Tuesday 19 November: The Government deceived farmers, who now face a battle for survival

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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665 thoughts on “Tuesday 19 November: The Government deceived farmers, who now face a battle for survival”

  1. Good Morning Geoff and all his readers
    Today's Tale (I think Tom has posted this before)
    The old nun was lecturing the drinker on the evils of drink as he tried to enter the pub.
    “Listen Sister,” he said, “don’t knock it if you’ve never tried it! If you’d tried even one drink you’d know what you are talking about.”
    She agreed that he had a point.
    “OK, I’ll try just a small drink then,” she said. “I don’t want to be seen drinking from a hotel glass so can you get me some in this water flask?”
    He went up to the bar and asked for a gin in the flask.
    The barman laughed, “Don’t tell me that darn nun’s still out there!”

    1. Funny.
      A strange coincidence. A Nottler who visited me gave me a hip flask as a gift. I was intrigued by the etching so i did a bit of research. It has a Papal seal !

      1. There were no men in fancy frocks when I visited Chez Dolly'n'Harry.
        Most disappointed was I.

        1. Sorry. I could only manage a Church organist.

          There were a couple of investment bankers posing as gardeners though.

      2. I used to dream of gritted roads!! We used to be on a tertiary gritting/ploughing route ( gritted 2 days after the snow melted) but now we aren’t even that much of a priority!! Might get out tomorrow?

    1. "UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer expresses concerns to Xi Jinping about alleged human rights violations in China."

      Like Vlad I imagine Xi just shook his head when he heard this.

  6. Well done Prime Minister. Xi loves you.

    Hong Kong democracy campaigners jailed for years in city’s largest security trial

    All 45 pro-democracy activists handed prison sentences ranging from four years to a decade

  7. Guardian Deployed on Emergency Reeves Spin as LinkedIn Edits Scandal Deepens

    The press is piling pressure on Reeves over the LinkedIn CV fiddling Guido exposed last week. Who else to come to Reeves’ rescue than… The Guardian…

    The Guardian is in full spin mode over the story. They say Downing Street has defended Reeves “as someone who’s been ‘straight with the public’ in response to claims she embellished her CV.” That is quite the interpretation of the actual quote from the PM’s spokesman, which is diversionary and unrelated to the CV claims:

    “This is someone who on coming into office looked under the bonnet and exposed a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, and has been straight with the public about what is necessary to balance the books and restore financial stability in the face of that.”

    In reality Downing Street refused to say if Reeves had broken the ministerial code or not and referred hacks to the Treasury’s line from last Friday. Hilariously the Guardian then goes on to wax lyrical over Reeves’ qualifications: “To get a job at the Bank of England as a graduate requires considerable ability, and Reeves has said she turned down a job offer from Goldman Sachs around the same time. Before the general election Mark Carney, a former Bank of England governor, said Reeves was the right person to be next chancellor.” If you’re explaining, you’re losing…

    Hilariously the Guardian also claims “Mervyn King, Carney’s predecessor, has also spoken positively about working with Reeves at the Bank when he was in charge.” Its own article proves that to be false – it was Reeves said she had a good time at the bank: “I remember your telling me one day that the reason you enjoyed working at the Bank of England was the opportunity to work with other very bright young people.” Smacking of desperation here…

    The paper also claims that “there is no evidence that Reeves has gained any career advantage by people thinking she was working as an economist at HBOS when she was there in a different role.” It’s not like she’s ever mentioned the economist thing before…

        1. We were betrayed by the prelate and deceived by the chancellor.

          The bishop has gone – now the rook must go.

  8. Policing chief under fire for defending force’s handling of Allison Pearson row. 19 November 2024.

    The policing chief at the centre of the Allison Pearson row is facing a backlash after defending his force’s decision to investigate the Telegraph journalist.

    Roger Hirst, policing and crime commissioner for Essex, has been branded “out of touch in every way” after he said police could not ignore alleged crimes “just because it’s politically sensitive”, noting that the normal measure of the severity of a crime was maximum sentence length.

    Though Mr Hirst gets a deserved going over for his lack of common sense he is not the villain of the piece. That’s Westminster. These laws should never have been passed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/18/police-chief-under-fire-over-allison-pearson-row/

      1. Presumably he is aiming to get a nice parcel of land as part of his reward. We are becoming Zimbabwe.

    2. Ah, Hutton the townie with no idea of how agriculture works but now posing as an expert on rural affairs. (Expletive deleted)

  10. Captain Sensible
    6h
    Nobel prize winner and Olympic gold medallist Rachel Reeves refused to comment today on reports that the runaway horse from which she saved a small child may, in fact, have been an inflatable My Little Unicorn.

    1. Bloomsbury
      7h
      Keep digging. The transition from an economist to sitting on the complaints desk is quite some leap. Not the normal direction of travel for an enthusiastic star graduate.

      Nick
      Bloomsbury
      6h
      Agreed… there has to be a story behind her leaving her job at the BOE in Washington DC & then taking an admin job supporting the customer services team at the Halifax Building Society in Leeds.

      It reminds me of Del Boy's 'New York ~ Paris ~ Peckham'.

        1. Was that before having her Parliamentary credit card removed for over-spending?
          In her case, practice really doesn't seem to make perfect.

  16. Two tier Keir's handiwork in action..

    Tracey Lloyd-Clarke sentences Former soldier Daffron Williams to two years in prison jailed for Facebook posts. "You knew exactly what you were doing". Your Facebook profile was an open profile."

    Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke tells convicted child rapist he avoids jail because of the prison overcrowding crisis. “If we had been in different times then it would have been virtually inevitable that you would have gone into custody.”

    Police.. "Police! We are armed. Step away from the laptop.. It's on open profile, sarge."
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/540839b339f0942e37d8ec5b03e9ea28572847312874069bb659d044b72f5932.png

    2. Since April 2006, judicial appointments have been the responsibility of an independent Judicial Appointments Commission.

      6 must be judicial members (of which two must be tribunal judges)
      2 must be professional members
      5 must be lay members
      1 must be a non-legally qualified judicial member

      Chairman: Helen Pitcher, OBE
      Vice Chairman: Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Warby (senior judicial; appt)
      Professional members: Brie Stevens-Hoare, KC . Sarah Lee (solicitor).
      Judicial members:
      Tan Ikram.
      Judge Anuja Dhir.
      District Judge Mathu Asokan.
      Mr. Justice Adam Johnson
      of which Tribunal members:
      Greg Sinfield.
      Christa Christensen.
      Lay justice: Emir Khan Feisal, JP.
      Lay members:
      Jane Furniss CBE.
      Sue Hoyle.
      Andrew Kennon.
      Professor Sir Simon Wessely.
      (Former archbishop) Barry Morgan.

      The JAC has a staff of around 50 public servants. The Chief Executive is Alex McMurtrie,

      These are the people who appoint judges in England and Wales. There are a lot of non-English names. Who appoints these people?

      His Majesty The King, on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, approves the appointment of commissioners to the Judicial Appointments Commission. Incumbent since July 2024: Shabana Mahmood That's who appoints the commissioners.

  17. 397109+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    This first fall of snow will show quite clearly that the farmers and the elderly have a great deal in common as it triggers the killing fields campaign.

    Dt,
    Tuesday 19 November: The Government deceived farmers, who now face a battle for survival

    See the very odious link ?

    Dt,
    There is a strong economic case for assisted dying, but we daren’t admit it

    In my book already up and ran/ running.

    I also believe that there is a much stronger case for the indigenous in ASSISTED LIVING as in coming first, in ALL departments forming the infrastructure.

    Here is an example of one of the "tools" governing
    co-conspirators given leave to operate via the SPITE seeking tactical voters, the "tool" must have soiled himself with excitement.

    Dt,
    What Rachel Reeves said on her CV vs her actual experience
    How the claims Ms Reeves has made about her CV and employment experience compare to her work record

    Dt,
    We’d side with EU against Trump in trade war, suggests Cabinet minister
    Forewarned is forearmed.

  18. Everything is racist nowadays… and here’s an A-Z to prove it

    From astrophysics to zombies: a list of the many, many unlikely things that have been accused of promoting white supremacy

    Columnist Michael Deacon
    Related Topics

    19 November 2024 7:00am GMT
    14

    On Saturday we ran a news story headlined: “Geology is Racist, Claims University Professor”. Once upon a time, such a concept would have seemed baffling. But not these days.

    Only last week, after all, we learnt that dogs are racist (“Dog-Free Zones Needed to Make Outdoors Less Racist, Welsh Government Told”). Last month, it was Latin names for plants (“Latin Plant Names Could Be Racist, Warns University of Michigan”). Oh, and being nice to other people (“Black Academics Told Being ‘Nice’ Perpetuates ‘White Supremacy’”).

    We now see so many headlines like these, it can be hard to keep up. But it’s important that we do. Because, given the sheer number of improbable items and activities that are now deemed racist, the risk of getting cancelled is growing greater by the day.

    So, to help you avoid this unhappy fate, here’s an A-Z of them.

    Astrophysics. “Astrophysics ‘Steeped in Systemic Racism and White Supremacy,’ Says Colorado College Science Professor”, Fox News website, January 2023.

    Ballet. “Dance School Drops Ballet from Auditions as it is ‘White’ and ‘Elitist’”, Telegraph, July 2022.

    Cutlery. “Knives and Forks? Sorry, They’re Racist, Says Chef”, Daily Mail, July 2021.

    Dieting. “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity”, Scientific American magazine, June 2020.

    Eye-rolling. “Rolling Your Eyes is Racist – Nod Your Head Instead, Civil Servants Told”, Telegraph, January 2024.

    Fireworks. “National Geographic Tweet Suggests July 4 Fireworks Are Racist”, New York Post, July 2021.

    Gardening. “Weeding Out Horticulture’s Race Problem”, Guardian, June 2020. (Subhead: “Even in the garden, there’s bigotry to be found.”)

    Helmets. “How US Helmet Laws Are Used Against Cyclists of Colour”, Guardian, April 2021.

    Insects. “Scientists Ask Americans to Help Change Racist Insect Names”, Newsweek, July 2021.

    Jingle Bells. “Jingle Bells Rooted in Racism, Boston University Professor Says”, Fox News, December 2017.

    Killing parakeets. “Parakeet Cull is Racist – They’re as British as Curry, Say Experts”, Evening Standard, October 2009.

    Libraries. “Ivy League Librarian Says Libraries Reinforce White Supremacy”, US newspaper The Hill, May 2021.

    Milk. “Cow’s Milk a Symbol of White Supremacy, Peta Claims”, CBS News website, October 2018.

    Numeracy. “Focusing on the Correct Answer in Maths ‘is Racist’”, Times, May 2021.

    Opera. “Opera Can No Longer Ignore Its Race Problem”, New York Times, September 2020.

    Punctuality. “Expecting People to Be On Time is Part of ‘White Supremacy Culture,’ Duke Medical School Claims”, New York Post, July 2024.

    Queen Elizabeth II. “Queen Elizabeth Represented Racist Violence as Much as She Did Glamour”, BuzzFeed News, September 2022, the day after the late monarch’s death.

    Remembrance poppies. “How the Poppy Became a Symbol of Racism”, Independent, November 2016.

    St George’s flag. “One in Eight Labour Voters Says St George’s Flag is ‘Racist and Divisive’”, Daily Express, April 2024.

    Tipping. “Tipping Perpetuates Racism, Classism and Poverty – Let’s Get Rid of It”, US news website Vox, July 2014.

    University exams. “Now University Exams Are Attacked for Being ‘Colonialist’”, Mail, June 2024.

    Veganism. “Why So Many White Supremacists Are Into Veganism”, Vice, October 2017.

    White people. “Of Course All White People Are Racist”, Guardian opinion column, July 2002.

    X. “Guardian Quits X Social Media Platform, Citing Racism and Conspiracy Theories”, Reuters, November 2024.

    Yoga. “Americans Who Practise Yoga ‘Contribute to White Supremacy’, Claims Michigan State University Professor”, Independent, January 2018.

    Zombies. “The Racist History of Zombies,” ABC Australia website, March 2016.

    Obviously that’s not all, though. There are many, many other things that have been reported as racist. Sadly, however, I’ve run out of space to mention Alice in Wonderland, Body Mass Index, the countryside, dating apps, the Enlightenment, the four-day week, gun control, house prices, interior design, jogging, King Kong, lavatories, moccasins, nuclear weapons, Of Mice and Men, photography, the computing term “quantum supremacy”, Robinson Crusoe, swimming, theme parks, The Ugly Duckling, vineyards, the “wellness” industry, X-rays, yearbooks and zoology.

    Come to think of it, that’s a second A-Z. Perhaps next time I’ll do a third.

    3. There was a mention of Robinson Crusoe – so Black Friday sales must be racist as there is a clear implication that Crusoe was putting his desert island pal up for auction

  19. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    Grey, damp and cold at McPhee Towers, wind North, 4℃ dropping to 2℃, sleet expected.

    All thoughts with the farmers today as they take their muck-spreaders to Parliament (I hope) but Reaves is determined to make them pay.
    The mask is off. We see them for what they are.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e51fe9a67615797c296566a0f814130e77cce2be76adaeaafc9b9100b96fbd66.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/18/farmers-must-pay-up-for-the-nhs-says-rachel-reeves/

    Farmers have been told by the Chancellor that they must pay inheritance tax to fund the NHS, despite mass protests planned for Tuesday.

    Rachel Reeves has refused to back down over her controversial plan to impose inheritance tax on farms in the face of warnings that it could threaten food security, end the tradition of family farms and create a mental health crisis.

    Thousands of farmers are expected to descend on Westminster on Tuesday to protest against the changes, under which farms worth more than £1 million will be eligible for 20 per cent inheritance tax, having previously been exempt.

    The proposals are at the heart of a growing row over Ms Reeves’s Budget, and on Monday a Labour peer became the first to publicly criticise the Government over the plan. Baroness Mallalieu, a Labour peer since 1991, said her party had become too “urban” to understand the impact of the tax raid.

    Kemi Badenoch, who is expected to speak at the protest on Tuesday, vowed that the Tories would reverse the “cruel tax hike” if they came to power.

    Jeremy Clarkson and Nigel Farage are also expected to attend the rally.

    Rural Labour MPs, many at risk of losing their seats over the policy, will be lobbied by hundreds of farmers at a separate event organised by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in Parliament on Tuesday.

    In the midst of the anger about the blatant attack on family farms aimed at destroying them, for that is the truth of the matter, the planned theft of private pensions is being forgotten.

    2. The NHS is just a front organisation for organised theft on a global scale – the transfer of wealth from the public (and that includes farmers) to select global business interests with powerful lobbyists and influential contacts.

      Starmer calls this "CHANGE". What change?

    3. How Does anyone really think this is about the NHS ?
      Because they tell us it is.
      Obviously it's just another one of their terrible lies.
      How many people have used the NHS and never paid a single penny into the system of funding. Unlike the political classes, At least the farmers are and have been productive every day of their lives.

    4. The nasty monstrous little mayor will be salivating at the thought of all those congestion charges the farmers will be hit with.

  20. Floats in on a frosty day , good morning.
    Support our farmers today .

  21. Medley Time…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0980cf91903ad93adbf49090f36cf8233103e70204a305aeb4db9d15c2c492ee.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3a4825afb73270ae17af7f5a660d3d291edafed6b70a1568366a66ca5f9b439.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb7788dc225d793b807bf2401e4c356f2af6c7734662b2de2f0207a003915d6f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3feb2a8e6f47d7b9a0e5960d1c81d6c02446015777ecc45fe60df9c9998005aa.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8ffb5697dcd5b2b6eb7bb5d3e9936bca2bf596f330d9923151dcdee174373c0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6913f8b3b5f3c4f81347121547fcc8d9df7b122804025b220f9640eb34460578.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df7bc83a5a2c92d58587516189a019a3e024c456af487b8b00d4ca03fe03c76a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce8fb31312ef6678b0aa781c55718fa24ce503682b7d4f67fa0d7a2e481fcf28.jpg

  22. Two inches of snow outside and still falling!
    I didn't think it was forecast for this far south.

    2. They never really manage to get it right. I can't imagine how much it costs us. But every half an hour and all those maps and arm waving ????

  24. Good morning all.
    An overcast start with a tad under -2½°C on the Yard Thermometer and 4" of snow on the ground with absolute calm air.
    I wonder how Mr. Milibrain's solar panels and Telly-tubbie windmills are performing.

  25. Morning all 🙂😉
    Wet white stuff, but I can't see it lasting it's not that cold.
    And the only people the government hasn't deceived yet, are all the do and done nothings and the benefit grabbers and around 2 million illegal invaders.
    Some sort of time record for a British government effing up every single thing they come into contact with. Same old story 4 years of intense damage 10 years to repair the damage. Then off it all goes again.

      1. No.
        The farmers are going to Westminster to try and explain to the political idiots the vast amount of damage that will be happening due to the government's blatant iinbuilt gnorance.

        1. Expect high riot police attendance with the arrest of any farmer, or supporter who looks at them the wrong way. Very swift action that never applies when the left marches.

    2. Except that the following ten years doesn't even start to repair the damage, merely consolidates it.

      2. Tried that – it wasn't interested. Hot at base – cold at top. I might have another go later.

  28. The Government deceived farmers, who now face a battle for survival

    To be fair, any farmer that voted Labour only has themselves to blame.

      1. British Jews used to be mostly Labour supporters. My father was a party member for many years but by his final decades, in the 1970s and 80s, he voted Conservative.

        1. He saw some sense in his old age then. Never in my life could I bring myself to vote Labour even though candidates here were good people.

        4. Most probably still are.
          From what I have understood from the Canadian son, most Jewish people over there, including his controller & in-laws, support Turdeau who is very lefty. The FiL was even on some sort of committee welcoming the 'protected ones.'
          They support Turdeau and the illiberal Liberals who have allowed hordes of Ropers to settle. Toronto, and many other areas are now seeing so much anti-semitism, including against elementary school children.
          Turkeys voting for Christmas.

  29. Morning all! Dark and dreary, sleeting here. Cat was sick on the bedroom carpet and OH's slippers. I'm stuffed up but still alive.
    All power to the farmers and I hope they frighten this ship of fools in no10.
    How much longer can we stand this communism? They get worse every day. We need a home-grown Trump here.

    1. 397109+Up ticks,

      Morning N,
      We had one in the winning shape of Gerard Batten in one year he raised UKIP from financially unsound to very very soundly in the black,, his membership base mounting daily, time for leadership elections he asked for, he was judged by the party NEC with farage input
      to be "notof good standing within the party, the very party he had asked for £100,000 on taking leadership and in reply receiving £300,000 putting the party firmly in the black.

      In truth ,they the NEC / farage, did not like his link with Tommy Robinson as adviser,Tommy's current address is, for serious truth telling Belmarsh prison.

      2018/19 then farage went marching up and down hills in a very pro tory (ino) .manner.

      Hope you feel better soonest.

  30. Good morning Geoff (thanks for today's NoTTLe page) and to all my chums. Well, 8.40 am is certainly "after 7 am" isn't it? I overslept!

    Wordle 1,249 4/6

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

    1. I can only conclude from the cover ups that all muslims are potential terrorists and will now treat them as such.

      O/T New Dune series on HBO. Dune Prophesy. The beginnings of the Bene Gesserit.

      1. There is also a story going around that there was another man wandering around the vicinity with a machete. Whether that is true or not I cannot say. But the allegation is that this mans presence contributed to the febrile atmosphere that triggered the riot.

  32. 2p on Income Tax across the board could have spared all this aggravation with the farmers and small businesses.

    They then could have tailored a system that penalises land speculators and supports family farms that wouldn't then get compromised by the Treasury, and brings down Council Tax to a level where anyone could subsist modestly on very little, thereby bringing down the Living Wage.

    1. The financial gain isn’t sufficient to justify what they’re doing. The motive is ideological.

    2. Far too sensible for this lot. And now that we know that the chancellor is no more than a second-rate bank clerk rather than 'an economist', expect more crass proposals to come.

      1. Just as VAT on school fees is not about money – it is about spite, envy and class hatred.

        1. I just knew they would be awful, but the speed of introduction of their spite, envy and class hatred is in a class of its own. Leaves them plenty of time to bring in loads more socialist rubbish. The next four years are going to be worse I'm sure.

  33. Morning, all Y'all.
    Light snow this morning, plus overfull trains – people couldn't get on at a couple of stations, as we'd run out of standing room…

    1. We ended up in The Vine Hotel in Skegness for lunch. It was an excellent lunch and good value.

  35. Good grief, what a grim set of posts today. It's enough to stop me reading anything to do with the way of the world today!

  36. WAY OF THE WORLD – Michael Deacon

    On Saturday, the Telegraph website ran a story headlined: “Geology is Racist, Claims University Professor”. Once upon a time, such a concept would have seemed baffling. Not these days.

    Only last week, after all, we learnt that dogs are racist (“Dog-free Zones Needed to Make Outdoors Less Racist, Welsh Government Told”). Last month, it was Latin names for plants (“Latin Plant Names Could Be Racist, Warns University of Michigan”). Oh, and being nice to other people (“Black Academics Told Being ‘Nice’ Perpetuates ‘White Supremacy’”).

    We now see so many headlines like these, it can be hard to keep up. But it’s important that we do. Because the sad truth is, a remarkable number of seemingly innocuous everyday items and activities are, in fact, appallingly racist.

    So, to help you avoid getting cancelled, here’s an A-Z of them.

    Astrophysics
    “Astrophysics ‘Steeped in Systemic Racism and White Supremacy,’ Says Colorado College Science Professor” (Fox News website, January 2023).

    Ballet
    “Dance School Drops Ballet from Auditions as it is ‘White’ and ‘Elitist’” (Telegraph, July 2022).

    Cutlery
    “Knives and Forks? Sorry, They’re Racist, Says Chef ” (Daily Mail, July 2021).

    Dieting
    “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity”, (Scientific American magazine, June 2020).

    Eye-rolling
    “Rolling Your Eyes is Racist – Nod Your Head Instead, Civil Servants Told” (Telegraph, January 2024).

    Fireworks
    “National Geographic Tweet Suggests July 4 Fireworks Are Racist” (New York Post, July 2021).

    Gardening
    “Weeding Out Horticulture’s Race Problem” (Guardian, June 2020 – subhead: “Even in the garden, there’s bigotry to be found”).

    Helmets
    “How US Helmet Laws Are Used Against Cyclists of Colour” (Guardian, April 2021).

    Insects
    “Scientists Ask Americans to Help Change Racist Insect Names” (Newsweek, July 2021).

    Jingle Bells
    “Jingle Bells Rooted in Racism, Boston University Professor Says” (Fox News, December 2017).

    Killing parakeets
    “Parakeet Cull is Racist – They’re as British as Curry, Say Experts” (Evening Standard, October 2009).

    Libraries
    “Ivy League Librarian Says Libraries Reinforce White Supremacy” (US newspaper The Hill, May 2021).

    Milk
    “Cow’s Milk a Symbol of White Supremacy, Peta Claims” (CBS News website, October 2018).

    Numeracy
    “Focusing on the Correct Answer in Maths ‘is Racist’” (Times, May 2021).

    Opera
    “Opera Can No Longer Ignore Its Race Problem” (New York Times, September 2020).

    Punctuality
    “Expecting People to Be On Time is Part of ‘White Supremacy Culture, Duke Medical School Claims”) New York Post, July 2024).

    Queen Elizabeth II
    “Queen Elizabeth Represented Racist Violence as Much as She Did Glamour” (Buzzfeed News, September 2022, the day after the late monarch’s death).

    Remembrance poppies
    “How the Poppy Became a Symbol of Racism” (Independent, November 2016).

    St George’s flag
    “One in Eight Labour Voters Says St George’s Flag is ‘Racist and Divisive’” (Daily Express, April 2024).

    Tipping
    “Tipping Perpetuates Racism, Classism and Poverty” (US news website Vox, July 2014).
    University
    exams “Now University Exams Are Attacked for Being ‘Colonialist’” (Mail, June 2024).

    Veganism
    “Why So Many White Supremacists Are Into Veganism” (Vice, October 2017).

    White people
    “Of Course All White People Are Racist” (Guardian opinion column, July 2002).

    X
    “Guardian Quits X Social Media Platform, Citing Racism and Conspiracy Theories” (Reuters, November 2024).

    Yoga
    “Americans Who Practise Yoga ‘Contribute to White Supremacy’, Claims Michigan State University Professor” (Independent, January 2018).

    Zombies
    “The Racist History of Zombies” (ABC Australia website, March 2016).

    Obviously that’s not all, though. There are many, many other things that have been reported as racist. Sadly, however, I’ve run out of space to mention Alice in Wonderland,

    Body Mass Index, the countryside, dating apps, the Enlightenment, the four-day week, gun control, house prices, interior design, jogging,
    King Kong, lavatories, moccasins, nuclear weapons, Of Mice and Men, photography, the computing term “quantum supremacy”, Robinson Crusoe, swimming, theme parks,The Ugly Duckling, vineyards, the “wellness” industry, X-rays, yearbooks and zoology.

    Come to think of it, that’s a second A-Z. Perhaps next time I’ll do a third.

    NoTTLe
    Not The Telegraph Letters is racist and ALL contributors — including me — are RACIST!🤯

    2. “Rolling Your Eyes is Racist – Nod Your Head Instead, Civil Servants Told” (Telegraph, January 2024).

      Othello, the Moor, was terrifying when he rolled his eyes:

      DESDEMONA
      And yet I fear you, for you’re fatal then
      When your eyes roll so.

      2. Nipping over to Google Images, there appears to be some editing of the Black Friday clientele photos.

  38. Fifty nine years ago I was married (for the first time). That was a cold wet day, too! Honeymoon in Scotland = snow.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dd2b7de3a9a25d6dc71f8b51fd86aa8ab744ab55492d1c7fc272a4b82bdbaff.png
    The proper way to dance the Argentine Tango.

    SIR – Having visited Argentina and been taken by our guide to a theatre away from the tourist hotspots, I was amazed to see the Strictly dancers, both professional and amateur, demonstrating the Argentine tango in such a staccato fashion.

    The dancers we saw were languorously sensuous – a very different approach.

    Anthea Culver
    Reading, Berkshire

    Over to our Argentine correspondent — Katy, from the River Platy — for comment.😘

    1. 'languorously sensuous'. The perfect description of Ashes.

      You should see how she walks let alone dances !

    2. There are different ways of dancing tango. One is more for the stage – lots of flashy figures, lifts etc. Looks great; requires a lot of space and generally a more open embrace.

      The other is milonguero style – close embrace, heart to heart. Not as interesting to look at, but ohhhh it's glorious when you have a real connection with your partner.

      Personally I like a mixture of the two, with the balance of sensuality and wild exhilaration depending on who I'm dancing with and the music we're dancing to.

      No idea what the TV dancers were doing, but given that however you choose to dance it, it's all about connection, I can't see how one can possibly dance it in a staccato manner!

    1. It's just ridiculous that a hate-filled bitter Biden administration is allowed to still hold office two months after the election.. an administration that has stopped at nothing to scupper Trump's bid for re-election. What better way to ruin the party.

      1. Indeed, but I wonder if Putin chose one target and stated to Trump/Biden that is was Europe’s problem and no others would be forthcoming unless the West responded in kind, would America get involved with a MAD response?

          1. Or Luxemburg, possibly.

            I was actually thinking somewhere In Ukraine where they might get Zelensky.

    3. Normally I'd encourage it but not today please. Farmers deserve better. Let them all go home then nuke East London, Westminster and so on. Then Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Luton… the muslim savages. If aiming for the South please get St Mary's.

  41. That was hard work:
    Wordle 1,249 4/6

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

    1. Wordle 1,249 5/6

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

      You did better than I did!

  42. QUENTIN LETTS: Mirthless wooden Marxist who has no Opposition… meets the leader of China
    By QUENTIN LETTS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

    Flunkeys offered a last-minute briefing before the British and Chinese leaders met in Brazil. ‘He’s a grey, jaw-grinding Marxist and a bit of a pudding, boss. Wooden and mirthless. Wields vast power because Opposition politicians have been eliminated.

    ‘If you want to make him smile you could say that you, too, like locking up protesters. Oh, and his name is pronounced “Sir Kia”. As in those South Korean cars.’

    Beijing’s President Xi Jinping, possibly thus forewarned, did not look entirely thrilled. He half glanced away as he approached Sir Keir Starmer.

    The handshake was fleeting before Mr Xi – radiating senior-partner vibes – walked towards some chairs. The two men sat opposite each other with their retinues.

    Mr Xi’s chaps were stiff-spined in dark suits, white shirts, sober ties and little lapel badges, which may or may not have been miniature water pistols.

    The British diplomats looked a mess, some leaning back, others bent over notepads. Scruffy hair, untidy clothes, the men ill-shaven. London’s foreign office has slipped, you know.

    Speaking across a trench of purple orchids, Sir Keir undertook to be ‘predictable’ in his relations with China.

    Those of us who know the old sausage may feel unpredictability has never really been his thing.

    Keir Starmer insisted that UK-China ties are 'important' today as he became the first premier to meet Xi Jinping since 2018 (pictured: Keir Starmer during a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping of China)

    ‘We want, as we have agreed, to avoid surprises,’ droned Sir Keir. One of the Chinese officials mined some wax from his left ear and flicked it on the floor.

    Mr Xi, for his part, made some brief remarks which included the (entirely untrue) Labour slogan about the Starmer government ‘fixing the foundations of the economy’.

    The two British reporters in the room were shooed out the moment Sir Keir mentioned an imprisoned Hong Kong dissident, Jimmy Lai.

    We therefore do not know if Sir Keir returned the favour and parroted a Maoist slogan – maybe ‘have fewer children, raise more pigs!’ – at his waxen-faced interlocutors.

    How long had the Rio meeting with Mr Xi been in the planning? Where did it fit into the great game?

    Could we gain leverage in Beijing if we bag a few trade favours from Donald Trump?

    And how does an improved relationship with China sit with Labour’s protestations about human-rights abuses in Gaza?

    Such questions could have been asked by the Commons foreign affairs select committee which had a long session with the foreign office’s top civil servant, Sir Philip Barton.

    Alas, Emily Thornberry’s new committee showed remarkable lack of curiosity in these matters. As for Sir Philip, he only wanted to talk about managerial and budget details.

    The CV of Sir Philip, 61, tells us that he has been head of HM diplomatic service since 2020 and that he was previously high commissioner to India, Pakistan, deputy head of mission in Washington DC and private secretary to Tony Blair.

    Quite a flyer, you think. As a committee witness, however, he has always been an ocean-going dud and yesterday was no alternative.

    QUENTIN LETTS: Forget Fawlty, this was more 'don't mention the farmers…'
    article image
    With myriad hand gestures and jerky little lifts of his bottom, as if riding a pony, he talked of finances and personnel management, office mergers and funding models, forward-looking asset plans, annualised budgets and global maintenance requirements.

    Yawnsville. To be permanent secretary at the foreign office was once a great glittering prize, reserved for suave scintillators.

    That a dull booby such as Sir Philip has held this position for four years is evidence of how mundane the FO has become and perhaps explains why those diplomats next to Sir Keir in Brazil looked so scruffy.

    Sir Philip is retiring early. Maybe he felt David Lammy was something of a downgrade after David Cameron. Or maybe Mr Lammy found Sir Philip as eyeball-achingly boring as the rest of us.

    We close with word that Sky News’s Beth Rigby, reporting from Rio, just used the diplomatic term ‘rapprochement’.

    Gruesome. It came out more like ‘ra-proach-meat’. French envoys are in a state of shock and have issued a communique begging that our Beth undertakes never again to try to speak French on air.

  43. Well I have just tried to get to a Doctor's appointment at the local Health Centre and the buses have stopped running. I have abandoned the effort. Try to rebook tomorrow.

    1. Oh what a bummer! I found when trying to book a GP appointment that if I pressed 2 for "book an appointment" I got immediately cut off but if I pressed 5 for "referral" then I was put in a queue. I figured it was a referral in my case as I'd been seen by the Urgent Care Centre and they'd forwarded all the notes to the GP practice with their recommendations. Mind, the 220 bus that takes me from work to home to the hospital was running normally, which helps!

  44. Well I have just tried to get to a Doctor's appointment at the local Health Centre and the buses have stopped running. I have abandoned the effort. Try to rebook tomorrow.

  45. Tories Demand Answers From Reeves Over LinkedIn CV Edits

    Shadow Paymaster General Richard Holden wrote to Rachel Reeves last night demanding answers on her career. Holden says Reeves “will be aware of various reporting over the weekend relating to your employment history,” and that the “allegations raised, including that you misrepresented your role at HBOS, and then edited your CV after this being discovered, are not trivial matters.” Downing Street is maintaining wilful blindness over the situation…

    Holden says “standards in public life are upheld by rigorous accountability and transparency” and he is writing “seeking clarity.” To that end the Tories are firing six broad-sweep questions at Reeves…

    Between what years were you employed by the Bank of England?
    What was your job title at the Bank of England?
    Between what years were you employed by HBOS?
    What was your job title at HBOS?
    What was the reason you left HBOS?
    Will you now publish a full, unedited CV?
    He adds some politicking for good measure by claiming “this is equally important as many businesses and working people already feel as if Labour had not been honest with them.” The pressure is not letting up on the Chancellor…

    1. Pookie
      42m
      Oh dear. The Tories can't even get this right.

      Asking for Job Titles is a mistake. Job titles mean nothing – its responsibilities that count. WE already know that she worked in the International Economic Analysis Division of the BofE, which she can spin as "I was an economist because I worked in a division with "Economic Analysis" in the title". Ask what she actually did, and what her responsibilities there were.
      Ask how much time she actually spent at the Bank of England once you take out secondment to Washington and the time spent studying at the LSE.
      Ask her to explain why she claimed in an interview that she spent "a decade" at the BofE.
      Ask her to explain the discrepancies between her 2012 tweet that she was a "very junior Japan analyst" and her subsequent claims
      Ask her about reports that she was involved in an expenses scandal at HBOS and that she chose to resign after she was discovered claiming to have medical appointments but then going off and running errands for the Labour Party.
      Ask her to clarify her claims that she nearly went to work for Goldman Sachs.
      Ask her whether in her view her behaviour has complied with the Nolan Principles and with the Ministerial Code.

      1. They can't. PMQs is carefully controlled and you can't simply demand a liar be exposed and if they do it the entire state machine will dig on the Tories.

        Far better to silence her 22bn black hole lie and expose it as paying back their union funders. Then go for the 'Farmers have to pay for the NHS with an easy one – 'we're public sector workers. When will we be paying for the NHS?' Or 'the rhscumbag has only worked in the private sector for 3 years – apparently. When will say start paying for the NHS? / the Labour front bench has never worked in the private sector at all. When will it start paying for the NHS?

        They've got to force the reality that public sector workers do not pay tax. Some, certainly, add real value but that is not the same as paying tax.

        The Tories need to open up about some unpleasant home truths – the unfunded public sector pensions bill, for example. Should they receive one? Yes, of course but the deal was the private sector earned more day to day and there were few, efficient pub sec. workers who got a good pension. Now pub sec earns 8% more and receives a half salary average pension for life that isn't included in the estate evaluations.

    3. Why did you leave the Bank of England?
      Moving from the BoE to the Halifax hardly sounds like an upward career trajectory.

      1. I do wonder whether she might have been an intern at the BoE, rather than a proper, full time, employee.

    4. How much did you and your three other senior managers at HBOS scam on expenses before you were found out?
      How many so-called doctor & dental appointments did you invent to attend Labour meetings before you were followed by a private investigator then mystriously resigned on the stop?

  46. Snow cleared off the van and we're ready to head forth to the Great Wen.
    Logging off now.
    TTFN.

    2. I'm offended. I shall complain to the Thought Police.

      That vile song is Gypsyist, Trampist and Thieveist!

      AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭 SOB!

    1. No wonder this country is so feeble; so spavined.
      Every snowy Friday afternoon, our headmaster sent the whole school to sledge on Hilly Fields behind our school.
      The greatest danger was a toboggan hitting one of the concrete drainage pipes placed at intervals across the slopes.
      But then his generation of teachers had been through WWII and developed a sense of proportion.

      1. I remember well my days going to and from Junior School in the snowy weather. A mile walk down hill and lost of slides.

      1. You'd know this area Bill, I came out of work in Harrow in the winter of 1963. As usual Jumped on the 18 bus to Edgeware and unfortunately after 15 minutes it went straight on and landed on a small grassy roundabout at Belmont Circle. Stuck, we all had to get off and walk. A foot of snow and still falling, no more buses that day. I had to walk home to Engle Park Mill Hill. No home phone to let my parents know where I was ….just get on with it. Two hours later, dinner was in the oven, a hot bath first and a lovely warm coal fire.

        1. I remember it well. Getting up early to walk from Finchley Road to the Law Courts via Primrose Hill – in full winter gear and gumboots! My Lambretta was buried in snow.

        2. I recall walking/jogging to and from school for a couple of days, until the trains started running again.
          Chorleywood to Moor Park, just under 5 miles each way.

        3. I had a similar experience in that part of the world on a 140 bus travelling from Mill Hill to Yeading. Between Burnt Oak and Queensbury (Mollison Avenue?) in thick pea-soup fog we took the wrong exit off a roundabout near the Flying Eagle pub. We ended up in a housing estate.

          BTW – Edgware and Engel Park!

          1. My sight reading wise is a bit restricted at the moment I'm still waiting for the second cataract to be removed.
            Spoil (spell checker) chucker would know the difference.

        4. I remember that in the winter of 1963 (I was 8), I thought we would get out of going to the dentist. Nope. My dear mother, brought up in rural N.E. Scotland (She and her siblings had to help collect water from the nearby stream – no mains water at the farm cottage, and had to walk to school across fields & lanes of snow), simply made us wear our warmest clothes and our wellies, walk through the deep snow to the bus stop to catch the bus to Barnet. This must have been later in the winter when main roads were clear a bit.

          1. The snowfall started on Boxing day. My Mum and I had been to the traditional performance of The Messiah in the Cathedral. We walked home (a mile or so) as the snow fell. It stayed piled up in drifts on the ground until March. Although our little youth club closed for a while I don't remember missing any time at school. We used to sit on the big heating pipes round the walls between lessons to warm up.

          2. Back then, many teachers lived quite local to their schools.
            In the Easter holidays of 1963, Dad drove us up to the N.E. of Scotland to visit lots of the family. Why we went at that time of year, especially given the weather, I have no idea. We must have had a couple of overnight stops – I only remember the one with one of Mum's brothers and his family near Edinburgh, and there's no way Dad could have driven all that way in one trip.
            At that time, the main route from Hertfordshire was up was all the way up the A1. Although the road itself was clear, I can still remember snow banks (higher than the roof of the car) piled up at the side of the road through Northumberland and Scotland. My younger brother was particularly impressed.

          3. We didn’t travel much as Mum didn’t have a car (though she had learnt to drive before the war). When we visited uncles and aunts we went by train.

            I think my first visit to Scotland (and only the Borders) was on honeymoon with the ex.

          4. One year when I was quite young, we travelled by train from Kings Cross to Aberdeen, though why we went by train, I have no idea. As to how we travelled the remaining distance, I also don’t recall. Possibly an uncle took us in his car, because the line north to Banff had closed before I was born.
            All I recall of that long journey is the steam. I suppose the movement of the train would have sent me to sleep for much of the time.

          5. Back then, many teachers lived quite local to their schools.
            In the Easter holidays of 1963, Dad drove us up to the N.E. of Scotland to visit lots of the family. Why we went at that time of year, especially given the weather, I have no idea. We must have had a couple of overnight stops – I only remember the one with one of Mum's brothers and his family near Edinburgh, and there's no way Dad could have driven all that way in one trip.
            At that time, the main route from Hertfordshire was up was all the way up the A1. Although the road itself was clear, I can still remember snow banks (higher than the roof of the car) piled up at the side of the road through Northumberland and Scotland. My younger brother was particularly impressed.

        5. My Mum was a caretaker for the local infants school during that winter.
          After the snow storms were over my Dad walked up to the school with her and armed with his shovel dug out a pathway from the school gates, through the playground to the school doors. He then dug a second pathway from the rear school doors to the boiler room so she could fire up the coal boiler to heat the school.
          I can remember walking through the playground with the tops of the snow piled up each side of that pathway higher than the kids who returned to school in the New Year.
          I should mention this was in no way exceptional, everybody just got on with it in those days.

    4. Same here. I was thinking back and I can't remember my school (primary or grammar) being closed due to the weather.

      1. I think we might have had about a week during the 60s (really deep, prolonged snow and no-one could get anywhere).

  49. Good Moaning.
    (Heavy sigh)
    It really was only a matter of time. I'm surprised she kept quiet for a couple of days.

    "NADINE DORRIES: Aged 9, I was sexually abused by a vicar. Now I'm going to get justice…"

    1. If she was sexually abused aged 9, the man responsible is almost certainly dead by now.

  52. Tired of the endless whining about "Islamophobia" in the Grauniad etcet??
    I rather liked this rebuttal…………….
    "We, the British, have had you lot, come here, rape hundreds of thousands of our children, blow up our children at stadiums, behead soldiers in the street, murder little girls in parks, you've blown up trains and busses, you cost us £bns in unemployment and housing, and healthcare, £2bn alone on the NHS because of inbreeding, you've brought FGM, acid attacks, and steel bollards on every street. We can't even buy trinkets at Christmas markets without armed guards and bollards of peace. THREE little British girls were violently murdered and you've got the fucking audacity to complain about the reaction?

    Your backwards religion isn't a race. If we were racist, we wouldn't celebrate Hindhus and Sikhs as we do. It's nothing about race. It's ENTIRELY about YOUR behaviour as Muslims against the British people."

    3. Did that get published?

      If moderate muslims were to call it out each time they wouldn't be facing casual racism.

      1. Phil: do you know any file concealing cake recipes?
        Don't want it sinking to the bottom and I suspect a bit more than rolling it in flour is needed.

    4. The writer's number of rape victims is overstated by a hundredfold, but the truer figure is still a thousandfold too many.

        1. Indeed so, but there will always be some because of inherent human beastliness, regardless of race, religion, creed or colour. The only way to eliminate it is to exterminate humanity.

  53. Today in Free Speech Psychologist Xandra H looks at the mindset of Labour's Gang of Four in her article ‘ They Are Not Us ’ and finds it totally alien to normal humans. Let us know if you agree in the comments.

    It’s that time of the year again, and the Grumpy Old Man is back with a debate on the perennial question of whether one should suck or blow, with GOM preferring to suck .

    The backlash against NCHIs appears to be having an effect. We urge you to write to your MP demanding that this sinister practice be stopped. This article has a template letter you can use .

    And please help us grow and reach a wider readership. Spread the word and give the site address to anybody you think might be interested.

    Energy Watch: Demand 40.341 GW. Supply: Fossil fuel = 42.3%; Renewables = 26.5%; Nuclear 10.3%; Biomass = 8% and Imports 11.2%.
    At 0700 fossil (gas) was supplying about 70% of demand and imports much more than renewables.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

  54. BBC Verify Confuses Acres for Hectares in Farm Tax ‘Fact-Check’

    BBC Verify’s main ‘fact-checking’ article on Reeves’ new farm tax this month deployed typical balance by quoting “independent tax expert” and senior Labour activist Dan Neidle to cast aspersions on claims the tax will be highly damaging to a high number of family farms. Turns out the Verify team can’t even get the very basics of farming right…

    Verify has been forced to update its fact-check after it confused hectares for acres. One acre is 0.4 hectares, as anyone with any countryside experience would know…

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/bbc-verify-update.png?w=976&ssl=1

    By calculating with hectares and not acres the BBC Verify would be wildly inaccurate with its statistics. 63 people with combined salary costs of a whopping £3.2 million…

    19 November 2024 @ 10:28

    1. I’m sure we can blame Brexit. Or the Patriarchy (evil hWite supreme as it that it is). Possibly also Mrs T, if we try hard enough.

        1. The Left are slow, but even they're learning that no one cares about being called racist any more. It's almost a badge of honour.

      2. I knew they were not the same thing but had no idea what the ratio was of one to the other.

      4. Our house is sited in 1.5 acres of land and we've the measurement somewhere… in hectares too.

        I just thought 'wow, big garden!'

    3. They also seem to be confused by the DEFRA figures, which vary by a massive amount from the Treasury version, which seems to be what Vilify are using!? Edit: Just checked the figures quoted in Sunday's Telegaffe [Liam Halligan] – the Treasury [and the BBC, who claim they are using DEFRA figures] say around 73% of farms will not pay IHT under the new rules. DEFRA say only 34% of farms are valued at <£1M! Let's also not forget that Labour pledged NOT to change agricultural property relief!!
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/17/reevess-tax-on-farmers-carries-a-strong-whiff-of-class/

    4. Also, they're just parroting the Treasury line which is proven wrong. The Treasury deliberately didn't include machinery, salaries, buildings. Why? Well, who knows. I guess the truth just didn't suit them.

    5. Considering how ludicrous that program Country File is concerning anything outside of the cities. The BBC really should keep its trap shut. They wouldn't know the difference between a dandelion root and a carrot. The fools.

    1. Oddly, the only people who'd complain about a snow man are the trans mentalists, or the pallywallys. They just want to complain.

  56. Good morning to all and another dark day it is, no wind.. I'm tracking the farmers in London today. If you are interested you can watch on You tube. Just type in farmers demo in London ans several things should pop up.

    Back to my topic yesterday. Farage and Islam. This, from the Lotus Eaters, it was in my feed last night. For those who don't know who they are. They are all young academics, for the most part, not content to live their lives in academia. The only one that isn't is Carl Benjamin, who you will be familiar with as Sargon of Akkad. I can't remember the names of the other two because there's quite a few members of the group and they rotate according to subject matter. The one with an accent was a lecturer in philosophy. His thing is free will and moral responsibility. The third of the trio is an economist, I may be mistaken, but I think he was an economist for the old UKIP, he really is good, has the knack of explaining economics in an intelligible manner to those of us who's eyes glaze over when the subject comes up, I really appreciate his lectures because it is a subject that I know and understand little about. All the members of the Lotus Eaters are conservatives, and most, now a days, support Reform and Trump. There are hundreds of lectures on dozens of subjects from the classics to contemporary politic on the site,some with guests such as Rafe Heydel-Mankoo. So it is a site well worth subscribing to and its only £ 5.00 a month.
    And no this is not a paid advert for them. I just think it's a great site. 😊
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtQ43GIZUCo

    1. Agree, I have started listening in the last few months and your background info is helpful. Thank you

  57. I think I’ve had my differences in the past with Mr Duly of Haslemere, Surrey but today he is spot on:

    “SIR – There is a vast difference between loss-making pits in the 1980s, which produced uneconomic coal for which there was a declining market, and profitable family farms today that produce cheaper food and apply higher agricultural standards than imported equivalents (“Blair ally: Do to the farmers what Thatcher did to the miners”, report, November 13).
    Moreover, there is huge public support for Britain’s farmers, whereas 40 years ago affection for the miners was tempered by the undemocratic and intimidating approach of the National Union of Mineworkers.
    Rural communities face a multifaceted assault, which includes the erection of huge wind and solar farms, excessive property development, and the removal of IHT exemptions for family farms. Farmers should replicate the tactics of the public-sector trades unions, which represent the only people Sir Keir Starmer’s Government appears to respect and reward.
    Philip Duly”

    1. Good post, mir…interestingly, I have I think five turbines on local horizon (can't always count them due to weather conditions, but always see a minimum of three…today…nadda…zero…) perhaps being mot'd/ and or repaired, whatever – hope they've disappeared for good.

  58. Fully backing Ukraine

    SIR – The decision by President Biden to authorise Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia is welcome (report, November 18), but once again the West is reacting to events on the ground – this time the deployment of North Korean soldiers by Russia.

    If Ukraine is to hold the line, the West must commit more fully and proactively, and not merely drip-feed weapons and then inhibit their use.

    Jeremy Prescott
    Southsea, Hampshire

    When Pompey dockyard gets hit with a nuclear missile you will be toast, Jeremy.

    1. "Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
      That too many people have died?" © Bob Dylan (1962).

      2. You sound nostalgic today, Sue:-) what about 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' (that one about the Vietnam War)?

      1. Neither will. Ukraine because it wants to control the region. Russian because it is defending it. It is their Northern Ireland. Rather than fuelling the fire we should have sued for peace, with the military strength of NATO behind us.

        1. Last hope, imo, is President Trump. Maybe he'll just let it burn – I understand he has no family connections/business in Ukraine.

        3. I think As General Sir Richard Dannatt once explained when the troubles started. Ukraine wanted to join NATO or other's behind them wanted this to happen. But apparently if a country is in conflict with its border neighbours they are not eligible to join NATO. I don't think he actually sided with either, but suggested it was not the Russians that started the problems. And he hasn't been asked for his expert opinion by the MSM since.

    3. I'm sorry, bt the deployment of North korean soldiers is ludicrous. The supply lines are thousands – tens of thousands of miles. This is assuming only troops are moved. If we add in armoured vehicles (which NK has precious few of, and those obsolete) that's even further.

      Yes, they're all much the same vintage machinery so there's spare parts and so on but still – the valuable things in modern warfare are drones, information and long range, high accuracy missiles and neither side really has those. Even the american ones are 5 years old.

      1. If there are North Koreans in Russia they are there as part of the training initiatives announced some time ago whereby the Russians are explaining the nature of modern warfare to their allies.

    4. The point is that Biden promised a smooth transition of power to the Trump administration yet has gone ahead with the authorisation of missile strikes within Russia without telling President Trump.

      Biden is obviously trying to harm the new administration to deflect from his own utterly disastrous presidency.

      Putin has made it abundantly clear that such missile strikes, requiring as they must American satellite targeting and aircraft to launch them, are considered an act of war. Biden and fools such as Rutte, Macron and Starmer in snatching at Biden’s coat-tails are acting with reckless abandon.

      Finally I believe the American election result has shown that the population is set against foreign wars and in particular giving billions to the corrupt clowns running Ukraine.

  59. SIR – Vladimir Putin thinks he can attack Ukraine with impunity, hitting targets far from the Russian border in western Ukraine, yet he cries foul when Ukraine does the same to Russia.

    Unlike Russia, with its barbarous attacks against civilians, Ukraine will focus its attacks on military targets.

    Rev Donald Morrison
    Dingwall, Ross-shire

    And you know this because?

    You call yourself a man of God do you?

    You are a disgrace.

    1. If Ukraine should win this, I would put good money on Zelensky and his mob ethnically cleansing Eastern Ukraine of all peoples with even the slightest association with Russia.
      I wonder if Rev Lidl knows what they've already done to Russian Orthodox churches throughout Ukraine.

      1. Well it is actually the oldest established church in Ukraine and its status as such along with its name indicates the annoying reality that Ukraine is really just Russia. That is why Zelenskyy persecutes it with his new invention, to quote: "Most Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to a separate branch of the faith, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formed four years ago by uniting branches independent of Moscow's authority." 4 years ago as opposed to a 1000 years of the established church. What is pathetic is that most Westerners, wilfully ignorant, do not see the obvious persecution of the ancient Church of Ukraine/Russia because, of course, the corrupt regime in Kiev is our poodle.

    3. He "knows" this because, in all likelihood, he confines himself to traditional mainstream news sources and either dismisses or mistrusts "alternative" sources or never consults them. I wouldn't call him a disgrace, just conventional.

  61. Just received fresh instructions from the MR about plans for today. My relaxing morning has been replaced with rushing about to get ready (having lunched) to go out at 12.30 (instead of 1.30 as I had expected.)

    Back much later – if at all. Play nicely and DO watch out for the snowdrifts.

    2. The weather "app" on my Kindle claimed that Stevenage was experiencing heavy snowfall earlier this morning and that snowfall, though no longer heavy, is happening right now. There's not a single flake of evidence for this. If these weather "apps" cannot get the here and now correct, why bother putting any faith in the forecast for the next day or so, let alone several days away?

        1. If there is any local snow, it must be either at "London" Luton Airport or Buntingford which, I believe, has the nearest Met Office weather station. Both are about 10 miles from here.

  62. Starmer the communist land grabbing farmer harmer and Thieving Reeves must be brought down – the country cannot wait 5 years .

    1. Yes, they must, and Starmer's pension law repealed and heavily taxed – say 50% directly just as a private sector pension is.

      1. Sadly they, and it, won't be. They'll hang on by their fingernails – they were prepared to lie and cheat to get in, they will be prepared to do a lot more to stay in.

        1. I do remember many of us crying out that the Evil Emperor Blair was changing out constitution beyond repair (and being relentlessly mocked for this). Well…

          1. Yes, we did. One of the things that will need to get through to Farage is the need to reverse this. The position is the same as when Blair took over – people were fed up with the Tories (they have time and time again shown themselves to be useless but then Labour come in who are even worse – but people have short memories. People have also successfully been dumbed down by successive generation of governments, and we have an immigrant element that simply wasn’t as big or as vociferous in 1997).

            It will be hard going but we have no choice but to know and fight what we are up against.

    2. Unfortunately, the sheer joy the electorate derived from roundly kicking the Tinos in the cojones failed to foresee that our constitution does not allow for buyer's remorse. It is, indeed, at least 4 1/2 more years of this relentless, brainless spite.

      1. This is the most spiteful, venal, incompetent government, considering the carnage committed over just a few months, I cannot contemplate so many years. The electorate were deceived , remember Starmer actually saying ‘ ill tread gently on people’s lives ‘ . Yes, so much buyers remorse .

        1. Agreed. Which is why I argue with those still castigating the (admittedly awful) Toreees that they should be training all their guns on this present evil phalanx instead. No point in sawing sawdust.

  64. My prediction over this farming theft farce – the land will be force sold, the farm will go out of business as unviable. Very rich landowners will swoop in and either carpet it with solar panels or just collect the green subsidy being handed out as part of the 'food security' strategy.

    The farmer's family loses, tax payer loses, the country loses some tossing oik fills the bank/insurance trough at tax payers expense.

    More food has to be brought in from overseas making us ever more vulnerable and as moronic 'green' levies bite that'll fall away as well. Shortages will, eventually be a way of life. We'll go from a first world country with masses of choice to communist subsistence.

    1. With no homegrown food and dependence on foreign states for our electricity the only thing of which we shall have a superabundance is wankers in politics.

    2. I think that people like Gates will be hoovering up these farms when they fail. In my mind it’s all in the plan.

  65. Farmers and protesters are holding a minutes silence out of respect for farmers who have ended their lives for fear of what the March 2027 tax will do to their families .

  66. I don't suppose there's any record of how many times every tv commercial has been broadcast in the UK but, if there is, a likely winner must be the AA's bank robbery one. It's been shown three or four times an hour for every hour of every day for several months on numerous channels. It must run into several tens of thousands of showings. I've seen hundreds of them and I've come to loath it. The law of diminishing returns must surely have been triggered by now.

      1. It might depend on which channels are uppermost in our viewing time. I have seen "pee pants" quite a lot but nowhere near as much as AA's bank robbery. Another, which has been broadcast for some years, now, although with nothing like the frequency of these others, is the little boy yearning for the long-lasting Fairy Liquid bottle to be emptied so that he can pretend he's an astronaut and the bottle is his space rocket.

    2. I think Water Aid must run that one a close second – I wonder how many "£2 a month" contributions fund the adverts??

    4. The beauty of living in Sweden takes many (televisual) forms.

      1. I never watch Swedish Television.
      2. I watch ALL UK television channels, both mainstream and Sky, but seldom live.

      I access them via a couple of VPNs direct from my Mac Mini 2 and streamed to my television receiver via an HDMI—Ethernet—HDMI cabling system. This means I can watch anything on UK television whenever I want but never have to suffer a single second of any mind-numbing adverts.

      Of course, I have a facility to watch live TV from Sky, but I only occassionally use that for sports events.

          1. I don’t feel any particular animosity towards either GB News or Nigel Farage. It’s more a matter of having lost interest in news broadcasting in general. I don’t seek it out and, nowadays, most likely to encounter it if in a room when others are watching or listening.

            I was hospitalised for nearly 8 weeks in 2019. I didn’t see any news in that time and could barely bother reading newspapers left for me by visitors. I came to realise that going without leads to greater contentment. News broadcasts are generally unhappy, with misery and gloom predominant. What’s the point of absorbing that unhappiness knowing I have virtually no say or influence?

          2. I hear you, a lot of it’s dire, and exaggerated. I blame Blair (ITMA), the MSM degrees…the volume of online journos is quite something. I no longer read any printed news, get most of it online including the local paper. Church Newsletter still printed once monthly, that’s a sub but a really low one, being mostly ads – wonder if they’ll mention the Archbishop next issue..hmm..Do you read/post online, or read books, perhaps you’re a radio listener, music?

          3. I’ve never listened to radio less than I do now. Other than the occasional cricket commentary, the radio is off.

  67. I don't suppose there's any record of how many times every tv commercial has been broadcast in the UK but, if there is, a likely winner must be the AA's bank robbery one. It's been shown three or four times an hour for every hour of every day for several months on numerous channels. It must run into several tens of thousands of showings. I've seen hundreds of them and I've come to loath it. The law of diminishing returns must surely have been triggered by now.

  68. Berlin assumes that damage to two undersea fibre-optic communication cables in the Baltic Sea was sabotage, Germany’s defence minister said on Tuesday.

    “No one believes the cables were accidentally damaged. I also don’t want to believe that the ships’ anchors caused the damage by accident,” Boris Pistorius said in Brussels.

    “We have to assume, without certain information, that the damage is caused by sabotage.”

    Two cables in the Baltic were severed on Sunday and Monday – one believe (sic) Finland and Germany and one between Sweden and Lithuania.

    It assumes? Why don’t they get a submersible down there and look? These are the words of someone seeking confrontation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/19/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-latest-war-updates/

    2. You can tell from the sensors in the cable. Cutting fibres is a bit silly. There's plenty more. It's a hugely low value exercise for a lot of effort.

  69. I wonder if the counter protesters will be at the Farmers protest?
    I can just hear them chanting now
    What do we want?
    No Food!
    When do we want it?
    Now!

    1. Oh the usual rentamob will be out there in force whinging about 'green' or some other communist stupidity.

      They don't go because they've anything to contribute, they just want a fight. Many problems could be solved if plod just set police dogs on them. The fascist Left are cowards are heart.

    2. Let's see what the working man on street has to say according to The Guardian as they drop in for a Austrian goat milk double-half-caf-half-decaf-soy milk cappuccino – extra hot – with a dash of Madagascar cinnamon-and half tablespoon of caramel-latte-frappa-mocha at the Shoreditch Grind in rural EC1.

      "British farming is already in a grim state. Labour’s bold new measures can't make it any worse."

      "Farmers have hoarded land for too long. Inheritance tax will bring new life to rural Britain."

      "Brexit, the cost of living and the climate crisis have made farmers' lives difficult.. not taxation."

        1. Indeed. I wouldn't mind betting that The Dolts of Downing Street are incapable of making the distinction between rich owners using agricultural land as a tax haven but letting it to tenant farmers, and landowing farmers.

          1. “The Dolts of Downing Street are incapable”

            there, fixed it for you (as the yoof would say)

  70. Just back form a trip to the shops through the climate change. According to the forecast it's supposed to to be sleet today with the temperature falling +2℃ but as I gaze out of the window the air is thick with snowflakes the size of a 50p coin and it's 0℃.

  71. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/rachel-reeves-launched-tax-assault-britain-poorest/

    So even if the letter of the promise was kept, the spirit was not. And there is no doubt that the electorate will remember this sort of behaviour.

    No, they won't. What Labour will spin out is 'your evil rich employers forced you to take pay cuts so they could get rich at your expense. It was nothing to do with us. We invested in the country, they stole from you'.

    And do you know what? People will fall for it.

    1. Sadly, you're probably right, wibs. There's no cure for stupid and there is a lot of stupid around.

  72. Boom.
    ATACMS strike 75 miles inside Russia.

    Trump is lidderally a fascist, and he's gonna start WW3.. he's already placing his cronies in key poistions of government n stuff.

      1. It's projection onto others of their own characteristics that they cannot acknowledge to themselves as having, such as hatred. Projecting their hatred on to right-wingers allows them to respond by being hateful themselves – while denying outright that they are.

  73. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/19/jeff-stelling-interview-sky-sports-soccer-saturday-bbc-motd/

    The headline reads " Jeff Stelling interview: ‘We old white blokes have had our day in the sun’ "

    Yes, socially, maybe. But when you want something built, made, designed, paid for, engineered, developed, written, transported, flown or yes, tax paid you always look to the boring, middle aged white man you're so desperate to erase.

    I looked around our office and, partly by intent we have 2 women (3 if you count Lucy), one is 80, the other mid 20s, 4 blokes (6 if you count dogs) and they're all white. It's not some prejudice against the diversity, but none have the skills we want or the attitude we need. When we explained to one chap who applied that we worked flexibly and often remotely he said 'good, I won't be coming in to the office' as if it was a choice he could make. Mrs Clarke gave him a long look and said 'thank you, we'll not be in touch' and eneded the interview.

    The chap we hired, who's now running his own sub business asked how it worked, how we got projects completed, how we measured competence and outcomes.

  74. Another good one from Low Status Opinions.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/good-cop-bad-cop?r=z2izz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

    Good COP? Bad COP!

    I’m just old enough to remember when mums down the laundrette (no proper washing machine for us yet, though my nan did have a twin tub) would chat over their kid’s head about how so and so must be doing well for themselves, because they were ‘getting central heating put in.’

    It seems mad now, but in 1970 only 30% of British homes boasted a central heating boiler and radiators.

    Now we expect our cosy homes to boast a toasty room temperature of around 20C (68F), if not a bit higher when Dad’s not policing the thermostat. But back in the early 1970s average household temperatures were a chilly 12C. (54F)

    So there’s great news for nostalgia fans.

        2. OT, Grizzly…green woodpecker today, another first for many years…I'm convinced now winter underway…🤔

          1. First snow of the season here during the night.
            Not much more than a heavy dandruff, though.

      2. Oh yes! Roaring coal fire in the sitting room. Hot front, cold back. I had an electric "nursery heater" (similar to below) in my bedroom, hence on cold nights our dog would come and keep me company. There was also an electric heater mounted high on the bathroom wall, which had limited impact. Clothes were stuffed under the bed covers in the morning to warm them up.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1cc91c659575510071ac4f3f8f88df341d990956f08f505bdc87c29c1a9cbbdc.png

          1. My sisters and my self use to dress for school under the covers.
            Curtains were often stuck to the inside of the windows with frost.

        3. We recently had an email from our friends in Perth WA.
          They had been out celebrating a family birthday. Talk about jealous. They were at the Swan River Yacht Club for lunch.
          Another of my favourite places in Oz.
          Warmly enjoying themselves.

          1. Lovely part of the world down there.
            Fond memories of the two-lane bottle shop (bottle-o). Never seen such a thing before or since.

          2. I wish we had visited WA in the late 70s while we were living there. We might have decided to stay.

        4. I loved parafin stoves. The parafin in Scotland was made from shale oil and the slag heaps are still visible in the Central Region. Home-grown energy!

        5. Frost patterns on the inside of the windows, glass of water on the bedside table frozen solid – ah, those were the days! I had a small fireplace in my bedroom, but it was only lit when I was ill.

        1. Oh my, remember a neighbour with those honeycomb patterns on her legs, sitting in front of coal fire as much as poss.

    2. I can remember us sitting shivering in a semi-circle around the coal fire before going off to school.

    3. We had a top loading washing machine (from Alf’s sister in law when they updated theirs) soon after we married in 1968, probably a year later when our first was born, but no telephone or central heating. In Kent! Frozen windows in winter. We tried to borrow £100 to have c.h. Put in, having saved £300, but were turned down by the bank who, about six months later, offered us a credit card. We were really furious and more or less said bog off.

      As you say, how times have changed.

      1. We (first husband and I) lived in Army quarters in Warminster and Tidworth when first son was born in December 1970. Open fire was the only heating there.

        1. We had a solid fuel boiler in the kitchen and an open fire in the living room. Only problem was they used different fuels!

          3. Not really; I have a large coal store for the anthracite and a small (5cwt) bunker for the house coal. I only have coal fires occasionally.

    4. I remember my uncle buying a twintub (wash/spin) for my grandmother who put one of her crochet mats on the lid, with a vase of her wax flowers, and carried on with her boiler. She was just the best 😍

    5. I grew up in a house without central heating. The first house I bought didn’t have any. it was bought in 1987 from an old woman who had lived all her life there. I had central heating put in in 1995. I remember my Grandma getting her storage heaters. Golly, they were big.

      Edit. You never hear anyone talk of chilblains any more, either.

    6. I grew up in a house without central heating. The first house I bought didn’t have any. it was bought in 1987 from an old woman who had lived all her life there. I had central heating put in in 1995. I remember my Grandma getting her storage heaters. Golly, they were big.

      Edit. You never hear anyone talk of chilblains any more, either.

        1. Until I joined the RN in 1961, I did not realise you had indoor ones

          The paper in them both had print on them

          At home “Coventry Evening Telegraph”, at work, “Government Property”

    8. An elderly great Aunt in the family, (spinster courtesy of WW I) lived in a two up two down fridge on the edge of Dartmoor. Heating consisted of a parrafin stove in the Kitchen (on which meals were cooked) and a small coal fire in the front room. How she managed to keep the fire alight with just 3 lumps of coal at a time I've no idea. Mind you she was known to wear a multitude of layers during the winter months….

      1. I grew up in a pre-war ground-floor maisonette. We had two bedrooms – the north -facing one very cold; a kitchen with gas oven, which my mum kept on with the door open, and also warmed her shoes in before she went out. We also had a coal fire in the sitting room.
        Mum was very skillful at using a couple of pages of the Telegraph to draw the fire- I tried it once and nearly set the place on fire. We used a paraffin heater in the bathroom, which sucked all the oxygen out and made me feel faint sometimes if I stayed in there too long.

        1. My father made a steel contraption that fitted the fireplace and had a gap at the bottom in order to draw the fire. It had a handle on it for ease of use (you just had to be careful to wear a glove to remove the item once the fire was truly lit). I did become quite proficient at drawing the fire with newspaper as well (particularly as when I moved out I wasn't able to take the metal contraption with me).

    9. During the Great Changeover (from oil to solid fuel) I kept telling myself that 16 degrees C was a reasonable temperature (as I was wearing a fleece and several layers).

      1. We do the same – layer up – and become bouncy and spherical. It also helps when you slip over in the snow.

  75. Something a little more righteous and cheerful amidst the gloom and cold: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9d02c8df56b574a1136d5684a3b59aec7557e95f4e6f4c682c2da228636bab9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35f4df4e5d88840fd1e4cef301966c8b39d1d2b5b6a897c90e14006a6ea7cb78.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4939a41c5ba66a526142f83270c6d1e044e1df73620dbecea40e2bfe63f0d5b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9cb59b4eac93bd26dd28f0711189a487c165ef42f00e825022af22ca9d470ea9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa9f66ea14628b565bd32b88bbbd057913f773e6a167c808603d50a9760a0bad.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d869a2b0ad184422bca0de0d5a15efd90439f12fda002f8cd1cef873fc5d4c5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51f6a1be955949fa5a51eff6284814446f1aac2e7b34b8d800dc34281709de84.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54fb66ee0785e65a0a3dbd57b37183acafc76554f349f6a84ae77640f1861561.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4eb7f2f0b5647e2abb1c88e294cf06df71de0a63e8301d051f994835f33f8914.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2fccf129b30e0f199a0e981b652cef5eef051743d26e3a01532dd6d4a209c674.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ced5e485e7e2d38f08d3d529a4603ad6e3ced11e952c589577d7e9f5a7797f4.jpg

  76. Some areas of Berlin are not safe for 'openly gay' and Jewish people, a local police chief has admitted.

    Barbara Slowik, head of the police force in the German capital, said: 'There are areas, and we need to be honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay or lesbian to be more careful.'

    'Unfortunately, there are certain neighborhoods where the majority of people live are of Arab descent, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups,' she told local outlet Berliner Zeitung.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14098937/Berlin-not-safe-openly-gay-people-Jews-police-says.html

    Finally someone in authority admits the truth.

      1. Barbara also forgot to mention that it is not safe for women to walk anywhere in Berlin. Especially the parks.

    2. Ah, but she doesn't specifically state that muslims are the problem. It's 'arab descent'. Not muslims. Not massive uncontrolled gimmigration. Even now she avoids talking about the real problem.

  77. Here's an interesting piece. Carole Bamford is a wealthy landowner but not a family farmer of the kind that will suffer from The Reiver's land grab. Critics will call her a rich hypocrite but she'll know more about the agricultural economy than the hateful Marxists in Downing Street (who almost certainly will be enthusiastic consumers of organic food).

    After the Budget, the future of the family farm hangs in the balance

    Most farmers are not wealthy landowners but hard-working small British farmers who rely on their holdings for their living

    Carole Bamford – 18 November 2024 – 6:53pm GMT

    As a passionate supporter of British farming, I am deeply concerned by the Government's proposed changes to inheritance tax (IHT) for family farms and the threats these pose to the future of family-run working farms across our country.

    The £1 million (IHT) threshold fails to account for the realities facing today's farmers. To maintain a sustainable, diversified operation requires significant land and capital investments – well beyond what this threshold will actually cover. These changes place an unfair burden on the very people working tirelessly every day to feed our nation and will make it more difficult for young farming families to use land to produce food.

    This careful stewardship of the land requires both time and resources. The "working farmers" are families who rise before dawn, work seven days a week, and who have built their lives around the rhythms of the land and their livestock. Many will be unable to attend Tuesday's farmers' rally in our capital city because their animals need feeding and their farms need tending – which is why it is so important that their voices are amplified.

    The relationship between farmers and their land transcends mere ownership. Through generations, farmers have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to their soil, developing an intimate understanding of their fields that cannot be taught by books alone.

    This deep connection has driven them to think long-term – not just about productivity but about looking after nature, improving soil quality, investing in machinery, and taking calculated risks – all enabled by the security their land provides.

    How we grow our food today determines the health of generations to come. Growing food locally and seasonally is about more than reducing food miles.

    Yet despite their crucial role in feeding our nation, today's farmers are price takers, not price makers. The only significant asset most farmers possess is their land, passed down through the generations, which has historically allowed them to weather economic storms and plan for the future.

    These proposed tax changes threaten to reshape our agricultural landscape dramatically, and potentially permanently, in my opinion. As Charles Moore observed in these pages, only two types of farms are likely to survive: tiny holdings whose owners derive their main income elsewhere, and vast agri-businesses with the resources to navigate bureaucracy and complex tax regulations. This would fundamentally alter the character of our nation, erasing the patchwork of family farms that has defined our countryside for centuries, and on which all of us depend.

    Most farmers are not wealthy landowners but hard-working small British farmers who rely on their holdings for their living, having built their livelihoods over generations. By undermining the viability of these small, family run enterprises, we risk losing a way of life that is fundamental to Britain's food security and the future of our rural communities.

    I urge the Government to reconsider this approach, revise the IHT threshold, and engage directly with farmers to develop policies that truly support the future of British farming. Ahead of the farmer's rally, it is clearer than ever our elected leaders must listen to those on the land, the small farmers who work the soil and who look after nature on our behalf. Only by doing so can we ensure a vibrant, sustainable future for family farms that benefits the entire nation.

    Carole Bamford is the founder of Daylesford Organic

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/18/after-budget-future-family-farm-hangs-in-balance-labour

    1. A poignant note was broadcasted in today's coverage by the BBC of farmers demonstrating about the Government's planned inheritance tax changes to be levied in two years' time:

      An elderly farmer asks his family if he will be a burden to them after April 2026 said a demonstrator.

    2. A poignant note was broadcasted in today's coverage by the BBC of farmers demonstrating about the Government's planned inheritance tax changes to be levied in two years' time:

      An elderly farmer asks his family if he will be a burden to them after April 2026 said a demonstrator.

    3. Can the farmers not set up a small company with them as CEO (and workforce), and sell their land to the company for a nominal sum. Then, the shareholding (and so the ownership) can be passed to younger generations in the same way as any other company – would that attract Capital Gains?

      2. I think that given time and money to pay for it, they could do something like that. But it's the principle – once the govt thinks it's entitled to help itself to a slice of land when a farmer dies, they will be looking for ways to "close the loophole."
        Also, the families of all the farmers who will die in the next seven years and have not already transferred their farm would stand to lose their farms.

        1. Indeed.
          And enough farmers have killed themselves already, the poor buggers. I really feel for them, so I do.

    4. "This would fundamentally alter the character of our nation, erasing the patchwork of family farms that has defined our countryside for centuries, and on which all of us depend." Seems to me that's the whole point of this fiasco. Labour hates the countryside and country people in particular. It's an urban party ("is", not "becoming, Lady Mallalieu) and wants to turn the whole country into an urban wasteland.

  78. Jeeeeze the bloody government seems to be slightly if not indirectly blaming farmers for the problems with the NHS.
    Starmer farmer harmer…..Nothing to do with the facts that this and the previous stupid government have been spending billions of British tax payer's money on keeping millions of illegal invaders fed warm comfortable and able to get access to medical services.
    Who do they think they are kidding ?

    1. Some classic in there from Mr Jeremy:

      Ms Derbyshire then asked 'where should they get their money from if not farmers?' to which Clarkson replied: 'Did you hear that everyone? BBC thinks you should be paying for everything.'

      Derbyshire then hit back saying 'I am not expressing opinions I am literally asking you questions'. But Clarkson burst out laughing and said his message to the Government was: 'Please back down… they've got £40billion, I'll tell you where to get the money from, walk into any offices around here, if you don't understand what somebodies' job is, fire them.'

      The simple fact is government is a bloated, obese waste. It needs to be culled, dramatically. There is waste everywhere.

      The problem with socialists is they cannot conceive of a world where they're not needed.

      1. I couldn’t agree more.
        Why doesn’t some one come up with the exact details of how much the whole of Wastemonster and Whitehall cost the UK every year and then add all their expenses claims on top of it.

      2. All those DIE versity officers could be sacked and no one would miss them. Fire all the translators and save millions.

  79. Bloody dogs! I left Mongo outside Tesco with the security man. I come out, find he's buggered off. I ping the apple tag on his collar and no alarm that he was more than 20 metres away so he's nearby. Getting closer and closer and lo! The great brute is hitching a lift on the trolley parkers looking as cheerful as anything sitting at the front of one.

        2. Water off a duck's backside, Quitter. It's been proven she lied on her CV…doesn't give a rat's behind about that either.

      3. If memes like this are circulating – she's toast!
        All that remains is for 2TK to issue a statement confirming that he has full confidence in her.

  82. It's looking like this time it really might be 'all over by Christmas'…..

    From the DT:

    "Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing a nuclear strike in response to an attack with long-range missiles.

    The decision to change Russia’s official nuclear doctrine has been in the works for several weeks but its confirmation appears to be in response to Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire American missiles inside Russia.

    Under the law, Russia can respond with nuclear weapons to an attack with conventional arms such as drones or missiles.

    Moscow can also use nuclear weapons against a non nuclear-armed nation, such as Ukraine, if it is supported by nuclear-armed allies, such as Britain and America.

    “It was necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation,” Mr Peskov added, calling the update a “very important” document that should be “studied” abroad."

    1. Herodias's daughter, Salome, danced before Herod who was pleased by her dancing and asked her what gift she would like. Having consulted her mother she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

      I wish that somebody would present Putin with the heads of Biden, Starmer, Johnson and Zelensky on platters if that is what is needed to stop this war before we all are killed by WW3!

      1. The old street lamps in Kiev will accommodate at least four bodies. A shame to damage historic infrastructure.

    2. Can only hope some communication with Trump camp, two months out of taking office. Perhaps that's why Vlad is planning to act soon.

      1. Maybe that's why Biden acted so quickly. Make an unholy mess for Trump to solve.
        A deadful development, but not unexpected.

  83. the latest “Secret Prisoner”:

    “I judge prison officers by the extent to which they allow themselves to be guided by their own decency and common sense. There is a ridiculous rule about having to wear long trousers when we go out to exercise in the morning. It’s especially absurd because we are allowed to leave in our shorts if going to the gym.

    Nine times out of 10, officers let me go out in shorts. But every now and again the governor sends out a notice requiring prisoners to wear long trousers until they are in the yard, and we get sent back to put trousers on – nonsensical, in security terms, because trousers give you much more space than shorts do to hide drugs or weapons. Once we’re outside in the yard, some officers will harangue you if you take your top off to go bare-chested. Others recognise that the half hour is your one daily chance to feel fresh air and natural light on your skin.

    I respect officers prepared to turn a blind eye. I get issued antidepressant meds with a powerful sedative effect every day at around 4pm. All meds must be taken in view of the pharmacy officer at the meds hatch. I take the meds, keeping them under my tongue, swallow the disposable plastic cup of water, then, once around the corner, spit them back into the cup to take later at around 9pm, so I am asleep by 10pm. If I did not do this, I would be asleep by 6pm or 7pm and up again at around 3am, which would play havoc not only with my rhythm but my padmate’s too. The pharmacist, I feel sure, knows what I am doing. He has probably worked out I am not a junkie and not selling my meds (some prisoners do) so he lets it pass. Such small, magnanimous gestures make life bearable.

    But officers are under pressure. The exercise yards are filthy and we’re often banged up (confined to our cells) for longer periods than is physically or psychologically healthy. The usual reason is short-staffing. Drugs flood in: prisons are so porous that you can order a drone delivery. There simply are not enough officers to spin (search) sufficient cells, or sufficient counter-measures to secure the perimeter from the air. I met a prisoner recently in the video-link waiting area on remand for “conspiracy to supply HMP”. And one does wonder whether some of the stuff coming in can do so because some officers turn a blind eye for less than magnanimous reasons.

    Being a prisoner has made me – formerly a soft, safe Tory – a bit of a radical, though whether Left wing or Right, I don’t know. I am of the generation whose parents did National Service but who missed the obligation ourselves, at the time with relief. Yet I have come to rather envy my father his stint in the Navy, and now I believe the scope of public service could be widened from its former military parameters. Everyone, I think, should spend a few weeks in prison, though not necessarily behind bars. A six-month internship as a junior prison officer would teach anybody a huge amount about society.

    I also believe that prisoners could become more involved in supervising each other: just the basic stuff like banging up and unlocking and supervising mealtimes. Even more radically, because it is impossible to understand the prison crisis separately from the housing crisis, I believe a form of ultra-low-cost housing, along the single-andshared cell lines of prison buildings, with strict curfews and codes of conduct, could serve as a foundation for helping prisoners leave prison without becoming homeless. Such a model could certainly support the nitties, the revolving-door guys, who commit crimes to get back into jail because prison is warm, and there are three meals, clean clothes and company.

    If there were an alternative to sleeping rough that allowed men (because I think prison is mainly a male problem)
    to supervise and support each other in frugal, disciplined communities, we might need far fewer prison places and fewer prison officers. But such environments would still need fair, canny, authoritative oversight by a form of officer with prison and probation experience. The skill set of the experienced prison officer is pretty impressive, and possibly scandalously underpaid. It’s one of the caring professions that society tends not to value. No doubt this is why the occasional officer finds illicit ways to boost his income.”

    1. Thanks, I've read similarly before (from, as your avatar Tommy R), and also a chap writes on the Spectator (David Shipley?) I think a one time governor. Probation Service seems under a great deal of pressure, been that way for a long time. Starmer could always release a few thou more, I suppose🤬

      1. Only the rapists and murderers. He couldn't possibly release those banged up for non-payment of the TV tax or for writing hurty words.

          1. Ha !

            Dolly doesn't say much which is surprising for a blonde female. She has mastered the silent death stare though.

          2. As I sit here, dining room table…dog is on sofa, his head hanging over the back, eyes wide open and on me but sounds to be snoring….a version of the silent death stare? 😈😈

      1. I read Ivan Denisovitch when i was 12. I also read a book called The Guardians. I have always been suspicious of the motives of people who hold power over me.

    2. ‘It was – as I understand it – it was a very rushed last-minute decision and I think we all make mistakes in life, and I think it’s time for them to say “you know what, we’ve cocked this one up a bit” and back down.’ – Jeremy Clarkson on Rachel Reeves’s decision to impose inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1m.

      1. Let's not forget that the "rushed last minute decision" reversed a Labour pre-election pledge. But then, they don't care about that and they have been lying to us since … forever?

      2. Clarkson is wrong. They didn't make a mistake. It is WEF policy to destroy agriculture. Particularly smaller businesses.
        'They' want corporations to own everything. Including you.

      3. I understand the 'gov't' have put out a statement that they 'won't be backing down, the tax stands'. Trouble ahead.

        1. We may lost Starmer if the press drips out a story about Southport.
          On the other hand, we might get Thieves as Prime Minister then…..

          1. I think Southport quite well known, he’d be likely to brazen it out, SS etc etc. Wouldn’t it be Rayner’s Comp? 🤪🤣

          2. Depends what comes out, eg about Starmer being responsible for the alleged murderer being in the UK.

      4. This government is pig headed and won't back down. It's dogma. The kulaks will be destroyed regardless.

  87. Super turnout In London, Farmers need us and we need them – we don't need Farmer Harmer Communist Starmer and grave robbing liar thieving Reeves.
    An end to this government- bring it down .

    1. If only we could. If only we lived in a democracy where the public could refuse the budget in part or whole. If the government could simply be told 'no'.

    1. Challenging a court order not to count incorrectly completed ballots.

      Oh dear life how the Left do so hate democracy. That's their real anger at the January the 6th issue: the people got into their special place, where they felt safe from them. If the public – the people who own those property and pay for the sewage inside them can just go whereever they like – in their own buildings – then all hell could break loose!

  89. Reform Set to be Biggest Party in Wales According to New Poll

    Reform’s making waves in Wales, and latest Opinium figures are sounding alarm bells for the so-called ‘big’ parties. Reform is set to be the biggest party in Wales, with a poll showing Reform topping the charts in a Welsh government election with 28%, positioning the party to hold roughly 32 seats. Labour trails behind on 26%, and the Tories and Lib Dems are both on a measly 13%. With Wales’ Senedd operating on a proportional voting system for the upcoming election in 2026, this could spell trouble for Labour’s long-held grip on the region…

    Reform Chairman Zia Yusuf tells Guido:

    “We are reconstituting the centre right of British politics and our support in Wales just goes to show that only Reform UK can beat Labour. Whilst the Tories continue to sink further and scrape the barrel, we are focussed on winning as many seats as possible in Wales in 2026 and offering Welsh people real change.”

    Meanwhile, Guido spotted many Welsh flags and Reform banners at the farmers’ protest today. Reform growing by the day…

    2. The more they grow, the more Conservatives will defect to them. Braverman still mia…what's that about…

      1. I thought about taking Kadi down, but I was afraid that, since he's so small, he'd get trampled underfoot. Hence I'm only with them in spirit.

  90. 21 hrs ago

    It's like hearing that the captain of your plane is in fact the assistant trolley dolly.

    Reply by Victoria Martin.

    18 hrs ago

    Rachel Reeves has lied on her CV. She has misrepresented herself. She has shown she does not respect facts regarding what experience she has had professionally, and she can easily shuffle things to look good, like £22 billion, and palm it off as the truth. I do not think Rachel Reeves deserves to hold the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Reply by WhatIf I Said.
    15 hrs ago

    She’s a Masterclass in Deceit.
    Reply by David Newcombe.
    14 hrs ago

    as in "Retail Banking role" [ junior admin customer support ]

    Fake it till you make it … seems to work
    Reply by Paul Isherwood.
    8 hrs ago

    What about her former boss saying she resigned when it was discovered her “doctor’s appointments” were in fact absences working for the Liebour party?
    Reply by Paul Isherwood.
    8 hrs ago

    1. Bob Dylan sings

      She aches, just like a woman, she takes, just like a woman, she fakes just like a woman. She certainly hates just like a woman and makes hate rather than love! We shall have to see if she breaks just like a little girl but the sooner this mendacious and evil witch goes the better.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRLXZVojdhQ

    2. More than ever this exposes the corruption in officialdom and more, the complete lack of control we, the public have over the state.

      We do not live in a democracy.

    1. Yet it is something we should be doing. The Maclaren garage uses lasers to measure the body shell, or the slight imperfections. Modelling of the engine is so precise you can almost play a tune on it. This all requires energy and lots of it as banks of GPUs pound away at the incredible computations in near real time.

      Building things is expensive in the UK and yes, a lot goes wrong, but if we don't do it, someone else does and doens't do it anywhere nearly as well as we would.

      It is time the hard Left greens were exposed, ignored and their malice abandoned forever.

      1. For what it's worth, I lived with the ex-partner for a while in Woking. Her lodger was a Construction Manager for Kier (no – not Starmer) on the McLaren site. Which is – apparently – a joy to behold.

        Worked for a while for a local builder, based near Woking. Secretary had worked for Ron Dennis.

        Accordingly, I've seen a few Mercedes McLaren SLRs out in public.

  92. I wonder what Matilda's aunt would make of Rachel Reeves?

    Number 11 Downing Street is at grave danger of burning taking its occupant with it.

  93. HM Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) are both heavily staffed with clever young economists, who preside over sophisticated dynamic models of the UK economy"

    Really?

    I thought they were staffed with indoctrinated socialists why are consistently wrong in every prediction.

    So clever, in fact, that they preclude tax cuts from their models. So young, in fact, that they ignore how people behave when you hike taxes. They are children playing a game they don't understand. The OBR shouldn't exist. The Treasury needs to be emptied and sensible people installed who start out on the premise of cutting taxes.

  94. Afternoon, all, from a snowed in Shropshire. I had to get the loppers and secateurs out this morning to take Kadi for a walk; the weight of the snow had brought the branches down to block the path. Normally by this time I have managed to chop back a lot of things and put the garden to bed, but for various reasons I've been late doing it. Catching up when there is a couple of inches of snow on the branches you need to cut back is NOT recommended! The Rayburn, however, is now lit (it caught first time, I'm delighted to say) and gradually warming up the house. Another thing that's not a good idea is to leave it until the temperature drops near freezing to switch the heating over. Still, it's 1.5 degrees C out and 18 degrees C inside, so reasonable. Good coverage of the farmers' protests in my local rag, including lots of pics of the next generation taking their toy tractors to Wastemonster.

    Labour lied to everybody, not just the farmers. It's what they do; it's in their DNA. Why people think it will be different next time I have no idea.

      2. Can't speak for Alec, but having lived in a Surrey village where any sighting of a gritter meant that the driver was lost. I took precautions. My second last car was a Discovery 2, which I treated to M+S tyres. Last car was a C-class estete. Ebay provided a set of wheels with Winter tyres. They were slightly narrower than the original, but thy kept me out of trouble.

        2. We have a similar problem here, the side roads are gritter-free. I slithered round in a loop this morning with Kadi.

  96. Good evening.
    After a few delays en route, not least on the M25, we got here, Regent Hotel at Woodford Bridge at 3.
    And who the bloody Hell was the idiot who designed Junction 5 of the M11 with no Southbound exit??????

    Off out to the Barbican tonight, Beethoven's 1st Piano Concerto and Belioz Symphony Fantastique.

  97. Well, what a treat. A talk lasting 75 minutes by a man who was a total master of his subject – and who spoke without a note. Absolutely brilliant.
    Learned so much. LotL would have loved it.

      1. To a degree. His opening was that most of us had been conditioned by Shakespeare's characterisation (or, fewer, by Josephine Tey). The talk was more about Richard's physical condition, how armour was made for him and the last 2 minutes of the Battle of Bosworth.

        2. I saw an interesting programme on the TV (when I was watching) about Richard III and his scoliosis. They found someone with a similar problem and made armour to fit. The chap was able to do pretty much everything everyone else could, but got tired more quickly.

          1. The lecturer today was the historian (and amateur jouster) who was heavily involved in the discovery of Richard's skeleton and in the scoliosis aspect of his life. And in the Ch4 film.

        3. There’s a prominent sign on the approach to Bosworth that states: ‘Danger of Death’. It’s a pity Dick 3 arrive a few hundred years before the sign was put in place on an electricity sub station…!

        4. Both Alexander Pope and Sir Christopher Wren had similar physical disabilities to Richard III but this did not prevent them from great achievement.

          The remains of Richard III were discovered behind the former Parr’s Bank building in Leicester. I was surveying the latter, a magnificent domed structure, shortly afterwards. The area was the site of the market of the Roman city.

          1. Neither Pope nor Wren had to fight on horseback in armour!

            Anyway, why on earth did they bury Richard III in a car park?

          2. I believe Richard III was buried within the grounds of a monastery or some such religious site.

            I take the point about body armour. I often find that persons with physical disabilities excel in many walks of life.

            Wren for example travelled from his lodgings in Chocolate Court at Hampton Court Palace to sites all over the country when longer journeys took multiple stops at coaching inns such that it took days to reach a destination. It will have been a very hard life involving much physical effort. Wren climbed the tower of Salisbury Cathedral to formulate recommendations for chain reinforcement to arrest bursting. I reflected on this a few days ago when reading his report to the Dean and Chapter.

          3. Imagine what the Time Penalty Excess Charges would amount to by now if they hadn't buried him.

        1. I was not around much yesterday. I was much too busy in my workshop making a clock for a Christmas present.

          I just saw a non sequitur of a comment and realised that I cannot mind read.

  98. I've not seen pictures of so many English people in London for such a long time .
    No farmers no food .

        1. We have to reclaim it first before we reform it – and I'm not talking politically but practically.

  99. Lacoste appears to be late on parade.

    Par today.

    Wordle 1,249 4/6

    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Surprise three for me.

      Wordle 1,249 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
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      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Painfully slow here!
        Wordle 1,249 6/6

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

    2. I managed more tries than you!
      Wordle 1,249 5/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
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      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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    4. Disappointing bogey here!

      Wordle 1,249 5/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
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      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. My apologies, mola et al; my TalkTalk Internet connection failed at 16.50 yesterday.

      I am now back online since 12.30 Wednesday.

    6. My apologies, mola et al; my TalkTalk Internet connection failed at 16.50 yesterday.

      I am now back online since 12.30 Wednesday.

  100. Starmer at the G20 Summit has said his first job was on a farm .
    How many lies has this venal communist miscreant uttered.

    2. When I was about 10 or 11, I earned a few bob for a couple of hours top-n-tailing beans on a local farm. I suppose that I could claim that my first job was on a farm. I also used to race other kids with soap-box carts – I was a racing driver. I once shot a rabbit (but missed) with an air rifle – I was a big-game hunter. I guess that we all embellish our track records slightly but Labour politicians seem to be doing it on an industrial scale.

    3. Trudeau at the same conference was talking about his favourite climate change. He quits literally said that Climate is top priority, If you have to choose between feeding your children and fighting climate change then the climate comes first.

      what an absolute f'in plonker.

  104. I've missed a trick, haven't I. I've always admitted that my first job was as a Saturday girl in Boots.

    4. Me too. My first job was weeding the Begonia beds at Blackmore & Langdon in Bath, the site now of a housing estate. When it rained I shifted to the greenhouses sorting clay pots and counting Phlox seeds into packets for sale. The Begonias won prizes at Chelsea Flower Show.

      Then I worked at Victoria Wine one Christmas and on another for the Post Office sorting mail overnight in the temporary sorting office the Territorial Army Hall.

      1. My first job was sweeping the hangar at Leicester East aerodrome. Took a week. Occasional pauses to drag a plane out, refuel it and wash it.

      2. So,
        you've won Chelsea, you qualify as a botanist.
        you know your Phlox from your pox, you qualify as a consultant VD specialist
        you are a wine connoisseur
        AND you can stand in for Father Christmas (except for boots, of course)

    5. I delivered the Green 'Un on Saturday evenings, and sold bread and bakery goods from a mobile bread van during the day (also Saturday).

  105. Jeremy Clarkson clashes with BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire at farmers’ protest

    Presenter tells Newsnight host she is ‘unbelievable’ after she accuses him of buying Diddly Squat farm to avoid inheritance tax

    Arts and Entertainment Editor Anita Singh

    19 November 2024 3:24pm GMT
    1687

    Jeremy Clarkson clashed with TV presenter Victoria Derbyshire over the BBC’s coverage of the Government’s inheritance tax raid on farms.

    In an interview for BBC Two’s Newsnight programme at the farmers’ protest in Westminster on Tuesday, Derbyshire accused Clarkson of buying a farm to avoid inheritance tax and repeated the Government’s line that the changes are needed to fund the NHS and other public services.

    After Clarkson said he was attending the rally to support farmers, Derbyshire replied: “So it’s not about you, it’s not about your farm and the fact that you bought a farm to avoid inheritance tax?”
    Advertisement

    Clarkson, who documents his Cotswolds life in the TV series Clarkson’s Farm, told Derbyshire that her line of questioning was “unbelievable” and claimed he had bought the land because he wanted to shoot.

    Derbyshire was referring to a November 2021 interview in which Clarkson was asked why he bought the 1,000-acre Diddly Squat farm and was quoted as saying that he did so mainly because there were no death duties on land, adding: “That’s the critical thing.”

    Derbyshire told Clarkson that “one of the reasons Rachel Reeves said she brought this in is to stop wealthy people using it as a way of avoiding” inheritance tax.

    “No, that was the only reason she did,” said Clarkson.

    “No, the other reason is to raise money for public services,” said Derbyshire.

    When Clarkson scoffed, Derbyshire asked him: “Have you tried to get a GP appointment lately?” to which he replied: “Yes, I just recently had a heart attack.”

    Derbyshire said: “So you know it’s tough. So where should they get the money from if it’s not from farmers?”

    Clarkson told her that the Chancellor’s ideas had been formed in “the sixth form debating society that she was no doubt a member of, which formed her opinions and yours”.

    Derbyshire replied: “I am not expressing opinions. I am literally asking questions. You know that, Mr Clarkson.”

    Clarkson later addressed a crowd of around 10,000 people who had gathered for the protest and referred to his interview with Derbyshire, including her suggestion that very few farms would be hit by the changes.

    The former Top Gear presenter then asked farmers in the crowd to raise their hands and then drop them if they believed they would be unaffected, with very few arms falling.

    Clarkson said: “Since when was the BBC the mouthpiece of this infernal Government?”

    Clarkson’s relationship with the BBC ended in 2015 when he was sacked for punching a Top Gear producer. Clarkson was incensed that there was no hot food available at his hotel after a day on location. It was 10pm and the kitchen was closed.

    He has since become an outspoken critic of his former employer, saying: “If I ran the BBC it would be better. I would make programmes for everybody, not just seven people in Islington.

    “It’s become so up itself, suffocating the life out of everything in its nonsense need to be politically correct.”

  108. "Where should they get the money from if not farmers?" In the first place the NHS does NOT need more money, it needs to be more efficient. Secondly if they wanted more money they could charge all the freeloaders who had not paid a penny into the system before treating them. More money? Stop sending billions to Africa to fight "climate change", send back all the illegals so we don't have to house them in hotels and don't translate anything into multiple languages or provide interpreters. There are lots of ways the government could raise more money if that were what was needed.

      1. That, too. Curtail welfare and stop child allowance after the second child. There are LOTS of ways that money could be raised that would be of positive benefit to the country.

        1. We could stop housing and giving pocket money to hundreds of thousands of criminal, illegal “asylum seekers”….

      2. Ah, but you're forgetting the role these creatures play in organisations. Just like 'sustainability' co-ordinators.

        These are there to control what you say and thus how you think. They are the new age political officers to make sure you behave and do as you are told. The stasi – err, state will never let them go. It would much rather cut services than let thoughtcrime be abolished.

  110. I think they did stop the child benefit for larger families. That was one of the things people campaigned about prior to the election. (They wanted it reinstated).
    In my day I just got 90p per week for the second child and nothing for the first one.

  111. Gosh – memory lapse. I completely forgot to mention that G & P arrived here on 26 October 2020. NoTTLers ill know just how much joy they have given us…..

    1. I remember a picture of you holding two tiny kittens and one of them hugging each other in their basket, which I think your granddaughter painted?

  112. The estimated income from this will be about £500 million. Labour intends giving away £11.6 in climate change aid, in addition to £13 billion in foreign aid.

  115. Home Office report warns that extreme right wing views & narratives leaking into main stream such as Two Tier Policing & concern about industrial scale gang raping of children as typical examples of such narratives in action.

    Later Our Keir said the report was misinformation.

    1. Ours never does. Fridge all year round (nice in the summer). As you mention elsewhere, awesome patterns on the inside of the windows during winter. Sometimes the frozen glass of water contains a dead mouse, or signs thereof.

      No wonder the children and grandchildren have mixed feelings that they will not now be inheriting.

  117. Brendan O’Neill
    The farmers’ revolt makes me proud to be British
    19 November 2024, 5:00pm

    My first thought upon seeing today’s revolt of the farmers was just how gloriously normal it looked. For more than a year London has been besieged by wild-eyed plummy leftists and fuming Gen X’ers screaming blue murder about the Jewish State. Now, for sweet relief, we get men and women in waxed jackets and sensible winter headwear taking to the streets, not to rage against a faraway land but to defend their own land from the grubby taxing of the Labour government. Now that’s proper protesting. It made me want a warm beer.

    What happened today was extraordinary. It was a revolt of the sensibles. It was a mutiny of the ‘normies’, to borrow that condescending word leftists use to refer to anyone they consider ‘conventional’: ie, works for a living, is tattoo-free, knows what a woman is, and has never spent £25 on dirty fries in Hackney Wick. There wasn’t a keffiyeh in sight, just a sea of tweed caps and polite placards. ‘No farmers, no food’, said one. ‘Rachel Reeves, Queen of Thieves’, said an edgier banner. I bet the Met won’t have to scour photos of this protest to check for hate crimes.

    It was first and foremost an uprising against Labour’s changes to inheritance tax on farms. From April 2026, farms worth more than £1million will be slapped with an inheritance tax rate of 20 per cent. It will be disastrous for cash-poor family farms. As one of today’s placards put it: ‘The end is Keir for family farms.’

    But there’s more to this rebellion. It feels like the mighty roar of that other England. That England unloved by the metropolitan elites. That England that rarely troubles the idle minds of city millennials who never stop to wonder where the milk in their six-quid latte comes from. That England that is often the butt of jokes about yokels and improper behaviour with sheep. Today, the England of mud and milking, of planting and producing, rudely intruded into our complacent capital, and I for one loved it.

    So much smug scorn has been heaped on farmers these past few days. I’d do to the farmers ‘what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners’, said ex-Labour spindoctor John McTernan. Go on then, I dare you – pop down to the next farmers’ protest, truncheon at the ready, Orgreave-style. We will be very interested to see what happens. ‘Farmers have hoarded land for too long’, wails Will Hutton. The new tax is just the shake-up these glorified squatters need, apparently.

    Peruse social media and you’ll see sniffy young radicals who only get muddy once a year at Glastonbury branding the farmers ‘rich and ‘reactionary’. The ingratitude is staggering: there they are eating a hipster burger with one hand and tweeting at the people who raised, fed and killed that burger with the other.

    James O’Brien of LBC is the embodiment of the townie disdain for the revolting farmers. In his best patrician tone, gifted him by Ampleforth, he clashed with a farmer called Charlie on his phone-in show. He dismissed Charlie’s every cry of concern and suggested he just sell off some of his land, as if that’s no big deal. ‘Okay mate’, said O’Brien, superciliously, to which Charlie replied: ‘I’m not your mate! I hate you!’ Ouch. It was a remarkable insight into the cultural chasm separating the cosseted city elites that produce little more than opinion from the men and women who make the very stuff of life.

    A malady has infected the influential classes – we might call it farmerphobia. They seem to view farmers as a blot on the landscape, both literally and figuratively. Farmers are seen as dangerous Faragists. As gullible fanboys of that frightful opinion-haver, and fellow farmer, Jeremy Clarkson. They’re the sort of ruddy-faced, country-ale types who – brace yourselves – probably voted for Brexit.

    And they’re seen as polluters too. They’re forever being chastised for all those cows they keep whose farts are apparently dragging us towards the heat death of our planet. As that moaner George Monbiot once said, agriculture is the most destructive industry of all. Farmers are treated as borderline noxious. Both their conservative beliefs and their carbon emissions are talked up as devilish pollutants that threaten our world.

    Farmerphobia is a Europe-wide phenomenon. Across the continent, governments are enforcing policies that seriously hurt farmers. From the punishing Net Zero policies of the Dutch government to Germany’s abolition of tax breaks for farmers to France’s reduction in state subsidies for farmers’ diesel fuel, everywhere one looks farmers are getting it in the neck. In Ireland, there was even talk of pressuring farmers to cull 200,000 cows in order that Ireland might reach its Net Zero targets. Sacrificing animals to appease the gods of weather – rarely has the neo-pagan irrationalism of our eco-elites been on such frank, grim display.

    In all these places, farmers have fought back. And now they’re fighting back here too. Good. It is a testament to the aloofness of our rulers that they can be so cavalier about the men and women who make the food our nations need. And it is a testament to the spirit of our farmers that they’re not taking it lying down.

    1. "I bet the Met won’t have to scour photos of this protest to check for hate crimes."

      What's the betting they'll try?

  119. EXCLUSIVE: Chancellor Claimed She Was an Economist on Legal Documents at Time Her Team Say She Was Not
    On Friday, Guido revealed that Reeves (or her team) had edited her LinkedIn CV. The changes were slipped out without notification: from “Economist” to “Retail Banking”…
    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/linkedin-changes-1.png?w=954&ssl=1

    Ever since, the debate has been raging as to whether the Chancellor has acted improperly. Downing Street has so far refused to comment on the details. After a botched defence broadcast round this morning pressure is growing…

    Guido can now exclusively reveal that Reeves claimed she was an ‘economist’ on legal filings made during her time at HBOS. Reeves became a director of a Leeds-based charity on 15th May 2008, in the middle of her time in an HBOS retail banking complaints team (as her own team admit). Her friend Siôn Simon says he remembers her working in operations in Leeds at the time. On her appointment form (which is publicly available) – a formal submission to a government body – she states her current “business occupation” to be “Economist.” She appears to have filled in the form in her own handwriting – it also bears her signature in ink…

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Reevers-Director-Document-Appointment.png?w=1414&ssl=1

    Reeves – by her own admission – was not working as an “economist” at the time – as clarified by the edits to her LinkedIn page. Treasury sources added on Friday that Reeves “worked in retail banking covering various areas drawing on her background as an economist.” Hacks were referred to this line by Downing Street yesterday. So, not an ‘economist’…

    The document was officially submitted to Companies House. As Chancellor, this revelation leaves Reeves in an extremely difficult position…

    19 November 2024 @ 16:05

    1. Her expertise has probably always been being economical with the truth, so she isn't lying at all.

    2. Wouldn’t it be great if this became one of those Lord Denning moments, when he was Lord of the Rolls, who told a government minister “Be you never so high the law is above you”.

      Edited to add an ‘n’ to ever.

    3. I worked in Selfridges for ten years. Does that make me a retailer? Got in as stockroom assistant then became a buyer’s clerk. Only on the shop floor during the sales. It served me well. I learnt to type, learnt to be sufficiently computer literate and grasped some business basics that are still useful. Aunty took me as a clerk and taught me everything else. And goodness, that was 33 years ago.

      1. You've not seen mine! It's appalling – I've tremors so can't control my hands that well, but even before that it was atrocious. Cramped and doctorish.

  121. Parents should sue the airline. Sue the crew. It's the only language they understand.

    Migrant who raped and impregnated 15-year-old virgin after do-gooder cabin crew blocked his deportation back to Africa is jailed for ten years.

  122. It's time I float into the kitchen and prepare food, autumn is very cozy

      1. Well yes, its a long story, we’ve my house in East Anglia plus I’m looking after my cousins house in Dunster. He lives abroad but didnt want to leave it empty for long periods or rent it out to strangers. So I spend lots of time in one or the other . Yes Dunster is very beautiful indeed.

        1. I lived in Thetford for around ten years. Loved East Anglia when I lived there. Have returned for a couple of funerals in the last year or two – somehow it seemed smaller. I think it may have been because I went by train, rather than drove there.

          Former partner had her 60th party at The Cleeve, Porlock. She and I have done much of the SWCP down there. When I had feet…

  123. Pinched from Guido – new nickname for Theives:

    Wait for it…

    Wait for it…..

    Fakechel CVees!

    Well I thought it was clever.

    1. Rumour has it that she's being sent on loan to the parliament in New Delhi.
      wait for it
      Fakir Reeves

  124. He’ll still brazen it out I think, we can virtually trot out the phrases he’d use. At the moment, he seems to think he can (almost) walk on water, confident, getting quite an easy ride from opposition (where have they been today?), and press, online, etc..(please don’t think I support him, or Labour, just sensing direction of travel 😄)

    1. Beautiful – thank you. Even at his most decorative, he is the best (although I still think that Bach is actually God)

    1. I still prefer (and use) the proper, old-fashioned spelling of carcase over the modern affectation of 'carcass'.

  128. Breaking Newz

    Cursed Harmer admits that lying on CV's is an essential qualification to be a Labour MP.
    The greater the lying the more likely one is to be part of his Cabinet.

  129. Speaker Willie Brown also noted that, to the best of his recollection:
    It didn't touch the sides

  130. Thought for the day.
    If every farmer ploughed Rachel Reeves's furrow she would still come back for more.

  133. Bill Gates visited Downing St soon after the election. Bill Gates has been buying up huge swathes of the US . Farmers must be protected.

  136. It's high time to end this ludicrous COP jamboree – but it just won't die

    Eco-summits in petro-tyrannies sound like something out of a comic novel. Sadly, they are all too real

    Matt Ridley • 16 November 2024 • 7:39pm GMT

    There is something poetic in the way that the delegates attending the 11-day COP29 climate conference in Baku were forced to listen to their moustachioed autocrat host, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, call his nation's gas reserves a "gift of god". The sound of spluttering into 67,000 soy macchiatos must have been audible all the way to Nagorno-Karabakh, the region that Mr Aliyev's government has allegedly tried to ethnically cleanse.

    Mr Aliyev's remark has prompted a letter to the UN from a clutch of the great and the good demanding that the COPs be reformed and shrunk. That would be a pity. Corrupt and conflicted as central-Asian petrostates may be, it's nothing compared with the gift of the gods that is the climate cornuCOPia.

    The delegates are there, many at our expense, to try to extract trillions of pounds in climate reparations from poor people in rich countries to send to rich people in poor countries.

    Assuming they did not travel by donkey, very few of the delegates – did I mention that there are 67,000 of them? – will have paid for their own air fares. Actually, slumming it by "flying scheduled" – as they say in Succession – is for mugs: the number of private jets landing in Baku last week more than doubled to 65, compared with 32 in the same week last year.

    The COPpers see it as their duty to lecture you on how you should eat less meat and fly fewer miles. Where do they derive the legitimacy to do this?

    Not from the electorate. The issue of climate change barely featured in the American or British elections this year. A few years ago, the topic came dead last of 16 priorities in a UN "Myworld" poll of the concerns of nearly 10 million people in 194 countries.

    The beauty of the COP process is that it can go on forever because it never makes a difference. It is, in a word, sustainable. Carbon dioxide emissions keep breaking records. Gas, oil and coal still supply 82 per cent of the energy the world uses. These meetings have gone on for nearly one third of a century already; they are an institution complete with traditions and ceremonies; people have spent entire careers attending them.

    The last thing they need is for somebody to solve the problem. If, say, Melon Usk were to invent cheap, clean, endless fusion power tomorrow so we could stop worrying about climate change, the 67,000 would be alarmed: they prefer scolding us and having COPs.

    The Taliban are attending the COP this year but most Western politicians have twigged that it is a waste of time. This year: no Biden, no Macron, no Modi, no Ishiba, no Scholz, no Xi. Only one G7 leader has not yet twigged that the whole thing is a performative farce: our very own Sir Keir.

    He was even daft enough to make a policy announcement in Baku, committing the UK to an 81 per cent emissions reduction (from all energy: electricity, transport, heating and industry) by 2035.

    Using realistic if heroic assumptions about wind-farm capacity factors (and not the fantasy figures preferred by Ed Miliwatt-Hour) by my calculations, that could mean building at least 20 more Hinkley-sized nuclear plants or sextupling the size of existing wind farms in just 10 years. And telling us to give up most meat, dairy, steel, cement, foreign holidays and diesel or petrol cars.

    Now that Donald Trump and Javier Milei of Argentina are pulling out of the whole sham, we can begin to see a glimmer of hope that the COP might one day fade into irrelevance. It will probably never die entirely but become about as newsworthy as, say, the Henley Regatta. Just less fun.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/16/time-to-end-ludicrous-cop-jamboree-eco-summit-baku

    1. With only basket case countries attending, how on earth did they manage between them to send a staggering 67,000 delegates?

  137. I drove my tractor down to London today (ooh aah ooh aah)
    Keir flew off to Rio, just to get away (ooh aah ooh aah)
    Now something's telling me
    That you're over taxing me,
    Come on now Rachel, I can't afford the seed

    For I got a brand new combine harvester
    And you hit me with IHT
    You've only heard of farming today, on the BBC
    Now I have twenty acres, you have a fake CV
    Why don't we just get together and leave the economy to me

    3. Every time I see him or any of them interviewed as the escapee was by Robert Peston today, they never ask those useless bastards how much the illegal invaders have and still are costing the people of this country.
      We know it's at least 8 million each day of the year.
      Work that out and add many, many extras.

  138. BTL Comment on the Chancellor:

    "This must be a record for the fastest time that someone has shown themselves to be absolutely useless.
    She makes Kamala Harris look relatively competent."

  139. The NHS is still telling me to Get Winter Strong by having a wonderful combined covid/flu jab.
    They can go fuck themselves.

  142. I'm chuffed to bits with myself. I bought a new PC a couple of weeks ago and haven't had time to set it up.
    I've just done it all by myself without having to call computer engineer BiL 🙂

    3. Congratulations, you could develop a thriving business servicing Nottlers.

      Perhaps I should rephrase that!

      1. Seems like the perfect defence should you find yourself chatting to a couple of Officers on a Sunday morning about a NCHI !

    5. Congrats boss – I find such things usually break Wibblings first law: if it's too complicated for a normal person to do it, it's wrong. Computers, with their endlessly different cables (the USB 'standard' is an intolerable mess) are absurdly silly.

      1. When I asked a colleague for assistance, twenty five years ago I was rebuked with the words “ the system is designed to be operated by idiots”.

  144. Allegedly he puts them at the bottom of his bed to distract Jack Frost from his nether regions

    1. 8 children?

      School was bad enough for me without social media. Goodness know what it's like for kids these days.

  146. Well not a busy day again. Must try harder.

    I might stay up till ten and have a wee dram before popping off. To bed that is.
    Night all.
    😴

  147. My week from hell shows that the Britain we love and trust is gone

    This must once again be a fair and free country with a police force that solves actual crimes instead of imaginary ones

    Allison Pearson • 19 November 2024 • 7:23pm GMT

    The eye of the storm is a really scary place to be; dark thoughts crowd in. You wince when you see your own name in headlines with terrible, wounding words like "hate" and "racist". (At the best of times, I shrink from fame, let alone Fame's brazen sister, Notoriety.) You rack your frantic brain in the small hours wondering, "Did I do something wrong?" I know I didn't do anything wrong.

    I cling to that knowledge like a shipwrecked person clings to a raft, your fingers getting colder and colder and gradually losing their grip. Why not stop struggling and let yourself go under? I understand why people under this kind of pressure take their own life. Make it go away, please just make it go away.

    That's how this Kafkaesque process works. Someone who probably hates my guts because I'm a Conservative or a woman with a platform or a blonde woman Conservative who sticks up for farmers or small business people or Jews, complains to the police about a tweet I posted.

    And the police don't ask, "Sir, are you by any chance a lifelong Labour voter and possible Catweazle lookalike who can't stand gobby Tory women, or have you been on any of the pro-Palestine marches and do you think Israel shouldn't exist?"

    They don't have to ask my accuser anything because he is immediately sanctified as "the victim". A single complaint – weighed against 35 years of journalism with which millions agree – is enough to send the police to your door.

    The leader of His Majesty's Opposition may say it is "absolutely wrong" for the police to visit any journalist's home simply because they have expressed an opinion (Kemi could well have added it is wrong for police to visit anybody's home because they have expressed an opinion), and we instinctively know that's right, don't we?

    In a free society, cops at your door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday telling you you're in trouble over a social media post made over 12 months ago (while refusing to tell you what it said or whom it offended) should be unconscionable. It's stark staring bonkers actually.

    Alas, we are not in the realms of common sense, dear reader, nor are we any longer in that Britain whose character was once summed up so perfectly in four words by Jeremy Clarkson: "Oh, for God's sake!"

    That Britain, fundamentally decent, tolerant yet impatient of cant, still exists in the hearts and minds of millions of ordinary people, I know that it does and I know they are bewildered and angry because all this Lefty nonsense has gone too far.

    To a remarkable extent, though, that Britain we love and trust has disappeared from the higher echelons of the police and other agencies of the state. A pernicious woke ideology has insinuated itself into those exclusive eyries like Japanese knotweed.

    Neil Gregory, a councillor in my district and member of the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Panel kindly dropped a note round to my house after the police visit. Neil, who has observed Essex senior officers at close quarters, says that they are hellbent in their "pursuit of a progressive Nirvana".

    Contemptuous of Essex residents who would really quite like an officer to come round and deal with a burglary or a car theft (count yourself lucky if they send you a crime number), they prefer to focus on trans rights or investigating spurious Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHI) or racially or religiously-motivated cases like the one I seem to be caught up in.

    The "social justice" which the chief constable appears to care about – equity, diversity and inclusion – is a far cry from the justice the society he is meant to serve cares about: you know, catching the bad guys and making the world a safe place for our children.

    Such a virtue-signalling police philosophy does not readily promote virtue, I think: on the contrary, it emboldens criminals to fill their boots (because they know they won't get caught) and interferes with the freedom of expression of innocent people (because they think they might). In addition, there is the troubling question of what "hate" the police care about.

    A Jewish reader emailed to tell me she complained to the police about a tweet she found horrifying (by one David Miller) which talked about "genocidal Jewish supremacists". An Essex police officer wrote back saying that, although they were sorry she was offended, they would not pursue the author of the tweet… "feelings were running high" at the time he posted it.

    A former Essex police officer told The Telegraph there was a problem with anti-Semitism and that, on one occasion, when they insisted that a certain tweet merited further investigation, their senior officer had asked, "Are you Israeli?"

    The Essex service can hardly claim to police "without fear or favour" if, as Cllr Gregory alleges, it's mainly favoured ethnic communities that get their attention. White people – still the majority in our wonderful county – and Jews do not appear to be among them, sadly.

    A lot of people have asked me about my offending tweet. According to The Guardian, which my accuser happily spoke to while unwilling to identify themselves to me, the tweet was posted, as I had suspected, in the period after the Hamas massacres of October 7.

    American friends had shared a gut-wrenching video of mass slaughter in kibbutzim, and I became increasingly upset by what I saw as the swift downplaying of Israel's anguish while the Metropolitan Police seemed to display extraordinary leniency to Pro-Palestine marchers who waved anti-Semitic placards and chanted furiously for the obliteration of the Jewish homeland.

    That sense of two-tier policing only grew when, on Armistice Day, I gathered with the British Friends of Israel, a group I co-founded, near the Cenotaph. We invited a couple of police officers to appear in a selfie, but they declined.

    Shortly after, someone on Twitter shared a photo of officers posing alongside what appeared to be Gaza marchers with the caption: "The police certainly have picked a side. Disgraceful." I added my own caption: "How dare they. Invited to pose with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters."

    I pressed Post and thought no more of it until, not long after, I was alerted to the fact that the photo actually dated from before the present crisis. I deleted my tweet immediately, of course. (Although the men with the police in the photo were not pro-Palestine marchers, they belong to a Pakistani group which is, indeed, anti-Israel and its leader Imran Khan once called Osama bin Laden a "martyr".)†

    I can't be certain, because I haven't been told, but that tweet appears to be the basis of an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred (not a Non-Crime Hate Incident, as I first thought; although the officer at my door certainly used the word "incident"). Needless to say, I had no intention whatsoever of provoking racial hatred; I have, after all, spent the past 13 months campaigning against that very thing, putting my neck on the line to stop anti-Semitism.

    My criticism was, quite clearly, of the police who seemed to hold one group to infuriatingly relaxed standards, causing immense fear among British Jews. To borrow from the email which Essex Police sent to the Jewish lady rejecting her complaint, "Feelings were running high" at the time my tweet was posted.

    Believe me, you can drive yourself mad trying to point out that, every minute of the day, there are online communications which make mine read like Winnie the Pooh. This week's Jewish Chronicle reports that the Met have dropped an investigation into an imam who called on Allah to "destroy Jewish homes" in London.

    Made himself pretty clear, didn't he? And what about Labour MP Dawn Butler sharing a tweet which accused Kemi Badenoch of representing "white supremacy in blackface". Now, that is disgustingly racist to my mind. And not even a rap over the knuckles from Prime Minister Starmer for such a vile slur.

    There are ministers in the current Government who have tweeted inflammatory things about Right-wing voters and journalists which, if one were petty or mean-spirited enough, one might report to the police. Most of us wouldn't dream of it. We know in the plaited fibres of our DNA that the billboard on a Merseyside Police lorry warning "Offensiveness is An Offence" is not what being British means. We are not a nation of snitches.

    At least, we didn't used to be. According to the Free Speech Union (a godsend for me in my present distress – do join, you may need them), an average of 65 NCHIs are recorded every day. I have been amazed to hear from many people – midwives, shopworkers, teachers, businessmen – that they got an NCHI for something shockingly trivial, something which would be considered perfectly acceptable by the majority of their fellow citizens.

    One Tory MP got in touch to say a Labour opponent reported him a couple of years ago and the police questioned him at the station for two hours. He has never spoken of it before, not even to his wife, such was his acute distress.

    Honestly, you don't know whether to laugh or scream. A nine-year-old got an NCHI for calling another child a "retard"; so did two teenagers who said a classmate smelled of fish. Oh, for God's sake!

    Just imagine the reparations I am owed from being called "Speccy Four-Eyes" in a playground in South Wales in 1971! What future violence are those draconian sanctions on youngsters supposed to nip in the bud? Is a kid who bandies about piscatorial insults destined to grow up to be a terrorist? How about me – what threat do I pose to my community? Such actions by the police smack of totalitarianism; they are repellent to any sane person.

    I suppose that has been one of the few rays of light in this dark week. Overwhelming support for me from thousands and thousands of people, truly I have never known anything like it.

    A woman came up to me in the street and silently handed me a beautiful pot plant. Bottles of wine and flowers left on our doorstep. The cab driver in London who looked at me in the rearview mirror and growled "You that Allison Pearson?" (I feared the worst.) "Yes, I am."

    "No charge, love," he said softly.

    I have often been in tears, moved by the kindness of strangers; just as quickly, gusts of defiance billow up and blow the sorrow and dread away. I was afraid that all the headlines, and the woman they described, would mean friends from ethnic minorities would think less of me. I needn't have worried. (Lord) Shaun Bailey picked me as his Greatest Briton on GB News.

    The citation read "Courageous, bold and willing to tell the truth. The ridiculousness of the police knocking on Allison's door over a hate incident is beyond comprehension…The police apparently don't have time to follow up burglaries, but have found time for this nonsense. Allison, we stand with you." (Boris struck a similar note in a sweet, thoughtful text: "Don't worry. We are with you all the way.") [Did he send a cake?]

    On Thursday, I was walking past the shop at our station, when the brilliant owners, Jai and Ruchi, came out and spontaneously hugged me. "Do you two think I've been stirring up racial hatred?" I asked, my voice cracking. Jai, who is from Wolverhampton, shot me a twinkling, complicit glance and said drolly: "That's bollocks, that is."

    Correct, Jai, it is bollocks. And I am so deeply grateful you can see that. Unlike Roger Hirst, policing and crime commissioner for Essex, who told LBC that police had to consider how what I had tweeted would be heard "in our black and Asian communities".

    They're not in ethnic silos, Mr Hirst, no matter how much the wokesters want to put them there; they live in Essex, they're proud to be British and, just like everyone else, they want crimes to be policed, not thoughts.

    I have been invited to do interviews by media around the world. All stunned and disbelieving that "Mad Britain" – the place people always wanted to come to because it was a gloriously free country – had fallen into Soviet-style repression and punishment. "This must stop," as Elon Musk, the world's richest man and the owner of X (Twitter) posted in support of me. When I thanked him, he replied, "You're most welcome."

    A Florida multi-millionaire (no, not that one) offered me "political asylum" in his guesthouse. (I may yet take him up on it; the guesthouse is at least five times the size of Pearson Towers.)

    We are perilously close to being an international laughing stock. You know, almost the worst thing is that, as a law-abiding citizen, I have always respected the police, not envying their difficult, occasionally dangerous job. Being on the opposite side feels horribly uncomfortable, but what are they playing at?

    With many national figures speaking out about how absurd the whole thing was – even Sir Keir, when he was asked about my case, said police should investigate crimes not tweets – Essex Police announced they were setting up a major-crimes "Gold Group" to look into a 5ft 4in Welshwoman who put something not entirely considered on social media. I'll be honest, it felt like bullying and intimidation.

    A former Cabinet minister texted me: "It's incredible really that people like us have come to look on the police in this way." Yes, it is. Very sad.

    Not all police live in la-la Woke World. Two very senior officers from another part of the UK got in touch to say they could not believe how I'd been treated; not when they didn't think there was a case to answer. "There is so much negativity about police officers right now," wrote Sarah (not her real name), "and I can understand you must be feeling it, Allison. But most are like me and [X] – we are here to protect, support and comfort people in their fear, threat or danger and deal with those who would cause harm to others. Please don't give up on us yet."

    I found Sarah's words deeply moving and consoling, a slender handrail to hang onto as my lawyers and I plan the next steps.

    I won't lie; this has been one of the worst weeks of my life. I found myself thinking if there were any upsides. "Look at it this way, you got to read your obituaries before you died – all those lovely things people have been writing and saying," joked a friend doing her best to comfort me.

    You know, I hope it's bigger than that. It shouldn't be about me; I am one scared person among tens of thousands. Maybe some police officer somewhere today will stay his hand over a form, hesitating to inflict the nonsensical cruelty of an NCHI or other so-called hate crime on some poor man or woman who made a bad-taste joke or texted or tweeted something ridiculous or inappropriate or mean or rude or, yes, plain offensive because I spoke out and made a fuss.

    So many times, this column has tried to highlight injustice, things people struggle to remedy themselves, and use The Telegraph's heft to bring about change. It is quite clear that policing must urgently be rebalanced towards solving actual crimes instead of imaginary ones. Britain must, once again, be a fair and free country. If that Britain is gone forever, I will leave and I won't be alone.

    I'm not sure what the next week will bring (a lawyer told me to keep his number in my purse in case I'm arrested) but I'll keep you posted.

    A final thought for the big, scary chaps in Essex Police's Gold Group, convened to look into a middle-aged woman and a year-old tweet: "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/19/my-week-in-the-eye-of-the-storm

    † So, as I suggested a few days ago, they were lying when they said they were hurt by remarks associating them with Jew-baiting.

    1. The Left kept pushing these miserable laws specifically to silence the people they hate. It's not about crime, it's about control. Lefties squeal fascist at everyone they can but the simple truth is, they are.

  148. The police must not be censors – it's time to scrap NCHIs for good

    This is not justice, it is bureaucracy gone mad, and has no place in the 21st century

    Suella Braverman • 19 November 2024 • 7:00pm GMT

    The Test Act of 1672 required individuals to pledge allegiance to the Church of England before enjoying liberties. Those who refused were excluded from public life, barred from universities and relegated to society's margins. This draconian system is a relic of history, but echoes of its spirit persist in 21st-century Britain.

    Today, the modern equivalent is ideological conformity under the guise of tolerance – enforced not by bishops but by police officers and bureaucrats logging non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).

    These records, designed to monitor "hostility" that falls short of a crime, reflect a warped understanding of inclusion. The existence of NCHIs has created a dangerous precedent: that expressing a view, even in good faith, can lead to a police record if someone, somewhere, decides to take offence. Journalists, politicians and children have all been caught.

    The parallels between the Test Act and NCHIs are striking. In the 17th century, dissenters who refused to sign articles of faith were punished. Now, those who dare challenge today's creed of open borders, gender ideology, or pro-Palestine activism face ostracism, reputational damage, and potentially – through NCHIs – state-sanctioned monitoring.

    NCHI reports can follow individuals for years, showing up on background checks for jobs. Consider the absurdity of that: a person could lose a career chance over something that isn't classified as a crime. The tools may differ from the 17th century, but the effect is the same: coerced conformity.

    This has a chilling effect on public discourse. When people fear that expressing an opinion might land them on a police database, they become less willing to engage in open debate. That fear, though subtle, gnaws at the fabric of a democracy built on the contest of ideas. The result is a homogenised culture where dissenting views are stifled not by force, but by the quiet terror of surveillance

    This was demonstrated in the case of Harry Miller in 2021, a former police officer investigated for tweeting gender-critical views. Though breaking no laws, Miller was subjected to a visit from the police, who wanted to "check his thinking". His tweets were recorded as a non-crime hate incident because someone perceived them as transphobic.

    The Court of Appeal ruled that police intervention was unlawful, stating that the guidance on NCHIs undermined freedom of expression. The judgment underscored what should have been obvious: policing speech that does not meet the criminal threshold erodes our freedoms. Yet the practice persists.

    NCHIs originated in the aftermath of the Macpherson Report following the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The aim was to capture incidents of racism and ensure that victims felt heard. Over time, this measure expanded to include all protected characteristics under the Equality Act; the threshold for recording an incident became dangerously low: if someone perceived hostility, it could be logged – no evidence required.

    But the reality is that the subjective nature of NCHIs makes them unworkable. By elevating hurt feelings to the status of quasi-law, we risk creating a society ruled by the tyranny of the most easily offended. This asymmetry corrodes trust in policing and creates a perception that the system is rigged.

    When I became home secretary, I was determined to tackle this misuse of police powers. Building on the Court of Appeal's judgment in the Miller case, I introduced new statutory guidance in 2023. This raised the threshold for recording NCHIs, making it clear that free speech is a cornerstone of British society. But these changes did not go as far as I would have liked. [Why not, we ask? Who or what held her back?]

    Police forces have largely ignored the guidance, and the culture of policing thought remains entrenched. Stronger action is needed.

    The resources diverted to monitoring online spats are preposterous. Since 2014, police forces in England and Wales have recorded more than 250,000 NCHIs – an average of 66 per day. Pretty much all police chiefs I spoke to as home secretary demanded more funding and officers. We delivered. But what is the point of increasing police numbers if they are busy chasing tweets instead of criminals? It cannot be right that the police solve fewer burglaries than ever before while racking up a record number of NCHIs.

    This distortion reflects the cultural capture of policing by ideological zeal. Within some police forces, NCHIs are treated as a holy writ of the modern religion of virtue-signalling. Officers are trained to act as moral arbiters, not crime fighters. This has led to the grotesque spectacle of police investigating writers Allison Pearson and Julie Bindel for expressing opinions.

    The rationale behind NCHIs is couched in the language of safeguarding and inclusion, but the practice is rooted in coercion. NCHIs have been a costly distraction from the real priorities of law enforcement. This is not justice, it is bureaucracy gone mad, and has no place in the 21st century.

    If we are serious about restoring trust in the police and safeguarding liberty, it is time to scrap them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/19/police-must-not-be-censors-time-to-scrap-nchis-for-good

      1. Does it need electricity? At least my hot water bottles will work when the power goes off. I can heat the water with Calor.

  152. Well, it's turned 11 pm so I must now head for bed, chums. Good night, sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  153. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster this morning to protest the Labour government’s new inheritance tax plans. As protesters brandished placards and called for the Chancellor to row back on her proposals, some rather famous faces were seen in the crowds – with former Top Gear presenter and now Clarkson’s Farm host Jeremy Clarkson amongst those spotted. The BBC was quick to grab the TV icon for an interview on the issue – but the broadcaster may have got a little more than it bargained for…

    Refusing to play ball with the Beeb, Clarkson was fast to blast Victoria Derbyshire over her line of questioning. When the Newsnight host quizzed him on why he was at the protest – asking: ‘So it’s not about you, it’s not about your farm and the fact you bought a farm to avoid inheritance tax?’ – an affronted Clarkson slammed the ‘classic BBC’ interrogation. When Derbyshire asked where else the government should take money from to fund public services, the ex-Top Gear star turned to nearby protestors incredulously: ‘You hear this, everyone? The BBC thinks you should be paying for everything.’ Oo er.

    Clarkson then turned his guns on the Labour lot, mocking Rachel Reeves’s maths on the matter and insisting she had plucked her figures ‘from the middle of her head’. ‘From the sixth form debating society she was no doubt a member of, which formed her opinions,’ he added, ‘and yours!’ Talk about pulling no punches, eh?

    Steerpike

  154. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Cold drizzle falling on tweed. That was the abiding image of today’s protest in Westminster which filled Whitehall with tens of thousands of indignant farmers. Just two tractors were admitted. One was parked outside Downing Street and the other stood by the women’s war memorial.

    Groups of farmers clambered onto the metal flanks and took snaps of themselves. Many held home-made placards denouncing ‘farmer harmer’ Starmer and ‘Rachel Thieves’, the chancellor. Some of the more paranoid demonstrators saw Labour as a historic threat to the working class.

    Everyone seemed obdurately upbeat despite the freezing rain

    ‘First the miners, then the farmers, next it’s you.’ The simplest signs appealed to common sense. ‘No farmers, no food, no future.’

    The protest was good natured and everyone seemed obdurately upbeat despite the freezing rain. A woman from Staffordshire described Labour as a party of student activists who lack real-world experience. ‘They work in think tanks and charities and they imagine that because that I’m sitting in a field, I own a million pounds.’

    The mistrust of Labour’s townie politicians is widespread. An Essex farmer told me: ‘They see it from a spreadsheet point of view. They think a farm is a sterile asset like an empty mansion or a gold watch. So, if it’s not producing anything, let’s tax it.’

    There were hardly any canvassers from mainstream parties. Not a Tory in sight. Reform sent one or two activists with leaflets, and Nigel Farage made an appearance. A Sikh from Birmingham told me that tax reform was part of a global plot to transfer property from farmers to governments and to put farmland in the hands of billionaires like Bill Gates. His land-owning relatives in Punjab were victims of the same scam, he told me.

    Farmers say the tax change will destroy family farms (Getty Images)
    The president of the National Farmers Union, Tom Bradshaw, opened his speech by denouncing the ‘October budget.’ Those two words prompted a surge of fury that swept through the crowd. Bradshaw called Labour’s inheritance reforms ‘a tax on our children and a tax on untimely death.’ He claimed that tenant farmers are already suffering from insomnia because their futures have been thrown in doubt. He asked every protestor to keep an eye on their neighbours. ‘Pick up the phone. Have a yarn,’ he advised. ‘And write to your MP. I know you’ll laugh but they are elected to represent us.’ He finished by asking the crowd to cheer the Metropolitan police. (Muted applause). And he urged the protestors to pick up litter from the streets to preserve the good name of the agricultural community. As the crowd dispersed, volunteers collected refuse from the roadway.

    What next? It was hard to find an activist with a clear plan. Everyone realises that an elected government finds it easy to ignore a mass protest. In Parliament Square, a crowd blocked the road and raised a chant calling for Starmer to quit. This small but noisy group accidentally merged with a ‘Free Palestine’ demo. One of the Palestinian demontstrators offered a piece of advice. ‘Don’t be reasonable. Nothing was ever achieved by a reasonable man. Tell that to the farmers.’

    Lloyd Evans
    WRITTEN BY
    Lloyd Evans
    Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic

    2. Farmers are used to being out in the weather. Not like townies, a few raindrops don't make them scurry indoors, there's outdoor work to be done.

  155. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    My first thought upon seeing today’s revolt of the farmers was just how gloriously normal it looked. For more than a year London has been besieged by wild-eyed plummy leftists and fuming Gen X’ers screaming blue murder about the Jewish State. Now, for sweet relief, we get men and women in waxed jackets and sensible winter headwear taking to the streets, not to rage against a faraway land but to defend their own land from the grubby taxing of the Labour government. Now that’s proper protesting. It made me want a warm beer.

    A malady has infected the influential classes – we might call it farmerphobia

    What happened today was extraordinary. It was a revolt of the sensibles. It was a mutiny of the ‘normies’, to borrow that condescending word leftists use to refer to anyone they consider ‘conventional’: ie, works for a living, is tattoo-free, knows what a woman is, and has never spent £25 on dirty fries in Hackney Wick. There wasn’t a keffiyeh in sight, just a sea of tweed caps and polite placards. ‘No farmers, no food’, said one. ‘Rachel Reeves, Queen of Thieves’, said an edgier banner. I bet the Met won’t have to scour photos of this protest to check for hate crimes.

    It was first and foremost an uprising against Labour’s changes to inheritance tax on farms. From April 2026, farms worth more than £1million will be slapped with an inheritance tax rate of 20 per cent. It will be disastrous for cash-poor family farms. As one of today’s placards put it: ‘The end is Keir for family farms.’

    But there’s more to this rebellion. It feels like the mighty roar of that other England. That England unloved by the metropolitan elites. That England that rarely troubles the idle minds of city millennials who never stop to wonder where the milk in their six-quid latte comes from. That England that is often the butt of jokes about yokels and improper behaviour with sheep. Today, the England of mud and milking, of planting and producing, rudely intruded into our complacent capital, and I for one loved it.

    So much smug scorn has been heaped on farmers these past few days. I’d do to the farmers ‘what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners’, said ex-Labour spindoctor John McTernan. Go on then, I dare you – pop down to the next farmers’ protest, truncheon at the ready, Orgreave-style. We will be very interested to see what happens. ‘Farmers have hoarded land for too long’, wails Will Hutton. The new tax is just the shake-up these glorified squatters need, apparently.

    Peruse social media and you’ll see sniffy young radicals who only get muddy once a year at Glastonbury branding the farmers ‘rich and ‘reactionary’. The ingratitude is staggering: there they are eating a hipster burger with one hand and tweeting at the people who raised, fed and killed that burger with the other.

    James O’Brien of LBC is the embodiment of the townie disdain for the revolting farmers. In his best patrician tone, gifted him by Ampleforth, he clashed with a farmer called Charlie on his phone-in show. He dismissed Charlie’s every cry of concern and suggested he just sell off some of his land, as if that’s no big deal. ‘Okay mate’, said O’Brien, superciliously, to which Charlie replied: ‘I’m not your mate! I hate you!’ Ouch. It was a remarkable insight into the cultural chasm separating the cosseted city elites that produce little more than opinion from the men and women who make the very stuff of life.

    A malady has infected the influential classes – we might call it farmerphobia. They seem to view farmers as a blot on the landscape, both literally and figuratively. Farmers are seen as dangerous Faragists. As gullible fanboys of that frightful opinion-haver, and fellow farmer, Jeremy Clarkson. They’re the sort of ruddy-faced, country-ale types who – brace yourselves – probably voted for Brexit.

    And they’re seen as polluters too. They’re forever being chastised for all those cows they keep whose farts are apparently dragging us towards the heat death of our planet. As that moaner George Monbiot once said, agriculture is the most destructive industry of all. Farmers are treated as borderline noxious. Both their conservative beliefs and their carbon emissions are talked up as devilish pollutants that threaten our world.

    Farmerphobia is a Europe-wide phenomenon. Across the continent, governments are enforcing policies that seriously hurt farmers. From the punishing Net Zero policies of the Dutch government to Germany’s abolition of tax breaks for farmers to France’s reduction in state subsidies for farmers’ diesel fuel, everywhere one looks farmers are getting it in the neck. In Ireland, there was even talk of pressuring farmers to cull 200,000 cows in order that Ireland might reach its Net Zero targets. Sacrificing animals to appease the gods of weather – rarely has the neo-pagan irrationalism of our eco-elites been on such frank, grim display.

    In all these places, farmers have fought back. And now they’re fighting back here too. Good. It is a testament to the aloofness of our rulers that they can be so cavalier about the men and women who make the food our nations need. And it is a testament to the spirit of our farmers that they’re not taking it lying down.

    Brendan O’Neill
    WRITTEN BY
    Brendan O’Neill
    Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.

    1. A good-ish piece from O'Neill. However, blaming the soft, six-quid-latte drinking metropolitan elites misses the point: who is it that is really driving this very dangerous nonsense and who have captured those metro-elites along with governments all over Europe and in the USA? It's the Globalist/WEF and other self-appointed World elites.

      Those of us who are awake know this but the slumbering majority haven't yet joined all of the dots together. Perhaps some of those brain-idle Labour voters, around 9.6 Million of them, are now rousing from their slumbers as they see what they've unleashed on to the UK.

  156. [He was paid £6 for his efforts.]

    Vic Flick, guitarist on the James Bond theme, dies aged 87

    Famed session musician, who also performed with the Beatles, Tom Jones, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, died after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s https://youtu.be/Vr6yscEWPYw Vic Flick, the famed British session musician who picked out the famous jangly guitar motif on the James Bond theme song, has died aged 87.

    The musician’s son, Kevin Flick announced his father died on 14 November, after having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

    Born in Surrey in 1937, Flick had previously performed with the composer John Barry in the John Barry Seven, when Barry was brought in to rearrange Monty Norman’s theme for Dr No, the first James Bond film.

  158. A bustling Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,249 3/6
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    🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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