Tuesday 16 November: The NHS has all the cash it needs but still lags behind European systems

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

723 thoughts on “Tuesday 16 November: The NHS has all the cash it needs but still lags behind European systems”

  3. West must choose between Russian gas and supporting Ukraine, PM warns. 16 November 2021.

    In a message to European countries that are heavily dependent on Russian gas, the prime minister suggested he believes Vladimir Putin could be serious about restricting supplies from pipelines that run through eastern Europe, if the west signals its intention to defend Ukraine.

    He also accused Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, of an “abhorrent” attempt to engineer a migrant crisis on the border with Poland in an effort to undermine European unity.

    In the wide-ranging speech, he also made a pledge to make the UK into a “science superpower”, promising to “go big on quantum computing”.
    “If AI can mimic the intuitive flair of the human brain, then quantum computing will enable us to process information so fast that we can process an almost infinite number of solutions at once,” he said. “And if we could perfect it, there are so many problems we could solve, including how to turn nitrogen into fertiliser and feed the world without creating so much CO2.

    “So I am setting the ambition that the UK will aim to build a general-purpose quantum computer, and secure the single biggest share of a global quantum computing market by 2040.”

    Agh. Boris in Wonderland! This is what an utterly decadent state looks like. It hates its own people and loves its enemies. Its Prime Minister makes meaningless vacuous statements while his accomplices applaud and the bureaucracy follow their own rituals. Why would Vlad restrict gas supplies when the cash from it flows into his own Exchequer? How can Lukashenko be engineering a “Migrant Crisis! and Macron not? The AI like his Global Warming plans are the purest fantasy.

    He’s lost it completely.

    The Real Rulers of the UK should be emerging soon!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/15/west-must-choose-between-russian-gas-and-supporting-ukraine-pm-warns

    1. Morning Minty et al.

      Yes it really is the Panto Season and it seems all the separate pantomimes have been rolled into one. The good thing about panto is that it was years ahead of the current cross-dressing Woke Trans fad. I’m sure our supporting cast of Nottlers can supply roles for the key players. May I kick off with Boris as Widow Wankey and Sunac as the Jinn (Arabic: جن‎)?

      3. Of course he was! Who can forget the wonderful portrait of Dan running across the space base wearing only a small hand towel?

      4. I can say, categorically, that he wasn’t. How have I come to this rather obvious conclusion? Because a cousin of my mother was one of those who drew Dan Dare for the Eagle. We visited him when I was a teenager, and were shown his ‘studio’ in a back bedroom at his house in Balcombe. There was his easel with the latest drawing, and several more on his desk. I was staggered by the quality, and his remarkable skill. He kept several for reference, so that the detail of the drawings were consistent. I seem to recall that he did some work for the Beano too.

    3. Johnson is such a transparent blowhard. All the while he is talking out of his arse he is planning to shut down the UK at the behest of the globalists. His repeated attempts at creating smokescreens of normality are risible.

  4. West must choose between Russian gas and supporting Ukraine, PM warns. 16 November 2021.

    In a message to European countries that are heavily dependent on Russian gas, the prime minister suggested he believes Vladimir Putin could be serious about restricting supplies from pipelines that run through eastern Europe, if the west signals its intention to defend Ukraine.

    He also accused Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, of an “abhorrent” attempt to engineer a migrant crisis on the border with Poland in an effort to undermine European unity.

    In the wide-ranging speech, he also made a pledge to make the UK into a “science superpower”, promising to “go big on quantum computing”.
    “If AI can mimic the intuitive flair of the human brain, then quantum computing will enable us to process information so fast that we can process an almost infinite number of solutions at once,” he said. “And if we could perfect it, there are so many problems we could solve, including how to turn nitrogen into fertiliser and feed the world without creating so much CO2.

    “So I am setting the ambition that the UK will aim to build a general-purpose quantum computer, and secure the single biggest share of a global quantum computing market by 2040.”

    This is what an utterly decadent state looks like. It hates its own people and loves its enemies. Its Prime Minister makes meaningless vacuous statements while his accomplices applaud and the bureaucracy follow their own rituals. Why would Vlad restrict gas supplies when the cash flows into his own Exchequer? How can Lukashenko be engineering a “Migrant Crisis! and Macron not? The AI like his Global Warming plans are the purest fantasy.

    He’s lost it completely.

    The Real Rulers of the UK should be emerging soon!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/15/west-must-choose-between-russian-gas-and-supporting-ukraine-pm-warns

        1. The Reuters fact- checkers have decided it didn’t happen. We’ll have to wait and see. Smoke and fires come to mind.

  6. Lone Wolf strikes again:

    Turns out he wasn’t a member of the RoP….

    “Investigators are being cautious about drawing conclusions about the motivation of Emad Al Swealmeen.
    He is believed to have originally come from the Middle East and went into the asylum system. But in recent years he may have converted to Christianity and also suffered from mental health issues.
    The decision to declare this a terrorist incident looks less to be based on a clear understanding of his ideology and more on his methodology, with the use of an improvised explosive device.

      1. They never act on their own. They live somewhere. They buy bomb material from other people. The police/”security services” don’t seem to find and arrest the others. This cannot be incompetence but is a cover-up.

    2. I thought apostates from Islam were bumped off. Either he was indulging in a spot of taqqiya or his former co-religionists carried out the normal sentence.

    4. May have? Yeah, right. Forgive my ignorance, but Emad Al Swealmeen does not look like any Christian name I’ve ever seen.

  7. Liverpool attack suspect reported to be Christian convert. 16 November 2021.

    A suspected terrorist who blew himself up outside Liverpool Women’s hospital at the weekend has been named as 32-year-old Emad al-Swealmeen.
    He is said to have converted to Christianity after moving to the UK from the Middle East and was later briefly taken in by Christian volunteers Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchcott in Liverpool.

    Speaking to the BBC, Elizabeth Hitchcott said: “We’re just so, so sad. We just loved him, he was a lovely guy,” adding she and her husband were “very” shocked by the incident.

    As Suicide Bombers are of course! That he was just playing them as Gullible Christian Fools has probably never crossed her or the BBC’s minds! She has lots of fellow travellers! Most of them among the Elites and the Institutions of the State.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/16/emad-al-swealmeen-suspect-in-liverpool-attack-was-christian-convert

    1. Good morning Minty,

      I had a thought , the suicide bomber would have had to have been secured into his suicide vest , I wonder whether he was an unwilling participant, might his family or even Christian rescuers have been in peril .. perhaps he had been threatened by the smugglers , money lenders and I bet your bottom dollar there are thousands of terrrorist cells just biding their time plotting and planning more evil deeds .

      As our anxiety and anger grows, there will be more accusations by BLM or Asians of racism , and our whole democratic collection of voices will be called out once again .. we are losing our identity because of the whinging bleats from non indigenous groups who are destroying our freedoms and history.

      1. As I commented yesterday, there may be dozens involved in the attack, or closely associated to the bomber. They are not arrested or interrogated.
        And really, TB, I cannot accept the coercion notion.

      1. It’s all Boris’ fault, Annie. (Good morning, btw.) If Boris hadn’t created all these lockdowns, then there wouldn’t have been so many “mental health issues”.

        :-))

        1. Yes indeedy. As posted elsewhere that is exactly what the “Security minister” (sic) Damian Hinds has said.

    4. “suspected terrorist”. Does the use of this expression mean that the Guardian thinks that there might be some other explanation? Or that someone somewhere will bring a case against them for defamation? Perhaps his broken-hearted grannie in Damascus?

      Why do we get this outpouring of obfuscating nonsense every time there is an atrocity carried out by a muslim? The government, the BBC, the chatterati, the police, and the security services (who have no other function than to prevent this), all rush to present excuses, deflections, distractions, mitigations and all of them play down the nature of the perpetrators and their evil cult, but only after the police spend a couple of days, pretending it is not a terrorist attack.
      As I commented yesterday there is always a very obvious lack of of supporters, collaborators, friends relatives, suppliers, and other suspects being arrested.

      1. HP, you forgot to mention those Labour MPs who have openly sent their condolences to the family of “the person killed”. Scum!

  9. Has it not occurred to government that using the threat to cancel Christmas if we have a low uptake of the booster vaccine would in fact strengthen the resolve of large sections of our immigrant communities not to have it?

    2. Has it not occurred to government that using the threat to cancel Christmas if we have a low uptake of the booster vaccine would in fact make more people suspicious of the government’s intentions in their incessant drive to jab people for what is all said and done, a cold?

      People were promised their freedom back after one, then two jabs, then when the vulnerable had been jabbed, then after the 60 – 70 years old cohort had been ‘protected’, then…

      Perhaps, “You can fool some of the people…” has kicked in at last.

      Morning, Bob3.

    3. Has it not occurred to government that using the threat to cancel Christmas if we have a low uptake of the booster vaccine would in fact make more people suspicious of the government’s intentions in their incessant drive to jab people for what is all said and done, a cold?

      People were promised their freedom back after one, then two jabs, then when the vulnerable had been jabbed, then after the 60 – 70 years old cohort had been ‘protected’, then…

      Perhaps, “You can fool some of the people…” has kicked in at last.

      Morning, Bob3.

      1. More people milling around a larger area of the city. I don’t see how that works, as crowd density will vary anyway.

  10. UK and France reach agreement to ‘prevent 100% of Channel crossings’. 16 November 2021.

    UK and French authorities are determined “to prevent 100% of crossings” over the Channel and make the route “unviable” for migrants hoping to enter Britain from France, it was announced on Monday.

    Lol!. One wonders. Do they really believe this themselves? Or do they think that we will do?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/france-uk-migrant-crisis-priti-patel

    2. Patel is long on empty rhetoric and so very short on action in this matter. She must be doing what is really wanted or even a PM as useless as Johnson would have got shot of her.

      Morning, Araminta.

    3. They will say it is working as the numbers inevitably go down. Nothing to do with Winter coming of course. Then in Early Spring as it all starts up again ‘Strong words will be sent’.

  11. Good morning all from a very slightly drizzly Derbyshire. A bit misty as we start the day but still with 5½°C in the yard.

  12. Good Moaning.

    “If you go down to the woods today …..” Michael Deacon in the DT. I wonder how the NT will deal with the Slave and Master aspect of these practices.

    “The unlikely saviours of the National Trust

    Ever since the National Trust embarked on its current mission to educate the British public about the wickedness of colonialism, a number of members have threatened to quit. It seems, however, that there is hope for the embattled institution. Because it’s apparently attracting legions of new members from an unexpected source.

    At the weekend, the Guardian ran the latest instalment of “Dining Across the Divide”: a regular feature in which two readers with opposing political views are invited to discuss their differences. This time, one of the participants was a 63-year-old man from Portsmouth. And, during a discussion of statues, he made an eye-catching comment.

    “Like a lot of middle-aged gay people,” he said, “my partner and I have given up bondage and joined the National Trust.”

    It is of course the duty of a newspaper journalist to keep abreast of the latest societal trends. But I must confess that this was the first I’d heard about this particular phenomenon. Until I read the Guardian’s article, I had no idea that the National Trust had become a magnet for 60-something bondage enthusiasts. Certainly I do not recall reading any reports of Chartwell being overrun by coachloads of pensioners dressed in latex catsuits, or of the gift shop at Corfe Castle stocking souvenir nipple clamps. If a National Trust member had told me he was interested in S&M, I would have assumed that he meant scones and museums.

    Still, the Guardian is a respected source of news, so I have no reason to doubt the veracity of its interviewee’s claim. It’s only a pity that the interviewer didn’t ask him to expand on it, because I’d be intrigued to know the reason behind this sudden influx. Perhaps the bondage enthusiasts have heard that some stately homes used to belong to slave drivers, and are hoping to examine their whips.

    At any rate, whatever the source of their interest, it sounds like great news for the National Trust, and I wish these new members nothing but the best. After all, it is not my place to sit in judgment. We are all entitled to our private enthusiasms, whether it be spanking or Regency sideboards.

    In any case, the National Trust’s leadership will no doubt be eager to capitalise on this promising new source of revenue. Some of its older properties may well have dungeons or torture chambers that could be hired out for parties. Stocks and pillories are bound to prove popular, while the rack should bring in a fortune.”

    1. I enjoyed this, apart from the wild suggestion that the Grauniad is a respected source of news!

      ‘Moaning, Annie.

    2. BTL Comment, ONCE I EVENTUALLY FOUND THE ARTICLE with a hat tip to HJ:-

      Robert Spowart
      1 MIN AGO
      Message Actions
      An enjoyable read and I found the wild suggestion that the Grauniad is a respected source of news quite hilarious!

    4. Now my curiosity has been aroused , and although I was near Corfe Castle yesterday, I will leave the dogs at home , and have a browse in the NT gift shop!!

      1. Ask them if they have any nipple clamps. When you get the double raised eyebrows point them to the Guardian article and say sweetly…….They are a Christmas present for the Vicar.

  14. Interesting.
    Just reported on the 07:30 Radio 3 news, the Liverpool Hospital Bomber was a refugee from the Middle East who’d “..converted to Christianity”.
    Taquiya anyone?

    1. I was just thinking that if the Church can be hijacked by under cover cultural Marxists and communists then why not by radicalised Islamists?

    2. Clearly a transparent statement to divert attention from the real information. Perhaps the government have realised that the ‘mental health problems’ excuse doesn’t carry the weight of persuasion as well as it once did?

      1. Especially when a supposed “Right Wing” murder with a history of serious mental problems is denied a mental health defence in the subsequent trial.

    3. Or he was not very bright and guilt-tripped by muslims. The community pressure is huge, I have seen it in action.

      1. That last graphic applies to all incomers, ie the process from special permission to tolerance then domination. Just look at that Yorkshire Cricket Club which now has to accept people who are not even English.

        1. Any such lawyers should be barred from using ‘legal aid’ to defend themselves. It’s not a bottomless trough and shouldn’t be used for self-inflicted wounds.

      2. 341662+ up ticks,

        Morning KtK,

        Regarding p o’flynn
        Many deserted the REAL UKIP party, the ONLY party that called for controlled immigration, yourself on the pretext that the party under the Gerard Batten leadership had changed.

        The farage undeserved slur on members on LBC was that the party was becoming the new BNP.

    6. Shortly I shall go out shopping and on the way have to pass an Islamic ‘refugee’ selling ‘Big Issues’ outside the door of my supermarket. I begin to feel quite nervous. …

    7. ‘Converted to Christianity’ after failing to gain asylum. He should have gone for the trans route, it might have been more believable.

  15. SIR – Malcolm H Wheeler (Letters, November 15) makes a vital point about NHS beds. Britain’s rate of beds per 100,000 of the population is significantly lower than in Germany, France and other European countries, and the same is true of our number of doctors per capita.

    However, health spending in Britain as a percentage of GDP is very close to the average of wealthier EU countries, at 10.43 per cent. This leads to the important question: how well are British health resources allocated?

    Phil Harmer
    Childswickham, Worcestershire

    Those diversity managers don’t come cheap, matey.

  16. SIR – According to Tony Juniper, the head of Natural England, families should pay more for food and water to reflect the costs of climate change. He adds that there should be higher “ecological taxation” on wealthier people.

    On the same page you report that China is building more coal plants than the rest of the world combined. Why should we be expected to pay more to meet Britain’s green targets when, as a nation, we are responsible for only 1 per cent of global carbon emissions? Meanwhile, China, India, the United States and others merely pay lip service to any suggested solutions.

    I see no point in Britain putting its economic future at risk if other nations are not prepared to do the same. It will make us poorer while achieving nothing. I will therefore not be replacing my gas boiler with a heat pump, or buying an electric car. Both involve too much hassle and expense and will make no difference – other than increasing the demand for child labour in Congolese lithium mines.

    Richard Burden
    Rainham, Kent

    Well said, Sir. You are not alone by any means.

    1. Say no more! From Wiki – “Anthony Juniper CBE (born 24 September 1960) is a British campaigner, writer, sustainability advisor and environmentalist who served as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000 to 2008. He was the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for the Cambridge constituency at the 2010 general election.”

    1. The Earth reacting to all the weight of those private jets and the useless troughers leaving Glasgow after FLOP26.

  18. Point for debate:

    Is a Muslim suicide bomber, who had converted to Christianity, any different from a man who decides to “self-identify” as a woman?

    After all, the “former” Muzzie still acted like one, even after his “conversion”; and a trannie “woman” still has a dick and nuts!

    Discuss.

    1. Yo Mr Grizzle

      and a trannie “woman” still has a dick and nuts!, with access to an unlimted numner of concubines, when jailed!

  19. Man killed in Liverpool terror incident named by police. 16 November 2021’

    The suspected terrorist who was killed in a car explosion outside a hospital in Liverpool has been named as 32-year-old Emad al Swealmeen.

    He was an asylum seeker from a Middle Eastern country who had been living in the UK for a while and had mental health issues, Sky News understands.

    Four men arrested in relation to the explosion have now been released from custody following interview, Greater Manchester Police said.

    Lol!

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/man-killed-in-liverpool-terror-incident-named-by-police/ar-AAQJQf3

    1. Oh no! Mental health does rear its unlikely head. It is Sky “News” so much salt required.

  20. Some BTL Comments:-

    Sh ‘Aguar
    43 MIN AGO
    Cricketer to testify to the Parliamentary Committee on Yorkshire CCC racism. He Tweets that it’s time for truths. Will “his truth” be akin to the Purjuress of Sussex’s? With a lawyer who also represents Julian Asange can we expect to have any reality.
    This prompts a related question- when will Micheal Vaughan get a chance to defend himself? EDITED
    REPLY
    4 REPLIES
    21
    FLAG

    Hereward Woke
    40 MIN AGO
    Reply to Sh ‘Aguar
    It is good to know MPs they have their priorities right, as another 1000 potential future complainants arrive in rubber boats today.

    REPLY
    15
    FLAG

    RS

    Robert Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Reply to Sh ‘Aguar – view message
    Message Actions
    But what defence has he? He’s been accused of RACISM!!! so he IS Guilty! There is no defence for him!
    {/sarc}

    REPLY
    1

    AA

    A Allan
    8 MIN AGO
    Reply to Sh ‘Aguar
    Michael Vaughan is a white male.
    Ergo, he is guilty.

    REPLY
    1 REPLY
    3
    FLAG

    RS

    Robert Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Reply to A Allan
    Message Actions
    Great minds thin alike!

    REPLY
    0

    1. Very few people would ever dare to admit that they approved of apartheid in sport.

      Was the pre-Mandela South African state completely wrong in saying that people of different races should not play sport together?

      Here are the lyrics of a protest protest song I wrote when I was at UEA in the 60’s:

      You’ve seen me in the papers
      You’ve seen me on the box
      I complain of Vietnam and the hunting of the fox
      Of hunger in Biafra and the nuclear atom bomb
      And where those filthy capitalists get all their money from.

      How I hate
      Apartheid
      But how I love to demonstrate.

      I say that what we want is tolerance and peace,
      In proof of this I smash up cars and throw things at the police
      I refuse to hear a point of view that’s different from my own
      A truly reasonable debate’s a thing I’ve never known.

      How I hate
      Apartheid
      But how I love to demonstrate.

      We’ve really had a field day with Springbok sporting tours
      We’ve cut up cricket pitches in the multi-racial cause
      When we stop a game of rugby it is our finest hour
      But there’s no discrimination in the clamours for black power.

      How I hate
      Apartheid
      But how I love to demonstrate.

      But now, alas, my student days I’ll have to leave behind
      I’ll put away my banners and I’ll regiment my mind
      I’ll save off all my whiskers and I’l wear a pin-stripe suit
      And I’ll catch the 7.50 ‘cos it’s such fun to commute

      It was great
      To demonstrate
      But now it’s time to vegetate

      1. Very frosty here in the east. Good morning, Belle, DB, and everyone.
        The frost won’t linger long. The sun has got his hat on.

    1. With the assistance of taxpayer funded lawyers, no doubt. Our system is broken and I become more depressed as every news day begins with another demonstration of inept government.

      1. 341662+ up ticks,

        Morning KP,
        In my book well past time the peoples
        demanded a EGM regarding survival, a
        PEOPLES RESET.

    1. This situation was predicted by an expert earlier this year and repeated later, all to no avail as the “vaccine” is really a political construct using medical needs as the key to the door of control/tyranny (Austria the latest state to fall). Mass “vaccinating” in a pandemic is THE wrong thing to do was Dr Vanden Bossche’s message to the WHO and political leaders. He was ignored, of course, as his expertise didn’t fit the agenda being rolled out. Now, states are reaping the whirlwind and it’s likely that the medical experts do not know how to stop the runaway train of infection while the politicians urge ever more “vaccinations”; basically fuelling the fire. Japan appears to have woken up but much of Europe, the UK and the USA want to double-down on jabbing to please the globalists.

      2. Japan have woken up, as did India and Mongolia before them. Remember the ‘Indian’ variant from April this year (quickly renamed as the Delta variant as the Indians were not willing to play along)) when the death rates in India were climbing sharply…until they stopped vaccinating and reverted to other methods (Ivermectin) and cases and deaths plummeted.

    2. What is the point of the vaccine gene therapy?

      It seems to be completely useless and so the reasons we are being compelled to have it have nothing to do with health and everything to do with control.

      We are rapidly re-entering the Dark Ages.

  25. 341662+ up ticks,

    May one say,

    When the next occasion arises for you to vote bear in mind the evil consequences that would have resulted had this wretch entered either the hospital or the Cathedral, the next one could very well be stepping ashore at DOVER as we type.

    1. But that is what the PTB want! Security services budget will increase, more jobs for the woke. As for Border Farce, it has been infiltrated by bames.
      Look at that MP who could have easily retired at the last election, but learnt the hard way that the Elite should never meet with the hoi polloi when Zoom is available.

    1. I can recall “banter” and the like in offices and sports clubs. Often clever and vicious and sometimes funny. Almost every word actionable in today’s unbalanced world. I cannot recall racism.

      1. It is our British humour , it is is how we cope with stress in difficult moments , we joke , and smile and try not to take things so seriously.

        Remember tell tale tits at school, no one appreciated them !

        1. Nowadays tell tale tits get rewarded with large sums of money.

          You would be surprised to notice that they are increasing in numbers

    2. 341662+ up ticks,

      TB,
      To back up his parliamentary privilege will he be asked to swear on the koran that resides betwixt the dispatch boxes.

    3. I’m not a cricket fan, but this Going Postal article is a good run down of what REALLY happened:-

      Yorkshire County Cricket Club Bloodbath

      On the 14th October 2021, fourteen concerned employees wrote a letter to their bosses. Six days earlier, a summary report into conduct at their workplace had been published. The employees felt it showed them in a bad light, an impression not challenged publicly by their management. A one-man campaign threatened to destroy their workplace. The workplace was Yorkshire Country Cricket Club. The one man was former player Azeem Rafiq.

      Bloodbath investigative team does not know how the directors responded to the concerned employee’s letter. The communication only became public when leaked to the Daily Telegraph a month later. What the informed observer can surmise is, through their lack of action across the next two weeks, the Yorkshire Board thought the situation under control. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Likewise, as we shall see, when concerned staff signed a letter suggesting only one man plotted to destroy them – they couldn’t have been more naive.

      Yorkshire CCC’s low key response to their own commissioned report simmered and then exploded in their faces two weeks later, on the 28th of October, following the release of a long statement to the press. Expecting a witch hunt and accompanying crucifixions, some interested parties became infuriated by the following passage,

      “The Club also carried out their own internal investigation following findings in the Report after which they are able to report that they have come to the conclusion that there is no conduct or action taken by any of its employees, players or Executives that warrants disciplinary action.”

      The resulting media and political earthquake now threatens the very existence of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

      Continued at
      https://going-postal.com/2021/11/yorkshire-county-cricket-club-bloodbath/

    1. Yep so true, and medium sized cosy villages like ours are destined to become towns in a couple of years, 1,000 homes planned , the number has gone up from 450 a couple of years ago .

      We are being eaten up alive .

      1. 341662+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        People have consented / are consenting via the polling booth to being ” eaten up alive” for decades.

    2. A new holiday village is being completed in Jedburgh. It looks a lot like barracks. Another one is being completed in Coldstream. I am very suspicious. The Borders Council, like all others, complains of being strapped for cash and the government is lashing out lots of money to those who will accommodate illegal immigrants.

        2. AirBnB were set to make a fortune from immigrants living in rented rooms – until one of their kiddies promoted it. The stock of property vanished. It seems that people really don’t want a gimmigrant smashing up their home.

  29. What an enormous relief that the chap in Liverpool had mental ishoos. I am so glad that he didn’t know what he was doing when he built the bomb and set out to murder people…..

    1. Morning Bill

      Yes , and good hearted Liberal minded Christian do gooders will never feel they have been fooled and used … because it is all in God’s will to do one’s duty.

  30. OT – for those of you interested in the Great War, I commend highly the BBC 4 documentary (shown on Sunday evening) called, “They Shall Not Grow Old”.

    It was stunning. Vintage film newly coloured. No beeboid presenter in silly clothes and haircut waving his arms. No mention of brexit and climate change. The sound track consisted of the voices of actual survivors. In treating the film, they had employed lip-readers – so that there were occasional comments “by” the chaps in the film.

    Stunning. And very moving.

    1. Good morning, Bill. This is the very film (I own the DVD) which I watched myself late last night. For Peter Jackson, who created it, the project was an (unpaid) labour of love as he lost his grandfather to this terrible war. And in the first 13 days of November I watched two parts each evening of THE GREAT WAR, a wonderful BBCtv documentary of the pre-woke 1960s narrated by Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Emlyn Williams and others. From tonight until the end of November, I hope to complete my education by watching – again two episode per evening – of ITV’s answer to the BBC’s production called THE WORLD AT WAR, this one narrated by Laurence Olivier.

      3. I remember watching The Great War as a child. I found the whole series on YT a few years ago.

    2. ‘Morning Bill. I saw this the first time around and found it incredibly moving. It’s just a shame that the title is a slight misquote from Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen, but apart from that it is fascinating, and also unforgettable.

  31. Liverpool suicide bomber was a Christian convert
    National terror threat level increased to severe as fears raised of Christmas bombing campaigns
    DT Headline

    Mon oeil

    Do you believe the MSM line on climate change?
    Do you believe in the MSM line on Covid gene therapy?
    Do you believe in the MSM’s line on Brexit?
    Do you believe that Biden won the US elections fairly and squarely?

    So why should you believe that this terrorist was a Christian convert?

      1. Rik has put up an interesting post above quoting from an LBC broadcast:

        “Asylum seekers converting to Christianity is very common. If converts, cannot be sent back to home
        country. Other way is to claim homosexuality. Best is to claim both.”

        So the likelihood of this terrorist being a genuine Christian is as likely as Johnson ever telling us the truth about anything.

  32. 341662+ up ticks,

    In reality, regardless of ALL the wonga paid out to these politico’s & security guardians supporting their agendas the protection of the Realm & peoples was left to a quick witted TAXI DRIVER.

    The taxi rank on london bridge ferrying remembrance attenders shows the calibre of these peoples, form a wartime political cabinet from them.

    For advice on personal survival check in to the local synagogue, these peoples have been doing it for a great many decades.

  33. Best Quote of the All Time

    “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”

    Cicero, 55 BC.

    So, evidently, we’ve learnt bugger all over the past 2,076 years!

    On a current note and apropos … the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled… Priti Patel would do well to take note of, ‘Oderint dum metuant” variously attributed to Caligula and Lucius Accius, roughly meaning ‘Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.’

    1. In Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy he talks of various reasons why life is not a bowl of cherries. Two of the many causes are the law’s delay and:

      the insolence of office

  34. So much for Boris Johnson’s war on woke. Spiked 16 november 2021.

    It’s time for Boris Johnson to come clean on where he stands in the debate about gender identity. Does he think sex is binary and immutable or that gender is fluid, multiple and all in the mind? Does he support women’s sex-based rights or does he think they are trumped by the claims of transgender people? Does he think women’s hospital wards, prisons and changing rooms should be the preserve of females or that any man in a frock who fancies a change of scene should be allowed entry? Voters deserve to know.

    Carrie will let you know when she’s decided what he thinks!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/16/so-much-for-boris-johnsons-war-on-woke/

    1. Boris has a history of kowtowing to Stonewall. Depends who’s scarier this time, the feminists or Stonewall. The feminists probably have the Tory majority behind them.

  35. I presume the 2 letters in todays DT advocating paying MPs up to £500k a year is a deliberate attempt to get me riled – if so, it has succeeded. I wouldn’t pay any of the current lot, of all parties, in rusty washers

    1. MPs shouldn’t be paid. They should have jobs outside of office that provide for them. After all, in a democracy they have little to do except as their masters bid them to.

  36. Off hand it is difficult to think of many people as repulsive as Boris Johnson,

    But, as they say in France: Tel fils, tel père. (Like son, like father!) and here is a good contender:

    Stanley Johnson accused of inappropriately touching Tory MP Caroline Nokes
    Ms Nokes says PM’s father smacked her on the bottom in 2003 and journalist Ailbhe Rea also accuses him of groping her
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/11/16/stanley-johnson-accused-inappropriately-touching-tory-mp-caroline/

      1. It affected her so badly that it is only now that she feels “strong enough” to go public…..(sarc)

      2. I think it should be taken at its face value, as an anecdote that shows Stanley Johnson up as a creep.

        1. I agree. Anything – anything – that shows the ghastly Johnson clan in a bad light is a Good Thing.

          1. They really are a foul lot. Boris and Stanley stand out in loathsomeness but Rachel and Jo are not far behind.

          4. Yes, but only if it is true. It seems to me that there are a lot of these sort of allegations coming out of the woodwork and they all seem to come out at “convenient” times to blacken the accused or to bolster the fading profile of the accuser.

      3. Good morning, my friend

        Yes – I take your point. It might be a good idea to put a time limit on how long people can wait before registering a complaint of this nature.

        And to some extent times and attitudes have changed. It was far more common for men to grope women slightly saucily 25 years ago without it being considered ‘inappropriate’. Indeed, some girls were flattered while others responded with a firm knee strategically aimed at the goolies.

        1. I think that kind of behaviour always made women feel uncomfortable and it was inappropriate – but so many men did it that it was considered normal male behaviour.
          Certainly a lot more than 25 years ago.
          A woman in her position probably thought it better for her career to keep quiet about it.

          1. She has left it far too long to complain. that sort of thing used to happen all the time.

  37. ‘Morning All

    South Asian caller into LBC.

    “Asylum seekers converting to
    Christianity is very common. If converts, cannot be sent back to home
    country. Other way is to claim homosexuality. Best is to claim both.

    Ferrari asked, “ you know this for a fact?”

    “100%. The lawyers advise it. Guarantee to escape failed asylum claims. 100% know this.”The liberal elite, do gooder laws, having the usual unintended consequences”
    Hence why he was still here after his asylum claim failed……….
    Hmm First kill all the lawyers??

    1. I have replied, asking them to read “Violated” by Sarah Wilson who was groomed as an 11 year old in Rotherham.

      Heart-rending.

    2. Bloody disgusting. The police and politicians are that morally depraved ands so corrupt that they put the blame on children and not grown men raping the children. How more disgusting as human being can these authorities get?

      1. 341662+ up ticks,

        Morning JR,
        Bear in mind there has been a General
        Elections and other opportunities to vote for party’s of choice, since the Jay report revealing to peoples what had been covered up for 16 plus years and was / is ongoing .

  40. Why aren’t we more horrified by the Liverpool bombing? 16 November 2021.

    Are we still fighting the War on Terror?

    No! The Westminster Cabal and the Social Elites along with their Institutions surrendered long ago. Their real aim now is to get the rest of us to go along with it and not make a fuss! They have of course negotiated a good deal for themselves. Generous benefits and employment opportunities along with sexual slavery and grinding poverty for the indigenous lower classes.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-aren-t-we-more-horrified-by-the-liverpool-bombing-

    1. 341662+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      The peoples have the power to OUST the politico’s any time they ( the peoples) wish.

      Hair shirts are plentiful among lab/lib/con coalition supporters every General Election they give the hair shirt a dusting of itching powder calling for more of the same.

      Killing. rape & abuse of children, etc,etc, they, the majority of the electorate, cannot get their fill.

    2. He Araminta! I noticed today that much was being made of the idea that he was a “Christian convert”. A rather crude attempt at diversion no doubt to be used at a later date with him as an example that Christians can be terrorists too.

      I keep thinking that I should write to my MP about the unrestrained entry of illegal immigrants to this country and the dangers that it poses in terms of Islam. But I know very well that it would all fall on deaf ears. That any acknowledgement would be a formality or, at the most, a declaration that I was wrong. At this point I don’t understand what ordinary people can do. I believe that in certain countries, the native peoples took to torching refugee centres. We are far to supine to do such things but also to lazy to fight back when someone like Tommy Robinson attempts to go to bat for us. So what do we do? Anyone with ideas I would really like to hear from because just sitting taking it like masochists is not an answer. Still less is it an answer for future generations of native English who will suffer the consequences of our indolence.

      2. Morning Jonathan.

        I am sorry to say that I have no light-bulb moment ideas on what to do. I have written to my MP ad nauseum, so much so, that he has said he decline to enter into more correspondence with me. Unless and until younger more energetic people take up the cudgels I cannot see what can be done. Demonstrating seems like a good idea but, again, it would have to be the young/er people who do it.

        The MSM are colluding with everything that’s going on – climate change (snort), illegal immigration. Covid coercion, and so much more. There is so much wrong in this country that it’s too much to combat. For instance I am heartily sick of people complaining about “racism” in this country. Everyone’s a victim except the whiteys who are the oppressors.

        In the end we are all just people trying to live peacefully. (Well, most of us, of course except the Ropers). All that is swept under the carpet or excused in some way. Every public person is too scared to call it as it really is.

        I’m sorry to be of no help whatsoever but I really fear for the future of my children and grandchildren. Not just in the U.K. but the whole of the western world.

      3. Morning Johnathan. I’ve done everything that I can over the last twenty years. All to no avail I’m afraid. That said probably no ordinary individual can make any significant impact on the Societal status quo in the Modern World. Not only the UK but the West in general in now in the process of cultural disintegration and Islam will triumph by default. I fortunately, by virtue of my age, will miss the worst.

        1. So will I but that still doesn’t sit well with me. The greatest engine the world has ever seen for creativity in all fields of human endeavour and for the good of humanity, snuffed out and all because of cowardly politicians.

      4. I keep thinking that I should write to my MP about the unrestrained entry of illegal immigrants to this country and the dangers that it poses in terms of Islam.

        On that subject. Here is part of the reply I had from my MP in July this year.
        The United Kingdom has a proud record of helping those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny from around the world.
        That has sad and hollow sounding repercussions on the attitude of the French as they continually dump their unwanted on us via the channel in rubber boats.

        1. Yes, it does, one we should be proud of.

          But these criminals are not fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny. After all, the 84 countries they passed through are pretty safe as well. The arrogance and dismissal of this boiler plate tosh is absurd.

        2. My MP, a Scottish Nationalist with an Irish upbringing, replied in a similar vein when I questioned why we were welcoming all comers instead of focusing some of the £13Bn in foreign ‘aid’ funded by we taxpayers.

          I replied to her cookie cutter response by suggesting that although the Shortbread Senate were fully on board with stopping Glaswegian football fans from singing sectarian songs, she and her ilk were importing a sectarian problem that would make the Old Firm look like Laurel and Hardy.

          Further correspondence has since been pushed down to her assistant.

          1. As Colonel Nathan R. Jessup suggested in A Few Good Men,……… “they/you can’t handle the truth”. So they take cover.

      5. Good afternoon Jonathan, as Rix-Redux posted above (below?) the legal aid lawyers advise their clients to ‘convert’ to Christianity or claim that they are homosexuals as it makes the case to return them to their own countries more difficult. Taqiya is a way of life for such people as this mohamaden suicide bomber.

  41. Sneaked in under the Liverpool radar. A good day to bury bad news I suppose

    “MP’s voted on the pension triple lock last night. MPs rejected the
    move to keep the lock by 300 votes to 229, after most Tories followed a
    three-line whip to support the Government.”
    Meanwhile MP’s whine about their pay and demand more….
    Honestly (probably for the best) words fail me…………….

    2. I do find them utterly disgusting. These con artists, thieves and fools witter on gibberish that makes our lives harder while doing nothing about the things that they could reform.

    1. I posted this much further down, but no-one has suggested this yet so I thought it was worth another airing.

      It was all a contrived event? Covid not working any more, climate change a damp squib, so back to the good old feel-good bomb terror to knock us into shape? Four suspects, later released..!

        1. All of it fake.. a set-up… there was an explosion, we didn’t see a body, the taxi-driver looked remarkably unhurt, the photography was remarkably clear; as Rastus suggested further down did he really convert to Christianity…how do we know? Take nothing on face value from the media these days.

          3. I think the taxi driver was genuine – the rest maybe not.
            They seldom do show us bodies and it may not have been in a fit state for viewing.

        2. It was the detonator, so they say, which very conveniently failed to set off the ‘real’ bomb.

      2. Considering the ‘Christian convert’ was unknown to the authorities yesterday afternoon, it’s amazing how quickly his chums were traced.
        I suppose they banked on the taxi driver not remembering the collection address on account of him being dead.

  45. The certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, connecting Russia and Germany, is going to be paused until the main funds and staff are passed on to a German subsidiary, the country’s regulator has said on Tuesday.
    German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) insists that the operator of the pipeline could only be registered as a German entity, while Nord Stream 2 AG company is based in Switzerland. Nord Stream 2 AG opted to establish a German subsidiary to oversee the part of the pipeline that goes through the country, but the regulator says that most assets should be transferred to that firm.

    The certification will resume only after this transfer is completed and the German subsidiary files a new application, BNetzA said. It will be studied during the remaining part of the four-months-long certification period.

    I wonder how many months it will take NordStream2 AG to transfer the assets?

    1. Cause and effect…..

      Gas futures prices in Europe increased by 11% on Tuesday after the German energy regulator suspended the certification process of the Nord Stream 2 AG.

      The trading of December gas futures on the Dutch TTF index, the key European energy trading hub, reached $1,042,6 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas at 09:45 GMT.

    2. Morning Harry. It looks to me like the Europeans want war! They are probably going to get it!

      1. Its complicated…49% of NS2 AG is owned by 5 European energy companies.Merkel originally asked Gazprom to build NS2 but the insisted on European partners.
        For political reasons Russia would like the gas flowing but on the commercial front Gazprom can absorb the delay.
        The pipeline is completed and they will simply wait.
        All the gas they can produce is already sold…if not to Europe,to Asia where the market is more stable and is increasing.
        The Power of Siberia between Russia and China has been operating for nearly 2 years but simply isn’t big enough so now POS2 is being built.
        Asia is also taking all of Russia’s LNG products which are growing.

  46. It was a ball bearing bomb according to the Mail, which fortunately failed to go off properly:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10206963/Poppy-Day-suicide-bomber-built-Mother-Satan-explosive-popular-ISIS-militants.html#comments

    “Poppy Day suicide bomber built ‘Mother of Satan’ explosive packed with ball bearings: Jordanian national who told friends he was from Syria and Iraq ‘plotted massacre as revenge for having his asylum requests to stay in UK repeatedly rejected'”

    1. Mental Health Issues…….
      Running amok with a knife at a shopping centre.quite possibly
      Organising and building a shrapnel bomb??
      Not so much

      1. Oh, I dunno. He built the bomb by following the science….{:¬)) Even the mentally ill can read a book…!!

        1. I sometimes wonder how many unexplained “gas explosions” are actually jihadists attempting to make bombs.

      2. A labour shadow minister has offered his sincere condolences to the family of the Bomber.
        It’s possibly a ploy to secure certain types of votes in certain areas. Surely nobody in their right mind would do that without a sinister motive.

    3. Then we must stop them getting in, and remove those here. The least we can do is make it harder for them to breed – scrap child benefit and housing benefit.

      1. But, Wibbles, given that most understand Boris and his mates want them here, that’s not likely to happen, even if it is also what I’d most like to hear.

    6. If the Government had removed him in 2014 when he was refused asylum this would not have happened.

  47. It was a ball bearing bomb according to the Mail, which fortunately failed to go off properly:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10206963/Poppy-Day-suicide-bomber-built-Mother-Satan-explosive-popular-ISIS-militants.html#comments

    “Poppy Day suicide bomber built ‘Mother of Satan’ explosive packed with ball bearings: Jordanian national who told friends he was from Syria and Iraq ‘plotted massacre as revenge for having his asylum requests to stay in UK repeatedly rejected'”

  48. Did you see it on the BBC?

    VIGILANT TCW reader Gerry McBride heard the BBC’s Medical Editor
    Fergus Walsh making a huge cock-up with his Covid-related reporting on
    October 21.

    Walsh claimed that 66 per cent of over-80s in hospitals with Covid
    had not been vaccinated. His intent was clearly – in line with most of
    BBC’s reporting of the topic – to criticise and shame those who object
    to being coerced into receiving an experimental gene therapy.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/shock-as-bbc-admits-covid-figures-error/

    3. So how unvaccinated were these people? a) Single jabbed unvaccinated? b) 14 days not yet elapsed from being double jabbed unvaccinated? c) run out of time double jabbed unvaccinated? All these are are classed as unvaccinated by the government, unvaccinated has been redefined but they won’t want you to remember that. Oh, and d) the truly unvaccinated unvaccinated. I suspect it is c) and the ADE effect is kicking in. They certainly won’t want us to know about that. But the intent is to shame the truly unvaccinated and deepen the divisions in society.

      1. Before ‘boosters’ I thought that Johnson would have a problem with the spread of the ‘virus’. Isolating the truly non-vaccinated from much of public life would expose any growth in infections as between the “vaccinated” only; he couldn’t have it both ways. Now that it is clear that the current “double-vaccinated” are a clear and present danger to themselves they have to become “unvaccinated”, ergo the onset of ‘boosters’ to “re-vaccinate” the now unclean “double-vaccinated”.

        Johnson has set up a roundabout of “vaccinate then re-vaccinate”, but with only a short period of efficacy with each dose the need for a second ‘booster’ will appear, then a third… (Israel is well down this road and despite the problems with their “vaccinated” the country is starting to jab young children). Johnson’s dilemma of having to try and explain the continual need for repeated courses will, I’m sure, wear thin with more and more people as time progresses.

        If as you suspect ADE is happening within the current “double-vaccinated” will the ‘boosters’ be of any practical use at all? They’ve dug a bloody great hole and their answer is more digging.

        1. The boosters are needed for the destroyed immune system. There may be a respite in ADE when seasonality kicks in. They have wrecked humanity.

          The State of Israel seems to be taking over where the na*is left off.

          1. poppiesmum, follow the link for up to date info from Dr Jane Ruby on the Stew Peters Show. Disturbing news from a large hospital in Belgium and Dr Ruby’s forward look to this Winter and the bad prospects for ADE. It appears that Biden has already forecast a long dark Winter; what has he been told?

            Dr Jane Ruby

          2. An interesting (and terrifying) site. It is also interesting to see that not all judges have been bought, so far. What really surprises me is that Pfizer, Moderna and the rest are prepared to see their customer base demolished.

            I did my research on the ‘vaccine’ before it was rolled out; the ADE, the cytokine storm, the wiped-out immune system. I could not believe it was happening, that they would actually go ahead with it. I cannot believe the times in which we are living.

            Did you read the info below Dr Ruby? It is incomprehensible that anyone would be so wicked.

          3. I did my research as you did. When I saw mRNA and the manipulation of chimpanzee coronavirus I immediately decided to not go near the stuff. I appear to have survived the latest iteration of whatever the government is claiming is out there and I should now have natural immunity from that.

            What really disturbs me, if the government forcing unknown potions on to people isn’t disturbing enough, is how easily so many medical professionals, including very senior doctors, have supported, and continue to support, this mass jabbing despite the evidence of the harm it is doing coupled with how useless it is at combatting the ‘disease’. A great many people will have a great many questions to answer.

        2. Double jabbed people can catch Covid and pass it on.
          Non-jabbed people can catch Covid and pass it on. Why the f**k would you get jabbed?

        1. It is Antibody-Dependant Enhancement. It is a situation where by the antibodies go into overdrive and make you REALLY ill when you meet the virus ‘in the wild’ i.e. at the supermarket, as it were. This is why all the ferrets died in earlier SARS vaccine tests, and the hunt for a coronavirus was abandoned. The present vaccine, Pfizer, Moderna etc haven’t been tested on animals – it would never have got past the Regulators if it had (and they had all died).

          I tried to find some information for you but a lot of stuff has been wiped from the web, or modified to read something like – ‘ADE is not expected to be a problem with the SARS-COV-2 vaccines’. Everyone’s immune system needs boosting this winter – VitD3+K2, Vit C, Quercetin+zinc, NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine).

    1. Surely nothing new on the continong.

      In yer France one is required at all times to carry ID – and the perlice can stop anyone, at any time, and ask to see it.

      1. The only time that my friend in France is asked to show his papiers is when he needs to prove that he’s old enough for cheap fares on the railway. He says that being white has a lot to do with that. Shocking, non?

        1. True – but then one does on a British train if one has a ticket bought using an OAP travel card.

          The basic principle, as I stated, remains the same.

          1. It is strange how difficult it is to gauge the age of people. Our elder son, Christo, could pass for 21 when he was 17 and so he was never asked for ID when he went into a pub for a drink; by contrast his younger brother, Henry, who is now 26 is still asked to show ID when he wants to buy a drink in a pub. I think I look the age I am but Caroline has always looked much younger than her age. When she first arrived at Allhallows at the age of 24 to teach French and Spanish she was greeted with much enthusiasm by the Sixth Form boys who thought she was16 and the prettiest new girl who had just joined the Lower Sixth!

            The following day at the school assembly she appeared on the dais, and like her colleagues, she was wearing her academic gown and hood.

    3. Unhinged unvaccinated. Whatever happened to choice?

      No European nation seemingly remembers history. This is how dictators arise – with rampant applause.

    1. I don’t understand why we pay massive government departments who then punt off the work to other quangos that then spend that money lobbying government for more money.

  53. “The FDA gets 45% of its budget from Big Pharma.”

    Robert Kennedy Jr. talks about why he wrote his book with Tucker Carlson. It’s a shame his spasmodic dysphonia makes him difficult to listen to but he points out how much money Fauci and his agency will make from the vaccines through patents. “You do not get promotion by finding problems with vaccines.”

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/6282173189001#sp=show-clips

  54. I like a larf on a sunny morning:

    “Priti Patel vows to ‘stop 100% of migrant crossings’ as she holds online Channel crisis talks with France after cancelling planned trip to Paris following Liverpool bombing”

    Now how many times since she was appointed 28 months ago has she said that?

    2. And what happened to the deal of having these people in camps in Africa, was it Sierra Leone?

      2. There are facilities for thousands of muslims at Mecca, but Saudi has not taken in one migrant family.

        1. There are fifty two Muslim countries in this world, including some of the most wealthy.

          When they refuse to take certain refugees, there must be some reason.

          Why then are our politicians so keen for the rejects to come here?

          2. I believe it is very sinister under hand dealings, for instance Saudi have all the oil take the islamic refugees or we will cut off the supplies.
            Despite being ‘destitute’ Many Somalians were able to find enough money and boats food etc to sail all the way to Indonesia, a muslim country, fill up with fuel and supplies, then arrive in western Australia claiming asylum. Speculation was the pirates were government run and they used the money stolen to send the invaders on their way. Let’s not for get where ever these people turn up in western civilisations they cause a lot of problems. They have only one goal and that is world domination no matter how long it takes. Western governments have been extremely stupid in accepting all this nonsense.

    3. Perhaps they have almost reached the ‘pre agreed quota’ and she’s going to make her self look efficient by announcing she has stopped it………….or not.

    1. We used to hate contracting for Shell, a red tape nightmare regarding HSE in the ’90s. Don’t know what they’re like now.

      1. That sounds familiar! The Dutch are very good at committees – for deciding what they’re going discuss at the next committee meeting! Very little ever achieved, and certainly not in a hurry!
        Ooops!

        1. Sounds like the Swedes too. Meeting after meeting after meeting. I slept through most of them.

      2. That sounds familiar! The Dutch are very good at committees – for deciding what they’re going discuss at the next committee meeting! Very little ever achieved, and certainly not in a hurry!
        Ooops!

  58. One evening late in 1949 Stalin is sitting in his office working on lists of people to be executed. Fancying a smoke, he cannot find his pipe. He phones Beria and tells him this, suggesting that the pipe may have been removed by fifth columnists working for agents of the running dogs of Capitalism. He asks Beria to look into it. A couple of hours later he phones Beria and asks him about progress. Beria is quick to confirm that he has many men on the case and that over 200 suspects had been arrested and were, even at that hour, being questioned in the Lubyanka. “Good” says Stalin, and hangs up. Half an hour later, Stalin lays down his pen and gets up to stretch his legs. as he walks around his office he notices an irritation below his knee. Looking down he sees that his pipe has lodged in the top of his boot having, he presumes, fallen from his desk.
    He phones Beria, “Lavrentiy, me old tovarich, call off the search and let the suspects go, this time.”
    “But, but,” whispered Beria, ” my beloved General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ten of the suspects have already confessed.”

    Now consider the pathetic, mimsy, constrained activity of our security people. The only people that the “security services” are checking, upsetting, and interrogating are people going about their business, going into and out of the hospital, and people who have cars in the car park.

  59. Immigrants? We sent out search parties to get them to come… and made it hard for Britons to get work, says Mandelson
    Former minister admits Labour deliberately engineered mass immigration
    Between 1997 and 2010 net migration to Britain totalled 2.2million
    By TIM SHIPMAN

    PUBLISHED: 01:10, 14 May 2013 | UPDATED: 19:14, 14 May 2013

    1. I think we have long known that POS Blair and his repulsive vile and hate-filled cronies have done more damage to the UK than Hitler did.

      1. 341662+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        Across ALL governing political overseers, a continuance given succour & voting fodder by the herd.

        1. Most politicians are habitual and pathological Liars, but Blair set out to totally mislead the electorate with his devoted and well chosen team by telling as many lies as he/they possibly could. At the time because of the hapless idiot John Major we had as PM, Blairs rhetoric sounded quite plausible. I have to admit out of frustration and the glimmer of hope I voted labour.

          1. I’ve never been able to bring myself to do that, even though our then Labour MP was a good local man.

          2. My excuse was supported by what Heseltine and his nasties did to Thatcher and the puppet they replaced her with.

    2. Yes. Outside of the Holocaust and the other Genocides of the Twentieth Century this was probably one of the most Wicked Programs ever devised for the destruction of an entire people!

      1. 341662+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        The bog man is still an upstanding political role model there are still many a politico / electoral
        unit who carry a canister of zykton gas, and a barbed whip in their briefcases.

    1. Is that clown incapable of giving an answer without prefixing it with a vacuous and inane “So …”?

  62. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9eabd1e0ad150e149dc4c299b76cb207454e37a7c240da8c433f3815824421dc.jpg

    Sorry about this folks. The sickening exhibition over the last few days has been too much! This is just to remind me of how the Leader of an Advanced Western State should look and behave. It’s a picture of Vladimir Putin. The World’s Greatest Statesman (one might well say, only!) and the last True Patriot in high office anywhere in the First World. He is the Servant of his Country and his People, and he has served them well; probably much better than they deserve. While ever Russia lives he will be remembered. We once used to have such men but no longer. Now we have Liars, Cowards and Traitors. We must hope that all he has done will be sufficient to keep the embers of Western Christian Civilisation alive long enough for them to survive the Dark Night that is to come and emerge into the Sunlit Days beyond where they may be rekindled and its glories be born afresh.

    1. The bit I don’t understand is, as an effective dictator, he can do what he likes, yet he acts for his country.

        1. Traitors. We use to do that when we were sane and cared about the well being of society.

        2. In London we have police commissioners sitting safely in their cars,while one of his officers is stabbed to death in front of him.

      3. Simple. He has found an effective way to gain the maximum personal benefit from being top dog. The fact that it results in him being a great statesman is purely coincidental.

        I wish that we had a leader like him in Canada, Trudeaus corrupt administration is probably costing us as much as Putin costs Russia.

  63. That’s life
    (That’s life)
    That’s what all the people say
    You’re fully vaxxed in April, locked down in May
    But I know I’m gonna change that tune
    When I’m boostered up, and fully vaxxed in June

  64. 341662+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Macron Punishing UK with Migrant Crisis Because of Brexit, Ministers Believe: Report

    Nearer the truth,
    Macron / lab/ lib /con coalition Punishing UK with Migrant Crisis Because of Brexit, many peoples Believe: Report

  65. My good lady recently returned from having her Booster, she brought back a 6 page document about the possible side effects and was asked if she has had any reaction to the previous injections. But It looks like I would have been perfectly at liberty to have refused the Needle because of my sufferings. But it makes one wonder just how long they have actually known about the dangerous and rather debilitating side effects including heart problems caused by their bloody ‘vaccines’.
    Health insurance companies are currently cleaning up by laying huge costs on to travelers, Some friends of ours are ‘popping off’ to warmer climes for a few weeks early next year. The premium is now close to one thousand pounds, he has had similar reactions to the jabs as I have. It would much be cheaper to turn up the heating.

    1. I was once told I had AFib but no medical professional would actually tell me what it waa or show me on an ecg that I actually had it.

      I watched this cardiothoracic surgeon’s YouTube video and after forty minutes was none the wiser.

      The only ray of hope for people who may think they’ve got it is in the last few minutes when she says that eating dark chocolate once a week has shown that people are 16% less likely to experience symptoms they think are associated with the condition. Unfortunately it is not cumulative on a daily basis so taking it once a day for a week won’t take AFib off the list of possible heart arrythymias.

      https://youtu.be/1-SWiGsBYqw

      1. Many many Thanks for that AO’E, it was so well explained, many things I didn’t know or had not previously understood.
        I just happen to have some dark chocolate it’s usually my first choice.

          3. A square ??
            I had a box of various mini bars of the Dark stuff for my birthday in September i’m still enjoying them.

          4. No – the Lindt bars come in 8 squares and various flavours. They are all good. Back up to £2 per bar in Morrisons from £1.50 but I stocked up.

      2. Errrm………. have you ever been to Frinton Anne ? 🤔🙄🙄😏
        I spose it would be okay to take a bag of logs for the fire.

          2. I used to take my aunt there. She sat on a seat overlooking the sea while I pottered on the beach.

  70. At the start of an e-mail from BT is the picture of a young bame girl telling me to to do something a

    4. Surprised he’s upset, since he’s about to experience all the cavity filling any greenie could ask for…….

    6. They need prison sentences rather than fines.

      Crowdfunding would almost certainly ensure any fine didn’t hurt sufficiently and a spell in prison would be more likely to deter others.

    9. I don’t agree with them, nor do I agree with what they did but……..there are better ways of tying to get attention if you want to make a particular point.
      The UK for it’s over populated islands apparently has one of the lowest emission ratings per capita on the planet.

  73. Worth a read …..

    Triggering Article 16 is fraught with danger – don’t do it
    George Trefgarne
    November 15, 2021

    https://3ncridad6ai1jg5mt30vexk1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/shutterstock_2055041789-e1636985849301-pg3r3jopyt9h9hub7okk5t928zdcyph2tc0rg1949s.jpg

    Article 16 of the Northern Irish Protocol, which ostensibly enables either side to take “safeguarding measures” pending a ruling from an independent tribunal, is a legal minefield which could cause political and economic chaos. Even former No.10 adviser Dominic Cummings, who is partly responsible for the UK signing it in the first place, has said triggering it could be a “debacle”.

    The decision whether to do so will be taken in coming weeks. We should hope wise counsels prevail and Boris Johnson decides not to trigger it. Following meetings in London last week, more positive noises are coming from both Lord Frost, the UK negotiator, and his EU counterpart, Maroš Šefčovič.

    Lord Frost, (who is far more sensible than his detractors in the press realise), is within his rights to threaten it in order to improve the operation of the Northern Irish Protocol. So far, that strategy has paid some dividends, with the EU coming forward with proposed changes to the operation of the agreement last month.

    What triggering means in practice

    In order to avoid a border on the island of Ireland – the boundary of the EU single market – the Northern Irish Protocol has imposed customs checks between mainland Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which the EU has interpreted strictly, alarming Unionist opinion in the province, which feels it has been artificially hived off from the rest of the United Kingdom.

    The UK Government can trigger Article 16 unilaterally in writing if it believes there are “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade” arising from the Protocol. The Government said such a threshold had been reached in its Command Paper in July.

    Following the trigger letter, there would then be one month’s negotiation between Ministers on the Joint Committee which governs the Agreement, before the safeguarding measures – in this case, presumably London suspending checks between GB and NI – were implemented. An arbitration tribunal, with one member appointed by each side and an independent chair, would then rule over the next nine months.

    But hold your horses. Things are not so simple. The EU can introduce “rebalancing measures” of its own which might include, for example, suspending data sharing. And if the UK fails to implement the tribunal ruling, the EU can introduce retaliation measures. The EU can further exit or suspend the entire Trade and Co-operation Treaty with 12 months notice, which is anyway due for review in 2024. In other words, triggering Article 16 could itself lead to a great unravelling of the Brexit treaty. It is fraught with the danger of unexpected consequences.

    The tribunal can also force legal disclosures under Article 751 of the Agreement. If it can be proven that the UK signed the Protocol fully intending to “ditch bits which we didn’t like after whacking Corbyn” as Dominic Cummings has claimed, then the UK’s good faith would be called publicly into question.

    The tribunal may also refer to the European Court of Justice on matters of EU law. Finally, it might rule against the UK, leaving us at the mercy of further countermeasures.

    The House of Lords might block the measure

    Then there is the Parliamentary process to consider. Lord Frost has confirmed that implementing a trigger of Article 16 would require a Statutory Instrument to be passed by both houses. The Government has a Commons majority of 76, which fell to low 20s in the Paterson votes. Many Conservative MPs might ask, “Hang on, I thought Brexit was done and we are supposed to be levelling up? Isn’t this going to all go wrong again?”

    It is not impossible that the House of Lords – where the Government does not have a majority – would be emboldened by a close vote in the Commons, defy convention and reject the measure. At the very least the Lords could demand an Impact Statement which would lay out the economic consequences on supply chains and for investors.

    If, and it is a big if, the Lords rejected the Instrument, there would be a huge controversy unseen since 1968, when it rejected an instrument from the Wilson Government imposing sanctions on Rhodesia for declaring unilateral independence. On that occasion, the Government relaid the instrument and it was passed, partly due to the international outcry from the United Nations and United States.

    This time, 50 years later, how would the Americans and the UN react to the allegations that the UK has either acted in bad faith or contrary to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement? It may not matter whether those allegations are true or not, merely that the accusation can be made and picked up by Democrats in Congress and by President Biden, who has already said as much.
    There would be a knock-on impact on investor confidence in the UK, which has been fragile since 2016. The FTSE 100 has already been left trailing as other markets recover from Covid.

    Stormont politics

    However, let us assume that the legislation did pass in Parliament. There would be a further hurdle: Irish politics, including in the Stormont assembly. A cross-border alliance-of-convenience could be formed by Sinn Fein, whose vice president Michelle O’Neill is deputy first minister in Northern Ireland, with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in the Republic. To this may be added the softer edges of Unionism, professionals and business people, who never supported Brexit in the first place, precisely because they feared that a border would have to go somewhere, either in Ireland or in the Irish Sea.

    The Stormont assembly could hold that the “safeguard” and “rebalancing” measures of both sides collectively amount to a change to the status of Northern Ireland, which under Section One of the Good Friday Agreement, would require the democratic consent of a majority, i.e., a vote in Stormont. The next election for the Northern Irish Assembly is in May, and in the meantime the Democratic Unionist Party is only the largest party by one seat. It performed badly in the 2019 General Election, and it has been losing support to the Alliance Party and a revived Ulster Unionist Party.

    Boris in trouble, again

    No wonder it has been reported that the Cabinet Office has sought advice from a second team of lawyers as to the legal ramifications of Article 16.

    All of the legal and procedural objections could perhaps be overcome if the British Government was on strong political foundations at home. But following the Owen Paterson affair, Boris Johnson’s administration is plainly weaker than it was and in trouble with its own benches in the Commons. It can be of little comfort that the voices calling for the triggering of Article 16 are the exact same ones who proclaimed that overturning the Standards Committee’s judgement against Mr Paterson would be a good idea and simple to execute.

    Next month, on December 2nd, the Bexley by-election takes place following the death of James Brokenshire. This is the first in a series of three by-elections. There may be more, for example in Leicester East, where the ex-Labour MP Claudia Webbe has been convicted of a criminal offence of harassment, and in Torrington, where Sir Geoffrey Cox is under siege from the media over conducting his legal work in the Caribbean during lockdown. By-elections worry MPs at the best of times.

    Don’t do it

    Put all this together and the risk is that Article 16 could prove to be a fiasco, an economic and legal torture chamber which fatally hands the initiative to the other side and leaves the UK fundamentally weakened. Boris Johnson would be well advised to think twice about triggering it, which is why I think he will not do so. It therefore follows that he will be seen as having bluffed, won some concessions, and backed down, but that is the least bad option.

    George Trefgarne is CEO and founder of Boscobel, an independent strategic communications firm, providing clients with bespoke financial PR & public affairs advice.

    1. I think Frost should keep it in reserve – he has already wrung some concessions by using it as a threat. He should also aim to get rid of the ECJ oversight in NI – we should have nothing to do with an EU court.

      Triggering A16 may or may not result in any of these ifs and buts and maybees, but it’s a useful tool to keep in readiness.

      1. Why are the EU so keen to keep the NI Protocol if not to use it as a weapon with which to beat the UK for Brexit?

        Of course it was madness for Johnson to agree to having it in the first place. May, Benn and the Remainer Team did their best to tie his hands but he should have used his 80 seat majority to free him of their fetters before the deal was struck.

    2. Baloney, George! We left the EU. We should cease to be beholden to them, or pay any attention to their wants and claims and courts. We also need to bring NI out of their clutches. So what if the soi-disant “trade deal “collapses? It has done us no good. The delays at Customs are deliberate and vicious.

  75. Politics latest news: I told Boris Johnson to save Owen Paterson, admits Jacob Rees-Mogg – watch Commons live.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/11/16/boris-johnson-owen-paterson-tory-sleaze-liverpool-migrants/

    It seems to me that Owen Paterson was not treated fairly at all and that both Bryant and Stone were vindictively determined to find him guilty from the word go. The fact that they were both very anti-Tory and anti-Brexit probably ensured that he was not treated with impartiality from the very beginning.

    Given this, then what should Johnson have done? In my view he should have asked the Speaker if he could call Owen Paterson before all the Conservative MPs and have allowed him to state his case clearly before them so that they could then decide for themselves individually and un-whipped what their views on his guilt or innocence were. To have bound his MPs in the way he did on this matter was a ridiculous error of judgement by Johnson.

  76. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6256be30764cb45800a71556488fcf240e3f4d68a6666e2138ee089ecc93894d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89687e41ed6f89d8a0296af149890307cefac031952b729fae65764e83f78c12.jpg Everywhere and anywhere one cares to look, the ingrained stupidity of the species screams loudly at you.

    In the first photograph the black plug is the one that came with my Philishave shaver. Its two pins are a smidgeon thicker, and microscopically closer together, than the standard two-pin continental plug (the white plug in the same photograph). This means that the Philishave’s plug will not fit into a standard continental socket.

    In order for me to recharge the shaver, I must use the idiotic procedure (as a shown in the second photograph). I have to plug the shaver’s plug into an adapter that converts it into a standard UK plug. That UK plug is then connected to another adaptor, this time to convert it to be able to be used in a continental socket.

    Only an organism with a sub-standard intellect could possibly come up with such a brainless system. It also beggars belief that Philips is a continental (Dutch) company.

      1. It was made for the UK market (I bought it when I lived there). That still doesn’t excuse the fact that umpteen various methods of plugging in electrical appliances around the world still exist in 2021.

        1. There are dozens of variations and types of fibre connectors. These are a mess, annoying and frustrating.

          For ethernet, only the one but.. for the storage box I put in recently over 15 different connector types. It’s bally annoying.

    5. Perhaps that’s intentional, to ensure the shaver plug only fits into a standard shaver socket. The shaver socket in my bathroom is not the same as the two pin socket, also in my bathroom.

      For some reason the French seem to permit standard switches and standard sockets to be available in bathrooms.

          1. Funny thing. When we renovated the house in Laure, the electrician was adamant that NO light switches could be allowed in the salles d’eau but full power sockets six inches from the taps were perfectly OK…!

          8. I now have a wet room. 25% of the floor area is a shower cubicle. According to the regs, my shaver (/toothbrush) socket is illegal, despite the fact that I couldn’t flood it from the shower if I tried. Incidentally, I installed a socket which is designed to charge toothbrushes, as well as run shavers. The bloody thing still hums…

          9. If there were enough bodies in the bathroom perhaps there would be a volte-face about the sockets.

    7. In fairness, Grizz, a standard UK shaver socket will accommodate both round pin varieties, plus Yank rectangular pins, at 2 voltages. So it’s yer continentals who appear to be in the wrong…

    2. Ban NEW cars from within the EU – Mercedes, VW, BMW, Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, Seat, Skoda, Volvo, Saab etc.

      Then listen to the howls.

      Include any or all food and liquor imports.

      The EU know that they must tread carefully or, as Cpl Jones observed, “They don’t like it up ’em!”

      2. Had a pleasant potter round Majestic Wine this morning.
        Both the order I was collecting and the top up bottles that I bought today were all from countries outside the EU.

          1. They would. But I love a potter round; I’d placed an order but also needed to choose some individual bottles to top up the Allan Towers wine cellar.

    6. I like cheese, but it doesn’t usually like me. Diabetic gustatory sweating is a thing. As soon as I eat the stuff, I have to mop my fevered brow. Some cheeses don’t bother me at all. Pie d’Angloys is one. Unfortunately, not only is it French (boo, hiss), but it translates to ‘Englishmen’s Feet”.

      I’ll stick to Cheddar, and keep a towel to hand…

  79. Just sent birthday greetings & a catch-up email to a German friend. Was surprised to see that spellchecker works automatically in that language too.

  81. Theresa May attacks ‘misplaced, ill-judged and wrong’ attempt to save Owen Paterson
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/11/16/boris-johnson-owen-paterson-tory-sleaze-liverpool-migrants/

    So says this evil heap of bat’s vomit who hates Paterson because he was one of the very few sincere Brexiters in the lamentable party whose remaining vestiges of honesty and integrity she did her best to destroy?

    She’s as besmeared in hog’s excrement as the worst of them.

    How much money did she get for lecturing to empty halls and assembly rooms in the US? Who paid her and for what services rendered?

    2. That little gushing fountain of praise suddenly reminded me of the song ‘Another suitcase in another hall’ from Evita.

  82. The Grimes is giving full cover to the perpetually offended slammer creekiter. BTL, I asked whether those whom he accused would be called to give evidence.

    “Your comment violates our policies”…    .

      1. I have been on a diversity course – and realise that the very idea of implying that an enquiry dealing with a slammer might not be impartial is – of itself – both racist and a hate crime.

        I have packed a bag and a calling the perlice.

    3. As far as I recall, from the radio news today, one of the things he complained about was being asked “does your uncle own that?” while walking past a corner shop! Obviously this systematic racism business is more all encompassing than I thought!

      And why is that story the lead on the BBC news all of today – is nothing important happening??

      1. He also complained about having red wine poured down his throat – poor slammer. Then admitting that he had an alcohol problem….

      2. Spam is spam. Waffe is German for weapon/force – hence Luftwaffe = air force.
        Otherwise it’s a bit of humour which is getting rather tired.

        1. Thank you for the explanation, I should have realised but I was thinking in terms of annoying mosquitos and couldn’t get swatting them out of my mind. I suppose spammers and mozzies are rather similar.

    3. I don’t know quite what the Mail is aiming for with this, but I wonder now if he was some sort of Stool pigeon. Perhaps the promise of 27 virgins was too good to let go.
      But even more evil is the fact that he almost wiped out the cabbie as well.

        1. That’s my impression, why have the Mail been allowed into the home when the forensics would still be in action ? Or where and how did they get hold of those photographs ?

          2. After all, when that MP was murdered, they wouldn’t let the priest administer the Last Rites because of forensics. One rule for one …?

      2. Too many terrorists are from the “Religion of Peas”. The fact that this guy convinced all around him that he was now walking in the footsteps of his personal Saviour, Jesus, gives the MSM a golden opportunity to negate Jihadi terrorism. FFS – has no-one heard of taquiyya?

        1. Why was Poppy Day bomber still in UK after SEVEN years of failed asylum requests? Home Office under fire as it’s claimed terrorist ‘converted to Christianity to get visa’ as Liverpool Cathedral curate warns ‘many abuse system’ by pretending to find Jesus

          4. It beggars belief, Maggie. For what it’s worth, I attended two Remembrance Sunday services at the weekend, and went on to St John the Baptist, Wimbledon, to sing the Fauré Requiem. I needed a poppy, so mid-afternoon on Saturday, I hopped on a train to the next-but-one nearest town. I searched every shopping street, then the slightly out-of-town supermarkets.

            The name of this town? Bloody Aldershot. All the small shops are now owned by non-whites. The only trace of poppies was at Morrisons, where there was a table and RBL flag thingy, but no people. If you can’t find a poppy at the home of the British Army, WTF?

          5. Goodness me , Geoff

            That is really shocking and very dangerous , and what about the security side of things ..

            No one cares , this integration thing has gone beyond a joke .

            I do hope Sunday went well for you and had a good memorial service .. you sang?

          6. If feel that Remembrance Day is being phased out. “Lest we forget.” I fear that many have forgotten.

        2. Totally agree Geoff.
          I remember my father saying many times “never trust an arab son” ! He spent quite a lot of time in Algeria and north Africa in WW2.
          It has come to light that their whole raison d’étra is to destroy western culture. They cause trouble where ever they are out side of islamic countries.

    4. David Videcette, a former 7/7 counter-terror detective at Scotland Yard, said today: ‘There’s now a dispute about who exactly Emad al Swealmeen really was, and where he actually came from. This is always a problem with asylum applicants who destroy their documents before arrival. I know one thing, he didn’t learn how to make bombs while working in cake shops’.

      Police and MI5 are trying to work out if Liverpool’s main maternity hospital, which was packed with mothers and new babies, was his intended target. ISIS attacked the maternity ward of Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul, killing 24 including 16 mothers and two children in 2020.

      A senior former intelligence source told the Mirror: ‘The bomber intended to enter the hospital and trigger his device, but for some reason it went off early and failed properly to initiate. Had he successfully set off the bomb inside it would have been extremely bloody and horrific. We believe this was a partial ­explosion, clearly from a device at high-chest level, aimed at causing many casualties.’

      2. Anyone who arrives with no papers whatsoever must be a citizen of South Sandwich Island and should be shipped there on arrival; and told to continue being a subsistence farmer.

        1. Anyone that was a true refugee wouldn’t arrive by RNLI ferry service without any documentation.

          They should be deported back to France on the next boat available.

          Winter is here. The cross channel ferries aren’t doing so much business. Use them !

    6. …. “Police and MI5 are trying to find his motive” …..
      And his liver, his ribcage, his gonads, his left kidney ……

    1. His latest “paintings” (done on an I-phone) are hideous. We saw them at the RA – but, because the MR is a Friend, we didn’t have to pay £38 for the doubtful privilege. I’d have been livid had I done so.

  87. Well consider yer self lucky Paddy ☘
    Irish Divorce

    The mother-in-law arrives home from shopping to find her son-in-law, Paddy, in a steaming rage and hurriedly packing his suitcase.

    “What happened Paddy?” she as anxiously.

    “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened ! I sent an email to my wife telling her I was coming home today from my fishing trip.

    I get home … and guess what I found? Your daughter, my wife, Jean, naked with Joe Murphy in our marital bed! This is unforgivable! The end of our marriage. I’m done. I’m leaving forever!”

    “Ah now, calm down, calm down Paddy!” says his mother-in-law.

    “There is something very odd going on here. Jean would never do such a thing!

    There must be a simple explanation. I’ll go speak to her immediately and find out what happened.”

    Moments later, the mother-in-law comes back with a big smile.

    “Paddy, there I told you there must be a simple explanation………….. She never got your email!”

    1. Happened to a shipmate when we crew-changed a day early. Whoops. Always give ’em plenty of notice.

        1. “Throw that bloody sailor out, and come back to bed.”

          The Cruel Sea. Nicholas Monserrat. A book now completely forgotten

          4. “That was the way the war was going; the individual had to retreat or submerge, the simple unfeeling pair of hands must come to the fore. The emphasis was now on the tireless machine of war; men were parts of this machine, and so they must remain, till they fulfilled their function or wore out. If, in the process, they did wear out, it was bad luck on the men – but not bad luck on the war, which had had its money’s worth out of them. The hateful struggle, to be effective, demanded one hundred percent from many millions of individual people; death was in this category of demand, and, lower down the list, the cancellation of humanity was an essential element of the total price.”
            Nicholas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea.

          8. Gosh – brings it all back. It is where I learned the expression: “Coming the raw prawn”….

    2. Paddy got a job as a lumberjack but try as he might, he couldn’t meet his quota of fifty trees a day.

      By chance, he saw an ad in a shop window for chainsaws guaranteed to fell 60 trees a day.

      So he bought one. But the best he could manage was forty trees a day. So he took it back to the shop and complained that there must be something wrong with it.

      “Let me look at it,” said the man in the shop.

      The man took the chainsaw and switched it on. “What’s that noise?” said Paddy.

          1. Fairy nuff. In my defence, I live in Surrey, where every gardening task involves Briggs & Stratton, or Stihl. Prolly the latter. Me – I have several 18V Bosch tools, which are relatively quiet.

          3. So do McCulloch and they tend to be cheaper.
            Not so well known, although I think they deserve to be.

          5. My French handyman tells me that my McCulloch is the best he’s used.
            It might have something to do with the fact that I replaced the standard chain with the “diamond” version.

          7. Scottish blow jobs are better than Japanese?
            I’ll take your word for it.
            No doubt Phizzee can elucidate.

          10. Some years ago, I looked after the churchyard. We had a Stihl strimmer/brushcutter. Brilliant machine. I have a Stihl Kombi engine, a long reach hedge cutter attachment, and a pick tine attachment. I showed the latter my horrendously clay-based lawn. It responded by destroying the clutch.

            Fifty quid secured an electric tiller from Screwfix. I turned over the horrendous clay soil, and worked in 1.5 m3 of soil improver.

            The new turf went down last week…

          13. Quite. Geoff’ is showing his ignorance of the modern world. My tree chap has a couple that run on batteries, for heaven”s sake! Load of nonsense, in my view. But what do I know about anything?

          16. OI! When I moved, I gave away a long reach hedge trimmer and chainsaw. Both cordless. I still have a cordless mower, hedge trimmer, leaf blower, sander and possibly others. Corded tools tend to wrap around my artificial legs, with hilarious consequences…

          18. You are forgiven! I sold the chainsaw that came with this house.

            I have always been frighten by them. In the 1960s, I had a client who was up a tree using one. The chain struck a bit of metal, jumped and cut his thigh just below the groin. He sat on the branch watching himself bleed to death. Didn’t take long…..

          19. I’ve an Irish/Aussie mongrel friend I meet at the pub, although he’s just been crook with Covid recently, who has all the boys’ toys. 3 years ago he started his chainsaw a few feet away from his wife, who was gardening. He said it seemed to jump in his hands and lunged at his missus. She was wearing a gardening jacket and blouse. It cut through her clothes and actually severed her bra strap without breaking the skin. Shocked would be a mild description.

      1. No. But plenty of people who have probably advanced using the same principles as this competition. All they have done is ruined the value of their high-sounding qualifications. Who is going to believe that a black person deserves their achievements when the rest of the competition was disqualified from the start?

      1. How will it eat, though, without its prehensile proboscis? It certainly will not be able to fend for itself outside of a zoo environment.

  92. ‘Night All,nicked

    A Commons Committee meeting convened to hear evidence from a pakistani cricketer who played in Yorkshire.

    MP’s don’t want to convene committees to hear evidence about the mass rape

    of English girls in Yorkshire by pakistanis, or the invasion by tens of

    thousands of young third world males.

    Never have the filth in Westminster cared so little about the British people

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99aba943591d6de063fa0e445dc5d2a34b79f96865cf241e6820ff4f41847904.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71d00ec3525e7290426bc9c43c79a38d1fa7fb77f0656bb37698d9dabcc0e63e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdb54281b9e588591d355e00a215952c792a40ae3d918c1c3589ce7e1b8cb61a.jpg

  93. Yes, yes, I know I said I needed a break but really I needed to calm down; everything nowadays makes me so cross which isn’t good. As I have said to MH, if I had run a classroom or my library with such incompetence as this govt has “run” this country, I would have been fired.
    I despise incompetence and stupidity and yet that is all we get.
    So, sorry to those of you who were hoping and celebrating that I would be absent for another 10 months but, for now, I have returned. Don’t all applaud at once ;-))

    3. I know how you feel, Lottie. It gets me, too, and I don’t even live there!. Red medicine helps!

      1. You don’t need to tell her that – she and her husband are at the pub most of every day…{:¬))

        1. Actually, we haven’t been to the pub since last Friday. We only go now and again now that we’ve moved house.

          3. Ahhh Scandiland where the price of a pint is equivalent to a complete night out in Weatherspoons! Penarth branch still going strong, free parking and less than £2 a pint.

      1. Thank you Mr. Prez. I just get grumbly and sour at times. Thought I’d spare you all for a few hours;-)

        1. Hi, Lotl. As you are the only person who seems to speak to me on here, I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m David, and I live in Staffordshire in the UK.

          Thanks for the name.

          1. Yes, I remember your name as David- Walker also? Whereabouts in Staffs? I went to Keele university and Crewe teacher training college, so know the area quite well.
            My name is Ann but don’t tell any of the others;-))

          3. I did reply in the comments but it doesn’t seem to have taken. If you didn’t see it, I went to university at Keele and teacher training at Crewe. I have a BA in Eng. Lit and a teaching diploma. My name is Ann but don’t tell the other oiks that.
            They can be a contrary lot but just get on with it…I think you have a great sense of humour as I hope do I.

      1. Yes, it does but it doesn’t do me any good in the long term. I can get very angry which I have spent years learning to control, so it’s best I try to limit my ranting and raving. The situation right now is not helping at all.

  96. I was just thinking about that very funny story Maggie posted about an Irishman (daringly called “Paddy”) and the chainsaw.
    Substitute ” a slammer” for Paddy – and your feet wouldn’t hit the ground until you were in a prison cell.
    Funny old world.

    1. Roll call on the first day of school in London, England….
      Ahmed Al Sheriah ………………………..”Here.”

      Mustafa Al Sheriah ……………………….”Here.”

      Fatima El Bindihiri ………………………..”Here.”

      Ali Acmah Shabeeb ………………………..”Here.”

      Ali Sun Al En ……………………..No answer.

      Ali Sun Al En?

      A little girl at the back stands up and yells …. “It’s pronounced Alison Allen, for Christ’s sake!

      1. My local rag claims the Liverpool suicide bomber was a “Christian convert” (with a name like his?!) who was annoyed at having his asylum claim refused. Yeah, right. Christians always blow themselves up when they are disappointed, don’t they?

    2. “.Teacher : What is the name of the Capital City of Somalia ?
      Akpos: Bomb Blast.
      Teacher : You are Wrong, You need to focus more on your studies.
      Àkpos: (ANGRY) Please madam, can I ask u a few questions.
      Teacher : Yes, go ahead.
      Akpos: Do u know Tracy ?
      Teacher : No.
      Akpos: Do u know Blessing ?
      Teacher : No.
      Akpos: Do u know Ruth ?
      Teacher : (Angry) Hell no! Who are all these people and why do u ask ?
      Akpos: Teacher, You need to Focus more on your husband.
      Nawa for Akpos

  98. Right – tha’ts me for the day. Nice piece of steak for supper, Cook tells me. So I suppose I shall have to look keen…!!

    Have a jolly evening – and don’t forget what I said about the BBC4 film “They Shall Not Grow Old”…. Brilliant.

    A demain.

    1. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
      Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
      At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
      We will remember them.

      Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

      1. Such poignant words, and yet I have never heard an RBL president deliver them well at any festival of remembrance

  99. Bus driver Tamsin drives passenger to hospital – Spotlight – BBC news.

    After phoning for an ambulance the wait was four hours…luckily
    the passengers understood the situation and left the bus.

    1. YouGov – – the poll that gives the answer You want.

      I expect they carefully sifted out any sceptics.

      1. Yup. Many oldies are shitting themselves at the prospect of death by Covid.

        However, many now have access to independent media apart from the Guardian, Independent and BBC and are able to put two and two together. more accurate information and rumour is spread within milliseconds. The Silicon Valley tech psychopaths will be buried by their own algorithms and competences.

        Many now know they are being taken for fools by the amalgamation of corporate Big Pharma, felons all, and the fake Tory government. Much the same applies in America.

        Johnson sold out to Gates and Soros long ago. His every appearance is one of a guilty man. I despise him and his crony government.

    5. Surely all the 58% can’t be “fully vaccinated” themselves, given that the third jab is already needed? Do they realise that it would apply to them?
      Only 28% think it’s wrong to lock people up for not accepting an experimental medical treatment!

      I think we now know the answer to the question, Who would have supported the Nazis in the 1930s?

      1. We always knew.
        A goodly percentage of the French population welcomed the arrival of the Germans in 1940.
        In Britain the Auxiliary Units were given lists of likely collaborators.

    2. And yet the anti-Brexit heckling from the Twat in the Hat (Steve Bray, the Remainer protester outside Westminster) was allowed to continue for months. They don’t like it up ’em!

      3. Imagine having to do several takes with the shots of Möller’s Tran…
        (although that’s probably NFN)

    1. His friends in the IRA, his Daesh friends and Hamas would approve. The Labour Party doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. So i expect it’s okay for fucking traitors.

    2. No, it’s disgraceful.
      Messrs Johnson and Patel & the rest of the British Import Commitee should have paid their respects before Mr Corbyn.

    2. Reuters “fact checkers” do also claim that the coviclimatevax scam is 100% genuine. That said, regarding Schwab, we should be so lucky lucky lucky.

      1. In my experience most “fact checkers” work to their employer’s agenda and even if the fact being checked turns out to be true they will put a spin on the answer so that will make it look as if it was false.

        Claim: “a huge majority believe xyz is true”
        Fact check: “we found that 55% believe xyz is true, thus 45% don’t, so it isn’t a huge majority”
        Headline from employer: “45% agree that xyz is false”

        1. We had fact checkers from the BBC during the Brexit shenanigans. It was all lies.

          Today the BBC talk of President Biden as though he was a worthy POTUS whereas even a moron can see that Biden is an imposter.

          When Trump was President we endured day after day of the BBC’s Jon Sopel and some American charlatan giving us a daily intake dietary negative comment on President Trump and his administration.

          Now we have a senile, evil and incompetent POTUS in the hapless Joe Biden we hear not a squeak from the BBC and those two idiots.

          Are the BBC still paying the dope Sopel for his learned commentary on matters American?

          When will people learn that they are being manipulated by a hostile anti-democratic press?

        2. We had fact checkers from the BBC during the Brexit shenanigans. It was all lies.

          Today the BBC talk of President Biden as though he was a worthy POTUS whereas even a moron can see that Biden is an imposter.

          When Trump was President we endured day after day of the BBC’s Jon Sopel and some American charlatan giving us a daily intake dietary negative comment on President Trump and his administration.

          Now we have a senile, evil and incompetent POTUS in the hapless Joe Biden we hear not a squeak from the BBC and those two idiots.

          Are the BBC still paying the dope Sopel for his learned commentary on matters American?

          When will people learn that they are being manipulated by a hostile anti-democratic press?

  108. John Ward writes:

    “As most of you will know by now, I’ve never liked BoJo; I recommended that people vote for him in order to get Brexit, and I now bitterly regret my decision. I’m afraid he has turned out to be the worst kind of NWO whore-lackey: I should’ve stuck with my 2011 verdict: “The most dangerous politician in Britain”. I’ve lost count now of the number of times I’ve been on social media and heard both him and Priti Patel calling mass dumping of crooks and extremists onto UK soil “unacceptable”, while doing 3/5ths of nothing about it. They both suffer from the same Blairite “I have spoken and thus it shall happen” delusion…and both hope nobody will see through the illusion.

    But those social media also contain the same begging to be heard ordinary Britons pointing out how much they detest this policy of appeasement – and being (of course) condemned by Leftlib idiots, Gary Lineker and the BBC for being “racist”, when they are merely life-students of sharp end social anthropology. The political and media-chattering classes will never learn that there is a basic proletarian common sense that can – with little or no notice – turn into wild backlash. Although a confirmed Brexiteer myself, I fully accept that the arrogant deaf-and-blind metropolitan sect’s crypto-Bourbon stupidity delivered the majority for leaving the EU.

    It goes without saying that many people (including myself) at first failed to grasp that the anti-Brexit alliance is in fact almost indistinguishable from the Davos Front. But these same people continue to score spectacular scissor-kick own goals with brutal disregard for reality; and so it is that we arrive at the seemingly insouciant Prime Minister Johnson chairing a COBRA committee on “the terrorist threat”.

    I use the word “seemingly” because everything Boris does and says is so predictable, there is not a chance in Hell that he was unaware of the consequences of flooding the United Kingdom with totally unvetted and largely unskilled chancers with either an inbuilt hatred of Christian Whitey and/or a determination turn Britain into an Islamist Caliphate. Indeed, there is intrinsic to the scandalous events in the English Channel that sadistic nihilism courted by George Soros – whose sole intent seems to be the destruction of any nation with a libertarian culture strong enough to defy the totalitarian State.

    What these global hegemonist Build Back Better purveyors want is rabid anarchy to justify them stomping upon the remaining 1in8 forces of reason, with a mission to ‘restore order’ based on fear.

    Fear of annihilation by disease, fear of death on a blazing planet, fear of terrorist slaughter, fear of wealth destruction, fear of Russian intentions, fear of attacks from other solar systems….fear of shadows, discovery, unlikely love, risk, left-field, new stuff and in fact anything that makes life fulfilling and in which interference from the Unelected Persuaders and their too easily Elected Lackeys is absent.

    Fear, at the bottom line, of everything the two lovers in Nineteen Eighty-Four desired….apart from each other. Which, of course, the prurient asexual State both hated and feared.

    In that context, Boris Johnson isn’t just betraying UK Tory values: he’s betraying everything good, natural and meek about our species.”

  109. Question

    How do you lose £52,000,000.99 without involving HS2

    Answer

    Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy, 27,

    The French born national is now accused of six counts of rape and one of sexual assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

    The left-back joined the football club in July 2017 on a five-year contract for a reported £52m fee, which is a world record for a defender.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/16/manchester-city-footballer-benjamin-mendy-charged-two-counts/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/11/16/TELEMMGLPICT000269197961_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=680

    2. A plethora of posts about race/ sport and especially – Paki/ Yorkshire cricket – are utterly puerile and boring.

  110. The English Channel Invasion 2021.

    The Rules of Engagement should be:

    No papers, no passport, no emails, no Mobile?:

    No landing; immediate return to country of departure.

    No exceptions.

  111. What am I missing in the discussion about Putin? One isn’t an apologist for him, let alone a supporter, by questioning his critics. Why on earth would he want to pick a serious fight with ‘The West’? There are two articles on the DT site. The first I haven’t reproduced. It’s more measured in its tone than the second, which is almost barking. Both writers seem to think the tanks will roll westwards very soon and Europe will be engulfed. Worryingly, a significant proportion of the BTL correspondents agree (although there is plenty of contempt for the idea).

    We mustn’t underestimate the risk of conflict with Russia

    There are now so many hotspots, with such high tension, that the danger of conflagration in Eastern Europe is frighteningly high

    MARK ALMOND

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/15/dont-underestimate-risk-conflict-russia/

    Putin is ready to gamble on war with the West

    The Russian president will do everything in his power to seek revenge for Russia’s humiliation

    BOB SEELY

    Bosnia may be about to collapse into civil war. Belarus is throwing Middle Eastern refugees at the Polish border. Russia is building up forces on Ukraine’s eastern border.

    These events, in a series of flashpoints in eastern Europe, have developed at a frightening rate. Individually, they have complex roots, but we should not be under any illusion: Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is behind them all.

    General Sir Nick Carter, the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, is right to say we need to be prepared for conflict. This sounds shocking, but we have sadly ignored the true nature of Russia’s regime for years, unwilling to face the painful consequences of what that means.

    Germany’s decision to suspend, temporarily, approval of Russia’s highly controversial pipeline, NordStream 2, is a start, but unless this decision is permanent, it will be much too little, much too late.

    The “weaponisation” of refugees in Belarus is not new. It is just happening on a scale that Western governments are finally noticing. It was used extensively by the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war, by Russia on the Norwegian border in 2016 and by Belarus this summer. It is one of the many tools of hybrid conflict practised by Russia and its allies.

    Confusion remains about this form of conflict. Hybrid war is not “non-military” conflict. It is the combining of military and non-military tools of state power into a single whole, an idea clearly stated in Russian Military Doctrine. That doctrine argues that the first characteristic of contemporary conflict is the “integrated use of military force, political, economic, informational and other measures of a non-military character, implemented with… special operations forces.” Modern hybrid warfare weaponises and unifies all state tools in the service of conflict.

    Putin’s Kremlin has been preparing for conflict ever since he declared the new age of hostility in a 2007 speech in Munich. His words were largely ignored by nervous Western nations, who made the usual excuses about Putin speaking to an internal audience.

    In his final decade in power, Putin wants to do three things: first, destroy an independent Ukrainian state; second, shatter Nato and third, cement Russia’s role as an illiberal rival to the West. He will risk war, calculating that Germany’s strategically disastrous energy policy – shutting nuclear power whilst becoming more dependent on Russian coal and gas – will mean that the EU blinks first. The Prime Minster is right to say the EU must choose between gas or Ukraine. Despite Germany’s decision today, the EU will probably chose the latter, a consequences of the long-term weakness of European leadership.

    Turning to the first of Putin’s three aims, he does not accept a Ukraine separate from Russia. After Ukraine’s pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004, the Kremlin waged a conflict against Ukraine using non-military tools. These include the use of the Russian Orthodoxy (culture), oligarch influence (economics), corruption and blackmail (the old tools of the KGB), propaganda via Russian TV and media (information operations), control of political parties (politics), all mixed with the occasional assassination and other espionage tools.

    He failed, narrowly, to pull Ukraine back into Russia’s strategic orbit. When the corrupt, pro-Russian government collapsed in 2014, Putin ordered the annexation of the Crimea and began the eastern Ukraine war, setting up and arming paramilitary groups, in reality often Russian contract soldiers and security agency personnel.

    This summer, in an essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, and follow-up interview, Putin implied he does not recognise Ukraine within its current borders. He is signalling his intention. He wants to seize territory along the Black Sea coast to Odessa and into Moldova. Needless to say, in Ukraine there is virtually no support for Putin’s ambitions. Putin’s wars have helped form a modern Ukrainian state, in opposition to Russian authoritarianism.

    Thanks to rearmament, paid for by EU fossil fuel addicts, Putin may try this time for a more conventional invasion, but the integrated mix of tactics and tools will still include provocations, cyber-attacks, deception and the array of military and non-military tools. The instigation of ethnic violence – effectively a controlled conflict – in Bosnia and an intensification of the refugee crisis in Belarus may well serve as strategic diversionary operations. But Putin’s main aim is, and will be, Ukraine.

    Putin also wants to destroy Nato. Like many KGB conspiracy theorists, he believes that the West destroyed the USSR. He believes that democratic revolutions are Western plots to undermine pro-Russian regimes and Russia itself. He wants revenge; for the USSR, for the loss of the Baltic republics, for the loss of Russia’s eastern Europe empire. Exposing a sclerotic EU and nervous Nato as paper tigers (although he will not attack those Baltic republics which are Nato members) will give him the victory he yearns. He wants revenge for Russia’s humiliation, which he blames entirely on the West.

    Third, Putin’s conflict, and the constant war propaganda in Russia, helps to control his own population and to give him the space to reshape Russian state identity in opposition to what he sees as corrupt Western values. External war, real in Ukraine, virtual so far against the West, enables that internal control and the remaking of Russian identity. He must stop democracy working in Kiev to ensure it cannot take root in Moscow.

    The images of conflict, of Russian air force jets buzzing US and UK vessels in the Black Sea, of paratroopers landing in Belarus and the repeated threats of nuclear weapon use, are designed to show a rearmed Russia ready to fight the decadent West – as if the USSR had never ended. Russia’s population has had near 20 years of increasingly intense propaganda.

    Polls show many Russians not only expect war with the West, but nuclear conflict too. Putin has prepared his people for years. He is now deciding whether, what and how much to gamble to achieve his three ambitions.

    Bob Seely is the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/16/putin-ready-gamble-war-west/

      1. Purely on humanitarian grounds I’m surprised that Mr Putin hasn’t offered to arrange transport for all those poor souls on the Belarus / Polish border to take them to whichever country will freely admit and settle them (or in the event of no country volunteering – back to their country of origin). I suspect he would win even more points if he offered to do the same for those attempting the RIB channel crossing…..

        1. Morning Stephen. Some have already been repatriated (Al Jazirah) but it’s not being reported in the West MSM!

    3. As a youngster he reported from Russia for The Times or similar, and he may once have been married to an Eastern European lady.

    4. He’s got a point. The MP for the IOW must be terrified that the Russians and the personification of evil have secret plans to invade the Island as a forward operating base prior to the invasion of the mainland. After all in nautical terms its only a hop skip and a jump compared to a full across the channel invasion (see 1944 for details). I don’t know how he sleeps at night….

      1. …Russian air force jets buzzing US and UK vessels in the Black Sea…

        Wow! Imagine that! You would almost think they had a right to be there!

    6. Can’t be ar5ed to read it all but I think that an East-West Conflict is probably for the best.

      It will wake the woke up and, with Russia victorious it will see the end of the EU and the socialist twats in the US.

      Bring it on. Welcome the four horsemen, as we have no Churchillian leaders.

  112. What am I missing in the discussion about Putin? One isn’t an apologist for him, let alone a supporter, by questioning his critics. Why on earth would he want to pick a serious fight with ‘The West’? There are two articles on the DT site. The first I haven’t reproduced. It’s more measured in its tone than the second, which is almost barking. Both writers seem to think the tanks will roll westwards very soon and Europe will be engulfed. Worryingly, a significant proportion of the BTL correspondents agree (although there is plenty of contempt for the idea).

    We mustn’t underestimate the risk of conflict with Russia

    There are now so many hotspots, with such high tension, that the danger of conflagration in Eastern Europe is frighteningly high

    MARK ALMOND

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/15/dont-underestimate-risk-conflict-russia/

    Putin is ready to gamble on war with the West

    The Russian president will do everything in his power to seek revenge for Russia’s humiliation

    BOB SEELY

    Bosnia may be about to collapse into civil war. Belarus is throwing Middle Eastern refugees at the Polish border. Russia is building up forces on Ukraine’s eastern border.

    These events, in a series of flashpoints in eastern Europe, have developed at a frightening rate. Individually, they have complex roots, but we should not be under any illusion: Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is behind them all.

    General Sir Nick Carter, the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, is right to say we need to be prepared for conflict. This sounds shocking, but we have sadly ignored the true nature of Russia’s regime for years, unwilling to face the painful consequences of what that means.

    Germany’s decision to suspend, temporarily, approval of Russia’s highly controversial pipeline, NordStream 2, is a start, but unless this decision is permanent, it will be much too little, much too late.

    The “weaponisation” of refugees in Belarus is not new. It is just happening on a scale that Western governments are finally noticing. It was used extensively by the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war, by Russia on the Norwegian border in 2016 and by Belarus this summer. It is one of the many tools of hybrid conflict practised by Russia and its allies.

    Confusion remains about this form of conflict. Hybrid war is not “non-military” conflict. It is the combining of military and non-military tools of state power into a single whole, an idea clearly stated in Russian Military Doctrine. That doctrine argues that the first characteristic of contemporary conflict is the “integrated use of military force, political, economic, informational and other measures of a non-military character, implemented with… special operations forces.” Modern hybrid warfare weaponises and unifies all state tools in the service of conflict.

    Putin’s Kremlin has been preparing for conflict ever since he declared the new age of hostility in a 2007 speech in Munich. His words were largely ignored by nervous Western nations, who made the usual excuses about Putin speaking to an internal audience.

    In his final decade in power, Putin wants to do three things: first, destroy an independent Ukrainian state; second, shatter Nato and third, cement Russia’s role as an illiberal rival to the West. He will risk war, calculating that Germany’s strategically disastrous energy policy – shutting nuclear power whilst becoming more dependent on Russian coal and gas – will mean that the EU blinks first. The Prime Minster is right to say the EU must choose between gas or Ukraine. Despite Germany’s decision today, the EU will probably chose the latter, a consequences of the long-term weakness of European leadership.

    Turning to the first of Putin’s three aims, he does not accept a Ukraine separate from Russia. After Ukraine’s pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004, the Kremlin waged a conflict against Ukraine using non-military tools. These include the use of the Russian Orthodoxy (culture), oligarch influence (economics), corruption and blackmail (the old tools of the KGB), propaganda via Russian TV and media (information operations), control of political parties (politics), all mixed with the occasional assassination and other espionage tools.

    He failed, narrowly, to pull Ukraine back into Russia’s strategic orbit. When the corrupt, pro-Russian government collapsed in 2014, Putin ordered the annexation of the Crimea and began the eastern Ukraine war, setting up and arming paramilitary groups, in reality often Russian contract soldiers and security agency personnel.

    This summer, in an essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, and follow-up interview, Putin implied he does not recognise Ukraine within its current borders. He is signalling his intention. He wants to seize territory along the Black Sea coast to Odessa and into Moldova. Needless to say, in Ukraine there is virtually no support for Putin’s ambitions. Putin’s wars have helped form a modern Ukrainian state, in opposition to Russian authoritarianism.

    Thanks to rearmament, paid for by EU fossil fuel addicts, Putin may try this time for a more conventional invasion, but the integrated mix of tactics and tools will still include provocations, cyber-attacks, deception and the array of military and non-military tools. The instigation of ethnic violence – effectively a controlled conflict – in Bosnia and an intensification of the refugee crisis in Belarus may well serve as strategic diversionary operations. But Putin’s main aim is, and will be, Ukraine.

    Putin also wants to destroy Nato. Like many KGB conspiracy theorists, he believes that the West destroyed the USSR. He believes that democratic revolutions are Western plots to undermine pro-Russian regimes and Russia itself. He wants revenge; for the USSR, for the loss of the Baltic republics, for the loss of Russia’s eastern Europe empire. Exposing a sclerotic EU and nervous Nato as paper tigers (although he will not attack those Baltic republics which are Nato members) will give him the victory he yearns. He wants revenge for Russia’s humiliation, which he blames entirely on the West.

    Third, Putin’s conflict, and the constant war propaganda in Russia, helps to control his own population and to give him the space to reshape Russian state identity in opposition to what he sees as corrupt Western values. External war, real in Ukraine, virtual so far against the West, enables that internal control and the remaking of Russian identity. He must stop democracy working in Kiev to ensure it cannot take root in Moscow.

    The images of conflict, of Russian air force jets buzzing US and UK vessels in the Black Sea, of paratroopers landing in Belarus and the repeated threats of nuclear weapon use, are designed to show a rearmed Russia ready to fight the decadent West – as if the USSR had never ended. Russia’s population has had near 20 years of increasingly intense propaganda.

    Polls show many Russians not only expect war with the West, but nuclear conflict too. Putin has prepared his people for years. He is now deciding whether, what and how much to gamble to achieve his three ambitions.

    Bob Seely is the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/16/putin-ready-gamble-war-west/

  115. Well, that’s off to bed.
    Instead of working up the garden, a sombrely pleasant day saying farewell to my next-door neighbour, Des.
    A well attended service at the tiny Carsington village church, interment next to his parents in the church yard then a couple of pints and buffet chatting to his relatives in the Miners’ Arms.

    Tomorrow I’ve a run into Derby on the 09:44 Trans-Peak bus to meet my Step-son’s occupational health worker and someone from the Fire Brigade to do a fire safety check on his flat.

    Before I go, a thought.
    https://twitter.com/BillLloyd2014/status/1460672789606764562

    Good night all.

  117. One thing I have learnt in the Great P(l)andemic is just how much I can enjoy sitting outside at a nice location (Garden Centre or – local – Rowheath Pavilion), even in cool weather …. chatting to friends/wife or just reading a book … having a cappuccino …. and walking around

  118. One day back a day I’m already a day behind.
    Tell me. Are there any British people left in the Great British Bake Off?

    2. Just saw a Lemsip advert on TV, in which every single character was BAME. It’s a good job white people don’t suffer from colds or flu.

      1. Just wait till there’s a public information /NHS broadcast on STDs, then the whites will dominate the screens/leaflets..

      2. Just wait till there’s a public information /NHS broadcast on STDs, then the whites will dominate the screens/leaflets..

  122. Evening, folks. The NHS was designed for a relatively stable, homogeneous society whose members had contributed to its finances by National Insurance Contributions. It was intended to keep the nation healthy. The current situation is completely different; hundreds who have not contributed are arriving every day expecting to be treated and rather than just curing people, it has branched out into cosmetic and other surgery.

      1. And ran an exercise to see if it could cope with a pandemic, found it couldn’t, yet did nothing about it!

  125. Chilling news for Greta:

    “Dr. Susan Crockford

    Mid-November is half-way through the Arctic fall season (October-December) and polar bear habitat is expanding slowly. Here’s a look at fall conditions compared to previous years, so you can see where bears may still be ashore and fasting (i.e. Hudson Bay and southern Foxe Basin) and where others have already resumed feeding.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/16/polar-bear-habitat-more-extensive-in-most-areas-of-the-arctic-compared-to-previous-years/

    Lots of graphics courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre

    https://nsidc.org/data/masie/

    And a couple of fine BTL comments:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccba603cc2d34662f6323e57b4e0c30bc4e5ae51485df5a559ae21a8845391d8.png

Comments are closed.