Thursday 3 October: Labour’s actions belie the Prime Minister’s words of support for Israel

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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685 thoughts on “Thursday 3 October: Labour’s actions belie the Prime Minister’s words of support for Israel”

    1. Depending on what organ is providing the wind, I am not sure I would to stand behind the man.

  4. Girl, 14, left traumatised after acid attack outside school, family say. 3 October 2024.

    The teenager suffered life-changing injuries as a result of the “senseless act of violence” which has left her requiring both urgent and long-term care and rehabilitation.

    The girl and a 16-year-old boy were attacked at around 4.35pm on Monday by a man on an e-scooter near Westminster Academy in Paddington, west London.

    A 27-year-old teacher who “bravely and selflessly” rushed in to perform first aid on the two victims also sustained injuries in the attack.
    .
    The Metropolitan Police previously said it was searching for a “tall, slim, black male” who was wearing dark clothing and had his face covered in connection with the assault.

    As usual I think that I am being told what the PTB; rather than telling me the truth, is telling me what it thinks it is good for me to know. Oddly enough this policy seems to exacerbate rather than soothe those suspicions that I have.

    No Comments, instead of stifling debate, would seem to rather encourage speculation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/girl-14-left-traumatised-after-acid-attack-outside-school/

  5. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site/

    Wordle 1,202 3/6

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  6. Matt Ridley
    How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing
    From magazine issue:
    05 October 2024
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/EXT_Ta-Da_cmyk_0510.jpg

    Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible, weightless, silent ether that turns instantly into light, heat, motion or information at your command. It is a metaphor for the modern economy: we use pure energy to create useful outcomes in the real world.

    We found out last week that Britain has now for the first time achieved top spot, among 25 nations, in terms of the price we pay for this supernatural ichor, for both domestic and industrial use.

    This is a disaster. Electricity prices have doubled in Britain since 2019. They are 46 per cent above the International Energy Agency’s median for industrial and 80 per cent above the median for domestic electricity. As the independent energy analyst David Turver points out, British business pays almost four times as much as American business for each unit of power and British consumers pay almost three times as much as Americans. And that is last year’s data, before Ed Miliband has even started on his policies to accelerate decarbonisation: all the technologies he champions are more expensive than gas.

    High electricity prices make companies based here less competitive, so some will leave or die; and consumers less well off, so some will freeze and all will buy less of other things: a drag on both production and consumption. Consumers pay for high electricity prices both when we use it and again when we buy things that have been manufactured or refrigerated with it. Given that the plan is for us all to use a lot more electricity in the future, for cars and home heating, this is alarming news.

    How was the double triumph of chart-topping electricity prices for both business and homes achieved? Green lobbyists say that it is because we have not built enough wind farms and are too reliant on gas. But this is belied by the facts. Last month, the results of an auction of contract bids for generating electricity were announced. You will recall that because of inflation, the subsidy junkies in the ‘unreliables’ industry boycotted the previous auction for offshore wind, demanding and getting more generous terms.

    Sure enough, last month’s bids by onshore wind, offshore wind and solar power are at average ‘strike prices’ higher than the recent going rate, which is set by the price of gas. The way contracts for difference work, the suppliers pay us if market prices are higher than the strike price; we pay them if they are lower. Only very briefly, when gas prices spiked during the early phase of the Ukraine war, did we get a little money back under the scheme.

    In August, contract-for-difference subsidies were £237 million, the third highest ever and a record for August. That includes a £72 million rise in offshore wind subsidies, caused by a windy month, new wind farms coming online and falling gas prices. The more the wind blows and the lower the gas prices fall, the bigger the subsidies we pay wind farms. It’s a system of beauty as far as producers are concerned, but a thing of horror for consumers. ‘For the generators it’s heads they win, tails the consumer loses,’ says Turver.

    Yet the strike price is only a small part of the cost of relying on unreliable wind and solar. National Grid plans to spend around £11 billion a year upgrading the transmission grid by 2035 to connect distant wind farms to where people actually live.

    Add the extra cost of balancing the grid when supply varies, and backing it up with just-in-time gas power when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. And the cost of storing electricity in batteries, for which Mr Miliband just announced new subsidies: forecast by Edinburgh University’s Professor Gordon Hughes to hit £5 billion a year by 2030.

    Had we stuck with coal, like China and Germany have partly done, storing energy in heaps would be all but free and our electricity would be far cheaper (I can say this now I no longer have an interest in coal). We closed the last coal-fired power station this week. Had we gone for shale gas, like America did, it would also have been much cheaper: imported gas is always much more expensive than home-grown (unlike coal and oil, where there are world market prices). Mr Miliband is intent on shutting down the North Sea gas industry, ensuring we pay more still. The slogan that unreliables are now cheap remains a lie however often the subsidy junkies repeat it.

    When things cost more, people buy less. Because of these high prices Britain is using less electricity every year. Final electricity consumption is down by about 23 per cent since 2005 – in spite of a rising population. Dr John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation, adds: ‘And no, it’s not efficiency. This is price rationing pure and simple.’ We are de-industrialising.

    It is not just old industries like steel that are driven away by high electricity prices. Data storage and bitcoin mining are getting more energy hungry. A query with ChatGPT costs ten times as much as a Google search.

    Despair not. Ed ‘Baldrick’ Miliband has a cunning plan. As a tweet from his department revealed last week, the government plans to repeal a couple of laws, making electricity cheaper at a stroke. Which laws? Why, the first and second laws of thermodynamics of course. The tweet read: ‘Did you know a heat pump is 3x more efficient than a gas boiler? Meaning it generates 3 times more energy than it consumes.’

    Apart from the fact that the second sentence definitely does not mean the same as the first, it implies that you can conjure energy out of nothing, breaking the first law of thermodynamics, and that entropy-eating perpetual-motion machines are possible, breaking the second. Hooray!

    1. The entire intent of forcing energy prices up was to force people to use less energy and thus allow the state to meet it's pointless targets. It wasn't an accident, it's designed that way.

      The result, of course, is unemployment, poverty, misery. It means shortages – eventually it will mean rationing of food, water, fuel. We're already seeing mass pollution of water ways. It's simply cheaper to dump the poo than clean it. The intent of green is nothing less than forced communism.

      Heat pump people quote the cop/scop/stop whatever values because it disguises the massive cost of electricity. They're simply more expensive, less flexible to run. You exchange electrical energy for thermal energy, but then so does a boiler, and a boiler is cheaper to run and doesn't need to be on all the time.

      I hope Milioaf is happy. He needs to be rammed on on of those outflows. They're the result of his spite.

      But also remember it works both ways. When the lights go out, when the phones go off, when plod can't answer his shrieking, screaming cries for help then he'll realise the mistake he has made – just before the pliers come out.

      1. The result will be death. Milliband will be directly responsible for thousands of deaths.

        Far more people die of cold than they do of heat every year, despite the media blowing up stories about the latter and ignoring the former.

    2. Just another of the background political classes trying to make a name for himself.
      Time to get serious and share all the successful results of these stupid projects………..

    2. 'Morning Bill. Sun and mostly blue sky with 11 degs C on yer sarf coast. Forecast is good, so far.

    3. 'Morning Bill. Sun and mostly blue sky with 11 degs C on yer sarf coast. Forecast is good, so far.

  8. From the Daily Sceptic. I have no idea what this can possibly mean, given it is allegedly the subject of a super-injunction:

    “BREAKING: MAJOR DEVELOPMENT ON KEIR STARMER'S "BIG SECRET" TERRIFYING NUMBER 10
    Guido Fawkes boss Paul Staines tells Outspoken the story rocking Westminster is about shape of PM's family.
    He reveals: “We have a name. As do the Mail and the Telegraph. We have a birth certificate."”

    1. Starmer and Rayner had a kid.. and he ended up with a nasty rash.
      That ups his Body Count with women to two.

  9. Morning All, especially Geoff.
    Today's Tales
    “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Yesterday I made love to my wife."
    The priest explained that there was nothing wrong with that.
    “But Father, I did it with lust.”
    “That’s all right,” said the priest, “that was no sin.”
    “But-Father, it was in the middle of the day.”
    “That’s quite natural,” replied the priest.
    “But Father, I couldn’t help myself. She leant over the deep freeze and I jumped on her. We made love on the floor. Am I banned from church?”
    “Of course not!”
    “What a relief. We’ve both been banned from Woolworths.”

    On their first night of wedded bliss, the groom took off his trousers and asked his new bride to try them on.
    “They don’t fit.” she said.
    “And never forget it!” said the husband. “In this house I wear the trousers.”
    She continued to disrobe. She threw him her frilly knickers and said, “Put those on.”
    He looked at the scanty briefs and said, “I’ll never get into these!”
    “You’re right,” she said. “And if you don’t change your attitude, you never will!”

        1. Back in the early 60’s, one Saturday morning, myself and few teenage mates started a queue outside one of the doors into Woolworths in Coventry Precinct.

          When people tried to walk in, we complained…. they joined the queue behind us.

        3. Mum (and Dad) 's gone to Iceland.

          p.s. could be Woolworth in Australia. Our sons' business used to to send frozen desserts there.

  11. Good Moaning.
    Start the day with a dose of scuttlebutt.
    "Amanda Abbington has accused Giovanni Pernice of inappropriate sexual conduct and claimed that he would “outline his erection” during their Strictly Come Dancing rehearsals."
    I don't know what she adds to her coffee, but may I have some?

    4. Yawn!
      Actress hardly anybody has ever heard of manages to become household name via advanced victimhood.

  12. G'morning all,

    Clear skies over McPhee Towers, wind North -East, 8℃ risng to 15℃.

    Glimpses of Clown World #1 – a limitless series.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/755451ed1a65de4c18026d6710c9654b4fe950d9fcdf4efffc67ab57bb51e626.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/sadiq-khans-night-tsar-to-stand-down-after-eight-years/

    She has performed one-woman comedy shows including Gay Man Trapped in a Lesbian’s Body and has been a presenter on the BBC 2 show Gaytime TV. Ms Lamé has also written a gay history book aimed at children.

    I apologise for spoiling your breakfasts.

  13. Good morning all!
    A rather cool 2½°C with a bright start to the day for a change.
    An overnight trip to Denbigh to pick up an auction purchase today and, as the DT is on days off today and tomorrow, I'm taking her with me and having a rather nice, but expensive B&B.

    A couple of decent letters at the top of the page today I see:-

    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer professes rock-solid support for Israel’s self-defence (report, http://telegraph.co.uk , October 2). Yet his Foreign Secretary has withheld military supplies to Israel and effectively endorsed efforts to have an arrest warrant issued against its prime minister.

    Labour’s actions are innately contradictory and make for incoherent policy.

    Alastair Irvine
    Grantham, Lincolnshire

    SIR – On Monday, Hamas – a terrorist group proscribed by the British Government – announced that an Israeli airstrike had killed Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, a senior leader in its operation in Lebanon, where he coordinated activities with Hezbollah, and confirmed him as also being the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) teachers’ union in Lebanon.

    David Lammy recently reinstated taxpayer funding for UNRWA, despite concerns regarding staff being members of terrorist organisations. Perhaps he could explain why.

    Nigel Tobias
    Altrincham, Cheshire

    1. There is money to be made by important lobby interests in backing both Israel and Iran's proxies as each indulge in war crimes. The lives of those hit by the missiles do not matter any more than the British taxpayer.

    2. I can't quite make up my mind whether Lammy is clueless or malevolent. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's a complete idiot.

  14. The Original Alan Norris
    10 hrs ago
    Trough
    Snout
    Piggy

    E N Gineer
    9 hrs ago
    Reply to The Original Alan Norris
    Bat fitch.

    Mystic Mouse
    9 hrs ago
    She needed less salary and more celery

  15. Glimpses of Clown World #2 – a limitless series.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e50b7eba4f507fa02db532e0a9d31d87550d2c255409fd18ce1e7e9ee8b056a.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/03/young-people-targeted-to-become-magistrates-court-backlog/

    Next time you accept an invitiation to the local Magistrate's Court you may find your JP is a twenty-one-year-old green-haired lesbian with a face full of ironmongery or a fundamentalist muslim nutjob with a copy of the Koran at his side.

    No thanks.

    1. Of course they don't bother looking at why so many Magistrates threw in the towel in the first place.

      One Magistrate i was reading about said they had to cover several different courts. They got minimum mileage and not much else.
      He said he would arrive at court and then spend all morning convicting/fining single women over not having a TV licence.
      Then travel to another court for the afternoon and all afternoon do the same thing with minor driving offences.

      It might sound trivial but he said the last straw was where they took away the tea and biscuit provision.

      Soul destroying.

        1. Not funny. The TV licence enforcers target single women, because they can push past them on the doorstep more easily than they can past a man. They can't fine anyone unless they have proof, so pushing past people on the doorstep is a big part of their 'success'.
          People are stupid not to just chuck the idiot lanterns out, but TV licence enforcement is still a disgrace.

          1. I have had two visits since I ditched the license in Feb. After the pleasantries, it was a " can we come in and check your equipment"… "No, anything else I can help you with..bye".

          6. I was rather surprised at a visit so soon and another after about 6 weeks. Perhaps they are now arranging a warrant. I follow Chili con carne on utube for guidance.

          7. Yes – I have lived in licenceless households for most of my life in Britain and never had a visit.

          8. I ditched my licence at the end of August. I have yet to receive a visit, but if they ask if they can check my equipment, I'll tell them (truthfully) I don't have any equipment any more.

          9. unless they have proof..
            If they have reasonable suspicion they will seek a warrant to be issued by a Magistrate for entry. Deny that entry and you are asking for trouble.
            The fact is.. you must pay your propaganda tax.
            The only way out is through the ballot box.

          10. In theory. Anecdotally, I have heard that they don’t bother with the hassle of warrants – they just rely on shock tactics to get their foot in the door, and this is easier done with women than with men, so they target women.

          11. You'll never know the details that's for sure, because the BBC refuse to reveal the data:

            Why information has been withheld
            Revealing additional information about search warrants will provide information that could be of
            use to people who wish to avoid paying the television licence fee.

            Rupinder Panesar
            DEI Hire & Freedom of Information Advisor, TV Licensing Management Team

            And please note if you wish to pursue this hate crime we will arrest you under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act.

          13. They certainly rely on this factor, but pushing past occupiers would be illegal thought it does not stop their sometimes heavy handed tactics.

          14. I've been TV and license free since 2005. About 20 years ago, I emailed the Magistrates Association and asked how the evidence from "detector vans" was presented to a court ie technical printouts, a statement from the operator etc. I had a reply within 15 minutes saying is was a matter for the courts and I should contact the Lord Chancellor's department.
            I knew then it was all a bluff. I'm proud to say I took this photo in 2010 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a75179019b44d1cce1e4a39c3d0c4c4f7bba6b43450c19cda15f50f8a38b244.jpg

          15. As I say, it hasn’t happened to me but this is what I’ve heard from other people. Forceful body language can get someone over the threshold before the householder (who is already feeling guilty because she has just been accused of something she knows is true) has time to react.

          16. It just demonstrates how much false authority these goons employ and people fall for it.

          21. Search warrants are exceptionally rare. https://www.tvlicenceresistance.info/forum/index.php Sites like this one did some research on this. The number of warrants for England and Wales were about 100 per year. Northern Ireland seemed to have one rouge goon who had the ear of magistrates. He was identified and filmed and this reined him in.
            Scotland has a different legal system and issues no warrants.. (This was about 6 years ago).Magistrates are becoming more wise to TV licensing and and the site quoted above finds fewer cases and YT videos of goons playing up.
            My YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@johnstandley4333/videos

            And chillijoncarne youtube channel

          22. The goons are not permitted to 'push past' people to get in the house. They have no powers of entry or even to put their feet in the door. The only way they can get you to court is if you talk to them and admit you're watching TV. A warrant would only be issued on the production of evidence to a magistrate. Just close the door on them and they have to go away although they can return at a later date – they cannot harass you.

          23. I have cable and assume that my service provide could provide evidence of what I watch or at least what channels the TV is in tuned to.

          26. This is good advice, but anecdotally I have heard that they do push past people. Most women are too shocked to put up any resistance, and too shamed of being fined to complain afterwards.
            A chain on the door works wonders of course…

          28. I expect a great many of these women live in social housing tower blocks. I know the enforcement officers like the density (shooting fish in a barrel).

            Perhaps they should remember to leave the chain on when answering the door.

    2. Young people with no life experience but the full brainwashing training in cancel culture and anti-white bigotry?

      1. people with no life experience but the full brainwashing training in cancel culture and anti-white bigotry?

        A precise description of Starmer and the Labour Party

    4. Officials will soon be lining up on our shores, clipboards at the ready, to recruit the illegals as magistrates. After all, they'll tick all the boxes.

  16. Western indifference has hung Zelensky out to dry. 3 October 2024.

    With only weeks to go before the US presidential election, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky could be forgiven for thinking that, irrespective of the outcome, Ukraine’s fight for freedom is fast becoming a lost cause. For all the pain and sacrifice the Ukrainian people have endured in the two-and-a-half years since Russia invaded Ukraine, all the indications suggest that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s initial calculation that the West would eventually lose interest in the conflict appears increasingly valid.

    The purpose of this war; from the American point of view, was always to bleed Russia dry. This has largely been accomplished and the Middle East is much more important anyway.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/03/western-indifference-hung-zelensky-out-dry-ukraine-russia/

    1. I'm not convinced. I doubt America has ever cared much what goes on in this backwater. The prime movers in this conflict are the old Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland and the Baltic states as well as independents such as Finland, who are very worried about escalation if Putin felt emboldened in war.

      There is an extraordinary symmetry between Russias's attacks and those of Israel. The more success they have in battle, the more eager they are to escalate. The draw of the "Final Solution" is just too strong when you are ahead.

      Ukraine is taking up its traditional role as a buffer zone, and destined to be smashed up once more. If Ukraine falls, Poland is next.

      1. A fight for the freedom of Russian speakers residing in the Ukraine who where being systematically slaughtered by the Azov Brigade – over 14,000.

      1. I bumped into him in a pub yesterday and asked him if I could by him a drink, no thanks he replied, I've got one ear.

  18. 'Morning Peeps. Hope all well?

    SIR – Given the chaos currently unfolding in the Middle East, I wonder if Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is aware that 20 per cent of the world’s energy supplies flow through the Strait of Hormuz.

    Removing Britain’s ability to produce its own oil and gas le – or, for that matter, ves us wide open to global supply shocks. Replacing UK-generated power with supplies from overseas that will be cut if their providers experience shortages is simply madness.

    Paul Wood
    Southampton

    The answer, Mr Wood, is almost certainly 'no'. Minibrain was captured by the green extremists a long time ago and does not give a flying fig for such boring and mundane mattets as energy security. Or, for that matter, our wellbeing and prosperity. He should take his wrecking ball and bugger off to play somewhere else.

    1. I think it's worse – he knows that chaos is planned around the financial reset and is playing his part in laying the foundations for deadly chaos in Britain.

    2. Please do not bother Millitw*t with facts.

      He is on the Alphabet Soup Organisation road to immortality

  19. 'Morning Peeps. Hope all well?

    SIR – Given the chaos currently unfolding in the Middle East, I wonder if Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is aware that 20 per cent of the world’s energy supplies flow through the Strait of Hormuz.

    Removing Britain’s ability to produce its own oil and gas le – or, for that matter, ves us wide open to global supply shocks. Replacing UK-generated power with supplies from overseas that will be cut if their providers experience shortages is simply madness.

    Paul Wood
    Southampton

    The answer, Mr Wood, is almost certainly 'no'. Minibrain was captured by the green extremists a long time ago and does not give a flying fig for such boring and mundane mattets as energy security. Or, for that matter, our wellbeing and prosperity. He should take his wrecking ball and bugger off to play somewhere else.

  20. The North Carolina hurricane was apparently the worst since 1916, and there are people reporting many bodies floating in water. Volunteer helpers are being turned away in places, and their donated goods taken by government agencies. A coordinated response is understandable, but from what people are saying, the help seems to be slow getting through.
    There is a lot on US social media, but our media seems blind.

  21. Police opened fire on suspect as he tried to ram roadblock

    Met firearms officer on trial for murder after single bullet killed Chris Kaba on south London street

    The Daily Telegraph, 3 Oct 2024. By Martin Evans CRIME EDITOR

    A POLICE officer shot and killed a young black man who tried to ram through a roadblock in a car linked to a firearms incident, a court has heard.
    Chris Kaba died after he was struck by a single bullet fired by Martyn Blake, a Metropolitan Police firearms officer, on the evening of Sept 5 2022.

    The 24-year old had been driving an Audi Q8 through the streets of south London when he was stopped by armed police officers who were alerted to the fact the same vehicle had been involved in a shooting in Brixton the night before.

    When Kaba used the car in a “concerted attempt” to ram the police vehicles out of the way and escape, Mr Blake opened fire, killing him. The officer later explained he had done so in the belief that his life and those of his colleagues were in danger.

    But following an independent investigation into the circumstances of the shooting, the decision was made to charge Mr Blake, 40, with murder.
    At the opening of the trial at the Old Bailey, Tom Little KC, prosecuting, told jurors: “This case undoubtedly involves a decision by this defendant to shoot Chris Kaba with an intention to kill.

    “It was undoubtedly a decision taken to use lethal force with a firearm by a firearms officer in the Metropolitan Police.”

    He continued: “We say the unassailable evidence of what actually took place that night reveals that it was not reasonably justified or justifiable.
    “The body-worn footage and footage from cameras on police vehicles reveals, we say, that it was not necessary to shoot.

    “The immediate risk to both the defendant and his fellow officers at the scene did not, we say, justify … firing the bullet into vehicle Chris Kaba was driving.

    “That is why we say that this is a case of murder rather than the use of lawful self-defence or lawful defence of another.”

    Mr Little explained the police officer did not know the identity of the man in the car and said what Mr Blake was thinking when he opened fire “only he knows”. But Mr Little suggested the officer may have acted as he did because he was “angry, frustrated and annoyed” at Kaba’s refusal to obey police instructions.

    Kaba’s mother became visibly upset and was comforted by a relative as the case was opened.

    The prosecutor said while the incident may have been “challenging” for the police officers, it had not been nearly as life-threatening as suggested, because Kaba’s car was stationary when Mr Blake opened fire.

    The court was told that the night before Kaba was killed, members of the public had contacted the police to report hearing gunshots in Brixton and seeing a man with a shotgun.

    Mr Blake denies one count of murder. The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.

    When did pest control become murder? Why is this officer being put under prolonged stress for doing the job he is paid to do? Those responsible need to be considered as pests and dealt with accordingly.

    3. Yo Mr Grizzle

      If PC Blake is found guilty, all the weapons qualified police in THE COUNTRY should give up the Firearms Authorisation.

      Additionally, I wonder if PC Blake is getting Legal Aid, to the extent that our invaders get it

    4. Agree, Grizz.
      Maybe all firearms officers should turn in their authorisations as a (self-defence) protest.
      Hope the case is thrown out.

    5. Cue. another bunch of resignations from the armed police. Soon there won't be any to protect us.

    6. Good morning Grizzly,
      Mr Blake has done society a favour in eliminating this dangerous piece of vermin. Additionally, there will be a saving to the taxpayer/ benefits bill.
      If Mr Blake is convicted of murder, or even manslaughter, it will be a grave miscarriage of justice. He clearly acted to prevent potential murders and act of terrorism.

      1. Good afternoon, Mum. That is very true. The problem is that no one in the modern CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) has the balls or brains to act upon common sense. In days of yore the old CPS (County Prosecuting Solicitor) was in direct touch with the officers on the beat and made decisions on prosecutions using evidence and common sense. Those days have long gone, I’m afraid.

    7. It's a tricky one, and I hope the bodycamera footage will help the jury to reach a verdict.
      A friend was once stopped by armed policemen while he was driving a van. He stopped the vehicle.
      The cops shouted at him 'Put your hands on the steering wheel' and 'Don't move', simultaneously.
      He calmy replied that he couldn't put his hands on the wheel without moving. Of course it was 'mistaken identity'.

        1. 'Living beyond our means' (per Mrs T) is old hat now. We will all rue the day when the money markets make further borrowing unaffordable – sorry, more unaffordable.

          2. We would be if it was left to the market without the interference of nanny-knows-best central banks!

        2. Yes! Why worry when those foreign entrepreneurs and states who earn Sterling by selling us trinkets can simply use those £££££s to buy up swathes of Britain and what's left of British industry?

  24. This story plumbs new depths in the world of Green Insanity. A perfectly useful diesel powered ferry was replaced by a solar powered electric ferry and strange to say, the outcome was a hugely expensive catastrophe but highlights how this madness is wasting vast sums and delivering failure on a grand scale. We see it with electric dustcarts, fire engines and various other aspects of the cult imposing itself but this example is a classic- especially the resolution to the problem itself!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BD_wkP91P0

      1. My era of Dinky Toys, there were no windows- Corgi I seem to recall started having windows.

        1. Ah! Like when Nikeliar ‘launched’ a ferry which had its windows painted on? 🤣

          1. Corgi just had a plastic shell that fitted inside the diecast body and this was the "windows" methodology- no "precision" aspect to this system!

      2. The Royal Navy began transitioning from coal to oil in 1912, when all new ships were designed to use fuel oil. However, the transition took time because Britain lacked a domestic supply of oil. The Royal Navy's transition to oil was aided by government activity and foreign policy, including the Royal Commission on Fuel and Engines, which was established in 1912 by Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty.

      1. Yes, the only cure is for all the money to run out and when we are back in the Stone Age, people will finally wise up!

    1. I don't think the young and brainwashed realise what a red flag to us oldies their pronoun nonsense is. No way would I want to work with anyone who tells me their pronouns. Any CV including this information would be filed straight in the round file.

  27. 394051+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 3 October: Labour’s actions belie the Prime Minister’s words of support for Israel

    Is there anyone within these isles now, who would have expected any different ?

    We are, in point of fact, via the polling stations, supporting and giving succour / consent to one giant war supporting supplying WEF / NWO entity.

    We are, courtesy of the "miranda" political regime era, suffering
    self inflicted ( governing change) mass governance controlled invasion as in, the political overseers ( a tactical voting consequence) are seemingly using these foreign invaders as
    a subduing force of fear .

    99% of the lab/lib/con coalition have these last four decades
    knocked the arse completely out of trust in promises,vows,& pledges, the types supporting / voting for such must surely be on a high suspect list.

      2. From today’s Terriblegraph:

        “GB NEWS has launched a High Court challenge against Ofcom in a dramatic escalation of its row with the media regulator over impartiality.
        The High Court has allocated three hours this morning to an application by GB News against the regulator.
        Ahead of looming sanctions from Ofcom, it is understood that the broadcaster is applying for “interim relief ”, a form of short-term protection during legal proceedings, in a highly unusual move for a broadcaster.
        It comes amid mounting tensions between the self-styled “people’s channel”, part owned by hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall, and the regulator.
        In May, Ofcom concluded that an hour-long question-and-answer programme with Rishi Sunak, then prime minister, broke due impartiality rules.
        It said that the programme had generated 537 complaints and that the regulator “found GB News’s approach to compliance to be wholly insufficient”.
        It claimed this was a “serious and repeated breach of these rules” and that it would now start “the process for consideration of a statutory sanction against GB News”.
        GB News responded by accusing Ofcom of “trampling” on freedom of speech and said it would mount a legal challenge. The broadcaster pledged to dispute decisions that “go against journalists’ and broadcasters’ rights to make their own editorial judgements in line with the law and which also go against Ofcom’s own rules”.
        It said: “The regulator’s threat to punish a news organisation with sanctions for enabling people to challenge their own prime minister strikes at the heart of democracy at a time when it could not be more vital.”
        The investigation came two months after Ofcom said the channel was “on notice” over breaches as it warned the broadcaster over its use of MPS as presenters. The regulator said shows hosted by Sir Jacob Rees-mogg, Esther Mcvey and Philip Davies broke rules stating that politicians should not usually present news coverage.
        Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, told the Financial Times it was now “moving to sanctions on the most recent of those breaches” but that no decision to sanction the broadcaster had yet been taken.
        GB News has experienced a turbulent time since its launch in 2021, with its original chairman, Andrew Neil, quitting after three months. It has faced an advertiser boycott since its launch, with brands suspending ads out of fear of being associated with controversial content. This is believed to have taken a significant toll on its finances.
        GB News and Ofcom declined to comment.”

        Malicious and frivolous complaints by Leftards

    4. Why are these interviewers not interested in the truth and determined not to listen to what Farage says?

      1. Because they are following orders from their far left masters. They want to keep the State left wing.

    5. What strikes me about this is Farage's tepid attempt to answer. It was pathetic and simply reinforces what the Lotus Eaters say in the programme I have posted above.

      1. A good general picks the ground for a battle. Two against one is not good ground.

  29. This is currently the leading comment under the DT Letters:

    Trevor Anderson
    10 hrs ago
    Sir Keir has argued “Lord Alli was motivated to help financially because he wanted Labour to win the election.”

    What has £32000 worth of suits got to do with winning an election? If asked where his suits came from most people would have guessed M&S.

    What has giving a 16 year old boy an £18 million penthhouse to do his revision got to do with winning an election? That was a lie, Starmer had used it regularly, even as far back as the death of Queen Elizabeth.

    What has an £8750 (per home game) hospitality box at Arsenal got to do with winning an election?

    What had free Taylor Swift tickets got to do with winning an election?

    Mealy mouthed dishonesty. He’s a money grubbing, pretentious, disingenuous, unfit for purpose, tosspot.

    By paying back £6000 he has admitted some, but not all wrong doing. In his rant with Beth Rigby he said he'd done nothing wrong, it was within the rules. Well, this bloke would, wouldn't he?

    Well said, Mr A. The day of reckoning should not be far off now – fingers crossed.

      1. He's an unp.. who is in a pickle because he is trying to serve three masters at one time.

      2. The most astonishing aspect of this latest revelation is that there exist in the world TWO women prepared to sleep with Keir Starmer!

          5. Indeed – as if it were yesterday…
            meanwhile, I can’t remember why I just went upstairs.

          6. Not in Starmer’s case! That’s like being told that Aladdin is the most powerful entity in the world!

            I don’t get the attraction of Mellor either, but I’m guessing he was a smooth talker. Nobody can accuse 2TK of that either!

          7. At least Mellor likes music.
            Sturmer has no interesting anything outside politics and his wallet.

          9. He’s football crazy, he’s football mad, that football game has taken away the little bit of sense he had.

      3. It does beg the question about at least two women’s total lack of judgement though, doesn’t it?

    2. it was within the rules.

      There's them rules again. Lawyers love rules. With the right people in the Civil Service you can draw up a rule book to suit any occasion.

      1. When it comes to money shysters can always justify why they should be able to take other people's money. And why it is absolutely right to do so. This is the central 'rule' of this Labour Party. Their self-righteousness is off the scale in all of their crackpot policies. And anyone who objects must be imprisoned/censored for being 'wrong'.

    1. You can huff and puff all you want.. however, until the middle ground (wet Tory voters) open their eyes and wake up.. it's a lost cause. And judging by the performance of the new Wet Tory Leaders nothing will change till it's too late.

      2. 394051+ up ticks,

        Morning KB,

        Huffing & puffing as you call it
        =s giving them a very justified
        bloody loud SHOUT.

        Saying nothing surely = s consent
        regarding their actions.

  31. 394051+ up ticks,

    Did this benny chap mention the defence of the United Kingdom
    in passing, and the indigenous taking a very strong Churchchilian stance against internal invaders and home grown political enamas.

    Dt,
    missile attacks’
    RAF lacks weapons to take out Iranian ballistic missiles and Royal Navy vessels also ill-equipped or lacking manpower, says Ben Wallace

    1. BOB SEELY: Putin's missiles could obliterate London in minutes. That's why we MUST build our own Iron Dome.

      ha ha ha, deep breaths, HA HA HA

      When we can't even control the missiles from a third rate country such as Iran?

      1. Why are we even talking about 'taking out Iranian missiles'?
        Iran is a foreign country, miles away from us. They are not waiting in northern France to invade us. None of our business! Especially when we do have an invading army waiting in northern France and pouring over the border every day.

        1. I take your point but in the case of Iran/Israel this is an enemy who really does wish to destroy the Christian/secular West.

          Just watch for the ramping up of terrorist attacks.

          If Israel loses the march of Islam will be even harder to delay.

          1. I think you’ve been sold a pup with that idea.
            The greatest threat to us is our own politicians letting millions of muslims into Britain and allowing them to practice their religion in a way that is not allowed in other countries, including islamic ones.

          2. Partially true.
            But Iran is the principal start point for the worst of the worst, and until people wake up to the source of the danger it is going to continue. You're seeing the symptoms not the cause.

          3. I don’t believe the cause is in Tehran. Tehran’s worst crime is resisting the parasite class.

  33. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunshine what on earth is happening out there?
    Clearly our government's past and present have never been able to show genuine and honest support for Israel. They have been slowly and surely dressing up their support for the opposite and in the obvious way they are trying to change our culture and social structure. Because as it's rather obvious that our government's are afraid to stop the terrible flag waving riotous demonstrations taking place in British streets. They'd prefer to arrest brits which rather emphasis this particular point. Our politicians have seriously lost the honesty plot.

    1. One would have thought that she had had plenty of time in opposition to decide on her image and stick to it. Changing her hair colour shortly before the Budget doesn't really lend a lot of confidence in her judgement.

    2. You're very naughty Rastus, but I like you…:-D to be katty, her roots are already showing….

  35. As posted on Ar5ebook:

    "Tesco are to be congratulated for including Air-Fryer times and temperatures, on the back of their Chicken Kiev pack (4 off). Is this a first and will others follow?"

    1. I've seen air-fryer times on numerous packs and labels. It is only a first if all others followed it, unless the question is about Chicken Kievs in particular, in which case I do not know.

      1. Many of the cooking instructions cook things far too quickly and too hot. Slower and lower is the best.

      1. Especailly, if you use the 'baking paper' insert

        Parchment paper can handle the heat inside your air fryer – up to 428°F (220°C). To get the best results, add the parchment paper to the air fryer basket at the same time as you add your ingredients. This prevents the paper from lifting up and coming into contact with the heating element while cooking.

        1. Yes, have seen those, thanks. I’m no longer allowed to cook, syncope:-)) although I’m not sure air fryer is cooking is the same as slaving over a hot cooker…

          1. I'm sorry about the synkope, KJ. No fun. I have it too. No driving, and I'm reluctant to go out as I've woken up on the pavement surrounded by ambulance faces looking down at me too often.
            No episodes recently, thank goodness.

          2. I think yours is more severe than mine, Paul? yours is heart, is that it? (mine is just a sudden drop in bp, often because I haven’t eaten and especially not had water to drink in sufficient amounts – other words – hydrated and hungry). Very good to hear you haven’t experienced any episodes recently – long may that continue:-)))

        3. "Parchment paper"? A slight contradiction, especially as the material may contain plastic.

      2. I wouldn't be without mine.
        I do have a smart phone but I only use it as a phone and my microwave is only used to make my morning porridge (it's the cleanest way)

    4. Am I the only person not to own a smart phone, a microwave oven or an air fryer.?

      1. Probably, Johnny, if it’s any consolation I do not have a smart-phone either.2 out of 3 ain’t bad

  36. 394051 + up ticks,

    Serious question,

    In support of the NHS and indigenous patients " How many sets of crutches would you get for the price of ONE MISSILE"

    Question in two parts,
    Do we fully understand the meaning of the word
    "Priorities"

    1. Speaking of crutches, when husband had a hip op, we returned crutches to hospital and were told 'thanks most don't bother'. Relative had car accident, NHS supplied commode which took them weeks and many phone call reminders to collect following recovery. When I told someone I know he said 'tell me about it, I have a mate sells this stuff on the market'. Where there's an opportunity, someone will take it.

    2. None. The government doesn't buy missiles. It would far prefer to spaff the money on painting a road queer flag or hindering traffic flow.

      1. Within Colchester General Hospital's grounds, the road leading from car park to the emergency area sported a rainbow coloured pedestrian crossing. It is now very faded and has been painted over with proper white stripes.
        Are the grown-ups back in charge?

      2. 394051+ up ticks,

        OK,
        Financing warfare with monies they do not personally have , along with many other dubious
        questionable issues such as appeasing trannies & poofters.

  37. The country needs apprenticeships and 'manual' workers, not more people who can "quickly work out the square root of two thirds the volume of a jar of pickles, but cannot open it"

    Well, it did until the PTB decided Net Zero was the way ahead for UK

    Our manufacturing capability is Net Zero, (unless we import raw materials and not people)

    I thank my God that I am not young

    1. We need many fewer people who have written their thesis on why the jar of pickles is racist

  38. Thank you all for your kind words last night regarding Mrs Bee. I must confess the black dog has been stalking me recently.

    2. In reply to sosraboc’s comment this morning on last night’s thread, I am chief cook, bottle washer (and other items 😳), cushion plumper and amongst other things ‘dealer’ referring to the number of pills I give her throughout the day. In spite of it all we are keeping our sense of humour.

  39. Who is Cecil Parkinson and what happened to Sara Keays?
    Once tipped to be a future Prime Minister, Lord Parkinson's political career was derailed by a shocking sex scandal involving his long-time secretary Sara Keays.

    Lord Cecil Parkinson was a political darling of the Thatcher era, rising up from humble originals to become a shining star of the 1980s Conservative Party.

    He was a slick minister with mass public appeal – before it all came crashing down.

    A Very British Sex Scandal: The Love Child & The Secretary, a new Channel 5 documentary, explores how the ex-MP fathered a daughter with his secretary and began a smear campaign against his former lover of 12 years.

    Who was Cecil Parkinson?
    Lord Parkinson was a British Conservative Party politician and served in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet in four secretary of state roles, including the for trade and energy.

    As the son of a railway worker, born in Carnforth, north Lancashire he was unlike many of his privately-educated Tory peers.

    After attending a grammar school, Lord Parkinson won a scholarship to Cambridge University, at which time he was a Labour supporter.

    He soon bought a specialist engineering firm and settled into married life with his wife Ann. Together, the couple had three daughters, Mary, Emma and Joanna.

    Despite what her husband and the British media would later put her through, Lord Parkinson’s wife stayed by his side for the rest of his life.

    At the age of 39, his political career began in earnest, after he was elected as a Conservative MP and appointed a minister in Mrs Thatcher’s first government in 1979.

    He quickly made his way through the ranks, known for his suave demeanour and slicked-back hair.

    Helping the prime minister mastermind her 1983 landslide victory against Labour, Lord Parkinson was duly rewarded by Mrs Thatcher and was promoted to her Cabinet as trade secretary.

    Among rumours the ambitious politician might one day become chancellor, or even party leader, the shocking revelations about Lord Parkinson and his secretary, Sara Keays – and their soon-to-be-born child – completely derailed his career.

    When did Cecil Parkinson’s affair with Sara Keays begin?
    Soon after Mrs Thatcher’s re-election, it emerged he and his secretary had been engaged in a 12-year affair, which may have continued for longer if Ms Keays had not fallen pregnant.

    She broke the news to him in her London flat and, upon being told the news, Lord Parkinson insisted his lover of over a decade get an abortion, according to Ms Keays’ biography A Question of Judgement (1985).

    “I was shattered by his reaction,” Ms Keays said in the book. “I had not expected this… He said that I had better understand that he would never marry me and that if I had the baby, he would never have anything to do with me again and never wanted to see the child.”

    She said Lord Parkinson was ultimately concerned about his career.

    After admitting his affair to Mrs Thatcher, Lord Parkinson continued to receive the backing of his party, even when the story emerged in the Private Eye just as the Conservative Party conference had begun that year.

    Then began Lord Parkinson’s campaign to smear Ms Keays as a promiscuous gold-digger.

    He began briefing the press, claiming his former lover had purposefully got pregnant in order to trap him in a marriage with her.

    Nevertheless, the scandal was too much for even a respected politician like Lord Parkinson to withstand, and he was forced to resign from Cabinet and retreat to the back benches in October 1983.

    His child, Flora Keays, was born on New Year’s Eve, with learning difficulties and Asperger’s syndrome, and was later operated on to remove a brain tumour at the age of four.

    Lord Parkinson wished his baby “peace, privacy and a happy life” in a public statement and he reportedly never met his daughter.

    Although he assisted in her financial upkeep and education, he purportedly never even sent her a birthday card.

    Four years after his daughter’s birth, Lord Parkinson was restored to the front benches as Mrs Thatcher’s energy secretary.

    When Mrs Thatcher resigned in 1990, though, so did he.

    The year after leaving the House of Commons, despite his long affair, Lord Parkinson was made a Baron and was given a life peerage in the House of Lords.

    He was then appointed party chairman after the Tories lost power in 1997. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/who-cecil-parkinson-sara-keays-flora-3034135?srsltid=AfmBOoopPkPRlil8qV2gnlwAMR9dgVXXVFAIJcMcun8vOZC3urSy0U8L

    My goodness, same old same old .

    2. The whole of Wastemonster needs clearing out and applications should be submitted for return and very severely scrutinised.

        1. Absolutely, it’s long over due and it’s probably why the Army has been infiltrated with wokies and reduced hugely in numbers.

  40. Morning, all Y'all.
    Sunny. Full English breakfast, pub later. Can it get better?

  42. Good Morning All 😊Nice day here in West Sussex, sunny and cool. But the trees in the woods at the back of my garden are still green. I think it won't be to long before they begin to show unmistakable signs that autumn will be upon us soon.

    As you know, I do not trust Farage, so I was interested to find that the Lotus Eaters don't either. For those who don't know, all of them have worked for Farage or the Conservatives at one time or another. So I do not take what they have to say with a grain of salt. They confirm my suspicions about Farage, that he is out for himself. In fact they have rather strong things to say about him that I tend to agree with. So I thought I would post the programme here so that you can hear what they have to say. I'm pro Reform but I do think that Farage is a sell out not to be trusted.

    Farage Is Already Ceding Ground

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R52BQvP5a88

    1. I'll give it a listen. I don't trust any politician. The 'I'm the leader now' deposing Tice is a bit of a mess as well.

      The Reform party needs to be professionalised and made into an election winning set up. It's not enough to continually fight the system because it is a behemoth. Politics is an underhand, deceitful, abusive and conceited occupation and I don't think anyone comes out clean. Ideology certainly cannot be held to against the endless knots of red tape, legalese and nonsense.

      1. farage is playing the long game. We know his full potential whan he was a EU MP.

      2. I think most of the people who live in the UK would agree that our well established culture and infrastructure should be run like a well maintained successful business.
        But all of our political (polite) numpties appear to be so personally absorbed and totally obsessed with their own adgenda.
        Let's be honest personal even as we have now a vindictive agest adgenda is not the best and far from a successful way to run any businesses.

    3. Unfortunately, there are no others speaking up for true patriotism. TR has all the right ideas but is not a politician.

    4. Summary:
      Five brave talking heads tell us that Nigel Farage doesn't know what he is doing, he's moral coward, he's afraid of taking on the media, he's failed as a leader and being outflanked by true faaar right leaders like, er Robert Jenrick> He's left a wide open goal that the Conservative Party is now filling.
      He should be out there wiv Tommy R shouting over & over "Oh Tommy Tommy.." dressed like a Madness tribute act.

      Yes dears.. that'll win power. Come up something better then. Come up with a political party. Register it. Tread the streets. Take on the Establishment.. then the good people of the UK will make a choice. Until you try, you're all talk, nothing else.

      Case Study No1: Kellie-Jay Nyishie Kee aka Posie Parker.
      Brave, articulate, loyal fan base, out there every weekend, podcast, took on the Woke media head-on over nine years.. yes 9 years. Tell me how many seats did she win?

        1. Morning, Rik.

          It was John D Rockefeller who started bribing large corporations, university 'research' and health authorities, back in 1907, to promote false claims about spurious 'foodstuffs'. It has continued to escalate ever since.

    1. Hang on. Americaland is not poor. There's plenty of money. Why have they not built more resilient flood defences? One thing I noted from Dominic Frisby's tax book was that during the Katrina flooding a road and rail bridge, paralleling one another were examples of the market at work.

      The rail bridge, being privately owned was repaired quickly as money was being lost from the damage. The road was unrepaired and ignored for over a decade after the hurricane simply because big fat state wasn't affected by it's lack.

      1. This was one of those things where no normal flood defences would have worked. I watched this on American TV, via computer. You can watch local stations if you use a VPN. Before the storm had hit land the water was already up to the top of street signs which are the same hight as a stop sign in England. This was seawater not just rain. You cannot build defences against the sea when that amount of water is flooding inland, even the Americans are not that superhuman. But the disgusting thing is that FEMA, the disaster agency, has been gutted by the Biden administration to cater to immigrants coming across the border from Mexico. Now it is not equipped to help in a disaster, its resources are being used elsewhere.

        Second, the areas hit are Republican, so the Biden/Harris regime is just being vindictive and lackadaisical in its response. Basically they couldn't give a damn about people who didn't vote for them. Yes, that's how degenerate the modern Democratic Party is. The main aid has been coming from other Republican States, primarily Florida, because the central government is doing so little to help. DeSantis gov. of Florida has been sending aid and state troopers to help, doing the job of FEMA because they are now useless.

        1. If it's genuinely politically motivated then that's very sad. I've no idea about the flooding, flood defences – if they're anything like ours then it comes from decades of ignoring the problem and pretending everything is going to be ok, then being surprised when it isn't.

          I appreciate this isn't 'build the wall' type scenario but could the water not have been deflected somehow? I'll look up on what happened and why as this seems to be a familiar pattern.

        2. One of the reasons I binned TV and the license was the BBC's and other MSM coverage about Katrina. They gave the impression that the slow response was all down to George W. Bush, whereas the responsibility lies with the governor. The president is responsible for the Federal follow-up. One subject that grinds my gears.

          1. Yes that’s correct. But in a disaster of this magnitude FEMA is supposed to respond ASAP.

    1. I'm struggling.. how does one get past "At the last election in July, I voted Liberal Democrat."

      1. I know KLB, but as he says, it’s the beginning of a much needed discussion on what to do about a rogue government, and it’s good to have different opinions to stimulate debate. Why not go back and make a comment under the article?

  48. Par forefor four:
    Wordle 1,202 4/6

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

  49. Gorgeous morning. Market busy. Sunshine makes all the difference, doesn't it? Even the cats are pleased!

  51. Senior Met officer sues for discrimination after sex addiction exposed

    Serving officer felt ‘persecuted’ after Scotland Yard allegedly leaked his condition to media

    In May 2023, it was revealed that an unnamed “high-flying” officer with a £100,000-a-year salary package had been allowed to keep his job despite using prostitutes, a decision that caused controversy in the London Assembly.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/met-officer-sues-discrimination-alleged-sex-addiction/

    He is not the same colour as PC Dixon or PC49………..

    However did he lose the case

    1. This can backfire if your interlocutor says, quite rightly, that they are not currently questioning an Irish or Italian person.

      I prefer to ask if they believe in national identity at all, or if they believe that a Californian is exactly the same as a Scots person (yurss, avoiding 'Scotsman' for obvious reasons). It can be quite fun.

      I have the advantage of currently nearing fluency in my fifth language, which rather discombobulates those who argue with me on this topic. 😈

  53. 394051+upticks,

    Another worry for indigenous tax paying peoples is getting on the NHS nasal canal re-lining, replacement, waiting list, odious consequences of the alien invaders hotel bills.

    Health Warning ALERT,
    Beware of, second hand noses you don't know where they have been

    The foreign invaders,
    There is nearly 30.000 living in 250 plus hotels at the cost of £4.2million a day.

    Pensioners denied the pensions plus they earned via TOIL whilst the invading forces are given succour whilst making hay, raping & pilleging with very little opposition from the governing politico's and certainly NO financial input via TOIL.

    If guilty, YOUr reason to support & vote for the lab/lib/con coalition WAS ?

  54. Who cares. Does he do a good job? That's what counts. Strike that. In todays world non of them do a good job.

    1. One doesn't hear about the 99% who get on with the job, just the 1% wasters. Unfair to tar all with the same brush.

      1. A fair comment Ober. But, apparently, you will not advance in the police force now unless you snitch on a workmate. Not kidding, it is a Woke test. I thought this was a joke but it isn't.

      2. You're a Mod Paul, I've just posted something that apparently 'needs to be approved'

  57. No Johnny! You’re not! Although I have recently joined the 21st century and got an old iPhone!

    1. and never worn a pair of blue denim jeans, never worn a pair of slip on shoes. I am easy to live with.

    1. I’m in Devon just now. Probably less accessible than Norway, but the cider is better!

      2. Our daughter and SiL are going to a wedding at Yelverton on Saturday! Flying to Bristol tomorrow.

  65. Be honest now, do you really think that if the interviewee had been Starmer or Harris or any other Leftie, the show would have been cancelled?
    I don't.

    Laura Kuenssberg reveals how embarrassing gaffe saw Boris Johnson interview scrapped.

    Kuenssberg told followers on X that she accidentally sent Mr Johnson briefing notes that were instead intended for her team.
    She branded the error 'embarrassing and disappointing', and BBC bosses pulled the plug after describing the situation as 'untenable'.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13918361/Laura-Kuenssberg-reveals-embarrassing-gaffe-saw-Boris-Johnson-interview-scrapped.html

    1. Reminds me of the time – over 60 years ago – when I was articled. Acting for a plaintiff in a claim for damages, we received a letter from the other side which started, "There is absolutely no defence to this claim, but we'll do our best to string out the plaintiff's solicitors…"

      Their typist had muddled the envelopes….. I phoned my opponent and told him… They settled quickly and painlessly!

    1. Fire them??
      There was a reason squaddies called the SA80 assault rifle the 'civil serpent'.. because they didn't work, and you couldn't fire em.

      1. I converted to SA80 from the SLR/SMG in 1990 as part of pre-deployment to the first Gulf fisticuffs in 1990. I don't recall anyone calling it that. Like most new weapons/systems there were initial teething problems but soon sorted.

        1. I converted in 1991. Though the teething troubles were many, I found that as long as I kept it clean, well oiled and stuck to the drills (Often modified by necessity), it was well-balanced and worked well.
          Having said that, I first fired one on my range management course in 1988 and the infantry guys were cursing it. It took many modifications. I believe the current version is quite reliable.

    1. My brother in law and my sister were police. Now both of them are deceased but they would be thoroughly ashamed about what the police have become in the UK. The ex-policeman that founded 'Fair Cop', Harry Miller, talks about how the culture of Woke has infiltrated via the 'College of Policing' snitching, pre-crime etc, and how, unsurprisingly, it is ruining the trust that police need between themselves to operate properly. And, of course, it has destroyed the trust of the public. The practical result is that in the Met alone, one third of police are planning to resign.

  70. You clearly don’t have a clue.

    The people in charge in Iran take their orders from the Quran, they aren’t resisting anything. They are the ones that should be resisted.

    1. You’re repeating more or less what you’ve been told to think since the ‘War on Terror’ was launched.

      1. Oddly enough, I can think for myself.

        You, on the other hand, believe all manner of theories that Blackrock, the Rothschilds etc etc are controlling the planet and are even behind the attacks on Israel.

        1. There is an oligarch class with international influence – it would be foolish to deny that.

          The Americans have been dying to invade Iran since the turn of the century and have put a lot of effort into demonising that country. Most of the islamic terrorism is either false flags or otherwise funded by the CIA.

          1. “Most of the islamic terrorism is either false flags or otherwise funded by the CIA.”

            Bullshit.

          3. OK you’ve looked into it; where’s your proof?

            Are you seriously suggesting that the daily, yes daily, acts of Islamic terrorism around the world are mostly false flags or funded by the CIA?

            You’re a fool.

  71. Very similar, screen too small for anything else, like my Chromebook. Yes, same here for porridge too – more milk, longer time than instructions. Btw, lovely kittens, there’s a similar couple on YouTube singing Happy Birthday, have used it a few times :-DD

    1. Thanks, unfortunately the one on the right went missing 10 years ago and I don't know what happened to her. The other is still ruling the roost

      1. I’ve lost cats in similar fashion, never know if they’ve been crossing a road and killed, or poisoned etc…some people just don’t like cats 🙁 I once took in a farm cat, would find what seemed to be dead bees on doorstep – closer inspection, mouse heads…..Glad you still have one and it’s a roost ruler :-))

        1. She wasn't run over – I'm on a single track road and I searched it – I think it became another animals dinner, could have been a pine marten, an otter or a fox – I'm right out in the sticks. The neighbours were out searching too but no trace

          1. Very possibly – haven’t heard a single fox for months now…any idea if anyone/farmer etc puts poison down? Relative has a cat frequently goes to stay with a family who has more cats, different food on menu – returns home presumably when it feels a bit crowded. Hope your cat returns, too 🙂

          2. I hope so too Kate but 10 years? I know of a lady whose cat disappeared but returned 3 years later – She said to it “Where do you think you’ve been?” She swears the cat answered “Out!”

          3. That’s a long night out, Alec 😀 Every cat owner likely knows they’re a law unto themselves…..

  72. Do their terms of employment not stipulate the number of hours they're required to work? This can be monitored by AI that tracks activity in the computer systems and yes, a minimum of two days in the office should be mandatory. If they insist that the work can be done remotely then serve them right if they're sacked and replaced with Indians and Filipinos.

    At BBC Studios (the commercial end), the official line is two days minimum, three days preferred and anyone who'd rather be in the office welcome. Production teams often can't work remotely. They have to be on-site to make a programme and they're likely to have fixed term contracts.

    1. I would insist they return to the office full time for training till they know how to behave.

  75. Is it teamed with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, also known as the Inquisition?

  76. I don’t see how the flooding could have been deflected, frankly, this storm was actually unprecedented in its ferocity, unthinkable. In the same way that the North Sea Flood was unprecedented in England, that killed 200 people because no one was prepared for such a storm. A once in a thousand years event, so to speak.

  77. From the Spanish interior
    Wind Warning State Meteorological Agency 18°C
    Thursday 12:36 Sunny
    High 22°C

  78. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing
    Matt Ridley
    Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible, weightless, silent ether that turns instantly into light, heat, motion or information at your command. It is a metaphor for the modern economy: we use pure energy to create useful outcomes in the real world.

    We found out last week that Britain has now for the first time achieved top spot, among 25 nations, in terms of the price we pay for this supernatural ichor, for both domestic and industrial use.

    This is a disaster. Electricity prices have doubled in Britain since 2019. They are 46 per cent above the International Energy Agency’s median for industrial and 80 per cent above the median for domestic electricity. As the independent energy analyst David Turver points out, British business pays almost four times as much as American business for each unit of power and British consumers pay almost three times as much as Americans. And that is last year’s data, before Ed Miliband has even started on his policies to accelerate decarbonisation: all the technologies he champions are more expensive than gas.

    It’s a system of beauty as faras producers are concerned, but a thing of horror for consumers
    High electricity prices make companies based here less competitive, so some will leave or die; and consumers less well off, so some will freeze and all will buy less of other things: a drag on both production and consumption. Consumers pay for high electricity prices both when we use it and again when we buy things that have been manufactured or refrigerated with it. Given that the plan is for us all to use a lot more electricity in the future, for cars and home heating, this is alarming news.

    How was the double triumph of chart-topping electricity prices for both business and homes achieved? Green lobbyists say that it is because we have not built enough wind farms and are too reliant on gas. But this is belied by the facts. Last month, the results of an auction of contract bids for generating electricity were announced. You will recall that because of inflation, the subsidy junkies in the ‘unreliables’ industry boycotted the previous auction for offshore wind, demanding and getting more generous terms.

    Sure enough, last month’s bids by onshore wind, offshore wind and solar power are at average ‘strike prices’ higher than the recent going rate, which is set by the price of gas. The way contracts for difference work, the suppliers pay us if market prices are higher than the strike price; we pay them if they are lower. Only very briefly, when gas prices spiked during the early phase of the Ukraine war, did we get a little money back under the scheme.

    In August, contract-for-difference subsidies were £237 million, the third highest ever and a record for August. That includes a £72 million rise in offshore wind subsidies, caused by a windy month, new wind farms coming online and falling gas prices. The more the wind blows and the lower the gas prices fall, the bigger the subsidies we pay wind farms. It’s a system of beauty as far as producers are concerned, but a thing of horror for consumers. ‘For the generators it’s heads they win, tails the consumer loses,’ says Turver.

    Yet the strike price is only a small part of the cost of relying on unreliable wind and solar. National Grid plans to spend around £11 billion a year upgrading the transmission grid by 2035 to connect distant wind farms to where people actually live.

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    Add the extra cost of balancing the grid when supply varies, and backing it up with just-in-time gas power when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. And the cost of storing electricity in batteries, for which Mr Miliband just announced new subsidies: forecast by Edinburgh University’s Professor Gordon Hughes to hit £5 billion a year by 2030.

    Had we stuck with coal, like China and Germany have partly done, storing energy in heaps would be all but free and our electricity would be far cheaper (I can say this now I no longer have an interest in coal). We closed the last coal-fired power station this week. Had we gone for shale gas, like America did, it would also have been much cheaper: imported gas is always much more expensive than home-grown (unlike coal and oil, where there are world market prices). Mr Miliband is intent on shutting down the North Sea gas industry, ensuring we pay more still. The slogan that unreliables are now cheap remains a lie however often the subsidy junkies repeat it.

    When things cost more, people buy less. Because of these high prices Britain is using less electricity every year. Final electricity consumption is down by about 23 per cent since 2005 – in spite of a rising population. Dr John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation, adds: ‘And no, it’s not efficiency. This is price rationing pure and simple.’ We are de-industrialising.

    It is not just old industries like steel that are driven away by high electricity prices. Data storage and bitcoin mining are getting more energy hungry. A query with ChatGPT costs ten times as much as a Google search.

    Despair not. Ed ‘Baldrick’ Miliband has a cunning plan. As a tweet from his department revealed last week, the government plans to repeal a couple of laws, making electricity cheaper at a stroke. Which laws? Why, the first and second laws of thermodynamics of course. The tweet read: ‘Did you know a heat pump is 3x more efficient than a gas boiler? Meaning it generates 3 times more energy than it consumes.’

    Apart from the fact that the second sentence definitely does not mean the same as the first, it implies that you can conjure energy out of nothing, breaking the first law of thermodynamics, and that entropy-eating perpetual-motion machines are possible, breaking the second. Hooray!

    Watch more on SpectatorTV:

    1. Electrickery is what Catweasel called it!

      https://www.google.com/search?q=catweasel+elecrickery&sca_esv=9177e7b6d39e290e&ei=Fnn-ZtKxLLSkkdUPlLmC0Q0&ved=0ahUKEwjSlKyZh_KIAxU0UqQEHZScINoQ4dUDCA8&oq=catweasel+elecrickery&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFWNhdHdlYXNlbCBlbGVjcmlja2VyeTIHECEYoAEYCkiVSVDtBliWNXABeAGQAQCYAZEBoAGYDKoBBDAuMTK4AQzIAQD4AQGYAg2gAs0NwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICDRAAGIAEGLADGEMYigXCAg4QABiwAxjkAhjWBNgBAcICExAuGIAEGLADGEMYyAMYigXYAQHCAhYQLhiABBiwAxhDGNQCGMgDGIoF2AEBwgIFEAAYgATCAgUQLhiABMICBxAAGIAEGArCAggQABgWGAoYHsICBhAAGBYYHsICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIFECEYoAHCAgUQIRifBZgDAIgGAZAGE7oGBggBEAEYCZIHBDEuMTKgB-wx&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:10cef34a,vid:J1ho8di4ywQ,st:0

  79. These four heartbreaking words show why we must never do lockdown again

    We cannot say Covid is over when we have condemned a whole generation of innocent children to a lifetime of pain

    Michael Deacon – 2nd October 2024, 7:00pm

    It’s been haunting me all week. On Monday we published a letter from a mother in Wales, describing her family’s experience of lockdown. Both she and her husband had to work full-time from home – while their only child, a boy of six, grew desperately lonely. For months, he had no children to play with, and his parents were busy on Zoom calls, which he’d been told not to interrupt. And one day, this poor mother wrote, it just got too much for him. The little boy burst into tears – and sobbed: “Nobody wants me around.”

    That simple, unbearably poignant sentence hit me so hard. Because, during lockdown, my family were in the exact same position. A mum and dad, working full-time from home – with an only child, aged six. And we saw for ourselves just how distressing lockdown could be, for a small, frightened boy.

    Throughout that first stretch of the pandemic, in spring 2020, I wrote a daily lockdown diary column. But, feeling that the news was already grim enough, I always made sure to focus on the lighter side of what we were all going through. And there were, undeniably, some fun moments. I told jolly anecdotes about homeschooling, shopping, and growing a beard that made me look like the love child of Brian Blessed and a yew tree.

    But I never wrote about the darker side. Specifically: the period when my son became terrified of leaving the house.

    Even the suggestion of a family walk scared him. As soon as we got him out the door, he’d be in tears. By the time we were on the pavement, he’d be screaming. He was in no state to walk. So in the end, I would just have to carry him the whole way.

    But can you blame him? Of course not. He’d just turned six. How was a child his age meant to process the concept of lockdown, and to assess risk, the way adults can? All he knew was: everyone has to stay at home because there’s a killer virus. So it was only natural that – no matter how hard we tried to reassure him – he would come to fear that, if you merely set foot outdoors, you could die.

    Yet in reality, of course, there was no reason for him to be scared. Children – except those with severe existing health problems – were in next to no danger. The same was true for their parents, and teachers. When my son did eventually catch Covid, on his return to school, he had very mild cold-like symptoms, and was right as rain the next day.

    By then, mercifully, he’d managed to overcome his terror of the outside world. But I’ll never forget those tears. Or those screams.

    Today, there can be no ignoring the fact that lockdown caused our children serious, lasting harm. And not just emotionally. Studies have found that it stunted their vocabulary, made them more violent, and even ruined their eyesight – because it was during lockdown that children became so hopelessly addicted to screens.

    At Tory conference this week, James Cleverly admitted that locking down the young was a mistake. I want to hear other MPs admit it, too. I want them to read the letter from our reader. And I want them to picture a six-year-old boy sobbing, “Nobody wants me around.” Because those four heartbreaking words show why we must never put our children through lockdown again.

    No one can pretend that running the country during Covid was easy. The Government of the day had to make hideously difficult decisions. The trouble was they focused solely on the dangers of not locking down. They barely considered the dangers of lockdown itself. Our children will have to suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/these-four-words-show-why-we-must-never-do-lockdown-again

    1. 🙄 It's not like there weren't thousands of us pointing out the dangers of.lockdown!

      1. That underlines their ulterior motive in locking down, regardless. I'm pretty sure their own children didn't suffer.

  80. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Inside the Welsh village where English speakers aren’t welcome
    Lloyd Evans
    On a Saturday morning, no life stirs. The village café is closed and the ancient church of St Beuno’s is locked and deserted. Beside the stone porch stands a dusty glass case that advertises church services and parish gatherings. Not a single event is scheduled. This is the peaceful village of Botwnnog (pronounced Bot-oon-awg) in the Llyn peninsula, north Wales, whose council recently rejected a plan to build 18 houses for rent.

    Few Welsh words have found their way into English, even though we inhabit the same island
    The language chosen by the council made headline news. ‘The Welsh village where English speakers aren’t welcome,’ said the Daily Telegraph, referring to the council’s claim that the new homes posed a ‘danger to the Welsh language and the fabric of the community’. The council’s statement even speculated about language tests for newcomers. ‘It would be great if the availability of proposed houses could be limited to Welsh speakers only.’ Bit of a mistake. A village council has no power to treat its community like a members-only club and to require probationers to sit an exam before receiving a residency permit.

    In their defence, the village councillors were speaking hypothetically and their stance reflected anxieties shared by the county authority, Gwynedd council. Last month, the county implemented a notorious ‘Article Four’ directive which limits the ability of freeholders to convert their properties into ‘a second home or a short-term holiday let’. The aim is to reduce the demand for holiday homes by choking off supply. The council decided to act after seeing evidence that in popular resorts more than 54 per cent of homes are holiday lets. An impact assessment suggested that ‘the median average price for a house in Abersoch is £482,500… This means that 96.1 per cent of local people have been priced out of the market’. Hence its desire to engineer a housing slump and to make homes more affordable to locals on modest incomes.

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    The ploy may be working. A shop-keeper in Pwllheli told me that every property-owner he knows is selling up. ‘Including you?’ I asked. ‘No, I’m staying put,’ he said, ‘I love it here. I moved in 28 years ago. If I didn’t like it, I’d leave.’ He was from Liverpool. A cleaning lady told me that the council’s attempt to rig the market was pointless: the weather does the job far better. ‘It rains all the time. If it’s not raining in the morning, it’ll start by lunchtime. And the second homeowners from London and Essex don’t expect that. Their houses are left unoccupied. They’re cold. The heating’s off. The damp gets in. And they can’t afford the maintenance bills.’ In her experience, few buyers last more than two or three years before they surrender to the monsoons and sell up.

    Gwynedd’s consultation process weighed up the pros and cons of Article Four – and the language was pretty blunt. ‘Preventing people from England from accessing affordable accommodation is racist,’ said the report. ‘It is a form of ethnic cleansing… It may create divided communities where people who are not indigenous Welsh feel uncomfortable and separated from the community.’

    And they considered the social fallout of a property crash. Many people may be pushed ‘into a cycle of deprivation which they cannot get out of’. If homeowners can’t help their kids on to the property ladder, ‘the young will leave Wales. And with them goes the future of the Welsh language’. Then again, the policy may harm the Welsh language by attracting settlers from overseas. ‘Many people with different beliefs, languages and cultures will move to the area for cheaper housing – not Welsh-speakers and not Christians.’ Despite these warnings, the council passed the directive. ‘Any detrimental impact can be justified,’ they said. Clearly they underestimated the risk of saddling north Wales with a reputation for xenophobia.

    Perhaps new residents could do their bit by learning Welsh voluntarily, as a courtesy to their hosts. Plenty of help is available. Shop windows in Pwllheli carry advertisements for a ‘fast-track Welsh’ programme that costs £50 and lasts 33 weeks. As I wrote down the details, I got chatting to an English woman who had completed the course and taken part in coffee-and-cake sessions with Welsh-speaking volunteers. But she hadn’t achieved fluency. In fact she’d given up completely, even though she held a degree in Russian literature. Welsh is not a language that welcomes the casual student with open arms. It’s remarkable how few Welsh words have found their way into English, even though we inhabit the same island.

    ‘Behold the autumn solstice! It’s time to put the heating on…’
    Everyone in Britain can say ‘thank you’ in Spanish and ‘hello’ in Italian and ‘goodbye’ in French or German. Hardly any of us could guess at the Welsh equivalents. One of the alienating complexities of Welsh is the pronunciation which varies from speaker to speaker. The town of Tywyn, for example, can start with a ‘tee’, a ‘two’, or a ‘tuh’. The second syllable of Llandeilo rhymes with ‘dial’ or with ‘deal’ according to taste. Fierce arguments erupt over the correct usage. Even robots join in. As my train trundled through Snowdonia, the automatic voice-over announced Penrhyndeudraeth in a form that was not matched by the ticket collector’s. Criccieth got three syllables from the auto-announcer but the locals give it two. Every-one’s wrong and everyone’s right. This uncertainty discourages beginners who fear ridicule every time they open their mouths.

    That’s why I felt a pang of anxiety as I boarded the bus from Pwllheli and asked for a ticket to ‘Botnog’. I was sure I’d mispronounced it and I expected to be met with a withering glare from the driver. But she gave me a friendly grin and said ‘Bot-oon-awg’ indulgently. Later, after parking the bus, she chatted to me about Article Four, which she regards as a godsend. ‘Before they brought that in,’ she said, ‘estate agents wouldn’t even take your calls, let alone show you a property. They wanted cash buyers from Cheshire. But now the long-term residents can get a foot on the ladder.’ She’d lived in north Wales for more than a decade but her accent wasn’t Welsh or English. ‘Where are you from?’ I asked. ‘Los Angeles, California.’

    1. I've just taken a look at the area on Google Earth. There are more sheep than people. Perhaps that's the problem isn't it.

      2. Is that why there are fourteen new Welsh language schools being opened in Bradford, Burnley and Rochdale?

      1. I could have translated that sign and known that it said they were out of office (swyddfa). Road signs are one bit of Welsh I've become familiar with.

      2. There was a similar anecdote about a survey of names people had given their houses and placed signs to that effect on their front gates. The most popular one translated as "Beware of the dog".

    3. I am a linguist and my grandfather (Taid) was a Welsh speaker. I gave up learning Welsh in my teens!

      1. My uncle who was Scottish and brought up in an isolated part of the Highlands, as a child, worried his mother because he wasn’t learning to speak. The doctor told her it was because she was speaking to him in two languages, Gaelic and English. When she spoke to him only in English he began speaking but he never learned Gaelic. A pity, I thought. Although he became later a professor of English literature he remained monolingual all his life.
        Here in Spain one is surrounded by regional languages, some fairly easy like Valencian, Galician or Catalan and others more challenging like Basque ( I imagine rather like learning Welsh.)If you drive through the mountains between Aragon and Catalonia they speak variations and combinations of the different languages. Each village with its own chapurriau as they call it in some places.
        I read an article in the Guardian, the journalist suggested that all British children should learn Welsh as the true native British language, spoken since before the Roman and Saxon invasions. Pointless romanticism, I thought but not without its appeal. I always thought that Old English should have been taught in preference to Latin.
        I think its a pity you gave up learning Welsh, but recognise that modern languages are more attractive and certainly of more use.

        2. My BTL comment:
          "Bigots – learn to integrate to British ways if you want to live here, otherwise go back to the shithole you came from!"

  83. 394051+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Starmer gives up British sovereignty of Chagos Islands ‘to boost global security’

    Do not be surprised to read shortly
    Starmer gives up British sovereignty ‘to boost global security’

    1. 394051 + up ticks,

      O2O,

      After 200 years,

      These political super twats can do more lasting damage in two minutes,
      "miranda" was a prime example.

    2. Coming soon, Starmer gives up Gibraltar and Starmer betrays the people of the Falklands

    3. We've already given up British sovereignty thanks to Ted Heath. Although we voted to restore it, nobody has yet and Starmer certainly isn't going to.

  84. Starmer gives up British sovereignty of Chagos Islands ‘to boost global security’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/03/starmer-chagos-islands-sovereignty/

    Sir Keir Starmer has given up the Chagos Islands, handing the Indian Ocean territory to Mauritius.

    The islands were British-owned from 1814 but have now been signed away by the Government in a deal that it claimed would safeguard global security by ending a long-running dispute.

    They include Diego Garcia, which hosts a strategically important US-UK military base.

    A joint statement by the British Prime Minister and his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth said: “Under the terms of this treaty the United Kingdom will agree that Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia.”

    David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said in a statement on Thursday that the agreement would still secure the “vital” military base for future use.

    He said: “This government inherited a situation where the long-term, secure operation of the Diego Garcia military base was under threat, with contested sovereignty and ongoing legal challenges.

    “Today’s agreement secures this vital military base for the future.

    “It will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the UK, as well as guaranteeing our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner.”

    2. There is a GPS ground station on Diego Garcia, of course. Hard to think where else it could be sited. Built at the cost of the poor residents who were unceremoniously booted out.
      Funny, the pound stopped being reserve currency eighty years ago and the Americans have been in the driving seat since at least the war, yet they let Britain keep some relics of its empire. We are too closely associated with the US empire – we're going to suffer the real downfall now, of a British empire that hasn't existed since the majority of the population was born.

  85. Starmer gives up British sovereignty of Chagos Islands ‘to boost global security’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/03/starmer-chagos-islands-sovereignty/

    Sir Keir Starmer has given up the Chagos Islands, handing the Indian Ocean territory to Mauritius.

    The islands were British-owned from 1814 but have now been signed away by the Government in a deal that it claimed would safeguard global security by ending a long-running dispute.

    They include Diego Garcia, which hosts a strategically important US-UK military base.

    A joint statement by the British Prime Minister and his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth said: “Under the terms of this treaty the United Kingdom will agree that Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia.”

    David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said in a statement on Thursday that the agreement would still secure the “vital” military base for future use.

    He said: “This government inherited a situation where the long-term, secure operation of the Diego Garcia military base was under threat, with contested sovereignty and ongoing legal challenges.

    “Today’s agreement secures this vital military base for the future.

    “It will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the UK, as well as guaranteeing our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner.”

  86. I've just tried posting something that is held back with the message "Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by Not the Telegraph Letters."

    Just checking this isn't 'Not The Pravda Letters'?

      1. Might b my VPN – some sites take an allergic reaction – though it was only on the one post so thought it might contain a naughty word (you know, like ‘democracy’)

    2. Are you certain it's not the route into Disqus that your link is taking?
      In my experience Nottle only halts things if I don't use my usual login.

        1. Some time ago the site was having constant bombardment from bots selling sexual services and Geoff/the mods were having to take action, you may have been accidentally caught up by whatever the team did to resolve the problem.
          New posters are normally made welcome.

          1. It obviously doesn't recognise the IP address as I've used the same one on here for over 4 years.

          5. It often bars me from some websites and says it is not UK based (it's McAfee).
            Anyway, it was only the one post something didn't like. But I do recall it happened before on here some time back. I thought it would recognise the IP address even if the username changed.

    3. I've just seen your profile, was it the Diego Garcia post?
      I could copy and paste if you wish, and see if the same thing happens to me.

    5. I saw one of you posts held as pending a few hours ago. The reason was that the post contained a link. That is how all of those spam messages appeared in the past.

      Anyhow I approved your message.

    1. Too many pensioners, got to reduce the numbers somehow. Making sure they can't afford heating in the winter will clear a fair few out. In keeping with the usual crocodile tears, we will probably see a sob story about an elderly person freezing to death at some point this winter.
      This is the stuff Sunak didn't have the stomach for.

      1. All said and done, there are many elderly people who have worked for at least 50 years and take home less in their annual state pension payments than most politicians take in expenses in two weeks.

    2. Local councils could of course raise a lot more money by scrapping all DIE related personnel, who provide no service to the community.

    3. It may not be a popular opinion, but there was a lot to be said for the Poll Tax. At the time, a relative of my late dad was living in an ex- council house, which they had bought at a massive discount. The woman, her husband and two of their 'children' were all in well-paid employment. How they moaned about paying the poll tax. It was hilarious.

        1. Very interesting. Maybe some sort of modern-day version of the revolt could be started to oust Starmer, Reeves, Millipede and the rest of the dangerous curreny controllers.

  88. 'Afternoon All
    Medley Time
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/336d36f8e4f1a4f821f864957cd93a8326d916dfe605fbf637d4e52cc559c269.jpg
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      2. GPS ground station and alleged US torture camp for men captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Locals all kicked out in the 1970s when the Americans took over Diego Garcia.

        1. It's why Biden is so pleased with this. Brits out, Yankees in full control.
          In what way does the UK (UN Security council member, nuclear power, key NATO member etc) giving sovereignty to Mauritius enhance global security?

          1. They’ve had full control since the 70s. Britain has never raised a finger in protest at any of their activities, and has cooperated with them.

    3. Steve Daniel
      2 min ago
      This is a Chinese land grab. There was no "dispute" until China started to bribe Mauritius to claim there was a dispute.
      Mauritius have never had sovereignty over Chagos. They are 1000 miles apart and completly different ethnicities. 200 years ago the French Empire grouped them under the same administrative command. So what.
      99 year lease on the base is irrelevant – the Chinese now have license to set up SAMs and Surveillance on the Island next door. They can build a Naval base and threaten the arteries of our trade.
      This is absolute treasonous madness

      Hedley Shannon
      2 min ago
      Exactly what did the Miller No 1 and No 2 cases establish about whether the Executive could unilaterally enter these treaties?

      Alistair King
      2 min ago
      Headline is incorrect. We can't hand it back. It never belonged to Mauritius.

      1. Perhaps the UK should pretend to hand back Taiwan to China too, it would be about as helpful.

  90. Ed Miliwatt's brain or one of Starmer's attempts to look 'clean'.

    Top Labour donor expects an honour – but doesn’t want to share it with me, claims estranged wife

    Dale Vince allegedly rushing through divorce before receiving peerage from Sir Keir Starmer

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/10/03/TELEMMGLPICT000396557630_17279451359530_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqB1hv6Y8HU52iuoXtIM681LWnluEe96SmHRD6XLQ4o_w.jpeg?imwidth=680
    ****************************

    Alistair S N
    1 hr ago
    This merchant has made his million from "Green Energy" subsidies, a Socialist who wants a peerage makes him as hypocritical as Starmer, the fact he has Funded Just Stop Oil tells us everything we need to know about him, he is a Danger and an Enemy of the hard working citizens of this country.

    1. This sort of scum being in the Lords makes a complete mockery of the HoL. He may not yet be there, but it is only a matter of time.

      1. It is already a joke. Blair stuffed it full of scum, Cameron did the same. The last bunch wanted done with hereditary peers so it'd be just another political shop.

        1. No inheritance, no heritage, no link to the past, no knowledge of the past, no morals, no decency.

          When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
          He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
          With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand,
          For God and for valour he rode through the land.

          1. In days of old
            When knights were bold
            But lavatories not invented
            They dug a hole in the middle of the road
            And sat there quite contented

    3. He is the epitome of the green con. He gets to build a windmill using tax payers money. He pockets the profits from those windmills and uses them to lobby government to build more windmills. Government, being stuffed chok full of socialists morons gives him more money to build more windmills and so around it goes.

      He then pays Labour a massive slug to get milioaf in who'll ensure he gets even more money – will Milioaf pocketing a slug himself.

      The person paying, at every level is the tax payer. The rest just put their snouts in the trough. This is why immediately all windmill subsidy must end. Sue the department for destroying the country. Take the property of every single civil servant in it. Teach them a lesson in private enterprise.

    1. GBN were talking about it last night. Some Labour female was also on their breakfast show this morning saying that giving Alli Cat a Downing Street pass doesn't constitute allowing him government influence. War is peace…etc.

        1. It is haram as entertainment, not as religious ritual. For example Ravels Bolero is actually a Mevlevi Sufi ritual piece of music. The famous Whirling Dervishes. The original piece is nicer than Revels version in my opinion.

  92. This sort of scum being in the Lords makes a complete mockery of the HoL. He may not yet be there, but it is only a matter of time.

      1. I knew there would be some wise Nottler to inform me on this. Thank you.
        Just another way for them to show their want for dominance.

          1. On the contrary – knifing people happens every day in England – and often the perlice are "unable to trace the perpetrator…"

          2. Seen as Milioaf is turning street lights off it's harder to see black people in the dark.

            Oh, hang on. Is that racist or just true?

          6. No idea what you are referring to. You Tube comes gratis with your computer. I have never registered for anything on You tube???

          7. It may be because the French are stricter on what under 18’s can access.

            It may also be because you have done something that has confirmed your age and the cookies let other sites know.

          8. In France? Then I strongly suggest you get a VPN. It is wrong for government to prevent you from seeing reality.

          11. Certifiable brainwashed idiots. I wonder how many of them get infections in these pointless ‘wounds.’

          12. In a place like Iraq, quite a few I would imagine. You can be quite vulnerable in that climate for sepsis.

          13. I’ve seen images of either that (or similar lunacy) from somewhere else hot, possibly Malaysia or Philippines. I have no sympathy for any who suffer from subsequent infections.

      1. I forget the clip now, but a bloke was asking why muslim men didn't have to wear a bin bag.

      2. All because these prehistoric, low-intelligence savages can't control their 'urges' and don't trust their fellow Ropers to set eyes on their property wives and daughters.
        There used to be very appropriate, official descriptions for such creatures. My late FiL was some sort of pen-pusher in a county education office, and told us that there used to be various classifications for what would now be known as 'learning disabled', 'special needs' or some such term. The one that most stuck in my mind, and would be just the ticket for these savages was 'Low-grade, feeble-minded idiot.' Even in the 1970s, 'special needs' pupils were described as 'ESN – educationally sub-normal.'

  94. As predicted..
    Keir Starmer 'surrendering' the Chagos Islands to China ally Mauritius today after an historic deal was announced.

    Next up..
    Gibraltar.
    then Falklands & South Georgia.
    along with it British Antarctica.
    Anything else any one wants.. just ask.

    2. Meanwhile Ed Milipede says no to Sea Lion oil project.

      Falklands crisis erupts as islands release defiant statement to the UK over £4bn oil field
      The project is predicted to generate £4 billion for the 3,700 Falklanders over the next 35 years, equivalent to around £1 million per islander.
      Some 800 million barrels of oil are believed to be contained in the Sea Lion basin, which lies 150 miles north of the South Atlantic archipelago.

    5. Ahem
      Comment from GBN website
      "If Lammy has been involved at all in this Mauritius business… he probably thinks Diego Garcia is an Argentinian footballer…

  95. 394051+ up ticks,

    You really must be some sort of criminal lunatic to support this raving criminal lunatic and his party.

    I honestly believe this political creature & miranda could very well be considered, in the near future to head the list as mass serial killers.
    Sadly many will prematurely die for it to be a fact.

    https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1841211366461305247

      1. 394051+ up ticks,

        Afternoon JB,

        An additive if I may

        A twatybattymilliomaniac.

        Sounds almost musical.

  99. The version my mum taught me was…

    In days of old when knights were bold
    And pants were made of tin
    Not a mortal cry was heard
    When squatting on a pin.

  101. Like you, my job involves analysing large, complex systems and pulling clues about what’s happening behind the scenes out of them.
    You could start by ordering Feargus Greenwood’s book ‘180 Degrees’ where he does a pretty good job of putting together with references a lot of scattered information that’s publicly available. Islamic terrorism is one of the subjects he covers.
    For a textbook false flag event, see Richard D Hall’s film about the Jo Cox murder.

    1. Rather like Meghan’s truth.
      In the eye of the beholder.
      People were convinced by Erich von Däniken too.

      1. Why ask for sources if you dismiss them without reading them? Bit … what’s the word…foolish, isn’t it?

        1. I read several reviews of the book, some loved it, others dismissed it utterly, and then listened to the man, he quickly came across as an archetypical conspiracy theorist, so I left it at that, in part because I recognise I’m wasting my time with you over this.

          1. Considering how many so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ have turned out to be true, that’s hardly the condemnation that you appear to believe.

          3. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ was popularised in order to belittle and denigrate people suspecting that JFK was not killed by a lone gunman. It’s now been more or less openly admitted (last year) that he was murdered by the deep state.
            In books like The Creature from Jekyll Island, The Great Taking , The Real Anthony Fauci and 180 degrees, you’ll find a lot of carefully referenced material that when put together, tends to form a view of history that contradicts mainstream narrative. These authors are careful to assess the reliability of their sources. But they would probably be the first to say that no reader should ever lay aside their own judgement, even when getting information from a source they trust.

  104. Dutch court fines man in first conviction under new sexual harassment law. 3 October 2024.

    Following concerns that the law would be nearly impossible to enforce, a pilot project had dispatched undercover teams to roam the streets of Rotterdam, Utrecht and Arnhem and look out for catcalling and harassment.

    Evidence from the team in Rotterdam was key to the conviction, as they told the court they had watched the woman react with shock and fear to the man’s actions before she rushed away.

    Are there undercover teams watching for rapes, stabbing, assaults and phone snatching? This law also reveals a deeper truth. No matter how many laws you pass guaranteeing female equality. There will never be enough.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/netherlands-dutch-court-rotterdam-man-fined-sexual-harassment-law

    1. My family and fellow co-workers are p*ssed off over this new attack on our historic human rights.
      Ashifa Kassam Guardian European community affairs correspondent.

    4. What is “cat calling”? I’ve heard it used and assume it’s the same as wolf-whistling, in which case why not just use this term?

  105. Just been chatting to my dad. He says “they” have “given back” the Chagos Islands. Will now read under and find you all have been discussing it for the past few hours🙂

  106. Please, please, pretty please: make it happen before the cursed harmer gets us tied back in.

    Emmanuel Macron has admitted that the EU 'could die' as he issued a dire warning about the bloc's economy.
    The French President told the Berlin Global Dialogue event that the EU was over-regulating and under-investing.
    He also pointed out that both China and the USA outstripped the 27 member-bloc in economic output and investment.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13920447/Emmanuel-Macron-admits-EU-die-dire-warning-blocs-economy.html

  107. And talking of yer France – here is a clip from an article in The Spectator yesterday about Barnier (the new PM) addressing their pretendy parliament:

    " Gabriel Attal, the former PM (and Toy Boy's fave toy boy) who now leads Macron’s Renaissance party, made the mistake of dishing out some economic advice to his successor. ‘I will be very attentive to your proposals for additional savings,’ replied Barnier, which elicited from Attal a smug nod of his head. Barnier then added: ‘to deal with a deficit that I found when I arrived.’ The Assembly roared with laughter as the smirk was wiped from Attal’s face."

    Poor little Gaby – he once thought he might be presidential material……

  109. Ministers Claimed “Too Early to Speculate” on Chagos Just Nine Days Ago

    Labour has given away the Chagos Islands away to China-aligned Mauritius has been slammed as “weak” and “outrageous” by hacks and Tory benches alike. Starmer and Lammy have managed to dodge the heat, pushing this decision through during recess—convenient timing, keeping them safely out of the firing line in the Commons…

    It was less than a month ago that Jonathan Powell was appointed as the special envoy on talks. And just a few days ago, Lord Kempsell was told by ministers that “it was too early to speculate on timelines and conclusions” on negotiations:

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GY9qajhWYAAzxB9.jpeg?resize=1536%2C858&ssl=1

    Nine days ago, the government asserted that no conclusion had been made. They say a week is a long time in politics, yet how can this decision have been made in such a short period of time?

    3 October 2024 @ 13:38

        1. About whom there is much speculation in relation to an alleged "open secret", Bill. A Super one.

          1. You mean that she (if she is a she) is Cur Ikea Slammer's boyfriend?

            (Could you give a tad more detail -I am prolly being thicker than usual today: it's the unexpected sunshine!)

          2. She used to be 2TK's closest aide and they travelled a lot together. There is allegedly a by-blow according to baseless false rumours circulating on the far right.

            .

          3. Ah – I googled and found the libel! Of course, we now know that adultery is NOT Ikea’s sort of thing….{:¬))

          4. Indeed. Nothing to see here . Lol!

            Feel sorry for the boy though. A bit of honesty, and no one would have cared.

  110. Lammy Warmed up to China Ahead of Chagos Giveaway

    The government’s Chagos handover is entirely in China’s interests – Chinese direct investment in Mauritius was $46 million in 2020, taking its total cumulative investment to a whopping $887 million. Over 18% of Mauritius’s total imports came from China that year – which has only increased. Meanwhile the Pentagon warned that it was concerned over any potential ceding of strategic territory to a state under Chinese influence…

    In a cozy conversation with the Lowy Institute in May, Lammy said exactly what the Chinese would want to hear:

    “We have an important trading relationship. Climate requires cooperation. Health requires cooperation, AI requires cooperation. And so it’s important that we’re engaged. We have been very concerned that the government seems to have given up entirely on engagement with China. No one seems to have gone from our government to China, which is very, very bizarre.”

    Labour has repeatedly criticised the Tories for refusing to “engage” with China while promising to “reconnect” with it. This year then-Shadow Asia Minister Catherine West, reporting to Lammy, visited the country specifically to meet with Xi Jinping’s strategic mastermind Wan Huning. Highly irregular…

    On entering government Lammy curiously refused to honour his promise of accusing the Chinese of genocide in in Xinjiang. He subsequently met with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Laos at the end of July and “set out that the government would cooperate where we can.” Cooperation means give and take…

    Labour dark lord Peter Mandelson is busy lobbying for an end to the “Tory boycott” of Hong Kong and the reopening of relations with China. Both Lammy and Reeves are angling for visits to China as part of a reorientation towards “engagement” with the totalitarian state. The decision to give up strategic military assets in the Indian Ocean to a China-aligned country will be warmly received in Beijing ahead of those talks…

  111. Today's word salad.

    "Minister wants to repay value of Proms ticket
    A business minister has said she wants to repay the value of a gift from the BBC after Sir Keir Starmer returned more than £6,000 in donations and hospitality.

    Sarah Jones, the industry minister, received a ticket to the BBC Proms over the summer as a guest of the broadcaster.

    Ms Jones told Times Radio: “From a perspective of did I declare everything, was I doing this loads of times, was I kind of out and all the time taking freebies, was I giving anybody anything for these things, it was all completely above board.

    “But if I look at it through the lens that the public is now looking at it, and the question we’re talking about, for what purpose I’m going to those events, I’m not going to go to another event like that that I’m invited to.”

    Asked whether she would pay it back, Ms Jones replied: “I’m not sure I could but I will certainly look at that, yeah. The issue of the Proms that I’ve been to, I am just investigating whether I could pay that back.”

    1. Glad to hear that you were as confused as I was when I read that. They think everyone is as stupid as they are.

      1. Just starting to read Ballard: Millenium People, written couple decades ago – he foresaw this little lot, Grizzly.

          2. Probably to where I am now, southern Sweden, where I am very happy.

            Back in 1976 I had a guaranteed job and accommodation waiting for me in Canada (Guelph, nr Toronto). It was doing the job I'd taken an apprenticeship for (Steelwork fabrication & welding technician) but I had no desire to return to that kind of work. I fancied the police over there but immigration was extremely difficult at the time. I had always dreamed of living in the Rockies, near Vancouver but, alas, it was not to be. Having said all that, perhaps I wouldn't want to be there now, under the cretin, Trudeau.

          3. I have distant relatives there, Grizzly due to a great aunt who left her husband and taking her children, last sighting of her at the bus stop, turned up in Montreal at a later date. This would have been 70? years ago minimum, the sort of thing gets embellished with every outing . Hear you re Trudeau but he’ll be gone soon, all crossed 🙂

    4. Yeah yeah and what about the freebie large blue & yellow stars flag with matching knickers?

      1. Well, the current "presidential" spokesblackperson is pretty good at talking gibberish.

          1. No idea – I don't watch news/current affairs etc. I just remember seeing some thick diverse woman tying herself in linguistic knots – assumed she was a trainee – and was told she was THE spokesman.

  112. London gang sentenced after teen stabbed in horror sword attack on Southeastern train
    Gang stabbed teenager with 17 inch sword on board train at Hither Green station in front of horrified commuters

    “There is absolutely no reason to carry a deadly weapon like this in public, unless they mean to endanger life.”
    All four were sentenced to more than seven years in total to be served at Young Offenders Institutes.
    Jones admitted causing grievous bodily harm, affray and possession of a weapon in private and received a 21-month sentence.
    Best pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon and was sentenced to 31 months.
    Warren admitted causing grievous bodily harm and affray and received an 18 month sentence.
    Meanwhile, Al-Kamara pleaded guilty to affray and was sentenced to 17 months.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/southeastern-train-sword-attack-gang-jailed-hither-green-b1185632.html?lid=g9nvxjtjm15m&utm_medium=email&utm_source=braze&utm_campaign=News_email_2024-10-03&utm_term=ES_News_Daily_CDP

    I recall that a man recently was sentenced to 20 months for shouting at a police dog and being a racist.

    Two tier justice?

    1. "All four were sentenced to more than seven years in total a few weeks in chokey – but will be out before you can say knife"

      1. One of my pet hates.
        The press add all their sentences together to get a headline that pretends to show that they were severely punished whereas all they really got was a share of a slap on the wrist.

        1. Unless of course you upset a police dog or say hurty words – in which case you are in the Slammer for 3 years and you don’t get to pass “Go”…

    2. Hmmm – 4 gang members, total of 7 years [84 months] between them – I make that an average of 21 months each and with remission etc ….

    3. Nobody had heard of this problem until recently, yet in the last few years, it's been regularly publicised.

      Before covid, there was a discovery of malware on the computer systems of several European electricity generating companies. It wasn't doing anything, just lying there dormant. As far as I know, the source was never identified.

  116. 394051+ up ticks,

    The political kneeling tools idea of an appeasing Chinese takeaway.

    Dt,

    Starmer hands Chagos Islands back to Mauritius
    Government criticised after Indian Ocean territory handed to Mauritius after 200 years of British rule

    1. I posted a short video explaining all this in full detail, on this forum, seven hours ago.

      The mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) is irreparably damaged by the consumption of Omega-6 fatty acids (linoleic acid) which is found in abundance in seed oils. This leads to dozens of 'modern' diseases, ailments and malign condtions.

  118. A tumbril Par Four!

    Wordle 1,202 4/6
    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 1,202 4/6

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

    2. Same here.

      Wordle 1,202 4/6

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

    3. Lokewise
      Wordle 1,202 4/6

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

    5. Slightly fortunate 4 here….

      Wordle 1,202 4/6

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

    1. Gosh – my elder son was 14 months old! Interesting that there were slammers at the end – looked a bit like Brick Lane.

    2. Memories… loved that song. Was doing a school holiday job in the local greengrocer. Boss was not very PC – called aubergines n+gger's dicks

    3. My Old Dad used to sing a fairly 'robust' version of the chorus.

      In the words of Tommy Cockles (Simon Day of the Fast Show) – 'Marvellous times, they really were!'…

  120. That's me for today. A very nice, sunny autumn day. A bit fresh but none the worse for that. Spent an hour in the garden collecting fallen timber for the woodburner. Successful market. The MR went to Narridge and had her hair cut – very smart she looks. Cats have just accompanied us round the garden – biffing each other – stalking – the usual delightful feline play.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

    1. Declare UDI. Never ever trust a Labour govt with territory. Besides the sums add up with all that oil. Any half decent army with a few thousand cheap-as-chips Ukrainian missile drones could fend off whats left of the RN.

  122. We're on the brink of World War Three – and only one country can stop it

    Iran now presents an intolerable threat to Israel and global stability. Its regime must be crushed

    Allister Heath • 2nd October 2024 • 6:59pm

    If you crave peace, a war against Iran will be necessary first. If you want to avert a nuclear apocalypse, Iran's atomic programme must be obliterated. If you long for a better, saner world, Iran's repugnant theocrats need to be extirpated.

    Israel must be allowed to attack Iran's evil regime, and the West must support it. The regime is the original Islamist extremist state; it is the fount of almost all trouble in the Middle East, the foremost exporter of terrorism, an ally of Russia, a friend of China, a cancer eating away at humanity's common destiny.

    The regime has oppressed its wonderful, peace-loving people for 45 years, often in the most savage ways, pitilessly persecuting women and minorities. The West, wracked by self-doubt, ignorance, selfishness and cowardice, has been wilfully blind to their pleas for deliverance. We have instead attempted to appease the Mullahs, to relativise or normalise their genocidal machinations, to sign deals with them, to protect the oil market, to endlessly buy time.

    It hasn't worked, and Judgement Day beckons. It is time for Israel to save the West from itself, to conduct the dirty, dangerous work that far larger, richer and more powerful countries are too debilitated to pursue themselves.

    This wouldn't be the first time: Israel did the world a historic favour when it bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 and destroyed the Al-Kibar planned nuclear plant in Syria in 2007; a similar move targeting Iran's many such facilities is no longer beyond the realm of the possible.

    If Israel doesn't have the equipment to do so itself, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris must send in their own bunker-busting bombs. I'm not calling for any kind of land invasion, or even for the UK to get directly involved. But we need to be honest: regime change in Iran should be a top foreign policy priority for every democracy in the world. Why has Britain still not proscribed the IRGC?

    Tuesday's strike was a disastrous gamble by Iran. It failed to kill any Israelis or to meaningfully damage civilian or military infrastructure. Iran has already used up a tenth of its 3,000 ballistic missile stockpile (as estimated by a US general last year) for nothing: it has exposed its fundamental military and technological inadequacy, it didn't establish deterrence, it forced a drastic hardening of America's position, it stopped Europe's useful idiots from calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon and, for the first time, created a critical opening for Israel to deliver an overwhelming military blow.

    Had Iran done nothing, it would have been publicly humiliated as a result of the assassination of so many of its allies, but avoided placing itself directly in the line of fire. By acting so impetuously, so egregiously and yet so uselessly, it has fatally weakened its own position. It has exposed itself as a nasty, fanatical bully, albeit one fragile enough to be taken down. It, for once, misread America. It misjudged Israel's appetite for risk and pain. No government in Jerusalem can tolerate repeated, escalatory missile attacks from a millenarian state explicitly dedicated to its destruction; and even the most delusional of State Department apparatchiks can now see that a nuclear Iran would lead us into World War III.

    All the Western sucking up to Iran, starting with the nuclear deal of 2015, backed by David Cameron, has backfired appallingly. Joe Biden gifted the Mullahs some $6 billion last year to release five American hostages, allowing them to access previously frozen funds. He signed another 120-day sanctions waiver in July that allows Iran to sell electricity to Iraq. The US has also permitted Iran to greatly increase its output of crude oil, with its August production the highest in six years, and to sell much of it to China. The sanctions imposed by Donald Trump are now a largely meaningless joke.

    The obsessive military appeasement has been equally perverse. Biden told Israel to "take the win" in April, when Iran unleashed 170 drones, some 30 cruise missiles, and over 120 ballistic missiles in its first direct attack against the Jewish state. There were no casualties or meaningful injuries, and many missiles and drones were shot down by an international coalition, which is what Biden referred to as a win. Israel's counter-offensive was largely symbolic, hitting a radar system at an Iranian nuclear plant.

    The Americans were wrong: the regime, which only understands brute strength, drew the wrong lesson. It was emboldened, assuming that the old red lines no longer existed, that the US would always restrain the Israelis, and that the regime could now engage in blatant acts of war with quasi-impunity, paving the way for this week's larger, more sophisticated attack.

    But the Mullahs grievously miscalculated this time, partly because the empire they spent so long constructing is disintegrating and they are no longer thinking rationally.

    Yes, they have scored a massive propaganda victory against Israel since the atrocities of October 7, falsely portraying terrorists as victims, lying relentlessly, rehashing Soviet era blood libels, spreading conspiracy theories on social media and helping to foment anti-Jewish hate in Britain, Europe and America. But when it comes to the reality on the ground, as opposed to that in the mind of the Western chattering classes, Iran's axis of evil has suffered a series of calamitous reversals.

    Hamas is a shadow of its former self, almost unable to launch rockets into Israel, and reeling from the death of 17-18,000 of its terrorist fighters. Hezbollah has lost Hassan Nasrallah, its psychopathic leader, its entire management structure and myriad second and third tier commanders; a large chunk of its 150,000-strong missile stash has been destroyed.

    It is still able to inflict losses on the heroic Israeli troops now in Lebanon, but it can no longer serve as Iran's all-powerful shield. The danger is that Tehran's increasingly panicked regime will compound its errors by seeking to rush to full nuclear status. This cannot be allowed to happen.

    Israel, whose very purpose is to ensure its own survival, and that of the Jewish people, has not just the right but a duty to strike back in devastating fashion against the Iranian regime. It deserves the West's full, unstinting support.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/brink-world-war-3-only-israel-can-stop-it

    1. Who exactly is on the side of the mad Mullahs? Not even the good people of Iran. Sunnis hate them.
      Luckily Israel don't give a damn about the UN, US, EU or even David Lammy.

  124. Good evening from Castle House B&B in Denbigh and what a glorious one it is too!
    Stopped off for a couple of hours in Nantwich for an All Day Breakfast and had a look at the Church.
    The few people visiting it were pleasantly surprised when I sang the 1st verse of "Come Holy Ghost Our Souls Inspire" to try out the acoustics.

    A glorious evening so the DT & self are off for a wander round the town.

    2. A bit like the tooling for the TSR2, it was destroyed so that there was no chance of reviving the project.

    3. I think all the cooling towers should be saved and the power station given a reprieve following Biden's speech to the media about the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities.

      This may put coal back on the agenda as oil becomes priced out of electricity generation for periods of peak demand in the UK.

      https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241003-biden-says-discussing-possible-israeli-strikes-on-iran-oil-facilities

      BBC has reported jump in oil prices tonight 3rd October 2024.

          1. I posted the most alarming data because that is what the BBC decided to put out on the news today.

            Just goes to show how misleading the BBC news is.

          2. Still, it was more honest than usual, they were right the short term move was significant

  127. I wonder how much Keir-ching and Lammy collected from the deal..

    Starmer’s Close Friend Is Mauritius’ Chief Legal Adviser on Chagos Islands

    Many in SW1 have been surprised by the speed at which the Chagos Islands have been handed over to China-aligned Mauritius. They shouldn’t be…

    Guido can reveal that Starmer’s close friend Philippe Sands KC is Mauritus’ chief legal adviser and a longtime agitator for Mauritian control of the islands. He submitted in evidence to Parliament in January of this year:

    “At the outset, I wish to make clear that as a member of the Bar of England and Wales I have acted as counsel to Mauritius since 2010 in relation to the Chagos Archipelago. As such, I have been involved in the proceedings before the Annex VII arbitral tribunal (2010-2015), the International Court of Justice (ICJ, 2017-2019) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS, 2019-2023). I continue to advise the Government of Mauritius.”

    Starmer’s friend led the successful charge in international courts to shame “progressives” into giving away strategically vital British territory. Sands pressed his extreme views in more evidence this March to the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committe on the Overseas Territories:

    “As a matter of international law, the situation today is crystal clear: Mauritius is recognised to have sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, and the UK is considered to have no rights over that territory, or even a claim. Accordingly, this is not a situation in which it would be appropriate or correct for the Sub-Committee to make reference to any future transfer of sovereignty by the United Kingdom: the United Kingdom has no sovereignty to transfer.”

    Sands is a founder of Matrix Chambers, which also happens to be where Starmer’s other close mate and their mutual friend Richard Hermer was plucked from to serve as Attorney General. It looks like the UK’s performative self-harm was a done deal from the moment Starmer walked into Downing Street…

    3 October 2024 @ 17:14

    1. Philippe Sands = well known (and now fairly old) legal stirrer. Very much holier than thou over most things.

      Just saying.

      1. Not nearly as old (or wise) as you are

        Wiki
        Philippe Joseph Sands, KC Hon FBA (born 17 October 1960) is a British and French writer and lawyer at 11 King's Bench Walk[2] and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London.[3] A specialist in international law, he appears as counsel and advocate before many international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.

        Sands has served on the panel of arbitrators at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).[4]

        2. He did do a very good BBC podcast a number of years ago, “The Ratline”.

          Back in the days when i listened to radio 4.

    2. Not to mention a certain Cherie Blair who was one of the initial partners in Matrix Chambers, set up knowing that Satan incarnate would supply more business than they could possibly have imagined.

  128. All these freebies that Labour ministers have been raking in, they must all have very poor taste, throwing away their credibility for so little, just shows how shallow they all must really be.
    Makes one wonder what they got for giving away the Chagos Islands.

  129. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Britain could regret handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius
    James Heale3 October 2024, 11:58am
    The United Kingdom will shortly be ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the terms of a new treaty, there will be a 99-year-lease for Diego Garcia, the tropical atoll used by the US government as a military base. It follows two years of negotiation over the strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean. Both sides have vowed to finalise the treaty as quickly as possible.

    Given the Chagos Islands’ strategic access to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a backlash is inevitable
    The announcement today follows Keir Starmer’s call with his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth. A Downing Street spokesman said that: ‘The Prime Minister reiterated the importance of reaching this deal to protect the continued operation of the UK/US military base on Diego Garcia. He underscored his steadfast duty to national and global security which underpinned the political agreement reached today.’

    The most striking thing about today’s decision is its speed. It was less than a month ago that Jonathan Powell was appointed as the special envoy on talks: a move which suggested a lengthy period of negotiation. The Ministry of Defence and the Americans have traditionally been seen as the stumbling blocks to a deal. The question is therefore whether their objections were addressed or overridden.

    News of a treaty follows a shift in the UK’s long-standing position on the islands. In recent years, there has been increasing international pressure to surrender what some have called Britain’s ‘last colony in Africa.’ Mauritius has long complained that it was illegally forced to give up the territory as an exchange for its own independence in 1968, with the British government having already secretly negotiating a deal with the US for the base on Diego Garcia. The UK later apologised for removing islanders from the archipelago and pledged to give up the territory when it was no longer needed for strategic purposes.

    International pressure has now forced the UK’s hand. Britain’s focus on maintaining support for Ukraine means it cannot afford to alienate allies around the world. In Whitehall, the hope is that the 99-year-lease will alleviate fears that the new government has sacrificed British interests in one sphere to aid efforts in another. The fact that New Delhi is on board is a positive too. But given the Chagos Islands’ strategic access to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a backlash at home is inevitable. The Tory leadership contenders have already waded in: Tom Tugendhat calls it a ‘shameful retreat’; James Cleverly says ministers are ‘weak, weak, weak’ – despite the negotiations beginning on his watch.

    The governments of Mauritius and China have been increasing their ties in recent years, with their respective national banks signing a bilateral currency agreement less than a month ago. Given Beijing’s expansionist posturing in recent years, promises of a 99-year-lease seem optimistic, to say the least.

    Watch more on SpectatorTV:

  130. Another day is done so, goodnight, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen fruh. Schlaf gut. Ich hoffe.

  131. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Tugendhat clashes with Cleverly over Chagos Islands
    James Heale3 October 2024, 3:24pm
    With less than a week to go until MPs vote in the Tory leadership race, a row has blown up over an unlikely cause. A quarrel in a far away country is causing a rupture between the two men whom most colleagues think could be next to go out: Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. Both are fishing in the same waters for votes on the centre and left of the party. Of the two, Cleverly was perceived as having given the better speech yesterday at Tory conference. But the government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius could revive old fears about Cleverly’s judgement.

    Following the announcement this morning, the Shadow Home Secretary rushed to condemn the news. He declared that it showed ‘weak, weak, weak’ government, adding ‘Labour lied to get into office. Said they’d be whiter than white, said they wouldn’t put up taxes, said they’d stand up to the EU, said that they be patriotic. All lies!’ Yet, as others were quick to point out, it was in November 2022 that negotiations over the future of the islands first began between the Foreign Office and their Mauritian counterparts. The Foreign Secretary at the time? James Cleverly.

    He told MPs on 3 November 2022 that:

    Following the meeting between the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), and Prime Minister Jugnauth at the UN General Assembly, the UK and Mauritius have decided to begin negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)/Chagos archipelago… The UK and Mauritius have agreed to engage in constructive negotiations, with a view to arriving at an agreement by early next year.

    Admittedly, Cleverly did not sign off the talks in his fifteen months at the Foreign Office – unlike David Lammy who has done so after three. But Tom Tugendhat has not been slow to point out that Cleverly did nothing to stop talks progressing. Shortly after the government’s announcement today, he called it a ‘shameful retreat’ but added that ‘it was disgraceful that these negotiations started under our watch.’ He went further on the World At One, telling the BBC:

    I objected to these negotiations happening when they began in November ’22. I objected on many occasions. This is another area where I’m afraid we see legalism replacing leadership and we saw this legalism in the Foreign Office in November ’22 when the Foreign Office was pushing for this and nobody stopped it until finally, we got leadership under Lord Cameron.

    The conclusion is obvious: Tugendhat thinks Cleverly was either unwilling or unable to stand up to civil servants over the future of the islands. It is a charge which resonates with the private concerns of some Tory MPs who fear that Cleverly did not challenge advice from officials in successive government briefs. Supporters of the Braintree MP argue that this is unfair. They point to his success in cutting migration at the Home Office and suggest that his willingness to champion, rather than denigrate, civil servants helped mend relations after the unhappy tenure of Suella Braverman.

    But it was perhaps notable that on Sunday, when asked by Trevor Phillips whether Israel had ‘crossed any red lines this week’, Cleverly refused to be drawn, arguing he could not answer without being in possession of the full facts. ‘Because we are in opposition,’ he said, ‘I am no longer able to access the detailed reporting that I did when I was Foreign Secretary and when I was Home Secretary’. For some, such an answer will speak to Cleverly’s honesty and self-awareness; for others, it will suggest an overreliance on the civil service machine.

    It will be up to Tory MPs to draw their own conclusions about the merits of the four candidates. But given that Cleverly is keen to present himself as a safe pair of hands, supporters of Tom Tugendhat will note how eagerly he rushed to attack Labour on the Chagos Islands – despite his own record here. Rival MPs have already started sharing screenshots from Hansard of Cleverly’s statement from November 2022.

    With both men polling 21 votes each last month, every misstep will be scrutinised by the handful of MPs deciding which of Cleverly or Tugendhat would be best placed to face the members.

    Watch more on SpectatorTV:

    1. Every week I get at least one message on my phone to come to the surgery for jabs. I've tried to remind them what happened very quickly after jabs in 2021. It must have cost the NHS at least a quarter of a million to treat me.
      When will they ever learn.

      2. I still keep getting reminders to get my jabs, although I have told them literally dozens – if not hundreds – of times that I am not interested. Now I just delete any such messages, texts, etc. It's clear to me that they don't keep records of what I have told them.

    2. If you are answering to the consultation, be aware that it is very long, and the very last question asks about your concerns whether the bill could violate human rights – which obviously, it could.

  133. Cleaned all the upstairs windows today in and out and the lounge, lots of small spiders disturbed. Sorry chaps but someone has to tidy up after you.
    I'm getting really fed up with political idiots and all the issues they knowingly create.
    What a shame there isn't a selective deadly illness that could spread amongst them all. They have no idea how some people are struggling to survive in various difficult circumstances and what's more they don't care. They are absolutely vile.
    I'll be turning in soon. Fortunately I sleep soundly and it's a great escape from the tyrannical rule they are forcing upon once trusting British people.
    I hate them all and have not a gram of respect for any of them.
    Good night all.

  134. Utterly off topic and Wendyball.
    A very small Welsh team have managed to get through to the UEFA Conference league. They are away at a side that can be regarded historically as one of the best in Europe. It's still 0-0 getting on for half an hour in.
    Almost a fairy tale.

    Come on you Sheepshaggers.

      1. As a Muslim might say?

        "Wham, bam, pretend I'm a ram"

        It's 0-0 at half time, quite an achievement.

    2. OI! I still recall the one season when Carlisle United were in the old First Division, Albeit for just one season. David Coleman couldn't resist commenting on the sheep grazing, far beyond Brunton Park. The Warwick Road End responded with calls of 'Sheepshagger Aggro'.

      I also recall attending a St Edmundsbury & Ipswich Diocesan Choirs Festival in Ely Cathedral. As we choristers assembled before the service, one wag commented that there was a new leisure centre in Cardiff, Four sheep, tied to a lamp post.

      2. That was when Chris Balderstone was playing (I'm guessing you must remember him) – the last of the great all-rounders – what an elegant player he was. I think he also had a couple of Tests for England cricket – it will never be repeated…..
        He died tragically young from cancer… RIP what a hero!

    3. For the benefit of our Welsh members that's a typo. What sos meant to write is 'Come on you sheep shearers!'

    4. Unfortunately now they're 2-0 down – to misquote Jeff Stelling 'They wont be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight!'

      1. The best I remember was a sports commentator squawking joyously on the radio as a Scottish football team (Raith Rovers) won a match. He screamed, "They'll be dancing in the streets of Raith tonight!"

        The chump was unaware that there is no place called 'Raith'. Raith Rovers is the local team at Kirkcaldy.

        2. Yes, a lot of the Scottish teams are like that – a good friend of mine, with a highly unimaginative nickname of ‘Jock’ was a big fan of St Johnstone (The Super J’s!!) – it was a long time before I understood they were from Perth! (that’s Jock Perth not Aussie Perth).

          1. St Johnstone: the only professional British football team that contains the letter ‘J’ in its name (five teams have the letter ‘X’).

          2. Good trivia – had to cheat and look up on Google to get the last x – Crewe Alexandra, of course. Doh!

    5. A Cymru Premier League team located in Shropshire, I feel obliged to point out. Rather like Berwick Rangers of Northumbria, still in the Scottish League pyramid, despite relegation to the Lowland League a few years ago.

  135. Ffs. Just got on the train to come back from Waterloo to Richmond . Two people opposite eating hot food. To make it worse, the man is picking at his, so his girlfriend has just traded with him. I want to scream “No! Dump him, and dump him now!”. But she wouldn’t listen to me.

      1. The smell of other people's food on the train after a very long day in the office is something I don't miss.

        If I ruled the world, eating on public transport would be punishable by a week clearing out a pigsty.

        1. Not public transport but when I was at school, anyone seen eating in the street would be reported and shamed in morning assembly. Shaming wasn’t frowned upon then.

      2. AND. They have put their rubbish under the seat. They wont be taking that off the train.

        I hate [most] people.

    3. I'm not sure where it came from but eating in public, unless in a restaurant, has always been a no no for me.

    4. It's the smell of the food on the train, isnt it? I want to say to them 'I dont mind you eating your smelly food as long as you dont mind me farting in your face!'

      1. The worst smell ever (which I remember from my youth) was pieces of orange peel stuffed into an ashtray, fastened on the back of seats on the top deck of a bus, which then had cigarette ends stubbed out on it. That stench was beyond emetic!

        1. Hahaha! Astonishingly I do remember that – there was always orange peel in bus ashtrays, wasnt there?

          I must admit I smoked for about 40 years but gave up about 7 years ago (when I turned 60) but the smell of cigarettes still entrances me, it's like heroin (apparently)….

          1. I gave up in 1983 after smoking for 20 years. Unlike you I abhor the smell of passive tobacco smoke, it makes me choke, burns my throat and stings my eyes..

  136. Also, i fly tomorrow on business east +6 hours for a week and then + 4.5 hours for a week. I won’t desert you; but if i am unavailable, try not to miss me too much.

    4. And when you get back it won't be long before we move from BST to GMT. I reckon you will be totally confused, Mir.

    5. And when you get back it won't be long before we move from BST to GMT. I reckon you will be totally confused, Mir.

        1. I didn’t plump for Indo as its an unusual destination for Brits. I have an import from there, Mrs Pea, who is from Palembang.

  137. Tennessee Williams's A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman on BBC 4 in five minutes' time.

  139. Well, I must report that Denbigh is a bit of a Real Ale desert.
    Only 3 pubs with hand pumps and one of them was out of use!

    Now listening to Brahms's 4 Symphony on Radio 3 and about to get ready for bed.
    Goodnight all.

  143. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    MPs to be given historic vote on assisted dying
    Katy Balls3 October 2024, 7:20pm
    Keir Starmer is pressing ahead with his promise to give MPs a free vote on assisted dying laws. This evening, the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has said she will use her private member’s bill this month to give terminally ill adults a choice at the end of life to shorten their pain and suffering. The bill will be considered later this month, on 16 October, by MPs. The development comes after Downing Street refused to get drawn into reports last month that a vote could be fast-tracked through the Commons and take place before Christmas.

    It follows that there was always likely to be a vote on this issue in the next five years. However, the speed at which Starmer is progressing has taken some MPs – including some senior Labour politicians – by surprise. Where Starmer stands on the issue is well documented. He has spoken in the past about the end-of-life struggles his disabled mother endured. In 2015, Starmer, then a Labour backbencher, backed a bill to legalise terminally ill people ending their own life. It failed to win sufficient support, with 118 votes for to 330 against.

    This time around, the political landscape looks rather different. The House of Commons is stacked with Labour MPs and new blood. Given this is a conscience issue, it will be a free vote. Starmer has agreed to set aside collective responsibility, allowing ministers and MPs to vote as they wish rather than along party lines. However, some in the Labour party still expect many MPs will know the way the leadership plans to vote and this could influence their own choice.

    Ahead of the election, senior Labour politicians discussed the idea of starting a national conversation on the issue. However, this was eventually decided against. Now, that national moral debate will begin – with strong feelings on both sides over the sanctity of human life and whether legalisation could lead to a slippery slope whereby the ill and elderly feel pressurised to end their lives prematurely. Examples abound, such as in Canada where expansion of the policy has had to be paused due to the complexity.

    Starmer also has critics close to home. His Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood previously told me she would vote against any proposal: ‘I know some of the MPs who vocally support this issue think, “For God’s sake, we’re not a nation of granny killers, what’s wrong with you”… I feel that once you cross that line, you’ve crossed it forever. If it just becomes the norm that at a certain age or with certain diseases, you are now a bit of a burden… that’s a really dangerous position to be in.’ However, don’t expect Mahmood to repeat those comments any time soon. While it’s a free vote, Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, has written to ministers to say they cannot take part in the public debate, as the government’s position is neutral. The debate will have to take place elsewhere.

    Listen to Katy’s interview with Shabana Mahmood:

    1. Like there being no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as a free vote for those wishing to climb the greasy pole. For once I'm with Shabana – we may not be a nation of granny killers, but there are some who have the power who would like to be.

    2. The ability to end one's own life, to me at least, should be a right. How it's organised is another matter.

      1. I think it is a right. Certainly it is no longer illegal. However it is illegal to assist a suicide. That’s what this proposed legislation is all about.

    3. 1. Remove fuel allowance to make lives of the elderly worse.
      2. Offer them assisted dying, at least they'll be warm in the crematorium oven

      "Ha ha Mr Bond, my evil plan is coming to fruition and there is nothing you can do about it. Would you like to sign the assisted dying form?"

  144. Evening, all. Been a foodie day today; Went out to lunch with friends and then supper with a neighbour. Will now have to spend weeks poring over recipe books to see what I can prepare to reciprocate. I have said there won't be a return invitation until the Rayburn is lit 🙂

    Politicians of every hue subscribe to the mantra – do as I say, not as I do.

  145. I think (sometimes), that I might have found a new word to describe the way that many of our new arrivals in UK may be called:

    Christianophobic

  149. baron West of Spithead writes:

    “…When the National Trust focused on doing its job of managing countryside and keeping houses and collections in good repair, it was more than the sum of its parts and commanded considerable affection. Now that those in charge of the charity appear to think of it as a collection of “progressive activists” tasked with being the nation’s moral teacher, it has made itself ridiculous…”

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