Thursday 4 April: It’s right to reconsider ID cards after years of failure on illegal migration

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

909 thoughts on “Thursday 4 April: It’s right to reconsider ID cards after years of failure on illegal migration”

  1. ‘Morning All

    Early Medley

    Been There,done that

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbe038e1e3a4bd46cf77878d52ab60465253768db330345c6fa5421c522f2a09.jpg

    https://media.patriots.win/post/XIVB41HvtZ2s.jpeg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bb415eb6e6e0ad740ff79cb309b904af552954b44b118ffe83efa61fb77e09e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7973d2d65aceb7d63e71b3abba8f4c741fd7ff696e236bc4c46c495f238d68a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f10b0e7fd42644ce032a8de817361ac000ffb7aee6fdc9a0927c952a34503d3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/180e99c1bb0f8739a9469e2be92b0e76f4a0c7eb7ecf3b2faeacd7db1271d967.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/912956cc0a2d1a42fb3db9422bd1cba6e596ebe4f92f9530f547a4afbb43b770.png

    1. Everything cooks at 180c. No need for cooking instructions. Time? Until it’s done.

      I’m almost out of things to read. Any suggestions?

      1. Ayup Pip

        These days I use “Fantastic Fiction” to order the book series like this

        https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/glynn-stewart/

        Then I use their recommends to find similar stuff like this

        https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/blaze-ward/

        https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/chris-kennedy/to-challenge-heaven.htm

        Then I use libgen to download them

        https://libgen.is/fiction/?q=nathan+lowell&criteria=authors&language=English&format=

        https://libgen.is/fiction/?q=chris+kennedy&criteria=authors&language=English&format=epub

        An infinite supply of Space Opera with a little digging Mark Wandry

        https://libgen.is/fiction/?q=mark+wandrey&criteria=authors&language=English&format=epub
        Worth checking out
        I think there’s a cheap deal on kindle for the whole “Revelation Cycle”

  3. Britain has always been a prime mover in Nato. Other powers must do more to pay their way. Grant Shapps. 4 April 2024.

    Big Brother ruling with an iron fist. Misinformation warping the truth. A population terrorised by the fear of the unnamed terrors in Room 101. Seventy-five years on since its publication, the gaps between George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984 and Putin’s modern-day dystopia are closing by the day.

    The Scottish Hate Crimes Bill. The Online Harms Law and Ofcom. Cancel Culture. Modern day Britain under the Tories! Grant Shapps and his pals are our enemies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/03/britain-always-a-prime-mover-in-nato-other-powers-pay-way/

    1. The Scottish Hate Crimes Bill. The Online Harms Law and Ofcom. Cancel Culture. Modern day Britain under the Tories! Grant Shapps and his pals are our enemies.

      Clearly, the Tories, Labour, LibDums and the Greens are a threat to the people, they are working to an agenda set by others and this agenda is inimical to the wellbeing of the population. The “Covid” scam was the opening gambit in the final phase of the plan to take absolute control of the population’s lives: be it travel, diet, medical needs, where they can live, finance etc. the control will be total if they succeed.

      The Tories have been exposed and it’s odds on that they will be destroyed in the coming GE. Sadly, many in the electorate see Labour as, not just an alternative, but their saviour from the useless and feckless Tories. This naive thinking will develop into a very, very tough lesson for those that vote for Starmer and his cronies as the Labour party has identical aims to the Tories. Absolute control literally is a power trip for these people.

      What then? A peaceful political revolution or something worse? Whoever believes that they have the power will not wish to relinquish their control without a fight.

  4. Why are David Cameron, Grant Shapps, David Lammy and Emmanuel Macron so keen on risking WW3 with Russia when they should be talking peace?

    Because Cameron, Shapps, Lammy and Macron are all Soros puppets and Soros wants Russia thrown out of Ukraine at any cost.

  8. It’s right to reconsider ID cards after years of failure on illegal migration

    No, how will ID cards help, when the war is on the native peoples?

    2. A letter in today’s DT:

      Meloni has proved that it is the class of Politicians and their collective Political Will to put THEIR OWN PEOPLE first!.
      Britain is run by grubby little crooks and spivs – none of who could care less about the people who put them there – time to eliminate both the LibCons and Islamist Socialists from the political map – Britain and it’s people are being wasted by our Political Class and Civil Servants – eliminate both and we have a chance to make things good for our grandchildren’s future.
      It does not lie in the cesspit of the EU , it does not lie with the Dictatorships of Scotland, Wales and Londonistan – it does not lie with importing millions of unskilled parasites from N. Africa – it lies with us to change the order of the day.

  9. Good morning, chums, and welcome to Thursday. I did Wordle in four today and post my results below:

    Wordle 1,020 4/6

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

    2. Good Morning, Elsie.

      Draw

      Wordle 1,020 4/6

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

      1. Four is the target to beat today…
        Wordle 1,020 4/6

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

  10. Al-Shifa Hospital and the crisis of the West. Spiked. 3 April 2024.

    The Battle of al-Shifa is a clarifying moment. Not only for Israel in its war with Hamas, but also for us in the West. For it confirms that many of our young in particular are siding with the forces of darkness, with the violent anti-humanism of a group like Hamas. There’s a backstory to their sympathy for Hamas, their harebrained acceptance of the idea that Israel is solely responsible for the al-Shifa disaster. Namely, their inculcation with anti-Western views. Their exposure to the regressive ideology that says everything ‘white’ and Western is bad, while everything non-white and non-Western is deserving of compassion.

    And who taught them this? The Political Elites. These are their policies!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/03/al-shifa-hospital-and-the-crisis-of-the-west/

  11. Al-Shifa Hospital and the crisis of the West. Spiked. 3 April 2024.

    The Battle of al-Shifa is a clarifying moment. Not only for Israel in its war with Hamas, but also for us in the West. For it confirms that many of our young in particular are siding with the forces of darkness, with the violent anti-humanism of a group like Hamas. There’s a backstory to their sympathy for Hamas, their harebrained acceptance of the idea that Israel is solely responsible for the al-Shifa disaster. Namely, their inculcation with anti-Western views. Their exposure to the regressive ideology that says everything ‘white’ and Western is bad, while everything non-white and non-Western is deserving of compassion.

    And who taught them this? The Political Elites. These are their policies!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/03/al-shifa-hospital-and-the-crisis-of-the-west/

  12. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    BE VERY QUIET

    A young man moved into a new apartment of his own and went to the lobby to put his name on his mailbox. While there, an attractive young lady came out of the apartment next to the mailboxes, wearing a robe. The boy smiled at the young woman and she started a conversation with him.

    As they talked, her robe slipped open, and it was obvious that she had nothing else on. The poor kid broke into a sweat trying to maintain eye contact. After a few minutes, she placed her hand on his arm and said, ‘Let’s go to my apartment, I hear someone coming.’

    He followed her into her apartment; she closed the door and leaned against it, allowing her robe to fall off completely. Now nude, she purred at him, ‘What would you say is my best feature?’

    Flustered and embarrassed, he finally squeaked, ‘It’s got to be your ears.’

    Astounded, and a little hurt she asked, ‘My ears? Look at these breasts; they are full and 100% natural. I work out every day and my butt is firm and solid. Look at my skin – no blemishes anywhere. How can you think that the best part of my body is my ears?’

    Clearing his throat, he stammered…. ’Outside, when you said you heard someone coming…. that was me.’

  14. Human remains found in London park. 4 April 2024.

    A murder investigation has been launched after human remains were discovered in a south London park.

    Police were called to Rowdown Fields, Croydon, on Tuesday morning following reports that body parts had been discovered.

    They sealed off the area and subsequently found more remains in another part of the park.

    It shows the state of things that the first thing that springs to my mind is to wonder at their ethnicity.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/03/croydon-human-remains-rowdown-fields-police-murder-case/

    1. Yet another South London Police Yellow Board:

      “Did you see this Murder?!

      Morning Minty & All.

  15. Good morning all.
    A dull start after a lot of rain last night and still a light drizzle with 3½°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    1. 385422+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      Answering Sylvia, I believe British rail could regain the peoples trust etc if they run day patriotic excursions trips with free country covering tickets.to Dover, a mass showing at the invasion beach-head is needed.

    3. Here we are, an imported 5th Column. The consequence of “Multiculturalism”.

    1. A quote from Going Postal;

      “As president, Sankara focused Burkina Faso’s limited state resources on the poor majority with the goal of achieving self-sufficiency in food production. He implored the Burkinabé to see imperialism on the dinner plates of their imported rice, emphasising that “whoever feeds you imposes their will on you”. Sankara thus urged the Burkinabé to produce what they consume and to consume only what they produce. He emphasised the fact that food aid and foreign aid are generally counterproductive as they create a dependency syndrome among recipients”.

      Nottlers may consider the comment ” whoever feeds you imposes their will upon you” when considering the

      determination of the PTB in Britain to damage farming and make us reliant on the EU for food.

  19. 384422+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    So, turning a orchestrated morally criminal act into a peoples needed beneficial act will attract many a gullible fool, such as those that want to nod at the supermarket checkout machine
    activating the centre forehead implant in lieu of cash,cool a ?
    Just another pothole to avoid on the road to RESERT.

    Thursday 4 April: It’s right to reconsider ID cards after years of failure on illegal migration.

  20. Good morning.
    Note that I don’t take sides in the current conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. There are no good guys or bad guys. But this, if true, is a worrying development in warfare

    “Willem Middelkoop reposted
    Khalissee
    @Kahlissee
    THIS IS TERRIFYING and without a doubt one of the most IMPORTANT pieces of reporting on Gaza, and one of the most disturbing:

    Based on whistleblower accounts from within the IDF and six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current Genocide:

    The Israeli army developed an artificial intelligence program known as ‘Lavender’ to generate KILL LISTS, with no human verification to check the targets selected by the machine: only a “rubber stamp” check of about “20 seconds” just to make sure the AI target is male.

    These Intelligence sources claim that the Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed.

    The ratio revealed in the report says: ‘for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians. In the event that the target was a senior Hamas official, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.”

    A ratio of 20 civilians killed for one target works out to about 95% civilian deaths.

    Its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”

    The army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based.

    At one stage, Lavender identified 37,000 potential targets.

    The Israeli army “systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes, usually at night while their whole families were present, rather than during the course of military activity.”

    Israel also developed another automated system called “Where’s Daddy?” used “specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.”

    One of the intelligence officers is quoted: “We were not interested in killing Hamas operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity. On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”

    This industrialized extermination is the likes of which we haven’t seen before.

    The testimony from the six intelligence officers, all who have been involved in using AI systems, was given to the journalist
    @yuval_abraham
    for a report published by +972 Magazine and Local Call

    It’s a chilling read.”

    1. Any article that calls Israel’s campaign against Hamas ‘Genocide’ is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

      1. Stop letting prejudice and the desire to identify good guys blind you.
        The poster on twitter used the word ‘genocide’. This is not the original article from which it is sourced…

        1. The jury is still out on whether the systematic clearance of Gaza of “Arabs” in the guise of a total extermination of Hamas, a proscribed organisation that happens to be the Government of the Day there, is a form of genocide. An AI-generated algorithm of an acceptable kill of civilians may or may not be genocide, but is pretty unconscionable for the British and American governments to supply the weapons for this. Even more so when the only alternative on offer to the British is Keir Starmer, who has been rooting out of his party anyone criticising Israel, and to the Americans is Donald Trump, whose own son-in-law is a militant Zionist.

          A similar programme – the demolition of Warsaw, including those corralled into ghettos – may have been presented as a justifiable reaction to riots that included the murder of occupying militia, but is widely regarded by history as a genocide. Not by the 1000-year Reich though. For them, it a part of a Final Solution in the pursuit of Total Victory.

          I am well aware that making comparisons between the methods used by the Knesset and those used by the Third Reich would get me arrested in Scotland, but they must be said if we are to claim to be a free country.

          Turning to Gaza, it would be telling who occupies Gaza when the province, with a lot of attractive coastal real estate, is redeveloped after the site has been cleared of Troublesome “Arabs”.

        2. I’m not. I’m fully behind Israel and however they kill Hamas supporters is okay wiith me.

          1. It is the same eastern/southern mediterranean culture. You don’t just kill your enemy, you kill his wife and children too, in case they come back and kill you later.

            It’s the same as with the Russians – because they are white and dress like us, we Europeans assume Israelis think like us when they don’t.

            I don’t condemn eastern and southern mediterranean people for thinking like that – it is what it is. It’s not my way. It’s their way. I can respect that. I just don’t want to hear any guff about how one lot are innocent victims and the other lot evil aggressors when they are both just playing out a centuries old feud.

          2. They are completely different.
            Hamas is a jihadist organisation sworn to destroy Israel and kill every Jew there.
            Israel is a democracy with rule of law and equal rights for all citizens. It’s defending itself against savagery like we did in WW2 and sometimes you have to destroy utterly the savages as we did then. If Israel did not try to distinguish between Hamas supporters and other Gazans this would all have been over a while ago.

      1. “The testimony from the six intelligence officers, all who have been involved in using AI systems, was given to the journalist
        @yuval_abraham
        for a report published by +972 Magazine and Local Call”

    3. Hamas have been claiming a figure of 30,000 killed in Gaza. Israel has been claiming a figure of 15,000 Hamas killed in Gaza. This story doesn’t smell right.

      1. They are described as potential targets, there is no suggestion that they were all killed.

    1. Gold is at £1800 an ounce. Gordon Brown sold our gold reserves for about £150 an ounce, so someone has been making a lot of money at the expense of the British public.

      A hike in gold price suggests a breakdown of confidence in institutions and the threat of war.

          2. Last chance saloon….even at this dollar high, gold/silver are at an all time low in terms of affordability. I reckon they kept it low while the central banks loaded up! The moon is the next destination!
            Copper, platinum, palladium are all rising too.

        1. Only when you sell, and no doubt the trader will take their cut of what it is worth.

          Always worth having a bit in reserve though, in case money is digitized (sic) and the corporation controlling the money does a Google and deletes everyone’s savings if they refuse to “upgrade”. I’m sure they could make such practice legal with the right lawyers.

      3. -Also people know of the flood of debt across the free world with few governments showing any appetite to scale back deficits while China’s economy. although opaque, seems to be in a lot of trouble and sitting on a debt black hole. The fiat money system seems to be in near terminal trouble.

  24. Good to see over at the Spectator it’s finally dawned on all the leftie commentators like Katy Balls what I’ve been saying for months: GE night will be an absolute laugh watching all the Portillo moments unfold before our eyes, not least the fake conservative Penny ‘I can’t define a woman’ Mordant and potentially Jeremy ‘zero covid’ C**t!

    1. The Tories deserve everything that’s going to hit them.
      The trouble is the people don’t.

      1. Most people will continue to vote Lib/lab/Con which shows they are completely

        content with the way things are going.

    2. The Tories deserve everything that’s going to hit them.
      The trouble is the people don’t.

  25. Woke Fail: Leftist Scottish Leader Receives More Hate Speech Complaints than J.K. Rowling, as Police Swamped with Reports
    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/04/GettyImages-1240982222-1-1-640×480.jpg

    Chaos erupted this week surrounding the introduction of a new draconian speech law in Scotland as Police received nearly 4,000 complaints within the first two days of it being in place, with far-left First Minister Humza Yousaf reportedly receiving more complaints than Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling over her transgenderism critiques.

    Former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, Calum Steele revealed on Wednesday that Police Scotland received a hate speech report on an average of every two minutes since the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on Monday, LBC reports.

    This, he said, equated to around 3,800 complaints in the first two days of the controversial new law, which criminalises the vaguely worded “stirring up hatred” against protected groups on the basis of age, disability, race, sexual orientation, and transgender identity with a penalty of up to seven years in prison.

    Steele claimed that “more than half” of the complaints have yet to be processed, as Police Scotland said that every report would be reviewed, despite the force being stretched thin with actual crimes, such as the drug epidemic in the country, which has the highest drug-related death rate in all of Europe.

    According to a police source speaking to The Scottish Sun newspaper, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, the architect of the new speech restrictions, received more complaints than J.K Rowling over his 2020 speech in the locally devolved Scottish parliament decrying that there were too many white people in positions of authority in the overwhelmingly white nation.

    “A lot of those complaints were about Humza Yousaf, on the same complaint about his parliamentary rant,” the source said, adding: “J.K. Rowling has had some, but not as many as Humza Yousaf.”

    Rowling, one of Scotland’s most prominent residents, openly challenged the Police on Monday to arrest her for declaring that several profile transgender individuals were men, after the leftist Scottish National Party (SNP) government had said that “misgendering” people would be a violation of the law.

    However, Police Scotland, perhaps fearing the international circus that would ensue if they tried to lock up the Harry Potter author over comments made on social media, announced on Tuesday that they would not be seeking criminal charges against Rowling.

    This is potentially precedent-setting, as police would face accusations of two-tiered justice if they attempted to arrest average citizens for similar comments to Rowling’s. Meanwhile, Rowling said that if any woman is charged for calling a “man a man”, she will post the same exact message on social media, so the police would be forced to to charge her as well.

    In a further embarrassment for the leftist government in Edinburg, SNP minister Siobhian Brown revealed on Wednesday that police were receiving numerous “fake and vexatious complaints” to stymie the system, including at least one fake complaint made in her name.

    Brown, the minister who said “misgendering” would be illegal under the Act, told BBC Scotland: “I was surprised myself on Monday to receive a call from Police Scotland about my complaint – this was a fake complaint someone had done anonymously in my name, and gave my office number.”

    Police Scotland has also faced demands to reveal whether they recorded a non-crime hate incident against First Minister Yousaf over what many viewed as an anti-white rant in 2020.

    Tory Member of Scottish Parliament Murdo Fraser, who has threatened legal action against the police force after it was revealed that he had a “hate incident” recorded against him for comparing so-called non-binary people to those who identify as cats, called on Police Scotland to reveal if they have also made a report against Yousaf.

    “The first minister was subjected to complaints yesterday in relation to a speech he made in parliament back in 2020, which some people claim was racist,” Fraser said per the Scottish Daily Express.

    “And the police have investigated this, they’ve said quite rightly in my view, there was no criminality here. But in line with their policy, the police will have to record each and every one of these complaints as a non-crime hate incident, both against JK Rowling and the first minister Humza Yousaf.”

    “There’s actually a fairly significant point, because in relation to the first minister, either the police are going to treat an opposition politician in Scotland like myself differently from the way they treat the SNP first minister which would be an absolute outrage, or the police in Scotland agree to say that Scotland’s first minister is responsible for a hate incident.”

    Hundreds of thousands of citizens across the UK have had their details logged into police databases for making supposedly offensive statements in instances of so-called non-crime hate incidents, which although, as the name would imply, do not rise to the level of actual crimes, can still be visible on police background checks and therefore have a stifling effect on speech.

    Although British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has criticised the new law in Scotland as impeding free speech, his government still criminalises speech and police in England are reportedly continuing to record non-crime hate incidents, despite calls from the government — but not legislation — to end the practice.

  26. If Labour win the election they intend to improve standards.
    A spokesman has said that from day one, every standard will be doubled

  27. Good morning, all. Rain earlier, now bright with heavy cloud to the south-west.

    Is there a politician in authority, or one waiting in the wings, who will attempt to enforce the takeover of people’s property and allocate it to immigrants?

    Is planning the control of one’s property rights being ‘tested’ to see what reaction can be expected from those affected?

    https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1775137852960960923

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1775442991244538247

  30. Good day all and the 77th,

    The sky has cleared at McPhee Towers after overnight rain, wind in the WSW, 9℃ risng to13℃, showers later.

    Turning away from global matters to more mundane domestic ones, my sympathy is with second home owners, the majority of whom aren’t over-wealthy. We were in that category for a while after SWMBO inherited her parents’ house so I can sympathise with the Rev Andrew Haslam.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6f8cb88d0dfdacc086153fc90b73dd669099e5c2050ba28673fe866c89cafdf.png

    In my view, empty houses should attract NO council tax whatsover. The whole Council Tax system is a continuation by other means of the old, hated, rating system anyway. The only fair systems would either be a local income tax, local sales tax or a, wait for it, a Community Charge that everyone pays. If there is no taxation without representation there can be no representation without taxation either. If you want a voice and a vote, you pay.

    However, there is also a case for funding councils direct from central government. If, as many believe, all Council Tax is remitted to Whitehall and then a proportion is returned to local authorities from central funds that’s it. The case is made. Scrap local taxation and pay for councils out of general taxation. But the that wouldn’t help the governments aim – to obscure from us just how much of our hard-earned money it steals through Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Corporation Tax, Value Added Tax, Council Tax, Dividend Taxes, Insurance Premium Tax, Fuel Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty, Green Taxes on energy bills, Air Passenger Duty, Stamp Duty on property transactions, Stamp Duty on stocks and shares transactions, Inheritance Tax, Alcohol Tax, Tobacco Tax, Betting levies.

    Anything I’ve forgotten?

    And they spend it on things of which few approve.

    What a bunch of thieves. It’s way past time that the State in all its forms went on a crash diet.

    1. I remember reading that only 2% of Council Tax goes towards things decided by elected councillors. Two-thirds goes towards social services for children and protected adults, many of whom urban criminals descended from settlers. Much also goes towards Diversity & Equality monitoring, with their vast and expensive consultancy empires. This is foisted on the councils by central Government, and has probably have been lobbied for under legal advice.

        1. The pension funds and their recipients account for all the council tax you physically hand over.
          The 75% that is actually spent on council responsibilities comes from general taxation.

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Rained most of the night. Grey again. Brighter that it was.
    How do the idiots in Wastemonster and Whitehall think ID cards are going to change any of the recent damage done ? Or begin to repair any of the monumental damage they have inflicted on our culture infrastructure social structure and our once reasonably safe society. What they have done is commited an act of treason.
    Of course once again effed up everything single thing they come into contact with.
    Docs phone app in ten minutes.
    How wonderful ‘modern technology’ is.
    Humans will soon all have implants and be AI monitored. 😉😄

    1. Yo RE

      Humans will soon all have implants and be AI monitored

      What do you mean….. soon!

  32. Good morning. ID cards are an irrelevant distraction, as with so many other things these days. The doors could be closed and the idle invaders expelled without ID cards if there was the political will.

    1. That’s exactly why it should be pay to view. So that viewers can avoid their dastardly deeds.

    2. I’d love to see the BBC do a remake of ‘Boris, the Movie’ a biopic where Giant Haystacks is played by a lesbian dead ringer for Diane Abbott.

  34. In this context, I think the word ‘genocide’ is irrelevant, as it’s not even from the original article, which is about new developments in warfare.
    Not one person who has criticised the post about these new developments appears to have actually read it!

    1. It is soundbite interpretation. Too many people are thinking like AI using set programmed responses to key words. Maybe the next battle to be human and not completely dominated by robots, is to learn to think independently. Can this be taught in schools?

      1. Not in state schools, that’s for sure.
        Educated conservatives should be better than that….

  36. ID cards are in fact issued to legal immigrants. They indicate your status in UK. They are to be discontiued at the end of this year because its goin’ ‘digital’ innit!

  38. 385422+ up ticks,

    Ow yow going our kid OUT, inshallah IN we are suffering the biggest case of self infliction in killing a most decent Country in supporting party names that ceased being genuine decades ago.

    The odious case of self mutilation via the polling stations has now come to a head, and seemingly the indigenous of these Isles
    could very well be handed theirs ( heads that is, literally).

    https://x.com/Bobstroudsnr/status/1775531231536365761?s=20

      1. 385422+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        I thought many via supporting / voting ignorance had.

        From post Mrs Thatcher you could witness the Countries rapid orchestrated decline via the polling stations, daily.

        Even after mass paedophilia, mass slaughter in general, mass treachery, lies & deceit the majority head-dead electorate still supported
        their lab/lib/con party, political enemas, in a party before common sense / country manner.

  39. A worthy BTL comment:

    “Pauline Maridor
    8 HRS AGO
    Michael Jones
    When profits in farming are low, few can afford to turn down the offer of reliable income from their land for very little work.
    With vast amounts of money flooding into the ‘clean energy’ industry. Investing in solar power is very profitable, but because the market is being distorted by government enthusiasm for all things green.
    Sizeable chunks of arable farmland and the broader British countryside are signed over to solar, putting a strain on the British farming industry by diverting arable land away from crop production.
    Well over £250million of taxpayers’ money has been earmarked for subsidies for renewable energy companies, and that amount will only grow.
    Damage to British food production is obviously not high on our politicians’ agenda. Handing over thousands of acres of food production land to these monstrosities and then importing food from elsewhere is utterly insane.
    Once the solar farm is ‘used,’ it is a brown field site.
    That means it is easier to get planning permission to build.
    Property developers think a decade plus is not unusual for land banking – and this provides income.
    Now we see why the agriculture subsidy programme is set to make food production a non-priority. It is the very same technique as used in the Netherlands under the guise of a false ‘nitrate pollution’ banner.
    Clearing farm land for industrial use – an initial use with pathetic efficiency – is part of a plan…
    In short, a cripplingly-expensive, self-inflicted environmental disaster.
    It’s time for the gullible to wake up
    Leaseyourland.co.uk
    Landowner Opportunities – P3P Partners

    1. People have to wake up and stop buying all their food from supermarkets who strangle farmers. And also come to terms with the actual cost of properly produced food. (The alternative is being poisoned with cheap frankenfood.)

      1. This is a strong argument to returning to the old marketing boards, which took into account the cost of production plus the reasonable return in order to ensure a living, and set prices accordingly. The market could do the final tweaking – those that could produce more efficiently would get a bonus, and those selling locally could undercut the competition and only attract official attention if this became industrial.

        This interventionism has become a dirty word since Thatcher and Blair pushed Free Market practice with all its abuses, and there is precious little interest, principle or public commitment coming from the Left these days.

        1. Blimey. That takes me back; my father worked for the Milk Marketing Board.
          I used to help him with the paperwork.

  40. A worthy BTL comment:

    “Pauline Maridor
    8 HRS AGO
    Michael Jones
    When profits in farming are low, few can afford to turn down the offer of reliable income from their land for very little work.
    With vast amounts of money flooding into the ‘clean energy’ industry. Investing in solar power is very profitable, but because the market is being distorted by government enthusiasm for all things green.
    Sizeable chunks of arable farmland and the broader British countryside are signed over to solar, putting a strain on the British farming industry by diverting arable land away from crop production.
    Well over £250million of taxpayers’ money has been earmarked for subsidies for renewable energy companies, and that amount will only grow.
    Damage to British food production is obviously not high on our politicians’ agenda. Handing over thousands of acres of food production land to these monstrosities and then importing food from elsewhere is utterly insane.
    Once the solar farm is ‘used,’ it is a brown field site.
    That means it is easier to get planning permission to build.
    Property developers think a decade plus is not unusual for land banking – and this provides income.
    Now we see why the agriculture subsidy programme is set to make food production a non-priority. It is the very same technique as used in the Netherlands under the guise of a false ‘nitrate pollution’ banner.
    Clearing farm land for industrial use – an initial use with pathetic efficiency – is part of a plan…
    In short, a cripplingly-expensive, self-inflicted environmental disaster.
    It’s time for the gullible to wake up
    Leaseyourland.co.uk
    Landowner Opportunities – P3P Partners

  41. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b6a8b14ffa61d2cb51629c3b43df86b1302284d1/0_0_5616_3744/master/5616.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9f9df4bc6419a7458626f328d0458fe0
    Rajan is a 66-year-old Asian elephant and the last ‘sea-swimming’ elephant of his kind. Brought to the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean for logging in the 1950s, he and a small group of 10 elephants were forced to learn how to swim in the ocean to bring the logged trees to nearby boats. When logging was banned in 2002, Rajan was out of a job. He lived out his days among the giant trees

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f19e6d4da159b38fac40ac73ab9884744623814a/0_0_5961_4421/master/5961.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=d3bd41ef57640a3295383413e2e003ca

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a5029360196903e09303a1c072e1f1c3e0fd80a3/0_0_3000_2117/master/3000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=b7fbdb452e17c7bd2deaf357cc3deec7
    Dog sleds in Greenland

      1. Didn’t listen to their mothers.
        “If you sit on that cold, wet snow …..”

  42. Earnest discussion about AC v DC on the Bragg show. Nobody has mentioned transformers. Hamlet without the Prince.

  43. Another from Nagsman

    Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands-free speaker function and begins to talk.

    Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

    MAN: “Hello?”

    WOMAN: “Honey, it’s me. Are you at the club?”

    MAN: “Yes.”

    WOMAN: “I am at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It’s only $4,500. Is it OK if I get it?”

    MAN: “Sure, go ahead if you like it that much.”

    WOMAN: “I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2024 models. I saw one I really liked.”

    MAN: “How much?”

    WOMAN: “$125,900.″

    MAN: “OK, but for that price I want it with all the options.”

    WOMAN: “Great! Oh, and one more thing… the house I wanted last year is back on the market! They’re asking $2.5 for it.″

    MAN: “Well, then go ahead and give them an offer of $2 mil. They will probably take it. If not, we can go the extra $500,000 as it’s really a pretty good price.”

    WOMAN: “Ok. I’ll see you later! I love you so much!”

    MAN: “Bye! I love you, too.”

    The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, mouths agape.

    He turns and asks: “Anyone know who this phone belongs to?”

  44. 385422+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    If these remains prove to be of a currently minority race origin,
    will the political overseers and guardian employees put the cause down to it being a very determined case of DIY suicide, after all.

    Human remains found in London park
    Police confirm murder investigation has been launched after body parts discovered in Rowdown Fields, Croydon

    1. Particularly impressed that ‘they’ chopped themselves up afterwards and distributed the segments.
      Anyone spotting a hopping corpse carrying a head under its remaining arm would blame the sight on the skunk they’d just smoked.

  45. ID Cards. I can’t see how ID cards which would be issued after an immigrant lands in UK would stop illegal immigrants coming across the Channel. Maybe I’m missing something our esteemed members of the cesspit in Whitehall have dreamed up. I’m against ID cards anyway, the concept embedded in the Magna Carta in 1215 and protected by thousands of lives defending it should not be given away lightly, if at all. The concept of “if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear” is a monstrous cop out subject to all sorts of abuse.

    1. Ever since Bliar in the early 2000s government has tried to introduce ID cards on the back of the latest “emergency”. His was terrorism lurking everywhere, which he talked up all the time since he was interested in starting wars in the Middle East with his barmy WMD theory / whopper.

      Several came in between since then, but COVID was the latest pretext and I’ve no doubt if immigration doesn’t work this time around they’ll use the so-called climate emergency pretty soon.

      The Con / Lab / Lib-Dumb alliance is just a Big State Socialist party. It hates individualism with a vengeance, quite simply.

    2. Agreed 100%. Border Farce will simply GIVE the illegals ID cards, anyway – with which they can then claim a legal persona – passport, job, NI card etc etc. While the rest of us are treated as far-right, foam-flecked etc etc

  47. No it’s not. It’s time to simply stop the boats and get a grip through traditional means

    Next.

    2. Can’t do that. Sunak would be banned from the Davos high table and Soros would spill the beans about who’s been taking his money.

  48. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-a-super-majority-means-for-labour/

    The Starmer Supermacy – Katy Balls .

    I don’t bother with the Spectator comment section boxes anymore but i did respond to this one using my inner muse, I said i can understand the need for revenge upon the Conservative Party especiallly after they removed 2 democratically elected Prime Ministers ( Muslims in particular hate Boris Johnson of whose energy and charisma Sssunak could never match, they deserve a bloody nose and the Conservative Party must clean out its stables ) But why should the electorate be punished even more. Labour already remained in control of the institutions. But once back in full control theyll never let their Stasi control slip again. theyll change our laws, Islamophobia will be a criminal offence, there will be an increase of Muslim labour MPs ( far more then indigenous labour MPs – creating our laws) anti trans will be a criminal offence. Immigrants from the EU will be able to instantly vote, including 16 year olds. Theyll red Christianity, destroy any reminants of conservatism ( which will become a hate crime ) and antiseminitism will stay, the elephant in the room is militant Islam . The prospect of Starmer as PM. Rayner as deputy PM and the likes of Lammy are truly horrific

    1. I know! I was going to flag this article as it made me feel sick. Katy’s super majority parliament is actually a less triggering word for a dictatorship.
      Then, all bets will be off and the Corbinites will come out of the woodwork along with all the special groups and change this country for ever, finally achieving Bliars and Straws plan to destroy the English. If Wales and Scotland don’t see how this will cause their destruction too, they are daft.
      It will take the best part of another hundred years at least to rise from neofeudalism again for any of the indigenous English in particular that are still left, after the collapse of society as we know it.
      It just shows the futility of the first and second world wars and the pointlessness of planning for the safety of future generations who will probably hate what you stand for and throw it all out as soon as they can.
      Pity they don’t realise that crushing the none elite will bring the elite house of cards crashing down too.
      There is a lot of truth in the anti capitalist poster, even though I am and never have been a communist supporter.
      The trick is a delicate balance where no one group gets ascendency over another and any law is applied fairly to all. Unfortunately this is a non starter nowadays.
      War is a nasty, cruel and lawless business and should only be used to defend against attack.
      This changed after the first gulf war, when America decided that war could be used as a punishment to deter an imagined possible attack.
      This was a mistake that rebounded on ordinary people but that’s ok, because the elites were not affected.
      Which brings me to another article written about luxury beliefs. These being those of which the believers will never be affected by the consequences of actioning them.
      We have too many of these by half, so it’s bound to end in tears.😭

      1. All you say is very true Mrs C . Oh do be careful, the Speccie isn’t with disqus anymore, it’s new comment boxes are more Stasi by the minute,
        what with Katy’s article stirring and it’s new lot of far left and Muslim writers, they don’t like criticism . I think we will have a Labour Majority and it’ll stay .

        1. Alas you are right. I rarely comment on the Spectator nowadays and am always careful.
          If labour do get their dictatorship, I’m sure one of the first things they will do is strengthen the hate crime law.
          Until then……

        2. They have now made it impossible (I think) to choose the Disqus “classic” layout for the comments.

    2. I know! I was going to flag this article as it made me feel sick. Katy’s super majority parliament is actually a less triggering word for a dictatorship.
      Then, all bets will be off and the Corbinites will come out of the woodwork along with all the special groups and change this country for ever, finally achieving Bliars and Straws plan to destroy the English. If Wales and Scotland don’t see how this will cause their destruction too, they are daft.
      It will take the best part of another hundred years at least to rise from neofeudalism again for any of the indigenous English in particular that are still left, after the collapse of society as we know it.
      It just shows the futility of the first and second world wars and the pointlessness of planning for the safety of future generations who will probably hate what you stand for and throw it all out as soon as they can.
      Pity they don’t realise that crushing the none elite will bring the elite house of cards crashing down too.
      There is a lot of truth in the anti capitalist poster, even though I am and never have been a communist supporter.
      The trick is a delicate balance where no one group gets ascendency over another and any law is applied fairly to all. Unfortunately this is a non starter nowadays.
      War is a nasty, cruel and lawless business and should only be used to defend against attack.
      This changed after the first gulf war, when America decided that war could be used as a punishment to deter an imagined possible attack.
      This was a mistake that rebounded on ordinary people but that’s ok, because the elites were not affected.
      Which brings me to another article written about luxury beliefs. These being those of which the believers will never be affected by the consequences of actioning them.
      We have too many of these by half, so it’s bound to end in tears.😭

  50. Say no to ID cards, yet another power grab by a corrupt, incompetent over-mighty State. Just make sure that they stop all immigration, and deport anyone who cannot show that they are in Britain legally.
    And the first step to that is to destroy the Tories.

  51. Climate No Change and Puppets Update….

    The chairman of Soros’ Energy Transition Commission is Soros’ friend Lord Adair Turner who was the first chairman of Soros’ (No) Climate Change Committee which exists thanks to the (No) Climate Change Act 2008 which Soros ordered from Tony Blair. The groundwork for which was done in 2006/7 by Soros’ puppet David Miliband appointed by Soros’ puppet Tony Blair both of whom were subsequently given highly paid Soros jobs. Just like Soros’ friend Lord Adair Turner who became chairman of Soros’ Institute for New Economic Thinking after he stepped down from Soros’ (No) Climate Change Committee and before he became chairman of Soros’ Energy Transition Commission.

    https://wwwDOTtelegraphDOTcoDOTuk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9963050/Lord-Turner-forms-unlikely-alliance-with-Soros.html

    In further news, Tony Blair received at least $25 million and probably much more from Soros in consultancy fees after he stepped down for having always done what Soros wanted. Soros’ puppet David Cameron wanted the (No) Climate Change Act because of course that’s what Soros wanted. David Cameron appointed Soros’ friends to senior positions including Lord Kim Darroch as British Ambassador to Washington who later was appointed chairman of Soros’ Best for Britain. David Cameron also promoted Soros’ opinions about Brexit on Twitter and Facebook and later received a Soros financed job eventually returning to power as Foreign Secretary because obviously that’s what Soros wanted.

    Meanwhile, Christopher Stark CEO of the (No) Climate Change Committee, which was started by Soros’ puppet Gordon Brown, and who worked with Gordon Brown at HM Treasury, is leaving to become CEO of the Carbon Trust which was also started by Soros’ puppet Gordon Brown.

    So as you can see, the pieces fit into the No Climate Change Puzzle exactly!

      1. Looks like the spawn of that appalling Belgian EUSSR Commissar – the one with the bad hair and shocking teeth.

    1. Concealed in this legislation is a blasphemy law to eliminate criticism of islam.

  54. Very quiet at t’market today. At least the rain stopped. Equally empty at Morrisons. Funny that.

    Still, home to two cats. One (Gus) asleep (as always at this time of day); Pickles in the garage. For some reason they both love the garage. Lots of mousey smells, I suppose…

    Nice cup of “proper” coffee with hot milk. Now for the important work – the crossword.

  55. I can’t be the only individual who finds the holier than thou bleating about the death of aid workers, who volunteered to go to a conflict zone, rather hypocritical. Same with the deaths in Ukraine. Lets look back a few years: Hamburg July 1943 WW2 – 37000 killed and 180000 injured? Hmm. No cries for reparations there from the likes of the Archbishop of Dickerbury. War, albeit very unpleasant, is war and people get killed.

    1. Consider the French civilian dead in the months following D-Day – from Allied bombing and artillery.

      2. I went to Normandy a while back whilst touring with Elgar Chorale. They call it ‘La Dommage’ (the Shame), but unlike the civilians in Gaza, were largely supportive of the Allied invasion.

        1. The DT said they were security, not aid workers. Were they armed? It puts a rather different context on things.

          1. Indeed, but to be honest I find the bleating from the likes of Sunak and Cameron rather puke making.

          2. That’s what we said .

            Cameron and Sunak sucking up the Muslim vote … a winner , because I don’t think Starmer and co have said much.

          4. Siege is an ancient military tactic, and the Israelis by closing the border are pushing siege as far as they can get past their allies supplying them with the bombs. Aid workers therefore are, by definition, frustrating the siege and might well be considered combatants by the besiegers.

            The idea is to push these people into Sinai, where they become someone else’s problem, probably ending up on a dinghy near Dover. The Egyptians are not being terribly co-operative, so the whole point of the siege, along with the demolition of homes and infrastructure, is to put a bit of pressure on people to comply with demands.

          5. Could you explain to me why Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia (among other slammer states) REFUSE to take their co-religionist “brothers” from Gaza?

          6. Maybe factional Muslims hate competing Islamic factions even more than they hate the kuffah?

            Any charity seems largely to be coming from the Christians.

          8. You’d have to be very naive not to realise that the Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians etc are all silently egging the Israelis on to destroy Hamas as it is an Iranian proxy, and the Egyptians are doign what they can to prevent Hamas escaping to receiving more weapons.

          9. I’ve long suspected that there is little honour among thieves when it comes to Muslim factionalism. Israel must be counting on Divide-and-Rule in order to secure their borders. Hamas’s main allies seem to be Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran. The others wouldn’t lift a finger and risk the ire of Israel.

        1. Nothing wrong with spies. I expect all sides are awash with them. Certainly Mossad would be busy on the ground identifying the next targets.

      3. Considering the lawlessness of the place, I’d have thought security guards were rather necessary. It’s a pity they didn’t do a better job, but then whilst they can take on a bunch of Islamist thugs, they were seriously outgunned by the US-armed IDF.

      4. Apparently, Yes.
        BTW, has it been confirmed that it WAS an Israeli attack?
        Or are we still taking Hamas’s word for it?

        1. Lots of videos on social media showing Israeli soldiers shooting and dropping missiles on people walking around.

          There’s nothing to choose now between Israel and Hamas, except that Israel has killed far more people.

          1. How the IDF Works to Prevent Civilian Casualties

            https://www.thetower.org/2129-how-the-idf-works-to-prevent-civilian-casualties/

            Frankly I think that anyone who falls for Hamas casualty figures or doctored video is being naive. Israel is fighting for its existence. If you think that if the Israelis were defeated the consequences would be like any other war, think again, it will be the massacre of October magnified thousands of times. In that context the Israelis should fight giving no quarter.

          2. How do you know the videos are doctored?

            What happened with the aid workers fits in exactly with Israel murdering people at random.

          3. HAMAS has a long history of doctoring video and constructing fake incidents. If you search around on the net you will find evidence of that. There is one guy who has popped up in about 10 different videos as a corpse, a teacher, an injured teenager etc etc etc.
            Hamas are murderous genocidal thugs unwanted anywhere in the Muslim world. I am always surprised that anyone has any sympathy for them or for the Palestinians who are brought up to be homicidal & habitual lying sociopaths not interested in any rapprochement with Israel and, like Hamas, no Arab country wants them either. They cause misery and ruin wherever they go.

          4. That’s not an excuse for Israel flattening Gaza and killing, injuring and starving vast numbers of people.

            There’s strong evidence that Netanyahu wanted this conflict and an excuse to attack Gaza.

          5. The Palestinians are “starving” because of Hamas. The idea that Netanyahu planned this is simply absurd.

          6. As the conflict has now been going on for 5 months, it would seem that there were more than just a few armed rebels in the strip. The level of resistance in Gaza shows an immense force and great level of military spending. It is Hamas tactic of choice that they hide amongst the population and then play off the media when they suffer losses. Pity Hamas didnt put all that aid into helping its people.

          7. There’s plenty of evidence that Netanyahu wanted to attack Gaza and needed an excuse which was set up accordingly.

            Don’t you find that shocking?

          8. Nope, given that Gaza has been turned into a huge military base as evidenced by the extent of the conflict.

          9. Sadly this is one of the few times I can’t agree with you.
            No one batted an eyelid when America bombed Iraq back to the Stone Age, or went into Libia without so much as a by your leave.
            Innocents killed were “collateral damage of war” I believe.
            That mess resulted in where we are now. All wars are cruel messy and unpredictable.
            To imagine you can control a war based on some spurious moral code made up by a bunch of powerful self serving idiots, to be applied when it suits them is ridiculous.
            For whatever reason, Israel is being held to totally different standards than Hamas, who have now become the victims, even though they attacked Israel to start it off.
            I wonder if it is because Israel is letting down the west sense of moral superiority by bombing the bejesus out of them?
            But that can’t be true or America wouldn’t have gone into Iraq.
            Make no mistake, Hamas and Iran have been very heartened by the mainstream support for their Palestinian shields and the rise of hatred for Israel.

            As soon as the western leaders make it impossible for Israel to win, they will be in there like a rat up a drain pipe and take out as much of it as they can.
            If Israel falls, then the west is doomed to the caliphate.

          10. Apparently there were huge demonstrations against the Iraq war so that isn’t true and many people opposed Blair and Bush. The Foreign Secretary resigned before it started.

            There’s strong evidence that Netanyahu wanted to attack Gaza and needed an excuse to do it. That would explain why junior soldiers were threatened with court martial for reporting unusual Hamas activities. Also the festival being moved at 48 hours notice from a place of safety to a place of danger. Hamas knew the new location long in advance. Egypt’s warnings were ignored and it took the IDF six long hours to reach the scene of the shocking massacre.

            It all points to an inside job by Netanyahu to divert attention away from the corruption investigation into his administration and to start a war.

          11. Yes there were, but no international threats of arms embargo’s or hauling them up before an international court for genocide, so not the same at all.
            I believe the USA will not participate in any conflict without an exemption from prosecution clause.
            This is because war makes animals of us all, so the Jewish army is no different there.
            No chanting in the streets for the destruction of America that i remember and the complete eradication of its population.
            If you are right about Netanyahu then he is a very wicked man and deserves to be punished for causing such damage and danger.
            However, that does not mean that the Palestinians are victims.
            No one forced Hamas to attack Israel and butcher people in such a barbarous way and there are enough Palestinians to have objected to terrorist bases being put under their schools and hospitals.
            I take your point, but who will guarantee Israel’s safety if they get rid of Netanyahu and back off?
            Irrespective of whether you believe in a Jewish homeland or not; allowing Hamas not only to win, but to capture the moral high ground in the west will embolden them and their supporters in other countries to take further measures to ensure that what is left of civilisation conforms to their beliefs.
            As you have so rightly pointed out in other posts, the majority will pay and the elites will not in any way be affected.
            As for the media, well, I stopped believing either side weeks ago.
            All these people are not our friends.

          12. Everyone in Palestine has to do what Hamas wants or they are shot. So blaming peaceful Palestinians isn’t fair.

          14. I guess that everyone has now forgotten the deliberate murder of 1300 civilians a few months ago.

          15. In defence you do kill more people Hamas should not have invaded Israel with the intent of genocide.

          16. Netanyahu wanted this. Why else would junior soldiers be threatened with court martial for reporting unusual Hamas activities? Why was the festival moved from a place of safety to a place of danger with 48 hours notice? Hamas knew the new location long in advance. Why did it take the IDF six hours to react. The whole thing stinks of a deliberate set up.

        2. Lots of videos on social media showing Israeli soldiers shooting and dropping missiles on people walking around.

          There’s nothing to choose now between Israel and Hamas, except that Israel has killed far more people.

    5. Invariably, I find those using the word ‘bleating’ to be the only defence they have left to something pretty unspeakable, and probably in any civilised place, grossly criminal. Classic victim blaming.

      There has long been a convention in war not to shoot at anyone bearing a white flag. Aid workers, who are not combatants, go about their business bearing white flags. It is extremely bad form then to fire at those that make the business of war less horrible to all parties. It must have serious diplomatic consequences for Israel, to the point where its main allies Britain and the USA would no longer accept arming such behaviour. It must be seen to be seriously counterproductive, otherwise we’d be descending into far more savagery than I’d hoped were part of ancient history.

      Hamburg, an important port vital to the Nazi war effort and a direct threat to British shipping, is not a good example. I prefer the firebombing of Dresden in 1945 as an example of Allied treachery. It was militarily unnecessary, most of the victims were innocents, many of whom refugees in transit, who suffered mass burning alive, and was primarily revenge for the destruction of Coventry. Indeed, there is a strong case for reparations for the restoration of the city, but that is now long water under the bridge.

      1. Why did Germany bomb Norwich.? and many other like it. We had agreed with Stalin that Dresden would be bombed.and it was.

          3. No one is, Polly but the Left won’t leave us alone. They keep pushing the agenda and it leads to only one way. What’s funny is they just don’t seem to realise they’re on the losing side.

          5. wibbling, does your post suggest that Phizzee, who I blocked some weeks ago, is really Polly Parrot? Either way, how can I “unblock” him/her?

      2. Invariably, I find those using the deaths of civilians and aid workers as an opportunity to support Hamas pretty unspeakable too.

        Hamas could have released all the hostages during the first ceasefire and chose not to. On the stroke of the ceasefire ending they immediately launched more rockets into Israel.

        I would not be at all surprised if it turns out that Hamas saw a political opportunity and were complicit in the attacks that killed those aid workers. They have form for such things.

        1. Hamas – muslims – didn’t need to start the war in the first place. Then Israel wouldn’t be blowing them up.

          Frankly, Israel is holding back and hamas should be happy that it is.

        2. It makes no military sense for Hamas to release the hostages.

          This then gives the Israelis carte blanche to go in for the kill. The only thing holding them back, apart from a few whimpers from Biden, Cameron and the UN, is domestic backlash in Israel if any more hostages get killed by friendly fire.

          2. That is something they share very much with the Knesset. It is the civilians on both sides of the border who are bearing the brunt of the war who have an interest in peace, but their interests are being tossed aside by the belligerents.

      3. Dresden , rail junction, facing the Soviet Union’s advance. The topic is covered on Sir Martin Gilbert’s webpage https://www.martingilbert.com/blog/request-bomb-dresden-february-1945-yalta/page

        At Yalta, 4th February 1945: “The Big Three also heard a plea on February 4 by the Deputy of the
        Chief of Staff of the Soviet forces, General Antonov, for British and
        American bombing help, “to prevent the enemy from transferring his
        troops to the East from the Western front, Norway and Italy.” What
        Antonov asked for was “air attacks against communications.” This
        Soviet request for Anglo-American air support was presented to the Big
        Three at their meeting on the afternoon of February 4, when Antonov told
        the meeting that the Germans were even then transferring to the Eastern
        Front eight divisions from the interior of Germany, eight from Italy,
        three from Norway and a further twelve from the Western Front, in
        addition to six already transferred. Antonov’s exaggerated assignment –
        only four divisions were transferred from Italy, for example – led
        Stalin to ask what Churchill and Roosevelt’s wishes were “in regard to
        the Red Army,” to which Churchill replied that they would like the
        Russian offensive to continue.”

    3. Only trouble with that cartoon is that the slab comes down on all the rest of us.

      I see too, that Farage is making excuses not to embroil himself in politics just when he could really make a difference. Always been suspicious of the mans motives. Never have trusted him ever since he shopped UKIP and deliberately lied about his role in it.

      1. Nigel Farage is a fox in a hen- house, he’s a reactionary.
        He doesn’t want to involve himself personally and he’s not a team player, he is one who moves the hands of others into action as he did with Cameron. After the Brexit vote Nigel Farage said he wasn’t needed anymore and went to America to help Donald Trump and had a slot on a few radio shows. UKIP still exists ( it once even had 2 MPs ) it still has councillors but it’s not as it was . I believe Nigel Farage had a falling out with UKIP over Islam and Tommy Robinson. Nigel Farage said he’d not take on Islam and that he thought Tommy Robinson was a racist thug – so therefore Nigel Farage and UKIP went their own ways .

        1. I would like to see Farage have a three way in-depth interview with Tommy Robinson and Mark Steyn to see what common ground exists between them.

        3. 385422+ up ticks,

          Evening AK,
          In retrospect there has only been one true patriotic leader of UKIP that made in one year true honest successful headway and that was Gerard Batten, farage deep tory mole.
          2019 showed him in his true treacherous colours.

          Currently ukip is a pro lab/lib/con coalition satellite
          party.

          The farage in full treachery mode, back stabbing those that worked to grant him a platform ( myself included)

          https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk?si=SSw_DXHvS_tZK9Kc

        4. Nigel also said that UKIP members (the people who’d helped him in his campaign, after all) were racist as well. That didn’t go down too well.

      2. I read an interesting theory recently that the City of London wanted out of the EU, and Farage is their man.

      3. 385422+ up ticks,

        Evening JR,
        The farage chap to be treated with great caution, NOT trust, CAUTION.

    1. Man lost in Edinburgh says to a policeman, “Excuse me is there a B&Q in Leith?”

      Policeman replies, “No sir, but there are two Ds and two Es in Dundee.”

      1. Sex in Morningside is what your coal is delivered in, and a creche is what happens when two cars hit each other.

      2. “Ah stapped aff in Leith,
        On ma way up tae Keith.
        When I got lost in Beith,
        Ah wez seck tae the Teith!”

        ©1996 Grizzly.

    2. [On Scottish independence] “David Beckham sent the people of Scotland an open letter. An open letter – because he couldn’t work out how to get it into an envelope” – Frankie Boyle

      “They French cannae count – you ask for twa rolls and they give ye three.”

      “Edinburgh and Glasgow, same country, two very different cities. When a gun goes off in Edinburgh, it’s one o’clock” – Kevin Bridges

      1. Maybe I won’t send them to my granddaughter in Edinburgh.
        I’m not sure what the study facilities are in Cornton Vale.

  58. Local elections soon, we have to produce photographic evidence of who we are .

    So those of us who are blue eyed , fair haired , or if a male bald and white , how many million Muslim males or other religion have beards and fringes , and their women with totally covered faces , I don’t understand who will spot the multi voter?

    I mean us whities all look alike as well .. visit the theatre / concert and don’t we all look alike . We are quite distinguishable , aren’t we?

    1. Just go in a burkha, Mags, and tell them that your husband will vote for you. That’ll be fine!

      1. Snap Bill. Just said more or less the same thing before seeing your comment. But good morning.😊

    2. Produce photographic evidence but wear an Islamic tent. See what they do with that!

    3. I don’t think too many of us go in for multi-voting. We all know which demographic does that. They have postal votes.

      1. The Government should get the Post Office to put a stamp on postal voting – but I don’f see that on the Horizon.

    1. Can’t you get him sectioned?
      Peace and quiet for you, and highly qualified “care” for him.
      Win, win!
      🙂

      2. I think it will be me who needs to be sectioned .

        My remaining spaniel will shortly be eleven yrs old, he is still like pup . His behaviour has altered since his best pal died .

        Walks are a nightmare , he won’t listen to the whistle or my calls , and follows his nose , other dog scents , he disappears from view ( we are in countryside ).. doesn’t chase rabbits or deer or anything else , he is just busy busy busy , and fast ..

        The ground underfoot is sodden , and where mountain bikes have ruined country pathways , mud mud mud and puddles ..

        The countryside has many disadvantages , MUD .

        Things that terrify me are him becoming caught up by his collar or being bitten by a snake .. 2 previous spaniels of mine have been bitten , and Pip is a nose down sniffing at everything fast spaniel, and a rolling in Fox poo dog !!

        I have lots of old towels , dog towels , and a few towels in the dog crate in the car .

          1. Sand Lizard Lacerta agilis: very common in Dorset, especially at Arne and on Brownsea Island.

            We have them here at Falsterbo.

    2. Sorry, my fault. I thought about putting the washing out. Usually my power waits until I actually do it.

    6. Yo T_B

      He is not playing a Home Game, in the back garden of the Belle Estate

        1. Encouraging, I think, Bill. He said they should have had a letter from the hospital but had not. He will write to the surgeon to find out what is going on. He is obviously unhappy about what has gone on. He took blood to analyse what is happening in the heart.
          He changed her water tablets because the current ones aren’t working and he changed her inhaler for the same reason.
          He will phone my wife at 1630 two weeks today to update her and himself and he expects to see her to conduct a further examination. It’s about as much as we could expect and my girl is a bit more confident. Thank you for asking.

          2. Just seen your post, Delboy. The news is certainly more positive and I hope your dear wife has been reassured by the GP. The not knowing anything and the lack of communication can only cause more worry, which isn’t good for anyone. Thinking of you both.

  61. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJLVYk2CAec

    Apparently Sunak is not aware what the problem is. I postulate then, that he’s thick. He doesn’t (according to Tim Montgomerie) understand why his opinion polls are so low.

    That lack of self awareness is somewhat staggering OR it shows that the puddles he circulates in are so completely detached from reality they may as well be on another planet.

    Honestly, I can’t believe the man has no understanding of what the problems are. To believe otherwise is a staggering conceit.

      1. And if Gates tells him what to do he really shouldn’t be surprised he’s unpopular.

    3. I don’t think Sunak knows much about politics. He’s just been shovelled into various prestigious positions to take orders

      1. Odd as he wanted the job, he can’t now be surprised that his agenda is unpopular. I honestly don’t see how he can not understand what’s wrong.

    4. The Conservative Party needs to be completely exterminated.

      Once Reform is ahead of the Conservative in the polls the floodgates will open because it will no longer be even remotely true that a vote for Reform will help Labour. No, when Reform is ahead a vote for the Conservative party will give Labour a boost.

  62. If that happens it will be thanks to NATO and the USA. Not Israel or Russia.

    1. In fact it’s deep state globalist Democrat Washington. Nato is in the hands of the criminal globalists now.

  63. Dazzled on the road

    SIR – It is not hard to work out why the glare from headlights is getting worse (report, April 3).

    Quite apart from the standard lights fitted to cars since 1990 being much brighter, the current state of the roads affects the delicate adjustment systems fitted as standard. Light beams are only checked once a year during an MOT, and new vehicles are not tested until they are three years old.

    There is also a fashion for fitting illegal high-powered lights as accessories. A consistent lack of traffic policing means that such modifications go unnoticed by law enforcement.

    Dr Michael A Fopp
    Soulbury, Buckinghamshire

    There are no ‘standard lights’, Dr Fopp, because there appear to be no standards. There is, quite literally, a dazzling array of styles.

    Something else I have also noticed is that indicators are a lot less visible, especially at night when effectively drowned in the white light of the headlamps.

    If ever anything needed regulation, this is it.

    1. My first act on becoming dictator of the UK will be to mandate the lighting arrangements at the back of cars, to be like what they were 20 years ago. Indicators. Brake lights. Not one enclosing the other. Not one at eye level and one on the bumper. Just the normal standard arrangement that used to exist. I can get quite vocal about this.

    2. My first act on becoming dictator of the UK will be to mandate the lighting arrangements at the back of cars, to be like what they were 20 years ago. Indicators. Brake lights. Not one enclosing the other. Not one at eye level and one on the bumper. Just the normal standard arrangement that used to exist. I can get quite vocal about this.

  64. Historically, the so called ‘Palestinians’ have caused trouble where ever they have landed. That is why they are not welcome.

  65. Vladimir Putin has Britain in his crosshairs as expert warns UK army has ‘never been so weak’. 4 April 2024.

    Vladimir Putin views the British army as being weak and ill-prepared, a military expert has warned.

    Glen Grant, a former British Lieutenant-Colonel, said that the UK has never been more vulnerable than right now to an attack from Russia.

    No he doesn’t and yes it is.

    https://www.gbnews.com/news/putin-britain-army-weak-glen-grant

  66. Some years ago (more than ten now) an email was circulated at work stating that we must all wear our ID cards, which must be visible at all times when on the premises. At the time there was a woman working on our floor (I could tell from the voice and I did once see her face “in the Ladies”) who wore the full works, with an abaya, hijab and face covering niqab. A walking black tent. Nothing visible. Not her face or her ID card. I replied to the manager who send the email and questioned her on the obvious double standard. She answered by playing dumb and pretending she just couldn’t understand what I might mean by implying that there was any double standard being applied.

    1. Shapps, Cameron, Lammy and Macron are all Soros puppets and Soros wants Russia thrown out of Ukraine to protect his business interests in Kiev which are likely money laundering.

      So Soros has his puppets organised and in place as usual to get what he wants.

    2. Anyone who talks about us living in a “pre-war world” is clearly party to planning a war. Calling on memories of WW2 victory by calling NATO “Allies” is despicable.
      It’s already written in the stars that a war started by the US to distract the public from the end of fiat currencies is doomed to be lost to the up and coming powers…

      1. 385422+ up ticks,

        Afternoon BB2,

        The wretch cameron said “we will not be putting boots on the ground in Ukraine” on his truth telling track record means, front line for indigenous Brits is on the agenda.

  68. Other swastikas

    SIR – David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, described the swastika as “a hate symbol” (report, April 2), and no doubt it is one when shown as used by Nazi Germany.

    However, there is a danger that he has, no doubt inadvertently, upset people of south- or east-Asian origin, to whom the swastika, albeit one in which the arms go in the opposite direction and the main arms are vertical and horizontal, is a propitious sign. It was also used in early Christianity, and there is a church in a village in Hampshire that contains a brass of a 14th-century rector with the swastika on his vestments.

    Moreover, it is a common sight in, among other places, Hong Kong, where children at a school run by the Red Swastika Society can be seen with it on their uniform.

    David E P Judge
    Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire

    Has Lammy ever spoken out about Palestinian or Islamic symbols?

          1. Barista: a person who makes and serves coffee (such as espresso) to the public.

        4. So? As Bill below says, he is a barrister. The husband of a friend used to teach a part of the exams for the Bar – he said that some of the African students (post-graduate) could hardly speak English.

          It was known for years that the Bar exams were far easier than solicitors’ exams – and I also heard that if too many people failed then the pass mark was allegedly lowered.

    2. That idiotic police officer wittering on about ‘context’ the other day along with the equally idiotic Mr Judge should have the context explained to them, ie swastikas waved on demonstrations against Israel and Jews more generally are clearly anti Semitic and inspired by the memory of the evil Nazis.

  71. UK weather Storm Olivia forecast: Met Office says more rain is on way as map shows 100 places that could flood – but Saturday could be year’s warmest day with 21C heat
    Storm Olivia named by Portuguese met service and will arrive in UK tomorrow
    Second unnamed storm on Saturday will bring ‘unseasonably windy’ weather

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13270791/UK-weather-Storm-Olivia-forecast-Met-Office-maps-warmest-day.html

    Storm Kathleen will hit Britain this Saturday as Met Office map shows where 70mph winds are set to strike
    Storm Olivia named by Portuguese met service and will arrive in UK tomorrow
    Storm Kathleen named by Met Éireann will then bring high winds on Saturday

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13271449/Storm-Kathleen-UK-forecast-Met-Office-weekend-strong-winds.html

    Presumably storms “L” “M” and “N” are about to arrive too.

    It really is getting ridiculous the way normal weather is being hyped up into Armageddon

    1. Got to maintain the Climate Change propaganda, otherwise the rationale for Net Zero will no longer exist and a multi trillion dollar industry will be threatened.

    2. Got to maintain the Climate Change propaganda, otherwise the rationale for Net Zero will no longer exist and a multi trillion dollar industry will be threatened.

    3. We’ll know if an LGBTQ storm has hit us – there will be a rainbow afterwards.

  72. https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/has-israel-lost-british-support/

    I had another little peek at some articles . Fraser Nelson ‘ has Israel lost British Support ‘
    What with the other articles ‘ The Truth about Israel’s Friendly Fire ‘ . We know whay side the Spectator is on – especially with the new Muslim writers and Katy getting excited with the thought of a Starmer goverment of Stasi full control . How vile that terrorists now get support and Israel are betrayed .

    3. I saw that too. Yet when Americans bomb people who they say one day May be a threat to them, no one bats an eyelid. Strange that.
      If the west turns against Israel on the pretext of some fatuous made up moral war code which only seems to apply to some nations and not others; we deserve to become a caliphate and all that entails.
      I can’t believe that Israel is being treated this way and yet the holding of hostages and the building of defence structures under hospitals and schools and the refusal of Jordan and Egypt to help so called innocent civilians is totally ignored, in order to make Israel the monster and terrorists the innocent.
      What sort of world have we created?

  73. Child gangsters: the new Swedish model. 4 April 2024.

    There were 149 bomb attacks in Sweden last year. Though warring gangs are for the most part responsible, ordinary people are increasingly caught in the crossfire. The violence is brutal and ruthless, something I’ve witnessed up close as a police officer in Stockholm and have also analysed as a criminologist. Last year, 28 innocent citizens died or were seriously injured in bombings and shootings. Our country has gone from the bottom of Europe’s gun-crime league tables to the top and it prompts an obvious question: why has this happened in Sweden and why now?

    It’s a mystery Fred. Perhaps they have something in common that you’ve missed? Perhaps they all have one leg or can’t get Social Security?

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/teenagers-are-fuelling-swedens-gun-crisis/

    1. Somalian, 22, ‘strangles heavily pregnant girlfriend, 20, to death – also killing their unborn child’ – in suspected honour killing in Sweden ‘because his mother wouldn’t approve of him dating a “white” girl from a different culture’
      Saga Forsgren Elneborg, 20, was strangled to death in Swedish city of Örebro
      Her boyfriend Mohamedamin Abdirisek Ibrahim, 22, allegedly killed her

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13271287/pregnant-woman-murdered-sweden-suspected-honour-killing.html

      1. He should have strangled his mother. I would have helped and held the bitch down.

        1. One to amuse
          Allahu, Akbar

          Shocking moment grandfather, 95, is sent flying by hit-and-run BMW driver but miraculously escapes with only minor injuries – as police launch hunt for motorist

          This is the shocking moment a 95-year-old grandfather was flung into the air after being knocked down by a BMW that sped away without stopping.

          Mohammed Akbar suffered bruises all over his body as well as injuries to his knees and jaw when the high-powered grey vehicle smashed into him as he crossed a road.

          The pensioner had been walking to a shop on Audley Range in Blackburn, Lancashire, on Friday to pay a bill when the BMW 318d suddenly veered into him.

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13270901/grandfather-hit-run-bmw-driver-escaped.html

          2. 95 Year old? Could have been his ten year old wife at the wheel. Hasn’t passed her test yet?

  74. The SNP’s grip on Scotland is firmer than we think. Labour should beware

    Support for Yousaf’s party – even among intelligent people on the Left – seems hardly to have dwindled

    SIMON HEFFER • 31 March 2024 • 7:00am

    I have spent most of the last week in Scotland, finding things depressingly unchanged since my last visit 18 months ago. A questionable First Minister in the form of Nicola Sturgeon has been replaced by another in the shape of Humza Yousaf. Edinburgh remains littered with the drug-addicted homeless, radiating the misery of Scottish urban society, pitching their tents in the doorways of empty shops like refugees from the reality of a country living even further beyond its means than the rest of the United Kingdom.

    While few talk about the Sturgeonite obsession with another independence referendum, support for the SNP – even among intelligent people on the Left – seems hardly to have dwindled, which will disturb the Labour Party. This is despite a missing £660,000 or so of SNP donors’ money, and both Ms Sturgeon and her husband having helped the police with an apparently interminable inquiry into what went wrong in the party’s management of its internal finances. Doubtless we shall learn the truth one day: though not, perhaps, before the next election.

    But timing seems irrelevant. For large swaths of Scotland, support for a party offering separatism, even if separation never happens, makes many voters feel happier about themselves. It remains a means of indicating desire for freedom from the English paymaster – forgive me, oppressor – for whom the entire Scottish project since the act of Union of 1707 has, allegedly, been one of colonial exploitation. The truth is that the Scots – who largely built the British Empire, and were once an industrial powerhouse – have been even more corrupted by Labour and SNP bribes via the welfare state than other parts of the Kingdom; and it is far easier for the corrupted to hate the English than ever to admit that.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/31/snps-grip-on-scotland-tighter-than-we-think-labour-beware/

    1. ” …… even among intelligent people on the Left ….. ”
      You can’t be both. Either you are intelligent; or you are on the Left.
      Epic fail, Essex Boy. (But then he is from Chelmsford.)

  77. Could be onto something here…

    verica
    @VDejan0000
    I have a win/win solution for the insanity that we are dealing with here in Australia with all the climate rubbish, LGBTXYZ, Digital ID, Cashless society, renewable energy & 15 minute cities.

    Simple – split the country in half – all the leftists can live in the above said utopia on the West Coast & all the Freedom loving right wing people on the East Coast.

    I would even be happy to make the East & West of Australia 2 separate countries so that I never have to suffer again from stupid, insane Marxist putrid ideologies.
    9:53 AM · Apr 4, 2024

    1. Fantastic solution. Maybe we could do similar here. All leftists go to Wales or Scotland, all the freedom lovers live in England. Yay!

    2. It could well happen in Canada. The sensible people of Alberta and Saskatchewan have become extremely frustrated with Quebec biased governments and there ever stronger calls for Western Separation.

      Poor old BC will be stuck on the wrong side of the divide but tough on them.

  79. Tom Tugendhat ( our security minister ) condemned the United Nations Security Council . It was the most profound Israel Intervention. There are now calls for him to be sacked, so many lack courage and decency to stand up to the enemy.

    1. Sunak must take Israel arms issue ‘very seriously’, says ex-head of British Army

      Rishi Sunak must take a warning from hundreds of lawyers about suspending arms sales to Israel “very seriously”, a former head of the British Army has said.

      Lord Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff, said Mr Sunak would “do well to take note of” a letter signed by more than 600 lawyers which called on the Government to suspend sales.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/04/rishi-sunak-lee-anderson-conservative-party-lord-cameron/

      Lindsay Davis
      3 MIN AGO
      It’s been revealed over the last 18 months that Sunak really doesn’t have Leadership skills or a mind of his own.
      He’ll comply with anyone who tells him to comply…does he actually know the difference between right and wrong.?
      The only ones he refuses to listen to are the Patriotic British People who understand the that although War is Complicated and Messy…we know the difference between Good and Evil.

      1. The rhetoric around this story is typical of ingrained Leftist (Hegelian) dogma, the appeal to “International Law”. State power is only useful when they control it. If not then it’s on to the next deity. Previously it was the appeal to EU Law. As though these laws were cut into stone, brought down from the mountain by Moses.

      2. The rhetoric around this story is typical of ingrained Leftist (Hegelian) dogma, the appeal to “International Law”. State power is only useful when they control it. If not then it’s on to the next deity. Previously it was the appeal to EU Law. As though these laws were cut into stone, brought down from the mountain by Moses.

    2. The Holy Holy UN. As though it cannot be gamed and influenced.

      Several years ago Ben Shapiro characterised the UN as a “dog sh*t organisation” which I rather liked at the time. However I don’t think this is the case anymore, it has got worse.

      1. No idea what you love, Minty, because I blocked posts by Phizzee some time ago. Any idea of how to unblock him?

        1. Manage Your Block List

          Any user that you block will be added to your block list which is located in Settings > Blocking. Use the Previous and Next buttons to change pages, and use the Unblock button to remove a specific user that you no longer want to block. The maximum number of users you can block is 1,000.

          1. OK, Eric the Bee, I appreciate that you are trying to help me. But moving from left to right along the bottom of my screen (from Finder to Bin) I cannot find Settings. Looking at the bar at the top (from left to right) I can see the Apple logo, then Safari, then File, Edit, etc. until I reach Help. At Help I have found settings for nttl.blog and then I can go no further. Any advice on what to do next?

  81. Rain continues to pause so I’ve just done an hour’s chop-sawing of sticks and filled 9 mushroom trays.
    Everything is still soggy after last night’s rain so my glove got soaked and a bit cold so I’m come in to warm my hands up round a mug of tea and get another pair of work-gloves.

      1. Ask for them at the greengrocers, after they’re empty they have to get rid of them, take them home, chop saw the sticks to fit and fill them up.

      2. Ask for them at the greengrocers, after they’re empty they have to get rid of them, take them home, chop saw the sticks to fit and fill them up.

  84. Good afternoon all
    I decided to look up details of Hama under it proper name Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya first of all on the Government website.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version#list-of-proscribed-groups-linked-to-northern-ireland-related-terrorism

    I then looked at penalties for supporting a terrorist organisation and came up with this website. https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/proscription/

    It seems to me the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, large numbers MPs and many newspapers are guilty of supporting this organisation and should be arrested and charged.

    Who’s going to do that?
    Our country is well and truly lost.

  85. Made a Croustade today using filo and eating apples soaked in Armagnac . It was a Jamie Oliver recipe but i made all the corrections it needed to get a very nice crispy tart.

    1. You soaked apples and ate them? Nice! Did you have a hand spare for the croustade?

    2. A croustade should only be made in a wholly plaice and topped off with a red cross of the Nights Templars.

    3. To correct an Oliver recipe all you need to do is chuck away all his ingredients and add some proper ones instead.

      After all, that is precisely what Oliver does when he nicks the recipes of a proper chef and fucks it up.

      1. Too right. Him and his Italian chums are fucking useless. I remember seeing Genarro Contaldo filleting/destroying a fillet of fish. James Martin presenting raised an eyebrow. You can’t present yourself as someone who is an offiacianado and not know or be able to do the basics.

        They should stick to undercooking pasta.

    1. I asked the same question a few days ago, Maggie. Everyone on here claimed it was a scam. I have not pursued it further.

  90. More evidence of the ludicrous nature of Scotland’s new hate crime laws….

    DM headline: “Lawyers warn ENTIRE football stadium of fans could need to be arrested to enforce SNP’s new hate crime law – with football chiefs ‘completely in the dark’ about how it’ll be enforced just days before Rangers play Celtic”

    yeah, good luck with trying to police hate speech at a Rangers – Celtic match!

  91. Finnish school shooter was ‘victim of bullying’. 4 April 2024.

    “The motive for the act has been identified as bullying. The suspect has told the police during interrogations that he has been the victim of bullying and this information has also been confirmed in the police’s preliminary investigation,” police said in a statement.

    Mostly by the time you reach Maturity; unless you are the unfortunate victim of adult bullying, which is even worse, you have forgotten the experience. This is a part of the human defence mechanism. No one actually wants to remember the humiliation or guilt and you cannot carry all the miseries of life around in perpetuity or you would go mad. To remember what it was like you really have to apply yourself. When you do this its horrors return and become manifest. The absolute terror of going to school or meeting one of your tormentors. The joylessness of life. They actually wait for you. Hunt you down. No one else can really help you. Adults reassurances are worthless since they can do nothing either. Bullies of course know this so if you are smart you keep your mouth shut and suffer in silence. I make no judgement about this young person. Perhaps it was this or the other.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/03/finland-school-shooter-victim-of-bullying-vantaa/

    1. The way to handle a bully is to go berserk and punch them until they beg you to stop. It’s the only way.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. If you were capable of this you would not be bullied.

        1. Not necessarily.
          I knew a lad at school who was small for his age and constantly bullied.
          What the bullies did not know was that he had great self control and tried to ignore it. There was a good reason.

          One day one of the bullies finally made him snap and it was at that point that everyone discovered Pete was a champion boxer. Several teeth later the whimpering bully fell into a foetal position at which point Pete just turned and walked away.

          1. Interesting isn’t it that those trained in a discipline of fighting are least likely to bully others.

          3. Yes, I know.

            I’m watching Boardwalk Empire at the moment and people can be manipulated.

        2. Good afternoon your Mintyness.

          It’s why i mentioned berserk mode. You only need to do it once. Then return to placid. Word gets around.

      2. The kid who used to bully me stopped once I broke three of his ribs, collar bone, nose, pelvis and knee. 3 decades ago he crossed the road to avoid me.

        I was – am – fat. Wasn’t his business to make fun of it and yeah, fat kids hit really, really hard. Angry fat kids don’t stop, either.

      3. Firstborn was set upon at his secondary school, on the first day. He was short and looked fat, but it was (and is) all muscle.
        Bully was picked up by the shirt and hung on a coat peg, and advised to “never try anything like that again!” – which he didn’t.
        Problem solved.

        1. Proves my point i think. Though i couldn’t face them directly because unlike Oberst’s son i didn’t have the weight. Time…slowly slowly.

      1. The book was bad enough – I didn’t see the film. I was still at school when I read it.

    2. Why FA? What has religion got to do with football? The FA has no business in these matters and has become an activist organisation.

        1. 385422+ up ticks,

          Afternoon G,

          Are you denying my right to rhetorically introducing it at Wembley, just as someone has introduced that wailing screeeech.

  94. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/04/04/donald-trump-bible-religion-evangelical-election-biden/

    Another excellent article by Tim Stanley, albeit too long to paste here in full. He seems a man reborn.

    Donald Trump is selling bibles, which is as funny as it sounds (“We love Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Matthew. Luke and John, not so much.”) It confirms the cliches about political religion, that Republicans enjoy a commercial advantage on belief, handy in a country where families still go to church and the commandments hang on every wall (“Moses got ten commandments; I think I could’ve got eleven.”)

    Yet these certainties are crumbling. The current phase of politicised religion began in 1976 – with Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. Carter ran for president as an evangelical; it worked, though many voters, including Republicans, thought him weird. Once in office, the tension between Carter’s liberal politics and his religious piety became apparent – and the evangelical base he had mobilised defected to Ronald Reagan, to a candidate who would not only talk-the-Jesus-talk, but walk-the-walk on issues like abortion.

    Even if Carter failed the litmus test of Moral Majority conservatism, no one doubted the strength of his Christianity: he routinely polled high for trust. This faith in politicians’ beliefs seems to have ebbed. Plenty of Democrats are religious; Joe Biden talks often about his Catholicism. But many Americans simply don’t believe him.

    A recent Pew report shows that only 13 per cent of US voters think the president is “very religious”, 41 per cent “somewhat” and an astonishing 44 per cent not much or “not at all”. Trump fares even worse, with his figures standing at 4 per cent, 25 per cent and 68 per cent. Religious rhetoric washes over the masses. In the 1970s it was perceived as authentic; today, as theatre.

  95. 385422+ up ticks,

    Recognised as being the creature that crept from the park crapper post cottaging mission, to lift the latch on the gates of hell in regards to the British Isles.

    Three times in power and still has a shout, the left could not surely believe their luck in finding such as asset

    https://x.com/cold957/status/1775825347608522988?s=20

    1. He looks positively Satanic there as he gets ever older and closer to returning to the Hell from which he came.

      1. Blair is a revolting swine for some reason lauded by the political class. He was an odious, putrid, stinking Lefty. A hypocrite, liar, crook, cheat and should be chained in a sewer just deep enough so he doesn’t drown but only high enough that keeping his gob out of the filth is exhausting.

        He can share the chain with Mandelson.

          5. Consider this…Since the court ruling there has been a concerted effort to remove it from the Internet. Companies have been spawned to do just that to clean up reputations. If there were no guilty or shameful actions why would those companies be needed?

      2. I could help him there, I have been called a jolly good helper in the past.
        If he needs my services, he only needs to ask. (If the going gets to tough you understand)….

    4. 5 effniks a Scot and two leftie women – I suppose that must represent what’s left of Lond0n these days… (note the Net 0)

    6. I wonder what effect the knowledge that Khan is chairman of the C40 cities organisation and what that organisation has in store for the people under its control would do to the election result?

      1. It doesn’t seem to have made much difference so far. Muzzies don’t care as long as they get control, and can make sure only everyone who is non-muzzie is affected – weren’t they going to get exemption from ULEZ if they could claim they were going to a place of prayer?

  97. Electric car demand has slowed sharply in a sign that drivers are turning back to petrol. The market share of battery electric vehicles (EVs) declined last month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.

    EV registrations rose only 3.8pc from a year earlier, compared with a 10pc advance in the overall car market. Hybrid and petrol-powered cars showed the strongest growth. Petrol-engine sales rose 9.2pc and accounted for more than half of the total, while plug-in hybrids saw a 37pc increase. What gains EVs did achieve in March were driven entirely by fleet and business purchases, with sales to ordinary drivers dropping, the SMMT said.

    The figures add to evidence that the immediate market for battery-powered cars is a limited one. Early adopters desperate to drive a zero-emissions vehicle have already made the switch but the mass market is proving more reluctant. EVs cost significantly more than a similar diesel or petrol model, which is a major deterrent. Concerns about the UK’s sparsely spread charging infrastructure also continue to stoke so-called range anxiety.

    The SMMT’s figures came as Carlos Tavares, the head of carmaking giant Stellantis, whose brands include Vauxhall, Peugeot and Fiat, warned that electric vehicles are unlikely to ever be universally popular among drivers. Mr Tavares said at the company’s Freedom of Mobility Forum: “We should move away from a dogmatic thinking where one size fits all. “I don’t think this is going to work. What I would like to add is that the current EVs can be a solution for some of our societies.”

    Mr Tavares said the 500kg of raw materials currently required to produce an EV battery pack isn’t sustainable and said a technological breakthrough was required to halve the weight of battery packs over the next decade. The market share of battery vehicles fell to 15.2pc of sales in the UK in March, down from 16.2pc a year earlier, SMMT figures showed. Chief Mike Hawes said the shrinking share showed the challenge of boosting EV acceptance.

    Automakers have also been offering enticements such as 0pc finance and zero deposit, as well as packages that include servicing and maintenance. However, Mr Hawes warned “compelling offers” from manufacturers couldn’t be sustained indefinitely. He said: “Government support for private consumers, not just business and fleets, would send a positive message and deliver a faster, fairer transition on time and on target.”

    SMMT called for VAT on new EV sales to be halved, changes to plans to introduce road tax for the vehicles and a reduction in taxes on public charging points to bring them into line with home charging. At least 22pc of new cars sold by a manufacturer this year must be zero emission under government net zero rules. The threshold will rise annually to 100pc by 2035.

    Ideology meets market reality…

      1. Our number three is going to live and work in Dubai on Monday. He already has a job. And his fiancee will be catching up as soon as their flat is sold.
        Her sister and BiL have already lived there for three years..
        If you look on Google earth it looks very well organised and and modern. He’s taking his golf clubs with him.
        They both have been working in London for several years and have had enough of it.
        We mum and dad (Pops), of course wish them all the best.
        I’m not sure he’ll cope with the heat.

        1. Our daughter and sil have lived there for 13 years and have a wonderful lifestyle.
          Everywhere is air conditioned petrol 65p per litre.

          1. Interesting Alf thanks for that.
            From what I could see from all the street views, there are many comercial outlets with easily understandabke trade names.
            Lovely looking properties. Wide Tidy streets and all well laid out.

        3. They will love the life out there. As our daughter, s-I-law do. BTW if you don’t have a job out there you don’t get to go there in the first place. If job comes to an end so does your stay there. The lifestyle is amazing and everywhere is air conditioned. Everywhere is modern, the old quarters are so tiny now.

          1. Interesting, thanks very much for that VW
            His lady is very clever and is currently working for the UK government.
            Perhaps that’s why she’s not going with him yet. They haven’t really discussed that with us.

          1. They went there on holiday a couple of years ago. Sky dived as well.
            I really do understand how people can get pissed off with this country.
            We went to Oz 1976.
            Quite often I wish we’d stayed.🤠

    2. I wonder where Sparkhill, Bradford, and Tower Hamlets would feature IF they were foreign countries.

    3. Well I was in Kenya a few weeks ago and at no time did I feel unsafe. That ‘red’ list is nonsense. There are less safe areas of Kenya, near the Somali or Sudan borders, but they are hardly tourist areas.

    4. I see South Africa is not on that list – yet it is the murder capital of Africa and probably the world.

    1. You’ve got plenty of money Dave you help them out get yourself over there. We won’t miss you. 🇺🇦 .
      Promise….

    2. You’ve got plenty of money Dave you help them out get yourself over there. We won’t miss you. 🇺🇦 .
      Promise….

    3. Lord Cameron of Greensill and Greepeace. Anybody else remember his triumphs in Libya and Syria? Ideal Foreign Secretary for Rishi-nass-migration-Sunak.

    4. The constant demands for money to support Ukraine do not make sense, if you’re an outsider that is. $60 Billion from USA which, according to Steve Bannon’s analysis, is being sold to the public as a loan and not a donation: chances of the USA getting the money back? Nil. Chances of the USA getting the money back with interest…

      Now, Cameron is on the bandwagon with his begging bowl for cash. Why? Perhaps he could explain how cash money will deter the Russians?

      Ukraine has been turned into an avaricious black hole for both money and hardware. Has anyone kept receipts?

    1. I thought that. Living in East Anglia myself, it is very easy to see which parts of the coast are safe and which are not and has been for years.

      1. I live in Norfolk, too. I have always wondered why the idiots who buy cliff edge properties are SURPRISED when the house falls onto the each.

      2. I am sorry for people who have lost their homes but i also think some people have been opportunist and bought property on the cheap.

  102. Grizz sent me a jar of figs in Armagnac. I have eaten the figs and had the Armagnac left over waiting for inspiration.

    I only posted that i liked them and he bought me some !

      1. Phizzee steeped in alcohol.

        I wish someone had taken a picture of my face when i opened that parcel.

  103. Nato states are playing ‘Russian roulette’ with lack of defence spending. 4 April 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15b4bec36b7bee8196d1f2f3dabf3cf5bd453568fcca9862e8225f151ec99a44.png

    I spotted this comment first thing this morning and have been keeping an eye on it. It wasn’t particularly supportive of Vlad but then it wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about NATO and Co either. I don’t have any doubt that the balance of opinion has turned against the latter, which leaves the Telegraph in something of a quandary. It now occupies the minority position in their own columns.
    .
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/03/shapps-we-cannot-play-russian-roulette-with-nato-funds/

      1. The article is about NATO defence spending and the argument that by NOT spending 2% on the government department we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to Putin.

        I imagine the original poster mentioned something about the domestic threat massive uncontrolled muslim invasion is causing.

        In either case, giving the MoD more money is pointless. It doesn’t go to the military, it goes into the black hole of state. It is the pretence of defence spending by funding the state machine.

      2. The article is about NATO defence spending and the argument that by NOT spending 2% on the government department we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to Putin.

        I imagine the original poster mentioned something about the domestic threat massive uncontrolled muslim invasion is causing.

        In either case, giving the MoD more money is pointless. It doesn’t go to the military, it goes into the black hole of state. It is the pretence of defence spending by funding the state machine.

      3. Afternoon Bill. The Top Comment has been deleted. It was a repudiation of NATO’s position. The Telegraph has shown its hand once more as a Globalist Lackey.

          1. What is NATO’s position?

            Fannying around from a voyeuristic stance, having done its damnedest both to start and prolong the fight/carnage. Solidly briefing the western press for at least the lat 18 months that Putin is about to collapse within the next month.

      4. Without member states funding – a minimum of 2% of national budgets – NATO is a paper tiger.

        Trump has threatened to boycott NATO unless [all] members pay up.

        1. NATO has been a paper tiger since the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been trying to justify it’s existence ever since.

    1. You cannot believe both sides. So I look at that, hamas tried to destroy Israel and they asked for all they get in return. I look at the full picture and the history going back over 2000 years.

      1. Well there is a perfectly reasonable argument that the predecessors of Hamas were there first and that Israel pinched their land.

        1. Now you need to prove that. If you google look what you find.

          The ancient history of the land of Israel includes many centuries
          during which the land was governed by the Jewish people. Beginning in
          approximately 1000 BCE, which was the beginning of the Iron Age, under
          King Saul, David, and Solomon, the entire land of Israel was under a
          unified Jewish kingdom.26 Feb 2024

          1. That was a while ago. The region has also been ruled successively by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid and Hellenistic empires, Hasmonean kingdom, Herodian rulers, Roman and Byzantine empires, Arab Caliphates (Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid), Crusaders, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman empires.

            So it seems to have belonged to almost everyone at some point. Not just Israel.

          2. Well Hamas should have made peace and refused.No one can agre so it will just go on and on. and that is my last comment. Have a good day PP.

    2. You cannot believe both sides. So I look at that, hamas tried to destroy Israel and they asked for all they get in return. I look at the full picture and the history going back over 2000 years.

        1. Many civilised nations would join in to sort out the Iranians for once and for all.

        2. They could make common cause with Assad. Hezbollocks are operating in southern Syria who are also funded and weaponised by Iran. I might add the the Biden fucked up left wing shithouse administration recently gave millions of dollars to Iran.

          1. I expect our resident foam-flecked muzzie half-wit Useless did as well! Now waiting for smashing of front door!

          2. We could go into business together. New Doors ‘R’ Us…… We could be millionaires! Think of those tropical island beaches we could lounge around on….

          4. You would have to do all the cleaning, cooking, sweeping, cocktail making while i designed doors on my Ipad from my sun lounger. I think that’s a fair. :@)

    2. It will mean that Russia cannot source weapons from Iran as well as force the US to step up action against the Mullahs.

      1. I don’t think the Russians are particularly worried about arms from Iran. They now have an economy/industry on a highly efficient war footing.

  110. That isn’t the point. It looks like Netanyahu set this up deliberately and facilitated the Hamas attack to provide an excuse to attack Gaza.

    1. If the Israelis manage to kill all of Hamas, that will be a good thing.

  111. It’s really frightening to know how towards the end of civilisation we are .
    So much hated towards Isreal and defence towards terrorism.
    Muslims will kill Jews and then Christians.

    1. Like with the fall of the Roman Empire i feel there is a death wish. Forces beyond our control are making it reality. And on that note……………………..Have you watched the film ‘Enchanted April’? A little escapism to a more gentle time.

    3. And then they will die themselves because they can’t keep an industrialised, civilised western society going – so who will provide all their health, education and benefits when we’re all gone?

    4. And then they will die themselves because they can’t keep an industrialised, civilised western society going – so who will provide all their health, education and benefits when we’re all gone?

  112. Then why is the west supporting Hamas? They are you know by tuning against Israel because of one man’s machinations if you are right.
    Why aren’t Jordan and Egypt temporarily accepting innocent Palestinians so they have somewhere to go out of the battle zone?
    To many unanswered questions on both sides I’m afraid Polly for this to be cut and dried.
    I have no idea what is really going on but I don’t think it’s as simple as one side good and the other bad, bolstered by a great pr job.

    1. Because Soros wants a ceasefire and the war to stop in Gaza and a two state solution so therefore his puppets Biden, Sunak, Cameron and the rest want the same.

      It’s the same in reverse with Ukraine. Soros wants Russia out to protect his business interests in Kiev (probably laundering international aid with the crooked Democrats and RINOs) and because Putin threw Open Society out of Moscow. So therefore his puppets Biden, Sunak, Johnson, Cameron, Lammy and Macron and the rest don’t want a ceasefire or a two state solution and want the war to go on.

      Netanyahu appears to want all the Palestinians out of Gaza and into Egypt, Jordan or removed to Europe permanently. Then Gaza will be merged into Israel and rebuilt for Israelis. That
      appears to be why Netanyahu wanted an excuse to invade Gaza by relaxing security and so facilitating the original massacre.

      That’s how I see it based on the evidence and the facts so far. Happy to be proved wrong.

      1. Can agree with all but your last statement. Netanyahu and Hamas both want the end of the other . Jewish people living in the region just want to be left alone as far as I can see, which is why they gave back Gaza.
        Hamas has publicly declared its intention to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, along with as many Jews as they can take out.
        If the ordinary Jews and Arabs in Palestine and Israel don’t want that, then they need to get together and do something about it.
        I don’t think it’s for anyone in the west to decide on the moral high ground or dictate terms.
        As for Soros well, he is like all
        megalomaniacs and believes just because he controls a large part of the west by proxy, the world belongs to him.
        Even Charlemagne, Alexander and Genghis Khan couldn’t pull that one off.
        The ideal solution would be no Palestinian or Israeli state, but that they all lived together in the same country.
        It will never happen of course,
        but the idea of sacrificing Israel because the Arabs who live in Gaza are terrified of
        being killed by Hamas if they don’t agree to act as human shields for their terrorism is just not acceptable to me I’m afraid.

        1. Netanyahu surely knows he can’t obliterate Hamas without killing or displacing most people in Gaza. That’s what appears to be happening and the excuse for it was what appears to be a deliberate facilitation of the massacre on October 7 2023.

          If the foregoing is true, and I can’t see any evidence against it, then surely Israel is totally out of order? They have mainly successfully lived with the Hamas threat through vigilance, high security and technology. So why change a successful strategy into a regional bloodbath?

  115. 385422+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Will today’s dover invasion force influx, be eligible for a state pension, I know in some parts of the United Kingdom they are on 400 sobs a week I take that to be as a retainer activated if the indigenous get a tad uppidy cometh the take over.

    Why is dover being supported via the political parties scum running these Isles, do these supporters believe we can support the whole world in education, medication, accommodation, incarceration, AND PENSIONS

    1. Perhaps they hope that lower living standards (possibly combined with modern medication) will produce shorter life expectancy and most won’t reach pension age. Third world culture delivers quite well on that front.

      2. But third world countries don’t allow their plebs to jump the queue for medical treatment, or give them benefits…

    2. Sure they will, but I doubt there will be much worth collecting by the time they reach pensionable age.

  116. They kept their house over here which has proved a boon to their two beautiful daughters when they’re at term ends from university. D comes over for most of the summer and sil as often as he can. We’ve been there on a number of occasions but not recently as the thought of a 7 hour flight there and 8 hours coming back does not appeal anymore.

    1. And you think that wasn’t by design? (Well, the white accent is photoshopped.)

      1. Nah – you know that the back of a fridge always feels very hot…..

        Same principle in the Arctic!!

    2. Oh dear the DWs will not like that.
      I had the impression that they are recipients of commission for every mentioned of GW or CC.

    3. That is so strange , because when I was at school , we all heard there was going to be an ice age sooner than later , but that was during the Cuban missile crisis !

  119. A clambering Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,020 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Close call here.
      Wordle 1,020 5/6

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

    2. Onwards and upwards. Par four here.

      Wordle 1,020 4/6

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

    3. Well done! Boring, boring Arsenal here…..

      Wordle 1,020 4/6

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

  120. Around 1 in 6,500 adults, or around 10,000 people in the UK, are thought to have the faulty version of the BSM gene, (a fat promoting gene) also known as “Bassoon”.

    How inappropriate! It really should be called Assoon!

  121. Who are the trans Nottlers?

    How many male Nottlers use a female pseudonym and how many female Nottlers us a male pseudonym?

    (My pseudonym, Rastus, is a male name and I am a male just as my wife, Caroline, who does not bother with a pseudonym, is a woman)

    1. I assume that all NoTTLers are male unless there is clear evidence of their transness. Or womanness.

      1. Mr Thomas is constantly confusing me with my friend The Master (Mister Lime). I think he does it to upset me, although he once very kindly loaned me £20 to enable me to buy some of the Most Recent’s home-made Lemon Curd. So he’s not a bad cove after all. The £20 was repaid promptly.

  124. I don’t suppose there are many married couples who post on the same sites. In fact it’s usually just one of them whereas the spouse does other things. I think both your lovely wife Caroline and yourself are the exception to the rule as you both post here . But this site doesn’t feel like the usual blogsites, you all seem like an extended family in many ways but I don’t suppose there are any others here who are married to each other- forgive me if that’s not correct .

      1. I’m not sure exactly what he was trying, but it was not successful, from a NoTTL point of view.

    2. There’s vw and Alf, (I hope I’ve got the right pairing, I’m dreadful with names).

  125. That’s me gone for today. Very good lecture from the British School at Rome yesterday evening. All about the amount of STUFF – food, fuel, building materials – needed per day to keep a large city such as Ostia – going. Fascinating. Though I have been a student of Roman history for 75 years, it never occurred to me before that they would need TONS of wood every DAY to keep the famous baths (large and small) going.

    Otherwise, a day of rain followed by rain. More rain tomorrow. Saturday, however, promises to be a scorcher. Allegedly. According to the Wet Office. I expect there will be warnings about the dangers of being out in 20ºC temperatures….. “Wear protective gear”; “Drink lots of water”.**

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain.

    ** Add your own fatuous choice…!

    1. Medical professionals routinely use drugs to treat the unwelcome side effects of the initial drug prescribed to treat a patient’s diagnosed ailment.

      My GP told me that the drug he had just prescibed for me would in all likelihood give me a cough but he could give me another drug to alleviate the symptoms.

      1. 385422+ up ticks,

        Evening PJ,

        What is also truly unbelievable is the fact that a multitude still do believe in them.

    1. That’s why muzzling the internet is probably high up on their target list. I can’t believe that the internet as we know it is going to last very long.

  128. Another Irish road sign, true. Apologies to Irish Nottlers, no offence meant but I loved living there.
    On the Ring of Kerry. On the sign “Please drive carefully, 48 Road deaths last year,” the 48 was covered with spray paint and “47 – Seamus made it” sprayed on the sign.

    2. “Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!

      “May the road rise to meet you” – or in more realistic phraseology:

      “May your journey be successful”.

      1. Evening Opo. We have been putting together a dossier of our ex Vicar’s emails and announcements to us – although he’;s now saying he’s resigned but is still our Vicar despite refusing to do services etc – and he uses it a lot amongst other meanngless verbiage. Even my Microsoft spellchecker doesn’t recognise it.

        1. That’s because there’s no such word, JD. It is a word made up by someone with the misplaced intention of appearing big and clever. This is all sounding very Trollope

          1. It seems to be all the rage among higher clergy. I don’t know why they don’t just revert back to speaking Latin so the rest of us cannot understand what they’re saying as that is clearly their desire.

        2. I’d love to see a Captain Black (he of the old Spectator BTL) quick review of your old Vicar!

          1. I do know him in real life by the way. Completely different from his online persona.

        1. Intentional joke. And if you think about the joke, the meaning of intentionality becomes clear

          2. If you don’t know the word, here’s one for your collection:

            epexegesis.

            Essentially it’s the addition of words to make the meaning of something clearer.
            A word that relatively few people will have come across I suspect, and if it was used I have always felt it would make the meaning more obscure as people have to look it up..

          6. I know it as ‘Verschlimmbesserung’ – it means ‘a change promoted as an improvement which actually makes things worse’. English equivalent: ‘disimprovement’.

          7. As I’ve studied some translation theory, that is a word with which I am already familiar, along with the derived adjective to describe the added words: epexegetical.

    4. Found this in a dictionary.

      intentionality | inˌten(t)SHəˈnalədē |

      noun

      the fact of being deliberate or purposive.

      • Philosophy the quality of mental states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs

        1. Just about sums it up.
          Don’t know if it works for you but I can highlight the word, it goes blue, then right click and choose ‘look up’ and it searches.

          1. Deleted, as I was supporting the use of the word “purposive” while JD might have been referring to “intentionality”…

          2. Deleted, as I was supporting the use of the word “purposive” while JD might have been referring to “intentionality”…

        2. Purposive

          is an approach to statutory and constitutional interpretation under which common law courts interpret an enactment (a statute, part of a statute, or a clause of a constitution) within the context of the law’s purpose.

          Purposive interpretation is a derivation of mischief rule set in Heydon’s Case,[5] and intended to replace the mischief rule, the plain meaning rule and the golden rule.[6] Purposive interpretation is used when the courts use extraneous materials from the pre-enactment phase of legislation, including early drafts, hansards, committee reports, and white papers. The purposive interpretation involves a rejection of the exclusionary rule.

          1. AAARgh! It never ends. i bet so many of these obscurantist words are now in legal and political general currency since the enrichment of the Saint Floyd George (who knew my father, btw) movement

    5. Looking at other comments about vicars could the case be that –
      God only knows.

    6. Intentionality Is the power of the mind, beliefs and actions, it’s the central philosophical concept of the mind. It’s terminology derives from the scholasticism medieval school of philosophy and isn’t the same meaning as intentionally .

      1. Useful in the context of the new Scottish philosophical crackdown/endarkenment

  132. Mr Thomas is constantly confusing me with my friend The Master (Mister Lime). I think he does it to upset me, although he once very kindly loaned me £20 to enable me to buy some of the Most Recent’s home-made Lemon Curd. So he’s not a bad cove after all. The £20 was repaid promptly.

  133. There is also a metro and at most stops there is a shopping centre and business district.
    Waitrose have a branch at the Emirates Mall I think.

    1. When it came to light i thought it was hilarious. I could just picture your husband tittering away.

  135. Different topic, but as far as I’m aware this is the only word in English with three y’s and no vowels:

    Syzygy

    Splendid isn’t it? And particularly appropriate with the eclipse coming up

    1. I’m still not going to renew. Murray now has a much wider platform, anyway. I am amazed that he can tolerate the anti-Israel zeitgeist at the Speccie.

      1. Neither am I. The increased support for Stasi state Labour and the new Muslim writers is off-putting.

    2. I miss very few of the writers now and much prefer the Critic. Have Peta etc returned there?

      1. I’ve not seen her over there BTL. I really miss the commentary and conversation from you, PetaJ and all the others.

        2. Peta is here for long periods talking and sending posts and then she’ll do other things in life I suppose. But she is here a lot which is a delight.

        3. I do still read the articles and occasionally comment, but it just isn’t nearly so much fun any more.

          4. I think she ended up hating everyone didn’t she? Even poor Tom Armstrong who did his best to try and keep the peace😆

        1. Youve a vibrant character and are missed here by Nottlers and Spexiles alike who both enjoy your company .

          1. Thank you for those very kind words 😊 I’ve been a little quiet recently because I had a very busy Easter then these past few days some unusually bad spring allergy attacks due, no doubt, to the very unusual spring we have had. I shall have an early night tonight and hopefully be more lively tomorrow!

      3. The Critic is very good indeed with it’s writers.
        The Speccie now has a few new young leftie & Muslim writers plus new posters that use the app.
        Guido Fawkes is a small political site ( just politics- but he’s on the ball with political goings on – uses Vuukle which they moan about – nothing is equal to disqus . Some of the Archbishop Cranmer people are there – the odd Speccie person but I don’t know the others but it’s good on political news – it’s not a chatty site .
        The Speccie as it used to be was much better then now . Sue Ward and Lewis are still at the Spectator. The rest seem to go back and forth from here to there . I just wish the Critic had a comments section – the articles on whatever subject are superb.

    3. Starmer does Labour do indeed have a Gaza problem, it’s our problem too as many of those Gaza supporters in this country will be Labour’s new Muslim constituency MPs In the northern areas . Muslims vote for Muslims .

        1. In the case of one self-imported culture, certainly so. They’re not all the same.

        2. In the case of one self-imported culture, certainly so. They’re not all the same.

  137. I’ve temporarily vanished ( blocked Is a harsh word) a church warden of this parish from my view. The thoughts of his parishioners suffering due to the benighted vicar ( not stuffed in the priest hole ) is giving me much stress. I shall un- vanish him ( unblock him ) when he’s unburdened by his vicar .

        5. I have realised…..! It took me a while, skulking in the bushes, peering over the top and then through the branches, saying nowt for a good while before plucking up the courage.

          The dynamics have changed.

          1. I agree the dynamics have changed. We were not exactly a clique, but a group of people who knew each other well and shared the same wavelength. We had family in-jokes.

          1. Where have we gone wrong? We are trying our best and we are very appreciative.

        7. I do not get the grievances. The Speccie refugees have been a welcome addition.

          1. I don’t disagree, Stig. I did say “some”. On the Spectator, some BTLers have furious and virulent ad hominem correspondence – which goes on and on. On NoTTL, that tends NOT to happen. On any forum I think any newcomer should dip a toe in and initially proceed with caution. And certainly not behve as though one has known fellow postrs for years (as they ma well have on the Speccie).

          6. As I have just written to JD below, it is very weird for us all these days. I am foxed, Angelina, as to why you are being so uncharacteristically uncharitable to JD. I know he can be extremely irritating (ha!) but his heart is in the right place.

          9. I just sent him a picture of Audrey Hepburn, I’m certain he’d love to have been Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. it’s an invisible hug.

          10. He was a lucky swine there, although apparently he thought her great and told the studio to give her equal billing even though it was her first big role, He was a decent man.

          19. I’m sure it’s the case and for your mother to know.
            Good night, sleep well .

          25. Check me out, Angeline – a mere 80 year old, lonesome and in need od companionship, hugs and kisses..

        2. I try not to BLOCK any one but RICHARDSK always comes up as ‘ Content Unavailable’ Fix it please, Richard. I’ve NOT blocked you.

  142. Peta is here rather a lot, she’ll have a long blogging session of a day or so and then she’ll not be so .

  144. At the top of the page where it shows number of comments on the left and your user name and the red or black dot about notifications, click on your name and you will get a drop down menu which has edit settings near the bottom; click on that. You should then have a menu on the left which has blocking at the bottom. You should then be shown anyone you have blocked on the right and I assume you will have an unblock button you should use. (My original post was just a copy of the disqus help).

    1. Thank you, ericthebee. I finally managed to unblock Phizzee and a myriad of his posts. But, having found that someone called Clarissa (who she?) had also apparently been blocked by me I followed the same procedure only to encounter a message which said something like “contents unavailable” ?!?!?! Anyhow ericthebee thanks once again for your help.

    1. They look so lovely in photographs but in reality are very high maintenance, damp and full of bugs and spiders. Good luck (the best of British)

      1. We have one! Probably Victorian, judging by the glazing. It has a generator in it!

      2. I would agree with the high maintenance, but mine is not damp, nor is it full of bugs and spiders. I use it as my studio.

      3. Good evening opopanax . My dear heroic husband of many decades would tell you that our little cottage garden is too small for a summer house and my health much too fragile for the upkeep of one but I don’t mind spiders – I have them in the cottage. I just liked the idea of a summer house even if ill never have one . That’s all .

        1. Go for it, Angel! I was just being an eeyore, a habit I must stop. Those little round (or octagonal) ones are indeed very pretty and easily accommodated in the smallest of gardens

          1. You’re lovely as you are . Husband and I are decluttering which takes up much energy and shan’t add to it. I’m happy sitting by the pond, it’s shady and I can watch the dragonflies during the summer .

      1. Paul, he was attempting to help me to unblock Phizzee (aka Polly Parrot?) and I think he may have show me how to do the trick. I shall now check and report back. But in attempting to unblock him it said that I had also blocked someone called Clarissa. I have no idea who this is!!!

        UPDATE: This has done the trick since I can now see at least one post by Phizzee. Thank you so much for this Eric the Bee.

          1. Gosh. I never realised that Angelina had lured us to such a site. And we thought the Speccie a den of iniquity.

          2. Ho ho.
            There was a “bot” plague a couple of years ago where posts were up-voted by various “girls” looking for “fun”.
            The mods had a Hell of a task blocking them all.

        3. Good! A few people, including Sir Jasper have said they can’t see some posts from others, so if they follow the instructions in my reply to Elsie’s post this afternoon, it may work for them too.

        4. What was the TRICK, Elsie. I have Problems with RICHARDSK he appears blocked on my site but I have NO blocks

          1. Sorry, Sir Jasper, my problem was that Clarissa (or some such name) was allegedly blocked by me, but in attempting to unblock her I received a post telling me that I could not. I can only refer you to the very helpful ericthebee.

        5. Nice to see you to see you nice.
          You keep vanishing.
          Me not Polly. Can’t imagine why you might think so.

      2. Paul, he was attempting to help me to unblock Phizzee (aka Polly Parrot?) and I think he may have show me how to do the trick. I shall now check and report back. But in attempting to unblock him it said that I had also blocked someone called Clarissa. I have no idea who this is!!!

        UPDATE: This has done the trick since I can now see at least one post by Phizzee. Thank you so much for this Eric the Bee.

          3. It was the blog birthday April 1st. Normally a lunch is organised. Probably around the end of this month. Don’t know where…don’t know when…hopefully near Woking.

        3. Pay no attention to that Stephenroi chap; he’s a bargee and even his friends won’t touch his pole.

        2. I think he is a Carlisle Boy ans we hope to have Northern NNoTTLers Lunch at some point in the near future.

  149. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc07293990104b44da80f4a894942334a35e8ab3ad42a84d4d907e5f36e17560.jpg

    Bats are wonderful creatures given a bad name by those vampire films. i find many of them during nocturnal visits to my woods in the summer. wings as delicate as lace and fur silky soft. If they end up tangled in your hair- theyre not attacking you – they just cannot see. They don’t have the prettiest of faces but i still think them lovely.

    1. From my boating journal:

      “One early evening at dusk, I was moored at Hurley listening to “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky, being played on BBC Radio 3 whilst many bats overhead performed an aerial ballet, feasting on insects. Magical!”

      3. Another occasion onboard a ship, also SE Asia, I was called on the tannoy to go to cabin 21 (or whatever). I was regarded as the resident naturalist and this happened from time to time. The guy in the cabin quivering at the door pointed to his bunk and said, ‘There’s something in the bed!’ There was a small lump under the sheet and as I approached, the lump whizzed around under the sheet. I carefully lifted sheet and beheld the ugliest flying mammal on earth, a small bat that looked something like this.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a30cd71e2a3bd70079b7ae8253e21ffa538c168823daf626aebd088f5a9e994f.jpg
        A pair of stout gloves and I popped it out of the porthole.

    2. From my boating journal:

      “One early evening at dusk, I was moored at Hurley listening to “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky, being played on BBC Radio 3 whilst many bats overhead performed an aerial ballet, feasting on insects. Magical!”

    3. You would have to be extremely unlucky to get one in your hair.
      The walls and outbuildings of château sosraboc have dozens, if not hundreds of bats roosting, some even over-winter.
      They are harmless, unless you get really up close and personal and catch wu-flu or similar, although their droppings can be unpleasant

      1. I think the getting tangled in the hair thing is a myth. We have loads of bats here (I have a colony in my bathroom whatsitcalled). I have never had one tangled in my hair (I think their sonar/radar system prevents such disasters). I do wish, though, that they did not shit so much and carry so many spooky diseases. (Airing cupboard was the word that escaped me)

        1. We sometimes get them in the house in the summer, when we open the windows, and they certainly fly very close by one’s head. Close enough to feel the air pressure changes from the fluttering of their wings.
          I’ve sometimes had to catch them to release them, but it takes patience and dexterity, one doesn’t wish to injure them.
          They love sheltering behind the shutters during the day and I’m always very amused when one of the cottage guests sees them and shrieks.
          One of my silly pleasures is sitting on a garden bench, waiting for when they appear by apparently falling out of the walls and then turn and fly off.
          Half a dozen or more, plop, plop, plopping from a tiny gap in the stonework.

          1. That’s exactly how they leave our loft, fall a couple of feet and then get the wings working.

          2. One year in the Lot at midday I witnessed a bat emerge from the metal cone on top of a telephone pole fly around it a couple of times and then go back in. The remarkable thing was the air temperature 40oC…!

        2. We sometimes get them in the house in the summer, when we open the windows, and they certainly fly very close by one’s head. Close enough to feel the air pressure changes from the fluttering of their wings.
          I’ve sometimes had to catch them to release them, but it takes patience and dexterity, one doesn’t wish to injure them.
          They love sheltering behind the shutters during the day and I’m always very amused when one of the cottage guests sees them and shrieks.
          One of my silly pleasures is sitting on a garden bench, waiting for when they appear by apparently falling out of the walls and then turn and fly off.
          Half a dozen or more, plop, plop, plopping from a tiny gap in the stonework.

    6. Talking of bats, and I mean that in the nicest possible way because she loves them and is extremely knowledgeable about them, has anyone seen KJ recently? I’ve not seen her for quite a while and it’s a shame because she is great fun too.

      1. I’m here, see you time to time. My Disqus screwed up again, but seems to be working now.

          1. Thanks, thought of you earlier after reading a couple of Spec articles. Disqus seems to be working again there, for now anyway.

          2. I’ve not had a problem with posting on the Speccie, but not getting any notifications is a real bore 🙁 Even if I can remember where I commented, if there are a lot of comments I really can’t be bothered to scroll through them all!

          3. I haven’t seen you recently on any Spectator article message board…if you want to give me an article you posted on, I’ll check it out? I have two Disqus accounts, one is Spectator, other is nttl. Far as I’m aware, the whole Disqus fiasco was because some Telegraph subscribers were piggy backing on that subscription to post on the Spectator. Sounds bizarre, but maybe the two publications shared the same database, which might have skewed the subscriber numbers vis a vis the recent potential sale. I’m only guessing – not a programmer, but something odd certainly happened. A hardcore of us remained on the Spectator, or seemed to when many moved to nttl…me, IanEss, Baron, Lord Snooty, Ghaaaastly..I remember Lord Snooty told Princess whosit to take a hike. Last few days, there are a number of commenters names seem new – are they really new subscribers, or have they found a new loophole?

          4. I thought that the change was made because people who read the Spectator on the App couldn’t comment and the change made it possible for them to do so. If that is right, then the new ones are probably App users now able to comment. I very much doubt that subscribers are counted via the comments especially as Fraser said that only 1% did comment! They will be counted quite simply by subscriptions paid.
            I’ve commented on Alexander Larman’s article today, and a couple of others too.

          5. Well now, that’s all interesting…I can see some ‘content unavailable’ on the Larman article…perhaps that’s you, as I can’t actually see you your name there? I downloaded the app, the latest version, and can’t see any comments there or facility to do so. Subscribers will be counted by a database, think most publications/web sites will have that. I don’t think I’ve blocked you, but will check…your comment here is from nttl, not the Speccie. Now I can’t even get on Speccie Disqus, keeps reverting to nttl…

          6. Yes, I see content unavailable too and making enquiries has revealed that it is you! For some reason the Speccie website doesn’t seem to want us to talk to each other 🤣 Have you checked that you haven’t inadvertently blocked me?

          7. I just did a few minutes ago..not blocked you either speccie or nttl…have logged out of the lot, then your reply came up on Mble so replying from there. I get replies OK from Spectator but I think you, Geoff, opopanax only ones on nttl and not so much. Going to leave it awhile, again.

    7. Walking from Wooler to Middleton Hall after Army Cadets, about a 2 mile stroll, I used to be able to hear bats, a high pitched tsik tsik noise.
      Sadly not something I’ve been able to hear for decades.

      1. I think only children can hear them – I could then. Now I can hardly hear the birds.

        1. I was 12 to 14 then. ’64 to ’66! Grief, was it REALLY that long ago???

  150. I’m not sure exactly what he was trying, but it was not successful, from a NoTTL point of view.

  151. I’m not sure exactly what he was trying, but it was not successful, from a NoTTL point of view.

        1. What are those three things in front of the bee? (The things that look like innnards)

          1. Clapping emoji! Tom can’t see them either! He gets little square boxes!

        2. That always reminds me of an old Morecambe and Wise show moment.

          Ernie started with singing “Sing something simple…” (In the style of the old signature tune of that programme)
          And Eric sang back “Ernie Wise”.

          I wish I could find a clip of it, but it was so quick.

    3. INCEST – the game the whole family can play
      WIFESWAP – the game the whole neighbourhood can play…

  155. Ho ho.
    There was a “bot” plague a couple of years ago where posts were up-voted by various “girls” looking for “fun”.
    The mods had a Hell of a task blocking them all.

  156. My visit tonight is just a temporary break from emptying boxes from the house move and a distraction from our wait to see the consultant for the result of tests Mrs Bee had a couple of weeks ago. I am rocking back and forth between concern and worry, with the latter winning out.

      1. Friends of my parents were emigrating to Canada in the mid 1960s and had been in their house about two years. They were going through stuff as to whether to take or bin. The wife said, “ we have the things in the attic to go through”. The husband said, “ No, anything there can go to the tip. We haven’t needed it in the two years we have been here, so we won’t need any of it n future” .

          2. My mother didn’t. She threw everything away. I have the hoarding gene in spades!

          3. My mother had it too…….. she kept all sorts of rubbish (but not her old id card).

    4. I can only hope. Eric, that all is resolved soon, and to a satisfactory conclusion. Sending hugs for Mrs Bee.

    5. I can only hope. Eric, that all is resolved soon, and to a satisfactory conclusion. Sending hugs for Mrs Bee.

  157. There are various versions of this but you’ll get the gist.

    God, give me grace to accept with serenity
    the things that cannot be changed,
    Courage to change the things
    which should be changed,
    and the Wisdom to distinguish
    the one from the other.

    Good luck.

  158. Do you have a date for the follow up appointment? If not speak to the Consultant’s secretary and confirm that they have the test results – it may prompt them to book you in…

  159. Sorry to hear that, Eric. Sending thoughts and good wishes to Mrs. Bee and your good self.
    No wonder you didn’t want to hear my song!

    1. I may be mistaken and confusing another alias, but the bat in question catches the bugs with her knees.

  166. I may have missed a post, has anyone heard how Delboy36 and Mrs Delboy got on?

  167. Mrs D has heart problems, leaky valve and in addition COPD which prevented an operation that had been booked..
    Not good.
    I pray they are OK.

  168. Another day is done so, I wish you goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

    1. Ok, I noticed there is a Sue Macfarlane in the Stirling area on a friend’s list.

  174. Well chums, it’s been rather a long day for me today, so I am now off to bed. Good Night, sleep well, and until we all meet again on Friday.

  176. They had a chat with the GP, he told us this afternoon. GP will try to find out what’s happening.

  178. She is sticking with the Speccie (up to a point) but also appears here from time to time. She has a (variable) number after her name now and a moth avatar.

  179. Ireland is too poor to afford Irish unification

    A new report outlines the massive costs. Sinn Fein seems to imagine the British will pay them

    RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS • 4 April 2024 • 6:00pm

    Yesterday brought yet another report on the potentially enormous costs of Irish unification, this time from a Dublin think tank, the Institute of International and European Affairs. Soberly titled Irish Northern Ireland Subvention. Possible Unification Effects, it was parodied in a headline on the Sluggerotoole.com website: “Reports estimate Irish Reunification to cost somewhere between 37 pence and 44 trillion pounds …”

    But the authors, Professor Edgar Morgenroth and John FitzGerald, are well-regarded economists. It is more than five decades since FitzGerald’s father, Garret, (who would first become Taoiseach in 1981), also an economist, tried to introduce some reality to the debate with his book Towards a New Ireland, which confronted some of the challenges of unifying Ireland very early in the blood-soaked years of the Troubles.

    He warned that tax levels would soar in the south to match the substantially higher public spending northerners were accustomed to. Now his son believes that it could cost as much as £20.5 billion annually for two decades to give northerners the same welfare and public sector pay rates as the south.

    Northern Ireland was impoverished by the destruction of the Troubles and the sectarian and political mistrust that continues in the aftermath. Many thousands of bright young people who left to escape violence never came home.

    The Republic might be rich at the moment, but its buoyant economy has shallow roots and its vulnerability is underestimated. Few remember how close to disaster it came during and after the financial crisis that left the Celtic Tiger on life-support and the government taking orders from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

    Ireland is an optimistic country and the harsh lessons appear to have been forgotten, but the economic statistics are being distorted by a reliance on multinational firms (which pay 80 per cent of corporation tax). With the United States and EU threatening the tax policies that so attracted them, the exit of these firms would cause immense damage.

    The country is also facing big new spending pressures. The political conversations that dominate had been until recently about which lobbies should most benefit from the dispersal of national wealth, but now huge numbers of immigrants are occupying hotels and public buildings in small towns and sleeping in tents outside government buildings in cities.

    Moreover, the recent rejection of the socially progressive but idiotic proposals to change the constitution shone a spotlight on the gap between the ordinary Pat or Maureen and the governing elite. Ireland is beginning to realise that it’s living beyond its means.

    Which is why Sinn Fein, which sheds policies like a Persian cat sheds its hair in its anxiety to reassure middle-class voters that it is safe, is panic-stricken as it clings on to Irish unity – the only policy that matters to the Sinn Fein strategists, the IRA Army Council veterans who still rule the roost from the Belfast shadows.

    Polls show that there is nothing near a majority in Northern Ireland for unity, and down south enthusiasm does not survive much scrutiny. “I don’t mind a united Ireland as long as it has no effect whatsoever on the 26 counties,” a taxi driver said to me more than a decade ago, and that still appears to be the attitude of the average southerner. They don’t want tax increases and they are reluctant to woo unionists even with a gesture like joining the Commonwealth. Extreme nationalists, the ones who actually care, resist reconciliation: they want subjugation.

    So who should pay for unification, Sinn Fein – the eulogisers of the IRA who almost destroyed Northern Ireland – are now being asked. The late Gerry Fitt, the leader of constitutional nationalism – who with his family was driven out of Belfast by IRA supporters in the early 1980s and became a stalwart in the House of Lords – explained Sinn Fein policy as an instruction to the British “to f— off and leave your wallet on the mantelpiece”.

    The hapless Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, now Sinn Fein’s chief whip, was sent out to man the media barricades yesterday. If people on both sides of the border voted for a united Ireland, he explained, “You have to assume that Britain will have, and indeed would, step up. To take financial responsibility, moving forward.” The Brits might have something to say about that.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/04/northern-ireland-unification-sinn-fein-taxes-deficit/

    From the mainland to the Republic in language Mr Mac Lochlainn will understand: “Loike fook we will.”

      1. It’s inevitable that any British government would be stupid enough to cough up.

        Correction

      2. It’s inevitable that any British government would be stupid enough to cough up.

        Correction

  180. Earlier Nottl was referred to as a Den of inequity!

    What does that make Westminster?

    “William Wragg, the Tory MP, has admitted involvement in a Westminster honeytrap sexting scandal after he shared colleagues’ phone numbers with a man he met on a gay dating app.

    Mr Wragg, the vice chairman of the 1922 committee, handed over contact details for Westminster colleagues to a man he met on Grindr, to whom he had sent intimate pictures of himself.

    The MP for Hazel Grove told The Times, which approached him after speaking to victims who suspected his involvement, that he was “scared” the man “had compromising things on me”.

    Those colleagues – including several MPs, members of their staff and a political journalist – were later sent texts from senders with the aliases “Charlie” or “Abi”.

    At least 12 men working in and around Parliament, including a serving minister, have been targeted in the suspected spear phishing attack, amid fears a hostile state may be responsible.

    On Wednesday, Politico revealed that victims had received flirtatious messages, and in several instances explicit photographs, in an attempt to lure them in.

    The revelation of Mr Wragg’s involvement comes after police confirmed that an investigation into the honeytrap sexting scandal had been launched.

    Leicestershire Police said it was investigating a report of “malicious communications” after “a number of unsolicited messages were sent to a Leicestershire MP last month”.

    1. How stupid can they get? And these are the people supposedly running our country?

      1. When asked for the information he should have immediately gone to the police. What a pathetic idiot.

      2. And these are the people supposedly running ruining our country

        Corrected.

    2. Oh, for crying out loud! This is just ridiculous. People should be afforded privacy and I cannot imagine anyone I know – anyone at all – that would be happy to have their sexual peccadilloes shoved graphically into the public domain. Any sexual scenario at all involving most public figures requires mind bleach, anyway. So unless it is illegal just stop broadcasting it. It is none of our business.

      1. It was ok for him to give his own details but, surely, not for him to pass on others details.

    7. And this is the kind of person who is approved by Central Office to be a Tory candidate, while good, honest people are eliminated from the candidates’ list!

  181. Stayed dry for most of the day so that’s another wood stack filled, or at least will be when Grad.Son gets round to dealing with the barrow load of cut & chopped logs that are awaiting his attention.

    Now bathed and ready for bed so good night all.

  182. Evening, all. The only reason we are even contemplating ID cards is because a) the government wants to control us completely and b) they have imported so many people without traditional European values of “my word is my bond”, it’s not right to cover one’s face and “honesty is the best policy”. The last time we had universal ID cards was during (and shortly after) the war. I still have mine – it’s a cardboard carnet. The new ID card will no doubt have a chip with all sorts of information in it and the capability of stopping you doing certain things if you do/say things the government doesn’t like.

    I have been contemplating going racing in Ireland next year, but the hoops I’ll have to jump through to take Kadi with me are daunting. I’m not sure I want to bother. I’ll spend my money at home.

    I have just had to kick my heels for a couple of hours as my Internet went off. Good job I don’t rely on it for banking and paying my bills.

    1. I still have my cardboard id card too – and my father’s and my baby brother’s. My mother binned hers.

      If passports, driving licences and bus passes are good enough as voting id why do we need anything else? Postal voting should be better controlled and only for people unable to get to vote in person.

      1. It’s the old lie “it won’t change our way of life”, except for ID, anti-terror legislation, barriers, heathen festivals, the sidelining of Christianity, the re-writing of history, the socio-engineering and all the rest.

  183. Hands off our hens – one of the purest joys of country life

    Costly red-tape is threatening to extinguish the wholesome and enriching hobby of many small-scale ‘henthusiasts’

    SALLY JONES • 4 April 2024 • 6:12pm

    Keeping hens has been an abiding joy – for me and generations of our family. My grandfather, a Penrhyn slate quarryman and Great War veteran, always kept a handful of chickens in a homemade coop behind his terraced house in Bangor, north Wales. They ate everything from grain and bolted sprout tops to potato peelings and dandelion leaves.

    As he recounted it, in the precarious 1930s, their eggs made all the difference between a solid breakfast and late-morning hunger pangs. Decades later, carefully unearthing brown eggs from the still-warm straw felt magical to me, like playing lucky dip at a birthday party.

    When our own children arrived, the hens on our Warwickshire smallholding provided useful lessons in the transience of life. A heart-breaking “cull” by the fox from the nearby marl pit, leaving behind the bloodied remains of all but two of its victims, produced a storm of tears. But it also ensured that, from then on, the hen house was as stoutly defended as Fort Knox and, despite Roald Dahl’s best efforts, no one felt inclined to sentimentalise the handsome, whiskery gentleman who came calling far more often than we’d have liked.

    Until now, keeping a few hens has involved minimum hassle, enabling the recycling of mounds of kitchen scraps and elderly vegetables in exchange for clutches of free-range eggs and the occasional chicken pie. But from October 1, all this will change. Even those like my friend’s son Stanley, overjoyed at receiving three chickens for his fifth birthday, or people keeping a few rescue chickens at the bottom of the garden, will “fall fowl” of long-fingered bureaucracy.

    We will be forced to register our birds with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Department, and apply for a holding number from the Rural Payments agency. The previous rules only applied to commercial chicken farmers and those with flocks of more than 50.

    We will be made to fill in an online form providing details of how many birds we have, which species they are, where they are kept and why. This registration, even for those owning just a couple of hens, is being imposed despite a consultation in which only 13 per cent of respondents backed the change.

    Although nominally designed to control avian flu, the new regulations will doubtless involve considerable time and cost. And even though a few hens in a run might potentially be infected by wild bird carriers, they are highly unlikely to originate or pass it on themselves. In any case, most responsible owners ensure that, when avian flu is about, their hens have no contact with other birds.

    The whole process will be an expensive nightmare to administer and virtually impossible to police, with non-compliers risking £5,000 fines or six months in prison. The result? Some small-scale “henthusiasts” will simply stop keeping them, because they can’t face the mind-numbing bureaucracy.

    It’s a familiar tale. A few years ago, hoping to run a few sheep to keep down long grass on a steep bank, we researched the paperwork involved. It was so appalling, we gave up instantly. Alas, we now have to scythe or strim the grass ourselves and the home-reared shoulders of lamb we fondly imagined enjoying each Easter remain pure pipe dreams.

    How sad if pointless and costly red tape ends up denying a new generation of country people and hen-lovers one of the great delights of rural life.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/04/hands-off-our-hens-purest-joys-of-country-life/

    1. Wasn’t the whole point of leaving the EU to rid ourselves of this sort of expensive and intrusive empire building?

      As you say, the information required on these forms is pointless. There is a constant turnover, as hens are replaced or are eaten by the fox or become the Sunday roast. What is true when filling in the form might be quite different a week later. The inclination therefore is to get the rubberstamp if ordered to, but otherwise keep as well away from officialdom and the professionals as possible, since it is clear from the Post Office downwards, they cannot be trusted.

      Maybe it is becoming time for a campaign of mass civil disobedience, but that will only work if the corrupt officials cannot divide us and pick us off piecemeal. It also has to be carefully stewarded, so that no action is against the public interest nor is to the detriment of others. It must not become a licence to crime, even if the corrupt officials employ agents provocateurs to discredit the movement.

    2. Avian flu like covid is the excuse to control us. Hens are already banned in some U.S states. It isn’t about health it is about attacking food production and agriculture.

    3. Typical Telegraph – gentle grumbling, while keeping stumm about the big picture.
      Food shortages are what we all need to worry about, and the danger of allowing the government to remove chicken and eggs from people’s diets at a stroke.

    1. Often voted number one in Alan Keith’s “Your Hundred Best Tunes”.

      Rightly so.

  186. 385422+up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    Hot of the westminster culling dept, press,

    A wake up call is urgently needed to seriously check out root & branch ALL political overseeing governance politico’s, guardians of the peoples, security services, border controls etc,etc.

    UK ‘should consider Sweden-style selective conscription system’
    Sir Alex Younger, who was chief of MI6 from 2014 to 2020, argues that UK needs ‘wake-up call’

  189. Fishing in the morning but just started watching Shute’s ‘On the Beach’.

    I hope I don’t stay up too late.

Comments are closed.