Thursday 19 December: Traditional conservatives should be wary of donations from billionaires

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

663 thoughts on “Thursday 19 December: Traditional conservatives should be wary of donations from billionaires”

    1. Thursday already. Here in Los Angeles where my wife and I are spending Christmas it’s still Wednesday. Only 5:30 just getting dark.

  2. Shocking events in the US where despite saying he would not allow an Eve of Christmas holiday omnibus bill the shifty bastard has penned 1500 pages of just that. Talk about rats and a sinking ship. Mike Johnson who appeared from nowhere but from deep in the swamp has decided to put the bill to Congress just before their Christmas break. Message: Oass this Bill
    Or miss Christmas with your families. As though the fuckers have not had enough time off in recesses over the past year.

    I do hope that Elon Musk, Kash Patel and President Trump will make clear to Johnson and the other RINO twerps that they will receive the vengeance of their respective electorates and be primaried at the soonest.

    1. From Coffees House,

      Kemi Badenoch got tough with Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. Not tough enough, but at least she led on a decent issue: old folks in distress. She mentioned the Waspi women and then she changed tack, to wrong foot Sir Kier, and threw him a short but specific question. How many new applications for pension credit have been received since the winter fuel allowance was cut in the budget?
      Kemi was better today but she lacks bite
      Sir Keir didn’t know. So he evoked the black hole to get him out of trouble. ‘We had to put the finances back in order,’ he cried. Kemi gave Sir Keir the information he didn’t have. Pension credit is owed to 850,000 citizens who haven’t claimed it.
      ‘If they sign up that will cost £2.3 billion,’ she said, ‘wiping out the savings [the chancellor] claimed she would make.’
      Kemi warned that ‘some may even die as a result of this cruel policy.’ That’s more like it. Dump a corpse on your enemy’s desk. Sir Keir probably hates these tactics, but the body count is likely to rise. Kemi said that Age UK believes the government’s tax-raid ‘will jeopardise the health of millions.’ And Marie Curie faces a rise in costs of £3 million a year to cover National Insurance hikes. ‘This is a cancer charity with no choice but to reduce services,’ she said.
      Then she came back to the Waspi women. The issue here is far knottier. When the Tories were in office, Labour accused them of ‘stealing pensions’ when they failed to offer compensation
      ‘Now they admit we were right all along,’ said Kemi.

      Freddy Gray
      The real reason people don’t like Elon Musk
      The Waspi movement (Women Against State Pension Inequality) appears to support an equal retirement age. But the Waspi women seem to have been taken by surprise when they reached retirement age and discovered that a huge social upheaval had been underway since they were children. It’s not really credible.
      On the upside, their case is morally compelling. Many are poor, elderly and in failing health, and they can pose as victims of an arrogant and heartless state. So Sir Keir needs an excuse. And he had one ready-made. He said that Britain’s heroic postmen had solved the problem by delivering zillions of letters alerting women to the changes in their retirement age. (Yes, the Royal Mail under the Tories turns out to have been an excellent service.)
      Starmer backed this up with a useful but questionable statistic. ‘Research shows that 90 per cent knew about it.’ He quoted this several times when backbenchers raised the Waspi issue.
      Kemi finished by listing Sir Keir’s failures. ‘He raised people’s hopes and then he smashed them.’ And she dared him to start ‘telling the truth’ as a new year’s resolution
      ‘I’ll do it now,’ he cried. ‘There was a £22 billion pound black hole in the finances.’ There it is. The nation is being ruled by a cosmic suction-cleaner that makes cash disappear.
      Kemi was better today but she lacks bite. Creamy delivery, saintly air. Too much of the head-girl listening with a tilted head. Not enough of the political visionary thirsting for power.
      Is she too nice for this job?

      Lloyd Evans
      WRITTEN BY

      Lloyd Evans
      Lloyd Evans is The Spectator’s sketch-writer and theatre criti

      1. As far as I am aware the "government" has resisted all calls for the mythical "Black Hole" to be actually quantified and detailed – as a result many, including me, wonder if it does actually exist or is a mere figment of Thieves twisted imagination, used as a convenient excuse?

        1. One of the first things that Starmer did after coming to power his publicity claimed

          was to visit Zelensky and give him £2.5 billion.

          Perhaps this is true, why would a politician lie?

          Perhaps this money is included in the £22 billion Black Hole?

    2. Thankfully, it was voted down. There are numerous accounts on X pointing out the darker parts of the bill, including amnesty from legal investigation for the usual suspects. If Musk hadn't bought Twitter, none of the negatives in the bill would have seen daylight until it was too late. Little wonder #TwoTierKeir and his #KeirmerRouge dislike him. X allows balanced comment, not a Leftwaffe trait.

  3. Morning! Waiting for my lad to arrive home from Cardiff. He’s about 2 miles awa, then i can go to bed. Almost time to get up.

  5. A mother’s sense. I’ve had a nervous feeling about the trip and it seems the lad’s car has limped home with no power and at one point he thought he’d be on the motorway all night.

    1. Ooh! Not nice.
      Sounds like when the turbo on my van went tits up earlier this year on the M60!!
      Battery powered or internal combustion with an over-sensitive engine monitoring system?

      1. It’s a 59 plate Mini, not sophisticated at all. I shall get my gas engineer on the case🙂 (who thinks he will take ot to the garage. But the car doesn’t start and all the electrics appear to have gone, so they might have to tow it!!!!)

        I am, of course, at work so am no help (other than to pay the bills).

        1. Ah! A BMW MINI! (Note the capitals!)
          So it still relies on an electronic engine management system!

  8. Morning, all Y'all.
    Dark.
    I won't be on NoTTL too much today – driving to the airport & flying via Schiphol to Bristol, rent a car and staying in Penarth tonight, visit Mother tomorrow, then to In-Laws near Bideford.

  9. British troops could be sent to Ukraine to train soldiers. 19 December 2024.

    The Defence Secretary has opened the door to British troops being sent to Ukraine to help train the country’s soldiers.

    John Healey said Britain needs to “make the training a better fit for what the Ukrainians need” during a visit to Kyiv.

    He told The Times: “We [need to] make it easier for the Ukrainians to access and we [need to] work with the Ukrainians to
    help them motivate and mobilise more recruits.”

    This is of course just a ploy to get us girectly involved in this war. A couple of “incidents” and it will be off.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/19/john-healey-defence-secretary-british-troops-ukraine/

      2. I'm currently ploughing through Max Hastings' book on Vietnam and fully agree. Following the assassination of JFK, LBJ sat on his hands through 1964 regarding Vietnam as he didn't want to have it as an election issue. As soon as the inauguration in Jan 1965 was over, LBJ and Robert McNamara pushed for escalation to support their military advisors. VP Humphrey suggested caution and was removed from the decision making process. LBJ had three options; maintain the status quo, stop US involvement in Vietnam, or escalate to beat North Vietnam. The first option was a pointless 'long goodbye', the second was deemed to make the US look weak, the third proved to be a decade long combination of the first two options.

        As an aside, the biggest problem I have with the book is that Max Hastings comes across as a pompous tube. I preferred reading 'A Bright Shining Lie' by Neil Sheehan. Like Max Boyce, "He was there!"

  11. Good morning Geoff and a handful of insomniacs.
    Gonna have to re-set my alarm for 06:00 not 06:30 by the look of it.
    Today's Tale is called The Birthday:
    A few days before her birthday, a husband asked his wife, “Dear, what would you like for your present?”
    Wife: “ I really don’t think I should say.”
    Husband: “How about a diamond ring?”
    Wife: “I don’t care much for diamonds.”
    Husband: “Well then, a mink coat?”
    Wife: “You know I don’t like furs”.
    Husband: “A gold necklace?”
    Wife: I already have three of them.”
    Husband: “Well, gosh, what do you want?”
    Wife: “What i’d really like is a divorce.”
    Husband: “Hmm, I wasn’t planning on spending that much.”

    1. Excellent! Michael Caine told that joke in 'Mona Lisa' – and not a lot of people know that….

      1. Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa:

        Waiter:'Can I bring you a drink while you wait?'
        Hoskins: 'Er … yeah … a pot of tea.'
        Waiter: 'Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?'
        Hoskins: 'Nah! … TEA!"

  13. 399025+ up ricks,

    Morning Each,

    My belief is tis better 2 million patriots gave a quid than one gave the total sum ,as I posted yesterday great caution is needed when dealing with leading politico's, as in long spoons in the polling stations.

    If we haven't learnt that costly lesson by now then submission is the only option left open to us.

    Thursday 19 December: Traditional conservatives should be wary of donations from billionaires

  14. Good morning all.
    Still dark outside but fairly clear skies after last night's rain and with a waning gibbous moon still high in the sky.
    According to the new Yard Thermometer it's 4.1°C with yesterdays maximum being 13.0° and the minimum 3.8°.

    1. Daughter of one of my cousins 'married' a muzzrat around 10 years ago. She already had 3 brats (all in care!) by 3 different fathers. She then had 4 more with him. She has, allegedly, 'divorced' him twice. I suspect they weren't real marriages or divorces.
      She works, though goodness knows what at – a smattering of low grade GCSEs and no other qualifications.
      Anyway, these black shrouds and full face coverings need to be banned. Some countries have banned them, so why can't we? I find them very intimidating, never mind not knowing what creature is hiding under them.

        1. I thought so too. That was just how she presented it, though she is prone to exaggeration and drama.

  17. Andrew Orlowski

    Universities are churning out brainless frauds

    Degrees are being debased by the allowance of artificial intelligence in classrooms

    North Korea is a world leader in one very dubious field. It’s the most accomplished forger of foreign currency in the world. To the despair of the US Treasury, the hermit kingdom can produce $100 bills that are indistinguishable from the real thing.

    Counterfeiting money is not a new crime, of course. “Clipping” coins is as old as money itself, and the authorities take it very seriously: it devalues the currency and risks catastrophic economic fallout. Which begs a question.

    Why would any firm or institution that produces a very valuable currency of its own then want to debase it?

    I’m talking about education, where the currency is the academic credentials it produces. The sector has begun to clip its own coinage, by allowing artificial intelligence (AI) into classrooms.

    Just last week, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) boasted how it would introduce AI-generated course material. In a press release, a professor of Comparative Literature called Zrinka Stahuljak said that: “Normally, I would spend lectures contextualising the material and using visuals to demonstrate the content, but now all of that is in the textbook we generated.”

    That’s nice. Then again, with course modules called things like “Ternary Positionality: Relationality, Decoloniality and Interpretations”, one suspects she may have been getting a robot to generate her course material for some time. She may even be one herself. Who knows?

    Using large language models (LLMs) to create or assess work comes with a couple of serious problems. The AI introduces factual errors, or “hallucinations”. Any accurate material that comes out of AI isn’t very good, either: it’s typically a bland and generic mash-up that has earned the name “slop”.

    But that’s not the real problem, which is much more profound. Once students use ChatGPT to write their essays, they can disengage from their subject and bluff their way through.

    It’s cheating, pure and simple. And if teachers become reliant on using AI to mark their students’ essays, as they are being urged to, they can disengage from their jobs too.

    It reduces teachers and students to mindless zombies pushing buttons in their sleep. This scenario may seem far fetched, but it’s already happening. Speed marking and essay writing services abound.

    Now think what happens when a student goes to cash in their expensively acquired credential with an employer. A survey for Currys last week found that the majority of students (63pc) believe that AI has improved their job prospects.

    They may be in for a shock. If they’ve graduated from a college known to be using AI, the employer has no idea if the student is diligent, or a cynical and lazy cheat. So graduates will find out the hard way what credential clipping means.

    AI is also a threat to the integrity of secondary school examinations, although much less so than in higher education. Most GCSEs and A Levels are determined by invigilated examinations.

    Fraud is far easier to detect in this age group, assuming that the teacher, and not AI, is marking their assignments. Word gets around fast among pupils if a teacher has used AI to generate classroom slop. They’re not impressed. Parents’ WhatsApp group fizzle with outrage.

    But the pressures from the AI companies and the careerist pedagogical experts are relentless. For example, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in its recent report “The Economic Case for AI-Enabled Education” makes some bold claims.

    It thinks we can raise GDP by 6pc if we throw AI at schools. It arrives at this extraordinary figure by making some heroic assumptions, however: for example, by assuming that every minute of pupil tuition by an interactive chatbot is directly equivalent in value to a minute of personal one-to-one tuition from an expert human tutor.

    In Blair’s fantasy world, the bad things, like slop and hallucinations, don’t exist. And all this will “only” cost the taxpayer an additional £1.2bn a year, the Institute says. The former prime minister really has become the world’s worst computer salesman.

    Troublingly, too, sometimes the company trying to sell the AI services into schools is the same one marking the exam: for example, Pearson does both.

    Alas, thanks to Labour’s educational agenda it will be harder to tell if AI is being used. Ofsted assessments have already become much more opaque.

    You can argue that the currency of credentials has already become debased. Bright pupils have already begun to shun a proposition that saddles them with a huge debt in exchange for a worthless qualification, such as a knowledge of “ternary positionality” for example.

    They’ve become much more choosy. One academy near me, which sends a handful of pupils to Oxford and Cambridge every year, has recorded an increase in sixth formers leaving for apprenticeships.

    The most popular course for leavers there last year was engineering. That’s very difficult to bluff your way through. But AI will accelerate the trend. Eventually many further education credentials will be worthless.

    How ironic that of all the supposed dangers of artificial intelligence we’ve heard about from the chatterati, ranging from killer robots to mass unemployment, this one has been overlooked.

    AI is a giant idiot-trap that the cynical and the lazy jump straight into – allowing the rest of us to avoid them. What a useful public service this might turn out to be.

    1. When I took exams, it was forbidden to bring in text books that would supply the answers to the questions. I also remember pocket calculators being banned, and invigilators were a constant presence to ensure fair play. No copying from the swot next door either.

      AI may be considered by our current academics as a fair resource, but I cannot see any difference between using AI to answer the question or taking it from a text book.

      There is a more serious point to this. AI depends crucially on some human intervention at some stage to keep it under control in case it loses its ethical awareness and starts to do real harm to our well-being.

      We may well need people who can out-think the machines. Where do we get them if they rely on the machines to pass their exams?

    2. Axel Rudakubana, 18, did not speak on Wednesday when asked at Liverpool Crown Court if he was guilty or not guilty of killing Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, who were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport.

      Large disturbances broke out in the town after false reports spread on social media that the suspected killer was a Muslim immigrant.

      The disturbances spread across Britain, which saw attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer blaming the riots on far-right thuggery.

      The disorder quickly morphed into widespread anti-immigration rioting, England’s worst disturbances in more than a decade.

      1. 399026+up ticks,

        Morning OLT,
        I believe that we have to witness many more such odious evil issues yet in regards to foreign invaders, and justifiable public unrest will follow until the ” far right” eventually win the day.

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    Broken grey cloud, windy and cold. Wet later.
    British winter weather.
    It seems nobody can be trusted anymore, especially the wealthy. Perhaps that's how became so rich.

    1. 399026+ up ticks,

      Prophet of Troy
      @troy_prophet
      I’ve heard so many shocking things this week, I don’t even know where to start. This is all happening in New Zealand.

      A friend, who is a hospice nurse, admitted a 37 yo male into care, after his very recent diagnosis of cancer. Two days later when she returned to her next shift, he had already died. This is becoming a common occurrence. They’re calling it “turbo” cancer, for those who are unaware.

      An employee at a different hospice location is retiring this week as they’re mentally unable to cope with the number of cancer cases and the rapidity of deaths that they’re seeing. This is a person of faith.

      A third person, also a person of faith, reports that they’ve never attended the number of funerals or deaths as they have this year. They commented that the number of people dying of cancer is unheralded.

      This plus many studies, including very recent ones, which document the presence of SV40 in Pfizer “vaccines” warrants serious concern. SV40 was previously used as an agent injected into rats to cause tumours in order to test chemotherapy drugs.

      Can anyone think of a sound reason that it would be in a “vaccine”? I sure as hell can’t.

  21. Good morning, all. Terribly late on parade. Woke at 7 – turned over – next thing I knew it was 8.35…

    Dashing t market. Back son.

  22. From my daily audit newsletter:

    UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will be accompanied with senior UK bankers next month on a trip to China. The trade mission will seek to enhance collaboration on capital markets, trading connectivity and regulation. The UK government is currently keen to keep China out of a list of nations that pose a security risk to the country and require business disclosure in a central register.

    They should take Prince Andrew too
    /sarc

  24. Phil Cooper
    45m
    While the Guardian calls Jolani “The reformed jihadi”
    The US state department say there is $10,000,000 prize for Jolani's capture

    Who is telling the Truth ?

    1. For now, let's give Jolani the benefit of the doubt, since it's all they've got.

      The test for me lies with the Kurds. If he can settle down with them, bring them into his regime and thereby prove that Syria's future is one of tolerance and reconstruction, then I feel that the US state department's bounty could be better spent.

      1. So it is OK that they are already persecuting Christians, they have been forbidden to celebrate Christmas by the new regime, and the Druze have entered into talks with Israel to be annexed because they are also persecuted by the Islamists. So how much of a "benefit of the doubt" is enough?

        1. You might add that Turkey is itching to have a pop at the Kurds – a people of over 60 million without a country to call their own. (bit like Britain I suppose…)

          1. I have to say that I have every sympathy for the Kurds, they are a people that truly deserve their own country.

        2. I don’t think you are right. Al Jazeera is reporting that Christmas is being celebrated in Syria more joyously than ever since the fall of Assad, and the Idlib-based regime is quite content with this. After all, Jesus is one of their prophets too. It is in the UK that secularists have considered Christmas offensive, renamed it ‘Winterval’ and made it a shopping festival.

          It is the Israelis that are currently bombing Syria for Christmas, denying them even the right to defend their own country, a right well claimed by the Israelis for themselves.

          It is too early to say though how it will pan out. Just as the Knesset has its fair share of militant, belligerent and aggresive zealots, so too does the current regime in Syria, and apart from the test I set for them to make peace with the Kurds, how well they manage to keep their own zealots in control is a key test as to whether they are fit to govern the liberated country or not.

          Israel may also harness ISIS once more to destabilise Syria in order to exploit Syria’s defencelessness for a bit of land grab. Using the Druze as a pretext classically used by Russia as a preliminary to annexation, and something both learnt from Hitler.

  25. SIR – Traditional conservatives will be instinctively inclined to applaud Elon Musk if he makes a huge donation to Reform UK (report, December 16). They should resist doing so.

    The principle that a foreign billionaire should not be allowed to influence British democracy is of greater value than the benefits the party would receive.

    What would stop a Left-wing billionaire donating to the Labour Party as a counterweight?

    Sam Evans
    Westbury, Wiltshire

    "Left-wing billionaire?" Methinks thou doth jest, Sammy lad. The very concept makes my arse laugh!

    Billionaires are made by capitalism — a concept loathed by the Left wing who are hard-wired on socialism. Billionaires do not just happen. They use their imagination, intelligence, hard work, enterprise and entrepreneurship; all attributes loathed, despised and eschewed by Lefties, who much prefer generous handouts from those who are truly gifted with the ethic of proper graft.

    Art thou a jester, forsooth?

    2. But the Left have been financed by Soros, Gates et al for years without any challenge from the people now objecting to Musk.

        1. I slept nearly ten hours so feeling better this morning. Getting my act together slowly. I was coping with the condition better than I am with the cure. Hospital seems to have done that.

          1. Good news on the sleep. I’ve been in hospital a few times – I found it an unnatural/stressful place to be ill – the noise, the comings and goings of staff, the waiting for a doctor, the waiting for results, the windows opened when it’s cold but not when it’s hot..the boredom. the wanting to go home, couple times put in a mixed ward, no words for that…hoping for a release and home for you x

      2. Indeed. However, Soros, Goats et al came by their insane amounts of lucre by way of capitalism, not by dipping their hands into the pockets of other entrepreneurs.

        The difference is that this cartel are now using their wealth to exert more control over those who were responsible, in the first instance, of ensuring that these WEF dictators got filthy rich.

        An overt case of, "Buy my crap, make me rich, and in return I'll ensure that your lives are destroyed."

    3. Is wealth, like natural resources, finite or infinite?

      I do not doubt that billionaires are talented, hardworking and resourceful, and that many do good with their fortunes. However, whenever I hear of some other worthy group, be they farmers, nurses, pensioners, musicians, charity workers or many other worthies, being stymied by "hard decisions" (i.e. shortage of funds) then it sticks in my craw that some folk, who are richer than Portugal, can sit of huge piles of money, using it to fund their ostentation, money that could be better spent.

      As for natural resources, I was a teenager in the 1970s, when for the first time in history, we as a species realised that humanity was using these up at an alarming scale, and that a global mass extinction was on the cards in our lifetime if we didn't do something about it.

      1. Funny how the science was settled that the oil and gas was going to run out and we now have far, far more to be exploited than there was then.

        1. And there has been no "mass extinction" and the world is getting greener, and that we are growing more food than we ever thought possible and that the threat from Co2 is a lie and so is global warming.

          2. If the science is settled then there is no requirement for Government grants to scientists.

            Yippee !! The taxpayers save.

          3. Yes, there is no such thing as "settled science" or "science by consensus" both are fraudulent pseudo-science.

        2. Science does not and cannot take into consideration the power of human ingenuity and enterprise. As a species, we are extraordinarily adaptable. It does not take away my understanding that resources are still finite, and that we are creating deserts rather than bringing life to the planet.

          1. Then those so-called scientists should stop telling us the science is settled.

            It is perfectly conceivable that new discoveries will provide for human needs and that better education and development will stop the human activities that are adding to desertification. Clearing rain-forests is doing far, far more harm that CO² does.

          2. We agree on this, especially over the clearance of the rainforests, which is catastrophic madness. A few years back, I argued that the entire British commitment to Net Zero, with the huge cost to the nation that entails, could be effected simply by shooting one man – Jair Bolsonaro. Suharto in Indonesia is another figure that has done immense damage to the Earth’s prognosis, and I cannot name the Chinese element that is clearing the forests in Siberia, or whether business activity in America is leading to the huge fires there. African rainforests have been spared up until now only because of traditional tribal warfare (which traditionally supplied well the slave trade, as neighbours were raided and sold off to passing traders, and whose activity is now to be forcibly subsidised by well-meaning British legislators). If China buys the land, then I don’t rate much the survival of the mountain gorilla’s homeland.

            It is the politicians using the scientists to make their case who argue that science is “settled”. The scientists themselves are natural sceptics and take great delight in debunking their colleagues if they can. For every Newton, there is an Einstein ready to make a mockery of settled science. Even Einstein came to grief when quantum theory arrived, which has also made digital computers with a base of 2 appear like the abacus. It doesn’t stop, and the peril of global warming due to excess carbon dioxide and methane may well be supplanted by a new peril of a looming ice age due to excess water vapour in the atmosphere. All we can do is to keep up.

    4. Musk's attitude is quite sound. He believes that we are the mother country of the Anglo-Saxon world and all the benefits it has brought to the world, from Common Law, to freedom of speech, to the inventions that made the modern world etc etc etc. He has also said he would not be who he is today if it were not for the lessons his English "nana" taught him and that he feels deeply indebted to for his success. He believes when the mother country is in trouble, because of tyrants, it is the duty of all those who benefit from the efforts of the mother country to comer to her aid.

      I don't know about the rest of you but I do not count members of those countries that we created as "foreigners", rather they are members of the family and it is quite reasonable of any of them to come to our aid when we are threatened, as they did in two world wars. Of course the left would like to regard such people as Musk as "foreigners" but that is because as far as they are concerned any label that divides and weakens the Anglo Saxon world is a good thing and anything that strengthens it is a bad thing. But the modern Woke Left are the enemy as much as the USSR or Nazi Germany were. They are the threat to truth and civilization.

        1. Yes, the enemy, busily undermining the West for years working for the seditious left. A man literally on the side of killers and efforts to destroy democracy and freedom. Look at the ruin of many American cities and know that he has deliberately engineered such disasters.

  26. Captain Hindsight
    14h
    By the sounds of it, Liz Truss was at a meeting last night with Reform and various other right of centre commentators. I won't be surprised if she was another defector from the Tories.
    Interestingly when I asked my former Tory MP what the hell they were doing removing an elected leader? He told me Truss had to go because there were Tory MPs crying over being forced to vote in favour of fracking.

    It says it all really, Tory MPs crying over being forced to vote for cheap electricity and against net zero.

  28. BBC Feeling the Heat to Play Starmer Parody Song

    Reg
    14h
    Didn't stop them playing 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead' when Margaret Thatcher died. Two tier BBC.

  31. Giving market a miss – the MR has gone on her own. Oversleeping has made me quite discombobulated. I'll be better when I have adjusted to daylight.

  32. Trump’s rejection of Net Zero will leave the UK in the dust. Spiked. 19 December 2024.

    Unfortunately, just as the US could be about to enjoy an energy renaissance, the UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, seems determined to plunge Britain into a new dark age of energy insecurity. Miliband has long prioritised decarbonisation over securing cheap and plentiful energy. As Gordon Brown’s environment secretary, he oversaw the introduction of the Climate Change Act 2008, which made Britain the first country to put climate targets into law – the source of Britain’s energy woes. Now back in government as Keir Starmer’s energy secretary, Miliband plans to go even further, by making the UK’s electricity grid 95 per cent carbon neutral by 2030.

    The reality of Milliband’s policy, is that as he pursues it, China builds three new coal fired power stations every week and India two. It is thus a policy of futility. We could probably endure it if it actually lead somewhere other than the collapse of the UK as an industrial power and the impoverishment of its people.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/18/trumps-rejection-of-net-zero-will-leave-the-uk-in-the-dust/

    1. There are various blogs that cover the climate scam; WattsUpWithThat, JoNova, NetZeroWatch and many more, that prove Milliband Minor is no more than a wilful child pressing on with his ruinous Nett Zero zealotry in the face of overwhelming evidence that he is de-industrialising the UK, whilst removing energy generation capabilities. The general public, especially those tethered to their electronic devices, will only realise that with no electric power available they will be unable to heat their homes, prepare food, or even post their Wordle results! Then the fun may start. Guard your aga and your wood burner well.

      1. Paul Homewood is good, too. Main problem is the government, Milliband not the sole player. I've asked 'who voted for Labour'..received various ideas but no hard facts. Anyone knowing a breakdown of voter numbers, please post – thxx.

        1. Yes, Paul Homewood posts on his NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat, but often replicates his posts on WattsUpWithThat and The Conservative Woman site.

  33. Morning all. It's sunny, rather startling! We had a blackout here last night. Lasted three hours and extended from here to, apparently, the whole of Haslemere in Surrey. Fernhurst, my village is West Sussex, so a large area. I suspect this sort of thing is going to become common in the near future thanks to the Communist government and their climate lacky Millipede.

    Did you know that we are now the Sharia Law capital of the world? Isn't that precious! Here's the story.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X30AKVy70_M

    1. How stupid our country is.

      Any one else notice how now that dogs and alcohol are now being heavily targeted by the media. I have an uncomfortable feeling about this.
      And suddenly advertisements have appeared on line to intice meeting single muslim women.
      Shirley shum mish take.

  34. Today FSB leads with a Graham Cunningham piece ‘ The Fallacy of Egalitarianism ’ on the dangers of the misguided egalitarianism pushed so hard by the Left – and which so often ends up in the exact opposite of equality. It has generated a lively debate so far.

    And in our series of Christmas short stories we have a charming piece – The Gift of the Magi – about young lovers being both broke and rich at Christmas.

    Please support us by reading and leaving your mark by making a comment.

    Energy watch: Demand: 37.87GW. Supply: Hydrocarbons 11.9%; Wind 50.6%; Imports 12.6%, Biomass 5.6% and Nuclear 12.6%.
    What is striking today is the high level of imported power. I can't prove it but I think they do this to manipulate the data, as imports are classed as low carbon.

    One more thing, 2,987,249 have signed the petition calling for an election – just less than 13,000 more needed for the three million mark.

    2. Talking of manipulating the data, are there any honest price comparisons between the power the UK generates and the imported power? Business is business, and I have the notion that the price of imported power is buried in the morass of 'subsidies'.

      1. I have tried, but it seems to vary by the day and from where it comes. In recent days they have imported electric power from France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Ireland.

        From Electric Insights https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q2-2024/britain-imports-one-fifth-of-its-electricity/

        “Electricity imports have reached record levels, with 19.8% of demand met by overseas sources over the three months to June. For the first time ever, more than a tenth of electricity came from France alone, and the cost of imported electricity rose to over £250 million per month. Overall, Britain imported 12.2 TWh last quarter, more than the country’s nuclear output (10.7 TWh), and close to total production from fossil fuels (13.6 TWh). In comparison, exports were just 3 TWh.”

  37. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    Clear skies overhead McPhee Towers, a brisk North-Westerly breeze, 5-6℃ all day. The skies should stay clear today since the surface wind indicates much draftier conditions aloft which will discourage the chem-trailers.

    Here's an interesting story, another little facet of the uniparty destruction of Britain
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5362a20bd5cdfbfb70840a97546f7732222926255482141edd297f6b4ca531cb.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buy-to-let/evicting-90-year-old-tenant-labour/

    The 90-year-old tenant is an ex-serviceman.

    “Our tenant was a very good rent payer but wasn’t good at looking after the house. We had to do the horrible thing of issuing a Section 21. He was very understanding.”

    Mr Shields and his wife helped their former tenant find a new home not far away, and feels that it is renters who will be the hardest hit as landlords sell up.

    In fact, the number of households in the private rental sector at risk of homelessness because of landlords selling up has increased by a third since the end of last year, according to the National Residential Landlord Association.

    I wonder who Mr Shields' new neighbours will be? Who could be waiting in the wings to snap up all these ex-rental properties coming on the market? Could it be Serco? Mears? Clearsprings Ready Homes? All of these companies have been involved in acquiring properties in which to house migrants. If they don't buy, they make a good rental offer with a guarantee of property maintenance to landlords. They are doing it under contract to the government so it is you and I, folks, who are paying for this. Meanwhile some ex-servicemen less fortunate than Mr Shields' ex-tenant continue to live on the streets and take shelter where they can.

  38. I got up this morning at 8.30 am, then forgot to post here until now 10.10 am – oops! Anyhow, Good Morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for this morning's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,279 4/6

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

    1. It's quite funny.. "They" are not the crazy ones.. it's us that don't challenge them.. it's those that affirm them."
      "They are just confused and needed a bit of clarity.. instead they got advice to go to Bangkok and get castrated."

  40. One step at a time:
    Wordle 1,279 5/6

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

    1. Par four today

      Wordle 1,279 4/6

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

    2. It's that a study by a medical group is needed to state the obvious that anyone with a passing knowledge of virology knows.

      I still can't get over explaining to a chum that his being vaccinated didn't help me one bit. He insisted it did because Chris Whitty had said so.

    3. Sounds a reasonable theory.
      Continual exposure to minor pathogens keeps the immune system tuned up for when the more serious diseases come along.

  43. Had the most satisfying night with the Warqueen last night. We were both abed at half nine and asleep by 10.

    1. I suspect the thoughts going through the minds of most Nottlers will at this point be 'X' rated!!!

    2. 10 o'clock also features in my time in bed but it is when I wake up on a cold morning when I cannot face all the jobs about the place which I should be doing!

      1. Stuff them. Just for one day. Take a day off. The hoovering will still be there, the clothes still need washing. Do the minimum to get through the day.

    3. I (we) like to be tucked up much earlier than that but i had to go out for a One True Sport team pre-Xmas drink. I was planning on leaving at 9pm when things got exciting; one of my team-mates, who is [reasonably*] famous and has been having an affair with a [reasonably*] famous other, which ended acrimoniously, spotted him in the same pub and then it all kicked off.

      Anyway i had a bad feeling about our lad coming back after his Co-Op stint, as I was wise to.

      *define “reasonably”, i hear you cry. More famous than me; people have heard of these two.

  44. Had the most satisfying night with the Warqueen last night. We were both abed at half nine and asleep by 10.

  45. What a relief! Any sceptical person may have thought that the inflammation might be caused by the contents of the 'vaccines'

    1. No problems with being asleep at 10pm, it's the bloody staying asleep through the night!
      With the need to pump bilges and the DT tossing and turning in her sleep I'm lucky to get a straight 3h at any one time!

    2. I fell asleep with the radio on and awoke in the small hours to hear someone with a very deep voice talk about his very storied life. Expect it wasn't a he, it was Cosmo Lombino, who perhaps looks more like a woman that he/she/it sounds.

      1. Lombino grew up in Harlem, New York, as the son of a mobster.[7] Lombino's family moved to Encino, Los Angeles after her father was affiliated with the 1978 Lufthansa heist.[8][9]

      2. Had to look up who it was.
        From Wiki:-

        Lombino grew up in Harlem, New York, as the son of a mobster.[7] Lombino's family moved to Encino, Los Angeles after her father was affiliated with the 1978 Lufthansa heist.

        And

        Notes
        Lombino prefers she/her pronouns, but is also comfortable with he/him and they/them pronouns.[3] This article uses she/her pronouns for consistency.

        All in all he sounds a rather confused person.

  48. While that was the intent, we were both knackered. A third of the way through a West Wing episode I was dozing off and she'd already gone.

  50. It is very, very rare. Usually at ten we're loading the dishwasher, putting some washing in or some other chore.

  52. That got a bit chilly!
    Been up taking out a 4" diameter root from a diseased elm that's running a bit close to the surface. There is some younger growth on the uphill side of the stump, but the bit I've taken out is dead, as is the root next to it that is my next target, along with whatever brambles get in the way.
    An absolutely beautiful morning, but at 4°C-ish, my fingers got cold despite my cold work gloves!

    1. Sunny here, too and I can see the cobwebs indoors that I can't normally see………. will have to get cleaning.

      1. You guys!

        Such is more likely to be a daytime activity when the dogs are all out at the washers and Junior is at school.

  55. I received this by email this morning.

    We’re thrilled to announce the release of A Blundell’s Christmas, featuring stunning carols performed by our talented choirs—from Year 4 to Year 13. This special album, recorded this year, showcases the exceptional musical talent at Blundell’s and celebrates an extraordinary year of music-making, including performances at Exeter Cathedral, Bath Abbey, a summer tour to Italy, and the unforgettable Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey.

    If schools like Blundell's, Sherborne and Gresham's – each of whose foundations go back four centuries or more – have to close because of the VAT robbery then this sort of thing will be lost.

    (When Christo was at Gresham's he went on a choir tour of Southern France and they sang in various churches and cathedrals. He acted as the presentateur as he is completely bilingual.)

      1. Not like Manchester, of course. The PTB are now so blatant – they want to whip us all up so that they can impose a curfew.

    1. The role of a teacher is to impart knowledge. By allowing a child to deceive themselves and others they are encouraging a lie.

      A man cannot become a woman regardless of the drugs they take. He remains a man. I've sympathy for their illness but they need psychotherapy, not medication.

      1. The Chromosome Test should be applied : Pull down the genes and see whether the person has a willy or a fanny.

    2. Does anyone remember that Peter Sellers record The Best of Sellers in the 1960s? It had some marvellous sketches in it including Balham, Gateway to the South.

      There was another one about a headmaster showing parents round his rather shabby school. Two excerpts I remember:

      Nervous Father : The fire escape in the photograph doesn't look very safe.
      Headmaster : I can assure you it is much safer in the photograph than it is on the building.

      and

      Nervous Father: Do the boys and girls share the same curriculum?
      Headmaster : We had separate ones built.

      1. I do still have the old Peter Sellers record. I don't remember the 'Nervous father ' bit though.
        That sounds a bit more like Gerard Hoffnung.

  59. This country has lost its purpose.
    Same old story, our political idiots have effed up everything they come into contact with.

  60. This country has lost its purpose.
    Same old story, our political idiots have effed up everything they come into contact with.

  61. Will this government ever accept that

    ISLAMOCOMPLACENCY

    is far more dangerous than the Islamophobia about which they constantly harp on?

    3. If you read about Herr Starmers career in law you quickly realize that he is pro-Islam with a preference for terrorists and extremists. So no, as long as he is PM the Islamist agenda will be given a red carpet.

      1. And also against any restriction by society of what sadomasochistic acts may be performed between consenting homosexual men – as the Wikipedia article on the police's Operation Spanner* reveals:

        There was immediate criticism of the investigation and trial in 1990, with the Gay London Policing Group describing the sentences as "outrageous" and Andrew Puddephat, general secretary of Liberty, calling for a "right to privacy enshrined in law". Keir Starmer said the judiciary had "effectively imposed its morality on others" and argued the "unrepresentative make-up of the judiciary makes it ill-equipped to do this"

        Source (and even though it's Wikipedia, I should warn that included in the webpage is a brief description of a sadomasochistic act):
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

        *Reportedly named that because 'When you watch the videos your nuts tighten'.

      2. The last few months have shown us very clearly that Starmer is a sadist.

        Is his Islamophilia a way to be nasty to and torture his Jewish wife and children?

  62. I was awake for hours last night – finally went off about 6ish and slept till 8.30am. Good job I don't have to get up for work!

  65. Good morning all,

    Showery cold morning here .

    Not much fun family wise either . A bit snarly and sour .. golf withdrawal I suspect .. and aching limbs .

    How many chaps on here write Christmas cards or even look at the cards received?

    GB News drama as Isabel Webster and Mark Dolan are axed in major shake-up
    GB News announced that presenter Isabel Webster has been replaced on the channel's Breakfast show while Mark Dolan has been 'relieved of his duties'.

    I wonder why ..

    Mark Dolan might have been gagged, I thought Isabel Webster was rather woke !

      1. Well the washing went out……and in again………and out again. Currently it's out and the wind is blowing. Still faintly sunny.

    2. The PTB has realised that the best way to get rid of GB News is to clip its wings.

      A GB News which gives into threats from the PTB will lose its audience.

      My sympathy for Mark Dolan is reduced by the fact that he said nothing about the way GB News treated Mark Steyn, Dan Wootton, Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson.

      He was behaving rather oddly on GB News at the weekend and I wondered what was up. Perhaps he now is having to suffer what Corporal Jones' Fuzzy Wuzzies don't like!

    3. Getting rid of Mark Dolan entirely? Sure many will be disappointed but I thought him inauthentic. So not sorry if that's the case. But, I see that Matthew Goodwin is going to become a permanent member of GB News and that is good.

        1. My cleaning lady didn’t bother. She just handed me a box of chocolates.

          I gave her a hamper containing all the Harry Potter sweets including Bertie Botts all flavour beans.

  70. Small mercies. Trudeau has cancelled all TV appearances, there will be no stomach turning Christmas (sorry, new year) greetings from the loser.

    Just a month from Trumps threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and our government just buggers off on holiday until the end of January.

    1. He's finished and knows it. He lost his finance secretary and his coalition partner. Poilievre's trying to force an early election, has a lot of support.

    1. OMG! Its arrived early!

      The Overseer's Pandemic?
      California, Bird Flu
      18 December 2024 10:15pm GMT

      Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency over a bird flu outbreak in California.
      Mr Newsom, the California governor, said the move would allow the state to “expedite” its efforts to contain the outbreak and insisted the risk to the public was “low”.
      It comes shortly after an individual in Louisiana was sent to hospital with bird flu, marking the US’s first severe reaction to the H5N1 virus.

      California has recorded 32 of the 61 bird flu infections in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
      There are no signs that the virus has spread between humans in the state, which would be necessary for a pandemic to start. Currently, all cases have been linked to exposure to cattle or birds.
      California officials said the decision to declare the emergency was made after H5N1 was detected in cattle in the south of the state.
      Mr Newsom said on Thursday: “This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak.
      “While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus.”

      California ended its Covid state of emergency in February 2023, having issued it in March 2020.
      Earlier on Thursday, Louisiana said an individual had suffered the US’s first severe reaction to the H5N1 virus after being exposed to “sick or dead birds” on their property.
      “The patient is experiencing severe respiratory illness related to H5N1 infection and is currently hospitalised in critical condition,” said Emma Herrock, a spokesman for the state health department.

      Bird flu cases
      California’s first bird flu case was detected in dairy cows in the state on Aug 30, and the first case in a human on Oct 3 in a dairy farm worker.
      In late November, a child was confirmed to have been infected with bird flu, marking California’s first infection that was not linked to exposure to dairy cattle or poultry.
      Officials revealed last week that they were investigating whether the child had become infected after drinking raw milk.

      Last month, a teenager was sent to hospital after contracting bird flu in Canada, suffering severe lung damage and undergoing what was described as a “rapid” deterioration.
      The teenager had not come into contact with infected cattle or birds, although they had been exposed to dogs, cats and reptiles.

      Be afraid….

          1. ooooooo hadn’t thought so, Stephen…try it?, daily update. He has been excellent on Covid testing and vaccines, the first blogger I read – helped me a lot to understand what was happening. Tom Ferguson writes alongside.

      4. During every previous modern type of pandemic especially agricultural. I’ve have always been under the impression they were all man made and deliberately spread around.

  72. Pressure Mounts on Labour’s Anti-Corruption Minister Tulip Siddiq Over Bangladeshi Government ‘Embezzlement’ Investigation

    Yesterday Guido was the first to reveal in the UK media that the Bangladeshi anti-corruption commission, the ACC, has formally launched a probe into ousted dictator Sheikh Hasina and her family. Hasina’s niece is Labour Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq…

    A Bangladeshi High Court order states that the court approved the commencement of an investigation by a five-strong committee – led by ACC Deputy Director Md Salahuddin – into claims that around £4 billion had been embezzled by Hasina and her family from a Russian-funded nuclear power station mega project. Bangladeshi court documents name Tulip Siddiq herself. There are photos of Siddiq, aunt Hasina, and Vladimir Putin at the signing of such a deal in 2013…

    According to allegations published in Bangladesh, 90% of the £10 billion value of the plant was paid by a Kremlin loan – of which £3.9 billion was allegedly embezzled by the Hasina family through Malaysian banks with help from Russian officials. Labour sources yesterday poured cold water on the whole thing by pointing out the claim originated “from a spurious American aerospace website.” The UK media class was too busy having Christmas parties, but now Guido’s report has been picked up by the BBC and splashed the Daily Mail – Tulip is in a very tricky spot…

    The BBC reports the same allegations today: “Court documents seen by the BBC show Hajjaj accused Siddiq of mediating and coordinating meetings for the Bangladeshi officials with the Russian government to build the £10bn Rooppur Power Plant Project. It is claimed that the deal inflated the price of the plant by £1bn, according to the documents – 30% of which was allegedly distributed to Siddiq and other family members via a complex network of banks and overseas companies. In total, Hajjaj alleges £3.9bn was siphoned out of the project by Hasina’s family and minister. Footage from 2013 shows Siddiq attended the deal’s signing by Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, recorded by the Associated Press.” Poetically, Siddiq’s brief at HMT includes responsiblity for anti-corruption in the UK…

    A major report by the new Bangladeshi government into the state of the economy as they have found it has been released. The government notes that “there exists a robust nexus among civil bureaucracy, contractors, and politicians that facilitates the embezzlement of public funds for personal gain. This alliance is a fundamental driver of corruption and must be prioritised for disruption at the national level.” It estimates the magnitude of corruption ranges from USD 14 billion to 24 billion out of the USD 60 billion invested in various development projects over the past 15 years. With regard to embezzlement there is a clear statement of intent:

    “It has been widely suggested that many bribes and extortions occur abroad, leading to substantial sums of money being transferred out of the country to evade detection by various agencies. Public servants, who are often at the heart of these corruption schemes, have shown reluctance to declare their assets to the government. However, increased public pressure for transparency has prompted businesses, civil servants, and politicians to seek safe havens for concealing their corrupt funds.

    Countries such as Canada, the USA, UAE, Singapore, and the UK are frequently criticised for providing such havens. Many corruption payments are made overseas to avoid scrutiny by government agencies. Therefore, it is essential that government officials, project directors, and ministers be subjected to public scrutiny regarding their wealth held abroad, whether in their names or under the names of family members.”

    There is no comment from Labour on the new formal government inquiry, and no comment from Tulip Siddiq on the allegations despite multiple approaches. A Labour spokesman only comments on the photo with Putin – ‘This event was 11 years ago before Tulip was an MP. Tulip only went to Russia to see her aunt and spend time with her family. She had no role at any events she attended beyond being a family member.” Co-conspirators will remember that Hasina left in a hurry – doomed dictatorships without time to prepare leave troves of documents behind. Will Keir Starmer allow Siddiq to continue in her brief as corruption minister while being officially investigated by the Bangladeshi government for corruption?

    And despite an odd silence from the Tories on the matter, insiders are noting that Siddiq’s majority in Hampstead and Kilburn is 13,970. Some lefty independents will have eyes on that…

    19 December 2024 @ 11:36

    1. There's a stunning silence from the Tories about corruption awarding Government contracts.

      A stunning silence.

    3. Indian gossip which is totally unconfirmed suggests that Sheikh Hassina's family control a large residential property in The Bishop's Avenue, N2.

  73. Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith pleaded for Elon Musk to reconsider donating to Nigel Farage and instead take a look at Kemi Badenoch.

    ..and finance an Ad campaign to woo Guardian Readers by finding common ground & meeting half way on;
    invasion-bollx. DEI-bollx. trans-bollx. Climate-bollx. Rejoin-bollx.

  75. Harland and Wolf has been saved by Spain's state-owned ship builder. Hmm… I mean, hmm…

      1. And Starmer, Reeves, Lammy and Cooper are jealous of their position as national top stink pots so they want to stink in a more putrid way than anyone or anything else

    2. A globalist will tell you that we're less likely to go to war if the Spanish Armada is built in Belfast. Of course in practice it just leads to both parties being implicated in wars that either party wages elsewhere and Harland and Wolff (I checked the spelling, Grizz) do build warships.

        1. It would have saved a lot of problems and many many deaths.
          Though I wonder if the republic would have remained neutral in WW2 or sided with the Germans

      2. My work colleagues in Belfast get upset when they see rights contracts defining the territory covered as UK & Eire (which is the common usage), since technically of course Eire is the whole island and they prefer it to be stated as the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (meaning just the six counties – Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone).

        1. Complain to the legal department. If the territory has been incorrectly defined, someone might get sued.

    6. Fair enough. The Armada passed that way, so the Spanish Navy will be familiar with the lay of the land.

  77. My grandaughter, who is shortly to qualify as a prescribing pharmacist, was staying with us along with our three children for a birthday celebration.
    I took advantage of the situation to ask her what she uses to identify pills.
    She uses drugs.com which is an excellent reference that can be used to prescribe for medical conditions that can be entered on the website.

    To test if she can be let loose in the real pharmaceutical world she has had to undergo a fake scenario where she can generate a fake prescription and a computer evaluates an estimated outcome of the number of fake deaths.

      1. Yes.
        If she can get a high enough rating she will get appointed to a cabinet position. 😉

      1. I think I would need a laboratory for that.
        I do have a lavatory in my bathroom with a tube of tooth paste but thats all.

      1. I did one of those on a commode stool the other day (so that we didn't need to unhook the heart monitor). Thought you'd like to know. As Victoria Wood once observed, the problem for females giving a urine sample is that we have the engine power but not the steering. What happened to comedians being funny?

    1. At least she didn't come on with the, "we can have a wee wee, we can have a wet up the wall".

          1. Hear you, Sue….Yarkshire born n bred here….past is another country tho, as I found out on a fleeting visit a decade or so ago….hope your experience better if your get to your native toon 🥰

      2. ♬Sittin' in a sleazy snack bar sucking,
        Sickly sausage rolls.
        Slippin' down slowly, slippin' down sideways,
        Think I'll sign off the dole.♬

          3. Neil "Spruce" Farrow was an Adult Sergeant helping to run Wooler Army Cadets as well as being a good guitarist.
            He was invited to join Lindesfarne and refused!!

  80. Good grief!
    I got a mention in a DT article !

    Dancing Duck Dark Drake
    (4.5%) £3 for 500ml at Dancing Duck
    Review

    Reader R Spowart suggested this multi-award winning stout from brewster extraordinaire Rachel Matthews. Based in the East Midlands, this small brewery consistently turns out fantastically sessionable ales and this oatmeal stout is no exception. Toffee, liquorice and chocolate abound with just a kiss of toasted bitterness to balance it all out.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d389c2a3d5b786ec066448848cf89ea47c94851ea4b190126c14ba8ff34f757.png

    5. I don't get to the East Midlands very often. When I do I look for Everards' Tiger. Good drop of beer, that.

  82. Rachel Reeves has already triggered Britain’s next retirement crisis
    Our careless Chancellor is actively discouraging diligent savers from investing in their futures
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/rachel-reeves-already-triggered-britain-retirement-crisis/

    I have posted this BTL comment under this article:

    Is France a more civilised country than Britain?

    A friend of ours is in an excellent care home in a village near us in Brittany. It is well heated, he has a large bedroom and excellent toilet and shower facilities en suite. The home has a very pleasant garden and many common rooms. The food is excellent and there are activities organised every day including:

    sing songs,

    concerts with visiting musicians or entertainers;

    exercise sessions and yoga;

    a range of creative arts;

    animals such as rabbits are brought into the home for the inmates to pet;

    weekly prayers;

    a discussion of the week's news every Monday morning;

    regular outings to the local market, swimming pool, shops and a horse centre and to the beach in the summer;

    there are cookery sessions and the local librarian comes into the home each week to talk about books and they can be taken to the library.

    And of course the staff's employees accompany the inmates on all their visits outside the home if necessary. And physiotherapists, occupational therapists and psychologists come into the home regularly and GP visits are in the home. The home also provides zimmer frames or wheel chairs and nappies when needed!

    The all-inclusive cost is €2,100 per month (£1,750 at today's exchange rate) which our friend can cover out of his pension and he does not need to sell his house as he wants to leave it to his son when he dies.

    P.S. It is privately owned and run by the commune who are crafty at managing to get any regional and state subsides they can! The village is very lucky to have an excellent mayor who does his best to look after the inhabitants' interests.

        1. Thats about the rate per week for a private nursing home (£2,000 if patient has dementia)…. 🙁

      2. Where do you draw the line? Most residents will actually stay there until they die, but I have been told that if a patient needs intensive nursing then he or she will be moved to the local hospital where there is a dedicated ward.

        1. Thank you. When the time comes if I've still got my faculties I shall brush up on my O Level French and take a long holiday in Brittany!!!

        2. And as our friend is doubly incontinent he is washed and dressed and given new nappies when needed.

          1. Learned this week from one of our friend's Christmas news letter that he has had his bladder removed!

    3. Richard, you've forgotten the hair-dressing salon, the jacuzzi and the home's own minibus which can take wheelchairs! There are also several private dining areas in the home so that family and friends can come in and have a quiet meal with the relevant resident in a more secluded environment than the communal dining hall.

      And the best bit is that all the staff are friendly and kind. I've never seen a grumpy helper there! Resident to staff ratio is about one-to-one.

  84. Britain needs to stop prioritising newcomers who don’t integrate

    Westminster City Council’s pandering to non-English speakers is tone deaf

    Isabel Oakeshott

    18 December 2024 4:15pm GMT

    Politics never ceases to amaze. Among many wonders is how so many low level people claw their way up to positions of power and authority with a total inability to read the room.

    For the latest example of this depressing phenomenon, step forward Westminster City Council, which has just delivered a stunningly stupid announcement on social housing. Moronically misjudging the prevailing mood among voters, the council’s housing department has decided to deliver a delicate message about the allocation of social housing, in multiple languages.

    Quite what the team behind the creation of a slick video explaining that policy changes are afoot expected by way of public reaction is unclear. Presumably, when they wheeled out “leaseholder adviser” Faud Saith to talk it through in Arabic; followed by “Resident Advocate” Repa Khan to explain the plans in Bengali; followed by council receptionist Aaron Rano talking in Spanish; and “Housing Team Manager” Marie Jeanne Dougherty in French, they were thinking about “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.”

    When officials discussed how to communicate their new approach to residents, doubtless there was talk of catering to “hard to reach communities.” In this context, that can only mean people living in central London who cannot understand (never mind speak) basic English – but may nonetheless still be in line for heavily subsidised, or even free, accommodation courtesy of the British taxpayer. How tone deaf can you get?

    Granted, there may be a handful of deserving cases on the housing register who can’t speak a word of English. Right now however – as Westminster councillors must know – voters don’t want to hear it. As hundreds of thousands of immigrants continue to pour into the UK, naturally those who have lived in this country all their lives and need help with housing are more than a little anxious about their place in the pecking order. Unless accompanied by a clear message that British taxpayers will come first (a notion that is entirely alien to even Conservative-run local authorities); making announcements in foreign languages is only going to fuel suspicion about who is being prioritised.

    No wonder the multi-lingual announcement went down like a broken parachute! Within hours, the council was forced to delete it, amid an entirely predictable backlash. What on earth did they expect– thanks and appreciation? How is it that not one of the multiple officials involved in commissioning the whole ill-judged exercise could see that it was bound to cause a brouhaha? In the current climate, it is surely obvious to anyone with the slightest political instinct that such messaging risks stoking already simmering resentment and division? Intended to be all about fairness, the blundering multi-media announcement sent out exactly the opposite message. So far from reassuring British citizens on the waiting list for housing about the way limited resources will be distributed, it created the impression that newcomers to this country – or those who have completely failed to integrate – are a priority.

    Unfortunately, this is all too true. To the best of my knowledge, not a single council in the UK is brave enough to do what is entirely normal in other countries when it comes to the allocation of social housing: automatically deprioritise, or disqualify, foreign nationals who have never paid into the system.

    This is hardly radical. Indeed, in an age of mass movement of people, it is by far the most obvious way to prevent industrial scale exploitation of the welfare state, by incomers and all comers. Voters would love it. Yet those in a position to implement such a common sense approach think they know better. Indeed, many appear to think they are better, and have some kind of moral duty to shun anything that smacks of what they sneeringly dismiss as “populism.”

    Westminster Council residents will have to wait until the New Year to find out exactly what the housing department plans. It’s all part of an initiative they call a “Housing Compact,” whatever that means. What we do know is that the woman in charge—the cabinet minister for housing, Liza Begum–-believes ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by the housing crisis, citing Black African and Bangladeshi residents as the greatest victims. She has also complained about “gentrification” in Westminster, arguing that certain developments are insufficiently “inclusive.” She believes the shortage of affordable housing has left residents feeling they are being “pushed out.”

    Quite so! It’s a feeling shared by hundreds of thousands—even millions—of British people up and down the country, who increasingly fear they matter less to our politicians than welfare-dependant immigrants who can only speak Urdu, Punjabi, or Arabic. Unless politicians grasp this, they too will be pushed out—at the ballot box.

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

    Jay Singh
    22 hrs ago
    The Sikhs generally integrated well, learnt English, got educated and did OK from the 1960s and 70s immigration. I'm the product of that with my folks coming here back then. Though my grandparents didn't speak English there was no translation service. You went to community folk who could read and speak English. My grandparents worked in factories in the north. Hard shift work, I recall my grandma cooking, cleaning the house and then going off to do a 2pm to 10pm shift. You ask Sikhs what they make of the current situation in the UK… the leftie politicians would be flabbergasted! That's why I've not voted Labour for 20 years!

    Paul Cornish
    20 hrs ago
    Reply to Jay Singh
    I have had the pleasure of working with Sikh staff and treating many Sikhs as patients.
    The only difference between them and me is that they were of the Sikh faith.
    Personable, respectful and genuinely nice people. They are the perfect example, just like Jews, that it is possible to maintain their belief and many traditions whilst integrating with the indigenous population.
    Same with Hindus.
    There is but one religious faith in the UK that causes all of the problems. Everyone knows which one but Starmer and his cronies look set to make it a criminal offence to point this out by introducing a de facto blasphemy law, rather than telling them to shape up or ship out.

    James Baker
    19 hrs ago
    Reply to Paul Cornish
    Yep: Sikh’s contribute and integrate: government statistics show as much. They’re certainly not the cause of our national demise.

    John Do
    19 hrs ago
    Reply to Jay Singh
    Sikhs – generally wonderful, friendly, family-oriented people who are respectful and assimilate well. I have many Sikh friends. Sadly not all immigrants are like this…

    Michael Staples
    16 hrs ago
    Reply to Jay Singh
    My wife's mother was Italian. Her mother's father, a new immigrant, told his daughter not to teach her children Italian and only speak English at home, as they were now English. That is integration.

    2. My father's parents didn't speak English when they arrived here in 1899. One of my aunts knew some English so she, as a little girl, acted as interpreter. The children went to school here and repeated their lessons for the benefit of their parents when they got home. That was how the family learnt to read and write English.

    3. The problem is that councils, institutions and particularly the Home Office are full of Muslims, many in senior positions. That is why the Home Office is "not fit for purpose".

  85. It’s such a jolly time isn’t it? We heard from an old friend who has had his oesophagus and part of his stomach removed! The worrying thing was that he had no symptoms, but had a lung test and they found a mass!

  86. Remaining in the ECHR is nothing short of extremist lunacy

    Centre-Right politicians across Europe are waking up to the reality that the Convention is not compatible with the era of mass human transit

    Patrick O'Flynn
    19 December 2024 3:15pm GMT

    The case of the Turkish heroin-smuggling kingpin who cannot be deported because it would infringe on his human rights tells us who the real political extremists are in Britain.

    And it is not Nigel Farage and his Reform party, or Tories such as Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick who have long campaigned to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisdiction of its supervisory court in Strasbourg.

    Rather, it is the entire political and legal establishment who sustain an arrangement whereby the unreasonable demands of hardened criminals – often foreign national criminals – are routinely elevated above right of the law-abiding public to live safely.

    There is literally nothing good to be said about the 70-year-old Kurdish drug-dealer at the centre of the latest ECHR furore, or even a persuasive mitigating circumstance. He is believed to have at one time been head of a gang responsible for 90 per cent of the UK heroin trade – complicit therefore in all the death and misery associated with it.

    His claim that deporting him would be in breach of his right to a family life – upheld by an immigration tribunal – hardly sits easily with the long-term extra-marital affair he was having with a woman in Turkey. His claim that he could be persecuted back in Turkey over his Kurdish ethnicity hardly tallies either with his frequent and voluntary trips back home to that country. And yet the tribunal which found in his favour also cited a risk of persecution on those grounds.

    This is a truly mad situation which illustrates just how far judicial political activism has perverted the laudable founding aims of the authors of the European Convention and how it has become incompatible with the modern era of mass human transit across borders.

    It is not only the Convention and the jurisdiction of its court which need withdrawing from – the Human Rights Act which codifies it in British law clearly needs unwinding too. And Britain must also cut itself free from a thicket of other obsolete and onerous international compacts being misused by open-borders extremists. It was notable, for instance, that the UN Refugee Agency supported this scumbag’s case.

    That is the sensible and obvious political response so that illegal immigrants and foreign criminals can be removed from our increasingly anxious and fractured society. We are about to see a newly-elected US administration start removing illegals by the tens of thousands, advertising to European voters what can be done in countries that have national legal sovereignty – just as Australia did a generation ago.

    With the radical right having won elections in Italy and the Netherlands over the past two years, it should be obvious to establishment politicians everywhere that if they keep showing they cannot secure the basic national interest then they will be swept aside. No wonder centrist politicians in Germany are now questioning the operation of the ECHR, with elections coming up there in February.

    Yet in Britain we are led by a government which has said it will not withdraw from the European Convention or its court under any circumstances. The European human rights framework could inflict a thousand more cases where dangerous foreign criminals win the right to continue living among us and Keir Starmer would still bend the knee to it.

    Not only are there 400 Labour MPs who will back him all the way, but dozens of other “progressive” parliamentarians representing the Lib Dems, Celtic nationalists and Greens feel the same way.

    We know what Farage and his Reform grouplet of MPs would do. After all, Farage has referred to departure from the ECHR as “Brexit 2.0”. But at a moment when radical change is in the air across the western world, the Tory party merely has a holding statement to offer. They are doing a “review” and will come back to us with their findings a couple of years down the line.

    Kemi Badenoch, with her logical “engineer” brain, says she intends to present us in due course with a fully worked-out proposal for reasserting national control of borders. But in the meantime, that leaves the whole campaigning field wide open for Reform. It will also stoke suspicions that Mrs Badenoch is prioritising keeping the “One Nation” caucus of Tory MPs onside.

    That bunch already told us, during the legislative grappling over the ill-fated Rwanda plan, that they would not countenance ECHR withdrawal. Their then spokesman, Matt Warman, warned a year ago that over-riding the ECHR would be a “red line” for them.

    Mr Warman lost his supposedly impregnable Boston & Skegness seat to Reform’s Richard Tice in July, suffering one of the biggest swings against him ever recorded in a British general election. Those of his colleagues who made it back to Westminster after the bloodbath need to understand that the time for fence-sitting on this issue is long gone.

    1. Murderers, mass rapists and drugs barons should be given the option to voluntarily leave the country or sentenced to death after six months detention. That would be their choice then.

  87. OK people! Guess where we’ve been today!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1643c0f7ab2433c8dabbe0d9c35773a9a0efbc64d5390abcadc2667e4fcc9cf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/50e052bfb73ceff2644ec4840bb13f8ad003625a42dc7e702db3f1034ff0894c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffa99db1b039126cd9ce2c3557342df31c34757040463bd6381b67a227c766a3.jpg Hint: it wasn’t Glasgow!
    We took the boys in on the train to the Christmas market! They had a ball and we are cream crackered!

    5. Wowsers. My granddaughter has just returned from Edinburgh for Christmas.
      You can see why she chose that university.

      2. Oh it’s a very naice city, but I do prefer Glasgow! That said we’ve had a wonderful day and everyone from the train and station staff, to the helter skelter guy in a turban, and his sisters who were handing out the mats, were absolutely charming! Because the boys were too small to go up themselves, I had to go with them, one at a time! The girl offered to take the second one up for us! 🤣👏🏻

      1. The old joke. Three fish which start and end with the letter K.

        killer shark
        King-size haddock
        Kilmarnock

        Kilmarnock isn’t a fish!!!!

        No, it’s a pla(i)ce in Scotland!

      1. It’s actually the (Sir Walter) Scott monument. Very Victorian OTT an edifice but it contains an excellent statue of the author!

  90. Women born in the 1950s, family farmers, school children, old age pensioners.
    The question is,
    Who is next for the Starmer Jackboot treatment?

    1. Amazing that someone who is keen on rules and law and following correct, bureaucratic procedures can be so cavalier if the slightest deviation from "best practice" affects those who are unlikely to vote for him or his motley crew of vindictive leeches.

    2. VAT on school fees has had a knock on effect on us.

      We don't charge VAT on our courses but most of our clients have children in private schools and so they have less money to fritter away on French courses for their childrfen who are taking French at "A" level.

      Usually our Easter courses are just about fully booked by Christmas – now we are only a quarter full.

      If I were told I had just a few months left to live in my dreams I would study the art of political assassination, choose my victims and see what I could do!

  91. Good Evening.
    Phew. A day of running around.
    Just had a chuckle reading the Spekkie. Suddenly, all the billionaires who were so anti-Trump are now sucking up to him something chronic.
    As ever, the Donald has his thoughts on this change of face.

    "Trump has noticed that the elite mood music has changed in his favour since 2016. ‘The first term everybody was fighting me,’ he said on Monday. ‘This term everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know. My personality changed or something.’"

  92. In words

    ‘Right now, you have some very brilliant people looking at it. We’re looking to find out. If you look at autism, 30 years ago, the numbers were one in 200,000 or one in 100,000. Now I’m hearing numbers of one in 100, so something’s wrong. We’re going to find out about it.’

    – Donald Trump announces that his administration will examine claims of a connection between vaccines and autism. Such links have previously been widely discredited.

    2. A recent study in the US, in the 11 States in which they did a detailed study found 1in 36 children has an autism diagnosis. The study found 29% of those were intellectually impaired meaning they were unlikely to be able to cope with an ordinary run of the mill job. That is approximately one in every hundred children!

      A while back I was in correspondence with a bod who was looking at the rates of autism. I suggested that in the year after Dr Wakefield had been castigated for raising concerns about the triple MMR vaccine, a lot of parents delayed getting their children vaccinated. I expressed the hope that someone would review the incidence of autism in the UK in the couple of years after this event (my limited understanding is that it is difficult to diagnose in under two's) to see if the incidence actually fell as the children who hadn't received the MMR vaccine were a kind of control group….

    4. I certainly wouldn't rule out vaccines but also consider the effect of a greater propensity to diagnose as autism – as well as some other neurological conditions – what was once called misbehaviour. Parents, too, are more inclined to seek a diagnosis for what would once have been accepted as an odd or eccentric personality without consulting health professionals.

      1. Very true, Stig, but my good friend, a primary school teacher and assistant head for nearly 40 years, can't think of any other reason but vaccines for the changes he's seen. He's a real left wing guy but in the style of the 60s, if you get my drift.

    1. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,279 4/6

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

    2. Well done Rene, I guessed right this time (one of two) and squeaked a birdie as well!

      Wordle 1,279 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Par as well

      Wordle 1,279 4/6

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

    5. Me too. Had a good start.

      Wordle 1,279 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

          2. There are different versions of Satnav. Some being cheap rubbish which is why foreign drivers get stuck in country lanes and crash into bridges.

            Besides delivery drivers not being used to country roads.

            I on the other hand have use of military satellites and i noticed you didn't leave the house to go to market this morning.

          3. Talking of military – there is a (slightly weird) bloke who owns a museum of militaria a few miles from here, on the coast. Some time back, he acquired a tank. Tank was delivered on a long low-loader. Driver drove down the ever narrowing lane (guided by his satnav) until he reached the end (and point of no return.

            Matey had to hire a helicopter to lift tank off low-loader – then a much heavier helicopter to lift the low-loader…and return it to a place where it could be driven away!

        1. To speed up the journey, I'll stand beside the A12 ……. the lay-by near ……. ummm.
          Maybe I'll rethink the strategy.

      1. You are very kind. It is a wonderfully warm, comfortable house – much light and long interior vistas. I found it on the Saturday of Remembrance Sunday 1983 – and knew within 5 minutes that I would buy it. The room on the right of the shot, behind the fireplace, is the sitting room, and beyond that – through the double doors is another sitting room (called the "Pond Room" because I had an extension built which stopped short of the pond (now filled in and paved over). The dining table (bottom left) is mahogany and was a wedding present to my mother's parents in 1890.

        I shall stay here until they carry me out – I made sure when the extension was built that there would be double doors for the easy removal of a coffin!

  97. Moment of joy. I asked the MR to get a packet of Boot's OB sleeping tablets (they ARE effective – hence my oversleeping by 1½ hours this morning!!)

    The bumph in the packet states, among other side effects, "may cause drowsiness…."

  99. If there were any doubts about the economy under Labour, how about yesterday's trading statement from Shoe Zoine:

    Shoe Zone plc

    ("Shoe Zone" or the "Company")

    Trading Update

    <i><b>Shoe Zone announces that for the first two months of its financial year and the first half of December, it has experienced very challenging trading conditions, principally a weakening of consumer confidence and unseasonal weather, both of which have decreased revenue and profit.

    Consumer confidence has weakened further following the Government's budget in October 2024, and as a result of this budget, the Company will also incur significant additional costs due to the increases in National Insurance and the National Living Wage. These additional costs have resulted in the planned closure of a number of stores that have now become unviable. The combination of the above will have a significant impact on our full year figures.</b>

    As a result, the Company now expects adjusted profit before tax for the financial year ending 27 September 2025 to be not less than £5.0m, down from previous expectations of £10.0m. In addition, and in light of the above, the Company is not proposing to pay a final dividend for the financial year ended 28 September 2024.

    A further trading update will be provided alongside the announcement of our FY2024 annual results on 21 January 2025.</i>

    https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/shoe-zone–shoe/trading-update/8617456
    A share which earlier this year was ay 290p, crashed even further from 139p to 80p.

    1. Any retail operation relying on supply and quick turnover and small margins will be in a similar position. I doubt Reeves will have noticed or care. Lots of Shoezones out there.

    6. All employees will surely have read and approved…alternatively 'the Labour Government have shafted us all, they absolute barstewards, why we're sacking a shedload of employees.

  100. If there were any doubts about the economy under Labour, how about yesterday's trading statement from Shoe Zoine:

    Shoe Zone plc

    ("Shoe Zone" or the "Company")

    Trading Update

    <i><b>Shoe Zone announces that for the first two months of its financial year and the first half of December, it has experienced very challenging trading conditions, principally a weakening of consumer confidence and unseasonal weather, both of which have decreased revenue and profit.

    Consumer confidence has weakened further following the Government's budget in October 2024, and as a result of this budget, the Company will also incur significant additional costs due to the increases in National Insurance and the National Living Wage. These additional costs have resulted in the planned closure of a number of stores that have now become unviable. The combination of the above will have a significant impact on our full year figures.</b>

    As a result, the Company now expects adjusted profit before tax for the financial year ending 27 September 2025 to be not less than £5.0m, down from previous expectations of £10.0m. In addition, and in light of the above, the Company is not proposing to pay a final dividend for the financial year ended 28 September 2024.

    A further trading update will be provided alongside the announcement of our FY2024 annual results on 21 January 2025.</i>

    https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/shoe-zone–shoe/trading-update/8617456
    A share which earlier this year was ay 290p, crashed even further from 139p to 80p.

    2. Tee-hee, quite so. Hers all probably come as freebies and up until now I doubt she's even heard of Shoezone. You might have well asked if Cameron would prefer to dine out at Gregg's.

      1. Since the plague, I have had no sense of smell. Or taste, for that matter – except for extreme flavours.

    2. Good one, Citroen1…bit surprised no Labour wimmin seem to have spoken in defence of Waspi wimmin, apart from Diane Abbott – but everyone knows she doesn't count and easily dissed.

          1. The UK is definitely NOT open to business unless you give your money to a big tech company like Amazon or PayPal.
            Almost no businesses accept overseas cards. What’s the point of the internet if it’s strangled and access is only via big tech?
            Theme for another article?

          2. Hmm… tempting I must say. Regrettably I’m at one of the busiest times of my year. Perhaps in January there will be something furiously bubbling away in my addled brain that needs saying.

          3. Likewise. I have so many irons in the fire at the moment, I must concentrate on finishing something, not getting side-tracked with an article!

          3. And the captain – thanks to the cabin boy – could have become a Muslim and no questions asked!

    3. Similarly, why not peenal? And why doesn't the first syllable of both penal and penalty not sound the same?

      2. Why, David? The joy of the English language, continually evolving. Or just for the hell of it, if you prefer 😂😂

    4. Vowel consonant vowel is longer sounding for the first vowel (Mile). Vowell double consonant is shorter(Milk). Not infallible but sometimes helpful

    5. 'Pee' for short, Stephen. Some do actually pronounce it as Pen-is. Language evolves, often a diffferent meaning to the original. Go figure 😂

  110. Teenager who couldn’t swim drowned after friends thought his waving was a ‘joke’
    Tyrese Johnson, 16, who was ‘afraid of water’, died in Black Country reservoir during heatwave, inquest hears
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/19/teenager-drowned-reservoir-friends-thought-waving-joke/

    A tragic case of life imitating art.

    Not Waving but Drowning : Stevie Smith

    Nobody heard him, the dead man,
    But still he lay moaning:
    I was much further out than you thought
    And not waving but drowning.

    Poor chap, he always loved larking
    And now he’s dead
    It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
    They said.

    Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
    (Still the dead one lay moaning)
    I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning.

    2. I worked in textiles some years ago, Rastus…two different places, both had a small res, mills need water, you can guess the rest.

    1. I could give him directions. Drive straight through the chicken sheds and then go round the M25. The wrong way round.

  112. The case of the Waspi women is interesting in that Starmer reiterated the Conservative Party line that the women had been given adequate time to adjust for the fact that they would have to work until the age of 65 to get the full pension and the government could not afford to pay out billions.

    The point was that Starmer, Cooper and Rayner in opposition had all campaigned vehemently for the women to be compensated and said that when they were in office they would 'do the right thing.'

    Whether the Conservative Party – and now Keir Starmer – were right or wrong is beside the point. The point was that Starmer, Cooper and Rayner had all lied. The idiot defending Labour Party on GB News failed to grasp that it was the lie rather than the issue that was at the heart of the matter.

    2. They're all wrong too, because the Ombudsman disagreed with them, awarding compensation in the process.

      1. They just disagreed with the Ombudsman, all perfectly in order, nothing to see here, move along now…as I mentioned another post, James..what about a benign dictator, Lee Kwan Yu style…no jaywalking etc…you up for election?

    4. A failure to grasp – not that I saw it in this instance – is more often, in my view, a wilful effort to deflect attention away from the nub of the matter because it's too awkward to tackle and rather less a case of simply not comprehending the key point at hand.

  113. That's me for today. The sun did shine but my sleeping tab hangover meant that much of it was spent trying to remember where I was.

    I'll eschew them tonight (and, no, Phil, that does NOT mean I'll eat them…)

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain

  114. And so it goes…..just back from doctors appointment and he's confirmed that I have Afib again. Third time lucky or unlucky of course. Only clear for 17 months this time. Oh dear.

    1. Get a second opinion from a different Doctor! Preferably one that has to look at his screen to form a diagnosis.

    2. Did you ask to see your ecg with evidence of Afib on it?
      Heartbeat intervals are naturally irregular but Afib heart intervals are defined to be irregularly irregular.
      I don't believe that ecgs display a rhythym interpretation capable of quantifying the irregulariy of irregular hearbeat events.

    4. Oh no! And I’m guessing you’re already on all the meds that I’ve been prescribed? Bisoporol, Digoxin, Apixaban, Rampiril and Furosemide. Apparently a pacemaker is for slow Afib and I have fast Afib, hence the meds.

  115. What would they say if we suggested we ought to do away with the Ombudsman then, if they're not going to use it? No, don't say. I think we know.

  116. More shrouded in tragedy, Stephen. Many small textile mills closed now, one upside to those types of accident. They were a draw to schoolchildren, hot summer days.

  119. A pleasant run into Matlock to pay my ERNIE winnings into the Nationwide.
    Instead of my usual routine of going in in the morning, I left it until this afternoon, walking into Cromford for the 15:47 6.1 Service which gave me over 1½h before the last Bonsall Bus at 17:35, allowing time for a couple of pints up Dale Road.

  120. I know this is inappropriate but your post sounded like HAL. Sorry.

    I know you do monitoring much much than most of us but i would just like a Doctor to say….Everything is fine.

    1. A problem that I had with both a GP and a cardiac consulant was that I didn’t believe that they knew what they were doing and were driven by self serving practices which were defined with the limits of their specific roles in the NHS based on multipractitioner predefined ‘pathways’.

      Dave: “Doctor – just tell me everything is fine”
      Doctor HAL: “Sorry Dave – I can’t do that”

    1. Only if he's prepared to expose all of America's involvement.
      And unless that happens I doubt he'll MAGA.

  124. We're fucked.

    Sir Keir Starmer picks Lord Peter Mandelson as new UK ambassador to Donald Trump's US

      1. It'll come out he's a fiddler. Heck, anyone competent has him on corruption, fraud, theft in public office: you name it. That nothing sticks to the verminous toad is because a pile of other fiddlers protect him to protect themselves.

    1. It's no surprise that a Labour government would like to reward its grandees of the Blair era, but why not ambassador to Mongolia?

  126. Starmer is on the brink of erasing Brexit – but Kemi can still rescue it
    Labour has a huge majority and can ram through any deal it likes. But the Tories can still make life difficult
    David Frost – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/19/starmer-brink-of-erasing-brexit-kemi-can-still-rescue-it-eu/

    BTL

    If you, David Frost, had not caved in at the last moment on both Northern Ireland and British fishing waters we might have got a proper Brexit.

    Had Johnson really wanted to get a proper Brexit he would have deselected all Europhile candidates in the 2019 general election and put those who believed in Brexit in their place and allowed Farage's Brexit Party to run unopposed in certain seats.

    But we are where we are. The non-Brexit is ripe for the unpicking and, to be frank, it is your fault and the fault of Boris Johnson who produced the weakest of messes.

    2. If the day the vote went through, the UK had stated to the Commonwealth that we proposed a free trade area encompassing them all, but with no free movement of people, we could have had the biggest and most prosperous trading block on the planet, and we would all have benefitted.

      1. The Commonwealth hasn't got any money. We got in bed with the BRICS who do. What we should have done was join the EFTA, as Switzerland did and trade from there. It limits what the EU can do and lets us trade globally.

        Oddly that wasn't considered. I imagine because it limited the EU and meant the civil service had to do work while removing the excuse of 'an agreement'.

      2. We should have told the EU that we were going to trade on WTO terms. We held the upper hand, not that you would believe it from the crap "deal" (which we didn't need) we got. That's what happens when you set people to negotiate who don't want to deliver the goods.

    3. No, Rastus, we wouldn't have. Both Houses were dedicated to destroying Brexit at any cost. The entire state machine was devoted to undoing the democratic vote. Hell, they've spent 8 years steadfastly ensuring the UK was done down, made uncompetitive and furiously adopting every single EU law going – even chaining NI through it.

      I knew when we won that the state would never permit Brexit and despite being an old cynic even I am surprised at the vicious, spiteful, hate fuelled rage and malicious, underhanded tactics it has used to do this country down.

      The regulations, legislation, arrogance, taxation – all to stop democratic will because some petty, pathetic, overpaid, incompetent, greasy pole climbing wanker sitting in a big office troughing away on a six figure salary and expecting 7 under a pointless UK tax payer funded non-job swigging Bollinger and buckets of caviar saw his retirement nudged away from him by the annoying white van driving proles he despises in a vote, a vote he believes they should never have been permitted to have.

  130. There are days when I wonder if the dogs are spoiled. They have an excellent diet, plenty of fresh water that's changed twice, sometimes three times a day. They're brushed, hoovered at home and taken to the menders 3 times a year.

    They're all vaccinated, chipped, pinned and what not. Oscar's grumpy, Mongo's a wrecking ball, Lucy's a lovely ball of fluff.

    Then I see the state this dog has been allowed to get into and I wonder why on earth this was allowed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBZK6lN6Mv0

      1. I went 3 days without brushing Mongo one week as I was incredibly busy. He picked up a tick, great wads of fur fell off him. Nearly half a kilo of loose cruft. It took a while, but if I hadn't he'd have suffered.

        I just can't imagine – grooming fees are not that high.

    3. I watched a bit and cried a bit. that poor dog's eyes say it all. Those scissors should be poked into the 'owner's' eyes!

  131. My fishing friend, Richard, has just 'Watsupped' (?) me with pictures of Io transiting Jupiter. Utterly amazing.

    1. If Trump releases the Epstein island list Mandelson is finished – 20 years too late, but finished.

      1. I thought Epstein Island was hetero-under-age-sexual.

        Did they offer some sort of whore's d'oeuvre before the main course?

  133. My fight against Britain's sinister hate laws continues – and will not stop while I have breath in my body

    I'm not done with Essex Police yet, and readers' tales of similar Kafkaesque treatment have just made me more determined

    Allison Pearson
    18 December 2024 7:00pm GMT

    I got an early Christmas present. Lord Herbert, chairman of the College of Policing, has said that the Government should consider scrapping non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) after "inconsistency and controversy" over their misuse.

    That controversy arose, you will recall, after I wrote here about two Essex police officers turning up at my front door on Remembrance Sunday to tell me I was accused of saying something a year ago on social media by a "victim". But they were unable to reveal what I'd said or whom I had offended. (Essex Police claim my tweet was upgraded to a criminal offence under the Public Order Act, although it was recorded as an NCHI 12 months earlier by Sussex Police. In any case, the CPS slapped down this patent absurdity and confirmed the obvious; no case to answer.)

    The incident was so Kafkaesque that it prompted outrage and disbelief in equal measure. Senior politicians including Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, and former home secretaries, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, spoke out. In the House of Commons, Labour MP Graham Stringer attacked the "Stasi-like" behaviour of Essex police. Mr Stringer surely spoke for the majority of Britons when he inquired whether police time might be better spent catching shoplifters or, you know, actual criminals.

    The police have got a taste for catching non-criminals, I think, presumably because you deal with a nicer class of person who's unlikely to give you any bother. My promise that, with the amazing help of Toby Young and the Free Speech Union, I would assist anyone who had suffered under this un-British tyranny, has yielded scores of scarcely credible stories.

    Carol, a retired senior police officer, told me she had to deal with lots of "that nonsense" which made her want to quit her job. In one case, she said a "black female accused a white female of racial hatred for taking the last bunch of daffodils in a supermarket."

    When Carol asked the black woman what type of hateful or racist behaviour she had experienced, the woman gave no examples save that the white woman had taken the daffs and she wanted them. "A less experienced officer, or one who saw the word 'racist' and panicked, would definitely have given the white woman an NCHI," Carol said. If a person claims they have been offended, generally that's enough for the police who, increasingly, seem to see their role as protecting minorities ("protected characteristics") from offence by the majority.

    In a shocking email, Alan told me about his experience with Greater Manchester Police. Clearly, this elderly gentleman was in some distress because he was convinced he had a criminal offence on his record (he didn't, he had an NCHI). "Like you, Allison, I was visited on a Sunday morning whilst I was wearing rubber gloves and cleaning out my cat litter trays, one month after an incident where I told anti-social Asian kids to clear off from our street.

    "The police constable was polite and friendly and got on his radio to 'close the case'. I thought it was just a neighbourhood dispute and was shocked five months later, after submitting an SAR [Subject Access Request] to the police, to discover that I had a criminal record for 'race and/or religiously aggravated hate crime'. Even though I did not mention race or religion."

    Alan sent an email of complaint to an Inspector P. "He told me that Greater Manchester Police had a duty to the 'wider community'. I ascertained from subsequent emails that this meant Muslim and/or ethnic communities.

    "I was brought up to believe in the impartiality of British justice. But, now, I do not believe in it. Now, in Britain, you can be secretly recorded by our Stasi police without evidence and without even knowing what you are supposed to have done."

    "Be assured," Alan wrote in an email to the police, "this will not stop until I am dead. This fight is just as necessary as my dad's fight when he went over as a coxswain on D Day in 1944 to fight against Nazism. He didn't do that for the UK police force to secretly record crimes against innocent people without their knowledge and without evidential proof, but just on the say so [readily believed] of one person who 'perceived' a racial element.

    "This is NOT justice, but a witch-hunt, driven by the College of Policing and slavishly followed by the UK police forces. This has gone TOO far in the opposite direction, resulting in an unjust attack on white British people in this country, driven by the politicised police."

    I'm afraid I broadly agree with Alan's conclusion. No wonder Lord Herbert admitted to the Times Crime and Justice Commission that the requirement to record non-crime hate incidents had become "a distraction" and was undermining public confidence in the police. He can say that again. "We need to prevent harm," he said.

    "We need to ensure that minorities are protected and be alive to things like anti-Semitism, but on the other hand, we must ensure that police are not drawn into the trivial. We want to apply a common-sense approach, where the police officer would receive a complaint and they would be able to say, 'We're sorry, we can understand you find that offensive but it's not a matter for us'."

    As Lord Herbert must know full well, the Statutory Guidance introduced in 2022 by the then home secretary Suella Braverman was extremely clear about when it was – and wasn't – suitable to apply an NCHI. Use your common sense, police were instructed. Is this in the public interest? Does the accused person present a threat of violence?

    That code of conduct has been totally ignored by the police. As has the verdict of the Court of Appeal in the case of Harry Miller. The ex-police officer won a legal challenge against a national policy for forces to record gender-critical views as non-crime hate incidents. In almost all cases, the court said free speech should trump any other consideration.

    Why the police decided to unilaterally go on distributing NCHIs is a matter for conjecture. What is clear now is that a brilliant campaign by my Telegraph news desk colleagues has shone a pitiless light on the failure by Essex Police – and other forces – to solve actual crimes while they visit innocent people over imaginary ones. It was a major and well-deserved embarrassment.

    If Lord Herbert is to be taken at his word, the tyranny of NCHIs should soon be at an end. If it isn't then, like Alan, I will not stop fighting those sneaky, sinister things until my dying day. My legal team has submitted a Subject Access Request to Essex Police, which obliges them to disclose any material they hold on me, and they must also release the bodycam footage taken by police on my doorstep, a redacted transcript of which they leaked to a newspaper in a pathetic attempt to discredit me.

    This may not seem like a very Christmassy way to sign off, but I think it says a lot about the wonderful community we have here, the invincible spirit of Telegraph readers and the support I have received from you lot – so deeply appreciated at what felt like a very scary time.

    Sometimes, I know we feel powerless about what has become of our great country, and the fools who have done it. But this proves we don't need to be. Together, we can share experiences and information and call on like-minded politicians and public figures to rally to the cause and I will always do my best to fight for you and to correct any injustice. Especially when that injustice comes from the supposed forces of law and order.

    Funny, but after a pretty bumpy year, I feel optimistic. The bastards shall not grind us down. We're going to have a very quiet one at Pearson Towers, but I'm looking forward to the stillness and hushed magic of midnight mass; the annual reminder that this world was transformed by love.

    Yet in thy dark streets shineth
    The Everlasting light;
    The hopes and fear of all the years
    Are met in thee tonight

    Happy Christmas!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/18/my-fight-against-sinister-hate-laws-will-never-stop

    1. 'We need to prevent harm'. You can't. You can't prevent crime. You can investigate and punish criminals, but the reasons for that are related to massive uncontrolled gimmigration, welfare dependency and generosity (because the state doesn't understand markets), high taxes (because the state thinks it knows best).

      What you cannot do is stop people being harmed. You cannot legislate kindness. In fact, the more it is forced, the more people push against it because it invariably means one group are raised above another.

        1. Even more if we stop them being born in the first place by scrapping child benefit and housng benefit for single mothers.

        2. You can prevent a lot of crime by getting rid of those here illegally, stopping others arriving and deporting those who have been caught.

          1. An unfortunate case, but if such “crimes”, and I don’t believe it was a crime, had been hit harder earlier perhaps he might not have done as he did.

            One reason we get more and more useless laws is because the existing ones are not enforced firmly enough.

    2. "Lord Herbert, chairman of the College of Policing, has said that the Government should consider scrapping non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) after "inconsistency and controversy" over their misuse."

      Shirley his statement is a non-crime hate incident, at least topeople who believe this crap.

    3. Is that the niece of the Bangladeshi PM or President lady who had to scarper to avoid lynching a few months ago?

    1. Everything is political, from the price of beer, fuel, food, jobs, wages. You cannot NOT talk about politics because the political class are making an utter mess of absolutely everything.

      1. I'd point out that his sticker is correct. muslim are simply out breeding us about 8 to 1. How? Because they're sodding paid to from OUR taxes!

    1. Ditto, Truss' budget was a good one. As soon as it was read out my heart fell as I knew the entire state machine would do her in. Reeves is being protected because her budget gets them more money and power at the expense of the worker.

      It's simple spite. I watched Marr on LBC and despite talking to the lloyds banking fellow neither of them were capable of admitting the truth and kept dancing around the elephant presenting high falutin' concepts but ignoring the fundamentals. I suppose it's easier that way.

        1. Truss is still about, pushing pro growth policies and producing such under her own quango.

          What's sad is that the case need be made at all.

      1. Folk are pointing such out. Personally I don't really care as her appearance is irrelevant. However if her stressors are showing visibly – good. She's a stupid, cretinous, arrogant windbag who deserves a kicking.

        2. She's not alone, wibbling. Presumably Starmer signed off,,,but then, thick as a plank. Grieves me (speaking as a woman) the wimmins been out in force to support her, just because she is a ..wimmin. Similar Rayner.

          1. Oh he'd have to. Thing is, this isn't Reeve's work. It's the treasury's. She's a hapless fool who sets policy, she has no real ability. She's an actor reading a script who gave the writers the plot of 'hike taxes to splurge on the public sector and punish workers'.

          2. I have long thought, wibbling – why do I vote, when I think the Civil Service is the permanent government? My grandfather told me as much more than half a century ago, he wanted me to join CS but I ignored him. Ever stupid. Never mind, humin son playing..sigh..

  138. I don't want to know what abuses were carried out there, but Mandelson is a revolting, slimy character.

  141. It's a very similar scenario, Belle. Io transiting with Ganymede moving below but a lot further to the left. He's sent me a video that he filmed on his mobile from his computer screen, and so much more degraded than your Reddit clip so I won't try to get it onto the forum for too much longer.

  143. Jealous. We have £150 in bonds and haven't won anything. I was sure we'd win the jackpot every week as soon as we started.

  145. I hope Sue Edison has had Radio 3 on.
    An excellent performance of Heinrich Schutz's WeihnachtsHistorie from the Wigmore.

    1. Good film – Charlton Athletic is excellent and also, bizarrely, Larry Olivier as the Mad Mahdi!

        1. I still like him bellowing 'Soylent Green is people!!' – a ludicrous line which he made very powerful!

    2. Brilliant film .. MM

      When I was a youngster I visited the Palace where General Gordon was killed , the building was next to the Sudan club .. where we used to swim .. etc.

      What a shame the Sudan is in a mess .

      Where did you find it , I am searching the channels ?

      1. Amazon, Belle. Been a long time since I've seen it. Already it's far more interesting than I remember watching it as a kid.

  149. Apologies if anyone has already posted on this, but what is the general view on the Gisele Pelicot trial?

    I'm full of admiration for a very brave woman but I fail to see why this story has dominated our news bulletins for so long – it took up the first ten minutes of tonights Six O'Clock News!

    Apart from the fact that it is deeply prurient, is this story trying to distract us from something else (that's all I could think of!).

    1. Hello GGGG,

      I was just thinking the same .. some one is burying the real news … why were the BBC focussing on French news , and stuff none of us care to hear .. even though it was a horrible story .

      Mandelson being promoted to our man in the States… instead of Farage?

      1. I'm glad I'm not the only one, Belle!

        It's pretty sickening that that a**hole Guacomole Mandelson is going to be our next 'man' (I use that term in its loosest possible sense) in Washington – but that doesnt seem big enough news to try and deflect?

        The truth will out in due course, I'm sure…..

    3. Yes GGG, the Corruption Minister has been caught involved in a corruption scandal.

      As she belongs to the protected religion the BBC is very anxious that it be forgotten as soon as possible.

      Aalready the article about her on the BBC website has disappeared.

    1. Rudukabana has been given a top brief.

      Unlike the poor saps imprisoned by the State post Southport protests.

    1. "Glib and oily Mandy's lies and mortgage I could not excuse
      Twice I sacked the sleazy bugger though his spittle shone my shoes      ."

      as sang the populist prime minister from a minor public school!

  155. Here's one unexpected: I assumed, from the name, that the Glendale Hotel in Penarth was a lavender-flavoured great-aunt establishment. Wrong! It's Italian run, superb kitchen & chef, fantastic atmosphere in the bar… Worth coming to just visit! We'll deffo be back!

  157. Funny Old World
    Watching "The Day Of The Jackel" and the thing that's hit hardest is the sight of a detective marching into Downing St with no bloody barriers the past is a different and better place

    1. Every time I see the film I hope there's going to be a different ending and the Jackal will succeed!

    2. We can remember the time, when younger, using Downing Street as a cut through from Whitehall to St James’s Park when we were courting (there’s an old fashioned term).

    3. We can remember the time, when younger, using Downing Street as a cut through from Whitehall to St James’s Park when we were courting (there’s an old fashioned term).

  158. Off to bed now so it's a slightly early Good Night from me. Sleep well, awaken refreshed, and I shall see you all tomorrow morning.

  159. Evening, all. Late tonight, so probably shan't be long.

    So they think all donations should be given to Labour?

      1. The headline says traditional conservatives should be wary of donations from billionaires. So they think billionaires should donate to Labour instead?

  162. It’s tempting I know. I’ve just used an hour up before replying to you with washing the car, cutting back the wisteria and making up the fire for this afternoon. And that’s before I even get onto the things that will really get into my time: preparing for family coming over; preparing to go to other family Christmas Day and others. I used to work right up to Christmas but I simply don’t have the time anymore.

    Speak later.

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