Thursday 19 June: Don’t let civil servants blow any more cash on the disaster that is HS2

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

438 thoughts on “Thursday 19 June: Don’t let civil servants blow any more cash on the disaster that is HS2”

  1. Morning Geoff and chums. Today's Wordle was an EAGLE!

    Wordle 1,461 2/6

    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. It amazed me too, Citroen: 3 EAGLEs in less than 3 weeks (in fact in 17 days).

        2. Good morning Elsie and all
          I have had two eagles recently, but not today – I am stuck on the second line! Will go back to it later.

    1. I hope that this resulted in a refreshing cuppa brought to you in bed, Ndovu. (Good morning to the pair of you, btw.)

  5. Cowardly Starmer has put Britain on the wrong side of history

    If Trump and Netanyahu disarm Iran, they will be richly deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize

    18 June 2025 6:53pm BST
    Allister Heath

    There are cowards, there are the morally bankrupt, and then there is Sir Keir Starmer. Never one to miss an opportunity to humiliate Britain, the Prime Minister’s cataclysmic misreading of the conflict in the Middle East has put him, and the UK, on the wrong side of history.

    Instead of standing with Israel in its existential struggle to rid the world of a millenarian death cult intent on building nuclear weapons, Starmer found it easier to hoist the white flag.

    Rather than offering to help shoot down Iranian missiles slaughtering Israeli civilians, the Prime Minister spent the past week calling for “de-escalation” (and thus for the preservation of the genocidal nuclear programme); in lieu of pleading with Donald Trump to send B-2 stealth bombers to take out Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant, Starmer chose to spout neo-pacifist verbiage and to demonstrate how embarrassingly little access and influence he retains in Washington.

    To our great shame, at a moment of maximal global danger, the nation of Wilberforce and Churchill has chosen to go AWOL for the first time, betraying our friends and allies, making a mockery of our supposed values and admitting to the world that we are no longer a serious power.

    What is even more galling is that Iran is one of our bitter enemies: its spies and propagandists operate in the UK, it has kidnapped and threatened our citizens and it despises us as one of two “Little Satans” (the other is Israel) to America’s Big Satan. We should be thanking Jerusalem for taking care of the Mullahs and the IRGC on our behalf, and yet our Government of non-entities is sitting on the sidelines, terrified of its Israelophobic electoral “base”. What kind of country opposes a military intervention that will directly make its citizens safer?

    The answer is an irrelevant one, which is what Britain has become under Labour. Everything has suddenly changed in the Middle East, no thanks to us – or, for that matter, Brussels or Paris.

    The good guys are winning a key battle in the great global conflict that broke out when Russia invaded Ukraine. Israel and America are reestablishing Western deterrence after Joe Biden’s half-hearted response to Vladimir Putin and following the debacle of the retreat from Afghanistan. They are well on their way to preempting a nuclear apocalypse. North Korea and Pakistan obtained the bomb, which was a disaster; Iran’s defenestration amounts to a rare yet hugely important victory in the fight against atomic proliferation.

    It is hard to exaggerate the outsized role that Israel is now playing, and how much it is aiding an ungrateful and ethically compromised Europe. By necessity and out of self-interest, it has become the West’s praetorian guard, a nation of heroes dedicated to doing our dirty work for us, as well as a (not always comfortable) proxy of sorts for the US.

    A tiny country the size of Wales, its population barely larger than London’s, Israel is annihilating – from 1,000 miles away, in an unprecedented long-distance war – an oil-rich regional superpower that is nine times more populous and boasts a 75 times larger land area, while waging a conflict on seven fronts.

    The Jewish state has demonstrated a level of military and strategic brilliance over the past year last witnessed from a Western nation in the Second World War. This isn’t Desert Storm-style bulldozing; this is the real deal, a la Hannibal or Carl von Clausewitz, and it will be studied for centuries to come. It turns out that October 7 was Israel’s Pearl Harbor, not its 9/11: its fightback has been astonishing, and is helping to undo the narrative of Western decline.

    Israel has shrugged off a Blitz-style attack that no European country could have remotely coped with, and is emerging as the uncontested regional hegemon. America too might yet still be much more powerful than we realised; its weapons remain the best. The notion of a multi-polar world has been undermined: Russia and China were happy to use Iran, but aren’t lifting a finger to defend it.

    The forces of Islamism are in historic retreat: Israel’s destruction of the Iranian proxy system is an even greater victory for Western civilisation than the ending of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The regime pioneered modern Islamism and state terrorism; it funded Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and the Houthis.

    Some 2563 years after Cyrus the Great of Persia freed the Jews from captivity, Israel is returning the favour, with a little help from Trump. The Iranian people, savagely oppressed by the Mullahs, may soon liberate themselves; unlike in other Middle Eastern countries, where the opposition is often worse than the ruling tyrants, most ordinary Iranians are desperate for Westernisation.

    Bereft of Iran’s financial, military and psychological support, unable to siphon aid from the UN, Hamas could sue for a ceasefire, its leaders opting for exile in return for the hostages. Israel’s triumph over Iran and its proxies, combined with the end of the war in Gaza, would undoubtedly be enough to precipitate an expansion of the Abraham Accords.

    For all their flaws, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, if they finish the task at hand, would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I doubted both men – Trump looked as if he was going soft, and I feared Netanyahu, who now looks positively Churchillian, could never redeem himself for the October 7 pogroms happening on his watch. They appear to have proved me wrong.

    It is striking how Europe’s objections to Israel’s actions – the alleged violation of international law, the militarism – embody all the pathologies that are eating away at the soul of our nations. Ever since Michel Foucault, a key figure in the woke movement, penned pro-Islamic revolution propaganda masquerading as journalism in 1978, much of the Left has had a blind spot for the regime. France even put up Ayatollah Khomeini in a luxury villa.

    By defiling progressive pieties, Israel is mending the world. Netanyahu and Trump are drivers of history. They are changing rather than merely experiencing reality, unlike vapid non-player characters like Starmer or Emmanuel Macron. With the West being rescued from its own stupidity, perhaps now is the time to allow ourselves a fleeting moment of optimism.

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

    Michael Chissick
    11 hrs ago
    A spot on article. Under Starmer and Lammy the uk in under a year have been reduced to irrelevance. Lammy more at home with his student politics of sanctioning 2 ministers cannot get anyone in Israeli govt to take his calls so he just speaks to Iran. Their empty platitudes of deescalation show that they are clueless. Labour too scared to even proscribe IRG snd take any action after Iran shown to be conducting terrorist activities on Uk soil. Labour seeks appeasement of all Muslims interests and as with boat crossings and Chagos does not put UK interests first.

    I ashamed of what this socialist pacifist incompetent govt has done with what was once a highly regarded punch above our weight great country.

    Michael Bamber
    11 hrs ago
    Reply to Michael Chissick
    Rare that Allister the pessimist gets it right – but this article is 100%.

    B Adams
    8 hrs ago
    Reply to Michael Chissick
    Which part of the axis of evil do they not understand… absolute fookwits… Iran is as state sponsor of terrorism clear as day.edited

    1. This article is delusional. The writer seems to think the glory days of the American/British empire are just a few shots away round the corner.
      I'm not emotionally involved in the middle east, apart from seeing it as a human tragedy on all sides.

      The debt-based currency system that has funded all the wars for a hundred years is about to fall. That is the single most important event happening right now.

    2. The forces of Islamism are in historic retreat: Israel’s destruction of the Iranian proxy system is an even greater victory for Western civilisation than the ending of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The regime pioneered modern Islamism and state terrorism; it funded Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and the Houthis.

      Tell that to the Christians of Africa.

      I also fear that the forces of Islamism are entrenched around the globe and growing, independently of Iran. Whatever the flavour they all use the same manual.

    1. He didn't misunderstand anything. He did what he intended regardless of 'cultural barriers'.

      1. He did what was normal in his culture. That it is totally incompatible with ours was of no account.

    1. Three years in the life of the planet is not measurable nor is any change in the climate during that period. 'Leading scientists' know less than the man on the Clapham omnibus.

    2. It's Global Warming!/Climate Change!!/A CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!/A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE!!!!/CLIMATE ARMAGEDDON!!!!!/GLOBAL BOILING!!!!!!/CLIMATE COLLAPSE/{insert latest panic & scare mongering catch phrase here}

  14. Special Pimm’s

    SIR – Throughout the 1980s, my company entertained clients at Henley Royal Regatta. We served many, many glasses of Pimm’s (Letters, June 18), the majority being mixed with lemonade.

    However, for certain “awkward” clients, the mixer was a white sparkling wine. These “specials” were identified by two red straws – and yes, a few guests ended up in the river.

    Robert Lawson
    Shrewsbury

    SIR – I used to enjoy Pimm’s. However, that was before manufacturers insisted on using sweeteners for all lemonades. This ruined the flavour. Pimm’s with soda water wasn’t all that pleasant. I might try sweetener-free tonic water.

    Gill Clark
    Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire

    Peasants ! Use Ginger Ale !

    1. Morning Phizzee

      This is a better alternative to Pimms!

      Chapman is a non-alcoholic drink, usually red in colour. Often referred to as a non-alcoholic punch, it is traditionally made with a mix of Fanta, Sprite, Cucumber, Lemon, Grenadine and Angostura bitters and is traditionally served in a large mug with ice and a few slices of cucumber.

      3. I once tried testing Fanta with some litmus paper. It turned bright pink and then started to dissolve. Don't try this at home.

    3. Ginger ale is also full of sweetener and sugar.
      The only solution is to make the GA/tonic/lemonade yourself. Then you control the ingredients.

    4. I avoid lemonade and tonic water with sweeteners. Why do they use artificial stuff?

      1. Agree. His constituents can still vote for him, standing as Independent Candidate or so I read.

      2. They didn't, he left. They were accusing him of harassing office staff, completely unfounded, seemingly because they thought he was getting too much personal support (he was, and I still support him as do many others). He discussed with his local party, who agreed he could change to Independent candidacy status. Katie Hopkins, Ben Habib also speak similarly their experiences with Farage and Tice. A suggestion of funds being involved, obviously can't speak to the veracity of those claims.

        1. I support him. I wish that Farage would bugger off in one of his hypocritical huffs and that Ben and Rupert Lowe took over. The party would be worth supporting then. As it is it is just another Mainstream party promising whatever it thinks as expedient for votes. And Farage's mischaracterization of Tommy Robinson and his cowardly attack while Tommy could not answer illustrate how corrupt and how unrepresentative he is of the sort of leader we need.

  16. SIR – Anne Jappie (Letters, June 17) writes: “Morally, ethically and philosophically, it is more humane to hasten death than to extend undesired existence.”

    I am deeply sorry for the suffering her mother endured, and the pain she experienced in witnessing this. However, I cannot agree with her.

    Who would decide in specific cases whether it is kinder to hasten death when someone does not want to live? Is this an acceptable choice for anybody to make?

    Many people live with chronic pain, which can, at times, feel intolerable. Should we be “humane” in providing death as an option? Even if we agreed that people should be able to choose the time and circumstances of their own death, what about those who cannot make that decision, such as children, or those with disabilities preventing them from making their wishes known?

    Not one of us chose to be born into this world. It seems peculiar that many have decided that we have a right to leave it when and how we choose.

    Miriam Gosling
    Stoke-on-Tent, Staffordshire

    Anyone?

    1. Well, she clearly isn’t ‘sorry’. More like ‘sorry, not sorry’!

  17. Uncle Bob
    2m
    Who would have thought the an EU ordered TENtec HS2 rail system
    Willingly undertaken by Labour and approved by Johnson with such vigour

    Would end up a p!g in a poke & massive economic failure for the people & effectively cancelled

    £150 Billion down the drain, homes, farms, villages lost forever, all for nothing.

    While it turned into an outstanding financial success for the companies that failed to deliver

    HS2 must be the biggest transfer of UK Tax money in to Private Profits for no return, In History

    2. What is more we knew it all along, right back to 2009 when it was first commissioned following the Great Fraud that wiped out public services and made them impossible to finance properly ever since. They chose instead to make "hard decisions" over youth orchestras, nurses, defence of the realm, postmasters and of course support for the disabled, whilst choosing not to make an easy decision over HS2.

      As for Starmer, just one word condemns him utterly: 'hedgehogs'. At election time, he pledged to protect the only hedgehog sanctuary in London, in Regents Park in his constituency, but once in office voted in favour of bulldozing the sanctuary to provide parking for HS2 contractors' vehicles. The man is not fit to be an MP, let alone Prime Minister.

    1. Seems like the SNP are finished, or at least on the downslide. Back to Labour. Lovely.

    3. They can't even discern the difference between a man and a woman; a male doctor decided he was a woman and Sandie Peggie (the subject of the right hand column) objected to him using the female locker rooms. Both Tayside NHSS and the unions backed the male doctor, and Holyrood has been squirming about the recent clarification of the matter by the Supreme Court. Elsie McSelfie and her latest replacement Swinney seem determined to ignore the lawful clarification. Hence Swinney and Forbes swerving yesterday's meeting.

    1. I wouldn't put it in a punch for a crowd but i would put a slug of Vodka into my own glass.

    1. These people should be removed both from the UK and the USA as soon as they say this disgusting stuff. Although I would prefer they be treated in the way they would treat us, shoot them.

  21. Good morning all.
    Got back home late yesterday afternoon after a couple of days exploring the Froghall area, particularly the plateway, tramway and railway to Cauldon Low.
    A very pleasant tad under 15°C this morning with what looks like turning into a bloody hot day.

  23. 407767+ up ticks,

    Then a token jail sentence until they can be done on
    an additive express proxy law TREASON, for destruction of their Country of origins passport.

    FULL LIFE SENTENCE

    No expense must be spared in regards to "our guest's"
    who wish to remain

    Dt,

    Rochdale grooming gang cannot be deported after tearing up Pakistan passports
    Offenders exploit loophole by renouncing citizenship, meaning UK cannot make them stateless

    1. Just kill them. Like you would mad elephants or rabid dogs. They are of no use to the human race.
      And kick out their complicit families back to Shitholestan.
      They knew exactly what daddy/uncle/brother was up to.

      1. The role of the rapists' wives in this has never been made public. There was one video on the internet some years ago of a group of Pakistani muslim women talking in English about what sluts white girls are, but I don't know if it was genuine or not and it disappeared. From my own personal experience, I can imagine the nasty comments that will have been made about the rape victims by the rapists wives, as I have heard similar talk about English women being sluts.

        1. And while the males are "playing away" the baby machines get a welcome break from their attentions.

        2. The koran states that the kuffar is “lower than cattle “. Tells you all you need to know about their attitude.

      2. I don't want to be too inquisitive , because there are things one needn't know.

        The grooming gangs who inflict sexual damage on young girls ,do they have a tiny tackle problem , and is that why they interfere with youngsters because there is a genetic malformation?

        Horror of horrors but the very notion of grown men ruining a child is unbearable so is it a miniature penis problem?

        1. Please call them Rape Gangs, Belle. Grooming is an insult to those poor young girls who wer raped by these monsters.

          1. Precisely. I groomed Spartie yesterday evening.
            I doubt these vermin worried about whether girls' ears were clean or the state of their teeth.

        3. I gather some of the girls needed remedial surgery.
          Read into that what you will.

          2. I have a copy of Katie Lam's speech to the House of Commons.
            Much of it is quoting the judge's summing up.
            It would put NOTTLers off their food for weeks.

        4. Quite seriously Belle. They do it as a form of Jihad because it degrades the girls and humiliates the men who count as enemies being non-Islamic. A graphic illustration of this humiliation was when the Arab army defeated the Persians. The leader of the Persians was first beheaded by the commander of the Arab army and then he raped the widow in front of the defeated Persians.

    2. Create a new “state “ on a deserted island and grant them “citizenship “. Shittistan is an appropriate name. Then they aren’t stateless.

    3. Just “tearing up” a passport does not mean you have rescinded your citizenship…i would have thought

  24. 407767+ up ticks,

    Then a token jail sentence until they can be done on
    an additive express proxy law TREASON, for destruction of their Country of origins passport.

    FULL LIFE SENTENCE

    No expense must be spared in regards to "our guest's"
    who wish to remain

    Dt,

    Rochdale grooming gang cannot be deported after tearing up Pakistan passports
    Offenders exploit loophole by renouncing citizenship, meaning UK cannot make them stateless

    2. I've read this, can it be true? 'Anne Cryer (MP for Keighley) reported it to Starmer when he was DPP, at the time he was defending some of the accused'.

      1. Ann Cryer raised the subject some 20 (?) years ago. Her Labour Party colleagues were so grateful for her honesty.

      1. He wouldn't have noticed it anyway – What with him lying over it with his trousers down waiting for his besty friend Hermer to put his case-load forward.

    2. Look Ogga,

      It is about time the so called carnival people and the horrible Khan realise that DEI has had it's day, timed out , dangerous , hazardous to health and a bad image for London .

      Enough is enough .

    4. Perhaps the drug dealers will fund as they probably make a ‘killing’ at that event.

      1. Warehouses stuffed full of weed and coke.
        Does it have a 'use by' date?
        p.s. Are you still in Frogland?

        1. I am. Leaving demain, overnight in Nuits St George, tunnel Saturday.

          Off topic, a couple of days ago it occurred to me that I didn't think I've paid you for the Lanesborough. Did you send me your bank deets?

  28. Good Morning!

    Former soldier and policeman John Surtees writes that while he does not condone the violence seen in Ballymena recently, he fully understands it and lays the blame squarely on governments and, in Bally Awful – When the People Riot, It’s Because the State Has Declared War on Them , says that unless the State backs off, there is worse to come.

    Religion is back! Sudo Nonym, in a style all his own, tells us in Religion. For, against or indifferent , tells if he is for, against or indifferent. Read his piece and find out, and why.

    Former Guardian journalist Elizabeth Nickson, in Engineered Hate: This is How It Happened to Me , tells of her journey from Left to Right by way of being cancelled when she started to see the light and of how very vicious her former 'friends' on the Left turned out to be. Her story is one of terror – she was stalked and received death threats – but also one of courage. Please read and leave a comment.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 27.9%; Solar, 11.8%: Wind 12.7%; Imports, 18.1%; Biomass, 10.2%; Nuclear 15.9% and Miscellaneous, 3.5%.

    The wind don't blow – so they have to fire up the gas stations, otherwise paid to sit idle.

  35. Sadeq Nikzad, 29, who claimed he’d not been educated on ‘cultural differences’ repeatedly shouted ‘liar’ at judge John Morris, KC, after he was handed a 12-year extended sentence at Livingston High Court.

    The judge hurriedly left the bench as the accused, screaming and gesticulating wildly, was handcuffed by security guards before being led to the cells.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14826407/Asylum-seeker-raped-girl-15-not-aware-cultural-differences-claims-lawyer.html

    Oh dear, what a shame, never mind…

    1. Why the Left forced them on us is beyond me. It's simply a form of cultural rape. They really are vile.

      These criminal gimmigrants should be castrated, flogged and hanged.

    2. So this piece excrement will cost the British taxpayer the thick end of £1million.
      What is the price of a piece of rope? Or a bullet?

      2. I'm sure Bob of Bonsall could rootle around and find you an adequate length of rope to swap for a mug of tea.

  37. Poor chap had a chronic disease, I think? possibly caused by insect bite? Good to see him back on form, Spectator columnist I think when BJ was Editor?

    1. Yes, he mentions his health problems from time to time. I think there are periods when he can’t work a lot. Very unlucky.

      1. I always liked to read him in the Speccie, when Johnson was Editor. No chance of that with current editor, Gove. I often have Disqus problems there, never anywhere else including Geoff’s here and Tom’s FSB.

          1. Did not know that, but I guess similar occupation. Would be good if Gove give Delingpole a regular Spectator column again, I’m still a subscriber for my sins.

    1. Actually everything remains the same as is. What the new law did was decriminalize abortion so that women cannot be prosecuted for having one.

  39. Hermer Threatens to Block US Military Action on Iran

    Tom Moncrieff
    1h
    USA will not care one iota if Britain backs them or not. UK is nowadays just too insignificant except for photo ops with the Royal Family.

    1. Hermer must be mightily distressed that the major source of finances for Islamic terrorists is about to dry up. Pity he can't be shipped off to join the Ayatollah in his bunker. Trapped, as the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi says:"Like a rat."

      1. I'd pay good money to watch that.
        Heck, I'd even pass up on the pair of shoes I'm dithering over buying.
        (Should I wait for the sale????)

    2. And a destination to offload dross, of course. Don’t forget that important function.

    3. And I remember when we were the Little Satan, How we have fallen even in the eyes of the Ayatollahs.

    4. Richard Simon Hermer, Baron Hermer ( Attorney General for England and Wales) argued that Shamima Begum should have been allowed to return to the United Kingdom to participate in her appeal when he intervened for Liberty in Begum v Home Secretary, and also represented the mother of one of the "ISIS Beatles". He represented former Guantánamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah in Zubaydah's Supreme Court case against the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and argued against the deportation of al-Qaeda operative Abid Naseer. Hermer also acted for convicted terrorist Rangzieb Ahmed, and Saudi Arabian terrorist Mustafa al-Hawsawi. And there is more, much more.

      Who appointed Hermer, an anti-British, terrorist supporting friend of Hamas and the IRA? Could Starmer have had something to do with it?

      1. Put the pair of them adrift in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean far away for the shipping and aviation routes.

  40. Morning all! Its going to reach 82F today. Retreated to my bedroom yesterday, fan and hepa filters on, it cools the air as it goes through. Will do the same today and crawl out of their to open the house around 8pm. when it will 'only' be 75. There are certain disadvantages in living in the sunniest place in the UK.

    Anyway. Posting this. Brand new Tommy Robinson bringing some Norwegian to tears.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJtqFXXmBZc&t=513s

    1. Our British politicians of all parties are beneath contempt. Their treatment of Tommy Robinson shows that they are totally inhumane and have no true morality at all.

  41. Crumbs. The Poole Harbour ospreys are huge. They look like teenagers; even the last hatchling is indistinguishable from its siblings.
    Given that they hatched when the weather was cold and wet, they obviously have excellent parents.

    1. The smallest one still has a white back – but it's looking good! I thought it might be a goner last week when they got wet.

  43. Good morning all. Promises to be another scorcher here. Will be taking the dogs out early to avoid the peak heat.

    H2S- sorry, HS2 – is only one of the useless but expensive vanity projects that need to be binned.

    1. I always see dog walkers heading for Shepherds Bush Green as I set off for work. I live very close. This morning one little pooch was jumping up and down with anticipation as it was led across the road to the common. Yay! Grass! Trees! One smallish section is allowed to become overgrown and wild and that's the popular doggy toilet area. Fine with me. I've no desire to walk in the long grass. I was suspicious when Hammersmith council cut a couple of trees down though. They looked healthy.

      1. Winston has his nose glued to the floor and Kadi has a long suffering air that says plainly “I wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t go”.

  44. Good Morning Folks,

    it was even too hot for golf, only managed nine badly played holes.

    1. A couple of years ago I put up two nesting boxes. One is called Sunni View the other Shi'ite House.

  49. Good morning, all. Beautiful day here. Been a busy 'old boy' since 07:00 and so I'm having a short break.

    Here, a landlord presents a scenario that could overwhelm those landlords buying into SERCO's government sponsored deal of housing illegal migrants. Of course, if the landlords go out of business there's always someone waiting in the wings to make a financial killing, isn't there? In the meantime the people suffer and the government won't give a toss.

    https://x.com/jomickane/status/1935532238134710631

    1. 'morning Korky, exactly this. Many people (I'm not one, thankfully) invested in property when they retired 'a building portfolio' usually of three or four properties. How many will be selling up now…might reduce house prices..could that be part of the plan?

  50. Even worse:
    From the Keighley News.

    https://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/11881491.documentary-features-former-keighley-mp-ann-cryers-experience-of-trying-to-alert-authorities-to-crime-of-child-sex-grooming/

    Documentary features former Keighley MP Ann Cryer's experience of trying to alert authorities to crime of child sex grooming

    26th March 2015

    A FORMER MP for Keighley has spoken out about being ignored when she tried to raise the subject of children being groomed for sex in Keighley.

    Ann Cryer, who was Labour MP for Keighley from 1997 to 2010, was interviewed for a Channel Four documentary called: Things we won't say about race that are true.

    The programme was broadcast last Thursday night (March 19) and presented by ex-chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips.

    He argued that people's fear of being labelled racist was preventing them from openly discussing race-related problems, and that this was worsening Britain's racial divisions.

    Mrs Cryer spoke of how she was approached by seven mothers in 2003, who said their young daughters were being sexually groomed by gangs of overwhelmingly Mirpuri Pakistani men outside their school gates.

    She said these mothers complained of not being listened to by the authorities when they tried to seek help, adding that she also received no co-operation when she intervened on behalf of the women.

    "Friends of mine in the Labour Party knew about it [grooming] for years and never mentioned it to me," she said.

    "It was difficult for me to raise the issue without being called a racist. I could not interest Bradford Social Services or West Yorkshire Police, so the last resort was to go public.

    "If you pretend this isn't happening, as many people in Rotherham did, then you go down the road of condoning it.

    "You're saying 'this is alright, because that's what they do in that community'. But it's not. It's not alright."

  51. Seconded. I think he may just well do that. Tice? far as I could throw him……..(they’ve been here afore, with UKIP)

    1. Tice strikes me as completely useless. I suppose he is kept for the money he has.

  52. Glad i'm not a landlord. It used to be a good business but I think lots are selling up.

      1. Yes, have heard of this. Relative recently had been letting out previous property, sold up a while ago. Been especially rigorous in Scotland, I think?

      1. Friend I had coffee with this morning has a house in Christchurch – it was her childhood home and she kept it after her Mum died quite a few years ago. She’s now reluctantly decided to sell up.

    3. The hard Left wanted tax, so they went for landlords. As politicians are thick and the treasury and OBR ignore dynamic response they just assumed landlords would take the hit and lose money. They didn't consider that landlords would just put it on to rent, so then they had to legislate to stop rent increases mid term, which led to landlords selling up. However because renters couldn't afford the mortgages due to needing deposits – eroded by the taxes passed on to their rent (and thus monthly outgoings) by the state.

      The reason Lefties do not understand basic economics is because they've never ever had to work in a real job.

      1. Back in the 1950's, not only were rents controlled, but you could not evict a sitting tenant. My mother was left a rental house by her father, and the only way out was to sell to the tenant, who promptly sent a list of "issues" that had to be dealt with "immediately" per the local council. And of course the tenants knew they had the upper hand so the place was sold to them for about half its "real" value.

        Rules all set up by the Attlee government, but not repealed by the following Conservatives.

        1. 1929 Rent Act.
          So messed up my grandparents' estate it took 60 years to finally sell the last house.
          (A lot of mishandling by daughters who did not understand finance and dodgy trustees did not exactly speed up matters.)

      2. Back in the 1950's, not only were rents controlled, but you could not evict a sitting tenant. My mother was left a rental house by her father, and the only way out was to sell to the tenant, who promptly sent a list of "issues" that had to be dealt with "immediately" per the local council. And of course the tenants knew they had the upper hand so the place was sold to them for about half its "real" value.

        Rules all set up by the Attlee government, but not repealed by the following Conservatives.

    1. Hope there's cake, or good biscuits, and plenty goss…report plse…seriously, are you raising for a good cause, N?

      1. Not that sort of coffee morning – just four friends meeting for a chat and a catch up.

    2. Just returned from lunch at the village 'hub' and caught up with all the gossip

  56. "Defence council".
    She is paid to spout this stuff.
    School fees have just gone up and the roof on the second home is leaking. What would you do?

      1. Colchester town centre is at the top of a high hill.
        The early Colcestrians – before the Romans arrived – had their capital 'city' on what is now Hilly Fields. (The clue is in the name.)
        I walk Spartie along the ramparts to the west of colchester.
        If we walk along the top, we're Trinovantes defending our stronghold.
        If we walk along the "ditch" we're Romans on the attack.

    3. From the station? I used to live on East Hill and worship at St James the Great.

      1. Walking down the hill from the High Street.
        My first job was with a dentist in one of the Georgian houses near the entrance to what is now the Sixth Form College.

  61. Question. They keep referring to Reza Pahlavi, the leader of the opposition to the Ayatollahs, as The Crown Prince but surely he is The Shah? I know it's a small detail but it is bugging me.

      1. Why? He died in exile didn’t he? The Iranians, want the crown prince. He has become the leader of the opposition to the Ayatollahs. Apparently one of the chants that demonstrators use is an apology to his father!

    2. How many of the Shah's descendants are there.

      Caroline's father was the PDG of a Phillips subsidiary company in Iran at the time of the Shah. Happily he moved to Phillips in Madrid before the Ayatollahs took over.

      (Caroline did her secondary schooling in Madrid and she is perfectly quadrilingual : Dutch, English, French and Spanish. She did her first degree in Languages at Bath University and her masters' degree in linguistics in Rouen]

    4. Perhaps a form of investiture is required, with glittering robes and a grand audience.

      1. Just to show who's in charge, the Shah gets to crown himself and all the other members of his family
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90cb247623a29aa9dfdd4d2081a0ce1fb1ffa54c8ae14efa09172f0dbff38d0e.png
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf2e49faf43a857d692cb881b653e7544e150c28e11ad44398b1a7fc0992f734.png
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ec8215163e85408ecb4bcd1014372474de64a3ae60fbb601da8c268923c960e.png
        At least it would make a nice change from Westminster Abbey

        2. I wonder how much the peacock throne and that crown are worth? Apparently that is all still there in the vaults of Iran's central bank.

  63. I won't bother until you are back home.
    Holidays are for enjoying yourself, not settling bills.

  64. Can Rupert Lowe keep Starmer’s rape gang inquiry honest?
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/can-rupert-lowe-keep-starmers-rape-gang-inquiry-honest/

    An excellent BTL from zookeeper's zookeeper

    Where does the State go from here ?
    And how does it go ?

    The collusion with, enabling and covering-up of the rope gangs over more than three decades runs so deep and is so all-encompassing within cabinet, parliament, national government, local government, civil service, political parties, law and order, judiciary, media, academia, even the church, that there is no reputable body in the UK remaining which is sufficiently free of suspicion of involvement to be qualified to perform an “independent” and thorough investigation. Let alone to be entrusted with identifying guilty individuals, groups and organizations without fear or favor, without compromise, and without conflict of interest.

    If the UK establishment was a human body, it would be riddled with advanced terminal cancer in just about every internal organ. It wouldn’t have long left to live.

    So how can the forces of law and order, the judiciary and the legal profession – all now so comprehensively compromised and ideologically corrupted – possibly inspire any public confidence that justice might one day “be done” and “be seen to be done” if they have any involvement with it ?

    How can the State investigate itself when it is the State itself which is so thoroughly contaminated, so intrinsically involved in such a heinous conspiracy against its most vulnerable – and by extension, against the native population as a whole – as to be totally unfit to enact any process which might arrive at something resembling justice ?

    All trust is gone.

    This does not just involve British government. It involves the mechanisms of the British State and its ancillaries. Top to bottom. Bottom to top.
    There is much evidence about Labour Party involvement and cover-up. But not to be overlooked is that the Tories were in office for 14 years – up until recently – and did absolutely nothing. So even silence renders those in positions of trust and representation guilty when they knew what was going on.

    So where does the State go from here ?
    It appears to me as if the State and its establishment has not just lost its moral compass, but completely abandoned it.
    Perhaps the military should take over management of the nation for a while ?
    Until we can restore some semblance of decency into the political class and integrity back into the establishment and institutions. Because at the moment Westminster and Whitehall are very obviously out-of-control.
    Perhaps a military tribunal should undertake the whole "grooming gang" inquiry ? I see few other options if such an inquiry is to stand any chance of remaining "honest".

    The establishment has not just brought itself into disrepute, it has shown that it is completely untrustworthy, devoid of humanity, in fact, morally bankrupt. No moral high ground now exists for the British government to take.

      1. Unfortunately, due to government policies we have become a nasty foreign country. Import the third world, become the third world.

    3. The idea of government having any morality is an oxymoron. Politicians are venal, corrupt, incompetent fools.

      1. That is doubtful. He never makes reference to religion nor displays any religiosity. And, as I have pointed out, only 30% of Iranians are Muslims. The Ayatollahs did a great job of turning people off of Islam. They had to close 50,000 mosques because people aren't going. There has also been a surge in Christianity and in Zoroastrianism. But the second is problematic because of the rules governing who can be a Zoroastrian. An estimate is that a million people have converted to Christianity. But we should remember there has been a Persian Church since the early days of Christianity. It's loses are due to persecution by the Shi'ites. But there is also a large contingent of people who count themselves as atheists. Taking all others into account Islam is the minority in Iran.

        Here's a chart
        https://images.theconversation.com/files/356406/original/file-20200903-16-qml66z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip

        1. "That is doubtful. He never makes reference to religion nor displays any religiosity."

          It won't take much effort for you to find the opposite is the truth. However, he is certainly not militant.

          "…as I have pointed out, only 30% of Iranians are Muslims."

          Did you indeed? I must have missed your proclamation. Here's wot I wrote a couple of days ago:

          "What will happen if Iran's leaders are over thrown? Iran may be officially a Muslim state – it's claimed that 96 of the population 'believes in Islam' – but two-thirds of the population is Persian. Arabs are a tiny proportion. A religious war is a grim prospect."

          We're all just guessing. Iranians with memories of living under the previous Shah will be well into their 50s by now.

          1. It wasn’t my “proclamation” it is a well recorded fact. And I’m really not interested in competing with your ego, just do your research. Because your opinion on this matter is as accurate as to what defines being English.

            There will be no “religious war” in Iran as anyone knows who is familiar with the history of the place. The Ayatollahs who were in charge are not traditional in their thinking. That started with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who propagated heterodox ideas that are not mainstream to Shia Islam. In fact the traditional Ayatollahs were silenced by the regime because traditionally the Ayatollahs have no say in politics and disapprove of involvement in said sphere of activity. In fact in the early days of this regime much of the opposition came from the established Ayatollahs and religious schoolers who opposed Khomeini.
            And no, we are not “just guessing”. Listen to younger Iranians who will not agree with you but with me. They are almost all pro The Crown Prince.
            Your welcome!

          2. My ego! The whole forum will be laughing at that coming from you.

            However, I'll give you this one: "We're all just guessing." That was a bit vague. I was referring to the current situation in general, not religious %ages. Nevertheless, I did make the point that the population is two-thirds Persian, a people very different from the Arabic colonisers of so much of that part of the world.

          3. When I make a mistake I immediately apologize as soon as it is pointed out so it is nothing to do with my ego. But you do think you are in some sort of competition with me. A competition I am not in the slightest bit interested in. Before I post I research and I research a great deal. Today and yesterday I looked into what is going on in Iran from 5 am until 9 am. And I have listened to and read everything I have come across. I doubt you do the same. Because, if you did, you would know I am right. Not voicing my opinion but the facts.

            You, when pressed, tried to wheedle out of your absurd premise concerning ethnicity because you know your answer made no sense at all but was a subjective and rather peculiar definition of what constituted being English. You could have apologized just as I did a few days ago in my mistaken belief that Glyphosate was illegal in this country. I do not defend my errors so ego has nothing to do with it Bill!

          4. Isn't that just a bit self-justifying? It seems to me that whenever anyone responds to you, you assume they are disagreeing with you even when they're not.

            The argument over ethnicity was entirely of your making, not mine. You implied that I said we do not have the right to call ourselves the ancestral people of these islands. I said no such thing but you persisted in your stubbornness.

            Here, I merely pointed out that the man who might be the Shah is a Shia Muslim. There are records to this back this up. You disagreed and followed with a little lecture. I'll accept that the adding of the graph was probably just a matter of timing but I certainly wasn't accusing you of deception. I was having a conversational wander around the subject; you were treating the exchange like a competition.

            And then there's this, which is, frankly, bordering on the pompous:
            And no, we are not "just guessing". Listen to younger Iranians who will not agree with you but with me. They are almost all pro The Crown Prince.
            What did I write that young Iranians might disagree? I made no assertion but merely mused on possibilities. Once again, you found an argument where wasn't one. A shame really, because I'm sure many hope that their views will peacefully prevail.

            Finally, there's this, which is most definitely pompous – and bloody conceited with it: "You could have apologized just as I did a few days ago…" There was nothing to apologise for. Not then, not now.

        3. I see you've edited your post. I might have missed it. Why not just post a reply?

          That survey is just one. Others disagree but I do suspect the 90+% is now false.

          2. I was NOT implying that your edit undid anything that you had written. Not for the first time you have drawn utterly false inferences and misrepresented an opinion.

          3. To be fair (and I don’t have a dog in this fight) that was how I read it until you clarified your position.

          7. You and I know exactly what your implication was. For the record I added the pie chart.

          8. "You and I know exactly what your implication was."

            That's quite an accusation. There was no implication at all. As I said, you could have added it as a reply and I wouldn't have missed it as I did for a while, given that it added to the debate.

    1. Be careful in this heat. I took ours out at about 6 and the pavement was warm then. I didn't give them too long in the pond as I needed to get home for an appointment, but as it was climbing toward 23 even then it wasn't sensible for 3 large, hairy black dogs.

      1. We stuck to the shade. Fortunately we have wooded walks that don’t get too hot.

  67. JK Rowling radicalised by terfs, says Stephen Fry
    Narrator of Harry Potter audio books describes author as a ‘lost cause’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/19/jk-rowling-radicalised-terfs-stephen-fry/

    The majority of posters take the side of J.K. Rowling as I do. However many of them criticise the age difference between Fry and his 'husband' which, in my view, is not germane to the issue.

    I agree entirely with this BTL in response to a post about Fry's 'marriage'.

    BTL

    To be fair there are things far more important than age difference in successful relationships.

    My sister was very happily married for many years to a man eleven years her junior by whom she had two healthy, normal sons. I have been extremely happily married for 37 years to a woman sixteen years my junior and our sons are happily married or affianced to women their own age.

    1. I agree that his marriage is not the issue, but in speaking against J K Rowling he's lost the plot completely; for example if he can't see that allowing trans women to compete in women's sport is unfair and often downright dangerous, then he should be on stronger medication!!

    2. A lost cause? For believing a man in a dress is not a woman? Only in the deranged Left wing mind could such insanity be considered normal.

      1. DDepressing that Fry is such a bigwig at the M.C.C …. I find him so nauseating both physically and mentally..

        1. The cretin John Major was also a bigwig at MCC. I believe that it takes about ten years to become a member after application simply because someone has to die to allow space for a replacement.

    3. Words that do not belong together.

      His husband

      Her wife

      No. No. No.

    4. Stephen Fry is a raving woofter. He is married to a bloke 30 years his junior – Baby snatcher, a self confessed drug addict and suffers from bipolar disorder and is a supporter of Labour and the Starmer government. The schools and universities choice when discussing LGBTXYZ issues.

      1. He isn’t married. He’s in a civil partnership. I resent the institution of marriage being degraded by redefining it.

        1. Fry was in a 15-year relationship with Daniel Cohen that ended in 2010. Fry was listed number 2 in 2016 and number 12 in 2017 on the Pride Power list. On 6 January 2015, British tabloid The Sun reported that Fry would marry his partner, comedian Elliott Spencer. Fry wrote on Twitter: "It looks as though a certain cat is out of a certain bag. I'm very very happy of course but had hoped for a private wedding. Fat chance!" . Eleven days after the news story, Fry married Spencer on 17 January at Dereham in Norfolk.
          This is his previous partner Daniel Cohen – a mere child:
          https://img6.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/n/m/nm80x88mp0d30883.jpg?skj2io4l

          2. It’s the use of “marriage “ I object to. He may have entered into a legal union but it isn’t a marriage and we shouldn’t pander to their delusions by calling it that. He who controls the language controls the narrative.

    5. Stephen Fry is a raving woofter. He is married to a bloke 30 years his junior – Baby snatcher, a self confessed drug addict and suffers from bipolar disorder and is a supporter of Labour and the Starmer government. The schools and universities choice when discussing LGBTXYZ issues.

  70. This is why I put the words 'husband' and 'marriage' in single inverted commas and italics to show that I do not agree either!

  71. Both counts, johnathan. Have heard rumours about how wealthy Farage has become, too.

  72. I don't recall reading this in the Telegraph this morning but I agree

    Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Middleton South, told The Telegraph: “I think Hermer has shown that his legal advice is often flawed, and he seems to delight in giving advice which is not in this country’s interest.

    “It is clear that when a country like Iran has an explicit policy of genocide against Jews that under the international conventions there is an obligation on countries to stop the genocide before it happens.

    “He should never have been appointed. The Prime Minister made a fundamental error in appointing him.”

  73. Looks like it will be a more normal early summer day here today. Temp at 7:00 am is 22C, with 96% humidity. Forecast is for 32C this pm, i.e. a hot and sticky day, with the A/C earning its keep. Our long and cooler than usual spring may be over.

      3. The heat doesn't bother me that much, it's the combination of both heat and high humidity which I find energy sapping.

        I remember some years back, driving in Nevada in high summer, the car registered 105F, but as there was almost zero humidity, it felt OK. Just needed to keep hydrated. A six pack of Coors in the car helped…

      1. Special Kaye
        2h
        With family in local pub garden last night and by pure chance got talking to some people at the local council I know. Apparently local Labour people hide any outward sign that they are Lab when around and about because of extreme hostility. We have Lab MP but he is seldom seen. They now realising first hand how unpopular they are…

        1. As I have mentioned before, even dog walkers are beginning to express opinions about the state of the country.

        2. Maybe people should start leaving dog poo bags on their doorhandles as well.

  75. https://order-order.com/2025/06/19/miliband-humiliated-as-oil-and-gas-drilling-ban-overruled/#comments

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd92d60941d996d564286f1f5e18eb514ee0ef3b4227c174e53ae36a3ae9525e.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa0a2c2ee29e55a40b0c79d86efa9d2bd4fdc0ec35d39e2bf7bf0a59608580fa.png

    Dahonk
    2h
    This was always going to happen regardless of who was in power.
    The middle east has been going down the pan for decades so we need to drill, frack and mine to be as self reliant and energy secure as possible. Get the lot out of the ground and by the time it's all used up then technology and prices will be hopefully at a level everyone can jump aboard non fossils.

    It was always a 1st world virtue signalling guilt trip having net zero and it has now hit the hard reality of security, economics and it been basically a load of ballc00cks

  77. I smiled at a woman on the train and she said "When you smile at me I want to invite you to my place"
    "Are you single?" I asked her.
    "No, I'm a dentist" she replied.

    1. A PLANE IS ON ITS WAY TO TORONTO , WHEN A BLONDE IN ECONOMY CLASS GETS UP AND MOVES TO THE FIRST CLASS SECTION AND SITS DOWN.
      THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT WATCHES HER DO THIS AND ASKS TO SEE HER TICKET.
      SHE THEN TELLS THE BLONDE THAT SHE PAID FOR ECONOMY CLASS AND THAT SHE WILL HAVE TO SIT IN THE BACK.
      THE BLONDE REPLIES, "I'M BLONDE, I'M BEAUTIFUL, I'M GOING TO TORONTO AND I'M STAYING RIGHT HERE."
      THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT GOES INTO THE COCKPIT AND TELLS THE PILOT AND THE CO-PILOT THAT THERE IS A BLONDE BIMBO SITTING IN FIRST CLASS, THAT BELONGS IN ECONOMY AND WON'T MOVE BACK TO HER SEAT.
      THE CO-PILOT GOES BACK TO THE BLONDE AND TRIES TO EXPLAIN THAT BECAUSE SHE ONLY PAID FOR ECONOMY SHE WILL HAVE TO LEAVE AND RETURN TO HER SEAT.
      THE BLONDE REPLIES, "I'M BLONDE, I'M BEAUTIFUL, I'M GOING TO TORONTO AND I'M STAYING RIGHT HERE."
      THE CO-PILOT TELLS THE PILOT THAT HE PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE THE POLICE WAITING WHEN THEY LAND TO ARREST THIS BLONDE WOMAN WHO WON'T LISTEN TO REASON.
      THE PILOT SAYS, "YOU SAY SHE IS A BLONDE? I'LL
      HANDLE THIS, I'M MARRIED TO A BLONDE. I SPEAK BLONDE."
      HE GOES BACK TO THE BLONDE AND WHISPERS IN HER EAR, AND SHE SAYS, "OH, I'M SORRY." AND GETS UP AND GOES BACK TO HER SEAT IN ECONOMY.
      THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT AND CO-PILOT ARE AMAZED AND ASKED HIM WHAT HE SAID TO MAKE HER MOVE WITHOUT ANY FUSS.
      "I TOLD HER, 'FIRST CLASS ISN'T GOING TO TORONTO."

  78. Eliminate all 'Legal Aid' and all immigration lawyer shysters

    Rochdale grooming gang cannot be deported after tearing up Pakistan passports

    Offenders exploit loophole by renouncing citizenship, meaning UK cannot make them stateless
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/06/18/TELEMMGLPICT000363662776_17502827422820_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUa2thMnvKQadTDM5oFKzfP10lxr3z29rmW271ytTCYo.jpeg?imwidth=1280
    Charles Hymas. Steve Bird.
    Mohammad Zubair Khan in Islamabad
    19 June 2025 6:00am BST

    Pakistan is refusing to take back the ringleaders of the Rochdale child grooming scandal after they renounced their citizenship.

    Ministers are engaged in high-level talks with the Pakistan government to persuade them to drop their block on the deportations of Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, two of Britain’s worst grooming offenders. Sources indicated that progress was being made.

    The pair lost appeals against deportation in 2018 but remain in Britain.

    Pakistan officials told The Telegraph it would be “extremely difficult” to take back such dangerous criminals and that there was “no basis to accept them” if they had renounced their citizenship.

    But interior ministry sources suggested that if the UK engaged in negotiations, “progress could be made”.

    Pakistan sources suggested restoring direct flights to the UK by its national airline PIA which have been suspended for safety reasons could help, but UK officials said this had not been raised in any talks.

    It comes after the grooming scandal was thrust back into the spotlight this week with the publication of a damning audit by Baroness Casey, which found that police and council leaders had failed to investigate cases for fear of being labelled racist.

    The Home Office has deported at least three other named Pakistani child sex groomers, including one from Rotherham, in the past nine months.

    The Rochdale child rapists are the most high-profile who remain in the UK after exploiting the courts and citizenship rules to avoid deportation.

    Rauf, a 55 year old father of five and Khan, 54, were jailed in 2012 as ringleaders of a nine-strong gang of Asian men who sexually assaulted 47 girls – some as young as 12 – after plying them with drink and drugs over two years in Rochdale.

    The Home Office won a court of appeal ruling to deport the pair and a third member of the gang, Abdul Aziz, in 2018 after stripping them of their British citizenship.

    Rauf and Khan subsequently renounced their Pakistani citizenship in an effort to prevent their deportation. Aziz was allowed to stay in the UK because he had torn up his passport before the 2018 ruling. This meant the Government had to let him stay rather than make him stateless.

    Under international law, a country cannot strip its nationals of citizenship if it makes them stateless.

    The UK also bars anyone from renouncing their citizenship if they are not already citizens of another country.

    But Rauf and Khan exploited a loophole that enabled them to become “stateless” by tearing up their Pakistan passports.

    A Pakistan government source said it was conveyed in the talks “that the UK must provide a justification for why Pakistan should accept criminals deemed dangerous to humanity, especially when they are not Pakistani citizens”.

    If they had renounced their citizenship, “Pakistan has no basis to accept them,” said the source.

    However, interior ministry officials said: “If the UK engages in negotiations with Pakistan on this matter, progress could be made.”

    They suggested that while direct PIA flights to the UK were suspended, deportation was “not feasible”.

    David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has been leading direct discussions with the Pakistanis on the issue backed by Home Office ministers who are said to be “working very hard” to secure an agreement on their deportation.

    Lord Khan, the faith minister with strong links to Pakistan, has also been engaged.

    A Home Office spokesman said it would do “everything in our power” to deport foreign nationals who commit “heinous” crimes in the UK.

    “The UK and Pakistan are working in partnership on shared migration and return priorities. Both countries recognise and respect our common obligations to return those with no right to remain in our respective countries,” he said.

    Among Pakistanis deported since September are Khurram Javed, 42, a member of the Rotherham grooming gang jailed for two years; Nayyar Tazeem, 34, jailed for five years for grooming and seven sexual assaults; and Rochdale sex offender Kashif Mahmood, 37, who was jailed for two years and seven months.

    Paul Waugh, Labour MP for Rochdale, said it was an “utter outrage” that the two “perverts” Rauf and Khan had not been deported for their “horrific” child sex offences.

    He said: “The last government failed repeatedly to send them back. Ministers in this government know that’s utterly unacceptable and I’ve been working hard with them to get it sorted. We need action because the people of Rochdale deserve nothing less.”

    Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said that the UK must not allow the two gang groomers to be used as “bargaining chips” by the Pakistan government and urged Sir Keir Starmer to take tougher action.

    “Starmer needs to grow a backbone and suspend visas and aid if they don’t cooperate,” he said.

    The Department for Transport confirmed it was still considering an application by Pakistan for its national airline to be removed from the UK safety list so it could fly to the UK.

    “This is a technical and independent process – where aviation safety is the only consideration – and there is a robust process to follow before airlines are delisted,” said a source.

    1. Just put them on the plane to Pakland. When they are refused entry and turned around and land back here deny them entry and put them back on the plane back to Pakland. Do this often enough and the plane might crash and solve the problem.

  79. It's hot and stuffy. I've raided Lidl and I am psyching myself up to baked chocolate Swiss rolls for grandson.
    While I relax, I've wandered over to the DT's items about Stephen Fry's latest bloviations.
    Here is a taster of the BTL comments.
    Enjoy.

    "Another vacuous, pompous Luvvie who is so far up his backside he can floss with lavatory paper."

    "Ah, Sir Stephen Fry, the most pompous buffoon in the world. A man whose self-importance is so bloated it requires its own postal code.
    He struts about like a peacock who’s just been knighted, convinced that every flatulent syllable he utters is a pearl of divine wisdom, when in truth, each word is about as welcome as a wasp in a jockstrap.
    Sir Stephen believes himself to be a thinker of Churchillian gravitas, yet the last time he had an original thought, it limped out of his ear and died of loneliness. His speeches are so long, so tedious, and so unrelentingly vapid that even time itself seems to give up halfway through and to go and get a drink!"

    "Fry, the Poundland Waugh"

    2. There are some large box tombs in the graveyard at All Saints Fulham, as the nearby Fulham Palace used to be the official residence of the Bishops of London. These days there's a loo inside the church but it used to be that the choir would nip out and hide behind a bishop to pee. This practice went on for quite some time before it dawned on them that people standing above on Putney Bridge had a bird's eye view.

  81. Pub Lunch discussion, where more wisdom is apparent in an hour's chat among a few old codgers than is evident in a year's worth of drivel from Westminster. One comment was the reason for Israel's attack on Iran might have been that they had intelligence that Iran was closer to making a bomb than anyone realised.

  83. Is Nigel Farage about to become yesterday’s man?
    With their in-fighting and shallow policy platform, voters might soon grow disillusioned with Reform
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/19/has-reform-peaked-nigel-farage/

    BTL

    Nigel Farage is falling from favour because:

    i) He has started lunging to the left in the hope of attracting the Labour vote. This has upset the right of centre people whom he had attracted and will do the The Reform Party what the lunge to the left did to the Conservative Party; i.e it will destroy it.

    ii) Farage and Yusuf's treatment of Rupert Lowe for expressing what most Reform supporters feel about illegal immigration will not be forgotten. The Populist will soon discover that he is becoming very much less popular.

    1. … and his disgraceful treatment of Tommy Robinson and Andrew Bridgen.
      We owe him a debt of gratitude for BrExit (as far as it has got), but Farage himself has also been got at.

      1. 407767+ up ticks,

        Afternoon LIM,
        His input along with the treacherous ukip NEC in 2019
        brought down Gerard Batten who was building UKIP into a successful party, he then went marching with the brexit party
        to the PRO tory/ johnson tune.

        Been active covert tory for decades.

  84. Very nearly a twosome:
    Wordle 1,461 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done! although I'm very curious (see what I did there) as to what your second guess was…..

    2. There must have been quite a run on those Iranian flags , I can't see them being a best seller in normal times.

      What are they doing with all of the Palestinian flags?

    1. BBC never like the truth as they are nearly always on the wrong side of it.

  88. Not many squaddies will recognise this shoulder flash. 51st Ghurkha Brigade Group Tidworth early 1960s. On my khaki battledress – before No2s were issued:
    https://scontent-cdg4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/472316740_10162937298339954_5048430959086425838_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p180x540_tt6&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=536f4a&_nc_ohc=QgczXhp2u54Q7kNvwHhu2dJ&_nc_oc=AdmyXL1SsoEh0s66AMu2v9YXkJY3SKyNrmpFJIKBROj6P7FTiZ0DPWL7hA1Qk-gO_ookl9Yi-Umlo1BT6n1AtVLG&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-1.xx&_nc_gid=ivKXPnfUlFfts_M3fGO0bg&oh=00_AfMz3-NtsprccH22ZeGY17ouwdf7AD0Gq2C1TFOFYlPl-g&oe=6859C459

  89. 407767+ up ticks,

    This"what if" could very well be current reality, keep in mind this ongoing coup has many successful forward
    thinker / planners onboard, the internal foreign standby army WILL need "spare parts" due to any injuries received in the need to survive war that is surely due.

    https://x.com/garethicke/status/1935590579733418216

  90. For those who think I don't know what I'm talking about. This is three hours of Iranians talking about the current situation in their country and includes the air force pledging allegiance to The Crown Prince as well as many young people pledging their personal allegiance and thanking the Israelis for targeting the tyrant Ayatollahs. Yesterday the regular army, who have been conspicuous by their absence in defending the Ayatollahs, pledged allegiance to the Crown Prince as well. The allegiance to the Crown Prince is overwhelming, at least 80%. The people speaking for themselves starts approximately 20 minutes in. There will be no civil war.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ws7bFgujnU&t=1949s

    1. I don't see the current leaders going quietly. It would be nice to see a peaceful outcome but that would be a first for t he region and I am sure that Russia would object.

    2. President Trump is taking a great risk of alienating his US base if joining Israel in attacking the Islamic Republic leaders. Many Persians would of course wish to see the decapitation of Khameini and his cohorts and a return to a secular society.

      As regards the re institution of the Shah it matters little. Afterall we in the UK are stuck with an Idiot King who is happy enough rewarding his favourites, dressing up and wearing honorific medals just as the last Shah did.

    1. The point is well made, but actually abortion has always been used in the USA by unscrupulous people to curb the black population. Many black babies have been aborted.

      1. When free abortion was offered to black mothers, the take up was considerable. Then that avenue was closed. Fast forward, and the effects of both actions were visible in the crime rates.

        Never heard of it being used against the mother's will, despite living here for close to 50 years now.

        1. I am aware of the crime rate thing, but see below – repugnant naziism that was encouraged rather than defeated after the war.
          It isn’t done against people’s will in Britain either, just people’s wills are manipulated.

          “Marie Stopes and Eugenics
          Stopes was a eugenicist long before she was a birth controller. She was a life member of the Eugenics Society and was a member of the Malthusian League. In 1921 she founded her own Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress (CBC), and most of her fortune was left to eugenics organizations.1

          Two of the basic principles of the CBC were these:

          “The haphazard production of children by ignorant, coerced, or diseased mothers is profoundly detrimental to the race.”
          “Many men and women should be prevented from procreating children at all, because of their individual ill-health, or the diseased and degenerate nature of the offspring that they may be expected to produce.”In order to put its philosophy into action, the CBC located its birth control clinics in poor and minority areas, just as Planned Parenthood does now in the United States.

          In 1922, Stopes began to publish The Birth Control News. Her emphasis was on improving the race, and the motto of her organization was “Babies in the Right Place.” The slogan of The Birth Control News was printed on a lantern: “Birth Control: Joyous and Deliberate Motherhood, a Sure Light in Our Racial Darkness.”

          Stopes attended the Third Reich’s International Congress for Population Science in Berlin in 1935, two years after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and long after his racist and anti-Semitic views had become well-known to the world.

          Four years later, after Germany had annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia, she sent a collection of her mediocre poems entitled “Songs for Young Lovers” to der Führer, along with a fawning letter saying “Dear Herr Hitler; love is the greatest thing in the world, so will you accept from me these [poems] that you may allow the young people of your nation to have them?”3

          In 1952 Stopes was involved in the organization of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which was established and initially housed rent-free in the offices of the Eugenics Society.

          Stopes’ eugenicist views and hatred of the poor are well-documented. In 1919, she urged the National Birth Rate Commission to support the mandatory sterilization of parents who were diseased, prone to drunkenness or of “bad character.” She also demanded that the “sterilization of those totally unfit for parenthood be made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.”4

          She also said, “Utopia could be reached in my life-time had I the power to issue inviolable edicts…I would legislate compulsory sterilization of the insane, feebleminded…revolutionaries…half-castes.”5

          Stopes disapproved of all the “unfit weaklings and diseased individuals who threaten the race” …
          She also railed against a society that “allows the diseased, the racially negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community, to produce innumerable tens of thousands of stunted, warped and inferior infants.” She claimed, “We as a race slide at an ever increasing speed towards the utter deterioration of our stock.”

  93. Afternoon All
    Modern Life………
    LONDON — Local obstetrician Doctor Roger Davidson was arrested this morning after he allegedly misgendered the baby he just finished killing.

    Eyewitnesses gasped in horror as Dr. Davidson reportedly used female pronouns for the baby he had just dismembered, despite the parents explicitly stating that they wished their child to be referred to as non-binary while it was being torn limb from limb.

    "We are horrified that Dr. Davidson stated he was done crushing 'her' skull," said police chief Sir Mark Rowley. "No baby should ever have to endure such abuse while they are being killed. Londoners can rest easy tonight knowing that this monster is behind bars."

    Nurses who worked with Dr. Davidson reported that in all the times they watched him kill kids, they had never heard him misgender one. "We've seen him murder hundreds of children. Imagine our horror when we heard him use the wrong pronouns for the child he killed," said nurse Amy Marsh. "Such language is literal violence and has no place in an abortionist clinic. We are appalled that such a thing could happen here."

    At publishing time, Dr. Robertson had issued a statement apologizing for his behavior and promising to never again hurt a child while severing their spinal cord.
    Yes it's a spoof……….for now
    Meanwhile..
    https://x.com/sallyanna25/status/1935241424032690536

    2. Strange isn't it that when assisted dying was being discussed there were lots of comments and letters about how we shouldn't expect doctors and medics to end a life but there seem to be plenty who will happily kill a viable fetus/baby.

    3. Such are the crazy times we live in. Off shortly to the sanity of a Corpus Christi service.

  94. Millions more people will now receive the Warm Home Discount, taking £150 directly off their energy bills. This increases the number of households who are eligible to over 6 million. The bill payer must either receive the guarantee credit element of pension credit or be on a low income. This includes 900,000 families with children and 2.7 million households in fuel poverty, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

    So, Mad Miliband has authorise a rebate for families already a burden on the taxpayers, but not the elderly, in pursuit of Net Zero. He should be *****ed.

  95. I had an interesting bit of banter at the Lidl checkout this morning.

    The spring onions were rather chunky and the Caribbean chap on the checkout said "back home, we used to call these SCALLIONS". Funny, I said, "that's exactly what we always called them on Tyneside". I don't I ever met a spring onion until the 1960s.

    2. Scallions are harvested before a bulb forms, while spring onions are harvested after a small bulb has developed.

    5. My mother called the large spring onions "scallions".
      Her roots were in Essex and Suffolk.

  96. I think you mean ‘there is a scam in operation claiming to be a Government’….

    1. Well yes but everyone knows that one, apart from the plonkers who voted for the current shower…

  98. Wordle No. 1,461 3/6

    🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 19 Jun 2025

    Trinket for Birdie Three?

    1. NNot Such a glorious result

      Wordle 1,461 5/6

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

    2. Well done, same here – continues my bogey/birdie alternating run.

      As an aside anyone using the popular starter word AUDIO would have a nailed-on eagle!

      Wordle 1,461 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Occasionally miracles happen.

      Wordle 1,461 2/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Well done, a word that is odd in structure but was the only option.

      Wordle 1,461 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  100. Matt Goodwin's latest article 'Is Keir Starmer reading this newletter?' finishes with a resounding side-swipe:

    "The key point in all this is not to blow our own trumpet but to say that while our posts are routinely criticised by members of the elite class, we are in fact much closer to the new zeitgeist, to the new mood in this country, than our critics would like to think.

    In fact, we’re not just representing this new zeitgeist —we are actively helping to shape and drive it, putting forward new ideas, policies, and programmes that we believe would genuinely change our country, and indeed the West, for the better.

    By representing and respecting the forgotten majority in our country, we end up being much closer to the centre of political gravity than most, and well ahead of the insular, elitist debate in SW1 Westminster. And long may this continue.

    So, Keir Starmer, if you are reading this then drop us an e-mail as we’d be delighted to give you a complementary subscription to the newsletter.

    We know how you like things for free."

    Full text (paywall): https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/is-keir-starmer-reading-this-newsletter

  101. Putin tells Trump don't get involved in Iran.

    Xi tells Trump not to get involved in Iran.

    Starmer tells Trump not to get involved in iran.

    I wonder if Kim Jong Un agrees.

    You can tell a man by the company he keeps.

    2. I'm reminded of this:
      You can tell a man who boozes
      By the company he chooses
      And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

    1. I have the utmost respect for his bravery.

      I wonder if the Labour government will suddenly look busy doing something else. Actually..i don't wonder.

      RIP Sir and thank you for your service.

    2. A credit to 3 Commando and to, what used to be the United Kingdom now, the Untied Kingdom and a hero.
      As an individual he was more use to this country that all the snivelling MPs that occupy parliament. He did more for this country than the sum total of of parliament.

  103. From Coffee House the Spectator

    14 Jun 2025
    Coffee House
    Alexander Larman
    Should we worry about the Princess of Wales?
    18 June 2025, 3:00pm

    The announcement, when it came, was a strangely botched one. The official Ascot carriage list had stated at 12 p.m. that the Prince and Princess of Wales would be riding in the second carriage in the royal procession, accompanied by their friends Mr and Mrs Justin Rose.

    It was already known that Prince William would be presenting the prizes at today’s race meeting, so there was inevitable excitement at his presence and that of his wife. Catherine always brings a touch of glamour to whatever occasion she graces, helped by, of course, the finest couture that money could buy. So it was an unexpected and disappointing change, made half an hour later, to discover that the Princess would not, in fact, be present, and that William would instead be riding in the first carriage with the King and Queen.

    It is hard to avoid the suspicion that a rushed announcement is concealing something more serious

    At first glance, this is a relatively minor story. Schedules change and sometimes information is put in the public domain which is swiftly proved to be inaccurate. No formal statement has been put out by Kensington Palace. It has, however, been said by various well-placed sources that the Princess is ‘disappointed’ that she will not be attending Ascot today, but that ‘she has to find the right balance as she fully returns to public-facing engagements’. It has also been noted that, in the past week alone, she has undertaken three similarly high-profile engagements: Trooping the Colour, the Order of the Garter service and a visit to the V&A’s new London storage facility.

    What has not been discussed is the state of Kate’s health. The sudden decision for her not to appear at Ascot will cause alarm and dismay amongst many. Catherine’s cancer diagnosis last year – at virtually the same time as the King’s – was one of the most shocking and unexpected developments in the royal family’s recent history.

    While the Princess announced in January that she was in remission from her illness, there is still an inevitable balance between keeping an eye on her condition and making the public appearances that are part of the day job. It is particularly unfortunate that she has not been able to attend Ascot this year, partly because she also missed it in 2024. It is one of the few occasions when the royals can relax without having to be painfully conscious of being on show, as they very much were at Trooping the Colour. It is hard not to feel that she has missed the fun event after attending all the more solemn ones.

    However, the wider question remains – as it does with the King’s health – of whether there is genuine transparency about the state of their recoveries and whether their subjects deserve more detailed information than they are currently receiving. Certainly, both the King and Princess of Wales would argue that their wellbeing is as much a private and personal issue as it is a matter of national importance, and few would disagree with this. Yet it is hard to avoid the suspicion, once again, that a rushed announcement and a lack of clarity as to what has led to a change of plans is concealing something more serious than is being made public. Reassurance would be extremely welcome; a greater degree of candour, even more so.

    Written by
    Alexander Larman
    Alexander Larman is an author and books editor of Spectator World, our US-based edition

      1. She is. A number of comments BTL indicated Larman should MHOB. I was one of them.

    2. Perhaps she’s just knackered due to the intensity of the afternoon heat.
      I wish her well as she is such a breath of fresh air to the fuddy duddy Royals.

  104. I think Labour are missing a trick here,
    Old people suffer more during hot weather, why haven't they banned fans and sitting in the vest and pants, eating lollies and ice cream
    If they can turn the screw in winter, why not summer

    1. The Beggar's Opera was by John Gay. The Turn of the Screw was by Benjamin Britten. Coincidence? I think not….

    2. Many more people die from cold than from heat, despite all the scaremongering about global warming. They know what they're doing alright.

  105. Oh my goodness. America’s Babylon Bee spot on with regard to our Parliament’s latest abortion murder law:

    “LONDON — Local obstetrician Doctor Roger Davidson was arrested this morning after he allegedly misgendered the baby he just finished killing.

    Eyewitnesses gasped in horror as Dr. Davidson reportedly used female pronouns for the baby he had just dismembered, despite the parents explicitly stating that they wished their child to be referred to as non-binary while it was being torn limb from limb.

    "We are horrified that Dr. Davidson stated he was done crushing 'her' skull," said police chief Sir Mark Rowley. "No baby should ever have to endure such abuse while they are being killed. Londoners can rest easy tonight knowing that this monster is behind bars."

    Nurses who worked with Dr. Davidson reported that in all the times they watched him kill kids, they had never heard him misgender one. "We've seen him murder hundreds of children. Imagine our horror when we heard him use the wrong pronouns for the child he killed," said nurse Amy Marsh. "Such language is literal violence and has no place in an abortionist clinic. We are appalled that such a thing could happen here."

    At publishing time, Dr. Robertson had issued a statement apologizing for his behavior and promising to never again hurt a child while severing their spinal cord.”

      1. It's classic Babylon Bee. Evidently Britain offers more scope for their talents even than the US does, the very home of wokery.
        If Private Eye was doing its job, they'd be writing this kind of stuff.

      2. Babylon Bee is a (Christian) spoof website. They do excellent 2-minute videos too. I’ll try and remember to post the one with the British bobbies on Friday’s page.

      1. But No night Hood. Too modest and professional to accept it even if offered.

  107. 'Night All
    See Rod Liddle in today's Spectator? Warning, bitter bitter sarcasm

    It’s surely time we dropped our cynicism and got behind the government’s National Abortion Drive, another noble attempt to kickstart our floundering economy.

    The United Kingdom has made great strides of late in this area, recently overtaking France in the number of abortions performed annually, the figures showing the largest increase since this sort of stuff was legalised. The door, then, is already ajar. All we need to do is push a little.
    Our elected representatives were intent on doing just that this week by voting for an amendment that will now decriminalise abortion right up to the day of birth. I don’t wish to seem churlish, but to me this demonstrates a marked lack of imagination and ambition. Why not extend the period at which abortions are legal to several months, or even years, after the birth of the child?

    I understand that technically this would be known as ‘infanticide’ rather than ‘abortion’, but terminology should not stand in our way. There are plenty of left-wing ethicists, such as Pete Singer, who believe that infanticide is justifiable in many cases, using broadly the same arguments as those used to justify late-term abortions – that the foetus, or child, could not exist independently without its mother.

    Yes, I hear you cry, this is the same Pete Singer who thinks it’s OK to shag dogs.

    There's more. But. Cromwell time.

    1. Goodness. Peter Singer. There's a name I haven't seen in print for a while. A hero of the animal rights movement.

    1. Still 28.5C in my study with the curtains drawn all day to combat solar gain…

  112. Donald had lunch today with Steve Bannon (who has been going hard against any action against Iran) and then said this to the press, when asked whether he will attack..

    ''If you still think that he’s actually going to strike Iran, then you probably also still believe he’s serious about the whole Gaza Riviera thing'' !

  113. Well, chums, I'm now off to bed. Good Night all, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow morning.

  116. Morning All 🙂😊🤗
    I'm All out of sequence after my two days in hospital. There seems to be so much over exaggeration in our world today. Of course having an operation on a worn out joint is painful. Three of the other guys in the ward were on their second bout of it. One both hips.
    But what has to be, has to be done. I personally think that the medication is over done. But maybe I have a higher pain threshold than some. Wonderful front line staff again.

  117. Up late. Aching kidneys but another threesome: Another unusual word:
    Wordle 1,462 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟨🟩⬜🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Comments are closed.