Tuesday 17 October: Double standards on display in the Western response to Israel’s actions

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

505 thoughts on “Tuesday 17 October: Double standards on display in the Western response to Israel’s actions

  1. 377736+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Three Dunkirk shipwrecks found in sonar survey of Channel
    Heritage experts in England and France worked together to trace vessels lost during Operation Dynam

    Revealing this at this present time is taking the piss in great quantities is my belief, any persons found (RIP) in situ are without doubt escapees from an enemy occupied Country,

    To have the present “successful invasion” currently passing overhead on a daily basis, orchestrated by peoples via the United Kingdoms governing parties seems very much to me like war grave intrusion if continued.

    In point of fact if the “invasion” does continue then the dismantling of war memorials surely must follow in the near future.

    1. 377724+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      I can take it then OG that current lab/lib/con coalition party supporter / voters would in the 40s been found to be supporting operation SEALION.

  2. After the Great Reset, the Great Resentment. October 17, 2023.

    Society in general is beginning to strain at the edges and decent people are taking actions brought about by the increasing realisation that we are governed by those who not only do not care for us, but are actively conspiring to do us down at every opportunity. People are seen as nothing more than units of production, useless eaters or cash cows to be milked for all we are we worth.

    Everywhere you look there are attacks on the norms which have previously bonded our collective lives together, be it health, work, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, gender identity, children’s education and welfare, neighbourliness and cohesive communities. There is an increasing lack of courtesy and consideration for others and a breakdown of trust between organisations and the population. And then there are the banks. These profit-centred, people-despising, usurious outfits fall over themselves to give us an umbrella when the sun shines and then demand it back when it’s raining, and are at the forefront of driving a cashless society as a key part of a digital control system. Their prime purpose is to keep us enslaved in debt so that we cannot function as free individuals. It is difficult to comprehend that many of these monstrous organisations once had Quaker origins.

    I like to read things like this, Not because they are new but because they reassure me that it is not all in my own mind! It could be folie à deux of course but I don’t think so! This society the Cultural Marxists have built is always running to stay in the same place. To stop or give ground in any way would see the whole thing founder and sink. Rishi’s “pogrom” speech in the Commons yesterday was a fount of self-deception that they all applauded. With Islamists running the streets and the police afraid to restrain them he was prating about supporting Israel! They are puppets without agency. The victims of their own tyrannical beliefs!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/after-the-great-reset-the-great-resentment/

    1. 37736+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Sadly these political overseers are continuing to find support again & again, decent peoples really are internally fighting on two fronts.

  3. After the Great Reset, the Great Resentment. October 17, 2023.

    Society in general is beginning to strain at the edges and decent people are taking actions brought about by the increasing realisation that we are governed by those who not only do not care for us, but are actively conspiring to do us down at every opportunity. People are seen as nothing more than units of production, useless eaters or cash cows to be milked for all we are we worth.

    Everywhere you look there are attacks on the norms which have previously bonded our collective lives together, be it health, work, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, gender identity, children’s education and welfare, neighbourliness and cohesive communities. There is an increasing lack of courtesy and consideration for others and a breakdown of trust between organisations and the population. And then there are the banks. These profit-centred, people-despising, usurious outfits fall over themselves to give us an umbrella when the sun shines and then demand it back when it’s raining, and are at the forefront of driving a cashless society as a key part of a digital control system. Their prime purpose is to keep us enslaved in debt so that we cannot function as free individuals. It is difficult to comprehend that many of these monstrous organisations once had Quaker origins.

    I like to read things like this, Not because they are new but because they reassure me that it is not all in my own mind! It could be folie à deux of course but I don’t think so! This society the Cultural Marxists have built is always running to stay in the same place. To stop or give ground in any way would see the whole thing founder and sink. Rishi’s “pogrom” speech in the Commons yesterday was a fount of self-deception that they all applauded. With Islamists running the streets and the police afraid to restrain them he was prating about supporting Israel! They are puppets without agency. The victims of their own tyrannical beliefs!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/after-the-great-reset-the-great-resentment/

  4. Double standards on display in the Western response to Israel’s actions

    Nobody mentions or stands up for the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa for some reason

  5. Good morning all.
    A slightly less chilly start with 3½°C on the Yard Thermometer with a patchy sky and clouds painted red by the pre-dawn sun.
    A dry day forecast so I’ll be doing a bit more bramble and briar bashing. Also, after planting a dozen tulip bulbs yesterday, I plan getting another dozen tulip bulbs planted today on the road verge to join the 1½kg of daffodil bulbs I’ve also planted!

    1. I planted my daffs and narcissi in my orchard – mind you, I don’t have a grass verge to plant any in; the grass verge has been boarded off while they turn the area into a building site.

  6. SIR – I am ashamed to think that some families in this country are
    afraid for their children to go to school because of the behaviour of
    adults who should know better (
    ).

    I
    was horrified by the venom and hatred displayed by some of those at the
    pro-Palestine rallies in London over the weekend. I have never seen a
    Jewish gathering showing hostility towards any other group of people.

    This
    whole catastrophe is the result of Hamas’s wish to annihilate the Jews,
    and its members’ cowardice in hiding beneath innocent Palestinian
    people’s homes, schools and mosques. Palestine will never be safe until
    this group is driven out.

    Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham

    Can’t be true. The Met Police said everything was hunky Dory.

    Move along…nothing to see here.

    1. Bring Grizzly back from Sweden and let’s see if he could sort the Police Force out.

      He could start by putting them all onto to the Carnivore Diet to strengthen their sinews and summon up their blood.

      1. They say in Torquay that folk on the north coast of Devon eat babies to strengthen their sinews and summon up their blood.

  7. Good morning all,

    A cloudy morning at McPhee Towers, wind in the East, 8℃ rising to 13℃ so a little warmer than yesterday.

    Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the person they were going to have monitoring and censoring our on-line activity at OFCOM once the On-Line Safety Bill becomes an Act (I posted last night but it’s worth having it up again).

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e6150a37cdbde2b270b3548a4760c8226264d1322e241490b6c1e1490d99915d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5edd51bb5b4140e09d41a10c118ba3e843250b543ee42898e79707f168302e2e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ab3d77f476f10dc2a15ed1ac33efe8370e742599ea39e10514db3658be0678b.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/16/ofcom-online-safety-director-suspended-like-anti-israel/

    No comments allowed. I wonder why?:

    1. We’re amazed that she isn’t living in her home nation of Zimbabwe, a noticeable example of how well

      black Marxist rule has helped the masses to wealth and happiness.

    2. Ofcom has become an executive arm of the World Economic Forum.

      Hardly surprisingly because the WEF and Bill Gates both advocate for internet censorship and Sunak is a WEF and Gates devotee.

      Just search Melanie Dawes World Economic Forum and up comes the awful story of Ofcom’s totalitarian involvement with the Davos billionaires. Dawes and Ofcom are doing everything the billionaires want to cancel the British peoples’ right to free speech and close down Rumble, GB News and all online comment they don’t like.

      Melanie Dawes even met recently with George Soros’ poisonous pet, Peter Mandelson, who formerly worked for one of Soros’ advisers.

  8. Trump seeks ‘vindication’ in UK courts over ex-spy’s dossier on alleged Russian sex bribes. 17 October 2023.

    Donald Trump’s lawyer says he wants to give evidence in the British courts as he sues over the “Steele Dossier” that alleged he bribed officials and took part in sex parties in Russia.

    The whole thing was quite obviously a fabrication, as not a few of us pointed out at the time. This didn’t stop the MSM promoting it!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67123583

    1. 377736+ up ticks.

      O2O,

      I do believe Dr Aseem Malhotra Cardiologist
      may be in attendance.

      Correction,
      Aseem Malhotra will with others coming from America be speaking in parliament on the first Monday in December.

    1. Would not it be delicious if in response to their plea they were sent bags of women’s clothing?

  9. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    Practising Your Art
    There was a world-famous painter who, in the prime of her career, started losing her eyesight. Fearful that she might lose her life as a painter, she went to see the best eye surgeon in the world. After several weeks of delicate surgery and therapy, her eyesight was restored.

    The painter was so grateful that she decided to show her gratitude by repainting the doctor’s office. Part of her work included painting a gigantic eye on one wall. When she had finished her work, she held a press conference to unveil her latest work of art: the doctor’s office.

    During the press conference, one reporter noticed the eye on the wall, and asked the doctor, ‘What was your first reaction upon seeing your newly painted office, especially that large eye on the wall?’

    To this, the eye doctor responded, “I said to myself ‘Thank the Lord, I’m not a gynaecologist.'”

  10. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-uk-government-advisers-helped-pfizer-win-5-95billion-covid-vaccine-contract/

    In a new two-part report, Paula Jardine investigates apparent collusion between Pfizer and members of the expert advisory board to the UK Vaccine Taskforce. In July 2020, months before the December 2020 MHRA temporary use authorisation (TUA) for Pfizer’s vaccine was issued, discussions mooting this ‘sleight of hand’ means of opening the door to fast-tracking the FDA regulatory approval (required in Pfizer’s multi-billion dollar Operation Warp Speed contract with the US government) were taking place.

    A document found via Pfizer’s website shows that Pfizer began drafting the clinical trial protocol on December 5, 2019, four months before it announced its collaboration agreement with BioNTech to develop their Covid vaccine and well before China alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about the Wuhan pneumonias of ‘unknown cause’.

    1. One wonders whether there are pharmaceutical grapevines where concerned scientists can raise issues with colleagues so that they can get ahead of the game.

      I use game advisedly, because that is how it strikes me that these people are operating.

    2. It may well be that the disease existed long before the Chinese told us about it.

      I am pretty certain, given the symptoms later attributed to it, that I caught Covid on 12th November 2019, which had a second go at me around Christmas, and laid me low for over a year.

      Another mystery concerns the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, which I had in February 2021, after which the most debililtating effects – the relentless fatigue and the coughing – subsided somewhat, and I was able to get on with life. I have had Covid three times since, which come across as a bad cold that lasts just over a week. I received two more Pf jabs, but declined boosters last year and this.

      AZ works by allowing the infection, and then using T-cells to kill infected material. Pf works by triggering antibodies via dead covid cells that tackle the virus before they infect anything, but are vulnerable since Covid mutates like the common cold, and an antibody vaccine does not last for long.

      As for side effects, these probably vary with each person. I didn’t get the blood clotting associated with AZ, and only felt mildly ill after Pf. I felt though that it was probably not wise to load up my system with any more covid, dead or alive.

  11. Hmm.
    A BTL response to this,

    Pro-Palestine ‘From the river to the sea’ chant is anti-Semitic, says Braverman
    Home Secretary’s statement will be seen as signal for police to take tougher approach ahead of a second major protest
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/16/suella-braverman-rows-anti-israel-chant/

    R. Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Reply to Nicholas mills – view message
    Message Actions
    Like a dog lifting his leg against a tree, they’re marking their territory. They do not need a majority of Muslims to take over the country, they simply need the majority of the native population to be too scared to challenge them.

  12. BBC programme questions whether Hamas massacre took place
    Around 70 terrorists burst into the Kfar Aza kibbutz and murdered scores of residents, including families and babies

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/16/bbc-programme-questions-hamas-massacre/

    Here we go again. 9/11 never took place – the Muslims had nothing to do with the planes crashing into the Twin Towers!
    The Muslims have their truth – but others have other truths, and so much truth has been concealed that the waters can be deliberately muddied.

    Chaos umpire sits
    And and by decision more embroils the fray
    By which he rules.

    [John Milton: Paradise Lost]


    A BBC programme has raised questions about whether the Hamas massacre at Kfar Aza kibbutz had really taken place.

    On Oct 7, around 70 terrorists burst into the kibbutz, a farming community of 750, and murdered scores of residents, including families and babies.

    Trending, a programme on BBC Arabic, suggested there were different versions of the story and that even Jeremy Bowen, the corporation’s Middle East editor who went to the scene, was simply repeating what he had been told by Israeli forces.

    The original BBC headline said: “Hamas rejects accusations that its gunmen carried out atrocities in the Israeli Kfar Aza village.”

    The headline was later changed before the entire report was removed from the BBC website, and later from YouTube.

    A BBC spokesman said: “This report was quickly removed from BBC output as it failed to meet our editorial standards.

    “It should not have remained on YouTube, it has been taken down and we are looking into how it remained accessible.”

    It comes after the corporation admitted last week that it was “urgently investigating” claims that its journalists had appeared to justify the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas, a designated terrorist group.

    Reporters at BBC News Arabic in the Middle East appeared to celebrate an attack that left approximately 1,300 dead, endorsing comments likening Hamas to freedom fighters, as well as describing the atrocity as a “morning of hope”.

    Israeli soldiers walk through the remains of a residential area of Kfar Aza kibbutz
    Israeli soldiers walk through the remains of a residential area of Kfar Aza kibbutz CREDIT: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
    The BBC has also faced growing calls to call Hamas terrorists, rather than a “militant group”.

    The broadcaster has declined to refer to the group as “terrorists”, citing impartiality rules.

    Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today last week, Mishal Husain said the broadcaster adhered to Ofcom guidelines requiring that “news in whatever form is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality”, and said “all broadcasters” stuck to “the same language”.

    But hours later, the regulator said that it was “for the broadcasters to decide the vocabulary they use to describe unfolding events”.

    There is “no restriction” on the BBC calling Hamas fighters terrorists, Downing Street has said.

    Asked about the broadcaster’s decision not to use the description, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I think ministers have set out our position on this already.

    “The legal position is that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group – the term terrorist is an accurate legal description.

    “The BBC has described other attacks as terrorism – 9/11, 7/7, the Bataclan. To put it into context, the attack we witnessed in Israel was the third-deadliest terror attack in the world since 1970.

    “So there is no restriction on the BBC using that term, certainly not from Ofcom who have made it clear that, as long as they meet Ofcom rules on accuracy in news and due impartiality in news, it is for broadcasters to think about very carefully what they use to describe unfolding events.”

    He added: “A number of reporting organisations are accurately describing Hamas as a terrorist group. I think accuracy is important in the circumstances.”

    ‘Different versions of story’
    Reporting on the attack at Kfar Aza, Serena Ghokeh, a BBC Arabic presenter, suggested that reports of a massacre had come from Israeli soldiers but that there were different versions of the story.

    She introduced testimony from a local woman whose life had been spared by Hamas fighters as proof of a counter narrative.

    “BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen was able to enter the village and accompany the Israeli military unit that returned to the kibbutz after the fighting stopped,” she said.

    “According to what these soldiers said, they spent most of the day amidst the destruction, recovering the bodies of civilians. They told the BBC correspondent that a massacre took place in that place, which killed entire families.”

    Ms Ghokeh, who is based in London, went on to state that the commander of the Israeli military division that went into Kfar Aza had described how some victims were beheaded.

    She said there were pictures of Hamas fighters who were also killed and that such images “reflect a different picture” from the testimonies of the Israelis.

    The journalist also quoted an Israeli journalist who wrote on Twitter that he had been into Kfar Aza and found no evidence of children who had been killed.

    “The Hamas movement said in a statement that ‘in its operation, it targeted the Israeli military and security system’,” she added.

    “It rejected accusations that it had committed violations and added that the Western media must be accurate and not blindly side with the Zionist narrative, which is full of lies and slander.

    “Al-Qassam targeted the military and security system, which is a legitimate target, and the video clips from the field and the settlers’ witnesses confirm that civilians and children were spared.”

    “Dual-narrative tactic”
    A spokesman from the Arabic department of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, a US-based non-governmental organisation that campaigns for “accurate and balanced” coverage of Israel, said: “Between September 2022 and June 2023, we documented six reports in which the BBC itself admitted that its Arabic service wrongfully omitted the practice of targeting Jewish civilians in Israel, thus prompting necessary corrections to the output.

    “The ‘dual-narrative’ tactic, i.e. using speculations and half-truths to build an ‘alternative perspective’ that would discredit well-corroborated stories from Israel, is regrettably not new to BBC Arabic either.

    “Just last year, its Cairo bureau similarly fabricated a counter-narrative about an alleged Israeli war crime of killing defenceless Egyptian soldiers in 1967, all while interviewing conspiracy theorists as ‘experts’ and even giving platform to a Holocaust analogy.”

    He added that the video “combines the two methods to reach a new low of pseudo-journalism, underscoring once more the need for an open, public inquiry into the way the BBC covers Israeli and Jewish affairs. Particularly jarring is the BBC’s choice not to publicly apologise to their Arab audiences for having broadcast the video in the first place; three years ago, another BBC Trending item which whitewashed terrorism triggered such an apology only after three weeks”.

      1. I doubt any of them would be employable given how warped their minds are. Probably all become academics or work for the BBC.

    1. I may have a few out-of-date grenades that … just might not … er …. respond too well to handling by hysterical, butter-fingered dolts.
      I’ll nip out to the barn to check. Somewhere near the spare garden ornaments, I suspect.

  13. Balanced article from the Guardian.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/israel-invades-iran-intervenes-war-global
    Concluding paragraphs:

    The trend towards normalisation of relations between Arab states and Israel is anathema to Tehran. It especially hates the prospect – thought to be imminent – of an Israel-Saudi deal backed by US security guarantees. Normalisation has the potential to isolate Tehran politically and economically, unravelling its dreams of regional hegemony.
    The 7 October attack has shifted the balance back in Tehran’s favour. Public opinion in the Arab world is furious about Gaza. Sensing the mood, the Saudis have put the Israel deal on ice. Significantly, Raisi and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, held their first-ever talks last week. This turnabout represents a tangible war dividend for Tehran.
    All these factors combine to suggest a bullish Iran feels it has the wind at its back right now. Whether this newfound confidence, combined with a dangerous under-estimation of Israeli and American resolve, will induce Tehran to recklessly up the ante in the coming days is now the central question in this mega-crisis.
    A confrontation setting Israel and the US directly against Iran has rarely appeared closer. As Netanyahu keeps saying, this is just the beginning. The war with Hamas could be about to go global.

    1. The most obvious problem is, it is Iran that backs Hamas. Iran gets them to do their dirty work. With the prospect of nuclear bomb or more rockets landing in Israel. Or of course the other way round. And now with the mention of a global jihad, that seems to have already but quietly to date become global. With the ‘peaceful’ Islamic invasion of every single country on the planet.
      And Terrible murders in Sweden yesterday, two shot dead by a suspected Tunisan. In Sweden. I think this shows what the rest of the world needs to get on with.
      Or we are all in deep trouble.

      1. You will remember some months ago a report in the Sunday Times that the security services had prevented the

        detonation of a “dirty” nuclear bomb in Europe or Britain.

        We wonder whether another attempt will be made? and when?

        1. Terrible things will start to happen.
          I said only recently that I’m terrified for my grandchildren.

          1. Eddy, it’s interesting how few upvotes my comments received.

            It appears that only you and I are worried about the possibility.

          2. I worry all the time, Janet, and especially in those minutes before waking properly in the dawn onwards when the mind roams and free ranges. Anxiety is the name of the game and peace of mind is a quality that is vastly under-rated in these troublous times.

      2. There will be at least 25 million Muslims in “the West” and probably a lot more. For far too many of these we don’t actually know the first thing about their backgrounds. If even a mere 0.1% rise up in global jihad that’s 25,000 potential shooters, knifers and suicide bombers.
        It is equally bad throughout non Muslim Africa and Asia, but the numbers are worse.
        This whole affair in the ME has the potential to cause huge casualties world wide.

  14. Morning all 🙂😊
    Not too bright definitely grey.
    A bit like the bbc. Not what we pay for
    In any shape or form.
    Their opinions might go down well in broadcasting House. But not in the public domain. But that doesn’t seem to bother any of them.

    1. Excellent hard hitting selection this morning Rik!

      Rich pickings for Grumpy Old Gits, thank you.

    1. Ahem 2

      “Into my heart an air that kills
      From yon far country blows:
      What are those blue remembered hills,
      What spires, what farms are those?

      That is the land of lost content,
      I see it shining plain,
      The happy highways where I went
      And cannot come again.”

    1. Amazing.
      However, on August 10, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States paused the bankruptcy settlement and agreed to hear an appeal made by the United States Department of Justice as to the legality of the settlement that would shield the Sackler family from civil lawsuits over their role in the opioid epidemic. Oral arguments for the case, Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, L.P., were set for December 2023.

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

        1. I bet thar no NOTL contributor would be regarded by OFCOM as within a 100 miles of suitability for a position at OFCOM.

          1. We’re all far right Nazi’s as far as they’re concerned. Oh, the irony of the hypocrisy of the Left wing mind.

    1. You can bet your life the verdict will be, nothing to see here, move along now…

    2. Sunak didn’t comment on the specific charge i.e. the utterances of the Ofcom employee.

    3. I can tell you what OFCOM would find. Nothing. No cause to investigate, no bias, no problems. Absolutely business as usual, all OK if anything, too biased toward the rational ‘FAR RIGHT NAZI (which is, of course, Left wing) ideology.

    1. And me on messenger again.
      I wish I could reply, they seem to have blocked the previous chances of reaction.

    2. I won’t give them my mobile number, so I just receive the hard copy telling me to come in for the jabs.

      1. I raise your email with a visit to the GP surgery to discuss a blood test. Was sent to the wrong surgery. Then when i arrived at the right one they insisted on a prostate examination which i had already had. Total waste of the morning. No patients in either of the waiting rooms.

    3. I had an email. To opt out, it gave me a website. When I went there, it said it would contact my GP surgery. I didn’t bother; I’ve already told my GP surgery not to offer me jabs. Pity the NHS notifications hadn’t got the message.

      1. Thinking about it, I also had a text, but that didn’t last long enough for me to read all of it before I zapped it.

        1. Given that I have told my surgery (and they said they’d make a note of my refusal) it’s bordering on harrassment. Perhaps they think they’ll wear me down. They’ve got another think coming!

          1. I think it’s harassment. So far I’ve had four texts and two emails. I’m going to the surgery on Friday with OH and I will ask then for them to take me off their list.

    1. Do you have to book and register your car and all that nonsense? It’s a damned farce when you have to register your car, forget because you need the bigger boot and rock up with the wrong one and the wasters won’t let you in.

      1. You do for us. Mu husband has a standing weekly trip, whether he wants/needs to go or not.

      2. It’s a better system than than the lengthy queues we used to have. Straight in and out this morning.

  15. Good Moaning.

    See how long this comment lasts in the DT.

    “Here are words I never thought I’d write:

    “Well done, Belgian police.”

    Though somewhat qualified by these sentences:

    “As the alleged gunman was not living in an asylum centre, no effort was made to round him up and deport him back to his native Tunisia.

    The 45-year-old was eventually wiped from the national register in 2021.

    In his native Tunisia, he was known to the security services as having been radicalised and prepared to fight in a Jihadi conflict zone.”

    4* hotels in Blighty, anyone?”

      1. Is now the time for a right wing party to wipe out both the Labour and Conservative Parties?

        Any time is probably the right time – but it will never happen and England will soon become as Israel is and Northern Ireland was.

        1. For years I’ve been urging the little vote-splitting parties to amalgamate but there too many egos involved to get any clarity. I doubt I’ll ever vote again

          1. I have not voted in a UK general election since the 1980s.

            I did not vote after Margaret Thatcher was stabbed in the back by her party but I was in France and could have done so but I did not support either Neil Pillock nor Major – nor Blair in 1997.

            However I was v pissed off when Blair robbed me of my vote without making sure that UK nationals working in the EU could vote in the elections of the countries in which they had settled.

            And Cameron promised that those UK nationals living in EU countries would be allowed to vote in the Brexit referendum. But the miserable, sordid little t*rd broke his promise when he realised that most UK nationals living in EU countries were not at all pro-EU!

    1. UK Parliament has become a rubber stamp for a totalitarian agenda.

      Yes we know. Morning Jonathan.

    1. Of course he was. The Left will do anything to demonise those who expose their bigotry, spite and evil!

    2. It is ironic that at the time when Orwell was writing he was considered to be a radical of the Left.

      Now he is far more admired by those of us who are ‘right of centre’.

      Mind you I am not at all sure that he was entirely right about colonialism – his view was formed when he was in the Burmese Police Force. I have various collections of his essays on my shelves and I used to read some of these essays to my pupils to stimulate discussion. Shooting an Elephant is well worth a read:

      https://www.spcmc.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/George-Orwell-Shooting-an-Elephant.pdf

    1. The same thought had crossed my mind too!
      If Biden knew what he was doing, would he agree to go to Israel?

        1. That’s worrying that it’s likely true. He should be allowed to gracefully step down for his service and an interim appointed until the elections.

          He’s a liability to the Democrats and worse, to America and with this situation the whole world falls apart if he stands there bumbling like an idiot. We (the bloody world!) need clarity and precision.

          1. There’s a theory he might do just that and that the interim will then use Presidential pardons to let the Cosa-Bidens off the hook.

          2. Don’t you understand? He’s just a puppet for the deep state, and so would anyone else be whom they put in to replace him. They have absolute clarity and precision in what they are doing.

            Below is a conspiracy theory from a financial twitterer – take it or leave it. There is certainly a plan though, and it seems to involve a world war that will make a lot of money for the usual suspects, cover up for the financial chaos and allow governments to impose “war-time” aka draconian, anti-freedom laws.

            Financelot
            @FinanceLancelot
            “Conspiracy theory” time 👇
            Phase 1: Russia
            Phase 2: Middle East
            Phase 3: China

            Phase 1: Tie up Russia in the north so they’re unable to support their allies in the Middle East

            Phase 2: Pivot away from Russia leaving Europe to hold the bag.

            Provide strategic air support for Israel’s invasion. Claim you can’t commit ground troops because you’ve drained your Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) & all ammo supplies for Ukraine.

            Iran retaliates against the U.S. by “cyber attacking” critical infrastructure, galvanizing the public in retaliation against Iran. Blame them for causing the stock market crash & banking system collapse.

            Phase 3: Pivot to China providing naval support for all allies in the region, boxing them in after having destroyed their Belt and Road Initiative through the middle east.

            The entire world is at war & you’ve rebuilt your manufacturing base by selling all the weapons. This is exactly what the U.S. did from 1939-1944.

            This also saves the U.S. from the worst effects of the depression unleashed on the rest of the world, ensuring they recover first.

          3. The USA has managed since their Civil War to keep the fighting away from American soil. Pearl Harbour was a wake-up call for them to become involved in WW2 but still, the fight was not in their homeland, any more than the wars they’ve fomented since then. Supply the weapons seems to be their main focus.

          4. Don’t you understand? He’s just a puppet for the deep state, and so would anyone else be whom they put in to replace him. They have absolute clarity and precision in what they are doing.

            Below is a conspiracy theory from a financial twitterer – take it or leave it. There is certainly a plan though, and it seems to involve a world war that will make a lot of money for the usual suspects, cover up for the financial chaos and allow governments to impose “war-time” aka draconian, anti-freedom laws.

            Financelot
            @FinanceLancelot
            “Conspiracy theory” time 👇
            Phase 1: Russia
            Phase 2: Middle East
            Phase 3: China

            Phase 1: Tie up Russia in the north so they’re unable to support their allies in the Middle East

            Phase 2: Pivot away from Russia leaving Europe to hold the bag.

            Provide strategic air support for Israel’s invasion. Claim you can’t commit ground troops because you’ve drained your Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) & all ammo supplies for Ukraine.

            Iran retaliates against the U.S. by “cyber attacking” critical infrastructure, galvanizing the public in retaliation against Iran. Blame them for causing the stock market crash & banking system collapse.

            Phase 3: Pivot to China providing naval support for all allies in the region, boxing them in after having destroyed their Belt and Road Initiative through the middle east.

            The entire world is at war & you’ve rebuilt your manufacturing base by selling all the weapons. This is exactly what the U.S. did from 1939-1944.

            This also saves the U.S. from the worst effects of the depression unleashed on the rest of the world, ensuring they recover first.

        2. As a child, I always found The Emperor’s New Clothes tale very unsatisfying. I couldn’t believe that grown ups would let the Emperor parade around naked and not say anything.
          Since Biden became US President, I now understand it completely. It is not exaggerated at all!

      1. “I am here to condemn the IDF and Iran and support Israel in its fight against Hezbollamas and the kibitzers”

      2. Are we sure it isn’t Dave the double? I know that movie was meant to be fantasy but…

      1. In the 13th century free enquiry in Islam was ended, it is called “The closing of the door of ijtihad”. After that free enquiry was forbidden and even blasphemous because the doors were closed, all that was necessary for salvation had been learn and nothing else needed to be understood. In effect Islam lives in the time prior to the closing of the doors and so do strict Muslims who feel they have nothing to learn that is essential to life. It is an attitude that accounts for the backwardness of the Islamic world. What need is there to learn if we have everything we need to look forward to the life to come in Paradise? And because the most efficient way to attain paradise is through martyrdom you have, in Islam, what is essentially a death cult. Hence the Muslim remark that we love death more than they (non-Muslims) love life.

        So yes, the Muslims haven’t changed, they see no need to change. On the contrary, change is a threat to Islam and that is why any attempt to modernize is seen as heresy worthy of death. So that is the mind set we are faced with. Israel is dealing with this now, we will be forced to deal with it tomorrow. It will come to our towns, villages and streets because we have a government that refuses to recognize, despite the evidence of Islamic fundamentalism, in such places as Iran and Pakistan and groups such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas etc that there is a threat that eventually will assert itself. Throughout Islamic history it has always, without exception, asserted itself and brought down superior civilizations and bent them to its will. To us places like Pakistan are underdeveloped but the truth is in Islamic terms, Pakistan is just fine, it is perfect for the needs of Muslims to achieve what is needed from the point of view of Islamic teaching and if they were to reduce Britain to the same state that would be excellent as long as it meant the triumph of Islam in this island.

  16. Re the Australian NO vote. Does this remind you of Brexit and the remain crowd?

    Thomas Mayo: How Voice Yes campaigner gave fiery speech to supporters moments before landslide No decision – and warned: ‘We’re not taking No for an answer!’
    Thomas Mayo refused to accept vote result on the Voice
    Yes campaign boss dismissed defeat and blasted ‘lies’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12638647/Thomas-Mayo-Voice-referendum.html

    How states and territories are forging ahead with their own Voice and treaties despite a resounding referendum defeat
    States plan ahead following Voice disaster
    Most have committed to treaty and truth telling

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12637781/How-states-NSW-Queensland-Victoria-Voice-treaties-referendum-defeat.html

    TV hosts Waleed Aly and Patricia Karvelas have been criticised after they claimed the No vote on the Voice was driven by less-educated Australians who may not have fully grasped the complexities of the issue.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12637939/Waleed-Aly-ABC-hosts-slammed-comments-No-voters.html

    1. “Less educated” is a good choice of words in an era when the over-educated are increasingly the most profoundly ignorant.

      1. The old adage of education is what you have left when you’ve forgotten what you learned at school.

      2. Oi! I have several degrees (so could be considered “over-educated”) – I voted to LEAVE! 🙂

  17. Good morning all.

    Slight breeze and it is building up so another good drying morning for clothes on the line , 11c and feeling chilly.

    I attended a meeting last night , usual monthly PC thing, and the gobblydegook stuff increases .. nothing apart from holes in the road being patched and faster internet etc .

    As we were leaving and going back to our cars in the car park , I was chatting to another lady when a couple of young lads probably 10 year olds came by us from their youth club in the village building adjacent, and one of them belched loudly almost in our faces, I exclaimed and said that was very rude , and the little brat then came closer and said … Do you wanna another , and belched again… they were were both laughing and rather threatening .

    Kids these days are so bold and insolent , no respectful behaviour to their elders .. is this because family units are now so broken that they have no contact with older people etc , and that their own groups are so child orientated / youth clubs / football/ gaming or do they have immature parents ..

    In modern parlance … Yeah , what ever !

    1. The little twerp merited a clip on the ear but had you done that you would have been prosecuted for child abuse and assault.

      I suppose that if you described the little oiks to the person running the Youth Club he/she/it would have said that the children had every right to express their feelings and would not even have reprimanded them.

      1. The ladies would probably have been arrested. The pleece have respect the older generation any longer.

    2. That’s the kind of behaviour that I saw about twenty five years ago in the back streets of Plymouth. In a village…shocking.

    3. They are brought up to learn no manners. Maybe their feckless parents know no better, either.

        1. I was a single parent for several years while my sons were in their teens. They may have been earthy at home but people did say what nice, polite boys they were when they visited their friends.
          My mother was a single parent and she would have been mortified if I’d behaved like those boys Belle mentioned. I think she would have had something to make me learn some manners.

  18. zerohedge
    @zerohedge
    Stockholm To Ban Gas And Diesel Cars Starting In 2025

    I assume ‘gas’ means petrol. This might go the same way as Feminist Snow-Clearing. Don’t they EVER learn??

    1. “The term gasoline originated from the trademark terms Cazeline and Gazeline, which were stylized spellings and pronunciations of Cassell, the surname of British businessman John Cassell, who, on 27 November 1862, placed the following fuel-oil advertisement in The Times of London:

      The Patent Cazeline Oil, safe, economical, and brilliant […] possesses all the requisites which have so long been desired as a means of powerful artificial light.[12]”

      Coined from Medieval Latin, the word petroleum (L. petra, rock + oleum, oil) initially denoted types of mineral oil derived from rocks and stones.[15][16] In British English usage, the word petrol was the name of a product sold in the 1870s; as a trademark, the term Petrol identified a refined mineral oil product that was sold at market as a solvent, by the British wholesaler Carless Refining and Marketing Ltd.[17] Later, when the petrochemical product petrol found a new use as a motor fuel, Frederick Simms, an associate of Gottlieb Daimler, suggested to John Leonard, owner of Carless, that they register the trademark the word and uppercase spelling Petrol,

      Wikipedia

      Knowing this I have always thought that ‘gas’ makes more sense. As much as Hoover for a vacuum cleaner at any rate.

      1. In America, ‘gas’ might mean one of three different things – petrol, natural gas, or flatulence.

      2. Gas to me means the stuff that powers a gas cooker. Oil and gas may come from rocks but they are different.

  19. Rishi Sunak was brave to call Hamas massacre a pogrom

    The Prime Minister’s words were a rebuke to those who disgracefully believe that Hamas was somehow driven to savagery by politics

    JAKE WALLIS SIMONS • 16 October 2023 • 9:00pm

    The vexed question of terminology has become a flashpoint in the moral battle between those Britons who are disgusted by Hamas and those jihadi cheerleaders in the ranks of the progressives.

    While the BBC has caused outrage by refusing to call Hamas “terrorists”, Downing Street has been taking up the cudgels on the other side of the argument. But it is the Prime Minister’s use of the word “pogrom” on Monday to describe the atrocities that carries even more significance.

    In a statement to the House of Commons, Rishi Sunak said: “We should call it by its name. It was a pogrom.” He then called for the “immediate release of all hostages” and added: “We stand with Israel.” Within his choice of words was a rebuke to those who disgracefully believe that Hamas was somehow driven to savagery by politics.

    Commentary on the butchery in Israel has been divided into two camps. One side might acknowledge the horror but equivocates, believing that political disputes with Israel were somehow responsible for the eruption of medieval butchery. The other correctly acknowledges that Hamas is motivated by something much older and very much darker. That is where the term “pogrom” comes in.

    The word itself appeared in English in the 19th century, deriving from a Russian word meaning “to destroy”. It was first used to describe the orgies of violence that plagued Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement, a region of western Russia to which Jews were confined.

    Perhaps the best-known example was the Nazi attacks of 1938 known as “Kristallnacht”, or the night of broken glass, the tipping-point when the Holocaust erupted fully into the open.

    Another notorious pogrom was seared into the Jewish collective memory on Easter Day 1903, in Kishinev in Moldova, then part of the Russian empire. Forty-nine Jews were massacred after being falsely accused of killing two youngsters to use their blood in ritual cooking.

    “Babies were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob,” The New York Times reported. “At sunset, the streets were piled with corpses and wounded.”

    Rather less well-known – but perhaps more relevant today – were the pogroms that blighted the Middle East. Foremost in that grim parade was the 1941 “Farhud” rampage in Iraq, in which up to 600 people were murdered. Women had their breasts cut off while babies were dismembered.

    Persian Jews built a network of tunnels in the Mahala, or Jewish quarter, through which to escape, while Moroccan Jews were locked up at night in Mellahs, or fortified quarters.

    After Israel was born, massacres took place everywhere from Aleppo to Aden. In 1967, after the Six Day War, the Great Synagogue of Tunis was razed and 19 Jews were murdered in Libya.

    Fast-forward to the Israel of today, and babies are being torn to pieces once again. Again there is rape, mutilation, torture and burning to death. This was no political act. That is why the Prime Minister was brave and right to name the atrocity: a pogrom amid centuries of pogroms.

    Jake Wallis Simons is editor of the Jewish Chronicle and author of ‘Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred and What To Do About It’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/16/rishi-sunak-hamas-massacre-pogrom-israel-jews-holocaust/

    The Fakir gets gets a fair bit of praise BTL for this and Max Headroom the opposite for his equivocation, the latter presumably influenced by those of his backbenchers who were upset to hear the P-word.

    It’s still just a word though…

  20. What liberals say about Israel… and what they really mean

    Centrist hypocrisy over Islamist terror: a helpful beginner’s guide

    MICHAEL DEACON, Columnist • 17 October 2023 • 7:00am

    For middle-class British liberals, these are uncomfortable times. Unlike the Left, they don’t necessarily hate Israel – but they are desperate to avoid incurring the disapproval of high-status, progressive-minded people at dinner parties or on social media. Over the past 10 days, therefore, they’ve had to take a lot more care than usual when opining on the news.

    So, to help make sense of their agonised squirming, here’s a guide to what British liberals are saying about Israel – and what they really mean.

    What liberals say: “This whole issue is incredibly complex. Our debate needs to be much more nuanced.”

    What they mean: “If I voice support for Israel, my friends might think I’ve turned into a Tory. So, to avoid this horrifying fate, I’m hastily going to take refuge behind a load of non-committal wishy-washy platitudes about ‘both sides’, and pretend that there’s something ‘complicated’ about condemning the slaughter of Jews by a mob of genocidal racists.”

    What liberals say: “Tory pundits must stop attacking the BBC for refusing to call Hamas ‘terrorists’. A responsible, impartial, public service broadcaster has to avoid taking sides.”

    What they mean: “Because I perceive the BBC to hold the same liberal biases as I do, I will always automatically defend it. In this particular case, I’m determined to overlook the screamingly obvious point that, by refusing to call Hamas ‘terrorists’, the BBC is, consciously or not, taking a side: the side of people who think Hamas aren’t terrorists.”

    What liberals say: “The Right are such hypocrites. First they attack Gary Lineker for expressing an opinion on politics – now they attack him for not expressing an opinion on politics!”

    What they mean: “Again, because I perceive Gary to be ‘one of us’, I will always defend him, and so am studiously avoiding the actual point here – which is that, if you’re going to tweet that the Tory Government’s language on immigration reminds you of ‘Germany in the 30s’, you’d better also tweet that the slaughter of Jews reminds you of ‘Germany in the 30s’. Because, if you don’t, it makes your original tweet look even more brainlessly juvenile than it did in the first place.”

    What liberals say: “Why does the media seem to care so much more about Israeli victims than it does about the victims of Israel? Don’t the victims of Israel matter too?”

    What they mean: “Remember how, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, goody-goody liberals like me merrily ridiculed the type of low-status, Brexity gammon who insisted that ‘All lives matter’? Please forget about that. We certainly have.”

    What liberals say: “No one should feel forced to comment on what’s happening in the Middle East. It’s OK not to voice an opinion on every single issue in the news.”

    What they mean: “Please help me. I’m just so pitifully terrified of expressing a view that strays from the progressive consensus on Twitter, in case it causes fashionable people to look down on me. Oh, why can’t this whole horrid business just go away?”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/17/what-liberals-say-about-israel-and-what-they-really-mean

  21. Just to note – the online harm bill could have us entirely shut down – permanently, forever. Us all identified and controlled, assets seized.

    And folk think we are a democracy. This country is disgusting – and worse? It’s an EU law.

    1. Anyone who still thinks the U.K. is a democracy needs their head examined. We ceased being democratic when we voted to leave the EU. And never did.

      1. We weren’t a democracy before that but we never realised. It was the remainers who brought it into the light.

    1. Jewish people do not like tattoos, which are frowned upon by their religion and culture. OK for the Royal Navy.

      1. My father and father in law served over 10 years in the army and did not have any tattoos.

        1. My father in law (1st one) had a small one from his wartime service. Second f-i-l had none. Neither husband had any.

  22. Bombing of Gaza must stop immediately, Iran’s supreme leader says. 17 October 2023.

    Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the bombing of Gaza must stop “immediately”.

    “No one can confront Muslims and the resistance forces if the Zionist regime’s crimes against Palestinians continue … the bombardment of Gaza must stop immediately,” Khamenei told a group of students in Tehran.

    “The world is witnessing the Zionist regime’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said to chants of “Death to Israel”.

    The comments from the supreme leader came just hours after the Iranian foreign minister said that “preemptive measures” could be taken against Israel within a matter of hours by the “resistance” forces.

    I obviously don’t know for certain that WW3 is on the way but it is looking increasingly likely.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/17/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hamas-gaza-day-11-live/

    1. Minty, you must be the life and soul of parties. However, if you look at the broader picture, the world needs resources but has an excess of human beings.

    2. Gosh, I do hope that the entire Muslim population of the Middle East will not need replacing. But, if it does, we have cheap no-job lot of about 4.5 millions available.

    3. Don’t think so Araminta. The Iranians have a problem, the population of Iran is pro-American/Western and anti the regime. The regime is on very shaky ground, politically, to start a war. All the Israelis would have to do is bomb the Iranian oil fields and then the loud mouther Ayatollahs would be in a pickle. They are, already, an economic mess. So I think they will shout, hoot and bombast the day away with ultimatums that come and go and do very, very little.

      1. Rackham is right but omits to mention that the act of direct intervention by Iran was not, as it appears – and I speak under correction here – mentioned. The opening of a northern front by Hezbollah is another matter altogether, and we shall learn a lot by the speed – or hopefully lack of speed – of such a move. I would expect caution from Hezbollah given the many questions about how the original attack was mounted.

        Hoot and bombast, by all means, but the Iran-Iraq war showed the Iranian capability for facing war.

      2. It doesn’t help us that because of vaccuous idiocy we buy a lot of gas from them. Truly, some days you want to take the government outside, smack them about with a crowbar and then shoot them in the head for condemning us for their own arrogant greed.

  23. Well – that was a fun morning! At least it’s nice and sunny out there, if a little breezy.

    We went to the tip, then on to the dentist, where OH had an appointment. It was a long one. He’s now wondering how he’s going to take the dentist’s advice and cut down his sugar intake, to preserve the last few natural teeth he has left.

  24. Well – that was a fun morning! At least it’s nice and sunny out there, if a little breezy.

    We went to the tip, then on to the dentist, where OH had an appointment. It was a long one. He’s now wondering how he’s going to take the dentist’s advice and cut down is sugar intake, to preserve the last few natural teeth he has left.

  25. Britain is about to abandon persecuted Christians. 17 October 2023.

    Our success in standing up for religious freedom is something Britain – and the Conservatives – can be proud of. Rishi Sunak’s government should now take the next step and make a long-term commitment to this cause, before it is too late.
    .
    What unutterable claptrap. It is erasing Christianity here in the UK!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/17/britain-is-about-to-abandon-persecuted-christians/

  26. Given that the people who set this puzzle know very well what the most popular starter word is, this was shirley a gift.

    Wordle 850 2/6

    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Only four here

      Wordle 850 4/6

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

    2. Wrong starter here
      Wordle 850 5/6

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

    3. I obviously don’t know the most popular starter word!
      Wordle 850 3/6
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  27. Parents aren’t being told the awful truth about sex education in schools

    The Prime Minister should make good on his promise to let parents know what their children are being taught

    MIRIAM CATES • 17 October 2023 • 7:00am

    When we wave our children off to school in the morning, most parents won’t give a second thought to what they will be learning about that day. We assume that they are being taught a knowledge-based syllabus in maths, English and the rest.

    Most parents are relaxed about the curriculum because we trust schools: we trust that lesson content is appropriate and that, should we wish to know precisely what’s being taught, we can look at the textbooks and worksheets our children bring home or ask their class teacher.

    But when it comes to Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), this trust is in short supply. Too many examples of shocking RSE materials have come to light, containing graphic and sexualised content that is deeply inappropriate for children.

    Campaigners, journalists and MPs have exposed outrageous resources that promote gender identity theory, encourage children to discuss “sexual pleasure” and describe extreme sex acts. The prevalence of these dreadful materials appears to have increased since 2019, when the Department for Education introduced compulsory RSE in schools. A lack of clear guidance opened the door to a Wild West of third-party sex education “providers” – many espousing extreme political views – to sell their content into the classroom.

    The fact that these “resources” are being shown to children should be a source of deep unease. But what compounds the scandal is that, in many cases, parents are refused the right to view what their own children will be shown. Despite the Education Secretary writing to all schools reminding them of their duty of transparency, London mother Clare Page recently lost a battle to view her daughter’s sex education resources when a tribunal ruled that the “commercial interests” of the sex education firm outweighed the public interest in seeing the material.

    Page has been hugely courageous in waiving her anonymity, but I know many other parents who have also reached the point of despair. Exposing a child to sexualised material and keeping it secret is a violation of parents’ rights and children’s safety. No one is more invested in a child’s welfare than their parents, and anything – or anyone – seeking to detach a child from parental protection without good cause presents a serious safeguarding risk.

    That’s why I have presented a Relationships and Sex Education (Transparency) Bill that would give parents the right to view all resources used in the teaching of RSE. This Bill would ensure that any third-party resources purchased by a school are published, so that these taxpayer-funded materials are open to wider public scrutiny.

    In his speech to Tory party conference this month, the Prime Minister said: “It shouldn’t be controversial for parents to be able to know what their child is being taught”. The public agrees, with recent polling revealing that 71 per cent of people think parents should have the legal right to see sex education materials.

    This Bill has the backing of more than 70 Conservative MPs. With the King’s Speech just weeks away, the Government has a window to introduce it. If the sex education “experts” have nothing to hide, I trust they, too, will welcome this chance to enshrine such an uncontroversial parental right in law.

    Miriam Cates is the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/17/parents-arent-being-told-awful-truth-about-sex-education/

    Given the treatment of Andrew Bridgen on the same subject, her bill has no chance of success.

    1. If parents reacted an complained. Teachers who have a modicum of moral fibre would strike over this.

    2. They are all thinking about it back to front. It’s always more regulation, more state control, more state allowing the parent to be involved. They never ever consider ‘what if the state got out of education entirely?’ It’s never to do less, to remove stonewall from government influence, never to just go away.

      I know she thinks she is helping, but all she is really doing is adding ever more weight to a nonsense. With school vouchers parents would be required to take an interest in their children’s education. If the child grows up uneducated well, that’s their fault but in a world without welfare that kid will starve, as will the parent.

      1. I agree. Remove the obligation for children to attend filth classes, and you’ll soon find that the schools would share the materials when they circulated among parents and nobody turned up.

  28. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f70a47dcf8d7fb4b2ed65906a8dd4d50703f6ba300f0a3ee09c9cd0f0324050.png

    Does a mayor have the authority to ban/control what is bought and sold in the area he/she is mayor? Banning particular foodstuffs and applying rationing would require legislation from the government, wouldn’t it?
    I think some clarification from our government is required, although the WEF element in that disreputable organisation probably agree with Khan’s stance.

    Daily Sceptic – Khan Signs up Londoners for Food Rationing

      1. Tony – who detested the EU – must have turned in his grave at the treachery of his deludedly repulsive son.

      1. What a moron saying eating greens will help climate change – is the guy stupid? Eating greens produces gas which hardly helps

      2. I dare the twat (or any cretin like him) to attempt to tell me to eat less meat and eat weeds in its place.

        1. Trouble is Grizz. Twats like him are calling the shots. Unlike in Sweden obvs. That’s gang warfare like Chicago for the last 100 years.
          All those left wing mayors. All those left wing governments. Do you think any of them will allow you to eat whatever meat farmed is left for you?

          1. Where are the Left-wing governments? Sweden’s experiment with socialist policies in the 1970s to 1990s failed, they then realised that market forces dominate so the governments here since have been market driven. Yes, you get the occasional idiot, like Fredrik Reinfeldt who opened the doors to Africa and the middle east, but those in charge since have realised what a huge mistake he made.

      3. How is that date relevant and to whom did he make the pledge?

        The point is, from where or from whom does he draw, or thinks he draws, the authority to make these life changing decisions for the masses in London? He can make as many pledges as he wants but if he does not have the authority to realise his pledges then he is just another empty political vessel making a lot of noise.

    1. He’s already ventured outside the remit of his appointment, with his ulez scheme inside the perimeter of the M25.
      He seems to have become a self appointed dictator.
      Time to get rid.

    2. Given that most people need 0.75g of protein per kilo of body weight per day this would lead to emaciated, unhealthy people. We, as a people should be eating vastly more protein, not less.

      All the more reason to get rid of all the muslims – this runt would go with them.

    1. Yet.. ffolk know what I’ll say. To the Left green isn’t about the environment. They couldn’t care less. The ecomentalist deceit that is the tax scam of climate change is simply another measure of social control.

  29. My weather forecast for Wednesday. by The Met Office.

    Cloudy and occasionally windy through Wednesday with rain turning
    heavier and more persistent through the afternoon and evening. Perhaps
    drier after dusk. Coastal gales likely. Trending milder. Maximum
    temperature 7 °C.

    Not quite the same as the media are pushing.

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ac16c9a6f1053bd664b6e37c9146781985b67bbc536fda2e992535f3848d6d4.jpg Yesterday I roasted — then pressure-cooked in beef stock — some pieces of oxtail. After removing the meat from the bones I put some chunks of beef chuck steak in the pressure cooker with the reserved stock, 200g butter, and a little black pepper, and pressure-cooked it for 45 minutes. When cooled I added the oxtail meat to the cooked chuck steak, then whizzed it all in the food processor to make a batch of good old-fashioned, intensely beefy, potted beef, which has filled six ramekin dishes. It is utterly yummy. It is quite solid when refrigerated (due to the butter content) but 15 seconds in the microwave oven returns it to a spreadable lusciousness.

    I have already given two of them away (to Bertil, Inge’s brother; and to Bengt, my neighbour). Two are in the freezer and I had a good-sized portion today with my Tuesday meal. I remember potted beef being a staple of my childhood, to such an extent that I got heartily sick of the stuff. It is only when you don’t have it for a number of years that you hanker for it and remember just how delicious it is.

    1. Same for me with breast of lamb. We had it quite often as kids but after I joined the Army, I never saw it until I was posted to Maastricht and because it was a NATO post, we had no formal Sergeants’ mess so I lived in a flat. The NA AFI shop sold breast of lamb so I had some, rolled and stuffed. I’d forgotten how good it was and still have it now and again.

      1. You’ve done it now. My next task is to source some decent breast of lamb. Not an easy task in a country that is suspicious of lamb, hogget and mutton (they’ve persuaded themselves that it tastes like wool).

        I keep failing to persuade the butchers to cut me some standard single lamb chops and cutlets, not doubles, and without annihilating half the rib bones and removing all the delicious and nourishing fat by idiotically “French-trimming” them (Why, FFS?)

        1. Proper Lamb comes from Wales. If you buy it from anywhere else it comes with the blessings of Allah. (NZ and Aus).

          Lamb chops and cutlets are both cuts of meat taken from the rib section of the lamb. However, lamb chops are generally larger and have a bone while lamb cutlets are smaller and have been trimmed of most of the fat and bone. Have you ever tried Noisette of Lamb? Just asking because all that extra fat and bone makes a superb sauce. When you know what you are doing…A squeeze of orange juice into the jus works wonders too.

          At a push you could even stick it all in a pie and amaze your neighbours.

          1. Are you forgetting proper English lamb? Noisette of lamb is good – boned and rolled and very easy to cook.

          2. In my catering days it was quite popular for set dinners – cooked as a whole piece and carved before serving. Very tender and tasty.

          3. Yes, I know the difference between a cutlet and a chop, they are two of my favourite bits of lamb. I was watching a video of a Greek woman cook who was going berserk at those who insist on removing all the meat and fat from the rib bones on chops I was cheering her! She rightly said that having the meat and fat arbitrarily trimmed off is destroying the tastiest bit of the chop (I agree with her with knobs on!). Gnawing on those ribs is what made me a strapping lad in my youth. I also love roast shoulder of lamb. it is FAR tastier than the leg and it’s cap of skin and fat is sensationally delicious. By far the most delicious lamb I’ve eaten came from Norfolk and north Scotland (not far from Spikey) where the sheep graze on salt marshes and on the seaweed on the beach. I’ve not tried noisette of lamb (to my knowledge) but I’ve had cannon of lamb, crown roast and guards of honour but not bloody “French-trimmed”.

          4. “The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat.
            Pick it up with your fingers, and enjoy the full treat.”

            Last part of a rhyme I saw, framed, on the wall of a restaurant some decades ago.

        2. Why, FFS?
          Let’s take it from the top.

          From a rack remove all bone. Stick in your stock pot. You are now left with a loin with a blanket of fat which you can trim down as much or as little as you like. All trimmings into the stock pot. Place the lamb in the fridge and make and cool the stock. Skim off the fat.

          Roll and tie the loin and then pan roast for 5 minutes in the reserved lamb fat continually rolling in butter and herbs.

          Oven bake for 10 minutes. Rest for 20.
          Reduce skimmed stock to a jus.
          Now serve it to me.
          With a napkin…………… :@)

  31. Swedish muppet arrested in London this morning.

    How on earth did she get here without using the fuel she wants banned?

        1. I’m looking forward to seeing her on Mastermind. Her specialist subject being ‘How to annoy people without opening your mouth’.

    1. It looks lovely, Alec. Most jealous. What sort of power do you get from the solar array, if I might ask? Could I be rude and ask what it cost?

      1. I installed the panels (the 16 maximum for a domestic property) 9 years ago at a cost of £6k, they give up to 4.5Kw. At the moment I get about 20p/Kwh for what I generate plus 5p/Kwh for what is deemed to be exported to the grid. I don’t think these are the rates for later installations. They have paid for themselves now and I’m on a profit. My DD to OVO for electricity is £35 a month which more than covers me for the year. The beauty of it is that as I’m home most of the day I can use the electricity as it’s generated and still get paid for it, furthermore before any excess goes to the grid it is routed through my immersion heater (quite legally) thus giving me hot water free although in winter the CH provides this.

    2. Impressive!
      Well done.

      I have something similar in my garden, built by the previous owner, but I also have another giant stack against the wall, covered in nothing but a tarpaulin.

      1. Hmm, a “giant stack against the wall, covered in nothing but a tarpaulin”, for some reason that reminds me of Raquel Welch posing in One Million Years BC.

      1. Thanks Grizz – I’ve just got to get the chainsaw out now and fill it
        BTW the overflow from the bin goes underground to a soakaway under the trees to the right

  32. Egypt does not want Gaza’s refugees and now Jordan says its borders are closed to them too. Do liberals in the West ever stop to think that when even Muslims nations, supposedly friends of the Palestinians reject them, that the problem is not with Israel but with these false claimants to the land of Israel? I have been called, over the last few days, a ‘racist and a bigot,’ and snidely, an ‘expert’, simply for the crime of having lived in that part of the world and thus knowing something about it first hand. Yet here are the Palestinian neighbours, their friends who don’t want to touch them with the proverbial barge pole and react in much the same way as I do. The threat of the dreaded mother in law visit! But it makes me reflect on Western Liberals. They are quick to throw insults your way when you tell the truth but are blind when your attitude is corroborated by non-Palestinian Arabs and others, who see Palestinians as a problem to be avoided. I have come to the conclusion that Western Liberals are actually inheritors of Imperialism, so arrogant in the belief of the superiority of their mind set that it dismisses not only other Western ways of thinking but even dismisses the possibility that people from other cultures do not think like Westerners, do not want and do not appreciate Western Liberal ideology or even want Western values. Western Liberalism does not see other people for who or what they are but as objects to be submissive, subsumed and grateful for the ‘benefits of ‘Liberals’. It is an incredible arrogance that even the most Victorian Imperialist would have been embarrassed about a ‘manifest destiny’ attitude on steroids. Liberalism dismisses other cultures, indeed, it refuses to see them other than as little people who need to be saved.

      1. The snide remark was made on here. But when it comes to disagreements laced with hostility, I wait and reply the next day so as not to drag other people in. It was not a remark made by one of our regular NOTTLERS who are always decent. It was a pop in liberal most likely a bleed over from Conservative Women which seems to be infected with Liberals.

        1. It is always best to sleep on replies to personally hostile comments, wherever it happens.

    1. I also think that there is a deliberate and calculated element of using those particular Arabs to act as a thorn in Israel’s side.
      They don’t want them themselves, so they might as well make some use of them.

      1. Jordanians especially are decent people. My step father was especially partial to them. Egyptians on the other hand, I quote: “Bloody Egyptians!”

        1. It’s sometimes easy to forget how very different people who live under the same blanket term can be.
          Arabs, Blacks, Whites, etc

    2. I posted the following (forget where) some years ago:

      Once we had a ruling class which led us to military, industrial and imperial glory from the Manor House, the pulpit and the board rooms of industry.

      This class has been replaced with a new order which seeks to leads us to social, environmental and multicultural glory, from the dinner party tables of Hampstead, from tax-funded quangoes of the “third sector” and from the studios of the BBC.

      The problem with the latter is that they don’t realise that they are as presumptuous as the former in assuming it is their duty to lead the lower orders down the paths of righteousness.

      Having said that, at least the old order had some backbone – I can’t imagine the likes of Toynbee and Monbiot leading their retinues off on some pointless military or colonial venture – anything which requires physical courage seems beyond them.

    3. The worst thing about Western Liberals is that they reject Western Civilisation. Geert Wilders pointed out on Facebook the other day that the “two state solution” already exists. Jordan was created for the “Palestinians” at the same time as the modern State of Israel was established to be the Jewish homeland but as you say, Jordan doesn’t want the trouble makers.

    4. This huge crisis goes back in history , and the British and the French in the 1930’s and 40’s are responsible for the huge divisions , separations and loyalties in Arab countries .. partitions and disagreements cost many British lives , Arab lives and Jewish lives before Israel as we now know it is , including Lebanon and Syria

      The middle east is a mess .

      If 6 million Jews pushed Arabs to one side into the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the late 1940s , imagine us being overwhelmed by Muslims . Our huge cities becoming Muslim enclaves.

      Both sides encouraged their own terrorists and now actually, no good is going to come of anything anyone does because terrorists from all quarters have sealed the fate of the middle east

      The Muslim brotherhood is powerful , and I think it is goodbye to all that.

      I hope I am wrong .

      1. Hallo Belle! Politically, in terms of carving out the various countries in the middle east, you are right. I have no doubt you have read all about Gertrude Bell, L. of Arabia et al. but the fact is that the ‘huge mess’ is not the responsibility of the French or British, it is the rabid intolerance of Islam and the evil mindset against non-Muslims, especially Jews, that has engendered the present crisis. And it should not be forgotten that since the takeover of the area the Muslims have also systematically erased, destroyed, or driven out, Christians, Mandeans, and any other religious group that is not Muslim. Hatred of the other is the stock in trade of Islam. Groups that were there long before Islam and have more claim to being there than any Muslim are all being erased. Whist the West says nothing.

        1. Hello and good morning Johnathan .

          Yes , indeed you are quite correct .

          My father and several other friends of his were concerned with the march of Islam , and when we lived in Khartoum before we lived in Egypt and then afterwards , he was convinced that there would be global problems with Islam .

          I have an old battered journal which was written before the fall of General Gordon . Several British Army officers were scouts and their journey is incredible .. the enthusiasm of the Muslims for the march of the Mahdi .

          1. I think I mentioned this some time ago. There is a Tibetan Buddhist text called The Kalacakra, the Wheel of Time. In it Muslims are named in the context of a prophecy that eventually there will be a war instigated by Islam which will pit the rest of the world against them in one almighty conflict. The uncomfortable thing about this prophecy is that we have actually entered the period when this war would begin according to the text. The Kalacakra Tantra was written over 1000 years ago. So for at least 1000 years the danger of Islam has been recognized.

          1. I know it is a vain, pointless wish but I believe that Islam should be outlawed in the UK. Preferably in the whole of Europe.

          2. You see , I blame this glorying of acceptance of Muslims and other cultures in the Uk on the holiday travel industry.. Everyone has been everywhere now . A fortnight in the sun anywhere where there are tourist traps and a bit of sunshine have warped opinions .

            People do not study history and anyway , anyone who has worked in a Muslim country usually has a different opinion .

  33. Half the US Navy is steaming hotfoot towards the Middle East, and apparently Congress is drafting legislation allowing them to go to war against Iran.
    I suppose the evil elites have decided that a nice, profitable new war is the in colour this year. Lots of lovely money, plus they can blame the financial crisis on it, AND put draconian rationing and regulations on the little people! What’s not to like??

    Slight snag, they announced the rationing before they had declared the war; a few peasants might spot that.

    1. It would be a short war. The Ayatollahs, I have no doubt, arranged their bolt holes already. The writing has been on the wall for them for some time.

    2. Hmm
      I wonder how a carrier battle group would cope with a swarm of 10.000 or 50,000 drones Iranian tech in this area is pretty good………

    1. This is what is inevitable when the only planet known to harbour intelligent life forms is overrun by a sub-standard species.

      Planet earth is a living organism. Mankind is a deadly virus.

    2. That is the sort of cartoon that will be used in school history books in the future to teach the children that WW3 broke out when violence spontaneously erupted in the Middle East.

      1. What makes you think there will still be history books to record what happened, let alone why?

        1. Oh come on! the regime ALWAYS has history books!
          I may be wrong, but I don’t think the world will be obliterated by nuclear weapons. If I am wrong, you will be free to say I told you so! :-p

  34. Richard Madeley apologises after facing massive backlash for asking British-Palestinian MP Layla Moran if she ‘had any indication’ about Hamas’ terror attack on Israel

    Why?
    It was a perfectly reasonable question to ask, after the event, if there was any hint on the ground. Particularly given her role as someone who might have more knowledge than most of what happens in the area.

    When in banking I often got asked if I had heard any rumours regarding takeovers before they were suddenly announced.
    The simple answer was that one almost never did, but once in a while someone might let something slip, but certainly nothing sufficient to act upon, even if it wasn’t illegal to insider trade. With the benefit of hindsight it was clear that they had spoken out of turn but at the time it appeared to be nothing significant.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12640651/Richard-Madeley-apologises-facing-massive-backlash-asking-British-Palestinian-MP-Layla-Moran-indication-Hamas-terror-attack-Israel.html

    1. I suppose it depends how he phrased it. “Were any rumours circulating?” might be more acceptable than “Did any of your Hamas buddies pass on any details in advance?”

      1. Look at the video in the report.
        I suspect it was lots of professional offence takers who complained.

          1. I expect the ex shoplifter Madeley would have got less of a back lash if he had asked her if she had a penis or not…

    1. This may not be so much about Israel as Bridgen’s Private Members Bill on parental rights in school. If you saw the debate on that, and in particular Ben Bradshaw’s reaction, you’ll know why Blunt might be incensed.

          1. Thank you. Since that was back in June I can’t see why it would provoke a physical assault in October. Bradshaw is a creep and he epitomises how out of touch with the people MPs are.

          2. Bradshaw saw Bridgen’s bill as homophobic (don’t ask me what his reasoning was). Blunt is of the same ilk as Bradshaw.

          3. ‘They’ give us yougov polls.
            I would like the same from ‘them’.
            Question. Are you happy with your children under the age of 11 to be exposed to this material which includes masturbation, anal sex, same sex and older younger sex partnerships?

          4. Exactly what has all that to do with preparing children for jobs? Schools have forgotten their primary function. Oh, we all know what it is really about – indoctrination to suit ideologies – breaking down the family – and social engineering. Some preparation for future jobs….

        1. See below but didn’t Bridgen bring up vaccine harms in the commons when all the other MP’s suddenly found something better to do. Sorry, have to leave you, i’ve left a pot boiling on the stove….

    1. Former UK ambassador, Hamas-supporting Craig Murray arrested.

      Again! Lol! Murray is a thorn in the side of the establishment. They probably regard him as a traitor! He once told the truth about Syria in a BBC Interview and the microphone nearly melted!

    2. Former UK ambassador, Hamas-supporting Craig Murray arrested.

      Again! Lol! Murray is a thorn in the side of the establishment. They probably regard him as a traitor! He once told the truth about Syria in a BBC Interview and the microphone nearly melted!

    3. Former UK ambassador, Hamas-supporting Craig Murray arrested.

      Again! Lol! Murray is a thorn in the side of the establishment. They probably regard him as a traitor! He once told the truth about Syria in a BBC Interview and the microphone nearly melted!

  35. That’s me for today. A chilly one, as well. Away all tomorrow. So play nicely while I am gone.

    A jeudi. Prolly

    1. Don’t worry, the Scottish leader is currently on the radio promising sanctuary for all those afflicted by the murdering Israelis.

      1. Quite right too
        He needs people who are happy to have rockets launched into neighbouring enemy territory in their name, to support independence.
        /sarc

    1. Zelenskiy confirms Kyiv used US-provided ATACMS missiles
      Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has confirmed that Kyiv did use US-provided long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS) missiles (see earlier post at 15.20).

      “Today, special thanks to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. Very accurately – ATACMS missiles proved themselves,” he said in his nightly address.

      This marks the first officially confirmed usage of the ATACMS in Ukraine. Kyiv has repeatedly asked the US for ATACMS.

      Fired from a mobile launcher, the missiles can hit targets up to 190 miles (300km) away, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike far beyond the front lines. Potential targets include command headquarters, weapons depots and supply networks, including railways.

    2. And the Guardian tends to be more grammatically correct than the DM or DT whenever I can be bothered to read it!!

    1. I pointed out last night that the BBC and Telegraph reports on this differed in one crucial detail – Al Beeb omitted the fact that the house was an immigrant hostel.

      1. One terraced house. 4 migrants.

        I wonder if the people who placed them there understood one was armed, two were of a diff tribe and the last one was a Jew…Just kidding………………..They are all insane. Look at the eyes.

    1. Nothing would surprise me with Arabs.
      They can never be trusted.
      In the last conflict they started, they were launching weapons from school playgrounds.

        1. Yes all of them.
          I’ve mentioned this previously.
          My father was in the RAF in WW2. Algeria and Egypt. He ended his war in Sicily.
          He said to many times. “Never trust an Arab son”.

          1. And strange as it may seem the horrors connected to the human race are being repeated. Hatred, of an ordered smaller minority, with persistent and aimless hate and destruction.
            All this from the same brain washed hate filled people. None of this would need to take place if it wasn’t for inbred and inevitable ignorance.

          2. I must admit I’m similarly placed, not that I know many Arabs, but those I have fit the “don’t”

          3. I’ve met just a few and never felt at ease.
            They always seemed to have another adgenda.

          4. BUT, I have met Coptic Christians who I assume were Arabs and you would seldom meet better, more honest, people

          5. I worked with an Arab (Egyptian) offshore who seemed a pretty nice guy. Don’t know if he was a CC, but he certainly enjoyed a beer onshore.

  36. A 3 for me today, fellow Wordlers.

    Wordle 850 3/6

    🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. So good you said it twice?
        What was the first word you referred to as the most common earlier today?

          1. When you first posted I looked up the most popular words, and an MIT analysis of the most likely successful ones.
            I was surprised by the results.

  37. Just had a Messenger conversation with my friend in Cyprus. She tells me there are now a lot of Ukrainians and Israelis there. To be expected? Safe and not too far away.

    1. Many years ago I was working on Cyprus.
      I was at a loose end and visited a refugee centre.
      Very, very disturbing and one could only sympathise with those there.

      However, what became clear was that nobody wanted to take these people in.

  38. Evening, all. Been another sunny day today. Managed to get more weeding done (but not, unfortunately, finished) and the oregano planted. Still plenty more left to do, alas! Hope the weather holds so I can complete it and put the garden to bed for winter.

    As for the headline; double standards are the only standards the PTB have!

    1. Evening Conners, I had so much oregano this year a gave a bucket full to our neighbour. And have lots of it drying in paper bags in the garage.
      Sadly my basil took a hit after the first frost.

    2. I got the other dozen tulips I bought planted in the verge beside the road and did some more bramble and briar bashing. Also planted a couple of Malling Promise raspberry plants I bought with the tulip bulbs t’other day and got a couple of builder’s buckets worth of thorny stuff burnt.

      1. Well done, Bob! I was shattered after I’d done just the small amount I managed. I take my hat off to you.

  39. Slightly off topic. Today whilst searching for chicken stock I our freezer I found around two kilograms of sloes. Next time I have access to our car I’m going to Tesco and buy a litre of vodka and a litre of gin.and not too much caster sugar I don’t like it too sweet. Roll on Christmas 🎅🧑‍🎄 ho ho ho.

    1. Yeah, yeah, of course it was the sloes…

      Do you really think we’re that slow on the uptake?

      };-O

      1. Yes it’s an upright freezer gravity sets in as well as the slippery ice.
        Bacon vegetable and mushroom risotto.
        Commend by Erin 🤗

  40. I know it’s oily but Greta is in town so I’m off now.
    I just got wind of the England Italy game at Wembley. On 4HD. Already I’m fed up with the pointless diving from some of the England players. It seems to be catching now, the team in blue and at it as well.
    England penalty. ‘arry scores. One all.

  41. The pro-Palestinian protest at the Cenotaph was an outrage

    The only occupation I want to end is that of the UK by those who put on a display of anti-Semitism after some of the worst crimes imaginable

    ALLISON PEARSON • 17 October 2023 • 7:16pm

    Just when you think you have reached peak shock and distress over the October 7 massacres (like Macbeth we have “supped full of horrors”), something happens that can still make you shudder and shout aloud in disbelief.

    I won’t tell you exactly what I said when I saw a video of the stage set up by Free Palestine activists right next to the Cenotaph. Suffice to say, I entirely shared the sentiments of the Cockney gentleman who filmed that video while filling the Whitehall air with incredulous oaths. C-words aplenty, and none of them Cenotaph.

    Yes, that Cenotaph. Our Cenotaph. The solemn, sacred place where we honour our war dead had acquired shouty neighbours from hell with a gazebo awning, if you please. Protestors flew the Palestinian flag and displayed a large banner at the back of their stage saying, “End the Violence. No to Apartheid. Stop the Occupation.”

    Many of you will have felt, as I did, that the only occupation we want to end is that of the United Kingdom by the varmints [there is another v-word] who put on a public display of anti-Semitism a week after some of the vilest crimes imaginable against the Jewish people. It was repugnant and deeply worrying.

    What would all those men and women, who gave their lives for our country, have made of the Highway Authority, via Labour-controlled (naturally) Westminster City Council, giving its approval for the Cenotaph to be appropriated in this partisan and tactless manner? Obviously, little in the way of pro-Israeli sympathy is to be expected from Sadiq Khan, the most divisive mayor in the capital’s history.

    Hang on, though, here’s a conundrum. Didn’t 450,000 Britons and millions of their Commonwealth allies die in the cause of defeating Nazism in World War Two? The Left always squeals that the Nazis have risen again in the form of far-Right nationalists, but the truth is that Hitler’s wicked ideology lives on most virulently in Hamas and its Jew-defilers whose cause was championed with such enthusiasm by 50,000 protesters on the streets of London. And before you say, but they were supporting Palestinians, not the terrorists who butchered 1,400 people (including Yahel Sharabi, a lovely, impish British-Israeli 13-year-old), please know that what they chanted as they made their way down Regent Street – “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” – is nothing more than a call for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth. A genocidal goal which is handily stated in Hamas’s Charter, should there be any room for doubt.

    Liberals who burnish their fashionable credentials by marching for Gaza may be slightly put off their stride by the knowledge that entire kibbutz families were burnt alive. (One pathologist could not make out what or who a particular charred corpse was; he eventually realised it was a parent with their arms wrapped tight around a child: the flames had soldered them together in a last embrace.) So the liberals sigh, adjust their Yasser Arafat memorial headdress, and say, “it’s complicated”.

    If it was the British National Party or the EDL (or even Ukip) marching en masse through London to celebrate the massacre of a non-Jewish ethnic minority group, it wouldn’t be “complicated” then, would it? It would be racist and and vile and arrests would swiftly follow. As the Jewish comedian Leo Kearse quipped, “Thank God no white Conservatives were there or a hate crime could’ve happened!”

    The French police would have turned on the water cannon. I wish ours had. Although they came under repeated attack, the Metropolitan Police treated the demonstrators with kid gloves. Who gave the order to ignore criminality, effectively tying officers’ hands? Senior police chiefs, Whitehall officials and the Mayor, most likely; all anxious to appease an inflamed Muslim minority, appropriating the victimhood that rightly belonged, on this occasion, to their foes, while red paint was being splattered over Jewish schools. To be fair, the coppers did pluck up the courage to arrest one lone fellow with a Union Jack.

    When I expressed my feelings of dismay about the march on Twitter (“X”), I got a reply from someone calling themselves Sgai. “The beauty of immigration is now the great UK has to take account of the Muslim community and diaspora from its ex-colonies,” he or she wrote, “Karma is oh so sweet!”

    Was I taken aback by his/her gleeful, mocking arrogance? Only a bit. If they act like they’re untouchable, it’s because they know they’re untouchable. Successive feeble British governments have seen to that and the weekly arrival of thousands of undocumented migrants across the Channel, many from the Middle East, could easily be ushering in Isis or Hamas. (How those barbarians must chuckle at their “useful idiots” on that march!) It’s a case of when we have the next terrorist attack, not if, I’m afraid.

    In a new poll, British people were asked, Which side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do you sympathise with? The results were: All Brits: Israel – 21 per cent, Palestine – 17 per cent, Both equally – 29 per cent, Don’t know – 33 per cent.

    Labour voters overwhelmingly supported Palestine (27 per cent, with Israel at 7 per cent, proving the party is still home to a depressing number of anti-Semites). At least Conservatives were sticking up for the good guys (Israel – 39 per cent, Palestine – 6 per cent).

    What stood out, though, was the age split. Among 18 to 24-year-olds, Israel commanded just 11 per cent support against 39 per cent for Palestine. Meanwhile, 37 per cent of pensioners approved of Israel compared with 11 per cent on Palestine’s side.

    Regrettably, the youth vote demonstrated the scale of anti-Semitic brainwashing that has been going on in our schools and universities. Is it any wonder when a scholar from the University of London’s SOAS (School for African and Oriental Studies) said, “If you don’t want to be cut down at a music festival, don’t have music festivals on stolen land.” They’re all heart that Free Palestine brigade, eh?

    In the parade, a bunch of young people (all white British, as far as I could see) held up a banner, “QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID” and waved a Pride flag. Where do you begin with such unfathomable and lethal ignorance? A not very nice part of me wished those kids could be teleported to Gaza to meet a progressive’s worst nightmare – misogynist, homophobic, racist, baby-killing, hostage-taking, Palestinian-abusing Hamas. Same-sex activity between men is criminal in Palestine, with a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. Hamas seldom bothers with judicial process; in 2022, gay Palestinian Ahmad Abu Marhia was found beheaded in the West Bank.

    What must British Jews feel when they see the Cenotaph, our national monument of mourning and remembrance, appropriated by people who implicitly support the torture and murder of their kith and kin? The late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said that those fleeing Europe after the Holocaust chose Britain because it was the “kind” country, the decent, moderate country. Can we really call ourselves that any more when we have imported so much hatred and division, when our police are too nervous to enforce the law?

    I am so glad that Rishi Sunak has been utterly steadfast in his support for Israel, visiting a Jewish school to reassure the pupils and spitting out the word “pogrom” in Parliament to describe what the Hamas death squads did to civilians. Sir Keir Starmer also deserves huge credit for not diluting his view (despite mutinous backbenchers) that Israel has the right to defend herself. That, at least, is a country the war dead would recognise and be proud of.

    Meanwhile, we are in a hellish limbo with a million Gazans trying to flee their homes and get out of harm’s way (many prevented by Hamas, which likes dead Palestinians it can use to win sympathy from a credulous international media). On Wednesday, I will be interviewing a young Israeli soldier live from the border with Gaza for the Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast. Ben is a 26-year-old reservist, one of 300,000 called up to serve their country in its darkest hour. He told me his battalion was given the job of securing and helping to clear one of the kibbutzes near the border where there had been a massacre. Ben and the other soldiers stood to attention as Zaka, the body retrieval team, loaded body bag after bag into a giant truck. As each body was stored, the soldiers recited the Kaddish, the mourning prayer. It took an hour and a half to load all the bodies from that kibbutz, including the tiny corpses of many babies. At the end, Ben says, without hesitation everyone started singing the Hatikva (Israel’s national anthem, whose name means “hope”). He looked around and saw many of his comrades had tears streaming down their faces.

    In one of the few houses that was left standing, Ben tried to find a place to rest. He went into the basement of what, just a couple of days ago, been home to the Solomon family, and discovered a dog in a child’s bedroom, where the walls and floor were covered in blood. The dog refused to get off the bed, Ben said; he was still guarding its occupant, the small friend whom he would never meet again.

    That is why Ben and his brigade have no doubt about their mission, whenever the signal may come. Hamas killed Jewish children purely on account of their race. Once upon a time, our own country waged total war against an enemy that practised genocidal terror. The heroes of that war are commemorated at the Cenotaph, a monument to the huge sacrifice that all the good in this bad old world sometimes demands. Shame on those who allowed it to be desecrated. At the going down of the sun, we will remember them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/10/17/pro-palestinian-protest-cenotaph-outrage/

  42. I wrote this last week:

    There is nothing civilised in war, not even in the days of cavalry with its colourful uniforms, set-piece tactics and feathered flummery. In the 20th century it became a brutal, industrial, impersonal affair. There’s no looking into the whites of people’s eyes when you’re bombing them from 5,000 feet or shelling them from 5 miles. What kind of ‘soldiers’ kidnap young women from a party, rape them, murder them and toss their bodies aside? It’s little different from the Waffen SS rounding up villagers, herding them into churches and machine-gunning them.

    And yet I hear a distant voice urging the Israelis to carpet-bomb Gaza for the murder of Shani Louk…

    Fiscal McPhee responded:

    When you “let slip the dogs of war” you lose control. Those of us who have served in the armed forces understand that only too well and undisciplined, amoral militaries will commit atrocities. It’s what they do. That’s why most of those of us who have served see war as the ABSOLUTE last resort.

    “There is nothing civilised in war”

    But one of the many reasons I viewed Blair with horror when he started talking about “humanitarian war” in the late 1990s. There. Is. No. Such. Thing.

    The days when someone such as Lt Cdr “Sharkey” Ward, Sea Harrier pilot, would visit the hospital ship where the man he had just shot down was being treated, bearing a bottle of whiskey are unlikely to be seen again.

    And he was right. And as the week went by I calmed down a bit, despite the reporting of the BBC. Then came Saturday’s demo and the desecration of The Cenotaph. My bile rose again. However, today’s strike on the Gaza hospital, if verified and whatever the circumstances, is going to be a gift for the supporters of the ‘Palestinians’ and the BBC, which will be unbearable.

    I should also stop reading the DT comments columns…

    1. I gave up on El Bebeera years ago. My health is better for it. Hamas has form in using hospitals and schools as bases. It’s what they do. They do not see things as we in the West, with our Christian heritage, do. Sadly, that’s a fact of life.

    2. When I was training to be a nurse in the RN (Queen Alexandra Royal Naval Nursing Service ) in the 1960’s , we ( student nurses ) trained at Royal Naval Hospitals in the UK and overseas in Malta etc . I spent 1967 at RNH Bighi in Malta and Mtarfa and Luqa.

      Because we were service nurses , we saw many examples of injuries, and until then , not a terrorist attack

      We all had a traumatic emotional time when a terrorist attack in Aden wreaked havoc on an armed convoy of Royal Marines and soldiers , and an aircraft full of severely injured men were flown (Casavaced) to Malta to be treated by us , except they were so badly injured that after a couple of days or so , they were flown to Germany ( British Armed Services Hospital ) to be repaired expertly..

      We were young nurses , and not much older than nineteen years of age . and I am still in contact with many of them over 58 years later .

      Our nurse tutors had nursed during the war (WW2 and a few were ex Korea and our China station and had stories about the seige of Malta , many had lost friends on hospital ships in the Far East .. they were stalwarts , great examples, and many had seen it all before .

  43. I wrote this last week:

    There is nothing civilised in war, not even in the days of cavalry with its colourful uniforms, set-piece tactics and feathered flummery. In the 20th century it became a brutal, industrial, impersonal affair. There’s no looking into the whites of people’s eyes when you’re bombing them from 5,000 feet or shelling them from 5 miles. What kind of ‘soldiers’ kidnap young women from a party, rape them, murder them and toss their bodies aside? It’s little different from the Waffen SS rounding up villagers, herding them into churches and machine-gunning them.

    And yet I hear a distant voice urging the Israelis to carpet-bomb Gaza for the murder of Shani Louk…

    Fiscal McPhee responded:

    When you “let slip the dogs of war” you lose control. Those of us who have served in the armed forces understand that only too well and undisciplined, amoral militaries will commit atrocities. It’s what they do. That’s why most of those of us who have served see war as the ABSOLUTE last resort.

    “There is nothing civilised in war”

    But one of the many reasons I viewed Blair with horror when he started talking about “humanitarian war” in the late 1990s. There. Is. No. Such. Thing.

    The days when someone such as Lt Cdr “Sharkey” Ward, Sea Harrier pilot, would visit the hospital ship where the man he had just shot down was being treated, bearing a bottle of whiskey are unlikely to be seen again.

    And he was right. And as the week went by I calmed down a bit, despite the reporting of the BBC. Then came Saturday’s demo and the desecration of The Cenotaph. My bile rose again. However, today’s strike on the Gaza hospital, if verified and whatever the circumstances, is going to be a gift for the supporters of the ‘Palestinians’ and the BBC, which will be unbearable.

    I should also stop reading the DT comments columns…

  44. Back from a nice lunch today, nothing special but enjoyed looking at the changing colours of the trees as we drove home. Nowhere near as spectacular as we have seen in the past, not so many bright reds, global warming I suppose! Hope y’all have battened down well for the storm forecast for UK tomorrow, that we have seen warnings of!

    1. The Met Office’s synoptic charts don’t look so devastating to me – but I could be wrong (a la M Fish!)

      1. Poor Mr Fish!! I remember that well, although I was here in US at the time it made headline news here. Did he ever live it down?

        1. I think he still referred to it himself – in a self-deprecating sort of way. He even got a mention in a song; “John Ketley is a weather man – and so is Michael Fish” 🙂

    2. The forcast storms are usually so overhyped, that we hardly notice them when they arrive……..

    3. Not so good here, either, the autumn colours this year, Jill. The country roads here are usually festooned with lots of lemony and ochre coloured leaves at this time, they hang there in the hedgerows like miniature lanterns, but this year they’ve gone. In September we had quite a few equinoxal gales which perhaps wind-burned or blew the leaves from the trees.

    4. Didn’t know we were due a storm.
      Trees slowly changing colour. We have a magnificent show of pink dahlias with purple foliage.

  45. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. I’m sending you, Sue (Mac) an e-mail as I’m sure I responded to your ‘phone call on 13th October but I’m dead tired, wobbly and shaky buy I’ll try and survive until we may meet again.

          1. It’s our son’s birthday tomorrow, he can now retire from his almost government job with a pension. Damn, that makes me feel old.

    1. and our Muslim first minister wants to take in Palestinian refugees – FFS who the hell does he think he is – it’s our country NOT his

      1. He’s a muslim. That means as far as he’s concerned he presides over a caliphate. You kuffar! You’ll have to pay jizya while the hijra continues unabated.

  46. Middle East

    The British Army in Palestine
    In the aftermath of the Second World War (1939-45), the British Army found itself stuck in the middle of a growing conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The momentous events that followed led to the creation of the State of Israel.

    Promises
    In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain’s First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.

    However, the British had also promised Arab nationalists that a united Arab country, covering most of the Arab Middle East, would result if the Ottoman Turks were defeated.

    When the fighting ended in 1918, with the Ottoman Empire defeated on every front, neither promise was delivered.

    Mandate
    In 1920, Britain assumed responsibility for Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate. During the next two decades, over 100,000 Jews entered the country.

    The British Army’s operations in Palestine during this period were mainly directed against militant Arab groups who were opposed to this mass Jewish immigration. Violence reached a height with the Arab Revolt of 1936-39

    Jewish homeland
    The Holocaust had a major impact on the situation in Palestine. During the Second World War (1939-45), the British restricted the entry into Palestine of European Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Anxious to appease the Egyptians and oil-rich Saudis, they imposed a limit on Jewish immigration.

    This provoked armed Jewish resistance, and eventually united those who looked to Britain for help in establishing their national homeland (the Haganah) and those who wished to use terrorism to drive the British out.

    Terrorism
    The main terrorist groups were Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation) – ultimately led by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin – and an even more militant organisation, Lohamey Heruth Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or LHI.

    The British called LHI the Stern Gang after its leader, Abraham Stern, who was killed in a clash with the Palestine Police in 1942. In November 1944, LHI assassinated the British Minister for the Middle East, Lord Moyne.

    Refugees
    After the Second World War, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion – in particular the repeated requests of US President Harry Truman – the British refused to lift the ban on immigration and admit 100,000 Jews to Palestine.

    The Jewish underground forces now united. The Haganah had resisted attacking the British as long as they were fighting Nazi Germany. Now, their fighters allied themselves with Irgun and carried out several raids against the British.

    Escalation
    In late 1945, in response to full-scale riots in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and bomb attacks on the railway system, British troops from the 1st Infantry and 6th Airborne Divisions had to be deployed in support of the civil police.

    When the 3rd Infantry Division arrived in Palestine in 1947, the number of British troops deployed there had risen to about 100,000 – the majority of them National Servicemen.

    Intelligence failure
    Used to conventional fighting in Europe, British troops found it difficult to deal with the violent actions of Irgun and LHI.

    The tactics used in the 1930s – curfews, searches and the guarding of key locations – were again put into place. But the Jewish groups enjoyed the support of the local Jewish population and the British found intelligence gathering particularly difficult.

    Agatha
    Despite this, the High Commissioner Sir Allan Cunningham decided to mount a major blow against the insurgents. On 28 June 1946, 17,000 British troops carried out Operation Agatha in Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency offices and other buildings were raided and arms caches discovered.

    A large number of Jews suspected of terrorism were arrested. Anti-terrorist operations were primarily the responsibility of the Palestine Police. The Army’s job was to support them, cordoning off villages or sectors of towns, and helping the police search them

    Deadlock
    In September 1946, the British called a conference of Jewish and Arab leaders in London. When this ended in deadlock in February 1947, the Government announced it had decided to refer the problem to the United Nations.

    Terrorist activity continued, leading to the introduction of martial law and stricter curfews

    Kidnap and bombings
    British soldiers were frequently targets for attack and kidnap, often in retaliation for death sentences passed on members of Irgun and LHI. A typical insurgent operation was the bombing of the British Officers Club in Haifa, in which 30 people were killed and injured.

    On 22 July 1946, Irgun fighters also blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing over 90 people, including many civilians. This attack broke the fragile Haganah-Irgun partnership.

    Ongoing attacks
    On 31 March 1947, Irgun set light to the oil refinery at Haifa, starting a fire which blazed for three weeks. In May, it attacked the prison at Acre, freeing a large number of inmates.

    On 29 July, in retaliation for the execution of three of their members, LHI kidnapped and hanged two British Army sergeants. They then booby-trapped the bodies so that the officer who cut them down was badly injured.

    Withdrawal
    In November 1947, the United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine and the establishment of separate Arab and Jewish states.

    On 15 May 1948, Britain gave up her mandate. The British Army departed from Palestine leaving the Jews and the Arabs to fight it out in the war that followed. The campaign had cost around 750 British military and police lives.

    The clasp ‘Palestine 1945-48’ was added to the General Service Medal and awarded to soldiers who served in Palestine between 27 September 1945 (the date a state of emergency was declared) and 30 June 1948 (when the last British troops departed).

    https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/conflict-Palestine

    1. Biden has been snubbed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and just about every other country in the Middle East.

      Iran is still on the American’s side for funding but being Arabs are lying to his face and will stab him in the back at the first opportunity.

      Biden’s neo-con administration have both alienated almost every state, made the EU and UK irrelevant, destroyed NATO to all intents and purposes and enabled the BRICS nations to expand their members to include many other countries.

      The US administration have now furtively provided Ukraine with ATACMS long range missiles. As ever with the US neo-cons when failing escalate the conflict. This supply of ATACMS has been done under the radar of US Congress, a Congress likely to deny or severely reduce the billions sent to Ukraine.

    2. Biden has been snubbed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and just about every other country in the Middle East.

      Iran is still on the American’s side for funding but being Arabs are lying to his face and will stab him in the back at the first opportunity.

      Biden’s neo-con administration have both alienated almost every state, made the EU and UK irrelevant, destroyed NATO to all intents and purposes and enabled the BRICS nations to expand their members to include many other countries.

      The US administration have now furtively provided Ukraine with ATACMS long range missiles. As ever with the US neo-cons when failing escalate the conflict. This supply of ATACMS has been done under the radar of US Congress, a Congress likely to deny or severely reduce the billions sent to Ukraine.

    1. Little Lord Fauntleroy was one of my nicknames after I became top of the form. I believe it was because I washed, polished my shoes, starched my shirts and carried a briefcase for my books. It was clearly a badge of honour.

    1. Thankyou for that Maggie. Such a tragedy that she died so young, she was well known when we lived in Maryland. Have you heard “Fields of Gold” by Eva?

  47. I’m not a prolific poster, but am here most days. I may be missing for a few days, though. Part one of the Great Move which will see me back north of the border comes to a close this week with a move to Cumbria. I need to look at the stuff BT has sent to get broadband working until they do the necessary at the end of the month.

      1. The house next spring is about the same size as the current one. The rental is bigger, but the market is crazy with up to 25 going for each property.

      1. Hi, Paul. All well, except I have the mildest of colds. First time since before the ‘pandemic’. I had a hygienist appointment on Monday, and thought it might be frowned upon if I turned up cougjing, sneezing and spluttering. So I’ve rescheduled that for a couple of weeks, and postponed a trip to Devon to Dianne’s place, which should have been today. She’s about to launch into weeks of exam marking, and wouldn’t thank me for giving her the dreaded lurgy. Meanwhile, I hardly notice the symptoms. Maybe the Vitamin D3 has helped?

        1. That’s a pain, Geoff. 🙁 Hope it’s over soon.
          I take vit. D3 daily, and since I started haven’t had any form of illness whatever – and, yes, before you ask, I started in Covid times. The pills are cheap, I’m well pleased.

          1. To be honest, I’m barely aware that I have a cold. It’s the first one since I started taking Vit D3, and it’s like none I’ve had before. Admittedly, it would have been tricky at the hygienist appointment, and I had no idea how it was going to pan out, but I feel the Devon trip could have gone ahead. Not to worry: it was mostly to address a bunch of techy problems. They’ll still be there in November… 😊

          2. Thanks, Paul. All traces of the cold have now gone. I had one sleepless night, waking with a dry mouth, presumably because I’d been ‘mouth breathing’. A nocturnal cup of tea sorted that. Let’s hear it for D3… 🎆

    1. ‘morning, Geoff, and thank you.

      Sneaking off back to bed – not much sleep in the night.

  48. Seems someone shot a Gazan hospital with rockets, with something like 500 dead (many were sheltering from the fighting in the hospital and grounds). The balance of Western opinion is that it was Islamic Jihad, who were rocketting Israel at the time, but not a moment to lose to take benefit of the tragedy for propaganda purposes.
    IIRC, it’s been a typical tactic for Palestinians to use the like of hospitals to site their rocket launchers on the basis of a retaiatory attack is much less likely. Maybe a rocket went off course, or it was a deliberate act to wind up the tension some more?
    Anyhow, Sleepy Joe is in Israel for breakfast today. That’ll make it all better!

    1. Just read below, seems I’m rather behind the news. Only heard this on the 06:00 news today, hardly ever watch t’elly, and news from Gaza is universally depressing – now even more so.

    2. We know they use hospitals and schools for precisely this purpose. These are cowards and fanatics.

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