Tuesday 21 July: Squabbling between the Armed Services undermines public trust

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/20/letterssquabbling-armed-services-undermines-public-trust/

793 thoughts on “Tuesday 21 July: Squabbling between the Armed Services undermines public trust”

  2. Morning all, up early with toothache but at least my appointment to see my dentist is today.

      1. Suffered all through the weekend, rang yesterday and managed to get in to see him today.
        I consider myself lucky I only needed to wait a day to see him under the circumstances and what they need to do to meet required guidelines.

        2. Oof! Toothache is terrible – the pain is in your head, it’s difficult to ignore.
          I also hate dentists, even my own, a lovely, tiny, shapely, blonde German lass.
          Hope you get fixed painlessly & pain-free, VVOF.

          1. I had a wonderful dentist who sadly retired. The one I have now is very good but not as good as my previous one.
            If I think back, dentistry has improved over the years but few people ever visit them willingly.

          2. I had an excellent dentist, but he went entirely private. Having paid into the system all my life I decided to stay NHS. The replacement isn’t bad, but not as good as the original. I do only have to visit once a year, though, so that’s not too bad.

    3. Morninf vvof – I lost a filling yesterday and have an appointment at 11.25 this morning. More expense.

          1. One of the most cringe making things I ever learnt was the popular 21st, birthday present for working class girls and boys in the first half of the 20th. century.
            Their parents would arrange for a complete dental clearance (sans anaesthetic) and a set of falsies. These teeth would last their lifetime; I can remember oldies coming into the dentist where I worked as a teenager (he was the last one in Colchester to repair these antiques). They would whip out these bright terracotta coloured falsies to get a new porcelain tooth pinned and welded onto the vulcanite gums. (Wiping that morning’s porridge off them was a good introduction to the world of work.)

          2. …not to mention the little red worms on the undersides.

            That attitude to full dentures led to patients’ developing a Punch & Judy nose to chin appearance as alveolar bone was lost, leading to a collapse in lower facial height, in turn leading to temperomandibular joint problems & difficulty in controlling the dentures.

        2. There are some advantages to always living in hard water areas; I have no false teeth and all but 6 of my original set (4 healthy ones were removed when I was a child to try to push my buck teeth back into place – that was eventually successful thanks to lip exercises rather than a brace). I have about three or four fillings.

      2. Yes the same happened to me,
        I was eating a BLT,
        When taking the first bite all the filling fell out.

      3. ‘Morning, Clyde. Good of your dentist to help you find it. I trust that the pain of replacement will not bring tears to your wallet.

      4. Is it just me, or does the NHS put in crap quality fillings?
        I remember a former colleague of mine saying you had to pay extra to get fillings that enabled you to eat müsli.

          3. I’m retired. I wonder why so many former patients, if I met them when I was out & about, stopped to ask me if there was any possibility that I might return, if only part time.

          6. A technical question.
            Until a few years ago, a dentist automatically did a clean and descale as part of the examination. I realise that it probably cost a bit more, but it was a good job done efficiently and without any drama.
            Nowadays, you have to see a dental hygienist, who does the same job, more slowly and certainly more expensively.
            I can’t honestly say that our teeth feel any better (in fact, MB finds it very painful). We now refuse and deal with such matters ourselves.
            When was the change and why?

          8. How much does a set of “wallies” – false teeth cost these days Peddy I don’t want to ask my dentist, son of a Vet, otherwise I might have a heart attack in his surgery, 5 minutes from the Hospital.

          9. If you mean full dentures, on the NHS it’s a band 3 treatment, so about £269.

            https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/dental-health/how-much-will-i-pay-for-nhs-dental-treatment/

            As a private patient you could pay between £300 & £1000, depending on the work & materials involved & whether the dentist has trained to specialise in dentures. The dentures I made in Germany were much more refined than any I did here, & when I returned to Blighty I sometimes sent my precision-attachment work to a laboratory in Germany. That was up to 7 years ago; then I was charging £2500 for a precision-attachment partial denture.

          10. “Until a few years ago, a dentist automatically did a clean and descale as part of the examination.”

            My practice still does.

          11. I don’t have any dental treatment in the UK and haven’t done for years. NHS dentist used to put in fillings that fell out after a couple of months. Pathetic.

        2. Unfortunately my dentist is very good but private. He filled that tooth just before christmas and was muttering something about a crown. I have few teeth left and think I will get it pulled out.. I don’t know what the dress code for the surgery is but I will take a mask with me

    1. Has anyone noticed how closely the archbishop resembles the TV judge Robert Rinder? Are they by any chance related?

        1. I must resist the temptation to reply “it takes one to know one”, I really must. The real child-molesters are safeguarding consultants working in schools.

          Rinder’s predilection is for chaps, yours are for military emblems, and God knows what turns the Archbishop on.

  4. Keys questions ahead of Russia report’s release. Benjamin Cooper, PA – PA Media – 21 July 2020.

    What is the report?

    Sometimes dubbed the “Russia report”, after months of delays it will be published on Tuesday by the Intelligence and Security Committee.
    It is based on secret material from Britain’s intelligence agencies and is expected to outline the threat Russia poses to the UK as well as efforts to counter it.

    Its publication was delayed by Boris Johnson calling a general election and by the need to re-establish the committee.

    Morning everyone. This report, of which large elements have already been leaked, is to be released today and will be splashed (this piece has already been syndicated to all the smaller publications) across the MSM. Luke Harding of the Guardian/Mi6 for example will undoubtedly be straight out of the blocks. It consists largely of sophistry, rumour and innuendo aimed at the more stable and traditional elements of the political system; the Tory party and its funding being one of its prime targets and with the occasional sideswipe at Trump. What is more interesting is what you will not find; there will for example be no accusations against what would have been obvious objectives for infiltration and support in the Soviet Era; Antifa, Hate not Hope, Black Lives Matter, Climate Rebellion, etc. All these and their fellow travellers are purer than the driven snow. The reports main purpose is to increase distrust of Russia which provides a convenient decoy and stalking horse behind which the real enemy can function undetected.

    https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/07/21/keys-questions-ahead-of-russia-reports-release/

  5. Good Morning Folks,

    Lovely bright start here.
    The garden is a sea of golden sunshine and UKIP purple.

    1. The pain must be getting to me, I read that as UKIP people. I thought ogga was camping at your place. 🤭

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        Morning VVOF,
        How to turn a very successfully building party into
        a lab/lib/con lookalike has been successfully demonstrated.
        17th Feb for a year we had a real leader & that was NOT to be tolerated by the Nec, the success of Gerard Batten was really taking affect.
        The Nec treachery is ALL on record.
        At this moment in time the party, courtesy of the neC, the party flag has sadly lost the hue of the Buddleia as in, washed out.

        1. Until UKIP gets its disgusting Nec out, I am not in. The membership have had lots of time – I was never approached to do anything to remove the Nec.

    2. 321585+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      Under the current Nec management this year that Purple
      has been truly washed out.

  6. Morning all.

    SIR – I take issue with most of what Mark Campbell-Roddis says in defence of aircraft carriers and the Royal Air Force (Letters, July 20), especially as these ships rely so heavily on RAF long-range maritime surveillance to protect them from sub-surface threats.

    As a historian, I object to his suggestion that the RAF raids on Port Stanley in the Falklands conflict were “ineffectual”. As well as demonstrating the strategic ability of Britain to attack a target at a greater distance than had ever been achieved before, the “Black Buck” raids denied the airfield to the enemy’s attacking fast jets, destroyed its radar and cratered its runway.

    More importantly the attacks showed the junta in Buenos Aires that the RAF’s reach was further than their capital city. Meanwhile the aircraft carriers supporting the Task Force were equally populated with Harriers of both the Navy and the RAF.

    ADVERTISING

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    Royal Navy spin doctors gave little credit to the RAF’s contribution, but it was key in 1982, as the proposed coordination of effort is meant to be today. As a civilian with a respect for all branches of our Armed Services I know that this inter-service squabbling is as much a part of their traditions as parades and battle honours. But it does nothing for their reputations with the public.

    Dr Michael A Fopp

    Director General, RAF Museums, 1988-2010

    Soulbury, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Britain remains a world power, one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the fifth richest country in the world, responsible for 14 territories worldwide and it runs global shipping from London. This seems to have been ignored in recent letters on Britain’s aircraft carriers. than delivering humanitarian aid.

    The First Sea Lord has been clear that we do and will have the ships and men to operate a carrier battle group. Considerably cheaper than the French nuclear carrier Charles de Gaulle, the Queen Elizabeth carriers are the first in the world to be built from the keel up to operate fifth-generation jets.

    The F-35B has greater range than the Harriers with which we won the Falklands conflict, and can destroy aircraft such as Rafale or Typhoon before they even know they are in 
a fight.

    Admiral Lord West of Spithead

    London SW1

    SIR – Soon after Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party, she visited Portsmouth to improve her knowledge of defence.

    I conducted her round the old cruiser HMS Blake, being refitted in the dockyard. Looking into one of the large machinery spaces she asked: “Is that equipment Nato standard?”

    I replied that the ship had been built long before Nato had been born. She apologised for asking the question, but added that she had been told to ask it.

    I hope the Prime Minister’s advisers will be telling him to ask the right questions in the forthcoming defence review.

    Commander Mike Jackson RN (rtd)

    Portsmouth, Hampshire

    1. The posturing over the grostesquely overpriced F35 B is bonkers.

      Yes, it’s an advanced strike fighter bomber. But, in case the military hadn’t noticed, the cold war finished 50 years ago and we no longer engage with air forces. What we need for our current combats are air support vehicles for ground troops. Helicopter gunships, transports and surveillance. As usual, the MoD is fighting the war we’ve just lost.

      I got so sick and tired of this attitude when i worked there, surrounded by posturing officials and retired military men you just lose any respect for them.

    2. ‘Morning, Epi. Dr Fopp (!) should be awarded letter of the week (or better) which is why the DT printed his contribution and not my feeble effort.

      As for Admiral Lord West’s final paragraph, which borders on fantasy…

  7. A bit on Bishops…

    SIR – As the father of the Bishop of Horsham, Ruth Bushyager, I was delighted to witness her consecration conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace last Thursday, July 16. He certainly did not avoid that ceremony (Letters, July 18) and neither did the Archbishop of York or the Bishop of London. All three laid hands on Ruth’s head as she knelt before them, to bless her future work.

    This was an inspiring ceremony, which would normally be conducted at Westminster Abbey. In this case it had a restricted number present, but was also broadcast by YouTube.

    John Twitchen

    Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

    SIR – I did not infer from the statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury on episcopal consecrations that he or the Archbishop of York are themselves refraining from ordaining bishops “in order to show unity with those who refuse to accept women in positions of authority”.

    Instead, I see sadness that church has ministers and others support the Five Guiding Principles – introduced after the Church’s response to legislation in 2014 enabling women to be consecrated – yet still take a divisive approach to ordination. The misfortune is that the principles are capable of selective interpretation.

    Allen Harris

    Reigate, Surrey

    1. I was in favour of women priests when the legislation was changed, but experience has changed my mind since then. They feminise the church and reinterpret God’s essentially fatherly love as a kind of soppy mother-love that allows everything to pass.
      Fake Bishop, sorry.

      1. Me too. There are some female parish priests doing good work but the feminist agenda is essentially Marxist and not Christian. I like Jordan Peterson’s analogy that God is the masculine principle of order out of chaos. Cultural Marxism desires chaos.

        1. “Cultural Marxism”? Hmmmm!

          If ever there was going to be a prize for the best-ever oxymoron then this is the leading contender.

          Its alter ego, “Critical Theory”, is also in the running.

      2. I’m afraid I’ve never been in favour of women priests. None of those I have met has made me change my mind.

  8. SIR – I am all in favour of increased bariatric surgery (report, July 20) to reduce obesity, but let’s clear the huge backlog of elective surgery first.

    Graham Lavender

    Waterlooville, Hampshire

    2. I’d rather the NHS treated people who need medical care.

      Is obesity a medical condition? As a fat bloke, no. It’s because I’ve eaten too much. It’s a lifestyle. Now, more a question is why have I?

      When I stopped boxing and got a desk job, my weight ballooned because I was still eating as if I were burning 3 hours a day every day. Arresting that took nearly a decade. It would be more rational to direct those wanting to lose weight into supportive therapy to understand if there are any issues underlying their over eating.

      1. Is obesity a medical condition? As a fat bloke, no. It’s because I’ve eaten too much. It’s a lifestyle. Now, more a question is why have I?

        It would be more rational to direct those wanting to lose weight into supportive therapy to understand if there are any issues underlying their over eating.

        Hmm… Bit of a contradiction there.

        1. I’m considering sought therapy differently to physical surgery.

          I fully understand that the NHS provides mental health services as a form of treatment.

      2. What would be of more practical help would be subsidised gym memberships and swimming pool entrance. Only the rich and the unemployed can afford to swim regularly.

      3. I put on over a stone in lockdown because I just wasn’t getting my usual exercise and I was bored – plus the kitchen was just too accessible. It’s been a hard job to shed even a few pounds since I restarted riding. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips (and elsewhere) is only too true 🙁

  9. SIR – Tony Parrack (Letters, July 17) says: “My wearing of a mask helps to protect others should I have the virus. Why would I not do this?”

    The answer is a question of risk and proportional response.

    The number of new cases in England is down to 1.59 per 100,000 and falling, so the chances of him protecting someone is very small and mask-wearing ignores other health issues such as rebreathing and the inconvenience to those who rely on lip-reading. By his reasoning, he might protect others from death in a road accident by leaving his car at home.

    Dr A E Hanwell

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    1. Living in a hermetically sealed bubble protects them even more, but would you also do that?

    3. Morning, all.

      I spent yesterday afternoon behind the till of a charity shop. I wore a mask for an hour before becoming so dizzy I had to take it off (I was still behind a perspex screen).

      About ten percent of customers wore masks. And ninety percent of those who were wearing masks were doing it wrong; touching their faces, pulling it around etc.

      Interactions with the masked were pretty impossible when I was masked, and still a farce when I wasn’t. Whilst I’d love to help while I have time on my hands, I don’t think I’ll be back there once masks are compulsory. I like to interact with people, and, as a pupil artist, look at their faces. Rather sad.

      1. This week I will be buzzing around, stocking up on shopping. After that, perishables only and online, until this nonsense withers away.

        1. I’m lucky in that there’s s good Saturday market here. I can get fresh food there and just dash into shops for milk etc.

          1. We is dead civilised. Our milk is delivered; thinking about, they also deliver other stuff.

          2. Cor; get you!

            I don’t mind the occasional masked dive into a shop – I get to see other people in the street, at least.

  10. Our local church has a herd of sheep which do the job.

    SIR – Malcolm Wandrag (Letters, July 18), a churchwarden in Hertfordshire, writes of allowing graveyards to be reclaimed by nature, albeit with a couple of cuts a year.

    My grandparents are buried at St Olaf’s church in Poughill near Bude, Cornwall. It is a quaint, typically English church in a beautiful setting. However, the churchyard has been allowed to revert to nature, and it is no longer the lovely space my mother, her parents and I used to visit.

    The graves are slowly deteriorating, and it is difficult to walk between them as it is impossible to see what is underfoot. For the elderly, this can be a significant problem. With no gardener or helpers present, there is no one to chat to. It is an empty place.

    Other people locally think, as I do, that cost rather than environmental factors were the main reason behind these policies, and that there would be no shortage of volunteers to maintain the graveyard.

    Churches are places for people to get closer to God and to enjoy the wonder of his works. He placed Adam and Eve in a garden, not in a wilderness.

    Stephen Coe

    Saint Peter Port, Guernsey

    3. It’s an old joke, but the vicar was cycling past Old Ned’s garden as he was weeding. “Ah,” says the vicar, “God’s little acre. It’s wonderful to see.” “Arr,” replies Ned, “but you should ‘a seen it when he had it to hisself”.

  11. Bacon butty just devivered by SWMBO! Lovely lady… good part-rye, part wheat tasty bread, proper coffee… whats not to like?

    1. Just as a matter of curiosity Oberst do you put butter on your bacon butties?

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        AS,
        Of course runs down your chin from a crusty bacon roll.
        Probably will shortly become an under the counter item struck down by the submissive pcism &
        appeasement unwritten rulings for fools.

      2. No, I like them naked. Absolutely never ketchup at any form of breakfast, and no brown sauce on butties, either.

        1. Well I know that it appears to be redundant question Oberst but I just have the Bread and Bacon with a smattering of HP sauce. I wasn’t aware of the practice of applying butter until I saw my newly acquired Brother in Law doing it. My opinion of him has never recovered!

          1. Butter – why would you add extra fat? The only time I use butter is when I have honey sandwiches – about once a year.

          2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13829ebe5ec4e5aba7e643b2bc8f209087a9e0a774f22f5ef91aa7492f403a07.jpg

            On the subject of bacon (and other nostalgic foodstuffs); yesterday I attempted to recreate the old Little Chef all-day breakfast. from the 1970s. I fried some home-cured (and home-smoked) back bacon, a free-range egg, a home-made (all-beef) hamburger, fried onions, a frankfurter slashed so that it formed a ring around a grilled half tomato, a large mushroom, two potato cakes and a dollop of Branston pickle. The only thing not to hand was a jar of Colman’s (banned by the EU) “French” mustard. It were lovely!

          5. Never seen the tomato “cuddle” before!
            Only a few times have I had breakfast like that, and it kept me going all day. Last time at a hotel in Boroughbridge, 1987, Easter.

          6. I used to go up to Boroughbridge a lot in the 1980s. John Boddy’s timber works was a pleasure for a woodworker. Not only did it have an extensive selection of top quality timber; its extensive accessories and tools section had me mooching around for hours.

            I was sorely disappointed when I went back there just over a decade ago, it had really gone down hill.

            Boroughbridge is still a charming little town though.

          8. Good morning, Rastus.

            Little Chef did not serve black pudding on their 1970s all-day breakfast.

          9. I can just see you preparing that Mr Grizzly, Sir, dressed like the original Little Chef wearing a tall Chef’s hat.

            :-))

          14. Morning, Else.

            Whenever I call my 17-years younger chef brother “Little Chef”, he gives me a glare!

          15. So you’re saying (© Cathy Newman), Minty, that – like Grizzly – you think I am an Abominable Snow-woman.

            :-))

        2. The staff at Côte know better to bring any sauce other than English mustard to my breakfast table.

        3. ‘Morning, Paul.

          Butter on a bacon sandwich is an abomination, as is calling them “butties”. 🤮

          I like a fried egg with mine sometimes, or some sautéed mushrooms for a change, but bacon alone (with the bread dipped in the bacon fat) is best.

          I like the sandwich made with sliced bread, but by far the best is with a bread cob (roll, bap. bun, batch, teacake, breadcake, barm cake, other regional variations are available).

          1. Watch Grizz’s head explode: the nearest I get to a favourite sandwich is a hot cross bun with a slice of strong cheddar cheese in the middle: 20 seconds in the microwave, rest and enjoy.

          4. Not in the least, Nursey. I have often enjoyed a toasted teacake filled with grated cheese and a dab of Branston pickle.

            A popular dish amongst those in yer Narfolk is a plate of chips covered in grated cheese then popped under the grill until each chip is coated in melted cheese. It looks yuk but tastes quite nice.

          10. Morning, Spikey.

            Funnily enough I have some Maggi Seasoning in the cupboard (next to my bottle of Henderson’s Relish).

          15. Cheese curds and gravy is the Quebec topping of choice for chips.

            Forget the grill, just serve the oleaginous messes it comes.

          17. Now you are talking , I like 2 slices of fruit loaf with a little cheese and toasted in one of those toastie bags, yum. ( when the colder weather arrives)

          20. I enjoy my bacon butties made with buttered rolls, Grizzly. Yours faithfully, The Abominable Crumblewoman.

            ;-))

            PS – Served, of course, with a nice cuppa tea.

          21. “PS – Served, of course, with a nice cuppa tea.”

            That was the only part of your post that I’d raise my cup to! :•)

          22. Best bacon teacake I had was in a greasy spoon establishment in Accrington. That mornings bread, freshly fried bacon. Avoided the coffee.

          23. Long live the (decent) greasy spoon café. I’ve had sensational bacon cobs at many up and down the country.

          24. Frying food is not one of my talents.
            MB, on the other hand is a dab hand; his bubble and squeak is to die for.

          25. Bubble and squeak, especially if made with Brussels sprouts, and fried in bacon fat, is heavenly.

        1. When I started doing the DT cryptic crossword puzzle in my teens this author often turned up.

          1. When I started watching one of the author’s stories filmed with Ursula Andress in the title role, SHE ofter turned up.

    3. I am not brave enough to make the warqueen lunch. Or to approach her office after 8 and before 6. We let her well alone.

      We actually had a moment once when Junior knocked on her door with a cup of tea. She was very curt and short and it took a bit to stand up to her and say ‘he’s not a contractor.’

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Late on parade today, following a spot of comet-hunting (Neowise) which ended just before midnight. Thankfully the sky remained crystal clear and by about 11pm it could be seen with binoculars. By about 11.30 it was dark enough to be seen with the naked eye.

    Peak-comet is said to be the 23rd. Don’t worry if you miss it; it will be round again in 6,000 years. Whether there will be any humans left to see it is another matter:

    http://www.cometwatch.co.uk/where-is-comet-neowise-now/

    2. “By about 11.30 it was dark enough to be seen with the naked eye.”

      But only just…very disappointing given some of the photos published.

    3. I’ll be here.

      Still complaining.

      Actually, speaking of comets and a bit of a regret this one. When I was at middle school back in the 80’s – I think – my Dad had us all watch for a comet we would see. I was a surly, miserable little brat (nothing’s changed) and I didn’t appreciate it.

      My father haspassed away now, but here’s one for him – junior has a telescope all his own and while I’ve often been too busy looking in to look up, here’s one for you Dad.

  14. ‘Morning again.

    Not reported any any news bulletin that I saw yesterday, obviously not important:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/20/200-migrants-cross-channel-in-dozens-of-boats-on-worst-ever-day-for-border-force/

    Leading BTL comment:

    “Kolonial Kop
    15 hours ago
    Boris could make name for himself if he sacked the home secretary and gave the job to someone who would actually protect our shores. He could make a name for himself, but he wont because I don’t think he actually worries about these things. The fact that 500 illegals have broken into the country in one single week would have been a resigning issue for the home secretary a few years ago, but these days its probably a
    100 merit points for her. What an utter disgrace this government is.”

    Utterly hopeless situation, thanks to an utterly hopeless government.

    1. 321585+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      A rendering I posted late last night,
      321530+ up ticks,
      The invasion continues on a daily basis seemingly 200 crossed on Sunday
      500 in a week.
      This is even with priti pet, standing on top of Shakespeare cliff shouting “go back you can’t come in” as she has been doing for months all to no avail.
      She is really due a clappin at 8 o’clock, that is clappin irons for treachery.
      The peoples supporting / voting for these mass uncontrolled immigration parties must surely hate these Isles.

  15. I’m a smidge puzzled about the Russians alleged interference in the Scottish referendum. Why? Do they want cut price whisky? Free Arbroath Smokies? Are they eating their caviar with shortbread rather than blinis?
    The only thing I can remember about Scottish/Russian interaction is Catherine the Great’s Scottish personal physician.
    Apparently, he used to check her potential toy boys for any antisocial diseases before they were allowed to grace her bed.

    1. I met a bunch of very friendly young Russian when I was on my Swedish course in Kiel. They were in the same Hall of Residence & were most eager to check out Scotch whisky. One evening I showed them how to drink it.
      Btw, all the German students were afraid of them.

      1. Apparently on behalf of the independence supporters. I still can’t see what’s in it for Russia, either way.
        Unless they think the Fishwife will let them use the Warm Water Ports.

        1. Well there isn’t anything in it for them is there! The vast majority of these accusations are ridiculous lies that die the death after week or two.

        2. Queen Nicola will kick the nuclear subs out of Scotland and close Faslane – that’s the reason

    3. More to the point Anne, why is it so important for the Russians that Scotland leaves Great Britain and joins the EU?

      1. It’d speed the demise of the EU. Scotland’s bankrupt without English cash.

    4. ” Do they want cut price whisky? Free Arbroath Smokies? Are they eating their caviar with shortbread rather than blinis?’

      Ach! Nae, lassie. Didnae ye ken? They’re ower stoatin aboot a wee Clootie Dumplin’.

    5. Reminds me of Dr. Johnson who said that a woman preaching and a dog walking on its hind legs had in common the fact that it was not whether or not they did it well but why they should bother to do it all in the first place.

  16. Lord Hutton was accused of whitewashing his inquiry into the death of a scientist – and the ‘sexed-up’ Iraqi dossier. Now, as he dies at 89, MILES GOSLETT recalls one of the great political scandals. 21 July 2020.

    Last week, 17 years after he took that fateful call from Charles Falconer, Lord Hutton died at the age of 89. But his bombshell report will live long in the memory, not for shaking the government to its foundations but for exonerating it of virtually any blame and seeing off its accusers with devastating efficiency.

    At the time I was suspicious about the death of Kelly but that was all. I was still working and didn’t have time to investigate or cogitate too much on it. This has changed now. The sequence of like events, the death of Litvinenko, the supposed attack on the Skripals and the establishments unanimous support for the official narratives have convinced me that murder is a regular tool of the Elites. Kelly was almost certainly one of their victims!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8543181/MILES-GOSLETT-R-P-truth-Dr-David-Kelly.html

    1. “Hi Bill, Tony here.

      Can you spare me a few minutes? I’ve got a bit of trouble at home. Someone has spilled some beans ahd the BBC is all over it. I know that you and Hillary have had similar problems in the past.”

      “Hi Tony, I’d be pleased to.

      What I recommend is arranging an Arkansacide, that’s a death where the victim is set up as if they have killed themselves. Then call a public enquiry about the death, with a friend of a friend in charge. You should also combine it with the beans problem. Use lots of bluster, and for God’s sake don’t allow your friend to hold it under oath.

      Then get him to Whitewater it all. Sorry, did I say Whitewater, I meant whitewash.”

    2. If i remember correctly Charles Falconer was once Blairs flat mate.
      It seemed quite a few of legal matters seemed to change when Blair was PM, including i might be wrong, but i think the laws involving treason.
      And quite a few publicity bans were issued as ‘D’ notices
      I find it extremely amusing all these years on that now a close colleague of theirs, one A. Campbell as recently seen on TV to be possibly attracting sympathy, is now supposedly suffering from depressive ‘mental health issues’. Perhaps, just perhaps the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ have taken longer to act than first thought.

    3. In addition to sending hundreds of Jews to their deaths during his time in the Vichy regime Mitterrand reportedly had two journalists murdered.

    4. The purpose of government inquiry is not to make things clear but to put the government in the clear.

      That Falconer chose Hutton is clear evidence of a complete stitch up. I’d expect nothing else from Labour. I still don’t understand why Blair was so eager to invade Iraq. Middle East connections for his post PM jobs? Hundreds of dead and maimed soldiers all for his own greed?

      Blair’s scum, human excrement but surely not even he would stoop that low. Mandelson of course would but he is fit only to be burned alive.

    5. I have never forgotten the photos of Kelly very much on his own when arriving at, and being grilled, during the enquiry.
      Normally, there is support of some sort; was it a deliberate ploy to break his spirit?
      And Blair’s face (he was abroad at some boondoggle) when he was told, was a picture. He knew. It was his ‘who will rid me of this turbulent priest’ moment.

      1. Blair will doubtless skip Purgatory and go straight to Hell to join his pal, Satan:

        To bottomless perdition, there to dwell.
        In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire, .

        {John Milton had a way with words! It is sad that nowadays he is considered too difficult for young people studying English literature.)

    6. If i remember correctly Charles Falconer was once Blairs flat mate.
      It seemed quite a few of legal matters seemed to change when Blair was PM, including i might be wrong, but i think the laws involving treason.
      And quite a few publicity bans were issued as ‘D’ notices
      I find it extremely amusing all these years on that now a close colleague of theirs, one A. Campbell as recently seen on TV to be possibly attracting sympathy, is now supposedly suffering from depressive ‘mental health issues’. Perhaps, just perhaps the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ have taken longer to act than first thought.

        1. We are are in HPB (google) and about ten years ago staying at Stigliano in Tuscany. Before we arrived, the B liars turned up out of the blue and almost demanded to be accommodated over night. It was thought they had been staying with Berlusconi (aka Burlesque Pony) and it hadn’t been going too well, so they hopped it.
          No room at the inn. They were turned away by reception.

    7. “Hi Bill, Tony here.

      Can you spare me a few minutes? I’ve got a bit of trouble at home. Someone has spilled some beans ahd the BBC is all over it. I know that you and Hillary have had similar problems in the past.”

      “Hi Tony, I’d be pleased to.

      What I recommend is arranging an Arkansacide, that’s a death where the victim is set up as if they have killed themselves. Then call a public enquiry about the death, with a friend of a friend in charge. You should also combine it with the beans problem. Use lots of bluster, and for God’s sake don’t allow your friend to hold it under oath.

      Then get him to Whitewater it all. Sorry, did I say Whitewater, I meant whitewash.”

    8. The purpose of government inquiry is not to make things clear but to put the government in the clear.

      That Falconer chose Hutton is clear evidence of a complete stitch up. I’d expect nothing else from Labour. I still don’t understand why Blair was so eager to invade Iraq. Middle East connections for his post PM jobs? Hundreds of dead and maimed soldiers all for his own greed?

      Blair’s scum, human excrement but surely not even he would stoop that low. Mandelson of course would but he is fit only to be burned alive.

        1. Of course he did. Why else did he tell Hutton to keep all the reports and medical details closed for 70 years?

  17. Good morning all. Just looking in.

    For those of you interested, the obituary of Canon Bill Scott is in The Grimes today – and a very decent one it is, too.

  18. Morning all.
    Undermining public trust eh ? An article in todays Daily Express on line tells it all.

    “Blackburn in coronavirus panic as town overtakes Leicester as UK hotspot after cases soar
    BLACKBURN has now overtaken Leicester to become Britain’s coronavirus hotspot after a surge in cases in the last week”.

    I don’t suppose the fact that when 250 people recently jammed themselves into a Blackburn mosque to attend a funeral service, also counts as undermining public trust. The main instigator is now suffering from Corona Virus himself and the building has to to be deep cleaned, what ever that means. I can’t for the life of me imagine.
    Where as in reality and previously it was stated that only 10 people including close relatives, were allowed to attend a funeral service.
    And that idiot who drives million pound plus cars for a living, who does not represent the UK let alone England or even Stevenage. Is poking his nose into politics and suggesting that Boris might not be up to the job and ‘resigns’.
    The crass idiot probably doesn’t realise he has no justifiable authority whatsoever, doesn’t pay UK taxes as he lives in Monaco
    and without his expert team behind him, he would be a complete no-count.

    1. 321585+ up ticks,
      Morning RE,
      He is certainly in the up the pole position via rhetoric and
      knee exercises.

      1. Sporting wise he really belongs on a gold course………he’s a prime divot.

      1. Seven years + four on licence. Nothing about deportation. What was the girl doing walking alone at 4.30am? Not her fault but it’s asking for trouble.

        1. “What was the girl doing walking alone at 4.30am?”
          Unfortunately we don’t have the same freedoms as yer males to walk wthout fear of attack.
          I recal teling my BiL about a time when I was riding my motorcycle home at about 11pm one night and had to stop in the middle of nowhere at some temprary roadwork traffic lights. There was forest both sides of the road and I don’t mind telling you I was quite nervous waiting for the lights to change. My BiL was quite upset – he said he had never considered women’s vulnerability in that way.

          1. When I was a teenager I was attacked by a man who had chatted me up at a bus stop. Until then I had thought nothing of walking home alone. That was about 10pm on a summer night. The man kept me talking till it got dark. It was a terrifying experience.

        4. Every so often, there is a rape/sexual assault in the passageways cross-crossing our ‘leafy suburb’. Each time, the victims are women walking alone in the early hours of the morning.
          WHY?

          1. I don’t think girls should be blamed for the terrible things that happen to them – but they should certainly exercise caution.

    1. It’s about time pensions were increased people who arrive here in rubber boats are paid more each week than the oldies.

          2. Ah, so what you are saying (© Cathy Newman) is that it has been ENTered, but not yet executed.

      2. BBC reporting this morning that there is a warehouse somewhere in the South filled with expensive craft used by the invaders for their journey across the Channel. There could be some cheap purchases for anyone wanting to set up a business for taking them back to France from whence they came.

          1. The govt is running out of cash, unless it is for Border Force operations, free housing for invaders, free NHS for invaders, free translators for invaders, free schooling for invaders offspring, free everything for invaders relatives also coming etc etc.
            I have also noticed there are no reports or posts about where all these are being took to, once they are here. The govt must be hiding them somewhere.

          2. They were hiding some in a hotel in Glasgow – that came to light with the recent stabbing incident – apparently they didn’t like the food there.

    2. How about recognising pensioners who responded to the unprecedented challenges of coronavirus. Being elderly and living alone during the Lockdown
      has left many confused, lonely and in despair.

      Re-instate the free TV licence for over 75’s…..

    3. I suspect that such generous treatment of the teachers will not change their hatred of a Conservative government (ok, allegedly Conservative) one jot. Those who have done little or nothing since March will be spurred on to bigger and better resistance.

    4. Boris, the economy is in the loo. It’s been nuked *because* the NHS (said it) couldn’t cope. Then we saw them dancing about. We’ve seen the police first kneeling before and then running away from a vandalising, looting mob. We’ve all been locked up for nigh five monthe because Public Health England provided appalling advice.

      The private sector worker has paid the price of state edict. I don’t dispute an inflationary rise for those services that continued to operate but the priority must surely be to bring the money in before it is spent.

    5. The politicians are trying to soften the criticism of their own increased salary and £10000 gift on expenses [untaxed] which they got . The NHS costs will now rise.

  21. Apparently Google is under fire from the French competition authority! One of the funniest things I’ve read for a while, that bastion of open-market, free-trade, global-vision, non-protectionist worldly partner called France, complaining about not-invented-here Google!

  22. Keys questions ahead of Russia report’s release. Benjamin Cooper, PA – PA Media – 21 July 2020.

    What is the report?

    Sometimes dubbed the “Russia report”, after months of delays it will be published on Tuesday by the Intelligence and Security Committee.
    It is based on secret material from Britain’s intelligence agencies and is expected to outline the threat Russia poses to the UK as well as efforts to counter it.

    Its publication was delayed by Boris Johnson calling a general election and by the need to re-establish the committee.

    Morning everyone. This report, of which large elements have already been leaked, is to be released today and will be splashed (this piece has already been syndicated to all the smaller publications) across the MSM. Luke Harding of the Guardian/Mi6 for example will undoubtedly be straight out of the blocks. It consists largely of sophistry, rumour and innuendo aimed at the more stable and traditional elements of the political system; the Tory party and its funding being one of its prime targets and with the occasional sideswipe at Trump. What is more interesting is what you will not find; there will for example be no accusations against what would have been obvious objectives for infiltration and support in the Soviet Era; Antifa, Hate not Hope, Black Lives Matter, Climate Rebellion, etc. All these and their fellow travellers are purer than the driven snow. The reports main purpose is to increase distrust of Russia which provides a convenient decoy and stalking horse behind which the real enemy can function undetected.

    https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/07/21/keys-questions-ahead-of-russia-reports-release/

    2. I wasn’t aware that Russia was any worse than all the billionaire globalists that are trying to influence and harm our country at the moment.
      In fact Russia if it wanted to do the UK more harm than good they would have been supporting our continued membership of the disaster that is the EU and trying to keep us away from the influence of the USA, the commonwealth and other Western countries.

      1. Morning Bob. Yes it is these strange paradoxes that tells me that it is all Bull!

        1. 321585+ up ticks,
          Morning AS,
          Not pro John you mean, yes I very much agree with that.

    3. Subterfuge is a Russian national sport, and if they weren’t trying it on, there would be something wrong with them. They’re not terribly subtle about it though and best handled by joining in the game, and then celebrating the match with a bottle or two of vodka.

      The real threat to our culture and our civilisation comes from elsewhere.

      2. The Russians also play the long game, like the Chinese do.
        They are also masters at seizing an opportunity – “Beware the opportunists”.

        1. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” – watch out for the opportunists. Chaos makes intervention more likely.
          Paranoia is the game – eternal vigilance is not enough.

        2. The Uighur muslim issue.

          What China is doing is wrong, without question. However, the media – and the entirety of ny google search – merely raises the Chinese actions.

          It ignores the rioting the uighur have conducted, the random stabbings on a train platform (8 people were stabbed), the attempt to hijack a plane, the Uighur efforts to annex a part of China, the bombings, street assault, the rapes.

          Somewhere there’s a middle ground where Muslim extremists live in harmony as supplicants in a foreign land neither brutally oppressed nor lauded and excused by the BBC when they kill innocent people in a bombing or violent assault.

          1. I have to say, once the word ‘Moslem’ is mooted, my reaction is that of dealing with a virus.
            Unfair on many, I dare say, but they don’t seem to be doing much to counter that impression.

      4. 321585+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,
        Yes, westminster takes some beating for deceit & treachery targeting it’s own indigenous
        peoples, then they get to drink the vodka,
        in-house.

      5. Morning Jeremy. Russia and the UK are natural allies because to both the main geopolitical threat is a unified Europe under a hostile power. Witness; Napoleon, Kaiser Bill, Adolf Hitler. The present situation only exists because the United States regards Russia as a threat to its own hegemony and seeks to limit its relations with Europe and the UK. Hence the Propaganda War.

    4. “…and is expected to outline the threat Russia poses to the UK as well as efforts to counter it.”

      Gordon Bennett, I can understand the first part but are we really going to disclose our “efforts to counter it”? Is this wise, Capt Mainwaring??

      ‘Morning, Minty.

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        Afternoon PM,
        I put nothing past these governance parties of the last four decades.
        lab/lib/con coalition.
        Requisitioned houses was done with the indigenous in mind 39/45.
        Now the indigenous are well down the pecking order.

        1. Sorry Ogga, I was being ironic. I meant I wouldn’t be offering a spare room, not that I didn’t think it would happen. Someone I know, whose parents came came here in the aftermath of WWll says that he clearly remembers relatives being forced to provide board and lodgings in their East Germany home for ‘refugees’ and I clearly remember the scene in Dr Zhivago (when I was sixteen) where the wealthy had left for a summer in their rural Dacha, to return and find their elegant townhouse stuffed to the gunwales with resentful (towards the well- heeled) peasantry. I can envisage a scenario where this will happen here under the mantra of ‘property is theft’.

          1. It’s already happened in Germany, where Germans have been turned out of their accommodation for “refugees”.

          2. 321585+ up ticks,
            Evening PM,
            As I posted, properties were requisitioned but in this case for our own peoples to move them from high risk areas in WW2.
            That was understandable but nothing currently is understandable in why these peoples are still allowed in after leaving safe countries.

    2. 321585+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      “Build them enough houses” I take it that means that there is NO indigenous social housing waiting list then ?

    1. Theres an article in the Wail about how our meals have slid back to the 70s. I’d also present that then we didn’t have stabbings, rapes, FGM, pointless riots, looters, bombers back then either – certainly not on the scale of current times.

      1. Just …..the IRA, Red Brigage,PLA,Flying Pickets, student riots, combustible brides, Kray Bros. , Ice Cream wars in Glasgow, razor gangs, mod v rocker riots and violence, race riots in Bristol and worst of all Black Forrest Gateaux.

        1. At least they were all home grown.
          Just shows how even crime has been off-shored.
          Good moaning, Datz.

        1. I have to admit that last night, I could have killed for a bowl of butterscotch Angel Delight.
          Fortunately, we had none in stock.

          1. Morning Anne

            We enjoyed butterscotch Angel Delight and chopped banana, very tasty but rather sweet, last night. Moh has cravings for such simple things.

          2. Morning Maggie.

            I could never get on with any powdered chemical-laden crap such as Instant Whip, Angel Delight or Dream Topping.

            Rowntree’s lime jelly with home-made vanilla custard or ice-cream was always the best.

            Angel Delight was so named because if you ate enough of the crap the angels would be delighted to receive you as their guest!

          6. Me too. I award strawberries 99/100. Raspberries 101/100.

            July is such a fab month. My cherry tree is laden, strawberries are just coming to an end but raspberries are everywhere (especially in my kitchen, with some in the freezer).

          7. My raspberries are autumn fruiting, so just setting now. Same with the strawberries. The best is yet to come.

          8. “Rowntree’s lime jelly with home-made vanilla custard or ice-cream was always the best” Orgasmic! My grandmother served this up more times than I care to remember. Happy, carefree days…

            ‘Morning, Grizz.

          9. Morning, Hugh.

            When Rowntree’s jelly was rebranded (by the accursed Nestlé) as “Hartley’s”, they removed all of the natural fruit juice from each flavour and replaced it with synthetic “pretend” flavours. That’s when I stopped buying it.

            I make my own raspberry jelly now. I just pass a load of raspberries through a sieve and then add one sheet of gelatine to each 100ml of warmed juice. Add a little sugar if not sweet enough. Simple but delicious.

            For lime jelly I boil up the lime juice, and zest, with a little sugar before straining out the zest (there is more real lime flavour in the zest than in the juice), then carry on as for raspberry.

          10. Nestlé is the kiss of death to anything they take over. McIntoshes, Rowntrees, all the chocolatey things that used to taste of chocolate, not of palm oil and chocolate-substitute.

          13. Read the ingredients list on the packet and see if you can find anything that resembles food.

          15. Aaarrgghhhhhh …… that is soooooo cruel …….
            (Curls up in a ball and sobs.)

      3. The rape gangs were going. If you read the original books behind the Call the Midwife series, she describes a girl being groomed and raped in exactly that way in London in the 1950s (bet that didn’t make it into the BBC series).
        Those crimes have been going ever since the perps started coming to the UK in numbers.

          1. There were according to Dick Of The Yard. For hundreds of years, apparently.

          2. I think during the fifties, the Maltese were heavily involved in prostitution and allied trades.

          3. When my young promiscuous aunt was “knocked up”, just after the war, she told her mother that she had been “graped”.

            Grandma asked, “Don’t you mean raped?”

            “No,” she replied, “There was a bunch of them.”

      1. Too many Norwegian Methodists. (Just conforming to Mr. Blasu’s wishes.)
        Morning, Maggie.

        1. If the PTB in Europe finally wake up to the fact that many Muslims neither can nor want to live in harmony with other people then what will they do? Will they kick them out or just roll over and surrender?

          2. But the new (unknown) Prime Minister is very firm that strong action will be taken to deal with slammer trouble makers…

            He said so – so it must be true (sarc)

          4. There’s got to be a middle ground between complete capitulation and what China is doing.

  26. Only 10 per cent of military aircraft will be manned by 2040, says Defence Secretary.

    The days of the fighter pilot are numbered, the Defence Secretary has suggested, saying that only 10 per cent of aircraft will be manned by 2040.

    In a speech at the virtual Farnborough International Airshow, Ben Wallace made his predictions about what the next 20 years hold for aerospace.

    “Today, well in excess of 90 per cent of RAF combat air vehicles are manned and the rest unmanned. I fully expect a major reversal of these proportions by 2040,” he said, adding that the UK’s combat air sector was “the pride of Britain”.

    I seem to recall someone saying something very similar back in the 1960’s. The result was the decimation of the UK aircraft industry.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/20/10-per-cent-military-aircraft-will-manned-2040-says-defence/

    1. They said similar things about flying cars in the 60’s as well. Still waiting…

        1. I’ve seen paper knickers… and worn paper overals, so there’s been a start.
          Horrible, the both of them.

          1. I can see the image now – your girl bending over and you saying “will you keep still I’m trying to do the crossword”

      3. The one thing no one predicted but was the most inevitable was the oppression and creeping regulation from the state machine.

        A flying car IS possible. However, to lift a car shape off the ground would require vast amounts of energy. That said, with new polycarbonates and carbon fibre moulding there’s no reason why we couldn’t but the cost would be prohibitive and, at the end of the day you’ve got an aeroplane.

        Far more effective would be to develop teleporter technology. Vastly more effective. Imagine a holiday where 6 hours isn’t wasted getting sat on a hot, overcorwded, slow train to Heathrow, sitting about waiting for the plane, rushing to the wrong terminal and then flying there and 20 minutes at the other end on clean, fast trains?

        1. Morning, W.
          “The one thing no one predicted but was the most inevitable was the oppression and creeping regulation from the state machine.”
          Apart from Eric Blair and Aldous Huxley.

        2. You see the average quality of drivers… I would be walking if they were let loose with an aircraft!

    1. Good morning, Peddy. Are Bright and Sunny any relation to Bright and Matey from the ENDEAVOUR TV series?

      :-))

      1. Good morning, Elsie. I didn’t watch many of the Endeavour series, so I don’t know.

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        It’s a hell of a way to go even in your mind
        leave the sh!te behind and move, not in a submissive run away fashion but in an exploratory one.
        NO current lab/lib/con coalition politicos or those who have voted for said parties continual for three decades should be considered.
        You DO NOT introduce a plague to a new planet.

  29. Another example of totally inadequate sentencing.
    “An 84-year-old man who killed a cyclist after ignoring warnings not to drive because of his failing eyesight has been jailed for 32 months.
    A judge rejected a plea to spare first offender John Johnstone a prison sentence after he caused the death of Hanno Garbe by dangerous driving.
    Lord Fairley said Johnstone had been told twice his eyesight did not meet the required standard for driving.    ”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-53471392

    1. Oops! I’ve posted this twice, in a unique example of auto-nonunderreadery

  30. 321585+ up ticks,
    Thinking on it, giving succour to a potential terrorist as suggested by the
    establishment could very well be the start of a Trojan horse campaign on an Englishmans home is his castle, the enemy within springs to mind.
    Many of the herd have really got to rethink their voting mindset. having brought the enemy to the drawbridge via the polling booth.

    1. We need a completely new political party.

      None of the existing ones are up to the job.

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        Afternoon R,
        The existing parties inclusive of UKIP under its present leadership & Nec control, are a proven liability & danger to these Isles they have had peoples killed, raped & abused under their guidance in term of office & via mass uncontrolled immigration, ongoing, which they ALL added to over the years.
        A decent government would put
        these parties politico’s through the courts Nuremberg style, for crimes against
        humanity / treachery against the state.

  31. Afternoon All

    From another Rick

    “Well there you have it, folks. Pointless public sector parasites on lovely

    pay, perks and pensions and overinbreeding third world scum. All

    supported by taxpayers who are continually told by a sneering media that

    we are privileged white supremacists sharing a collective guilt for the

    slave trade. And all under a tory government with an eighty seat

    majority.

    We’re not going to vote this better”.

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HrUPAuWpWzA/XxYCIfD6l2I/AAAAAAAAH0U/Wfev0Yjo07kalzkuwdQm88d5xeSN0spoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG-20200714-WA0005.jpg

  33. I love this woman.

    The Princess serves her dinner guests pork

    pies or ‘anything by Fray Bentos’, along with boiled potatoes and

    either peas or green beans, whichever she can defrost quickest. She used

    to serve starters, too, but now regards them as a waste of time.

    ‘After all, one wants everyone out of the house by 9.15pm at the latest,’ she

    says. ‘For pudding, I pass them a choc ice to eat in the car.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8543173/CRAIG-BROWN-dinner-Princess-Annes-pie-choc-ice.html

      1. Now now, the Daily Mail is a top quality newspaper full of insightful and thought provoking articles.

        Especially the ones about Liz Hurley’s pants.

    3. Craig Brown slipped in a credible one in his list:- 10. The Princess Royal and Meghan Markle don’t always see eye to eye.

      1. Not bloody likely.

        As she was reported to have said to her potential kidnapper when he told her to get out of the car.

    5. Not sure how much I believe but I like…

      6. She distrusts fancy talk and fancy food. Her regular dinner guests include Alan Titchmarsh, Sir Bernard Ingham, Ann Widdecombe and Geoffrey Boycott.

      1. She must be a Yorkshire CCC fan since both Sirs are connected to the county cricket club (former player and past chairman).

        The pork pie component reinforces this theory (since Yorkshire pork pies are a whole universe superior to the overrated tasteless muck made in Melton Mowbray).

    1. It is now possible to buy face masks with a vision panel at the fore, mumbling is out now and lip reading is so much easier.
      But who is he pointing the official finger at ?

        1. He’s being economical with the truth because,…….. he just ain’t got enough fingers Bill.

      2. How does a vision panel filter out viruses? Just asking on behalf of the Health Secretary.

  35. Today, of course, we know imperialism and colonialism to be evil and exploitative concepts, but Churchill’s first-hand experience of the British Raj did not strike him that way. He admired the way the British had brought internal peace for the first time in Indian history, as well as railways, vast irrigation projects, mass education, newspapers, the possibilities for extensive international trade, standardized units of exchange, bridges, roads, aqueducts, docks, universities, an uncorrupt legal system, medical advances, anti-famine coordination, the English language as the first national lingua franca, telegraphic communications and military protection from the Russian, French, Afghan, Afridi and other outside threats, while also abolishing suttee (the practice of burning widows on funeral pyres), thugee (the ritualized murder of travellers) and other abuses. For Churchill this was not the sinister and paternalist oppression that we now know it to have been. Instead, he took the firm and irrevocable decision to dedicate his life to the defence of the British Empire against all its enemies, at home and abroad. Time and again throughout his political career, he would put his allegiance to his ideal of the Empire before his own best interests.

    The quote is an extract from Andrew Robert’s new biography of Churchill which I am presently reading. It struck me that if you wanted to speak up for the Empire; which you are no longer allowed to do, there could be no better way than to list its manifest benefits and then tag on some Cultural Marxist twaddle to excuse it. This at least is my suspicion of the passage and it coincidentally absolves the writer of having to write an excuse for Churchill’s support of it!

    Andrew Roberts. Churchill (pp. 39-40). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

    1. So how much more of that in his bio of Churchill? Does everything Churchill did or said have to be put into modern context as “sinister and paternalist oppression” and “evil and exploitative concepts” – that’s the author’s opinions, but evidently not Churchill’s. What about his wartime leadership ? – we’d all be speaking German without that but perhaps that’s what Roberts would have wanted.

    2. How can anyone look at the Sudan as it was governed when my father was a governor there and then look at it now and talk about the evils of British colonial administration?

      I can only assume that the politicians and the woke left of today approve all the things that have happened in the Sudan since the British left:

      Genocide
      Endless civil war
      Plague
      Famine
      Enslavement
      Collapse of infrastructure and economy
      Mass exodus of all young people who can get away
      Total contempt for all human life – especially black life
      And now partition

      Can somebody with a woke outlook on life please explain why so many BAME people want to leave countries ruled by BAME despots to live in countries that are ruled by white people?

    4. as well as railways, vast irrigation projects,……..
      Since the end of colonialism the reason why parts of what was northern India, flood and so many people lose their homes or even drown. Is because the locals are too damn lazy to have carried on with the British dredging at the river mouths.
      But we know who fault it really is eh.

      1. Every year we hear of people and rare one-horned rhinos drowning because they cannot or will not put in any flood defences.

  36. St Louis couple charged for pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters

    I am in (a) Quandary (which is a town near both Jeopardy and Deepsh1t)

    From the headline above are the couple:

    a. BLMers and pointing the weapons at All Life Matters (ALMers) supporters

    b. ALMers pointing their weapons at BLMer supporters

    The Telly-Subbies strike again

    Owzabout

    St Louis couple charged for pointing guns at Black Lives Matter supporters

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/21/st-louis-couple-charged-pointing-guns-black-lives-matter-protesters/

    1. What baffles me is why the Queen recently knighted 100-year-old Captain Tom Moore – I thought he had already been raised to the rank of Colonel Tom Moore. And on a similar topic, why has permission to return to the UK to plead her case been granted to the young British girl who went with three companions to join ISIS – I thought that she went with TWO companions, i.e. there were three of them in total. Do journalists have to have an IQ of less than 25 to work for the media these days?

      CORRECTION: I have changed my “journalist” to the plural.

      1. Yo Elsie

        To achieve an IQ of 25, you would need to gather over 100 ‘journalistss’ !

        1. There’s no need to have more than one journalist at the BBC, they all have an identical agenda.
          Think of the savings.

          1. If you had to sack one of Adrian Chiles or Jo Brand, which one would you choose?

          2. Adrian Brand. I’m not sure which one of them i dislike the most. Chiles was more useful as a journo, but he managed to keep his tozzer Id under cover, that is until he stabbed Ms Thatcher in the back.
            And the other repulsive object………….

          4. But look at her disgusting son, Russell! Her ‘parenting skills’ clearly leave much to be desired.

          5. They aren’t related.

            It’s just a rumour, to make them both appear more revolting.

        2. BBC News has 2000 “journalists.
          However, I think that the term “journalist” now embraces BBC employees who paste links on the BBC website to other websites, such as the West Highland Free Press where they have real journalists.

      2. Do journalist have to have an IQ of less than 25 to work for the media these days?

        Morning Elsie. No but it certainly helps!

        1. “The other two” – exactly. So why do journalists write “the other three”?

      4. His rank of colonel is an honorary poistion and I suspect that most people who hold it are also knights or similar.

        It not quite the same rank as a “proper colonel”, and looking around at all those being made knights, Lords etc I suggest he is at least as deserving.

        1. When Captain Tom Moore was made an honorary Colonel the MSM referred to him as Colonel Tom Moore. They later “demoted” him to Captain prior to his being knighted by HM.

          1. I believe that he retains his Captain rank as far as he should be addressed.

            The honorary rank is just that, not a real Army rank, it is purely ceremonial and can even be held by civilians.

            The MSM probably didn’t initially appreciate the fact and were put right.

            It’s a fairly arcane area and I believe that there have even been Generals who have also been Honorary Colonels.

          3. He should never been referred to as Captain in the first place, as retired officers can only maintain the courtesy ranks if they had been Field Officers ie Army Majors, RAF Sqn Leaders and RN Lt Commanders.

    2. Just because the uncontrollable mob were going past their house, trespassing, and shouting threats, that is no reason for white Americans to defend themselves. Not if the police are looking after them… aah, I see.

  37. After a litany of failures by Public Health England throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, attention must turn to the unaccountable leadership of Duncan Selbie. When taking up the Chief Executive role upon the busybody quango’s founding in 2013, Guido’s archive digging has discovered that Selbie himself professed “you can fit my public health credentials on a postage stamp, but this is what I want to do for the next number of years because it matters so much.” Another stellar appointment by the UK’s ‘world-renowned’ civil service…

    The 2013 article in the Lancet observes “Selbie’s career has been remarkable considering he has no medical or substantial academic qualifications”, with the newly-appointed Chief Executive claiming that because he was “not a public health professional… “I need to listen. That is the strength I uniquely bring”. Over the last few months, Selby’s great listening ability has led to:

    PHE being placed under urgent review after a “staggering fiasco” in counting Covid deaths
    Responsibility for failing to ramp up testing capacity sufficiently enough
    Devoteding time during Coronavirus to pushing for interventionist 20% sugar reductions
    What is it about appointing clueless Civil Service generalists to critical specialist roles? Incidentally, why does Matthew Gould still have a job at NHSX?

    The Financial Times reports that PHE will be “toast” when the pandemic is over. Perhaps its future would be less uncertain had they appointed a CEO with an ounce of public health experience seven years ago…

    https://order-order.com/2020/07/20/public-health-england-chief-on-his-postage-stamp-public-health-credentials/#comments

    1. He clearly didn’t listen to those in the organisation who do have knowledge & expertise – or are they all idiots?

    2. BTL:

      James Stevenson

      Why are public services so useless, why have they not all been forced to adopt a military promotion ladder, where for 90% of the time it works and the key thing every 2-3 years key appointments have changes. 7 years is too long for one person to hold a public position and not be held legally accountable for their departments failings. His reward for failure is a six figure sum pension, whilst the member of the public who got made unemployed thanks to his failure has to battle with the civil servants just to survive. In this day and age that is very wrong.

      Mucus

      Well done, Guido. Why is it that quangos have a leadership so unqualified and experienced. Dom needs to review the need for and the leadership of all these tax-guzzling outfits. All quango bosses should be properly qualified. The Chief Executive of the Environment Agency is someone called James Bevan, a product of Sussex University and former “diplomat”. Why not an engineer? What is the point of Natural England. We seem to have managed well enough before it was established in 2006. Many of these quangos seem to be job schemes for the usual demographic.

    1. And when the schools eventually do go back – will parents still be fined for taking their children on holday for a few days? It’s so bad for their education – but six months off is not?

    2. It’s not over yet, the teachers seem to be intent on having a winter holiday out of it as well as summer hols.

      There is a story in one US source about teachers sending their obituaries to the State Governor as a protest against schools reopening and them having to face a classroom full of little germ factories..

      Needless to say, I don’t see many leaders taking on the education industry to get back to work.

      1. Ronnie Reagan had an interesting approach to solving that crap. Fire all their sorry asses.

    1. It’s the Russians telling us not to trust the mad scientists injecting us with tracking devices and mercury

  40. Doncha just love the experts?

    “The coronavirus epidemic was probably already in retreat before full lockdown was imposed, the chief medical officer for England has said as he insisted there was no “huge delay” in government action.

    However, Professor Chris Whitty acknowledged that “many of the problems we had came out of lack of testing capacity”, blaming failure to build up public health infrastructure in previous years for leaving Britain unprepared.”

    Quoting from The Grimes……

    1. From the Spec email:

      ‘Quite a lot of the change that led to the R going below 1 occurred
      well before or to some extent before… the full lockdown started,’ chief
      medical officer Chris Whitty has told the Health Select Committee. Nevertheless, he is ‘very much in favour of the fact the lockdown happened’.

      On care homes, Whitty said:
      ‘we had not recognised what are in retrospect obvious – but were not
      obvious – points early on, for example, that people working in multiple
      [care] homes, people who were not paid sick leave – that is a clear
      risk, etcetera, that these were major risks in social care settings.’

        1. He does not look intelligent. Why did these stupid, clearly bad things happen?

          1. My friend, who has had her 98 year old mother in law living with her, sent me this early in April:

            “She’s been here 3 weeks. Ali and Em plus I dont’ know who else because
            they are both key workers got briefed that no-one over 75 was likely to
            be resuscitated etc and were all vulnerable and the stories about care
            homes now bear that out. ”

            So of course they all knew what would happen.

        2. I’m no expert – but it doesn’t take one to know that care homes full of frail, old people would be hot-spots – once one had it, they all would.

  41. Anil Kanti “Neil” Basu, who is of Indian origin and who is the head of counter terrorism in the UK, says that the word Islamist shouldn’t be used to describe Muslim terrorists. He might be surprised to learn that the word is used throughout the Middle East and North Africa in English, Arabic (إسلامي) and French (Islamiste) to describe anyone who supports or perpetrates terrorism.

    To paraphrase someone’s comment in the DT this morning, the UK is one of the world’s most powerful countries but it has to destroy its own proud history and culture because some immigrants don’t like it.

    On a related note, there have been many important developments in the Middle East that I have not seen reported in the British press which seems to be obsessed with slavery, masks and Boris bashing! For example, the dreadful situation in Lebanon, a growing conflict between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand and Ethiopia on the other hand, due to a huge dam on the Blue Nile which will restrict waters downstream. In Yemen, Iran is continuing to support the terrorist Houthis by now cooperating with AlShabbab in Somalia (and the Left blame the coalition of nine countries trying to stop the outrage)!

    In another interesting development, for many years it has been well-known that Qatar is one of two principal proponents of the Muslim Brotherhood (the other being Turkey). But a Qatari dissident is revealing some home truths in leaked audio tapes from Libyan intelligence, now known as the “Gadaffi Tapes”. They expose Qatar’s efforts to undermine other countries in the area, especially Saudi Arabia, and even supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon. They also confirm the malevolent meddling of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organisation if ever there was one, and banned in several countries It is generally referred to as an Islamist movement! They confirm something that many (including me) have known for several years, namely that Aljazeera is the mouthpiece of the MB. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/07/02/Audio-leaks-How-Qatar-Gaddafi-Muslim-Brotherhood-plotted-against-the-Gulf.html

    The thing that upsets me, having followed the antics of the MB since the late ‘70s, is that the UK allows it to operate with impunity. It has its apologists in the Guardian, of course, but also, to his shame, Crispin Blunt, formerly a Conservative MP. I can only assume that he must have been ‘got at’. It is the UK’s fault, thanks to its appeasement of terrorists in general and the MB in particular, that there is a powerful Islamist party in Tunisia, affiliated with the MB, of course, and always trying to undermine the government in the hope of turning Tunisia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, something dreaded by the vast majority of the population.

    Now that I have got that of my chest, I will leave you with the MB’s motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Death for the sake of Allah is our highest hope.”

    1. Anil Kanti “Neil” Basu “Pronounced Kneel”, d’ya think he’s been in Room 101 for ‘processing’ at all ?
      I suspect there will be many people of India origin who don’t agree with him.

    2. The Lebanon was, in living memory a fun-loving demi-Paradise along the lines of the Cote d’Azur. Who turned it into a Hell-hole?
      Photo of Lebanon in 1950. Multicultural, diverse. And then…

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Straatbeeld_in_Beiroet%2C_Bestanddeelnr_255-6182.jpg/2560px-Straatbeeld_in_Beiroet%2C_Bestanddeelnr_255-6182.jpg
      By Willem van de Poll – http://proxy.handle.net/10648/aee489b2-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66472780

      2. I taught a Lebanese girl ESL just before the civil war. She was a delightful person. I often wonder what happened to her.

      1. Sorry about that but these developments have wider implications and, in my opinion, shouldn’t be ignored. But the sun continues to shine throughout the Middle East, alcohol is consumed in prodigious quantities and 99% of the population are normal people, Muslims and Christians (some Jews), just wanting to get on with their lives!

        1. The only reports we get on Beeb news are about the poor children in the Yemen, or the Rohingyas.

          1. If you have completed a course of speed-reading, and your vision is sufficiently pin sharp to read the (deliberately?) feint words at the bottom of the endless charity adverts on commercial telly, you will note that some of them admit to using child actors. It’s almost as though there aren’t enough disadvantaged children to go round…

          2. If we give £17bn in foreign aid, why are these charities not pushing themselves to the front of the queue and instead of asking us for money that we have already paid?

          3. This kind of charity is self-perpetuating – just like food banks and free school meals – it breeds poverty.

    1. My father worked on design and installation of radar gunnery systems for HMS Vanguard. I believe that they were the most technically advanced in the world at that time.

    2. Good old Uncle Barry! I hope you’ll post some pics of the ceremony.

      OT – is everybody getting these earwax ads or are they specially tailored ads? They are quite repulsive – on that one and on the DM too.

      4. I tend to get ads for retirement homes and funeral services in Hammersmith & Fulham. Charming! Also lots of “you’ll be shocked when you see” how so and so looks now – but after wading through a dozen pages with one paragraph on each, the final photo doesn’t contain anything shocking at all.

        1. I get those, too – “wonderful funeral plan in Stroud” etc. Haven’t seen the Two beautiful twins one lately though.

    3. That’s a lovely tribute, Phizzee. Hope you’ll toast him and it with his favourite tipple :-))

  43. Egyptian parliament green lights military intervention in Libya. 21 July 2020.

    Egypt’s parliament has approved a potential military intervention in Libya, where where President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has threatened to attack Turkish-backed forces.

    Egyptian MPs voted unanimously on Monday to approve the deployment of troops abroad to fight “foreign sponsored terrorist groups” and “militias”.

    The resolution gave no time frame and made no mention of Turkey, or even Libya specifically, referring instead to a western deployment, but it risks escalating the spiraling conflict in Libya, where foreign powers have ignored an arms embargo to support the country’s warring factions with weapons and fighters.

    The Apocalypse is moving along nicely!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/21/egyptian-parliament-green-lights-military-intervention-libya/

    2. The risk results entirely from Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar’s money and assorted terrorists in control in Tripoli, all supported by the Left in western countries, of course.

      Various reports suggest that Turkey has imported between 6,000 and 17,000 ISIS fighters from Syria to Libya.

      Thank God Egypt has the courage to ban the MB and face up to this scourge. Although the EU seems to support the Tripoli ‘government’, to his credit, Macron is very much against it.

      Turkey’s ultimate aims are to secure Libyan oil fields for itself, control a large corridor from Libya to the Eastern Mediterranean and to enhance the power of the new Caliph, Mr. Erdogan!

      The DT should be ashamed of itself for such a one-sided story. What do they think Egypt should do? Hand out sweets to the terrorists encroaching on its long border with Libya?

      1. I think that Erdogan is currently one of the most dangerous individuals on the planet.

        1. He used to be a semi-professional footballer before going into politics. Imran Khan, the Pakistan prime minister had a rather more successful career in sport.

        2. He is President-for-Life of what is, in effect a muslim State. He is bent on expanding Turkish hegemony. His actions are sure to draw NATO into some kind of fracas. We are the ally of Turkey in another loonie “Crimean War” scenario. There are no good outcomes in view. Apart from the Libya debacle, set up by us, there are the oil scuffles in the Eastern Mediterrnean, and the shaky prospects for Cyprus.
          So we’d leave NATO if we have any sense. Otherwise we fight against the Greeks. Or we fight for the Greeks…

          1. Erdogan has been Hell bent on reversing Ataturk’s legacy.
            I would rather see Turkey kicked out than us leave NATO.

          2. I’d like to see them pushed out too. Not likely to happen as Turkey is in NATO courtesy of the USA to provide them with air bases as part of a ring of steel around Russia. It may be that the USA does not need the bases now, who knows?

    1. I’ d imagine more than 90% of the population would agree, but our effing ‘civil (who only serve themselves) service’ and the undermining judiciary will get there way, they are extremely annoying people.

      1. 321585+ up ticks,
        RE,
        They are under the powers of the current governance party, the governance party is voted in by the herd.
        The undermining treachery is portrayed by each of the lab/lib/con political close shop each & every time they get into power.
        This is not new especially since the Thatcher political demise, the three governance parties have been in a treacherously dismantling mode with the herd feeding their destructive campaign.
        By the by extremely annoying people is really an understatement IMO treacherous bastards describes better.

    2. 321585+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      If she is allowed back then it goes to prove that this governance party recognising the fact that she can still operate child bearing hips and is an asset to any terrorist baby farm.
      The confirmation will come with Cow & Gate going Halal.

        1. 321585+ up ticks,
          RE,
          Permitted to come in allows her ALL the help financially on offer,
          then keep in mind her being the latch lifter for the many awaiting the chance.

        1. 321585+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          Being RC I am pro life but on this occasion we should keep in mind that she could still bare
          potential terrorist and owing to the governance party guidance & their ongoing support we have enough of her ilk now going back years.
          The product of which could be coming on line.
          The lab/lib/con coalition party
          rhetorically, no action needed,
          argue over the issue, perpetual
          motions supports political life styles.

        2. They wouldn’t die here – £thousands would be spent making sure they survive.

          1. I have my doubts that she ever had any babies.
            All we ever saw were bundles held in bundled arms.
            Even if they were babies, they are ten a penny in those camps and one could be borrowed for the cameras as an additional pawn in the game.

    3. Her father was murdered by ISIS – how must she feel to see Britain allowing such filth back into the country?

  46. The Slog

    ‘Cloth masks actually risk your health rather than protect it.

    The moisture caught in these masks will become mildew-ridden in thirty

    minutes. Dry coughing, enhanced allergies, sore throat are all symptoms

    of a micro-mold in your mask’

    ……………………

    Throughout the West, millions of ordinary citizens are being legally forced to

    wear masks that (quote) ‘DO NOT FILTER ANYTHING’. Call it

    misinformation or disinformation, it is what it is: a gigantic scam

    under which we are being asked to pay for protection that doesn’t

    work….while the élites get their N95s free.

    Rest here

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/07/21/the-proof-millions-forced-by-law-to-wear-masks-that-are-completely-useless/

    1. If France is anything to go by, I doubt if one in ten people is actually wearing the damned thing properly.

    3. Here we go again.

      Fact checkers are all rejecting that CDC document as false.

      CDC might well have been reluctant (or downright negative) about masks when CV was first blooming but for some time their consistent advice has been to wear a cloth mask.

      The repeated message in Canada has been that face masks are not to protect you, they are to help stop you blowing virus laden snot and saliva over others. The same message appears to be being spread elsewhere.

      But don’t let anything get in the way of a good conspiracy.

      1. Well my snot and saliva is quite clean and not doing anyone any harm – because I haven’t got the virus!!

  47. The headline to the letters today is:

    Tuesday 21 July: Squabbling between the Armed Services undermines public trust

    Does the headline writer seriously believe there is any public trust left to undermine?

    1. Yesterday the BBC announced that first the Government would vaccinate all those from ethnic minorities.

      That will certainly improve race relations!

      2. Efnics then fatties I suppose. Then those living in innercity communities since they are closely packed. Isn’t socialism wonderful.

    2. Good, although it was Prof Sikora who recently highlighted the current shambles with cancer treatment. Has he been leant on? Anyway, I struggle to understand why this seems to have slowed to a snail’s pace, or stopped altogether in some cases. I can’t imagine what those patients with a curable condition must be going through when their treatment was suspended abruptly.

      2. Yo HJ

        I had red blood in a ‘stool’

        Saw GP, quick trip for the consultant to see me (It was no use me going to see him, he did not have a helo needing repair)

        Colonoscopy, two weeks later man with a knife hacked me about and fitted a bag

        A year later, bag removed and all deposits from then on have been normal.

        I would quite cheerfully do serious harm to anyone who prevents the above taking place for all those who need it

        Edit
        This was in 2005ish

        1. You were lucky.
          My limited experience of the NHS has been an eye-opener.
          If you haven’t any Coved symptons they are simply not interested.

          NHS – Always there for you when you need them my @rse…

          I was in total agony with tendonitis, lucky to find a private physio,slow healing process has begun but it will take time because as my doctor told me I should have seen someone sooner!!!
          WTF did he think I was trying to do during lockdown…..!!!

          I won’t mention the antibiotics finally prescribed by Dr Stupid….

          PS … they were the same as prescribed for
          Bill Thomas aka Eeyore. !!!

        2. You were lucky.
          My limited experience of the NHS has been an eye-opener.
          If you haven’t any Coved symptons they are simply not interested.

          NHS – Always there for you when you need them my @rse…

          I was in total agony with tendonitis, lucky to find a private physio,slow healing process has begun but it will take time because as my doctor told me I should have seen someone sooner!!!
          WTF did he think I was trying to do during lockdown…..!!!

          I won’t mention the antibiotics finally prescribed by Dr Stupid….

          PS … they were the same as prescribed for
          Bill Thomas aka Eeyore. !!!

          1. Yo P-T

            As I said before, I would ask them to supply, in writing and signed, why they could not examine/treat me,
            I would send it by recorded post to the Surgery, using the headed notepaper of

            Ambulance Chasers R US

          2. I’m more concerned about my daughter’s partner who is awaiting another hernia op because the first was a bloody mess. Sepsis and sending him home too early resulted in complications and an agonising two weeks before he was seen by another doctor…..

  51. More evidence of the virus regulations madness.

    Arrangements are being made for the funeral of the late Canon Bill Scott (see NoTTL passim).

    London church rules – NO MORE than 30 in a church for a funeral. One more = eternal damnation plus excommunication.

    Virus rules – up to 60 people may gather in a building for a “secular event”.

    As hundreds of people will wish to go to the funeral – the arrangements are to have three or four “secular events” in his old parish church……one after the other…!!

    And choirs will sing in the open air outside the church…..

    Geoff – eat your heart out.

    (For those interested, the former self-promoting Bishop of London is doing the obit in The Church Times.)

    1. Just hope that at the fourth funeral he doesn’t sit up in his coffin and shout For gods sake, get on with it.

    2. My father, a no-nonsense sporting country parson, used to read the Church Times after lunch on Sundays. He said that it was guaranteed to send him into a deep afternoon zizz. I suspect that the consumption of leftover communion wine might also have had something to do with it!

        1. Nagina is the Hindi for a female cobra. I dubbed the wife of my boss in Ostfriesland ‘Nagina’

      2. Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah, better known as Naga Munchetty, is a British Indian television presenter, newsreader and journalist.

        1. “Journalist”? Really?? Mrs HJ has her down as a third-rate Autocue reader (yes, that good!) What a ludicrous salary, too. Please, someone get a grip and call time on this disgrace of a broadcaster. How much longer will they be permitted to remain in the Last Chance saloon?

    2. As I’ve never watched the Breakfast Show or any of its rivals in my life, I don’t see why I should be funding her salary.

  53. “Envy of the World”

    Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust: 500 more cases included in maternity services inquiry

    Nearly 1,900 cases are now part of the inquiry into what is described as the worst maternity scandal in the history of the NHS.

    “However, we recognise that we have further to go.”

    A leaked

    report last year found that clinical malpractice was allowed to continue

    unchecked for 40 years at a trust with a “toxic” culture.

    Last month, West Mercia Police announced it is also conducting an investigation to determine if there is evidence to support a criminal case against the trust.

    https://news.sky.com/story/shrewsbury-and-telford-hospital-nhs-trust-500-more-cases-included-in-maternity-services-inquiry-12033181?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
    Shut your mouth and clap for your betters,proles

    3. There was a case this week from Guys and St Thomas where they paid £37 million for their catalogue of errors to one family.

      How can they get it so wrong? It’s a natural process.

      I understand there may be complications but all these complications were committed by the staff. Baby seriously brain damaged.

      1. It’s a natural process that if left to nature kills an awful lot of babies and mothers. I was very proud of my father for having got through a career as an obstetrician and gynaecologist without having once been sued (VERY unusual); I am a bit of a reluctant expert on the dangers.

        Don’t know what went wrong in that particular case, but the payouts tend to be so massive because they have to provide for an often severely disabled child for the rest of its life.

        1. Childbirth is one of the most dangerous things a woman can undergo. The same applies to horses. We have lost several mares and foals due to complications during the birth process.

        2. Me being callous as usual.

          My issue with this is what happens to the capital when the child dies?
          Why does a case like this get untold millions when a “natural” disaster for a child gets nothing?

    4. I can’t say the care at Tidworth Military Hospital was good, but it was nearly 50 years ago, and I went home with a healthy baby.

      1. Southampton maternity wing was appalling 51 years ago , really dreadful . Almost 3rd world .. but I was lucky to leave with a healthy baby because I discharged myself within 36 hours .. was meant to be in for 10 days as was the fashion in those days .. I wouldn’t have survived neither would my baby have .

        1. I stuck it out for the unnecessary ten days as I didn’t know any better. But what with having to take soiled bed-linen down in the lift from the post-natal ward to the recovery one, and putting it on the bed there, to the girl almost fainting, holding her new-born, due to the excessive heat; having a screaming infant in the cot next to the bed all night; being told by a nurse that she’d have thrown him out of the window if he’d been hers – all of that plus more made up an experience I wouldn’t want to repeat!

    6. It’s why I have never been out to bang pots and pans for the NHS. Although, to be fair, any treatment I’ve had at Shrewsbury has been okay – better, in fact, than at Telford.

    1. Up the field.
      Turn.
      Down the field.
      Turn.
      Up the field ….
      You get the picture.

  57. DM Story

    ‘We should only reward teachers who actually TURNED UP to class’: Parents’ fury as government includes school staff in public sector pay rises for helping to combat Covid… despite thousands staying at home since MARCH

    Teachers are amongst the best and the worst people I know. It is not just that the worst ones are lazy they are dull, uninspiring, humourless and incapable of motivating their pupils. An enthusiastically dull person is almost as bad as a lazy one!

    Not long ago a headteacher who complained that some of her teaching staff were doing nothing was sacked.

    The students we have with us this week – all from leading independent schools – have received a full programme of on-line teaching since lockdown

    1. Isn’t it part of the job of a head teacher to see that his/her staff do some work?

      1. I think the most important part of her job description was not to offend anyone and the ne’er-do-wells on her staff found it most offensive to hear the truth about themselves.

        However there is a rider to this: if you wish to offend someone with unacceptably right-wing views then you are obliged to do so.

        1. “On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure”.

          (Importance of being Ernest.)

  58. That’s me for today. A slightly better day. Managed to scrounge three pieces of gash 6″ x 2″ timber – the MR wants to have a raised bed for the strawberries.

    In a day or so, I’ll lash something up. Times like this I wish I was useful with my hands…. Paul…come off that roof and give us a hand…!!

    Tomorrow – to Narridge for my “urgent” X-ray – only four weeks late.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain..

    1. My raised bed with strawbs at the front with beans and trombetti at the back is in full swing. Ner ner nee ner ner.

      Hope all goes well, Bill.

      2. Did you cross your trombetti with one of my grape vines?

        It is supposed to just go up one side of our deck and has behaved in the past but this year the vine has spread about twelve feet along the front of the deck, spouting foliage and grapes as it goes.

    3. Santé, Bill. I’ve cut my lawns and generally tidied up in the garden, but I still have a lot left to do. My strawberries are edging my veg plots.

  59. I forgot to mention that Sainsbury are selling Spanish eggs by the trayful ..

    Are the eggs subjected to the same strict scrutiny as British eggs.

      1. Yuck! It’s bad enough getting the tiniest bit of shell in one’s scrambled egg.

          1. Morning Eddy and all! Do you not think they “plant” a feather in every box of eggs just to prove that they come from chickens? Always find one adhering to one of the eggs!

          6. Yep! That too Spikey! I reckon they employ someone to attach feathers and poo! What a job eh?

          7. Sure is Sue, I’m glad I get eggs from my neighbour – I let him graze his sheep on my croft

        1. When we were in lovely Northumberland HPB Lucker Hall, in January, we bought locally sourced and massive brown eggs all double yokers.

        1. ‘Morning, Belle. When I used to shop at S, I would go through box after box of 1/2 dozen eggs, finding one or more cracked again & again until I found a box of intact ones. In W/rose it is almost rare to find a cracked egg. It can only be down to the way they are handled.

    4. We only shop in WGC Waitrose. There seem to be an abundance of white eggs at the moment, all lion stamped of course.
      But seemingly much fresher than the previously more prevalent brownies.
      Or do brown eggs have thicker shells………pondering on…… is there a hidden message in this ?

      1. I don’t know – but they seem to keep long past the BB date. I’ve never had a bad one.

  60. Russia Report smeared all over the MSM

    Russian ‘meddling’ or ‘interfering with our democratic processes’
    Aye right
    That Spetsnaz trooper grinding his Makarov pistol in me lughole in the voting booth certainly influenced my vote
    Snigger,have you ever heard such bolleaux in your life…………………??

      2. And not much about people being told and paid who to vote for at polling stations in Muslim Lefty areas either.

      3. As I may have mentioned previously, a Scottish friend told me that he voted to Leave as a reaction against President Obama’s infamous remark about the back of the queue. And he had nothing to gain from Brexit.

        1. Obama was a turd that floated to the top, out of almost nowhere; a veritable Manchurian Candidate.

          He still floats leaving a stench behind.

    2. Nothing about the UK Government fixing voting papers. We know it happened. When the Indie Referendum papers had no markings and no counterfoils, you know it’s fixed.

  63. Evening, all. I don’t think the public is particularly concerned with inter armed forces squabbling. They are more concerned with what government is doing to them.

  65. Good evening all.
    Currently sat in the Red Lion, Mumby.
    Only Bateman’s Revival on pump, but better than nothing.

    Feeling a lot better than yesterday. Had a decent night’s sleep, despite being woken at half past Midnight by a security bloke wondering why I was parked where I was! He was quite happy when I said “Getting my head down!”

    Had a brief pause at Horse Shoe Point, next to the former RAF North Coates, a Coastal Command base with Beaufighters during the War, then a short walk in Saltwick and a swim at Wolla Bank, a bit South of Mabelthorpe.

    A VLCC was unloading oil off Horseshoe Point assisted by several tugs:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1810bbf72ceabeec8c2dc866d5ee436b206c6ad47e97ba3125a39da70becf38.jpg

    The saltmarsh st Saltwick was covered in this rather pretty little plant, anyone know what it is:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1bf91d0c9555d05bad6fc9f90f9a2ccd3c6d02c5dad2687167d362ed99279c81.jpg

    A lovely little church in Mumby:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad17cff35ccb8bd5ad681e7b3358672307c1775ac59ac3100f1fe28d58d7d32a.jpg

    Dedicated to St, Thomas of Cantebury.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de880053fefb64b2e63434afec50eb5ac9b361e693dc583fb06ac94d11c58f99.jpg

  66. And a last batch of photos.
    A couple for Geoff:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1b7d29e611e228235cd074bfd35238ba4c6bf04aa96d9583ac1e42b488c256f.jpg

    With the builder:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b5d9c3f591bfaa63e4970e0151e7e476c56850f99003f2736b16cfddc6861419.jpg

    A lovely window:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b076007e8bab7c95e83df132c67afaee6885faa22a48f38cce1326f62981a4a3.jpg

    And some very nice details:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44a2ce75ece435c3a980bb2de94e8d92d0fb8975ef6562180433459f66542803.jpg

    1. Humble churches are often more interesting than grand cathedrals. They have a closer connection to the ordinary, and are the more fascinating for it.

        1. Are you saying that we should saying:

          “Thank goodness B-o-B was there to urinate on the fires”?

    2. I wore that mask on entering an emporium last week. They were not amused…

  68. Is nothing sacred in this New World Order?

    As many of you know, I’m a bit of an Arty Farty type, who loves nothing better than splashing a bit of the old daubing juice around a canvas. Unfortunately, there is a worldwide move afoot to ban the use of age-old terms like “flesh tint” when referring to painting pigments.

    https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2020/07/16/redefining-skin-and-flesh-colours/?utm_campaign=1948185_Blog_Newsletter_21_07_2020&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Jackson%27s%20Art%20Supplies&dm_i=42I2,15R89,2IKUIN,43ZGS,1

    I truly despair at what is becoming of this world and its headlong clamour to not “offend” people.

    1. Have you been watching “Bob Ross the happy painter” on BBC4?
      HG has really enjoyed the series as have several of her fellow painters.

      1. We enjoy watching the repeats.. He had such a soothing vice . his techniques helped Moh learn how to paint water quite well , and shadows!

        1. It appears that you should be watching Bill Alexander instead.
          I was only reporting on HG’s enjoyment.

          2. One can watch what one is aware of!

            I can’t be bothered with doing a forensic investigation to see if somebody once did the same, before allowing HG to watch a programme.!

            She’s a big girl now and can choose what she wants to see.

          3. Why are you going into a strop? You told me your HG liked it and I simply gave you a bit of the history behind it. Nothing else.

            A no stage did I disrespect your HG for liking it.

      2. No. I’ve been aware of Bob Ross and his art videos (most are on YouTube) for a number of years. What he did was, indeed, clever and he made a lot of dosh out of selling his overpriced art materials before he died in 1995. Those products still sell but I don’t know who benefits these days.

        The technique he uses was taught him by a German expatriate called Bill Alexander who invented it. Alexander also had a TV show showing his technique before Ross did. Ross and Alexander were good friends for a while but they fell out when Ross went solo and “stole” Alexander’s techniques claiming them as his own. They remained enemies for the rest of their lives.

    2. My childhood – long time ago – paint boxes invariably included ‘nigger brown’ …

    3. Just make sure you take no notice of it. For some reason they have stopped calling it A Priests Hole, its now a Priests Hide.

    4. You are forgetting that some people actively seek ‘offence’ in the hope that it confers victimhood upon them. No, I cannot understand such a mindset either.

  69. From the BBC.

    “Olga Robinson
    Disinformation specialist, BBC Monitoring*
    In the section on the 2016 EU referendum and whether Russian interfered in it, the report refers to ‘open source’ studies which pointed to “the preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and Sputnik, and the use of ‘bots’ and ‘trolls’, as evidence of Russian attempts to influence the process”.
    So, what did they find?
    Research by 89up, a communications agency, suggested that in the run-up to the vote Russia’s flagship international media outlets, RT and Sputnik, published over 200 articles on the EU referendum that had anti-EUsentiment.
    Another study, by researchers from University of Edinburgh, highlighted that some accounts identified by Twitter as having links to the Russian “troll factory” that sought to influence the 2016 election in the US also tweeted on Brexit-related issues before and after the vote.
    Similarly, joint research bySwansea University and the University of California, Berkeley, identified over 150,000 Russian accounts that tweeted about Brexit ahead of the vote.”

    My question is: “How many of these stories were actually taken from the BBC and UK Press?
    PS. How did they identify Russian accounts?

    * Seriously? Really? Ha-ha-ha! Come off it, Olga!
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-53485009

        1. Irony, moi? But no, it’s the job title quoted in the BBC article on the BBC website. I’ve seen it before. It is a recently created position, I think.
          We can no longer spoof reality.

      2. I am sure that many BBC employees have no sense of humour. That goes double for commissioning editors of sit-coms.

  70. Afternoon All

    From another Rick

    “Well there you have it, folks. Pointless public sector parasites on lovely

    pay, perks and pensions and overinbreeding third world scum. All

    supported by taxpayers who are continually told by a sneering media that

    we are privileged white supremacists sharing a collective guilt for the

    slave trade. And all under a tory government with an eighty seat

    majority.

    We’re not going to vote this better”.

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HrUPAuWpWzA/XxYCIfD6l2I/AAAAAAAAH0U/Wfev0Yjo07kalzkuwdQm88d5xeSN0spoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG-20200714-WA0005.jpg

  71. Another example of totally inadequate sentencing.
    “An 84-year-old man who killed a cyclist after ignoring warnings not to drive because of his failing eyesight has been jailed for 32 months.
    A judge rejected a plea to spare first offender John Johnstone a prison sentence after he caused the death of Hanno Garbe by dangerous driving.
    Lord Fairley said Johnstone had been told twice his eyesight did not meet the required standard for driving.    ”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-53471392

    2. No doubt he will blame the coronavirus lockdown for not getting his cataracts treated in the 20+ years he had them.

    3. From age 70, the driving licence expires every 3 years. I don’t understand why renewal is not dependent on passing an eyesight test.

      1. You have to make a declaration on your renewal declaration that your eyesight meets the requirements. If you wear glasses to meet the requirements, you have to say so.

        1. A declaration is not proof of acceptable eyesight. My step-father-in-law continued to drive until fairly recently even though he had AMD. How he managed to keep his licence is beyond me.

          1. No, that’s true. However, telling a flat out lie as he most likely did is an offence in itself. I don’t think that there is any requirement for opticians to inform the DVLA of drivers who are unable to reach the required standard, even with glasses.
            On the one hand, assuming this was followed up by police it might save a few lives. On the other hand it smacks of yet more intrusion by Big Brother.

          2. I don’t think it’s too much of an intrusion to ask people to have an eye test every three years over the age of 70 if they wish to continue driving. It’s well-known that eyesight deteriorates with age. I have a regular eye test every two years and have done so for the past 50 years. A copy of the eye test result should accompany the application to renew the driving licence.

          3. It’s not the eye test that’s the” intrusion”, it’s the optician turning you in. Yes, regular eye tests are sensible even if you don’t drive.

          4. I’m not sure about the current rules – I think a GP is obliged to inform the DVLA if he/she thinks a medical condition makes someone unfit to drive. I don’t think opticians are so obliged. In all cases, the driver is obliged by law to inform the DVLA of certain medical conditions which may or may not render them unfit to drive.

            My proposal would not necessitate the Optician informing the DVLA. All he/she would have to do is to issue a certificate that one’s eyesight is good enough to drive. If it isn’t, no certificate would be issued. Since the renewal of the driving licence would be conditional on such a certificate being produced, a driver would not be able to obtain a licence if he/she has failed an eye test (or indeed has not taken one).

          5. When I had a medical to keep my C1, D1 entitlement, I had to have a report from my optician as well to prove my eyesight was up to scratch.

    1. 321585+ up ticks,
      Evening JN,
      Let us not celebrate to quick until there is a lot more clear water between us & france, the Dover intake campaign is still signalling that the pro eu political rubber stampers are still very active.

    2. I suspect Mr WalkAway has a few too many “0”s.

      EDIT getting zeroes in a line.

  73. 321585,

    Nigel Farage said that it is time for Western nations to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the horrors the regime is committing against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang,

    Does he mean the lab/lib/con coalition party could do that with a clear conscience ?

    The governance parties of these Isles have treated the indigenous peoples
    as below the stairs sh!te & in no way to be taken notice of excepting of course when their voting support is needed.

  74. J and N are so close on the keyboard aren’t they, Charles?

    CHARLES MOORE

    The word Islamist has a meaning. Leave it be

    The word has a long pedigree and a clear meaning which the public can grasp

    Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations Neil Basu is the national head of counter-terrorism policing. Each “Axo” (as it is pronounced in the trade) is one of the most powerful police officers in Britain, working closely with the intelligence agencies, dealing constantly with matters of life and death. You might think Mr Basu would eschew political or media disputations.

    Not so. Last August, Mr Basu announced that no one using Boris Johnson’s pre-prime ministerial words about niqabs making Muslim women look like letter boxes would be recruited to today’s police. In November, he sought to blame the media for radicalisation by the way it reported terrorism. Now, at a conference of Muslim police officers which he addressed, the use of the word “Islamist” to describe terrorists was decried.

    The term allegedly perpetuates negative perceptions of Muslims. Instead, “faith-based terrorism” is proposed. The word “irhabi” is also touted. Obscure to a Western audience, it is said to mean “terrorist” in Arabic, though it derives from a word meaning “reverent fear”, which sounds like something believers in most religions ought to feel towards their faith.

    We have been here before. In the wake of “9/11” in 2001, Muslim leaders objected to the term “Islamic terrorism”. They had a point: it implied that terrorism is authentically Muslim. Equally, however, there had to be a simple word which could convey the vital truth that the attacks were being committed in the name of Islam. The Blair government’s initial preference for the phrase “international terrorism” was absurdly evasive.

    Eventually, the word “Islamism” came into use. It is the right one, with a long pedigree and a clear meaning which the public can grasp. Islamism means the modern, extreme, political version of Islam which believes in imposing sharia law, sometimes justifying violence. The people who hate the word are not ordinary Muslims but – surprise, surprise – Islamists, who often self-identify as such. AC Basu should forget this elderly argument and get back to proper work.

    What to call a dog these days?

    Nowadays, so many things cannot be said. On anything pertaining to race, we have become as repressive as the Victorians on anything related to sex. Younger generations will therefore have been puzzled by the recent news that the gravestone of a famous dog has been replaced.

    The dog in question was the mascot of 617 Squadron, the men responsible for the famous Dam Busters’ raid in the Second World War. He is buried at RAF Scrampton. Now the RAF has replaced his tomb because his name gives “prominence to an offensive term” that “goes against its ethos”. We are not allowed to know what his name was. On his replacement tomb, the poor animal is nameless.

    “But what was his name, Grandpa?” I imagine infants crying out. Obviously, to avoid polluting young ears, I must not disclose. All one can say is that the men so named him, affectionately, because of his colour. He was a black Labrador.

    “No name”, as I must refer to the dog, died in 1943. It is interesting to imagine what he might have been called if he had been born later. In 1960, say, “coloured” was the polite word for what, in his case, is now considered offensive. By the 1970s, “coloured” was frowned on. The new approved word was “black”. More recently, the term has been “Afro-Caribbean” (or, in the US, “African-American”), although this phrase upsets some people so described. They prefer to be designated by their colour alone, rather than by reference to a continent with which they have no personal connection. According to the New York Times, the arbiter of jiggery-wokery, “Black” with a capital B is the correct terminology. White people, on the other hand, are “white” in the lower case.

    It is all very difficult. But please don’t let yourself be bullied into not getting a dog of colour because of problems of nomenclature. That, too, would be racist.

    The only thing that will disturb this rare bird is the RSPB

    Is there any subject about which it is easier to create fake news than wildlife? All you need is the magic phrase “under threat”, and you will receive uncritical reporting. The latest example follows the rare sighting of a bearded vulture in the Peak District.

    This pleasing tale was not enough for the RSPB, and for Tim Birch, an Extinction Rebellion supporter and conservation manager of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. They are promoting the idea that the bird will be killed by gamekeepers on the local grouse moors where the shooting season starts next month. His situation is “like a turkey spending Christmas at a butcher’s shop”, says the RSPB. Mr Birch has encouraged the idea that crowds must come and view the vulture to keep it safe.

    Even if the keepers were the wicked men the RSPB likes to imagine, that turkey/Christmas analogy does not work. No one wants to eat a vulture. And no vulture, since it preys on dead creatures, wants to eat a living grouse; so no keeper would want to kill it. There is no reason why vulture and grouse shoot cannot peacefully cohabit. What certainly will disturb the vulture, however – and that other fascinating wild bird, the grouse – will be the crowds of people crawling over the hills to find the poor lost young bird from Switzerland, encouraged by crazy publicity from organisations supposed to care about conservation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/21/word-islamist-has-meaning-leave/

      1. I recall talking to some ‘Crabs’ years ago, who said it was normal for lads to come back
        to Scampton, after a night on the beerand pee on the Albino’s Grave.

        1. Yours has red, white and blue flowers round it, like the photo I used to have, but lost when my computer crashed and died. I lost a lot of data.

    2. 321585+up tick,
      Evening WS,

      For the present Niger ( river) would suffice until sanity returns,
      Lest we forget.

    3. Basu is a shameless, self-regarding chancer with an eye firmly on the top job. And the way things are going he will probably get it. Heaven help us.

    4. I do not feel saffron public transport when there are blacks or muslims present.
      Gamekeepers kill raptors by poisoning and shooting.

      Edit “safe on public transport”. Thank you predicated toxics for interpreting my typing as an indication of a rather yellow streaked spine…

  77. The teachers who didn’t rise to the challenge should give their pay rise to the unsung carers

    Teachers will get a 3.1 per cent pay rise – but it’s workers from the unsung private sector who are the real heroes

    ALLISON PEARSON

    While teachers receive a 3.1 per cent pay rise, the remarkable service of workers in the unsung private sector has been forgotten. As millions of parents braced themselves yesterday for another day of finishing”homeschooling” – 37 still uncompleted assignments about to expire on the laptop, pandemic puppy halfway through chewing Call of the Wild, kids nowhere to be seen – imagine the cries of joy as it was announced that teachers are getting a 3.1% pay rise.

    Teachers? TEACHERS!!***???

    You mean teachers who, discounting a crack battalion of dutiful exceptions, have been on sunbathing leave since 20th March? Teachers who may or may not agree to return to the classroom in September, subject to it being 100% “safe”? Oh, and with the proviso that children are treated like lepers, confined in pointless “bubbles” or even forced to wear masks. Actually, better if the kids aren’t there at all. That would definitely make it safer for teachers.

    What on earth, parents might well ask, has the pedagogic profession done to merit the biggest sustained uplift in teachers’ pay since 2005? The increase will take a big chunk out of the Government’s promised additional £2.6 billion funding for education next year. As £780 million is already earmarked (rightly so) for Special Educational Needs, and with another £455 million now swallowed up by pay rises, that leaves around £1.4 billion for youngsters whose lives have been so cruelly disrupted.

    Schools should have been open weeks ago. In Sweden, they never closed. In France, schools returned after a steely President Macron declared it was “obligatoire”. In Australia, the Riot Act was read to teachers, pointing out that children do not spread coronavirus and parents should not be forced “to choose between putting food on the table through their employment to support their kids and their kids’ education.”

    In the UK that is exactly the dilemma families without childcare face as militant teaching unions hold the country to ransom. Perhaps this pay rise for teachers is the Government’s way of pre-empting further argy-bargy come September as the National Education Union (NEU) finds yet more excuses for its members?

    A minority of union activists (leather jacket, aftershave with top notes of Marxist malice) dominate staff rooms and intimidate staff who just want to teach. Disgracefully, Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the NEU, said that, as part of “an escalation procedure” his union would threaten to name and shame on social media headteachers who it believed were “putting lives at risk”. Daring to put their pupils first, more like.

    Awarding above-inflation pay rises to almost 900,000 workers including teachers and doctors but, mystifyingly, not nurses or care workers, Rishi Sunak said: “These past months have underlined that our public sector workers make a vital contribution to our country and that we can rely on them when we need them.”

    Can we really, Chancellor? Certainly, there were tens of thousands of men and women who gave remarkable service on the Covid frontline, many of them in the largely unsung private sector. Supermarket workers, delivery drivers, all carried on in conditions that were ten times riskier than any classroom. Sadly, the same cannot be said for a large number of teachers and doctors.
    ____________________________________________________________________

    A government report earlier this week predicted that lockdown could cause an extra 200,000 deaths, many resulting from a lack of medical treatment. The report foresaw that “some deaths may occur as a result of the NHS being put under significant pressure, or in some scenarios actually overwhelmed, and unable to provide treatment to potentially adequate standards”. What it couldn’t know was that the system would not, as it hoped, “continue to treat most cancer patients”. Or that GPs and other practitioners who could have been providing important care were missing in inaction.

    An extraordinary email I received from one district nurse revealed the inside story of this emerging scandal. “We have felt entirely alone out in the community,” wrote Holly†, who continued to see up to ten housebound patients every day. “It has felt like everyone was too afraid to help sick people and used Covid to just sit the whole pandemic out. As a result, people have died and cancer patients are months behind in their treatment.”

    I interviewed Holly this week for the Planet Normal podcast. Some things she told me were so sad that it was hard not to be moved to tears. One gentleman, aged ninety, had massive blisters. His GP refused to visit, advising the man’s wife to “just pierce them with a needle”. His condition deteriorated and Holly tried to get him admitted to Dermatology, which was empty. “They wouldn’t see him.” After three more failed attempts to get a GP out, the poor man was finally admitted to hospital in an appalling state and died on the operating table. He is one of four patients that Holly alleges died needlessly because “pretty much everything was shut” even though the NHS was “nowhere near” being overwhelmed.

    I contacted NHS England to put to them the charge that healthcare services which could have stayed open were shut with devastating consequences. I was told that they were “disappointed” I had not put “positive” information in my column. To which I replied that, as more than 1,000 Telegraph readers had told me their stories of suffering and neglect at the hands of the NHS during lockdown, I was struggling to find much that was positive to say. I am still waiting for the promised data from NHS England which will disprove Holly’s allegation that “pretty much everything was shut”.

    It’s a funny old world when teachers who didn’t teach much get a pay rise for being public-sector heroes and Holly, whose patients wept with relief when she turned up on their doorstep, gets nothing. Perhaps the teachers should forego the increase and give it to the heroes who really did their best in such challenging circumstances.

    [† name changed]

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/teachers-didnt-rise-challenge-should-give-pay-rise-unsung-carers/

    1. This wretched government had a golden opportunity to take on the teachers who have been on sunbathing leave since March, and who may still hold out beyond September on spurious ‘safety’ grounds. I’m guessing that the government could count on the support of a majority of parents, and particularly those who may stil have a job in the private sector. So what do they do? They give the cowardly, work-shy teachers a bloody pay rise. It really beggars belief.

      1. It probably stops teachers striking for a year in two, after that go for delays then arbitration and it will be a problem for the next government.

      2. Perhaps Ronald Reagan had the right solution, when the US Air Traffic Controllers went on strike? Sacked every one.

      3. “I’m guessing that the government could count on the support of a majority of parents.” Indeed they could, Hugh, but the MSM would shout and scream that the government was totally uncaring. My take is that the government is buying off the trouble-makers to try and keep them onside, but heaven help them when this is all over and Dominic Cummings’ “drain the swamp” measures begin to bite. It, like the government’s pay-off to the retiring Head of the Civil Service, will be money well spent.

    2. The excuse given for not giving nurses a pay rise was that they were already on a three-year agreement.

    3. The teachers who did not rise to the challenge are the last people who would give away their undeserved pay rise.

  78. HAPPY HOUR – Dog found in forest rescued
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f031171df110699702a1a4349f6e316f7f5a977a191a88281aa0c587a5bc0e88.jpg
    The dog was taken to Guilford County USA, Animal Welfare Center, by Stephen the driver for Animal Control, where she was cared for and treated for her wounds. She also received good food for the first time. Her owners called and promised to pick her up in a few days.
    The days quickly turned to weeks, but the puppy’s owners never showed up. However one of the shelter staff found a rescue organization that existed solely to adopt pit bulls.The Merit Pit Bull Foundation went online to find a loving family for the young puppy.
    The group of vultures had not just appeared. They had actually been circling the poor puppy’s enclosure for a week — and she was about to give up the fight.

          1. It can be very confusing.

            Drive round the Boston suburbs and most of the place names are English, just in the wrong place.

          3. It was quite “English” in Oz, too. I went to Horsham, Ascot and plenty of places I knew from England!

          1. Unfortunately, I read newest first, so I hadn’t got there yet. I’m always late on parade, me 🙂

    4. “They said I’d have to do a spell of bird but I didn’t sign up for this!”

  79. Of course Shamima Begum’s not afraid of the British justice system – there’s not much to fear

    The liberal elite think we have lost our humanity in our treatment of Shamima Begum. I think we’ve lost our marbles

    ALLISON PEARSON

    The Department of You Really Can’t Make This Stuff Up has been working overtime this week. The police are considering scrapping the terms “Islamist terrorism” and “jihadis” when describing attacks by – oh, dear! – Islamist terrorists and jihadists. Possible alternatives to be used include the snappy “terrorists abusing religious motivation” or “adherents of Osama bin Laden’s ideology”, which is a bit of a tongue twister for Huw Edwards, if you ask me.

    Apparently, the change was requested by a Muslim police organisation which blames the official use of “Islamist” and “jihadi” for “negative perceptions and stereotypes, discrimination and Islamophobia”.

    In other words, and if I’ve got this right, if suicide bombers blow up a train and leave behind videos indicating they are jihadists pursuing a “holy war”, the police must not make any reference to Islamism in case the public gets the correct impression. Can’t have that, can we? I don’t know about you, but I find it increasingly hard to suppress the suspicion that certain senior police officers see their function as protecting the guilty from the innocent.

    That same gnawing doubt applies to the criminal justice system as a whole. Consider the Court of Appeal which has just ruled that the so-called jihadi bride Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the UK from Syria to fight the decision to remove her British citizenship, even though other cases during lockdown have been conducted perfectly well via video link. The judges said that “fairness and justice must, on the facts of this case, outweigh the national security concerns”.

    Fairness and justice for whom exactly? Not for the British people, that’s for sure. Eight in ten of us (78 per cent) think that former home secretary Sajid Javid was right, back in February 2019, to remove the then-19-year-old’s UK citizenship. That’s not because we’re Islamophobic. It’s because we are weary of being the mugs who accede to traitors returning to live among us at the expense of the very country that they wished to destroy.

    Shamima Begum’s solicitor says his client “is not afraid of facing British justice”. I bet she isn’t. Not much to be feared of with m’learned friends conducting themselves like a lightly-stoned legal outpost of The Guardian.

    At least 425 members of Isil have so far returned to the UK from Syria and Iraq, and only one in 10 has been brought to trial. Most are on rehabilitation programmes paid for by guess who? Like all those jihadists – oops, sorry, adherents of Osama bin Laden’s ideology… – chances are Begum won’t even serve a custodial sentence. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to provide evidence of what went on in Raqqa where the former Bethnal Green schoolgirl claimed to be an ordinary housewife who was merely putting out the bins. Men like Shamima’s husband conveniently murdered all the witnesses.

    One person who did survive claimed that Begum served in the Islamic State’s brutal “morality police”, toting a Kalashnikov and whipping women who failed to abide by the strict dress code. Personally, I couldn’t care less about the wretched little bism. What I do mind about is that concerned liberals fret over poor Begum’s mistreatment while good people like Alan Henning and David Haines, both charity workers executed in the most barbaric way imaginable by Begum’s buddies, are forgotten.

    To add insult to injury, the decision to allow Begum to return means that up to 150 terrorists could now be legally entitled to enter the UK to challenge the decision in their cases. The Court of Appeal, it seems, is happy to add to the huge burden weighing down our counter-terrorism officers and put innocent Britons at risk as long as these appalling individuals get “justice”.

    It makes you nostalgic for the days when the law was merely an ass. Now, it’s a self-righteous, metropolitan clique fully signed up to the creed of “human rights” which leaves wrong ‘uns laughing at our weakness.

    On Sunday, the Prime Minister said that the Government is looking at “the odd and perverse” situation of someone being entitled to legal aid despite having had their citizenship revoked. Good. Boris should follow the lead of the French government which has allowed the children of jihadis to be repatriated, but has refused to take their parents because they present an ongoing danger to France.

    Advocates for Shamima Begum, including former human rights lawyer now Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, chide the rest of us for our lack of humanity. How dare they. It is a liberal elite that has overridden the fundamental instinct to protect our own while advancing the cause of our enemies which has lost its humanity – and its marbles.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/course-shamima-begums-notafraid-british-justice-system-not/

    1. Ahem Alison
      The “You Couldn’t Make It Up Files” will be issuing a writ for memetheft in the morning!!

    2. I can’t help wondering if it is not time to remove Blair’s ‘Supreme Court’ and re-instate the Law Lords as the highest court of appeal?

      1. Precisely. The Supreme Court was Blair’s device to kowtow to the EU and the ECHR with its ‘Human Rights trumps all’ agenda.

        Blair had hoped to become an EU Commission leader. Think about it, easy money for no appreciable work, freedom to extract vast sums from the EU slush funds without fear of due diligence or prosecution, lavish six course meals with the finest wines, a forum within which he could speak for his paymaster Soros, right up Blair’s street.

  81. Questions are now being asked about why the Canadian government signed an agreement with a Chinese company to supply security equipment for Canadian embassies around the world. No security risks there I suppose and it does take a bit of attention away from pretendy PM sole sourcing a $900 million deal with a charity that pays his family for guest speaking engagements..

    Hell it’s a minority government and the opposition parties cannot get together for long enough to pull the plug on their little fiefdom.

    1. When there’s a ‘congenital lunatic’ in charge; its maybe best to not to ask questions …

  83. LAST POST (Cook is calling)

    Yer Franch govt have said that masks are compulsory because they have realised that no one is taking the slightest notice of the two metre rule (or any distancing).

    I really AM going..!!

    1. That really is an idiotic cartoon. Just sheer ignorance of matters medical. Probably why so many on the right here refuse to take precautions and wonder why they get Covid-19. You can’t fix stupid, I guess.

      Never mind, when the dimwit anti-vaxxers kids start getting polio, it will all change soon enough.

      1. Tell me again, which areas of the USA have been hardest hit?

        Left-wing Democrat controlled ones I’m guessing.

        1. Florida, Georgia, Texas. Maybe some Democrat mayors but Republican governors.

          Sorry, I must add the customary extreme right tag to Republican, it so helps kill any reasoned conversation.

          1. To give it a sense of perpective in Texas that’s ~ 1.5 deaths per 100,000 population.

            Compare that with the UK and many other European countries.

            Re cities:
            Texas

            Democrats benefit heavily from its large cities; Austin, the state capital, votes Democratic, as do El Paso, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley. The suburbs of these cities are moderate.

            Florida
            The most Democratic region of the state is South Florida, which contains the large cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. The Tampa Bay region is also relatively Democratic, although it has become much more competitive in recent electoral cycles.

            The most Republican region of the state is the northern third, which contains the large cities of Pensacola and Jacksonville. The Tampa Bay region is relatively Democratic, although it has become much more competitive in recent electoral cycles.

    2. Its spot on and how most of us see it. The growing state removing our freedom to choose.I will only wear a mask when I choose to.

    3. Garrison cartoons hit the nail on the head.

      With a sledgehammer.

      Subtle, he ain’t.

        1. I would be pleased if I had a fraction of his drawing ability.

          I’m better providing captions for cartoons

  86. On and on it goes, BBC R4 news reports telling us “there’ll be no end to it soon, it’ll be with us a long time.”

    Saturday 6pm and today 7pm, the format was the same: a reference to Johnson’s “Over by Christmas” and two experts to disagree (in brief extracts from longer interviews). On Saturday it was John Edmunds of SAGE, and today Professor Sir John Bell of the University of Oxford. No alternative view was given.

    Saturday’s bulletin included a brief reference to PHE’s overcounting: “…a review into potential statistical flaws.” That was it.

    Are there any proper discussions in the media? I have to admit to being so worn down by it all that I’ve lost the patience to sit through 30-60 minutes of discussion in R4’s evening schedules.

    1. The BBC should be disqualified from newscasting until such time as it learns to rediscover its erstwhile – and sadly-lost – reputation for truth and integrity ….

    2. I’ve given up with the mediaa. Wanqueurs all, with too many agendas.
      OF Course COVID will be with us for, probably, ever. No surprise there. WE have to live with it, like living with colds ‘n flu. So what?? Be a bit sensible about infection prevention, plenty vitamin D, and you’ll be fine. Give or take. But it doesn’t need the whole freaking newspapaer, every day, to be filled with doom & gloom.

  87. BBC1 10pm news tonight: 1943 Bengal famine, 3 million dead – Churchill guilty.

    1. There’s a suitable response to that BTL on today’s letters page:

      John Birkett
      22 Jul 2020 12:17AM
      Re the disgraceful, partial and biased report on BBC News At Ten on 21 July which effectively called WSC a deliberate mass murderer of 3m Bengalis, the Beeb should note the following written by the historian Prof. Andrew Roberts who published his massive biography of Churchill recently.

      “ Churchill was not in any way responsible for the Bengal Famine, which began after a terrible cyclone hit Bengal in October 1942, destroying the rice crop on which the inhabitants depended, as well as many of the roads and railways needed to bring in supplies. In earlier famines, rice had been shipped from Burma, Thailand and elsewhere in the Far East, but this was impossible because the Japanese had invaded those countries and their submarines were operating in the Bay of Bengal and their Navy had shelled East Indian cities.

      The British Raj based in New Delhi was slow and occasionally negligent in responding to the famine, but so were the provincial governments that were run by Indians, who allowed merchants to hoard grain when prices were rising rapidly, and on occasion refused to sell grain to the Calcutta government. When one goes to the original documents, one reads letter after letter from Churchill to the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India suggesting measures to alleviate the suffering, and asking for grain shipments from President Roosevelt.

      It was true that the food needs of the British and Indian armies in Burma were given priority, but a starving Army would not have been able to keep the advancing Japanese out of Assam and north-east India. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines they killed 17.8 per cent of the population there. Transferred onto the Indian sub-continent, that would have meant 50 million Indians killed, far worse than the admittedly truly awful death toll of between 1.5 and 3.5 million in Bengal.

      The distinguished American historian Arthur Herman is not alone among historians in believing that ‘‘absent Churchill, India’s 1943 Famine would have been worse.” “

      1. Last night’s news was full of that kind of propaganda. They only ever tell one side of a story – the anti-British one.

  91. Morning all.
    Undermining public trust eh ? An article in todays Daily Express on line tells it all.
    I don’t suppose the fact that when 250 people recently jammed themselves into a Blackburn mosque to attend a funeral service counts as undermining public trust. The main instigator is now suffering from Corona Virus and the building has to to be deep cleaned what ever that means.
    Where as in reality and previously it was stated that only 10 people were allowed to attend a funeral service.

  93. 321652+ up ticks,
    5 o’clock radio 4 3000 replacement potential terrorist, rapist abuser units brought ashore at Dover this year, more today.

    The interviewer ask some obliging security doughnut ” what brings them across” the doughnut answered “the weather”
    and me thinking it was the welfare, housing, education, better bomb making facilities, raping / pillaging.
    More baby making units to speed up the power building campaign
    not long now for a decisive move to be made.

    It really is going to be one hell of a job for the electorate trying to fathom out the best of the worst at the next General Election.

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