885 thoughts on “Tuesday 17 December: Why a whole generation has fallen out of love with the Labour Party”

      1. Goodnight, you four. I just popped in for a last look and saw the four posts. I too am now off to bed.

        PS – Thanks for the “Don’t worry, be happy” clip. I had no idea that it was sung by Bob Marley.

        1. Morning Elsie.

          “I just popped in for a last look and saw the four posts. I too am now off to bed.”

          A four-poster?

    3. I was just about to go to bed when I thought I’d take a last look at NottL and discovered the new page had been posted. Not that I have anything of interest to say at 1.42am, other than goodnight, or good morning to the early risers.

    4. Morning Tony
      I got up an hour ago to search for a ChristmasCard I had mislaid which contained an M&S gift card. I undid a parcel thinking the card was in there but with no success. My next move was to empty the recycling bin at daylight to check if the card was in there. I was tidying up my desk before going back to bed when I saw the card on the windowsill in front of my computer. Much relief but I will have to repack the parcel which goes with the card.

      1. ‘Morning, Clyde. That sounds like several senior moments strung together to create a temporary crisis…glad you found the M & S gift card, anyway.

        P.S. I do hope you were not unduly influenced by their bizarre ‘Christmas’ advert…it’s so bad it’s embarrassing. I suppose they are out to attract the younger customer, but in the process I imagine that they have dumped a lot of older ones. Their demise appears to be only a matter of time.

      1. What I really want is some serious snow to lighten up the background, and give something to play on.

        1. Morning, Herr Oberst. You say “Bring on Spring!” and “What I really want is some serious snow…” So you are saying ( Cathy Newman) that you want it to snow until and including April?!?!?

          1. That’s normal here. Often snow falls, but doesn’t linger, through much of May, too.
            Last summer, Firstborn’s farm had snow (in the shadows) on the ground to mid June.

  3. Good Morning, all

    SIR – Television pundits ask how the Conservative Party can satisfy its two very different constituencies – that of working-class voters in the North and that of the southern shires.

    Yet the two are bonded by patriotic feeling. After years of being divided on lesser issues, they had the chance (in 2016) to vote on what matters to them most: the integrity of the United Kingdom and the restoration of its sovereignty. There is nothing new in the idea of an English (or indeed a British) national identity.

    Derrick Gillingham
    London SW1

    Telly pundits stuck in their bubble believe that all the world orbits around them. Building a large studio complex in Salford does nothing to dilute their arrogance.

  4. SIR – Simon Heffer’s agenda for “constitutional reform” (Comment, December 15) wisely refrains from calling for a written constitution.

    Britain’s constitutional order is an admixture of legal and political components, and a less well-understood dispositional element (present in the public, able politicians, and Dominic Cummings). It places emphasis on law as a source of order and a means of achieving justice. It understands politics to be a process of interest accommodation. And it gives expression to a flexible disposition (alive to opportunities and threats in an ever-changing world).

    This disposition cannot find expression in an inflexible legal regime. Mr Heffer is thus right to argue for the abrogation of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. And Britain is right to disentangle itself from a Europe bent, inflexibly, on the pursuit of “ever closer union”.

    Professor Richard Mullender
    Newcastle University Law School

    1. Look on the bright(?) side, Bob3. If temperatures drop to minus 20 or so, Herr Oberst will have his wish for snow granted.

      :-))

      2. Snow in the UK? God, please no. Utter chaos results if someone even farts, let alone snow falls.

    1. ‘Morning, Bob.

      Nearly all the lightbulbs in my house are the originals which I fitted when I moved in 13 years ago.

    2. Incandescent bulbs used to blow with alarming regularity here, but since going LED we’ve not done so badly.

    3. We must have corrosive electricity. No bulb ever gets near the guaranteed 2.000 hours…

    4. When you say ‘energy efficient’ B3, are you referring to the mini-fluorescents or LEDs? The latter should be good for several thousand hours.

  8. SIR – I was struck by Andrew Roberts’s analysis of how, over time, the Left establishment has dominated the political culture of this country by projecting itself as the only arbiter of major aspects of the institutions of state and the broadcast media, including universities and the Civil Service. He cited the Italian political scientist Antonio Gramsci, who had argued that, by such means, it was unnecessary to win elections in order to indoctrinate people.

    It really is time we woke up and changed this, so that a more balanced ethos can be attained.

    Jena Pearson
    Garstang, Lancashire

    Have you only just noticed?

    I recommend that anyone who has attended Common Purpose courses be immediately demoted by three grades and sent to a re-education camp.

    1. This would be a perceptive remark were it not for the fact that it has continued under Tory Governments!

      1. Another reason, Minty, to consider the government since 2010 as the Contemptible Parliament that reached its nadir with Bercow, the contemptible Speaker in the chair.

        Thank God and pray that we have now reached clearer waters and have left the silt and sandbanks behind.

    3. Are there spare beds/huts at Gitmo?
      Edit: have I just thought of the first item in our trade agreement with Uncle Sam?

  9. Good morning all… yawn.. the trouble with dogs, you move they move .. they know when you turn over and when you stretch and your breathing alters…what a fuss .. signal to be let out in the garden .., not me , but the dogs .

    Drizzly mild morning . All I wanted to do was turn over and go back to sleep .. mind was chattering away after last night’s monthly meeting !

    A general consensus is will the new government listen to the anxieties of small towns and villages .. and can we have more access to our MP other than surgeries .. and why oh why are they all neurotic about their own safety when we …. the public become anxious all the time when confronted by security barriers , strange people , difficult access to a doctor, lack of visible police and dangerous drivers and fear of the dark !

  10. I’m wondering whether the grooming gang scandal played a big part for the reason why the people in the North switched their traditional allegiance in the election.

    1. Morning Bob. No, though it obviously helped. What I think has happened is that the penny has finally dropped and a large proportion of the Old White Labour Vote has realised that the Labour Party actually hates them!

  11. COFFEE HOUSE

    Let’s make David Lammy Labour’s next leader
    Rod Liddle

    It is a little over four years since The Spectator journalist Toby Young joined the Labour party for three quid in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader. May I be the first to suggest that we should all do the same thing now, as Jeremy will soon, sadly, be going?

    We need to ensure that Labour sticks to the exciting radical platform that has so appealed to voters.

    We need to choose someone devoid of even the slenderest vestiges of sentience and who the general public will quickly come to detest.

    The obvious candidate is Diane Abbott, but I don’t think she’s a runner.

    Rebecca Long-Bailey would be good and Richard Burgon even better.

    But to really take things forward for the party and estrange the last few remaining potential Labour voters, it surely has to be Lammy.

    Get signed up here now!

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

    BTL:
    David Lammy is just the person to reach out and unite the whole country, from Vauxhall and Clapham in the South to Islington and Tottenham in the North.

    1. Has Mr Liddle been reading this blog?

      ‘Morning, Citroen. It gives me considerable comfort to know that Liebour ‘needs a woman leader’ according to MuckDonnell, and in the process they appear to be on course to select a couple of outstanding duds as leader and deputy. Keep up the good work! (I was going to suggest that they should pick the leader by intellect rather than gender, but I soon realised that they are not exactly spoilt for choice in that department.)

      1. Memories of Call Me Dave’s compulsory 50% female short lists.
        NOT happy memories; just flash backs to embarrassing clunkers doing the rounds because they had bumps at the front.

        1. And Labour’s all-wimmin shortlist, which resulted in the election of Mr Harperson…

          ‘Morning, Annie.

          2. Who, unfortunately, narrowly hung on to his seat in Birmingham Erdington – rumour has it that he is rarely seen thereabouts …

        2. Since leaving UKIP I am unaffiliated with regards to political parties. Should I join Labour to vote for David Lammy as leader, or join the Conservatives once (if?) Boris has got us out of the EU or should I just save my money and buy some more crumble ingredients?

          2. An appeal here to Peddy: shouldn’t that be “the latterest seems the bestest”? In other words doesn’t latter refer to just two options?

          3. Correct – latter refers to 2 options. If there are more than 2, then last should be used. I’ve seen this mistake a few times recently in other places; could be the new Haitch-beast.

            Apropos saving your money, use it for new marmalade ingredients. I’m going to open the last jar you gave me at breakfast on Christmas Morning.

          4. How dare you imply that I had a sleep-over at your place on December the 24th last year, Mr Peddy, Sir?!?! I am not a girl like that!!!. I did not give you a jar of marmalade on Christmas Day of any year.

            :-))

            (You’ll have to wait until Seville Oranges as once more available in January, Peddy. Then we must meet up again early in the New Year.)

          6. Decisions…decisions….

            Go for Lammy, thus keeping Labour well away from power for several terms. You know it makes sense.

            ‘Morning, Elsie.

  12. Women MPs are becoming dreary automatons
    Melanie Phillips

    Insisting the next Labour leader must be female is proof of an obsession with identity politics

    Accepting that the Labour Party needs a new leader, the shadow chancellor John McDonnell says: “It’s got to be a woman”. Why? His statement is surely extraordinary. After all, it would be unthinkable to say that the new leader has “got to be a man”. Yet sex discrimination the other way is not only justified but thought in this case to be obvious.

    Indeed, McDonnell’s call for a woman leader was echoed by the Labour MP Stephen Kinnock and the party’s transport spokesman Andy McDonald.

    This derives from the feminist mantra challenged by few: that society is a patriarchy in which women are oppressed and marginalised by the dominant male sex. Accordingly, although they are in the majority in the population, women are to be treated like minorities who require assistance to overcome their powerless and subordinate state.

    The idea that appointments should be made on the basis of merit alone has long been swept away. For the paradox of an era which has made a fetish of opposing discrimination is that it nevertheless regards discrimination as mandatory in favour of groups considered marginalised or oppressed.

    In the 1970s, feminism’s new wave embodied precisely this paradox. Women demanded to be considered the equals of men, with identical opportunities in jobs and promotion; and yet at the same time to receive special treatment with time off and other facilities for childcare.

    Men who objected were told this was proof they were indeed male chauvinist pigs. Intimidated, they shut up; and their sons were brought up to assume that double-standard feminism was some kind of inalienable human right.

    In 2014, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission challenged the paradox when it ruled that using all-women shortlists to increase the number of women in the boardroom would constitute unlawful sex discrimination. Yet Labour has been skewing its own candidate selection system through all-women shortlists for years.

    It’s a process which is all about tokenism. In general, women tend to have higher priorities than the grubby power games of political life. So the target of equal gender representation inescapably means shoe-horning in mediocre and second-rate women at the expense of more talented male candidates.

    The really outstanding women in parliamentary history emerged well before this policy of female privilege (although in that previous era there also seemed to be far more outstanding male statesmen too). Politicians such as Barbara Castle, Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher — not forgetting Betty Boothroyd who was a great Commons Speaker — made it despite, or perhaps because, no special favours were given to them on account of their sex.

    Of course, there are talented and able women politicians today, just as there’s no shortage of dire male MPs. Yet so many women MPs seem incapable of independent intelligent thought. Parroting their dreary agitprop slogans on issues such as the gender pay gap or what they consider to be an unacceptably low rate of rape convictions, they behave like an army of automatons fighting the sex war against men.

    So many of them are mind-numbingly conformist. A vanishingly small number press for issues concerning women and girls which run against dominant left-wing orthodoxies.

    Last March on the Conservative Woman website, Andrew Cadman reported the result of his search in Hansard for Commons speeches over the previous five years on issues of concern to women. He found there had been 2,703 on childcare, 767 on the gender pay gap, 330 on female genital mutilation, 162 on stay-at-home mothers and 59 on the rape and grooming gangs.

    It would seem that women MPs are obsessed by salaries and childcare while being relatively indifferent to the mutilation, pimping or rape of young girls.

    Of course there are examples of prejudice or bias against women; and the rate of assaults against them remains a cause for concern. But in area after area, women have come to the forefront without a corresponding increase in standards of achievement or decency. Their rise to positions of influence in the BBC, theatre, law, civil service and other institutions has too often produced an exponential increase in self-righteous, vacuous, reason-resistant illiberalism.

    Labour now has more female than male MPs. Unfortunately, this will almost certainly ensure that the party in parliament remains captive to the identity politics which has helped drive Labour off the centre ground and out of its former heartlands. For this brand of feminism has taken an axe to the values held dear in decent working-class communities: support for the traditional family, aspiration rather than rigged outcomes and personal responsibility rather than grievance culture.

    One group that really is discriminated against is people with conservative views like these. There are virtually none in the universities, they are few and far between in the BBC and they are afraid to speak up in the professions.

    Even the Conservative Party has pushed the transgender agenda, endorsed the scientifically illiterate “climate emergency” and victimised the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton on the basis of a false and vicious left-wing smear, all out of terror that non-leftist positions would turn it into the “nasty party”.

    A woman leader of the Labour Party is unlikely either to drag it out of the cultural mire or prevent the Tories from sliding further in.

    1. It occurs to me that McDonnell and his ilk are terrified that that bore Little Benn will become their next Dear Leader….hence their calls for a women to step up to the plate into the mess

      Morning Citroen et al.

      1. Morning Bob et al,

        Melanie is brilliant but perhaps she is missing the fact that there are very few, if any, credible men left in the Labour Party.

    3. Speaking of wimmin leaders…Mrs Swansong inflicted severe damage on the concept.

      First it was “Bollocks to Brexit” and then she must have been smoking something when she proudly announced that she was on course to be our next PM – at which point the men in white coats should have pounced. The Illib Antis must have employed some masterful strategists to come up with drivel like that.

      1. From memory I thought it was Sir Vince who first said “Bollocks to Brexit” at the EU Parliamentary elections. And (also from memory) I reckoned he was a man.

        1. Swansong took over in Jul this year, so I thought that the childish T-shirt stunt was on her watch – but I stand to be corrected if not.

          2. You may well be right, Elsie, but now that we have seen the back of the squarking Scotsperson I care not!

    4. Appointing incompetent woman does the feminist cause np good at all. Betty Boothroyd and Margaret Thatcher showed that women are every bit as good as – if not better than – men; Jo Swinson and Theresa May have shown how very wrong it is to appoint women just because they are women.

    5. I would dearly love to believe that Lisa Nandy was another Betty Boothroyd, that beneath that cover that she is always about to burst into tears, and any man with any heart would go “there, there”, that there is the spirit of a tigress prepared to fight for all causes dear to her party, rather (as with the other women) only causes dear to the sisterhood.

      It’s placing some demands on my imagination, but for years I have had to imagine this wool-stuffed pillow I put my head on every night is a beautiful, loving, resourceful, kind, musical, intelligent, loyal and honest wife, in order to get any sleep. Not terribly convincing – there are at least a couple of important features missing, but it has to do, since it’s the best I’ve got, or am likely to get. So it is with a Labour leader.

      1. I must be truly blessed – Caroline justifies all the epithets you apply in your imagination to your pillow.

  13. Good morning all.

    Too dark to see what’s happening outside, but I think it’s still dry.

    1. The lady reading the Weather report on BBC Radio 4 this morning included the advice that motorists may need their windscreen wipers so remember to take them and use them if necessary.

      1. That was very thoughtful of her. It just goes to show that they are not all bad at the BBC.

      3. It reminds me of aan occasion on Radio 4 a few years ago (Today, I think was the programme), when the weather report said that it was going to be fine and sunny everywhere. The female presenter added that if we were going out we should be sure to slap on plenty of sun cream.

        It was bloody November!

        1. Did she then advise the listeners to take their daily Vit D capsule to offset the effects of the suncream?

  14. DT Letters – Part of a BTL Comment:

    “judith ewing 17 Dec 2019 2:32AM
    My other half sent this as an open letter to Mr Johnson:

    Good Morning, Prime Minister,

    As you gather your troops around you today, may I make a few suggestions as to the Parliamentary Timetable:
    Please ask the EU negotiator (whoever that might be) to a meeting in London at your earliest convenience and instruct him:
    i) Britain is leaving the EU. End of;
    ii) We shall not pay you anything to do so;
    iii) We offer you a tariff-free trade deal. This is better for you than for us as we buy more from you than you buy from us;
    iv) If you impose tariffs on us we shall reciprocate with the same tariffs on you;
    v) That’s it;
    vi) Take it or leave it.

    The same afternoon, please ask Ms Sturgeon to attend the Scottish Office to be told YES to the Scottish referendum and state the rules:
    All UK citizens can vote

    If the vote is ‘YES’ for independence:
    Scotland cannot use Sterling as its currency
    No UK defence contracts will go North of the Hard Border
    Our Armed Forces will be evacuated

    RBOS (owned by the UK Taxpayer) will move south
    Not a penny in tax is given to them

    Scots living in the rest of UK will be treated as foreigners and cannot sit in UK Parliament
    The Shetland and Orkney Islands, the Hebrides etc., may decide BEFORE the referendum, if they are to be part of Scotland or the UK.

    During the next week, I suggest that you instruct your Education Secretary to cut out all this sex and trans-gender nonsense in Primary Education and that sex education for Secondary Education pupils will only deal with normal, heterosexual facts. To also emphasise the difference between sex and that grammatical construct, gender.”

    Another person has helpfully added don’t forget to address the problem of the BBC….

    1. And after that, drain the swamp (e.g. abolish the BBC’s TV tax, force MPs who leave their party to immediately stand for re-election, close down newspapers which print false news, etc.) Then it will be time to turn their attention to the problem of Islam.

    2. How did the exact wording I used in my post to the Nottlers a couple of days ago get into the beginning of this post?

      I am delighted – plagiarism and flattery are after all the sincerest form of flattery and, of course, Ms Hartley-Brewer’s advice – of which my post was a synopsis – is a message which should get through to Boris Johnson who will one day have to pay if he fails to deliver a proper Brexit

      For the record – here is my original post:

      Boris Johnson should immediately appoint Julia Hartley-Brewer as his chief intermediary with the EU.

      I heard her put forward her preferred modus operandi most lucidly on the radio a month or two ago:

      Go to Brussels and say:

      i) Britain is leaving the EU. End of;
      ii) We shall not pay you anything to do so;
      iii) We offer you a tariff-free trade deal. This is better for you than for us as we buy more from you than you buy from us;
      iv) If you impose tariffs on us we shall reciprocate with the same tariffs on you;
      v) That’s it;
      vi) Take it or leave it.

      1. Richard, Good morning.

        I have already owned up to this and acknowledged it as such.

        To debunk any mystery, Judith (Judy) Ewing is my Best Beloved and hers is the subscription to the the Telegraph, so any BTL posts I make will only appear in her name as I don’t (and won’t) waste further money by pouring my own subscription into the DT coffers.

  15. BBC Breakfast TV in their comfort zone again … interviewing Labour MPs..

    Ignore Labour for heavens sake . Stop the bleeding soul searching .

    They keep saying they need a woman leader . Please, we don’t need to hear vituperative shrews … PMQs will sound like Jenny Murray’s Woman’s Hour.

    It was bad enough listening to the snivelling Corbyn .

    I dislike that young male BBC twerp who has a £200 taxi ride every morning to Salford from Sheffield.

    1. Don’t watch telly – particularly in the morning.
      The Beeb is on notice.
      For the rest, once the eyeballs disappear, the advertising revenue will go south.

      1. So far this month we’ve had 150% of our average monthly rainfall for December [you may recall we’ve already had 225% of October’s and 250% of November’s average monthly rainfalls] The aquifers should be filling nicely. In the meantime the rivers are in flood.

        I don’t know if it is related but as the Sun is the dominant driver of weather on Earth, it appears to be very “quiet” – no Sun spots for the past 45 days…..

  17. Morning all

    SIR – Despite the protestations of John McDonnell and those close to him, Brexit did not bring Labour close to annihilation. Take it from me, someone born in Sunderland in 1951, whose family were shipyard workers and miners: this was about 40 years of neglect.

    The people of Scotland showed us the way. Like us they were patronised and treated with contempt. We have all been seen as offspring of our forefathers, seen as we once were and not respected for who we now are.

    Scotland, therefore, rejected Labour at the polls –and we, in this election, have seen fit to do the same.

    Labour’s arrogance in seeking to overturn a democratic decision on Brexit by many of its own voters has merely accelerated that which was always coming.

    Tom Moore

    Newcastle upon Tyne

    1. SIR – John McDonnell, in his apology for Labour’s performance, said that he was sorry for “not being able to articulate the party’s campaign message ahead of the poll”.

      On the contrary, I think that he and Jeremy Corbyn articulated the message extremely well. That was the problem.

      Julia Hills

      Bolnhurst, Bedfordshire

      SIR – I have long believed that the true measure of a politician can be observed when he or she concedes defeat. Witness John McCain’s concession to President Obama in 2008, or John Howard’s to Bob Hawke in 1987.

      By this measure Mr Corbyn displayed an abject failure of character last Friday morning. His lack of graciousness and the total absence of congratulations or best wishes to his winning opponent further demonstrate his total unsuitability as leader of a Western democracy.

      Dr Graham Sharpe

      Wellington, New Zealand

  18. SIR – The reaction of some to the results of the general election bring to mind the comments of the dramatist Bertolt Brecht to events in East Germany in the Fifties. “Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?’’

    John Pennington

    Port Erin, Isle of Man

  19. Good morning from a still dark but dry Derbyshire.
    I went for a walk last night to blow out the cobwebs, up to the village for a pint in, the King’s Head, round the back of Ball eye Quarry and drop down into Cromford for a pint in the Boat and then another in the Bell, then home just the back of 22:30.

    Much warmer than expected so I ended up sweating my cobblers off!

      1. No, not last night.
        I might have a wander into Matlock Bath for the Old Bank session tonight though.

        Tomorrow is the 3rd Wednesday session in the Nelson up in Middleton, so might give that a go too, if only to see how the Red Wirksworth attendees are coping with their cold drench of reality.

  20. Lady Tonge’s crassness

    SIR – Baroness Tonge suggested that the Chief Rabbi must be “dancing in the streets” to celebrate the general election result.

    In fact, the Chief Rabbi has spent the last week in Jerusalem observing the formal rites of Jewish mourning (sitting shiva) following the death of his father, Rabbi Dr Lionel Mirvis.

    Perhaps Lady Tonge would like to offer her condolences to Rabbi Mirvis and his family, and send the traditional Jewish wish that he should enjoy long life following his loss? She might also apologise for her crass remarks at such a difficult time for the Chief Rabbi.

    Brian Gedalla

    Deputy, Finchley United Synagogue, Board of Deputies of British Jews

    London N3

    1. One I recall, from Hat Man,occasionally of these pages: “May you be reinscribed in the Book of Life”.

          2. Richard, a very long shot question:
            Have you ever heard tell of an ex-Pat organ player in your area called Frazer?
            He was organist in the chapel at Chepstow Army Apprentices College in the early ’70s as a Royal Engineer Staff Sergeant and had two daughters.
            The elder, Val, married a Mick Parrot, also a Sapper.

    2. The Tonge woman has been a vicious Jew baiter for many many years and always featured in my studies of the subject at the time.

      1. Tonge is without doubt one of the most repulsive people – both physically and mentally – in politics. Even before she starts to talk I am reaching for the vomit bag.

    1. Amy didn’t physically attack Soubry. Didn’t strike her in any way.
      Soubry has lied to her constituency, lied to the electorate, prevented Boris from carrying out his duties as PM, sided with a foreign organisation against her own government, and the entire electorate. I would have said that calling her a traitor was entirely justified. Criticism and calling someone a traitor should be allowed as free speech, otherwise all that would be allowed is praise, and no criticism.

      1. Good morning Nottlers.

        Well, you could start with ‘educashun’ and ‘equality’; even a female MP should be allowed to return to school in order to learn the difference between ‘it’s’ and ‘its’; yes, I know the poor wee lass missed the contraception class, and babies are innocent etc.

    2. Wonder where she bought those grapes? They’re very sour. Must be from a greengrocer who still doesn’t know how to use apostrophes.

      1. I thought apostrophes had been abandoned, to further incomprehensify the English language…?

  23. Can we afford our politicians?

    Not remuneration but the cost to our country of their crackpot ideas, impractical schemes and general interference. For example, how much have their Brexit-delaying antics cost us – millions, billions?

    On things in general…….

    Brexit should provide an ideal opportunity to reduce the size of the wet blanket of regulations smothering our lives, but I suspect our rulers will pick up the EU baton and give us a soggy continental quilt.

    For every person who enjoys spending two hours of their working day ticking boxes, doing risk assessments and sorting out their words so as not to cause offence, there must be at least one more who wants to get stuck into the job in hand.

    Simplicity is surely a more realistic and cost-effective aim than the lunatic carbon neutrality so why don’t our rulers put it at the top of their list to achieve?

    New brushes – get sweeping and sweep way the complexities of our lives.

    1. There’s an ages old military adage, do not reinforce failure. This seems to have been turned on its head within the political class recently and the attempt to get Swinson into the Lords is a classic of this nonsense.
      A political failure, on more than one occasion, is to be elevated to the Upper House for no other reason that she has failed yet again. Filling the Lords with failures is a sure way to improve its performance, isn’t it?
      At a moment in time when many are calling for the over-populated and biased Lords to be, at worst trimmed back, and at best completely reformed, the Illiberals want to add one of their greatest failures to the red benches. Genius.

    2. Littlejohn on form here – it’s worth reading the whole thing, but I especially liked – “Maybe die-hard Remainers still delude themselves that they can frustrate Brexit in the Lords, where the Lib Dems already have 92 peers — a number out of all proportion to their support in the country. Make that 93 if and when Baroness Swinson joins their ranks. If she is elevated to the Upper House it will be yet another anti-democratic outrage. This is the woman who promised unilaterally to abort the result of the 2016 referendum, the biggest single vote for anything in British history. In so doing, she demonstrated her contempt not just for the 17.4 million people who voted Leave but for the entire concept of democratic consent and fair play.”

  25. If I were an MP , I would push for fresh water drinking fountains to be installed in villages , shopping centres , high streets , car parks etc Anything to cut down on plastic waste.. People will be able to have access to fresh water, refill their water bottles and this will hopefully stop discarded bottles and rubbish on our high ways and byways ..

    Can you see a problem there , I can’t .. ( well I can , but keep all the positives in mind)

    1. Morning Belle. The Litter Laws are just another example of legislation for show. Were they enforced the situation and the country would look very different!

        1. ‘mornin TB, soggy and overcast here but as far as I’m concerns the sun is shining and the sky is as blue as the ex labour heartlands. I’m off on a hospital visit this afternoon to see a long standing chum who is now 98% of the man he used to be. ( some removal and re-arrangement of his giblets) a successful op. so another reason to be happy.

        1. Try as I may and adopting the permanently offended by whitey privilege mindset prevalent here I cannot find even the most tenuous link, yet…………. ahah – the fountains are in predominantly white areas and within a cotton fields length of the Colston Hall.

    3. Yo T_B

      They were always wall mounted in the school playground when I were Nobutalad

      Oooooop playgrounds got rid of by ‘elf un safety’….kids running, playing games, could break there Apple 32 I-fones {whatever they are}

    4. Radical ideas like that will not work. They may have worked well in more primitive times, but these days we have highly sophisticated regulations and form-filling processes which will prevent this kind of thing on so many levels. Not least is that fact that our utilities, including water, were sold off to grubby capitalist johnnies who won’t do it for nothing.

    5. …If I were an MP , I would push for fresh water drinking fountains to be reinstalled in villages… I think is what you mean, Belle.
      I recall when they were everywhere.

          1. As you drive from Monaco to Nice along the Basse Corniche, at the top of the hill, on the right, before you descend into Nice is a horse trough – ordered and paid for by Queen Victoria.

            Not many people know this.

          2. There is still a big granite one on Portland Rd, W11 outside Julie’s Restaurant. It’s almost Thornberry size!

      2. I thought Belle was talking about Effrika.
        Sixty years since evil whitey was given the heave-ho, and they’re still drinking mosquito larvae and diluted buffalo p!ss.

  26. London Fire Brigade ‘slow and wasteful’

    The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been “wasteful” and “slow to implement changes” needed after the Grenfell Tower fire, a watchdog has said.
    HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found firefighters missed training and attended too many false alarms.
    The LFB saw the report six weeks ago and commissioner Dany Cotton stood down earlier than had been planned.

    The Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee will vote on holding a confirmation hearing for Andy Roe to become the new commissioner.
    Reacting to the report Mr Roe, who was announced by Sadiq Khan as Ms Cotton’s successor, said he recognised aspects of the brigade which were not “good enough”.

    He added: “Training our staff is a priority and we are heavily investing to make sure our firefighters have the right skills to carry out their roles effectively.
    “We are also planning a new high tech training centre in Croydon, which will include a new Real Fire Training Venue.”

    Of 15 fire services to be inspected, London, Essex and Gloucestershire were the three to be rated as requiring improvement.
    Matt Parr, HM Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services, said of the LFB: “Many of its projects are wasteful, projects get started and stalled. The organisation as a whole is slow to learn.
    “We are absolutely not criticising every firefighter in London – there are lots of people who are very dedicated.
    “But what it doesn’t leave you with is the impression that the organisation is well-run and where value for money is top of their agenda.”

    The report found some fire engine drivers had not received refresher training for up to 20 years, despite national guidance recommending this took place every five years.
    There has been no systematic training programme for firefighters tasked with responding to terror attacks in the capital.
    Many frontline officers did not have suitable personal protective equipment and “lacked the confidence” to respond, the report found.

    LFB response times – some six minutes and 39 seconds on average as of the year 2017-18 – were “excellent”, but the report said about 48% of its call-outs were to false alarms and not enough was being done to reduce unnecessary call-outs.

    In another finding, relevant to the Grenfell disaster, inspectors found LFB was the only service in the country to not follow national operational guidelines.
    Mr Parr said: “I don’t think there’s any justification for having a ‘we do it our way’ approach in London at all.    ”

    The watchdog also carried out inspections of 12 other fire and rescue services. It found:

    Concerns over some aspects of Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service
    Cleveland Fire Brigade was performing to a good standard
    County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service was performing to a good standard
    Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service was performing to a good standard
    Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service rated as good by inspectors
    Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service needed to make improvements
    A mixed picture for East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service
    North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service needed to make improvements
    Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service was performing well
    Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service was rated good
    South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service was rated good
    West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service was performing to a good standard

    1. No driver refresher training for up to 20 years for fire brigade drivers? Really? Blimey, as a driver for our local Hospital Day Centre my colleagues and I have to undergo such training every 3 years without fail. And (thankfully) we don’t have to hurtle around the roads with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing…

      1. I dont understand how they have manage to get away with that. Mind you they has no training for fires in High rise building neither

        A fire engine as well has a large tank of water in it potentially making it difficult on corners and roundabouts

    1. It should not amuse me but it does, in a bitter sweet way..
      One of the mantras of “Common Purpose” is that its disciples should lead beyond authority, yet when real leadership is required they immediately retreat behind their colleagues and do nothing except try to save their own skins/careers.

      2. …should lead beyond authority…

        As far as the above is related to CP I understand it to be an instruction to create confusion and basically destroy the smooth operation of the infected unit: not to lead and make progress but to stagnate and regress. CP is, I believe, a Marxist operation and wasn’t formed to improve matters but to hinder.

        2. Yo Aeneas

          The pigtail is safe, the danger is from the attached ‘Gender Quota Filling Female Flop

        1. And by the time they’ve donned all the protective items of clothing it’s impossible to move and if they have to wear goggles as well, they can’t see what they are trying to do anyway. A work colleague made a site visit where she had to put on the full wack of protective gear just for a visit and she said it was almost impossible to move, so no idea how the field workers managed to get any excavation done.

          2. I’m reminded of when I was accosted in town by an ‘Elf ‘n’ Safety bod and advised to wear a Hi-Viz jacket. Without one, I was told, I stood out like a sore thumb.

            I duly went to the market but, due to a bad batch they’d had from China, couldn’t find the stall which sold them.

    3. Effectiveness

      How effective is the fire and rescue service at keeping people safe and secure from fire 2 Stars. Needs Improvement

      Efficiency

      How efficient is the fire and rescue service at keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks? 1 Star Inadequate
      Last updated 20/12/2018

      People

      How well does the fire and rescue service look after its people? 2 Star Requires improvement

      1. The only person with the sense to administer ANY of these comparative NICE type reports is the Abbotopotamus

        If Average is not deemed to be an ‘acceptable’ result, they all must improve.

        They do and are still Average

        And so it goes on.

        The feminine mathamatical genius mentioned above is the only one who could possibly produce reports with numerical asessments that are acceptable.

  29. Morning Each,
    “Fallen out of love with the lab. party” in my book should read “fallen out of love with the whole political content of parliament” rings a whole lot truer.
    May one suggest that after stepping back from the sh!te
    filled abyss momentary ( little trust in boris) we start in future to put the Country before party and get of off the
    keep out / keep in mode of voting,regardless of the parties actions.
    Tally up the dead & injured, scarred, raped / abused over the last two decades alone MIGHT give cause for reflection when entering a polling booth in future.
    IMO even after the near four year unnecessary delay we should consider ourselves bloody lucky in still having the framework of a decent country left to build on.

    2. And in 2019 they’d call that coalminer an ignorant, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic gammon, and then wonder why he didn’t vote for them.

      1. You missed out climate-emergency denier who is trying to destroy the planet just to feed his wife and kids. The worst insult of the lot.

    2. Er, go to the Public Library and play on the games console with the kids?
      The Library Reading Room was closed 30 years ago. The Library stopped taking the papers15 years ago.
      Oh, you meant in France…

  36. Finally found my way to the Moderator page for the new NTTL site – needed a mountain guide, it was that difficult.
    BUT – it allows me to edit all of the posts! So, be on good behaviour, or I’ll change your thinking to Rightthink.

    2. Sorry, Paul – I hadn’t appreciated there was any difficulty. For a while, the old and new mod pages were both accessible via the old link. For any mods who can’t find it, the pending page is
      here.

  37. Daily Brexit betrayal

    Now the main Brexit news! The MSM, headlining the PM’s plans, all seem to be somewhat dazed by his announcement of what’s in store. Johnson’s proposals are certainly stunning and are politically astute:

    “The Prime Minister’s

    first legislative act of the new Parliament, following Thursday’s

    Queen’s Speech, will be to table a newly-reworked Brexit bill on Friday

    without any of the “sweeteners” which were added to satisfy Tory rebels

    and Labour Leavers when it was put to a vote in October. The

    vote on the Bill will force Labour – and Labour leadership contenders –

    to decide whether to continue opposing Brexit, as they did during the

    election, or recognise the will of voters by backing Mr Johnson’s deal.

    The Labour MPs vying to succeed Jeremy Corbyn risk being forever

    reminded that they opposed Brexit if they vote against the Bill.” (paywalled link)

    Very clever, that: the plaything called ‘Brexit’ is back in play, this time being used to clobber Labour and Remain. Here are the actual changes:

    “The most significant

    change will be the removal of clause 30 of the Bill, which allowed for

    the transition period to be extended beyond Dec 31 next year if MPs

    voted for it. The primary aim of

    the bill is to approve Britain’s exit from the EU on January 31, giving

    the Government 11 months to negotiate a trade deal with Brussels during a

    transition period. […] Mr Johnson was adamant during the election

    campaign that he would not extend the transition period, meaning Britain

    will trade with the EU on World Trade Organisation rules from 2021 if

    necessary. He argues that unless the EU is working to a hard deadline it

    will inevitably try to keep Britain tied to its current trading

    arrangements for as long as possible.” (paywalled link)

    Someone has cottoned onto M Barnier’s strategy and cut him off at the knees – very satisfactory. There’s more:

    “A clause that gave

    MPs the right to dictate the Government’s negotiating position on trade

    will also be scrapped, and the new Bill will “tidy up” the statute book

    to get rid of the so-called Benn Act, which forced the Prime Minister to

    extend Brexit beyond Oct 31, and the Cooper-Letwin Act, which paved the

    way for the Benn Act.” (paywalled link)

    With his majority, and in the absence of Grieve,

    Gauke, Hammond, Clarke and Letwin, Johnson ought to be able to push

    this new Bill through. I do wonder if Johnson and his minions gave a

    sneak preview of this plan to certain politicians of TBP to entice them

    to support the Tories …

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-tuesday-17th-december-2019/

    1. “I do wonder if Johnson and his minions gave a

      sneak preview of this plan to certain politicians of TBP to entice them

      to support the Tories …”
      I’m sure they couldn’t possibly comment…

    1. This always was Gerard’s core policy, and I was happy to endorse it. If only he had stuck with it, instead of going down murky rabbit holes, UKIP might still be a relevant voice in British politics.

          2. JBF,
            I can only assume “murky rabbit holes” is something to do with his islamic ideology stance & personal advisory link to Tommy Robinson.

  42. Those Hitler rant videos can be screamingly funny.
    It has been the thing, ever since Charlie Chaplin in the 1930’s, to make fun of the Hitler monster.
    But I am not too happy with the recent trend everywhere to use the H word as an adjective applied to some current unpopular person.
    Hitler ( plus his supporters of course ) was unique in his evil. You can hardly say that about Boris Johnson or even a Guardian writer.
    Over-use of a word reduces its effect.

    2. “Hitler ( plus his supporters of course ) was unique in his evil” – but you can say it about Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and others.
      Not so very unique.

      1. Yes, but us Europeans have personal experience of the H man. The others were in many respects worse, but much lower down the recognition scale here.

    1. I suppose “I can’t stand miners/northerners” will be substituted for the Major’s “I don’t like Germans”.

  46. Brexit bill to rule out extension to transition period

    An agreement can be reached by the end of 2020. Yes bill will focus everyone minds. If need be it could just be a provisional deal covering Cars. Medicines and Foods but it can be done

    The government is to add a new clause to the Brexit bill to rule out any extension to the transition period beyond the end of next year.
    The post-Brexit transition period – due to conclude in December 2020 – can currently be extended by mutual agreement for up to two years.
    But an amended Withdrawal Agreement Bill the Commons is set to vote on this week would rule out any extension.
    Critics say this raises the chance of leaving the EU without a trade deal.
    But senior Cabinet Minister Michael Gove insisted both the UK and the EU had “committed themselves to making sure that we have a deal” by the end of 2020.
    He also promised Parliament would be able to scrutinise the Withdrawal Agreement Bill “in depth”.
    Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said the move was “reckless and irresponsible” and he argued that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “prepared to put people’s jobs at risk”.
    Liberal Democrat interim leader Sir Ed Davey said: “The only way Johnson can meet the December 2020 timetable is by giving up all his previous promises to Leave voters and agreeing to all the demands of the EU.”

      1. “Whingy McWhingy Tintenfische16h ago

        Whatever the outcome, it better not include Burgon, the human lobotomy”

      1. If those are the “best of their best”, when one sees the choices on offer it’s a miracle Labour got any seats at all in the GE..

        1. Miracle indeed. Clearly they managed to get the lame to walk but somehow they didn’t try to get the blind to see…..

      2. It should be ego crushing for the least popular ones. However, they have such big egos it will take a monumental crusher to make a noticeable dent in them….

  48. BBC Radio 4 reporting that the Withdrawal Agreement wil be amended to make it illegal to extend the Transition period beyond 31/12/2020. This has caused a flutter among the remainers. A No Deal Brexit is back on the table.

  49. Euro plunged into crisis by Germany after 11TH month of contraction – and worse to come

    GERMANY’S stagnant economy is dragging down the eurozone, economists have

    1. By the time they get to the 24th Month contraction I guess it will no longer be the Elephant in the womb…..

    2. From his posts here I always thought that Bill was more interested in shapely female bottoms than in pneumatic busts.

        1. Transitional is when a boy thinks he’s a girl, is encouraged by his teachers, social workers, psychiatrists & the court rules he should get a free sex change operation at an NHS childrens hospital & then after the operation he decides he wants to Transition back to being a boy.

      2. I think we can safely say that this will accelerate the decline of newspapers . Like Labour the media are out of touch with their readership

    2. “Striving to diversify their teams.”

      Isn’t that blatant racism saying: “You can apply if you are white, but you are not getting anywhere.”

    3. …strive to diversify their teams to better serve under-represented communities. Do those “under represented groups” include white hetero people??

  53. Good morning, all. Damp and mild – and the weather is much the same.

    Any news? Remainiacs demanding “peoples’ referendum” to replace the clearly rigged general election?

  54. Dozens brought ashore in Kent as ‘migrant boats’ cross Channel

    Tow them back to just outside French territorial waters and leave them there

    Dozens of suspected migrants have reportedly been taken ashore as the Border Force responded to “small boat incidents” in the Channel.

    The Home Office confirmed officers were in action this morning. It has previously warned that trying to cross the Channel in a small boat is “incredibly dangerous”.

    A spokesman said: “Border Force is currently dealing with ongoing small boat incidents off the Kent coast.

    1. In Israel our Border Force ( the Border Police ) is a para-military unit & among its duties along with the IDF is stopping invaders from crossing our borders
      In the UK the Border Force is an unarmed service whose principal task is facilitating the invasion of the UK by 3rd world illegals, criminals, smugglers and terrorists and making sure they receive food, medical treatment & shelter so that they can then be helped by the welfare authorities become citizens and vote for the Labour party !

          3. Thank goodness. Though i do vicariously enjoy being frisked at airports. About the only time i ever get a hard on these days. :o(

          8. Do you know the entry requirement for foreign nationals to Israel? What proscriptions etc. I wouldn’t mind moving somewhere warm with orange groves.

          10. I had a look a couple of weeks ago, property is very expensive,
            but I would like to hear more from Mahat.

          11. My father was 100% Jewish but he married out. Dad didn’t believe that would make any difference if his offspring wanted to go to Israel but I think it does?

          12. My understanding is that under the Law of Return you could claim Israeli citizenship . We have some approx. 1.5 million part Jewish ( at least 1 Jewish grandparent ) or non-Jewish spouses / children of Russian Jews in Israel – all have received citizenship
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
            The Law of Return (Hebrew: חֹוק הַשְׁבוּת, ḥok ha-shvūt) is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews the right to come and live in Israel and to gain Israeli citizenship.[1] Section 1 of the Law of Return declares:

            “every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant].”
            In the Law of Return, the State of Israel gave effect to the Zionist movement’s “credo” which called for the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state.

            In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people with one Jewish grandparent and a person who is married to a Jew, whether or not he or she is considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Halakha

          13. Thank you. That’s good news. Dad’s family were Russian Ashkenazim and came here from Odessa in 1899.

  55. Huw Edwards rejects ‘toxic cynicism’ over BBC’s election output. Mon 16 Dec 2019.

    Edwards, who has worked at the BBC for 35 years, said mistakes made during the campaign were human errors. “The most curious notion of all (promoted with great energy by the BBC’s critics on both left and right) is that these mistakes are often deliberate,” he said, “carefully planned to undermine one party and boost another. These critics imagine a world in which thousands of BBC journalists – of all backgrounds, nationalities, outlooks – work to a specific political agenda dictated by a few powerful individuals, as one commentator insisted recently on social media.”

    But it is not necessary for them to be directed by a powerful individual if they were chosen for their political alignment on being employed! Like the staff of any large organisation they will follow the prevailing company ethos since to deviate from it would call down unpleasant consequences. This applies even more to its on screen leaders as any dissenting voice would stand out like a wart on Emily Maitliss’s nose. They are thus carefully chosen for their exceptional reliability. They are the personification of the BBC’s Cultural Marxist moral and political principles.

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/16/huw-edwards-rejects-toxic-cynicism-over-bbcs-election-output

    2. Yo Minty

      A question for ‘Twitcher’ Edwards

      Which of the following papers has a Remain Agenda and has a statement on its’ website that the voters have made a mistake and it will continue to promote Remain

      Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Independent, Daily Star, Grauniad, Daily Trainspotter, etc

      Which of the following newspapers is the only one to carry adverts for jobs in the Brussels Brainwashing Conclave

      Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Independent, Daily Star, Grauniad, Daily Trainspotter, etc

      Well Huw?

        2. Those were the days when I used to tune in – dawn till dusk. My radios have been in a cupboard for at least the past six months.

    4. As I suggested yesterday, these “thousands of BBC journalists” do not do very much in the way of actual journalism.

    6. So, far from thinning out the failed politicians who infest the Lords, Boris has added one more! I see Jo Swansong has now said she wants a peerage so she can “continue to contribute to politics” – presumably by opposing democracy a bit more?

      1. Her best contribution would be to go home and shut the door and never appear in a public or political capacity ever again.

      2. It hasn’t taken long for the gilt to come off Mr Johnson’s gingerbread and for things to return to their corrupt equilibrium.

    8. This is an extremely bad sign and pours a lot of very cold water over Mr Johnson’s declaration that he will have a new sort of politics.

      In their euphoria that Labour has been beaten people have forgotten that Mr Johnson is morally reprehensible Somebody on this site yesterday put forward the theory that this vacant-face woman is another notch of the prime ministerial bed post. We cannot know whether it is true or not but I wouldn’t put it past either of them.

    2. Future historians may find it extraordinary that Britain’s Opposition front benches in the early 21st century could be dominated by anti-Semitic, terrorist-supporting, unpatriotic, thug-backed Marxists. But what they’ll surely find even more astounding is that the Speaker was able to abuse his office to ensure that it was this vile rabble of an Opposition, not the elected Conservative government, which was able to dominate the Commons agenda. And allowed to come within a whisker of sabotaging the Brexit vote altogether.

      Yes it will look well on the Fall of the British Empire Wikipedia page though.

  59. Pic on the front of the Business Telegraph shows a yacht under construction in Norway, giving its length as 182.9m. That wouldn’t be 600 feet by any chance?

    1. Some damn’ yacht!

      I’m impressed, it’s about the same length as HMS Bulwark (Amphibious Assault Ship) and 100ft longer than a Type 45 destroyer.

  60. Whirlpool to recall hundreds of thousands of fire-risk washing machines

    It affects the Hotpoint & Indesit brands

    Whirlpool has announced it is to recall hundreds of thousands of fire-risk washing machines just months after it launched a major recall of potentially dangerous dryers.

    The firm said as many as 519,000 washing machines sold under the Hotpoint and Indesit brands in the UK between October 2014 and February 2018 could be affected by a flaw with the door-locking system that could lead to them overheating and potentially catching fire.
    It has urged owners of appliances bought since 2014 to contact Whirlpool immediately to check if their washing machine is one of the models affected.

    https://washingmachinerecall.whirlpool.co.uk/

    1. The modern washing machine is a miracle of ingenuity . It begins life as a multi-billion pound Royal Navy aircraft carrier, it has one or two minor fires then gets scrapped long before its even more costly replacement is sea worthy, its then sold for peanuts to Turkey, India or China and broken up and then its metal & other salvageable parts are melted down and made into washing machines by Hotpoint , Indesit , Whirlpool and the most dangerous of all Turkish brands – BEKO who sell the finished product back to the UK where it promptly breaks down or catches fire in your kitchen !

    2. Mostly these washing machines are safe, but look before you switch one on; if you cat has somehow sneaked in, if it goes round and round for twenty minutes it will end up dizzy and very very wet.

    3. I accidentally dialed 999 from my mobile phone last night.

      So I set my house on fire so I wouldn’t look stupid.

    4. Mr Rashid will take your bank details, so that refunds can be made

      (you have heard it here first, the Emails and unwanted telephone calls will follow)

  61. Report on UK Plc

    WE have undertaken an in depth review of the UK Plc Business. Our findings are that for many years UK Plc has been under performing and has been operating at a substantial lose. The management have attempted a recovery plan based on both cutting costs and by growing the business mainly by bringing on overseas labour . This approach has failed and UK Plc remains loss making. The trading loss has reduced by this is mainly due to falling interests rates

    A new approach is needed fundamentally UK Plc is Overmanned and under productive. UK PLc need to reduce significantly the number of people employed in the business and to upskill its workforce

    1. Yo JB

      An investigation has been carried out into the excretial habit of bears, in the vicinity of woods and forests

      It was found bears were much less constipated when the form filling, imposed by the EUSSR, was no longer required.

      The bears have since made use of the EU paperwork when carrying out their wood work

  62. Maxine Waters: I Have No Proof — But I Believe Putin and Trump Had a Secret Sanctions Deal

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/12/16/maxine-waters-i-have-no-proof-but-i-believe-putin-and-trump-had-a-secret-sanctions-deal/

    No idea who is what she is so

    I believe England should have won the Rugby World Cup

    I believe I should have won the Euro Lottery (if I do not win this week, I will buy a ticket)

    Now:

    I DO BELIEVE that SATAN ordered the death of Doctor David Kelly

    I DO BELIEVE that Bercow had an agenda (with pay) to stop Brexit

    1. On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said she believed Russian President Vladimir Putin made a secret deal with Donald Trump to get him elected in exchange for Trump lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia.

      Waters pointed out she has no facts to back up her belief.

      Not only that but Trump has actually signed the sanctions into law! As to Putin getting him elected can the Democratic Party produce one person out of the tens of millions who voted for Trump that will admit that Putin made them do it!

    2. She’s a Democrat, a California State representative. She’s been a representative since 1991.

      “Allegations of corruption
      According to Chuck Neubauer and Ted Rohrlich writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, Maxine Waters’ relatives had made more than $1 million during the preceding eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that Waters had helped. They claimed she and her husband helped a company get government bond business, and her daughter Karen Waters and son Edward Waters have profited from her connections. Waters replied that “They do their business and I do mine.”[40] Liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Waters to its list of corrupt members of Congress in its 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 reports.[41][42] Citizens Against Government Waste named her the June 2009 Porker of the Month due to her intention to obtain an earmark for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.[43][44]

      Waters came under investigation for ethics violations and was accused by a House panel of at least one ethics violation related to her efforts to help OneUnited Bank receive federal aid.[45] Waters’ husband is a stockholder and former director of OneUnited Bank and the bank’s executives were major contributors to her campaigns. In September 2008, Waters arranged meetings between U.S. Treasury Department officials and OneUnited Bank, so that the bank could plead for federal cash. It had been heavily invested in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and its capital was “all but wiped out” after the U.S. government took them over. The bank received $12 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money.[46][47] The matter was investigated by the House Ethics Committee,[48][49] which charged her with violations of the House’s ethics rules in 2010.[50][51][52][53] On September 21, 2012, the House Ethics Committee completed a report clearing Waters of all ethics charges after nearly three years of investigation.[54]”
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Waters

      She’s rabidly anti-Trump, and has been calling for his impeachment since he was sworn in. Her mantra is “Impeach 45!!” and encouraged Democrats to harass anyone from the Trump administration.
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCDe7vdFfw

        1. As we always say, “It’s amazing what you learn on this site”, Annie. I thought your comment was rather fishy, but Google assures me it is really a mammal an amphibian.

          2. You’re absolutely right, basset edge. I read “amphibian”, then wrote “mammal”. Methinks it’s time for another cup of coffee – either that or the Old Folk’s Home for Dementia Sufferers!

            :-))

            Post now corrected.

    1. Afternoon Rik,
      Equal blame in my book because these are the odious consequences of mass uncontrolled immigration.
      The Jay report never caused a ripple in the support for the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / PC / Appeasement / paedophilia umbrella
      coalition party.

  65. Am I alone in thinking that, with the correct training/re-education, Rebecca Long-Bailey could be transformed into the perfect STEPFORD WIFE? Jess Phillips would, I fear, be a bigger challenge.

  67. ‘We will make Boris Johnson stick to his word!’ insists Brexit Party candidate
    BORIS JOHNSON will be held to account by the Brexit Party if it looks like he might break his promise to the electorate, their candidates have insisted. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1217839/brexit-news-boris-johnson-general-election-brexit-party-eu-spt

    Brexiteers want a bona BREXIT nothing less will do.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8a5bf6d9e6623c4dc5eca5fb32f90f8cca49a8897d5f0700cbfd349fb9a7492.jpg

    1. Morning PT,
      Not being a doomster, & wanting an exit since the year dot I do get the impression that ALL involved & with a shout regarding brexitexit,should be viewed with a touch of trepidation as in, could self interest play a
      major part ?
      This is NOT an anti Brexit post.

      1. It’s music to my ears…
        Farage forced the Tories to accept a Referendum. He fought and won the battle for Brexit outside the M25. He walked away with what he thought was victory. And returned when the Tories yet again fouled it up and forced them to dump the appalling May woman…

      2. It’s music to my ears…
        Farage forced the Tories to accept a Referendum. He fought and won the battle for Brexit outside the M25. He walked away with what he thought was victory. And returned when the Tories yet again fouled it up and forced them to dump the appalling May woman…

        1. PT,
          Many would view it quite differently as in he walked away in 2016 prematurely instead of consolidating the win, to get his life back.
          Then proceeded on a hate campaign against the very people / party that gave him a working platform, 30000 plus of us.
          He needs watching.
          Not a whinge, a fact.

  68. This little gem explains an awful lot, I bet the perps don’t even get a soft tap on their wrists.

    Cardiff University has launched an investigation after one of its lecturers tweeted that Tory voters are “vermin”.
    A second academic, from the same department, accused Conservative voters of being devoid of a “social conscience”.
    The university said it has received a number of complaints about the two incidents and is considering whether they have broken any rules.
    Dr Andy Williams, a lecturer at Cardiff’s School of Journalism, wrote on Twitter: “I stand by my view of Tories as vermin”.
    Meanwhile, Dr John Jewell, who is director of undergraduate studies at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, wrote in a now deleted tweet: “How can anybody – anybody – who professes to have a social conscience vote Conservative. It’s that simple.”
    James Wallice, who is president of the university’s Conservative Society, said: “It’s disappointing to read the comments made by Dr John Jewell and Dr Andy Williams.
    “It’s a genuine shame to see senior lecturers at Cardiff University brand young Conservatives as “vermin” and lacking a ‘social conscience’. We are asking the University to ensure the subjects they teach are done in an impartial manner.”
    It is the latest in a series of cases that have come to light about the prevalence of left-wing views on university campuses in Britain.
    Earlier this year, a former lecturer at Lincoln University took his employer to a tribunal after he claimed that left-wing colleagues “hounded” him out.
    Dr Andrew Dunn was a senior lecturer in social policy at the university, but after a series of spats with fellow academics he was repeatedly disciplined and eventually dismissed from his post.
    His claim that he was discriminated against for his anti-PC beliefs was thrown out by the employment tribunal judge, who said this is not a protected characteristic under the equality act.
    A report by the Adam Smith Institute found that the number of British academics are liberal or Left-wing has been steadily on the rise since the 1960s.
    A survey it commissioned found that eight in ten university lecturers are “Left-wing”, as it warned of the dangers of “group think” in British institutions.
    Authors said the imbalance was not down to intelligence, but could be explained by “openness to experience” as “individuals who score highly on that personality trait tend to pursue intellectually stimulating careers like academia”.
    The authors of the report, titled “Lackademia: Why do academics lean Left?” urge universities to tackle the issue of ideological diversity among their staff, in the same way that they seek to increase gender, class and racial diversity.
    Dr Williams and Dr Jewell declined to comment. A Cardiff University spokesman said: “We are aware of the comments. These are personal comments made on personal social media accounts. They do not represent the view of Cardiff University.
    “We have received a number of complaints. Where a complaint relates to the behaviour of a member of Cardiff University staff, they are considered under our Dignity at Work and Study Policy

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/16/university-launches-investigation-lecturer-tweets-tory-voters/

  69. Here in Poland, I have the dubious privilege of access to only BBC WorldNews24 – otherwise it’s foreign news sources. At 9am in Poland, the second most important item in the BBC’s judgment was:

    On Lesbos, an increasing number of refugee children

    Alert readers will spot an incomplete statement, so here is the complete sentence:

    On Lesbos, an increasing number of refugee children are showing signs of self-harming.

    And that was it. They move on to the next item (nasty things going on in the Congo). No mention of residents and former residents of Lesbos who’ve lost their livelihoods and their island home. What on earth do the BBC expect Poles to make of this item?

    2. I would be happier if Johnson had 3 policies – getting Brexit done ASAP, ending all 3rd world immigration & stopping all this global warming nonsense which is costing the economy billions & making working folks unemployed !

  72. As it is the Season of Goodwill…

    If anybody knows of any lonely old people who will be eating Christmas
    dinner alone because they have no family or close friends, can they let
    me know, I need to borrow some chairs. :o(

    1. I have one chair which when people visit I sit in. They stand there wondering if I’ll invite them to sit.

      I don’t. People don’t stay long.

    1. Yup, it’s sad. I really don’t know what they expected.

      If you make it more expensive, you buy less of it.

      This is why cigarettes are so expensive, why fuel is so expensive. Fuel is interested as it affects the price of everything. High fuel costs means high product costs means less is bought. Lower sales means fewer people are needed to sell stuff which means higher unemployment. Higher unemployment means more welfare.

      Good lord. I have just proved that high taxes create unemployment. Again.

  74. I couldn’t believe it when we opened the door to find some of the Arabs
    that live locally had come by to sing us “Muslim Christmas Carols.”

    I asked what they were doing and they said they were making a funny
    Vlog-reaction video…

    Still though, I wasn’t too sure about the songs:

    Violent Night, Succumb all ye Unfaithful, O’ Grooming town of
    Rotherham, The Little Bomber Boy, While Shepherds bummed their flocks,
    Grandma got run over by a Camel, I Wish it could be Eid-al-Fitr Every
    Day, and We Wish You were Dead this Christmas.

    1. Would that be the CMO who, every time she had a glass of wine worried about her t!ts dropping off?

    2. Afternoon LD,
      These issues have just not happened
      they have been established & gaining strength for years, aided & abetted via the polling booth.

    3. Yeah… no.

      That’s just not going to happen. The teacher would be sacked. It’s one of the few reasons why they would be.

  79. https://unherd.com/2019/12/does-labour-understand-why-it-lost/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3
    Does Labour understand why it lost?

    [Jess] Phillips is only one example of this category error made by so many Labour MPs, this conflation of the needs of human beings with their own desire for power. All that bleating in the concession speeches of defeated Labour candidates about their “real fear” for the ill, the old, the unemployed in their seats — the very voters who had just rejected them. As though no-one who isn’t Labour could either care or devise a politics to help the troubled souls in our midst. They have no idea why they lost.
    I do. He’s called Keith, and he’s my husband. He’s never been political — once or twice in the distant past, when we lived in Hackney, I dragged him out leafletting with me. He loathed it, and told me to stop asking. He’s a working-class Plymothian, an electrician, but with a capable brain and a heart every bit as large as Jess Phillips’s.

    Do you think men and women like Keith don’t notice, Jess, when you claim that only socialists like you care about people? That his vote in the Brexit referendum was tarnished, because he doesn’t have a degree? Do you believe him so arithmetically incapable that he couldn’t predict what your policies would do to the savings accrued from decades of average-income work?
    Labour treated Keith – and the millions like him – like a fool, Jess, like your property, to be told what to think and how to speak and how to vote. How to feel shame for his instinct for Leave. He saw your Twitterfeed, and Hugh’s, and Richard Osman’s, and that of every smug ex-footballer with a gig pushing junk food to children, so he understands that you think he’s either ignorant, or wicked, for not being Labour.

    The result? Keith hates your party, Jess, at a much more visceral (and therefore irrevocable) level than the intellectual dislike I feel for socialism in general. You – and all those sleb out-riders – might feel better for the constant display of Tory-hatred you share on social media. One of the many mistakes you make about men like Keith is to confuse the fact that he’d never dream of mentioning his feelings about the Labour Party in public, with the idea that somehow those feelings don’t exist, that they can’t have consequences.
    But they can, and do, have consequences. On Thursday, without telling me, Keith took time off work. For the first time in his life, he went to the Tory office on the High Street, picked up lists of names, and walked round the homes of our neighbours, in the rain, in the dark, encouraging Conservatives to come out and vote.
    The dramatic irony! Labour finally achieved its ambition to empower and politicise the working-class: Keith walked 15 miles on Thursday, but he’d have crawled over broken glass to keep people like Corbyn from winning seats like Barnet.

    1. “That his vote in the Brexit referendum was tarnished, because he doesn’t have a degree?”

      This overwhelming arrogance since before the Referendum result came out, has made many people turn against the “educated” Labour party members and students who have taken over their party. The idea that someone who can get a degree, that has been so dumbed-down that a lucky chimp flailing at a computer keyboard could get one, was somehow smarter than people with few qualifications who had worked in the real world and supported a family for 20+ years.

      As the students leave their bubbles in the left-wing havens that were once Universities and enter the working world, they will discover the value of their studies. Even back when I was a student it was a well known saying:

      “What do you say to the graduate who turns up at work with his shiny new degree? “Put the kettle on son.””

  80. The magistrate Abuthnot’s husband James is a Conservative politician who has worked with Soubry

    Perhaps this explains first the suspended jail sentence for James Goddard and now the joke sentence for Amy

    Best crony justice in the world………………..

    https://twitter.com/ivorsawbottom/status/1206602000370216960

    James Abuthnot Wiki

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arbuthnot
    Edit Kate Hoey agrees
    https://twitter.com/CatharineHoey/status/1206661256452755464

    1. And the real injustice is that had she been tried in a court with a Jury of her peers, the chances are she would have been found Not Guilty on the grounds of fair comment.

    3. Um, what if she was right? None of our MPs have been reliably pro-UK in the last 3 years or so.

    4. This is an outrage. If Soubry speaks like a traitor, acts like a traitor and smells like a traitor then there is a very strong probability that she is a traitor.

      I wonder if and how the public will get their own back on the foul gorgon, Soubry? Just losing her parliamentary seat is not enough punishment for the foul harridan.

    1. I seem to remember that there are usually 2 more items beginning ‘sh’ on that list.
      Or maybe I just mix in low circles.

    2. Thick as pig shit, but she has the right tackle down below, so she’s just what they are looking for.

  83. A cop was on his horse waiting to cross the street, when a little girl on her new shiny bike stopped beside him.
    ‘Nice bike,’ the cop said. ‘Did Santa bring it to you?’
    ‘Yes Sir,’ the little girl said, ‘he sure did!’
    The cop looked the bike over and handed the girl a $5 ticket for a safety violation.
    The cop said, ‘Give this to your Dad, and next year, tell Santa to put a reflector light on the back of it!’

    The young girl looked up at the cop and said, ‘Nice horse you’ve got there Sir. Did Santa bring it to you?’ Playing along with the girl, he chuckled and answered, ‘Yes, he sure did!’
    The little girl looked up at the cop and said:

    ‘Next year tell Santa, the dick goes underneath the horse, not on top’!

  84. Imagine being such an incredibly incompetent prick, that you’re born
    into a position where you literally have to do jack shit for your entire
    life…. and you fuck that up. Well done Magic grandpa. Tw@t.

  86. Ofcom proposes locked-handset ban

    Telecoms watchdog Ofcom is proposing a ban on the sale of locked handsets, to make it easier for consumers to switch between mobile phone networks.
    It says BT/EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone are among providers that sell mobiles that cannot be used with alternative operators without being “unlocked”.
    This requires a code provided by the original network.

    And Ofcom says “nearly half” of customers find the process difficult.

    Some operators charge for the service. Tesco, for example, charges £10 to unlock a pay-as-you-go handset that is less than a year old.
    O2, Sky, Three and Virgin do not restrict customers to locked devices.

        1. Funnily enough, all those little stalls in shopping arcades and high streets seem to be staffed entirely by young Asian men. They all seem to know what they are doing and charge reasonable prices.

    2. Nobody has to buy one… It will mean all handsets are more expensive, not so good if you don’t have much money.

  88. Charles Moore targets the BBC and SIR Keir Starmer:

    Following his electoral triumph, Boris Johnson has his eyes on the BBC licence fee. He would like to replace it eventually. His interim thought is to decriminalise non-payment. This would certainly strike a blow for the most vulnerable in our society. Roughly 10 per cent of all prosecutions in magistrates’ courts are for licence fee non-payment. That is about 200,000 cases a year, a truly astonishing waste of time and money.

    The human cost is worse. As I noticed when I was taken to court and fined £250 for refusing to pay my licence fee until the BBC sacked the obscene and cruel Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, most people charged with this offence are poor women, often single mothers. The television is one of their few pleasures. They probably watch little or no BBC programming on it, but the law says they (and all of us) must pay the £154.50 a year poll tax before they can legally watch their television.

    All those famous BBC presenters and powerful executives should spend an afternoon in court to get a snapshot of these unhappy people being punished for failing to furnish them with their six-figure salaries (seven-figure in the case of Ross). There is a harshness in their situation to which the pen of Charles Dickens would do justice if he were still around this Christmas.

    Behind all these court cases lies a massive apparatus of snooping, threat and pursuit. I have direct experience of this, too, because in my London flat – as opposed to my house in the country – I have no television. TV Licensing, the BBC’s fee-collection body, falsely assumes I am evading and writes me accusing letters demanding money. I have received 68 of them in the past five years. They contain messages saying things like “What to expect in court”, “Your property is now under investigation”, “Will you be in on 21 August?”. Sometimes these messages appear on the envelope to shame the recipient.

    Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who is 90, recently sent me TV Licensing’s letter menacing him with a £1,000 fine for non-payment, although he has a licence which does not expire until the end of April next year. As a distinguished former Lord of Appeal, Lord Lloyd may be able to look after himself in matters of law. He says he has written the authority “a real stinker”. Now that the BBC has decided to resume fee collection from the over-75s, however, many elderly people will feel frightened by these warnings which mendaciously claim to have the force of law.

    TV Licensing’s threats have no legal or moral force, so I invariably refuse to answer them. They illustrate the dark side of the BBC’s character, whose spokesmen sound so conciliatory but whose enforcers are so tough. Time to get tough back.

    Labour’s immoderates
    Fear of Jeremy Corbyn undoubtedly switched many votes to the Tories, but it is a strange thought that, if he had only stuck to the getting-Brexit-done promise he made in the 2017 general election, he would have had a good chance of winning.

    It is Labour’s “moderate” wing which we must thank for causing such extreme disillusionment with the party. It was responsible for Labour’s Remain position and its democratically insolent “People’s Vote” idea. Having now been routed, the moderates have nothing left to stand for.

    For this reason, the Remainer Sir Keir Starmer is an even less plausible leadership candidate than most of the semi-Corbynites entering the ring. With his lawyer’s adroitness, he painted Labour neatly into a corner over Europe. There is another reason why he is unsuitable. It was Sir Keir, when Director of Public Prosecutions, who promoted the question-begging doctrine, in sex abuse cases, that “All victims must be believed”. This had inevitable, monstrously unjust consequences, such as the police witch-hunt of Lords Bramall, Brittan, Janner and several others.

    Of the two factions, the post-Blairites and the Corbynistas, the former have had the more precipitous fall. The latter simply talk the same atrocious rubbish they have been gabbling since the 1970s.

    The unexpected alliances of One Nation Toryism.
    An aristocratic friend of mine was recently so incensed by the suggestion that working-class people could not be trusted to make up their own minds about Brexit that she composed a short letter which she addressed “to Cyberspace”. Luckily she copied me in too.

    “Even though it is believed that a large portion of the vote is made up of working class people who are supposedly ignorant and don’t know any better,” she writes, “they are actually among the most intelligent people I know. I happened to grow up with them, my parents being absent a lot of the time. I often lived in the simple homes of the cook, the gardener and my Nanny. These people knew exactly what they wanted and why. It is not for nothing that my four-times-great-grandfather Earl Grey moved towards giving the working man the vote by introducing the Great Reform Bill in 1832, helped by my three-times-great-grandfather John George Lambton 1st Earl of Durham (admittedly, his son-in-law). That is partly why I feel so strongly that working people’s voices should be heard along with everyone else’s.”

    Both my friend’s noble and reforming ancestors came from the north of England where, in the accent of the region, the word “classes” rhymes with “masses”. Boris seems to have got that rhyme going once more.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/17/time-abolish-monstrous-poll-tax-bbc-licence-fee/

    1. “Sometimes these messages appear on the envelope to shame the recipient.”
      The postman and I consider it a badge of honour.

      1. I wonder if in the case of people who actually have a licence and are falsely “named and shamed” whether they might have a a defamation suit that would win damages?

      2. I had really noticed messages on the envelope, possibly because they have been going instantly into recycling bin or fire (depending ontime of year) for so many years now.

        If Boris decriinalised not paying the license fee they could save one helluva lot of money on postage alone.

    2. I remember a female magistrate smugly admitting in a TV interview the pleasure she got from sending poor people to prison for non-payment of TV license fines. She cared not a whit that meant that single mothers lost their children to State care, sometimes for ever.

      1. I understand there are still wh!te actors amongst the cast so it clearly has no relevance to today’s East End.

  90. Are we still in with a shout?

    BBC; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50818134
    Brexit bill to block further delay to transition
    “The government is to add a new clause to the Brexit bill to make it illegal for Parliament to extend the process beyond the end of next year.
    The post-Brexit transition period – due to conclude in December 2020 – can currently be extended by mutual agreement for up to two years.
    But an amended Withdrawal Agreement Bill the Commons is set to vote on this week would rule out any extension.
    Critics say this raises the chance of leaving the EU without a trade deal.
    But senior Cabinet Minister Michael Gove insisted both the UK and the EU had “committed themselves to making sure that we have a deal” by the end of 2020.”

    2. Morning M,
      In my book they, ( undercover anti brexiteers) are fighting rearguard actions all the way, the treachery will be in the deal as in, a political testicle with a tentacle to attach, leading to a
      gradual build up.
      Hotel Calif.

    1. Ban, eh? No amount of non-selfies will help anyone understand.
      I was in Auschwitz in 2006, with Firstborn’s school class – both main camp and Birkenau extermination camp. The class consisted of a few nerds, two excluded kids, and the cool ones. This latter group, especially the tall blonde girls who all dressed alike, would sit down wherever we went, to the intense irritation of the nice Polish lady guide, and chattered amongst themselves rather than listen to the commentary.
      At the end of the railway line (the one that goes through the famous brick arch) lies the gas chambers. Next to them are some small pits, filled with a strangely turquoise water, small grassy mounds and some flat ground. The girls sat down again. The guide was by then fed up – these girls had ignored the accommodation huts, the sorting area, the platform where left was life and right was death, the gas chambers (amazingly, the inmates managed to blow one up! How’s that for a poke in the eye?), and now they were sitting again. She stopped her commentary, and asked the girls if they could see the white flecks in the grass, where they were sitting.
      Yes, came the answer.
      “Those are bits of bone remains from the cremated exterminated people” said the guide, and as one, the girls stood up in utter horror. At that precise point, they then understood what the whole tour was about.
      There was no messing about after that – not that they actively meant disrespect, just that until then, they didn’t connect to the history and the events.
      Selfies or no selfies, they wouldn’t have behaved differently until they understood.

  92. Hang on a minute…. So a bearded guy called J.C. wanted to help the poor and heal the sick but ends up getting crucified?

    I think there might be a book in this…

    1. No the bearded guy called J.C. wanted to help the poor and heal the sick in Somalia , Gaza, Sudan & Iran and do it with the UK taxpayers money whilst bringing in the healthy & violent ones to the UK to keep him in power !

      1. I think i knew that. Not exactly stopping yet though. Come on Boris ! Our border force brought in even more today. FFS.

    2. ‘I think there may be a book in this….’

      Or 66 or 67or 81 or 73,or………………

      Good afternoon, Phizzee,

    3. David Lammy:- “I looked and looked, but I couldn’t see three wise men in the Labour party – only an ass”.

          1. Bit of a libel on Corbyn’s character there. Wilfred Bramble spent most of his time off cottaging. Oh ! now i see the labour connection. They probably both met Miranda.

  94. Black Friday sales are a right con, I ordered 4 Kindles from Amazon, and they sent me a Two Ronnies DVD

      2. Only when you recall this do you realise that the current BBC has most definitely missed the 3:10 to Humour.

  95. Last night I caught a few minutes of BBCWorld24habdwringing about the lack of tree covver in Ethiopia compared to 30, 50, and 100 years ago, which makes the country much more susceptible to droughts and UNproductive. Then a hopeful interlude with an Ethipian plant/tree researcher embarking on a tree planting programme (in areas where people and animals will be excluded).

    Not once did I hear aany mention of the number of people in Ethiopia (“Feed The World” was 1984 response to Ethioian famine).

    Population stats Ethiopia:

    1950 – 18.4 million
    1985 – 41.0 million
    2019 – 113.5 million

    Present pop. growth rate put at 2.9% per year.

    Well, it looks as if “Feed The World” oversucceeded, but one can understand why so much of the previous tree cover was lost. I’m not sure how much longer this level of breeding can continue.

    1. In terms of Ethiopians being able to grow food to sustain the then population, they were perfectly able to do so. It was non-stop war that stopped them.

      Bob Geldoff failed to mention this when he went on his crusade to feed the poor.

      The region is still able to produce a great deal of fruits and vegetables. But with this population explosion another famine is on the horizon.

      Here endeth the lesson.

          1. The Hebrew Scriptures talk about the season for war. You fight when the weather’s good and you can feed your troops and move them around easily.

          3. Wasn’t there some one in the classical world who broke the rules and continued fighting through the winter. Can’t remember whether it was an individual general or nation as a whole.

          4. Cultural innit.

            Probably why with the fall of Baghdad they all took their uniforms off because the season had ended.

  96. DT HEADLINE

    Brexit latest news: Boris Johnson hails new House of Commons as ‘one of the best Parliaments this country has ever produced’

    Exagerration – Or what? They haven’t done anything yet.

    This is not just Borisbollocks it is Hyperbollocks.

  97. Phew – just back from signing the contract (or, rather, watching the MR sign the contract – it’s her house). WOT A PARLAVA.

    The chaps have ten days to cool off – then it is all definitely go ahead – completion end March.

      1. The chaps are here (in the house) right now deciding what furniture, if any, they want to buy.

        Otherwise we have the nightmare of having to get rid of the complete contents of a large house…..

        3. Blimey. I know tastes differ but i would have taken it fully furnished.

          I would have probably needed to replace all the lightbulbs you had taken though. :o(

          1. When I was still soliciting, one couple I acted for took possession of their new house to find that the seller had removed all the light bulbs, the door knobs AND the fuses from the (old style) fuse box….

          2. Not unusual, I suspect.

            We’ve moved far too many times for our peace of mind and we were constantly surprised by what people took.
            The cost of trying to get it back far exceeded the value, so we never bothered.

          5. It is why that sort of behaviour still resonates with me.

            When i had a house much too large for me, i let rooms in Birmingham. I cooked a Sunday roast for them all. Mostly English/Drama students. I did make them pay £1 for the privilege !

            I even included as much tea, coffee, toast and marmite as they could eat. They still snuck in their girlfriends at weekends but i pretended not to notice.

            I rarely solicit nowadays.

          2. They will be very, very lucky….. No pool; no garage; difficult access for a car larger than a “Smart”….no chance.

          6. I do.

            The lady, who in August, recently arrived, told us she would love to buy our house – discovered to her horror, that, having moved here two years ago from Paris had paid twice the going price for her small house because, to a Parisienne, it seem just, OMG, SOOO cheap – but could not sell it…..

            A lesson…

      2. You are not perchance suggesting a significant purchase price reduction if monsieur is thrown in as part of the deal?

          1. Market price. We are not in wealthy Dordogneshire but in La Rouge Profonde.

            A large remise goes for €60,000 – because it can be converted into a house. A large house (which would be about £450,000 in Blighty) goes for €170,000. Even a huge Maison de Maitre with grounds is only about €250,000.

            Still, as I said yesterday, we will leave with the whole 35 years paid for and change left over. Can’t complain.

          3. I am always “going forward”….that’s the last thing left for me to which to look forward.

          4. If the process becomes tedious take heart by reading Vernon Colman’s ( an ex-GP , prodigious author and article writer and hater of the EU and bureaucracy in general ) account of recently selling his flat in Paris. ( buried in his later “Diaries of a Grumpy Old Man)

  98. As yet another batch rock up today…………………….

    It defies belief that these dindu invaders made it all the way across the Channel in those pathetic little RIBs on a cold rainy night.

    This whole business isn’t happening the way we’re being asked to believe it is. We are being had for mugs.

  102. Slightly off topics

    Trump’s impeachment:

    Republicans hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats, and at least 20 of them would have to vote to convict Trump in order to clear the
    two-thirds majority required to remove Trump from office.

    None have indicated they may do so.

    Err…why are the Democrats persisting with this farce ?

    Oh my, what a silly question.
    They are lefties and therefore congenital bloody idiots.

    1. For the same reason, I suspect, that libtards, far-left, Illib Undems and Remainiacs are continuing to whinge about every vote since June 2016.

      Bad losers – plus the generation of spoilt people to whom no one has ever dared to say, “NO!”…

      1. The Democratic party here is completely different from the British Labour party. No comparison. Policy wise they are much closer to the British Conservative party.

        There’s a fairly simply divide among the voters here – the higher the education level, the more likely they are to vote Democrat. That’s why Dems succeed in places with a lot of high tech industry – those places are home to a highly educated workforce.

        The bigots here are on the right, sad to say. Which of course is why the GOP hated Obama so much.

        1. Yes, thanks. It is of course difficult for anyone here to really understand the motivations over there (although Democrat women are really off-putting) just as it must be hard over there to understand how Conservatives function. On a bad day they are each as incomprehensible as the other.

        3. Hmmm. I am not sure that that is comforting even if true.
          SO far as i can tell the policies adopted by Obama and Frau Clinton (The daughter of Alinsky, so called) are straight out of the Frankfurt school…. the Frankfurt school took up residence in the USA (and inserted themselves into the University system,…. that explains a lot…) when Hitler banned them…. and thus their policies, whatever the supporters may think are pretty much what you expect of “Globalist progressives” with a dash of Coudenhove Kalergi thrown in…. i.e cultural Marxists in all but name.
          But given the deplorable state of British politics these days, and the parliamentary party, and that the tory party isn’t much like the Tories once were nor their rank and file, that they are more like the Tories than labour is not exactly comforting.

    3. The stated theory is that they want the public to know in detail what Trump got up to. It is a total waste of time though.

      Equally, what is supposed to happen is that the House (the prosecution) presents its evidence to the Senate (the jury) who are supposed to judge the case on the facts. We know that won’t happen because O’Connell, the GOP leader in the Senate, has already said that he and his GOP colleagues will do whatever Trump wants them to do. Most likely a summary vote not to impeach, without bothering with any “evidence”.

      No bouquets to either side here.

      Basically, for the GOP, it’s a case of “He may be a crook, but he’s our crook”. Public opinion is pretty much 50-50 here by the way on guilt, but most agree going through an impeachment hearing is a waste of time.

  103. I had the police knocking on my door earlier…

    “We are going to have to ask you to take your Christmas decorations
    down, Sir, as the Muslim family across the road find them very
    offensive.”

    “Horse shit. Why should I?,” I said, “We celebrate Christmas here, so if
    they don’t like it, they can fuck off back to whatever shit hole they
    came from.”

    “That’s your opinion, sir – and we respect that. Just make sure you put
    them up on your own house next time…” he replied. :o)

          2. I owe you an apology Uncle Bill. I received your writ by email and i completely and entirely retract my comments. :o(

          13. I’ve been very impressed with it as a vegetable.
            It’s certainly versatile and keeps very well.

            As to cudgels, You would need the strength of Hercules to wield either of the two sitting in my cellar.

            I’m thinking winter roasted vegetables, prawn curry and soup and that’s just from one.

      1. Yep and then be granted EU citizanship to go to France and a short hop across the channel for our benefit, oops benefits.
        {:-((

  105. I am about to sign off for a welcome glass of medicine.

    One thing I spotted when I made various comments elsewhere during my voluntary absence was that – although there are some infuriating pedantz (sic) here – they are but NOTHING compared with those BTL on the DT and The Grimes….

    A demain. Feeling almost euphoric…(won’t last…)

    1. Thanks for that Rik I haven’t laughed so much in ages! The irony of course is that this would once have been BBC fare!

  108. Automatic Fire Alarms

    Automated Fire alarms account for between 40% & 50% of a Fire Services call outs and of those calls about 99% are false alarms. A number of Fire brigades now no longer respond to those alarms during normal working hours for business premises. A manual call has to be made

    2. The sensible thing would be for a fire alarm on a business premise to be linked to a CCTV & once an alarm is triggered for the camera to stream photos to the fire brigade for them to monitor the situation & determine if their services are needed or not.

      1. It is only during normal business hours so there will be staff there to check. In business premises the building will normally be split into zones and the main fire panel should tell you which zone and which alarm in that zone triggered it

        1. Even so by having the alarm linked to a CCTV system the fire brigade can not only determine if a fire has in fact broken out but can possibly decide what is actually needed in terms of engines & crews in order to put the fire out.

          1. As we are the most CCTV’d country in the world, being recorded 70 times a day there must be a camera nearby anyway.

            29 May 2019 – In London there is 1 CCTV Camera for every 14 people, meaning there are now 627,707 CCTV Cameras in London (2019)

            https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-london/

            The Guv bit

            https://www.gov.uk/government/latest?departments%5B%5D=surveillance-camera-commissioner

            It is reckoned, that there are in excess of 5,900,000 CCTV cameras in UK

            One camera fror every 11 people

          2. Correct & having the fire alarm system trigger a broadcast to the fire brigade might be very useful both in preventing false alarms and helping determine the size, spread & direction of an actual fire and naturally would be useful in the later investigation of the cause of the fire . I am surprised that the Insurance companies have not thought of this use of CCTV

  109. Evening all. I’ve just been sitting back and having a few glasses while watching Angel has Fallen starring Gerard Butler on DVD. God it was dire! I think it was written by the same guy who wrote the Skripal Saga. It was so ridiculous it wasn’t even funny!

  110. German economy in trouble,France in rioting chaos,what a time to see us leaving {:^))
    Just think if they hadn’t been so arrogant with “Call me Dave” and had given him a few crumbs I doubt we would have won the Ref
    HAHAHAHA
    BWAHAHAHA

      3. And why isn’t the rioting getting wider reporting? It’s been going on a long time now.

        1. The BBC response to that question was as expected. They didn’t consider it newsworthy at the same time as giving lots of airtime to the Hong Kong riots. Can’t imagine why.

        2. The overriding message on the media must be “The EU is a happy place. It is unified and it is the future.” They are only a few steps short of playing “Tomorrow belongs to me” as they start the midnight news in each country at the end of the day.

          It was the same with the mass protests in the United Kingdom against the EU. You would not know that they had even happened unless you were on Breitbart or social media at the right time and the youtube link went up. You could see the 10,000’s of people marching, before youtube took the page down.

          So the Yellow Vests protests in France do not fit the “European people in harmony” message, so they pretend that it is not happening.

    2. Can’t disagree with that, Rik. Just a few tangible, measurable crumbs instead of the hollow platitudes he tried to sell us. Thank heavens they all misread it!

      1. If the Scots vote to leave the UK and be independent, then their democratic decision must be respected. Same principle as Brexit.

          2. 2,000 bloody square miles out and I live well north of it, well into England. If there’s one thing that winds me up to the point of no return it’s some twat telling me I live in Scotland because they can’t be arsed to learn the geography of England and then if they do know, they take the piss and perpetuate the libel.

          3. Sorry to hear you are so upset by these ignorant people, bassetedge, but please don’t take it out on me.

        3. But, Paul, they will have to wait until 2039 to exercise that right. Even then the next referendum may not go their way and it’s extremely unlikely that there will be an EU to join.

    4. Three years ago after the referendum result was announced would have been the perfect time to have left the EU. As legal experts said at the time, this whole Article 50 process was nonsense and was only designed to delay us actually leaving the EU for years. Theresa May embraced it for this reason.

      Under existing international treaty law we would have have informed the EU that we were leaving and given them 6 weeks notice to prepare. The United Kingdom would have easily survived this and would have been free trading with the world for the past 3 years. We have survived much worse.

      This crisis in the EU and Germany was more than predicted, the reasons for it were laid out in detail over the past 4 months. Germany and the EU have been hiding massive debt by shifting it around and not calling it debt, hoping for things to improve. Rarely a good sign.

      This would now be a very, very good time to leave the EU completely by using that international law process and abandoning this Article 50 / Withdrawal Agreement nightmare. With the EU in such financial crisis, this is not the time to hand over control of our country to them along with the keys to our treasury.

      As Jacob Rees-Mogg said back when he was more respected, this will make us a vassal state of the EU. When they have the wolves at the door, we don’t want them in our pantry stealing the beef. But whatever they do to us, we will still be in a better shape on the other side than they are.

      2. Poor man. I have seen depression almost paralyse some of the best. Endless thought process’s going around and around in the same circles can stop you functioning in the real world. At least many do break free of it. His family will have it rough for a while.

    1. Perhaps someone should hire the Euro-tw@t in the hat with his megaphone to do 24/7 vigil.
      Shouting:

      Oi crabby YABy why are you stil here like a stabby scabby?

    2. Don’t let the door….. Thinking about it, I hope the door whacks you into the middle of the next century.

    3. Bye Yasmin. You have no alibi now so fuck right off, don’t forget to take Garry Linneker, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and the failed cockneyesque crappy chef Oliver with you. I hope your fukking boat crashes into the illegal migrants coming the other way.

      Happy Christmas !

    4. Let us Crowd Fund her removal:

      If she protests about it, it proves her a liar, which means every action carried out, word written or spoken cannot be believed

      She cannot be selective with lies.

      Send money to:

      Oust Yasmin Alibaba Brown Carpet
      Mr Rashid
      c/o One Home Bill
      Narfulk

  117. BBC Headline
    “Perth city centre ‘It’s ok to be white‘ stickers condemned
    John Swinney, who is also MSP for Perthshire North, said the “atrocious” stickers had “no place in Perth or any other part of our country.”
    Police Scotland said it was “currently looking into the matter.”
    Posting on Twitter, Mr Swinney said: “We must stand together to resist this unacceptable material.””

    Hang about. So what this Scottish Government minister is saying is that it is not OK to be white? Well, that’s pretty clear then.

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/12FB/production/_110195840_80784587_909057032822329_6396607940551245824_o.jpg

          3. Let’s hope a formal complaint goes in. Not so that the teacher is sacked on this occasion, but to be given a warning that such one-sided political indoctrination is unacceptable. The message will quickly go around the classroom,

          4. Wanna bet.

            The message will go around that evil Tories bully teachers for telling the truth and that brave young socialists should stand up to the bullying.

  119. Reading Lefties twitterati, with their mix of anger and pain, I think of this:

    “I hate the public so much. If only they’d elect me, I’d make ’em pay.”

    Homer Simpson

    1. Listening to that brought back images of the Pinkie & Perkie Show on Sundays.

      I don’t think I’ve once heard it in 50-odd years since. Loved it when I was a sprog.

      1. or

        We three kings of orient are
        One in a taxi, one in a car
        One on a scooter, blowing his hooter
        Smoking a big cigar

  122. Every time I go into the lounge where the TV is on, I see that bloody advert from Water Aid.
    If those Somalis or Sudanese or whoever would stop murdering one another, a decent society would be easy.
    My sympathy has its limits.Glossy photography does not work any more.

    1. What the blue blistering blazes have these people been doing for the sixty plus years since those evil, white colonialists left?

      2. Look at the Sudan when my very dear, erudite and benign father was the governor of the Northern Province.

        Since he and the British administration left the Sudan 70 years ago a very well run and developing country with happy people has suffered:

        endless civil war, total collapse of the infrastructure, religious intolerance, genocide, famine, plague and partition.

        And terrorist sympathisers like Corbyn and that racist ass, Lammy, promote the great mendacious myth that the British were evil and that this should be taught in British schools.

        1. “endless civil war, total collapse of the infrastructure, religious intolerance, genocide, famine, plague and partition.”
          Sounds a bit like Rotherham, Bradford, Birmigham & parts of London

          1. Afternoon MHMCMB,
            We wouldn’t have had that but for the diligent
            input year on year of the lab/lib/con coalition
            party,members/voters.

          3. MHMCMB,
            It was / is a cross party issue, that is, as lab. lost power then the cons took over the mass uncontrolled immigration cause with gusto, remember the wretch cameron on promising to reduce the intake numbers, promptly upped them.
            The keep in/ keep out mode of voting regardless of consequences has caused a great deal of hardship & physical damage especially among kids.
            Party before Country is a sh!te reason for entering a polling booth IMO.

          4. But at least by bringing it to Blighty, we’re not increasing our carbon footprint by flying thousands of miles to experience the real Effrika (other fly blighted sand pits are available).

      3. The shit dry in Sun. Dessicate. Blow around. Get everywhere. In food. Down throat. In eyes. On every surface. (Why am i talking like that?)

        President Trump described these places perfectly. Shitholes.

    3. Those places have had so much aid, they could have piped water from Saturn. Where did it all go? We don’t contribute any more, they had their chance and blew it.

      1. Let’s see how they get on with their new Chinese masters. Might be taught something about family planning by them.

      2. The ancient Egyptians had irrigation figured out and the Romans managed to transport water over long distances. Now, why can’t Africans……………(rhetorical).

    2. Good night grief, Peddy. 9.15 pm? That must be a really good German page-turner you are currently reading! Sleep well, my friend.

        1. …… “Poland has already been referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) regarding rules for judges.
          Under the proposals put forward by the socially conservative Law and Justice party government, judges can be punished for engaging in “political activity”……

          I assume Spider Woman and the Smuggerati currently think they are untouchable.

          1. In which case, the UK supreme court interfered politically in the Brexit fiasco

            So we must leave as well, without payinga penny and with Compo

          2. If Boris gets his act together he will abolish the politically appointed Supreme Court and send the decrepit old hag known colloquially as Spiderwoman back to Girton where she belongs. “Let’s hear it for girly swots” my arse.

          3. The EU have been after Poland for a while now for refusing to go along with their “lets give everyone lots of followers of islam” program. The EU will use any guise to force this policy on EU members and are going after Hungary as well.

            “WARSAW — The right-wing Polish government is under pressure from the EU to finally begin accepting asylum seekers. But it’s the country’s leading opposition party that’s paying the political price. Poland, along with Hungary, has refused to take in any refugees under a 2015 deal that was supposed to allocate 160,000 people among EU member countries in order to take the load off Greece and Italy.”

            I did find this map of attacks and thought “that is so black and white that it cannot be correct.” Then I found other maps showing the same patterns. It is not surprising that the BBC or other media do not talk about this issue if they can avoid it at all:

            (Obviously it depends upon how low you set the bar for calling something a terrorist attack, but conversely, the lower you set that bar the better Poland looks.)

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/75877ea38b6123762c42e118b878294058da5ed0966b31768c587c05f46742f2.jpg

          4. Last year, discussing Brexit etc with a local Polish acquaintance, I asked him approximately how many muslims live in Poland. He did some elaborate calculations, and replied “approximately ….. none!”.
            Was there just a hint of a smile on his face?

  128. Bloody hell, it’s cold out there!
    Just been to do a bit on the shed where I’m now at the stage of fitting the door on one side.
    Unfortunately, my endurance is about 40 minutes before my fingers start icing up!
    I don’t know if it’s me getting older or the medication I’m on or even both, but my fingers and toes have started getting lot colder than they used to.

      1. Agreed, but a bit awkward when using screws.
        Also, the fleece lined work glove I have at the moment only give me an extra 10 min protection against the cold!

          1. Ditto.
            I’ve a nice little battery powered drill that doubles up as a screwdriver very well.

          3. We invested in a nail gun to build Firstborn’s barn extension. Magic tool! Makes it all easier and 10 times faster.

      1. We have a lot to do at Firstborn’s farm. Thr schedule is governed by the season – once it snows, we switch to indoor work in the house or barn.

  132. Trade Talks with US

    Informal discussion by phone have already taken place formal discussions are likely yo commence in January

    1. There is a pride of lions just out of shot

      That will be the end of the Gnus

      The weather forecast will follow

      1. Photo reminds me of the many occasions when Newcastle United players seem not to have much of a game plan.

  134. Evening, all. Just had another email from the Prime Minister. That’s 27 since he won the leadership election. Look, I only joined the Tories because Arron Banks suggested that Leavers should, in anticipation of a leadership election. It was money well spent. But here’s the thing: I’ve been a member for sixteen months. How many emails* did I receive in that time from Theresa May? I know that Boris doesn’t sit down at his antique bureau in No 10, and pen individual responses to his members on Basildon Bond. Obviously. But clearly, he recognises that there are a load of grassroots members out there, who deserve respect. I still don’t trust him, but I’m more optimistic than i have ever been since 24 June 2016.

    *Zilch. Nada. Nought. Diddly-Squat…

        1. Quite. And he is very cunning. Is he trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate, or Parliament? Who knows at this stage. If he ‘pulls a polyester’ (as my my late Mum used to call it in the latter stages of dementia) over Parliament his name will reverberate throughout history with the greats. Who knows what it is he truly wants, what he truly regards as the prize.

    2. ‘I know that Boris Johnson doesn’t sit down at his antique bureau In No.10
      and pen individual responses to his members……………………’

      He doesn’t?

      …………….FFS Boss, you will next be telling us there is no
      Father Christmas,………. for goodness sake,…. get a grip! 🙂

      [ I have just returned home from our monthly UKIP meeting,
      I hope you admire our tenacity!! ]

          1. He had a fall a couple of weeks ago, broke a couple of ribs and gashed his forehead. And he was having router problems. He last posted on The Conservative Woman, 8 days ago. I’m sure he’ll be back in due course.

    3. Good evening, Geoff,
      I receive the emails too, though I’m not a member. Not sure why. I take your point though. The Trump approach of speaking direct?

        1. Evening Geoff, you will be telling us next that Boris has ordered CCHQ not to parachute candidates into local constituencies overriding local association members choices.
          Nah, on second thoughts I am delving into the realms of fantasy with that one.

          1. Hi VVOF. If only. I reiterate – I don’t trust him, but there seems to have been a sea change, compared to the May woman’s time in office. I expect I’ll end uo feeling betrayed. Again…

          2. I am like you, my go to saying at the moment,
            He may have won the election but he has not won my trust!

          4. He managed to avoid or evade any serious questions about the details of his ‘oven-ready, brilliant Brexit deal’.

            “The devil”, as they say, “is in the detail,” but we don’t really know what the details are as they have not been spelt out. I do wish I could trust him to produce the sort of Brexit Julia Hartley-Brewer would have gone for.

    1. If Keir Starmer represents the soft centre, he reminds me of the terrible Delhi-belly I got in India thanks to some Cadbury’s chocolate I purchased at a kiosk in Bangalore.

      1. My late father when in India during WWII noticed Indians pricking shrivelled up fruit with pins and dropping it into the filthy polluted river to re-inflate before wiping the mud off and selling it on the streets.

        You have to wonder whether the Indians learnt anything from the example set by our Empire.

  138. You have only just begun to write a new chapter for the UK, Prime Minister

    ANDREW ROBERTS

    Dear Boris, Hallelujah! The historian in you will have been relishing all the dates that we heard on Thursday night, with constituencies returning Tory MPs that have not done so since 1931, 1922, even 1918. You have pretty much single-handedly given us the best result since 1987, another great date in Tory history.

    Meanwhile, Labour having had their worst drubbing since 1935, a date that will have a particular resonance for you as a biographer of Churchill, coming right in the middle of his Wilderness Years.

    Yet of course there’s a warning there too, because in the next election after 1935, Labour won a landslide victory of 393 seats, even more than you’ve just won.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/13/have-just-begun-write-new-chapter-uk-prime-minister/

    Apparently, he then goes on to talk about the problems Johnson will face from the entrenched establishment in PC-UK (I know this from the comments in thsi Premium article).

    1. Full article for you

      Dear Boris, Hallelujah! The historian in you will have been relishing all the dates that we heard on Thursday night, with constituencies returning Tory MPs that have not done so since 1931, 1922, even 1918.
      You have pretty much single-handedly given us the best result since 1987, another great date in Tory history.
      Meanwhile, Labour having had their worst drubbing since 1935, a date that will have a particular resonance for you as a biographer of Churchill, coming right in the middle of his Wilderness Years.
      Yet of course there’s a warning there too, because in the next election after 1935, Labour won a landslide victory of 393 seats, even more than you’ve just won.
      Another remarkable statistic about your opponents is that by the time of the next election, Labour will not have won an election in half a century under anyone not called Tony Blair.
      When we leave the EU on January 31, you will have already become the most consequential prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, what we historians call a “rain-maker PM”, one of the handful who institute lasting change, like Clement Attlee and Thatcher herself.
      But there is another prize that you will hopefully already be concentrating your historically conscious mind upon. For no party in British history has been on the winning side of five general elections in a row since 1830.
      If you were to manage that, you would beat the records of the Salisbury-Balfour premierships, as well as those of Thatcher-Major and Blair-Brown. It would be an astonishing achievement, and with your highly competitive nature, something to aim for.
      Do you recall visiting the “Churchill: The Power of Words” exhibition that I co-curated at the Morgan Library in New York about ten years ago?
      How we couldn’t find a taxi to take us uptown fifty blocks to a party, and how therefore you and I and the beautiful woman you were with took a bicycle-taxi up Madison Avenue.
      After about ten blocks, when the pedal-cabbie understandably seemed to be making heavy weather of it, you and he swapped places and pedaled us the rest of the way, swerving in and out of the traffic for forty blocks uphill and somewhat nerve-wrackingly.
      When he shouted to you that you didn’t have a license, you called back over your shoulder, “I have the universal license; I’m chairman of Transport for London!”
      Well, today you really do have the universal license to remake politics and British society, with an election victory that was focused all around you and your central messages. Dominic Cummings and Isaac Levido were brilliant hires and did an absolutely superb job, but this is your victory.
      In order to repeat it, and win that fifth term for the Tories, you are going to have to be extraordinarily bold quite apart from Brexit, politics and even the economy.
      You must fight the battle for British political culture, a struggle that every British Tory premier has ducked since the fall of Margaret Thatcher 39 years ago last month.

      Boris Johnson leaving No10 Downing Street Credit: Andrew Parsons/i-Images
      Why should it be that in huge and vital areas of British life it is considered a dirty word to be a Tory? Why are over 85 per cent of university lecturers left-wing? Why is every BBC show so painfully politically-correct?
      Why do the masterships of so many colleges of Academe go to former Labour cabinet ministers and the ex-editors of Left-supporting newspapers and media enterprises? Why does the Civil Service only ever leak in a pro-Remain way?
      This, and the Left’s control of so many quangos and arts organisations, is something that you must now tackle.
      If you don’t, and the Left continues in control of all of the commanding heights of our political culture except for the House of Commons, they will be able to pour their anti-capitalist bile into the minds of our youth for another half-decade before the next election.
      Already the Left is closing down free speech in our universities, so complete is their control. The Italian Marxist political scientist Antonio Gramsci argued that the Left did not have to win election and after election, but instead only needed to take over all the key institutions of the state and then indoctrinate the people.
      That has been happening to such an extent that no fewer than one-third of the electorate voted for a pro-IRA, anti-Semitic Marxist to become prime minister on Thursday.
      Of course the British people love democracy – it was why Jo Swinson lost her seat in East Dunbartonshire because people spotted the contempt for democracy inherent in her pledge to stop Brexit without even holding another referendum.

      Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds outside No10 Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley
      As a Churchill admirer – indeed the author of a Churchill biography almost as successful as mine – you will remember his father’s Tory Democrat call: “Trust the People”. One must trust them, but in the next election you will not have the inestimable advantages of “Get Brexit Done” as your cry and Jeremy Corbyn as your opponent.
      Therefore you need to institute a Gramscian counter-march through the institutions, liberating one after the other from the grip of the Left. The economic and political battles are not the whole struggle.
      In five years’ time it should be possible to be a proud Tory in the BBC, a Scottish University, an NHS Trust, the Channel 4 board, or even a major trade union, and not feel that you are carrying The Mark of Cain.
      For then we might get back to a sensible politics in which a prime minister of Britain is not held personally responsible for the wellbeing of every one of the more than one million patients that are served by the NHS every thirty-six hours, where a film crew can shove a photo of the front page of The Daily Mirror and expect an immediate display of emoting in response.
      We will instead have a politics where actors like Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant get on and act, rather than lecturing us on how to vote against the Conservatives, and where has-been politicians like John Major, Tony Blair and Michael Heseltine, who had their day in the limelight decades ago, no longer think we are interested in their bitter, ancient gripes against the democratic will.
      You might even be able to teach Nicola Sturgeon what the phrase “once in a generation” when applied to the 2014 Scottish referendum actually meant.
      Achieve that kind of change in our political culture, and Redcar really will stay Bluecar, and you will be well on your way to becoming World King!
      Congratulations again on an extraordinary result.
      Fondest regards, Andrew.

        1. Evening ogga1,
          I don’t know, should I?
          I think Johnson’s approach to how he negotiates is a more important factor.
          Some says he will wrap this up with the softest of softest Brexit, others that with such a majority can now play hardball lay out to the EU our terms and for us to set our agenda not follow theirs.
          I can best sum up my feelings by saying he may have won the election, he hasn’t won my trust, I expect to be disappointed by him. He is a Tory and their track record regarding the EU is not a good one.
          If people keep voting them in, that is what we got, worrying isn’t it!

          1. VVOF,
            There is a great deal of self interest / power play involved in those that have been given carte blanche with brexitexit.
            IMO all involved have power egos & lifestyles
            that override allegiance to countries as the last 3.5 wasted years point out.
            Currently there is a great deal of laurel resting
            after kicking labs political @rse, & seemingly tory rhetoric being listen to & believed.
            Rhetoric only NO pro UK action as yet.
            Example, welfare will NOT be paid to any incoming foreign nationals, put that in the pipeline NOW, save lives.

            This to me is shades of 25/6/2016 & “job done
            leave it to the tories.”
            Also smacks of continuing the keep out / keep in mode of voting which in turn can and has kept honest voices out of parliament.
            Yes very worrying, the decent peoples of this country should never have been put in this position.

  139. Winter solstice 2019: Why do pagans celebrate the shortest day of the year?

    When will the Telly Subbie Dummies realise that all all days have the same number of hours: 24

    Every 400 years, the minute errors of the previous 399 are rectified, by making Leap years only those years whose first two integers are divisble by Four

    The next one will be 2400.

    Get it right (I know you do not like the word) and use Daylight hours

    Hobby horse put back into stable

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/0/when-winter-solstice-2019-shortest-day-year-what-why-pagans/

    1. I celebrate the shortest day(light) of the year because it (December 21) is my birthday.

      [I know, I know, this year the day with the fewest daylight hours is Monday the 23rd of December.]

      1. I’m surprised that the EU hasn’t found it in its power to sort out all these anomalies.

      2. Cus youse clever Elsie
        and

        ‘an all round good egg and snappy dresser to boot’
        (not old boot on here)

        1. Because I am clever, a good egg and a snappy dresser, and because I am Elsie and not Old Boot, therefore… what?!?!?

    1. It looks far far worse if it is played as under 25’s only.

      Almost the whole country would be Labour.

    2. On the bright side, the large areas of blue around those bubbles does suggest that real life experience and needing to work for a living can knock youthful socialist brainwashing out of peoples heads. I remember a quote from 20+ years ago about the large number of young socialists compared to the much smaller of numbers of older ones, because that is what the real world does.

      The “educators” have really been trying to brainwash them these days though.

  142. The Misinformation Virus

    Radio 4

    In this online age, the internet is a global megaphone, billions of messages amplified and shared, even when they’re false. Fake science spreads faster than the truth ever could, unhindered by national boundaries. Mainstream scientists are struggling to respond.

    The science journalist and writer, Angela Saini, is fascinated by how bad ideas spread and in this programme she investigates the very real impact of online scientific misinformation. From the dangerous anti-vaccination campaigns to those who deny the reality of climate change, she assesses the scale and extent of the threat we face.

    And she discovers the sinister world of deliberate disinformation where an army of bots and trolls work to sew [sic] dissent and confusion in the online space.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c9sm

    I’ve just listened to this. Misinformation, scientific or not, is a serious subject. It’s been with us for centuries, of course, but the internet makes it very easy for the suggestible to be influenced. And you know what the influences are, don’t you? Yes, climate change denial, flat-earthers and white supremacists worried about mass migration. In fact, there was another. The first in the presenter’s list was the anti-vaccine ideas that have seen the return of measles and mumps in the some Western countries. I’m with her on this (predictably, the programme managed to include Trump, though pointing out that he later changed his mind) but the others? The presenter then worked in a line about the regulated press (is it?) and the unregulated internet with the obvious implication for control.

    Finally, we were told that the phenomenon threatened liberal democracy. There’s an academic who hasn’t been paying attention for the last 30 years.

    This wasn’t meant to be an in-depth discussion about the merits of the subjects mentioned, although anti-vaccine and the alt-right got more attention than climate change. Flat-earthers were all but ignored, suggesting the term was simply used in a contemptuous manner to discredit the others. The producers laid bare some of their own prejudices with this programme.

    Oh, I nearly forgot. The bots were, of course, Russian.

    1. Look at the word ‘quiz’ and its’ supposed introduction into dailly use

      Then think if the internet had been available back then

      There is a well-known myth about the word quiz that says that in1791 a Dublin theater owner named Richard Daly made a bet that he could

      introduce a word into the language within 24 hours. He then went out and hired a group of street urchins to write the word “quiz”, which was a nonsense word, on walls around the city of Dublin.

      Within a day, the word was common currency and had acquired a meaning (since no one knew what it meant, everyone thought it was some sort of

      test) and Daly had some extra cash in his pocket.[4] However, there is no evidence to support the story, and the term was already in use before the alleged bet in 1791.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz

      The nearest equivalent of today is Climate Change/Global Warming

      1. “The quizzing glass was popular with both men and women from the eighteenth century onwards. Unsurprisingly for such a simple device there were earlier precursors, for instance in the sixteenth century Holbein painted Edward Seymour holding something that looks remarkably similar.
        Hogarth, Rowlandson and Cruikshank all caricatured the use of quizzing glasses and famous quizzer users included Charles James Fox.”

    2. Sew [sic] you’re saying (© Cathy Newman) that the BBC have just brought out a programme on embroidery called “Embroidering the Truth”?!?

    1. Thanks for posting. The BBC still do not get it do they. They still do not even accept that they are a left wing organisation.

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