Thursday 15 February: Britain must not hide from the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

404 thoughts on “Thursday 15 February: Britain must not hide from the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    FIVE RULES TO REMEMBER IN LIFE

    1. Money cannot buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.

    2. Forgive your enemy, but remember the ass-hole’s name.

    3. If you help someone when they’re in trouble, they will remember you when they’re in trouble again.

    4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.

    5. Alcohol does not solve any problems, but then neither does milk.

  2. ‘Morning All

    24,000 postal votes in Rochdale,that’s the end of democracy…..

    https://twitter.com/recusant_raja/status/1757814488743518715?s=20

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/907ca02a39ca6ef5836a22ed1dd17181f47a8fddd89965bbac02ce7f5dda26d5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/689ff95e68a2bcbf21e8307004a2972722ab5e4f08bed35648c5b27c01e80da7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a507a4c4e3cafd08288ab127d2c13a35107983c5a351d92ef3ab1ca321ab67c.png

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e61ef878ef4f22ee58350cf4089e2b6874a4b939bb20cd86d7a72fdee6f70a79.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/57cb461a72209c1c3262ebeb6522468523279bf8e6c17948faaa4124803773d8.jpg

      1. Cannot be underscored enough. But Cons haven’t done it and there won’t ever be another chance. Once they are in with tools like that, we will never be rid of them.

      2. Due to my working away from home so much, the only way I could exercise my right to vote for several elections, both local and national, was by Postal Voting and I would be loathe to see it totally abolished.
        However, the use of postal voting should be severely restricted to those who can prove a need for it and the controls rigorously enforced.

        1. Much agreed, BoB, and yes, i’ve had to use it myself in the past – and it was controlled then.

  3. Lighter Side

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e565fe4bb0e61127ec6ff750729c2af1a1315259a752d4b9f23aa21f0080a87.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b0aacccce8e0af97c762c000a8341192f0edd8cec0f53643dfe6164b26c69ac.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ec449e31ed59f16b18e4074cfe76c2060ee20f519d0a5d23b59477f118d04d8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9e5db2c895743457398fea2f09e340c4624fe7aceacf6068ac2f4758b6be1dc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14d012db08c906f8a5c09ca423d461a11a9abe165c5de47612afcc35e0a77834.jpg

  7. Oh Dear

    Russia wants to put a nuclear weapon into space, US intelligence

    indicates, in what was described as a “serious national security

    threat”.

    Joe Biden was

    urged on Wednesday night to declassify US intelligence on the military

    operation, which has been shared with every member of US Congress.

    The weapons system could be used to target Western satellites in space, potentially knocking out communications and military targeting systems.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/14/russia-is-preparing-to-launch-nuclear-weapon-into-space/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3de2561f79651a7155ba424d3b04488a767bfdbe1b37458290d55203fef81531.jpg

    1. Space Nukes pah! What about the giant boring machines that are at this very moment tunnelling under Europe and the USA? The Russian Invisibility Project that will simply allow them to walk into Europe unseen? It is time to fund Ukraine and stop all these things!

      1. All those women claiming that the earth moved them weren’t telling little white lies: it was the Russians’ boring machines.

  8. Somebody in Northampton County Council needs to be locked up

    Elderly couple told they had to sell home to house asylum seekers

    North Northamptonshire Council apologised for error but blamed pressure to find accommodation on Home Office speeding up claims

    Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
    14 February 2024 • 7:39pm

    Councils are compulsorily purchasing empty properties to meet a surge in the number of asylum seekers being granted leave to remain in the UK.

    Council chiefs have complained they are not being given enough time to find alternative accommodation for successful asylum seekers because of the Home Office’s faster decision-making to clear huge backlogs of cases.

    The policy has been highlighted by the plight of an elderly couple who were told they had to give up their home to asylum seekers because of a shortage of suitable accommodation.

    Jose and Ted Saunders said they were “shocked” to be told by North Northamptonshire Council that their mid-terraced house in Rushden, near Wellingborough, was deemed to be empty or derelict, enabling the authority to force them to sell it.

    The letter said the council was seeing a “considerable increase” in positive immigration decisions being made in favour of asylum seekers, mainly single men, and the authority was “struggling” to source suitable accommodation for them.

    It added: “The ideal long-term solution would be to provide accommodation by using empty properties which would benefit owners and the project.” It said the council could make a compulsory purchase order on the property.

    Council chiefs said they had to adopt such tactics because of the faster processing of asylum claims by the Home Office. “In terms of trying to acquire more social housing, councils will adopt a variety of measures, one of them being identifying empty properties that they can bring back into use,” said a senior council source.

    ‘Utterly shocking’
    Three days after receiving the letter, the Saunders got an apology, saying council staff had mistakenly earmarked the house for possible compulsory purchase.

    However, the Saunders were still baffled by the policy itself. “What on earth is the council doing forcing people to sell their houses – and even an empty house is owned by someone – so that asylum seekers can live in them?” said Jose. “The answer to this is to stop them coming in the first place, not to force people out of their homes.”

    The incident was seized upon by the Reform UK Party, whose candidate in Thursday’s Wellingborough by-election, Ben Habib, heard about the case.

    Mr Habib, who is also the party’s co-deputy leader, said: “I was horrified to hear the plight of Mr and Mrs Saunders.

    ‘It is utterly shocking that the council would fire off a letter like that to two elderly people. And do so with the aim of buying a £200,000 house for asylum seekers. This from a council that is as good as bust and has never filed consolidated accounts since it was established in 2021.”

    It comes after The Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that the Home Office has quietly built up a stock of 16,000 properties for asylum seekers despite acute shortages of homes for young workers and families.

    Contractors working for the Home Office are offering landlords five-year guaranteed full rent deals to take over the management of properties as they race to transfer asylum seekers out of hotels.

    The properties drawn from the private rental and social housing markets are being used to house more than 58,000 asylum seekers across England, Wales and Scotland. That is double the 29,000 asylum seekers in the so-called “dispersed accommodation” a decade ago.

    ‘A mechanism of last resort’
    Jason Smithers, Leader of North Northamptonshire Council, told the Daily Mail in a statement: “North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) is working with owners of long-term empty properties to bring their property back into use.

    “Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) are not utilised to ‘oust’ current owners from their properties, they are a tool used as a very last resort to bring empty properties, which are a valuable and much need housing resource, back into use.

    “The ‘empty property initiative letters’ were sent out in a bid to assist empty property owners bring their property back into use, and on the whole, the support from NNC was gratefully received.

    “Since NNC formed in 2021, no properties have been purchased by CPO. This is a mechanism of last resort to bring problematic, long-term empty properties back into use.

    “Unfortunately, in this case, records held by NNC were outdated, and the letter was incorrectly sent to a property which was occupied. For this, I am very sorry for causing any undue distress and worry.”

  9. Judge who let terror offence trio walk free ‘liked’ anti-Israel post

    The judge who “decided not to punish” three women displaying parachute images at a protest had recently liked a social media post branding Israel a “terrorist” and calling for a “free Palestine”. Three weeks ago Tan Ikram, 58, the deputy senior district judge, liked the LinkedIn post by a barrister who had previously promoted conspiracy…

    blah, blah, blah

    ***********************
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47076abf0bf151d5322d891d01bc85b93760128a643a19548da79568f9ac8fc5.jpg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Ikram

    Thanks, Cherie Blair, for your new regime for the selection of judges

  10. Judge who let terror offence trio walk free ‘liked’ anti-Israel post

    The judge who “decided not to punish” three women displaying parachute images at a protest had recently liked a social media post branding Israel a “terrorist” and calling for a “free Palestine”. Three weeks ago Tan Ikram, 58, the deputy senior district judge, liked the LinkedIn post by a barrister who had previously promoted conspiracy…

    blah, blah, blah

    ***********************
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47076abf0bf151d5322d891d01bc85b93760128a643a19548da79568f9ac8fc5.jpg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Ikram

    Thanks, Cherie Blair, for your new regime for the selection of judges

  11. Good morning, chums. I completed Wordle in 4 earlier, then posted it at the end of the Wednesday NoTTLe site, if you’re interested. Enjoy your day.

    2. Only got it in the end with a wild guess that shouldn’t even be an allowed word!
      Wordle 971 6/6

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

      1. Not obvious today

        Wordle 971 5/6

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

  13. Britain must not hide from the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise

    In many ways though they have been the authors of their own demise with their heavy influence on politics and media in the past they have helped pave the way for the diversity agenda and the resulting influx of millions of people that are far more anti Semitic than sections of the native population ever were.

    1. Import Holocaust Deniers, Muslims and all Jew Haters and – surprise, surprise, you get a rise in anti-Semitism.

    2. I’m convinced the current wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations are exactly what Hamas was aiming for when they launched the 7th of October attacks and am equally convinced that they were planned in advance of the attacks.
      Hamas knew that the attacks would provoke a massive Israeli response and almost before the IDF actually did respond were already ramping up the “poor civilians” propaganda.

      1. Apparently it’s all Hamas strategy.
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13084397/MARK-ALMOND-Israel-trap-Hamas-West-loses-stomach-war-surprising-answer.html

        Netanyahu is being drawn into a Hamas trap designed to wipe Israel off the map by triggering a catastrophic war. This is how he can avoid it…

        How to avoid it?
        Allow all women and children clearly under 16 to go back to the north of Gaza. Tents and aid can then be allowed into the north in a controlled way.

        Tell the remaining men that they have 12 hours to surrender and after which point the south will be flattened, tunnels filled, and any who did not surrender will suffer the consequences.

  15. For TMS fans. Latest irrelevancy from Rajkot (3rd Test)

    “Mike Gatting (shortly after spilling the Easiest Catch in Cricket): Eau Dear.

    Geoffrey Boycott: Eau de Grandmere avec un Morceau de Celeri.”

    I’ll get my coat

  19. For the first time in my life, I’m now beginning to think Britain is finished. Allister Heath. 14 February 2024.

    Britain’s decline over the past 25 years has been staggeringly rapid. Almost everything is getting worse, and almost nothing is getting better. Our public and private institutions are broken, presided over by an incompetent, selfish and narcissistic ruling class. Living standards, when adjusted properly for living and property costs, are declining.

    Even the simplest things don’t work any longer. Queuing, scarcity and congestion are rife, our infrastructure is embarrassingly poor, and the honest and hardworking face endless bureaucratic battles to obtain what they are due. Free riding, crime, disorder, fraud, littering and generalised rule-bending are rife, and all too often tolerated by apathetic citizens and an indifferent state. Britain’s residual virtues, our individualism, independence of mind, tolerance and openness, uniquely appealing features of our national character, are fading.

    Like a frog in boiling water, few saw the full scale of the decline coming until it was too late, and those who did were ridiculed by the bien-pensant. Yet even in 2024, when millions now realise that Britain is on the wrong track, there is no hope of meaningful improvement. The Tories have been abysmal, but Labour will be even worse: Keir Starmer will double down on the social-democratic and culturally nihilistic policies tested to destruction by the Conservatives.

    I suppose I could say better late than never. But it isn’t. It’s too late. Only violent revolution could reverse what has been done to the UK. It is no use saying no one noticed. You could have read it online anytime in the last twenty years. The truth is that the MSM were a part of it. It was they that mocked and suppressed; that denied what was happening and refused to oppose the measures that have destroyed the UK. They were accomplices to the traitors in Westminster.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/14/for-the-first-time-im-beginning-to-think-britain-is-finishe/

      1. Elon Musk is a marked man. He’s moved his financial dealings from Delaware to Nevada, as tptb in Delaware were seeking to penalise him for his non-conformist thinking. The Leftwaffe have been gnashing and wailing since he restored freedom of speech to X and exposed their echo chamber to alternative points of view. The humanity!

    2. 383436+ up ticks

      Morning AS,
      Could NOT agree more, especially since the end of the Thatcher era the peoples have been entering the polling stations with eyes tight shut.

    3. 383436+ up ticks

      Morning AS,
      Could NOT agree more, especially since the end of the Thatcher era the peoples have been entering the polling stations with eyes tight shut.

  20. Only managed a par four today

    Wordle 971 4/6

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

    1. Here’a an interesting Rabbit hole to explore in the category ‘I didn’t know that…’

      “Most are familiar with the ending of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, commissioned by Russia to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Napoleon. The musical score ends with the sounds of cannons booming and bells pealing; however, if Tchaikovsky wanted to accurately record the sound of Napoleon’s defeat, one would only hear the soft, quiet sound of lice munching on human flesh. An organism too small to be seen by the human eye had changed the course of human history.”

      https://slate.com/technology/2012/12/napoleon-march-to-russia-in-1812-typhus-spread-by-lice-was-more-powerful-than-tchaikovskys-cannonfire.html

      1. An organism too small to be seen by the human eye had changed the course of human history.

        Morning Stephen. I’m not too sure of that. It is true that up until the Twentieth Century most casualties in armies were due to disease but that didn’t prevent them winning!

      2. Oh yuk. Now my brain is going to spend the day trying to work out the best instrument to portray lice munching on human flesh.

        Thanks…

  24. Wokery doesn’t win wars. It guarantees defeat. 15 February 2024.

    Disputes have, inevitably, arisen over whether equal opportunities apply to everyone serving in the Forces, irrespective of their sex, religion or ethnic background. During the First Gulf War in 1990, when I was embedded with the British military, there were hardly any female officers holding senior positions.

    This oversight has since been addressed, so that today Lieutenant General Dame Sharon Nesmith serves as number two to the head of the Army, while there has been a steady increase in the number of ethnic minority officers holding senior ranks.

    Well they’ve kept that out of the MSM! We should be thankful that Vlad poses no threat to the UK. The Country and its Armed Forces would fall to pieces against the reality of Russian hostilities.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/15/wokery-doesnt-win-wars-its-a-recipe-for-defeat/

    1. As the Russians might signal; “Send some of your Colonels we are going to a dance!”

      Good morning Minty and all

      Edited for correction to greeting!!

      1. Wasn’t the Chines whisper:

        Send three and fourpence the battalions are going to a dance

  25. Wokery doesn’t win wars. It guarantees defeat. 15 February 2024.

    Disputes have, inevitably, arisen over whether equal opportunities apply to everyone serving in the Forces, irrespective of their sex, religion or ethnic background. During the First Gulf War in 1990, when I was embedded with the British military, there were hardly any female officers holding senior positions.

    This oversight has since been addressed, so that today Lieutenant General Dame Sharon Nesmith serves as number two to the head of the Army, while there has been a steady increase in the number of ethnic minority officers holding senior ranks.

    Well they’ve kept that out of the MSM! We should be thankful that Vlad poses no threat to the UK. The Country and its Armed Forces would fall to pieces against the reality of Russian hostilities.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/15/wokery-doesnt-win-wars-its-a-recipe-for-defeat/

  26. I was thrilled to read that the “judge” who let off the three pro-Palestine protesters is a great fan of their cause – and has made public statements to that effect.

    Gives a whole new meaning to being “tried by ones peers”…..

  27. Douglas Murray
    I’ll soon be the only commoner I know
    From magazine issue: 17 February 2024

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Douglas.jpg

    It is starting to dawn on me that I will soon be the only commoner I know. I am racking my brains trying to think of anyone I have even met in recent years who has not been ennobled, and at present I am drawing a blank. Each time I am out of the UK I return to find another honours list and another batch of peers. By the time the magazine has gone to press this column’s sub-editor will probably have been called to the Upper House.

    This is not – I would like to stress – sour grapes. I have no personal desire to be in the House of Lords. Indeed it always surprises me that anyone would. They can’t have ever been there. I also vaguely share Kingsley Amis’s views about accepting titles. Before he did accept one, Amis expressed doubts – the main one being a fear of embarrassment. Amis feared the idea of entering the writers’ room in heaven and the names of people being announced as they came in. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Vladimir Nabokov. Marcel Proust. Sir Kingsley Amis.’

    In any case, the list of peers grows and as it does so it becomes ever less distinguished. Last year there was some kerfuffle when Charlotte Owen was put into the House of Lords by Boris Johnson. People complained that the then 29-year-old former adviser at No. 10 might not be the most qualified candidate. What is more, if she lives a long life we can expect to see her in unelected office for a good six decades to come.

    Last week’s list included somebody younger and even less distinguished. Carmen Smith is 27. She has been nominated to enter the Lords by Plaid Cymru. The Welsh nutters’ party appointed her because she was a political staffer for the party. Not an MP, or even a member of the Welsh Eisteddfod or whatever it is called. Just a staffer for the party – also now looking forward to a good six decades on the public purse.

    You may say that the Upper House always had some low-grade people sent there, and that is true. But not to this monumental extent. At least the hereditaries didn’t need to pretend to be in touch with public opinion and so could pursue whatever causes diverted them. Former MPs have some reason for being there, so long as they had careers of some distinction. It seems obvious to me that people with real expertise in areas outside of politics (military leaders, successful business leaders, historians) can add something meaningful to debates. But if the House is simply a place for failed politicians and pundits then it is very hard indeed to see what value it adds.

    Evgeny Lebedev was famously nominated for a peerage by Boris Johnson, despite some people thinking that being the son of a KGB agent and oligarch should disqualify him from the role. Personally I think that Lebedev always deserved some form of honour for buying up and then destroying the Independent newspaper, but this is a niche view. What is clear is that he was put into the Lords because he is a friend of Johnson’s and invites him to nice parties in Umbria. I have nothing against Umbria, but hosting the odd holiday there should not grant you the right to have a vote on all UK legislation for the next half-century.

    But this latest list. Good God. One of those put into the Upper House is a former Conservative MP of no distinction who has spent the past decade editing a website. I suppose that if the House requires advice on how to write an unreadable blogpost about who might be in the running in a safe seat then the UK is in safe hands. As it perhaps is with John Fuller, the former leader of Norfolk council – also sent into the Lords by the Conservatives. Sorry, scrap that. Fuller was only leader of South Norfolk council. North Norfolk was apparently never part of his fiefdom. In any case, what if we need more than this in our legislative chambers?

    Ayesha Hazarika is a couple of years older than me, a perfectly nice person and a somewhat uninspired newspaper columnist. She once co-authored a book on PMQs. In 2017 Iain Dale named her the 75th in his list of ‘most influential people on the left’ – a title she has touted proudly – the result of her groundbreaking work as an adviser to both Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman. Thanks to the Labour party she too is off to the Lords.

    Apart from a lack of distinction, the one thing all these people have in common is that they have spent their lives in politics – usually in Westminster – without ever making it to an even remotely high level. Should Ed Miliband one day be in the Lords? Possibly. Should a former adviser to him? I would say not.

    If there are any justifications for the Upper House they are firstly that it is a chamber where unpopular causes can be pursued because its members are fearless and impossible to chuck out. Secondly, it should be a place where experience and knowledge not available to your average MP can be put to some use. Can that really be said of a chamber filled with failed MPs, council leaders and spads? It makes the Upper House a low-resolution copy of the House of Commons. The chamber for those who couldn’t make it to the other one.

    In any case, I am aware that whatever I say – and however true it is – some people will insist that I am simply bitter that everybody except me has now been made a life peer. But I insist once again, I am innocent of envy or corruptibility. Whenever people have tried to purchase my support and dangled baubles in front of me I have always been severe. For me it’s a hereditary earldom or nothing. As P.G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Fred once said: ‘Earls are hot stuff. When you get an Earl, you’ve got something.’ A man ahead of his time.

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

    FarQueue

    As someone once said: ‘Guy Fawkes was the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions.’

    1. Kingsley Amis notably said: ‘more means worse‘.

      As Tony Blair, the populist prime minister from a minor public school would have said:

      I’ll toady to your prejudices, wreck the House of Lords
      And if you vote New Labour you’ll have joined my mindless hordes

      As with most things in the UK Blair was at the root of the ruin of the country.

          2. Sunak? Amateur! Who sold the gold at the bottom of the market? Who sabotaged private pensions? Who introduced PFI contracts? Pleased to meet you, guess you know my name!

          4. And put in place the conditions for the financial crash in the UK in 2007/8. But all credit to him – the politicians got away with it by blaming the bankers. But Gordon was the root cause of it, by setting all the traffic lights to green.

    2. To anyone with integrity, being offered a gong or title is now an insult.
      It implies that you are useless dogsbody with a very brown tongue.

  29. Good day all and squaddies of the 77th,

    A nice morning and it looks as though it’s set for the day in the North-West Hampshire borderlands. Wind in the South, 11-13℃, maybe siome drizzle later.

    Civil servants only want to go into the office on two days a week, do they?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c4f8e8559caa2e6aff0b5366a9cf5ea9c73d783e40512687ae72898dd6a61d2.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/15/civil-servants-most-likely-workers-want-work-from-home/

    Wendy Steel of Horley took the trouble to write a letter to the editor about it:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18354399f0ae44bb9f9c372db99feb66cbd188e2983e7a45274d0aeccdfdcf7a.png

    Now, for other reasons, the famous Pimloco Plumber chappie, Charlie Mullins, is not my favourite human being but I rather like his approach to the problem. Pay them less because their productivity is less when working from home. Something like 75% of full salary (if they’re lucky). Those who don’t like it can spend even more time with their families.

  30. Good day all and squaddies of the 77th,

    A nice morning and it looks as though it’s set for the day in the North-West Hampshire borderlands. Wind in the South, 11-13℃, maybe siome drizzle later.

    Civil servants only want to go into the office on two days a week, do they?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c4f8e8559caa2e6aff0b5366a9cf5ea9c73d783e40512687ae72898dd6a61d2.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/15/civil-servants-most-likely-workers-want-work-from-home/

    Wendy Steel of Horley took the trouble to write a letter to the editor about it:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18354399f0ae44bb9f9c372db99feb66cbd188e2983e7a45274d0aeccdfdcf7a.png

    Now, for other reasons, the famous Pimloco Plumber chappie, Charlie Mullins, is not my favourite human being but I rather like his approach to the problem. Pay them less because their productivity is less when working from home. Something like 75% of full salary (if they’re lucky). Those who don’t like it can spend even more time with their families.

  31. Good morrow good people!
    And it’s a dry start to the day with a bright overcast and an almost springlike 7½°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    1. Morning Bob, dreich up here.
      Found another use for my logsplitter. Cutting up pallets into equal length pieces, putting them 4 at a time in the splitter and making kindling

    2. Morning Bob, dreich up here.
      Found another use for my logsplitter. Cutting up pallets into equal length pieces, putting them 4 at a time in the splitter and making kindling

  32. 383436 + up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 15 February: Britain must not hide from the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise

    Thursday 15 February: Britain must not hide from the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise
    and via WEF leadership has donned the mantle of Germany 1930s/40s.

    The love & protection of children was surely lost & openly seen as being so with what the JAY report revealed in 2014, peoples with responsible roles to play in society, ie, council members / police etc did so with eyes tight SHUT.

    There were even people with a mindset saying these kids were responsible for their own actions in regards to paedophilia.

    What I consider to be a token number of activists within the foreign paedophile fraternity were arrested but the loss on the PIE register will not even be felt with the “invasion”
    through the Dover bridgehead
    ( ALL party policy) at full swing.

    Currently, if the kids survive running the gauntlet of childhood via the polling stations,
    they might NOT be so lucky in the legacy
    civil war.

    2. No news on any particular group promoting the rise of attacks on Jews, wonder what it could be…

      1. 383436+up ticks,

        Morning KP,
        The road to RESET will NOT
        make for a smooth run.

        Does the Reichstag fire ring any bells ?

  38. Sadiq Khan’s TfL is on the verge of bankruptcy…so he gives his trains £6million new names: London mayor unveils ‘virtue signalling’ names and colours across the Tube map – while his network is ridden with crime and delays
    Mayor reveals new names and colours for all six London Overground rail lines
    New names are Lioness, Mildmay, Windrush, Weaver, Suffragette and Liberty

    Sadiq Khan was today blasted for ‘virtue signalling nonsense’ as he unveiled new names and colours for all six London Overground rail lines in a £6.3million project.

    The Lioness, Mildmay, Windrush, Weaver, Suffragette and Liberty lines were revealed by the Mayor – with his Tory mayoral opponent Susan Hall saying ‘the only surprise from today’s announcement is that he hasn’t named one of them the Sadiq line’.

    Other critics highlighted the high cost given that TfL had been on the verge of bankruptcy before securing last-minute Government funding, and how Tube crime has soared by more than 50 per cent fuelled by a surge in thefts and robberies.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13086387/London-Overground-new-names-Sadiq-Khan-TfL-Lioness-Windrush-Suffragette.html

        1. A defunct brand of household appliances, M’Lud, particularly remembered for their “Teasmade”.

    2. 383436+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      More apt with what is to come via the current voting pattern,
      Why not,
      Belson,belzec,janowska,
      kaisepwald,natzweiler-struthof.

    3. 383436+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      More apt with what is to come via the current voting pattern,
      Why not,
      Belson,belzec,janowska,
      kaisepwald,natzweiler-struthof.

  39. That formidable actor, of stage and screen, Paul Scofield, was thrice offered a knighthood and thrice he declined to accept.

    His reasoning was,”Why should I be offered that for simply doing my day job.”

    1. My sentiments exactly. Sports men/women getting a gong in their 20s just for doing a very well paid job.

  41. “The six Overground lines will be called Lioness, Mildmay, Windrush, Weaver, Suffragette and Liberty.” And who could possibly complain about that?

    3. Generous of Mayor Khan to commemorate Humphrey St John Mildmay, a banker who received £50,000 compensation for his family’s slaves.

      1. Probably, but if I were he, I would be very wary of a puppet controlled by people who would happily get it to press the button.

  44. Sadly not, today. The MR has gorn to Narridge to have her hair done and to see (geddit) her optician. Then to do shopping. I have to cope all on my own…

    But I’ll cope, of course.

  46. Gavin Mortimer
    The sinister transformation of Greta Thunberg
    12 February 2024, 11:16am

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-1973259528.jpg

    Greta Thunberg spent her weekend in France supporting two environmental campaigns. On Sunday she appeared at a rally in Bordeaux against an oil drilling project; 24 hours earlier the 21-year-old Swede was further east, adding her voice to those activists opposed to the construction of a new stretch of motorway between Toulouse and Castres. ‘We are here in solidarity with those who are resisting this project and this madness’, said Thunberg in English, her now familiar keffiyeh round her neck.

    Now, however, in her ubiquitous keffiyeh, appearing to chant ‘Crush Zionism’ or endorsing slogans such as ‘Palestine will be free’ she has become – perhaps unwittingly – the figurehead for what conservative commentators in France call ‘the green alliance’.

    Three years ago Jean Messiha, the spokesman for Eric Zemmour during his 2022 presidential campaign, wrote of this strange coalition between Islamists and ecologists: ‘They share one colour: green. But not only that. They also share a totalitarian approach to society.’

    Among those present at the weekend’s protest rallies was the environmental campaign group Soulèvements de la terre (Earth’s uprising). There is no ambiguity about whose side they are on in the Gaza conflict. In a press release published three weeks after the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, they described the terrorists who carried out October’s pogrom, as ‘Palestine fighters’, saying ‘The murderous attacks of Palestinian fighters against Israeli civilian populations cannot justify joining those of the Netanyahu government against Palestinian civilian populations.’ They added that Palestinians ‘have been crushed for more than half a century by the colonisation that has deprived them of their land and their right to self-determination.’ Israel was accused of being an ‘apartheid regime’.

    Last March Soulèvements de la terre made headlines when one of their protests – against a large water basin in western France – turned extremely violent. Nearly 30 gendarmes were injured, and four of their vehicles were destroyed, as they came under attack from a large well-organised mob throwing Molotov cocktails and other projectiles.

    France’s Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, subsequently ordered the dissolution of Soulèvements de la terre but this decision was overturned by the Council of State, who judged Darmanin’s action not ‘appropriate and proportionate’.

    In describing for Coffee House the violence at the water basin, I referenced a recent book by the journalist Anthony Cortes, The Coming Confrontation: From Eco Resistance to Eco-Terrorism. He had spent time living among a group of radical environmentalists and found that they were far more than just eco-warriors. They were anti-fascists, Trotskyists, anti-capitalists and anarchists, more interested in toppling the ‘system’ than saving the planet. And to that list one can also now add anti-Zionists, or perhaps anti-Semites is more accurate.

    This green alliance extends beyond France. Just Stop Oil protestors are among the protestors marching through London each Saturday in the Palestinian cause, as are Extinction Rebellion (XR). They released a rambling statement a month after the Hamas attack, in which they demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, and blamed the conflict on Britain: ‘The climate and ecological emergency has roots in centuries of colonial violence, exploitation and oppression – for which the UK bears a disproportionate share of responsibility.’

    XR have expressed their ‘solidarity’ with the climate activists who, along with the Free Palestine Coalition, occupied the British Museum at the weekend. They did so to ‘demand that the British Museum end its ten-year partnership with British Petroleum, an energy company profiting from Israel’s colonial genocide’.

    British environmental groups target any company and any individual who they regard as pro-Israeli, including government ministers. In November Michael Gove had to be rescued by police after he was confronted by protestors in Victoria station.

    In 2019 Gove, then Energy Secretary, listened with rapt attention when Greta Thunberg addressed MPs in Westminster. She excoriated Britain for giving the world the Industrial Revolution, what the Swede described as a ‘mind-blowing historical carbon debt’. Thunberg also snarled that the government’s support of shale gas fracking and the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields was ‘beyond absurd’.

    Thunberg received a thunderous ovation at the end of her tirade. ‘Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience,’ Gove told the 16-year-old. ‘I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognise that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create… When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt.’

    Does Gove still admire Thunberg in the light of her recent position on Israel? Does he still feel a responsibility to act given that environmentalists are becoming increasingly violent, what Gerald Darmanin has labelled ‘eco-terrorism’?

    Thunberg was arrested or detained by police in three European cities in 2023, including London. Convicted by a Malmo court of refusing to obey a police command, Thunberg was unrepentant. ‘It’s correct that I received an order that I didn’t listen to, but I want to deny the crime,’ Thunberg told the court. She claimed her disobedience was justified because ‘we are in an emergency that threatens life, health and property’.

    The one politician who has always been immune to the Greta effect is Donald Trump, once tweeting that she needed to ‘work on her anger management problem’. Joe Biden, on the other hand, is in thrall and told Trump that he ‘could learn a few things from Greta on what it means to be a leader’.

    Thunberg is a leader, and an icon – for the immature and the idiotic. For students waving Palestinian flags and singing ‘From the river to the sea’, without knowing what river or sea they are singing about; for politicians who for years pursued ruinous environmental policies until the fury of protesting farmers across Europe forced them to think again.

    The West has changed a great deal since 2019, the year Thunberg toured the world, haranguing and hectoring world leaders in London, Paris and New York. People who should have known better lapped up her angry and accusatory rhetoric. The novelist Margaret Atwood likened Thunberg to ‘Joan of Arc’ and Time magazine named her its Person of the Year.

    Five years later the world is far more violent, volatile and dangerous. Serious politicians are urgently required to address the myriad challenges facing Europe and America. It’s time for the grown-ups to make a comeback. The age of glorifying Greta is over.

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

    Sir Paul Condom
    3 days ago
    ‘Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience,’ Gove told the 16-year-old. ‘I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognise that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create… When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt.’
    One cannot help but feel waves of revulsion and contempt for Gove upon reading this. Just… ugh.

    Edgar Sir Paul Condom
    3 days ago edited
    Reading Gove’s adulatory comments, I get the same feeling as when I recall that photo of Starmer and Rayner “taking the knee”.

      1. The Doom Goblin was pushed front and centre by her parents precisely because of her conditions. They reckoned on her being protected from criticism by the fact she was a teenager with issues. Thus allowing them to feed her lines to spew, whilst out political ‘class’ lapped it up and used her to push their nefarious ecolunacy i.e. Net Zero.

    2. “The novelist Margaret Atwood likened Thunberg to ‘Joan of Arc’”

      Let’s hope that the next jet Saint Greta flies on crashes and burns.

      1. Crashed into a corn field and as she struggled out of the wreckage got run over by a combine harvester.

      1. Having beaten up her male lover Layla Moran then decided she was a lesbian pansexual.

        Having said that she would probably be a better leader of the Lib/Dems than Ed Davey who has shut himself up in his locker.

        1. Ever since it was revealed that Ed Davies was given £275,000 by the legal company that had been chosen

          to represent the Post Office’s lawyers he has gone very quiet.

          1. Private Eye aren’t letting it go. I counted more than 20 articles about the PO last edition. Alan Bates thanked them for keeping it in the news.
            The ‘Eye’ has been following it for years.

          2. Good for Private Eye.

            We’ve been amazed at how many important people just want the whole thing shelved. We can’t imagine why?

    4. How is she moving around? As in a world without fuel – one Thunberg wants – she’d never be able to leave Sweden.

      And, of course, she’d be too busy growing vegetables and herding cattle for food to eat but as she’s against that she’d probably be dead from malnutrition. Such is how the world balances itself. Success is rewarded, failure punished. She, by any account, is a complete human failure.

    1. Andrew Pearce? I have only seen him once on the TV. I am afraid I took an instant dislike to him – more for his patronisingly arrogant manner than for what he actually said – not that I much liked what he said.

  49. Hmmm….

    Leaseholders stung by predatory management
    SIR – The leasehold system is no longer fit for purpose (report, February 10).

    Since the Grenfell tragedy highlighted fire-safety failures, management companies have used waking watch, inflated insurance premiums and rises in energy costs as excuses to hike management charges – by 700 per cent in our daughter’s case. This is tantamount to a second mortgage, which for any flat owner, never mind a single person managing on one salary, is unaffordable.

    This looks very much like sharp practice, with the aim not only of extorting excessive payments but also of ensuring the leaseholder cannot pay, and management gains ownership of the flat. The legislation currently going through Parliament does very little to address this for existing leaseholders, and there are enough loopholes to ensure it will continue. It is not easy for leaseholders to form their own company and dismiss these crooks. Redress in the courts is expensive, and management companies can afford the best legal representation. Even though the leaseholders of St David’s Square, Docklands, won their case last April (one is a barrister who represented them pro bono) and the company was instructed to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds, they have still received nothing. More robust legislation is needed.

    Despite instructions to companies and freeholders to carry out and pay for cladding replacement, nothing is being done in a timely manner. This means leaseholders are stuck in unsafe and unsellable flats, not only due to the lack of fire safety remediation, but also because no prospective buyer wants to take on extortionate management fees.

    The situation is totally unjust – and stalling the housing market.

    Amanda Malas
    Hartley, Kent

    1. A good reminder on why you sould buy your own home freehold with no service charges. I rented our house in Germany for two years with very good landlords the were a dentist couole who could not have been better. The lived in Bad Emms.and made regular trips to Switzerland and always called in to see how we were.

    2. Trying to explain the leasehold system to my elderly American relatives is tortuous. They don’t understand how it’s possible to own the property but not the land it sits on. I could buy my share of the freehold for my block of flats but it would cost £33k+ and I have to live to 120 for the lease to expire, plus the ground rent is a very small part of the service charge.

      1. Bought my allocated share of the company which owns the freehold of my property for £1150 in 1995, extended the lease to 999 years for nil premium, pay no ground rent, service charge is £100 pcm.

    1. We buy their takeaways and haircuts and narcotics, but they don’t buy our beer or spirits or roast beef, or bread, or bacon etc; the list will be long.

    1. A little tip. Always take photos with your phone held in landscape mode (on its side,) that way you will always get a full frame picture and not the narrow one (as in your photo above).

      1. I hate to tell you this but you are not the only one. She flirts with any man who comes her way. I am just the slave ).

    2. Its a dog’s life!

      Gus and Pickles came in this morning, necked their breakfast and have been sound asleep since 7.30!

  55. 14c here , some sunshine and we feel half asleep , because it is dozey weather .

    Off out with woofle , rain due soon , whole line of rain coming across from Exeter , a front , and some quite heavy stuff .

  56. Stratovolcano erupts in Japan sending ash 16,000ft high. 15 February 2024.

    The volcano is only 2.5 miles across the bay from the city of Kagoshima, which has a population of nearly 600,000.

    Japan is one of the most seismically active nations in the world and sits on the Pacific “rim of fire”.

    On Sunday, Mount Otake on Suwanose Island, around 130 miles to the south, also erupted, indicating an increase in localised seismic activity.

    Rim of Fire? This is modern education at work.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/15/sakurajima-volcano-erupts-in-southern-japan/

        1. The word tsunami
          (pronounced tsoo-nah’-mee) is composed of the Japanese words “tsu”
          (which means harbor) and “nami” (which means “wave”).

          3. Too busy taking in the news that day along with the fact that according to the artist the media used included bits of coconut which gave it some added poignancy ….

          4. Back in my school days I was never any good at art. One day we had to paint something on damp paper and I ended up with something not that dissimilar to Stephenroi’s. The arts master liked it so much that I was privileged to have it hung on the classroom wall. Sadly he put it there upside down, but guess nobody noticed.

          5. I painted the HMS Foudroyant in sillhouette and it was hung in the assembly hall. Famous i was. Only got beat up once.

          6. I had several of my paintings displayed on the wall for Open Days at school. It was all downhill after that 🙂

          7. Ah – Harbour wave – like when you stand on the quayside and wave to the friends departing on the transatlantic liner….

            I’ll get me sou’wester.

  58. A short while ago whilst cutting a slice of bread for lunch, I spotted two birds heading towards me at speed, the first, the smaller of the two, impacted the kitchen window two feet from where I was standing, with a loud bang. Although very close behind the first, the second much larger bird wearing yellow stocking, managed to pull up and fly off. On closer inspection, the redwing had broken its neck in the impact. The Sparrow hawk survived unscathed but unfed…..

        1. At risk of being preachy, sometimes the impacted bird is merely unconscious, and can recover if placed in a cardboard box for an hour or so. Unless of course it is a Norwegian Blue.

          1. I rescued a young woodpecker that had flown into a window (and then had a drive of 20 miles to a wildlife rescue centre!)

  59. Here’s a good larf…from The Grimes just now:

    “Channel migrants being monitored over extremism fear”

    Shome mishtake surely – all these brane surgeons, architects etc etc etc

    1. Au contraire, the danger is that the arriving masses may be radicalised by their encounters with Christian preachers and the far distant Right.

  61. Just back from a 1½ mile walk. Gorgeous afternoon. So mild. 16ºC (for JN = 61ºF). No breeze, either. Just fabbo.

    1. I took Dolly and Harry round the park in the sunshine. Both Dolly and I were flagging half way round Next time i’m taking my E-Chariot.

        1. It goes really fast which is why i have two 6 foot whip aerials with pennants on them. Doesn’t do corners though.

        1. There are shortcuts but it was wet and muddy. I will take her papoose next time so she doesn’t struggle.

      1. Today’s rather lengthy rant.

        I might be out on a limb here, and get banned.
        In all my life, (68) I have never had a problem or any issues with Jews. In fact, quite indifferent, and never really noticed them. Good? I dunno.
        However, ‘now’? It seems the world and his wife are showing vile hatred, I never knew existed.
        They got attacked by Hamas lunatics, and… Well I won’t go into the specifics, but you all know what I’m talking about, and because they retaliate with heavy retribution, people condemn them. If it were me, I’d do exactly the same.
        They talk of innocent civilians in Gaza. No, are you telling me they had no idea that a virtual underground city was being built, right beneath their feet, using money that was/is meant for the Gazan people to improve their life? They had no clue what was going on? The kids I hear are innocent? Right from the word go (birth), they are programmed to ‘hate’ Jews and yearn for the total destruction if Israel. There is plenty of evidence of this. Although kids won’t be actively involved, they ALL hate Jews.
        Don’t fucking tell me, I don’t understand the nuances or history of the area. That’s just an excuse to shut people like me up. “People like me?” How many times have I heard that?
        We all witnessed the wild celebration of ‘ordinary Gazans’ when the news broke of the attack on Israel. Shocking and sickening.
        Now they are paying the price.
        Feel free to block me at your leisure.
        8:48 AM · Feb 15, 2024
        ·
        105K
        Views

        1. Thanks Sue! I was being pedantically grumpy, or grumpily pedantic! I didn’t want to read past the dreadful grammar! And from a so-called ‘sir’!

        3. I’m with you, Sue.
          Of course, those that orchestrate such attacks on Israel know what the Israeli response will be, because it always is. That gathers them even more martyrs and victims to further their cause.
          Those who organise the violence are the ones I save my sharpest bile for, because they do it in the knowledge that small children will be killed and maimed as a direct result, both Israeli and Palestinian – and that’s what happens, to their undoubted pleasure.

          1. I didn’t write it – just copied from the Tweet above, for those who don’t Twit and couldn’t open – but I do agree!

        4. I’m with you, Sue.
          Of course, those that orchestrate such attacks on Israel know what the Israeli response will be, because it always is. That gathers them even more martyrs and victims to further their cause.
          Those who organise the violence are the ones I save my sharpest bile for, because they do it in the knowledge that small children will be killed and maimed as a direct result, both Israeli and Palestinian – and that’s what happens, to their undoubted pleasure.

        5. Latest in Toronto is that they were demonstrating outside the Jewish hospital and blocking the entrance. (Founded by Jewish benefactors but now just a general hospital for all to use).

          “Jewish? We didn’t know gov!”. It’s called out Sanai hospital and has a big Blue star on the outside.

        6. Sue,

          ” But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

          1. You’ve lost me. Not my rant by the way. Just cut and pasted from the Tweet, to make it easier to read.

        7. Sue,

          ” But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

  65. Back home now , had a warm spring walk , still 14c , but now the rain is setting in , as was expected , drizzle then hmmm, downpours I expect .

    People have been clearing shop shelves of TEA, panic buying because ships cannot sail through Red Sea and SCanal , will the same apply to rice?

    1. B&M selling Typhoo tea £10 for 1000 tea bags. I think they were selling them in boxes of 2000 as well.

    2. Eh? A lot of tea comes from the aromatic hills and dales of Yorkshire. I have seen the packets.

    3. Eh? A lot of tea comes from the aromatic hills and dales of Yorkshire. I have seen the packets.

  66. Quick!!!!!
    Build more windmills. Cover the country side with solar panels. Quadruple power prices.
    We need a futile (British) gesture at this moment.

    Watch: Stratovolcano erupts in Japan sending ash 16,000ft high

    Eruption of Sakurajima is the most powerful since 2020, with officials warning residents of potential evacuations of surrounding areas””

    1. One thing I’m genuinely interested in – why doesn’t Japan use the geothermal heat from volcanos and the heat from the caldera to power turbines?

      2. As the lava can be close to the surface with volcanoes i would think it would be too dangerous. Just guessing.

  67. My response on replies to that rant:

    …and how many aid agencies are helping Israel overcome their dead and hostages held and slaughtered by Hamas?

  68. My response on replies to that rant:

    …and how many aid agencies are helping Israel overcome their dead and hostages held and slaughtered by Hamas?

    1. What I find ironic is that the gathering in parks is illegal, yet singing in the high street isn’t. Plod, however, let the criminals off and threaten the innocent.

      What this tells us is if you’re a muslim different laws apply to you. If different laws apply then they are not laws.

  70. S.S. Holystone

    Complement:
    40 (40 dead – no survivors).
    Ballast.

    At 00.38 hours on 15th February 1941 the unescorted Holystone (Master John Stewart Bain), dispersed from convoy OB-284 on 13th February, was hit on port side aft by one torpedo from U-123 (Karl-Heinz Moehle) about 500 miles south-southwest of Iceland. The U-boat had unsuccessfully attacked the Penolver from the same dispersed convoy on 14th February and was chasing this ship when spotting the Holystone. Moehle decided to go after the bigger freighter, but then missed her with five single fired torpedoes between 22.15 hours on 14th February and 00.12 hours on 15th February. The sixth torpedo eventually struck the ship which disappeared in a very heavy explosion, presumably caused by the detonation of the magazine for the stern gun. The master, 35 crew members and four gunners were lost.

    Type IXB U-Boat U-123 was decommissioned on 17th June 1944 at Lorient and laid up in box K3 of the U-boat pen. Scuttled there on 19th August 1944. Wreck captured by US forces in May 1945 and handed over to France.

    Post war information:
    Became the French submarine Blaison. Stricken 18th August 1959 as Q165.

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/holystone.jpg

  71. Putin’s deadliest weapon yet has been revealed – and the West has no answer. Hamish de Crettin-Gordon. 15 February 2024.

    According to US intelligence, Russia wants to put a nuclear weapon into space. Such a weapons system, they believe, could be used to target Western satellites in orbit, knocking out communications and military targeting systems. These weapons would be utterly devastating if they were ever used.

    These are the rantings of the demented. No such weapon exists. According to US Intelligence (not the most reliable source admittedly) it’s on Vlad’s Christmas list. No doubt they expect Santa to deliver it when required! This fantasy is all in aid of putting political pressure on the Republicans to pass the Ukraine Aid Bill.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/15/putins-deadliest-weapon-been-revealed-the-west-no-answer/

    1. The EMP from an exploding nuclear weapon in space would also knock out their own satellites in line of sight.

  72. Where is the ECHR when Brits are having properties seized for asylum-seekers?

    How strange that the human rights activists won’t seem to protect property rights, or consider the safety of people living in this country

    ROSS CLARK
    15 February 2024 • 1:32pm

    A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent
    We know that the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights have served to prevent asylum seekers being sent to Rwanda to have their applications processed, but where were the human rights lawyers when Ted and Jose Saunders received a letter from North Northamptonshire Council telling them that their terraced house in Rushden was to be compulsorily-purchased to house asylum-seekers? True, the council apologised, saying it was a mistake and that the letter was really meant to go to another property. But does that not indicate that it intended to threaten someone with having their property possessed for this purpose? I thought that private property rights were supposed to be defended by humans rights laws, but seemingly they come a very poor second for the legal machine constructed to fight for the interests of migrants claiming asylum.

    Where are the human rights lawyers when it comes to the needs of Britons living in substandard housing while being ripped off by rogue landlords? Or when it comes to defending the population against a convicted sex offender like Abdul Ezedi, the suspect in the Clapham acid attack who is believed to have since jumped into the Thames? There seem to be armies of lawyers at the ready when it comes to defending migration cases, thwarting the deportation of foreign criminals, or frustrating virtually any government attempt to tackle the problem of illegal migration. The human rights activists will always find some way to intervene, either to stop or delay.

    Yet those same armies of lawyers rarely seem to be there to stand up, say, for people who have been attacked by people who shouldn’t even have been in the country. Shouldn’t they be due compensation from whichever public authority failed to deport their assailant? Apologies if I have overlooked it, but I can’t remember a human rights case along those lines. I can think of plenty of cases where the law has stepped in to prevent deportation of foreign criminals, on the other hand.

    According to the House of Commons Library, as of 30 September 2022 there were 11,769 foreign national offenders living in the community. Among them is an Albanian, described by the National Crime Agency as having a “senior and controlling” role in a criminal gang, and yet who cannot be deported because to do so would breach his human rights. So much for the supposed automatic deportation of foreign offenders.

    Most asylum-seekers are not offenders, of course, far from it. But the sheer numbers are adding to considerable pressure on housing, as well as public services. If local authorities are going to start compulsorily-purchasing homes for asylum cases, are the rights of the affected communities allowed to come into it?

    I can only comfort myself with the thought that my own home is probably not up to the standards expected for asylum-seekers. We only have one bathroom, which is unlikely to pass muster with the authorities who have been housing migrants in four star hotels. Try to use my house and I don’t doubt that the myriad of charities and advocacy groups who have been screaming at the outrage of housing asylum-seekers on a barge which provided perfectly acceptable accommodation for generations of oil workers would be launching a class action. So, don’t bother sending me a compulsory-purchase order. It would be affront to human dignity to expect desperate people to have to live here.

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

    Andrew Fox
    2 HRS AGO
    ””Most asylum-seekers are not offenders, of course,””
    Every one broke the law by arriving illegally.
    All are criminals. Deport every one.

    Richard Drake
    58 MIN AGO
    Reply to Andrew Fox
    There needs to be an audit of under used houses, spare bedrooms and spare rooms that could used as bedrooms. Then property could be acquired for fuller use and the owners could receive a fair rent and be placed in a replacement more suitable property.

    Ma Wa
    44 MIN AGO
    Reply to Richard Drake
    If that’s your approach then maybe we can send some inspectors round to your house to check on all your under utilised possessions. Those jumpers at the back of your drawer that you haven’t worn for a couple of years; those books on your shelf that you haven’t got round to reading yet; that sofa bed that hasn’t been used by any guests recently. I’m sure you won’t mind the inspectors confiscating everything you haven’t used in the last 6 months.

    Andrew Banks
    22 MIN AGO
    Reply to Richard Drake
    Just send a few illegal boat people to your house is what I’m hearing. I assume you’ve already offered to take some in?

    Marianne Kay
    2 HRS AGO
    When a relative of mine was very ill her house was left empty for six months as we had no idea if she was going to recover. She didn’t, unfortunately, and the house was sold after she died. It’s just as well that the council didn’t come sniffing around with a few grinning illegal immigrants in tow rubbing their palms together.
    How on earth can the state justify stealing people’s private property to house greedy illegals? There might well be valid reasons why houses remain empty for some time but even if this is not the case they still belong to the owner, not the state.
    If it hadn’t been for the couple who were mistakenly sent a letter about the compulsory purchase of THEIR house, I wonder how long this scheme would have been kept quiet?

    Simon Southgate
    2 HRS AGO
    And when 100,000 single fighting age men are resettled in our houses, we’ll be taxed even more to pay for their extensions, to accomodate the other 1,000,000 who then arrive via family reunification.
    Strange that this week the Tories announced changes to planning laws to make those extensions so much easier to build.
    The Tories deserve electoral annihilation.

    Reginald Vautrey
    3 HRS AGO
    Perhaps Judge Tan Ikram would like to give us the benefit of his wisdom. He is the one who let the 3 girls wearing hang glider badges at a pro Palestinian rally a conditional discharge. He also gave 6 retired Met police officers suspended jail sentences for sending private WhatsApp messages.

  73. Where is the ECHR when Brits are having properties seized for asylum-seekers?

    How strange that the human rights activists won’t seem to protect property rights, or consider the safety of people living in this country

    ROSS CLARK
    15 February 2024 • 1:32pm

    A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent
    We know that the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights have served to prevent asylum seekers being sent to Rwanda to have their applications processed, but where were the human rights lawyers when Ted and Jose Saunders received a letter from North Northamptonshire Council telling them that their terraced house in Rushden was to be compulsorily-purchased to house asylum-seekers? True, the council apologised, saying it was a mistake and that the letter was really meant to go to another property. But does that not indicate that it intended to threaten someone with having their property possessed for this purpose? I thought that private property rights were supposed to be defended by humans rights laws, but seemingly they come a very poor second for the legal machine constructed to fight for the interests of migrants claiming asylum.

    Where are the human rights lawyers when it comes to the needs of Britons living in substandard housing while being ripped off by rogue landlords? Or when it comes to defending the population against a convicted sex offender like Abdul Ezedi, the suspect in the Clapham acid attack who is believed to have since jumped into the Thames? There seem to be armies of lawyers at the ready when it comes to defending migration cases, thwarting the deportation of foreign criminals, or frustrating virtually any government attempt to tackle the problem of illegal migration. The human rights activists will always find some way to intervene, either to stop or delay.

    Yet those same armies of lawyers rarely seem to be there to stand up, say, for people who have been attacked by people who shouldn’t even have been in the country. Shouldn’t they be due compensation from whichever public authority failed to deport their assailant? Apologies if I have overlooked it, but I can’t remember a human rights case along those lines. I can think of plenty of cases where the law has stepped in to prevent deportation of foreign criminals, on the other hand.

    According to the House of Commons Library, as of 30 September 2022 there were 11,769 foreign national offenders living in the community. Among them is an Albanian, described by the National Crime Agency as having a “senior and controlling” role in a criminal gang, and yet who cannot be deported because to do so would breach his human rights. So much for the supposed automatic deportation of foreign offenders.

    Most asylum-seekers are not offenders, of course, far from it. But the sheer numbers are adding to considerable pressure on housing, as well as public services. If local authorities are going to start compulsorily-purchasing homes for asylum cases, are the rights of the affected communities allowed to come into it?

    I can only comfort myself with the thought that my own home is probably not up to the standards expected for asylum-seekers. We only have one bathroom, which is unlikely to pass muster with the authorities who have been housing migrants in four star hotels. Try to use my house and I don’t doubt that the myriad of charities and advocacy groups who have been screaming at the outrage of housing asylum-seekers on a barge which provided perfectly acceptable accommodation for generations of oil workers would be launching a class action. So, don’t bother sending me a compulsory-purchase order. It would be affront to human dignity to expect desperate people to have to live here.

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

    Andrew Fox
    2 HRS AGO
    ””Most asylum-seekers are not offenders, of course,””
    Every one broke the law by arriving illegally.
    All are criminals. Deport every one.

    Richard Drake
    58 MIN AGO
    Reply to Andrew Fox
    There needs to be an audit of under used houses, spare bedrooms and spare rooms that could used as bedrooms. Then property could be acquired for fuller use and the owners could receive a fair rent and be placed in a replacement more suitable property.

    Ma Wa
    44 MIN AGO
    Reply to Richard Drake
    If that’s your approach then maybe we can send some inspectors round to your house to check on all your under utilised possessions. Those jumpers at the back of your drawer that you haven’t worn for a couple of years; those books on your shelf that you haven’t got round to reading yet; that sofa bed that hasn’t been used by any guests recently. I’m sure you won’t mind the inspectors confiscating everything you haven’t used in the last 6 months.

    Andrew Banks
    22 MIN AGO
    Reply to Richard Drake
    Just send a few illegal boat people to your house is what I’m hearing. I assume you’ve already offered to take some in?

    Marianne Kay
    2 HRS AGO
    When a relative of mine was very ill her house was left empty for six months as we had no idea if she was going to recover. She didn’t, unfortunately, and the house was sold after she died. It’s just as well that the council didn’t come sniffing around with a few grinning illegal immigrants in tow rubbing their palms together.
    How on earth can the state justify stealing people’s private property to house greedy illegals? There might well be valid reasons why houses remain empty for some time but even if this is not the case they still belong to the owner, not the state.
    If it hadn’t been for the couple who were mistakenly sent a letter about the compulsory purchase of THEIR house, I wonder how long this scheme would have been kept quiet?

    Simon Southgate
    2 HRS AGO
    And when 100,000 single fighting age men are resettled in our houses, we’ll be taxed even more to pay for their extensions, to accomodate the other 1,000,000 who then arrive via family reunification.
    Strange that this week the Tories announced changes to planning laws to make those extensions so much easier to build.
    The Tories deserve electoral annihilation.

    Reginald Vautrey
    3 HRS AGO
    Perhaps Judge Tan Ikram would like to give us the benefit of his wisdom. He is the one who let the 3 girls wearing hang glider badges at a pro Palestinian rally a conditional discharge. He also gave 6 retired Met police officers suspended jail sentences for sending private WhatsApp messages.

  74. A Par Four made of Turf!

    Wordle 971 4/6
    🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
    🟩⬜⬜🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par for me too. I was surprised because I didn’t think Worldle do proper nouns and I had no idea that this word has another meaning. I had to look it up. Never heard it used in that context, ever.

      Wordle 971 4/6

      🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Having a good run at present, a 3.
      Wordle 971 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟨🟨🟨⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. The point is that they’re allowed to wear whatever they want. For now, at least, and the more upset Muslims get the better.

        1. Apparently they will have to become very murderous indeed before anyone can say, let alone do, anything about it.

    2. One thing you will notice about those British girls is their husband’s family won’t pour acid over their head because they went out dressed as they wanted.

    2. The Conservatives really do have a death wish. The type of person most likely to vote Tory are the age group on the waiting lists.

        1. I want to see Diane Abbot as Treasury minister. If we are going to hell in a hand cart at least we should have some laughs along the way.

    3. Someone needs to tell “Lord” Greensill to STFU! The nerve of the man, telling an American politician that she’s like a Hitler appeaser!

      1. Was she the one that said ‘He can kiss my ass’? I do hope they get to meet. An American woman politician with sass would have the Eton boy begging for mercy.

    4. He’s just acting as a marketeer for Private Health Care (if you can’t access the NHS what is the only alternative?)

  77. That’s me gone for this very pleasant, mild day. Hope it continues: there must be a plus side to this new Ice Age.

    Have a spiffing night on the tiles.

    A demain.

  78. Apologies for mucking up your blood pressure.
    Article from the Spekkie.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/tan-ikram-and-the-corruption-of-the-justice-system/

    “Tan Ikram and the corruption of the justice system

    15 February 2024, 3:45pm

    “The case of the ‘paraglider girls’ just keeps getting worse, exposing a criminal-justice system that seems to have become riddled with bias and Israelophobia.

    On Tuesday, a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court essentially let three women – Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27 – off with a slap on the wrist, after they were charged with terrorism offences.

    Last October, they were spotted on a Palestine protest displaying images of paragliders, just seven days after Hamas fighters on paragliders flew into southern Israel before murdering and raping their way through a music festival and several kibbutzim.

    The women were found guilty. But the judge – deputy senior district judge Tan Ikram – showed considerable leniency, sparing the trio prison and giving them a 12-month conditional discharge. The maximum sentence would have been six months in prison. ‘You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue’, he said.

    This was bizarre, to put it lightly, given the British state’s – and this particular judge’s – increasingly punitive behaviour where offensive speech is concerned. In 2022, Ikram sent police constable James Watts to prison for 20 weeks after he shared racist jokes in a WhatsApp group. It seems that disgusting jokes made in private are worthy of jail time, but what the CPS described as the ‘glorification’ of racist terrorism on the streets of London is not.

    Those of us who were cynical enough to imagine that some political bias might have played a role here have now, it seems, been given further reason to believe this. Ikram, it turns out, ‘liked’ an anti-Israel post on LinkedIn three weeks ago. The post, shared by a man with a fondness for spouting anti-Israel conspiracy theories, called Israel ‘terrorist’ and repeated the ‘Free Palestine’ slogan.

    Ikram may now face disciplinary action, given judicial guidance plainly states that judges who are known to have strong views on a particular subject should consider recusing themselves from related cases. Social-media guidance also warns that liking posts ‘can convey information about yourself and your views’.

    He says that he liked the post by accident. Even so, this isn’t the first time that he has chosen to express his views. As Laurie Wastell noted on Coffee House yesterday, Ikram gave a talk to American law students in February 2023, in which he appeared to boast about the harsh sentence he handed down to Watts: ‘I gave him a long prison sentence. The police were horrified by that.’

    In that talk, at College of DuPage in Illinois, he went further, airing all the fashionable talking points about race, policing and the justice system. According to a write-up in the student newspaper, Ikram even – hilariously – raised the issue of ‘how judges, like him, could be suffering from unconscious bias when sentencing people’.

    Of course, the bias Ikram is alleged to have shown in the case of the ‘paraglider girls’ doesn’t appear to be ‘unconscious’. This looks very much like a judge punishing some racist speech crimes more leniently than others, based on his publicly expressed views and sympathies.

    Look, I’m a free-speech absolutist. Short of direct incitement to violence, I don’t think any statement – no matter how disgusting – should land someone in the dock. But the double standards stink to high heaven. They reveal a two-tier criminal-justice system that treats anti-Semitic speech with kid gloves, while coming down ever-harder not only on other forms of racist speech, but also on relatively innocuous, un-PC speech.

    This isn’t just about one judge or one case. In 2020s Britain, you can call for jihad against Israel on the streets of London without having your collar felt. But if you’re a feminist misgendering someone, or a veteran sharing a spicy anti-Pride meme, you can count on being manhandled into the back of a police van.

    The soft touch applied to London’s pro-Hamas – sorry, ‘pro-Palestine’ – demos isn’t an accident. A mixture of bias, ignorance and cowardice has been exposed at every level of the criminal-justice system. People who have made openly anti-Semitic statements have even been found to be working with the authorities.

    In November, the Metropolitan Police were forced to cut ties with Attiq Malik, chairman of the London Muslim Communities Forum, after he was revealed to have chanted ‘From the river to the sea’ and railed against ‘global censorship by the Zionists’. (The Met is reportedly still working with his organisation.)

    How all this must horrify British Jews, as they reel from the anti-Semitism that has flooded Britain, online and on the streets, since 7 October. The message from our criminal-justice system is now loud and clear: all forms of racism are awful, but some are less awful than others.”

    1. “judges who are known to have strong views on a particular subject should consider recusing themselves from related cases.”

      Consider?

    2. “Ikram may now face disciplinary action, given judicial guidance plainly
      states that judges who are known to have strong views on a particular
      subject should consider recusing themselves from related cases.”
      What abject bolleaux since (No surprise) Bliar changed the appointment system for judges allowing lawyers to apply for judgeships in areas that “they had a special interest (think immigration)” our whole judicial system has been politicised and corrupted
      One of the three legs that supported our common law freedoms sawed off!!

  80. “Residents of Clifton, Bristol, have been left frustrated after their current waste removal system requires them to display thirteen different bins for their rubbish.

    Streets are full each week of separate bins used to collect locals’ general refuse, as well as plastic and metal, cardboard, paper and glass, food and garden waste.

    In September this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated to Brits that the “proposal that we should force you to have seven different bins in your home” was to be scrapped.”

    https://www.gbnews.com/news/bin-news-bristol-clifton-recycling-13-bins

    1. I would not mind betting that lots of these bins get dumped in together once they get to the same central collection point.

        2. Seen carefully sorted (ship’s) waste in separate containers lowered down to the dockside for it all to be tipped into one large truck in Asia and Africa.

          2. Two days before my heart scare I’d bought a load of boarding for the shed some may remember me building and had been planning to start getting it nailed up but ended up stuck in hospital for a week.
            When I was finally let out, it was with orders not to do anything strenuous.

          4. I have had multiple visits to hospitals over the last five years. Though none of my conditions were as serious as what you just went through but what i did learn was it is easy to begin to view yourself as a patient. A mind set. Though HG has your very best at heart you must resist being the invalid.

            BTW… Rates for my advice are half the price of Bill Thomas. Nectar points accepted. :@)

      4. We used to have 3 different bins for glass recycling. Brown, Green and Clear. We now put any colour in any of the bins since we found that they put them all together in the lorry which picked them up and complained to the council.

    4. Bristol went mad years ago. When you get a greeniac agenda like Brighton they start taking the piss. I refuse to wash out tin cans. I refuse to put empty mirin bottles in the bottle bank etc. That is what they are paid for.
      What is needed in Clifton just as in London are vigilanties with flame throwers. Outside the council office.

    1. I know what Brexit means and it isn’t accepting every EU diktat, being bound by the ECJ etc., having a border down the middle of the Irish sea and Northern Ireland being still part of the EU.

    1. The mistress of the Prince of Wales joins a dozen acting dames to celebrate Shakespeare”.
      Diana never stood a chance at happiness.

        1. They can sometimes but she was under relentless pressure and he was not focused. I still blame him for her poor decisions.

          2. She was a brood mare. He should have taken more care of her and also been more discrete. She would have been well aware it was an arranged marriage. Charles was a bumbling idiot. He still is.
            I don’t have strong feelings for people in the public eye one way or another but their doings do have a (bollox…can’t think straight) affect? effect? on the rest of the country.

          3. MSM coverage does seem to influence many of the easily led. There is the evil blonde Boris Johnson who purports to be a comical bumbler and then there are the true bumblers like the current King.

          4. Boris Johnson uses his fake persona to shag endless girls. Then complains he doesn’t have enough money. Then sells himself to people like Gates so he can continue his lascivious lifestyle. People like him make me sick.

            Anyway. I’m off for a wank.

          9. I have it on good authority (someone who knew her well) that she set her cap at him and was determined to have him. It wasn’t all one-sided.

          11. Yes. But that is not how it works…Prince Harry would have done better in an arranged marriage to a manipulating psycho narcissistic bitch. Oh. Did i get that the right way round?

    1. Time to go. Cameron used ‘Hitler’ as an insult. We all know who loses that argument.
      I do hope the next time he, and his let us laughably call his security team, don’t leave one of HIS children at the mercy of public transport at night.

    2. I’m sure that all governments are well aware of the demographics that are leading to top heavy geriatric populations that are utilising more and more of the world’s financial and health resources. Allowing immigration of uneducated, but young and mainly men, in uncontrolled waves isn’t the answer, but our so called elected leaders appear (or perhaps not really) to think it is. What they really need to do is eliminate the older (70+) population, unless you are among the ruling elite of course.

  85. Good evening all.

    Bit of a cautionary tale. Last year at an annual review I was told I had slightly low sodium levels. Made the mistake of not asking what were usual levels in comparison. No more said and no action advised. This years review, same again. This time I asked the level. Told usual level 133 whatevers and mine last year was 127. Had to monitor BP coz that was on high side and, cutting a long story short, on Monday GP rang me to say I needed to go to A & E now , as sodium levels were 124. GP says they’re happy with 130+. I suggested monitoring BP for 4 more days, she OKd after speaking to hospital Consultant but said I must go to SDEC this morning for more bloods.

    Anyway, after 4 hours, a bungled cannula insertion by trainee doctor, in case I needed a sodium transfusion, not enough blood vials taken so another simple sample taken by nurse, saw the doctor and he said the sodium level was 128. And he was happy with that as it had risen from the 124.

    Along with all this I take Ramipril and, recently, Indapamide for hypertension. Makes me feel pretty awful, slow and lethargic. Had to stop both from the Monday morning and feel a lot more alive now than I have for a while. Read the Indapamide leaflet and it warns that sodium levels can be affected. So now I’m to restart the Ramipril and have bloods taken in 2/3 weeks to monitor sodium levels.

    The moral is, if something is “a little on the low side”, ask what the norm is in comparison and what can be done about it. So I’ve been told to EAT MORE SALT, in spite of the ads telling everyone to eat less, and not to drink caffeinated drinks.

    You have some really good chats with other patients! Enjoy the rest of your evening. I feel worn out. Hanging around waiting does that!

    1. Lordy, VW. What a rats nest.
      Hope, after all that, that you feel at least a wee bit better.

    2. I had the same advice to go to hospital over low potassium. They put me on a drip for 24 hours.

      I take Berocca most days to maintain levels. I don’t like too much salt in my food.

      1. I know bananas are good for potassium, also oranges and pears. Helps if you like these things! Luckily I didn’t need a drip but the student doctor made a right old mess of putting in the cannula. And it hurt.

      2. I know bananas are good for potassium, also oranges and pears. Helps if you like these things! Luckily I didn’t need a drip but the student doctor made a right old mess of putting in the cannula. And it hurt.

  87. Evening, all. One thing we can pretty much guarantee is that the reason for the rise in anti-semitism will never be admitted and pro-Hamas marches will still get police protection.

  88. 383436+ up ticks,

    Surely that is a must before anything appertaining to politics can go forward within these Isles.

    To continue with eyes tight shut regarding the strongly alleged cull, only to find that a number of political top rankers were complicit later on of being guilty at least of corporate manslaughter as in ” companies and organisations can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.”

    https://x.com/ABridgen/status/1758167887229927883?s=20as in

  89. I did my civic duty today and voted in the Wellingborough by-election. I had to choose my moment carefully as the neighbourhood was besieged by Labour activists. To their credit they had plenty out and about but I really didn’t want to appear to be rude to them.

    I turned up at the hall and was promptly turned away as I had no photo-ID. I thought that requirement was for the next GE. I should have read the back of the bloody poll card. Home and back again and then off into town where Reform were present in large numbers. They stuck out like the proverbial sore thumbs as they were well-dressed and, on average, 20-40 years older than the Labour crew who were largely indistinguishable from the inhabitants of the sink estates.

    I don’t suppose Ben Habib will win – living in London probably won’t have helped his cause – but as this election counts for very little, I won’t be too disappointed if he doesn’t.

    Here are the candidates. The BBC article has profiles and pictures.

    Nick ‘The Flying Brick’ Delves – Monster Raving Loony Party
    Ben Habib – Reform UK
    Helen Harrison – Conservative Party
    Gen Kitchen – Labour Party
    Ankit Love Jknpp Jay Mala Post-Mortem – Independent
    Alex Merola – Britain First
    Will Morris – Green Party
    Andre Pyne-Bailey – Independent
    Ana Savage Gunn – Liberal Democrats
    Marion Turner-Hawes – Independent
    Kevin Watts – Independent

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-67763457

    1. Thanks for casting your ballot. Fingers crossed Ben wins, but I’m so used to disappointments now!

  91. Well, folks, it’s now 10.45 pm so I will wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well and I shall be back with you at around 7 a.m. tomorrow.

  95. Here’s a short report on forced marriages. You have to look hard for the reference to Islam, despite the two cases involving women from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Of course, it hasn’t always been exclusively Islamic and arranged marriages also occur in other cultures, though not always with the threat of violence.

    Why is the BBC so scared of the I-word?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-64873897

Comments are closed.