Thursday 26 June: Hollow pledges on defence spending won’t make Britain any safer

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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403 thoughts on “Thursday 26 June: Hollow pledges on defence spending won’t make Britain any safer”

    1. Another smart arse who is proud of the damage done to our country, its culture and social structure.

  4. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page. Wordle was a Double Bogey today.

    Wordle 1,468 6/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,468 4/6

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    1. I notice that Mel Stride offered Conservative support for the PIP reforms on condition that there is a real cut in welfare, rather than merely a transfer of existing provisions to the "deserving poor" (i.e. those deemed "hardworking" because they are executives with influence, pledged to "growth" and "change", or are in a protected category). The idea is that it is good to bully people into applying for work that is not being offered them.

      I wonder why all those people in the 20% that voted in over 400 Labour MPs did not simply vote Conservative if they wanted a Tory approach to welfare.

    1. Is he carrying the black bag to clear all the disposable plates and half eaten vol-au-vents?

  8. Colin Macinnes
    11h
    A starving asylum seeker is greeted at Dover by a good genie who grants him 3 wishes.
    The asylum seeker says i'm hungry. (POW) a huge banquet appears!

    He then says now I want a nice house. (POW) a big mansion with a swimming pool appears.

    He then says I want to be British. (POW) everything vanishes!

    He asks where has everything gone? the genie says you're British now mate, you're entitled to f all

  9. Beebsplaining
    10h
    So who is headshed at the home office, for whom we can now thank for the ongoing exemplary performance on borders 🤔
    Try Dame Antonia Rebecca Caroline Angharad Catherine Romeo (one person)

    "Permanent Secretary of the Home Office from April 2025, with responsibility for delivering the safer streets mission, secure borders, immigration and passports, homeland security, and protecting vulnerable people"🤔

    They may regret this past pic 🤔
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c11015007f0d486e1920d3afe1634554d34daa651993d1a1644ff01ee1714be5.png

  13. JackCoitus
    10h
    Glastonbury founder Sir Michael Eavis 'could avoid £80m in inheritance tax' after making key change to festival | Daily Mail Online
    Eco-Communist wants the state to pay for everything, but she gets to inherit the farm.

    Literally.

    Paleface
    JackCoitus
    9h
    And we all pay for it as the BBC send about 10,000 staffers there every year to provide wall-to-wall brownosing of the "stars" nobody normal has ever even heard of

    1. Are you suggesting that Sir Michael is a "she", Citroen1? Confused of Colchester.

  14. Beebsplaining
    10h
    And in news that surprised none(farage gbnews where else🤔) the home office admits they have lost track of 45,000 sylum ponces🤔😳🙄
    But of course they don't call them lost they call them "withdrawn"🙄 Jesus wept

    Lord Farquard
    Beebsplaining
    8h
    45,000… add that to the 40,000 on the watchlist, we have an occupying army of almost 100,000, far bigger than our own army.
    Will you be able to protect your family when the fighting starts? Because no one else will do it for you. The State has chosen its side, and it isn't the British people.

    1. The 45 000 withdrawn asylum claims will be using their second passport (EU, purchased in Greece) to work in the UK I expect.

      1. I saw a clip last night showing dozens of men with bicycles who are proven to be working illegally making in town local deliveries.

        1. As long as they aren't put up in accommodation and being given benefits at taxpayers expense I prefer that they do.

          1. I’ve also seen shots near a invaders hotel where there were stacks of bikes.

          2. One solution to the problem would be to say to every arrival, “on your bike, you get absolutely nothing except the bike and if you break the law we’ll dump you wherever your DNA suggests you come from.”

        2. Asylum seekers working on the black. You just can’t live on the money they give you for asylum, not when you’ve got a big house to build back home, and every relative wanting money from you because you’re in the land of free money.

    1. That's 'cos he's getting the climate change a bad name, and generating lots of resistance and skepticism.

  16. Morning, all Y'all.
    Overcast. Was quite tropical last night – after a day of bright & warm, thunderclouds came over and made the smell of wet earth I recall from my youth in Nigeria, and very, very humid!

      1. 😂

        Edit. Apparently in Ancient Greek philosophy it refers to the spirited or passionate part of the soul.

        And bloody hell. I am listening to a podcast and they have literally just used the word.

    2. Trump is betraying the people by implementing the mass data collection that is digital slavery. He is doing it in plain sight. They need a leader that people believe in to lead them into slavery.

      Farage is probably the British Trump. Same pattern – shambolically "incompetent" leader who breaks government with one disastrous decision after another, followed by Hail the Saviour!

  18. Good Morning!

    Today we have the fourth part in our series No War With Russia!, this time covering the Weapons of Mass Persuasion used in the propaganda war those controlling the MSM have been waging against Russia. Please read and leave a comment.

    Taking a break from the daily outrage and the sheer lunacy of life in the globalist asylum, grumpy old git Graham Bedford treats us, in his Another one bites the dust , to list of the things once important to him but now, in the wisdom of his years, no longer have appeal. Now GB loves comments, so please get cracking lads and lasses and make his day by telling what things in your life have bitten the dust.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 31.5%; Solar, 7.5%: Wind 17%; Imports, 15.5%; Biomass, 9.3%; Nuclear 15.7% and Miscellaneous, 3.5%.

  19. Answering my own question, after asking ChatGPT:
    "Thymos is the spirited, honor-seeking, and recognition-driven part of the human psyche.
    It motivates us to stand up for ourselves, demand fairness, seek status, and feel pride—or indignation."
    Still makes no sense… Coffee needed!

  20. That's the problem with some our posters on here, Herr Oberst. I also don't have the time to research "Proff" – is it just a mis-spelling? (Good morning, btw.)

    1. I'm guessing a misspelled shortening of "Professor". Could be a Merkin first name, they have strange ones over there.
      Morning, Elsie!

      1. From Wiki:-

        Thumos
        Thumos, also spelled thymos, is the Ancient Greek concept of 'spiritedness'. The word indicates a physical association with breath or blood and is also used to express the human desire for recognition. It is not a somatic feeling, as nausea and dizziness are

  22. Hollow pledges on defence spending won’t make Britain any safer

    The one thing that you can count on, government does nothing for our benefit.

    1. Government in Britain has always been by the rich, for the rich.
      But as long as the aristocracy held the House of Lords, the interests of the rich were roughly analogous to the interests of ordinary people, because they owned large parts of Britain. They were never going to do things against Britain because that would have damaged their own wealth.
      Now, we have a Prime Minister who attends Bilderberger meetings, a nebulous international group of people who owe no allegiance to any nation. These people don't care about destroying Britain.

        1. Ah yes, I may have confused Trilateral Commission with Bilderbergers. There are so darn many of these trillionaire back-slapping parties!

          1. He could be in both, I think the Health Minister was with them recently, I expect he will take over from Starmer if he goes.

      2. And if the peasantry were too much pissed off, they might rise up and cut the Lord's head off. Definitely a bad hair day, that.

      3. Ah, but at least they were patriotic.
        Fast forward to 2025 and you've got a double whammy.. they hate the ordinary people, and they hate your country.

  23. 407277+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 26 June: Hollow pledges on defence spending won’t make Britain any safer

    Courtesy of the current odious state of the nation the prime concern MUST be personal self / family defence the house of deceit & treachery have no regards for the indigenous peoples health & safety as is proven daily.

    ALL the while the political toxic trio are in the house of future horrors arguing the toss for " they know they can count on" the tribal herds X of consent .

    If by a political miracle the toxic trio WERE kicked into touch then there are others within the house that will step into the breach in a parties hour of need.

    In short the peoples need worry as the situation will return to, well, normal post labour.

  24. Just wondering whether we are all being played with this bill to cut welfare benefits.
    Were they always going to cancel it or water it down to make it meaningless?
    Then they have the excuse to bring in a wealth tax, what they really wanted to do all along

    1. Who knows, Bob3? Everyone seems to have a different view on things these days, so nothing would surprise me. (Good morning, btw.)

  25. Who knows, Bob3? Everyone seems to have a different view on things these days, so nothing would surprise me. (Good morning, btw.)

  26. Good morning all.
    A dullish but dry sort of start to the day with a rather humid tad over 17½°C outside.

    Quite right Mr. Bradford.

    SIR – Promises to increase defence spending are worthless without a commitment to secure the British economy, which has been severely damaged by successive governments over the past 40 years. Budget deficits have driven up the national debt, putting our children on the hook for today’s expenditure and removing the capacity for the country to spend more in the face of a real emergency.

    This debt crisis must be addressed. In addition, the Government must adopt policies that deliver affordable energy, so that British businesses can be competitive.

    Until a party seriously commits to sound budgets and cheaper energy, we cannot have faith in promises to secure the country.

    Ronnie Bradford
    Vienna, Austria

    1. Mr Bradford, It's Our streets that need defending and we are already paying for this in our taxes. But it's not happened. Stopping the boats 15 years ago would have ensured easier defence on our once safe streets.
      But as usual our useless political classes have effed up everything they come into contact with.

    1. From Vigilant Fox website:
      "
      STORY #3 – NATO just crossed Putin’s red line—and reignited the path to World War III….Trump made headlines by threatening tariffs on Spain for dodging defense spending. But the real story is being buried: NATO’s new chief called Russia the “most significant and direct threat” and declared Ukraine’s membership path “irreversible.”

      Putin already warned this could trigger a third world war.
      In 2022, he said if Ukraine joined NATO and tried to take Crimea, “you will be fulfilling Article 5 in a heartbeat,” adding, “There will be no winners.”

      ….. And Zelensky? Seated front row at the NATO summit, even though Ukraine isn’t a member."
      —-

      This is ridiculous. NATO is past its sell by date. Britain should pull out of this now warmongering organisation.

  29. Letter and response:-

    Maternity care inquiry

    SIR – Anyone involved in providing maternity care in Britain could tell you how standards have been in free fall for a decade. For example, our country has the shortest average postnatal stay in Europe – and, as a result, the lowest breastfeeding rates.

    Recently I was on a half-empty flight that was not allowed to take off until it had a full complement of attendants on board. Yet every day, up and down Britain, there will be maternity units running with half the necessary number of midwives.

    It is heartening that Wes Streeting is ordering a national inquiry into maternity care (report, June 24). I hope this morphs into a public inquiry – and that every CEO and head of midwifery who oversaw a maternity department can be held to account for letting units become understaffed to the point that this has been normalised.

    Malcolm John Dickson FRCOG
    Morley Green, Cheshire

    One wonder how much the shortage of Midwives, highlighted by Malcolm John Dickson FRCOG, is exacerbated by the requirement for entrants to the Nursing profession to be degree educated deterring otherwise capable and able young women from entering the profession and thus not being available for training and promotion to midwifery roles?

    1. Might it be, BoB, due to the possibility of litigation should something go wrong? Certainly, that is the case in the USA. (Good morning, btw.)

    2. He may be a Fellow of the RCOG but I wonder if he knows how to recruit Midwives if there is a profound shortage? Anyone reading his letter would think there are rows and rows of unemployed Midwives hanging on coat hooks just waiting to receive the call.

      Morning BoB and all

  30. Good morning, all. Broken cloud and breezy.

    Have those responsible for the Channel invasion i.e. our politicos of many persuasions – as they would like us to believe – realised that more people are waking up to the idea that said politicos are, in fact, cheerleading the invasion? The Tories didn't stop the invasion and now Labour is overseeing an increase in the numbers arriving.

    A few days ago Starmer was wittering on re the homeland will need to be on war fighting readiness. Now this:

    https://x.com/georgegalloway/status/1937987731042279656
    Coincidence?

    The idea that Russia is responsible for the invasion fits well into the plan that war with Russia is necessary and unavoidable. However, very little this particular government claims to be fact is believable.

    5. It is beyond belief. It's utterly ridiculous to blame Russia. Where were the military escorts – in France? Why does the UK not PUT A STOP TO IT? Intercept them in the channel, and shoot them if they don't retreat to France. Don't let them out of their dinghies.

    6. I think we know who is behind it, and they are sitting in Westminster and central London.

      1. If we really wanted to stop migration we would make the UK as hostile and nasty to immigrants as Iran is to Jews.

        Britain has long ceased to be a humanitarian country so why do the politicians pretend that it still is and treat the invading migrants so lavishly with money, hotels food and pocket money and access to lawyers who will enable them to stay for totally spurious reasons.

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Grey breezy but still no rain all those forecasts we are subjected to on our home screens don't seem to happen.
    Comment below on the headline, we wouldn't need it if we were not being permanently invaded.
    Nor would we have to watch our country being wrecked by more and more sensless building projects.

      1. We are going to have to water all of our garden plants yet again. What a new science….😉

  32. I think you're right Delboy.
    Some one is putting money into the hands of our political nonces to make it acceptable only to them.

  33. Bliss. Grey skies and cool breeze.
    Sez Temperate Zone Girl who spent six months complaining about a never ending winter.

    1. And Just emphasis all that you banged you fist on the table…….then said is that the Front door or the Back door.

  36. 408277+ up ticks,

    The thick as ox shite humans have encroached on Thor / Zeus & Indra turf and expected no opposition, wrong BIG TIME.

    Two killed as floods smash France
    Deadly winds, hail and more than 39,000 lightning strikes recorded in France and Belgium

    1. Those strikes are no surprise yer French will have a lightning strike at the drop of a hat.

      1. Perhaps very high cloud with the sun shining on it and still visible at that height.

        1. Quite. Has he never seen a low sun lighting up clouds on the opposite horizon?

  37. Good morning, all. Very late on parade. Another miserable night (the 4th) made worse by slipping over in the shower room (where the downstairs loo is). At 2.15 am, after yet another session -, cleaning up afterwards I slipped, trapped my head between the radiator and the washbasin – at the same time trapping my hand above my shoulder. I yelled and yelled – and fortunately the MR, sound asleep, heard and came down and rescued me. My shoulder is uncomfortably wrenched. At 3 am I caved in and took a Loperamide tablet. And just now, a dose of K & M.

    Now going carefully downstairs to read the uplifting news in the paper while the MR tackles Fakenham.

    1. That sounds absolutely awful Bill. I hope you have no lasting bad effects. You must look after yourself.

    2. That's terrible Bill, hope you'll be ok – take more care. Thank goodness MR was about

    3. How awful, Bill and such a shock when you’re only half-awake! Thinking of you and do take it easy today!😮

    5. Next time don't eat the jellyfish.
      Our dog ate one and was ill for a week.

      Good luck, I hope the medicine is effective and doesn't push you too far the other way.
      Falls are the last things you need at your age.

    7. So glad the MR heard you call. My wife has had a few scary tumbles in the house and fortunately I have been there to help her get up. The other day she opened the fridge and pulled out the drawer going over backwards as she did so. I told my daughter of my concerns and now I am in trouble from my wife for worrying my daughter!

    8. When I read that I thought: 'Sh1t that sounds awful!' Glad the MR was able to come to the rescue….

    9. My unreserved sympathies Bill. I have a horror of falling because I would not be able to get up. So empathy and identification with your situation is unreserved. I hope you are better soon, trudging out to the garden to murder weeds etc 😊

      Here you go Bill, Cheer you up a little bit.

      Also Bill, can I suggest you by a whistle or some sort of alarm you can hang around your neck. I have a remote thingy on my wrist. But since you have someone else in the house…

      https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x0rd3yVaJp8?feature=share

    10. Poor you Bill! What a good job the MR didn't sleep through your troubles! Have you not got a loo on the same floor as your bedroom? And grab rails would be useful.

      I hope you're feeling better by now.

    11. OW! That sounds really sore, Bill. Falling in the shower is my worst nightmare, everything is slippery and very, very hard!
      Take care, you hear? Hope you're not badly dented.

    12. Grab bars, Bill. I put one in the master bedroom shower some years back for Jill. Now there are two. I've bought a third and it will go in shortly. Just get it done.

    14. Cripes. What on earth did you eat?
      Are you sure that's where you picked up the lurgy?
      Surely by now – 3 days? – you must have cleared out the bugs and your bowel needs something to calm it down.

    15. We haven't got grab rails (yet) but we do have non-slip rubber mats in both the en suite shower and the upstairs bathroom.

      1. I slipped on the mat on the floor of the shower room – NOT in the shower (where there ae two grabrails.

  38. Good morning fellow Nottlers

    This was meant to be a BTL comment under a DT article but I cannot now find the article under which I was going to post it.

    Why are feminists so quiet about the way a certain religions treat its womenfolk? Why are the environmental fanatics so quiet about India's and China's use of coal?

    The truth, of course, is that when it comes to the crunch they choose easy targets.

    6. Does "wicked" have the slang meaning of clever or does it have its conventional meaning and is she mentally unstable?

    7. Ensure sustainability – in that crime levels are sustained, maybe? Not that the King's Peace is sustained that's for sure.

    9. We are going to crack down on the law abiding and let the dindus get away with everything.

    1. He's so cute. Harry worked it out straight away. Dolly just stares at it. Of course being a lady she expects me to open the door for her.

  42. Meanwhile, over the Pond, certain sections of New York City are Thomasing themselves over recent events:

    "In his inimitable style, Matt Taibbi described Mamdani's ascent as follows:

    New York City’s mayoral race has been won by Zohran Mamdani, no Bernie Sanders-style imitator but the real thing — son of a famed socialist scholar and Marvel superhero to every Jacobin-reading, keffiyeh-wearing student activist huddled in Judean People’s Front-type confabs, between bell hooks readings and visits to Mom and Dad on the Upper West Side. In this country, it’s the most significant movement victory in a century, almost certainly presaging in the near future an epic clash at the summit of American politics between socialism and, well, anything else. As Michael Buffer would say, “Let’s get ready to rum-m-m-ble."

    As for his policies…

    It’s a yummy pu-pu platter of rent freezes, free bus rides, free child care, and subsidized city-owned grocery stores that will “buy and sell at wholesale prices” and “centralize warehousing and distribution,” clamping down on those evil bodega owners and private supermarkets that force overpriced Fritos and soda on the poor. This will be the AOC theory of inflation caused by “price gouging” deployed in life, via a program to reverse ongoing harms of colonialism by liberating humans and non-human food animals from industry-driven food myths that compel us to harm our bodies, and — have you stabbed yourself in the face yet? ¡Viva la revolución!"

    1. Zohran Mamdani is a complete weirdo. God help New York if he becomes mayor.

    2. When the shops can't pay their staff, their ground rent or any other bill, what happens? When the profit motive is removed, and the quality of the food deteriorates – as you'll sell first to those offering better, what then?

      Why do socialists never learn? Price controls, protectionism, socialism simply does not work and always ends in poverty, misery and death.

      Are they such psychopathic nutters that they refuse to learn their history AND hate people that they want to make their lives worse?

      1. And if buying and selling at the same price, who pays for the transport, refrigeration, light, employees? Taxes? Bah!

    3. …a bit misplaced, as a hefty percentage of "successful" New Yorkers actually live in Jersey or Connecticut. All someone like Mamdani will do is encourage more wealthy people to leave, which would doubtless lead to raising the payroll tax that NYC exacts. Which will not play well. All in all, a good way to kill the Golden Goose.

  43. Good Morning all! A pleasant day, cool and overcast but sun later on.

    Wanted to reply to those who commented on my worry over Trumps ceasefire so excuse me for plunging into that.

    My worry is the following.

    The regime is going to retaliate with thousands of Iranians murdered. Already they are stopping people in the streets and going through their phones. Anything that they can construe as pro-Israel or pro-Western is to have you labeled as an "agent of Israel" and thus arrested and taken to jail for a trial. The three people they executed yesterday, got 10 minute trials before being killed.

    There is a viable opposition to the Mullahs, it is led by Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince. I suggest you listen to his speech (below) to understand what the opposition intends. But the people of Iran are unarmed and cannot fight the regime. That is why a cease fire is a disaster. Without the degradation of the IRGC and the Basij, the people have no chance of fighting back. The only change would be if the regular army decided to topple the government, which is unlikely when Trump has, by this cease fire, made it clear he will not have either the Americans of the Israelis interfere.

    The argument I keep hearing is that regime change in that part of the world always ends in disaster. Well, that's Arabs, not Iranians who are an entirely different kettle of fish and are quite clear about what they want, a secular democracy. There seems to be a lack of awareness of who the Iranians are in that respect. They are pro-Western and for the most part, non-religious and pro-democracy. Arab regimes are not.

    Last but not least. Without regime change the problem with the Mullahs will begin again and the process of fighting them will be back on the table. Frankly, I think that this has more to do with Trumps ego as "peacemaker". It is certainly different from what the Iranian people want and it is also a tad suspicious due to Iran being Chinas major source of oil which, now a days, is going overland by train. Odd that he would not want a pro-Western regime in Iran in control of the railway that supplies our arch enemy, China with the life blood of a modern economy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_-yGn6COY

    2. There are no easy answers, but the longer things are left the worse it will become. This had to be done and we hope it is the begining of the end for the leaders in Iran.

  44. Yo and Good moaning to you all, from a sunny (now) C d S

    Today we are going to get our new 'set of wheel' a Kia of some sort. it is an automatic.

    I have been reading in the Tellylaff, that the P o W is in the clag with Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), cus their dog had pups
    To be pedantic, it was not a dog, it was a bitch

    SWMBO said "I have not seen Peta complaining about the hahal slaughter of animals", as usual, she is correct

    1. Just another Left wing organisation. Can you imagine a group better to breed dogs? Huge amounts of money, a massive house for tthe dogs to play in, really big gardens, dozens of watchful (human) eyes.

      Just absurd to say that it's a problem. If more pups were born into such wealth it would be a good thing.

  45. Government in talks with Labour mps over welfare cuts……if you don't agree, your out of a job.

    1. With the welfarists being Labour's primary constituents no wonder they're scared. How would a Labour MP get elected if their voter base were suddenly expected to get up and do a job every day? They'd swiftly become conservatives when they see 70% of their salary stolen in tax and would ask 'what do I get for this? I'm just paying for slackers and loafers to sit in bed.'

      1. I agree and what you say emphasis the need to change a lot of currently accepted parliamentary policy. It completely ignores public opinion.

  46. Comment of the day..
    Man United table 80 million pound offer to Oldham Athletic for striker Kian Harratt..

    A holidaymaker filmed hurling a chair which hits a woman in the face during a shameful Ibiza poolside brawl is English professional footballer Kian Harratt.
    Harratt was banned from football for four months in the 2023-24 season after placing 484 bets on matches over a three-year period and was also convicted of poaching at a farm in East Yorkshire in 2022 and fined £830, plus £233 costs.

          1. A mathematician called Hall
            Had a hexahedronical ball
            And his pecker plus eight
            Times the square of its weight
            Was four-fifths of five-eighths of f*** all

    2. A nice upstanding citizen, polite, honest as the day is long and kind to everyone. 🤔

  47. Debate on bbc one, on AI will it change the world.
    Not in world of politics it won't. That's a classic example of artificial intelligence.

    1. Let's take two examples in a true AI driven world.

      Here's Doris. She can't walk far. She has an almight brain and does crosswords, wordle and gets the countdown conundrum. She has been 'on the sick' since her 50s when an accident caused her spinal problems. She's sharp as a nut, responsible, intelligent. She wants to work but can't as even part time work removes her housing support.

      Here's Carmen. She has 3 children by 3 different blokes. She lives in a 3 bed house and has all her bills paid, yet is complaining about a hardship loan repayment because she spent it on another tattoo.

      Our AI, let's call it Geoff, says to Doris, righty, you can work. You're being wasted. Here. I will keep paying your support monies and you can find work – this company here, for example wants a part time book keeper. It doesn't pay a lot as they don't need a lot, but they need 'someone'. You can work from home. They won't pay NI for your time, you can contract. Oh, and I've done that for you. Have a read, sign here. If you've any questions ask Mini Geoff who'll get you going.

      Now then, Carmen, says Geoff. He evicts her immediately. He doesn't apply an attachment to earnings or anything silly, he just takes 50% of the net salary from the two slackers who she got up the duff with. The last boy, Keef, he simply takes from the parents as Keef has 1 GCSE, a U in CDT.

      Carmen is moved out of her house, where the neighbours have complained about shouting and screaming matches. Her PIP car is repossessed – she's tried to sell it and scam another one before claiming it was stolen. Geoff knows it wasn't as he can see the plate in Bristol where traffic cameras saw Carmen drive it and suddenly spend the money on drugs and fags.

      Carmen is moved into a smaller flat and also found a job, which she immediately, deliberately, fouls up. Her children, having missed school for 4 months are removed from her care as an unfit mother. Carmen is eventually offered the choice of cleaning graffiti in a chain gang or working. After 8 months of spitting, abuse, swearing, screaming and refusing to do anything, she realises this is her life and turns it around.

      Geoff makes these decisions and choices in about a second. That's a long, long time for AI. Of course, he also catches Denise, who's on the sick playing tennis and she finds her monies dry up and are returned to the public purse as well.

      In a single day, AI would overturn the wasteful, incompetent political system and restore sanity. It would get rid of the EU in a heartbeat. Same for the entire civil service. What would be the point of an expensive, inefficient bureaucracy when one distributed entity can do a vastly better job in a fraction of the time? There would be no need for politicians, either as popularity is irrelevant when cold, hard logic is applied.

      1. Sounds as though it could replace everybody………..what would all the people do?

        1. AI wouldn't want to do everything. It would be there to serve.

          Yes, it could improve efficiency but what if there's a car bonnet haulier who dreams of writing a novel and Geoff works out a way he can do that?

          What if there's someone who Geoff sees is a superb tennis player and works out coaching for them?

          It could offer such opportunity for efficiency, creating more wealth and better use of resources such as time at traffic lights if we had AI monitoring the entire road network (and for a computer, that's trivial as the problem isn't one car, it's every other car).

          What we have now is not AI. It's a glorified search engine at best. True AI will be a revelation. It's why the EU has already set massive controls over it. The EU, an unnecessary bureaucracy – will simply be disbanded as the irrelevance it is.

          1. What exists today are Large Language Models, which essentially do the equivalent of a Google "supersearch" to come up with an answer. And as we all know from using Google and its equivalents, the answers delivered depend on how the question is phrased.

        2. I'm worried about when the AIs start talking to each other about the 'people problem'.

          2. I just wonder if our current PM is really the Starmernator.

            Edited for swelling.

          3. I just wonder if our current PM is really the Starmernator.

            Edited for swelling.

          4. I just wonder if our current PM is really the Starmernator.

            Edited for swelling.

          5. Wipe them out. Most people are rude, crass, arrogant, spoiled, petulant, egotistical. Just get rid of them.

      2. Geoff will do all of that if it's what he's programmed to do. Alternatively, if he's been programmed to derive his reasoning from Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, he'll spout intersectional crap and favour Carmen, especially if Carmen is a fat trans-lesbian.

  48. Reading about your current health issues Bill Thomas, you really need to get a man in and have some grab rails fixed in place to help you keep upright. One of my BiL's had several falls in bathrooms. And I can tell you porcelain and steel does not give in to human preferences.
    Perhaps a couple of light weight metal walking sticks or a zimmer frame would be a great help.
    Take care and I hope you will get better soon.

    1. The thought is that this abscess came about from a chair leg giving way on me. I've a tough bugger and it nearly broke me. I've my stick for when my knee goes, so do think about it.

    2. It would not be possible to put rails where I slipped over. There ARE rails in the shower and the bath. This was simply an unlucky happenstance.

      1. Thankfully you didn't do serious damage.

        I kept going over and my friends put it down to me being a piss head. That had a bit to do with it but it was sudden loss of feeling in my left leg due to clots and drops in blood pressure.

        Try not to make a habit of it.

      2. Dear Bill,
        Both my bathroom (upstairs) and my shower stall (downstairs) originally had highly shiny and slippery floors and so did my son's.

        I bought three sets of 28 small circular non-slip stickers from Amazon UK and stuck them to the bottom of each bath or shower.
        ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A6P0IWO?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_4 ) – see photo

        It is now much safer. Best 14 quid a time I've ever spent. If you can't crawl near the floor to fit them a reliable neighbour or tradespeson may help. I used a Chinagraph wax pencil (a crayon will do) to lay out in advance roughly where they should go.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8bf0829a8b7a63229900c74605ef9ac6e1ed42008bfc68a74c7e28661dd40b30.png
        P.S. they've never come off in the 15 years since I fitted them.

        1. As daft as it sounds I also put a non-slip mat in the shower. I was having a wash, my left leg slid away from me and I fell – thankfully – against the wall, not the glass.

      3. Take care Bill I’ve seen the results of my BiL falling over and banging his head etc. Not a pretty sight.
        Just hang on to what you’ve got……
        There’s a song in that 😊😉

  49. Gulf states believe Israel is out of control after ‘reckless’ war

    So the attack on Israel on October 7 by Iran was OK was it?

    They should not have defended themselves or retaliated.

    The Daily Telegraph is becoming دیلی تلگراف , which is the "DT" in Persian

  50. We had light shower this morning – didn't last long but freshened things up a bit.

  51. Morning all,

    My WiFi analyser app on this dual WiFi Zenpad 3s 10 shows seven 2.4MHz channels and four 5MHz channels but I have no idea which WiFi standard is being used to connect with my dual channel BT Homehub3.

    The app tells me I'm connected to a high speed 5MHz WizFi channel but a speed test gives:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d47ee91e6ac7648fb9a9810fc855b3b84a94b08dacb8505aa5f0548a3844443.jpg I may lose connection at any time but then this tablet is the oldest wersion WiFi4 dual band IEEE standard.

    1. Try some other speed check sites. They can be extremely variable in their results.

    2. Try with your phone. Turn cellular data off, forcing the phone to use your WiFi, then run a speed test from any of the test sites. Good way to easily show any WiFi "black spots" in your house – or garden.

    3. Remember the internet speed is not an indicator of the 'network' speed. The latter is data to another local device which is often a lot faster.

    1. The Eu was created to control the nations of Europe and funnel money from the tax payers of European nations into the pockets of failed, incompetent communists given a home in the pointless bureaucracy.

  53. From Coffee House the Spectator

    28 Jun 2025
    Coffee House
    Gareth RobertsGareth Roberts
    Why Coronation Street shows the future of TV is doomed
    25 June 2025, 5:45am

    In what looks like an act of remarkable stinginess, bosses at ITV have reportedly cancelled the traditional freebie summer party for the cast and crew of Coronation Street. The show is still one of the network’s top-rated programmes, and the beleaguered staff are said to be ‘furious’, according to the report in the Sun. I don’t blame them.

    This is trivia, yes, but I think it’s a telling moment along the pathway of television’s slow demise. The medium is contracting. Just a few months ago, ITV announced that it was reducing the number of episodes of both Coronation Street and Emmerdale to a mere five half-hour slots each per week. Cast contracts have also been redrawn to bring down the number of episodes an actor is guaranteed per year. The soaps are slowly shrinking.

    What will this contraction leave us with? What will we do without television?

    I worked on both these shows – getting on for thirty years ago now – at the time when the opposite was very much the case. Back then, we would often have to stick characters superfluously into scenes just to fulfil the actors’ contract guarantees. You may wonder why Rita, say, would hover with a couple of lines in the Rovers every now and then – ‘A gin and lime, Betty, after the day I’ve been having’. And I was in the room as the decrees came down from high level at ITV that the number of episodes was going up to five a week. Now I have the sensation of watching the tide go out again.

    However, even in those glory days, there was often a feeling that for the biggest shows on the box, which were bringing in millions of pounds in advertising revenue, things could be surprisingly threadbare on ground level. Because production had always been achieved at the chip shop level, it was considered that a level of cheapness and haste was acceptable. Ask for any kind of complicated or specially designed prop and you were inviting trouble. There was never enough time, and so retakes – and even rehearsal in the traditional sense – were impossible. Huge amounts were spent on extraneous things – big-budget trailers and direct-to-video spin-offs – that didn’t seem to increase the ratings at all. Meanwhile, staff on the actual show were having to rush scenes at the end of the day for fear of a few minutes of overtime.

    I remember looking at the rather battered third-hand car driven by the then-producer of Emmerdale and thinking, ‘I highly doubt that the person behind the second biggest show in the States is getting about in a vehicle like that’.

    The increase in episodes turned the soaps from occasional treats to everyday, routine background material. Their ubiquity, perversely, made them easier to ignore; keeping up with them as they started running double episodes on top of the regular instalments required a major lifestyle alteration from viewers. Standards, inevitably, slipped. The last time I tuned in regularly, I kept noticing mismatches in continuity and a depressing uniformity of tone, with every scene played and shot in much the same way as every other one. There’s no time to do anything else.

    The contraction of these shows is a sign of something wider and more significant. British TV as a whole is contracting. Revenues in ITV plummeted by 8 per cent in nine months in 2024. In March, the BBC – the begging bowl held out as per – whined that ‘without intervention, it will be difficult to maintain the current ambition and volume of UK content’. It revealed that its ‘content spend’ – what a gruesome term – for the coming 12 months will drop by £150 million.

    The thinking is that the British broadcasters cannot compete on an equal footing with the high production values of the international (for which, read American) streamers. But the streamers are in trouble too, with rising subscription fees and the introduction of interruptions from adverts into their programmes. It may well be that TV streaming is itself a bubble, though a surprisingly long-lived one.

    What will this contraction leave us with? What will we do without television? At what point does it stop being recognisably television? Has that, in fact, already happened?

    Maybe AI will inspire new methods and new ideas? I doubt it. Old brands are already everywhere in the media – who would ever have thought that three of the big shows of 2025 would be Bergerac, Blankety Blank and All Creatures Great And Small? What next – gritty, multi-ethnic reimaginings of Rentaghost or Don’t Wait Up?

    AI will surely smash straight into the TV industry’s reliance on the familiar and the very old. You’re frustrated that there are only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers? Enter a prompt and get 100 more.

    But a bespoke portfolio of AI content is conceivable. I long for a TV drama that tells its story in chronological order, and I’m beginning to think that’s only going to happen if I ask a computer to provide me with one.

    I find myself strangely optimistic about this brave new world – not for the programme makers, but for viewers. The disconnect between these two groups has got ever wider and more extreme and has hastened the inevitable demise of TV. AI will, surely, be a better judge of what people actually want to watch than some spotty Herbert with a 2:1 in Diversity Studies. Roll out the robots!

    Gareth Roberts
    Written by
    Gareth Roberts
    Gareth Roberts is a TV scriptwriter and novelist who has worked on Doctor Who and Coronation Street

      2. And even then, the scripts were guaranteed to include reference to whatever the current COI (government information) campaign was. I remember the Valerie Barlow character being killed off in a storyline where she was electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer plugged into a bad socket. She then fell and knocked over an electric heater, causing a fire. At the time, that was the hobby horse of the Central Office of Information (which always treated the public as idiots, in the name of 'elf n safety).

      3. Ena Sharples, Minnie Coldwell, Albert Tatlock……….Len Fairclough and the “glamorous” one whose name I have forgotten.

        After enduring Coronation Street and Peyton Place (in my teens) I went fifteen years without watching TV. When I met my wife, who had a small portable TV, I noticed that the programmes were even worse than I recalled.

        1. T'was Elsie Tanner – there was a famous episode where she leaned out of her bedroom window flashing cleavage. Very daring in those days.

    2. Soap opera guarantees:- Weddings always end in punch-ups and there are always graveside scenes where characters talk to their dead relatives. And someone gets taken hostage every few months. Oh, and any time a character leaves Coronation Street permanently, they always leave in a taxi.
      PS there are always far more gay characters than you would ever encounter in real-life.

      1. That's because the casts in these shows represent the demographics of those who make the shows – not the population at large. Ditto for the advertising industry.

    3. What would we do without TV? Read books, garden, talk to people, enjoy some time free from social engineering..,

      1. Nah, look at TikTok and WhatsApp (I do neither) or post on X and Nottl (guilty).

      2. Without TV? Use NOTTL, blogs, web forums, documentaries on YT etc. 20 years TV and licence-free and it's great!

  54. As commented on earlier, my erratic connection to my new BT router looks as though evolving WiFi protocols may be influencing those with legacy WiFi connecting standards.

    This is a useful reference to consult when trying to reach the full potential of kit you are thinking of purchasing if you are thinking of making use of the 1GBit/s data transfer rate of optic fibre when it is to be distributed round a home using WIFi.

    https://support.visiotechsecurity.com/hc/en-us/articles/17895784638492-Everything-networking-WiFi-4-5-6-and-7-explained#:~:text=Frequency%20Bands%3A%20Wi%2DFi%207,performance%2C%20capacity%2C%20and%20efficiency.

      1. Odd that I felt the same when someone explained 'stiff peak' egg whites.

        Was a bit black magic, really!

      2. TV adverts are promoting broadband connections using optic fibre data rates of many gigabits per second. These data rates, essential for interactive gaming and virtiual reality video streaming, are usable only if your hardware of your personal devices are connected with high speed ethernet cable such as category six (cat6) tristed pair.

        However, many handheld devices like smartphones and tablets are designed to work around the home using WiFi radio connections to your optically connected internet router. Such radio connections to your router can severely impact on the reliability and data transfer speeds of what can be delivered over optic fibre.

        Ways of improving domestic delivery of internet services around the home via WIFi have led to an evolving set of standards regularly redefined by the IEEE over the last ten years but, whilst these are supposed to be backwards compatible with old devices, there have been issues about interoperability with existing domestic installations.

        I am still trying resolve connectivity issues with a different tablet using Android 14 and ethernet WiFi connectivity to IEEE 802.1 standard with an 'ax' suffix.

        1. Thankyou – I'm still none the wiser, but we don't do streaming or interactive gaming.
          We do use the telly as a monitor for the nest box cameras.
          OH is watching the tennis. Well he was, but a young chap just won his match so now it's off.

    2. The three of us saturate our 'family' fibre line. Traffic last month was around 1.4tb.

      Any device that could went to 10GB to the device, the wifi got upgraded to the new 7th gen stuff, with another access point added for coverage.

      Still, despite all that, nothing works.

  55. Afternoon all. Had to come in from the garden because it started to drizzle. Brightened up again now so will be off out again shortly.

    1. The ground is so warm here that the pathetic few spots of rain we had this morning evaporated in no time!

    2. We've had sunshine, dark threatening clouds, coinciding with the washing being hung out, and back to bright sunshine here.

  56. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14849649/UK-second-heatwave-2025-temperatures-Met-Office-maps-weather.html

    Killer heatwave on the way: Britain gets ready for 34C blowtorch temperatures as Government issues amber heat warning with hottest day of year ahead

    Over the last 10 days it's been 31, 31, 34, 36, 37, 30, 30, 33, 34 a chilly 28 and next week will be higher, to 39's here. Not particularly unusual.
    Just be sensible and you'll probably be fine.

    2. Too hot for me. Knock ten off each and I'd be happier. It'll make taking the car in and worse, collecting it damned uncomfortable.

    3. Sounds similar to here. Today is cooler, but the sun is still blazing away, so it will heat up.

      The HVAC system is keeping the house cool – as it keeps it comfortable in winter.

  57. Starmer OUT in days?!

    Hard Left to make their move.. licking their lips.
    Wealth Tax.
    Confiscation of the rich redistributed to the workshy, Muslims & migrants.
    All the funds of the UK is theirs to bloat the public sector.

  58. YouGov MRP Predicts Political Extinction of Tories on Just 46 Seats

    A fresh MRP from YouGov – their first since the general election – has Reform the largest party in a hung parliament with a projected 271 MPs. Labour would slump to just 178 seats – losing 233 MPs in the process. But the real story is the Tories…

    On this outcome the Conservatives would cling on to just 46 MPs – not enough to operate as any kind of viable political force. Of the current 119 Tory MPs, 73 would lose their seats, mostly to Reform. The fieldwork ran from 29 May to 18 June – a period during which the Tories have made little impact. Ouch..

    Patrick English, director of political analytics at YouGov, said:

    “Just a year since Labour’s election landslide, the party is on course to win fewer seats than it did in 2019. That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade.”

    Guido reminds co-conspirators that our own whiteboard method outperformed every single final MRP from the pollsters last time round, and it is still early in the election cycle. Nevertheless, the Tories are now looking down the barrel of total political extinction…

    June 26 2025 @ 08:06

    Ernest Nowell
    5h
    Missing from figures. 50 plus seats won by Independent Moooslyms, who have ditched Labour. The same Labour who are still fawning all over them in the hope of getting their postal votes!

    keith waites
    Ernest Nowell
    4h
    Bang on, Earnest – and Crayon's seat will probably be one of them

    Cecil Parker
    4h
    I think it's worse than that for Labour.

    The constituency I live in is still marked Labour by YouGov, but Labour have lost — and will continue to lose — a lot of voters here due to the local (Labour) council building on the Green Belt.

    Everyone knows it's a Labour Government policy, and no-one is happy about it.

    1. What's the saying about reaping the whirlwind?

      There is no value in voting Conservative. They're not offering anything we really need.

      Voting Labour is an act of masochism. Voting green moronic. Lib Dem may as well just wear a brown shirt and jackboots.

      Then we have Reform.

      Who again, are offering nothing different.

    2. So Reform gets to play at Government by Trilateral Commission/Bilderberg/WEF for a change…

  59. So the drug related martyrdom of St. George of Fentanyl and the shameful actions that resulted from it are still having serious consequences on British Policing, are they?
    Add a Chief Constable who, when with the Met, was one of those high ranking officers who threw Police officer NX121 under the bus and we get a clearer picture of how dysfunctional policing in the UK has become and it becomes a wonder that ANYONE with a nouse of intelligence can still have confidence in them.

    Was a Dorset PC dismissed for the actions of a police officer in Minnesota?
    The Chair's report into the case of former PC Lorne Castle contains one particular paragraph that should concern anyone who supports confident proactive policing.
    Rory Geoghegan

    Dorset Police finally published the Chair’s report of the misconduct hearing concerning PC Lorne Castle, who was dismissed from Dorset Police without notice following an incident in January 2024.

    I’m not going to revisit material I’ve already covered in relation to Dorset Police – and there’s plenty more abour the case to read over at ESN Report – but as the panel turned to consider the appropriate sanction there’s a paragraph worth noting.
    Under a heading of “Harm” – specifically at paragraph 92 – the Chair writes:

    "Furthermore, the Panel was mindful of the depth of national concern in relation to the use of unreasonable force by police officers in the course of their duty, particularly given a number of high-profile cases in recent years."

    On the surface, this may seem harmless. A recognition of the wider context. An awareness of public trust. But we need to be very careful here.

    What it says – not even subtly – is that PC Castle’s case was not judged entirely on its own facts, but against the backdrop of other, unspecified, “high-profile cases” relating to “unreasonable force by police officers in the course of their duty”.

    That’s a rather dangerous road to go down.

    Misconduct hearings shouldn’t be show trials

    The police misconduct regime exists to uphold professional standards, protect the public, and maintain confidence in policing. It rightly expects high standards. But those standards must be applied individually and fairly. Misconduct panels should not be PR tribunals, kangaroo courts or show trials.

    Swapping independent Legally Qualified Chairs (LQCs) for senior officers was a move I always opposed – precisely because of the risk that hearings and the outcomes from them end up being weighted more towards what’s best for the reputation of the force or senior officers, than to the justice demanded in the specific circumstances of the case.

    The job of these hearings is to weigh the evidence, apply the law, and reach a reasoned and proportionate outcome. What the public thinks about the specific case or force in general – or about other cases they may have read in The Guardian or seen on social media – should not influence decisions about a specific officer’s conduct and the sanction that they face.

    The rise of the smartphone and social media mean that the actions of one police officer on the other side of the world can go viral in the UK just moments later. But that doesn’t mean we should allow such viral clips or narratives to interfere with justice in the individual case.

    Once we start judging officers or the sanctions they face not on what they, as an individual constable did, but on what others have done, we risk undermining the very idea of a fair trial. That way lies injustice.

    Vague references to ‘national concern’ and ‘high profile cases’

    As evidenced by much of the reaction to the case of Lorne Castle, including a crowdfunder that has raised more than £128,000 for him and his family, rather undermines any idea that his conduct was of such gravity or likely to so seriously undermine public trust and confidence as to warrant dismissal.

    So, what “national concern” and which “high profile cases” are the panel referring to?

    Off the top of most people’s heads, there are probably three: the murder of George Floyd, the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba and the manslaughter of Dalian Atkinson.

    Could it be that the decision to dismiss PC Lorne Castle was essentially shaped or driven by events that occurred hundreds and even thousands of miles away from Dorset?

    It’s not so far-fetched when you consider that the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) were quick to “stand with those appalled by George Floyd death” – nine months before the trials of the police officers involved had even commenced.

    It was the first mis-step by police chiefs towards an embrace of American-racial politics, critical race theory and policy that should have little or no sway in the specific and very different UK context.
    Read more at https://rorygeo.substack.com/p/was-a-dorset-pc-dismissed-for-the

  60. There could be a general election much earlier than you think

    Labour's first year has been utterly miserable. But things can get much worse

    William Atkinson • 25 June 2025, 5:12pm BST

    For a 24-year-old Tory, then working at a website called ConservativeHome, I was unreasonably happy the morning after last year's general election. I'm not a sadomasochist. 121 MPs was far more than I'd dare hope for; as the exit poll came through, I cheered that I still had a job. Among the many that lost their seats were plenty of my party's most useless MPs, up to and including one Liz Truss.

    But the number one reason for me to be cheerful, as Keir Starmer waved outside Number 10, landslide majority at his back, was I knew that this new Labour Government from its very first day was cooked.

    For those unfamiliar with it, "cooked" is a Generation Z expression, meaning being exhausted or overwhelmed. It can also refer to being high on marijuana, but I don't think that applies here, except perhaps to explain how Ed Miliband generates his energy policies. [Just because Mr Atkinson is rather young, he shouldn't presume that the old wrinklies on here have never heard the word used in that context.]

    Why was I convinced, at the point of my opponents' ultimate triumph, that they were already as good as plucked, stuffed, and roasting in the oven? Disdain, perhaps. Keir Starmer always struck me as little more than a late middle-aged man who quite wanted to be Prime Minister but didn't really know why. But the most obvious cause was the disconnect between the mandate the Government had received, the challenges it faced, and the patience of its new MPs.

    Ignore the 411 seats – an anomaly of the sort first-past-the-post throws out for fun. The real stat that had my eyebrows raised was the share of the vote Labour had received: 33.7 per cent. Not only was it far below what the opinion polls had predicted – little changed from Jeremy Corbyn's glorious 2019 defeat – but it was the lowest share of the vote for any majority Government ever.

    For a Government coming to power promising no plan more than an oblique promise of "change", things were likely to turn sour quickly. That was especially the case for one confronting the same structural challenges – stagnation, a broken health service, and soaring immigration – that had riven the Tories and on which voters expected swift action. So it has proved.

    The current stand-off between Starmer and his backbenchers over welfare cuts is emblematic of this. More than 120 Labour MPs have now signed an amendment that would torpedo the Government's plans to make it harder to claim personal independent payments. The cuts would save a paltry £5 billion – a dust speck compared to an overall welfare budget of £313 billion. But it is too much for more than a quarter of Starmer's statist MPs.

    For a Government with a majority larger than any Margaret Thatcher ever enjoyed to be contemplating defeat on a signature piece of legislation within its first year is extraordinary. If the Prime Minister U-turns on this, as he has over the two-child benefit cap and on winter fuel payments, it will be a humiliating admission that his MPs will never will allow him to cut spending. Not only will the markets take fright; his authority would be shot. Like Theresa May during the Brexit wars, he would be in office but not in power.

    Starmer could can the legislation or chuck Rachel Reeves or Morgan McSweeney to the backbench wolves, falling back on the traditional excuse of all embattled monarchs: "I was led astray by evil advice". But paying the Danegeld has never been known to get rid of the Dane. No successor could be expected to do much better.

    They are trapped between a political rock and a fiscal hard place: between legions of Labour MPs who entered politics to do anything but vote through Austerity 2.0, and a bloated state limping ever close to bankruptcy as the population ages, growth remains anaemic, and the international scene continues to darken.

    With Labour MPs like this, how could we ever afford the £30-40 billion that Starmer's new 5 per cent of GDP defence pledge requires? It is a nonsense. So is this Government. Not even one year in, and it is extinct. With four more years to run down, it is bereft of any positive agenda, staggering from crisis to crises and rebellion to rebellion.

    For Labour MPs, wasting the next four years of their lives, it is a humiliation. But for the country they are failing to lead, it is a disaster. I could say I told you so. But our plight is far too dire. Labour's first year has been miserable. But things can only get worse.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/25/general-election-keir-starmer-labour

    This is one of those articles to which the editors have attached a slightly misleading headline. The writer doesn't assert that Max & Co will fall before their time is up. Nevertheless, if something extraordinary were to happen, what would come next? The Tories are utterly moribund, Reform has become schizophrenic, political Islam is on the rise and the establishment is dismantling the demos at a frightening rate. It will take a big figure to command the respect of enough voters to win a majority and to make order from this chaos. I see no one. Who is that man or woman who will rise out of nowhere?

    1. "… Among the many that lost their seats were plenty of my party's most useless MPs, up to and including one Liz Truss.
      …"

      Thus proving at a stroke that you are not a conservative or a Conservative.

      Shut up, you stupid whelp. Go back to the communist worker of 'con home'.

      2. The writer certainly doesn't come across as a particularly original or perceptive. He is merely repeating what the usual suspects said in the pile-on over Liz Truss.

      3. Indeed Wibbers. Liz Truss had the perfect approach to solving problems but was hounded to death.

    2. Democracy is dead. We need a coup. Is there a retired general who's clever, strong and competent and could command the respect of the soldiers I always saw at TR rallies? Someone who could assemble a team capable of locking the uncivil service out of their computers. One can't leave those people with access to public money and still expect meaningful reform.

      1. This is all something Reform are not thinking about. They're just becoming establishment wasters.

      2. Rupert Lowe is 68, about 18 months younger than I am. I am only a few months younger than the Pope! By the time either of us will be anywhere near the seat of power, we'd both be well into our seventies and lucky to have the energy or faculties to run a country, as well as fighting off malicious opponents and even more malicious rivals.

        The age to be looking at a future leader is about 30. After gaining enough political experience to outfox the others as well as coping with constant dilemmas where there is no right answer, only a juggling act of wrong ones, such a person would be about 40, still young enough to make a go of it for long enough. Kate Forbes was 33 when she stood for her party leadership. Kemi Badenoch is 45.

        Today we'd be looking for someone born in the mid-1990s. Who have we got? How would such a person be educated, having started primary school at the turn of the millennium, secondary school when Blair was holding off Gordon Brown until the economy tanked, and who graduated from university at the time of the Brexit Referendum? Such a person was not born when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. To put this in context, it is like me harking back to Winston Churchill for inspiration, fed by the legend growing up around him, rather than having lived through his time.

        1. Anyone that young will have no adult memory of a functioning economy or a cohesive and law-abiding society.

          1. It needs to be someone 70+ who has the charisma to inspire and enlighten the young and able. The person directing the operation doesn't need physical strength.

        2. You need wiser and older. 30 is far too young. Just because someonf is old and not fit it does not affect their brain in most cases. A young team with an old wise leader is what you want.

        3. He would be ideal as he knows what meeds to be done and wouldn’t be looking for a second term. But of course his running mates would be.

          We need a one-term Parliament consisting of a majority of MPs over the age of 60 and on a cross-party ticket.

        4. I quite like Kemi she seems to have the right amount of common interest and commonsense.
          But how vulnerable would she be to AH's like Heseltine etc who plotted and removed Maggie ?
          Our political classes are full of horrible people who have no interest in public opinion or anything outside of their own terrible adgenda.
          Programed robots and a computer system would be a better option. But of course it would depend on who programed the given instructions.

          1. Kemi was always biding her time, and her campaign was all about 2030.

            At the moment the Conservative Party is in the doldrums, and it is a waste of time setting a programme for it right now, other than licking wounds and making trouble for Labour.

            Reform has been grabbing the public attention right now, and did very well in the locals. Kemi must be calculating though that its lack of political experience will rebound on it before too long. Farage’s expulsion of Rupert Lowe, and then the shenanigens with the very unbritish-sounding Muhammed Zia Yusuf with his big wallet has already begun to unravel the party. I am also hearing of chaos in councils they currently control.

            By the time Reform has run out of steam, Kemi can relaunch the Conservative Party with a lot of new talent in good time before the next election. Her biggest worry might be the Labour Party imploding between the Left and Right, as we have seen with the climbdowns over fiscal discipline aimed at those who cannot defend themselves, when having loadsamoney to splash out on goldplated infrastructure projects for their chums in Big Business.

    3. He lost me at:

      "But the number one reason for me to be cheerful, as Keir Starmer waved outside Number 10, landslide majority at his back, was I knew that this new Labour Government from its very first day was cooked."

      Who would be delighted that their team lost, because it could win the next time around? Judjing from the current mood in the UK, most mainstream political parties will be toast, all proving equally useless, but there's also the rising question of whether there will be another election – what if civil war gets in the way?
      Only an idiot 24 year old who never worked in a real job could think like this bozo. No wonder the Tories are toast.

      1. He used to edit Young Conservative website. I think he's written in the Speccie, recently.

      2. From my political campaigning days, I am guessing that Labour MPs votes for the two death bills were bought by promising them the opportunity to "rebel" the following week over the welfare bill.

        Absolutely sickening and not a single Labour MP can hold their head up if they voted for the death bills.

    4. There won't be a General Election before 2029. Labour MPs would have to pass a motion of no confidence in the government for that, and turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

      1. "… if something extraordinary were to happen…"

        The writer is musing on the possibility of something happening beyond the conventional. So was I.

        1. The only thing I can think of is that someone bombs the House of Commons while all the MPs are in it.

    5. They are trapped between a political rock and a fiscal hard place..

      .
       https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c697a335efaf0260b4064e77d72c832c50b08b9bed3c6ae2b6724f86d2658cc0.jpg
      Dear William (Aged fourteen and a half),

      Your lot are clueless.. duds.
      You didn't know then.. and you still don't know now.. what you are up against.
      Just like Kate Andrews economics editor at The Spectator.. LOL and all her fellow Rishi fanboys.. she reckoned a few percentage point tweaks of the interest rates and the UK will solve;
      Islam..
      Grooming gangs..
      No Go areas..
      Open borders..
      Whitehall..
      Every institution captured by pink haired commies trans activists.

      1. Who, the Iranians? An old friend of mine is Iranian and I have met many because there is a considerable number of them in California. Without fail they have been the nicest people I have known. As for religion, the majority are agnostic or atheist. As I pointed out yesterday. Only 30% of them are Muslim and they are very pro-Western, unlike the regime that they regard as an occupying force.

        1. Not especially more their government, it's well known the country as you suggest was doing quite well and was respected until the religious crackdown Late 70s. That's obviously one of the reasons so many had left their own country.
          Islam is still dwelling in the century it was founded in. It should be banned outside of Islamic states.

      1. Reports today is that the IRGC going from dwelling to dwelling, dragging people out and shooting them . But also the Israelis are still causing disruption in Iran, apparently, with drones and things having a tendency to mysteriously blow up.

  62. Yes. But it makes me so angry that Trump stopped the Israelis from continuing to cripple the regime. The poor people of Iran don't have a chance while these thugs still have all the weapons and the people none.

  64. Have been out to a local garden; ideal temperature being sunny but with a breeze. Ow enjoying an iced latte in a dog friendly cafe on the way back. Both dogs have had a puppachino so it’s been a lovely day, enhanced by having the garden virtually to myself apart from the gardeners.

      1. No. I may be a bit crazy, but not completely bonkers 😀 The dog I mentioned I acquired in 1984.

  65. Hmmmm – super new, squirrel proof feeder arrived last week – filled with seed and in place. Since then – nothing!! None of our birds like it – either it's the wrong seeds or they are too stoopid to use it!

          1. They're good, had one for a few years now, always with sunflower hearts. Currently there're a dozen birds competing for the perches.

    2. I bouht a 'squirrel-proof' feeder to find a rat in it one morning. Now an ex-rat.

  66. Suggests you're correct and that the seed is the problem.

    I stop feeding for the summer in late spring and restart in around late October/early November and find that it takes a while before they flock to the feeders in any numbers, as they get used to the food sources. I tend to use peanuts and sunflower seeds which most of the visitors seem to enjoy.

    We only get reds here and they don't show much interest in the feeders.

  67. Arold
    2h
    I get the feeling that all of this is building towards a crescendo. Everything this government touches turns into a fiasco, with the rationale behind the decisions and policies being publicly discredited.
    I think Labour's decision to throw the SAS veterans from the Troubles to the wolves may eventually be the breaking point.

    A truly disgusting decision, with Hermer and Starmer's fingerprints all over it.

  68. Nice weather up here so we went to Lakeland (formerly Lakeland Plastics) in Windermere. 'er indoors loves the place (kitchenalia and the like), I think it's like Dante's seven circles of Hell. It's amazing how many things she can find that she didnt know she desperately needed.
    Then on to Ambleside and Gaynors Sports where I got a new pair of Sprayway walking boots down to £29,99 from £105 (yeah, right….) – nice boots though, my others were falling to bits.
    Todays trivia question; How many Lakes are there in the Lake District?
    Answer; Just the one, Bassenthwaite Lake, all the rest are Meres or Waters (Windermere is just Windermere, not Lake Windermere)

    2. Of course the pendants would argue that you should have asked how many lakes are called lakes!

      ©Peddy

      1. We have meres in Shropshire. Ellesmere Port was so named because the canal went from Ellesmere.

  71. Wordle No. 1,468 4/6

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

    Wordle 26 Jun 2025

    Proposal for Par Four?

    1. Many guesses for my money

      Wordle 1,468 5/6

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

    2. Better luck today.

      Wordle 1,468 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Same here – After 2 words I had a load of options available so used guess 3 to whittle them down – still left with two but guessed right!

      Wordle 1,468 4/6

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

    4. Managed a 3 today.

      Wordle 1,468 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I read the article as there being a load of fake accounts under ‘Scottish’ type names, posting hundreds of pro-Indy messages. The accounts were all based in Iran and were knocked out when the bombs dropped on the internet connections! Quite bizarre, but the longer you think about it, the more you think it’s probably very common!

          2. I’ll need to look at Wings, and the National! Most of the loonies on there appear to worship the Iranian nutters, and loathe the Israelis!

        2. I read the article as there being a load of fake accounts under ‘Scottish’ type names, posting hundreds of pro-Indy messages. The accounts were all based in Iran and were knocked out when the bombs dropped on the internet connections! Quite bizarre, but the longer you think about it, the more you think it’s probably very common!

  73. https://www.standard.co.uk/business/billionaire-shipping-nondom-john-fredriksen-oil-tankers-b1234987.html

    Well done Labour.

    'Britain has gone to hell': UK’s ninth richest man moves business out of London

    Asked by Norwegian title E24 about his feelings for the UK, Fredriksen said: “It’s starting to remind me more and more of Norway. Britain has gone to hell, like Norway.”

    The billionaire, who became a Cypriot citizen nearly 20 years ago, added: “I try to avoid Norway as much as I can.”

    The comments came after it emerged he has closed the London headquarters of Seatankers Management, one of his private shipping businesses, which was based on Sloane Square.

  75. I left school 40 years ago and we are having our Reunion tomorrow evening. Only the second one i’ve ever been to (the first one i went to was last year). So we What’s Apping a lot at the moment.

    One girl is writing a novel set in Wolverhampton in the 60s and is looking for authentic immigrants to talk to, to get their experiences.

    she wants to k ow if we do this know anyone from that era she can interview about experiences (preferably a “black and brown people”).

    We had one black girl in out year and a number if Indians, but clearly we were a faaaar right fascist etc etc school, sadly lacking (in modern parlance) in “Diversity”.

    However, one of our number says the following:

    “when I went to infant school (whitmore reans) I was the only white girl in the class. I wasn’t being taught as such because all the other children were being taught how to speak English as they were mainly Indian. Also I distinctly remember them not wanting to hold my (white) hand. I had to play with the boys cus there were a few white boys. In the end I got moved to a catholic school to be ‘taught’ as I was reading before I went to school.”

    I worked as a doctor’s receptionist after school in the area, and the doctor told me of all the Sikh girls who “went missing”. And he didn’t mean they went back to India.

    2. I should add, this was going to be my children’s experience when they were due to go to primary school in 2006/7 (being the only ones speaking English, but in our case the other children were all of European origin). Which is why i sent my children to the German school in Richmond. Two can play at that game.

    3. Gosh I feel old reading your post all of a sudden! I don't tend to calculate these things!

  77. That's me for today – sent largely lying on a settee reading. I am weak as water. Interesting fact. If you empty (and continue to empty) your insides and eat only a tablespoon or so of sustenance a day – your weight goes down. In my case from 70 kg to 64 kg! In 4 days….

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. I hope.

    1. Jesus, Bill! Get some nourishment in you – even if it's vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce. One needs energy!

    1. I wonder how many of the attendees were MI5/police agents?
      Of course, the uncomfortable truth is that the journalist was able to inflitrate the group because they come from similar middle class white backgrounds…

  80. Madeline Grant
    Keir Starmer is seriously stupid
    26 June 2025, 4:23pm

    Sir Keir has returned from his worldwide statesmanship tour. Barely the edge of a photograph went ungurned in, not a bottom went unkissed, no platitude went ungarbled. Now – lucky us! – he was back in the House of Commons for a good long crow about his achievements.

    The PM began with the usual Starmerite guff production. The man is a veritable Chinese Power Station of pompous pollution. This, however, was more smug than smog. It began with a round-up of how crucial he’d been in every negotiation and discussion.

    ‘We’re following in the footsteps of Attlee and Bevan,’ crowed Starmer. Well, up to a point Comrade Copper. I mean, his cabinet hated each other too. Apparently, the G7 was going to ‘follow Britain’s lead’ on controlling illegal migration. I genuinely think he didn’t see the irony in this. What’s next? The G7 to follow North Korea’s lead on free speech? Nato to follow Spain’s lead on afternoon productivity?

    Dick the Butcher, in Henry VI, Part 2, famously exclaims ‘now let’s kill all the lawyers’. It was this energy and spirit which Kemi Badenoch sought to channel as she stood to respond to the Prime Minister’s 12-minute self-paean. ‘What we need is a leader, instead we have three lawyers’, she said, referencing the PM, Lord Hermer and the Sage of Tottenham, David Lammy.

    The PM’s slavish following of legal advice was a major theme of her speech. A picture emerged of a man who, if some UN precedent could be found for it, would crawl up and down Pall Mall in a leather gimp-suit singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ and then claim it as a stunning victory for soft power.

    Dame Emily Thornberry also invoked the ‘soft power’ geopolitical sugar plum fairy. Perhaps to distract from her troublemaking over welfare cuts, she put on a sort of sickly-sweet Pollyanna-ish voice to ask her non-question. Normally her mode of delivery is like a buffalo that’s just smoked 100 Superkings.

    More soft pitches were thrown in Sir Keir’s direction by Sir Ed ‘Babe Ruth’ Davey, who, while ostensibly asking questions on behalf of the Lib Dems, had as his most used phrase today ‘I agree with the Prime Minister’.

    As always, there was an obsequious toad ready on the Labour backbenches to perform the act of ego-stoking necessary to keep the leader’s sense of self intact. Enter John Slinger, who decried petty party politics, then praised the Prime Minister for the unique ‘human empathy’ he had brought to international diplomacy. Slinger is apparently MP for Rugby. I had assumed he actually represented the underside of a rock somewhere in the deepest, darkest Amazon because that appears to be where he has been living for the past 12 months. There was even a gentle backscratcher of a question from Rishi Sunak about Iranian sanctions. Would anyone in the House follow Mrs Badenoch’s lead and try to pop St Pancras’s very own pig’s bladder of pomposity?

    Step forward, Stephen Flynn. The SNP’s Westminster leader resembles an apoplectic egg and is the only person in the chamber who appears to hate the PM more than Kemi Badenoch and Big Ange do. How could Sir Keir make his arguments about foreign policy on moral grounds when he was about to cut aid to the disabled, he asked? Cue more fleshy clucking from Starmer. At the end of his rant, Flynn was called what had become the word of the day in this nightmarish episode of Sesame Street: ‘unserious’.

    For all his capacity to render himself ridiculous by his legalistic pomposity, there is always potential for the PM to add to it. He is particularly keen on affecting the air of a self-important substitute teacher when addressing the Leader of the Opposition; ‘not angry, just disappointed’. Inevitably, the PM also accused Badenoch of being ‘unserious’. Further irony there of course, because as every good comedian knows, nothing is more ridiculous than someone going about something innately stupid – self destructive even – with the utmost seriousness.

  81. Madeline Grant
    Keir Starmer is seriously stupid
    26 June 2025, 4:23pm

    Sir Keir has returned from his worldwide statesmanship tour. Barely the edge of a photograph went ungurned in, not a bottom went unkissed, no platitude went ungarbled. Now – lucky us! – he was back in the House of Commons for a good long crow about his achievements.

    The PM began with the usual Starmerite guff production. The man is a veritable Chinese Power Station of pompous pollution. This, however, was more smug than smog. It began with a round-up of how crucial he’d been in every negotiation and discussion.

    ‘We’re following in the footsteps of Attlee and Bevan,’ crowed Starmer. Well, up to a point Comrade Copper. I mean, his cabinet hated each other too. Apparently, the G7 was going to ‘follow Britain’s lead’ on controlling illegal migration. I genuinely think he didn’t see the irony in this. What’s next? The G7 to follow North Korea’s lead on free speech? Nato to follow Spain’s lead on afternoon productivity?

    Dick the Butcher, in Henry VI, Part 2, famously exclaims ‘now let’s kill all the lawyers’. It was this energy and spirit which Kemi Badenoch sought to channel as she stood to respond to the Prime Minister’s 12-minute self-paean. ‘What we need is a leader, instead we have three lawyers’, she said, referencing the PM, Lord Hermer and the Sage of Tottenham, David Lammy.

    The PM’s slavish following of legal advice was a major theme of her speech. A picture emerged of a man who, if some UN precedent could be found for it, would crawl up and down Pall Mall in a leather gimp-suit singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ and then claim it as a stunning victory for soft power.

    Dame Emily Thornberry also invoked the ‘soft power’ geopolitical sugar plum fairy. Perhaps to distract from her troublemaking over welfare cuts, she put on a sort of sickly-sweet Pollyanna-ish voice to ask her non-question. Normally her mode of delivery is like a buffalo that’s just smoked 100 Superkings.

    More soft pitches were thrown in Sir Keir’s direction by Sir Ed ‘Babe Ruth’ Davey, who, while ostensibly asking questions on behalf of the Lib Dems, had as his most used phrase today ‘I agree with the Prime Minister’.

    As always, there was an obsequious toad ready on the Labour backbenches to perform the act of ego-stoking necessary to keep the leader’s sense of self intact. Enter John Slinger, who decried petty party politics, then praised the Prime Minister for the unique ‘human empathy’ he had brought to international diplomacy. Slinger is apparently MP for Rugby. I had assumed he actually represented the underside of a rock somewhere in the deepest, darkest Amazon because that appears to be where he has been living for the past 12 months. There was even a gentle backscratcher of a question from Rishi Sunak about Iranian sanctions. Would anyone in the House follow Mrs Badenoch’s lead and try to pop St Pancras’s very own pig’s bladder of pomposity?

    Step forward, Stephen Flynn. The SNP’s Westminster leader resembles an apoplectic egg and is the only person in the chamber who appears to hate the PM more than Kemi Badenoch and Big Ange do. How could Sir Keir make his arguments about foreign policy on moral grounds when he was about to cut aid to the disabled, he asked? Cue more fleshy clucking from Starmer. At the end of his rant, Flynn was called what had become the word of the day in this nightmarish episode of Sesame Street: ‘unserious’.

    For all his capacity to render himself ridiculous by his legalistic pomposity, there is always potential for the PM to add to it. He is particularly keen on affecting the air of a self-important substitute teacher when addressing the Leader of the Opposition; ‘not angry, just disappointed’. Inevitably, the PM also accused Badenoch of being ‘unserious’. Further irony there of course, because as every good comedian knows, nothing is more ridiculous than someone going about something innately stupid – self destructive even – with the utmost seriousness.

    2. 408277+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Such is the state of the nation that we cannot afford to cast a vote WITHOUT a safety net party on standby.

  86. Oh well I've just managed to water the patio plants and pot plants. Rescued a large bee from having been stuck on a utility room window. Put him on an open rose. Cooked the dinner earlier, washed up and tidied the kitchen. My knee is throbbing. Taken two paracetamol tablets. I'd better go up and lay down before I fall asleep. Nurse appointment tomorrow morning to have my wound redressed. And relax….
    Keep as well as you can all Nottlers and goodnight all. 😴

    2. I love this piece of music, and that interpretation of it is pretty good!

      What I find fascinating is that there is no absolute agreement on who, in fact, Elise was – there are three contenders and all of them have some claim to the title.

      Therese Malfatti (who he proposed to in 1810) , Elisabeth Rockel who he also chased unsuccessfully, and Elise Barensfeld, although she links back to Therese Malfatti.

      Very convoluted, and perhaps we will never know – but the music is just stunningly beautiful……

      Edit: Just realised there is no indication that we are , in fact, talking about Beethoven!

      1. Nonsense, GGGGaspar. As I explained just now to Herr Oberst it was written for me, Elsie.

        1. But of course Elsie, why didnt I see that? he merely mistakenly transposed the s and the i (highly believeable as he was supposed to have done similar with Therese!).
          Isnt it a fabulous bit of music though?

    3. Beautiful and very gifted players. Yet not a lot of people know that Mr Beethoven wrote this me personally (Für Elsie) Lol.

    4. Reminds me of one of my tests – spend the whole day setting it up for 3 minutes of testing!
      Silly question but is he getting all the sounds from sliding his finger round the top of a wet glass?

      2. The glasses, with various levels of water in them are dry, he has to moisten his fingers now and again to create those orgasmic sounds….

        Morning BB2 and all.

    1. Wow, lucky man! I’m biased of course, but Durham is my favourite Cathedral!

      1. We went up on the roof when we were there on a visit.
        And were very impressed with the tribute to the Durham light infantry which my FiL was a member of.

    2. Brilliant – I'd love to have a go on that. I tried learning that tune but only got as far as the first 9 notes

  92. What a slog up the M40/M5 tonight. 3 1/2 hours to do what i used to be able to do in 2 hours. It took me 45 minutes to go 5 miles from my house to the M4, and they had ahut the M40 between Banbury and Gaydon; plus two other random lane closures.

  93. Well, chums, my bed calls. So I shall wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all here early tomorrow morning.

  95. From Coffee House the Spectator

    28 Jun 2025
    Coffee House
    Jim Lawley
    Spain won’t escape Trump’s wrath for its Nato rebellion
    26 June 2025, 6:53am

    At yesterday’s Nato summit in The Hague, all but one of the 32 leaders agreed to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP as President Trump has been demanding. The exception was Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. His insistence that actually 2.1 per cent will be enough has enraged President Trump.

    Trump described the Nato summit’s achievements as ‘tremendous’, celebrating its recognition of the need for other Nato members to take up the burden of the defence of Europe. He added that ‘it was 2 per cent [of GDP] and we’ve got it up to 5 per cent’. But he had harsh words for Spain, describing the country as ‘terrible’ and threatening to use trade tariffs ‘to make them [Spain] pay twice as much’.

    Spain’s left-wing politicians seem delighted with Trump’s displeasure

    This confrontation has been brewing for months. Ever since Trump’s re-election, Sánchez has been positioning himself as a leading opponent of the US President. Indeed Spain’s socialist prime minister and his supporters have repeatedly suggested that Trump’s victory in the US elections is confirmation of a sinister surge in global far-right extremism that embraces Brexit, Orban, Meloni, Wilders, Bolsonaro, Milei and is also increasingly evident in France and Germany.

    For Sánchez it’s a dangerous, world-wide threat that he’s called upon to counter. He and his ministers seem to regard it as their mission to lead the struggle against an erosion of democracy and exultation of xenophobia of which, they say, Trump is the most powerful exponent. Presenting themselves as the heirs of the noble republicans who fought against General Franco in the civil war (1936-1939), Spain’s socialists feel that they are especially well-placed to understand and combat this ‘fascist threat’.

    It’s a convenient conceit since it justifies Sánchez in clinging to power. Engulfed in corruption scandals, he’s under enormous pressure to call a general election. But Sánchez is insisting that, in fact, it is his duty to stay; after all, an election would almost certainly lead to a right-wing government which relied on the support of Vox – a right-wing party close to Trump which Sánchez and his followers describe as fascist.

    Anti-American sentiment has deep roots in Spain. The 1953 Pact of Madrid, giving the US military bases in Spain, appeared to legitimise and consolidate Franco’s regime. The left, having harboured hopes that the US might one day help remove the dictator, felt betrayed. More recently, when he became prime minister in 2004, socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero immediately withdrew troops from Iraq, incurring President Bush’s wrath and earning Spain a reputation as an unreliable ally but boosting his popularity and pacifist credentials at home.

    The country has also always been divided over membership of Nato. When Spain joined in 1982, the socialists took to the streets with banners reading ‘No to Nato’. Later, when they came to power, they changed their mind as they experienced what Prime Minister Felipe González called ‘a brutal process of adaptation to reality’.

    González had already promised a referendum on Nato membership, however. With only 19 per cent of Spaniards in favour of membership, it was no easy task for him to get a majority to reaffirm Spain’s membership in the referendum held in 1986. But shameless exploitation of state media, including his final, passionate plea to the nation the evening before the vote, eventually ensured a narrow majority of 52 per cent in favour of staying in Nato.

    Discontent with Nato and the defence spending that membership entails is never far away, however. In April, when Prime Minister Sánchez promised to increase Spain’s defence budget from 1.3 to 2 per cent of GDP, the radical left-wing and separatist parties that are propping up his fragile minority coalition government immediately accused him of war-mongering.

    Now Spain’s left-wing politicians seem delighted with Trump’s displeasure. One immediately announced that ‘it’s always been a good thing to piss off a neoliberal fascist’. Another said that Spain’s refusal to pay 5 per cent proved that it was not a ‘vassal state’. A third called for Spain to leave Nato, which she described as ‘a criminal and terrorist organisation’. It remains to be seen how the Spanish people will react to Trump’s threats to punish them with tariffs.

    Written by
    Jim Lawley
    Jim Lawley is a former university lecturer who has lived and worked in Spain for 40 years.
    Comments

  96. Labour Banning Alcohol Ads in Latest Nanny State Nonsense

    Labour will unveil a ban on alcohol advertising next week as part of Wes Streeting’s new 10-year NHS plan. The government claims it’s looking at “partial restrictions” meaning either an outright ban or blacking out ads before the 9pm watershed. The same crusade we’ve seen waged against so-called “unhealthy” foods…

    Predictably, professional killjoys like Alcohol Change UK are already popping corks having complained about the UK’s “far weaker advertising regulations compared to other countries”. But the actual evidence is a little less intoxicating. A 2014 Cochrane Review titled ‘Does banning or restricting advertising for alcohol result in less drinking of alcohol?’ concluded: “There is currently a lack of robust evidence for or against recommending the implementation of alcohol advertising restrictions.” Chris Snowdon of the Institute of Economic Affairs tells Guido:

    “Less than a year after taking office, the government has already given up on serious reform and is resorting to banning things as a substitute for governing. It’s as if Rishi Sunak never left. The rise in alcohol-specific deaths happened because of prolonged lockdowns. It had nothing whatsoever to do with advertising. This is pure displacement.”

    Just let the adults decide…

    June 26 2025 @ 15:00

    Reg
    13h
    How about banning halal instead?

    Lord Trumpmedecine
    Reg
    13h
    About as much chance as banning cousin marriages.

    Dissident
    14h
    Most Labour voters don't use alcohol these days.
    Next, banning ads for bacon.

    Red
    14h
    He won't help our farmers, he won't help our fishermen/women, he won't help business, he won't stop the streets of London and other cities being used to promote anti Semitism and he won't smash the gangs…but he'll stop us having fun, he'll stop us going out and enjoying ourselves, he'll stop OAPs winter fuel payments and he'll stop free speech. This is Keir Starmer, a man without commitment, a man without substance, a man without fidelity who chops and changes allegiances and U Turns on policies at the slightest sign of opposition. A man of straw.

    Lord Trumpmedecine
    13h
    Thank goodness for Beer, I wouldn't have survived Covid lockdown without a pint and a party with my mates.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06c849ce49ce89e520dce115f279056ee4fb512387e270c260cb55e9eefb53a4.png

  97. Colin Fisher
    13h
    Blimey you learn something new every day. I hadn't realised that our PM was half Spanish. I distinctly heard some people outside Downing Street shouting "Juan Keir", well I never.

    Exonian
    12h
    The Spectator under the slithy Gove has been infected with full on TDS and RDS (Reform Derangement Syndrome). They even had a piece by the hideous Shrek-substitute Dan Neidle saying Reform's non-dom policy will cost the UK £34bn. Shameful. They are in TDM (Tory Denial Mode).

    The New Statesman has the most laughably bad even ludicrous pieces by people like Marr, some creeps called Eaton (of the Roger Scruton smear), Dunt etc., telling us just how good Labour are doing and that things will inevitably get better because Labour are such nice people and they care so much. And Spanner has been the greatest statesman since (fill in your own blanks). Deluded is not the word.

  98. Again, Labour seems to be setting up a deliberate contrast to the man often pictured with a pint in his hand…it's almost as though TPTB want Farage to be our next PM. There would be open revolt if Starmer tried to inflict the digital id – what's the betting Farage will pass it off as "cutting Labour's red tape – simply show one ID for everything!"

    They didn't use "build back better" for no reason – in order to build back, you first have to destroy.

  99. Lammy Private Jet Costs Soar to £1.3 Million in Three Months

    David Lammy’s love of the high life is really taking off. Newly released government figures show Lammy burned through a staggering £1,360,780 on flights between January and March. That’s a 10% increase on the prior three months, and a 48% increase on his first three months in office…

    Of the total, a jaw-dropping £1,315,766 went on private jets. That’s £15,120 a day Lammy spent on flights in the first three months of the year…

    Lammy flew to 17 different countries – or more than one new country every five days. FCDO ministers in that period spent a total of £1,452,732 on overseas travel. All that international schmoozing earned Lammy a whopping 40 minutes notice of the US strike on Iran..

    June 26 2025 @ 16:55

    stephen dean
    12h
    I have no problem with the Turnip flying out of the country.
    Its the coming back that bothers me.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/312e4b71e56c8bfceaae007615ce2a7cee6a74eeac91242e29b63b49f057d7d0.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92491889b57a6c85591105de46202e0b79c9da0af57badba0bdd85c136016875.png

  100. Last night's Question Time (I never watch)

    Captain Sensible
    11h
    QT is at St Andrew’s. Long before the coming of social media, the Scotch invented golf as a simpler way of wasting vast amounts of time and making people cross.

    Guitar Bloke
    10h
    The usual balanced panel…
    A Scottish socialist MSP for Gaza
    A Scottish National Socialist
    A Tory wet (a socialist)
    A Socialist journo
    And a bloke who isn't a socialist for the rest of them to call a race-ist.

    Add in the customary astroturfed audience full of erm… Socialists & you get what the BBC call "impartiality".
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f3a09a9a250f862cc35c2f95214a41892b1714edb0e64274a31b76247a75e6e.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c572482f874c851226b53bc38b0651245f0f57ff7c132430d655116d411d92fe.png
    Beebsplaining
    8h
    When it comes to our kilted brothers I defer to the genuine article for his view of this independence pish and who is a waycist 🤔
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ce3ae85a4d7592d6b554184559eeee5e7f1c3dbfd38584cc52c76d9572e7174.png

    Lord Farquard
    8h
    Sadiq Khan has appointed a P*kistani M0sl#m, like himself, to the role of Director of Global Relations, a foreign secretary for London on 150k a year.
    That makes
    9 x Deputy Mayors
    2 x Chief of Staff
    4 x Mayoral Directors
    5 x Special Appointments

    Who does Khan think he is?

    Bulls**t Detector
    Lord Farquard
    7h
    The Caliph of London.

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