Thursday 6 May: The reality of what British soldiers went through during the Troubles

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/05/letters-reality-british-soldiers-went-troubles/

685 thoughts on “Thursday 6 May: The reality of what British soldiers went through during the Troubles”

        1. Our Hungarian gardener suggests killing the 100 richest billionaires for starters. Good point I think.

      2. I’d not bump people off but I do believe we need to end welfare. Just scrap child benefit entirely.

        Not only would this save a fortune, the saved money could be returned to everyone as lower taxes. Simultaneously fairer and removing the incentive for the dross to breed.

  5. Seems DT letter writers were locked out of the Islington Wine Cellar and cobbled some notes on the stairs: For those able to and off to vote, best:

    SIR – Amid the anger over the collapse of charges against ex-soldiers https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/04/trial-two-soldiers-murder-ira-commander-collapses-five-days/ , please remember Staff Sergeant Malcolm Banks, Royal Engineers, acting as infantry.

    In 1972, reacting to a blast bomb incident near the Short Strand, east Belfast, he rapidly arrived on the scene with his men, two minutes before the IRA ceasefire was to begin at midnight. He was killed: shot in the back.

    No follow-up by his men, sent to protect the public, could therefore take place, so they carried his body into the hall where he and they were stationed – in St James’s church – and laid him down. Like them and the church, he was a Catholic.

    Lt Col Frank Stewart (retd)
    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – While it is most welcome that the High Court in Belfast has thrown out the case against the former Paras, this is sadly no thanks to Her Majesty’s Government, which has persisted for years in denying these men the quiet retirement to which they were entitled. In 2017, the prime minister, Theresa May, responding to my concerns about this very prosecution, said it had to be a matter for the courts.

    However, she assured me that she recognised there was “an imbalance in the investigations and cases relating to the Troubles that are before the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. The current legacy-related … investigations almost exclusively focus on the actions of the military and police, while many hundreds of unsolved terrorist murders are left uninvestigated … This imbalance is wrong and needs to change.”

    The appalling betrayal of soldiers who were subject to investigation at the time – half a century ago – must now stop. What legal proceedings have been taken against the terrorists responsible for 90 per cent of the deaths? These are nowhere to be seen – because, surprise, surprise, the IRA did not keep records, let alone hold inquiries.

    Sir Gerald Howarth
    Chelsworth, Suffolk

    SIR – I am heartened that soldiers A and C have been acquitted of murdering Joe McCann of the Official IRA.

    It was entirely unjust to continue pursuing soldiers over deaths during the Troubles after Tony Blair’s government gave “letters of comfort” to 156 terrorist suspects under the Good Friday Agreement. According to Drew Harris, commissioner of the Garda, 100 of the recipients were suspects in over 300 murders.

    Northern Ireland is not the only conflict where our service personnel have faced terrorist opponents hiding among the civilian population, and then had the British government turn on them. After the Iraq war they had to contend with repeated investigations and frequently bogus evidence.

    Our soldiers risk their lives, limbs and sanity in asymmetric conflicts on our behalf. It is only right that afterwards we should watch their backs. If we don’t, who will volunteer to guard us while we sleep?

    Otto Inglis
    Crossgates, Fife

    Scottish pig in a poke

    SIR – I want to buy a car today, but the seller will not tell me how much it will cost; nor will they tell me the emissions tax, insurance bracket or the running costs or how many miles per gallon it will go, but they insist that I will be better off if I buy it anyway. Am I being naive or gullible if I purchase it?

    After that I will go to cast my vote in an election that may decide if Scotland chooses to become independent, but I am unsure of the initial cost or what tax increases or service cuts or continuing austerity may come into effect.

    However, I’m assured if I vote for it, I will be better off anyway. Am I being naive or gullible if I vote for this?

    Buying the car looks less risky.

    Allan Thompson
    Glasgow

    SIR – My father was a world-class nuclear scientist from Thurso.

    Shortly before I was born he was relocated to the Risley HQ of the UK Atomic Energy Authority in Cheshire.

    Despite this, in a recent visit to Glasgow on business, I was the subject of racial discrimination because I was identified as English.

    Black clouds of racist hatred and enmity against the English have descended over Scotland. I trust that the vast majority of thoroughly decent and respectable Scots will utterly reject the rhetoric of the Scottish National Party.

    Derek E Eames
    Liverpool

    SIR – Nicola Sturgeon’s desire to expel nuclear submarines from Faslane on the Clyde is a bizarre and contradictory piece of political doublespeak.

    She wishes to be part of the European Union, which is fully committed to Nato and whose defence of Europe rests on the threat of nuclear weapons, yet she wishes to leave the United Kingdom, which is part of the Nato alliance. Does she not understand how the Nato alliance works?

    The United States constantly calls for European members to contribute more to Nato for their own defence. What is Scotland going to offer as a replacement? Whisky?

    Ann Parker
    Nottingham

    EU acts of aggression

    SIR – How will the EU react when Russia threatens to cut off the supply of gas on which the bloc depends?

    The French threats to cut off electricity supply to Jersey and other post-Brexit acts of aggression should concentrate our minds on total independence from Europe and in particular a boycott of all things French until their anti-British president, Emmanuel Macron, is replaced.

    Michael Legg
    Reigate, Surrey

    SIR – Is Annick Girardin, the French maritime minister, aware that Jersey and Guernsey both have their own power stations, which are maintained ready and available to generate electricity for their islands should the need arise?

    There is an economic advantage in using the French interconnectors – indeed, that is why they were installed. But there should be minimal disruption to the electricity supply should the French threat to switch off the interconnectors be carried out.

    Andy Bebbington
    Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire

    What can I say?

    SIR – Can one still speak freely at Speakers’ Corner?

    G W Doggrell
    Kingsley, Hampshire

    Is university worth it?

    SIR – I am a politics and international relations student in my second year at university.

    On Monday I watched the lectures for this week’s module: US foreign policy. They were four years old. I don’t know much about US foreign policy, but I understand that it changes a lot over four years (consider how Donald Trump’s roller-coaster tenure has been followed by a new president with a very different agenda).

    One assumes the university is keen to maintain fees at their current rates – but the standard of teaching suggests it is going about this the wrong way.

    Douglas Martens
    Frome, Somerset

    Affordable schooling

    SIR – Harry de Quetteville quotes a consultant as saying that “middle-class parents are being priced out of the costliest schools”.

    There are plenty of others. Some 87 per cent of pupils in independent schools have day places. I doubt if any of the 550 schools in the Independent Schools Association, of which I am president, charge more than the average day school fee of just under £5,000 a term, and many charge less.

    These schools, which have 220 pupils on average, include some of the most advanced special educational needs and performing arts schools in the world. Small classes diminish bullying and abuse (reinforced by clear policies subject to regular inspection) and so help sustain their popularity with parents. Undue preoccupation with a handful of high-fee, high-profile schools distorts public and political perceptions, and does deep injustice to the independent sector as a whole.

    Lord Lexden (Con)
    London SW1

    All-purpose keys

    SIR – I once purchased a 1920s Humber, a bit of a wreck to be honest. In the back was a tin with more than 300 keys, none of which fitted the car. However, they have since unlocked countless pieces of furniture and served as spares for other cars.

    So don’t throw away keys (Letters, May 5): they will find a lock some day.

    Ray Cattle
    Wateringbury, Kent

    SIR – On taking up a new secretarial job I noticed on the boss’s desk three trays that were labelled: “In”, “Out” and “Too hard, leave”.

    Margaret Clark
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    Henry James and the gentility of Poppy-Land

    SIR – Melanie McDonagh celebrates the amenities of Cromer and its environs.

    In 1909 Henry James visited nearby Overstrand – “a miniature English Newport, with a cluster of London people of sorts … who brunch and tea and dine and bridge each other all day long and all three months, after having been doing the same all winter in London”.

    This rather suggests that some of the chicness that Melanie McDonagh notices today was visible then. One of James’s friends there was Lady Battersea, who lived in The Pleasaunce, designed in 1897 by Edwin Lutyens.

    The area was celebrated from the 1880s as Poppy-Land by the influential theatre critic of The Daily Telegraph, Clement Scott.

    Bernard Richards
    Brasenose College, Oxford

    Judges should not meddle in political matters

    SIR – Why has the High Court agreed to a judicial review of Boris Johnson’s decision to back Priti Patel over bullying claims (report, April 28)?

    The ministerial code is not a matter of law and the code itself makes clear the sole arbiter of whether it has been breached is the prime minister. The PM is free to choose whether or not to follow any advice given. Interference by the judiciary in the PM’s decision is a further egregious invasion of matters political, where judges do not belong.

    The acceptance of jurisdiction by the Supreme Court in the Article 50 appeal in 2017, and especially in the Case of Prorogation in 2019, saw the advent of nakedly political interference by the judiciary.

    On both occasions, this was manifested by improper judicial interference in the exercise by the government of prerogative powers. The weasel words employed by the Supreme Court to justify these legal solecisms could not disguise the underlying desire to interfere with the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

    These judgments shattered the precedent, dating back to the 1689 Bill of Rights, that the courts never interfere in the government’s exercise of prerogative powers. While top judges may dislike the government, they should not allow this to provoke them to breach long-established precedent – the foundation of our common law. In so doing, they cross the clear dividing line between the law and politics, a central constitutional pillar in Britain for centuries.

    If the judges continue to act politically, they should no longer expect to be self-appointing, as they are largely today, the Judicial Appointments Commission being packed with lawyers. If the courts continue to play politics then the people must be given some influence over senior judicial appointments.

    Gregory Shenkman
    London W8

    1. Black clouds of racist hatred and enmity against the English have descended over Scotland. I trust that the vast majority of thoroughly decent and respectable Scots will utterly reject the rhetoric of the Scottish National Party.

      You “trust” in vain Mr Eames!

      2. He exaggerates somewhat. The people of Scotland are maybe wee bit desperate for things to improve. I have suggested this before. The SNP are providing a straw for a drowning population to clutch. The straw is made of lead. There is no enmity towards England in any real sense, nor towards the thousands and thousands of English people who live in Scotland. I have encountered some real nastiness in the past on the DT letters blog directed towards Scots, which is why I quit the DT.

        1. Sorry to say, Horace but it is small wonder that BTL commenters bite back when faced with an obvious Gael like this:

          Am Faochagach (The Whinny – of a distressed pony?)
          6 May 2021 8:16AM
          Nicola Sturgeon knows far more about how a decent human being works than Boris Johnson does.
          And I wonder where on earth Ann Parker got the erroneous idea from that “the European Union is fully committed to NATO”?
          The EU cannot be “fully committed” to NATO when six of its Member States aren’t members o NATO.

          I’m sure many Nottlers have come up against this anti-British troll.

        2. Sorry to say, Horace but it is small wonder that BTL commenters bite back when faced with an obvious Gael like this:

          Am Faochagach (The Whinny – of a distressed pony?)
          6 May 2021 8:16AM
          Nicola Sturgeon knows far more about how a decent human being works than Boris Johnson does.
          And I wonder where on earth Ann Parker got the erroneous idea from that “the European Union is fully committed to NATO”?
          The EU cannot be “fully committed” to NATO when six of its Member States aren’t members o NATO.

          I’m sure many Nottlers have come up against this anti-British troll.

        3. Two experiences of Scotland stand out in my mind

          I was travelling through Scotland on my way to Skye. I stopped at a cottage to ask for some directions and was invited in for Tea and to peruse some maps.

          On my return after a glorious holiday i stopped at a country hotel. I asked if the dining room had room for two people. I was told NO.
          I then asked if we could have something to eat at the Bar. The answer was NO.

          It left me in two minds about Scotland and the Scottish.

          1. I’ve encountered similar in Scotland. It’s just people. It’s.not English/Scots it’s just differences.
            Small hotels are frequently a pain. They cut staff numbers to the bone and can’t cope with a full dining room and a bar. “We weren’t expecting you…”.
            All country hotels shut at 2:00PM. That’s it. Last service 1:45.

    2. I wonder what type of power stations Jersey and Guernsey have that are ready to go.

  8. Austrian prince under investigation for ‘poaching’ one of biggest bears in Romania. 6 May 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a6943e517859ec3009464a34db152648bfff7330406348b689650f5f2d3e880.jpg

    Romanian police are investigating an Austrian prince for poaching after he killed a huge male bear described as the “biggest male living deep in the wild” on a hunting trip to the Carpathian mountains.

    Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein was granted a four-day hunting permit in March in Romania’s Covasna County, official hunting documents revealed.

    The papers said the aristocrat “harvested” a 17 year-old brown bear called Arthur on the hunt. He paid just over £6,000 for the trophy but reports alleged the animal was “wrongly” killed.

    Well any oasis in a news desert. There’s really no excuse for Trophy Hunting nowadays unless it is for the heads of rogue politicians! The writer missed a few points. He could have inserted, “Supported by the Kremlin, or “Linked to Vladimir Putin”. Apart from that he’s done OK with nothing much!

    Nice picture. Nothing to do with the Deceased Bear of course!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/06/austrian-prince-investigation-poaching-one-biggest-bears-romania/

    1. James Crisp? Agent Green – A NGO? Are DT engaging in a open day for the Kindergarten covering an incident from 17 March?

  9. Good morning, all. Grey and overcast and the weather isn’t much better. Been awake since four. Ugh.

    Still the market awaits.

    1. The promise of a day talking about the French and fishing sounds Brill to me. But will the sTench of garlic keep the Brits floundering.

    2. I was woken up at 06.35 by the smoke alarm; MOH had decided to cook sausage for breakfast, got the fat too hot and smoky, then left the door to the hallway open which set off the alarm. I am not good at that time of the morning.

  13. 332407+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Dt,
    Royal Navy ships ordered to Jersey as French fishermen prepare blockade
    Boris Johnson sends two patrol vessels to St Helier, with more than 60 French boats expected to arrive in island’s main port

    Is the real reason man power the french needing experienced sea goers to assist with overloaded nets,
    just another facet of the DOVER “go out & get them campaign”

    Today’s the day, kiss X a lab/lib/con candidate and get your own personalised ( your name on) hair shirt, don’t
    forget party before family / Country.

    1. When both UK and France’s aricraft carriers cobble the money together for fuel to go to India to collect “Hurry Curry vaccines”, UK will no doubt send the Oxford and Cambridge boats and crews as a virtue signalling diversity substitute. the French, while agreeing to wear “Yellow Vests” can’t find a boat and Macron will ask Johnson at the G7 party in Cornwall to lend – lease a few idle dinghies in Dover to help out with the mirage

    2. Morning Oggy. Is this a “Cuba Crisis”? Are we about to nuke Paris!

  15. End this pandering to Sinn Fein and the IRA. 6 may 2021.

    Even by the brutal standards of the IRA’s terrorist campaign against the British security forces during the Troubles, Joe McCann, the gunman killed by paratroopers in 1972, had acquired a reputation as one of the organisation’s most ruthless killers.

    Jailed as a teenager after being found in possession of five bayonets in the 1960s long before Northern Ireland was consumed by sectarian violence, McCann quickly rose to become a senior IRA commander in Belfast.

    In this role, his unwavering support for the “armed struggle”, as he called it, saw him responsible for the murder of at least 10 British soldiers, as well as the attempted assassination of the Ulster Unionist politician John Taylor in February 1972.

    It was interesting to watch McCann’s (BBC News) relatives bewailing the collapse of the case and the loss of their son. Nothing for the families of the soldiers he killed of course!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/06/end-pandering-sinn-fein-ira/

    1. Robert Spowart
      6 May 2021 8:46AM
      By it’s own murders of not only Security Force personnel, but also civilians associated or doing work for the Security Forces, including construction workers, the IRA set the “Rules of Engagement” so their complaints when those rules are used against them ring very hollow.

    2. The only positive of this ‘trial’ has been that this murderous scum’s crimes have been laid out for all to see. Beforehand it seemed likely that his only ‘crimes’ were stepping on the cracks on the pavement. It must gall the bBC to report such facts.

          1. Árselickin ceremony at the tomb of the ‘petit caporal’, Napoleon Boneyparts.

          2. Indeed.
            I was attempting to start a “cat pun” thread after Phizzee’s I spy BT comment.

            For me the Napoleon display has to be one of the most disappointing parts of what is an otherwise excellent place to visit, if one has an interest in French military history.

          3. There should not be any Napoleon commemorative sites. He was a little Hitler who’s ambition was to subjugate all of Europe and the Near East. Try waving a swastika in Paris, Lille or Marseilles, it would be torn from your hands, and rightly so. The same for Mao and Stalin and many other mass murderers who have monuments to their national and international slaughter.

          4. He gave the game away when appointing relatives to be kings and queens of subjugated territories.

          5. ‘Afternoon, Sos, Although I’ve never visited Les Invalides and only lived about 500 metres away for 3 months, I’m given to understand that the positioning of Bonaparte’s tomb requires one to bend forward (bow).

            Buģģer that. Any interest in French Military history has to centre around the part played by the white-flag factories.

      1. 332407+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        Bring on the subs, then lie which should come easy from the politico’s with “sinkings, what sinkings”

      2. Those gunboats should just need to hole one of the Frog boats below the waterline and then watch the rest scuttle away – waving the traditional white flags.

        1. RN gunboats don’t have ammunition. It is against UK health and safety rules – someone might get hurt.

  19. Gunboats at Dawn? That did not work too well in the Cod War with Iceland. The RN were trounced.
    Now that the EU has an Ambassador why not summon that person to the Foreign Office? Let the EU know that unless the Jersey situation is resolved to our full satisfaction within 48 hours we will impose a three month embargo on the export of German cars to the UK. Any further delay will result in an embargo on Belgian chocolate products.
    Or are our government too wimpish and cowardly to take some real action?

    1. Or are our government too wimpish and cowardly to take some real action?

      Yes! Morning Horace.

      1. Actually, this would be a kind of “ambassadorial test”. If the EU “Ambassador” says that they cannot do anything then they don’t have plenipotentiary power and so are not an Ambassador but a fraud. The UK should immediately revoke their decision to recognise an EU “ambassador”.
        We should get tough, very tough. They cannot do anything to us that they have not already tried at some time in our history. Time to show some teeth.

        1. And other thing. By not dealing directly with France and putting pressure on the new EU Ambassador the shoe is on the other foot. Let the EU Ambassador solve the problem.The point of calling the EU “Ambassador”, giving him/her a dressing down and advising him/her of our retaliation against the EU being levelled at against Germany and Belgium is twofold. Firstly to express our great displeasure and secondly to initiate retaliation against the EU countries. The idea being to set France and Germany against each other, throw in Belgium… and any other country that takes our fancy. Ireland would be a good one to go for. It would demonstrate to Ireland just how little the EU cares about them.
          So, EU appoints Ambassador to UK. UK recognises Ambassador. UK sends EU Ambassador back to EU to start punch up between France and Germany (and Belgium). Divide and rule. The UK used that approach in the past to great effect. The old ways are best.

        2. “Very tough”
          HA! HA! HA!
          Breathe
          HA! HA! HA!
          Yeah, right.
          Sorry, Horace, couldn’t resist.

    1. Well, Bless the Virgin Mary ! That looks just like my wisteria. Except for the building.

      1. Cultural appropriation. Or has the college already been bought by sold to the Chinese?

    3. If that is this year, they are very lucky not have had the flowers blown to smithereens by the gales.

        1. Ours is struggling. If there IS some warmth this weekend, it should be OK.

    4. The name of the college will have to be changed, as it may offend people of other religions or none.

    5. If you can’t beat them, join them.

      Witch, witch, burn the witch. She cast a spell on the flowers

    6. I thought that was a photo of Liz Taylor in front of one of her properties.

      :-))

    7. Dearie me! Look at all those brown faces peering from behind the vine.

  22. 3324067+ up ticks,
    An apology in advance for a last night repeat post,

    Back posts many moon ago, when likening the tory type
    brexitexit to a semi reentry missile is finally taking on a solid shape.

    The wretch cameron the first blast off tier, may the intermediate tier,nine month delay treachery clincher,
    semi reentry missile driver johnson, the vehicle
    “the deal”.

    They had a fall back plan just never thought they would have to activate it.

    We could very well be in the sixth year of reset.

    breitbart,
    Delingpole: Why I’m Not Voting Conservative on Thursday – Or, Indeed, Ever Again…

  23. Who’s To Blame

    A man is flying around in a hot air balloon, and realises that he is lost. He reduces altitude and spots a man down below.

    He lowers the balloon near the man and shouts, “Excuse me, but can you tell me where I am?

    The man down below says, “Yes! You’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”

    “You must be a consultant,” says the balloonist.

    “As a matter of fact, I am!” replies the man, “how did you know?”

    “Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you’ve told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use whatsoever.”

    The man below says, “Well then! You must be in upper management!”

    “I am,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know that?”

    “Because you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, and you expect me to be able to help!

    Plus, you’re just as lost as you were before we met, but now you think it’s all my fault!“

  24. 332407+ up ticks,

    Boris Johnson: Tories have delivered more in four years than Labour did in decades
    Prime Minister uses eve of election address to hail party’s mayors for ‘bringing new investment and local jobs to their areas’

    Maybe so, maybe so, the problem is now how to get rid of the glut of treacherous tripe.

    2. But Labour delivered safe & sound to the UK millions of unwanted venomous 3rd world riff-raff from Asia & Africa to turn the UK into broken society.

  25. Morning all.
    Bright & Sunny at 1½°C and I’m heading to Bursledon to pick up some things from the Late Mother in Law’s.

    Did a scrap run yesterday to clear out 20y collection of assorted ferrous and non-ferrous items and came home with £167 paid into my bank account! Well chuffed!

  26. Barnier’ s article today on the Brexit team negotiators is getting over 500 comments already, mostly pro Brexit and anti Barnier. Barnier applauds Theresa May, Oliver Robins and Starmer. Comments on the letters page are just under 200 at the moment.

    1. Yet another underlining of what a rotten deal it is/was given who he’s applauding.

      1. Surely Barnier must be impressed by the masterful coup that Boris Johnson pulled off when he returned with a ‘brilliant deal’ to the praise and plaudits of the adoringly sycophantic idiots in Britain who were completely taken in.

        He even fooled Nigel Farage!

        But now it is clear that Brexit is a lie and it won’t be “done” until Britain has completely shaken off the EU’s shackles and gone for WTO terms.

        1. I suspect that the EU will try to grab and be given more yet, before anyone takes the necessary steps.

    2. 332407+ up ticks,
      Morning Cs,
      Maybe a name change is in order for
      starmer would that help ?
      Something like Neil has a certain ring about it.

      1. Interesting how admiring he is of Mrs May and her sidekick Oliver

        Perhaps we should take the hint?

    1. Yes – all the talk of ocean plastic rather ignores that due to the WEEE directive, forced on us by the EU we are not allowed to produce over a certain amount of waste.

      The idea, of course, is to reduce consumption.
      However, the population is growing due to gimmigration.
      The converse of all the EU’s other laws about packaging and shipping is that more waste is produced.
      As a consequence, we (developed nations) get around this by packing our waste into shipping containers where we send it to nice, kind countries that recycle it for us and give us a certificate to say they have.
      Of course, in reality, those nice countries are in Africa, India and China.
      Those nice companies don’t give a stuff. They pocket the vast sums we give them to recycle our waste and dump it straight into the rivers and sea.

      We get a nice certificate.
      We get to say to the EU how great we are.
      The oceans get polluted.

      Until those facts are recognised. Until it is understood that the EU is responsible for this waste and the consequences, we will continue to have our waste dumped into the sea. It is remarkable the efforts remainiacs go to to reject this basic and utter, absolute incompetent, malicious failure perpetuated on us by the EU.

    1. Here’s a Q. Is Hope, an evil held in the box kept away from mankind for our benefit or is it truly the cruellest evil?

      1. an emotive soundbite, frequently used by politicians guaranteeing no fallout / comeback over something they cannot control aka “the Tory party hopes Boris doesn’t go to jail for economically crashing the UK”

        1. He won’t. If that did happen, jails would be full of Labour politicians.

          1. simple alternative is mass C-19 jabs. the blood meets the clots, put them in a care home [tent] somewhere remote and watch the results of the spike

    2. That is a long but very interesting read.
      Much to ponder.
      A couple of paragraphs caused a particular shudder for me:

      Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a
      pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for manipulating a
      virus’s genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential
      pandemic by exploring how close a given animal virus might be to making
      the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the
      ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people, virologists
      asserted.
      With this rationale, they have recreated the 1918 flu virus, shown
      how the almost extinct polio virus can be synthesized from its published
      DNA sequence, and introduced a smallpox gene into a related virus.

      1. agreed it covers issue from different approach and started raising mental flags, more so re-reading with more things springing up. It helps someone’s joining the dots

        1. Peter Daszak needs to be the subject of a very forensic, international and totally independent investigation.

          1. agreed, in current situation, his back will be covered. Unless or until the heat seriously starts being felt among those above and controlling him, then he’ll be collateral damage and reasons diluted

    1. without her being able to practice her Marie Antoinette caricature, they’d both have to go and vote. Add to the fact if she wasn’t present in the pic, Johnson would not be able to stand up, let alone walk roughly in a straight line

    2. Does anyone remember Flook?

      Maybe my reference to Flook was a bit obscure to younger Nottlers. My elderly Aunt Bill who lived with us in her old age when I was a child loved her gin, her cigarettes and her Daily Mail. In her younger days she and her husband – who was a delightful ne’er do well – tried a succession of business ventures – including a strip-joint in Soho – all of which failed. Aunt Bill was regarded as a bit of a blot on the family escutcheon but she was adored by young people as she was not quite respectable. The satirical cartoon which appeared in the Daily Mail was Flook and Boris – here is a picture of Flook:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef4fae1ffa07b0a58bc7a40c1b23320600b3ae4cf06d02dd97a2f23ceea5f138.jpg

          1. Yes but all the sequins are tarnished and it’s gone a bit baggy. The thong isn’t doing much better either !

        1. Good morning Anne,

          You are right, Rufus was the sidekick but, if my memory serves, Boris was a villain?

      5. I do – when my Grandmother came to live with us in 1953, she took the Daily Mail. I liked the cartoons. She died in 1955, but later versions of Flook were written by George Melly. I think we’d cancelled the DM by then.

      2. Remember the Winston and Lulubelle stories of the 1960’s which are very unlikely to be revived in our new woke age?

        Here’s a risky laff (to borrow from Rik);;

        Winston : If you could sleep with any man in the world who would it be?
        Lulubelle : I have heard about a guy called Cointreau?
        Winston : Why choose this dude with a French sounding name?
        Lulubelle: They say Cointreau’s a mighty fine licker.

    4. Bon Jaw all.
      Surely Le froglés don’t harbour grudges. Ehem, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo. They had their chances.

  33. French fishermen blockade Jersey’s capital as Royal Navy gunboats arrive

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/06/local-election-polls-news-hartlepool-scotland-london-france/

    BTL

    When is the Daily Telegraph going to admit that the Johnson WA and trade deal were disastrous capitulations. The prime minister showed weakness where he needed to show strength and look at the result!

    Amongst the more important requirements from any deal were to obtain a resolution of the Northern Ireland issue and a proper reclamation of British fishing waters.

    At the last moment Johnson (urged on by his mistress and by Gove) showed his fatal weakness and surrendered on both issues.

    And now just look at how delighted the EU and especially France are! They are overjoyed at the scope for mischief they can cause because of Johnson’s ineptitude, naivete and cravenness.

  34. This morning, junior upset the wife’s coffee.

    Now, as long term readers will know, mornings at chez wibbling are typically silent affairs where grumpy people do not speak to one another until after First Coffee.

    Now, warqueen brews up this mystical incantation involving something that looks like mud, adds half a bowl of muscovado and necks a tiny mug of the stuff, then does it again. After that, She speaks and the world trembles.

    Then she goes to her room and works until about 7, whereupon she eats dinner then falls asleep on the sofa.

    Anyway. Junior and beast rage around (or carry cereal slowly) to table. Said Junior bumps said warqueen in mid gulp and….. a small nuke goes off. Coffee goes everywhere, woman screams, junior goes wide eyed and, because his instinct is to help make right starts mopping up around Mummy’s shoes. Mummy’s expensive, leather shoes. And trousers. Mummy’s ‘these cost more than my entire wardrobe, including the wardrobe and the computers inside them and yes those have new disks and RAM so are even more expensive’ trousers. And of course, he’s scrubbing, not dabbing.

    Now, if this were any normal surface at any other time, it’d be a great learning opportunity but it turns into a shouting match – well, only from her – about dog drool, badly raised children, why she never has any peace and why no one cares about her.

    In amongst this – when I try to disentangle small boy from wiping coffee into Mummy and make sure I am listening to the aimless tirade of a tired, unhappy, stressed woman at the height of her worst part of the day (as to look away would invite further fury) I did a Very Manly Thing and put my hand on the shoulder of what is by now a hissing scorpion in female form and said ‘Get changed. I’ll take your clothes to dry cleaners on the way to school.’

    I didn’t lose my hand (a great surprise) and junior stopped and at a eye flick went to pack his school bag.

    And yes, there was dog drool on the ceiling. There’s *always* dog drool on the ceiling.

    Cue school, dry cleaners (who, amazingly; were open), new pot of mud made and with sugar bowl on silver tray (it isn’t, it’s pewter, but I pretend) checked the web logs for Teams traffic to make sure not in conf call put coffee on desk.

    Here ends the adventure.

    1. You should write for a living. That was very Terry Pratchetesque.

      Are you brave enough to suggest to the ‘Warqueen’…….. Decaff?

    2. You are so brave .

      Are you an indentured slave to her requirements .

      My Moh has hissy fits , but that is because he is a retired helicopter pilot , and frustrated golfer and follower of Southampton football club!!!

      1. On the last – oh, you poor thing!

        She works too much and as such is stressed a lot. However I don’t know if coffee will come out of her trousers. Unlike me, where if a t shirt is ruined it’s just worn again until it disintegrates, she spends a lot on clothes for work – all image lark, I assume.

        1. You are true to form Phizzee , and never change , great little pop at Pompey.

          Thank you , it is nice having a giggle !

    3. This morning, junior upset the wife’s coffee.

      Did Junior speak to the “wife’s coffee” in an UnWoke manner to upste it

      Did he mention the B (out of BLM) word?

  35. Good morning all

    Grey day here , no breeze .

    Moh and I had our second jab yesterday Covid AZ. I have had a terrible night , feverish and now have a pain in the base of my skull, near my left ear . Don’t want to make a fuss, but has anyone else experienced similar ?

    Our first jab was fine although Moh had the shivers for 24 hours and I had a headache , but this time it is different for me . I really feel strange .

    Moh is bouncing around , and wants us to go out to vote , and then buy a replacement bread maker . Our current one is on its last legs , 20 years old!!!

    1. I think you should get that sorted pronto, Belle. Phone your doctor now. Perhaps, I really really don’t want to recommend anything and don’t know if I should but it would worry me if I didn’t, to perhaps take an aspirin to thin your blood? I am worried it could make things worse though It is a fairly ubiquitous otc treatment. Please phone your doctor and yellow card it as well for the benefit of the rest of us. I think you should rest today.

      1. Good morning PM

        I am on a blood thinner already , Clopidogrel , the pain in my head is different and strange .. adjacent to my left ear.

        Moh doesn’t seem concerned and says it will go , and it might , but I had a terrible night .

        1. I think you should phone the doctor and rest. It seems after the ‘jab’ your immune system is low for at least two weeks, this is not a time for going out and about. It explains why people catch ‘covid’ after the jab. Do take care, look after yourself. You must be tired, anyway. Send your old boy out for a breadmaker, or order it online. x x

        2. I’m with Poppiesmum.
          Get some medical attention. Head pains aren’t good.

          1. Spoke to the local pharmacist who said many people had side effects , head pain is one of the common symptoms .

            I will just have to calm down, contact with doctors these days are zilch . More chance of winning a prize with ERNIE.

        3. Did you have the shingles jab when it was offered? I didn’t and shingles started for me with an intense pain in my right ear. I thought it was an ear infection but of course the rash appeared a couple of days later.

          1. Hello J,
            No shingles jab. Pain is at the bottom of my skull left hand side .
            Easing now, have taken paracetamol , and also accompanied Moh to vote … one vote in our area for the Police Crime Commissioner, and I was feeling so rough that I wrote “none of these, I would prefer to see more police in the county ”

            Moh then felt quite lively and wanted to go to Curry’s PC world to investigate the purchase of a replacement bread maker .. Huge store in Poole , and we were in and out in a flash, only 2 breadmakers on display .

            Our old one is 20 years old and the mixing mechanism is not doing its job , and really struggling .

            Back home now , really strange mixing with a flurry of people . The staff were hopeless, and not the enthusiastic techie bunch we remembered from old .

          2. Keep shingles in mind then…… hope the paracetamol does the trick.

            Probably best to order the new breadmaker online – more choice and you can take your time.

            We’re off to vote shortly – will probably just have to write something on the ballot paper to mark my disapproval.

          3. Hopeless staff (and an unwillingness to open a boxed item to offer a choice) has been my experience of Curry’s PC World.

        4. I usually sleep well, but last night I was tossing & turning for hours – and itching! Eventually it settled down. I’ve found being old has given me very sensitive skin. Call the doctor about the pain.

    2. This is something you must bring to your doctor’s attention. I completely agree with poppiesmum. You should contact your surgery pronto and explain all your symptoms. And do not be fobbed off with the Doctor is busy. You must insist that your symptoms are heard and recorded. And try to desist gallivanting about, let your OH do his own thing but you should rest.

      And please do not think you are “making a fuss”. This is your health, your body, and the symptoms are not usual.

    3. Morning, Maggie.
      Had my second AZ one on Tuesday. Apart from left tonsil being slightly tickly – which it always is when someone with a cold hoves into view – I was fine.
      Note To London Based Fascists: Let My Grandchildren Free! NOW!!!!!!

    5. SWMBO had a sore arm that became a sore neck & back of the head. Worn off now, after a few days.

      1. That’s interesting , mine is back of my head and I couldn’t sleep last night .

        Relieved to hear your Swimbo is feeling better now.

    6. Morning Belle. I posted a comment from Pat Lang on here the other day who reported he and his wife having long term results from vaccination. I would not be at all surprised if there was great deal of this but has been suppressed on the MSM.

      1. Just received a phone call from a friend who had her second jab and
        experiencing pain and swelling in her arm. It keeps her awake at night.

        1. I think a lot depends on the placement of the needle & skill of the person doing the injection. I’ve had both my jabs some time ago & apart from being a little bit sore in the area around the jab for about 24 hours, I’ve had no ill effects & besides I’m as crazy as I ever was both before & afterwards,

          2. I like over 5 million other Israelis over 16 have had 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine & no deaths or serious illness have been reported due to any complications arising from the vaccine. Our health ministry has announced that there is now no need for a 3rd booster shot after 6 months ( we have a couple of million folks who had both jabs by January 2021 ) and have accordingly extended the Green Passport validity for 1 year instead of 6 months & shortly the green light will be given to vaccinate kids in the 12 – 15 years age group .

            I think that its actually the hard left that has spread Soviet style disinformation in the US & UK against the vaccine using reverse psychology, knowing that if the Left favours vaccination then the Right will automatically be against it. In Israel where we have a majority of the electorate on the Right & our Right wing government under Netanyahu took the bull by the horns & understood that mass vaccination was needed rather than procrastination & allowing an anti-vaccination smear campaign by cranks to gather pace with deadly effect as it has in the USA & UK.

          3. Fair enough – but I really don’t think it should be given to children. Young people don’t need it.

          4. But most of us are inoculated as toddlers for a number of preventable illness’s and suffer few if any ill effects in later life.

          5. Certainly – but those illnesses had far more severe effects than covid has apart from in the old and frail. I’ve had both jabs because I ‘m not ready to give up travel and I’m sure it will be a requirement. I’ve had many jabs but they were all fully tested years ago, unlike these new ones.

          8. Right and left are as one in the uk now, Mr Elf-Hat, two heads on the same body.

      2. I didn’t see that comment , Minty .
        Moh had a bad time when he had the first one , but is quite lively after the jab we had yesterday.

          1. Moh played golf this afternoon , and I walked the dogs on the heath, have taken some pain killers , I just feel so tired and achy.

            The weather is warmer , loads of huge dark clouds that look as if they are going to deposit the English channel and all the French fishermen 😎🤣 on top of us , but no rain this afternoon . Getting warmer , the biting wind is no longer .

            Everything is suddenly greener and even more blossom appearing.

            No sign of Mr Hedgehog marks in the garden yet 😥

          2. There was a story in the Express about a hedgehog that bit a child on her toe….. Everything is very green now since the rain came – still not very warm though.

            Have an early night and hope you’ll feel better in the morrning.

    8. Sorry to hear of the discomfort. I have noticed that the govt is now saying that booster jabs should be given to the elderly/vulnerable “before winter”. What happened to 2 jabs being enough ? – and why does the booster need to be before winter ? – has the virus suddenly become seasonal?? like flu??
      And now claims of a “double mutation”? – they will keep this going on forever. Constant jabs, loads of other countries to name new variations on. And millions and millions of pounds going to the companies. Boris’s Great Reset??

    2. Morning Mr. Hat! It’s snowing here in Central Scotland! Blooming chilly as well, and the new plants I put in the garden don’t quite know what’s hit them! Will now go and hold my nose in the polling booth, and for the first time since I had the vote I’ll go against every instinct and do everything I can to get rid of the vicious, divisive bitch in Holyrood! Glad it’s warm for you – not that I’m jealous or anything…

        1. Thank you Mr. Hat! I’m quite glad the weather is awful – the loony cult supporters might melt if they go out!

    3. Yeee harr………Lurvv it.
      I play the guitar fingerstyle, but i always thought i might get a banjo but they are pretty noisy. Not sure if ‘unkul dad’ would like it. Myte have to build a lillold sheed. 🤠🪕🏡

        1. …and I can only play the bagpipes but, being a gentleman, I don’t.

          2. Very nice. However, Dolly is name after Dolly Rawlings. The gangsters moll.

          8. It is still cold at the moment so it will be okay to leave it for a while.

          9. Poppie has a fine inner layer of silky hair. It gets tangled within, longer hair grows on top of it. She is for the groomer on Tuesday. I like to keep it longer when it is cold but it is getting impossible now. Her hair has grown so quickly since the start of 2021. Perhaps she knows something that we don’t (such as there will be no summer this year….).

          10. Katerina my groomer also pointed out that Dolly has two layers of hair. The young lass knows what she is doing. Unlike the Vet who shaved Dolly’s belly to perform the …erm …can’t think of the right word…to stop her becoming pregnant. Her hair still hasn’t recovered 5 years later. I did ask if they did keyhole surgery but they said no. At least it is only her undercarriage and not normally visible…Except for when she wants her belly rubbed…which is often lol.

          11. Poppie had an area shaved just above her tail for the vet to get a closer look at her skin, it took forever to grow back and when it did it was apricot – she was all over a warm ivory before this affront to her furry glory. The groomer we take Poppie to further down the green is very good, she loves ‘her’ dogs and trims them so well. It’s like having two dogs, a long haired dog then two months later we get a short haired dog. (I think the word you were looking for was spay, or it might be spey, not sure which spelling.)

    5. I looked up the clip from the film Deliverance in which the strange (autistic?) boy plays Duelling Banjos.

      A comment under the clip reads:

      “I can’t believe the boy on the banjo grew up and became President of the United States. Well done, Sleepy Joe.”

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFutge4xn3w

      2. There was actually a real banjo player in a cleverly designed over sized shirt who plucked away while the kid just stood behind for effect.

    6. As if playing the fiddle wasn’t hard enough as it is, without tapping out complex rhythms and (as seen on other videos) singing as well. What a trooper!

          1. Or build more coal & oil fired power stations to increase global temps by 1 or 2 degrees & see a big increase in crop production that will help bring prices down & feed the ever growing world population

        2. It doesn’t stop them – we now have a “Climate emergency” which they will address in November with hangers-on jetting in from around the globe for a hot air conference.

          Soon they are going to ban the masses from running cars – they can’t afford Teslas – and people like us, with woodburners will be out in the cold.

  37. Global government… who really controls London ?

    The ”Institute for Strategic Dialogue”, which runs the ”Strong Cities” network, is part funded by George Soros’ ”Open Society” and wants to control what they regard as ”disinformation” on the internet…….

    https://powerbase.info/index.php/Institute_for_Strategic_Dialogue#Partners_.26_Funders

    https://www.isdglobal.org/disinformation/

    London is a member of the ”Strong Cities” network.

    George Soros met privately with Sadiq Khan on June 17 2016…….

    https://www.london.gov.uk/people/mayoral/sadiq-khan/gifts-hospitality

    Unity News asks if the ”Strong Cities” network is a ”global police force controlled by the United Nations?”……..

    https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/the-strong-cities-network-a-global-police-force-controlled-by-the-united-nations/

    Now Boris Johnson, like Theresa May, wants to control what he regards as ”disinformation” on the internet in his upcoming Internet Safety Bill !

    Watch this space !

    1. That was Aneurism Bevan, ” A bloody clot that ought to be removed immediately.”

        1. In the words of the song”♪♫…and Baby, just look at it now!”♪♫

          1. NHS

            Overloaded system but we have known that for years ….and still they come. Courtesy of the British tax payer…

          2. With free translators taking up more time at the replacements appointments – more cost to us and less doctor time for us. Of course, the replacements have been told they can get a free ( taxpayer funded ) lawyer to claim many pennies from the taxpayer if they feel they have not been prioritised in front of enough whiteys.

          3. The system is now not only overloaded with Health Visitors but the top-heavy administration(s) gobble a huge slice of the budget.

      1. 332407+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SE,
        TF,
        What’s your take on the Trafalgar rumble on the 21 Oct at five past six.

  40. ‘Morning, all.

    In today’s DT Letters, Mr. Eames writes telling of his experiences of the anti-English feeling in Glasgow to which he was subjected, even though his father was a Scot. It is apparent that the SNP’s bigotry extends, not only to the children of Scots born outwith Scotland, but to native born Scots who reside in England, who were denied a vote in the Indy Referendum of 2014.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/88b53db58e02d79a6c17ca2243c8c596d56317a0d2774b10e572ca54e9da8538.png

    One would think that ‘Bravetart’ would see the potential to expand her power base, although I suspect she knows damn’ fine most ex-pat Scots can see right through her faux-nationalism.

    Compare and contrast the attitude of the Irish Nationalists, who welcome any folk of Irish descent as being ‘of their own’ regardless of their place of birth and residence, in fact having just one Irish grandparent qualifies one for an Irish passport.

    Take for example the case of John Stephenson, born in London to an English father and an Irish mother – a Protestant woman from Belfast. Stephenson was a Catholic convert who later in life ‘Gaelicised’ his English father’s name and became known as ‘Seán Mac Stíofáin’. He joined the IRA and after the split in their ranks, became Chief of Staff of the PIRA. After serving prison time for terrorist crimes in England, he relocated to the Republic of Ireland.

    A great pal of Martin McGuiness, Stephenson was a particularly vicious piece of work, responsible for numerous bombings and murders of innocent folk, who was considered to be the ‘father’ of the sniper attacks which became the hallmark of PIRA activities in NI. During my time there, he was one of the scum on my personal ‘to-do’ list and given the opportunity, I’d have slotted the bastard on sight. To my eternal regret, the chance never presented itself since, like the coward he was, he spent most of his time hiding South of the border in the Republic, but I derive some comfort from the fact that he took a stroke in 1993 and spent the last years of his life in suffering. In my opinion, it was too good for him.

  41. So what does the ”Institute for Strategic Dialogue” story below amount to ?

    A George Soros part funded organization plays a major role in the running of London and wants to control what they regard as ”disinformation” on the internet with vast fines if platforms get it wrong. That means anything with which they disagree.

    That’s exactly what Boris Johnson, like Theresa May, is doing with the upcoming ”Internet Safety Act” which might even close down Disqus in the UK.

    ”We leverage policy, legislation and political influence and build strong relationships with officials, politicians, NGOs and other actors”. ”Open Society” mission statement in precis.

    Small world.. it’s all happening just as George Soros says himself !

    1. I have always thought that it was only a matter of time before the mask came down over social media comment sections.

      1. Like the footballers who flaunt themselves on the social meeja but cry foul when they get adverse comments. Sounds like they want their banana cake and eat it.

    2. Blimey they get their nose’s in every where…………..Message from Majestic this morning…. Yalumba ‘Wyndy’s Last Stand’ Shiraz 2019, ‘Barossa’
      £13.99
      Mix Six £11.99
      I’d go for that if it really works. It could be a corker.

  42. Gosh it is cold today. Watery sun – cold wind – doesn’t make gardening inviting…

      1. Just as well the MR doesn’t read this stuff…

        She is the Ace Gardener of All Time.

      3. Oh, I don’t know; I can lie on the lounger with a glass of wine and spend ages contemplating the garden and planning what I’ll do when I get around to it 🙂

  43. While waiting for 45 minutes to open a new savings account (would have taken 5 mins online – but this HAD to be in the branch) – I pondered.

    Our GP surgery regularly injects a terminal fluid into 500 people – in 4 hours. That’s roughly 2 minutes per person. Why can’t they see 125 patients in that time – giving them 8 minutes each? In our surgery – they would be lucky to see 100 people in a day

    Just asking….

    2. What ever you do don’t go into a bank and try to transfer money you’ll need a packed lunch.

      1. What about opening another account in another bank – and doing the move by cheque? Would that be allowed. Apparently any amount over £6k has to be reported to the cops so it can be checked for “money laundering”. With the new plastic notes they should survive going through several cycles in the washer.

        1. This country has become a joke for the average Brit. More money leaves the country in luggage and cigarette packets.
          Its the reason why the 500 Euro note was withdrawn it was possible to get a million into a once packet of twenty.

      2. Tell me about it! I am about to have more work done on my house. I look forward to the joy of having to undergo the third degree for half an hour before they come to the question “are you paying for work you have had done?” when I come to transfer the money to pay the bill.

    3. I was told they get paid a bonus for the jabs.
      Not sure if it’s true.

      1. 332407+ up ticks,
        Afternoon RE,
        Gives a new meaning to “arms for the poor”
        The reset way is” arms of the poor makes one rich.

        1. No wonder they are not available in the surgeries.
          The two people who gave us the jab were both retired from the profession.
          Did you know that from the 30th April this year the government have altered as in side stepped section 10 of the children’s act 1989 so that children over 12 years of age can now be vaccinated without parental consent. And the government cannot be held accountable for any subsequent mishaps.

          2. Some emailed me the info, but i can’t copy and paste it, something has gone wrong with my PC since another bloody update !!!
            It could have been jabbed 🤔
            This is the link below the info
            Join the fight to save our children. Educate your child, tell your friends. https://the/TPRlobby

            I can’t look this up something is wrong with my key board, I can’t get capitals to work even if I copy and paste something ???

          3. Don’t get me going on the updates – -They are driving me absolutely crazy. update /restart/update/restart God knows how many times a week. I know now when one is coming in – the graphics go jerky – and will stay jerky until the installation/ restart has been done. Better take my Blood Pressure tablet now.

          5. Metformin for Diabetes. Rivaroxaban for blood thinning and Digoxin for Atrial Fibrillation. The Digoxin is the only one I actually seem to get any benefit from. The others don’t seem to do anything.

    4. 100 in a day. Our medical team see about three I should think.

  44. 332407+ up ticks,
    Live Politics France sends two navy ships as minister claims he will not be ‘intimidated’ by UK show of force

    Lest we forget
    July 3, 1940
    July 3, 1940. After only 54 days into office, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered his Navy to take control of French ships, or destroy them if the French refused to relinquish control.

    1. No, we’re all in either elections queues / banks / Drs. But keep posting, we’ll respond quicker than a 2nd class stamp

      1. I have just replaced my old ‘puter
        Disgust has just annotated your post

        AW Kamau • 5 hours from now

        So, remember to come back

    2. Had a busy morning OLT but it’s coming up to lunchtime so looking in for a while.

  46. Good afternoon all.

    Back from not voting a few minutes ago. More staff in the polling station than voters. Could be a record low turnout.

    1. Only voting for the Police Commissioner in this area. Not something that will tempt me to get masked up and go to vote.

      1. Don’t wear a mask then. We didn’t (and never have done).

        I wrote on my PCCvote – NOT NEEDED. It’s just another quango with a PR and panel of some sort. Leeches. They are all political too.

          1. That’s the only reason I wear mine. They’re quite hot on challenging in Morrisons. Everything else is back to normal there.

          3. Our Morrison’s has no guard on the door at all and hasn’t for some weeks. Nobody challenges us. Only when first mask mandates came in did guards on the doors of the supermarkets ask, do you want a mask? We both and individually explained we were exempt. And that’s the end of it. You need only say “I am exempt”.

          4. I think, as I go there every week, and they know/recognise me, I’ll just stay as I am. It’s the only airing it gets. Suddenly becoming exempt mght draw more attention than I want.

          5. How will they know that your medical condition hasn’t changed and by the way it’s nothing to do with them.
            If I managed to get to see a doctor I claim exemption , likewise with surgeons at the hospital, I’ve seen two this year, and they get my permission to remove there own masks.
            Whilst there are exemptions as stated on the government website I will make full use of them and will not be bullied into wearing one.

          6. I’m just not good at lying – my face gives me away – at least behind a mask they can’t see what I’m thinking. I don’t have any known medical conditions beyond old age.

          7. Yet you can’t tell the state no. You have to obey what the state will let you do, then use that.

            That, to me, seems back to front.

          8. I have an “I am exempt from wearing a face covering” badge. The only time I’ve been asked about my exemption was when I told the dentist over the phone I was exempt when I was told to wear a mask.

      2. We have 5 candidates including the current one.

        He’s not too confident in the Police as he’s had an intruder alarm fitted at public expense as well as charging £700 a year for maintenance. A very expensive nonentity.

      3. Same here. And not one of them has so much as dropped a leaflet in the post box. If they don’t want my vote then I am happy not to give it.

        1. They didn’t bother coming here either, but I did post the labour leaflet back to them.

          With copious editing.

      1. Not me, wouldn’t touch a postal vote in this country. The last time I used a postal vote was from Spain for the referendum in 2016.

          1. I had one because I thought I was going to be abroad, but in the end I was back for the election. Then I kept getting a postal vote so I had to tell them I wanted to vote in person in future. MOH has a postal vote because of the sheer logistics of getting to the polling station.

    3. I’m not voting by not going out to vote 😄 I’ve just screwed up and binned the recent deliverers through the letter box, a symbol of my ongoing disgust at the political classes.

      1. It’s a chance to go out and enter a polling station without a mask and make a protest before elections are abolished.

        1. I know too many of the people who work at the polling stations, i’ll never live it down.

    4. Same here, but no different to previous council votes.

      Our voting centre was a 5 minute walk away until last time, when it was moved to a 25 min walk away. This time it was a 40 minute walk away in the furthest corner of our urban borough, so we drove, parked as close as we could (resident-only parking) and walked, a total of 20 minute each way. Are they trying to tell us something?

      1. Ours is a five mile round trip to the next village but it does have parking at the village hall. I shall be going to spoil my vote unless I have a miraculous conversion when I see the list.

          1. I spoilt the ballot for the PCC and also noted that I thought it an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. It was surprisingly busy there.

    5. #MeToo, Alf and it’s notable that the ballot for Police Commissioner has a party affiliation for each one yet they still claim to be apolitical, lies, damned lies and effin’ great porkies.

      I spoiled both ballots.

    6. Average turn-out in local elections is 35%. That takes in middle class areas with a civic conscience (50%) and polling districts where the turn-out never reaches double figures.

    7. I was the only person there when I voted this afternoon. My neighbour said there wasn’t more than a couple of people there when she and her husband voted, either.

  47. Does Johnson have the guts to tell Macron that if he is too weak to control his fisherman and enforce the rules then he should get out the way and leave us to do his job for him?

  48. I know that we have noticed The Repair Shop is pandering to the emotionally incontinent, but last night was full-on Beeb.
    A mother and son rocked up with a teddy bear. I thought “Easy peasy; I could repair that, why on earth travel to deepest Kent for something that could be done at home?”. Then came the reason for such a bog standard spot of work was revealed; the bear’s owner was originally a girl and was ‘transitioning’ and the bear had been there to comfort him/her/whatever on the ‘journey’.
    Aaaaarrrggghhhhh …… can nothing – but nothing – be left as a pleasant programme where we just learn something?

    1. Jolly glad I missed/can miss that one! Thanks Anne! “Emotionally incontinent” indeed!

    2. Be thankful that the repairers are still mainly white. My wife thinks Jay Blades, the dyslexic frontman, puts the sex into dyslexia.

      1. Really!! We’re still trying to work out what his speciality is! Supposed to be an “upholsterer” but I hae ma doots! Nice bloke, not awfully ept!

      2. My instant always cry is, “Take your bloody hat off – you’re in-doors.”

    3. What rubbish! We are watching less & less telly these days. The Scandi drama on Saturday nights has us these days, and the Yorkshire vet.

      1. We quite like “The Yorkshire Farm” with the 9 children and for me QI is always worth a laugh.

    4. I gave up on what i thought might have been an interesting programme months ago. I got fed up with the presenter who does nothing but flit around to get noticed. And the lad who seems to wet his pants when he gets the glue and sand paper out.
      There was a great prog on BBC 4 last night, The Treasure Hunters about diamonds, opals, pearls and gold. Followed by a a very skilled old chap making hand crafted wooden chairs. I wanted to help him. Fascinating stuff.

    5. The Repair Shop of the future – What can we do for you Ahmed? – – Can you refurbish this rubber dinghy please – it means a lot to me – – it symbolises our dangerous trip to England, ( well half way then Border Force picked us up ) where we have never had to work since because the English taxpayer is SOOOO generous.

    7. We get that as well. Even with a general interest news item they seek out some lgbtwhatever twist and focus on that.

      A few years ago during the great fort McMurray fire, they had to find a gay couple to interview about the panic stricken evacuation of the town. They are just trying to make different into normal.

      1. The direct debit cancellation form works a treat too, coupled with a visit to the local dump.

    9. I switch on the TV just as the refurbished bear was handed over. Poor chap, I thought. “Series of operations” Needs his old teddy. A bit more talk and the penny dropped. Swift revision of thinking, tending towards having needed a good slap sometime previously.

    10. I’ve always admired the skills exhibited by the Repair Shop engineers but both Best Beloved and I thought, “What a prick?” and has it yet been attached, made out of the removed breasts?

      Godstrewth, the mind boggles and the gast is absolutely flabbered that someone (who might be) intelligent, could put themselves through that, despite still retaining XX DNA, for what outcome?

    11. Learn something? Whatever made you think that was acceptable, anne? We need to be brainwashed.

  49. We have nothing to vote for (except a County Council by-election and the Perlice and Crime Sycophant), so I didn’t waste my time.

    What troubles me about today’s charade is that it seems likely that — for reasons completely beyond my ken – will do well. And the BPAPM and his gang of brown-nosers will claim it is GREAT SUCCESS and a VOTE OF CONFIDENCE in their handling of the plague.

    I shall just follow the cats’ example and be sick in the corner…

    2. Far too many English in my view, they were poor in the six nations and I don’t see Gatland getting much more from them than Jones did.

      1. Blimey sos, have you been taking ‘optimism’ lessons from Uncle Bill? First Mourinho, then the footy and now the Lions! Cheer up man!

        1. The Saffers will beat nine flavours of Hell out of them, unless the squad is short English, long the rest.

          Unfortunately, Gatland is a wham bam thuggee man.

          The Springboks are far better equipped on that score and I think the best way to approach them is fast, counterattacking backs, and very mobile back three of the scrum.

          Very much NOT Gatland’s approach.

    3. When I got my first sailing dinghy one of my sisters made a racing burgee for me as a Christmas present.

      It had a bright blue background with a golden emblem of Richard Couer de Lion embroidered upon it.

    4. The forwards look a bit lumbering. Far too many well known names.
      The raison d’être of the Lions has disappeared. It dates from a time when the player were amateurs with day jobs. They played half a dozen internationals a year and otherwise played at club level against players who were not of international standard. Going on tour made sense in terms of raising standards and meeting tough opposition at player level and team level.
      Now players are full time professionals and play against top quality players, including internationalists from all the 6N, week in and week out. Professional players should be taking the summer off, relaxing with their families and taking it easy, not hyping themselves up physically and mentally for a hard slog.
      Is this about rugby or about money from TV rights?.

  51. By giving in to the EU we not only buggered up Brexit but we annoyed the EU who now feel they could have got more out of us and will go on and on pushing.

    But if we had been as bloody-minded as the French and the EU we would probably have got a far better Brexit and, ironically, I expect the French and the EU would have been far happier.

    Does anyone remember the advice we received before going to buy things in an Arab market?
    That is:

    Never accept the price the seller initially offers. If you do it will not only mean that you pay too much but you will also disappoint the seller who will be consumed with frustration at the thought that if he had asked a higher price at outset he would have got more money out of you.
    However if you haggle fiercely and don’t give in both you and the seller will benefit – you will get the goods at a cheaper price and the seller will be far happier because he will know that he got as much money out of you as you were prepared to pay.

    1. Start off by going in hard, then you have room to back off if necessary. Start soft, and there’s no going anywhere from that but downhill.

    2. One of my neighbours is Portuguese and she says the EU is “corrupt, nasty and vindictive”. It’s her opinion that they will try to punish us to prevent anybody else leaving. “That is why we have to win”, I told her. “We’ve saved Europe twice by force of arms, now we have to do it by example.”


  52. Why I’m Not Voting Conservative on Thursday – Or, Indeed, Ever Again…
    296
    Ghostly2Getty Images
    JAMES DELINGPOLE5 May 2021427
    7:34
    So the Tories have had exactly 11 years to undo all the damage of the Blair/Brown Labour years and to make Britain prosperous and free again. And what have they achieved that’s remotely conservative in that time? Nada. Zip. Zilch.

    If the Conservatives do well in Thursday’s local elections it won’t be because they have done anything to deserve it. As it happens, these elections are taking place on the 11th anniversary of the Conservatives taking power from Labour back on May 6th, 2010.

    Most of us, had we sat down with a notepad 11 years ago, could have come up with a wishlist for all the things we might have hoped a Conservative government would do. Probably, our lists would have looked quite similar.

    Near the top would have been: Exit the European Union.

    Brexit didn’t have a name back then. But we all knew roughly what it would look like: freedom from the regulations and constrictions of the sclerotic, corrupt and Socialistic (but I repeat myself) European superstate. No more stupid, timewasting directives imposed on us by crazy unelected officials in Brussels and then gold-plated by our own Deep State civil service. Instead, we’d be able once more to forge our own destiny — as we managed perfectly well for the two hundred or so years when we effectively invented Western Industrial Civilisation and when half the world’s atlas was coloured pink.

    The rest of the list is pretty obvious too.

    Control immigration, in part to ensure public services aren’t overwhelmed, but perhaps mainly to ensure our country maintains its character. Too many of the Soros types pushing the globalist open borders subscribe to the ‘magic soil’ theory that if you ship some fellow to Blighty he’ll become a model Englishman. No he won’t. Bitter experience over many years shows as often as not, he will strive daily to make it more like the place he came from. This is so obvious to me — and to all of you I’m sure — that it oughtn’t to need explaining. Yet it does.
    Restore education — because without it, our country has no future. Bring back grammar schools; give more state schools the freedom to be like Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela School where children have to learn by heart uplifting patriotic poems, learn times tables, facts and dates, dress smartly, respect their teachers, be quiet in class. English should be about grammar and spelling and reading actual complete books. History should a celebration of great men (and women), a catalogue of battles and key events, and inspiration for future heroes — not a breast-beating whinge about the slave trade.
    Stop sucking up to Big Business, Woke Corporations, and suchlike because they are scum, they have no loyalty to Britain — or the free market or the consumer — and certainly don’t deserve being propped up with taxpayers’ largesse on grands projets like, say, an expensive, massively overbudget new rail system which destroys the countryside and which no one needs. Do help small businesses — which are the backbone of the UK economy and are generally much less woke — by getting out of the way and letting them get on with the business of doing business. Cut red tape; cut taxes; watch the economy grow.
    Maintain a strong Armed Forces — for protection, national pride, tradition — but don’t use them on foreign wars of intervention which cause far more harm than good.
    Win the culture wars. Utterly destroy wokism wherever it rears its hideous head: no encouraging confused kids to get sex changes; no diversity quotas; no unconscious bias training anywhere where the taxpayer is paying for this crap; scorched earth policy (wreaked via Charity Commission) for any institutions — eg the National Trust — which abandon their core purpose and instead start dabbling in identity politics nonsense; sell off the BBC, burn down all its buildings, salt the earth and sprinkle it with holy water and garlic; make ‘taking the knee’ before sporting events an offence punishable by castration… That should do for starters.
    When you say ‘Cut the Green Crap’, actually mean it: remove every bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifix from England’s green and pleasant land (see also: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland); frack for shale gas. Go for energy which is abundant and cheap.
    Law and order
    Obviously, that list isn’t exhaustive. But it’s a start — and it’s hardly unduly demanding, I’d suggest. I mean: small government, personal responsibility, low taxes, equality of opportunity not outcome, tradition, patriotism, cultural cohesion — these aren’t exactly radical positions for a conservative to take, are they? They’re pretty much Conservatism 101.

    Yet scanning the list above — or consulting your own, no doubt similar, lists — can you find any item, anywhere, where the Conservatives have delivered? I can’t.

    When the Conservatives began their latest spell in office under David Cameron, it was just about possible to excuse their crapness with the fact that they were in coalition with the grisly Lib Dems.

    But then — much to Cameron’s surprise — the Conservatives won a solo victory and STILL they carried on as if Nick Clegg were deputy prime minister and they had to ‘balance’ the Cabinet with squishy social-democratic poltroons. That’s because, as Cameron himself tacitly admitted, he was not himself a conservative. Rather he fancied himself as the ‘Heir to Blair’ — ie to a creature so insidiously leftwing that even to this day, if you believe Peter Hitchens — and on this occasion, I think I do — he remains a closet Trotskyite subversive.

    Then Theresa May replaced Cameron and, if anything, she was even worse. (As well you might expect of a woman who had once declared that the Conservatives were the ‘Nasty Party’ — and so set out to cleanse it of every last vestige of conservatism.)

    Then bumbling, useless, priapic, and corrupt Boris Johnson replaced May — and turned out to be worst still.

    Here Britain stands after 11 years of Conservative rule: in thrall to the unions and to the grotesque cult of NHS worship; massively in debt owing to huge government overspending; an education system in ruins; a shredded Armed Forces in thrall to the woke agenda, with regiments cut to the bone, but burdened with hugely vulnerable white elephants like that silly giant aircraft carrier; Conservative MPs pushing the idiotic ‘Equality’ agenda as hard as if they were Labour MPs; fast decreasing freedom of speech; police who are only interested in fighting two types of crime — thought crime (or hurty words on the internet) and harmless, otherwise law-abiding, people breaching draconian and pointless Covid regulations; fiscal responsibility completely out of the window; the biggest tax burden since the 1960s; white elephant projects like HS2 out of control; rubber boats arriving daily from Europe full of immigrants who are instantly put up in nice hotels and will never be deported; bloody bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes everywhere, despoiling the land, ruining every sea view; an imminent ban on petrol cars; the entire nation under virtual house arrest, banned from travelling abroad…

    Vote Conservative; Get the Ruination of Britain.

    It’s not a mistake I shall ever make at the ballot box. But I fear it may be too late. The damage is done.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/05/05/why-im-not-voting-conservative-today-or-indeed-ever-again/

      1. D’you remember the BBC3 yoof channel doing a party political broadcast for the Can’t Be Arsed Party? I looked for a link but it seems to only exist now on the Facebook page for BBC Comedy.

      1. Yet the method for changing it is ineffective. Real, significant change is needed and the state must be forced to accept our will. That’s it’s job, after all.

    3. I agree entirely. He’s right.

      However, the way to solve this is simple and is in one place. Tax. The state is awash with money. If it were not, it cannot do all the damage it does.

  53. Huxley to Orwell…………….Uff Da !!

    Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover

    that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as

    instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for

    power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into

    loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”
    Furlough anyone……..

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/aldous_huxley_foresaw_our_despots__fauci_gates_and_their_vaccine_crusaders.html
    Article worth your time

    1. I have quoted from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes before and I make no excuse for quoting him again:

      “But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
      And by their vices brought to servitude,
      Than to love Bondage more than Liberty,
      Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;”

      1. Rastus – have you thought about realigning your business to teach English (lang and lit) to French students, along with letting out your accommodation?

  55. We must follow Robert Herrick’s advice and watch the film on BBC 4 on television at 8.00 p.m. tonight.

      1. “Rosebud…”. There you go. The entire film in one spoiler. Classic denouement.

      1. Yep! They’ve buffered off home, still whinging! They have no Brieding!

    2. The department of defence would take twenty years to fill in the paperwork.

      Another decade to buy the weapon. A further to buy the ammunition.

      In 2060, it’d be ready for test firing where it would be discovered the turret doesn’t traverse, that the ammo doesn’t fit the barrel and it pulls the boat over. MoD hails it a great success as the project was brought in on time and budget – 90% of which went on diversity studies and climate change analysis.

    1. Folk like being offended. It allows them to refuse their own responsibility by blaming others

    3. Isn’t the correct answer “Henry III of England”? Henry V won the next 2.

    4. Isn’t the correct answer “Henry III of England”? Henry V won the next 2.

  61. Best Laugh of the Day…..

    Bollocks to the NHS
    I watched with sustained laughter at the NHS TV advert advising you to go to your GP if you have a persistent cough….
    Oh…. and if you are unlucky enough to experience a stroke ……

    WTF is a doctor?
    Remind me I’m losing the friggin’ plot…..?

        1. I’ll pass on the question as it ain’t the cough that carries you off…

    2. Have you thought of complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority? Just a suggestion …

    3. And while you are there the records will be checked and if you haven’t been checked for Covid – -you’ll be tested before you have time to move. Instant diagnosis of positive – then jabbed and told to isolate. – all on record – no matter if you haven’t got it, don’t want the jab or whatever. Something VERY sinister going on.

  62. Good old Britannia shows the world we can beat global warning with the coldest April
    since 1922….

  63. 332407+ up ticks,
    This is complete and utter bollocks and the direct result of the lab/lib/con coalition support / votes over the last three decades.
    An instance what these governance parties have created,
    we must clear up our internal political sh!te first then straighten out the french.
    This lab/lib/con cartel has already knifed the fishermen of England this is a tidying up exercise.

    Transgender Child Rapist Freed Despite Attacking Prison Guards After They Took Her Shaving Razors

    “After taking HER shaving mirror” has the electorate been bought and the politico’s completely innocent.

  65. 18.30pm..The Royal Navy sends two warships to Jersey. 18.31pm, France surrenders.

    Who’d of thought it eh?

    Jersey winning World War III.

    1. HMS Mary Rose set sail from Pompey aboard Brittany Ferry owned Honfleur

    2. It’s contribution to WW2 was immense too. It soaked up over 10,000 soldiers and a twelfth of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall resources.

  66. ‘I seek a kind person’: the Guardian ad that saved my Jewish father from the Nazis. 6 may 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf96bff589739487c121f531be8dd2c1baac018b53f52fe04bc88201c5e201e4.jpg

    This ad was placed in the Manchester Guardian on 3 August 1938. The date tells you the circumstances. What confidence these people must have had in the UK! To send their children unaccompanied to another country and entrust them to the care of others. It was deserved of course. It was the home of a people that were Proud but not Arrogant, Independent but not Isolated and best of all were free to speak their minds to whomsoever they pleased. No one could gainsay them this right, it was written into their very natures by the sacrifices of their Fathers and taught to them in their cradles by their Mothers. It was woven into the very fabric of their lives! That UK contrary to modern Woke perception was a Beacon of Freedom in the world. It had its faults but here all might live regardless of origin, certain that no secret policeman would demand that they curb their speech let alone come knocking at the door to drag them off to disappear into the night!

    How have the mighty Fallen!

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/06/guardian-200-ad-that-saved-jewish-father-from-nazis

    1. How are the mighty fallen. Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

      David’s lament on the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, known as The Song of the Bow, from the the 2nd Book of Samuel. I learnt this by heart when I was at prep. school.

      …………… How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.

    2. 332407+ up ticks,
      Afternoon As,
      I do believe it to be how the decent have been taken down via the polling booth.

      1. The decent gave you Kippers your chance back in 2015/’16 and you blew it.
        The majority of your elected representatives, MEPs, councillors and voice in Parliament quit UKIP.
        They had had enough of the shambles and in-fighting that Kippers seemed to prefer.
        For millions of voters it was a lesson learnt. A vote for a fringe party was a vote wasted. Muppet.

        1. That’s how I see it, Jack.
          I gave time to UKIP, but could see quickly that they were utter chaos, everybody doing their own thing and pulling in their own direction. So I backed out. No organisation, no strategy, plans, and so on.

          1. Agreed Ob.
            The more extreme Kippers quitting UKIP and joining AMW’s re-branded BNP in 2016, when she lost out to Henry Bolton should have been a second chance for Kippers. Remaining Kippers had other ideas.

            Nigel and his supporters killed off any chance of we centre-right voting for another fringe party.

            Brexit Party was nothing more than Nigel’s fan club at £25 a pop. As much a farce as UKIP.

        2. Tiresome. The ‘decent people’ voted for Brexit. There were confused others who were lied to.

          Stop talking about Labour.

          1. 17.4 million of us voted Leave wibbling.
            5.5 million in 2019 EU election was the best the far-right managed.
            You need to accept that wibbling.

    5. That is what makes me proud to be British – the reaction to people really in need. I remind myself when I am terminally pissed off by the medacious milksops taht now run the place.
      I worked with two who came on the Kindertransport, alone, parents never seen again.
      I also worked with the nicest, most humble bloke you ever met. He was the Janitor. Florrie was Polish. He was also ex-SOE, he’s had run-ins with the Gestapo in Poland. He was a great Pole, a man to admire unreservedly. When he finally retired, pretty well all of Cranfield turned out – far, far more than when one of the Professors retired.

    7. Which is odd, as at the time the grauniad was fervently supporting Hitler.

      As the Left always do.

    2. LBC’s O’Brien still takes some beating.
      20 seconds into his show he managed a go at Brexit AND Trump.

    1. Looking fairly grim down south. Not so much up here where life continues as normal as we can make it.

        1. Imagine his poor wife – a white woman married to a man who hates white people.

    4. From Wikipedia : Lammy considers himself English he said, “I’m of African descent, African-Caribbean descent, but I am English. But you can’t be English because you support Spurs, if you were to support Arsenal, like me, then maybe you might on a dark night during a power cut pass as English !

    5. A repeat of a story:

      The Difference Is Reality

      A group of psychiatrists toured an insane asylum that was renowned for their progressive rehabilitation methods.

      The doctors began by meeting with some of the patients. The first patient they visited was a young woman. She was practising ballet. One of the psychiatrists asked, “What are you doing?”

      She replied, “I’m studying ballet so when I get out of here, I can possibly join a dance troupe and be a productive member of society.”

      The doctor, quite impressed, said, “Wow, that’s wonderful.”

      The next patient was a man reading a book with a stack of books next to him. The same question was asked of him, “What are you doing?”

      “I’m studying biology, science and chemistry so I can enter medical school when I get out,” the patient replied.

      Room after room they witnessed the incredible success and attitudes of the patients. That is until they finally reached a room the asylum’s director was reluctant to open.

      Finally, the director was persuaded to open it. Inside was a naked man balancing a peanut on his very erect and stiff penis. The reaction of the psychiatrists was one of utter shock, as one of them stammered, “My God, what are you doing?”

      The patient looked up at the psychiatrist, with a wide grin, and said, “Hi, I’m David Lammy I’m fucking nuts and I’m never getting out of here!”

  70. Is baggie still here?
    More to the point, where has Spam Fritter/Horace Cope disappeared to?
    I miss our occasional exchanges over on Breitbart 🙂
    Truth Revealed – Like the Markles, TR’s truth.

      1. Feck off baggie. Back to your dying, “No-platform ” channels 🙂
        How many do you control these days?
        Last time I looked it was a dozen or more.

          1. You used to be a mod on TR’s new channel. Until TR refused to ban Mailbiter.
            When you threw a hissy fit and went off to set up your own multitude of channels. Remember?

    2. Jack, I think you fill enough blank space as a troll – we don’t need anymore and they get short shrift on here – a road I think you may be heading down.

  71. Apparently Alastair Campbell is to be guest presenter on Good Morning Britain next week.

    And there was I thinking that it would be impossible to plumb any deeper depths than Piers Morgan…

    1. He still hasn’t gotten over losing the referendum.
      Along with Adonis, he couldn’t convince enough people we were better off staying within the EU.
      MSM don’t seem to be happy about it either.

  72. Signing off early, again. Another lecture from Rome (which wasn’t built in a day – AND used a lot of lave labour).

    I just hope it is warmer tomorrow.

    A demain.

    1. Whatever it is, it’s almost as rare as the cross of Saint George these days.

    1. “Processing PDF document…”
      This better be worth the wait OLT 🙂

      ETA: Take it back – it was 🙂

        1. OK – in the category of best post by a Male poster …… envelope please…….. the winner is OLT for his succinct & to the point 2 dots comment !
          And in the category of best post by a Female poster……..envelope please ……..er sorry not that one – that’s a postal ballot from a long dead resident of Hackney …… the winner is Plum for her confession to being intoxicated at an early age .

        2. OK – in the category of best post by a Male poster …… envelope please…….. the winner is OLT for his succinct & to the point 2 dots comment !
          And in the category of best post by a Female poster……..envelope please ……..er sorry not that one – that’s a postal ballot from a long dead resident of Hackney …… the winner is Plum for her confession to being intoxicated at an early age .

  78. HAPPY HOUR -When was the first time you got pissed…. NoTTlers?

    I was sweet sixteen.
    My friends told me I was losing out and convinced me I should grow up
    and have some fun. So just to prove that I was “cool,” I foolishly mixed my drinks
    and got hammered, egged on by my ‘friends…’
    I had no idea what the hell was going on.
    Luckily I came to no harm.
    Next morning I awoke with a thumping, sick headache, thinking
    if that’s fun I never want to go there again………lesson learned!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

      1. Same. Homebrew beer – including the yeast deposit… sick like a firehose!

        1. #MeToo. My dad went round to my friends house and asked him what i had been drinking. Splitter !

    2. 12. Peach brandy. Bludenz Austria. School skiing trip. Didn’t learn any lessons.

    4. It took me about 40 years to realise what was causing the sore heads in the morning.

    5. About 7 or 8 – on Christmas Day. Me and my elder brother were allowed to drink cider, and we had many opportunities to sample the grownups’ drinks – sherry, gin & tonic etc. However, I have no recollection of a hangover …

    6. How pissed?

      14 a mild hangover
      15 a heavy hangover
      18 puked
      19 puked for several hours, the hangover lasted a week and I couldn’t look a pint glass of sherry in the eye for over ten years.

    8. Lower Sixth on the last day of the summer term. The common room floated and the assembly hall wasn’t much better. I never threw up in the cloakroom though and many did.

      It was a girls grammar school that went a bit St Trinians in anticipation of the summer holidays. For the final assembly we always sang the hymn “Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing”, which has apparently gone out of favour. A shame.
      https://hymnary.org/text/lord_dismiss_us_with_thy_blessing_thanks

    9. West Berlin on an exchange visit with the boys club. Can’t remember anything after coming out of a bar with a young German girl.
      Woke up the following morning at the youth hostel and when I walked down to breakfast I was given a round of applause on my appearance.
      I never had the nerve to ask what exactly happened the previous night, and to this day I still none the wiser.
      I only had coffee for breakfast.

    10. what’s a hangover?

      Never had one and that is my excuse for unconstrained consumption.

  79. Interesting…
    “Real Time” host Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by sounding the alarm on China’s growing dominance over the United States.

    “You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a silly people. And Americans are a silly people,” Maher began the monologue, alluding to a “Lawrence of Arabia” quote.
    Do you know who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China,” he said. “All 1.4 billion of them couldn’t give a crouching tiger flying f— because they’re not a silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”
    Maher acknowledged that China does “bad stuff” from the concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims to its treatment of Hong Kong.
    But he stressed, “There’s got to be something between an authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”
    “In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals. Oh, and they bought Africa,” Maher said, pointing to China’s global Silk Road infrastructure initiative.
    He continued: “In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. … We’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a d— and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are a silly people.
    “Nothing ever moves in this impacted colon of a country. We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years,” Maher explained. “China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”
    The HBO star cited how it took “ten years” for a bus line in San Francisco to pass its environmental review and how it took “16 years” to build the Big Dig tunnel in Boston, comparing that to a 57-story skyscraper that China built in “19 days” and Beijing’s Sanyuan Bridge, which was demolished and rebuilt in “43 hours.”
    “We binge-watch, they binge-build. When COVID hit Wuhan, the city built a quarantine center with 4,000 rooms in 10 days and they barely had to use it because they quickly arrested the rest of the disease,” Maher said. “They were back to throwing raves in swimming pools while we were stuck at home surfing the dark web for black market Charmin. We’re not losing to China, we lost. The returns just haven’t all come in yet. They’ve made robots that check a kid’s temperature and got their asses back in school. Most of our kids are still pretending to take Zoom classes while they watch TikTok and their brain cells fully commit ritual suicide.”
    Maher then blasted Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing him of degrading school standards by eliminating merit and substituting a lottery system for admittance to schools for advanced learners.
    “Do you think China’s doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest?” Maher continued. “Do you think Chinese colleges are offering courses in ‘The Philosophy of Star Trek, ‘The Sociology of Seinfeld,’ and ‘Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse’? Those are real and so is China. And they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they’ll be hungry again.”

    1. So true. The many of us who live in hope that the crazy social developments of the modern world will be reversed any time soon will be sadly disappointed. Woke culture and its Marxist parent are firmly established as cancers in our Western society.

    3. We were knackered back in the ’80s when Maggie’s fans were more interested in the profits they had made from selling on their shares in our national assets to Johnny Foreigner.

        1. You paid?

          We are sure that Trudeau was paid. His being on the payroll is the only explanation for some of his China loving antics.

    1. Imagine if it has turned her into a rabid Portsmouth supporter.

      I hope she’s OK.

          1. Following her bet with her navy Portsmouth drinking pals, her speech in the Commons demonstrated how far Parliament had fallen.

          2. Following her bet with her navy Portsmouth drinking pals, her speech in the Commons demonstrated defenestrated how far Parliament had fallen.

  82. Been away out most of the day, so I missed all the excitement over the Channel Islands fishing dispute. Seems that the poof in the Élysée Palace and the fat windbag in Downing Street are both huffing and puffing and stamping their feet and have sent warships to the area.

    So who will blink first? Will it be the cheese eating surrender-monkey in Paris or the quinoa eating surrender-monkey in Westminster? I’m going to ‘phone the bookie to find out what odds they’re giving.
    ;¬)

          3. My family lived there for a few years.

            A wonderful place.

            I didn’t want to return to the UK.

          2. Back in the day of sailing ships, he would have been described as a Tow-Rag

      1. Your multitude of “No platform” channels still lifeless then baggie 🙂

    4. It was all over in 60 seconds. Should have put a shot across their bows to stop the frogs from monkeying around.

      1. “Should have put a shot across through their bows to stop the frogs from monkeying around.”

        1. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone hurt. Not even a Frenchman but it would have showed we meant business.

  83. Last post

    Thunder and lightning (very, very frightening) and HAIL. The garden has turned quite white in ten minutes.

  84. Just mixed a Bloomin’ Mary using Big Tom and a Passionfruit Vodka. I know what to drink the next time i have a cough !

  86. On this election day………………….
    Nobody in china has a vote.
    Everyone registered in Britain has a vote.
    China has been back to work for a year with no restrictions.
    Britain hasn’t.
    Is this voting lark overrated?

  87. “Jack S Drah Semit • 30 minutes ago
    This from the spineless twots who just put Bidet/Harris in the White House.

    “BasicMan Jack S • 12 minutes ago
    Can’t argue with you there
    Edit•Reply•Share “

    The West is doomed.

    1. We once had a poster on here who was dismissive of Andre but i think he is a great entertainer and Showman.

      I went to the cinema to watch his Maastricht concert. It was brilliant. The audience was all over 50. I think i was the youngest one there !

          2. “Hello, Good evening, I’m Henry Hall Junior and tonight is my bath night.”

    4. To nitpick, she is very accomplished, but too smooth. The sax should bark a lot of the notes, have some edge to it… she plays like refined coffee, rather than sharp Sicilian espresso. But who am I to complain? I can’t even play a CD properly… :-((

    1. Scots think they have problems?
      Try voting Poots or Robinson as next DUP leader.

        1. Seems so. A Creationist or Robinson.
          You Scots/Geordies think you have problems 🙂

          1. I don’t have a problem being a Geordie! Just the ‘living in Scotland’ bit! The Scots tend to think that Geordies are just Scotsmen with their heads stoved in, and I think the Scots are sheep-stealing b**tards!

          3. Yo sos! Tried to reply to your Gatland/Lions post further down, but computer say ‘no’! I agree with you that we will get hammered in SA, but the idiot Mairs in the DT seemed to think that Gatland was after the England job! What do you think? And why wasn’t Jonny May selected?

          4. Starting last first.
            May was skinned by Rees Zammit, so if you want a flyer, go for the quickest.

            Gatland is too similar to Jones. Big, heavy, lumberers. England need a complete new management team.

          5. The only thing Rees Zammit will gain is experience and I’m not sure he’ll contribute anything but his speed. However he does, at least, look like a rugby player not a Michelin man!

      1. You would never vote for Fransen surely Sue.
        Things are bad enough without making them even worse.
        She’s even worse than Anne-Marie Waters.

        1. Good gracious! Not a chance! As you say, things are nasty enough without adding more perceived grievances.

          1. It’s the 10 million plus who voted Corbyn/Momentum back in 2019 we should be worried about.
            No right-wing party can match those numbers.

          5. Our politicians/media would have us believe we are all in fear of this “deadly virus” sweeping the country.
            They don’t report on the regions who believe otherwise.

          8. The eejits over on Breitbart say we should not vote/spoil our ballot papers.
            They never say how they would persuade the Left to do the same.

      1. If not, she is certainly a fellow traveller. She has also, like him, been duffed up by the State.

    4. Responding to footage of the incident on Twitter, Ms Sturgeon later wrote: “Glasgow Southside is the most diverse and multi-cultural constituency in Scotland – one of the many things that makes it so brilliant. I am confident it will unite today to utterly reject these fascists.”

      I wonder what the silly ***** will say when one particular culture tries to assert itself over all the others.

      And the overuse of the F-word will soon render it redundant.

    1. I think most people must be fed up with these over-privileged wasters preaching to everyone else.

      1. Judging by the admiration that appears to be being poured over them in the USA, I suspect less so there.

        1. Only by the luvvies. Most Americans neither know about them or give a shit. They have bills to pay.

    2. Prostituting themselves to the highest bidder. Harry’s too thick and she’s too avaricious to see the problems with that. Hopefully they are not our problem any more.
      Though I do fear that twenty years from now there will be resentful, destroyed grown up children to deal with, on an agenda to milk the RF by trotting out the usual accusations against our country.

      1. I hope I’m wrong, for the children’s sake, but I think she’ll have moved on in fewer than 10 years.

        1. She’ll get custody of the children and mess them up. Wimpy Charles and his millennial children won’t be able to counter that, and the kids will grow up seeing themselves as the biggest victims, racism etc.

    1. I do not know a lot about this man, but that was right in the back of the net!

    2. Can you even start to imagine a BBC interviewer counter-attacking like that in his language?
      No?, neither can I.
      Can you even start to imagine a UK politician counter-attacking like that in a foreign interviewer’s language?
      No?, neither can I.

      1. Andrew Neil.
        His takedown of Labour’s Anna Eagle is still a classic car-crash interview.

          1. AN: “200,000 immigrants per year too many or to few?”
            Her response, too many and she was in trouble with her party. too few and Labour was in trouble with the voters.
            The look on her face as she realised what she had done was classic.

          2. Indeed, but I suspect you may have missed my original point.
            I think NO British interviewer or politician could have skewered the interviewer/interviewee in their own language as that man did.

  96. “Gary Lineker pursued by HMRC over £5m tax bill
    Lineker is the latest star to be chased under IR35 legislation”

    I wonder if he will eventually pay with Crisp £50 notes?

    3. Only the English would worship Lineker. As they did Gascoigne.
      Why England’s trophy cabinet is still empty.

      2. There are some of us, Jack, who recognise Wendyball for what it is, a business intent on ripping off the suckers who continue to think that they’re wanted and don’t realise it’s the TV that pays the wages.

        Stop attending, stop watching the TV and watch it go into limpdick mode.

      1. …and they won’t take it in a little blue twist – hey man, they’s goin’ Jumbo pack – we want da howse as well.

  97. I recommend the Dan Bongino Show Episode 1515 on Rumble right now. That Soros bastard has tentacles extending over every government and most Democrat politicians, lawmakers and Deep State agencies in the USA.

    Fifteen of the twenty Facebook oversight wallahs who voted to ban President Donald Trump, for six months before revue, are funded by George Soros via his Open Society Foundation.

    It seems that Pretty Polly hit the nail on the head years ago despite enduring ridicule on this forum.

    Edit: That other bastard Nick Clegg has widely applauded the decision to ban Trump indefinitely. Clegg was right to vacate the UK when he did, hated and despised by the voters and almost rivalling our loathing of Anthony Linton Blair. I trust in God that both will meet a sticky end.

    1. “It seems that Pretty Polly hit the nail on the head years ago despite enduring ridicule on this forum.”

      Ridiculed for good reason. Why she hangs out on Breitbart these days.

        1. Afternoons she receives a lot of upvotes from the Americans.
          The same Americans who think Nigel should run for PM.

      2. Polly can be a little repetitive on the subject of her bête noire, George Soros but I’ve never mocked or ridiculed her.

        Certainly, she has unique style. Although she doesn’t write in dactylic hexameters, her posts are reminiscent of Pythian prophesy – where predictions are imparted in an obscure fashion – and the Socratic method of teaching which, by asking questions, encourages critical thinking in the reader.
        ;¬)

    3. I have been posting about that evil SOB George Soros for many years on different platforms including back when the DT still used Disqus & it has got my comments removed or even had me banned on some websites.

      1. Commiserations. Most on here have understood that Soros is pure evil. Every single thing the bastard associates with is anti-British. The ghastly little man hates our country, our history and our wish to be independent of the ruddy EU.

        The little bastard has worked relentlessly to infiltrate all branches of our government, no doubt gifting a few millions here and there to the Johnson’s, Gove’s, Hancock’s and assorted government minister rabble, in order to achieve his malevolent aims. From Soros’s point of view the UK must be destroyed and compliant to the feted a New World Order of which the diminutive git is a major sponsor.

    4. I totally agree with you, corimmobile, with the exception of your final sentence. “…their deserved comeuppance” sounds a lot better than “…a sticky end”.

      1. I would have thought, Elsie, that their deserved comeuppance would be a sticky end.

        1. I fear that they will not. Oscar Wilde was not wide of the mark and he put it succinctly in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’:

          “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”

  98. I’m just watching the BBC programme on the abuse that the footballer Ian Wright suffered as a child at the hands of a violent stepfather. Powerful stuff and brave of him to bare his hurt.

    However, the programme has avoided what I think are the critical issues: why did the abuser do what he/she did and why such abuse is more prevalent in Afro-Caribbean families? Of course, no mention that women can also be abusers and that the absence of fathers is a significant factor (Wright himself has 7 children plus one adopted child from 5 mothers and 2 marriages and the programme doesn’t mention let alone address how he may have left his children vulnerable to the same treatment).

    3. I would be more inclined to listen to Ian Wright if he would learn to speak the Queen’s English and every time ‘e opened ‘is marf, ‘e din’t whine abaht sumfink

    2. Wonderful, Mahatma. I watched this last night after Googling Avalon Jazz Band. Then I watched several more of their YouTube clips, followed by a lot of clips of Charles Trenet, the song’s composer, and then read more about Charles Trenet on Wikipedia. What a fascinating and talented man he was.

      1. Have an enjoyable evening Elsie, YouTube despite its many faults is great place to find good music from all over the world, my other favorites besides the Avalon Jazz Band are Hetty & the Jazzeto’s , Hilary Klug and the Petersens and all the golden oldies that I loved from back in the 1960’s when I was a child growing up in London . Here is one I hope you will enjoy, Helen Shapiro – Look Who It Is (Ready Steady Go, 1963)
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw0N9oCZCdE

        1. What a great clip, I’d never seen that before. Where was Paul, was he the cameraman?

        2. Helen Shapiro would have been 16 or 17 years old when this recording was made. She had a very mature voice but she also seems incredibly self-assured. Looking at Wiki I see that she is two months younger than I am. She was already a woman – I was still a boy.

          Incidentally, why did Paul McCartney not show up?

          1. I have no idea where he was, they were not there that day to sing on Ready Steady Go, so I guess the other 3 Beatles where there to give Helen increased publicity.

        3. She had real talent. I suspect some of those Beatle antics were unscripted, and she had to ad lib a response.

      2. We had an old 78 rpm gramophone record of Charles Trenet singing La Mer in the 1950’s – I loved the song as a child and I still do. The Avalon Jazz Band’s rendition of it is also marvellous and Tatiana Eva-Marie is delicious.

  100. Evening, all. I suspect most, if not all, of those pursuing the witch hunt of soldiers who served in the Troubles never ever took the Queen’s shilling and have no idea what it was like.

  101. I’ve lifted this from the comments section of tcw. Does anyone know anything about this? Or am I the last to know and late to the party?

    Countrywatch
    “I suggest they will stop imitating Beijing when the full scale of the November voting fraud is revealed. The truth will come out and it will have enormous consequences for our current political leaders, but hugely positive results for the future of our country. That proverbial trickle from that hole in the dam will become a deluge:
    More on that Arizona recount:.
    https://www.simonparkes.org/post/arizona-preliminary-numbers
    Arizona counting staff on NDA’s. (Non Disclosure Agreements)
    Preliminary audit showed Trump ahead by 250,000.
    Now as it nears completion nearly 950,000 ballots are declared ILLEGAL.
    Nearly all (illegal) for Biden.
    Biden’s victory in AZ was 10,200″

    1. Be more precise. Trump actually won by a margin of about 240,000. We knew this anyway, or at least those of us who were paying attention on Election night. We saw it with our bare eyes, for Christ’s sake, where Trump votes vanished altogether and reappeared for Biden, a decrepit lying creep of the First Order.

      1. Well, yes, we saw it, the suitcases dragged out from underneath tables bursting with ready prepared votes and the rest, I watched all the testimonies afterwards but everything, the whole shebang, was swept under the table from the SC downwards, with amazing alacrity. This seems to be the first lifting of the cover of that fraud exposing it to the light of day.

        3. “There was absolutely no evidence of fraud”

          This mantra emerged from the very beginning. What I tell you three times is true is the message from Lewis Carrol’s ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ but the Democrats did not shout it just three times – they are still shouting it.

          The most astonishing thing is that many normally intelligent people seem to be genuinely convinced that it is all sour grapes by Trump and his supporters who could not admit that they had been beaten fair and square. The fact that much of the evidence of fraud was in plain sight seems irrelevant to them.

          1. The path that the shouty left has decided upon always emerges at the start and they out-shout and blunderbuss all in their way. No other voice must be heard. It is so easy now they have the bought support of the media.

            So few people have integrity when the fruition of their hearts’ desire comes into sight.

    2. Be more precise. Trump actually won by a margin of about 240,000. We knew this anyway, or at least those of us who were paying attention on Election night. We saw it with our bare eyes, for Christ’s sake, where Trump votes vanished altogether and reappeared for Biden, a decrepit lying creep of the First Order.

  102. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…

    Nobody was offended by the Three Lions. So why does England Football think we need this woke new symbol?

    The logo typifies the pathetic willingness of the British sporting establishment to capitulate to wacky gesture politics

    SALLY JONES

    There is predictable confusion, even outrage, among rank-and-file English football supporters at the bizarre news that the FA have devised a new logo for their latest campaign. Rather than the Three Lions, which since 1872 have adorned the chests of national sides of all genders and age groups and every community initiative going, they have opted for a cub, lion and lioness which “unite to form the new England Football crest with no boundaries, representing everyone at every level of football across the country.” This, they add sanctimoniously “symbolises progression, greater inclusivity and accessibility in all levels of the beautiful game; from grassroots to elite.” Yerwat?

    Even though the England men’s side and their female counterparts, known, like Millwall’s women, as “Lionesses”, will continue to sport the Three Lions badge on their international shirts, many fans are perplexed by the change, to put it mildly. Apart from the stock epithet “PC nonsense” and the repeated instruction “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, most Twitter responses to the news were unprintable in a family newspaper and concealed from public view with po-faced warnings about offensive content.

    And no wonder. The logo typifies the pathetic willingness of the British sporting establishment to capitulate to every wacky, politically correct slice of gesture politics that comes its way.

    It is also an historically illiterate choice of image. The lions as national symbols date back to the 12th century when Henry I, ‘”The Lion of England” added his wife Adeliza’s family lion to the one on his own shield. After Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1154, the lion on her family crest made it three. Richard the Lionheart’s standard featured three golden lions which have appeared on the Royal Arms of every succeeding monarch, hence the FA’s adoption in 1863 of this stirring regal shield.

    But history aside, who in their right minds could be offended by an ancient heraldic image in which the lions’ age and gender are completely irrelevant? The whole initiative seems calculated to neuter a potent symbol of Englishness. It is reminiscent of the moment in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when the White Witch shaves off Aslan’s mighty mane in a fruitless attempt to destroy his power and authority.

    For my money, that patriotic classic “Three Lions on A Shirt, (Jules Rimet still gleaming)” performed by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds remains one of the wittiest and most stirring football anthems of all time. But it won’t have quite the same ring when the lyric is recast as “One Lion, one Lioness and one Cub on a shirt…” And how long before this trio is joined by a rainbow alliance of diverse leonine personalities: non-binary vegans, wheelchair users, translions – you name it.

    After their overwhelming rout of the greedy Glazers, Abramovich, Kroenke and co with their abortive plans for a “sealed-off Superleague”, the game’s grassroots supporters’ tails are up and they’re spoiling for a fight. In fact I predict that a growing pride of England football fans is even now orchestrating a campaign to force the FA to ditch the new logo and let those Three Lions roar again.

    Sally Jones is a former BBC sports presenter

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/06/nobody-offended-three-lions-does-england-football-think-need/

    I can guess why Sally Jones no longer works for the BBC…

    The old and the new
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47e543035f6a875cab395cf768d9d8fac706fc6fbe90cb59df6f73bc83bc72d9.jpg

    1. So the lion cub is male and the lioness is down at the bottom and they are completely clawless.

      1. But, but, but… I thought the little lion was only printed on eggs and not footballers’ shirts!

        :-))

  110. Off early to golf, weather report later.
    But it looks like the result from Hartlepool is – Conservatives won, Labour kneel.

  112. Folllowing / Chasing the C-19 money:

    US backs waiver for intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines

    In a stunning reversal, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration came out in favor of waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday.

    The move follows months of U.S. opposition that began under former President Donald Trump to a proposal from South Africa and India to temporarily set aside intellectual property rights around products that would protect, contain, and treat COVID-19. Its supporters have argued that the proposal, first tabled at the World Trade Organization in October and now backed by more than 100 countries, is necessary to expand vaccine production and overcome global shortages.

    “Pharma is dead set against it and has, I think, been in large part the reason this thing has dragged on.”— Jan Schakowsky, U.S. Representative for Illinois

    But the soaring global COVID-19 case count, fueled by the disastrous outbreak in India, upped both international and domestic pressure to change that stance.

    “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai saidin a statement released in the midst of a two-day WTO General Councilhttps://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2021/may/statement-ambassador-katherine-tai-covid-19-trips-waiver?mkt_tok=Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAF84FLEeo51T9dVA5dOG_TYVQ0wekQUm6wFK053-cEqQSp-nH23cFfY71ZE2F7KtieGbXuBNLCQn1S8n23MpePPQJZl94iZeFiYItXyzF2l0IdPrg meeting, which concludes today. “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”

    Tai’s announcement confirmed that the United States is now prepared to participate in text-based negotiations around the proposal, a critical step toward adoption of the waiver. Its supporters still have to overcome opposition from other high-income nations, though, if the waiver is to be adopted at WTO – a body that is governed by consensus.

    Activists said they are also preparing to push for an expansion of the U.S. position to include waiving intellectual property protections on COVID-19 treatments and diagnostics and to speed up the dissemination of key technology to accelerate vaccine manufacturing.

    Is COVAX part of the problem or the solution?

    COVAX, the global initiative that promises global equitable vaccine access to COVID-19 countries, was branded as the “only truly global solution” to the pandemic, but has found itself beset with problems. “Biden’s playbook on global vaccine access has been colonial, determined by charity rather than equity and scientific evidence,” Asia Russell, the executive director of Health GAP, said. “Biden has taken a first important step away from disastrous and self-defeating policies – and now the real work begins.”

    The U.S. reversal came despite intense opposition from the pharmaceutical industry. U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky for Illinois who had led a group of Democratic lawmakers in calling for Biden to support the waiver, said she had seen unprecedented lobbying against it.

    “Pharma is dead set against it and has, I think, been in large part the reason this thing has dragged on,” she said during a briefing organized by the Third World Network and other advocacy groups on Tuesday.

    The industry’s main trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, was quick to blast the Biden administration’s announcement.

    “This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines,” PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl said in a statement.

    U.S. support is no guarantee that the waiver will be adopted by WTO, particularly as most high-income players such as the U.K., the EU, and Canada remain opposed to the waiver. But activists are hopeful the shift in U.S. support will encourage other nations to abandon their opposition.

    During the TWN briefing, Kathleen van Brempt, a Belgian lawmaker in the European Parliament, said there is an opening for reversing the European Commission’s opposition to the waiver, but it could take time. She said she is attempting to organize a vote during the May plenary meeting of the European Parliament to demonstrate majority support for the waiver and encourage the EU’s executive body to change its position.

    “I think I can establish a majority in the European Parliament,” she said. “It may require compromises, but I want a shift in how the Commission looks at it.”

    Tai offered a preview of what those compromises might look like. Her announcement stopped short of fully endorsing the proposal by South Africa and India, which also calls for a waiver on intellectual property for COVID-19 treatments, diagnostics, and equipment, including personal protective equipment.

    Following Tai’s announcement, Priti Krishtel, the co-executive director of the Initiative to Medicines, Access & Knowledge, said that the waiver’s sponsors were likely to respond with their own feedback. She said supporters could use that as an opening to “absolutely be advocating that the temporary IP waiver apply to all medical-products, including testing, treatment, and other products needed to save lives right now.”

    Even before the U.S. announcement, the waiver’s sponsors said they were already in the process of revising the proposal to include a more specific timeframe, a move that seemed designed to assuage the pharmaceutical industry and governments allied with it.

    “We are not against IP rights,” Brajendra Navnit, India’s ambassador to and permanent representative at WTO, explained during this week’s briefing. “When we talk about a temporary waiver, we do not want to be judged as we are against intellectual property rights. But if we are not delivering in a couple of quarters, larger damage is going to happen.”

    Supporters of the waiver also cautioned that it will not be an immediate panacea. Even if it is ultimately approved, it will not result in an immediate scale-up in vaccine production and distribution. Unless the companies already producing vaccines are willing to begin transferring the technology needed to create them, new manufacturers may not even be able to start trials until the end of 2021, Krishtel said.

    Activists are pressuring the government and companies to transfer that technology now through the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP. Established a year ago, C-TAP is a mechanism to pool technology, intellectual property, and data related to COVID-19, allowing for broader access. It has largely been ignored, though, since its launch

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