Thursday 20 January – What’s worse: the PM ignoring his rules or failing to understand them?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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667 thoughts on “Thursday 20 January – What’s worse: the PM ignoring his rules or failing to understand them?”

    1. God help them when something seriously bad happens to them, such as a broken nail or torn trousers… how will they cope?

          1. Bongjour. I was astounded to discover that wimmin will pay £300 for a brand new pair of jeans – already torn…

          3. Nor does ANY sane woman. But these “fashion”items are sold in their thousands to some wimmin. Extraordinary.

          6. Don’t worry, King Stephen. All you have to do is sew up the pockets and carry a handbag to put your wallet (and mask?) in. Lol.

  2. Dropping a batch of stuff off as I need to reboot the ‘puter

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/096/198/206/original/ff058b0125e6c000.jpeg

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    And GreenCovidScam,all the same “Models”

    https://twitter.com/thecoastguy/status/1483814077755498498?s=20

    1. Let’s just remind ourselves that Klaus Schwab has said he wants every human being on the planet tagged by 2026.

      1. He’s already got the caste side in place helped by Covid.
        Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons.

        Most of the population will be Epsilons:
        The Epsilons are the lowest class of people, but in order to make sure they’re happy serving in this role, they are deprived of freedoms but pumped with vaccines that make them subservient and unintelligent. Further, they’re conditioned to feel that they’re privileged to be strong together, even though all their rights have actually been removed individually.

        Brave New World is coming.

          2. They are good at making out that they are all-powerful, but a lot can go wrong for them. They might fall out among themselves. The more people resist this cr*p, the better, for a start.

    2. The first one is very good. I have long argued that children should be taught to use and control violence rather than the stupid mantra “violence is never the answer.”

      1. But, but, but… Annie. You were meant to look at her eyes, not at the dog below. Lol.

      1. Great diatribe.

        As regards theatre, one of my best friends has worked as extra chorus at Covent Garden for years. She’s now being passed over as they have instituted a policy of prioritising BAME singers. She doesn’t even question this, despite us having quite a few non-white friends and colleagues who are utterly bemused at the situation, sure in their own talent and admitting that their skin colour has actually helped them in the last decade or so.

  6. What’s worse: the PM ignoring his rules or failing to understand them?

    The constant mainstream media psyop going on about it every day, is worse, nobody actually cares that much, it is all something over nothing.

  8. Free last, free at last, thank God almighty! I am free at last!
    I don’t have to wear a face nappy anymore – not that I did.
    I can meet my friends where and when I want. – not that I stopped.
    I can go to the office to work – not that I need to. I work fine from home. But my employers really did not like that.
    I can be pay the debt for this outrage!.- my shopping bill has shot up. There are 9 people in my house and the dog. This is not the difference between going on three foreign holidays per year and two. This is the difference between bailifs and not. Thank God my adult children are enterprising and hard working – but rather than save to put together a few months rent for a place of their own they are stuck here.

    We will cope. We always have.

    But we know that now they have seen we would comply, watch for what’s next

    – climate lockdowns?

    – another germ?

    – a war around Crimea? – now the Bidens can’t help themselves to any more of its Russian gas revenues, is it time for the neocons and bankers to make some money off another war?

    Our government has known for two years they could have unlocked the nation – Sweden also has its own build-up areas and dark people.These like their elderly suffered the first wave. Then… nothing happened.
    Florida and Texas unlocked early. Then, nothing happened.
    Mexicao and Uttar Pradesh smashed their pandemic with ivermectine and vitamin home kits distributed to everyone for free. But Matt Hancock gave his pub landlord a government contract for procuring masks and he’s swimming freely in the Serpentine.

    Serpentine is about right for this generation of scoundrels.
    I am annoyed with them.

    1. I’ve read this morning that in the Spring they are going to publish a ‘long-term plan for living with Covid.’

      This makes me very nervous. Will this be another disastrous, scientifically-illiterate plan like all the models and forecasts of the last two years? How about the government stops trying to ‘help’ and just lets us live our lives and make our own decisions, without their interference?

      “The most terrifying words in the English language are – I’m from the government and I’m here to help!”

    2. A dangerous precedent has been set. We would have to go back to the Tudors to find such a blatant example of Government by Caprice.
      Not that either of the local Conservative MPs could understand the very point that I raised.

      1. Caprice? Isn’t that a 1967 film starring Doris Day and Richard Harris, Annie? Lol.

  9. 14-year-old boy one of youngest in UK to be convicted of terror charges. 20 january 2022.

    A 14-year-old schoolboy from Darlington has become one of the youngest people in the UK to be convicted of terror charges.

    The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, appeared before Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday charged with possessing a terrorist publication.

    He pleaded guilty to three offences contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He admitted possessing a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Police said the charges related to extreme rightwing terrorism.

    He owned a book! Wow! It’s pretty certain that this was a copy of the fifty year old Anarchists Cookbook, readily available on Amazon for £15.99. This is the latest of a series of juvenile prosecutions for Far-Right terrorism which tells you something of the threat level from this supposed menace. It’s also interesting that he plead guilty which obviated the need of the prosecution to provide convincing proof. He was almost certainly bluffed into this farcical conviction by his youth, poor legal advice, ignorance and lack of cash

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/19/14-year-old-boy-one-of-youngest-in-uk-to-be-convicted-of-terror-charges

    1. Let’s see the police arrest everyone who owns a copy of a book inciting people to violence against people who do not agree with the views of those who follow its instructions .

      It is, of course, the Koran.

    2. Yes, the Anarchists Cookbook. Reported elsewhere.
      And then there is this. A sensible course of action imposed by a judge is overturned on the say-so of “Hate not Hope” a nasty subversive political pressure group.
      What next? Wee boys sent to Borstal for playing “Cowboys and Indians”?
      The police are now the enemy of the people.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-60051861

    3. This so called act of terrorism was as much real terrorism as the Boris Johnson Brexit was a real Brexit with French fishermen still raiding our waters, the border in the Irish Sea still firmly in place and unbridled illegal immigration still rampant.

  10. Until the Savage Jabber announces the plans to fire unvaxxed NHS staff are cancelled this ain’t over,celebrations are premature,we need to keep the pressure on as much as we can
    I will be emailing my MP today to this effect

    1. The whole of the so called free world is going over to mass vaccination and vaccine passports, why would our country be spared?

    2. I agree; it’s just throwing the peasants a few sops whilst carrying on with the agenda behind the scenes. People are less likely to get angry about the NHS staff being sacked if they themselves aren’t personally affected.

    3. Javid the Bald is a nasty piece of work and seems intent on going along with the ‘scorched earth’ policy of segregating “vaccinated” from unvaccinated and seriously harming the NHS as he does so.

      How he is capable of pursuing this act of vandalism when ALL of the science is against him defies all logic i.e. all of the initial jabs wane after 90 – 120 days and become useless; the legacy virus and its immediate successors have gone; the Delta variant has been displaced by Omicron; the initial jabs are useless against Omicron; the ‘booster’, according to Pfizer’s CEO, offers marginal protection against the latter for a few weeks at best; infection from the mild Omicron offers natural immunity from ‘covid’, possibly for life.
      His determination to continue with this plan smacks of vindictiveness as he sees the greater plan being halted by the public pressure being applied to Johnson. We must remain on our guard whilst people such as Johnson, Javid, Gove etc haunt the corridors of power.

      My useless MP will be receiving an email too.

      1. Thalidomide was tested far more thoroughly and over a longer time period than the Covid vaccines were. How long was it between thalidomide becoming available and it being banned for its disastrous consequences as far as deformities in babies were observed?

          1. Good morning, Anne

            Thank you for this link.

            So Thalidomide was first available in the early 1950s and its link to birth deformities was not noticed until the early 1960s – ten years later.

            This begs the question:

            What horrors lie in wait from the Covid jabs which will only be properly investigated after ten years have passed?

          2. Not really comparing like with like.
            The heroine of the Thalidomide saga was Frances Oldham Kelsey. Not only did her determination save North American families from much misery, but she is also important in the world of decision making.

          3. …and not believing that the test results where sufficient.

            Like we, anti-vaxxers, and we await the long-term (thalidomide like) results.

          4. The deformities only occurred (from what I remember) for a fortnight out of the whole 40 weeks. That fortnight is when the limbs are first developing.
            Unfortunately, that is also an early stage of pregnancy when women are more likely to suffer morning sickness.
            But this short window of time when the damage happened did also mean that many women took Thalidomide with no ill effects. Plus, I don’t think it was widely used until the late 1950s.
            People in those days remembered a pre-antibiotic age and were understandably impressed with post war pharmaceutical developments. (Many of the psychotropic drugs that we take for granted were developed around the same time.)
            It was also an age of greater defence towards professionals in any discipline.

      2. Good morning, Korky. I have spent too much time on here this morning. I may be a little late. Must go now, and get ready.

    4. It’s inevitable isn’t it? Fire 70,000 staff, plunge back (?) into crisis, here we go again.

        1. Shortly, Paul, to be 170,000 unfilled positions and the NHS in crisis – again.

          ‘Effin’ liars, the lot of ’em.

  11. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A couple of readers were obviously unimpressed by Sgt Bilko’s letter of self-justification:

    SIR – Predictably convinced of his own virtue, Nick Robinson (Letters, January 19) displays the kind of cloth ear that is preventing the BBC from reforming itself.

    Charles Moore’s piece (Comment, January 18) called for balance and calm maturity in the reporting of the Prime Minister’s travails – not for them to be ignored, as Mr Robinson suggests.

    Surely it’s not too difficult to grasp this distinction.

    Christopher Timbrell
    Kington Langley, Wiltshire

    SIR – Nick Robinson inadvertently reveals the problem with the BBC’s reporting of the Downing Street gatherings by linking them with people’s suffering because of Covid restrictions. Much of the BBC’s coverage of the “parties” has featured interviews with people who were unable to visit dying relatives or attend funerals.

    In fact, there is no material connection between these matters and linking them is campaigning, not objective reporting.

    The fact that Mr Robinson appears oblivious of this is evidence of the depth of bias within the BBC.

    Thomas Roberts
    Cardiff

  12. Ukraine will be just the start if we appease Putin now. 20 January 2022.

    Britain’s decision to supply Ukraine with the weapons, together with a number of military instructors to train the Ukrainians to use them, is a timely display of solidarity in support of Kyiv at a time when there is a pressing need for the Western alliance to show unity in confronting the Russian threat.

    While the Government are meddling in matters that are none of our concern and do not threaten us in any way the equivalent of two Infantry Divisions will cross the Channel this year without hindrance of any kind!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/20/ukraine-will-just-start-appease-putin-now/

    2. The talk by Jordan Peterson, linked by LessIsMore below, sheds some light on this topic. In the last few minutes, JP quotes some advice by Putin to the West about the similarities between the Bolsheviks and our own authoritarian left.
      Putin is clearly a threat to the WEF agendaworld peace.

    3. Well, we have sent “military advisers” (soldiers) with weapons to Ukraine. If our soldiers are singled out, targeted and killed by the Russians what happens next? If I were in Putin’s shoes I’d be thinking that eliminating the “advisers”might be enough to demonstrate that I was serious and outsiders should stay outside. He’d also be sure that there would be no retaliation from the UK. We have poked the Russian bear without any plan as to what to do if the bear gets out of the cage and bites us.
      Sending our soldiers to the Ukraine is barely legal, is provocation, and is putting our soldiers in harm’s way for no benefit, except possibly to the USA in respect of its insane worldview.

    5. Solidarity with the Ukraine? Half the people in the UK couldn’t find Luton on a map never mind the Ukraine.
      Con and Ben, a fine pair.

      1. The UKraine hasn’t been on the map for very long. My father’s family came from Odessa but they knew it only as Russia.

  13. And while we are, yet again, on the subject of the BBC:

    SIR – If the BBC is world class, as many of us believe, it has nothing to fear from a subscription model (Features, January 18).

    It would be able to charge as much as its inferior rivals and control its funding. The days of it being paid for by an outdated poll tax must end.

    Andrew Wauchope
    London SE11

    Well now, while I welcome the move by Nadine Dorries to freeze the licence fee for the next two years, it is most unlikely that she will remain in office for this period of time if the reported whingeing from certain ministers is any guide. With a change of party leader in the offing I suspect that this recently-announced measure may not last. Thus, the move to starve the BBC into adopting an alternative funding method, or even closure, may not survive.

  15. ‘Morning again.

    COMMENT
    The real threat to the Tories is the mass impoverishment of Middle England

    Boris must scrap the hike in National Insurance. It’s a symbol of all that’s wrong with his Government

    ALLISTER HEATH
    19 January 2022 • 9:30pm

    Do the Tories really care about people like us? It’s in part because millions of voters are beginning to doubt the answer to this question that Boris Johnson is in so much trouble.

    The Prime Minister’s traumatic fight against the establishment over Brexit turned him into a hero to swathes of the country; two years on, that goodwill has been squandered, and many of his 2019 working class recruits fear that the Tories have reverted to type, a feeling confirmed by the lurid tales of illicit wine-guzzling. But Partygate is merely the last straw after a series of disappointments, the explosive, infuriating symbol of a Government that forgot that its mission was to stand up for a silent majority long ignored by metropolitan Tories and Labour alike.

    Buffeted by Covid, irritated by failures on illegal migration and crime, Johnson’s people – in the shires and in the red wall – are in the grip of a vicious, intensifying cost of living crisis that, bizarrely, he is preparing to reinforce with hikes to National Insurance (NI). The traditional argument for voting Tory – that they will make you better off – is no longer credible. For those in SW1 who haven’t noticed, inflation is extremely painful for Middle England. The value of savings is being slashed; wages are falling dramatically in real terms; small businesses are facing higher costs; and there is terror that the money will run out, that bills won’t be paid, that pauperisation looms.

    Some of this is due to global forces for which the British authorities cannot be blamed. But voters realise all too well that the Government is about to add to their pain with a tax raid; they also note that the PM has refused to cut VAT on energy bills, despite promising to do so in 2016. It was always absurd to claim, as many Tories did last year, that higher NI “to pay for the NHS” would somehow be popular; it is now clear that the timing is politically suicidal.

    It’s not just today’s blow to living standards that voters are worried about. Thanks to Government policy, the future looks equally grim. Will people have to pay a lot more for an electric car? Will they need to pay for a new boiler? Why is Johnson – their man – doing this to them? The Tories promised to tackle the housing crisis, yet the next generation is being priced out ever more quickly.

    Middle England will never vote for a party that wants to impoverish them, or that is so careless it doesn’t realise when it is doing so. Johnson, or his successor, will need to act extremely quickly and radically to salvage the situation, tackle the cost of living crisis and begin a genuine push to boost growth, productivity and therefore wages.

    The PM has already scrapped most Covid restrictions, a welcome move, but that is the easy part. The next step is to show the public that he is serious about tackling inflation.

    The Prime Minister must summon Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, and convey to him the severity of the situation. The insouciant manner in which the Bank has treated the inflationary explosion has been deeply troubling. It has embraced a radical woke agenda and has focused on forcing the City to go green. But what about its core function of keeping inflation low? It is also time for Rishi Sunak to reform the Bank’s mandate. Technocratic groupthink runs riot in Threadneedle Street. The post-1997, Brown/Balls monetary policy framework has failed. Asset price inflation can no longer be ignored, and QE needs to be seen as the weapon of mass destruction that it truly is.

    The Government must simultaneously launch a new economic growth strategy. It has its work cut out: the Tories started to lose the plot on this front in the mid-2000s.

    Scarred by their apparent inability to land blows on Gordon Brown, David Cameron and George Osborne shifted Left-wards, focusing on “sharing the proceeds of growth” – a message that took economic improvements for granted – and embraced gimmicks such as employee-ownership to appeal to the metropolitan elites. To his credit, Osborne at least retained a belief in balancing the books, though too much of it came from tax increases. Theresa May, by contrast, appeared to consider economic growth as rather distasteful, and adopted calamitous policies such as net zero and the energy price cap.

    Rather than repudiating this nonsense, Johnson actually built on it. He has made five cardinal economic errors. The first was to assume that “going green” would quickly mean more growth, thanks to the construction of giga-factories and the rest, rather than – at best – hit the economy first by imposing additional costs. The second was that the only kind of growth that mattered was located in the North. The third was to believe that Brexit wasn’t an economic issue: in reality, Eurosceptics had long advocated massive regulatory and tax changes to cushion the transitionary costs from leaving the single market and customs union, and to reposition the UK as an ultra-competitive powerhouse. Britain has taken the hit from the costs of disentangling ourselves from the European superstate but has done nothing to fight back.

    Fourth, he dumped his erstwhile interest in supply-side economics and lower taxes, deciding that the best way forward was to raise them to spend even more on the NHS. Last but not least, we have ended up with a Government that is content to nationalise firms, to hand out myriad subsidies and is considering throwing billions of pounds at a market-defying scheme to stabilise energy prices.

    All of this must change. Britain needs a ruthlessly pro-growth, pro-consumer revolution. Crucially, April’s rise in national insurance must be scrapped. This will require an emergency Budget, and Sunak’s cooperation. But that tax rise is symbolic of everything that has gone wrong with Johnson’s premiership and ending it is a necessary condition for a Tory revival. Spending will need to be cut, and borrowing increased. VAT on fuel must also go.

    The last time inflation was this high was in 1992, when John Major’s reputation for economic competence was being shredded by the ERM crisis, and sleaze scandals were about to engulf the Tory party. His decision to increase VAT on energy helped finish him off. The similarities with today are eerie. Economics, the cost of living and tax are just as much at the root of the Conservatives’ present crisis as illicit parties. They are either the party of prosperity, or they are nothing. Why do the Tories never learn?

    * * *

    Johnson discovered profligacy with our money and isn’t about to give it up. Besides, his own shambolic finances are a very bad sign for ours. He just isn’t a Conservative…

    1. This article is about thirty years out of date.
      The real threat to the Tories is the fact that all their leaders and the establishment are owned by Mr Global. We don’t live in the 80s any more.

    2. 334393+ up ticks,

      Morning HJ,
      “The Prime Minister’s traumatic fight against the establishment over Brexit turned him into a hero to swathes of the country”

      In reality,
      swathes of the country realised he was a continuation of treacherous treasa the eu asset.

      “The deal” really was the umbilical cord, his input when total severance was the way to go.

    3. We’re a long way from Maggie setting her own hair each morning with Carmen rollers.
      Whether we’ve gone backwards or forwards I leave to the judgement of others.

    1. I like the comedian Lee Hurst’s response:-
      “The #WearAMask hashtag is like prisoners refusing to leave the camp when the guards have quit, left the gate open and gone home. Wear your masks, we don’t give a f*ck.”

    3. I can’t bear to go down that path on Twitter. So disheartening to realise that there are people like that around – loads of them.
      Good morning, Bob!

  19. 334393+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 20 January – What’s worse: the PM ignoring his rules or failing to understand them?

    What is far worse is a PM of his calibre, a continuation of the bog man, brown, major, leg over clegg, the wretch cameron, treacherous treasa,
    now a turkish delight bent on GREEN RESET, replacement, sample,a midwife with a bone through her hooter.

    The PM / mps ignoring the rules whilst running their own agender ie
    the DOVER campaign IS an unlawful invasion, sending a depleted army
    to a war zone, lest we forget for the “good of the party” the sergeant who due to body armour shortage lent his to a comrade and died for his good deed.

    Ask yourself who in the politico overseers has the body bag franciase,
    etc,etc who is making money from any combat zone whilst making double sure they are nowhere near it,

    When you have made an honest assessment to satisfy your own
    conscience then enter a polling booth, a vote on the strength of “party name only” will / does get peoples killed, seriously injured, children raped and abused, a Country lost,A PROVEN FACT.

  21. Douglas Murray at his innspired best:

    Are you ready for ‘Operation Red Meat’? If not, then you should brace yourself. For it looks set to be one of the most fearsome operations of modern political times, liable to make Conservative voters quiver with excitement and feel almost too stimulated.

    Alert readers will have noticed that Boris Johnson did not have the best end to 2021. Unfortunately he hasn’t had the best start to 2022 either. Hardly a day has gone by when we haven’t learned of some new shocker from No. 10. The impression has been not just of shambolic-ness but of dishonesty, double standards and general incompetence.

    The point is that the Prime Minister and the fawning court around him seem to have noticed that he has lost his lustre. The joke has worn thin. The only politician of his generation who could actually make people feel good about things has become the punchline of an especially unfunny gag. Watching him at the dispatch box last week was like watching Michael Barrymore after the body had been found in his pool. This had been a man capable of great hilarity. But the desire to be amused by him has vanished.

    ,b>He recognises he is in trouble. Earlier this week he apparently told the cabinet that ‘2022 must be the year of delivery, underlining the importance of demonstrating to the British public that we are changing the country for the better’. What a blinding ambition for a government’s third year in office.

    But political disaster clearly focuses the mind, and reminds even this PM that there was something else he was meant to do while living in Downing Street. What was is exactly? Why yes, of course: what his party said they would do when they won the general election.

    It’s quite something that it takes disaster to remind a government of this. For, to date, Johnson has not merely wasted an 80-seat majority. As one of his MPs reminded me recently, he has wasted both an 80-seat majority and a crisis. Thanks to an administration seemingly run principally by himself, his wife and his wife’s best mates, in a remarkable 11th year of Conservative rule we have currently almost nothing to show for this opportunity. So far the Johnson years make the Cameron-Clegg coalition look like Margaret Thatcher’s second term.

    Johnson has given us tax rises, national insurance rises, unprecedented levels of peacetime debt plus massive spending on an unreformed NHS. His only major policy initiative is on the environment where he has instituted an agenda that will ensure energy price rises and blackouts for the rest of the decade. The country may have voted Conservative, but we got the member for Brighton Pavilion.

    Only now that Johnson is facing catastrophe have he and his team come to realise that Conservative voters might want more. So they appear to be lining up to do what Tories who have lost touch with their base always do. They presume firstly that their base are ugly, and secondly that they are stupid.

    Over the next few weeks I’d expect the Johnson government to do his version of the sort of things Theresa May used to when she got that uncanny feeling that she might be out of kilter with her base. In May’s case that meant things like bartering with the presence of EU citizens in the UK. As if your average Leave voter had always had a problem with those damn Parisians descending on Kensington to open their hedge funds and delicious patisseries. Now we can look forward to Johnson addressing concerns he hasn’t given a damn about since arriving in office. For example, I’d expect that we’ll be able to look forward to some major announcements about the illegal migrant crossings in the Channel.

    Throughout his premiership Johnson has shown almost zero interest in this issue, apparently hoping that the arrival of hundreds and sometimes thousands of illegal migrants across the Channel each day would be of negligible interest to the British public. For as long as he could, he ignored the issue. Then he allowed Priti Patel to float some of the bare basic policies needed to stop this illegal migration, but retreated from doing what he needed to — principally because he feared the backlash of squishes in parliament and the media who seem to think that the dinghies do not merely carry the world’s poor and dispossessed but are also magically filled with people holding precisely those job qualifications that the British labour market needs.

    So this is exactly the moment that we can expect Johnson to make ‘Red Meat’ announcements about sending in the Royal navy, army and perhaps even the RAF. All so the migrants can be picked up by the armed forces as opposed to our coastguard agency, which currently acts as the British half of the smuggling-gang networks.

    What else can we look forward to? I imagine we’ll have something about how violent crime should be punished with prison sentences that already exist. Probably something on how we should be proud of our history and how Winston Churchill wasn’t so bad after all. Perhaps we will even get something about how ghastly Labour are, and how if you thought Jeremy Corbyn was bad you haven’t seen anything till you’ve seen what Comrade Starmer would do in power.

    Personally speaking I love red meat. The redder the better. But like many carnivores I know when I am being thrown a bone, and I have been around long enough to know that a government that doesn’t do what it promised to do from day one is a government that can rarely be trusted to start doing so in year three. Let alone simply in order to save itself from a bring-your-own-bottle imbroglio. I don’t want red meat. I want a blue government.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/operation-red-meat-wont-beef-up-the-government

    1. “importance of demonstrating to the British public that we are changing the country for the better’.” Still scripted by Carrie though, so it’ll just be more green ‘net zero’ rubbish and massive immigration.

    2. “importance of demonstrating to the British public that we are changing the country for the better’.” Still scripted by Carrie though, so it’ll just be more green ‘net zero’ rubbish and massive immigration.

    3. Like Boris, Mr Murray was also a King’s Scholar at Eton. Difference is that DM is gay and does not enjoy police protection.

      Any of those marine protégés of Miss Patel could choose to crudely sever Douglas’ head from his shoulders and be guaranteed i) immense respect from fellow convicts and ii) guaranteed entry into paradise.

  22. 334393+ up ticks,

    Bearded Old Codger
    @BeardedBob7282
    ·
    54m
    While the Government are meddling in matters that are none of our concern and do not threaten us in any way, the equivalent of two Infantry Divisions will cross the Channel this year without hindrance of any kind!

    Nicely put Boc,

    May one ask,
    What sort of peoples are supporting & voting for the illegal incoming shite,
    it has been ongoing since the bog man anthony charlie, lynton lifted the latch.

    By now support in the main for these mass uncontrolled / Gov. controlled daily intakes can only be via foreign ( swelling the ranks), and sad to say indigenous political retards

  23. 334393+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Five more Conservative MPs considering defecting to Labour,
    in reality and in a coalition, will it be noticed ?

    By the by,
    What was yesterdays English Channel count of invaders, lab/lib/con current supporters may take it as being of no importance but consider, every one in is replacing an indigenous person in ALL society’s facilities
    education, medication, incarceration, ACCOMMODATION.

    1. Morning ogga1,

      By the by,
      You’ve missed out infection.
      Where else will we get an unjabbed control group for the statistics? 🤔

    1. Steve James is an absolute hero!

      I would be quite happy to pay for my own NHS treatment in the highly-unlikely event that i am hospitalised by Covid. Far be it for this “anti-vaxxer” to take up precious NHS space. Exempt me from any penalties that my un-vaxxed status may bring, and I’ll agree to pay for my own treatment if I’m struck by the ‘rona. Deal?

      1. He’s been “fact checked” and as is so often the case with these bogus fact checks the MSM have picked up on the minnows he’s got wrong and damned him, yet at the same time totally ignoring anything he’s got right.

      2. 334393+ up ticks,

        Afternoon JK,

        I would be seriously glad to be wrong but it could yet turn out that the
        unpierced could be the much needed crutch many will need in the near future, IMO we are going to take casualties either direct from the jab or indirect via the postponements, cancelations, NHS waiting lists with many NEW potential patients joining via the Calais / Dover government controlled illegal immigrant input.

  27. Good Moaning.
    I am starting the day with a ConHome article.
    Firstly: a BTL comment.

    “LilyL

    Crispin Blunt MP was ordered by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to apologise for breaching parliamentary rules over his attempt to make a secret deal on self-ID. Let that sink in. A secret deal.

    If he had had his way, any man who says he is a woman would have the lawful right to use the same changing rooms as your teenaged daughters, to use the same ladies toilets as your 11 year old granddaughter. Any male rapist would have the same right to demand a transfer to a women’s prison. That these things are actually happening now is a basic safeguarding failure of public organisations but Crispin Blunt wanted them to be made lawful and beyond challenge. So I think we know where he stands. The question is, is he representing the majority view of his voters in Reigate? I think not.

    Lisa Townsend, on the other hand, is standing up for truth, facts, the safeguarding of children, the sex-based rights of women and girls to have single sex spaces where they are vulnerable and in a state of undress. Is she representing the majority view of her voters? And I include in that all decent men who see why women and girls need those spaces and want them to be protected. I think so.

    She is doing the job that we want and expect politicians to do; standing up for her constituents. I stand with Lisa Townsend.”

    Here is the link to the article.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2022/01/the-blue-on-blue-row-between-blunt-and-townsend-over-trans-and-big-questions-about-free-speech-and-public-service.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thursday 20th January 2021&utm_content=Thursday 20th January 2021+CID_21663a5f33f4f6c60a42c798a1c6db9a&utm_source=Daily Email&utm_term=The blue-on-blue row between Blunt and Townsend over trans and big questions about free speech and public service

    1. Wow, Blunt is a patronising so-and-so isn’t he.

      George Soros funds the trans political movement. That’s all you need to know about it.

    2. I just wish to God, that journalists and the great unwashed would stop avidly avoiding the use of the word ‘sex’, when identifying male and/or female and the insipid way they display their ignorance of English when, instead of saying/writing sex, they like to fall back upon ‘gender’ which is, of itself, a grammatical construct, not much used in the English Language (but beloved of European languages) the main examples in English are ships, sometimes vehicles and aeroplanes but not much else.

      Also, amid also this self-identifying nonsense, a person’s sex is defined by their DNA, which they cannot alter no matter how much they mutilate their bodies or add prosthesis.

      1. “… the main examples in English are ships, sometimes vehicles and aeroplanes but not much else.”
        In Hampshire when I worked on a farm there, pretty well everything was a “she” gates, fences, you name it. In contract, in Beds, pretty well everything was male – even to the stage of hearing “She’s a good ole boy!”
        Such are the delights of regional dialects!
        Afternoon, Tom.

      2. Our elder son has also circulated that one.
        Both our sons have daughters so they are are super sensitive to this nonsense.

  28. Good morning, everyone. I am off shortly to visit Korky the Kat. Should I have postponed our meeting for 7 days, so that I don’t need to wear a mask? Lol.

      1. Oddly enough, Phizzee, I did not. I took him an amusing book to read at his leisure.

    2. He forgot to mention the 10 tonne heap of gravel to be moved from the front garden to the back?

      1. I wouldn’t say that, Richard. 2021 has been a busy year in his garden for him. I would say that 2020 was more difficult. Now he is spending more time out with friends, and we enjoyed a great time chatting and eating (he can cook a mean lasagne and bakewell tart from scratch, and I don’t mean the kind that are available from shops prepared by Mr Kipling and other people.) We plan to enjoy a meal at my place at a later date, although I may have to rely on Mr Aldi’s help!

  30. Ouch.
    Just filled up with diesel. 1:62 a litre; not so very long ago it was ~ 1:12

    Roughly £1:35. Better than the UK, but still dreadful.

    3. Time to don your gilet jaune…. Just wait until you “fill up” with electricity….

    4. Because it’s so evil the price will increase more and more to show you that EVs are the future.

  31. Boris and Carrie’s bay was struck down by Covid. 20 January 2022.

    Boris Johnson’s six-week-old daughter was badly hit by Covid, the Mail can reveal today.

    Downing Street announced last week that a member of his family had tested positive for the virus. It did not state who the relative was but it is understood to be his daughter Romy.

    A source said she had suffered with the virus ‘quite badly’ aged five weeks but was now ‘on the mend’.

    What a coincidence. I had Foot and Mouth that very same week!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10420397/Prime-Ministers-daughter-Romy-Covid-quite-badly-mend-source-says.html

    1. If they seriously shoved a stick up the nose of a five week old baby then the child should be taken in to care immediately. One more to add to the tally of lies?

    3. Yes, the cynics among us might wonder why this ‘news’ has only just emerged when she is already well on the way to recovery…

  32. If Boris Johson survives this leadership crisis he will certainly lose the next election unless:

    i) The border in the Irish Sea is taken away;
    ii) The Northern Ireland Protocol is removed by invoking Article 16;
    iii) British borders are properly enforced;
    iv) Illegal immigration is halted;
    v) The ECHR is jettisoned and the ECJ has no further influence in British legal matters.

    This would give us a proper Brexit rather than the Bumbling Boris Bodge Job.

    And:

    vi) Removal of all possibility of enforced Covid vaccinations;
    vii) Make sure the BBC is properly sorted out;
    viii) The green agenda is addressed in a way that does not cripple ordinary people;
    ix) Northern Ireland conflict veterans are no longer persecuted and prosecuted – not for one day longer.

    Many other things could be added to this list?

    In summary: Boris must not just make promises – he must keep them honestly and truthfully.

    1. Male Lives Mattter.
      (If you can’t afford a reliable vehicle, at least try not to travel at night or to dodgy places or alone.)

      1. How can a single, defenceless, male AA patrol driver know, beforehand, that the woman waiting for him at some remote location is not another Joyce McKinney?

    2. I like one of the BTL responses:-
      “There’s between 63 to 100 plus genders depending on which source you believe so good luck putting those in order of priority without upsetting someone.”

    3. I thought that prioritising a woman alone was because of the woman who broke down and was murdered.

        1. When the police spend more time on line chasing up hurty feelings, the real criminals get away with it.

  34. Well, that was a first. To Morrisons. All customers masked (except me). Man in front of me wore plastic gloves to handle the food he was buying….

    BUT – for the first time since the plague began, ALL shop staff (apart from those on the tills) WORE MASKS….. Couldn’t believe it. I did wonder whether they were having an inspection from Head Office or suffin’. Weird sight.

    1. Good morning Bill.

      This thing isn’t over yet.

      When I am shopping , I will pull out my mask , wear it , wipe my trolley handle and then rub stuff into my hands , and carry on shopping .

      I will avoid people who use their sleeve to wipe their nose , and I keep my distance from coughing spluttering children and people who puff away on those strange vape things .

      Here endeth my own little anxiety.

      2. You are aware, Maggie that the nasty little Covid bug is much, much smaller than the smallest mesh on your mask and will easily penetrate (or be exhaled) in the same way that a fart penetrates knickers?

        1. I have had pneumonia years ago.

          I have also been told that sometimes the inexperienced quacks can really F### up an intubation ( to help one breath) , penetrating soft tissues , and sometimes drowning a patient with a shocking introduction of a naso gastric tube into the lungs . Wrong tube .. The pandemonium on an ICU has been a traumatic experience for many nurses during this plague .

          There aren’t enough anaesthetists, and doctors become very weary !

          Your own life is in Your own hands.

          1. …and your own fart will escape your knickers.

            If they wrongly intubate – be sure they’re sued to the hilt.

      3. I go shopping at 7am when the supermarket opens. This is for several reasons, but since the panpanic started, it occurred to me that it probably reduced my chances of catching a pneumonia nasty if I was the first shopper round the store, rather than going later when the air is full of everyone’s breathed out viruses floating in the air. I do not believe the masks do anything, as most of the air I breathe comes in round the sides anyway.

      4. I stopped all the trolley – wiping and sanitising after the first lockdown and haven’t worn a mask since last summer, except for hospital appointments with OH. I’m still here and still healthy. Nobody has been proven to catch the virus from shopping or packages.

        Anxiety is more of a killer than this virus.

    2. Almost all staff at Aldi and Lidl wear masks, although the Lidl lot are tough as commandos. There used to be a jolly, fat bird working there, but she abruptly disappeared when the Chinese virus appeared 2 years ago.

      On a different topic, have you ever tried watching any of the Inspector Montalbano episodes? Available on BBC streaming, and apart from the excellent quality of the production, the stories tend to use the crimes as a background for the human interest. Plus, it’s in italian, set in Sicily, and sunny.

      1. When I was caring for Mother, she insisted on our watching telly together (I haven’t done so for years). Montalbano was one of the programmes we could agree on.

        I learned a lot of, erm, useful Italian vocabulary 🤣🤣

      2. I watched one – because it was set in a part of Italy that I know. I was bored rigid….{:¬))

        I just don’t get on with detective stuff.

        1. If you haven’t seen it yet Bill I can recommend Why Ships Crash (iplayer). A fascinating investigation into the Suez Canal accident last year. The only criticism I have is the ‘music’.

      3. I’m watching the boxed set of Bergerac at the moment. Set in Jersey (and sometimes France) where sunshine seems perpetual

        1. I like them because it makes the story easy to follow.

          Some of the BBC things are better with them, too, eg the recent Shetland series.

      5. Love Inspector Montalbano! And the scenery………and the subtitles……… most of the recent ones have been repeats but they’re still worth watching.

  36. Good morning. I recommend sharing one’s opinion of the BBC on this email of theirs: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

    This is what I have submitted:

    It’s time for those working for, and directing, the BBC to decide.

    There are now a very large number of peer-reviewed studies that confirm what
    was obvious to many from the get-go that the injectates being pressed on
    the people by pharmas, government and the establishment media are
    harmful, and those studies have been confirmed by the metrics. Thousands
    of people have already died as a result, and thousands more grievously
    injured. the cumulative effect of damage to the natural immune systems
    of all who have had the jabs seems still to be in early stage.
    Government has killed many others with the denial of NHS services in
    2020 and by the use of Midozalam to euthanase the elderly – a
    respiratory depressant given to patients with respiratory conditions in
    many cases at 5 times the recommended dose. The BBC has been entirely
    silent on this as it has on the fact that 2020, the year we were
    attacked by the “virus” all causes mortality was 35th out of the
    previous 50 years – and would have been even lower had the Johnson
    regime not closed the NHS as it did.

    The forseeability of harm is well established, and yet none of the
    promoters, including the BBC, have even suggested that there should be a
    moratorium on the use of the injectates for safety reasons. Given that
    forseeability the promotion or delivery of the injectates is most
    certainly a criminal offense of a serious nature if the necessary mens
    rea – the mental element required to be proven in crime – can be shown,
    as is now plainly more than possible.

    I and thousands of others will be urging the prosecution to the fullest
    extent of the law of such people. The time to wake up is now, and I urge
    the BBC and those who work for it to do so, and in the process return
    to truthful news reporting. If the BBC survives, as most of us hope, it
    can only do so by cutting out the cancer of the evil, including the
    Gates influence, that has brought it so low and tell the truth about the
    jabs.

  37. 334393+ up ticks,

    I believe to be true facts from the crypt,

    I worked under the muammar G regime myself and 15 pakis, the easiest time I had getting through Tripoli airport was early post PC Fletchers death, no bags emptied, just chalk marked.

    Seems that some must die for others to gain,

    many in odious ways.

    https://gettr.com/post/ppi23bed32

  38. 334393+ up ticks,

    The longest journey starts with the first step,

    breitbart,
    Two Men Arrested in UK Over Texas Synagogue Hostage Situation,
    two down 30,000 known plus to go.

          4. By the time I’d effed and blinded putting up a curtain rail, I reckoned I’d earned a drink. I hit the whisky liqueur!

          5. You do make me chuckle Conners. I am hopeless with stuff like that- I cook, he does the drilling etc. He can cook though when in the mood.

          6. Alas, I have to do the cooking as well as the DIY now. It wasn’t helped by the fact that not only is the arthritis in my joints flaring up (cold and damp don’t help), the skin on the tips of my fingers and thumbs has split, making picking things up (particularly fiddly screws) difficult and painful. After I’d nearly fallen off the chair and then had to keep getting up and down to pick up the screws I’d dropped I was pretty much incandescent with rage! I was determined the @#!$%ing thing was NOT going to defeat me!

          7. I do sympathise- I have a right arthritic knee which was OK when I could swim- I haven’t been able to for some time, wonder why?
            Now my left knee has joined in. And you are so right, the cold and damp do not help.

          8. I have arthritis in my right knee, too. I used to say I didn’t limp because the left hip and right knee cancelled each other out, but unfortunately, since I had a fall in the garden last March, the left hip has become dominant 🙁

          10. Better yet when it has been transformed into whisky – which I take with a wee drop of water.

            That’s my deoch an doris.

        1. But Sad Dick, Caliph of Londonistan is banning the lifting of masks on TFL. And 46% of dumbos want to carry on masked for ever.

          3. I suspect so and there are certainly sufficient panty-wetters who will continue to obey I’m sure.
            If he is acting ultra vires I hope someone sues him.

        2. I see it as London hiding behind rhubarb leaves (for some reason) thanks to the useless Sad Dick Can’t insisting on keeping the mask, while the rest of the free English get on with life!

          1. I think they’re trees, but they might as well be cabbages as there is so much rhubarb being spouted from all directions.

      3. This comment piece in the London Evening Standard might help. The Adams cartoon was used as an illustration. It suggests that London will begin to return to normal and on to a brighter future [clear, sunlit sky] leaving the restrictions and constraints behind [discarded mask].

        Evening Standard Comment: Plan B is ending – now we need a plan for London’s recovery

        By Evening Standard Comment
        2 hours ago

        The fightback starts here. After weeks of work from home guidance, Plan B restrictions will be lifted on 26 January, heralding the return of commuters to central London offices.

        We welcome the move and the data backs it up — cases are falling, while hospitals are not showing signs of becoming overwhelmed by the virus. What is needed now is a concerted effort to return London to its pre-pandemic state.

        Our retail and hospitality sectors — among others — have missed out on two successive Christmas seasons, have taken on debt and now face a rising tax burden. This therefore remains a perilous moment. That is why we join London businesses in calling for a substantial package of measures to help the capital get back on its feet after this unprecedented peacetime disruption.

        Businesses are asking for a variety of measures, including a further deferral of VAT and businesses tax reliefs due to end in April, a massive international marketing campaign to lure back foreign tourists and a programme of celebratory events to give people more reasons to return to the city centre.

        These will require a fundamental change in posture from the Government, which all too often has appeared at ease with bashing London. This is both politically nonsensical and economically misguided.

        Our city is the engine of the UK economy, representing roughly 20 per cent of GDP. Simply put, there will be no nationwide recovery unless the capital is firing on all cylinders.

        It will not happen overnight. London has suffered disproportionately from the pandemic, given our large tourism, entertainment and hospitality sectors. And now millions face a cost of living crisis, with soaring energy bills, food prices and higher taxes.

        That is why the capital’s comeback will require nothing less than a government fully focused on recovery, growth and returning our city to its pre-pandemic heights.

        https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/plan-b-restirctions-work-from-home-boris-johnson-london-b977771.html

  40. Things are hotting up on the DT letters section.
    This particular poster is a measured, balanced chap (retired headmaster, I think). On this subject he is giving it to the American First Family with both barrels.

    “Edwin Pugh

    18 MIN AGO

    Someone’s first year –

    I Am Not Surprised, Are You?

    Look up CATL, the Chinese-owned, lithium-battery company whose value has skyrocketed since Joe Biden took office.

    Guess where there is a gold mine of lithium? You guessed it……Afghanistan!

    Guess who owns 10% of CATL? You guessed it, Hunter Biden!

    You’re starting to see why ol’ Pops was so quick to get us out of Afghanistan? Taliban is set to make trillions on selling their lithium to China and the Bidens stand to make billions!

    ALWAYS follow the money…and you will find the answers to the baffling decisions they make!

    Hard to believe how crooked the Biden Crime Family is and we just sit by and watch it happen.

    And hundreds lost their lives during his botched pull-out. But he really doesn’t care because he is as evil as they come! His entire regime and family is. The Bidens own 10% of a Chinese lithium ion battery company [Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL)] whose stock has soared.

    And people voted for this known criminal!!”

    1. Has a great chunk of the comments this morning disappeared. I was having some fun with Am Fagash, but like a Scotch mist, its vapourised.

    2. It is a bit sad that the motivations are so obvious.

      You have to ask how these people get so rich on a government salary. It’s back handers, brown envelopes and slush money – robbed from the tax payer.

      1. The sad thing is that being naturally rich doesn’t seem to stop the sleaze or the stupidity.
        Think of Cameron with his £millions.

    1. not over here it’s not, they are doubling down on covi-fear!

      Latest is Newfoundland where they are trying to make it illegal to meet anyone from outside your home group.
      Outside, Just two of you, Both wearing masks? Tough, you are nicked!

  45. Bloody hell! It’s cold out there!
    5 bags of soil filled, ready to hoik up the garden, and my fingers are feeling as if they are going to drop off, despite insulated gloves, pre-warmed on the Rayburn before I started.
    So a quick mug of tea, before getting another 5 filled and all 10 up the garden.
    Then, after another warm up, I may get started on refilling the Holly bush woodstack.

  46. I see No 10 and CCO are pulling out all the stops to protect Johnson, judging by the number of new accounts in the DT comments.

          7. Well, wibbling, before the Referendum, BoJo and many other cranks and fruitcakes campaigned to Leave the EU. At the 2019 General Election, BoJo said, ‘Get Brexit Done.’ Now it’s ‘done,’ are we happier? Are we better off? Does our future look brighter? What was the point of it all?

          8. It isn’t “done”, that’s the problem. Even my remain voting friends agree that rejoining is a non-starter. As one put it, “we’d never get a good deal”. Not that we had a good deal in the first place, of course.

          9. Well, wibbling, before the Referendum, BoJo and many other cranks and fruitcakes campaigned to Leave the EU. At the 2019 General Election, BoJo said, ‘Get Brexit Done.’ Now it’s ‘done,’ are we happier? Are we better off? Does our future look brighter? What was the point of it all?

        2. A daft approach. Without dissenting voices we can never understand the other side and challenge our own attitudes and values.

          The Left make this mistake because challenge cause them cognitive dissonance. We cannot.

    2. Why. Please explian what the EU has ever done for us . The working man in particular.

      1. yeah, I thought that was a bit optimistic as well! Unless he means undoing all the BS treaties and operating by WTO rules….

      2. At the moment every possibillty Brexit offered is being ignored. The state is actively adopting every pro EU policy going.

    6. Good afternoon Geoffrey.

      What is at the root of your deep contempt for the majority of the British people who voted to free Britain from the tyranny of the EU? Is it political or a psychological aversion you have for normal, rational people who can decide things for themselves?

      1. I think some folk truly believe it’s better to be part of the EU. That’s fine, but those reasons need to be examined, discussed and then demolished.

        That leaves only faith.

    8. You’re a glutton for punishment. Might explain why you enjoy being dictated to by the EU maffia! Hello again, always welcome here of course.

    10. I see you’re still living in the past, determined to be ruled by unelected technocrats who hate the UK.

      1. Currently we’re ruled by technocrats here. Certainly the useless fools in office are happily entrenched, carrying out appalling policy.

    11. I bet you’ve been in seventh heaven this past 2 years with all the control put on the population by governments around the world. It’s so wonderful to see all the countries in EU so united in the cause. Some how though the populations of those countries don’t seem to be quite as enthusiastic as you are. Why do you think that is?

    12. Serious question, why don’t you live in the EU? There are loads of nice places with far better healthcare than the UK.

          5. Could I ask you, please, to remove your post, Ndovu. Memories of that time are still raw. I know two of the parents well and nobody appreciates that terrible time being brought up in the media and elsewhere.

          6. Are they visitors to this forum? Those two innocent children lost heir lives and deleting my post won’t change that.

          1. Ssshhh… Wangford was uncomfortably close to home in those days. I was churchwarden at neighbouring Brandon. From where one could hear the Yank National Anthem being blasted over the PA system each afternoon.

    13. Why, Geoffrey? Is it simple visceral hatred of losing out, an irrational love of the EU, or do you think we were better off as a nation in it?

      As the former cannot be argued with, but I’m very happy to discuss the economic reasons for leaving.

        1. That isn’t totally correct. He got extremely snotty when the vote didn’t go his way at the time of the referendum.

          2. If you think that appearing periodically with the sole porpoise of stirring up and annoying the forum is polite, cod off… };-)).

          3. He doesn’t annoy me. I think he is just a larf! He was as furious about the referendum result as most normal people were delighted.

            That in itself was a treat!!

          6. My dear Geoffrey – don’t delude yourself. Most “normal people” can see the growing fissures in the totalitarian and undemocratic EU and are thankful – however incomplete the extraction – that we are away from it. It is NOT just in the UK. Look at Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal – France, in particular – where millions and millions feel utterly forgotten by the unelected tossers running the outfit.

          8. I regard him in the same way as I did Evilthatmendo as far as the EU referendum is concerned.
            It gets rather tedious when he pops in purely and simply to stir.

      2. Not needed Mr Phizzee – Mr Geoffrey is wrong, but understanding why these beliefs are so deep seated is important.

        1. He virtually never explains his love of the EUSSR. Except for the “peace in our time” bollox.

          2. Because that, Mr. Woollard, The European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is exactly what the EU has been moving towards since its inception as the European Coal and Steel Community with member states becoming more and more ensnared in the grip of Brussels with every click of the Acquis Communautaire ratchet transferring more and more National Sovereignty to the unelected and anti-Democratic European Commission.

            I do not think anyone has summed it up better than your hero, the Euro-Fascist Guy Verhofstadt, when, in response to a crisis caused by the EU over-reaching it’s existing powers, he demanded that, in order to “solve” those problems, the member states cede even MORE powers to the unelected and anti-Democratic European Commission.

            https://youtu.be/-xg7JwbJfWA

            And in case anyone thinks this is a one off occasion, here he is, with more than a touch of irony, not only referring to the Polish National Day celebrations as a “Fascist March” but referring to the Polish capital a “Warschau”.
            I think Stefan Tomson takes him to task quite splendidly in this video.
            https://youtu.be/VCNWtVoOLlo

        2. He spent a long time trying to convince us his position was the correct one. The remainers lost and that is an end to it as far as i am concerned.

    16. IMO the EU is a great idea that is nightmare in practice. We have been sidelined and milked by the other members, notably France and Germany, and our financial position has tanked. Brexit is akin to facing the harsh reality of taking to the freezing lifeboats rather than staying on the Titanic.

      Convince me I’m wrong. Or are you just a naive, blinkered idealist?

    17. But Geoffrey we’ve never had Brexit. None of the EU regulations repealed, still under the European Court of Justice, still paying into the EU (but not too loudly in case the voters get upset), doling out fishing licences to France, etc. etc. what has changed since we “left” the EU?

      1. 334393+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW,

        As soon as the “real UKIP members” as opposed to the current uKiP members heard “leave it to the tory’s (ino)” alarms were sounding off loudly, the nine month delay confirmed it.

        The current uKiP with the same treacherous nEc has joined the lab/lib/con / uKiP coalition
        becoming along with the coalition an eu asset.

          1. 334393+ up ticks,

            Afternoon GG,
            I am well aware they were treacherously treated by their own nEc & farage
            and irrelevant may well be now, granted, but NOT to be aware of how and why they were taken down and by whom would be a mortal sin.

            The herd are STILL putting their trust in the proven untrustworthy, the
            ” infiltrators” were nEc members ( sleeping tory ( ino) with input from farage IMB a tory (INO) ukip /tory ) coxswain, from the outset.

            They the “real UKIP” were VERY relevant in showing what could be achieved in one year as in under the Batten/ Braine leadership, in building a party of decency & integrity.

          2. I’m well aware of how we were taken down, ogga1. But that was then, and this is now. This site will reach its sixth birthday in little over two months. Seriously, what has changed in the interim?

          3. 334393+ up ticks,
            Evening GG,
            A great many aren’t, and NOT linking” what happened then” ( recent history) to what is happening now could very well be a very costly mistake ,all round.

            What could have been changed in the interim one may well ask,

            The treachery all took place in 2019 seriously, the treacherous marching season.

    18. I see on LinkedIn you are a farmer Geoffrey. Does that mean you used to be given lots of taxpayer money for things like set aside? Is that why you wish us to “rejoin” the EU? Are you now a grateful recipient of windmill subsidy?

      I’m not casting aspersions on your honesty, if you are in receipt of any of these subsidies it is only what is due, I’m sure. But are you willing to say why you wish to stay in the EU? I voted to leave because I wanted our politicians to decide things, not unelected officials who do not have our interests at heart. And many other reasons, too many to mention.

      2. One of his many erroneous beliefs is that the EU has “kept the peace” in Europe… He appears to be unaware of the existence of NATO.

        1. Kosovo, Ukraine and Serbia would differ in that perspective of course but hey, let’s not let facts get in the way.

          2. Are you criticising NATO or the EU? Those 3 weren’t in NATO and the EU stoked conflict there then was hopeless in improving the issues, leaving NATO to sort out the messes they created.

        2. We’re all in for hard times due to the scamdemic. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren will be paying for years to come. No western government or bureaucracy, like the EU, is innocent for the damage they have caused. At least we can vote the lunatics our, only to replaced by another lot, but the EU commission cannot be replaced by voting.

      4. The Sunday following the referendum, after the church service, one of our churchwardens invited everyone to gather round. “This result can’t be allowed to stand. There’s a petition online. Do vote against the result. If you don’t have a computer, come to us and use ours.”

        This from a future High Sheriff, married to a former one. Democracy? Don’t make me larf…

    21. Don’t you think it strange, Geoffrey, that, despite all the answers you’ve received, you cannot find ONE to which you might respond?

      Maybe you’ve realised that you’re fighting a losing battle.

      1. Thanks, NTN. I believe that I and many more are on to a winner. My view – and that of many others – is that Brexit was a chimera. What change that has been ‘achieved’ is worth nothing. Collectively we are no better off. Many would say that we are worse off. And BoJo, Cummings & Co. are responsible for the mess. Don’t blame the likes of me: we voted Remain.

        1. Thank you for responding, Geoffrey, though I find I still am unable to agree wit your sentiments.

          It’s just that, as usual with politicians, they haven’t yet delivered what was promised. You will see this playing out across the Parts of Europe within the EU and I want no truck with that that, or the fallout once the Euro collapses and the EU implodes.

      1. The un-Zennish ranter was on GB News last night saying we should wear masks forever. In France they say: Esther est aussi sotte que les matières fécales des chauves-souris.

        2. Esther est aussi sotte que les matières fécales des chauves-souris.

          Esther is batshit stupid.

          See how English is so compact

  49. Just saw an offer for Yorkshire Building Society.

    Paying 1% interest. Unlimited withdrawals without loss of interest. Once a month draw with 10 winners winning £1500.

    I just opened an account with them.

      1. I know it’s rubbish but i like the idea of the draw. It’s not as if i’m spending or gambling the monthly deposits.

          1. Minimum of £50. And max £150 I think.

            I have some money not earmarked for anything and that is a better rate than i am getting.

          3. They are very underhand (as one would expect with an Indian at the Treasury). They are advertising online a “1.50% tax-free/AER variable” but when you log in (I am a saver) it ain’t available….!!

      3. National savings is not an investment it’s savings. In fact it’s a cheap loan to the government. Investment is where the value of your shares rises or falls.

        1. I disagree, index-linked plus interest on top was a good investment.

          I regard of all of my investments, shares, bonds even my house and its contents as savings. Semantics probably.
          I agree re loans to the government at the current dreadful, below inflation, rates being cheap loans as you describe.

          1. With investments the value can go up or down and tend to be stock and shares, bonds etc.
            With savings your original sum is protected, except for the effects of inflation, and you get that back but the interest rate may go up or down. Your original sum will be returned.

          2. How then do you explain bank “savings” accounts that were offering negative interest rates and instances where the bank goes bust.

      1. Here is a video – forget the French – ignore the musak – watch the film.

        When I had roofing to do in Laure, I always envied the local builders (however small) who had one of these things.

        Treat yourself to another mug of tea…!!

  51. Well, another 5 bags fill and all ten hoiked up onto the wood shelter and then carried up the garden.
    A small amount of hand sawing done to get rid of another bit of ex-decking softwood I was given and now have just got our evening meal on cooking.
    Sausages in gravy are currently in the Rayburn with the mushrooms with garlic on the hotplate and the oven chips in the Remoska for the next 45minutes of so when the Dearly Tolerant is due home from work.

    And yes, I am feeling hungry!

    1. It’ll be gone 8 before the warqueen unlocks her office door and graces us with her presence.

      Sadly, a 6 year old boy cannot waiting 3 and a bit more hours so he is having 4 crackers and peanut butter now.

      I forget at his age I was also immune to the cold. Watching he and Mongo charging about is like looking in a time tunnel. I do worry a little bit, as he has my shoulders making him very broad. He’s not yet had that growth spurt and I don’t want him to be bullied as I was.

        1. I recall a really small boy at school being bullied by one of the thugs. Thug didn’t realise that small boy was a county standard boxer.
          Bang, bang.
          One bully with two front teeth completely knocked out and a broken nose. Lots and lots of blood and nobody ever touched the small boy again.

          1. My words have always been my weapon. A girl in the 4th year at school came up behind me and tipped the waste basket over me. I heard the “ping” as I lost my temper, stood up and turned and gave her a mouthful of invective that brought silence to the class- we were on lunch break. She had totally lost face and she never bothered me again.

          2. That’s odd, M’Lady. When I was bullied at school I said to my tormentor “You are a very Silly Sausage!” I felt a lot better for it, but the bullying continued. Lol.

          4. I dealt with my bullies in similar fashion; split lips and hacked shins soon put a stop to it.

      2. Firstborn was short & square, even aged 8. Was bullied at school, and finally picked up the chief bully by the lapels, hung him on a coathook and thteatened to beat the shit out of him if he did it again. Bullying stopped.

    2. Caroline is busy commenting on French literature on the Student Room on the internet while I fritter away my time Nottling. When she has finished putting people straight about Maupassant’s Boule de Suif we shall go down to the kitchen at the other end of the house where Caroline will have a glass of wine while she continues preparing the boeuf-bourguignon which has been marinading all day. I shall have a gin, Cinzano and tonic with a frozen cube of lime juice in it while I squeeze the limes I bought today to fill up another tray to make more cubes.

      Don’t we all lead fascinating lives?

      3. We do all lead different lives which makes many of the comments here interesting. How dull life would be if we all did the same things.

      4. I recommend leaving the BB overnight and reheating it the following day. It seems to add to the flavours and textures.
        I think Phizzee made a similar observation a while ago.

      5. You are a literary expert Richard .

        Moh and I drove into Poole for a treat and we had a light lunch , the weather was very cold , probably 3c and a brisk breeze was blowing . We parked up and looked at all the life boats that were brought into the RNLI yard for maintainance.

        Some of them were huge vessesls , then there were a few smaller boats , all of them powerful sea going machines. Quite a sight actually.

        On the way back home, car radio on , there was a prog on BBC radio 4 , it discussed briefly the 100 years the BBC radio had been broadcasting , but then they wandered off target to discussing James Joyce , the Irish struggles and of course his novel Ulysses.

        Why was it considered one of the most important works of modern literature.

        We listened , felt perplexed, and I am afraid the whole discussion was lost to us.

        2. Don’t worry about it, Maggie.
          Like Virginia Woolf, he’s hard work. Not worth the effort.

          1. The Daily mail has caused outrage among the readership again.

            Tom Kerridge Michelin Chef is offering a food box @£185 for two for Valentines night. You cook it yourself.

            Lots of whinging about the price for the amount of food.

            Of course it is a clickbait article and Tom will also sell out of everything because of the free advertising.

      1. Cucina povera – my favourite!. Beautifully cooked from fresh ingredients, simple – served by two gorgeous lassies!
        What’s not to like?
        And – since Monday, we are allowed to have alcohol with the meal, too.

    3. Sounds nice.

      Early dinner for us today, we are old enough to take advantage of meals for seniors. We are about to find out what a Scottish chef means by chicken and biscuits with all of the fixings!

      1. We’re having chicken and mushrooms tonight with mashed spuds for Hungry Horace- aka MH.
        Enjoy your meal.

        1. I had chicken and leek pie with roast spuds and parsnips. I couldn’t be bothered with other veg.

          1. Did you make the pie? If so, I wouldn’t mind the recipe. MH scraped the plate tonight.

          2. Good heavens no! I bought it in Lidl (they have some tasty pies) and froze it until I needed it. You should know me by now, Ann. I am about as far removed from Grizz as possible! 🙂

          3. I did wonder;-) Now, you know my name- what is yours? I do recall you said you had an unusual first name. But, keep it to yourself if you wish- took me a long time to disclose mine.

        1. Biscuits over the pond are savoury scones and are often served with chicken and sausage and gravy.

    4. We enjoyed the food of Italy more than any other as we sailed around the Mediterranean in Mianda.There was the most fantastic deli in Marsala on the island of Sicily. We had never seen a chap with such panache selling his wares – we were captivated.

      1. I am watching the series…Stanley Tucci:Searching for Italy. I have found it inspiring. It’s amazing how much fresh pasta the Italians don’t eat.

        Some really good dishes. He has a book out too.

      2. We used to have discussions with friends about which cuisine one would take if it was the only one one could choose.
        French and Italian were always the top choices.
        If one included wines I would probably go that way, but if booze is excluded I think I would opt for Japanese. Quality and variety.

  53. Sadiq Khan’s mask mandate is stalling London’s recovery
    The capital has a magnetic pull, but to flourish it needs better leadership and less political posturing over Covid
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/20/sadiq-khans-mask-mandate-stalling-londons-recovery/

    I came across this very pertinent BTL Comment from a person called Mitor Thebold :

    I would have thought mandatory stab vests would save more lives in London than masks.

    He certainly has a point!

        2. The campanile of Westminster Cathedral will make a wonderful minaret. As will the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben).

          1. Isn’t Big Ben the bell? I think it used to be St Stephen’s tower.
            BUT Big Ben is better known.

          2. St. Stephen’s Tower is the tower in the middle of the Houses of Parliament (the one at the opposite end to Big Ben is the Victoria Tower). The Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) was renamed from the Clock Tower.
            Edit: You are correct – Big Ben is the bell.

  54. I saw just one other unmasked person in Morrisons this afternoon, apart from a few of the staff.

  55. Last week’s eruption of the volcano near the Pacific island nation of Tonga was 600 times more powerful than the nuke dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. As a result, the eruption was so loud that many Tongans went deaf after the first explosion.

    “The first explosion…our ears were ringing and we couldn’t even hear each other, so all we do is pointing to our families to get up, get ready to run,” Marian Kupu, a journalist on Tonga, told Reuters.

    The eruption was so loud that it could be heard across the world, even thousands of miles away in Alaska.

    “This might be the loudest eruption since Krakatau in 1883,” Michael Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told NPR.

      1. You should have been here on Xmas night! All those sprouts and I bet this household wasn’t the only one 😉

        1. Renewable energy from a biomass source. Probably better for the planet than chopping millions of trees down in the US, pulping them, shipping the resulting pellets to the UK and burning them at Drax power station, and that is called RENEWABLE Energy.

  56. Nicked,now I understand……….

    “Christian Wakeford , the turncoat who betrayed the Tory’s and the electorate of Bury South is a fine example of the modern MP.

    Nothing to do with the people he represents or Boris. Quite simply his
    constituency is going and I understand it will be replaced by two nailed
    on labour seats . One of which he has been promised.

    No loyalty other than to himself and potential to keep his nose in the trough for many a year to come,”

    4. Clearly a leftie who pretended to be a tory in order to get his feet under the table – huge pay and expenses and perks. Complete phoney. What Minty would call a “false flag” candidate.

    5. AFAIK his constituency is losing a prosperous area to Bury North and gaining a heavily Labour-voting area from Salford.

    1. I wouldn’t let the smelly thing on it at all. I wouldn’t mind the dog sitting on it though.

      1. 334393+ up ticks,

        Evening M,
        Have you though of a political career, I have noticed you have a certain way with words…..

    2. We didn’t go to war against Russia/USSR in 1939 despite our commitment to Poland and declaring war against Germany, so I doubt we will now.

    4. Dunno. Been too busy losing my battle with the DT crossword.
      How would Vlad cope with 9 Down?

  62. Long, boring piece in The Grimes this evening. The Tories quoted are al duplicitous wanqueurs.

    For anyone who has studied politics – and the dark arts of party whips – the idea that their “blackmail” is a serious and terrifying matter (and should involved the plod!!!!) is simply laughable. Big boys don’t cry – you yellow bellied tossers (an impartial observer writes).

    Boris Johnson faces “checkmate” over claims of Downing Street parties, a senior Brexiteer has predicted as the government was accused of trying to blackmail and intimidate rebel MPs.

    Steve Baker, who played a key role in Theresa May’s downfall, said that allegations against the prime minister were “appalling and the public are rightly furious”.

    He told the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: “It’s a sorry situation we’re in. I’m appalled we’ve reached this position.
    “We didn’t make Boris Johnson prime minister for his meticulous grasp of tedious rules but this is appalling and the public are rightly furious. At the moment I’m afraid it does look like checkmate but whether he can save himself, we’ll see.”

    It came as another senior Tory MP urged his colleagues to report members of the government to the police for coercive attempts to silence those who want Johnson to quit.

    William Wragg, chairman of the public administration committee, is one of seven Tories who have publicly called for the prime minister to quit after the Downing Street parties scandal.

    At a committee hearing today he alleged that “a number of MPs” had faced “pressures and intimidation from members of the government because of their declared or assumed desire for a vote of confidence in the leadership of the prime minister”.

    He added that he had also had reports of Downing Street, special advisers and government ministers “encouraging the publication of stories in the press seeking to embarrass those who they suspect of lacking confidence in the prime minister”.
    “The intimidation of an MP is a serious matter,” he said. “Moreover the reports of which I’m aware would seem to constitute blackmail. As such it would be my general advice to colleagues to report these matters to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.”

    His broad claims were later backed by the former Tory MP Christian Wakeford, who defected to Labour yesterday.

    He told BBC North West that he had previously been threatened that a new high school would not be built in his constituency if he did support the government in a Commons vote.

    “I was threatened that I would not get the school for Radcliffe if I did not vote in one particular way,” he claimed. “This is a town that’s not had a high school for the best part of ten years.
    “How would you feel when holding back regeneration of a town for a vote, it didn’t sit comfortably.”

    He added that the threat led him to start question his “place” within the Conservative Party and had contributed to his defection.

    Speaking on a visit to Taunton, Johnson said Wragg’s claims were unsubstantiated.

    “I’ve seen no evidence, heard no evidence, to support any of those allegations,” he said. “What I am focused on is what we’re doing to deal with the number one priority of the British people, which is coming through Covid.”

    He said he would “of course” look for evidence to support the allegations made by Mr Wragg.

    The claims came after Tory MPs indicated Johnson had been granted a reprieve from further letters of no confidence until an investigation by the civil servant Sue Gray concludes. However, there are concerns in No 10 that it will damage him more than expected.

    Several Tory rebels held back from submitting letters of no confidence in Johnson yesterday after Christian Wakeford, the Tory MP for Bury South, defected to Labour minutes before prime minister’s questions.
    The session ended with David Davis, a former cabinet minister, telling Johnson: “In the name of God, go.” He later said that unless Johnson went the Conservative Party would face “dying a death of a thousand cuts”.
    Sajid Javid has admitted that parties were held in Downing Street and said that they damaged trust in democracy and the prime minister.

    The health secretary said that millions of people had been angered by the failure of people in government to follow the rules and that those who broke them should “absolutely be disciplined”. Javid is the first minister to concede publicly that parties did take place.

    Javid was particularly critical of two boozy leaving parties that were held in Downing Street on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, while Johnson was away. One party marked the departure of James Slack, who was No 10’s director of communications and is now deputy editor-in-chief of The Sun. He has apologised.

    Javid told Today on BBC Radio 4: “I was angered and your listeners would have been angered by what they have seen and heard. They are right to be angered and pained by this. Millions of people across the country followed the rules. They might not have liked the rules but they followed them to protect themselves. They did the right thing.

    “If there were people at the heart of government that were not following the rules they should absolutely be disciplined. I look forward to seeing that disciplinary action taking place.
    “We do now know there were some parties because some of the people that were involved that broke the rules have come forward to say so. Of course things like this damage our democracy. From what we already know, from the people who have come forward and apologised — the one on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral was completely wrong in every single way.”
    Johnson’s allies believe that Wakeford’s defection has had a galvanising effect. Wakeford faced condemnation from all wings of the Conservative Party, including from fellow plotters.
    Sir Graham Brady, head of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, is said to have told a colleague that unless he cannot open his office door because of the number of letters there will not be a leadership challenge soon.

    The prime minister is determined to lead the Tories into the 2024 general election. He told one ally when discussing a confidence vote: “Bring it on.”

    One cabinet minister said: “The atmosphere has totally changed. Wakeford’s defection has helped, it’s united the party. In the tearoom there’s total vitriol for those who are plotting to get rid of the prime minister. It’s schoolboy politics but the stakes are incredibly high.”

    1. Oh dear. Ickle baby MPs upset by whips doing what they have always done. Maybe those face nappies should be relocated to their more usual location below the waist.
      Heat … kitchens … etc ……….

    2. “I’ve seen no evidence, heard no evidence, to support any of those allegations,” he (Johnson) said.
      Mind you, this is a man who, surrounded by bottles of booze, and by men and women with glasses in their hands who were chatting, joking and flirting, with boogie-woogie music in the background, did not realise that he was at a party.

  63. That’s me for this very cold, wet day. Sunny tomorrow – THEY say.

    Have a smashing evening choosing the next Prime Minister. Please DON’T pick a non-white foreign person. Priti Please….

    A demain.

      1. Just be thankful Russia isn’t in the EU. Vlad would have crossed the border into NI by now in order to protect those downtrodden Remain-voting former EU citizens.

        Edit. Mind you, I suspect a majority of GB would be happy to see NI go.

        1. Russia in the EU might have been a good thing. They would have counter-balanced the fascists currently running it.

      2. Just be thankful Russia isn’t in the EU. Vlad would have crossed the border into NI by now in order to protect those downtrodden Remain-voting former EU citizens.

        Edit. Mind you, I suspect a majority of GB would be happy to see NI go.

    2. My money, well he has control of it all anyway apparently, is on the billionaire Chancer of the Exchequer, which I know might brown you off.

      1. He’s the massive favourite on the betting markets with typical odds of 5/4 (44% probability).

          1. Looks like you have good judgement then. Unlike me, as my post’s been deleted . . . ..

            Edit: but now it’s back.

      2. Sunak is a light weight , he knows how to splash the cash , and that’s about it .

        He isn’t a real Tory, more of a rich Bollywood type .

        Please don’t suggest leadership challenges just yet .

        1. I think he is competent, but completely owned by the WEF. He will competently put their CB digital currency through for them.

        2. He falls into the favoured category of Bame, immigrant parents. Not as qualified as a female Bame mind. If the choice of PM were one of merit, then no one in Parliament fits the bill, I’m done with them.

          3. Well, I won’t be voting again unless Lawrence Fox’s party is viable or Ann Widdecombe is on the ticket. Other than that, they can coco! What a lot of wastrels.liars, cheats and hypocrites.

    3. Edit: It’s now reappeared. Thanks.

      Why was my comment on the betting sites making Sunak the favourite deleted as spam? IMO It was highly relevant to the post and could no way be considered commercial, particularly given that earlier posts today were promoting a financial deal and their posts are still there.

      I can’t imagine the DT deleting such a post, somewhat ironic/perverse given the origin and claims for this site.

      1. Your post has been approved refresh to see it,some weird Disqus auto thing about betting sites

        1. Thanks. I tried that before, but a refresh has just made it reappear. I read it times after reopening the site so there was some delay. I didn’t mention or link sites, so there’s something strange going on. But it’s back, so all good now.

  64. MPs blast Priti Patel over axing of ‘vital’ daily migrant figures: Home Secretary is accused of being more concerned about ‘burying bad news than being transparent’ as Channel crisis worsens

    Home Office currently releases daily figure for migrants crossing the Channel
    This could stop when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) takes over operations
    Tory MPs have accused Priti Patel of ‘covering up’ and ‘burying bad news’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10423233/MPs-blast-Priti-Patel-axing-vital-daily-migrant-figures.html?ito=push-notification&ci=HNVri97FPk&cri=nhicvXN1Ks&si=26738248&ai=10423233

  65. 334393 + up ticks,

    Mask wearing seems to be a muslim type issue we do now seem to have a pair of political top rankers wanting it to be an established feature in English every day life,

    Mini mask leading to a maxi mask leading to a full blown burqa.

    breitbart,
    Sadiq Khan and Health Secretary Javid Stick to Masks Despite England Mask Mandate Scrapped

      2. He is now witnessing what he has sewn ,yes all those years ago when he was in power .
        He squandered all our oil reserves, we were involved in a lengthy unecessary war. He imported the 3rd world ..

        Between 1997 and 2010, net annual immigration quadrupled, and the UK population was boosted by more than 2.2 million immigrants, more than twice the population of Birmingham. In Labour’s last term in government, 2005-2010, net migration reached on average 247,000 a year.

        The dramatic changes have left British politics ruptured. Immigration remains the No 1 issue on the doorstep, according to pollsters – a stream that feeds into the well of mistrust in politics. It has spawned the emergence of Ukip and helped create four- or five-party politics in the UK for the first time.

        Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has made capital out of his claim that the Labour government embarked on a deliberate policy to encourage immigration by stealth. Ukip often cites an article by Andrew Neather, a former No 10 and Home Office adviser, who wrote that the Labour government embarked on a deliberate policy from late 2000 to “open up the UK to mass migration”. Yet where Farage sees a political conspiracy behind the numbers, others veer towards the theory of history identified by the great 20th-century historian AJP Taylor, who always stressed the significance of chance events.

        Even the most ardent defenders of the New Labour government acknowledge that such a wave of immigration was not purely down to chance. But the key players of the time show in candid conversations that they were struggling to cope with a new world of rapid population movement across porous borders. At times they felt they were stumbling from one move to another, unsure of the present, let alone the future.

        Leap in immigration threatens Labour lead

        As the head of Tony Blair’s policy delivery unit during his second term in office, from 2001 to 2005, Michael Barber did not get many chances to lie in on the weekends. One Saturday morning in February 2003, he took the liberty of sleeping until 8.50am. Ten minutes later, his phone rang. On the other end of the line was an anxious prime minister. Blair was once again fixated on the issue that had plagued his first term in office. “He was worrying away about illegal asylum applications,” Barber wrote in his diary.

        In his new book, How to Run a Government, Barber recounts how he delivered the bad news: there had been a big jump in asylum applications as refugees from Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Kosovo headed to Britain. By Monday morning, having read the 1951 UN convention on refugees, Blair cleared his diary for the entire morning to allow him to spend five hours “forensically” going through the asylum caseload. The following day Blair summoned the relevant ministers to a meeting of the government’s emergency Cabinet Office Briefing Room (Cobra) committee, where he ran rings round most of the people in the room. Barber was deeply impressed with the detailed way in which Blair handled the issue.

        Labour feared that the failure to grip the asylum challenge risked making the government look incompetent and – more damagingly – out of touch. “Immigration per se, but non‑European immigration [in particular], was a huge, huge issue for Tony Blair,” recalls Sir Stephen Wall, who was head of the Cabinet Office’s European secretariat between 2000-04. “I remember him saying, very soon after the 2001 election, ‘The one thing that could lose me the next election is immigration.’”

        From the first year in office, the issue had hit the Labour government like a whirlwind. In 1997 net migration had been 48,000, but it rose extremely rapidly over the next 12 months, almost trebling to 140,000 in 1998. It was never to fall below 100,000 again.

        Writing in 1883 on the growth of the British empire, John Robert Seeley, professor of modern history at Cambridge University, famously argued that “We seem … to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.” More than a century later, one of the largest mass population movements since the second world war brought more than two million immigrants into the United Kingdom – and in turn radically transformed the terrain of British politics. It would seem, in hindsight, to have been another fit of absence of mind.

        Boris appears to me to be ignoring the elephant in the room , and if he continues to let things slide , by not learning from other’s political mistakes , well we willall be doomed to hell .

        https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/24/how-immigration-came-to-haunt-labour-inside-story

        1. And not only was immigration sky high, they instantly got a free house and cash. Lots and lots of cash from a massive state and a huge expansion in welfare provision.

          Now we’re facing generations of inbred muslim terrorists who’ve no useful skills and nothing to contribute to society.

        2. They seem to be making just trifling efforts to stem the cross Channel stream of illegal immigrants. I always think that the cost of processing/housing these people is huge and that investment in many more vessels and staff that could turn them back without letting them into British waters, would certainly in the long run be far cheaper. They don’t appear to want to do this. If immigration is No.1 concern in polls, I worry that ‘Energy emergency, Green Agenda/Climate Change Emergency are pushing ahead with no apparent opposition and will be far more destructive to our country in the long run. All smoke and mirrors perhaps.
          Also, the Channel crossers make the news, but what’s happening to the air and ferry arrivals? How many so called legal migrants are coming through the front door? What are the Net Immigration numbers?

          1. One dead baby, headlines everywhere, and that’s what they play on.
            They don’t care a damn, a dead baby is merely collateral damage.

          3. 316,000 Net annual up to March 2020. I imagine that apart from Red Funnel Dinghies, numbers must be relatively low due to almost zero world travel since then.

    2. 334393+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,
      There has never been a tory (ino) party leader major onwards without an anti United Kingdom plan, still now ongoing.

      So priti nasty 20,000 could be hitting the DOVER beachhead tomorrow we can take it then ?

      Looks like the indigenous are taking it, right up until shortly a NEW party is formed then you’ll see a shift in politico’s abandoning constituency’s, dropping like flies to their knees whilst facing East five times a day.

      1. 334393+ up ticks,

        Evening S,

        Could current lab/lib/con supporter / voters qualify for having such a title ?

    4. Blair was and is Vauxhall League or whatever that lower division is now called by some sponsor.

      Blair has made millions in personal wealth grifting by exploiting his contacts whilst in public office. There is nothing whatever new in this, in fact it is a time honoured procedure for failed politicians by which thy gain great wealth.

      The problem with Blair remains the great train of destruction he left in his wake.

      The massive societal problems caused by his policy of enabling mass immigration of suspects and undesirables, his cow-towing to the EU in the anticipation that he would secure a top position in Brussels, his politicisation of the Police changing it from a Police Force to a Police Service (serving him), his abolition of cabinet government in preference to totalitarian sofa government, the lies and criminal activities associated with the American Wars and the unexplained death of Dr Kelly, the cover up over the Dunblane shootings and imposition of a D Notice to withhold information from the public domain for donkeys’ years.

      By any measure Blair is pure evil and hopefully will be brought to account for his many sins.

    2. Wow, me too! I was once asked by a former work colleague who was German, “Why were you taught to write with the wrong hand?” She was serious.

    3. I am somewhat ambidextrous.. although I am right-handed there are some things I can only do with my left hand. Peeling an orange or banana, brushing my teeth, undoing or doing up buttons and soaping in the shower.

      1. I am VERY left handed,attempts by primary school teachers to force me to write with my right hand didn’t end well
        Having said that using dip pens with my left hand led to the inevitable smearing hence the description of my handwriting
        “A demented spider on acid”
        Thank god for keyboards………

        1. Rik, that is what is believed to have caused the stutter of Bertie…King George VI. He was a left hander who was forced to write with his right hand. His left hand was tied behind his back!

          5. Well, as I have said, there are some things I can only do left handed- even though I am right handed.

          6. They are awkward shot left shoulder. Bolt handle on the wrong side – but you can get lefty bolt rifles if you want.

      2. Congratulations LotL, even as I type there are in all probability several heterosexual male Nottlers drooling…..

      3. Ooh, I’d give my left hand to be ambidextrous. Well the oldies are sometimes the goodies.

        I can swing a golf club left handed as well as my normal right. It always upsets a leftie if can take their club, hit a decent shot then tell them that it is not the club at fault.

      4. I am ambidextrous, too. I can write fairly legibly with my left hand (my right-handed writing is nothing to write home about, either!) and I regularly do things with my left hand (quiet in the cheap seats!) as easily as with my left.

        2. I’m right-handed but use my left hand for lots of things – including anything involving picking up, putting down, such as dealing csrds. I can write with my left hand, though not well.

      5. Can understand the buttons as ladies shirts are right over left and men’s left over right.

    4. She’s insane. Categorically, fundamentally bonkers.

      That said, a Lefty (handed) I know complained constantly about, well, practically everything.

      Thing is, he complained so much no one bothered to listen to him.

    6. Good heavens! I was thinking about this just the other day when I realised that my bath is set up for right handers, and is considerably more awkward for me to use. We’ve only lived here for eight years!
      Yes, life is more annoying (cashpoint machines, scissors, fountain pens etc), but you just take it for granted.
      This desire to be a victim all the time is getting very annoying.

    7. Good heavens! I was thinking about this just the other day when I realised that my bath is set up for right handers, and is considerably more awkward for me to use. We’ve only lived here for eight years!
      Yes, life is more annoying (cashpoint machines, scissors, fountain pens etc), but you just take it for granted.
      This desire to be a victim all the time is getting very annoying.

    1. All Lefties are hypocrites. Not one has ever taken up my challenge to do without energy – or the proceeds of it.

      After all, it’s cold outside.

      2. I would say that most lefties, like the one in Maggie’s twitter, are just thick and can see no further than their oft-quoted mantras and (what they think is) virtue-signalling.

  73. A couple of military jets went overhead a just as the light faded. Looked like F-15s. We are in a practice area, so not uncommon. However, activity heats up when there is th possibility of action in Syria and elsewhere. At the moment “elsewhere” seems to be the Ukraine.

    1. Apparently Horace, it’s a joint exercise with the USAF out of Coningsby. They’ve got F15 Eagles and we’ve got Eurofighters. We had several of them over us about 5.30! Very impressive and pretty loud!

      1. Not even the normal C17 transports flying out of Trenton, probably can’t afford to refuel them since turdboy upped the carbon tax.

    3. Canada has sent fifty percent (I.e. one boat) of its navy over to Ukraine , that scare the Russians.

      Apparently the military have just instigated a twenty year program to replace army revolvers, the current ones were built during the second world War and are worn out!

      2. Richard, I emailed Mark Steyn tonight- it didn’t get read out but it was in response to a French Canadian woman questioning very young kids re vaccines. It was horrible; children should never be used for political adverts or promos. It is propaganda and programming!

  75. Evening, all. I would have been here earlier, but Firefox kept crashing! I think it’s worse that the PM ignores the rules, but that he should pretend he didn’t understand them makes that worse still. It’s his job to make the rules, ensure they are sensible and measured and then abide by them. Fail all round, frankly! Here, it’s been fairly mild (about 7 degrees C and dry), so I did a bit of work in the garden. Then, when the light faded I came in to do work in the house. Feel I’ve achieved a fair bit, one way and another!

  76. Triumph of the Spirit Freeview 8

    Raus,raus
    Tough yacker,as an unvaxxed……………
    Edit
    Jeez,I can’t watch this,I need a Large cognac………….
    No,I need a flucking bottle,a pile of rotting beets and six bagettes for 500 inmates at Badecheni,late 90’s
    Plus ca change……………..

  77. 334393+ up ticks,

    I do believe there has NEVER been so many worldwide politico’s, experts,
    in trick cyclrie near on going full on forward / then full on reverse nigh on simultaneously, they are bloody clever peoples, little wonder the majority of the electorate have faith in them.

    Pause,
    Cough, breaking into a crescendo of coughing & cursing, the bastards, and as for the MPs, who can blame them, they are encouraged to take the money again,again,& again.

      1. Javid the Bald’s “vaccinate” the NHS springs to mind. Science says it’s not about health, therefore vindictive?

        2. Yes. Of course. I didn’t think of it in those terms but yes, you’re right. The same with the care workers, sacking them and allowing (encouraging?) ‘asylum seekers’ to work as their replacements in the care homes. Only with that scenario in mind (the retreating enemy) does it make any sense. The very last people on earth you would want to see working in a care home.

    2. I bagged a rat today. The bugger was on the highest bird feeder. A pellet through the body left the blighter twitching on the ground, so a 2nd pellet through the head as the coup de grace. I don’t like killing animals, even if they’re tasty fish to eat, but I confess to some satisfaction at the rat’s demise.

  79. We are really enjoying the Martin Clunes shows about the Pacific Islands. Tonight’s was especially poignant as some of it was filmed on Tonga. Such wonderful people and scenery and I am learning so much. Clunes is a sympathetic and considerate presenter.

      1. 334449+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2

        Very doubtful in my book, to many quote “My mp ” should really be my area mp, you don’t make friendships with alligators.

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