Thursday 17 October: No safeguard can stop patients feeling pressure if given an option to die

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.

563 thoughts on “Thursday 17 October: No safeguard can stop patients feeling pressure if given an option to die”

    2. Was up at 07:30 and when I went to check the temperature I was amazed at how bright it was!
      No overcast and a clear sky!

      1. Reeves’s Budget to be biggest tax raiser in history
        Chancellor may look to raise fuel duty and faces backlash from Cabinet colleagues

        BTL

        DaveNewWorld IV
        8 hrs ago
        “You can’t solve a spending problem with spending cuts.”
        Eh?

        1. There are no good options when a debtor who had maxed out the credit card tries then to balance the books as well as putting off the creditors.

          We all knew that you cannot indulge in 18 months of staying at home comfort eating, and without cancelling HS2, without a serious effect on the Government's borrowing requirement. Put interest rates up to sensible levels, and it was quite obvious all through the election that it was unsustainable. Rishi Sunak, largely responsible for the largesse, knew what he was talking about, and that Labour pledges at best were a con.

          Labour should no more have pledged not to raise taxes for working people than Nick Clegg should have pledged not to support the raising of tuition fees "under any circumstances".

          Reeves' best and possibly only fair option is to spread the burden as widely and as thinly as possible, and that includes "working people" (or those that identify as working people).

  6. Good Morning Everyone (especially Geoff)
    Today's Golf Tale
    Nachigai ana
    The young American businessman visiting Tokyo knew no Japanese, but he nevertheless managed to persuade an attractive girl who spoke no English to accompany him to his hotel room. He felt proud of his prowess as the girl kept exclaiming “Nachigai ana!” with considerable feeling during the sex act.
    The following afternoon, he played golf with a prominent Japanese industrialist. When the latter happened to score a hole in one, the American decided to make some intercultural brownie points by shouting, “Nachigai ana! Nachigai ana!” at the top of his voice.
    The industrialist turned slowly, and fixed him with a penetrating stare. “What do you mean – wrong hole?”

  7. 394953+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    I truly believe this to be yet another fear factor as with many other eye deflectors whilst the WEF / NWO/ RESET political nasties are setting another one world governance brick in the wall , now seemingly with royal seal.

    My way of thinking leave as is minus the criminal content.

    Thursday 17 October: No safeguard can stop patients feeling pressure if given an option to die

    1. Exactly. The conversation is already being had about recusitation, that it's too dangerous, brutal etc to be given to older people. In a hospital setting, with experts telling you this as fact, a person would have to have the hide of a rhinoceros to resist. The same argument will be extended to all kinds of treatments to push people to sign the form.

      edit: I meant to answer Bob3, but it's a similar sentiment!

      1. 394953+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        The only form one should sign if needed, is a membership form on joining a party whos sole aim is, by whatever means possible, removing these
        political / pharmaceutical top ranking elites from power.

        The road to RESET via the WEF / NWO is not one the herd should contemplate , far from it.

        Some nasty bloke tried it on before ae in eliminating gypsies,
        tramps & thieves, the mentally inept, and those that did not agree with him.

    2. Exactly. The conversation is already being had about recusitation, that it's too dangerous, brutal etc to be given to older people. In a hospital setting, with experts telling you this as fact, a person would have to have the hide of a rhinoceros to resist. The same argument will be extended to all kinds of treatments to push people to sign the form.

      edit: I meant to answer Bob3, but it's a similar sentiment!

  10. No safeguard can stop patients feeling pressure if given an option to die

    We just know when the government is going to rubber stamp another globalist agenda when they debate it in Parliament and on the media like it is an issue only concerning our country.
    Some celebrity is endorsing it.
    When they have already introduced the policy abroad and where the remit has moved on to include people that are not in the last stages of life but we have to believe that wont happen here, because that would just be conspiracy theory.

    1. I cannot prevent the unworthy thought that this is a part of the program to get rid of those Old White Folks.

  11. Kamala Harris’s Fox interview: our experts are united in their verdict

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

    Ricci Allard
    6 hrs ago
    It’s like a Hollywood horror film…ridiculous lady who withdraws from the 2020 presidential race without having won a single primary is chosen as the running mate for the candidate that the party plans to keep in his basement for the next four years. Fast forward to 2024 said candidate can barely stay awake and same lady has been hand picked to run for president even though she was an abysmal VP. I’m absolutely stunned this is really happening…

    jo Schroeder
    4 hrs ago
    Reply to Ricci Allard
    Elsewhere there is an interesting theory why Joe Biden endorsed Kamala one hour after his letter was posted. He was not supposed to have done that since Obama/Pelosi would be picking Newsome or Whitmer.
    Joe endorsed her at precisely the right time because he really is a mean SOB and his revenge is now complete!!

    1. Interesting theory, Ricci Allard. I doubt if we'll ever find out the real truth until one hundred years from today.

  13. I thought that recent drop in fuel prices was a bit strange
    Still it has cut inflation so that will mean smaller pension increases for next year when it is calculated this month.
    Plus Labour have scope for increasing fuel duty in the budget at the end of the month.
    Win Win
    Inflation and fuel will go back up soon afterwards.
    win win win

    1. I've noticed quite a large hike in food prices this month, as well as standing charges. I wonder if Council Tax is included in the calculations?

      1. That's why we have 3 sofas in the sitting room… one for humans, the other 2 for cats!

        1. On the same principle that we put one extra feed bowl in the field for the horses – there's always one available even if the others try to occupy the rest.

    2. Be fair, Paul, they have to conserve their energy to use during their nocturnal ramblings.

  15. Police Spied on British Prime Minister When He Was a Young ‘Radical’ Lawyer, Inquiry Hears

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/10/AP24186528401375-e1729076029629-640×480.jpg
    FILE – British environmental activists Helen Steel, second right, and David Morris, right,AP Photo/Christian Lutz, File
    Oliver JJ Lane 16 Oct 2024116
    4:25
    A veteran left-wing campaigner testifying to Britain’s Undercover Policing Inquiry has stated the Metropolitan Police spied on now-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s work when he was an up-and-coming lawyer in the 1990s.

    An undercover police officer used a deceitful sexual relationship with a member of a London’s left-radical scene to gain access to legal briefs created by Keir Starmer (above, left, in a 2004 file photo). Starmer was considered a ‘radical barrister’ at a time when the law profession was still instinctively conservative, the Undercover Policing Inquiry heard according to The Times.

    Widely known as the ‘spycops’ inquiry, chairman Sir John Mitting called on veteran London Greenpeace activist David Morris (above, centre) to give his opening statement on Tuesday, where he said a former undercover police officer had admitted to spying on the Greenpeace group and Starmer during the period of the infamous ‘McLibel’ trial, the longest in British legal history.

    Morris, a self-described “lifelong community activist” and ‘vegan anarchist‘ said he was also speaking on behalf of Helen Steel (above, right), who had a long-term sexual relationship with an undercover police officer using the identity of a dead child. Morris said Helen Steel had been “effectively prevented” from testifying herself at the inquiry because of what he called bad procedure by the inquiry itself.

    He told the inquiry of the police spying against the now Prime Minister: “Denied legal aid, we had to represent ourselves throughout. A young barrister, Keir Starmer, now Sir Keir, offered to provide us with free legal aid. He did so behind the scenes for ten years… The [undercover police] shockingly infiltrated the campaign and secretly collaborated with McDonalds before and during the case. This was a serious miscarriage of justice.”

    As the case progressed, Morris said: “We finally got legal aid to take the British government to the European Court of Human Rights where we were formally represented by Keir Starmer… Dines was exploiting Helen while they lived together by getting details of our confidential legal strategy following the private meetings we held with Keir Starmer. As Dines said, quote: ‘It is accurate to say I was by the side of Helen Steel and Dave Morris in 1991 and relaying the legal advice back to my bosses in the [undercover police]’.”

    While Helen Steel was not present to speak yesterday, she has gone on record on her relationship with the undercover officer Dines in the past. She had previously said she had later met Dines again after he left the police in 2016, and he had told her that “he was tasked with reporting on everything that was going on in the North London anti-capitalist, animal rights, poll tax and environmental movements – everything that was a bit alternative. I did not go out with him until 1990. If I had known he was using me to spy on groups of people whose politics I shared then I would never have had a relationship with him”.

    The Spycops inquiry is examining the conduct and activities of undercover officers, mostly deployed against left-wing groups, from 1968 to 2008. One of the key focusses of the inquiry is the apparently reasonably common tactic of what in the intelligence world, if not policing, is known as ‘Romeo’ spies who form romantic attachments to target females.

    Although the deceitful relationships with women were one of the motivating factors in setting up the inquiry, the proceedings have appeared to inadvertently reveal some deeper workings of domestic surveillance in Britain.

    Sensationally, in August, a former undercover police officer testifying in defence of the Scotland Yard — claiming that their infiltration of radical leftist movements had saved lives — seemingly confirmed that the domestic intelligence service MI5 did “smear” individuals in activist circles.

    He said: “nonsense. That’s not what we’re about, we’re about gathering intelligence, not smearing individuals. That’s a Security Service job, let them do that. We’re about gathering intelligence, that’s what we were doing… Sorry, I shouldn’t say that… let’s scrap that last bit, I’m not saying that”.

    The live feed to the inquiry was then abruptly cut, and journalists in the room warned not to report what had been said in the period where the cameras were off.

    2. Strange: "David Morris (above centre)" looks more like a woman to me. And "Helen Steel (above right)" looks more like a man. ?!?!?

  17. A couple of spot on letters regarding the UN:-

    Useless United Nations
    sir – I spent more than 30 years in the infantry and have worn the UN beret (Letters, October 15). I believe UN peacekeeping forces are, and have been, toothless and ineffective.

    Take the tragedy of the massacre in Srebrenica, where Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to intervene, or the largely French group on Mount Igman overlooking Sarajevo, which failed to stop the Serbs sniping and bombing the civilian population. It was no surprise that in late 1995, UN troops were stood down as a result of the Dayton Agreement, and replaced by a Nato-led force, responsible for implementing the military aspects of the agreement to secure the peace.

    I fully support the Israeli Defence Forces in its efforts to free its country from terrorism. My advice to the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon is to get out of harm’s way.

    Major David G Jarratt (retd)
    Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire

    SIR – The iniquities of the United Nations continue to undermine its credibility. It was created after the Second World War and was intended to be an unbiased arbiter in matters of international dispute. Primarily, it was established to prevent a global conflagration ever happening again.

    However, over the years its high principles have been steadily eroded until, like its predecessor the League of Nations, it has become little more than a corrupted talking shop. Its very existence is reliant on being financed by the major Western democracies, but it seems to favour those who contribute least and manipulate it to its own ends.

    The West needs to face reality and stop funding what has become a malign influence on world affairs.

    Mick Richards
    Malvern, Worcestershire

    1. The good major asserts "I fully support the Israeli Defence Forces in its efforts to free its country from terrorism. My advice to the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon is to get out of harm’s way."

      All very well, but since the UN is supposed to be politically neutral, let's rephrase that with a second clause "I fully support Hamas and Hezbollah in their efforts to free their respective province and country from terrorism. My advice to the NATO peacekeepers serving Israel is to get out of harm’s way."

      Sauce for the goose?

      As a military man, I would have thought that Major Jarratt (retd) would grasp that the job of a peacekeeping soldier is to get in between two warring parties, bang a few heads together, and get them negotiating diplomatically instead of knocking seven bells out of their respective civilians.

      1. I've given you a downvote for that Jeremy.
        It is not Israel that is forcing civilians to act as Human Shields.

  19. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/76d5bab31934d9197ef012e3160a4397dc9e6a8f/0_0_4000_2890/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=8ab2c3d3edcc784daf26bcae674fe054 Bobcat cubs play on a golf course in Littleton, Colorado, US

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/00902399a3b8c58a2d23e8cde913d3517417049d/0_0_4000_2250/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=71305945168c03e67efb019f6392888f Mauve stinger jellyfish swim in Sennen Cove, Cornwall

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2cebe1abb7b2059d9ebd225bbb7c06e54c3214f5/0_0_8256_5504/master/8256.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=651c1fe9b7b37726d3962299c0301baf One of the last two northern white rhinos in the world and her keeper. Najin and her daughter Fatu are being looked after at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0830a8a7291d432a35dbb79b7310ab4a81443467/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9dc84b8912c7d20bbbd2bb90fc5e95ba A jaguar cub plays in a shelter for animals rescued from forest fires in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

        1. And several others. They can't use sperm from Sudan as he was Fatu's father. They made a successful implant of a fertilised ovum last year into a surrogate mother but things went wrong due to poor weather and floods.

          1. (Ndovu – the jaguar cub reminds me that I would love to see some photos from your Brazilian adventure. I seem to remember that you can't post them here; might you have a link to them on FB? Thanks x)

          4. Definitely found you – but the last post I could see was on World Rhino Day. No jaguars! Don’t know what I’m doing wrong…

          5. I posted a few jaguar pics the other day – so they are there. Have another look- or you can send a friend request as most of my posts are friends- are you a friend of Phizzee? You should be able to see mine if you are.

          6. Ah, that would.explain it. I’d forgotten how FB works. (I left during the covid awfulness and only signed up again, under a pseudonym, to get info about dances here. I don’t actually *use* it.) I shall.send you a friend request – look out for E de la F. Thanks x

          7. And I no longer know how to send a friend request – argh! – so I have ‘followed’ you. Sorry to be a pain! 🤣

          8. I’ve replied to you but I have a feeling followers only get to see public posts. I can send you a friend request though if you like.

          9. If you could send me a request I’d be most grateful, thank you. I can’t see a reply but have no idea whether it’s FB, my phone or me being an idiot.

  20. Good morning, all. Overcast and looking very soggy after last night's rain.

    Last evening was drink time with my three ex-BT chums and we were at the Albion – a very good 'wet' pub in the village of Rowhedge – the only shortcoming is the lack of parking and as a consequence we have to park a good walk, mainly uphill on the return journey, from the pub. The rain, forecast for around midnight, turned up before 9, the result was four very wet men of a certain age clambering into the car, luckily not mine, for the trip home.

    Dare I say that the rain put a damper on what was otherwise a pleasant evening?🙄

    Harris being exposed in an interview on Fox News. Apparently, Bret Baier lured Harris into a discussion re Biden's mental state and she just didn't see it coming. If she's that slow on the uptake what the hell is she doing standing for POTUS? No answer required!

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1846693684038733988
    Baier explains what went on to end the conversation.

    https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1846691728310653257

    1. I am curious as to what a 'wet' pub may be (apart from the obvious consequence of rain). Surely a 'dry' pub is a contradiction in terms?

      1. Hi, ashes, a ‘wet’ pub sells only drinks and not meals.

        The landlord at the Albion allows drinkers to bring in food, including takeaways, on condition that they buy drinks. A very popular and friendly pub.

          1. When looking at takings there are wet sales (drinks) and dry sales (the food side). I have shares in a couple of community pubs.

  21. G'day all,

    Light cloud covers the sky at Castle McPhee, wind South-West, 11℃ with 17℃ expected. A good day for going fishing.

    Sorry to spoil your breakfasts. The WEF groupies have a love-in, despite that fact that she doesn't want him as a future Head of State.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/409ecf6d6143f3f7dd70c801f20f7703c50af4a30e2f0673fab35b1d5be19158.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/10/16/prince-william-makes-republican-jacinda-ardern-a-dame/

    It fair makes you want to puke. Commenters agree.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3581c3529725a93dd6fe9c43e79092ddbf1683ddda605a082fd454210c72dea.png

    3. I thought he took her on as part of his Earthshot team?
      If he thinks she's OK, it doesn't say a lot for his judgement.

    4. Shergar: "Keep the faith with the WEF, Willy boy. I am the only source of information you will ever need."

    5. Don't be too hard on the Prince of Wales. The royals' scope for political nobbling is strictly limited. What they can do though is to enjoy the lady being reminded of her title each time she addresses a republican rally.

    6. Not only all the comments. He could have done that over the phone or the Internet.
      How much did that all cost FFS ?

    7. As I posted above: Anyone who denies that hereditary factors are significant in determining the sort of person you become should look at the Idiot King's older son.

      1. The saving grace is his fortunate marriage to a woman with intelligence and good looks. Willy is no doubt following orders from his feeble brained father. I believe things will change when daddy is no more and Silly Billy V takes the reign – but not the reins.

    1. Absolutely persisted down last night.
      At least the last of the bulbs MB planted yesterday will be snuggling down.

  23. Good Moaning.
    Here is a quote for NOTTLers. See if you recognise it.
    "and bliss it was to be in that dawn alive …. "

    I have been lent Nadine Dorries' book "The Plot". I am plodding through, but boy, does she suffer from a bad case of the Dan Browns.

    This gem caught my eye. Remember, ND was the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

    "Outside on the pavement, before I headed down Millbank towards Westminster, I took my phone out of the pocket of my trench coat and Googled something Boris had just said: and bliss it was to be in that dawn alive …. Surely, he was quoting someone or something. The answer came straight back: Wordsworth. Boris is the only person I have met in my life with the ability to insert a great poet into daily conversation, without missing a beat."

      1. In the book, she scurries around having 'secret' meetings in well known watering holes around Westminster with unnamed sources.
        That's when she's not reminding us that she was raised in a Liverpool council house and behaving like Uriah Heep at the drop of a posh accent; but only if those vowels issue from Boris' lips.
        The book is a cross between James Bond and the Secret Seven.

        1. Actually that probably is a fair representation of Westminster. At university, we used to send little notes about “Choir Practice” as disguise for conservative faction meetings. Upon graduation, some of us grew up. Others became Members of Parliament.

  24. Morning All.

    Today on Free Speech we have an article by Paul Sutton on what he thinks really happened in the Skripal Novichok affair – and it isn't anything like the version being put to the fake inquiry or what is being reported in the MSM.

    We need your support, so please do read it and leave a comment.

    freespeechbacklash.com

        2. Someone PM’d me just now wondering if I’d turned against Free Speech Backlash. Far from it! Here is my explanation:

          “My self-deprecating sense of humour seems to have backfired. Affects anyone who is more man than machine, and an occupational hazard of free speech! I had just posted on that thread, and there were only about three at the time. I was fishing for those eager to dilute my offerings, whilst having a topical dig at privatised water.

          Someone once asked me at a job interview what gets me out of bed in a morning. The correct answer is “I am eager to deliver a quality service and go the extra mile”. The truthful answer is browner and comes from the end Muslims point at God when praying. I suppose it must have been on my mind at the time as the only thing I have to offer the world.”

  25. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,216 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie
      Wordle 1,216 4/6

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  26. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bright and sunny after a warm night.
    But more rain on the way.
    It's about time politicians took notice of public opinion. They've already wrecked everything they come into contact with. Now they are trying to get people to lose the will to live.
    The facts of life and nature have nothing at all to do with here today gone tomorrow hustlers.
    And now I see it's going to cost 15 pence for every mile driven in our cars on top of road, fuel tax and the rest of the expenses.

        1. And pay when you pick up your vehicle after the MOT.
          Self employed or business classes recover the costs later.
          And of course political classes.
          Another way of forcing the elderly off the roads.

        2. Spot on, Elsie.

          Many people are thinking of monitoring via cameras etc. but using the MOT records doesn't need much technology but will of course require a another civil service recruitment drive.

          <sarc>Hopefully, the new recruits will be able to subtract a large number from a larger number, multiply the result by the rate per mile, followed by dividing the final result by 100 to get to ££££££. Degrees will be required! </sarc>

      1. I would love to help, Mir but being both house-bound and currently unwell, I am revolting all by myself.

    3. It is going to make absolutely everything more expensive, not just our personal travel – everything we buy has to be transported – food, clothing, construction materials, everything. There will be knock-on effects in ways we haven't thought of. Inflation is going to be a nightmare.

  27. Telegraph View In search of black holes

    The economy is not in a good place, but the Tory legacy was not as toxic as Labour claims

    Telegraph View 17 October 2024 6:00am BST

    What is a fiscal black hole? The term is bandied about by ministers as though it is a real phenomenon rather than a political construct. Rachel Reeves identified a £22 billion black hole in the public finances on taking office in July and neither she nor Sir Keir Starmer have stopped mentioning it since. Indeed, the Chancellor subsequently increased it to £40 billion and yesterday told the Cabinet that the UK faces a £100 billion black hole over the next five years, amid concerns that her departmental colleagues are yet to grasp the full scale of the deficit.

    The black hole is essentially the difference between what the country earns and the state spends. Ms Reeves says this gap was bigger than Labour had expected though that is hard to believe since all the figures had been published.

    The term is used to justify raising taxes to fund extra Government spending on unreformed services while blaming the Tories for bequeathing an appalling economic legacy.

    Yet the inflation measure fell yesterday to below two per cent, signalling a further decline in interest rates, while forecast UK growth is higher than most European countries. With the national debt at 100 per cent of GDP and taxes at a peacetime high, the economy is not in a good place, but the Tory legacy was not as toxic as Labour claims.

    The black holes conceit is being used to manipulate public opinion in order to pin the blame for unpalatable announcements in the October 30 Budget on the Conservatives. Ms Reeves is using the analogy to assert that her Budget decisions are unavoidable. They are not. They are political choices for which she and no one else will be held accountable.

    1. The black hole is essentially the difference between what the country earns and the state spends.

      It isn't. That's an urban myth cum lazy journalism.

      1. What you are witnessing is just the changing of the guard of the wonky neo-classical model of economics that Rachel Reeves & all the rest are taught at the LSE & elsewhere. It's called The Nudge Theory or Trickle-Down Model.

        The reality of the monetary system is credit.. it pops into being, wanders around the economy creating greater output until it generates sufficient turn to pay itself off again (either via taxation, or interest/capital repayments). Problems arise when it doesn't work and growth isn't maintained and companies & individual start to stash their cash.

        So every month the Chancellor instructs The Treasury to swap a bigger fixed income debt (no interest) for a floating government debt. And the Consolidated Fund at The Treasury goes overdrawn on the left hand side of the ledger and a corresponding amount goes on a commercial bank's ledger liability side to balance it.

        Eventually the numbers can catch up with reality. Then of course you add into the mix Labour's obsession with confiscating savings, which has no impact on the circulation of money. It's entirely a political statement that plays to their support base who are fundamentally hard of accounting.

      2. What you are witnessing is just the changing of the guard of the wonky neo-classical model of economics that Rachel Reeves & all the rest are taught at the LSE & elsewhere. It's called The Nudge Theory or Trickle-Down Model.

        The reality of the monetary system is credit.. it pops into being, wanders around the economy creating greater output until it generates sufficient turn to pay itself off again (either via taxation, or interest/capital repayments). Problems arise when it doesn't work and growth isn't maintained and companies & individual start to stash their cash.

        So every month the Chancellor instructs The Treasury to swap a bigger fixed income debt (no interest) for a floating government debt. And the Consolidated Fund at The Treasury goes overdrawn on the left hand side of the ledger and a corresponding amount goes on a commercial bank's ledger liability side to balance it.

        Eventually the numbers can catch up with reality. Then of course you add into the mix Labour's obsession with confiscating savings, which has no impact on the circulation of money. It's entirely a political statement that plays to their support base who are fundamentally hard of accounting.

      3. Everything changed in 1971 when the Bretton Woods System collapsed and the introduction of floating exchange rate system.
        Exporters are in competition with each other, so we have beggar-thy-neighbour vendor financing which it is enabled by the financial engineering shenanigans backed by liquidity swaps from the country's banking system.

      4. They won't admit in the Daily Telegraph that the central bank has anything to do with any financial black hole.

    2. The black hole is essentially the difference between what the country earns and the state spends.

      It isn't. That's an urban myth cum lazy journalism.

    1. Apparently Zelensky is trying to pull Iran into his laundering operation war. The Russian-sympathetic press appears to be reporting that Zelensky said "we are effectively at war with Russia, Iran and North Korea" but the western press says only that Zelensky accused the Iranians of supplying weapons to Russia.
      Without access to Z's speech and knowledge of the language in which he was speaking, there is no way to check that.

  29. Reeves’s web of lies can no longer conceal her dystopian plan for Britain
    The game is up. Labour’s tax increases could be the largest on record, shattering their manifesto pledges
    Allister Heath 16 October 2024 6:39pm BST

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcd8f2e655e1e7b35727791728f07a756af23c2a9ffdafa483c1dac40eb1e396.jpg
    Blower cartoon Credit: Patrick Blower

    It is an extraordinary scandal, a breach of trust on a monumental scale. Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are feeding us a fake narrative, a farrago of downright lies, exaggerations, obfuscations and Orwellian double-speak designed to gaslight us into accepting what could be the largest peacetime tax increase by a Chancellor in one Budget.

    The Government has barely spoken a single truth on economic or fiscal matters since gaining power, and is now threatening to breach the letter and the spirit of its manifesto. It keeps increasing the size of the “black hole” that is supposedly compelling this unprecedented assault on taxpayers: originally £22 billion, it is now being put at £40 billion, prompting talk of fiscal tightening of up to £50 billion.

    We could end up with a 2 per cent of GDP tax increase, combined with higher borrowing on the back of rigged fiscal rules to pay for greater “investment”. Yet unlike the fiscal squeeze George Osborne had to impose in 2010, Reeves’ enormous tax increases are voluntary. They are her choice. There is no urgent fiscal crisis. The public sphere doesn’t need to keep growing, and the private realm doesn’t have to go on shrinking.

    We could, if we wanted, make greater use of private health insurance and savings, and spend less on welfare. There is no “black hole” compelling tax increases; a tad more spending restraint would have been sufficient to deal with any in-year overspend during the Tories’ last months in office. Labour soon conflated this minor fiscal slippage with the ludicrously costly public sector pay rises it ordered as soon as it was elected. It chose to spend more, and now blames the Tories.

    The very idea of a “black hole” has become tautological: it is now defined as whatever Reeves wants to spend extra and that she cannot borrow. She wants to rule out any real terms spending cuts. But simply “standing still” won’t do: she wants to substantially grow the public sector, while still meeting her fiscal rules, necessitating huge tax rises. She doesn’t have the courage to explain her true, proto-socialist agenda and is fabricating a non-existent fiscal crisis as cover. She claims to want to end “austerity”, redefined to refer exclusively to public-sector belt-tightening, but her plan to hammer taxpayers will lead to crippling private-sector austerity.

    Labour is not “facing a difficult inheritance”, at least not in the sense Reeves means it. The Tories did not “crash the economy”, with the LDI and gilts market turmoil of October 2022 resolved in a matter of weeks without permanently impacting the economy. Inflation is down to 1.7 per cent. Interest rates are falling. Rishi Sunak showered the NHS with riches. The economy grew in 2023 and was expanding at the time of the election. The deficit had been slashed by Jeremy Hunt, though partly through future spending restraint.

    Yes, the Tories were useless, increasing public spending, taxation, regulation and energy costs, and failing to properly reform welfare, immigration or the health service. But this is equally Labour’s agenda, so it cannot complain.

    The Government sometimes has the chutzpah to claim to have been saddled with the “worst inheritance since World War II”, but that is only true when it comes to the tax burden, something that Labour is about to make even worse. The difference between the Tories, 2010-24 incarnation, and Starmer’s Labour is merely one of degree, with the new Government about to double down on the worst part of their predecessors’ legacy, with some added nasties. The Conservatives spoke Right but governed Left; some of them were at least ashamed of this. Labour don’t possess any such scruples.

    In its righteous arrogance, it is convinced it will prove to be better social-democrats than the Tories, that its housing targets will work more effectively, that its stewardship of the unreformed NHS will deliver a miracle, that the Blob will respond better to it. It downplayed its Left-wing ideology during the election, and has since embraced tokenistic spending cuts to appeal to centrists, announcing the removal of pensioners’ winter fuel allowance.

    Fundamentally, however, Labour is a party of unapologetic collectivists and class warriors. It hates private schools, investors and society’s most productive people. It speaks Left, and will govern Left. Its investment summit was a farce. As good believers in the Platonic Noble Lie, it seemingly feels comfortable telling porkies, believing them to be for the public’s own good. The manifesto stated that “Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT”. It did not specify “employee’s National Insurance”: Fair-minded people assumed this ruled out higher employers’ National Insurance, yet, in a clear betrayal, we are now told that this could be on the cards for October 30.

    It doesn’t matter if NI is collected directly from workers’ pay packets, or indirectly by requiring employers to hand over the cash: the economic impact, the incidence of the levy, is the same. It’s a tax on jobs, not on profits, borne by workers via lower wages and higher prices.

    Writing in 2021, when the Conservatives were pushing their own, equally inane version of Reeves’ policy, the Office for Budget Responsibility explained that, when it comes to employers’ NICs, “the tax is passed through entirely to lower real wages in the medium term, with 80 per cent of the increases passed through to workers via lower nominal wages and 20 per cent to consumers via higher prices.” It is a direct attack on “working people”.

    Reeves knows this: speaking after Sunak proposed his own NI rise on employers and employees, Reeves described it as a “jobs tax”, saying it will “make each new recruit more expensive”. Speaking to The Telegraph the following year, she said: “This evidence that employees will be hit twice shows just how poorly thought through their tax hike is… [it] will hit businesses and working people…”

    None of this matters. Labour is hellbent on tearing down the “rich”. Incredibly, many of its MPs believe Reeves to be too Right-wing. Britain’s slide into dystopia will accelerate, with only one certainty: these tax hikes, however vicious, won’t be the last, and neither will be the lies. It’s going to be a grim five years.

    1. Why has this happened? Why isn't there an organised official and registered department that checks the sanity and speculative interests of individuals and interests of all the political classes before they are allowed to cross the threshold at Westminster. A system that they alone pay for.
      I know they all lie but because they are known to, that in its self is the basis for action and investigation.
      And if later they are found to have been not openly honest in telling the truth. Lock them up for 12 months.

    5. To those of us old enough and alert enough, the behaviour of a Labour government comes as no surprise.

    6. We could deport all those illegals who are costing us a fortune being housed in hotels and stop pouring billions into Africa for a start. That would go some way to filling the "black hole" which is of Labour's making.

    2. No, pet. It was a deliberate use of the word pole (as in rod or perch). Do try to keep abreast of my unfunny humour…{:¬))

  32. "A school in County Durham has been forced to abandon its plan for a radical new event it called “Blue Nose Day”. In order to reduce its carbon footprint, and “raise awareness” of “the importance of being more sustainable”."

    Right, now while I consider myself to be fairly proficient in the English language (despite being a steerage-class, secondary-modern placement 😉); I wonder if anyone on this forum could please decipher the latter sentence, above, into something resembling English. Following that, would they please explain its translation to me? (I am already aware of the significance of "Blue Nose Day").

    [This was taken from a 'Features' article by Michael Deacon in today's DT. Personally speaking, I would have made his latter sentence a secondary clause of the whole utterance; but that's just me.]

    2. Good morning Grizzly.

      In order to reduce its carbon footprint, and “raise awareness” of “the importance of being more sustainable”.

      I agree with you but would add that this 'sentence' is not a sentence – it is is not even a clause because it contains no finite verb.

      Did you see my comment on this article? I made the point that the school proposed to turn off the heating for a "Blue Nose Day" to teach its pupils to empathise with those who will be cold owing to the removal of OAPs' heating allowance but the message was confused in that at the same time it suggested that traditional ways of heating – with oil, gas and coal – were bad for global warming. The school chickened out when it was pointed out that children might be cold on that day so they should not be even remotely exposed to feel what OAPs will feel.

      1. Our parents paid for the privilege that every winter school day was a "Blue Nose Day".
        Also blue fingers, toes, knees ….. really anything outside the inner core of our torsos.

        2. My overriding memory of primary school was being given warm, rancid mik in summr, and a milk ice-lollipop in winter.

      2. Good morning, Rastus.

        From my investigations it would appear that although a finite clause would normally require a finite verb, it is not necessarily vital in a non-finite clause. I would suggest that the clause in question is a non-finite clause. The Cambridge Dictionary states: “Non-finite clauses contain a verb which does not show tense. We usually use non-finite verbs only in subordinate clauses. We usually understand the time referred to from the context of the main clause. We often use a non-finite clause when the subject is the same as the subject in the main clause.” The second clause “In order to reduce its carbon footprint, and raise awareness of the importance of being more sustainable’,” is undoubtedly subordinate to the first clause, i.e. “A school in County Durham has been forced to abandon its plan for a radical new event it called ‘Blue Nose Day’.”

        In the first part of that second clause, the word ‘reduce’ is itself a transitive verb and in the second part the term ‘raise awareness’ is similar. These transitive verbs are sufficient to fulfil Cambridge’s ruling on non-finite clauses.

        Or am I missing something?

          1. Unless you ask Mr Deacon, you’ll never know his intention.

            A good number of modern writers prefer a succession of short, pithy sentences. They think it gives impetus to their remarks. Most of. Us readers. However. Find it. Irritating.

  33. 394953+ up ticks,

    The majority tactical voters have hit the jackpot this time in electing a political top ranker cum nation destroyer.

    And so it continues, 60.000 indigenous take a step back in ALL the infrastructure departments.
    Surely this odious issue, ( importing & supplying criminality to the UK) must be brought to a head
    via patriotic people power alone, mounting a people power deterrent, seagoing Islands protection patrol, in the English Channel.

    Dt,

    Starmer poised to grant more than 60,000 people asylum after scrapping Rwanda scheme
    Charity forecast comes as Home Office reviews reopening hotels to refugees because of spike in Channel crossings

  35. Didn't sleep until 6:30 , hence late on parade.Good morrow one and all, especially Geoff and thanks for his wonderful work on this site

        1. A friend of mine introduced his 16 year old sister: "This is Virginia – virgin for short but not for long!"

          1. What else might I do? Everybody is miles away ad has familial duties. Just because I’m not well, I don’t expect anybody to come running!

          2. Scientists removed the shell of a snail to see if it would go faster but it made it sluggish

          3. And who made the mixture up by adding some puppy dogs' tails and ending up with Peter Mandelson – a man in name only?

    2. That is a tiny snail, and how can such a tiny thing have slither strength and determination to climb a wall ?

      Why do they want to climb walls and windows and doors? What is their end goal?

    3. Nay, pet. Only yesterday I removed a dozen-or-so microscopic snails, just 3mm long, from my outside house wall.

          1. Well I’m very impressed! Thanks for your efforts!😘 And I certainly didn’t think you’d be fibbing, pet!

      1. 394953+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,

        You got it in one, just enough,seemingly not with rebuilding strength in mind, on the menu.

    2. Vegan meat substitutes – chemical -packed rubbish. Perhaps they want to kill the patients off.

      1. Human beings are omnivores. A vegetarian diet is bad. A while ago a friend had a tooth out and in the process ended up with a hairline fracture in her jaw. Would not heal, went on for months. Then a bright dentist asked her if she was a vegetarian. The answer being yes he told her to eat chicken, result, fracture cured. She was missing an essential vitamin/chemical that was needed for bones to heal that she could not get from eating nothing but cow food.

    3. If I ever need a future stay in hospital I shall simply refuse to eat any swill they give me.
      I shall insist that I only be given one meal a day of meat, fish, cheese or eggs.

    4. Making all hospital food vegan neatly side steps the Halal issue. Which is probably the real reason.

  38. Morning all

    Fine dry morning, garden very soggy, and several roads closed because of mud pouring off the recently harvested fields , the maize crop is taking forever to bring in , acres of fields have been sacrificed to growing maize .. to be turned into fuel !

    The tractors and trailers are having a difficult time .

    Having said that, the local shooting parties are doing their thing , lots of wet pheasants and dogs.

    Son no 1 on route to the Isle of Wight to visit our son no2 .. I hope they have a good day together , 2 middle aged men .. hope they are kind to each other , no quarrels etc.

    1. Did they get on well as young boys? I can't say mine did. These days they see each other here at Christmas and that's about it.

      1. Morning J,

        Sibling rivalry , 4 year gap between them .. Mike, the younger one on the IOW.. is so like his father , so son no 1 finds it difficult to deal with a tongue lashing !

        1. My elder brother (3 years and 3 days) we got on very well. I was distraught when he died of cancer in 2019.

      2. Believe it or not VVOF has an older brother, 4 years 4 months to be exact. Growing up because of the age difference we went to school at different times, as he left I arrived. Different friends because of the age gap, so consequently we lived our lives completely detached from each other.
        Funny thing is, as we both got older the age gap is of no consequence and we see more of each other in a month than we saw in 5 years when we were younger. Holidays together, season ticket holders at the Rugby club, etc.

        2. My brother is 10.5 years older than I am. He was a stranger when I was growing up (and still is).

    2. Obviously slow harvesting of the maize crop is restricting the amount of power available to drive the pumps that are being used to empty the potholes that are filling up with water running off the fields

  39. Prince of Wales makes republican Jacinda Ardern a Dame
    New Zealand’s former prime minister ‘incredibly honoured and very humbled’ to receive accolade

    Who can say that genetics are not a key factor in what we become. The Idiot King's genes are all over this.

    1. The Prince of Wales ?

      The goofy chap who has promised homes for all the homeless, the chap who has inherited £trillions and has so many homes to choose from ?

      1. William just did the ceremonial bit – but he's already taken the Horse-face on as one of his acolytes.

    1. Why the economy is declining is obvious: the crippling cost of energy and fuel, which affects food. The diversity classes are ok as they don't work, but the white middle who do are stuffed. As they also buy everything they're the ones who create real jobs.

      The problem's obvious. I'm dim and I understand it.

      1. I too understand it, Wibbles. I means my pension will be cut and most of my benefits will be cut or removed. RAFA will put the rents up at Dowding House (26 Flats) which we cannot afford. Prospects of homelessness loom. Gawd help us!

        1. The RAFA Annual Conference is on Saturday 19th October. If you wish, I shall try to raise your concerns about the rent rise. Are your concerns shared by other residents at Dowding House?

      2. I too understand it, Wibbles, as my pension will be cut. as will any and all my benefits will disappear, including Housing Allowance, just as RAFA are announcing a rent increase on Dowding House. (26 Fats). Gawd help us, we are all doomed!

      3. I too understand it, Wibbles, as my pension will be cut. as will any and all my benefits will disappear, including Housing Allowance, just as RAFA are announcing a rent increase on Dowding House. (26 Fats). Gawd help us, we are all doomed!

  41. SIR – Only a Briton of a certain type could have considered venturing to the ends of the earth with his name sewn on a label attached to his socks (“Lost boot of UK climber may solve mystery of first man up Everest”, report, October 12). Yet this act is now paying enormous historical dividends.

    Richard Allen
    Montorfano, Lombardy, Italy

    Hang on a second , didn't we all have Cash's name tapes sewn into every item of clothing we wore as children , and some of us when we became adult?

    1. From time to time I come across one of my old clothes with a name tape with

      R.C.Tracey (SH)

      written upon in a flowery italic font in bright red. The (SH) indicated that I was in School House.

      My mother used to spend some time sewing the labels into my clothes by hand and working her way through schools' clothes' lists.

      1. Now it's been recycled, but only a few years ago I was using a bath towel that dated back to the 1940s and it was still in good condition. Of course, it was Made in England and was probably kept as a spare until the late 1960s.

      2. Do you still have your gloves fasten together with a length of elasticated tape that was fed up from one glove, inside one sleeve of your overcoat, across the shoulders, and then down inside the other sleeve to the second glove to stop you from losing them?🤣

      3. Once our boys had left school, I thought my name-tape stitching days were finally over …… until my late Mother had to move into residential care. Then, a few years later, repeat activity for MiL.

      1. Perhaps it was actually a school trip to the ends of the earth.
        Instead of a daily roll call there was a sock count.

    3. Gibson's body was identified after the Mosquito he was flying crashed because his name was on his sock.

    1. Use the tram to push him out of the way. He does this because he knows that he is untouchable thanks to the politicians that have put the people of Europe into this predicament of forcing us to put up with hostiles.

      1. I don't think the driver should have that on his conscience, so the muslim should be dragged aside, kicked a few dozen times in the face and the tram continue on it's way.

  44. Morning all. Last night was odd. Here in West Sussex the temperatures throughout the night were the same as the daytime temperatures. So horrible night sweltering under a heavy duvet and sleep totally disrupted.

    A question for those more knowledgeable. I was watching a discussion last night on economics and I think it was said that there are two essentials for a healthy economy. They are self sufficiency in power and the other is self sufficiency in food. Is that correct? I ask because I know very little about economics and I can't find the programme to listen to again.

    1. Morning Johnathan

      Yep it was very warm here as well, I got up in the early hours and opened the large bedroom windows , we always sleep with the top window open , but it was a warm night wasn't it.

      2. We had to keep the bedroom window firmly shut to stop the plague of ladybirds invading. Most were the harlequin varieties. Blasted invaders.

        1. I only had one but it made so much noise for something so small. Eventually persuaded it to go outside. May have to do a Raid blitz on my studio room.

          1. I found one hiding in a corner gap in the ducting that carries the cable to the outside light. Raid for that one, then Him Indoors will be pestered until he squirts some sealant into the gap.

    2. I think these two factors make sense because they can both be weaponised during hostilities.
      e.g.
      1.cutting off power – blow up a gas pipe,
      2, cutting off food – halt food deliveries.

    3. Yep. The golden rules for a nation's population are; innovate, failing that be productive, failing that procreate, failing that socialise.. with healthy resources of man power & energy.
      And what do Labour strive for? An irresponsible obese illiterate labour force with mental heath ishoos dependent on foreign fossil based energy supplies and blame everything on inequality thanks to smart-ar s ed innovative entrepreneurs.

    4. Yep. The golden rules for a nation's population are; innovate, failing that be productive, failing that procreate, failing that socialise.. with healthy resources of man power & energy.
      And what do Labour strive for? An irresponsible obese illiterate labour force with mental heath ishoos dependent on foreign fossil based energy supplies and blame everything on inequality thanks to smart-ar s ed innovative entrepreneurs.

    5. Yep. The golden rules for a nation's population are; innovate, failing that be productive, failing that procreate, failing that socialise.. with healthy resources of man power & energy.
      And what do Labour strive for? An irresponsible obese illiterate labour force with mental heath ishoos dependent on foreign fossil based energy supplies and blame everything on inequality thanks to smart-ar s ed innovative entrepreneurs.

    7. At a technical level I don't know the quote, however the basics of life are food and fuel. Much like Maslow's pyramid of needs. I don't know if that means self sufficiency as even then some food will grow in some places and not others.

      The problem the UK has is the morons in government are determined to destroy the systems by which we have an abundance of both. As a conseequence, our economy is in the toilet.

      1. It’s not only that. Apparently the neglect on the part of government is so bad that the damage is visible. The programme I watched showed various cities in England 10 years ago compared to today. Even in that short time the result has been disastrous. The decay is not only obvious but drastic. Watching I came to the conclusion that our government are guilty of crimes against the people. I’m not exaggerating. Many of them should be in jail, both Labour and Conservative.

  45. Liam Payne 999 call: Distressing moment hotel worker requests 'urgent' help for 'guest who's off his head on drugs' before the star plunged to his death from third floor balcony.

    A cautionary tale for everyone who wastes money taking drugs and booze.

    Why do people feel sorry for these people , and weep buckets of tears.

    A hotel reception worker in Buenos Aires made a distressing 999 call requesting 'urgent' assistance before singer Liam Payne fell 45ft to his death from a balcony.

    Chilling details of the panicked call emerged today after the former One Direction star fell from the third floor into the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel in Argentina.

    Wolverhampton-born Payne, who was 31, had been acting erratically and was escorted back to his hotel room before plunging to his death yesterday afternoon.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13969699/liam-payne-999-call-buenos-aires-hotel-worker-help-death.html

    1. Indulging in drugs in Buenos Aires with people you don't know.. especially if a foreigner often ends in one direction.

    2. Indulging in drugs in Buenos Aires with people you don't know.. especially if a foreigner often ends in one direction.

    3. Stupid people with too much money must expect to come to this sort of end : it is sad but inevitable.

    5. Some halfwit on the GBN breakfast programme this morning compared One Direction to The Beatles. Can someone please name the song written by this Payne creature that has entered the mainstream repertoire? Easy with The Beatles. 3,000+ artists have recorded "Yesterday".

      As with the likes of Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, this guy is just another fourth rate talent reaping the rewards of a filthy lifestyle. In a sane world his death would be of interest only to his family and friends.

    6. I think he was Codsall rather than Wolverhampton but i suppose it’s close enough. Silly hostage. Sorry, sausage.

      Edit. I have looked it up and he was indeed born in New Cross and went to the school next to mine. Maybe I am getting him mixed up with “Radzy”.

    1. I still think a longbow club on the beach would be a good starting point. Just loft and loose en masse.

      I am past caring. The state wants these scum here, so we, the public have got to stop them – and the state, if it gets in the way.

  47. Russia ‘suspected of planting incendiary device’ on plane to the UK. 17 October 2024.

    Russia is suspected of placing an incendiary device on a plane to Britain in a sabotage attack that could have caused the aircraft to crash out of the sky.

    British counter-terrorism police are investigating after the parcel containing the device caught fire in a DHL warehouse in Birmingham on July 22.
    The Telegraph understands that there are suspicions that Moscow was behind the attack.

    Yes you can see how a DHL warehouse fits into the UK’s strategic defence. Not. They are just seizing serendipitously on every incident.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/16/russia-suspected-of-planting-bomb-on-plane-to-the-uk/

    1. Ah yes. Somehow I believe the Russian with all the sophisticated electronics they have at their disposal would do something that dumb. Of course they would.

    2. Most of the comments are depressingly stupid. How can anyone with two brain cells to rub together believe these playground stories. Please miss, Putin ate my homework.

  48. Here's one for you.. Futarchy was invented by economist Robin Hanson in 2000. The basic idea is to make decisions via markets.

    Since speculative markets excel at a task where democracies struggle, we might try to improve democracy by having it rely more on speculative markets.
    Robin Hanson

    So UK stakeholders.. (that you The Plebs).. could vote on option A or B.

    Option A —- convert The Needles Batteries and the Rocket Launching site are located on High Down, Isle of Wight into this..
    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1845467052443828579

    2. The present government, determined to destroy this country, has given Elon Musk the cold shoulder despite the fact that he has said he would like to invest in the UK. So option A is not in play. With option B. Not that either. So all round it is a loss unless we force these filthy oligarchs out of power and kick start our democracy again. We could invite Elon Musk for that, Minister of Communications.

  49. Back from t'market. My, it's warm out today. 18ºC. Phew. Was a tad overdressed. Aldi have some nice cheap rosé.

    1. Aldi came out ahead of all the other supermarkets in a Which? report about their Christmas products. From turkey to mince pies they scored higher in a taste test than any other.
      Their wines and cured meats regularly beat everyone else as well.

      And they are still the cheapest !

  50. BTL comment in The Spectator online which summarises Cur Ikea Kneeler and his gang:

    Can anyone really be surprised by FGK's abject performances at PMs Questions. This boring, unimaginative, ex-Human Rights Lawyer matches up to all the poorest PMs we've endured since Maggie. As much as I detested Tony Blair for all the damage he caused and is still causing the UK, he at least had a vision and charisma, with a team of strong minded members behind him. FGK has an idiot called Lammy as his Foreign Secretary who has already made himself a laughing stock to our closest allies, a Chancellor Rachel Reeves who has made herself totally unpopular even before her budget by attacking Pensioners, a fantasist called Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary who hasn't got a scoobie do how to stop the boats, a Deputy Angela Rayner who is basically as thick as two short planks and who God forbid ever gets the opportunity to stand in for him, and then the worst of all the Net Zero zealot Ed(less) Miliband who struggles to eat a bacon bap let alone be responsible for our energy, a man who believes that the UK can be the world leaders in carbon capture which even his biggest supporter Dale Vince thinks is mad. Ed(less) the man who boasts about creating thousands of new green jobs whilst putting the final nails in the coffins of our Refinery, Steel and Energy industries, Oil and Gas, and costing the country many more jobs than he'll ever create, which will wreck his Chancellor's ambitious plans to grow the economy. You truly couldn't make it up, a total farce but far from being funny.

    4. The thickness seems to permeate not just the MPs, but their advisers too. Those Paula Rego paintings may be Powerful Female Art, but the artist was an adulteress and she admitted being an abortionist.

      1. I could forgive those if she were a good artist! I like Caravaggio's paintings, I don't necessarily like his morals (or lack thereof).

  51. 394953+ up ticks,

    This I believe is the common denominator in regards to the importation of these peoples by those supporting & voting for mass uncontrolled / governmental controlled, morally illegal immigration
    ( the invasion) lab/lib/con coalition party.

    Conclusion,

    Sharia law / mindset, someone must die, better an innocent than a follower.

    MyLondon
    https://www.mylondon.news › News › Crime
    3 days ago — The father of Sara Sharif fled to Pakistan after allegedly killing the 10-year-old and called police to say “I legally punished herSara Sharif's father told police 'I legally punished her and …

  52. Got there in the end:
    Wordle 1,216 5/6

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

    1. Just a bit quicker
      Wordle 1,216 4/6

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

  53. Going Paperless
    I am almost 84 and thinking about what happens after my death (not a cheerful subject but necessary). My two sons, both MBAs, are my executors, and will need all sorts of figures from my various holdings, assets and expenditures so that they can fill in the multiple Inheritance Tax declaration forms that are demanded after death and before Probate can be granted.

    There are almost a third of a million files on my main computer, so I have extracted the important eight or ten of the financial ones and put them onto a couple of USB memory sticks, one each for the two sons. They include filled-in IHT forms, which have taken me many weeks to complete.

    I have just checked with one of the banks to see whether my executors, if supplied with my passwords, would be able to access my online bank accounts for figures after my death, but am told that these will be ‘frozen’ and taken off-line.

    So I am very glad that I have continued to keep the paper copies of all my bank statements (going back to 1968 in some cases) and declined to go paperless when regularly nudged.

    When required to prove your identity, most lists of valid documents include original paper copies of current bank statements, utility bills, etc. How do the paperless people cope, especially those elderly folk who may have neither a driving licence nor a passport?

    1. You end up printing them out. 'Paperless' is really just code for saving the bank the costs of printing.
      I have to print most of my bank statements out for my tax returns.

      Your bank's reply does raise the question though, how do one's heirs access the money if the accounts are taken offline? Some banks will free up a current account for necessary expenses when a person dies more easily than others.

      1. When Dad died we called the bank and asked to consolidate and what not his various accounts. They told us – after we had said he had died – that they had to speak to the account holder.

        I admit I lost my temper at that point.

        1. that they had to speak to the account holder.

          and preferably in person with one or both of parents.

          1. Selfies and Probate
            After my wife died, I approached our principal bank where we had our main joint account in order to remove her name from it. A nice young man on the telephone said “It’s easy, just go to our webpage and fill in the details”.

            The process took over half an hour and required me first to submit a scan of my passport plus front and side selfie photographs to match the Passport. Have you ever tried taking a sideways selfie? It took 5 attempts.

            Phew! Then it demanded the same Information, Passport and selfie photos for my late wife. After a couple of attempts to type ‘not available’ in the box, I took front and side photographs of the little oak casket in which I keep her ashes and submitted them instead.

            For several weeks, I kept getting text messages saying that they needed her selfie photographs to enable her removal from the account. I complained in writing and got an apology plus £150 for the upset and anguish caused.

            THE MESSAGE: banks and financial enterprises usually have a dedicated Bereavement department to which you should go FIRST. When I did that, the specially trained staff member fixed my wife’s removal from the account within five minutes.

          2. Please be reminded of estate of Leslie Philips..

            stipulating that his £4.4million house is to be sold two years and nine months after his death, which will be next July.

            The proceeds of the sale will be put into a trust divided between Phillips's four children from his first marriage and his third wife, Zara Carr, whom he married in 2013 when he was 89 and she was in her mid-50s.

            Carr previously threatened legal action fearing she might have to move out of their marital home after her husband's affairs were placed under administration by his solicitor under the terms of the Mental Capacity Act.

            So make sure it is clear your two Swedish nurses are not to remain in the family home.. especially Beautiful Båbs (i forget her name).. it is said she is a little too feely.

          3. Please be reminded of estate of Leslie Philips..

            stipulating that his £4.4million house is to be sold two years and nine months after his death, which will be next July.

            The proceeds of the sale will be put into a trust divided between Phillips's four children from his first marriage and his third wife, Zara Carr, whom he married in 2013 when he was 89 and she was in her mid-50s.

            Carr previously threatened legal action fearing she might have to move out of their marital home after her husband's affairs were placed under administration by his solicitor under the terms of the Mental Capacity Act.

            So make sure it is clear your two Swedish nurses are not to remain in the family home.. especially Beautiful Båbs (i forget her name).. it is said she is a little too feely.

          4. Please be reminded of estate of Leslie Philips..

            stipulating that his £4.4million house is to be sold two years and nine months after his death, which will be next July.

            The proceeds of the sale will be put into a trust divided between Phillips's four children from his first marriage and his third wife, Zara Carr, whom he married in 2013 when he was 89 and she was in her mid-50s.

            Carr previously threatened legal action fearing she might have to move out of their marital home after her husband's affairs were placed under administration by his solicitor under the terms of the Mental Capacity Act.

            So make sure it is clear your two Swedish nurses are not to remain in the family home.. especially Beautiful Båbs (i forget her name).. it is said she is a little too feely.

          5. When my late wife passed away I went to the bank and all that was done in 10 minutes plus a cup of tea. Probate was done within 10 days

    2. It's a problem.
      I'm trying to find Mother's accounts, shareholdings, savings… both in the UK and abroad, but it's almost impossible. I'd hope to send a Power of Attorney to these and take some kind of charge, but if I can't find them…
      And – what about her share certificates and the like? The bank I know about deny any documents in storage, as do her lawyers, so where are they? All the papers from her house were gone through, nothing there.
      Nightmare.
      And contact names, references, you name it…

    3. Whilst assisting MOH with FIL's estate we could not have done without uncovering the paper trails of his investments without seeing, face to face, personal bankers who had account access powers and bank contacts.

      I:ve ditched all my shares and investments requiring passwrds to make my estate easier to administer by my executors.
      My last big investment was an EV which is depreciating so fast that it won't have signiicant value in a probate assessment and it only works if you hold its proximity key close to it – better than a password!

    4. Despite multiple requests my mother refuses to do anything regarding her death. She's on end of life care – yet has shown no sign of doing so- and despite my sister and I asking for power of attorney and to talk through who she wanted to have what, who the executor was she refuses to do anything.

      She is convinced we will immediately move her out and sell the house from under her. Meanwhile we're left with no plan, no awareness of her wishes, nothing.

      1. Try and persuade her – if the Office of Public Guardian gets involved it will cost you dearly, around £3k

    5. would be able to access my online bank accounts after my death..

      It's not done automatically after your death, it's after submission to local General Register Office & usually notification by executors.

      1. Kowloonbhoy ( and others), I know all these things already after doing a couple of Probates.

        I was just trying to nudge Nottlers who haven't yet thought through this maze before their spouses or parents leave this world without notice.

        In writing to my own Executors about the process, I came across this table from an earlier Telegraph Money item. It lists the different amounts of money that various banks are willing to disgorge if asked, (e.g. to pay the Inheritance Tax bill), BEFORE a Grant of Probate has been applied for. Here it is:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d78d4461f7bb2efb3df67ee420dfead567dba302946f64e46b33d96fed2820e7.jpg
        I also checked with Kent Reliance (ex Building Society, now a bank) and they said they can release up to £35,000 before Probate under this scheme (provided the funds are there of course, for all these banks). Hope this helps prevent Nottlers from borrowing large sums to pay off any IHT bills, when they can get it from the banks before Probate.

        1. You can pay any amount of IHT from a single named bank account prior to probate. Just fill in the form on the Gov. website and send to the appropriate bank. Done this year.

          1. Glad to hear it, Kaypea. I'm interested – was the amount more or less than the thresholds in the table?
            But if the IHT is north of £100,000 you would probably need to approach more than one bank, unless the deceased depositor didn't care and had much more than the FSCS protected limit of £85,000 in one bank. Seriously, which bank did you "rob"? </sarc>

          2. NS&I allow investment up to £2m and it is all protected unlike banks. I had marshalled my father’s cash into their bonds before his demise and asked them to pay HMRC direct. It was done in a couple of weeks and it was quite a lot more than 100k. I only informed the banks of the death when I was ready to lose access to the accounts, then it all has to be done on paper. However, Barclays, NS&I and interactive investor paid out within a month or so of receiving my instructions. Probate granted in 14 days, HMRC were the only tardy ones, only getting a move on after I issued a formal complaint.

        2. Thank you.
          After yesterday's visit to Elderly Chum, I have a feeling that knowledge may come in handy.

  54. More Marxist nonsense

    Latin plant names could be racist, warns University of Michigan

    Botanical gardens should be careful not to erase ‘other forms of knowing’, says inclusivity document

    Tony Diver
    US Editor
    17 October 2024 10:30am BST
    Using Latin names for plants may be racist, the University of Michigan has warned, in guidance to prevent the influence of colonial “power structures” on visitors.

    A strategy document for the university’s botanical gardens and arboretum warns against using the traditional combination of an English name and Latin name on plaques next to its plants, amid concerns they could erase “other forms of knowing”.

    The University of Michigan, which has been criticised for its expansive diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies, has spent more than $250 million on inclusivity initiatives since 2016.

    As part of its plan to ensure “foundational change at every level”, the college has created a series of strategic plans for every aspect of its work, including the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.

    A “strategic plan” issued last year, first reported on Wednesday by The New York Times, warned that horticultural bosses were “deeply enmeshed within interlocking systems of domination” and used “linguistic and representational practices that are, generally, complicit in the continued erasure of non-dominant relationships to ‘nature’”.

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

    Richard Harris
    2 hrs ago
    What a crock of! Please give an example of where botany is “deeply intertwined with the histories of colonialism, racism, and imperialism”, together with a racist Latin name!

    1. The waycist bull only even begins to make sense if you accept the myth of racial equality and deny innate differences and inequalities. Latin was the product of a superior culture. The history of Britain begins with the Roman conquest. Because the ancient Brits had no written language and therefore left no documented history.

      1. There are definitely innate differences. After all, don't black people tend to dominate in running, football and other sports?

        1. They also tend to have better short term memory when it comes to reeling off long numbers and such. Evolutionary biology puts these things down to skills developed for survival. They're not so good at farming and cultivating because food drops off trees and trots along to order in Sub-Sarharan Africa. Instead of open discussion and sharing of evidence on these things, evolutionary biologists are being driven out of Western academia and their research dismissed out of hand.

          1. Evolutionary biology is a fascinating subject, but even more controversial and rejected by wokeists is evolutionary psychology.

      2. I wouldn't go quite that far. People who killed people in the circus for entertainment were not exactly civilized nor superior, in my opinion. It has always struck me as a blind spot in the history of the West to pretend that the Romans were anything to be emulated. They became civilized but that was thanks to Christianity, not because they were Latin speaking Romans.

        2. But but…they lived in stone buildings with heating and plumbing when we were still in thatched huts and produced fabulous marble carvings while we were painting ourselves with woad. Reference Monty Python.
          Yes, they were violent. Everyone in the ancient world was violent. Many in the modern world are no better.
          A good friend once exclaimed to me after watching a recent programme on televisiont that those Romans were no better than the ancient Britons 'cause they were violent! Of course they were. Did she need her telly to tell her that? As an Italian colleague of mine added, did she think crucifixion was nice?

          2. To my mind the belief that the Romans were civilized and the best there was is a consequence of people not knowing enough about world history. Buddhist civilizations were far in advance of the West during that time. Look up the Edicts of the Emperor Ashoka for proof of that. He forbade the killing of people and animals, built hospitals and clinics for animals. Made peace with his neighbours, practiced religious tolerance, educated both boys and girls, built way stations for travellers, the list goes on. The ideal ruler was a priest king, the Dharma Raja, of which, in the modern world we are only familiar with one, the Dalai Lama. But on many occasions throughout history, Buddhist kingdoms achieved the hights of Ashoka's ideal and, until their destruction by the West, all strived to achieve that goal. King Mongkut, the king of Thailand, roundly insulted by that dreadful film 'The King and I, died in poverty because he had used all his wealth in helping the poor. I am an Orthodox Christian, but in terms of how to be civilized, we have a great deal to learn from Buddhism and its history as a civilizing force. The ancient Christians recognized that, I think, by making the Buddha a saint in the Orthodox Church.

    4. Putting it another way: if the folk who'd uncovered all these scientific discoveries had been black, they could have chosen whatever name they want. But they were white, educated and thus spoke Latin and used these as the conventions for the taxonomic ranking.

      1. Prior to the colonial era the tribes of Sub-Saharan Africa had no written language of their own. They can transcribe their languages now using the Roman alphabet. Bluddy colonials.

  55. Somebody mentioned wine as a sleeping draught, however the slightest hint of alcohol brings on the gag-reflex. I am avoiding it!

    1. Red wine, even one small glass, results in limited but rather disturbed sleep for me, and a thumping headache the following morning. I can get away with a glass of white wine, any more keeps me awake.

      2. I've discovered that non-alcoholic red wine still upsets my digestion, which suggests that it might be the tannins and not the alcohol.

          2. Thanks for the link, Phizzee. I’m going to make a note of some of those for my next shopping trip. MH will have to go along with whatever I find. 🙂

        2. As the DT can't drink red grape juice or even eat red grapes without getting headaches, it almost certainly is the tannin.

  56. Latin plant names could be racist, warns University of Michigan

    Botanical gardens should be careful not to erase ‘other forms of knowing’, says inclusivity document

    1. No doubt a clique of vacuum-headed vegans have taken over, and severely diminished education in, most universities.

      1. 4ainbows might be acceptable to LGBT types but what about the QIA+ deviants? Why don't they have a colour in the rainbow?

    3. That is absurd. Thanks to Latin I can refer to 'Heliconia psittacorum' and anyone in the world knows what it is. In other words it is a universal language for plant classification. How is something universal used by all botanists anywhere in the world racist? I would not care if the language was Sanskrit, you have to use something. Would Sanskrit be raciest? The only reason we use Latin is because it was Westerners, primarily the English who first started to classify plants systematically. If it had been another civilization with a different language then, no doubt, we would use that one. This sort of crap is deeply pernicious. At root it is a hatred of learning and, indeed, a hatred of communication. The basic wish is that we all live in our own petty enclaves with no understanding or care for our fellow human beings or the world around us. Simply put, it is evil. By the way, it is artificial hybrids that are give a name, thus Heliconia psittacorum Andromeda is a hybrid named by someone speaking English. People of other cultures are free to give the hybrid name in their own language, so it isn't racist. There is no rule that says it must be English.

  58. Stop laughing at the back…

    ‘State of the art’ fire station burns down … because it had no fire alarms

    German firefighters forced to put out blaze at their own multi-million euro station in which 10 engines were lost

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/10/17/TELEMMGLPICT000398170843_17291671994710_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Germany’s fire department burning down
    James Rothwell
    17 October 2024 12:41pm BST

    A multi-million euro fire station has burned down in western Germany along with ten fire engines on the site because it didn’t have any fire alarms installed.

    The new fire station, in Stadtallendorf, was hailed by the town’s local newspaper as a “modern, state-of-the-art” building when it opened last year.

    But just months later, Stadtallendorf firefighters and others in the region found themselves in the embarrassing situation of trying to put out a blaze at their own premises.

    According to Oberhessische Presse, the local newspaper, the fire station had not been fitted with fire alarms when it was constructed.

    This was apparently due to the station being classified as an equipment storage location, which does not legally require the installation of fire alarms.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/10/17/TELEMMGLPICT000398079034_17291649336360_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6sl0PMcqPKYfYzP4XwNXrhJ0S2eWQBRIYrxnxnOiUNA.jpeg?imwidth=680
    The fire at Stadtallendorf station has caused estimated damages of 20 million euros Credit: Andreas Arnold/Avalon

    “It is a nightmare for a firefighter. No one wants to have to extinguish his own fire station,” Lars Schäfer, the district fire inspector, glumly told reporters after firefighters failed to bring the blaze under control.

    The fire has caused estimated damages of 20 million euros (£16 million) including the loss of ten fire engines. Some 170 firefighters, including local volunteers, were brought in to tackle the blaze, which involved flames that climbed as high as ten metres according to witnesses.

    It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, but local reports suggested that it could have been a malfunctioning battery charger.

    A spokesman for the local authorities said the centre had at least been fitted with a fire protection wall, which stopped the blaze from spreading to other buildings.

    According to The Guardian, Mr Schäfer said the station had to be built as quickly as possible for “local morale” which could explain the absence of a fire alarm on the site.

    The Hesse State Fire Brigade Association has called for an urgent review of the building regulations which allowed the station to be built without any fire alarms.

    Discussions are also being held on whether a replacement fire station should also have fire alarms installed, Mr Schäfer added.

    3. The ice-hotel (rebuilt every winter) in arctic Sweden has fire alarms on the walls.

      When asked, the tour guide smile and shrugged, "Well, we are in Sweden. I'll leave it at that."

  59. Well, that was fun. Since the plague, our GP outfit has had an online system for appointments etc. Worked quite well, and avoided the old phone delays. They have now a new, "improved" system.. It took me 20 minutes (including two "new password" and one OTP) to navigate my way through to the page where I was going to say what was wrong and why I needed to see a doctor. At that stage I was told that all their online slots had been filled for today and I should try again another day (or, preferably, FOAD).

    I then had a branewave. I telephoned. Ten minutes on hold – spoke to a woman who gave me the first available apptmt – 14 NOVEMBER. Defeated the e-system and conserved my blood pressure.

    Isn't progress just wunnerful?

    1. The thing is, Bilty, the more people that are able and willing to use the online system, the more staff can be put on telephone duty. Both systems have their pros and cons and all patients have different preferences. It's good you have the choice.

      1. Hmmm. The first online system was brilliant. Simple, straight-forward – very efficient. The new one – called “Anima” – is a nightmare.

        1. It is intentional, this way many people will give up and not bother trying to see a doctor.

      2. It used to be better in ‘the old days’. (Hate using that expression!). Turn up at the surgery and wait. Worked perfectly.

        1. They still use that system in Malta. The Doctor's office being situated above the Chemist.

          I suppose the system works better as there aren't so many people.

    2. Earliest urology appointment for an x ray alone is in new year. I asked just how many people in Soton had such problems and if you assume 8 appointments a day it's not 7000.

  60. Up at 0500h today to get train to Brum for a conference.
    Just about to start the pm session; early finish I hope.

    2. Crikey, I remember those. Traipsing across London for early seminars and breakfast 'networking' sessions.

  61. You can rely on England's cricketers to let you down. Yesterday's evenings giveaways have been followed by two more today. It'll be hats off to them if they win from here.

    Here's one Pakistani commentator: "Bazball has been such a blessing for England. Once you slow down their scoring rate, they remind you a lot of the England of old."

    3. I use lard. In Lockdown you couldn’t get it, but fortunately my butcher had a whole load in his freezer. He had under-the-counter eggs, too. I like to make my pastry with it, and feed the results to vegetarians. I’m mean like that.

      1. Pork lard and dripping; beef tallow; lamb and beef suet; duck and goose fat, chicken fat; butter and ghee are all the fats I ever need and use.

        1. Made the mix for my suet pudding this morning. Previously cooked off the shin beef and mushrooms. Used Hendersons, marmite, beef stock and fruity brown sauce in the mix.
          Then realised it is going to take 2 and a half hours to steam the damned thing.
          So that is for tomorrow.
          I had bacon and eggs instead. Bacon from Bennetts butchers in leeds.
          Excellent bacon. No nasty milky gloop and no shrinkage except for the fat coming out. Which of course i did a fried slice. Waste not want not…

          1. “Then realised it is going to take 2 and a half hours to steam the damned thing.”

            What are you, a dinosaur? The pressure cooker is your friend. Two-and-a-half hours!
            40 minutes in a pressure cooker; save on fuel and time … and much less steam.

          2. I do have a Pressure King Pro but i haven't done suet pudding in it yet. I will check out a recipe.

            As you know the meat and sauce will improve with the wait.

          3. I roasted two pork chops — and their separated crackling — in the air-fryer today. 240ºC on ‘grill’ for just 10 minutes. I fried a thinly-sliced small yellow onion in lard in a frying pan, then added twelve frozen cubes of home-made beef bone broth, and reduced it down to nearly a demi glace. I painted the pork chops with a bit of Colman’s English then poured the onion demi glace over them. Utterly delicious.

  63. Took the dogs down to the water front. tethered Mongo to the bench and walked Lucy down to the water so she could play in safety.

    Mongo decides this is a great wheeze so pulls the bench and the little old lady sat on it along with him down to see us.

    2. You just need to look at the Daily Mail to find that he/ she / they was important in some sectors of the entertainment business. it must be a really slow news day in the UK.

      only one article in most mainstream Canadian press, they have political shenanigans to focus on.

        1. Well apart from pissing off the Indian Government that is.

          Trudeau played a politically astute but disgusting move yesterday. He was appearing before an Inquiry into Foreign election interference and his testimony was no more than a full blown attack on the Conservative leader. I know the names of conservative parliamentarians who have been implicated in foreign interference – but it is a secret so I will not tell you who they are!

          Needless to say the tame press have all swiveled away from Liberal demands for Trudeaus resignation and Indian misdeeds onto preaching how corrupt the conservatives are.

          1. I rather like your Conservative leader, can’t spell his name though. Really, the French language is not conducive to spelling. Will he be the next PM or will it be Trudy again?

    3. They keep saying on the news that he has died. An unsurprising result from landing on your head after a thirty foot drop.

      2. TMZ published a picture of the dead body. Soon deleted. I wonder who on their editorial team thought that would be a good idea.

    5. No. I have no idea who he is. Didn't know who the wailing Banshee that got Herr Starmerfuhrer in trouble with tickets was either.

    6. No. Apparently Starmer has which strikes me as very peculiar but then Starmer is a ‘most peculiar man’.

      My wife tells me that the chap was about to testify in the P Diddy (another previously unknown to me) trial so was likely Killaried.

        2. Yes. There are many senior politicos who are shit scared at the prospect of being exposed as queers and paedophiles by potential P Diddy trial revelations.

          The scandal is likely more perilous to them than the contents of Epstein’s little black book which President Trump has threatened to reveal.

      2. There are 100's of people coming forward with accusations against Diddy. He would need a battalion of hitmen.

      1. He reached terminal velocity.

        He made quite a splash.

        Which is more than i can say for his singing career.

  68. Macron: Europe is Over-Regulating and Under-Investing

    https://youtu.be/5uGIsMyIOjw

    It’s a rude awakening for French President Macron. He’s had to admit that the EU is “over-regulating and under-investing”. Coming round to the UK’s realisation 8 years later…

    Speaking to Bloomberg TV, the ‘Macaron’ said:

    “We are over-regulating and under-investing. So just if in the 2 to 3 years to come, if we follow our classical agenda, we will be out of the market, I have no doubt…I think the simplification agenda and the let’s say pause in terms of regulation, but even deregulation in some issues, it’s absolutely critical.”

    Not the best advertisement for the Bloc coming from the EU’s Champion-in-Chief. Meanwhile, the UK – now free from the shackles of the EU’s red tape – is the top destination for investment in financial services and has the highest GDP growth in 2024 than any other European country in the G7. Condoléances, Monsieur President…

  69. ‘Comeback is on’: Ainslie bullish as GB challenge for America’s Cup comes to life
    Close quarters action during race six

    Ben Ainslie’s Ineos Britannia won the start to races five and six, and did not relinquish their advantage
    Key moments
    16 October 2024 • 3:09pm
    Great Britain 2-4 New Zealand
    Two from two today for Ineos Britannia!
    Brits lead at halfway stage
    Ineos Britannia in control but much tighter race
    Great Britain 1-4 New Zealand
    Ineos Britannia get a win on the board
    Huge GBR lead after first leg
    NZL falls off foils in start sequence
    Coming up
    NZL 4-0 GBR, races five and six scheduled from 13:10 BST

    There was a familiar glint in Ben Ainslie’s eye as he faced the media after sailing on Wednesday. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. This was why he got so angry the other day, building himself up into a frenzy at a perceived slight from a Kiwi commentator. This was why he lashed out at the race umpires for another call which went against his team. Ainslie needed something – anything – to swing the momentum his way in this America’s Cup match. Now it has. “The comeback is on,” he declared after Ineos Britannia won both races on day four to move from 4-0 to 4-2 down in the first-to-seven series. He may well be right.

  70. OT – anyone else have an infestation of ladybirds? Never seen anything like it. Opened the door into the garden and it was like being rained on!

    1. This happens occasionally does it not Bill? I once saw a mouse plague in Australia. Quite staggering.

    2. No, haven’t so far. Are they the Harlequin ladybirds? They’re apparently Asian and I think they possibly outbreed our native ladybirds. We did have quite a few that just seemed to appear inside the house three or four years ago but thankfully no more.

      1. We did, yesterday afternoon, so we (I) got rid and kept the bedroom window shut all night. Fewer around today. It was mostly the harlequin ladybirds here. I'm sure I read somewhere that the little blighters devour our native ladybirds.

    4. Some years ago, we visited Cromer with the family.
      It was really spooky. There were probably billions of them
      You walked through clouds of ladybirds.
      They were heaped up dying in the gutters. Every wall and fence was topped with their corpses.
      They crunched as you walked along pavement or the cliff tops.
      I think this is a phenomenon that occurs around this time of year every decade or so, but nobody seems to know why.

      1. When ladybirds are crushed, there is an awful stink.
        We've lived here for over 30 years, but I can't remember this plague happening previously. I'm hoping it won't last much longer.

    5. Last time I saw a plague of ladybirds was 1976…this year was a lot cooler…but perhaps both years had a cool spring?

  71. Britain’s security ‘at risk’ following Armed Forces helicopter training crisis. 17 October 2024.

    The Telegraph understands that a tranche of new trainee pilots across the three forces are unable to learn how to fly helicopters because the aircraft remain unavailable.

    RAF Shawbury – which provides the flying training school for all helicopter crew from the Air Force, Navy and Army – has stopped a significant number of flying lessons because of a lack of engineers to maintain the aircraft.

    The shortage of technically skilled people is unsurprising. They are bypassed in favour of oxcart drivers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/17/britain-security-armed-forces-helicopter-training-crisis/

    1. BTL

      Cymon Barton Jones
      2 hrs ago
      Surely in amongst the doctors and architects flooding across the channel in rubber boats, there has to be aircraft engineers..

      Steven McFarland
      2 hrs ago
      The unrelenting flow of bad news stories about the armed forces is largely to blame for the crisis in recruitment. That, and the endless disparagement of white males, especially propagation of the myth that just as many females are able and willing to assume engineering roles. Addvto that the ceaseless influx of ethnics, above all muslims, and the growing threat they pose to civilisation, make even the least imaginative wonder what on earth is the point…

    4. What else did they expect after reducing the trade training of RAF engineers and outsourcing maintenance to civilians
      Everything they touch they
      k
      c
      u
      f

    5. What else did they expect after reducing the trade training of RAF engineers and outsourcing maintenance to civilians
      Everything they touch they
      k
      c
      u
      f

    1. Beremy Jowen, BBC Hamas reporter supporter, will not be a happy bunny. Another murder of a freedom fighter by the genocidal Israelis.

    2. Beremy Jowen, BBC Hamas reporter supporter, will not be a happy bunny. Another murder of a freedom fighter by the genocidal Israelis.

  73. ‘Comeback is on’: Ainslie bullish as GB challenge for America’s Cup comes to life
    Close quarters action during race six

    Key moments 16 October 2024 • 3:09pm Great Britain 2-4 New Zealand
    Two from two today for Ineos Britannia!
    Brits lead at halfway stage
    Ineos Britannia in control but much tighter race
    Great Britain 1-4 New Zealand
    Ineos Britannia get a win on the board
    Huge GBR lead after first leg
    NZL falls off foils in start sequence
    Coming up
    NZL 4-0 GBR, races five and six scheduled from 13:10 BST

    There was a familiar glint in Ben Ainslie’s eye as he faced the media after sailing on Wednesday. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. This was why he got so angry the other day, building himself up into a frenzy at a perceived slight from a Kiwi commentator. This was why he lashed out at the race umpires for another call which went against his team. Ainslie needed something – anything – to swing the momentum his way in this America’s Cup match. Now it has. “The comeback is on,” he declared after Ineos Britannia won both races on day four to move from 4-0 to 4-2 down in the first-to-seven series. He may well be right.

  74. Afternoon all. Not raining – yippee. Sunshine – double yippee.

    Don’t know if it’s been mentioned earlier but it strikes me that mentioning the death of a pop star is not a matter for a Prime Minister to be bringing up in Parliament. Am I being horrible? Although 2TFG Starmer is obviously a keen fan of Taylor Swift! Just seems out of place.

    1. I'm not even sure the pop star was one of the original band. I seem to recall older son & gf ribbing 16 year old younger son about his (glorious, wavy) long hair, suggesting he'd fit in with One Direction at that time. Younger son is now in his mid-30s.

    3. I'm at a friend's place for an evening meal and 5 News is on and so full of this this incident that one could believe that someone really important had died. Personally, I hadn't heard of him, his loss will rightly be felt by family and friends but why the wall-to-wall coverage, including at the 'top' political level?

    4. Been a wonderful day here today (what a difference a day makes!). Blue skies, sunny and warm. The flood has dissipated, I'm pleased to say, but there are lots of drowned worms.

  75. EXCLUSIVE I helped jail the grooming gangs raping young girls in Rochdale – now things have got worse

    LISTEN: She's the detective who brought down the Rochdale child sex-abuse rings. Now she's telling her incredible true story on the Mail's hit podcast 'Everything I Know About Me with Maggie Oliver.' Follow wherever you get your podcasts

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13967853/former-detective-Maggie-Oliver-helped-jail-grooming-gangs-Rochdale.html

    1. She was, and still is, a very brave lady, especially considering how much her persistence adversely affected her life. Thank goodness she stuck her head above the parapet of the deliberate, damaging, p.c. behaviour of 'the authorities.'
      It beggars belief that the filthy, depraved cockroaches were given free legal aid to fight extradition to Pakistan. (or whichever other cesspit country they came from.)
      Every day, hundreds more of these unwanted muzrat vermin land are escorted, onto our south coast, posing serious danger to our girls and women, as well as major threats to national security.

      1. If you don't mind me saying though, why do these young girls allow themselves to be approached by men like that .. and don't any of them understand it is okay to say no?

        Do you remember that game and rhyme we used to play in the play ground when we were playing with our skipping ropes?

        “My mother said,
        I never should ..
        Play with the Gypsies
        In the wood; ƸӜƷ
        If I did, she would say,
        Naughty little girl to disobey.
        Your hair shan't curl,
        Your shoes shan't shine,
        You gypsy girl,
        You shan't be mine.
        And my father said
        If I did,
        He'd rap my head
        With the teapot lid."

        Talking to strangers or going off with strangers was the very worst thing any child could do and it was every parent’s worst fear!

        1. So many of these girls are from backgrounds lacking in affection, some being 'in care', that a young man plying them with attention, compliments, affection and gifts (all to lure them in, the grooming stage) seems irresistible.
          As for the skipping game, are we even allowed to use the 'gypsy' word now?
          Somehow, 'My mother said,
          I never should,
          Play with the travellers
          In the wood.

          1. You said it better.

            These girls would fall into the category of being vulnerable but the authorities were and still are afraid to act.

            I hope if those people have children of their own that their children grow up to despise them.

        2. A lot of the girls came from broken homes. Many in care homes. Of course their education suffered as well. So not the brightest young things.

          Being shown attention and given little presents they were easily groomed.

          1. Not only that, they'd have been brainwashed into thinking DIEversity was a "good" thing, so no alarm bells rang.

  76. Tory councillor’s wife jailed after tweet..

    Folding up teenage girls like deckchairs.. torture.. even killing?.. Nah, that's fine, tuck in.

      2. Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor, has been jailed for 31 months for inciting racial hatred on X on the day of the Southport attacks.

        1. IIRC, she said “if this is true, then …”
          Hard to escape the suspicion that 2TK is out to intimidate people into keeping quiet just in case.

          1. He thinks he's being strong and acting to keep the lid on dissent. In fact, the opposite is true; people see the double standards and think, "wait a minute …".

  77. Breaking news from the US (courtesy of the Babylon Bee):

    “After watching Kamala self-immolate on national television, Democrats have begun wondering if it's too late to just go back to Joe Biden.…

    At publishing time, Democrats had decided that Biden was indeed too senile, but checked to see if perhaps Jimmy Carter was interested in a second term.”

  78. Good afternoon all, today on Free Speech we have an article by Paul Sutton on what he thinks really happened in the Skripal Novichok affair – and it isn't anything like the version being put to the fake inquiry or what is being reported in the MSM.

    We need your support, so please do read it and leave a comment, we need them. freespeechbacklash.com

    Regards,
    Tom

  80. The Fall of Kamala Harris

    ‘Off the record, OK? I worked with Kamala and I hate her. She’s the worst person I ever worked for. To watch her fail up so much, I’m like, wow, really bad people get really good things in life.’

    That’s a quote from perhaps the only revealing conversation I had at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

    Back then, everyone else was still in brainwash mode: ‘Kamala is hot! She brings joy! The vibes are off the charts!’ She’d only been pretending to be a frightful politician for the past four years, apparently.

    It’s now mid-October, though, and for Democrats a joyful summer has given way to deep autumnal anxiety. Fall, to use the American word, has seen Kamala Harris falling.

    The betting markets – usually a more reliable indicator than the polls – now make Donald Trump the strong favourite to win on 5 November. Team Harris-Walz is widely reported to be panicking about its weak ‘internal numbers’ in swing states, especially among black men.

    Barack Obama duly scolded the brothers – his word, not mine – for being insufficiently excited about electing a mixed-race woman. Then the Harris campaign rolled out its ‘opportunity agenda’, which includes a racial equity scheme to grant forgivable $20,000 loans to black entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on the budding legal marijuana industry. Harris also sat down with Charlamagne tha God, a popular African-American radio host, to say that, as president, her ‘immediate plan’ would be to look at paying reparations to black Americans for the sin of slavery.

    Bribing ambivalent voters with cash rewards is never a bad idea, but Harris can’t seem to escape the growing sense among the electorate that she is, in fact, a very bad candidate – and possibly an even worse person.

    Last night, in what right-wing cynics called a ‘Hail Mary’ move, Harris faced Fox News’s Bret Baier for a 30-minute grilling. She actually gave one of her better interview performances. Yet she was still dreadful. She scolded Baier for not letting her speak, made the correct compassionate noises when shown footage of the grieving mother of an American murdered by illegal migrants, and looked suitably offended as Baier asked when she had first ‘noticed that Biden’s faculties appeared diminished’.

    A few minutes earlier, she had been happy to distance herself from her boss. ‘Let me be clear,’ she said. ‘My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. And, like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, professional experiences and fresh and new ideas. I… for example, am not someone who has spent the majority of my career in Washington, D.C.’

    There’s the nasty rub. Harris the Vice-President has to express loyalty to Biden, the man she usurped, otherwise she looks too treacherous. Yet Harris the presidential nominee has to signal that she will, as she puts it, ‘turn the page’ on the deeply unpopular administration of which she has been such a key part. This balancing act would be difficult for the most skilful and charismatic politician. For Harris, it’s all but impossible.

    There are whispers in Washington of bubbling feuds between retained members of the Biden-Harris campaign and the newer Harris-Walz team. Biden, for all his flaws and mental decline, still commands loyalty and affection among his advisers. Harris, by contrast, has a long record of burning through staff. Disgruntled underlings who’ve worked for her senate and vice-presidential offices have described the atmosphere as ‘abusive’ and a ‘sh*tshow’. ‘It’s all true – and in fact, people have not said enough,’ said my anonymous friend in Chicago.

    Likeability matters. Harris’s default argument, whenever challenged, is that she is ‘not Donald Trump’, who is, as she says, a hugely divisive figure. Yet her biggest problem is that, as election day approaches, people increasingly seem to regard her as an even more noxious figure.

    .

  82. A bifurcated Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,216 3/6
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
    🟨🟨⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done! Par today.

      Wordle 1,216 4/6

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

    2. Likewise – fairly happy (surprised?) as I did this one about 1.00am this morning after a few (alright, a lot of) beers… hic!

      Wordle 1,216 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Second line was my mistaken attempt to eliminate letters.

      Wordle 1,216 5/6

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

    4. A bit close here.

      Wordle 1,216 5/6

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

      1. #metoo.
        Wordle 1,216 5/6

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

  84. Tory councillor’s wife jailed for two and a half years for inciting racial hatred
    Lucy Connolly sentenced at Birmingham crown court after pleading guilty to offence on day of Southport attacks

    Max Stephens
    Related Topics
    Riots, Racism, Crime
    17 October 2024 3:22pm BST     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/17/tory-councillors-wife-lucy-connolly-jailed-riots/

    The wife of a Conservative Party councillor has been jailed for two and half years after stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers on the day of the Southport attacks.

    Lucy Connolly, the wife of Raymond Connolly, a West Northamptonshire Conservative councillor, was sentenced to 31 months imprisonment at Birmingham crown court on Thursday.

    In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Connolly wrote: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f—ing hotels full of the b——s for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government politicians with them.”

    Nick Bunyan
    just now
    TTK ex CPS head instigated this draconian sentence in fear of the lid coming off.

    If our politicians fear the lid coming off may I suggest we have some real and effective policies to deal with the problem of mass migration, both legal and illegal.

    Richard Cooper
    1 min ago
    That sentence makes me want to set fire to hotels and politicians. And lawyers, And judges. And Chief Constables. Is that the result 2TK intended?

    Show 10 new comments
    Skip to top ↑
    Someone is typing
    Comment by A J Erskine.

    AJ

    A J Erskine
    just now
    Egregious imbalance in sentencing priorities. When will elected politicians insist that justice reflect public opinion which will be outraged by this?

    Comment by Carole Waters.

    CW

    Carole Waters
    just now
    Many people say things in anger, in the recent past if you vented your spleen you didn't receive a 2 year jail sentence for saying hurty words, that was usually reserved for real criminals, but now we live in Starmer's narrow woke Marxist world where you must never exercise you right to freedom of speech or you will get your collar felt and be locked away for your heinous crime of daring to say something that those in authority deem inappropriate and still some believe we live in a democracy!

    Read more
    Comment by Colin Sams.

    CS

    Colin Sams
    just now
    My God, we have only been with this government 100 days and the nation is already a catastrophe. We have overfilled prisons, we are letting out thieves and sex offenders and we put this girl in prison for 2 years for expressing a wish. This whilst we have many demonstrations, supported by the police, shouting for the annihilation of Israel. I will most likely get censored for using the word God. Allah would be more appropriate

    Read more
    Comment by James Palmer.

    JP

    James Palmer
    just now
    This is an absolutely disgusting sentence. Her comments were vile but the prosecution sits entirely on the assumption that her comments caused specific violence… they clearly did not…

    She was a fool for pleading guilty.

    She should have plead not guilty and forced the prosecution to make a case.

    Comment by Les Jones.

    LJ

    Les Jones
    just now
    This is sheer stupidity. At a time when our prisons are overcrowded? She is no danger to the public – a fine, possibly, and some community work would have resolved this.

    Comment by Melanie Longden.

    ML

    Melanie Longden
    just now
    Absolutely unbelievable.

    Comment by jonathan bateman.

    jb

    jonathan bateman
    just now
    She made a mistake.

    Our neighbours cat often sheets in our garden so he gets the blame, even when it was the dog.

    Comment by David Compton.

    DC

    David Compton
    1 min ago
    She was in the wrong by any decent standards but surely 2 years + in jail is surely OTT. None of those pro-Palestine antisemites carrying placards calling for the genocide of Israelis ('from the river to the sea') has been hauled up in court (so far as I know). Two-tier policing, two-tier justice, two-tier Kier and two-tier Labour. Shocking.

    Comment by G Yates.

    GY

    G Yates
    1 min ago
    Outrageous…..keeping people in n prison should be last resort,not first knee jerk reaction. Why not community service and a fine.

    Comment by John Weighell.

    JW

    John Weighell
    1 min ago
    Yes someone made a foolish remark, one that clearly should not have been made.

    However I have a deep fear of where this is going to lead us, this overreaction, nay persecution of the views of the common man is leading to a deep seated resentment of left wing politicians, liberal do gooders and unfortunately the police.

    How soon before we see the common man, routinely standing aside when a policeman is in trouble because of this deep seated resentment.

    Read more
    Comment by Jay- Gil.

    JG

    Jay- Gil
    1 min ago
    She doesn’t deserve the sentence per se but she does deserve some punishment. Her comments were, to say the least very incendiary and encouraging violence.

    1 new reply
    show new reply
    Comment by Garfield Lawler.

    GL

    Garfield Lawler
    1 min ago
    Starmer has played this really well. He acted quickly and decisively just what a strong PM should do. He stopped the riots overnight.

    Comment by Lord Helpus.

    LH

    Lord Helpus
    1 min ago
    Brown ….. Bail

    White …. Jail

    Comment by Bill Bryson.

    BB

    Bill Bryson
    1 min ago
    Once again… putting her in jail? No. But some punishment is necessary, what she wrote was unnaceptable. Labour camps required.

    Comment by Nick Bunyan.

    NB

    Nick Bunyan
    1 min ago
    TTK ex CPS head instigated this draconian sentence in fear of the lid coming off.

    If our politicians fear the lid coming off may I suggest we have some real and effective policies to deal with the problem of mass migration, both legal and illegal.

    Banging people up of previous good character for an angry tweet won't cut the mustard.

    Read more
    Comment by Maxwell House.

    MH

    Maxwell House
    1 min ago
    Two tier justice is clearly a fact and not opinion.

    Comment by Gaye Mann.

    GM

    Gaye Mann
    1 min ago
    I didn't think it was possible to deepen my loathing of free-gear Kier. But I was wrong.

    Comment by Paul Pinkney.

    PP

    Paul Pinkney
    1 min ago
    This is not longer the country it used to be.

    Comment by Richard Cooper.

    RC

    Richard Cooper
    1 min ago
    That sentence makes me want to set fire to hotels and politicians. And lawyers, And judges. And Chief Constables. Is that the result 2TK intended?

    Comment by graham james.

    gj

    graham james
    1 min ago
    And we take yet another step further toward life in the old Soviet Union.

    Comment by Fallen Archangel.

    FA

    Fallen Archangel
    1 min ago
    Nonsense show trial – the CCP would be proud that one of their Marxist comrades has started a crackdown on free speech. If you hate this spiteful, weak little shell of a juvenile pop star obsessed lavender hypocrite – Believe me – You don't hate him enough.

    Comment by Helen Smith.

    HS

    Helen Smith
    2 min ago
    It's absolutely disgusting and I will never ever vote labour

    Comment by Heather Sharp.

    HS

    Heather Sharp
    2 min ago
    Whilst paedophiles who've downloaded thousands of Category A images of child sexual abuse (the worst kind) have been found guilty but are not incarcerated and walk free from court.

    1. “A Communist system can be recognized by the fact
      that it spares the criminals
      and criminalizes the political opponent.”
      ― Alexander Solzhenitsyn

      1. Been saying for some time now that this country is starting to remind me of the CCCP in 1968.

    2. I think, as far as I remember, her wish to inflict violence was qualified by the words "If this is true…" when commenting about an unconfirmed report.

      In any case, the sentence is a shame and a disgrace, considering the stuff I've seen and heard in the UK said by muslims!

        1. It was. This one, though. did say "for all I care", which I also think does show it was hyperbolic despair rather than incitement to anything. Bet it didn't inspire a single person to any action. Imprisoning her is simple spite, as is the emphasis on her husband's politics.

          What has happened to the Labour politician who incited a baying mob to cut the throats of the "far right", including explanatory hand gestures, by the way? Nothing in the news.

      2. She used a figure of speech to express her frustration with government as no-one is listening, or has any intention of listening, to the indigenous. For that she was made a scapegoat and received a spiteful sentence 'to punish and deter'.

        1. Exactly.
          Hyperbole engendered by the Government not only ignoring the legitimate concerns of ordinary people, but shouting them down as RACIST!!!!

  85. That's me for today. Nice market trip. Useful garden work – though tiring – removing all the outdoor tomatoes, dismantling the frames. Two hours and still not finished. It is all the bending and stretching that is the killer.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain.

      1. 394953+ up ticks,

        Evening MM,

        Good woman, I do agree with her all the way, but for farage he carries to much high suss baggage for my taste,many of us followed him for years, no longer.

        Imho the whole political content of parliament is mortally tainted with a thick coating of treachery.

    2. It’s far from clear why she is being handed this accolade

      Because Herr Doktor Schwab so required of the JWK.

        1. NZ are justifiably proud of their 3-Day eventing prowess. Mark Todd got a knighthood. Now they are giving a gong to the horse.

        2. NZ are justifiably proud of their 3-Day eventing prowess. Mark Todd got a knighthood. Now they are giving a gong to the horse.

    3. Famous Pantomime Dames – Here in the UK, we have a fun tradition of going to the theatre in the run up to Christmas and indulging in a good old fashioned pantomime.

      These theatrical shows have been around for decades, with actors entertaining people in Britain with their slapstick humour as early as the 17th Century. This old tradition is definitely here to stay and is a regular winter feature in theatres across the UK including at The Grand Blackpool.

      But what makes a pantomime special? Some people might tell you it’s the humorous songs and special-effects. Whilst others would say that it’s the element of audience participation. Where else can you get to shout at actors as loud as possible without being thrown out of the building?

      Whatever people say, there’s never any disagreement on one thing…a pantomime isn’t a proper pantomime without a famous dame.

      What’s a Pantomime Dame?
      A pantomime dame is a male actor who is dressed up to look like a woman. You’ll recognise these characters from their exaggerated features. Famous pantomime dames have huge over-the-top hairstyles, clownish makeup and brightly-coloured and often matronly, clothing. Everything about a pantomime dame is BIG.

      It isn’t just about clothing. A pantomime dame will also often perform in an exaggerated, melodramatic, manner. The role of the dame is to play a warm, matronly character or a wicked antagonist whose main purpose is to get the audience participating.

      All together now…”It’s behind you!”

      Jacinda , we can see you ..

  89. So , come 7pm, the Tories will be no better off than they were before .

    The Tories need someone who will dislodge Starmer.

    Nigel , get your ducks in a row!

      1. Does no one have a spare laser-guided cruise missile they are not currently using?

        Just asking for a friend an associate.

      2. Ahhh – BlackRockefeller and Bill 'Jeffrey Epstein' Gates (well, it made Melinda bugger off!) – What could possibly do wrong?

        All right officer, I'll come quietly (Not!)……..

      3. 394953+ up ticks,

        Evening TB,

        ” What part” I would say the final part, as these last 40 years it was sold off in piecemeal job lots by the alternating governance parties
        and their carpetbagging politico’s,
        fully supported via the polling stations.

        Currently the fan is laboring, overloaded with consenting voters shite.

      1. I remember during the IRA attacks on Downing street in the eighties the remarks made by Jim Prior a sensible farmer and member of Thatcher’s Cabinet.

        He said that he would continue to walk down Whitehall as usual because if the IRA wanted to get him they could do so at any time. He was damned if he was going to be intimidated by thugs.

  92. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    It’s shameful that an army veteran was convicted over a prayer for his dead son
    Andrew Tettenborn17 October 2024, 12:41pm
    Adam Smith-Connor was this week convicted of a heinous offence, slapped with a conditional discharge and a costs order for £9,000. The actual crime in question? The 51-year-old army veteran was praying silently, on his own, for the soul of a child which he had, now much to his regret, aborted many years earlier. The reason this affair reached Poole Magistrates’ Court was that he had been doing this near a Bournemouth abortion clinic, and that clinic was the subject of a buffer zone order.

    This episode should worry all of us, pro-life or pro-choice, if we believe in the idea of liberty. The by-law Smith-Connor was convicted under (not strictly a by-law, but it has a similar effect) effectively bans the expression of moral opinions that are entirely lawful and quite widely-held from within a sizeable chunk of suburban Bournemouth. But this conviction is particularly chilling for other reasons too.

    Smith-Connor now has a criminal record – not for doing something bad, but for thinking the wrong thoughts
    Aside from the conditional discharge and whoppingly high costs order, Smith-Connor now has a criminal record – not for doing something bad, but simply for thinking the wrong thoughts. The law he was convicted under makes illegal any ‘act of approval/disapproval or attempted act of approval/disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means’ – including, as it expressly says, by prayer. He had been seen to bow his head and clasp his hands together in solitary and silent contemplation. Snap!

    Coupled with his admission that he regretted the abortion, this was enough to convict him. It is sinister that such a conclusion could be reached by an English criminal court.

    If this lack of concern about liberty and good conscience doesn’t worry the courts, even more depressing is that it seems to worry politicians even less. Legislation comes into effect later this month, passed in the dying days of the Tory government with the support of some shamefully unconservative Tory MPs, that will extend the effect of this local law country-wide. The Tories at least saw the potential for abuse; they introduced guidance saying that, whatever the strict position in law, it should not be used against those guilty of no more than private prayer.

    Most popular
    Limor Simhony Philpott
    Yahya Sinwar’s killing is an immense victory for Israel

    Not so Labour. A couple of months ago, the Home Office essentially said it planned to trash the guidance. It is pretty clear that the new Home Office team under Yvette Cooper saw exceptions for such things as private silent prayer as nothing more than a tiresome loophole to be plugged. The protection of an individual’s right to think his own thoughts and commune privately with his own God in a public place? Who cares. ‘No one,’ tweeted Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy, ‘has a “right” to pray in front of an abortion clinic – you can pray for women at home if you wish.’ Thanks a bunch, Stella. I’ll remember that.

    The likely practical implications of this decision, especially when the national ban on protest goes live later this month, are just as bad. Smith-Connor’s case was in some ways unusual, since he actually admitted to the police officers that approached him that he was praying for his dead son. But what if it had been different? Many people, thus approached by officialdom in a public place and interrogated as to their private thoughts, would have an entirely creditable Englishman’s instinct to tell the official concerned in no uncertain terms to mind his own business. Would this protect them?

    Possibly. One fears not, though. The lack of an admission may make it more difficult to get a conviction, but might still allow an officer to arrest that person. What’s more, under many of the local provisions like that in Bournemouth, anyone suspected of breaking any part of them, whether guilty or not, can be peremptorily ordered to leave the area, and commits a crime if he refuses. The fear is that the areas round abortion clinics will now become a kind of progressive cordon sanitaire. Anyone who does not fit in, or who is thought to hold doubtful views by the clinic staff, might be called on to answer impertinent questions and justify their presence there; in theory, they might be told that, if they refuse, they have no choice but to leave and not come back.

    So much then for the right of the Englishman to go about his business and, provided he keeps on the right side of the law, to refuse to be bossed around. But if you still think such things matter, then for this government of technocrats you’re probably on the wrong side of history anyway.

    1. Bet they wouldn't be nicked if they got down and banged their head with their backsides in the air, regardless of whether they were near an abortion clinic or not.

  93. Early again but I cannot abide the constant Buffering on GBNews, so, another day is done so, goodnight, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen fruh. Schlaf gut. Ich hoffe.

    1. I tried watching this channel and gave up after a coupla days as it was 75% advertising, repeatedly, their own programmes

  95. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    The slippery slope of assisted dying
    Melanie McDonagh17 October 2024, 5:00am
    Critics of the Assisted Dying Bill have been warning for a while that it would lead to a ‘slippery slope’. Their fears are looking increasingly legitimate.

    The bill, introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, had its first reading in the Commons yesterday. In the last few days, some of those with conditions that might not qualify under the proposed legislation are voicing their concern about not being included. Is there already a danger that the scope of the bill will be expanded to include them?

    The relationship between doctors and patients would change forever
    Sir Nicholas Mostyn, a retired judge, set up a feisty group of Parkinson’s sufferers who produce a podcast called, rather brilliantly, Movers and Shakers. Mostyn is up in arms because, he says, those with Parkinson’s might ‘be left on the beach’:

    ‘Parkies [the podcast’s term for people with Parkinson’s] will never get a terminal diagnosis, so this bill is no f***ing use to us at all. In Spain, Parkinson’s is one of the most common reasons for seeking assisted death. We are going to be left on the beach here. There is a cohort of people like us who it is not going to help and we are left with the existing, most unsatisfactory law.’

    It hasn’t taken long, has it, for the slippery slope to resemble a black run. Would anyone actually bet that within five years of an Assisted Dying Bill becoming law there wouldn’t be a compassionate extension to those with incurable suffering like Sir Nicholas? And another five years after that, for people who are not terminally ill, such as those with psychiatric disorders, also to be eligible, as they are in Belgium? And if any future law ends up allowing individuals to take, say, barbiturates, rather than having a nurse or doctor administer the dose, it probably would not take long for the provision to be challenged on the basis that it unfairly discriminates against those without the physical capacity to swallow the pills/capsules unaided.

    Most popular
    Rupert Harrison
    Rachel Reeves has backed herself into a corner on the Budget

    I don’t mean to pick on Sir Nicholas here. Movers and Shakers has done a fine job in putting Parkinson’s on the map when it comes to recognition of the condition. They’re a splendid group. But that doesn’t mean the Assisted Dying Bill should have a broader scope to include those who non-terminal conditions like Parkinson’s.

    My mother had Parkinson’s. And if you will forgive me for personalising the issue – always a dodgy device in an argument but here impossible to avoid – I think that there could be nothing more pernicious than presenting suicide as one of the suites of options available to sufferers. My mother had a side order of bouts of dementia as well, but the point about her is that she suffered intermittently from one of the lesser known aspects of the condition: depression. She didn’t move and shake much (many do, some don’t) but she did sometimes cry, and when you asked her why, she said despondently: ‘I don’t know’.

    As it happened, the depression didn’t last long. She was devastated at the loss of independence that the condition entailed – at the outset. The prospect of being helped to wash was simply horrifying to her; as for the likelihood of being helped to go to the loo; it was unthinkable. But that was before it happened. She was fortunate in that she had good care provision in Ireland. And by the time she had got used to her situation, she looked forward keenly to the visit of the lady whose job it was to help her have a shower. She became accustomed as well to using a commode, with help, very quickly.

    What didn’t come easily, however, was the idea of being a burden to me. I remember the time when she said: ‘You’d have so much more time and money if it weren’t for me’. True. I would have had. But I did everything I possibly could to pay for the private component of her care and to be with her as often as I could. Why? Because she was my mother. Had assisted dying been an option, and if I had been unscrupulous, it would have taken no effort whatever to push her to the point of doing something she thought wrong for my sake.

    You say that families don’t do these things? I say they do. My husband works in the NHS and does care plans for the elderly. He has encountered a few individuals who do not want their children to know when the time comes for them to die because they’re scared of them. Old people are often vulnerable. And if assisted dying becomes the norm, it would be so very easy to push some of them over the edge.

    At a debate last night on assisted dying at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, one of the first questions was: how on earth could the profession be expected to provide evidence of mental capacity when the NHS, and mental health services generally, are so drastically overstretched? The supervision of a judge? Have you registered the backlog in the criminal justice system already? Where are these judges to come from? We hardly have enough for serious cases as it is. What sounds like robust legislative protection on closer inspection just isn’t.

    But the real objection to assisted dying is simply the principle of the thing. It will introduce into our relations with each other a new element, which is that dying before our time would be an option where once it wasn’t. Altruistic dying, meritorious suicide for the sake of the grandchildren (school-fee provision), guilt dying, for fear of being a burden, simple lassitude and depression dying; these are all things that were once unthinkable and might now be a possibility. The relationship between doctors and patients would change forever, just as it has done in the Netherlands since the introduction of assisted dying.

    This bill is for the strong minded, not for the poor souls in rubbish care homes or with relations who aren’t supportive. It’s for the likes of Esther Rantzen, who has as much moral and financial support as it’s possible to have, and seems anxious to extend her personal autonomy that bit further. In fact, this is exactly why I feared the advent of a Labour government – not the tax element of their programme, but its MPs’ tendency to adopt any cause generally perceived as being progressive.

    Assisted dying is fine for the strong, for the Nicholas Mostyns, for the articulate, those who won’t be browbeaten by their family, those who have choice in every other aspect of their lives. But what about those who don’t have these things?

    Instead of focusing on helping people die, we should be extending the best possible palliative care – an area in which Britain is an actual world leader – evenly across the country, not in a bizarre patchwork of provision. We should, in short, be ensuring that people have choices – in how they’re enabled to live, in their end of life care – not in whether to die.

    1. I can only imagine lying in bed and hearing the heavy footsteps ascending the stairs.
      Or the rattle of the curtains around your hospital bed.

  96. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    JK Rowling deserves a peerage
    Debbie Hayton17 October 2024, 1:14pm
    Kemi Badenoch has suggested that JK Rowling deserves a seat in the House of Lords. The Tory leadership contender said in an interview with Talk TV: ‘I don’t know whether she would take it but I certainly would give her a peerage’.

    Rowling certainly deserves credit for her tireless stand against the transgender madness. For more than four years, she has spoken out courageously, sometimes in the face of dreadful abuse, to say things that we once all knew to be true: that being a woman is far more than an assertion of a supposedly female gender identity. The Harry Potter author has been a key voice in a debate that has moved so far from the dark days of 2017.

    Back then, politics was very different. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn might not have agreed on much, but they both appeared to be in thrall to gender identity ideology. Corbyn urged May to allow anyone to self-identify their gender; she subsequently pledged to do just that. Campaigners against such folly were on the back foot. Common sense and hard truths were harder to sell than the fantasy that we could all choose our sex. However, when Rowling spoke up in 2020 to criticise women being referred to as ‘people who menstruate’, the message got out to the wider public. More politicians saw reason, and self-ID was shelved, at least in the UK. Thank you, JKR!

    In the interview, Badenoch also cited Hilary Cass, another courageous woman who has already been ennobled. ‘I managed to get Dr Hilary Cass a peerage because I knew that she was someone who would have a strong voice in parliament,’ said Badenoch. Cass led the review of gender identity services for children and young people that ultimately resulted in the closure of GIDS – the children’s clinic run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. Safeguards were also subsequently put on the supply of puberty blockers to British children distressed about their sex.

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    Badenoch clearly believes that being so open with her views will help her defeat Robert Jenrick in the ballot of Tory party members. She is probably right. Most people must know that sex is real, and that it was a terrible idea to even consider treating teenage angst with drugs. But before Rowling spoke up, Cass did her work, and Badenoch took her position, rather few were willing to admit it.

    Badenoch is, of course, no longer in government and so the power of making decisions now lies with the party opposite. Wes Streeting, the Labour health secretary, made a good start when he upheld the ban on puberty blockers that was put in place as an emergency measure in the final days of the Conservative government.

    But there is much more work still to do. Gender identity ideology – the idea that we all have a gender identity that might trump biological sex – has run rampant throughout our institutions. GIDS might have closed, but Streeting needs to keep a very close eye on what might replace it.

    For now, though, one thing is clear: Badenoch is right. Rowling probably deserves a peerage. But that gong will count for little if common sense doesn’t prevail in the gender debate.

  97. I'm going to have to stay up late tonight, Melbourne 10 hours ahead and my good old mate Bruce's funeral will be available for those with access. At least I'll get a chance to see the old bugger off, with one of his favourites, a large wee Dram.

  98. Quote of the day

    ‘Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children.’

    – Robert Jenrick supporter Sir Christopher Chope speaks to ITV.

    Prepare for incoming, you daft old idiot Chope

    1. ”Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children” – well, it makes a change from MPs and BBC celebrities being preoccupied with someone else’s children.

    2. He was wrong, Kemi's husband has been helping with child care for many years from what I've read.She ran rings round Jenrick.

          1. KJ, I have that inner chime for the genuine (like Lovejoy had for antiques, only for people) . With Kemi it has always rung loud and clear. Despite the Slithy Gove.

    3. Thanks, Grizzly. We all know it's not going to happen. If Badenoch was elected leader, I think it more likely.

  101. Evening, all. Just to show nothing changes, here is an extract from Pepys' diary, 1667: "[John Evelyn] tells me that wise men do prepare to move abroad what they have, for that we must be ruined – our case being past relief, the kingdom in so much debt, and the King [Charles II] minding nothing but his lust …". Yesterday people mentioned a UKIP revival. Here is Nick's speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds7fdBF9r6I
    As for the headline – pressure will be applied there is no doubt. Look at the way the safeguards about abortion were eroded.

  102. From the Daily Mail
    'MAUREEN CALLAHAN: I'm starting to believe there's a media conspiracy to get Kamala elected! When WILL an interviewer ask the question that would finally expose her fraudulent campaign?'

    Callahan is starting to believe this now? Three weeks before the election. She never suspected this before?

    2. Have you just been watching/listening, Belle – she was excellent imo, much stronger than Jenrick. Audience liked her.

        1. Gb News 2hr interview with both plus q & a sessions. Jenrick was quite impressive but Kemi is a superstar.

        2. It was on GBNews channel 8pm-9pm, presented by Chopper, in front of a studio audience…first up, Jenrick – then Badenoch. Chopper asked questions, then invited more from the audience – I’d say the majority supported Badenoch. You’ll doubtless catch it online somewhere, mola – GBNews channel possibly.

  104. All those issues Kemi and Jenrick are going to fix, so they say, will be all done and dusted in five years time and irreversible.

  105. Online front page of the Telegraph has a live report about messrs. Jenrick & Badenoch, approximately 750 comments BTL at 22:00.
    Next to it is a news report about Lucy Connolly, sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for a comment online.
    5,600 BTL, though not all in support of her.

    1. When does an opinion become hate speech. When it is a view expressed against unrestrained immigration.

  106. Online front page of the Telegraph has a live report about messrs. Jenrick & Badenoch, approximately 750 comments BTL at 22:00.
    Next to it is a news report about Lucy Connolly, sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for a comment online.
    5,600 BTL, though not all in support of her.

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