Thursday 21 March: Reckoning with HMRC’s contempt for the people it is meant to serve

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

587 thoughts on “Thursday 21 March: Reckoning with HMRC’s contempt for the people it is meant to serve”

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

    Toward the end of the Sunday service, the Minister asked, “How many of you have forgiven your enemies?” 80% held up their hands.

    The Minister then repeated his question… All responded this time, except one man, an avid golfer named Walter Barnes, who attended church only when the weather was bad.

    “Mr. Barnes, it’s obviously not a good morning for golf. It’s good to see you here today. Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?”

    “I don’t have any,” he replied gruffly.

    “Mr. Barnes, that is very unusual. How old are you?”

    “Ninety-eight,” he replied. The congregation stood up and clapped their hands.

    “Oh, Mr. Barnes, would you please come down in front & tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years and not have an enemy in the world?”

    The old golfer tottered down the aisle, stopped in front of the pulpit, turned around, faced the congregation, and said simply. “I out-lived the bastards.”

    2. Has anyone ever thought to send HMRC a bill for the time they waste? I quite like the idea of HMRC management being made bankrupt for their laziness.

  7. Good morning, chums.

    Wordle 1,006 3/6. A (comparatively) excellent result for me today.

    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  8. ‘Morning All

    Early medley and back to bed

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b2d2b369b52cf545b9b1fd51998ceb17238e544b5fd494dfe707920a570036f6.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/074d136130d73ba520c7f3d3f083d76f4d10dc171cfcc371881f014f5c4718bc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c006e03ac13a49c6dd649dd9fbaaa5fcbab330c9974eb109c976308cb5ebaa9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4f369dbb93cafc8f194eb8c28dfc133dc5dfd6b4d482cfee9f98327b6ce83a5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f92591caa4adfec9c32aab1bad12e75267c514f62d484c1d71f5e620a03078d.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=568,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/160/204/417/original/3935cd207250165e.jpeg

    Oof………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbefdffbfd6b603f61457073721f32242386aba00064faea58d1e46242d2e7af.jpg

    2. That second “pianist’s bridge” photo is wholly inappropriate for The Palace of Westminster.

      All 650 occupants of the Commons (and them Peers next door) are all dickless pieces of shit!

      1. Be something if they showed the turd emoji, but the image is near enough.

        The dogs hogging the bed though, that I sympathise with.

        2. Am I the only dog owner who tells the dog(s), “I don’t sleep in your bed, so you don’t sleep in mine!”? I even insisted on it with nippy Oscar when he arrived. He acquiesced.

      2. When are you going to get off that fence and give your real opinion of our politicians?

      4. Good to se you back Grizzly. We were all worried about you yesterday. (A belated Good Morning to you, btw.)

  9. Western civilisation is being driven to oblivion by the false prophets of ‘diversity’. 21 March 2024.

    If you still believe that not everything should be about race and gender, I have bad news. Our side has been routed. While the Tories were asleep at the wheel, a new generation of woke activists seized control of most of our institutions, fomenting grievance, division and discord, undermining our economy, trashing our culture and costing the taxpayer millions.

    Wow! Allister Heath has woken up! I can remember when such views were restricted to the Telegraph and Spectator threads, where they were, and are, routinely erased. In fact of course both comments systems have been altered to prevent the dissemination of such views from the hoi polloi. When we read the above we shouldn’t forget that the MSM has played more than its part in promulgating the Wokey’s views and suppressing the truth.. There is a sister article to this by Isabel Oakeshott in which she bemoans the Civil Service in sabotaging Rishi’s small boats program. She is unable to grasp the nettle and point out that the reason for this is that the Civil Service has been almost totally taken over by the followers of Islam.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/20/western-civilisation-oblivion-false-prophets-diversity/

    1. Heath has been getting there and increasingly outspoken for the last couple of years at least. He and Sherelle Jacobs are consistently very good and know the enemy.

    2. While the Tories were asleep at the wheel…

      Is Heath pointing at the ineffective and somnolent rump of conservative MPs and/or the party members? Surely, he can’t mean those Conservative, and I use the word advisedly, leaders, who have betrayed their conservative principles in pursuit of a globalist agenda?

      They are not asleep at the wheel but are on a completely different journey.

  10. Good morning all.
    Is it me, or are today’s Telegraph letters the same as Wednesday?

    2. It’s mostly the ‘same old, same old’ every day…..

      Morning married and all….

    3. It’s mostly the ‘same old, same old’ every day…..

      Morning married and all….

    4. ‘Morning, another Speccie defector, I take it.

      Welcome aboard.

      It’s a fellow ex-speccie defector who is responsible for the brusque greeting.

    5. They have now arrived in their slot.
      Even the usual ‘Dan to Beersheba’ route of going to Opinion then Letters to the Editor didn’t work for some time.
      Maybe the DT thought we needed to enjoy a close-up of Rachel Reeves for a second day.

  11. When was anything credible regarding Scottish/net zero?

    Scotland’s pledge to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 ‘no longer credible’

    Climate Change Committee finds Scottish government has repeatedly failed to make cuts required by law

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b72cfff431db2ade1d56387c7bc04958b8d3f557/0_270_8064_4838/master/8064.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none
    The Flow Country’s peatland in Forsinard. Peatland restoration was one of the areas described as significantly off track by the CCC. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

    Severin Carrell Scotland editor
    Wed 20 Mar 2024 08.43 GMT

    In a damning report submitted to the Scottish parliament, the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) accused the Scottish government of repeatedly failing to live up to its legally binding targets.

    Despite missing the annual emissions reductions required by law in eight of the last 12 years, ministers still have no meaningful plans for hitting that target after failing to produce the climate change strategy due last year, the CCC said.

    Its action and policies “continue to fall far short” of what was needed. Most sectors, such as housing, transport and farming, remained so far behind their interim targets “the acceleration required [to] meet the 2030 target is now beyond what is credible”.

    In response to the committee’s conclusions, Oxfam warned the Scottish government’s credibility was “now firmly on the line” and Friends of the Earth Scotland accused ministers of “an embarrassing and abject failure”.

    Mike Robinson, the chair of the civic society umbrella group Stop Climate Chaos, said: “After declaring a climate emergency, the Scottish government has failed to deliver anything close to an emergency response, and must now redouble efforts.

    “While every party in the Scottish parliament carries some blame, the Scottish government has lost its position as a climate leader and we would like to see the first minister make an emergency statement to parliament to set out his response.”

    The CCC’s criticisms have been growing in intensity for some years. In the Scottish government, the Scottish National party shares power with the Scottish Greens after signing a cooperation agreement in 2021 that prioritised action on climate. Humza Yousaf, who succeeded Nicola Sturgeon as first minister and as SNP leader, has put less emphasis on climate action, despite its significance in the deal with the Greens.

    With the SNP facing significant losses in the next general election, he has endorsed the oil industry’s position that heavier taxes to fund a transition to clean energy are unjustified, cut funding for forestry and watered down proposals to switch farming subsidies towards nature recovery.
    *
    *
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/scotlands-pledge-cut-emissions-by-75-by-2030-no-longer-credible

    1. It rather bothers me that those demanding net zero don’t ever really want to actually live in a net zero world.

      For example, I would delight in seeing the SNP kicked out into the Highlands in brown sacks and told to live their net zero dreams – alone, without food, water or shelter for, ooh, a month.

      They’ll die, of course, but that’s no great loss.

        1. An oldie, but worth repeating.

          “Greta’s Green Day

          One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world, one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverised with rocks.

          “What’s this?” she asked.

          “Pulverised willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother.

          “What happened to the carpet?” she asked.

          “The carpet was nylon, which is made from Butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response.

          Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles.

          “Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.”

          “Where’s the water?” asked Greta.

          “Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, ‘Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it”

          “Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish.

          “Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?”

          There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tyres and how ore has to be smelted to make metal, and that’s tough to do, with only electricity as a source of heat, and, even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tyres and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . .

          “What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting.

          “Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “raw.”

          “How so, raw?” inquired Greta.

          “Well, …

          . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up and start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore.

          “But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta.

          “Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.”

          “What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.”

          “Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing – being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.”

          This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet.

          Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesised.”

      1. There are no wealthy countries with low energy consumption in the world. Energy = wealth. Something the parasite class knows full well.

  12. It cannot be done because these targets are unachievable with current technology and there is neither the time nor resources to do it. It can only be done by immiserating the country, something the SNP have largely achieved, and ending it as a First World country.

    1. The thing I didn’t understand was Sturgeon’s rent controls farce. The village idiot could have told them what would happen – because basics of supply and demand are fairly persistent the world over – yet the moron went ahead and did it anyway and was surprised when it happened.

      Either she is utterly ignorant of basic economics, a gormless fool or both. Either way, she should be thrown into a barrel, it nailed shut and sent back to the village of village idiots where the current village idiot will look like Einstein in comparison.

      1. That’s the weird thing, Pet. I’m feeling tip-top really. No pain (🤞🏻) or discomfort at all. I’m sleeping like a log and — apart from having 40-winks in the afternoon, something I’ve never done — I’m generally carrying on as normal. I’ve had it a full week now and letting my body’s immune system get on with clobbering it.

        It was diagnosed outside the 72-hour from onset limit, so no antivirals are appropriate.

        2. Glad you are not in any pain. I would advise you to postpone any beauty contests you have entered.

    3. My understanding is that shingles anywhere near the eyes, is a serious matter. Take care, Griz.

    5. Morning Grizz. Many commiserations. I had shingles about four years ago. Took me a year to recover.

      1. Morning, Araminta. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I have a GP’s appointment at 2:00 p.m.

    9. OMG
      You poor man .

      Your smiley face will soon recover .

      How on earth did that happen , were you mingling with families with children ?

      1. No, Maggie, I’ve not been mingling at all. I started feeling itchy, stingy eyes last week, from the catkin pollen on my hazel tree. The next thing was the eruption of blisters.

        I have a GP’s appointment this afternoon.

        1. Don’t forget to tell the GP about the Hazel pollen.

          I am allergic to witch hazel , is that the same sort of thing?

          Where do face hives come from?
          Some food (especially peanuts, eggs, nuts and shellfish) Medications, such as antibiotics (especially penicillin and sulfa), aspirin and ibuprofen. Insect stings or bites. Physical stimuli such as pressure, cold, heat, exercise or sun exposure.

          1. The only foodstuff I have a (known) allergy to is Kiwi Fruit.

            I’ve eaten copious quantities of peanuts, eggs and shellfish all my life and they have only given me joy and nourishment.

    10. Good morning Grizzly, and I hope you start to get well, and feel better, very soon. It’s been a long winter here in UK, so you are not the only one with a tired immune system. It looks like you were been bitten several times by a myopic vampire.
      Second observation is that your eye area resembles that of an elephant. (insert rendition of ‘My cornea’s as high as an elephant’s eye’). Lastly, a spring clean for your avatar, so ” I’m gonna wash that hat right outa my hair ” !

    11. Hurrah. Our very own grumpy ursus has returned.
      How are you feeling – other than knackered?

      1. Apart from looking like Boris Karloff on a good day, I feel as ‘normal’ as ever. No pain, no trauma. The only change is getting a bit tired in the afternoons and taking the opportunity of 40 winks. Apart from that, it’s business as normal. I’m enjoying 8 hours undisturbed sleep every night.

    1. They also said once that soon there would be no more coffee beans because of climate change. I’m still drinking it.

    2. For the BBC, everything is about climate change. Nothing to do with a lack of water, pesticide?

      No, it’s the nonsense hoax of man made climate change – a farce that doesn’t exist!

    3. I note that the author is Justin Rowlatt – Mr. ‘Wave his hands around manically’. For him, everything is caused by man-made climate change due to fossil fuel use.

  15. Good morning all.
    5°C on an overcast but currently not raining morning.
    Little wind either, the trees up the hill behind the ex-pub don’t appear to be moving.

  16. Good morning, all. Dry and calm here in N Essex.

    Bit of pointing work to complete on the base for my new, almost circular, garden arch this morning. I hope to anchor the arch on Saturday and plant up the climbers next week. I have a pink clematis to grow on one side, can someone suggest a fast growing, not a rose, evergreen climbing plant, to grow in a large pot, for the other side?

    Nigel Farage interviewed by Steve Bannon on the War Room. Farage talks about the cowardice of current ‘conservative’ politicians and the problems that have arisen because of that cowardice. He follows with his vision of a rebuilding of conservative principles that will occur sometime after 2025. He then makes a somewhat enigmatic statement viz. “I intend to be part of that.”

    Is there about to be a political comeback by Nigel Farage?

    Nigel Farage on the War Room

    2. Not sure it’s cowardice. I think – and have done for ages – that it’s wilful disobedience. An abject, deliberate refusal to do anything whatsoever that will reverse the decline of this country. It is a pettiness, a malicious spite devoted solely to ensuring the political class get their way.

    3. Have you thought about an evergreen Jasmine – scented white flowers and easy to grow & train….

      2. Trachelospermum jasminoides – best against a south or west facing wall. I have one that I thought had probably been killed off by the scaffolders a couple of years ago but it responded brilliantly to really hard pruning. I watered it initially with dilute urine (1:10) and mulch with tea leaves.

      3. I am very fond of John Betjeman’s poetry.

        His poem about how the old village inn where winter jasmine used to cling has been violated by commercial interests is one I enjoyed in my omnivorous salad days as a student in Norwich.

        But what really has finished off the village inn are the breathalyser and the smoking ban!

        In the innocence of my guilty youth my friends and I used to drive out into the countryside to find traditional old pubs for a pint or two and a smoke.

        THE VILLAGE INN
        by John Betjeman

        “The village inn, the dear old inn,
        So ancient, clean and free from sin,
        True centre of our rural life
        Where Hodge sits down beside his wife
        And talks of Marx and nuclear fission
        With all a rustic’s intuition.
        Ah, more than church or school or hall,
        The village inn’s the heart of all.”
        So spake the brewer’s P. R. O.,
        A man who really ought to know,
        For he is paid for saying so.
        And then he kindly gave to me
        A lovely coloured booklet free.
        ‘Twas full of prose that sang the praise
        Of coaching inns in Georgian days,
        Showing how public-houses are
        More modern than the motor-car,
        More English than the weald or wold
        And almost equally as old,
        And run for love and not for gold
        Until I felt a filthy swine
        For loathing beer and liking wine,
        And rotten to the very core
        For thinking village inns a bore,
        And village bores more sure to roam
        To village inns than stay at home.
        And then I thought I must be wrong,
        So up I rose and went along
        To that old village alehouse where
        In neon lights is written “Bear”.
        Ah, where’s the inn that once I knew
        With brick and chalky wall
        Up which the knobbly pear-tree grew
        For fear the place would fall?
        Oh, that old pot-house isn’t there,
        It wasn’t worth our while;
        You’ll find we have rebuilt “The Bear”
        In Early Georgian style.
        But winter jasmine used to cling
        With golden stars a-shine
        Where rain and wind would wash and swing
        The crudely painted sign.
        And where’s the roof of golden thatch?
        The chimney-stack of stone?
        The crown-glass panes that used to match
        Each sunset with their own?
        Oh now the walls are red and smart,
        The roof has emerald tiles.
        The neon sign’s a work of art
        And visible for miles.
        The bar inside was papered green,
        The settles grained like oak,
        The only light was paraffin,
        The woodfire used to smoke.
        And photographs from far and wide
        Were hung around the room:
        The hunt, the church, the football side,
        And Kitchener of Khartoum.
        Our air-conditioned bars are lined
        With washable material,
        The stools are steel, the taste refined,
        Hygienic and ethereal.
        Hurrah, hurrah, for hearts of oak!
        Away with inhibitions!
        For here’s a place to sit and soak
        In sanit’ry conditions.

        2. Morning, Rastus.

          Betjeman was — head and shoulders, by a country league — the best Poet Laureate of my lifetime.

          2. Indeed he could. Larkin was another of my personal favourite poets.

            Along with (Robert) Browning … Frost … Lear … Yeats … Goldsmith … Brooke … Kipling … Carroll … Newbolt … de la Mare … Longfellow … Coleridge … Blake … Housman … Gray … Donne … Davies …

          3. Good moning, Grizzly

            And talks of Marx and nuclear fission
            With all a rustic’s intuition!

            A marvellous couplet!

            I satirised it as:

            And talks of Kant and nuclear fusion
            With all a dim M.P.’s confusion

      4. I am very fond of John Betjeman’s poetry.

        His poem about how the old village inn where winter jasmine used to cling has been violated by commercial interests is one I enjoyed in my omnivorous salad days as a student in Norwich.

        But what really has finished off the village inn are the breathalyser and the smoking ban!

        In the innocence of my guilty youth my friends and I used to drive out into the countryside to find traditional old pubs for a pint or two and a smoke.

        THE VILLAGE INN
        by John Betjeman

        “The village inn, the dear old inn,
        So ancient, clean and free from sin,
        True centre of our rural life
        Where Hodge sits down beside his wife
        And talks of Marx and nuclear fission
        With all a rustic’s intuition.
        Ah, more than church or school or hall,
        The village inn’s the heart of all.”
        So spake the brewer’s P. R. O.,
        A man who really ought to know,
        For he is paid for saying so.
        And then he kindly gave to me
        A lovely coloured booklet free.
        ‘Twas full of prose that sang the praise
        Of coaching inns in Georgian days,
        Showing how public-houses are
        More modern than the motor-car,
        More English than the weald or wold
        And almost equally as old,
        And run for love and not for gold
        Until I felt a filthy swine
        For loathing beer and liking wine,
        And rotten to the very core
        For thinking village inns a bore,
        And village bores more sure to roam
        To village inns than stay at home.
        And then I thought I must be wrong,
        So up I rose and went along
        To that old village alehouse where
        In neon lights is written “Bear”.
        Ah, where’s the inn that once I knew
        With brick and chalky wall
        Up which the knobbly pear-tree grew
        For fear the place would fall?
        Oh, that old pot-house isn’t there,
        It wasn’t worth our while;
        You’ll find we have rebuilt “The Bear”
        In Early Georgian style.
        But winter jasmine used to cling
        With golden stars a-shine
        Where rain and wind would wash and swing
        The crudely painted sign.
        And where’s the roof of golden thatch?
        The chimney-stack of stone?
        The crown-glass panes that used to match
        Each sunset with their own?
        Oh now the walls are red and smart,
        The roof has emerald tiles.
        The neon sign’s a work of art
        And visible for miles.
        The bar inside was papered green,
        The settles grained like oak,
        The only light was paraffin,
        The woodfire used to smoke.
        And photographs from far and wide
        Were hung around the room:
        The hunt, the church, the football side,
        And Kitchener of Khartoum.
        Our air-conditioned bars are lined
        With washable material,
        The stools are steel, the taste refined,
        Hygienic and ethereal.
        Hurrah, hurrah, for hearts of oak!
        Away with inhibitions!
        For here’s a place to sit and soak
        In sanit’ry conditions.

      1. I have grown Trombetti. A few years ago Bill was kind enough to offer seeds to a few Notltlers and I was fortunate to receive some. In fact, they did grow very well, overwhelming the frame I had built to support them.

      1. Good description: had one here when we moved in and had to get rid of it. Thanks, anyway.

  18. I quite agree but she is an authoritarian Marxist who clearly loathes the concept of private property.
    Michael Gove’s threatened rental ‘reforms’ are already having the same effect in England – falling availability and large rent rises

    1. Oh I agree, she’s a complete effluent for brains character, but it was clear what the outcome of her machination would be. Startlingly so. It’s happened everywhere else throughout history. For someone who so frenziedly wants to help ‘da poor’ she is astonishingly ignorant of how to do it.

      1. I don’t think she cares too hoots about the ‘poor’. She’s all about whipping up division to drive the SNP agenda. She’s a truly evil woman and I use that word advisedly.

        1. Yep. Which is sad. You wouldn’t mind if she stood up and said ‘I’m a divisive, abusive charlatan who will use you to achieve my goal of troughing personal aggrandisement at any cost.

          Oddly they don’t though, as if honesty is beyond them.

        2. Yes. “Evil” is a word I use sparingly, but it certainly applies to the Krankie.

        3. You’re being too kind. She’s positively demonic and maybe even more lamentable than the Khan creature.

  19. Putin is now openly planning for war against Nato. 21 March 2024.

    Having recorded a post-Soviet era record of winning nearly 88 per cent of the votes, Putin used his victory to remind Russians that they would never be intimidated by the West.

    “No matter who or how much they want to intimidate us, no matter who or how much they want to suppress us, our will, our consciousness – no one has ever succeeded in anything like this in history,” he said. “It has not worked now and will not work in the future. Never.”

    According to Putin’s narrative, he is fighting Western attempts to diminish Russia through a relentless effort to persuade countries, such as Ukraine, that previously fell under Moscow’s sphere of influence to join Nato and the European Union.

    Well you can say lots of things about Vlad but he’s not dumb!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/21/putin-now-openly-planning-for-war-against-nato/

    1. There’s little value in joining NATO for Ukraine. Well, little military. It hasn’t the political will to confront enemies nor the tactical flexibility to deploy effectively.

      As for the EU – it’s just another mouth to feed, claiming off Germany’s economy. Oh, in both cases Ukraine will love it. Lots of corruption, fraud and theft, so much bureaucracy the problems will get lost in the weeds and huge inward investment of other people’s money but when the shoving comes it’ll find itself alone again.

    3. “Putin is now openly planning for war against Nato”

      in response to NATO’s provocation over the several decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  20. 384848+ up ticks,

    Morning Each

    Thursday 21 March: Reckoning with HMRC’s contempt for the people it is meant to serve

    From charlie the top honcho down through the
    current political mafia type overseers I do see it as
    well deserved contempt.

    Really how can one hold anything but contempt for those that supported and continued to support
    a creature that was found, via judgement of his peers, guilty of importuning in a park public toilet and made it PM, who in due course flooded these Isles with miscreants likened to itself, so as not to be lonely.

    The rape & abuse of the Islands children and of the Islands infrastructure has continued unabated these past four decades via the polling stations, with the majority voter demanding : more of the same” if that does not warrant high contempt from, IMHO, the lowest of the low then I am at a loss to know what does.

    1. Morning.
      Too true Ogga 1.
      We will never know what he really got upto, it is said there were more ‘D’ notices issued during ‘his reign’ than usual.

    2. [H]ow can one hold anything but contempt for those that supported and continued to support
      a creature that was found, via judgement of his peers, guilty of importuning in a park public toilet and made it PM.

      Easy. Millions will not have heard of this case and, of those who have, a great many do not believe it is the same person. Furthermore, he stood down from parliament in 2007 whereas the earliest online examples I can find of attempts to link the ex-PM with the Charles Lynton convicted of importuning in a public toilet are, with one exception, from 2011. In other words, his popularity has never been put to a public test since this story first emerged in any significant way. By the way, a “judgement of his peers” refers to jury trials, which is not the case in magistrates courts such as that at Bow Street.

      This is the Google search I made to find the oldest online reports of this.

      “charles lynton” bow magistrates before:2012

      https://www.google.com/search?q=%22charles+lynton%22+bow+magistrates+before%3A2012&sca_esv=8a3ef2c58aed1d49&rlz=1C1NDCM_enGB770GB770&sxsrf=ACQVn09R-SiMdaJ5lbAMl9_P2JAnn0OS_w%3A1711030060391&ei=LD_8ZdKuF8qqhbIPy-u8oAM&ved=0ahUKEwjS9MvXw4WFAxVKVUEAHcs1DzQQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=%22charles+lynton%22+bow+magistrates+before%3A2012&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiLCJjaGFybGVzIGx5bnRvbiIgYm93IG1hZ2lzdHJhdGVzIGJlZm9yZToyMDEySKpMUKwtWJhGcAJ4AJABApgB7gOgAekRqgEKMTAuMS4yLjAuMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCAKACAJgDAIgGAZIHAKAHowU&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

      The one exception, very much an outlier, dates from 2003. Why the 8 year gap, I do not know. It was authored by T Stokes of London on a website with a .to (Tonga) domain name.

      http://www.whale.to/c/tony_blair4.html

      Maybe Google has erased – other than this one exception – anything older than 2011 (but why stop there?). Is the .to domain name somehow immune to attempts at censorship? Unlikely, in my view. Whatever the reason, if this was the sole online attempt to link Tony Blair – whilst MP and Prime Minister – with the convicted Charles Lynton, it might explain why it had so little effect. Remember, too, that his first two General Election victories were before 2003. The third was in 2005, before the Charles Lynton Bow Street case had barely made a ripple on the sea of public consciousness. The Iraq war and its consequences were a far more powerful influence on public opinion at that time.

      1. 384848+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW,

        The anthony charlie lynton AKA as “miranda” I believe at uni , has his finer points, the park toilet issue was one of them……..

        Trial by jury / common law.

        He still has a powerful shout in regards to swaying weak willed, brain dead peoples.

  21. Good day all and the 77th troopers,

    Grey at Castle McPhee, wind in the South-West, 8℃ with 13℃ forecast.

    The ‘experts’ in the Lancet are at it again. The report is from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, US. .

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/615357c101cb96cd7015c201a289f357ba98fa5c836131603efa59f7c9474141.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/21/worlds-population-to-fall-for-first-time-since-black-death/

    It doesn’t take long to work out that this is not about falling global birth rates per se but about presenting a justifiction for global migration. Nowhere does the DT Health Correspondent, Michael Searles, suggest that, in relation to Britain, there should be changes to the anti-marriage-and-family tax and benefits system to encourage young people to marry and have children as they once did. Of course not. Tax and benefits policies are just as much a tool of the Malthusians as contraception and abortion.

    And who do we find paid for this report? Yep, you’ve guessed it, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    2. I read Vlad’s recent speech to the Nation. Much was made of increasing the Russian population, not by importing the third world but by providing tax breaks and financial initiatives for Russians to produce and bring up children. Not sure whether it will catch on here. If it did, one particular cohort, of course, would benefit greatly in their political aims. We are stuffed…

      2. It has caught on in Hungary: There is a flat income tax rate of 15 per cent paid by everyone on aggregated income from all sources. From this can be deducted the Family Allowance for dependent children of 66,670 Hungarian forints (HUF) for one child, HUF 133,330 for two and HUF 220,000 if there are three or more children per month per child.

        That is a progressive allowance which at the current exchange rate of HUF1,000 = £2.08 means the equivalent of nearly £1,400 is allowed against the income of a married couple with three children before it is taxed. In Hungary, the average salary is the equivalent of £2,370 per month so that is serious support for marriage and the family through the tax system. In addition, since January 1, 2020 women who are currently raising or who have raised four or more children will pay no personal income tax on certain types of income as specified by law.

      4. The old Soviet system had something similar, along the lines of Stakhanovitism. After a certain number of children, a woman was awarded the Order of Soviet Motherhood or some such.

    4. I don’t believe a word they say about anything any more. We have no actual proof what the world’s population is.

      2. I save myself a lot of hassle and automatically assume they’re lying.
        On any subject.

  22. Morning all 😊🙂
    Brighter, which is nice.
    I think this latest Whitehall debacle shows the obvious.
    The uncivil, self serving, service believes that it is far more important than the public they are very well paid to serve.
    I wonder against Wastemonster which is currently outfront in the expenses claims department.

  23. Here are a few more verses from the Qur’an which they might like to post at King’s Cross:

    “Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.”

    “Such of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the prescribed period, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no courses (it is the same): for those who carry (life within their wombs), their period is until they deliver their burdens: and for those who fear Allah, He will make their path easy.”

    “O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;- this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;- in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

    1. To what does the three month “prescribed period” refer? Sex, divorce, death?

    1. How terrible. I hope the stabber was brought swiftly to Dover by the RNLI taxi service and put up immediately in a four star hotel so that their (mustn’t assume genders!) mental health doesn’t suffer.

    2. Practice makes perfect.
      I expect the ‘suspect’ will be chatting to legal aiders already.

    3. Strange that the other boat occupants didn’t chuck the stabber overboard ?

      You can see their empathy level is not on the same level as ours , however a sharp tool on an inflatable would probably have put the fear of death into all of them .

          3. Who remember the spoof advertising jingle for several decades ago?
            Max Factor Knacker-Lacquer
            Gives your cluster extra lustre?

  26. Good Morning from a Saxon Queen with longbow, axe and marmalade sandwich In handbag.

  27. Good morning.
    A sombre note again – the EU are wargaming food shortage scenarios.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/europe-alarmed-enough-begin-wargaming-food-crisis
    Livestock farmers will go bankrupt apparently and everyone will have to eat bugs and lab meat. What a surprise!

    Might be a good idea to add dried milk, egg and tinned meat to food stocks….buy meat directly from farmers or start keeping chickens…think about what you would pay with if the currency went digital or rationing was brought in…

    1. It’s so strange that the Dutch government wants to drive so many farmers out of business, and that DEFRA

      are doing the same in Britain.

      Why is it so important to the PTB to have food shortages?

      3. Wasn’t there a “Three state city” planned? (the Neths, Belgium, Lux). No room for farming in This densely occupied brave, new, world.

  28. Furious Botswana officials threaten to send 10,000 elephants to London’s Hyde Park ‘so Brits can try living with them’ amid hunting trophies row
    Politicians are in the UK to fight against the Hunting Trophies Prohibition Bill

    Furious officials from Botswana have threatened to send 10,000 wild elephants to London’s Hyde Park ‘so Britons can try living with them’ amid a row over hunting trophies.

    The dramatic suggestion was made by the African nation’s wildlife minister yesterday as he condemned a proposed ban on UK safari hunters importing ‘keepsakes such as tusks’ from animals they shoot.

    Politicians and diplomats from Botswana – along with five other southern African nations – are in the UK to fight against the Hunting Trophies Prohibition Bill, due for its second reading in the House of Commons tomorrow.

    They say a trophy-import ban will dry up safari hunt revenue, hampering wildlife conservation, anti-poaching efforts to save elephants, and impoverishing African villagers who get meat, money and jobs from such tourism.

    Botswana’s minister Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said: ‘I hope if my offer of elephants is accepted by the British government, they will be kept in London’s Hyde Park because everyone goes there.

    I want Britons to have a taste of living alongside elephants, which are overwhelming my country. In some areas, there are more of these beasts than people.

    ‘They are killing children who get in their path. They trample and eat farmers’ crops leaving Africans hungry. They steal the water from pipes that is flowing to the people. They have lost their fear of humans.

    ‘Elephant numbers, just like those of Scottish stags, have to be controlled. Hunters in the Highlands pay to shoot deer and put their antlers on their walls. So why is Britain trying to stop Africa doing the same?’

    Mr Mthimkhulu added: ‘Botswana is the most successful country in the world at looking after elephants, buffalo, and lions. We don’t want colonial interference from Britain.’

    The current Bill, sponsored privately by Labour MP John Spellar but supported in the Tory manifesto, is the third time legislation to ban hunting trophy imports has been put forward to Parliament. Mr Spellar this week refused to meet the southern African delegations of ministers and diplomats in London to fight the Bill.

    Professor Patience Gandiwa, a conservation director of Zimbabwe Parks, said: ‘We don’t like it when someone wants to dictate to us how to manage our wildlife. If this Bill passes without any changes, it will be a slap in the face for us.’

    She said the British Government has, allegedly patronisingly, offered aid to compensate African nations for revenues lost from tourism through a trophy import ban. It is thought hunters, who pay up to £100,000 to shoot an old elephant with big tusks earmarked for culling, will lose interest in going to Africa if they cannot bring home safari ‘keepsakes’.

    But Professor Gandiwa said: ‘We want a tourism trade not aid. Gone are the days that we hold out a begging bowl to Britain.

    ‘We want to determine our own destiny, and that of our people, though managing our wildlife.’

    The previous attempt to pass the Bill failed in the House of Lords last autumn despite success in the Commons.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13220971/Botswana-officials-threaten-send-elephants-Londons-Hyde-Park-hunting.html

    1. We have enough elephants in the room, but at the same time I can see their point. It all revolves around the point of assisted death (culling) and the risks of the advantages some people might take of it.

    2. Lots of know it all profs in Zim these days.
      Shame they stood aside while others effed up a very decent almost self supporting country.

    3. Lots of know it all profs in Zim these days.
      Shame they stood aside while others effed up a very decent almost self supporting country.

    4. But Professor Gandiwa said: ‘We want a tourism trade not aid. Gone are the days that we hold out a begging bowl to Britain.

      ‘We want to determine our own destiny, and that of our people, though managing our wildlife.'”

      Go, Botswana.
      An island of sanity on the dark continent.”

    5. “We want to determine our own destiny, and that of our people…”
      Well, WE want to determine OUR destiny mister, and if that includes a ban on the import of animal ‘trophies’ from your country, then tough. We do not want interference from some interfering, 3rd world politicians. Mind your own business.

  29. Good morning! If the last tune I hear on Radio 3 before leaving the house in the morning is a good one then that’s my earworm for the day. This morning it was Finlandia by Sibelius sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I have an earworm.

    1. While doing a little geocaching a couple days ago I spotted a sign outside a pub – “Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the wine is so delightful”. That was it – an earworm of “Let it Snow” for the rest of the day – I wouldn’t mind but it’s late March in England – hopefully I’m a few seasons out!

    1. What a piece of work! And people like that are in high positions in the public sector, hoovering up big salaries and honours everywhere.

      1. 384848+ up ticks,

        Afternoon BB2,

        🎵

        It’s only words and words are all they have, to take YOUR say away.

    2. Bitch!

      What I would tell that cow to her face is not repeatable on this forum.

      Yeah! Honestly!

      1. Bluddy hell, Grizz. You do not look good, mate. I hope the GP appointment this arvo will result in something to relieve the condition.

      2. Don’t hold back, Grizzly. Really give it to her (like wot I do) and call her a Silly Sausage. Lol.

  31. I really liked this comment from DT letters ..

    Steve E Jones
    8 MIN AGO
    I understand that this is not a letters related post – yet I think it’s important to keep the good people who visit this site up to date to such a degree that you all know you don’t have blind, brainless, pig ignorant politicians on your own.
    From this afternoons Australian newspaper on line:
    “ALP’s jumbo-size migrant problem
    Around five full 747-loads of new arrivals are landing here each day, leading to a fresh political stoush about a ‘Big Australia’.”
    Down here of course we have no housing either rental or built, medical facilities are over run, there are almost no trades to speak of available to build a home even if you can find land worth building on for a reasonable price – but the Labor imbeciles are simply bringing in votes.
    Sound familiar – no matter what party they are they are all a bloody disgrace.

    1. And they’ve just had a long burst of extreme heat. 40 plus c. Shade.
      What about their hoomun riaghts.
      Did it say where they were from ?

      1. They can spell pommy, pommie bastards. 🙃😉 fair dinkum.
        But most of the newies don’t know what it means.

    3. Same in the US, same in Canada. You might be mislead into believing that someone is telling these national leaders(?) what to do.

      Six miIlion Canadians apparently do not have a GP so trudeaus answer is to bring in another million immigrants a year.

  33. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a20938aa59fa85c9939332f0e2abf0a3420b624108a2dfa58022bc270b226c7.jpg Here is my latest 2lb overnight loaf fresh from the oven. I seldom eat bread these days but I still have to make bread for the boss.

    This was made from: strong bread flour (⅔ white, ⅓ brown); cold water; fresh yeast; salt. Nothing else! I mixed it yesterday, kneaded it, and then placed it in the fridge overnight for its bulk fermentation (initial rising).

    This morning I removed it from the fridge (it was well-risen), knocked it back, placed it into a greased 2lb loaf tin, then left it in a warm place for the 1½ hour second rise (the proving). 40 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 230ºC (over a pan of water) and this is the result.

        1. Fingers crossed, your GP will be able to give you some possible help and advice.

        3. When you’ve recovered I shall tell you the story of how my husband recovered from same 🙂

          4. OK, I will, but not tonight – it’s bedtime :)) It is quite a story so I’ll do it later tomorrow. Night Grizzly, I hope the shingles aren’t too troubling and you can sleep.

          5. Thanks, Peta. The Shingles are certainly a nuisance but I live in hope they will “go away”.👍🏻

      1. Indeed, John. The biggest mistake most bakeries (and home-bakers) make is adding sugar to the dough. Not only is it utterly unnecessary, sugar has no part in the normal — natural — human diet.

        Trying to explain that unassailable fact to people, though, is like trying to ride a cat … climb a fountain … or plait sawdust.

        1. Thery have it in their heads that it improves the rise or something. We never used to put sugar in bread. Why does the government not ban that then.?

          1. Flour is full of natural sugars that are more than sufficient for activating yeast.

            Governments do not ban sugars because they are given massive backhanders from the global corporations who use the stuff in their products to keep the punters stupid and compliant.

            Increased stupidity also goes hand-in-hand with a raised susceptibility to disease and morbid illness. This, in turn, benefits Big Pharma who may then sell more drugs.

            The stupid have already inherited the earth.

  35. Climate-The Movie:
    This brand new documentary exploding the Man Made Climate Emergency Scam is a must watch and needs to be forwarded to get a head of steam built up as we enter a period where most normal people know on just about every level we are being lied to by government and the MSM. It is 80 minutes in length.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55n-Zdv_Bwc

  36. Good Moaning.

    Douglas Murray cooking on gas – again.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-police-have-given-up-on-actual-crime/#comments-container

    “The police have given up on actual crime

    What do you do if you can’t solve crime? For the police in this country – as in many other western countries – the answer is obvious. You police non-crime.

    The fact that our police do not police crime is not my view. It is a fact. Recent figures have shown that they currently fail to solve 90 per cent of reported crimes. Put into real numbers, that is 6,000 criminals every day getting away with serious offences. In 2022 that included 30,000 sexual offences, 320,000 violent crimes, 1.3 million thefts and over 310,000 cases of criminal damage and arson. Or to put it still another way, only 6.5 per cent of crimes led to a charge or court summons, while 2.2 million cases were dropped because no suspect was found.

    Some areas of the country manage to beat even this record. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in the past three years police forces have failed to solve a single burglary in half of all neighbourhoods in England and Wales. Not one. Nada. Zilch.

    So what are they reduced to doing? Why, policing language of course. As the great Mark Steyn has said, our societies in the West have ended up policing everything except crime. As he knows.

    Take a phrase I was introduced to only this week: ‘tragedy chanting’. This is one of those new phrases used as though they are familiar terms. It is also the offence with which two Manchester United fans were charged with after an FA Cup match against Liverpool. Following the arrests, Chief Inspector Jamie Collins said that Greater Manchester police ‘will clamp down on this and arrest those who engage in such behaviour, regardless of what team they support’. You could observe that a force which fails to distinguish itself during actual tragedies might disproportionately incline to policing ‘tragedy chanting’ as some kind of recompense.

    The Liverpool police have form in this area too. A few years back 19-year-old Chelsea Russell was visited by officers, issued with a community order and given an 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew for two months. The offence was that Chelsea posted on Instagram a lyric which included the ‘n-word’ from Snap Dogg’s celebrated work ‘I’m Trippin’ ’. She apparently intended it as a tribute to a friend who had just died in a road crash, and whose favourite song this was. And while you or I might disagree with Chelsea’s or her late friend’s choice, I am not certain that anyone’s musical taste should be an arrestable offence. But the police in Liverpool thought otherwise.

    So it isn’t just Scotland that’s engaged in policing these strange new offences. It is forces across the UK. Recent figures show that in just one year, 3,300 people were detained and questioned about things they had said on social media. Last November, for example, the Met arrested a man for a post in which he criticised the number of Palestinian flags flying from lampposts in his area. There’s also the recent prosecution of Sam Melia, whose crimes included putting up stickers which said ‘It’s okay to be white’ and ‘Reject white guilt’. We have yet to learn whether it is a crime in Britain to put up stickers saying ‘It’s okay to be black’ or ‘Reject black guilt’. The most egregious of his stickers asked ‘Why are Jews censoring free speech?’ Yet marching at a Palestine demonstration waving a placard saying media is ‘controlled by Zionists’ does not – as with Mr Melia – result in a charge of incitement to stir up racial hatred and a two-year prison sentence.

    It is a dangerous game that the police are playing: lean on one lever overzealously the better to keep the peace. This is why the brave Iranian man who turns up to Palestinian demonstrations in London with a sign saying ‘Hamas is terrorist’ is terrorised not only by the peaceful attendees of the peaceful marches, but by the police too. It doesn’t do to state British government policy amid a peaceful march, does it? It might inflame opinion among the peaceful attendees.

    The same is happening all over the West. Earlier this month a new Holocaust museum was opened in Amsterdam. A protest against it was arranged by Palestinian activists, ostensibly because the ceremony was going to be attended by Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel (and son of British second world war hero Chaim Herzog). At the service in the nearby synagogue, attendees could hear the chants of their opponents outside. Footage of the day includes images of Holocaust survivors, with their grandchildren, walking past screaming protestors.

    In response, the Dutch comedian Hans Teeuwen made a video which he posted on social media lampooning the mayor of Amsterdam for allowing such scenes to happen in the city. Wearing a funny wig, he did a biting impression of her saying that sometimes you have to break a few eggs and Jewish hearts in order to make a nice diverse and inclusive omelette. At the end of the sketch, as the camera pulled away, there was an air gun on the table, a satirical reference to the fact that the mayor’s son was found a few years ago with a disabled firearm belonging to his father.

    Within two hours, six police turned up at Teeuwen’s door claiming they were investigating reports of a firearm. The idea that he was posing any kind of risk to the public was preposterous, and Teeuwen treated it as such, telling the police that they could take the toy gun and give it to the mayor’s son as a reminder of the shame she’d brought on Amsterdam by refusing to let the opening of a Holocaust museum proceed with dignity. The police suggested that he was lucky that they hadn’t broken his door down. ‘Aren’t you just a little bit ashamed of this?’ Teeuwen asked them when they finally left.

    But that’s the state of things in the West. If you can’t control the mobs and you can’t control the criminals, why not try to control everybody else? “

    1. This is the Douglas Murray, who along with Rod Liddle, were referred to Prevent as extremist terrorists.

    2. When you put politicians in charge of the police (Khan, Metro Mayors) you get a politicised police force. Concerned with policing public
      opinion, in particular opinions that politicians don’t like and don’t want airing.
      So “Hate Speech” is a higher priority than assault, fuming over fake asylum seekers is awful and anyone to the right of your average MP is a dangerous fascist who should have an eye kept on them.

      There are still decent traditional policimen out there, who have to deal with the dregs of society on a very regular basis. But you won’t find many senior officers like that.

    2. Did they have no standards in those days? Vertical or horizontal stripes but not both please

    3. Only one of them hasn’t got a paunch and he looks like he is breathing in for the photo.

  38. Eventually . . .
    Wordle 1,006 5/6

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

    1. I know the feeling

      Wordle 1,006 6/6

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

      1. Similar here!
        Wordle 1,006 5/6

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

  40. Tories now just four points ahead of Reform. 21 March 2024.

    The Conservative Party is now just four points ahead of Reform UK, according to a new YouGov poll, after the Tories sank to a level of support last seen during the final days of Liz Truss’s premiership.

    The survey, conducted between March 19-20, put the Tories on 19 per cent of the vote and Reform on 15 per cent.

    Can they do it? The Tory hierarchy don’t seem too troubled. One suspects Reform has already been penetrated.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/21/rishi-sunak-latest-news-election-andrea-leadsom/

    1. Make their intent public and lay themselves open to public sentiment?

      Nothing will happen until your new labour / snp government takes over, at which point it will be announced as a fait accompli
      .

      1. He could always retire from being an unsuccessful MP/minister and perhaps work for the Post Office.
        Oh…he already did…while he was minister responsible for the er…Post Office.

      2. 384848+ up ticks,

        Afternoon TB

        Not so, leave his lips in place adhered to his arse,
        and recycling shite.

    3. The overwhelming number of MPs are doing everything they can to make rejoining inevitable, they never wanted to “leave” in the first place. (And we didn’t!j.

  42. Good morning, all, just. Very late on parade. Woke with gut rot. ‘Nuff said. I shall take the rest of the day easy. Pickles thoughtfully helped me to keep warm.

    1. Hope you feel better soon, and glad you have feline assistance in the matter.

    4. MB and I were zapped by ‘little bit of trouble’ over the weekend.
      Maybe there’s a nasty little orgasm going about.

      1. Interesting. I did wonder where it could have come from. I was at a society meeting on Tuesday – with about 100 people. Neither ate nor drank. Yesterday – several hours in the garden with the MR. We both ate the same food. Fine last night. Woke up with the lurgi at 7 am. Odd.

        1. I think these things just drop out of the skies sometimes. Having said that, 48 hours-ish plus or minus an hour or two is just the right sort of incubation period for many viruses.

  43. Bit of a puzzle , says I , scratching my ear ..

    “Terrifying threat of ‘underpopulation’ is laid bare as it’s revealed how 75% of western nations are facing baby busts by 2050 and will be left ‘reliant on migrants’ – triggering ‘staggering social change'”

    If we are facing a European baby bust, and the threat of under population , how did we cope in the 1800s/ 1900s/ and much before then , yet remain industrial geniuses, inventors of great things .. all with out IT and the whizz kiddery of these days .

    We coped with disease , war, shortage of food , yet here we are .. Nottling here together ?

    Are any of you scratching your heads , puzzling over such things?

    1. The PTB need a large population to justify their existence. If we only had half the population we do have we wouldn’t need so many quangos and institutions interfering in every part of our lives.

      In contrast Hungary and Russia provide support for nuclear families. Something anathema to the WEF/EU.

      2. Except for themselves. Little Bear fond of Lying has seven children. The nuclear family is also clearly important to Gates, Soroa et al. Because it’s the best model. Yet they want the peasants dragged down to a miserable state of serfdom little short of sacrificial fodder.

        1. Remember it will be their children and grandchildren who inherit the Earth. Not the meek.

    2. Yet the Government recently announced that 1.1 million asylum seekers stated on their application forms that they

      had no intention of working if they were given asylum.

      Who will care for them, and administer their rights?

      Who will pay the taxes to support them?

      1. Not me for sure. Oh, wait a minute… I am forced to pay my taxes and then HMRC takes it and splurges it all over Ukraine to help start World War Three.

  44. It’s not just HMRC who look down on their clients and CBA. Same with the NHS, politicians, you name it. Most institutions of the state are the same.

      1. He has small hands. He could always use his fist.

        I did not say this. I am not here.

  46. 384848+ up ticks,

    Does that mean the politico / pharmaceutical
    orchestrated reconstruction has failed in the first instance and will need a second plus re-run to speed things up ?

    World’s population to fall for first time since the Black Death
    Global fertility rates hit an historic tipping point and are unlikely to recover, experts say

  48. There have been recent reports of banks closing accounts without giving adequate reasons why. Churches, clubs and small charities being most affected and of course private individuals (Nigel Farage et al).

    Nationwide building Society is gearing up to buy Virgin Money and in the process will acquire all their banking facilities/customers.

    It will enable Nationwide to offer full banking and card services. It said in the email that those Churches, clubs and charities would be welcome.

    Also, Nationwide have promised not to close their branches. Unlike all the big banks.

    1. This could be a problem for prudent folks who have amassed, say £60,000 in a Virgin Money ISA and inherited a £60,000 Nationwide ISA from their late wife. Each ISA is separately protected under the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) limit of £85,000 which compensates depositors up to that limit if a member bank goes belly-up. But if Nationwide absorbs Virgin Money to become a single organisation, the sum of the merged deposits becomes £120,000, so the depositor who wants to remain covered has suddenly to find a new home for the unprotected excess of £35,000. A nice pain to have, but still a pain.

      1. I took this direct from their Q&A’s. Hope that answers your question.

        This proposed purchase has no effect on the protection you receive from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) PDF 940KB, (opens in a new window). If and when Virgin Money becomes part of Nationwide, we will operate under two separate banking licences.

        The FSCS automatically protects your personal savings up to £85,000. If you have £85,000 with us and £85,000 with Virgin Money, £170,000 of your savings will be covered.

        1. Thanks Phizzee – excellent news. I should have read further down the Nationwide Answers to Key Questions page.

          1. Nationwide being owned by the membership is better than any corporate bank. Last year they paid a dividend to everyone who had at least £100 in their account. You will never see banks behave like that.

          2. Hi Phizzee,

            In recognition for your kind and speedy response, here is a little story from my own collection:

            “We Specialise in Hygiene” said the sign at the bread shop.

            The customer was delighted when she saw the baker pick up her rolls with a pair of tongs and put them in a bag.

            “Untouched by human hands” said the baker.

            “Very good!” said the customer. “But tell me, what is that piece of string hanging out of your fly?”

            “Hygiene!” said the baker. “When I have a pee I pull it out with the string. My hand never touches my dick.”

            “How do you put it back?” asked the customer.

            “With the tongs,” replied the baker.

        2. It is possible if they maintain separate banking licenses. Lloyds and HBoS are in the same company but are under different licenses.

      2. I would not place too much reliance on getting compensation if banks do start going bust. The 85000 sounds good, but I don’t think they have the means to compensate very many people.

    2. Apart from not wanting to have anything to do with Virgin, I don’t have a Nationwide branch nearby either.

    1. This was spot on. The sort of thing the BBC should be making to maintain balance.

      The only criticism was Claire Fox should of been featured in the edit far earlier.

  51. I wrote a lovely new poem mocking Rob Bidochon over on the Spectator and the mods unsportingly removed it. I shall repost it here as I think many are familiar with the odious fellow. Move over Shakespeare 😂

    The poster here known as Rob Bidochon
    Has views which you just can’t rely upon
    If he sees a stick
    With one end in shìt
    Then that end his hand will alight upon.

    1. Is he really that bad?

      We tend to just take out the trolls and bury them in quicklime up to the neck then shit on their heads.

      But that’s because we are nice.

      1. He holds typical Guardian opinions and just posts at The Spectator to wind everyone else up. He used to post as Nick Harman which is apparently his real name but swapped to his new pseudonym as he was receiving hostile posts. I prefer to mock him. Here is an earlier version.

        Nick Harman aka Rob Bidochon: A Cautionary Limerick

        Nick’s member had grown somewhat lanker
        And appeared to be suff’ring some canker
        He went to the Doc
        Who told him his cοck
        Would improve when he stopped being a wαnker.

        Sadly Harman failed to take his doctor’s advice as attested by his posts on this thread.

      2. Yes, he really is that bad. Speccie commenters were also quite good at..er..self-regulating, but this one has a hide like a rhinocerous!

        1. We here do have some protection from such people. Quite a few here have met in the flesh, as it were. Many of the rest have been posting since inception.

          I would for myself see how long he lasted on this site before Nottlers changed his nappy and put him to bed.

      4. In my opinion Carter is worse.
        There is also a chap (?) called Midatlantic who is obnoxious.
        RB can show flashes of humour.

        1. As this is the only place i post i haven’t come across these particular people. We had similar ghastly posters from time to time and in my shame i was once one on occasion. Nottle tamed me.

        2. Mid Atlantic, aka john, apart from living in a traiier park in Florida, is supposedly an ex-Brit. His shift key doesn’t appear to work.

          My blocking of Carter, prior to the change from Disqus to ‘Not Disqus’ has mysteriously carried through.

          Nick Harman – aka Robert Bidochon is mostly a PITA, but has the odd redeeming moment.

        3. Carter was once described as a “yappie dog’ by one commentator, that summed him up nicely. Poor old Midatlantic is not very well, he shows many signs of an angry depressive. True regarding RB, occasional flourishes of humour and Right-wing opinion. In general I can imagine him getting into an argument with a mirror.

        4. Carter was once described as a “yappie dog’ by one commentator, that summed him up nicely. Poor old Midatlantic is not very well, he shows many signs of an angry depressive. True regarding RB, occasional flourishes of humour and Right-wing opinion. In general I can imagine him getting into an argument with a mirror.

  52. I read today that the latest opinion poll puts the Tories on 19% and Reform on 15%. A fine start to the day.😁

    1. The return of Nigel Farage would overnight reverse those figures and then watch the Tory MPs panic.

      1. Apparently it actually means Tories 36 seats according to the Daily Express.

        3. There’s Never been a better time to pin a request for some sort of social justice on your Conservative mps lapel.
          I did over three weeks ago. Haven’t heard a word, yet.. Perhaps he’s out looking for a proper job ?

          2. We have that sometimes, our sons like their father, like a beer.
            We have Farr Brewers not far away.
            We use to enjoy the St Albans beer festival. Taxi home. But I’m not sure it still happens. Also the Rose and Crown in Sandridge use to hold a beer festival all the beers brewed inside 3 miles on the door. Excellent tasting trays.
            Unfortunately my taste buds must have been damaged in recent years.
            Some beer now seems to be unpleasantly bitter.

      2. But it’s going to have to burst sometime. Has a government ever been quite so very unpopular at the one we have now?

        Yes in 2016 UKIP got just one seat while winning more votes than the Lib/Dems and the SNP combined who together won over 160 seats with fewer votes.

        2. Well, I do not relish the thought of a Starmer landslide, delivered on a low turnout and a split opposition, same as happened during the Thatcher years. It will be Blair Revisited, but with all the bad bits and quite a few really horrible woke additions, and no pretence at any conscience or principle or public responsibility, and almost certainly will turn out at least as bad as anything delivered by the Tories since 2010.

          No wonder they are shutting down public debate and ordering us what we are permitted to think.

    3. I fear it is far too late. They should have been eradicated in 2010 if not earlier.

  53. Boarding school teacher accused of sexually abusing teenagers
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/21/belmont-school-teacher-accused-sexual-abuse-teenagers/

    The sad truth is that all the professions which deal with vulnerable people such as : nursing, medicine – especially psychiatry, teaching, social work, prisons, the police, the church etc. etc. attract sexual perverts and paedophiles.

    Most of the people in my profession, teaching, have come across it.

      2. Yes, added. I am beginning to wonder about the RNLI, the National Trust and The Tate.

          2. Ask absolutely anyone. Geoff, John, Maggie, Rik, Garlands, Hertslass, Ashes, Max. And others…I only include in that list people who have met me but i’m sure the ones that haven’t would agree. :@)

      1. Lord Farage has to be very careful as the Media would love to damn him as a racist. Any approval of Tommy Robinson’s words or actions would be seized upon and used for this purpose.

        1. Quite so. I believe His Lordship is playing the long game. As soon as UKIP looked remotely likely to succeed, the forces of darkness conspired against it. Timing is.

          Everything…

        2. He didn’t need to vilify people who had worked for him and campaigned for him as “racist”.

      2. To be honest I do not like tattoos which I call body graffiti.

        Just as graffiti if found in run down areas so body graffiti is usually found on pretty awful bodies.

        I would allow tattooed nipples for unfortunate women who have had mastectomies and men who have suffered alopecia and lost all their hair and have had dots tattooed onto their bald pates to make it look like shaving shadow.

        1. Tattoos do not appeal to me, either, although I’m not much bothered if they are discreetly placed. What I find a bit distressing are tattoos on the face and neck. Those who have them almost certainly believe their looks are enhanced in some way – more beautiful, more masculine, more threatening – but I only see disfigurement. Do they not consider the consequences for their life chances and, what’s more, have they any idea what these designs will look like in decades to come? The colours will fade and the lines will blur. Imagine that when you’re in your sixties, seventies or older. Tattoo removal is possible but it’s expensive and not invisible.

          1. Tattoo removal is basically scraping down parchment ready for the next inscription.
            I expect cases of skin cancer to rocket over the next few years.

          3. Well part of the facial tattoo thing will be based on assertions of “the beauty myth”, that beauty is a social construct. Or deliberate uglyfication to “avert the repressive male gaze”. Cultural Marxism you see.

          2. It is, without doubt, Shingles, Maggie. I saw two GPs, an experienced older lady and a young female student. They put a contrast medium in my eye then observed it with a large ophthalmoscope before declaring that there was no evidence of any viral activity within my eye.

            They did advise me to return, post-haste, should I notice any deterioration in my vision which, as of now, I have none whatsoever.

        3. 384848+ up ticks.A

          Afternoon R,
          The tongue of “nige” has a high suspect rating in my book, the tattoo ( body art) can be shared by both
          Saint & Sinner with repercussions in a nasty manner, from peoples of the farage ilk.

  57. But if he were 007 all he would need to use is Little Finger.
    (Casino Royale)

  58. Just checked and edited as apparently it means the Tories are down even further to a predicted 36 seats. They wouldn’t even be the official opposition. No figures were given for Reform but I guess it would still only be one or two seats. The tipping point starts once they reach the upper twenties I believe.

  59. Me? I am the summit of moral rectitude!
    My only fault is that Dolly was watching over my shoulder when i entered my password.

    1. “I am the summit of moral rectitude!”

      I thought your speciality was gross moral turpitude.

        1. A few more of the endless list of Blonde Jokes – must be very sad being blonde:

          Did you hear about the blonde who swallowed a razor blade?
          She gave herself a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, a hysterectomy, – circumcised her husband – gave the vicar a hare lip – cut the end off the finger of a casual acquaintance – and was still good for five shaves.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          “Not all blondes are stupid and I can prove it!” said the blonde indignantly. “Give me the name of any American state, and I’ll tell you its capital.”

          “Missouri,” called someone.

          “M,” said the blonde.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          What’s the difference between a blonde and a brick?

          When you lay a brick, it doesn’t follow you around for two weeks whining.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          The blonde walked into the hardware store, and asked the young man behind the counter for a door hinge.

          “ How would you like a screw for that hinge?” he asked.

          “No way,” said the blonde. But I’ll give you a blow job for that watering can over there.”

        2. A few more of the endless list of Blonde Jokes – must be very sad being blonde:

          Did you hear about the blonde who swallowed a razor blade?
          She gave herself a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, a hysterectomy, – circumcised her husband – gave the vicar a hare lip – cut the end off the finger of a casual acquaintance – and was still good for five shaves.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          “Not all blondes are stupid and I can prove it!” said the blonde indignantly. “Give me the name of any American state, and I’ll tell you its capital.”

          “Missouri,” called someone.

          “M,” said the blonde.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          What’s the difference between a blonde and a brick?

          When you lay a brick, it doesn’t follow you around for two weeks whining.
          – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
          The blonde walked into the hardware store, and asked the young man behind the counter for a door hinge.

          “ How would you like a screw for that hinge?” he asked.

          “No way,” said the blonde. But I’ll give you a blow job for that watering can over there.”

        1. Possibly, but as they appear three times as pairs, nothing in the links differentiates them.

  62. 384848+ up ticks,

    It really does take some understanding, the stupidity of many a person that is,they really are supporting this “culling” by any other name that is taking place NOW.

    The self inflicting cretins have stood for their children in many cases being raped & abused a repercussion of supporting the very party that unleashed the hounds of hell via mass uncontrolled immigration on a nation.

    I hope their children, now some in adulthood and suffering mental disorder with up and coming starvation on the menu ask ” for whom did you vote for mummy / daddy, during the formative RESET years”.

    https://youtu.be/kattAiPgv2M?si=t_EyUu7SiWTDe5P-

  64. ‘Migrants rowed the boats ashore Alluha Akbar!
    Migrants rowed the boats ashore Alluha Akbar
    Charities help them to sail, Alluha Akbar
    Charities help them to sail, Alluha Akbar

    The Channel is deep and the Channel is wide, Alluha Akbar
    Green pastures on the other side, Alluha Akbar’

    From the DT:

    More than 500 migrants crossed the Channel on Wednesday, a record daily high for this year, taking the total for 2024 past 4,000.

    The Home Office disclosed that 514 migrants on 10 boats were rescued by Border Force and RNLI lifeboats and brought ashore on Wednesday, beating the previous high for the year of 401 on March 4.

    It brings the total for the year to 4,034 migrants in 84 dinghies, some 10 per cent more than the 3,683 at the same point last year. By lunchtime on Thursday at least 300 more migrants were believed to have crossed in six boats.

    2. Don’t. Obviously this outrage never makes the front line news.
      But I feel very, very afraid for our beautiful innocent grandchildren and their futures.

    3. Look ! I know how to organise a party and events for large groups.

      Fly them in thousands (Camoron) and put them up into housing without telling anyone.

      Make an issue of not having enough social housing and say ‘We will send them to Rwanda!’. (Sunhat)

      Forgetting to tell anyone that Rwanda will only be taking 200 at a time after paying them £millions and then not more than once a year. (Sunhat)

      Pay the French £500 million to slow down the surge while secretly telling them we will not measure their success in this matter. (Bojo the clown)

      Provide canapes.

    2. I don’t think the rice figure has anything to smile about, other than possible relief.

    5. Your post made me think about how much Hit Men cost. Apparently they are quite reasonable. Possibly even tax deductible.

  67. I certainly hope it backfires on the Democrats very badly.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13219965/trump-bond-james-new-york-fraud-josh-hammer.html

    Notorious Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff’s bail was initially set at $10 million—and prosecutors eased the terms after he failed to secure it.

    Those men were potential flight risks who harmed real victims. They deserved a burdensome bail.

    But Trump is running for President, so he’s not fleeing anywhere. And there are no victims in this supposed crime of the century.

    No financial institution lost money lending to the Trump Organization – and no one claimed to have been deceived, let alone ‘defrauded,’ by the Trump Organization.

    What’s more, apparently all major real estate players juice their assets to secure favorable loans.

    Don’t just take it from me.

    Here’s ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, himself: ‘If we’re going to [fine Trump], let’s penalize all the developers all across America. They’ve all done the same thing,’ he said last month. ‘All of them should go to jail and we should stop building buildings.’

    ‘I would never invest in New York now,’ declared O’Leary. ‘And I’m not the only person saying that.’

    A spooked New York Governor Kathy Hochul tried her best at damage control – but blundered into saying the quiet part out loud.

    ‘This is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior,’ she told a New York radio station.

    You see, Trump was prosecuted because he’s Donald Trump. As long as New Yorkers don’t threaten the Democratic establishment – they’ll be safe, says the governor.

    It’s official, we’ve gone full-blown banana republic!

    1. Not to mention the ulez scam. Council tax is a racket. A force backed, fixed income that pathetic, overpaid barely competent in making the ea middle managers waste. Individuals who have never had a real job outside of the public sector wallow their way through the ranks, gradually adding a zero to their utterly undeserved pay from saying the right things to the right people and like oleaginous snakes get into council executive boards where they pay themselves hundreds of thousands and royally screw everything up then demand more money to keep doing the same things wrong, year after year.

    1. Well, good luck with that Tik Tokkers – most of our American friends have a good selection of automatic weapons!!

      1. Apparently, shooting a squatter isn’t self defence. The police in Democrat DA jurisdictions are even known to protect them !

  70. A dusky Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,006 3/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Happy with par, there were at least 2 more possibilities.

      Wordle 1,006 4/6

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

    2. Me too!

      Wordle 1,006 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,006 4/6

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

      Had a mind block!

  71. Are the NT management following the US Democratic Party’s electoral practices or vice versa?

    National Trust bosses accused of ‘abuse of power’
    Research calls for investigation over ‘quick vote’ option that some members say ‘stifles dissent’

    Hayley Dixon, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
    21 March 2024 • 1:05pm

    National Trust voting
    The way members can vote at the National Trust has come under scrutiny
    The National Trust has been accused of an undemocratic “abuse of power and a subversion of democracy” over changes to voting at its annual general meeting (AGM).

    Research claims that a series of changes made by the charity represent a “power-grab” by its leadership that has “undermined both accountability and trust”.

    The report, National Distrust: the end of democracy in the National Trust, calls for ministers to introduce legislation to “prohibit all anti-democratic measures” and for the Charity Commission to open an inquiry into the Trust.

    It identifies recent changes as areas of concern, including to the system of voting at AGMs which it says gives unfair advantage to the management’s preferences and limits attendance at such events.

    The report was written by Zewditu Gebreyohanes, a senior researcher at the Legatum Institute and the former head of member campaign group Restore Trust, who told The Telegraph that she believes the charity’s leadership has “actively … stifled dissent from members”.

    One area of concern identified in the report was the introduction of a “quick vote” system, which is the first option on the AGM ballot paper and allows members to tick one box to agree with all recommendations of the charity.

    The ‘quick vote’ option allows National Trust members to tick a box to agree with all the recommendations on the ballot
    The ‘quick vote’ option allows members to tick a box to agree with all the recommendations on the ballot
    It was introduced “without consultation” in 2022, a year after Restore Trust emerged as a pressure group and saw three of its suggested council members elected and one of its resolutions passed.

    Since then, all of the campaign group’s suggested council members and resolutions have been voted down. Tens of thousands of the votes against their suggestions have been cast using a “quick vote”.

    Advertisement

    The report notes: “If a nation’s incumbent political party were in charge of drawing up ballot forms and introduced a voting option at the top of the form with the option for members to vote in line with the Government’s recommendations, the public would likely recognise this as a significant abuse of power and a subversion of democracy.

    “It is equally undemocratic for the National Trust to resort to such tactics.”

    The system has made the democratic process a “rubber-stamping exercise” and is the “the single biggest erosion of democratic processes in the organisation’s history”, it is alleged.

    The report warns that there is also “no clear separation” between the board of trustees, the charity’s governing body, which is charged with holding the management to account, the council, which appoints and advises the board, and the paid senior management.

    It says that the “lack of proper separation” is demonstrated by the fact that Adam Dyster, the adviser to Rene Olivieri, who is the chairman of the board, is also the adviser and speechwriter for Hilary McGrady, the director-general.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/03/21/TELEMMGLPICT000318244290_17110241585780_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=960
    Rene Olivieri, chairman of the National Trust photographed in the parlour at Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/03/21/TELEMMGLPICT000157228451_17110236480570_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUTB3vMrBgFH3wkEYGI_sPOcQmKPsPCApjlfbkH9hLl0.jpeg?imwidth=960

    Hilary McGrady visits Croome, in Worcestershire, on her first day as Director-General of the National Trust

    Half of the 36-strong council which holds the board to account are elected by National Trust members. Ahead of the AGM, the charity recommends to members who they should vote for.

    The recommendations are made by the nominations committee, which in turn is made up of council members.

    While the National Trust’s preferred candidates are identified in the AGM booklet and by members of management on social media, others are not allowed to campaign in a system which has been described as “unfair”.

    The report notes that Celia Richardson, “the communications director of the National Trust, plays a critical role in promoting the Trust’s voting recommendations on X (formerly Twitter) and thereby mobilising the not-insignificant segment of the National Trust’s membership”.

    Council member Sally Hunt is identified as “apparent evidence” of the impact of the support, having polled 19th with 9,276 votes in 2021 when not recommended and then being elected the following year in fourth place with 71,358 votes when she was a Trust endorsed candidate.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/03/21/TELEMMGLPICT000276004925_17110239714680_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqZgEkZX3M936N5BQK4Va8RWtT0gK_6EfZT336f62EI5U.jpeg?imwidth=960
    Celia Richardson, the Trusts’ communications director, promotes its voting recommendations on social media

    The report alleges that the fact that last year the Trust did not even interview Lord Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court and celebrated historian, as a potential candidate last year suggests that it is only interested in “those it was confident would not oppose any of the Trust management’s actions, irrespective of the merits and qualifications of the candidates”.

    Proxy votes cast by chairman
    It is not the first time that the Trust, Europe’s largest conservation charity, has faced concerns over its democratic processes. In 2003, the independent Blakenham Review noted the “deep suspicion” over proxy voting and recommended restrictions.

    But the Legatum Institute warns that the Trust has now reversed some of the protections that were introduced and made the system less democratic by ensuring that all proxy votes are cast by the chairman.

    It says the system is used “to consolidate control and reduce dissent by quashing members’ resolutions critical of the management that would otherwise have passed”.

    In recent years, a number of resolutions that were critical of the management would have passed by thousands of votes if the chairman’s discretionary proxy vote had been excluded.

    Culture Secretary should ‘prohibit anti-democratic measures’
    The report recommends that Lucy Fraser, the Culture Secretary, introduce new legislation which would “reverse the post-pandemic amendments, prohibit all anti-democratic measures”.

    It is said that a new statutory instrument which could not be amended by the trustees would prevent “power-grabs by the executive” at the Trust, which was established by an Act of Parliament.

    It also called on the Charity Commission to “open a statutory inquiry to identify the root causes of the recent democratic backsliding in the National Trust, to prevent repetition and to re-establish good governance”.

    A spokesman for the charity said: “The National Trust is an independent charity regulated, like all UK charities, by the Charity Commission. We have open and democratic governance processes and are accountable both to our regulators and to our members. Our members firmly rejected a resolution suggesting government oversight in our work via an ombudsman at our AGM in 2022.

    “Quick vote was introduced following advice from our independent election services provider that it is standard practice for large membership bodies. We will continue to take advice on what is standard electoral practice from accountable, regulated institutions that are experts in this field, and which have their own transparent systems of governance.”

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

    1. I don’t know what it is abut the Left wing mind but they really do hate people having a choice. It’s almost as if they’re pompous, arrogant authoritarians desperate to get their own way.

      1. A lady who volunteers for the National Trust told me that all of the volunteers walked out at Ickworth because they did not wish to wear those silly rainbow lanyards and stickers. The Trust relented.

        Also at Ickworth the Trust are constantly rewriting history. There is no mention of Pope’s reference to an Earl of Bristol as “milk white curd of asses milk” nor do they explain why an estate of 33,000 acres is now reduced to a mere 10,000 acres. Drugs may have been involved.

        Most frighteningly the felling of tens of thousands of trees on the estate to convert into wood pellets for their new eco-boiler. So far they have replanted about fifty trees.

        1. Net zero in the hands of the converted will cause far more damage to the environment than leaving well alone.

      2. A lady who volunteers for the National Trust told me that all of the volunteers walked out at Ickworth because they did not wish to wear those silly rainbow lanyards and stickers. The Trust relented.

        Also at Ickworth the Trust are constantly rewriting history. There is no mention of Pope’s reference to an Earl of Bristol as “milk white curd of asses milk” nor do they explain why an estate of 33,000 acres is now reduced to a mere 10,000 acres. Drugs may have been involved.

        Most frighteningly the felling of tens of thousands of trees on the estate to convert into wood pellets for their new eco-boiler. So far they have replanted about fifty trees.

  72. Mail to John Redwood’s Diary……

    The Climate Change Committee = George Soros’ personal fiefdom aided by his loyal assistant, Gordon Brown.

    Just ask the first chairman of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Adair Turner, for confirmation.

    Lord Turner forms alliance with George Soros……..

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9963050/Lord-Turner-forms-unlikely-alliance-with-Soros.html

    After all, Mr Redwood, Soros’ money is behind the Climate Change Act just as I have said so it’s entirely logical and appropriate that the first chairman of the Climate Change Committe, Lord Adair Turner, was subsequently rewarded with a Soros job as chairman of Soros’ Institute for New Economic Thinking!

    Is this enough proof for you that my analysis is correct?

      1. More DIE says the government, rubbing its hands at the prospect of killing off our culture.

    1. I used to pass through Wool when I drove back to Allhallows, near Lyme Regis, from Keyhaven (where my parents lived) via the ferry from Sandbanks and drove through the Isle of Purbeck. Got held up at the level crossing!

    1. I really do hope that the shop owner is called Goodwyn – if so, Full House of Misapostrophes!!

        1. Actually PJ, I’ve never seen Goodwyn spelt with a ‘y’ not an ‘i’ before!

          Tremendous sign though – I find it very funny that, when it was being created/erected nobody said, errrr… hang on…..

          1. I’ve seen it spelt with a ‘y’, probably goes into the same category as Smith with a ‘y’ :))
            I wonder if Mr/Mrs Goodwyn have a good sense of humour and it was deliberate? 😕

  76. Unpacked the mini oven air fryer thingy today. First thing to go in was, of course, sausage rolls.

    They were in for a minute too long in my view, but otherwise went well. I dropped one and somehow an 83 kilo Newfoundland got downstairs (from the attic room), into the kitchen to scoff up the roll and out of the kitchen before I could reach down to pick it up.

  77. That’s me for this unpleasant (health-wise) day. Maddening because it was nice out and there is a lot to do in the garden. Am hoping that a decent sleep tonight will cure everything.

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain

    3. I do hope you soon feel comfortable Bill , rest is best , because you have been very busy , there is always something ready to grab us . Not pleasant .

      Take care x

  78. I chanced upon this Wikipedia page about the Scunthorpe problem. It has numerous examples of internet filters barring harmless text, searches, website and email addresses because they match or contain words or character strings thought offensive in a different context. Some are quite comical, especially where a replacement is automatically substituted for the misunderstood word or string.

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

  79. Blimey. For once I agree with Judith Woods.
    Just add good at cooking, but not obsessive about it.
    Oh, and really enjoys walking a small dog without worrying about whether it affects his manly image.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/03/21/emmanuel-macron-virility-shelves-not-hitting-punchbag/

    “Take note, Macron: true virility is being able to put up a shelf, not hitting a punchbag

    Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to go toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin in the masculinity stakes is a swing and a miss

    21 March 2024 • 3:00pm

    Sacré bleuchh! Do you want to tell him or shall I? Monsieur Macron, your attempt to portray yourself as virile in this bizarre new presidential pin-up is woefully out of touch.

    There you are in the gym, with a photographer getting up a little too close and personal as you aim a punch. The veins protrude on your bulging biceps as you strike the bag with gritted teeth, leading to one question: pourquoi?

    I’m sure there’s a niche market for something so performative and pointless – but entre nous the ladies ain’t impressed. I’ll tell you what’s virile: tanking a basement. Retiling the bathroom is what turns us on or – be still my beating heart – rebooting the Wi-Fi router without being asked. While a goddamn kitten sleeps on your shoulder.

    That is what we want. What we really, really want. There’s a reason that those Athena posters of strapping bare-chested stevedores cradling puppies conquered the planet. I get that times have changed – maybe an endangered pangolin would play better to modern sensibilities – but fundamentally we just want Man 1.0.

    Sure, we bluestockings might marry the bookish ones with the intriguing jazz collection and a fondness for foreign films but once that novelty wears off, nothing (but nothing) makes us friskier than fists like hams. Useful hams, that can put things up, take things down, drill, dig and solder.

    I know at least two women who have completely fallen for their builders. Madness? No, just the inevitable fallout of watching a proper bloke Doing Stuff rather than procrastinating about Doing Stuff and manfully drinking endless amounts of liberally sugared tea rather than getting prissily aerated about the last Nespresso pod.

    That’s why the final episode of Motherland, where Julia develops a crush on Garry the contractor, prompting her to question her marriage, was both the most scabrously funny and heartbreakingly truthful piece of social commentary my generation has ever witnessed.

    So, Monsieur Macron, that’s why there’s nothing remotely sexy about punching – unless it’s a stud wall because you are remodelling the ground floor of the Elysée Palace before you retouch La République sauvegarde la Paix on the ceilings.

    In fact, given the current vogue for digital tweaking, is that actually you? If so, I struggle to understand why some bright spark in your media bureau didn’t just clumsily insert a library pic of Putin, bare-chested and slung about with weaponry, to add verisimilitude.

    It’s a bizarre attempt at power play, and it makes me wonder whose idea it was. Let us hope it doesn’t catch on this side of la Manche. What on earth would – could – our own PM possibly do to upstage him? I shudder to think. His personal profile at rishisunak.com states he enjoys “keeping fit”. The ticker tape of images – leg warmers, headband, singlet – flashing before my eyes is too terrible to share. Cricket, football, conkers.

    Non, merci. The only thing that matters is being fit for purpose. Female voters on either side of the channel don’t want a lover, or a fighter, we just want a man who keeps his word, gets stuck in and, ideally, loves to cuddle a kitten.”

    1. “Just add good at cooking, but not obsessive about it.
      Oh, and really enjoys walking a small dog without worrying about whether it affects his manly image.      ”

      Why does Phizzee spring to mind?

          1. Depends on your viewpoint, I suppose. Kadi is fairly small, but Dolly and Harry are smaller, being chihuahuas.

    2. But Macron’s not trying to appeal to the ladies, shirley?
      He probably appeals perfectly well to his chosen demographic…

  82. Off topic
    Another sign of Spring, the first orchid flower has appeared, a tongue orchid.
    I hope I will soon get the all clear to start garden work, so I can do the cutting to allow them to be more visible.

          1. Yes, but even for here it was ridiculously early, it started flowering around mid-Feb.

          4. It was a relatively mild (no snow, no severe frosts) winter here. I presume you had the same.

      3. We had a magnificent one in the UK, sadly very prone to frosts as it flowered very early.
        We have four grandiflora here which flower fairly late. The scent is heavenly.

        2. That, very weirdly, looks just like a section of my garden. Stephenroi. Except that the magnolia in yours is clematis montana in mine – but it looks so similar i did a double take,

          2. I took three seeds from it about 6-7 years ago and the new trees are about 3 feet tall but as yet they haven’t flowered…
            🙁

      6. Soulangeana or stellata? My stellata is in bloom, but the other (Susan) is weeks behind.

      1. Mid May at the very earliest, assuming that I get the all clear from the cardiologist.
        Unfortunately there is some extremely heavy lifting and cleaning that always has to be done after winter.

        1. I’m sure you will get the all clear for the swimming, but I would be very careful with any heavy lifting, especially anything involving your arms working at head height or above.

          1. His initial assessment was that all should return to normal, so fingers crossed.
            The swimming gets me fit for the rest of the year but I fear the days of multiple channel crossing equivalents may be behind me.
            Last year I clocked off at 182 Km, I should have done more but returned to the UK so missed a couple of weeks worth.

          2. Ah, my instructions were not to even lift anything weighing more than 6lbs for the first 3 months! You must be in pretty good nick.

          3. After all my unpleasant experiences alongside my cardiology problems, not one person has ever passed on any instructions regarding how I should live the rest of my life.

          4. Apart from the difficulty in getting through the telephone systems here, and that’s almost certainly as much to do with my language skills, I cannot fault the care.
            They have been kind, considerate, supportive and informative.
            Absolutely brilliant.
            They phone me to offer appointment choices for the consultant and the rehab!

          7. Ah yes, I remember you told me before. Although the health service is not as good as it was when we first arrived in 1997 and the French complain a lot, it is all relative and still pretty good. They also worked right through Covid. I got a routine heart check-up appt with no delays at all and for reasons beyond my control had to cancel and re-book twice delaying it by all of two weeks!!

          9. I’ve had a couple of run-ins and my late companion should never have died when he did – it was sheer medical incompetence 🙁 But I have been here for 27 years and while thankfully I’ve steered clear of all medics to a very large extent, my late husband sadly didn’t and was hospitalised no fewer than ten times in nine years so I guess the odds just start stacking up!

          10. That’s more than unfortunate.
            By and large I avoid going to the doctor, but do take all the tests that they recommend.
            They seem to be very proactive in this part of France.

          11. Yes, when it comes to health the French are very pro-active, both the medical profession and the population! Perhaps that is why they don’t have long waiting lists. Also, for minor things, or those that look minor, the pharmacy and not the GP is always the first port of call and acts as a very effective triage system.

          14. Reading all your posts, I think so too.
            Sadly it appears that in the UK that isn’t unusual.

          15. Totally agree Sos.
            Excuse my juvenile (it’ll never change) humour but (as your comment above) it’s known as the Tom Jones syndrome.
            First This morning my
            BP was 188/89, given that most people would call an ambulance.
            But although I have every respect for the front line NHS. There would be no point in calling them out, because those who we expected to be caring for us don’t really care. They have the same attitude as the political classes.
            And seem only interested in what THEY personally can gain.
            Weeks ago I self medicated and doubled my medication, instead of the prescribed morning doses, I take the same before bedtime. It has made no difference whatsoever.
            But my gp (a month behind) belatedly has just done the same thing. The fact that I had beaten him to it might mean I can request a refund…..or not.
            I’ve got a cardio MRI Sunday afternoon. I shall take my recent BP results with me. But I’ve passed them on previously and had no acknowledgement.
            9:20 am.
            BP now 183/100.
            It would be interesting to hear what might happen to a known patient in France if this happens.

          16. I don’t know how they might react, but if a reading such as that is as dangerous as you imply I suspect you’d be collected and taken into a hospital.

          17. I say ‘instructions’, but this was from a visiting Heart Foundation (?) lady who gave me a booklet and a pep talk after I was back from hospital.

          18. Several years ago when I was diagnosed with a congenital but manageable heart condition the specialist was explaining the medication that I would have to take for the rest of my life. I am a smoker so he also said that I should give up smoking while adding that of course that was up to me as he was a doctor and not a policeman!! Just my kind of doctor 😆

          19. I have to be very careful about that because I instinctively lift things I shouldn’t, because pre heart attack I thought nothing of lifting well over 50 kg. I was shifting 100 kg + logs before Christmas.

          21. It’s not just the weight per se though is it? Can it go over your shoulder etc?

            Edited; added the ‘not’.

          22. I just try to remember, and HG keeps a close eye.
            One of the joys of having a physio in the house…

    3. I was at an all-day professional event today and we were told that if we were observing Ramadan and needed to pop out to pray, just to let them know so they could facilitate it.

      Nobody cares about those observing Lent, obvs.

      1. Did anybody say anything about the anomaly? I have a list of daily Bible readings for Lent. I think I’d have claimed the right to do that (and then made a fuss about being ejected).

          3. We need to stand up and be counted. It doesn’t mean submission for nothing. One of my local charity shops had Ramadan cards – I was offended (and only just restrained myself from ripping them up, throwing them on the floor and stamping on them). As I am a law-abiding person, I turned them round and hid them then walked out without buying anything. I shan’t be going back.

    5. I never put a cross on mine (it’s such a faff piping on a flour-and-water paste and, in my case, nowt to do with religion). I simply make teacakes — ostensibly the same thing — then toast and butter them.

      Mmmmmmmmm!!!!!

      1. I used to use a recipe where you just cut a cross with a sharp knife before you leave the buns to prove. As the dough rises the cross opens up. It’s less obvious than piping on a cross but also less faff.

      3. I eat my hot cross buns cold, cut in half and buttered, Grizzly. Incidentally, how did the GP appointment at 2 pm go?

          1. As long as it’s Elsie’s home made marmalade then that’s acceptable, Grizzly. Lol.

    6. My main issue with Hot Cross Buns, is that they now come with 99 different flavours.

      A low-carb version would be much appreciated, but otherwise they all spike my blood glucose…

      1. Why do they always have to spoil everything? In my view, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it :))

  84. He’d have loved it here today.

    I had a fallen oak and had to get a local farmer in with an industrial strength chainsaw to deal with the really big bits.
    The diameter at the bottom was over 4 feet.
    The wood is extremely dense and heavy and each piece will have been in the 500 kg range.
    It splits brilliantly with a felling axe, work I really enjoy doing, but I guess will be verboten for many months yet.

        2. My grandfather worked as a lumberjack in Canada before WW1, he returned to the UK to volunteer as a soldier in 1914.
          He had a “party trick” cracking walnuts between his forearm and biceps.

  85. Evening, all. Today has been much like yesterday, weather-wise, with the addition of a strong, bitterly cold wind. First day of Spring? Nobody told the weather!
    It isn’t just HMRC, it’s all the institutions. They have forgotten that they work for us. Time they were reminded.

    1. Had sun today. Shone in my eyes whilst making breakfast. Wonderful! Real boost to the energy level!

      1. Yes, I feel so much better and more energised when the sun’s out. I have so many jobs to do in the garden, but I feel too lethargic to get stuck in when the weather’s dull, wet and miserable. Mind you, I did a plant swap this afternoon and I had to get the new plants in as they had just been dug up.

    2. Here in Colchester it was dry for most of the day. I got four lots of washing hung out and dried. And I spent another couple of hours gardening. So fortunately the weather was better for me. Tomorrow it is predicted to rain a lot more.

      1. It’s good news for Essex, Elsie 🙂 I was nearly blown off my feet by the strength of the wind (or it could have been something to do with the fact I needed to wear a long mac at the time and it acted as a sail) 🙂

    1. It’s a Sanctuary City.
      Of course this is normal.
      It will be happening all over the Democrat USA

    2. “What ate tour thoughts on the city spending so much money on this?”

      Well we have the same nonsense over here and it doesn’t matter what any of is think because it ain’t stopping any time soon.

  87. More disturbing news from the Dystopic States of America:

    “The suspects, Steven Brown, 44, Jeffrey Mackey, 38, and Amanda Wallace, 40, along with homeless woman Alexis Nieves, 33 – allegedly tried to conceal the corpses in what the NY Post called “a scheme so grisly that the drains, toilets, sinks and showers stopped working in the Amityville home where three of the accused had just moved weeks earlier,” Suffolk County prosecutors claimed.

    Whatever led up to the deaths and hacking, the four allegedly removed “sharp instruments, multiple body parts and other related items” from the two-family house on Amitville’s Railroad Avenue between Feb. 27 – when the first remains were found by a child walking to school – and Monday, when cops raided the home, Suffolk police said.

    Schroeder said authorities collected a heap of evidence including body parts, meat cleavers, butcher knives and a significant amount of blood.

    “In disposing of the body, this defendant rendered the sink, showers, drains and toilets inoperable,” Schroeder told the court each time one of the four appeared to answer the charges.

    “The barbaric lengths this defendant went to in disposing of these bodies should show the court the lengths this defendant would go to flee the prosecution of these charges.” -NY Post

    The suspects were then released with GPS ankle monitors.

    “This is yet another absurd result thanks to ‘Bail Reform’ and a system where the Legislature in Albany substitutes their judgment for the judgment of our judges and the litigants in court,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, who slammed the state’s bail laws.

    1. The Amityville Horror revisited.

      Released with GPS ankle monitors, hmm, they seem to have skills at cutting things off.

    2. If their family name was Trump they would have been incarcerated and the keys melted down.

  88. “We are unable to post your comment because you have been banned by http://www.spectator.co.uk. Find out more.”

    Weird, isn’t it? i have made several disobliging comments that have slipped through the net. This relatively innocuous one referred to the fact that my subscription would not renew when it expires and why that is so.

    1. You can still read Speccie articles when your sub expires by pasting the URL of the article into Archive Today but you can’t read the comments.

      1. I can read the articles and see the comments and have been up to now sporadically allowed to contribute. They still have my shilling, after all.

        Absolute thieving hypocrites.

    2. Same here. Yet I can still view the site. I’ve cancelled my subscription. The site won’t let me view my account details, and the ‘banned’ message is somewhat hit and miss.

      I suspect that Telegraph Media Group are well aware of our existence. I fielded a telephone call from Andrew Gilligan a few years ago. He was researching for a story about the actual residence of the odious Sam Tarry – I played the organ for his wedding. We discussed the removal of DT comments, and it seems it was a purely a cost-saving exercise.

      I’m coming to the conclusion that avidly following ‘current affairs’ online is not conducive to a good mental state. I’ll keep NoTTL going for as long as humanly possible, but recent legislation may make that risky. I didn’t think it would catch on, but – eight years later – we’re still here. But for how much longer?

      1. Yup, same here with the Speccie. You are a marvel, Geoff. Keep buggering on and I do see a Sartacus moment coming along. There are a lot of strong minded and highly pissed off people both with and behind you.

          1. You’re a marvel to us, Geoff. I, too, worry about sites like this. The PTB do NOT like free speech and free association.

    3. Hi all – just found this place thanks to a post on speccy comments. One or two familiar names. I’ve finally cancelled my speccy sub and am counting down, supposedly to the end of the month. I’m getting random ‘banned’ messages too after slagging off the political staff for being so out of touch they might as well be based in Vladivostok.

      3. They won’t like my comment on the Kate Andrews interview with Nigel Farage then.

    1. I wouldn’t want to be any one of those actively promoting the Climate Emergency scam. When the penny finally drops, as it most surely will, I suspect they will be regarded a bit like the French Aristocracy whose actions (or lack thereof) fuelled the French Revolution.

      1. And what about King Charles III who is a Climate Emergency fanatic? And his elder son chants from the same psalter!

        1. Well we could make an opening in the facade of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, erect a scaffold and chop off their heads.

          It worked to a degree the last time this method and procedure was employed.

    2. I’ll have to watch the rest of it tomorrow as it’s getting late. Pretty convincing, though of course it will be suppressed .

  90. Good Night, chums. I hope you all sleep well and awake refreshed. See you all in the morning.

  93. I’m off to bed.
    Sounds a bit windy outside, getting a howling down the chimney!

  95. Interesting story from today’s (Friday) Terriblegraph:
    “ BRITISH expat has been shot dead by police after pointing a gun at them outside his home in Pennsylvania.

    Gregor Fleming, 44, was killed after he “displayed a firearm” and moved towards officers in Hampden Township.

    He died immediately, and his American fiancée, Kelly Thompson, 47, a medical assistant, witnessed the shooting.

    Pennsylvania State Police have begun an investigation into the March 7 shooting but Ms Thompson refused to criticise their handling of the incident.

    She told the Daily Record: “I watched everything happen. He left the police with no choice.

    “They told him to drop the gun several times and he refused.

    “He started walking towards them with the gun and they had no choice but to do what they did.

    “It’s an image burnt in my mind that I will never forget. I watched the love of my life die right in front of me….She said he had been depressed and drinking heavily around the time of his death after a scan indicated that he might have throat cancer.

    Ms Thompson said: “He has been in severe pain since February after breaking his back, and on top of that the imaging found a mass on his oesophagus that was likely cancer.

    “He spiralled out of control and started drinking heavily and became suicidal.

    “He was depressed and scared about possible cancer and the alcohol and medications he was on for pain didn’t help.” Fleming moved to the United States in 2013 and had been training to be a plumber.”

    Good on Ms Thompson for refusing to criticise the police.

  96. Wordle 1,007 3/6

    This (Wordle for Friday 22 March) is the second day running that I’ve completed it in just three. I must be getting better. Now I am back to bed since I didn’t sleep too well last night. Back in a couple of hours’ time.

    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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