Thursday 9 November: The Government is wrong to abandon plans for mental health reform

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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586 thoughts on “Thursday 9 November: The Government is wrong to abandon plans for mental health reform”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    The Difference Is Reality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    We wish! ”

      1. Probably – then they can all be stupid together. I could recommend a few more (on both sides).

  4. Getting tough on benefit fraud is welcome and overdue. 9 November 2023.

    When the Conservatives took office in 2010, they claimed Labour had presided over fraud amounting to billions of pounds and vowed to tighten the system. One obvious way to do this would be to make claimants show that they do not have enough money, but this is not done.
    Under current rules, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) can request details of a benefit claimant’s bank account only if it suspects fraud is being committed. However, the law is to be changed to require banks to run regular data checks to spot potential fraud and hand the information over to officials.

    As always! It’s a scam! It penalises those genuinely in need and allows the really bad guys off.

    Social Security should be progressively abolished. It has been a curse in almost every respect. It encourages idleness and fecklessness. It discourages enterprise and self-improvement. Worse, it requires the State to steal from the useful to finance their existence. It requires an army of unproductive bureaucrats to administer it. It is a magnet for immigrants and ne’er do wells. It empowers the government to snoop on its citizens. Though expending vast amounts of cash the call is always; and will always be, for more! It is a survivor from another age!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/11/07/getting-tough-on-benefit-fraud-is-welcome-and-overdue/

  5. The Government is wrong to abandon plans for mental health reform

    Where was that to be targeted, Parliament?

      1. Schlimmbesserung: The improvement that makes things worse.
        The Germans always have a word for things when you need it.

    2. The problem government has is that it seeks to ‘do something’ regardless of the value, relevance or need of that activity.

      It never bothers to ask itself ‘what do the public need and want’, it starts with ‘how can we get more power for ourselves’.

  6. They are saying on the news that Braverman’s latest article is inflammatory

    She must be saying something very near the truth then

    1. Which news? If it’s al beeb then Braverman is right, morally and intellectually. The Left simply don’t like truth.

      1. Braverman called the dinghy people invaders. She also called the Propalestine marches hate marches.
        Inflamatory all right…to ragheads.
        Braverman is my MP and she got extra points for kicking the local GP surgeries into action.

    3. All those who are calling for her to be sacked seem to ignore the fact that she is absolutely right!! She is merely stating what should be blindingly obvious.

  7. Extremism is thriving in Britain and our leaders have already surrendered. Allister Heath. 9 November 2023.

    This is not about one demonstration on Armistice Day: the crisis is far greater. It is about the total failure of all of our institutions, the implosion of an entire ideological superstructure, the ruination of a country’s very idea of itself. It is about extremists being asked to provide advice and embedding themselves within the police and military, it is about the normalisation of calls for the destruction of one country – and only one – based on a falsified narrative, it is about the gradual waning of our collective memories of the Shoah, it is about hate preachers who don’t even care if their words are caught on film, it is about the Left-wing middle class’s moral cowardice

    Don’t get me wrong: Sunak is on the right side. He is a moral man, a true believer in the modern, multi-faith British dream, and he supports Israel and passionately detests anti-Semitism. Yet what is he, in practice, doing about the explosion in Jew-hate that is shaming our great country? Going ahead with the endlessly-delayed Holocaust memorial is not enough. Ministers are acting like commentators, not leaders, and their (usually excellent) words are being drowned out.

    The Government cannot even find it in itself to ban Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps or vote against a call for a ceasefire at the UN, even though opposing such a move is its policy. It seemingly can’t tell any of the quangos what to do. It isn’t properly fighting the battle of ideas, let alone using its legislative powers. .

    Well apart from: “Sunak is on the right side, et al.” More Nottl than Nottl!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/extremism-thriving-in-britain-our-leaders-have-surrendered/

    1. They say there’s some dinghies just leaving Calais bound for old Blighty shore
      Heavily laden with time on hands men, bound for the land they abhor
      There’s many a Yeman just finishing his time, there’s many a perp signing on
      You’ll get a commotion this side of the ocean, so cheer up my lads, Nottl all
      Nottl all, Nottl all, the long and the short and the tall…..

    2. Multi faith? Nonsense. Big government is desperately trying to impose its own tenets on us with the new relgiion of fake science and ‘post truth’: propaganda.

      Sunbak doesn’t support anything. He doesn’t stand for anything. He might not like the muslim rrape of this country but he isn;t doing anything to suppress the cancerous growth of that culture – and it is a culture, both in the medical and sociological sense.

      If Sunak had any morals he would not have stabbed his boss in the back. He would not have done in this country’s greatest hope for a rational future all to get the job he wants on his CV but has never earned.

  9. 378600+ up ticks

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 9 November: The Government is wrong to abandon plans for mental health reform

    Not hard to see the reason, being criminally insane themselves
    they are hardly unlikely to self annihilate, and all the time they have the repeated support of dangerous idiots, why should they ?

    Besides, fulfilling the RESET agenda IS a full time job, and according to doc Yossarian the feeble of mind play a big supporting part on the road to RESET program.

      1. Alas I was awake early due to Oscar’s pawing of the Warqueen which had me opening the back door which had Mongo rolling out which woke Junior who clobbered the shower. Coffee for her and self.

        By the time that’s made she’ll be out of our bathroom and dressing, which is a delight in itself.

  11. And a good morning to all.
    After another early morning mug of tea sat up alongside the DT, it’s now a damp and dull 2°C start.

    Lead letter and a couple of responses:-

    SIR – The omission from the King’s Speech (report, November 8) of an immediate reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 is a national disgrace.

    Every three years the World Health Organisation updates its Mental Health Atlas, which collects information from its member states around the world. In the European region, of the 45 countries that reported, only a tiny number have not updated their key mental health policies since 2007. One of these is the United Kingdom.

    The 1983 Act did not “seek in any way to overturn the principles of the 1959 Act”, in the words of Norman Fowler, then health secretary. In fact, it differs very little from the 1959 Mental Health Act, which itself repealed the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts 1890 to 1930. This means that there has been just one major reform of mental health provision in this country in the past 133 years.

    By any measure of a civilised society, that is shameful.

    Andrew Colley
    Little Bradley, Suffolk

    R. Spowart
    3 HRS AGO
    Message Actions
    Much of the mental health crisis can be attributed to (Don’t) Care In The Community and the closure of so many of the old Asylums.
    Agreed, the system was not perfect, but generally speaking they provided what was written on the tin, ASYLUM, a place of shelter and safety, for those unable to cope.

    John Langdale
    21 MIN AGO
    Reply to R. Spowart
    And prevented the situation where a considerable number of extremely unfortunate people have been killed by those experiencing “Care in the Community.”

    1. These days poor behaviour and a lack of self discipline is branded a mental health issue, with true deviancy – the trans nonsense – forced as normalcy.

      Every effort is to off load the responsibility on to others who are untrained and inexperienced while running down the services they should provide to claw ever more money to themselves and roclaim that the budget has been increased – yes, in higher pay for civil servants, not in those needing help.

      1. As I have said before, during my son and my marathon wait for him to be admitted for an appendectomy, we witnessed 12 police shifts (plus 2/3/4 cars parked outside) being wasted on a couple of ‘patients’ who would once have been sheltered in the old Severalls hospital.

  12. Good day all,

    Clear skies at the McPhee’s wind SW, chance of a shower this afternoon. Cool, 7℃≫8℃.

    I put this up last night but since it’s good news it bears repeating. The MSM can’t continue to ignore ignore vaccine deaths and damage. The dam hasn’t burst but there is now a significant crack in it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c759a64641a624ec446b03ce17863d80b230c04ea189c3920f0be11ceca066aa.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04b997fd546b613d29d3e030de9310f3370c43c649008b43f4cebbd22b6c7e14.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-jab-defective-claims-legal-case/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/vaccine-blood-clot-brain-damage-astrazeneca/

    1. I doubt anything will change. Certain of it, actually.

      The first excuse will be to wait for the inquiry to report – that delays anything by 10 years at least.

      Then it’ll be ‘we have immunity to whatever we do in parliament’
      Then ‘Oh look, all the information has been magically lost’
      And finally the state will go for the person raising the case, in an attempt to destroy them financially, socially and legally.

      1. 378600 + up ticks,

        Morning W,Then if the herd accept that then they truly deserve ALL they get, and more.

  14. Good morning, chums. After a night of terrible nightmares, here I am ready to do battle with a new day. Let’s see if Sir Jasper’s morning funny can cheer me up.

      1. Oddly enough, Ndovu, for the tail end of October and most of this month I have only watched a film once a week. Instead I have been doing a lot of reading and some shredding of unwanted confidential papers. So I’m not sure exactly what gave me the newbie-jeebies last night.

    1. I wonder if Sir Kneeler has run that past Sue Grey?
      Maybe she fancies the burkha as a fashion statement.

  16. Good morning, all. Rain earlier but turning bright and clear. Washing soon to be ready to go out, fingers crossed that no more rain will appear.

    Sunak to hold the Met’s Commissioner accountable re the planned marches.

    https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1722215236533682404

    How about Sunak doing his job and not passing the political buck down to an unelected official? Many comments on social media that support the idea of Sunak backing off and leaving the Commissioner to do his job and keeping politics out of this debate. However, these marches have the potential to turn nasty and that outcome could escalate into civil unrest and threaten the internal security of the UK. That then becomes a political concern.

    As PM the ineffectual Sunak has many responsibilities, including:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7435e9899dc67fd43cdc1c75e67454e09f6347e62b1887e379e1b8b0ce5df75b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/75e9ac8b5940898399b559682f170a9d7264eeabc63dd459382e1721ec9a3a7a.png

      1. He does have wide authority within London but not for national security should that becomes an issue.

        These marches in support of Hamas and against Israel, and let’s be honest these are the real drivers, are a provocation. The date and place have clearly been chosen to provoke a response and see how this useless and weak government will react: the organisers must be wetting themselves as they see the abject performance of Sunak et al. To claim that the marches are not political and therefore do not require a political response is disingenuous in the extreme. Plenty of useful idiots will populate the march but the underlying theme is political provocation.

        1. Wait until they come up against our own home-bred thugs. I hope they get the crap well and truly beaten out of them (by the thugs).

    2. Yes, he may do, but in reality he doesn’t. He can’t. That’s why he has officials to do the work. What he should do is ask Rowley why he is not preventing muslim terrorism supporters prancing about in this country as if they own the place.

      1. Your last sentence goes some way to what Sunak should be doing. He is there to govern and officials are there to do the leg work i.e. provide impartial (I know) information and advice. IMO the problem revolves around what questions the PM asks and whom he asks. Whatever, he holds the responsibility for the overall security and safety of the nation, no ifs, no buts. Rowley appears to be the fall-guy for both Sunak and Khan if things get out of hand. If the latter happens all three should be out of a job but I wouldn’t bet on either Sunak or Khan owning the responsibility and taking the appropriate action.

    1. I don’t want to see controversial but this is a civil law suit. The The headlines (and other quotes) in various newspapers are MERELY statements by counsel for the plaintiffs – who will use hyperbolic language in order to beef up his clients claims. Quite why, when there is no jury, is beyond me.

      I wish the papers wouldn’t do it. Just as I wish that, in criminal trials, counsel for the Crown would not use similar blood-curdling language in opening the case to the Jury.

      1. Trial by media. Raises the profile of the case I’d imagine. The more noise made, the more fuss made, the higher the hope of quiet compo.

    3. Probably chasing a veteran who was organising a march protesting against the Pro-Palestinian and Hamas activities on Armistice Day.

          5. Radio 2 used to be agreeable when I was driving; no longer. OK, Mr Vine has to stoke up some controversy as part of his role on the JV Prog, but I switched off when Ken Bruce left the building.

          6. TBF; since 90% of London driving time is spent stuck in traffic jams, he’d have plenty of time to indulge his hobby.

    2. I absolutely agree with everything think you say Andrew.
      We have been disappointed very badly let down by all of our political creatures and Whitehall.
      I think the average person on our streets knows what was happening but out politicos are too busy ‘self satisfying’ to lift a finger and now it seems it’s too late.

      1. I agree – he is so used to playing nerds that the voice has stuck even when he makes as good video like this one!

      2. His microphone is set poorly as it’s scratching at the high end. He could also change where he speaks from but he’s ginger, so has bigger problems.

  20. Suella Braverman stoked an extraordinary clash with Scotland Yard today as she accused police of ‘playing favourites’ by refusing to block a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day.

    The Home Secretary dramatically escalated the standoff with commissioner Mark Rowley by suggesting that he would be tougher if the protests were in a different cause.

    In an article for The Times, she also risked comparing the situation to sectarian marches in Northern Ireland, saying the Gaza ceasefire demo included ‘Islamists’ who were ‘asserting primacy’ and could be linked to terrorism.

    A Home Secretary publicly attacking operational decisions by the Met chief is extremely rare, and a former inspector of constabulary warned it ‘crossed the line’.

    Downing Street pointedly refused to say whether the intervention had been signed off by Rishi Sunak, who yesterday took a more measured tone insisting that he would hold Sir Mark ‘accountable’ if the protest cannot be controlled at the weekend. The Yard has said the plans do not meet the legal threshold for a ban.

    In a round of interviews this morning, Transport Secretary Mark Harper disagreed with Mr Braverman’s claim that police ‘play favourites’.

    London Mayor Sadiq Khan also waded in branding Mr Braverman’s words ‘inappropriate, inaccurate and irresponsible’.

    ‘It stokes divisions, it is in danger of dividing communities. We have got to be incredibly careful,’ he told the BBC.

    ‘Are we really saying that politicians… should be telling the police what protests to allow and disallow.’

    However, a YouGov poll suggested that the public is sympathetic to her views on the pro-Palestine march, with half wanting it blocked.

    Speculation has been growing in Westminster that Ms Braverman is engineering a confrontation with Mr Sunak that could see her resign, and position for a potential Tory leadership contest after the election.

    She sparked a major backlash over the weekend by suggesting homelessness can be a ‘lifestyle choice’ and charities should be stopped from giving tents to people living on the streets.

    Moderate Tory MPs have been condemning the idea, and ministers have distanced themselves from her words. The move did not appear in the King’s Speech on Tuesday, although it has not been completely ruled out in future.

    Writing in The Times, the Home Secretary said: ‘I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza.

    ‘They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland.

    ‘Also disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster are the reports that some of Saturday’s march group organisers have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas.’

    She added: ‘Unfortunately, there is a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters.

    ‘During Covid, why was it that lockdown objectors were given no quarter by public order police yet Black Lives Matters demonstrators were enabled, allowed to break rules and even greeted with officers taking the knee?

    ‘Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law?

    ‘I have spoken to serving and former police officers who have noted this double standard.

    ‘Football fans are even more vocal about the tough way they are policed as compared to politically connected minority groups favoured by the left.

    ‘It may be that senior officers are more concerned with how much flak they are likely to get than whether this perceived unfairness alienates the majority.’

    Mr Harper told Times Radio: ‘I think all police forces are focused on upholding the law without fear or favour. That’s what they do.’

    Asked whether he agreed with the Home Secretary’s remark, he said: ‘I’m not going to indulge in textual analysis of her article.’

    He said police have been ‘focusing very hard on making sure that we don’t see any disturbance and disorder’ at remembrance events this weekend.

    Sir Tom Winsor, former HM chief inspector of constabulary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme Ms Braverman’s attack on the police was ‘unprecedented’.

    ‘It’s unusual. It’s unprecedented. It’s contrary to the spirit of the ancient constitutional settlement with the police, I think it’s contrary to the letter of that constitutional settlement. And it is highly regrettable that it has been made,’ he said.

    ‘These political objections can be made by many, many people, but a Home Secretary of all people is not the person to do this.’

    He added: ‘By applying pressure to the commissioner of the Met in this way I think that crosses the line.’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12728845/Suella-Braverman-police-Palestinian-march-Armistice-Day-Home-Secretary-Mark-Rowley.html

    I agree with her , and why are people so sensitive about the truth, and it is those idiots issuing provocative word games .

    She is a strong woman .

    2. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also waded in branding Mr Braverman’s words ‘inappropriate, inaccurate and irresponsible’.

      ‘It stokes divisions, it is in danger of dividing communities. We have got to be incredibly careful,’ he told the BBC.

      It is not possible to divide a community when one half has already segregated itself from the mainstream.

      Khan needs to be ‘incredibly careful’ so he doesn’t expose who and what he really is and where his sympathies lie.

      4. How many of Khan’s supporters are aware of his chairman position of the C40 cities group and what that group of sociopaths have in store for the ‘little people’?

    4. Hamas wants time to retreat, reorganise and rearm. As paramilitaries they want to fortify their positions and move to more vulnerable (civilian) areas, denying the Israeli’s the intelligence and military force they’ve gathered.

      Until muslim stops being nutters and starts to grow up – as Christianity did 600 odd years ago – the slaughter will continue. This stops when muslim vanishes. Heck, it really stops when the Left are erased along with their moronic anti Semitism. They’d find something else to hate and destroy even then.

      There’s something horribly wrong with a minority of people who, irrationally, but fervently hate one group or another, desperate to impose their own will over them convinced as they are of the righteousness of their own ego.

      https://youtu.be/4pkElPEKGHs?t=15

    5. Hamas wants time to retreat, reorganise and rearm. As paramilitaries they want to fortify their positions and move to more vulnerable (civilian) areas, denying the Israeli’s the intelligence and military force they’ve gathered.

      Until muslim stops being nutters and starts to grow up – as Christianity did 600 odd years ago – the slaughter will continue. This stops when muslim vanishes. Heck, it really stops when the Left are erased along with their moronic anti Semitism. They’d find something else to hate and destroy even then.

      There’s something horribly wrong with a minority of people who, irrationally, but fervently hate one group or another, desperate to impose their own will over them convinced as they are of the righteousness of their own ego.

      https://youtu.be/4pkElPEKGHs?t=15

  21. I am rather bleary this morning. Before going to bed last night I flipped through the TV channels and saw that they were showing King Lear so i didn’t get to bed until after 2.00 a.m.

    Anthony Hopkins as the King was appropriately aged 80 when the production was filmed but Goneril and Regan were both too old and menopausal which rather diminished the point of Lear’s curse upon Goneril – played by Emma Thompson:

    Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!
    Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend
    To make this creature fruitful.
    Into her womb convey sterility.
    Dry up in her the organs of increase,
    And from her derogate body never spring
    A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
    Create her child of spleen, that it may live
    And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.
    Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
    With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
    Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
    To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
    How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
    To have a thankless child!

    One is of course now well used to ethnic minorities playing roles originally written for white actors but I was more annoyed by the contemporary setting with cars, lorries and aeroplanes distracting my attention and the savage cutting of the text which cut many of my favourite quotations short!

    Having said that Anthony Hopkins was not bad – but not a patch on Michael Hordern who was in the BBC production they made in the 1980s.

    1. When Peggy Ashcroft played the “young Queen Margaret” in the BBC 1960s series – she was FIFTY EIGHT!!

          1. Come and spring this way, Katy.

            Can’t remember who it was but he had a catch-phrase, “I’m looking fur someone to lurve.”

          3. Thank you, Katy – I’m not sorry for fancying you – shame about the distance. S America is still on my bucket list as is Africa, China and Tibet.

    2. Good morning Richard

      I watched the Shakespeare offering on BBC 4 before the King Lear film .

      Both programmes were interesting and very well interpreted.

      The beauty of our English language used by Shakespeare must have been a gift handed down by God .

      In fact , probably each century has been gifted authors who have been singled out to promote the beauty of our language .

      Sadly, now we are in the 21st century, I cannot think of one modern author who has stirred my senses to fulfilment with exciting wordsmithery.

      What do you all think about that ?

    1. The git in me says if you can’t afford 8 children don’t have them. The better man says well done that man for giving.

        2. Slammers don’t bother with that. Oh I forgot, our wet governments will make sure we feed them so that they can breed us out of existence.

      2. 378600+ up ticks,

        Morning W,

        Then again when they were building the family the circus was not in town.

    3. Wonderful anecdote.

      It reminded me of something.
      Apparently it is a sign of oncoming senility/dementia to be very generous to complete strangers.
      I was once in a supermarket queue behind a woman with two young children who had a small trolley stacked with own brand essentials, no luxuries whatsoever. She tried to pay with various cards and all got rejected. It was fairly clear her credit was no longer available, so I paid for her shopping.
      It wasn’t a big bill but her look of gratitude would have been worth twice what it cost me.

      1. 378600+ up ticks,

        Morning S,

        Also a nice gesture was when the Dartford crossing had toll gates, to pay for the one behind also.

  23. I was interested to hear on GB News last night that Keir Starmer’s wife is Jewish and regularly attends her synagogue.

    Perhaps this will encourage him to stand firm on his pro Israel stance and his disgust at the horrors of Islamic anti-Semitic barbarism.

    3. Bonjour Mr and Mrs Tastey, et tout le monde.
      Lady Starmer and Sir Keir have deux enfants, and they are being brought up in the Jewish faith. His good lady wife will certainly be capable of keeping HWMO some distance away from muslim propaganda.

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Only half an hour ago it was grey again and now sunshine ☀

    It’s a strange set of affairs, Rochdale cenotaph graffiti, police guard, washing off and set up cameras. Nadien Dorries speaking out on bbc earlier Implied there are bad people in the cabinet. And on our Nottlers page, persistent offenders will be banned. Right………let’s take over westmonster and fix it !

  25. ‘Morning All

    Christmas Ads you say………

    https://twitter.com/Demo2020cracy/status/1722324457639833656

    Bah Humbug !

    Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d4baa2b4ec397f0cd5dfda860a1db632c63db334720dad818123cc3e86c262d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/492f439a3a174ade3bf9d345b8420fb3ee79bffb9c0334a2133e6530e23e821e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d6e1d59974fdcac5409cbee2e6e4f5a3566e3d96557f203af65397785571cbc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7053143604c95c3cc7b24ba52a301d860d86c0c2eca5e35a6ca4b05e84504bb4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b62e46bb3ae3a40f52229d65310348ec8131de6f19dc768a985f6cdc0ce94d3.png

    1. Sadly plod do spend far more time attacking the innocent the state dislikes than stopping the criminal the state likes.

      It isn’t supermarkets that destroyed local shops, it’s big fat state. High taxes, business rates – seriously, you’d think some moron would stop this cycle:

      We aren’t raising the taxes we were from shops.
      Why’s that?
      They’ve closed due to taxation and footfall
      Why’s that?
      Because we keep hiking taxes and slapping up parking charges
      Why’s that?
      We want to punish driving and waste the money on climate change
      What do we do then?
      We should hike taxes on the ones that’re left to make up the shortfall.

      ArrrggghhhhhH!!!!!

  26. Observations on the world’s most powerful man:

    The Incredible Lightness of Barack Obama

    Joe Biden is caught in a quadfecta of corruption, cognitive decline, a failed agenda, and eroding polls. Amid this apparent vacuum, an opportunistic Barack Obama — who used to be more discreet in managing his third term—is reentering the arena.

    Last week, he came out as the overseer of the Biden administration’s AI agenda, even as his foundation’s “Democracy Forum” was warning Americans about the need for “inclusive capitalism” and the pathologies of “material consumption”—all this from a multi-mansioned multimillionaire.

    Now, Obama is weighing in on the Gaza war by undercutting his third-term presidential proxy.

    Yet just as he seems somewhat clueless about the contradictions of an erstwhile “community organizer” turned into a hyper-capitalist, consumption-addicted elite, so too Obama has little self-awareness about how much of Biden’s unpopularity derives from his continuation of Obama’s own agendas on the economy, border, crime, race, foreign policy, and energy.

    His apparent obliviousness continues with his most recent odd assertion that, “The occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is [sic] unbearable.”

    But Obama surely concedes that Gaza has been autonomous and free of Israelis since 2005, and governed by a “one man, one vote, once” Hamas clique since January 2006.

    Obama added that, “If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth, and you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean – that all of us are complicit to some degree.”

    In truth, Obama’s blanket accusation is absurd.

    Over the last 17 years, an autonomous Hamas has managed to create both a hierarchy of billionaires ensconced in luxury Qatari hotels, and the most sophisticated subterranean tunnel city in the world—but little else except corruption, poverty, and violence for all concerned.

    Obama again seemed unaware of his own confession when he lectured, “nobody’s hands are clean” and “all of us are complicit”.

    Not quite, Barack.

    Those most culpable for the current catastrophe are Obama and his team, who invited in Robert Malley to be their point man on Hamas; cooked up the “Shiite crescent” misadventure; snubbed the grass-roots Green Movement that sought to overthrow the Iranian theocracy; invited the Russians back into the Middle East after a 40-year hiatus; fled Iraq and fueled the ISIS caliphate; lifted sanctions on Iran, giving it a multibillion-dollar war chest that armed to the teeth Hezbollah and Hamas; estranged the U.S. from Israel; and created the media echo chamber that empowered the disastrous Iran Deal.

    The rest was history.

    https://twitter.com/VDHanson/status/1722336485234626786

    1. Obama added that, “If you want to solve the problem, then you have to
      take in the whole truth, and you then have to admit nobody’s hands are
      clean – that all of us are complicit to some degree.”

      Yes. You are certainly complicit.

      1. I don’t, Barrack. I don’t believe your religion and I don’t accept what you’re spouting so…..do one.

    2. “nobody’s hands are clean” and “all of us are complicit”. Would that include the Israeli babies and the household pets?

      1. He shouldn’t have shot them fatally. What people should be doing is dragging them off the road and then using plastic cable ties to pin them to the roadside.

  28. USA and Republicans/Presidential candidates generally, but the concepts also apply to the UK

    3. I realize there’s an excellent reason for sending billions upon billions of hard-earned American dollars around the globe to people who hated us before, hate us after, and which never accomplishes the stated objective, but please remind us what it is.
    4. Exactly how much money should we confiscate from the American people to spend on countries notable for not being our country? My number is zero. What’s yours? We’re looking for a specific figure, not a seminar on foreign aid.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/revealed-nikki-haleys-husband-and-his-djibouti-call/

    1. I realize there’s an excellent reason for sending billions upon billions of hard-earned American dollars around the globe to people who hated us before, hate us after, and which never accomplishes the stated objective, but please remind us what it is.

      That’s very witty. I would laugh even harder if it were not worse in the UK!

    2. I realize there’s an excellent reason for sending billions upon billions of hard-earned American dollars around the globe to people who hated us before, hate us after, and which never accomplishes the stated objective, but please remind us what it is.

      That’s very witty. I would laugh even harder if it were not worse in the UK!

  29. Devils and long spoons, Mr. Lansman

    “There is criticism in the New Statesman magazine of the modern Left’s attitudes to that country by Jon Lansman, the Jewish founder of the Momentum, which rallied behind Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader. It is somewhat surprising to hear him talking such good sense.

    While admitting that he is ‘horrified by the extent of civilian deaths in Gaza’, Lansman ‘finds it difficult to relate to how much of the Left responded… There isn’t an understanding, or there isn’t much sympathy, for the feeling in Israel that they need to prevent such an attack again… There isn’t an understanding that there could be a just military response to horrific events.’ ”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12727859/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Good-Sir-Keir-Starmer-taking-robust-line-Israel-sadly-partys-rancour.html

    1. Surely Labour’s policy towards Israel and Hamas shouldn’t be dictated by a minority of the electorate.

      Surely Government’s policy towards law and order shouldn’t be dictated by a minority of the electorate. That’s better

    2. They change their attitude and opinion depending on the blowing of the ‘Woke’ wind.

      I don’t trust one of ’em. All charlatans in my book.

          2. We imported millions more mostly young people from the Blair years onwards, might not this lead to a reduction in the crude death rate per 1000 people?

          3. Quite probably, but eventually the numbers must even out and the restoration to long term averages would show as excess from the previous rolling average.

      2. There are lots of tables to choose from. However, in the one that is open it appears to show that in the first quarter of 2023 in the UK there were almost 20,000 more deaths than would normally be expected given previous trends.

      1. They are used to shitting anywhere they like. They will be taking after the aristos at Versaille. They just shit in the corners…

    2. Can anyone deny that the Idiot King is indeed a dolt, a nincompoop and the King of Idiots.

      He seems to hate the indigenous British and is in complete thrall to Gates, Soros and Schwab.

      How on earth did the Queen and Prince Philip manage to create such a dud?

          1. Having suffered in much the same way – I think it was a blunder (though quite normal then) to send him to boarding school at age 7.

          5. I imagine he was lonely and homesick. I certainly was – and I didn’t go until 10. Homesickness stayed with me until I left school at 18. I didn’t “grow out of it” as people kept telling me I would – just got used to it – as part of life’s hellishness.

          7. He went to Cheam Prep School. One of my friends at the time was there at the same time as he was.

          10. At first I certainly did not enjoy St Christopher’s in Bath to which I was sent at the age of 8 but one learnt from the observation of Edgar in King Lear :

            Men must endure
            Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
            Ripeness is all.

            My wife thinks it is barbaric of the English to send their children away from home at too early an age. We sent our boys away to boarding school at the age of 15.

          11. Something in that, I agree, but it depends on the individual and the home circumstances a bit. And I think very few girls benefit from juvenile boarding. But then…I’m not a girl!

          12. My sisters boarded at Truro High School from 11 – 13 and then went to Sherborne Girls’ School.

          13. I loved my boarding school . It rewarded me with the security I needed after suffering the vagaries of parents who adored Africa and I didn’t .

            In the short concentrated period that I was at boarding school, I was able to learn so much , I learnt to play the piano, recite poetry and prose , read a huge variety of books , sing , paint , visit the theatre and enjoy the North Yorkshire country side .. and lots more . I enjoyed holidays in Scotland with dear aunts and uncles , and the odd visit by air to pay homage to my parents .

          14. At first I certainly did not enjoy St Christopher’s in Bath to which I was sent at the age of 8 but one learnt from the observation of Edgar in King Lear :

            Men must endure
            Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
            Ripeness is all.

            My wife thinks it is barbaric of the English to send their children away from home at too early an age. We sent our boys away to boarding school at the age of 15.

      2. Blood will out. He’s probably a throwback to some of the Georgians. And the RF is quite inbred.

        1. I think he needs a Regent to look after him and shut his gab at all the right moments – the man’s a fool.

          1. As a Head of State with the British Constitution a cypher is needed – the Queen understood that and raised the role with her sense of duty and integrity. A fool will do, provided he a) does what he is told and, crucially b) does what he is told by the right people under the constitution. The problem is the people he is being steered by are enemies of Britain and have already sidelined our basic constitutional rights. So this fool will not do!

          2. I’m not advocating a fool as Regent. I mean someone with the sense or ability as heir apparent – George?

          2. In which case, whoever wrote:

            One of the best cartoons since the days of the Regency…..

            must be pretty warped and unpleasant.

          3. You would I consider probably, had you lived at that time, been huffing and puffing over the work of Rowlandson or Hogarth. The cartoon is not meant to be pleasant viewing but that is not the reason for its creation, as a glance over its careful construction should make obvious. Having one’s head in the sand may not be unpleasant (!) but for warping the mind beats the band.

          4. I have a reasonably good understanding of cartoons and cartoonists and have long had an interest.
            I cannot think of a single one that gets even close to this one in terms of sheer unpleasantness.
            And yes, I did spot the level of detail that went into it.

            As to warping the mind, that one and admirers of it must be pretty warped themselves.

          5. Your expert opinion and aversion to the difficulty we all face is noted and, for what it is worth, shared. Ignoring reality will not assist however, and an Andy Capp will not cut the mustard in a world threatened as it is. So warp off Scotty!

          6. I do not ignore reality.
            I’m glad you have the self confidence to believe that you are so exceptionally well qualified to comment thus.

            From what I have seen of your postings to Nottle, that self confidence is totally misplaced.

          9. Now now children. People are allowed different opinions. Except when they clash with mine of course.

          1. Let us hope then that he will be rescued from that fate by events. The awakening is gathering pace! The monarchy ruled by Mr Schwab and his friends is no friend of the British people.

        1. Plenty of those in the RF. Unfortunately QEII wasn’t quite as careful of her family (and the British) as she was about the Commonwealth.

      6. All he needs to do is look regal, read the scripts provided and wave at the masses. How hard can it be to become a passable monarch.

    3. There’s been a mention on the tv news about people who drowned a couple of years ago. Including women and children when a grossly over loaded rubber boat sank. It seems that our stupid media are blaming the English and the RNLI for the problem.
      Nothing to do with the effing b*st*rd French as they stood and watched yet another overloaded flimsy boat set off from their shores.

  32. I’ve just been catching up on the bbc Nadien Dorries interview earlier this morning.
    Something many people have thought about the dubious double speak in Westminster and Whitehall.
    She has set off a time bomb. And named many names. I respect every single word she said.
    In this interview and even Nagga and Charlie behaved themselves.
    Do your best to watch it on play back.
    Go back to the on screen programme lists, up to 6am Breakfast it’s about 40 minutes in.

    2. I had no idea he was American 🇺🇲. 👍
      Python was very funny but not these days. Sadly not much is funny anymore. Fools and Horses and the two Ronnie’s.
      Today’s comedians seem to think they are funny effing and blinding.

      1. The Pythons were also smart. They effectively own the BBC series’ lock, stock and barrel. Terry Gilliam’s daughter Holly is the gatekeeper.

        I saw a trendy supposed comedian called Nish Kumar on the Graham Norton chat show once and all he did was spout eff and Trump in different permutations and the audience roared with laughter. Puerile and lacking any comic talent whatsoever.

        2. Kumar has a bit of history. When Sunak and Javid resigned shortly before Johnson did: “Balancing out the fact that I can’t stand Javid or Sunak with the fact that I love to see a rich white man brought down by Asians.”

          Followed by: “If you are praising Javid or Sunak, clearly you have low standards for Asians. May I therefore interest you in a ticket for my Edinburgh show.”

          On a TV show of his own in 2019: “F*** Ricky Gervais. F*** Ricky Gervais. What he’s doing isn’t edgy or interesting… he is the same as every other rich white dude comedian who gets too successful, runs out of ideas and decides to s*** on the latest minority group. In the 1970s, that was my f***ing family, Black and minority ethnic people, in the Eighties, it was gay people. Trans people are just the latest to get it in the neck from comedians who can’t be bothered to try at their jobs anymore.”

          In the same year, he also upset the audience at a Lord’s Taverners charity lunch. “I’m sort of amazed by how fascinated people are by the whole thing. It’s not the first time I’ve been booed off stage…I consider it the life of being a comedian – they have a right to boo me.”

          2. Ah, yes. That didn’t come up on my search, just the bread-roll chucking at the Taverners event. I thought there was something more.

        1. Funny you should say that. It was in a block of flats in Broad Court WC2 – immediately across the road from the Royal Opera House and opposite what was then, Bow Street Police Station.

          2. I had to go and collect a couple of Italian students from Bow St Police Station in 1976. They’d been caught shoplifting in Harrods and I was the Duty Officer at the language school that day. They were on the train home to Italy the following day. Strange how we could do that when we were in the Common Market/CE/EEC.

    1. Carcinogenic and addictive, imho. The ‘it’s completely safe’ studies are not completely safe.

    2. So it’s possible for a random individual to get a bad adverse reaction to this stuff, but there’s no way Covid vaccinations can do similarly for certain people?

      1. It’s accepted that some have bad adverse reactions to Covid vaccinations.

        My Dad was allergic to Penicillin. Thank goodness there was no clamour to either ban it or sue the pants off those who developed it.

        1. My father was too, but recent research seems to be suggesting that what were thought to be allergies are little different to minor adverse reactions to Covid and ‘flu shots.

          2. Probably the wrong thing/s!

            I’ve never given it any thought, so I guess it would be an instinctive reaction.

          5. When I was a child my father used to put hot coals in a tin bucket and carry them through the house to light the fire in another grate. It’s a wonder we weren’t incinerated, especially since we used to have lit (real) candles on the Christmas tree!

          6. I’ve done that here!

            Not totally the case, I was using the ash tray cinders, so not quite as hot.

  40. Putin rakes in extra €1B for his war chest via Bulgaria sanctions loophole. 8 November 2023.

    That loophole — raising enough revenue for Moscow to fund its Wagner mercenary group for a year, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin — also generated almost €500 million in profits for the refinery’s owner Lukoil since the exemption kicked on February 5, according to a classified analysis prepared for Bulgaria’s parliament and seen by POLITICO.

    This doesn’t appear to violate sanctions directly, according to sanctions specialists, and both Bulgaria and Lukoil say it’s above board. Yet EU countries and lawmakers inside Bulgaria are now calling for Brussels to tighten rules that give the country special treatment as the European Commission readies its 12th package of sanctions against Russia — expected to be presented in the coming days.

    Vlad is out of the news at the moment due to the Israeli/Hamas war. Nevertheless articles like this sometimes catch me by surprise. Not the sanctions of course but my reaction to them. I hate them! I hate the EU and I hate the UK government for imposing them! How on earth did I get to the position where I’m a supporter of the President of Russia? I really hope he wins the war! Lol! Strange times!

    https://www.politico.eu/article/how-russia-made-e1b-from-an-eu-sanctions-loophole-for-bulgaria/

  42. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/09/crushing-political-consensus-britain-destiny-to-be-poor/

    The state never considers that in it’s relentless grasping of our money that is creating a nation of dependence, where no one has anything. Oh! Of course, they want socialism. The UK must never, ever be allowed to get away from the grasping clutches of the failed EU.

    It’s simple. Cut spending. Close every quango within 6 degrees of Chakrabalti. Close the climate change farce. Close multiple government departments. Cut. Taxes.

    1. They are still blathering on about guaranteed income over here and how it will free everyone from the stigma of poverty.
      Just about every shop / restaurant / office is already trying to get by with reduced staff, I wonder how much worse it will be if people really don’t ned to work.

  43. OT – Hardcastle hasn’t been here lately (unless I missed him). Anyone have any news?

  44. It is an absolute disgrace that it has come to this.

    Protect our Poppy sellers: Calls to rally round Britain’s army of volunteers who are too terrified to raise cash for the nation’s war heroes after they were forced to leave rail stations and targeted at shops amid tensions with pro-Palestine protesters

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12729525/Protect-Poppy-sellers-Calls-rally-round-Britains-army-volunteers-terrified-raise-cash-nations-war-heroes-forced-leave-rail-stations-targeted-shops-amid-tensions-pro-Palestine-protesters.html

    1. Simple. When the Lefty/socialist/remoaner/muslim gets uppity and starts to behave thus, shoot them. It’s a public service.

      1. Rivers of Blood speech and 1984 are now with us ,

        The highly educated globalist swine who have misled us and inveigled us into voting for them .. no matter who their party is , have betrayed us .

        “This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
        This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
        This other Eden, demi-paradise,
        This fortress built by Nature for herself
        Against infection and the hand of war,
        This happy breed of men, this little world,
        This precious stone set in the silver sea,
        Which serves it in the office of a wall
        Or as a moat defensive to a house,
        Against the envy of less happier lands,

        This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
        This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
        Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth,
        Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
        For Christian service and true chivalry,
        As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
        Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,

        This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
        Dear for her reputation through the world,
        Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
        Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
        England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
        Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
        Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
        With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
        That England, that was wont to conquer others,
        Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
        Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
        How happy then were my ensuing death!”
        ― William Shakespeare, Richard II

    2. The fact that elderly volunteers now need security tells us everything we need to know about what was once Great Britain. We are truly finished.

  45. OMG

    A huge crane can be seen from one of our bedrooms that faces North , 3 miles away.. on the edge of one of the quarries …

    Dear me , and the white shape of a section of wind turbine , one of 3 that we have fought against , bird crunchers .

    The location on high ground, at a working quarry extracting sand and gravel from heathland, means the wind farm will be visible for miles around. There are also concerns about blades killing birds and bats.

    When they are assembled each tower will be 100 metres tall – 125 metres to the tip of the blades – that’s more than twice the height of Nelson’s Column. https://www.swanage.news/controversial-purbeck-windfarm-to-become-reality-after-10-year-battle/

      1. Egrets, I’ve had a few, but there again too few to mention.

        But unless the wind turbines fall
        We may not have egrets at all.

    4. Don’t you have some endangered species that you can use to force the turbines to be abandoned? We used that ruse with turbines here and claimed that they would threaten some rare Blanding turtle with extinction. The turtles must be rare, no one has ever seen one but it was enough to force the removal of the turbines.

      Pity really, the turbines were in the migration path for birds flying from the north to warmer climes. We could have just collected meat for winter festivities if the turbines were running at migration time.

  46. Earlier whilst waiting for a bus (I know, but I had to collect my car from its service & MOT) I noticed a woman late 20’s early 30’s had let her dogs off the lead in the children’s playing field. Although there were no children around as she exited the field I said to her pointing to the Parish Council sign: “May I respectfully point out that dogs are not allowed on the playing field?”
    To which she replied rather angrily: “I can read. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
    I simply asked: “Why then let you dogs loose on the playing field?”
    She got very angry. Her Tatts were a bit of a give away…..

    1. As long as you ruined her day that’s all fine.
      I walk Dolly and Harry on the edges of the marked pitches. I would be horrified if a child got poo all over them. I always pickup too.

    2. We have a requirement to put a lead on the dogs around our estate, as there are wild deer and other animals there. Almost nobody does use the lead, and they get quite shirty (other garments are available) when one points this out to them.

        1. And goldens just want to be friends!
          We ‘borrow’ my daughter’s golden from time to time and I have a hard time not spoiling him….

    4. If dogs are not allowed I don’t take mine in there. Folk forget that the walk is for the dog as much as he owner so having them on a lead isn’t good for them.

      However what I do see all to often is people hauling on dog leads to control the animal. That’s just silly. We were joined by the family who have the Newfoundland Puppy the other day and were asked how to get him to walk at heel. I said ‘he’s a puppy, you’re trying to get it to do something it can’t’ Instead, have him wear himself out within a short distance with an extending lead and be prepared to turn around a lot. When he comes back to you reward him so he’s happy to be with you and knows that’s good. When he comes at call, do same. Otherwise don’t try to constrain as he won’t know why. Reinforce good behaviour and encourage it and pretty soon you get, well….an 80kg womble.

      2. If the PTB have their way (see the consultation on dog waste) you won’t be able to walk your dog anywhere off a lead unless you happen to have a designated dog walking field (for which you will no doubt have to pay a subscription). They want to ensure all dogs are kept on leads (no longer than 6’6″ – metric equivalent) on or near any pathway, footpath or highway.

    1. Don’t forget those who gave their lives for the UK, either.

      And/or all our Empire buddies. Just as brave and fearless for us.

      I’m proud to have served. God bless us one and all.

      Good to see you recognise it BoB.

      1. Just to be more divisive under trudeaus rule, yesterday was indigenous veterans day. Apparently in our wonderful country, the first nations vets are more important than the rest of us.

        We are also expecting trouble on Saturday, trouble that is being dismissed as Islamophobia by the powers that be.

  50. Man crushed to death by robot that mistook him for a box of vegetables. 9 November 2023.

    A South Korean man has been crushed to death by an industrial robot that mistook him for a box of vegetables.

    The man, who was in his 40s, had been inspecting a problem with the robot’s sensor at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang province.

    According to the Yonhap news agency, the robot, which was placing boxes of peppers on to a pallet, grabbed the worker.

    Mandrakes?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/08/man-crushed-to-death-south-korea-industrial-robot/

        1. Perhaps his bosses thought they didn’t want to lower productivity.

          Good afternoon, Rоспожa Myatnyy.

    1. That so many leftoids, eco-freaks and limp dumbs are against her means that she is actually saying what most normal, well-adjusted old-fashioned Conservatives believe.

      That slammers and illegals are a pestilence.

  54. Today’s Evening Standard emailed opinion piece.
    Sorry it’s a bit long.

    For David Cameron, it was promising to withdraw the Conservatives from the EPP, the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. For Theresa May, it was campaigning so quietly for Remain that it was nigh on impossible to find a news story about it. Sometimes, if you want to be prime minister, you’ve got to throw the electorate – in this case Tory MPs and party members – some red meat.
    For Rishi Sunak, the path to Number 10 (and avoiding a vote among a Conservative Party membership that had just rejected him in favour of Liz Truss) ran through Suella Braverman. Only a day before Truss announced her resignation, Braverman quit as home secretary after admitting to breaching the ministerial code over sending an official document from her personal email.
    Three days later Braverman, newly installed as leader of the Tory right, was endorsing Sunak rather than Boris Johnson, stating that this was no time for “fantasies”. Two days after that, Sunak became prime minister and Braverman was reappointed to the Home Office.
    Sunak was swift to deny that he had done, in the words of Keir Starmer, a “grubby deal” to secure power by promising Braverman her old job back in exchange for an endorsement. Still, both seemed content with how things ended up.
    Whether there was an arrangement or not, Sunak appointed Braverman to the Home Office in full knowledge of both the risks and rewards. It meant that the prime minister had someone in 2 Marsham Street dedicated to ‘stopping the boats’ and in full support of the Rwanda scheme. But in recent days, Sunak has started to distance himself from his home secretary.
    First, from Brverman’s comments that homeless people living in tents was a “lifestyle choice”. And today, from her piece in The Times, in which she suggests that pro-Palestinian protests are “hate marches” akin to rallies in Northern Ireland, all while playing fast and loose with the principle of the operational independence of the police.
    The prime minister’s official spokesperson has now said that Braverman’s article had not been cleared by Number 10, but that Sunak had confidence in the home secretary. Regarding the allegation of police bias, the spokesperson added: “The prime minister continues to believe that the police will operate without fear or favour.”
    Which does rather read as if he is saying the home secretary does not necessarily speak for the government on matters relating to policing. Looking at the job spec of the role, that’s a bit awkward.
    It is important not to reduce these comments to mere palace intrigue. This is an immensely fraught period, where protests are taking place every week, community tensions are running high, police resources are being stretched, antisemitic incidents are at record numbers and MI5 regards the terrorism threat as substantial, meaning an attack is likely.
    Indeed, following Braverman’s remarks, Minister for London, Paul Scully, told the BBC: “We’ve got to make sure that we concentrate on dampening things down rather than fuelling that sort of hatred and that division.”
    Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has accused Braverman of “encouraging extremists on all sides” and suggested that either the prime minister endorsed her article or he’s “too weak to sack her.” Readers of tea leaves suggest this is exactly what Braverman wants. It may be relevant to bookmark at this point that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the legality of the Rwanda scheme is set for next week.
    Whenever he was asked about Gordon Brown’s burning desire to be prime minister, Tony Blair would say that it was “not an ignoble ambition.” to want to lead the country. This is such a calm and substance-free answer it must have driven his chancellor madder still. But I’m not sure it’s much use to Sunak at this point.

    1. I wouldn’t put any of them in charge of a Whelk stall, (even if the Chinese and others think whelks are rubbery!)

    2. “…community tensions are running high…”

      Not a phrase that would have been uttered here before 1948.

      1. Their community of hotheads not ours. Honestly…the more they pander to these people the bigger their tantrums get.

  55. Neuro-zero Joe has just presided over the USA’s first debt interest amount of over $1 Trillion

    2. US private credit card debt also recently passed $1 trillion, so the citizens are going under water as fast as the State.

  56. Neuro-zero Joe has just presided over the USA’s first debt interest amount of over $1 Trillion

  57. DT Headline:

    “King says refugees need to ‘feel more welcome’ in Britain”

    BTL Comments summarised as follows:

    ‘welcomed to eff off….’

    1. Gosh – still more evidence that the JWK is a complete wazzock.

      Oh that his mother was still with us.

    2. Most genuine refugees are welcome.
      It’s the bogus invaders, the world’s dross, illegal and otherwise, who have no intention of integrating into British society or abiding by our laws and customs, and whose way of life is totally incompatible with any civilised country that nobody wants.

    3. I thought he couldn’t fall any lower in my estimation, but it seems he’s reached rock bottom and is starting to dig.

    1. She will stay until Fishi sacks her. He doesn’t want yet another reshuffle – so he’ll keep her.

      Don;t forget that he has a calendar where he crosses out each day until the last one when he leaves for his new job working for Elon Musk.

        2. Surely Musk, Gates, Schwab, and Soros can see that he is not likely to be of any use to any of them

          I very much doubt that Miliband’s and Clegg’s employers think how lucky they were and what a wise move it was to employ these two duds on vastly inflated salaries?

      2. I agree that he probably realises that he would suffer very harsh consequences if he sacked her. But is he strong enough not to sack her when the pressure is put on?

        When Liz Truss gave into pressure and sacked Kwarteng and appointed Hunt as her chancellor it became immediately clear that the fight had gone out of her and she was finished.

    2. He’s terrified of a by election. Besides, the optics wouldn’t suit him. It’s comical seeing the hatred of the Left directed at someone they want to control and spout ‘the message’ of hatred, bilge and spite they preach.

    3. What did she write in the article? Was it the one where she said some people sleeping on the streets are there by choice?

        1. As I mentioned earlier will plod be carrying out stop and search.
          Could be some items that might not have expected aboard all those coaches in to London.
          They could have hell-ed there attack on British culture in Manchester or Rochdale.

          1. I don’t recall your post.

            Any stop and search will likely be for anyone non pro Palestine and plod will doubtless find things that were planted to discredit the “far right”. Funny how far right is unacceptable, ever, yet hard left is fine.

        2. Neil Basu, formerly Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, who retired as an assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police last year, said Braverman had given licence to the far right and should be sacked.

          “I think it heightens the risk to police officers and it heightens the risk to the public. Because people who are turning up now, are turning up with the licence of the home secretary,” he said.

          The man who said that if he wasn’t a policeman, he would have been on the BLM march.

          As for ‘giving licence’…just think about what he’s saying about the right of some people to have a march but not others. He makes the very point that Braverman has raised!

          1. Agreed

            He was a trojan horse.

            She did nothing of the sort, she stated what she sees and I think a lot of people across all parties agree

  60. I doubt that she has the courage, but Suella Braverman could really put the cat amongst the pigeons by resigning, getting a bye-election and standing as the Reform candidate.

    If she did it, and won, it might launch a genuine Conservative party and she would be the clear candidate to lead it.

      1. One problem with PR is that we’d likely end up with some new party of slammer MPs in certain constituencies.
        I read somewhere that slammers had attempted to set up their own political party. Thankfully, it was rejected, but what’s to stop the parasites setting up their own party but just not being open about their true aims & identity?

        1. That has been my fear for some time – increased after the events of the last month. If they put a slammer candidate in all constituencies where there are thousands of slammers – they could get 20 MPs. Who might hold the balance of power.

          Frightening.

          4. “I promise to be a good Muslim so help me Allah”?

            And the beauty is that under Islam it’s acceptable to lie…

          1. They’ve got it easy.

            Labour will be the next government —

            Unless the Labour Party do what the slammers demand, they will threaten to leave the Labour Party

            and set up their own party which will hold the balance of power.

            The slammers can then play off the three political parties against each other, and support the one

            that appeases them most.

            Expect big advances for slammers after 2024.

          2. No doubt that Labour will form the government next year, but it’s just a question of time before the Muslim enclave constituencies spawn a Muslim Labour spinoff party. ‘Labour Jihad’ has a certain ring to it. Only kidding about the name, it will be much more subtle than that.

        3. Slammers have been using the Labour party as a flag of convenience for years, just building up a power base until a critical mass is reached and they then break away to form their own party. I suspect it was going to happen anyway. I don’t want to see that happen but it’s inevitable.

      2. If she stood and won, I suspect that a lot of old school Tory’s might jump ship and they would retain their seats in those places where they are regarded as good constituency MPs.
        The Conservative party would then have a choice; fight the seat and both lose, or leave it to a group they could form a coalition with.

    2. You get a politician speaking the truth and now you want more? Just settle for one miracle at a time.

      It’s all setting off. There were two Jewish schools hit by gunfire last night. Trudeau has been angered enough to say that this is not acceptable.

    4. The lift mechanism is missing.
      It should be inserted into the central hole and primed by using a weight of no more than 1000 lbs.
      It is capable of carrying one seated passenger but if overprimed may end up in the end.

      1. I have levers either side of my chair but each time i grip them to lift me up i end up ↓ in the cellar.

    5. Missing its energy pod. If you paint it in the colours of the Italian flag, and leave it near a source of power, such as Whitehall, it should attract a charge.

  62. That’s me for today. At least the sun shone a bit – when it wasn’t raining. Watched Portaloo on Spain last evening. Very interesting apart from his stupid, needless and pointless “interludes” – making a clay jug and icing cakes. I wish he’d stick to the real stuff. His discussion with a descendant of Frederick Lorca about that poet and his (Portaloo’s) father was not only fascinating but very moving.

    Time for a drinky-poo. AGA practically back to normal temp. The chap whom we found five years ago is very reliable.

    So have a spiffing evening writing letters of support to the Buddhist Home Secertry.

    A demain.

    1. Million upticks.
      One of the occasions – one of many – that lowered my opinion of our governing cadre to new depths.

    2. Watching it now. Thank you. Unbelievable. Do they really think we are so stupid we can’t see what they are doing?

      1. Short answer to that is, “yes, they do” and they also think that if we do wake up. we can’t do anything about it.

  67. Dr. Zakir Naik boarded a taxi in London and said aloud to the taxi driver, “Brother, please turn off the radio, because music is haram, especially Western music, which is the music of the disbelievers, and did not exist in the era of Mohammed.”

    The taxi driver politely turned off the radio, stopped the taxi, and opened the door.

    Zakir Naik asked him, “Brother, what are you doing…?”

    The taxi driver politely answered, “In the era of the Mohammed:

    There was no taxi;
    There were no bombs;
    No loudspeakers in the mosques;
    No suicide bombers;
    No AK-47,
    No Taxis.

    So shut up, get out, and wait for your camel…”

    1. Seems as the Koran didn’t ban certain things the young muslims are taking advantage. Ooh that is a gas.

    2. How long did the taxi driver get for islamophobia (assuming he didn’t have a fatwa issued against him)?

      1. He got away with it, because he relented and dropped Mo off at the Zoo were he was introduced to three new brides.
        Happy humping.

  68. Wordlers, a 3 today.

    Wordle 873 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Four for me.

      Wordle 873 4/6

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

    3. Not too good today

      Wordle 873 6/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  69. Evening, all. Been a very wet and extremely dull (in the sense of dark) day here. Couldn’t do anything in the garden, which is frustrating; I have a veg plot half cleared and the lawns are rapidly reaching meadow-like proportions.

  70. I’m surprised the BBC hasn’t lead with this one….

    “New Study Finds Most Of Antarctica Has Cooled By Over 1°C Since 1999…W. Antarctica Cooled 1.8°C

    By Kenneth Richard on 6. November 2023

    Significant 21st century cooling in the Central Pacific, Eastern Pacific, and nearly all of Antarctica “implies substantial uncertainties in future temperature projections of CMIP6 models.” – Zhang et al., 2023

    New research indicates West Antarctica’s mean annual surface temperatures cooled by more than -1.8°C (-0.93°C per decade) from 1999-2018. In spring, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) cooling rate reached -1.84°C per decade.

    Not only has the WAIS undergone significant cooling in the last two decades, most of the continent also cooled by more than 1°C. See, for example, the ~1°C per decade cooling trend for East Antarctica (2000 to 2018) shown in Fig. ES1.

    Of 28 CMIP6 models, none captured a cooling trend – especially of this amplitude – for this region. This modeling failure “implies substantial uncertainties in future temperature projections of CMIP6 models.”

    3. Or perhaps it’s Chinese and Indian funded research to allow their continued expansion using fossil fules (sic)

      a cynic writes.

  71. If anyone wants to know why we are always at war you only need to read Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers.

    All the new young talent fed into the meat grinder to stop the guardians from being dislodged from their lofty positions.

          1. I think they have now managed that and it makes me weep. Misguided and manipulated to their deaths. No one will be able to resist.

          2. When the dust eventually settles, I fear that Ukraine will have had its heart ripped out.
            And, if Russia loses, that it will then become a dumping ground for Europe’s undesirables.
            Swiftly followed by the destruction of the bread basket of a lot of the world.

          3. You may have missed something but Ukraine and surprisingly Ethiopia are some of the most fertile places on the planet. The war is not what most people think. Many farmers can’t farm.

          4. My point was exactly that, if Ukraine gets allocated the dross that is invading Europe it is extremely unlikely that it will continue to be farmed well.

          6. I suspect so, but there are a lot of politicians in the world who would happily see it continue for years, until both sides have lost.

      2. In this particular context, I think grinder is more appropriate, it gives a stronger picture of what is happening to those being ground down.
        Minced down doesn’t have quite the same resonance.

    3. I always regard Starship Troopers as Robert A Heinlein’s. But yes, I’ve seen the film.

    1. So stupid that when it gets really nasty, they’re likely to be shot by both sides.

  73. Anyone think it a bit strange that the Left are suddenly on the side of the police, after hating them for decades?

  74. I hope the Israelis have the sense only to report the unvarnished pictures and show everything they find to international journalists.
    They have no need to exaggerate, the truth is already their best friend in the propaganda war.

    Meanwhile, one IDF unit claimed they discovered a Hamas weapons-making facility next to a child’s bedroom in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of the city.
    Images shared on the IDF’s official social media accounts showed heavily armed Israeli troops standing in a room with several small beds and pink wallpaper covered in debris. Drone components and missiles were seen in an adjacent room as the soldiers combed the site.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12729573/Israeli-troops-Hamas-engage-heavy-close-quarters-fighting-Gaza-City-IDF-forces-uncover-weapons-factory-kindergarten-childrens-bedroom.html

    1. Because I mistrust much of what purports to be truth, I’m afraid I’ll need more than that to not suspect that the drone components and missiles were props for the images.

  75. The top of the hour news on GBN referred to “The Queen” doing something today then, a couple of sentences in, changed to just “Camilla”. Was the late Queen ever referred to in that way by just her Christian name?

    3. Hi Sue ,

      Have you seen the BLACK poppy the idiot King was wearing ?

      Selena Carty set it up and it is worn to remember the African, Black Peoples, West Indian, Caribbean, Pacific Islands & Indigenous communities’ contributions in the great wars.

      Black poppies
      On Remembrance Sunday 1999, a Merseyside group protesting against sanctions and war on Iraq laid a wreath of black poppies on the cenotaph in Liverpool.[118] In 2014 the black poppy was embraced as an anti-war symbol by the Stop the War Coalition which reported ‘anti militarists’ in Glasgow distributing 16,000 black poppies in memory of World War I conscientious objectors.[119]

      1. Whatever else one might think, a lot of black members of the Empire/Commonwealth and UK forces have paid the ultimate cost for the UK and the world.
        Don’t put down any remembrance of them.
        That said, I believe there should be only the single symbol, the traditional red poppy.

          3. “…I’m paper or enamel…”

            One of my useless new paper poppies fell apart today on its second wearing.

          6. Can’t find one this year and I’m embarrassed that someone with good eyesight will see the year on it. I’ve 5 or 6 of them.

          7. I bet they’re not being made at the Poppy Factory in Richmond, down the road from the Star & Garter military hospital anymore.

          8. We donate each year and wear ours and then try to visit HG’s great uncle’s grave the following year where we leave them as a mark of remembrance and respect.
            She, her brother, his wife and I were able to say our prayers at his graveside on the 100th anniversary of his death.
            A very moving moment for us all.

          9. I wear enamel poppies (with the RAFA crest, RAFARS badge, RAF crest in the centre, plus one with a Spitfire in a wreath of poppies), but I put some money in the tin every year in lieu of buying a new poppy.

          10. My enamel poppy has my old squadron crest on it, I too pop money in the tin but don’t take a poppy

          12. I now have a couple of “single use plastic” ones, which I’m keeping. If I use them annually, surely they’re not “single use plastic”? Two or three years ago, I scoured Aldershot, of all places, to find and buy one, without success. Using an old poppy doesn’t preclude the possibility of me donating to RBL again. Though, given that organisation’s wokeness, my contactless donation to the Parish on Sunday will stay* with the Parish, whereas the cash donations will go to RBL. *Until the Diocese steals it, obviously…

        2. I don’t doubt that they served and would have in many cases paid the price. I am just annoyed by the disproportionate treatment at the expense of the majority.

          1. In October 2012, Call-me-Dave announced that there would be a programme of events for the centenary of WW1. From the DT letters comments:

            Whatever form the commemoration takes, one hopes that the BBC (if invited) will treat it with rather more professionalism than it did this year’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and if it does manage that that its presenters leave their peculiar socio-political prejudices at home. We have already had a taste of these. Yesterday (Thursday 11th October), the lunchtime news on BBC1 included a report on the announcement. Robert Hall stood at the Menin Gate, Ypres, and started by telling us that the memorial is inscribed with the names of 50,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers whose remains were never found. As he did so the camera panned slowly to a small panel with the names of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, perhaps 60-100. Only at the end of the report of almost four minutes did the camera show some of the thousands of names of British soldiers.

        3. Of course there were, and nobody denies that. They are remembered by the poppy, along with all the others.

      2. I made the mistake of listening to some of the The Moral Maze last night. The subject was ‘How should we remember the dead and the living?’ The last contributor was historian James Heartfield, whose contribution was to point out the militarism of Remembrance Sunday and to imply that there might be a better way to do it to take into account those who, by ancestry, are not part of it.

      3. A sharp intake of breath from a rural cottage here in south Cambs.

        Charles lll should be supporting his population at this time. It needs him. But he is so out of touch he cannot see that, will never see that.

        Incidentally, was that actually Charles lll at the State Opening, or a body double? He was so lack-lustre, his face sunken inwards, he looked ill…. I mention this because it was being questioned why George, William’s son, was not there with the page boys of the coronation, who were in attendance. George would be the only one to realise it was not his grandfather, if it wasn’t, and perhaps blurt the truth at some point. I think the excuse given was that he was preparing for exams but surely the other three (?) young boys would have been preparing also. Just a thought.

      5. Of course their contribution was far more important than that of the majority white soldiers. I am so sick of their being singled out for special treatment. I noticed on an Ancestry advert there was a black auxiliary fireman and a black WAAF – out of how many? I thought it was white feathers, not black poppies, for conchies.

          1. Many did indeed serve as stretcher bearers and medics. It was those who refused to go into uniform who got the white feathers, I believe.

          2. It also happemed to people who were medically unfit (eg asthma) but who looked healthy, and sometimes to those in reserved occupations.

      6. How disrespectful. The poppy is to commemorate all who died, not just those of a particular skin colour. We all have red blood, though Charles probably thinks his is blue.

  76. A late-ish thought for the day.
    If Israel loses this war (God forbid) where do you think the Jews will flee to?
    And, do you think that all the Palestinian and other Muslim parasites in Europe will return to “Palestine”?

    2. They should come here and replace Muslims, on a one for one replacement back to the Middle East.

    3. The Jews would flee to Germany, which is the country that has come out most strongly against anti-semitism
      and
      The newly independent Palestine would instantly start wars with all their neighbours for having the wrong kind of Islam.

      1. Ironic if Germany is the one safe haven for Jews! Islam can’t live in peace; it isn’t in its nature.

    1. It seems that horrible git gove was mentioned as a replacement possibility. Not a nice man.

  78. A man who survived Alabama’s attempt to execute him last year has been told that the state now plans to kill him in January, using a new and untested method of capital punishment.

    Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was convicted in 1988 of murdering Elizabeth Sennett. Her husband, Charles Sennett, a respected local pastor, had paid Smith and an accomplice $1,000 each to murder his wife after taking out an insurance policy on her life. He committed suicide before he could be charged.

    In November last year, Smith was strapped to a gurney at Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility. The team charged with inserting two intravenous lines into Smith’s body for a lethal injection failed to find a vein for the second line and after four hours gave up after failing to meet the death warrant’s midnight deadline.

    Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the state can try again to kill him, this time using a new and untried method of execution. Three states, Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi, have authorised nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but no state has attempted to use it.

    Smith told The Times: “They called me to the warden’s office today [Wednesday] at around 12.30pm and read a new death warrant to me. It’s January 25 at 12am to January 26 at 6am.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/botched-execution-survivor-kenneth-eugene-smith-gets-date-for-untested-killing-method-pjssmkrf3

    “The family and I are devastated, as you can imagine. My immediate overwhelming pressure is to find a spiritual adviser … who is willing to risk his life to be there with me. It’s been a hard day.”

    Nitrogen hypoxia involves the forced inhalation of pure nitrogen. Alabama said it wanted to use the method for Smith’s execution, but was yet to explain the procedure or how it would force him to inhale the gas.

    1. What about trying covid vaccinations on him. Didn’t there used to be a pardon for someone if the hangman’s noose broke twice, or something like that.

  80. An interesting viewpoint:
    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/hamas-israel-war-strategy-b1119292.html

    Hamas, as it began operations on that dazzling October morning, had a theory of victory. Not once, even in 1948, had Palestinian forces, unlike Egyptian or Jordanian ones, overrun a Jewish community. Their commanders believed that if this could be achieved at scale — occupying, at least temporarily, the farming kibbutzim which envelop the strip — the myth of Israeli invincibility would be shattered and their national cause, fading away, would be put back on the agenda. In this, from the very first hours, they succeeded brilliantly.
    Palestinian history, from Deir Yassin to Sabra and Shatila, is written in massacres, and on that morning Hamas accomplished a horror exceeding even that grisly pantheon. But this is where their theory of victory fell short. Believing so firmly, so deeply in the symbolism of this, they seem to have misjudged what it would mean for their allies, for the rest of the Arab world, and even other Palestinians. Hamas was counting on the event, and what it anticipated as Israel’s enraged, Samson-like reprisals, detonating the whole Middle East.

    Hamas imagined itself like Saladin, the warrior spearhead of an Arab army, poised to deal a shattering blow to what they see as the Crusader state in the Levant. But, tragically for the Palestinian people, Hamas was in fact operating like a suicide bomber — senselessly blowing itself up, taking down thousands of civilians, with no viable strategic end.

    This is the tragedy of any suicide bomber: blinded by fury and rage, enticed by martyrdom and rumours of paradise, he never sees beyond his own death. Not only are the pain and the misery of his explosion beyond his view, but the strategic consequences of his blast are things he simply cannot see.

    1. It certainly is a viewpoint. My viewpoint is that they have a very low IQ. Have been brainwashed since birth. Know of no other possible existence and revel in mayhem. Just like any suicidal mind frame they need to be removed from the civilised world and put into isolation.

  81. Off to pick up van tomorrow. The DT’s driving me down and we’re stopping overnight just South of Ely at the village of Freckingham.

    And I’m off to bed.
    G’night all.

      1. That takes me back. I seem to recall playing at St Andrews at least once. Was prolly a wedding…

        Was back in Suffolk, at Eriswell, a couple of months ago, for the funeral of an old friend (shut up, Elton). Hardly recognised the place. I’d forgotten the big sky…

    3. Interesting that you say you’re “late to bed”. Just wondering – when we’re retired why do “late” and “early” even exist? Unless you have to be somewhere of course. Just an idle thought.

      Anyway, morning Geoff.

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