880 thoughts on “Tuesday 20 August: Philip Hammond’s defeatism has landed Britain with a scandalously bad EU bank settlement”

  1. Good morning all – and thank you once again, Geoff.

    Raining – nice soft useful rain.

    1. Morning, Bill, morning all.
      Sunny and soft this morning. Lovely autumn day.
      :-D)

      1. Morning, Paul. I am wearing trousers for the first time in a fortnight – it is chilly; but it will be back to 30ºC tomorrow…

    2. ‘Morning, Bill.

      “…useful rain”. Yes please, yesterday I thought the monsoon season had arrived in E Sussex. Today is supposed to be non-stop sunshine, with high pressure and warmer, settled wevva arriving on Thursday. Will believe it when I see it.

  4. Watched the recorded Porm last night with Mr Hough playing Queen Victoria’s piano (which, at times did sound a bit like the one from the TV pub of the same name!)

    Mendelssohn does little for me – too chocolate-boxy and overdone. However, Mr Hough’s rapid fingering (quiet at the back) was impressive and put me in mind of Shostakovich Piano Concerto no 2.

    The songs which followed – sung by a very fat man – were banal in the extreme; had they been written by Albert Schmidt rather than Price Albert – I suspect they would never have seen the light of day.

    Incidentally – what very peculiar clothes musicians wear. Favouring the “Nehru Jacket” look – and no ties. Weird. Especially when the conductor was properly dressed in old fashioned white tie and tails.

    1. Good morning Bill

      I smiled to myself when you commented on the attire worn by musicians .. can you remember the plimsolls that the female luvvie wore when she was presented with a gong by a royal, or the lack of formality re ties in the HoC.

  5. Good morning all, dew on the grass , that late summer feel, a chill in the air . Looks as if it will be a sunny day.

    The garden is very still, not one blackbird or thrush rooting around for their breakfast, although there are a few sparrows enjoying the feeders.

  6. Morning all.

    SIR – Charles Moore asks why Philip Hammond doesn’t apply even fiercer strictures to a British trade deal with the EU than he does to John Bolton’s proposed “great trade deal” with the United States.

    As a member of the board of governors of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Mr Hammond signed off on a most unattractive agreement under which Britain would dispose of its interest in the bank on terms that clearly inequitably benefit the EU to our disadvantage.

    Britain owns 16.1 per cent of the EIB. The Withdrawal Agreement provides that Britain will be repaid its nominal capital of €3.5 billion, but will leave its rightful share of the retained earnings, €7.6 billion, for the remaining EU-27 members’ benefit. Worse, Britain only gets back the nominal capital over 12 years in equal instalments, the final one being in December 2030 – and no interest is to be paid during this period.

    This EIB settlement is so obviously completely inequitable that it is surprising that it has not yet received much attention.

    It’s not as though the EIB can’t afford to buy Britain out at fair value. It makes a profit of around €2 billion a year. It has already approved a pro-rata capitalisation of a small part of its extensive reserves to replace Britain’s paid-in capital.

    Ignoring the significant value of deferred payment over 12 years, the £7 billion Britain proposes to give away to the EIB amounts to nearly a fifth of the £39 billion “divorce bill”.

    Was not Mr Hammond’s acceptance of this settlement a further example of the defeatism to which Mr Moore refers?

    Viscount Trenchard (Con)
    London SW1

    1. SIR – Senior Brexiteers are recommending that Boris Johnson calls a snap election.

      If he does so before October 31, before he has fulfilled his promise to leave the EU, I will vote for the Brexit Party. If he goes to the country after a successful Brexit, the Conservatives will get my vote.

      I’m sure many millions are of the same opinion.

      Patrick Kelly
      Chippenham, Wiltshire

      2. If he does call a general election the chances are the October 31st deadline will have passed so we would be out of the EU anyway. The legislation for our leaving is already in place. There is only about 19 weeks left and Parliament does not return until September and even then it only sits for about a week before they take off for the Conference season and don’t return until October

      3. An election campaign would force Westminster out and on to the streets, prevenitng them hindering Brexit.

        However, it’s risky. Boris only gets votes if we leave the EU.

      4. But, Mr Kelly, this risks splitting the right-wing vote, just at a time when we appear to have something like a Conservative at the helm. Although in my view BoJo is not ideal, he’s looking a good deal better than May, and deserves a working majority – similar to or better than the one she threw away with her shockingly inept campaign last time. Never before has a decent majority been so important to this country, and we mess it up this time at our peril.

        1. The Brexit vote will be split in any case, thanks to the Brexit Party. If Bojo gets us out on 31/10/19, the BP will have lost its raison d’être as it truly is a one-trick pony.

    2. Thanks for putting this up, Epi. Hammond is, without any doubt, a fifth columnist for the EU and, I trust, will be facing deselection at the earliest opportunity. It is more than just incompetence; presumably there is the promise of a cushy job at the end of it.

      1. I wouldn’t count on it. They won’t let Grievous be deselected.
        He has a safe seat I understand.

        1. The voters can exercise the deselection.
          That may focus a few minds in CCHQ and the local association.

        2. He was deselected and effectively sacked (recalled) but May would not let our will take precedence.

          Another reason why she was a bluddy nightmare. Recall should be something done by the employer – us – not by another member of staff.

        3. That was under Teresa May. Boris, I hope, will have other ideas if he has any intention of saving his government and the Tory party.

          1. If Johnson attempts to keep both the Tory Party in being and the UK tied to the EU in any form, he will fail. To redeem the Tories after May’s tenure Johnson has to be seen to work for the UK to the exclusion of any concessions to Brussels that will have a detrimental impact on the UK. Anything less and he will join May, Heath, Major, Brown et al. in the infamous group of EUphile PMs that have sold the UK out.

    3. In my view it is pretty clear that Hammond was colluding with May to try to wreck Brexit

    4. IMHO it’s clear from May’s, and now Hammond’s, largesse with respect to literally giving our money to the EU that both weren’t working with the best financial outcome for the UK as their priority. One would hope that a Royal Commission would be organised to look at all the shenanigans that May, Hammond et al. were involved with re the EU (faux) negotiations: sadly, it will not happen as the establishment will close ranks to defend the indefensible.

    5. These are things most don’t understand. The state doesn’t publicise it because it’s painful to them. Far easier to sweep it under the carpet.

  7. Morning again

    SIR – I believe the right punishment for murder (Letters, August 17) is death by hanging.

    I taught in prisons for 10 years and I know we must do more to rehabilitate offenders, to assist them on release and to provide better education to help young people prosper. But there must also be a deterrent in place to help us be decent members of society.

    The argument against capital punishment was based on the risk of miscarriages of justice. But since forensics and surveillance have developed, and juries have become more reluctant to convict unless evidence is conclusive, the risk is greatly reduced.

    Society faces a simple choice: arm our police or bring back the rope, which was once referred to as “the copper’s friend”. I, and most officers, would not like to see our police armed.

    Bob Clark
    Chalgrove, Oxfordshire

    1. SIR – I cannot agree with Simon Crowley (Letters, August 12), who supports having an unarmed police force with specialist armed officers on call.

      In 1958 I joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I received firearms training and was able to dismantle and reassemble a Sterling submachine gun blindfolded. I was later stationed at Crossmaglen, which became notorious. I never had to draw my weapon but it was there if I needed it and I knew how to use it.

      In France every gendarme is armed, as are customs officers. We visit Le Touquet and find guards stationed outside the President’s home there. They are dressed in normal uniforms but carry submachine guns. When I see our armed police in action – with all the accoutrements and yelling – I find the spectacle ridiculous.

      John R McErlean
      Elstow, Bedfordshire

      1. And, Mr McErlean, French police officers not infrequently shoot each other – and, sadly, themselves.

        Universal side arms are not always the panacea you imply.

          2. Good morning Bill
            I have heard there is a high number of farmers who sadly take their own lives.
            Started under whatsit – Hollande.

      2. I have had long discussions with police officers in Sweden and The USA and they are all aghast at even the thought of performing their duties unarmed. When I explained to them that I did not carry a firearm throughout my career they are simply puzzled as to why a law officer would even think of doing so. Both Sweden and the USA (among most other countries) arm their police routinely.

        The thought of being armed on duty never crossed my mind during my career. However that was then and this is now. I would never dream of enlisting for the British police in this day and age without being fully firearms trained and with a sidearm as part of my equipment. Today’s police are sitting ducks for anyone with malicious intent.

        As for capital punishment. I am, and have always been, a firm advocate of hanging for all serious offences. My viewpoint has not, and will not, ever change on that matter. In addition to this, I am, and have always been, a proponent of corporal punishment too. Using the cat o’ nine tails on adult miscreants for a variety of offences and the birch rod on juveniles is a sound and sensible way to punish them. Very few receiving this type of punishment ever became recidivists.

        Gaoling more and more criminals requires more and more prisons, more and more staff and is a massive burden on the exchequer. The only reason why we have eschewed the death sentence, corporal punishment and arming the police is because we are becoming more and more stupid as a species and as a society.

        Many of you are deeply religious and read a bible that exhorts “an eye for and eye; a tooth for a tooth”, yet you baulk at the thought of giving murderers and terrorists—people whose sole intent is to deprive you (and your loved ones) of your life—the same treatment that they unblinkingly foist on you? Stupid doesn’t even begin to describe that.

          2. Well, with respect, it does rather.

            I assume that you would rather hang a few innocents on the basis that the greater good is served.

          3. Now you are being the Devil’s Advocate.

            As Elsie clearly explains, below, miscarriages have always occurred. Some people’s lives are ruined by being imprisoned for life when they were innocent but could not prove it. What’s the difference?

            In the first scenario they lose their life. In the second their life is miserably not worth living. Of the two choices I know which I’d go for.

          4. We’ll have to agree to differ.

            Hanging the wrong person seems to me to be just wrong.

          5. You don’t hang someone for shop lifting once.

            A kid stealing an apple is irrelevant.

            What you do for the first offence is try to understand why they did it and offer every opportunity for rehabilitation back into society.

            For a second offence, prison.

            A third, flogging.

            A fourth, having given them time and ability to reform, just get rid of them.

          6. Well, try reversing that same logic. One of the most common and strident arguments for abortion is that women who have been raped should not have to bear a rapists child. This is the argument that carried the day and still does. (The fact that the child is entirely innocent is set aside). Yet on a statistical basis the number of unwanted pregnancies arising from rap is negligible.
            Same difference vis-a-vis the death penalty. I am utterly opposed to abortion on moral grounds, and the arguments against the death penalty are very strong. However, for terrorists, I would make an exception.

          7. In that instance the decision is solely the mother’s. In any sense of abortion, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with us (wider society).

          8. Wrong. Totally wrong. Our children are the wider society as are we. The future of our society is for all of society to decide.
            Otherwise why would parents not have every right to kill their children up to the age of sixteen, say?

          9. Indeed there are, Bill. But in this modern age, something needs to be done to deter criminals. If that means at times a miscarriage of justice occurs, then so be it. I used to believe that one miscarriage of justice (e.g. the Timothy Evans and Christie case) was one too many. But now, I think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and – horrendous though the loss of life in those two atomic bombings was – it saved many thousands more innocent deaths.

          11. But sometimes necessary if they act immorally or just plain wrong.

            ‘Morning, Horace.

          12. What wrong were the civilians in the East End, In Dresden, in Nagasaki guilty of?

        3. ‘Morning, George, you and I often have to agree to differ but in this case, I am 100% behind you. Discipline, the rule of law and fear for the retribution.

        4. I’d advocate that a 3rd offence merits a flogging as the individual is obviously an unreformable criminal with no respect for society whatsoever.

          A 4th offence just stop wasting time and string them up. I’m tired of being forced to be nice to those who don’t shar emy values.

        5. In Japan, the death penalty is available for second murders. And others?
          I am inclined to believe it should be there in reserve, for special categories – where there is 100% certainty (more possible nowadays because of film), & in cases of terrorism (like the killer of Lee Rigby etc).
          The harm these creatures are doing IN prison doesn’t bear thinking about.
          *
          Discipline is sorely needed in society. A quick short slap, carried out with discernment, is sometimes the only effective way to stop hysteria.

    2. Sorry, Mr Clark – the spate of recent cases where forensic evidence has been shown to be tainted or biased or, worse still, completely useless – puts me off the restoration of the death penalty.

      On the other hand, for me “life” should me “life” – full stop.

      1. Morning Bill. The prospect of killing an innocent is too much to bear. Your proposal is the better one perhaps with regular examination so as to avoid the same injustice……finding the innocent guilty. I wouldn’t trust the modern police further than I could throw them.

  8. Comments on the DT letter comments show a rising distrust in Boris’s intention. Is he going to gamble on getting a removal of the Backstop and then present the May WA to Parliament for approval. Some of the prominent DT letter commenters are intending to attend the BP Planning meeting. We have the same doubts on this site. Boris is losing our confidence – can he regain it?

    2. The only thing that keeps even the smallest modicum of confidence in Boris is his desire to stay in No10. The very essence of his existence, the fire burning deep in his soul is I believe his belief that he could be a great PM, another Churchill so to speak. He must surely realise that to fudge Brexit at this stage after all his pronouncements amount to little more than political suicide. This is the only reason I have the slightest confidence in him, his ego.

      1. I’m with you on this, VVOF. Johnson has made many pronouncements since he became PM and has raised expectations from the nadir that May drove to achieve. If Johnson agrees to retain the body of the WA and with it control of much of our lives remaining with the EU and ECJ, then he will never win an election. If a deal is to be done with the EU then at most it should be a FTA with no control vested in the EU to impact our sovereignty.
        Currently listening to James Cleverly on LBC talking up the Backstop as the sole ‘sticking point’ to getting a deal. Not looking good for a clean break if Johnson and Co believe that.

        1. One could say The Art of War by Sun Tzu and conversely The Art of Political Suicide by Boris Johnson. No matter, when enough voters sees the betrayal, a certain Mr Farage will have to be given an opportunity to get us out.

        2. I agree about Bojo’s desire to remain in No 10, but I wonder if, because he is a very bright individual with overweening self belief, he will think he can be too clever for us thick electors and, by some sleight of hand, succeed in convincing us that the sow’s ear is, in fact, a silk purse.

      2. However if Britain does not depart the EU on 31st October, with or without a deal, it is guaranteed that will be then end of the Conservative Party.

        1. Agreed, and as it happens I have a Conservative MP who voted for May’s WA on each occasion. With that in mind, he will not get my vote next time round, so the Conservative Party is not guaranteed a long life the way they stand at present.

          2. I made my feelings quite clear to him on more than one occasion. He knows after a lifetime of voting blue, he will not be getting my vote in the future.

    3. Trying to get a deal is the best way forward. The backstop is the key issue that needs to be removed but there are other issues / He should also get a clause in it which commits the EU to giving us an acceptable trade deal within say 2 years. If they do not the deal becomes nul and void

      1. Nonsense, I’m afraid. No deal is the best and only real option. Everything else puts us within the power of the EU, and subject to their pleasure.

      2. A trade deal where neither side applies tariffs would be all that’s needed.

        However, the EU is a strange beast. It likes the high tariff walls applied to goods coming in as that secures the internal market from the outside and ever further isolates the nations of Europe.

        We just want to trade as a low tax, low regulation economy. The EU prevents that.

      2. Good morning all
        With a majority of one, & defections being contemplated, Boris has to play the juggler, & let the no no-dealers believe he is trying.
        At least, I hope so!

      1. The wonderful dramatic vocals of the inimitable Tony Williams formed part of the soundtrack of my early youth.

        A far cry from the rap of today!

    6. If he continues to push the WA we’re sunk. It’s a hideous document. The no compete clause alone is cause to shred it.

    7. That has been my fear since he started wittering on about changes to the backstop then finalising a deal. May’s “deal” is nothing short of a surrender document. It needs to be buried with a stake through its heart, never to rise again.

  10. SIR – Your report on the theft of lead from St Peter’s church in Stourton, Wiltshire, highlights the heavy-handedness of diocesan advisory committees in their control of the maintenance of churches, many of which depend on small, elderly congregations for their funding.

    Planning rules prevent the replacement of a lead roof gully, only visible from the air, with fibreglass – a material that is more dependable and durable than lead, and has no scrap value. According to this logic – that only traditional materials should be used – electric wiring should never have been introduced into churches.

    The committees are making it impossible to fund the maintenance of village churches, and are therefore contributing to their decay.

    Jeremy Chamberlayne
    Gloucester

      1. “SIR – Your report on the theft of lead from St Peter’s church in Stourton, Wiltshire, highlights….” Oh, you were talking to Epidermoid (or Jeremy Chamberlayne of Gloucester), Bill. Sorry, pardon!

    3. In many cases the Churches are listed buildings and that may be why it has to be lead

      2. Not according to a cowboy builder/Roofer I got a quote from. He must have though I was a mug. He came out with Lead only last 25 years and that the lead gully’s had tilted and needed replacement and come up with quote of £1800 and this guy had a 5 star rating on one of the check a trader type sites

        Got another guy in and he did the job straight away and charged £50. All it was the dormer gulley’s needed cleaning

      3. I don’t think any sensible person or builder would use fibre glass for roofing. IT is as you say far to brittle and inflexible. At the moment there appears to be nothing better than lead for the flashing even modern houses still use it and lead is expensive. Could be some money to be made if someone can come up with a viable alternative

  11. Social worker ‘stabbed to death during work visit to Birmingham house’ as man is charged with murder

    A social worker who was stabbed to death at a house in Birmingham has been named and pictured as neighbours paid tribute to ‘a lovely woman’.
    Belinda Rose, 63, was discovered after officers were called to a house of multiple occupancy in the Perry Barr area at around 1.50pm on Saturday. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
    Inderjit Ram has since been charged with her murder after his arrest on Saturday.

    1. WTF was a social worker, particularly 63 year old female, visiting a house of multiple occupancy on her own?
      H O M O is shorthand for dumping ground for social misfits and psychos.

    2. Probably looking for the loo and a snack bar.

      Dear life, why can’t we just bull doze these wasters into the sea?

      I know the state wants them to make itself feel good, but the price of their ego is too high.

  12. NHS will mot fund IVF for Single woman

    Seems a sensible decision. It should probably in my view in general not be providing IVF at all

    1. It provides one go, and the rest is self funding.

      Which, being honest is a bit unfair as it penalises those couples who for no fault of their own can’t conceive naturally.

      For those wanting children for vanity purposes of course it should be denied.

      1. No . the NHS in general will not provide IVF to single woman. Some NHS trust will fund one round of treatment some will not

        If they cannot conceive naturally but that just one of those things. They can adopt

  13. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d9a4b68e82cfdb6d664f656ef4d96631ce277614c0e3faef108edd2158ae81e.gif
    Annual apology

    Over the past few months I have posted some inappropriate pictures and jokes to friends who I thought shared the same sense of humour. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and I seem to have upset quite a few people who have accused me of being sexist and shallow.

    If you were one of these people, please accept my sincerest apologies. Looking to 2020 onward, I will only post or send e-mail with a cultural or educational content such as old monuments, nature and other interesting topics.

    Below is a picture of the Pont Neuf Bridge in Paris. It is the oldest bridge in Paris and took 26 years to build. It was completed in 1604.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a927ab962d5e0610682348ba15f5c4cd64bda23547e2ad27ffb56d484d4c12b5.jpg

    OH CRAP, WHERE DID SHE COME FROM????

    2. Happens all the time. You go to take a nice photograph, wait for the right light, and someone parks a jetty in the river spoiling the shot.

    6. I am sure the ASA will be banning your Red Rose as it may be offensive to Greens, Lib-Dems and Conservatives

      1. Glad to hear it, Delboy and Good morning.

        I sincerely believe a good laugh every day (even at our selves) is good for the constitution.

  14. May’s Betrayal of the British People

    AS more information comes out on Brexit it in my view has become increasingly clear that far from trying to achieve Brexit May was actively trying to sabotage it

      1. I suspect the EU are waiting for things to die down before May goes off to a new plum EU job

    1. ‘Morning, Bill, I would say, from experience, it is nothing new. I am the youngest of 9 siblings and my parents view (which was put into practice) was that children and animals are brought up with the same disciplines, to respect others and to be aware of the punishment for failing to observe it.

      The modern (fatherless) families seem to put the little darlings on a pedestal, satisfy their every whim and then wonder why they go bad.

      1. It appears that some groups are up in arms because she suggest using a clicker. If you want to control a child or dog that is misbehaving the first thing you need to do is to get the child’s or dogs attention. That can be a using a clicker , a raised voice, a whistle or even by clapping your hands

      2. Not only fatherless ones.

        I know several married couples who refuse to tell their children off because they, “Don’t want to humiliate them.”

        Barking.

        1. Which in my mind is part of the reason we have high levels of crime. No one has ever said no to them so they lash out when they don’t get their own way. Some of the knife crime seem to fall into that category. They demand someone’s watch or phone and then when they don’t give it to them they stab them

      3. I know one little girl whose father goes everywhere with her – I think she’s still being potty trained.⛵

    2. My dog is considerably better behaved than the feral brats I have the misfortune to encounter.

  16. The EU

    What the Remainers will not tell us or they do not know is that the ultimate goal for the EU and that goal is getting ever closer is for a Federal Europe . WE would then have no UK government and would have no control t all over key policies such s Interest Rates. Borrowing money. Public debt. Pensions and Pension age, Defence. Taxation. NHS. The pound would go and be replaced by the Euro

    Under the EU it would be pretty certain our NHS would change and would no longer be totally free at the point of use

    1. We don’t have a great deal of control over those matters now, except by throwing out the government at a general election. Probably there wouldn’t even be that much in a USE.

  17. Another hideous picture at the top of the page.

    Can nothing be done to remove it? Just asking…

    2. Go into your profile, Bill, then click “View” on one of your comments. Pic gone and blue text restored. The only downside is that that particular comment will appear at the top of the thread all day. Morning by the way!

      1. Good day, Our Susan.

        Thanks. I have done that. But will prolly revert.

        Did you go to the Hough porm? I have reviewed it below!!

        1. I did, yes. I saw your review!

          The piano doesn’t have the brightness and resonance of a full concert grand and will sound much better in a smaller space but that said, it’s a sound that I warm to once past the initial adjustment. I do like Mendelssohn. The songs are not in Schubert’s league but then how many songwriters are? For an amateur I think Albert was really quite talented. There are some nice phrases which a more sophisticated composer might have developed to better effect.

          A friend commented that Prince Albert was more cultured and intelligent than Queen Victoria, which is doubtless true though it reminded me that her sketchbook does show a talent for drawing. Aristocrats of their generation were expected to acquire such accomplishments? One might be tempted to make comparisons with the current crop?

          1. Too sugary for my liking!

            As for your last sentence – just don’t go there (as the young say)!!

    1. Yes, it was. The scandal was a major cause of the Protestant Reformation. I wonder if that will happen with Climatology?

      2. I was thinking we’re due for a New Reformation.
        The ‘scientists’ well paid for ‘research’ are now the fat priests.

    2. Brilliant comparison!

      They are hypocrites, but maybe that’s the price of friendship?

  19. Good morning all
    Chilly overnight. Our heating came on for half an hour this morning. Temperature must have been below 20C.
    Off to bowls selection for the next 3 matches now.
    Hopefully see you all later.

      1. Afternoon Bill,
        That’s why we have our heating on 24/7 x 365. The house never gets cold and stops the boiler working to no avail. When we started doing that it shaved 20% off the gas bill that year.

    2. For some reason my electricity monitor thing is showing me using about 85p before 8:30 when I head off.

      The routine hasn’t really changed as it used to be about 30p, coming home to about 45. It’s annoying. Way below budget (as it’s summer, in winter it goes the other way) but it’s still really ‘what’s using the power’.

  20. Tasers to be issued to all Northamptonshire’s frontline officers after ‘sickening trend’ of attacks. ITV report. 20 August 2019.

    Tasers will be issued to every frontline police officer in Northamptonshire, in response to what’s been called a “sickening trend” of attacks on the emergency services.

    The force’s Chief Constable Nick Adderley said the decision was not taken lightly, but was necessary to combat the threat of those who have no respect for law.
    It will take 18 months to roll out and cost around £220,000.

    We all know where this will end. The bad guys will be unimpressed and the gap between the Police and the General Public, which is already an abyss, will widen as irate motorists and Speech Crime perpetrators are Tasered casually for minimal reasons.

    https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2019-08-20/tasers-to-be-issued-to-all-northamptonshire-s-frontline-officers-after-sickening-trend-of-attacks/

    2. The money is trivial. The problem isn’t going to be solved with escalation.

      The solution is discipline in society at every level.

      1. The problem would be solved by getting a grip of the bad guys. Deport without trial anyone who should not be here. Harass and hunt the others. Forget about online insults and speed traps. If the police were actually protecting us the bad guys would be afraid to leave their houses.

  21. Now this ones a corker,how much will Reg’s generous “Carbon Offset” payment actually cost him??

    Fluck All

    It’s almost certainly tax deductable

    So rich slebs get to virtue signal and castigate the plebs for free

    “Some of the organizations offering them, however, are 501(c)(3) nonprofits, meaning your purchase may be tax deductible. And some businesses feel purchasing carbon offsets is a way to assure customers they are doing all they can to compensate for their pollution.”

      1. Reginald White is Elton John’s real name and he is offsetting his carbon footprint in order to illustrate to the world at large what a prat conscientious person he is

          2. I had thought of that, Bill, but rejected it, as being too deep and too long ago for some.

        2. Ah, with you now. Thanks NoToNanny.

          It seems we have all these ecomentalist celebrities and politicians desperate to tell us how great they are while being the ones causing the problem they waffle on about, while denying the option to us proles.

          Where have we seen that before? Oh yes. In that Orwell book about a dystopian future.

    1. It is strange is that all he keeps banging on about is the Irish Backstop. The whole Withdrawal Agreement is toxic and remains so even if the Irish Backstop were deleted.

      1. I’m hoping he knows this, and knows the EU won’t possibly let the backstop go – it’s a control mechanism after all – and is thus playing politics.

      3. Boris should not be trusted and his party is for the dustbin if he accepts May’s surrender WA in any way, shape or form.

    2. I am still at a loss as regards the Good Friday Agreement. I have read through it but have clearly missed the bits about managing the NI/Eire border.
      If the EU responds to this letter in any way other than saying ” not open to discussion” they will have de facto entered into renegotiating. This is something that they have repeatedly stressed that they will not do.

      Edit. Having managed to read the above letter, Boris actually spells this out in the paragraph immediately prior to “Next Steps”. The GFA does not depend on any particular border control.

    3. Why do these fluckers have to be so matey? It is all phoney. Let’s revert to the older, staider modes of address.

        1. ‘Morning, Spikey, that’s a very ‘in’ joke.

          Bill may not be aware that the cinemas on RAF Camps were always named ‘The Astra’.

          1. You jest, Tom.

            I was born and brought up for the first 18 years within sight and sound of RAF stations! Countless times I went to the Astra.

          2. Forgive my ignorance of that fact, Bill, I was not around when Trenchard set up the RAF in your back garden.

          5. Strange Inflight refuellings I have been involved with/seen

            1. We inflight refuelled an RN Sea King, from the back of a Frigate, The ship’s fuelling hose was winched up by the crewman, who then connected it manually

            2. Whilst on the same Frigate, after doing an ‘evacuation exercise’ at sea with a USN Sea Stallion helo, it then was inflight refuelled by a Hercules. It looked weird

  24. Watched a German chap on last night’s telly – Dieter Rams, a designer – and although in his eighties, he still works and has all his marbles.

    One of his design philosophies struck a chord with me, being of simple mind, and should be nailed on every politician’s and every business leader’s door:

    Less, but better.

    2. I watched that too. They no longer produce some of these great designs as the term “planned obsolescence” will not apply. So they cannot sell a new version every year. Items like “vintage” Braun alarm clocks go for high prices at auction.
      I do wish they would keep “Less but better” in mind when they design the dashboards of cars. (Like the original Mini with one dial.)

      Next up Bauhaus 100 on Wednesday.

      1. There’s a flea market every week in town and umpteen charity shops, such is the amount of stuff thrown away to make room for ‘this year’s’ model or fashion.

        As was said last night, the hamster wheel of our throw-away society needs to slow down or stop.

    3. Otherwise known as the KISS design philosophy. Keep it simple, stoopid. (Not you personally!)

    1. Good morning. Still barging? Or just barging in?

      Nice article – thanks for posting it.

      1. Good morning to you and all.
        Bottom’s being black and the stuffing is being replaced in my stern gland so the boat is in dry dock for a couple of days. Garden needs attention so I’m going outside now – I may be a while….

          1. Don’t know about Dobbin – but I’m about to get the combine out!

            Well done all concerned for the successful migration of Nottl.

        2. After reading just the first few words in your post, I thought, “I hope I don’t ever get what he’s got!”.
          Then I read on…

    2. I think that’s a Folland Gnat as used by the Red Arrows many moons ago. I can’t remember what the current trainer is – and the engine referred to is a jet engine, not a jett.

          7. I know – and they were very similar. My observation was that the earlier packaging of the model wasn’t as slick as this.

      1. It demonstrates, once again, the crassness of sub-editors on what were once great national newspapers.

        1. They do not check anything. They do not support anything with facts or reason.
          If they removed unsupported stories and fluff, their pages would be empty. With a hundred things happening around the world every day that might have some impact on us, in some way, whether trade deals, epidemics or scientific discoveries, we get dross.
          If a trivial story supports the current politically correct strident feminist left wing narrative it will get top billing
          Example: “El Salvador: Evelyn Hernández cleared over baby’s death”

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49368632

    7. It’s a trick question , you complete dork. As any fule knos, they’re Spitfires. an’ Hurrcanes, not F35s

    8. Don’t forget that these are the same people who often describe spitfires as ‘Fighter Jets’.

      On the subject of which, a pet bugbear of mine, when and why did the ‘jet fighters’ of our youth morph into the ubiquitous and nonsensical ‘fighter jets’ of the media morons of today?

      2. Worse, they sometimes refer to the Spitfire’s ejection seat! Nah! Lower the seat, pull the ball, elbow the canopy aside, lower the door and fall over the side!

  28. NCA declares war on ‘unexplained wealth’ of county lines drugs gangs

    A single “county line” – where drugs are shipped from cities to towns miles away – can make £800,000 profits in a year. The number of lines have more than doubled in just a year to 2,000, worth an estimated £500 million a year.

    I said, BTL:
    Something’s wrong with the arithmetic here:

    I county line profit = £800,000

    The number has doubled to 2,000

    £800,000 x 2,000 = £1,600,000,000

    Or, as Wogan would have said, “Is it me?”, especially since I tried again as a reply to myself – instantly, whoosh, gone.

    It was immediately moderated off, why, I have no idea.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/19/county-lines-gang-bosses-will-have-homes-cars-watches-seized/

    1. I suspect that the £800k will be a maximum, some will be much less and that the total of the 2,000 lines is estimated at £500Mn or £1/4Mn on average, still huge profits

  29. Teach the young to respect authority to end the chaos and violence on our streets. 20 AUGUST 2019.

    Few Telegraph readers will disagree with Kwasi Kwarteng that the past 20 years have seen a calamitous decline in the respect shown by the public towards figures of authority. Many will have been nodding their heads, too, when the minister called at the weekend for a return “to the levels of deference that we saw in the past”. He cited the Prime Minister’s pledge to put an extra 20,000 officers on the street over the next three years as a “good place to start”. And after the shocking death of a 28-year old PC in Berkshire last week, it is clear that we cannot go on as we are.

    Morning everyone. The decline in deference to “figures of authority” in the UK is that they are undeserving of any; indeed the vast majority merit only contempt. The reason for this is essentially the endemic corruption, political, moral and financial, of the elites! There is no actual cure. We must go on until the whole thing collapses and a new system arises. Whether people will like its replacement is doubtful since history tells us that the end of decadent polities is characterised by instability and violence followed by oppression.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/20/teach-young-respect-authority-end-chaos-violence-streets/

    1. Morning Minty

      The decline in deference to figures of authority, yes spot on but…. a big but .. we seem to live in a first name world now , where over familiarity is so widespread.

      On another subject, it seems that the BBC are really trying to bring down the government . The BBC have their opinions and damn everyone else!

      1. ‘Morning, Belle. I turned off Toady just now as they are in rabid anti-Brexit mode, with interviewing that is even more lame than usual. In particular a woman with a Spanish-sounding name was allowed to embark on a lengthy rant about the requirement for EU nationals to register if they wish to stay, at one stage describing the process as “patronizing” – despite the fact that approximately a million have already done so. She sounded very much like an anti-Brexit ‘plant’ to me, a mouthy activist with a very large axe to grind. Just what the Brusells Broadcasting Corpn was looking for, in fact.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c41554cb2e97cadcdd349533cada548d8687ffcf5df3af3c83c4aea88f166c5b.gif

        1. Good morning Hugh.

          So did I, and of course the other channel is just as bad . I feel we are being bombarded by spit and dribble from every quarter.

          1. And bloody “climate change” – I’m fed up with all the propaganda they continually spout.

          3. I did watch most of it in manageable chunks yesterday – I gave up on the last few minutes as I found his voice rather grating. I might try again to see what the “happy ending” is. He’s obviously pushing his book too.

        3. As was the ‘Irish’ minister who was blatantly pro EU and lied and lied about the ‘border’ and how we must accept the entire withdrawal agreement with that intact.

          Of course he did.

    2. What is deference to “figures of authority”? Who are these? Doctors, priests, town councillors, MPs, policemen? They are all paid to work for us. In some cases they are actually classed as “public servants”.
      How about they defer to us? The last time we were stopped by the police for a “random check” on our car (not actually sanctioned by any law) the police got aggressive and hysterical when I questioned them. At no point was I, a well dressed,* well groomed* middle aged person referred to with courtesy. They did not call me “sir”.

      * An admittedly rare occasion.

    4. ‘Morning, Minty. Respect has to be earned, but these days “the authorities” seem to be determined to destroy what is left of it by their conduct. Mincing, uniformed police officers joining in on Pride marches doesn’t help, either.

    5. If he means respecting the police, that’s the fault of
      allowing silly women with daft hair cuts into the force and
      prancing about at gay pride events
      painting their cars,
      stopping stop and search,
      promoting rights above responsibilities
      A weak and Left wing judiciary
      A lack of sensible punishments for crime
      The continual reward for anti social behaviour,
      the repeated assault on the decent for ‘what they say’ and ignoring ‘those who do’

      Having been assaulted by a thug, and having a police car appear around the corner – not blind luck, but the endless CCTV to catch number plates over the toll bridge – and hearing said thug wailing that ‘if he were done again the judge send him down’ and hearing from the officer that he had a string of convictions for thuggery and assault I wrote to the judge who didn’t bother to reply. After all, she had a police detail and would never encounter these scum.

      If he means the state, well, it deserves it.

      The government cannot be respected. Putting the letters MP after your name just means you’re a servant of the people. When they decide to not be servants they are irrelevant and should be mocked.

      All the hug a hoodie, green nonsense and yet lecturing about responsibility and welfare has just created a class of vermin. Labour’s children. The dissolution of the family, the denigration of responsibility, of deference and respect has just created chaos.

      The London riots were an opportunity to beat some sense into those brats. Repeated cavalry charges, rubber bullets and paint balls. If they still kept coming, live rounds. Stuff them. They had a choice.

  31. From Conservative Woman……………..

    ”How green is St Greta’s ark ? Er, not very”………………

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-green-is-st-gretas-ark-er-not-very/

    ”It holds that the restoration of environmental equilibrium, the reversal of Man’s Fall from the Garden of Eden, requires above all sacrifice and submission to an elite, who will dispense indulgences – aka ‘carbon’-credits – while intolerantly silencing and excommunicating the heretics.”

    1. The article does not mention that; “The yacht currently has a 377kg combustion engine system but there are plans in place to upgrade this to an environmentally friendly electric motor with batteries charged from solar”.
      However, he could have read all his other information on here several days ago…

      1. Morning D,
        But they did gain more success in bringing these Isles down when becoming a pro eu lab/lib/con coalition.

      2. Not quite, Del.

        Wilson closed the most with 253 in two terms, beating Macmillan by just 7 (Thatcher’s administration closed 115). However the totals (below) show the true picture.

        The basic fact is, though, that the coal-mining industry has been declining since the 1920s so closures, whoever was in power, were inevitable.

        Pit Closures (Deep Mine) by Government

        1947-1951 Lab (Attlee) 101
        1951-1956 Con (Churchill) 78
        1956-1957 Con (Eden) 35
        1957-1963 Con (Macmillan) 246
        1963-1964 Con (Home) 24
        1964-1970 and
        1974-1977 Lab (Wilson) 253
        1970-1974 Con (Heath) 26
        1977-1979 Lab (Callaghan) 4
        1979-1990 Con (Thatcher) 115
        1990-1997 Con (Major) 55
        1997-2007 Lab (Blair) 12
        2007-2010 Lab (Brown) 1
        2010-2015 Con/Lib Coalition (Cameron) 2
        2015-2016 Con (Cameron) 1

        Total Conservative = 583
        Total Coalition = 2
        Total Labour = 371

        http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/individual/Bob_Bradley/PM-Closures.html

    2. There is a lot of venom directed her in the comments there.Unlike Theresa May, she ran the show and knew what she was doing, like it or not.

    3. And 20 years later the country is poor, indebted and pesimistic again.

      Look what happened. 13 years of a Labour government and another 10 of another Labour government pretending to be Conservatives.

    1. “Typical low-testosterone leftist. Probably drinks a lot of soy-milk.” 🙂

      That was a good clip.

    1. Didn’t they have a recession in the 1930’s ? They solved it by taking over a lot of European countries.
      They can’t do that now. They’ve already done it.

      1. It is the application of the thumbscrews to those countries that the German politicos are gearing up to do now. Merkel and Selmayer seem particularly comfortable in that role.. Greece – just a preamble…a little taster of what is to come. Unless the EU implodes.

        Leopards don’t change their spots, and Kaiser Wilhelm lives on.

    3. People who know more about German economics than I do have been saying that Germany has been “massaging the figures” for months now and “rounding up” whenever they can. But in reality Germany is already in recession and they cannot hide the damage any longer, no matter how they fix the figures.

      Our leaving the eu and taking our money with us will surely leave a warm glow on the German taxpayers faces. Especially when they are asked to pay even more to support the collapsing eu. We don’t want any financial ties to the European corpse when it starts its inevitable fall into the grave.

      1. They have been seriously struggling since they open the door to mass unlimited migration. most of whom were unskilled and even now most are still unemployed

        1. It is almost as if Mrs Merkel, Mr Macron and Mrs May have been deliberately trying to damage their own countries with mass immigration. I am sure that they will be rewarded for their efforts to bring Europe to its knees.

          1. Almost? No doubt of them all will be rich beyond their salaries if not beyond the dreams of avarice, in South America (or similar places). They would obviously rather be rich and wrong, than not-so-rich and decent.

      2. Germany gives money (through the EU) to Greece and Spain and Italy.

        Those nations buy German goods with that cash.

        Those goods keep Germans employed.

        When the economies of the poor countries simply don’t have the ability – because of tax and regulation and, frankly, corruption – to buy goods, the house fo cards collapses. Germany is paying the price for EU membership. Far from being the tyrant, it’s lending the money to try to keep the fantasy of kindness alive. The EU needs to end. It’s is nothing but destructive.

        It’s Chernobyl, gradually poisoning the nations of Europe.

        1. It is the modern way for the eu – conquest by making a country your debt-slave:

          “Here is a lot of money! Enjoy yourselves! We will make arrangements for you to pay it back later. Oh yes… We will be adding some interest to the loans.”

          “What? You cannot make the repayments? Don’t worry! We will take ownership of your banks, airports and sundry infrastructure. We will also loan you more money! As long as you spend half of it buying German goods. I know this puts you deeper in debt and stimulates the German economy at the expense of your children’s future, but don’t worry. We can work something out.”

          “Oh! It appears that we now own your country. Who could have seen that happening? Yet you still have all this unpaid debt… Well, we can let you work it off over the next 70 years.”

          The fly in the ointment is the people seeing what is being done, then standing up and saying “No.”

        3. Germany lends money to poor states keep them buying its exports, and under its thumb. Germany seems to think that it has achieved the economic position it has by clever economics and production. Without US investment after the War, and the UK being practically forced by the US to write off Germany’s war debt (while itself of course keeping the UK’s debt to the US ongoing, yes siree!), Germany would never have gained its current position. Of course, the Euro has also acted totally in Germany’s favour – the D Mark would have priced its goods out of the market. Even the fixed EU single market.

          No wonder Greece started agitating for Germany to start paying its war debt to Greece rather than punishing it. Not that Greece doesn’t deserve a rap for cheating its way into the EU, but that cheating was at Germany’s behest.

          Germany’s behaviour to the rest of the EU has unfortunate undertones of its behaviour during the last 150+ years. IMO that country should be put into quarantine – its politicians and its desire to dominate never seem to go. Partitioning it into two countries after the war was probably 40 countries too few.

      3. Germany really have been struggling since reunification. Real wages have been almost flat since 1990. This has allowed them to keep exporting away and not sucking in imports like most ‘rich’ nations. The populace can’t really afford to import. They also strongly benefit from monetary union on the export side of things. What’s really happening is Germany exports its wealth and swaps that wealth for worthless bit of pretty paper rather than joining the rest of rich nations in consuming.
        When I grew up the German economy was a powerhouse. Many UK people went to work in Germany for the great wages on offer. We even made a TV show highlighting it. Remember Auf Weidersehn Pet? Those days are long gone now, but they try to pretend that they haven’t.

  38. Guardian’s Owen Jones says media has ’emboldened’ far-right after ‘targeted’ assault

    The sort of nonsense you would expect from a far left activist. In my view mot of the violence and problems comes from the extreme left. He ignores of course as well that violence is rife in London and that Islington is one of the hot spot. I suspect in his case it was just a random attack. There is no evidence at all to for his claim it was a far right group. In fact there are very few groups that can in anyway be described as far right.

    1. Owen Jones is a known liar. That he’d lie about this for political capital is not in the least bit unexpected.

    3. He confuses his own attitudes with those he disagrees with.

      The Right minded person does not think ‘I want to hit you to shut you up.’ They just don’t. The right minded person would ask, of the Lefty why they hold those views and attemtpt o understand them. It is the Left who are violent.

      Trying to pretend otherwise is laughable but, as they say, a lie goes twice around the world while the truth gets out of bed and Jones is very definitely a liar.

  40. The new Lib-Dem leader gets ever dafter. She now does not woman jailed except for very serious offences such as Murder. Besides it would probably real equality legislation you will find the courts are already very lenient with woman and few woman are jailed in fact few people are jailed in the UK except for very serious offences or are multiple offenders

    The claim that woman are jailed for things like not paying their TV licences are pretty much false. You would only get jailed as a last resort and then only because they just refused to pay it

    1. “…only because they just refused to pay it”. Or could not pay it. Their kids are then taken into care. Family destroyed. A female magistrate was interviewed on this very subject a few years ago. With smug relish she made it clear that she was very pleased to jail single mums who could not pay fines for not having a TV licence.
      Now put that in the context that none of us here actually support the idea of aTV licence and some claim not to pay.

  41. Truly scandalous by our remoaner chump ex-Chancellor:

    SIR – Charles Moore asks why Philip Hammond doesn’t apply even fiercer strictures to a British trade deal with the EU than he does to John Bolton’s proposed “great trade deal” with the United States.

    As a member of the board of governors of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Mr Hammond signed off on a most unattractive agreement under which Britain would dispose of its interest in the bank on terms that clearly inequitably benefit the EU to our disadvantage.

    Britain owns 16.1 per cent of the EIB. The Withdrawal Agreement provides that Britain will be repaid its nominal capital of €3.5 billion, but will leave its rightful share of the retained earnings, €7.6 billion, for the remaining EU-27 members’ benefit. Worse, Britain only gets back the nominal capital over 12 years in equal instalments, the final one being in December 2030 – and no interest is to be paid during this period.

    This EIB settlement is so obviously completely inequitable that it is surprising that it has not yet received much attention.

    It’s not as though the EIB can’t afford to buy Britain out at fair value. It makes a profit of around €2 billion a year. It has already approved a pro-rata capitalisation of a small part of its extensive reserves to replace Britain’s paid-in capital.

    Ignoring the significant value of deferred payment over 12 years, the £7 billion Britain proposes to give away to the EIB amounts to nearly a fifth of the £39 billion “divorce bill”.

    Was not Mr Hammond’s acceptance of this settlement a further example of the defeatism to which Mr Moore refers?

    Viscount Trenchard (Con)
    London SW1

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/08/19/lettersphilip-hammonds-defeatism-has-landed-britain-scandalously/

    I presume this will get NO coverage from our mainstream broadcasters.

    2. Good God. This name “Philip Hammond “ should be shouted from the rooftops as the worst Chancellor we have ever had and barred from office. I can’t put here what I really want to say about him for the way he has acted over Brexit and the diabolical Withdrawal Agreement.

    1. Hmmmm define ‘doing quite well’?

      If that means growth at less than half of normal, and private debt at crisis levels, and wages lower than they were in 2007 in real terms then yes we’re doing quite well. If you mean the low unemployment because full-time jobs have been split into two or even three part-time roles so that employers can avoid NI then yes we’re doing quite well.

      1. Looking at this and your earlier comments, you seem to be a Corbynite socialist with a thing about the National Minimum Wage.
        Are you sure that you are on the right board ?
        The country is doing fine, despite, not because of, our politicians of any party.

        1. You don’t know me at all. I’ve never voted Labour in my life and think Corbyn is a complete pratt. Trouble is I also think most Tories are complete pratts too, just in a different way.
          I believe if we have a NMW then it should be enforced. What’s wrong with that? Enforce it or get rid of it. Don’t have a law saying a minimum has to be paid and then ignore all the employers that refuse to pay it.

          1. OK, you just didn’t come over well. I agree about the NMW and look with contempt on those businesses who say it will kill them.
            The three jobs all in phony self-employment is definitely a racket. To be fair the authorities have been trying to squash it, starting with Uber. Having more than one job is not a bad thing for those that it suits.
            Remember that the employe prticipants in the selfemployment racket will also come out of it badly when they become employees. They will get their holiday pay, but will pay tax on everything they earn..

          2. I don’t blame employers doing what the tax system and laws incentivize. Yet to say we’re doing well is rather crass.

            Look at any job site for retail jobs. You will see they have been split into 8 hour shifts, 16 hour shifts and sometimes 24 hour shifts. This keeps employers NI bills negligible or non-existent. The tax system incentivizes this. The downside is that full-time work is largely no longer available. It makes employment figures look great, yet tax revenues look really low for the amount of people in work and the benefits bill remains stubbornly high even though these days it’s almost impossible to qualify for wage top-up benefits.

            More than one in four adult workers only has part-time hours. At last count almost 9 million people were employed part-time only.

            Many small employers are forcing their staff into self-employment to deny them basic holiday rights such as holiday pay even though they only work for one employer so really can’t be considered truly self-employed, nor can they send a substitute to do their job. I have been on the receiving end of that, and I am about to do so again. I start work tomorrow at £3.50 per hour for 38 hours work this week, working for one employer yet to gain this job I have had to agree to self-employed status. That’s almost a fiver an hour under the NMW. If I do OK in these 38 hours then next week I’ll be working for 48 hours (4 x 12 hr shifts) for £7 per hour, still £1.30 below NMW. The shifts will most likely be 6pm to 6am too. Obnoxious hours and not even paid properly yet I’m supposed to feel eternally grateful for them. I’ll receive no holiday pay, no employment rights, yet I can’t send a substitute to do the job, it’s not real self-employment. I live in London and this is fairly common-place around here.

          3. I’m glad you’ve found another job Thayaric and I hope it works out better than the last one. Still if you only work for one employer it is not self employment as you know. Needs must though and good luck.

          4. Which is why I haven’t mentioned that we are moving at the earliest opportunity. I’m going to earn whatever I can get from him, use the money to pay down my overdraft and cover monthly bills. There might even be enough left for a joint or three something I haven’t had in over three months.
            I know I’m taking a chance working for cash and not declaring income but I’m not claiming any benefits so the government is unlikely to look all that closely at my financial affairs. It’s only going to be a stopgap job until we move and i have a chance to find something better in a whole new area.
            I’ll be so glad to be out of London.
            On the other hand there’s a chance my wife will move without me. She’s incredibly pissed that i keep letting employers take the complete mickey out of me. First my parents, then the idiot indian guy, and now this new guy (who btw is also an indian). She’s annoyed that I bring home next to no money each week and she feels put upon that she has to support me. Well it wasn’t me that changed benefit rules, and i try constantly to find work even to the point of working for pathetic money just to bring a few quid home. We’ll see what happens when we sell the flat but there’s a fair chance our relationship will be over and i’ll be homeless again.

          5. You are very smart and I have enjoyed, and been illuminated by, your views on economics, tax and stuff. I do not know enough about the detail to argue much. However there can surely be no argument that the importation of cheap immigrants has hurt the working class of this country. If the immigrants work, they work for low wages for big employers like Serco. If they do not work they are housed in cheap housing owned by companies like Serco who are paid the housing benefits directly. The capitalist exploiters win either way.

          6. Absolutely and it’s a point I made in another post about why wages remain stubbornly low.
            We don’t have a labour market of 40M people as we have open borders to a 500M strong labour market which has above average levels of unemployment and 75% of it lower wages than the UK. This gives an illusion of the UK being the land of milk and honey. On top of that reading any right-leaning British newspaper gives the impression that we throw free housing at immigrants and oodles of benefits to welcome them, and most of our media are right-leaning. The truth of course is very different but they don’t find that out until they get here and wonder why they don’t get a free house.
            On top of the constant influx of cheap labour from abroad we have made unions and thus collective wage bargaining largely a thing of the past. Unions weren’t all bad as many here would have you believe. There should be a place for collective wage bargaining. Productivity is up massively since the eighties yet wages haven’t kept pace with rising productivity. Instead wages are kept low, profits are very high and the productivity gains have been mopped up by executives who also largely hold many of the high dividend paying shares as they are the people with the money to invest in them.
            My generation has a lower earning power than my parent’s had, and all signals point to my kid’s generation having a lower earning power than my generation enjoys. As a whole we are going backwards which is only slightly covered up by technological progress as in all the well we didn’t have mobile phones and large flat screen TVs when we were working posts from pensioners. Hardly surprising really, they weren’t invented back then.
            Capitalism and a market economy is the best way of organising the economy, but the low direct taxation and high indirect taxation pushes the tax burden heavily onto the lower middle classes. It’s no joke to say that the size of the middle class has almost halved over the previous forty years with most moving downwards into the traditional working class. This is really unexpected for a rich nation that should have eradicated poverty, especially in-work poverty years ago.

          7. You are wrong about the media. Most of it is left-leaning! Bbc, Ch4, SKY etc. and a majority of newspapers are lefty.

          8. No they are neoliberal. Where do you see the papers calling for socialism, collective bargaining, collectivism?

            They seem left to you because of their stances on social issues but left and right denote economic positioning.

          9. Oh dear……I’m sorry to hear that. You’ve both been under a lot of stress so I hope you can work it out together. But if not – then all the best.

          10. Why does your wife feel “put upon” because she supports you? I supported, or was the higher wage earner of my ex-husband and me, for years.

            It’s only when he started taking his position as main beneficiary for granted, and didn’t respond like-for-like when he earned more than I (in the IT millenium scare boom), that I started to feel used. We had a very acrimonious divorce and I am so happy to have got shot of him! But I had no problem with being the higher earner as such, only the opportunism that he later exposed. Do you think there might be other factors involved rather than just earning ability?

          11. We used to get working tax credit and child tax credit and child benefit which helped out. Amy grew up and so that ended the child subsidies, and the austerity and destruction of the benefits system killed any wage top-ups even though my wife was the sole household earner and is only paid even now at £9.50ph which is not exactly a great wage for London. Things weren’t too bad when I had a small wage coming in, then I had 10 months of unemployment, and Amy is home for the university break eating us out of house and home and yet all we have is her £9.50ph. She works in a hard job with sometimes obnoxious hours, plenty of last minute call-ins as people these days throw sickies on a whim with 10 minutes notice. She’s always tired and het-up. My lack of income has been the last straw for her. I was earning quite a bit of money when we met but illness and a changing industry killed that and we’ve basically lived on the breadline for 15 years. Some of it was healthy for my daughter’s upbringing. She knows what it is like to have nothing. She’s very grounded rather than a spoiled world owes me an income for doing little type. For that reason we managed through 15 years of not very much. Now she’s wanting a better life, she’s fed up living in poverty despite working very hard in the care industry. I’ve also put on 5 stone in middle age. I’m not as fanciable as I once was which really isn’t helping either. I don’t eat very much, only 2 meals most days and some days only one but I just can’t seem to stop putting weight on.

            I try not to take my wife for granted but in all honesty I probably do a little bit. I do more than my fair share of housework, and nearly all of the cooking.

            I don’t want a relationship of 22 years to end.

          12. Re the weight gain; perhaps the meals you eat are not sufficiently nutritious. Veggies are filling and cheap. Try cutting out wheat if you can. I struggle with my weight (and always have), but I find that ditching bread and wheat products has enabled me to lose weight and keep it off. It’s worth a try.

          13. Have you talked – really talked – to your wife in those terms? You were the one who earned more when you met. Circumstances changed. So now you are the one who earns less. It may not just be the fact that you don’t earn so much any more – there might well be something more to it. Does she think you don’t try hard enough? Does she think you could do something else?

            Could you try something completely different, like, oh I don’t know, moving to a town with a uni. at doing a specialised restaurant that served nothing but home-made soup and specialist cheeses, with special bought-in breads? I once thought that would be a good idea, but never did anything about it.

          14. Sweetie – and I mean that –

            perhaps losing some weight would help. 5 stone is rather a lot. It could perhaps make the other half of a relationship that you don’t even care if she fancies you or not. Goodness knows I am not putting out reasons, but just little things that might make a difference? It certainly made a difference when my ex- who seemed to me to be doing nothing to pull his weight (I had baby twins and had to go back to work while he was “telephoning” a business. Half the time when I came back I saw him in the garden standing just staring out into space). And he got rather fat.

            Initially he wanted to be a “househusband” because I earned more than he did. I think he also thought that being at home with babies was a doddle.;But when he was “building up his business” I still had to pay for a full-time nanny for the children for the days I was working and he was “working” at home.. And I wouldn’t work more than part-time or else I would never have seen the children.

            Anyway, I digress. Please try to find out why you wife might want to go without you – you have been together for so long.

          15. Oh dear. Perhaps you are eating too little, so that your body goes into “starvation” mode, and converts everything it can as fast as possible? You were also in the care industry, I believe. I guess you are both looking for work in your preferred area. Very best of luck – but do talk to her about how you feel and tell her how much you love her, and hope that she loves you too.

          16. “Many small employers are forcing their staff into self-employment to
            deny them basic holiday rights such as holiday pay even though they only
            work for one employer so really can’t be considered truly
            self-employed, nor can they send a substitute to do their job. I have
            been on the receiving end of that, and I am about to do so again ”
            Your employer is at some risk of the Revenue jumping on him. This phoney self-employment has been under attack for a number of years, and the only problems have been been the high power legal teams that have fought the Revenue tooth and nail.
            The construction industry is number one for that, and if the Revenue did their job properly the problem would disappear overnight. Unfortunately, in difficult times for the industry, they probably have instructions to look the other way a while.
            (I’m a retired Chartered Accountant with construction industry clients from both sides of the argument).

          17. Thayaric had to take his last employer to a tribunal just to get his wages owed. He won that one.

          18. Thanks. I don’t know the circumstances, but isn’t that a nasty experience but off topic for the point we are discussing ?

        2. Thayaric may have some individual views on economic affairs but he’s correct on part-time jobs, low wages and the cost of living. Much of this has, of course, been the result of open doors immigration. Another consequence of that, and rather less discussed, is the black economy – ‘Indian’ restaurants, kebab houses, ethnic food stores, bunk housing, modern slavery and more.

          1. Yes – see my response to him.
            Don’t just blame the black economy on ethnics. It has ALWAYS been there. Irrespective of who or where. Our HMRC are very much to blame – they have never prioritised tax evasion on grounds of lack of manpower, despite all their hot air over the past couple of years.

          2. This is a bigger black economy than that of the odd-jobbers of old. This is a massive scam by immigrants whose rackets cannot be penetrated because of language and cultural barriers and the reluctance of the authorities to intervene.

          3. I’ve sparred with Thayaric on many occassions as his belief is the state solves the problem and mine is the individual does.

            Evidence suggests that if the individual solves the problem they don’t fall back to poverty. If the state does it they always do.

            Fundamentally the minimum wage priced some people out of the labour market. Some are just not worth £8 an hour – or £20 once you factor in heat, light, kit and taxes.

            Thus to create a way for those people to have work, zero hours was invented, bypassing all the permanent costs and keeping the employee cheap.

            Most don’t understand this. That’s understandable, but you cannot have min wage and not zero hours contracts. One is a response to the other. What those demanding both never talk about is cutting corporation tax and employer NI. They seem to think that companies exist to provide for their employees. Yes, some companies exploit their employees. No question (been there).

            However in that circumstance the solution is to leave the job and get another. That’s elasticity in demand and supply. It makes companies compete for employees.

            However, the same people wailing about zero hours and min wage also want massive uncontrolled immigration. It’s as if they don’t understand the slightest thing about basic economics.

            I despair – the greed and stupidity of those demanding companies just pay more is absurd. The companies will fold creating more employment. The solutions are the opposite of everything they want.

          4. I don’t believe that the state solves the problem. I believe I have a better understanding of the economic and monetary systems of our economy than you do.
            For instance you still believe that tax revenues pay for spending which is utterly preposterous. Your view that the government only has the money it steals from us is also preposterous. Maybe you can explain where the money to save the banks came from as it wasn’t borrowed or from tax revenues.
            Do you also believe that banks are merely intermediaries between saver and borrower matching those with too much money to those with too little and taking a cut for the matching? Again that would be wrong-headed.
            Governments like the UK spend by creating money, banks make loans again by creating the money. Taxes withdraw money from the economy that was already created to be spent. This is largely so we don’t suffer inflation. It also alters behaviour to that which the government think is a good idea. The government wants more use of public transport, more car sharing and fewer drivers on the roads, it makes fuel tax excessively high. That’s to complete it’s aims not to fleece you of money so they can then waste it. The government wants fewer smokers so again they get taxed into oblivion. And so on. The fact that taxes can only be paid in pounds and not in euros or bitcoin or solid gold means we all need pounds. Taxes create a domestic demand for the state’s currency.

          1. Does that mean that they found a load more pimps and pushers to include in the accounts?

          2. When they raided the pikeypark the other day and saw the wealth they just added a per capita gypallowance to the gross figures.

      2. Private debt is due to high taxes.

        Growth is he fault of Eu regulation – that’s why we voted to leave, after all.

        Wages are low because of tax and regulation. We’re held back by the stagnationthe socialist EU imposes.

        The solution then is to scrap employer NI. Why tax a company for creating a job? However, big state doesn’t think like that.

        At every level, the problem is a massive government, too much regulation and high taxes.

        1. Private debt is high due to austerity as I told you in 2010 this would happen. Even Osborne knew it would and it was in his early forecasts. Yet private debt is higher now than the level that broke the banks. It’s only a matter of time until we reach tipping point again and massive amounts of debt defaults.

          Growth is low due to a lack of investment and malinvestment. This is the same reason for productivity stalling.

          Wages are low because there is no chance of collective bargaining and open doors to a 500M strong labour market.

          Large government, regulation and taxation are not really to blame even though I know you so love to blame them. Businesses are very lightly taxed in the UK.

          Employers NI has been consistently shown to hit wages rather than business profits. Even though the employer hands over the cash, it’s really the employee paying the price in a lower wage than would be available in its absence. Taxes always hit the most inelastic factor and for most of the wage spectrum that’s the employee. It’s only when we get into top levels and headhunting particular staff that the situation reverses. This is because the company will pay whatever it needs to for these staff members and is thus the most inelastic factor.

          1. Have to disagree with you on a fundamental point.. Small businesses (ie turnover of less than £250k pa) are taxed at ridiculously high levels in this country.

          2. What?

            Negligible amounts of corporation tax?

            They will pay high business rates for a great location or low rates for siting themselves away from the High Street where rents are more normal. Business rates are a location tax so of course those with the best, most high value locations, will pay quite highly for that privilege, yet everyone has a choice to where to site themselves.

            Employers NI isn’t a business tax it’s an employee tax.

            We have very low business taxation in the UK when compared to other nations in Europe, or the USA.

          4. Yes I did Bill. But he screwed up the NI. He put four weeks money through the payroll as if it had all been earned in a single week. I only got 1 weeks NI allowance instead of four and that cost me about 90 quid. He also paid a month late on each payment just because it infuriated me and he could get away with it.

          6. Nope, but I did consider putting a brick through his head. I had a firearm placed to my head, neck and back for him and did my best to ensure the robbers didn’t make off with the till and he didn’t even have the decency to pay me properly or on time for it.

          8. No it was quite real. A few businesses in the area got hit. They centred on banks, building societies, post offices and small money transfer shops. We were the latter, we were a Western Union agent.
            They were obviously clueless though about how money transfer works. We had to bank every day and didn’t keep large amounts of cash lying around for receivers.

          9. I’m guessing you’ve never been the director of a small company.
            You’re sounding increasingly like Jill Backson, whose answer to everything is more tax and regulation.

          10. I had my own small ltd company when I was contracting and ran my family’s business for over ten years which operates as a partnership.

            Where do I suggest tax is the answer to everything? I simply pointed out that the tax regime for small business here is nowhere near as onerous as elsewhere. Don’t believe me? Move your business to USA or France and see how you like their regimes. Quite unusual for someone intelligent enough to be a doctor ( medical or otherwise) to have a comprehension problem of simple English.

            What is this ridiculous level of tax that our small businesses have to pay? Put forward some evidence for your argument instead of miscomprehending mine.

          11. I’ve run a (successful) medical devices small company for many years, outside my normal employment. My business partner and I moved the company to Singapore when we first became successful, as the taxation regime is much less onerous meaning we could employ more people.
            I do not feel the need to insult fellow NoTTlers to make a point, as I have first hand experience of what I’m talking about.

          12. I’m glad you are doing well.

            There are of course countries with even lighter business tax regimes than us, but really ours is not too bad at all.

            Still waiting for evidence of your argument that our small businesses are very overtaxed.

            Corporation tax is 19%. VAT is paid by the consumer mostly and there’s a special scheme for small businesses whereby they pay a set percentage but don’t claim input VAT back which often works out as less expensive. Employers NI especially for small businesses is paid largely by employees, at least that is where the incidence is even though the employer is parting with the cash, and business rates depend highly on location and the amount of land consumed which is a choice.

            Again where is this overtaxation?

            I’m sorry you felt insulted. I did too, you misconstrued every word I said. I apologise for being a touch curt in my reply.

          13. I’m happy to accept your apology – thank you.
            In reality, it’s the double taxation suffered as a company director. In the UK, having paid 19% on any profits you are then faced with punitive dividend taxes which is a massive disincentive to be more successful. I don’t have issues with business rates as we subcontracted out the manufacturing aspects of the company.
            I also don’t understand your point about employers NI being “largely paid by employees” ?

          14. Just because you hand over the pound notes doesn’t mean it’s you actually paying the tax. In economic terms which is really what matters, you have the statutory incidence but the employee is the one made worse off by the tax they have the economic incidence. This should be a simple concept to grasp. For much of the payscale it’s the employee that is the inelastic factor. They desperately need the job, the employer can employ anybody, they are elastic. Taxes always hit the most inelastic factor. In the absence of employers NI your costs would be exactly the same, your prices exactly the same but the employee wage would be larger roughly by the amount of the missing employers NI.
            Stamp duty is another tax that isn’t paid by who you really think is paying the tax. Even though it’s the buyer paying the pound notes over, the statutory incidence it is really the vendor that is made worse off, he has the economic incidence. If stamp duty wasn’t there the house price would be higher and the costs to the buyer just the same. The vendor wants to sell his one house, he is inelastic, the buyer has a choice of houses he can buy, he is elastic.
            At the top end of the payscale employers NI is paid by the employer. An employer headhunting a particular employee and paying whatever is necessary to secure than one particular employee pays the employers NI in its entirety. In that situation the company has become inelastic, it wants just that one employee, none other will do, and it will pay whatever it needs to secure that guy’s labour.
            There have been quite a few studies into economic incidence of taxation, and they all agree, employers NI is largely paid by the employee in a lower wage even though it is the employer parting with the cash.
            Employers NI is really a misnomer, and it is the naming of it and the fact that you are parting with the cash that makes you see it as a business taxation. Many business owners are actually playing it by ear learning as they go along and have no grounding in economic theory, it is no surprise they see things the way that they do even though it has been proven to be a myth ( except at the top end of the pay spectrum).
            Most small business owners are paying close to minimum wage, not headhunting people they are going to pay hundreds of thousands to. Employers NI isn’t really a cost to them.
            Interestingly it has also been found that it is the land-owner that pays business rates even if it is the tenant actually handing over the cash. Business rates are 100% capitalised into rents over the short to medium term. This has been proven over and over again in many studies. You can see it in action in enterprise zones. The rents in the zone are much higher than the rents just outside.
            The lesson to learn is just because you hand over the cash doesn’t mean you are the one actually paying the tax.

  43. From our Royal Correspondent

    It’s reported that Prince Harry’s father is very disappointed with his son.

    Speaking in an interview, James Hewitt said, “Harry is a very troubled man, I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I had great hopes for him when he followed me into the Army but then he got a taste of La Dolce Vita and came off the active list. Next thing, before one could say ‘jigaboo’, he marries a damn’ jungle bunny, starts talking Estuary English and walks about barefoot like some hippie weirdo. Well, he certainly doesn’t get it from me ….. I think he takes after his mother.”

  44. Sir Elton John has defended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s use of private jets – and said he paid to carbon offset their trip to his French home.

    The singer said he provided Prince Harry, Meghan and their son Archie with his private plane to “maintain a high level of much-needed protection”.

    The royal couple have faced criticism after newspapers claimed they took four private jet journeys in 11 days, including to Sir Elton’s home in Nice.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49398852

    So that’s ok then, if you have the dosh to offset the carbon footprint , no need to worry eh?

    https://www.flightradar24.com/49.39,2.59/5

    1. One law for yer rich – another for the rest of us. “Do as I say – not as I do.”

      1. If they are serious about their claim to be carbon neutral by 2030 or whatever the current date is then Carbon trading should be banned it cannot be consistent with being Carbon neutral

    2. ‘Morning, Mags, “maintain a high level of much-needed protection”.

      …and there I was, thinking that our Royal Family are loved and lauded wherever they go.

      Oh, wait a minute…

        1. Is there anything that this idiot(in my view) does not throw in Racist & Xenophobic

        2. “The worst elements” who refuse to accept the result of the referendum, you mean, Lammy?

        3. Let’s hound Mr Lammy instead – not for his race or colour, but because he’s just a good, old-fashioned, bellend.

          1. He’s a racist xenophobic bigot. He hates anyone who doesn’t agree with him and insults them rather than listening to their arguments.

    3. Should we be looking toward discouraging internal UK flights? as Rail is a viable alternative option. (I am excluding NI from this as it is not on the mainland)

      1. Flying is just so blasted awful, that I cannot think why anyone would want to fly on such short journeys.
        Since you have to hang around at airports being treated worse than battery hens for hours before the flight, I doubt it’s a time saving exercise.

    6. The singer said he provided Prince Harry, Meghan and their son Archie with his private plane to “maintain a high level of much-needed protection”.

      But is this true or just a cover story?

    7. I don’t care how many flights he makes and who foots the bill as long as we taxpayers don’t, just tell him not to stand barefoot on a stage and preach to us about climate warming/change/emergency (please delete all those not currently in fashion).
      As regards Carbon offsetting, you keep paying it Elton, it just highlights to the rest of us what sanctimonious fools you luvvies are, you are fooling no one with half a brain!

      1. It’s the hypocrisy that gets up people’s noses.
        In fact, Hal was left enough by Mummy to fund no end of private flights, so probably the taxpayer isn’t involved for holiday trips.
        I do worry about these two placing themselves under obligation to shallow slebs.
        Prince Andrew is the current example of chickens coming home to roost.

        1. Good morning Anne

          The very point I made yesterday. It is sheer stupidity for Harry and his wife to put themselves under an obligation to someone as erratic as Reggie Dwight.

    2. Well, why not? He is sidelined and ignored by the present Pope who is full on with the message of bringing into Europe immigrants who have killed all the Catholics and other Christians that they could find in their own countries.
      Any sane conclave would have elected Cardinal Sarah as Pope, and not Francis.

    3. That is common sense and he is quite right. I did notice one line from the story that really jumped out of the screen:

      “Arinze’s rhetoric is similar to that of Cardinal Robert Sarah, who is also black.”

      Needing to say “who is also black” in order to allow his words to be reported. Otherwise certain people would be pointing at the screen and yelling “Racist! You cannot say that!” Followed by: “Oh, he is black. Sorry. Carry on.”

      What a state we have come to when that pre-defensive comment needed to be made at all.

      1. Not sure what the relevance is of the news highlighting his colour, but I see what you mean, Meredith.

  46. Brexit: Freedom of movement plan ‘will create chaos’ – Abbott

    More nonsense from Abbott. There is already a process to apply for settled status which has been widely advertised

    If they have not applied by 1st of November then they may risk being deported although first they will be given the chance to apply for settled status so as long as they meet the criteria they will not be deported

  47. Worse then A-levels.

    Sir – The most impressive aspect of the International Baccalaureate (Letters, August 19) is its marketing. The course involves a level of constraint that most youngsters would hate: they cannot, for example, take three modern languages at higher level, the classics are marginalised, three sciences and maths cannot easily be taken at higher level and the creative subjects also take a hit.

    When pupils choose their A-levels at 16, they commit themselves to their studies in a way that encourages them to engage and make progress. The rigour of A-levels bears comparison with the IB and is provable beyond anecdotal evidence.

    Noeleen Murphy
    Assistant Head Academic
    City of London School, London EC4

    I’m just wondering, Noeleen, which is the better at teaching grammar, The International Baccalaureate or A-levels. Maybe the sub-editor of this once-vaunted newspaper might benefit from some tuition from either school judging by the appalling headline given for your letter.

    1. When she comes to, I will ask the MR (who has been involved with IB for over 20 years), what she thinks about this letter.

      It may not be printable!

    2. There results seem to suggest otherwise. European schools achieve much better results whereas UK schools achieve poor results and in general are getting worse. Even the once world class Oxford & Cambridge are now being dumbed down

      1. “There results seem to suggest otherwise.”

        You are not a sub-editor for the DT perchance?

        1. What with all my Typo’s then again with journalism to day that might be a positive

    4. I’m just wondering, Noeleen, which is the best better at teaching grammar, The International Baccalaureate or A-levels.

        2. I have always been a superlative type of chappie in preference to being merely comparative! :•)

    5. When I took my A Levels in the mid-sixties I wasn’t allowed to take three languages. Plus ça change …

  48. What’s Happened to the Brexit Party?

    Since the EU elections there has been almost total silence from the Brexit Party and as a result it has sunk in the polls. Their Web site remains no more than a donation page. and we have no idea as to their organisation or even if they have one.

    Who has a clue as to who their Brexit Party candidate Is ? and remember a General election could potentially be called at any time

    Maybe we will lean more from the September meetings but I though that of the Birmingham meeting and not much come out of that

    Who knows what are the Brexit Parties Policies other than the one of taking us out of the EU

    I am increasingly suspected it is just a Brexit Party and it will close down after we come out

    1. It’s August. While we Brits don’t totally shut down a la Frogs, it is not a good time for attracting attention.
      That’s why it’s a good time to start a World War. People’s attention is elsewhere.

    2. I am not too concerned right now.

      The clear-out of the Cabinet by Boris suggests that he might be serious at long last about preparing the nation for a clean departure from the EU. It should have been done four years ago, and there is precious little time left, especially since much of it must now be done in holiday season. The last thing he needs right now are distractions from the Brexit Party.

      Rather, the BXP is keeping its powder dry and gathering forces ready for two realistic political objectives.

      The first is a general election, that could happen quite soon if Corbyn gets his No Confidence motion through and Parliament fails to agree on an alternative to Boris. Whatever happens with the other parties, whether they honour or betray the 2016 Referendum, what the Brexit Party will seek to do is to replace all Remainer MPs, or unreliable wills o’ the wisp, who bend one way or the other, with solid Brexiteers. They are unlikely to get far in London, Scotland, university seats or with the Irish nationalists, but everywhere else is up for grabs.

      The other is in the event that in November, we have not left the EU – that the Opposition have succeeded in persuading enough Tories to extend or revoke Article 50, or that the Government has been over-run by those determined to make Project Fear a reality in order to teach the country a lesson they (and the Italians) will never forget. Someone will need to have the good heart and spirit to rescue the nation from this chaos and deliver it safely to proud autonomy in extreme adversity.

      I see no other purpose for the Brexit Party, so right now they are wise to rest and gather their strength for the battle ahead.

      Of course, if Boris does pull it off, then he is on his way to a landslide and there is nothing the Brexit Party can do about it other than to offer their services for the good of the nation.

      1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49402840
        “In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, the PM said the backstop – which aims to avoid a hard border – risked undermining the Northern Irish peace process.
        If the plan were removed, Mr Johnson claimed a Brexit deal would be passed by Parliament.”
        That doesn’t sound like he’s getting us out. Could be BBC spin, but it is a worry that WA is still on the cards.

        2. The backstop is the only part of the WA that defines our future, legally-binding, relationship with the EU, and is intended to be the default position in perpetuity in the likely event that future negotiations break down. I’m not surprised they are determined to hang onto it.

          All the rest of the WA are temporary arrangements to ease the transition and are not intended to last more than a few years. Much of it is a ransom payment in order to avoid sanctions, which we might have to pay in order to get some peace. Not the end of the world; sometimes it is better to have a leg broken than to encourage future extortion, and sometimes not.

          What is so bad about a hard border anyway? – especially if administered by the Irish. It’s not for Westminster or Brussels to dictate to the Irish how they should get along when there’s opportunity in cross-border trading.

          It creates a buffer state, similar to that existing in Ukraine between the EU and Russia, or in Turkey between the EU and the Caliphate, or in Hong Kong between State Communism and Western Capitalism. It is long overdue that Strasbourg learnt how to deal with buffer zones, instead of hermetically sealing the EU from the world.

          1. “All the rest of the WA are temporary arrangements to ease the transition and are not intended to last more than a few years”
            Are they not open-ended “temporary arrangements” that we cannot depart from unilaterally and therefore only with EU permission?

          2. Everything except the backstop is time-limited. Everything in the WA requires EU permission. That is in accord with their prescriptive law on everything. If there wasn’t yet a directive on yawning or sneezing, then I’m sure that in time they’d come up with one, which we’d then turn into a set of rules a foot thick.

  50. For the benefit of poor NoTTlers, our Norm in full flow…

    Why do we take seriously the pig-ignorant radicals who masquerade as animal lovers?
    NORMAN TEBBIT – 20 AUGUST 2019 • 10:50AM

    Before turning to more controversial matters, I should like this week to mention the unusual dilemma of the controller of a major charitable fund.

    Air Vice Marshal Murray, the controller of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, recently explained to me that since almost all of the huge numbers of those who served in the RAF during the Second World War are now dead and before long so too will be those conscripted during the Cold War, there is now a rapidly diminishing cohort of potential beneficiaries.

    Some of those are in real financial need, unable to afford the care which they require, but his problem is finding them.

    So if any readers know of a member of the great family of ex RAF servicemen and women who is in need, please contact the Controller, RAF Benevolent Fund at: http://www.rafbf.org.uk.

    Thugs and ‘activists’
    One of the recent developments in our society which I find of some concern is the ease with which somewhat radical groups now persuade themselves that one or another of their convictions is so strong and so important that it gives them the right to act (violently if needs be) outside or in defiance of both the law and social norms.

    Among the earliest examples of these were the climate change activists, but all too many others have followed their lead.

    One group recently invaded a shooting estate, claiming their action was to protect the lives of pheasant chicks being raised in incubators for release into the wild to grow into adulthood before the season opens on 1 October. In the normal course of events, some at least of those would survive to the end of the season to live and breed in the wild.

    The arrogance of that anti-game shooting group, together with its pig ignorance (and how often those two characteristics go together), resulted in the deaths of almost all the immature chicks which they “liberated”.

    Perhaps even worse was the behaviour of thugs claiming to be protectors of the harriers and other birds of prey, which in nature feed upon grouse before the shooting season opens on the “glorious twelfth” of August.

    Some activists called press conferences to display to gullible media folk the bodies of hen harriers and other protected species which they said had been found on the grouse moors, declaring them to have been shot by game keepers. One has but to consider whether a game keeper who had been out killing such birds would have left the evidence of his criminal acts laying around to be used in evidence against him, to conclude that it is equally possible that they had been killed by activists concocting false evidence.

    As I watch the behaviour of some Members of the House of Commons who were elected on a manifesto promising to honour the outcome of the referendum on membership of the European Union, now ready to risk putting a Marxist into No 10, I think I can see a very similar phenomenon.

    Guto Bebb has contemplated helping to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister of a government of national unity to prevent the United Kingdom leaving the European Union on 31 October. Setting aside the morality of dishonouring the referendum, he might like to ask himself if it would be quite so easy to get a Marxist Prime Minister out of No 10 as it was to put him in.

    Neverendums
    Many opponents of Prime Minister Johnson are calling for a second referendum in accordance with the normal EU practice of demanding that the people should keep voting until they give the answer their masters in Brussels want to hear.

    Perhaps those who believe that the British people should govern themselves will in turn demand a third referendum should the second not give the “right” answer.

    I am not an enthusiast for referendums at all. By the late twentieth century our democratic system had evolved to work rather better than those of most other European countries.

    Perhaps we should go back to what worked.

    Time to celebrate?
    Next year is the eightieth anniversary of our defeat of Hitler’s National Socialists’ Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. But if our present day Remainers had their way there would not be a lot to celebrate.

    1. “… it is equally possible that they had been killed by activists concocting false evidence.”
      Since these folk seem to stop at nothing to force their ideology on us, I wouldn’t be at all surprised about this. The end justifies the means, apparently.
      One Greeniac over here said that “they have to destroy the environment to save the world”! (in relation to windmills, admittedly, but it revealed a strange thought process). In any case, not sure how that works…

    2. I am surprised to hear that there are fewer RAF people to benefit from the RAFBF. I know that there has been a “peace dividend” (ie decimating the armed forces), but anyone who has served in the RAF, even for one day, is eligible. So are their families. The RAFBF has been amalgamated with the ROCBF so all ex-ROC types are eligible, too.

  52. Merkel Demands EU States Resume Mediterranean Migrant Naval Pickup Mission

    Numbers coming across have dropped significantly because it has been made harder for them to do so. Opening the doors again will lead to a huge increase in the already still high numbers

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on members of the European Union (EU) to resume rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean using naval vessels.
    The German leader commented on the issue stating that it would be good to resume a mission like Operation Sophia, which was largely suspended in March of this year after huge resistance from the populist Italian government, Die Welt reports.

    “Surely it would be good if we would again today have a mission Sophia so that government ships would save lives,” Merkel said.

      1. The claim that mass migration is a benefit to countries is totally false and can be seen to be so

        WE constantly get we need mass migration for the NHS that’s another false claim. I have looked closely at the figure and the number of migrants working for the NHS is only slightly above average but many of them are working in non medical jobs. If we take medical jobs the numbers are slightly above average
        Data on this is a bit limited but this appears to be down to NHS specific overseas recruiting drive and not to mass migration

        1. How did we come to rule a quarter of the world without millions of immigrants to aid us? And that at a time when the lower orders worked in service and so on?

  53. Boris has “torn up the backstop” but the rest of the Withdrawal Agreement obviously isn’t heading into the shredder…

    What did Boris say about another subject ?

    “I know Common Purpose has already produced solutions to complex problems and I can’t wait to see what happens this time.”

    Looks like history might be about to repeat itself !

    1. My impression is that if the EU removes the Irish bumstop then Boris will meekly accept the rest of May’s surrender WA without any further fight. In which case the Conservative Party will be finished and no meaningful Brexit will have been achieved.

      The EU knows that the bumstop is unacceptable and so if EU diplomats claim:

      Boris Johnson’s demand to abolish backstop is ‘clear attempt’ to kill off negotiations.

      then it is they, and not Britain who are killing off negotiations.

      In this case I hope the EU is successful and brings about a WTO Brexit freeing Britain from the tyrannical bonds in which the traitors wish to bind and paralyse us.

  54. PC stabbed as taser fails to fire, court told.

    An undercover policeman was stabbed during a stop and search when a taser failed, a court heard.

    Michael Enzanga was able to flee after allegedly plunging a six-inch kitchen knife repeatedly into Pc Russell Turner as another officer’s taser “failed to trigger”.

    The 56-year-old officer was taken to hospital with a punctured lung following the attack in Portsmouth and survived his injuries.

    Enzanga, 20, denies causing grievous bodily harm, four charges of possession of a class A drug with intent to supply, and possession of a bladed article. The trial continues at Portsmouth Crown Court.

    Anyone still thinking that tasers are a good substitute for a properly armed police officer, read and digest this!

    1. I understand the desire to be armed when facing the problems of today, but any solution based on increasing the fire-power of law enforcement is only short term at best. I forget which country it was who recently had two armed female police officers killed by an islamic man who then took their weapons. Although sending two women into some of those areas… You might as well send the guns to the nearest mosque in a box with a ribbon and bow on it.

      Handguns buy you options, but they won’t make a difference against someone with an assault rifle waiting for you. Which is where we are heading. It takes a much greater will to fix the problems that allow all of this violence to grow. Some of the actions required will seem heavy handed and illiberal (good) but they need to be done if we want to stop our society becoming more and more dangerous.

      We have a show called Question Time that was not as massively biased in the past as it is today. They were debating arming the police around 12 years ago and one of the audience, who was a specialist firearms officer, said that it should not happen. He was asked “Why don’t you think it is a good idea to arm the average policeman?” He replied “Because I’ve met them.”

      It is not an easy topic, and there are heavy risks involved in what is about to happen in this country in the next few years, but throwing more guns into the mix will not solve the problems that we face. It will take political change to make this country safer again.

      My heart does go out to those who would like to be armed. I would feel better having an SLR with a few hundred rounds at my disposal, but we don’t always get what we want. Good luck to us all in the next 20 years.

  55. Apropos that letter about A Levels posted by Grizz an hour ago, the MR has now descended from her bed.

    I showed her the letter and asked if she had any comment to make to NoTTLand.

    She has been, among many other things, Chief Examiner in English for the IB – so she knows of what she speaks. She has been involved with the IB for over 20 years.

    Her comment: “Bollux”.

    Succinct, I’d say.

  56. Schoolboys’ parents ordered to pay £1,500 after £30,000 model railway was trashed

    The “disappointed” parents of three youths who trashed a model railway have been ordered to pay £1,500 for the damage they did to a £30,000 exhibition.
    The teenagers – who cannot be named of their age – got drunk on vodka during a pre-exam night out before deliberately trashing the display after breaking in Stamford Welland Academy in Stamford, Lincolnshire in the early hours of the morning.

    1. Wonder who picks up the remaining £28,500? Plus costs for time? Or do people just laugh at railway modellers, making jokes about anoraks?

        1. It can’t restore what they have lost.
          This was up here yesterday. Don’t they have Borstal any more ?

          2. Either you misunderstood me or I misunderstand you.
            You did’t follow my train of thought ?

          6. And if they can claim ADHD they seem to think they are allowed let their children run riot. ADHD in my view is a largely made up condition. If you look up the claimed symptoms it describes a normal child

      2. The great pity is that they were not fined commensurately, and then the debt treated as a student loan with approriate interest, so that it hangs over their necks until they retire or pay it off.

        If it stops them going to university, so much the better.

        1. There is hardly any punishment in that fine. Were the children not also charged with breaking and entering? Were the parents not sanctioned for the under-age drinking? Why not give them some time in Borstal?

          1. I agree, but be grateful that they were even charged and fined.

            Only a tiny proportion of crimes seem to result in a capture, let alone a conviction and some sort of penalty.

        2. They should have been required to pay back every penny – even if it took them ten years.

          It is a scandalous sentence.

          1. If ever a crime cried out for a public birching it is this one
            pour encourager……………………..

          3. The level of fine I had in mind would have paid every penny and made their eyes water on top.

  57. We have had 12 hours of continuous, gentle rain. Just stopped.

    Very useful BUT – I have just been to the garden and it has only penetrated about two inches…{:¬((

  58. Been listening to LBC earlier the deal seems to be with the Good Friday Agreement and the Irish Backstop is if England, Wales & Scotland agrees to give away their democracy and sovereignty to the Bureaucrats in Brussels the Irish won’t go mad and start killing each other again, seems fair to me.

    1. I have thought for some while now – why are we so hung up about the Irish? We have been a good friend to them in the past, loaning them £10bn not so long ago – if they wish to start killing each other again, well …

        1. The Irish should accept whatever we do. They chose to join the Euro so must take the consequences. We can’t have our hands tied behind our backs for fear of Irish terrorism. ” If you don’t do what we want, we will blow up the Manchester Royal Exchange again and assasinate a few more of your Mountbattens “. Blackmail.

          1. These threats only work because we were so soft during the troubles . I would have assassinated the top 200, of both terror groups in one night.

      2. This border is just a made up issue by the EU. There are other land borders between EU and Non EU countries. Switzerland for example there borders are not an issue

        The amount of trade across the NI/Ireland border is quite modest and most of it could go across the border without check under TIR

        3. I think we all know that on here the border issue is nothing of the sort. If the EU want a border let them put it up or the Irish. The WA itself, which isn’t an agreement or a deal, is a complete disgrace and should be scrapped in its entirety. I just hope that Boris will keep to his word on 31st October – that we are out.

    1. Tusk is a Pole – I’d never take part in any poll…..the very name puts me off. With a bargepole.

      I’ll go and have a lie down…

          6. That would be expected. Mr Tusk (His Excellency?) is not going to depart from the party line. He wants to hang on to his job.

        1. The article quoted in the tweet is from 2nd July – before Boris got the leadership. Merely repeating the problems in the WA excluding the Backstop.

          1. N,
            Gerard Batten was talking sense back in 2014
            when warning of art 50 / WA being a trap.
            What is being suggested is a way forward from the WA.

          3. N,
            Never has been and that goes for UKIP also from the very outset.
            Very hard to stay ahead of the deceitful, treachery parties ie the lab/lib/con coalition but his “road to freedom” book 2014 done just that.

      3. I guess it can be resurrected in some form, like the decomposed corpse of a murderer, as a means of “negotiation” for a trade deal for the future.

        Anything May touched is toxic. Worse than Novichok. If she had any decency (which she hasn’t) she would resign her seat now. Maybe her husband, having milked her for everything he can, in relation to his business interests, will encourage her to retire because of illness. Pity he didn’t do that years ago, but then of course he wouldn’t allegedly have made so much money.

  62. The point I made the other day about contemporary composers giving their “music” daft names, is underscored (pun intended) by a nose for string quartet being played right now on R3 called “Hidden Agendas”. My quite obvious agenda is to go and turn it off.

    2. We had 35 minutes of BBC Commissioned World Premiers at the Proms yesterday evening before being allowed to enjoy a flag free performance of Beethoven 9.

      The new choral work by Jonathan Dove, “We Are One Fire” was actually rather good. The choir were unaccompanied and sang very well. The second piece was a piano concerto by Dieter Ammann called, “Piano Concerto”. It was full-on bing bang bong. First a dripping tap sound, then someone kicked the china cabinet over and it hit the cat, followed by a wasp then a punch up and ending with the clock chiming the hour and, to our great relief, the interval.

        1. The 9th was very good, especially Mika Kares the bass soloist and the BBC Symphony Chorus. The Ode To Joy as rousing as ever and this year not accompanied all around the auditorium by the flag of the Fourth Reich. Due I think to the absence of activists outside the hall handing them out.

          No, it won’t be on the box. No tv cameras there.

          3. I know & if you look very carefully, you will see that I didn’t get an answer the first time round, so I rephrased the question.

            Ori’e?

          6. With the greatest respect to the elderly and deluded – it wasn’t – because my comment “That’s why there were no flags” was contemporaneous with her reply to you.

            Look at the forum and check the actual posting times.

            Alternatively, sit back with a glass of wine, a cat on your lap and say, “Sod it”…

          7. Here’s Sue original comment without the additional line, & no, I have not edited it.

            Sue Edison • 4 hours ago
            The 9th was very good, especially Mika Kares the bass soloist and the BBC Symphony Chorus. The Ode To Joy as rousing as ever and this year not accompanied all around the auditorium by the flag of the Fourth Reich. Due I think to the absence of activists outside the hall handing them out.

            2
            •Reply•Share ›

            I shall be having a G&Tin about 1/2 an hour.

          9. I had a 10 y.o. Côtes du Rhône with my bavette steak the other evening. Smooth as velvet.

          13. Be”er corl i’ er diy, overwise the rotweiler will be mu”erin’ abah’ no’ usi’ Queen’s English.

  63. Back home now after early visit to Bournemouth , roads busy as ever.

    I met an elderly couple at the hospital who spotted me before I spotted them.. I was amazed , I haven’t seen them for about three years. They are 86 years old , bright and sparky, but suffering from the usual things that old age brings . We talked about this and that.. and the that being a ceremony they had attended last week .

    Who on here saw anything in the media , whether BBC / newspaper , radio anywhere about VJ day ..15th August 1945?

    I am ashamed to say that I didn’t hear or read about the anniversary, did you?

      1. Hi Mola

        Considering years and years ago my father used to say the war didn’t finish for thousands like him until August 1945 . He was based in Ceylon, Southern India and then the Indian ocean on an aircraft carrier.. How could I have forgotten his words .. He was one of thousands who received the Burma Star.

        1. Sounds lucky. My father was on the ground in Burma / Myanmar. He never, ever said anything about his experiences over there.

  64. UK economy £26bn bigger than previously thought, says ONS

    Britain’s economy is slightly bigger than previously thought according to new estimates published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    The ONS said new methodology and data suggested gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 was about £26bn, or 1.3% greater than earlier calculations had shown, at just under £2tn.

  65. Clapham shooting: Shocking moment man jumps out of car and shoots victim on busy south London road

    Police have released shocking footage of the moment a man was shot in the leg in Clapham.
    A video of the attack shows a man standing on a footpath before another man jumps out of a car, holding what the Met said is a pump action shotgun.
    He then runs towards the person on the footpath, fires two shots, and turns around to run back to his car, nearly tripping over in the process.

        1. Bruv on bruv, I’d say. Call me an old cynic, but I care neither a jot nor a tittle for those who go round shooting each other.

          1. Some people – goodness knows, not me, I’m Christian – might wish that they would finish each other off…

    2. Shooting a pedestrian standing on a path is bad enough but shooting a victim on a busy south London road is even worse.

  66. UK’s first LGBT rainbow road crossing unveiled in south London

    Well if it is on a public road it is not legal. These things are very slightly specified

    The Mr Loophole lawyer specializes in this sort of thing . If yellow limes are not exactly the right dimensions or colour of the signs not exactly the right distance apart etc he gets the driver of the hook.. The same legislation applies to crossings

    The UK’s first permanent rainbow road crossing has been unveiled in south London following in the footsteps of Vancouver, Sydney and Paris.
    The crossing outside Brockwell Park in Herne Hill has been installed by Lambeth council to “show solidarity with the LGBT+ community”.

    The crossing is made up of the colours of the Pride flag and people are being encouraged to share images on social media with the hashtags #WeAreLambeth and #HerneHillRainbow.

    2. There is one in Floriana, Malta also. An exercise in wasting money and virtue signalling.

    3. Is it true that once you’ve traversed an LGBT crossing you’ll become gay and you can only reverse the change by walking backwards back over it?

    2. Under the current terror threat level of severe even frisking letter boxes is justified.

    3. “By Andrew Gilligan 9:46PM GMT 28 Feb 2015
      As Asim Qureshi, of the campaign group Cage, took to the airwaves to explain how Mohammed Emwazi, “Jihadi John”, was the real victim of recent events in Syria, you could almost hear the nation’s collective intake of breath.

      Being turned back on his travels and questioned by the security services had, it seemed, left Emwazi with no alternative but to join Islamic State and behead seven innocent people. Further oppression by the UK’s apparatus of government terror included giving him a university education, his family a council flat and not actually arresting or detaining him for anything.”

      CAGE are little more than an extremist front, who like to make unfounded claims about discrimination.

      1. Muhammad Rabbani, Cage’s international director, said ……………

        ” ……….. Officers routinely ask intrusive questions about religion and practice, which amounts to a modern-day inquisition.”

        … They never expected that.

  68. In the DM today, Richard Littlejohn is suggesting Trump should not buy Greenland, but buy Britain instead. Musing that tongue in cheek idea for a moment in light of the continual wailing and gnashing of teeth by the left in Britain, how would they like to live in an American state or territory?

    No jobseeker’s allowance. Unemployment only gets paid for 6 months after you lose your job. And you have to lose it, not just leave.
    No children’s allowances
    Minimal social services, and no NHS
    Very little social housing (“projects”) and you would not want to live there anyway. Inner city bus services are similarly something to avoid.
    Proper sentences for violent crime. Related, you are allowed to deal with people who attack you or break into your home or car.
    Trespass is illegal
    Free medical care (Medicare) – once you are past 65 and have paid into the system, otherwise it’s insurance.
    Social security (pension). You get it if you have paid in for enough years.
    The police are not your friends, but will be unfailing courteous and polite as long as you in your turn are polite, otherwise it can get nasty, especially when cultures clash, as it were.
    Your local drug dealer enforces his deals with a Glock – or rather his similarly armed posse will.

    4. Even Germany is a lot tighter on benefits. It is true German benefits can be better than those in the UK but you pay in a lot more and many benefits are only payable if you have paid in and in Germany if you are on their JSA and they find you a job you have to take it

      Basic rules for German JSA it would not suit our long term unemployed

      Unemployment insurance can be received by persons who have paid their premiums for at least one year during the past five years. They must register with the Labor Office (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) and be available to its placement service, agreeing to accept a job found for them if it is consistent with their training and experience. And they must check regularly with the Labor Office. If they do this they will receive a percentage of their most recent net income. The exact payment depends on the individual’s circumstances.
      These payments will continue for six months to two years, depending on your age and length of employment. After that state assistance kicks in. The unemployed person gets a monthly sum plus allowances for housing and certain other things. But they only get this money if they need it. They may get less, or none at all, if they have independent means or if their spouse works.

    5. And if you have a job no job security. The shysters that I worked for are very quick to find fault when an employee reaches fifty, at which time bad reviews and layoffs with minimal benefits arrive before retirement.

    6. But they do attempt to look after their former servicemen and women. Unlike some countries I could mention.

    7. But we could all find part time jobs at the local supermarket as greeters and bag packers. Keep us off the street as well as helping pay for health insurance.

    8. Yeah…but eventually we’d be run by the Democrats, and they’re as loony left as Corbyn and friends.

    1. It’s easier, though. Print it out and attach it to the garage door. Then use it as a dart board.

    2. They should have no problems in casting a remake of The Adams family. Maybe, Mr Epstein could donate a roving hand.

  70. My original post (a response to an oft-repeated fallacy) has been lost in the mists of this thread. Therefore I’ll repeat it here.

    Most people are under the false impression that most deep seam coal mines were closed by Labour than the Conservatives. Unfortunately the facts are a bit different.

    Although Wilson closed the most with 253 in two terms, beating Macmillan by just seven (Thatcher’s administration closed 115), the totals in the table, below, show the true picture.

    The basic fact remains, though, that the coal-mining industry had been in terminal decline since the 1920s so closures, whoever was in power, were inevitable.

    Pit Closures (Deep Mine) by Government.

    1947-1951 Lab (Attlee) 101
    1951-1956 Con (Churchill) 78
    1956-1957 Con (Eden) 35
    1957-1963 Con (Macmillan) 246
    1963-1964 Con (Home) 24
    1964-1970 and
    1974-1977 Lab (Wilson) 253
    1970-1974 Con (Heath) 26
    1977-1979 Lab (Callaghan) 4
    1979-1990 Con (Thatcher) 115
    1990-1997 Con (Major) 55
    1997-2007 Lab (Blair) 12
    2007-2010 Lab (Brown) 1
    2010-2015 Con/Lib Coalition (Cameron) 2
    2015-2016 Con (Cameron) 1

    Total Conservative = 583
    Total Coalition = 2
    Total Labour = 371

    http://www.healeyhero.co.uk..

    2. But, but, Grizz – applying modern political theory, the party with fewer votes MUST be the winner..

      Ergo – Labour is the villain.

      1. Well Cameron never closed any mines. The last few deep mines closed as the coal seams were worked out although Kellingley Colliery claimed it still had unworked coal seams. It was the very last UK deep mine to close

        There is still open cast mining in the UK though

      2. Evening, M.

        Most pit closures throughout history have been because they were uneconomical. Governments were pumping more money into some mines than they were earning; that is economical suicide.

    4. Well Thatcher never directly closed any mines. She just removed the subsidy. In some mines the subsidy per tom of coal was greater than it selling price

    5. The number of jobs lost would also be helpful.

      As I’ve pointed out before, a large proportion of the closures in the Major years were the result of Heseltine’s insane ‘dash for gas’, the consequences of which are prematurely depleted North Sea gas reserves and the failure to build nuclear power stations for the long term and coal for the interim.

      1. Everything that bástard touches turns to dross.

        Look at what’s happenened to Parliament since he swung the Mace and then back-stabbed Thatcher.

        Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May.

        Enough said.

    6. Thinking about it, I think the original (accurate) claim was that a Labour government closed more pits than Margaret Thatcher. This was when the left were raving about pit closures during her administration.
      EDIT: Inserted (accurate).

    2. Let me get this straight, the German government will be cracking down on Syrians with asylum status who go on holiday back to Syria. That’s outrageous, it’s surely infringing upon their human rights.

    1. The sooner this flcuk wit finds himself in his fave country of Canada (blessed by Baby Trudeau) the better.

      1. The sooner this flcuk wit finds himself in his fave country of Virgin IA, (blessed by Mo Ham Head) the better.

    2. The comments to this Sky tweet are uniformly scathing, apart from a brief discussion about accidentally drinking calamine lotion instead of Gaviscon. Not quite in the same league as “accidentally” joining ISIS for several years.

    1. Horst – yet again.

      Haven’t heard much of Hair Cut Git lately. I suppose he is counting his millions of slush money.

          1. Leni Riefenstahl.and Adolf will be delighted that you are showing her film here today, Bill.
            Some masterpieces are best forgotten.

          2. Just to put the record straight – I didn’t put up the film; just the snap of the way the Russians – rightly – shamed yer Cherman prisoners.

          4. That snap reminds me of the way that the Japanese shamed British and Commonwealth prisoners. I would be ashamed if British soldiers ever treated prisoners in that way.

          6. If that was a serious remark, there are very good reasons why prisoners are taken:

            1. If the enemy know that there will be no quarter, they will fight to the death.

            2. Taking prisoners tells the other side that they do not need to fight on needlessly.

            3. If one side takes no prisoners, then the other side might do likewise – no-one wants to die unnecessarily.

            4. Prisoners can be interrogated and the information gleaned might be used to fight the battle/war more effectively.

            5. Giving no quarter would contravene the Geneva convention and render perpetrators liable to be prosecuted for war crimes.

            6. It would be dishonourable not to take prisoners.

            Please note that I am discounting very rare and critical circumstances where prisoners may have been executed. I am talking about the treatment of mass captures or surrenders.

          7. And in a nutshell, you have confirmed that the dropping of the two bombs on Japan was fully justified,
            .

          8. My view is that it was totally justified – the US view was that it would cost a million US casualties to invade the Japanese homeland and the A-bombs made this unnecessary. Countless hundreds of thousands of Allied – AND Japanese – lives were saved by hastening the defeat of Japan.

          10. As a general rule I agree with you. However, I have heard from a few sources, one being my late father-in-law, that during WWII there were instances where prisoners were not taken. This course of action was of course unofficial and taken only where certain enemy formations were known to be in the line. These enemy formations were known not only to be fanatical but had a history of ill-treating and sometimes murdering allied PoWs. It was a case of them sowing the wind…
            If you think about how the Royal Navy fought e.g. attacking the Bismark: the latter was a defenceless hulk long before the RN ceased firing on her and then HMS Dorsetshire applied the coup de grâce with torpedoes before any survivors were picked up. That’s pretty ruthless by any yardstick.
            Do not take my scribbling as any criticism of the British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force etc: war is a terrible business and I am grateful that I have never been involved in it and I am full of admiration and eternally grateful to those who have served on our behalf.

          11. During the Normandy campaign MG42 gunners didn’t get to slaughter half a platoon and go Hande Hoch when the going got tough,snipers ditto
            Human nature will out

          13. True but, as you indicate, unofficial or, in the case of the RN actions against the Bismarck, driven by special circumstances (she may have been a defenceless hulk but did she strike her colours?).

          14. Did she strike her colours?
            Was anyone capable of giving the order let alone complete the task? It’s believed that the bridge personnel were killed when a round from Rodney destroyed Bruno turret.

          15. My thinking is that it might have been very difficult for the British ships to have known the status of the Bismarck.

          1. You thought there had been too much talk about the Holocaust and now you are praising Leni Rifenstahl.
            You seem a staunch supporter of the regime.

          2. Hmmm. I don’t recall the first point. Leni Riefenstahl was one of the best filmmakers ever.
            ( By the way, when was the last time that you had your irony meter calibrated?)

          3. Well, nobody listens to me much, anyway, but I suppose a bit of calibration wouldn’t do any harm.
            I saw her films quite a number of years ago, and yes, they were brilliant. But I have a psychological
            reaction against those artists who so happily associated themselves with the Third Reich.

          4. Well, I was thinking about your comment. Why pick and choose? If we condemn Riefenstahl, what about Picasso, a philanderer? What about Caravaggio, a murderer?
            If we condemn or shun their art because we don’t like their characters, don’t we become like the NASDAP folk who destroyed art? Even a little?
            If we consider art and artworks, divorced from their creators, as entities in their own right, is that moral, or pragmatic?
            If we condemn the art of artists who do not meet a standard we consider desirable, what art would be left? Who decides?

          5. It’s an unanswerable question, isn’t it. Picasso never mudered six million people who offered him no harm. This is indeed a special case for us in Europe. Leni’s artistry was put at the service of the evil regime. This was a genocide that anyone over 74 on this board lived through!!
            I am not disagreeing with what you say; I think you will understand what I mean.

  74. I think, when hearing what James Cleverley said this morning, talking about a “deal” being possible with the backstop out of the way and Adam Fleming BBC TV EU reporter on Radio 4 News this evening,saying Boris is thinking to leave the backstop to one side, get the Withdrawal [ Adams word] Agreement through Parliament then talk about the Backstop after Brexit. If both these people are telling the truth Boris is not going for a clean break.

    1. My faith in his “vision” was lost within the first half hour of his taking over.

    3. If he does that, the Tories are toast, no matter how they try to spin it that we’ve left.

        1. It all comes down to whether Boris is a globalist or on the side of the United Kingdom. If he is on the same team as May, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Grieve, Hammond…(there do seem to be a lot of them who have slimed their way into our Parliament) then he won’t care about destroying his career, the Conservative Party and this country in order to get ahead.

          To a globalist, being British Prime Minister is just a stepping stone to greater things, after you have followed your orders to damage our country. Blair has done very well for himself on the graves of our soldiers and the invasion of immigrants that he helped to speed up. So if Boris is a globalist then all of this talk of leaving is just a smokescreen, as he will have agreed with the eu already to remove the backstop at the last moment from the Withdrawal Agreement and call it a victory. Parliament will be so desperate to keep us tied to the eu in any way that they can that they will pass it this time.

          But if Boris actually does take us out with a no-deal Brexit then he will be a hero. The Conservatives can call an election whenever they like and he will win it. The United Kingdom will be free of the eu and we can start repairing the decades of damage that has been done to us.

          So it will all depend upon whether Boris is on our side or on theirs. There is always the Brexit Party waiting in the wings if he does tie us to the eu for years. The one thing that we do know is that they will take us out of Europe if Boris won’t. So we WILL leave. Either in 2 months with Boris or just after the next election with Nigel.

  75. British ministers and officials will boycott most European Union meetings from September 1, the Government announced today.
    They will use the “incredible amount of time” saved to focus on future relationship with the EU and other countries – including trade deals.

  76. I am off – funny having a whole day indoors because of the rain. Lots of reading.

    Tomorrow back to 30º – and watering

    A demain – play nicely.

      1. You’re not very red, Plum. You need to be careful you don’t turn into a prune.

    5. Same as earlier. This time a post and a rock have crept into the background.

    6. Listen, Plum, we don’t all on here chill with pictures just meant to titillate the men here. You do music chilling so much better.

  78. As the Tourettes Society has gone into meltdown over the (crap) joke

    “I keep shouting Cauliflower and Broccoli,I’ve got a bad case of florets” which won the Edinburgh Festival award

    Let’s offend another group of sufferers………………..

    https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/65279327_434339004013283_6048156268869189632_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&_nc_oc=AQlhOaUkOMnaW9GUYdkJyxlwbFMnTt1wk3Zp4RRq7WZH1SMGyA7m-Ekob34Mnb6LltKXuvSr3VWAmtXwTXbR9SnW&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.xx&oh=40113870243f85d89907a82399d88cf1&oe=5DC81A62

    1. People should be taught a little humility and to laugh at themselves rather than be perpetual victims.

    1. My word… The picture of the author of that piece “Frances Perraudin” looks like a soulless drone. But she has chosen to work for the Guardian, so she must have something missing inside of her.

    1. You noticed the name, of course, Scamm? Quite apt I thought. I do not believe any parent in the U.K. cannot feed their child/children. I’ll bet they all have the latest phone, 48inch TV, etc., probably a large dog too.

      1. It did occur to me she might be a parody account, but presumably the piece in the Mirror was not completely made up. If parents can’t afford to feed their children they shouldn’t have them. Free school meals for all under seven is to blame for this.

        1. Plus minimum wage which sets the lowest limit employers have to pay their staff. No wonder the big employers love it. Plus in work tax credits, another subsidy to employers. Plus housing benefit which sets the minimum that landlords will charge, a subsidy to landlords.

          Why is that any interference by government with benefits is paid for us plebs through taxation whilst the feckless enjoy the fruits of our labours.

          Who was it who said “If you pay people not to work, lo and behold they won’t”.

        2. No such thing as a free lunch. Schools are not paid for by the Government. They are paid for by people like you and me who get off their *rses and pay taxes. If you opt to have children you should realise that they need to to be fed, clothed and maintained.
          The only reason I am working these days is that I enjoy my work and I get to enjoy some of the toys I couldn’t afford when I was in my twenties. I don’t do it to buy lunch for Fifirixibelle One Night Flling.

    3. Child Benefit was introduced to help feed children but it now seems to pocket money for the parents . Food prices in general are quite low in the UK it does not cost that much to provide a meal for a child well unless you go to Costa Coffee etc where it will cost you a packet

    1. “We can’t let Nazi Pugs take over the party!”

      UKIP’s NEC must be working for Donald Tusk or another eu flunky. Nobody could consistently screw up a political party that badly by accident.

  86. We joined the forerunner of the EU around the same time as the Irish troubles kicked off, being in the EU never stopped any of the violence and killings. Blair’s Good Friday Agreement was a capitulation, not sure what it has to do with the EU, we have to have an open border with all EU members.

    1. The Teapot should be told that Eire must rejoin the United Kingdom, discard the euro, and become part of the sterling area.

      That’d shut him up for a bit. And wouldn’t the Mad Junta in Brussels be livid?

      1. Or we could hand over NI to Eire and then close our borders and ports to the Irish for ever.

        1. Even better. As Norn will have a catholic majority quite soon – the best solution.

          1. As the Teapot seems determined to add a million African and Moslems to Eire “in the name of diversity” I propose a swop,we’ll take all the Prods and he can have all our Somalians
            Fair’s fair

          2. Just had a thought. Oirland’s colour is GREEN. Yer slammers colour is GREEN… What a coincidence.

  87. Good evening, everyone. Hope your day has gone well. Hugging a Connemara has made mine much less stressful 🙂

      1. I always wanted a rocking horse when I was a child (one of my friends had one and I was SO envious!). The Connemara is pretty much like a rocking horse to look at, but nowhere near as comfortable in canter!

    1. It is one of the few things that Jeremy Corbyn has managed to get right in his life. An instinctive understanding that the eu is just WRONG.

    1. They are not going to remove the back stop so thats it, we leave with no deal as we voted for.

      1. If they smell a ‘no deal’ Brexit they will, at the very last minute, agree to something they think can be voted through parliament. Personally I favour the ‘no deal’ option.

      2. But today Angela said she’d be happy to look at an alternative, and Boris shows every sign of wanting to sign a tweaked WA.

        Cave in alert !

  90. Deep breaths and grit your teeth !

    Detention of Muslims at UK ports and airports ‘structural Islamophobia’
    Dossier by Cage attacks ‘suspicionless stops’ under anti-terror laws and highlights minuscule rate of convictions

    Muslims are being detained at ports and airports for up to six hours by law enforcement using controversial counter-terrorism powers so disproportionately that the practice has become Islamophobic, according to human rights group Cage.

    The organisation added there is growing anecdotal evidence that Muslim women are being forced to remove their headscarves when stopped, even though the rate that such stops lead to a conviction is 0.007%, according to Cage’s analysis of 420,000 incidences.

    Cage said it had made a compliant to the policing regulator, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, on behalf of 10 people, and had written to MPs on the all-party group on British Muslims to spell out the extent of its concerns with so-called schedule 7 stops.

    In the letter, Adnan Siddiqui, the director of Cage, said that tens of thousands of people were being subject to “suspicionless stops” and that “the practice is a manifestation of structural Islamophobia, which is experienced as harassment”

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/20/detention-of-muslims-at-uk-ports-and-airports-structural-islamophobia

    Excuse me ..but the blighters have brought this on themselves, besides , it is up to us who we allow in because it is our country.

    I mean, what else do they want besides under age white girls, stabbings, mayhem, embezzlement, fast expensive cars, Halal food , drug trafficking, squabbling etc etc?

    3. You can bet your sweet bippy that the rate that such stops lead to a conviction is 0.007% would be significantly higher if these measures were not carried out.

    4. Perhaps the new Hindu Home Sekertry could apply her mind to this – and ensure that the present regime is made much tougher?

    5. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11442602/Cage-the-extremists-peddling-lies-to-British-Muslims-to-turn-them-into-supporters-of-terror.html

      “Cage: the extremists peddling lies to British Muslims to turn them into supporters of terror
      Recent outbursts from advocacy group Cage highlight the problem of militant groups freely propagating the myth of Muslim persecution.

      By Andrew Gilligan9:46PM GMT 28 Feb 2015
      As Asim Qureshi, of the campaign group Cage, took to the airwaves to explain how Mohammed Emwazi, “Jihadi John”, was the real victim of recent events in Syria, you could almost hear the nation’s collective intake of breath.

      Being turned back on his travels and questioned by the security services had, it seemed, left Emwazi with no alternative but to join Islamic State and behead seven innocent people. Further oppression by the UK’s apparatus of government terror included giving him a university education, his family a council flat and not actually arresting or detaining him for anything….”

      Just to clarify who Cage are and how much credence we should give to this story, as in none to zero.

    6. If it were made illegal for any follower of islam to enter the country in the first place, then this problem would not exist at the ports.

      Complex problem – simple solution. One that we will be forced to take sooner or later. They will leave us with no other choice.

      1. I was going to make a joke about sticky wickets, but I simply don’t have the cricketing vocabulary…

      2. I do hope the same cricketer is not Long Leg and short leg at the same time. It may make him a bit unstable

    2. Labours position on Brexit is still as clear as mud. They claim they want to leave with a deal but the only deal on offer they have rejected so where does that leave them,. ? I suspect the real answer is to Remain in the EU but they are not going to admit that

      1. Dianne Abbot got the 10 minute spot on the BBC Radio 4 News Today programme at 8.10 am. She managed to confuse us more about her former sweetheart and what his Party’s position really is.

      2. Corbyn is a lifelong Eurosceptic, his Northern voters are all Leavers but most of his MPs and his London voters are Remainers, so he has to somehow be all things to all men.

        You could almost pity the poor, confused, communist, anti-semitic, unpatriotic, terrorist-loving…

        Sorry, where was I going with that last sentence?

        2. Yes I am pretty certain that Corbyn wants to leave but he has lot control of the party’s which now consists at Westminster of mainly Islington elite Labor MP’s pulling the parties strings

    2. Ada ” Did having kids make you happy, Bert?

      Bert ” I didn’ ‘have them’; you did …”

    3. Bert:
      “Bad enough that you accuse me of bestiality, but under age as well?
      Who do you think I am Mohamhead?”

      1. Disqus does hide comments when the page gets rather full. It doesn’t mean nobody else can see your comment.

    2. Some years ago a judge ruled that BI sellers were ‘self-employed’ and hence eligible to all manner of benefits…

      1. It must be wonderful to get benefits. The only one I ever got was a free TV license, and they are going to take it away from me.

        1. I assume that you get a free licence because of your age. If so, then don’t you also get the benefit of a heating supplement in Autumn and a £10 “gift” before Christmas?

  94. Steve Smith has been ruled out of the 3rd Test at Headingly.

    I blame Joffra Archer.

  101. Take it from France’s Boris whisperer: The humourless French will never ‘get’ your PM
    Anne-Elisabeth Moutet
    0 Aug 2019, 7:30am

    “The vast majority of the French, however, have never actually heard Boris speak; they rely on bland voiceover snippets. The new generation of educated French pols think they can speak English. What they actually speak is Globish, syntactically correct but with no understanding of the assumptions shared by British speakers.”

    Can you come on our show?” The France 5 TV booker sounded frazzled. “Would you explain why we should be afraid of Boris Johnson?” “Er,” I said. “That’s our title tonight. Pourquoi faut-il avoir peur de Boris Johnson? You write for the same paper, yes?”

    This was the start of my new and improved television career, which I entirely owe to Bojo. I have become, by default, the French Boris Whisperer, because, to my compatriots, the PM is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. They see him as the exact opposite of what a politician should be: it’s hard to imagine someone more different from Emmanuel Macron while still belonging to the same species. Now the two are meeting on Thursday at the Elysee, and my only advice to Macron is: take an interpreter.

    I should confess that I’ve met Boris Johnson only once, at a Spectator summer party, where he was holding court next to a fountain of Pol Roger, and probably did not even register my presence. He was having fun, and people enjoyed seeing him having fun. “It’s one of the reasons he is so popular,” I recently told a radio host, who looked at me as if I’d sprouted fins or spoken Székely Hungarian. “It’s been three years of bumbling and gloom, and voters like a bit of optimism.”

    “But why does he joke? Ce n’est pas sérieux.” Humour in France is as regulated as the Common Agricultural Policy: off the cuff will get you fired more often than elicit chuckles. It’s impossible to get the French to even conceive that not being “sérieux” can be a politician’s raison d’être (and a vote-winner). The great post-war editor of Le Monde used to tell his journalists to write “boringly”, as any hint of fantasy would destroy the paper’s credibility. Self-deprecation here amounts to self-sabotage: any hint that you’ve “dabbled” rather than sweated blood and tears over your 600-page history of the late Middle-Ages is taken literally, with your interlocutor’s eyes looking frantically for some less weird person to talk to.

    “Are Boris’s jokes funny?” I get asked. (Yes, I say. Then I’m asked to translate things like “an inverted pyramid of piffle” to uncomprehending glares.) Or: “Why is he so untidy?” You need more than a soundbite to develop the Lord Emsworth theory of dressing down, so I explain that dapper men are more suspicious to the English than someone whose shirt-tails seem to escape from his trousers of their own volition. It goes down like un ballon en plomb.

    The French notion of a Prime Ministerial first speech is something like Macron’s staged 2017 drama: dressed in a dark coat styled after François Mitterrand’s, the new President crossed the floodlit Louvre Court alone, to address the crowds from a dais, delivering the kind of flowery discourse that, translated into English, sounds like a press release from the Ruritanian Embassy: technocratic, vague and bombastic. Boris’s gung-ho address in front of No 10 bemused us: it was practical and upbeat, “like a campaign speech”, people said dismissively.

    The vast majority of the French, however, have never actually heard Boris speak; they rely on bland voiceover snippets. The new generation of educated French pols think they can speak English. What they actually speak is Globish, syntactically correct but with no understanding of the assumptions shared by British speakers.

    Negotiations will be an uphill task for both sides. The Germans don’t get British humour, but at least they are aware there is something there, so they are more careful. I hate to say this, but it’s Merkel and von der Leyen who may give decent Brexit concessions to Boris, not Macron.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/20/take-frances-boris-whisperer-humourless-french-will-never-get/

        1. If you want a dobbin towed boat you have to get on a coach excursion that stops at Kintbury and there you will be able to “savour” the delights of a horse drawn barge….

          1. The very same. Caught my largest lure caught perch from the old ferry steps on this near bank.

          4. ??? I don’t know a White Hart in Richmond. There’s the White Cross down at river level….

          6. Ah yes. Never been in there, just walked past, usually early morning when it’s closed.

      1. That other effing Boateng – who was a minister of suffin under Bliar – don’t hear much of him, thank God.

    2. Again, I can’t help noticing how ‘normal’ and relaxed she looks.
      This is not the pinch faced muppet who has been paraded for the great and good to worship.
      I really do wonder about her family situation.

    3. I hear her dad has a boatyard in Sweden and since her voyage, sails are going through the roof.

    1. It’s sickening. Why should they need all this pop star treatment ? The should stop showing off, keep their mouths shut, and do good quietly, like Diana did and William and Kate do.

      1. Diana always made sure her good works were known – even though she had a love/hate relationship with he press – she used them just as much as they used her.

        William and Kate are far more discreet.

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