Thursday 10 June: The EU should never have weaponised the issue of the Irish border

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/09/lettersthe-eu-should-never-have-weaponised-issue-irish-border/

835 thoughts on “Thursday 10 June: The EU should never have weaponised the issue of the Irish border”

  3. 334111+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Thursday 10 June: The EU should never have weaponized the issue of the Irish border

    The initial treacherous error was instigated back in June 2016 when the real UKIP a right NOT sh!te party was calling for total severance but the tories (ino) got the carte blanche nod and that triggered the “we really do NOT want to go campaign”

  6. ‘I’ll tell Mr Putin what I want him to know’. 10 June 2021.

    Joe Biden had tough talk for Vladimir Putin when he addressed US troops stationed in the United Kingdom of Wednesday night.

    He referenced his meeting next week with the Russian president, which will cap off his eight-day trip to Europe.

    ‘I’m meeting with Mr. Putin to let him know what I want him to know,’ Biden said as the crowd of Air Force personnel burst into applause.

    Morning everyone. Vlad’s worth ten of this Arrogant Dickhead!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9669877/US-troops-UK-cheer-Bidens-warning-Putin-start-Europe-trip.html

    1. Good luck with that Mr Biden. I didn’t have Vlad down as the shy and retiring type.

    1. Ah yes! The “it’ll all look different in the morning” approach! Very sensible…not!
      Good morning, good people!

      1. Night shift too expensive to pay.
        Remember potential buyers will be looking at the bottom line

  8. The Christian mental health crisis. 10 June 2021.

    Is the mental health of Christians beginning to collapse under the strain not just of Covid and its effect on worship but also the bottomless contempt of progressive ideology for religious belief? This week’s Holy Smoke is a conversation with theologian Dr Gavin Ashenden about a crisis of morale that is robbing some Christians of the will to live. One former churchgoer told me last week that he’d be perfectly happy not to wake up the next morning – and I knew exactly how he felt. But in conclusion Gavin suggests a way of breaking out of this existential nightmare. So, as they say on the BBC, if you’re affected by any of the issues raised in this programme, make sure to listen through to the end.

    With the exception of Russia the whole of Western Christian Civilisation is imploding before our very eyes. It is not simply the Loss of Faith but that Christianity also provided all the secular moral and social conventions which enabled it to keep running. These too have now been erased which is the reason for the decline in both Private and Public probity, a failure that is now becoming precipitous. Our political leaders are corrupt in every possible sense. Venality is their only commonality.

    The State; the British State, which is the furthest advanced in this decline, is now a Democratic Cypher, a Police State ruled by Fools and Charlatans. The MSM has become a propaganda tool while Vast Armies of Government Trolls patrol the internet; both are seeking to suppress dissent and maintain confidence in a collapsing system.

    The Lie has become Government Policy. Immigration. Covid. Climate Change. Foreign Policy. All are devoid of Truth!

    There is nothing to be done about any of this other than to endure. History tells us that it will end badly. We Nottlers have had the very best of what the Old World offered. Thankfully we shall not see much of what is to come!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/the-christian-mental-health-crisis

    1. That is bleak but realistic. I now have 8 grandchildren and I am really concerned at the pandemonium we are causing.
      The last Great Reset was World War Two and when these maniacs have finished destroying the supply lines, having outsourced the means of production a generation ago, I am concerned that there will be food shortages.
      We will be scrambling for resources – Lebensraum – and conflict will be inevitable.

    2. 334111+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Truth will hurt many as your post will reveal but our own peoples have not helped in stoking the fires of orchestrated treachery, the political close shop and only the political close shop has been a country killer for decades.

      I do disagree with “There is nothing to be done about any of this other than to endure”

      To fight & fail is surely a better option than accept the menu that these atrocious political overseers are engineering,surely, surely.

      Overseen by treacherous fools & charlatans as in a United Kingdom mafia.

    3. I blame the decline in Christianity for much woke behaviour. Young people need to believe in something, have a place to belong and be validated as likeable people. Wokeism is their new religion.

      1. Emile Cammaerts had it sussed: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything.”

      1. Did you celebrate your birthday yesterday, John, with an excellent pint of Harvey’s?

        1. Yes thanks, meal out, drinks and a larger cigar back home. No mask wearing of course.

    2. Good gracious – Kamala Harris is tougher on illegal immigration than either Priti Patel or Boris Johnson.

  11. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy start here,.
    There is supposed to be some partial solar eclipse today, I hope it doesn’t affect my golf.

  12. I see Biden is insulting his hosts by ordering his ambassador to issue a demarche – a formal diplomatic bollocking – to us over our threatening peace in NI over the protocol. Perhaps Boris should take a lead from Maggie’s riposte during the Falklands conflict and ask Biden if he’d be happy to see Hawaii cut off from the US by a customs border as part of a trade deal with Japan in order to avoid threatening the peace since 1945.

    1. Biden cannot recognise his own feet.
      Who is “advising” him – I mean thinking this rubbish is clever?

    2. Morning Dale. At one time Allies used to forebear to comment publicly let alone meddle in others domestic affairs, which shows you the true relationship here. Master and Lackey

  13. The World is officially Mad, Mad, Mad

    Oxfam training guide blames ‘privileged white women’ over root causes of sexual violence

    Plus: Feminist writer Julie Bindel ponders ‘if a war is being declared against feminism’

    An Oxfam staff training document says “privileged white women” are supporting the root causes of sexual violence by wanting “bad men” imprisoned.

    In the wake of sex scandals that have rocked the charity, Oxfam has produced guidance which states that: “Mainstream feminism
    centres on privileged white women and demands that ‘bad men’ be fired or imprisoned”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/oxfam-training-guide-blames-privileged-white-women-root-causes/

    1. Just like Lefties opposing anything Trump supports regardless of reality, it seems the woke mob are opposing anything white people think regardless of facts. It takes some warped minds for women to demand that rapists not be imprisoned or punished because that could mean some white woman’s reporting rape leading to the black perpetrator’s being jailed, and that’s racist and a symbol of white supremacy, man.

    2. I can’t even follow the warped line of logic there, but it seems to be consistent with that Pakistani child rapist saying he hadn’t done anything very bad.

      There is a smidgen of truth in there about hysterical privileged feminists wanting men locked up for paying them a compliment, but it’s highly inappropriate to use this to distract attention from sex crime that may have been committed by Oxfam staff.

      Just waiting for all the do-gooding white women who think that a refugee boyfriend is the cool new accessory to be accused of neo-colonial sexual abuse!

      1. understand your points here bb2. The real logic is woke charities that originally were used as a safety net for feminists / limp wristed specimens how couldn’t hold down a job in the real world. Having done a quick gap year stint in a hot country to boost their CV [lack of] credentials, re-migrate back to Head Offices. They then believe [although they have zero] “experience and skills” to promote their own woke agendas.

        They all hide behind “social media” as experts in the field. When told they are exactly the type of people who should not be let anywhere near ground work or have any say in approach, they kick off like a firework as their only virtue signal on media. And still they cannot understand why people in countries abroad don’t want such people anywhere near them.

      2. “…hysterical privileged feminists wanting men locked up for paying them a compliment…”

        Ha ha ha ha ha! Just watch me NOT pay any of them a compliment!

  15. Good morning, all. Another sunny start – off to market shortly.

    I see some Yank is being rude. There’s a change.

    1. A little bit of info…
      There’s some confusion about Wisdens.org,where the revelations came from.
      Its NOT the cricket bible.
      It is a collector’s website for past editions of the Wisden Almanac.
      It was founded in 2005 whereas Wisden was established in 1864.

      1. mng Harry. Am aware of Almanac, I have a few. But do agree the online version of Wisden is not remotely any near being a cricket bible, It’s a haven for people with a passing interest in cricket who’ve been told they can string a sentence together.

        1. But that’s the whole point…wisdens.org is NOT the online version of Wisden.

          1. totally agree. I don’t go anywhere near it. the only journos I do read are George Dobell, Vic Marks and Martin Johnson, who even Atherton follows since his test playing days and famous for his quote “I read Johnson to see what bollocking I’m in for”.

          3. I don’t understand why they’re being treated so differently.
            Anyone would think the girl was watching videos of beheadings or some such.

      2. I gave up long ago on journalists doing research and writing honest articles. It seems integrity and basic work standards matter little nowadays in the scramble for likes and views.

  17. Joe Biden: Mildenhall speech in full. 10 June 2021.

    Our son Beau served as a US attorney for a while in Kosovo. Matter of fact, they erected a war monument to him. And then he went on and he joined the National Guard.

    Gave up his job as attorney general of the state of Delaware so he can go with his unit to Iraq for a year. And when he got promoted to major, I said: “Beau, you’re now a field-grade officer.” I was in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan about 28 times. I said: “You’re now a field-grade officer.”

    He said: “Dad, I have no illusions. I know who runs the military: chief master sergeants.” So, I just want you to know we know.

    The mind cringes!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/joe-biden-jill-biden-president-native-americans-god-b939776.html

    1. RFA Mildenhall? https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1447858/joe-biden-us-president-makes-major-gaffe-in-speech-raf-g7-summit-boris-johnson-ont. a good job we had all those RFA pilots in the Battle of Britain.
      I note that in the article’s video he has his back to the crowd of suitably-selected women and non-white personnel he’s supposedly talking to. What happened to the white men that died in the US air force’s flying from the U.K.? I know times change, but isn’t the obsession with marginalising white men going too far here?

      1. All these events are now just Propaganda. The Message. The Audience. The Coverage. They are as fake as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will!

        1. Mind you, some Fleet Air Arm pilots flew with Fighter Command during the BofB. But don’t get me started on how the much larger number of Coastal and Bomber Commands aircrew, twice as many dying in direct BofB operations as Fighter Command aircrew (not all were pilots), have been airbrushed out of history.

  18. Joe Biden: Mildenhall speech in full. 10 June 2021.

    Our son Beau served as a US attorney for a while in Kosovo. Matter of fact, they erected a war monument to him. And then he went on and he joined the National Guard.

    Gave up his job as attorney general of the state of Delaware so he can go with his unit to Iraq for a year. And when he got promoted to major, I said: “Beau, you’re now a field-grade officer.” I was in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan about 28 times. I said: “You’re now a field-grade officer.”

    He said: “Dad, I have no illusions. I know who runs the military: chief master sergeants.” So, I just want you to know we know.

    The mind cringes!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/joe-biden-jill-biden-president-native-americans-god-b939776.html

    1. Morning Kuffar. Surely you of all people should recognise it. We have become what we most despised!

      1. I do, and it really chills me. This is how societies sleepwalk into totalitarianism.

    2. Not to mention the use of Midazolam in the care homes. “Midazolam injection is used before medical procedures and surgery to cause drowsiness, relieve anxiety, and prevent any memory of the event. It is also sometimes given as part of the anesthesia during surgery to produce a loss of consciousness.” Vast quantities were bought up for use in the care homes prior to March 2020.

    4. On the other hand, I live near a unit for brain-damaged people and often think it would be kinder for all concerned that they die and that the resources be used to better effect elsewhere.

    5. That’s just the start. Those who do not make a “net contribution to society” – i.e. make less than £18,000 a year, and are not a “protected characteristic” are next for the Care Pathway.

  20. If we don’t unlock fully on 21st June then I suspect that we never will. ‘The Data’ in terms of take-up of the vaccine and efficacy against serious illness could not be better. Surely, summer is the best time to deal with any uptick in cases, rather than pushing this into the normal Autumn/Winter ‘flu season?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/09/therell-no-global-britain-risk-averse-ministers-keep-country/

    We should all simply refuse to comply with mask-wearing and other restrictions from 21st June. Our rights and freedoms do not belong to this government, to be doled out like sweeties to a child. To coin a phrase, it is time to ‘Take back Control.’

    1. We must unlock ourselves. We have the keys. We gave away our ancient freedoms in the space of twenty-four hours. 21 June is the time to take them back.

    2. Get the badge and stop wearing a mask for a start. You will be better treated in shops as they can see your face.

        1. Great thanks 3 hours in local restaurant. Taxi home and a very large cigar.

      1. I suspect she’s unaware that those cis guys are checking her out because she looks weird, not because they think she’s attractive.

  22. Nothing more needs to be said

    BTL@DTletters

    Andrew Wood
    10 Jun 2021 6:14AM
    I read yesterday that spotlight dodgers Harry and Meghan are inviting members of the public to share their stories of compassion on their website.

    However, if you want to submit a story there are Terms and Conditions to which you have to agree to be bound.

    These include surrendering to the Sussexes all rights to your story which, as they make clear, means that you would not be entitled to any payments of any kind, if for example they were to use it as the basis for a movie.

    You also agree to indemnify them against any lawsuits which arise as a result of your story being published.

    Very compassionate.

    1. I’m tempted to write a story of how my brother’s manipulative wife is destroying him and trying to destroy our family but I suspect they’d delete my effort and the time I put in.

  24. A ring of steel around Cornwall: what Britain is doing to protect world leaders at the G7 summit. 10 June 2021.

    With the three-day G7 Leaders’ Summit in Carbis Bay starting on Friday, Devon and Cornwall Police have called in wide-ranging support from the MoD.
    Naval vessels, aircraft, sniffer dogs, logistics support facilities and bomb disposal teams will all be on standby for the event.

    The Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose and RAF St Mawgan will host assets thought to include US President Biden’s personal helicopter known by the callsign Marine One.

    Air defence capabilities to protect against airborne threats including drones will be provided by the Royal Artillery’s Giraffe radar working with a Royal Navy Type-23 frigate, HMS Northumberland, and HMS Tyne, an Offshore Patrol Vessel positioned off the coast.

    Who are they expecting? SPECTRE!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/ring-steel-around-cornwall-britain-protect-world-leaders-g7/#comment

    2. Carbis Bay grounds were taken illegally without planning permission so as to build Eco Lodges for this Europa League Davos circus. Whilst attempting to portray power / command and control to those from within the circus tent and compliant MSM, its merely a gathering of the global villiage idiots

    3. The anti-submarine frigate, HMS Northumberland, is going to come in handy. {:^))

    4. Morning Minty ,

      What a pity those resources could not be used to stop the invasion of the Sussex and Kent coast , rumour has it 1,000 illegals so far this month , and those good people who are monitoring it have received injunctions .

      1. They should certainly cancel the visa of that Yank at Magdalen and send him packing, along with any of the others who showed such utter disrespect to the Queen.

  26. I have glanced at the Grimes.

    Pictures of Johnson wearing a ridiculous outfit with the nae of his office printed on it. And of Biden wondering where on earth he is.

    What a shambles – Biden and BPAPM – neither of them the faintest clue what they are supposed to do. I bet the Russians and Chinese are shaking – with laughter.

    1. Johnson conceals his venality behind the facade he built over the years i.e. good old blustering affable Boris, what a card. Now, he appears to be one of, if not the the, most disreputable people to hold the office of Prime Minister.

  27. SIR – Maros Sefcovic, vice-president of the European Commission, must realise that the EU is disingenuous in proclaiming a desire “to protect the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts”.

    The EU has serially ignored multiple experts on border movements, who made clear that digital online controls eliminated any need for a hard Irish land border. Instead, it confected concerns about an unneeded land border in order to insist on an equally unneeded border in the Irish Sea.

    Then, in January, in a panic about vaccine supply, the EU itself threatened to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol and impose the very hard border in Ireland that it had so vigorously opposed. This exposed the shameful dishonesty of its position. The UK Government should now make clear that, no matter what, it will never construct an Irish border, nor sustain one in the Irish Sea that would conflict with consent principles embodied in the very Good Friday Agreement that Mr Sefcovic is so keen to protect.

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    Who, then, would build the hard border? The EU? The Republic of Ireland? The reality is that there wouldn’t be one because it is not needed. It was irresponsible of the EU to weaponise the sensitive Irish border issue, and it remains so.

    Gregory Shenkman

    London W8

    SIR – The EU has said that “we expect the UK to fulfil its legal requirements”. Spelt out, this means: “We expect the people of Northern Ireland to be prevented from buying sausages, produced in the mainland of Britain”.

    I wonder how the people of Corsica, say, would react if they were suddenly prevented from buying a popular French product, or Sicilians banned from buying an Italian delicacy?

    It seems this all springs from the EU refusing to give equivalence to the UK over food standards. Perhaps Mr Sefcovic would explain why the EU feels unable to give this equivalence when it has happily given it to other countries, and in many cases, as it knows, the UK’s standards are higher than those in the EU.

    Alison Day

    Camberley, Surrey

    Placeholder image for youtube video: p2v_OnSEFjI

    SIR – Northern Ireland is as much part of the United Kingdom as Scotland and Wales, and its supermarket prices for British produce should be more or less the same as for the rest of the UK.

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    This sort of ridiculous posturing by the EU just shows why Britain left.

    Bryan Patterson

    Ipswich, Suffolk

    SIR – I am as alarmed as anyone that Northern Ireland cannot get its sausages, chicken nuggets and mince from Great Britain, but I did wonder whether it needed to import them anyway. Surely there are pigs, chickens and cattle there, as well as butchers and factories that can manufacture these items.

    Dr Stuart Hobday

    Colchester, Essex

    Unfair travel rules

    SIR – What are we doing wrong? We sat at home for more than a year, we have had both our vaccinations, we wear masks in restaurants and sanitise our hands at the entrance of every shop.

    Covid infections are almost non-existent here on Menorca, yet the British Government will still not tell us whether we can see our family this summer. In the meantime, thousands of people associated with the G7 conference will congregate in Cornwall, having travelled to the UK from amber-rated countries.

    It seems that there is one rule for them and another for the rest of us. I had faith in the British Government’s strategies, but I’m beginning to question them.

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    Jane Eyles

    Mahon, Menorca

    SIR – The vaccines work; hospitalisation and death rates continue to remain low. The new variant appears to be more contagious, but is no more deadly.

    For the sake of the travel, hospitality and entertainment industries, and all our cherished but suspended freedoms, end lockdown and allow us to get on with our lives.

    David Garnett

    Northwich, Cheshire

    SIR – I have had both my jabs and live in an area that is virtually free of Covid. I have no fear of the virus and manage my affairs in a risk-averse fashion. I am, however, scared of what our clueless Government might do next.

    Howard M Tolman

    Great Cornard, Suffolk

    Placeholder image for youtube video: UnXC3Ilw2vU

    Unhelpful bank

    SIR – My wife is the treasurer of a ladies’ guild attached to our local synagogue. For many years the guild has operated a small club account with HSBC. Due to Covid, the guild’s activities have been suspended for the past 16 months and there have been no transactions on the account. HSBC is now threatening to close it for lying dormant, and (despite the bank’s own copious excuses for not offering normal services during the pandemic) it refuses to acknowledge the special circumstances that have affected the guild.

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    I suggested that my wife set up a monthly standing order for £10 from her personal bank account into the guild account, then pay herself back by cheque. She is reluctant to mix her personal and business affairs in this way, but in the presence of such petty intransigence by the bank, what other choice does she have?

    Brian Gedalla

    London N3

    Hazardous e-scooters

    SIR – The supposed virtue of e-scooters is that they will take cars off the road, but in Canterbury, students are using them to “motor” uphill rather than walking.

    Using them thus contributes to the production of greenhouse gasses in their manufacture and battery recharging, while making the roads more hazardous.

    Robert Britnell

    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – As a student, I got a Nottingham e-scooter for the first time last week and I found it affordable, convenient and good fun. Before renting it I was warned that someone had been injured riding one – but “don’t worry”, I was told, “he was completely off his head”.

    It appears that we have a culture that sees drink-driving as dangerous, but drink-scootering as acceptable.

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    Daniel Dieppe

    University of Nottingham

    Nationwide levelling

    SIR – There is much chatter being devoted to the task of levelling up in the North.

    That is all very well, but it seems to have failed to grab anyone’s attention that the West Country is in just as much need as the North. Upgrading of roads, rail and air travel is required if the area is to attract the enhanced activity of which it is in great need. In this part of the country the Conservatives face a very real threat from the Lib Dem and Green votes.

    We anxiously await the coming of the diggers and of broadband (which in our case is still nonexistent). The next election is closer than one might think. Visible signs of activity and improvement are essential now. Vague promises concerning some unspecified time in the future simply will not do.

    Neale Edwards

    Chard, Somerset

    Sentences for burglars

    SIR – I am pleased that the sentencing guidelines council is to recommend longer sentences for certain burglaries.

    As a retired magistrate, I have always considered burglaries on private dwellings a type of “domestic rape”, not just because of the items stolen, but because of the emotional impact of knowing that strangers have violated your personal environment, which can last for years.

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    A J C Gorman

    Ickenham, Middlesex

    Beyond furlough

    SIR – Am I missing something?

    Large sectors of the economy are short of manpower, but the Government is paying millions of furloughed workers to stay at home.

    John Catchpole

    Beverley, East Yorkshire

    Name game

    SIR – As a child, I was nicknamed Piglet by my three elder brothers (Letters, June 8), a name I didn’t like. Eventually our mother banned the use of this word so they started calling me Telgip. I didn’t question this strange new nickname until, many years later, I realised it was Piglet backwards.

    Even now, 50 years later, I still receive cards addressed to Telgip. I somehow doubt that my own children will want to use it.

    Jo Marchington

    Ashtead, Surrey

    Where to find affordable housing in Norfolk

    Blakeney (1930) by the English artist Henry Clarence Whaite

    Not just second homes: Blakeney (1930) by the English artist Henry Clarence Whaite CREDIT: bridgeman

    SIR – I sympathise with Tanya Gold and her feelings about the affordability of homes in Cornwall.

    Here in west Norfolk, we have the same problem: no reasonably priced houses for young locals to buy so they can stay in the area with their families close by. While a few such homes are pepper-potted through planning applications, they are still out of reach for most young people who live and work here. Renting opportunities are becoming scarcer.

    Healthy tourism undoubtedly brings benefits, but something must be done to redress the balance.

    Blakeney has a housing trust, and I believe Wells-next-the-Sea has one too. Perhaps we need to levy a one-off payment on houses purchased as second homes to help these youngsters, and make housing trust contributions mandatory.

    Avril Wright

    Snettisham, Norfolk

    SIR – I was born and bred in Cornwall but have watched my lovely county change beyond recognition in the past 20 years. The countryside is disappearing under ugly housing estates. Services are under strain.

    My grandparents and parents farmed the same land for 70 years; it is now covered by a caravan park. Four years ago, aged 62, I moved to a part of Norfolk that reminds me of how Cornwall used to be. I could not bear watching the county sink under the weight of those who arrive and seek to change it.

    Dawn Rundle

    Mundesley, Norfolk

    Britain should cherish the special relationship

    SIR – Boris Johnson thinks the term “special relationship” sounds needy and weak.

    We tend to treat this relationship with a degree of cynicism in Britain, thinking it was something we invented in the 20th century. In fact, it was conceived 200 years ago by the sixth American president, John Quincy Adams, who had the good sense to live in Ealing while serving as de facto American ambassador to the Court of St James after the war of 1812.

    Despite having seen the White House burnt to the ground by the British just a year earlier, he stated at a lord mayor’s banquet in 1815: “It is my earnest wish that the harmony between Great Britain and the United States may be as lasting as the language and the principles common to both.”

    In 1823, America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, confirmed the status of our relationship by writing: “With [Great Britain] on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship.”

    Although the balance has shifted, Joe Biden is clearly heeding the wise words of his predecessors. A sedulously cherished friendship is a special relationship – whatever words are used to describe it.

    Nicholas Young

    London W1

    1. It would appear that Nicholas Young’s letter has been chewed up and spat back at him by Biden.

    2. “I suggested that my wife set up a monthly standing order for £10 from her personal bank account into the guild account, then pay herself back by cheque. She is reluctant to mix her personal and business affairs in this way, but in the presence of such petty intransigence by the bank, what other choice does she have?

      Brian Gedalla”

      Don’t, whtever you do, mix the two accounts! That will lead to trouble. Instead, open an accoubnt in another bank & send £20 back & forth by standing order, or, better still, dump NatWest.

      1. Just do a standing order for £0.01 every week and write the money off for being well worth the satisfaction it gives you.

      2. ‘Morning, Paul, actually HSBC is the culprit here.

        Mind you, dumping Natwest sounds like a plan.

      3. Good advice. The SNP is being investigated by the police, apparently, for mixing the independence fighting fund which is a ” restricted” account with general funds. The use of “restricted” funds which will have been donated for a very specific purpose to offset running costs, admin salaries, electricity bills etc, is embezzlement. We shall see. Well, the police will likely take it nowhere.

  28. Costumer Service

    The above is a supposed email frm the Co-Op

    Delete it, unless you want a costume of course

      1. Obviously she will need help taking her dress off before using the toilet & no doubt she will find plenty of male volunteers to help her!

  34. How To Wash The Cat

    1. Thoroughly clean the toilet.
    2. Add the required amount of shampoo to the toilet water, and have both lids lifted.
    3. Obtain the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
    4. In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids (you may need to stand on the lid so that he cannot escape).
    CAUTION: Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge, as his paws will be reaching out for any purchase they can find. The cat will self-agitate and make ample suds. Never mind the noises that come from your toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.
    5. Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a “power wash” and “rinse” which I have found to be quite effective.
    6. Have someone open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.
    7. Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
    8. The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside where he will dry himself.

    Sincerely, The Dog

      1. Gawd help us! I’d forgotten what a mess she was! An ungainly, inelegant and stupid joke of a woman!

        1. A jacket in the top one that makes her look like one boob has fallen – and as for the boots in the second – speechless.

    2. Is the name to help Biden realise who Johnson is? He can badge himself as a Virgin all he likes, but people here don’t believe him on anything.

  36. The imperial EU is blind to the folly of its unequal Northern Ireland Brexit treaty

    The protocol isn’t a just law. It was imposed on the UK by Brussels at the moment of our greatest weakness

    ALLISTER HEATH
    9 June 2021 • 9:30pm

    Why don’t the European elites ever learn lessons from history? It should be obvious that the Northern Ireland Protocol, signed under duress by the UK, cannot last in its present state. The only questions are what replaces it, how quickly and whether it is enough to restore the province’s fragile balance and save the Good Friday Agreement. The idea that the EU will be able to keep the protocol alive by threatening Britain with a trade war merely confirms the scale of Brussels’s delusion.

    The protocol is a classic case of an “unequal treaty”, of the kind that China’s Qing dynasty was forced to sign with all of the imperial powers. The result was bitterness at a “century of humiliation” that continues to poison international relations to this day, and a sense of resentment which helped to usher in China’s deplorable communist-nationalist regime.

    The consequences won’t be as bad or long-lasting in the case of the protocol, but they could still end up being extremely unpleasant. Tensions are rising in Northern Ireland, and there is now a real chance that relations between Britain and the EU could break down completely.

    Brussels is asking for too much when it threatens sausage wars: no self-respecting sovereign state can accept this, nor, after years of listening to such nonsense, still believe the ridiculous excuse that “unsafe” British chilled meat products might “leak” into the supposedly sacrosanct European single market. So what if they do? Our sanitary regulations remain the same – and even if and when we choose to change them, it still wouldn’t matter, or could be dealt with in other, more sensible ways. It is time to call the EU’s bluff: its obsession with phytosanitary rules is merely an excuse to seek to detach Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

    The EU should have enough self-awareness to understand that the deal it obtained was too good to be true, and that the only way the protocol can survive is if it chooses to exercise maximum flexibility. The UK had no real choice but to sign it: it could either agree to a treaty that essentially handed away parts of Britain’s sovereignty over Northern Ireland, or accept a no-deal Brexit that would have created unnecessary economic damage while still not resolving the Irish situation. The EU wasn’t acting rationally: it was set on kamikaze mode, committed to punishing Britain at any cost.

    Lord Frost and his team, who took over the negotiations when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, wouldn’t have started from there, but calculated correctly that signing up to the protocol was their least bad option. It is nonsense to claim that they hadn’t read the documents properly or had misunderstood them: they knew that the protocol would only ever be acceptable if the EU tried hard to make it work. Frost had to hope for the best, though in the end he got the worst. Brexit is a process, not a single event.

    Far more so than ordinary treaties, the protocol is full of get-out clauses, not least Article 16, which allows unilateral action if the agreement creates “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”. It also contains a democratic lock, with the first consent vote due in 2024. Both sides knew all along that the protocol may not work.

    Contrary to what Remainers claim, there was another way. The EU and Britain’s political elite could have accepted Brexit, and negotiated a sensible settlement, including one that dealt with the real issues relating to Northern Ireland, in a grown-up, technologically savvy fashion. It would have required concessions from the UK, but not as many; and it would have necessitated a very different, commonsensical fudge from the EU of a kind it has often displayed when it comes to the euro, budgetary rules or involving other states.

    Instead, Britain under Theresa May displayed staggering weakness at a critical time, and the EU’s negotiators, stunned at our moral implosion, realised they could get away with a power-grab if they stuck to their legalistic hard line. May’s negotiating team saw themselves as supplicants and boxed her successor into a corner. The Remainer rearguard action when Johnson became PM, and the accompanying constitutional crisis, emboldened the EU so much that it started to believe its own propaganda.

    One can be too clever: it is possible to force a party suffering from a momentary weakness to sign a contract so one-sided that it is eventually deemed unenforceable. Legislation, such as the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, reinforces this point. Those who say that Britain, having signed the protocol, must now stick with it are therefore wrong. We are within our rights to seek to renegotiate it entirely, and we are entitled to invoke Article 16. Unjust law isn’t real law; and to repudiate this illegitimate nightmare to salvage peace in Northern Ireland would not damage our reputation for being a law-following society.

    The EU’s appalling behaviour, and its attempts to drag in President Biden, remind us that there are two kinds of political entities. Those of the more mature, democratic variety can coexist with neighbouring states, working with them to resolve local, geographically relevant issues. Then there are the status-obsessed imperialistic bullies, who seek to control and direct their “near abroad”, Russia-style, and who are obsessed with their “sphere of influence” and showing the rest of the world that they are a “regional superpower.”

    The EU, pathetically for an entity that is waning economically, culturally, demographically and militarily, belongs to the latter category. Its weapon of choice, typically, is its bureaucracy: it wants to force others to follow its rules. It can only be “friends” with those it controls in this way.

    An organisation supposedly set up to ensure peace in Europe is now busy undermining harmony in Northern Ireland and free trade more widely, and all because it refuses to accept countries’ right to self-determination. The hypocrisy, the cant, the double-standards would beggar belief had we not all grown used to them over the years. Frost and Boris Johnson must stand firm.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/imperial-eu-blind-folly-unequal-northern-ireland-brexit-treaty/

    1. “It should be obvious that the Northern Ireland Protocol, signed under duress by the UK”

      At the point of a gun?

      1. Johnson had a choice and frequently stated that the UK would prosper under WTO. He made the wrong choice.

        1. Exactly..the only duress came from the traitors inside Westminster.
          Bugger all to do with the EU.

    2. Heard on the wireless that the Eu wanted ‘fairness’ in it’s dealings. I snorted in disbelief. They’re utter;y untrustworthy. Completely without honour, diginity or common sense.

      The entire approach of the EU during the brexit negotiations was a petulant baby throwing it’s toys out of their pram. They sought every opportunity to use spite, double dealing, treachery and abuse because it stood to lose us.

      It is an underhanded, revolting, nasty organisation that needs to die. Combining Biden and the EU is just, as Mr Heath says, a combination of thugs banding together as Left wing anti democratic, spoiled, immature brats.

    3. “…signed under duress by the UK…”
      Why sign if it’s a bad deal? Have they no ability to say “No” and mean it?

      1. Yes, of course. But not the courage, seemingly. also consider for whom Mrs May and her sidekick were working.

  37. 334111+ up ticks,
    May one ask, will new build estates get street / place / high rise place names such as buchenwald,sachsenhausen,flossenburg,mauthausen,
    as being suitable in regards to the already triggered reset, resettlement campaign.

    People with mental illness and learning disabilities given ‘do not resuscitate’ orders during pandemic
    Telegraph investigation finds medics decided that patients with these conditions should not be saved if their heart stopped

    Shielding YOUR so afflicted will be considered to be a serious obstruction to the overseers build back better campaign and long term
    incarceration will result.

    1. And the non-decent white people are going to be the ones left – after the Great Reset – At the top.

    1. They are only the majority! They are of no importance whatsoever so they don’t deserve a flag!

      1. I’m also trying to get my head around the arithmetic of this claim. Reading the detail, it only applies to ventilated Covid patients and that “[t]he authors found it was only helpful in severe cases of COVID-19”. By my reckoning, the only way the 200% claim could work is if those severe cases not being treated in the way described had a survival rate of less than 33%. For example, if only 20% were surviving without the Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin therapy whereas 60% were surviving with it, that would be a 200% increase in the survival rate.

  43. Good morning all.
    An overcast but dry start with 14°C on the thermometer in the yard and I’ll be driving to Bursledon for possibly the last time this morning to get the last of the stuff out of the Mother in Law’s house.
    The Dearly Tolerant is managing to sell a lot of items on E-Bay, but it’s taking time and this place is rammed full!

    2. Not necessarily.

      There are often very strict limitations on the “mic time” at such events so that people have to make their point succinctly.

        1. Don’t you believe it!

          I’ve attended too many such meetings.
          Experience has taught me that unless the time is controlled, windbags dominate the proceedings.
          In the clip the speaker didn’t appear to protest or carry on by shouting, which would be a normal reaction nor did she storm off, she walked away calmly to the sound of the cheering..

      2. According to the comments, she was allowed two minutes but was cut off 20s early.

        1. I’m surprised she didn’t carry on loudly. She may have thought she had used her allocated time.

    1. Here in Israel next Tuesday 15th June we are no longer required to wear masks indoors in shops, malls, restaurants, places of work etc. The outdoor requirement ended over a month ago & our daily infection rates are heading towards Zero , about 5 a day right now down from a peak of 10,000 a day & its only unvaccinated people who are still being infected & most new cases are from people arriving from abroad who test positive for Covid-19 at the airport . Currently we have 34 in hospital – down from 1,200 at peak & deaths stand at 6,418 with most days no new deaths reported from Covid-19

  46. A long detailed read on ConWoman re Lateral Flow Testing and the start up company that Johnson’s government have doled out £3.2 Billion to. Read and draw your own conclusions.

    ConWoman – Innova Tests

    1. This is a must read for everyone. The National Audit Office should be all over this. If there is no malfeesance (SIC) then there is evidence of incompetence on a monumental scale!

      1. Making hay whilst the Sun is shining springs to mind. Throwing the Nation’s wealth in all and any directions except towards the tax payers who fund this bonanza seems to be the thing to do by our current crop of politicians.

        1. Giving billions in Foreign Aid AND paying hundreds of millions to put those who got here in hotels !!!. Is there ANY other country puts illegals into hotels???

    2. This is a must read for everyone. The National Audit Office should be all over this. If there is no malfeesance (SIC) then there is evidence of incompetence on a monumental scale!

    3. Fascinating read – the final paragraphs are especially interesting “Innova’s brief history raises other equally worrying questions. First, how did Huang of Pasaca Capital know in ‘early 2020’ that the world was going to need hundreds of millions of rapid Covid-19 testing devices when in early March there were only 35 reported cases in the UK and 89 cases in the US? When mass testing for a virus had never been conducted before?
      How was his Chinese ‘manufacturing partner’ Xiamen Biotime able so quickly to provide a solution to the problem?”

    4. Fascinating read – the final paragraphs are especially interesting “Innova’s brief history raises other equally worrying questions. First, how did Huang of Pasaca Capital know in ‘early 2020’ that the world was going to need hundreds of millions of rapid Covid-19 testing devices when in early March there were only 35 reported cases in the UK and 89 cases in the US? When mass testing for a virus had never been conducted before?
      How was his Chinese ‘manufacturing partner’ Xiamen Biotime able so quickly to provide a solution to the problem?”

    5. Come on, that’s only £100 per taxpayer. You’d only otherwise spend most of it on booze & cigarettes and waste the rest on food and the like.

      1. Dale, you’re correct. I’ve just come off the phone from Steve at Laithwaite’s after ordering just over £100 worth of white wines. I’ve never smoked but I do like good food, especially Italian. 2 out of 3 is good going, what an awful wastrel I am.😎
        I’m sure that you’re being sarcastic re the government’s waste

    1. Sack the lot of them, they are obviously a complete waste of space [I wonder how many benefit financially from the Rhodes bequests?]

      1. They all benefit from the taxpayer, the vast majority of whom don’t earn as much.

    3. They’re not refusing to teach, they’re working to rule.

      It’s mor elikely they want something else.

  49. From the fruitcases in California and New York, coming attractions…

    ‘Whiteness is a malignant, parasitic like condition’: Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association publishes paper by white psychoanalyst that claims whiteness is ‘voracious, insatiable, and perverse – with no permanent cure’
    Dr. Donald Moss published the article titled On Having Whiteness last month in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
    Moss, who teaches psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, has since been slammed online
    Dr. Moss has previously written a number of articles for academic journals with provocative titles and messages

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9670579/Psychoanalyst-condemned-paper-branding-whiteness-malignant-parasitic-like-condition.html#comments

    1. Well let’s hope a bro spots him in da hood and does to him what should be done to all malignant parasites.
      Cut him out.

        1. I remember as a lad we had a pop quiz at school, one of the questions was ” If a resident of London is called a Londoner what is a resident of Paris called?” There were howls of laughter when one oik answered ” Parasite ” . In retrospect he was right especially the current resident of the Élysée Palace & his Granny lover.

  50. Good morning, my friends

    Biden rebukes PM President accuses Britain of ‘inflaming’ tensions in Ireland and Europe
    White House orders formal reprimand of Boris Johnson
    UK accused of jeopardising peace in Northern Ireland
    Intervention could overshadow G7 summit

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/09/threat-eu-sausage-trade-war-heats-negotiators-fail-find-breakthrough/

    BTL Comment:

    Why does the Daily Telegraph employ such a bigoted anti-Brexit person as its Europe editor? Give James Crisp an opinion piece if you must – but if he represents the Daily Telegraph‘s views then your paper is completely out of touch with its readership.

    One thing is clear, Biden is buoyed up by the fact that he managed to get away with stealing the election and now wants to do Britain down. The uxorious Boris Johnson’s response will be determined by what his wife tells him to do

  51. https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/06/09/22/44034217-9670073-image-a-62_1623273103618.jpg
    One senior don told the Daily Mail: ‘This is despicable and mean-minded. It is unprecedented for the head of one college to attack and detract from the teaching of students at another college. This is politics based on ignorance and bias, and should have nothing to do with Oxford or any other university, where the principal aim should be to educate students and not damage their learning through left-biased agitation’

    The petition has been spearheaded by Professor Tunstall, …[she looks like a bundle of fun. Ed]

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/06/09/22/44034205-9670073-image-m-63_1623273106129.jpg

    From Wiki:

    Professor Kate E. Tunstall is an academic in the field of French literature. She is a Fellow and Interim Provost at Worcester College, Oxford.

    Professor Tunstall studied for her PhD degree at the University of Cambridge, with a thesis on the 18th-century French philosopher and encyclopaedist Denis Diderot (1713–1784).[1] She is a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford and an academic in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. In 2019, she was appointed as the Interim Provost of Worcester College.[2]

    Professor Tunstall instigated an end to the traditional custom of students standing during formal hall as Fellows enter to sit at high table and grace before the meal.[3] In an online referendum for students,155 students voted, with 130 in favour of maintaining the traditions, 20 against, and five abstained.[4] The change to traditional customs is in line with the college’s “commitment to equality as an educational charity”.[5]

    4. It is tradition. Same as the bread throwing.

      You stand, acknowledge your seniors then when they’re seated, you sit. Sod equality. It is tradition. One that has stood the testament to the idiocy of moronic Lefties.

  52. 334111+ up ticks,
    The reset has been on the cards for decades, the DOVER campaign brought it into the open with the overseers importing potential fighting material that WILL be used in the unlikely event the indigenous shows signs of getting upperty.

    breitbart,
    Delingpole: Bojo Just Can’t Wait to ‘Build Back Better’ at G7 Summit

    1. Would that be better accommodation for the Dover ‘refugees’. The ones we’re not allowed to film?

      1. There can only be so many hotel rooms available ( wonder which govt pal/relative/etc is getting a pile from hosting the flood ) ? – -when the hotels are full they’ll be looking at the housing lists for who has a spare room – then it won’t be spare any more.

      2. 334111+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        They will be used as capos and NOT in the musical sense
        but as herdsman.

        This will be viewed as a conspiracy theory …… for a wee while.

  54. In a statement construed by some as a “warning,” President Biden kicked off his first foreign trip as US leader by announcing that he was heading to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to “let him know what I want him to know.”

    One up to Joe..Putin thought Joe was going to tell him what he didn’t want him to know !!!

    1. “I will do such things—

      What they are yet I know not, but they shall be

      The terrors of the earth.”

      Vlad (yawn), “Yeah, yeah, Babe.”

    2. Old wobbly Joe won’t remember what he’s suppose to say by the time he gets there. Enjoy yer trip Joey, it might be a step up.
      Does air force one have a Stannah ?

    1. Morning, Plum.
      Look, you only pay their salary. For goodness sake, you don’t actually expect them to work for it, do you?

    3. GPs are a right shower ………..

      Due to my recent problems, it was last Friday when my GP told me he would be arranging an appointment with a cardiologist……………….

        1. When I speak to mine on the phone, it is very difficult to understand him, he’s from a northern part of Europe and has a very strong accent.

          Dog walking, I bumped into an golfing colleague yesterday and he told me of a friend of his, who had the same Afib Problem after his Jab. And another old golfing friend had a TIA.
          My theory is, they know about the problem but as i noticed when i asked, wont confirm of deny it. And they know it will probably go away in time, as the patients should do.

          1. My mum used to say if you want to keep well stay away from the doctor…! She lived to 94………I’m hoping i don’t!

          2. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
            I keep a sack of Braeburns by the door in case he/she rocks up at Allan Towers. After a decade of waiting. they’re looking a bit tired.

          4. My last phone “appointment” with my doc I said “you can tell me I’m going to die at the end of the week -it won’t bother me – I’m not depressed or suicidal – just not bothered”. He went loony – MUST write this down he said, tapping away furiously. Why? -i’m old, health probs that won’t go away, paying tax so a foreign flood can destroy my country, etc etc. Not exactly a lot to look forward to is there? – He hasn’t rung since.

          6. Most of my mother side (4 siblings) all lasted into their 90s much longer than the 5 brothers my dad had.
            My mothers eldest sister who live in QLD was 96 on her passing. She use to drink a wee dram almost every night before she went to bed. Good old Betty, a lovely lady.

          9. They also know that if they are shown to be wrong, then today’s world has people running for a lawyer and a claim.

  57. Back from market – very busy there today, thank goodness. Almost back to normal.

    Early sun has been completely replaced by thick cloud. Set to last all day. Grrr.

    1. Back from the Common Market Bill? My late aunt used to say ” Why do we need the Common Market when we already have Woolworths?” Fortunately the UK is gone from the EU but I miss Woolies especially my favourite as a lad in London – the Pick N’ Mix !

        1. That’s from all the crushed in licorice & gobstoppers that had fallen off the Pick N’ Mix counter when we lads were busy shoveling toffee’s & nut brittles into paper bags !

          1. Hmm, Hat, ” …we lads were busy shoveling toffee’s & nut brittles into paper bags our pockets” !

          2. Not me NTN , I was one of the honest suckers who paid for their sweets. I do recall that there were some Gypsy / Romany kids who would go into Woolies at Camberwell Green & start a fight in the far end of the store & whilst the staff were rushing to the back of the store trying to break up the fight some others would be pilfering the toys, clothes & especially the sweet counters that were near the front of the stores, they did this at least once a week for some months until Woolies wised up & had private security at the doors & simply barred them from entering. They then just moved on elsewhere & did the same in other stores across London.

        1. C n C – Cheap & Cheerful, but it was the place for Pick N Mix & cheap toys & Airfix model kits when I was a lad & made my 2s 6d weekly pocket money go further !

          1. I don’t know, I never shopped there when I was Down Under. I just know they have them.

  58. I found this book review interesting:

    Fox News and BLM are both wrong about meritocracy
    It’s the antidote to nepotism – yet, as Adrian Wooldridge argues in his new book The Aristocracy of Talent, meritocracy has become vilified

    NOEL MALCOLM
    28 May 2021 • 12:00pm

    Who could possibly be anti-merit? That would be absurd, like being against justice or virtue. But if you ask who could be anti-meritocracy, the answer is: lots of people. Michael Sandel, the avuncular American philosopher granted guru status by BBC Radio 4, has written a book denouncing it; and in the United States, hostility to meritocracy unites the rabble-rousers of Fox News with the ideologues of Black Lives Matter. Even the person who coined the term in the 1950s, the Left-wing sociologist Michael Young (father of Toby, by the way), did so in order to attack it.

    Young’s view was that letting people rise to the top on merit would destroy proper socialist equality. The Fox News complaint is that it creates an arrogant elite who are unlike ordinary people. BLM thinks “equality of opportunity” is a fraud, because black people are always systematically disadvantaged. And Sandel thinks a bit of all of the above.

    Some of this may sound plausible, until you try to picture a world where people do not rise on merit. And there’s no need to strain your imagination; the world has been like that for most of its history.

    In the early chapters of this hugely stimulating book, Adrian Wooldridge describes what things were like when heredity and nepotism ruled – when job appointments were favours, and many jobs were sinecures. (I liked the story of Mrs Scott, who in 1783 was still receiving a huge salary as wet nurse to the Prince of Wales; he was then aged 21.) He sketches some of the ways in which clever people could still climb the ladder: showing talent in royal service – like Thomas Cromwell – or in the Church. But in the UK the big changes began only in the mid-19th century, with meritocratic reforms to the Army, the universities and the Civil Service.

    Then the story gets more complex. For many on the Left, meritocracy was about rational state planning, not equality or fairness; indeed, it got mixed up with the eugenics movement, which was a “progressive” cause. Bertrand Russell thought the government should give people colour-coded “procreation certificates”, and fine those who procreated with holders of incompatible tickets.

    Philosopher Bertrand Russell
    Philosopher Bertrand Russell believed the government should introduce ‘procreation certificates’ CREDIT: John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images
    Still, it was state planning concerns that launched what Wooldridge sees as a vital development; the use of intelligence tests to measure mental talent, independent of educational privilege. The first big testing programme involved US Army recruits in 1917: alarmingly, the average soldier had a mental age of 13. More recently, fierce campaigns against IQ testing have spread the idea that the whole theory of IQ is discredited. But Wooldridge mounts a spirited defence, arguing that this is still the best way of cutting through the advantages of schooling to identify raw talent underneath.

    That forms part of a larger defence of meritocracy itself, made with cogent arguments, thoughtful suggestions, and a welcome reassurance that this doesn’t mean developing an exam-factory society à la Singapore or China. I have only two criticisms. The first is that he often blurs the meaning of “meritocracy”: the “-cracy” should imply actually ruling, but he talks mostly about attaining high status and wealth.

    And the second is about his caricature version of Brexit. This, apparently, was a populist revolt against the meritocratic elite, expressing the resentment of the uneducated against those who benefited from “intellectual achievement”. But if the less educated and the more educated voted differently (which they did, to some extent), why not accept the obvious explanation, which is that they thought differently about the issue itself? Why invent a story in which benighted Leave voters were not really voting about Brexit at all, but about their dislike of other people?

    Then again, we are told that a vote for Brexit was a vote against globalisation. But the EU is not the globe; it is both a unique experiment in supranational government and a protectionist bloc. And when Wooldridge writes that the Leave campaign “promised to ‘take back control’ from foreign bureaucrats and global forces”, he is simply making that last bit up.

    Boris Johnson is portrayed insistently as the British Trump, the embodiment of populist “fury” against the (meritocratic) Establishment. A simple thought experiment: imagine that the Establishment had been pro-Brexit all along; would Brexiteers have adopted any anti-Establishment rhetoric then? Of course not. Hostility to the Establishment was a consequence of being pro-Brexit, not the cause. But it suits a certain sort of Remainer argument to put this upside-down.

    And so Boris emerges, absurdly, as the greatest threat to meritocracy in this country. Here is the impeccably meritocratic credo printed in his election manifesto of 2019: “Talent and genius are uniformly distributed throughout the country. Opportunity is not. Now is the time to close that gap. We Conservatives believe passionately that every child should have the same opportunity to express their talents and make the most of their lives.”

    It’s a pity that such a valuable, thought-provoking book should contain, on this one issue, an inverted pyramid of piffle.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/fox-news-blm-wrong-meritocracy/

    1. Mornin Walter, probably to teach, at the expense of the UK taxpayer, the next generation of overseas bio-terrorist weapons makers & drug growers.

    2. No, Walter, they backing those arseholes who want to take it for Solar ‘Farms’ and reducing our food-producing capacity.

  62. FSB agents who tracked Navalny before poisoning also tailed author – Bellingcat. 10 June 2021.

    Russian agents who had tailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his poisoning also shadowed a journalist who had earlier fallen severely ill with similar symptoms, according to the investigative organisation Bellingcat.

    Dmitry Bykov, an author and journalist who is an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, spent five days in a coma after he became sick aboard an aeroplane while on a lecture tour in 2019.

    Or alternatively; Vlad zaps another nonentity that neither he nor you have ever heard of and couldn’t care less about anyway!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/fsb-agents-who-tracked-navalny-before-poisoning-also-tailed-author-bellingcat

  63. What might have made it easier for the UK’s Medicine and Healthcare Regulatory Agency to approve the covid vaccines and ignore subsequent problems?

    Bill Gates, best friends with Boros and Matty, financially “collaborating” with the agency to the extent of $7,000,000 and awarding the previous MHRA CEO a senior position in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.

      1. 334111+ up ticks,
        Morning N,
        That being the deep dark, sinister, poachers pocket I take it.

    1. As illustrated by the fact that he was prepared to take office when he had clearly lost the election.

      1. Your comment is not in Plaice, unless you are referring to freshly landed Dover Souls , landed courtesy of the daily Border Force migrant fishing Quoata

    1. Good, my abstention means that I’m a “bad” citizen who refuses to be brain-washed.

    4. Oh well a bit of an admonishment will suffice, she’s a foreigner with superior human rights, we can’t go around upsetting the likes of the new arrivals.
      She could develop mental heath issues and sue, the poor luv.

  68. Batley and Spen: this is bigger than red v blue. Spiked 10 June 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56903669ebc5d9ab3cd9c5887ba0bc6e300049df45486e5e9f067306b88392d0.jpg

    The voters of Batley and Spen will have a whopping 16 candidates to choose from in the by-election on 1 July – there will certainly be quantity if not necessarily quality on display. The headline fight is between Labour’s Kim Leadbeater and the Conservatives’ Ryan Stephenson. Emboldened by a comfortable victory in the Hartlepool by-election, the Tories are the bookies’ favourites to win. But this contest in West Yorkshire is about much more than a red rosette versus a blue one.

    I wouldn’t really mind seeing George win this one!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/10/batley-and-spen-this-is-bigger-than-red-v-blue/

    2. 334111+ up ticks,
      As,
      To trigger the indigenous peoples reset Anne Marie Waters MUST be at the fore, the fools / electorate surely cannot do another tactical, shut out the real UKIP type vote as happened more than once in the past, and allow in the sh!te purveyors for more of the same.

  69. Small things, in a way. but important steps in the right direction. The really interesting thing is that these cases were not dismissed by the police as “wasting police time”, and went through consideration by the Fiscal’s office and prosecutions were brought. So the woke are still in control, just that some courts are nt as woke as the should be?

    Maya Forstater wins landmark employment case on gender critical beliefs. The victory for Maya Forstater, who was also backed by SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.

    A law student who was investigated by a Scottish university for saying women have vaginas and are not as strong as men has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
    Lisa Keogh, 29, was investigated by Abertay University after classmates complained she had made “offensive” and “discriminatory” remarks at a lecture.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19359567.abertay-university-student-lisa-keogh-cleared-investigated-saying-women-vaginas/

    1. Has the complainant been arrested for spouting bollox?

      If someone is going to lie and state basic untruths, they need to be put in remedial classes.

      1. It’s not so much the wording, but the concept of France being taken over.

      2. It’s not so much the wording, but the concept of France being taken over.

      1. If he is – he could make a few quid letting some replacements into the back of his van.

      2. Not quite.
        I’ve not got the van waterproofed for a cross channel crossing yet.

      3. Not quite.
        I’ve not got the van waterproofed for a cross channel crossing yet.

  74. A rare horticultural success.

    At the end of January, we were right out of fresh Basil – a herb which we use a great deal. I bought a pot of rather spindly basil in Morrisons which I thought would last a week. Cost £1.50. We divided it and put it in two larger pots. Fourth months later we have two pots with lush basil, 15 inches high.

    I only did it because I didn’t think it could possibly work!!

    1. “I only did it because I didn’t think it could possibly work!!” If I may say so you are beginning to sound a bit like Halfcock…..

    2. “I only did it because I didn’t think it could possibly work!!” If I may say so you are beginning to sound a bit like Halfcock…..

          3. Actually, Hat it’s a fine distinction in Spanish pronunciation that I learnt in Estepona.

            Their great response is ‘Bali’ meaning it doesn’t matter but you hear ‘Vali’ because, it seems that words in Spanish beginning with ‘B’ are pronounced as if the first letter is an English ‘V’.

            I would like to have that confirmed by a fluent Spanish speaker.

          5. Muivien. Muy bien.

            Of course you are essentially correct but back to front. The word is ‘vale’ but is often pronounced ‘balay’.

    4. Who’s a clever boy den?

      Have you tried Thai Basil? A little stronger than sweet Basil with an anise flavour.

          1. Very good, Eddy!!

            Actually, the first three attempts – a fortnight apart – failed completely, though the seed was new. Never had that happen before.

            I bought another packet and that has worked well.

          2. Keep it to yourself Bill, if the word gets out Morrisons will be doing it as well 🤩

        2. In Greek churches, they give out little pots of basil to the congregation during Holy Week. When I heard my BiL talking about holey basil, I thought it was a new variety!

        3. In Greek churches, they give out little pots of basil to the congregation during Holy Week. When I heard my BiL talking about holey basil, I thought it was a new variety!

    5. 15 Inches high, Fawlty towers eh 😃
      I’ve been doing the same for some time Bill, but it doesn’t like the cold.

      1. Ours is in the kitchen – which is always warm because of the AGA. I honestly thought it would all fizzle out after a fortnight at most.

          1. The damned thing was in the house when I bought it in 1983. It has some good points – but I find it a real headache sometimes.

        2. Hydroponics and Aerogardens are the new thing. With an LED light you can grow herbs and salads all year round.

        3. Hydroponics and Aerogardens are the new thing. With an LED light you can grow herbs and salads all year round.

  76. Before I start Round 2 of sorting out my playroom, here’s an article I read while taking a break.
    p.s. before any Anglo Saxon geeks start screaming, the writer either didn’t know, or couldn’t be @rsed to find the letter ‘eth’ (Ð ð). The drunken teenager was William Aetheling.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/earl-spencer-helps-find-shipwreck-changed-course-british-history/

    Earl Spencer helps find shipwreck that changed the course of British history

    Drowning of the heir to Henry I cast a shadow that led to generations of unrest – now the vessel on which he died may have been discovered

    9 June 2021 • 9:00pm

    The wreck of a ship which changed the course of English history – after it sank 900 years ago with the heir to the throne on board – it believed to have been located as part of a project backed by Earl Spencer.

    The drowning of 17-year-old William Adelin, the only legitimate son of Henry I and grandson of William the Conqueror, cast a shadow that led to generations of unrest known as the Anarchy, according to the historian Charles Spencer, who has written a best-selling book on the White Ship.

    Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, was part of an expedition that explored the site of the sinking a mile from the small port of Barfleur in Normandy on Tuesday.

    Although it was known that the White Ship went down shortly after leaving Barfleur for Southampton in November 1120, it happened so long ago that little trace of the disaster is thought to be left.

    The White Ship, a 12th-century vessel, sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur

    The White Ship, a 12th-century vessel, sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur Credit: Walker Art Library / Alamy Stock Photo

    The team thought they were being optimistic looking for the cast iron rivets that once held the longship’s oak planks together.

    What they discovered on the seabed in less than 10m of water may turn out to be a significant section of the hull of the 40m vessel, said Roger Michel, executive director of the Oxford-based Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), the expedition’s leader.

    Braving powerful tidal currents, two divers from the IDA spotted a section of clinker-built hull on the seabed close to where the White Ship is known to have been wrecked.

    Mr Michel said: “We had very good information provided by Charles about how long the ship was on the rocks before it sank and we’d done quite a bit of analysis of the currents in the area to work out where the debris field was likely to be. The currents there are very strong and the area where we searched was quite a way from the rock itself.

    “The divers found a section of the hull of a ship built with exactly the kind of materials we were looking for – iron and bronze and wooden nails and so forth – in exactly the spot we thought we would find it.”

    The divers, Giles Richardson and Holger Shuhmann, spent more than an hour on the seabed taking photographs but were careful not to disturb the site.

    The White Ship was taking nobles back to England after four years campaigning in Normandy. Henry I had successfully campaigned to have his son William recognised as heir to both the English throne and the dukedom of Normandy.

    Henry, who had his own boat, had set off earlier while the younger generation of aristocrats were busy emptying three vast vats of wine in preparation for the original booze cruise.

    They left Barfleur around midnight, determined to catch up with Henry and beat him to Southampton. Those who waved them off heard the whoops and cheers reach a new crescendo shortly after departure, not realising the reason was they had just rowed into a rock at full speed.

    There was only one survivor, a butcher from Rouen, who was only on board to try to collect the money he was owed by the departing noblemen. William Adelin was put in a lifeboat by his bodyguards but insisted on returning to save his sister Matilda. The small boat was swamped by drowning passengers trying to save themselves and they all died.

    Berhold the butcher was saved because his coarse woollen garments provided some protection from the cold water as he clung to a piece of wreckage.

    Mr Michel added: “We know the section we found is at least 13ft long but it goes under a large rock so it may be even longer. It’s a really exciting discovery. We can see it has all the right construction features for a ship of that age and there are no other recorded shipwrecks in that area.

    “We didn’t have permission to remove anything so confirmation will have to await further research and excavation. All we know for sure is that we spent a lot of time calculating where we thought the wreck would be.

    “We went there and at the place we calculated we would find it, we found the wreck of a ship that was built using construction techniques and materials consistent with the materials used for the White Ship. That’s as much as we say but for a first outing it’s pretty incredible.”

    Earl Spencer, who hopes to join future expeditions to investigate the wreck, is still recovering from a frozen shoulder which prevented him from diving.

    He said: “The divers had done research into what had gone down in that area but apart from a couple of French privateers further down the coast there was nothing of note. It’s extraordinary really. I had hoped we might find a trace of it but this really does look quite good.”

    The White Ship was so called because it was painted white, the colour of celebration. It was one of the largest vessels of its kind ever built and resembled the Viking longships sailed by the ancestors of the Normans who settled in northern France.

    The discoveries made by the expedition will help with construction of a replica of the White Ship and a replica of the Anglo-Saxon longship excavated at Sutton Hoo being sponsored by the IDA.

    Alexy Karenowska, the IDA’s technical director, said: “It will provide a unique opportunity to expand our knowledge of construction techniques used in making these iconic vessels, including medieval smelting and forging techniques.”

  77. Before I start Round 2 of sorting out my playroom, here’s an article I read while taking a break.
    p.s. before any Anglo Saxon geeks start screaming, the writer either didn’t know, or couldn’t be @rsed to find the letter ‘eth’ (Ð ð). The drunken teenager was William Aetheling.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/earl-spencer-helps-find-shipwreck-changed-course-british-history/

    Earl Spencer helps find shipwreck that changed the course of British history

    Drowning of the heir to Henry I cast a shadow that led to generations of unrest – now the vessel on which he died may have been discovered

    9 June 2021 • 9:00pm

    The wreck of a ship which changed the course of English history – after it sank 900 years ago with the heir to the throne on board – it believed to have been located as part of a project backed by Earl Spencer.

    The drowning of 17-year-old William Adelin, the only legitimate son of Henry I and grandson of William the Conqueror, cast a shadow that led to generations of unrest known as the Anarchy, according to the historian Charles Spencer, who has written a best-selling book on the White Ship.

    Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, was part of an expedition that explored the site of the sinking a mile from the small port of Barfleur in Normandy on Tuesday.

    Although it was known that the White Ship went down shortly after leaving Barfleur for Southampton in November 1120, it happened so long ago that little trace of the disaster is thought to be left.

    The White Ship, a 12th-century vessel, sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur

    The White Ship, a 12th-century vessel, sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur Credit: Walker Art Library / Alamy Stock Photo

    The team thought they were being optimistic looking for the cast iron rivets that once held the longship’s oak planks together.

    What they discovered on the seabed in less than 10m of water may turn out to be a significant section of the hull of the 40m vessel, said Roger Michel, executive director of the Oxford-based Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), the expedition’s leader.

    Braving powerful tidal currents, two divers from the IDA spotted a section of clinker-built hull on the seabed close to where the White Ship is known to have been wrecked.

    Mr Michel said: “We had very good information provided by Charles about how long the ship was on the rocks before it sank and we’d done quite a bit of analysis of the currents in the area to work out where the debris field was likely to be. The currents there are very strong and the area where we searched was quite a way from the rock itself.

    “The divers found a section of the hull of a ship built with exactly the kind of materials we were looking for – iron and bronze and wooden nails and so forth – in exactly the spot we thought we would find it.”

    The divers, Giles Richardson and Holger Shuhmann, spent more than an hour on the seabed taking photographs but were careful not to disturb the site.

    The White Ship was taking nobles back to England after four years campaigning in Normandy. Henry I had successfully campaigned to have his son William recognised as heir to both the English throne and the dukedom of Normandy.

    Henry, who had his own boat, had set off earlier while the younger generation of aristocrats were busy emptying three vast vats of wine in preparation for the original booze cruise.

    They left Barfleur around midnight, determined to catch up with Henry and beat him to Southampton. Those who waved them off heard the whoops and cheers reach a new crescendo shortly after departure, not realising the reason was they had just rowed into a rock at full speed.

    There was only one survivor, a butcher from Rouen, who was only on board to try to collect the money he was owed by the departing noblemen. William Adelin was put in a lifeboat by his bodyguards but insisted on returning to save his sister Matilda. The small boat was swamped by drowning passengers trying to save themselves and they all died.

    Berhold the butcher was saved because his coarse woollen garments provided some protection from the cold water as he clung to a piece of wreckage.

    Mr Michel added: “We know the section we found is at least 13ft long but it goes under a large rock so it may be even longer. It’s a really exciting discovery. We can see it has all the right construction features for a ship of that age and there are no other recorded shipwrecks in that area.

    “We didn’t have permission to remove anything so confirmation will have to await further research and excavation. All we know for sure is that we spent a lot of time calculating where we thought the wreck would be.

    “We went there and at the place we calculated we would find it, we found the wreck of a ship that was built using construction techniques and materials consistent with the materials used for the White Ship. That’s as much as we say but for a first outing it’s pretty incredible.”

    Earl Spencer, who hopes to join future expeditions to investigate the wreck, is still recovering from a frozen shoulder which prevented him from diving.

    He said: “The divers had done research into what had gone down in that area but apart from a couple of French privateers further down the coast there was nothing of note. It’s extraordinary really. I had hoped we might find a trace of it but this really does look quite good.”

    The White Ship was so called because it was painted white, the colour of celebration. It was one of the largest vessels of its kind ever built and resembled the Viking longships sailed by the ancestors of the Normans who settled in northern France.

    The discoveries made by the expedition will help with construction of a replica of the White Ship and a replica of the Anglo-Saxon longship excavated at Sutton Hoo being sponsored by the IDA.

    Alexy Karenowska, the IDA’s technical director, said: “It will provide a unique opportunity to expand our knowledge of construction techniques used in making these iconic vessels, including medieval smelting and forging techniques.”

      1. BTL it’s already been suggested that the Beeb will change it to The Black Ship.

          3. Will the Black Prince then become the Grey Prince? (I know he can’t possibly be white).

          4. Will the Black Prince then become the Grey Prince? (I know he can’t possibly be white).

      2. BTL it’s already been suggested that the Beeb will change it to The Black Ship.

          2. Good point.

            Charles Spencer obviously got all the family brains, his books are very readable as well as informative.

          4. One of my relatives signed the warrant and was spared. I suspect his wife became one of the King’s mistresses.

          6. Good point.

            Charles Spencer obviously got all the family brains, his books are very readable as well as informative.

      3. The White Ship is also referred to in ‘Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett. Another good read.

      4. The White Ship is also referred to in ‘Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett. Another good read.

    7. I love adventures and outcomes like that , and piecing history together is really clever.

      Thank you for popping that on here , Anne.

    8. I love adventures and outcomes like that , and piecing history together is really clever.

      Thank you for popping that on here , Anne.

    9. According to my family tree, the loss of William Adelin, resulted in the acrimonious ascent of Stephen (and Matilda) to the throne until 1154 when Henry II took the throne.

      More information available if required – Henry II is 23rd generation in my tree, I’m 50th!

    10. According to my family tree, the loss of William Adelin, resulted in the acrimonious ascent of Stephen (and Matilda) to the throne until 1154 when Henry II took the throne.

      More information available if required – Henry II is 23rd generation in my tree, I’m 50th!

  78. OT – today’s Times crossword is number 28,000.

    I very clearly recall number 10,000 – about 1960 – when the words “Ten thousandth” were incorporated into the solution.

    I was 19 or 20. Doesn’t time fly…..{:¬((

  79. OT – today’s Times crossword is number 28,000.

    I very clearly recall number 10,000 – about 1960 – when the words “Ten thousandth” were incorporated into the solution.

    I was 19 or 20. Doesn’t time fly…..{:¬((

  80. Stop Press

    Camden Town Maternity Unit have hung a clothes-line up, outside the Delivery Doom

    From Midnight tonight, all newborn WHITE Babies will be hung on the line (by their toes), until the change colour, in the sunlight to
    Sh1t coloured Beige

    The hospital has a 20 year contract to supply children for all TV adverts

    3. That reminds me of the rude joke. A white soldier is taking a leak in a field latrine in an open field when along comes a black soldier to take a leak . The white guy cant help but notice how long his black comrades ***** is & says to him ” buddy how did you get such a long ***** ? ” The black guy says to him ” its easy, each night I strap my rifle & 10 full magazines of ammo to my ***** & let it dangle over the side of my bunk, try it for a week” So the dumb white guy tries it for a week & a week later the black guy sees him limping along to the infirmary & says to him ” lets see how you are doing ” He takes it out & the black guy says ” it ain’t grown much but the colour is perfect ! “

    4. That reminds me of the rude joke. A white soldier is taking a leak in a field latrine in an open field when along comes a black soldier to take a leak . The white guy cant help but notice how long his black comrades ***** is & says to him ” buddy how did you get such a long ***** ? ” The black guy says to him ” its easy, each night I strap my rifle & 10 full magazines of ammo to my ***** & let it dangle over the side of my bunk, try it for a week” So the dumb white guy tries it for a week & a week later the black guy sees him limping along to the infirmary & says to him ” lets see how you are doing ” He takes it out & the black guy says ” it ain’t grown much but the colour is perfect ! “

    3. Friends, Families and Travellers – we’ve clocked you as haters of the British and the British way of life – off you go back to your indescribably thick way of Irish life.

      We don’t want you or your fellow travellers, you’re just a plague and, like locusts, you need to be destroyed or moved on.

      1. Time to deport those who are not British citizens and all who cannot pass an English test.

      2. Time to deport those who are not British citizens and all who cannot pass an English test.

      3. During my working life as carpenter/joiner and builder I’ve had several
        run-ins with them. They walk on to building sites and start looking around for anything to take.

    4. Friends, Families and Travellers – we’ve clocked you as haters of the British and the British way of life – off you go back to your indescribably thick way of Irish life.

      We don’t want you or your fellow travellers, you’re just a plague and, like locusts, you need to be destroyed or moved on.

    5. Nowhere is safe , they thieve , they know no different , they piinch your dogs , pillage garden sheds , take your trailers , leave rubbish everywhere , and poach, killing hares and pheasants and anything that moves with slingshots .

      They just cause chaos , they are absolutely feral, and not abit like the proper gypsies who had dignity and countryside skills in the old days .

      1. And they get away with all of it.
        They moved into a parking lay-bye at Brocket Hall near us and left piles of their filth and rubbish behind it was about 3 years ago, no body has been able to clear the muck it is assumed to be toxic. and of course the land owners are liable for the piles of filth. I use to enjoy walking or dog through the estate but haven’t been near it since.
        Another horrible thing they do, is group book several tables at a restaurant and when the bill arrives they start a rumpus that ends up out side the premises then they all clear off.

    6. Nowhere is safe , they thieve , they know no different , they piinch your dogs , pillage garden sheds , take your trailers , leave rubbish everywhere , and poach, killing hares and pheasants and anything that moves with slingshots .

      They just cause chaos , they are absolutely feral, and not abit like the proper gypsies who had dignity and countryside skills in the old days .

    1. Ouch! On the plus side though, you’ll only need a couple of bottles of Carling’s. One for each half.

    2. Ouch! On the plus side though, you’ll only need a couple of bottles of Carling’s. One for each half.

    3. I’m so glad NOT to see Affligem featured – the only good thing to come out of boring Belgium.

    4. I’m so glad NOT to see Affligem featured – the only good thing to come out of boring Belgium.

  89. England under the cosh…152-4 at tea.
    Ollie Robinson is taking a break away from cricket(all forms)
    Its all backfiring on the ECB…bloody good job.
    I hope they get beaten by an innings.

    1. Even with their best players, England are an ordinary team. Right now they look like a second division county XI.

    2. Even with their best players, England are an ordinary team. Right now they look like a second division county XI.

  90. England under the cosh…152-4 at tea.
    Ollie Robinson is taking a break away from cricket(all forms)
    Its all backfiring on the ECB…bloody good job.
    I hope they get beaten by an innings.

  91. Tensions worsen over sausage wars as Joe Biden’s rebuke hardens divisions. 10 June 2021.

    Joe Biden’s rebuke over the UK’s handling of Brexit trade talks appears to have backfired, after the US President’s intervention appeared to harden divisions.
    Mr Biden’s team reportedly warned Lord Frost he was “inflaming” the situation – but this has itself further fanned the flames.

    Edwin Poots, the DUP’s new leader, said it was “absolutely outrageous” and accused the US of being “prepared to drive a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement,” stressing the “East-West relationship is a key strand” of the peace process.

    I caught bit of the BBC News where one of its correspondents said the American Delegation refused to talk about Northern Ireland. Reading between the lines I think they’ve been a little shocked by their reception. It’s pretty obvious from the Mail comment threads that 77 Brigade have been given at least the day off since all the posts are unremittingly hostile both to Biden and his meddling. A typical if I may say so Westminster trick. It’s not us Guv!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/10/joe-biden-uk-visit-g7-summit-boris-johnson-news/

    1. The US know exactly what they are doing siding with the EU.
      Where can the UK go as regards allies..they only have the US.

      1. 334111+ up ticks
        Afternoon HM,
        Truth be told who really needs allies when crunch time turns up in a serious fashion,
        being a nuclear power all that is required is a healthy finger.

      2. 334111+ up ticks
        Afternoon HM,
        Truth be told who really needs allies when crunch time turns up in a serious fashion,
        being a nuclear power all that is required is a healthy finger.

      3. The US only has enemies, any allegiance is done purely for the benefit of the USA.

        Siding with the EU could backfire spectacularly as the idiots in Brussels decide that want to tweak Putin’s tail once too often, thinking that the US will bail them out.

        1. Biden doesn’t waste time screwing things up does he. The G7 meetings haven’t actually started yet have they? Our boy wonder was only due to leave Canada this morning (of course they might just be going ahead without the woke twit).

          Time to see the sincerity of US trade deals before finalizing a US UK deal. If it is like the latest nafta, it will be just a starting point for dumping US goods.

          1. You lot should tell Biden that as he’s so keen on the NI protocol and he doesn’t need it, Canada is refusing to allow oil or anything else coming out of Alaska via Canada.

      4. The US only has enemies, any allegiance is done purely for the benefit of the USA.

        Siding with the EU could backfire spectacularly as the idiots in Brussels decide that want to tweak Putin’s tail once too often, thinking that the US will bail them out.

        1. Yep, never rely upon the Americans, they always turn up, “A day late and a dollar short.”

    2. The US know exactly what they are doing siding with the EU.
      Where can the UK go as regards allies..they only have the US.

  92. Tensions worsen over sausage wars as Joe Biden’s rebuke hardens divisions. 10 June 2021.

    Joe Biden’s rebuke over the UK’s handling of Brexit trade talks appears to have backfired, after the US President’s intervention appeared to harden divisions.
    Mr Biden’s team reportedly warned Lord Frost he was “inflaming” the situation – but this has itself further fanned the flames.

    Edwin Poots, the DUP’s new leader, said it was “absolutely outrageous” and accused the US of being “prepared to drive a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement,” stressing the “East-West relationship is a key strand” of the peace process.

    I caught bit of the BBC News where one of its correspondents said the American Delegation refused to talk about Northern Ireland. Reading between the lines I think they’ve been a little shocked by their reception. It’s pretty obvious from the Mail comment threads that 77 Brigade have been given at least the day off since all the posts are unremittingly hostile both to Biden and his meddling. A typical if I may say so Westminster trick. It’s not us Guv!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/10/joe-biden-uk-visit-g7-summit-boris-johnson-news/

  93. ‘Russian Lidl’ Mere planning 300 UK stores as it takes on every supermarket. 10 June 2021.

    But it’s now emerged that the supermarket chain, which trades as Svetofor in Russia, is ramping up its expansion plans and wants to open hundreds more stores in the UK over the next few years.

    Speaking to The Grocer last month, Mere UK head of buying Pavels Antonovs said the supermarket’s prices will undercut even the cheapest supermarkets.
    Mr Antonovs said: “We are the gap in the market. We don’t have any competitors.

    “Our model is no service and no marketing.”

    You just walk in and take what you want? Sounds very Russian. Lol!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/russian-lidl-mere-planning-300-24290996

      3. They are a bit like Makro. Stack it high sell it cheap.

        Mere’s intention is to undercut everyone else and capture a profitable market. And they will, seeing as the first openings will be in the North.

        And as we all know Northerners are tight fisted with absolutely no taste.

        ***Your turn Grizz… :@)

      4. They are a bit like Makro. Stack it high sell it cheap.

        Mere’s intention is to undercut everyone else and capture a profitable market. And they will, seeing as the first openings will be in the North.

        And as we all know Northerners are tight fisted with absolutely no taste.

        ***Your turn Grizz… :@)

    1. Welcome to Tardis Britain! Looks small on the outside, has unlimited space inside!

    2. Welcome to Tardis Britain! Looks small on the outside, has unlimited space inside!

    3. “dangerous journey”? Tens of thousands of British people use the Channel for pleasure boating.

    4. The Border Force intercepts migrants in the same way that the greeters intercept customers at the door of B&Q.

      1. Ah, Aeneas, that reminds me of a story:

        After landing my new job as a B & Q “Greeter” – a good find for many retirees. I lasted less than a day.

        About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting tattooed babe walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

        As I had been instructed, I said, pleasantly, “Good morning and welcome to B & Q.” I then said, “Nice children you have there. Are they twins?”

        The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, “No, they ain’t effin twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7, why the hell would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just effin stupid?”

        I replied, “I’m neither blind nor stupid, Madam. I just couldn’t believe someone shagged you twice… Have a good day and thank you for shopping at B & Q.”

        My supervisor said I probably wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

    5. The Border Force intercepts migrants in the same way that the greeters intercept customers at the door of B&Q.

    6. Why are we letting them here? These border farce people need to be removed and instead of bringing the dross here get rid of the sewage – let them drown!

    7. Why are we letting them here? These border farce people need to be removed and instead of bringing the dross here get rid of the sewage – let them drown!

    3. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports monkeypox causes similar symptoms to smallpox, though generally less severe.

      Mr Hancock described dealing with the virus as “absolutely standard”, during an appearance before the Health and Social Select Committee in Parliament.

      He commented: “As Health Secretary, you’re dealing with these sorts of outbreaks all of the time – I’m currently dealing with a monkey pox outbreak and cases of drug resistant TB, and that is absolutely standard.”

      The Mirror reports one of those infected is believed to have contracted the virus during abroad.

      They then passed the disease onto someone they share a house with.

      Public Health Wales released a statement confirming the two cases.

      It said: “Public Health Wales and Public Health England are monitoring two cases of imported monkeypox identified in North Wales.

      1. Drug resistant TB wasn’t standard at all in the UK before we started taking in so many third world carriers.

        3. On every plane from the subcontinent. We’d sorted ourselves out and eradicated TB. A big “thank you” to the unending succession of politicians who put the British people at the bottom of every agenda. The wide open door policy, offered to all and sundry from anywhere, that was maintained by our governments for the last 60 years has turned this country into an overcrowded stew with a vast number of savages.

        4. On every plane from the subcontinent. We’d sorted ourselves out and eradicated TB. A big “thank you” to the unending succession of politicians who put the British people at the bottom of every agenda. The wide open door policy, offered to all and sundry from anywhere, that was maintained by our governments for the last 60 years has turned this country into an overcrowded stew with a vast number of savages.

      2. Drug resistant TB wasn’t standard at all in the UK before we started taking in so many third world carriers.

      8. Thanks, Mags during much chittering and armpit scratching, “Mr Hancock described dealing with the virus as “absolutely standard”, during an appearance before the Health and Social Select Committee in Parliament.”

        He is currently hanging about in the lobby.

      9. Thanks, Mags during much chittering and armpit scratching, “Mr Hancock described dealing with the virus as “absolutely standard”, during an appearance before the Health and Social Select Committee in Parliament.”

        He is currently hanging about in the lobby.

    4. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports monkeypox causes similar symptoms to smallpox, though generally less severe.

      Mr Hancock described dealing with the virus as “absolutely standard”, during an appearance before the Health and Social Select Committee in Parliament.

      He commented: “As Health Secretary, you’re dealing with these sorts of outbreaks all of the time – I’m currently dealing with a monkey pox outbreak and cases of drug resistant TB, and that is absolutely standard.”

      The Mirror reports one of those infected is believed to have contracted the virus during abroad.

      They then passed the disease onto someone they share a house with.

      Public Health Wales released a statement confirming the two cases.

      It said: “Public Health Wales and Public Health England are monitoring two cases of imported monkeypox identified in North Wales.

    5. Plum, are there any massivie security check ups where you are .. is the place seething with robocops.

      We heard when we were motoring along that a crusise liner was being used as accommodation for the police . bet they will have fun !

    6. Plum, are there any massivie security check ups where you are .. is the place seething with robocops.

      We heard when we were motoring along that a crusise liner was being used as accommodation for the police . bet they will have fun !

  97. Re- ongoing saga – telephone consultation with Dr. Death

    After waiting for a phone consultation between 8am -9 this morning with the Doctor…..sweet FA! Thanks NHS….
    I called at the surgery this morning, the receptionist told me the doctor was on a house visit!!!
    He would phone after 2.30pm ……..still waiting!

    1. This now a very messy NHS .

      The surgeon who fiddled around with my mouth on saturday will ring on the 16th of June to see if everything is ok.. I think I am meant to show her my mouth on the telephone . Moh and I are very puzzled actually.. I don’t know how to do this techie things .

      1. They’re just taking the p’ss Belle. It appears the NHS (Neglectful Health Service) can do what it likes. When I visited the surgery this morning it was empty! Have patients died waiting for treatment!
        (Don’t answer that!)

        2. Talking of which, I’ve just seen a notification that Ipswich Hospital is introducing fines for users of Blue-Badges, parked in Disabled slots, if their Blue Badge is NOT registered with the hospital.

          I, who have a blue badge, will be going there soon and I will test this out – without registering my Blue Badge, because the advice on using it, doesn’t identify that you have to register it ANYWHERE!

        3. Talking of which, I’ve just seen a notification that Ipswich Hospital is introducing fines for users of Blue-Badges, parked in Disabled slots, if their Blue Badge is NOT registered with the hospital.

          I, who have a blue badge, will be going there soon and I will test this out – without registering my Blue Badge, because the advice on using it, doesn’t identify that you have to register it ANYWHERE!

      2. They’re just taking the p’ss Belle. It appears the NHS (Neglectful Health Service) can do what it likes. When I visited the surgery this morning it was empty! Have patients died waiting for treatment!
        (Don’t answer that!)

    2. This now a very messy NHS .

      The surgeon who fiddled around with my mouth on saturday will ring on the 16th of June to see if everything is ok.. I think I am meant to show her my mouth on the telephone . Moh and I are very puzzled actually.. I don’t know how to do this techie things .

    3. He was on a house visit?
      Who is the lucky lottery of century winner who got a house visit?!

    4. He was on a house visit?
      Who is the lucky lottery of century winner who got a house visit?!

  98. So easy to get into trouble nowadays.

    Our woke lot are pushing to cancel several of Canadas founding figures with statues and references removed. Under pressure from the mob our local council have just taken down a statue of our first PM, Macdonald (well he did do his early lawyering here, he is relevant to the town).

    So on a local Facebook group I suggested that we must also rename our towns and villages since Wellington , Ameliasburg and Picton have links to colonialism, not only that but Picton was an out and out scoundrel involved in the slave trade as well as other misdeeds.

    Lesson learnt – Canadians don’t understand sarcasm! The woke youngsters jumped on board with the concept, less woke have been up in arms about my scandalous suggestion.

    Time to smile sweetly, sit back and enjoy the carnage.

    1. You’d better get rid of BRITISH Columbia as well, Richard, you don’t want any connections to we old, dyed-in-the-wool colonialists and I expect Van Couver also has a murky past, as might Nova SCOTIA.

      Strewth, you racist Canadians!

  99. HAPPY HOUR – Working from home – It’s a no brainer or is it?

    House prices across the UK are rising at their fastest pace since the financial crisis hit in 2007 – and Cornwall has seen prices rocket in the past year.
    Why work in London or any big city when you can opt for the coast or countryside working from home. Sadly this has hit many small businesses, cafes, coffee bars and newsagents reliant on office workers.
    How long will it take bosses to realise they can employ someone in India to do the same job for a tenth of their wages.
    Those who think working from home is a doddle should think again!

  100. HAPPY HOUR – Working from home – It’s a no brainer or is it?

    House prices across the UK are rising at their fastest pace since the financial crisis hit in 2007 – and Cornwall has seen prices rocket in the past year.
    Why work in London or any big city when you can opt for the coast or countryside working from home. Sadly this has hit many small businesses, cafes, coffee bars and newsagents reliant on office workers.
    How long will it take bosses to realise they can employ someone in India to do the same job for a tenth of their wages.
    Those who think working from home is a doddle should think again!

    1. I’m feeling very thick, I can’t see what the photo is about.
      I’m always the last one to get double entendres if that’s what it is….:-(

        1. Ah.
          Oh.
          Jokes aren’t funny if they need explained.
          Apparently, having 88 on your numberplate in Germany is frowned upon, as it stands for the 8th letter of the alphabet, and HH stands for Hale Hutler.
          I’ll get me coat :-((

          3. Do you have a black uniform and armband – like the one Brash wore to a party? !!

          4. No.
            Good guys, the Chermans. Stereotypically thorough and organised, food is excellent (lots of pork…) and the bastards can joke and pun, IN ENGLISH, better than I can! How humiliating is that? They are also effing huge blokes, a good 6″ or more above yer average Brit, and wide with it. Think Helmut Kohl.
            They also seem to be able to eat huge volumes of cabbage (boiled, fermented, whatever, + weissbier) without farting smells that would kill at 100 metres…

          5. No.
            Good guys, the Chermans. Stereotypically thorough and organised, food is excellent (lots of pork…) and the bastards can joke and pun, IN ENGLISH, better than I can! How humiliating is that? They are also effing huge blokes, a good 6″ or more above yer average Brit, and wide with it. Think Helmut Kohl.
            They also seem to be able to eat huge volumes of cabbage (boiled, fermented, whatever, + weissbier) without farting smells that would kill at 100 metres…

          8. Afternoon, Paul.

            I always have to explain jokes to Swedes. I’ve now given up!

          11. There is a tourist tour/bus operator group in Germanyshire that have their name in big letters on the sids of their big and luxurious tour buses, “Daft”.

        2. Ah.
          Oh.
          Jokes aren’t funny if they need explained.
          Apparently, having 88 on your numberplate in Germany is frowned upon, as it stands for the 8th letter of the alphabet, and HH stands for Hale Hutler.
          I’ll get me coat :-((

        3. :-/ I would never have spotted that!

          There is a bus innocently trundling around Feldkirchen in Austria with the numberplate FK NGG 24.
          I saw it last year.

          1. I once drove a L registered Saab with FKN in the number plate – it was affectionately known as FKN L

  102. That’s me for this muggy day. Hope that it is better tomorrow.

    Looking forward to reading about more faux-pas by Biden. I wonder if he has realised where he is…..

    A demain.

  103. That’s me for this muggy day. Hope that it is better tomorrow.

    Looking forward to reading about more faux-pas by Biden. I wonder if he has realised where he is…..

    A demain.

  105. ‘Zap the bad people’: Priti Patel renews call to arm all frontline police officers with tasers.
    About five years ago there was a very interesting TED Talk by an Australian police officer on the consequences of arming police with tasers. Instead of reducing violence it increased it significantly because the police had a non lethal weapon between cudgels and firearms, and it allowed easy escalation of police reaction. Unfortunately I can’t find the link to the talk. Pritti should look carefully at the implications before going down this road, but I doubt she will.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/09/zap-bad-people-priti-patel-renews-call-arm-frontline-police/

    3. Milk and then: “Just as it comes, dear,
      I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones
      Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doilies,
      With afternoon teacakes and scones.

      O course John Betjeman loved Cornwall and spent many happy summers there.

    4. Milk and then: “Just as it comes, dear,
      I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones
      Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doilies,
      With afternoon teacakes and scones.

      O course John Betjeman loved Cornwall and spent many happy summers there.

  108. Warning BBC Fawnication:

    “Valentina Petrillo could this year become the first openly transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics. For the visually impaired Italian, selection for the national squad would be a dream come true – but she says she understands why other athletes may have doubts and questions about racing against her.”

    1. Basically it’s not good enough for the men’s team, so it’s stealing a blind woman’s opportunity.
      How generous is that?

      1. Well, at least the other competitors won’t be able to see its ‘bits’ flapping about.

    6. Given that a transgender woman is a man, yes, other disabled women should not compete against him. He is A MAN.

  109. Warning BBC Fawnication:

    “Valentina Petrillo could this year become the first openly transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics. For the visually impaired Italian, selection for the national squad would be a dream come true – but she says she understands why other athletes may have doubts and questions about racing against her.”

    2. Since she/it is communist, it highlights where the whole idea comes from and why the follow-on is required.

      Let’s put her on a show trial for subversion.

    1. They must have quite a few variants lined up to justify that long.

      Which lucky town will be advertising themselves as home of the Omega variant?

    2. They must have quite a few variants lined up to justify that long.

      Which lucky town will be advertising themselves as home of the Omega variant?

    3. I read this as keeping the legal structures in place so they can lock is up at a whim depending what side of bed Mrs Murrell gets out of, not necessarily keeping the lockdown in force.

  115. “France’s Macron Urges G-7 To Sell Gold Reserves To Fund Bailout For Africa”

    Too effing late mate Brown got rid of ours a decade ago….

        1. Both.
          In fact a fight to the death looks like a good idea.
          But leave the winner to die of his wounds.

          6. I know that, I believe you even attended one of their schools to help with your novella on buying in France.
            No all Nottlers do!

  116. “France’s Macron Urges G-7 To Sell Gold Reserves To Fund Bailout For Africa”

    Too effing late mate Brown got rid of ours a decade ago….

    1. Colloquially known as a DNC but I get the point – dilation & curettage.

      Thankfully not applicable here but fully aware of the odd Prostate, Finger-Wag.

    2. Colloquially known as a DNC but I get the point – dilation & curettage.

      Thankfully not applicable here but fully aware of the odd Prostate, Finger-Wag.

  118. Is the 3rd spaceship ready yet?

    ‘An Oxfam staff training document says “privileged white women” are supporting the root causes of sexual violence by wanting “bad men” imprisoned.

    In the wake of sex scandals that have rocked the charity, Oxfam has produced guidance which states that: “Mainstream feminism centres on privileged white women and demands that ‘bad men’ be fired or imprisoned”.

    Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it adds that this “legitimises criminal punishment, harming black and other marginalised people”.

    It advises staff to read a controversial book which concludes: “Mainstream feminism is supporting, not undoing, the root causes of sexual violence.”

    Oxfam said that the training was voluntary, and the views are not presented as its own but designed to help staff understand the issues.

    However, the charity was warned on Wednesday night that the document, compiled by its LGBT network and seen by The Telegraph, could breach equality laws as it suggests reporting rape is “contemptible”.

    The four-week “learning journey” recommends that staff read Me Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism, a book by Alison Phipps, a professor of gender studies at the University of Sussex.

    Summarising the book’s central premise, the Oxfam document says white feminists need to ask themselves whether they are causing harm when they fight sexual violence.

    It then links to Prof Phipps’s Twitter account and a thread which summarises the main themes of the book, including: “White feminist tears deploy white woundedness, and the sympathy it generates, to hide the harms we perpetuate through white supremacy.”

    Naomi Cunningham, a discrimination and employment law barrister, says the document may breach the Equality Act, which bans harassment in the workplace on the basis of sex.

    “The message seems to be that a woman who reports a rape or sexual assault to the police and presses charges is a contemptible ‘white feminist’,” said Ms Cunningham. “I think any woman could make an arguable case that this has created or contributed to ‘an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’, which is how the Equality Act defines harassment.”

    Learning About Trans Rights and Inclusion was drawn up in 2020, whilst Oxfam was still reeling from sexual exploitation scandals in Haiti and Chad.

    The charity suffered further blows in April this year, when a female aid worker quit alleging that there was a “toxic culture” and her sexual harassment complaint had been ignored, and it faced separate allegations of sexual misconduct in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    The training manual was written after the charity’s LGBT+ network wrote to the leadership team demanding that they publicly support trans people and suggested that any debate about rights was part of a “patriarchal and white supremacist narrative” used by the far right.

    The letter called for specific resources to be made available, adding: “To argue that trans-inclusivity would undermine the vital work we do for women and girls is not only transphobic, but also perpetuates the white saviour complex that assumes that we know best for the people we work with.”

    It says that it is “transphobic” to question whether men who identify as women could pose a threat to women and the fact that debates around identity continue among staff is exposing queer employees to “harm”.

    The strategic leadership team responded saying that there “is no place in Oxfam for transphobia”.

    The document produced in the wake of the complaint tells staff that protecting single-sex spaces for women has “contributed to transphobia and undermining of trans rights”.

    It says the charity stands “firmly against” any attempt to exclude trans women, adding in an “important context note”: “Oxfam stands actively against any implication that the realization of trans rights and inclusion poses a threat to creating a safe environment for all.”

    Oxfam said on Wednesday night that it “works to tackle discrimination and inequality whether that is on the basis of race, sex, gender identity or sexuality. Our commitment to gender equality includes trans people.

    “We believe everyone has the right to freedom of gender identity and expression and will do everything we can to ensure those rights are respected and upheld within our organisation and through our work,” a spokesman said.

    “Oxfam treats all allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse extremely seriously and actively encourage people to report wherever they have a concern. How to report is covered thoroughly in our staff training provision.”

    Much of what feminism has won now seems up for grabs

    With the rape conviction rate at an all-time low, I would have hoped that a charity concerned with inequality and oppression would make combatting sexual violence a priority, writes Julie Bindel. Particularly one whose own history in this area is dubious at best.

    In the UK, of the tiny minority of rapes that are actually reported to police, only 1.4 per cent are charged by the Crown Prosecution Service.

    However, looking at the document that forms part of Oxfam’s training programme, Learning about Trans Rights & Inclusion, you would think that sexual violence was an imagined problem, dreamed up by racist or fragile white women.

    Feminists have fought for sexual assault to be taken seriously. The low conviction rate is evidence that this battle is being lost. If we are now to further dismiss women’s experiences as simply “tears” what hope do we have for this endemic problem to ever be taken seriously?

    Calling women who have been traumatised by male sexual violence or campaign against it “privileged” because they are white is staggeringly offensive. To further claim that white women give more power to the police by reporting their rapists loses sight of the fact that if sexual predators did not face serious consequences, they remain a danger to all women.

    Does Phipps imagine that when “white, privileged” women demand that sexual harassers be removed from a workplace that they do not care if these men go on to rape impoverished black women?

    As workplaces are increasingly captured by harmful identity politics it seems a stand is being taken against women; a war being declared against feminism.

    Many of the battles we have fought as feminists appear to be up for grabs. We campaigned for, and set up, women’s refuges, rape crisis centres and other specialist services where women could feel safe from male abusers.

    Feminists have fought tooth and nail to improve the response from the criminal justice system to rape, sexual assault, stalking and domestic abuse. All of these achievements are now under threat, as extreme trans activists and their so-called allies label women-only facilities – or us who campaign for them – as “transphobic” and “bigoted”.

    While these groups pose as progressives, I hear time and again from young women both in universities and in workplaces, desperate for the type of feminism that protects women from male violence. Instead of feeling that they can debate their concerns freely, they feel shouted down or trolled on social media with such venom that most are silenced out of fear for their safety or losing their jobs.

    “Feminism is for everyone” is one of the statements presented to Oxfam staff. But is it? As far as I am concerned, Oxfam is peddling not feminism in its training, or rather indoctrination programme, but anti-feminism.

    All women are vulnerable to rape and other forms of male violence and feminists fight hard to ending this while also recognising the many differences between us.

    In suggesting white women are “racist” or harm black and marginalised people when they speak out about rape is nothing more than a warning for them to shut up.

    Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer and co-founder of the law-reform group Justice for Women’ – DT

    2. It is a great pity that the authors and promulgators of such bollocks are never on the receiving end of the violence that they think is a price worth paying for diversity.

    3. I got as far as the ninth paragraph and found that the concept is quite beyond me.

      All I do know is, in my own ‘gut’ feeling is that if (and when) we bring back the death penalty, I, as a man, would want it enhanced to include rape.

      I say this because many female friends I have, and have had, describe this contemptible crime as a crime that may take away the rest of a woman’s life and prevent her from having a loving relationship with a man, ever again. A form of a ‘mini-death’.

      Time to make the rapists, murderers and kiddy-fiddlers pay – terminally.

      1. I agree, Tom, and disagree at the same time.
        If I could be sure that the accused was really guilty, then I’d be closer to agreement, but the foulups and deceit in the legal system means it isn’t to be trusted to give a thruthful answer – and should the state have the right to off folk anyway? I believe not.

        1. Tell that to the families of those killed/raped by released prisoners who had done it before

          1. Didn’t write that they should be released. Just not killed by the State.

          2. Explain why the state, i.e. the taxpayer should pay as much as it costs to care for a law abiding citizen in a care home to look after such a creature for potentially 50+ years. That’s about the amount for ten elderly people to see out their days in some sort of care.

            When the case is stone cold certain, (the Wests terrorists like the London Bridge killer and the like), execute them.

            I have no hesitation whatsoever that such creatures should die.
            Those bastards that kill in the street in full view of multiple witnesses?
            Execute them.

          3. Because there are so many “Miscarriages of justice” – ie, some poor bastard fitted up for a quick conviction. Once the state gets in the habit of offing citizens is disapproves of, then just watch that disapproval list grow. I refer to Nasty Germany, 1940s.
            And don’t come back saying it couldn’t happen – who’s a thunk that the Brits would, collectively, give up all freedoms because of a flu bug? Accept a hundred illegals assisted across the channel by the authorities, every day? The UK is ripe for that Nasty shit.

          4. I totally disagree.

            You are using a straw man.
            There is no connection between the two.

            A terrorist who chooses to blow up a concert, a serial killer-rapist whose DNA is on every victim, a lunatic who kills Lee Rigby or the equivalent.
            What possible justification can you give for not executing them?

          6. Because there are so many “Miscarriages of justice” – ie, some poor bastard fitted up for a quick conviction. Once the state gets in the habit of offing citizens is disapproves of, then just watch that disapproval list grow. I refer to Nasty Germany, 1940s.
            And don’t come back saying it couldn’t happen – who’s a thunk that the Brits would, collectively, give up all freedoms because of a flu bug? Accept a hundred illegals assisted across the channel by the authorities, every day? The UK is ripe for that Nasty shit.

      2. Yes, leave them head down in sewage, hands and feet cut off chained so they’re forced to keep their heads constantly above a river of excrement – such as a sewer.

      3. They’d have nothing to lose by killing the witness then, that’s the problem.

    4. Thank goodness I never give to Oxfam – or buy stuff from their shops.
      Though I do have a horrible feeling that the government gives it money on my behalf.

      2. Many years ago, we found a team of Oxfam folk travelling to Nigeria, 1st class on BOAC. We were sitting in the back – and both halves of the plane arrived safely at the same time. So, why did they need to spend the huge amount of money involved – and we were there for 10 months til next home leave.
        Because they could. Easy come, easy go.
        Just look at the executive slaries in charities now. My charity giving (God help me) is now almost nil, as a result.

        1. No it ain’t.
          Your government/tax collector is spending/wasting it on your behalf…

    6. She’s whinging on twatter about the Torygraph twisting her words! If you Google her just check out her Unesco chair at Glasgow university! So much word salad!

    2. I searched for the end video text.

      Either my internet history is truly shocking or google is having a laugh.

    3. I searched for the end video text.

      Either my internet history is truly shocking or google is having a laugh.

    1. Load the gun, point it at his head and pull the trigger several times.

      If he’s innocent God, or more likely Allah, will judge.

    3. Over at the Guardian:
      “Ah yes, but British-born people are criminals as well, you know.”

      2. No, the Guardian would say he was forced to turn to a life of crime to feed a drug habit caused by depression brought on my intolerance from white people and racism.

        They will argue he should be given a free house and allowed to carry on and everyone else should be made to pay for his habit as it is our fault anyway.

  121. 334111+ up ticks,
    Shouldn’t the johnson be in an appeasing position, down on one knee,

    British Foreign Policy? ‘I’m Not Going to Disagree With the President on That, or Indeed on Anything’ Says Boris

  122. 334111+ up ticks,
    Shouldn’t the johnson be in an appeasing position, down on one knee,

    British Foreign Policy? ‘I’m Not Going to Disagree With the President on That, or Indeed on Anything’ Says Boris

  123. As I was closing down – I came across this:

    Social distancing and wearing face masks should stay forever, a Communist-supporting SAGE scientist has claimed.
    Professor Susan Michie, of University College London, said she thinks the draconian restrictions should become part of people’s every day routine.
    In a bizarre comparison, she said Britons never used to wear seat belts in cars or ‘pick up dog poo in the park’ but learned to over time.

    And this escaped lunatic advises what passes for a government….

    6. She’s posted this BS on Twatter, Bill. The comments are worth a read and I’ve just added my pennyworth.

    7. She’s posted this BS on Twatter, Bill. The comments are worth a read and I’ve just added my pennyworth.

  124. As I was closing down – I came across this:

    Social distancing and wearing face masks should stay forever, a Communist-supporting SAGE scientist has claimed.
    Professor Susan Michie, of University College London, said she thinks the draconian restrictions should become part of people’s every day routine.
    In a bizarre comparison, she said Britons never used to wear seat belts in cars or ‘pick up dog poo in the park’ but learned to over time.

    And this escaped lunatic advises what passes for a government….

  125. Moh and are wearing thick jumpers, it is cold , has been brrr factor all day. Yesterday nice cold sea mist rolled in , today low cloud and a crisp breeze .

    The sort of weather that as children if we were paddling and playing on a beach some where in Britian , our teeth would be chattering , as we were towelled dry to get back into ones dry clothes , no clamouring for an ice cream, just a cup of tea and soggy sardine and tomato sandwiches and a slice of cake .. a memory .. feeling really cold .. it really is that cold .

    3. Towelled dry & scoured with sand in said towels… 🙂
      Ah, being young…

    4. Towelled dry & scoured with sand in said towels… 🙂
      Ah, being young…

    5. Memories… It seems I am the only one left with memories from Nigeria. That’s a pisser, it is. Mother remembers nowt.

      1. I expect you have photographs to remind you , OB?

        We used to got to the beach Nr PH.. a company boat with lots of Dutch and a few Italians would takes us all down a creek for few miles and end up on a lovely beach, we would build palm shelters and enjoy a splash in the sea, currents were too strong for a swim.. on the way down the creek, we would see all the mangrove crabs , mud fish, the ones that walk , and monkeys , storks and eagles, a flocks of parrots and other birds , we would see little fishing villages with little churches modelled on ours , fishermen in long boats with paddles would wave and shout hello, some were long boats with engines .. times were quite kind in those days . Eastern Nigeria was mostly Christian . The Igbo, the main ethnic group in southeastern Nigeria, has represented some of the staunchest opponents of Sharia law.

  126. Moh and are wearing thick jumpers, it is cold , has been brrr factor all day. Yesterday nice cold sea mist rolled in , today low cloud and a crisp breeze .

    The sort of weather that as children if we were paddling and playing on a beach some where in Britian , our teeth would be chattering , as we were towelled dry to get back into ones dry clothes , no clamouring for an ice cream, just a cup of tea and soggy sardine and tomato sandwiches and a slice of cake .. a memory .. feeling really cold .. it really is that cold .

  127. Sitting outside, eating cheese and drinking Chianti (yum!), and across the valley, a school marching band are marching and playing. Wonderful! It’s been almost 2 years since this has happened, and it’s so happy that it brings a tear to the eye, so it does.

    1. Send in the Panzers. Belgium will collapse in a few hours. They did before. Twice.

      1. Even the Germans have finally accepted that Belgium and Brussels aren’t worth the effort.

        Minimal though it might be…

      2. Stop waffling about it !
        Tiens, voilà du boudin, voilà du boudin, voilà du boudin
        Pour les Alsaciens, les Suisses et les Lorrains.
        Pour les Belges il n’y en a plus.
        Pour les Belges il n’y en a plus.
        Ce sont des tireurs au cul.
        Pour les Belges il n’y en a plus.
        Pour les Belges il n’y en a plus.
        Ce sont des tireurs au cul.

  130. A G7 joint statement on sausages is expected to be made straight from the shoulder.
    Reporters anticipate the contents to be quite meaty with a just a fat chance of 20% of being fully palatable.

  132. From the Downright Timid….:

    “Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has labelled the academics refusing to conduct tutorials at Oxford University a “useless bunch” as he warned “we must not allow this wokeness to happen”.

    Downing Street has warned that students whose teaching at Oriel College has been disrupted by protests over a statue of Cecil Rhodes may be liable for compensation.”

  133. Ex-Brewdog staff allege culture of fear at brewer

    Former staff at Brewdog have alleged a “culture of fear” [ho! ho!] at the beer firm with a “toxic attitude” to junior employees.

    One of the ex-staff members … questioned Brewdog’s commitment to sustainability after “years of vanity projects” and use of a private jet.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57428258

    Aye, an’ the beer’s crap an’ all.

    Thousands of ‘old and bearded’ CAMRA members will be sniggering into their pints tonight.

      1. A most unpleasant company. Some of their advertising is downright anti-English.

  134. Ex-Brewdog staff allege culture of fear at brewer

    Former staff at Brewdog have alleged a “culture of fear” [ho! ho!] at the beer firm with a “toxic attitude” to junior employees.

    One of the ex-staff members … questioned Brewdog’s commitment to sustainability after “years of vanity projects” and use of a private jet.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57428258

    Aye, an’ the beer’s crap an’ all.

    Thousands of ‘old and bearded’ CAMRA members will be sniggering into their pints tonight.

  135. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9671555/Oxfam-staff-training-document-blames-privileged-white-women.html

    Where to start?

    Firstly, while the author is right that Asians and Blacks do disproportionately commit violent sex crimes against white women, pretending this is somehow racist to report it is moronic.

    That she even put – what isn’t even racism – above rape is ludicrous.

    That Oxfam thought it acceptable to use such obviously offensive material in *any* of their literature shows a complete, shocking, stunning lack of common sense.

    Blacks and Middle easterners raping white girls is to be condemned, not disguised. Is it racist? No! Not when it’s a blasted fact.

    1. In the eyes of these morons, the victims bring it upon themselves by being white.
      Best we get them to strike out their own eyes because they offend them..

    4. Sussex University gender studies professor Alison Phipps reminds me of the oozlum bird.

    5. Reminds me of the notorious Tweet: ‘stfu for the sake of diversity’.

  136. I saw the headlines earlier today about the Maya Forstater case but I’ve only just read an article on it and seen some of the details. I’m pleased she’s won her appeal but we should be greatly bothered that the law should be required in this way and her beliefs (sic) come under the provisions of the Equalities Act.

    I remember the employment tribunal case and the words of the judge, James Tayler, who said that her approach was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.

    A scientific truth is now a ‘protected characteristic’. Get your heads around that.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579

    1. I’m lost. Correct me if I’m wrong. Women have vaginas and we should get our heads around that?

      3. Gosh, that’s so last century. Go directly to the re-education camp and read up on men giving birth. Then ponder why our young have so many ‘mental issues’.

    2. “You’re a man” is one of the most controversial things that one can say, and would land you in court if said at the wrong place or time.
      In fact, it’s so controversial that I can’t even make public a painting with that title.
      Unbelievable.

  137. I saw the headlines earlier today about the Maya Forstater case but I’ve only just read an article on it and seen some of the details. I’m pleased she’s won her appeal but we should be greatly bothered that the law should be required in this way and her beliefs (sic) come under the provisions of the Equalities Act.

    I remember the employment tribunal case and the words of the judge, James Tayler, who said that her approach was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.

    A scientific truth is now a ‘protected characteristic’. Get your heads around that.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579

  138. Anyone with an agricultural connection might find this week’s Delingpod interesting.
    Frederic Leroy is a meat specialist (I didn’t know such a thing existed!) and he has plenty to say about the war on meat and dairy products

    https://delingpole.podbean.com/

    Red meat is only the first target, they will be coming for pork, poultry and cheese – he thinks the overall aim is to kill livestock farming altogether and switch people over to highly processed, industrially produced bugburgers and vegan food.
    Before you dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, consider Boris’s sentient animals bill – which is a blueprint for destroying livestock farming.

    I do not think this will fly in some EU countries – the Alpine lands, France and Italy for example.
    But the mugs in Britain are very likely to sleepwalk into it, via our fifth column of XR activists. We’re already half way there, and the government could not make it plainer that XR is a favoured group.

  141. That’s it for me ce soir. Off tomorrow to take one of the effing £3 Billion Lateral Flow (ineffective) Test Kits so I may be permitted to visit MiL in her incarceration.
    What have we become??

    1. Just say “Sod ’em” and go, Stephen.

      It’s about time we all just said, “Sod ’em”
      They can’t arrest 20,000,000

  142. That’s it for me ce soir. Off tomorrow to take one of the effing £3 Billion Lateral Flow (ineffective) Test Kits so I may be permitted to visit MiL in her incarceration.
    What have we become??

  143. Evening, all. Of course the EU shouldn’t have exploited the Irish Border, but did anybody seriously think they wouldn’t given their nasty nature?
    Oscar update:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/785352a06b0ebd7e3acca66992e19925ca58b60a75de4e9000573a8ab8a8bf05.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a211696e4828c4e8858a6fde1eea0e24957fbbc751788c53e4f0fc84a0c5b85e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c0ad5ef367df13d4c9ff314c4e0b99c366a4a4b96f924b468ba5394f08ecc88.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4524903ffc0151d66e44bd71f33b8b9f7730ebcaeb62a46713f81e7911bbe814.jpg

          1. I am so glad to have him, Bill. Grateful that the first people to look at him turned him down.

        2. I assume you were a good boy today then, since the MR let you stay up late. 🙂

          1. Never having had cats since I was a young child, I can’t say. We could never keep cats more than a few weeks because we lived opposite the churchyard and in between there was a very busy road. They were forever getting run over.

      1. He’s getting there. He wasn’t very easy-going when he arrived! He was very handy with his teeth!

          1. Thank you, pm. I’ve felt so much better since I’ve had a dog about the house.

      1. He’s getting there. It’s early days yet. His cheeky chappie look was what attracted me to him in the first place.

    9. He looks very content and at ease. I have never seen a dog with such a smiley expression.
      I am very happy you found each other.

      1. Thank you. It was his smile that made me apply for him. Although he’s nearly 12, I would rather have a dog for a few years than no dog at all.

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