Thursday 24 March: The West must learn from its failure to avert the conflict in Ukraine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

656 thoughts on “Thursday 24 March: The West must learn from its failure to avert the conflict in Ukraine”

    1. Good morning.

      Apart from the anomaly that was the 17th March (cloud, fog, and a soupçon of rain and wind), I am experiencing the 26th consecutive day of cloudless sunny skies with just a touch of frost each night.

      1. I am experiencing the 26th consecutive day of cloudless sunny skies with just a touch of frost each night.

        Ominous! Morning Grizz.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Yet another warm sunny day forecast, unlike the state of our economy:

    SIR – Isn’t it contradictory (if not disingenuous) for Rishi Sunak, in seeking to justify the huge tax burden this Government has inflicted on the country, to assert that reforms will “ensure every pound of taxpayers’ money is well spent”, while claiming that individuals spend money better than governments do?

    Notwithstanding some welcome measures in the Spring Statement, I for one will only accept that he truly believes the latter when the tax burden is slashed – and not just as a pre-election bribe.

    Tim Coles
    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    SIR – In his Spring Statement, Rishi Sunak failed to take the bold measures required to reduce the devastating impact that the cost-of-living crisis will have on the poorest elements of society.

    He is rightly concerned about the huge national debt and the associated interest payments, which are more than we spend on defence, but there is one obvious way to ease this problem.

    HS2 should now be cancelled. It is a 19th-century solution to the 21st-century problem of improving North-South connectivity. Mr Sunak should accept the loss of money already wasted on this vanity project and use the remaining planned capital investment – about £80 billion – to reduce the national debt, cancel the National Insurance increase and reduce income tax.

    Philip Mathias
    Southsea, Hampshire

    I have to admit that I didn’t have the fortitude or the patience to sit through the Chancellors blustering flannel yesterday, but from the various summaries there appears to have been no reference to eradicating the appalling waste in the public’s sector. I suppose it was too much to expect from a government that seems to have developed the spending habit. For just a flavour of the shocking abuse of taxpayers’ money this link makes depressing reading, so for those who may not have seen it earlier in the week:

        1. They obviously don’t recognise superfluity – even when it’s staring them in the face

    2. The budget is always just smoke and mirrors. I stopped listening to it in the 80’s. What always happens is we end up paying more in tax. One way or another.

      1. It is galling to hear Sunak describe himself as both a Conservative and a tax-cutter when neither are remotely true.

        1. Yet he thinks he is. He is convinced by drawing more money from the earner and keeping the state funded then he is controlling the budget and reducing the debt.

          A true Conservative would look at the debt and cut spending. There is no alternative. We’ve been mugged for so long that far too many simply don’t pay tax – and rightly bloody so.

          1. There is the slight problem now that, thanks to what has happened to “the State” over the last 30/40 years, the social security benefits that would need to be paid to all the redundant tax eaters would be impossible to fund. Very few of these creatures would survive in the private sector.

      2. I always assume it’s bad news for those of us who work – or have worked – and tried to keep our heads above water.

    3. The truly astonishing bit is how much HS2 has cost but more, how long it has taken to get absolutely nowhere.

  6. Fuming Putin begins purge of inner-circle to find men who cost him the war. 24 March 2022.

    Vladimir Putin is said to be enraged with his most trusted inner circle due to the failure of his strategy in Ukraine and on the hunt to find those responsible in his own court.

    Vlad is not unnaturally miffed at the military’s performance in Ukraine. He was certainly promised by its commanders that the goals set out were achievable. A quick solution and low casualties, both Russian and Ukrainian, among them. This has now gone by the board and a process of attrition must now take place with all the risks inherent in a prolonged conflict; most notably a direct confrontation with NATO. The Russian army’s battlefield difficulties are themselves cause for concern. Communications have been severely compromised and Ukraine is receiving Real Time Satellite and Elint intelligence from the Americans that enables them to forestall any advances. The real danger here is that the forces represented by NATO decide to go for Victory instead of Containment and precipitate the End!

    Fuming Putin begins purge of inner-circle to find men who cost him the war (msn.com)

      1. You’d be surprised. Many people otherwise perfectly sane have been permanently committed to institutions.

    2. The independent analyses that I have read suggest that he is avoiding the countryside, so that farmers can plant their crops, and he is avoiding the cities so as to minimise casualties.
      The Russian forces are therefore circling the cities.
      Apparently a ship carrying Russian armoured vehicles was seen in the Chinese or Indian ocean, speculated to be on its way to the Black Sea. Can’t remember where I read that.

      1. Apparently a ship carrying Russian armoured vehicles was seen in the Chinese or Indian ocean, speculated to be on its way to the Black Sea. Can’t remember where I read that..

        Morning BB. That was about a fortnight ago.

      2. So far the “blood thirsty monster” has killed approximately 1000 civilians, all unintentionally. Contrasts quite a bit to the 14,000 murdered indiscriminately by the Azov Nazis in Donbass. My understanding is the same as yours. His strategy is to surround the cities and to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. If Putin is “insane” I rather like that version of insanity compared with the vindictive compulsive pathological lying of the Western leaders and their lackeys in the MSM.

  7. From today’s DT:

    Only a low-tax, low-spend government can solve the cost of living crisis

    The British state needs a fundamental redesign, with its size reduced to the levels of successful countries such as Switzerland or Australia

    DAVID FROST
    23 March 2022 • 9:00pm

    Imagine yourself, if you can, in the shoes of Sir George Carew, Henry VIII’s Vice Admiral and captain of the great warship, the Mary Rose, as it lurches out of Portsmouth in July 1545 into a blowy Solent to take on the French Navy. You know the ship is unstable following a botched redesign. Your monarch has insisted a lot more heavy cannon be brought on board. And the crew are mutinous. You fear the worst.

    Rightly so. A few minutes later, after a broadside, the ship slowly topples over and disappears beneath the waves, along with you and most of the crew.

    I think Chancellor Rishi Sunak must have felt rather as Carew did when preparing his Spring Statement. The British ship of state is also in choppy waters. Already bloated and fragile after the Covid pandemic, it is nevertheless asked to take on new task after new task, from policing supermarket displays to new social care responsibilities. It sits lower and lower in the water, each redesign making things worse not better. The forward momentum slows and manoeuvring becomes more and more difficult.

    Given the unenviable task of steering this lumbering behemoth, the Chancellor last autumn took a stand. If new tasks and new spending were to be imposed on him, then there would have to be new taxes to pay for them. The social care levy, the frozen tax thresholds, the corporation tax increases – only this new fiscal armament would keep the British state seaworthy for the future.

    Yet the economic gales from Ukraine have proved even stronger than he thought. His Spring Statement shows he realised that the extra fiscal measures, far from helping, endangered the whole ship. It was too risky to plough on as planned.

    Speaking to the Commons, he was very clear about the storms we were facing, but couldn’t bring himself to take the obvious step of reversing last year’s tax and national insurance rises. But some lighter fiscal measures in the form of NI thresholds and fuel duty were thrown overboard to steady the ship. And more tax cuts were promised as soon as the current turbulence was over and smoother water reached.

    He also, rightly, resisted the pressure to protect everyone in the country against every unwelcome economic reality. Apart from the fuel duty cut, people would have to deal with the reality of energy costs. There would be no windfall taxes and no new spending programmes.

    All of this is enough to stop the ship listing too badly and to sustain some forward momentum. But the underlying problems remain. The British state is doing too much and a lot of it badly. The tax burden is at its highest since the Attlee government. Spending is at its highest on a sustained basis since the 1970s. That’s not an environment that supports economic growth.

    The Chancellor was cautious, but not as cautious as he could have been. Good. Arguably the main danger in this extraordinarily uncertain environment is not in taking a risk for growth but in paying too much regard to Treasury orthodoxy – from insisting on fiscal consolidation too early, from not believing in the power of economic growth to increase the size of the economic cake.

    The correct way forward is a different one: to get onto a new path, to hold the tax burden down, force the necessary difficult choices on spending, and boost growth.

    That means a fundamental redesign of the British state. Between now and the autumn Budget, I would like to see the Government develop a credible plan to reduce the size of the state to the levels of successful countries such as Switzerland or Australia over the long term: to simplify and cut taxes, to trim spending, and (as the Chancellor noted) to encourage investment, R&D, and skills. Then the Government needs to argue for it and defeat those who say that only an ever-enlarging state will do the job.

    This is how to deal with cost-of-living problems sustainably – boost growth, let people keep more of their own money, and build an effective state that can do the tasks placed upon it. That is how Rishi Sunak can make us best in class and admired by the world – and transform our ship of state from the Mary Rose into the Cutty Sark.

    * * *

    Some BTL posts:

    We need another Cromwell
    9 HRS AGO
    David, put the pen down and listen to us. The nation needs you in No 10, not in the Opinion columns of the Telegraph. Find a safe seat you can take on, and get back in the fight. Please.

    Reasonable View
    10 HRS AGO
    Be clear – this Govt is a Blairite-loving, Left-leaning cabal of fraudsters. So you asking for Small State – sensible though that is – will fall on deaf ears.
    They are Big State, high tax, Green wokesters who made a mess of Brexit (you think we’ve exited, think again), net zero, test & trace – everything!
    It may say Tory across the door, but this is Labour in all but name.
    We need a Conservative Party to vote for but I can’t find them.

    Brent Hargreaves
    9 HRS AGO
    Cripes, this bloke sounds like a conservative. Quite a rarity in the “Conservative” Party.
    What is conservatism? In my book it has four main elements: (a)Fiercely capitalist (b)Fiscally continent (c)Insists on personal (as distinct from collective) responsibility (d)Small-as-possible state.
    If only there were a party with these policies….

    Rick Hamilton
    8 HRS AGO
    When the cost of tax eaters exceeds the productive power of tax earners the country is doomed. For starters, sack all diversity and inclusion pests and pursue a policy of no wokery.
    Make civil servants accountable to the public with town hall meetings.
    We need a ‘they work for us’ culture and a businesslike mentality. Just what the state sector unions do not want of course.

    James Barr
    7 HRS AGO
    David Frost, please renounce your seat in the house of Lords and run the Tory Party. The State has just got bigger and bigger and more and more wasteful. The Industrial Revolution changed the country, we now need an Administrative Revolution. The only way to create growth is low tax, limited government, excellence in education, and lashings of personal responsibility. Finance should be taught at schools. Individuals create wealth: governments create waste.

    Hear, hear to all of these!

    1. The British ship of state is also in choppy waters. Already bloated and fragile after the Covid pandemic, it is nevertheless asked to take on new task after new task, from policing supermarket displays to new social care responsibilities. It sits lower and lower in the water, each redesign making things worse not better. The forward momentum slows and manoeuvring becomes more and more difficult.

      For good or ill this bloated and profundly corrupt system is about to crash. Ironically the “sanctions” will probably be what sees it off!

    2. The British ship of state is also in choppy waters. Already bloated and fragile after the Covid pandemic, it is nevertheless asked to take on new task after new task, from policing supermarket displays to new social care responsibilities. It sits lower and lower in the water, each redesign making things worse not better. The forward momentum slows and manoeuvring becomes more and more difficult.

      For good or ill this bloated and profundly corrupt system is about to crash. Ironically the “sanctions” will probably be what sees it off!

    3. “We need another Cromwell.”
      But that means ranters and the self-righteous constantly hectoring us; humour and wit disappearing from everyday life; all fun and spontaneity vanishing; theatres, pubs and restaurants closed …… Er …..

    4. These social care responsibilities are interesting. Are they defined anywhere? Are the outcomes specified? Is it time limited? Is there a point where if it hasn’t achieved X it is no longer useful and thus shouldn’t be continued? Or, like all big state nonsense, will the failure demand more money, and then more and more and more money until the failure is long forgotten and the inertia of incompetence is the only thing keeping it going?

    5. An excellent analogy using ships, good and bad, for a once great seafaring nation – once being the operative word.

      However, is David Frost unaware of Boris’s ties to “Build Back Better” and the WEF’s drive towards mass control of the people? A modern day serfdom controlled by ‘Big Tech’ etc. Only by refuting the WEF’s ties and exposing what is going on could an attempt to put the measures Frost is promoting be put into place. Such a move would be anathema to the freaks attempting to implement a NWO, including many of those in our political class. We are where we are because our politicos answer (and very probably have been answering for some time) to outside authorities, the EU for one, and not the authority of the people of the UK. Someone has to break the mould, why not the slumbering nation that once led the World?

    7. BTL

      “We need another Cromwell”

      Thomas, Oliver or Oliver’s son, Richard?

          1. There was also a pub of that name at Wooton, on the road to Norwich from Bungay. I don’t know if it’s still there.

          2. Had a pint or two in there myself during the ’70s when at 3 Training Regiment RE down the road at Cove.

  8. SIR – As a 74-year-old former family doctor, I have experienced the same frustrations as Peter Doherty (Letters, March 17).
    I finally got a face-to-face GP appointment after 28 days, the name of
    the doctor and the time of appointment having changed three times in a
    week.

    I have access to some of my records online, which claim that my colon
    cancer was reviewed in November 2021. This is completely false. The
    review is now at least a year overdue.

    Meanwhile my daughter, who has been seriously ill for a decade, has continued to receive superb care from her GP two miles away.

    Dr Peter Sander
    Hythe, Kent

    It is the way GP services now work after selling out to hedge funds. You never get to see the same Doctor who would know you and pick up on any errors. My own medical records are a complete mess. Any new Doctor i see would have no idea of the medication i am taking or the conditions i have had.

    1. When I returned from Germany I was carting X-rays from the operation I had to repair a smashed disc. I took them to my GP to add to their records. Not interested. Didn’t even note down the operation.

      1. My last visit to the GP i was diagnosed from a ECG as had a heart attack. She tried for 20 minutes to call the hospital and when she finally got through the line went dead. My usual Doctor (who i haven’t seen in over a year) diagnosed a blood clot in my leg and had a direct line to the Consultant at the local General hospital. I was also sent to the walk in blood clinic which no longer existed. Arses and elbows.

        1. This misbehaviour seems to be common. I too questioned a report that I received two weeks ago that claimed I recently had an X-ray and that I had done various tests for COPD that I know very well I haven’t done. In fact the report was so alien that I thought they had mixed me up with someone else. When I questioned the report my concerns were simply brushed aside. The problem is, as you say, one of continuity. You never seem to see the same doctor twice so no one knows, other than you, that something is amiss. And, when you tell them they don’t seem to care.

      2. Me too, but for neck problems [not spotted by UK doctors – one of our German doctors spotted the problems almost at once and asked to see my earlier MRI scans – he was horrifies to hear I had never had one!] Not a glimmer of interest from our Med Centre when I got back.

      3. Just before I moved to Sweden (10 years ago) I paid my UK GP £50 for a ‘complete’ photocopied record of my medical history to take with me.

        I was appalled to discover that none of my medical and surgical history, treatments or operations from my childhood up to young adulthood were included. It was an utter rip-off.

        1. This is why I’ve done my own and present it to each new doctor, practitioner and/or clinic I attend. They cannot say that they were not aware of my past medical conditions.

          2. I shall certainly have to rack my brain to remember all the details and dates of my childhood maladies and injuries from the 1950s and 1960s.

            However, I’ll have a go.

          4. Morning all.

            Alf always takes a list with him of medications he takes to every hospital appointment. Helps enormously.

    2. We have three White Doctors working at our Med Centre, two of whom are Brits

      I am keeping its’ location quiet

      1. Good morning LOT,
        Half of our 22 (at the latest count) GPs have ‘alien’ names. I was recently a involved in a ‘significant’ (their words) data breach. When I emailed to complain, I was invited in to ‘discuss’ the breach. Mealy mouthed flannel. The person then emailed me – turns out she was only the reception supervisor, in spite of there being a data protection bod upstairs. I am currently putting together a further complaint, and trying to change to a surgery in a nearby town.

      4. Doesn’t make any difference. All the doctors in the Practice I go to are white, there’s about a dozen of them. The service is still shoddy. You are more likely to get an audience with one of the Nurse practitioners than a doctor. Evidently they are healing us from afar, by telephone, far to splendid to actually see us in person. I’m off to the doctors today at 11. I will be seeing a nurse. The last time I saw my own doctor was in June of last year. Since then the only doctors I have seen have all been at the hospital, non at the practice at all.

  9. Good article from Allistair Heath which will find favour with many here:

    COMMENT
    The Tories don’t deserve to survive if they keep treating their voters like fools

    Rishi Sunak’s tax cuts are window-dressing to hide the Government’s raids on middle income Britain

    ALLISTER HEATH
    23 March 2022 • 7:30pm

    It is the first lesson of politics: don’t take your voters for fools. Don’t pretend to cut taxes when you are raising them. Don’t claim you are prioritising collapsing living standards when you are not.

    The cost of living crisis is a global phenomenon, and the ability of politicians to counteract it is limited in the short term. But the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, still had a choice: he could have pledged not to make this inflationary tornado any worse. He could have ditched his manifesto-breaking National Insurance increase. He could have removed some of the taxes pushing up gas and electricity prices. He could have announced a review into the Bank of England’s inflation-targeting performance.

    He chose instead to push ahead with most of his tax increases, clinging to an obsolete orthodoxy that directly adds to the cost of living crisis, while desperately seeking to camouflage the true nature of his actions. When he did act, it was by helping workers on lower incomes, loading even more of the burden onto the Conservative Party’s electoral base.

    He decided to prioritise the ersatz version of conservatism he has felt he needed to make his own: a high-spending, high-taxing, debt-reducing, budget-balancing model of the economy, accompanied by inducements for firms to invest and train more to boost productivity. The debt to GDP ratio is predicted to fall from 95.6 per cent of GDP this year to 83.1 per cent by 2026-27 despite Covid: it is that, bizarrely, which Sunak appears to believe will be his legacy.

    Yet the Chancellor, hemmed in by Boris Johnson’s social democratic vision for Britain, has made the wrong call, with disastrous consequences for his party – and his own career. Because Johnson didn’t allow him to be a small-state conservative, Sunak reinvented himself as a low-debt Tory. He was right to predict that debt interest costs would surge – by four times, it turned out. But fiscal conservatism isn’t morally, economically or electorally equivalent to low-tax conservatism. It isn’t the real deal.

    Abstract aggregates such as GDP don’t matter to voters: what counts is whether they are better or worse off in terms of purchasing power. On that metric, the year ahead will be the worst anybody can remember. It will be catastrophic, appalling, and could destroy the Conservative Party and its reputation for economic competence for a generation.

    Real household disposable income will fall by 2.2 per cent, the greatest drop in living standards in any year since records began in 1956-57. The hit is worse than during the IMF bailout of the 1970s, worse than after the ERM crisis, 9/11, Lehman Brothers, and (thanks to massive intervention) worse even than Covid.

    That is the backdrop to Sunak’s decision not to cancel the NIC rise. He needed to do far more to show that he was taking the public’s pain – including Middle England’s – seriously. What is the point of a lower national debt if it gets Labour elected, who then finish off what is left of the economy and borrow more anyway?

    Sunak never set off to do this, but his role as Johnson’s CFO has made him responsible for helping complete Britain’s transition to a low-growth, high tax economy. The numbers are horrifying.

    Even after Sunak’s modest, performative tax relief, the tax to GDP ratio will have increased by 3.3 percentage points of GDP by 2025-6 compared with 2019-20. The overall tax burden will surge from 33 per cent of GDP to 36.3 per cent, the highest since Clement Attlee’s hard-Left administration in the 1940s. Public spending will have increased by 2.1 per cent of GDP, to levels last reached sustainably in the 1970s. This is what a technocratic Labour government would do, minus the wealth taxes and the class warfare.

    Sunak’s smoke and mirrors performance wasn’t especially elaborate. The increase in the personal allowance cancels out only a third of the rise in National Insurance contributions. In total, the Spring Statement offset just a sixth of the tax hikes previously introduced by Sunak, dropping to a tenth without the hypothetical 1p cut to income tax that may or may not happen in 2024. This particular move is the least generous income tax reduction that it is possible to make: it would reduce the tax burden by 0.2 per cent of GDP, far less than the sums raised by freezing the personal allowance. By contrast, Nigel Lawson slashed the top rate of tax by 20 percentage points: that is what real Tory Budgets look like.

    Even at a time of maximum pain, green fundamentalism remains de rigeur. The Treasury maintains it would be wrong to cut VAT on fuel to zero, a Brexit promise originally made by Johnson, because it would make the tax system more complex. Instead, it suddenly decided that it was in fact possible to cut VAT to zero – but only on insulation, heat pumps and solar panels. Like Milton Friedman, I never say no to a tax cut, but the cant is breathtaking. The fuel duty tax cut was great, but oversold in a way that would have made Gordon Brown blush – the Chancellor claimed that it would save taxpayers £5 billion but the real figure is £2.4 billion.

    I remain very fond of Sunak, a brilliant and substantial figure. He is an unwilling social democrat, taken hostage by a neo-Heseltinian Prime Minister. I hope he will eventually be able to be himself again. His decision to align the National Insurance and income tax personal allowances is a great piece of tax simplification. He valiantly resisted numerous bad ideas. He didn’t increase Universal Credit. He did not increase spending on public services despite the rise in inflation, ensuring a large real terms cut. It may be by stealth, but this is the kind of diet our bloated state must immediately be put on.

    Yet Sunak made a terrible mistake by not scrapping his NIC hike, and an even worse one by defying Boris Johnson when the PM was at his weakest, forcing him to stick to this daft, destructive policy. He was reduced to spending his Spring Statement tinkering and tweaking. What’s the point of hiking NICs and then cutting income tax?

    It is likely that the voters will turn on the Tories as the cost of living crisis intensifies. If so, we must hope that Johnson doesn’t choose to make Sunak his scapegoat.

    * * *

    Some BTL comments:

    Mark Lilley
    7 MIN AGO
    We are watching the death of the Conservative Party, as we all know that Johnson and his vile left-of-centre Government will be out of office from May 2024 for years and rightly so.
    The great shame is that he could have been a full three term Prime Minister, with an awful broken opposition party in complete denial and a great majority. Unfortunately Max Hastings has been shown to be bang on right about the Great Blond Hope.
    Putin is acting as a useful scapegoat for now, but one the Russia/Ukraine conflict is sorted the blame for our dire situation will go back rightly to where it belongs Downing Street!

    mark hislop
    11 HRS AGO
    Sunak will have a legacy of the most deceitful Chancellor yet, which is some achievement after Brown and Osbourne.
    The jam tomorrow 1p tax reduction is a nonsense after the impact of fiscal drag created by freezing tax allowances but guess what he thinks us idiots will think him a hero for 1p as thousands of average earners find themselves in the higher rate tax band.
    Mrs Thatcher created an entrepreneurial economy with the enterprise allowance available to Start Ups since Osbourne the Tories have looked to crucify the risk taking GDP creating cohort of business owners, penalising dividends and I suspect the increase in NI threshold will not apply to employer contributions. Why take the risk of starting / owning a business – who else is going to create wealth for the public sector to squander. How to react sack sufficient staff so the modest increase in the employers allowance covers the NI hike more smoke and mirrors.
    Never thought I would find myself unable to vote Tory but the day has arrived Sunak is a disgrace.

    1. I really don’t know what to say. The budget was a mess. A pile of snake oil where 5p was considered a huge gift as ‘fuel duty hadn’t risen in line with inflation’ – dear life. As a tax It is the cause of inflation.

      Energy taxes comprise nearly 35% of the cost, and not a flicker there. No reduction in state waste. Trying to balance the books by hiking taxes is the economic equivalent of lifting yourself out of a bucket by the handles. You CANNOT reduce the debt by robbing the people earning the money. This is basic economics. Something Sunak doesn’t seem to be willing to grasp.

      The Independent, which I read by accident, compared Sunak to Blair. They thought it was a positive thing. Proof, if nothing else that he’s the wrong man for the job. Every Conservative budget should leave the Left wing media apoplectic with rage and terror.

      1. Hours before the budget the BP garage in Pitlochry put their diesel up from 179.99 a litre to 185.99 so they’ll still be better off after the reduction of 5p on fuel duty . Bastards!

        1. As I’ve mentioned before – lots of people have done very well out of Covid [blame it on the virus] and now fuel shortages [blame it on Putin] – dodgy contracts, sheer profiteering and still it goes on.

        2. As I’ve mentioned before – lots of people have done very well out of Covid [blame it on the virus] and now fuel shortages [blame it on Putin] – dodgy contracts, sheer profiteering and still it goes on.

    2. Except that he couldn’t do any of those things, because he isn’t working for the British people, he is working for the WEF globalists.
      People need to wake up and realise that it’s not the 1980s any more.

      1. Not a lot of people know that, (apologies to Peter Sellers mimicking Michael Caine) bb2. I mention that below in response to HJ’s post re David Frost’s proposals.

      1. …and don’t follow Bliar and call it ‘New Conservative’ but rather revert to ‘Old Conservative’.

    4. Boris Johnson got elected for one reason and for one reason only : to Get Brexit Done. He has forgotten this.

      If the Northern Ireland Protocol is still in place at the next GE and if the fishermen have not got their fishing rights completely restored to 1973 levels then Boris Johnson will lose the election – I think it is as simple as that.

      His only hope is to find a new mistress who directs him more sensibly than the current person who shares his bed.

        1. Good morning dearest.

          Haven’t potted them up yet. Waiting for it to get a bit warmer. Thank you.

  11. Inside Russia’s notorious ‘troll factory’ that is flooding social media with Kremlin propaganda. 24 March 2022.

    An undercover journalist has exposed the inner workings of Russia’s notorious “troll factory” which aims to boost domestic support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by flooding social media with pro-Kremlin comments.

    Fontanka, the Russian media outlet which first reported on the dedicated group of internet trolls, commissioned a reporter to infiltrate the propaganda operation run out of an office at a converted factory in St Petersburg.

    This is essentially a rerun of a story from 2015. It seems odd that the “management” appear to have learned nothing about security in the interim.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/22/inside-russias-notorious-troll-factory-flooding-social-media/

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house

    1. The local branch of Russia’s notorious ‘troll factory’ is the BBC

      Sub branches are the Notnews Papers

  13. Good morning, all. Lovely sunny day.

    That Russian Defence Minister (Vlad’s very best pal) who has “heart problems”. Perhaps it has stopped…..

      1. They kicked him. He didn’t budge. Sure sign…{:¬))

        Did you phone your doktor?

          1. Jolly good. No idea what that is – but if it meant your problem was mitigated and better drugs made available, excellent.

          2. An E-Consult is where you log on to the practice website. Answer totally irrelevant questions about conditions you do not have then sit back and wait for a week or so. Easier than phoning and trying to get passed Cerberus.

          3. Ah. I assumed it was DIY medicine via a computer.

            We have the same thing. Much more effective than the old system of phoning for two hours and being told “Doctor is too busy”. Out=r practice generally phone/text the same day. Or make an apptmt the same day if it seems serious.

    1. That blonde senator (forget her name) really lays into the Democrat fraud magnificently. I saw some other footage of her listing all the stuff the prospective new judge supports, and how she has persistently given paedophiles lower sentences.
      Let’s not forget that this judge was nominated by a President suspected of being a paedophile, with a son implicated in paedophile photos.
      I don’t think they are everywhere, but in this case, the links are impossible to ignore. Unless you’re a lefty, of course.

      1. I expect the majority of people on this forum agree entirely with this. Caroline and I certainly do.

    3. Comment:-

      Bob_Of_Bonsall
      @Bob_Of_Bonsall
      Just Now
      Replying to @chiefnerd
      Can I, as an observer from the UK, please just get this straight?
      This Judge, with a PROVEN record of being soft on paedophiles, is proposed for appointment to the United States Supreme Court by a President of the United States who not only has well documented apparent paedophiliac tendencies, but has a son whose discarded laptop was found to have paedophiliac photographs on it?
      I suppose we’ll be told next that suspicions about a “deep state” paedophile ring are an outlandish Conspiracy Theory.

    1. I don’t know why you would say: “I know it is Fox,…” It is the only American MSM that makes the effort to tell the truth rather than spread propaganda. That is why it is so out of step with the other stations in the USA who only follow the Democrat Party line. But if it is up to Biden to lead us into a “New World Order” well, we don’t have much to worry about because to remind people of what Obama said about his Vice President. ” “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up”. And as proof of that his popularity rating in the USA today is 32%. If there is a New World Order coming then the likes of Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates will need to keep him at more than arms length otherwise it will be a New World Flop.

      1. I comment re Fox, because they are also the only channel in ~MSM who seem to criticise Biden and his administration. They too have their imperfections and bias.

        1. Fox may have imperfections and biases but it has far more integrity than the other American channels do plus the BBC or any of our moronic MSM.

          1. I think so.
            It’s a reason I like takimag. They seem to post both sides of the story, albeit with a right of centre bent.

    1. ‘Pop up vax centres at places of worship’. We know what particular religious flavours that’s about…

    2. ‘Pop up vax centres at places of worship’. We know what particular religious flavours that’s about…

  18. Good morning all

    I have never ever heard so much twaddle in a month of Sundays.

    The Duke of Cambridge has expressed “profound sorrow” over the evils of slavery, saying: “It should never have happened.”

    Speaking at a state dinner in Kingston, Jamaica, the Duke addressed the issue that has dogged him and the Duchess of Cambridge throughout their ongoing Caribbean tour.

    His comments represent the first time he has acknowledged the horrors of slavery and the dark days of Britain’s colonial past.

    The Duke said: “I strongly agree with my father, the Prince of Wales, who said in Barbados last year that the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history.

    “I want to express my profound sorrow.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/24/prince-william-express-profound-sorry-rare-acknowledgement-slavery/

    Why did Britain have so many crooks?

    More than 160,000 convicts — 80% men, 20% women — were transported to Australia from the British Isles between 1788 and 1868. The British sent criminals to NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and WA, but freed convicts soon spread their footprint across the country, and these days, one in five Australians is the descendant of a convict.
    In the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution created a generation of urban poor — people who moved from farms to overcrowded cities with no work and money. Crime soared in these squalid Dickensian conditions, as many families were forced to steal to survive. British prisons reached their capacity, so authorities shunted thousands of criminals into hulks — disused ships that shouldn’t sail but could float in harbours housing prisoners.

    When these hulks filled up, transportation became the answer. Serious crimes like murder and rape were punishable by death, but petty offences — such as stealing anything worth more than one shilling, the average day’s wage — were deemed worthy of a one-way ticket to some foreign corner of the globe.

    An eight-month boat trip 10,000 miles across the sea soon became the punishment for thieving a bag of sugar or a loaf of bread.

    https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/why-great-britain-sent-its-prisoners-to-australia/

    The Royal family are so out of touch .. they need to engage their littl pea brains .

    Sorry to bang on , I am not a socialist , but a visit to the Tolpuddle Martyrs museum tells us much .. as so indeed does a visit to any industrial museum in the UK.

    1. …and nary a word about our part in ridding the world of that part of the slavery taking place at the time.

      1. That actually cost this country(‘s people) a great deal of money. It’s about time that the Jamaicans and others were told just who enabled their current lives on their sun-drenched island. Ticket back to Africa – no, just cash, please!

    2. Did he also explain that without slavery there would be no people of African descent in the Caribbean?

      1. Of course not. Neither did he point out that the driving force behind the enslavement of native Africans was AFRICAN slave traders.

          2. It wasn’t in the past. I had a school friend who lived there, albeit in a council flat but it was very nice and the area was well maintained.
            I suspect it is like many suburbs of towns and cities- overpopulated and not taken care of.

          2. Hello Bill

            We had our results earliert this morning . Moh’s phone pinged .. and I am so very cross to see we both tested positive .

            We are aching , cough , temp etc a bit limp ..

            Sunny day here , hope you are experiencing the same kind weather in Norfolk.

          4. Good luck – we hope it will pass as easily and quickly as Caroline’s and mine did. Mind you, we were protected by Vitamin C, Vitamin D, zinc and the fact that we had not had any gene therapy.

            (We hope you will be 100% fit for the 75 on Sunday)

        5. But the wimpish and wokish prince lacks the testicular strength to stand up and speak the truth about this or to ask which nation it was that fought to bring about the end of the international slave trade.

      2. Of course not. Neither did he point out that the driving force behind the enslavement of native Africans was AFRICAN slave traders.

      3. Ask them if they wouls like a free one-way ticket back to Africa. The response will be overwhelming…

    3. Probably everyone in the room was descended from someone who dealt in slaves or benefited from such dealings.

    4. He wanted to express his “profound sorrow” at Jamaica’s intention to become a republic. He hasn’t had a very friendly reception there.

      1. Let them , we don’t want criminal gangs here , nor overbreeding mamas.. claiming for the social .

        We should also stop foreign aid ..

          1. More’s the pity. They have provided this country with very little that is positive.

    6. What people forget is that historically nearly all countries that could, have practised slavery. It was rife in Africa centuries before any white person sert foot there.

      And just WHICH COUNTRY has been paying for years, in order to abolish slavery? The UK. So if anything, the Jamaicans, in their sun-soaked little island, owe us. Not the other way round.

      Really, the Royals are not very educated or bright.

      1. It is worrying that Prince William seems to have inherited his father’s complete intellectual incompetence.

  19. Russian stocks soar on Moscow reopening as Putin props up market – live updates. 24 March 2022.

    Shares in some of Russia’s largest companies rose as trading resumed on the Moscow Exchange following a record shutdown, after Vladimir Putin scrambled to block a fresh sell-off.

    The index rose 11pc as it reopened for trading in 33 stocks, with several measures in place to prevent more losses.

    Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/24/ftse-100-markets-live-news-tax-fuel-oil-inflation/

    1. But, but, according to the Telegraph the market was supposed to slump as soon as it opened. What went wrong?

  21. I used to run a dating site for chickens but i was struggling to make hens meet.

    Okay okay…i’ve already got me coat on !

  22. The Duke of Cambridge has expressed “profound sorrow” over the evils of slavery, saying: “It should never have happened.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/24/prince-william-express-profound-sorry-rare-acknowledgement-slavery/

    I wonder why No BTL comments are allowed under this article?

    The greatest beneficiaries of slavery were the descendants of the slaves who were sold by their own people: these people have escaped the misery, squalor and horror the descendants of those who were not enslaved have suffered.

    And once benign colonial regimes – such as The Sudan under British rule – were removed the full horror came to light of how soon these places became hell holes without the British – but nobody in politics or the MSM acknowledges this. Just as they refuse to draw our attention to the fact that it was the British who brought an end to slavery through the efforts of William Wilberforce.

    Since men like my father left the Sudan the Sudan has suffered insurrection, plague, famine, genocide, endless civil war, collapse of most of the infrastructure and the break up of the country with partition. But the truth that Sudan was far better off under colonial rule is a truth that cannot be spoken.

    1. White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves
      by Giles Milton

      This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale.

      1. Morning Plum et al.

        I am currently reading this book.

        I can also recommend Nathanial’s Nutmeg & Paradise Lost by the same author.

      2. I read that book last year. Pretty disheartening stuff.

        Of especial nastiness was whenthe Sultan took a dislike to a Jewish Ambassador, so had him nailed to the floor and then had a fire lit on top of him

        Makes you realise that white slavery (the capturing of white races, including from Cornwall), was highly organised and heavily trafficked by the Arab races.

    2. No mention then of the heroic efforts of the Royal Navy and its sailors killed as they fought the Atlantic slave trade?

  23. The Duke of Cambridge has expressed “profound sorrow” over the evils of slavery, saying: “It should never have happened.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/24/prince-william-express-profound-sorry-rare-acknowledgement-slavery/

    I wonder why No BTL comments are allowed under this article?

    The greatest beneficiaries of slavery were the descendants of the slaves who were sold by their own people: these people have escaped the misery, squalor and horror the descendants of those who were not enslaved have suffered.

    And once benign colonial regimes – such as The Sudan under British rule – were removed the full horror came to light – but nobody in the politics or the MSM acknowledge this. Just as they refuse to draw our attention to the fact that it was the British who brought an end to slavery through the efforts of William Wilberforce.

    Since men like my father left the Sudan the Sudan has suffered insurrection, plague, famine, genocide, endless civil war, collapse of most of the infrastructure and partition. But the truth that Sudan was better off under colonial rule is a truth that cannot be spoken.

  24. A Ponder

    WTF are getting so involved in the Ukraine.
    We have no close ties with the country
    I doubt, if our arsenal can afford to deplete its’ stocks by 6000 missiles
    We have vitually no seawothy/seagoing warship.
    Museums throughout UK probably have more Tanks than the Army does
    We sent a, wait for it, ‘aircraft (snigger) carrier to sea, with aircraft from RAF and USN, not the Fleet Air Arm
    When the dust (hope it is not Radio Active ) finally settles, we will still need oil, which Russia will not supply
    With Net Zero, we are helpless, no manufacturing economy, etc
    If I were a sceptic, I would say Great Reset, WEF, COP, Soros

      2. Perhaps Betty should get in first and cancel Jamaica. Reparations will be sent in the form of tickets back to Africa.

        1. Strange isn’t it, if I or most other people were so massively concerned about my/our heritage and how I managed to be were I am and had the gusto to complain at every opportunity, about home, being the far off and beautiful group of islands where I was currently living. I am quite certain I would have made sure that I at some time traveled to where it is well known that my ancestors had come. I’ll bet everything I have, that not one of those constantly moaning, disorientated, poor helpless abandoned people have ever even thought about the west coast of Africa. Or have even tried to arrange a trip, by going to take a glimpse of where they might have been living now instead.
          Go back or get over it, you lot of whingers.

    2. I saw a clip on the news this morning it was of all the worlds political idiots smiling shaking hands and lining up for a team photo.
      A firing squad would have far more than appropriate.

  26. For those who want to put a cat amongst the pigeons. Here is the link to the Jamaican Observer. There are at least two stories about the royal visit. You can post comment to stories below the articles. I’m now off to the doctors but I will post there when I come back.

    https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/

    1. Just left a quick post agreeing with their PM. The sooner we get rid of them the better for us all!

  28. Dear NoTTLers,

    As many of you know, Izzy has suffered from MND for many years. Unfortunately, he has been taken into hospital with major stomach problems and is awaiting an operation.

    I am going to send him a card from all us NoTTLers (unfortunately after covid things like flowers and biscuits etc. are not accepted) and am sure that you will join me in wishing him well.

    He is receiving emails, so anyone on our List or who knows anyone on our list can contact him through me.

        1. Please pass on my love and best wishes for a successful op, and speedy recovery!😘

        2. I would send him some ‘Groaners’ but I thinke he may be amidst many of them

      1. It is due for this morning (he was taken in yesterday) but there are complications.

      2. It is due for this morning (he was taken in yesterday) but there are complications.

    15. Thank you for the email, HL. Please give Izzy my best wishes. I didn’t realise he was so ill; I do hope after his operation he feels better than he has for some time past.

  31. Good morning all

    The postman has delivered a letter from the NHS informing me that my rearranged telephone appointment for MRI results due next week is now YESTERDAY.

    1. Typical efficiency. I’m on hold to the practice now. It’s only been 20 minutes so far.

        1. I got through. Eventually.

          When i went for my ECG i was in the waiting room for 30 minutes. In all that time the two Nurses didn’t see a patient. What were they doing?

          1. When I went last week, my appointment was for 10.30, I got there at 10.15. I was seen at 11.15 and they were thorough. My husband, same day, different hospital had an appointment for 8.30. He was put in the ward and they began the procedure at 12.30. He had no idea why his wait was so long.
            I think they are possibly in shock because they have to actually see patients now but are playing catch-up like mad.
            He had a phone call giving the dates and times of the next things but no letters yet. I haven’t had one single word either by phone, email or mail.
            We cannot afford to go private.

          6. The promise to ‘First do no harm’ seems to have been replaced with ‘First do nothing’.
            An utter disgrace. Complain to the ombudsman?

    2. Yesterday…🎵 all our troubles seemed so far away🎶 ………And yesterday I received the ‘original’ I was handed a printed copy of last Monday morning telling me of the changes in my appointments. And today i had a text message confirming my appointment for this time next week.
      At least you didn’t get a phone appointment for the MIR scan.

    3. Hearing things like that sounds as if we are a third rate country .. they don’t mind that we don’t matter .

      Can you have a zoom meeting asap?

      1. It’s OK as I had been told and did receive the call from a Consultant I trust.
        It’s just the time it takrs to send out a simple letter.

      1. You must be joking, they invited him so they could get his “play-book” to copy for their own countries.

    2. Excellent speech, and I saw another good one from a Croatian MEP telling Trudeau how it is.
      Unfortunately, the compliant media won’t report any of this, and I’m sure there were plenty of pro-authoritarians praising him.

  36. Blood pounding in my ears and low blood pressure. Filed an E-Consult with my symptoms. Just got a text telling me to call the practice to make an appointment with the Doctor to take my BP and review my medication.

    30 mins waiting on the phone. Doctor unavailable. Do an E-Consult. I said i had already done one and was told to call. Booked me in with a Care Assistant. Then had to cancel that as the CA doesn’t do BP with Meds.

    First available appointment with the Nurse 6th April.

    Clap everybody.

          1. Not again. I have been in and out of hospital 2 sometimes 3 times a month for the last 18 months. Twice in the Acute Medical Unit. 3 times in A&E then admitted to the wards. Countless venousections and blood tests. If i am going to croak i will do it at home.

    2. Clap on top of everything else?
      It really isn’t your year. };-))

      Good luck, it sounds as though you’re going to need it.

    3. Phizzee can you get to the surgery? After lunchtime now, of course. Get there and just don’t take no for an answer.

      2. Get a taxi to the surgery .

        In myy view they have recklessly cocked up your treatment from the word go ..

        Please go this afternoon and get in the door , please do it .

          2. That is very kind of you to say, Maggie. While you are under the weather yourself. The answer is still no.

      1. Been there, done that, stole the T-shirt. It took them 7 hours to tell me my GP was wrong and i hadn’t had a heart attack.

    5. Pip, just got back online – for goodness sake do what your concerned NoTTLe friends are telling you to do!

      Just get yourself seen, dear!

      1. I have been seen. The Doctor sent me to the Acute Medical Unit saying i had had a heart attack. The Unit ran their own tests and said i hadn’t. I think it a case of my BP meds working too well. I will stay with the Ramipril and drop the Lercanipidine.

        1. Thank goodness for that. Sorry about the delay but I haven’t really caught up with myself today, let alone with NoTTL!

    1. Who’d have believed it – Corbyn talking sense. The report is spoilt by the inane non-musical banging in the background. It could have been an ex BBC sound technician who are experts at that, but none of them would have agreed to do it if they had known the content.

        1. There was a quite good docu on the Bayeux Tapestry – marred by intrusive and utterly pointless muzak.

    3. I seem to have drifted into an alterative reality where a so called Conservative government believes in high taxes, green idiocy, wokery and corruption while ex loony lefties seem to be talking sense for a change!

      1. They are still loony lefties. The problem is that the current government is also moving rapidly in that direction.

    4. Hoodagestit!

      On this showing he would have been a better PM than the Bullshitting, Bumbling Bumptious Bonker.

    1. Like war, taxes and cost of living do not affect HoC Scum, they just claim more in expenses

    2. ‘Afternoon, Maggie.

      It is only the Labour Benches, enthralled by their Shadow Chancellor making inane points.

    3. Phones are banned in schools during class and we ban them on our courses during class time. MPs should not be allowed to fiddle with their phones in the HoC.

  39. Received the final response this morning following my complaint of the non treatment I received last June when I had my detached retina. A few of surprising statements.

    Firstly, on behalf of Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, I would like to apologise sincerely for both your experience last year and for our initial written response, which we acknowledge did not include an accurate description of your assessment in ED.

    We recognise that you should have been streamed directly to ED given the seriousness of your condition and I apologise that you had to wait unnecessarily

    Once again, I am sincerely sorry for your experience in the department, the incomplete medical records and for our misleading response of 23 July 2021. This is not acceptable and understand why you felt let down.

    We accept that your eye examination in ED was not rigorous, was not documented and was not accurately described in the doctor’s statement, which informed our previous response

    We recognise that your experience at ED was compounded by the lack of response from the Ophthalmology Team after they received the referral from ED on Tuesday 8 June 2021. I am sorry that there was such a delay in offering you the required urgent appointment. I completely understand your disappointment and loss of trust. We aim to offer the highest standard of service to all our patients, and we have clearly failed in your case.

    I’m not so sure this would have been the outcome if my original complaint hadn’t been sent to the CEO and that I hadn’t insisted on a face to face meeting with them. If they were going to lie they were going to have to do it to my face.

    Their original response was a disgrace. I obtained a copy of the notes made of my visit and there was no record of any of the tests they said had taken place on the official document.

    I am now pondering whether to refer the whole saga to the Ombudsman.

    1. Shocking. No promises that “lessons will be learned”….

      As to your last point – will you live long enough to see a report? That service takes YEARS…..

      1. No thanks Phil .

        I’m not looking for compensation as I didn’t lose my sight. I just want them to do what they’re supposed to do. The biggest disgrace was the lack of recording af any action taken and then lying about it. Unforgivable .
        I just don’t want other people to go through the same as I did.

        1. I know it is taxpayers money but i would still sue for negligence and lies. They always cave and pay. Especially after admitting they were in the wrong.

        3. Just tell him/them that (the real 6′ 5″, 220 lb) Jack Reacher is your mate and he will be popping round to see tham all

  40. Lavrov’s stepdaughter targeted as UK announces 65 new Russian sanctions. 24 March 2022.

    Other individuals who had their UK assets frozen included the billionaire oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler, who has close links to Roman Abramovich; Herman Gref, the chief executive of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank; and Polina Kovaleva, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s stepdaughter, who reportedly owns a £4m house in London.

    The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said all were “complicit in the murder of innocent civilians” and should “pay the price”.

    Oh of course; she owns a house! She must be guilty! What about those MP’s who voted for the attacks on Iraq and Libya? What about Blair who is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/uk-widens-russian-sanctions-list-to-target-key-industries-and-individuals

    1. We have become a nation of kleptomanic thieving barbarians.

      The uncivilised and hypocritical behaviour towards Russian people who have nothing to do with Putin’s war makes me ashamed to be British.

      1. O/T I looked at the pictures on your website. Very lucky students. You have a lovely home. Got a spare room? :@)

      2. 361583+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,
        Not ALL of us supported / voted lab/lib/con coalition party over the last three plus decades, MANY tried to change things seeing through the coalition treachery.

        1. Afternoon, Minty.

          I know it is wrong to speak ill of the dead but not as wrong as justifying the slaughter of huge numbers of innocent children.

      2. She gave Saddam Hussein an indication that Iraq could take over Kuwait without any consequences. He believed her

    3. …and what about the 14,000 killed in Donbass by the Ukrainian Army’s elite Azov, neo-Nazi Brigade?

      1. They don’t count because we, as a country, have long abandoned any sense of principle or decency. Putin, as I say below, has killed approximately 1000 civilians and none of them deliberately. We are not “complicit in the murder of innocent civilians” and should not “pay the price” even though we are aiding and abetting the Ukrainians in an effort to prolong this conflict. Evil, it sems is never capable of seeing itself. It is far to busy being self righteous and hypocritical.

  41. Lavrov’s stepdaughter targeted as UK announces 65 new Russian sanctions. 24 March 2022.

    Other individuals who had their UK assets frozen included the billionaire oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler, who has close links to Roman Abramovich; Herman Gref, the chief executive of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank; and Polina Kovaleva, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s stepdaughter, who reportedly owns a £4m house in London.

    The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said all were “complicit in the murder of innocent civilians” and should “pay the price”.

    Oh of course, she owns a house! She must be guilty! What about those MP’s who voted for the attacks on Iraq and Libya? What about Blair who is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/uk-widens-russian-sanctions-list-to-target-key-industries-and-individuals

  42. Have a question. I was talking to someone today who said that he believed that if you are over a certain age and you dare to complain about the NHS they will actively discriminate against you because, as he put it, you are surplus to requirements. So it is better to keep your mouth shut and comply. Do any of you agree with that assessment?

    1. Afternoon Johnathan. Yes but you are actively if not deliberately discriminated against if you are old anyway. One of the things that really gets up my nose is that infantile tone they adopt to speak to you as if you were mentally retarded.

      1. As you know I have been waiting for a cystoscopy since the end of July of last year. A date has still to be set although I did get to see a doctor a couple of weeks ago which ended with a promise that I would be scheduled for a cystoscopy, no date set. The person I was speaking to is having the same procedure but is in no way in as much of a dire situation as I am. The hospital -phoned him yesterday, told him to come in tomorrow and they will do tests in the morning and the cystoscopy in the afternoon. He has waited for 10 weeks. By the time they get around to me it will be 9 months at least. What is worse is because of the delay, I now have bladder stones and, I can tell you, passing one of those is toe curling screech up the wall painful.

        1. See Alf’s post about the treatment he received (or didn’t) for his eye problem. Complain to the CEO.

      2. They tried that on my husband the last time he was going through it- he asked a perfectly lucid question and was told, “Don’t worry your head about it, darling.” Unluckily for the person, I was also present and I told her to a) answer his question and b) only I was permitted to call him darling. She was very huffy with me from then on which really bothered me…..;-)) He was snorting with laughter.

    2. Though i don’t think i have experienced it personally i believe they can be vindictive. When waiting at reception on the Acute ward a nurse came up to the booking room and said to the receptionist that a Mrs so and so wanted to see her husband. The nurse also said the woman was very insistent and at least wanted to speak to his Doctor. The harridan in the booth said No. There were plenty of people accompanied by their partners both in the waiting room and on the ward.

    3. After living for many years in a country that respects its ‘old’ people. I was quite shocked at the attitude a lot of people now have about the older generation here in the UK: especially the thinking that we in someway don’t deserve what we’ve work all our lives for.
      As for the NHS, I have private insurance, an expense that I budgeted for before my return, there was no way I would put myself in their hands if ever the time comes.
      It is criminal that a system that one paid into during a working life, has become so discriminatory through incompetence and yet held as some sort of untouchable icon.

    4. After living for many years in a country that respects its ‘old’ people. I was quite shocked at the attitude a lot of people now have about the older generation here in the UK: especially the thinking that we in someway don’t deserve what we’ve work all our lives for.
      As for the NHS, I have private insurance, an expense that I budgeted for before my return, there was no way I would put myself in their hands if ever the time comes.
      It is criminal that a system that one paid into during a working life, has become so discriminatory through incompetence and yet held as some sort of untouchable icon.

  44. Inside ‘Putin’s yacht’: Lavish interiors of £500million luxury vessel docked in Tuscany – including gold-plated toilet paper holder – are revealed. 24 March 2022.

    The President could hardly feel safer when he does climb aboard, as the vessel is also equipped with landing spots for 16ft military helicopters and a four-radar security system said to be capable of shooting down drones.

    Unfortunately he hasn’t climbed aboard. Ever! This is just more thieving!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10647313/Inside-Putins-yacht-Lavish-interiors-500million-luxury-vessel-docked-Tuscany.html

    1. Gosh! a gold-plated toilet paper holder.
      I bet ‘Airforce One’ has got the same, not to mention all the added electronics. Pathetic reporting, but probably appeals to the great unwashed.

  45. Inside ‘Putin’s yacht’: Lavish interiors of £500million luxury vessel docked in Tuscany – including gold-plated toilet paper holder – are revealed. 24 March 2022.

    The President could hardly feel safer when he does climb aboard, as the vessel is also equipped with landing spots for 16ft military helicopters and a four-radar security system said to be capable of shooting down drones.

    Unfortunately he hasn’t climbed aboard. Ever! This is just more thieving!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10647313/Inside-Putins-yacht-Lavish-interiors-500million-luxury-vessel-docked-Tuscany.html

  48. uk.cmail19.com/ei/j/64/593/CCC/csimport/Screenshot2022-03-24at12.05.47.120604.png
    ‘Ah, spring! Wonder what’s been going on in the world.’

    1. I wonder why these wazzocks try the “I’m just like you” act. Never works. Just makes them look stupider.

      2. The Labour MP’s in the chip shop. Turned out none of them had any money on them. Par for the course for those deadbeat parasites.

          2. You wait until you have had mushy peas in batter. Quite similar in texture to an Arancini.

            *Sez a Nancy Southerner !

          8. Argh!
            Hope to persuade Firstborn to try pork pies, with home-grown pork. Should be good!

      1. Lots of guys don’t have this problem, like the number of “anything in a skirt” blokes I’ve known.

    3. What do you expect – of course he doesn’t know what a woman is: he was a boy at Winchester College!

      What he should have said was: “You’re a woman aren’t you Julia? Surely you don’t need me to tell you what bits and pieces you have that makes you a woman and makes me not a woman?”

      My nephew-in-law, a doctor, rowed in the Goldie boat at Cambridge while my niece, Susie, rowed in the Blue Boat for two seasons at Oxford. I was at his pre-nuptial party for his male friends and a fellow reveller asked Joe what it would be like to be married to woman even fitter than he was. His reply was: “Yes, she’s got muscles in places where I haven’t even got places!”

      1. It really is getting absurd. He knows, as well as anyone who’s sane what a woman is. How can we expect people with so little integrity to actually deal with difficult things when they can’t be honest about the simplest things?

        1. Scared of being cancelled by the Trans activists. Sunak doesn’t measure up in my opinion of being a Man.

          3. Not for him. He is filthy rich and the Chancellor of England. Why should he give a flying fiddlers about being hounded by the cancel culture goons.

          6. Another one with a Napoleon complex. He’s shorter than i am which makes him eminently punchable.

      1. Wordle 278 4/6

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

    1. Actually The United States of America’s language, is a borrowed and bastardised version of English. Small wonder the Meme stopped short.

      1. In defence, no it isn’t. In fact it is British English that has progressed further that American English which is, in comparison, conservative. King George III would have no difficulty with an American accent because he would have been speaking English with a similar accent. It is the British accent that has changed radically. That is why, as it has been pointed out by people far more qualified than me on the matter, that Shakespeare is better said in the old accent of the Ozarks which preserved the intonation of Elizabethan English long after we had switched to our version of English. Further more, many of the words that you suppose to be American are, in fact, old English words that have gone out of use here. Truck, pants, highway, are examples. Fall meaning Autumn, was common in England in the 1500s or 1600s. Perhaps the most prominent difference now is that we have dropped the rhotic “R”. which king George would have used too. We lost that in the 18 century while, obviously, the Americans preserved it.

        1. Hi, John. I’ve actually heard that argument on a number of occasions and I accept that it is probably true. I would venture further, however, that whilst the Americans have largely retained the English as she was spoken in 1776; they have also moved on in their own direction with many idioms that would never have been part of standard English at the time.

          1. Different than would never have been used over here.
          2. The definite article the has invariably, in the UK, been pronounced as “thee” before a word commencing with a vowel (“thee ink”, “the eggs” etc). In the USA it is always pronounced as “thuh” in those circumstances, giving it an unnatural staccato effect. This insidious habit has now caught on over here too.
          3. No one, back in 1776, would ever prefix all their answers with a vacuous “So” or “I mean” as they do today.

          When the late Australian cricketer and broadcaster, Richie Benaud, first started commentating at the BBC, he was advised to read and digest the advice in a small booklet written by the American grammarian, William Strunk Jr, called The Elements of Style. I bought this book on this recommendation and it is an eye-opener. Strunk advises his (American) readership to eschew all manner of slang, colloquialisms and common usage and shows them a more elegant style of speaking and writing with brevity. I have to admit, the book is a wealth of good advice.

          1. I still have Strunk, and I, above all, should heed his advice. Especially: “Omit needless words.” I agree with 1 and 2 of your observations. But not three. That seems to be a very recent linguistic fad and I have noticed it is being done less than it was. But it is bloody hateful, the sort of thing where one could cheerfully strangle the culprit. It seemed to come out of the blue. My guess, from L.A.

  58. Afternoon all.

    Question for you all. We have a vax upright vacuum cleaner and it really is quite heavy to manoeuvre. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations for a lighter cleaner? Have been looking at Henry cleaners. Big advantage made in Britain. Are they practical? How are they on stairs? Off to have a lookinGuildford but it would be good to hear from you.

    1. I murdered my last upright. I threw it down the stairs and chucked it into the street. Hoover…rips as it shreds as it tears. It was damned heavy too.

      I now have a Henry. It has a booster switch which is handy for recalcitrant doggie dander and it is quite lightweight.

      I recommend.

    4. We have a small, egg-shaped Bosch. Powerful suck, the only drawback is small dust bag.

    5. Have a pet vax. works fine on the cat hairs. Also have a Henry, not very good if you have pets, in my opinion and because of its shape I wouldn’t imagine it is very stable doing stairs. I use the Henry for corners, ledges, and cobwebs, that sort of thing because a vax is not much use for that.

    6. Dyson. Expensive but very efficient. The MR (and our dear old cleaner) swear by it.

          1. And i would have more respect for your opinion if you were the hooveree !

            Dyson is good for dander though. :@)

      3. On the strength of Christo going to Gresham’s we thought we’d try a Dyson vacuum cleaner. It was not a success.

    7. I have an egg shaed dyson, bagless. Thoroughly recommended.
      The woman in the shop who sold it was not too keen, she said it was favoured by men. It is quite loud.

      My experience with upright dysons has not been good, but the egg shaped ones are marvellous.

    8. Poppiesdad would prefer to use the Henry. I like the upright Shark, but it takes a bit of getting used to and seems to have a mind of its own. Bagless. P’dad always uses the Henry on the stairs.

    10. We have two Henry vacuum cleaners – one for upstairs the other for downstairs because they can be rather too heavy to lug about.

      1. We also used to have an upstairs vacuum and a downstairs vacuum.. they were second hand American Kirby machines .. so heavy and cumbersome, one was 40 years old . Moh used to say that they might have been made out of old warships. They had strong headlights and made a real racket soundwise .. Our dogs hated them .. so did our late parrot .

        Our G Tech K9 is efficient , light and a wonderful cleaner .

    11. They’re not cheap, but I’m very pleased with my Dyson cordless. Mine’s the V10 Animal, purchased as a refurbished model from Dyson’s eBay outlet. I bought it mostly because the flex of corded appliances has a tendency to wrap itself around my false legs while I’m not looking – with hilarious consequences.

        1. But only when it suits them – and frequently when it is very inconvenient for you!!

          The voice of experience!!

    12. Henry or Dyson, or both. Corded secondhand usually work well, but best to buy cordless new.

    13. Henry vacuums are OK, but don’t come with a rotating brush as your Vax presumably has. And – depending on your stairs, the standard hose may not be long enough to reach every step. It’s possible to get aftermarket nozzles with rotating brushes, but they rely on the suction to drive them, and aren’t very effective in my experience. You can also get longer hoses. For what it’s worth, for the fifteen years I was Verger at Seale church, there was a Henry. It’s still there. But for regular cleaning, I handed down two or three corded Dysons and used those in preference to Henry. All of the mains-powered Dysons eventually died. But it’s worth noting that Dyson will do a fixed price repair on relatively recent machines, so you could in theory pick up a used, knackered one, and get Dyson to restore it to full working order for much less than the cost of a new one.

      But – bored with tripping over cables – I replaced my V7 cordless with the V10 mentioned elsewhere, and the V7 remains in church and is still going strong. Just remember to empty the bin frequently, and it’s worth having a spare filter on hand.

    1. The demonrats have been gagging for war with Russia pre-Trump. The media is trying to whip the populous into a state of hysteria to get consensus for those troops boots on the ground.

      1. The American Empire has been very short lived. They are bolshy and rash. They need a war. Against Russia or China they will eventually lose. Just like all the other ‘peacekeeping’ wars they have been involved in.

        2. Look how well they did in Grenada….

          The aftermath was sorted by 19 Brit ‘Bobbies’

          3. They were a big help against Nazi Germany. But they didn’t have control of all the planning !

      2. Everyone who votes for a war, must be made to attend, on the ground, with a gun…simples

      3. It seems not just to be the Dems though – there is footage of the late John McCain in Ukraine in 2016 [?], apparently urging them to attack the Russians!?

        2. The not very lamented late John McCain was a RINO, Republican in name only. A despicable man that should have been expelled from the Republican Party decades ago.

    2. Are they virtue signalling that Ukraine is in distress?

      Stupid virtue signallers don’t even realise they’ve got it upside down.

    1. Traitor May was treated in a similar fashion by the EU. We should tell them all to fuck off.

      1. The one politician we have who has recently stood up for the UK is David Frost.

        It is blindingly obvious that David Frost has the measure of the EU and its apparatchiks and should be our next Prime Minister.

        We need to retain respect in the world. Boris Johnson and his globalist cabal of paid mercenaries have brought nothing but disdain from other nations on our country.

        1. Given how we have been jerked around by Politicos and Lords i expect Frost has been sent out to calm the rabid beast. He makes all the right noises. Will we see action? Will we buggery !

      1. His father is completely odious but he is not as physically repulsive and ugly as his eldest son.

        2. I have always believed Stanley to be polite and friendly, the sort of person who remembers names and says hello.

          2. Not surprised, as they married too young.

            That’s one of the hardest aspects of being a bloke, the fact that you should never, ever, ever hit a woman.

    3. Little boy lost not invited to the after class party. The whole group is replete with political sh!ts and Johnson certainly makes that qualification but he remains an outlier. No sympathy from this quarter, he can rot in hell all on his own for all I care.

  63. Apropos this trans phobia. Do many ladies transform themselves into men?

    Just asking.

      1. Is it true that the dicts are gleaned from those poor souls moving the other way?

    4. Some do but not many. In California, the gay men are in San Francisco, it is the gay Mecca, over the Bay Bridge, in Oakland, the Lesbians hang out. Since Oakland is next door to Berkeley, where I lived, you do see women who are pretending to be men. But, actually, they don’t bring it off very well, just as the men don’t bring off looking female. Mind you, the women usually look quite presentable as men. It’s just that you know, automatically, that they are women. One’s instinct is rarely deceived.

      1. I agree. There is a lesbian couple in this village (on arrival, they complained about the mud on the roads and the “terribly noisy cattle”)….

        One is definitely female and gave birth to a boy (who looks awfully like BPAPM’s latest son). The other wears men’s suits and ties and does her hair short back and sides with a parting – but, nevertheless, is unmistakably female!!

        1. Davies’ original first lines of the song were:

          “I met her in a club down in old Soho,
          Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca Cola …”

          He was threatened with a lawsuit by the Coca Cola company for a detrimental use of their brand name. As a result he changed the offending line to “… and it tastes just like Cherry Cola …”

          Curiously the original version has raised its head again, after all this time, and the Spotify version that I have names the soft drinks company in the lyrics.

      3. Actually, when they have been taking hormones, I think they are more convincing than the men going the other way. Certainly I have heard trans women expressing envy that trans men can pass themselves off as men so easily.

  64. Australia appears to continue its slide into NWO oblivion. South Australia is moving to make its pandemic emergency powers permanent, mandating 5 covid shots and promoting the booster campaign. To back up this move a 10 year deal with Moderna for 100,000,000 doses is in place. Just what the hell has gotten into the water down-under?

    South Australia Madness

    1. Here in the Homes for Deranged Gentlefolk, we get weekly newsletters. Last year we were informed that the office staff had been double jabbed; early this year we were told they’d both had their boosters. Guess what? Monday’s newsletter informed us that they are both off work…..with covid.
      I’d laugh if it wasn’t all so stupid.

      1. I simply do NOT understand why people test themselves, are scared of covid (even though they have been jabbed many times) and continue to wear masks. The MR’s IT brilliant nephew and his family test themselves most days – particularly when feeling normal and well.

        Testing simply reveals that you have (or do have not) some residual ‘flu type DNA in your system which probably came from a bout of seasonal ‘flu you had ten years ago.

          1. Baa humbug…! Ewe would say that – and ram it home, wether or not it was a good idea.

            I’ll go and have a liedown.

          5. Not if they identify as cows, the poor lambs don’t know any better.
            Then again it could be your spelling that confused me 🙄😎

        2. Next-door neighbour just proudly announced across what used to be the garden fence (thanks, Eunice) that she and her OH have had their fourth jabs today. I just smiled. Expect I’ll have a new neighbour before long.

          2. Not really. But I read TCW every morning, just had a phone conversation with a former neighbour who is unvaxxed, regular Stand in the Park attendee, has had mild Covid at least once (prolly twice), and she has pointed out what’s happening in South Korea at the moment. Look at Alex Berenson’s Substack for more details. There’s a view that the third jab is the one that does the damage. And in my small circle (a rural parish comprising four village churches), I’m aware of at least half a dozen fully-vaxxed parishioners who have gone down with the plague.

            I had two AZ doses. The second deprived me of the use of half of my right hand. It has improved, but I don’t think it will ever be perfect. At least, I can now play the organ again. It’s tricky when one and a half of your fingers are deprived of the sense of touch. The consultant surgeon I saw accepted that this was prolly (© Bill Thomas) due to the vaccine. His Registrar concurred, following the latest telephone appointment. “Ulnar nerve palsy”, is how he described it, in his letter to my GP. I have declined the booster. Only yesterday, I had a call from ‘NHS Immunisation Management Service’, which I rejected.

            Bottom line is – the more we accept jabs, the more we risk annihilation. But Billy Gates will be happy. Crikey, I sound like Polly…

          3. I’m with you all the way about this. 2nd AZ jab May 1 and, as I have said, after a couple of months, big red spots appeared on my right arm and my right foot and ankle swelled up. It is now March 24 and I still have a swollen foot and red spots. Also, a senior specialist sister at the hospital told MH that it was a good thing he hadn’t had the booster as it gets into your circulation, ends up in the liver and can cause real damage.
            There is no way I am having anymore junk injected into me and MH says the same. I am also wondering if those jabs have contributed to my health issues, especially the heart murmur which was news to me.

          4. I concur with everything that you say – have just seen on Twit that the death rate among the US military is up 1100 percent…grim….
            It was just the calm, Miss Marple like way that you said it!

      2. Yesterday I heard from a friend that four old ladies in her street, one 90 yo, another 80 yo and the other two in their 70s spent much time over tea in a garden discussing how long they would have to wait for their 4th (second booster) jab. They are literally gagging for it. Lost souls to government brainwashing.

      3. HA! HA! HA!
        All those I know who have / had Covid also were jabbet to the eyeballs.
        Me – no jab & not even a sniffle.

  65. Latest update on the NHS thing. I got a phone call to tell me that I was due for a pre-op assessment on the 6th of April and then the cystoscopy on the 20th April. But I still have no idea of how they intent to deal with the problem specifically. Is it always this chaotic? If you recall I had nothing but praise for the Radiology Department but now, with Urology, I feel I have fallen into a totally disorganized set up. I started with a recommendation that TURPS be done, then I was told by the next consultant, not a good idea under the circumstances. So now I have no idea what they intend. Is this sort of confusion normal in an English hospital? Excuse me for asking that question but it is the first time I have had dealing with hospitals in the UK in over 40 years.

    1. It is normal. I have had a Consultant from Southampton General hospital contradict the Consultant at Queen Alexander hospital Portsmouth. The Portsmouth Consultant is the one that diagnosed and treated me.

      1. OK Pip and anyone else. What do I do now, should I insist on speaking with a Consultant first or just go along with it? My concern is that if I start asking questions and insist on a Consultant first it will be yet more reason for them to delay. The 20 April actually means that they have not dealt with me for 10 months even though when I got into this mess I was told they would deal with me withing a couple of weeks. I can easily see this turning into a year. Honestly, if this was the USA I would be suing them now.

        1. You should have access to a consultant … you must , that is part of protocol..a detailed plan of a scientific or medical experiment, treatment, or procedure.

          Please be strong and not fearful .. these people are not Gods !

          1. That trouble is Belle that I never speak to the same person twice. So, in essence, I have no idea who I talk to. I am, supposedly, under the care of a particular Consultant, but I have never met him, only his minions.

          2. For what it is worth. I ALWAYS write a letter (keeping a copy) setting out my concerns, addressed by name to the consultant and asking for his views/help/advice etc. or simply reporting how my condition is behaving.

            It seems to get them off their arses.

        2. You need to be persistent. Most wards are locked but there are ways of getting in. You must present yourself in person and insist on being seen. Crying will help because they will be embaressed by other staff and people seeing.
          To get into a locked ward……sit in a wheelchair and wait for someone with a pass. As the door begins to close stick your foot in it. Reception is another another hurdle but being adamant and making noise they will at least have you on their register. They will ignore you for several hours so make sure you have some supplies in your bag.

          Surrepticiously film everything you can. Too late for me to spell correctly. Good luck.

          I gave up and walked out after 7 hours but i did at least get a diagnosis.

    2. Speaking as one who turned up for one pre-op assessment with a nurse who had no idea why I was there, and had someone else’s medication details in my file, and – on another occasion – attended a pre-op, only to find that they had no record of it when I turned up for said op – I’d say that was pretty normal. SNAFU.

    3. You need to be assertive. You need to insist. You need to keep at them. Don’t lose your temper because it gives them the excuse to dump you.

    4. It never used to be the norm- this is all post pandemic and lock down. Before all of that, the hospital where MH had his treatments etc was very efficient and organised.

    5. Afternoon Johnathan. I was born into an England that had Matrons that would frighten Adolf Hitler. It had Cottage Hospitals that make the present system look like Changi Gaol. It functioned almost without any political or managerial oversight because the people were all largely of one mind and culture. This has all gone now. What we have is a fragmented and fractured society whose individual members are incapable of organising even the most simple of tasks.

      1. Ah – the days of Hospital Management Committees. Some doctors; matron, some nurses, a secretary and, er, that’s it

          1. Wasn’t this the film with these immortal lines:

            Doctor: Big Breaths
            Girl Patient: Yeth and I’m only fithteen

          4. Wasn’t this the film with these immortal lines:

            Doctor: Big Breaths
            Girl Patient: Yeth and I’m only fithteen

        2. It was the same in local government, a few councillors and a Town Clerk (usually an experienced solicitor) to keep them in order and interrogate expenditure.

          Nowadays we have many more councillors and an upper tier of Masons who award each other ‘cabinet posts’ and play out their party political prejudices in a sort of mimicry of the House of Commons.

          We have been truly fucked for decades under these arrangements. The National Audit Office has proven unable to control the wastage of resources and corruption now endemic in councils across the land.

          1. Battersea Town Hall, Lavender Hill.. First room on right = Town Clerk First room on left = his secretary. That was “the legal department”. I know Battersea has merged into London Borough of Wandsworth – but I shudder to think how many solicitors, legal executives, paralegals etc etc they emply.

      2. Same here Araminta but I was born in Germany at a British Military Hospital. Army of occupation and all that. In Africa where we moved, I well remember the Matron in the hospital in Tripoli, sailing by in that wonderful headdress and blue uniform. I think if you grow up abroad, in the military, you actually end up being more English than the English at home. I didn’t think twice about standing up for the National Anthem or thought it odd when the soldiers would toast the Queen. Now it is a world that is gone and we will never get it back. It was more civilized and far more decent. It angers me when I have to listen to accusations of racism from nondescript people just off the boat as it were. I can honestly say I do not recall a single incident of racism when I was abroad. But here, in England, it is rife, and not by the native people of this land.

      3. When I first went into hospital (aged 6 to have my tonsils removed) the overwhelming smell was of disinfectant – now …

  67. Can we all wish Issy our good wishes and strength for his forthcoming operation .

    I haven’t got his email , but from my heart I hope he gains from our support and kindness.

    1. Absolutely. For obvious reasons I wish him all the best and a speedy recovery and good outcome.

    2. I think Herts Lass said his op was scheduled for today; hope it went well, I really do. Hope he has someone with him or to visit.

    5. Sent him an e-mail, Maggie, and told him that many, many on here were rooting for him.

          5. I don’t get my pension ‘til next year, and Alan keeps me a bit short, despite being chief cook and bottle-washer, and chauffeuse, at the moment!

          9. Silly boy, never give away the strategy, if you had left me unaware I wouldn’t have done unspeakable things into and on your lunch; such that the rest of your guests will now sue you.

  69. I am signing off for the day. Taken quietly. Will be brighter tomorrow – with ladder work in view. Pruning.

    Make the most of tomorrow and Sat – Sunday onwards will be much colder and sunless. And with rain early in the week. Just as the blue wysteria is budding like crazy.

    Have a smooth evening.

    A demain

    1. OT Bill, but the peregrine falcon which nest on a University building in Nottingham, has just laid her first egg! And I mean ‘just’! She looks exhausted now!
      Oops! Can’t post the link
      It’s Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust if you’re interested! It’s got a very good webcam!

      1. Typical female – making a song and dance out of a natural process….{:¬))

        (I have cancelled myself).

        1. I know! Alan made some remark, after I’d been in labour quite some time with our first daughter, along the lines of getting back to work in the fields….

        2. Typical female tranny- making a song and dance out of a natural process….{:¬))
          (I too have cancelled myself).

    2. OT Bill, but the peregrine falcon which nest on a University building in Nottingham, has just laid her first egg! And I mean ‘just’! She looks exhausted now!
      Oops! Can’t post the link
      It’s Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust if you’re interested! It’s got a very good webcam!

    1. Anyone who needs to refresh their memory on the symptoms can fish out The Plague And I

          1. My mother used to get her books out the library and I used to pinch them and read them. I remember The Egg and I best, which was made into a movie.

          2. I think I picked up copies belonging to my mother or my grandmother as well. Love Betty MacDonald! she always seemed like an extra member of our family somehow.

          3. I don’t know this as I was an elementary school librarian but I suspect that her books maybe out of print. I may look on Amazon to see.
            Edit- an audio book and a hardcover costing £44. That was The Egg and I…didn’t check the others.

  71. Johnson was on top form at his press conference today.
    The cretin thinks he’s a world leader, he confirmed beyond all shadow of a doubt that he’s not fit to be Churchill’s shit.

    1. You think that you have leadership problems?

      Trudeau gave a speech to the EU parliament yesterday, the response from an MEP called him a dictator and basically ripped him a new a%$hole.

      Strangely this is not receiving any coverage in our media. I guess that the media grant from the government let’s Trudeau decide what is published.

      Hopefully this is a link to a recording of the dismissal.
      https://twitter.com/i/status/1506905594623574020

      A shame for our country but a delight to watch.

      2. It failed to reach our MSM too, inexplicably. Elsewhere, online, not so much…

        Was only discussing this with a former neighbour a couple of hours ago.

      4. Deliciously priceless. If he appears to be undemocratic to an MEP, he must be bad. Well said that MEP.

      6. I honestly can’t tell if this is ironic. The EU is chastising Trudeau for being undemocratic? This is an organisation wanting an army to suppress political dissent. An organisation designed from the outset to exclude and alienate the voter.

        1. An organisation which ignored referenda or made people vote again until they gave the “right” answer. Democratic – yeah, right.

  72. Thanks so much for all your suggestions on hoovers. Oops, sorry, vacuum cleaners. Old habits die hard!

    Scores are in:
    👍 for:Bosch, Shark, Vax, K9, Hoover Whirlwind – all score one, with the Hoover good for stairs.
    👍👍👍👍 Dyson – 4 points
    👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 the winner is Henry by a country mile.

    I like the idea of a British make but I think the shape of them is not very practical for the stairs besides it being quite heavy I found. Alf used to do the stairs but his balance has become just a bit unreliable and he is in quite a lot of pain in his back. (Recent MRI showed his knee is utterly knackered and he has arthritis in the lower back). So it will be down to me in future in which case I want something easy to use/lift/manoeuvre.

    We looked at the Shark In Guildford this arvo, as well as the Henry, and the lift off part is good. Lots of thinking to do and weighting up the pros and cons. Thank you all again it helps a lot to know other people’s experience.

    1. The problem with Henry is the wife never wound up the cable after use and just left him lying there prostrate with a full bag and a blocked nozzle for me to clean up.
      The rechargeable Dyson on the other hand appears to satisfy her every task and no amount of maintenance is too much trouble, it seems.

      1. The main problem with my rechargeable Dyson is the Hall floor, which is coir matting. At the moment. My Dyson is determined to remove as many fibres as possible, and they clog up the machine. It’s easily removed, but a bloody nuisance. Maybe the Dyson will win, and the coir will be gone… 🙄

    2. The problem with Henry is the wife never wound up the cable after use and just left him lying there prostrate with a full bag and a blocked nozzle for me to clean up.
      The rechargeable Dyson on the other hand appears to satisfy her every task and no amount of maintenance is too much trouble, it seems.

    7. Get a cordless one.

      We’ve a Miele and it’s great, but the cord knots like a demon. If I were to get another hoover, it’d be cordless.

    8. I’ve got a Henry, it’s very good. The Dyson (small, stair-friendly type) isn’t bad, but the Vax was useless.

  76. Instructor: OK, welcome to salsa class! Who’s ready to learn how to dance?

    Me, hiding a bag of tortilla chips: There’s been a misunderstanding.

    1. If I get thumped by the cardio instructor on Saturday, it will be your fault for putting that comeback into my mind.

      She is talking of a Zuma class but Zuma/ salsa what’s the difference?

    2. Jack plays for Somerset. His trusty bat is made by a Somerset maker.

      Good luck to him! He has already proven himself as a batsman when an often desperate team needs a plus and is playing true to form in the Windies test.

  79. I have always understood that Germany lost WWII but that the Nazis won it. Most of the German industrial and chemical companies survived and went unprosecuted after Nuremberg, despite profiting from forced labour and materials plundered from Jews and others from lignite coal mines to textile factories. Those German companies remain household names viz. I G Farben, Bayer, Krupp, Mercedes and countless others.

    When I witness Klaus Schwab and the major
    industrialists running the show globally I see the same Nazis and realise that they never vanished after the last war but merely plotted and waited in order to reassert their ghastly values on the current generation.

    We need to resist this global tyranny, prosecute and incarcerate the current globalist henchmen and teach them all a lesson for all time.

      1. I’m not sure – they were more lifelike [apart from the strings, to be fair].

    3. Has somebody been taking things from Phizzee’s bedroom wardrobe?

      apart form Phizzee himself, of course

      1. Don’t forget i know where you live. One day i might be hiding under your bed…with a feather duster and a bucket of tar.

    5. On the contrary. The girl across the road from me resembles that plastic doll as do many others, those you see in the gym doing squat weights with the assistance of some blonde Germanic-looking muscle boy (square head and thighs like tugboats) accompanied by zero intelligence.

    1. Err…
      If they use chemical weapons we will?

      Doesn’t that actually make us worse than them if we do, when we are claiming the moral high ground?

      Biden needs chemicals, cyanide and strychnine.

    2. Will we hear the dreaded cry as per WWI, “Gas, gas!“, or “Where’s our bloody gas?”

    3. Our very own blonde bombshell has proven to be a piece of shit. I doubt anybody in this country or the universe believes a single word or utterance from this fat repulsive heap of excrement.

      He now resembles a hulk of quivering jelly with a wig on top. Please will someone, anyone, put this bastard down before he does any more damage to our country and its reputation.

    4. When I saw Delingpole’s Twitter assertion that the Russians had taken Mariupol, I feared this would be the trigger for the chemical weapons fake news item.

    5. Is this a recent photograph? Johnson’s face looks bloated and strained: the face of a man who now really knows he’s in a deep hole of his own making and has realised there is no way out except with ignominy and serious repercussions being the result.

      Amongst his many failures is his inability to reel in his Health Minister who is blithely continuing to promote the jabs that are daily being reported as dangerous. Released documentation from one manufacturer, that was planned to be sealed for 75 years, is providing a source of information that should be used as the driver to halt the inoculations. Sadly, Johnson doesn’t have the leadership qualities, not one, that would allow him to exercise some GRIP on events or on those driving the events. He is a gross failure as PM.

  85. Evening, all. Lovely day again. I was out in the garden, but didn’t get much done. Sitting out and sipping a glass of wine was too much of an attraction! As for the headline: The West must learn from its failure to avert meddling causing the conflict in Ukraine is more like it.

    2. Sitting in the sun with a glass of wine and enjoying life IS getting things done! ‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’

      1. I did manage to do a bit of weeding and removing dead wood as well, but the list of jobs that need doing is getting ever longer.

    2. I watched this, as I always do if Dr Starkey is on. I find his factual history lessons fascinating and compelling. For me he leaves other historians in the shade.

  89. An early good morning to all. Unable to sleep so sat up in bed with a mug of tea!
    A DT Article to pass the time with:-

    The Rustat verdict is a humiliation for woke activists
    The tide may have finally turned against campaigners, and we can now hope that rational thinking is returning to our great institutions

    DAVID ABULAFIA

    Representatives of Jesus College, Cambridge, have declared themselves “shocked” at the verdict that, despite the strident demands of campaigners, Grinling Gibbons’s monument to Tobias Rustat should remain in the college chapel.

    What is truly shocking is the sheer certainty of these campaigners that the judgment of the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Ely, tasked with deciding the monument’s future, would go their way. It is of a part with the arrogant attitude of activists across the country, who have closed their ears to intelligent debate about how we commemorate notable people from the past whose social and political assumptions were very different from our own.

    It turns too on a distorted view of the past: one that is rooted in the assumption that modern British society is deeply and ineradicably impregnated with the legacy of the slave trade. What the judge in the Rustat case, Deputy Chancellor David Hodge, rightly called the “evil, utterly abhorrent, and repugnant” slave trade did have a role in the making of Britain. But to afford it such exclusive predominance is to ignore all the other ways in which Britain enriched itself over the centuries. No better example of this distortion can be found than the row over Rustat, who, it has now been shown, made his many benefactions with money obtained elsewhere than the slave trade.

    Some quiet victories have been obtained in recent months by those who oppose the new iconoclasm championed in universities and museums. Imperial College, for instance, has agreed not to remove the name of Thomas Huxley, one of the college’s founders. But it is the Rustat judgment which provides the firmest indication yet that the tide has finally turned. It is a landmark decision in the resolution of our current disputes. We must now hope that rational thinking is returning to British institutions just as the public grows exasperated by increasingly absurd claims about historical figures.

    Deputy Chancellor Hodge had harsh words for those who jumped to conclusions about Rustat, enlarging his role in slavery out of all proportion, making it out to be the main source of his wealth, though it was not. Sloppy research about links between colleges and slavery is unacceptable in one of the world’s leading universities. In Jesus, as in other great educational establishments, the absurd generalisations of “Critical Race Theory” have been allowed to guide debate about events and behaviour several centuries ago. In one email a student even complained of “a concerted effort by external white supremacist organisations” to retain the Rustat monument.

    The judgment also makes powerful positive points about the religious setting for the monument: a church or chapel belongs not to humans but to God, and “the Rustat memorial may be employed as an appropriate vehicle to consider the imperfection of human beings … Forgiveness encompasses the whole of humankind, past and present, for we are all sinners; and it extends even to slave traders.”

    Nor should we forget the words of the Rustat monument itself: “The greatest part of the Estate he gathered … he disposed in his life time in works of charity.” Such a man, whose bones lie under the floor of his beloved chapel, deserves more than to be reduced to a cardboard caricature.

    David Abulafia is a professor of history at the University of Cambridge

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/24/rustat-verdict-humiliation-woke-activists/

    1. Excellent! However, I think it is too early to believe that we have wokery and the wokeists on the run because there are still plenty of organisations for whom craven capitulation is a way of life now. It will take a long time, and many more battles, before we finally see off the new puritanism.

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