705 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 November: The dire consequences of Labour’s opportunistic war on the wealthy”

    1. Good morning. I borrowed this useful summary from another commentator which summarises why we should never trust the promises of the Tories on Europe:

      The Conservative Party:
      – took us into the Common Market (without a referendum),
      – lied to every UK household about its consequences (Edward Heath)
      – signed us up to new treaties without consultation (Margaret Thatcher, John Major)
      – tried unsuccessfully to take us down the road of joining the Euro (John Major)
      – reneged on Treaty referendum promises (David Cameron)
      – broke a promise to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty immediately in the event of a Leave vote (David Cameron)
      – dithered for nine months about invoking said Article (Theresa May)
      – came up with a disastrous new Treaty covering our Withdrawal in consultation with the German Chancellor but without consulting her own Cabinet (Theresa May)
      – broke a promise made 108 times that we would leave the EU with or without a deal by 29th March 2019 (Theresa May)
      – broke a solemn promise that we would leave the EU with or without a deal by 31st October 2019 (Boris Johnson)

      Why would anyone who wants Brexit NOT loathe the Conservative Party?

      1. I daresay the list would be even worse for how the Labour party betrayed us all ..

        The list of nightmare decisions that have crippled Britain will be endless.

      3. Evening, everyone. Add to that list the latest announcement that, despite pledging not to appoint an EU apparatchik, they are about to do so.

    2. …soon to be followed by 5 years of broken election promises. What’s new?

      ‘Morning, Oldie.

    2. +2C, still dark. Rain on the snow yesterday means the roads are reasonably clear, after a very slippery commute home yesterday evening.

  4. Morning all, post-election prediction:

    Theresa May did all the wrong things for all the right reasons, and
    (post-election) Boris Johnson will do all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

    Result: satisfactory Brexit in 2020.

    1. Morning all, post-election prediction:

      Theresa May did all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons, and (post-election) Boris Johnson will do all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons.

      Result: unsatisfactory BRINO in 2020.

  5. This Allison Pearson column had 1100+ BTL comments by 7:00 this morning. The count has now dropped to 700+

    The BBC is leading the charge rewriting our culture to suit the ‘woke’ brigade
    ALLISON PEARSON – 12 NOVEMBER 2019 • 7:00PM

    Everywhere you looked this week, culture was busy trying to correct the mistakes of the past. The new Broadway production of West Side Story has cut Maria’s song “I Feel Pretty”: the director explains he wants a rendition fit “for the 21st century”.

    Because, as we know, young women of today have ceased caring about their appearance, no longer enjoy getting dressed up for a big night out and are wholly indifferent to their attractiveness to the opposite sex. If there is still such a thing as the opposite sex, that is. Last time I looked, we were up to seven genders but, hey, it’s still only Wednesday!

    “I feel stunning and entrancing/Feel like running and dancing for joy,” a giddy Maria sang on the opening night of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s musical in 1961. Her frothy, feelgood “I Feel Pretty” made the perfect counterpoint to the agonising poignancy of One Hand, One Heart. How quickly love can become loss and party frock a funeral shroud.

    West Side Story was an instant classic because it set eternal truths about human nature to immortal melodies. The attitude of its latest director, Ivo van Hove, seems to be: “Nice try, guys! Now let the #MeToo generation show you how it’s done. Let’s start by ditching the sexist crap about girls wanting to be pretty.”

    The same wilfully wrongheaded thinking dominates at the BBC. No period drama is safe any more from the drip-drip of politically correct views, regardless of how bizarre they appear in a historical context. We will have to wait till Sunday night to see whether the latest adaptation of HG Wells’s War of the Worlds is travesty or triumph. (As is now de rigueur, it has ignored the novel, put a woman and a gay guy centre stage and pushed aside the white straight men who were so annoyingly prevalent in Victorian England.) Its predecessor in that prime slot was a virtue-signalling dud.

    Blessed with a lavish budget and international cast, World on Fire should have been magnificent, shining a spotlight on Poland’s overlooked role in the fight against Nazi Germany.

    Instead, it rapidly turned into a Woke War Two drama complete with an anarchist Battle of Britain pilot declaring, “I’m not fighting for Churchill or Britain” (God forbid!) and a far-fetched mixed-race, same-sex love story. The villain of the piece was Robina Chase (brilliantly played by Lesley Manville). I mean, OK, the Nazis were bad and everything, but Mrs Chase was a Conservative of decidedly old-fashioned opinions. Oh, the horror!

    Her racist and sexist views were probably held by 98 per cent of the population in 1939, but the drama still had to punish her for not being feminist or socialist. The BBC blew a few million quid of the licence-payer’s money pouring contempt on such stoic, patriotic people with lines like: “Make sure you do what’s right, not what’s British.”

    Do you suppose anyone at the Beeb noticed that over 800,000 British people lost their lives defeating fascism and doing “what’s right”, despite them being so tragically un-woke and all? Producers may be far too busy fighting the culture wars to care about details from the actual war, but it turns out viewers do mind. The audience for Sunday’s finale dribbled away to 4.4million, a modest figure for such an extravagant production.

    Revisionist history undoubtedly has its place. We no longer expect the reflex, gung-ho patriotism of The Dam Busters, which seemed to be on telly every rainy Saturday afternoon of my childhood. But castigating that wartime generation for the crime of not being as enlightened as a vegan Green in 2019 is a bloody cheek, frankly. Not only is it morally vain, it makes for bad drama. Remember it was the Manchester Guardian, the BBC house journal, which ran headlines praising Stalin and demanding that Britain didn’t go to war with Hitler.

    Goodies can be baddies, and vice-versa; any great dramatist knows that. Such complexity is no longer welcome, however. Not when the priority is protecting snowflakes. For the vigilantes of offence, it is not enough to censor new work. Old favourites must be made to see the error of their ways and repent.

    Word from the set of No Time To Die is that this will be the “most politically correct James Bond movie” yet – a contradiction in terms as any reader of Ian Fleming’s borderline sado-masochistic novels could tell you, but that clearly hasn’t stopped them trying.

    The original plan to have 007 played by a black actress appears to have been shelved after an outcry on social media. But Great Britain’s most successful libidinous export since Lord Byron faces humiliation when the patent Bond seduction technique fails miserably. “It’s very funny,” a source said.

    Is it? Do we really want James Bond to be a figure of fun? I don’t. A Goldfinger poster on our landing, with Sean Connery looking irresistible in black tie, bears the caption: “Everything he touches turns to excitement!”

    For almost 60 cinematic years, that was the key to his extraordinary global appeal. Of course Bond is a chauvinist throwback, a sleek predator who belongs in a retro world where it was still possible to use the dreadful word “womaniser” and nobody worried it was inappropriate. You can’t update him. You shouldn’t even try.

    The important thing is to create iconic roles for women in their own right. What female in her right mind wants to be James Bond to score a feminist point?

    Today, though, there are those who won’t rest until the ultimate rogue male is a house-husband with a spew-spattered baby muslin over one shoulder, reduced to begging his CEO wife for a perfunctory monthly shag between Antiques Roadshow and a BBC updating of King Kong which – you’ll never believe this – turns out to be a searing indictment of Brexit. Daniel Craig plays Ant Darrow who screams when he gets cradled in his teeny Speedos in the palm of Queen Kong.

    “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” LP Hartley was right. Our arrogant, self-righteous culture may choose to rewrite that “unacceptable” time when men ruled the world and besotted girls tried on a dress and sang, “I feel pretty, Oh, so pretty!”

    More fool us. One day we too will be history.

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

    The Today programme has just given David Gauke (standing as an independent) 8 minutes of uninterrupted coverage to explain why people shouldn’t vote Tory because it might lead to Brexit.

    1. “… white straight men who were so annoyingly prevalent in Victorian England.” – I don’t suppose that a hundred or more years ago the proportion of men who were gay was much different to now, just that it wasn’t anything to flaunt in the way it is now.

      1. I once read a book. It said 2%-4% of men and 1%-2% for women, but that was before they decided there were 72 genders. The lobby for their rights maintained the figure was 10%. But Kinsey reckoned 50% of men have latent homosexual tendencies. Give us a kiss and I’ll tell you if it’s correct.

          1. The figures I quoted were from studies from around the world before 2003, hence the variables. But if you want to take figures from a Common Purpose controlled organisation with an agenda to prove, that’s your prerogative.

    2. Listening to the bitter and twisted Gauke was like a lesson in patriotism delivered by a traitor.

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

    3. Clearly as well Maria should be Transgender and a member of Extinction Rebelion and a vegetarian and be black and disabled and should probably have ADHD as well

    4. *** Since the original airing BBC/Today are repeating the essence of the Gauke piece every quarter hour. They are truly shameless.

    5. If there is still such a thing as the opposite sex, that is. Last time I looked, we were up to seven genders but, hey, it’s still only Wednesday!

      Brilliant!

    6. Great article! PS I’ve always thought Gauke was a complete idiot – nice to be proved right (again!)

    7. The same wilfully wrongheaded thinking dominates at the BBC. No period drama is safe any more from the drip-drip of politically correct views, regardless of how bizarre they appear in a historical context.

      This purveyor of Lies and Cultural Marxist propaganda should be shut down!

    8. The important thing is to create iconic roles for women in their own right
      Amen, Sister, Amen.

    9. “The audience for Sunday’s finale dribbled away to 4.4million, a modest figure for such an extravagant production.” Most of those watched out of curiosity, I suspect!

      “… castigating that wartime generation for the crime of not being as enlightened as a vegan Green in 2019 is a bloody cheek, frankly. Not only is it morally vain, it makes for bad drama. Remember it was the Manchester Guardian, the BBC house journal, which ran headlines praising Stalin and demanding that Britain didn’t go to war with Hitler.” We should not forget that until Operation Barbarossa brought the USSR onto our side, strikes and sabotage were rife because the Communists didn’t support this country.

  6. Morning

    SIR – There is no such thing as “free” education, or indeed a “free” NHS.

    Someone has to pay: not the Government, as it has no money, but ordinary taxpayers – along with the “ultra-rich” (as Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, describes them), who are forking out more than ever.

    When they leave Jeremy Corbyn’s dystopia, the whole cost will fall on ordinary taxpayers.

    Charles Foster
    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    1. SIR – Once again Mr Corbyn has shown his true colours by speaking up, not for the Bolivian masses – who have been left in poverty by the same ideology that Labour espouses – but for the autocratic Evo Morales, who is responsible for the situation in that country (report, November 12).

      Neil Jones
      London SE24

      SIR – The Marxists have been able to hijack a ready-made political party because of the supine incompetence of Labour politicians.

      Hugh Ellwood
      Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

      1. I went off Evo Morales when I heard that he had opened up the national forest to loggers, miners and slash-and-burn farmers, same as that vile Friend of Trump Bolsonaro next door. The result has been a catastrophic fire wiping out the jungle and wrecking the lives of the very indigenes Morales claims to represent.

        How many air miles given up are needed to correct the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air by that policy?

    2. The Ultra rich in general will not be paying as they will have their tax base outside of the UK

    3. The Ultra rich in general will not be paying as they will have their tax base outside of the UK

    4. Boris is still keen to go on with HS2 a project that has seen its costs spiral out of control before it has even started. There is no business case for it

      The claim that it will benefit the North has no substance to it at all. To start with only about 5% of the population travel by rail and where is the benefit in someone getting to London 10 minutes quicker. Is a company going to set up in say Newcastle because you can get to London 20 mints quicker?
      What the North needs is much better local transport and infrastructure and not a slightly faster train service to London which even if it happens will be at least a decade away

  7. SIR – Nigel Farage has put country before party by standing down his candidates in Conservative-held seats (report, November 12).

    It is not all roses, however. In my constituency, the withdrawn Brexit Party candidate appeared to be more substantial than the PR man chosen by the local Tories. Boris Johnson may have got the message, but I’m not sure the party apparatchiks have.

    R P Gullett
    Bledlow Ridge, Buckinghamshire

  8. SIR – Although the Environment Agency has spent millions on flood defences in many areas of the country where communities were told this 
 was a “once-in-100-years” event, flooding has happened again after 
just a few years.

    This situation will worsen until 
the agency carries out the regular dredging and river maintenance 
that was undertaken by the British Waterways Board. Without this, riverbeds will continue to rise, reducing the effect of any defences.

    Due to Britain’s disastrous interpretation of the EU Habitats Directive, and the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, almost all river and waterway dredging and maintenance has now stopped.

    Under the Act, powers 
were granted to the agency to act in accordance with its policy that the aquatic life of rivers and waterways was more important than people and property.

    The removal of millions of grazing livestock in the uplands has exacerbated this, resulting in far more scrub and bracken and an increased risk of moorland fires. Once again this was due to failed environmental policy beginning in the early Nineties.

    Suzanne Greenhill
    Bishop’s Cleeve, Gloucestershire

    1. I remember reading a few years ago about how reintroducing beavers into woodland around upland river sources actually prevented excessive flooding downstream. What their dams did was to hold rainwater in the forests, releasing it only slowly at a rate the main rivers and downstream flood defences could cope with.

      I believe such a scheme was done in Yorkshire. I would like to hear of any report comparing the recent flooding there with that where there was no beavers upstream.

    2. To be fair saying that a bad weather event is a once in a hundred year event is just a load of tosh, we all know these things come in cycles.

      1. The defining wave height in the North Sea, for platform design, is the 100-year wave. This wave height is regularly increased, to the extent now that some installations are now too short to comply with design requirements.

      2. That area of the UK is prone to flooding. Building on flood plains and poor river management have added to the problem. Rainfall has not been outside of the normal levels the UK gets. With rivers not dredged and the building on flood plains is in heavy rain the water has no where to go other than flood the towns and villages

    3. Take heart, Suzanne Greenhill – the Somerset Levels, for instance, are now cared for by by an organisation other than the Environment Agency, and so far the locals are said to be satisfied that the chances of another flood like that of 2014 are much reduced as a result of proper maintenance.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    4. Don’t forget the removal of trees near the headwaters; that means less water is taken from the ground.

  9. Morning all, in case people have missed it, the DT Paywall is off for 25hours so you can read the complete lies from politicians and other establishment figures.
    On the plus side they do have just a couple of worthwhile journalists, Wee Willie Vague not being one of them!

    1. Thanks for that, I am having a good trawl through DT nonsense

      Good morning to you ,

      Grrrrr to this idiotic article

      Universities must change reading lists to represent student population, study says

      Researchers at the University College London said institutions must “decolonise” academic sources and authors to make them less “white, male and Eurocentric”.

      Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said: “There is an assumption now that universities need to go to where students are and meet them on their terms, rather than get them to discover something new.

      “A university degree is about mastering a body of knowledge. You have to take it as it exists at the moment and present it to the students.

      “They may well say, ‘but all these books are written by white men’. The answer is – ‘why not write something yourself?’

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/13/universities-must-change-reading-lists-represent-student-population/

    2. I shall make a point of not reading it. Don’t want to encourage the prospective buyers, if any, to believe that the Barclays are making a success of their disaster. There have been some scandalously wrong pieces recently, clearly just aimed at provoking nay saying clicks. Responsible journalism has left the room.

    3. I shall make a point of not reading it. Don’t want to encourage the prospective buyers, if any, to believe that the Barclays are making a success of their disaster. There have been some scandalously wrong pieces recently, clearly just aimed at provoking nay saying clicks. Responsible journalism has left the room.

    3. Quick, get her on BBC breakfast telly (or some other utterly pointless programme). Presumably she has something to flog…

  13. Brexiteers celebrate as Emily Thornberry predicted to lose seat ‘Karma of highest order!’

    3. No chance, sadly. 2017………

      Emily Thornberry Lab 30,188 62.8 % 11.9%
      Jason Charalambous Con 9,925 20.7 % -1.6%
      Alain Desmier LD 5,809 12.1 % 1.2%
      Benali Hamdache Green 1,198 2.5 % -5.1%
      Pete Muswell UKIP 929 1.9 % -5.7%
      Majority 20,263 42.2 %
      Turnout 48,049 69.1 %
      Electorate 69,536
      Result Lab Hold

  14. The army will roll into submerged towns and villages today as 115 areas across UK are on flood alert while desperate families brace for more misery with worse still to come when two week’s rain strikes tomorrow

    The harsh reality is there is little that can be done until the floods recede. Those areas that have not flooded but are at risk van be partially protected by sandbags but they will only stop a foot of water or so before it starts coming in. The water can also come up through the drains and toilets

    1. Another cost imposed by the EU and gold-plating snivel serpents.
      Devastated areas and army deployments v. the Depressed River Mussel’s human gastropod rights.

    2. ‘Morning Anne
      Two articles in two days??
      Overheard in the Editor’s office
      “FFS how the hell did we publish an article critcising black kids for playing the race card at school”
      “but,but it’s KB,you know the one that’s getting results”
      “I don’t care if it was Sister Teresa that wrote it don’t you realise YET black kids are beyond criticism!!!”
      “OK boss I’ll get her to write something more anodyne and we can memory hole the original”
      “You better or we’re all toast”

  16. Tomorrow is the last day to register as a candidate. The list of all the candidates standing is due to be released on Saturday. Those standing in your Constituency should also be available on your councils web site

    2. Tomorrow at 4pm is the last time to register as a candidate. If you rock up at 4.01 you won’t have a chance.

  17. Tories are looking in the wrong places for prospective MPs
    Joanna Rossiter – Coffee House – 13 November 2019 – 8:00 AM

    ‘You guys should get outside London and go to talk to people who are not rich remainers,’ Dominic Cummings declared in September to journalists expressing scepticism about Brexit. There’s been a strong sense, ever since Boris Johnson took office, that the Prime Minister and his advisors wanted to do things differently. Their plan it seemed was to shift the party’s focus away from the metropolitan elite and towards working class leave voters in areas of the country that haven’t typically voted Conservative. Their dreamed-of parliamentary majority depends on it.

    Yet a close look at Johnson’s chosen candidates at the snap election shows the Conservative party still favours those from typical pools of recruitment for prospective MPs. Of the 44 current Conservative seats where there is a new parliamentary candidate running, 20 have worked in the following professions: as government special advisors, journalism, PR and lobbying, think tanks, the civil service and the BBC.

    This is perhaps surprising for a party that entered this election seeking to represent the 52 per cent of voters who backed leave. Such voters are predominantly found outside of London and outside of these professions, which are more likely to be based in the city.

    There are a few notable exceptions. Martin Dowey (Ayr-Carrick and Cumnock) is a former policeman and Luke Evans (Bosworth) worked as a doctor in the NHS. Tellingly these candidates were selected before the election was called, suggesting that CCHQ, in its rush to fill seats, is relying on the candidates closest to hand to form its new 2019 intake.

    This strategy is nothing if not short-sighted. If the Conservatives do win a majority on 12 December, they will be heading into parliament with a new cohort of MPs who are more divorced than ever from the concerns of the wider electorate.

    Don’t get me wrong: some of the best and brightest work in Westminster. But they’d be the first to tell you that their day-to-day existence is nothing like life outside the M25. And writing on-paper policy is a very different skill to frontline service or trying to turn in a profit.

    Only last weekend, the local Conservative association in Penrith staged a walk out because of resentment about the shortlist of candidates given to them by CCHQ. After Rory Stewart’s resignation from the party, they understandably wanted a say in who filled his shoes.

    Other local Tory associations are telling similar stories. Time will tell in the coming weeks whether local members will be prepared to hit the streets and campaign for candidates over whom they had little say to begin with. If they don’t, Boris could pay the price come 12 December.

    David Cameron’s famous ‘A list’ of prospective parliamentary candidates was a public attempt to gain central control over the quality of those making it into parliament. It was also undoubtedly designed to counteract the ‘swivelled eyed loons’ so loathed by some of his closest allies in the party.

    Now Boris Johnson is in danger of repeating the same mistakes. What’s particularly worrying about Johnson’s approach is that much of this is happening behind closed doors: often neither candidates nor chairman know the reasons why applications from the wider candidates list are apparently being vetoed in favour of Conservative establishment figures, often with few local credentials.

    Mark Wallace of ConservativeHome has attempted to shine a light on the prevalence of special advisors in selection processes. But otherwise Conservative central office appears to be going ahead with its preferred candidates largely unchallenged.

    Boris Johnson is clearly looking for a loyal intake of new MPs in an attempt to heal the divisions that have afflicted the Conservatives in Parliament since Brexit. But if he wants to heal the wider national rift brought to the fore by the referendum, he should have had the courage to look beyond the Westminster bubble for his new colleagues.

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

    In Devizes the informal group that chased Claire Perry away are not at all happy with CCHQ’s subsequent dictats. Watch this space.

    1. Brendon O’Neill’s piece about Mrs Clinton in Coffee House is also good. It’s basically ‘Go Home Yank, you don’t understand’…

    2. In Eddisbury, the Con party has chosen a remainer who lost his seat in the last election to replace Antoinette Sandbach, the remainer who worked so hard to thwart the expressed will of her constituents (majority leave). Quite how well that will go down, I don’t know. As Labour has over a hundred “rebels” who are forming Labour Remain, plus their record on anti-Semitism, it will be an interesting contest, I think.

  19. ‘Morning All

    Like most I thoroughly enjoyed the Alison Pearson article,now why has this pernicious altering of history happened??

    Simple,the loons have the power,if you don’t follow the rules it wont get made

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90c64a64a703a6eaea0c42cd40fcc6b8f32f1cff6776024fa1876e3b5ad58aed.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d20218f4c834967a0739ed6d5ce54acc24ed85ed05b2219c3b09452ad23f65ba.jpg
    Basically bugger the quality,feel the diversity

    1. The whole point of me voting Leave in 2016 was to register my feelings about the raft of unnecessary and often damaging regulation and directive imposed supremely against me and my nation over the previous 43 years. The thinking was that once the British had control back of their own regulations, things could only get so much better. We could tailor legislation with some intelligence, imagination, vision, and enlightenment, and dispense with that which caused harm or did the opposite of what was in the public interest.

      Having seen this document produced by the British Film Institute, I am inclined to believe that the idea that the British rulemakers are enlightened is a unicorn, and we’d be better off having our laws drawn up by the Germans.

      Should I now vote Liberal Democrat and push for revoking Article 50?

      1. “We could tailor legislation with some intelligence, imagination, vision, and enlightenment, and dispense with that which caused harm or did the opposite of what was in the public interest.”
        Not if it was done by our present band of incompetent politicians

      2. The EU is certainly not responsible for all our woes, they’re the Eastern Front. If we do ever leave we’ll have to win the battle on the Home Front, a different kettle of fish.

    1. Good morning, Rik (and Bob3)

      Nicked for Ar$ebook together with Bob3’s analysis of the election choices.

      My thanks to both.

  22. A Honda mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Honda when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his work-shop.

    The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his car when the mechanic shouted across the garage, “Hey Doc, want to take a look at this?”

    The cardiologist, a bit surprised walked over to where the mechanic was working on the Honda.

    The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, “So Doc, look at this engine.

    I opened its heart, took the valves out, repaired or replaced anything damaged, and then put everything back in, and when I finished, it worked just like new.
    So how is it that I make £24,000 a year and you make £1.7M when you and I are doing basically the same work?

    The cardiologist paused, leaned over, and then whispered to the mechanic,

    “Try doing it with the engine running.”

      1. #Me too.

        ‘Morning, Belle.

        As the echoing is about to cut in, I’m going back to ed to finish my German thriller.

    2. Similar to the one with a gynecologist who said “Try doing it through the exhaust pipe” :o)

  23. Curious coincidence how the two guys promoting the Remain Alliance, Tony and Peter, are both apparently linked to George.

    2. My wife, Caroline, plays the organ in our local churches and does a lot of other voluntary work for the Church. The church is always packed and at the Christmas Mass there is standing room only in the largest of our three parish churches.

      Muslims are very like Remainers – they stick together in clusters in cities and so there are not many of them in rural Brittany.

      1. Yet, rather like remainers, they seem to have a disproportionate influence on the levers of power.

  25. Brexit Party.

    I think it should now just focused on about 50 seats which it has some chance of winning. Resources can then be targeted at those constituencies. IT needs a daily presence in them and plenty of publicity. The scatter gun approach of going fort all the seats and hoping you will win one or two will not work with FPTP and will consume finance and resource for no return

    The Brexit Party also ned to get its act together with its policies. What are they would be a good start

    Is Nigel really in this for the long term or is it as the parties name stated just a Party to fight for Brexit which then fades away

    Calling it the Brexit Party if it is in it for the long run is a odd strategy calling it say The Democratic Party and adding a tag line such as Fighting For Brexit then when Brexit is over the tag line can be dropped or replaced by another one

  28. Like him or loathe him, Ryan Whatsisname raised over £800k for Children in need with his “Karyoke”.

  29. Lol…..

    The answer is so obvious……..

    Dan Hodges @DPJHodges

    Sorry, but who in the Remain establishment decided it’s their right to tell Lib Dem voters in Canterbury or anywhere else they can’t have a Lib Dem candidate to vote for. If you think voting Labour is the best way to stop Brexit fine, get out there and make your case.

  30. To Derek Brumhead who asks what happened to Chamberlains infamous piece of paper….ask Teresa May…she had it last.

  31. Can anyone suggest what the next Brexit group move will be in insuring johnson plays the game ?
    Or has it already been made ?

  33. A man in the know – Tim Martin, JD Wetherspoon – lets fly at corporate governance in Tory-governed UK – “up the spout” “tick-box culture” “guaranteed eventual destruction” “Noddy-inToyland”. OMG, the UK is in a real mess. Read this and weep.

    :
    Current trading

    For the 13 weeks to 27 October 2019, like-for-like sales increased by 5.3% and total sales by 5.6%.

    Property

    The Company has opened one new pub since the start of the financial year and has disposed of four. We intend to open between 10 and 15 pubs in the current financial year.
    In the current financial year to date, the Company has spent £43.3m on buying the freeholds of pubs of which it was previously the tenant and has bought back £6.4m of the Company’s shares.

    Corporate governance (and guaranteed eventual destruction)

    Commenting on corporate governance issues, the Chairman of Wetherspoon, Tim Martin, said:

    “While acknowledging the need for a sensible system of corporate governance (CG), I have, for many years, expressed the urgent need for modification of the CG code, summarised in our 2019 annual report (Appendix 1).

    “There can be little doubt that the current system has directly led to the failure or chronic underperformance of many businesses, including banks, supermarkets, and pubs.

    “It has also led to the creation of long and almost unreadable annual reports, full of jargon, clichés and platitudes – which confuse more than they enlighten.

    “I believe by vesting so much power in non-executive directors (NEDs), the system is also disenfranchising executives and the workforce – the people who have real expertise and are the cornerstone of business success.

    “Another tectonic fault is that the institutions and advisers which oversee the code, as described below, do not themselves adhere to the rules they impose on others.

    “The vast gap between the technocrats who make the rules and commercial reality is illustrated by the 2016 CG code, which refers to shareholders 64 times, employees three times and customers not at all.

    “In contrast, commercial reality, which should be reflected in the code, is encapsulated in Sam Walton’s Walmart mantra – “Who’s number one? THE CUSTOMER!”

    “A core problem is that CG institutionalises short-termism, inexperience and navel-gazing.

    “‘Independent’ non-executive directors (NEDS), who work part time, are limited by the code to nine years’ service and stay, on average, for just over four years

    “It is also common practise for there to be only two executive directors, the most senior of whom, the CEO, averages only about five years’ – managements and workers are thus absurdly underrepresented.

    “A cursory glance at the board compositions of major UK PLCs underlines the issues.

    “Tesco, for example, which has 450,000 employees and is the UK’s largest supermarket group, has only two executive directors, with total service of about nine years and 11 NEDs with total service of 38 years. The overall average, including NEDs and executives, is only 3.7 years.

    “This sort of corporate structure is mirrored in banks, retailers and pubs – where long-term performance, over recent decades, has usually veered between poor and catastrophic.

    “Adherence to a tick-box culture means, for example, that there are no NEDS on the boards of major UK banks (HSBC/RBS/Barclays/Lloyds) who have any personal experience of the last banking crisis at their company – when it is clear that inexperienced boards were a major factor in that crisis.

    “In contrast, non-compliant companies like Wetherspoon (average tenure 15 years), Fullers’ (10 years), Dart Group (12 years) and Berkshire Hathaway (19 years) have often fared far better, with experienced boards, long-term shareholders and a long-term view.

    “Compliance with CG guidelines increases the risk of failure – companies like Northern Rock, HBOS, Carillion, Thomas Cook and Mothercare were compliant with the code, but had shockingly low levels of experience (around 4 years per director) and executive representation.

    “Stefano Bonini and others (Harvard Law School Forum, June 2017) highlighted this problem and correctly said that “long-tenured directors … decrease the likelihood of corporate scandals … (and) … accumulate information and knowledge.”

    “A Noddy-in-Toyland aspect of the current farce, as indicated above, is that the ‘comply or explain’ principle, which underlies the code, is not observed, in practise, by many ‘enforcers’ – ie institutions or their corporate advisers.

    “‘Comply or explain’ means that advisers and investors have an obligation to weigh up explanations for non-observance of the guidelines.

    “However, in reality, many never do – including, it seems, governance advisers such as PIRC.

    “For example, Wetherspoon’s largest institutional shareholder, Columbia Threadneedle (CT), without any advance notice to the Company, did not support the re-election of two of our long-serving directors at last year’s AGM – in spite of our repeated explanations in annual reports.

    “As a result, three of our four NEDs felt compelled to offer their resignations – inevitably destabilising the company in the process.

    “Yet CT’s owner is Ameriprise (a US company), two of whose independent NEDs have themselves exceeded the nine-year rule.

    “The Ameriprise chairman also breaches the nine-year rule – and combines the roles of chairman and CEO, a further breach of UK guidelines.

    “In this context, the fact that CT is a US company is irrelevant. It has decided that one rule applies to itself, but that another should apply to Wetherspoon.

    “In addition, US shareholder, Blackrock did not support Wetherspoon’s long serving NEDs last year, but they also have directors who exceed the 9-year rule on their board.

    “Not all institutions behave like CT and Blackrock. Two of our largest shareholders strongly support Wetherspoon’s approach as illustrated in letters written to the company (appendix 2). Common sense does exist, in small pockets, in the City.

    “Indeed, in thousands of meetings with shareholders in the last 27 years, I and my colleagues have almost never been asked about corporate governance – although the guidelines are clearly the predominating factors in PLC board composition – and at AGMs.

    “The tick-box malaise, to which only strong-willed contrarians – and those with no financial interest in the perpetuation of the current system – are immune, is particularly rife at CG advisers.

    “For example, the CG adviser PIRC recommends its clients to vote against my own re-election as chairman of Wetherspoon on the basis, inter alia, that I have been chairman for more than nine years (a milestone I hit in 1992).

    “Amazingly, while advising Wetherspoon that it should have four or five ‘independent’ NEDS, the hypocritical PIRC has, itself, just one on its own board – someone whose only apparent employment experience has been at a local authority.

    “However, PIRC’s own website misleadingly says that it adopted, in 1988, “a private company structure with…executive directors and a board of non-executives drawn from the founding pension funds and public figures” – a structure that clearly no longer applies today.

    “Furthermore, the founder of PIRC, Alan MacDougall who still sits on his own board after 33 years (but seems to believe I shouldn’t be on mine), has no relevant PLC experience having, according to his LinkedIn profile, a “BA Sociaology (sic) 2:2 – Social policy and Soviet Studies” and work experience at the National Union of Mineworkers and the Greater London Council.

    “MacDougall has questionable personable judgement, referring to himself on his Twitter account as a “governance expert” and an “ex-Eurocommunist”. In my opinion, many people equate communism with fascism, since millions of Europeans perished or were imprisoned under its yoke.

    “It is perhaps a concern that PIRC has a low rating of 2.6 on the employment website Glassdoor, and appears to rely on inexperienced and temporary workers to analyse complex company reports for corporate governance purposes.

    “In summary, my view is the UK CG system is up the spout – and is itself a threat to listed companies – and therefore to the UK economy.

    “By institutionalising inexperience, the code guarantees the eventual destruction of the culture or ‘DNA’ of successful companies – and culture has ‘strategy’ (with which the code is obsessed) for breakfast, as respected management philosopher Peter Drucker has said.

    “Board structures should probably more closely resemble the successful Fullers – a chairman with 41 years’ experience at the company, combined with directors with extensive executive experience and long-term loyalty.

    “In addition, genuine observance of ‘comply or explain’, rather than current lip service, should be mandatory. One-size-fits-all does not work in the real world.

    “Board composition à la Fullers can’t guarantee future corporate success – but rigid compliance with current CG guidelines will almost certainly guarantee eventual mediocrity or failure.

    “City regulators and lawmakers should make haste. Even Wetherspoon, a medium-sized company, has 42,000 employees, 13,000 of whom are shareholders, and it contributes about one pound in every thousand of UK taxes (£764 million in 2019) – it’s not in anyone’s interest to kill a golden goose.

    “But, perhaps above all, no sensible business, looking to the long term and genuinely apprised of the reality of the CG system, would float on the London stock market today – who wants to guarantee eventual destruction, after all?”

    https://www.investegate.co.uk/wetherspoon–jd–plc–jdw-/rns/trading-statement/201911130700031865T/

    1. His major point is experience, or lack of it. Whilst I can’t comment about Board level appointments, I can about management and senior management positions. Nowadays, if you are to be CEO, you need to get there by about age 40-45, it seems. That means accelerated promotion through the organisation, often jumping grades, and most certainly not being in any one position to receive the outcome of your decisions. Thus, you barely ever learn, and you are so quickly into the realms of management that you no longer understand the issues at the shop floor, or even how to communicate and motivate at lower levels since you only deal with management and management-speak.
      Likewise, yuo don’t have the experience to handle all the problems correctly, as an older person would.
      Contrast my last employer. The “Old Guard” were replaced a few years after I joined – they had managed the oil price crash with minimal layoffs, quite well. Then they were moved out, and the Young Turks took over. Sudden drop of 20+ years average age at senior levels, and the result is rotten business and a tanked share price.
      Doesn’t matter how clever one might be, without experience (gained through being older), it amounts to bugger-all useful.

      1. The Wisdom of the Elders.

        Sadly lacking in this age of ‘youth has all the answers’ and anyone who disagrees is a ‘dinosaur’ (an insult in the minds of those who use it almost on a par with ‘racist’.

        2. A great example is all those jerkoffs hanging on the word of Grunta Thunberg. Man, they should see themselves.

      2. You are absolutely right. I saw this in my last years in the Civil Service. Senior managers were all men and women who had worked their way up the ladder over decades – they knew the business intimately and, more importantly, had great affection for, and loyalty to it. The business was successful and had a contented, well-informed and well-motivated work force. Then came the rush to “modernise” and, with it, the ascendancy of Bright Young Things (BYT) whose principles were what they were told to have and who reached the top levels having learned nothing. True, some them had brains as big as buses but these brains were totally without experience. Within a few years, the BYT were entrenched at the top, promotions were made in their own image and experience counted for nothing – quite literally, experience was explicitly discounted as a promotion criterion. A great organisation ruined on the alter of youth!

        2. No wonder they want to stay in the EU. They got rid of anybody who could actually Manage, rather than just follow directives.

          This was something I asked just after the 2016 referendum result. Do those who profess to be running the country actually have the ability to operate independently any more? People in business could manage, but I have grave doubts about government at all levels down to local ‘government’ (ha-ha) and the Civil Service.

          1. This is a major argument for Peter Hitchens, who reckons that one effect of EU membership is a “hollowing-out” of nation states, a bit like a leg muscle shrinking within a cast, and it being absolute agony to try and walk after the caszt is taken off.

    2. Having worked with NEDs for the best part of nine years I can say that a few were absolutely worth their weight in gold. However, the major problem for management was the need to service the demands of the NEDs which took considerable time away from the actual business of managing the business.

  34. Royal Mail fails to halt record £50m Ofcom fine

    The fine, announced in August 2018, related to its actions in 2014 when Whistl, then known as TNT, was trying to become its first competitor in wholesale mail delivery.
    Ofcom’s investigation followed a complaint by Whistl that Royal Mail had abused its dominant market position.
    Royal Mail challenged the fine, but on Tuesday, the Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissed its application.

      1. Well, it is fine if you think a fragmented, commercial, competitive post and parcel sector is a good idea.

    2. He states he ‘earns’ more money by being on benefits rather than working. Not my definition of earning.

    3. Note the word “entitled”… says it all, really. No sympathy for people who won’t even use the help they are given. Eejit.

  36. What’s the matter with poor Prince Charles’ feet? Heir to the throne shows off swollen toes after taking off his socks and shoes on Indian trip
    Prince of Wales visiting Indian Meteorological Office in New Delhi to take part in climate change discussion
    Charles arrived in an electric rickshaw to take part in a discussion on how to strengthen disaster resilience
    He also met India’s head of state in the capital New Delhi on the first day of his visit packed with engagements
    As he removed his shoes to step into a Sikh temple, the 70-year-old’s toes were considerably red and swollen

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7680121/Prince-Charles-tests-solar-powered-tuk-tuk-New-Delhi.html

      1. If it was he couldn’t walk. I get it on occasion and the pain is immobilising.

        Probably something that he’s trying and failing to cure by homeopathy

    3. The Prince with the swollen toes
      Was once as fit as a flea;
      When they said, ‘Some day your toes will turn red;’
      He replied, — ‘D’ya think so? Stap me!’
      So the Duchess of Cornwall made him drink,
      Large gins with bitters, which turned them pink,
      For she said, ‘The World in general knows
      There’s nothing so good for a Prince’s toes!’

      1. I seem to remember that the Duchess of York had a penchant for having her toes sucked by her lovers.

  37. Unicorns Wanted

    UK’s Green Energy Targets Require ‘Herds of Unicorns’

    The 400 years is his guesstimate from where we are now. It is certainly not achievable in less than 50 years and that would regard ground breaking technological advances

    So says Cambridge engineering professor Michael Kelly in a stinging rebuke to the Net Zero policies currently being championed by Boris Johnson and his rivals in their desperate race to the green bottom. The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are all committed to carbon emissions reduction targets which they cannot hope to attain and which will be hugely damaging both to Britain’s prosperity and freedoms.

    Energy Utopias and Engineering Reality – is a much needed corrective to the view, shockingly prevalent among the groupthink-afflicted political class not just in Britain but throughout most Western economies, that dramatic decarbonisation is both desirable and possible.

    According to Kelly, one of the few serious thinkers to have considered the practical implications of taking an economy ‘Net Zero’, decarbonisation is neither desirable nor possible – at least not outside a 400-year time frame.

    The target of decarbonising the world economy by 2050, he argues, is unrealistically ambitious.

    In order to keep global temperatures to within 1.5◦C of pre-industrial levels, we intend to eliminate emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) by replacing all the energy developments since about 1880 with zero-carbon alternatives. This is to be achieved by 2050. Even reaching the old target of an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would be miraculous; this is a level of emissions not seen since 1880. I assert that a herd of unicorns will be needed to deliver this target, let alone full decarbonisation. I also point out the utter nonsense of Extinction Rebellion’s demands to complete the task by 2025.

    Some of the measures introduced by the Climate Change Committee have actually made global emissions worse. Where we once smelted aluminium using electricity generated from a mixture of nuclear, gas and coal, we now import our aluminium from China where electricity is nearly all made from coal. What is worse, the smelter in Anglesey had a contract to use more electricity when the local demand was low (at night and on weekends); costs were kept lower for everyone. Now the smelter has gone, local consumers have to pay more for their electricity as the generators are less efficiently used.

    1. “I’m starting to question just how much needs to come to light before the party finally acknowledges we have a serious and deep problem with Islamophobia and that, institutionally we’re failing to deal with it.” That’s sorted it for you, Warsi.

      1. ‘Afternoon, Lass, I’ll openly admit to being an Islamophobe, they frighten me shitless, with their plans to take over my country, either make us muslims or kill us and impose Sharia upon us all.

        1. Hi Nanners,

          Yes, strange that. If Islamophobia (i.e. a fear of Islam) is to be made illegal (which is on the cards), how can being frightened of something be illegal? They haven’t thought it out, have they.

      2. As I have said before I would like to see a televised discussion between her and Douglas Murray.

  39. Musings…
    “Pragmatism”: Noun. Not found in politicians’ dictionary.

    Fortunes are currently being made by comic book graphic novel writers. Film companies are making fortunes producing films about superheroes.
    Last Sunday we were reminded that there are such people, tens of thousands of them. They walk amongst us, quiet, anonymous, unrecognised.

    1. Afternoon HP,
      I do agree wholeheartedly, today you could very well be describing the UKIP membership, sounds very much like it.

    2. Afternoon HP,
      I do agree wholeheartedly, today you could very well be describing the UKIP membership, sounds very much like it.

    1. Nuclear, coal and gas [the most] were supplying 80% of the power when I looked earlier. Boris is promising us a “Green Revolution” [DT]. I don’t think that will gain him many votes.

      1. He’s a prick who has never looked beyond his arts-based and Classics education.

        Scientifically illiterate and devoid of any engineering ability or knowledge whatsoever, but he can talk.

  42. w he is standing now he is not

    It is a job to keep up with the coming and going of candidates

    In my view it shows the dreadfully low standards of our MP’s. Wales seems to be a favorite dumping ground for unwanted candidates

    Tory Chris Davies withdraws from seat

    A former MP who lost his seat following a conviction for a false expenses claim has quit the general election after briefly becoming the Conservative candidate for Ynys Mon.

  43. Corbyn pledges ‘massive’ Scottish investment

    His magic money pit sure has a lot of money in it and he has not got to Wales and NI yet

    Jeremy Corbyn will visit Scotland on Wednesday with a pledge to deliver “massive investment” if he becomes prime minister.
    The Labour leader said the general election on 12 December would be “a once-in-generation chance to transform Scotland and the whole UK”.
    Mr Corbyn will set out his plans during a two-day visit to key Scottish seats.

    2. I don’t know if I have missed it, but if he guarantees free TV licences for the over 75’s, I’ll vote for him.

    3. “Massive investment” in what? Is our very favourite Red forgetting what is in the Withdrawal Agreement? No state aid to UK enterprises (that includes farming) without the agreement of the EU.

  44. House Building in Flood Prone areas

    The sensible thing would be to build town houses. The ground floor could just be the garage plus say cycle storage and bin storage and garden storage so if there is a flood nothing much is affected and the house will still be habitable

      3. The ancient Brits had the same problem when they built vast housing estates on Dogger Bank thousands of years ago.

    2. BJ,
      The sensible thing would be to shut the bloody borders… tight…very tight.
      Many years ago UKIP wanted controlled immigration, the lab/lib/con
      have all, the pro eu governance years,
      supported / voted mass uncontrolled immigration, we are witnessing the odious consequences, good a ?

  45. Nicked

    Labour have promised to prevent President Trump introducing Jurassic Park grown dinosaurs into the UK.

    “
    We will never allow Donald Trump to bring his pet velociraptors into
    the Uk, to eat our citizens. The EU forbids dinosaurian importation,
    and that is why we need to remoan within the Customs Union.”

    When asked if Donald Trump actually had any dinosaurs a labour spokeswoman replied,
    “
    We don’t know. He might have. Who knows what he does with his untaxed
    billions? But we will never allow carnivorous lizards to rampage among
    our NHS and eat labour voters.”

    Pressed on this hot topic of being
    food for raptors, by the BBC’s Anjima BiassedM’uch, labour promised to
    continue putting increased funding into its emergency ‘dinosaur watch’
    initiative.

    Asked wether this was a useful way to spend scarce funds labour responded,

    ‘ Do you see any Trump dinosaurs here in Hull?’

    ‘ No.’

    ‘ Exactly! it’s working.’

  47. M25 CLOSED: Motorway shut for hours as drivers stuck in 11 miles of traffic

    It is closed between Junctions 23 (South Mimms & J26 Waltham Abbey. That will grid lock a large chunk of North and North East London

    1. All because a little old lady stopped her car at a junction to get her handbag from off the back seat.

  48. In other news…

    From Brexit Central:

    “Finally for today, it would appear that Steve Bray, the tedious man who has for some time been interrupting TV interviews on College Green in Westminster with his amplified cries of “Stop Brexit”, has finally decided to put his money where his mouth is by actually standing to be elected to Parliament. It’s no surprise that he’ll be wearing a Lib Dem rosette, but I wouldn’t expect to be hearing his voice inside the House of Commons any time soon: he’s contesting 56.7% Leave-voting Cynon Valley in South Wales which by my reckoning is 518th on the Lib Dem target list..”

    A Limp Dumb in a Leave constituency…this I would like to see!

  49. In other news…

    From Brexit Central:

    “Finally for today, it would appear that Steve Bray, the tedious man who has for some time been interrupting TV interviews on College Green in Westminster with his amplified cries of “Stop Brexit”, has finally decided to put his money where his mouth is by actually standing to be elected to Parliament. It’s no surprise that he’ll be wearing a Lib Dem rosette, but I wouldn’t expect to be hearing his voice inside the House of Commons any time soon: he’s contesting 56.7% Leave-voting Cynon Valley in South Wales which by my reckoning is 518th on the Lib Dem target list..”

    A Limp Dumb in a Leave constituency…this I would like to see!

  50. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin cast dark shadows over our British democracy. Kevin Maguire. 12 NOV 2019.

    Toxic twins Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin cast long, dark shadows over our British democracy.

    The US tinpot tyrant and his more despotic Russian friend won’t be on ballot papers but the poisonous puppeteers are pulling strings.

    BELOW THE LINE

    Grimreaper2017.

    You have a cheek even mentioning democracy you remainer tw@t.

    Morning everyone.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-cast-20870328

    1. In interviews Maguire comes across as a not very pleasant person. An argumentative leftist heavy who will brook no opposition to his opinion, he is a perfect fit with Corbyn’s Labour Party.

  51. This has got to be the most depressing election ever, one side promising to make us vote again on EU membership without the option for leaving, has a Marxist agenda, weaponises spending on the NHS as a reason to vote for them and are fully signed up to the crazy UN green energy Western civilization destroying new world order plans.
    The other side promising to not make us vote again on EU membership without the option for leaving, but has signed up to a fake leave Brexit plan that could take a decade to resolve, has a globalist agenda, weaponises spending on the NHS as a reason to vote for them and are fully signed up to the crazy UN green energy Western civilization destroying new world order plans.

    There is nothing in any party to capture the imagination for a decent future, it is all dystopia.

    1. ” one side promising to make us vote again on EU membership without the option for leaving, has a Marxist agenda, weaponises spending on the NHS as a reason to vote for them and are fully signed up to the crazy UN green energy Western civilization destroying new world order plans.” – the other side being the Labour Party.
      Morning, Bob.
      You are right, too depressing.

      1. “…the other side being the Labour Party.” That threat is enough to keep even the most hacked off Tory onside. Sad but true. In fact, the threat of having a Marxist, terrorist-loving wrecker in No 10 is so bad it is even causing some traditional Labour supporters to vote Conservative. Just imagine – Labour supporters may well tip the balance and put BoJo back in Downing Street.

        ‘Morning, Oberst. We are indeed living in strange times.

        1. This is how the liblabcon has always operated to get the outcome the establishment wants, by giving people no choice in a democracy, you haven’t got democracy.

    2. The politicos of the main parties are following THEIR agendas and the outcomes are not necessarily in line with what the people want or the Country needs. The politicos of all stripes are attempting to deflect the people’s attention from their real agenda by promising undeliverable spending plans that are becoming more preposterous by the day.

        1. What will be the pound coin count by then? More than all the grains of sand on the UK’s beaches?

    3. Bob baby, that’s the most sense I’ve ever seen you write. They didn’t quite get it right in 2017 but they’ve learnt from their mistakes. Nobody really knows who to vote for nor who they can trust. Brilliant strategy. Absolutely no one to trust.

    4. Thank you Bob, I’ve nicked it, together with Rik’s ‘Les Electiones’ cartoon for a wider audience on Ar$ebook.

      I trust you won’t mind, as it’s a very accurate summation.

  52. Are these flooded northern villages who could be ‘homeless for weeks’
    going to get the Grenfell treatment, put up if luxury hotels and given
    credit cards to spend?
    No,thought not

    1. Afternoon Rik,
      Stand up for illegal immigration amnesty, then when things get dire water height wise, stand on the stood up illegals.

    2. …and is the reason for their distress the result of flood-prevention work elsewhere to just divert flood water into these villages?

      A result of poor planning and hasty construction, without working out the results of their folly.

      1. Afternoon NtN,
        Some years back on one project ( much needed) there was talk of raising the ground level 3 foot 3 & 3 / 8s.
        I believe that the high drowning numbers of surrounding neighbourhood was to be seen as collateral damage.

      2. Bransby (in Lincolnshire) Home for Horses has had its fields flooded because they allowed the sluice gates to slow the water flow to protect Lincoln. Their fields are now contaminated and will take some time to recover. In the meantime, they have to transfer the animals to another farm.

  53. Russia ‘is at war with the West and secretly trying to wreck British politics’. MIRROR. 13 NOV 2019

    The source said Putin’s aim is to discredit Western democracy.

    He said: “The Kremlin’s tactics in this war, which is already being waged against us, is to exploit and interfere in order to exacerbate the level of emotional attacks against each other by each of the UK political parties, to wreck UK politics as far as possible.”

    “Wreck UK Politics”? My God! What’s he going to do? Pass Brexit? Beef up Defence? Cut taxes. Abolish the BBC! The horror!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/witness-report-over-russias-brexit-20870353

      1. Afternoon Rik. The comments sections on these anti-Russian articles tell you more than the piece itself. No one believes them!

        1. The European Union has done far more damage to our democracy over the years than have the Russians.

    2. Afternoon AS,
      Terrible, this is flying in the face of ALL the good work the likes of cyril smith,
      b liar, vaz, kinnock, manndleson have put in.

    3. I weep! I tear my hair! I rant! I snivel! I call others names! The Russians made me do it!

  54. Morning again

    SIR – The Tories’ promise to end unfair trials of ex-Servicemen from the Troubles (report, November 11) by altering the Human Rights Act will be received with some scepticism.

    In 2005, David Cameron made a similar promise on human rights laws when standing for the leadership of the party. He won, but in the years of Conservative-led government since, nothing has been done to correct the injustice.

    I have corresponded with various ministers and have a vast file of replies: all have been platitudinous and hypocritical. I fear that the recent promise will go the same way as earlier ones, as action to correct the matter will be in the hands of lawyers, for whom the work is lucrative.

    Lt Col Roger Jones (retd)
    Odiham, Hampshire

  55. SIR – Hydrogen-fuelled cars are the solution to the potential problem of a “battery mountain” (Letters, November 12) caused by electric cars: no emissions other than water, no charging points needed, no massive increase in electricity generation for charging. The technology exists.

    Keith Jacques
    Stafford

    1. And where does the hydrogen come from? Electrolysis, or refineries. Massive increase in electricity generation for H2 production instead.
      No batteries admittedly, but the pollution still happens, just somewhere else.

      1. Ah but with the Green types as long as they don’t see it at the point of use that fine. IT is the same with the NHS, They see it as free but of course it is not well unless you are a health tourist of newly arrived migrant

      2. The greatest criticism of renewables such as solar and wind power is that they do not often generate electricity at the same time it is consumed. One way round of using excess power at the wrong time is to electrolyse water. Every school lab in the 1960s was able to do this. The hydrogen is bagged up and used when needed, and the oxygen released into the atmosphere, where it would combine with the hydrogen when used.

        1. Storing hydrogen is a tad complex. Being such a small molecule, it easily diffuses through the walls of any containment and vanishes. But otherwise, you are right. If you can store it properly, it acts as an energy store, as well as a transfer medium (similar to gasoline) that allows for swift refuelling of vehicles.
          It does go BANG! rather satisfyingly, though. Our local automotive H2 station blew up in the spring with a deep BOOM! that echoed around the valley. Cars passing on the motorway had their airbags deployed! Very exciting, if you like that kind of thing.
          The other option for energy storage is water. Pumped storage as at Dinorwig is very effective.Pretty harmless and easy to store, too.

          1. Spot on Paul,I note the proposals to use hydrogen as a domestic gas fuel have gone very quiet thank god
            After all what could possibly have gone wrong……………………

          3. From memory Birmingham was the first city they were proposing to convert
            One way of doing away with the need for HS2 I suppose {:^))

          5. This is interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage
            Basically, hydrogen storage is listed as being by chemical means, rather than physical containment (unless cryogenically), and the “round trip” efficiency is listed as about 40%, compared with 75-80% for hydro pumped storage.
            Lots of stuff to read… :-O)

          6. When I lived in Surrey, there was this retired colonel living in Chiddingfold who made his own fireworks for the village bonfire night. They could be heard in Guildford!

          7. Have you visited the tidal hydro-electric station on the Rance between Dinard and St Malo?

            They have been discussing having a similar system on the Severn but one set if environmentalists is violently opposed to another set of environmentalists so little is likely to happen.

          9. Not just that, but the fact that hydrogen is explosive at a VERY wide range of concentrations when compared to alkanes.

      3. But, but, it is the energy equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. You use electricity to electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen. You then burn the oxygen to heat more water to create steam to drive a turbine to create electricity.

  56. Different doctors in those days. Patients came first and duty it was to look after them.

    SIR – I retired aged 63 after 35 years 
as a GP in Hastings.

    During a flu epidemic in the Eighties, when one of three partners was ill, the other two of us remained on duty. We managed two surgeries each a day and more than 60 home visits, and also covered the night duty.

    Surely today’s GPs can manage a few home visits a week.

    Andrew Young
    St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

      1. It’s when the dr. visits the patient at home because the latter is too ill to come to the surgery.

          1. They have been known to. I sometimes I made homevisits to my patients & in Germany to care-homes.

          2. I know. We were with a GP for twenty years and we moved and did not tell them. We were happy to make the twenty mile trip to the surgery. When they discovered we had moved they de-listed us because “they would not be able to do home visits”.
            Despite the fact that they had never made a single home visit in those 20 years.

    3. IT is in any case not the GP’s decision. They are contractors to the NHS. It is a decision for the NHS

    4. Shortly after I moved to my present home in the eighties, I fell ill with gastro-enteritis and collapsed. It was Christmas Eve and freezing fog. My GP drove out and treated me. I don’t think I would get such service these days.

  57. Corbyn promising to outbid Boris on NHS spending

    All this nonsense from both the parties is not believed by most of the country. They have not go the money to spend and the UK is already close to its spending limits. None of them are talking about running the country more efficiently and reducing waste and fraud

    WE still have a massive level of debt and we still have a deficit which Cameron claimed he would eliminate years ago. Go on a mad spending spree and our debt and deficit will sky rocket

  58. A good read as always…

    This Brexit election will decide if we can call ourselves a true democracy
    ROBERT TOMBS – 12 NOVEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    The election of 2019 will decide whether that 
very democracy, created so slowly 
and so painfully, can still function in 21st-century Europe
    Few general elections can properly be described as historic. Fewer still mark a watershed in the way we are governed – perhaps one a century. In 1831, the victory of the Whigs under Earl Grey ensured that the old constitution would be reformed and a slow movement towards popular government began. The election of 1910, won by the Liberals, marked a victory of “the People” over “the Peers” and heralded full democracy. And now the election of 2019 will decide whether that 
very democracy, created so slowly 
and so painfully, can still function in 21st-century Europe.

    Many politicians and commentators are trying to minimise the importance of next month’s vote, claiming that it is about all sorts of other things than Brexit, supposedly more important to “ordinary people”. I doubt most of the electorate will be convinced. The issue that will decide the outcome is Brexit, and Brexit will show whether we are 
a true or a sham democracy.

    All across the democratic world, more and more power has shifted away from elected national governments towards non-elected bodies – international organisations, law courts, treaties, quangos. Governments have voluntarily surrendered their own authority. But in doing so, they have limited democratic choice: voters are told that there are things they cannot do, choices they cannot make.

    This has gone furthest in EU member states. A void has been created between rulers and ruled. Two networks of power, influence and patronage have grown up: one based on domestic politics, the other based on the EU institutions. These two networks – two establishments, one national, one trans-national, which include politicians, civil servants, academics, business lobbies, non-governmental organisations – overlap in every EU country.

    We in Britain are not the first to try to prise them apart and take back control of our own rulers. The French and Dutch tried, when they voted against the EU draft constitution in 2005. The Greeks tried in 2015. The Italians are still trying. So far, they have all found it impossible: in the EU, voting no longer works.

    We have almost found it impossible too, and if this election does not result in a government able to take us out of the EU we still might. Supporters of the EU proclaim that this is in the nature 
of things. We live, they imply, in a post-democratic world in which the realities of modern global power are beyond the control of nation states and their voters. So if people vote the right way – the way that the trans-national establishment approves – then their vote will be respected. Indeed, it will even be described as “final”. But if they vote the wrong way, their vote will be ignored or reversed. In the case of Italy and Greece, this was done through unvarnished threats of economic ruin.

    As we have seen in those countries, and see in Britain, too, since 2016, the trans-national establishment inside 
the country will cooperate with the attempt to nullify a “wrong” vote. It may do so with the best of intentions: its members probably genuinely believe that their electors – ill-informed, prejudiced, backward – 
have made a disastrous choice. In Britain, a much tougher nut than Greece or Italy, the whole thing has dragged out over years of domestic 
and international wrangling, which 
 has inevitably caused anger and created on both sides a sense of being disfranchised, even betrayed.

    Let us look at the nature of the problem. I do not believe it is essentially a British problem, proof 
of our lack of national solidarity, of 
our xenophobic insularity, or of 
the breakdown of our “archaic” constitution. Indeed, I would argue 
the opposite. We have contained this crisis within our mainstream political institutions, and we seem now to be within sight of carrying out the legal will of the electorate as expressed in the 2016 referendum. I fervently hope that this will rebuild popular confidence in our democratic system.

    Which other EU member state would be capable of this achievement? Ah, say Remainers, but none of them wants to. Well, this was not President Macron’s view: he believed that a referendum in France would have had the same outcome as here. But let’s accept the argument: none of them wants to. This is not, however, because of the overwhelming popularity of the EU. Rather it is because leaving now seems impossible.

    The turmoil – largely self-imposed – that we have been going through has undoubtedly handed an immense propaganda victory to the EU: attempting to leave now seems clearly fraught with danger. But note what this means. Taking back control is no longer an option: democratic choice within the EU is now limited to what the EU permits.

    So our coming election, just as 
much or perhaps more than those of 1831 and 1910, is about how we are to be governed; or more exactly, whether we are to govern ourselves. The trans-national establishment scoffs that this is mere nostalgia. One of the world’s richest and most powerful states is incapable of doing what Norway, Switzerland and Singapore somehow seem to manage. Those taking this view have political attitudes that would have been familiar to Earl Grey in the 1830s: the common people are incapable of rational choice; they must follow the lead of the superior classes.

    But even if the superior classes today – or indeed in the past – had shown themselves consistently capable of ruling in the interests of all rather than in their own, this would be a complete misunderstanding of democracy. Democracy is not a system for discovering the “right answer” to political issues: we can rarely if ever 
be sure what the right answer is. Democracy, rather, is a system for creating consent and solidarity by allowing all to have an equal vote. For making people feel that the way they are governed, though not perfect, is at least one in which they are fairly consulted and their voices listened to. So that, even if they do not get their own way, they accept the outcome without trying to sabotage or evade it.

    That is what we have come perilously close to losing. Next month we have the chance to regain it, with all the opportunities and risks that democracy entails.

    Robert Tombs is the author of ‘The English and Their History’

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

    BTL:

    Vote Boris 12 Nov 2019 11:21PM
    I thought I’d give BBC Newsnight a go. The awful Emily Maitliss was presenting. Her political bias is breathtaking. I switched off in the end. The show was packed with remainers including Rory Stewart and Richard Burgon.

    The entire show was about Boris not extending the transition period and going for a Canada style FTA, however, it was done in such a way to try to influence Conservative Remain constituencies not to vote for Boris.

    Maitliss was going at Daniel Kawczynski in such an overt politically bias way I’m surprised he didn’t bring her to account over it. The section which followed had Corbyn deriding Boris and Farage and showing how wonderful the Labour Party is.

    All BBC political programs are now about showing Corbyn in a good light and Boris and the Conservatives in a poor one. Maitliss was saying that Farage has now moulded the Conservative party into the Brexit Party which is totally untrue as there has been no alliance or pacts, this was simply about trying to turn Conservative remain constituencies against Boris.

    The public should not be forced to pay for such a politically bias institution. I hope one of the first thing Boris does if he gets into power is review how the BBC is funded and make them fund themselves.

    I can’t say how furious the program has left me feeling.

    If you talk about democracy that should include a publicly funded political bias institution like the BBC.

    1. That is what we have come perilously close to losing. Next month we have the chance to regain it, with all the opportunities and risks that democracy entails.

      Tombs’ hope is likely to fall on stony ground. We thought we had regained our democracy on 23/06/2016 but the establishment and the politicians told us that we can’t have that. Why does he think that pretty much the same group of politicians and establishment are going to let us have our freedom this time?
      Swinson is adamant that the EU must be our governing body; Corbyn’s policy of a vote to either Remain or Remain is enigmatic nonsense as his declared policies are not EU friendly and who knows what Johnson’s endgame really is? Should we escape the clutches of the EU who believes that that organisation will take our decision lying down? It will do all it can to undermine our Country.

      1. I think that the establishment’s greatest achievement has been to destroy trust.

        Does anybody trust Johnson, Corbyn or Swinson?

        I tried to trust May, I tried to trust Rees-Mogg and I tried to trust Baker and Francois. I, like many, have finally learnt that no politicians – no not a single one – should be trusted.

        And of course lack of trust plays into the Establishment’s hands which is why they all rubbish their opponents and never engage in serious debate. Many of us feel in our bones that the Johnson proposed WA is on very disadvantageous terms for Britain and yet the MSM and the politicians refuse to examine the ‘deal’ (and virtually all other important issues such as energy supply and climate change) openly, impartially or honestly. They do not trust us and so it is understandable that we do not trust them.

        1. What I find difficult to understand is the total lack of self-awareness within the political class. They do not seem at all embarrassed by their deviousness, their lying, the fact that they calmly renege on promises – pledges seems to be latest ‘in’ word – fiddle expenses, the list goes on. I’ve come to the conclusion that many modern politicians are born and not made such are their basic deficiencies in being honest and straightforward people.

    2. Morning, Citroen.

      I didn’t realise Earl Grey was a Whig – thought he was a founder member of the notorious Tea Party …..

      ….. I’ll put the kettle on …..

  59. Here’s one for you: BBC World News ticker tape – “Fender have changed the electronics in their guitars to give a cleaner sound.”
    My God, I’m feeling better for knowing that! I’m not sure how much longer I could have lasted with that old, dirty, Fender sound.
    Jesus, but shallow carp, or what?

    1. 1 in whatever, over what period? A year? An hour? a lifetime? not a helpful likelihood figure, that.

      1. An event can occur 0, 1, 2, … times in an interval.
        The average number of events in an interval is calculated by the Poisson distribution.
        The probability of observing k events in an interval is given by the equation

        P(k) = f(lambda, e, k!)

        where:

        lambda is the average number of events per interval
        e is the number 2.71828… (Euler’s number) the base of the natural logarithms
        k takes values 0, 1, 2, …
        k! = k × (k − 1) × (k − 2) × … × 2 × 1 is the factorial of k.

        On a particular river, overflow floods occur once every 100 years on average. Calculate the probability of k = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 overflow floods in a 100-year interval, assuming the Poisson model is appropriate.

        Because the average event rate is one overflow flood per 100 years, lambda = 1

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution

    2. Several reports have suggested that Sheffield’s flood defences, installed after the 2007 summer deluge, have contributed to Fishlake’s troubles. The finger is also being pointed at the EA for creating nature reserves that inhibit drainage. That sounds familiar…

    3. Yo Angie

      They say of Quizzes, the answer lies in the question

      Why are people surprised when floods occur in (the aptly named)

      Water Street
      Fishlake
      Canal Street
      Ford Street
      etc

        1. One of my sisters, Mary-Faith, set up and ran a shop in St Mawes called “Shipshape”selling sailing clothes and chandlery. She was considered very beautiful and elegant in the village and her admirers referred to her as ‘Mrs Shape’ She used to commission my father to paint pictures of her customers’ boats for them. She then set up another shop in Truro selling children’s clothes which she called “Offspring.”

    2. One of my posts got a down-vote from the troll, who seems to have reappeared today.

      Fluck him/her! Good day to you, Delboy. Here’s an up-vote to compensate.
      ;¬)

    4. Good afternoon Delboy
      These people who downvote show exactly why there is no use in being ignorant unless they show it.

    5. Good afternoon, after reading your comment it looks like mine has been downvoted as well.

      In the spirit of love to all (except Limp Dums and Corbyn lovers) I will downvote my first comment tomorrow to save the phantom downvoter any chance of getting RSI

      You can tell how much importance I attribute to such bar stewards.

    1. If you had intelligence and a sense of morality then you would not go anywhere near the Liberal Democrats. This is why they get the fruitbats, and those with slack jaws or wild eyes as the morons standing for the party. When they are not being a bit too active with young children.

      Intelligent, reasoned answers are beyond people such as this. Just learn the slogans and keep repeating them.

      1. I fancy some bloke with an English name got it in the neck and had a difficult hour or two when she got home. Hopefully some strong spirits (schnapps?) were available.

        1. Her maiden name was ‘von Reden’!

          Tells you all you need to know about ‘die dumme Kuh’ and what is her agenda.

    2. She is a political journeywoman. Tory councillor in Greater Manchester, subsequently Limp Dum councillor in the same area, leader of the council before retiring and moving south.
      Eventually elected as MP for Bath, it will be interesting how a lack of university students in the city eats into her voting figures this time round.

  64. Everything’s happening today: letter** from hospital saying my eye has stabilised and, thus, no need for further injections. Next scan 4 December (need to rearrange as I’ll be off to Hopefully-much-drier-and-sunnier-than-here Poland).

    ** Stricly speaking this is not quite true – the letter came yesterday and I realised today I hadn’t opened it. My excuse? I was busy reading some good books.

    1. I think it meant patriotic Conservatives who actually loved their country and put it above party interests. Not too keen on hugging hoodies and huskies. Or bu88ering up their gables with itsy bitsy windmills.
      The George on this occasion was George Osborne and his chums.

      1. Maybe George knows George like Dave apparently knows George ?

        In fact it’s beginning to look as though everyone knows George except me !

      2. I think the aim of politicians is to turn Britain into such a horrible place that it is completely unlovable. If they succeed then the most swivel-eyed of loons might stop loving the place.

        1. Morning R,
          These politico’s can only survive with the backing of people power.
          Country before party is the answer.

        2. Morning R,
          These politico’s can only survive with the backing of people power.
          Country before party is the answer.

  66. Why do so many of Russia’s enemies plunge to their death from balconies? After ex-Army officer James Le Mesurier was found dead at the foot of his Istanbul flat, just what is the truth about the brutal end of a quiet British hero? Mail. 12 November 2019.

    Among those who speculate on Russian involvement, there are echoes of other sudden deaths involving journalists, lawyers and aid workers who have crossed the Kremlin and ended up falling – or being thrown – from high windows.

    Maksim Borodin, a Russian journalist who had exposed state corruption and highlighted the work of Russian mercenaries in Syria, died last year after allegedly tumbling from his balcony in the city of Yekaterinburg. Twelve months earlier, Nikolai Gorokhov, lawyer for the family of Sergei Magnitsky – who died in jail in 2009 after exposing massive tax fraud by government officials – fell from a fourth-storey window. The authorities alleged, apparently with a straight face, that he’d been trying to move a bathtub.

    The only problem with this theory is that it contradicts the Official Narrative that Russia kills its enemies in exotic ways (Novichok, Polonium etc.) the better we are told to illustrate that it is they who carried out the assassination and thus enfear enemies and traitors. Do the Russian Security Services kill people? Of course they do, they have a history stretching back as far as Trotsky. Did they kill Mesurier? Well he was SIS and it would be unusual (they have only killed one MI6 agent since 1917) but who knows, perhaps he made it personal during his meddling in Syria? Certainly the public outing of him was unusual and that might have been an indirect message to the Brits that it was no accident, that when they want to kill they can do it undetected and without pantomime.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7678641/Just-truth-brutal-end-quiet-British-hero-James-Le-Mesurier.html

    1. TBF – I don’t think all the pot ‘n’ booze heads plummeting off balconies in Shagaluf (other tourist hellholes are available) have even heard of Russia.

      1. Russia? That’s the time when the toob gets too full in the evening on the way home from work.

    2. I agree. The demise of a British agent doesn’t sound like the work of the Kremlin. The Russians regard British intelligence as one would do a family pet. They can get a bit unruly sometimes, but usually can be relied on to let Russian intelligence know what interests the British. And if their cover is blown so much that their secret operations are no longer secret to anyone, they can always be swapped for one of their own. A dead British spy, however, is worthless.

      1. A dead British spy just gets the natives all riled up, like kicking a wasps nest.
        Likely he was knocked off by a towelhead, as was the journo in the Saudi Embassy. That’s much more their scene – no thought for the future. Russia plays the long game, and very well, too.

  67. I seem to have activated the down-voter …. nice to know I’m pressing someone’s buttons.

    2. To be fair to Boris, this is probably the first time that he has had to make himself a cup of tea in decades. Didn’t they have juniors to do that for you at Eton? Since then he has not exactly been living the lifestyle where you learn the basics.

      Show him a washing machine and you might hear the words: “How do you adjust the picture?”

      3. On our courses we put up a rota so that each of our students has to do his or her fair share of household chores such as laying the table before meals and washing up afterwards. A couple of Harrovians had never done any washing up in their lives so Caroline had to teach them how to do it along with the rules determining the preceding direct object.

        2. Afternoon Richard. I did actually meet someone once who did not know how to boil an egg!

    4. No teapot ? I’d not drink tea unless made in a teapot,
      It’s pretty awful and watery made in a cup .

      1. Needs to be made in a proper pot with loose tea leaves. I prefer to put the milk in first so I can see how much goes in. It gets stirred in as it is poured.

        1. Yes milk first is the way tea should be served, I
          like loose leaves too but will use tea bags occasionally.
          English Breakfast tea in the morning. And either a cup of
          Assam/ Afternoon tea or Earl Grey tea in the afternoon
          dependant upon the time of year. I only have two cups
          Of tea a day and a cup of good quality Italian coffee
          mid morning ( and occasionally after meals).
          My mother and my aunt’s used to drink tea constantly
          throughout the day, I never liked that, they never stopped .

          1. Tea first thing, then coffee later in the morning, then tea in the afternoon. I use a big mug I’ve had since I was a teenager. Usually the tea is made by OH – I trained him as he never drinks tea himself.

          2. Husband’s do need training in tea making,
            I had to tell my husband not to leave it too
            long in the pot or It’ll become like stew but not
            too short a time or it’s watery. I’ve a huge
            China tea cup with no saucer, it’s really a
            mug shaped like a cup.

  70. ConWoman

    Though he’d cried ‘a plague on both your houses’ one election was

    never going to drain the swamp. That is the brutal reality. But to those

    who delight in asserting that the Brexit Party would not (and will not)

    win one seat, a view I have never shared, it’s to miss a big point.

    The very significant total national vote that having a candidate stand

    in every seat would have almost certainly garnered (had this not

    succeeded in pressuring Boris to commit to a December 2020 end plus an

    unaligned free trade deal) could not have been ignored.

    As it is,

    Farage has been all but blackmailed by the Tories out of ever being able

    to prove the full extent of this Brexit and political protest vote, no

    doubt to the great relief of the Conservatives (and Labour).

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/time-for-tories-to-show-some-of-the-brexit-partys-grace/

    1. I can still not understand why Nigel Farage caved in and why he did not go for a proper ‘quid pro quo.’

      I wouldn’t put it past Boris Johnson and his political colleagues to have menaced Nigel Farage with credible death threats aimed at him and his family.

      1. Afternoon R,
        Try looking at it another way as in,
        “nige” saying “I have never been anything but a tory” then things fall into place.

  71. Revealed: Tory councillors posted Islamophobic content on social media. Tue 12 Nov 2019.

    The disclosure that 15 current and 10 former Tory councillors have posted, shared or endorsed Islamophobic or other racist content on Facebook or Twitter will increase pressure on Boris Johnson after he backtracked on a pledge to hold an independent inquiry into the issue.

    Inflammatory posts recorded in the dossier, which has been sent to the party’s headquarters, include calls for mosques to be banned, claims the faith wants to “turn the world Muslim”, referring to its followers as “barbarians” and “the enemy within”.

    Ok! Where was the Islamophobia and Racism then?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/12/revealed-conservative-councillors-islamophobic-social-media

    2. We’re sleepwalking towards disaster, and the Guardian and its like are ignoring the warning signs.
      The UK could become another Yugoslavia/Kosovo quicker than they realise.
      “Consider also the fact that Houari Boumedienne, president of Algeria, said this at the UN in 1974: “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
      Former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi once said: “There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent and the number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted to Islam. Europe will one day be a Muslim continent.”
      And Iranian army representative, Abbas Mohammad Hassani, said recently: “Childbearing in the current circumstances is considered a type of jihad and it would please the Almighty God. Enemies of Shiism are trying to prevent the Shiite population from growing, while they continue to increase their own population. All Shiites must, therefore, take on the jihad of childbearing to counter the goals and conspiracies of the enemies.” “

      2. They are acting in complete collaboration with Western secular feminists, who are simultaneously preventing the Infidel from breeding by vilifying heterosexuality within their community.

        The Feminists are agents of Jihad every bit as much as any Islamic Imam.

      3. That speech is almost certainly an invention of the anti Islam brigade.

        I’ve searched for it several times in the past and it’s impossible to find a reliable source

        I can easily believe that there are Muslims who would like it to happen.

          1. The Boumedienne one.
            I defy you to find the original. I am sure you can find lots and lots of conspiracy websites quoting it but I’ve looked several times for it and I get nothing definitive

    3. Given that islam means submission (to allah), wanting to “turn the world muslim” is a pretty accurate assessment, I would have thought.

  72. Revealed: The academics who need panic alarms or face death threats for their ‘radical’ views

    Prof Freedman is one of a growing number of “gender critical” academics, who firmly believe that sex should not be conflated with gender and that women’s spaces – such as changing rooms, prisons, sports teams and shortlists – should be protected.

    She decided to speak out on the matter last summer, when there was a Government consultation on proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act which would make it easier for transgender people to get “legal recognition” for the gender they feel they identify with, rather than having to undergo a sex change. Under existing laws, a trans person has to undergo a two-year waiting period, a review or appearance before a specialist panel as well as paying £140 before being able to change their gender legally.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/08/revealed-academics-need-panic-alarms-face-death-threats-radical/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_hootsuite&utm_source=tmgoff_socialteam&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=6b8ce18b-736e-40ed-9fa7-0c7ec25e2c54&utm_campaign=telegraph

    Doesn’t ” it ” understand that wearing a hat indoors is very bad mannered?

    2. Gender and sex are pretty much the same. The LGBT brigade though have been trying to change the no meaning of Gender

      1. You seem to have absolutely no understanding of grammar.

        Many languages have genders and this has nothing to do with sex. For example in French une chaise (a chair) is feminine while un fauteuil (an armchair) is masculine.

        The term ‘Men’s Lavatory’ certainly signifies the sex of the person who is intended to use the lavatory. But the term ‘mankind’ does not exclude women just as the word ‘dog’ does not exclude bitches and the word ‘duck’ does not exclude drakes

      2. Gender and sex are very much not the same. Nouns have genders, people have sexes. Male and female are sexes, not genders. Masculine, feminine and neuter are genders.

        It’s only in recent years that the media have pushed the agenda that the two are interchangeable. At first I thought they were just being twee. Now I see that the agenda is much more sinister than using the soft and cuddly ‘gender’ in place of the ‘ruder’ ‘sex.

        2. The misuse of the word “gender” stems from a sex change “doctor” working in the USA in the ’60s who coined the term “gender change” to obfuscate what he was doing.

          1. But it has gathered a great deal more traction in the past 5 to 10 years. We no longer even see the word ‘sex’ next to tick-boxes on official forms.

          2. It appeared out of nowhere.
            It is all reminiscent of the theory that to control people you simply have to get them too scared to object to outright lies.

          3. Of course feminists are responsible for raping the language. They tried to make out that ‘chairman’ was sexist and that ‘fireman’ was also sexist so the terms should be given a feminine or sex-neutral word such as ‘chair’ and ‘fire fighter’ instead. The word ‘actress’ however caused them problems because even though it was a sex-specific term many women preferred to call themselves ‘actors’.

    3. “When Professor Rosa Freedman went to check her pigeon hole last week, she found something unexpected”
      – Dick?

    4. A man wearing a hat indoors is bad manners, a woman, on the other hand, may do so – witness HM at the Guildhall luncheon for her Jubilee.

  73. Tories suspend 25 party members over Islamophobic and racist online posts

    The Conservative Party has suspended a number of its members pending an investigation after a dossier suggested they had posted or endorsed Islamophobic and racist material online.
    Twenty-five sitting and former Tory councillors were said to be among those named in the documents, which were obtained by The Guardian.

    1. He means proppa sochulism like, not like wot the USSR, China, Cambodia and Venezuela did. Coz obviously they failed so they didn’t do it write.

      2. Sue – that mantra is never-ending. I can remember trying to de-program a socialist 30 years ago and he also said “Real socialism has never been tried yet.” They are still saying it now as we know.

        It must be a mental self-defence mechanism to protect a set of beliefs that have failed over and over again. It would be amusing apart from the fact that each time left-wing ideology fails in a country it leads to mass suffering with so many deaths and years to try to correct the damage.

        1. Socialism is the perfect system. If it were to be applied properly it will never fail.
          Hence any system calling its self “Socialist” that has failed could never have been Socialist in the first place.

          Or you could say that Socialism is whatever The Socialist says it is.

    3. The reason Socialism never works is not to do with running out of other people’s money, although that is a major factor, but is down to a significant human trait of not wishing to do more than the bare minimum to get the rewards (food shelter etc).

      Very few people are sufficiently altruistic to work far harder than average to make up for the incapable and the bone idle to get the same as their own dependents and themselves.

      Parable of the talents.

  75. It’s freezing today, I’m wearing my thick Shetland jumper,
    the heating is on but I am still freezing cold.
    Come back spring .

      1. It’s a lot better thank you, Mr Viking, it was some kind of
        swelling around the ear cavity rather then inside
        apparently . I was given some drops and told
        to keep it warm. I do have a bad immune
        system which is a pain at times .

      1. The cold weather has arrived early this year,
        I shall probably require another of my favourite jumpers .

  80. Britain has up to 1.2 million illegal immigrants, a quarter of all those that have unlawfully entered Europe, anauthoritative study has revealed.

    The number of illegal immigrants in the UK has doubled in a decade with more than half having lived illegally in the UK for more than five years and a third more than ten years, according to the pan-European analysis by the respected Pew Research Centre.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/13/12-million-illegal-immigrants-uk-quarter-entire-total-europe/

  82. Idle thoughts. I’d like a fur coat. I see myself being driven to the opera in snow-packed streets. I’d be warm and snug in my furs in the troika as the liveried driver flicks the whip gently over the horses.
    I nearly bought a complete black bearskin outfit; coat, hat, paws. It fitted perfectly. It was, perhaps, a little itchy. Alas, the Sultana forbad me to bid in the auction. I cannot think why. So it went to some probably undeserving person. (The previous owner had been the Earl of Minto, Viceroy of India, and it was far from new. Well, you may ask, why on earth would the Viceroy of India need a fur coat? The answer is that he would not. However, the Earl’s previous job had been as Governor-General of Canada, where it gets very, very cold.)
    I recalled this on seeing an advert on TV. The very thing! A new fur coat of some rare and exotic animal soon to be extinct. Perhaps the fur of a snow leopard? Oh, Yes! They are difficult to track in the rough mountains and very difficult to see, but Microsoft IA has come up with the answer. It has a device that will analyse moving pictures and discover the leopard, invisible though it is to human eyes. Now all I need to do is put Microsoft IA into the hands of a poacher, handover a suitable sum of money and Bob’s my uncle! I can have a snow leopard coat and slink unseen through rocks and mountains when I am not showing off in my troika. I am sure Mr Rashid will have suitable contacts in the Hindu Kush.

    1. why on earth would the Viceroy of India need a fur coat? The answer is that he would not.

      Parts of Northern India get very cold in winter.

      1. OK, well, yes. I was comparing and contrasting popular notions of Canada and India. I have seen “the Man Who Would Be King” a few times. As a youth I applied for a job with the Hudson’s Bay Company (for which, with hindsight, I’m glad that I was rejected.)
        Failed humour aside, my serious point (and I always have one) Microsoft are advertising and selling technology that can be used to make it easier to hunt rare species. Hundreds of snow leopards are illegally killed every year across Central and Southern Asia.

      2. A friend of mine was on a birding trip of North-eastern India a few years ago.

        He told me of sleeping (indoors) in two sleeping bags, one inside the other, fully clothed and he was still freezing.

  83. 74 illegals entered the UK via the border farce over the weekend the establishment must establish how many go to each governance party, there is still not enough coming in, on the incoming tide, so your indigenous vote is still required, if you have any doubts about voting lab/lib/con just remind yourself what we have done for you, and to benefit the Country.
    Then vote accordingly.

    1. Today’s DT article linked below, twice, makes it clear that most illegals simply overstay visas, so the boats in the channel are a diversion from the real problem.

  84. A question which I would like to put to all staff at all levels in the BBC (except. say, canteen staff):

    “What proportion of BBC licence-fee payers do you estimate are far-right or fascist?”

  86. Labour and Tory NHS cash splurges are a mistake
    Ross Clark – Coffee House – 13 November 2019 – 1:38 PM

    I’m sending someone down to the supermarket later to do a bit of shopping on my behalf. I have given them a rough idea of what I want but my main instruction is that they must spend the entire £150 that I am giving them.

    If that was really how I did my shopping it isn’t hard to imagine the result. I would end up with bagfuls of stuff I didn’t really want and didn’t need. Some of the food might be good value but an awful lot of it wouldn’t be. Whoever did my shopping would simply pile up the trolley as quickly as they could, until they had spent my £150.

    It sounds stupid, so why, then, are the main parties promising to do a very similar exercise with the NHS?

    This morning, Labour and the Conservatives have engaged in an arms race over how much they can promise to spend. The Tories want to increase spending from £121 billion this year to £149 billion (in today’s terms) in 2023/24. Labour has said it wants spending to increase to £155 billion.

    Wouldn’t it be a bit more informative if the two parties boasted in terms of what they want to achieve rather than what they want to spend?

    True, you can’t get a good healthcare system without spending an awful lot of money, but there are, surely, factors which matter as much as the sheer quantity of money which gets spent.

    What about efficiency?

    What about cutting down on waste and health tourism?

    What about spending priorities: are Labour and the Conservatives going to prioritise emergency medicine, or GPs’ surgeries?

    Do they want to spend the extra money, for example, on cancer diagnostics, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, or are they going to spend more money or prevention, prescribing things like gym membership which, while they could potentially make a difference to people’s chances of contracting cancer, might be better funded directly by the individual rather than through taxes.

    These are all important decisions which will determine the direction and quality of the NHS. It can’t provide everything. Yet we hear little of these kind of debates in election campaigns – just bragging about how much cash parties are going to splash around.

    It isn’t certain extra cash will improve the NHS one bit. It could be that the extra cash gets mostly swallowed up in pay rises. That is what happened when Gordon Brown splurged billions on the NHS in the early 2000s: plenty of it disappeared into the pockets of GPs who found their badly-negotiated new contracts qualified them for generous extra payments for things they were doing already.

    The Blair government’s record on healthcare stands as an object lesson in why a government should never define achievement in terms of how much money it is spending. In terms of NHS funding, the Blair and Brown governments stand out above all others – between 1997 and 2010 they increased real terms NHS spending by 6 percent a year, compared with an average of 4 percent for all governments since 1948. Yet it was also Blair and Brown who gave us the target culture which contributed to the Mid Staffs scandal, which burdened hospitals with huge bills for expensive and inflexible PFI contracts and which wasted £10 billion on an NHS IT system which never worked.

    There is a clear moral: in deciding how to vote, never be impressed with raw spending promises, on the NHS or anything else. Look at the small print, at how the money is going to be spent, judge how efficient expenditure is going to be. It sounds obvious but sadly it tends to get lost amid an election campaign.

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

    BTL:

    plainsdrifter • 3 hours ago • edited
    Agreed. It’s pathetic. Just like throwing smarties to kids to persuade them to like you. Ugh! And if you threw the country’s GDP at the NHS it’d swallow the lot with hardly a burp. It needs radical reform. Fat chance.

    The Contemptible • 2 hours ago
    Our NHS. Envy of the world. So good, it has been copied by every developed country. Except all of them. Nothing to learn from that. Move along, please.

    2. No political party has a “leader” with any common sense. Spend, spend, spend – where are all the money trees coming from I would respect them a little if they followed Mrs Thatcher’s mantra – Government spends only other people’s money. This Government is busy wasting money on HS2 and ridiculous adverts on TV and radio as well as all sorts of other projects, too many to mention. Makes me want to weep.

    3. “It sounds stupid (splashing the dosh), so why, then, are the main parties promising to do a very similar exercise with the NHS?”

      For the same reason they have to be seen kissing babies in the run-up to an election – they think we’re all dumbos.

      “What about efficiency?”

      Oi, watch your language.

  87. Labour and Tory NHS cash splurges are a mistake
    Ross Clark – Coffee House – 13 November 2019 – 1:38 PM

    I’m sending someone down to the supermarket later to do a bit of shopping on my behalf. I have given them a rough idea of what I want but my main instruction is that they must spend the entire £150 that I am giving them.

    If that was really how I did my shopping it isn’t hard to imagine the result. I would end up with bagfuls of stuff I didn’t really want and didn’t need. Some of the food might be good value but an awful lot of it wouldn’t be. Whoever did my shopping would simply pile up the trolley as quickly as they could, until they had spent my £150.

    It sounds stupid, so why, then, are the main parties promising to do a very similar exercise with the NHS?

    This morning, Labour and the Conservatives have engaged in an arms race over how much they can promise to spend. The Tories want to increase spending from £121 billion this year to £149 billion (in today’s terms) in 2023/24. Labour has said it wants spending to increase to £155 billion.

    Wouldn’t it be a bit more informative if the two parties boasted in terms of what they want to achieve rather than what they want to spend?

    True, you can’t get a good healthcare system without spending an awful lot of money, but there are, surely, factors which matter as much as the sheer quantity of money which gets spent.

    What about efficiency?

    What about cutting down on waste and health tourism?

    What about spending priorities: are Labour and the Conservatives going to prioritise emergency medicine, or GPs’ surgeries?

    Do they want to spend the extra money, for example, on cancer diagnostics, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, or are they going to spend more money or prevention, prescribing things like gym membership which, while they could potentially make a difference to people’s chances of contracting cancer, might be better funded directly by the individual rather than through taxes.

    These are all important decisions which will determine the direction and quality of the NHS. It can’t provide everything. Yet we hear little of these kind of debates in election campaigns – just bragging about how much cash parties are going to splash around.

    It isn’t certain extra cash will improve the NHS one bit. It could be that the extra cash gets mostly swallowed up in pay rises. That is what happened when Gordon Brown splurged billions on the NHS in the early 2000s: plenty of it disappeared into the pockets of GPs who found their badly-negotiated new contracts qualified them for generous extra payments for things they were doing already.

    The Blair government’s record on healthcare stands as an object lesson in why a government should never define achievement in terms of how much money it is spending. In terms of NHS funding, the Blair and Brown governments stand out above all others – between 1997 and 2010 they increased real terms NHS spending by 6 percent a year, compared with an average of 4 percent for all governments since 1948. Yet it was also Blair and Brown who gave us the target culture which contributed to the Mid Staffs scandal, which burdened hospitals with huge bills for expensive and inflexible PFI contracts and which wasted £10 billion on an NHS IT system which never worked.

    There is a clear moral: in deciding how to vote, never be impressed with raw spending promises, on the NHS or anything else. Look at the small print, at how the money is going to be spent, judge how efficient expenditure is going to be. It sounds obvious but sadly it tends to get lost amid an election campaign.

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

    BTL:

    plainsdrifter • 3 hours ago • edited
    Agreed. It’s pathetic. Just like throwing smarties to kids to persuade them to like you. Ugh! And if you threw the country’s GDP at the NHS it’d swallow the lot with hardly a burp. It needs radical reform. Fat chance.

    The Contemptible • 2 hours ago
    Our NHS. Envy of the world. So good, it has been copied by every developed country. Except all of them. Nothing to learn from that. Move along, please.

    2. Yikes, that was a bit bleak. Here is a very well known one (obviously) that is melancholic, but still beautiful. The way that the lyrics scroll onto the screen is quite annoying, but it does have more actual Van Gogh paintings in it than you get to see in most clips. They make up for it.

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

        1. But his work is immortal and lives on, as do our actions long after these bodies close down for a rest. 🙂

    1. Those down voters might be from down under for
      all you know. Aussies uptucking upside down the wrong section .

    2. Evening VVOF,
      A genuine down voter would vote you down & tell you why.
      Whoever they are on here are very pro paedophilia judging by the down votes
      on the anti paedophile comments I post.

    3. veryveryoldfella – They get a “kick” when you mention them downvoting you. It gives their empty lives a warm glow, because they know they have impacted a “real person.” Which is why I don’t usually mention them.

      To help resist the temptation of talking about them, imagine that they get £10 for every time that you do, and if you ignore them they get nothing but an empty feeling. I find that works wonders for my motivation to leave them sobbing alone in the dark. It upsets them to be ignored. 🙂

  90. November 12, 2019: “Did Farage Just Hand BoJo The Election — And Secure A Hard Brexit?”

    For Boris Johnson, this is a classic good news/bad news scenario. The good news: Nigel Farage will indeed prevent any Brexit Party challenge in the 317 constituencies that Johnson’s Tories now hold in Parliament. The bad news: Farage intends to fight in all other constituencies, which means the Brexit vote may well be split in seats Johnson needs to pick up in order to get a majority… .

    https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/11/12/farage-just-hand-bojo-election-secure-hard-brexit/

    1. I don’t know why Nigel didn’t go after a handful of Remoaner Tories in the 317. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain. He can trade off districts with Boris where the Tories have a strong Brexiteer candidate.

      Nigel, less time on the radio, and more time with maths!

        1. Tories aligned with The Brexit Party (TBP) is a much better situation than Tories aligned with the Scottish National Party (SNP)–who have their own agenda (and troubles).

    1. I think the politicians wonder if the professors will ever catch up with them. Politicians’ arrogance knows no bounds.

      1. Unicorn fart is deadly poison to human beings and will wipe out populations faster than you can say

        “green house gas emissions”

  92. It was mentioned below about our illegal immigrants
    that entered Europe illegally.
    Those who travel across the Mediterranean in their boats arrived at
    Italy first. International states asylum seekers can only request
    asylum at the first country of entry ( Italy ) travelling across
    Europe to Calais or anywhere else is against international
    law which states they should be sent back from where they
    came from. But of course those bleeding heart lefties
    allow them to stay and do as they like.

  93. ‘It’s colonialism and slavery’ Millennial backs ban on Rule Britannia in fiery ITV GMB row

    JOANNA JARJUE stunned Piers Morgan on ITV Good Morning Britain as she called for the song ‘Rule Britannia’ to be banned as it reminds her of “colonial rule.”

    Perhaps then she ought to find another country more to her liking to live in

    3. Letter to all whiny chippy blacks
      “You know what?? Africa is an enormous continent with the most fertile land on the planet and almost unlimited natural resources,if you are sooooo uncomfortable in the UK kindly fuck off to Africa and create you own non colonial paradise,the film Wankanda has shown you the model(oh wait Wankanda had strict border controls scratch that bit) and kindly leave my country and my past alone”
      Rik

      1. You’ll need to spend the next few years sending those letters – there are so very many eligible recipients here.

    4. Here’s a lesser well-known verse which, in this ‘woke’ age, may be thought racist.

      ♫ “Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the wogs.
      There ain’t no black in the Union Jack,
      And fluck the krauts and frogs.” ♫

      3. Farage goofed. He agreed not to stand BP candidates in seats won by the Tories in 2015, whereas he should have stuck to current Tory MPs – and preferably those who are pro-Leave, which meant the BP could stand in Soubry’s constituency as she is now an Independent.

        2. Just what I have already said.

          Either Farage is pathetically naive or he has been completely betrayed and lied to by Johnson and the Conservative Party.

          He should only have agreed for the BP to stand down in constituencies where verifiable Conservative Leavers were standing.

          Never , never, never trust a Conservative and never, never trust Boris Johnson. Yesterday I suggested that independent pro- real Brexit candidates should stand in all constituencies where the Conservatives are trying to bully and betray and fielding a remainer..

          How many hours left before the names of those standing have to be in?

  97. Toy sales slump as shops chase Christmas cheer

    Had to say why. The Brexit bit is a load of rubbish. There appears to be no must have toy this year. I suspect most are holding back for bargains
    Christmas is the time of year most toys are sols so the shops have to clear the stock they have. They will not be able to hold off from price cuts for much longer in fact some are already offering small discounts

  98. Nurses set for December strike

    The union said its members were planning 12 hours of strike action – the first in the RCN’s 103-year history – having voted for the move last week.
    There are more dates of strike action planned for the new year.
    The health department said it remained “focused on finding a way forward” and was finalising a pay offer for 2019-20.
    “This will be the best offer possible within the budget available, but the reality is that our ability to address pay issues is inevitably constrained at a time of intense budgetary pressures for health and social care services,” said a department spokesperson.
    The nurses’ first day of industrial action, which includes refusing to do any task that is not patient-specific, will be on 3 December.
    The industrial action will also include:
    Not working overtime
    Not working unpaid hours
    Not completing paperwork other than individual patient records
    There are 2,484 registered nurses and 454 nursing support worker vacancies in Northern Ireland, according to the latest available statistics, which were published in June.
    Nurses’ pay within the health service also continues to fall behind England, Scotland and Wales, the RCN said.

    1. ” Nurses’ pay within the health service also continues to fall behind England, Scotland and Wales, the RCN said.”
      Well, where is it that is striking, then ? Just Northern Ireland ?

    1. I would have thought that the thug would be readily identifiable and should be pursued; but of course he won’t be.

      1. The little shite hit my hot button,threatening children is beyond the pale
        I wanted to take a bat to his face

          1. So far he has only threatened,that gets you hospital with a smashed face and multiple broken ribs for maximum pain in my book

          2. If someone did that, threatening my grandchildren at their home and I knew who it was, I would not be controllable. Face and ribs would be the least of its worries.

          3. If you really believe the threat is real and imminent I stand with you,if it’s just a mouthy no-mark………..
            Difficult call

          4. I’m of the “get your retaliation in first” school of thought as far as my grandchildren are concerned. I hope TR has friends who think similarly.
            I am no fan of TR, it’s the principle here as far as I’m concerned.

    2. The forces that are trying to drag all of our countries into the abyss are the same ones who are happy to send tanks and APC’s onto the streets against their own people. They cannot do that yet in the United Kingdom because they do not have the numbers, so they use any other methods at their disposal to suppress free speech and wear us down.

      Many of our own politicians are happy to hand our country over to them, so they do not need to take direct action to force the issue.

  100. “Venice mayor blames climate change as flooded city hit by highest tide in 50 years”
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/13/venice-mayor-blames-climate-change-flooded-city-hit-highest/

    Someone should point out that it is the gravitational pull of the moon which creates tides, not climate change.
    Oh, and Venice is built on medieval wooden piles which are rotting and sinking back into the mud of the lagoon.

    Here is Il Fungo on Ischia, a rock which like many others round the med, demonstrates that water levels have been higher in the past.
    http://www.prontoischia.it/articoli/lacco-ameno/monumenti-luoghi-interesse/il-fungo

    https://www.vesuviolive.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/fungo-ischia.jpg

    1. jscheckter, you are a heretic, using facts to prove your point is akin to a blow below the belt. Your punishment will see you trapped in a lift for a week with Ms G Thunberg and a bucket. That’ll teach you!😎

    2. And all the money raised by Venice in Peril over many years ended up in the back pockets of the fraudsters, Mafia and politicians.

    3. Given that mountain ranges are eroded to nothing, seas disappear and new continents are formed over the passage of time. Its not surprising that man made structures, especially near water, have a limited life span.

    6. I have photograph of a raised beach I took in September but can’t post it until i ‘log in’. What’s that about?

      Raised beaches are not uncommon in the west of Scotland, created by wave action before the sea level dropped after the Ice Age and the land mass rose as the ice melted. Climate is not and never has been in a steady state for long. I though all scientists knew this. Apparently not so.

      1. Disqus has it’s fads. Quite a few have problems posting photos. But what does’t work today will probably work tomorrow.

      2. Disqus has it’s fads. Quite a few have problems posting photos. But what does’t work today will probably work tomorrow.

    7. I have photograph of a raised beach I took in September but can’t post it until i ‘log in’. What’s that about?

      Raised beaches are not uncommon in the west of Scotland, created by wave action before the sea level dropped after the Ice Age and the land mass rose as the ice melted. Climate is not and never has been in a steady state for long. I though all scientists knew this. Apparently not so.

  102. Pantomime

    Will the Principle Boy now have to be played by a Trans Man ?

    Will the Panto Dame have to be an Older Trans Woman

  103. Andrew Neill now… discussing 32 hour/ 4 day week with Labour lickspittle means that twice as many NHS staff required .. 4 day week means no tradesman , no nothing , no more taxes to pay for anything , zero input ..

  104. Predictably, there is a mixed reaction in the comments.

    The ultimate aim of this election is to ensure a successful exit from the EU

    JOHN LONGWORTH

    I am pleased that the Brexit Party is not running candidates in seats the Tories won in 2017. But I’m afraid it’s only two cheers from me.

    A few weeks ago, I recommended privately that my party should field no more than 20-30 candidates, with the primary objective of delivering Brexit rather than furthering the aims of the Brexit Party. I argued that the campaign should concentrate on seats that are winnable and should not seek to undermine the chances of a large Leave majority in Parliament.

    I did add that there was some justification in running candidates where they might split the Labour vote and thus facilitate a Leave Tory candidate to win. But that is a difficult calculation to get right. Why should the Brexit Party do such a thing? Because the Government’s exit agreement is Brexit and, while it has drawbacks, could result in a good deal.

    The proposal is far superior to a Norway-style arrangement – better in that free movement is addressed. And if the negotiations surrounding the future relationship go well, it is quite possible that a very good deal will emerge, a free-trade arrangement or “Canada-plus” scenario. This always seemed a probable outcome, in keeping with what the Prime Minister claimed were the negotiating priorities of his government.

    It was also clear that the PM wanted the matter done and dusted in the shortest period of time possible. It is to his credit that these objectives have now been publicly and explicitly stated.

    The Brexit Party has a very important role to play now and in the future. It can assist in changing the complexion of a Remainer Parliament and keep up the pressure on the Government to make Brexit a success.

    Of course, pressure groups can help keep the government true and honest. It is vital that this field is not deserted by Leave-leaning groups as it was after the referendum in 2016. Then only Leave Means Leave, fronted by myself and Richard Tice, Economists for Free Trade, Labour Leave and a spin-off from City for Britain continued to campaign.

    And since MPs pay particular attention to the threat of parliamentary competition, getting a handful of Brexit Party MPs into Parliament is the most likely way to sustain my party and maintain a prominent presence.

    But it is also vital that the overall complexion of Parliament is changed if we are to avoid repeating the chaos and uncertainty of the last three years. In short, we need a Leave-oriented Parliament. To achieve these outcomes, the Brexit Party must concentrate on a small number of winnable seats. Some in the party may instead wish to aim for the balance of power in Parliament by denying a large majority to the Conservatives.

    But this risks defeating the object – delivering Brexit – and would create a further period of instability and uncertainty that would be a drag on business and the economy.

    With a Hammond/May led-government, I was always of the mind that not only would they fare badly in an election but that this was a good thing. Had such a government achieved a large majority, we would have surely ended up in vassalage to the EU, having implemented a damage-limitation Brexit deal, designed to facilitate a future re-entry into the EU structures. Some snippets of this DNA remain in the current proposal and need to be exorcised.

    But the current Government represents the most Leave-orientated administration we are likely to get. In order to deliver a meaningful Brexit, they need a large majority. This is a risk because they may use such a majority for the wrong purposes, but that is the chance we must take; politics is the art of the possible, not the pursuit of quasi-religious purity.

    A large majority is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it allows a Eurosceptic government to see off any recalcitrant establishment Remain minority in its parliamentary ranks and this makes the timetable of 2020 more credible, in particular to the counterpart in the negotiations, the EU. It would provide a crystal-clear Parliamentary mandate to deliver Brexit, and all but extinguish both the second referendum campaign and any further guerrilla actions via courts.

    Finally, it would free up Parliament to repeal the inappropriate Fixed Term Parliament Act and rebalance the role of Parliament versus the Executive so damaged by the last Speaker. It would encourage our courts to focus on delivering the rule of law, as opposed to rule by judges. Let’s get Brexit done and get back to business.

    John Longworth is a Brexit Party MEP and the chairman of Leave Means Leave

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/13/ultimate-aim-election-ensure-successful-exit-eu/

  105. Did anyone watch the tennis last night,
    Best game I’ve seen for ages.
    Only nodded off twice.
    Thrilling last set and tie break.

  106. Did anyone watch the tennis last night,
    Best game I’ve seen for ages.
    Only nodded off twice.
    Thrilling last set and tie break.

  107. Completely off topic.

    The wild boar are getting bolder.

    The open land in the hamlet has been rooted up as if it’s been ploughed and three local dogs have been gored to death. It makes one slightly wary of walking at dusk. I can’t understand why the hunt doesn’t set marksmen on the road to shoot them.

      1. There are locals who hunt with crossbows and even a few who use an “ordinary” bow, although looking at the commune hunt day, the draw-weight would put an arrow straight through a human.

        I wouldn’t like to get close to one of those boar, I’m told that the three dogs that were killed were from the “chasse”, so quite possibly Bleu Griffons, not a lap dog!

        1. Listen to the words of this – very topical but very sadly the last verse about the chap who changed sex has been omitted from this version but it does contain the verse about the chap who was kicked out of the club in Bombay because he took to pig sticking in quite the wrong way.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4YgYgqyk2s

    2. We had them in our garden in Brittany last year. The made a terrible mess rootling up the grass.

    1. The father of one of my friends used to oversee the cellars in an Oxford College. Interesting bloke.

  111. Mass Migration and Productivity

    Until about 2008 UK productivity was increasing at a good rate since then UK productivity has flatlined, Initially it was the banking crisis caused the flatlining but since then mass migration would appear to be the cause. If you believe the politicians Migrants are better skilled and work harder and are more productive but the UK productivity figure do not show that. The indications are that the attraction of migrants is that they have an unlimited supply of cheap labour and this is having an adverse impact on the UK productivity and our services

    1. I don’t really understand all this productivity malarkey to be fair.
      Shirley all this green agenda must slow it down a bit.

    2. Migration of hordes of uneducated, illiterate, unemployable, hostile alien 3rd worlders will never reflect favourably on our society or economy.

  112. There are 1.2 million illegal immigrants in the UK – a quarter of the entire total in Europe. 13 NOVEMBER 2019.

    Pew Research said Britain’s illegal immigrant population had remained largely steady since 2014, at up to 1.2 million, while Germany had seen it almost double.

    An absurdity in itself since that would imply that as many were leaving as arriving but it does not explain why as I walk around I can actually see the numbers increasing from week to week!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/13/12-million-illegal-immigrants-uk-quarter-entire-total-europe/

    1. If you can tell an illegal from a legal, just by looking at them, why can’t the police?

      };-O

    2. That’s a truly shocking proportion of Europe’s total. Not surprising though, given our record for freebies being showered on their ungrateful, undeserving, unwanted heads. They know that, once their feet land on these shores, they are more than likely to be allowed to remain indefinitely with their false claims of asylum believed.

  113. Welsh Labour Broadcast Pulled

    An actress playing a nurse accused the Conservatives of threatening the NHS. Broadcasting rules say it should be made clear if actors are being used

  114. The 4th aniversary of the November Attacks in Paris.
    No comment necessary:-

    Four years without you. That’s four years I’ve been forced to survive without you, have been unable to speak to you, unable to see you, kiss you, hug you. No one could doubt how much I miss you. If these Islamist bastards had not murdered you alongside 129 others, who knows, you might be married, you could have given me grandchildren. Of all this I will remember forever and, contrary to what some claim, I will never forgive them.

    I have an immeasurable hatred for the bastards who perpetrated these crimes, as well as for their accomplices, who have ruled France for 50 years. Do you know, 3 days ago, they dared! They dared to march in the streets of Paris against “Islamophobia”! Within 3 days of the commemoration of the murders they dared to commit. They have defiled the streets of Paris, shouting “Allahu Akbar”, draped in our national flag. Being as bold as a rotten plank, they told reporters that we mustn’t judge them, that they were not terrorists. They may be right, not all Muslims are terrorists, but the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims. To believe them, I would have had to have seen them march against Islamist terrorism at the time of the attacks (knowing their love for demonstrations). But, of course, they did not. A deafening silence. Messrs Bellatar, Muhammad, Mélenchon, Rodriguez, Martinez, Jadot, Hamon, Plenel, Mesdemoiselles Diallo, Obono, Autain, de Haas, and the others, where were YOU on the 13/11/2015? It doesn’t seem to me you heard the news.

    So I shall make you a proposal. Since you say you are not terrorists, come march with us on March 15, 2020, starting in front of the Bataclan, and heading to the Great Mosque of Paris, past the cafe terraces where so many young people were murdered by the terrorists. March against Islamist attacks, and for the victims of Islamist terrorism. Let’s ignore that the cancer that marched against Islamophobia are the same people that set our cities on fire during the victory of Algeria this summer at the CAN [Football Cup of African Nations]. They are the same people who cheered in the cities and prisons during the attack that cost you your life, my daughter. I have the deepest disgust for this whole fringe of society, they make me sick.

    So yes, I became an Islamophobe, and I say it loud and clear. I am not a racist, nor a xenophobe, but yes, I am an Islamophobe, and how could it be otherwise? Don’t forget that it’s because of them that I’ve lived in hell for four years, and that my family was shattered. Since you departed, we no longer even celebrate the end of year holidays at home. We haven’t the heart, in fact, we dread them. What man worthy of the name would not have become an Islamophobe if he had to endure what I suffer daily? Ask these people who have lost their only two daughters what they think, ask my friend Albert Chennouf what he thinks? So, the moralisers, the self-righteous, you’ve no idea what I’ve suffered, and if you do not understand my position, especially concerning Islam, then I don’t care.

    Islamists are entirely to blame. In France, since 2012, they have been responsible for 263 deaths and a thousand wounded. And they are astonished that the majority of French have had enough of them! They are responsible for the worst atrocities, the worst provocations, and they taunt everyone with their street prayers, under the eyes of our patronising police. They wail about pork in canteens, Christmas mangers, pools reserved for their wives, and the “elegant” Burkini. They want to impose their way of life and now they shed fake tears as usual. They are incapable of taking responsiblity for their acts. Truly, they disgust me.

    They do not feel kindly toward us and our home, and yes Belattar Muhammad and your whole clique of nauseating Islamists, this IS our home. And even though you hate that fact, we’re not going anywhere! You will not chase us away, because we will fight to make you respect OUR LAWS, and not yours! Shari’a will not happen. If you are not happy in our country, then I understand, and I would even say that suits me just fine. There are 58 Islamist countries waiting for you. Don’t hang around, we won’t miss you, and it would ease the pressure on our welfare state.

    I suspect that on November 13, all the politicians will come and lay a wreath in memory of the attacks, before going to have a drink and to eat petits fours in well-heated lounges. And then, fear not, they’ll all be there to remember November 13, 2015. It’s not much effort, we’ll talk about it once a year, we’ll see our friends, and then we’ll move on. Meanwhile, the jihadists, some of whom are directly linked to the same attacks, will come back. 450,000 migrants are brought in every year to replace the French people, little by little. We are putting in place completely useless measures allegedly to fight against immigration. But none of them work. Why?

    I was already shocked when Hollande laid a wreath at the Republic Square for the victims of November 13th. That very afternoon he went on to the Great Mosque of Paris. And 15 days after the attacks, he handed the Legion d’Honneur [France’s highest honour] to the Prince of Saudi Arabia, a country that largely financed the attacks. I wonder if he also handed a Legion d’Honneur to the CEO of Lagfarge Cement, who financed ISIS with the blessing of the sinister Laurent Fabius?

    You see my daughter, you died for nothing, except to satisfy the stupidity and submission of our incompetent leaders. We cannot even say that you died for France. This I will NEVER forget, and I’ll make them remember it until my death.

    So ultimately, I won’t go to their masquerade [the commemoration]. I don’t want to get involved in that garbage. I’m afraid I’d feel dirtied by it. I will spare them my presence, and instead I will pass this sad anniversary with you. Only with you. I will unplug my phone to avoid being disturbed, I will not turn on the radio, nor the TV, and will think only of you.

    While waiting, my daughter, know that every day I think of you. Every day, I cry silently, and I try to fight, so that it can never happen again. Unfortunately, the French are blind and do not want to see the danger of Islam, which is, quite simply, a death cult.

    Tender kisses,

    Patrick Jardin

    http://disq.us/p/25j3yni

    1. Tragic. However, there are no ‘islamists’, simply two sorts of muslim: those who are observant, and those who are non-observant.

  115. With regard to the article from BoB below….. France, you must rise up. Every single last one of you. Some of you are already brave enough to do so, have done so, but you cannot do this by yourselves. Understand this – Freedom is not free. ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. And, mark these words, our turn will come. Three generations took their eyes off the ball: that price is yet to be paid, the cost of that opportunity will be paid in our blood.

    2. The Manchester Arena bombing was a suicide bombing attack in Manchester, United Kingdom on 22 May 2017. A radical Islamist detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande.

      Twenty-three people died, including the attacker, and 139 were
      wounded, more than half of them children. Several hundred more suffered psychological trauma.
      The bomber was Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old local man of Libyan
      ancestry. After initial suspicions of a terrorist network, police later
      said they believed Abedi had largely acted alone but that others had
      been aware of his plans.

      The incident was the deadliest terrorist attack and the first suicide bombing in the United Kingdom since the 7 July 2005 London bombings.”

      1. Suicide or not, does that exclude Corbyn’s mates the IRA, who are immune from prosecution for their bombimgs, after B Liar (aka SATAN) made sure he was immune from being charged with TREASON

        1. The IRA got away with murder. (not a joke). They were around for many years and had secret meetings in a room in one of local Irish pubs. Before and after their bombings, they were treated with great sensitivity ( don’t want to upset the Irish, you know ) ; my brother worked in the Manchester Royal Exchange buildings, just happened to be out of time on the day of the big’un. The Ariana Grande show- well that was just one guy, mustn’t blame the others…….
          People do not know how to handle terrorists.Don’t want to upset the Muslims, you know.

      2. The problem here is that again, it is our society not understanding (deliberately or otherwise) the islamic culture. In our culture people band together, form groups, ‘clubs’ – these become armies, resistance groups, insurgents….. Different cultures act differently. Islamic culture does not appear to form the cohesive groups that we recognise. They are sent out by their prophet, individually, “to kill the infidel wherever they may find him.” It is always a ‘lone wolf’ because that is how islam and their prophet expects their adherents to work. And until our western culture gets its head around this cultural differential, we are lost. One night they will all rise up at 2.00 am and, not forming networks or groups, individually go out and murder their unsuspecting neighbours in their beds. Our society regards this as mental illness, islamic society regards it as normal.

    1. The real question is, why does every silly little thing have to end up in court ? We meet obnoxious people all the time, that’s life. With something like this they should grin and bear it, and not waste the time of the court.
      I read this earlier and thought how bloody stupid it was.

      1. Keeping the Courts filled up with ‘dross’ means they have no time to deal with the real criminals, The Politicians

      2. As I have said many times before.

        If you can’t catch the criminals, criminalise those you can catch.

    1. I would have thought that such an important but contentious question should be decided by our Government (when we have one ) on the advice of those high up the scientific ladder, not by a bunch of cops jumping on the Greta bandwagon to make themselves look good.

    3. A few bobbies patrolling the beat on foot might go some way to reducing their ‘carbon footprint’. And, dare I say it, they might deter more crime and catch more criminals as a bonus.

      Don’t suppose the Chief Constable has thought of that.

    1. I suppose that’s another climate warming thing.
      I can’t find it from a google, but I remember that one from many years ago where at a time of fear of nuclear warfare a teenage yob was asked what he would do if he knew that the bomb was about to drop, and he answered ” sleep with Edna ”
      If that’s Edna, count me in, but no, I could live without the bear.
      (Anyone direct me to that quote ? ).

  122. I was just doing something else when I changed channels and saw Boris Johnson giving his speech. He is a very entertaining speaker, and I have always enjoyed listening to him in the past. But now that I know that he has rejected the chance to fully leave the EU by the end of this year, and what his Withdrawal Agreement will do to this country, it sounded very different.

    When you hear him lying to your face, and you know that he is banking on you not realising what he is doing, then you do not not look at him in the same way.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6df68c31ce1c646636ad4a15cb213cbcd54601c8573fecdb3cdad7c0586bac3.jpg

    1. Hello Meredith, you don’t see the election as an opportunity for Boris to clean house? To get rid of remoaner Tories?

      1. agnostic – I would see it as an opportunity if it were not for the fact that Boris IS a Globalist Remainer Conservative. 🙂

        I know that not everyone accepts this yet, even faced with his refusal to work with the Brexit Party and get our country free of the EU in just 2 months time. The thing to remember will be that Boris knows what this EU-written Withdrawal Agreement will do to our country and he is embracing it as an “excellent deal.”

        When the economic and social consequences of handing control of our country to a totalitarian state, such as the EU wishes to be, become clear, then people might finally question his motivations. We will be badly damaged by then and much worse off than we are now. That seems to be the only way that some people will see Boris for what he is.

        Barnier says transition talks will take 3 years. These will be extended. Boris will certainly NOT leave after 1 year as he could leave now scot-free and won’t. The jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice will extend over the United Kingdom for 8 years after the transition period ends. That means it will be at least 11 years from now before we regain control of our courts and legal system from EU oversight.

        By then we will have been taken into the EU as full members. What is left of the EU by then anyway. So, in short, I don’t think that Boris will use this as a chance to clean house of Remainers. From what we have seen already, CCHQ are parachuting brand new Remainers into seats over the heads of local Conservative parties wishes. Boris is switching one set of Remainers for another.

        1. I fear that you are completely right about Boris. He is determined to keep Britain in thrall to the EU for the foreseeable future. Indeed I think he should be facing a charge of high treason if our fears are proved to be true.

  124. Part 2 of Independence Daily’s three-part series ” Labour re-writes the past on their economic management ”
    by Robert Henderson. Stuff which I thought I (very) roughly knew but put in a succint and readable form. For Part 1 (and 3) follow the ink below.

    “Exactly how much public debt has been run up through PFI and PPP financed projects is uncertain because of the length of the contracts which commonly have renegotiation clauses at various points built into them and the habit PPP and PFI contractors have of presenting public bodies with demands for more favourable terms, failing the granting of which they will walk away from the contract. But if exact figures cannot be arrived at, ballpark figures can. In 2010 the NHS Health Direct website carried an article that estimated that the cost of PFI contracts entered into since Labour came to power in 1997 was probably in the region of £300 billion. To put that in context, the National Debt when Labour came to power, which had been accumulated over 300 years, was £352 billion. The large majority of the PFI/PPP cost s do not figure in the official National Debt.

    The failure of the Blair and Brown governments to behave sensibly and honestly during the boom years resulted, after Lehmann’s collapse in 2008, in a very rapid deterioration of the public finances with a deficit of £68 billion in 2008 (in itself a frightening figure) turning into one of £152 billion a year later. Amongst the Government’s responses to the deteriorating financial situation was, unbelievably you may think, to keep pushing new PFI projects forward on the grounds that this would help keep aggregate demand up. The problem was that credit suddenly became much more expensive so the cost of the that the PFI contracts rose. However, because PFI costs were kept largely off the books Enron-style, this suited the Brown Government because it meant that expenditure could be kept up without it being added to the official National Debt.

    The failure of regulation

    The overspending and dishonest accounting was dangerous and damaging in itself, but it was made unreservedly toxic by the failure of Blair and Brown to control both the growth in credit and prevent the development use of ever more exotic and removed from reality financial vehicles of the derivatives variety such as Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO) and Credit Default Swaps (CDS).

    Margaret Thatcher abolished credit controls in the 1980s. Blair and Brown not only failed to reinstate them, but positively celebrated the surging growth in credit from credits cards, bank loans and, most of all, mortgages. Banks showered their customers with offers of credit cards and bank loans; mortgage providers allowed multiples of earnings of four, five and even six times earnings and 100% mortgages . In the last few years before Lehmann’s collapse in 2008 mortgage providers were offering more than the value of the property with 105%, 110% and finally 125% mortgages in the manic belief that house prices would continue rapidly upwards forever and wipe out the negative equity in the property on which they had loaned more than the property was currently worth.

    Just to make the debt pie really sticky, those granting mortgages and other credit allowed the borrowers to self-certify their earnings and applications for credit cards and bank loans were passed without any meaningful check on what were the borrowers’ financial circumstances. This resulted in a good deal of mortgage fraud, people running up massive credit card debts using ten, twenty or even more cards and large numbers of people (especially those who bought in the last year or two of the housing bubble) with mortgages far too large for them to service comfortably even when house prices were rising and re-mortgaging at a reasonable rate easy, mortgages which became utterly beyond them when the crash came.

    Blair and Brown added to the domestic economic debt and house inflation jubilee by allowing immigration to get out of hand. In their 13 years in Government Labour allowed net migration into Britain estimated at 3 million. This massive influx coupled with the ease of mortgages (which foreigners could obtain as readily as native Britons) poured much inflationary oil on the housing price waters and almost certainly substantially drove up credit card debt as well.

    If Blair and Brown had done no more than introduce credit controls which restricted mortgages by insisting on a reasonable deposit – say fifteen per cent – allowed a mortgage of no more than three times salary, banned self-certification of earnings and insisted on proper verification of the borrower’s general financial circumstances, much of the debt poison would have been avoided. Even with massive amounts of immigration, house prices would have remained lower because there was less credit chasing them. Lower house prices would have reduced the amount of credit generated by people taking out second mortgages to spend on things other than their property and made people less inclined to take out other forms of debt because they would not have felt as giddily rich as they did in the over-heated house price years running up to 2008.

    To the vast indebtedness created by New Labour spending must be added the financial fall out of the banking crisis. This was the consequence of criminally lax regulation. The Blair/Brown Governments started the process of pumping vast amounts of public money into the banks with the effective failure of Northern Rock in September 2007, its nationalisation in 2008 and the partial nationalisation in 2008 of Royal Bank of Scotland and what became the Lloyds Group after Lloyds TSB had its arm twisted by the Government to take over Halifax Bank of Scotland. There were also been one or two smaller interventions such as those involving the Dunfermline Building Society and the Bradford and Bingley (a building society converted into a bank). In theory, all the money used to rescue these financial businesses will be recovered eventually when the government sells its stake in the banks. However, the “in theory” is a very live issue because if the shares were sold now it would be at a very substantial loss and there is no prospect of the shares doing anything but remain stagnant at best for the foreseeable future because of the continuing global financial woes in general and the plight of the Euro in particular.”

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/labour-re-writes-the-past-on-their-economic-management-part-2/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1

    1. Shocking mismanagement. And to this day, there must be many people who are still saddled with crippling debt.

  125. General election 2019: SNP to take legal action over ITV election debate

    DAft but not surprised. It is a UK general Election and the SNP only stands Candidates in Scotland and got just 3% of the UK vote. and even in Scotland they only got 37% of the vote

  126. Quite a day. Picture arrived. Letter from the hospital. And a few hours ago I discovered my wife is arriving back in the early hours tonight, rather than tomorrow night. But, still, a chap can relax snd listen to a nice song;

    Midnight, you heavy laden, it’s midnight
    Come on and trade in your old dreams for new
    Your new dreams for old
    I know where they’re bought
    I know where they’re sold
    Midnight, you’ve got to get there at midnight
    And you’ll be met there by others like you
    Brothers as blue
    Smiling on the street of dreams

    Love laughs at a king
    Kings don’t mean a thing
    On the street of dreams
    Dreams broken in two can be made like new
    On the street of dreams
    Gold, sliver and gold
    All you can hold is in the moonbeams
    Poor, no one is poor
    Long as love is sure
    On the street of dreams

    Midnight, look at the steeple, it’s midnight
    Unhappy people, it’s ringing with joy
    It’s ringing with cheer
    ‘Cause yesterday’s gone
    Tomorrow is near
    Midnight, the heart is lighter at midnight
    Things will be brighter the moment you find
    More of your kind
    Smiling on the street of dreams**

    Love laughs at a king
    Kings don’t mean a thing
    On the street of dreams
    Dreams broken in two can be made like new
    On the street of dreams
    Gold, sliver and gold
    All you can hold is in the moonbeams
    Poor, no one is poor
    Long as love is sure
    On the street of dreams

    ** Omitted in Bing Crosby version

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URrH8O2NefY

    1. Wife just shouted at me from the next room – ” That’s Bing Crosby, isn’t it ? “. Before her time ( and mine ) I think, but there was one of his films on telly the other day.
      Getting near Christmas ….

  127. Gosh, checked my e-mail to discover my Aunt has celebrated her 95th birthday today – a Dutch woman who knocked on our door in Wallsend in 1947 and lodged with us for some time before marrying my uncle. She looked after me when I had measles – and I helped her improve her English including getting the correct pronunciation ?!

    1. A question, Sir.
      Do you recall a scrapyard in the Wallsend area called “Ferry-Auto Spares?”

        1. Normal thing of waking to pump bilges & DT doing the same so rather than lying tossing & turning, doing the civilised thing having a cup of tea.

      2. Unfortunately not Bob – actually I departed Wallsend in 1948 (aged 4) bound first for Percy Main, then onto the Ridges Estate, North Shields (gee thanks, mum and dad).

  128. NHS Spending

    Contrary to various claims there has been no cuts to the NHS budget, What has happened is the increase in the NHS budget has slowed but so has NHS spending

    Current NHS spending is claimed to be a £121B. The Conservatives are claim to increase it to £149B (by 2023/24) and Labour to a £155B ( by2023-24)
    Not sure what the 2023

    The problem with the NHS seem to indicate the UK population is much higher that claimed and that Health tourism is much higher than claimed. Other problems for it are alcohol and drug abuse and obesity. These have become a huge problem for the NHS

    There is also a cash flow problem from legal migrants who having never paid I a penny can almost immediately start using the NHS. After we have left the EU migrants should not be able to use the NHS for free for 3 years. The most sensible approach is to require them to purchase health insurance
    Free use of our GP service by anyone from overseas should also be stopped. If victors they should have to pay say £50. If EHIC is still in force post Brexit the £50 should be charged back currently there is no charge back as there is no requirement for them to pay

  129. Doing dinner soon and in the village hall for a bit,
    a stir fry that unlike fish pie I cannot mess up, i don’t think .

  130. Should the Current Practice of Airlines Overbooking seats be banned ?

    One could regard it as fraud as they are selling a product ie seat they don’t have in fact in any other business it would be fraud

    A more sensible arrangement would to be only to sell the seats they have at full price then they can sell another 10% or what ever the normal percentage they normally over book at a discount on the understanding that you might be bumped off of the flight. That way you know up front that you might be bumped off the flight

    1. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
      And his carbon emissions were a sight to behold.

  135. Transcript of a video banned from Youtube for telling the truth:-

    “Congratulations, it’s a boy!” Or, “Congratulations, it’s a girl!”

    As a pediatrician for nearly 20 years, that’s how many of my patient relationships began. Our bodies declare our sex.

    Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA and is stamped into every cell of our bodies. Human sexuality is binary. You either have a normal Y chromosome, and develop into a male, or you don’t, and you will develop into a female. There are at least 6,500 genetic differences between men and women. Hormones and surgery cannot change this.

    An identity is not biological, it is psychological. It has to do with thinking and feeling. Thoughts and feelings are not biologically hardwired. Our thinking and feeling may be factually right or factually wrong.

    If I walk into my doctor’s office today and say, “Hi, I’m Margaret Thatcher,” my physician will say I am delusional and give me an anti-psychotic. Yet, if instead, I walked in and said, “I’m a man,” he would say, “Congratulations, you’re transgender.”

    If I were to say, “Doc, I am suicidal because I’m an amputee trapped in a normal body, please cut off my leg,” I will be diagnosed with body identity integrity disorder. But if I walk into that doctor’s office and say, “I am a man, sign me up for a double mastectomy,” my physician will. See, if you want to cut off a leg or an arm you’re mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you’re transgender.

    No one is born transgender. If gender identity were hardwired in the brain before birth, identical twins would have the same gender identity 100 percent of the time. But they don’t.

    I had one patient we’ll call Andy. Between the ages of 3 and 5, he increasingly played with girls and “girl toys” and said he was a girl. I referred the parents and Andy to a therapist. Sometimes mental illness of a parent or abuse of the child are factors, but more commonly, the child has misperceived family dynamics and internalized a false belief.

    In the middle of one session, Andy put down the toy truck, held onto a Barbie, and said, “Mommy and Daddy, you don’t love me when I’m a boy.” When Andy was 3, his sister with special needs was born, and required significantly more of his parents’ attention. Andy misperceived this as “Mommy and Daddy love girls. If I want them to love me, I have to be a girl.” With family therapy Andy got better.

    Today, Andy’s parents would be told, “This is who Andy really is. You must ensure that everyone treats him as a girl, or else he will commit suicide.”

    As Andy approaches puberty, the experts would put him on puberty blockers so he can continue to impersonate a girl.

    It doesn’t matter that we’ve never tested puberty blockers in biologically normal children. It doesn’t matter that when blockers are used to treat prostate cancer in men, and gynecological problems in women, they cause problems with memory. We don’t need testing. We need to arrest his physical development now, or he will kill himself.

    But this is not true. Instead, when supported in their biological sex through natural puberty, the vast majority of gender-confused children get better. Yet, we chemically castrate gender-confused children with puberty blockers. Then we permanently sterilize many of them by adding cross-sex hormones, which also put them at risk for heart disease, strokes, diabetes, cancers, and even the very emotional problems that the gender experts claim to be treating.

    P.S. If a girl who insists she is male has been on testosterone daily for one year, she is cleared to get a bilateral mastectomy at age 16. Mind you, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out with a report that urges pediatricians to caution teenagers about getting tattoos because they are essentially permanent and can cause scarring. But this same AAP is 110 percent in support of 16-year-old girls getting a double mastectomy, even without parental consent, so long as the girl insists that she is a man, and has been taking testosterone daily for one year.

    To indoctrinate all children from preschool forward with the lie that they could be trapped in the wrong body disrupts the very foundation of a child’s reality testing. If they can’t trust the reality of their physical bodies, who or what can they trust? Transgender ideology in schools is psychological abuse that often leads to chemical castration, sterilization, and surgical mutilation.

    https://www.dailysignal.com/UncensoredDoctorVideo

    1. One reason I don’t have any grandchildren is because, at 9, my daughter was denied contact with her paternal relatives pending suggestions made by the “parent with care” which turned out to be groundless, but a malicious attempt, egged on by the local women’s group, to deny me contact and thus freeze another discarded father out of his family.

      At this time, she was referred to an educational psychologist for suspected gender dysphoria. She no longer wished to be a girl. After 15 months, after “reasonable” contact (i.e. an unsupervised visit once a fortnight) was restored, this went away, only to return when contact was terminated a few years later as her mother married the father of her third child and changed the surnames of my children to that of their stepfather. That was in 2000. I have seen her once since then. She is an artist, illlustrator and animator today and considers herself fashionably gender-fluid, She has no intention of having children of her own.

      Caught up in this was my son, whom I have long suspected to be a cuckold (but I can prove nothing without a DNA test). He got so fed up with all the court proceedings between me and his mother that he asked for contact to be terminated, and I have not seen him since 2001. Aged thirty, he now lives in North London a few miles from my sister there, but has never been to see her.

      2. I feel for you, Jeremy. It is so hard to lose one’s children – particularly to brainwashing.

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