Thursday 9 December: Lifelong Tories look on in horror as the PM torpedoes public trust

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 not as good as 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: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/12/09/letters-lifelong-tories-look-horror-pm-torpedoes-public-trust/

778 thoughts on “Thursday 9 December: Lifelong Tories look on in horror as the PM torpedoes public trust”

    1. Congratulations.

      I simply cannot sleep knowing what dastardly tricks are afoot. It is as though my every belief is being attacked by morons and I have no way by which to effectively refute the bastards.

      I also follow the Test Match in Brisbane in the hope that we will defeat the Aussies whose country is otherwise going to the dogs.

      Optimist me.

      1. You and I have not always got along but what is going on in this country nowadays horrifies me. ( MH is also watching the cricket. )
        I read things in the papers that say childhood obesity is up, child and domestic abuse is up, online hate speech and radicalization is up- – what the hell does this government expect to happen when people are locked up together 24/7 for months on end and kids cannot go to school?
        Thank god my husband and I get on very well.
        As I said previously, I shall not behave if challenged and have no intention of following anymore asinine diktats from this circus pretending to be a government.

        1. Forget the past. I recall that I was primarily annoyed by the Jennifer SP downvotes, that is all. It might have been stupid of me to be aggressive in my responses and if so I apologise.

          I hope that I am sufficiently educated to analyse and comment upon matters of serious concern to us all.

          I think you are an educated lady and that you have given much to this forum with your whit and obvious understanding of literature. I have always admired your individual comments.

          1. Thank you for that and I agree, let’s forget the past. Yes, I am educated and I try to contribute when I feel qualified and informed enough so to do.

          5. Jennifer often had interesting things to say but unfortunately she was very devisive and disruptive and this forum is a happier place without her.

        2. My OH is spending most of his time playing the piano these days. A great stress reliever and I love listening to him.

    2. I love the fact that various posters think they’re first on the page. Who do they think sets up the page in the first place? I guess I’m just part of the furniture.. 🙄

      1. Funnily enough, MH and I are playing our music game and the topic for songs/music is furniture. I shall look for a song called Geoff;-))

      3. (In the voice of Arthur Negas): ‘ A veritable Chippendale with wonderfully turned …er …er…”

        Morning Squire. Have a good day!

  2. Oops, the Thursday NoTTL page has appeared before I had a chance to look at the end of the Wednesday page. So here is a “Good night, everyone” for Wednesday and a “Good morning, everyone” for today. Now I shall go to bed and sleep!

      1. I’m still clearing/dusting/tidying/culling and, after finishing the living room, have moved on to the kitchen. However, I think that you were referring to when I posted that I was off to bed. You need to know that at present I spend each evening watching a different DVD and this week it is Rodgers & Hammerstein films. At the time of posting in the early hours of Thursday I had just watched SOUTH PACIFIC. It was two and a half hours long, but I always then read the IMDb information for more background, hence my not finishing until the early hours of the morning.

        1. Good morning Elsie

          We had a tidy up , Moh scrambled around in the loft for the Christmas lights, and the baubles for the tree, he found 2 long cardboard boxes containing the trees and glitter and stuff.

          Unfortunately the wrong box ended up at the tip when we loaded the car up witth garden stuff and cardboard boxes etc .

          The newer tree and all the bits and pieces were dumped , and the old tree with the remnants of glittter , old lights , tatty ornaments and a crushed fairy and a star that no longer lights up now adorn the living room.

          We learned our lesson years ago re real Christmas trees , the dogs used to cock their legs indoors !!!

          False trees have been an absolute boon .

          3. Hi LotL.
            I’ll give you some of mine. Stress levels these days mean sleep happens when I stop and sit do

  9. Christmas party row: Tories held raucous second event

    George Grylls, Political Reporter | Henry Zeffman, Chief Political Correspondent | Oliver Wright, Policy Editor
    Thursday December 09 2021, 12.01am, The Times

    Boris Johnson faces more questions about his team’s attitude towards coronavirus rules today after it emerged that Tory aides threw a raucous Christmas party and senior Downing Street staff held a quiz night.

    As anger grows among Tory MPs about an event held in No 10 on December 18 last year, The Times can disclose that Conservative Party staff danced and drank wine late into the night at another event that month.

    • Why it ended in tears for Allegra Stratton, the PM’s star hire

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F12bc438c-587a-11ec-a3f7-65d2d47c7fea.jpg?crop=1394%2C1742%2C458%2C223&resize=320

    2. The PM’s star hire? She’s actually an old mate of his wife and almost certainly one of those that did for Dominic Cummings.

        2. Yet another high flier who’s never had a real job then.

          Her lengthy CV includes a number of high-flying political news roles. Stratton made her name around Westminster as a political correspondent at the Guardian, presenting the newspaper’s ‘Politics Weekly’ podcast with journalist Tom Clark.

  10. Putin claims Ukraine will ‘deploy weapons’ if it enters NATO. 9 December 2021.

    Speaking for the first time since his call with Joe Biden, Putin would not say whether he was going to invade Ukraine but warned that simply permitting Kiev to pile more troops and arms at the frontier would amount to ‘criminal inaction.’

    ‘We cannot but be concerned about the prospect of Ukraine’s possible admission to NATO, because this will undoubtedly be followed by the deployment of appropriate military contingents, bases and weapons that threaten us,’ he said.

    Well there it is folks, from the Man’s own mouth. It’s war!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10288477/Putin-claims-Ukraine-deploy-weapons-enters-NATO.html

    1. Putin is pretty clear about how he sees things. If the others don’t care to listen, well…

    2. Clearly enormous pressure is being applied. The thing that worries me most is Brandon…..

  11. Delingpole: I Don’t Trust the ‘Downing Street Christmas Party’ Story

    Everyone (well, everyone even vaguely interested in UK politics) is talking about the secret Christmas party held last year in 10 Downing Street, apparently in defiance of lockdown and mask regulations. But there’s lots about this story that just doesn’t add up.

    Sure, I can easily accept that there was such a party. After all, if there’s one thing we’ve noticed in the last 18 months from Nancy Pelosi’s hairdresser appointments to the mask-shunning antics of the world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall, our political elites are very much in the business of ‘Do as I say’ but not ‘Do as I do.’

    But still I smell a rat.

    For example, it is claimed the leaked footage was recorded on 22 December 2020, by a camera appearing to record a monitor feed of the Prime Minister’s then Press Secretary, Allegra Stratton. In the film it appears that she has been caught in an unguarded moment, accidentally letting slip details and then feeling awkward at having done so.

    One thing that’s odd though is the backdrop: the Downing Street press briefing room with its blue screens and wooden panelling and its furled Union flags. This room wasn’t officially unveiled to the media (it cost £2.6 million, much to everyone’s scandalised horror) until the following year in March 2021. This was over six months after the former colonial courtroom’s conversion to a press suite was announced.

    Are we expected to believe that this briefing room was the first government project completed ahead of schedule in recorded history — that it was actually ready in December, two and a half months after it was announced, and then kept on ice for three months, unused?

    And what about Stratton’s supposed faux pas? She is an experienced journalist and canny political operator — indeed, that is exactly what the government, until today, paid her to do. When you’re in a role like that you are never off, especially when in front of a camera. It seems highly unlikely that Stratton would have offered up a hostage to fortune in the form of indiscretions about a Christmas party with a camera running.

    Equally, would ITN have yielded up this footage without behind-the-scenes approval? Sure, scoops are nice. But why would establishment-cozy-club ITN wish to jeopardise its access to and relationship with 10 Downing Street by throwing an insider like Stratton to the wolves?

    Perhaps the most suspicious aspect of the story is the timing of the release. Why now, when this footage has apparently been knocking around a whole year?

    And why also is it being pushed so hard and given such widespread currency in the MSM?

    Remember, we are talking about a mainstream media so heavily compromised, so bought and paid for by government advertising, that is most unlikely to be promoting this story because it has suddenly acquired a set of cojones and a newly acquired urge to speak truth to power.

    If I’m right, then let me advance a few possible explanations for this ‘leak’, none of them remotely encouraging.

    It is part of the ongoing operation to oust Boris Johnson as prime minister. It may even be that he has had enough and wants this to happen anyway. But no consolation should be drawn from this. Whoever replaces him will be at least as bad if not worse.
    It is designed to whip up public indignation about Covid rule violations, wheresoever they may be. Never mind those naughty guests at these alleged Downing Street parties a year ago: the people really being targeted are mask and vaccine and lockdown refuseniks today.
    It is a test, designed with the cunning help of the government’s battery of behavioural scientists. The idea is to gauge just how strongly the public feel about lockdowns and the enforcement thereof – then the government will be in a better position to decide how fast and far it can push the next stage of its inexorable progression towards biosecurity state tyranny.
    Perhaps I’m being unduly cynical. But the Boris Johnson administration, taking its lead from the prime minister himself, is so routinely mendacious that if it told me the sun rose in the morning and set in the evening I wouldn’t believe it unless I’d gone outside to double-check.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/12/08/delingpole-i-dont-trust-the-downing-street-christmas-party-story/

    1. Find the video mole! As crisis over Tory Christmas party deepens, fingers are pointed at PR firm that filmed damning footage… and even No10 insiders sent it on email
      Damning clip of Downing St aides joking about Christmas party was given to ITV
      Release of toxic footage led to the tearful resignation of ‘star’ Allegra Stratton
      May have also prompted Boris Johnson to fast-track plans for Covid restrictions
      Now No10 have sparked a hunt for the leaker – with suspects ranging from Dominic Cummings to a PR firm

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10290137/Downing-Street-searches-Stratton-Christmas-party-video-leak

      1. They’re just treating it like the latest episode of some exciting political series, while lockdowns close businesses and allow vile people to murder little children.
        Lockdowns only carried on for so long because so many people were benefiting from them, including members of the government who didn’t stick to the rules.

    2. Were there SIX parties in Downing Street and Whitehall? Claims of a festive quiz, Friday wine sessions and a bash to celebrate Dominic Cummings’ exit put even more pressure on under-fire Boris Johnson
      It emerged yesterday that the December 18 party may only have been one of six
      It is alleged there were two leaving dos where Boris Johnson delivered speeches
      Gatherings were also held at CCHQ and the Department for Education
      Cabinet Secretary Simon Case has been called in to investigate while the Met Police are not ruling out an investigation

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10290025/Were-FOUR-parties-inside-Downing-Street.html

    3. When you’re in a role like that you are never off, especially when in front of a camera. It seems highly unlikely that Stratton would have offered up a hostage to fortune in the form of indiscretions about a Christmas party with a camera running.

      But she did! I’m sorry Delingpole is completely wrong here! It was a trial run for the new Briefing Room. You can see that she’s being coy and playing up to the reporters present. They are all obviously in the loop as well. They knew that there was party but they are not talking ether. It’s a skit between friends!

      2. A couple of points: Were the folk questioning Ms Stratton actual reporters or staff at No 10 ‘throwing out ‘possible difficult and awkward questions so that the ‘correct’ answer can be worked out before any live Press question and answer session?

        With the ‘lockdown’ in force surely it would have been a good reason / excuse not to use the new press briefing room? There’s also the advantage of not having to face and answer awkward questions for several months!

        1. Morning Stephen. It was obviously some form of rehearsal. There are no Big Beasts there or directly recorded footage (which would have emerged by now) it also takes place two days after the party itself. It is more than likely that most of those present attended it, hence the “knowing” nature of Ms Stratton’s answer.

    5. My thought was that it’s Boris’s exit strategy. But that’s some interesting back-up to this theory.

    6. Judging by the masked sheep in ASDA this morning, the ‘Nudge Unit’ is the one area of government that is actually working.

  12. I’ve just caught up with the Telegraph’s latest piece on the party scandal. It’s the one here.

    There are currently 590 comments and just about every one of them is anti-Johnson. I don’t think he could possibly have done worse than made that announcement yesterday.

    1. TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

      Matthew Connolly 7 HRS AGO.

      I was such a fool. I was so excited when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. I thought his premiership would be a golden age. Prioritising hard work over vested interests. Tackling poverty in Britain rather than thinking that poverty elsewhere was somehow more important. Taking a firm line against a hostile EU. Standing up for capitalism. Not tolerating the woke warriors and their attempts to introduce socialism by the back door.

      I was such a fool. Everything was a lie. The idiot has no idea what he’s doing and is now being openly played by Labour-supporting advisers, such as Ferguson. Liberty is almost dead. People can’t afford to heat their homes because of a stupid green revolution that is more about maintaining his bedroom privileges than what is good for Britain. We have families torn apart for the second year in a row over a stupid testing regime that doesn’t work.
      I have never been so angry.

      Johnson out!

      Well if you had read Nottl instead of watching the BBC Matthew you would not have been fooled!

      1. Robert Beck
        11 MIN AGO
        It seems clear to me that the Buffoon is simply playing to the gallery. He knows that working from home will be popular over the Christmas period. As we discovered form recent whistleblower revelations about the Afghanistan exodus that civil servants working from home don’t seem to be able to do any meaningful work. This looks like an extended Christmas vacation for the electorate as a gift from the PM at a ruinous cost to business and the economy.
        The decision to leave Christmas Parties intact is completely at odds with the direction to work from home. However it achieves two objectives which are likely top of mind for the Buffoon. Firstly he can claim that he has saved Christmas and secondly he is seeking to downplay the infection risks of having a party in an attempt to view the party scene in Downing St last Christmas through a less severe lens.
        The PM has also broken his commitment to fully evaluate the evidence of omicron before introducing new restrictions. He seems to rely solely on increased transmission rates rather than the severity of illness. The initial evidence from South Africa suggested that omicron is a much milder strain with no reported deaths. I therefore have no confidence in any guidance from the Buffoon. His credibility is now zero and the party must act accordingly.

        1. Morning, Stephen
          Maybe the police, train personnel, bus drivers, bin men, shop assistants, delivery drivers, truckers and similar folk should also work from home.
          I was going to add GPs, but nobody would notice!

        2. ‘Morning, Stephen. It is most unfortunate that the party didn’t unseat him before now. As every day passes the damage to the Conservative cause is mounting, and is giving its enemies a field day. The 1922 has failed miserably to get shot of the Bullingdon Boy and his interfering missus. It will take a long time to repair the damage – unless of course it turns out to be terminal.

    2. TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

      Matthew Connolly 7 HRS AGO.

      I was such a fool. I was so excited when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. I thought his premiership would be a golden age. Prioritising hard work over vested interests. Tackling poverty in Britain rather than thinking that poverty elsewhere was somehow more important. Taking a firm line against a hostile EU. Standing up for capitalism. Not tolerating the woke warriors and their attempts to introduce socialism by the back door.

      I was such a fool. Everything was a lie. The idiot has no idea what he’s doing and is now being openly played by Labour-supporting advisers, such as Ferguson. Liberty is almost dead. People can’t afford to heat their homes because of a stupid green revolution that is more about maintaining his bedroom privileges than what is good for Britain. We have families torn apart for the second year in a row over a stupid testing regime that doesn’t work.
      I have never been so angry.

      Johnson out!

      Well if you had read Nottl instead of watching the BBC Matthew you would not have been fooled!

    3. TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

      Matthew Connolly 7 HRS AGO.

      I was such a fool. I was so excited when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. I thought his premiership would be a golden age. Prioritising hard work over vested interests. Tackling poverty in Britain rather than thinking that poverty elsewhere was somehow more important. Taking a firm line against a hostile EU. Standing up for capitalism. Not tolerating the woke warriors and their attempts to introduce socialism by the back door.

      I was such a fool. Everything was a lie. The idiot has no idea what he’s doing and is now being openly played by Labour-supporting advisers, such as Ferguson. Liberty is almost dead. People can’t afford to heat their homes because of a stupid green revolution that is more about maintaining his bedroom privileges than what is good for Britain. We have families torn apart for the second year in a row over a stupid testing regime that doesn’t work.
      I have never been so angry.

      Johnson out!

      Well if you had read Nottl instead of watching the BBC Matthew you would not have been fooled!

  13. I really can’t see anybody taking much notice of Boris’s plan B somehow. I went Xmas shopping in Birmingham yesterday and less than 50% of people were wearing masks in shops or on public transport. A visit to a government office was exactly the same. They are leaving it up to the public whether to wear masks or not. However if you need to sign something then you are given a disposable pen… Those were his plan A rules.

    I get the impression that there is a determination by the people that if enough ignore the rules then they will be forced to withdraw them. The scene is set for wilful disobedience on a large scale.

    Those idiotic twerps on the SAGE committee have gone too far with their increasingly bad advice and may have done for the Prime Minister as a result.

    1. Why were so many Brummies wearing face masks? they’re not required until Friday under current regs.

    4. Educators and not so Civil Servants will be adhering to the maximum, even before the plan b announcement the work from home policy has been enacted in my experience. The bureaucrats seem to be running the agenda regardless.

  14. Good luck with anyone in ‘Government’ ordering the full NHS to revert to normal working conditions* any time soon..

    ( *Yes I know those tend to be chaotic in the winter)

  16. #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f712ddcebb179717baa73aa8cb63d0fa66558bbb72aeaf7c1ff754c694533aad.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ec2f605c2315b22915c3d97021df1f824e1556e0b9be6173159ed7e92e3133f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce29a524a14b0daaa1710d43dc86767e0bd6f4431feddd7e3d5611b56016178b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a43c7292ba8c3c17e035b2f53e35919362feca9cc97a5eb13f8903a2c3616149.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e2dff4d0a782ece8e1d1f59503101d631230895c9dfd06708c611c2dde6f3bf.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dd143874a6260d35eeab4c35e3fcf73a2661debc3a0c67b2fa3a7121ae843ef.png

  17. Vladimir Putin doesn’t need to invade Ukraine. 9 December 2021.

    Mr Putin might delight in causing mischief, but he is by no means stupid, which is why it is entirely feasible that Moscow’s military build-up could ultimately prove to be nothing more than an elaborate hoax designed to unsettle nervous Europeans.

    Says Con Coughlin wishfully! These morons have backed Russia into a corner from which there is no escape other than to fight!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/09/vladimir-putin-doesnt-need-invade-ukraine/

    1. Non-dangerous virus. Agghhhh. The horror! Where are the exits? Get some Vaxx down you! Get your masks on! Close everything down!

    2. Or the corollary, ” Covid 19 vaccines extremely dangerous for large numbers of people.

  21. The EU is waging a culture war against Europe. 9 December 2021.

    It is becoming increasingly clear that the European Union is struggling to impose its woke ideology on its member states.

    For example, at the end of October, the Council of Europe launched a campaign to promote respect for Muslim women who choose to wear headscarves. Posters featured a woman wearing a headscarf alongside the caption, ‘Beauty is in diversity as freedom is in hijab’.

    Well colour me surprised! It is transparently obvious that this organisation with its unelected leaders posing on the World Stage is a Globalist Front with its Cultural Marxist manifesto in plain sight! It’s a menace to Freedom and Democracy everywhere and now its meddling in Ukraine, Peace itself.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/08/the-eu-is-waging-a-culture-war-against-europe/

    2. Lucky I scrolled down – I was about to post that! I liked their “Thought for the Day” [also on the front page] – “Anybody else feel a bit of a mug for following all the rules last year?“

  24. I feel sorry for Dyno-Rod employees who are required to work from their homes.
    I bought some extra drain rods so I can meet them half way.

  25. So where are we going to be in five years with the pandemic
    I think unless people stop complying we will all have social credit score vaccine passes.
    We will have to have a booster jab every 3 months.
    Covic will still be around like the flu and nobody will be able to remember why we took it all so seriously.

  26. Morning all

    Letters to the Editor

    Lifelong Tories look on in horror as the PM torpedoes public trust

    Greener streets are not a cure for society’s ills

    Screening for dyslexia

    Liquid gold

    Erosion of freedom

    Inertia at HMRC

    When the music stops

    Any crackdown on drugs is doomed to failure

    Share

    Lifelong Tories look on in horror as the PM torpedoes public trust

    SIR – In his handling of the No 10 Christmas event, Boris Johnson has, once again, proved himself to be inept.

    This follows upon a whole series of poor decisions, gaffes and U-turns. Other Cabinet members have shown that they are not up to the job.

    As a lifelong supporter of the Tory party, sadly I can no longer trust anything the Prime Minister says. If the Tories are to avoid being routed at the next election he must be replaced, with major changes to the Cabinet and the way that business is conducted.

    Peter Higgins

    West Wickham, Kent

    SIR – As a timely reminder not to drink and drive after a Christmas party, Boris Johnson has crashed the car again.

    Paul Gaynor

    Windermere, Cumbria

    SIR – Will everyone who was fined for breaking lockdown rules now be entitled to a refund?

    Peter H York

    Daventry, Northamptonshire

    SIR – Under Boris Johnson, Her Majesty’s Government has become a bungling laughing stock.

    Its election commitments remain largely unachieved. Policies are conjured up on the hoof. The civil service is uncontrolled.

    The electorate is running out of patience. It is time for change.

    John Pritchard

    Ingatestone, Essex

    SIR – The only reason I have not cancelled my membership of the Conservative Party is that I want to have a say in the selection of the next leader.

    The election cannot come too soon.

    David Fouracre

    Napton, Warwickshire

    SIR – Am I the only one who thought that the BBC’s coverage of the No 10 party (10 minutes on News at Ten on Tuesday night followed by further coverage on Newsnight) was disproportionate and overzealous, perhaps reflecting the organisation’s vengeful and retributive attitude towards the Government?

    Rowland Little

    Hollingbourne, Kent

    SIR – When will the Labour Party and some news channels realise that the average member of the public doesn’t care about indiscretions like this?

    What we want is strong leadership, government and opposition. If all Labour has to offer is complaints about a Christmas party, it will remain out of power for many years to come. Surely our politicians can do better.

    Bruce Murray

    Hayling Island, Hampshire

    SIR – As I watch with horror and incredulity while our Government lurches from one self-made crisis to another, I take comfort from the thought of how much worse things might have been had the country voted for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in 2019.

    Michael Price

    Ashford, Middlesex

    1. While Jeremy Corbyn, presenting himself as unelectable, was a gift to the Tory party, I can only say that Boris Johnson is now fulfilling that rôle and presenting the Labour party with their next term in government. God help us.

      Posted BTL on letter’s page using Best Beloved’s identity in order to login to DT.

    2. ‘Morning, Epi. The anti-Boris letters are mild when compared with the excoriating BTL postings. Partygate of itself would have been relatively minor, but given that our PM has shown himself time and time again to be a stranger to the truth, it should see him gone pretty soon now. To that extent it is to be welcomed!

  27. We have had a family discussion and have decided the buffoon can do one and **** right off this Christmas, we are going to carry on as planned.
    (Signed Angry of Norf Zummerzet)

  28. SIR – First, let’s agree that the planting of trees is beneficial (“Leafy streets save the NHS ‘millions’”, report, December 4).

    Secondly, let us also agree that those who can afford to live in leafy, tree-lined streets overlooking parks, countryside or woodland may be less likely to need antidepressants than those who can only afford to live in lower-cost areas with denser housing and more crowding, no opportunity for tree-planting and little access to green areas. However, to draw the conclusion that the difference is as a result of the trees is a misuse of data.

    How does tree-planting reduce poverty, improve education, increase opportunity and prospects, increase housing quality, reduce overcrowding or solve the postcode services lottery? I would say that those factors are far more important.

    David Boult

    Cowbridge, Glamorgan

    2. Trees beneficial?

      The Green Council in Brighton have had a large number chopped down.

      According to a contributor on here the Green Oslo Council have also been chopping down trees.

  29. Erosion of freedom

    SIR – A year has passed since the Great Barrington Declaration, which warned that lockdown policies were having “devastating effects on short and long-term public health”. It should now be clear that each individual’s response to the perceived threat from Covid-19 should be a personal choice, not dictated by the state.

    However, there is a worrying narrative gaining traction that people who make the wrong choices are endangering others and that, for the “greater good”, such people should have certain freedoms curtailed. The omicron variant should not be used as an excuse to reimpose old restrictions or indeed impose new ones (such as vaccine passports) for what is now acknowledged to be an endemic virus.

    It is easy to dismiss each restriction – for example, mask-wearing – as a minor inconvenience, but the cumulative effect is that fear, distrust, aggression and selfishness are displacing tolerance, sharing and compassion.

    Nick Hopkins

    Lower Ratlake, Hampshire

    SIR – Michael Fopp (Letters, December 3) asks why there are no volunteer vaccinators.

    St John Ambulance has trained a large number of volunteer vaccinators who have been supporting the vaccination programme since the beginning of the year and will continue to provide support for as long as it is needed.

    Christina Mabin

    Exeter, Devon

    1. Spot on, Nick Hopkins.
      And more children are being put at risk!
      Lockdowns are one of those things like throwing the hereditary peers out, or re-defining marriage, whose devastating negative effects are only seen much, much later.
      And all the fools with no imagination are unable to perceive the negative effects that aren’t immediately in front of them, or to believe wiser people who can foresee them!

  30. Morning again

    Any crackdown on drugs is doomed to failure

    SIR – Forgive me for not sharing the enthusiasm of the Government for the Prime Minister’s drugs crackdown policy, and for his recent participation in a drug raid on Merseyside (report, December 7). A suspicious bystander might consider it a bit too much like a short-term tack to the Right to reduce Reform UK’s vote in the nearby North Shropshire by-election, although no doubt Mr Johnson’s own intentions are above reproach.

    In the longer term, it is more or less inevitable that the policy will fail to achieve its aims (like many other unsuccessful criminal drug policies before it over the past 50 years).Meanwhile, it seems we must wait for the truly brave prime minister who will implement the recommendation of the Global Commission on Drug Policy to decriminalise drugs, and thereby use market forces globally to cut criminal profits and supply, to reduce incarcerations, deaths, torture and maimings of the many vulnerable minorities caught up in the criminal drugs trade, and to concentrate resources on treating addicts in a health-orientated fashion.

    Orlando Fraser

    London WC2

    SIR – You report (December 6) on evidence of cocaine usage in the Palace of Westminster. As in the Armed Forces, the people who run our country should be regularly subjected to an unannounced drug-testing regime. Those testing positive should be required to take part in a drug rehabilitation programme. The Palace of Westminster should get its house in order.

    Alexander Wells

    Newport, Pembrokeshire

    1. It’s clear that Londoners have little idea of geography; North Shropshire is NOT “nearby” to Merseyside. Cheshire and North Wales, more like.

  31. Letter To The Management

    Dear Signore,
    Now I am a-tella you how I was a-treated at your hotella.

    I am a-comma from Roma as tourist to Lucerne and stay as a younga Christian man at your hotella.

    When I comma in my room I see there is no shit in my bed – how can I sleep with no shit in my bed ?

    So, I calla down to receptione and tella . “I wanna shit!” They tella me, “Go to toilet.”

    I say, “No, no. You no understand. I wanna shit in my bed.”

    They say, “You better not shit in your bed, you sonnawabitch!” What is a sonnawabitch?

    I go down for breakfast into ristorante. I order bacon and eggs and two pisses of toast.

    I getta only one piss of toast. I tella waitress, and pointa of toast, “I wanna piss!”

    She tella me, “Go to toilet.” I say, “No, no. You no understand. I wanna piss on my plate!”

    She then say to me, “You bloody hella not piss on the plate, you sonnawabitch! ”

    Second person, who do not even know me, calla me sonnawabitch! What is a sonnawabitch?

    Later I go for dinner in your ristorante. Spoon and knife is laid out, but no fock.

    I tella waitress, “I wanna fock.” And she tella me, “Sure, everyone wanna fock!”

    I tella her, “No, no. You no understand. I wanna fock on the table!”

    She tella me, “So, you sonnawabitch wanna fock on the table?

    Get your ass out of here!!” So I go to receptione and ask for bill. I no wanna stay in this hotella no more.

    When I have paid the billa, the portier say to me, “Thank you, and peace on you.”

    I say, “Piss on you, too, you sonnawabitch! I go back to Italy!”

    I never more comma stay at your hotella no more, you sonnawabitch!!

  32. Healthy father of one, 41, died from a severe brain-bleed 11 days after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. 9 December 2021.

    A father-of-one died of a severe brain-bleed just 11 days after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, an inquest has heard.

    He said the diagnosis was ‘very rare’ with only 260 cases in the UK and when it causes bleeding around 70 to 75 percent of patients die.

    After reading the whole of this article and the comments it is pretty difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was Death by Vaccine!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10289703/Father-one-died-severe-brain-bleed-11-days-receiving-AstraZeneca-vaccine.html

    1. BTL comment:

      MaggieMM, England, United Kingdom, about 10 hours ago

      ‘Poor bloke. This is exactly why Covid vaccines must not be made mandatory. You have to make the choice to have it for yourself. They keep saying that deaths due to the vaccine are incredibly rare but to those people who have died the risk was too great. Just had my booster and I’m hoping and praying that I don’t get any life threatening side effects’.

    2. By treating each life-threatening post-vaccine condition on its own, they are able to carry on maintaining that each condition is “very rare”.

  33. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A predictable first letter:

    SIR – In his handling of the No 10 Christmas event, Boris Johnson has, once again, proved himself to be inept.

    This follows upon a whole series of poor decisions, gaffes and U-turns. Other Cabinet members have shown that they are not up to the job.

    As a lifelong supporter of the Tory party, sadly I can no longer trust anything the Prime Minister says. If the Tories are to avoid being routed at the next election he must be replaced, with major changes to the Cabinet and the way that business is conducted.

    Peter Higgins
    West Wickham, Kent

    2. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart JUST NOW
      Message Actions

      I can not believe that Tory Party members like Peter Higgins and recent ex-Party members have not besieged their local constituency offices in protest at the total screw up the PM and his cabinet are making of this Wuhan Virus fiasco.

  34. Well said, Janet Daley…

    COMMENT
    Boris can say what he likes, but trust in the Government may be damaged beyond repair

    Does the Government, and most specifically, the Prime Minister, now have the moral authority to make any rules at all?

    JANET DALEY
    8 December 2021 • 8:10pm

    There weren’t going to be many surprises in the official new rules. We have known what Plan B entailed for quite a long time: more mask-wearing, less going into the office but no social distancing and no lockdown. It may have been depressing but it wasn’t shocking. The only question that mattered hung over the event like a pall: does the Government, and most specifically, the Prime Minister, now have the moral authority to make any rules at all?

    Predictably enough, that is all the assembled journalists really wanted to know, and they asked, in their myriad different ways, precisely that over and over again. Would public forbearance and cooperation finally be exhausted in the face of what appeared to be Downing Street’s own cynical disregard for the restrictions it had imposed on the country? Indeed, has the population become so sceptical and disillusioned by the display of flippancy that it has witnessed, as to assume that even this very press conference might be a deliberate political tactic to bounce the headlines in another direction?

    Faced with that accusation, Boris Johnson gave a clever but not necessarily convincing reply: imagine the counterfactual, he said. What if we had decided to delay the announcement of these new measures purely because we were caught up in a bad news storm. Surely that would have been utterly irresponsible. So he asked us to believe what might very well be true: that the decision to move to Plan B could not be delayed any longer for substantial medical reasons, so the decision to announce that move today was essential and right. (And, as he did not say, quite personally brave since it involved him being exposed to the interrogation of journalists at a very unfortunate moment.)

    Well, perhaps that is the case. The problem is we will never be sure. What has happened over the past 24 hours has damaged the credibility and the perceived trustworthiness of the Government so deeply that it may well have forfeited its right to impose restrictions on personal behaviour for the foreseeable future.

    It will not do, to act as if this is simply a grotesque embarrassment or a crass reminder of just how insensitive people in governing circles can be. The substantive fact here is that staff employed by Downing Street appear to have broken rules laid down by their own Government. If that proves to be true then their boss, the Prime Minister, must accept ultimate responsibility. It is not sufficient to throw Allegra Stratton (or to allow her to throw herself) under the bus.

    Does the Prime Minister take the regulations that he is imposing on an astonishingly conscientious country seriously, or not? Even assuming that he genuinely believed the additional measures in Plan B to be absolutely imperative at this exact moment, it takes a hell of a lot of nerve to demand that we all follow them without doubt or question. The days of that sort of confidence may be gone for good.

    1. “The substantive fact here is that staff employed by Downing Street appear to have broken rules laid down by their own Government, and have done it in Boris’ own house. If that proves to be true then their boss, the Prime Minister, must accept ultimate responsibility.”

    2. “The substantive fact here is that staff employed by Downing Street appear to have broken rules laid down by their own Government, and have done it in Boris’ own house. If that proves to be true then their boss, the Prime Minister, must accept ultimate responsibility.”

    3. IMO this shower have lost all legitimacy as a government. Johnson, and it appears, three others are running this debacle while the remainder of the Cabinet and most of the Tory MPs sit on the substitutes’ bench watching events pass them by. Oh, there’s talk of unrest within the Tory ranks but little or no action. A famous soldier, at the time a General, described a fellow senior officer as a, “Gutless bugger,” when the latter cast doubts on the D-Day air lift, pluralise that quote and you have the current Cabinet. They are beneath contempt and cannot hope to escape censure for their inaction.

    4. Well that is what you get when you vote in a Prime Minister who has cheated on every woman he’s ever slept with, spread his seed far and wide, and is shacking up with his latest girlfriend after his wife threw him out.
      But if anyone had said that before the election, they would have been howled down as an old-fashioned moralist.
      Seems there was a bit of sense in those old-fashioned morals after all, wasn’t there.

  36. The decision makers. Four, yes four, men were involved in the decision
    to implement Plan B. I think that we can see who are the globalist
    supporters in the Cabinet. The report from a day earlier that only three
    Cabinet members supported Panic Johnson in his plan is borne out. The
    supine wasters within the Cabinet should all resign but they are too
    tied to their fancy cars, salaries etc to oppose a despot and his three
    henchmen.
    The reply to J H-B is mine.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08cd1fcadc17a4033b7ca675f46ecb315415e3dcd0c3656f7f728c4be512c542.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/608bfa5aec698e4b9f55ae0b9696a68a3e8d7e62105dfdc4f358ce604240d8d6.png

    1. Yet Boris told the commons yesterday that the decision wouldn’t be taken without consulting the cabinet.

      1. That would have been a very serious matter in the past, lying to the HoC. Now?
        Pfff. All in a day’s work.

      2. JoH, you can’t believe anything Panic Johnson says. It’s as if he has an instinctive reflex to deny anything and everything that doesn’t make him appear in a good light.

        1. He’s actually quite vulnerable to criticism and that makes him easily led by those that know him. That is the problem.

  37. Good morning, all. Watery sun. Shortly to market to seek a halal pig.

    Hope you are all locked down…

  38. I suppose we all knew that we would be following the Austrians and most of Europe at some point with the new covid dystopian measures.

  39. Capital gripped by huge protest – police swoop on Westminster. 9 December 2021.

    Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered at Parliament Square in Westminster, with police at the scene. Some protestors can be seen with “kill the bill” banners to show opposition to a new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill.

    Others are pictured wearing orange prison costumes with a black hood over their heads.

    Bit early! I don’t recall the Bolsheviks getting up at 6 o’clock!

    London chaos: Capital gripped by huge protest – police swoop on Westminster (msn.com)

    1. If they think that’s bad, wait for the bill on ‘on line safety’. Yet the latest attempt to control the internet.

      Although travellers hate it, which seems a good thing. For the first time the police would be required to remove and destroy caravans which trespass.

  40. Rajan the last ocean-swimming elephant: Jody MacDonald’s best photograph

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/88ab2a217640a074fa4505cdf2aeb385ab840790/0_0_7087_4724/master/7087.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=37717d330dc5f687bb628229cc9630df
    ‘Many people tell me it looks like he’s smiling’ … Rajan takes a plunge. Photograph: Jody MacDonald

    ‘He had been used for logging on the Andaman Islands. When I found him, he was 60, living in retirement – and loving his swims’

          1. I know – I was merely trying to lighten this ghastly morning. Sorry. I won’t do it again!

    2. R4 reporter today suggesting climate change is contributing to the high rates of bird flu. Strewth..

  43. It sounds such terribly good fun to part of a Westminster bubble , immune to all criticisms.

    I wonder how many cheese and drinks do’s the police/ nurses/ office workers/ supermarket workers / football teams/ BBC/ITV wallahs/ Transport / and those who live in countryhouses including the chattering Labour classes … as well as that evil little duo called Ant and Dec were involved in.

    Looks to me as if burst bubbles are the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  44. This was the verse inside a Xmas card I got from a pal…

    A fart it is a pleasant thing,
    It gives the belly ease,
    It warms the bed in winter
    And suffocates the fleas.
    A fart can be quiet,
    A fart can be loud,
    Some leave a powerful,
    Poisonous cloud
    A fart can be short,
    Or a fart can be long,
    Some farts have been known To sound like a song……
    A fart can create
    A most curious medley,
    A fart can be harmless,
    Or silent, and deadly.
    A fart might not smell,
    While others are vile,
    A fart may pass quickly,
    Or linger a while……
    A fart can occur in a number of places,
    And leave everyone there,
    With strange looks on their faces.
    .
    From wide-open prairie,
    To small elevators,
    A fart will find all of us sooner or later.
    But farts are all bad,
    Is simply not true.
    We must never forget…
    Sweet old farts like you!

    Kinda brings a tear to your eye – doesn’t it?.

    2. Morning Belle. I can remember the Green Grocers horse drawn cart and the old men rushing out to collect the droppings for their gardens!

      1. “old men”? I was twelve when I was sent into the street to make the collection.

        1. There was a rush to get the droppings when the old rag and bone man came up our street. You had to be quick and people were poised in their front gardens in case they did it outside their house. Pity they weren’t as enthusiastic about dog shite

  46. Evidence…

    Well I have read somewhere that O’micron is spreading exponentially on a daily basis. Currently there are 130 cases, and if the suggested rate of spread is correct there will be 130 million cases in the UK by New Year. On the other hand if Mr Javid’s figures are indeed correct there will be 2000 million cases in the UK by the end of February. Better review your sums, Mr Javid?

    “Responding to the heckles, Mr Javid told BBC Breakfast: “My job is to do the right thing, led by the evidence.”
    He said the idea that the NHS might be “completely overwhelmed”, with people unable to get care following heart attacks or traffic accidents, was “a credible risk and why we acted as we did”.
    The health secretary said the evidence was that Omicron was doubling every 2.5 or three days, which could mean a million infections by the end of the month.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59589195

    1. If those figures are correct it means that every one of the UK population of 70,000,000 will have 28.5 cases each.

      You couldn’t make it up – but somebody did (who wasn’t very good at arithmetic).

        1. 70,000,000 perhaps? At least that many. Isn’t the 66 million figure based on census declarations, which are about as reliable as using pcr to gauge the spread of disease.

    2. If the PCR test can barely trace a coronavirus, not Covid, how do they know which mutation (variant) it is?

      Of course the answer is they don’t know. The con gets bigger and bigger by the day.

    3. The moral of this is that if, as soon as you develop symproms you use proper treatment: Vitamin C, Vitamin D, zinc and Ivermectin then you are likely to get better and the need to go to hospital will not arise.

      Unfortunately the politicians were swayed (by bribes or blackmail?) by Big Pharma and Ivermectin was banned because the pharmaceutical companies wanted obscene profits, a monopoly on vaccines and a stranglehold on us all.

      1. Well we’re taking vitamins D & C+zinc as a prophilaxis but ivermectin is harder to come by, though I have seen one or two online sources. I do have some old chloroquine tablets.

        1. I take Vitamin D capsules and Omega-3 fish oil capsules; but I obtain all my other vitamin and mineral requirements from a sensible diet.

          1. I think we do too, but C & D don’t do any harm, even with a good diet. We eat some oily fish every week as well.

    4. ‘…..led by the evidence’? The evidence that this latest scariant leads mainly to very mild (if any) illness and no surge in deaths?

  47. I don’t think Boris has ‘torpedoed’ public trust. If anyone trusted government to act in the country’s best interests rather than their own I’ve a bridge to sell them.

    And it’s not just the government. It’s the opposition, the other parties, the entire state edifice. They’re all liars and thieves.

      1. Yeah, Boris has done a fine job on getting illegal immigration ‘sorted’ so far, hasn’t he, Gerry?

    2. 342646+ up ticks,
      Morning W,
      That was why Gerard Batten & the real UKIP under his leadership, had to go via successful treachery meted out by the party nEc / nige.

  48. If Ian Metcalf sweats at the thought of his deodorant being £40 a litre what would printer ink at £20,000 a gallon do to him?

      1. Good morning Peter .

        He needs a proper wife to look after him during these times of stress, someone who organizes his suits and shirts, and who books appointments for a haircut. He doesn’t NEED crying babies and toddlers to distract him from the onerous task of head honcho. He is a middle-aged man, and a prime target for a cardiac event.

          1. Marina Wheeler , Boris’s previous wife In August 2019, revealed that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer earlier in the year and had undergone two operations to be in remission.

            Now in my book , Boris and Carrie were absolute b######ds , his requirement for sex with the evil little minx he is married to now , had no regard for the plight that Marina was in . None what so ever .

        2. Prime target for a cardiac event given his bulk and unhealthy lifestyle. The images of him jogging in shorts, exposing wobbly, pasty hardy legs are evidence of his good health…..

          3. I frequently have to edit after posting even without autokrekt – I just don’t see them till after I press post.

    2. That’s good we can forget about last year’s party, inflation dinghies and all while we all clap and Coo till Christmas…

  52. 342646+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    What a load of absolute bollocks, in your face treachery openly displayed since according to them the wrong result turned up on the
    24/6/2016.
    They have since they politically knifed Mrs Thatcher, been as bent as a nine bob note, more so, openly since the referendum, given succour by
    trusting fools who hoped / counted on them making good again,again,again & again never acknowledging the fact that “their MP”
    was in the main working to a United Kingdom destructive agenda.

    Thursday 9 December: Lifelong Tories look on in horror as the PM torpedoes public trust

    Additive, as did major, b liar,brown, the wretch cameron, clegg,treacherous treasa, the fat turk currently the coalition is in ” killing by programmed neglect mode” any still supporting these odious political types via party support can surely be judged to be in collusion.

    By the by I do believe they have a “look of horror department” used on a regular basis.

  53. Two weeks ago I was referred for an ultrasound. The doctor said if I hadn’t heard in 2 weeks to phone Radiology.
    I have just done that and the recorded message sai if you’ve been referred but not heard we will write to you but if you want to change or cancel an appointment hold on.
    I held on for 10 minutes and now have an appointment forMonday at 15.10. No doubt if I’d put the phone down that appointment would have gone to waste and I would have, eventually, received a letter offering an appointment in a couple of months.
    You have to fight for what you need and ignore all messages to the contrary especially those from this malevolent government.

    1. It seems to me now if you have the cash you can get anything you want.
      The irony I have to live with is it was lined up 3 years ago for a surgeon to look seriously at my left knee. I even had a consultation at a private hospital but on the NHS. But they some how decided it was better for me to leave it until I could hardly walk.

  55. I wonder what Sherlock and Doctor Watson would make of it in the Case of Disappearing Influenza?
    DoH Report Week 47 to 2nd December 2021
    “Through Respiratory Datamart, influenza positivity remained very low at 0.6% in week 47. Other indicators for influenza such as hospital admissions and GP influenza-like illness consultation rates remain very low.”

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037940/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w48.pdf

    1. That’s because GP consultations, either in person or by phone, are virtually non-existant
      I’m sure Flu has not all but disappeared, it is simply counted as Convid.

  56. How strange they are sitting in Westmister now , discussing the alleged drinks party.

    Their priorities are so nit pickingly ghastly , why aren’t they discussing the illegal boat people, the economy , homelessness, GP access, Muslim rape of indian and English females.

    1. Because those things do not matter. All that matters is keeping the populace cowed and controlled. It hasn’t worked with me and it will not. People like Whitty, Ferguson and Boris can take their restrictions and diktats and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine.
      My new mantra: Sod this government.

      1. I’m so fed up with this whole business – it’s now been nearly two years of gaslighting the people. They don’t care that we don’t matter.

  57. 342646+ up ticks,

    GB News
    @GBNEWS
    ‘I am absolutely astonished… I never believed I would hear such a thing from a British Prime Minister’

    Nigel Farage responds to Boris Johnson’s calls for a ‘national conversation’ on mandatory vaccinations.

    By the same token,

    I never believed I would hear such a thing from an ex leader of UKIP
    against the very peoples that followed him & gave him a well supported platform.

    https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk

  58. Just back from market. Forecast at 8.30 – dry and sunny. Dressed accordingly. Rained continuously.

    Market busy – many people not in masks. Morrisons – everyone masked except me. Events such as carol ,concerts being cancelled left right and centre. So no doubt the BPAPM will be photographed at some similar event, unmasked, wit his doxy and latest infant in tow.

    My hatred for these bastards knows no limit.

    1. I am now past hatred. I harbour a deep cold icy contempt that would make the Antarctic seem like mid-August Sorrento.

      2. That’s where one can see what my much beloved (and favourite) grand-daughter (when much younger) called “Seagirls”….

  59. Hardly slept a wink and Just recently stirred and been watching the know-all ranting about replacing Boris. But which one of the 22/2 would they choose there is a very fine line between success and further failure, as in desirable replacement and making the same mistake over and over again. I know he’s a bit of a knob but we must be very careful what we wish for.

        4. They come out with such outlandishly unbelievable figures then wonder why nobody with half a brain cell believes them.

        5. Ah well, by my calculation, at the rate of one million infections a day, the entire population of the UK will have been infected in about ten and a half weeks time so there’ll be no need for any more restrictions and things can get back to normal.

          ….. I’ll get me slide rule ….

          1. Please see my figures, 2000 million in 10 weeks. Posted earlier. It’s exponential, you know. They told us so.

        6. What a load of invented Bolera,………. how many people did it kill in southern Africa.
          Any one arriving from southern Africa has been quarantined for 10 days. With the possible Exception of the rubber boaters of course.

        7. Ah, there’s that word ‘could’ again. They could be completely out (and that’s the more likely scenario).

      3. I’m getting there Bill thanks, but i daren’t go out any where if cleared my throat or sneezed I think some one might drown me with water cannon.
        I knew it would come in handy one day Boros.
        Just finished making a shepherds Pie for this evening Erin is helping out with the grand children. And no didn’t cough or sneeze over it.
        I might take a knap now.

    2. Better the devil we know say I – I wouldn’t rate our chances of ever getting out of this horror story if Gove took over.

  60. I don’t normally hold with leaking – but I am coming round to it, as it seems the only way in which this foul gang of parasites will ever be got rid of. It worked with Cummings; it worked with Halfcock (who is trying eversohard to stage a come back as a new “reasonable” man); it worked with the PR woman. Please, PLEASE, God get some more of the evidence out into the open.

  61. OT – last night, the MR and I watched the first part (of 2) of a documentary about the Costa Corcordia disaster. It is on Channel 5.

    It was really very good. To this old fogey, the most extraordinary thing was that, as the floating hotel started to sink and then heeled over – and thousands of people were panicking because there was literally no one in charge, and it must have seemed that may hundreds would die – people took out their mobile phones and started FILMING, rather than seeking a way out. Talk about bizarre.

    There is also an excellent bit of phone traffic between the head of the Coastguard and the totally yellow-bellied “Captain” that if he didn’t, “Get the f*ck back on the ship, he’d see him in Hell”. Another unsung hero was the mayor of the small island who went out to the stricken ship, boarded it and spent hours searching for survivors deep down in the lower decks.

    Can’t wait for part 2. I had quite forgotten that it all happened close to midnight.

    1. We are watching tonight, but from the short clip I’ve seen it was complete chaos. When someone reported that the Italian Captain fell into a lifeboat I had to admit to a wry chuckle! (Cue old joke – Italian tanks are fitted with one forward and sixteen reverse gears…)

      1. I can guarantee that you will be rivetted. I never had any desire to go on a cruise – (the people, my dear, the people) – but this certainly confirmed the wisdom of my decision..!!

          1. I wouldn’t go on one of those monstrosities but i would go on a small cruiser on the Danube.

          7. The stopovers are good as well. If you are not interested in the itinery you can always go to a nice bar or restaurant.

    2. We’ve been watching it. Basically, the thing is (was) a cumbersome floating village. There is still at least one pootling around the oceans.

  62. Well my friends I was up at half three this morning and having done my Nottler duty and the shopping I am now off for my best hours sleep of the day! I will leave you with this thought. The President of the United States is a Senile Paederast. The Prime Minister of the UK is a Dick Happy clown, France is headed by an Anglophobe with a Mother Complex and Germany is ruled by who knows whom! The only world leader who is reasonably normal is Vladimir Putin. TTFN!

    1. The odd thing about Toy Boy is that, if his English Great-Grandfather hadn’t married a French woman, Toy Boy would not exist….

  63. Are any others here being deluged with “how to achieve net zero” emails? I’ve received several over the past few days, to both personal and business email addresses. It seems there is a campaign taking place.

  64. Breaking News.

    Reports are coming in that Diane Abbott was spotted arriving at the No10 xmas party carrying Easter eggs.

  66. If there was a piss-up at No 10 last Christmas it’s very unlikely Boris organised it. Because, well, you know….

  67. Would we rise up against another lockdown?

    Restrictions are back, but following ‘partygate’, an exasperated public might not play along

    FRASER NELSON

    I’m a friend of Allegra Stratton and was horrified when she agreed to be Boris Johnson’s official spokeswoman. It seemed like the worst job in London. His 10 Downing Street was already beset with chaos last autumn, feuding and indecision: firm pledges made one way were torn up the next. The Prime Minister allowed himself to be pushed around so much that he was nicknamed ‘the shopping trolley’ by those who did the pushing. Why would she want to be the official face of this mayhem? How could this possibly end well for her?

    It’s as well that her televised press conferences didn’t go ahead because she reacted the same way I would have when asked to defend the indefensible. Her response in rehearsals, discussing the last lockdown regime, was to mock its absurdity. We had all been plunged into a bizarre world where “work meetings” were allowed but socialising was not. Definitional tricks were applied because everyday human behaviour had been criminalised. Can a cheese and wine event be a ‘business meeting?’

    So we see her resign for expressing her private exasperation over ridiculous rules, whereas the authors of those rules keep going – and keep them coming. I’d say at least a third of the Cabinet, perhaps more, would react precisely the same way as Allegra did in private. There is despair, dismay and worry about the side effects of restrictions that the Government doesn’t seem to worry about.

    So we’re off again. Police are yet again going after those who don’t wear masks on public transport, in spite of the distinct lack of firm evidence showing that this makes much of a difference. They’re mandated in shops again, too. Now we have work-from-home guidance, which you can be sure no one in the Cabinet will be following. They’ll argue that effective working means they show up, working in the same room as their staff. The stay-home rules will be designed for the rest of us.

    But easily the most worrying development is Johnson adopting vaccine passports. He’s following Nicola Sturgeon’s experiment, using them for large venues. This would be understandable if the Scottish experience had been a success, but a 70-page evidence paper released by Sturgeon’s government had to admit that they had no measurable effect. On that basis, Sturgeon decided not to extend the scheme. Now, England is being subjected to the same policy without any evidence that it works.

    The big question is how many people will obey the rules this time. “There isn’t a chance of people going along with any Plan B,” one minister told me a few days ago. “The hospitals are coping fine. The data isn’t changing. There is nothing to justify any new crackdown.” This is precisely what Dominic Raab was arguing only on Tuesday. “We don’t think that Plan B is required,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. “Why? Because of the success of the vaccine programme.” A good answer. So what happened in the last 48 hours?

    The whole point of getting jabbed was that – as Chris Whitty once memorably put it – any new wave of Covid “would meet a wall of vaccinated people.” Data out yesterday shows that 95 per cent of adults now have Covid antibodies, a number that rises to 98 per cent for the over-75s. It’s as good a protection as you can ask for. There are concerns that omicron might be awful, and hospitalise the already-vaccinated. But that is, mainly, a theoretical worry.

    For real world evidence we can look to the Steve Biko hospital in Pretoria, currently the world epicentre of the omicron outbreak, which recently released a study of the 166 Covid patients in its care. They seem far less ill, it said. Far less likely to need oxygen, with patients discharged in three days rather than eight. South Africa has seen a big increase in Covid cases but far more of them are mild, so far fewer end up in hospital. Most of the 166 in hospital last weekend (when the study was done) were admitted for other reasons.

    It will take another week or two to work out what is happening in Britain – whether the rise in cases translates into a threat to the NHS. But so far, we have seen daily hospital admissions at around 780, far lower than the 4,000 seen in January. The latest NHS data shows that Covid patients occupy 5 per cent of its beds, down from 30 per cent in January. It’s hard to argue, on basic current evidence, that the NHS is facing “unsustainable pressure.”

    This was the test that Sajid Javid set in July when he ended lockdown. He would press ahead with reopening unless the Covid risks were “fundamentally changed” by a new variant. The best the Government can say now is that omicron might fundamentally change things, but we just don’t know. So to be sure, we end up with new restrictions. Their logic is perfectly clear: if in doubt, lock down.

    So how many of the public will go along with it? Compliance was high when Covid first emerged because almost nothing was known about its potency and people locked down out of ignorance of anything else to do. But now we have developed pills and vaccines which cut the risk. We know that the young and healthy are highly unlikely to get very ill – and the elderly can take extra precautions by dint of common sense – so it makes it harder for governments to revert to old tactics.

    The protests and riots seen across Europe in recent weeks were not seen the first time around. Back then, it was generally accepted that we were all in the dark. But now, governments are using lockdown tools while struggling to explain why they are necessary, and people are taking to the streets.

    In Brussels last weekend, 4,000 were protesting against mandatory jabs for healthcare workers and another 40,000 in Vienna on Saturday against mandatory vaccination. There have been protests in Frankfurt, in the Dutch city of Utrecht and even York Minster had a musical version of protests against what little restrictions that Boris Johnson has brought in.

    The protests reflect concern over the emergence of a biosecurity state, with vaccine passports marking a change in relationship between the state and society. Right now, anyone can go anywhere without having to prove who they are – or say anything about their medical status. Government does not decide who goes where. Vaccine passports would change all of that. This is why Johnson spent so much of his journalistic and political career opposing identity cards: he saw it as a defence of liberty.

    But where in the long evidence assessment of Scotland’s vaccine passport experiment is there any reason to believe they will benefit England?

    The way that the omicron variant seems to infect the already-vaccinated makes a mockery of the idea that being vaccinated means that you are safe and unlikely to infect others. They can hardly speed up appetite for vaccines or boosters, given how high British levels already are.

    Vaccine passports certainly can be used as a tool to harass the unvaccinated, but we should be clear about who these people are. As of last month, 14 per cent of white adults were unvaccinated. For the Asian population it’s 26 per cent and the black population it’s 40 per cent (rising to 51 per cent of under-40s). The ethnicity gap is down to complex reasons, relating to faith in authority.

    But more authoritarian measures are unlikely to work. You can see it in other ways: the poorest in Britain are twice as likely to be unjabbed as the richest. Vaccine passports, if deployed, may make minimal difference to the spread of Covid in Britain. But they will succeed in deepening inequalities that are already far too deep. The Covid protests in Britain have, so far, been pretty quiet, with the Government being given the benefit of the doubt. However, if the next few weeks show no real omicron threat – but the continuation of the Prime Minister’s restrictions – then all that could change.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/will-rise-against-lockdown-time/

    This puzzled me:
    It’s as well that her televised press conferences didn’t go ahead because she reacted the same way I would have when asked to defend the indefensible. Her response in rehearsals, discussing the last lockdown regime, was to mock its absurdity.

    Was the much-publicised video a practise run? I thought from the start it looked odd, with a handful of people in a badly-lit room with temporary staging.

    1. Yeah, right. Fraser Nelson; James Forsyth, Mary Wakefield, A Stratton – ALL pals – ALL bestest pals with Carrion.

      A nasty claque of self-important, woke scribblers posing as Conservatives.

      1. Within The Spectator clique, Taki has always spoken well of Ms Wakefield. Fraser Nelson is married to a Swedish woman and again his ideas seem to be reasonable and his articles well written. Of course, Net Zero policies are regressive and particularly hard on anyone without a secure job and who lives outside of a major conurbation.

        1. Taki just wanted to bed her. Nelson is one of the worst…!

          That’s my unvarnished view, anyway.

    2. Might I suggest then, if she did not agree with the policy that she was right to resign.

      The entire cabinet is a shambolic farce showing weathervane politics led by focus groups who provide the answers the state wants. I’m tired of it.

      Government has ceased to be the part time management team hired by the shareholders – the public – and sees itself now as our masters, to control and dictate how we will live our lives – while they do whatever they please. This isn’t a Tory/Labour split – they all think alike.

      1. 342646+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,
        A mass uncontrolled immigration ( ongoing)
        mass uncontrolled paedophile umbrella
        ( ongoing) I believe it could even be a coalition.

    3. What has evidence to do with any decision Panic Johnson makes? He’s following an agenda set by others and has very little, if any, wriggle room. If the political journalists, who know and understand this, finally gird their loins and disclose the information Panic and the current Tory government will be done. It has to be assumed that government largesse is keeping the journalists’ mouths closed. Which of Johnson’s future diktats will start the ball rolling?

  68. How very dare Boris have a baby while the world is in the process of population reduction, one rule for them another rule for us.

    2. I opened the window today to let out the Omicrons that had come to the wine and cheese party but in flew Ensa!

    3. I am baffled as to how wild birds coming here, from Russia and elsewhere, to spend the winter can infect domesticated birds like chickens. Geese and waders won’t go anywhere near a chicken farm, will they?

    4. I saw that too, and had exactly the same thought “how will the government use this to try and whip up more fear?”

    5. Good evening Sir. I believe it was your birthday t’other day.
      I hope you had a good’un!

  70. To getaway from the madness, I am going into the garden to gather winter fuel. I may be some time.

  74. Back from wood gathering. Got enough kindling for a fortnight. Very pleasant out – about 9ºC and still. Cook and Head Gardener are out doing something earthy.

    I hope to be able to start the crossword – once I have shifted Gus from my armchair.

    1. Hmm, and I’m back from wool-gathering, updating prize crossword and entering and reading.

    2. After getting tonight’s logs sorted, I shifted 10 bin liners of soil up the garden from the verge I’m slowly clearing.

  76. There’s a DEC Appeal about to be launched…for the hungry and economically challenged of Afghanistan. Am I alone in reacting to that with…WTF??

    1. Come, come, Our Susan. Remember that Prince William of Woke said that Afghanis are very welcome in the UK – “After all they had done for us”…

    2. Let us save all the little Arthurs in our own country, and ourselves too from authoritarian government first.

  77. Nicked spot on comment

    Everyone seems to have grabbed the wrong end of the stick firmly with both hands.

    “My mother died alone while people went to a party at number 10”

    “But you agree with the rules and that they were necessary at the time?”

    “Yes, of course, but people at number 10 ignored them”

    “So it was okay for your mother to die alone, as long as there wasn’t a party at number 10 at the same time?”

    Awkward silence.

    The problem is not the party, the problem is the rules. I’m glad they had a
    party, because it shows the rules are nonsense. I hope they had more
    parties, I hope they all had parties. I hope they carry on having
    parties and rubbing the public’s faces in it. I hope the police carry on
    refusing to investigate. I hope for all of these things.

    It’s not the parties that are wrong, it’s the rules.

    Wake up!

  78. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-stop-seven-terror-attacks-pandemic-islamist-right-wing-extremism-b971009.html

    The latest figures take the total number of foiled terrorism plots in the last four years to 32, Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) said.
    It comes as senior police officers warned the public “not to let their guard slip during the festive period”.
    Since March 2017, there have been 18 disrupted plots related to Islamist extremism, 12 linked to extreme right-wing terrorism and two to left, anarchist or “single issue terrorism”.

    18 to Islam, 12 to extreme RWT and 2 others?
    Are they seriously pretending that right wing terrorism is that preponderant? I find that very hard to believe, unless putting a bacon sandwich at a mosque counts as extreme RWT.

    2. Is that 12 people they tried to fine for not wearing a mask on the tube and being unvaxxed in possession of a travel pass?

  81. The Norwegian state Medicines Agency report 44.461 reports of side-effects from the Corona vaccine, of which 4.083 are classed as “serious”. 24.09 needed treatment. Total doses given is over 8,9 million.
    https://legemiddelverket.no/english/covid-19-and-medicines/vaccines-against-covid-19/reported-suspected-adverse-reactions-of-covid-19-vaccines
    Report in English is here: https://legemiddelverket.no/Documents/English/Covid-19/20211126%20Reported%20suspected%20adverse%20reactions%20coronavirus%20vaccines.pdf

    1. Even that report leaves a few questions.

      When several hundred over nineties die within a month or two of vaccination, did the jab do it or were there other causes?

  82. If you think Omicron is bad just wait until the Pi variant turns up … It’ll be 3.14159265359 times worse.
    (Or 3.14 if you’re not that anal about accuracy)

      1. ‘Tis an unproven vaccine that creates Shades
        Things gross and rank in nature possess it entirely.

        (With apols to W.Shakespeare)

      1. Just hang on for another variant or two then chi will be accompanied by a complementary Chai latte.

    1. We need much more of Peter Bone’s hard line against Panic Johnson. At a lower level we need more of this:

      The chairman of a Conservative group has resigned live on BBC radio over the government’s plans for tighter Covid restrictions. The new measures include masks in most public places, Covid passes for some venues and work-from-home guidance. Charlie Sansom, of South Basildon Conservatives, told BBC Essex he did not agree with the Plan B proposals. He said: “I cannot morally defend a party that I consider to be moving in a very tyrannical direction.”

      3. Can we enjoy the agony of opposition parties who routinely call Johnson the F-word, not least for his prorogation and the rumoured ‘Interpretation Act’, but who are wholly in favour of Covid oppression and don’t think he’s gone far enough?

      4. Can we enjoy the agony of opposition parties who routinely call Johnson the F-word, not least for his prorogation and the rumoured ‘Interpretation Act’, but who are wholly in favour of Covid oppression and don’t think he’s gone far enough?

  84. Appears that Javid the Bald has decided to hunker down and avoid a testing questioning session from J H-B. Not a good look from one of the four Cabinet members reputedly responsible for the current shambles. There’s an adage that goes along the lines of, if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen. It’s one thing to push the globalists’ plans on the people but quite another to explain the reasoning when there clearly isn’t any evidence to support the decision.

    Which journalist will break the mould and ask Javid and/or Johnson, clearly and firmly, what was the importance of their meetings with an American computer systems and keen vaccine promoter billionaire, a few weeks ago?

    https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1468875753173536770

  87. Talking of cheese – we rely for much excellent cheese on Tony’s “Knock-off” Stall at Fakenham Market. He sells perfectly good items that wholesalers realise won’t get sold before the use-by date and, therefore, dispose of.

    Bargains galore. This morning a 250 g piece of “Tuma del Trifulau” from Beppino Occelli – which sells for about £8 if you can find it – (£17 on Amazon). Tony’s price = £1.

  88. HAPPY HOUR

    I Give You the End of a Golden String

    I give you the end of a golden string
    Only wind it into a ball
    It will lead you in at Heavens Gate
    Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

    William Blake

    In life’s rich tapestry we have many different coloured
    threads running through our lives.
    The gold are the most precious.
    Hold it and gather it in, it will bring you gifts and joy.

    3. Oh life is a glorious cycle of song,
      A medley of extemporanea.
      And love is a thing that can never go wrong…
      And I am Marie of Romania.

      By Dorothy Parker

  90. Just been off to fetch my new face-mask. Must keep up with the rules.

    As BPAPM has f*cked off to send time with his latest family (and I just wonder how long that will last…) I assume that Drabb will be “in charge”. Great to know that things can only get worse.

    2. Going on paternity leave the week after a small boy was not saved from two murderers in part due to Boris’s lockdown rules that he has just re-imposed is…….more than crass.
      I am so fed up with being furious that I don’t get angry any more at much, but I am REALLY angry at Boris swanning off to play at political correctness while the country burns.
      And I think partygate is his exit ticket to a well-funded retirement!

  91. Well I never….who (or WHO) would have thunk it

    Ex-MI6 chief Richard Dearlove says Britain’s science sector has been compromised by ‘malign Chinese Communist influence’ and so parroted China’s party line that Covid did NOT leak from a Wuhan lab
    Ex-MI6 boss said UK universities have become dependent on Chinese funding
    He raised concerns on whether Britain echoed China’s ‘information campaign’
    Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is laboratory at the centre of alleged cover-up
    China has repeatedly insisted the virus spilled naturally into humans from bats

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10292827/Ex-MI6-chief-says-UKs-science-sector-com

    1. The New Scientist this week has an article all about the proof that the virus did originate in the wet market.
      They seem to be having another round of this particular story! It’s so silly to carry on insisting when the truth is out there in public and everyone who can say “Dr Peter Martin” has heard it!

    3. A much maligned individual, Sir Richard.
      A pity, because he’s more often right than wrong.

  92. Another sign that this country has gone mad….it’s dark, it’s raining and they have just come and cleaned the bloody windows! Is it just me or does anyone else feel that it’s all gone arse up? Rhetorical question natch.

    2. YES!

      Just heard the acting Headmistress of grand daughters primary school has cancelled the Children’s jollies tomorrow and rearranged them for early in the New Year including Santa’s guest appearance…….

  93. Watch: PM Boris Encouraged Tory Activists to ‘Exchange Bodily Fluids’ Just Two Months Ago

    Boris Johnson told a laughing group of Conservative members they should use the party conference to exchange “ideas… and, indeed, bodily fluids” in the same month the government instructed the public to exercise restraint in seeing other people and to wear masks in “crowded environments”.

    Footage provided by Breitbart London shows British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his role as leader of the governing Conservative Party, giving a speech to a packed room of members at this year’s party conference and encouraging them to have a fun — and intimate — time. Speaking to the laughing activists, the prime minister said: “…at this old fashioned, proper Conservative party conference… exchange ideas, warm embraces, and indeed, bodily fluids”.

    The behind-closed-doors exhortation to excess take on a ‘rules for thee but not for me’ flavour given what Johnson’s government was saying in public around the time of the comments. The October 4th speech came amid the government seeding the idea of an October “fire-break” or “circuit breaker” lockdown narrative in the press.
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/12/09/watch-pm-boris-encouraged-tory-activists-to-exchange-bodily-fluids-just-two-months-ago/

    2. “Well folks, I think I’m on the home straight now….another few weeks, and I’ll be retired”

      2. “”Well folks, I think I’m on the home straight now….another few weeks, and I’ll be retired put down.”

    4. Boris Johnson left the audience completely bemused after he started hailing Peppa Pig World during a speech on Monday.

      Speaking at a conference for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) the prime minister not only lost his place, imitated the “brmm brmm” of a car, but referred to his recent trip to the family theme park.

      He said: ”Hands up anybody who has been to Peppa Pig World?

      “Not enough. I was a bit hazy [about] what I would find at Peppa Pig World but I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place.

      ″It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on new mass-transit systems I noticed, even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.

      ″The real lesson for me, going to Peppa Pig World – I’m surprised you haven’t been there – was about the power of UK creativity.

      “Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer, or possibly a Picasso like hairdryer, a pig that was rejected by the BBC would now be exported to 180 countries with theme parks both in America and China as well as in the New Forest.”

      He added that he thought the cartoon was “pure genius”, claiming no civil servant would “conceivably come up with Peppa”.

      Will the baby be called Peppa

      Peppa pig wallpaper for the flat!

  95. Just read the Speccie lunchtime e-mail. It includes, “Dominic Raab and Grant Schapps are self-isolating after being in close contact with Australia’s deputy prime minister…” I got the giggles and finished the sentence with someting rude but of course it’s, “…who tested positive for Covid”.

  96. Just finished unpacking the Morrisons’ shopping. First time I’ve shopped for 2 weeks. There was one old fellah unmasked like me and I saw a middle aged lady also maskless. All others masked up except a couple of the checkout ladies. I was hoping to be confronted or something, but I wasn’t, maybe the odd glance but I think it showed on my face that I was just waiting for it. Ah, well.

    1. We are heading out shortly to the dreaded Asda…never had issues before but just let them try- Grrrr.

      1. What got my goat also was not just the regression to 99% kowtowing, but this isn’t even meant to start until tomorrow.

    3. I take the view: who cares? At least the taxpayer was saved. How much did Bercow’s palace refurbishment cost?

  100. 342646 + up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Prime Minister Johnson justified his advice at the conference by claiming party members were able to “exchange bodily fluids” partly “because of Brexit”, and “partly because of the vaccine task force”, but mainly because we have a Conservative government “that gets things done”.

    The main issue in the “getting things done via the body fluids department”and a success is his, his party, & his party supporters giving the the United Kingdom
    a right royal rodgering.

    Would nor be surprised to see keith vaz making an appearance with the foreign rent boys demonstrating how four man daisy chains are
    established.

    The main thing in the “getting thi

  101. OT – several days each week, military aircraft – USAF, RAF – fly round and round in North Norfolk. I know they have to train – but the noise is often intolerable. Their flight paths look something like the one shown below. Sometimes very tight circles – apparently centred on this house!!

    Can any former RAF NoTTLers tell me what the hell they are doing – and why they can’t do it over the North Sea (or – better still, Scotland)?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b7e5808e4275176faefff88cfb4aed9488ca8ce19ea47fb3a2b74483649c866.jpg

    2. There is a plane or planes flying around here in North Yorkshire and has been doing so for a few days. I have yet to get sight of it/them despite the sky being more blue than cloudy. Training flights near Leemong airfield are quite common but Covid 19 has reduced that activity.

    4. No obvious answer unless it was a US newbe sightseeing in the UK. The airspace in East Anglia is quite congested for jets and from Coltishall it was a straight line west or north to annoy the Welsh or the northerners.

      2. On a sunny afternoon i had the Police plane fly over my bungalow 25 times. Circling the town centre. When i phoned up and complained they said they were looking for someone who had brandished a knife. Great search option, not.

        A year later they lost their funding.

  103. Right. That’s me gone to spend more time with my family. Plaice this evening.

    Who will rid us of this incompetent, lying bastard? And just think, yet more Johnson spawn to pollute the middle of this century.

    I hope to see you all happy and serene tomorrow

    A demain.

    2. “…to spend more time with my family. Plaice this evening.”

      I hope each one may find his/ her plaice …”

  105. North Shropshire by-election: Tory candidate ‘told not to speak to media because he knows little about area’

    Neil Shastri-Hurst has been parachuted in from Birmingham and is ‘essentially hiding away’

    Senior Conservative Party officials have ordered the party’s North Shropshire by-election candidate not to speak to media amid concerns he knows so little about the area, insiders say.

    Birmingham barrister Neil Shastri-Hurst has been parachuted in to fight the safe seat after its previous MP Owen Paterson resigned amid a sleaze scandal.

    But local party members reckon the new man has so little understanding of the rural issues faced in the sprawling agricultural constituency that he has been told to avoid press interviews for fear he will damage his own campaign.

    He has done almost no media appearances since he was selected as the Tories’ candidate on 13 November. Requests to speak him have been ignored by both Dr Shastri-Hurst himself and Matthew Follows, the party’s regional press officer for the West Midlands.

    “He’s a nice bloke and will no doubt be a quick learner if he’s elected but it’s embarrassing that a Tory in North Shropshire is essentially hiding away,” one local party member told The Independent.

    “They’re not letting him speak because they know that any journalist worth their salt would expose his lack of understanding within about three questions.”

    The revelation comes amid growing consternation among regional Tories that the lawyer was selected in the first place.

    Mark Whittle, the Conservative deputy mayor of Market Drayton, has quit the party in protest, while campaigners said Dr Shastri-Hurst’s unfamiliarity with the area was being repeatedly brought up on the doorstep by voters feeling taken for granted.

    Although he has taken part in a number of hustings, some Tories fear his soundbites have appeared too generalised to impress.

    He is also said to have appeared nervous around animals at a livestock market, while his early campaign calls to reopen the long-closed Gobowen to Oswestry railway line have suggested a fundamental lack of knowledge about the constituency’s geography. The A5 bypass now runs across the old line meaning that reopening the two-mile stretch of line would require a tunnel costing hundreds of millions of pounds. [Bullshit. A single-carriageway road over a double-track railway? The Dyfi viaduct, near to half-a-mile, at Machynlleth comes in at under £50 million.]

    “I took him around Market Drayton a couple of days after he was selected and he knew absolutely zilch about the area,” said Mr Whittle. “In a city, I’m sure he’d be a fine MP but, here in the sticks, as you’d call it, he hasn’t a clue.”

    Ben Wood, the Labour candidate from Oswestry, said: “If the Conservative Party are trying to impose a candidate with no real local connection, they should at least have the decency not to lock him up for the duration of the campaign. Yet again, this is the Tories taking the people of North Shropshire for granted.”

    It is not the first time the party has stopped by-election candidates speaking to the media. In both the Hartlepool and Batley and Spen by-elections this year, they used a similar playbook.

    In Hartlepool, the tactic worked with Jill Mortimer romping to victory. In Batley and Spen, it did not. Despite being expected to take the seat from Labour, Ryan Stephenson lost out to Kim Leadbeater.

    Dr Shastri-Hurst – a trained surgeon – did not respond to request for comment.

    Mr Follows called the claims “absolute rubbish” and added: “He is doing multiple election hustings, including one organised by the BBC, and he is out speaking to people in North Shropshire every day.”

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/north-shropshire-by-election-neil-shastri-hurst-b1972982.html

    1. Not that I am at all supportive of a Conservative candidate, owing to the complete shambles of a government, (understatement!) you’d think they would know better than to “parachute” someone in by now. They never learn do they. I hope the guy is not elected.

      1. I live here and sad to say, he is the least worst of the main bunch on offer. Naturally, I’d like to see the UKIP candidate elected (I declare an interest because I’m a member), but frankly, the rest are mediocre. The independents are not local, the Reform candidate is the daughter of a County Councillor who had to resign “under a cloud” as my neighbour put it and there is a rejoin the EU candidate who hopefully should lose his deposit in a constituency that voted 60:40 to leave.

    2. I’ve seen him at a couple of hustings. He’s okay with politics speak, but I don’t think he knows anything about the area. He did claim to want to dual the A5 (it’s a vile road and dualling has been on the agenda for years) so it if that happened, it wouldn’t be a “single carriageway road” any more. Ben Wood is a callow youth (he’s 26, but looks about 17) who appears not to have any experience outside Oswestry where he was born, brought up, went to school and worked. He also denied that Labour had high tax policies!!! The Lib Dem thinks she’s already won (and unfortunately, the bookies make her favourite – Heaven help us if that’s true!) and the Green is an ex-social worker who would put the lights out. The other candidates don’t seem to be getting a look-in at hustings (I know the UKIP candidate was excluded from the one in Whitchurch and didn’t even know about the one at the social centre in Oswestry until it was over).

      1. “…it wouldn’t be a single carriageway road any more…”

        But it still wouldn’t cost hundreds of millions to bridge it. That’s terrible journalism (not that I think a reinstatement of the railway is viable anyway).

          2. One of the problems is that when Beeching closed it all down, the land was sold off (and built over). I don’t know how expensive it would be to build a monorail or whether that would be feasible.

    4. He looks like a smug foreign idiot. Patterson understood farming. This chap looks like he’d wear brogues to a farm.

      If this is what Tory HQ think is appropriate, they’re fugging gormless.

    5. In the first report of his being chosen, it was pointed out he had raised thousands of pounds for the Conservative Party. I think we have our answer.

  107. In a symbolic gesture, Nicola Sturgeon has sold out Scotland’s energy sector to the Greens: The demolition of the Longannet Power Station 600ft chimney.

    “First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had the honour of pushing the button to ignite 700kg of explosives, bringing down the chimney stack which has dominated the Firth of Forth skyline for more than 50 years.”

    The First Minister said: “Today’s event is a symbolic reminder that we have ended coal-fired power generation in Scotland, as we work in a fair and just way towards becoming a net-zero nation by 2045.

    “Our goal is to generate 50% of overall energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, and Scotland’s energy sector is well placed to deliver on the key investments in renewables, hydrogen and energy storage required to achieve this.

    “Growth in these sectors over the next decade will be transformative for Scotland, delivering further good, green jobs, strengthened energy security, and benefits for local communities as we decarbonise industry and society to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, in a way that leaves no one behind.”

    She doesn’t even mention Nuclear Power – without which Scotland will never have a reliable power supply. When Scotland’s two remaining NPS – Hunterston B and Torness – are decommissioned the Scottish economy will rely on Wind and a Prayer

    The First Minister was a youthful Ban-the Bomb protester; she has no understanding of the difference between nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

    With her new friends – the Greens – she will finally wreck what remains of the Scottish economy.

    1. In 100 years, when people are addicted to Covid jabs, and the side effects are cancerous, will the same apply?

    6. Jacinda is clearly a moron. She doesn’t seem to remeember history – such as prohibition?

      3. Hoi, that book, Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky arrived yesterday. Started it this evening. Top notch so far.

  114. Downing Street must quickly reform Whitehall if it wants to recover from Covid

    If Boris Johnson cannot present some substantive levelling-up achievements by the next election, he will have very little to present at all

    ADAM HAWKSBEE • 9 December 2021 • 1:23pm

    Amidst the multiple crises engulfing his Government, the Prime Minister will be looking urgently to recover his agenda. This makes the launch of the “levelling-up” white paper, expected in January, doubly important if he wishes to present the public with a substantive list of policy achievements at the next election.

    He will have to reconcile a tension at the heart of the agenda: that transforming the UK’s economy will take decades, but voters expect results within months. Indeed, the greatest risk with any political agenda is over-promising and under-delivering.

    The way to avoid this fate is to put a premium on speed. Levelling-up requires Whitehall to work much faster, and more flexibly, than it does traditionally. The last two years reveal what can be done. The Vaccines Taskforce, led by Kate Bingham, moved at an unprecedented pace to put the UK at the front of the queue for vaccines. Her message on applying lessons from ‘wartime to peacetime’ are simple: adopt an innovator’s mindset, empower experts with real world experience and promote public leaders who get things done.

    These lessons appear not to have been adopted by the Antivirals Taskforce, which has adopted an approach to acquiring life-saving Covid pills more typical of the Whitehall set-up. As Dr Penny Ward highlighted in the Daily Telegraph in October, the taskforce was reluctant to bet on promising drugs such as molnupiravir, which has since been approved by the health regulator. It purchased amounts that could only cover the general population for weeks, not months or years.

    In the United States, meanwhile the billionaire Patrick Collison and economist Tyler Cowen made a virtue of speed when issuing “fast grants” to promising clinical trials, successfully identifying a number of drugs able to treat coronavirus. We see on one side of this distinction the likes of Cowen and Bingham, and on the other a Whitehall system that too often fails to deliver at an efficient pace.

    Now, if Johnson wants to benefit from the potential electoral payoff of levelling-up, he will have to get Whitehall to adopt the Bingham mindset en masse. The Government needs to break through the normal bureaucracy and economic orthodoxy to just get things done. This means accepting risk and learning from failure, rather than trying to mitigate both entirely. And it means empowering public leaders in local areas, giving them the resources to take quick and practical actions in their places.

    Imagine, for example, what Ben Houchen could do for inward investment in Tees Valley if he were immediately given control over funds to attract foreign firms. Or what Andy Street could do for adult skills in the West Midlands if he was handed power and funds to join up Further Education with local skills demand. Or what leaders in the North East, or Wales, or the South West could achieve if they received portions of the £20 billion uplift in science funding announced in the Budget, perhaps via “fast grants” to SMEs and regional universities rather than the usual glacial bureaucracy for applying for science investment.

    Nor is this just about regional governance. Being radical on devolution should mean empowering neighbourhoods and town councils, providing them with practical powers to clean up their high streets, tackle anti-social behaviour and oversee local parks and civic assets. And it means reinvesting funding from development directly to local communities to rebuild their neighbourhoods after the pandemic – avoiding costly and slow bidding processes. [But perhaps not in Dewsbury, Batley, Tower Hamlets or Sparkbrook.]

    Levelling-up is a long-term project. But that does not mean tangible progress cannot be delivered quickly. There must be something for voters to see – and feel – when they go to the ballot box in 2024. And something to build upon in the next phase of levelling-up in the next Parliament. Given the depth and scale of Britain’s regional divides, there is not a moment to waste.

    Adam Hawksbee is Deputy Director at the think tank Onward

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/09/downing-street-must-quickly-reform-whitehall-wants-recover-covid/

    1. Isn’t it becoming painfully obvious that Johnson has no intention of fighting the next election? Excluding most of the House of Commons from any kind of decision-making process ensures that attention is focused on a tiny clique at the top, making the handover of power look more like a coronation of the next globalist shill than an election in a supposedly democratic country.

      1. Isn’t Christmas the season of miracles? Don’t even think JC could sort this shower out.

    3. Another clot believing all that vaccination bollox. If you give someone license to blow billions on purchasing vaccines without restriction they will spend it as has occurred here. No testing and animal testing data and no liability on the felons in Pharma.

      1. As we discussed on Tuesday night, notwithstanding the merits or otherwise of vaccines, this is about institutional failure and how to Get Things Done.

    4. At a local hustings the candidates were asked to state one achievement and one failure of the current government. They all (including the Con) struggled to find an achievement. He said the vaccine rollout. In my view, that’s hardly and achievement!

    6. These people all think government is the solution, that if only it did ‘more’, the problems would evaporate. In reality, the problem IS government. You cannot lift yourself out of a bucket by the handles.

  115. Back from Sainsbury’s- change of plan. Except it’s now Sa…bury’s because those lights are out. Husband is chuffed to mintballs as he has bought a 2022 Beano annual for half price. His excuse was that he’s going to check it out for the grand monsters; hahaha. Once he’s finished I shall grab it.
    Weather awful but cabs reliable, as always. It’s nice to be home in the warm.
    I sincerely hope you have all been behaving in my absence- pause for laud laughter;-)

    1. What a coincidence (or maybe it’s company policy!)! Our local Sainsburys has been Sai..burys for quite some time! Spooky!

  116. With regard to the suggestion by Fataturk that we have a ‘national conversation’ about the possible introduction of vaccine passports and vaccine mandates, such measures would require abolition of the Nuremberg Code.

    The arrogance of some gross (in the Samuel Johnson sense) mouthpiece of globalists to address the country in ignorance of the medical condition of the recipients of the mandated jabs is pure tyranny and evil.

    I have a history of blood clotting and the last thing I want is an injectate which causes clotting along with other serious adverse events. Apart from an individuals autonomy to choose many of us can see that the entire Covid episode has been constructed and manmade.

    This is the fatal fallacy which is insurmountable with government edict in a Democratic system. We choose, not them.

    1. With you on this, Corim. Had a stroke from blood clotting, not keen to go there again just to be “protected” against a cold…

    2. It seems that from 15/12/21 if I want to go racing I have to produce proof of being double jabbed or I won’t be let in. Not going racing, then. I’ll watch it on the Internet and they can do without my money in the bars.

        1. If enough people vote with their feet and stay away, the economic impact will start to be felt and maybe the clods in power will think again.

          1. I don’t think the economic impact is anywhere near even a list of priorities, let alone on it. They are trying to break us. But the traders may then start to put pressure on the government (I.e. join the revolution/civil war).

    3. After MB’s event last February – a fortnight to the day after his first jab – I think you are making a wise decision.
      MB had no history of blood clots; at first we thought his heart attack it was due to his age, but the emerging evidence of these last few months have made us wonder.

      1. In the mid nineties I designed several buildings at The Babraham Institute near Cambridge including a major Immunology and Signalling Laboratory.

        Babraham Institute is a BBSRC animal testing facility. I saw and understood the need for potential drug therapies to be tested on animals, specifically mice, rats and ferrets. They were also breeding pigs for the potential use of pigs’ organs in human transplants.

        The vaccines being pushed have not been tested on animals. This is dangerous territory.

        The other side of the medical research industry showed me the venal nature of many of the researchers. They were obsessed with publications and launching new drugs (via so-called incubator units) with the chance of gaining commercial funding and becoming very wealthy.

        I trust very few of the medical fraternity and remain disappointed that otherwise intelligent state-trained operatives and doctors have acquiesced in the present tyranny.

        1. We live next door to one of these. He told my husband that it was his civic duty to get vaccinated (very early on in the process). He (vet neighbour) had volunteered to test the vaccine. I am sure he would get the saline solution.

          1. It has been established that there are at least five versions of the Pfizer shots. Some kill you within 24 hours, others delay the onset of serious injury by a week or so, others give you six months or so to live whilst the two others grant you several years before killing you. It is thought that one of the five versions might be saline solution.

            This is the means by which the evil
            bastards pushing this stuff seek to spread the deathly effects and obfuscate matters.

        2. Did you meet Sir Barry Cross? I and my family stayed with him and his wife when my brother got married in the 80s. If I recall correctly, he was director of that institute. He and my sister in law’s father lived on Babraham road in Cambridge.

          1. When I worked at Babraham Institute the Director was Peter Thornton. I worked there for Feilden and Mawson from around 1996 to 1998 from memory. I did not enjoy the experience.

          2. My brother, as I think I said, was married in the early 80s so obviously before your time there. They were a very nice couple and made us very welcome. At the time, I had no idea what Barry was involved in.

          3. I recollect that in the eighties Babraham was the Farm Institute. This was subsequently removed to Norwich alongside the Sainsbury Laborarories..

            Again, I have a poor recollection of the history of the stuff I inherited and was asked to sort. Also at the time I worked there normal activity was made difficult by the Animal Rights hooligans who had threatened the site with a fake bomb Jiffy bag.

            Huntingdon Life Sciences were targeted at this time and made the news.

      2. In the mid nineties I designed several buildings at The Babraham Institute near Cambridge including a major Immunology and Signalling Laboratory.

        Babraham Institute is a BBSRC animal testing facility. I saw and understood the need for potential drug therapies to be tested on animals, specifically mice, rats and ferrets. They were also breeding pigs for the potential use of pigs’ organs in human transplants.

        The vaccines being pushed have not been tested on animals. This is dangerous territory.

        The other side of the medical research industry showed me the venal nature of many of the researchers. They were obsessed with publications and launching new drugs (via so-called incubator units) with the chance of gaining commercial funding and becoming very wealthy.

        I trust very few of the medical fraternity and remain disappointed that otherwise intelligent state-trained operatives and doctors have acquiesced in the present tyranny.

    4. Would there be an option to refuse? As if the vaccine is forced on me, I could die.

      We urgently need referism, recall and direct democracy. The state must be brought to heel.

    5. I think even Johnson is distancing himself now from ‘mandatory vaccination’ after today’s backlash from the backbenchers.

    1. If we aren’t, we bloody well soon will be.
      I am not going to apologise for any bad language as I am sure it echoes what you all feel.
      Sod this government.

    2. Is that councillor going to pay for them? Feed, clothe and house them? Of course he isn’t.

      Perhaps he needs to be forced to. In fact, let’s have all those demanding the illegal criminal gimmigrants are brought here housing them permanently.

  121. Evening, all. I think public trust in politicians was lost long before Bojo; Heath, Blair, Brown, Cameron and the LDs, May – all had a hand in destroying it.

        1. I will never again be able to take Parliament even remotely seriously after this farce. I have lost all respect for the process. Perhaps that is the intention. Perhaps that really was Johnson’s remit. “Allow us to present: Your New World Government!”

          3. No – but there was a certain aura that enveloped the Houses of Parliament. It has simply crumbled like a crushed biscuit to reveal the corrupt tawdriness of everyday criminals.

    1. These hymns remind me of sepulchural Sunday evenings in the 60s with the stultifying dirge of ‘Sing Something Simple’ followed by ‘Songs of Praise’.

      1. It was “Sing Something Sinful” in our house. Mainly by me. It did rather indicate the close of the weekend.

        2. We poor devils who attended the Papist establishments had to put up with modern ‘hymns’ such as ‘Go Tell Everyone’ and ‘Lord of The Dance’, sing-along camp-fire compositions better suited to nursery school. How little the staff knew how much we mocked them.

          1. Hymn books and maps are similar, in that they’re never up to date. I don’t know ‘GTE’ (except I once borrowed a colleagues Vauxhall Astra of that ilk – it was quick). LOTD was by Sydney Carter, who was notionally Anglican, with a bit of Quaker thrown in. The theology is a bit dubious, but it’s a good sing, and is still in use in the C of E.

          3. Thanks, WS. I’ve had a listen, and it seems fairly inoffensive.

            We used to have an ecumenical service in the tent after the local village show. On alternate years the Baptist church in Guildford would send along their ‘worship band’, I regret to say that their musical offerings went totally above my head. Much repetition, no discernible melody. You wouldn’t whistle it on the way home. Perhaps I’m stuck in a traditionalist rut…

          6. I danced on the Friday when the sky turned black,
            It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back,
            They buried my body and they thought I’d gone,
            But I am the dance and I still go on.

          7. I danced on the Friday when the sky turned black,
            It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back,
            They buried my body and they thought I’d gone,
            But I am the dance and I still go on.

          8. The melody of Lord of the Dance is one used by Copland in Appalachian Spring. I think it is an old folk tune dating to the older days. I watched a wonderful show on PBS years ago in CT where a couple of people went round and got the people in the Appalachians to sing into a recorder. Most of them couldn’t read. I have looked for it to no avail but it was superb.

          11. Copland gave Appalachian Spring the title ‘Ballet for Martha’. Martha being Martha Graham the choreographer and dancer.

            A girlfriend took me to dance school in Covent Garden to learn Graham technique. It was hard work and after several lessons I declined.

          19. I never did things by half. A tradition I try to maintain to this day.

            A lady friend at a recent reunion of us Sheffield students wondered what she could do with the problems facing her. I remarked that all any of us can do is the best possible. That is my mantra.

          21. I shall look into it more tomorrow but I think you may have found it! Thank you.
            Sleep well, as I hope to soonish.

        3. Same here. It was a reminder that it was school on Monday and it was time to do my homework in a rush.

      4. Semprini and Victor Sylvester remain in my memory. I hated the Mike Sammes Singers but my relatives thought them soothing and relaxing after working all week.

        1. Single Something Simple featured The Adams Singers and Jack Emblow on the accordion. Mike Sammes (of the Sammes Singers) provided the “basso profound” voice for Windsor Davies when he and Don Estelle recorded their “It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum” chart-topper version of “Whispering Grass”.

          EDIT/ADDITION: It was the Cliff Adams Singers.

          1. My wife insisted that we play a recording of the Mile Sammes Singers at the cremation service for her father a few years ago. Carol remembered his love of the easy tunes and that he found relaxation from the soothing melodies.

            In days past a generation thought Harry Secombe an operatic star.

            We thought about another of his favourites the ‘Inkspots’ but reasoned that was going too far.

            I wrote a lot about his wartime service as a telegrapher on MTBs and later the Fleet Minesweeper HMS Piche.

      5. Serenade Radio do please Google it) currently broadcasts repeats of Single Something Simple at 5 pm every Sunday, followed by the wonderful Mark Steyn’s Song of the Week at 5.30 pm.

      6. I sang in various church choirs in the sixties. I cherish the memories of singing liturgical anthems and choral songs.

        We sang to Parry, Elgar and Stanford, Bairstow, Holst, Benjamin Britten and many other great composers.

        Songs of Praise was not my thing but I still love to hear choral music from our great churches, cathedrals and college choirs.

        John Rutter is a particularly fine composer. His music is exquisite.

        1. I sang in church and university choirs in the seventies. I still love the music of the Mass, particularly in Latin.

        2. “We sang to Parry, Elgar and Stanford, Bairstow, Holst, Benjamin Britten and many other great composers.” My, Conners, I am most impressed by the huge number of great composers who came great distances to hear you! Lol.

      7. I sang in various church choirs in the sixties. I cherish the memories of singing liturgical anthems and choral songs.

        We sang to Parry, Elgar and Stanford, Bairstow, Holst, Benjamin Britten and many other great composers.

        Songs of Praise was not my thing but I still love to hear choral music from our great churches, cathedrals and college choirs.

        John Rutter is a particularly fine composer. His music is exquisite.

      8. I sang in various church choirs in the sixties. I cherish the memories of singing liturgical anthems and choral songs.

        We sang to Parry, Elgar and Stanford, Bairstow, Holst, Benjamin Britten and many other great composers.

        Songs of Praise was not my thing but I still love to hear choral music from our great churches, cathedrals and college choirs.

        John Rutter is a particularly fine composer. His music is exquisite.

    2. These hymns remind me of sepulchural Sunday evenings in the 60s with the stultifying dirge of ‘Sing Something Simple’ followed by ‘Songs of Praise’.

    3. It’s beautiful. It took me back to a time when life was rational. ordered and well mannered. I was so easily transported in this vehicle, in an instant I was there.

    5. My Mums favourite hymn, we sang it at her funeral. I get a tug of the heart whenever I hear it, still gets me even now.

      1. As I posted the other day, my parents died this time of year 39 years ago. Their joint funeral was Dec 30. For my mother, whose birthday was Christmas Day, we had Brightest and Best and for my dad, whose birthday was Nov 1, we had For all the Saints.
        Music is so evocative and, rather like scents, will take us back to where we heard the tune or inhaled the scent.

          1. My mother and I did not get on but one thing we shared was a love of Messiah by Handel. So, in many ways, it remains a connection to her because it was about the only thing we had in common.

          2. The performance by the Huddersfield Choral Society remains in my memory. I was studying at Sheffield University at the time circa 1971. I will have saved the programme somewhere.

        2. Absolutely agree, music can kick start a memory from years past, and that can be hymns through to pop music.

      2. We sang it at my much loved father’s funeral in 1984 along with Abide With Me.

        So sad that he never met my lovely bride whom I married in 1988 or our two sons born respectively in 1993 and 1995.

        My favourite hymn is probably Dear Lord and Father of Mankind which we sang at our wedding service along with Love Divine and My Song is Love Unknown.

        1. I had Love Divine at my wedding. Unfortunately, nobody but me knew it! I’m going to have God is My Strength and Refuge (sung to the Dambusters March) and I vow to thee my country at my funeral.

    1. He (or she) is just going for the items that smell of Mummy – or plays with herself.

  124. Just got back from a social evening at the Brewery with the hedgehog team – great pizzas and good company – lots of people out for an enjoyable enening.

    1. Sounds like normality descending in your area, where do I join? Anyone have their drinks spiked…

  125. Good night all.

    One giant jacket potato a la Elsie, topped with melting Cheddar & black pepper.
    Bunches of grapes.

    1. We had steak- a ribeye for MH and a thin sirloin for me. Baked spud for him and mushrooms for me. It was nice.

    3. A very busy day for me, ending with a much enjoyed Curry Meal at a local restaurant with a bunch of u3a wrinklies. Good night, everyone.

  128. https://dossier.substack.com/p/miracle-or-mirage-mrna-moderna-biontech?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

    Miracle or Mirage? mRNA, Moderna, BioNtech, and COVID-19

    Prior to the pandemic, the West’s two major COVID vaccine developers had never rolled out a single product. The biotech outfits were founded in 2008 and 2010 respectively, with the
    stated goal of pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies to the world
    of healthcare. Moderna and BioNtech share a history rife with secrecy,
    speculative hype, the benefits of networking effects, and most notably, a
    failure to deliver the goods.

    1. Germans have a large share of the business. Drosten, the fake PCR ‘expert’ and German equivalent of our own Ferguson is part of the conspiracy. Van der Leyen is married to one of the pushers.

      1. I remember seeing Drosten’s face in the German online media at the start of this nonsense – I didn’t read the headlines, so had no idea who he was, but I found his face instinctively completely untrustworthy. He is one of those superficially good-looking men who lies to women.
        Later of course, I read about his background and his role in getting the PCR test accepted – according the Rainer Fuellmich, he was also active in the swine flu scam. It is astonishing that he and Fauci can have got away with it for so long – but of course, politicians and the media are in cahoots.

        Don’t forget that it was a German – Wolfgang Wodarg – who scotched the last pandemic scam in 2008(?).

      2. I remember seeing Drosten’s face in the German online media at the start of this nonsense – I didn’t read the headlines, so had no idea who he was, but I found his face instinctively completely untrustworthy. He is one of those superficially good-looking men who lies to women.
        Later of course, I read about his background and his role in getting the PCR test accepted – according the Rainer Fuellmich, he was also active in the swine flu scam. It is astonishing that he and Fauci can have got away with it for so long – but of course, politicians and the media are in cahoots.

        Don’t forget that it was a German – Wolfgang Wodarg – who scotched the last pandemic scam in 2008(?).

      3. I remember seeing Drosten’s face in the German online media at the start of this nonsense – I didn’t read the headlines, so had no idea who he was, but I found his face instinctively completely untrustworthy. He is one of those superficially good-looking men who lies to women.
        Later of course, I read about his background and his role in getting the PCR test accepted – according the Rainer Fuellmich, he was also active in the swine flu scam. It is astonishing that he and Fauci can have got away with it for so long – but of course, politicians and the media are in cahoots.

        Don’t forget that it was a German – Wolfgang Wodarg – who scotched the last pandemic scam in 2008(?).

  130. I cannot for the life of me figure out why YouTube thinks it appropriate to interrupt any music with bloody adverts, especially sacred music. Am back to the Christmas section of Messiah and so far 2 advert breaks. Grr.

  133. Nearly 01:00 so too late for Goodnight apart from the remainder of the dark morning but God bless all the same.

  135. Still not able to go to bed- listening to Vince Gauraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas music. It’s jazzy and in a minor key which I love. Trying to get into the spirit of the season.
    Fired off an email to our useless MP…will barricade the door tonight;-)
    I am glad I am back to talk to y’all but don’t expect me to applaud some of your US political opinions;-)

    2. Best not write to MPs if you are trying to relax, Lottie. That stuff puts the blood pressure up too much!
      Hope you get a decent zed…
      I know almost nowt about the US politics, so prefer to keep my ignorance to myself rather than demonstrate openly what a drongo I am.

    3. Alf zipped off an email to ours yesterday too. Doesn’t get us anywhere but makes us feel a bit better. I know nothing happens because of it but … at least some sort of protest has been made.

    1. Thank you so much and good morning, Geoff.
      I hope that you and all Nottlers have a grand day.

Comments are closed.