Tuesday 14 December: Boris Johnson’s booster challenge ignores the real state of the NHS

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520 thoughts on “Tuesday 14 December: Boris Johnson’s booster challenge ignores the real state of the NHS

    1. Buon giorno Pietro. (Well, it’s afternoon in reality.) So a very good day to all NoTTLers.

  1. ‘Morning all – more dross:

    Saving It All For You

    A priest was taking a shortcut through an alley one day and came upon a young boy who was masturbating. “My son, you shouldn’t be doing that,” said the priest. “You should be saving that for when you get married.”

    The embarrassed boy hung his head down low and simply said “Yes, Father.”

    About 10 years later the priest was in his study when a young man, in his early twenties came in.

    “Yes, my son?” said the priest.

    “Father, you may not remember me, but about 10 years ago you caught me masturbating in an alley, and I’ll never forget the advice you gave then.”

    “And what was that, my son?”

    “Well, you told me that what I was doing was wrong and I should be saving it for when I get married,” said the young man.

    “That sounds like something I probably would have said,” said the priest. “Did you take my advice?”

    “Yes I did, Father; but there’s only one problem.”

    “What’s that, my son?”

    Well, I have three 55-gallon drums full of the stuff in the back of my pickup truck. Now that I am getting married what am I supposed to do with it?

  2. A clean break from Europe’s human rights law

    SIR – You report (December 11) that Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, “will not derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights”, but only introduce a right “to interpret rulings”. This is deeply disappointing, as Britain needs no lessons from the Continent on the subject of human rights.

    Britain was a founding member of the Council of Europe, which drew up the convention and created the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after the Second World War. We drafted large parts of the convention to provide Europeans with liberties long enjoyed in this country. Winston Churchill ensured that the ECHR had no jurisdiction in Britain, as we had no need of it.

    Tony Blair brought ECHR jurisdiction into Britain through the Human Rights Act of 1998 – largely for political reasons – and soon regretted it. It would be risible to suggest that, before 1998, Britain lacked liberties enjoyed on the Continent. The main consequence of Mr Blair’s Human Rights Act – good business for lawyers – has been the introduction into Britain of a number of new, ersatz “human rights” to things like privacy and family life. These are abused by publicity-shy millionaires, celebrities, gangsters, criminals and illegal immigrants. The Act has also subjected British courts to often perverse appeal decisions by the ECHR.

    The bench of the ECHR includes second-rate and politically motivated judges, and its judgments often ignore natural justice and bring the law into disrepute. Britons can comfortably rely for their liberties upon our own common law, which, unlike the ECHR, is subject to democratic control. Britain should withdraw completely from the ECHR.

    Gregory Shenkman
    London W8

  3. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – The Government warns that the NHS could become overwhelmed in the wake of the omicron variant, and says we should book our Covid boosters as soon as possible (report, December 13).

    However, it appears no official had the brainpower to foresee that such demand would overwhelm the NHS website, following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday.

    If the NHS cannot even provide this service, what hope is there for the rest of the rollout?

    Hannah Hunt
    Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire

    SIR – “There are no more home tests available.”

    That is the message I got on the government website when I attempted to order a lateral flow test kit yesterday.

    This demonstrates a staggering lack of planning on the part of the Government, given that it is proposing, from tomorrow, to treat negative lateral flow test results as a substitute for vaccine passports for those seeking to enter nightclubs and other entertainment venues.

    Stephen Wallis
    Billericay, Essex

    SIR – Today I will be playing golf.

    I would have preferred to spend the day administering booster vaccines, but it appears the Government would rather pay GPs £15 per jab than utilise former nurses such as me.

    Clare Byam-Cook
    London SW15

    SIR – My wife and I received our booster vaccines more than a month ago.

    All the paperwork was correctly filled in, and our online NHS records show the correct dates and times. However, last week we were both emailed and texted by the NHS, told we were now eligible for the booster and given details of how and where to get it. Discussion with friends suggests that this is typical.

    This surely throws doubt on the rollout figures, and the number of people who have received their boosters.

    Gavin Scott
    Sleaford, Lincolnshire

    SIR – Julian Jessop (Business, December 12) says Plan B could knock 2 per cent off GDP, costing the economy at least £4 billion a month.

    This is money that could otherwise fund healthcare, policing, defence or welfare – or go towards our children, who will be left to pick up the tab.

    Not content with plundering their futures, we seem determined also to wreck their present lives – from babies who see only masked faces around them, through schoolchildren whose education is continuously disrupted, to teenagers callously deprived of normal social lives, whose mental health is suffering as a result.

    For the sake of our children, this madness must stop. We can no longer seek to protect ourselves at the expense of the young.

    Toby Crump
    Blean, Kent

    Here’s to a government defeat today. Let us hope that those Tory MPs with a spine and a conscience can finally stop this ridiculous and highly damaging fear-mongering.

    1. With the Labour party now firmly entrenched on the wrong side of history, Panic² Johnson will have free rein to destroy this Country. It’s beyond belief that less than 600 individuals are capable of holding millions in their grasp whilst those <600 continue to destroy the economy, people's livelihood, their children's health and education, and society as a whole. Held to ransom by fear of a "virus" of very dubious provenance.

    2. Gavin Scott misunderstands the situation, I feel. Either his GP was hoping for another 15 pound fee, or else he has lost track of his jabs as there have been so many of them.

    3. I would suggest, Mr Wallis, that this is precisely the opposite of a lack of planning. Limiting the testing option is meant to “nudge” people towards getting jabbed.

  4. As focus turns to Covid boosters what other measures could tackle Omicron. 14 December 2021.

    Ministers’ focus may be a “national mission” to roll out booster vaccines to counter the dramatic rise of the Omicron variant, but the government has not ruled out new restrictions for England. Here we look at options on the table, how effective they could be at reducing the spread of coronavirus and the level of political risk for Boris Johnson.

    As the timorous and fearful flee the horrors of the non-existent threat of Omicron they fall over the cliff of Economic and Social Catastrophe.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/14/as-focus-turns-to-covid-boosters-what-other-measures-could-tackle-omicron

  5. SIR – I write as an alumnus of Durham University. I commend the university’s rigour, superb post-graduate courses and tradition of freedom of opinion and speech.

    It is with absolute horror, then, that I and other alumni note the moves of the hierarchy there to suspend or discipline Professor Tim Luckhurst, a renowned, respected and decent man (report, December 9).

    His offence? Inviting Rod Liddle, a journalist, to speak at a function, then criticising those students who walked out.

    David Ratliff
    Newcastle upon Tyne

    Hear, hear Mr Ratliff!

  6. Thanks Vlad!!

    Russia vetoes UN security council resolution linking climate crisis to international peace

    The resolution proposed that the climate crisis could potentially threaten ‘global peace, security and stability’

    Russia has vetoed a first-of-its-kind UN security council resolution casting the climate crisis as a threat to international peace and security – a vote that sank a years-long effort to make global heating more central to decision-making in the UN’s most powerful body.

    Spearheaded by Ireland and Niger, the proposal called for “incorporating information on the security implications of climate change” into the council’s strategies for managing conflicts and into peacekeeping operations and political missions, at least sometimes.

    The measure also asked the UN secretary-general to make climate-related security risks “a central component” of conflict prevention efforts and to report on how to address those risks in specific hotspots.

    The council has occasionally discussed the security implications of climate change since 2007 and it has passed resolutions that mention destabilizing effects of warming in specific places, such as various African countries and Iraq. But Monday’s resolution would have been the first devoted to climate-related security danger as an issue of its own.

    Stronger storms, rising seas, more frequent floods and droughts and other effects of warming could inflame social tensions and conflict, potentially “posing a key risk to global peace, security and stability”, the proposed resolution said. Of the UN’s 193 member countries, 113 supported it, including 12 of the council’s 15 members.

    But India and veto-wielding Russia voted no, while China abstained.

    Their envoys said the issue should remain with broader UN groups, such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adding climate change to the security council’s purview would only deepen global divisions that were pointed up by last month’s climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, the opponents said. The talks ended in a deal that recommitted to a key target for limiting warming and broke some new ground but fell short of the UN’s three big goals for the conference.

    Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia complained that Monday’s proposed resolution would turn “a scientific and economic issue into a politicized question”, divert the council’s attention from what he called “genuine” sources of conflict in various places and give the council a pretext to intervene in virtually any country on the planet.

    “This approach would be a ticking time bomb,” he said.

    India and China questioned the idea of tying conflict to climate and they predicted trouble for the Glasgow commitments if the security council – a body that can impose sanctions and dispatch peacekeeping troops – started weighing in more.

    “What the security council needs to do is not a political show,” Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun said.

    The measure’s supporters said it represented a modest and reasonable step to take on an issue of existential importance.

    “Today was an opportunity for the council to recognize, for the first time, the reality of the world that we are living in and that climate change is increasing insecurity and instability,” Irish ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason said. “Instead, we have missed the opportunity of action and we look away from the realities of the world we are living in.”

    Proponents vowed to keep the council’s eye on climate risks.

    “The force of the veto can block the approval of a text”, said Niger’s ambassador, Abdou Abarry, “but it cannot hide our reality.”

    1. Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia complained that Monday’s proposed resolution would turn “a scientific and economic issue into a politicized question”, divert the council’s attention from what he called “genuine” sources of conflict in various places and give the council a pretext to intervene in virtually any country on the planet.
      Spot on.

  7. Armed forces to get new guidance on how to use ‘inclusive language’. 14 december 2021

    The armed forces are to be given new guidance on “inclusive language” after the Defence Secretary said he is “unhappy” with the current advice.
    Military personnel from all three services had been told to avoid using phrases such as “crippled with debt” or “blind drunk”.

    The MoD said its Inclusive Language Guide 2021 was a “practical toolkit” to help servicemen and women understand why “certain words or use of language is hurtful or non-inclusive”.

    It recommended avoiding phrases such as “deaf to our pleas” in case it offended the disabled.

    I suppose the Chinese can relax long term. They are facing an enemy that is dissolving before their very eyes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/12/armed-forces-get-new-guidance-use-inclusive-language/

    1. If you have debt you are crippled and you can be blind if you are so drunk. Its just the truth. What a pathetic lot these people are.Nothing better to do, idle hands and all that.

    2. Heaven knows [polite version] what they would have said about the things the Parade Training staff used to shout at us!

  8. “There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK,” Mr Javid told MPs.”There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK,” Mr Javid told MPs.

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-omicron-now-estimated-to-be-20-of-infections-in-england-as-coronavirus-pass-changes-announced-12495087

    This statement doesn’t stack up with the assumption that a first case of Omicron was in the UK on November 25th 2021 and cases doubled every two days.

    My mathematical model based on these assumptions estimates the figure of 4,713 cases would only be reached after a month.

  9. SIR – You report (December 11) that Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, “will not derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights”, but only introduce a right “to interpret rulings”. This is deeply disappointing, as Britain needs no lessons from the Continent on the subject of human rights.

    Britain was a founding member of the Council of Europe, which drew up the convention and created the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after the Second World War. We drafted large parts of the convention to provide Europeans with liberties long enjoyed in this country. Winston Churchill ensured that the ECHR had no jurisdiction in Britain, as we had no need of it.

    Tony Blair brought ECHR jurisdiction into Britain through the Human Rights Act of 1998 – largely for political reasons – and soon regretted it. It would be risible to suggest that, before 1998, Britain lacked liberties enjoyed on the Continent. The main consequence of Mr Blair’s Human Rights Act – good business for lawyers – has been the introduction into Britain of a number of new, ersatz “human rights” to things like privacy and family life. These are abused by publicity-shy millionaires, celebrities, gangsters, criminals and illegal immigrants. The Act has also subjected British courts to often perverse appeal decisions by the ECHR.

    The bench of the ECHR includes second-rate and politically motivated judges, and its judgments often ignore natural justice and bring the law into disrepute. Britons can comfortably rely for their liberties upon our own common law, which, unlike the ECHR, is subject to democratic control. Britain should withdraw completely from the ECHR.

    Gregory Shenkman
    London W8

    I seem to recall a Tory manifesto pledge to get us out of the ECHR…another worthless document!

    1. Especially considering the new wave of authoritarianism that is sweeping across Europe, we want as little as possible to do with that.

  10. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: How can it be okay to work from home but still go to the office Christmas party?
    *
    *
    *
    True, Boris has painted himself into a corner. But never underestimate his ability to walk out over the paint.

    The booster programme may have got off to a shaky start, but if he pulls it off it could prove to be his Get Out Of Jail Free card, the start of another reinvention — Boris 4.0, or wherever we’re up to now.

    Still, that’s not to say he’s out of the woods yet with investigations still under way on multiple fronts. He has questions to answer. And who better to ask them than the new host of Mastermind, Clive Myrie.

    It could go something like this . . .

    Let’s meet our first contestant. Your name please?

    Boris Johnson.

    Your occupation?

    World King.

    And your specialist subject?

    The life and times of Boris Johnson, from December 2019 onwards.

    You have two minutes to answer questions on your chosen subject, starting now. In July, you said that the lifting of coronavirus restrictions was ‘irreversible’. That wasn’t true, was it?

    Pass.

    Last week, you insisted that there was absolutely no need to bring in Plan B. Thirty-six hours later you changed your mind. Why?

    Pass.

    How many people in the UK have been hospitalised because of Omicron?

    Pass.

    How many have actually died from it?

    Pass.

    Last week, you insisted that there was absolutely no need to bring in Plan B. Thirty-six hours later you changed your mind. Why? (stock image)

    You claim to be following the science. Yet the alarmist predictions of SAGE, Professor Legover and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have been proved wrong time and again. So why are you still taking any notice of them?

    Pass.

    You once said that if the Government forced us to carry identity cards, you would eat yours. Yet you are now planning to bring in vaccine passports. Why shouldn’t people eat them, too?

    Pass.

    Vaccine passports haven’t worked in Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter. So why would they work in England?

    Pass.

    Under Plan B, you are telling people they should work from home, but they can attend office Christmas parties. Where’s the logic in that?

    Pass.

    And you can sing carols in a supermarket, but not in a church. Is that correct?

    Pass.

    Speaking of parties, were you aware that Downing Street staff held an illegal cheese and wine ‘gathering’ last Christmas, when the rest of the country was in lockdown?

    You once said that if the Government forced us to carry identity cards, you would eat yours. Yet you are now planning to bring in vaccine passports. Why shouldn’t people eat them, too?

    Pass.

    If the people who make the rules won’t obey them, why should anyone else?

    Pass.

    How many businesses, particularly in hospitality, do you expect to go bankrupt as a direct consequence of Plan B?

    Pass.

    Already, some Cabinet members like Michael Gove are said to be demanding we move to an even stricter Plan C. Are we going back to measuring pizza slices and arguing over whether a Scotch egg constitutes a substantial meal?

    Pass.

    How many more life-saving operations will have to be cancelled to stop the NHS being overwhelmed?

    Pass.

    Already, some Cabinet members like Michael Gove are said to be demanding we move to an even stricter Plan C

    You say the restrictions are designed to save the NHS. But isn’t it the job of the NHS to save us?

    Pass.

    How many people have died from cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses while the NHS has been concentrating on Covid?

    Pass.

    Why are there fewer beds in the NHS now than there were this time last year, despite you giving it an extra £36 billion?

    Pass.

    Why did you dismantle the Nightingale Hospitals?

    Pass.

    You say the restrictions are designed to save the NHS. But isn’t it the job of the NHS to save us? Pass (stock image)

    The vaccine programme under Kate Bingham was a spectacular success. Why did you wind it down and hand back responsibility to the bureaucrats in the NHS?

    Pass.

    If you thought there was a danger of another potentially lethal variant emerging, why didn’t you kickstart the booster programme earlier?

    Pass.

    Even if Omicron turns out to be mild, are we going to be plunged back into lockdown every time another variant pops up?

    Pass.

    How did you manage to spend more than £112,000 tarting up your Downing Street flat?

    Pass.

    Who on earth is Lulu Lytle and what’s wrong with John Lewis?

    Pass.

    The vaccine programme under Kate Bingham was a spectacular success. Why did you wind it down and hand back responsibility to the bureaucrats in the NHS?

    You claimed not to know the identity of the Tory donor who picked up the bill for the refurbishment, and insist that you have now paid for the work out of your own pocket. Where did you get the money from?

    Pass.

    Did you and your wife intervene to make sure that animals from Pen Farthing’s petting zoo were flown out of Afghanistan before British soldiers, interpreters and other loyal staff?

    Pass.

    After demanding that we all fly less, scrap our gas boilers and switch to expensive electric cars to cut carbon emissions, what made you think you could get away with taking a private jet back from Cop26 just so you could attend a jolly-up at the Garrick Club?

    Pass.

    Do you now regret falling out with Dominic Cummings?

    Pass.

    Did you and your wife intervene to make sure that animals from Pen Farthing’s petting zoo were flown out of Afghanistan before British soldiers, interpreters and other loyal staff?

    Following the birth of your new baby daughter — congratulations — are you willing to tell us exactly how many children you have fathered?

    Pass.

    Who’s going to win the North Shropshire by-election?

    Pass.

    Do you expect . . .

    (beep, beep, beep) . . .

    I’ve started so I’ll finish. Do you expect to lead the Tories into the next General Election?

    Pass.

    And at the end of that round, Boris Johnson, you have scored no points and passed on everything. One last question: how long do you think you can keep getting away with it?

    1. One of the most tedious articles I have seen from Littlejohn, one gets the point after the first few.

          1. Littlejohn is normally entertaining, he should be ashamed for taking the money for that dross. The concept isn’t even original.

      1. Littlejohn is a husk of his former self.
        They roped him into pushing the jabs, and he has lost his mojo.

  11. Boris Johnson’s booster challenge ignores the real state of the NHS

    Obviously Boris’s globalist handlers are getting fed up with the UK lagging so far behind the rest of the world with the project.

    1. This is a serious point that worries me a little.
      If they give us enough time, everyone is going to stop complying. So they will have to make a bold move to push the coup through to a winning conclusion.
      What will that be?

      Bring the internet down, like the WEF’s simulation last January?
      Release Bill Gates’ “next pandemic” that “will make people sit up”?
      Simply launch the digital currency and force people to get the digital id, re-branded as a banking app?

      I fear it will come sooner than we are ready for.

      1. Conspiracy theories used to be held in contempt and were a source of mild amusement. Nowadays many of them are turning out to be true.

        David Icke, for example, postulated that many prominent people were reptiles and rumour has it that they have found the shell of the egg from which Whitty emerged.

        1. I’ve long accepted that there were groups of very wealthy people who had more influence than the common man was ever aware of. I think sneering at this as a conspiracy theory was always a bit foolish.
          The point is, that they left me alone, so I didn’t care about them.
          As Catherine Austin Fitts puts it, we had on the one side, the democratically elected government, and on the other side, the bankers and super-rich, who often influence the government, but didn’t usurp all its powers.
          The difference is now, that they are dispensing with the democracy part, and moving in with a huge power grab over people’s bodies.
          That might also be OK, except for the dangerous nutters like Gates who have a Messiah complex about saving the planet by reducing the population. I don’t want to be reduced, thank you very much.
          I could have accepted a military coup and the loss of the vote, but I can’t accept mandatory medication. They want to encroach too far into the personal space, in a way that is incompatible with post-Enlightenment Christian Europe.

    1. Terry Pratchett’s oft-repeated “There’s good eatin’ on one o’ them” comes to mind.

  12. In today’s DT:

    Europe’s biggest battery storage system to be built in Teesside
    Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries is planning a new facility to help Britain manage intermittent flows of renewable power

    By
    Rachel Millard
    14 December 2021 • 6:00am

    The biggest battery storage system in Europe is to be built in Teesside in a boost for the UK’s bid to attract international green investment.

    Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries is intending to create a facility with lithium-ion batteries capable of holding 360MW of energy at the Wilton International development site in Redcar.

    The project will help Britain manage intermittent flows of renewable power by storing the excess to be released when there is less wind or sunshine.

    Sembcorp already has a portfolio of about 1GW of batteries and generation in the UK.

    Costs for the project have not been disclosed and the company is still carrying out procurement, but a development of this sort would be expected to have a bill in the hundreds of millions of pounds.

    Ben Houchen, the Conservative Mayor of Tees Valley, said the investment would “increase our region’s contribution to a greener future”.

    Andy Koss, chief executive in the UK and Middle East for Sembcorp Industries, said: “Now, more than ever, flexible energy sources play an increasingly important role in maintaining secure and reliable energy supplies.

    “With a growing reliance on renewables, the UK energy system needs to be flexible and able to respond quickly to changes.”

    Batteries help balance electricity supplies by storing electricity when too much is being generated – for example, when it is too windy and demand is low – and dispatching it when it is needed.

    Lithium-ion batteries generally do this over short periods rather than for days or weeks at a time, but this is still very important as the grid needs to be balanced constantly in order to avoid power cuts.

    Sembcorp’s plant will be able to supply power to the grid in milliseconds, helping stabilise the system.

    It will be much larger than a 100MW project opened in Minety, Wiltshire in July, which was developed by UK company Penso Power with funding from China’s state-owned Huaneng Group utility and CNIC Corporation.

    Shell, the FTSE 100 oil and gas business, is running the Minety battery.

    The UK is Europe’s most active battery storage system market, according to an analysis in October by S&P Global Platts.

    Penso Power is building out further projects, as are Pivot Power, owned by EDF, and Eeelpower.

    Sembcorp said it has land and connections at Wilton to get the batteries up and running quickly, with the first tranche expected to be in action by 2023.

    In July Sembcorp announced a deal with 8 Rivers Capital for the US infrastructure investors to use land at Wilton for a new low-emission power station.

    The planned plant will use the emerging Allam-Fetvedt Cycle process, which uses high-pressure carbon dioxide released from burning natural gas to drive a power turbine, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

    The Government has backed the technology with more than £6m funding during development since 2012.

    The BTLs are generally scathing:

    James Cooke
    39 MIN AGO
    Does no one at the this newspaper understand the simplest technical units? How can anyone write on a subject if the understand nothing about it?
    I haven’t read a single article about climate written by a climate journalist or “scientist” that is remotely technically correct. For gods sake set up a government panel full of engineers and statisticians to look at the climate rubbish. They’re destroying my children’s future for nothing. Similar to the Covid insanity.

    * * *

    Setting aside for the moment the ignorant scribblings of Ms Millard, I have a much better idea – build some additional CCGT stations and fuel them from our substantial gas reserves. They can be up and running from standstill in about 40 minutes. Relatively cheap and efficient. (No, silly me, my sensible proposal will never catch on until the loons in government come to their senses. In other words…never.)

    1. A sensible government would not contemplate running down an existing system until a proven and more efficient replacement was available and ready to come online. These endeavours of battery storage smack of disjointed thinking, lack of sensible forward planning and are mere afterthoughts as those responsible panic – there’s that word again – as they attempt to cover a shambolic policy with sticking plaster solutions. Costly, who is making the killing from the public purse this time? The lobbyists, the enablers, those in the know setting up companies immediately to get their noses in the trough. Wherever you look incompetence, sleaze, jobs for mates, money grabbing etc. Everywhere government has intruded you can find failure except in the money making rackets of those involved.

      1. Neither would a sensible, intelligent government commit to banning gas boilers and petrol or diesel cars until practical, affordable, reliable alternatives were up and running.

    2. My BTL comment as Best Beloved – she has the subscription:

      I wonder if those in authority in Teesside are aware of the extreme danger posted by large Li-Ion storage facilities. Rapid charging, discharging and re-charge may lead to just one battery overheating and, by going into thermal runaway, it will set light to the rest, resulting in a fire so huge and intense that our fire-service will be hard-pressed to extinguish it within 12 hours. In the meantime it will be pumping toxic gases into the atmosphere and many homes will need to be evacuated.
      These are part and parcel of the side-effects I have learned about while objecting to our small Suffolk Village being surrounded by Solar ‘Farms’ replete with containers full of Li-Ion batteries.

      1. There is currently a plan for a solar ‘farm’ of over 2,000 acres on prime agricultural land either side of the east coast main line. not far from us. Mallard Pass solar farm. A title which makes it sound very desirable and benign. Locals are not happy but, because it will ‘contribute’ to our supposedly renewable energy/ net nonsense future, it is odds on that approval will be given. Even if local planning is rejected, it will go through on appeal.

        1. This was featured on BBC East Midlands Today yesterday evening. It’s more than three square miles of farmland. The reporter stood by Rutland Water (4.5 sq miles) and told us “This was opposed in the 70s but went ahead anyway, didn’t it?”.

          1. Rutland Water is a different kettle of fish to this planned solar ‘farm’. Rutland Water is visually positive and, as well as being a reservoir, offers numerous leisure opportunities including sailing, fishing and walking. Local pubs benefit from the visitors. Apart from the money the landowners will make, the solar ‘farm’ will be a blot on the local countryside and of no benefit to people living in affected communities.

          2. I would still stand against the sacrifice of prime agricultural land for a reservoir. There’s another big row brewing over the plans for another one near Oxford.

            As for Rutland, it was notable that the water level was low. In our part of the midlands, rainfall has been well below average so far this autumn/winter.

          3. The water level is definitely low at the moment. Maybe Anglian Water will impose a hosepipe ban before the end of the year.

          4. I would still stand against the sacrifice of prime agricultural land for a reservoir. There’s another big row brewing over the plans for another one near Oxford.

            As for Rutland, it was notable that the water level was low. In our part of the midlands, rainfall has been well below average so far this autumn/winter.

          5. It will also compact the soil below the panels and cause extra run-off onto nearby roads causing flooding. It well then be impossible to re-use after the ’40’ years are up so will probably become housing.

            Ours will take away over 500 acres of prime arable farmland at a time when we are importing 39% of our food (very green with all those food carbon miles.)

            These are all objections raised with the local planning committee.

      2. There is currently a plan for a solar ‘farm’ of over 2,000 acres on prime agricultural land either side of the east coast main line. not far from us. Mallard Pass solar farm. A title which makes it sound very desirable and benign. Locals are not happy but, because it will ‘contribute’ to our supposedly renewable energy/ net nonsense future, it is odds on that approval will be given. Even if local planning is rejected, it will go through on appeal.

    3. Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries is intending to create a facility with lithium-ion batteries capable of holding 360MW of energy at the Wilton International development site in Redcar.
      and one generating set, powered by coal, was capable of 660MW, and a typical power station (eg at Ratcliffe-on-Soar) would have four of these.
      But, it seems that a feeble battery is the way forward!
      Where does the power come from to charge it, BTW?

    4. Is this woman barmy?
      The planned plant will use the emerging Allam-Fetvedt Cycle process, which uses high-pressure carbon dioxide released from burning natural gas to drive a power turbine, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.
      And what happens to the now low pressure CO₂ which occupies a larger volume?

  13. Boris Johnson warns Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would be a ‘strategic mistake . 14 December 2021.

    Boris Johnson warned Vladimir Putin today that Russia would face ‘significant consequences’ if it invaded Ukraine.

    The two men spoke by telephone as Moscow continued to heighten fears of war in eastern Europe with a troop build up close to the border.

    And in a conversation between the two leaders on Monday afternoon, the Prime Minister reiterated to Mr Putin ‘the importance of working through diplomatic channels to deescalate tensions and identify durable solutions’.

    This telephone call was almost certainly just blather designed to distract attention from Boris’s domestic difficulties. Why Vlad indulged him is another matter. With the refusal of the West to offer any military response over Ukraine he must be getting an idea by now of the West’s true weakness. It’s cowardly and corrupt leaders! His call with Johnson will have confirmed him in such a view! He will be in Kiev by Christmas!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10305107/Boris-Johnson-warns-Vladimir-Putin-invading-Ukraine-strategic-mistake.html#comments

      1. Morning Korky. A personal conversation with someone as astute as Vlad would furnish him with information that no Intelligence Organisation could equal!

    1. I used to be a ‘regular’ on ‘ere, and then I gave up. However, I look in from time to time to see what you and others are thinking and saying. Your contribution above – and others similar – have led me to believe that you are a propagandist for, and probably an agent of, Vladimir Putin. Or have I got it wrong?

      1. You are wrong. I deal with the realities of Geopolitics. Ad Hominems are the tool of those who have no arguments. The invariable recourse of the troll!

        1. You’re not suggesting Geoffrey is a troll? He comes here for amusement and enlightenment surely?

          1. My enduring recollections of him relate to his immediate and ongoing repudiation of the Brexit vote and the process to extricate ourselves, a cheerleader for the likes of Miller.
            I have little doubt that he’s still doing whatever he can to undermine it.

      2. Spot on GW.we’re all Russian agents here so beware!
        I live 80Km from the dreaded Russki border….now if that isn’t proof,what is?

          1. I left it a bit late this year to have an inspired moment, but hey ho I got there in the end.
            Now I got to do it again next year, the pressure, the pressure.

      3. Geoff, I am astonished by how people who share my general political outlook give Vlad the Invader a free pass. He is very clever indeed, and the West deserves a kick in the shins for not abiding by the Bucharest Accord. But that does not make him a good person.

      4. Yo Mr W

        Unlike The Three Bees, The Barstewards Boris and Biden, whoe are agents of

        Soros/Gates,
        New World Order

        Big Pharma etc

        Or have I got it wrong?

      5. As you know I think you are completely wrong-headed about most things just as you think I am completely wrong-headed – but that does not mean that we should not express our different views openly and this forum is an ideal place to do so.

        My views on lockdowns, gene therapies, Covid passports,the importance of freedom of choice and the current leadership of the Conservative Party are well known. What are your views on these matters and how do you rate Keir Starmer?

      6. But, but, what about me? There are very few coherent, competent and consistent, Christian-friendly leaders in Europe. Putin is one of them.
        There you go!

        (PS”. Note to Andrei Kelin. Usual fee, please, to the normal bank account.)

      7. Some of us actually admire a leader who upholds traditional values. The meddling by the EU in Ukraine has encouraged conflict. I suspect that the 100k troops on the border are not there for a Christmas break and there will be an overwhelming response to European adventurism.

      8. Hello Geoffrey, hope you and the family are well. Have a pleasant and tranquil festive season.

      9. Morning Mr Wollard, suggesting someone is a Russian agent is jolly exciting.

        Are you not ashamed of the West’s refusal to confront Russia over it’s assault on Ukraine?

      10. Greetings Geoffrey.
        If you believe half the crap the MEEJAH and official sources vomit out about Vlad, then I believe you are being VERY misled.
        Yes, I know he is a hard bastard, but he is a hard bastard that love and is willing to defend his country.

        That the West, especially NATO and the EU used the power hiatus in post Soviet Russia to push their influence right up to the countries borders, cosying up to some VERY nasty and corrupt regimes to do so, was very shameful.

        Not only that, but to allow our financial system to allow its self to assist former Soviet apparatchiks in asset stripping the country by currency laundering their ill gotten gains, was an act of economic warfare.

    2. Boris is probably chucking a bit of salt and grit on his ‘Cresta run’, but it won’t stop him reaching the bottom.

    1. He’s right about this:
      “If we disagree with the assumptions we should feel free to disagree with the conclusions”

      Where it seems to fall down is that anyone who disagrees seems to be swiftly marginalised and ultimately cancelled.

  14. Steerpike
    Sir Humphrey wins again
    13 December 2021, 5:45pm

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltbb7760b5e1da79a4/61b7801a90758f0e65311714/Screenshot_2021-12-13_at_17.16.39.png?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop

    The antics of the mandarin masters of Whitehall have long been of interest to Mr S. Back in September, Steerpike revealed that the Director for Civil Service Modernisation and Reform was appointed last year without any external or internal competition. This is despite much hot air and hyperbole from the master of spin himself, Michael Gove, the recently-departed minister for the Cabinet Office. For last year, during the heady days of the Dominic Cummings era, there was much talk of a civil service revolution, with plans to move them out of London, hire specialists in place of generalists and purge the ‘confident public school bluffers’ as part of a ‘hard rain’ on SW1.

    All this culminated in the grandly-named ‘Declaration of Government Reform’ in June 2020 co-signed by all permanent secretaries and promising to usher in a new era of transparency, meritocracy and excellence in the palaces of Whitehall. Now though, Cummings is gone and with Covid on the march, there are signs that such an agenda has dropped down the government’s groaning list of priorities. An indication that normal service has resumed was the publication last month of a much-vaunted report by the Institute for Government on funding for the Senior Civil Service.

    The think-tank, stuffed to the rafters with the great and the not-so-good of Westminster, called for government guarantees for ‘sufficient funding to support rises’ in order to make any proposed capability-based pay system viable. It noted concerns about ministers like Rishi Sunak enacting public sector freezes in the past and called for ‘future pay restraint’ to ‘in practice only apply to the base pay of civil servants’ with the money used ‘to maintain capability progression.’ Its’ conclusion noted that ‘the additional annual cost of capability-based pay should be protected with a ringfence.’

    Now Mr S has learned how much such research cost the taxpayer. For a Freedom of Information to the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) – under the auspices of the Department for Business – has revealed that it was procured through the OME’s 2020 open call for research, with some £38,554 spent on commissioning the report. An arms length body, spending thousands on a government think tank report, which called for more funds to be spent on the Senior Civil Service?

    Sir Humphrey himself would be delighted.

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

    An0nymousBosch • 14 hours ago • edited
    With every month that passes, the campaign against Dominic Cummings and his trip to the Northeast looks more and more like an orchestrated smear campaign by an out-of-control, unaccountable public sector that includes the BBC.

    A man suffering from COVID, whose wife had the same illness, living in a city full of Remainer pr*cks seeking to do them harm, and with no friends who they could deposit potentially contagious children upon. Of course they drove to family – the only people any of us could trust under those circumstances.

    The Remainer pr*cks first tried to “get” him for that, and then, when it didn’t work, tried this absurd smear that his drive to Barnard Castle was some sort of jolly for his wife’s birthday – even though that dreary town was completely closed at that point by lockdown.

    This filled headlines for days.

    opopanax An0nymousBosch • 13 hours ago
    It is the most terrible shame (for the country) that Boris chose Nutnut’s advice over that of Cummings and Lee Cain, not because her advice was better (see Stratton et al) but because it presumably made his life easier to do as she dictated (get rid of Cummings and Cain), to the detriment of the country.

    The Watcher • 14 hours ago
    Sir Humphrey Appleby: “A cover up? Certainly not! It is responsible discretion, exercised in the national interest, to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence….”

    1. Couldn’t the gutter press get hold of some very lurid stories about NutNut’s private life before she determined to seduce Johnson? A few saucy pics to spice the story up a bit would do no harm.

  15. Steerpike
    Sir Humphrey wins again
    13 December 2021, 5:45pm

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltbb7760b5e1da79a4/61b7801a90758f0e65311714/Screenshot_2021-12-13_at_17.16.39.png?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop

    The antics of the mandarin masters of Whitehall have long been of interest to Mr S. Back in September, Steerpike revealed that the Director for Civil Service Modernisation and Reform was appointed last year without any external or internal competition. This is despite much hot air and hyperbole from the master of spin himself, Michael Gove, the recently-departed minister for the Cabinet Office. For last year, during the heady days of the Dominic Cummings era, there was much talk of a civil service revolution, with plans to move them out of London, hire specialists in place of generalists and purge the ‘confident public school bluffers’ as part of a ‘hard rain’ on SW1.

    All this culminated in the grandly-named ‘Declaration of Government Reform’ in June 2020 co-signed by all permanent secretaries and promising to usher in a new era of transparency, meritocracy and excellence in the palaces of Whitehall. Now though, Cummings is gone and with Covid on the march, there are signs that such an agenda has dropped down the government’s groaning list of priorities. An indication that normal service has resumed was the publication last month of a much-vaunted report by the Institute for Government on funding for the Senior Civil Service.

    The think-tank, stuffed to the rafters with the great and the not-so-good of Westminster, called for government guarantees for ‘sufficient funding to support rises’ in order to make any proposed capability-based pay system viable. It noted concerns about ministers like Rishi Sunak enacting public sector freezes in the past and called for ‘future pay restraint’ to ‘in practice only apply to the base pay of civil servants’ with the money used ‘to maintain capability progression.’ Its’ conclusion noted that ‘the additional annual cost of capability-based pay should be protected with a ringfence.’

    Now Mr S has learned how much such research cost the taxpayer. For a Freedom of Information to the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) – under the auspices of the Department for Business – has revealed that it was procured through the OME’s 2020 open call for research, with some £38,554 spent on commissioning the report. An arms length body, spending thousands on a government think tank report, which called for more funds to be spent on the Senior Civil Service?

    Sir Humphrey himself would be delighted.

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

    An0nymousBosch • 14 hours ago • edited
    With every month that passes, the campaign against Dominic Cummings and his trip to the Northeast looks more and more like an orchestrated smear campaign by an out-of-control, unaccountable public sector that includes the BBC.

    A man suffering from COVID, whose wife had the same illness, living in a city full of Remainer pr*cks seeking to do them harm, and with no friends who they could deposit potentially contagious children upon. Of course they drove to family – the only people any of us could trust under those circumstances.

    The Remainer pr*cks first tried to “get” him for that, and then, when it didn’t work, tried this absurd smear that his drive to Barnard Castle was some sort of jolly for his wife’s birthday – even though that dreary town was completely closed at that point by lockdown.

    This filled headlines for days.

    opopanax An0nymousBosch • 13 hours ago
    It is the most terrible shame (for the country) that Boris chose Nutnut’s advice over that of Cummings and Lee Cain, not because her advice was better (see Stratton et al) but because it presumably made his life easier to do as she dictated (get rid of Cummings and Cain), to the detriment of the country.

    The Watcher • 14 hours ago
    Sir Humphrey Appleby: “A cover up? Certainly not! It is responsible discretion, exercised in the national interest, to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence….”

  16. Good morning all.

    Mild day here , damp and 11c.

    I saw this comment on Twitter , and it is a really good question .

    How do old covid tests manage to pick up a new variant that didn’t exist when the test was made?

    1. Simple. The test picks up all corona viruses, including colds and ‘flu. Identifying the individual strain of corona virus is a job for laboratories. Also there is a huge amount of obfuscation and plain lies by the government and their “cronies in “science””. That is my opinion.

  17. Now for those with simple minds, the Under-5s, and the gullible everywhere, here is the BBC (Blue Peter type) explanation of why a third injection of the same stuff as the previous two will really, really work. It also lays the way open for booster 4, booster 5, … ad infinitum. So let’s follow the science with the BBC;

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59639973

    1. Fortunately for us – while the contents of the syringe may be identical, a booster is not just more of the same for the immune system.

      The protection you’re left with after the third dose is bigger, broader and more memorable than you had before.

      The article starts with the declaration that this new “variant” is heavily mutated i.e. it’s very different from what came before and the author then goes on to try and make a case for using an out-of-date spike protein specific serum.

      Did a Science and Health journalist really write the first line? If it’s not more of the same, what is it? All the jab is doing is giving a person a larger dose of something that doesn’t work well against the original spike protein, let alone a, “heavily mutated,” one. That’s insanity i.e. doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

      This article is just parroting what came out last week when we were told, “…Omicron escapes the “vaccine”, go out and get your booster (of the same “vaccine” that the variant escapes from). Genius!

      Give me Jefferey Jaxen from The Highwire: he does his research and I wish I could send him this piece of rubbish to comment on.

    2. Fortunately for us – while the contents of the syringe may be identical, a booster is not just more of the same for the immune system.

      The protection you’re left with after the third dose is bigger, broader and more memorable than you had before.

      The article starts with the declaration that this new “variant” is heavily mutated i.e. it’s very different from what came before and the author then goes on to try and make a case for using an out-of-date spike protein specific serum.

      Did a Science and Health journalist really write the first line? If it’s not more of the same, what is it? All the jab is doing is giving a person a larger dose of something that doesn’t work well against the original spike protein, let alone a, “heavily mutated,” one. That’s insanity i.e. doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

      This article is just parroting what came out last week when we were told, “…Omicron escapes the “vaccine”, go out and get your booster (of the same “vaccine” that the variant escapes from). Genius!

      Give me Jefferey Jaxen from The Highwire: he does his research and I wish I could send him this piece of rubbish to comment on.

    1. Strangely our youngest’s has tested positive again and also a friends son and daughter in law. It seems to me that the timing wasn’t quite right because they must have all caught the new variant so closely to when it was discovered. But as far as I can make out the type of infection is not shown on the test kit, only positive or negative. Which is what my wife has just informed me she is spending the day with our grand children and despite our recent colds, coughs and sneezing has tested negative. So i guesse i am Okay as well there are no kits available again.
      One person has died in hospital, no info of whether they died from covid,….. just covid related. Which Induces mass panic, which seems to be the aim.

  18. Good Morning All – Here’s a thing, I’ve just popped over to the Guardian ( as I do now and then for the sake of balance not for fun or enlightenment ) and for the first time ever as far as I can recall I found myself nodding in agreement with the vituperative BTL comments on an article about the government’s handling of the BatFlu “crisis”

    One of the immediate effects of the announcement of plan B was glaringly obvious when we went to our local cinema on Saturday for the opening night of the new “West Side Story” ( an absolute corker btw) it was almost empty whereas it normally would have been packed. A curse on the House of Westminster!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/825f064e6ffe99cad97320e3d118884395fbb441015e177ac588f6ee37329be9.jpg

          1. Oh yes, but sadly not with the familiar da da da da da dadada tune and totally lacking in the creakingly bad local ads for takeaways etc tacked onto the end, I miss that.

          2. That’s sad. I used to like those ad intros – it was part of going to the pictures. :-((
            (note: lapse into old-fashioned terminology)

        1. We are lucky enough to live near a small private cinema too. It’s wonderful.
          When we saw “the King’s speech” and the part with the newsreel came on, that same newsreel was probably shown in the cinema where we were watching it!

  19. “Give me a child until he is 7 and he is mine for life” – this was the Jesuits’ mission which fuelled their indoctrination of children.

    Remember the doggerel we used to sing as children: “The farmer’s in his den, the farmer’s in his den, Ou-I Adio, the farmer’s in his den

    The government is already trying to indoctrinate children. A strike back is urgently needed. I would like every primary school playground in the UK to be resounding with the same tune but with new lyrics:

    The vaccine is a dud
    The vaccine is a dud
    Oh No Jabbio
    The Vaccine is a dud.

    1. The whole Olympics is rubbish, Hamilton is a prize prat and all sporting stars are grossly overblown if they tick boxes and ignored otherwise. The whole subject isn’t even worth an article.

        1. Well, who ever is using the sword at Win Sir Tomorrow will have the choice in going all out ahead.
          I have often wondered what the carbon footprint of a racing driver might be.
          And let’s be honest it’s the team that does all the hard work.

  20. Maps printed, travel mug of tea ready, wallet keys phone etc waiting to be picked up, so that’s me off to Retford to pick up a hydraulic workbench for his motorcycles!

    TTFN

    1. Here is an updated version following Horace Pendleton’s comment that my exponential model of Omicron reflected an unbounded population:

        1. Much better. Curve has been properly flattened!

          (Please don’t anyone imagine that I know what is going on. I slept through my statistics courses.)

    1. People shouldn’t gloat too fast. All we’ve had up til now is the velvet glove.
      It’s coming off in Austria.
      They may also launch a parallel attack.

  21. Presumably the January variant will be PEE (as the yobbish politicians and their brown-nosed followers in the press with pronounce π)

  22. Off to an unscheduled appointment (notified to me by robotic phone) with the dental clinic at Ipswich Horse Piddle.

    I’ve no idea what it’s about but, if I can get pukka NHS dental work, then I’m up for it.

    Back later – but maybe only to bump me gums.

  23. Did Cur Ikea Slammer say anything interesting last evening?

    I am sorry to say I missed him as I was watching a very disappointing documentary about the commercial activities of nuns and monks. Made worse by GHASTLY plinkety-plonkety “music”

  24. Is there not one Labour MP of conscience, who would stand up for the rights and freedoms of ordinary people? I find it extraordinary that the only ‘opposition’ comes from within the Conservative party itself. Starmer could have made himself a national hero by standing up for the shop-keepers, bar and restaurant owners who had to close their businesses. The small children who regressed in their social development because they never got to play with another child, the young people wasting the best years of their lives stuck at home, the elderly treated like criminals on an isolation ward, the cancer patients etc etc…

    But no, the only ‘opposition’ Labour have provided is that we should have locked-down sooner, harder, longer. Does not one of their MPs remember that their party was formed to be the voice of the working man and woman in Parliament? Where are their consciences?

    1. I doubt there are any actual real workers left in the parliamentary Labour party. It is very sad.

    2. It is extraordinary that the only ‘opposition’ comes from the Government benches. Of course, it allows for a safe virtue-signaling environment as these ‘rebels’ are secure in the knowledge that the actual opposition will provide enough support to carry the day.

      1. Yes I agree. I have seen some excellent articles in the Telegraph from Graham Brady and Steve Baker. Voting against the government is a principled step, but they know it is ‘safe’ as it’s likely to go through anyway on Labour votes. Only getting their letters to the ’22, resigning the Conservative whip, standing as an independent on joining Reform, those would be real actions. Otherwise, I tend to suspect that that are all mouth and no trousers, or ‘controlled opposition’ if you will.

    3. An up-to-date list of potential (they haven’t voted yet) rebels. Not in alphabetical order. Taken from The Spectator.

      1. Steve Baker
      2. Ben Bradley
      3. Brendan Clarke-Smith
      4. Graham Brady
      5. Philip Davies
      6. Richard Drax
      7. Simon Jupp
      8. Stephen McPartland
      9. John Redwood
      10. Greg Smith
      11. Dehenna Davison
      12. Marcus Fysh
      13. Gary Sambrook
      14. Pauline Latham
      15. William Wragg
      16. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
      17. Iain Duncan Smith
      18. Christopher Chope
      19. Craig Tracey
      20. Robert Syms
      21. Anthony Mangnall
      22. Greg Clark
      23. Esther McVey
      24. Liam Fox
      25. David Davis
      26. Mark Jenkinson
      27. Alicia Kearns
      28. Mark Harper
      29. Darren Henry
      30. Steve Brine
      31. Craig Mackinlay
      32. Simon Fell
      33. Andrew Bowie
      34. David Warburton
      35. Siobhan Baillie
      36. David Jones
      37. Tom Randall
      38. Ben Spencer
      39. Andrew Rosindell
      40. Charles Walker
      41. Douglas Ross
      42. Karl McCartney
      43. Anne Marie Morris
      44. Johnny Mercer
      45. Tom Tugendhat
      46. Richard Fuller
      47. Giles Watling
      48. Desmond Swayne
      49. Andrew Bridgen
      50. Andrew Lewer
      51. Christian Wakeford
      52. Adam Afriyie
      53. Julian Sturdy
      54. Peter Bone
      55. Chris Grayling
      56. Chris Green
      57. Tim Loughton
      58. Tracey Crouch
      59. Miriam Cates
      60. Jackie Doyle-Price
      61. Lee Anderson
      62. Jonathan Djanogly
      63. Mark Francois
      64. Jill Mortimer
      65. Tobias Ellwood
      66. Scott Benton
      67. Henry Smith
      68. Matt Vickers
      69. John Hayes
      70. Mike Penning
      71. Mark Pawsey
      72. Nus Ghani
      73. Chris Loder
      74. Shaun Bailey
      75. Robbie Moore
      76. Philip Hollobone
      77. Tom Hunt
      78. Robert Goodwill
      79. Jo Gideon
      80. Harriett Baldwin
      81. Damian Green
      82. Andrew Percy
      83. Edward Leigh
      84. Damien Moore
      85. Royston Smith

      And here are the Labour MPs who have declared they will vote against:

      1. Emma Lewell-Buck

      1. thank you. An encouragingly-long list. Amazing to see only one Labour MP willing to stand against this tyranny!

        1. ‘Afternoon, JK, the majority of Labour MPs have always been in favour of a Parliamentary Tyranny.

  25. An interesting conjecture:

    “Follow the money
    In pre-Covid times, the world economy was on the verge of another colossal meltdown. Here is a brief chronicle of how the pressure was building up:

    June 2019: In its Annual Economic Report, the Swiss-based Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the ‘Central Bank of all central banks’, sets the international alarm bells ringing. The document highlights “overheating […] in the leveraged loan market”, where “credit standards have been deteriorating” and “collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) have surged – reminiscent of the steep rise in collateralized debt obligations [CDOs] that amplified the subprime crisis [in 2008].” Simply stated, the belly of the financial industry is once again full of junk.

    9 August 2019: The BIS issues a working paper calling for “unconventional monetary policy measures” to “insulate the real economy from further deterioration in financial conditions”. The paper indicates that, by offering “direct credit to the economy” during a crisis, central bank lending “can replace commercial banks in providing loans to firms.”

    15 August 2019: Blackrock Inc., the world’s most powerful investment fund (managing around $7 trillion in stock and bond funds), issues a white paper titled Dealing with the next downturn. Essentially, the paper instructs the US Federal Reserve to inject liquidity directly into the financial system to prevent “a dramatic downturn.” Again, the message is unequivocal: “An unprecedented response is needed when monetary policy is exhausted and fiscal policy alone is not enough. That response will likely involve ‘going direct’”: “finding ways to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders” while avoiding “hyperinflation. Examples include the Weimar Republic in the 1920s as well as Argentina and Zimbabwe more recently.”

    22-24 August 2019: G7 central bankers meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to discuss BlackRock’s paper along with urgent measures to prevent the looming meltdown. In the prescient words of James Bullard, President of the St Louis Federal Reserve: “We just have to stop thinking that next year things are going to be normal.”

    15-16 September 2019: The downturn is officially inaugurated by a sudden spike in the repo rates (from 2% to 10.5%). ‘Repo’ is shorthand for ‘repurchase agreement’, a contract where investment funds lend money against collateral assets (normally Treasury securities). At the time of the exchange, financial operators (banks) undertake to buy back the assets at a higher price, typically overnight. In brief, repos are short-term collateralized loans. They are the main source of funding for traders in most markets, especially the derivatives galaxy. A lack of liquidity in the repo market can have a devastating domino effect on all major financial sectors.

    17 September 2019: The Fed begins the emergency monetary programme, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars per week into Wall Street, effectively executing BlackRock’s “going direct” plan. (Unsurprisingly, in March 2020 the Fed will hire BlackRock to manage the bailout package in response to the ‘COVID-19 crisis’).

    19 September 2019: Donald Trump signs Executive Order 13887, establishing a National Influenza Vaccine Task Force whose aim is to develop a “5-year national plan (Plan) to promote the use of more agile and scalable vaccine manufacturing technologies and to accelerate development of vaccines that protect against many or all influenza viruses.” This is to counteract “an influenza pandemic”, which, “unlike seasonal influenza […] has the potential to spread rapidly around the globe, infect higher numbers of people, and cause high rates of illness and death in populations that lack prior immunity”. As someone guessed, the pandemic was imminent, while in Europe too preparations were underway (see here and here).

    18 October 2019: In New York, a global zoonotic pandemic is simulated during Event 201, a strategic exercise coordinated by the Johns Hopkins Biosecurity Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    21-24 January 2020: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting takes place in Davos, Switzerland, where both the economy and vaccinations are discussed.

    23 January 2020: China puts Wuhan and other cities of the Hubei province in lockdown.

    11 March 2020: The WHO’s director general calls Covid-19 a pandemic. The rest is history.

    With lockdowns came the suspension of business transactions, which drained the demand for credit and stopped the contagion. In other words, restructuring the financial architecture through extraordinary monetary policy was contingent on the economy’s engine being turned off. Had the enormous mass of liquidity pumped into the financial sector reached transactions on the ground, a monetary tsunami with catastrophic consequences would have been unleashed.

    As claimed by economist Ellen Brown, it was “another bailout”, but this time “under cover of a virus.” Similarly, John Titus and Catherine Austin Fitts noted that the Covid-19 “magic wand” allowed the Fed to execute BlackRock’s “going direct” plan, literally: it carried out an unprecedented purchase of government bonds, while, on an infinitesimally smaller scale, also issuing government backed ‘COVID loans’ to businesses. In brief, only an induced economic coma would provide the Fed with the room to defuse the time-bomb ticking away in the financial sector. Screened by mass-hysteria, the US central bank plugged the holes in the interbank lending market, dodging hyperinflation as well as the ‘Financial Stability Oversight Council’ (the federal agency for monitoring financial risk created after the 2008 collapse)

    The entire treatise (with a Marxian perspective) can be read here:

    https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-collapse-and-pandemic-simulation/

    It helps explain why the lockdowns appear non-sensical and are being co-ordinated throughout the world. The Great Reset.

      1. I think there are several different players with different motivations here. Gates and his lunatic obsession with injecting people has done a lot to push the jab agenda. And the bankers need digital ids to launch CBDCs.

        I wonder to what extent the bankers intended to lauch a Chinese style system to reduce the world’s population?
        It would have been easy to get people like Johnson aboard by telling them that they were saving the people from hyperinflation. Not so easy to rope them into implementing a China dictatorship, perhaps.

  26. 342842+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    breitbart,

    Without parliamentary intervention, the Boris Johnson administration will soon require people in England to show a negative lateral flow test in order to enter nightclubs and, with a Covid pass exemption for those who have been vaccinated not just once, but twice.

    Click,click,click the ratchet in operation, if you form an orderly queue entering the shower more will eventually
    be politically deemed to be safe & clean & no longer a threat to the overseers.

    I really can see multijabber addicters while waiting in queue for their next jab, blowing on their thumbs and using their arms as twelve holed ocarinas.

    However, even the double-vaccinated will soon lose this exemption, Javid told the House of Commons on Monday, with the double-vaccinated being treated the same as the wholly unvaccinated if they do not get a third “booster” jab.

    1. 342842+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Do you think wonga is playing a big part Og ?

      Without doubt, nothing must be allowed
      to obstruct the positive lateral flow of brown envelopes twixt pharma
      & HOL / HOC.

  27. 342842+ up ticks,

    The tory’s (ino) are seemingly going to get a well deserved good hiding, seeing to, rodgering at this coming by election by the electorate, that will show them.

    The electorate AKA the criminally insane are, it seems,
    going over to the lib/dems, on the strength of it being a deeper shade of sh!te but all the same a coalition member.

    So, more of the same is to be given consent, once again.

  28. Dominic Raab rattled after saying there are 250 people in hospital with omicron, then admitting it’s just 10

    In his mind, he was correct, as he was adding to the base of 0.25

  29. Stumbled on this. More insanity from the rule-makers. Are they really this stupid or are they taking the p!@@ just because they can? I had a vision last night of Johnson et al. sitting comfortably in No 10, unmasked, no distancing and laughing their heads off at what they are doing to the people. Their seriousness when addressing people is an act, they know this is all a nasty charade and they are loving the power rush.

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1470671966545891338

      1. Kaypea, that is what is now worrying many responsible scientists/doctors around the World. Whitty, Valance & Van Tam are not included in that select group.

        The “vaccine” is a therapeutic and not a true vaccine; the latter excites and educates your immune system that then sterilises the virus and retains a memory for use against possible future infections.

  30. 342842+ up ticks,

    Twatspeak,

    Telegraph News Politics
    Live Politics latest news: Vaccine passports ‘not particularly intrusive’, claims Dominic Raab as Government braces for backbench revolt

    1. If the call for retired medics to come foward works half as well as the last time – in May 2020 – NO ONE will volunteer.

      1. Boris pleads for for thousands to aid big roll out ++ 24-hour jabs AND on Chistmas Day ++1 M Britons queue or book for vaccine..

        Boris forgot to add Happy Christmas…..!

      2. If the rules for being accepted as a volunteer are the same as in May 2020, then they will all have to take the “necessary” diversity and equality training nonsense. Then they wonder why there could be a lack of volunteers.

    2. I have some experience with the bayonet so I’m thinking of offering my services. After all, a bayonet has much the same effect as the jab but it’s considerably quicker and therefore more humane.

  31. 342842+ up ticks,

    You have to give the close shop coalition hierarchy credit for herd manipulation even with a majority of the herds consent they are doing well on ALL three fronts in play, as in
    fear, repressing, replacing, reset is off to a flying start.

    By the by does an overseers pay structure alter any during lockdown, is his sheltering roof in jeopardy ?

    Should the electorates have a sanity test prior to entering a polling booth ?

  32. Nottlers, in general, have probably used the Seven ‘Ps’ when involved in Projects etc to ensure things ran smoothly, with the desired outcome and in budget etc

    Precise and Proper Planning Precludes a Persistently* Poor Performance
    (^other ‘P’ words are permissable)

    Boris works to his own Seven ‘Ps’

    Paltry and Pathetic Planning Produces a Persistently* Poor Performance
    (*See above)

  33. A rather long read but interesting to me as my MP is on the list. Will he vote against or abstain like he did last time. He is number 25 on the list. Time will tell who has the courage of their convictions and who are otherwise.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/12/14/revealed-tory-rebels-set-defy-no-10s-covid-vaccine-passport/

    Revealed: the Tory rebels set to defy No 10’s Covid vaccine passport plans
    By Dominic Penna 14 December 2021 • 12:19pm
    6-7 minutes
    Boris Johnson faces the biggest rebellion of his premiership on Tuesday, as dozens of his own backbench MPs prepare to oppose his Covid certification measures.
    While some Conservatives back other Plan B restrictions including working from home, there is general consensus on the backbenches against so-called “vaccine passports”.
    Under the new rules, Britons who want to attend large events will require either two doses of a vaccination – which will become three after a “reasonable” amount of time – or a recent negative lateral flow test.
    The Telegraph last week disclosed that up to a quarter of No 10 aides are on resignation watch and have set up a WhatsApp group to discuss the “Super Tuesday” votes in Parliament.
    Why are Tory MPs opposed to the Covid Pass and other new rules?
    Many MPs who backed broader measures before and during the vaccine rollout are now opposed to the new Covid Pass requirements, which come into force on Wednesday subject to a vote in Parliament.
    These include Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, who on Monday voiced his opposition to “the mixed and heavy messaging from the Government”. He claimed in a radio interview in July that Covid certification “could lead to social controls similar to those in China”.
    Robert Buckland, the former Justice Secretary, and Tobias Ellwood, a former defence minister, are among the moderate Tory voices who will not vote in favour of new restrictions.
    Mr Buckland told the BBC’s Newscast podcast that he supported “the thrust” of the proposed rules, but added: “I think there’s a problem with us merrily going down the road of compulsion and a uniform approach where there isn’t the clearest evidence base.”
    Asked about his view on vaccine passports, Mr Ellwood told The Sunday Telegraph: “You have a very weary nation that wants to get through Covid but is questioning the tactics and if the science isn’t there to back this up then you will lose the support of the very people you are trying to lead.”
    Steve Baker, the MP for Wycombe and a lockdown sceptic, said it was “vital that the maximum number of Conservative MPs vote against Plan B, whatever our useless opposition do”. He had previously described the prospect of more stringent curbs as a “road to hell”.
    Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of backbench Tories, called on ministers to “stop ruling by decree” and said the available data on omicron does not justify Plan B rules. This was echoed by Dr Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, who claimed it was “difficult to justify” extra measures.
    William Wragg heckled Sajid Javid over vaccine passports in Parliament and shouted at him to “resign”, while Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 Committee, described the Government’s approach as “self-defeating”.
    There are also fears about the overall direction of travel after Boris Johnson appeared to call for a “national conversation” on mandatory vaccination last week, even though he is reluctant to introduce this measure.
    Sir Peter Bone went as far as to suggest during a Newsnight interview that the Prime Minister “should go if we were going to have compulsory vaccines”.
    Some Tory MPs are planning to oppose all of the measures, including work-from-home measures and the use of face coverings in most indoor venues.
    Ben Bradley, the MP for the Red Wall constituency of Mansfield, who was elected in 2019, said last week: “I cannot vote for restrictions ‘just in case’ at a time when hospitalisations and deaths are falling. I don’t believe the evidence supports Plan B and I will not vote for it.”
    And Miriam Cates, the MP for the Red Wall constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge, will also vote against all Plan B measures next week.
    “As we’ve seen over the last 20 months, lockdowns and restrictions cause significant harm,” she wrote. “I’m deeply concerned about the impact on these new restrictions, especially on vulnerable people.”
    What time are the votes on working from home, vaccine passports and masks?
    Three separate votes are expected on Tuesday on working from home, vaccine passports and face masks.
    The votes are expected to take place in the House of Commons between 6pm and 7pm, and you will be able to follow all the latest news on the votes on The Telegraph’s politics live blog.
    Labour has said it will support the Government, although the Prime Minister will be in the difficult position of relying on opposition votes to push his preferred measures through.
    Full list: The Tory MPs intending to defy the Government on ‘vaccine passports’
    Here is the most up-to-date list of MPs who have indicated they will refuse to support the Government on Covid certification measures. Not all of these MPs have said they will vote against the proposals, meaning that some could abstain.
    Adam Afriyie
    Alicia Kearns
    Andrew Bowie
    Andrew Bridgen
    Andrew Lewer
    Andrew Percy
    Andrew Rosindell
    Anne Marie Morris
    Anthony Mangnall
    Ben Bradley
    Ben Spencer
    Brendan Clarke-Smith
    Charles Walker
    Chris Grayling
    Chris Green
    Chris Loder
    Christian Wakeford
    Christopher Chope
    Craig Mackinlay
    Craig Tracey
    Damian Green
    Darren Henry
    David Davis
    David Jones
    David Warburton
    Dehenna Davison
    Desmond Swayne
    Douglas Ross
    Esther McVey
    Gary Sambrook
    Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
    Giles Watling
    Graham Brady
    Greg Clark
    Greg Smith
    Harriett Baldwin
    Henry Smith
    Iain Duncan Smith
    Jackie Doyle-Price
    Jill Mortimer
    Jo Gideon
    John Hayes
    John Redwood
    Johnny Mercer
    Jonathan Djanogly
    Julian Sturdy
    Karl McCartney
    Lee Anderson
    Liam Fox
    Marcus Fysh
    Mark Francois
    Mark Harper
    Mark Jenkinson
    Mark Pawsey
    Matt Vickers
    Mike Penning
    Miriam Cates
    Nus Ghani
    Pauline Latham
    Pete Bone
    Philip Davies
    Philip Hollobone
    Richard Drax
    Richard Fuller
    Robbie Moore
    Robert Goodwill
    Robert Syms
    Scott Benton
    Shaun Bailey
    Simon Fell
    Simon Jupp
    Siobhan Bailie
    Stephen McPartland
    Steve Baker
    Steve Brine
    Tim Loughton
    Tobias Ellwood
    Tom Hunt
    Tom Randall
    Tom Tugendhat
    Tracey Crouch
    William Wragg

    1. I’ll tell you something interesting about that list; NONE of the 1980/90s Oxford University Tory crowd are on it. None of them, and they are a huge crowd in Parliament, probably more than the whole LibDem contingent!
      The only one I know personally is Jackie Doyle-Price, whom I liked enormously when I worked with her years ago.

      1. Your remark just highlights how out of touch most of our MPs are then, and how they seem to be incapable of relating to the man or woman in the street.

        1. I suspect there is a tiny minority who give a flying one about relating to the man in the street. MPs have been elected from a choice of almost nothing, and typically have the arrogant shit personality type that means they believe they can do what they like (witness house flipping, expenses candals) – and by and large, they are right. The set up the system to benefit them, and you have the devils own job in getting rid of them. Chosen by the Ruling Elite Party, they are in clover, in a job that encourages them to tell you how to live your life. They relate to each other, not the electorate.

          1. I know that one should not go by appearance, but if you look at the official photo of our MP, an animal from Animal Farm would not know which of the two species he is…

          2. If you are referring to pigs, I’d take a pig any day over an MP.
            Pigs are fun, charming, tidy, honest, and can be turned into bacon.
            MPs lack any attractive characteristic at all, and cannot even be eaten, unless by rats.

        2. They don’t WANT to be able to relate to the man or woman in the street. Good heavens, that might lead to some kind of conscience…

      1. Nor of ours . Mind you, in my opinion he may well prefer total lockdown so that he can be paid for doing even less than usual.

      2. Nor of ours . Mind you, in my opinion he may well prefer total lockdown so that he can be paid for doing even less than usual.

    2. I see mine is on the list – she was one of the new intake in December 2019. I wonder how many others are new ones.

    1. Er…. what does that mean? Mostly I don’t read the media, listen to any news. I am totally uninformed.

      1. After travel from some African countries, you were obliged to pay for self imprisonment for ten days in the UK. They have just realised Ohmygawd is everywhere, so the quarantine is pointless now.

      2. South Africa and neighbouring countries, + Nigeria were all penalised for announcing OMG cases. It’s here so what difference would it make?

  34. Omicron is a wonderful distraction from the armada of dinghies that are probably invading our coast as we speak.
    Has Boris, aided and abetted by the MSM, achieved what he set out to?

    1. When I saw the aerial photos of the giant queues in the Mail today, I’m afraid my first thought was “actors!”

  35. Some of you may recall that in my previous residence, I often saw a clown in the street and once, even Spiderman, striding purposefully along. Well, I am happy to report that Santa is around already. He was outside today, sporting a high-viz jacket along with his merry Santa hat. He had a ladder which puzzled me as the chimneys here are sealed off but then I realised what he was up to. As an early seasonal gift he was cleaning out some of the inmates gutters.
    He didn’t do ours but that’s OK as Hoppy, one of the resident magpies, has already done it. (He’s called Hoppy because he has a limp and is rather portly.)
    Christmas can go ahead;-)

      1. I simply don’t believe it. Nor do I believe a single word uttered by anyone in this government or in the media.

        1. Lotl, by its actions, its inactions and the continual lying and denying, this government, or rather this Parliament, as both sides of the House are brim full of charlatans, has lost all legitimacy. They have nearly all gone rogue. The Tories are in deep with the globalists and Labour are displaying that awful trait, being opportunistic and hoping to feed off the scraps being offered by the Tories. How in hell Labour hopes to win an election when they’ve kicked their voting base repeatedly by screaming for harder and longer lockdowns. Whom do they think are hit the hardest, the well-to-do or the not so well off trying to grind out a living?

          1. If the globalists want Starmer and co in power, I fear it will be achieved by the same means as those used to put Biden in the White House.

    1. Here’s a new game: ‘Boris Says’. It’s like ‘Simon Says’ but you do the exact opposite.

    1. I wondered for a second why Dutch barge rang a bell then remembered that the Keeshond is known as the Dutch barge dog. My mother had a Keeshond called Flossie who was a devoted companion back before I came into the world. Apparently Flossie used to fetch and carry and would go shopping with mum and carry her basket.

      1. Lots of dutch barges have a clog shape this one has a more pointed prowl than the more rounded and somewhat blunter bow of a larger Tjalk

    1. With the number kids he’s spawned, protection, or the lack of, doesn’t seem to have bothered him before.

  36. A couple of brutes have been found guilty of killing a toddler, Star Hobson.
    Why do Social Services employees forget that ‘safeguarding trumps everything’ ?

    1. Ah but…
      In this case accusations of racist homophobia were levelled against the great grandparents who tried to report it. That is almost impossible to trump, nowadays.
      Absolutely sickening.

      Dismissed as ‘racist homophobes’, the family who tried to save Star Hobson: Toddler’s injuries were ignored FIVE TIMES by social services after gipsy lesbian stepmother ‘convinced workers great-grandparents who raised alarm were just troublemakers’

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10307849/Social-workers-investigating-couple-beat-Star-Hobson-death-missed-five-chances-save-her.html

    2. One source said that social services disregarded the warnings by grandparent as they thought they were homophobic slurs- female couple were lesbians.
      How many more children have to be brutally murdered before these social workers do their jobs. I know there are many hard working and dedicated social workers but more, much more, attention needs to be paid to the concerns of extended family.

    3. Barely able to read the reports of this mite’s cruel mistreatment. The ‘couple’ who did this do not deserve to live.

      1. So many of these cases appearing at the moment. One cannot altogether blame lockdown, but I think it must be a contributory factor.
        I hope Whitty, Ferguson, all the politicians driving this, et al. get some of the blame

    4. I don’t give a sh1t what anyone thinks, either on here or elsewhere, but it is quite unnatural and against nature for anyone other than a man and a woman, united in a relationship, to bring up children.

    5. I have some sympathy.
      If they don’t take the child into care, appalling things happen.
      If they do take the cild into care, then they get pilloried and hung out to dry. They can’t win whatever they do. Admittedly, it would help if they weren’t so ditzy and woke, but even so…
      Just had contact with the Best Interest Assessor in the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Team – basically, Mother isn’t safe to go out on her own now. But my point is, the system (such as it is) is trying not to make terrible mistakes, but since they hire people who major in being nice, rather than practical and effective, these things result. People whose interest lies in the process, rather than the conclusion.

      1. But, following concerns raised by relatives and a friend, this child was seen by both social workers and police on more than one occasion to have bruising.

    1. Dr Malone has become much more vocal in the last few months. I saw him in a joint interview with Dr Vanden Bossche and although he mostly agreed with the other doctor, I thought his approach was more guarded. Excellent that such an eminent man is now fully onside.

    2. You give us Malone and I follow with Dr Peter McCullough on early treatments and why we ended up with “vaccines”. Fauci receives a mention, too. Short but informative. I want to be around when Johnson & Hancock have to answer why so many people died unnecessarily while they waited for the “vaccine”. The snippet where Moderna gets a mention is very interesting.

      Dr McCullough on Early Treatments and Why We Ended Up with a Vaccine

      1. That question will never be asked, Korky. There will never be an enquiry into the way the plague was dealt with.

        1. I would think most of these patients will be recovering from surgery and awaiting care plans before they can go home. Some will have nobody to look after them so depending on the hotels, they may be better there than in ‘care’ homes. At least the hotels are unlikely to give them Midazolam.

          1. HG writes:
            “Asking for a friend. Can I get Midazolam over the counter or is it prescription only?”

          2. Considering that respiratory problems are dangerous side effects it’s almost certainly prescription only.

            SOS! Looks like you’re fine for the moment.🤣🤣

    1. A bit further down and we see the doomsday Express saying, “Ministers were also reportedly told at the meeting this morning that shops, pubs and restaurants may also be forced to close due to staff being overwhelmed with Covid.

    2. I guarantee any MP or their family plus these parasites advising them will still get Hospital treatment.

      They are trying to kill us. There can only be one response to this.

    1. Keep on Running, Grizzly!

      In the early 1970’s after hitting the charts with Keep on Running the SDG became the resident group which played in a pub in Islington. At the time I was in between jobs and was trying to sell insurance door-to-door but it was far more fun sitting in the pub drinking a few pints and chatting to the band. As you can imagine I didn’t sell many insurance policies!

  37. Rather OTT to my taste but one has to remember (a) that he’s Canadian, and (b) the appalling abuse that he received from a bunch of Cambridge lefty luvvies who are still trying to undermine him and get him thrown out.

    Why I love Great Britain

    The freedoms Britain granted the world are the most precious gift of all. We must preserve them

    JORDAN PETERSON
    14 December 2021 • 10:00am

    Of all the twists and turns that my life has taken over the last few years, one of the most truly upsetting and surreal was learning that I had been peremptorily disinvited from one of Britain’s great universities.

    In 2018, when I last travelled to Britain, I met with several Cambridge professors and began to discuss the possibility of arranging a seminar there, focusing on some key Biblical texts. A formal offer of a Visiting Fellowship was proffered to me in February 2019, facilitated by Dr Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Clare College, and arranged through the necessary actions on the part of Cambridge and the University of Toronto.

    In the autumn of 2016, I had rented a 500-seat theater (on a whim, you might say) in Toronto, Canada, and delivered fifteen 90-minute public lectures entitled The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. Surprisingly, all the lectures attracted a sold-out house. Furthermore, the majority of the audience consisted of young men, a notoriously difficult audience to attract to such things. The initial lecture, Introduction to the Idea of God, focused on the first two sentences of the Book of Genesis. Those who came to watch and listen walked their way with me through the remainder of that great book during the remaining fourteen.

    By the close of 2018, when initial arrangements were being made regarding my Fellowship, some four million people had watched the first lecture on YouTube, with a multitude more listening on my podcast. The series has now been viewed or watched forty million times. It has, in addition, attracted a widespread positive response from Christian Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox believers alike (even widespread positive critical response), as well as large swathes of the Orthodox Jewish and Islamic faithful. In a further unexpected twist, the lectures have also proved popular with those who regard themselves as explicitly atheistic.

    I recount this only to explain why the initial invitation from Cambridge was proffered: it has proved increasingly difficult for those concerned about our traditional and religious heritage to propagate their message — their ideas — to the modern community, and the success of my venture generated some great curiosity.

    Out of Egypt
    After the success of the Genesis venture, I had the ambition to continue my investigations and discussion with the Book of Exodus. Knowing that I am an amateur in such matters (being possessed of no training in formal theology) I thought it would be prudent to test my knowledge and understanding in a setting that would challenge what I was assuming and potentially rectify my profound remaining ignorance. I therefore set out with my would-be Cambridge hosts to hear the opinions of those who had made the study of Divinity their central calling before I presumed to re-engage upon my lecture series. It was a great honour for me, and I say this most truly, to be offered this opportunity as a psychologist and an academic interloper.

    My invitation raised some hackles behind the scenes, however, based on what I would call a wilfully blind “misinterpretation” of my putative political views. In consequence, the invitation was unceremoniously rescinded, on an excuse which I later learned had been manufactured post-hoc. This happened, conveniently as well as treacherously, when Dr Hedley, my sponsor, was absent conducting his affairs in India.

    I discovered that I had been cancelled not as a formal notification, but accidentally, on Twitter. This, to say the least, was a shock.

    Earlier this year, however, I received an invitation to return. In the aftermath of my cancelling (and other too-similar incidents), an intense battle had been waged to make the sort of gratuitous forbidding that had been applied to me impossible.

    A group of Cambridge dons arose to challenge and reword a set of revisions to the university policy on free speech that would have, ironically — if that word is strong enough — made future similar cancellations both easier and more likely. Then they attempted to find twenty-five people who would affix their names to a petition that forced a full, anonymous and binding vote on the matter. This specific effort took months.

    People were afraid to sign; afraid that making their support for such a change public would expose them to sanctions similar in consequence to those that befell me; afraid that they would be mobbed and cancelled. But enough people eventually did so, and the matter was duly brought forward to Regent House, Cambridge’s ultimate governing body.

    And when the vote was called, an unusually large proportion of those eligible to cast their ballots turned out to make their opinions known. Almost nine out of ten of the fifteen-hundred or so who did so voted to make such cancellations impossible in the future — a larger margin of victory than any of the academics I spoke with about such issues of governance could recall. Obviously, something was transpiring of far broader significance than the mere revoking of my individual fellowship offer.

    The salvation of the rapidly-corrupting modern university
    And, so, to the first of many reasons why I love Great Britain. Cambridge (like Oxford, from which it is descended, much as it dislikes to admit it) has a highly decentralised college structure. Both great institutions are more a loose collection of autonomous colleges, each with their own history, tradition, architecture, peculiarities of self-government, and educational aims. This arrangement allows for maximal liberty and creativity in thought and action at the most vitally important level — the local — while simultaneously enabling an optimal level of cross-college rivalry and cooperation.

    Furthermore, and most significantly, this free and loose organisational structure makes bureaucratic capture of the entire institutions extremely difficult. This, in turn, makes the rectification of mistakes, which will inevitably be made, possible and even likely. And that might just be the salvation of the rapidly-corrupting modern university, as well as everything downstream from that culture (and that is everything).

    And the rebellion at that august institution and elsewhere against the ideological forces currently threatening free discourse and inquiry in the academy is just beginning. Mark my words.

    My wife and I returned to Cambridge on November 17. I attended a number of seminars there, and delivered two public lectures (as I did a week later at Oxford, where I had also been invited to meet, speak and teach). I used these opportunities to discuss and test a proposition key to the body of thought I have been developing and communicating about for many decades: that we all perceive the world not as a set of self-evident objective material facts, but as a system of meaning, and that we do so by applying a framework which when described is a narrative: a story. I proposed further that this fact has profound — even revolutionary — implications for how we understand science and theology and for how we conceptualise ourselves, existentially, in the world.

    These ideas were markedly well received.

    I also had the great privilege of talking for several hours while at Oxford first to Sir Roger Penrose, perhaps the world’s most renowned living physicist, and then to Dr Richard Dawkins, who is rather uniquely a Fellow both of the original Royal Society (an honor bestowed upon outstanding scientists) and of the Royal Society of Literature, founded in 1820 by King George to “reward literary merit and excite literary talent.” Dr Dawkins is, as well, perhaps the world’s most famous and influential atheist.

    Dr Penrose and I (along with Dr Stephen Blackwood, who served as mediator) discussed his fascinating artistic proclivity for geometric tiling — an endeavour related, in my opinion, to the relationship between mapping a territory and the territory itself. I spoke with Dr Penrose mostly to inquire and to learn, as his knowledge roams far afield from mine, and was well-rewarded in my efforts, as our conversation literally spanned the micro- and macro-cosmic realms.

    I spoke with Dr Dawkins (after long, tentative and increasingly amicable correspondence beforehand) to clarify my ignorance of his well-defended positions, particularly in relationship to his opposition to religious belief and behavior. Suffice it to say in the latter case that we have much more to talk about. I greatly enjoyed both opportunities and will be releasing a video recording of the former and an audio of the latter in the very near future.

    I believe that these conversations went very well. I certainly found them intensely engrossing and informative. And I regard it as another great privilege and opportunity to place them online, where they will be made available to millions of avid listeners around the world. I can do that because I am a free-speaking citizen of Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth and, except for our own sporadic and inexcusable foolishness, a country shaped to the core by the English Common Law tradition.

    Furthermore, I can make those discussions and all my talks and seminars at Oxbridge available on YouTube, the technologically-revolutionary platform invented by Americans who were even at the time of their revolution and are still now in some real sense sovereign British citizens, insisting on their due and intrinsic rights.

    The power of free speech
    And what would the world be without the recognition of those rights? A stifling web of intrigue; a system of archaic dynasties; a tribal mess of clans, steeped in nepotism, warring with one another for access to the short-term exigencies of power. I realise that there are other lights in the world, apart from the UK and its subsidiaries and once-dependents, although I would argue that even the European countries that profess respect for freedom of speech and thought (in reality, fealty to the divine word, both secular and inescapably religious) have done so in no small part because of the influence of that great land.

    And the fact that Dr Dawkins and I came armed, so to speak, with radically different viewpoints and conceptions was a spur to our very productive conversation, and not an impediment. And the fact that such discussions and their dissemination are possible throughout so much of the world (rather than positively forbidden and fatally dangerous) is another one of the reasons I love Great Britain.

    My talks at both Cambridge and Oxford appeared uniformly welcomed by faculty and students alike (with a single exception: a rather courageous and comic young woman, dressed in a full-body lobster suit, who popped in during my most public talk at Cambridge to shout “feminism” and dance briefly about).

    Why was that reception so positive, uniform, and manifold, when I was apparently ignorant and malevolent enough to be banned from the campus only two short years ago? The students at Cambridge remained seated when I entered the hall just prior to my first talk, although they had lined up down the block for most of the day beforehand, while the Oxford crowd, anxious as they are not to be outdone, gave me a (overwhelmingly moving) standing ovation before I spoke there.

    I say that not in triumph, I hope, as that would be the sort of pride that deservedly invites a fall, although I might need to confess occasionally harbouring at least a quizzical smile about such things. Such a public response seems at curious odds with the idea so invidiously insisted upon that I was and am a fundamentally malign person, characterised by literally unacceptable political opinions.

    The same mode of interaction made itself evident in what were many dozens of encounters with individual students on the streets and in the colleges at Oxbridge: no fear, no disgust, no contempt, no hatred — just a series of extremely inviting, pleasant, and often surprisingly deep and intimate individual encounters with fine mostly young people, striving with all due effort upward and onward, informing me forthrightly that they were doing so.

    Perhaps an inquiring and curious journalist could discuss, among other issues, the fact of my fellowship revocation, the Regent House vote, and the positive response to my presence at Cambridge with the soon-to-depart Vice Chancellor (another Canadian — we are a pesky and intrusive lot), Prof Stephen Toope, whose precipitous retirement from the glorious UK academic and cultural scene was somewhat synchronistically timed, given the aforementioned vote and my subsequent re-invitation. Or, perhaps it could all be discussed with the tiny number of individuals, still meddling madly and unrepentantly behind the scenes, who orchestrated the whole false thing in the beginning.

    And the fact that a journalist could inquire about such things is yet another reason why I love Great Britain, with its profound commitment to the idea that the curious have the right to interrogate and investigate those who have been granted authority or usurped power.

    The people of Great Britain have granted the world a gift
    After our university sojourn — after having been granted access to the original writings of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, after attending the most beautiful imaginable choir-accompanied services at the magnificent chapels gracing both institutions, after walking down the hallowed historical halls of higher learning in a setting constantly overwhelming and remarkable for a mere colonial, accustomed to history on a much more minor scale — my wife and I were privileged to tour the British Parliament, accompanied by one of the peers of the realm.

    And she was great, if I might be so bold to say so: everything a hopeful outsider uncorrupted by the pervasive cynicism that corrupts our time might have wished for — kind, charitable, engaging, unpretentious, articulate, elegant, and possessed of that wonderful accent, bestowing upon its possessor the immediate impression of high intelligence.

    In the Palace of Westminster I stopped for a moment at the precise centre of the heart of that remarkable building and lifted my eyes upward directly under the immense chandelier suspended under the beautiful and ornate domed octagonal ceiling. I perceived then that I was standing at the base of the realisation in stone, wood, and the air itself of the Cosmic Tree, Yggdrasil itself, the liana joining heaven and earth, the object of the most ancient of sacred visions and religious transports, the very lifeline between the skies that beckon forever above and the suffering and fallen ground we tread upon.

    If I could have asked for something more to befall me at that moment it would have been the music of the divine to accompany that vision, perhaps Bach’s great third Brandenburg Concerto, although I would have settled for the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. That lobby is most certainly not the untrustworthy, corrupt and damnable site of power, dominance and oppression, but the very place where the practical redemption of a great people is continually undertaken, governed by the transcendent and necessary principle of the unalienable right to express the Logos as conscience, soul and rationality itself dictate.

    That lobby, enshrined in that Palace — that cardinal Castle of the Word — has been a very light unto the world, concretised and embodied there simultaneously in stone, tradition and living action. It is the very place where the sovereign voice of the people meets the voice of its representatives, to be carried forth into its eventual incarnation into the body of laws we separately and jointly accept, adopt and act out.

    We are all carriers of the temptation to resentment and the desire to compel and force those who disagree with our presumptions that poses an eternal threat to the integrity of our souls and our societies. We are all possessed by the attributes of the Auschwitz capo — the Gulag trusty: the willingness to turn away and to consciously deceive, and the capacity to delight in oppression and cruelty. We are each and all of us tainted by the blood that soaks our soil.

    But the people of Great Britain have granted the world a gift whose power stands in permanent opposition to our most appalling proclivities as individuals and societies. That gift is the political expression of the sanctification of the word — freedom in speech, imagination and thought: freedom to engage in the very process that builds and rebuilds habitable order itself from the chaos that eternally surrounds us. And that freedom is expressed in many ways, small and great, in the British Isles: in the wit of its people, in the effectiveness of its institutions, in the beauty of its art and literature, in the political and psychological presumptions that guide private discourse and public conception and action.

    And that is most particularly why I love Great Britain. And that is why, people of that realm (and not only of that realm), you should love her too, despite her sins, with your eyes lifted upward, your hope to the future, and the word of truth and faith on your tongues.

    I love your country.

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

    Lots of supportive comments BTL

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/love-great-britain/

    1. Perhps the tide is turning and cancellations and disinvitations were just a passing fad. At any rate he seems to have had a very positive reception.

    2. Almost enough to make me reconsider my annual donations, sadly the wokery is still rife, judging by communications sent to me.

  38. From https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-59651187
    The government is facing a showdown with its own Conservative backbenchers over the introduction of new coronavirus rules
    The plan from Downing Street includes compulsory face masks, new rules on self-isolation and the introduction of Covid passports
    Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the measures as “balanced and proportionate” in light of the new Omicron variant
    But more than 70 Conservative MPs are expected to rebel against Covid passports, which would require people to show proof of vaccination or a negative lateral flow test to enter some venues
    Labour is supporting the measures, with Sir Keir Starmer calling it a “patriotic duty” – meaning the plan is expected to pass
    The debate comes at a rocky time for Johnson, as questions over Downing Street parties and flat renovations continue to plague his premiership

  39. Prepare to bring back furlough, IMF tells Rishi Sunak
    Chancellor urged to help businesses as prospect of an omicron lockdown looms
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/14/bring-back-furlough-new-lockdown-imposed-imf-tells-rishi-sunak/

    I am beginning to think that the government’s Covid policy has the express intention of destroying small businesses and the self-employed.

    A BTL with which I can identify:

    Who will pay for it?

    Our business has been destroyed by the fat oaf Johnson : in 2020 we made a third of what we made in 2019; this year we shall have made one fifth. We cannot live on this let alone cover even our basic expenses.

    We have asked for nothing and have got nothing but perhaps, if small businesses do recover they should be exempt of tax for at least three years to repair that damage they have suffered?

    1. Rolling lockdowns, as we know, are a tool of the Great Reset, to destroy the capitalist infrastructure and bring everything under state control. It leads to poverty and starvation of course but socialists will insist that is unproven even though it’s been done many times. This time they want devastation on a global scale. Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas.

      1. These lockdowns and restrictions are also leading to the destruction of normal childhood development; reduced education and aspiration for teenagers; and worst of all, the opportunities for inceased child abuse hidden away from normal contacts with other people.

        1. 342842+ up ticks,
          Evening N,

          and worst of all, the opportunities for increased child abuse hidden away from normal contacts with other people

          In point of fact hidden by the peoples, in the case of rotherham from the decent peoples, for 16 plus years.

          1. There’s that as well, ogga, but I was thinking more of the abusive family members with the two recent cases that have come to light. The abuse of young girls by ‘Asian’ abusers goes on, lockdowns or none.

          2. You keep seeing articles in the papers…childhood obesity up, online hate and radicalisation up, domestic and child abuse up, boozing up…because of lock down apparently. What the flaming Ada do they expect?
            This government has surpassed itself in ignorance and incompetence. And the media are the tools and mouthpieces of this vile control and dehumanising campaign.

        2. And the lockdown puppies – stats show that people are buying puppies rather than have children! – but that the pups aren’t being socialised, leading to problems (and a glut of pups being given to dogs’ homes for rehoming).

          1. The sort of people who buy a puppy because they see it as a fashion accessory, and then find out it gets big and needs a lot of care which they can’t or won’t provide. Of course that applies to children as well……

  40. Whatever you think of Elon on this one he appears on side:

    Musk made the comments in an interview with TIME, which has awarded the Tesla CEO it’s person of year gong.

    Musk was asked if he was vaccinated, to which he replied “Yes. Yeah I am,” and added “I’m very pro-vaccination.”

    He clarified, “I believe the science is unequivocal, I treat it to that effect. But by the same token I am against forcing people to be vaccinated.”

    “You know I think this is just not something we should do in America. I think we should encourage people to get vaccinated, strongly try and convince them to be vaccinated, but not force them to be vaccinated,” Musk further explained.

    Or for example, force them to get vaccinated or get fired,” Musk added.

  41. If Omicron is soooooo deadly – and if we are be confined to homes again – why are all “red” counties being taken off the list?

    All a bit of a puzzle….(sarc)

    1. Hell’s teeth, how on earth do you think we can maintain a steady supply of new variants otherwise?

    2. The Government has been listening to Dr John Campbell.
      Things don’t loook that blick in Sarth Afrkka but it is worth penikking.😉

  42. ‘Night All

    We’re flucked aren’t we??

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14e391d9fade7b91bdf0b9ea9092b33bde27c38ce0297b565ecc95d0e0db8e65.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4577fff0f6fe1f51306ef2948d045ffd9568d69dd941bb7cf4c726563a4460f4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd1b60853261819b486f958809890ae312a92e7b6823124aa4c2a42af095ed16.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0843cfc3efa44f9397be143c7d82bbb7424c2596bceb689f3e6b996a51ea364.gif
    Can’t lie all feels very very depressing
    Edit
    Just seen “Clear out the hospitals into care homes and hotels” Combine that with huge orders for Midazolam and it’s going to be another murder spree to justify the NWO crackdown on money and freedom

    1. Reasons to be optimistic:
      They haven’t won yet.
      People are beginning to wake up.
      The more extreme they get, the more people wake up.
      They probably started this pandemic scam before they were completely ready, because of extreme financial pressures in the summer of 2019 (see stephenroi’s link from today)
      This means they are making mistakes, eg having a vaxx that kills too many people
      They are not unified – they have different motives
      There are more of us than there are of them.

      1. Reason to be optimistic.
        I discovered today that w/rose have pulled, slow-cooked, ham hock, ideal for boosting (current buzz-word) tinned pea & ham soup. i bought a pack to try, although it’s intended for another recipe.

        1. We used to buy smoked hocks here for soups.
          We’ve started buying rolled smoked gammon joints and boiling them instead. Far, far more meat and although the stock produced isn’t quite as good, the extra meat makes the soup more of a meal. We found that whilst the cost of the joint is higher we get much more soup for the money and it works out cheaper and better.

          1. When I was a nipper, my mother used to boil at hock. There was always a thick layer of fat around the meat, which we would eat with jacket potatoes. She used the liquor as a base for soups. Hocks these days have to much fat removed.

    2. The Midazolam season will start in earnest. I recall Johnson saying he was going to sort out the social care problem but I never expected him to do it like this.

    3. Don’t forget the depopulation agenda of Klaus Schwab, Bill G and their fellow WEFers.
      In fact not many people know that Boris, Hancock, Javid, Raab, Blair and many other UK politicians, senior civil servants etc are fully paid up members of the WEF.
      As long-time members of the WEF, our most senior figures presumably agree with the depopulation agenda to forcibly reduce the world population to <1 billion.
      I'd suggest that's grounds to investigate these people for treasonous activity.

    1. Democracy is over.
      Healthcare for all is over.
      The system will have to be re-built, and that’s not going to happen in our lifetimes.

      1. What a joke,as if any MP relies on the NHS for treatment ZIL Lane medicine for them,the gutter for us
        I hate and despise them all

        1. The private healthcare they receive will be performed by NHS doctors/consultants in the vast majority of cases.

    2. I seem to recall that in some cases home testing kits were sent out. Given what nurses need to do (and for which they have received training) in order to collect the sample, goodness knows how home testing can work.

  43. Good evening.
    A lovely warm day marred by too much running around and shopping.
    Still, a good First World problem to whinge about.

  44. Are people still flooding across the Channel each day? Just asking because yer meeja seems to have gone very quiet.

    1. They’ve been halted by yer French, waiting for a few new variants to show up in the camps, and then they’ll reopen the flood gates.

  45. I am off. Have a jolly evening. The MR has gone to a party – being happy to take a compulsory LF test to be in a room with a dozen others. Much as I would like to see them, I refuse to play the government’s games.

    See you tomorrow.

    A demain.

  46. Book your home deliveries now!
    Stock up on dried and tinned foods, go very long bog paper and sanitary pads.

    Chinese New Year is February 1st.
    All the Hong Kong “refugees” and resident Chinese will be returning after a quick home visit, laden with bumper doses of nuwhuflu.

    1. We’re ok for bog rolls, thanks. Will have to do an assessment of the food situation as we don’t do much tinned or dried.

    2. I went to buy some bog rolls the other day and the supermarket shelves were empty! Fortunately, I”m not out yet, but I’ll have to get some replacements at some time.

  47. BBC Look East

    Call for people to assist BJ’s initiative in giving BJs.
    No experience needed as BJ training will be given.

  48. A request to any military Nottlers. Our army nurse is coming to visit on Boxing day accompanied by her beau, who we haven’t met yet. He’s in bomb disposal. Any suggestions for a book for him as a present in that field of operations?

    1. Braver men walk away. Peter Gurney
      Utterly hilarious, and a great story. literally fell over laughing reading it in Milan Linate airport… the story of the mine disposal rocket and the bicycle…

      1. Ordered that, thanks. I was looking for a sort of serious book and have got ‘Bomb Disposal’ in WWII By Chris Ransted. But I’ll test the man’s sense of humour. What about wrapping your book in a parcel with a nice loud ticking alarm clock?

        1. 😀
          As long as he hasn’t brought along a disruptor and blasts the mince pies to buggery!

    2. A non military man writes:
      The anarchist’s cookbook?

      But a word to the wise, don’t buy it on-line.

      1. Cheers, Dale, but I’ve ordered now and will see how it goes. I was an RAF armourer back in ’71 ’72, but never got to even touch a bomb, thank goodness.

    3. A Blaster Bates CD that includes some of his exploits blowing up stuff around Cheshire.

      One of his favourite sayings was to the effect that you can tell if they are a good explosives man by how many fingers he has left.

    1. 98 Tory MPs voted against the government tonight, my own MP amongst them.
      Now would it churlish for me to ask the question, would they still have voted the way they did if they knew the Liebour party planned to oppose the government.
      As you can no doubt tell, my faith in politicians is zero.

  49. “I do not wear a mask, as I have a valid exemption”.
    “What’s that, then?”
    “My brain still works”.

    1. Yes, King Stephen, but that leads to anger and confrontation. Just politely say, in answer to “What’s that, then?” that your medical condition is a matter between your GP and yourself, and is nobody else’s business.

      1. In my case that would be a lie, Elsie. I’m just going to go with a brief smile and carry on shopping if I’m confronted. Then it’s down to them.

  50. Well, I’ve had an enjoyable day.
    T’Lad, our eldest, bought a hydraulic motorcycle bench from a place over in Retford, so I drove over to pick it up and dropped it off at his place in Derby.
    A very pleasant 3 hour run with fairly free moving traffic and decent weather.

    After dropping it off, I then went and did a shop at the Dancing Duck Brewery ready for Christmas.

    Hope everyone else has had a good day.

  51. Gawd, I’m knackered. Spent over half an hour trying to untangle the white twinkle lights which somehow tied themselves in reef knots while in a placky bag. Almost there but more to go.
    2 foot spruce is up and coloured lights are on- later the decos, if I have the strength. Also, some green and red garland for mantel and other tinsel to be deployed.

    Sorry if this seems trivial but I am up to my armpits with covid bollox.
    The large red mark on my right arm is bigger and another one is appearing. No, I will not go to the quack because I will not be forced into a “vaccine” that might well kill me. At my august age, I think I have the absolute right to agree to or deny any medical interventions.
    No more!!!

    1. Have you taken photos of the marks? It might be just as well, in case you need to provide evidence that you had a reaction at some point. Also a doctor appointment would provide a witness.

    2. A visit to the pharmacist, maybe. A pharmacist can prescribe hydrocortisone cream that works well on lots of skin inflammations. He would also be a professional witness if required?(

      1. Thing is, Horace, that these marks do not itch, nor are they swollen or flaky. They just appear, disappear and another couple appear. Good idea about a witness as BB suggests below but also, as BB also suggests, I shall get MH to photo the latest batch tomorrow.

        edit for rotten spelling:-(

          1. I did a little research and it seems something to do with capillaries which I didn’t really get- I am not of a scientific bent. What troubles me is that never before have I had anything like this. These began to appear after the 2nd “vaccine”. And all this talk about blood clots is not encouraging.
            A few years ago I found great happiness and I am not going to jeopardise it for some, likely unnecessary, injection.

      2. You can buy HC45 hydrocortisone cream over the counter at Boots. I use it – you only need a tiny bit. they tell you not to use it on your face but I don’t, anyway.

    3. Absolutely. I have psoriasis (and various other skin allergies) and breakouts in the past have been in the form where it manifests itself as a rash that looks superficially like chicken pox. There are differences but anyway it lasts about 3-4 weeks.
      The daughter of a work colleague has the same condition but she accepted the Pfizer jabs and now has the pox style rash on 95% of her body, with no sign of it ever fading. Her mum showed me photos.

      1. Oh – nasty! I get break-outs of rash on my legs but the HC45 cream makes it manageable and it’s not as bad as it used to be.

    4. Thirty minutes to untangle the twinkled that adorn a two foot spruce (other evergreens might be available) sounds rather excessive. BT would want to know if it was pilot or chardonnay this evening.

      Hopefully the spot is nothing serious, we don’t want you disappearing as a missed illness due to covid statistic.

      1. Now Richard, pay attention. Coloured lights on the 2 ft spruce., twinkle lights for elsewhere. However, I have given up. Going to shop tomorrow to buy two strands of coloured lights.
        I don’t like Chardonnay.

        1. Well I do like chard and it’s past 5PM so we are testing a nice 8 litre box of the stuff (guaranteed to last six months we were told).

          I put lights on a big pine tree in the front yard several years ago, just plug in and go nowadays.

    5. You could try NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine). It is a ‘food supplement’, been around for decades, helpful in removing toxins from the body. Potent antioxidant, strengthens the immune system. It has been taken off the shelves in the US this last year and is now available only on prescription in most places, but it is still widely available here. It was taken off the shelves because presumably TPTB don’t want you to escape the toxic effects, not because it was considered harmful. It comes in 500 mgms and 600 mgms capsules, I’ve mostly seen 600 mgms advised, one capsule daily. Also Vit D3 5000 IU + Vit K2 (as all one capsule). Also Dandelion Leaf tea, White Pine Needle tea, one or the other three times a day. You can buy these online, no need to go off for a day’s foraging! There is online assistance available for detoxification from the jab. I recall someone saying it was about five-six months before she saw improvement in her symptoms, so you have to persevere for a while in hope. Do please do your own research so’s you know what you are taking and that you are happy with it if you decide to go down that route.

      1. You want anti-oxidant, eat blueberries. Lots of them. Cleared Firstborn’s acne up in a couple of days about 15 years ago.

        1. Blueberries are the one thing I cannot eat! They bring me out in awful acne-like lumps on my face! I love them – it took me a long time to discover what was the problem. So yes, I quite believe they are capable of clearing acne probably in most people, some of these things have the opposite reaction on me. I am also very sensitive to homeopathic treatments, I know many people are scathing but they should see me after taking anything homeopathic. It is never the same reaction, it differs according to the preparation.

    1. Ingenious but very destructive little bastards. They pecked our fence-rails away while demanding food. Little shits, would make good MPs.

      1. 342842+ up ticks,
        Evening NtN,
        I believe that many MPs have small peckers, that is their reason for being treacherously nasty.

    2. I love the way he stood back before going in for the final push! He knew that one would topple it!

  52. BTL Comments over on the partially visible DT aren’t pulling punches e.g.:
    Vexed Bermoothes
    1 HR AGO
    Boris is a…
    C razy
    U nmitigated
    N umpty
    T yrant
    96 votes against more than covers the 50 needed for a vote of no confidence. Come on Sir Graham, cometh the hour, cometh the man.

    1. Another sad case:

      “Penelope simpson
      1 HR AGO
      Allison the Care Home madness has started again. Call from mum’s care home to the effect the authorities had instructed them to lockdown immediately because a resident who was discharged from hospital on Sun has tested positive. Everybody else in this 14 resident house is clear but they are now condemned to Christmas without seeing loved ones. The case is an end of life gentleman not expected to live more than 48 hrs and hasn’t mixed with anyone. All activities and entertainment has been cancelled and these very old souls will spend Christmas alone isolated in their rooms. Can this casual cruelty really be right? My mum is 99 and will now probably die in her chair gazing at a stuffed cat which each of the residents has been given because it ‘helps with loneliness.’ I thought we had now accepted that such draconian measures were in humane”

      1. I spoke to my 90+ y.o.MiL earlier. She’s concerned that her second only day out (this year) for lunch with all her family next Sunday is going to be cancelled. I told her if necessary we would Kidnap her to get her to the venue!

        1. Can she do a bit of thieving or bash another resident? A quick respite in jail would probably give her more freedom than care home residents can receive nowadays.

          I feel for you, it is tough to accept their hideous rules. MIL effectively spent her last months in isolation. No trips out, no entertainment, very few visitors allowed, it was hardly any kind of life

        2. Sadly, your poor MiL is probably right to be concerned. Sunday will mark a year since my MiL died in her care home. With restrictions in place in summer 2020, we weren’t even able to visit, much less take her out for the day, to celebrate her 90th birthday. I am glad she is no longer here to feel abandoned over this Christmas.

          1. Don’t know if my Mother knows it’s Christmas soon. She’s convinced she’s on a cruise, and it was the sea motion that made her fall down in the toilet… now she can’t come to the phone due to being too wobbly on her legs. I’ll have to try to book a call so she can be prepped and wheeled to it, I guess. That is, if she remembers who I am…

          2. That’s so very sad, for both you and her. A cruel disease indeed. Our late neighbour developed dementia at the age of 70. He had been an incredibly intelligent man. His decline was rapid.

      2. It is absurd. Older people in care homes need small animals about the place. Our adopted cat Paris was evicted from a care home and she is 21 years of age, frisky still and a delight.

        God only knows what happened to the other friendly cats and the parrot after some Indian family purchased the place in Halstead and banished pets. A stuffed puppet is no substitute for a real breathing loving pet. Older folk need comfort not dolls.

  53. Good night all.
    Lamb rogan josh, thick yoghurt, pilau rice with carrot & spinach.
    Ripe pawpaw.

  54. Good night, everyone, especially to Ann Allan who popped a Christmas card through my letter box today. Thanks, Annie!

  55. Today went very well .

    15 turnout for Veterans Christmas lunch , 3 absentees , one in hospital , so we were lucky to be together again , laughter , fun and chatter , and the eldest 97!

    We ate a good meal , and everyone was in good cheer and feeling brave, and they all took home a large chunk of Christmas cake that had been made for me ( with logo/crest)

    I asked if it would be okay to have a through draught , it was a mild day , drizzly , no breeze .
    No one complained , thought a few open windows was for the best , they do the same in the local schools , cross fingers it works .

    I had hugs , I couldn’t push people away , familiar expressions of affection , not infection , I hope .

    Moh did the raffle , and there were the usual boxes of chocs, and little surprises, and some one brought a bagful of huge cookers.

    The general attitude was joy at being in a group and enjoying a meal , a few are on their own at home , and well what more can I say ?

    Tomorrow was meant to be the golf club lunch , packed room and singing!!!

    Golfers have a match then prepare for lunch afterwards , wives and partners etc

    Sadly now many have cancelled lunch including us .

      1. Yes I know ,

        A hundred + or so compared to the few that we had today , and many will not have had their boosters ( younger golfers ) and the excuse being lots of singing !!!!

        I had bought a glitzy jumper and a novelty hair band , drat and double drat!

    1. IskySinging christmas carols, risky – or so they would have us believe.

      Best to stay home and listen to pop singers showing how incompetent they are by tunelessly butchering the old favorites.

    2. Glad it all went okay, Maggie. Eat drink and be merry! I’ve had a couple of conversations (yesterday and today) with people who went to the NEC to the Bike Show. They both pointed out it was a huge venue and no masks required, but they’re expected to mask up in a supermarket. I’m hoping that a bit of logic will make an appearance and people will start to question.

      1. The logic is that it will be masks everywhere again. The compliant will comply, as usual.
        Lockdown for Christmas.

        1. I said that all they had to do was say, “I’m exempt” and nobody could question them further. I hope a lot more exemptions will suddenly surface.

          1. My parents might have complied, my dad would have been 111 years old and mum 107 years old were they living and they would have taken medical advice and political decisions at face value.

            We now have a generation with no memory of the way things were in Great Britain before the scourge of Heath, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron & Clegg, May and lately Johnson.

            Those Prime Ministers have collectively and additively compounded our problems as a nation. We now have an over-managed NHS which is unable to meet targets for the most perfunctory treatments, a medical profession happy to spout dogma and lies for extra (free) money in administering expensive and dangerous jabs when other practical and cheaper alternative treatments are available. The GPs appear happy to recite the government narrative and accept the advice of the boughten ‘medico experts’ such as Fauci, Farrar, Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam to name just a few.

            Our pharmaceutical industry is out of control with improper regulation and now infecting ordinary people with an array of lethal cocktails of drugs which are of little if any benefit to the recipients but a massive money maker for them and the makers of the drugs.

            What a bloody mess. And it has occurred on our watch.

            I am with Ogga. This motley bunch of charlatan politicos need to be expunged and replaced with educated and informed people with morals and ethics.

          2. The trouble is, corim, educated and informed people with morals and ethics either don’t want to go into politics or don’t get elected if they do.

          3. At 70 in June next year I fear I am too old. In any event I have a book to write which, if published, might benefit future students of architecture. Something has to be done to counter the current education system and nonsense climate change bollox infecting my profession.

            There are parallels between the developments in the practice of my profession and those in politics generally. Both are presently on the wrong track.

            We are sentient human beings and many of us have a faith. We must not allow ourselves to be dictated to by a bunch of faithless, spiritless morons with no humanity, no empathy, no sensibilities and no sense. And no ability to analyse the supposed ‘science’ formulated by psychopaths in authority and presented as immutable fact.

          4. My parents might have complied, my dad would have been 111 years old and mum 107 years old were they living and they would have taken medical advice and political decisions at face value.

            We now have a generation with no memory of the way things were in Great Britain before the scourge of Heath, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron & Clegg, May and lately Johnson.

            Those Prime Ministers have collectively and additively compounded our problems as a nation. We now have an over-managed NHS which is unable to meet targets for the most perfunctory treatments, a medical profession happy to spout dogma and lies for extra (free) money in administering expensive and dangerous jabs when other practical and cheaper alternative treatments are available. The GPs appear happy to recite the government narrative and accept the advice of the boughten ‘medico experts’ such as Fauci, Farrar, Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam to name just a few.

            Our pharmaceutical industry is out of control with improper regulation and now infecting ordinary people with an array of lethal cocktails of drugs which are of little if any benefit to the recipients but a massive money maker for them and the makers of the drugs.

            What a bloody mess. And it has occurred on our watch.

            I am with Ogga. This motley bunch of charlatan politicos need to be expunged and replaced with educated and informed people with morals and ethics.

  56. 342842+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    What we saw in parliament during the pretend debate over the government’s latest draconian Covid measures wasn’t democracy in action but rather the ghost of a charade of a pantomime of a mockery of democracy: empty words and gestures with zero purpose because the result had already been decided long ago.

    The in-house chosen opposition 60/80/100 plus, fodder for fools knowing the result was already in.

    The part pay off will be the tory (ino) by election safe seat going to lab.

    The electorate sure have proved that political might can be obtained by supporting again political sh!te via the polling booth

    More lockdowns, more restrictions, more masks, more needless destruction of livelihoods and freedoms had always been part of The Plan, so the government with help from the Labour Opposition benches voted accordingly.

    1. 342842+ up ticks,

      Evening Rik,
      A coalition three decades plus years in the making, fair play to ALL lab/lib/con supporter / voters their continuing input
      has now come to fruition, in spades.

  57. Evening, all. Forgive me if I don’t clap for the NHS; I’ve just wasted a morning driving 20 odd miles to a clinic to be told that a treatment I’ve had before which worked is no longer available unless I’m prepared to pay £2k for it and repeat it every 6 months. To add insult to injury, I was on time, but was kept waiting 40 minutes for my appointment.

    1. That is terrible Conway. Can you take legal action (duty of care), your mp, useless b’st’rds that they are, your GP?

      1. I don’t have an MP until Thursday! I haven’t seen my GP since my original surgery closed and it was amalgamated with another (about 18 months ago).

  58. I am still waiting for the cost benefit analysis showing the weighting of the government’s Corona measures against simply returning to normal.

    I suspect that having started digging an immense deep hole for themselves the advocates of this Covid medical tyranny are too scared to end the shitshow. After all to stop the jabbies and frankly stupid mandates would be an admission that they have been wrong all along. We can’t have Boris and chums admit they were mistaken can we? That admission would be for real men, not fat dissolute pretenders.

  59. 342842+ up ticks,

    Bit late in the day to begin the “Beginning” but I have a horrible feeling the reverse to good health & welfare is about the take off in a serious manner.

    Currently the sides have been laid out quite clearly as
    lab/lib/con coalition members / voters against the remaining decent peoples, the state of these Isles is such neighbour will be fighting neighbour.

    We are at this moment in time when jaw,jaw, has run out of time and war,war is fast entering the fray.

    Half a decade ago views such as this would be seen as insane, have now become reality.

  60. Omicron mathematical model V3.0

    Version 1.0 – exponential model of Omicron replication at doubling every two days
    Version 2.0 – Pendleton adjustment to include effect on population
    Version 2.1 – replication rate set to double every 1.5 days in line with HoC statement
    Version 3.0 – boundary conditions set for day 37 to stop population going negative. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c99db30a872bd94a16f9da66a1c4b9fe5f3cbc85565bc305f1de98575e3b083.jpg

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