Tuesday 2 July: Troubling questions over the workings of Britain’s postal voting system

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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851 thoughts on “Tuesday 2 July: Troubling questions over the workings of Britain’s postal voting system”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Where Do Pets Come From

    A newly discovered chapter in the Book of Genesis has provided the answer to "Where do pets come from?"

    Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me every day. Now I do not see you anymore. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me.”

    And God said, "No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me.

    Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself."

    And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail.

    And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."

    And God said "No problem! Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."

    And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

    After a while, it came to pass that Adam's guardian angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but perhaps too well."

    And the Lord said, "No problem! I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is.

    The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not always worthy of adoration."

    And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam

    And Cat would not obey Adam.

    And when Adam gazed into Cat's eyes, he was reminded that he was not the Supreme Being. And Adam learned humility. And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved. And Dog was happy.

    And Cat didn't give a shit one way or the other.

    1. Oops… Just guffawed whilst sitting in a bus. Now people are shuffling away from me… But, a good one!

        1. Thanks, Paul, I just keep buggering on.

          I have a new cleaner/carer starting today @£15/hour. Yippee, that should reduce the load a bit.

          Finally, I might get round to doing a whole quarter's accounts this afternoon.

          1. Accounts… Argh! Got to attend to Mothers, plus difficult powers of attorney – but not for a few days. Building work beckons.

    1. Borrowed for distribution over here in Canada, our need is greater than yours.

  10. Troubling questions over the workings of Britain’s postal voting system

    Now who would have predicted that the service would fail in marginal constituencies?

  11. Good morning, chums, and thank you Geoff for another NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,109 4/6

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    1. Good Morning, Elsie.
      Four here

      Wordle 1,109 4/6

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    1. Thinking of tennis, has anyone had news of the much missed Plum Tart?

        1. Oh dear, that really is sad news if true, Bill. I loved her posts of the Bash Street Kids. (Good morning to you and the MR, BTW.)

  13. 389088+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Tuesday 2 July: Troubling questions over the workings of Britain’s postal voting system

    These "troubling questions" should have been asked and answered long,long ago, why now?

    In point of fact WHY are we having a general Election at all ?

    You dozy bastards, peoples have been criminally manipulated causing premature loss of life,life long serious ongoing injuries, subject to blood clots treacherously having been introduced allegedly via the
    political / pharmaceutical WEF / NWO culling dept.

    We have contamination rife through ALL parties that have their highly suspect hats in the governing ring, and are being hustled into yet another reshuffle only this time with much more of a criminal content on offer.

    We could very well be about to elect / re-elect politico's
    who have already " made their bones" in mafia speak.

  14. Thousands of Ukrainian convicts join fight against Russian forces. 2 June 2024.

    Ukraine is turning to its prisoner population to help address battlefield shortages as Russian continues to build up forces in eastern Ukraine. More than 3,000 prisoners have been released on parole and assigned to military units after such recruitment was approved by parliament in a controversial mobilisation bill last month, Ukrainian deputy justice minister Olena Vysotska told the Associated Press.

    When Russia did this a couple of months ago there was much finger pointing in the MSM. These people (on both sides) do not make good soldiers. Given the opportunity they will leg it as soon as possible.

    https://www.theguardian.com…

  15. Thousands of Ukrainian convicts join fight against Russian forces. 2 June 2024.

    Ukraine is turning to its prisoner population to help address battlefield shortages as Russian continues to build up forces in eastern Ukraine. More than 3,000 prisoners have been released on parole and assigned to military units after such recruitment was approved by parliament in a controversial mobilisation bill last month, Ukrainian deputy justice minister Olena Vysotska told the Associated Press.

    When Russia did this a couple of months ago there was much finger pointing in the MSM. These people (on both sides) do not make good soldiers. Given the opportunity they will leg it as soon as possible.

    https://www.theguardian.com…

  16. One feature of Radio 4 is that news they would rather bury, but has to come out for Charter reasons, is snuck out soon after 6am, when folk are not properly awake, and I wonder if I have just dreamed that.

    Analysing the parties' intentions, it seems that under Starmer's Labour, executive pay will greatly rise in order to compete with the Americans for payouts. It is logical, since more money will be made available for this, even though hard decisions must be taken at lower levels of the organisation. The argument is that if the senior executives are paid more, there will be more profits to finance growth. More tax concessions, Truss-style, would be a further sweetener. New Labour, New Priorities. "Change".

    I contrast that with the announcement made here by Ann Widdecombe for Reform, that if graduating medical students stay loyal to the NHS for ten years, all their student debts would be cancelled. This morning, the BBC put student debt for those who must study for a long time, such as architects and doctors, can be £200,000.

    Do I presume that Reform would reward NHS doctors with the money New Labour is reserving for top executives? Is this being said out in the constituencies?

  17. – After nearly six weeks of campaigning very little has been said about Net Zero, now it emerges that a Labour victory will bring back Ed Miliband who wants the UK to lead the world on meteorological change, not sure what his qualifications on the issue are but at least with the carbon taxes on farmed animals being proposed and already happening in Denmark as a way to save the planet he wont have to eat any more bacon sandwiches.

    1. Such virtue signalling! Denmarks reduction won't even cover the increase from China's latest power station or Mumbai's 2024 mopeds…

      1. …or even the production of a couple of wind or solar, so called, 'farms.'

      2. I'm surprised and disappointed with the Danes.
        They are usually sensible people.

    2. OMG, having to listen to Ed Nasals Milliband again is going to give that old feeling that I need to give my nose a good blow.

  18. Morning, all Y'all.
    Overcast. Waiting for express bus towards Firstborn's farm – first time I'm trying it. Exciting… I think.

  19. Good morning, all. Another scorching summer day. Grey, raining, cold. Apparently, there is an election in the offing.

    1. Warmest June ever, apparently. As was May.

      They must think we are stupid!!!

  20. Some here have pointed out an unholy alliance between Labour and Conservative, both exploiting the Buggins Turn of alternating governments and safe seats, and doing nothing about electoral reform in fifty years.

    Others point out the animosity between Reform and the Liberal Democrats, but I rather feel they are not treading on each other's toes, and appeal to quite different people. Lib Dem gains in the Home Counties and the West Country would not be at the expense of Reform gains in the Red Wall and the Thames Estuary, and vice-versa.

  21. Continuing on the Leftie outrage at Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts.
    Democrats Hint At Assassination In Response To Supreme Court Immunity Decision..

    David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's Briefing Room show, took to X/Twitter shortly after 5 pm and said: “If I was Biden I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security #SCOTUS”.

    He even doubled down, later..

    Mr Aaronovitch doubled down and lashed out, replying: “Did you see the Supreme Court ruling Jack? Or were you too busy with your head up Nigel Farage's derriere?”

    He even looks like an angry Leftie.

    2. Aaronovitch is the son of communist intellectual and economist Sam Aaronovitch, and brother of actor Owen Aaronovitch and author and screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch. His parents were atheists whose "faith was Marxism", according to Aaronovitch, and he is ethnically half Jewish and half Irish. He has written that he was brought up "to react to wealth with a puritanical pout" Wiki

      While at Manchester, Aaronovitch was a member of the 1975 University Challenge team that lost in the first round after answering most questions with the name of a Marxist ("Trotsky", "Lenin", "Karl Marx" or "Che Guevara").

      Aaronovitch was a Eurocommunist.

      1. My name is Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski.
        Me Dad was a bit of a Communist, know what I mean?

        Alexei Sale in The Young Ones

      2. Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London books are quite fun but you have to be prepared to overlook his pathological compulsion to shoehorn ‘diversity’ into every aspect of them.
        I think he’s written for the BBC in the past….

    3. I sometimes wonder if Aaronavitch's real face is on his bottom, because his face does look like a hairy bottom. Like a kind of rectal version of Dorian Grey.

    4. "… a threat to America's security #SCOTUS”." How many new wars did Trump get the US involved in? None!

  22. 389088+ up ticks,

    Royal Mail criticised for failing to deliver postal votes before election
    Delays force postal service to scramble to get ballot papers to voters – and then back to polling stations in time to be counted – on July 4

    Do peoples realise just how serious this is, it is putting the whole islamic vote into jeopardy,there is a danger of whole blocks of mo's being on the missing list.

  23. "The complete destruction of nine centuries of Democracy by Sir Keir Starmer & Sue Reid."

    Well… at least there's a detailed record on file for someone in the future to deal with this when the commoners realise that the House of Commoners is a dead parliament.

    Here, David Starkey eloquently explains how Blair started it.. Gordon Brown really did the damage.. and how the Tories intensified it.. and Sir Keir to finish the job off.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46z0obe-Tig

    1. Seen it and recommend it. His conclusion – we will need a Restoration 2.0. However, Starkey is rather enthusiastic about the vaccines which he sees as a great achievement and he lauds Kate Bingham. We can forgive him that but someone will have to straighten him out.

      1. One of only two commentators.. the other is Peter Hitchens.. in a sea of dross journos, gotcha propagandists and 6th form pundits that have bothered to do their work and bring attention to this alarming act of gross vandalism.

      2. One of only two commentators.. the other is Peter Hitchens.. in a sea of dross journos, gotcha propagandists and 6th form pundits that have bothered to do their work and bring attention to this alarming act of gross vandalism.

    1. How comforting that would be if true! But alas, people with high IQs and masters degrees will insist that a woman can have a penis and that only white people are racist.

    3. They might consider us to be thickos taking the risk of being shunned and despised by the group.
      Their strategy has obviously been successful in the past, as they have managed to survive and pass on their conformist genes.

  25. Good morning, waltzes in, a somewhat cloudy bleak looking day, I'll have a word with Helios. About to have a cup of tea made for me by the husband who always makes breakfast . I'm sure this Postal vote debacle is deliberate, especially if it affects the marginals .

      1. I’ll wear my favorite apricot sun hat and hope it’ll encourage the sun to shine.

  26. G'morning all,

    Cloudy day in prospect at McPhee Towers. Wind in the North, 12℃ with no more than 17℃ forecast.

    I'd say that this alone disqualifies him. Unfortunately the masses will see nothing wrong in it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34729be00605592c16348beab6268ab288535df7d3b0a941e186bec46c2736c0.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/01/starmer-suggests-he-wont-work-past-6pm-on-fridays/

    Surely being PM is a 24/7/365 job? Isn't it? If you don't think so, don't apply.

    1. As the old Mars bar commercial went, life consists of work, rest and play, and in roughly equal proportions. Unbalance these, and one falls ill or goes made. I never forget just how boggle-eyed and snarly workaholic Thatcher got in her later years. In their nostalgia, some Tories forget what TBW meant in the late 1980s.

      However, guess what time any potential foe might launch an attack on Britain? It's like the disease that chooses Saturday morning to strike, knowing that the doctors are not in their surgeries. As the Carry On scriptwriters once remarked, the natives may not stop for tiffin.

      Would you trust the nation to Angela Rayner getting out of bed in a weekend?

      2. Shudder.
        I have yet to see a photo of Rayner, including those put out by Labour, where she doesn't look like a raving psychopath. There's just a disconnect in her eyes that I've seen in other people.

    3. His wife being Jewish, he’ll want to be home for Friday Night Dinner. The Jewish sabbath begins at sundown on Friday. Mind, that isn’t always 6pm.

  27. I've popped Audrey H within my avatar name with the picture of her .
    Dancing upon Helicon and Olympia was a bit of a heaping mouthful .

    1. Almond croissants ( or chocolate) with coffee is a favourite breakfast of mine when in Italy otherwise when home it's always a cup of tea.

  32. Good morning all.
    A dull start and still a bit damp from overnight rain with 9°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    Another disappointing look at the NS&I Prize Checker, 2nd null month in a row, though at least the DT received £125.

  33. Just read in the local paper for Firstborn's area that there has been sheep killed by a wolf not too far from his farm. Exciting – I think. Not fun for the sheep, though.

    3. Big men when they are in a gang. It just underlines what these types think of women. Likely to happen more and more in the Western world, including the UK.

  35. Good morning, all. Overcast.

    Not too long to wait for Doomsday 2.0 being ably delivered by Smarmer & Co.

    Couple of points that have stirred a thought or two…

    Labour's key statement "Change" appears on their tweets, propaganda leaflets etc. Without some qualification "Change" could be either for the 'better' or for the 'worse'. I'm not a gambling man but I know which option I would choose.

    I turned up at a friend's home a few days ago to find that her small close was infested by eight canvassers and with the amount of dark blue on display I concluded that it was the Tories out in force. Indeed it was the Tories, led by no less than the PPC, one Bernard Jenkin. The latter had visited my friend to have a quick chat, as PPCs do at election time, and she asked him about the fate of the immigrants' boats once they've been delivered to Dover – I can't imagine who put that idea into her head – Mr Jenkin quickly turned the conservation to a local matter, the huge pylons being planned to march across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex to carry intermittent electrical current from off-shore windmills. My friend's response was that where she lives the power lines will be placed underground: not that she is happy with the pylons that will be an eyesore and probable health risk elsewhere. After that short chat he shook her hand and departed.

    My obvious quip was "I hope you wash your hands before making my coffee".

    Off now to make the ragu for tomorrow's lasagne followed by the dessert, tarte citron, as laid out by Raymond Blanc. Wish me luck!

    1. Well, K look on the bright side. Cur Ikea Slammer has promised to make us all better off. Can't wait. It'll be such a thrill…..

  36. Morning all 🙂😊
    Looks like long awaited rain, but not holding my breath.
    How long has it taken the MSM or anyone else to realise that postal voting is being illegally abused and has been illegally abused for decades ?

    1. Morning! I wonder to what extent the post office is incompetent or maybe has insiders who decided to scupper the scam.

      1. It certainly makes one wonder considering the recent reports on withheld Christmas mail.
        It wouldn’t be impossible to load hundreds or thousands of ‘postal votes’ into to sacks to be counted as sent.

      2. Thing is, when you apply for postal voting, cards are automatically sent each election. You don't have to apply for them. You automatically get them and then send them in. This debacle is only affecting, I understand, those who are only now applying for them, in the last couple of weeks. These new applicants, I think, are likely to be new voters for Reform, likely in the older age bracket. Like you, I think it might be happening on purpose – but to scupper Reform.

    2. Farage complained about it years ago, but was ignored.
      A friends wife is a nurse at a care home in South Shields and, several years ago, she tried to take action against Labour Party members who were going around scaring old folk telling them that the Tories were going to cancel their pensions and chuck them out into the street, while getting them to fill in postal votes in Labour's favour.
      The care home was something to do with the Labour run council, and she nearly lost her job.
      It's worse now.

      1. Can you imagine the postal votes arriving from people ‘working from home’ now, including it seems Pakistan?

        2. But I’m sure that they have an address here because you need one if you receive benefits or want to use the NHS. The problem is that an awful lot of people can be ‘resident’ in a 2 bed council property (Sorry ex-council property as they have ‘done a Rayner’)

          1. Probably not their own address.
            There could be 20-30 people using the address of a two bed flat.

    1. And the question could equally well have been asked of Sir Kneel Korma and whoever is leading the Non-Lib (Glib?) Non-Dems.

    1. Fake or not fake news the truth is that Zelensky is not a person for whom World War lll should be started which does not mean that he will not be used as the cause for it.

      Remember a black American criminal's death gave rise to a vast global anti-white movement in which even the leader of Britain's Labour Party and his deputy knelt in reverence.

      1. I am still bewildered by the Flyod issue. He was a career criminal. He chose to pass off counterfeit notes. He was arrested. He was restrained. He died due to an overdose of drugs in his system.

        All his choices. Then the blacks kick off this martyrdom farce and canonise the loathsome man and the arresting officer is sent to prison. If a clearer example of what's wrong with the West could be found I'm a Welshman.

    2. The car costs less than a 10th of that, but there is a watch with a similar name is that sort of money.

      I suspect it's fake news and even your link suggests it is.

      1. The note hadn’t been added when I made my post. We are always hearing about Russian propaganda, and I wondered if that was an example of it. Russian propaganda is supposed to be so cunning that it hoodwinks anyone who listens to any non-western government news source. But actually, it’s pretty much like western propaganda.

  40. Yo and Good Moaningl All to all notttlers

    Today's letters are akin to a chat in a bar, completly disregarding the 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over us on Thursday

    1. Page not found.
      I hope you trust the whistle-blower.
      Be careful you're not being set up.

      1. It’s up on our front page sos, freespeechbacklash.com. Have a look and tell me what you think please.

        1. Not the clearest of sites. Give us a link that takes us straight to the article.

        2. I very much doubt it's real. The whole thing stinks of a spoof and I wouldn't touch any of it as a serious article.
          However:
          If you've deliberately posted it as a satire it's fairly amusing but somewhat OTT.

          1. It’s satire sos, written by Paul Sutton. Sorry you didn’t like it, but we can’t please everybody all of the time.

    2. Your link has a bracket at the end of it, so the link goes to somewhere that doesn't exist.

  42. A friend has bought a shiny new hybrid car and is quick to tell anyone willing to listen that it does 60mpg. Miles per gallon of what? Well petrol of course. So Hybrid cars are just complicated ICE cars. Range on battery alone? About 50 miles!

    Hans Christian Andersen wrote a very good story about EV, Emporer's Vestments

    2. Our 10 year old Golf diesel does better than that, and isn't carrying a big battery everywhere.

    3. If it's not plug-in, all those battery volts come from the engine, run on gasoline or diesel. So, how is that helping?

    4. I think it was a car manufacturer in Wales that pointed out that an electric motor is most efficient when it is stopping and starting, and is capable of so much torque, a gearbox is redundant. A petrol engine, however, is best when continually running at a steady pace, and really wolfs down the fuel when stopping and starting.

      The best hybrid therefore uses a much smaller petrol engine that would struggle with big acceleration, but ticks along when cruising, and an electric motor to do the stops and starts, but which shuts down when cruising, allowing a much smaller and lighter battery to be used, and possibly even sodium-ion technology, rather than that using lithium. Sodium is of course abundant in seawater.

      In the past, controlling and balancing the two engines may have been a problem, but not today, since the computing power is readily available on something as cheap as a Raspberry Pi.

      1. What happens when the battery is flat (say in heavy traffic when the petrol engine never really kicks in)?

        Well, below a level of charge, the small petrol engine takes over for a while, with the option of a low underdrive gear for pulling away. It would be inefficient and slow for a while, but at least it would get you out of trouble. A burst of speed should give enough charge for another wait in traffic, but there would be a warning light suggesting to pull in for a quick charge when convenient in order to save petrol. In urban bottlenecks, there could be extra fast charging points (and coffee and shopping facilities) for this very purpose. Ten or fifteen minutes should buy enough charge to get through the traffic.

        1. I'm surprised that the battery can be recharged so quickly by the petrol engine.

          1. I thought the engine came on to charge the battery regardless? I'll have a read of Harry's garage to explain how they work.

  43. I forsee a Labour and Lib Dem coalition coming very soon, God help us but atleast Labour are not expected to get their super majority. I'd prefer a Conservative and Reform majority but I can't see that happening either ,

    1. If Farage had held Johnson's feet to the fire in 2019 and the Brexit Party had contested seats held by Remainer Conservative MPs then we could have got a proper Brexit rather then the sell out of Northern Ireland and UK fisherfolk.

      Just as the EU collapses Starmer and Davey would take the UK back into it and have to pay an enormous re-entry fee only to find the following week that the UK would be left to pay an enormous bill for the dismantling of it!

      If Europe is looking for a sucker then Starmer will be up for the job!

      1. I don't blame Farage for the failure of Britain to realise the benefits of leaving the EU. He might have got another one or two MPs out of it, but I doubt it made much difference electorally.

        Johnson's failure was a lot down to inertia in the executive – in both public and private sectors – to adapt to independence. The problem was that those who knew, understood and worked under English Common Law, and a time when the UK still had institutions and industries that could command an empire, were long since retired. Those around now have grown up under the wing of continental Europe. To illustrate this, I was 15 years old when Britain joined the EEC; I was sixty when we voted to leave the EU.

        To make Brexit work, those pushing for Leave needed to prepare the Civil Service and the captains of industry for working well under the new regime, even if this meant a certain amount of redundancy in the interim period of handover. For this reason, I never believed there would be any cost saving in the short term, since there was much work to be done.

        The other thing that did for Johnson was covid. He was never the same after he went into intensive care, and having experienced the post-covid chronic fatigue myself, I do not think he was up to the rigours of running the country as he and we would have liked.

        One reason Boris Johnson was chosen over Jeremy Hunt to lead the party, was because he was fun. He could party, and make people feel good when times were tough. However, when put to the test, he looked after his own and never mind the rest of us were miserable. If he had to have a party outside No.10, the least he could do was to loosen the restraints on the rest of us, including Queen Elizabeth II mourning her husband. Or he could simply have obeyed his own rules and made the best of it.

      2. The EU negotiations were hindered mostly by MPs refusing to accept the outcome and doing everything possible to make our negotiating position weaker. When they refusing to allow no deal it tied our hands. Then there were those MPs going on the back hand to deliberately undermine the negotiating position.

        It was a deceit of incredible proportions – perpetrated by those paid to serve our will.

      3. I do believe the democratically elected Boris Johnson should’ve called for an election when the parliamentary party decided to get rid of him .
        I agree with all else you say.

        1. Surely, with cabinet resignations coming thick and fast, Boris Johnson lacked the authority to do anything, least of all throw his party to the wolves.

          When Winston Churchill had to retire because of old age (President Biden, take note!), his successor Anthony Eden called an election as soon as he has assembled a campaign team. He won that election, but was deposed two years later after the debacle in Suez. His successor Harold Macmillan did not then call another election, but waited a couple of years, before winning the 1959 election.

          Since then the sucessors of retiring or resigning PMs have not called an election straight away – Home succeeded Macmillan, Callaghan succeeded Wilson, Major succeeded Thatcher, Brown succeeded Blair, May succeeded Cameron, Johnson succeeded May, Truss succeeded Johnson and Sunak succeeded Truss.

        2. It was all theatre, Audrey – the WEF wanted him off the stage and probably with his agreement so that he wasn't strongly associated with the 'covid' brand should a day of reckoning arrive. It was all probably with his agreement and well planned in advance. Which is why we have had Truss followed by Sunak – no one name is strongly associated with 'covid' as it would have been had Johnson been in control all the time. Nothing happens by accident – if it is, it is carefully kept under wraps or used to manipulate 'never let a crisis go to waste'.

  44. I think, that for this General Election, that their will be dress code for those delivering many Postal Votes.

    I (m) am right?

  45. Lots of choice:
    Wordle 1,109 3/6

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  46. General election latest: Postal vote delays being ‘urgently’ investigated, says minister
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/02/general-election-live-sunak-starmer-farage/

    Postal votes both here and in the USA have made a mockery of democracy. The best option is to do away with them whether or not the postal service can be repaired.

    (In France it is extremely difficult to get a postal vote – people are expected to cast their votes in person at the polling station. The result is a far more democratic result.)

    1. "….The result is a far more democratic result…." Except when the "far-right" win, of course.

  48. 38908 up ticks,

    Tell me,
    If the jab was a genuine life saving vaccine why do many of the jab installers have exemption certs, why are exception certs. in being ?

    I'd wager that when the third WW kicks off ALL those top rankers, politico / pharmaceutical occupying the nuclear shelters, won't have a jabbed
    person amongst them

  51. Good morning all.

    Breezy morning , fresh 15c

    Past experience with elections and promises have proved to be futile paper exercises.

    Unless you are poverty stricken , can't afford to add another tattoo, update your mobile phone , grab a takeaway everyday, feed your myriads of children , buy a vape , fill your trolley with booze and collect bags of benefits , what have fourteen years of Tory politics done for you /What did the previous labour government do for you / and what do you expect from the next government ?

    Please answer ..

    2. Debt, waste, and tax is what we'll get. The entire state edifice is dedicated to big state spendaholic socialism. From every institution the intent is more gimmigration, more spending.

      It is genuinely sad that you hear about people 'dependent on food banks' – well, I've seen those people and they're just grasping who want something for nothing. They all have high end telephones (I've seen them).

  52. I was trying to make constructive criticism. As a satire, as I commented, I think it’s OTT.

    I had worked out that the author was likely to be PS.

    Assuming your site, which I think is very good, is intended to be a “serious” news and discussion outlet, is it really one for the headline lead on the front page?

    2. Mr Sutton is, I think, a senior academic, who believes it to be not so far from the truth

      1. Judging by some of the real things coming from my old college, he's probably correct.

  53. Just thought I'd had a bright idea. But I didn't.

    SWMBO is 75 now. Shouldn't she qualify for a free TV licence? Could I pop on line and cancel the direct debit?

    She could so qualify – if she was in receipt of Pension Credit. Ah. Her pensions (State and v. small teacher's pension from 7 years work) aggregate to well under the full State Pension and Personal Tax Allowance. Could she qualify for Pension Credit? She could – if she were single. It seems my income has to be taken into account so, no, she doesn't qualify.

    Because she doesn"t qualify for Pension Credit, she's not entitled to a free TV licence. Nor will I when I'm 75.

    They ignore marriage when it comes to income tax allowances but they bring it into play when it comes to benefits. Thieving bastards.

    It seems were doomed. Doomed forever to be in the 'paying classes', those who pay for all the state's favourite victim categories.

    1. Yep. You find the state is set against you at every turn. Waste your life and you're given everything. Work and you're punished.

    2. Give yourself a free tv licence by throwing the darn TV out. I agree, Britain is very unfair.

      1. Might as well. We hardly watch it. Maybe be an hour or two after 9 pm.

    3. Spend everything on frivolous toys, cash in any pensions, treat yourself to holidays in some exotic five star paradise and when you return to the UK just declare yourself broke. All manner of social housing and benefits will be yours for the asking.

      Note: A good suntan may help you claim these riches.

      My pension and investment income is enough that I qualify for none of Trudeaus social programs, I have to pay for my dental care and my taxes pay for every other buggers teeth.

    2. I haven't won anything for two months but this month £200 dropped in. That pays for my upcoming party !

  55. Ultra-orthodox Jews sprayed with ‘skunk water’ at military service protest
    Israeli security forces use foul-smelling deterrent against demonstrators outside supreme court
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    An idea to move Just Stop Oil demonstrators who block roads?

  56. Ultra-orthodox Jews sprayed with ‘skunk water’ at military service protest
    Israeli security forces use foul-smelling deterrent against demonstrators outside supreme court
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    An idea to move Just Stop Oil demonstrators who block roads?

    1. It's a huge step forward for injuries. Imagine bionic arms, hearts, lungs – the mechanization of the body in the event of catastrophic injury.

  58. All depends on the specification of the alternator. A powerful alternator would suck performance out of the petrol engine, but this would not be noticed when cruising, and the electric motor can give an acceleration hit when needed.

    1. I approve. If the Left had been treated that way from the outset there'd be no need to arrest them prior to the supposed air port disruption.

      1. Only to Anti Lockdown protestors and similar disgusting far right activists!! /sarc

      1. Chinese in the vanguard of human development again.
        Think of paper and fireworks.

  61. Unaffordable housing
    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer claims “he” will build more houses if elected (Leading Article, July 1).

    Governments don’t build anything. Occasionally they might facilitate action by businesses through making their activities more profitable or reducing inhibitory regulation.

    However, the solution to the “housing crisis” lies not only in increasing the supply of housing but also in making it more affordable. Since there are shortages of skilled labour and materials, costs are increasing. New houses will not get cheaper. Affordability will only improve if incomes rise faster than the cost of building houses.

    Cutting stamp duty might help a little, and reducing interest rates could help a bit more. But as long as wages remain so low that substantial numbers of working people qualify for taxpayer-funded income supplements, affordability will remain a problem.

    Michael Blackmore
    Saint-Ferme, Gironde, France

    Son no 1 is an electrician, he usually works with industry , some heavy projects , he has his licences , and has to update every few years .

    His comment now is that although the house building is full on , and our Dorset market towns are expanding quickly , he is frequently asked to switch over to check up on the work of others , he hates doing that, because there are many nationalities involved in construction .

    Several electrician's mates were Nigerian , their work was eye wateringly bad , but no matter what deal they were on, cash or what , their sole idea was to go back to Africa to build their own homes/hotels .. there's ambition for you .

    Homes are being thrown up , and if any of you have noticed new builds have tiny windows , loads of insulation and are similar to ovens in the hot weather ..

    There is no such thing as affordable .. and it has been noticed that new council estates are constructed out of inferior materials , they are tight mean little homes , with no room for pushchairs , bicycles or even a garden for children to play in .

        1. Even nowadays, depending upon where you choose to live you can get twice the property for half the money of its UK equivalent.
          And France isn't cheap compared with many other places throughout Europe.
          UK house prices are insane.

          1. Hmm. Agree about the UK – but was astounded by house prices in Erquy and Asnelles.

          5. And you can be an NHS consultant working from home!
            (Seriously – I know of one…)

          6. I know quite a few people ostensibly employed in the UK but working from home here.

          8. True, but very large parts are mountainous/forested and greater proportions agricultural.

    2. The solution to the housing crisis is to stop all immigration for a generation and deport 10 million undesireables who have no right to be here.

      Apart from that, yes, 'new-builds' are appalling junk which demonstrates the contempt the so-called 'elites' have for the populace.

      2. No you have it the wrong way round, you need more immigrants to build all of these new homes.

        or so say most politicians.

    3. The same worldwide.
      Trudeau has committed to building so many new homes in canada that it works out to about one new home every minute. The US has similar impossible targets.

    4. Will Smarmer also put in place plans to upgrade sewage disposal and provision of water supply for all of these additional houses?

      Thought not!

      In addition he is planning to reduce reliable electric generation and likely kill off gas and oil heating, both ideas are counterintuitive when a deliberate effort to increase the population via mass immigration is also on the cards. Add on the demand that electrification of cars and other means of transport; digitalisation of just about everything; surveillance, G5 provision, AI etc. will require and it's odds on that the system will collapse. These people are incapable of seeing beyond the ideology that drives their limited knowledge of what a sophisticated modern society requires to function.

      Of course, perhaps they're not looking to maintain a modern society, after all, they're asking us to vote for Change.

    1. 389088+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      I take it this is to safeguard against
      the children ever living long enough to draw a pension, NOTHING to do with healthcare, far from it.

      1. After reaching adulthood having a child may well be very difficult if not impossible for children inoculated now.

        1. Scaremongering nonsense. Just follow the science – which is, natch, settled.

      1. Personally, if he never did another stroke of "work" for the rest of his natural, that would suit me fine.

    3. Fine. Like the GLC in 1981, the rest of the party can gather and get him ousted by Monday, 8th. July.

          1. Dunno, I come here to gain valuable intellectual stimulus and all I end up with are heart thumping palpitations over such vivid mental images.

  64. Michael Deacon in the Tellygraff.

    "Glastonbury has always been a haven for people who love to celebrate multiculturalism, diversity and open borders. And this year’s festival was no exception. The band Idles, for example, called Nigel Farage “a fascist”, and sang a song in praise of mass immigration (“My blood brother is an immigrant, a beautiful immigrant/ My blood brother’s Freddie Mercury/ A Nigerian mother of three”) while the crowd proudly held aloft a rubber dinghy filled with dummies dressed to look like Channel-crossing asylum seekers.

    This display of compassion was of course deeply moving. Which is why I was surprised to read, on the final evening, that the festival had been “thrown into chaos” by people entering the site illegally, after buying fake wristbands or swarming over the security fence. Apparently, this caused fans to “panic” about the resultant “overcrowding”.

    But hang on a minute. Surely those fans should have welcomed the new arrivals with open arms.

    After all, anyone willing to risk their life climbing a 13ft fence in order to see Coldplay is clearly desperate. We should be showing these poor people compassion, rather than furiously calling for them to be arrested and sent back where they came from.

    No doubt some regulars will say, “But these numbers are unsustainable. It’s making life a misery for people who are already here. Also, we know nothing about all these people who are flooding in illegally – they could be dangerous criminals.”

    Quite plainly, though, anyone who spouts this hateful, far-Right rhetoric is a fascist. The only way to defeat the gangs selling fake wristbands is to provide a safe, legal route into the festival. And that means removing the fence, so anyone can walk straight in.

    In fact, the people who have bought tickets should be made to pay out of their own pockets to feed and accommodate all the people who got in without tickets. It’s only fair."

    1. What is actually frightening about the incident is that it really could have been suicide bombers and gunmen pouring in.
      Hundreds, if not thousands, of people could have been killed.
      Watch this space next year.

        1. One really successful massacre appears to have a tendency to encourage other attempts, so even if you think the Glastomob would be poetic justice (I don't) the follow-up could be somewhere you or your family are attending.

          1. It was black humour…it’s going to happen anyway so we may as well get in first.

      3. But but but we will all be on the side of the terrorists, if the events of the past 8 months are anything to go by

      4. Not according to the do-gooders of Glasto.
        They are all doctors, engineers and teachers.

      2. These people really pay over the odds to be huddled together?

        Watching concrete dry has its attractions.

    1. If I am in a traffic queue behind an electric car, I always keep a long gap between them and me!

  66. Reform wins the election Friday and the BBC has a name change within a few months:

    Bye Bye Corporation

  67. Looks like the adults are out checking up on facts during the election. Apparently there is a proliferation of 'bot-like' accounts flooding X. There's “extreme and violent” hate speech, disinformation, conspiracy theories and praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the organisation said.

    It found that posts amplified by these bot-like accounts have spread Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia and transphobia.

    Some posts have claimed climate change is a “hoax”, vaccines have created a “genocide”, and that Putin is “the greatest president ever”.

    The criteria for a "bot" is?

    Global Witness, an international NGO that focuses on the environment and human rights, said it considered accounts were bot-like if they had three or more “red flags”.

    These included posting prolifically, having handles that end in a long string of numbers, and not having a profile picture that appears to be of the person running the account.

    As I thought. All you 'Nottlers' hiding behind your false avatars spreading hatred with your extreme views. Caught you at last!

  68. Starmer suggests he won’t work past 6pm on Fridays
    The Labour leader says he likes to protect time to spend with his family on Friday evenings
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/01/starmer-suggests-he-wont-work-past-6pm-on-fridays/

    BTL

    If you want to make a success of anything you have to work hard and put in long hours when needed.

    This surely sends quite the wrong message to ordinary people. Not only should you not work hard to earn enough money to educate your children privately if you wish to do so but you should not be prepared to work hard for success for yourself and your family.

    Just watch the downward slide when this workshy buffoon is in charge!

    2. He should get on well with part time Biden then. Isn't sleepy Joe on a 10 till 4 schedule?

  69. I think I might be upsetting the Spectator again .
    My display name is ' A Kitty's Nine Lives '
    A nod to Tim Montgomerie of ConHome who was okay with my right wing views and the fact I was a honoury kipper . Whereas Paul Goodman said " your nine lives are reducing Kitty ' .

  70. The naval exercise continues up here.The minesweeper from yesterday is still around (and it flies the union jack). Another minesweeper is here now 315 (El Bachir from Morocco according to my old Janes) but I can't see any flag on it and there's an Auxiliary Support vessel too A515 (German) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/effecce66b31fa03361d3f0f5194df5000ece6f8c336091ffb67788807263f58.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2bb0a5663bee55bedb4dbb3b805c60595fc4911f9e221cc13b3d6af553d09d2f.jpg

      1. I gave up watching it pretty soon. What I did see reminded me of a line from Waiting For Godot : Nobody comes; nobody goes; nothing happens; it's awful.

      1. strangely, all was not sweetness and light despite the lack of evil whiteys.

    4. Well you see, the 95% have white majority privilege and we have our chauffeurs taking us everywhere.

    2. MB and I have just read that.
      It's a wonderful place and we would thoroughly recommend it.

  73. They are a waste of time. All the mines in the UK have been shut down years ago.

  74. Most postal vote cards are sent in post weeks beforehand. So this will only apply to people newly applying for the postal vote. Cynical me wonders if this is being purposely done to thwart new Reform voters who might be in the older age bracket. Established Labour postal voters will already have received their cards and will have sent them in. So it will only be new postal voters affected. With the surge for Reform – esp. in older age bracket, what better way to nobble them than to mess with the postal system. It could be me. Coincidence? Well, has this problem ever happened before? I used to laugh at conspiracy theorists. Now I just don't trust the authorities on anything and am always questioning them.

    We all know that the turnout is being touted as being low, so last minute Reform voters could sway the election.

    1. Hopefully those whose postal ballot paper haven’t arrived will find the will and wherewithal to get to the polling stations and vote in person. Yes it can be done as long as you have ID with you.
      Simples

        1. I agree,Tom, but from the vast numbers of postal votes I think that doesn’t apply to the majority.

    2. Remember a predominantly Jewish ward in Barnet didn't receive ballot papers during the election for London mayor.

    3. The advantage of an all powerful religious leader. Most imams will have ordered postal ballots and completed them correctly well before the election date.

      Would they be allowed to deliver bundles of ballots to the returning officer? There was a big hue and cry in the US about that being g a Democrat dirty trick.

  75. Most postal vote cards are sent in post weeks beforehand. So this will only apply to people newly applying for the postal vote. Cynical me wonders if this is being purposely done to thwart new Reform voters who might be in the older age bracket. Established Labour postal voters will already have received their cards and will have sent them in. So it will only be new postal voters affected. With the surge for Reform – esp. in older age bracket, what better way to nobble them than to mess with the postal system. It could be me. Coincidence? Well, has this problem ever happened before? I used to laugh at conspiracy theorists. Now I just don't trust the authorities on anything and am always questioning them.

    We all know that the turnout is being touted as being low, so last minute Reform voters could sway the election.

  77. I don't show my face on any social media if I can help it. Even on my own photos, I'm behind the camera, not in front of it.

  78. How on earth did they get sober businessmen to go along with this crap in the first place?

    Javier Blas
    @JavierBlas
    In another sign Shell is turning away from its (unprofitable) renewables bets, it just announced it's halting the construction of one of the largest biofuels plants in Europe.
    Shell is likely to take a write-down as a result. Another misallocation of shareholders' money.
    9:00 AM · Jul 2, 2024

    1. A joke in poor taste.

      I wondered if this chap, Thunderclap, was so named because of an explosive case of VD.

  80. 389088+ up ticks,

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1808072364590063762

    In time and as our current voting pattern dictates burka wearing in the United Kingdom will become mandatory, NO, then check out the islamic power via their gaining positions of power throughout the realm
    in the last two decades, there lies a country devouring
    odious virus and in England it has found a perfect breeding ground.

    1. She can dress as "appropriately" as she likes; the moment the males pouring out of the mosque realise you are a European woman you are regarded as fair game for a quick sexual assault.

  81. Australia’s great leap backwards
    Article about Australia's determination to self-destruct through bogus climate change measures
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/australias-great-leap-backwards/

    BTL

    Key Questions    ?

    i) Would Nigel Farage dare to openly declare that carbon dioxide is both beneficial and necessary to the environment and Net Zero is a total scam?

    ii) Are there any leading politicians who are prepared to state this openly?

    The longer the answer to these questions remains NO the more self-imposed damage will be inflicted upon our economy and living standards.

    1. Bah we have them beat with nonsense climate related economy killers.
      The Canadian environment minister has just introduced new legislation to restrict methane emissions from waste sites. Apparently landfill farts are more harmful to the environment than cow farts.

      Thats that we get when a lunatic environmentalist is given power.

  83. Woohoo …… just lurve Freecycle.
    Spotted a couple of Victorian dining chairs, very similar to the two already in our dining room.
    Wasn't too sure about the pink, but it is a good brocade and slightly faded, so fits in.
    Quickly nipped out to a nearby village and we now have two very impressive bits of Victorian kit. Better condition than they looked in the photo, so nothing needs doing unless you are a perfectionist. We prefer a spot of history and human experience.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f7a943a51bad8ab7b3394dd9ae750dd7ef5b0c1ef9b46db13bd1777565e6235.jpg

      1. Freecycle is where it's at.
        We got rid of loads of stuff when we moved.
        I am a member so get a daily list. Months of opened boxes of kitchen tiles, mouldering garden furniture and children's toys ….. and then, bingo!

      1. Absolutely not.
        They are rock solid and will outlast any IKEA creation.
        They are seriously heavy and have been revamped by a proper upholsterer.

    3. Balloon backs. We have some similar in storage with a load of other furniture with Glasswells. We temporarily declutterred when our property was on the market but the sale fell through. Now we have to decide what to bring back and what to dispose of.

      1. Oh don't. We have stuff in a friend's barn.
        I am pretty ruthless, but MB tends to be a bit of a hoarder.
        I am hoping that he just forgets- or can't be bothered – with the stuff.
        We've filleted out anything worth keeping.

      1. We thought they would need upholstering – we have a lass who is excellent at such things.
        However, the condition is better than we expected and we both like slightly shabby with a suggestion of history behind it.
        And we are not great ones for stuff matching.

  84. 38908 + up ticks,

    Suits me, but will we have a short-fall in finding small boats to return them to Calais.

    French Left wants to welcome migrant boats and create special status for climate refugees
    The New Popular Front vows a ‘total break’ with Macron’s policies

    1. The French Right should publish that fact far and wide.
      The next round will be interesting if they do.

    2. No laughing matter.. if you listen to the Vlog link on my post earlier today by David Starkey.. you will be horrified to hear of the new "special status" for all migrants.. past present & future.. to be awarded by the Labour Party after 4th July.

      It will be become a statutory "Human Right" for all migrants to receive; basic housing, health & citizenship on the spot.

      1. 389088+ up ticks,

        Afternoon KB,
        Who’s laughing,
        “it will become special status” I truly was under the impression this special status had already been granted long ago.
        ALL consented too by the majority
        lab/lib/con voters after “Miranda” lifted the entry latch, otherwise one would have thought those member / voters would have spoken via the polling stations, they NEVER have.

    3. No laughing matter.. if you listen to the Vlog link on my post earlier today by David Starkey.. you will be horrified to hear of the new "special status" for all migrants.. past present & future.. to be awarded by the Labour Party after 4th July.

      It will be become a statutory "Human Right" for all migrants to receive; basic housing, health & citizenship on the spot.

    4. No laughing matter.. if you listen to the Vlog link on my post earlier today by David Starkey.. you will be horrified to hear of the new "special status" for all migrants.. past present & future.. to be awarded by the Labour Party after 4th July.

      It will be become a statutory "Human Right" for all migrants to receive; basic housing, health & citizenship on the spot.

  87. Moh' s father collected stamps, old cars similar to Dinky toys , and lots of other clutter .. We have a large plastic box of toy cars.

    Hundreds of photo's and slides , documents , WW1 postcards , how do we dispose of them .

    Moh has RN uniforms, flying helmets etc , what do we do with them ..

    How do people declutter .. Our loft has boxes of old computers , how do we dispose of them .

    Every time I go into the spare bedroom , I look around then come out and shut the door

    We have just got rid of a Royal Doulton dinner service , a wedding present .. that was a starter for ten .

    1. Get the cars valued! If any have boxes you'll find someone who'll pay top whack for them as a collector.

        1. Only if you’re confident you know none of the stuff for sale is very valuable.

    4. Sounds like my place. I have more than 150 cameras, hundreds of books, loads of fossils and mineral specimens, the attic is full of junk and the barn is like a waste disposal site. Some boxes and suitcases haven't been opened for 25 years. Must get off my rse and get some sorting done.

    5. Those old computers have precious metals on their boards. Just use a pair of long nose pliers and pick them off. Gold is £60 a gm at the moment. Same with old mobile phones.

      Check out EBay and see what things are selling for. It normally asks you if you have that item to sell.

      Pick out some of the more unusual items and list them for £8,000 rather than £8. There are some seriously daft rich people out there.

      I am a little disappointed as i offered to buy your Royal Doulton.

    6. Ebay
      Freecycle
      A skip…

      I feel your pain, Maggie. I downsized in October 2020 from a 3-bed detached house to a 1-bed retirement bungalow. Got rid of much stuff. But not enough. My aim for the latter half of this year is to dispose of anything I haven't used since moving here. It's quite a long list…

  88. Russian attack submarines carried out secret operations in Irish Sea. 2 July 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6b3a3a4c796f0d733f60015773898ae696ec87368361e46bd388b8a0fce24c67.jpg
    Russian submarines twice conducted unprecedented missions in the Irish Sea after Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged.

    UK forces moved to protect British and Irish waters after the two deployments of the Kilo-class attack subs. One was about 18 months ago, while the other was more recent.

    The extent of the Russian submarine movements went beyond what UK officials had previously seen, Bloomberg reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

    This is an absolute blooper. I refuse to believe that any submarine captain would take his vessel into waters that has only two narrow exits and that moreover has an average depth of only 20-100 metres. It would have to travel on the surface most of the time. A sitting duck.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/02/russian-attack-submarines-secret-operations-irish-sea/

      1. We were at war Bleau. He was entitled to risk his ship for the possible rewards.

    4. Heck. Don't Russian submariners study geography?
      They have more in common with the Americans than I realised.

    5. No, it is definitely true. The CIA and MI6 have photographs showing submarine Б: большая and submarine С: средняя in Loch Ness alongside Nessie, with Nigel Farage in a rowing boat passing them voting papers and Reform posters. It's gotta be true!

    6. No, it is definitely true. The CIA and MI6 have photographs showing submarine Б: большая and submarine С: средняя in Loch Ness alongside Nessie, with Nigel Farage in a rowing boat passing them voting papers and Reform posters. It's gotta be true!

  89. As preparations begin for all out war with the taking out of Ruzzian air defence.. I really do hope the Lefties are called up to fight on the eastern front. Starting with press-gangs at next years' Glasto.

    Please please make it happen.

    1. I think we should bus a few hundred migrants directly from Dover down there and given them some ropes to scale the walls. Just ask them who wants to see Dua Lipa and Shazia Twain live!

  90. Q: What is the main thing which has struck you about Poland after the last four weeks?

    A: There are virtually no non-white people here, the TV adverts are full of white happy families, and everything feels rather safe.

    1. How shameful. What is wrong with hordes of jungle bunnies taking over a country?

  91. Yeah
    Doctorates in Bombology (that's like theology but more explosive), IED engineers and Indoctrinators.

  93. Reform candidate quits campaign claiming ‘majority of party is racist, misogynistic and bigoted’. 2 July 2024.

    Georgie David, who was standing for Reform in the seat of West Ham and Beckton, said she was quitting with “immediate effect”.

    Ms David said in a statement first issued to the BBC: “I am hereby announcing my decision to leave the Reform Party and stand down as their candidate for West Ham and Beckton, with immediate effect.

    “I am in no doubt that the party and its senior leadership are not racist. However, as the vast majority of candidates are indeed racist, misogynistic, and bigoted, I do not wish to be directly associated with people who hold such views that are so vastly opposing to my own and what I stand for.”

    Another plant.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/02/general-election-live-sunak-starmer-farage/

    1. same chancer?

      Mother-of-one claims her old Etonian boyfriend and his family pressured her to get a termination when she fell pregnant when they had a fling
      Georgie, 34, a legal aide from London, agreed to a date with James, 37, who owns a polo club on his family’s Lincolnshire estate.

      Georgie insists she is no gold-digger and had no idea just how wealthy James was when she met him. ‘He’s actually quite scruffy,’ she says. ‘I bought him socks on two occasions because his had holes in.’

      1. When you are a polo enthusiast, holes in your consumables are a factof life.

  94. Fed up with this endless global boiling making the planet so cold, wet and miserable.

    I needed to attack the various plants which are growing over the gutters and into the roof. Everything is just sodden and horrible to touch.

    Enough to make one take to drink….eariler than usual.

      1. Using public debt (mouse click money from central govt) to reduce the food supply.
        They're not even pretending to generate electricity from it now.
        People have to wake up and be careful who they sell to.

        1. So because our meagre home is regarded as F band council tax , £3, 600 per annum , the Lib Dem council can fart about with rate payers money .

          I feel really down in the dumps today, and now I feel even worse .

    2. A criminal use of our money. Don't Dorset CC know that they work for us, not the other way around?

    2. Give all snivel serpents a final warning. If they do not attend the office at least 4 times a week they face dismissal.

      1. Why? Where they work is largely irrelevant. The problem is that most of what they do is utterly unnecessary.

        1. What do you suggest is done with all the buildings left unoccupied but heated etc.? You and I and all the other Nottlers are paying for the heating and general upkeep of all the buildings they should be occupying and those same snivel serpents should be paying for their transport to and from their offices. Either way the trains are not being funded by passengers so will need ‘nationalising’ soon.

          Other than snivel serpents returning to the office I suppose they can be filled with some more immigrants. After the refurbishment at further enormous expense.

    4. Rejoining the EU is the single biggest way to kick the UK in the bow locks!

      Mike Galsworthy (born 1976) is the co-founder of Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU and Chair of the European Movement UK. He gained obtained his PhD in Behaviour Genetics from the King's College London. Galsworthy is affiliated with the Labour Party.

      His PhD thesis was: A psychometric and quantitative genetic study of cognitive task performance in a heterogeneous stock population of Mus musculus – that's a house mouse to you.

      Follow the science you hignorant peasants!!!

  97. Bit of a surprise on Wordle 1,109 3/6

    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I had fewer problems today than for the past few puzzles.

      Wordle 1,109 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Me too. I stared at my second word for a long time (a work colleague noticed and told me it took her all six attempts this morning) but then the penny dropped!
      Wordle 1,109 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Took me a while.

      Wordle 1,109 4/6

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

  99. Jeremy Clarkson's 'insane' new venture exposes the demise of the great British pub

    Downtrodden pubs are the latest target of the presenter's novel brand of lobbying

    BEN WRIGHT • 1 July 2024 • 6:02pm

    Having achieved more than the National Farmers' Union has ever done to highlight the plight of its members, it looks like Jeremy Clarkson is now bringing his own brand of accidental lobbying to another downtrodden industry.

    "They're closing at the rate of more than a thousand a year," he wrote in this week's Sunday Times. "You would have to be mad to buy one. Insane. So I've bought a pub."

    He's right: it's definitely a risky venture. The last few years have been a rolling horror show for the hospitality industry. The pandemic, rising prices and high energy costs have combined to sound the death knell for many boozers. The number of pubs in the UK has dropped by a quarter – from 60,800 to 45,800 – since the millennium, according to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA).

    The chronic issues around staff shortages – which Clarkson highlights in his column – are very real and resulting in many pubs having to reduce the number of days and hours they are open.

    Drinking habits are also changing. More people are boozing at home – a trend that appeared to be cemented by lockdown, but started long before it. By 2015, twice as much beer was bought in supermarkets than in pubs, clubs and restaurants combined, according to the BBPA.

    Tim Martin, the outspoken boss of JD Wetherspoon, rarely misses an opportunity to complain about the "price disparity" between pubs and supermarkets, the result of what he sees as unjust tax discrepancies on VAT and a business rates system that benefits the scale of grocers. The gap widened further in April following a 9.8pc increase in the National Living Wage and a hike to business rates.

    Fewer than a quarter of people rank going to the pubs and bars as one of their top five activities, according to research by PwC (the gym, watching streaming services and cafes all rank higher – meaning I now understand my fellow countrymen less and less). And, in one of the weirder acts of generational rebellion, younger people appear to be less fond of inebriation than their parents were.

    One less frequently mentioned issue facing pubs is that they occupy buildings or land that is becoming increasingly sought-after by developers thanks to the UK's stupefying inability to build new homes. Government statistics show that 239 pubs were either demolished or repurposed for other uses in the first three months of the year. That's up by over half compared to the same period in 2023.

    However, all is not lost. British pubs have a centuries-long track record of evolving to meet changing customer tastes.

    In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Dr David Knight, an architect and co-editor of Public House, a history of London boozers, said pubs are "simultaneously deeply embedded in the structure of British society but… also capable of great change and innovation".

    There's some evidence that the wider pub industry may have recently turned a corner and is, if not thriving, figuring out how to survive.

    It helps that consumer confidence appears to be recovering and leisure spending is bouncing back: Barclaycard says there was a 5.9pc increase in spending in pubs, bars and clubs last year while spending in restaurants fell by 6.7pc, suggesting customers are opting for a more affordable casual dining experience.

    In an increasingly cost-conscious world, the best pubs have found their niche is a step up from ultra-cheap fast food joints, better value than top-end restaurants and vastly more characterful than the private-equity-owned identi-kit chains that have homogenised the UK's high streets.

    Last month, Young's and Fuller's both announced strong results. Young's, which owns more than 280 pubs, posted a 9pc rise in annual adjusted pre-tax profits to a record £49.4m. At Fuller's, which has around 400 managed and tenanted pubs, pre-tax profits rose by 40pc to £14.4m. In May, JD Wetherspoon said it was shooting for annual profits at the top end of market expectations.

    The challenges are clearly different for independent operators and the big pub groups and so are their tactics. Last year, Stonegate Group, the UK's biggest pub operator and owner of the Slug & Lettuce brand, announced the introduction of "dynamic pricing" for drinks in 800 of its 4,000 locations. I imagine this would go down like a pint of cold sick in the Cotswolds and is probably best avoided by Clarkson.

    But there are also some common themes in the pub-renaissance. Many have, for example, been adding hotel rooms to their properties. Improving the food offering is key – roughly 40pc of Wetherspoons' sales now come from grub – as is catering to the UK's growing army of coffee drinkers.

    Clarkson has said he wants "absolutely everything" in his pub to be "grown or reared in Britain". That means no Coca-Cola (fair enough) and no coffee (not such a good idea). Martin recently joked that free refills of Lavazza coffee "are thought to be responsible for spontaneous exhibitions of breakdancing among retired customers".

    Clarkson might also want to expand the provenance of his produce to include Ireland: both Wetherspoons and Young's have mentioned the soaring popularity of Guinness among a widening range of customers, with sales of the black stuff soaring by 29pc over the last year at Young's pubs.

    "The gods of fashion have smiled upon Guinness," according to Martin, "previously consumed by blokes my age, but now widely adopted by younger generations."

    Clarkson is no fan of Labour (he recently said he'd rather vote for his dog than Keir Starmer), but if the party does win this week's election his new venture could well be affected by their somewhat sketchy plans for business rates and labour laws. The former would be warmly welcomed by pubs; the latter less so.

    Nevertheless, there's growing reason to hope that whatever the future holds, Clarkson's new business should have every chance of earning him a little more than diddly squat.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/01/jeremy-clarkson-is-highlighting-another-industry-in-peril/

    What the article doesn't mention is the effect of the growth of the pubcos, a result of Tory interference in the market in the 1980s. Forcing the megabreweries to sell large numbers of pubs to 'increase' competition saw instead the creation of property companies, who simply entered into exclusive deals with the chemical beer factories that had just created them while selling off the best of their rural pubs (aesthetically the best, that is) as residences and knocking down urban pubs to erect soulless blocks of flats.

    Clarskon's pub is here:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/jeremy-clarkson-cotswolds-pub-burford-b2571770.html

    1. Don't forget May's promise to increase tax by volume on alcohol. Apparently this was going to be all for our own good. Like Slippery Rishi's smoking ban, again for our own good. Both of them are real high tax Progressives, destroyers of personal liberty and a world removed from Conservative values.

      Don't let labour in! Quite the battle cry. We respond, "Why?" Is there actually a difference?

    2. "The UK's stupefying inability to build new homes". What about the UK's stupefying ability to import more people than it can house, educate and feed. If Clarkson is behind the bar, that in itself will get people through the door.

    3. "Last year, Stonegate Group, the UK's biggest pub operator and owner of the Slug & Lettuce brand, announced the introduction of "dynamic pricing" for drinks in 800 of its 4,000 locations."
      Ye gods, what on earth is dynamic pricing? I'm guessing it means fleecing customers by hiking the prices when they are busy.

  100. Reversing the duty imbalance would be a great help to many licensed premises.

  101. Reversing the duty imbalance would be a great help to many licensed premises.

  102. Oh gawd! Layla Moran is on Politics live! How was she allowed out on her own? She’s a complete wild-eyed nutter!

    1. Layla Moron is a bit of a slapper – she was questioned after she slapped her then boyfriend at a Lib Dem conference. She is also a self confessed pansexual (hide your pots and pans if she comes canvassing) and currently lives with 'thems' wife in West Oxfordshire.

      1. Like I said – a weapons grade nutter! She jumped in with a shriek, then realised it wasn’t a good look, but her eyes are quite mad!

      2. Layla Moron is a bit of a slapper' deranged insane person in need of a reality check.

  103. They all know that, William. I don't think we'll ever see it though. They're too wedded to sin taxes as a tribe.

  104. Starmer's worst blunder should disqualify him as prime minister

    We are ready to punish the Tories for their failings. Are we so ready to forgive Labour for errors that were so much more serious?

    ANDREW LILICO • 2 July 2024 • 10:54am

    The single biggest thing that happened over the last Parliament was the Covid crisis. It had an immeasurable impact on our economy and society. And Labour's record in that period, especially during 2021, was appalling. Indeed it was sufficiently bad that at the time many people said Starmer's errors ruled him out of any possible future as Prime Minister.

    Why, then, have Labour's Covid mistakes almost entirely escaped scrutiny in this campaign? Perhaps, before we install them in office with a huge majority, we should remind ourselves of what they are like?

    At many phases of the pandemic, Labour demanded more restrictions even than Boris Johnson's government imposed. It opposed the gradual relaxation of restrictions during 2021 at almost every stage. Whilst polls suggest that most voters favoured extra restrictions at almost every point, and there were plenty of doctors arguing for just that, once we get to mid-2021 the really terrible, perhaps unforgivable, errors can most clearly be seen.

    Johnson's government finally removed almost all the restrictions that had blighted our lives in mid-July 2021. Yet Keir Starmer denounced that decision in an infamous speech Labour circulated widely on social media. In it, he declared Johnson reckless, said the wave of cases – which he, wildly inaccurately, predicted would reach 100,000 per day – would be known as the "Johnson variant", inevitably creating an NHS summer crisis and leaving millions needing to self-isolate.

    It is rare that an opposition leader's preferred policy can be tested definitively and said, with absolute certainty, to have been right or wrong. This was one of those rare occasions. Starmer was not just wrong. He was spectacularly wrong. He would have kept the country under quasi-house arrest for several extra months at least. We now know that that would have been unnecessary.

    Under almost any other circumstances, a party leader demanding that the country be placed under demonstrably totally unnecessary authoritarian restrictions for many months would rule that party out of any consideration for becoming the government. Yet we seem simply to have forgotten.

    And Labour was not content to stop there. Throughout the autumn of 2021 Labour repeatedly demanded the re-imposition of restrictions. For example, in October 2021 Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves demanded that the government introduce "Plan B" – including mandatory masks and mandatory Covid passports – to counter what Labour repeatedly predicted (again, completely wrongly) was going to be another wave of the delta variant.

    There was eventually, in December 2021, a new variant – omicron – that created a large wave of much more mild cases than delta. And the Government did introduce mandatory mask-wearing. In my view that was totally unjustifiable, and I think it is clear from the data that I was right. But at least the Tories, for all their failings, stood firm through the Autumn of 2021 against Labour's repeated urging to reintroduce restrictions. Labour would have banned your hobbies, forced you to wear masks and made us all carry health passports, not to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths but, rather, just to try to stop the NHS from being a bit busy – a prediction that didn't even happen!

    Early in the pandemic, many policy errors were made by all parties, as they sought to deal with a situation no-one in Britain had encountered in living memory. But by mid-2021 there was no such excuse. Starmer denounced the relaxation of restrictions. He was wrong. Labour demanded restrictions be reimposed, for month after month. They were wrong.

    This was not being wrong about the precise rules that ought to be followed for digging up a road, keeping bees or selling replica football shirts. It wasn't subtle judgements over ideal macroeconomic management or arguable trade-offs between taxes and public spending. This was a major party demanding that our lives be blighted beyond recognition, for many extra months, demonstrably without justification. These were epic, repeated and sustained errors that, if Labour had been in government, would have had huge consequences for us all.

    We are ready to punish the Tories for their many failings and Reform for the shady history of its candidates. Are we so ready to forgive Labour for errors that were so much more serious and would have harmed our lives so severely?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Dear Mr Lilico, you make the point yourself: "…polls suggest that most voters favoured extra restrictions at almost every point…" The public won't want reminding that they were willing participants in the calamity.

    1. People were very foolish. Serves them right, too. Happily, having seen the disastrous levels of ineptitude and stupidity paraded by government, opposition, "science" and other lockdown fanatics last time around i feel absolutely no compunction to pay attention to any of them the next time they try it on.

      1. I paid no attention last time but the shops were closed, the streets were deserted and I found myself sitting in an empty office. I didn't gag myself or cower indoors but it was impossible to live life as normal. I discovered that I was not only friends with idiots and working with idiots but related to idiots.
        Our forbears coped with the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Tuberculosis and at least two 20th century flu outbreaks that were genuinely serious. There was no evidence of a pandemic in 2020 and it was obviously a political exercise in population control. The Milgram experiments showed the way.

        1. I was mildly concerned for a few days, but the videos of Chinese dropping dead in the street helped to reassure me that we were being played for eejits. Being an avid consumerof er.. alternative media, was instructive. Not once did I join some of the locals in disinfecting their online shopping, and leaving it on the doorstep for two days. They were more at risk from food poisoning. As a seasoned Ocado shopper, I was utterly displaced by the Covidians anyway, so I took my chances with trains and buses*, and just went shopping. I bought a 'mask exemption' lanyard, and was never challenged. Had I been, the reply would have been "they don't work, they steam my glasses up and induce in me a raging fury, which you really don't want to see…"

          My pans remained unbanged. Some neighbours were phoned by others, demanding to know why they weren't supporting the NHS.

          *I suspect that living as normal life as possible, and using public transport, exposed me sufficiently to the virus (if it existed, and wasn't merely rebranded 'flu) to build up T-cell immunity.

          1. The one test I was tempted to take was the T-cell one offered by The London Clinic in Harley Street. It was an actual blood test rather than a stick up the nose job and cost £195. Even then I felt dubious about it and decided it was a lot of money to waste. Yes, I bought an exemption lanyard too and also on the basis that I can't cope with steamed up glasses!

          2. After my numerous facial surgeries for skin cancers last year, I wouldn't be able to wear a muzzle in future, never mind the steamed up glasses. But under the evil, sinister new WHO 'health' treaty, I doubt exemptions will be permitted when (not if) they kick off the next kick plandemic.

          3. Well done, Sue. I refused all jabs, also bought a lanyard. Put a notice in my car saying 'on essential green maintenance' and got on with my life.

          5. The Italians were also allegedly dropping like flies. Meanwhile, passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, confines in a limited space …….. and supermarket staff (even before the plastic screens and muzzle rules), exposed all day to lots of different shoppers, didn't seem to be keeling over left, right and centre either.

          6. I was not convinced by film footage from Chine, with people keeling over in front of a conveniently placed camera, as it looked too contrived. Then I looked into the Diamond Princess and concluded early on that it was all over the top.

          7. Exactly. A shame Johnson, Hancock, Whitty, Valance (four mouseketeeers) didn't notice.

          8. Throughout the whole fiasco, there were so many inconsistencies that I'm surprised more people didn't question anything. Presumably, the masses were too busy hiding behind their sofas and raking in the plandemic bribes to stay home.

          9. The infamous shot of coffins lined up in Italy was suspected as having come from a movie but was eventually traced to it's actual source and turned out to be from an old news story about a disaster at sea.

        2. Yes; at the time I got rather frustrated with those who said it was easy to just live life as normal. I, like you, tried, but having moved to a place where I had no friend network, to care for my dying mother, it was bloody impossible! I am soooooo glad that's in the past now.

        3. Latest effort at stoking fear I read about this morning was two people who’d contracted something from cows in USA, which in turn they contracted as avian ‘flu. Various panjandrums already saying likely a 50% death rate inevitable for humans. Pandemic just around the corner, etc.

          The fearful vegans will be overjoyed. Lockdown while killing all cows on Earth. What’s the betting.

    1. The Spanish ain't bothered, that lot will be in Calais by the following weekend.

        1. Not seen you at the Speccie yet, my display name is ' A Kitty's Nine Lives ' an old in joke at one time, due to how many lives I lost at ConHome for not being a leftie.

          2. Yes I do know that, I've been posting there for a few years and here for seven years. I've got a different display name. I meant I've not seen him at the Speccie since the changeover of comments systems .

          4. Æthelflaed who keeps a stock of marmalade sandwiches in her handbag with an axe and longbow. Mr Viking used to call me Ethel and so did Hugh Janus . Jennifer SP used to tell me off quite often. I am a supporter of Richard III as was the much missed Lotl .

          6. Just suits me, the variety but some call me by my actual name of Kitty .
            So yes I’m a small cat by name and nature .

          8. Im easily forgettable due to the long gaps offline where I’m not posting for many months, sometimes as much as 7 months.

          9. I've seen you there. I post frequently at the new Speccie site. If you haven't seen me, I can only assume that you've blocked me (from which there's no return).

          13. Actually, Kate, you've blocked me there. You're "content unavailable". And there's no way of reversing it, since there are no user profiles.

          14. Thanks for your message, Geoff. I haven’t blocked anyone, I just looked. I think you said I had yesterday, was it? when I looked and someone called Burt was blocked on my Disqus…I unblocked him yesterday, no idea who s/he is/was. Let me know if you’re still having difficulty. Thanks. Perhaps you’ve blocked me. Funny old thing, Disqus, when the Spectator had problems because they were changing things, my account said then that I’d blocked people when I hadn’t. Online, where would we be without it. Kate.

          15. Trying for the third time, Geoff. I’ve checked my Disqus a/c (both here and the Spectator one)….I haven’t blocked anyone, and certainly not you. Can only apologise you’re having difficulty, I have no idea what else I can do. See if this one reaches you.

          16. You haven't blocked me in "real" Disqus. But "fake" Disqus is another matter. And as far as I'm aware, there's no way of unblocking anyone there. Don't worry – when my three months for £1 a month deal expires, I'll be long gone from the Speccie. I'll be shifting my allegiance to Tom's site…

          17. I’ll check both Spectator, and his site. Just checking…nothing here……nothing on Spectator…..and on Tom’s blog says same, no-one blocked. It’s possible a server down somewhere in your link. Sorry. I don’t know what ‘fake’ Disqus is, if you would kindly tell me I’ll look there too. Thank you.

          18. Something odd is going on. My phone kicked off, possibly a storm on the way. Went on to Spectator to check again, bizzarely, both Spectator comments and comments I made on nttl are both there. But the comment I made to you a while ago about me not blocking anyone far as I can see…nowhere to be seen. I think the best thing for me (and you and others) is for me to keep off your site, that way no further problems. Thanks.

          19. Geoff and everyone would be very upset if you stayed away. Don’t worry, I think it’s the Spectator, I’m barely at the Spectator, have only made a few posts there and every other post is see ‘ is comment unavailable ‘ . There is no need for people to fall out. Geoff Graham was always going to leave the Spectator very soon, it’s got nothing to do with anyone else, he’s just had enough of the place. Tom’s place will replace the Spectator very soon anyway

          20. Thank you so much for your very kind comment, Audrey. Always goes a long way x I subscribe to Tom, as you probably know 🙂

          21. I think Geoff G was just a little clumsy with his choice of words, you’re a friend of his, he’d never have meant to offend, he didn’t even remember me and I’ve been here for 7 years, I think it’s a bloke thing, man’s brain 🙂
            He and everyone here values your posts and would miss you. Tom’s site has much potential and is impressive . I think the Squire would like Tom’s place but it’s not easy to find him as he doesn’t post here . Yes I’ve seen you there. I’ve invited someone I know from Harry’s Place to there,
            someone whose looking for someone else from the Spectator called Lamia who no one can find anywhere.

          22. He’s a cool guy and you’re a good friend too. Your photo reminds me of when I was young…ah…those days….7 years, crikey that’s a stretch but I’m possibly similar . I very much like Tom’s new place, hoping for daily reminder to jog me, think his son is helping? Don’t think I’ve heard of Lamia..possibly a mis-spelling, but will take a look. Again, thanks for your messages and help, appreciate it:-) Harry’s Place? Don’t think I know it?

          24. Gosh, thank you KJ, you’re a gem . I’ll pass that onto Harry’s Place tomorrow morning. Thanks again. X

          25. Cheers Audrey, glad to help. A good example of how Disqus works, your latest message complete with previous ones, went straight to Spam although the previous ones didn’t…doh!

  107. "Our forbears coped with the Black Death etc…"

    Defeated by science – real science! And therein lies the problem. We now live in a world in which 80% or more of the public suffer from PWS: Perfect World Syndrome.

  108. Afternoon All
    Never masked,never jabbed yup I'm one of thse tin-foiled conspiracy loons
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40ee2ab70b4815dd8e06fe9718caf71438eceabb9c79051700f75a92c4e0b661.jpg
    Rest
    Apropos Canada
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5c5c1f360e3b958703321c20a8530f69847188321437fa2a55029210b2f8997.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4919e160fe5b274f6d0ba57682963eb08bfa36b9f78b4f7569069097166a11b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c4362ce36aaffb4cfdf6a0cc58557e0813050cfe6f584a3036e7dced9ebdb2f.png
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5ca35707ba8199620db9328dae84dcbdb5872f7196ba88143f10068fda8201d.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0afa14c42cc30ee492c490242bc58bfb0bdbd8c828b27351e59095d6b000ae23.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e35b39b06343df0031662b4cacbc22c4c84e2d4342281f06cb2b550c30d579c.jpg

    1. Climate change is NOT about the environment. It's not about ecology. It's about controlling what you can do.

      3. Not to mention coining it for landowners with the windmill scam and companies with indulgences carbon credits.

    2. The UK is seventeenth on the table – but that is probably exaggerated by 'Greenie' claims and emissions from coastguard and lifeboat services picking up more contamination and importing it into the country.

  111. I received two election leaflets In the post this morning – one Conservative and one Reform . The Conservative one had my local MP on the front- always vote for the man and not for the rosette and I'm not cutting off my nose to spite my face- my local MP is a good egg, hard working, good decent and serves us very well, he's very popular so should be okay even if we have the Lib Dems snipping at the heels. I expect the Conservatives to be in opposition and hope my MP is still there .
    The Reform leaflet had Nigel Farage on the leaflet front – I was amused for a few moments thinking – is he intending to be my local MP like the man on the other leaflet – what about the Lib Dems trying to destroy this area and the many potholes. The local Reform candidate wasn't on the leaflet – I know nothing about her – shes not really known or seen – I've only seen her one when there was a local meeting- whereas our local MP is always seen and in the community. I thought Nigel Farage on the leaflet looks very presidential but regardless of how popular and correct Nigel Farage happens to be he isn't to be my local MP. When you vote on Thursday – you are voting for someone in your area to serve your community. I do admire Nigel Farage and I hope he gets a seat, i expect he will and maybe a few others – although I struggle to see the charismatic Nigel Farage not getting bored with the everyday stuff of being an MP – constituency surgery's about bins not being collected etc . I wish him well but I shall vote for my own MP .

    1. The problem is folk know Nigel Farage. The candidates not so much. What I'd really like to see is candidates this year making speeches, holding meetings, ask me anything type things.

      Personally I'd quite like to vote for John Denham – well, I can't any more but I'd like to – but with Reform's policies.

      1. I thought the Reform leaflet looked presidential and as you say everyone recognises Nigel Farage. When in the election booth voters won't be seeing Nigel Farage's name on the leaflet. They'll be seeing a name they don't recognise and will wonder what that person will do for their local community. UKIP was very much about Nigel Farage more then whoever else is in that party and they may not all be as impressive as him .

        1. That has always been Nigel's problem; it's all about him. He isn't a team player.

    2. Reform were rather caught on the hop by the announcement of the election.

      1. Which is what Sunak intended. He'd probably rather have held on until there was any sign of economic recovery to trumpet that but his time was simply running out.

    3. And our Reform leaflet had Richard Tice as well as Nigel dominating the front side. Again apart from his name there was nothing whatsoever about the local candidate. Our Conservative chap, introduced when Andrew MacKay did a flyer then Philip Lee defected to Lib Dem, is OK ish and probably better than all the others. Polls suggest Labour by a small majority so maybe tactically voting for Conservative may reduce the odds. Much as i would prefer to vote for Reform the chap ain't going to win anyway.

        1. Thick wodge for various parties delivered yesterday by the postie. Only Conservative chap has called at the door.

          1. Nobody's come down my track to my cottage, and I had to pinch a set of leaflets from my mother's flat in town.

            The Greens are strong in Malvern, the Lib Dem is from Pershore, and Upton and Tenbury are mostly Tory. Independents strong in the villages, but not standing, even though among their councillors, there is the former Lib Dem candidate in 2005, the former Lib Dem candidate in 2019, and the former Labour candidate in 2015. Tories also strong in the villages and I suspect a fair few Tories vote Independent at the local elecions. Even though the Lib Dems put up a strong candidate this time, the non-Tory vote is split with the Greens, and I cannot see the Tory losing her seat here. Labour is nowhere; they did better under Miliband and Corbyn and must be relying on a low turnout and getting their own vote out to get their predicted ;andslide. I am a long way from London where these things are decided.

            There is nothing apart from a name in the Reform leaflet, which suggests that West Worcestershire is not a target seat for them

          2. I don't think there is anything about the Reform candidates on ANY of the leaflets – just the name and the constituency. Only the postie makes it up my back lane here.

        2. We got one yesterday, and today I got an email from Nigel!
          Nice to have you back, and loved your notes from abroad.
          Glad you had a good break.

          2. Plenty of emails from Nigel. Week before last, meeting cousions on the IoW, I promised myself I wasn't going to mention politics. Fat chance. Most are smug public sector retirees on fat pensions. So they asked who I was voting for. "Nigel, of course, I replied. In fact, I've just had an email from him". Cue widespread apoplexy…

          3. Lovely! He does seem to raise some peoples hackles/blood pressure, doesn’t he? 😆

          4. Yep. "Don't give him any money! DON'T GIVE HIM ANY MONEY!" Actually, as I explained to my dear cousin, he wasn't asking for any. He was launching Reforn's 'contract'.

            PS I've since given him some money. Again…

          6. Sounds another example of just like over here. Lots of retired public service types on hefty indexed pensions lauding their god like emporer and dismissing the conservative leader as a political hack.

            Their come uppance is overdue. Apparently yesterday, at a Canada Day ceremony in Newfoundland there was only one person applauded when Trudeau was introduced.

        4. Just had one in today's post. So that's 1 Tory, 1 Reform, 19 Lib Dem plus a canvasser on the doorstep. Took great delight in informing him that I stood for UKIP in the Borough Council election nine years ago, and beat the Lib Dem. He didn't seem too pleased…

          1. We were chatted up briefly by what we thought was the Reform candidate in the church car park as we were starting our dog walk Sunday just gone. We volunteered to have a board in our garden, it is in a prominent position as one drives down the Green although we are not on the road. We were embarrassed on our return to see a board advertising the Conservative party leering at us over our fence.

    4. Was the name of your Reform candidate not in the white box, along with your constituency, above the photograph of Nigel Farage?

        1. It will be; they seem to have gone for a generic leaflet with just adjustments for the candidate and constituency.

  112. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows. Spoken by Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s

    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
    With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
    Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
    And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
    And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
    And make her full of hateful fantasies.
    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
    A sweet Athenian lady is in love
    With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
    But do it when the next thing he espies
    May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
    By the Athenian garments he hath on.
    Effect it with some care, that he may prove
    More fond on her than she upon her love:
    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.

    https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.a775cfcede564efc1a7eb87a246870cd?rik=DXcNSLWNgp9cpw&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

    1. Doesn't it start "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows"? That's how I remember it, and the scansion works.

          1. You could laugh until you cried 🙂 It's true; in my local town we used to have 5 banks. Now there is only 1 and that will close next year. Everything will have to go via the post office – and queues are already down the street at peak times.

          2. How else would they herd you into the cashless society and digital ID? 🙄

          3. That's what annoys me. There are shops which have signs saying they are card only and when I go on holiday, one of the attractions is cashless. I aim to use cash as far as possible.

  113. A very profound question, Geoff.
    I'd have to give that some thought!

    2. Hmm, the daughter of Alfred the Great, had a big handbag with a marmalade sandwich and longbow and axe .

  114. Packed the Warqueen's lunch today. Chicken salad, a fruit compot (or, as I call it' splodge' – it's fruit in the blender 'til it's lumpy with some cream in it), 2 sausage rolls and a ham and cheese pastry roll. Junior got pretty much the same only 4 sausage rolls, a pork pie and a crusty bread instead of the chicken salad (as if you can't eat it running there's no point).

    I've had 3 hours of complaints about everything. Apparently I am trying to make her 'fat'. I reply of course I am and that we're getting the solar going up Thursday and Friday with the heat pump hopefully in for Monday/Tuesday.

      1. My worst one was when a creme brulee pot cracked and spilled into the risotto.

      1. Then she'd complain about why I hadn't made it.. My best effort was sending through a pill box but with tea bags and coffee in it.

    3. All that pastry is fattening. Replace with more fruit and swap out the cream for yogurt sweetened with honey.

    4. Heat pump…? I thought the house was already like the arctic in winter! I am told that unless its insulated like an obese fur seal, the system will not be terribly effective. However, you may have better info from your completely unbiased sales person…

  115. 'Dejected' Macron 'makes no attempts to rally his troops' at 'morose' crisis meeting as French president admits Le Pen's National Rally party 'is on its way to the highest office' in Sunday's election

    Hard-right candidates already scooped 38 seats in the first round of voting
    Macron's centrist candidates by contrast only won two seats at the weekend

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13591047/Dejected-Macron-makes-no-attempts-rally-troops-morose-crisis-meeting-French-president-admits-Le-Pens-National-Rally-party-way-highest-office-Sundays-election.html

    Good riddance !

    1. If folk read the National Rally manifesto there's an awful lot of nationalisation of industry, unionisation and what not. The media push them as 'Right wing' because they don't demand the entirety of Africa be given free housing in france.

      1. I tried to convince my French friends that actually Marine was a socialist, but they'd drunk the Koolade and were sure she was extreme droite. I suspect now they may well have held their noses and voted for her rather than having vote' blanc.

    2. I don't think he is academically astute but he seems to be sympathetic and supportive of those struggling with life. He isn't a womaniser and has married his childhood sweetheart – still going strong after 6 years marriage. Amended

    3. I fear for my tastefully frayed ex-WW2 side bag and my £10 Casio with new strap from Ebay. Tempted to go to the smoke sky-clad, but they'd probably have that off me too. Toxic masculinity is surely not something to take pride in?

    4. I fear for my tastefully frayed ex-WW2 side bag and my £10 Casio with new strap from Ebay. Tempted to go to the smoke sky-clad, but they'd probably have that off me too. Toxic masculinity is surely not something to take pride in?

  118. Interesting editorial in tonight's ES newsletter:

    You hear it all the time. And by all the time, I mean very occasionally from a small number of hyper-motivated factionalists on Twitter: any Labour leader would have won the 1997 general election.
    This has a superficial logic to it. Labour won that contest by a landslide, so surely a less popular (or more left-wing) leader than Tony Blair would have become prime minister, albeit with perhaps a slightly smaller majority?
    Of course, such an assertion is difficult to disprove, given that it didn't happen. But the larger problem is that it overlooks the fact that politics is both dynamic and contingent. The Tories were indeed in meltdown by 1997, mistrusted on the economy thanks to Black Wednesday, deeply divided over Europe and buffeted by constant accusations of sleaze. But the natural party of government only has to be better – or at least less scary – than the alternative.
    So my interest was piqued by some recent polling undertaken by More in Common, which asked Britons how they would vote in 2024 if the party leaders were the same as in 2019. Now, as Luke Tryl, More in Common's UK Director freely admits, results of hypothetical polling should be considered more of a vibe check. (Really, they ought come with one of those graphic health warnings you get on cigarette packets.) It is difficult enough to accurately predict how people will vote in an election three days from now, let alone in an alternative universe. Still, the numbers make for interesting reading. As a reminder, the actual 2019 election results were:
    Conservatives: 44 per cent Labour: 32 per cent Lib Dems: 12 per cent SNP: 4 per cent Brexit Party: 2 per cent
    If the parties were led by those same leaders today, the results would be: Conservatives (led by Boris Johnson): 36 per cent Labour (led by Jeremy Corbyn): 30 per cent Lib Dems (led by Jo Swinson): 13 per cent SNP: (led by Nicola Sturgeon): 3 per cent Brexit Party: 11 per cent
    Luke's observations I think are right on this. First, that Johnson had a better chance of capping the Reform vote than Rishi Sunak has managed. But second, are more importantly, Keir Starmer's political success has been more than dumb luck.
    It was far from obvious, back in early 2020, that a party found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to have engaged in unlawful acts over antisemitism, that had suffered its worst election loss since 1935 and was staring down the barrel of a Rebecca Long Bailey leadership would be on track for a landslide victory in 2024.
    Sure, Starmer did not force Johnson to sign a terribly thin trade deal with the EU, or attend parties in Downing Street during national lockdowns, or trick Liz Truss into precipitating a gilts crisis, or prevent Rishi Sunak from ending the junior doctors strike. No one is arguing the Conservative haven't messed things up to an improbable degree. Nor is Starmer responsible for whatever the heck went on in Scotland that is likely to deliver him two dozen or more precious seats north of the border. But it still requires military grade partisan blinders to conclude that none of the Conservative unforced errors have anything to do with the Labour leader, as if he were some latter-day Forest Gump to whom extraordinary things just seem to happen.

    1. In 2019 I spoiled my ballot paper because there was no alternative candidate in my constituency.

  119. OT – two events made us smile while in yer France. First, at Erquy, the flat overlooked a small boulodrome. On our last day, there was an afternoon competition – fascinating to watch from the balcony. After a bit, a chap wandered over carrying a bottle. He called up to me, "Could you put this in your fridge? We are having a drink later". Needless to say I did so. It was Gooseberry wine – not something one comes across that often in France!

    Secondly, at Tilly-sur-Seulles we went into the pharmacie to buy over the counter medicine. The girl (masked) tapped away at her computer – then stood there. A minute later, the box of tabs came down a chute into a bin behind her. "It's a robot," she said. "On the first floor. Saves a lot of time."

    1. Don't they traditionally drink Pastis? Marcus Wareing turned up at a boule match with a bottle and the remonstrated with him because he had forgotten the water.

      1. There should be someone brewing that particular liqueur in Cornwall, wonderful for tourists.

        1. Tourists…spits !.. When they order the wrong one charge them double ! :@)

    2. Don't they traditionally drink Pastis? Marcus Wareing turned up at a boule match with a bottle and the remonstrated with him because he had forgotten the water.

  120. Nothing from Tories; two lots of the same stuff from Liebour. A couple of leaflets from the Limp Dumbs. Rien de tout from Reform.

  121. Pastis – disgusting stuff. Normally at boules competitions, the post match tipple is beer or wine.

      1. Aren’t they? The ringer took them when he was feeding them, and removing them from the nest.

    3. Just read it and was about to share – but guessed you would have already done so!

          6. Any target would do.
            She probably upvoted one of the comments criticising his earlier outburst instead of his.

          7. But he'd met Sue and between them stopped Tom from topping himself. It's a bit more personal than one of us he knew only on here.

          9. Yes – against the very people who knew his circumstances and could have been supportive.

          11. I think Richard is hurting. Explains his behaviour. We all need to be tolerant and well…tolerant.

          12. I can’t imagine what he’s gone through, and is living with. I have no problem with him.

    1. Can anybody here explain to me why Ant and Dec are so popular?

      They strike me as dull, untalented, unoriginal and humourless. What is it that I have missed?

      1. I had already given up watching TV before they became popular, so I only know them as two rather vacuous looking young men who seem to be constantly adorning the Daily Mail.

          1. I know who they are – one can scarcely not – but their giggly children act now as they approach 50 grates even more.

          4. I'll not be waiting. Firstborn is 33, in 17 years I'll have been dead a while – hell, looking at current health developments in 1,7 years I may well not be here.

          5. I hope you're still alive then. I don't intend leaving just yet but I'll be over 90 in 17 years.

      4. I like them.I can't be a true Nottler.
        I've never heard ether of them swear, which is unusual for telly folk.

  124. The problem with getting older is that there is not much likelihood of ever seeing a decent government in one's lifetime

  125. From Twitterx:

    Bill Gates was invited by a high school to give a lecture. He arrived by helicopter, took the paper from the pocket where he had written eleven items. He read everything in less than 5 minutes, was applauded for more than 10 minutes non-stop, thanked him and left in his helicopter. What was written is very interesting, read:

    1. Life isn't easy — get used to it.

    2. The world is not concerned about your self-esteem. The world expects you to do something useful for it BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

    A former cleaning lady becomes a chef and fulfils her dream of having her own organic restaurant
    True story: A simple (but powerful) gesture of kindness from a CEO

    3. You will not earn $20,000 a month once you leave school. You won't be vice president of a company with a car and phone available until you've managed to buy your own car and phone.

    4. If you find your teacher rude, wait until you have a boss. He will not feel sorry for you.

    5. Selling old newspapers or working while on vacation is not beneath your social standing. Your grandparents have a different word for it: they call it opportunity.

    6. If you fail, it's not your parents' fault. So do not whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

    7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as critical as they are now. They only got that way from paying your bills, washing your clothes and hearing you say they're "ridiculous." So before saving the planet for the next generation wanting to fix the mistakes of your parent's generation, try cleaning your own room.

    8. Your school may have blurred the distinction between winners and losers, but life isn't like that. In some schools, you don't repeat more than a year and you have as many chances as you need to get it right. This looks like absolutely NOTHING in real life. If you step on the ball, you're fired… STREET!!! Do it right the first time!

    9. Life is not divided into semesters. You won't always have summers off, and it's unlikely that other employees will help you with your tasks at the end of each term.

    10. Television is NOT real life. In real life, people have to leave the bar or the club and go to work.

    11. Be nice to the CDFs (those students that others think are assholes). There is a high probability that you will work FOR one of them.”

    ©️ Anonymous

    1. 12. If you think that planet-ruining, adulterous billionaires who talk down to you are arseholes – you could well be right.

  126. My very thought. I had suggested cutting losses and moving to a decent house!! One can spend a fortune on solar and heat pumps for a almost zero return. Net zero, I suppose.

  127. A trailer of calves has just arrived to take up residence… Lots of eager, curious faces looking over the edge.

          1. Firstborn rents his arable land to the local farmer – for grazing & silage. We can't make use of it, so the farmer gets to do something helpful, also keeps the grass below waist height.
            I think there were about 8 – we'll wander out in the morning & check.
            Pigs are coming, at some point. Firstborn is looking at importing pedigree English pigs, and so there's a whole paper trail of certification that needs organised, never mind fencing and accommodation. He wants Gloucester Old Spots, for the meat. But, pigging across borders is a difficult subject due to potential spreading of disease, so not this year.
            And – he can effin' get a chain gang to do the fencing, too!
            Although, I look forward to the arrival of new pigs. The last two were charming!

        1. Manure can become a costly problem for cattle farmers. I'm sure he would give you as much shit as you wanted. :@)

        2. Manure can become a costly problem for cattle farmers. I'm sure he would give you as much shit as you wanted. :@)

  128. A slow-witted Bogey Five!

    Wordle 1,109 5/6
    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par today.

      Wordle 1,109 4/6

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

    2. A work colleague told me it took her all six tries today but I got lucky.

      Wordle 1,109 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Another disappointing par…..

      Wordle 1,109 4/6

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

      3. Passing off? As pronounced in Spanish, 'You Tube' has three (possibly even four) syllables. 'too-bay'
        Edit: looks like the lawyers don't care in the USA, so I am wrong as usual. And people who watch too much TV tend to put on weight, like the Tellytubbies.

      1. It's mostly American stuff but some of it is worthwhile. You don't even need to register or sign in.

  130. My Father's birthday on 4th. Born 1926, died 1997 (cancer). Although I came as quickly as I could, I was too far away and too late to say goodbye and be with him at that point.
    Born into a coal mining family in West Hartlepool, he was the youngest cox of the Durham University boat, worked in the atom bomb programme, worked most of his life in Nigeria, being the fourth employee in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Northern Nigeria, as Professor Head of Chemistry and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. During the civil war, he faced down the local General who wanted to come on campus and shoot the students who were rioting. He then told the students to grow up and desist – and they did. Retired as Head of the School of Home Economics, University College Cardiff.
    I still miss him.

    1. A lovely tribute, Paul. And I'll bet he was proud of you, too. Though, if he was like mine (died 1988), he never showed it at home – but told every other poor sod who crossed his path!

      1. Sounds like Pa. One was never good enough – but then, based on his achievements from humble background, priviledged me had it easy – no wars to fight, for example.
        I only got under his skin once, by calling him a monkey-hanger. He didn't like that!

    2. He sounds like a lovely fellow. Of course you miss him. Treasure the memories.

      My father worked hard all his life providing for the family but he could barely read and write. All through Spring and Summer he would be working 7 days a week. I remember my mother teaching him how to write his signature on a cheque.

        1. Mostly labouring jobs. Mother worked at Thorn Electronics (TV's). His most standout job was being responsible for the post and rail fencing both sides of the M27 between Portsmouth and Southampton. It was a two man team. Dad and my eldest brother. Not very brainy but he certainly wasn't a slacker.

          He worshipped our mum and he would do anything to help out family.

          What astonished me was it turns out that the man and company that supplied the wood was Garland's father. Hows that for coincidence!

          2. I doubt any of my family other than my grandfather will be in the history books but people like dad are the glue in society.

    3. Great memories Obs.
      Like I do, don't you still see him when you look in a mirror ?

  131. And another thing. Hotel check-ins. Every time we go to yer France, the MR and I stay at two hotels. The Mercure Cathédrale in Rouen on the first night; the Hotel Meurice in Calais on the last night.

    Each is booked in advance online. The Mercure gives you a booking reference; the Meurice merely confirms that you are booked. (To be fair, the Meurice has about 30 rooms; the Mercure 150).

    On arrival at the Mercure. First, there is always a queue. Secondly, when one finally reaches the desk, one would expect to show the booking ref and be warmly greeted (we have stayed there at least 25 times) and immediately handed a key. Nope. Receptionist looks at booking ref as though it was something we found in the street. Then looks at computer screen for five minutes – then asks the MR (who copes with these matters) lots of questions (I have gone to sleep, by then, in one of the VERY uncomfortable chairs in the foyer). Finally, after perhaps a quarter of an hour, a key is handed over and we stagger up to the room.

    WHY can they not follow the practice at the Meurice? There one arrives, is greeted by name (stayed there 25+ times) and handed key. Takes as long as two minutes.

    Rant over – only 20 minutes to wine o'clock.

    1. We have stayed frequently at the Hotel Posta, Ortigia, Siracusa on Sicily. Always greeted by the most gorgeous Sicilian lass, by name, and check-in is over far too soon, before we have fully enjoyed the experience of her beaming smile and entrancing voice…

      2. Get some delaying tactics together. 'I was wondering if you could recommend blah and blah and blah and could you possibly get you kit off'. Erm…not the last bit.

      3. Such a beautiful face and voice, perfect body with stylish clothing… sigh.

      1. Distance and time. Leaving Blighty – Rouen is about 200 miles on the way to last and final destination. the next day.

        1. I would still find another hotel if i were you. The receptionist sounds like a right cow. And as you have stayed so often they should greet you properly !

          1. It is one of the very few with a garage – albeit very small. I do NOT fancy leaving the car in a public carpark overnight. And a few hundred yards from excellent restos and the Beaux Arts gallery.

        2. I thought that might be the reason – but can't you find a smaller place to stay in the Calais area?

          1. I didn’t explain clearly. We need to be well on the way on the first day. Hence Rouen – 200 miles south of Calais.

          6. I like Rouen – particularly in the main square where they burnt Jeanne D'Arc!

            My company had a manufacturing plant in nearby Villers-Ecalles so I spent some time there.

          7. I know Rouen fairly well (spent a lot of time in Seine Maritime over the years), but I can't say I'm enamoured of it.

          11. Le Cid? He led the Reconquista. They had to tie him on his horse at the end (this is the film; the book was all about the dilemma of love vs duty vs honour vs glory – Don Rodrigo and Chimene).

          12. Thought so – great film, also had Sophia Loren who it would be safe to say I’ve always had a little ‘thing’ for……

          13. I like Rouen – particularly in the main square where they burnt Jeanne D'Arc!

            My company had a manufacturing plant in nearby Villers-Ecalles so I spent some time there.

  132. Of course they shoehorn Trump into this story even though Trump ended their friendship years ago. Ron De Santis passed a law that allowed release of the transcripts. No mention of all the other men like Gates that visited.

    Jeffrey Epstein grand jury records reveal full horror of case against billionaire pedophile and how Florida prosecutors knew he raped teenage girls before cutting sweetheart deal.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13590429/Jeffrey-Epstein-grand-jury-florida-victim-accuser.html

      1. I took out out a sub in May for £25 for a year. Better value than buying the Saturday one each week.

        1. Me too! They actually took £279 out of my account when I was in Portugal, and I couldn’t phone from abroad! Oh boy, did they cop it when I got back! The repayment (which may take up to 5 working days) was back in my account in 24 hours!

          2. I pleaded poverty, and being an OAP, and everything….! I did it once with the DSS and it worked a treat!

          3. You also should have demanded an extra £100 for the inconvenience it caused you.

            When the boss of TSB said in the media after a major glitch that everything was back to normal. I made a complaint to TSB as it was patently untrue.

            They put £200 in my account. Always complain about poor service !

      2. Not for me Willum try clicking on it
        Seems I'm 100% Reform,but I knew that anyway

      3. I got through, I sacked my subscription off recently. Not renewing after the hysterics and lies of St George's Day.

    2. I am shocked by the accuracy ..

      Overall you lean Reform, but other parties are catching your eye

      But I am really an old fashioned true blue conservative.. which is what Reform is, isn't it?

      How did our other readers vote?
      15% of our readers also picked the Reform manifesto in two rounds
      Tax and spending
      Most people chose Reform (45%)
      NHS
      Most people chose Conservative (18%)
      Immigration
      Most people chose Reform (28%)
      Defence
      Most people chose Reform (32%)
      Conservative
      Labour
      Lib Dem
      Green
      Reform
      SNP
      Plaid
      🤷 I played the Telegraph’s ‘Who should I vote for in the general election?’ quiz and I’m leaning 🟦 Reform – but other parties caught my eye! Play to find out which way you lean 🗳️

      1. I got Conservative for the first one, then the others all Reform. True Blue I think.

    3. I am shocked by the accuracy ..

      Overall you lean Reform, but other parties are catching your eye

      But I am really an old fashioned true blue conservative.. which is what Reform is, isn't it?

      How did our other readers vote?
      15% of our readers also picked the Reform manifesto in two rounds
      Tax and spending
      Most people chose Reform (45%)
      NHS
      Most people chose Conservative (18%)
      Immigration
      Most people chose Reform (28%)
      Defence
      Most people chose Reform (32%)
      Conservative
      Labour
      Lib Dem
      Green
      Reform
      SNP
      Plaid
      🤷 I played the Telegraph’s ‘Who should I vote for in the general election?’ quiz and I’m leaning 🟦 Reform – but other parties caught my eye! Play to find out which way you lean 🗳️

    5. I got Reform for all but the NHS (though my shaky finger clicked in error on one choice, and couldn't go back) came up as the Welsh outfit.

      1. I got Reform for all but the NHS, where I got Labour! I didn't really agree with any of the NHS options though.

        1. I got the Welsh outfit (I don’t live even close to Wales, and never have!) for NHS first go round, then I got Liebour. Must have given a different to something.

        2. I got the Welsh outfit (I don’t live even close to Wales, and never have!) for NHS first go round, then I got Liebour. Must have given a different to something.

        3. The combinations of ideas in the NHS set were rather odd. It was picking the least bad group.

    6. I got,

      "You’re Reform through and through"

      and it wasn't difficult except the defence question where the first 2 answers were as bad as each other.

    1. Oh yes……..we remember the uncollected rubbish and the bodies piling up in the mortuaries.

          3. I was 2 years post a dodgy marriage abroad and still relishing a bit of freedom.

          1. It all seemed to merge in to a very long period of turmoil, but I was young and working!

          2. During the '75 (or was it 74?) Miners' Strike I had a couple of trips taking 10kVA generators from Maidstone up to Bedford for dialysis patients.

    2. I remember four day working weeks and power cuts but that was earlier in the 70s?

      1. 3 day week where I was and the plant hire firm I had a share in went bust

        1. 12 days a fortnight where I was working in 1978-9 and 12 nights as well. Fiancé and I worked opposite rotas for 3 months so had no time off together at all.
          But that’s just how it was and we didn’t have any debt.

      3. Awful. Working in textiles (admin) looms kept having to be turned off. Not a happy time to be in t'mill…..

    3. I was. I remember the shops closing due to power cuts, having to do things by candlelight, the rubbish piling up in the streets, the dead being left unburied. The savings pot I had been contributing to in the hope it would provide a deposit for a house wouldn't even buy a decent second hand car.

      1. Was in Lunnon, at university: No money, living in a shite flat in Bow… wasn't it fun?
        But – I met SWMBO, and it's our 42nd wedding anniversary in a few days!

          1. Thanks, Conners.
            I've been blessed with SWMBO, as have most of us here been blessed with our spouses (spice?)

    4. Truly awful, for all the world to see. Bin bags of rubbish piled on streets of London. Rumours of bodies left to rot in morgues. The real start of Mrs.T's political career.

  135. MR home after meetings. So I shall join her with a glass or three.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain in the rain.

    1. As a 9 to 6 PM would Starmer leave the Red Button at No 10 or take it home for a family recreational wargame?

          1. Our delightful SNP MP who ran up an £11,000 roaming bill on holiday in Morocco, while watching Celtic on his parliamentary laptop, then blamed his 2 boys! Hamas Useless told the country he was an honest man…🤣🤣🤣

        2. Yes,

          I gather you are referring to that minister’s use an official ipad to set up a WiFi hot spot for his family to watch a sporting confrontation involving a potentially hazardous missile.

    2. But does he also bike early morning, on his way to church? Like an old maid. I think we should be told…….

  138. Night All
    Great Piece
    The center of Western politics is dead, and the ones who killed it are the managerial liberals who lived by lies—and believed their own lies.
    Sunday’s vote, and undoubtedly the second-round voting on July 7th, confirm that most Frenchmen choose to believe their own eyes over the official lies and harassment by the establishment. Do not expect France’s journalists, academics, and other professional experts to comprehend what has happened, much less to explain it accurately and dispassionately. They have built their entire careers and indeed their very being as intellectuals on a set of liberal, globalist lies that require denial of facts and demonization of dissenters. Now it is all falling down around them.
    Rest worth a read
    https://europeanconservative.com/articles/dreher/the-center-cannot-hold/
    Remember the clip I posted (now vanished from the net)??
    "European Civil War 2029"
    Ahah found it
    https://www.facebook.com/Ozzibloke/videos/europe-in-2029/282867678518885/
    Scary Times

    2. Even here, voters are moving right – we'll see how Reform does on Thursday. All the politicians lie. We don't have to believe them.

      1. I nipped into town this morning to catch up on a few things and I noticed a woman in one of the shops was holding a Reform leaflet. She hadn't scrunched it up or ripped it apart (which is what I do with literature from the main parties).

      2. Ones I know, some are moving further north. Am told Orkneys quite lovely this time of year. Then there's throat singing in winter. What's not to like? As for politicians, like small children…'when their mouths are moving;…:-D

    3. Chilling but all too believable. Even here in the sticks the local town was full of blek families none of them speaking English and I spotted a muslim woman, hijab, long skirt and all, strolling down the High St as if she owned it. We're not even near the cities!

    4. Chilling but all too believable. Even here in the sticks the local town was full of blek families none of them speaking English and I spotted a muslim woman, hijab, long skirt and all, strolling down the High St as if she owned it. We're not even near the cities!

  141. it took a while for the French to wake up..

    Blond Sophie, 26th arrondissement of Lyon..
    pepper spray.
    taser.
    false pistol.
    extra door-lock.
    brass knuckles on key-chain.
    never make eye contact.
    never use public transport.
    never travel alone.

    btw, 26th is the poshest part of Lyon.

  142. Head teacher awarded over £100,000 after she was sacked and accused of assault for tapping her own toddler son's hand when he was playing with a bottle of hand sanitiser.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13590133/Head-teacher-awarded-100-000-sacked-accused-assault-tapping-toddler-sons-hand-playing-bottle-hand-sanitiser.html

    As Ms Bhagwandas has been proven to be a liar will she now be fired and the Headteacher reinstated? Will a flashmob of angry muslim men appear at the school gates?

    1. I read that – even in the Clown World we inhabit this was just astonishing! I'm glad she got compensation but it's not these halfwits paying it, it's the poor sodding taxpayer……..

      1. I think that, as an Academy Trust, the school will have to find the money so somebody will have to be ‘let go’. I hope so anyway.

        Edit: I imagine the headteacher was left feeling that she had strayed into a Kafka novel or the French Revolution’s Committee of Public Safety. The effect on her and her family (especially as her children were pupils at the school) must have been shattering. Not only should there be comeback on the malicious accuser but on the entire governing body.
        It would be interesting to know if there was an ethno-religious angle here,

    2. "As Ms Bhagwandas has been proven to be a liar will she now be fired and the Headteacher reinstated? Will a flashmob of angry muslim men appear at the school gates?"

      Errrm…

  143. “Keir Starmer must lead the fight against Moscow.” Hamish de Bretton-Gordon. 2 July 2024.

    Starmer should commit to go much further than the Tories in arming Ukraine, and make an immediate commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% by the end of this parliament, showing he is truly serious and not another weak leader. He should remove those from defence or foreign roles who could weaken Britain’s deterrent, including Lammy, and should seek to be the voice Europe desperately needs as France looks inward, Germany cowers, and the EU is split.

    I thought that I had resigned myself at what is to come but the thought of this will probably keep me awake all night

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/keir-starmer-must-lead-the-fight-against-moscow/

    3. Sir Cursed Harmer is no Churchill, unless he tries to attack Russia through the Dardanelles.

      1. I think UK is 2.3%? European countries lower…remember the photo of Trump with Merkel standing over him..he wouldn't give way and I don't blame him.

    10. Starmer won't last long and Hamish the Cretin just stirs shite he knows nothing about.

      1. I like Orban, and his policies, seems a bit low energy lately. Possibly tired from battling.

    12. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Nigel Farage is not the future
      Comments Share 2 July 2024, 3:01pm
      Nigel Farage is the most misunderstood politician in Britain. Vilified by the liberal media as ‘far right’ and mistaken by nationalists as a kindred spirit, the Reform party leader doesn’t fully comport with the pub bore caricature sketched by his enemies nor with the blokey everyman persona lapped up by his admirers. He is a wilier, more elusive beast, as his comments on the French elections remind us. Speaking to UnHerd ahead of the first results, Farage warned that victory for the RN would be a ‘disaster’, saying the party would be ‘even worse for the economy than the current lot’.

      Dis-moi que ce n’est pas vrai, Nigel! It’s a statement sure to have friend and foe alike twisting themselves into political pretzels. The RN, or National Rally, is the nationalist party headed by Marine Le Pen which, together with its allies, has come out on top in first-round voting for the National Assembly. Surely Farage would be happy for his fellow far-right Russian stooges, his detractors will cry. Why is Nigel siding with the centrist establishment against patriotic populists, his supporters will wonder.

      The answer is that, given a choice between the status quo liberalism of Ensemble (the Emmanuel Macron aligned electoral bloc) and the political prescriptions of RN, the Reform leader would choose Ensemble every time. Not out of any particular affection for a movement of metropolitan technocrats but because they are friendlier to the Anglo social and economic model than Le Pen. Farage isn’t ‘far right’ but much closer to a bog-standard Essex Man Thatcherite. He’s for tax cuts, spending cuts, deficit reduction, light-touch regulation and privatisation, all the golden oldies of the Eighties. Put Brexit and immigration to one side and there’s not much he and George Osborne could find to disagree on.

      Most popular
      Ceci Browning
      Sabrina Carpenter isn’t an industry plant – she’s worse

      Le Pen is a very different creature. Her politics have very little in common with the Gladstonian liberalism of Margaret Thatcher. She is a statist, an economic populist, a spending and subsidy enthusiast. She is for farmers and unionised workers and sceptical of big business and the market. Put immigration and Islam to one side, and there’s not much she and the left of the Labour party could find to disagree on.

      Douglas Murray has asked why Britain is such an outlier in a Europe moving right. The answer is that Europe is not moving right, it is moving on from liberalism. Where populists and nationalists are in power or in the ascendancy, they got there with a platform departing from the liberal status quo. In most cases, that means rejecting both the social liberalism of mass immigration, multiculturalism and progressive identity politics and the market liberalism that has challenged the European social model in recent decades and especially since the financial crisis. This is broadly true of RN but also Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Geert Wilders’ PVV, and Giorgia Meloni‘s Brothers of Italy. (A major exception is AfD in Germany, which though hostile to social liberalism remains loyal to the market variety.)

      As with so much else when it comes to Europe, Britain is an island apart. Our right-wing parties are not in rebellion against the market liberal model, they are its enforcers. The Conservatives and Reform are largely as one in espousing the establishment economics that has governed more or less since the 1980s, albeit with significant interruptions during the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Tax cuts good, public spending bad, slash the deficit and let the market take care of the rest. So wedded are British conservatives to this penny-pinching accountancy that they will pursue it to its most unconservative ends, as in the first seven years of this government when ministers allowed police numbers to fall by 20,000 in the name of austerity.

      Farage isn’t ‘far right’ but much closer to a bog-standard Essex Man Thatcherite
      Nigel Farage offers no challenge to Tory economic liberalism, save that he would prefer it if they were much more liberal. Shrink the state, rip up regulations, and the lads in the City could do with another tax cut. God knows, they’ve got it tough. The irony will not be lost on Farage that the fiscal policies he promotes reward the very people who hate (and occasionally attempt to debank) him while punishing those who make up his political constituency. Note that Reform’s ‘contract’ with the British people says nothing about maintaining the pensions triple lock and instead pledges to ‘review’ a system ‘riddled with complexity, huge cost and poor returns’. That certainly sounds like more spreadsheet liberalism at the expense of Reform’s baby boomer base. If only he could be brought round to the merits of mass immigration, Farage would be the patron saint of FT subscribers.

      One group unlikely to venerate him is younger voters. The most recent Opinium poll shows just one in ten Britons aged 18 to 35 is planning to vote for Reform. Yet the RN just won a third of the same age cohort. It’s not as straightforward as French youth being more nationalist. The key issues in this election have been wages, energy prices and pension reforms. It is precariousness that troubles les jeunes français and while this led almost half to vote for the far-left New Popular Front, it delivered those also concerned about immigration into the arms of Jordan Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old candidate for prime minister. But while Bardella proposes to continue the sort of social spending which older French people enjoyed in their youth, Farage’s Reform has nothing to say to Gen Z or millennial Brits, whom the party’s modal voter considers to be woke snowflakes still renting only because they buy too many avocados.

      There are few reasons to see Nigel Farage as the way forward for the British right
      So it’s hardly surprising that Nigel Farage isn’t keen on Marine Le Pen and the RN. Rather than ‘far right’, he is really a malcontent of boomer liberalism, railing against the social outcomes of the post-1980s consensus while wishing to maintain the economic conditions that create them. He is ideologically hostile to the populist, nationalist and common good economics practised and advocated elsewhere in Europe by leaders and thinkers whom his followers and opponents would consider his natural allies. His natural ally is fellow boomer-whisperer Donald Trump.

      When the liberal left casts Farage as a 20-a-day Oswald Mosley, it commits a cardinal sin of politics: misunderstanding the enemy. Farage flirts now and then with incendiary rhetoric but if he is the apogee of national populism in Britain, we will be very lucky indeed. I suspect, however, that he won’t be. A few years back, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed: ‘If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right.’ I’d suggest to progressives that the same applies to Reform’s leader: if you dislike Farage, will till you see who comes after him.

      But the misunderstanding is bipartisan. Nationalists who put their faith in Farage are not only fooling themselves, they are postponing the realignment they wish to see on the British right. Baby boomers will not be with us forever and yet without them Faragism is nothing. A populist British right isn’t going to win over millennials or Gen Z with nostalgia, NIMBYism, and the economic prescriptions of Milton Friedman. It is not enough to be post-liberal. Right-wingers must be pro-social, giving young people a rewarding place in a well-ordered society that aims for sodality, coherence and dignity as much as it does autonomy, diversity and growth. Thursday will deliver a much-deserved reckoning for the Conservatives but there are few reasons to see Nigel Farage as the way forward for the British right.

      1. Interesting , yes .

        Sadly though the real Conservatives lost their pedigree when David Cameron became leader . Blair 2 .

        Farage 's DNA is rough edge Conservative , whereas Mrs Thatcher was Academic True Blue Tory .

        A bit of Rough Edge Farage Conservative , reformed will do us all the world of good , no ifs and buts about it.

        1. Hear you, Belle…for me, that would depend on the team he builds. Be interesting to see who'd be there.

      2. Given how socialist le Pen's policies are, it isn't rocket science that they won't do the economy any good – we have had Labour governments here to prove that.

        1. Yet the press continue to label RN as "far right" – but Le Pen is a socialist nationalist.

    1. Slightly different answer could have been, "I escaped, now I'm on the lamb."

  145. Farmer arrives to check on newly-deposited calves.
    Like Clarkson's Farm, non-stop work.

  146. Evening, all. Has someone just noticed there's a problem with the postal voting system? It's been open to abuse by enrichers (third world practices) for years – at least since 1997. Just another of Blair's introductions that have acted as a wrecking ball on what was once a reasonably functional system.

    1. Agreed, Connors. Now the postal votes need sorting out. Available only to the disabled, those serving/working/living overseas and I cannot think of any others.

    2. Unfortunately this is just another classic example of how effing stupid our self important and self righteous political drongos are.

  147. Any fence you make they will overcome and escape. If you have an area of woodland that needs the undergrowth cleared…pigs are your… er…man.

  148. Has Rishi Sunak destroyed the Conservatives forever? Our writers give their verdicts
    As Britain heads to the ballot box, the future of the Conservative party lies in balance. Will they be able to come back from defeat?

    TOM HARRIS
    SHERELLE JACOBS
    2 July 2024 • 10:46am

    Here’s where you stand on whether Rishi Sunak is to blame
    ‘Two people destroyed the Tory party’
    John Helliwell: “Two people destroyed the Tory party. David Cameron, the ‘heir to Blair’ who decided that the Tories should be Social Democrats and put in place the infrastructure to take over the party.

    “Secondly was Boris Johnson who, with an 80 seat majority, failed to face down lockdowns, butchered Brexit, lied his heart out, trebled down on net zero and failed to deliver a single Conservative policy.

    “Theresa May’s was the icing on the cake.”

    Colin Bushell: “To be fair to Rishi Sunak, the rot started with John Major and his pro-Euro stance. The party was split down the middle then and never recovered. This was carried on by appointing a Tony Blair clone in David Cameron followed by net zero maniac Theresa May. Winston Churchill wannabe Boris Johnson and finally Rishi. The only sensible thing to do is vote Reform.”

    ‘Sunak has hammered in the last row of nails in the coffin of the party’
    Andrew Davies: “Sunak indeed inherited a party in disarray. Under his leadership he has hammered in the last row of nails in the coffin of the party. He should never have been allowed near No 10. An unmitigated disaster.”

    Paul Smith: “Sunak has destroyed the Tories – by being weak and rudderless. There was goodwill behind him when he took office, coming after the chaos of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

    “He could have been bold, but he was not – he chose to pursue the farcical (and eye-wateringly expensive) Rwanda scheme and even staked his reputation to it – although it was never likely to fly. He thus annoyed both Left and Right wings of the party.

    “The Tory party remains deeply split and the really fascinating question is why icy direction they decide to travel in after the election.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/has-rishi-sunak-destroyed-the-conservatives-forever/

  149. Norwegian press starting to signal the defenestration of Biden, in favour of Harris.
    Hmm…

        2. From the perspective of being the POTUS-in-place, I can’t think of one, particularly as he already has the nomination in his back pocket.

    4. Harris's team have been complaining that if she's overlooked it will be racism. Where do they find people as stupid and greedy as the top Democrats?

    5. Harris's team have been complaining that if she's overlooked it will be racism. Where do they find people as stupid and greedy as the top Democrats?

  150. From the DT.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/osprey-chicks-saved-from-scottish-nest-relocated-to-spain/

    "Osprey chicks saved from Scottish nest and relocated to Spain

    Starvation fears prompt conservationists to send pair of six-week-old birds from Loch Arkaig to reintroduction project near Valencia

    2 July 2024 • 3:19pm

    A pair of osprey chicks has been saved from a Scottish nest where it was feared they would starve to death, in a rare intervention by conservationists.

    The birds, nearly six weeks old, will be taken to the Valencia region of Spain as part of a programme to reintroduce the species there.

    The two chicks, both thought to be male, hatched in a nest at Woodland Trust Scotland’s Loch Arkaig Pine Forest in Lochaber, where the charity has operated a live nest camera since 2017.

    The trust, along with fans around the world watching online, became concerned after the resident male, “Louis”, began to catch insufficient fish to feed his breeding partner, “Dorcha”, and their chicks.

    Trust spokesman George Anderson said: “Male ospreys feed their whole family during the nesting season with the females occasionally fishing a little towards the end of the summer.

    “Louis has always been a very dependable provider. At this time of year he would normally be bringing in four or five fish a day. His record is nine.

    “He has been off his game lately, often bringing in only one and sometimes none. We didn’t see him at all on Thursday and Friday.

    A nest camera at Loch Arkaig has revealed that the birds in the nest are getting insufficient fish
    A nest camera at Loch Arkaig has revealed that the birds in the nest are getting insufficient fish Credit: WOODLAND TRUST
    “Bad weather is likely part of the problem and lots of nests appear to have had a poor year. But we think there is something not right about Louis. It could be his age, or he might be ill. We don’t know.

    “In these circumstances the chicks will die. It is our default position not to intervene in the ospreys’ lives, and we would generally let nature take its course – only stepping in to correct any problems caused directly by humans.

    “However, in this case we became aware that there was an opportunity for the chicks to go into a translocation programme reintroducing ospreys to the Valencia region in Spain.”

    The chicks have been handed to the Moray-based Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, leading experts in relocating raptors and partners in the Spanish project.

    Both chicks will receive a thorough health examination before they are sent to Spain.

    Five-year programme

    The project, based in Pego-Oliva Marshes Natural Park is led by the Generalitat Valenciana in partnership with Fundación Migres, and supported by the Town Halls of Pego, Oliva, Xabia and Denia. This is the second year of a five-year programme aimed at restoring ospreys to the region.

    “Louis” is thought to have been two or three years old when he first appeared at Loch Arkaig in 2017 so he is likely to be about 10 or 11 now. While some ospreys live well into their twenties, a typical lifespan seems to be between 10 and 15 years.

    With the chicks gone the adult ospreys are likely to stay around the nest to assert their possession and stop other ospreys taking up residence. They will likely migrate a little earlier than usual at the end of summer.

    The Loch Arkaig nest camera will continue to stream for the rest of the season."

    1. What a relief , but sadly some of the comments worried me .

      JA

      JSC APM
      13 MIN AGO
      Each time someone approaches the nest the parents can see them from quite a distance and will leave the nest, warning the chicks to lay low. Once the ‘danger’ has gone the parents might not return for an hour or two. Meanwhile, the chicks are vulnerable to predators or the weather.
      It’s a very complicated issue but George Anderson from the Woodland Trust has explained it very well on the webcam’s community pages.

      Comment by Singapore Sling.

      SS

      Singapore Sling
      2 HRS AGO
      Aw, poor Louis. Been watching his nest for the past couple of years. Hopefully not lead poisoning and he's back to his usual self soon. So pleased they intervened with the chicks. Hope they are successful in their new home.

      Comment by John Mulvany.

      JM

      John Mulvany
      3 HRS AGO
      Typical ineptitude, Scottish SNP parents can’t even get the basics right

      1. Good grief, Belle there are some utter morons posting there! People with a complete inability to think and comment! I got 3 downvotes for a statement of fact – osprey are migratory and wouldn’t survive winter in Scotland. Unbelievable!

        2. Thanks, Sue. A Scottish area I know had a policy a few years ago of raising/feeding/releasing Red Kites. I'd read they rob other birds' nests, and rumoured to take young lambs(?) so wasn't too sure about the release. Last visit, only saw a couple so numbers seemed reduced. If they had indeed taken any young lambs, that could be a reason for their demise.

          1. Red kites don’t take live prey as they are scavengers. The red kite centre near here is actually on a sheep farm!

          2. Ah how interesting, farmers told me…I wonder if lambs had died naturally and kites scavenged? Urban myths!

          3. Red kites around our house are regularly chased off by mobbing jackdaws.

          4. I think you might be getting them mixed up with Sea Eagles, KJ, who are huge apex predators with 8ft wingspans and a beak like a whetted adze – well capable of taking a lamb, small child or small pet. Red kites are mostly carrion specialists, but I have witnessed one grab a swallow from the sky (not something I wanted to see, but I did). We mess with nature at our peril.

          5. I’ve never see one, opopanax…I would dearly love to tho’. Small child or small pet, how awful. Swallows are pretty quick too, and possibly not much of a meal, quite light birds. We do indeed mess with nature, unfortunately. I treasure all my sightings, have boxes with feathers, bones, other finds including the 3″ end of a grey squirrel’s tail, it jumped at me from the bird feeder and I made a mad grab for it, tail now sitting on top of an old ram skull, skinhead style:-D I saw a sparrow hawk in woodland the other day, flew just a few feet above the ground – had no idea they were slate blue on back/back of head and wings, a juvenile…have always seen them from below previously, wheeling and mewing in the sky, usually being mobbed by crows.

          6. I think you might be getting them mixed up with Sea Eagles, KJ, who are huge apex predators with 8ft wingspans and a beak like a whetted adze – well capable of taking a lamb, small child or small pet. Red kites are mostly carrion specialists, but I have witnessed one grab a swallow from the sky (not something I wanted to see, but I did). We mess with nature at our peril.

  151. Popping off soon, busy day started with docs appointment, walked there and back, took care of some gardening jobs, tiredness setting in.
    Watched a wonderful programme about Sicily with an excellent presenter Michael Scott.
    My father was posted there in WW2, lucky for him. It really is a lovely place. But now also suffering from the illegal invasion.
    Night all 😴

      1. The chance we have to take
        I expect the powers that be would have them out like they did Truss, if they ever won an election

      2. You won't know, Belle, not much will change largely because the Civil Service is permanent. Anyhow, Labour will win, and Sue Grey (she from the Civil Service) who now works for Starmer, will make sure it's to Labour's advantage.

    3. There are signs that people who had decided to vote Reform might be getting cold feet and switching back to Conservative, realising the horror of a Starmer/Rayner Labour government.

      3. So the mess the Cons have made doesn't matter? People really don't think. Starmer will get in anyway, the postal votes will see to that.

      4. So the mess the Cons have made doesn't matter? People really don't think. Starmer will get in anyway, the postal votes will see to that.

      5. Then they are stupid.Most people are stupid. Thats why we are in such a mess.How can you possibly vote for either of them.

        1. At least one recent poll published in the Telegraph seems to indicate Reform support dropping. The only way for Reform to break through is via a surge in support late in the day (I hope it happens, but am not optimistic).

    4. Can I echo your sentiments with the following tale, every word being true.

      Today I had a phone call from a coroner informing me that she is waiting to be told if a post-mortem is necessary, I asked what she was talking about. She then evidently realised I knew nothing about the death of my cousin who was found dead in her bed just a few days ago. Evidently she years ago put my name and contact number on a form at her doctors surgery, hence the phone call today.
      She was a year younger than me and it made me think none of us knows what is around the corner, I only hope I am still around to witness this country return to something approaching what it was in times past.
      Only Reform gives me hope this can be done, I hope enough voters feel the same.
      Sorry to write such a somber comment but we know we only get one shot at life, we may only get one shot at voting for change.

      1. That must have been a shock for you vvof. It's true that we none of us know what's in store, so carpe diem.

  154. Lesser of two evils? I will be voting Reform, but others may be having second thoughts – perhaps Sunak's 'Labour supermajority' has scared them.

    1. I keep telling people (not that they listen) that if they want things to change they've got to vote for something different.

    2. I keep telling people (not that they listen) that if they want things to change they've got to vote for something different.

  155. Lesser of two evils? I will be voting Reform, but others may be having second thoughts – perhaps Sunak's 'Labour supermajority' has scared them.

        1. He actually meant £11 an hour, but will take a tenner for the advice (cheap at 10x the price…)

    2. I can see why a government would not wish to stop fit young men arriving in the UK and then not allow them to receive gainful employment.

      1. Age Current rates

        21 and over £11.44
        18 to 20 £8.60
        Under 18 £6.40
        Apprentice £6.40

        Agricultural workers

        Agricultural workers in Northern Ireland are entitled to the Agricultural Minimum Wage rates, rather than the NMW or NLW, unless the NMW or NLW rate is higher.

        No worker can be paid less than the NMW or NLW, but some agricultural workers must be paid more than the NMW or NLW because there is a higher Agricultural Minimum Wage rate. The rates change in April each year.
        Grade Rates from April 2024
        Grade 1 – minimum rate applicable for the first 40 weeks cumulative £7.99
        Grade 2 – standard worker £8.62
        Grade 3 – lead worker £10.77
        Grade 4 – craft grade £11.58
        Grade 5 – supervisory grade £12.18
        Grade 6 – farm management grade £13.23

        *These are the minimum hourly rates before tax and national insurance deductions.

        If, at any time, the National Minimum Wage (NMW) or the National Living Wage (NLW) is higher than the hourly rates set out above, then the minimum rate shall be equal to the NMW or NLW.

        There's more startling info and a lot of gobbledegook. No wonder very few Brits think it worthwhile to work and the illegals see three lemons.

  157. He paid the money back, reluctantly but Humza said he was a man of integrity and didn’t sack him! He is our MP

    2. Thanks, Sue. I hope he’s a good MP for you. Friend of mine, a Scot, is a big supporter, we argue until we start laughing at our foolishness. Much less publicity, English press, about Humza – NS seemed to be reported about almost daily.

    3. ‘Morning, Sue…just been reading Iain McWhirter on SNP/Independence, always interesting take.

        1. No, he has a substack, in his own name…search online you’ll find him? former rector 🙂

    1. I caught the end and saw an almost miraculous save at, literally, the last second.

    2. Now that's what I call a game of football. None of that fannying about passing it side to side and backwards waiting for the Hollywood pass.
      I blame Pep G for the boring play out from the back style rather than the goalie wellying it up the field for the wingers to chase. Far more exciting.

    3. Both Austria and Turkey were attacking teams both with a desire to play an intense goal seeking style of football.

      To date we have witnessed some pretty dreary stuff where teams are either too hesitant or else one team packs its defence and whose ambition is restricted to the occasional counter attack leaving a probably better team frustrated by the wall of defenders.

      England’s problems are entirely the result of playing out from the back with poor positional play so no one is available to pass forward to. There is always an opposition player blinding the pass forward and the front players never move sufficiently to allow the pass. The poor backs are thus obliged to pass from side to side between themselves. It is so bloody obvious but the management are quite honestly hapless and incompetent.

      The other problem with England is that players are not put in their club positions on the pitch. The Alexander Arnold experiment proves the point.

      The substitutions have been ludicrously late in the match and arguably the more impressive substitutes should have played from the start not one minute from time.

      1. Agreed, and I also think the coaching staff are set up to prevent opposition goals rather than create our own; which is why, if we score we seem to go onto the back foot immediately instead of pressing for more..

  161. Night night lovely ones. Been a busy bee today and now an exhausted one so will continue to spare you until demain or le lendemain 🙂 Wishing you all a night of glorious oblivion and a daisy-fresh tomorrow

    1. That is one new home every two minutes, no accounting for supply problems, infrastructure development and so on.

      Still it is less ambitious than trudeau back in April when he promised one home every minute. They are only about 100,000 behind their target already!

    2. That silly woman has no idea. It would be a travesty if she is elected and retains a Senior cabinet office in government. A more stupid, arrogant and dishonest person is hard to find in politics. She would not survive in private practice.

      1. Yo corin

        You have listed her "good points"

        She is a waste of

        Space
        Victuals
        Oxygen

    3. That silly woman has no idea. It would be a travesty if she is elected and retains a
      Senior cabinet office in government. A more stupid, arrogant and dishonest person is hard to find in politics. She would not survive in private practice.

  163. Another day is done, and so am I, so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless all you Gentlefolk. If we are spared! Bis morgen früh.

  164. Goodnight, all. Will be off to bed once the washing machine has finished and I've hung the clothes up to dry.

  165. Good night, chums, I'm off to bed now. Sleep well, and I hope to see you rested when I return tomorrow (Wednesday) at around 7 am.

    2. 'Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the hard work and effort you have put in to keep us all going. Well done!

Comments are closed.