Thursday 7 September: Bankrupt Birmingham shows that Labour still can’t manage money

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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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.

487 thoughts on “Thursday 7 September: Bankrupt Birmingham shows that Labour still can’t manage money”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    What Happens Next?
    In an airport lobby George W. Bush noticed a man in a long flowing white robe with a long flowing white beard and long flowing white hair. The man had a staff in one hand and some stone tablets under the other arm.

    George W. approached the man and inquired, “Aren’t you Moses?”

    The man ignored George W. and stared at the ceiling. George W. positioned himself more directly in the man’s view and asked again, “Aren’t you Moses?”

    The man continued to peruse the ceiling. George W. tugged at the man’s sleeve and asked once again, “Aren’t you Moses?”

    The man finally responded in an irritated voice, “Yes I am”.

    George W. asked him why he was so uppity and the man replied, “The last time I spoke to a Bush I had to spend forty years in the desert”.

    1. Good morning Minty, and a very Happy Birthday to you! Hope you have a great day! 🎂🥂

    6. Happy birthday Minty, hope you’re able to drag yourself away from the screen and have a fine day.

  4. Nest of Thieves
    5 days ago I posted that the Paywall-busting 12ft.io seemed to have stopped working, at least on The Telegraph. Another Nottler (he knows who he is) posted: ‘Why not just pay for it rather than resort to the standards of a common thief?’. John 8:7 comes to mind.

    The five or six immediately-following comments (from sos, Obers, Kenl, Richard Sk, Ndovu and even Conners) led me to believe I was among a nest of thieves. Not wishing to continue consorting with such low-life I will bid you all farewell. RC

    1. Sorry you feel that way. I did acknowledge I did similarly. However, I stand by my observation.
      I hope you find another forum which you will enjoy.

    2. 12ft ladder doesn’t work on the telegraph any more, but the old method of hammering on the esc key as the page loads does.
      Just saying.

    3. You should not do anything of the kind RC. Some friction is inevitable where people are exchanging genuine views and beliefs.

    4. Good morning everyone, I shouldn’t have been so thin-skinned.

      This blog, maintained selflessly by the tireless Geoff and decorated by Rik and others, has for many years been a ray of sunshine each morning that reinforces my ‘grumpy old man’ beliefs.

      I won’t be reading DT Letters any more but hey, you are a lovely lot really and I know I would miss you like hell.

      Yesterday was too darn hot and I didn’t have a very good night – hence my petulant post.

      Forgive me, RC

      3. 375955+ up ticks,

        Morning RC,

        What sprang to mind was

        “Come back Shane ( RC) we love you”

        it worked.

      4. Very pleased to see you have so swiftly found a forum which you will enjoy.

        A sign of competence!

        };-))

      5. No worries, old mate.
        Everybody is allowed a bad day.
        Glad your absence isn’t permanent.

        1. Many of our finest Nottlers have had their pettish moments and have abandoned ship only to return again – either under their original avatars or with a new identity.

          If this happens to me and I leave in a huff I have blown my cover with Percival Wrattstrangler, my nom-de-plume’s nom-de-plume, so I shall have to invent a new sobriquet – I might try Richard Charles Tracey.

          You can be either cheered or depressed to hear that I have no immediate plans to leave!

      7. I think you are entitled to feel a bit hurt at being likened to a thief. I am glad you are not leaving anyway.

        The question is a bit blurred.
        What about reading the paper in the newsagent and then not buying it?
        What about buying it, but then passing on the newspaper to other people who haven’t paid for it?
        What about leaving it on a train for *many* other people to enjoy?
        What about copying and pasting the letters elsewhere, isn’t that theft too?
        Is the Telegraph behaving in a moral way to make the only payment plan a subscription, thus shutting out people who might want to browse it occasionally?
        Is the Telegraph behaving in a moral way when they charge people a subscription and then pump Government propaganda at them?
        Is the Telegraph behaving in a moral way to charge people the full subscription for reading letters that it obtained for free? (thanks to Geoff, NOTTL provides a free alternative where one can witness Telegraph readers venting, of course!)

        I think there are lots of valid points of view.

    5. Said it before and will say it again. Check if your local library services gives you free access to PressReader. You can read the Terriblegraph for “free”. Richmond upon Thames does.

      1. A quick look reveals:
        Barnet, Milton Keynes, Islington, Midlothian, Croydon, southend, Bucks, Medway, Shropshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, S Lanarkshire, Edinburgh, N Ayrshire, N Lincolnshire, S Ayrshire, Camden, Essex, Hillingdon, Southampton, Bedfordshire, Luton, Ipswich, Surrey, Brent, Hackney, Wokingham, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Jersey, Guerrnsey, Rochdale, Warwickshire, Brighton & Hove, W Sussex, Cornwall, Wandsworth, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Thurrock, Tameside, Slough, Bradford, Trafford, Westminster, Oldham, Solihull, East Lothian…

        1. Worldwide: many in Rep of Ireland, Australia, S Africa, Canada, US, India, Germany, Sweden, Denmark…

          Wales looks badly represented-possibly Carmarthenshire only

        2. Worldwide: many in Rep of Ireland, Australia, S Africa, Canada, US, India, Germany, Sweden, Denmark…

          Wales looks badly represented-possibly Carmarthenshire only

      1. Well it’s not a ‘spirit’ I would want to be associated with. So, Phil, you condone the deliberate act of obtaining services from a vendor by fraudulent means? Is this your ‘spirit’? Is that really the level of moral integrity on this forum? It appears so. Very sad.

  5. The political elite has given up on Britain. Allister Heath. 6 September. 2023.

    Labour and the Tories have joined forces to condemn Britain to national failure. Their views are virtually indistinguishable

    Broken Britain exudes dysfunctionality, yet both parties are committed to business as usual. We might as well be living under a government of national failure, a grand coalition committed to accelerating our decline and allergic to any kind of inspiring vision. Our national discourse is characterised by a toxic, deeply misleading narcissism of small differences, perfectly encapsulated by the performative row over the aerated concrete calamity. The truth is that the two parties now agree on tax and spend, almost to the pound, so their claims and counter-claims on austerity, concrete and the rest are worthless.

    Perfectly true of course but Heath has left out the coming collapse where the truth, as they say in all good melodrama, will be revealed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/09/06/labour-and-tories-have-united-form-government-of-failure/

    1. 375955+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Good post, I do totally agree with attention
      klaxons, whistles, & trumpets blasting out on the hour every hour.

      As pointed out over the years this political overseeing trash could be taken as a coalition
      in my book.

    3. Change really only comes as a result of crisis – it provides the motivation and shows the need.
      Bring it on, get it over with, then things can be mended.

  6. 375955+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 7 September: Bankrupt Birmingham shows that Labour still can’t manage money.

    They really should stick to PIE management & concealment as the tory (ino) party really is on par in that department, with the paedo intake via Dover running smoothly on a daily basis.

    Tis my belief that the nautical taxi service betwixt calais & dover is so governmentaly organised that, if a paedo is happy in france then a dover day return can be booked.

    The electoral majority voter really is spoilt for choice.

  7. Many thanks everyone for your best wishes on my 77th (groan) birthday. I wish you all the same (unfeeling brutes) and hope that Nottl outlives us all!

  8. UK government’s refusal to confirm Skripal spy role is ‘surreal’, lawyers say. 6 September 2023.

    Mansfield emphasised the family did not want any information revealed that could put anyone at risk, but said if they were to play a “meaningful role” they needed access to more material sooner. “Disclosure to the family has to begin now,” he said. “Basic data could be revealed now that is not going to endanger anybody.”

    Examples he gave included details of the movements of the attackers and Skripal at the time of the poisoning, and locations of where novichok was found.

    He said a key issue was whether the same category of novichok used in the attack on Skripal was what fatally poisoned Sturgess. “It’s been asserted they are the same but they seem to have had very different effects,” he said.

    This is why the PTB have tried to stall this inquiry for as long as possible. The present official account of the Skripal business is ridiculous and dependent on the suppression of a great deal of detail, not least the movement of the main protagonists. Out of all the traffic and surveillance camera footage that must have been taken that day only about one minute of it has been released. I strongly suspect that even if Mansfield should gain access to this, most of it will be missing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/06/wiltshire-salisbury-novichok-sergei-skripal-dawn-sturgess-inquiry

  9. Good morning all,

    A bit murky here at McPhee Towers but soon clearing up to be another lovely day, wind in the East-Nor’-East going East, 18℃ going up to 28℃ again.

    The top letter this morning:

    SIR – The bankruptcy of the Labour-controlled Birmingham City Council (report, September 6) is further proof that Labour always demands ever-more money to feed its bureaucracies.

    Other examples are Sadiq Khan’s administration in London and the government in Wales. Labour cannot manage money – except to insist on more for less.

    I wonder how many officials in Birmingham have six-figure salaries and work three days a week.

    Anthony Clark
    Kendal, Cumbria

    And I wonder how many officials, councillors and mayors of bankrupt councils are from the ‘guest’ communities in our ancient nations.

    1. The BBC stated yesterday that there is no intention of any redundancies at Bermingham Council.

      Phew !! That will assure our “guest” communities.

    2. And how many of them are working remotely from their second homes in the country in which they were born!

    3. I noticed a leaflet telling people to be “ready for 20” – the 20 mph zones in Wales – when I went to lunch. Why it was there, I have no idea, we were in England at the time.

  10. Good morning, all. Nice start to the day with a light mist hanging between the trees at sunrise.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80a05a3e8017746a83fd18835f07420df4f980b76974200e1cd50eec7d98d819.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8958dc94d17f65ed5c388b32ad63b01235d56c8caa09d72a6f592774563c0ff6.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7c1bcc9c042c64c9b0169be32b4538794b75196bd874c7b665af85270c3417f.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9278097d9bb022eedb25bc0ab1327e28486ce53c723696cf7ed1b5a14083923.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a3bdc9b1a60b4d3463fd78741bb91a15d72061393ebc887ebfef011ab8c44a7.png

          1. Masks didn’t do anything to stop the virus getting through. Swimming costumes wouldn’t stop the pee leaking through, either.

    2. As a fully-paid up member of the Flat Moon Society, I deplore the mickey-taking of our flat planet.😡

  11. Good morning all.
    A bright but overcast start with 14°C outside. Forecast cloudy with sunny intervals.

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps. A mere 19 degrees currently, with a max of 25 forecast. Despite the humidity overnight the occupants of Janus Towers managed a reasonably good night, admittedly with all of the upstairs windows open and the loft hatch too.

    The good news today – if we can call it that – is the opening of an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into vets’ fees. It has taken them some time to catch on but it seems that they have finally realised that that there is a problem. So, for those of us with pets I reccommend a visit to https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-launches-review-of-vet-sector if you, like me, feel that a visit to the vet has turned into little more than a wallet-emptying exercise. In particular, nearly all of the practices in this area have been taken over by one chain or other, and yet some retain their former names. Anyway, my contribution will be sent in the next few days, including the naming and shaming!

    Let’s hope that this isn’t just another PR-inspired announcement by another disappointing quango.

    2. ….nearly all of the practices in this area have been taken over by one chain or other, and yet some retain their former names.

      Ditto with dentists, opticians, chemists etc.

    3. Quangos are very important to politicians.

      They can give favours to friends and associates by appointing them to well paid and nearly permanent jobs.

      Meanwhile the civil servants running the scheme(s) do the actual work, so attendance can be sporadic or even never.

  13. EXCLUSIVE: Poll reveals more than 90 per cent of Brits say XL Bully dogs should be banned as yet another young child is attacked by ‘mutant’ pet… so what do YOU think?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12488977/Poll-reveals-90-cent-Brits-say-XL-Bully-dogs-banned-young-child-attacked-mutant-pet-think.html

    I know a few on here will disagree with me, but these dogs are bred for aggression and are based on breeds that were used in dog fighting. Those breeding traits they are valued for, the aforesaid aggression, strength of bite, persistence in attack will never be bred out of them, so yes, such breeds should be banned.

  14. Good morning, all. Slept for seven hours last night; the longest uninterrupted zizz for many years. I must try a bit of food poisoning more often!

    Apropos the concrete fiasco, what did they do in the War when schools were destroyed by bombing? I bet thy didn’t send the children home for a year…

    1. Evacuation can have a positive outcome….

      Morning M.Thomas and all and a belated Happy Birthday to Minty!

    2. Get the food poisoning wrong, and it will be permanent zeds, Bill. Don’t go that route!
      Morning, BTW.

    3. The majority of our students come from well known public schools and yet many of these have been totally infected and corrupted by wokery.

      We had a girl with us last year from a very well-known school who was on the school’s special LGBT committee and to our horror we discovered that many other public schools also have such committees.

      And the headmaster of Eton is a nightmare.

      It seems that the HMC (Headmasters’ Conference) is determined to bankrupt and ruin private schools before Starmer has even got started!

      2. My old school is completely lost. No way would I send my daughters there nowadays. Well, I didn’t! I sent them to a ramshackle, alternative free school on the Continent where they skipped around in the forest and learned to dance their names. Those that wanted left with exams, and those that didn’t want….gave himself a university level education by watching youtube videos and started his own company.

      3. Happy birthday Minty 😄😊🥂🍾 have a lovely day. Cheers.
        And another Virgo 🤗
        All us Virgos were a ‘good time’ at Christmas.

      5. 🎶Happy Birthday, Minty! Have a great day, with many happy returns🎉🪅🥳🥂🍾🎂🎁🎈

  16. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93646ee6c4826ab2334865231e703643b86c98973d72a40504da00439abc99e7.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/07/rishi-sunak-news-live-tories-starmer-labour-latest/

    Sunak should not be trusted one inch. Are the Conservative MPs so stupid that they cannot see this or do they have a death wish by not getting rid of him now – without further delay?

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Sunak is a liar.

    He said he had negotiated a satisfactory arrangement with the EU over the NI Protocol when the truth was that he abjectly surrendered.

    And now that he has given way completely on Northern Ireland what further sell outs and betrayals lurk behind his arrangement over Horizon?

    2. The Horizon goals say it all. Yet another UN WEF Globalist organisation, High Risk Anus committing UK taxpayers funds to the global warming/climate change scam.

      “What is Horizon Europe?
      Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. (my emphasis)

      https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en

    5. Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.
      It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable
      Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth.

      Taking us back in one institution at a time.

      1. Will assassination prove to be the only way to get rid of this treacherous prime minister who is determined to wreck both the Conservative Party and the United Kingdom or can he be arrested, tried for treason and left to rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life?

  18. Good morning Nottlers, a clear, bright day with sunshine forecast all day on the Costa Clyde. 46 years ago I commenced basic training at RAF Swinderby; followed by 31 years of mainly good times. I’m just off to stagger around a walking football pitch to celebrate.

    4. Not sure of the exact date, but it was 65y ago, probably this week, when I arrived at Beachley as a VERY naive Army Apprentice!

  19. SIR – With the anniversary of the death of our much-loved late Queen falling this week, the question arises as to how we can honour her memory and recognise her superlative public service as head of state of this and other countries.

    With the UK’s soaring national debt, rapidly rising prices and strained budgets, an expensive monument is out of the question. However, the renaming of a suitable public structure would be an almost cost-free alternative. How about renaming the magnificent Queensferry Crossing, which carries the M90 motorway across the Firth of Forth between Edinburgh and Fife, and was opened by the late Queen in 2017, as the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge?

    At 1.7 miles long and 683ft high, this is a bridge on a royal scale, and, with a design life of 120 years, it could honour her memory well into the 22nd century.

    Otto Inglis
    Crossgates, Fife

    Bottom of the class for you, Mr Inglis – that name was given to the Dartford Bridge when it was opened in October 1991.

    2. I often wondered where the name Inglis originated. Where I grew up in NW7 there was an army barracks under the name Inglis Barracks. One of my school friends father use to run the officers mess. The family lived in a flat upstairs. But the whole area including the rifle range has now had houses built all over it.
      Pre kahnt. Probably Johnson.
      But kahnt did order the destruction of the, Just post war national medical research building and now the whole area has been built on. Including a replica of the massive old building as flats.
      What a Nasty little person he is.

        1. When I was in Boy Service, we had an Inglis in our entry who insisted the name was pronounced Ingles.

          Similarly the name Strachan is correctly pronounced as Strawn.

          1. So many roads in that area are named after Civil War generals that I had assumed Inglis was one of them.
            So I learnt something new today.

  20. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny day according to my best mate a rosie sunrise. Sahara dust ?
    I think what Birmingham shows us is, that a lot of crooked cheats and liars are packed in to politics.
    But I think most of us already know that.

    1. 375955+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      What the majority voter finds hard is seeking the best of the worst to vote for, AGAIN.

    2. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be shocked by these revelations?
      How old fashioned of me; the reasonably honest Blighty of my youth is at one with Nineveh and Tyre.
      Nowadays I’d settle for being mildly surprised.

    3. Article in the newspaper here, related to the local elections next week. Something like a quarter of all those standing for election have criminal convictions! Wow! For the first time ever, I decided that I won’t vote for that posse of scumbags.

      1. 375955+ up ticks,

        I should be so bold on this, your day but,IMHO the peoples who continue to
        re-elect the political overseers again & again are the real A…..s.

      1. As I have argued here before no trans “man” should be admitted to serve a prison term in a women’s prison without first having both a williectomy and castration.

  22. My sister Los t her husband after 10+ years of nursing him through increasingly severe alzheimers. His death has left her living beyond her means in an expensive manor house apartment on the Tyne a few miles west of Newcastle. Her savings amounted to 30k ( held for 4.5 years) in Premium Bonds. As things stood this was bound to shrink at a goodly y rate in the coming years simply to cover her charges + heating etc.

    Then, just before departing for the hairdresser, she received a letter. Quickly opening it before getting into her mini.Fiat, the letter informed her she’d won £25k in the September draw.

    She’s had such a rotten hand of cards throughout her 70s …. I am so happy to see her get this boost at the age of 81. I shall add more observations/comments later.

    7. Lovely story thanks.
      I hope she’s keeping well.
      Nice part of the world to live as well. Beautiful countryside.

    8. That eases the pain of me only getting £50 this month somewhat!
      At least a decent amount went to someone who needed it!

    9. Good for her! She must have MOH’s share (a premium bond since the early ’50s and not a penny).

  23. Oh well better get a move medical appointment in an hour.
    Stroke clinic. But for the first time
    in 7 years ????
    It’s with a nurse. But I mustn’t get the wrong idea 😉🤭 ………

    1. Good luck. I had blood taken by the nurse yesterday. She’s lovely and is the best phlebotomist around. Less than 60 seconds to take blood and 15 minutes nattering.

      1. Never allow a doctor armed with a syringe anywhere near you.
        Not unless you have a fancy for long lasting, multi coloured bruising.

        1. I use to have blood tests done every two weeks for the monitoring of warfarin treatment.
          One elderly lady vampire couldn’t find a vein, one of her colleagues had to take over.
          Later that day my arm looked like it had been run over, everything but the tire marks.
          Worriedly I went to A&E, the doctor told me it was known in the trade as Ecchymosis.

          5. Someone said that a few days ago at the pub. I’m a bit fed up with wearing long sleeves to cover them up. So from now I just flaunt my bruises.

          8. I’ve had too many to record. I was also subject to warfarin and INR. No more, since I’m now on Clopidogerel , or as I remember it, Pony Poetry.

    3. Specialist and practice nurses are actually a very Good Thing.
      The nurses (all sensible middle aged women) have been absolute stars at dealing with MB.

      1. It looks as though I might get something practical out of my (hitherto failed) visit to the nurse. A Doppler test to check out my poor circulation.

  24. I don’t believe the 9 year old Laura Noble wrote that letter in the DT – it was written by her mother using her name.

    3. I think she was guided, certainly.

      But just because educational levels have fallen dramatically we must not make the mistake of thinking that all 9 year olds are illiterate. As I have said here before both our children were fluent readers at the age of 4 and Christo at the age of 9 was editing a journal ‘Étudiant‘ which he wrote for some groups of students asking them to contribute.

      But who can forget Daisy Ashcroft’s misspelt novel, The Young Visiters’ which she penned at the age of 9. One of the main characters was Mr Salteena, an elderly gentleman of 40, who was ‘not quite a gentleman”

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9866e5ac1a846b040252474cff9f0c3ea09b406c01ad44d3c0fd1617dbb0c89a.png

      1. One of the articles in Christo’s magazine was a piece showing English idiomatic expressions whose literal translations into French cause misunderstanding and confusion.

        For example:

        The cat’s whiskers : La moustache du chat –
        The bee’s knees: Les genoux d’abeille –
        Beat around the bush: battre autour du buisson
        Bite the bullet: mordre la balle
        The parson’s nose: Le nez du prêtre
        The curate’s egg: L’oeuf du curé
        As right as rain: Aussi juste que la pluie
        Burn bridges: Brûler les ponts
        Bring home the bacon: ramener le bacon à la maison
        Cut the mustard: Couper la moutarde
        Flogging a dead horse: Fouetter un cheval mort
        A storm in a teacup: une tempête dans une tasse du thé
        A chip on his shoulder: une frite sur l’épaule

        etc. etc.

  25. Hear hear Ann Coulter.
    Worth reading the whole but here’s a flavour:

    As we also know, Mexico’s drug cartels have killed more Americans than have died in all foreign wars combined. They’ve killed more Americans than every terrorist group in history. Year after year, they kill more Americans than died in the entire course of the Vietnam War.
    And now it’s beyond dispute that vast swaths of the Mexican government are helping. What’s the name for that again? Oh yeah! State-sponsored terrorism.
    Of course, the U.S. government has known this for some time, at least since the students’ abduction back in 2014. As the students were being dismembered, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration happened to be surveilling a drug trafficking ring in suburban Chicago (thanks for “anchor babies,” Justice Brennan!). The DEA intercepted more than 20,000 text messages between the cartel and “(j)ust about every arm of government” in that part of Mexico, as the Times put it.
    So why is Gov. Ron DeSantis the first presidential candidate to say the obvious: that he will designate the cartels transnational criminal organizations and threaten to deploy the military “across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities”?
    How could three successive presidents — Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — not have done that already? They know that millions of Americans are being turned into corpses or zombies by the drugs brought in by the cartels, and that far from fighting them, large swaths of the Mexican government are collaborators.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/couldnt-the-military-industrial-complex-make-its-money-in-mexico/

    3. It’s been said that the Bush administration was actively involved…I doubt much has changed.

      2. Remember the contents of Portia’s silver casket?

        “The portrait of a Blinken idiot!”

  28. Good Moaning.
    Gathering strength before MB and I assemble “Budgieham Palace”.
    A coupe of articles on shoddy building techniques.

    https://unherd.com/2023/09/the-ideologues-behind-the-raac-crisis/

    https://conservativehome.com/2023/09/07/ike-ijeh-if-we-built-beautiful-schools-they-wouldnt-be-crammed-with-bubbly-concrete-and-asbestos-and-risk-collapse/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thursday 7th September 2023&utm_content=Thursday 7th September 2023+CID_98ffd9ea8ed5c61a13cc4ef8bb9aea81&utm_source=Daily Email&utm_term=If we built beautiful schools they wouldnt be crammed with bubbly concrete and asbestos – and risk collapse

  29. The current mayor of London is also the current chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Part of this group’s agenda was revealed last week and included, amongst many draconian measure aimed at the populace, the abolition of eating meat and dairy products.

    It starts:

    https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1699698061042147446

    Cheese is unhealthy?
    Their scam will label anything they wish to, ‘unhealthy’ but will praise the eating of low nutrient plant, insect and lab created “meat”. How far does this have to go before people realise they are doomed if dangerous politicians such as Khan, Sunak, Hunt, Smarmer etc. have authority?

    6. In my estimation, unless eaten to excess, cheese is, on balance, a healthy foodstuff. The banner headline is, however, misleading. It’s not a blanket ban on all cheese advertising. In fact, this particular advertisement fell foul of a TfL policy which has been in place since 2019.

      An advertisement for artisanal cheese has been banned from Transport for London (TfL) services as their crackdown on the promotion of high-fat foods continues. The Times reported that Cheese Geek, an online cheesemonger, were told they wouldn’t be able to run their posters on TfL as they don’t meet the transport network’s standards.

      In 2019 it was announced that adverts for junk food were no longer allowed at Tube stations and bus stops, part of Sadiq Khan’s initiative to reduce the rates of childhood obesity. The outlawed ads included more than just those for standard fast food, with products like soy sauce, olive oil, pesto and more containing high levels of saturated fat, sugar and salt encapsulated in the ban too.

      https://londontheinside.com/cheese-ads-are-now-banned-on-the-tube/

      1. I love and insist on using, soy, olive oil, pesto, butter and cheese – all in the cooking mix somewhere I’ve managed to survive for 79 years and recently reduced my wait from 17 St 4 to 13 St 8.

        Yah boo sucks, fatties.

    3. So much stuff in the long grass I’m surprised that the party hasn’t changed its name to the “Fuqarewee party’

  31. ‘Morning All

    I’m sweating like an unsecured creditor of Brum Council…….

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87ad0aed7e68062953fdfaf7f24d8cfd9483549444925157b009b64c6a80cf81.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b4bec2ea55c2c6f2ee87d28e91947b91039596bcd51e6d69a40308e6a4b054d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ce0dcaf41bbe44dfdc2fd1afc9a5ab835b97eeb5916d6f6b4a33539ae6d8cbd.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54573dbc4ad59c21bc72eb2e61413a46d33c182050285a9f92a117c8a36cac94.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c06de15a9f279e80e749297195b916bef663d50e1c24cb3fbda1b1aa57133ba.jpg

    https://media.scored.co/post/j5pHVVMVP65D.jpeg

    Off out shopping now

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/166ade352ce34e6f76c98e260727f93237d46d85885836af47cd773691e560d4.gif

  34. Kremlin hits out at US plan to send seized Russian funds to Ukraine. 7 September 2023.

    A US plan to send Ukraine funds seized from Russian businesspeople targeted by sanctions is illegal and any such actions will be contested, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday that Washington was transferring to Ukraine $5.4 million in “assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs, which will now be used to support Ukrainian military veterans”.

    Thieving under the guise of compassion.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/07/copy-of-russia-ukraine-war-latest-news-putin-biden-kyiv-zelensky1/

  35. Kremlin hits out at US plan to send seized Russian funds to Ukraine. 7 September 2023.

    A US plan to send Ukraine funds seized from Russian businesspeople targeted by sanctions is illegal and any such actions will be contested, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday that Washington was transferring to Ukraine $5.4 million in “assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs, which will now be used to support Ukrainian military veterans”.

    Thieving under the guise of compassion.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/07/copy-of-russia-ukraine-war-latest-news-putin-biden-kyiv-zelensky1/

      1. Human clumsiness, carelessness and wilful criminality are recognised by mainstream opinion as the sparks of these wildfires, but they assert that tinder-dry conditions created by heat and aridity allow for the fires to take hold with a greater ferocity and to a greater extent than was once the case. I’ve no idea how true that is, but arson isn’t overlooked.

      2. You mean these very close to an illegal migrant hotel
        https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=cf6cfd95fe3a960aJmltdHM9MTY5NDA0NDgwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZTI4YjhhZC03MGU0LTY3ZTgtMmZkNi1hYjI4NzEzOTY2M2MmaW5zaWQ9NTAxMQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=0e28b8ad-70e4-67e8-2fd6-ab287139663c&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9pbmV3cy5jby51ay9uZXdzL2xvbmRvbi1maXJlcy1ob21lcy1kZXN0cm95ZWQtaGVhdHdhdmUtYmxhemVzLWZpcmUtYnJpZ2FkZS1zZWNvbmQtd29ybGQtd2FyLTE3NTE4NTI&ntb=1

  37. Another HOODAGESTIT?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7315c5c31981ca512ce649774676e4cbfce887e85880653693d58fc34f3878df.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/06/rishi-sunak-changing-gender-trans-kings-speech-school/

    HOODAGESTTHATTOO?

    Sunak is not taking any chances is he – he is quite determined to destroy both Britain and the Conservative Party.

    If the Conservative Party does not get rid of him NOW the party deserves to die. Bring it on – put it out of its misery!

    2. Apparently he was advised it would be illegal.

      DT: “Attorney General Victoria Prentis told the Prime Minister in July that a
      law was needed to ban social transitioning, because otherwise it could
      contravene the Equality Act.”

      2. He could have stopped the ULEZ expansion until after next year’s mayoral elections – the list of things he could have done and chickened out of doing with a limp-wristed excuse is endless.

        Calling him a spineless little wimp is an insult to spineless little wimps.

  38. Phew! I’m sweating by cobblers off!
    After a disturbed night, was awake at 2 to pump bilges, still awake at 3 so came downstairs for an hour and then went back to bed where I quickly fell asleep, only for the DT to begin tossing & turning in her sleep at 5!!

    So after getting a couple of loads of washing done and hung up the “garden”, I went back to bed for an hour or so!

    Got back up an hour ago and decided it was time to do a bit of work, so I’ve just dropped another 4″ dead elm and got it ready to move to the log pile.
    Might get a couple more done this afternoon.

    1. You’ve dropped so many trees that one might think you are now surrounded by nothing taller than shrubs..

      1. I’ve probably dropped less than 5% of the surrounding trees and, generally speaking, have only done so because they were either dead, dying or in a position where they posed a risk.

  39. Major Ukrainian breakthrough of Russian lines before winter sets in will be tough, Western officials say. 7 September 2023.

    Ukraine’s offensive against Russian forces is making slow progress, and there may not be a major breakthrough of Russian lines in the next two months as had previously been envisaged, according to Western officials.

    However, “focusing on such tactical issues” is counterproductive and there is a need to look at the bigger picture, the officials said, adding that this shows that Vladimir Putin is losing the war, as Ukraine has retaken a sizeable amount of territory overall since Russia’s invasion began.

    Qué? Focusing on progress is counterproductive? The Ukies not making any progress shows Vlad is losing the war? Things must be getting really desperate!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-putin-frontline-b2406518.html

    2. ‘Ukraine has retaken a sizeable amount of territory overall since Russia’s invasion began’.

      Territory taken has to be held. I doubt Vlad is concerned about their using up their resources to guard empty fields.

  40. SIR – I was a local councillor and ran a campaign to prevent
    commuters from as far away as Camberley parking round our train station
    in Sunningdale, which had a speedy service to London. It took five years
    to get double-yellow lines on the A30 and other local roads. Some now
    know me as Mr Yellow Line.

    Duncan Rayner
    Sunningdale, Berkshire

    What a Rayner of Sunningshine!

    1. Of course Sunningdale has quite a large station car park (and adjacent Waitrose one). We have exactly the same problem at our local station, Martins Heron just down the line. At one time Tesco had a deal for cheap day parking for commuters but that stopped ages ago when their own customers were far more important.

    3. Rayner is a serial letter writer to the DT; however, I expected better of him than the abysmal “train station”.

  41. The shoplifting epidemic is a sign that Britain is on the verge of anarchy. 7 September 2023.

    During the pandemic, you weren’t allowed to enter a supermarket without a mask. These days, of course, there’s no need for that. Instead, you need a stab vest, a riot shield and a bulletproof helmet.

    Alright, so that’s possibly an exaggeration. But not by much. Our supermarkets really do seem perilously close to anarchy. Shoplifting is surging – and staff are terrified.

    It’s got so bad that Tesco is getting staff to wear body-cams, to help catch shoplifters who assault them. This is more and more common: incidents of violent behaviour towards retail employees have doubled since before the pandemic. Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, has started carrying out bag searches at its self-service tills.

    Breaking News: Daily Telegraph Wakes Up in Twenty First Century! Editor Ripoff Van Winkle commissions new articles.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/09/07/shoplifting-epidemic-britain-on-verge-of-anarchy/

      2. Afternoon Alec. The photograph in the Article shows a white woman bagging a bottle of Booze!

        2. Good afternoon Minty, hope you are having a nice birthday – I guess they didn’t want to publish a picture of a coloured person in case they typecast them 😇

      4. You’d be amazed. In a large, prosperous town with few people of migrant heritage, the local DIY shop is almost unusable due to shoplifting. Many packets have been opened and the contents stolen.

  42. Been like Oxford circus here today. The only person not to visit was the security dog ;-))

  44. This will be kicked into the long grass too:-

    Sunak urged to axe 90,000 jobs to save Britain from economic downfall
    September 7, 2023 by Save Britain
    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been advised to slash 90,000 civil sector “Blob” jobs in order to prevent a trillion-pound pension black hole bill larger than the entire UK economy.

    The number of retired civil officials getting pensions of more than £100,000 per year has more than doubled in the last year, and inflation-linked cast iron payments are due to rise by 7% in April.

    In just seven years, more than 100,000 new positions have been created, expanding the size of “The Blob,” as some pundits have termed the civil service, by 24%.

    Overall, government employee pay has risen from £9.7 billion in 2010 to £15.5 billion in 2023. In 2021, the public sector pension expense was £116.7 billion.

    Former political editor Trevor Kavanagh writes in the Sun that the only way to avoid a “nuclear mushroom cloud” of a pensions disaster is for the Prime Minister to slash jobs now.

    He wrote: “It is us, the poor bloody taxpayers, who will always pick up the monstrous multi-billion pound tab for the blunders of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians.

    “Hang around for the next catastrophe — the £2.6trillion in unfunded pensions, more than the entire UK economy — to come screaming out of the black hole known as the ­public sector.

    “Gold-plated, inflation-proof pensions for six million state workers — but barred to everybody else — are a national scandal waiting to burst upon those who will pay the eye-bleeding bill.”

    Mr Kavanagh added that the “Ponzi scheme” had nothing from the Treasury to fund it and that “it will blow up in our faces”.

    He wrote: “It is us, the poor bloody taxpayers, who will always pick up the monstrous multi-billion pound tab for the blunders of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians.

    “Hang around for the next catastrophe — the £2.6trillion in unfunded pensions, more than the entire UK economy — to come screaming out of the black hole known as the ­public sector.

    “Gold-plated, inflation-proof pensions for six million state workers — but barred to everybody else — are a national scandal waiting to burst upon those who will pay the eye-bleeding bill.”

    Mr Kavanagh added that the “Ponzi scheme” had nothing from the Treasury to fund it and that “it will blow up in our faces”.

    https://savebritain.org/sunak-urged-to-axe-90000-jobs-to-save-britain-from-economic-downfall/

    3. Another underlining disclosure of how useless our political classes are. They just sat back and allowed our country mainly England to become so over populated, there is an ongoing plan to build many thousands of new homes on green belt and agricultural land.
      If what he’s planning to do actually happens, that’s millions he’s giving up in taxes.
      Foreign illegal invaders don’t make contributions to the economy they cost 42 million pounds each week.
      Something else our stupid politicians will have effed up. More people’s lives.

  45. This will be kicked into the long grass too:-

    Sunak urged to axe 90,000 jobs to save Britain from economic downfall
    September 7, 2023 by Save Britain
    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been advised to slash 90,000 civil sector “Blob” jobs in order to prevent a trillion-pound pension black hole bill larger than the entire UK economy.

    The number of retired civil officials getting pensions of more than £100,000 per year has more than doubled in the last year, and inflation-linked cast iron payments are due to rise by 7% in April.

    In just seven years, more than 100,000 new positions have been created, expanding the size of “The Blob,” as some pundits have termed the civil service, by 24%.

    Overall, government employee pay has risen from £9.7 billion in 2010 to £15.5 billion in 2023. In 2021, the public sector pension expense was £116.7 billion.

    Former political editor Trevor Kavanagh writes in the Sun that the only way to avoid a “nuclear mushroom cloud” of a pensions disaster is for the Prime Minister to slash jobs now.

    He wrote: “It is us, the poor bloody taxpayers, who will always pick up the monstrous multi-billion pound tab for the blunders of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians.

    “Hang around for the next catastrophe — the £2.6trillion in unfunded pensions, more than the entire UK economy — to come screaming out of the black hole known as the ­public sector.

    “Gold-plated, inflation-proof pensions for six million state workers — but barred to everybody else — are a national scandal waiting to burst upon those who will pay the eye-bleeding bill.”

    Mr Kavanagh added that the “Ponzi scheme” had nothing from the Treasury to fund it and that “it will blow up in our faces”.

    He wrote: “It is us, the poor bloody taxpayers, who will always pick up the monstrous multi-billion pound tab for the blunders of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians.

    “Hang around for the next catastrophe — the £2.6trillion in unfunded pensions, more than the entire UK economy — to come screaming out of the black hole known as the ­public sector.

    “Gold-plated, inflation-proof pensions for six million state workers — but barred to everybody else — are a national scandal waiting to burst upon those who will pay the eye-bleeding bill.”

    Mr Kavanagh added that the “Ponzi scheme” had nothing from the Treasury to fund it and that “it will blow up in our faces”.

    https://savebritain.org/sunak-urged-to-axe-90000-jobs-to-save-britain-from-economic-downfall/

  46. Forget your troubles and woes……
    There’s an excellent new TV prog just started Mel Gieydroyc and Martin Clunes called Britain by Book. Good humour and fabulous scenery.
    Started last night in Dorset.
    Now Martin Clunes’ home county.

      1. :-). There was a moment, as we assembled the sides, when I did remind MB it would a good idea if he stood on the outside of the cage!

      1. Living in a council London flat when growing up we were only allowed budgerigars/canaries, absolutely no cats or dogs. They were either called Billy, Bobby or Joey!

      2. Sad tale.
        When we moved the birds, the blue one escaped.
        Now that Budgieham Palace is up and running, MB has started looking for a mate for the poor little yellow girlie who is currently playing gooseberry to the two besotted greenies.

        1. Oh Anne! I’m sorry! My godfather had a blue budgie called Billy and I let him out one day, having been told not to! Fortunately he did come back but I was not a popular 6 year old!

    1. My open air, unheated, swimming pool is back above 30°, too warm for my liking.
      Air temperature now, 34°.
      37° on Saturday.
      Not humid, so very pleasant, although far too warm in the upstairs bedrooms to sleep well.

      1. Not humid would be a treat. Only 24C early this morning but at the moment, they are reporting 90 percent humidity.

        2. Also spawned of viking stock – Egil, king in Sweden, Upsala 530 AD.

          My furthest back ancestor . I’m 50th generation but having lived 5 years in S Spain, I love the heat. but walk in the shade.

  49. More from woke land.

    A seventeen year old was suspended from his catholic school last year because he dared to question gender ideology. He eventually went to court and received a ruling that the school must admit him.

    Cue the nasty boys ! Since you have not been attending school, we removed you from the list of enrolled students.

    The fun continues!

    1. 30C over here this week and the golf course is full. Not one of our seniors followed the weather office issuing warnings about staying inside, they were out in force.

      The only complaint was when I got home “Nag, nag! What do you mean that you walked instead of riding a cart?”.

  51. Just back from St Nazaire. Still trying to take it all in. Very well organised trip round the ENORMOUS submarine base. Though yer French do admit that it was a British raid – there is not a Union flag to be seen anywhere…punishment for Brexit, I imagine.

    1. Yo Bill did you go over the St Nazaire Bridge, aka The Roller Coaster for cars.

      https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x480565415f168465%3A0xd6705149433a61ad!3m1!7e115!4s%2Fmaps%2Fplace%2FSt%2BNazaire.%2B%2Bbridge%2F%4047.2801794%2C-2.166646%2C3a%2C75y%2C232.39h%2C90t%2Fdata%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211s5IkSbxhW_x9gg3Cd1kDBgA*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x480565415f168465%3A0xd6705149433a61ad%3Fsa%3DX%26ved%3D2ahUKEwiSlKPp4JiBAxUWVkEAHfX2AtwQpx96BAgzEAA!5sSt%20Nazaire.%20%20bridge%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPC8Tp_QeuRl-XuM_2q2Xq5yAOl_xLpzw0VFZyR&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSlKPp4JiBAxUWVkEAHfX2AtwQpx96BAhUEA0#

    2. I doubt it would have been any different had we stayed (rather than pretending to leave). I don’t think the French like flying the union flag.

  52. Phew again! That’s a 3½” side shoot of the next 6″ elm got rid off.
    Only 3½” diameter, but the best part of 20′ long and a bugger to pull out of the undergrowth.

    That’s probably me for the day as I’m now off for a cold bath!

  54. Family bought me a bread maker for my 75th. I rather discounted them as a bit of a fad, breadmakers that is – not my family, usually baking bread in the Rayburn. However I’m converted. Never had a failure with it whereas before, bread making was sometimes a hit and miss affair, bread not rising much etc. Just been sitting in the garden, had a pot of Ceylon tea with a couple of slices of warm fresh crusty bread, lots of butter, unsalted of course, with other half’s blackberry jam. Provided you don’t look at the Telly or read the newspaper with serious intent, life can be acceptable. An evening on the Wylye beckons.

    2. OK BBC, explain why 1898, 1906 and 1911 were so warm and why, if global warming is true that we hadn’t all cooked by 1928.

      1. And who is say that there wasn’t somewhere in the past where 30C was reached on more than three days but wasn’t recorded.

          2. It’s a nice round number.
            AND there are still too many old fogies who recall that 80-85 was warm, but not exceptional.

          4. The BBC got very excited a few years ago about the possibility of 100F but not 37.7777777~C.

          6. Also in “The Go Between” by LP Hartley. One of the best novels ever written (imho)

      2. Oooh don’t ask them to prove anything, they only deal in frightening people with fake, made up, or over exaggerated stories.

        1. I was once stopped by the driver of a Rolls Royce and an imperious FC wound the window down and demanded directions to a local restaurant.

          She was very rude, so I directed her and Johnny to a completely different establishment.

          I hope they enjoyed their meal. NOT.

    3. For how many years has the present man-made environment of RAF Coningsby remained largely unchanged? It was built as a military airfield in 1940 and has remained one to this day. I imagine that the temperature record for much of that time has been in a local environment similar now to what it was 80 or so years ago. Temperature trends over that time are unlikely to be much influenced by the immediate surroundings.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Coningsby

      1. A word to the wise:
        Don’t stand near a jet that is landing or taking off, it might be quite hot.

        2. A word to the wise:
          Ignore advice from air-traffic control to drive an airport vehicle along a taxiway directly into the path of an oncoming Boeing 737.

          This actually happened to me and the airways were blue for a good five minutes afterwards a I veered the vehicle across the grass to avoid a head-on.

          3. I’m guessing that they used your video as the training for the cleaning up after that recent Delta flight…

  57. Just gave SWMBO a kiss whilst she slept in her sofa… we’ve been together for 43 years, more than 2/3 of our lives.
    As a person who finds making friends almost impossible, I cannot believe how lucky I am to be married to such a woman, the source if all wonderful things in my life.

        2. You and I might be friends – if we had an acquaintance over 43 years. But possibly not. !!

  58. Wild fire like these a couple of years ago almost adjacent to a migrant Hotel some one set a field on fire and people lost their homes.

    https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=cf6cfd95fe3a960aJmltdHM9MTY5NDA0NDgwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZTI4YjhhZC03MGU0LTY3ZTgtMmZkNi1hYjI4NzEzOTY2M2MmaW5zaWQ9NTAxMQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=0e28b8ad-70e4-67e8-2fd6-ab287139663c&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9pbmV3cy5jby51ay9uZXdzL2xvbmRvbi1maXJlcy1ob21lcy1kZXN0cm95ZWQtaGVhdHdhdmUtYmxhemVzLWZpcmUtYnJpZ2FkZS1zZWNvbmQtd29ybGQtd2FyLTE3NTE4NTI&ntb=1

  59. Thank you, Sadiq Khan – You’re a real pal!

    Some crafty entrepreneurial plumbers, builders and electricians are very happy with ULEZ.

    If they do four jobs a day in one area they add £12.50 to each bill but only have to pay the one £12.50 charge themselves – and they can charge this against their business tax so they could make an extra £50 + a day thanks to ULEZ!

        1. I suspect many of the ‘ordinary plebs’ will be virtue signalling Islingtonians. Rather like the rich paid over the odds for medical care so the poor were treated free of charge or at a reduced rate.
          Tradesmen are mostly decent chaps; anyone on their uppers will be spared the charge.
          And some will just refuse to work within the zone. Others will get a new van because it makes financial sense.

        2. We have some friends flying to Portugal next week. They have to drive to Heathrow, park for the duration and drive home to Bucks when they return. 25 quid. On top of the parking.

    2. We’ve talked about this (hubby is a gas engineer). We are prepared to be flexible on our policy: charging Liberal luvvies the full levy; but dividing it out for non-Liberal luvvies.

    1. Don’t be so judgmental.
      It’s his culture and evil whitey shouldn’t criticise it.
      But …. this evil colonialist Karen can’t help wondering about the recruitment procedure.

      1. Time was, not so many decades back, when a prospectives candidate’s wife and family were investigated for previous improprieties (or convictions) as well as the candidate’s immediate family. Any serious skeletons in the cupboard (or nigras in the woodpile) were considered to be a huge detriment to recruitment.

        1. Not so many decades back the daughter of some English friends was planning to marry her French boyfriend who was a member of their armed forces and she plus her UK family had to be vetted. Fortunately her father had served in some minor but respectable capacity in the UK so all was well.

        2. Mine were ‘looked into’ when I went through positive vetting prior to employment in the nuclear industry

    1. Blair looks stressed out in the photograph there July 23. It is not a good look. That is what selling your soul to satan does for you, the love of money. And anyone who ‘parties hard’ should not be PM. They are emotionally and intellectually still living their student life.

      1. Michael Gove, Boris Johnson anyone? They are definitely still playing student politics. Most of us grew up and joined the real world, they just went from the Oxford bubble to the Westminster bubble.

  62. That’s me for this extraordinarily memorable day. Even though I knew all about Operation Chariot (and those who thought it was a pointless waste of men and resources) – I was completely gobsmacked by the sheer enormousness of the U-Boat base and its adjoining bits.

    And I thought about yer Kraut sentries watching this ostensibly friendly ship approaching fast and suddenly realising: “Fuck me, it’s not going to stop…”

    Then after walking 3 miles ( I kid you not) around the site – to the peace and quiet of the BMC at ESCOUBLAC-LA-BAULE WAR CEMETERY,
    and thinking – What a waste.

    Anyway, home and dry – a wonderful outing to remember a time when courageous men with initiative and skill were regarded as a bonus (unlike today).

    Heigh ho – last day tomorrow – day of leisure at resort and packing the car. Depart Sat bright and early for Calais.

    PS – in Le Croisic we were greeted by two cats in front of an undertakers – one of which was, suitably, completely black. “Customary suits, etc” (cue Richard)…!!

    Bon soir

    A demain

      1. Thank you. It is about half way back to what passes for normal. The great thing about this billet is that we can park the car three feet outside the front door ON THE LEVEL. Fantastic advantage.

    2. So pleased you had a lovely time. Don’t mow down any dinghies when leaving Calais ! Then again…Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth…

    3. Your holiday sounds wonderful and I am so envious (but in the nicest possible way!). I love France so much but sadly I don’t think we will be returning in this lifetime because of the rules and regs from next year. I love hearing about your adventures there.

        1. The eye scans, the fingerprints, the required vaccination enquiries….. it is all too much of an intrusion and information that we do not wish to give on a national scale, let alone an international scale. And supposing something happens whilst one is away….. and you’re not allowed back into the home country until you are triple vaxxed or whatever is demanded under possible WHO new rules, regs and laws. And who knows where this information will be used elsewhere, and possibly against one.

          1. The regular, conventional irritations dissuade me from international travel. I don’t need exotic ones to make my decision for me.

    4. I have a book that argues that this was essential to the success of D-day, due to the learning of assaulting a stony beach.
      Tough on the Canadians, who made up most of the forces, but vital.

      2. Dieppe, matey. Dieppe. I know I am right.

        A disastrous failure which did have a positive outcome. Unless you were a Canadian soldier, of course

    2. We discussed this over lunch and those on my table (can’t speak for the others) were dead against.

  64. I’ll start the Wordle show off then.
    Par here.

    Wordle 810 4/6

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

    1. Same here

      Wordle 810 4/6

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

    2. There is always someone lagging behind
      Wordle 810 6/6

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

    4. Me too.

      Wordle 810 4/6

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

  67. The Tories can’t afford to capitulate to the trans cult

    With a Labour victory on the horizon, this is the last chance to enshrine protection for millions of impressionable youngsters

    ALLISON PEARSON • 7th September 2023 • 7:00pm

    Reading Brave New World recently, I came across “mother” rendered as “m——“. In Aldous Huxley’s dystopia, the word for female parent has become an obscenity. The idea of giving birth and living in families is disgusting and those people who reproduce normally are despised outcasts. Any preference for one person over another has been eliminated.

    Huxley’s science fiction classic was published in 1932. Ninety-one years later, staff at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital (GOSH) are being advised not to use the inflammatory words “girls” and “boys”. Guidance produced by the hospital’s Diversity and Inclusion team and Pride Network, entitled “Using Pronouns at GOSH”, suggests that they stop using “gendered language” in conversation. Apparently, the wrong pronouns can make people feel “disrespected, invalidated, dismissed, triggered, alienated, or often, all of these things”.

    A friend’s child died at Great Ormond Street. My friend was Sophia’s mother, a woman. Sophia was my friend’s darling daughter, born of a woman. Neither of those statements would be remotely controversial to the parents who hover tenderly, fearfully, at their child’s bedside in that remarkable institution. In fact, telling them their sick infants are non-binary creatures whose sex is an affront to the purple-haired, rainbow-lanyarded activists in the Diversity Office would cause distress and bewilderment.

    But who cares what normal people think, eh? What matters is the noble goal of “inclusion” and if the vast majority demurs then they’d better buck up their ideas and become an “ally” of the miniscule minority whose feelings we are now busy rewriting the English language to spare.

    You would hope that a Conservative Government would know what its role was here. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Stand firm against an aggressive, vocal minority that is imposing its fashionable ideology on the rest of us while providing support to confused children going through that Krakatoa of the hormones known as puberty.

    An opportunity to do just that presented itself when ministers were called upon to resolve the issue of “social transitioning” at school: that’s where kids who say they are trans ask to be referred to by a different pronoun and wear the uniform of the opposite sex. Jill decides to be Jack. It’s a fast-spreading contagion. Gender dysphoria used to be a rare condition presenting almost exclusively in young boys. Now, there are thousands of teenage girls, for whom anorexia often used to be the malady, asking to be treated as male, with or without parental consent.

    One poor teacher told me she had referred to a student as “she” only to be hotly rebuked. It turned out the pupil was suddenly identifying as a boy although, unhelpfully, she looked exactly as she had done the day before. A complaint was lodged and, astonishingly, the head told the teacher she was guilty of “misgendering” and must apologise to the child.

    As places dealing in factual knowledge, schools surely can not be seen to be accommodating fictional claims that lack any basis in biological science. Worried parents have eagerly awaited action from the Government which would make that crystal clear. Then, back in January, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan dropped worrying hints that a cowardly compromise was on the cards. “We have to be very sensitive to children,” she said, “We are actually going to publish some guidance and consult because it is a very tricky area to get right.”

    Asked whether she thought 16 was too young for gender self-identification (without medical verification), Keegan replied, “No, I don’t actually. I was working at 16, I was paying tax at 16, I was making decisions for myself at 16.” What an unforgivably fatuous statement from a minister presiding over so many young lives. Keegan’s “decisions” at 16 didn’t involve binding her breasts as preparation for “top surgery” (the jarringly jaunty term for a mastectomy) or taking puberty hormones that might wreck her fertility. And at an age when our society considers a kid too young to drink, drive or get married.

    Forget all that lifelong harm stuff. This week, we learnt that Rishi Sunak is “considering abandoning plans to ban children from changing gender at schools”. The Prime Minister was told by Attorney General Victoria Prentis that a law was needed to bar social transitioning, because otherwise it could contravene the Equality Act. Sunak may be backing away from including such a law in this autumn’s King’s Speech. Apparently, he’s worried about party differences being exposed in the Commons in the run-up to an election.

    With a Labour victory on the horizon this is the last chance to enshrine protection for millions of impressionable youngsters and to give parents peace of mind that their kids aren’t being inducted into some sinister cult at school. The Conservative government may now fail to do so. How dismayingly gutless, how morally inert. Frozen, scared stiff of saying the wrong thing and upsetting people who would never vote for them in a million years, the Tories are fretting instead about being “on the wrong side of history”.

    Have we totally lost the plot? The Government can summon the resolve to rush an Energy Bill through the Commons this week which could get you arrested for not limiting your energy consumption (dishwashers at 3am, chaps) in the debatable cause of net zero. Yet when it comes to safeguarding children, their health both physical and mental, suddenly it may be all too difficult.

    Be kind to vulnerable trans kids, they cry. Yet, as the excoriating Cass Report into the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic said, “social transition” is not a “neutral act” but a major psychosocial intervention that may affect whether a child’s gender distress disappears or becomes long-lasting. In other words, refuse to treat Katie as Karl, insist on a degree of good old-fashioned conformity in school hours and the phase may well pass.

    As the organisation Sex Matters notes, Hilary Cass rejected the ideological label of “trans children”, which suggests a well-defined category and wrote instead of young people who may be going through a difficult developmental stage and are likely to be harmed if a potentially transient personal identification is treated as stable and permanent. Your average tricky teenager in other words.

    And what about the negative effect of one student transitioning on hundreds of other pupils and staff? Many schools which are facilitating social transition, often without informing parents, are going beyond supporting changes of name and preferred pronoun, allowing a trans pupil to use facilities intended for the opposite sex and to play single-sex sports. Why shouldn’t that make the majority of children feel “invalidated, dismissed, triggered and alienated”? Their feelings don’t matter, of course.

    Some campaigners tell me that a change in the law is not necessary and it is perfectly lawful to issue strong guidance to schools right now. We’ll believe that when we see it. I woudn’t trust this Government to do anything Conservative if it could possibly avoid it.

    “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored,” wrote Huxley. Prophetic in so many ways, he was wrong about that, or very nearly. The basic facts of humanity – girls and boys, mothers and fathers – are stealthily being erased by people who wish to remodel society in their own image. To ban social transitioning in schools would be a big step towards rescuing fact from fiction, and rescuing some children, too.

    That’s not finding yourself on the wrong side of history. It’s being on the right side of decency and common sense. Rishi Sunak should give it a go.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/07/the-tories-cant-afford-to-capitulate-to-the-trans-cult/

    1. We all know where this is leading, not that I quite understand the ghastly reasoning, but the problem is how we get the younger generation to wake up to their poisoning by educational and political brainwashing.

  68. Evening, all. It isn’t just Labour that is fiscally incompetent (we expect if of them, anyway); Con led Shropshire is well on the way to bankruptcy, too. Still, it would never occur to them to ditch the climate emergency department and save a bit of cash.

    1. Millions will die because computer models say that sea levels will rise by a millimeter more than they are today by 2200 unless we live as they did in the Middle Ages. Have you no heart?

  69. It’s that time of year…

    If the Last Night of the Proms goes, nothing else is safe

    The BBC can’t be trusted with culture. It’ll scrap the tradition when it thinks it can get away with it

    DAVID FROST • 7th September 2023 • 8:00pm

    The BBC Proms 2023 season is in its last week, the moment, as it seems to me, when summer finally becomes autumn. The season has had its high points, as it always does – this year in Simon Rattle’s farewell with Mahler’s Ninth, one of the few serious Proms the BBC allowed us to see on TV, a remarkable occasion which even the Albert Hall’s unique acoustic could not dampen.

    But one can’t entirely suppress some doubts. Is high culture really safe in the BBC’s hands? The attempt to kill off the BBC Singers earlier this year hardly suggests it. This Proms season had a slightly down-market feel, with no truly world-class overseas orchestras, a bit too much Horrible Histories and Northern soul, and not enough serious music. William Byrd, whose 400th anniversary was supposedly being marked, got one concert in Londonderry and one four-minute piece in a “Mindful Mix”.

    As so often, one feels the BBC doubts the appeal of the Western civilisational and cultural tradition, and instead prefers to give people what it thinks they can cope with.

    Of course, for many, the Proms are the Last Night, that annual festival of flags and fun. And once again there is the usual whiff of controversy surrounding Saturday’s event, a tradition by now almost as long-standing as the Proms themselves.

    On the one hand there are the unreconciled Remainers. Once again the “EU Flags Team” will be handing out EU flags to be waved in the Hall on the night. George Orwell called this phenomenon “transferred nationalism”. He wrote that those who abandon loyalty to their native land still feel the need for a place to focus their emotions.

    Having chosen somewhere (in his day it was usually Russia), they could be “more nationalistic, more vulgar, more silly” than they ever could be about anywhere about which they had real knowledge. The transferred nationalist can then “wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack…can reappear under different names…and be worshipped with a good conscience.”

    Still that’s fine by me, if that’s what they want. The Last Night can easily accommodate those of all nationalities who love their own country, and even those who claim to love an international organisation instead.

    Much more troubling is the evidence that the BBC, and at least parts of the musical world, doesn’t really like the core of the event at all.

    This actually goes back much further than you might think. As early as 1969, the BBC tried to drop Land of Hope and Glory, to make the programme “attractive to 40 million viewers in Europe” as the then Controller of Music put it. But even The Guardian, a more robust newspaper then than now, criticised the decision, and it was rapidly reversed.

    In 1990, the conductor Mark Elder was swiftly dumped from the Last Night when he suggested that the brewing war in the Gulf meant the tone should be changed. But 10 years later, in 2001 after 9/11, it did seem necessary to adjust the traditional programme and I admit it felt entirely appropriate.

    But over the past decade the sensitivities have grown faster and faster, as in every other area of our national life. The Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo, who wore a Union flag waistcoat in 2014, preferred not to in 2016. By 2019, the mezzo Jamie Barton was waving the Pride Flag not the Union Jack.

    By 2020, Black Lives Matter was turbo-charging the criticism, with its supporters claiming that Rule, Britannia backed slavery and Land of Hope and Glory fuelled racism and Empire nationalism, a view which is now pretty commonplace in certain places. So the BBC tried to get away with playing the music without the words, until ridiculed out of it by Boris Johnson.

    Last year Elizabeth II’s death resulted in the cancellation of the whole evening, though many thought a rejigging of the programme, as in 2001, would have been better. And this year, tiptoeing carefully through the controversy, but no doubt reflecting the views of much of his generation of musicians, the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason told the Radio Times he’d prefer more folk tunes to Rule, Britannia.

    It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the spirit of the age is unsympathetic to the Last Night and that the BBC would like to change it if it could get away with it. Does that really matter?

    I think it does. So many of us feel strongly about keeping the Last Night unchanged, not because we are obsessed with waving flags, but because we feel “if they can take that, what can’t they take?” The Last Night, unchanged, provides at least one evening of nostalgia, of self-deprecating humour, and of harmless, inclusive patriotism, all things which were thought, until recently, to be entirely and characteristically British.

    When the new cultural forces feel strong enough to scrap it, or turn it into the usual modern mush of celebrating diversity and inclusion, then we will know we have lost the culture war. At the moment they don’t feel strong enough. Let’s keep it that way.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/07/if-the-last-night-of-the-proms-goes-nothing-else-is-safe

    BTL:
    Gerald Martin

    It needs to be taken away from the BBC. They can televise it, and even select what they televise, but they have become a cancer for the Proms and should be distanced from it.

    It’s very clear what they’re trying to do – make the Proms so bloody bad that even hard core classical fans will abandon it. When that happens they’ll feel justified in canceling all classical output, orchestras, channels, sponsorships, the lot. The whole white canon.

    2. As so often, one feels the BBC doubts the appeal of the Western civilisational and cultural tradition, and instead prefers to give people what it thinks they can cope with should be given.

    3. As so often, one feels the BBC doubts the appeal of the Western civilisational and cultural tradition, and instead prefers to give people what it thinks they can cope with should be given.

    4. The BBC doesn’t represent the spirit of the era. They only represent the spirit of Islington.

  70. And a t 11.10 pm I am back from a very enjoyable day in London, have laughed at Sir Jasper’s joke for today, and I wish you all a very Good Night.

  72. Good morning insomniacs!
    Woke up after a solid 4½h sleep and have just been sat up the “garden” for a half hour enjoying the quiet and the cool, a tad under 13°C, evening air.
    The quiet sound of the stream flowing from the millpond augmented by two passing cars and a couple of aircraft passing overhead.
    A few stars visible but there is a bit of cloud cover.

    Now enjoying Elgar’s Enigma on R3.

  73. For a failed MP, Lord Swire talks a tiny amount of sense about burying cables, but is otherwise a supporter of Offshore Windfarms:-

    Pylon proliferation
    SIR – The signing of an agreement for six new offshore wind farms (Letters, September 6), which was announced earlier this year, will mean a bonanza for the Crown Estate – to the tune of about £1 billion per annum. The good news is that these wind farms will power about seven million homes; less appealing is the means through which this power will be delivered.

    The crux of the issue is the reliance of wind farms on large, unattractive physical infrastructure. In East Anglia alone there is a proposal for 112 miles of pylons, some as tall as 164ft. All will be overhead, other than those in Dedham Vale – an area of outstanding natural beauty – where they will be buried. National Grid says that burying power lines is about 10 times more expensive than overhead transmission. However, some estimates have the figure closer to four times – a sum that could be reduced by employing local farmers and sub-contractors to carry out the trenching work.

    Further, buried cables are less susceptible to violent, unpredictable weather patterns, require fewer repairs, and don’t pose any threat to birds or other wildlife.

    Reducing carbon emissions to meet our commitments should not come at the expense of destroying our local environments and historic landscapes. In fact, burying our infrastructure might soften some of the opposition to wind farms in the first place.

    Lord Swire (Con)
    London SW1

    A BTL Response:-

    R. Spowart
    10 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    “The good news is that these wind farms will power about seven million homes;”
    Failed MP Lord Swire fails to add the qualifier, “When the weather conditions are right and we have sufficient wind”.
    At other times these windmills will be totally useless.

    1. It is possible to underground electrical power cables. It simply means the will of landowners to allow the temporary disruption of their lands. On farmland the cables have to be buried a metre underground, otherwise known as agricultural depth.

      Many farmers would welcome the replacement of myriad wooden poles on their fields and the under-grounding of those supplies.

      Regrettably nobody governing us has yet drawn the connection between existing overhead power lines and the possibilities of under-grounding much of it. The farmers benefit because they no longer have to plough around wooden poles, many of which comprise three poles and stays. The older downgraded copper wires often cause sparking when skirting trees.

      I do despair when thinking about the idiocy of our government and its supposedly expert advisors.

      Edit: I negotiated with EDF to underground copper cables for a client in Belchamp Walter (think Lovejoy and Lady Jane). I was restoring a brick and flint folly in the fields owned by the owner of Belchamp Walter Hall. Unfortunately some downgraded 22000 volt unsheathed copper cables were inhibiting the safe erection of the necessary scaffold to enable the restoration work.

      We were able to erect appropriate scaffolding to save the folly, an historic monument hitherto on English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ register.

      I pointed out to EDF that my client had in excess of 200 wooden electric poles on his site. I reached agreement with EDF that the client’s contractors would excavate the necessary trenches so as to enable the under-gounding of the offending overhead cables. My client would bear this cost but that EDF would fund the cable under-grounding and the replacement of single poles affected with a three pole configuration to support the existing cabling where it had been interrupted.

      1. The East Anglian lines would not be the wooden-pole type but the enormous metal A-frame variety.

    2. It is possible to underground electrical power cables. It simply means the will of landowners to allow the temporary disruption of their lands. On farmland the cables have to be buried a metre underground, otherwise known as agricultural depth.

      Many farmers would welcome the replacement of myriad wooden poles on their fields and the under-grounding of those supplies.

      Regrettably nobody governing us has yet drawn the connection between existing overhead power lines and the possibilities of under-grounding much of it. The farmers benefit because they no longer have to plough around wooden poles, many of which comprise three poles and stays. The older downgraded copper wires often cause sparking when skirting trees.

      I do despair when thinking about the idiocy of our government and its supposedly expert advisors.

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