. I think what you might mean TB is, you can take a person out of a certain place or situation, but you can’t remove the situation or the place from the person.
        That is exactly what is currently happening and will and is wrecking our once safe and comfortable place to live our lives.
        In comparision it’s as if the vikings are back again.

        1. I’ll defend the Vikings. They rode in, settled down, married the local girls (with no evidence of coercion), adopted Christianity and made stuff. Under Viking rule York became an international port and we have their coins, jewellery, wooden bowls and fragments of silk clothing.

          2. Not sure what happening here, the log in section has appeared for the reply box.

            We weren’t here to see or judge what went on Sue and many ancient bodies in eastern parts of England have been unearthed that appeared to have been hacked at and butchered. The Vikings, good for them were indeed very adventurous people, it’s said they discovered the northern parts of America. And sailed as far south as China.
            It is also known they took women from Scotland and removed them to Iceland to develop the population.

          3. When the Jorvik Centre first opened I went there with my late mother who read one of the displays and said, “Oooh, rape and pillage, I’ll ‘ave some of that”. An attendant responded with a straight face and deadpan tone, “I’m sorry madam, we’re out of rape and pillage today”.

          4. 😆🤭
            I love watching Scandinavian drama’s on TV. There have been some really excellent series over the past ten to 12 years. Sometimes you can pick out certain words that are now used in our language. Kirby (church, Kirk) Lonsdale for instance. But one jumped out at me one day, which when translated to English means customer, receiver. Kunde.
            I’m not going to use the word but….

          7. According to Humph we have the Vikings to thank for prompting the expression ‘should be bloody well hung like a Norse!’

    2. He lost me when he included belching carbon and climate change. Idiot.

    3. The worst is not.
      So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.
      [Edgar disguised as Mad Tom in King Lear]

      One of the strong images in King Lear is the inexorable Wheel of Fortune which cannot turn upwards again until it has reached its nadir.

    4. The worst is not.
      So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.
      [Edgar disguised as Mad Tom in King Lear]

      One of the strong images in King Lear is the inexorable Wheel of Fortune which cannot turn upwards again until it has reached its nadir.

    5. Very and undeniably true, Minty. I just thank God that it may not happen in my lifetime but, my children, Grandchildren unto the 3rd and fourth generation may have to cope with this blight on their lives. I cannot bear to see it happen.

  23. ‘Morning, Peeps, from the noisy chaos that is grandchild-minding in yer Sarfampton…

    Article in the increasingly trashy DT:

    “A satisfying sex life is the perfect stress buster – try these four things

    Getting intimate three times a week is being hailed as the best stress-busting technique out there”

    Dump the article and go straight to the comments. You won’t be disappointed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/why-sex-at-730am-will-take-your-stress-away/

    3. Philip Larkin’s famous poem

      Annus Mirabilis

      Sexual intercourse began
      In nineteen sixty-three
      (which was rather late for me) –
      Between the end of the Chatterley ban
      And the Beatles’ first LP.

      Up to then there’d only been
      A sort of bargaining,
      A wrangle for the ring,
      A shame that started at sixteen
      And spread to everything.

      Then all at once the quarrel sank:
      Everyone felt the same,
      And every life became
      A brilliant breaking of the bank,
      A quite unlosable game.

      So life was never better than
      In nineteen sixty-three
      (Though just too late for me) –
      Between the end of the Chatterley ban
      And the Beatles’ first LP.

      1. Added to what your mum and dad without meaning to because that had been done to them in their turn.

        I enjoy this parody by Adrian Mitchell:

        They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad.
        They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
        They give you all the treats they had
        And add some extra, just for you.

        They were tucked up when they were small,
        (Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
        By those whose kiss healed any fall,
        Whose laughter doubled any joke.

        Man hands on happiness to man.
        It deepens like a coastal shelf.
        So love your parents all you can
        And have some cheerful kids yourself.

    3. Ah, you know there’s a lot of fuss about sodomy laws in Uganda but they’ve had those laws for a long time and no one has ever actually been prosecuted. Strengthening the rules is just their response to having alphabet soup forced down their throats. There isn’t any persecution going on. It’s yet another dumb distraction.

      2. AIUI, they inherited these laws from us. (Together with the East African Shilling.)

        1. Just another meaningless abbreviation. That’s twice on here. Please elucidate. AIUII What the fuck is that?

          We’re not all up on your cult jargon. Meaningless otherwise.

          2. if that’s what is meant, then SAY it it . Don’t hide behind not generally understood abbreviation.

          3. Don’t have a go at me sunshine I was only telling you what I thought it meant

        2. Just another meaningless abbreviation. That’s twice on here. Please elucidate. AIUII What the fuck is that?

          We’re not all up on your cult jargon. Meaningless otherwise.

      3. Its a subtle way of getting the rainbow mob to take flight and live in the UK, thus ridding themselves of a group they are not keen on.

      4. I saw a tweet about protests there today, mostly they seem to be protesting about money from the US that is coming with pro-qwerty soup conditions attached. Young Ugandans say they would rather not have the money.

    4. You might all well ask an awkward question of him. What on earth do you think you will or do want to achieve.
      And why do you think society has any interest in you whatsoever ?

  25. Morning all 🙂😉
    1st of June? No sun solid grey still that cold north easterly. What’s out there to like ?
    It’s not just the Conservatives at fault. It’s the whole of Westminster the HoL and all of Whitehall. Not one of them will have carried out a single task or action they could possibly be proud of. In the past 25 years.

  26. More than 50 Tory MPs including former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi urge Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt to scrap ‘morally wrong’ inheritance tax.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12146027/More-50-Tory-MPs-urge-Rishi-Sunak-Jeremy-Hunt-scrap-morally-wrong-inheritance-tax.html

    They were talking of raising the IHT threshold to £m when Cameron was prime minister and George Osborne was expected to raise IHT thresholds and then failed to deliver?

    IHT is a left-wing socialist tax and as the Conservative Party is now a left wing socialist party the last thing it would ever do is abolish the tax.

    2. Instead of fiddling about with the thresholds that another government will then lower, just abolish it. AS it is, the biggest hinderance is not the tax itself, but the hassles of dealing with government bureaucracy to get probate.

      But.. it raises barely 7bn quid. 7 thousand million. Less than 2 days spending. Far better would be a 2% reduction in state spending, which would save 200bn. Limiting council management pay would cover most of it. If we ended welfare fraud we could scrap the basic rate of tax. Not reduce it, scrap it.

      That do the 150,000 civil servants in the DHSS and welfare offices around the country do?

      1. Good morning Tim. I was wondering when printed does the other side have the same intensity of colour?

    1. Well done Vlad, hopefully one day soon the rest of the world will wake up.

    2. I personally don’t care what someone else does to themselves. Where their rights stop is where mine begin. If they’re a man in a dress, then I have the right to call them a man in a dress. I don’t have to accept that they are something they are not nor confirm their fantasy.

      They have no right to force me how to behave toward them, either. They have no rights to areas that are gender specific – that’s down to individual locations. If they want surgical alterations then they pay for them.

      Fundamentally they can do what they want – but the rest of the world can ignore them. That, I think, is what they’re most terrified of.

    3. Bunch of bloody perverts who need a sticky and very painful butt in the arse , and to be repeatedly humiliated and beaten in public in order for them to recognise the error of their ways. What else can we do with this transient, stupid cult?

        1. I’m with you on that Hugh , a public birching on the bare backside by the beefiest and strongest sergeant would certainly deter 95 % of these oiks from ever transgressing again. A pity the law and the justicerity don’t see it that way.

    1. It’s very difficult to understand how so many obvious thicko’s managed to get themselves into this group of the ruling classes.
      AKA parliament.

      1. 372815+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        Put into power via mega thicko’s voting action.

  30. I hope everyone is ready to celebrate the month of June 2023. People in the the US should be thrilled and the UK will surely follow in its footsteps.

    Celebrate, not because the war in Ukraine has come to an end, not because China, Russia and Iran have become friends of the West, not because the conflict between Israel and Palestine has been solved, not because of any other threats to peace, freedom and prosperity around the world but because of something so important that the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces and the Leader of the Free World has deemed it necessary to issued a lengthy, formal declaration.

    NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2023 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/05/31/a-proclamation-on-lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-and-intersex-pride-month-2022/#:~:text=BIDEN%20JR.%2C%20President%20of%20the,Queer%2C%20and%20Intersex%20Pride%20Month.

    (The link refers to 2022 but it has been reissued, according to the US press today).

    It seems that no one has told Sleepy Joe that this group of people comprise around 1% of the population.

    1. Seems appropriate for the Pride orgy to be launched by a senile sniffer of little girls’ hair.

      1. Yup. Whatever the shortcomings of his master, Incitatus was doubtless a noble beast, which is more than can be said of our technocratic ruling class!

    2. Pathetic. The little ratbag will continue until he’s locked up and the key thrown away.

    3. I cannot begin to understand what he’s trying (and failing) to say. Incomprehensible nigger. Fuck off back to Africa – we don’t need you.

  33. How a little-known London start-up predicted China’s deadly Covid outbreak. 1 June 2023.

    The data in question, published in November after China started dismantling its zero-Covid policy, warned that up to 279 million people would be infected, leading to more than 1.3 million deaths, if the country’s restrictions were suddenly lifted.

    The estimates looked inflated, but once the nation’s draconian measures ended, it seemed that Airfinity had been right: reports quickly emerged of over-run hospitals; high-profile celebrities started dying; the virus appeared to be on the rampage.

    Throughout this, China kept quiet. In its requests for data, clarity and assurances, the western world was met with a wall of silence, making it impossible for governments like the UK and US, with their armies of prestigious scientists, to understand what was happening.

    This I would point out did not stop them locking down the entire country.

    NO COMMENTS ALLOWED!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/airfinity-data-coronavirus-china-omicron-outbreak-pandemic/

    1. So did two million Chinese people die when they lifted the restrictions early this year?

      1. Did “the data in question” come from Neil Ferguson? I found a UN page with death rate figures for China but it appears these are “UN projections” for population growth and not based on actual reporting by the Chinese. They may have lost some people to respiratory disease in 2020 but it will be a tiny fraction of the number killed by Mao?

  34. Here is an example of how misleading the Press can be when articles are published by those with vested interests without any alternative viewpoint. However, this article appeared in the Guardian yesterday, so I suppose it’s understandable The Guardian can always be relied on to give only one side of a story if it fits its agenda!

    The article is about the leader of the Islamic Party (Ennahdha) in Tunisia, Rachid Ghannouchi who is currently in prison for corruption and terrorist activities. He has 19 other cases pending.

    I know Tunisia very well having been a frequent visitor and part resident since 1968. However, many readers’ comments are in agreement with the article because most of them, understandably, know nothing about Tunisia, let alone about Ghannouchi So who could have written such an article? None other than Ghannouchi’s daughter, Soumaya, hardly an independent journalist! Anybody who believed more than 1% of the article is grossly misinformed. Naturally she praised her father and was scathing about Tunisia’s President

    But she forgot to mention some things about her father/ Here are a few of her omissions:

    – He was variously sentenced to death and/or life imprisonment in the 1980s for plotting to overthrow the government in favour of an Islamic state.

    – He was allowed to leave the country on condition that he would never return for the rest of his life. He ended up in Khartoum in the early ’90s with Osama Bin Laden, Hassan Al-Turaybi (whose sister he was reported to have married), members of various terrorist organisations, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Carlos the Jackal. Sudan came under great international pressure to expel these people, so Ghannouchi, having nowhere to go, was offered asylum in the UK. He bided his time in London for 20 years until he saw his opportunity to return to Tunisia at the time of the so-called Arab spring.

    – He eventually became the speaker of parliament. Consistent opinion polls gave him an 8% (sic) approval rating whereas the President was on 65% – 70% and the Prime Minster on 60% – 65%.

    – He was caught on video plotting the overthrow of the regime (again) with a group of Salafists in 2014. It is in Arabic but the video an be seen on YouTube.

    – He was instrumental in enabling young men to join ISIS and fight in Syria.

    – in 2014 there were two political assassinations of his vocal opponents. The wife of one of them was on TV the next day saying that she knows who killed her husband – Ghannouchi, even if he didn’t pull the trigger. The culprits have never been brought to justice because the Ministry of the Interior had been infiltrated by Ghannouchi’s people.

    Ghannouchi is a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood which survives through bribery, intimidation and corruption as has been blatantly the case in Egypt and elsewhere. Turkey and Qatar are supporters of the MB but it is still allowed to operate with impunity in the UK!

    If anyone has bothered to read this far, I will close with a short conversation that I had with a Tunisian lady a few months ago:

    Me: I see that Ennahdha is holding a demonstration in Tunis today.
    She: Yes, my son has gone there
    Me: Don’t tell me you son supports Ghannouchi
    She: Of course not. He only went to collect the 50 dinars bribe that they are paying to people who attend!

    1. Your posts are always interesing SG – most of us know nothing about the Arab world beyond what we are allowed to read in the MSM. Did you have a link to the piece in the Graun yesterday?

        2. Thankyou – and is the current president of Tunisia as bad as she makes out? Naturally she would be biased in favour of her father, but what do ordinary people think?

    2. Your posts are always interesing SG – most of us know nothing about the Arab world beyond what we are allowed to read in the MSM. Did you have a link to the piece in the Graun yesterday?

    3. Doubtless just the kind of character the Biden administration and the Democrats would encourage.

      1. How very perspicacious of you!

        Biden does indeed support Ghannouchi and the Muslim Brotherhood in general. Obama used to entertain the leaders of the MB in the White House

        A Democrat senator, Chris Murphy (D-CT), who is a real nutcase, recently visited Tunisia in support of Ghannouchi who had been spending large sums of money on lobbyists in Washington. Murphy was fooled by this and he made such a nuisance of himself that there were demonstrations outside the US Embassy. The US Ambassador was summoned to the President to explain Murphy’s actions!

        1. I generally assume that if there is what appears to me to be wrong ‘un, then the Democrats will support them.
          It’s not infallible, but accurate more often than not.

    5. Have you considered writing an article about this for TCW, or I should say, submitting a proposal to them?

  35. 372815+ up ticks,

    If parents of children who are in their formative years are not showing pictures daily of these leading political vipers blair/starmer/the wretch cameron/ treacherous treasa /etc,etc and their odious ilk as a red alert WARNING, then those parents deserve horse whipping.

    Many of the eyes tight shut brigade got away with it in rotherham
    I believe, in thinking the price of diversity being child rape & abuse as acceptable, bare in mind these types still have a vote.

    Just a thought.

  36. Araminta featured Allister Heath’s piece on the threat of AI and remarked that he made no reference to immigration. He did mention ‘the madness of crowds’ (Douglas Murray was not the first to write on the subject) and wrote this:

    Out-of-control AI could prey on a growing pathology at the heart of Western society: our vulnerability to social contagion. Instead of creating an army of resilient, independent, hyper-educated rational individualists with all of human learning at our fingertips, smartphones have reduced us to an uber-emotional, animalistic, dopamine-addled mob. There is plenty of information, but little knowledge. Instead of being able to think for ourselves, we are slaves to fashion, not only when it comes to dressing but also opinions, consumption and financial decisions. Radicalised by social media, elite opinion-formers embrace absurd views at breakneck speed. Politicians, businesses and celebrities take their cue from a revolutionary vanguard that subverts public sentiment.

    Our society no longer understands the purpose of free speech, as described by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Instead of engaging in Socratic argumentation to get to the truth, we use words to virtue-signal and to camouflage base emotions. Our elites claim to be universalist humanists, but are in fact born-again tribalists who spend their time pitting in-groups (those who repeat the favoured platitude of the moment) against the out-groups (anyone who disagrees).

    We no longer know how to think critically. Subjectivity and nihilism rule supreme: the deranged, post-modernist woke cargo cult claims that there no longer is truth, just our truths. Ideas are at best positional goods, fashion statements and markers of social hierarchy, and at worst tools of oppression. Words are devoid of any essential meaning: expressing “righthink” signals high status (even if the opinion is nonsense, such as the claim that China had nothing to do with Covid) and “wrongthink” (such as support for Brexit) implies low-status.

    Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University argues that our society is not merely increasingly capricious but also prone to a new madness of crowds. Technology, by increasing transparency and reducing transaction costs, has “intensified the madness of the masses and expanded their reach. From finance to politics and culture, no domain remains untouched.” Bank runs are more frequent, with deposits moved from online accounts as soon as rumours begin to circulate. Fake news, boycotts, fury, demonstrations, health panics and calls for crackdowns become the norm. There are no error-correcting mechanisms.

    Such a world – governed by the opposite principles to those developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Antifragile – is vulnerable to manipulation, and hence to weaponised AI. Imagine a deepfake video watched 20 million times in a couple of hours that warns of an imminent terror attack, or “proves” a politician was a fraud hours before an election: the impact would be catastrophic.

    People are no more susceptible to conspiracy theory now than they ever were, it’s just that technology makes it easier to reach them, manipulate them, and scare them – and more frequently.

  38. Really strange reporting of the Bournmouth incident. There must have been thousands who saw what happened but only vague and distracting reports of tomb-stoning and a man ‘on the water’ being arrested. Reports of a jet ski are dribbling out but there was no contact apparently. Well, with 2 dead and 10 injured, there must be a few clues for our esteemed constabulary to follow.

      1. Ten of them jumped in and the two dead were, so it is said, caught by a wave from a jet ski. It’s all very vague.

          1. We avoid the sea front on warm, busy days. It is a very busy beach and the kids are on half term. The local rag is being very coy about it.

      2. Children are irritating little beggars sometimes but I have resisted the urge to drown any… so far..

      3. That was also my reading of the information available. If they had voluntarily jumped, for the thrill, why would someone be arrested? That simply does not make sense.

    1. Maybe I misunderstood but Sweden has never supplied the UK with a fighter jet

      1. I also believe that to be the case, Spikey. In fact, having listened to the narration again, I’m not sure the bloke knows his subject at all.

  40. Barmy times at Lake Lodge.
    Last night my husband was making some Chinese mushroom soup. He asked for the kitchen scales which I gave him. He was having difficulty with them so I calibrated them and left him to it. Today we discovered why he couldn’t get them to work right- he’d put the scale base upside down on the counter and so the tray didn’t fit.
    Part 2- went up to bed last night and sat on the bed to remove jeans etc. I was too close to the edge and fell off onto the floor; cries of “Are you OK darling?”
    I was but laughing so hard it took me a while to get up.
    Part 3- letter today from hospital re MRI. List of instructions including one telling me not to wear magnetic underwear. What? I have underwear and 2 magnets on my fridge but, as far as I know, my undies are non-magnetic. Husband googled it and apparently some men have magnets in their knickers for some reason or other.
    Such jollity!

    And also, all 3 appointments lined up which is good although the consult miles away needs to be addressed.
    I don’t know how I stand all the larks 😉

    Edit to put more suitable word;-)

    1. Maybe they mean ‘attractive’ underwear ie not passion killers 🤣

      2. Yes, I will have to opt for a hospital gown as bra and jeans have metal bits.

    3. Just seen your post. Googled it and THIS came up:

      VK Magnetic Therapy Help Blood Circulation Healthy Men Underwear Boxer

      So it may not be quite as daft as it seems.

      2. It is daft. They sell them suggesting they increase penis size. Obviously no use to me !

  41. Gardening question. My tulips have now finished flowering. Is it safe to move them and replant?

    2. Personally I would leave them until all the above ground parts have fully died back (to restore energy to the bulb) before I moved the bulbs.

    3. What Grizzly says Pip. You should wait because the leaves manufacture sugars for food. Cut them before, while still green, and you will weaken the bulbs.

  42. Back from Nurse. New dressing. “Getting better,” she say…. “Hmmm…,” I reply. Next apptmt Monday.

    Risking doing some gardening now – will wrap up well….

    Bak son.

  43. The BBC appears to be employing teenage scribblers with the same level of ability as those used by the DT. Here’s a portion of the Nottinghamshire news page from the website:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ff4ae2a35e1defb2d83028d28628c243706ca9259d2662a42134dbb382aa8cd.jpg
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-65768503

    ‘Green’ power line…it’s just a conventional HT power line.

    The report includes the usual guff:
    Project director Rachel Tullis said the new 400kV line would connect this green energy to the grid, “boosting our home-grown energy security and progress towards net zero”. It would be able to carry enough power for six million homes, she added.

    Pick a number, any number…

    1. And provide net zero context. Enough provided the six million homes only want to power one 25 watt light bulb for 5 minutes a day.

      1. Exactly my point. And it’s not just the local and regional reporters who are guilty.

  44. Just been thinking about the lack of reporting on the events in Bournemouth,
    All our news agencies know nothing.
    When did journalism change from hearing different reports from various sources to waiting for the official version to be released as the settled account for what happened which nobody questions?

      1. Two kids dead and eight others also rescued. Two helicopters on the beach and the beach was cordoned off yesterday. Local rag being very coy about it all and no real info. And what we do hear will be what the plod want us to know.

          1. People who were filming on phones were criticised as plod said they were filming CPR efforts. Who knows, they will tell us what they want to. More than likely won’t be the truth.

    2. All very strange……….

      Dorset
      Police chief reiterates that police “are trying to quell rumours”
      about the incident. And then states that there was no jumping off the
      pier nor a a jet ski involved .

      People are naturally curious as
      to what happened , especially in these times of terrorism and a 40 year
      old man was arrested and still in custody .

      So perhaps the best way to ‘ quell rumours’ is to simply state what happened

      1. That would make a change. Normally the first thing the police PR department do is issue a pack of lies.

      2. Glad everybody else is as confused as me and that police woman in the press conference didn’t help at all. Strange that the chap in custody is accused of man slaughter – really? Maybe a freak accident, maybe something far more sinister. If they are going to give so much coverage of it on the media it would help if they actually told us what happened.

    3. BBC Breakfast this morning interviewed two ‘eye-witnesses’ who, when questioned, said the same thing – they both turned up at the beach to find it cordoned off!

    1. For several years unavailable here. They were superior to our Wilkinson Sword.

      1. I buy Bic single use razors 10 for £1 – they last ages, at least 10 to 15 shaves each

        1. I use both, the old style to finish off around the awkward corners. Cartridge-style razors certainly last much longer.

      1. 🤣 I would if I needed to, John.

        They’re not for shaving though. They are for artwork (scratching out ink lines on draughting film) and for slashing dough when baking.

  46. Children killed off Bournemouth Pier may have been caught in boat’s waves. 1 June 2023.

    Officers investigating the deaths have revealed they are working on the belief that there was no actual contact between “a vessel and any swimmers” at the time of tragedy.

    A man in his 40s described as being “on the water” at the time has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

    Rachel Farrell, the assistant chief constable of Dorset Police, said on Thursday: “Following enquiries, a man aged in his 40s who was on the water at the time has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

    “I am able to tell you that it’s clear that yesterday a number of people already in the water got into difficulty and we are investigating the circumstances or event that caused that to happen.”

    She said that early investigations indicated that there was “no physical contact between a vessel and any of the swimmers at the time of the incident”.

    She added that “there is no suggestion of people jumping from the pier or jet-skis being involved”.

    This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/31/bournemouth-pier-boy-17-and-girl-12-die-after-incident/

        1. What gets me is they, council and plod, are telling people not to speculate. Sounds rather odd to me.

    2. I don’t see how the wake from a boat or jet ski would drown you. You just bob along in the volume of water.

          1. One has a bent screw apparently, well the Services are well in keeping with LBG+ these days…

          3. Come on – they only cost £3 billion odd. What do expect for such shoddy work?

          4. Is that all? Canada is somehow paying three billion dollars per frigate in the latest procurement screw up.

            Not that any will be delivered for about ten years.

      2. It can suck you under a pier or jetty. Been there, done that – at the French Beach, Ismailia summer 1949.

          3. Only the occasional Farage having a skinny dip- after a session on the sauce.

    3. Interesting the use of the emotive word “children”. Girl aged 12; boy aged 17. While I still regard 12 as a child – the boy could, in other circumstances (knife crime; murder etc), have been described as “teenage thug”.

    4. It all seems very odd.
      I wonder if non-swimmers were paddle boarding or similar too far offshore and got knocked off. A poor swimmer, being suddenly dumped into relatively cold water, would struggle and almost certainly panic.

  47. Right, going to sit outside now for a while. This glorious weather won’t last forever so I am going to make the most of it.
    Laters, gators.

  48. I commented earlier on DT ‘teenage scribblers’. Here’s a really good example from the last week. The headline is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Flying Scotsman could grind to a halt over modern door demands
    Locomotive’s future in doubt as rail watchdog tells its owners to replace old-fashioned locks with up-to-date systems

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ae5457f72f38c908299f0a2775c9d49abac06f8e3e92dd6b86d7fcf76719305.jpg
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/26/flying-scotsman-future-doubt-trains-modern-doors/

    The story is about railway charter excursion stock, privately-owned sets of British Railways Mk1 and Mk2 slam-door carriages. The ORR (Office of Rail and Road) gave owners an exemption for the fitting of central locking (the type that was fitted to Mk3 HST carriages in the 1990s after some unfortunate incidents). That exemption is due to expire and the remaining unfitted sets will be barred from the mainline until they are modified.

    The loco will not ‘grind to a halt’, its future will not be in doubt. Plenty of ‘heritage’ railways will contact the owners to offer it work (this is actually noted at the end of the article).

    1. The wonderful thing about slam door carriages of course was that you could grab and jump as the train was pulling out of the station. I don’t know how many times I boarded the 11.40 pm from Victoria to Bromley South by that method but certainly some and the courage came from the simple fact that it was that or spend the night on the station platform. Back in the 70s that was the stuff of student life.

    2. Agreed, but the alternative headline of ‘some doors on a train need upgrading’ wasn’t going to get past the editor. Even from Polly Filla.

  51. 372815+ up ticks,

    None of this shite is going to stop until YOU the peoples hold odious tripe like anthony charlie lynton ex PM ( the bog man) to account on a treason charge.

    Reinstate the treason charge very loudly in public demands bordering on threats of GBH, fight fire with fir, they crossed the line when the first trusting person died of an medically inferior
    untested via time vaccine,

    Anyone in disagreement, especially regarding the cottaging bog man, deserves a couple of jabs to the head followed by a telling left hook to help them change their mind.

    https://twitter.com/RogerHelmerMEP/status/1664255360012623874?s=20

  52. Back from chilly garden – even the greenhouse was unwelcoming – though out of the wind. I forgot to repeat, this morning, my recommendation of the excellent prog on BBC 4 about the Vermeer exhibition in The Hague.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mnbj

    Well worth watching if you like art history. Very good talking heads. And a fascinating – and scrupulously polite – difference of opinion about attribution of one of the paintings. USA v The Netherlands. Holland wins…. “We’ll have it in the show as a Vermeer – but you won’t describe it that way in The States.” !!!!

      1. Bet they wanted to do that in one take. All those fish in the hot air would stink.

        1. Thank you. It was because i buy silk scarves from Aspinals at between £80 to £150 a pop and i was disappointed that the obverse side wasn’t as bright.

          I have complained to them and they refunded the last one i bought.
          Aspinal is supposed to be a luxury brand !

          I tip for excellence not for mediocrity.

          Previously i complained to Geo. Trumper that one of their colognes only lasted a few minutes. The very nice lady said it was the first time she had had to handle a complaint !

          They sent me a much more expensive cologne and lots of samples.

          Pays to complain.

          1. “one of their colognes only lasted a few minutes”

            You should not have drunk it so fast.

  55. A wee Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 712 3/6
    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. My fiftieth five today.

      Wordle 712 5/6

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

    2. Bloody fail here.
      Wordle 712 X/6

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

    3. I’ll be sitting in the Wigmore Hall at 5 pm today so here is my Friday wordle effort. A par four.

      Wordle 713 4/6

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

  56. Good evening all.
    Not a particularly warm couple of days, in fact I’d say a bloody cold end of May/start of June! 11°C outside just now, but actually feels bloody colder.
    Picked up t’Lad’s cabinets this morning then made my way home as there was no chance of getting into my bunk in the back of the van tonight!

    Got back about 3ish, did myself a mug of tea and a bite to eat and promptly fell asleep!

    1. 20°C outside in Sunny-ish Helensburgh; forecast: several days of sunshine and 20°C plus!

          5. I can see the headlines in your local rag….. Firefighters called to a house to remove man who was stuck to his fridge wearing only his magnetic underwear;-))

  57. 372815+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    I fear we are witnessing a Covid cover-up
    Hopefully I will be proven wrong. Not for personal vindication, but so that those most affected by lockdown can salvage some peace of mind

    May one of the lower earthlings ask what price will “peace of mind regarding the dead” be pegged at ? what about the current seriously injured and those that will show up going into the future
    will they even be considered ?

    Will massive pay offs be the order of the day so as ALL will be forgotten the time the General Election rolls around, with the same political shite jockeying for position at the trough

    Will it alter the voting pattern, IMO not a jot, the voting majority seem to have learnt how to survive on swallowing shite.

    1. I don’t fear a cover-up; view it as a racing certainty.
      After the past three years, any vestigial belief I had in governmental veracity or good intentions has vaporised.
      I automatically assume it – and all its apparatchiks – will lie.

      1. 472815+ up ticks,

        Evening Anne,

        ALL we want is for one to be caught out then the lot will unravel, the political wagons
        certainly have circled.

        None of this odious issue can be allowed to slip past deep scrutiny not when we are dealing with death and serious injuries that have already been incurred.

  58. That’s me gone. Miserable day. Not a hint of anything but bitter winds, grey skies, drizzle and COLD., It is said that it will be sunny tomorrow. I just HOPE so – as the leeks and trombetti are going to be planted out and take their chance.

    I took the solar panel reading this morning. Nearly 100 KW fewer than the same quarter last year.

    Anyway, have a spiffing evening – and DO look at the Vermeer prog….

    A demain

    1. We had a couple of hours sunshine (!!) mid afternoon but it has clouded over now, it has turned chilly again and as I write I am shivery. Perhaps there is hope for those of us in the east tomorrow.

      1. Looking at the weather forecast for Colchester, we will have a dry sunny weekend …. but still with the bloody northeast wind that has hung around for yonks..

        2. I recall a cold wind blowing all through summer, a constant stream, back in 1985. It simply did not let up. The reason I remember is because we were camping that June, en famille. With two toddlers.

      3. It was sunny here most of the day but still that cold NE wind. I did the shopping and then spent an hour in the garden – bought some more compost and still have a few pots to plant up. did the watering – everything is so dry and the remaining water butt is almost empty.

  59. Bit nippy at the Suffolk Show.
    The heat pump tent was busy doing nothing.
    There was a large oil tank stand, which suggests the business is still there.

    1. We’ve got a shop in the local town that sells heat pumps (enormous! Like a white elephant – oh!) and solar panels. I’ve never seen anybody in there when I walk past.

      1. Last month I used 36 units of electricity, I generated 545 – I like my solar panels. This doesn’t take into account that before my electricity gets to the grid it heats my hot water, I still get paid for that electricity and it saves me oil

      2. They’ll all be up on the roof, because this old world’s been letting them down.

    2. I see the Irish government is proposing a cull of 65,000 cattle per year to reduce emissions…….. so people will be reduced to starvation if they kill off agriculture. Obviously learnt nothing from the famine in the 19th C.

      1. On the contrary, I think they learned all too well. It’s not just the cattle they are culling – it’s us. That’s what this nature-worship, peasants as animals alternative religion is all about – managing the masses so that we don’t spoil their planet.
        This is the religion that Judaism and then Christianity supplanted. It never completely went away.

        1. I love animals and wildlife but I wouldn’t take it so far as a religion. I think these rabid greeniacs are the ones that need culling.

  61. Zimbabwe outlaws criticism of government ahead of elections with sentences up to 20 years
    New law raises fears of a crackdown on dissent as President Emmerson Mnangagwa looks to secure a second term in office
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/01/zimbabwe-ban-criticism-election-jail-emmerson-mnangagwa/

    Aren’t the ordinary black people of Rhodesia Zimbabwe lucky that the odious white people who brought wealth and prosperity to the country are no longer in control and they can starve without feeling oppressed.

    1. That’s unusual for Zimbabwe, they use to murder everyone who might have voted against the government.
      The old mineshafts must still be filled with rotting bodies.
      What a mess tribalism makes.

      1. Hi BoB! Greetings from Cuba 🇨🇺 and wishing you a very happy but belated, birthday!! Hope you enjoyed it!

  62. Some thoughts about Electric Vehicles:

    The major advantage is lower carbon emissions.

    However, electric vehicles are inherently HEAVY; batteries are inherently heavy.

    This will greatly impact tyres: weight, life and carbon emissions by increased scrubbing of the road surface.

    The total carbon emissions of an electric vehicle may well exceed those of ICE vehicles.

    The extra weight or TARE will adversely affect the economics of electric motored trucks.

    These factors have not yet been properly aired in parliament or the MSM.

    1. Do you seriously think these factors will actually ever be properly aired in Parliament or the MSM?

      1. No, Conners; ‘The Science’ has been ordained by thick-as-two-planks Ed Millipeed and will endure until the revolution!

    2. Same old continuous story, every single thing our political classes come into contact with they eff it up and big time.

  63. 372815+ up ticks,

    Surely the current members of the lab/lib/con/ current ukip know what is going to happen to these peoples, having supported this mass uncontrolled immigration coalition they must surely have an inkling of what is to become of them.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    5h
    And where exactly did the Govnt think the tens of thousands of illegal migrants were going to live?

    Invite them in, put them up in hotels, then turn them out onto the streets to become desperados.

    This policy cannot be through pure study, it was & is deliberate, & continues unabated – & it is happening throughout the Western civilised world.

    The Govnt is the enemy of the people. It destroys national identity & national loyalty, creates chaos & lawlessness, all in order to destroy our liberties & freedoms.

    Eviction notices sent to thousands of Afghans in hotels warning they will become ‘trespassers’ in months – The Independent,
    Translate post
    Eviction notices sent to thousands of Afghans in hotels warning they will become ‘trespassers’

    Contingency plans urgently needed if Afghans cannot find homes by August, councils warn

    Time for ALL good members to come to the aid of the mass uncontrolled immigration party.

    Lets be aving yer.

    1. 372815+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Head to toe on the red / green benches will settle a few ……

  64. Evening, all. Cynical me thinks it’s not so much Conservative MPs have forgotten the values they should uphold as that they never had them in the first place; pretending to be a Conservative was a way to a cushy job with lots of perks.

    1. As a modern politician what they believe in and they’ll say ‘climate change and social justice’. The first is a tax scam, the second irrelevant.

      Of course, they don’t really believe in anything. They have no convictions at all.

        1. Treason.
          Aiding and abetting invasion and takeover of the UK by foreign billionaires.

  65. If you’re ever lost in the woods, look for the North Star.
    Its twinkling will comfort you as you starve.

  66. My previous post has some how vanished.
    It was about a hard day today and using drain rods to free the flow in our blocked manhole.
    This AI business is a bit scary. I put a request on our street FB page to find out if anyone had any drain rods I could borrow. As therecwas no answer. I had to go to Screw fix and buy some. Later, job done and taking a break sitting in what little sun we had.
    My neighbour then told me he was sitting in his armchair resting, when his watch sent him a message using my name, telling him that I had made a request for the use of some drain rods.
    Be very careful what you ask for. You never know who’s listening.

    1. His watch probably has Facebook on it. I wouldn’t give houseroom to Alexa or anything like it and AI must be worse. Google certainly listens and then shows ads for anything you might have looked at somewhere else.

      1. I’m in agreement.
        Our family use alexa to switch on their lights. I find that creepy.

        1. Younger people have grown up with these technological marvels. I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. Who knows what my laptop is telling the ptb?

  68. I just caught part of the news this evening. They were showing a recently cleared industrial site that was being built on. Saying that there was a shortage of housing in England.
    They’ve got that one wrong as well. They’re too many people.

          1. From my observation, people with Alzheimers tend to show their real character.
            There’s a piece of film where Biden shouts orders at other people in a very nasty voice.

          2. Yes. It stops their inhibitions and so they say what they think. My cousin died at only 60, from a progressive brain disease and in its early stages she upset her mother by saying hurtful things. She always did have a wicked tongue but clearly as the disease took hold she was unable to stop herself. Many years before that she memorably described her sister in law in her wedding dress as a “hippo in a sheet”.

    3. At the end of the video, you can see what looks like the outline of body armour under his jacket.
      Why wear the daft cap? Looks like a tit in it.

    5. The way he points at the ground it seems like even the Yanks have potholes. Lol.

      1. True Elsie, but to be fair, it was hot today and at his age….. He is far too old for this, we need a decent nominee to vote for!! I am not a democrat, far from it (A Young Conservative in my youth)

        1. Well the problem is, Jill, that I don’t believe he was ever elected. The November 2020 election was definitely rigged because the Democrats never forgave Trump for beating Clinton in 2016.

    1. Good night, birthday boy. Sleep the sleep of the hard-working Tower of Bonsall builder.

  71. I’m just waiting for sundown 21:10 I’ll have a better excuse to turn in.
    It’s been the perfect sort of day to forget.
    I had a return email from the complaints department at the hospital. It seems they want me to justify my reaction to the horrid and upsetting 18 months, getting on for two years, before they have decided to help me to get over the continuing trauma of ill health, god only knows why they seem to have a problem with it.
    Good night all.

    1. I hope you get some sort of satisfaction from them – it seems that only by complaining and making a fuss does one get anywhere. I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere – my OH is not the complaining sort, but he’s not right and something needs to be done.

      1. I’m sorry to hear that, it seems to me, learning to complain should be a requisite for dealing with the NHS. Keep you both in our thoughts.

      2. I don’t think they like it, but if you don’t complain they will consider that you are happy. But that in its self is stretching the imagination too far.

  72. I am going to turn in as I have a long journey tomorrow. I may be AWOL until Sunday night; it depends on my internet connection (or lack of it). Have fun!

  73. Going to bed- face hurts like hell.
    I can’t stand much more. Good night Y’all.

  74. Grrr. Just finalising tomorrow’s Tesco order. Thought I would treat myself to some elderflower cordial (having flirted very briefly with the idea of making some earlier this week) but then forgot what it was I had thought of. So I checked out, closed the website and immediately remembered the cordial. It will have to wait till next week now (if at all).

    1. Elder grows like weeds in in our garden.

      Caroline makes delicious elderflower cordial and has just made a few jars of elderflower jelly which has not set very well but it will make a good coulis to pour over ice cream; when the fruit is ready she will make concentrated elderberry rob to which you add boiling water to create a cordial which is excellent at dealing with colds in the winter.

      I made some elderberry vodka a couple of years ago which was quite drinkable but not nearly as good as my sloe gin.

      1. If my bike hadn’t been stolen, I could have gone to the common and picked some blooms…..double grrrrr! Still. One day… 🙂

  75. Chasing Remainers is a dead end for the Tories
    The PM needs a strategy to win back Leavers, among whom Boris Johnson is currently more popular

    David Frost : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/01/chasing-remainers-is-a-dead-end-for-the-tories/

    If the real conservatives in the party do not act without delay and resign they will be finished and rightly so. They are like Shakespeare’s cat in the adage in the Scottish play letting I dare not wait upon I would.

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    How many real conservatives are in the Conservative Party? However many there are they will be tainted if they stay with Sunak’s left of centre quasi-socialist party a moment longer.

    The coming general election is already lost so the conservatives must resign now and form the nucleus of a proper Conservative party to replace the even worse Labour government which is inevitably coming. Staying put is not an option for them or the country.

    Come on Lord Frost – this is aimed at people like you!

    1. I am a political maverick. I believe in the great institutions of civilisation, of marriage founded on the symbiosis of a man and woman, of King and Country, of national and natural heritage of our lovely nation, of sound money and conscientious public service where the duty of state is to enhance and develop the talents of everyone using whatever mechanism actually works. Does that make me a Conservative?

      Yet I don’t sign up the judgemental crassness of Thatcherism, where only the hardworking are the deserving poor and the gutter take those who cannot or will not promote themselves over all others. I spend much of the 1980s campaigning against her philosophies, and my legacy today is the Liberal Democrat threat to the Tories throughout the Home Counties.

      Conventional algorithms that pass for human judgement these days deem I must be a Remainer. Yet I voted Out in the Referendum of 1975 and Leave in 2016. It was my vote, from the Independent centre of politics that swung the vote beyond the neocons. My gripe with the EU was its unaccountable corporate takeover, where global lobbyists hold more sway than villages, and whose primary function is to drive small bothersome competition out of business.

      I have often spoken against the fascist lunacy of woke, with its nasty doctrinal movements such as “Pride”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Critical Race Theory” and my own personal nemesis “feminism”. How on earth did such things get caught up with valid concerns about the environment and basic human dignity, where earning a living should mean that, not a treadmill to slavery to pander to the ever more self-assured oligarchy of Davos? Why when accepting the latter package must the Algorithm judge me “Lefty” and therefore presume I support the former?

      I agree that Starmer and his “Buggins Turn” prospective Government relies almost entirely on the premise of “There is no alternative” and that when the Tories fail, power will automatically fall into his lap. He may be right, but I don’t like it. It may well be that, in the same manner my vote tipped the balance towards Leave, it may also give the impetus for Sunak to scrape home next year. Erdogan pulled a master stroke by reminding voters in his country about the perils of woke, and centrist votes judged accordingly, allowing this master criminal to prevail once more.

    1. Happy birthday, Bob. We do all enjoy watching your progress on your ‘Folly’ !!

    2. Happy birthday, BoB. Did you remember to take 71 candles up the Great Wall of Bonsall, plant them on the top, light them, and blow them all out? Lol.

  78. Now here’s a story for you all which may amuse you (especially Sir Jasper). I sat down at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday evening to watch a restored print of a Taiwanese film (A TOUCH OF ZEN – 1969) which was 3 hours long. But, although it was quite interesting, I found it a struggle to keep my eyes open after a tiring day, so I switched it off at 9 pm and went straight to bed. I awoke at around 1.30 a.m. and couldn’t sleep, so here I am at almost 2 a.m. getting ready to finish the film! Then I’ll be back to bed, so I may be a little late when you all turn to NoTTLe on Friday morning. Good night, chums.

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