Tuesday 11 March: Britain’s Armed Forces remain hamstrung by sluggish recruitment

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

682 thoughts on “Tuesday 11 March: Britain’s Armed Forces remain hamstrung by sluggish recruitment”

    1. More likely angry Reform voters marching on Farage's headquarters with pitchforks, I would have thought.

  4. Starmer decries ‘worst of all worlds’ benefits system ahead of deep cuts. 11 March 2025.

    Britain’s benefits system is the “worst of all worlds”, with the number of people out of work or training “indefensible and unfair”, the prime minister has said as he prepares for deep cuts to disability payments.

    Addressing a private meeting of Labour MPs on Monday evening, Keir Starmer said he would take tough decisions to cut the bill for working age health and disability benefits, which is expected to hit £70bn by 2030.

    That sound you can hear in the political distance is the Death Knell of the British Labour Party.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/10/starmer-decries-worst-of-all-worlds-benefits-systems-ahead-of-deep-cuts

      1. MorningKate. It is actually quite amazing. If a Tory had said that there would have been blood on the benches.

      2. Morning Kate. It is actually quite amazing. If a Tory had said that there would have been blood on the benches.

    2. It can't come soon enough! Edited to add (The demise of the so-called Labour Party…)

      Morning Minty and all…..

      1. Morning Stephen. The whole thing is worth a read. The trashing of every Labour Shibboleth and Belief. The poorest and most deprived are to pay for the UK's rearmament. Even I would not have thought of these things.

        1. I'm definitely allergic to the contents of the Guardian……it brings me out in a rash of dire thoughts!

      2. The so-called Labour Party was already demised by the time of the 2024 General Election.

        Didn't Starmer's party get fewer votes than they did in 2019, which was supposed to be its greatest defeat since the 1930s, and a lot fewer than in 2017 when under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party from a very low base. without Scotland and with the Tories nobbling the Lib Dems in the West Country, nevertheless denied Theresa May her majority, forcing her to go cap-in-hand to the DUP for support?

        2024 was most notable for the utter breakdown of the Conservative Party, a modest revival of the Lib Dems, the reprehensible lack of parliamentary representation for Reform and the Greens, and Starmer claiming power by default with little public support.

    3. We can't afford all the handouts any more. We can't keep printing money to pay for them, as we've been doing for a century or more.

    4. The minute someone earns enough to get off means-tested benefits, is the minute one gets hammered for Council Tax and all sorts of other stealth taxes designed to penalise the less well-off in favour of tax cuts for the hardworking aspirationals in the Blair/Mandelson/Musk camp.

      It is punitive. A lot simpler then to play the system and to hell with productive work! It then only takes a few weeks off work to blight one's CV and render someone permanently unemployable.

      I will not take any pledge to balance the books seriously until someone pledges to put up the rate of Income Tax, which unlike the other stealth taxes, charges and hidden overheads is progressive, fair and a lot simpler to administer.

    5. That sound you can hear in the political distance is the Death Knell of the British Labour Party.

      I think more and more people would wish it was the 'here and now'. Sadly, with Reform's current attempt at political suicide perhaps the 'middle distance' would be the more favourable answer.

    6. Morning all.

      How about making it illegal to marry more than one person at a time? And claiming bennies for the offspring? Ooh, it already is!

    2. I suppose it doesn't matter where he comes on the heath either.

      "It is so long I have to bend it double before I put it in; I don't know if I'm coming or going!" 😉

  6. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLLe site.

    Wordle 1,361 5/6

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

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Bit luckier today than yesterday!
      Wordle 1,361 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I've a feeling one or two wouldn't recognise one even if standing next to one…..

    2. I've a feeling one or two wouldn't recognise one even if standing next to one…..

    3. I'd forgotten that in the old days they used to wear white gloves. I suppose that was so they didn't leave finger prints?…..To compromise a crime scene I hasten to add!

      2. As Paul mentions, below, white goves were reserved for ceremonial occasions and traffic point duty. All other times we were bare-handed or wore black leather gloves in winter.

    4. When I go into town at the weekend there are usually small groups of Police with their cars in the centre. They look more like Keystone Cops than the real thing.

    5. My colleagues and I, in the 1970s–1990s, dressed similar to those officers in the RH photograph. All of us despair at how standards in uniform, behaviour and discipline have plummeted in the decades since.

      This roughly matches the manner in which standards, behaviour and discipline have nosedived in our elected representatives during the same time scale.

  12. Good morning all.
    A decent sleep until 4am when I awoke to toss and turn until 05:30 when I fell asleep again.
    Only to be woken by the DT stirring as Welder Son left for work at 10 to 6!!

    However, a pleasant start to the day, still a bit cooler than of late with a tad over 3½°C when I took the milk bottle out after a maximum of 14°C yesterday.

    A trip to the scrappie's today to get rid of a load of non-ferrous and small amount of ferrous.

  14. SIR – There is obviously a need to strengthen our Armed Forces, and an increase in the defence budget will be welcome. However, without a new mindset, nothing will improve.

    Take the current recruitment process. My 18-year-old granddaughter applied to join the Royal Fleet Auxiliary at the end of December, and completed her online testing in the first week of January. This was followed by the submission of a formal application a week later. She has heard very little since, other than that the process can take seven to eight months.

    It is not surprising that the Armed Forces are struggling to recruit manpower with this approach. Most applicants worthy of a position will have found other employment by the time they hear back, and quite possibly begun to climb the promotion ladder. They will be reluctant to give this up in order to start as new recruits.

    In 1974, when I joined the Army as a telecommunications apprentice, the whole process was completed within weeks rather than many months. Why, in these days of instantaneous communication, is it taking so long?

    Antony Mann
    Millbrook, Cornwall

    Because recruitment has been outsourced to Capita and they are working from home in Bombay.

    1. The British Armed Forces' greatest asset is morale. When morale is high, anything can be asked and ordered, and anything can be achieved. It is a concept that has been woefully overlooked since they started cost-cutting by slicing up the regiments.

      The very first thing after signing the recruitment papers, preferably at the very first weekend, is an invite to tour the regiment, accompanied by a hearty meal and talks by sergeants and officers that they had done the right thing, that life in the military is exciting and inspirational, but tough and sometimes difficult, but military training is there to make what is tough and difficult possible, and even fun, and that they are looking forward to the recruits coming on board as soon as the necessary clearances had been done.

      This buys time and leaves the recruit eager to get started. And for what cost?

  17. By-Election as Mike Amesbury Announces He Will Quit as MP

    Robert jones
    12h
    Bit confusing here, the man has been convicted of a serious crime and gets a rather lenient sentence , , now he states there are procedures he has to follow in order for him to claim redundancy , he has lost his job due to a misdemeanour yet expects ,to get some sort of pay , what the hell is going on?! No wonder they are so disliked , all of them

    matt
    12h
    Aaah so that was the dodgy deal with the Labour Party then; stand down when we want you to and we will keep you out of prison even though a custodial sentence was clearly called for.
    He should be in prison.

    Hereagain
    13h
    ‘CCHQ…which recently saw its entire candidate selection team leave…’
    Brilliant! That’s a good start.

    Ernest Nowell
    Hereagain
    13h
    That is a good start indeed. At the 2019 election they chose mostly Remainer, Ecoloon, LibDems instead of actual Tories!

  19. People who get caught up in a giant fight often forget that nobody else is really interested and everyone just wishes they would stop fighting.
    This is just such a blatant slap in the face to people who want an honest alternative to LibLabCon (which Reform never was). Don't pander to their psyop by wasting any more time on it.

  20. 403023+up ticks,

    Morning BB2,
    Surely this man must clear his name & rep.
    What is the alternative otherwise
    to seeking the right type person to oppose the governing cartels?

      1. 403023+ up ticks,

        BB2
        Imo tis crunch time if an alternative party is brought into play, then those leaving now could very well turn into a flood.

        1. The votes of disillusioned old-school conservatives will either be scattered ineffectually across a cluster of squabbling parties arguing amongst themselves over details, forgetting the big picture, or will be withheld on the basis that the factions are no better than the Conservative party they've already abandoned.

          1. 403023+ up ticks,

            Morning DW,
            To my mind politics has changed these last four decades especially, so much, with seemingly a great deal of criminal input.

            We now have to contend with the
            WEF / NWO / RESET brigade and their bottomless money mine, able to buy, & are buying politico’s / parties.

            A great deal of this is virgin territory and hard to comprehend for the electorate after decades of tribal lab/lib/con supporting / voting.

        1. Wouldn't make any difference. He'd clear them by whacking her with the officially approved sized stick.

      1. Remember the advert where a man offers his wife a range of headache remedies until she says: "But I don't have a headache!" so he moves into action.

        (I could not find this on the Internet – I think it has been taken down for inappropriateness.)

    4. Loadsa Kids
      He clearly NEVER suffered from migraines in Bed (or on the bedroom floor, or in the Kitchen…or anywhere else at any time). The Quran (quoted from Quora) says that : 
      It is the right of any husband to enjoy his wife at any time no matter her condition… as long as he does not distract her from her obligations or harm her. In that case, he may not enjoy her since that is not living with her honorably (sic). If he does not distract her from those duties or harm her, then he may enjoy her. Kashāf al-Quinā' 5/188. And live with them honourably. Quran 4:19

      1. Thank you so much for clearing up any doubts we may have had. I'm sure you quoted that from memory. {:^))

  23. 'Morning All
    Medley Time
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/996fcbe738f434c9240b689b428df4db1ea08e19925ae5623b86c1b894e45d41.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/288f97046318b95f553fc22539c7f1913f9405dccc79c01cc46a42dbb6ef395e.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07b8cca7498c3ba886f4d0cc9fe719adb8e02e7a593abdcdec67354099bdf633.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30db51520a59d150f19b9db2018a66c783ac9cd1a3f01aa024b7fe3cf44d3218.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1434ed5e5a7a844582234f7cbc602a0ef374d2b4c8b59edf147dc77f2d4fa51c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c93740fcdff3f6828570857b378a1bd72ce33b53340bb845125f4f9f7654407.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17bd85312f09e87c675d34f7a6c3ca7a86fbff5e01fd02799d20ea3095127bdd.jpg

    1. While the burning of Russians in Odessa was a terrible event, the pro-Russian faction cannot escape all culpability. Wikipedia's account apportions some blame to both sides.

      In early 2014, there were clashes between rival groups of protestors in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, during the pro-Russian unrest that followed the Ukrainian Revolution. The street clashes were between pro-revolution ('pro-Maidan') protesters and anti-revolution ('anti-Maidan'), pro-Russian protesters. Violence erupted on 2 May, when a 'United Ukraine' rally of about 2,000 was attacked by about 300 pro-Russian separatists. Stones, petrol bombs and gunfire were exchanged. A pro-Russian gunman shot dead a pro-Ukraine protester. Another pro-Ukraine activist and four pro-Russia activists were shot dead in the clashes. The pro-Ukraine group then moved to dismantle a pro-Russian protest camp in Kulykove Pole, causing some pro-Russian activists to barricade themselves in the nearby Trade Unions House. Shots were fired from the building at the pro-Ukraine group, and the pro-Ukrainians attempted to storm the building, which caught fire as the two groups threw petrol bombs at each other.

      The clashes resulted in deaths of 48 people, 46 of whom were anti-Maidan/pro-Russian activists. 42 of the victims died in the Trade Unions House fire, 200 were injured, 120 people were rescued from the fire and a further 210 were evacuated. The events were the bloodiest civil conflict in the region since the Odessa Bolshevik uprising of 1918. Although several alleged perpetrators were charged, there has yet to be a trial. There are allegations that some police colluded with pro-Russian activists in the initial street clashes. In 2015, the International Advisory Panel of the Council of Europe concluded that the investigation's independence was hampered by "evidence indicative of police complicity", and that authorities failed to thoroughly investigate the events.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes

      1. "Wikipedia's account apportions some blame to both sides."

        And there you have it. Conflict, pugilism, aggression; all part of the natural order of being an animal species from the beginning until the end of time.

        Animals (and, lest we forget, humans are not a vegetable) will always compete for breeding, territory, food and countless other 'reasons' to fight and kill. It is the natural way of the world: the natural way of living things. The survival of the fittest was not just a throwaway line attributed to Darwin; it is the natural order. Kill or be killed. No modern philosophy or pretension of "civilisation" will ever remove that.

      2. Which confirms my belief; I know enough about Ukraine/Russia to know I don't know enough.
        I have vague memories of a chap with a pock marked face caused through 'poisoning' and a woman with a very elaborate plaited hair-do.

  24. Half an hour in and it is fascinating. If what Mr Lowe is saying is correct Reform's leadership will be shown as incapable of running a Whelk stall…..

    1. Nagsman could wax lyrical for hours on end about how awful Nigel was as UKIP Party Supremo, good as he might be with a microphone.

  25. Britain’s Armed Forces remain hamstrung by sluggish recruitment

    That is because the young generation fails the Norman Tebbitt cricket test

  27. So our legacy mainstream parties expect us to all be horrified at the thought of a peace treaty with Ukraine, whereby Russia keeps some of the territory they have taken back, while expecting our young soldiers to go in as some sort of human shield.
    But why would our people feel so emboldened to do that when at home we have already given up large areas of our country to foreigners and are now in the process of giving them top tier entitlement for justice, public services education and housing, with ever more landing on our shores and waved in every day.
    So the British public are not much better off than Ukraine at the end of the day, both powerless to do much about an invasion. Ukraine is probably better off to be fair, because at least their government is in the side of their people.

    1. The enemy is within.
      Hostile enclaves like Westminster, Tower Hamlets, Bradford etc….. are worthy of attention.

  28. For the past few months NoTTLers have posted, on this forum, the ever-growing number of Reform Party membership numbers.

    Has anyone thought of posting the now ever-diminishing numbers of Reform Party membership?

    1. I suppose once you've joined then you have paid for the year, not sure how it works.
      I never signed up, although I gave them a small donation before the last election.

      1. I understand from a friend who looked at joining that they automatically renew your membership at the end of 12 months. He didn't like that idea, so decided not to join.

    2. I suppose once you've joined then you have paid for the year, not sure how it works.
      I never signed up, although I gave them a small donation before the last election.

    3. I did not join the Reform Party and, like many of us here, I have previously expressed my reservations about Farage's narcissism while admitting his qualities as an orator.

      However, had I joined I would have terminated my membership in the last few days.

        1. The best politicians are the politicians who aren't really politicians at all.

  29. Demand for housing
    SIR – I live in Kenilworth in south Warwickshire. Here, and at nearby Warwick and Leamington, a phenomenal number of new houses and estates have either already been built or will be soon.

    These are threatening the historic character of the towns, destroying agricultural land and areas for wildlife, and wrecking the quiet of rural places that are also used for recreation.

    Now the Government wants to continue this urbanisation by prioritising yet more areas for development, even though roads and infrastructure may not be able to cope (“Green belt village protections to be scrapped”, report, March 9). Meanwhile, the objections of ordinary people are not being heard.

    New areas for housebuilding will be selected on the basis of fashionable principles, including sustainability. Yet an unsustainable level of immigration, which is creating much of the demand for extra housing, is hardly discussed.

    Why is it that local authorities must act in accordance with these principles, yet Labour can seemingly ignore them and do virtually nothing to tackle the root cause of the housing problem?

    Richard Munday
    Kenilworth, Warwickshire

    Any one visiting Dorset , especially Blandford, Wimborne , Shaftesbury , Gillingham, Weymouth etc will see the the shocking amount of new homes , mostly boring red brick miniscule , no gardens etc .. but the largest monstrous development is Poundbury on the edge of Dorchester .. trade is dead in our County town .. the high street and the two other main shopping venues are miserable , the footfall ghastly , and Lloyds bank which is a prominent building , will close in June ..

    Our local banks are closed / closing , but charity shops , coffee shops and buskers flourish.

    Sherborne still seems to be thriving , attractive and welcoming , but for how long .

    New housing estates are probably attracting white flight from the home counties , I wonder whether that is why large parts of Dorset attracted a Labour vote?

  30. One small step for the Ginger Gobbler.. one giant leap towards civil war.

    Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner appoints Dominic Grieve KC, in order to adopt controversial 2018 All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) definition of ‘Islamophobia’.
    The APPG definition has already been adopted by the Labour Party and numerous public bodies, including 52 local councils.

    One that deliberately conflates criticism of a religion with racial hatred.
    This would mean that questioning certain aspects of Islam or discussing controversial issues such as Islamist extremism or grooming gangs risks being deemed incitement under the racial hatred provisions of the POA.

    .. restricts discussion, criticism, or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult, or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents and their expressions of ‘Muslimness’ and even critiques of Islamic beliefs and practices.

    "F Off I'm Millwall"
    By means of association.. you're f/ nicked, son.

    1. "F Off I'm Millwall"

      Roy Larner, of course. Bit of a dodgy geezer, bit tasty, knowwharramean, bit of form, orright, so he didn't get the George Medal his bravery deserved. Wrong type of hero, you see.

      1. To be fair he got star billing on the anti-terror watch list for his troubles.. to be monitored at all times.

      2. To be fair he got star billing on the anti-terror watch list for his troubles.. to be monitored at all times.

    2. Dominic Grieve was the Conservative Party's answer to Chris Bryant and is just as nasty.

      As an MP he was determined to wreck Brexit from within the party and is now determined to help Labour destroy Britain completely.

  31. 403023+ up ticks,

    Tuesday 11 March: Britain’s Armed Forces remain hamstrung by sluggish recruitment

    Don't know why, four square a day, foreign travel a career not to be sneezed at, a generals baton in every kit bag, etc,etc.

    In reality,
    The indigenous youth leaving homeland in the hands of foreign youths to protect whilst they are protecting
    foreign borders in a very hostile environment,the forces career could literally be, in this instance, very short lived.

  32. Sorry to bore you with health matters….
    Yesterday I had a appointment to discuss my prostate cancer. I had radiotherapy back in 2016 which at the time seemed successful. But the PSA started to rise (jokingly I say just after my first AZ covid jab) and at the end of last year there was quite a steep rise. Bone and CT scans were organised. But as I found out yesterday these showed no detectable cancer in the prostate or lymph nodes and they are puzzled. Their only option it seem is to put me back on hormone therapy, though that is a path I would prefer not to choose. Should I be worried (there are no direct symptoms) or is it a case that the rise in PSA has absolutely nothing to do with prostate cancer?

    2. You don't 'bore' us with health matters. One of the prime raisons d'être of NoTTLe is mutual support of our fellows.

      Take care.

      1. As it happens I am 75….. I think they are assuming that since there was cancer in the past, which was easily visible in scans, before radiotherapy, that there must be residual small cancer cells still there. But if they have not grown to be visible in nearly 10 years they will continue to be invisible and not cause any issues.

      2. They still watch the numbers and if concerned will send you for an MRI and if still concerned a biopsy.

  33. Also yesterday I got back the results from my colonography a couple of weeks ago. It included a remarkably detailed report from the radiologist which I am not sure I should have seen anyway. There is no sign of cancer or significant polyps and the main issue seems to be diverticulosis – described as 'severe'. I gather there is not normally any treatment for that and I will have to live with it. Then a whole load of things that seem totally unrelated to my bowels – a cyst on my right kidney, another cyst elsewhere, and what is a standing joke in my family – I have gallstones. My brother went into hospital for pneumonia and came out diagnosed with gallstones, now I have followed the same step. But hopefully as with my brother they are causing no issues they will just leave them there. But at least I can celebrate that my other vital organs are in good shape.

    1. Morning ,

      They might suggest draining your kidney cyst.. simple procedure ..

      My doctor says I look healthy , not pale and wan , I always say I look like an English rose and have have never ever looked ill, but .. my diverticulitis and IBS are ruling my life .. and each day is different .. I feel my later years are being ruined and dictated by gut problems .

      I ate half a dozen cherries last night , and I woke up at 5am with a crippling stomach spasm , I was so hot and uncomfortable , and felt as if I was having labour pains .. no , no need to run to the loo , nothing happened just spasms ..

      Hey ho.. I am wondering whether the wretched covid jabs I had years ago are responsible for the behaviour of my left sided headache and gut problems and back ache.

      1. Getting older is a pain TB.
        I've suddenly developed a very painful left elbow, no obvious reason, not the tennis type. But the whole joint. And an extremely painful right hand fore finger if I stretch to pick something up it's like a stabbing.
        I can't be bothered to try to make a gp appointment they are not good.
        But on the bright 🔆 side a message left on my phone yesterday tells me I have an appointment with the knee surgeon on the 20th. I hope I can convince him to carry out the job. Six years is a long time to be waiting.

      2. Have you had bloods tested for B12, Maggie? They discovered mine was way too low and pumped me up with six 1cc loads over a 2 week period, then 1cc dose every 3 months. Intramuscular injections. My gut is much better than it was.

      3. Sorry to hear that, Belle. Maybe try some bio active yoghurt. Just a bit, at first, in case it triggers.

    2. I have a bit of diverticulosis. Popcorn can give it a bit of gyp. You might find some other foods do too. No need to cut them out, just not too much at once, works for me.

  34. A proper good morning to you all.

    Chilly 6c temp, bit of a breeze , no rain and dull sky.

    Dentist later this morning , a trip to Poole for a check up.

  35. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/39d32a04d95f8d7c15b542f48816a8775d663932/0_0_5879_3919/master/5879.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=f047c8e4c1ff4016e2edd098efee05bb Guatemala City, Guatemala
    The Fuego volcano erupts
     https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a3599e5ee8607a4306438f5a98e13078784d04a7/0_0_5512_3308/master/5512.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a8cbc06fb8ea4a8ebb3003498fdfa4a1 Maloja, Switzerland
    Skiers in the Engadin Skimarathon, a 42km cross-country event that attracts 14,000 participants
     https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8044ff8ab54795587579e70bdb77935f099b8373/0_0_5304_3536/master/5304.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ec7175b056d1fee30069ae0962704d4d Tunceli, Turkey
    A pair of storks in their nest on top of an electricity pole in the Pertek district. The storks have made the precarious perch their home for the past six years and have not migrated
     https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/48932fe3c75b1ce28ce53f3d2764a4a440b8a70e/0_0_6336_4224/master/6336.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=86fee96d5b3e46659f4b902a199b4b59 Eklutna Tailrace, US
    Northern lights (Aurora Borealis) illuminate the sky in Alaska.

    1. We have just been in touch with number one son and he's sent us some photos of Darling Harbour.
      He's borrowed an umbrella from his hotel. But it's not cold.

      1. When I was last in Darling Harbour I visited Sydney Fish Market and picked up a live Yabbie from a display.

        I said to it, "G'day, mate. I ate your brother last night!"😋

        1. When we use to go to the sheep stations near Narran lakes NSW we use to catch Yabbie’s in the station reservoir.
          A length of string with a loop two feet from the meat bait tied to the bottom end. A thin bendy stick shoved into the bank, string tied to the top and sit with a few coldies. When the stick started to vibrate and flex slowly pull up the string, when the loop shows you put a kitchen colander under the loop pull up and bingo a yabby. Lots of them into boiling water, a good starter to BBQ lamb.

          1. Delicious little critturs; far tastier, in my opinion, than a Crayfish.

            My only regret was not sampling Moreton Bay Bugs or a Blue Swimmer Crab on my visits.

            I had a delicious Mud Crab Curry though.

          2. I had also spent time dabbing out blue mud crabs. Trainers on for protection, a pole with a steel ring the size of squash racket and chicken wire spread across.
            A piece of rope around your waist with a large plastic floating box pulled along behind. Dab the suspect crab site when it comes out in claw waving defence. Scoop it up and pop it in the box.
            My mate Trevor use to phone his mother about half way home. She’d light the fire under the cauldron. Crabs on the boil as soon as possible.
            Also dug very large cockles out of the sand with a brick trowel.
            Left them in fresh water to clean them selves. Sat on the beach with mates with chilled white wine and ate the cockles raw.

          3. “Sat on the beach with mates with chilled white wine and ate the cockles raw.”

            It’s a bloke thing, cobber. No dramas.👍🏻👨🏼‍🌾

          4. I loved it and all of the other blokey things we did, boat fishing and shooting as well.

          5. I got invited out to a blokes’ shed when I visited a friend in Grenfell. It was a converted railway carriage, still on rails, full of power tools and lots of booze. The blokes use it as an escape from the Sheilas.

    2. Marvellous photo of the storks' nest.

      What immortal hand or eye
      Could frame thy fearful symmetry.

      1. That last word has always annoyed me – it doesn't rhyme.

        Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
        In the forests of the night;
        What immortal hand or eye,
        Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

        2. That is called a slant (or imperfect) rhyme. I poetic device used when no other word fits the bill.

          Try writing a poem with lines that end with: orange, purple, rhythm, walrus, month, bulb, silver, false, husband or wasp and see how far you get with finding words that properly rhyme with any of them.

  36. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bright chilly, rain later, typical winters day……oh hang on a mo. 😏
    Who in a sheltered comfort zone or with an ounce of commonsense is going to volunteer to join the armed forces.
    Or perhaps it's some form of halfwits ploy to try and get people 'who are looking for a job' to leave the country.

    1. It'll be sweet youths whose parents are not politically aware. How I hate this government.

  37. Good Morning!

    Today Graham Cunningham is back with an essay, ANDROGYNISM’S CORROSIVE SEXUAL SOLVENT , on the effects of feminism and the feminisation of society. It’s not a men v women piece though, and both sexes can read it in peace. Please do so, and let us know what you think.

    Please also do read Project Fear , part three of Nanu’s Brexit Revisited satire, and tell him what you think. Help him write his book, and if you missed it, Sunday was Covid Remembrance Day , which should be a day of anger by the people and shame for the Establishment, but instead they are still trying to cover up the damage they did with nauseating sugar-coated pusillanimous platitudes. Read Covid Day of Reflection? for both a personal and a political ‘reflection’. Let us know what you think.

    Energy watch 07.00: Demand: 33.74 GW. Total UK Production: 32.97 GW from: Hydrocarbons 42.7%; Wind 30.2%; Imports 10.1%; Biomass 3.1%; Nuclear 9.8%. Solar: 0%.

    We are importing 1.64GW while exporting 2.76GW. The percentage of electric power generated from burning biomass has dropped significantly recently. Anyone any idea why?

    1. 'I am the Labour Government and I am here to help you manage your money.' Gee, thanks Free Gear and Ange the tax dodger.

      'We are the EU. We're pants at everything – except managing your money for you, of course.'

      Have a little faith, peeps.

      1. The left wing of the political class has always believed they have an entitlement to manage our personal assets and that we have an obligation to pony-up our savings to them to disburse as they see fit. J.M. Keynes is quite explicit about this in "Economic Consequences of the Peace".

    3. We'll turn private savings into much needed investment.

      I'm reminded of Alf Ramsey's response to a group of American journalists who high-handedly told him without prior consultation that they were going to take him and his team to a private airport suite for interview……"Oh no you fucking well won't." (And they didn't- you can see why the FA always hated him.)

      1. You're good for another year at least!

        It's bein' so cheerful as keeps you goin', Ndovu!

      1. Is it true that the BBC insisted that Dylan Thomas called his Welsh village in Under Milk Wood 'llaraggeb' rather than 'llareggub' so that those who look at words backwards would not be shocked.

    1. I think I have made it pretty clear that I think Farage is a vile character. Now his ego has destroyed Reform, perhaps people will realize that he is not a person to work with if you care about the future of the UK.

      Perhaps Rupert, Ben Habib and others can organize a new party or, hopefully, Farage has the good grace to resign and Reform can be saved? Watching a video this morning it is tragic how many good people have been destroyed by Farage. From Gerard Batten of UKIP, through Steven Wolfe to Rupert. Franky, it appears to me that Farage and his ego are malevolent.

      1. Farage will never resign. It is all about him and he will attack anyone who disagrees with him or appears to be as popular.

      2. You just can't go on and on inventing new parties that fall apart after a short period. The public is not interested. It wants reliability and stability and damned hard work.

        1. I'm aware of that but Farage is not the person to do that. He is a professional assassin of anyone that might threaten his ego. He is the proverbial worm in the apple.

      3. That’s likely his purpose. He embodies what some may suggest would be the perfect ‘opposition’ infiltration operative.

    2. Just listened to the first half hour or so of that and it seems Lowe has been well stitched up.

    3. a glob of phlegm sitting in the spittoon.

      Come on, Richard, admit that you lifted that elegant metaphor from Alexander Pope!

      1. I thought it was my original metaphor.

        As one of my favourite authors is P.G. Wodehouse I am always hoping to think of and use an original simile or metaphor rather than rely on a cliché.

      2. I thought it was my original metaphor.

        As one of my favourite authors is P.G. Wodehouse I am always hoping to think of and use an original simile or metaphor rather than rely on a cliché.

    1. They must be removed. It's as simply as that. Every last verminous one of them. We poison rats. WE kill cockroaches. We flush poo. These are no different.

      Get rid of them.

      Ironically, dumping at sea is a crime, invasion is an act of war. They are so blatantly criminal and have absolutely no rights whatsoever we could just shoot them and be done with the problem.

    2. Matt Goodwin has just published an article with some interesting statistics:
      "Remarkably, contrary to what you hear in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, foreign nationals are 71% more likely than British people to be convicted for sex crimes.

      Look closer and the numbers among specific groups are even more astonishing and disturbing in equal measure.

      Like the fact that people from Afghanistan and Eritrea —two of the largest groups on the small boats—are more than twenty times more likely than British nationals to have been convicted of sexual offences.

      To put this in raw numbers, while the rate of sexual offence convictions for British people was 2.66 for every 10,000 people, it is 77 for every 10,000 for Afghans and 59 for every 10,000 for Eritreans.

      In total, some 87 other nationalities have a higher conviction rate for rape and other sexual offences than British people. I await the discussion about this on Radio 4. "

      Full text and much more information at: https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/bombshell-stats-the-state-doesnt
      (Paywall)

      1. The gimmigrants are young and male, and thus more likely to commit sexual offences, but even after aiming off for that…

        1. Having been a young male miraculously, despite being a rampaging bottle of hormones I managed to get to the grand of old without raping, murdering, abusing women or children.

          They're just savages, being excused by a bigoted, Left wing state that, for some insane reason wants to pollute this country.

    3. BTL:

      Newcastlebornandbred, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 10 hours ago
      No!! We were warned at least 5 years ago. A lady named Michelle Dewsbury told us this would happen as she called them out as foreign foot soldiers and she is 100 per cent right and should of been listened to!!

      Click to rate
      1.6K

      1. Arrrgh! Should have been. Should have been. I assume it should also be Michelle Dewberry and it's true, Dewbs is always worth a listen.

          1. Life Assurance

            Another Pedant & Grammar-Fascist Writes:

            A couple of days ago, I happen to be listening to Moneybox on the Beeb (one of the few BBC radio programs left worth listening to Okay, Okay, to which it is worth listening). A bit like WS Churchill being deliberately clumsy and allegedly saying "It is a thing up with which I will not put", instead of using the vernacular. But I digress…

            Some Femperson was talking about Life Insurance, so I began shouting at the radio.

            By definition, INSURANCE is making provision for some condition or act which may or may not occur. Life assurance, on the contrary, is covering a situation which is SURE to occur. That’s why it’s called ASSURANCE, not INSURANCE.

      1. Since i posted the link it has dropped behind the paywall. Basically they are coming in and no checks are done at all.

      2. SUE REID: I've stood on beaches and watched migrants arrive. What happens next is little short of terrifying

        11:14, 11 March 2025
        By SUE REID FOR THE DAILY MAIL

        Published: 00:04, 11 March 2025 |

        There are few more disturbing sights for many Britons than a boat-load of foreign men stepping on to Kent’s pebble beaches without anyone knowing who these strangers are, where they come from, or why they want to be here.

        I have warned for years that the Channel sea border six miles out between Britain and France is now so useless, it is little more than a line on a maritime map.

        I have said that any nation without a secure perimeter is just a slab of land which anyone in the world can enter. It is not truly a sovereign country.

        Now we are told by The Mail on Sunday that a Palestinian fighter with a dubious past arrived on a Channel boat last Thursday.

        Until he was found on Sunday night, there were fears that gun-toting Abu Wadee, a Palestinian migrant who has called for the slaughter of all Jews and is a former Gaza militia member with links to a terror group, had melted away.

        It wouldn’t have surprised me. I have stood on the beach at Dungeness when overcrowded boats boats have come in, shadowed by Border Force vessels or RNLI lifeboats.

        I have watched as the occupants have made victory signs or fallen to their knees to kiss the ground.

        In the case of Wadee – described this weekend as a ‘dangerous anti-Semite’ by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp – he posted a video after reaching our shores with the words: ‘Thank God, we arrived in Britain.

        There were fears that gun-toting Abu Wadee (pictured), a Palestinian migrant who has called for the slaughter of all Jewsand is a former Gaza militia member

        Wadee's social media is replete with pictures of him posing with a Kalashnikov, an artillery shell and a menacing posse of masked men
        ’He is one of 25,000 migrants the Labour Government has let in by sea since it gained power last July.

        More than 1,700 arrived last week alone, enough to fill a very large secondary school.

        By now, they will be living in hotels and Home Office flats after a feeble screening process, the details of which I have learnt from numerous migrants I have interviewed.

        Fresh off the boats, they go to a temporary holding facility at Dover port where immigration officers give each of them a personal number which is written on a band on their wrist.

        There is no attempt, nor enough time, to take down their names or check the arrivals’ true origins at this stage.

        Many have already destroyed their identity documents in France or thrown them overboard in the Channel so they can concoct any backstory they want.

        They are patted down for weapons or knives (and plenty of the latter have been found, although some are discarded in the boats).

        Then, off they go by bus – sometimes within hours – to the huge Manston processing centre 20 miles along the Kent coast where, for the first time, they are asked to state their name and nationality and are fingerprinted.

        This process can be fraught with confusion. For a start, although there are translators (some on video link) they can be overwhelmed by the numbers and the variety of languages and dialects.

        As for fingerprinting, this is worthwhile only if the prints of the migrant have been taken when entering Europe or travelling through it towards Calais or Dunkirk so that the results can be cross-referenced.

        The wiliest travel clandestinely avoid giving their prints. Many deliberately scar their fingertips using cigarette lighters or by cutting them with knives so prints are useless.

        Despite this gaping security flaw, most don’t stay at Manston for long before being put on another bus and sent to one of the migrants’ hotels or Home Office shared flats where they are free to walk out at any time.

        If they are lying about their true identity or nationality, it is often only by chance that the deception is discovered.

        Last year, for instance, I spoke to an Iranian migrant in his early 40s who was put in an east London hotel after coming in on a boat.

        As he entered the lobby late at night, he was told by Home Office officials that he would be sharing a room with a fellow countryman.

        The Iranian called Ali told me: ‘I walked in and found that the man was from Iraq, spoke only Arabic not Persian, and was pretending to be from my capital Tehran which he thought would improve his asylum chances'.

        In another case, I exposed a 23-year-old Afghan child murderer who arrived here by boat from Calais in 2021 after fleeing Austria.

        Police there had launched a manhunt for him after a local girl of 13 was found dead, wrapped in an Arabic blanket.

        She had been enticed to his flat before being drugged and raped, then stabbed to death.

        The killer, Rasuili Zubaidullah, hoodwinked border staff in Kent with a false name on his arrival, went through the ‘checking process’ at Manston, and was sent to the Ibis Hotel in Whitechapel, east London, as an asylum seeker.

        It was only after the Austrians tipped off our immigration police that he was caught, then deported and convicted of murder.

        But how did this evil child killer get through, initially? Why did he set his sights on this country after fleeing Austria?

        And how many other girls might he have attacked if he had stayed in a hotel for longer at our expense and with idle hands?

        The Labour Government has promised to smash the gangs that send over boats. Yet the pledge could not sound hollower.

        Nearly every EU member country – from once-liberal Sweden to a tougher-minded Italy – has tightened national borders as politicians face a people’s revolt over uncontrolled immigration and its links to terror attacks and crime.

        It should be easier for us to stop the flow since we have a 21-mile strip of sea between France and the south coast. Yet as the arrival of Jew-hating Wadee shows, we appear to have given up."

        1. Andrew Bridgen has said that the small-boats narrative is distraction-pantomime and that the real heavy-lifting is being done by air, using both main airports and smaller aerodromes. My brother has had personal experience, returning to the UK from Switzerland, that tends to corroborrate AB's assertion.

          1. However they're getting in, they must be removed. Every last one, then the country cleaned top to bottom of the filth.

        2. They then bus the illegals all over the country, spreading the infection. Even out in the sticks they can be seen wandering around.

  45. Good start to the day:
    Wordle 1,361 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  46. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/ed-miliband-home-epc-rating-doubt-net-zero-drive/

    EPC is a nonsense that means very little. It's most use is in obtaining grants and subsidy for alterations. A heat pump is no more efficient than a gas boiler. The talk of COP (co-efficient) and SCOP are all jargon to hide the simple truth: energy is just too expensive made so by unreliables.

    If we're burning gas to power a heat pump then it makes far more sense to burn that gas locally, in the boiler. Folk whinge and whine about 'co2 but the blunt truth is it's an essential part of our ecology. More CO2 means more plants. The reason we have a far less green world is because we keep building on it or cutting it down for crops, thus we need fewer people.

    As humans we can construct civilisation, figuratively overcoming nature. It doesn't mean we should redirect a river to suit us. It does mean dredging that river. It does mean managing river banks. It means building reservoirs and rational power stations and crucially controlling our own population to live in harmony with nature. Wealth – be that scientific or technical have given us the ability to expand as we want to. We simply can't. When the hard Left force human pollution on us there are not the resources to support them nor can endless welfare pay for human failure, with welfare dependents having nigh 3 times as many children as working, married couples.

    We've simply got to turn back the sewage, deport the gimmigrant welfare and stop paying people to doss. Do that and 90% of the problems we have in society will resolve themselves.

    1. This morning we were discussing cars – age of.
      We realised we were boasting about how old they are: MB's is 16; my Noddy car is 13 and Sonny Boy Snr's is a mere 10 year old stripling.
      I would humbly suggest we are more green than a chappie over the road who has a new electric car.
      Blighty twinned with Cuba.

  47. I usually do a Wordle over a cup of tea in bed when I wake up, as it gives me an excuse to linger in my warm cocoon. Today, however, I got up earlier than usual!

    Wordle 1,361 2/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  48. Just back from checking the bonfire. Everything burned. Just a red hot middle Then the rain started….. It is very cold out – CH on and stove going.

    What a difference a day makes….

    2. Similarly, I would have been comfortable wearing shorts on the golf course on Sunday morning, but yesterday at walking football we were all layered up like a lost tribe of (footballing) Eskimos.

    1. You're being very rude to/about your wife. She's a natural genius and infinitely tolerant.

      Hit him, Caroline!

          1. When I gave my speech at our wedding reception I joked about the fact that I was a little older than my bride.

            As an English teacher I thought a self-mocking quotation from Chaucer's Merchant's Tale would be appropriate:

            Whan tendre youthe hath wedded stoupyng age,
            Ther is swich myrthe that it may nat be writen.

            and as a lover of songs this also seemed relevant.

            When he fancies he is past love
            It is then he meets his last love
            And he loves her as he's never loved before.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIoGE2ntZrg

        2. “There are some most days when people might say the same about you.” Get it right!😉

    1. Lowe vs Farage.
      Judeo-Christianity vs Islam appeasement.
      Farage wins this battle.. but loses the war.

  52. Here's a BTL comment I've just made on the Telegraph Letters page.

    Having read the letter from Olivia Massey of Paarp, Skåne County, Sweden which referred to a certain Alan G Barstow of Onslunda, Skåne County, Sweden, I was considering making a public request here for an explanation of any relationship between them.

    However, two minutes with Google Maps shows that they live 100 miles apart and that Skåne County has 1.4 million inhabitants, so I'm glad that I didn't embarrass myself in that way… 😀

    2. Hi, Steve. Interesting how the DT Letters' editor correctly spells Skåne yet misspells Påarp!

      I've never visited the place but I have made frequent excursions by rail to nearby Helsingborg, in order to catch the 15-minute ferry across to Helsingør [Shakespeare's 'Elsinore'] in Denmark, for cheaper shopping and better booze selection.

  53. From the archive:

    "Anyway, the EU's intentions towards the United Kingdom are, it seems to me to, encourage the secession of Scotland and Wales, and to encourage the incorporation of Northern Ireland into a four-region, EU dependent Ireland, so diminishing Great Britain and the UK, and then to (how shall I put this?) Balkanize England into 'Regions' which will increasingly be oriented towards Brussels and Frankfurt. The recent quiet transformation of London into a sort of presidential republic, multicultural and very separate from England, seems to me to be a key step towards this. When the process is over, England and Britain will be no more, having no political, legal or economic significance, remembered only in Shakespeare festivals and Morris-dancing."

    Peter Hitchens, 8th September 2014

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/09/some-reflections-on-borders-nations-including-scotland-and-the-eu.html

    The EU threat may have gone (for now) but I wouldn't put it past Mad Max's crew to implement the scheme in another way, hence the local government shake-up that is being proposed, with elected regional mayors.

    London is a greater worry for all of the UK. What is to be done with this hostile city state?

    1. How far is too far for Labour? I wonder how they will react when the first public stoning takes place in Hyde Park.

      1. It opens if you click on the letter. Then you need to use your zoom facility if it's still too small.

    2. Stop it Rupert. It's boring. It's done.
      Either start a new party and go head to head with Farage or fade away.
      IMHO. It won't be Lowe that leads the UK out of the mess.
      That person will be young, intelligent, charismatic, thick skinned, witty.. an unflappable Tik-Tok friendly kool-kat.
      If that person doesn't show.. then it's civil war.

      Reform is controlled opposition, like a pressure release valve.. to maintain the status quo. Even Trump has distanced himself from Farage.
      Their endgame is a Tory coalition.. then the system can continue to run as normal. Then it's civil war.

      1. It won't be Lowe that leads the UK out of the mess.

        This individual, if s/he exists, has yet to make themselves known.

    3. Stop it Rupert. It's boring. It's done.
      Either start a new party and go head to head with Farage or fade away.
      IMHO. It won't be Lowe that leads the UK out of the mess.
      That person will be young, intelligent, charismatic, thick skinned, witty.. an unflappable Tik-Tok friendly kool-kat.
      If that person doesn't show.. then it's civil war.

      Reform is controlled opposition, like a pressure release valve.. to maintain the status quo. Even Trump has distanced himself from Farage.
      Their endgame is a Tory coalition.. then the system can continue to run as normal. Then it's civil war.

    4. Stop it Rupert. It's boring. It's done.
      Either start a new party and go head to head with Farage or fade away.
      IMHO. It won't be Lowe that leads the UK out of the mess.
      That person will be young, intelligent, charismatic, thick skinned, witty.. an unflappable Tik-Tok friendly kool-kat.
      If that person doesn't show.. then it's civil war.

      Reform is controlled opposition, like a pressure release valve.. to maintain the status quo. Even Trump has distanced himself from Farage.
      Their endgame is a Tory coalition.. then the system can continue to run as normal. Then it's civil war.

    5. The mozzie chairman is a WEF plant, isn't he. A nasty piece of work and Farage cares too much about appeasing the establishment. At best one might say that it's a tactic on the road to power but if given power, there's no guarantee he would do an about turn.

      1. The Reform Party Chairman is a Mozzie Mole who was determined to destroy Reform from within.

        The fact that Farage appointed him to this position, added to his sacking of the excellent Ben Habib as well as taking the whip from Rupert Lowe, makes me think that Farage's judgement is totally abysmal.

        In my view Lowe should stand down as a Reform MP and stand again as an independent in the resulting by election – he has probably enough support in Great Yarmouth to win the seat again.

        Such men as he be never at heart's ease
        Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
        And therefore are they very dangerous.

        [Julius Caesar]

        Farage cannot bear anyone to outshine him!

          2. Yes- I was actually going to reply to Richard by saying "Yond Nigel has a lean and hungry look", but……well, he hasn't, has he? In fact he looks as if skipping a few lunches would do him no harm at all!

          3. I wonder if Julius Caesar would have liked to have had me near him. – I am certainly rather fat.

      2. Since the Reform chairman's appointment Farage has backed away from mentioning the illegal muslim invasion. When Rupert Lowe insisted that illegal immigrants should be deported the chairman and Farage attacked Lowe with hastily manufactured charges which will not stand.
        Reform is going nowhere with the current chairman.

      3. The mozzie chairman is a WEF plant, isn't he.

        A Blob plant, unquestionably- but let's not dispute the semantics, it adds up to the same thing.

    6. Interesting. At grassroots level, Reform are still in local election mode. Get councillors in who are thinking about local people's rights, housing and health. People who are not controlled from above by WEF or Net Zero acolytes.
      Some 1,641 councillors will be elected in 23 Councils.

      1. I will be up for election again this May. I don't know if it will be contested (probably not, as we have a vacancy in my ward). I'd like to think that my parishioners would vote for me because they know who I am, know I'm accessible and will do my best to provide what they request if I can.

    7. I think in that concluding paragraph we have the crux of the problem; Rupert is a good leader and Nigel feels threatened.

  56. This is not specifically aimed at my lovely Caroline. I have frequently put up a picture of Flook when a Nottler boasts of having got an albatross.

  57. I didn't think Foster would deliver on the Old Trafford rebuild. Pleasantly surprised.
    He's looking good for 89 years of age.. still a nasty piece of work (in a spiteful gay way).

    Thank Gawd Ratcliffe didn't go with HOK/Populous.

    Best stadium in the Championship by far. LOL.

        1. It's a continuation of the tent style of sports ground architecture. MCC promoted it in this country with their redevelopment of the Mound stand at Lord's in the 1980s. It's become commonplace since.

      3. Not an attractive building. Looks like a temple made in the image of the lair of a giant spider.

  58. I didn't think Foster would deliver on the Old Trafford rebuild. Pleasantly surprised.
    He's looking good for 89 years of age.. still a nasty piece of work (in a spiteful gay way).

    Thank Gawd Ratcliffe didn't go with HOK/Populous.

    Best stadium in the Championship by far. LOL.

      1. No. I should explain something that most people in the West don’t know. In the Tibetan mind Tibet isn’t a place it is a person, the Dalai Lama. That is why the Chinese are so obsessed with him being “reborn” in China. But he has just said that is not going to happen insuring in the minds of Tibetans that Tibet will continue to be free despite the subjugation of Tibet (the land mass) by the Chinese.

  64. Once a bunch of peaceniks, Lefties today love a good war while the Right want to end conflicts. As a hardened Right-winger I have a message for them all…

    PETER HITCHENS, 5th March 2025

    It was as if Donald Trump had turned into the Dalai Lama or Yoko Ono. As he mused, before Congress, that Ukraine and Russia might at last be willing to talk peace, he almost simpered: 'Wouldn't that be beautiful?'

    In words that could have been used by any 1960s folk singer, he continued: 'It's time to stop this madness. It's time to halt the killing. It's time to end this senseless war.' Here was the most Right-wing US President since Ronald Reagan, and he turned out to be a peacenik. Stranger still, he was heckled during his speech by Leftist legislators who want the 'senseless' war to go on.

    Whatever has happened to the minds of men? War used to be Right-wing. Peace used to be Left-wing. It was patriotic conservatives who supported conflict, while peace-loving, socialistic Leftists were against it. Now wars are Left-wing and peace is way out on the Right, at least in Washington DC. So why haven't the British Right done a matching about-turn and begun to object – as I do – to the costly, dangerous, utopian adventures which repeatedly fail in their aims and do terrible damage to the stability of the planet?

    The Left's well-meaning but bungled wars have mainly served to increase, by millions, the flow of migrants from combat zones into Europe, hardly a conservative aim. Yet in this country, Tories still support war and want more of it. Gruff retired generals, former spooks and suburban Thatcherites alike rally to the banner of conflict alongside the new generation of pro-war Lefties. Why do they do that? Have they not noticed their new allies and wondered a bit how they come to be on the same side? It seems not. It used to be so simple. Britain went to war for its own interests, to defend itself against foreign threats. It had always been so. There weren't many Tory conscientious objectors to the First World War, though there were plenty of Left-wing ones. Likewise, there weren't many socialists who supported Britain's preparations for war against Hitler, a fact they now prefer to forget.

    British Left-wingers mostly don't even know any more that their forerunners spent most of the 1930s opposing rearmament against Hitler. They all go on as if the Tories alone were guilty of Britain's weakness in the 1930s. This is false. For instance, in March 1935, when the nature of the Nazi regime was quite clear to all with eyes to see, the Daily Herald, then the biggest Labour-supporting newspaper in Britain, denounced government plans for a major build-up of our defences. It said the Defence White Paper of that year was an 'affront to Germany' and a threat to peace. These people loved peace so much they were ready to remain defenceless against the Third Reich.

    After the Second World War, it was the Left which called for peace in Vietnam. But it was also the Left which wanted us to be defenceless against the Kremlin. They opposed our own nuclear weapons, right up to the 1980s when they provided the womanpower for the fabled Greenham Common 'peace camp' – a protest against the stationing of American nuclear-tipped cruise missiles in this country.

    Yet these days you will find Left-wing thinkers and politicians in the front ranks of almost every campaign for war, even wars such as the Ukraine conflict which could easily lead to nuclear confrontation if things go wrong. They have come to see war as a reasonable tool of policy, because the policies involved are theirs now. True, Labour was still divided over the Iraq invasion in 2003, but a large body of Left-wing thinkers and intellectuals supported Sir Anthony Blair's Baghdad mission and denounced Left-wing peace marchers.

    One then-prominent Left-wing journalist, Nick Cohen, excoriated the vast anti-war march in London on February 15, 2003. He sneered that, on that day, 'about a million liberal-minded people marched through London to oppose the overthrow of a fascist regime'. This was a perfect expression of how war had now become leftist. By labelling Saddam Hussein as a 'fascist', Mr Cohen and many like him had weirdly become jingoes and warmongers, in the supposed cause of bringing democracy and freedom to the whole world. Iraq was the last time the Left in this country was divided on a major war.

    Since then, the official Left has generally been pro-war, in Syria, in Libya, in Afghanistan and now in Ukraine. This was all driven by a belief that Left-wingers could begin the world – or at least the Middle East – all over again. Conservatives, meanwhile, have stayed much as they were. If there is a war, they support it, because they feel it is their duty. It is in fact more of a habit. The drum of war beats and they flock to the colours, as they have for centuries.

    These wars are often utopian, beginning as attempts to overthrow supposed 'fascists' such as Saddam Hussein or Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. In fact, neither of these men was a fascist, if the word means anything at all. They were just bloodstained autocrats, but by calling them 'fascist', the universal Leftist term of modern disapproval, the modern Left made them legitimate targets.

    Something similar has happened to Russia's Vladimir Putin. He is a nasty, lawless and murderous despot, not unlike the rulers of China or Saudi Arabia or Egypt, who we leave well alone. He has no consistent beliefs. Yet as soon as he is, quite misleadingly, portrayed as a new Hitler, the modern Left are keen to go to war against him. What happened?

    My own theory is this. The Left took power in most of the West during the 1990s, as the militant students of the 1960s finally completed their long march into the schools, the law, government and media. Leaders such as Blair (a former Trotskyist and member of CND) and Bill Clinton (who worked hard to avoid being sent to fight in Vietnam), found themselves in charge of huge armed forces and arrays of guns, jets, warships and rockets.

    This is an intoxicating experience, and they were intoxicated. They began to pursue various idealist policies, beginning in former Yugoslavia where they eventually dressed up old-fashioned power politics as a holy war against the 'fascist' Milosevic. How it happened, in detail, is still a mystery. If anyone could ever understand or explain the knotted, twisted Yugoslav wars of the period, we might crack it. But that was when I remember the world of war turning upside down.

    A few years earlier, Western military power had been viewed by the chattering, fashionable liberal classes as an expensive outrage against 'peace'. But around 1995, American and British jet bombers had become Left-wing, their bombs were idealistic and the explosions they created were steps on the way to a new and better world. If innocents died (and they did), then that was just a pity. As a hardened Right-winger, I say it's time to Give Peace a Chance.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14465665/PETER-HITCHENS-bunch-peaceniks-Lefties-today-love-good-war-Right-want-end-conflicts-hardened-Right-winger-message-all.html

    1. I hate the formatting that makes each sentence it's own paragraph. Very jerky and disjointed to read, the eye can't flow.

    2. That looks very interesting! I love embroidered pictures – they have a liveliness that rivals oil paint.
      There is a girl on Instagram who sells small pictures that she embroiders herself, completely freehand. She just starts with an idea and a blank bit of linen.

      1. This was a kit that I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last October.
        They provided oodles of different threads, beads, sequins etc…. Once I'd covered up the guidelines, I did my own thing. Still have masses left over.
        We have just bought a morello cherry tree and that has given me ideas for the next spot of needlework.
        Currently brewing over how to stylise it.

        1. I have a friend who does felting – she takes commissions of animals and sells them on Etsy.

          1. At the K&S Show there was an exhibitor who created incredible 'ghostly' landscapes with boiled and dyed felt.

      1. Excellent.
        My elder sister use to spend time at Hatfield house repairing the tapestry. She still works in her sewing room at her home.

        1. Lucky lass. Those sort of jobs were never mentioned when I was at school.
          I believe the repairers actually work on those tapestries from the back.
          Makes working out photocopying seem an absolute doddle.

      2. Good grief. However long did it take her to do that?
        What sort of frame did she use?

        1. She started it around 2008 and got the backing on in 2022, but there was a period of inactivity. She got a bit bored with the strips of moons and stars. She used a standing frame and did the six panels separately and the internal and external borders were done as strips and used extra lines of blue to join it all together. She had several attempts to put backing on, but as you see it does hang slightly to the right. It is hung in an area that gets little sun and I have the blinds closed when the sun would shine on it. It was the first thing I put up in the new house when we found she was ill.

          1. Some years ago, I made a king size patchwork bed cover – the Dresden plate design.
            It took me about two years.
            Again, I got bored and there was about a year's hiatus where it sat in the sewing basket.

      1. I now have great respect for people who make and repair those blingy state uniforms.
        I know they weigh a ton, but metallic thread is an absolute besom to work with.
        I was getting a bit tight-lipped with the occasional thread, let alone using practically nothing else but gold and silver yarns.

        2. The statue is quite small. It has been beheaded twice, blown up, painted with slogans, right arm cut off, drenched in various paints, draped in Muslim dress and scarf, dressed in various uniforms and sports outfits and vandalised in countless other ways. Poor little Mermaid!

    7. That's gorgeous, Anne! Looking forward to seeing what you conjure out of your imagination. 😈

      1. That is awful and very frustrating.
        I have a friend who was a child physiotherapist.
        It involved a lot of massaging of little distorted bodies. She ended up with bad arthritis in her hands.

    8. That's gorgeous, Anne! Looking forward to seeing what you conjure out of your imagination. 😈

    9. Beautiful, Anne! You are clever! Since my hands have given up, I can no longer sew, knit nor crochet! I also struggle putting in earrings!

          5. On my AppleMac, I recently learnt that if you press the vowel key for longer than usual, a range of diacritic possibilities appear. You click on the one you wish to use.
            I only learnt this trick about a month ago.
            For example just pressing on the letter a àáâäæãåā

  68. Published on the Substack of the World Council for Health:

    A groundbreaking systematic analysis of Cochrane Reviews has revealed a startling truth: a staggering 95% of medical treatments lack solid, high-quality evidence to support their effectiveness. The findings are a wake-up call for healthcare professionals, policymakers, and patients alike, raising urgent questions about the reliability of many widely accepted therapies.

    In light of more and more actions taken against homeopathy, herbal medicine and even supplements, mainstream understanding of what truly is ‘safe and effective’ needs urgent review. In fact, many of these ‘alternative’ therapies are more evidence-based than the majority of conventional treatments highlighted in the study.

    According to the meta-analysis:

    Only 5.6% of medical treatments are supported by high-quality evidence.

    Nearly 95% of interventions lack robust scientific proof of their effectiveness.

    Only 36.8% of treatments systematically document potential side effects or harms.

    1. The doctor (Dr Draughty) who waves his arms and hands around a lot was explaining things on BBC tv this morning.
      On knee operations he was saying that now, how exercises are very beneficial for patients to bulld muscle structure and lessoning the strain on the joints.
      Funnily enough it's probably one the main reason people have worn out joints. Too much exercise over the years. He suggested walking to help reduce put on weight. It ain't that easy Doc, believe me.

      1. I recently read that walking too much can damage your leg joints so thiis idea of measuring your step count as an indicator of fitness is unfounded. I reckon that exercises that keep the weight off your joints yet take all round muscular activity are far more beneficial for longevity – just think of the things you can do horizontally.

        3. I Get the point, but I often slowly raise my lower legs whilst sitting. This will help build up muscles. But nothing can repair the damage caused by years of wear and tear.

          2. I was planning to do some more work in our rear garden today but it’s not very warm out there.

    2. I was offered a procedure that would have burned out the nerves in my sacroiliac joint. I refused on the grounds there was a 25% of failure or of the situation being made worse.

  69. Nationwide have taken over Virgin Money. As a thank you to me as a member they are putting £50 in my account…kerching ! :@)

          1. Or Fonda Lyin, who apparently wants to convert peoples "savings" into "investments" approved by the EU?

        3. I joined them as they provide very reasonably priced travel insurance for oldies with their 'packaged account'. £18 a month for worldwide cover with ski cover, including house slave and family members under 21. Also includes AA breakdown and phone cover. Pill poppers will have to pay a bit more but that will be so for any company.

          2. I have mine with Barclays – up to the age of 80 anyway………… it's gone up a bit over the years but I'm paying £14.50 per month now I think. It does include RAC breakdown cover too. I got my car in a pickle only within half a mile from home and the RAC man came out and got it sorted.

  70. Bluss – it is cold(as well as showery) out. We both thought it was snow (or sleet) around 11 am.

  71. Just got back from a bit of shopping in Matlock after getting my scrap weighed in.
    I got £465 for it!
    A beautiful but much colder day. Called into Aldi in Somercotes on the way home and the wind was cutting!

    Shopping's been put away and I've nearly finished my mug of tea!

    1. Perfect .. ours is the same shape but looks nothing like yours , I am interested in your plants, the grey ones are curry plants , but what are the others? Thymes or what?

      2. Thank you!

        Grey – Lavenders
        Evergreens are Azaleas
        Also Anemone de Caen
        Tall spikes Iris Sibiricus
        And Daffs

      3. Thank you!

        Grey – Lavenders
        Evergreens are Azaleas
        Also Anemone de Caen
        Tall spikes Iris Sibiricus
        And Daffs

      1. Thank you. That’s exactly what I want the azaleas to do. They have been planted to just about grow into each other…

        1. Our predecessors did that with what became a large shrubbery – 30 yards by 10. In the end we needed a chainsaw to cut through to the middle (it is triangular) – then chop and cut outwards. It took about three weeks……

  76. Met Police launches investigation into Reform’s Rupert Lowe
    Great Yarmouth MP was referred to police by Reform on Friday, with party alleging he had made ‘verbal threats’ against chairman

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/11/met-police-investigation-into-reform-mp-rupert-lowe/

    It will probably come down to whose word is believed rather than what the truth of the matter is.

    So the question is: Will the police believe Rupert Lowe or Zia Yusuf?

    1. Clearly the gloves are off:

      The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into the suspended Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe.

      Mr Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, was reported to police by Reform on Friday, with the party alleging that he had made “verbal threats” against Zia Yusuf, the chairman.

      A Met Police spokesman told Sky News the force had launched an investigation “into an allegation of a series of verbal threats made by a 67-year-old man”. The spokesman added: “Further inquiries are ongoing at this stage.”

      Mr Lowe said in a statement: “I have instructed lawyers to represent me in this matter. My lawyers have made contact with the Met Police and have made them aware of my willingness to co-operate in any necessary investigation.

      “My lawyers have not yet received any contact from the police. It is highly unusual for the police to disclose anything to the media at this stage of an investigation.

      “I remain unaware of the specific allegations but, in any event, I deny any wrongdoing. The allegations are entirely untrue.”

      In a statement signed by Mr Yusuf and Lee Anderson, the chief whip, Reform had said: “Mr Lowe has, on at least two occasions, made threats of physical violence against our party chairman. Accordingly, this matter is with the police.”

      1. Unless there were witnesses, then it's just one man's word against the other. And Muslims are allowed to lie.

      4. I know who I would believe in a truth-telling contest, given taqiyya and kitman vs "thou shalt not bear false witness".

    2. I should think the leaders of the Conservative and Labour Parties would love to see Mr Lowe exonerated as it would destroy the credibility of Reform's Leadership!

      1. And I bet those same parties want the police investigation to drag on and on to weaken the Reform brand in the eyes of the public. It is an absolute mucking awful fuddle!

    3. I don't think that Rupert is allowed to practise Taqiyya*, as Muslims are. If you don't know the word, just look it up. It may surprise you that it can be used under oath.
      *Quran: Suras 3:28 and 16:106.

      2. Taqiyya is lying by omission; kitman is deliberately telling lies. Both are laudable to muslims to further the cause of islam.

    4. Afternoon Richard. To say this was badly handled would be a gross understatement. They should never have called in the Police.

    5. Why did Reform take him on? The public are specifically opposed to the infiltration of our society by muslim. He may be very capable but he is the wrong figure head to have for Reform.

  78. Gareth Thomas interview: People leave restaurants when I enter since HIV diagnosis
    Society’s stigma against virus is more damaging than any symptom, says former Wales captain
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2025/03/11/gareth-thomas-people-leave-restaurants-hiv-wales-rugby/

    Poor chap – but I can' forget that Princess Anne got into trouble when she said that AIDS was an own-goal for the Gay Community.

    One BTLiner used the Kenneth William's line 'Infamy, infamy, they've all got in in for me' to which another replied: 'Sodomy, sodomy, they all think it's odd of me.'

    1. I think he is flowering up the headline story. It is some decades since people believed that HIV could be caught off toilet seats. Perhaps people just do not enjoy the company of a gay and his husband.

      1. Loup means leap or jump, as in ‘ma bunions are loupin’! Or ‘them fleas are loupin’

        1. "… It's no the length that maks me loup,
          But it's the double drivin'!"

          Rabbie Burns Nine Inch Will Please A Lady.

          2. Wee Rab was being a bit lairy when he penned this poem in 1789, Pet.

            Come rede me dame, come tell me dame,
            My dame come tell me truly,
            Whit length o' graith when weel ca'd hame
            Will sair a woman duly?"
            The carlin clew her wanton tail,
            Her wanton tail sae ready,
            "l larn'd a sang in Annandale,
            Nine inch will please a lady."

            "But for a koontrie c•nt like mine,
            In sooth we're nae sae gentle;
            We'll tak tway thumb-bread to the nine,
            And that's a sonsy pintle.
            Oh, Leeze me on, my Charlie lad,
            I'll ne'er forget my Charlie,
            Tway roaring handfuls and a daud
            He nidged it in fu' rarely."

            But weary fa' the laithron doup
            And may it nae be thriving,
            It's no' the length that makes me loup
            But it's the double drivin'.
            Come nidge me Tam, come nudge me Tam
            Come nidge me, o'er the nyvel
            Come lowse an lug your battering ram
            And thrash him at my gyvel!

            Only a true Jock would understand all of it without resorting to Google.😉

        1. I'm always useless at these things. When they showed us a hologram with an image of a whale embedded in it at school I was the only one who couldn't see the blasted thing and our teacher was rolling her eyes in embarrassment. I actually think there's something quare about the connection between my eyes and my brain- I'm one of a minority of ppl who sees the Moon the same size wherever she is in the sky- even when she's very low on the horizon she doesn't look any bigger to me. I suspect there are other connections in my brain which are similarly raxed-up, now I come to think about it…….

        2. I'm always useless at these things. When they showed us a hologram with an image of a whale embedded in it at school I was the only one who couldn't see the blasted thing and our teacher was rolling her eyes in embarrassment. I actually think there's something quare about the connection between my eyes and my brain- I'm one of a minority of ppl who sees the Moon the same size wherever she is in the sky- even when she's very low on the horizon she doesn't look any bigger to me. I suspect there are other connections in my brain which are similarly raxed-up, now I come to think about it…….

      3. I can see a Collie type dog's head with the waterfall showing as the white patch. There are also little bushes rather like dogs' ears.

        2. The white triangle in the bottom image forms the dog's nose and there are two round patches either side for the eyes. No ears.

      4. I can see a calf's head and the outline of its back in the top one. Directly below the waterfall.

      5. Absolutely, Mola. Good job I readundered first before repeating your request.
        It's a giant black spaniel with a white nose. Very clear.
        Would cost a fortune to feed – Cow Pies an' all (think Desperate Dan).
        Or maybe a whole Sunfish.

    2. You live in a beautiful part of the UK. I am very jealous. Walking around here after 500 metres has you seeing graffiti, litter and all the detritus of the welfare class.

      1. Thanks, wibbling! It is very easy to get into beautiful hills, rivers and countryside from here. Midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, we have 2 canals, the Campsie hills and glens, and Carron valley.

        1. I have to say that the parking area was absolutely covered in rubbish! McDonalds boxes and cups, a towel, full poo bags and beer bottles, plus a rather manky pair of slippers! People are disgusting.

    3. You live in a beautiful part of the UK. I am very jealous. Walking around here after 500 metres has you seeing graffiti, litter and all the detritus of the welfare class.

      1. When I saw the overt crucifix in front of the 'little squirt' I was reminded of a little tale.
        An elderly lady went into a jewellers and was confronted by a very young sales girl.
        The lady explained that her granddaughter was being confirmed soon and could she buy the girl a crucifix to wear.
        The sales girl asked "D'you want a plain one or one with a little man on?"

      2. Sorry, don’t remember his name. He’s something to do with the Spectator if I recall correctly.

    1. Did you just go for a check-up or has it been giving you pain? I'm always on the side of less intervention, if it can be avoided. See if it clears up with the antibiotics.

      1. Sometimes teeth just give up the ghost. My lower left molar was heavily filled and had started to crumble on the inner side. X-ray revealed a chronic infection at the base of the rate which the dentist said would form an abscesss, and needed to be removed as soon as possible. A post-war diet and age had finally been too much for the poor tooth and my body was saying it was time for it to go. Belle and I are about the same age plus or minus a couple of months. I had mine removed just 12 days ago and I am still 'recovering', at the same time I had preparations for an implant and stitches so it was a bit more involved than just an extraction. I felt as though I had had a good drubbing on a washboard. One doesn't bounce back as easily when one is older.

        1. I hope it will soon feel better. My OH broke one of his last remaining molars the other week and his dentist has done a repair job – he now has a crown there. I presume there was no infection but the worn out tooth just crumbled.

          1. Yes, I expect the root of his tooth was in sufficiently good health to withstand a post and crown. I will be happier when the stitches are removed in 12 days time. Then I have to wait several months for the bone graft to take – infection has worn away at the bone and it needs to be built up to support the post.

          3. It’s not quite as dramatic as it sounds but it certainly has an effect on the bank account!

    2. The American dental profession do very few extractions these days. Present with severe pain symptoms and after the necessary X rays, etc., they send you off to an oral surgeon who does the root canal and back you go to your "general purpose" dentist to be finished off with a crown. Had a couple over the years. The last one maybe 20 years back, the oral surgeon happily waved the extracted nerve in may face – all red, horrible and globular, with a hearty "See, that was the problem". But he was outstanding. Did not feel a thing, let alone any pain.

    3. This bloody government should all be hung.This is outrageous.

      The last time I had any dental work carried out (ten years ago) it was a half double implant left lower rear. After a couple of days I woke up in the morning and it had dissappear.
      I rang to tell them made an appointment and they cancelled it with out explanation.
      I haven't been to a dentist since.

  82. Ow! I feel your pain. I've a really low? High? gag reflex so anything at my back teeth can make me choke.

  83. It won't clear up with antibiotics, Ndovu. It will need to be treated definitively by either extraction or root-canal treatment.

      1. Firstly, to ameliorate the pain from what I assume is a symptomatic apical abscess on TB's molar; secondly, if extraction has been agreed upon, an acutely-symptomatic abscess tends strongly to reduce the efficacy of the local anaesthetic, and there'd be more chance of the extraction being rather painful. My fee for this consultation is fifty guineas, if the patient lives.

          1. When I'm in company and someone asks me, I usually say I repair and manufacture food-processing equipment- that usually shuts them up. Revealing my true nature invariably elicits an endless monologue about their recurrent travails with their "back-molar-tooth" which they had filled last April, which they assume will be of compelling interest to me….

        2. I like you style. The only other professional on here has been gracious enough to provide advice, albeit with caveats, free of charge to Nottlers in distress…..

          3. Don't give me that widows and orphans crap, I've got a Ferrari to keep refuelled…….

  84. Saw some of them – Very good British humour.
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/481992478_611303405225120_6027838152139787713_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=bg_Dez083r4Q7kNvgHAorhc&_nc_oc=Adg6FF0c1VOYibLrhHVwXlp2OfKsuP1TVKI2kLyT0yT8LQd4Qhz3T25AdSv3d0wNMh7vIfwINmZbp1erbJMuwBRN&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=A0g5UL7RKU8_P9Ba6UIQ18B&oh=00_AYGNK7nIrxMSL0nSYnGcHvEBXKTO4g_9dob2i3HulUOIRQ&oe=67D5ED7E

      1. Agreed. "The Black Adder" was piss poor and unfunny. "Blackadder II" was a big improvement.

  85. The descent into Canadian hell is proceeding as expected.

    First Trumps tariffs on Canada, then a few tariffs back threatened by Canada followed yesterday by our Ontario numpty putting tariffs on electricity exports to New York. Trump is not amused and threatens actually imposing more tariffs beyond twenty-five percent.
    Trump now has set his sights on the marketing board tariffs that are applied to out of quota dairy sales and promises to at least match them.
    3xport elsewhere – sure but China has just slapped 100% tariffs on Canadian goods.

    Things are going to become bad really quickly and we now have the appointed Mark Carnage taking control from Trudeau.

    1. Sorry Richard but I think you'll find that things over the past couple of decades in the UK have exhausted what little sympathy any of us had left….

    2. Well if Mr T gets his wish you'll get a Green Card and can vote for a few incorruptible Senators and Representatives…….

  87. Welsh First Minister Refuses to Say What a Woman Is

    At First Minister’s Questions over in the Senedd Welsh Tory leader Darren Millar had a poke at Labour’s Eluned Morgan over International Women’s Day. He asked her “in order that people across Wales can appreciate and understand what the Welsh government was celebrating over the weekend” what her definition of a woman was. A pertinent question…

    Morgan was outraged: “Really? Is that right? Is that right Darren? On the day that we want to celebrate women you want to start a culture war? That is not something that I’m engaging with, it is not something I’m engaging with.” The First Minister then went on to say what she did to mark the event. No definition forthcoming in all that…

    Millar offered that his was: “Adult human female.” Morgan also refused to say the Welsh government would make moves to keep biological males out of women’s sports. Across the UK events are ongoing throughout the week following IWD day itself last Saturday. Someone could ask Starmer the same question at PMQs tomorrow…

    11 March 2025 @ 14:08

    2. Captain Sensible
      1h
      A ‘woman’ is an adult human with more than ten pairs of shoes.

    3. "Welsh First Minister Refuses to Say What a Woman Is."

      Clear grounds for immediate dismissal.

    1. My mate Steve was thinking of specialising in Gynae, actually…….a six-month SHO stint put him off the idea…..****, he said to me…..for six months I felt I never wanted to see another vagina again….he lapsed, you'll be relieved to hear.

      1. Was he by chance the young doctor who when asked by the lady in labour:"If he knew what he was doing?" Replied :"Of course I do, I'm a Doctor…what I don't know is how you managed to get the baby up there in the first place!"

  92. Walked the dogs. Mongo tried to go but couldn't. Lucy did. And got confused. Oscar growled at me then ran off. Mongo barked at a tree. Oscar came back looking terribly sheepish with my friend's Dachshund in his teeth (which looked as if it was thoroughly enjoying the view).

    My chum then joined me and we walked the beasts together and the monsters suddenly became well behaved, calm, friendly characters.

    Blasted dogs.

    1. When I walked the dogs into town (I had to set up a Standing Order at the bank, something I am going to find next to impossible this time next year as there will be no banks), Winston got a lot of fuss (and Kadi hid behind me in case they should try to stroke him, too). He emerged for the biscuits, though.

        1. I'd like reliable internet to be able to do that. A while ago I was offline for 8 weeks – that would have been great for paying bills and moving money, I don't think. It was bad enough for everything else I had to do online. Since then, I've had Talk Talk cutting me off at regular intervals and then taking up inordinate amounts of my time trying to get them to sort it.

          2. I will as soon as I'm out of contract; I didn't choose them, they took over from the provider that took over from the provider that took over from the one I did choose (The Post Office).

          3. "Since then, I've had Talk Talk cutting me off at regular intervals and then taking up inordinate amounts of my time trying to get them to sort it."

            Did you read my report on my five-week outage? It was TT's useless routers, not my 30-year copper wire BT line.

            I spent more than three hours on one phone call one afternoon at the start of it all.

          4. I am not surprised. I didn't communicate with an English person the whole time I was trying to get it sorted.

          5. The bastards charged me £75 for an engineer visit. I’m still trying to get them to refund it.

      2. Move to the Nationwide, as I did a couple of years ago when my bank closed its branch in my town. Because it's a mutual , instead of paying profits to shareholders, they pay a 'Fair Share' payment to their qualifying members. So far I've received £200, and look like getting another £100 this year. They are also offering £175 if you move a current account to them. What's not to like?

  93. [Trump] said Canada relied on the US for "military protection", and reiterated that he wanted the country to become the 51st US state.

    He add that it "would make all tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear," if Canada were to join the US as a state.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2y811g1dgo

    Trump's belligerence goes beyond impertinence. He is clearly a hostile actor on the North American geopolitical stage. Canada is a member of the Commonwealth and its Head of State is King Charles. Starmer must make it plain to Trump, through diplomatic channels if necessary, that economic war against Canada will meet with British opposition and countermeasures.

    2. Trump's mode d'emploi is to first make an outrageous suggestion, then when the outraged ones have quietened down, he'll propose something more reasonable.

    3. Haha. 'will meet with British opposition and countermeasures'.

      What are we going to do? Drop a load of frozen to death pensioners on the Whitehouse?

      1. For a start, rescind the invitation to Trump for a full state visit. The King should not have to entertain a man who threatens his subjects.

        1. Having witnessed the antics of Charles III embracing Zelensky followed by the ridiculous performances of painted warriors in Westminster Abbey I would advise President Trump to give this country a miss.

          London and much else is become a Muslim infested shithole.

          Your faith in the efficacy of our Royalty is misplaced in my opinion.

          1. The efficacy of our Royalty is not the point. Trump is threatening Commonwealth citizens. Sadly, Charles will simply kow-tow, under instructions from lickspittle Starmer, to grovel at Trump's feet, so I have little doubt that the invitation to Trump will remain, as his fragile and inflated ego will not tolerate any kind of rebuff without a belligerent tantrum.

  94. Apols if it's already been reported.

    Farmers to be forced to sell fields at lower value under Rayner land grab

    Owners will be forced to give up fields to councils in latest attack on rural Britain

    Farmers will be forced to sell fields for less than their potential value if they are seized to build new homes or hospitals, under measures in the Government's Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

    Councils will be given greater powers to acquire land through compulsory purchase orders and to pay only its current value, rather than what it could be worth if developed, as in the current system. Landowners, including farmers, will see their fields purchased at a fraction of value they could expect under current rules if identified by local authorities as necessary for new homes, hospitals or schools.

    The plans will be seen as another attack on the rural economy from the Labour Government, after last year's Budget hit farmers with a new 20 per cent inheritance tax. Other measures in the Bill, which will be introduced to Parliament on Tuesday, include paying households near new pylons £250 a year and making it harder for communities to block energy infrastructure such as onshore wind and nuclear projects in the courts.

    Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, said: "We're creating the biggest building boom in a generation – as a major step forward in getting Britain building again and unleashing economic growth in every corner of the country, by lifting the bureaucratic burden which has been holding back developments for too long."

    The changes on compulsory purchase deliver on a manifesto promise from Labour to ensure landowners get "fair compensation rather than inflated prices" and come as it faces pressure to hit its ambitious house-building target of 1.5 million new homes by 2030. However, rural groups say the plans punish farmers who will also face pressure to sell land to foot the bill for inheritance tax changes that come in after April 2026.

    "We urgently need more affordable housing, but pushing landowners into selling land isn't the answer," Gavin Lane, deputy vice-president of the Country Land and Business Association, said.

    Currently, land seized under compulsory purchase orders is purchased for the so-called "hope value", the potential value of the land if it had planning permission. Powers for some public authorities to pursue compulsory purchase orders and remove hope values were provided in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 but they required sign-off by a government minister.

    The new Bill will make it easier for planning inspectors, councils or mayors to ignore the hope value when seeking a compulsory purchase, without seeking further sign-off. It will also make it easier for local authorities to remove hope value for compulsory purchase orders made on behalf of parish, town or community councils. If a piece of land already has planning permission, then the council will still have to pay the higher value.

    In its consultation on the changes last year, the Government said it was "concerned there is a significant amount of suitable land available for housing which is currently lying vacant or underutilised and not coming forward for development".

    The Government insisted that the existing public interest test that must be applied to any compulsory purchase was robust and would stop the powers being used too widely. Landowners can object to a compulsory purchase order, on the grounds of procedural errors or an unreasonable decision, but the process can leave them in a lengthy legal battle. Labour has been repeatedly accused of launching an attack on the countryside over its "tractor tax" inheritance raid, as well as plans to ban trail hunting, and changes to gun licensing laws.

    Tim Bonner, of the Countryside Alliance, said: "We have been supportive of many of the Government's changes to planning policy, but giving councils more power to reduce the value of land is a step too far, especially in the context of such a challenging outlook for farmers and the inheritance tax fiasco.

    "This is not about people blocking development, it's about the state paying the market price for land. We need more houses and more economic development, but not at the cost of basic principles."

    Other changes in the new Bill include plans for homes near new electricity pylons to receive compensation of up to £2,500 per household over 10 years.

    The Government will also introduce a new nature restoration fund in a bid to streamline the process of offsetting harm to local wildlife. A similar scheme previously saw more than £100 million spent on a bat tunnel during the construction of HS2.

    "The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unleash seismic reforms to help builders get shovels in the ground quicker to build more homes, and the vital infrastructure we need to improve transport links and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect billpayers," said Ms Rayner.

    "It will help us to deliver the 1.5 million homes we have committed to so we can tackle the housing crisis we have inherited head on – not only for people desperate to buy a home, but for the families and young children stuck in temporary accommodation and in need of a safe, secure roof over their heads."

    Asked about its housebuilding targets on Monday, Alex Norris, a housing minister, could not guarantee the goal of 370,000 homes a year would be reached in 2025. Commenting on the target earlier this month, Matthew Pennycook, the minister of state for housing and planning, said it was "an incredibly stretching target. We're under no illusions about that".

    h ttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/farmers-sell-fields-to-councils-lower-value

    Has there ever at any time in British politics been such a collection of mean, spiteful, vindictive, stupid and nasty people in government?Reeves and Raynor the worst of the lot. These two are engaged in a scorched earth policy on the economy and the very land itself. Yet attacks on their policies are considered to be attacks on their character – and sexist to boot.

    2. Stop Bloody Importing Millions of Useless Mouths and Breeders Who Only Wish Us Ill.

      1. My thought exactly. We don't desperately need housing at all; we've got enough housing if we didn't keep importing the equivalent of a city the size of Derby every so often.

  95. Just in from a hour in the garden. Bit like the Arctic…. This morning, the MR invested in battery driven secateurs, and like the child at heart she is, wanted to see whether it was a good buy. Well – it would certainly be goodbye to a finger or two unless one takes great care….! Amazing gadget – very impressed. Stihl. Made in Chermany by migrants. The neat thing is that it runs on the same battery as their hand chainsaw. So one didn't have to buy battery, spare and charger… The MR is reet choofed… And I was able to reinvigorate the bonfire and put the trimmings on it.

    1. SWMBO bought one over New Year. She can now work all day, snipping branches…
      What's not to like?

      1. Ditto! My only fear (and a real one) is the speed and power of the cut. A finger would be gone in a trice….

        1. I had a very close encounter with one in Greece! My BiL nearly fainted when he saw what he’d made me do!! Oh! How we larfed…

          1. I've never attempted to use a proper chainsaw (I'm terrified of them) but this little tool is wonderful and a joy to use.

          1. It is light, easy to use, has a double switch to avoid accidental starting, a spring-loaded safety guard, and it cuts through 4" branches with ease.

  96. Bloody Disqus won't let me edit my comments. As soon as I click on 'Edit', my posdt disappears and I see this 'You have until 7 days from now to edit this comment. Learn more'. I click on the link and a help page comes up. Click on 'Edit' again and the post reappears but is still uneditable.

  99. Wordle No. 1,361 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 11 Mar 2025

    Tabs on Birdie Three?

    1. Well done Rene, but I've been looking forward to this all day!

      For my second guess I bunged in the first word I could think of as a 'builder' towards a birdie – but it turned out correct, it was only later that I worked out I had 7 options! yee-haa!!

      Wordle 1,361 2/6

      🟩🟨⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. Not so much impressive Richard, as downright lucky – but I guess you always need a bit of luck for an eagle!

  100. Wordle No. 1,361 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 11 Mar 2025

    Tabs on Birdie Three?

    1. More divots than others but success.

      Wordle 1,361 4/6

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

    3. Well done. A birdie here as well.

      Wordle 1,361 3/6

      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  101. Mark Carney is wrong about everything

    Canada’s new unelected prime minister is living, breathing proof that technocrats can’t be trusted.

    Fraser Myers
    Deputy editor
    11th March 2025

    Canadians have a new prime minister. After a leadership election in the ruling Liberal Party, it’s out with the woke globalist, Justin Trudeau, and in with the woke globalist, Mark Carney.

    Extraordinarily, in an age where justified populist rage against an out-of-touch establishment is spreading across the globe, Canadians have ended up with a leader who embodies that very establishment. In many ways, Carney is the technocrat’s technocrat. A bone fide citizen of nowhere.

    The new Canadian PM’s CV reads like a parody of an archetypal Davos man. He has been governor of the Bank of Canada, governor of the Bank of England and a United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance. Before he entered the public eye, he worked for Goldman Sachs – in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto. He has degrees from Harvard and Oxford. Yet he has never once held any form of elected political office. He does not even currently hold a seat in Canada’s House of Commons.

    Carney is living, breathing proof that expert credentials are no substitute for sound judgement or political acumen. He has embraced just about every naff and dangerous political trend of our times, never deviating from the Davos script.

    Most notoriously, as governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, Carney became the high priest of Project Fear ahead of the 2016 Brexit vote. He warned before the referendum that a Leave vote would spark an instant recession. It didn’t. He claimed Brexit would make investment in British assets so risky that it could ‘test the kindness of strangers’ should the UK take the leap. Needless to say, this was politically motivated hysteria, not a sober assessment of Britain’s economic prospects outside the EU.

    More recently, his endorsement of Labour’s Rachel Reeves as chancellor ahead of the UK General Election also smacked of both dubious judgement and needless political interference. Carney said in autumn 2023 that it was ‘beyond time’ her plans were put into action. Yet since Reeves’s plans were actually put into action, in her first budget in October last year, the UK economy has teetered on the brink of recession, unemployment has risen and government borrowing costs have shot up. Call it the Carney kiss of death.

    As Bank of England governor, he quickly tired of his mandate to manage monetary policy and soon became bizarrely preoccupied with climate change, turning it into a focus of central-bank policy. His eco-interventions were largely low-key to start with, but he soon began making major public-policy pronouncements on the environment. He appeared on a BBC programme guest edited by Greta Thunberg and gave speeches alongside David Attenborough, always warning how the world could face irreversible heating unless more bankers did their bit. In one speech, made as a prelude to the UK-hosted COP26 in Glasgow, he proclaimed that his goal was for ‘every financial decision to take climate change into account’. This would strike most rational people as a preposterous goal, but it undoubtedly helped his pitch, in 2020, to become a UN climate envoy.

    Of course, it is now abundantly clear, if it wasn’t already back then, that reorganising society around climate change has had disastrous economic consequences, pushing up energy prices, harming industry and damaging productivity. Even Carney seems to have reluctantly realised this, having promised recently to cut Canada’s punishing carbon tax, a flagship policy of Justin Trudeau.

    Carney hasn’t yet cottoned on to voters’ agitation with wokeness, however. In fact, during a campaign rally in February, he explicitly opposed Donald Trump’s ‘war on woke’ south of the border, claiming that Canada would always stand for ‘inclusivity’. Of course, ‘inclusivity’ in this context means men in women’s sports, men in women’s private spaces and the medical mutilation of mostly gay and autistic children – deranged policies to which most ordinary people are opposed but our supposedly sensible overlords still cling to like dogma.

    After nearly a decade of the woke, woeful Justin Trudeau, Canada deserves a break from the pseudo-progressive globalism that keeps on failing and irritating voters. Mark Carney is the last man they need to be PM.

    1. Excellent summary , Carney is a despicable dangerous elitist .

      How do men like that rise like scum from the bottom .. he is a slick manipulator .

    2. Why do you think that they are keeping Carney under wraps? With a paid for media only spouting the liberal line, it is down to the brietbarts of this world to uncover the truth and Canadian liberals will deny anything written there,

      Carney has also been caught out on such idiocy as claiming that most semiconductor chips are made in Canada.

      1. From ChatGPT:
        "As of recent data, **Taiwan** is the leading country in semiconductor chip manufacturing. Taiwan's **Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)** is the world’s largest contract semiconductor manufacturer, producing a significant share of the world's advanced chips. Other countries like **South Korea** (with companies like **Samsung** and **SK Hynix**) and the **United States** (with companies like **Intel** and **GlobalFoundries**) also play important roles in semiconductor production, but Taiwan remains the top producer, especially for cutting-edge chips used in everything from smartphones to supercomputers."

    4. Trump DOUBLES tariffs on Canada after Ontario threatened to 'shut off' US electricity supply and says Canada WILL become America's 51st state

      Trump's tariff wars are going to turn extremely nasty.

      President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on electricity in the United States and doubled the tariffs on aluminum and steel from Canada after retaliatory tariffs from America's neighbor to the north.

      The president, in a lengthy post on his Truth Social account on Tuesday, also threatened to 'permanently shut down' the Canadian auto sector.

      The only thing to make his tariffs stop is for Canada to become the 51st state, he noted as he ramps up his trade war.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14486299/trump-national-war-electricity-trade-canada.html

    1. Are you saying that Farage stood down all Brexit Party candidates in the 2019 General Election? If so, that is incorrect.

  103. Well we are now at 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium, that should help kill most US manufacturing by pricing goods out of the market.

    How far these egos will go at playing My tariff is bigger than yours is anyones guess.

    Trump has declared a State of Emergency in New York and said that he will do all that is needed to restore electricity supplies. A very unfriendly threat, thankfully canada has no working government or it could get worse even quicker.

    2. What is the basis for all this aggro?
      What has Trump got against Canada? Apart from duff PMs?

      1. Lack of control on the border is one bit of it.
        Drugs and illegal immigrants crossing over.

        1. That's interesting. I have a Canadian friend who married an Englishman and now lives here.
          She worked at border control over Vancouver way. Apparently she watched the flow of people and warned the guards actually at the check points. I'll have to ask her more about it.

        1. I've reached the stage where I'd like GB to become the 51st. state.
          We have completely lost the ability to produce decent or patriotic politicians.

      3. Willem Middelkoop just published an article suggesting they are part of the American plan to weaken the dollar to increase competitiveness whilst retaining their reserve currency status.

        "Central to Miran’s plan (to weaken the dollar) are Trump’s proposed tariffs. Unlike traditional views of tariffs as consumer taxes, Miran sees them as dual-purpose: raising revenue and pressuring trading partners to adjust their policies."

        Tariffs are nothing surprising, we call them excise duties and now everyone's pretending that Trump started it.

  104. Steerpike
    Douglas Murray wins defamation case against Observer

    11 March 2025, 3:02pm

    oday brings the news that the flailing Guardian Media Group has had to pay out ‘substantial damages’ to The Spectator’s Douglas Murray – after the Observer was found to have defamed him. In a court statement, lawyers for the paper said it ‘apologises unreservedly’ for the ‘false’ allegations it made about Murray in a piece about last summer’s riots. Oh dear…

    Last August, the Sunday newspaper published an article by journalist Kenan Malik on the summer riots, titled: ‘The roots of this unrest lie in the warping of genuine working class grievances.’ In his piece, Malik alluded to an interview between Murray and the ex-deputy prime minister of Australia John Anderson – in which the pair discussed Israel, Islam and immigration. In a move Mr S can imagine the Observer journalist now rather regrets, Malik linked Murray’s claim that ‘the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage at what these people are doing’ to the 2024 riots, stating ‘these people’ was a reference to the migrants targeted during that time and accusing Murray of supporting these attacks. Yet what the Observer man failed to realise was that the violent scenes of last summer took place, er, more than six months after Murray made the remarks. So much for journalistic integrity, eh?

    While the article was corrected before the online piece was published, the damage was already done. Guardian News & Media Ltd, the publisher of the Observer, was forced to apologise after Murray pursued legal action – admitting the allegations were false before paying out damages . Announcing the news, Douglas blasted the paper’s ‘lazy journalism’, adding:

    Last year the paper made very serious and false accusations against me, based on unchecked claims on social media. On 11 August 2024 the Observer published an article by Kenan Malik in connection with the riots in the UK. Mr Malik falsely accused me of supporting violent attacks against migrants. This was not true and did not make it to the online edition. Nevertheless such baseless accusations have to be stopped before other careless ‘journalists’ take fake news from the internet and repeat such damaging allegations.

    Strong stuff. The Grauniad group is not much revered for its commitment to accuracy – but might this rather public ticking off be a turning point? Don’t hold your breath…

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

    Shock Jock
    2 hours ago
    Well done Douglas. Keep making them look as dumb as they actually are.

    OhAndAnotherThing
    2 hours ago
    Malik is an utterly repugnant, anti-white racist of the most malevolent kind.
    Well done, Douglas.

    Hereward the Woke
    10 minutes ago
    From Wikipedia.
    In the 1980s, he (Malik) was associated with a number of Marxist organisations, including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), and Big Flame.
    He was the Red Front candidate in Nottingham East in the 1987 general election.
    And …..
    (Malik is) a presenter of Analysis on BBC Radio 4, he has also presented Night Waves, Radio 3's Arts and Ideas magazine.

    Who would have guessed?

    1. Marxists. They have an amazing ability to ignore facts. Like the mountains of dead at the hands of their philosophy.

  106. That's me for this sunny but also wet and cheerless (and COLD) day. Still puzzling over the "HTTP" reference posted by the great railwayman.

    Have a jolly evening staying warm.

    A demain.

  108. French health care is extraordinarily proactive.

    Towards the end of October I had a waterworks problem and contacted the GP.

    Appointment made for blood test, which showed a raised PSA, the GP organised an MRI and we booked a consultant appointment on-line.
    Consultant reviewed the MRI and made an appointment for a biopsy, the hospital organised pre op with the anaesthetists and I had the biop today.
    After recovery from the general the consultant discussed what he had seen and what he would do next and arranged for another consultation, which we could not take, so the secretary and he then gave us a different date a week later, on the spot.
    It will be done before Easter.

    If I was in the UK, I doubt I would have even had the MRI and first consultant appointment by now.

    1. Impressive! Hope it's going to end happily, Sos – the whole lot gives me the heeby-jeebies. At least, no middle fingers involved…

      1. I was asleep, they may all have been taking it in turns as on the job (ho ho) training, for all I know.

    2. Not so sure – my OH got good treatment here. I hope all will be well for you.

      On 2nd January 2021 – he was rolling on the floor, unable to pee. I rang NHS 111 and eventually got a call-back from a doctor who told me to get him to A&E "now". We arrived in a snow-storm – he was rushed through and I booked him in. We had a cubicle and he was relieved of half a litre via catheter. Before we left he had a finger test and the young lady doctor said he had an enlarged prostate. A PSA test at the GP followed and it was sky high – 294. We got an appointment with the urologist at Cheltenham hospital (during the January lockdown) and a scan followed within a week or two. They decided to do a TURP. That was done a few weeks later. He had to use a catheter until that had healed, another week or so. The oncologist we saw a few weeks later started him on hormone injections – he still has those three monthly and they've kept the PSA at almost zero. He now has a six monthly telephone chat to make sure all is still well.

      1. He was fortunate.

        If you are an emergency in the UK it makes all the difference.

        My case was not an emergency.

        1. They were certainly efficient at A& E. As they were when he had the heart problem in 2022. Admitted that evening – various pre-op procedures and scans and then eventually a triple by-pass (he'd expected a TAVI) at the John Ratcliffe in Oxford. He had that a few days after his 80th birthday and was home five days later.

          1. Similar to my recent heart attack.

            The John Ratcliffe is superb in the experience of friends and relatives in the area, and I'm told not really representative of the NHS as a whole: curate's egg.

          2. It seems to be the main cardiac centre for this area. We're an hour's drive from Oxford.

          3. My recently deceased uncle got absolutely incredible care there.
            He seemed to have a season ticket to the executive care box.

        2. Almost 20 years ago poppiesdad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He still has it, after initial diagnosis it was discovered to be non-aggressive so it was decided to monitor it with 2 x yearly attendance at the clinic, no other treatment. After many years he was discharged on the condition that he had the PSA blood test annually. On one occasion he was asked by the consultant if he was taking anything for it. Poppiesdad replied no, he wasn't, completely forgetting that at the start of all this years earlier he had heard a radio programme about supplementing prostate cancer with lycopene (a chemical found in tomato) and he still is taking it daily. Also, apparently, Ivermectin is useful for this and other cancers although 'they' don't want you to know about this.

      1. Most of it is covered by the carte vitale and some top up insurance and some bits require full payment, If I've had to pay 150 Euros for those I would be surprised.
        BUT, the top premiums amount to about 160pcm for both of us.
        The mutuelle covers "nice to haves", heavy discount on glasses and hearing aids etc, like a private room as well as over the standard fees, which some practitioners charge.

        A carte vitale covers pretty much all the essentials.

          1. The beauty is that you pay up front, so if you don’t qualify it isn’t free, unlike the NHS.

    4. Shockingly efficient. No saucepan banging for that sort of thing…

      (Glad it is under control…)

      MRI scan – UK waiting list = SIXTY (Yes SIXTY) weeks…..

      And don't think of complaining – because priority is given to the rubberboatists…

      1. Here one can obtain a Commercial MRI scan within 6 days providing you cough up £345 which includes the detailed report which will be made available within 4 days…

    5. I had an MRI today. I was in the machine more than an hour so simply said, “No more”. “Let me out or I crawl out”. The young woman doing the scan kept saying just five more minutes, I need more pictures. But it wasn’t five more minutes. She had someone else waiting too and the department was already closed. The waiting area was empty. The reception staff had gone. She said she was struggling to get good pictures because my heartbeat is irregular. Well hello! Of course it is. There comes a point where the push for technical excellence meets the limit of human endurance. I’d had enough.

      1. Sorry to hear that.
        Here we get a written report, usually within 48 hours sometimes on the day.
        They may have sufficient taken to give them the information needed, I hope so.
        Prayers are with you.

      4. Only been in MRI once. Horrible experience, and I used to go potholing when younger!

    6. Unlike the song I posted for Sue below, strangely I can't think of one to suit your diagnosis…..perhaps others can?

    7. The NHS can be very prompt and efficient with MRI scans because there is a lot of pressure for the hospitals to deal urgently with cancer symptoms.
      Good call to have a GA for the biopsy, as I was informed by a friend that the local anaesthetic can wear off before the needlework has been completed (big ouch). There is now a blood test which can state with 94% certainty whether or not a man has prostate cancer.
      Cost is just under £1000, but the snag is that the result is yes or no; in other words the test does not identify the precise type of cancer.
      (Episwitch PSE)

  109. Evening, all. I had to fight my way into Shrewsbury today to deliver some documents by hand. I was half an hour waiting in a queue of traffic. When I finally reached the traffic lights, they turned green, but I still couldn't move because the exit was blocked by queueing cars. At one stage, according to my satnav, I was only 1 mile from my destination. Unfortunately, it was the other side of the river and the bridge was some half a mile farther on. Then, when I reached my destination, I couldn't just turn right, I had to go to the roundabout, swing right round it to return on the road I had just left, but in the opposite direction, whereupon, I was immediately held up in a queue of traffic. I had to pay to park as well. Thank goodness I don't have to do this very often.

    It's no wonder recruitment is sluggish. If they're white straight males, they go to the back of the queue. If they do get taken on, the food and accommodation leave a lot to be desired and once they leave, they are abandoned, often to the streets, or persecuted for doing the job they were taken on to do.

    1. If they supplied tampons in the men's toilets it might help recruitment. Oh wait it has not helped Trudeau's abortive efforts to increase Canadian Army recruitment.

  110. Has anyone been to Samarkand?
    I'm thinking of planning a trip there. Do you think it would be safe atm?

      1. Thanks for the link, Bilty. I shall certainly read up before making a decision.
        I don't usually go for organised tours but as I'll be travelling on my own* will prolly look to see what's about

        *Unless any Nottlers want to join me ! 🙂

    2. Gosh! that brought back memories of reading Sohrab and Rustum.
      I should think it's an interesting place.

    3. What a lovely idea. But I'm afraid I know nothing other than it's exotic and interesting.

    4. Despite my message below – two chums of ours went there last year and were (a) bowled over and (b) thrilled and (c) felt perfectly OK.

    5. Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
      When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
      And softly through the silence beat the bells
      Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.

        1. “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
          Always a little further; it may be
          Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
          Across that angry or that glimmering sea,"

          Always brings to mind the great explorers including the eccentrics who tried to climb Everest with just the kit they had with them, on their own backs. One of the most iconic might well be Bill Tilman?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilman

        2. “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
          Always a little further; it may be
          Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
          Across that angry or that glimmering sea,"

          Always brings to mind the great explorers including the eccentrics who tried to climb Everest with just the kit they had with them, on their own backs. One of the most iconic might well be Bill Tilman?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilman

        3. “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
          Always a little further; it may be
          Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
          Across that angry or that glimmering sea,"

          Always brings to mind the great explorers including the eccentrics who tried to climb Everest with just the kit they had with them, on their own backs. One of the most iconic might well be Bill Tilman?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilman

  114. Red lights flashing.. talk of commie plants in government.

    Bizarrely Sir Keir of Czech Security Information Service (BIS) has forbidden Jonathan Powell UKs National Security adviser from appearing before the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament to explain WTF they are playing at with the Chagos Islands.

    Keir Starmer appears in Communist spy files after joining a Czechoslovakian work camp at the height of the Cold War..

  116. Been out most of the day and only just got around to Wordle.

    Wordle 1,361 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  117. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    He has done it again. Donald Trump has announced that, from tomorrow, tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium imports will be doubled to 50 per cent. In a statement on Truth Social, the President reiterated his call for Canada – which he labelled ‘one of the highest tariffing nations anywhere in the world’ – to become ‘the Fifty First State’. He explained that he was imposing the latest tariffs in response to a decision by Ontario premier Doug Ford to slap a 25 per cent tax on electricity exports to northern US states. Doug Ford’s policy was itself issued in retaliation to the sweeping 25 per cent tariffs that Trump had initially placed on imports from Canada.

    It is fair to say that this trade equivalent of tit-for-tat is not impressing the markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average extended its losses after the President’s announcement, falling more than 400 points, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.6 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.1 per cent. Equities have fallen sharply in recent weeks – particularly sharply on Monday – amid concerns that the new levies will slow growth. As Matthew Lynn writes on Coffee House today, Trump appears remarkably sanguine about the prospect of a looming recession.

    Rather than backing off from his tariff threats, he looks determined to double down. His Truth Social statement demands that Ottawa drop its ‘Anti-American Farmer Tariff’ and ‘other egregious, long time tariffs’; if not ‘I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the tariffs on cars coming into the U.S.’ This, he claims proudly, will ‘permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada’. Such threats are, unsurprisingly, not impressing Canada’s politicians or its voters. Doug Ford has already issued a bullish response to the President’s threats, insisting he will not back down. Handling Trump is the dominant issue in the upcoming general election, with his bombast on tariffs widely cited as the reason why the incumbent Liberals have seen a 15-point bump since 20 January.

    Among Americans, Trump’s decisive start has won plaudits for its early moves on cutting immigration, standing up for womens’ rights and cracking down on federal waste. But with the cost of living remaining the no. 1 issue in America, the inability of the Trump administration to bring down prices means that a tariff war could soon like an expensive distraction from voters’ concerns.

    James Heale
    WRITTEN BY
    James Heale
    James Heale is The Spectator’s political correspondent.

  118. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Today brings the news that the flailing Guardian Media Group has had to pay out ‘substantial damages’ to The Spectator’s Douglas Murray – after the Observer was found to have defamed him. In a court statement, lawyers for the paper said it ‘apologises unreservedly’ for the ‘false’ allegations it made about Murray in a piece about last summer’s riots. Oh dear…

    Last August, the Sunday newspaper published an article by journalist Kenan Malik on the summer riots, titled: ‘The roots of this unrest lie in the warping of genuine working class grievances.’ In his piece, Malik alluded to an interview between Murray and the ex-deputy prime minister of Australia John Anderson – in which the pair discussed Israel, Islam and immigration. In a move Mr S can imagine the Observer journalist now rather regrets, Malik linked Murray’s claim that ‘the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage at what these people are doing’ to the 2024 riots, stating ‘these people’ was a reference to the migrants targeted during that time and accusing Murray of supporting these attacks. Yet what the Observer man failed to realise was that the violent scenes of last summer took place, er, more than six months after Murray made the remarks. So much for journalistic integrity, eh?

    While the article was corrected before the online piece was published, the damage was already done. Guardian News & Media Ltd, the publisher of the Observer, was forced to apologise after Murray pursued legal action – admitting the allegations were false before paying out damages . Announcing the news, Douglas blasted the paper’s ‘lazy journalism’, adding:

    Last year the paper made very serious and false accusations against me, based on unchecked claims on social media. On 11 August 2024 the Observer published an article by Kenan Malik in connection with the riots in the UK. Mr Malik falsely accused me of supporting violent attacks against migrants. This was not true and did not make it to the online edition. Nevertheless such baseless accusations have to be stopped before other careless ‘journalists’ take fake news from the internet and repeat such damaging allegations.

    Strong stuff. The Grauniad group is not much revered for its commitment to accuracy – but might this rather public ticking off be a turning point? Don’t hold your breath…

    Steerpike
    WRITTEN BY
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

  119. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Ukraine has agreed to an American proposal for an immediate 30-day truce in the war against Russia. Kyiv’s decision to accept a month-long ceasefire follows nine hour-long talks with members of US President Donald Trump’s administration in Saudi Arabia today.

    Making a statement this evening following the conclusion of the talks, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the ‘ball is now in Russia’s court’ to agree to the ceasefire. It would be ‘the best goodwill gesture’ Moscow could provide, Rubio added. Confirming Rubio’s announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – who didn’t take part in today’s discussion – declared that ‘Ukraine accepts this proposal, we consider it positive, we are ready to take such a step’.

    Zelensky elaborated that the US truce plan would be for a ‘complete ceasefire’, not only including a pause on aerial and naval combat, but also ‘along the entire front line’. It is up to America now, he said, to convince the Russians to agree to the truce too.

    There were more immediate benefits to Ukraine from today’s meeting – notably America’s agreement to resume military aid to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Since his Oval Office spat with Zelensky two weeks ago, Trump had placed significant pressure to come to the negotiating table and prove to him that they are serious about finding a peaceful solution to the conflict. To force their hand, military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine was stopped by the US last week. America’s reversal on this suggests the Ukrainian delegation has been successful in proving that they are meeting Trump’s requirements.

    The outcome of today’s meeting will, nevertheless, be viewed with trepidation in Ukraine. America’s plan to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine now relies on Russia complying – something which is far from guaranteed. Ahead of today’s talks, Zelensky had said he would be prepared to accept a truce consisting of ‘silence in the sky’ – a ban on the use of missiles, drones and bombs – and ‘silence at sea’, halting military operations in the Black Sea. The reason a ceasefire along Ukraine’s front line wasn’t proposed was logistical – at over 600 miles long, this would make policing such a truce extremely difficult.

    For many months now, Russia has stated that it is ready for peace – something Trump has also repeatedly parroted. Nevertheless, Moscow’s continued bombardment of Ukraine and advances in the east have suggested otherwise.

    The Kremlin has yet to comment on this evening’s announcement. But even if Moscow were now to agree to the truce, there is no guarantee they would stick to it: a 36-hour ceasefire agreed between the two sides to mark Orthodox Christmas on 6 January 2023 was broken by the Russian army in under two hours.

    If Russia ignores – or refuses – the American ceasefire proposal, the ball will then be in Trump’s court as to what to do next. He could either make good on his threat to impose further sanctions on Russia, or drop Ukraine as a hopeless cause. Either way, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

    Lisa Haseldine
    WRITTEN BY
    Lisa Haseldine
    Lisa Haseldine is The Spectator's assistant online editor

    1. "For many months now, Russia has stated that it is ready for peace – something Trump has also repeatedly parroted. Nevertheless, Moscow’s continued bombardment of Ukraine and advances in the east have suggested otherwise." So, in the light of the recent drone attacks on Moscow, what does that say about the Ukies?

  120. I think I'll pop off now, a few indoor jobs done today. Too cold out side,….. no bonfire.
    A nice cuppa tea this arvo and a chat with our neighbours. I presented them with a sample of yesterday's bake. They loved it.
    I think I'll close my eyes and drift away.
    Good night all. 😴😏

  123. Canada’s most populous province has suspended a new tax on electricity exports after Donald Trump announced he would double metal tariffs against Canada.

    Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, wrote on X that he had “a productive conversation about the economic relationship between the United States and Canada” with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He said that Ontario had “agreed to suspend its 25 per cent surcharge on exports of electricity to Michigan, New York and Minnesota”.

    No Can a do?

    1. So if I'm reading the Room correctly not only do approximately half of all Americans but a very large part of the rest of the World would probably like to see the demise of the President….?

      1. I can't help thinking it will happen.
        Too many powerful and ruthless vested interests everywhere.
        They might even sacrifice one of their own to get him, eg a power figure photo op where US protection detail isn't permitted to cover all the points of access.

  124. From the Telegraph

    Trump’s ‘reverse Nixon’ charade insults our intelligence
    The US president’s crude goal is to separate Russia from China – sacrificing Ukraine as a pawn

    11 March 2025 12:32pm GMT
    Donald Trump is snatching Western defeat from the jaws of victory in Ukraine. He is extending a lifeline to a struggling war criminal running out of ways to fund his mischief.

    The Kremlin may “have all the cards” in Trump’s mind, but that is only true at the most superficial level, and mostly not true at all. Russia’s deformed war economy is kept afloat by unsustainable hidden debts.

    Harvard professor Craig Kennedy says banks have been coerced into off-budget loans to defence contractors worth up to $250bn (£193bn), disguising the true costs of the war and “creating the preconditions for a systemic credit crisis”.

    Russia’s “rainy day” welfare fund is running out of gold. Its liquid assets are down to 2pc of GDP. Ex-finance minister Mikhail Zadornov said the country would be unable to prosecute the war within six months if oil prices fell further, which is highly likely as Opec+ raises output into an incipient global glut. West Siberian light crude is already down to $62.65 a barrel.

    Putin has lost his regional ally in Syria. His mercenaries in the Sahel are overstretched and in crisis. He was unable to back his Armenian proteges against predatory ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. He needs pre-modern North Korean troops and Iranian drones to fight his war.

    He has conquered less than 1pc of Ukraine’s territory over the last year and has failed to capture a single town of importance. It is hard to exaggerate the strategic criminality of Trump’s pro-Putin pivot at this juncture.

    Trump’s courtiers say his shrewd goal is to separate Russia from China and pull off a “reverse Nixon”, sacrificing Ukraine as a pawn in a larger game of great power chess.

    Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, talks airily of “peeling off” the Russians, as if Nixon’s strategy of triangulation in the early 1970s has the slightest relevance to today’s circumstances.

    The only peeling under way is that of Moscow achieving its 80-year objective of splitting the Atlantic Alliance and gaining a free hand to do its worst in Europe.

    To the extent that Trump really has such a strategy – as opposed to a proclivity for authoritarian regimes in general, and Putin’s variant in particular – he is out of his strategic depth.

    “It’s a geopolitical fantasy,” said Michael Clark from the Australia-China Relations Institute. He said none of the structural conditions that made Nixon’s gambit possible exists today and those pushing the line “are either simply searching for an excuse or indulging in ungrounded geopolitical capering”.

    Nixon did not have to separate the Soviet Union and China. The two proletarian brothers were already at each other’s throats. It was dangerous to be mistaken for a Russian at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

    George Walden, a British diplomat and one of a tiny handful of Westerners in China at the time, said he was spat at and denounced as a Russian “revisionist swine” by gangs of fanatical Maoist youth on the streets of Beijing.

    He recounts in his book China: A Wolf In The World? how he also learnt from visiting impromptu bomb shelters in the hutongs that Mao Zedong was preparing for war with the USSR.

    We now know that Chinese forces had ambushed and killed 60 Soviet troops on the border at the Ussuri River. The Russians brought in reinforcements armed with tactical nuclear weapons. Moscow then put out feelers to the Nixon administration: would the US object if the USSR knocked out China by launching a first strike against its nuclear weapons installations in Xinjiang? Nixon warned them off.

    It became clear to both Nixon and his guru Henry Kissinger that a) they could play off China and the Soviet Union against each other in a triangular strategy of detente; and b) that better links to Beijing could help the US extract itself from the quagmire of the Vietnam War.

    The Daily Telegraph had its own cameo moment in the secret talks. Its stringer in Pakistan, MFH Beg, spotted Kissinger at Islamabad Airport being smuggled on to a Pakistani Boeing 707 with Chinese navigators and headed for Beijing. He put through a breathless call to the editor, who spiked the scoop of the year, thinking Beg must be drunk.

    There are Russians who fear vassal dependency on China. “The East is not our friend,” once grumbled Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, but he nevertheless renamed Europe Square as Eurasia Square last year, and loyally toes the line on China.

    A whole generation now in key posts has internalised the Primakov doctrine, which deems American hegemony to be the permanent and overarching threat to Russia. Only by teaming up with China can the two together force a restructuring of the global order and defend themselves against liberal contagion.

    Putin had some trouble persuading the collegium of the FSB security services two weeks ago that Trump’s overtures are a basis for anything durable.

    “We understand that not everyone is happy with the resumption of Russian-American contacts. Western elites are still determined to stoke instability and will try to disrupt the dialogue. We see this. We need to take this into account,” he said.

    The Russians know that Trump won the US election narrowly and that his hold on Congress is fleeting. “It is highly unlikely that Russia has any desire to separate itself from China,” said Angela Stent, a fellow at the Center for the United States and Europe.

    “There is a fundamental mistrust of the US among the current and probably future Russian leadership. They’re not going to squander this relationship with China built up over the past couple of decades.”

    If Trump’s reverse Nixon play were authentic and were to succeed to any degree, it would inevitably throw China and Europe into each other’s arms, creating a de facto pact between two of the world’s three big economic blocs (with the UK back in the EU).

    The US would swap its rich European equal for a poor Russian “petrol station masquerading as a country”, to borrow from the late senator John McCain.

    There is an even more horrible possibility that Trump will go in a different direction. While he has hit China with tariffs, he has eschewed a serious fight with Beijing so far. One can imagine another of his theatrical deals that effectively cedes the Far East to China.

    He seems to see the world as a 19th-century concert of great powers – in his head, America, Russia and China – each with an imperial “droit de regard” over its own sphere. Europe has no place in this. It is for him the despised weakling and cultural degenerate.

    One fears that it is not so much reverse Nixon as a reborn Metternich system of iron-fist reactionary powers colluding to hold back liberal ideas, this time on a global scale.

    Nixon and Kissinger must be turning in their graves.

    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is World Economy Editor of The Daily Telegraph. He has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels.

  125. Britain is sitting on a fortune better than gold

    We can break our reliance on China for minerals – if our elites get their hands dirty

    Andrew Orlowski • 10th March 2025, 11:00am GMT

    Sir Humphrey has learned to hold his nose. After decades of official disgust at mining, refining and petrochemicals, Whitehall is learning to love the dirty stuff again – the very things we need to defend ourselves and grow a modern economy.

    The vibe shift is palpable in Westminster and reflected in the booming share prices of mining and defence companies. And about time, too. In a collective spasm of shame, we stopped digging up and working with the most vital materials of the modern world. Our policy class considered these industries to be filthy, and at Davos, the elite toasted itself for its high standards of moral hygiene by making a new, cleaner, "weightless" world. But we were becoming strategically dependent on China for the basics of modern life.

    "China has realised they can dominate the world," says Jeremy Wrathall of Cornish Lithium, which opened a £15m demonstration plant last autumn, producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide for batteries as a by-product. "Most of the West has been asleep at the wheel and China is now laughing all the way to the bank."

    Today, China controls the supply chains for many of these critical minerals, and in December, the PRC turned the screws further. "So, you want to hurt our semiconductor industry?" asked Beijing. "Well, get a load of this."

    It promptly blocked the United States from receiving any antimony, gallium or germanium. The message was clear: we can hurt you far more than you can hurt us, because only we have what you need.

    Donald Trump's indulgence of Vladimir Putin may look craven in European capitals, but it's an entirely rational strategic response to China's critical minerals monopolies. The US can secure supplies from mineral-rich Russia and Ukraine to buy time for its own domestic refining to grow. If this peels Russia away from its alliance of convenience with Trump's real enemy, China, then that's a bonus.

    But the British minerals story remains largely unappreciated. There's lithium and tin in Cornwall, copper and gold in Northern Ireland, and nickel, cobalt and rare earths in Scotland.

    "For modern warfare, you need metals such as lithium, caesium and rubidium for atomic clocks and night goggles," says Wrathall. "We will be producing them in Cornwall as a by-product of what we do."

    Not long ago, Whitehall had one official dealing with critical minerals, now there are 50 across five departments. The paybacks for tiny strategic investments are huge: one £15m scheme captured £170m of investment.

    "We're starting to see the green shoots of an industrial foundation for which we can build a strong critical minerals supply chain," says Jeff Townsend of the Critical Minerals Association. With an integrated petrochemicals centre and freeport on Teesside, the parts are falling into place.

    Sky-high industrial energy prices need to come down, but what's really missing is a wider sense of the genuine industrial renaissance before us. We can not only dig the stuff up but apply science to it to create a higher-value product: what's called "midstream processing". And we can also start exploiting the resources that we think are there, but haven't bothered to look for since the Macmillan era. Re-shoring makes us more secure and enables us to apply scientific innovation to add value.

    The UK Critical Mineral Intelligence Centre at the British Geological Survey has just published its critical assessments. Gavin Mudd, its director, explains how we export 2,000 tonnes a year of tungsten, a metal vital to our defence industry. But we could export 15,000 tonnes thanks to ingenious new recovery techniques: that's about 20pc of the world's production. Most tantalising of all are the untapped riches under our soil. We're pretty sure they are there but haven't had to look for them for decades.

    "The last national geophysical surveys were done in the 1950s and 1960s," explains Mudd.

    Wratham has unearthed archives that even the British Geological Survey (BGS) didn't know it had. And the strategic and commercial imperative is now urgent. For example, monazite is an ore that is described as a "pathfinder" to rare earths, yielding cerium, lanthanum, and neodymium. It is incredibly expensive, and Wales is full of it. (It's a common misconception that rare earth metals are rare.) But we haven't tried to assess those monazite resource deposits for more than 30 years. Resourcing the geologists at the BGS could be the smartest investment any government makes, for who knows what else they will find.

    So many times, this column often rues, the UK has found itself with a winning lottery ticket only to throw it away. For example, in 2013 fracking was popular across the country, particularly in communities that stood to benefit from it. However, a campaign was then launched equating the process to "tiny explosions", a highly misleading description of spraying rocks with water. This activated the environmentalists, and politicians got nervous. The Colvile and Wolf-authored Conservative Manifesto of 2019 killed shale gas for a decade.

    The revulsion against mining and industry culminated in Boris Johnson's speech to the United Nations in 2021, which talked about the derangement of the "natural order".

    We can't afford to make that mistake again – to capitulate to wild, bourgeoisie fears of getting dirty, and using our natural riches.

    What we have is better than gold.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/10/the-uk-can-become-a-critical-minerals-superpower-if-we-dare

    1. How apposite!

      "The UK Critical Mineral Intelligence Centre at the British Geological Survey has just published its critical assessments. Gavin Mudd, its director,

  126. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    There ‘could be a recession’, said President Trump over the weekend with the kind of nonchalant shrug that suggested he was not too bothered one way or the other. He was even going to buy a Tesla to help out his ‘first buddy’ Elon Musk as the company’s share price collapsed. The markets had assumed there was a ‘Trump put’ – that is the President would always ride to the rescue to keep the bull market running. But there is no sign of it. Instead Trump seems perfectly relaxed about the huge losses, even encouraging the sell-off. Of course, it might just that he does not know what to do. But it is also possible that he wants a correction if not a full-blown crash, and is happy to see the indices fall.

    It has been a very rough few days for Wall Street. On Monday, the Nasdaq saw its biggest one day drop since September 2022, falling by almost 5 per cent in a single brutal session. The broader-based S&P 500 fell by 3.6 per cent. Some of the stars of the market have been especially badly hit. Tesla is now down by 41 per cent since the start of the year. The chip-maker Nvidia is down by 22 per cent. Trump Media, which you might expect the President to care about more than anything else, has fallen by 41 per cent. All the gains that the market made since Trump’s election have now evaporated.

    It is not hard to work out why. There are growing signs of a recession in the US, and the tariffs the President is imposing are likely to hit the profitability of America’s largest companies.

    The market had assumed there was a ‘Trump put’. During his first term, Trump boasted constantly about the performance of the market. Surely he would come to the rescue by scrapping the tariffs, or demanding cuts in interest rates? Perhaps he will over the next few days. But right now he is simply saying a recession is possible, and that the US faces a ‘period of transition’. He does not seem in the least bothered about the collapse on Wall Street. There may be a reason for that. Trump knows that Wall Street was massively over-valued on taking office. He knows as well that ending President Biden’s wild, deficit-funded spending, as well as significant redundancies as government waste is cut, will mean an inevitable slow-down in the economy. With that in mind, he is quite happy to see a correction take the froth out of the market, especially as it will help prevent a far worse crash in a year or two. In reality, he wants stocks to fall. It is a high-risk strategy, and of course it could easily get out of control. But if there is a limited 10 per cent fall over the course of the spring it could just work.

    WRITTEN BY
    Matthew Lynn
    Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’

    1. Worst price crash since the last time a couple-three years ago.
      Hyperbole. Panic.
      Arsehole.

    2. Very good. Now how do you propose to achieve it? What will you have to do to persuade fellow voters, in sufficient numbers, to elect a government willing to do it? I'm just not seeing the signs of anything like the numbers needed. In which case, only terrorism to frighten reluctant voters, has any chance of working. You have to kill innocent people to achieve your ends, if you think it worth the sacrifice.

  133. Well, chums, it's 11 pm and I am off to bed – after a day's hard work in the front garden and an evening spent re-watching WHERE EAGLES DARE. So Good Night all, sleep well, and see you all in the morning. A domain. Bis morgen fruh. Hasta mañana.

    1. 2,000 a week, for 52 weeks = 104,000

      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Comments are closed.