Thursday 22 August: Home-working and the ‘right to switch off’ – a recipe for a dud economy

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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626 thoughts on “Thursday 22 August: Home-working and the ‘right to switch off’ – a recipe for a dud economy”

  1. Good morning, chums; FIRST!!! And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,160 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie
      Wordle 1,160 4/6

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  4. It’s too early to say whether Kyiv’s Russian incursion is a success. 22 August 2024.

    But so far Russia hasn’t taken the bait. While Ukraine advances in Kursk, Russia grinds forward in Donetsk, where their losses have been severe. Nonetheless, they continue to press what appears to be Ukraine’s weakest front. Ukrainian forces, undermanned and stretched thin, are only able to slow – rather than stop – Russian advances. Key cities like Nui York, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar, and Pokrovsk, critical for holding the remaining Donetsk region, have seen intensified battles and heavy artillery fire since the Ukrainian offensive began. There are now reports Nui York may have fallen entirely.

    There are couple of articles like this in the MSM. It’s called managing expectations. The Kursk incursion has proved to be a failure and some excuse must be offered. It is true that the Ukies are on Russian territory but they lack both the mass and the resources to venture beyond their supply lines. The Russians don’t actually have to attack them, just fence them in. This means that three of the best and most up to date brigades in the Ukie army are essentially on holiday while the main battlefront in Donbass is collapsing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/21/too-early-to-say-whether-kyiv-russian-invasion-is-a-success/

    1. Finally some good news for the StarmerTrooper government. It was the Brits wot invaded Kursk.

      Mark Galeotti
      Moscow is blaming Britain for the Kursk attack
      22 August 2024, 6:00am

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Unknown-4.jpeg
      Is the sinking of the super-yacht Bayesian and likely death of Mike Lynch a bigger story than Ukraine’s Kursk incursion? The Russian mid-market tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets certainly thinks so, reflecting a clear unwillingness on the part of the Kremlin and the state-controlled or state-dominated media to get to grips with the current crisis in Kursk.

      Likewise, the stodgy government newspaper of record, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, recently stuck with a piece about plucky locals ready for whatever happens, under the headline, ‘A city with a special history and a spirit that cannot be broken. How Kursk lives today.’ Meanwhile, the stridently pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda ran the latest outburst from former president turned maximalist troll Dmitry Medvedev warning that ‘there will be no negotiations after the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on Kursk Region.’

      Only the broadsheet Izvestiya on Wednesday led with Kursk, but even then with an upbeat tale of a Russian helicopter gunship destroying Ukrainian armoured vehicles. Inside, the paper ran a large ‘analysis’ piece that in many ways mirrored the key Kremlin talking points, explicitly sourcing most of the piece to the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. First of all, of course, the incursion was presented as doomed to failure – and, indeed, already collapsing on every front, regardless of the visible evidence of slowing but continued Ukrainian advances. Secondly, it was framed essentially as a Nato operation, with the Ukrainians as lumpen foot soldiers, even though credible reporting has shown that Kyiv didn’t even warn its western allies of the attack, let alone let them direct it. Meanwhile, the attack has apparently further widened splits in the western alliance, which is on the verge of collapse.

      As usual, it is Perfidious Albion that is the main villain of the piece. Britain is ‘one of the main curators of military actions in Ukraine on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ and the daring, fluid small-unit operations which allowed them to advance so quickly could only have been taught by the British. Nationalist politician Dmitry Rogozin concurred, saying the current Ukrainian operations ‘reek of the British a mile away,’ following in the footsteps of headline-hungry parliamentarian Adalbi Shkhagoshev, who asserted that British spooks and soldiers were directly involved, on the basis that ‘English was heard’. Surely conclusive.

      This all reflects the challenge the incursion has presented Vladimir Putin. Putin’s unwillingness to engage with or name something has always been a mark of how much it scares him. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s name was taboo until he was safely dead. Before then he was instead referred to as ‘that individual.’ Likewise, this invasion is simply ‘the situation’ or ‘current circumstances.’

      This is not just Putin’s usual habit of trying to ignore or hide from difficult policy crises. It also reflects the particular characteristics of the Kursk invasion. Putin may have been tempted to try and stir up patriotic fury against the attack, but to do that, he would have to admit the scale of the incursions and the degree to which Kyiv’s forces look as if they are digging in for the long term. For a leader whose legitimacy depends so much on his status as the defender of the Motherland and guarantor of security, to make such an admission would invite difficult questions about how it could have been allowed to happen.

      Instead, then, this is at once an outrage and an outlier, a mark of desperation on the part of a Ukrainian regime on the verge of collapse. Rather than acknowledge that Kyiv could pull off such an unexpected and, so far at least, successful operation, the West – and especially those sneaky Brits – must be presented as behind it all, even as they cynically bleed their lumpen proxies to get at Russia.

      There are two key problems with this narrative. First of all, Russians do not seem really to be buying it. Even before the incursion, 58 per cent of them favoured negotiations to end the war (even if that does not necessarily mean concessions to Kyiv). They may still believe that the war was sparked by Kyiv or Nato, but they are certainly not accepting the bland assurances that everything is in hand. Organisations such as FreshLabs and OpenMinds that track Russian social media have noted a distinct uptick in sentiments of alarm and anger at the authorities. Meanwhile, a recent survey by the FOM polling company recorded a 12 per cent rise in feelings of anxiety and a 7 per cent spike in the proportion of people willing to admit they are unhappy with the regime. Most, in contrast with their own media, regard the Kursk incursion as the main issue of the moment.

      Secondly, this is at best a temporary approach. What happens if the Ukrainians are not driven out of Russia, as the Kremlin is promising? If Kyiv – newly heartened by its victories – does not sue for peace, and the western alliance does not fragment?

      At present, Russians are just as upset by the state’s failure to tend to the war’s 200,000 displaced refugees as they are by its failure to defend the country’s borders. There is anger, but more than that, there is disillusion. This is not going to force Putin to the negotiating table nor spark mass unrest. But a regime which has been surprisingly adroit at mobilising its base and demoralising its critics has found itself beginning to do the very opposite. Not simply thanks to this misbegotten war, but because of Putin’s evident inability to come up with a policy or narrative response to the invasion.

      1. I seem to remember that it was Russian mothers, losing their sons in eye watering numbers and in barbarous ways, that played a role in Russia's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

        Kipling does seem to be very apposite in C21 Blighty.

        "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
        And the women come out to cut up what remains,
        Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
        An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
        Go, go, go like a soldier,
        Go, go, go like a soldier,
        Go, go, go like a soldier,
        So-oldier of the Queen!"

      2. Is the sinking of the super-yacht Bayesian and likely death of Mike Lynch a bigger story than Ukraine’s Kursk incursion?

        Odd. The very same thought had occurred to me about the MSM.

      3. Is the sinking of the super-yacht Bayesian and likely death of Mike Lynch a bigger story than Ukraine’s Kursk incursion?

        Odd. The very same thought had occurred to me about the MSM.

      5. Being blamed by Russia sounds as though it could be bad news. On the other hand, Putin might decide to nuke London, so….

    2. I doubt it's much of a holiday, Minty. Holidays involve relaxation, fun, beaches, scantily-clad ladies… not a million big Russians trying to slit your throat.

  7. The obese are crippling the NHS. It’s time to make them pay. 22 August 2024.

    ‘You really want to know why your beloved health service is falling apart?’, they would ask us. “No, it’s not because it’s ‘underfunded’ – the amount of money we tip into its insatiable maw swells by the year. The real reason the NHS is: a) collapsing and b) ever more expensive is quite simple. It’s because you, the public, have grown so monstrously fat.

    Nothing to do with people getting off the plane and then heading for the nearest hospital then?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/21/obese-are-crippling-the-nhs-now-its-time-to-make-them-pay/

    1. 392153+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      And the Dover invading troops, incoming on a daily basis, must be serviced

  9. Good morning all, cold here with, I hope, clearing skies. Very chilly for August, put on the CH last night.

  10. Morning, all Y'all.
    Cloudy & sporadic rain. Light jumper worn all week, so far (except in the shower…)

  12. Douglas Murray
    Shattering the myth of the ‘glass ceiling’
    From magazine issue:
    24 August 2024

    What a thrilling number of glass ceilings have been broken this century – with more still to come, apparently. In 2008 America elected its first black president. In 2012 Barack Obama was re-elected and so became the first black president to win re-election. In 2016 America had a chance to elect its first female president but the public blew it and failed to elect Hillary Clinton. Fortunately they somewhat made up for this in 2020 by voting in the first female vice president. A vote that was made sweeter by the fact that, on that occasion, the public had a two-for-one offer and were also able to vote in the first black vice president. Now the public have a further chance to improve themselves by voting for the first black female president.

    Hillary Clinton had a chance to ruminate on this at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, declaring that between herself and Kamala Harris: ‘Together we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling. On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th president of the United States.’

    Close observers might have sensed a certain forced smile on Clinton’s face as she said this. She had hoped to be commander in chief since at least the time that her husband was breaking in the new intern pool in the 1990s White House. An unkind person might say: ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’ But a kind interpretation of history (of the sort that Hillary is presumably already writing) is that she is like one of those early astronauts who paved the way for Neil Armstrong. Or an early explorer who traversed the Arctic wastelands and in whose historic footsteps other explorers more successfully followed in less bigoted times.

    Much of the media is content to frame things in this light. In a news story this week, the BBC asked ‘whether the political backdrop has transformed enough for the vice president to reach the nation’s highest office’. Are the US public yet bold enough, open-minded enough and – yes – strong enough to agree with a BBC editorial team? We shall see. And the BBC will be watching.

    The ‘glass ceiling’ conversation sometimes seems to be the main game in western politics. If the public do not vote for the glass-ceiling-shattering candidate, then it is they who are at fault. Here is the BBC again: ‘During her run for president in 2016, Mrs Clinton faced a barrage of criticisms over her appearance, her clothing and even the sound of her voice.’ For shame. Anyone with a long memory will recall that in 2016 nobody made any comment on Donald Trump’s appearance, clothing or vocal habits.

    A couple of years after her election defeat, Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were hawking around a book they had put their names to called The Book of Gutsy Women. Asked by the excellent Emma Barnett on the British leg of their tour why this book of female trailblazers did not include Margaret Thatcher, Clinton acknowledged that Britain’s first female prime minister could be said to be ‘gutsy’ but that ultimately she failed to make the grade because ‘she doesn’t fit the other part of the definition in our opinion, which really is knocking down barriers for others and trying to make a positive difference’. Which is the sort of moment where the game truly reveals itself.

    Because – as the wiser students of politics will by now have worked out – a female candidate is not a female candidate if she does not conform to various leftist shibboleths. I do not remember these voices celebrating the idea that Sarah Palin might have broken a glass ceiling. Even the career of Britain’s most successful postwar prime minister can be dismissed by these people if she can be deemed not to have tried to make ‘a positive difference’ – which translates as ‘doing what the left agrees with’. And so we must agree that Thatcher broke no glass ceilings, was not a force of positive change or even in any real sense a woman, and that the British public can spend this century making up for our bigotry.

    In 2017 we seized the magnificent opportunity to re-break a glass ceiling when we decided with overwhelming public enthusiasm that it was time to give another woman a go at the top job. Who can forget the resulting glory years of Theresa May? We then had the opportunity to celebrate our first ethnic–minority prime minister in Rishi Sunak and, although he didn’t prove to be our most popular PM, Keir Starmer was among those who paid tribute to his ceiling-shattering. The first words Starmer said, on returning from Buckingham Palace last month, were to thank ‘the outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for his achievement as the first British Asian prime minister of our country’. Perhaps it was churlish not to point to all of Sunak’s other achievements. But it didn’t matter, because the achievement for Sunak was in just being, and ceiling-breaking.

    In March, Vaughan Gething was likewise celebrated for becoming ‘the first black leader of Wales’. When he fell from office his supporters inevitably blamed ‘racism’. Which goes to show that Wales ought to find another black leader to atone for things fast.

    Scotland has also broken ceilings by briefly having a Muslim first minister in Humza Yousaf. A point he made on the way up. But on the way down, he started to refer to bigotry – and now says it’s so bad he may have to leave Scotland altogether.

    I do wonder how long this can go on. Will it stop when we have all voted in the first black transgender dwarf in each of our countries, and promised to re-elect them? Or will it never stop?

    Proportionally, there are three times more gays who are MPs than there are gays in the general population. Which suggests that if representation is the key, there should be a cull of gay MPs at the next election. But that won’t happen. And no one will suggest it.

    It’s almost as if ‘representation’ and ‘glass ceilings’ aren’t the real issue. I miss the times when competency and achievement were.

    1. "If the public do not vote for the glass-ceiling-shattering candidate, then it is they who are at fault."
      Makes me think of the quote that "Would it not be easier for the Government to dissolve the Electorate and vote itself another?"

      1. And, surely, a glass ceiling is properly broken when a man or woman can be elected to high office without it mattering to anyone whether they sit down to pee or not? Several female PMs in Norway now, and nobody bats an eyelid. That's how it should be – the only qualification for the role is to be good.

          1. Ahhh, memories! I was once kissed rarther thoroughly and unexpectedly by a gorgeous young actor whilst he was singing this on stage. I do remember thinking, my god, I'm getting paid for this! 🤣🤣

    2. The Americans broke another glass ceiling when they elected the first openly senile President.

          2. He did and then he immediately turned round and told us all to be nicer to one another.

          3. That is the chilling part. Being horrible to Trump doesn't count in their eyes, because Trump doesn't count as human. The same is extended to all of us.

    4. II would quibble about the notion that the public voted in the first female black vice president. Coup-mala was running as a subcontinental not an African, and she dropped out of the leader's race as she only scraped 3% of the vote. Being foisted on the public as a done deal by team Biden/Obama is rather different than the popular vote smashing the glass ceiling.

  13. I don't sail; and I'm not an engineer.
    However, is it wise to have a mast that is 62 feet higher than the length of the boat? How deep and heavy would the keel have to be to counterbalance the height and the effects of wind even with the sails furled.
    My program cannot pick up the measurements.
    Mast 75 metres
    Yacht length 56 metres
    Beam 11.5

    Is this sailing's version of willie waving?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/845db700bb5043f653f8475446ce216175610237009cab8a4c555bf026bc5c63.jpg

    1. More a vertical glider's wing than a sail. I suspect they reef it savagely when the wind blows more than a goose's fart, but they will make a lot of progress when there's a wee breeze – and move quite fast.

    2. It's all well and good showing a single Boris Bus for comparison but how about the number of Nelson's Columns or London Shards? The Nation needs to be told.

      1. How many footballs pitches or Olympic sized swimming pools?
        Can you fit Wales into it?

      2. That bus is operated by the tornado, m'lud. Its grandfather went international after setting up a removals firm in Kansas, USA.

    5. "..is it wise to have a mast that is 62 feet higher than the length of the boat?"

      Racing yachts, one-design or, mostly built to a formula, invariably have masts higher than the overall length; for maximum speed. This includes Americas Cup contestants, 12-Metres, 8-Metres and many other racing designs.

      A 75-metre mast is extreme – necessitating a retractable keel.

      For a cruising yacht, a two-mast or three-mast design is much more practical.

      For a yacht the size of Bayesian – 65 metres long – I would have chosen a 3-masted schooner design that would be much more practical in terms of crewing requirements.

      Something like Creole, perhaps?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b96da3849f4f965869e43be0493877e5732cf5383f05529c5c94b4fafc7f821f.jpg

      2. Yes, I mentioned the rig a couple of days ago. Creole used to appear in the Nioulargue, now replaced by Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez.
        I had no idea that Mike Lynch was hard of hearing. I wonder if he stayed aboard in order to try and save his daughter. A problem with very large modern yachts is that few of the pretty old fishing towns in Europe have facilities for mooring them, except on commercial berths well away from the smart bars etc.

      3. Yes, I mentioned the rig a couple of days ago. Creole used to appear in the Nioulargue, now replaced by Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez.
        I had no idea that Mike Lynch was hard of hearing. I wonder if he stayed aboard in order to try and save his daughter. A problem with very large modern yachts is that few of the pretty old fishing towns in Europe have facilities for mooring them, except on commercial berths well away from the smart bars etc.

      4. Thank you. The stress is more easily distributed throughout that boat.
        To us, the mast and boom looked totally out of proportion to the rest of the yacht.
        I was merely going by my experience of a humble linen line.

        1. Found!

          BTW: Creole is a Stays'l (staysail) schooner.
          Suitable for cruising – lots of sail options for an amateur crew.

  15. 392153+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The herd, are currently in the hands of political shepherds of evilness & destruction, we are NOT being governed as much as being milked ,bilked, and filletted in a most manipulative manner.

    We are on a war footing with what passes as a governing body, and peoples must realise working disputes at this time is in reality siding with the political enamas, short term gain, long term pain

    ALL this fraternisation in monitory forms should be shelved until hostilities cease and some form of normality returns, the alternative is, we the peoples, do the odious governing bodies work for them whilst the herd grinds itself into a pliable workable pro WEF / NWO paste.

    Thursday 22 August: Home-working and the ‘right to switch off’ – a recipe for a dud economy

    1. Bet they don't implement a policy to ditch the government if it does not do what it is supposed to do.

  16. Good morning all.

    Cloudy at Dwelling Unit A101101 with the government-approved amount of modified precipitation. Wind South-West and our glorious weather engineers have told us we will be regulated to between 16℃ and 21℃ today.

    The truth hurts:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2970024099d6a1fd42d22831cb06b3c8a68f5b67c865427a758b7cf9e862f74b.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/21/obese-are-crippling-the-nhs-now-its-time-to-make-them-pay/

    'Big Agri' supplies 'Big Food' with commodities lacking in essential nutrients and laced with toxins (seed oils). 'Big Food' sells ultra-processed gunk. The ultra-processed gunk makes people obese and ill. 'Big Pharma' supplies them with pills which have side effects. The side effects make people more ill so another pill is required which 'Big Pharma' supplies. People get fatter and iller. The NHS supplies drastic therapies and surgery…and more 'Big Pharma' pills. Everyone involved gets rich – except the poor obese fools who weren't taught how to cook and feed themselves properly in the first place.

    Bonuses all round. What's not to like.

    2. Surely, the sick are "crippling the NHS" as well. And the elderly. And those having accidents, getting scorched in fires at home, falling out of buildings or the cracks in the pavement. Should they not pay, too? Maybe the UK should follow the US and instigate an insurance-based system where, if not insured, you can just piss off and die? Very Socialist.
      In fact, just ban all those needing medical assistance from the NHS, it would run so much more smoothly without patients clogging it up.

      1. It doesn’t have to be the US system. The Ozzies, Cloggies, Krauts and Frogs (all of whom I love dearly) have very good insurance-based systems.

    3. The state has no money. It only has money it takes from citizens, or magics into existence as debt, to be paid by said citizens and their descendants.
      This is a debate to have, but they're framing it wrongly.
      The question is, should we have social medicine at all, when some people abuse it?
      Does it have to be all or nothing? Would it be possible to have a system where your contributions were subsidised to some extent by a social scheme, but you paid a proportion of your healthcare costs?

      1. We all know whose "proportion" of their healthcare costs would still be paid – by us. Mostly the same people who abuse the current system.

        1. It’s in society’s interests to have a healthy workforce though. Not that the NHS is succeeding at that particularly well.
          The NHS is toxic for healthcare in Britain because it sucks in all the healthcare money and then operates a US style market place outside its own socialist construct. So we’ve got the worst of both worlds.
          Dare I say it, we were better off with the charities and non profits that were in place before the NHS was founded.

          2. The propaganda has been relentless, and plays on people’s worst side – encouraging them not to save for bad times.

          3. Frankly, what’s the point of saving? If you’ve got any savings you’re hammered and can’t get any help. If you’ve splurged it all, you get things for nothing. It’s a no-brainer, really. I am buying the equipment I need to avoid having to pay to have my green bins emptied and thus reducing my savings, but also not increasing my outgoings (and they’ll find that it costs them more in the long run – serves the barstewards right).

          4. It certainly isn’t worth putting the fruits of one’s labour into the system, that’s for sure.

      2. "Lose the weight, or lose state-funded health care. It's your call…"

        It's your money…

    3. The only time i have had a smidgen of sympathy for Mugabe was when his apes pummeled this freeloader.

  20. Good morning, all. Overcast and very breezy with the chance of a rain shower mid-morning. Breaking – it's lashing down at the moment!

    We've had our disastrous (it was odds on to be a disaster if either of the 2 major parties won or the 3rd place minnows held the balance) and now it's the USA's turn to make a choice.

    Courtesy of Wayne Dunlap's X feed.

    The first three examples are part of a theme being weaponised against the incumbent administration: very poor politics from Harris to claim she will cure all of the problems that she in part has been responsible for.

    https://x.com/wdunlap/status/1825214534581449146 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f37326505ce3d582a44cc7f860c3bcd0fa3dc18ef1ee0e2deb34d80592320fe7.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca5de18ac1fd8e37e99d5ad1a95f39779472c01ad98bef2aef83f952ec4f2b7e.png

    Of course, the MSM is batting for Harris…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df7ab22a8dd8aa13199edab3188447abf29f2d94c9c363dbd55cda3335bd97aa.png

    …they've been rumbled.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0ce017a1c7291a20ce1f932229d16bfaf6462271577b1749f1f15eb2c2824b5.png

    And then, there's the gender nonsense to consider:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c93d672530f8e4834f3ee7fc944b51d2caf4117b9b84f548351946685130cc47.png

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    It had to happen, rain overnight and still coming.
    More,daylight robbery plans from the new chance hellor high water.
    All taxes set to rise in the autumn.
    Of course it will only effect those who work, own their own property, or have savings from working. But not the usual live in do nothing scroungers.
    Or the political classes they'll just claim more expenses.

    1. 20% mandate.

      Someone pulled me up a few months ago about the definition of fascism. I had always imagined it to be derived from the French word 'fâché' meaning angry, since all fascists I heard speak seemed to be angry. However, it actually comes from the Italian symbol for a bundle of sticks and used to symbolise punishment for punishment's sake. There is this school "spare the rod and spoil the child" that argues that achievement can only achieved with constant beating, and that kindness only makes one soft.

      It may not be trending to refer to a party purporting to be of the Left as fascists, but consider what Starmer actually meant when he campaigned for "CHANGE". It seems that the chosen bogeys (notably the thrifty, the elderly, men, heterosexuals and indigenous folk) are marked for punishment, and that party favourites are to reap the rewards. Anyone with a genuine social conscience are being lobotomised by Starmer, so they are, all of them, no more than bots, cloned and programmed in the image of Alan Milburn.

      Remember Hitler got a bigger mandate than Starmer when he burnt down the Reichstag. Not that Starmer is a Hitler – he lacks the passion, and is merely a machine.

      Will anyone listen?

      1. Jeremy, I beg to disagree. The story of fasces dates back to a Roman anecdote, in which a father tried to show his children that there is strength in unity; one twig is easy to break, but a bundle is much stronger and more resistant.

        1. Like Chinese whispers, I am sure the story was “upgraded” to fit certain ideologies.

        2. Pre-Roman, actually. In Roman times, the idea of strength in unity became a symbol of royal, then magisterial power.

  22. 'Morning All
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02956ead2be2e1f993e26d7899b3e7d313baa073be95e32a0d292dcd5fd860cc.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3234e6437bd47fce1561e652728e54eb14f65133aa2f667292027272ae5649ad.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2582f12be9d10e33fcbbcf81c2c67caa4669708601ba8d8d507e9c322ed9456c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/763f7df2cf675790477d9eaa006d236090c7a657934874f32d04cad67035d476.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddd6d8bed0312b4bb335e08a90f586c49f3296cfcae7d10787b708387080f54b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/440702457fe299da35ba1e9fe76ad2b91df8ec375bf42bd721d6a98afcd0eac7.gif
    Satanic
    https://x.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/status/1826207852307927458

    2. Good morning Rik, and everyone.
      Not all jokes work.
      As usual I have upvoted your daily pickings but I am unenthusiastic about the first two, regarding slavery and repatriation. The majority of the circa 4 million enslaved adults alive during the American Civil War had been born and raised within the USA; afterwards they had neither the resources to travel to African countries, nor knowledge of where they might go, apart from Liberia. A comparable situation occurred with hundreds of thousands of Displaced Persons in Europe after World War II, and later with the gradual but inevitable collapse of the USSR after the death of Stalin.
      The 'Free African Cruise' is distasteful, and essentially derived from a cartoon drawn by H M Bateman, pre-1939.

      1. Humour is often distasteful if viewed seriously. My issue with the free African cruise is that it's factually inaccurate. Modern day Ghana and Nigeria aren't mud hut societies. Also why would you repatriate Americans? They're not illegal migrants, they and their ancestors earned the right to live there by sweat and toil. I understand why Americans are getting frustrated about demands from white people for compensation for crimes that weren't committed by their ancestors to be given to people who have never been slaves. But hating fellow Americans is not the answer, obviously.
        Some slaves did go back home, Liberia and Haiti are two countries founded by ex slaves iirc. But clearly some chose to stay because of the economic benefits of living in the US. In an honest discussion, this would be admitted.

    4. Spare a thought for Ed Balls – however monstrous he is does he really deserve to wake up each morning beside this woman?

      1. To be honest, if she could drop that "I'm SUCH a much nicer person than you" sneer she has, she might actually be half-way towards presentable.
        Unfortunately, she's used that sneer so often that the wind changed!

    1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d86f7e1897edc6ee3203b829f667a5b07067a1d5ab4a10a6b272e8f5f27b115b.png
      When my friends Nick – a young recently qualified doctor, Jeremy – a former pupil – and I sailed to the Caribbean in Raua in 1984/85 we saw this magnificent yacht Jessica (which has been renamed Adix) on several occasions as we sailed around the Windward and Leeward Islands. We finally saw her when she was moored just ahead of us alongside the quay in Horta in the Azores when we were on our way home to Cornwall.

      She was a three-masted gaff-rigged schooner with topsails and she was rather longer than Bayesian but with smaller width and depth: Length 64.86m / 212'10 Beam 8.66m / 28'5 Gross Tonnage 370 GT Draft 4.82m / 15'1

      1. Jessica My kinda yacht, Richard; if only!

        A pity she renamed Adix (sounds like an abdominal complaint)

        For some strange reason, my pics of Creole disappeared; I seem t have recaptured them but without editing facility – alas, no Italics!

    2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d86f7e1897edc6ee3203b829f667a5b07067a1d5ab4a10a6b272e8f5f27b115b.png
      When my friends Nick – a young recently qualified doctor, Jeremy – a former pupil – and I sailed to the Caribbean in Raua in 1984/85 we saw this magnificent yacht Jessica (which has been renamed Adix) on several occasions as we sailed around the Windward and Leeward Islands. We finally saw her when she was moored alongside the quay in Horta just ahead of us in the Azores when we were on our way home to Cornwall.

      She was a three-masted gaff-rigged schooner with topsails and she was rather longer than Bayesian but with smaller width and depth: Length 64.86m / 212'10 Beam 8.66m / 28'5 Gross Tonnage 370 GT Draft 4.82m / 15'1

  27. Absolute power.. Corrupts absolutely.

    Sky TV crime correspondent Martin Brunt.. wants you to know something.. Starmer wants this out there.

    "They're being told.. If they do end up in prison, somebody who is labelled a faaaaaaaarright protester ending up in jail can expect a pretty cold reception from Asian gangs inside prison who will be looking out for them."
    .
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f84308f908c20e9b6fd305975817ac943b098cfd6bf42702cca7241177fa2815.png

        1. Depends how you define 'cold'.

          I predict there will be a great rise in the level of prisoner "suicides".

          Fear or terror – that's what the government depends on. In fact the politicians are the terrorists:

          Fear of Covid to keep you prisoner in your own home and receive bogus life-threatening injections; fear of climate change to keep you shivering with cold and with unaffordable power bills; and now extinction of free speech and the terror of being imprisoned with people who loathe your culture, loathe your religious beliefs and who feel their God supports them in their desire to kill you.

    2. As for Martin Brunt's so-called 'Asian gangs', would that include Buddhists, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Sikhs and Hindus? Those religions all have followers across the countries that comprise Asia.
      Curiously, there are not that many from those groups who happen to be guests of His Majesty.
      Whoops, there's also one dark cult whose moniker I dare not mention.

  28. Round 2
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/289a9f7e5177409b523569ef63560d7da64c08b8056305a6afa7bc69bc07b340.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/440702457fe299da35ba1e9fe76ad2b91df8ec375bf42bd721d6a98afcd0eac7.gif
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d31591ecd7a341bc6b079ec5a6275aa911fec71a83dc6cc4cb127abc0338e767.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d31c40e4b8ca76a74acc8fc80b79f9dc3e1d99cc6092d38b1b71fba2d73c9693.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63766ceb03cc93ab9990bae5cad12eb860e788dd730131542d70d22cb352b007.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a90e48888faaa08a4af21060dc4b852410e99b76498176ab5b513a95aba84ac4.jpg

    1. the last picture; Oh believe me, Gen Z conservative girls have been onto that one for some time now!

  29. 392153+ up ticks,

    Killed in the womb,

    breitbart,

    Law to protect freedom of speech at British universities after years of concerns about students being attacked for holding unorthodox opinions has been killed by the new left-wing Labour government, just days before it was due to come into force.

    The odious political overseers are covering ALL bases.

    1. Deeply worrying and this shows that even before the beastly murder of the three little girls the government had embarked on the suppression of free speech the moment it came to power.

      The government is an abomination.

      1. And don’t forget another 10 or so other children and their teachers also in hospital

  30. "AN ALLEGED “snail farm” is embroiled in a tax avoidance row amid claims it could be using the creatures to save money on business rates.

    Around 15 crates with as few as two snails each have been seen in a building in Liverpool. Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd, the company behind the venture, says it is a legitimate snail farming operation. Under current law, this could qualify as agricultural use and the building could arguably be exempt from business rates.”
    Looks like they'll have to slug it out in court………following the trail of evidence no doubt,checking if it is a shell company
    (i'll get me coat)

        1. True.

          Slugs are an abomination and carry all sorts of nasties unpleasant at best lethal at worst.

      2. In Sweden: slug = snigel; snail = snigel med huset (slug with house).

        [pron: "snee-gel" (hard 'g' sound).]

    4. Snail farming is an interesting occupation, but I reckon that there are two requirements that could be tricky: a warm climate and a plentiful supply of clean water. Snails grow faster and eat more when the weather is warm.

  31. Personally speaking, I don't mind some refugees, proportionate to our island size and proportionate to our resources. Yet that is not what we are seeing. Millions have arrived in the last decade with many expecting welfare. And yet our uni-party continues to cram in over half a million a year, sometimes even a million. Our streets are becoming more and more unsafe (many of the countries from which the immigrants hail will not even be able to provide document checks, not that our activist Border Farce will even bother to check anyway) and yet politicians bleat on about hurty words on the internet, as if that is more important. Which is really just a cover for them being unable to stomach criticism for their emotionally incontinent, ideology-driven, reality-free and downright dangerous immigration policies. And their solution? To release violent criminals to make room for those who protest and criticise them. How can this be right?

      2. They aren't genuine asylum seekers, either – they have passed through lots of safe countries where they could have claimed asylum.

    2. "Our streets are becoming more and more unsafe…many of the countries from which the immigrants hail will not even be able to provide document checks…"

      In a country in which 'H&S has gorn mad' and just about every human activity is regulated to the point of suffocation, the dangers of a laissez-faire attitude to immigration are hardly remarked upon by much of the commentariat.

      2. Agreed, and our govt is more obsessed with safety on the internet than you know, actual safety, in a real sense.

    3. "Some refugees" proportionate to our size and resources = O, and an encouragement towards minus.

    1. What is the excess of men to women in Britain right now? How long has the ongoing Channel invasion been going? About five years isn't it?
      Britain is one of the most dangerous places in the world, it only needs a spark to set it on fire, such as cross Channel food deliveries being disrupted. Let's hope the strikes don't spread to port workers, eh?

      2. With govt plans to include farmland as suitable sites for "cheap" renewables the food situation will only get worse.

        1. yes. I only discovered recently about the scheme for indulgences for property developers. When they develop land for housing, they are forced to buy land somewhere else and re-wild it.
          I now think HS2 is part of it as well. HS2 has these ludicrous “wildlife areas” which are about an acre iirc that has been re-wilded (at a cost of 120 000 pounds per wildlife area), and that’s every few hundred metres along the length of the whole track. It’s not just waste of money, it’s a substantial amount of land in total taken out of food production for the forseeable future.
          I try to wake people up, but they just bleat about climate change and the need to make donations to charities – as though Britain isn’t living on debt!

          1. You can’t fix stupid, BB2. Maybe it will hit them eventually, when the shelves are empty – but then again, maybe it won’t.

      1. Not quite because Vietnam (Buddhist), but what have they got to do with us? I understand the others because we have had involvement in their countries.

          1. Wasn't carping Pip, Just curious, why Vietnamese amongst all those Muslims? Just struck me as odd.

          3. When they were still using lorries before the boats got going………. a big haul of Vietnamese were left in a refrigerated truck to die.

          1. Don' think that's the answer. Vietnamese refugees going to the USA is a well travelled route. Looking it up there are 2.3 million of them.

          2. Perhaps we’re easier to get to? Or just “nicer” (or this country used to be, not so sure now).

    3. I'm very suspicious about only a fifth being between 25 and 39 category, that's only 17 out of 100 arrivals.
      Unless far more are in the 18-25 range.

      Looking at what's pouring off these small boats I would put the total of males under 40 at far higher.

      1. 392153+ up ticks,

        Afternoon S,
        I do agree, also there is an odious reason/ pattern behind the arrivals and ” invasion” is a very apt tag.

    1. the scary thing is.. this is reality..
      An activist actually would report 'the crime'.
      the stall holder actually would be arrested.
      The police actually would send in.. at minimum six Lesbo Nanas.

      "That's the way to do it!"..

          1. It will. The woke are going to catch on that 'Morris' is a corruption of Moorish, as in Arabs, and are going to be so outraged they will demand that this caricature of Moorish culture be eradicated, stamped out, obliterated from the earth, and that all who practice it be jailed for their racist behaviour.

          2. Alleged to be a corruption of Moorish.
            It could also be a corruption of the Latin "Mores Est", "as is their tradition".

          3. Wikipedia declares: "The term "Morris" comes from a Flemish form of "Moorish",[citation needed] although Morris dancing has no known historical connection to the Moors."

            However, Idris Shah in his book: "The Sufi's" has a discussion about Morris dancing, explains its history etc in a rather convincing way. Apart from the etymology he explains the type of dance it derives from in Arabic culture. You have probably seen it when Arabs do a dance in which they cross swords. Seems to be common at weddings and other celebrations. Somewhere on You Tube you can see the Saudi's doing it in front of the king during the visit of some luminary.

          6. Whenever i see them i think 'that's a bit weird'. But i accept that part of our culture is its eccentricity. It makes us who we are. Even the weird bits.

            I was at the Arlesford watercress festival. It was very hot and i retired to the shady pub garden. The Morris had done their stint and then they all piled in. Very jolly it was too.

          8. No, Oberst, since Bath University was not founded until 1966, BUMS had already been taken by Bristol University Medical School, until they noticed and re-ordered the acronym to University of Bristol Medical School, UBMS

          9. Actually Caroline tells me that it was called The Bath University Folk Dance Club but BUFDC is not a very good acronym.

            A rather naughty Jewish friend of mine asked me this riddle:

            Q. What's the difference between a Morris Dancer and a Jew?
            A. A Morris Dancer is a complete prick!

          12. As Sir Thomas Beecham said – 'You should try everything once; except incest and Morris Dancing'

          13. For some reason I tried to translate that into Spanish in conversation last week.

            Never again! 🤣🤣

          20. Yes, but do you push salted ones along the road with your nose, that is the question ;o))

    2. Won't belong before those who wish to stay in business will redress P&J in Islamic robes….

      Good morning Michael and all….

    1. The "British" population as a whole has changed a great deal in the last 40 years or so. Both demographically and mentally. And morally.

      1. Would never enter my head. Whenever I have had difficulty with self checkout I have always asked for help. But then like most of the older people here I belong to the old/true England which was a high trust society where thieving just because you could was a behaviour beyond the pale.

        1. I wouldn't do it either; but I don't use self-checkouts on principle.
          However, I can understand the pilfering; supermarkets try to get away with as little service as possible, under the guise of keeping down prices.
          Governments have colluded by making employing staff such a financial and legal nightmare.

          1. I'll use them if I only nip in for one or two things – but invariably I have to wait for someone to come and help me use the darn thing. It would never occur to me to leave without paying.

          3. Reading the article, I can't help wondering whether some people are stealing on purpose with the idea of making the unpopular system unusable.
            If all the supermarkets stick together and impose it, they will be able to enforce it with facial recognition systems.
            At that point, the way is open for banning individuals from entering the supermarket, and we are then on very dangerous territory.
            Someone was quoted in the article as saying they went to Lidl because there were no manned checkouts at Asda – let's hope that's the way it will develop.

          4. They’ve fairly recently installed automatic gates at our small branch of Morrisons – and the security guy who had a desk and a screen just inside the door has gone. There are security cameras overhead watching for shoplifters. When I was chatting the other day to Paul who works there he said the cameras are everywhere now and they do use facial recognition, which is why they’ve abandoned the security desk.

          6. I haven’t seen any of those, there is a girl who wears a hijab who works at the post office, but she’s ok.

    2. This made me laugh.

      Grumpy of Halifax.
      Yorkshire, United Kingdom1 hour ago

      They'll be expecting us to empty delivery vehicles and fill shelves next. I do so much work for Tesco I'm expecting an invite to the staff Xmas party.

    3. They are trying to justify facial scans and scanning a QR code to be allowed in and out of a supermarket (to prevent theft of course).

      1. We have a 24/7 minimart in the village that is totally unstaffed except for the van that replaces what gets bought. It uses exactly that: scans, QR and the “bars” don’t release the item until it’s been paid for. You can’t enter or leave until you’ve used your code from your phone.

        1. Individuals can be banned from entering then, in theory. Also, it can be controlled how much people buy. This is frightening territory.
          Do you have the chance to buy much direct from farmers?

          1. I suspect so. Yes
            Yes direct, also from village/town markets within a shortish distance seven days a week.

          1. I’ve looked in and the produce is very good, but I’ve not used it, for that very reason.

    4. I don't use the self checkouts. It's a bit rich of the supermarkets be surprised at this. They lay out their goods with deliberately misleading pricing.

    1. The whole position of the Left & Labour is "logically contradictory". Wherever you look it's "The Denial of Reality". It's..
      Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

      Economic growth in tension with Environmentalism & Net Zero? Extraordinary targets of fossil free electricity is like the second coming of Christ. DS.

    2. The WEF has picked Britain to be the torch bearer for economic self-destruction. It is not only Net Zero and the absurd pay rises for public sector workers but it is also the mass illegal immigration where the law-breaking intruders are given lavish accommodation, full board and pocket money with virtually no prospect of ever being expelled from the country.

      1. Sri Lanka was the dry run.

        All farming converted to organic.
        Food & oil shortages.
        Peaceful, civilised protests on the street.
        Goverment "solution" imposed (petrol rationing).

        So predictable…

      2. 392153+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,

        Via the polling stations and the
        imbeciles nose cutting off voting pattern, they gave their consent, short term benefits maybe, but long term suffering for ALL to be sure.

  37. Extraditing Mike Lynch to the 'justice' of an American court was a betrayal by the British government of a British citizen; Mike Lynch had already been proved completely innocent in a UK court.

    David Davis is committed to doing all he can to overturn the UK's craven acceptance of the US dictated extradition treaty in which the UK extradites its people to the US but the US does not reciprocate. (The case is cited of the American woman who killed a young man by driving on the wrong side of the road in the UK and the US have refused to extradite her.)

    This account by Jacob Rees Mogg (From 9 m 25 s – 20 m 10 secs) is very good, very clear and well worth listening to.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=GB+New+JAcob+Rees+Mogg+21st+August+2024&oq=GB+New+JAcob+Rees+Mogg+21st+August+2024&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIKCAEQABiABBiiBDIKCAIQABiABBiiBDIKCAMQABiABBiiBNIBCTMwNzkwajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:51de1181,vid:Uij_xuojhag,st:0

    When you hear that Prince Andrew's lawyers strongly advised him not to appear before a US court you will understand why.

    (I bear no torch for Prince Andrew but the hue and cry when he has not been proved guilty of anything is worrying.)

    As many of us here will remember Mark Steyn has been very badly treated by the American injustice system.

          2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

            Keep fun out of funerals
            Comments Share
            There are two untraditional ways to take your leave of this world in Britain. The bleaker is the ‘direct cremation’ method whereby, with no prayers and no mourners, a funeral director will take your remains from mortuary to crematorium to be burnt without troubling your friends and relations. The other is the ‘celebration’.

            According to Co-op Funeralcare in its new report, called ‘Go Your Own Way’, no fewer than 68 per cent of people it polled regard funerals as a celebration of life, up from 58 per cent five years ago. Out go prayers, black funeral dress and solemnity; in come Doctor Who themes, glittery coffins and guests dressed in football shirts. Or as the report puts it: ‘Personalisation is key.’

            The venues are quirky too. Fifty-seven per cent of funeral directors have been asked for non-church services and nearly half have been asked for non-traditional settings, from a betting shop to a cricket pavilion to Hampton Court Palace. I attended drinks after a cricket-themed funeral recently; lots of the attendees were in their club kit.

            It’s a bit like weddings. As soon as you let people out of churches and register offices, you end up with nuptials in hot air balloons and on beaches. Funerals have gone the same way: they’re increasingly upbeat (and expensive) events to reflect your personality.

            To mark the new trend, Co-op Funeralcare joined with Channel 4 for a three-part digital mini-series called Celebrity Send-off to give ‘a well-known famous face…the chance to watch their own funeral. From UFO-themed funeral flowers to outdoor services, each week one half of the celebrity pairing will be tasked with arranging a funeral fit for their loved one.’

            Most popular
            Freddy Gray
            Can Kamala Harris bluff her way to the White House?

            The point is the difference between the wishes of the organiser and those of the person whose funeral is being planned: one thinks he or she has the perfect obsequies only for the other to point out that actually, he/she wants to be buried in Nigeria/have a church funeral/absolutely no doves. It’s like the old series, Mr & Mrs, only with coffins.

            Going your own way can be tricky for clergy when families want a church service with the celebration. One priest friend observes: ‘I know many priests reacted with horror to the funeral of [Pogues frontman] Shane MacGowan, with its “anything goes” atmosphere.’ That funeral was distinguished by ‘Fairytale of New York’ being played in an Irish church with the congregation literally dancing in the aisles. ‘We dreaded families asking for the same thing,’ he says. ‘Having said which, bereavement is a time when people may be fragile and need sympathy and sensitivity. Get it wrong and all the family will remember is that you refused their wishes and it may evoke great anger.’

            His compromise is to leave the personal stuff for the graveyard or crematorium. Trouble is, people have got it into their heads that they can have a funeral whatever way they want. One priest recalls a man who declared: ‘It’s my funeral and I’m paying for it.’

            The obvious problem with the celebration idea is that funerals are sad affairs. Most of us do not go to the funeral of someone we love in a celebratory mood. Fundamentally, the cultural divide between celebration and funeral service reflects a difference of understanding on what the event is about. This understanding varies according to denomination, but the most extreme difference from a secular celebration of a life is a Catholic funeral mass, where part of the point is to ask God to forgive the sins of the dead. Although some families bridle at this, one priest tells me: ‘Sometimes, however, the deceased may have been notorious and the official prayers come as a relief.’

            Fr Shaun Middleton, a Chelsea parish priest, agrees. ‘Of course you say that you remember the good things about the deceased,’ he says, ‘but we ask God to forgive that person for whatever there was in his life that needs forgiveness.’ More than that, he says, ‘at a funeral mass we’re not afraid of the meaning of death. In secular funerals, you can’t face the thought of it’.

            The irony is that it’s actually the godless ceremony that tends to avoid the reality of the extinction of our mortal life, and it’s the Christian one that faces the bleakness of ‘dust to dust, ashes to ashes’. Yet the usual charge is that Christians go in for God–bothering to avoid confronting our mortality.

            The late Auberon Waugh was in no doubt about where he stood on the celebration front. ‘For myself,’ he wrote, ‘if anyone attending my funeral is not dressed in black, I shall haunt him through all his waking nights, dressed in South Sea Island shirt and Bermuda shorts and howling like a banshee.’ So much for going your own way.

          4. I intend to have a traditional funeral mass followed by burial. I've written my order of service.

  39. Good morning, all.

    As I am recovering from a rather nasty bug, this morning I rather lazily was scrolling through my telephone in bed and found this wonderful composite picture of the sun in today's Daily Telegraph.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04d38bf2dd244dcc04f5dc8cd8672082e4336564eb17b2e6f295db00b0f40d18.jpg
    Please click on it and blow it up, it is quite remarkable.

    As is often the case, the article itself was not that interesting but the below the line comments were considerably more so, as they made the connection with the influence of the sun on climate.

    One of the commentators gave a link to this film from last year. Being in a lazy mood, I clicked on it thinking that it might be something to occupy five minutes or so.

    Fellow Nottlers, I was hooked for an hour and twenty minutes.

    https://youtu.be/zmfRG8-RHEI?si=dNooGy7KCLBO-OUY

    1. It has been proven that 92.34% of everything the government tells us is a lie!

    2. What you need is Nifuroxazide – available on prescription! A miracle treatment for infectious gastro.

    3. The Sun – Some Facts

      Caroline, I too watched that film and was hooked. It confirmed my beliefs as a retired Scientist.

      In 1952 as a school prize for Music, I received a copy of The Universe, a book about Astronomy by J. Robinson. The facts inside amazed me and I soon joined the Bristol Astronomical Society. These days I have a fairly decent telescope but increasing light pollution in the city near where I live means that I can use it only a few really dark, clear nights a year, in the middle of winter.

      Here are a few Gee Whiz! facts about the Sun, to show how insignificant we are:

      The Sun’s mass is decreasing at the rate of 250 million tons a minute, so with every tick of the clock, over 4 million tons of Old Sol dissolve and depart as light and heat. And it has been doing this for a few billion years.

      In the summer, our part of the Earth receives around 1 kilowatt of energy per square metre of surface. But for every kilowatt received by the Earth, 2,000 million go off elsewhere (into space and to the other planets).

      The gravitational attraction that holds the Earth in orbit around the Sun is equivalent to a steel rod nearly 5,000 miles in diameter – high tensile steel with a breaking stress of 50 tons per square inch.

      The Sun is about 330 thousand times heavier that the Earth.

      Enough – we are an insignificant dot in space compared to the Sun.

      1. Which is exactly the sort of thing my father, a geologist, used to say to his three daughters (and we are all three climate sceptics!). Earth is an insignificant dot in space. The existence of humans on this insignificant dot is even more insignificant – less than a single grain of sand in the whole universe. The whole climate change narrative is sheer hubris.

    4. Have you only just seen that, Caroline? I was posted here as soon as it was released.

  40. Nice start to the day

    Wordle 1,160 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
    🟨⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Nice one for what I thought was a tough word! Bogey here….

      Wordle 1,160 5/6

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

  43. Home working is fine. I've done it for many years. I find an office difficult to concentrate in as there's always inane, pointless noise, yelping, moving about. If i need to concentrate I can't. OK, part of this is my being a bit autistic but hey ho. The problem with the civil service – and public sector generally – is that most of what it does doesn't need to be done, so no matter where it works, it's unproductive.

    The real terror announced today is the rise in employer NI. That, combined with the hike in the min wage hammers small businesses and those workers who, frankly, are not worth paying any more money (this isn't the people ebing worth the money, it is the job they are doing.

    It will destroy jobs, create unemployment and wreck just surviving businesses.

    Labour are fools. Instead of all these tax hikes and unions bungs, why didn't they just cut taxes? It is the universal panacea to a failing economy. Everyone immediately has more money.

    1. Good points, wibbling – I recognise many of them (esp working alone/autism, being more productive than surrounded by others). I worked from home for a long time, both productive and enjoyable. But many others seem to feed off/need others around them. I've never understood it. Just as I don't understand the breaking of small businesses. Farage had a file of small businesses with details of them being debanked, didn't hear more of that, but if true they'd be unable to withstand that. Not sure what progress CBDC is making, but that will be another problem, for many if not all of us.

      1. I, too, worked from home from 1975 until 2009. Wouldn't be able to do that (as a solicitor) nowadays.

          1. Absolutely NOT. So much has changed since I packed it in. Seems a nightmare, these days.

          2. Good man. I have no idea now how I found the time to work, let alone the 50-60 hours I often managed (a huge downside to wfh).

      2. Part of the plan is to destroy independent businesses. That leaves the corporations in control of everything.

        1. Yes I believe so. Currently in builders yard, plenty crack…they won’t go down without a fight…🤯👍

  44. Right, that's be logging off and heading for Northern climes.
    Dr. Daughter's tonight, Falstone tomorrow & Saturday, Wooler Sunday & Monday and back to Dr. Daughter's Tuesday.
    Back home Wednesday or Thursday.

    TTFN.

  45. Sainsbury's delivery this morning.

    The email with the receipt showed an item as unavailable. I had ticked the box allowing substitutions.
    500 gram block of butter.

    I responded through their feedback rather sarcastically and asked if the cows had gone on strike.
    I can't believe Sainsbury's has no butter. And…rather cryptically said 'what am i going to do with me parsnips now?'

    I'm not expecting a response.

    2. The King's Breakfast by A A Milne:

      The King's Breakfast
      The King asked
      The Queen, and
      The Queen asked
      The Dairymaid:
      "Could we have some butter for
      The Royal slice of bread?"
      The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
      The Dairymaid
      Said, "Certainly,
      I'll go and tell the cow
      Now
      Before she goes to bed."

      The Dairymaid
      She curtsied,
      And went and told
      The Alderney:
      "Don't forget the butter for
      The Royal slice of bread."
      The Alderney
      Said sleepily:
      "You'd better tell
      His Majesty
      That many people nowadays
      Like marmalade
      Instead."

      The Dairymaid
      Said, "Fancy!"
      And went to
      Her Majesty.
      She curtsied to the Queen, and
      She turned a little red:
      "Excuse me,
      Your Majesty,
      For taking of
      The liberty,
      But marmalade is tasty, if
      It's very
      Thickly
      Spread."

      The Queen said
      "Oh!:
      And went to
      His Majesty:
      "Talking of the butter for
      The royal slice of bread,
      Many people
      Think that
      Marmalade
      Is nicer.
      Would you like to try a little
      Marmalade
      Instead?"

      The King said,
      "Bother!"
      And then he said,
      "Oh, deary me!"
      The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
      And went back to bed.
      "Nobody,"
      He whimpered,
      "Could call me
      A fussy man;
      I only want
      A little bit
      Of butter for
      My bread!"

      The Queen said,
      "There, there!"
      And went to
      The Dairymaid.
      The Dairymaid
      Said, "There, there!"
      And went to the shed.
      The cow said,
      "There, there!
      I didn't really
      Mean it;
      Here's milk for his porringer,
      And butter for his bread."

      The Queen took
      The butter
      And brought it to
      His Majesty;
      The King said,
      "Butter, eh?"
      And bounced out of bed.
      "Nobody," he said,
      As he kissed her
      Tenderly,
      "Nobody," he said,
      As he slid down the banisters,
      "Nobody,
      My darling,
      Could call me
      A fussy man –
      BUT
      I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

    3. All Sainsbury's customers have an orifice specifically designed for stashing parsnips.

    4. Be careful, Phizzee…they can stop delivering to you, husband had an argument with driver once (he'd been told to return milk as fridge incorrect temp, and threw full milk containers down in temper onto salads, all squashed. Naturally, we were refused delivery, no matter the explanation. Managers are on three month rota, or so one told me – main thing is for nil negativity on their watch otherwise recorded on their sheet.

      1. Plenty of others to choose from. Besides, I have previously spoken to the manager at that store. Seems a reasonable chap.

      1. After speaking on different occasions with the delivery guys they have said that the pickers were lazy and sometimes gave weird substitutions for a laugh. I ordered a bag of sugar and got a watermelon once.
        Any butter would have done. Except President. French muck !

      1. Ouch

        whiskey. is that Irish/Yankee muck

        Whisky (no e) refers to Scottish, Canadian, or Japanese grain spirits. Whiskey (with an e) refers to grain spirits distilled in Ireland and the United States.

        2. I used to have a pair of pairs for spelling plural tests

          Scottish Whisky pl Whiskies
          Irish Whiskey pl Whiskeys

          Pony pl Ponies
          Donkey pl Donkeys

          1. I have tried a Japanese whisky. It was very good. I did a little research and it turns out they have similar topography to Scotland. They also sent researchers to Scottish distilleries to get the process nailed down.

          3. The trouble is there is such a range of tastes that it’s hard to generalise! When my wife was on exchange in the ISA I tried some excellent “whiskey“; there is at least one Irish that I find undrinkable! I did try a Bavarian malt – awful – but in a blind tasting the winner was from Brittany!! Tricky!

  49. "I wouldn't be surprised if my house got raided again tomorrow. if I got arrested and thrown in prison for a different crime.. Because these people are animals, and their reputation is on the line. I'm more scared now than i've ever been. They've already gone way too far.. and they've no choice but to continue.."

    Controversial influencer Andrew Tate has been remanded in custody overnight as part of an investigation into new allegations against him.

    1. They say he had an "inappropriate interest" in minors. Politically inconvenient therefore. There is no defence against a suggestion of paedophila, nor burden of proof required. It's the law.

    2. I don't actually know any details about Tate so perhaps i shouldn't venture an opinion but i have a sense of his being fitted up by the Blob.

      1. His father worked for the CIA, I believe.
        He gets way too much publicity from the legacy media to be real.

  50. "I wouldn't be surprised if my house got raided again tomorrow. if I got arrested and thrown in prison for a different crime.. Because these people are animals, and their reputation is on the line. I'm more scared now than i've ever been. They've already gone way too far.. and they've no choice but to continue.."

    Controversial influencer Andrew Tate has been remanded in custody overnight as part of an investigation into new allegations against him.

  51. Not bad:
    Wordle 1,160 5/6

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

  52. FSB has good news and bad news, the good news is that all those who worry about fossil fuels can stop fretting, as Iain Hunter explains that oil may not be a fossil fuel after all. The bad news is that the NHS is a total mess, and getting worse, as Xandra H reports in her despatch from the NHS front line.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    PS the Establishment wants a dud economy. It's the only explanation.

    1. Of course it does; the plan is to destroy the economy, go to the IMF and they will say your only hope is to rejoin the EU. Job done and much rejoicing in the corridors of control.

  53. FSB has good news and bad news, the good news is that all those who worry about fossil fuels can stop fretting, as Iain Hunter explains that oil may not be a fossil fuel after all. The bad news is that the NHS is a total mess, and getting worse, as Xandra H reports in her despatch from the NHS front line.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    PS the Establishment wants a dud economy. It's the only explanation.

  56. Two weeks’ worth of rain expected in one day as Hurricane Ernesto brings storms to UK. 22 August 2024.

    Two weeks’ worth of rain could hit parts of the UK overnight as the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto brings stormy weather.

    It comes as Storm Lilian is forecast to bring strong winds and heavy rain to parts of the UK.

    Yellow warnings for rain are in place in parts of Scotland, including Aberdeen and Dumfries, between 9pm on Thursday and 9am Friday, with up to 50mm of rain possible over high ground.

    The UK average for rain in the whole of August is 89mm, according to the Met Office.

    We’re doomed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/22/uk-weather-hurricane-ernesto-storm-lilian/

  57. IF YOU'RE SOFT … OR SQUEAMISH … LOOK AWAY NOW!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6af2cfc2e608bbdfbede83af81dd48779cac4f643446c078794ba2935e61ad8.jpg It's charcuterie day, here in Onslunda. I minced some pig's liver and mixed it with an equal amount of fatty pork mince (25% fat), breadcrumbs soaked in milk, an onion, loads of sage, salt, black pepper and a touch of nutmeg.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d6fe046ac9c3ba69169b76e1cdc3228d5e696355558432109c4fe2f869c6076.jpg I then baked it at 170ºC for 70 minutes to make that good old Lincolnshire speciality, Haslet [that is, correctly pronounced acelet, never "hazlet" as some ingenues think].

    It is from a recipe that won a top charcuterie accreditation, and it tastes bloody lovely.

    3. Looks wonderful, love hazlet but it is hard to find in West Sussex. Tesco has it occasionally but not even the local butcher carries it.

      1. I would but …

        1. It would be inedible by the time it reached you.
        2. Customs would destroy it.

  58. There must be at least half a dozen Nottlers who have an enormous experience of matters nautical, so yes I should shut up about the Bayesian yacht tragedy. However my interest is practical and linked to ordinary everyday health & safety, aka common sense.
    IMHO the key is that there were not enough trained crew, and the weather forecast was ignored. As the squall/tornado approached, it appears that the crew were mustered to close hatches etc. But if the hydraulically operated keel was in a raised position, it would take several minutes to lower and what was the energy source?
    Did the Captain have to start both diesel engines first, or could the keel be lowered by simply using battery power? Why was the keel in a raised position? Did it improve stability when the vessel was at anchor?
    Out on a limb here, but perhaps the anchor rode ought to have been ditched instantly; were there any tools (eg battery powered angle grinders) available and within reach?

    1. Would have thought the keel should be lowerable by gravity – in case of power failure, keel-down would be the safest position, so why no free-fall?

        1. Heavy keel – steel & lead. I'd expect it to fall under self-weight, unless poor maintenance made it jam…

      1. Certainly it is true that all but one of the crew survived and it is hard to see how that could have happened if some had still been in their cabins. Also, the woman and baby who survived were also on deck, apparently sleeping there, while her husband, who survived, was on another part of the deck. The only other passenger who survived was Mike Lynch's wife and it is not clear where she was. It is all very odd.

      2. IMHO these so-called superyachts require a Captain who is either an ex-Naval officer or a qualified Merchant Navy officer, or a foreign equivalent, with experience operating large vessels at sea. The yacht Bayesian was de facto a commercial passenger vessel, with a paid skipper and crew; she was previously available for charter and was being managed by Camper & Nicholson. Managing agents create a complete operating procedure specifically adapted for each client’s boat, covering every detail. This would involve regular inspections of the boat, her equipment and the crew’s qualifications, and continuous communication about compliance when sailing anywhere. It is a lot of logistical work, and expensive, like sending a film crew on location abroad.

    3. I don't understand what "raising or lowering the keel" means [writes a stupid landlubber] Can you explain please?

      1. Yes, sailing yachts all have keels which can be raised in shallow water, harbours for example, and also to reduce friction and increase sailing speed in calm seas while giving stability in stronger winds. In a very small nutshell, they act as adjustable stabilisers depending on the weather.

        1. "Yes, sailing yachts all have keels which can be raised in shallow water …"
          Incorrect! Most dinghies have retractable keels; yachts with retractable keels are a rarity.

          1. Actually, as I typed it I did wonder if I was right, so I stand corrected! I did sail dinghies in my youth and all had retractable keels, but I can see why they would be a rarity on large yachts – where would it be retractable to?!

        2. I see! It's that sharp bit sticking out of the bottom like an upside down airplane rudder. Yes?

      2. Try Wikipedia, otherwise read this landlubber’s bilge.
        A keel is a fin-like protuberance attached securely under the hull (bottom) of a leisure sailing boat, used to improve stability (i.e. prevent capsizing) whenever the vessel is under sail. Small sailing dinghies have a keel known as a centreboard or daggerboard, which can be raised and lowered by hand; then the boat can be taken out of the water easily without damaging said board. Larger sailing craft usually have a fixed keel, often containing lead, which can weigh many tonnes. However, some yachts need to be berthed in relatively shallow harbours or transit through canals; some engineer cunningly designed a keel that could be retracted into the hull by means of an electrically operated hydraulic ram. Technically such boats are dinghies, whatever their displacement/tonnage.
        In summary, there are fixed keels, lifting keels and, for another day, swing keels.

        Here is a small lifting keel in a demonstration video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJsYHFFLUQc

        E&OE!

    4. Saw a headline earlier, tim, seemed to suggest hatches not battened down either incorrectly or not at all.

      1. That would actually make the most sense. Even so, there was a weather warning in place and the radar should have given 15mins warning of the tornado so there was time, especially if all the crew were on deck. As someone mentioned, none of the fishing boats had gone out that night. I hesitate to say "conspiracy", it looks more like too many inexperienced crew members and incompetence to me. There were apparently two female "hostesses " in the crew aged 20 and 22 (they used to be called deckhands, especially on a sailing boat!) and they certainly wouldn't have known what to do and, in fact, shouldn't even have been on the boat. That I think is down to Camper and Nicholson who apparently managed it and principle among the very top charter and yacht management companies.

        1. Sounds like a hot mess start to finish, and exactly somewhere I would never want to be. My father tried to get me swimming by chucking me into a small algae covered part of a res…I never got over it, one of the very few things I still can’t fully tackle, although I did eventually learn as an adult. All my children and grandchildren like fish in water, thank goodness. No way would I ever get on such a boat, and definitely not as a ‘hostess’.

          1. Your father should have been done for child abuse and I’m not surprised you never got over it! We were all taught to swim at a very young age and my younger sister and I both swam competitively in our school team. We were also taught to sail so boats never bothered me but we were never allowed near one without wearing a life-jacket – accidents can happen, swinging booms for example, or getting trapped under the sail if the boat capsizes which happened to me once, not fun! I would never have worked on a boat either but not out of fear. Some owners can be right b*stards and charter clients even worse – they expect the crew to be on call 24/7.

          2. My father a whole other story. I love being near the sea, just not in it or on it. Same with rivers, not interested in reservoirs other than to supply my water. Yes, my children/grandchildren all taught from very young age, too – all swim like fish, some have won medals. BH had a small boat, he’s just sold it, hadn’t been used for some time. Made solely of wood, very heavy. Ah yes, my youngest wanted to go and work on a cruise, says it’s one of the few times I said a downright ‘no’. And no argument.

    5. I don't claim to be an expert but in another life my late husband had a yacht on the Côte d'Azur for many years which was not huge and not under sail, but big enough to warrant employing a full time captain who was in possession of a Master Mariner's ticket. All I can tell you is that there is no way on earth that the captain would have got himself onto a life-raft and survived something like this if any passengers had not, especially my husband.
      I remember one occasion when a storm blew up very quickly indeed – and they do on the Med – so we headed straight for St Tropez which was the nearest port, along with quite a few other boats. It was a pretty hairy ride I can tell you! The port authorities are not allowed to refuse shelter for any boat in a storm unless there really is no space so the port was jam-packed full of boats of all sizes. It took the whole of the next day for the qualified divers, both port employees and crew of whom our captain was one, to untangle all the anchors so that the boats could depart!

  62. Just a minor observation. In Orwell's 1984 there are ministries that do the precise opposite of what they are named to do. Miniluv is the ministry of torture, minitru propaganda. minipax for instigating war.

    We have exactly the same now:

    DEFRA is trying to stop farmers growing food.
    Transport to stop people driving.
    Energy to destroy our energy resources
    Defence… has no interest in defence
    Border force is a taxi service for criminals.
    The Home office is actively set against the citizen
    The foreign office gives our money away and puts us in debt
    The tax office is just state enforced theft with no consideration of the economy

    And on and on.

    We have thoughtcrime – no action, no harm, just the control of who can say what while real crime is completely ignored. We have thoughpol, who act solely to enforce 'rightthink' and we have the state legislating 'wrongthink'.

    1984 was a warning, but the Left use it as a guidebook. When did this carnage start? When we joined the EU. We were warned against the evils of communism. The state preferred to pocket the backhanders.

    1. Excellent analysis, wibbling. I just bought my young grandson both 1984 and Animal Farm. Might answer some questions he currently has.

      1. The warqueen doesn't like me talking about politics (as she prefers to skip to the end result: dismantling the government. Junior read 1984 and was somewhat unhappy as he saw his Dad as Winston Smith – not the hero but the one who'd sell out his principles to avoid pain.

        1. Only dismantling then…where’s that woman’s gun when she needs it (quote from Alison Steadman’s mum). At least Winston got the girl 🙂

  63. "Stop your husband from dying… without him realising."

    My immediate thought was that if he hadn't noticed, he was already dead.
    It was the usual DM 'health" article. Hands up any laydee NOTTLers who would sprinkle fish oil over their other half's cornflakes. And then guess who would die first.

    1. Adding something to someone's food regardless of intention is very wrong. What if the person has an allergy you don't know about and you kill them?

  64. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Is the CCRC fit to decide on Lucy Letby’s appeal?
    Comments Share
    Whatever happened to the likes of the BBC’s Rough Justice and Channel 4’s Trial and Error? Why did human rights organisations such as Liberty and Justice stop campaigning on behalf of UK prisoners wrongfully jailed? Why are there fewer MPs plugging away on behalf of constituents they believe to have been victims of miscarriages of justice? All this activity seemed to be wound down after the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) began its work in 1997. Outsiders were no longer needed to look into the criminal justice system, many believed, now that we had a one-stop shop for prisoners protesting against their convictions for crimes they insist they did not commit.

    Miscarriages of justice where the fault may lie in the misinterpretation of evidence are not to be considered
    It comes as something of a novelty, then, to find the New Yorker suddenly questioning the safety of the convictions of two of Britain’s most high-profile prisoners. In quick succession in recent months, the US magazine has published in-depth inquiries into the case of Lucy Letby, convicted for the murder of seven babies and for attempting to kill a further seven, and that of Jeremy Bamber, convicted in October 1986 for the murders of his adoptive parents, Nevill and June Bamber, his adoptive sister, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila’s six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas. Both articles raised significant questions about the reliability of the evidence at their trials and the justness of their convictions. Letby and Bamber were each given whole-life tariffs and will die in prison unless they are able to overturn their convictions at the Court of Appeal.

    The last time Americans took such an interest in the British justice system was with the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, all of whom, of course, went on to be acquitted. These cases helped to bring widespread awareness that the criminal justice system was convicting innocent people and then failing to provide the necessary mechanisms for them to overturn those convictions. On the day the Birmingham Six were freed, the then government set up a Royal Commission which recommended the establishment of the CCRC. Can we be sure that the New Yorker is not on to something with the Letby and Bamber cases, too?

    Most popular
    Freddy Gray
    Can Kamala Harris bluff her way to the White House?

    An appeal by Letby, who has always claimed to be innocent, has been rejected by the Court of Appeal, despite the fact that no defence experts appeared at her trial to counter the prosecution witnesses. The CCRC is now her only recourse. Bamber, who has been imprisoned for almost 39 years while maintaining his innocence, has also failed in his appeal and has been rejected twice so far by the CCRC – although it is currently reviewing his third application, submitted in March 2021.

    We should not be confident that either will receive a fair hearing. The CCRC is not the solution to the problem of wrongful conviction that it was hoped it would be, and that many still believe it to be. On the contrary, it has failed in many cases, with innocent people languishing in prison for years as a result. The body is claimed to be independent of both the government and the courts, yet that is not really the case. The crux of the problem is section 13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 – the legislation that brought the CCRC to life – which introduces the concept of the ‘real possibility test’. This stipulates that the CCRC can only refer cases back to the appeal courts if it is felt that the conviction has a ‘real possibility’ of not being upheld. Caseworkers are also instructed only to consider evidence that is ‘fresh’ – understood, generally, to be evidence or argument that was not available at the time of the original trial. They cannot, in other words, consider possible miscarriages of justice where the fault may lie in the misinterpretation of existing evidence.

    So CCRC reviews are for the most part mere desktop assessments of whether cases might contain any so-called ‘fresh’ evidence. As a result, it refers very few cases to the Court of Appeal. Between April 1997 and June this year, it referred just 2.6 per cent of the 31,998 applications it received and just 1.8 per cent resulted in a successful appeal. This figure reduces significantly, however, when it is restricted to convictions for serious criminal offences given in the Crown Court, and excludes parking tickets, dangerous dog and immigration cases.

    When innocent victims are wrongly convicted, they and their families will never give up their pursuit of justice
    The UK public’s relaxed confidence in our criminal justice system contrasts to the situation in the US, where the wrongful conviction of innocent victims is a major cause of public concern. There is an ongoing debate about whether the US should set up its own CCRC on a federal level, yet the US is arguably more effective at sniffing out miscarriages of justice already. Public awareness of injustice has been fostered over the past three decades by the exponential growth of the ‘Innocence Project’ movement. This has strengthened a cultural consciousness that will simply not accept the containment or state-sanctioned execution of innocent victims of wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

    Currently, there are 59 US-based organisations affiliated with an umbrella organisation called the Innocence Network. Most of these provide legal representation to people who say that they have been wrongfully convicted. In 2022 alone, there were 253 exonerations in the US, according to the National Registry of Exonerations – a body which, as its name suggests, records cases in which an individual was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all charges.

    It was in recognition of the fact that the CCRC can and does fail innocent applicants that I established a British version – Innocence Network UK (INUK) – in 2004. This spawned more than 30 innocence projects in universities around the UK. In 2011, INUK published a dossier of 44 cases where alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions had been rejected by the CCRC, not because a reasoned analysis of the evidence had rejected the possibility that they might be innocent, but because they were deemed not to fulfil the real possibility test. Although the dossier was reported in the Guardian, it hardly dented the general belief that miscarriages of justice are a thing of the past.

    But timing is crucial, and things look as if they are improving for innocent victims of wrongful convictions. This is partly thanks to the case of Andrew Malkinson, wrongly convicted of rape and given a seven-year prison sentence. In the event, he ended up spending 17 years in jail because he wouldn’t admit guilt for a crime he did not commit. In that time, Malkinson was twice rejected by the CCRC. He was, however, assisted by the organisation Appeal, set up by Emily Bolton, former director of Innocence Project New Orleans in the US, which obtained DNA evidence to prove that Malkinson was innocent. The CCRC could have found that DNA evidence for itself.

    Then there is the recent ITV drama series Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which finally brought deserved public attention to the Post Office scandal which saw more than 900 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses wrongly convicted between 1999 and 2015 due to faulty Horizon accounting software provided by Fujitsu. An ongoing series of articles in the Daily Mail has brought to light the case of Clive Freeman, convicted in May 1989 at the Old Bailey for the murder of Alexander Hardie, who likely died of natural causes. Currently in his 36th year of incarceration – 23 years past tariff, because he, too, will not admit his guilt for a murder that he says he did not commit – Freeman has so far had four applications rejected by the CCRC. The commission is reviewing his fifth application.

    When innocent victims are wrongly convicted, they and their families will never give up their pursuit of justice, no matter how many times the CCRC refuses to refer their cases. This is as true today as it was when the cases of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were rejected by the Court of Appeal.

    Another pertinent example is the case of Robin Garbutt, currently in his 14th year in prison for the murder of his wife, Diana Garbutt. Garbutt’s claim of innocence, which has featured in almost all mainstream media newspapers in Britain this year alone, also hinges on the now discredited Horizon system at the centre – the Garbutts were sub-postmasters, and evidence from their branch’s computers was used to convict Robin. He is finalising a fourth application to the CCRC.

    In the face of mounting criticism, the CCRC’s role in the Malkinson case was recently reviewed by Chris Henley KC. When Henley reported last month, he concluded that Malkinson could have been freed after five years had the CCRC done its job properly. Malkinson did not fit the description of the attacker given by the victim, nor did he bear any sign of the scratch which she said she had given her attacker. Moreover, there was the DNA evidence that pointed to his innocence. The Henley Review might have gone even further if it had not been paid for, and had its terms of reference determined by, the CCRC.

    In spite of its findings, the review is best seen as a partisan defence of the CCRC’s ‘real possibility test’ for judging whether appeals should be allowed. It will do nothing to prevent the tsunami of wrongful conviction cases crashing down on it. This failed body should not be allowed to continue to have a monopoly on the serious business of uncovering miscarriages of justice.

    Watch more on SpectatorTV:

    1. In the case of Bamber it was accepted by all parties at trial that either Jeremy or Sheila had to be the guilty party. In my view there is ample to show it could not have been Sheila, including evidence that her body was dragged into position after supposed suicide.

      1. And in the case of Letby, the whole ward seems to have been dysfunctional – as written up by Dr David Livermore. Morecambe Bay (have heard personal casers) and other hospitals have similar records. Imv the whole system of birth/aftercare needs a Crown investigation, there are too many cases.

  65. We've had a full house here today – everyone home. Good grief they're annoying!!

    That said, I forgot Junior was here on his own and pootled off to site on Monday. I got to the door and realised Mongo was missing from the coterie. Went back in and saw him pawing Lego pieces as Junior pointed at them.

  66. OT – we watched part 1 of the documentary about the unspeakable slammer who owns and runs Saudi Arabia. He started out as no 159 in the pecking order – and was, no doubt, dismissed by the other 158 as an obnoxious little squirt.

    Then, suddenly, he was in the top ten and then, in a trice, The Man. What I wondered was what it must have been like for the "other 158" as realisation suddenly dawned that they now had to grovel (literally) to the obnoxious little squirt. And hope that he never knew that they thought him an obnoxious little squirt…….

    1. If we bump off Labour MPs could we replace them?

      As I think nttl would do a far better job of running the country.

      1. Quite often I feel robots might make a better job of running the country.
        Given all the correct and honest facts and true unadulterated information, they would make better and fairer decisions. And of course would hold no particular biased opinions.
        We would no longer be in danger from our pointless one track small minded politicians.

      2. I am not in favour of violence, but it did occur to me that if someone were to bump off the entire Labour government, I wouldn't shed a tear.

    1. for those that are not aware.. IRONY ALERT..

      Gobby TV presenter Loose Women panellist Saira Khan received death threats from her mostly-peaceful Muzzie community after revealing she is not a practising Muslim anymore.
      Perhaps, Tommy could lend her the stabby vest?

    2. for those that are not aware.. IRONY ALERT..

      Gobby TV presenter Loose Women panellist Saira Khan received death threats from her mostly-peaceful Muzzie community after revealing she is not a practising Muslim anymore.
      Perhaps, Tommy could lend her the stabby vest?

    3. I generally find when Leftards have to tell me they are “a nice person”, they generally really are not

    1. My name is Richard Thomas Medhurst.

      I am an internationally accredited journalist from the United Kingdom.

      On Thursday, as I landed in London Heathrow airport, I was immediately escorted off the plane by 6 police officers who were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft.

      They arrested me—not detained—but arrested me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization” but wouldn’t explain what this meant.

      One officer took my bags, and when I asked why he was still back in the aircraft, I was told “look mate, you can get nicked right here in front of everyone, or in there. Your choice.”

      I was taken to an adjacent room, patted down, my phone confiscated.

      I was not allowed to inform my family.

      Despite being calm and cooperative, I was handcuffed with something that placed my shoulders in an awkward position, and my wrists on top of, rather than next to each other. The handcuffs were extremely tight. Despite the police loosening them, they left marks on me for two days.

      The police took me down onto the runway and put me in a police van; essentially a mobile cage and informed me everything was being recorded.

      The van was cramped. I had to struggle the entire time to keep my balance and try not to fall over as we drove to the police station.

      Once inside the station, they searched me again for the 2nd time in 10 minutes.

      I was told to sit on a bench, remove my shoes; remove my socks. I was told to turn my socks inside out and hold them up for the officers to inspect.

      They also made me hold up my feet for them to check.

      The officers took me to a room with UV lights, which they told me is used to catch burglars sprayed with something—I have no idea why they did this, since they just removed me off a plane.

      My suitcase was then opened in the lobby and ransacked; all my journalistic equipment and devices were seized, including phones, sim cards, wireless microphones, microphones and headphones. Even my shoelaces.

      They later took my DNA, fingerprints, palmprints, and photographed me.

      I was placed in solitary confinement, in a cold cell that smelt like urine. There was barely any light, and the bed—if you can even call it a bed—was a small concrete ledge, with a paper thin mattress.

      The cell had no windows. No heating. No toilet paper.

      I was recorded 24/7, with audio and video— even when going to the toilet.

      I had to eat food with a piece of cardboard, that you’re supposed to fold in two in order to scoop up the meal.

      The police said I have the right to inform someone I’m locked up. So I said, ok I want to call my family. And then they’d go: “well, your calls are withheld because of the nature of the alleged offense”.

      I tried to ask: well what’s the point of a right if you can randomly withdraw it? Why tell me that I have this right at all?

      And one of them said something along the lines of: “well it’s not an absolute right. It can be waived”.

      Similarly, they said I had the right to know why I was being detained. So I asked (again), and the police would say something like: “we’re just the arresting officers, we don’t really know”, or, “this will be explained to you during the interview”, or some other generic response.

      Despite the police officers’ civility and cheerfulness, I felt the whole process was designed to humiliate, intimidate, and dehumanize me; to treat me like a criminal, even though they must have been aware of my background and that I am a journalist.

      I was under surveillance almost the entire time, from the moment I was arrested until I was released, be it in the police van, the station, the cell—all of it. No privacy whatsoever.

      Many of my requests were also delayed or outright ignored.

      When I was detained, I asked for water several times. The police would always say “sure”, but I ended up waiting hours for a tiny cup of water.

      I asked if I could have my own clothes because I was in a t-shirt, it was cold and couldn’t sleep. They said they’d give me a pullover but never did. Although one guard did give me a 2nd blanket.

      See, you have to nag and nag for the most basic things. This is why I was afraid they weren’t even going to call a solicitor for me.
      I was able to see the nurse on one occasion. But on three other occasions when I asked to see the nurse, they’d say “yes”, then nothing.
      For many hours, no one in the world knew what had happened to me or where I was.

      Only the police could call a solicitor for me. I had to ask 4-5 different guards for several hours until I finally received a call.

      Some of my solicitor’s calls did not get through or were not answered. One of the calls, my solicitor was told would be monitored and so they simply refused to take it.

      I asked to speak to them afterwards when that happened but was not allowed to.

      In total, I spent almost 24 hours in detention. At no point, whatsoever, was I allowed to speak to a family member or friend.

      After waiting 15 hours, I was finally interviewed by two detectives. The interview lasted just about an hour, an hour and a half.
      So there was clearly no need to hold me there this entire time.

      But I believe that this was done on purpose to try to rattle me psychologically.

      That failed.

      I categorically and utterly reject all the accusations by the police.

      I am not a terrorist. I have no criminal record.

      Prior to this incident, I’d never been detained in my entire life.

      I’m a product of the diplomatic community and I’m raised to be anti-war.

      Both my parents won Nobel Peace Prizes for their work as United Nations peacekeepers. They had a tremendous effect on my worldview and outlook, and instilled in me the importance of diplomacy, international law and peace.

      I myself, am a victim of terrorism. When I attended the British school in Islamabad, the Egyptian embassy adjacent to my school was blown up in a double bombing.

      I categorically and unequivocally condemn terrorism.

      I am a Medhurst. My family goes back 1000 years in this country. I come from a long line of public servants. My father served in the London Metropolitan Police, before entering the UN. He is an expert and an authority on who taught me much. My grandfather was in the Royal Air Force during WWII, and his father before him in the British Army in WWI.

      I perhaps don’t have the same career paths as them, but I consider my journalism to be a public service and my way of doing my bit for the country, by providing a counterweight to mainstream media.

      I love my country and respect its laws and legal institutions.

      I get the feeling, nevertheless, that those like myself who are speaking up and reporting on the situation in Palestine are being targeted.

      I had booked my ticket to London on the same day. Yet an entire team of police were mobilized to arrest and question me. This is why I felt that it was a pre-planned, coordinated arrest.

      Many people have been detained in Britain because of their connection to journalism. Sometimes under the Terrorism Act, sometimes not.
      I think of Julian Assange, Craig Murray, Kit Klarenberg, David Miranda, Vanessa Beeley.

      However, as far as I’m aware, I’m the only journalist to have been arrested, and held for up to 24 hours under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act.

      Keep in mind the conditions I outlined previously: the psychological element that you’re made to wait endlessly, you’re not told what you’re accused of, nor when you’ll be questioned.

      Despite being released unconditionally, I do not feel that my bail is truly unconditional.

      I am effectively in limbo, not knowing if I will be charged in 3 months, or if I will go to prison.

      Journalism is my livelihood. I have an ethical and moral responsibility toward the general public to inform. But I feel that a muzzle has been placed on me.

      I simply do not know if or how I can work at all during the next months. Palestine—the humanitarian crisis in Gaza— remain the most pressing news story in the world, however, it seems that any statement, no matter how innocent, factual, and well-intentioned, can be skewed and twisted into an offense of the highest order.

      This is precisely the danger and absurdity of the Terrorism Act that I have always sought to impress upon the public, long before I ever became a victim of it myself.

      It is out of control and has no place in a democracy.

      Counter terrorism laws should be used to fight actual terrorism, not journalism.

      We cannot call ourselves a democracy as long as reporters are dragged off of planes and detained and treated like murderers.
      I am disgusted that I am being politically persecuted in my own country.

      As I do not know if I can still report as a journalist for the next months, I kindly ask for your support during these times.
      Freedom of the press, freedom of speech really are under attack. The state is cracking down and escalating, to try and stop people from speaking out against our government’s complicity in genocide.

      Please stand not just with me, but with the others who are still inside. I know what they are going through, and the best relief is to know that people on the outside are rooting for you, and doing everything they can to get you out.

      Thank you.

      Richard Medhurst.

      Useful information in case you are ever (an increasingly likely scenario) arrested. It did cross my mind while i was reading it if he had ever wondered what those Tommy Robinson "interviews" were like.

      1. You know what Dickie.. as much as I loathe your politics and right-on Pallyness.. even though you're a lopsided bias activist.. I still support your right of freedom of expression. Even though your friends will shut it down in a nano second.

        Oh and btw, shame those two knitwits at Manc airport didnt get the same treatment.

      2. The Canadain journalist Eva Bartlett now lives in a dacha near Moscow. She reports as she sees and exposed the White Helmets in Syria but she too has been taken in by the Arabs who style themselves Palestinian. Whatever the rights and wrongs of her reporting, she's had to flee The West.

        1. My husband has viewed some of her videos, I think. He has a very different take on Russia/Ukraine, and has had from the start. I'm with Trump 'Stop the Killing'. Ukraine in particular will take years to recover. Likely some deals done over that. Don't let's mention Boris Johnson.

          1. The whole war is to slake the lustful hubris of Johnson, Biden and Zelensky. It should never have started.

          2. There you go Rastus. And a whole shedload of money made. If Johnson puts in an appearance anywhere, be very suspicious of motives.

          3. Obama charges $400,000 for an hour long speech. Johnson wanted more than that for an interview with Tucker Carlson. Tucker sensibly declined the offer.

          4. Vaguely remember a million, not certain which currency? Johnson, he’s a piece of work 🤨

      4. Unsurprisingly, the Times of Israel has a slightly different angle on this event.

        https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/anti-israel-commentator-richard-medhurst-detained-at-heathrow-airport-under-uks-terrorism-act/

        British political commentator Richard Medhurst, who is known for his anti-Israel activism, says he was detained at London’s Heathrow Airport for 24 hours and interrogated under section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act.

        The law under which Medhurst was detained stipulates that expressing beliefs or carrying out actions that “support a proscribed organization” is a criminal offense.

        Medhurst, who has voiced support for Hamas amid the terror group’s ongoing war with Israel in Gaza, says on Twitter that he believes he is “the first journalist to be arrested under this provision.”

        Six police officers arrested him at the entrance of the aircraft after he disembarked, says Medhurst.

        “I feel that this is a political persecution and hampers my ability to work as a journalist,” he adds.

        Medhurst regularly casts doubt on the connection between Jews and the Land of Israel by means of racist innuendo about Ashkenazi surnames and misleading claims about modern Hebrew.

        He has also spread conspiracy theories regarding Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught, including by insisting that there were no acts of sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists, and asserting that the victims of the massacre were killed by the IDF, not by Hamas.

        His YouTube bio says he was born in Damascus, Syria, and is fluent in English, French, German and Arabic.

        As an independent journalist, he has contributed to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen news site, Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s state-controlled RT television network.

        2. " The law under which Medhurst was detained stipulates that expressing beliefs or carrying out actions that “support a proscribed organization (sic, organisation)” is a criminal offense. "
          No, in the UK it is a criminal offence.

          Of course, when thousands of people march through London in favour of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian population that is not an offence, because … oh dear, I give up.

      5. Minty, only 24 hours?
        Let me put this in simple syllables for Mr Medhurst and other idiots.
        RE-LEASE THE HOST-AGE-S.

      1. You could join us in the 21st century if you wanted to. :@)

        I haven't found a way yet to lift those videos but i thought the horsey and doggie folks would like it.

        1. I wondered if it was greyhounds, hoping not – have had at least three rescues, one a male had to sadly be returned, bit the other dogs I had. It's a vicious 'sport'. Your video a winner 🙂

          2. They’re trained that way, to win. Some stay that way after retiring, and have to be put down. Others revert to quite placid character. Have had many rescues, this was my only failure.

          1. Nah…complete numpty…all I did was click on it…perhaps a setting on your phone/PC? I usually just ask Him Who Must Be Obeyed….

      3. Bill, you just have to press the X to remove the dialogue box then you can watch whatever is linked

  71. Bad joke day. It's just a sign that the forum has moved from an almost solely political position to, if you like, an online common room/coffee bar. I have to admit I skip over a lot of it these days.

    Given that it has its roots in the DT letters comments column, here's a DT letter – the first of the day…

    SIR – "Decolonisation training experts" in Wales (report, August 20) will find nothing to shock them in Gladstone's Library at Hawarden, as they go about the absurd work of persecuting the dead over their links with slavery.

    In 1833, put up to it by his father, the 24-year-old Tory MP William Gladstone spoke in defence of sugar-plantation owners in the West Indies – of which his father was one.

    He soon repented his folly over "this awful and solemn question", seeking forgiveness from William Wilberforce, the great anti-slavery campaigner, later that year.

    In 1839 Gladstone became one of the founders of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa. Later he denounced slavery in the American confederate states as "detestable".

    The "training experts" should train themselves by doing some basic historical research.

    Lord Lexden (Con)
    London SW1

    Gladstone's society completed only half of what it set out to do…

    2. I can't recall a time when the forum wasn't akin to a common room/coffee bar and certainly not a time when discussions were almost solely political.

          1. I think it was going a bit before that. Perhaps we've exhausted comment on current affairs (nothing's changed for the better) and many come on now here to have a bit of a ramble.

            PS Getting on for thirty posts and only two of them about Lord Lexden's letter!

          2. Sigh. I knew this was coming. Sorry to have polluted the very rarefied intellectual discourse that was clearly the norm here before our unwelcome influx. Will no longer darken your doors, then.

          4. Thank you Geoff – and Connors – but sosraboc (who I – clearly stupidly – regarded as a mucker) has just posted something pretty unequivocal. and (contrary to appearances? I don’t know) I am rather a sensitive soul who does NOT either seek or enjoy giving or receiving abuse on the internet. The suggestion that I should “go forth and pollute another group” is not to be easily misconstrued, don’t you think?

          5. Sos can appear difficult. But in real life, he’s one of the best. Far be it from me to blow his cover, and he won’t thank me for saying this, but in eight years of NoTTL, he’s been exceptionally generous to those in need.

          6. It was an observation not a criticism.

            However, if you “knew this was coming” why did you continue to post here?

            I’m not suggesting that this is a rarefied intellectual discourse, but if you really feel that way, go forth and pollute another group.

          7. Ignoring your very hurtful sting-in-the-tail, sos – when I said "I knew this was coming" I meant that you and some others were leading up to it on this thread. It really is not very understandable why you should bear such animosity towards people like me who wish you no harm.

          8. This thread started with an observation with which I disagreed and my comment was not an attack on ex-Spectator people, merely an observation of slight changes I have seen since their arrival.
            Having been around for quite a while I felt I was/am in a reasonable position to make the comparison between then and now.

          11. Yes. It had me in stitches. I get excited when watching the racing, but I've got nothing on that pooch!

          3. I have had the pleasure to meet quite a few Nottler ladies. Cougars…the lot of them !
            It pays to look harmless……………

    3. True, it didn't accomplish "the Civilisation of Africa" but remember we're supposed to pretend that the European colonists destroyed paradise in Sub Saharan Africa. That there was no paradise to destroy is a truth not allowed to be contemplated.

    4. The precursor to this forum, the old Daily Telegraph Letters' Page comments section, ostensibly started out as a forum to discuss letters posted each day. Even back then it soon became a meeting place for those commentators who injected a bit of levity, whimsy, off-topic and common room/coffee bar chit-chat, as well as an open arena for all manner of troll.

      I feel it was ever thus and that it will, no doubt, inevitably remain the case.

      The old DT forum did, though, have a large contingent of extremely erudite and interesting commentators; most of whose entertaining and illuminating posts and comments I still miss.

        1. And me. And Spikey. And Johnny Norfolk. And Anne Allan. And Zaharadelasierra …

          I bet you don’t know the current guise of the last named, still a popular contributor?

          3. You are well-informed.. I should imagine the stress of living in Israel right now is enough to make anyone very ill.

          3. You are much younger than most of us here – but I would suggest that you are beyond the Melancholy Jacques's fourth age: the soldier:

            sudden and quick in quarrel,
            Seeking the bubble reputation

      2. I do comment on some letters if i have something to say.

        I find food the most interesting topic because that was my industry/passion.

        Speaking of which. A recent episode of Masterchef had this Indian chappie on and he cooked a dish his mother cooked for them as children.
        The woman had clearly integrated, which is what we all want with newbies but her recipe for bread and butter pudding was done Indian style.
        The lady had lightly fried the bread in ghee before adding an Indian spiced custard using rose water and saffron and the whole thing was topped with chopped pistachios.

        It's on my to do list.

          1. Watched a bit. I can see where they are coming from. Chav Brits never change. They just get older and become Millwall supporters.

      3. I used to comment on the DT Letters column using the Rastus pseudonym. I was 'recruited' – if that is the right word – by someone who worked out who I was in the parallel universe which lies alongside Nottlerland and said I might enjoy this forum.

        1. Who might that have been?

          Wuffothewonderdog? Orangputeh? Lord Muck? Sguest? Z3ddie? Assymetric? Chezz? DanielFG? Grumpy Old Fool? Ilpugliese? JDavidJ? JohnnyDuke? Magwitch? Mogulfield? Nicol Sinclair? NorfolkandChance? Pete Green? Oldgit13? Ryeatley? Shidders? Thrawn? Toots? Weezertt? Simon Coulter?

          We need to know? 😊

    5. Do some basic historical research? The very idea! They might find out the facts clashed with their intention.

    1. "Lucy Connolly, of Parkfield Avenue, Northampton, was charged earlier this month with publishing material intending to stir up racial hatred."
      They Starmerists can jump and thump all day long, but Britons will never see them Welsh as a different race, so it cannot be classed as racial hatred.

      1. It could be. A case was won under the 1976 Race Relations Act (BBC v. Souster, 2001) on the basis that "…English and Scottish persons are not properly described as ethnic groups for the purposes of a claim under the Race Relations Act 1976, but may bring a claim for race discrimination under that Act on the grounds of national origins."

        The complainant was an English television presenter who claimed that BBC Scotland's rejection of his employment application was racially discriminatory.

        The judgement surprised a few at the time. It may have been correct by the wording of the Act but commentators questioned the idea that nationality be covered by it.

        https://app.croneri.co.uk/law-and-guidance/case-reports/bbc-scotland-v-souster-2001-irlr-150-cs
        https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11961884.undisclosed-settlement-for-rugby-presenter-bbc-pays-out-in-english-race-case/

      2. “Stir up”

        I’ve said it before. We have a rich language with a word for everything and yet we have to use a phrasal verb for this. WhT does it even mean?

    2. Her Honour Judge Rebecca Crane.. instructed by Starmer.

      Anyhow, well done Lucy for not entering a plea.

      the deleted text read..
      'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.'

      "for all I care".. should get her off.

      ahhhhhhhh.. now the big problemo.
      If that makes me racist, so be it.'

      A confession of being a waycist.
      Death by hanging. obv.

      1. What 'race' describes b*stards? None, because there are many million of humans born out of wedlock to all populations.
        As for using the b-word, the occupants tend to arrive without any identity documents, so it is reasonable to doubt that their parents had entered any state of matrimony, let alone Holy. As for "f*** hotels", yes, the great majority of such establishments have been frequently used for that purpose.

    3. Her Honour Judge Rebecca Crane.. instructed by Starmer.

      Anyhow, well done Lucy for not entering a plea.

      the deleted text read..
      'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.'

      "for all I care".. should get her off.

      ahhhhhhhh.. now the big problemo.
      If that makes me racist, so be it.'

      A confession of being a waycist.
      Death by hanging. obv.

    6. If you take the charge at its literal truth, you can ridicule it, however distasteful that might be. Was Southport peaceful at the time she posted? Were there a few bored 'far-right activists' wandering around the town thinking "We should be doing something bad but like what?" and who were inspired to attack a mosque because they suddenly discovered her message? "The mosque, the mosque, I never thought of the mosque!"

      Will I get my collar felt for writing this?

    7. No worries. Hand the rapistover to the Father & his brothers.
      No jail needed after that, just a scrubbing brush & bucket of hot, soapy water.

  74. A beastly Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,160 3/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. May you find relief after seeing my poor effort then

      Wordle 1,160 4/6

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

    2. Par today.

      Wordle 1,160 4/6

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

    3. Well done. Par four here.

      Wordle 1,160 4/6

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

  76. Oh dear another BBC BAME hire gets fired for for terrorist-related misogyny.

    Jermaine Jenas is sacked by the BBC: Ex Premier League footballer who hosts The One Show and is a pundit on Match of the Day is axed from his £190,000 job with immediate effect for 'inappropriate behaviour'.

    Along with..
    Jay Blades, presenter of the Repair Shop, is reportedly set for a quickie divorce as his estranged wife declares there's "no way back." after dishing out a beating.

    Noel Clarke.. 20 women accused him of sexual harassment, groping and bullying between 2004 and 2019 as a lewd video..

    3. "The BBC has clearly articulated Values and a strong Code of Conduct and there has been much progress in recent years.
      I had to read that several times before I could stop laughing!!

      1. Come now! It has a clearly articulated set of values – just not those valued by "normal" people (aka the far right extremists). There has indeed been much progress in recent years to install more and more who subscribe to them.

          2. Eric Gill had many gifts as an artist and calligrapher. His typefaces such as Perpetua and Gill Sans are commonly used to this day. He wrote of his sexual encounters in autobiographical detail.

            I prefer to take account of Gill’s vast artistic output when passing judgement.

          3. Sure. But he was an aggressive paedophile – one that the BBC uses as its figurehead. Just because someone is a goodish artist does not mean that all who follow in his footsteps are entitled to be as morally corrupt (nor does it entitle him to behave so in the first place)

          4. I do not accept that the BBC for all its faults is responsible for promoting Gill. His stone sculptures adorn a number of significant buildings in central London. Along with Jakob Epstein, Eric Gill was a much sought after sculptor at that time.

            Gill as far as I know was never an aggressive paedophile. He was infatuated with a young woman and asked his daughter to pose for him. You might as well label and any number of modern artists as an aggressive paedophiles on that basis.

          5. Yes he was talented (though not all that that talented as an artist), but his paedophilic and bestial adventures do detract from his artistic output. I have had for years a Shakespeare with illustration plates by him. I have mixed feelings about it now. The statue explicitly portrays a man with a naked child – I suppose Gill thought he wouldn’t get away with portraying himself actually raping a child. (Though nowadays he probably would.) It’s pretty mediocre art – I could produce that, as could many others – it should go.

  77. Oh it gets better..

    Last night. three armed officers decked & injured outside Manchester Airport carpark after investigating an abandoned car whereupon three 'Welsh' men decided to attack them.

    Two-Tier Keir orders media blackout.

    1. Andy Burnham demands context..
      Community Elders demand apology..
      Local mosques demand bigger security budget..
      BBC reveals name of hero bureau de change cashier..

    4. I wonder how long it's going to take before the political idiots are going to understand the damage they have done to our country, it's legal system, culture and social structure.

  78. That's me for today. No more rain after mid-morning – but a very strong gale blowing – making it COLD. Ugh. Global boiling, eh?

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. I hope (even worse gales promised…)

  81. Evening all. I'm here early because I've had to stop gardening due to the weather – strong winds and rain. I did manage to cut out some dead wood in the orchard and do some light summer pruning of a pear and a couple of plums before it got too bad. Now I have a roaring fire going in the dog grate (it's August FFS!) trying to get warm. At least I'm burning some of the tree stumps that I dug up to make the new seating area – reuse, recycle 🙂

    Labour has NO idea how to run a successful economy. I was thinking that as I deadheaded the clematis and ripped out the dead bits. Very theraputic doing things like that!

    1. It was quite nice here this afternoon after a windy and drizzly morning. I did some minor jobs outside.

      1. The twins and I, and mad Harry the Cockapoo, picked blackberries this morning at Plean country park! Harry ate a lot of them off the bushes, and we also found crab apples! The kitchen is busy as we have a lot of windfall apples!

    2. No rain here, just very blustery and dull, although the clouds have parted and it seems more settled

      1. The MR's nephew – who obtained one "F" at GCSE – is one of the countries leading computer experts – with a pay grade in (at least) six figures a year…..

        Just shows.

        1. Angela Rayner failed her GCSE's too. She rose to one of the highest offices in the land.

          And is still as thick as mince.

          1. And I bet she's got Around 50 people 'working hard' in her 'back office'.

            I think that sums it all up Phizz.
            I was chatting to a really nice guy at a local pub day a couple of weeks ago. He's a proper constructive carpenter joiner.
            He's now making around 300 quid a day. Around 90 k a year.
            Good luck.

          2. This Government won't put his skills to best use like some of the most wonderful wood working we see from years gone by. They will do their utmost to destroy him in any way they can because they cannot stand beauty and they hate excellence.

          3. Fortunately Phizz, he will be taking on mainly private sector work as he already does.
            He won't get involved in spacing out roof trusses, studwork, chipboard floors and fixing pre hung doors in frames.

          5. And they put my skills to good use as well. I worked on many new housing projects, the British museum, post office tower, festival hall. And many other public and private contracts. And even the stair case and and handrail I fitted at the London golf club.
            Fitted to replace the ladder up to the second level. All because the course designer Jack Nicklaus and his son were arriving to check out progress.
            And happy with the result.

        2. The husband of my first friend at school went to the local secondary modern school. He left with no GCEs. I don't think the CSEs had been brought into being then. He left school at 15, trained as an electrician, then went to work in the electrical sales dept equivalent of John Lewis in Leeds (Schofields, I don't think it exists now). He saw a job advertised with Panasonic with a 6-figure salary, this was back in the late 1970s for which he applied and was successful. Drive and confidence is everything.

          1. Gosh, I remember Schofields in Leeds. It was where Mum and Dad took me if I needed a new winter coat or a frock for something special.

  83. Three beds made up with fresh sheets and I actually ironed them too. Full fridge. Home made cake and jam tarts. My sourdough starter is bubbling away, and I will make a loaf overnight.

    Prodigals are arriving back tomorrow am c. 6:30. I enjoying the peace and quiet.

  84. There is no two tier policing they say.
    The headline from a TalkTV program, “Man Given 20 Months Prison For Shouting At Police Dog!”

    A female officer and two male colleagues were assaulted and injured by a man after they found a vehicle in an unauthorised parking space at the airport at about 7.15am on Wednesday.

    They had been on patrol and were inspecting the vehicle, which was not insured, when confronted by the suspect.

    Officers had to deploy a taser before a man and two women were taken into custody on suspicion of assault. They have all been bailed pending further investigations.

    A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said: “Assaults on officers are unacceptable and we will not hesitate to take action should any criminal offences be found.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/22/police-officers-attacked-manchester-airport-violence/

  85. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Shattering the myth of the ‘glass ceiling’
    Douglas Murray
    What a thrilling number of glass ceilings have been broken this century – with more still to come, apparently. In 2008 America elected its first black president. In 2012 Barack Obama was re-elected and so became the first black president to win re-election. In 2016 America had a chance to elect its first female president but the public blew it and failed to elect Hillary Clinton. Fortunately they somewhat made up for this in 2020 by voting in the first female vice president. A vote that was made sweeter by the fact that, on that occasion, the public had a two-for-one offer and were also able to vote in the first black vice president. Now the public have a further chance to improve themselves by voting for the first black female president.

    Hillary Clinton had a chance to ruminate on this at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, declaring that between herself and Kamala Harris: ‘Together we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling. On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th president of the United States.’

    Close observers might have sensed a certain forced smile on Clinton’s face as she said this. She had hoped to be commander in chief since at least the time that her husband was breaking in the new intern pool in the 1990s White House. An unkind person might say: ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’ But a kind interpretation of history (of the sort that Hillary is presumably already writing) is that she is like one of those early astronauts who paved the way for Neil Armstrong. Or an early explorer who traversed the Arctic wastelands and in whose historic footsteps other explorers more successfully followed in less bigoted times.

    Much of the media is content to frame things in this light. In a news story this week, the BBC asked ‘whether the political backdrop has transformed enough for the vice president to reach the nation’s highest office’. Are the US public yet bold enough, open-minded enough and – yes – strong enough to agree with a BBC editorial team? We shall see. And the BBC will be watching.

    The ‘glass ceiling’ conversation sometimes seems to be the main game in western politics. If the public do not vote for the glass-ceiling-shattering candidate, then it is they who are at fault. Here is the BBC again: ‘During her run for president in 2016, Mrs Clinton faced a barrage of criticisms over her appearance, her clothing and even the sound of her voice.’ For shame. Anyone with a long memory will recall that in 2016 nobody made any comment on Donald Trump’s appearance, clothing or vocal habits.

    If the public do not vote for the glass-ceiling-shattering candidate, then it is they who are at fault
    A couple of years after her election defeat, Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were hawking around a book they had put their names to called The Book of Gutsy Women. Asked by the excellent Emma Barnett on the British leg of their tour why this book of female trailblazers did not include Margaret Thatcher, Clinton acknowledged that Britain’s first female prime minister could be said to be ‘gutsy’ but that ultimately she failed to make the grade because ‘she doesn’t fit the other part of the definition in our opinion, which really is knocking down barriers for others and trying to make a positive difference’. Which is the sort of moment where the game truly reveals itself.

    Because – as the wiser students of politics will by now have worked out – a female candidate is not a female candidate if she does not conform to various leftist shibboleths. I do not remember these voices celebrating the idea that Sarah Palin might have broken a glass ceiling. Even the career of Britain’s most successful postwar prime minister can be dismissed by these people if she can be deemed not to have tried to make ‘a positive difference’ – which translates as ‘doing what the left agrees with’. And so we must agree that Thatcher broke no glass ceilings, was not a force of positive change or even in any real sense a woman, and that the British public can spend this century making up for our bigotry.

    ‘Sermon? No, I’m writing my podcast.’
    In 2017 we seized the magnificent opportunity to re-break a glass ceiling when we decided with overwhelming public enthusiasm that it was time to give another woman a go at the top job. Who can forget the resulting glory years of Theresa May? We then had the opportunity to celebrate our first ethnic–minority prime minister in Rishi Sunak and, although he didn’t prove to be our most popular PM, Keir Starmer was among those who paid tribute to his ceiling-shattering. The first words Starmer said, on returning from Buckingham Palace last month, were to thank ‘the outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for his achievement as the first British Asian prime minister of our country’. Perhaps it was churlish not to point to all of Sunak’s other achievements. But it didn’t matter, because the achievement for Sunak was in just being, and ceiling-breaking.

    In March, Vaughan Gething was likewise celebrated for becoming ‘the first black leader of Wales’. When he fell from office his supporters inevitably blamed ‘racism’. Which goes to show that Wales ought to find another black leader to atone for things fast.

    Scotland has also broken ceilings by briefly having a Muslim first minister in Humza Yousaf. A point he made on the way up. But on the way down, he started to refer to bigotry – and now says it’s so bad he may have to leave Scotland altogether.

    I do wonder how long this can go on. Will it stop when we have all voted in the first black transgender dwarf in each of our countries, and promised to re-elect them? Or will it never stop?

    Proportionally, there are three times more gays who are MPs than there are gays in the general population. Which suggests that if representation is the key, there should be a cull of gay MPs at the next election. But that won’t happen. And no one will suggest it.

    It’s almost as if ‘representation’ and ‘glass ceilings’ aren’t the real issue. I miss the times when competency and achievement were.

    Watch more from Douglas Murray on SpectatorTV:

    1. Funny how Obama is always “black”. How many drops of blood qualify you as being “black” these days?

  86. A report on this evening's BBC East Midlands Today rang some bells. It was about a 'rewilding' scheme in Derbyshire and was featured in the DT earlier this month. Despite the pleading of the local authority (Erewash BC) that this was about 'biodiversity gain' and not merely cost cutting, local residents weren't convinced. I'm with them. Here's one of the areas chosen:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1612d498ea68550d7cf2f0170164ec58d9ac81663785141cbcc8dec913f92a3.png
    It's an urban 'circus', a typical 50s/60s development of semis around a large grass area. There's a children's playground in the middle. They had to wade through the undergrowth to reach until a resident used his own mower to cut a path. There are others in the scheme. Here's another with residents cutting the grass and picking litter and dogsh!t.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07fbbe5600b45dd5ca9fb64d074d4176277c40bae693cf2401d29156fd8e192b.jpg
    The Telegraph article refers to the danger of ticks. That might not be so likely with the enclosed residential examples but it's certainly possible with the bigger plots nearby that back onto open country.

    Council's 'nightmare' rewilding scheme brings ticks to our parks, residents claim

    Locals cite fear of disease, dog mess and 'drugs' in an attempt to get Labour-controlled Erewash to reverse its biodiversity policy

    Albert Tait • 4 August 2024 • 8:37pm

    A council's rewilding scheme has turned its parks and green spaces into a "wilderness" filled with ticks, dog mess and nitrous oxide canisters, residents have claimed.

    Erewash borough council has allowed grass to grow long, sometimes up to hip height, in an attempt to improve biodiversity and improve the health and wellbeing of park users.

    But the scheme by the Labour authority in Derbyshire has been unpopular with some local people, who have started to cut the grass themselves with lawnmowers amid safety concerns.

    Some residents have raised the fear of ticks hiding in the long grass.

    In one of several written questions ahead of a council meeting on Thursday, one of them suggested people were at risk of getting Lyme disease, which is spread to humans through infected ticks.

    Ms Bramley, who did not give her full name, said: "Ticks live on long grass and can attach themselves to any bare skin that brushes past them, be it a child or adult of any age. The results, if immediate or very early and correct removal of the tick is not carried out, can be devastating."

    Another concern was an increase of dog mess left in the rewilded areas. One resident suggested it made him think twice about letting his children play in a nearby park.

    Mr Snowdon, who also gave just his last name, said that anti-social behaviour "has ranged from an increase in dog excrement being left in the long grass which poses a health risk to park users including my children, to increased litter including nitrous oxide canisters, a gateway to substance abuse".

    He added: "I have also witnessed high-speed electric motorbikes racing around and hiding in the park. All this contributes to a 'broken window' effect which is making me think twice about letting my children play in the park.

    "We should be encouraging children to play outside and have a healthy mental and physical lifestyle, and this policy prevents that."

    In other written questions, residents expressed concern about elderly people falling in the long grass, wildfires, and obscured sight lines for motorists. One resident, Mr Granger, said a park had been allowed to "degenerate into a wilderness area".

    The concerns have been raised as part of a push for the council to reverse the scheme and cut the grass.

    The scheme, which is called Wild About Erewash, was introduced in 2024, just a year after Labour took control of the council from the Tories, who had held power for 20 years. It was a flagship policy for the Labour group in Erewash and was included in its manifesto.

    Erewash's newly elected Labour MP, Adam Thompson, responded to the criticism saying that rewilding "takes a couple of years to come good".

    The council has been contacted for comment by The Telegraph.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/04/erewash-rewilding-ticks-lyme-disease-dog-mess-drugs-claims/

    1. That looks like a typical small 'common' from the 50s or 60s. Not really much point in letting it go to scrubland. Football or cricket for the kids. Dog poo bins. Good for street parties or events. What's not to like.?

      2. What's not to like? People getting together, fostering community (wrong sort of community) spirit, enjoying themselves. How very dare they? They'll be talking politics and realising what sort of an unholy mess Labour is creating next.

    3. CBA to read it all as just going to bed but maybe it’s a way of getting residents to actually do something themselves!

  87. A report on this evening's BBC East Midlands Today rang some bells. It was about a 'rewilding' scheme in Derbyshire and was featured in the DT earlier this month. Despite the pleading of the local authority (Erewash BC) that this was about 'biodiversity gain' and not merely cost cutting, local residents weren't convinced. I'm with them. Here's one of the areas chosen:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1612d498ea68550d7cf2f0170164ec58d9ac81663785141cbcc8dec913f92a3.png
    It's an urban 'circus', a typical 50s/60s development of semis around a large grass area. There's a children's playground in the middle. They had to wade through the undergrowth to reach until a resident used his own mower to cut a path. There are others in the scheme. Here's another with residents cutting the grass and picking litter and dogsh!t.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07fbbe5600b45dd5ca9fb64d074d4176277c40bae693cf2401d29156fd8e192b.jpg
    The Telegraph article refers to the danger of ticks. That might not be so likely with the enclosed reidential examples but it's certainly possible with the bigger plots nearby that back onto open country.

    Council's 'nightmare' rewilding scheme brings ticks to our parks, residents claim

    Locals cite fear of disease, dog mess and 'drugs' in an attempt to get Labour-controlled Erewash to reverse its biodiversity policy

    Albert Tait • 4 August 2024 • 8:37pm

    A council's rewilding scheme has turned its parks and green spaces into a "wilderness" filled with ticks, dog mess and nitrous oxide canisters, residents have claimed.

    Erewash borough council has allowed grass to grow long, sometimes up to hip height, in an attempt to improve biodiversity and improve the health and wellbeing of park users.

    But the scheme by the Labour authority in Derbyshire has been unpopular with some local people, who have started to cut the grass themselves with lawnmowers amid safety concerns.

    Some residents have raised the fear of ticks hiding in the long grass.

    In one of several written questions ahead of a council meeting on Thursday, one of them suggested people were at risk of getting Lyme disease, which is spread to humans through infected ticks.

    Ms Bramley, who did not give her full name, said: "Ticks live on long grass and can attach themselves to any bare skin that brushes past them, be it a child or adult of any age. The results, if immediate or very early and correct removal of the tick is not carried out, can be devastating."

    Another concern was an increase of dog mess left in the rewilded areas. One resident suggested it made him think twice about letting his children play in a nearby park.

    Mr Snowdon, who also gave just his last name, said that anti-social behaviour "has ranged from an increase in dog excrement being left in the long grass which poses a health risk to park users including my children, to increased litter including nitrous oxide canisters, a gateway to substance abuse".

    He added: "I have also witnessed high-speed electric motorbikes racing around and hiding in the park. All this contributes to a 'broken window' effect which is making me think twice about letting my children play in the park.

    "We should be encouraging children to play outside and have a healthy mental and physical lifestyle, and this policy prevents that."

    In other written questions, residents expressed concern about elderly people falling in the long grass, wildfires, and obscured sight lines for motorists. One resident, Mr Granger, said a park had been allowed to "degenerate into a wilderness area".

    The concerns have been raised as part of a push for the council to reverse the scheme and cut the grass.

    The scheme, which is called Wild About Erewash, was introduced in 2024, just a year after Labour took control of the council from the Tories, who had held power for 20 years. It was a flagship policy for the Labour group in Erewash and was included in its manifesto.

    Erewash's newly elected Labour MP, Adam Thompson, responded to the criticism saying that rewilding "takes a couple of years to come good".

    The council has been contacted for comment by The Telegraph.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/04/erewash-rewilding-ticks-lyme-disease-dog-mess-drugs-claims/

  88. I bumperd into Brian this afternoon. He tells me his mother (Great great grand daughter of Sir John Franklin) has just celebrated her 107th Birthday….

    2. We are indeed cultural Christians. Brought up on the ten Commandments and with centuries of Christian ethos behind us.

  91. Yeah right!

    "British pensioner caught smuggling two Afghans into UK in his car boot
    Rashida Ayub and the two stowaways who turned out to be people smugglers were jailed for a total of 10 years"

    1. In all fairness I suspect that's the swivel eyed paranoid anti-Semites abandoning ship.

  94. Aagghh!! I am tackling part 3 of the government's "consultation" on the changes to planning. It's the third time I've got up strength to attempt it. Strangely enough, although the first time I clicked "save and continue later" it kept all my responses, this time, the bit about climate change, renewables and carbon accounting – it lost everything. I wonder why.

    1. I've finally finished it, but I had to type the guff about carbon accounting, solar and wind three times. It kept disappearing.

    2. Conway,

      I have waded through scores of drop down local government easy speak for years ..

      Responses are never read , you are just tick boxing , you are a volunteer and the amount of repetitive nonsense is a waste of time ..

      No one listens , or cares , the Council take their orders from government , it used to be EU directives .. but since Brexit , planning has become chaotic and careless .

      No one cares about infrastructure or sewerage and water sources when planning for x amount of homes .

      Local rivers are dying , ponds are becoming polluted , and wildlife , hedges trees and and everything else are ignored .

      We are trying to get rid of large modern oak dining table , 7ft long , with an extension , it is only eight years old , we want to use the dining room for other things , ( we have a table in the kitchen )

      We have had difficulty getting rid of it , people do not have large rooms , and charity shop bods came out yesterday to pick it up , and said it was far too large for modern homes and declined our offer.

      We are giving it away, but to whom , and when , soon I hope .

      Back to planning , it will be bye bye to bungalows , there will be lots of extensions and ugly looking dormers , as well as home owners adding a third layer to the top of their homes .

      1. It will be all of those things in your last paragraph. I put a table and chairs out in the garden to use as seating. I couldn't give them away! I made all the points about water and the need for infrastucture. I doubt it will be read. The government is intending to take decision making away from local councils. They will be totally unaccountable. All they are interested in is "build, build, build" – then they have the gall to mention food production! Yes, I have a suggestion – don't build on agricultural land.

        1. But , they are putting solar farms on good ag land , and the sheep graze under neath.

          The government are already eroding council decisions ..

          The Tories were idle ignorant and self satisfying and they ignored those of us who live in rural landscapes, but this new lot are terrible , we will end up looking like old Soviet block countries , inefficient food producers ..
          Ruled by Halal loving monsters !

          1. I can’t argue with that assessment, but as there is eff all we can do about it, I intend to try to take myself as far away as possible from the effects of the Stalinist regime as I can and not worry about it. Dig for Victory, Maggie!Patronise your local butcher if you have one. Become ungovernable!

  95. Good Night, chums. Sleep well, and I hope to find you all, rested, tomorrow morning.

  96. Watch Max capitulate. But…does the trade union movement have the same power as it did in the 70s and 80s?

    Starmer facing union pressure to repeal Thatcher's anti-strike laws

    FBU motion demands 'repeal of all anti-union laws' and calls for 'positive legal rights for trade unions'

    Daniel Martin, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR and Nick Gutteridge, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT • 22 August 2024 • 5:35pm
    ___________________________________________________________________

    A key union backer will put Sir Keir Starmer under pressure to repeal all Margaret Thatcher's anti-strike laws at next month's Trades Union Congress.

    The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has put forward a motion, expected to pass, demanding the "repeal of all anti-union laws and for positive legal rights for trade unions".

    This would include the 1980s laws that banned flying pickets and closed shops, and also brought in secret ballots before industrial action and restricted collective bargaining.

    It comes after it emerged that the TUC is also expected to press the Government to restore public sector pay to 2011 levels in real terms – a move that would cost £27 billion, according to a Conservative analysis.

    The FBU, which donated £100,000 towards Labour's election campaign, wants Sir Keir to stick to his pledge to get rid of Tory laws, enacted since 2010, that force vital organisations such as rail and fire services to provide a minimum level of service when on strike.

    But the motion goes further, demanding that all anti-union laws be removed from the statute book.

    Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the FBU, who this year holds the rotating presidency of the TUC, told The Telegraph: "The UK has the most restrictive and authoritarian anti-union laws in the western world. "Robbing workers of the ability to stand up for themselves has driven down wages and made living standards and public services worse for the vast majority of people.

    "While the FBU welcomes Labour's commitments to repeal the most recent anti-union laws, we back the repeal of all anti-union laws introduced after 1979. We will continue to advocate for this position under a Labour Government."

    Unions gave £2.4 million to Labour during the election campaign, and almost £30 million since Sir Keir was elected as the Labour leader.

    News of the motion comes after the Government settled industrial disputes with junior doctors and train drivers, awarding them inflation-busting pay increases. The Tories have accused Labour of being in the pockets of union paymasters.

    Another motion laid down at the TUC by the PCS union, which represents nearly 200,000 public sector workers, calls for "pay restoration in the public sector" to be a "key feature of our campaigning with the new government".

    The motion says public sector pay levels have fallen by an average 1.5 per cent per year since 2011. Although the PCS is not putting an exact figure on the pay rises it wants, any above-inflation increase would hamper attempts to keep a grip on public finances.

    Caving in to the demand would cost the taxpayer at least an extra £27 billion a year, according to estimates provided by the Tories.

    It would mean the salary bill for civil servants balloons by £3.4 billion per year, according to the analysis. The cost of GP pay would rise by £3.65 billion and junior doctors would still get an extra £680 million in spite of their recent 22 per cent salary rise.

    The cost of restoring nurses' wages would be £3.9 billion, the analysis shows. For teachers it would be £8.1 billion, and for the police a further £978 million. Backdating the pay of council officials to 2010 levels would cost an extra £6.2 billion.

    The £27 billion price tag would come on top of the £14 billion of pay deals already struck by the Government, taking the total bill to £41 billion.

    Laura Trott MP, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: "By delivering 'no strings attached' pay deals that are in some instances more than 10 times the rate of inflation, Labour are now in an out-of-control union bidding war on pay, and it is the taxpayer who will have to foot the bill. Labour promised over 50 times during the election campaign not to raise taxes on working people. The British people will not forgive the betrayal when they do."

    The FBU motion calls on the TUC to reiterate its opposition to minimum service levels legislation, which forces vital sectors such as the railways, NHS and the fire service to provide a decent level of service even on strike days.

    It calls on Labour to stick to its pledges to introduce laws within 100 days to repeal anti-union legislation brought in since 2010, including a law which means strikes can only go ahead as long as a certain proportion of the workforce has voted in a ballot.

    "Congress notes the Labour Party's 2024 general election manifesto committed to implementing 'Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People' in full – introducing legislation within 100 days," it said.

    "Congress further notes that Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay committed to repealing the Trade Union Act 2016, the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Act and other anti-union legislation. Congress recommits to the TUC's longstanding policy for the repeal of all anti-union laws and for positive legal rights for trade unions."

    In a separate motion, Equity, the actors' union, says it wants to extend all workers' rights to migrants.

    "This Congress believes that every worker should have the right to freely change employer, join a trade union, and negotiate for better pay and conditions," it says.

    "Congress notes that the current skilled worker visa scheme removes workers' rights to freely change employer by tying the visa holder's right to live and work in the UK to a specific job, while also deliberately holding down wages.

    "This scheme means migrant workers, particularly in construction and social care, are at huge risk of exploitation and unable to seek higher-paid employment or even leave an exploitative job.

    "Restrictive visas give employers high levels of power over workers and complaining or trying to enforce rights can lead to workers not only losing their job, but also their right to stay and work in the UK."

    Sir Jacob Rees Mogg, a former business secretary, said: "This is what the union movement has always wanted – the march back to the 1970s. It would be no surprise if this weak Government gave into them."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/22/labour-under-pressure-to-repeal-thatchers-anti-strike-laws/

    1. I know they'll do what they want anyway. Mind you, I've given them plenty of ammunition to come and feel my collar for "far right hate speech" and climate change denial. By the third attempt I was getting irritated and short in my replies. I've submitted it – probably the climate change answers have been wiped out again.

    1. “Government lies”? Say it ain’t so? I thought the Government was the sole source of truth, and committed to fighting not only “disinformation” (sic) and “misinformation” (sic)?

      1,165 arrests and half of those resulting in charges.

      Still, keeps hWitey in his place, eh? That’ll learn him for getting uppity and forgetting it.

    2. “Government lies”? Say it ain’t so? I thought the Government was the sole source of truth, and committed to fighting not only “disinformation” (sic) and “misinformation” (sic)?

      1,165 arrests and half of those resulting in charges.

      Still, keeps hWitey in his place, eh? That’ll learn him for getting uppity and forgetting it.

  102. Friday – Early doors:
    Wordle 1,161 4/6

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

  103. the Prodigals are scheduled to land at LHR at c. 6:30 so I will leave about then to be there for 7. I have been up baking the sourdough loaf so there is nice fresh bread for them. I started the sourdough starter 3 weeks ago when husband and son left to join daughter out in NZ. This is the second loaf and it looks good.

    Yesterday I made some of my daughter’s favourites comfort foods – chocolate fairy cakes and jam tarts. Regrettably using shop-bought jam – I cannot do everything. I had some left-over pastry and thought to make my aunt’s Bakewell tart but yesterday I had run out of eggs. I did a shop later and so now have the Bakewell tart in the oven. It’s an old war recipe involving semolina and almond essence, of course I could use proper almonds but it’s a good recipe nonetheless.

    My daughter has been gone 10 weeks and it’s quite a long stint for first travels. I did 2x nearly one year back-to-back, and it’s exhausting, really, looking back. I used to want a machine to get me home, just for a night, for my own bed and bath, and then transport me back again. Whilst travelling is fun, and you meet tons of people and have conversations with them which just could change your life, it is also quite lonely.

    1. Well done!
      Hope daughter etc enjoyed themselves.

      Going into the Army at 16 and being stupid enough to get married at 20, then, other than Army postings, I didn't get the chance for travel at a young age.

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