Tuesday 15 October: Potential investors in Britain will be put off by Labour’s flagship policies

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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615 thoughts on “Tuesday 15 October: Potential investors in Britain will be put off by Labour’s flagship policies”

    1. Strange that, Made in Britain. Only yesterday it was Monday and I remember wondering what today would be. Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Or as Kamala Harris would say, "Today is Tuesday. When you go outside, it's also Tuesday, because Tuesday is the day after Monday."

          1. Except in Samoa. If you go fishing then if you go one way and it's Monday, it becomes Tuesday, and if you go the other way and it's Tuesday, it becomes Monday.

          2. Date Line
            On Wednesday 22nd September last year I left San Francisco just before midnight to fly west across the Pacific to Brisbane. I landed at 06:40 on Friday 24th, only 13 hours 45 elapsed minutes later, having crossed the International Date Line and lost Thursday 23rd September from my life completely. Funny old world.

  2. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's NoTTLe site. PS – four possible answers for today's Wordle; I chose the wrong one.

    Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

    1. Good morning Elsie
      Yes, today's wordle is a feast of different possibilities whichever way you come at it!
      Wordle 1,214 6/6

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

    1. Hi OLT – looks like you are shivering!

      EDIT: your earlier post looked like you were shivering.

  4. Good Morning All – Budget's getting Closer
    Today's Tale
    A homeless deadbeat approached the well-dressed businessman and begged money for a meal.
    “Have a cigarette,” said the businessman.
    “No, I don’t smoke.”
    “Then come in the bar and let me buy you a drink.”
    “No, I don’t drink.”
    “Here, then, let me give you this lottery ticket.”
    “No thanks, I don’t gamble. All I want is some money for a meal.”
    The businessman thought for a moment. “I can do better than that. Come home with me and my wife will cook you the best meal you’ve ever had.”
    “Wouldn’t it be easier if you gave me the money?” said the derelict.
    “Yes,” replied the businessman, “but I want to show my wife what happens to a man who doesn’t smoke, drink or gamble.”

    1. Tell them to reimburse the UK for the costs of stopping slavery! While we are at it, how about reparations from the Caribbean countries to the families of all the RN sailors who died on anti slavery patrols??

      1. When the French moved out of their colonies they took everything they could wiith them.

        Perhaps that is what the UK should do – remove all the infra-structure as well as portable things and encourage people to return to the lands their forbears lived in before Wilberforce and the Royal Navy stopped the slave trade.

    2. Any reparations should include all the relatives of those who were enslaved returned to their country of origin.

  8. Good morning all.
    Still dark, but looks overcast and not raining. 5°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    We can see it and foreign investors can see it, so why can't the Government see it?

    SIR – Last week I had a meeting with the UK branch of an international company that wants to invest in Europe (“PM’s tax on jobs ‘will scare away investors’”, report, October 14).

    The UK has been ruled out in recent years because of the cost of labour and electricity, and so the investment goes to other Western European countries.

    With the Government increasing the cost of the labour and making our energy the most expensive in Europe in its drive to lead the world on climate policy, what chance do we have?

    Chris Lewis
    Widnes, Cheshire

    1. There must be plenty of evidence available that the policies being proposed by this government do not work to improve the lot of the people and of the Country. Either the government is incompetent beyond measure or there is something else going on. Whatever the reason the answer Chris Lewis's question is: we're very deep in the proverbial.

    2. The objective is a Disunited Kingdom (DK) as a junior member of the European Oligarchy (EO) ruled by Those What hAve the Wherabouts (TWATS).

  9. Ellie Reeves Dodges Questions on Lord Alli in Freebiegate Hypocrisy Row

    Ellie Reeves has ‘updated’ the Commons on rule changes Labour is pursuing in the ongoing freebiegate scandal. Reeves blames the Tories for an anodyne discrepancy between ministerial declarations and MP declarations…

    Reeves says the government will close Tories’ “freebie loophole” with a new version of the register of ministers’ gifts and hospitality – to function on a “broadly equivalent” basis to the MP register. The ministerial register is only different in that the value of gifts is not declared and it is published every quarter as opposed to every fortnight. Altering that system does nothing to address Labour’s rank hypocrisy over months of freebies revelations…

    Seeing as the Tories managed to get an Urgent Question in Shadow Paymaster General John Glen asked Reeves for a few clarifications, including:

    Will ministers be banned from taking tickets to the Oasis 25 tour?

    What role did Downing Street play in the VIP escort further to the free tickets for Taylor Swift from Universal Music?

    Have all the political staff in the PM’s parliamentary office correctly declared their financial interests and hospitality?

    Why do ministers refuse in PQs to say when the new ministerial transparency platform will go live?

    Will the PM recuse himself from the Football Governance Bill after taking a donation in kind of £100,000 a year from Arsenal Football Club?

    Where is Labour’s new ethics and integrity commission?

    What discussions did Sue Gray have with Lord Alli on ministerial appointments and public appointments?

    Will ministers place in the library all the documents relating to Lord Alli’s operational integrity?

    Reeves launched on the Tories in response and said she’d “take no lectures” as Labour backbenchers are rolled out to list historic Tory freebie-taking. Pressed on Swiftgate, Reeves stuck to the line that the top-level security motorcade was an “operational matter” for the police, despite the fact that the Attorney General, Mayor of London, Sue Gray, and the Home Secretary all personally got involved in lobbying the Met. Labour’s lines on the latest freebiegate scandal are going as well as all the last ones…

    14 October 2024 @ 16:46

  11. Morning, all Y'all.
    Sunny, but heavy frost. Much scraping of car windscreens before leaving for the station.

  13. Small Nuclear Reactors
    In 2005 we visited one of my sons who was studying for his MBA at the Sloan Business School in Boston – part of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Walking between his student apartment and MIT we passed a large white object on the roadside (pictured). I asked what it was, and was told it was MIT's Nuclear Reactor, right in the middle of the campus. It is part of the MIT Nuclear Research Group and deemed to be safe enough for mid-town use.
    I suppose this is like the many nuclear reactors in submarines and warships which are surrounded by sailors, submariners and marines and safe enough to live with.

    Any thoughts?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e418e0ffe8c265757243f86036110c146a2c7238329182e16374c0e29781fd8c.jpg

      1. Don't get me going on Mosques. On the campus of the University of Kent, a large private house was sold over a decade ago and converted into the Canterbury Mosque (early photo during initial conversion). It stands 240 feet (73 metres) on top of a hill overlooking Canterbury Cathedral. I have always thought this was a bit of an "up yours" statement.
        Anyway, for a couple of years now it has been being enlarged again, with another dome-topped tower at the other end, and it has planning permission for the whole front of the building to be clad with a shiny stainless steel panel with perforated patterns cut into it. Who knows where the worshippers will park on Fridays on what is a narrow road?
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0a0ca3405a5813ad6af1ea4673766d063253a9a241fa69c2852f24ee862e3d9.jpg

        1. Canterbury, a cathedral city in southeast England, was a pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages. Ancient walls, originally built by the Romans, encircle its medieval centre with cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. Canterbury Cathedral, founded 597 A.D., is the headquarters of the Church of England and Anglican Communion, incorporating Gothic and Romanesque elements in its stone carvings and stained-glass windows.

          One would have thought that Canterbury was such an area of special historic value that usurper Muslims would not have been given permission to desecrate the view .

        3. " I have always thought this was a bit of an "up yours" statement."

          I'm pretty sure that in the Arabic Middle East no churches (if they are allowed at all) are allowed to have a taller building elevation than the local mosque. Islam must always be seen as the superior religion, even in the height or location of the buildings.

        5. Shah Jahan mosque was the first mosque in Enland (1889). It is said that, during the building, they discovered it wasn't facing Mecca so they had to tear it down and start again. Made me chuckle. But it is actually quite a beautiful building; but don't try parking in the nearby shopping centre on a Friday morning – feels like you are in Pakistan or something!

      1. Well done! That's remarkably accurate. 9/10! The heavy water reactor heats 'normal' water to a gaseous state and a turbine produces 6MW of leccy.

    3. The UK should have started building them – SNRs – decades ago. They are 'clean' and we have the technology.

    4. Get building a network here then we can fell the windmills and smash the solar panels. In the meatime dig, frack and drill while we wait.

    5. There was a small experimental reactor owned by (I think) Liverpool University at Risley near Warrington where I used to work in the 80s. It was surrounded by houses and nobody complained.

    6. In the 1950s-60s Britain led the world with its use of nuclear power. But once again our political classes had better ideas. And the results are more than obvious.

    7. These might be the answer but Madman Miliband does not want solutions which might work!

  15. Not even Labour can rescue the NHS from imminent disaster. 15 October 2024.

    It has been the consensus for some time that only Labour can save the NHS from oblivion. The story goes that Conservatives possess neither the confidence nor the credibility to push through reform. Which is hardly surprising, given they have been relentlessly criticised for “selling off the NHS” or allowing people to languish on waiting lists through “underinvestment”.

    Like the passengers in a disaster movie we are on a plane where the crew are dead and no one else has any idea how to fly.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/14/labour-budget-reeves-nhs-political-control/

    1. If the NHS is to implode I hope it happens well before the end of the Labour government but at a point that it is too late for them to recreate it as a near mirror image.

    2. Translation: if the Cons tried to reform the NHS, Labour would intentionally destroy all constructive efforts by screaming sentimental blue murder.

  16. 'Morning one and all, especially, Geoff, and a big thank you to him for all his sterling efforts on our behalf.

  17. Good Moaning.
    A fun day ahead.
    Running around in the gloom, buying clothes for Elderly Chum plus also visiting her.
    The excitement is just too, too much.

  19. Michael Deacon gives an example of a Cameltoe Harris word salad.
    What the heck did she put in the dressing? Had the tomatoes fermented?

    “I think it’s very important for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualise it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”

    6. 'Morning, Annie and Peeps.

      This kind of crap-speak involves much brainwashing and the employment of an army of hideously expensive PR types to carry it out. Some may choose to call them professional liars (shirley nott?). But apart from generating a lot of hot air and, no doubt adding greatly to the 'climate catastrophe' that is about to engulf just this poor country, they are all good at one thing and one thing only – style over substance. FreeGearKeir was bigging up his silly little summit (prob held at no little cost) yesterday evening. I only lasted a couple of mintues before thinking seriously about launching something big and heavy at the TV. If it has achieved anything at all it shows that Liebore spin, developed extensively by Bliar and his former porn writer (the utterly odious Campbell) is still with us – the re-announcement of previous announcements featuring heavily..

      One thing is certain: when they say they are going to grow the economy what they always mean is growing the already bloated state with yet more non-jobs and higher taxes to pay for them.

      One of our sons is self-employed, and employs one other. He was bemoaning what Rachel Thieves is going to do to his business. My wholly sympathetic response was "Told you so!' Yes, he voted for this shower despite my warnings. Oh dear…

  20. Morning all.

    Free Speech is running an article by Nanumaga to mark the passing of Alex Salmond with a reminder of the mess he left in regard to the ongoing ferry farce, which has had a seriously adverse effect on Scottish Islands and the public purse in a tale of epic incompetence, and possibly worse.

    Please read it and leave a comment.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  21. Kamala Harris is now in serious trouble… and here’s how you can tell

    Her desperate avoidance of serious scrutiny shows that she and her team are in full-on panic mode

    Michael Deacon Columnist
    15 October 2024 7:00am BST

    The owner of Time – America’s best-selling news magazine – isn’t terribly happy with Kamala Harris. “Despite multiple requests,” complained Marc Benioff yesterday, “Time has not been granted an interview with Kamala Harris – unlike every other presidential candidate. We believe in transparency… Why isn’t the vice president engaging with the public on the same level?”

    Since he asks, I think the reason is obvious. She, and her aides, are now in full-on panic mode.

    The fact is that, after three months, Ms Harris has still done hardly any serious interviews – instead favouring chummy lifestyle podcasts and liberal comedians’ chat shows, on which she can treat audiences to the sound of her delightful laughter. This strongly suggests that she, or her aides, or possibly both, think she simply couldn’t cope with a proper interrogation about her record as VP, and certain views she’s expressed in the past (for example, that tax-payers should be made to fund sex-change ops for prisoners and illegal immigrants). They must be terrified that, under pressure, she’d blow her already faltering campaign.

    But if the US public has picked up on this trembling fear of scrutiny, she’s doomed anyway. Because if her own team don’t have confidence in her, why should voters?

    Still, look on the bright side. Time’s owner may be annoyed. But its readers must be relieved. Because now they won’t be forced to wade through page after page of her garbled, vacuous, pseudo-profound wittering.

    This is, after all, the woman who once said: “I think it’s very important for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualise it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”

    Thanks for that, TS Eliot.

    Keir Starmer is killing comedy
    Labour’s plans for employment rights will mean you could be barred from your local pub for “inappropriate” humour – such as telling a sexist joke. Obviously this is chilling news for ordinary drinkers. But they’re not the only ones who should be worried.

    It’s also a nightmare for the TV producers who, earlier this month, announced that they’re preparing a British remake of Cheers.

    They already had their work cut out, trying to replicate the magic of one of the most popular sitcoms ever created. Once the Government has imposed anti-banter laws on pubs, however, their job will be impossible.

    In the very first episode, Norm will have to be permanently barred for his deeply unchivalrous jokes about his wife. (“We’re not exactly what each other wants in a sexual partner, you know? For example, she wishes I looked a little more like Charles Bronson. And I wish she looked a little less like Charles Bronson.”)

    Equally, Carla the barmaid will have to be sacked for her non-stop mockery of her colleague Diane’s figure. (Diane: “He insists on making mountains out of molehills.” Carla: “He wants you to wear a padded bra?”)

    Meanwhile, Sam the randy landlord will have to be arrested for constantly making inappropriate passes at his female staff. (Rebecca: “Sam, why are you so desperate to see my sister and I make up? I mean, what is it to you? Is this another stupid ploy to get me into bed?” Sam: “Rebecca, don’t be ridiculous, I’m thinking of both of you.”)

    By the end of episode one, the pub will have no customers or staff, and be out of business. But then, since that’s the way most pubs are going, at least the show will be realistic.

    The Lineker line
    Nowadays, thanks to the miracle of social media, we’re all able to benefit from Gary Lineker’s latest opinions on the key issues of our time – and we don’t even have to pay for the privilege. We really should be more grateful. Because previous generations, it would seem, weren’t quite so fortunate.

    A retro football account on Twitter – the digital pulpit from which we now receive Gary’s sermons – has posted an advert from an April 1990 issue of Shoot! magazine. And the ad boasted a most enticing offer.

    “GARY LINEKER SPEAKS OUT!” claimed the ad’s heading, above a beaming photo of Gary, who in those days was England’s hottest striker. “You can call him each day on 0898…” According to the small print, calls were charged at either 25p a minute (cheap rate) or 38p a minute (peak rate).

    I’m sorry to say that, as a young football fan in the spring of 1990, I was unaware of this valuable service. But even if I’d seen the ad, I’m not sure whether my pocket money would have covered the cost of the daily calls. So I’ll just have to imagine the sort of messages I might have heard.

    “The poll tax? Honestly, it’s like something out of 1930s Germany. Mrs Thatcher? Honestly, she’s like something out of 1930s Germany. The Berlin Wall? Honestly, it was like…”

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

    Zeno the Stoic
    13 min ago
    Kamala shows definite tendencies towards the keir Starmer method. Don’t have a manifesto, don’t say anything about what you’ll do if elected, just keep on about how the alternative is awful.
    Remains to be seen whether the American public are as gullible as the British.

    1. Whenever I read the words, Kamala Harris, I cannot stop myself thinking of Cuddles the Monkey and Orville the Duck!

    2. Kamala Harris may be thick, but at least she is consistent.

      Her opponent is not stupid, but is a loose cannon and like Israeli precision heavy artillery, nobody knows who is the next innocent to be blown up. Mind you, the law of probability does mean he will get the right target from time to time, whereas Kamala never will.

  22. SIR – Last week I had a meeting with the UK branch of an international company that wants to invest in Europe (“PM’s tax on jobs ‘will scare away investors’”, report, October 14).

    The UK has been ruled out in recent years because of the cost of labour and electricity, and so the investment goes to other Western European countries.

    With the Government increasing the cost of the labour and making our energy the most expensive in Europe in its drive to lead the world on climate policy, what chance do we have?

    Chris Lewis
    Widnes, Cheshire

  23. 94750+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Many are bone idol sick, NOT bleeding stupid, plus home is HOME not a work place in many cases, when office work places are provided.

    Maybe the jab will be seen by many as a threat more so than an incentive to work and is a WEF / NWO anti workforce campaign.

    Things are currently so unstable thanks to the spite instead RIGHT type voter that this could be viewed as another facet
    of leveling up culling.

    https://x.com/SandraWeeden/status/1846072045844529476

      1. 394740+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,
        I do believe that the anti jabbers or for the Irish, bejabbers, NOW have the edge on the many defects via the jab and whatever
        consequence, self asses.

    2. The men being brought across the channel are unemployable and will use the NHS but they’re not fat and won’t be jabbed.

      1. Shame our idiots haven't taken anything as obvious into account.
        The worrying activities and lack of actions of Wastemonster will prove to have been an absolute disaster. Which is not unusual.
        Crime is already rising faster than they can cope with.

      2. 394750+ up ticks,

        Morning SE,
        I know that you know that but many must judge and reason it out for themselves.
        In my book we are giving consent via the polling stations to importing lean mean fighting machines, as seen by some braking ranks premitually and murdering,raping and abusing.

        The main event is yet to
        come…… shortly.

  24. When is a Govt proscribed terrorist.. a terrorist in Sadiq Khan's sub-state?

    Well depends you see, everything is on a spectrum. Your opinion is your opinion. Everyone's opinion is equally valid.. except of course faaaar right hate spreading silent Christians in prayer.

    Met Police officers 'refuse to acknowledge Hezbollah are terrorists' and tell passerby 'your opinion is your opinion'..

    1. It's not an "opinion", the Government has defined Hezbollah as a forbidden organisation.

      Why the Met. Police refuse to accept this legal ruling I have no idea.

    2. Yes that's good, now that we can have opinions freely expressed, sanctioned by the Met. Does this mean they'll no longer be turning up to people's doorsteps to book them for hurty hate speech any longer? Think I can guess the answer to that one.

  25. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11c0078126320342bf4b2830952c92139e02c7671445e8151b08047660e31e57.png
    Splitting paperbacks

    SIR – Like Andrew Roberts (Comment, October 12), I take an interest in the format and binding of books. Thick paperbacks are undoubtedly uncomfortable to read. They do not open flat and often shed pages (though the spine glues are improving).

    My solution was to split paperbacks down the spine into two or three sections, reinforce the spine and rebind into new volumes. I learnt to do this many years ago at an evening bookbinding club in Leeds run by a binder called Richard Maunsey. I doubt such evening activities can still be found, depending as they do on the good will of people like Richard.

    Norman Defoe
    Fordyce, Banffshire

    Why cut up a book? I made this little clamp device out of an offcut of Douglas Fir. I simply clamp it around a few pages, near the spine, and it opens the book up neatly.

      1. They say that even those studying English at Oxford cannot cope with having to read long books.

        Maybe all novels should be legally obliged to have fewer than 100 pages in them!

        1. Morning Richard ,

          Thick paperbacks to me are huge unmanageable tomes , probably the size and thickness of the old telephone directories and more.

          I can cope with reading books with hundreds of pages , most modern paperback novels written these days are absolute drivel .

          The theme of a book has to be interesting and informative .. Most modern fiction these days are mind junk , detritus to the brain and destructive.

          Of course, opinions will differ.

        4. I once entered a competition to write a story in no more than 100 words. It was challenging but fun.

          1. I used to read a story aloud which I knew my "O" level class would enjoy and asked them for prep to retell the story in 500 words.

            In class the following day I asked them to retell the story in no more than 150 words; then in 50 words; and finally in just one sentence.

            It was quite an effective way of getting my class to think about précis writing.

            (A story I often used was Somerset Maugham's short story: The Facts of Life – I have never come across a schoolboy who didn't enjoy it.)

          2. My 100-word story:

            On the Edge

            Terrified, my white knuckles clung to the ice-rink rail. A middle-aged ice virgin, my colleagues laughingly advised: “Skate on the edge of the blades, not the rink!” Eyes tightly shut I launched myself off the rail; within seconds, my backside then elbows and head crunched into the ice. Agony and dizziness. When my sight returned before a whirring of shocking pink, a tiny girl metamorphosed between my gangling limbs. She suggested: “Stay on your feet, sir, it’s easy.” We had achieved an asymmetrical harmony: mini Sonja Henie executed a perfect camel spin … I skated like a camel.

            ©2009 Grizzly.

        5. Argh!! There's nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a first chapter thoroughly satisfied by excellent writing, then feeling the heft of the remainder of the book and looking forward to hours' more pleasure.

        1. How I lament the passing of the telephone directory.

          Used to be one in every telephone KIOSK (not 'phone booth')

  26. SIR – If Sir Keir really wishes to replace portraits at No10 with ones that focus on “strong and courageous women”, then he should re-hang the portrait of Margaret Thatcher.

    Paula Spurrier
    Eversley Cross, Hampshire

    SIR – Was Queen Elizabeth I not a strong woman?

    Anne Langley
    Wolverhampton

    Indeed she was, Annie. ("I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too…"). However, she was never a prime minister.

    1. A lot of people seem to have the impression that Starmer has quite a lot of hidden issues.

      1. Yes, I call them problems, his biggest problem is that he’s a nitwit who thinks he can tax us into prosperity.

    2. If only portraits of prime ministers can be hung (as it were) then there are only three possibilities : Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Elizabeth Truss and only one of them qualifies as strong and courageous.

    1. There is some speculation that vaccines could be playing a role in the obesity crisis, but I haven't seen a smoking gun yet. Still, that's standard government policy isn't it – when something doesn't work, apply more of it, because clearly the wonderful policies just weren't implemented hard enough.

      1. For decades now the powers that be have been promoting seed oils and carbohydrate based low fat diets which will inevitably cause obesity. Competitive sport is demonised in the state school system too since it inevitably creates losers. So they sit on their fat arses glued to their hand held computers and cultivate their ignorant narcissism. Wots not to luv.

        1. There is empirical evidence everywhere you look that proves, categorically, that eating such shit (as well as being a vegan) increases obesity and stupidity by incalculable amounts.

      2. More likely to be diet, excess carbs and processed food, along with not enough exercise or manual labour, combined with lack of opportunity to earn enough £££ to afford healthy food.

      3. More likely to be diet, excess carbs and processed food, along with not enough exercise or manual labour, combined with lack of opportunity to earn enough £££ to afford healthy food.

      4. Listen to this James Delingpole podcast with Sasha Latipova. A former Pharma industry exec, she thinks vaccines are responsible for nearly all of the common ailments that have been on the rise, not just autism. Hay fever – vaccines. IBS – vaccines. Peanut allergy, in fact nearly all allergies – vaccines.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9b064c8c53c6e2865bf1e21dea76eb38c61554cabe555300bde8b7d6e4e6cab.png
        https://substack.com/home/post/p-148995477

        1. I’ve heard that one – it was very good. She highlights the effect of foreign bodies being injected into babies’ bloodstreams.

    2. First Kill All The Fatties!

      (The great success of the Covid jabs in killing unwanted people has shown us the way!)

    3. Who in their right mind would accept an inoculation from this or any government?

      Will "Safe and Effective" be brought back into play in an attempt to convince people to accept the offer?

      Jab mania, the cure-all!

        1. "

          "No jab – no job"
          Imagine you are employed by the NHS as a hospital doctor, you are of foreign origin and happen to be the main breadwinner in your family, and that's the ultimatum you were offered. I know someone who had the courage to say 'no thanks'; fortunately the panic-demic ended and re-employment was offered.

      1. He is definitely 'one of them'. He has been engaged to his 'fiancé ', Joe Dancy, for about twelve years. Dancey is a political activist and assisted Sebastian Coe at the London 2012 Olympics, and was responsible for looking after then-Prime minister David Cameron.

    5. Brilliant news, surely? Personally I'm looking forward to Wes Streeting, along with many other lards on the green benches attending surgery for their jabs. "We are all in this together". "Save our NHS".

      The taxpayer should be told when they attend so that we can note who's doing their public duty.

      1. When Streeting and his friends discus injections they are talking about their shared recreational activity, nothing to do with Covid jabs and flu!

        1. Whenever Streeting and friends talk it’s only to regurgitate puerile socialistic ideas generated in their 6th Form days. So yes, that’s probably right.

  28. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper reconsidering an application for British Citizenship by a mystery former founding member of proscribed terror group of the Arab Spring uprising.

    One of many. Could be another Khairi Saadallah.. nice chap.. met him at a stabbing once in Reading.

    1. That picture should come with a trigger warning. Our society is sick when bullies like her flourish at the expense of honest people.

  30. Good morning, all. Overcast with drizzle at the moment.

    The current VPOTUS/Democrat candidate is attracting a great deal of criticism and ridicule on social media. Here are three but there are many more and a few that are too distasteful to display here.
    https://x.com/wdunlap/status/1845885165073322257
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e530ad5467f23ef33fa04522907d4e12523c616d9d35fa20b04d50d3dd64451a.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c33f33315b26b3878e5b80a015e74abd0e5aa6b610f5366623e58e9d69beac7c.png

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Misty murky and damp. Not pleasant.
    Unless someone is going to take the trouble of explaining what our 'plotical classes' are trying to achieve, I can't see our financial structure surviving beyond 30 more decades. As the 'They' are robbing the elderly already and there will be less of them to rob as time goes on.
    And already paying out through their dwindling pockets the working tax payer's will become the poor as the government keeps importing more scrounging inappropriate's who do absolutely nothing at all. Except creat a huge financial black hole. And will do absolutely nothing because the idiots have shut down our main industries. And so it will go on. Our over populated small island will be stuffed full of penniless starving people because of lack of simple common sense.
    Let's be honest our political classes couldn't run a bath. And it seems that they have set out to provide the proof.

    1. I read a prophecy the other day (I know, I know!) that the Bank of England and their little pawns in government (c. Liz Truss) will engineer wave after wave of inflation to inflate the debt down, so we'll be looking at a couple of decades of stagflation, people progressively getting poorer if their wealth is tied up with the financial system.

      Another thing I heard on the grapevine – allegedly from someone in a European bank – was that they reckon the euro will last at least twelve more years. Twelve seems a suspiciously precise number…that would take us to 2036. End of WWIII? Make of that what you will!

  32. SIR – As a Conservative voter, I do not oppose every policy decision taken by the Labour Government. As a Londoner, I see the centre of my city pretty much entirely under the ownership of wealthy foreigners. Enormous swathes of housing, numerous football teams and many restaurants are owned by rich families with no major connections to Britain. London now feels like Manhattan – a millionaires’ playground.

    Do I care that Labour’s policies will drive wealthy people away from my city? No, I do not. Restaurant prices have become astronomical. The cost of taking a family to a football match is prohibitive. “Trickle-down theory” is exactly that – a theory, with scant empirical evidence to support it. Very little of this lauded wealth is making it through to ordinary British people.

    Louis Altman
    London SW17

    Take your rose tinted sunglasses off , sir .

    Poole in Dorset , especially the Sandbanks area is a millionaires’ playground.

    Dare I suggest lots of money , and mostly bad money.

    1. The Palace of Westminster is a millionaires' playground and their theft from the public purse continues apace. London isn't suffering from foreign wealth at the top. It's suffering from imported crime at the bottom.

      1. The letter writer's home address, SW17, is on the outskirts of Streatham, scarcely central London. That area was already populated with "wealthy foreigners" (code for BAME people) before he was born (in 1978).

    3. entirely under the ownership of wealthy foreigners.

      A quick reminder.
      If you insist.. as you do in the UK.. in perpetually swapping engravings of HM The King for white goods & energy, month in-month out.. you leave the recipents of those engravings two choices: stash em in a box and bury in the ground, or spend in the UK.
      Most (now) wealthy foreigners armed with these engravings prefer to buy up the best assets, rather than watch their £s wither away.

      These are the rules of "floating exchange rates" in deindustrialised countries with free capital movement.
      Question: Would you prefer it if all those Qatar UAE owned malls were demolished and reverted back to bomb sites of the 70s?

      1. 36% of London is white British. It is not our city anymore, your complaint is pointless.

    4. entirely under the ownership of wealthy foreigners.

      A quick reminder.
      If you insist.. as you do in the UK.. in perpetually swapping engravings of HM The King for white goods & energy, month in-month out.. you leave the recipents of those engravings two choices: stash em in a box and bury in the ground, or spend in the UK.
      Most (now) wealthy foreigners armed with these engravings prefer to buy up the best assets, rather than watch their £s wither away.

      These are the rules of "floating exchange rates" in deindustrialised countries with free capital movement.
      Question: Would you prefer it if all those Qatar UAE owned malls were demolished and reverted back to bomb sites of the 70s?

    1. If he is a man it's a long time ago, the basket ball team refer to a woman.

      Wilson, a former Georgetown University basketball player, was remembered by her former school in an Instagram post.

      'Georgetown women's basketball mourns the tragic loss of Sydney Wilson (C'13). Forever a Hoya.'

    2. Does not appear to be 6' 5" tall, but still well built.
      Boomtown Rats: "The silicon chip inside her head
      Gets switched to overload…"

    4. Only a baby. Get into primary school here. Don't try it with a regular sized American!

    1. Gawd.. are the progressive loonies still pursing this nonsense, even after the spectacle of the women beatings at The Olympics.

      This is what the Lefties/#HopeNotHate cling onto.. the old "ah but he IS a woman, it's law, look here it's in black & white on his passport." And if you say otherwise this fat policeman will arrest you, it's the law.. it's the law.
      You're spreading HATE. Lidderally committing gennycider.

      1. All this nonsense was put to bed by Developmental biologist Dr. Emma Hilton one of the foremost experts in sex two months ago.

        Ban her. defund her. kill her. #HopeNotHate

    2. The expression 'silly burk' was most likely derived from the Cockney rhyming slang 'Berkeley Hunt'.
      PS as I am sure you were aware.

      1. 394750+ up ticks

        Morning T5,
        Truisms in the main.
        I cannot say ” wotcha cock”
        without having a vision of
        “anthony charlie lynton ” on a park toilet cottaging mission.

      2. True: berk (n.)
        "fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for c*nt; typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part.

    3. The expression 'silly burk' was most likely derived from the Cockney rhyming slang 'Berkeley Hunt'.
      PS as I am sure you were aware.

    5. The French always make jokes about the stupidity of Belgians. For example : when a house agent was showing a young couple around a house he opened a cupboard door and a corpse fell out. The house agent was unperturbed and said it was clearly the body of a Belgian who was playing Hide and Seek and won.

      And in the same way the supposed stupidity of the Irish was often a theme in English jokes.

      Does this clip encourage us to relinquish or keep this stereotyping?

  35. OT – Cat news. Gus went bananas yesterday when he realised he couldn't go out. Sat by each of the doors leading out and miaowed piteously. He is still at it today but less so – I think the anti-inflammatory has a bit of a soporific effect. Anyway, he sleeps all day normally – so the cries for help will come later… He was not helped by his brother coming in from the porch (as usual) and telling him about his outdoor adventures last night!

    If only one could explain to animals that what is being done "to" them is in their best interests….(sighs).

    1. If only one could explain to animals that what is being done "to" them is in their best interests….(sighs).

      You are a Labour politician and I claim a tax refund.

    4. And the same goes for those who are at the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and his mental and physical decline get worse each day. Jim, our Irish 89 year old friend has been admitted to an excellent nursing home. Caroline is an administrating angel to him but he is like a naughty little schoolboy, he never tells the truth if he thinks he can get away with a lie and refuses to use his walker and keeps falling over. He is secretive and extremely devious and exasperates all those good sould who are trying to do their best for him.

  36. 394750 up ticks,

    Does this bring out from under cover of the viaducts this countries rough sleeping veterans, or will it be a case of "let sleeping dogs of war, lie".

    Government could allow 500 elite Afghan soldiers who fought Taliban to settle in Britain
    Many veterans were turned down after the fall of Kabul because there was no direct evidence of service

    On the bent credit side they could always continue their fight in England, such is the state of the state currently, that I believe no one would notice.

    1. Let them and many hundreds of thousands of others, put their own (countries) houses in order.
      As our parents and grandparents did after ww2.
      Only then to be later let down by politicians.

      1. 394750+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        And, these last four decades supported by family tree voters.
        Vote for great grand dads party
        WHATEVER the usually odious.
        consequence.

        1. Yes but something very odious has kept into our own political system.
          After fiddling with our treason act
          B Liar left a message for his following nasties. And still it goes on. “I’ve ckeared the way, Do what you like”.

  37. Guardian Apologises For Review Which Complained Hamas Terrorists Are “Demonised”

    The Guardian has finally apologised for putting up a review of the documentary One Day in October which included such choice commentary as:

    “If you want to understand why Hamas murdered civilians, though, One Day in October won’t help. Indeed, it does a good job of demonising Gazans, first as testosterone-crazed Hamas killers, later as shameless civilian looters, asset-stripping the kibbutz while bodies lay in the street and the terrified living hid… Hamas terrorists are a generalised menace on CCTV, their motives beyond One Day in October’s remit.”

    After backlash last week the paper took the review down. Now it says sorry:

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/review-apology.jpeg?resize=621%2C720&ssl=1
    A collective failure of process indeed…

    1. Freakybacon
      1h
      Was this mealy mouthed apology given the same exposure as the initial article? Obviously not. The lie is halfway round the world before the truth has it's shoes on.

      TSEight
      54m
      "A collective failure of process," better known as "We let our mask slip and showed our true vile nature".

    2. "…for any offence caused." Yeah right. It's really YOUR problem for being stupid enough to take offence.

  38. 394750+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    The 3D-printed gun that shot around the world
    So easily has the FGC-9 given criminals, terrorists and insurgents access to deadly weapons that even owning the instructions is illegal

    England's last stand,
    If the lab/lib/con is to be the chosen voting pattern for the foreseeable future then make sure your local patriotic unity centre has a 3D printer on board.

    Potentially coming shortly, the order of the day will be
    "Two Welsh rarebits and an AK 47… please" never
    forget your manners.

    Dt,

    A gun you can make at home sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but a landmark sentencing today is a reminder that it has become a terrifying reality in the UK…

  39. I was idly staring at my laptop keyboard just now and noticed that I've worn through the lettering on some of the keys: E, T, I, O, A, S, D, L, C, N, the space bar and the left shift.

    Anagrams?

    3. I once knew a woman who, being in love with a guy who showed very little interest, entered his name in an anagram calculator programme. It came up with "me huge twat". She was delighted.

  40. Failed. After the second line there were more than 160 potential answers.
    Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

    1. You're too virtuous. If you establish that there are too many potential answers and you're at guess number six, the final resort is to check out the hints and clues on the NME, Forbes and Tom's Guides sites. The hints are obscure (as they should be) but by then you'll have narrowed it down sufficiently for an obscure hint to be useful :-))

      2. I don't look at clues. I pick a random word with one or two vowels then , when I get three letters, I look for all the words that have those letters. It can be a long job.

      1. well done! I think that will be the best effort today!

        I never look up how many words there are, I just make random guesses. Too depressing if you realise there are 160 combinations!

    3. Yes, out of one's hands and down to luck.

      Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

      1. Likewise – it's that cursed -O-ER which has now done for me on 3 occasions! I had 3 guesses left and only 4 options to choose from, so pretty inevitable really!

        Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

    4. No shame in missing that one.

      Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

  42. A sign of the times. My beloved grand-daughter is applying to Worcester College, Oxford. I have looked at the college "About us" video. There appears to be just the one white person studying there. All the females are diverse and many are well "scarved" and bagged.

    Extraordiinary.

    1. Good morning Bill

      Haven't her parents whispered in her ear that their daughter will be mixing with religions where no matter how highly educated their females will become , they will not be able to pursue a bright future without permission from their menfolk ..

      How will your grand daughter cope with so many women who might be clever , but will exist in their own cultures with timidity and fear?

      1. She is robust. She has been at a secondary school in west London which is full of these people.

        1. The hardest college to get into last year was Worcester College, where 11.7 per cent of applicants were admitted.15 Sept 2023

          Oxford college admits cancelling Christian event ‘misled’ students
          Worcester College accused of capitulating to ‘an activist mob’ after investigation disproves allegations against Wilberforce Academy

          The letter came just months after Mr Isaac took over as provost from his role as chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He had previously been chairman of the controversial LGBTQ charity Stonewall.

          Despite having been a champion of free speech at universities during his time at the EHRC, Mr Isaac’s team cancelled a preliminary booking for the same conference for this September.

          But in March an independent review found “no evidence” for the allegations from students, who had claimed there had been “aggressive leafleting” by Wilberforce attendees and that they had approached students to discuss LGBTQ conversion therapy.

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/21/oxford-college-admits-cancelling-christian-event-misled-students/#:~:text=The%20self%2Dstyled%20%E2%80%9CPeople's%20Republic,meals%20and%20standing%20for%20dons.

    4. Get her to try the Toronto Metropolitan University. She might have a chance of being admitted but white boys have zero chance. The medical school at that renowned centre of learning has decreed that seventy five percent of admissions be based on equity and diversity rather than ability.

      Just a few years and our only option for medical care could well be a witch doctor.

    6. Worcester College has always had a reputation as being the most lefty-progressive college of the University. Would that suit your grand-daughter, or should she try a different one?

      1. As Oxford is – to me (8 O Levels) merely station on the GWR route to Worcester – I do not have any views. GD is taking advice from those who know much more than I do – including an alumna of said leftie college (who is a rampart conservative capitalist!!)

  43. Starmer refuses to rule out tax raid on employers
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/15/politics-latest-streeting-weight-loss-budget-reeves-starmer/

    BTL

    Starmer and Reeves are just as mad as Miliband!

    Make it more expensive for people to employ their workforce and they will cut back the number of people they employ.

    Remember the chap in Little Britain who announced with pride that he was the only gay in the village? He bitterly resented the idea that any other homosexual should usurp his role.

    Miliband likes to think that he is far and away the most completely insane member of the government and he does not want his position challenged by Starmer, Reeves and Lammy.

    1. A fight to the death hopefully of climate change disaster (climate has always changed, always will). Rats in a sack.

    2. Additionally they'll probably cap the amount employees can pay into their pensions and no doubt keep them on as low pay as they can to limit the percentages employers have to contribute.

    1. Dear Lord , please protect our poor animals from the barbaric slaughter sought by a religion that is dominating the world with terrorism, cruelty to women , .. a religion that is so dark and evil and that uses animals and children for their revolting sexual purposes .

    1. The halal-ness of the menu is not what's being showcased as the best of UK produce. As with the absence of alcohol, it's designed to procure Saudi investment.

      <blockquote>An information pack to invited VIPs says the catering will “showcase the best UK produce”.

      It adds: “The main summit menu is halal, and no alcohol will be served during the day.”

      One invited boss believes the decision to provide a halal menu is to appease guests such as Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.</blockquote>

      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/31045790/international-investment-summit-halal-meat/

      1. This is the actual text of the Delegate Information Pack. It doesn't actually mention "meat", although I'd be surprised if it wasn't served. As to the decision to provide a halal menu, perhaps it was in response to "dietary requirements mentioned during the registration process".

        "Catering

        Food and drink showcasing the best UK produce will be provided throughout the Summit. We have paid close attention to any dietary requirements mentioned during the registration process. The main Summit menu is halal, and no alcohol will be served during the day. Please speak to a member of catering staff if you have any allergies or if you have any questions about the food and beverages on offer. There will be refreshment areas located throughout the venue. Due to the nature of the building, it may not always be possible to carry food or drinks between rooms."

        https://www.scribd.com/document/778397980/International-Investment-Summit

        1. Good job I didn't go to that then. I have a dietary need for alcohol and I'm allergic to insufferable preaching by foodie fashion junkies.

        2. Good job I didn't go to that then. I have a dietary need for alcohol and I'm allergic to insufferable preaching by foodie fashion junkies.

        3. Good job I didn't go to that then. I have a dietary need for alcohol and I'm allergic to insufferable preaching by foodie fashion junkies.

      2. 394750+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW,
        To settle the issue just tell all concerned to bring a packed lunch of their chosen fodder..

    2. I read some years ago that all school meals are Halal, as are ready meals even if not labelled as such and that supermarkets are aware of this. Apparently easier for retailers.

      1. 394750+ up ticks,

        KJ,
        The decent folk of England have a
        powerful tool in boycotting that is not used half enough.

        1. Yes, packed lunches, which my younger family take. They don’t get to socialise with some class mates tho whilst eating lunch, and playtimes are relatively short. I bet if any Jewish child at school they’d either take their own lunch if kosher or go along with everyone else. Why do all children have to eat halal?

          1. 394750+ up ticks,

            Afternoon KJ,
            It teaches non believers obedience to the overseers, whatever cartel they are from,cruelty to animals is secondary if ever considered at all.

    1. The Government’s impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 estimated that the total cost of providing public services to a UK national is around £12,000 per person. Even the most basic calculations put the economic burden on the British taxpayer of an illegal migration population of 1.2 million at £14.4 billion. That is just shy of 10% of NHS England’s budget for this year. Imagine that cash injection on frontline services or to help people who are struggling with the cost of living.

      And that's just public services, add in hotels, mobiles food travel etc etc and that 14.4 Bn is probably nearer 40Bn+

      https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-05-07/debates/64997110-88BF-4157-8177-D9687A25841B/IllegalImmigrationCosts

    1. Oh, they're kidding? It's bad enough that it occurs naturallly in foods and water supplies without deliberately adding a substance that we could live without altogether without ill effect. Fluoride has been proven to lower intelligence. I accept it in toothpaste because I've grown used to it and the bicarb taste in non-fluoride toothpaste is yuk but I try to rinse thoroughly and not swallow.

      1. My dentist regularly used to prescribe for me a highly fluoridated toothpaste with the instructions 'not to rinse'. I took the prescriptions but I did not hand them at the pharmacy except for the first – I was shocked on reading its contents and never used it. I am not sure what good – if any – it would have done for my elderly teeth at the age of 65 anyway, if it actually does improve dental health – there are studies coming out to suggest it has been hyped up, a little like statins, I suppse, and for parallel reasons. I accept the usual amount of fluoride in toothpaste because I cannot find a toothpaste for sensitive teeth without it. I always rinse it out well. I don't think dentists are 'in on it', I think they are brainwashed, too. We have a flouride filter in our mains water filter.

      2. Definitely Sue…there are some toothpastes (eg Durafat) labelled as 2800ppm…my dentist recommended me to use it, only stopped when son-in-law said his dentist told him to only use for couple months at most. Safe and effective, similarly Covid vaccine – I was recalling earlier my experience with that – first one, nurse full uniform, blood ran back into tubes, she said it was 'fine'. I asked at the second vaccine, young woman in civilian dress, if she thought my first was OK, she answered 'no idea, I'm a trainee veterinarian I just jab like this to get through the fur'. Ouch. Out of it for weeks, family thought I had early onset dementia. I no longer trust anyone in authority (didn't much previously).

      3. 394750+ up ticks,

        Afternoon SE,
        May I suggest,euthymol toothpaste has been accepted by the American Dental Association (ADA) Council on Scientific Affairs. The ADA found that Euthymol Total Care Toothpaste is safe and effective at preventing tooth decay when used as directed.

    2. Fluoride in the water is an ongoing issue in the USA. Parental groups are lobbying for fluoride to be removed from drinking water for the reasons put forward in the video. The effect on children's brain development is high on the list of negatives. Of course, the usual suspects deny any problems. If the government or its agents insist that something/anything is of benefit to you it's best to do your own research before deciding.

    3. I keep on hoping that one day, those humans whose brains have not been addled — by all the bullshit propaganda (and improperganda) about eating weeds, carbs, sugar and processed food being 'good' for you — will wake up and smell the roast beef.

      Beef has every vitamin, mineral and nourishment one could ever possibly need. Unfortunately, Big Business and Big Pharma want to keep schtum about that, so you carry on repeatedly getting ill eating their shit pseudo-food and buying their chemical 'cures'.

    4. They are really pushing this toxin on children. And so many people just believe it's 'good for teeth'!

  50. Alex Salmond ‘died while opening bottle of ketchup’ D Torygraff
    Eyewitness describes moment Scotland’s former first minister collapsed during conference in North Macedonia.

    Let this be a warning to all politicians, Physical work is not your responsibility. Don't attempt something you are not qualified to do. The result can be fatal.

    Here endeth the lesson.

    2. My father once designed a ketchup dispenser in the shape of a tomato that would have saved Salmond's life.

      Who needs a defibrillator?

  51. Genuine Question: Does anyone here use Encyclopaedia Britannica on line, at Britannica.com? I'm considering subscribing to use it instead of the unreliable, politically corrupt WiKipedia. £6 per month.

    Of course, the first thing to do was try to find out who owns it now and as far as I can see it is New York-based billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra, a descendant of the Syrian Jewish Safra banking dynasty and the CEO is someone called Karthik Krishnan, an Indian American businessman who is also a Professor at the Stern School of Business and has been involved with the WEF.

    We had a complete set in the house when I was young, including several year books. My father bought it in 1957 and I used it through most of my primary education and all of my secondary education.

    Anyway, do we think it is reliable compared to WiKi or is it, as I suspect it may be, corrupted in the interests of the globalists.

    1. Haven't seen a copy in years Fiscal. You are unfortunately right about Wiki. It ought to be retitled The Globalists Handbook.

  52. Kemi Badenoch is the true inheritor of Thatcher's legacy

    Her integrity and strong convictions prove she has what it takes to become party leader

    Tony Sewell • 14th October 2024 • 4:08pm

    Conservative members like myself looked at the Tory leadership over the last 3 years and recalled the scene in Orwell's Animal Farm where the animals looked from the pigs to the humans and found no difference at all. There was much talk about getting things done, but we were served a concoction of Lib-Dem-lite gruel. We needed a leadership who had the conviction and the capacity to make government work.

    Kemi Badenoch gets this; her message reminds me of a young Margaret Thatcher who managed to do two key things at same time: Kill off a self-serving and corrupt trade union movement, and energise the country with a message based on optimism and agency.

    Badenoch's equivalent of the trade union movement is the civil service, a mechanism of government which has become biased and self-serving. Ministers have regularly told me how they were hampered by politically activists' civil servants. They go on to point to the TV series Yes Minister as an accurate depiction of life in Whitehall.

    Like Thatcher fighting the unions in the 1980s, Kemi's message is that we need to clean house so that the government can work again. Her rallying optimism comes from her own story of coming to Britain and using all its opportunities to rise through the ranks to become a top politician and a serious contender for future Prime Minister.

    Kemi Badenoch has emerged as someone who wants a Conservatism that isn't complicated. Like a young Margaret Thatcher, she has had to show great courage in the face of vindictiveness. The best example was how she championed my report on race and ethnic disparities in March 2021. The report was commissioned by Boris Johnson in response to our disturbances in the UK after the George Floyd murder in May 2020.

    Suddenly the whole country seemed to be signed up members of Black Lives Matter, gripped by guilt as we watched an American crisis that somehow was supposed to show that racism was everywhere in Britain. My predominantly black and Asian Commissioners said we were not America, and although racism exists, the disparities were driven by geography, family structure and agency. Also, poor white groups had worse outcomes than many black groups.

    The report needed a champion and Kemi stepped forward, almost single handedly taking on the Labour naysayers, crushing them ruthlessly from the dispatch box.

    Boris Johnson has called his memoirs Unleashed, but the title better applies to Kemi. The report was clearly the best thing that the Johnson administration had Commissioned but without unleashing Kemi, then cowardly Labour and their activists would have tried to kill it. Instead, she authored an exciting and sensible response document called Inclusive Britain with over an additional 50 recommendations across government which today stands as an excellent policy document for a united Britain.

    As I watched Kemi "unleashed" in those days after my report, it was clear that Labour feared her, and the liberal media saw her as dangerous to their politics. What better qualification do we have for our next party leader and hopefully next Prime Minister?

    Some say that Kemi isn't in the league of Miss T, but this is unfair. Margaret Thatcher faced a barrage of abuse during her time, but she didn't have to face the relentless abuse of social media. This is a cruel and ruthless time to be a political leader, where media scrutiny is everywhere and applied by everyone.

    My sense is that, of the two candidates for leadership, Thatcher would have chosen Kemi. They both had a background in the hard sciences: Maggie studied Chemistry at Oxford and Kemi graduated in engineering. Also, they are both outsiders, having no special privilege like some old Etonian Tories. One the daughter of a Greengrocer the other the daughter of a Nigerian GP. Even Nigel Farage would have to have some admiration for their self-made-woman pedigree.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/14/kemi-badenoch-is-the-true-inheritor-of-thatchers-legacy

    Lord Sewell might be correct that KM is the better candidate but what does it say about the party? In his weekend article, Charles Moore made this observation:

    "The MPs are far fewer and have less collective memory. The people who make the final choice – to be announced on November 2 – are Conservative Party members. It is harder for the candidates to reach them consistently and harder for them to scrutinise the candidates in a sustained way than it is for MPs."

    He was also critical of Jenrick for concentrating on specific issues, notably the ECHR, rather than a broader vision:

    "Many might ultimately be persuadable that we should leave the ECHR, but they suspect Mr Jenrick's motive. They think he is wooing the Right, thus making the Conservative Party a colder house for them."

    Even in its reduced state there are plenty of Tory MPs who aren't really conservatives, just as there were in 1990 when Thatcher was unseated by a parliamentary party of more than 370.

    Badenoch comes across a bit snippy at times. However, the idea that the civil service is as big an enemy of the people today as the trade unions were in the 1970s could be a winner but I just don't see the Tories doing so from a base of 121 MPs.

    2. I had reservations about Margaret Thatcher ever since she spoke at my school's Founder's Day assembly in 1971. She seemed too ready to accept the assertions of those she admired, rather than delving deeper into the situation at grassroots level. I felt the same ten years later when she was PM.

      Nevertheless, I still consider Kemi Badenoch plays a straight bat. She is a Tory, and I would not expect a lot of sympathy for Socialism or even Liberal Democracy, so to call her "Right Wing" is no worse a slur than calling Donald Trump an American or the Pope a Catholic.

      For me, she won me over during a previous leadership campaign standing against Penny Mordaunt.

      Now, I liked Mordaunt for her sense of humour and the skilful way she skewered Angela Rayner over sleaze. Yet when campaigning to become leader, I felt Mordaunt spoke in platitudes and had nothing to say that could not be said by anyone. In addition, for all her military background, I would have expected her to get the backing of her fellow Navy reservists, but it seems that they did not think that highly of her in the military.

      When we came to Kemi Badenoch, what struck me was how many of those serving under her were happy to speak up for her. Attracting that level of loyalty from subordinates tells me a lot about her capacity as a leader.

  53. Labour Cabinet Has Zero Business Experience

    Labour has branded itself the party for business and growth, though the only thing they’ve managed to grow is fear in the markets. Business leaders are running for the hills, thanks to the threat of higher taxes on the horizon. Even Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt confessed he “was shocked when Labour said it was in favour of growth”…

    It’s hardly surprising, though, when not a single member of the cabinet has any real-world business experience. None of them have ever run or managed a successful private enterprise. Instead, it’s a cabinet full of career politicians, union apparatchiks, and those who’ve spent their lives in the warm embrace of the public sector. Guido has a breakdown of the numbers:

    7 career politicians.
    4 union workers.
    7 lawyers.
    2 charity workers.
    2 academics.
    1 accountant.
    1 journalist (Yvette Cooper – for two years in between being a career politician).
    Reeves, as she often reminds the public, worked at the Bank of England [as a junior analyst]. Scotland Secretary Ian Murray found event management business called 100MPH Events, though it’s been dormant since 2015 and currently has £11,618 in liabilities. Not exactly stellar business CVs…

    The only cabinet member who notably tried their hand at business is Keir Starmer. His brush with “business” came as a student when he and a mate attempted to sell ice cream on the French Riviera—illegally. Not only did they find themselves not making any money, the illegal act actually saw Starmer’s mate get arrested. Not exactly a Dragon’s Den success story. It’s no wonder investors are running scared when the only cabinet member who’s tried to run a business ended up getting his collar felt by the rozzers…

    15 October 2024 @ 11:24

    1. Acer
      1h
      When Reeves has to hire an ordinary accountant to file her tax returns then you know she is not fit be the Country's Accountant in Chief.

      No to EU
      Acer
      1h
      Which she claims for on her expenses as an MP.

      Sea_Warrior
      2h
      Reeves worked at the Bank of England?
      Many years ago, I attended the Admiralty Interview Board, in Gosport. One of the tests we had to do made use of 'Vincent Mechanical Diagrams'. These gave a series of mechanical set-ups – levers, cogs, ropes, etc – and you had to work out what would happen at the end if you do this at the beginning. There was no scope for discussion. You got the right answer or you were, er, wrong. I'm thinking that those Economics and PPE graduates being taken on by government should have to go through a similar, but adapted, test. Too many politicians seem to have been awarded a good degree on the basis of being able to argue that right is wrong, and wrong is right.

      So, Ms Reeves, what will happen to the employment and investment outputs if you raise employers' NI contributions to generate funds to bung at the unions? You have 30 seconds.

      Boris Gump
      Sea_Warrior
      36m
      They don't understand cause and effect. An engineer would run rings around this lot at the cabinet table.

      Ernest Nowell
      1h
      Worst of all they have never employed anyone. Never had to cover the wage bill out of their endeavours. Holiday pay, employer liability, health and safety, and other costs of actually employing people.

    2. It shows. Not that the Tories are much better. eg Jeremy Hunt, the supposed self-made success story didn't exactly come from the kind of background where he had to knock on the local bank manager's door and persuade them that he was a fit person for a loan.

      What we need is hard workers whose success doesn't come from their ability to network with other sociopaths

  55. Why isn’t Elon Musk at Starmer’s investment summit? 15 October 2024.

    Elon Musk is conspicuously not present at today’s jamboree, with the BBC reporting that he was ‘not invited due to his social media posts’ during the August riots. Ministers have remained tight-lipped on his lack of an invite. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds refused three times to comment in an interview with Sky yesterday, declaring ‘I’m not going to comment on particular invitations for particular personnel.’ Then this morning the Science Secretary Peter Kyle suggested that Musk did not get an invite due to his tendency to avoid ‘these sort of events’ , telling Times Radio.

    Elon; not being the most stupid man on the planet, has of course figured out after their recent spat that Starmer is a Marxist apparatchik and that the UK is a Police State. He hasn’t said so but I imagine that probability of an arrest like Pavel Durov hasn’t escaped him either.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-isnt-elon-musk-at-starmers-investment-summit/

    1. If you want someone to part with their money and give of their expertise, probably threatening to march in to Texas and arrest him isn't a good idea even though it's a stupid and empty threat.

      1. There's a good video of Elon Musk's mum somewhere online, Sue (sorry don't have ref, may even have been here, or YouTube), talking about him as a child, also one of him speaking about his ambitions. Both worth watching.

    1. Pleased to read she pays for her own security, thanks – was trying to find out earlier who paid for what (I assume she paid for London concert security?)

      1. It seems there were a of top level ministers and officials trying to work out who pays for what during her tour – no doubt about the tickets however.

    1. I thought Pigling left home with his brother, Rastus, is that the two of them in the pic…is Alexander a cross-dresser, I think we should be told:-DD

      1. I seem to remember that Pig Wig was Pigling Bland's girlfriend and they escaped together from the fox and the badger who planned to turn them into bacon.

  59. Alex Salmond died whilst opening a bottle of ketchup.

    With the benefit of heinzsight, he should have gone for the brown sauce.

    …coat…?

  62. Why EU’s ex-Brexit chiefs are sounding more and more like Nigel Farage
    Now in roles in their native Poland and France, Donald Tusk and Michel Barnier have both changed their tune since doing the bloc’s bidding
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/15/why-eu-ex-brexit-chiefs-sounding-more-like-nigel-farage/

    BTL

    What we now need is for Tony Blair to come out and say that he was right in 1992 when he campaigned for the Labour Party to adopt a Leave the EU policy and that his vehemently pro EU stance when he was in government was a tragic mistake which has destroyed Britain.

    1. Obviously licked their fingers and tested which way the wind blowing, Rastus. What we need now re Blair is for him to shut up and go away:-DD

  64. Once upon a time, many moons ago, there was a place called Doggerland. It was an area of land now submerged beneath the southern North Sea. It was inundated by rising sea levels, disintegrating initially into a series of low-lying islands before submerging almost completely. Today the only parts of Doggerland that still exist is a series of parks and back alleys between Broadcasting House and the Houses of Parliament. A favourite recreational area for Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Chris Bryant and a legion of fellow MPs and BBC celebrities.
    https://scontent-cdg4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/463186534_122134068572357300_236278267243465084_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=cQ5uiyOpGmkQ7kNvgEeW6fN&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-1.xx&_nc_gid=AuhdyYLDGQwVHb7tprz5m4W&oh=00_AYC1qlGnpwJHrv5hfeGlvZjK7whPby2jVL7JmrHTf-uIGw&oe=6714330F

    1. Maybe we could repatriate them to it. And why did the person who produced the image need to tell us where they go to the toilet?

    2. A lot of extra land area (such as Doggerland) came about as a result of drastically dipping sea levels during the ice ages. It is what enabled Homo neanderthalis, H. erectus, H. denisova and H. sapiens to migrate around the globe.

    3. Interesting map.
      Back in the mid 1970s I remember someone telling me that the Labour govt should not have been so generous to Norway with the division of North Sea areas, because much of the ocean floor had originally been part of Britain. Norway is the far side of a trench, or ditch.

    1. Not sure where she got the numbers from but in the UK a clinical reading of 140/90 is still the threshold for hypertension or 135/85 for home readings. Over a period of time, not isolated readings. What used to be called 'ideal', below 120/80, is now 'normal' with between 120/80 and the earlier figures now called pre-hypertension (still technically normal though!).

      The American Heart Association reduced the threshold in the US and put something like 56 million Americans into hypertension overnight. Nice little payday for the tablet makers.

    2. A point I have been making for years.
      A good reading for a 25 year old is impossible for a 75 year old without medication.

    1. Point out the law to them on work place temperatures. Also suggest if they can't afford the heating then to reduce the SMT's salaries.

      Imagine though, a world where childrne's education was funded by school vouchers. The parents took their money in voucher form to the school.

      Now imagine the SMT trying this on. A single raised eyebrow from a parent – the owner – would put a stop to this nonsense.

    2. Point out the law to them on work place temperatures. Also suggest if they can't afford the heating then to reduce the SMT's salaries.

      Imagine though, a world where childrne's education was funded by school vouchers. The parents took their money in voucher form to the school.

      Now imagine the SMT trying this on. A single raised eyebrow from a parent – the owner – would put a stop to this nonsense.

      1. I've not heard that (unlless it's a joke I'm unaware of). Red/Green colourblindness, especially in men, is the most common.

        A Blue/Brown colourblindness could be tragic among electricians or hapless DIYers.

    4. My thoughts are that the school should know the possessive case: school’s, in this case

    1. Busy troubled minds with foreign quarrels. Increasingly I think it's 'convince everyone they hate you and let them squabble while big state gets on with instigating it all.

    1. Well that would be good news if it happens.
      One of the few positive things happening recently is seeing the northern Irish protestants and catholics working together!

      1. 'Adversity makes strange bedfellows of us all'. Never more true. They remind me of a pack of dogs fighting tooth and claw until the real enemy hoves into site, at which point they band together to see him off. Then 'normal service' is resumed once again.

    2. "You see Laz, we have redEd ponce about blithering on about climate change to force da poor t' pay more for t'electric. We then spaff that on t'windmills which you t'invest in and we give you back you t'invesment ten fold in 2 years and we blame it on t'energy cumpnies where really it's us! We claim t'cost on t'spenses or Ali and t'stupid t'poor folk pay t'bill!'

          9. The lodger.

            It's old slang for something Phizzee enjoys, both giving and receiving, allegedly.

  72. Just about to watch Alien: Romulus.

    Directed by Ridley Scott.

    Hopefully an improvement on some of this franchises dire offerings. None a patch on the original film.

    I have my big cushion ready to hide behind and a panic switch.

  73. Well that's the last grass cut of the year I hope
    If anyone needs a light weight excellent electric lawnmower I can recommend the Einhell 1600W from Amazon (£124.99) although when I bought mine a few months ago I paid £109

    2. We bought a big Stihl to cut the "domestic" grass at Firstborn's place, but for us we have a very light Ryobi battery machine that's actually both cheap and good – even SWMBO can operate it! Excellent!

  74. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4cb89ca1d1b58cf187bd6f9e125dcb7751fb2247/0_0_2500_1637/master/2500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=b3275854a651e3e4763bf77f5f857abb A group of elk cross a beach in Yancheng, China

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/724ce2f0e08cbc789e88cb21e88294db8675eb36/0_0_4928_2957/master/4928.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c9bb285e1661e6ec1c65fe3332f18b12 Barn owl, Suffolk

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22ad7970da05001b98ea397d5367d528e8ecbe55/0_0_4000_3024/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=1e120f4b9f4eb4c50edbce85ccc6fabe Barn owls, Peak district. Breeding season has lasted longer than usual this year thanks to the bad weather

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f76674121f142727894156c484b937d6a6f80ee9/0_0_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=79a4935aeccb77e41422b50b99ff60c8 Mull of Kintyre

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f1e34611a4a2972e0add091c1c7a5de8812403a5/0_302_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=459bb68026369e0b3466c8b01cf73d86 Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
    ‘A morning view from above the clouds.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0ba54defc6d0d40ce25e6f3ecc4c23c2e47d520e/0_283_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=960de23179b423c07c1c4bae0bfd67d6 ‘The footplate crew of locomotive No 70000 “Britannia” prepare to depart from London Victoria with a lunchtime special tour of Kent.’

      1. The McCartney clip reminds me when I was a teenager, sitting outside a pub in Saundersfoot with my parents. When life was easy and positive.
        Father has been dead for 25 years now, and Mother is daft. Ho hum.

      2. With all the money he's made, you'd think he'd be able to afford a left-handed Martin D-18 Dreadnought.

      2. Of course the sister of a recent prime minister wrote a book about punctuation.

        Some thought that Liz was a pain in the colon but her political career came to an abrupt full stop. Poor woman – her very name suggested that she needed a surgical support or corset.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bd9d33a1981aadcf2294a68aace2ce6116d50e25df9bbfcd9c16cfbef22f1d9.jpg

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e7a14065c7fd14bc01806f8b1dbc19111f6b8b820c2cfa21403e7edb715a55a.jpg

        2. Lynne Truss: "… as far as I know, I am not related to the infamous economy-disrupting prime minister often mentioned in the same breath as a notoriously bland salad ingredient."

          I contributed to that book: Eats, Shoots and Leaves; after an invitation for examples was placed in the DT by the author proir to publication.

    3. In the wild, I guess they don't. The very fact that they have a short gut and a vegan diet shows how stupid they are. Yet as with all these things, we're told that it's our fault they're struggling to survive. The rolling around curled up in a ball game looks to be something they enjoy? Of course in captivity they're looked after and given dietary supplements.

      1. And they don’t appear to know about sex! Our daughter saw them at Edinburgh (behind the scenes) and they seemed not to have a clue! She reckoned they deserved to become extinct!

        1. Is the breeding in zoos done with artificial insemination? Daft buggers, aren't they. But cute.

          3. Yes it is and one was actually pregnant (the female, I think) but nothing happened! They are glorious though!

      2. And they don’t appear to know about sex! Our daughter saw them at Edinburgh (behind the scenes) and they seemed not to have a clue! She reckoned they deserved to become extinct!

  76. A pithy Par Four!

    Wordle 1,214 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. With reference to Ped's point earlier, there were too many possibilities.

      Wordle 1,214 6/6

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

      2. Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

        Here's mine, Sue…still crash n burn most days…better at Spelling Bee 🙂

      3. Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

        Here's mine, Sue…still crash n burn most days…better at Spelling Bee 🙂

    2. Well done, I blew it.
      Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

      1. I blew it too but many times over.

        Wordle 1,214 X/6

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

  77. Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–Atlas) sightings around the world – in pictures

    Named after the Chinese observatory and South African programme that detected it in 2023, the ‘comet of the century’ may have formed at a distance of up to 400,000 times that between Earth and the Sun. Its coma, or head, measures about 130,000 miles (209,000km) in diameter, with a tail extending 18m miles (29m km). The comet is not expected to return for another 80,000 years

    Arnel Hecimovic

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4e61c8f9c07bc5327094d0723bd7cacba498e2ae/0_0_8192_5464/master/8192.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=d8e7a22cecc8b0f7dcb542d411d34c08
    Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–Atlas), with an 80,000-year orbit, passes behind geological formations, tufa spires at Trona Pinnacles, California

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3d0abf5dbfcb9652ff08e749b1a6d6077d38d6a7/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a3d199060842babc8c1b94c1568fef90 Shortly before sunset, Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7292a830aee4c8332e20420c64970ee0ef91b714/0_0_4811_3208/master/4811.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=bb81f29cfa2a9fddedaff97d0cf5f9f6 Before dawn, Gran Canaria

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/577347e9df157aea48a58b6c6cece9aad5459499/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=98b67dd6a6d3d39734eabf9344581900 Torre Squillace, Lecce, Italy

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/549398e328b18250deb7ab7ed97c7ad155a90424/0_0_8135_4704/master/8135.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0728954fbc23472a674100a97d1a2465 La Fornace Penna, Sicily

    1. Thanks, Michael. I had very much hoped to have seen it on Saturday evening. There was a crystal clear sky until about 5.30 pm – when dense cover appeared and remained. Apparently, that was the only chance we had in Blighty to see it.

      These things completely amaze me. That they come and go. That clever people have been able to work out the trajectory and timetable. Astonishing.

      The last one the MR and I saw was Hale-Bopp in 1997 – we saw it on several evenings while in yer France (clearer skies, perhaps).

        1. Excellent Pics. Anyone know how long it will be visible? The last one I remember was Hale-Bopp in 1997, I think it was. That was around for weeks.

      2. Given that it's raining here – again! – I shan't bother going out to see if I can spot it.

  78. Oh dear. I'm 35 minutes into the Alien Romulus film and i am hoping the Aliens kill them all.
    I think that might have been Ridley Scotts intention. Make them all young and diverse with a lot of Cockneyesque accents.

    1. What a stupid question. Can you imagine Gus or Pickles making such a statement in polite company? NO. They would just look askance. Then blink.

        1. Ganging up on me is not nice.
          Of course i drink !
          Max even mentioned there were bottles everywhere at my Summer party.

          I might add that most of them were unopened !

          2. I had an afternoon party in the sunshine. That was lucky.
            I provided a Pimms Punch, some bespoke lagers and Ales and some canapes.
            People came with bottles of Champagne and Malt Whisky !
            My house now looks like a Public House !
            Speaking of which i am considering making it an annual event.
            Though Geoff Boss had to be coerced to play my piano.

  80. Robert Tombs
    Starmer’s historical illiteracy reveals the emptiness at the heart of Labour

    Gladstone should be a hero for the Left, but modern sensibilities grant little charity to any figures born before 1962

    Who says this Government failed to plan for power? It may not have worked out credible ideas to raise productivity, control immigration or provide energy, but it had “long planned”, said a spokesman, to move the paintings in Downing Street.

    Stalin taught us to pay attention to visual disappearances. As the Soviet joke went: the future is clear, it is only the past that keeps changing.

    Our Prime Minister is unnerved by a portrait of Margaret Thatcher. He is also disturbed by Mr Gladstone, who has been put into storage. Now Elizabeth I is banished from the beautiful drawing room where important visitors are received. Let us sympathise with Sir Keir: these three tower above ordinary politicians in ability, character and achievement.

    How embarrassing for him to be meeting (let us say) President Zelensky with Elizabeth I looking on. Instead, there are now two brownish daubs by the fashionable Paula Rego, officially celebrating “strong and courageous women”. Queen Elizabeth and Mrs Thatcher are presumably the wrong sort of strong women.

    As for Gladstone, his intellect, culture, ethical drive and sheer charisma dwarf nearly all politicians. Sir Keir reportedly does not read many books, so he might well be unsettled by a man who read 20,000 of them, including the Iliad (in Greek of course) 36 times.

    Gladstone made a principled case for widening the electorate, condemned violence against women, demanded an ethical foreign policy, opposed predatory imperialism, and championed Irish home rule. Modern progressive politics based on moral fervour is largely his creation. He even pioneered identity politics, creating an alliance of religious dissenters and ethnic minorities against the British Establishment.

    Nevertheless, today’s Left rejects him because although he condemned slavery, his father had been a slave owner, and the family received a good sum of taxpayers’ money when slavery was abolished. Removing his portrait is Starmer “taking the knee” again. It shows that the Labour Party, whether deliberately or just fecklessly, is happy to cut itself off from its own history, and the history of democracy in Britain.

    No surprise then that so many people wonder what and who it represents.

    The pictures in Downing Street are not just interior decoration or the reflection of an individual’s whims. As an official residence, it is a symbol. The portraits of prime ministers proclaim that despite differences of party, we are one nation. We are able to respect the achievements and good faith of opponents.

    We accept the varying outcomes of elections and recognize the legitimacy of the people’s chosen governments. Hence the official language about “His Majesty’s Government” and his “Loyal Opposition”. This is – or was – the visual message to all who live and work in the building, and no less importantly to those who visit it.

    Removing the majestic portrait of Elizabeth I from the principal state room proclaims a different message: that of national renunciation. To do so under the pretext of celebrating “strong and courageous women” shows either unbelievable ignorance or contempt for public intelligence.

    Elizabeth ended persecution for beliefs (she refused to “make windows into men’s souls”) – perhaps this puts her on the wrong side of today’s progressives, though her stirring proto-feminist statement that despite having a female body she had the heart and stomach of a king would surely appeal to some of Starmer’s followers.

    She kept the horrors of religious war at bay. Above all, she defended the country from foreign invasion. The simplest explanation for her disappearance is that this is again Starmer “taking the knee”, because Elizabeth – like practically every ruler in the world – was involved in slavery. Yes, slavery was alas universal. But that is not why we celebrate her and why her portrait hung in a place of honour.

    Moving pictures around may not seem very important. But these pictures in these places are significant. They are another sign that this government, and the form of “progressive” politics today’s Labour Party espouses, instinctively cut themselves off from their own history and that of the nation.

    Across the Western world, we see the same futile attempt to create an “anywhere” politics for “anywhere” people, fuelled by resentment and division. It is hard to imagine a British prime minister who would not want to show visitors the portrait of Elizabeth I. But that is precisely what we now have.

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

    John C Mercer
    17 min ago
    I think the original plan (to replace the painting of Queen Elizabeth with one of Sue Gray) has been recently amended somewhat.

    Simon Rowlinson
    2 hrs ago
    Two Tier Free Gear is a coward, always has been, he did not have the moral courage to prosecute Jimmy Savile or the Asian Grooming Gangs as DPP. He has not got the moral courage to stand up to the Islamist pro-terrorist faction in the Labour Party. He has not got the intellectual ability to work out why the paintings are in No.10 in the first place or the moral courage to tell the cretins in the Cabinet why they should stay in No.10. He is incapable of running a government, I doubt he can even run a bath.

    Margaret Robinson
    1 hr ago
    Reply to Simon Rowlinson
    Muslim grooming gangs, please! There were no Japanese, Thai, or even Chinese involved, only ‘cultural improvers’ from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

    V E Currie
    2 hrs ago
    I think we should all worry that we have a prime minister who denies, or rather hides from in a cowardly manner, our country’s history. You can’t alter history but you CAN learn from it. (Well, some of us can….)

    andrew mason
    2 hrs ago
    It's not just emptiness within the heart…
    It's the emptiness between the ears that's just as much a worry..

    Erica Below
    1 hr ago
    Elizabeth
    “ I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
    I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms”
    Keir “er, er, change is good. Making decisions is tough, like whether to take down a painting or go to a free concert or prosecute people instead of going to concerts. Etc”

        1. Indeed. It sends out the message to all others of that persuasion, throughout the country, that if they do not vacate this sceptred isle within 48 hours, they will be next.

          6. Same ‘kind of’. I find it difficult to drop off again after my mid night-time ‘visit’, especially if I’ve had caffeine later than mid-afternoon. Yesterday I drank two cups of tea around 5:00 p.m.!😳

          7. Been there, done that…might like to try Redbush (caffeine-free) tea, different flavours (Earl Grey etc) available supermarket. If you don’t like this advice…I have others..eg no caffeine after 5pm…..:-)) good luck…

          8. 👍🏻 I’m not a fan of caffeine-free and I hate the flavour of Earl Grey. I think I’ll stick to my favoured Assam but not drink any after mid-afternoon.

          10. My 18-year old Magimix espresso machine is on its last legs. My other machine, a 7-year old Sage works well but I think I’ll treat myself to a new machine at Christmas. The new Gaggia Classic Evo Pro gets very good write-ups. I may be tempted.🍵 I buy whole beans from an excellent Swedish company called Arvid Nordqvist. The Swedes love their coffee, mainly black filtered coffee, but I prefer my flat whites and cappuccinos.

          11. I took a look at the Gaggia…very professional and smart. Husband prefers flat whites too…not me, my taste buds disappeared following covid vax. Can only tell if I like something to eat or drink when I sense it amygdala. Friend of mind had a small coffee bar, very clean, coffee good there. Took off on her motorbike travelling, not heard of or seen since then.

  83. Simon King
    Lead Weather Presenter
    @SimonOKing
    Published
    6 hours ago
    This week marks the last opportunity to see the "comet of the century", before it disappears for another 80,000 years.

    Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) has been visible in recent nights.

    It was at its brightest on Monday night for sky-gazers across the United Kingdom.

    While the brightness will start to decrease, it will still be possible to see the bright comet on Tuesday night – weather permitting.

    Image of a comet in the night sky
    Image source,BBC Weather Watchers / Andrew Robertson
    Image caption,
    Comet A3 was captured by Weather Watcher Andrew Robertson in North Yorkshire on Monday night

    How to see the comet tonight
    There has been a lot of excitement surrounding Comet A3 because of how bright and visible it is.

    Many of our BBC Weather Watchers captured the comet with cameras on Monday night.

    The comet is expected to be nearly as bright on Tuesday night before the brightness decreases further over the coming week.

    The best time to see the comet is around sunset which, tonight, will be between 18:00 to 18:30 BST across the UK.

    You will need to look to the west and fairly close to the horizon to catch a bright light with a fainter streak behind it.

    As it will be close to the horizon, for best viewing you will have to be away from buildings and have a nice wide view of the western sky.

    Exact time of sunset at your location can be found on the BBC Weather website and app.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cq5e6jne670o

  86. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The myth of the ‘stolen country’
    What should the Europeans have done with the New World?
    Jeff Fynn-Paul
    Last month, in the middle of the Covid panic, a group of first-year university students at the University of Connecticut were welcomed to their campus via a series of online ‘events’. At one event, students were directed to download an app for their phones. The app allowed students to input their home address, and it would piously inform them from which group of Native Americans their home had been ‘stolen’.
    We all know the interpretation of history on which this app is based. The United States was founded by a monumental act of genocide, accompanied by larceny on the grandest scale. Animated by racism and a sense of civilisational superiority, Columbus and his ilk sailed to the New World. They exterminated whomever they could, enslaved the rest, and intentionally spread smallpox in hopes of solving the ‘native question’. Soon afterwards, they began importing slave labour from Africa. They then built the world’s richest country out of a combination of stolen land, wanton environmental destruction and African slave labour. To crown it all, they have the audacity to call themselves a great country and pretend to moral superiority.
    This ‘stolen country’ paradigm has spread like wildfire throughout the British diaspora in recent years. The BBC recently ran a piece on the 400th anniversary of the Plymouth landings, whose author took obvious delight in portraying the Pilgrim Fathers as native-mutilating slave drivers. In Canada, in the greater Toronto school district, students are read a statement of apology, acknowledging European guilt for the appropriation of First Nations lands, before the national anthem is played over the PA system every morning.
    As a professional historian, I am keenly aware of the need to challenge smug, feelgood interpretations of history. I understand that nationalism and civilisational pride carry obvious dangers which were made manifest by the world wars of the 20th century. And I understand that these things can serve as subtle tools not only of racism but of exploitation of many stripes, and as justification for a status quo which gets in the way of meritocracy and fairness.
    But I also know that if the pendulum of interpretation swings too far in any one direction, things can go from bad to worse with lightning speed. It is times like these that we realise the stories we tell ourselves — about our history in particular — are of fundamental importance to the direction our societies take. The shift from Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany was accomplished, first and foremost, by a shift in who controlled the national narrative. Ditto with the shift to Communism in eastern Europe, as so movingly chronicled by the late Tony Judt in his book Postwar.
    So what can be the harm in acknowledging every morning that Canadians live on stolen First Nations land? The problem is this: if you begin the day by acknowledging that your country, your society, and people of your ancestry are particularly egregious, this is a sure route to self-doubt, impotence and societal failure.
    What’s true at the personal level is true at the national. What well-meaning liberals do not seem to realise these days is that democracies thrive or fail on the basis of national stories. This is doubly so in republics like the US, where there is no apolitical figurehead to unite people in place of a monarch. In the end, stories are all we’ve got as a glue to cement us together as a society. If that story says that our democracy is rotten to the core, then how do we expect anyone to retain enthusiasm for democracy itself? As history shows time and again, as soon as a republic does not believe in itself and its ideals — that it is better than the tyrannies and autocracies surrounding it — that republic succumbs very quickly to autocracy itself. The riots that have recently erupted across the United States, the new and unaccustomed boldness that characterises dictators around the globe, attest to the breakdown of the Western democratic order which is being accelerated by these self-inflicted wounds.
    This is not an abstract fear. By many measures, support for democracy among younger people is plummeting around the globe. Many in the US seem to have no clue just how much of a ‘city on a hill’ the US is still perceived to be, and how important that American beacon is to millions of people living under autocratic regimes. The mere thought of Obama’s motorcade passing through my European province electrified schoolchildren across the region. For them, he was as close as you get to a real-life superhero. Such universal support for a politician is virtually unheard of. Even though republican regimes are historically less popular internationally, for billions of people around the globe the US still equates with democracy — it is ‘the good place’. If the image of US is fundamentally delegitimised, if it’s entire raison d’être is tainted, then increasing numbers of people wonder whether democracy itself is worth the trouble. So we have to be very careful what we wish for.
    Again, my criticism of the current excesses of the left is absolutely not a call to embrace the worst aspects of the right. This is no code or excuse for jingoism, racism or any other ism. I fully support the lessons of the world wars that excessive nationalism, that unilateralism, are ugly and a bad idea. It is rather a caution: a sense that we have to be careful how far we go, and how quickly, in our rush to signal our support for the historically downtrodden. On a personal note, I add that it gives me zero pleasure to have to write this piece. Fifteen years ago, I would have been the one at the barricades helping Native Americans rally against an oil company or some such. Writing this, I incur considerable personal and professional cost in order to come out of the closet as a (shock, horror) centrist, who believes that the left is currently rampaging out of control and must be stopped before it’s too late. One arena in which I can best help is the interpretation of history, upon which much of the current leftist hysteria is based.
    The narrative of the ‘stolen country’ or ‘Native American genocide’ does not stand up to scrutiny by any honest and clear-sighted historian. It is a dangerously myopic and one-sided interpretation of history. It has only gained currency because most practising historians and history teachers are either susceptible to groupthink, or else have been cowed into silence by fear of losing their jobs. Reduced to its puerile form of ‘statement of guilt’, this myth puts 100 per cent of the burden on Europeans who are held responsible for all historical evil, while the First Nations people are mere victims; martyrs even, whose saintlike innocence presumes that their civilisation and society were practically perfect in every way. This is no way to honour or respect the realities of First Nation lives and their agency. And it helps perpetuate the idea that the US and Canada are fundamentally illegitimate societies, and that by implication, every other country on Earth is legitimate. If we were to be honest, there is not a single country on Earth which did not displace natives, or which did not engage in nasty wars or ethnic cleansings at many points during its history. The current fad for holding up the US and Canada to special scrutiny and particular opprobrium is therefore distorting at best.
    Was the land stolen?
    The Europeans were surprisingly un-genocidal, given their clear technological advantages
    As an economic historian, allow me to point out some of the most obvious structural problems with the ‘stolen country’ paradigm.
    First, no matter who ‘discovered’ the New World, it is inevitable that a large proportion of New World inhabitants would have died within the first few decades after first contact. This is universally acknowledged by specialists in the field. The New World population was smaller and more homogenous than the Old World population. Thus, its people had less immunity to disease than the people of the Old World, where disease communities from Africa, Asia and Europe had been intermingling for millennia. Even though some European captains did try and spread smallpox around a few forts and villages from time to time, the effect of their efforts was almost negligible compared with the natural spread of disease. So the claims of genocide by disease have almost nothing to do with European actions, apart from their simply reaching the New World. And of course, Europeans of the time had no way of envisioning the continent-wide epidemic repercussions of their actions. Verdict: not guilty.
    Let us also acknowledge that Native American society was just as warlike as any other in human history. The anthropologists’ vision of Native Americans as peace-pipe-smoking environmentalists which gained purchase in the 1970s has long since given way to a more Hobbesian portrait of pre-Columbian reality. In North America, most Natives were primitive farmers. This means that (with some exceptions) they had no permanent settlements: they farmed in an area for a few decades until the soil got tired, before moving on to greener pastures where the hunting was better and the lands more fertile. This meant that tribes were in constant conflict with other tribes. It also meant that chiefs were continually vying for power, creating confederations under themselves, and that the question of who owned the land was in a more or less constant state of flux. In most of North America, the idea that any one piece of land belonged to any one tribe, for more than 50 or 100 years, is therefore highly questionable. In short, if you looked at a map of Native Canada 200 years before Europeans arrived, it would have been entirely different. In the meantime, some groups of natives would have slaughtered, bullied or enslaved others. Should we not be grieving for those Native Canadians whose land was stolen by other Native Canadians? Or is that somehow OK? I don’t suppose there is an app for that.
    The idea that the Europeans stole some land which had belonged in perpetuity to any one tribe is therefore ludicrous. The situation in most of North America was similar to northern Europe on the eve of the Germanic migrations, or western Europe as the Celts were moving across the landscape. Precisely to whom the land belonged in any given century at these periods in history was anyone’s guess. The very notion of property is a Graeco-Roman invention which most cultures found foreign until quite recently. But Europeans of the time had little chance of grasping this difference. What the Europeans did in the New World was insert themselves into a fluid power struggle which had been ongoing for millennia. Many Native American chiefs were ready to pledge allegiance to the Great ‘Chief of the English’, as a political expedient, just as various English colonies sided with this or that Native American ‘Great Chief’. Despite a few sensational cases of duplicity, most of the time, Europeans tried to buy land from Indians, just like they would buy an acre of land in England. If the local chief assented to this and liked the price, where then was the crime? Many individual Europeans believed that according to the norms of both parties, they had legal usufruct to the land they were working. To judge this as theft is therefore anachronistic. As Europeans set up farming communities, and introduced guns to North America, Native American communities were forced to move further away from European lands as game retreated. The areas around white settlements were often empty for this reason, making the land seem all the more abandoned. Musket use by natives probably depleted animal stocks at a higher rate than previously, meaning that the very introduction of firearms might have spelled the doom of hunting and gathering in North America in the long run, even if the Europeans had otherwise left the country alone.
    Another major structural issue is this: what precisely would our pious anthropology professors have had Europeans do with the New World once they found it?
    This is not a joke. Political reality has a way of crashing in on the pipe dreams of liberal academics. The reality is, if the English had not colonised, then the French or the Dutch would have. If the Spanish had not colonised, the Portuguese would have. This would have shifted the balance of power at home, and any European country which had not colonised, would have been relegated to secondary status. And it is easy to overestimate the amount of control that European governments actually had. As soon as the New World was discovered, many fisherman and traders sailed across the Atlantic on their own, in hopes of circumventing tax authorities and scoring a fortune. Long before colonies were established in most regions, the New World was crawling with Europeans whose superior technology gave them an edge in combat. Nonetheless, it was extremely dangerous for Europeans to provoke fights with Native Americans, and most of them tried to avoid this when possible. In retrospect, one could in theory be impressed that so many European governments showed a genuine concern to rein in the worst excesses of their subjects, with an express eye to protecting the Indians from depredation. The logic was simple: they attempted to protect their subjects at home, in order to secure good order and a better tax base. So they would do the same to their subjects in the New World. For a long time, few Europeans harboured any master plan of pushing the Native Americans out of their own lands. In more densely populated regions such as Mexico, such an idea must have seemed an absurdity. Reality tends to occur ad hoc. Boundaries often took generations to move, and would have seemed fixed at the time. For several centuries, many Europeans assumed that they would long be a minority on the North American continent. In Mexico and Peru, they always have been.
    Population density mattered, a lot, when it came to pre-modern global migrations. China and India were ‘safe’ from excessive European colonisation because they had the densest populations in the world, and they were likewise largely immune to any diseases brought by Europeans. Sub-Saharan Africa had a lower population density depleted by slave raiding, but they still outnumbered European colonists by a large margin throughout the colonial era — again because European contact did not decimate their numbers through disease the way it did in the Americas. It is worth noting that no one claims that Europeans committed genocide in India, Asia or even Africa, although their technological advantages gave them every opportunity had they actually been of a genocidal mindset (as were for example the Mongols). In fact, the European track record shows them to be almost shockingly un-genocidal, given their clear technological advantages over the rest of the world for a period of several centuries. Few other civilisations, given similar power over so much of the world’s people, would have behaved in a less reprehensible manner. This is not to give Europeans a pat on the back. Rather it is to point out that Europeans are regularly painted as the very worst society on Earth, when in fact they had the power to do far, far more evil than they actually did. Let us at least acknowledge this fact.
    The mixed farming/gathering economy of most Native Americans, coupled with their vulnerability to Old World diseases, therefore meant that North America was sparsely populated by the time Jamestown was founded in 1607, and unable to replace missing population at a very high rate. At this time, the New World was more sparsely populated than anywhere in the Old World apart from its subarctic regions and the Sahara. Furthermore, a great deal of North American land was located in the temperate zones — traditionally the ones most suited to agriculture, and therefore to growing large civilisations. Primitive farming and hunter-gathering can only support a tiny population at the best of times. But Old World rice and wheat agriculture — the farming regimes which supported the great civilisations of the Old World — can support a far greater population density per hectare. The huge disparity in population density between the Old World and the New — especially after the first contact epidemics had wiped out so many New World peoples — therefore made it likely that excess population was going to flow from the Old World to the New. Furthermore, as soon as Old World colonists began to set up the farming and city-dwelling regimes which they imported from home, population growth in the colonies was going to outstrip Native American groups in terms of population growth, even without further in-migration.
    This brings us to the question of how cultural adaptation works. Many people have been told by their friends on social media that Europeans destroyed Native Culture. The problem is this: whenever a good idea comes along, which clearly increases one’s living standards, one tends to adopt it. And who is to say that this adaptation is bad, especially if it results in higher living standards? Even as they discovered America, the Europeans were in the process of adopting dozens of superior Chinese inventions and ideas: paper money, gunpowder, pasta and fine porcelain are only the most famous. Should we accuse China of ‘cultural imperialism’ when they ruined ‘native’ Italian cuisine by introducing Marco Polo to spaghetti? Similarly, Native Americans were quick to adapt the many useful Old World ideas which Europeans happened to carry with them. To reiterate, most of these had not even been invented by Europeans, but had been adopted by Europeans from other Old World cultures. Why grind corn laboriously by hand for several hours a day, when one can use millstones instead? Why hunt with bow and arrow, when one can use a rifle? Why refuse to domesticate cattle, when they provide huge boosts in caloric intake for your family? Why refuse to adopt the wheel, for goodness sake?
    By the time Columbus set sail, then, the Old World had dozens of clear technological and institutional advantages, which for the most part, New World populations were eager to adopt as soon as they saw them. Rather than jealously guard their technological superiority, many Europeans were ready to trade anything that Native Americans might want, including firearms. This made it inevitable that New World society would be changed beyond recognition, once sustained contact was initiated.
    What about Columbus himself? Try as they might (and they have tried mightily), historians have been unable to find any evidence that Columbus was genocidal, or had any particular ill-will towards the Native Americans that he encountered. The guy lived in 1492. We could have forgiven him for literally ‘going medieval’ on any natives that he encountered. This was the same century in which the Mongols were exterminating every Russian, Muslim and Chinese person that they could get their hands on, sometimes slaughtering over 100,000 men, women and children at a go in some of history’s worst blood orgies. Instead, we find in Columbus’s journals a general sense of curiosity, of wonder even, and a genuine desire at many points to communicate and trade with natives, whose help Columbus realised he would need if his little expeditions were going to be successful. Let’s remember that Columbus was first and foremost a merchant. His main purpose was to open a trade route to China. Europeans realised that China had better stuff. Like expert businessmen everywhere, Genoese merchants had long since realised that attacking the people you want to trade with is counterproductive.
    From the get-go, Isabella of Spain expressly forbade the enslavement of her New World subjects. Instead, she showed a genuine desire to bring them into what for her constituted the folds of civilisation, as Christian equals. So historians must grudgingly concede that the Spanish Crown, for its part, was likewise not nearly as bloodthirsty, genocidal or racist as they clearly hope to find.
    The priest Bartholomé de las Casas wrote an eloquent plea to the monarchs of Spain as early as the 1540s, chronicling in detail how wonton adventurers had taken advantage of the lawless situation in New Spain to exploit and slaughter natives against the express will of the Spanish Crown. A few things are worth noting about this: A) at least some Spanish people already had a genuine sense of compassion for, and desire to save, the Indians. B) Las Casas assumed that there was enough sympathy for his story at the Spanish court that he presented his book to the crown. Las Casas believed, therefore, that compassion for the Native Americans was, or at least could become, the dominant mood at court.
    Likewise, the relationship between English colonists in North America and Native Americans was never one-sided. To borrow a phrase from Facebook, the real historical relationship between these peoples is best described as ‘complicated’. The very first Native American chief who encountered the English, Powhatan, almost immediately expressed an interest to live in an English-style house. He considered it to be superior to the types of houses that his own people built, and he was ready to adopt whatever European ways made his life more comfortable. John Smith is supposed to have built him such a house in his capital of Werowocomoco, and to this day a monument called ‘Powhatan’s Chimney’ purports to be the remains of this house. Whether this is actually true or not, the fact is that many such acts of cultural borrowing were at work in English North America. We will say nothing of the many Native American habits that English settlers gratefully adopted, since this would be angrily dismissed as ‘cultural appropriation’ or some other such bad-faith nonsense.
    The story of Powhatan is outshined by the biography of his daughter Pocahontas. Of course there is much legend attached to this and there will be a ‘whitewashing’ of the legend. However, we have eye-witness accounts attesting that Pocahontas and other native children were in the habit of turning cartwheels around the Jamestown fort and playing with the boys there. Pocahontas and her friends are credited at one point with bringing provisions into the fort when the colonists were starving. Like any other neighbours, the settlers of Jamestown and the natives of the region had individual personal relationships that lasted for many years. But frontier relations were often capricious, and friendly games could turn to war, and back again, in a matter of months. At one point, John Smith was captured and brought to Powhatan; it is believed that Powhatan thereby hoped to bring Jamestown into his own dominions as Great Chief. He also sent an agent to England with a mission to spy out the population of that country — thus quite resourcefully attempting to size up the competition. He might even have imagined conquering England itself. Should we call Powhatan a ‘cultural imperialist’? At a later date, Pocahontas was captured in war, kept under house arrest, and eventually freed. In 1613, she converted to Christianity and took the rather less interesting name of ‘Rebecca’. She was given away by her father Powhatan to the successful Jamestown planter John Rolfe, and the two of them were given an estate totalling thousands of acres by Powhatan himself. Was this land ‘stolen’ from the Native Americans? Sources relate that the marriage helped foster several years of peace between the Native Americans and the Jamestown colony. In 1616 Pocahontas accompanied her husband to England, where she was treated as a celebrity, and an example of how the natives could be ‘civilised’. One can read this suspiciously, as any good Liberal critic is now taught to do, as an act of ‘white superiority.’ Or one could accept it at face value, as proof that many English people believed Native Americans to have the same innate human abilities as Europeans. Arguably, this is the exact opposite of racism. (Notice we don’t even have a word for this.)

  87. Part Two

    There is therefore little real mystery of what happened to the Native Americans as a culture. They were certainly not exterminated at the behest of any concerted ideology of hatred or European superiority. After the initial disease-caused die-offs, and in spite of a few sensational wars and small-scale massacres, remaining Native Americans adopted so many Old World ‘life hacks’ that most of them were gradually assimilated into European culture. Only a minority stayed ‘wild’ enough to be placed on reservations. Even after that, many enterprising people left the reservation for a better life elsewhere. This was done on an individual basis, for the most part peacefully and willingly, leaving no fuss or much trace in the historical record. The stories of Powhatan and Pocahontas attest to the presence of this pattern at the dawn of English-Native American relations, and it continues to the present day. Now, such a statement would cause an uproar in almost any academic conference room these days. But the majority of the evidence and experience all points in this direction.
    A visit to my hometown of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a few years ago provided some striking evidence for just how much long-term peaceful cohabitation was occurring between Natives and Europeans on the Pennsylvania frontier around the time of the American Revolution. (This is even after relations took a turn for the worse in the 1750s.) Plaques attest to schoolrooms full of Native American children who were being taught to read and write German by the Moravian settlers. While modern-day anthropologists might recoil in horror at this act of ‘cultural imperialism’, it is likely that the parents of these children were grateful for the opportunities afforded to them (and the calories given to them) by the Moravian schoolteachers. It is also very likely that these children would grow up to marry and live on a farm, in European style. Who in their right mind would live in the woods, if they could live a far more secure life on a farm? This was the 18th century we are talking about, when life was hard enough for the great majority of Europeans. The Native Americans therefore showed common sense by gravitating towards habits which enabled them individually to survive and thrive. Accordingly, the colonial-era graveyard in Bethlehem contains a significant percentage of native people who, like Pocahontas 150 years before, had converted to Christianity and adopted a new name. There is no evidence that the egalitarian-minded settlers thought any less of these new converts to the faith. I was lucky enough to be a part of this history, first-hand. One of my two best friends growing up had a mother who went to the Moravian church; he was very charismatic and everyone who knew him thought it was cool that he had Indian ancestors. As we ran around in the woods looking for arrowheads, I was sometimes a little jealous that I had none.
    Let’s take a moment to look at the Moravians, whom our Liberal friends will glibly dump into the bucket of ‘European cultural imperialists’. First, the Moravians were, quite literally, communists; I will let that settle without further comment on the irony that entails in this context. In the lands bordering Moravia, ‘white privilege’ meant the privilege of sending an annual tribute of children to be slaves of the Ottoman Sultan: a practice which went on for 500 years, and was not discontinued until 1918. For centuries, Moravians therefore lived under threat of their homeland being invaded, and their people slaughtered or carried into Islamic slavery. (And though it is meant tongue-in-cheek, even pretending to use the lens of ‘race’ here is wholly distorting: in the Mediterranean context, religion and ethnicity mattered far more than ‘race’.) My point is that the Moravians and many neighbouring peoples hardly came from a position of cultural dominance.
    But it gets much worse. Moravia itself was originally Slavic-speaking, but it was also in the process of being taken over by culturally dominant Germans. So the very people teaching Native Americans to learn German in Pennsylvania were themselves victims of ongoing cultural imperialism which threatened the extermination of their ancestral language. And within a few generations, German itself would be all but eradicated from Pennsylvania by the majority English-speaking population. To this day, a few Amish still speak Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a version of German. They still refer to non-Amish as ‘the English’ and think of them as foreigners. To pretend therefore that Native Americans were the only ones in 17th- and 18th-century America whose culture was being ‘erased’ is highly naive. It is pernicious even — and racist in itself. This is to say nothing about religion. The Moravians were only in Pennsylvania in the first place because they faced a threat of extermination for their religious beliefs at home. They were, quite literally, refugees seeking asylum from the most horrific conditions. They found refuge in the tolerant state of Pennsylvania, set up by the religious refugee William Penn.
    Conclusions
    As this piece was going to press, an article was published by the BBC on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. After pretending neutrality at the beginning of the piece, the author launched with relish into all the worst possible assertions that can be levied against the Plymouth colonists. He implied that they were slave owners, when in fact, only a single Plymouth colonist is documented as having owned a slave. He implied that Plymouth ran on dirty money from the African slave trade, which is likewise almost entirely false. He mentioned every instance that can be found of colonists murdering Indians, and the image accompanying the article showed a representation of a native who was mutilated by colonists.
    The article steadfastly refuses to mention any mitigating factors. It says nothing about massacres perpetrated by Native Americans on colonists, or on each other. It says nothing about generations of realpolitik which saw alliances between any and all groups at various times. It says nothing about opportunism on both sides, let alone friendship, or love. It perniciously implies that any such friendships and/or sexual relationships must have been tainted by violence or some sort of racist original sin, in which Native Americans were always victims or dupes. It does not mention that the colonists usually attempted to purchase land from local chiefs. Nor does our BBC article mention the disease which had wiped out over 90 per cent of the Native Americans who lived on the site of the Plymouth colony in the year before the Mayflower landed (the disease had been brought by fishermen, who had been sailing off Massachusetts for generations). Or the fact that the Plymouth colonists’ main economic plan was to trade peacefully with the Native Americans for furs, until this was disrupted by the bad behaviour of English colonists at a neighbouring site. It does not mention that the Plymouth colonists had indentured themselves to the Merchant Adventurers, merely to pay for their own passage. They were, quite literally, economic slaves themselves, and desperately in debt. The article in question says nothing about how Plymouth authorities sometimes hanged Englishmen, or hunted down English fugitives, in order to demonstrate to their Native American allies that they took crimes against them seriously. Nor would the author dare to address the fact that the protestant dissenters of Massachusetts were intellectual ancestors of the global abolitionist movement which he and most of his fellows now take for granted, and give European culture zero credit for.
    The question becomes, what good purpose does this calumny against the Pilgrims and other European colonists really serve? I ask this question in good faith. What myth about the Pilgrims needs tearing down with such one-sided ferocity? During the Cold War and the Gulf Wars, liberal historians called out excessive nationalism and jingoism, based on the legitimate fear that military types might start a war for no good reason. (In the case of Gulf War II, they apparently did.) So there is always a place for liberal critique within history. But on this issue, it’s more difficult to see the value of Pilgrim-bashing to today’s Native Americans, apart from making them bitter and resentful, and everyone else feel guilty and ashamed. There are after all very few Native Americans who identify as such; they are generally not subject to racism in the way that, say, African-Americans are, most are mixed race anyway, and most of them do not live on reservations. Many who do, are better off than many other Americans. So what grievances are pieces like the BBC story really addressing? In Canada, I am aware that there are serious social grievances on some reservations, particularly in the far north, but it seems as though the Canadian government has gone a long way in recent decades to address these in a reasonable manner, by allowing Native American representatives to guide and execute policy as much as possible. Should this not be applauded and supported?
    And whenever there are real grievances such as these, do we need to rewrite the entire history of European-Native relations in the most negative possible light in order to address them? Peel back the veneer, and we often find well-meaning white middle-class writers, whose cries of victimisation bespeak an essentialising racialism that they don’t even recognise themselves. Would it not be more productive to be more nuanced, to acknowledge that there have been points of goodwill, friendship, positive communication and — shudder the thought — even mutual benefit, since the very beginning?
    The real reason to perpetuate such a disastrously one-sided view, it seems, is if one is in a tiny minority of activists who has ‘drunk the kool-aid’ of Cultural Marxism — an ideology bent on bringing maximum embarrassment to Capitalism, Democracy, Western Civilisation and Europeans in general, in the vain hope that this will somehow bring about a sort of… what? Revolution? Really? Let’s not be naive. The only reason to be this consistently, this unreasonably angry about things which happened centuries ago, is if one sees the entirety of experience through the lens of perpetual racism and victimisation, and crucially, if one does not believe in the power of democracy to correct these wrongs.
    At base, such people do not believe in the democratic process. Marxists have always believed that a handful of self-appointed intellectuals are better suited to creating a ‘good society’ than the rough-and-tumble of real-world parliamentary debate. Has history taught them nothing? The ones who will really lose out if Anglophone democracy is further discredited are surely those people in the world who are most vulnerable and in need of protection. Do you wish to provoke an even wilder right-wing reaction to your irrational hate-mongering than we have already seen? Do you think that the autocrats you are emboldening will treat minorities and homosexuals better than the United States, Canada, and Britain? The Cultural Marxist’s finger, once again, is pointed in precisely the wrong direction.
    It is high time that historians spoke out against the dangerous misuse of history which supports the zealotry and iconoclasm currently emanating from our educational systems. This has become far too culturally dominant, far too damaging to global society, for us to ignore it any further. In the name of science, fairness, level-headedness, humanity, and democracy itself.
    Jeff Fynn-Paul is associate professor in history at Leiden University. His book Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World is now available

    1. Princess Pocahontas was a Native American who, in the year 1607, intervened to save the life of pioneer Captain John Smith. Later, having married an Englishman, she left her home in Virginia to travel to England, where she became a regular in the court of King James. She became the first of her nation to convert to Christianity.
      Burial in St George’spocahontasface.jpg
      In mid-March 1617 Pocahontas died while making a return voyage to Virginia. The last place down-river to take on fresh food and water would have been Gravesend, and it was here that Pocahontas may well have been brought ashore, either dead or dying.

      Those who attended Pocahontas ensured her burial in the chancel of the parish church – the place reserved for clergy and notable parishioners. They then resumed their journey, leaving a small error in the Burial Register that no one could correct: ‘March 21 – Rebecca Wrolfe, wyffe of Thomas Rolfe gent. A Virginian lady borne, was buried in ye chancell’.

      Captain Argall advised Rolfe to land his son Thomas at Plymouth, to be looked after until Rolfe’s ‘brother’, Henry (possibly a cousin) could fetch him back to London. From Virginia, Rolfe wrote, ‘My wife’s death is much lamented: my child much desired, when it is of better strength to endure so hard a passage, whose life greatly extinguisheth the sorrow of her loss, saying, “All must die. But ’tis enough that my child liveth”‘.

      The following year Powhatan died. John Rolfe took a third wife, Jane Pierce, who had come out in 1610, and their child Elizabeth was born in 1620. In March 1622, John Rolfe dictated his will ‘being sick in body but of perfect mind and memory’ and presumably died of natural causes. On March 22nd at a pre-arranged signal, the Native Americans turned on the settlers, killing 340, but the survivors took their revenge and stayed on.

  88. Evening, all. Early because I've had a day on the easy list; nothing planned, so I've walked into town for a coffee, done a bit of Christmas shopping and read a (trashy) novel. Tomorrow my leaking oil tank will be replaced so I'll have to be up early and have done all the chores before they start.

    Who is going to invest with Communists in charge?

  89. Burning rubbish now UK’s dirtiest form of power
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3wxgje5pwo

    More and more, BBC reports insult the intelligence. This is quite one of the worst examples of recent times. There are two major faults with this article. One is in the presentation of the data, the other is a misrepresentation of a simple chemical compound. See if you can identify them.

    There is a serious debate to be had about the usefulness of incineration. You won't find any hint of it in here.

  90. Burning rubbish now UK’s dirtiest form of power
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3wxgje5pwo

    More and more, BBC reports insult the intelligence. This is quite one of the worst examples of recent times. There are two major faults with this article. One is in the presentation of the data, the other is a misrepresentation of a simple chemical compound. See if you can identify them.

    There is a serious debate to be had about the usefulness of incineration. You won't find any hint of it in here.

  91. That's me gone for today. What could (and should) have been a fascinating lecture on Murillo was a disappointment. The woman lecturer completely misread the intellectual capacity of the audience – calling us "You guys" and giggling at her own jokes. Pity really.

    I was reminded of the tale told by a former legal colleague – brain on legs etc – who lectured in China in the 1970s. Used very simple language; short sentences – treated the audience as bright children. Ended up – "Any questions"?

    First question. "Thank you plofessor. During the proceedings on the second day of the Commons Committee on the Bill you have described…….."

    Collapse of thin professor!! He said that he realised then that yer Chinese meant business and were never to be taken for granted.

    Have a spiffing evening (as I write, G us prowls the house…)

    A demain – when I shall look in (while I can). I am seeing (geddit?) an eye specialist at 10.30….

  92. Sue Gray’s son had free Taylor Swift tickets for gig where she ‘intervened on star’s police escort’

    MP Liam Conlon took two seats worth £1,660 for Wembley concert to which singer was accompanied by motorbike convoy

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/10/15/TELEMMGLPICT000390171691_17289977168470_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqkB6NGcx1p0Y6SxevG-oALbeHsZFrEmHQDi0eQN40zhg.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Sue Gray is said to have been central in convincing the Met Police to provide a police escort for Taylor Swift

    Neil Johnston
    15 October 2024 2:12pm BST
    Sue Gray’s son received free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert at which the singer arrived using a blue light escort reportedly negotiated by his mother.

    Liam Conlon, the MP for Beckenham and Penge, took two tickets worth £1,660 from the Premier League to watch one of Swift’s record-breaking sell-out shows at Wembley Stadium in August. There is no suggestion any rules were broken.

    Ms Gray, who recently resigned as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, is said to have been central in convincing the Metropolitan Police to provide a police escort for Swift, according to Whitehall sources who spoke to The Sun.

    The US pop star was given a motorbike convoy by the Met Police on the way to her summer shows at Wembley Stadium after she was granted “VVIP” protection, which is normally reserved for royalty and heads of state.

    The Met is said to have raised concerns that it could breach its longstanding protocols despite fears that Swift could call off the concerts after a terror threat to the star during her tour in Austria.

    Scotland Yard had asked the Attorney General for legal advice about providing the escorts, after concerns that officers would be liable if an accident occurred.

    The Sun reported that Andrea Swift, the star’s mother and manager, threatened to cancel the August dates of her Eras Tour if their taxpayer-funded security demands were not met.

    Ms Gray is said to have been involved in convincing the Met to change their mind about the escort.

    The Labour Party has said there was no wrongdoing and all hospitality has been declared appropriately.

    Ms Gray resigned as chief of staff earlier this month, saying she “risked becoming a distraction” amid reports of infighting in Downing Street and controversy over her role.

    A total of eleven Labour MPs, including Sir Keir, accepted more than £20,000 in free tickets to see Swift perform, according to the official register of interests.

    Analysis by The Telegraph shows that Sir Keir was the only Labour politician to receive tickets directly from Universal Music, Swift’s record label. Other Cabinet ministers were given tickets from the Premier League and the FA, according to the official register.

    Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, also received free tickets from the record label but these were given to her husband Ed Balls, the former Labour cabinet minister and host of Good Morning Britain.

    There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by anyone involved and Mr Conlon declared the tickets openly and within the guidelines.

    While not a single Tory MP has been recorded accepting free hospitality to watch the singer, prominent Labour politicians have received more than 30 tickets.

    As well as Sir Keir, other Cabinet members to accept tickets were Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, and Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

    Other senior MPs to receive tickets include Catherine McKinnell, minister for schools standards, and Chris Ward, parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Keir.

    The only non-Labour MP to record accepting tickets was Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

    Many gifts given to MPs, such as tickets for boxes only available to organisers, do not have an exact monetary value as it is not possible to buy them.

    However, MPs will estimate their value for declaration in the register based on similar tickets that can be bought, or information from organisers.

    Swift sold out Wembley eight times during her Eras tour when she performed there in June and August, breaking Michael Jackson’s record for the most sold-out shows at the stadium.

    Fans struggled to get tickets for the gigs as 92,000 people packed into Wembley as part of a European tour spanning 50 dates.

    Concert-goers are estimated to have spent an average of £848 per person to see Swift at one of 15 UK tour dates.

    Sir Keir received a total of 10 tickets worth £7,300, for three different gigs.

    The Prime Minister has previously said he will pay back two of the tickets paid for by the FA worth £598, and another four from Universal Music worth £2,800.

    He will not pay back £4,000 worth of tickets he received in June before he became Prime Minister.

    Mr Streeting accepted four tickets and hospitality from the FA for a gig at Wembley in August worth £1,160. Ms Phillipson took two tickets for the same concert worth £522.

    Mr Conlon and Labour were contacted for comment.

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

    Eric Flint
    1 hr ago
    Well Gray's son, Liam Conlon (Irish Republican and labour activist) is an old time 'chum' of Sir Keir as chairman of the Labour Party Irish Society in Northern Ireland and even publicy nominated Starmer to replace Corbyn way back in 2019. No surprise, alike his mother, Conlon got his Taylor Swift tickets too. Starmer offered him safe Labour seat, elected July'24 and also rapidly promoted to be Louise Haigh's (Secretary of State for Transport) own private secretary too! Starmer owes Gray and her family big time for delivering Boris Johnson's head on a platter of utter treacherty and decei

      1. Just one ticket for a Coldplay performance at Wembley next August.

        "Coldplay
        23 Aug • Sat • 17:00 • 2025
        Wembley Stadium, London, United Kingdom

        Favorite

        Under 14s must be accompanied by an adult. Children under 5 will not be admitted. Under 14s will not be permitted on the standing areas. Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult in the standing area.

        Section 144

        Zone Lower Tier
        See all tickets in this section
        £1,837each
        Quantity
        1 ticket
        Prices include estimated VAT and booking fee, exclude delivery fee
        E-ticket

        Ticket and meal package

        Includes VIP pass

        Access to VIP lounge

        Early entry

        Clear view"

        https://www.viagogo.co.uk/Concert-Tickets/Alternative-and-Indie/Coldplay-Tickets/E-155391497?quantity=1&listingNotes=10%2C11%2C93%2C2%2C119&listingQty=&listingId=8001606956

    2. This entire episode gets more squalid by the minute

      Starmer met with Taylor Swift after she was granted police escort

      Prime Minister held 10-minute meeting with singer at her final UK concert, No 10 sources confirm

      Nick Gutteridge
      Chief Political Correspondent
      15 October 2024 6:39pm BST
      Sir Keir Starmer met with Taylor Swift after the decision was taken to grant her a royal-style police escort, No 10 sources have confirmed.

      The Prime Minister had a 10-minute meeting with the US pop star in Wembley when he attended her final UK concert on Aug 20.

      It came after Sue Gray, his then-chief of staff, was involved in talks to secure the singer VIP security protection against usual police protocols.

      The admission will drag Sir Keir into the row over whether ministers and No 10 applied undue pressure on Scotland Yard to provide the escort.

      They came as Downing Street rejected Tory calls for the Cabinet Office to launch an independent inquiry into claims of impropriety.

      No 10 was earlier forced to deny that the tickets, provided by the singer’s Universal Music record label, had been a “thank you” for sorting the police escort.

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

      BTL comments flooding in

      1. I thought my contempt for the likes of David Cameron had reached rock bottom, but Starmer is even lower.

      2. Ten minutes…who knew Starmer had ten minutes in him 🙄 Edit: and who cares – 30 paedos released today, just being reported GBN

      3. Ten minutes…who knew Starmer had ten minutes in him 🙄 Edit: and who cares – 30 paedos released today, just being reported GBN

    3. Why is it always rich people – who could easily afford them any way – are always the people tat get given freebies?

      2. Probably quid pro quos. Unwritten ones but understood. The likes of you and I have little to offer in the way of gifts in order to secure influence over policies.

      3. "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away."

  93. Russia retakes half of lost Kursk territory in blow to Zelensky. 15 October 2024.

    Russia has recaptured half of the territory it lost to Ukraine in Kursk, a region central to Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan to defeat Vladimir Putin.

    A senior Russian commander from Chechnya said that an estimated 50,000 troops were pushing back Ukrainian forces, who either had to flee or “end up in the cauldron”.

    “Approximately half of the territory that was occupied by the enemy has already been liberated,” said Major General Apty Alaudinov.

    This leaked in the Telegraph last week and was suppressed; probably by a D-Notice.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/15/russia-ukraine-kursk-zelensky-territory/

    1. Time is running out, Araminta, can this war really be won in three more weeks…when will Z break cover?

          4. Incidentally, our son said exactly the same…. 'I see Mum has discovered emojis, I said to myself' he said. I am known for being cautious, you see…!

    3. Not sure I agree with you. Would you serve bacon butties at a Gaza Israel peace conference?

      if you are trying to get investment from Islamic countries, you don't insult them by serving food that is prepared contrary to their beliefs. I am sure that a bit of thought would have allowed them to put together a menu that did not offend but avoided halal slaughter practices.

      what about potential investors from non Islamc countries? How will they take being served camel food?

      1. " I am sure that a bit of thought would have allowed them to put together a menu that did not offend but avoided halal slaughter practices."

        That presupposes a government with common sense . . . we don't have one, richardl_.

      2. I would NOT COMPROMISE .. I would not offer halal, instead I would offer vegetarian choices in the delicious way that middle eastern foods are served .

        We should not be offering the traditional usual 3 course British meal ..

        We should also not cavil towards Muslims and to be needful of their money ..

        They have enough of our country, their mosques , food shops , hotels , schools , protection , special relationship with the police , lawcourts , Sharia banks , free sex with young girls / boys/ goats/ hens ./dogs / car bumpers etc etc.

        We should never ever put ourselves out by allowing halal slaughter just to feed people with fat cheque books .

        Never ever.

    4. Halal meat should be outlawed by existing legislation.

      No religion needs to slaughter animals for food. For anyone who’s concerned about animals raised and killed for food, there is only one label that really matters: “vegan”.
      [PETA UK]

    5. I've read the Sun report and my understanding, unlike the Sun's, is that offering a Halal menu was not the aspect supposed to "showcase the best UK produce". Along with the absence of alcohol, it was meant to help procure investment in the UK from an eminent and wealthy Saudi businessman. The Sun framed it the way it did to agitate its readership.

      1. Yes, nobody appears to have a problem when football (Qatar World Cup?), golf etc bends over backwards to appease their Saudi paymasters – I bloody well wish they did!

    1. Yes, been on GBN last half hour or so. Not the only one NF has received – if it was any other UK politician he would no doubt be offered specialist protection, foc.

    2. Oh now we know, that's why our political idiots have allowed all that garbage into OUR country.

        1. I thought it might have been a Glock machine pistol. Either way, he's not long of this world, hopefully……

  96. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Britain doesn’t know how to remember the Holocaust
    Samuel Rubinstein15 October 2024, 2:37pm
    On 27 January next year, the world will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. ‘The commemoration will be the last of its kind’, says Michael Bornstein who, having hidden for six months in his mother’s bunk, aged only four, was among the youngest survivors.

    What lies ahead regarding Holocaust memory – and anti-Semitism – when Michael Bornstein is no longer with us? Lily Ebert’s death last week week feels like an important moment: the most famous Holocaust survivor, at least to the TikTok generation, is also now gone. So far, Britain has met this historical moment in bizarre ways. The D-Day anniversary that Rishi Sunak left a few months ago was the last time such an event would occur with living veterans present.

    A few weeks ago, Sir Keir Starmer set out his muddled vision for Holocaust memorialisation in a speech at the Holocaust Educational Trust. It was not mere politics for him, but something deeper. His Holocaust education as a schoolboy was significant in his formation: he recalled how, when a Holocaust survivor came to visit his school, his boisterous classmates ‘fell silent, totally silent and still’. He declared with utter certainty that improvements to Holocaust education would help to combat anti-Semitism – that a renewed emphasis on Holocaust education could provide the antidote to ‘hatred marching on our streets, the pulse of fear beating in this community’.

    Most popular
    Fredrik Karrholm
    Why Sweden is cracking down on cousin marriages

    Such claims are naïve in the extreme. The Prime Minister insisted that the Holocaust will remain on the curriculum ‘come what may’, and committed to closing the loopholes that currently allow some schools to get away with not teaching it. But, as he conceded, the Holocaust is already on the curriculum: and this has done nothing to arrest ‘record levels of anti-Semitism’. Indeed, it is easy to imagine it having the exact opposite effect, breeding a certain resentment towards Jews for appearing to get a special, enshrined status in the curriculum. All this is further inflamed, of course, by the ongoing war in the Middle East, where parallels with the Holocaust are never too far away. The most popular reply to Sir Keir’s tweet about his speech, with 16,000 likes, reads ‘“We will make sure the Holocaust is never again repeated” – Man Supporting Another Holocaust’.

    In his speech, Sir Keir wholeheartedly endorsed the ‘Testimony360’ programme, which uses VR technology to allow students not only to hear Holocaust survivors but ‘interact’ with them too. He hopes this will ensure that ‘the message of Britain’s Holocaust survivors will echo eternally across the generations’. VR may have a part to play in the future of education, and it is good that survivor testimony is still being collated before it is lost forever. But they may be trying to execute an impossible task. Time does pass, and historical events do become more remote and less relevant to us with its passage. Even the Holocaust, the most egregious crime in history, is no exception: it is not beyond the natural passage of time or the fading of memory.

    Sir Keir capped off his speech with a puzzling line: ‘For the first time, studying the Holocaust… will become a critical, vital part of every single student’s identity’. It probably isn’t the place of the national curriculum to dictate to pupils their ‘identities’; nor is it clear to me what this would look like in practice. Such a sentiment springs from a worldview that ‘education’ is a panacea; it is a worldview that insists that the cure for all social ills is ‘training courses’ and ‘workshops’.

    It is a worldview that insists that the cure for all social ills is ‘training courses’ and ‘workshops’
    The physical manifestation of this sentiment will be the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, right next to parliament. Part of Sir Keir’s speech was devoted to a defence of this controversial project: the Centre will be built ‘boldly, proudly, unapologetically; not as a Jewish community initiative, but as a national initiative’. One of its most dogged supporters is Robert Jenrick, for whom, incidentally, Dov Forman, Lily Ebert’s great-grandson and TikTok co-star, is a senior researcher. The Centre is borne of the same deep anxiety as Sir Keir’s speech ‘Testimony360’: ‘every day that passes’, say its proponents Ed Balls and Eric, Lord Pickles, ‘means fewer Holocaust survivors will be around’. That it will be so close to parliament is no accident. Just as Sir Keir hopes that the Holocaust will be a ‘vital part of every student’s identity’, Balls and Lord Pickles hope that the Centre, in its location, ‘will remind all of us, and future citizens, that the Holocaust is central to our own history and society’. It is as though, anxious about the passage of time, these figures are going into overdrive to assert the importance of the Holocaust to modern Britain. Rather than being an event in which Britain was largely offstage, now it is presented as a foundational moment in our own national story.

    I spent much of the summer in Rome. Every morning, I walked along a street that was once home to a large Jewish community. I stepped over at least a dozen Stolpersteine, small plaques bearing the names of Holocaust victims outside the homes they were torn away from. Sometimes I skipped over them in a hurry, late for my lesson; other times I stopped for a while, muttering their names in tantric concentration, trying to commit them to memory. These stones, I think, will be the most poignant and enduring Holocaust memorials. That they are unobtrusive is part of the point.

    1. Now what could possibly cause a rise in anti-Semitism? Surely nothing to do with importing so many people whose ideology commits them to removing the Jews?

    2. The proposed Victoria Tower Gardens memorial will invalidate the Holocaust. It will become just another tourist attraction for half-witted foreigners, while fifth-rate politicians being interviewed by the mainstream media will position themselves in front of it in order to demonstrate their virtue.

      Samuel Rubinstein's 'unobtrusive plaques' show the correct approach. If a new memorial is to be installed, it should be a little off the beaten track, out of the way but not hidden, quiet but not silent, modest but not anonymous. It should require a little effort to find it in order to quietly reflect on the horror of the Holocaust. That can't be done in a public park with tourists, cyclists, children, dogs, poseurs and Islamists.

      1. Haven’t heard or seen much of the knighted Ghanaian architect chosen to design the Tower Gardens Holocaust Memorial. Some sexual abuse scandal I imagine quietens the charlatan.

        I agree entirely that it is more impactful to have quiet places off the beaten track for such memorials.

    3. The proposed Victoria Tower Gardens memorial will invalidate the Holocaust. It will become just another tourist attraction for half-witted foreigners, while fifth-rate politicians being interviewed by the mainstream media will position themselves in front of it in order to demonstrate their virtue.

      Samuel Rubinstein's 'unobtrusive plaques' show the correct approach. If a new memorial is to be installed, it should be a little off the beaten track, out of the way but not hidden, quiet but not silent, modest but not anonymous. It should require a little effort to find it in order to quietly reflect on the horror of the Holocaust. That can't be done in a public park with tourists, cyclists, children, dogs, poseurs and Islamists.

        1. Do you have any medication like Buscopan , gut reflex calmer downer , or Pepto Bismol, or even a warm cup of weak tea .

          Paracetamol.. do you think you have a temperature .. or has the gag reflex upset you more .

        2. Persevere, Tom. Can the RAFA not provide housing at least within easy reach of the NHS?

          For what it's worth. I was involved in building the Borders General Hospital in Melrose. Prolly outside your area.

          Failing which, is there public transport to Carlilsle, and the Cumberland Infirmary?

      1. As for awful – see my reply to Maggie.

        Nobody here to help hence my imminent return to bed

  99. Just been sitting around most of the day.
    Wife out shopping and bought me another lovely new jumper at M&S at discount prices under 30 quid excellent quality highly recommended.
    And number one popped in on his travels today.
    Number two later with his two lovely children.
    What a good move not going shopping.
    I've come to consider my self so lucky that two of our son's and families live close by.

  101. EU Demands British Soldiers for ‘Peacekeeping Missions’ in Brexit Reset: Report

    Kurt Zindulka15 Oct 202465
    3:26
    The European Union is reportedly demanding that the UK offer up British soldiers for so-called “peacekeeping” missions conducted by Brussels as a part of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s “Brexit reset”.

    At a meeting in Luxembourg this week, Eurocrats impressed upon UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy that Britain would be expected to commit its soldiers to EU Common Security and Defence Policy missions if it wants a restructuring of post-Brexit relations, the Financial Times reported.

    The globalist-oriented paper cited unnamed sources who explained that Britain would not be expected to participate immediately in EU “peacekeeping” efforts, but “they will do”.

    The foreign minister said the meeting was a “historic moment that marks our EU reset” and declared that the UK and Europe’s security is “indivisible”.

    “At this time, whether it is the aggression of Russia in Ukraine, the tremendous issues and conflicts in the Middle East, or global affairs and geopolitical affairs more generally, it is hugely important the UK and Europe remain steadfast,” Lammy added.

    In a joint statement following the meeting, Lammy and EU High Representative Josep Borrell—the bloc’s top diplomat—said that they “reaffirmed the importance of the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom for European security and defence and agreed to advance work towards a security partnership to address common threats and challenges.”

    Should the leftist Labour government, which is staffed full of anti-Brexit politicians, acquiesce to the demands, it could be seen as a major betrayal of the outcome of the 2016 referendum.

    The notion of an EU Army was a major topic ahead of the vote, with Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage warning that Brussels envisaged an imperial-style transnational military and that if Britain failed to exit the bloc, UK forces would be committed to fighting in European-led operations.

    Opponents of Brexit, such as Lib-Dem turned Facebook executive Nick Clegg, derided the warnings as a conspiracy theory and a “dangerous fantasy“.

    However, since Brexit, there have been growing calls from top figures in Brussels to formalise an EU Army, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has vowed to build the “political will” within Brussels to form a joint military. European Council President Charles Michel has also argued in favour of the project, arguing that the bugled Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan that the bloc needs to increase its “strategic autonomy“.

    Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Eurocrats also began to push to “bring the UK into a framework for common cooperation on defence and foreign policy matters”.

    With the Labour government vowing that Britain will not rejoin the EU’s Single Market or its youth mobility scheme, it is unclear what bargaining chips would actually persuade Brussels to give the UK better terms on trade.

    According to The Times of London, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen is pushing for the UK to sign onto its asylum pact by 2026, in which European countries could unload up to 30,000 illegals onto Britain in exchange for taking back some of the boat migrants who cross the English Channel from France.

    https://twitter.com/BreitbartLondon/status/1809985930406527329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1809985930406527329%7Ctwgr%5E900e748b812f5eadd0a46e9c720d96c252604579%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-4.html1809985930406527329

      2. Anti-white everything except getting more handouts for a certain proportion of the world population (and they won't even get it – their leaders will).

        Edit: if anything, he is proof that DEI doesn't work.

      3. Anti-white everything except getting more handouts for a certain proportion of the world population (and they won't even get it – their leaders will).

        Edit: if anything, he is proof that DEI doesn't work.

    2. This is one of the reasons why I & many others voted LEAVE at the Referendum.
      Of course we were assured by the Remainers that the idea of an EU Army was a pure conspiracy theory and was never going to happen.

        3. Do you remember the photo of him with Cameron…reminded me of LBJ statement 'I got his pecker in ma pocket'….

          3. No doubt the same way that most if not all of them land plumb jobs – for services rendered. I’m sure Polly would know the details.

          4. Yes, Polly was correct on Soros/Schwab, not seen for a while. Used to get quite a bit of abuse on Spectator, wrongly.

      1. I think you'll find that to all intents and purposes we ARE, in fact, still in the EU in all but name.

        1. I soon lost any high expectations of a post-Brexit UK diverging very far from the EU. When Boris Johnson boasted about the restoration of crown stamps on British beer glasses, it signalled the triviality and falsity of the whole Brexit exercise. The EU had never prohibited that stamp, only that it accompany, not replace, the CE mark. If that was supposed to be representative of the UK's newly won independence, it clearly wasn't worth the bother. I now wish I hadn't voted in the Brexit referendum. I was duped and participated in a sham. I no longer have any sense of obligation to ever vote again.

          1. David you and I were duped by the barstewards who were given the job following the referendum to exit the EU. Among them the present PM disrespected the vote for 3 years. Many others prevaricated and offered us piffle. Sure it was a difficult task. So was the one facing Churchill in 1939 but he didn't give up.

            Sure there is no obligation to vote but at least you can use your vote by not voting for the parties that betrayed Britain….

  103. In case no-one else has mentioned this, it seems that Thieves lied about her Junior Chess Champion status. Apparently, she came 29th. Why was none of this lying, sleaze and grandiosity exposed during the election campaign? It seems she was some kind of junior clerk in a high street bank rather than the high powered financier she chose to pretend to be. Perhaps tea-lady is closer than we think. Guido has the details.

    3. Admittedly this was 60 years ago.

      We played chess against a local girls team, Watford Grammar for Girls and won the match comfortably. 5 1/2:1/2 or something like that.

      I was not impressed, so to make a point after the match, I played simultaneous speed chess against their team members, clocks running even if I was at another board.
      The set time was 5 minutes each.

      I beat all six of their team with time to spare.

      In those days girls/women's chess was a joke.

      1. Yep. Reading about it it is clearly incompetent and spiteful, inefficient, unthinking and tiresome.

      2. Agreed. It can't be reformed. A modern day Guy Fawkes is needed to blow up the place. It started with good intentions but it now does more harm than good.

    2. Adding the BRICs in isn't a bad thing. The problem is they're not on the security council because they're the source of most of the danger.

    3. Well, hew won't be (wrong colour). If it's a Brit it will be one of those spurious blick baronesses that deign to grace the House of Lords. Or Lammy. Let that sink in.

  106. I hope Trump wins and expels them from Manhattan to celebrate their diversity elsewhere, Addis Ababa or Gaza, for example.

  111. Rachel Reeves has claimed £1,225 on expenses to pay someone else to help file her tax return, it can be revealed.

    The Chancellor – who is expected to raise the nation’s taxes in her first Budget later this month – billed the taxpayer as much as £137.50 every year between 2014 and 2022 to cover the cost of accountancy services.

    Tax experts have questioned whether MPs should be allowed to claim expenses for help with their tax returns, while ordinary taxpayers are expected to sort their own.

    Expenses records show that 47 MPs made similar claims last year, and Ms Reeves has now paid back the £137.50 she claimed in April last year.

    At the same time, millions of taxpayers have been left to battle long waits when trying to speak to HM Revenue and Customs amid a customer service crisis at the tax office. MPs also have access to a dedicated fast-track helpline.

    In all, Ms Reeves has claimed £1,225 for accountancy services since 2014. A spokesman for the Chancellor said her expenses were claimed and declared in line with Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) rules, and added that she had no plans to claim for accountancy services again this year.

    So far this year, 10 MPs have claimed accountancy fees as an expense, including Foreign Secretary David Lammy who was reimbursed £247. Mr Lammy’s office also said that his claims were in relation to parliamentary work and therefore within the rules.

    According to watchdog IPSA, an MP’s accountancy bills can be paid out of the public purse as long as they relate to their parliamentary duties. An MP might hire an accountant to, for example, keep a record of their office costs or advise on potentially complex areas like a staff member’s employment status.

    However, David Whiscombe, an independent tax consultant, said: “I have great difficulty in seeing how preparation of a self-assessment tax return would not count as ‘personal accountancy or tax advice’. It should be no more difficult for an MP to file a tax return than for any other employee or office-holder.”

    Mike Warburton, former tax director at accountancy firm Grant Thornton, added: “It is very important that these expense claims are carefully scrutinised.”

    It comes as the nation’s tax burden is on track to hit record highs because of the freeze on tax thresholds, due to last until 2028. Millions have been dragged into higher tax bands due to fiscal drag, which occurs when wages rise with inflation while income tax thresholds remain unchanged.

    A record 11.5 million taxpayers filed for self-assessment last year, according to official figures.

    HMRC has struggled to cope with the surge in demand for its services, leading to long helpline delays. However, MPs can dodge the long wait times thanks to a dedicated fast-tracking helpline to “Public Department 1” (PD1), a specialist HMRC department.

    Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake, shadow secretary of state for business and trade, said: “Typical Labour, one rule [for] them and one rule [for] everyone else. I’ve never claimed for this kind of expense and never heard of any other MP who has either.”

    Former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg also said: “It didn’t occur to me as an MP that I could claim accountancy fees from the taxpayer.

    “This may be within the rules but it is hard to justify when millions of people on self-assessment have to fill out their own forms or pay an accountant. However, we have seen in the last few weeks the rapacious greed of socialists.”

    Currently, all MPs must fill in a self-assessment tax return, although from the 2024-25 tax year this will no longer be required.

    The Chancellor’s expenses records show 10 claims listed with details such as “accountancy services” and “support with completing self assessment tax return”. MPs must fill in a supplementary form in addition to their main tax return.

    John O’Connell, of lobby group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers won’t be surprised that politicians find filling in their tax returns a headache, given how complicated our tax regime is. But it will be hugely frustrating that elected officials get access to taxpayer-funded help, given they’re the ones responsible for the mind-numbing complexity of the system.”

    An IPSA spokesman said: “The cost of accountancy services which are solely related to parliamentary duties can be claimed from an MP’s office costs budget. This may include the preparation of self-assessment tax returns as per HMRC guidelines.

    “Personal accountancy or tax advice is not claimable, including self-assessment tax returns for personal activities or income. MPs must use reasonable discretion when claiming for parliamentary accountancy.”

    YL

    Yvonne Leonard
    5 hrs ago
    Taxpayers' money funding Minister's accountant's fees…come off it!

    Reply by Tony Ashcroft.

    TA

    Tony Ashcroft
    4 hrs ago
    Haha…the Truth is often ‘Stranger than Fiction’ except we are talking about a Labour Party here…so it’s ALL “FICTION”.

    Comment by Sussex Martlet.

    SM

    Sussex Martlet
    6 hrs ago
    It's fraud plain and simple or theft if you prefer. Why should the taxpayer pay for personal tax advise to Reeves and not to you and me. It's a matter for the police surely.

  112. 'Night All
    RIP General Sir Mike Jackson GCB, CBE, DSO, DL.
    A proper general I once heard a story I can't confirm that when a battery of Serb artillery were moved to target a Brit position he called in an airstrike the American (political) admiral havered only to be told launch now or explain why your carrier was assaulted by Royal Marines……….They launched

      1. There are some poor little beggars here in the UK as well , and no one knows the cruelty that is meted out to them ..

        ..Sounds like certain Pakistanis subject their daughters/ sons / babies / sisters/cousins wives to barbarism that is from the dark ages and the mouth of hell.

  119. 394750+up ticks,

    Pillow ponder

    They walk among us, years ago you could tell an outer space alien they had an extra little finger.

    The same applies today with lookalike indigenous aliens, the fingers still have it, the fingers still have it.

    I believe hitler was made role model setting the trend for many of today's politico's, but I cannot get my head round clasping the hands in front of the sex tackle posing with a heart shape opening between the fingers, tis got me beat.

      1. He means that weird hand gesture that they often make in photographs with the heart shape. If you try to do it, it's so unnatural, yet so many politicians make this sign in photos.

      2. 394817+up ticks,

        Morning SIADC,

        Just musing,
        Many many moons ago, there was a tv series portraying people lookalike people ( alien nasties) who would do the dirty deed and scarper in the scarpering process, last knockings of the show, the camera would pan down and settle on an extra little finger.
        Could be the current hand clasping in front of sex organs
        ( creating a heart shaped aperture) when many political nasties are posing, could be concealing an extra digit.

        Ps,
        No one can convince me that the kneeling tool and the blackout millipede are of this planet.

      1. 394817 + up ticks,

        Morning G,
        The reason I left that out was I did not want to blow their cover as very patriotic double agents.

        Well meant advice, be like dad keep mum.

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