Thursday 6 October: If the Tories can’t pull themselves together, they will deserve to lose the next election

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

696 thoughts on “Thursday 6 October: If the Tories can’t pull themselves together, they will deserve to lose the next election”

    1. From the location of my house I can’t see the dawn except by opening the bathroom window.

          4. 80 yards away, not in direct line of site with lots of trees between? No chance!

  5. Report into Croydon council collapse reveals leadership ‘dysfunction’. 6 October 2022

    The scale of corporate dysfunction at Croydon council prior to its collapse into bankruptcy two years ago was serious enough to warrant police investigation into potential misconduct in public office, according to an official report that has been kept under wraps for more than 18 months.

    A leaked copy of the report reveals grave concerns about the behaviour of top councillors and officials at the then Labour-controlled authority, which became effectively insolvent in November 2020 after council spending, including on a string of risky commercial property investments, spun out of control.

    Painting a picture of chaotic leadership at the council in the period before it fell into financial crisis, it reports allegations of lax governance, reckless decision making, disregard for democratic processes, bullying by senior managers, reward for failure, and a habit of ignoring inconvenient evidence.

    The UK in microcosm!

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/06/report-into-croydon-council-collapse-reveals-leadership-dysfunction

    1. And that’s just the one council we know about.
      How many others are in the same boat, but the information hasn’t been made public?

      2. Northamptonshire County Council was abolished last year after serious financial problems left it insolvent.

  7. If the Tories can’t pull themselves together, they will deserve to lose the next election

    The party needs to rid itself of all the lefty and globalist infiltrators

    1. So what you are saying Bob is that: it’s curtains for them if they can’t pull themselves together….

    2. Morning Bob. They are finished! Truss was the Last Hope and she’s gone belly up already!

    3. The party needs to rid itself of all the lefty and globalist infiltrators

      If that happened, next year’s conference expenses would plummet as a small broom cupboard would suffice for the remaining rump.

    4. The problem with politicians is although they continually fail to get anything right and therefore continually make mistake after mistake. They never seem to learn anything from their continual mistakes.
      What do they actually do ?

      1. I’ve only ever visited one on a Friday lunchtime – the volume of lethargy was palpable…..

        1. Most of the women wore long flowing capes and looked like witches. The men all looked like scruffy hippies. I did have a couple of inspirational teachers though. Those were the only ones i got O levels in.
          My history teacher was an out and out communist. His lessons were fun because it was easy to set him off on an angry rant which lasted the whole lesson. Didn’t learn a thing in three years.

          2. My primary school deputy headmaster was ex military. Learned a lot from him about how to behave.

          3. My French teacher in my last two years at school was called “Froggy”. He could be distracted. We were trawling our way through “Pecheur d’Islande” and the protagonists were up against the “Black Flags” in Indo China. An innocent question regarding the kind of rifles being used resulted in around twenty minutes on the subject, illuminated by reference to the film “Zulu” which had just appeared in cinemas.

          4. I won the sixth form languages prize (French and German) at my boarding school. Never spoke either language again until I was in my sixties. 😩

          6. Oi! What’s wrong with wearing long flowing capes and looking like a witch?? 🤣🤣

      1. No, just the afternoon.
        Getting to the office in the morning is capitalist oppression.

    1. I said the Tory Party can trust me.

      That’s not quite the same thing as convincing the general public to trust you, is it? Recent history clearly shows that the Tory Party as an entity is not to be trusted e.g. ending illegal immigration and as for CV-19…
      Rebuilding the public’s trust in the Tory Party should be a priority, albeit a Herculean task.

    1. My local Matalan has mixed changing rooms. Which is okay. The walls are high and solid and there are locks on the doors.

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.  A bright start, with a sunny day and 17°C forecast.

    SIR – I voted for Liz Truss in the Conservative leadership election because I share her desire for the country to break out from the old, low-performing, established order. She wants to reinstate true Conservative values.

    The behaviour of Michael Gove and other Conservative wets has been totally unacceptable.

    Jeffrey Thorogood
    Malvern, Worcestershire

    SIR – I applaud those Conservative MPs who have quietly and privately objected to Liz Truss’s policies. That is the way to do things.

    As for those who have publicly undermined the new Government, they should hang their heads in shame. Michael Gove and others really are the new useful idiots of the Left.

    Bruce Boulden
    Maplestead, Essex

    Backstabber Gove gets it in the neck in two letters, that must be something of a record.  Every so often he reminds us what a worm he really is.  It is time the Conservative voters of Surrey Heath found themselves a proper Tory MP, not this egotistical creep.

    1. Martin Selves isn’t holding back:

      Martin Selves4 HRS AGO

      Will Ukraine liberate the Crimea by Christmas? Will Liz Truss fulfil her promise on Fracking, Northern Ireland and knocking the Woke out of everything, particularly the Police? The insidious creep of socialism and the danger of Net Zero is everywhere. Some believe Liz Truss will ease up on Net Zero. I think she will have to because it is impossible to attain in the time scale, and electric cars by 2030 is again out of reach. Meanwhile China, India and now Germany are churning out coal fired power stations as if they are sweets, and we are as near to net zero as we need to go already. Stop, hold and reverse is my idea.

      How Gove, Mellor and Shapps must rue the Day. They stood up and jeered Liz Truss, pronounced her a dead duck, and she turned into a Swan. Those who want another Boris will not get one. he sat on his derriere and did very little to solve Brexit, immigration and the rest. In Truss we have someone who will try hard, and good luck to her. Once again the approach to the Cliff Edge got the closet Labour Conservatives jumping up and down. This Party has no room for Gove, Shapps and the like. Sadly they still have lots of friends in the HoC, who want their own PM humiliated and defeated. I trust their Constituencies will do the right thing, or better still the Conservatives show them the electoral exit instead. Gove deserves it as much as Heseltine all those years ago. Is Traitor too harsh a word?.

      .

      1. “Is Traitor too harsh a word?“No! And, I’d include Shitts in that too and some other “New Tories”.

  14. ‘Ere we go, ‘ere we go. ‘ere we go

    LIZ TRUSS | COMMENT
    “It’s time to find common cause with our European friends
    Security, energy and migration are three of the most urgent priorities for the British people, so they are top of my agenda too. That’s why I am travelling to Prague for today’s European leaders’ meeting. These vital issues affect the whole of our continent, so it is right that we find common cause with our European friends and allies. It’s……”

    *I lurve EU*

    1. We should have nothing to do with it. We will never escape their Empire Building.

    2. One huge mistake she may not be aware of, or has not noticed.
      The Brussels mafia are not our friends.

    4. There is no”common cause” with continental Europe. Our history has mostly about being at war with Europe. From the Urals to the Atlantic there are are a few places we haven’t been at war with, but not many. Our elected representatives should consider that it is in the nature of Europeans to be bullies. We are not bullies and never have been. (We have been pushy, outgoing, dealers, traders, and chancers, but mostly moral and decent.)

    5. We don’t have any “European [I suspect she means EU] friends”.They all hate our guts for one reason (usually historical) or another.

  15. Little cloud or wind with full sun to come. it will probably make 20+C in our south facing “walled” garden today.

  16. For Phil’s benefit – a restaurant review:

    All the existing 5 star reviews on Trip advisor are 100% spot on. The delightful atmosphere, staff and food all excellent.

    The restaurant Eight in the centre of Bath. Our choice of dishes: Hake with mushrooms & Monkfish with saffron bisque followed by slow roast rump of lamb and blackened sirloin steak – both these dishes cooked to perfection. The steak very tender. No room for pudding so had medicinal coffees to finish.

    Photos captured from Tripadvisor:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a9317e9cad3fa2201106730b6aaf3bc4b91299b6141f3cf65ee8fb894aa7443.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2129d24b5264687b5ed8495450b06f192c41eff5201fea8da5eee22034a7d247.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1e1ed9a2ed33997241b56961c93b19c784cbd0c0297d18571011a0ded7fc182.png

    Worth every penny of the not too deadly bill. Will book again (and again).

    3. That looks delicious! Great to kmow, too – my (sort of) goddaughter has just started at Bath University, and buying good meals for impoverished students is A Good Thing 🙂 Thank you.

      1. You are most welcome. You will need to book as it is a bijou hotel / restaurant I suspect hotel guests have first dibs on reservations. Do let me know when you plan to visit Bath again.

        S

    4. Don’t believe tripadvisor.
      My review of Baggagehub, the outfit that took my money and removals and said nothing whilst going bankrupt was puled by TA because I was mean about BH. So, they censored a negative report… how many others have been censored?

  17. For Phil’s benefit – a restaurant review:

    All the existing 5 star reviews on Trip advisor are 100% spot on. The delightful atmosphere, staff and food all excellent.

    The restaurant Eight in the centre of Bath. Our choice of dishes: Hake with mushrooms & Monkfish with saffron bisque followed by slow roast rump of lamb and blackened sirloin steak – both these dishes cooked to perfection. The steak very tender. No room for pudding so had medicinal coffees to finish.

    Photos captured from Tripadvisor:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a9317e9cad3fa2201106730b6aaf3bc4b91299b6141f3cf65ee8fb894aa7443.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2129d24b5264687b5ed8495450b06f192c41eff5201fea8da5eee22034a7d247.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1e1ed9a2ed33997241b56961c93b19c784cbd0c0297d18571011a0ded7fc182.png

    Worth every penny of the not too deadly bill. Will book again (and again).

  18. SIR – You report that, following a “rapid evidence assessment”, the College of Policing has advised chief officers that “visiting crime scenes could offer investigative opportunities to solve cases, as well as reassuring victims and preventing further offences”.

    If chief officers didn’t already know this, they shouldn’t be in the police service at all, let alone leading it. It’s akin to the Royal College of Surgeons telling doctors that stopping bleeding could help to save a life.

    If ever there was evidence that policing needs to get back to basic principles, here it is.

    Roy Ramm
    Great Dunmow, Essex

    Visiting crime scenes for evidence?  What a fantastic revelation!

    1. College of Policing stating the bleeding obvious as if it is a wonderful new idea devised by great minds. Who will save us from these morons?

      1. I suspect that the closure of this jobs-for-the-boys circus is on the Home Sec’s to-do list.

  19. I seldom go to the flicks these days but on a rainy Wednesday afternoon I followed NoTTLers’ recommendation to see ‘Mrs Harris goes to Paris’. A very worthwhile 8/10.

    Now that I have discovered that the Marlborough Parade Movie House (in a converted Methodist Chapel) has really comfortable seats and serves G&T with lime in proper glasses rather than plastic, I might go more often.

      1. Saturday morning pictures at the Odeon Hendon, a tanner.
        Now another block of flats.

    2. Very civilised.

      I really enjoyed that film. An easy watch and pure escapism.

      The black characters weren’t out of place either.

  20. We watched Paxman on Parkinson’s last evening. I have only known one person who had it – and her hands shook a bit. I had no idea what a horrible condition it can be.

    I commend Paxman (for whom I don’t generally care) for making the programme.

    1. ‘Morning, Bill. I now know a lot more about this awful disease. And Paxo’s warts-and-all participation in various activities, including frank discussions with medical experts, was remarkable. What really impressed me was the humour shown by Paxo and his fellow sufferers. Highly reccommended for those who haven’t seen it yet.

      1. Indeed. I found that black humour helped when my son was in his last few years. I used to send him Spikey’s awful jokes, too – Jim would phone and beg me to stop!

      2. I remember Terry-Thomas died of it, and was in an interview on TV (don’t recall the show) where he discussed it. He said that one challenge was going through doorways – often, he just couldn’t, but it helped if he danced through the doorway. That would work. Don’t know what the logic was.

    2. ‘Morning, Bill. I now know a lot more about this awful disease. And Paxo’s warts-and-all participation in various activities, including frank discussions with medical experts, was remarkable. What really impressed me was the humour shown by Paxo and his fellow sufferers. Highly reccommended for those who haven’t seen it yet.

    3. The husband of my old school friend has it and the deterioration in the last year or so is terrible. Apart from physical he now has marked cognitive decline. Last week he just sat silently in his chair while we girls chatted.

  21. Who sabotaged Nord Stream? Mary Dejevsky. Spiked. 6 October 2022.

    Who killed Nord Stream should be one of the biggest murder mysteries of the day. Attacks on crucial underwater cables have been the subject of Western – and presumably also Russian – scenario planning for decades. Yet it is almost as though no one really wants this particular attack to be cleared up.

    This is the only article I’ve read by a main stream journalist about the pipeline sabotage. Dejevsky is not an Mi6 shill, she writes informative and truthful articles (with which I do not always agree) about Russia and Putin. Still she comes to no conclusion here. One might say the safest position for someone who wants to earn a living from their writing. It is informative that this article is in Spiked which is neither MSM or on the Google referral list. She probably couldn’t get it accepted by one of the major publishers even in its neutered form!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/05/who-sabotaged-nord-stream/

    1. Making direct allegations about Nordstream in the press might end up with a trip in an ambulance, blue lights flashing, that doesn’t get to the hospital in time.
      Best to invite people to make their own conclusions.

      1. John Bolton wants the US to change the regime in Russia. Well, it is only a regime if you don’t like them, obviously. Countries friendly to, and subservient to the US have governments. All other countries have “regimes” and it is OK for the US to change regimes. This approach has only ever resulted in wars, in insurrections, and general upset with the outcome that those countries became somewhat cool towards the US. This is, incidentally, why the US felt free to impose the Good Friday Agreement on the UK.

        https://www.rt.com/news/564123-bolton-regime-change-putin/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bolton

      1. Morning Eddy. Not so far as I am aware though there were rumours that it is partially useable!

          1. If severed, the pipeline can be picked up, and a new section welded in to join the two halves, ten lowered back down to the seabed. More damaging is the seawater fill with no corrosion protection for the inside of the pipe.

  22. Who sabotaged Nord Stream? Mary Dejevsky. Spiked. 6 October 2022.

    Who killed Nord Stream should be one of the biggest murder mysteries of the day. Attacks on crucial underwater cables have been the subject of Western – and presumably also Russian – scenario planning for decades. Yet it is almost as though no one really wants this particular attack to be cleared up.

    This is the only article I’ve read by a main stream journalist about the pipeline sabotage. Dejevsky is not an Mi6 shill, she writes informative and truthful articles (with which I do not always agree) about Russia and Putin. Still she comes to no conclusion here. One might say the safest position for someone who wants to earn a living from their writing. It is informative that this article is in Spiked which is neither MSM or on the Google referral list. She probably couldn’t get it accepted by one of the major publishers even in its neutered form!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/05/who-sabotaged-nord-stream/

  23. SIR – Eleanor Mills’s tale of woe (“What I wish I had known before I got an electric car”, Features, October 5) is a familiar one of insufficient and unreliable charging points.

    But her journey of 160 miles was undertaken in fairly mild weather. Try doing it in January, when it’s -5 C and you need the lights, heater and wipers on for the entire trip. One recharging stop would almost certainly turn into three or more.

    Graham Wistow
    Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

    And just wait until the battery needs replacing, the cost of which may well render the car worthless.  The week after next my 6 year-old super-efficient diesel-powered car will take the two of us from yer sarf coast to Carlisle (386 miles approx) on little over half a tank.  I’m not particularly looking forward to the journey, but ‘range anxiety’ is one aspect that won’t concern me in the slightest.

    1. If I fully fill the tank on my Vivaro, i.e. keep trickling the diesel in after the cut out trips, I can get close to 900 miles on per fillup.

      Mind you, it’s bloody painful paying for it!

      1. I generally get 500 miles from my 15 year old diesel 206. I don’t go far these days so I go quite a long time between fills. It’s got a bit cheaper than earlier in the year when it went up to £2 a litre

        1. My Megane Coupe gets 800 miles from a tank but Nowadays I only do about 20 miles a week. I’m still using the fuel I bought in June and it’s still 7/8 full

        2. My Megane Coupe gets 800 miles from a tank but Nowadays I only do about 20 miles a week. I’m still using the fuel I bought in June and it’s still 7/8 full

      2. I paid nearly £200 to fill up my camper after my recent trip and that was from the cheapest diesel I could find!

    2. A fine BTL contribution on this subject:

      Trevor Anderson2 HRS AGO

      Graham Wistow makes a valid point about EV’s. It has been evident from the beginning that their was no proper infrastructure for these white elephants. Neither is a small, packed country ever going to be able to develop an infrastructure large enough to cope with even a gradual change from 2030 onwards when the manufacture of new fossil fuelled vehicles is ceased.

      Our narrow residential streets are packed with parked vehicles making them almost one-way thoroughfares – and as vast areas of our towns and cities have homes that are in terraces, where are the chargers going to be installed? Of course, perhaps the most important factor here is the production of enough electricity to power EV’s. (California, pop: 37 million, recently banned the charging of EV’s because their grid couldn’t cope). This coming winter the UK may not have enough electricity to heat and light our homes.

      Our successive governments’ lackadaisical, almost criminal move from whatever energy production of our own we did have, to the import of such a necessary element of our existence is insanity.

      The deeply flawed views of the Net Zero, Climate Change followers have a lot to answer for. Our politicians should wake up to this scam.

      https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/1200-scientists-scholars-there-is-no-climate-emergency/

      PS: EV manufacturers are giving 8yr guarantees on battery life. With new batteries costing as much as £15k to £20k, what will the 2nd hand resale value of say, a 6 year old EV be?

      * * *

      The rarity of what remains of the rare elements like lithium will probably make replacement batteries even more unaffordable, and all those manufacturers’ guarantees will turn out to be worthless.

      1. The only sensible solution to electric vehicles is to have current picked up from the road, with some kind of under the surface supply line, as has been used by trams. All roads would have to be remade of course. Probably not financially viable.

        1. Well… have induction charging on main roads, minor roads can be driven on battery power alone.
          Then what about charging billing for the power, and generating it…

          1. Just so. I was cutting the comment short. Billing could done by smart meter, we have the technology. The Victorians built railways everywhere. Electricity could be generated in oil-fired power stations, or coal fired, or gas-fired, or nuclear… ah, I see the problem

          1. It was used by several university business departments as an object lesson on how NOT to run a project.

          6. Urgle. Let me rephrase. Everywhere in the the UK outside of the City of London spends money generated by the City of London.

          7. The cost was thr Scottish government’s inability to get a proper, fair contract in place, together with oversized trams. We used to have trams – I can remember them – but they were very lightweight compared to the monsters now in place. The Scottish government and our Civil Service have no commercial acumen whatsoever. Never have had*.

            *See; the projects to construct/manage Scottish Parliament building, Sick Kids Hospital, Island ferries, Prestwick airport, Dundee V& A,…

      2. The net zero agenda doesn’t include EVs for the likes of terraced house dwellers and certainly not those living in tower blocks. They are only for the wealthy.

  25. Good Morning. A “little ray of sunshine”* this morning.
    I seem to have noticed a reticence to hold face to face meetings. Doctors, government officials and the like now prefer telephone talks. While this may be quicker and remove the danger of catching Covid, they are not efficient, Non-verbal communication is missing; attitude, mood and facial expressions are essential in building professional relationships as well as personal. Working from home has now become normal, there is now “hybrid” working, mostly at home with one day week in the office. Well, we won’t win back the Empire that way.

    *Also my middle name.

    1. Both our middle son and his wife mainly work from home. They occasionally need to go to London with all the hassle of travel. Our neighbour opposite is in the same position. One thing they all mention is, they soon get tired of all the moaning that goes on in the office.
      And feel they are often treated as partial strangers.

      1. That’s because they’ve missed all the usual office banter so they’re not in the in crowd.

        1. I can’t imagine how they feel.
          I only worked in an office briefly. And even then, 25 years ago, I would work from home.
          Pricing jobs and listing materials.
          It was easier to concentrate.
          When I did visit the St Albans office my desk was a parking spot for others junk.

      3. I’ve always wondered about that.
        Do you feel some uncontrollable force pulling the stick down?

        1. I ought not to have made light of your predicament, Stormy. I came home earlier this evening, having been out for much of the afternoon to find the water pressure rather low. It turns out there’s been a burst water main in town, less distant than yours, and three neighbourhoods are affected, including mine. While reduced water pressure is only a modest inconvenience, those closer to the burst have lost all supply. The provider, Affinity Water, is working to restore supplies and redirecting water provision from other parts of their network, resulting in reduced pressure for those not in the immediate vicinity of the burst.

          https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/alerts?id=8933

  28. Good morning all,

    Blue sky no breeze , a bit colder than yesterday.. and loads off aircraft contrails high up.

    Sunshine is is showing off the hollyberries beautifully, leaves are glistening . Our garden birds are rather quiet.. not many visitors to the feeders.

    Liz Truss..

    I am not sure , I feel very anxious .. do you think she is a war monger?

    She looks as if she enjoys a good fight .. not good .

    1. Good morning Belle.
      I think Liz Truss is whatever her bosses in Davos tell her to be today.

    2. Which war are you worried about her starting?

      Do you want her to cave into the Unions? So we can continue living through the 1970’s

      1. No, of course not ..

        What a stupid thing to say to me .

        It is our involvement with a BRUTAL regime like Ukraine .. equally so with Russia , and the dirty tricks and money that old Iron Curtain countries play around with

          1. ‘We’re hunting them down and shooting them like pigs’: How the Ukrainians are taking brutal revenge on the collaborators who’ve betrayed their neighbours – and country – to the Russians

            Ukrainians were beaten, electrocuted and forced to endure mock executions when Russia overtook Balakliya
            The interrogations were carried out by officials from Russia’s Federal Security Service
            Some Ukrainians were assisting Vladimir Putin’s war crimes and theft of their land, it has now emerged
            Kyiv has opened investigations into 1,309 suspected traitors and launched 450 prosecutions of collaborators
            Others accused of betraying their nation are being tracked down and slaughtered by resistance fighters

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11284819/How-Ukrainian-intelligence-chiefs-tracking-collaborators-worked-Russians.html

          4. So forget our geostrategic interests to a later date when its NATO having to go to war with all the implications of that?

          5. I still can’t understand why we’re involved in this local skirmish.
            What is our objective?

          6. Our objective is to spend a fortune doing what the US wants. The US wants to destroy Russia. A futile notion from a bunch of US hawks, who are ignoring the facts that they got beaten in Vietnam and Afghanistan (everybody gets pasted in Afghanistan of course). On the upside, the US really dealt with Grenada.

        2. So you want us to stop funding Ukraine against Russia and let Russia win, is that it?

          That the Russian invasion is the lesser of two evils, if indeed, (and I doubt the UK assistance) is an evil.

          ??????

          2. So just keep rolling over?? If you want to blame anyone blame the EU.

            But, if they were free independent states outside NATO, like Ukraine is, and Putin clearly wanted to put the USSR back together you are happy for him to take them unaided and re-establish the USSR right up against western Europe unchallenged?

            A big fan of Chamberlain??

          3. That’s an unfair attitude to a hugely complex situation. What we want is irrelevant. We were dropped in it when Boris went over there and handed out rocket launchers.

            Russia did the same in Afghanistan and look how well that helped us.

          4. Its really rather simple, either you help them or you don’t, and if you don’t they will lose, and if they lose then Russia is up against our borders, and with an easy victory emboldened to go further.

            His stated aim is to rebuild the USSR, that means Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic etc, are you going to let him have those as well without a fight?

            Or eastern Germany?

          5. Historically when we’ve intervened, we’ve made a mess of it. When we don’t intervene, we make a mess of it. Rwanda, Bosnia and so forth.

            The Ukraine conflict is basically a civil war. A nasty, bitter one. Consider if say, Russia had intervened during the Northern Ireland conflict. How would we feel about it?

            As it is, it is too late to resolve this without significant intervention and the only group who can do that is America with NATO support, but NAO is pointless these days and Biden is clearly ill and wouldn’t be respected by Putin. We’ve painted ourselves, Russia and Ukraine into a corner by our usual stance of apathy and disinterest while lobbing the brush about to patch up bits we like.

          6. If it was a civil war, he would not have gone past the Dombass, his opening move was to try to take Kiev.

    3. The problem we have is always the same. By the time we find out if they actually know what they are doing, it’s too late. Damage done.

  30. 365892+ up ticks

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 6 October: If the Tories can’t pull themselves together, they will deserve to lose the next election

    At this moment in time they are acting out the actions of an active daisy chain satisfying themselves whilst screwing the Country.

    Whoever wins the next election from the toxic trio, and having witnessed t heir actions these past three plus decades will it benefit the herd in any way other than having the dubious
    satisfaction of their very dubious party winning ?

    What has brought these Isles to such a perilous state is the repeat voting pattern of an electorate and their misguided faith & hope
    in their choice of counterfeit parties.

    A mass build on a fringe party NOW would shake the current political rodents to their very shallow roots, such a party was formed and succeeded in designing & winning our
    freedom via the referendum.

  31. And people wonder why the Russians of Ukraine wanted to re-join Russia.

    THIS is the mindset they are up against and both sides are equally dreadful.

    ‘We’re hunting them down and shooting them like pigs’: How the Ukrainians are taking brutal revenge on the collaborators who’ve betrayed their neighbours – and country – to the Russians
    Ukrainians were beaten, electrocuted and forced to endure mock executions when Russia overtook Balakliya
    The interrogations were carried out by officials from Russia’s Federal Security Service
    Some Ukrainians were assisting Vladimir Putin’s war crimes and theft of their land, it has now emerged
    Kyiv has opened investigations into 1,309 suspected traitors and launched 450 prosecutions of collaborators
    Others accused of betraying their nation are being tracked down and slaughtered by resistance fighters

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11284819/How-Ukrainian-intelligence-chiefs-tracking-collaborators-worked-Russians.html

    1. IIRC, according to the OSCE, the Ukrainians have already killed thousands of fellow Ukrainians since 2014 for the crime of speaking Russian? For “resistance fighters” I suspect you might read Azov Brigade??

      1. If Russians do it in self defence, it’s a war crime, if Ukrainians do exactly the same in what is to all intents and purpose ethnic cleansing of Russians, it’s self-determination.

        1. Russia and Ukraine are “a quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”. Apart from the fact that they’ve been knocking lumps out of each other for around 1,000 years.

    2. I commented a few minutes ago about the same article .

      Ukraine is no different to the Russians.. they are all brutal . Their mindset is craven .

    4. The Ukraine situation is vastly more complicated and divisive than the media ever present.

          1. We should have, but the bloody Yanks just can’t help themselves as far as Russia in concerned.
            They are evil and the Democrats particularly so.

  34. They never give up.

    Research recently published by the team revealed the first people to call themselves English were largely descended from northern Europeans, mainly Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

    But further investigation by scientists at the University of Central Lancashire also shows an individual having a genetic link to West Africa, pointing to a “diverse and complex” culture in England during the early Middle Ages.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/england-dna-english-europe-research-b1030575.html?itm_source=Internal&itm_channel=homepage_trending_article_component&itm_campaign=trending_section&itm_content=3

        1. And the Queen of one of the Henry’s (in Shakespeare) was also black as your hat. Can’t remember the actress’s name…

          3. Sir Something-or-Other from ‘Young Merlin’.
            Putting aside the anachronistic chain mail, his appearance was more likely c.500 AD than in the subsequent centuries.
            But I doubt that was the reason for his appearance in a telly show.

          5. Joan of Dark…. (Queen Margaret in the BBC’s The Hollow Crown, an adaptation of the Shakespearean plays Henry VI, Part I, II, III and Richard III. )

    3. I remember a programme on the bbc claiming that the remains of a person found in a cave in the west country of England proved we had black people living here circa prehistoric times.
      But how could someone from let’s say Central Africa a have been able to get here. Although the now English channel was only a river. It would have taken a whole life time, 25-30 years, to have walked those many thousands of miles. And the chances of survival, let alone success in such a venture is impossible to believe. Some confusion and mistakes probably due to over enthusiasm, to try to make some of diversity point.

      1. Don’t be daft. They were slaves – brought in a slave ship run by black slavers.

          1. I wonder what that f*ckwit half-caste “professor” (the half-Nigerian one who bangs on about white oppression) would have to say….

          2. I know the one you mean. The nauseating self-promoter from a council estate who talks posh and isn’t what he wants you to think he is. Tiresome, tiresome.

          4. Do you mean historian and presenter David Olusoga ?
            With every breath he fights so hard to try and make his dubious and insignificant points.
            What’s going to happen when our magnificent government release all these thousands of invaders ? Or have they not yet realised they are newer version of whiteys slaves. (Sarc) of course.

      2. They obviously didn’t stay as we were racist and they decided to walk back home to warmer climes.

      3. They only presumed he was black because they found an ounce of weed, a ghetto blaster and a 65″ looted TV buried with him.

  35. Good Moaning.
    Off to the gym Shifting boxes and furniture.
    Overall, I reckon the cost is much the same.

      1. Next question.
        I’m becoming expert at whizzing off politely worded snottograms.
        Does anybody nowadays do their job? Even at a snail’s pace?

  37. Morning all! A lovely day here in Somerset, for which I am most grateful. It’s been blowing a hooley for the last couple of nights, and I really didn’t want to tow my van in it.

    Battening down the hatches now for a test drive to see if this car (my old one, repaired – long story) will cut the mustard. Girding my loins but hopeful. Heading to my previous campsite, where my magician friends await, so am looking forward to a glorious evening!

    Wishing you all a wonderful day!

    1. It is the staff I feel sorry for.
      We can nip in and out or dodge the gaff altogether. They are stuck for 8 hours a day. I wonder Elf’n’Safety haven’t gone after the shops.

        1. Hot Cross Buns all year round.
          In my case, respect for the Christian calendar battles with greed. (The are delish sliced with strong cheddar inside and then 20 seconds in the microwave.)
          And yes …. greed wins over any scruples.

      2. About 15 years ago I went into a Citroen showroom to buy a car, it was Xmas but there was extremely loud Rock music being played, even in the workshop. I grabbed the sales manager and and asked him to turn the music down so I could think – he just laughed. My next words were a well known 2 word phrase and I added that he’d just lost a sale and walked out. Even the staff had complained apparently. I understand that shortly afterwards he was working elsewhere.

  39. Just between us – and no further – I think Stormie should have paid the water bill…..

  40. Morning all,

    When MOH told me my 2009 2 litre diesel was useless and it would be better if we just had little runabout EV as a second car I eventually gave in trying to fix it especially when both the DPF light and the engine warning light came on and the dealer couldn”t fix it.

    My EV choice was primarily based on how close the dealer was to Waitrose. However, MOH wasn’t expecting what I had quickly made my decision on as a compact SUV that the dealer said he could deliver before my diesel MOT ran out:

    https://youtu.be/emcZlJ45oVE

    3. It looks really good. I’d like to go for a little Zoe, but we did a test drive and the chap kindly let us take Mongo along and it just wasn’t big enough. A the moment we’re leaning toward an id3 but the Kona is up there.

      Although in an ideal world we’d get rid of the tank as it was used to take the ponies to events and they’ve gone to a local stable and the Mare is getting older now and is rarely ridden, so hopefully we could move on two cars for one. The runabout is starting to cost more than half it’s purchase cost to repair.

        1. Good point Conway,

          I handn’t really thought of driving my EV under water but my Isuzu Trooper did have a wading depth greater than most other 4x4s.
          That was because the differentials were vented up to the dash height which woud prevent water ingress into the transmission.

          EVs must have a degree of water proofimg to deal with water splashimg in wet weather but I will feel happier not getting evem insulated electrics wet when there’s not only 400 volts under the bonnet but also under the chassis! 😕

  41. Good to see that the Ugandans are sticking by the values that we taught them

    Ugandan Dictator’s Son Promoted to General After Offering 100-Cow Dowry for Giorgia Meloni

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2022/10/itsaly-ledership-640×480.png

    Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, was promoted to the rank of general on Tuesday. Kainerugaba caused a stir on the previous day with a saucy Twitter rant in which he offered a 100-cow dowry for the hand of newly elected Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and threatened to invade Italy if his offer was refused.
    *
    *
    https://twitter.com/mkainerugaba/status/1576597185864830976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1576597185864830976%7Ctwgr%5E2e8749fda43e621cf4bf25a60b417c017a24af61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fafrica%2F2022%2F10%2F05%2Fugandan-dictators-son-promoted-general-after-offering-100-cow-dowry-giorgia-meloni%2F

    https://twitter.com/mkainerugaba/status/1576818321407717378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1576818321407717378%7Ctwgr%5E2e8749fda43e621cf4bf25a60b417c017a24af61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fafrica%2F2022%2F10%2F05%2Fugandan-dictators-son-promoted-general-after-offering-100-cow-dowry-giorgia-meloni%2F

    https://twitter.com/mkainerugaba/status/1577375193718087680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1577375193718087680%7Ctwgr%5E2e8749fda43e621cf4bf25a60b417c017a24af61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fafrica%2F2022%2F10%2F05%2Fugandan-dictators-son-promoted-general-after-offering-100-cow-dowry-giorgia-meloni%2F

    https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2022/10/05/ugandan-dictators-son-promoted-general-after-offering-100-cow-dowry-giorgia-meloni/

  42. Fitch cuts outlook for UK rating to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’

    LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Ratings agency Fitch lowered the outlook for its credit rating for British government debt to “negative” from “stable” on Wednesday, days after a similar move from rival Standard & Poor’s following the government’s Sept. 23 fiscal statement.

    “The large and unfunded fiscal package announced as part of the new government’s growth plan could lead to a significant increase in fiscal deficits over the medium term,” Fitch said.

    Fitch maintained its “AA-” credit rating for Britain, which is one notch lower than S&P’s.

    Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng announced 45 billion pounds ($51 billion) of unfunded tax cuts in the Sept. 23 statement alongside large energy subsidies and other measures aimed at boosting growth, but financial markets baulked at the extra borrowing.

    Sterling fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar and some British government bonds tumbled by the most in decades, forcing the Bank of England to step in to stabilise markets.

    Fitch said the lack of independent budget forecasts, as well as an apparent clash with the BoE’s inflation-fighting strategy had “negatively impacted financial markets’ confidence and the credibility of the policy framework, a key long-standing rating strength”.

    On Monday, Kwarteng said he would not go ahead with part of the tax cuts – lowering income tax for the top 1% of earners – which the finance ministry had estimated would cost 2 billion pounds a year.

    Fitch said this was not enough to change its broader assessment.

    “Although the government reversed the elimination of the 45p top rate tax … the government’s weakened political capital could further undermine the credibility of and support for the government’s fiscal strategy,” Fitch said.

    The ratings agency forecast Britain’s general government deficit would reach 7.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year and 8.8% in 2023, while general government debt would rise to 109% of GDP by 2024.

    Right, a few points here

    1) Furlough, covid spending and CBILS etc was all unfunded spending – no mention of that. Do they think we should have done nothing and had mass business failures, mass unemployment, crashing economy and tax receipts – or just carried on as normal?

    2) “Growth plan is unfunded in the medium term” – Agreed, but, the alternative is not having a growth plan, nor does it comment on the growth plan, or the effect of the money in i) reducing the depth of a recession ii) The additional money people have tempering wage rise demands.

    3) The vast majority of the remaining “unfunded” tax cuts are Corporation tax rise (19bn) and the NI increase (12bn) – both of which Labour opposed, now they seem to be opposing the cutting of them, and presumably cutting 12bn of NHS spending with it?

    4) Conflicting with BoE policy – I semi agree with that, the BoE is raising rates because inflation is going up, although that is largely external causes and raising rates takes money out of people’s pockets when they are facing the massive rising costs which will force them to ask for higher pay rises, thereby fuelling inflation further.

    By definition, if money is not given away, the only way for most people to pay bills will then be by demanding much higher pay rises because there will be no government help. That would mean driving inflation much higher, and therefore BoE rates much higher, and a much deeper recession which would mean much lower future tax revenues and a bigger budget hole.

    5) Labour are saying that the budget caused a rise in mortgage rates, that was down to market reaction, claiming it had not been costed by the OBR. The OBR cannot cost the budget because 70% of it is the price cap which no one knows how big it will be.

    6) It also ignores that Labour claimed that their energy cap for 6 months would knock 4% off inflation, the higher and longer help given will cut more off inflation for longer and limit wage demands, and therefore inflation, and therefore interest rates and therefore mortgage rates.

    Post Brexit covid derangement syndrome is alive and well now in financial markets

  44. US believes elements within Ukraine’s government authorized assassination near Moscow, sources say. 6 october 2022.

    The US intelligence community believes that the car bombing that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of prominent Russian political figure Alexander Dugin, was authorized by elements within the Ukrainian government, sources briefed on the intelligence told CNN.

    Was there ever any doubt?

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/05/politics/us-intelligence-ukraine-dugina-assassination/index.html

    1. I was served by her in a Sheffield pub back in the 1970s. The pub was full of big ugly rockers so I decided to have a quick half before buggering off. I asked her for a ‘glass’ of bitter (‘glass’ is common parlance in Chesterfield for a half pint). She pulled me a pint. I said to her, “I only asked for a glass.” To which she glared down and me and snarled in her Sheffield dialect, “Da’s gorrit in a glass, an’t da?” Like a wimp I paid her and drank the pint before making a hasty retreat.

  46. An article that harks back to the print days when the Telegraph was worth buying.

    It is the job of politicians to champion unpopular ideas

    If she believes it is good for the long-term, Liz Truss is well within her right to push through Trussonomics – indeed it would be her duty

    ED WEST • 5 October 2022 • 2:24pm

    It wasn’t until I was a fairly grown up that I learned just how conservative many Labour voters were. My parents’ Labour-supporting friends had mostly belonged to what Ken Livingstone called “the party of the metropolitan pervert”, London types who worked in creative industries or the public sector and held ultra-liberal views (at least for the 90s). But out there in the real world there were all these Labour supporters who were even more Right-wing than my dad, whether on crime, immigration, Europe, sexual relations or pretty much any social issue. They just wanted, in Blackadder’s words, a few less fat bastards eating all the pie.

    That is pretty much where the public are now. As the Left-wing commentator Aaron Bastani put it: “The centre ground on domestic policy and public services is Corbynism with a union flag on it and the word ‘British’.”

    Although Jeremy Corbyn lost decisively in 2019, many have forgotten the political lesson of the Corbyn era – that it wasn’t his economic policies that put people off, but his lack of patriotism. He came from that long line of Quaker-Unitarian radicals who have always been seen as too sympathetic to Britain’s enemies, whether it was Robespierre, Napoleon, the USSR, Irish republicans or Islamic radicals.

    Corbynomics is certainly more popular than what the current Tory Party is offering, especially that served up in the recent mini-Budget, after which it could be said that things are developing not necessarily to the Government’s advantage.

    I don’t have strong opinions on the aborted 45p tax cut; it didn’t seem very wise, or fair, but I’m not sure how drastic it was; Robert Colville in The Sunday Times suggests that the proposal was not as bold as people make out. Yet it seems to be hugely unpopular, except with the Institute of Economic Affairs.

    But I’m not convinced that makes it bad.

    The IEA’s Kristian Niemietz has repeatedly pointed out that free-market economics is generally quite unpopular, and during the depths of the Brexit dispute he wrote a blog for the think tank opposing what he called “Bregalitarianism”:

    “The Bregalitarian loves to wallow in faux-indignation every time an opponent – which can be a Remainer, but it can also just be a more cautious, less enthusiastic Brexiteer – mentions the possibility that not everyone who cast a vote on 23 June 2016 was fully aware of all the possible ramifications. ‘How DARE you suggest that 17.4 million voters are stupid!’, cries the Bregalitarian. ‘How DARE you be so patronising and insulting!’ I find this Bregalitarian rhetoric deeply disingenuous – and never more so than when free-marketeers engage in it… Here’s a little home truth: if you are a free-marketeer in Britain in 2018, you are part of a small and unpopular minority. The vast majority of the British public disagree with you on virtually everything. There is majority support for a (re-) nationalisation of energy companies, the railways, water and bus companies. There is majority support for rent controls and various price controls. As a free-marketeer, you probably want, if not fully privatised, then at least mixed systems of healthcare and education, with much greater private sector involvement. If so, you are almost alone in Britain with that view. There is also majority support for a lot more government regulation, a lot more government interference with private business decisions, higher taxes and a larger state.”

    Indeed, public opinion on economic issues is quite eye-watering: a full 28 per cent of British adults want banks to be run by the state, and 30 per cent even want internet providers nationalised. A quarter want travel agents nationalised.

    It goes without saying that I think it’s a bad idea for the state to run most of these things – I can’t imagine many things worse than a holiday organised by government or local council. On this subject the majority of people in the media would agree with me, because the media tends to be out of step with the population at large. It is disproportionately upper-middle-class, university-educated, and liberal on both economic and liberal issues. The public are not.

    There was a similar misunderstanding of public opinion during Covid, with the lockdown sceptics convinced that the British people wouldn’t stand for this tyranny; wrong, the British people loved the tyranny, they wanted more of the tyranny. At one point polls showed that a fifth of the public thought that nightclubs should be locked down forever, even when Covid was gone. The median voter is a sentimental authoritarian, culturally but not socially conservative, hardline on immigration but viewing racism as the preserve of wrong-uns, egalitarian and resentful, hostile to change, and extremely sentimental about animals.

    The British public, both of Left and Right, have never really got over the Second World War and the Blitz spirit, when Britain became the most successful authoritarian socialist state in history. They want war communism, not freedom.

    But none of this makes free-market capitalism or 45p cuts a bad idea, nor necessarily is it wrong for the government to impose it on the country – if it’s for the long-term good.

    Educationalist Sam Freedman spoke for many when he articulated what troubled him about the Truss regime: “The sheer arrogance required to try and aggressively impose an ideology on the country that 5 per cent of the population, at best, subscribe to is unreal. Democracy isn’t just a series of institutional processes, it’s a basic level of respect for the public.”

    That is true, but isn’t this the case with pretty much every liberal reform of the past 70 years, imposed on the population by a small number of people with an unpopular ideology? Most of the social changes we have come to regard as part of the righteous march of progress were either actively unpopular with the public, or greeted with apathy.

    The obvious one is homosexuality. There is a surprisingly long tradition of tolerance, but from decriminalisation onwards reform has been led by an elite minority. With its most recent step, gay marriage wasn’t particularly unpopular in the UK, but it was barely thought of except by a few activists. Certainly no one voted for it.

    In the US, the gap between elite and public over this subject was far greater. Gay marriage was defeated in 31 state votes and approved in just three, and only there because of the “vastly superior economic resources and lobbying networks that pro-gay marriage forces drew on” in Christopher Caldwell’s words. “Support for gay marriage in Silicon Valley was almost unanimous. Google’s employees gave 96 per cent of their campaign contributions, and Apple’s 94 per cent, to oppose California’s anti–gay marriage Proposition 8. There were no equivalents on the other side… Celebrities and elites…. They were all on the pro-gay marriage side. Literally all. Reuters discovered in 2014 that of the country’s 200 largest law firms, 30 were representing lawsuits against state Defense of Marriage acts. Not one was defending these laws.”

    If you go back in history, most liberal reforms have been unpopular to start with. In his book on democracy and illiberalism, Yascha Mounk pointed out that: “The end of segregation was brought about not by the will of the American people but rather by an institution that had the constitutional power to override it. When we think of the civil rights movement, we tend to think of the brave acts of ordinary citizens, from Rosa Parks to James Hood. And yet its history was just as much one of liberal decisions won against the resistance of electoral majorities.”

    Most of these unpopular ideas become retrospectively popular because they succeeded, or were seen to have succeeded, or opponents have been crushed. The difference between social and economic liberalism is not how unpopular they are with the people, or how much they are imposed by an ideological minority; it’s how much support they get from elites. If Truss’s plans for a neo-Thatcherite revolution had the backing of academia, showbusiness, journalism and the wider intelligentsia, it wouldn’t matter what ‘the public’ thought. It would happen.

    Often elites turn out to be right, although there a survivor bias in that we better remember the movements that succeeded; modernist housing was popular with intellectuals and hated by the people whose Victorian terraces were demolished; it’s now widely considered a failure; criminal reform, widely unpopular, was effectively reversed in the 1990s both in the US and Britain after decades of rising violence. Even in education, where the 1960s saw lots of new ideas adopted thanks to people who read too much Rousseau, a more conservative emphasis on discipline returned towards the end of the century.

    Elites tend to be liberal, and across the West the growth of a more activist judiciary has become a source of tension in political systems, but it has also made the Left more suspicious of the public. Many progressives feel that while they’re there to help the people, and they theoretically love the people, the people are often idiots and democracy is therefore dangerous. They tend to be not unlike Bertolt Brecht who, when told by a plumber that he wanted free elections in East Germany, replied: “In that case the Nazis will be elected.”

    And, of all the differences between elites and public, there is none bigger than that over immigration and multiculturalism, which in part drives this Brechtian political hypochondria. In 1968 Enoch Powell had received overwhelming public support following his Birmingham speech, and few people doubt that he would have won a landslide if Tory leader, and indeed probably helped the party win the 1970 election (the electoral map shows the biggest vote swings close to Powell’s Wolverhampton constituency).

    Since the election of Blair the public have consistently opposed six-figure immigration, almost the Platonic ideal of an ideology imposed on the country by a minority. It was so unpopular that many treated the 2016 vote as essentially a referendum on the subject, a message the Tory Government has completely ignored.

    The public may come around to immigration being a positive thing, as American public opinion has (there are already signs of it). In general, the “people” tend to adopt the social mores of the ruling class, who judge racism to be the number one moral sin, indeed so serious that they send people to jail for it. Public opinion follows elite opinion.

    Of course there is the argument that Trussonomics goes against what Tory voters were choosing in 2019, but then so is the government’s policy on immigration. In the long and even medium run, the Government’s plans for the top tax rate are infinitesimally less consequential than its planned increase in numbers, but this attracts little comment from journalists because high immigration is an unpopular policy they largely approve of.

    Something being unpopular doesn’t make it wrong or bad, and I personally dislike Right-wing populism’s veneration of “the people”, especially as most conservative journalists come from privileged backgrounds. I’ve been guilty of it myself.

    I’m not against the idea that people’s views are unequal; the opinion of someone who knows nothing about politics or economics shouldn’t be respected just because they’ve got the vote. But it is true that educated, upper-middle-class voters aren’t necessarily better judges of ideas, being prone to adopt luxury beliefs, voting for tribal and class interests disguised under a moral banner, and adopting far more extreme ideological positions than the less educated. If it was just graduates allowed to vote, Corbyn would have won easily and we’d all be in a terrible mess right now (ho! ho!).

    Unfortunately, as dreadful as graduate voters can be, elites tend to get their way. Even when the current government is voted out I have no hope that Labour will deliver anything resembling the alternative many disillusioned red Tories would like. Instead, we will get even more American-imported social justice activism involving both race and sexual identity. Just like Trussonomics, this will be unpopular with “the people”; the only difference will be that this crazed ideological agenda will have the social acceptance of the elites – and so it will win.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/05/job-politicians-champion-unpopular-ideas/

    1. Boy that’s a long read, I’d re-post what I posted below with two additional comments

      1) Did the British public fully understand the implications of Brexit – No i don’t think they did, but neither did the experts who got almost everything wrong.

      2) Socialism has never worked, everywhere its been tried its failed, it fails in Russia and Venezuela, and China and Vietnam as the most capitalist economies i’ve ever seen.

      The other point I’d make, and I’ve regularly made this against Labour “economic thinking” is that arbiter ultimately of financial policy and spending is the financial markets not the government.

      If they disagree with your plans and what they mean for the economic health and therefore the risk to them getting their money back, they vote with their feet, and that means not funding requested borrowing (replaced with money printing) higher gilt rates and debt repayments, which then leads to a falling currency and higher inflation which feeds back into the doom loop.

      Ultimately, what you or I think, or the chancellor doesn’t matter, its the people who fund it and what they think that ultimately matters

      That’s the fundamental that no one factors in, and why Socialism fails, because the people who lend you money are capitalists, and you won’t live long without them on board.

    2. In a democracy people get what they ask for. Finding a democracy where this happens is somewhat difficult. Switzerland puts things to a vote, using the internet. Just how the Swiss electorate come to decide between American fighter planes and Swedish ones I do not know (what colours do they come in?).
      Maybe Iceland, maybe some Pacific island we have never heard of and couldn’t find on a map anyway.
      However, whatever we may call it, a democracy, a monarchy, a dictatorship, a Directory, or a theocracy does not much matter. They are all ruled by elites. The questions that need to be asked are, is the state well managed?, are the people looked after? is the state free from outside interference?, are steps taken to ensure these things are ongoing?
      One may call the people stupid, but there are different kinds of intelligence. Taken as a group and looking at outcomes and not Intelligence Quotients, the British people are amongst the smartest who have ever lived on the planet.
      The present failures are in part the result of circumstances, WW1 and WW2, and abysmal shortcomings in our self-serving elites over the last 30+ years.

    3. Immigration can be a positive thing, but it has to be controlled. We welcome small numbers of highly skilled people who are willing to fit in and make a contribution. What we’ve got is mass, uncontrolled immigration of unskilled people, often with criminal records, who are a drain on the system and want to change our way of life and destroy our culture.

  47. I’ve just received my NHS invitation for a Covid jab (I won’t be having one). I was slightly surprised to find that there were translations of the basic instructions in only 28 languages other than English. Surely the 25-year invasion has been more globally comprehensive than that? And why French but not German?

    PS I had to look up Twi and Tagalog…

  48. I have been instructed by Cook that we are having lunch in the garden. So, I’m off to get coat, muffler and gloves.

    Back later – prolly…!!

        1. Oyster Po’Boys are the best. Toast the inside of a split crusty bread roll and spread with good butter. Dredge shucked oysters in cornmeal, pepper and salt and deep-fry for a few minutes. Then make a sandwich with the toasted roll, oysters, Tabasco sauce and slices of dill-pickled cucumber. Mmmmmm!!!

          [From your hero’s book: Floyd’s American Pie]

  49. I have sent this to my MP. I’ll keep you informed of the answer.

    Please explain to me the objective of the government’s involvement with Ukraine.

    1. He will ignore the root causes of the conflict and witter on about Russia wanting to take over Europe (despite its forces not being able to get very far against one country).

    2. Expect reams of Tory HQ bumph telling you how ghastly the Russians are – and completely ignoring years of provocative attacks by the Ukrainians…

      1. Supposed to have good conductivity and is safe to use.

        Very nice. I’ll give you a fiver for it

        1. Ah, you *always* entertain me! ❤️

          I have no idea where I’ll be, but thank you from my heart, and I’ll be in touch.

  54. Germany’s ‘dangerous’ €200bn energy bailout criticised by EU allies

    Germany’s “dangerous” €200bn energy bailout has sparked further EU infighting, with Spain and Belgium the latest member states to voice misgivings.

    The “protective umbrella” unveiled by Berlin, similar to that proposed by the UK Government, aims to partially shield homes and businesses from surging gas prices.

    But it has triggered complaints from fellow EU countries, who claim it could distort energy markets on the Continent and splinter the bloc’s united position this winter.

    Europe has long relied on Russian supplies of oil and gas but following the invasion of Ukraine the Kremlin has throttled flows in the face of sharp criticism from Brussels.

    Amid the tightening of gas supplies and surging prices, Berlin’s massive national energy bailout has triggered fears in other capitals that member states will each have to fend for themselves as temperatures grow colder.

    Alexander De Croo, Belgium’s prime minister, warned on Wednesday that large “imbalances in fiscal spending” between member states are “dangerous”.

    He said it risked “degrading the European single market, because everyone is just doing their own thing”, according to the Financial Times.

    In a separate interview, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez also said the single market must not be allowed to “break apart”.

    The comments are a fresh headache for Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, as he seeks to cooperate with other EU states in the response to the winter energy crisis.

    Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has already likened Berlin’s scheme to “cannibalism”, while outgoing Italian prime minister Mario Draghi warned it risked dividing the bloc “according to the space in our national budgets”.

    It came as Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the EU should consider a temporary cap on gas prices to try and bring down soaring household bills.

    The bloc should also explore a specific further cap on the price of gas used to generate electricity, she added.

    The main TTF price benchmark for prices in Europe depends heavily on pipeline supplies which have been constrained by cuts to Russian pipeline supplies.

    The EU is getting increasing amounts of gas in shipments from around the world. Any cap would be temporary while the EU develops a new benchmark more reflective of current prices, Reuters reported.

    Prices in the UK tend to track the TTF as the markets are linked. It was not immediately clear how an EU cap would affect the UK market.

    EU leaders will discuss the measure on Friday. In a speech on Wednesday, Ms Von der Leyen also said there was a need to “stress test” European infrastructure after the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Germany with Russia were sabotaged and taken out of action.

    1. EU antitrust watchdog in talks with Germany over 200 bln euro support plan
      Reuters

      BRUSSELS, Oct 3 (Reuters) – The European Commission, which oversees EU antitrust policy, said on Monday it was talking with Germany about its energy support package, which critics say will distort competition in the bloc by giving an advantage to German business.

      The 200 billion euro ($195.24 billion) “defensive shield”, including a gas price brake and a cut in sales tax for fuel, is designed to protect companies and households from the impact of soaring energy prices.

      “We are fully committed to preserving a level playing field and a single market, and avoiding harmful subsidy races,” a European Commission spokesperson told a news conference when asked about the German package.

      “What I can say is that we are in contact with the German authorities on this matter,” the spokesperson continued, without elaborating, but noting that it was talking to other national authorities too.

      The Commission, which supervises competition policy in the 27-nation EU, rules on whether state aid is legal or not after being notified by members of their plans.

      The EU commissioner for the internal market, Frenchman Thierry Breton, reacted to the German plan in a tweet on Friday, saying the EU needed to be vigilant about the level playing field and asked what room for manoeuvre other EU members had.

      The German package dwarfs what other EU governments have set aside. Support measures are also a headache for the European Central Bank in its fight against inflation, which has hit 10%.

      Euro zone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday were expected to pledge that national financial shields against soaring energy costs will be temporary and targeted.

      European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech on Saturday that the European Union needed to find a common response to the crisis of energy costs.

      “Without a common European solution, we seriously risk fragmentation,” she said.

      1. I can’t be bothered reading this stuff. If the EU wants to do something currently illegal, they just change the law to make it legal.

  55. Multiple people injured after bystanders challenge robbers. 6 October 2022.

    Three people were stabbed and a fourth person was pushed to the floor at 9.46am, and The Telegraph understands the attacker is still at large.

    Officers arrived at the scene by 9.51am. Three of the victims were taken to a nearby hospital to be treated.

    The attack happened after thieves were challenged by passers-by less than 200m from a City of London Police station.

    This is what it’s like when they no longer fear the law!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/06/bishopsgate-incident-multiple-people-injured-suspected-stabbing/

    1. Oh, do stop complaining.
      It’s the price to be paid for the privilege of living in a large city.

    3. “Thoughtless, far-right, foam-flecked racists arrested for preventing police from being on time….”

        1. The attitude of our police always reminds me of Inspector Clouseau holding open a door of the bank robbers’ getaway vehicle…

    4. Was it me or did anyone else notice, that after reading all the details and modes of action at the crime scene, there was not enough space for a more detailed description of the attackers.

    5. Good news is that it wasn’t a terrattack, according to the London Mayor.

      But bad news for the victims, because they are injured and unlikely to be able to claim much compensation.

  56. Back from lunch in garden. It was gorgeous – sunny, out of the gale – just heavenly.

    1. The trouble with the real news is that it is neither woke nor politically correct.

    2. When they don’t tell you the attackers it’s obvious they’re either black or Muslims.

    3. “Made demands on his watch.”

      What the hell does THAT mean? They wanted to know the time?

  58. 3 hour power cuts this winter, that will be interesting time with the imported street criminal element on the loose

    1. If we can’t get enough gas

      We are predicted to have a “la nina” event this winter, which brings with in blocking highs and freezing temperatures, when of course there’s very little wind……and virtually no solar.

      1. We get days of -15C or colder in a normal winter, so power cuts will not be popular. Oh, yes, and 20 hours darkness, too.

        1. I remember Feb 2010, 25 days of the coldest weather I’ve seen, snow compacted to ice everywhere, roads ungritted because the council said it was useless unless temperatures got above -6C and it was below that constantly for 25 days.

          We car schooled to work, 5 grown men in one 4X4, i said “FFS will you put the heater on” after 5 miles driving, he said its on full – the air coming out was ice cold.

          3. First winter in current house – we had -27C for nearly a week. That was cold! Didn’t help that the fireplace blew smoke into the sitting room and heat up the chimney… and the big picture windows had single-glazing (we’d just moved in, and they hadn’t left the secondary panes anywhere). Oh, well, better insulated now, better heated, better fire.

          5. I remember a UK radio interview with someone in Finland a few years ago when it was particularly cold. Something like -30. The radio chap asked the lady in Finland how cold it was. “-14” she replied. Oh, said the downcast interviewer, “we’d heard it was -30”. “Ah, you mean outside” said the lady.
            Funny how some things stick in your mind.

          7. Not sure what the temperatures were but the winter of ‘62/‘63 was a freezer. Living in central London and it snowed on Boxing Day and the ice was still on the ground in March.

          8. I believe it was very cold for longer, November to March, i don’t believe on average it was as cold as that 25 day spell

          10. I remember that winter. I was at RAF West Raynham in N Norfolk and the commandant got a bollocking from high command, because the runway wasn’t open. The next day, we were all out there in greatcoats and with shovels and tots of brandy, until some engine fitters rigged up a wheeled pallet with two reversed meteor engines, pushed and supplied by a bowser, that quickly blew the runway clean and clear.

            Job done by the very first runway snow-blower.

          12. We are HM Forces, we don’t do things like that. The technology is available for the world.

          13. My Lambretta scooter was completely buried under a large snow drift – in Maresfield Gardens NW3.

      2. We could have had plenty of gas if the government hadn’t forced North Sea gas to be switched off. They think it’s more ‘environmentally friendly’ to ship frozen LPG half way around the world.

        1. They think it’s more ‘environmentally friendly’ to ship frozen LPG half way around the world. Then sell it to the French who then sell it back to us at an inflated price. I don’t believe this to be incompetence.

          1. Well you can also forget shipping in woodchips to fuel your environmentally aware power stations. Our greenie mob have just woken up to the fact that forests are being plundered to make boatloads of woodchips.
            This time they see the idiocy of what is going on.

  59. ‘I followed him in and said to the security guard ‘I’ve just had my wallet stolen and I’ve come to get it back’.

    ‘I found him at the till with a bottle of whisky and I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and smacked him on the chin.

    ‘I asked him where my wallet was and he said he didn’t have it, so I said

    to him, ‘do you want me to hit you again? Then he quickly emptied his

    pockets and gave me it.

    ‘I noticed my cards weren’t in there, so I said, ‘where are they?’ and he said that

    he’d hidden them outside, so I smacked him again. Then he turned out his

    pockets and gave me my cards back.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11286527/Pensioner-90-followed-burglar-stole-wallet-nearby-ASDA-PUNCHED-face.html

    What a guy !

    1. Presumably he is now in the nick for assault? Personally I think he should be due a medal.

    2. “My daughter called me a ‘silly bugger’ and said, ‘you’re too old to be doing stuff like that’. “

    3. “Pensioner gaoled for vicious attack on defenceless limping man…..”You’ll die in prison”, says judge…”

    4. If I had twatted the moron, to get a confession, I would have been arrested and branded a bully and accused of police brutality. This story just goes to show that giving cretins like that robber a damn good thrashing is not just a traditional, time-honoured punishment, it is also common sense. If more criminals had their lights punched out, there would be a lot less crime.

  61. Three chaps stabbed in London trying to stop a mugger.

    Any guesses on the colour of those stopping the mugging and those doing the mugging?

      1. They can’t be everywhere, so I don’t begrudge them that. However London is an open sewer, made so by uncontrolled immigration.

          1. Not to mention a lack of stop and search of those most likely to be doing the stabbing on the odd occasion they do venture forth (Pride rallies, Notting Hill Carnival …).

      1. Be careful not to replace the mu of mugger with an ni! To do so would be far more criminal than actually mugging!

  62. Homes could face three-hour power cuts this winter, warns National Grid. 6 october 2022.

    Households could experience a series of three-hour power cuts this winter if Vladimir Putin shuts off gas supplies from Russia and Britain experiences a cold snap, National Grid has warned.

    Such an event would mean consumers in different parts of the country being notified a day in advance of three-hour blocks of time during which their power would be cut off, in an effort to reduce total consumption by 5%.

    They’ve just blown up his pipelines!!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/06/national-grid-warns-households-could-face-three-hour-power-cuts-this-winter

    2. So let me guess, Grid have said its a remote possibility, The Guardian headless chickens have said its a certainty.

      Those poor lambs that panic if the see a chicken with a limp

      1. Yet the guardian is he first to demand more climate change lies. It can’t have it both ways. I’s caused this problem, now it complains about it? Surely the Left realised that running down our infrastructure would result in a shortage?

        Or did they not think about it?

          1. They do seem to have this daft idea they can do whatever they like and nothing will change. It’s astonishing how utterly moronic Lefties are.

      1. If we have a mild winter, that will be attributed to Global Warming and used as an excuse for more Net Zero.

        3. If we have a freezing cold winter, that will be attributed to Global Warming and used as an excuse for more Net Zero.

    2. Precisely. The best commentary on the divides in Ukraine is from Patrick Lancaster. The Russian speakers cannot wait to be rescued from the Zelensky regime.

      Our politicians are spinning lies about Russia’s intentions presumably under the direction of the globalist elite. Putin remains a major obstacle to the globalist vision of world government just as was President Trump, the latter deposed by a fraudulent election.

      1. “The Russian speakers cannot wait to be rescued from the Zelensky regime.”
        Is that why they voted to leave Ukraine?

  64. A Russian soldier runs up to a nun. Please let me hide under your dress, I’ll explain later.
    The nun agrees.
    A moment later, two military policeman approach her and ask, Sister,
    have you seen a soldier?
    The nun replied, he went that way, and off they went.

    The soldier crawls out from under the dress and says, I can’t thank you
    enough Sister. You see, I don’t want to go and fight in the Ukraine.
    The nun replies, I completely understand.

    The soldier then adds, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you have a
    great pair of legs .

    The nun replied, If you’d have looked a little higher, you’d also have seen a
    great pair of balls too. I don’t want to go and fight in the Ukraine
    either.

  65. A Primary Teacher explains to her class that she is a Liverpool fan so
    she asks her students to raise their hands if they too are Liverpool
    fans.
    Everyone in the class raises their hand except one little girl.
    The teacher looks at the girl with surprise and says, ‘Mary, why didn’t
    you raise your hand?’
    ‘Because I’m not a Liverpool fan,’ she replied.
    The teacher, still shocked, asked, ‘Well, if you are not a Liverpool
    fan, then who are you a fan of?’
    ‘
    I am a Leeds Utd fan, and proud of it,’ Mary replied.
    The teacher could not believe her ears. ‘Mary, why, pray tell, are you a
    Leeds Utd fan?’
    ‘Because my mum is a Leeds Utd fan, and my dad is a Leeds Utd fan, so
    I’m a Leeds Utd fan too!’
    ‘Well,’ said the teacher in an obviously annoyed tone, ‘that is no
    reason for you to be a Leeds Utd fan. You don’t have to be just like
    your parents all of the time.’
    ‘What if your mum was a prostitute and your dad was a drug addict, what
    would you be then?’
    ‘Then,’ Mary smiled, ‘I’d be a Liverpool fan.

      1. I’m stocked up on gas bottles, paraffin and petrol for the generator. I’m alright Jack.

        Homebase were selling bottled gas and not charging a deposit on the bottle. I bought six. I didn’t bother pointing out their mistake.

          3. Looks splendid. A long summer day would an excellent time to make that trip. Thank you.

          2. I must have had a sense of humour by-pass 🙂 I am so sick of people blaming CO2 for everything when it’s essential for photosynthesis that it was a knee-jerk reaction.

          3. It is depressing – the lack of coherent thought…or even, thought! People seem unable to think for themselves.

  68. 365892+ up ticks,
    Are my predictions coming to pass, is the final nail being driven in, I did have johnson as the semi re-entry missile pilot and the wretch cameron along with treacherous treasa as first and second stages.

    IMO truss has just lit a fag on entering the Brocks banger factory.

    Brexit Backtrack? Liz Truss Looks for ‘Common Cause’ at Macron’s European Political Community Meeting in Prague

  69. Douglas Murray
    Things can always get worse
    From magazine issue: 8 October 2022

    As I was saying, way back in July, it is hard to love the Conservative party. Every time it tries to navigate another bend in the road it ends up causing a disaster even its most ardent critics could not have foreseen. ‘Things can’t get any worse,’ said rebels in the party while Boris Johnson was still PM, before the summer. Then we were introduced to Liz Truss. Now, within weeks of her taking office, you can hear members of the parliamentary party saying with vigour: ‘She has to go.’ At which point I feel the country wanting to place our collective heads in our hands, yell and walk away.

    Does anyone have time for all this? Does the Conservative party just plan to hold endless leadership contests in perpetuity while the country looks on?

    At such moments it is easy to wish the whole thing gone: the whole inefficient, complacent, forever infighting party. I find that watching the Conservatives in conference does not banish this thought. Yet of course our system does not allow for this. Were we Italy, the Netherlands or any number of other countries, the Conservative party would have gone the way that so many dysfunctional parties have. In our system it stays in place, primarily if not solely because of the alternatives.

    Next election, as ever, there is the possibility of a hung parliament and some Labour-SNP pact, which carves up the United Kingdom by means fair or foul. Or there is the simple prospect of a Labour landslide. And it is this possibility that is becoming, by the day, ever less scary.

    In London in recent days there has been a constant refrain. People are saying that it is perhaps time for the Conservative party to spend some years on the opposition benches, if for no other reason than to stop the infighting and scheming and to help them realise that the price of political failure includes political defeat. They will have been in power for 15 years by the next election, and by that time even a very successful government would be looking stale and in need of replacement.

    Besides, this logic goes, the Labour party of today is not the party of Jeremy Corbyn. Sir Keir Starmer is a recognisable type of Labour moderate. He has even turned his party around in just a couple of years from a party that waved Palestinian flags to piss off Jews at its conference to one that actually sang the national anthem, albeit with the lyrics printed out on cards.

    By any measure this is a change of scene. So if Starmer comes in at the next general election, it’s not the end of the world, you hear. He won’t be Corbyn. He’ll be a sort of charisma-less Tony Blair.

    The problems with this argument are several. First, look at the people around Starmer. We have Angela Rayner, who rotates between foul-mouthed schoolyard bully and psychotically charming pseudo-moderate. We have David Lammy, who by my count has now gone through several versions of himself: first the Blairite moderate version; then the demagogue version, who showed himself more than capable of whipping up crowds in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy; now back to posing as a moderate. Which Lammy will we get after the next election?

    Then there is the rest of the current parliamentary party – a party which pretends to have moderated but which went to the polls at the last election, lest we forget, supporting Corbyn to be prime minister. It is hard to forget that detail – the fact that these same people seriously campaigned to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister.

    Finally there is the great unknown. For if Labour are to win at the next election then they will have to gain a whole bunch more seats. And who knows what the hundred or so new Labour MPs will be like? Has the party candidates list been flooded with Blairites in the past couple of years? Has it filled up with people who accept the 2019 results and have taken certain lessons about tacking to the political centre? Or is it filled with very left-wing, if not actually Corbynista, types? I don’t know who knows the answer to that. Perhaps we won’t know until after the election. It’s a heck of a chance to take. Yet it seems like a chance that many people will deem worth taking if the result is that the Conservative party goes away and cools down for a bit.

    What is it that made the Conservative party of the past decade or so even more unpleasant, unruly and ineffectual than usual? Perhaps it was the Brexit vote: the sheer number of fallouts, both political and personal. The loss of a generation of entitled Conservatives who believed that if they could not hold the top offices of state then there was no point remaining in politics at all. And I suppose it is the sheer exhaustion that comes from a period of politics played at such a constantly high pitch.

    Still, I have long been suspicious of the claim ‘It can’t get worse.’ I would have said that one of the central insights of conservatism is the wisdom that things can always get worse. Many people thought that life under the Shahs couldn’t be worse, only to be introduced to life under the Ayatollahs. I am not by any means comparing Sir Keir to the Ayatollahs, but it would seem to me that a Labour government led by people who are pretty unhappy with the Brexit vote and inclined at some point to take Britain back into the EU would provide a sort of final, fatal kick to a country that desperately needs to get out of this political rut.

    So like a lot of us, I suppose, I am torn. I want the Conservative party to be punished, and yet the instruments of punishment are unappealing. I suppose that last fear is what the Conservatives are banking on to save them – as always. Yet somehow I don’t feel it is going to work this time.

    ***********************************************************

    sir_graphus • 6 hours ago
    We’ve had a Conservative government for 12 years, now, but it hardly feels like it. I feel like I’m still waiting for one. First the coalition managed to stop anything conservative happening, then the civil service, the media, especially the BBC seem to have neutered it. The blame lies with ministers too weak and lazy to make face down their department Blobs and the relentless creeping expansion of state intrusion into our lives, and too cowardly to endure any sort of negative media.

    PetaJ • 6 hours ago
    The headline of this article reminded me of a very old joke.
    Everything was going wrong, and I was feeling really miserable, then someone told me to cheer up because things could be worse. So I cheered up, and sure enough they got worse.
    That is pretty much how I am feeling now.

    The root of all our problems is not really difficult to define, it is the abysmally poor quality of the majority of people going into politics in all parties, but it is even worse than that. Decent, local people wanting to serve their communities are not selected in favour of apparatchiks being parachuted in for party political purposes. If some of them do somehow slip through, they are all too often overlooked for high office for fear that they will show up the less able.

    I will say this for Liz Truss, she has at least tried to fill her cabinet with conservatives, and just look what is happening to her. I really do despair, things are going to get a lot worse for a long time over many years before they start to get better.

    2. 365892+ up ticks,

      C,
      There is always the option,unheard of by many I know, of seriously backing
      a fringe party, I mean mass backing and frightening the treasonable life out of the current political shite in power.

      The voting pattern currently is on par with grading shit and this has been so these last three plus decades.

    3. As I posted elsewhere about the plotting to remove Truss

      Lets take a look at this

      1) If they are plotting a coup, there are two options,

      i) They have another full leadership contest, probably on a shortened timescale over 1 month, meanwhile in the middle of a crisis, the PM is effectively defenestration from doing anything in the crisis.

      ii) They have a real coup, reduce it to MP’s, cut out the membership, which will alienate the only support they currently have, and install Sunak, or someone else.

      2) To do so in the current political environment will seem like an indulgence too far for conservative and non conservative voters alike leading to complete wipe-out in the polls.

      The argument goes that Truss doesn’t have the support of the majority of MP’s, true, but neither does Sunak. It should also be remembered what the final result of the last ballot of MP’s was

      Rishi Sunak 137 votes 38.6%
      Liz Truss 113 votes 31.8%
      Penny Mordaunt 105 votes 29.5%

      So Sunak has the support of less than 40% of the parliamentary party so no majority there.

      And what would you have on the back benches, the Truss supporters, the Boris Johnson supporters and a number of the party who realise that Sunak is a high tax Tory whose going to reverse the reversals of tax policy but is seen as a multi billionaire, with a green card, and a partygate fine.

      So to me any such move would be double suicide, leave Sunak with less support than Truss, and if they go to the membership I think they would elect Braverman or Badenoch to rival Rishi in the final two, and either would be preferable to the membership.

      If you are stuck in an oven, seems silly to ask someone to turn the heat up.

      1. Truss’ problems stem from inexperience. She even admitted that they hadn’t prepared properly for the fuss & buggeration – why not? Surely, anyone with an ounce of sense, would see how it would play in the stalls, and seek to present a bullet-proofed argument for how it’s all going to pan out – and cut tax income by raising thresholds, not favouring the top rate. That was lousy politics, which has to be right, before you get to the economics. Result – however smart economically, the whole fcuking government has been torpedoed by this one poorly thought through action, just after it began. And that after months of dithering over a leader.

        1. Most MPs are neither intelligent nor clever.
          The majority of people have at least one of those attributes.

        2. The budget is estimated at about 200bn of net spending of which the 45p cut is 2bn nominally and according to OBR and IFS when tax “elasticity” is factored in at about 0.45 means that it would actually cost less 1.2bn.

          The purpose is to attract high earners here in the future, where it becomes revenue raising in the medium term.

          US top tax rate on over $500,000 – 37% Why?
          Ireland top tax rate 40% – why?

          Ireland’s CT rate 12.5% – Why?

          because lower tax rates on these ranges of taxes are shown to draw in investment, talent and businesses, who also employ people who pay employers NI, Employees, NI, CT, Income Tax and take people off benefits.

          They are high revenue raising where these tax rates are internationally competitive, and the more you raise in that area, the less the little people have to pay.

          1. Something that Margaret Thatcher demonstrated but this lot do not do history.
            Woeful aren’t they.

          2. Yes, and I didn’t factor in the “trickle down” effects that more top bankers here means higher corporate profits and of course for entrepreneurs setting up, the secondary business supply chain boost locally, who employ more and party more of all those taxes.

            I also missed off the business rates they would pay.

          3. Good points. Perhaps they’d do well to read NoTTL to get a better understanding of how things work in the real world.

        3. With Truss’s sabre rattling re Ukraine/Russia one would have thought that she would have, ummm, war-gamed her initial political moves?.

        5. She needs to get some decent advisors in place and not yes-men. Frost would be ideal if she hadn’t given him the cold shoulder by offering him non-jobs.

  71. Because of the apalling times and the misery daily encountered, I thought I might resuscitate A Bumper Joke Book, Here’s the preface and the first:

    Preface

    All of the jokes in this little book have been gleaned from various sources on the Internet. People the world over, all enjoy a good laugh and most are very happy to share the humour with others. Which is the reason why there is no copyright on this publication – you can’t keep a good joke down!

    A word of warning, I have certainly found all the jokes and stories, without exception, very funny but some of them are unashamedly filthy, many are definitely politically incorrect, some are racist. So don’t lend the book to your maiden aunt, liberal bleeding heart, education counsellor or the Chairman of the Race Relations Board -–they have all had a humour by-pass!

    I must pay tribute to two of the richest sources for this book. The first is an Internet ‘Tabloid’ called The Daily Dirt. An amusing website but with a heavy overdose of pornography thrown in for good measure – go there if you dare! The second is an Anglo-Swede who must remain anonymous for her own sake but suffice to say that having worked with her in Stockholm, her good looks were a daily tonic to us jaded consultants. Now that she works elsewhere, her circulation of a lot of the jokes and stories in this book still acts as a daily tonic. Thank you S.

    I did try and classify the stories but quickly found that too many stories on the same theme soon palled – so take ‘em as they come and enjoy.

    Larry Is In The Hospital…

    Who in the hell is Larry?

    Well Larry is the guy who gets home late one night and Linda, his wife, says “Where the hell have you been?”

    Larry replies “I was out getting a tattoo!”

    “A tattoo”? She frowned. “What kind of tattoo did you get?”

    “I got a Fifty Pound note on my privates” he said proudly.

    “What the hell were you thinking”? She said, shaking her head in disgust. “Why on earth would a Chartered Accountant get a Fifty Pound note tattooed on his privates?”

    “Well, One, I like to watch my money grow.
    Two, once in a while I like to play with my money.
    Three, I like how money feels in my hand.
    And, lastly, instead of you going out shopping, you can stay right here at home and blow fifty quid anytime you want.”

    Larry is in St Thomas’ Hospital, Critical Care Unit, Room 233

        1. Just one more to sate the appetite:

          Management Lesson

          Johnny wanted to have sex with a girl in his office. But she belonged to someone else…

          One day, Johnny got so frustrated that he went up to her and said, ‘I’ll give you a £100 if you let me have sex with you. But the girl said NO.

          Johnny said, ‘I’ll be fast. I’ll throw the money on the floor, you bend down, and I’ll be finished by the time you pick it up. ‘

          She thought for a moment and said that she would have to consult her boyfriend… So she called her boyfriend and told him the story.

          Her boyfriend says, ‘Ask him for £200, pick up the money very fast, he won’t even be able to get his pants down.’

          So she agrees and accepts the proposal. Half an hour goes by, and the boyfriend is waiting for his girlfriend to call.

          Finally, after 45 minutes, the boyfriend calls and asks what happened.

          She responded, ‘The cheating bugger used coins!’

          Management lesson:
          Always consider a business proposal in its entirety before agreeing to it and getting screwed…!!!

  72. Afternoon all.

    Wordle 474 4/6

    ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
    🟨🟨⬛⬛🟩
    ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 and

    Daily Quordle 255

    3️⃣7️⃣
    8️⃣9️⃣

    quordle.com
    Horrible second word.

    3. Par 4 today and surprised at that, after a bad start!
      Wordle 474 4/6

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

      1. #MeToo Par Four!

        Wordle 474 4/6
        🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
        🟩⬜🟩⬜🟨
        🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Wordle 474 4/6

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

      Daily Quordle 255
      5️⃣9️⃣
      6️⃣7️⃣
      quordle.com

    5. Wordle 474
      4/6

      I agree on quordle being awkward but I finally got there.

      Daily Quordle 255
      7️⃣8️⃣
      5️⃣9️⃣

    6. Wordle 474 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Second word OK, not so happy about the fourth word

      Daily Quordle 255
      2️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣8️⃣
      quordle.com
      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      🟨🟨⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟨⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟨⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Is that considered to be appalling .. I think they are very funny. The police need to express their humour .

      This is Britain , where we are allowed to larf, er , aren’t we?

      4. It is only appalling to self righteous woke lefties who have always been angry and never had a sense of humour.

    2. Is this the same story as this, about some ex-policeman at the Home Office being suspended for What’s App conversations?
      Surely What’s App is private? The Scottish government was trying to make dinner table “racism” a crime. What you say at home will get you jailed.
      If What’s App is private, as the members of a groups are the only ones with access, then anything anyone says happened is hearsay?
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63147341

      1. Several Canadian police officerx have been in deep doggy doo because they posted comments supporting the freedom convoy, privacy means nothing when the government want to get at the supposed confidential information.

      2. One of the group was seemingly a spy and released the conversations. IMHO one should be able to express your opinions in private.

    3. I hope that your pretend commissioner is tall, otherwise you will have quite a task finding he/she/it among a pile of bollards.

  74. Very successful ladder work completed. Two trays (28 x 15 inches) of Bramleys picked. We now have five such trays – plus two of windfalls. Another three or four trays will be picked in a week or so.

    Funny how the very best apples are completely inaccessible!

    1. Where do you store your trays, Bill? I shall have to start thinking about storing my apples. This year has been a bumper crop.

      1. In old plastic Tesco trays in the garage. As you say, a huge crop. And not only apples. Pears, Spanish chestnuts, raspberries.

        And yesterday, in the strong wind, there was what I thought was gunfire – it was the sound of acorns falling in their hundreds on the roofs of the garden sheds. There was a similar massive production of acorns about 25 years ago.

        1. Big’uns this year, acorns that is. Apples, raspberries and all sorts too. Usually a big harvest precedes a severe winter.

          2. We had a huge number of massive blackberries, lots blueberries, cranberries, and many others are overwhelmed with apples.

  75. Well, a morning spent gathering the fallen apples from my main tree, giving them a quick rinse, putting them through the chopper and then pressing the juice out of them.
    Result, 1 gallon of freshly squeezed apple juice.

    Then, up on top of the containers just up the hill from the house with the long handled apple picker and a bucket of next door’s apples gathered.
    With permission I hasten to add.

    I think I’ll be doing some chutney tomorrow.

    3. Careful 🤗🦘
      A very large one of those wrecked the side of our Holden wagon, on the road just before Broken Hill.

        1. My misses was dozing against the passenger door and window. It was almost dark, I could see the big reds at the side of the road I slowed down and the larger number of the group went left into the scub but this one tried to leap over the car. Front wing passenger door very badly dented. We were lucky it didn’t land on the bonnet. We probably wouldn’t be here now.

  77. DT – Households could be paid more than £10 a day for reducing their energy use.

    A bit bl**dy unfair on those of us who are already frugal

    2. The government is always unfair on those of us who are frugal! Do wasters have more votes, or what?

    3. That’s the whole point, though, isn’t it? Punish the sensible reward the feckless. It’s been ongoing since about 1997.

  79. Afternoon, all. I am pleased to report that the furniture is back almost exactly where it was before the work was done (not the piano, unfortunately, that’s at an angle; even the combined efforts of two of us couldn’t quite manage to shift it exactly back where it should be) and apart from two photographs still to go on the wall and a few nicknacks to replace, it’s done. Huge sigh of relief! Once I’ve got a new curtain rail (the old one disintegrated) and some new curtains (one of the old pair faded and split) I’ll be all set for a cosy winter.

    1. You need to lure Bob of Bonsall up – he’d do it in a trice…with a bag of cement under each arm, too!

    2. What about using a trolley jack? With appropriate pieces of wood, obviously. The ideal device would be a piano dolly. (not a Phizzee Dolly)

      1. I’d have to lift the thing (it’s Victorian and has an iron frame) high enough to get the trolley jack underneath it. We did try various ways of raising it, but without success. If I’d had sturdy rollers we’d have tried the Egyptian pyramid method, but I didn’t. Don’t think I didn’t long for a(n unavailable) piano truck.

        1. Don’t try to use brute force.
          I’m assuming it’s similar to our old cast framed upright piano.

          Look at how the small wheels are “set”; gently, I repeat “gently” align them in the direction you wish the piano to move.

          Then push gently, I REPEAT gently, so the whole beast moves where you want it.

          This assumes that your floor is level and hasn’t rutted from when you moved it out.
          If it is, and it has, then GENTLY move the wheels as above until they enter the ruts! Then try again.
          GENTLY!!

          1. It’s almost back in position, it’s just slightly skewiff, not being paralell with the wall at the back. I’ve decided it’s near enough 🙂 The back castors just would not turn at all.

  80. Evening all.
    Just as an aside, I like TCW’s articles, but there are some raving lunatics leaving comments there.

    And on topic:
    Nerver mind losing the next election. TheTories deserve to be flogged. Labour will be worse, but so far all they have failed at is being any sort of opposition.

    1. I just realised that there is a silver lining. While we are sitting in the dark – we WON’T be paying £25 per kilowatt….

      2. The standing charge will still apply, which is currently around 46 pence per day or £168 per annum.

  82. That’s me for today. The puns are defeating me! Very nice day – useful garden work under a chilly sun.

    Have a pleasant evening planning what to do in the power cuts. Someone needs to invent a wind up router and a wind up computer…

    A demain.

  83. We are apparently going to have power cuts this winter. The somewhat vague warning was, of course, a preliminary set up. So we are not surprised when it happens. So we say, “oh well, they warned us”. But, it isn’t good enough is it? It puts us on the same level as Kenya where they get 3 hours of electricity only every other day (or something like that). We have now been levelled down to the level of Third World dumps, countries that have never functioned sensibly, ever.
    If there are power cuts the entire Cabinet and all MPs who have been in office for five years or more should immediately demit their positions. They have failed disgracefully. People will likely die as a direct consequence of the negligence of our politicians. How can they remain?

    1. We are being told to use an electric blanket instead of turning on the heating. But if we have a power cut…

        1. I suggest acquiring two large dogs. The only problem is you need a massive bed – and can wake up to find you’re hugging the dog, not the wife.

          2. Three Dog Night ,Wibbs. A US saying- if it gets really cold, throw another dog on the bed. That’s where the band got their name from.

        2. And a thinner blanket to wrap yourself up in, then the duvet, then the warm thingy on top. I speak from experience here – I was shivering constantly in hospital after childbirth (son the elder) so I was wrapped closely in a cellular blanket, followed by the bedding. It certainly made a difference, it was the difference. Very soon my teeth stopped chattering and I stopped shaking. And this was in August!

        1. The birthrate surged after the powercuts in the seventies, particularly when the TV went off at 22.00.

          2. I hope your wife of 47 years and a day knows about this picture and your lock a bye baby.
            No?
            Err.. A brown envelope stuffed with £50 notes might buy Phizzee’s silence….

            N

          3. Hello sosraboc, my old friend
            I’ve come to talk with you again
            Because a vision softly creeping
            Left its seeds while I was lock keeping
            And the vision that was planted in my brain
            Still remains
            Requires pounds for silence?

      4. Pj’s and extra blankets, as we did before central heating.
        Waking up and seeing the wonderful patterns created on the window glass from a frosty night.
        Memories of the 50’s in deepest darkest Wales.

        1. But would you want to undergo that again? Would young people, used to central heating, put up with what we had to experience?

          2. Probably not, but at least we have the knowledge and experience to cope.
            It could also prove a short sharp shock for those who think ‘net zero’ is a good idea.

          3. Would come as a surprise, that’s for sure.
            Add the overboiled cabbage for every meal as well!

          4. Next thing, someone will suggest that they all get sent off to do national service.

            Actually with the way politicians are acting nowadays, it’s probably not a bad idea to prepare for conflict.

    2. 365892+ up ticks,

      Evening HP

      “How can they remain”?

      The electorate majority will
      look at hands with missing
      digits due to frostbite and query the cause, next spring.
      On the way to vote you will hear as an undertone mantra,”you gotta vote tory
      (ino) keep out lab (ino).

      ry (i o)

    4. Nowadays do you seriously expect a minister to resign over any of their actions?
      Politicians have lost any sense of ethical behavjiour.

      To give you a Canadian example – about ten years ago, a minister was forced to resign after abusing expense guidelines, she apparently charged an extortionate $18 on a glass of orange juice. This year the Governor General blew about $100,000 on catering during a trip to Dubai but despite questions in the house, the liberals are defending such gross overspending as being normal.

      It is only ten years between the two cases but it shows a sharply declining sense of right among the ruling clases.

      1. I don’t believe the political classes have ever had any concept of morality. They see what they want and they set about getting it, stuff who gets in the way. It is pure ego.

        They’re the same the world over. We mock third world dictators spending aid money on Mercedes but our MPs are busy having money spent on heating their stables and duck moats, they’re all flipping property for tax purposes. Thus we should take one cabinet member out a month, examine their expenses and if it passes the sniff test, let them go with a thorough beating. Otherwise, we hang them.

    5. The state *wants* this. Actually, that’s not true. What it wanted to do was make energy scarce and more expensive, forcing people to use less. It could then crow about meeting ‘green targets’ for the next 7 figure tax payer funded non-job.

      Various MPs – Gummer, Goldsmith – got fat and rich off the subsidy given to unreliables and the rigged energy market.

      When they closed storage facilities, destroyed power stations and deliberately hindered nuclear they were only thinking of that quango job. There was no consideration of blackouts because they didn’t bother about them. That was ‘someone else’s problem’ – ours, specifically.

  84. We are apparently going to have power cuts this winter. The somewhat vague warning was, of course, a preliminary set up. So we are not surprised when it happens. So we say, “oh well, they warned us”. But, it isn’t good enough is it? It puts us on the same level as Kenya where they get 3 hours of electricity only every other day (or something like that). We have now been levelled down to the level of Third World dumps, countries that have never functioned sensibly, ever.
    If there are power cuts the entire Cabinet and all MPs who have been in office for five years or more should immediately demit their positions. They have failed disgracefully. People will likely die as a direct consequence of the negligence of our politicians. How can they remain?

      2. But they did, ages ago, and the UK agreed to pay the French to do so.
        Fat lot of good taht was. Backsliders, the lot of them.

  87. If you’re interested in history and finance, and haven’t yet discovered Alasdair Macleod, here’s a treat from a recent edition of Live From the Vault.
    Skip over the Live From the Vault introduction to a great conversation between Macleod and Andy Macguire.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3DHMED7x4

  89. After a fairly relaxing but productive day, I am now about to watch THE SIXTH SENSE, after which I shall head for bed. So… Goodnight, everyone.

      1. Vera on here! Rain battering off the roof and howling a blooming gale! It’s like winter!

  91. We have just received our energy (electricity) monthly request/demand. It has been reduced from £74 a month to………. £25 a month. I do not know how this can be in the current climate. We do not heat by electricity, our heating and hot water is provided by LPG, Calor, who kindly topped up our tank of their own volition two days before the price went up by 12p a litre end of September. I will report back if the above turns out to be a typing error.

    1. The gov subsidy has kicked in this month. It gets paid directly to the power companies so everyone’s bills are reduced.

      1. I thought that might be it. Certainly less than we have ever paid monthly, even less than we paid when we were in France.

          2. We’ll be paying for it with the increased inflation, increase in other prices caused by the £ sinking, and reduction in value of our investments. All that will come to a lot more than £400.

          3. Err, quite. Also, high prices are necessary to subdue demand. There is no more gas out there than there was before all of Europe started subsidising its citizens.

          4. I’d not paid much attention to the subsidy, we were prepared to pay as requested regardless and would rather do so than suffer the consequences later. Never put off….. There is always a day of reckoning when the chickens come home to roost.

          2. John Mortimer of Rumpole fame, wrote an autobiography called Clinging the the Wreckage. A good read.

          3. A friend of our who knew John Mortimer told him that we had named our boxer Rumpole because his face looked rather similar to that of that of the actor Leo McKern who played the Old Bailey advocate. John Mortimer was very amused to hear this!

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f91d2145762e19f3e9015270eee1dc7f1df745e03ceca36a43dfad335af35eb.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc457e9888d76a927ad6d10687510b2b63c71f43ffad594decb19b35a8d8fecb.jpg

    3. Not me. Just back from church. Time to get something to eat and put this morning’s dentistry to the test. Two newly fitted crowns. Only had soup earlier as my mouth was still partially frozen. Gums a bit beaten up and mouth feels too full. Always happens. I’d grown accustomed to the crumbling wreckage.

      1. I am amazed that you could manage soup – when one’s mouth is frozen liquids dribble out the other side of the mouth. Mine are also crumbling, I have a large gap (only appealing if one is eight years old) where the posts for two implants have been inserted. I now have to wait for four months before the work can begin for the porcelain crowns – the moulds have to be taken first so I expect it will be five months or so start to finish. I no longer care about the gap, it’s at the side and well back, I’ve learned how useful is that one remaining back molar!

        1. I don’t understand why it will take that long. Post and crown 3 weeks with my dentist.

          1. I don’t understand this either. I will ask at my next appt. I have heard that some people get post and crowns done together. Although the stitched area of gum did bleed for two-three weeks on and off if my toothbrush accidentally caught it, and there is an area of gum that has been built up to ‘support’ the tooth.

          2. Ah, i see. They were probably waiting to see you were clear of infection before going ahead. Have you heard of Oragel? It numbs the gums.

          3. No, I’ve not heard of that. My gums are ok now, but I will make a note for future reference, you never know. I am fortunate to have good health, but my teeth have been the bane of my life although you wouldn’t know to look at them, thank the Lord.

    4. Good evening m’dear!
      It’s ‘cos we’re getting old and decrepit!

      And with that I shall bid you and everyone else a good night and go & attack a crossword before turning the light off.

    5. Not me, m’dear, I’m constantly looking for new ideas and opinions on a wide variety of subects.

      As dear Winston once remarked , “KBO.”j

  94. And I am also heading to bed. Woke very early today and waited for an electrician. Doc tomorrow for a B 12 and then we’ll see.
    Weather a bit iffy tomorrow especially at the time we have to go out…. sods law.
    Good Night Y’all.

  96. 365892+ up ticks,

    Really the economy only applies if you have a stake in a Country, the electoral majority have a stake and over the last three decades plus have driven it through the heart of old Blighty.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    1h
    Those who thought the Tories had the slightest intention of controlling immigration, & voted for them on that basis, are fools who are incapable of understanding what happens in front of their own eyes over decades.
    TommyRobinson1
    @TommyRobinson1
    ·
    3h
    Record breaking numbers of illegal immigrants chaperoned into the UK by those paid to protect our borders this year and we’re not even at the end yet.

    33000 plus this year, the following indigenous youths legacy treacherously blown.

    https://gettr.com/post/p1tec6ga29d

    2. Sent to my MP asking him to circulate to all Conservative Party MPs. I purposely didn’t put Conservative MPs as there are so few of them.
      Thanks for that Belle.

    3. Good choice. Islam specialises in hate – Muslims hate all non-Muslims and their holy book calls for infidels to be killed.

Comments are closed.