Tuesday 22 April: Welcome clarity on sex-based rights can pave the way for a fairer society

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

454 thoughts on “Tuesday 22 April: Welcome clarity on sex-based rights can pave the way for a fairer society”

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLE site.

    Wordle 1,403 5/6

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    1. Good morning. Doggies going to the salon today to get Summer ready. £50 each !!!

      The breeder normally does it for free but she is working 7 days a week at the moment.

      1. Morning Phizzee,

        £50?

        What size are your doggies, and does that include a taxi service.. £50 each for little doggies .

        Pip spaniel , £35 , includes a wash, nails , teeth scrub .. usually an hours work .

      2. £50! Cheap at half the price. A shampoo and defluff brush for each is £75. Lucy – or Oscar, I can't remember – has their worming tablets and last vaccinations today. It'll be Lucy, but going to have a car full of dogs anyway which means Mongo trying to change gear or steer.

      4. It used to cost me £80 for the two (Oscar and Kadi). Now I clip Kadi at home myself. Several people have remarked how smart he looks so I must have done a reasonable job.

  4. Morning all.

    With stuff from one room almost everywhere I am starting to wonder if the floor in the back bedroom will give way.

    1. Know what you mean. Same here, and I also hate the mess. Look forward to it all being over.

      1. What it does indicate is how much 'stuff' we have and begs th question of do we need all of it, so before putting it back, I'm going to have a clear out.

        Once the radiator is installed and the 10 sockets put in – 10! (the room only has 3 single plugs and we were running off multi plugs) stuff can be moved back, but a proper consolidate is needed.

  5. Our once-civilised country deserves better than these filthy, lawless streets. Isabel Oakeshott 22 April 2025.

    In apparent desperation, local government officials recently served papers on “persons unknown” living on a roundabout in central London.

    The occupants of the area highlighted in court documents are a shifting cast of characters who, as those who’ve witnessed it will attest, sleep under dirty sheets of plastic, use the verge as a toilet and subsist by taking what they can from bins, skips and shops. They while away their days lounging around their camp, fiddling with their smartphones and swilling beer. Apparently, there are frequent fights.

    It has to be said that Ms. Oakeshott has voted with her feet and moved to Dubai. This does not invalidate her observations but questions her right to criticise. This said it takes little to realise that the UK is staggering to maintain itself and the streets are not its worse problem. The very fabric of the State is unwinding.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/21/our-once-civilised-country-deserves-better-than-these-filth/

    1. The country isn't falling apart, it's being put through a shredder by Left wing idoelogy.

      Nothing that has happened needed or should have. It was forced on us, a cultural and society rape by a spoiled, hateful, spiteful political class.

      1. In 1666 in London, such people were given the sort of treatment reserved these days by property developers in charge of a Grade 2* listed building.

  6. I was informed by the wordsmiths on the NYT this morning that 'April' is not a word. Maybe Trump has abolished it?

    2. If you're referring to the NYT Wordle, I presume it's because the word April is a proper noun.

    1. They would hardly come out and admit it's their fault, not only because they see themselves as victims, not perpetrators.

      1. Indeed. How many managers and senior executives responsible and well remunerated for public sector waste and inefficiency actually belong to Unison, GMB or Unite? [edit for usual typo when grappling with this text editor]

      2. Indeed. How many managers and senior executives responsible and well remunerated for public sector waste and inefficiency actually belong to Unison, GMB or Unite? [edit for usual typo when grappling with this text editor]

      3. When our political idiots eff up everything they come into contact with Obs it's always everyone else's fault but their own.

  10. Good morning all.
    A bright, if somewhat colder start to the day with 4½°C on the thermometer.

  11. Fora minute there I thought this was common sense: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/22/scrap-two-child-benefit-limit-charities-tell-prime-minister/

    The entire farce of child benefit should be binned. Return married couples a tax credit. Instead of taking it and giving back, just don't take it in the first place. No doubt some will argue what about single mothers or those with abusive spouses – why should the tax payer pay for the poor life choices of others?

    1. I once read a report suggesting that women choose their objects of intimacy according to the time of the month. At one time, premium is given to those with vigour and aggression, who would pass on these strong genes to their offspring; at other times, the preference is for those who would provide, care and nurture them and their offspring. A numpty who is tolerant and all-suffering (and ideally gay) and a bit of rough to do the actual breeding with.

      If such men will not co-operate, then the taxpayer can pay.

      1. As a tax payer I don't really want to pay for other people's life choices at all. I will pay for a civilised society: law and justice, but as those are being perverted I see no reason to bother at all and see no issue with tax evasion: notably nearly as highly punished as political dissent. Rape and murder away, but don't you dare stop paying tax or confirming to the state line!

    2. Indigenous people tend to have fewer children. Immigrants from places like Pakistan tend to have more children. Removing the cap will encourage that demographic to breed even more – race replacement? And who pays for benefits?

      1. We should cancel child benefit entirely. As 70% of muslim don't work, and almost none of the diversity, simply cut off the welfare tap. Stop paying them to live here, stop paying them to breed. They'll leave. If they get uppity, shoot the swine.

      3. Since many institutions in the UK now think it is acceptable to discriminate against white people why not pass legislation which turns the tables and only gives child benefit to white people!

    3. What irritates me is seeing news stories where some woman is described as "a single mother of two…" as if this condition were just the natural order of things and the father has no responsibility.

      1. This has been going on since at least the mid 90s. The BBC/Guardian axis normalised single parenthood by continually featuring sob story interviews with women who were described as “single mothers’ yet were dangling a new baby on their knee while also having 3 older kids (commonly of varying hues). Tragedy does strike but not as often as would be necessary for all these women to have had their husband die when they were pregnant. The sob stories always centre on the beastliness of a state that isn’t handing over sufficient cash but the question “what is the child’s father contributing and where is he?” Is one that it would clearly be impolite for the BBC or Grauniad to probe.

  13. I find the entire farce infuriating. So much damage has been done, solely for the promotion of a destructive, unnecessary infestation of foreigners.

    At every level massive uncontrolled gimmigration has done nothing but damage. Yes, there are a lot of decent, hard working chaps working here. They're fine – but they still take a job someone local could have done. That person not working is now competing in a crowded market, so is getting paid less than they could. At every level, wages are suppressed because the labour pool is vastly outnumbered by the jobs available.

    A kiddie can't find a job delivering pizza because some dindu is already doing it while claiming bennies for his wife Fatima and 7 kids in a terraced house in a dive on housing benefit that the kid can't earn, do up and value, improving the area.

    At every step, the gimmigrant waster is supported and feted and the native worker pushed out. Companies then have 500 applicants for a warehousing job rather than 50, so can pay crappy wages and push poor conditions that scrape the law.

    It's utterly wrong, was totally unnecessary and an act of utter spite to destroy this country.

  14. morning all. A nice day off for me. Back ro Wolverhampton later, a section of Offa’s Dyke tomorrow, dad’s birthday on Thursday and we are going for a meal at a local vineyard, which should be fun. Bears work, that’s for sure.

    Posted this earlier:
    “Charles Moore. Smuts was not just (or even) “heroic fighter against British imperialism”. Without his Government’s support in the Second World War, the Allies could not have defeated Hitler. (For all the good it has ultimately done us).

    Charles Moore writes
    ”…Trans rights activists went round vandalising statues in Parliament Square on Saturday as they protested about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, in that very place, on the definition of a woman.
    They had a crack at General Jan Smuts, heroic fighter against British imperialism; Nelson Mandela, the greatest opponent of apartheid; Benjamin Disraeli, the first Jewish prime minister, extender of the franchise; Robert Peel, who founded the police and repealed the Corn Laws; and Millicent Fawcett, campaigner for women’s rights. It is repulsive to dishonour such people.””

    1. The Left don't care. It's about what they want, nothing else. If they can't have their own way, like toddlers they destroy what others have.

      It is why the Left are so damned revolting. They don't build anything, make anything, do anything. They're just spiteful, egotistical, arrogant brats with no concept of duty, responsibility, dignity. The better way to manage them would be to collar and chain the whelps.

  15. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny start, 6 in the sun I can't see it happening but you never know eh.
    Off to get my eye checked. Got a bit of a blurr since the cataract removal. I expect the surgeon will lazer it. So I'll be able to get things into perspective.
    Riminds me of an old joke…… in the north of England the coach driver pulls up at a public convenience while he takes a rest, the ladies on their day out queue for the loo.
    Someone gets a camera out of her bag and as they return the girls line up by the coach. Driver has the camera. Two old ladies who have been gone a long time finally exit the door of the toilet.
    The lady in charge shouts "Come on you two, get a move on the driver wants to get us into focus"!
    One of them shouts back "What all of us at once"?
    Slayders 🤗

    1. This claim is not supported by figures. What is it based on? Nothing is cited.

    2. RAF News reports they are making the recruiting system simpler and faster. One form, one medical and everything computerised. The son of one of my friends recruits for the air force and currently the system is Byzantine and can take many months if not years. People get fed up waiting.

      1. 404560+up ticks,

        Afternoon C,

        Grist to the mill, the system goes into
        Tommy Robinson mode.

    1. Good morning, Grizzly. I see you are doing your Frankie Vaughan impression today "Gimme the moonlight, gimme the girl, and leave the rest to me!"

  18. It seems there is a quandry between 35l and 18l xl really useful boxes. The 18s fit in the wardrobe but the 35's stack just as well.

  19. Morning all,

    Breakfast club?

    What on earth , I remember years ago during the last Labour debacle , I was a school governor for eight years , the PTA were asking parents to provide pencils , colouring pencils and paper ( roll of toilet paper each )to add to the stock cupboard , yet the real leftie headmistress at the time awarded herself a huge pay rise .

    Children years ago used to be fed properly, what a load of nonsense now, and the breakfast clubs are giving just rubbish toast and cereal.. How healthy is toast , unless it has a smear of butter and marmite ?

    If they are going to do that , why not give them a hard boiled egg, some cheese, toast and apples , haha , what are none white children being given , and what about nappy changing , and tooth brushing ?

    1. It is not expensive to provide a basic breakfast at home, it is just bad parenting if it doesnt happen. Parents of those children pitching up to school hungry should receive a visit from social service, although I suspect the system would be overwhelmed. If the state is to become provider of basic services to children then perhaps child benefit needs to be withdrawn to pay for it…cue howls of protest from the great unwashed.

        1. Or policing. One of the things I hated most towards the end was that teaching became the least of my duties. I was a social worker, surrogate parent, police officer and only incidentally a highly qualified linguist.

    2. Make them all eat bacon and eggs at breakfast club. That will put a few noses out of joint.

    3. and what about nappy changing , and tooth brushing?

      It has been, apparently seriously, proposed that the State "education" system should assume responsibility for instructing children how to clean their teeth. And one hears anecdotal reports of five-year-olds rocking up in infants' school still wearing nappies.

    4. I started school after Easter in 1953, my father was in hospital and dying, which he did on 17th May that year. I was not five till July. I walked to school each day with our next door neighbour, who was three years older.

      We were not given any sort of breakfast at school, as it was assumed to be the role of the parents. My mother had to start work at that time to keep us, and her mother came to live with us, but she was more a liability than any help. It is the role of the parents to make sure children know how to brush their teeth, can dress themselves and do up shoes, whether laced or buckled. Children still in nappies at that age have been failed by their parents.

      1. That is the saddest ever memory to have , J.

        You have proved to be strong and capable despite such a terrible early start in life.

        Your poor mother was a strong lady .

        I remember walking to school when I was four , quite a long way , my mother had just had my sister , and my father had already started a government job in Khartoum .

        My parents had their own modest home , not far from Doncaster race course , my father , grandfather and great grandfather were true Yorkshire men . My great grandfather was Civic Mayor of Doncaster 1925, they were all engineers , surveyors etc in the old fashioned sense .

        When my my mother sister and I left to join my father , my sister was 6 months old .. The Americans rented the house for their airmen based nearby , and front garden wall was knocked down to accommodate a large American car .

        Extended Yorkshire family live in the Wakefield area, they had farms and butchers shops , now there are bespoke butchers shops with wonderful meat.

        My 1st cousins live in N Yorks , farming and land agents , that sort of thing .

        Life isn't that grim for many and so sad that various government policies have ruined the fraternity and history of great hard working people in the North .. which isn't portrayed properly by the media , because loads of areas are more civilised than the South , as are the people .

        PS , I don't have a Yorkshire accent , but my pronunciation does use the short path rather than parth .

        1. OH was born in Wakefield….. he doesn't have any affinity at all for that place, but his father was a pharmacist and optician there. Later they moved to N Yorks, and when I knew them lived in a village between Pickering and Kirbymoorside.

          My mother did have a lot to cope with certainly.

      2. It seems to me the state just wishes to ‘own’ all our children. Everything points that way. New mums have to go back to work and give their child up for care by other not related people. It’s a crying shame. In fact it’s criminal.

    5. The idea of a non-disabled child going to school needing their nappy changed is insulting. The parents simply need shooting. Junior went to school reading, writing and counting to 50.

    7. The globalists want us to increase our populations by unlimited immigration. Instead, wouldn't some controlled sterilisation make more sense.

  20. Good Morning!

    Michael Fahey gave posting on FSB for Lent, and watching the lying MSMN among other things, and mentally and spiritually refreshed, he writes about it movingly and profoundly in his Reflections on Lent . We hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts.

    In I don’t want to be a plastic Yank Xandra H laments the loss of old British customs and traditions and the Americanisation of our society, Do you agree with her? Please read and leave a comment.

    Energy watch 07.30: Demand: 29077 GW. Total UK Production: 25.42 GW from: Hydrocarbons 45.3%; Wind 7.2%; Imports 15%; Biomass 7.9%; Nuclear 12.6%. Solar: 4.73%.

    Having watched the energy figures for the last few months it is evident that the primary factor governing the generation mix is not efficiency, economics or, obviously, what is good for UK, but instead the ‘carbon intensity’ of the type of generation (at the point of generation of course, other factors are excluded when it comes to ‘renewables’). Today we are importing 15% of our power requirements, almost all from France. French electricity has a stated carbon intensity of 53g of CO2 per kWh. UK produced closed cycle gas generated electricity has a stated carbon intensity of 394gCO2/kWh, hence the preference for more expensive French electricity.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. While we're importing our energy or reliant on unreliables our energy prices will keep soaring and we will be at risk of blackouts, not to mention national security.

      But hey. None of those things bother Milioaf who just slaps his inflated bills on expenses.

    1. DEI at all levels.. from Texas to UK. It's a part of our charter, our city.
      nuff said.

    2. DEI at all levels.. from Texas to UK. It's a part of our charter, our city.
      nuff said.

  22. I see that Badenoch is now against non crime hate speech laws.
    Why is it that the Conservatives are right wingish in opposition but Blairite liberal left globalists in power?

      1. 404560 + up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        They were black as sin, treacherous
        and deceitful in the highest order

      2. They fell into the mire when they tried to skip the light fandango and their cartwheels didn't help much either.

    2. Maybe they are beginning to realise that it is they who have moved away from their traditional voter base rather than the other way round.

    3. "Why is it that the Conservatives are right wingish in opposition but Blairite liberal left globalists in power?"

      Because their principles are just as fluid as Farage's are.

      Farage seems to think that the UK being an Islamic state with sharia law in about 30 years time is not just inevitable but acceptable as well. Badenoch probably has the same view.

  23. Morning Kaypea,

    Parents don't know how to parent . I am certain that in these strange times of multiple partners and complicated lifestyle patterns , many children aren't raised anymore .. They are given the strangest of names , what Moh calls dogs names , or named after bridges or cars or golf clubs or something like that ..

    They are bred for internet purposes , and after noticing the absolute garbage one witnesses in their parents supermarket trollies and the queues of traffic outside burger places and takeaway chicken places and the huge array of pizza choices , one wonders about life skills !

    Perhaps there should be no such thing as Social Services , but increase funding for the PDSa or RSPCA, because .. therein the trail leads to neglected children via a neglected animal !

    1. The mother of somebody I know is- or was- Deputy Head of [blanktown] Social Services. Basically, everything you've heard is true, and then some.

    2. I call them "rootless names". They have absolutely no familial or cultural reference.
      They are jejune references to ephemeral fashions and passing fancies.

  28. Two tier should be seen today after his hols and that cctv and may even comment on the recent court ruling. However, Bridget Phillipson, Education/Women&equalities minister, was surprisingly clear on R4 this morning, that transvestites should use facilities appropriate for their biological sex. I assumed that this was this was a corporate view as she was the first minister to speak on record. Made a change from the usual blithering when asked a direct question.

    1. Complete change of heart, of course, by the daft bint. A year ago she as adamant that cocks in frocks could use women's facilities.

  31. So what is this deal Starmer is cooking up with the EU? they take control of our fishing waters in exchange for letting our arms industry sell them weapons.
    Just imagine the uproar if Trump suggested something like that.
    The EU is far more greedy and dictatorial.
    We should stay well away

    3. Actually men always have peed wherever you want and women never have, therefore "We will pee where we want" is an admission that they're male. Females can't pee in the street but males can and do (especially in Notting Hill Gate over August bank holiday weekend).

        1. Those I wore sort of concertinaed neatly when one bent one's legs. Nifty automatic privacy system already installed. 😉

          Mind you, they don't give horizontally. Getting in and out of modern loo cubicles a bit of a challenge! 🤣🤣

        2. They didn’t wear knickers and stood up to pee, apparently. The things one learns on Nttl.

    4. Gosh, the Queers will be unhappy now being labelled as trannies. Two entirely different branches of mental affliction, I believe.

  36. Blimey David Irving is eighty-seven years old.. I thought he bought it years ago after being locked up in a tiny windowless Austrian cell for a year.
    I've never read any of his stuff, a Polish friend in Hongkong is an avid reader and wryly noted that even Mossad recognised he is a brilliant historian.. but it's not wise to simultaneously pee off; Israel, Jews, Mossad, Catholic church, Russians and the Austrian & Polish govts.

  37. Blimey David Irving is eighty-seven years old.. I thought he bought it years ago after being locked up in a tiny windowless Austrian cell for a year.
    I've never read any of his stuff, a Polish friend in Hongkong is an avid reader and wryly noted that even Mossad recognised he is a brilliant historian.. but it's not wise to simultaneously pee off; Israel, Jews, Mossad, Catholic church, Russians and the Austrian & Polish govts.

  38. Now keep the noise down please all of you while I reply an extremely interesting email.
    I just have to figure out how to extend "I neither know nor care" into 300+ words as it's (apparently) a very important customer who is so far up his own fundament that he expects a page of crap when "Fuck Knows" would be the quicker more efficient, and it has to be said, accurate answer.

    1. Chat gpt. It can do wonders for sanity in composing utter dogwaffle.

      Usually with such a customer I arrange to call them and talk through the problem. If they're near enough I go and visit. It's a lot easier than arguing over text. Most of the time the problem isn't actually the system. It's the person getting frustrated with it knowing it can do it but not knowing how.

        1. You left out Preston, Blackpool, Notts County, Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, England, Crystal Palace, Everton, West Brom and Leeds!

          3. For a while he was the man some clubs called on in desperation during a season in which they were sinking fast. He made a good living out of short contracts!

      1. Lineker: ‘100% Support’ BBC’s Debunked Gaza Documentary Being Reinstated

        The head honcho BBC football pundit who unleashed regular attacks on the Tories such as slamming Suella Braverman’s migration policies as “immeasurably cruel” has given an exit interview (to the BBC) after quitting Match of the Day. Gary Lineker didn’t exactly row back from his activism, doubling down saying he was right to make political interventions despite his high-profile non-political taxpayer-funded job:

        “I don’t regret saying them publicly, because I was right – what I said, it was accurate – so not at all in that sense. Would I, in hindsight, do it again? No I wouldn’t, because of all the nonsense that came with it… It was a ridiculous overreaction that was just a reply to someone that was being very rude. And I wasn’t particularly rude back.”

        He also argued that the BBC’s debunked ‘Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone’ documentary should be reinstated to BBC iPlayer:

        “I think you let people make their own minds up. We’re adults. We’re allowed to see things like that. It’s incredibly moving… I think [the BBC] just capitulated to lobbying that they get a lot.”

        Co-conspirators don’t need to worry about Lineker’s trajectory now he’s quit: he didn’t leave the BBC before finalising a cushy deal for his own podcasts, which have “been picked up by BBC Sounds as part of a deal with the corporation.” He remains captain of team woke’s first eleven…

        April 22 2025 @ 08:30

        1. “I think you let people make their own minds up. We’re adults". Except when they're telling the truth and you can brand them "far right". The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

      2. I think there is a prog on the telly tonight, trailed on R4 this morning. Suggest you use an old tv if you dare to watch, it might not survive objects thrown..

        1. He's being "interviewed" by Amol Rajan – two reasons to give it a serious ignoring!

    2. There is a great deal of hypocrisy about immigrant workers in Qatar. I'v worked in Qatar and seen it at play but this has been going on in Arab countries since the oil was discovered. The oil terminals, the docks, pipelines and infrastructure were all built using virtual slave labour, mostly from the sub-continent. Prior to the award of the World Cup to Qatar these same voices were quiet when filling their cars with fuel from the Gulf, or turning on their gas, imported from Qatar.
      Only when football goes there do they care. And now it's over, workers are still being exploited.

  43. Starmer to Surrender Fishing Rights in Latest Brexit Reversal

    Starmer’s drive to rebind Britain to Brussels takes a major step forward at the EU-UK summit on May 19 as he prepares to sign a sweeping new “reset” deal with the EU. The Times reports that an EU-UK defence pact is set to be signed, opening the door for British firms to tap into the EU’s €150 billion defence fund. All because, as one EU diplomat ominously puts it, “the British are making the concessions they need to”…

    As part of the deal, Starmer has rolled over on fishing rights. Instead of pushing back on EU access, he’s offered Brussels a multi-year arrangement, replacing annual negotiations and freezing quotas – opening the floodgates to a wave of EU boats with expanded access to British waters. Surrendering a core promise on fishing rights in a blatant betrayal of Brexiteers…

    Meanwhile, Starmer is preparing to sign off on ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU standards on products including agrifood, while handing authority to the European Court of Justice over sanitary and phytosanitary measures in the new agreement. Effectively allowing Brussels to dictate the rules British businesses must follow – with the UK having zero control. Starmer’s rejoin-troopers march on…

    22 April 2025 @ 10:46

      1. Excellent point, ogga. Perhaps a reporter will go to his constituency and ask around, find out.

        1. 40456 up ticks,

          C,
          In my book he has a great many three legged indigenous donkeys to answer for.

          1. He’s been in Shrewsbury today, according to my local rag. If I’d known, I’d have gone up to him and asked him if he remembered me. When he said no (I very much doubt the answer would have been yes) I’d have reminded him that I am one of the “far right bigots” who helped with his campaigning.

    2. EU aka Hotel California. If it wasn't Starmer, it would be another useless politician.

    4. Since Brexit, the UK has implemented a tough inspection regime on plant and animal material coming to the UK. Dear old Countryfile featured this recently, although it presented it as underfunded, understaffed and open to abuse, especially in respect of meat (no cultures were named).

      Any companies exporting to the EU will already meet EU standards. That's not controversial. If you want to sell abroad anywhere in the world, you have to meet the standards that apply there.

      1. Exactly. You would think that only the EU had "standards" and the rest of the world did not.

          1. Probably true with Grenfell but no one talks about that…

            It's true that some companies that didn't trade abroad took on EU standards when they might not have needed to.

    5. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d198bbb586e43aa23363cf7aa32c4a88733372e93677c6a8b5a16f3ee2ffa9f.png

      LondonTory
      4h
      This is an act of Treason and a compete betrayal of the millions who voted to leave the EU in the largest democratic vote in UK history.
      Labour know they are a one term government and are doing as much ideological damage as possible.

      This act alone will ensure Reform wins in 2029.

      MrVeryAngry
      LondonTory
      3h
      The $64,000 question is, can all this wreckage be undone when Starmer is gone? And will any incoming UK government have the will to do so? And if they do they need to get onto it on Day 1 of their accession to power.

      Sockpuppeto
      LondonTory
      3h
      Starmer is fully aligned with the ideological position of the EUSSSR, a self proclaimed davos man and as such an arch rival to our hard won democratic freedom.

      Jos
      3h
      There is not the slightest chance that that France will buy any British military equipment and they and the EU hierarchy will do everything they can do prevent anyone else from buying UK material as well. In short Comrade Starmer has surrendered a British asset, betrayed many struggling coastal communities for nothing but vague, meaningless promises. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

      Coyote
      3h
      So British fishermen, who are 'working people' will have extra competition and our fish stocks which are already low will be hoovered up by super factory ships from the EU. Some may say that the man is a traitor, and many would be correct.

    6. Cutting tariffs and regulation is a good thing to grow an economy. Why is Starmer hellbent on doing the exact opposite of what he says he wants to? I know he's a liar, but really, why bother now?

  44. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband presses ahead with plans to introduce zonal pricing, which would mean the cost of power varied depending on where you live. Bills would be cheaper for people living near windfarms or solar panel farms, for example.

    Why not charge people more for living near windfarms or solar panel.. and, charge people even more for not living near windfarms or solar panel.

    1. Better idea. Tax everyone at 100% and ration them back food and energy, based on “merit points”. For exa,ple, you get “merits” for informing Plod of your neighbours’ micro-indiscretions.

  46. I am having a nice day off (apart from laundry and cleaning) and am taking my motorbike for one last drive in the country before we sell it. I used to drive it to work every day but now I use my (legal) e-bike and they have made driving so difficult in London it’s unlikely I’ll use it to commute anymore. It’s a 650 cc engine and really struggles at 20 mph.

    1. Sad to wave goodbye to the machine. Even if it is just metal and oil, it still gave you useful service.

      2. When i gave up motorcycling i sold my Kawasaki 450 to my brother for a fraction of what it was worth as he said he needed cheap transport to get him to work.

        What he actually did was tart it up and sold it at market price and bought a small car.

        I would still have let him have it cheap if he told me what he intended but it's dog eat dog in my family. Bastards.

          1. That's not even the worst of it.

            I don't have anything to do with them now. They all behave in a similar fashion.

        2. Not good. We try and help family, otherwise, what’s the point? I would be exactly like you on this point.

          1. Because i retired from Hospitality quite early on my sister expected me to run her guest house in the New Forest for 3 weeks every year while she and her wealthy husband went on holiday to the Caribbean, Bali and Honolulu.

            Not only did they not want to pay me any money they also never bothered to bring anything back for me.

            Helping out is the norm where family is concerned but they were taking the piss.

            I did after all have my own household to run.

          1. Not really. Decline and fall.

            While i was living in a Thomas Owen designed Portland stone building (a Flat) he was living in the same town in a bedsit.

            He did manage to do great things and begin a successful business and got himself out of the rut.

            Then married. Had two children (horribly spoiled) Then started on the Special Brew (wifebeater) which he then did.

            She divorced him. Turned out he was seeing other women and beating them too. Was supplying drugs to his teenage son. Was arrested in a 4 am raid and spent 18 months in prison.

            Where he found God. After giving up Scientology.

        4. Sounds like my (skinflint) uncle; he persuaded someone to sell him a small car so he could take his mother (my grandmother) for rides. He never even put any petrol in it and sold it at a substantial profit!

          1. I seem to have a superfluity of them. Always looking for an angle. It's tiresome. Especially when they all have good incomes.

            I have another brother who is two years older than me. There is absolutely no way he can cope with anything i might be better at than he is. Again very tiresome.

            All this competition within the family rather than being positive and supportive of each other confirmed for me not to have children.

          2. My brother blames me for his turning his back on the opportunities our parents wanted him to take up!

      1. Having your arms at that angle is flipping hard work. However you look at it, they're heavy things.

  47. I am having a nice day off (apart from laundry and cleaning) and am taking my motorbike for one last drive in the country before we sell it. I used to drive it to work every day but now I use my (legal) e-bike and they have made driving so difficult in London it’s unlikely I’ll use it to commute anymore. It’s a 650 cc engine and really struggles at 20 mph.

    1. Looks like some frogspawn too! Now i am all protective. What are predator threats to frogspawn?

      Edit/update: froggy appears to be spawning right now!!! Amazing!

      1. Frogspawn in ponds is vulnerable to various predators, including fish, birds, newts, dragonfly larvae, water boatmen, and snakes. These predators can significantly reduce the number of tadpoles and froglets that survive to reach adulthood.

        Basically everything except lions and tigers and bears…oh no !

        1. 👍 I shall have to see how to protect it from the birds. (By which I mean, the magpies, pigeons and the two malevolent robins)

          1. Unfortunately, the blackbirds and pigeons are very enthusiastic when they bath in the pond!

      2. My frogspawn is getting flatter and flatter as the tadpoles eat their way out of it, and there are a lot of tiny black tadpoles on the stones! As you say, I feel so protective!

    2. My wildlife pond (no fish) has been crawling with, thousands of Tadpoles for about two weeks. I have a large stack of covered Logs next to the pond and the frogs and toads live in there and under the decking. I also have had, but not seen recently, several slow worms. The biggest problem is bloody Herons they turn up and dig out and eat the babies. I've got some netting this year.

      1. Not this year for me…dried up, currently being pulled out. Some idiot (husband) put a load of bullrushes in it, they've gone rogue, filled the pond and drained it. We used to have a visiting heron too, and white egret. Seen bigger variety of wild birds this season, good.

        1. Oh noooo……I planted a bamboo near ours around 15 years ago and it rooted up through the pond liner.
          This winter I’m going to have to repair it again. Bamboo long gone but hard to find the damage.

          1. That is wicked stuff. Recommendation, far as I remember, is to plant bamboo in a pot sitting on a hard surface, so it’s restricted. Good luck, Eddy. I do like a good pond, can see a lot of life there:-)

          2. There are many different varieties of bamboo. This one I got from someone else’s garden was hard to control. I had to cut it right down and pour diesel all over it and burn it.
            But the below ground roots were very difficult to destroy.

          5. Good idea…how old/what size is it? I’ve had the black one it was smaller, slower growing.

          6. It must be about 10 yrs old now. I have no idea what variety it is; it was given to me by a gardening friend.

      2. A pal of mine spent thousands on an ornamental pond and stocked it with coy carp for another few thousand. Before he was able to put some netting over it a heron had scoffed the lot

        2. A former neighbour once complained that the koi carp in her pond were being stolen by a herring.

        3. I’ve actually watch the local ‘king heron standing on the side of the pond with frogs in its mouth.

        1. 😆🐥
          I have a friend who use to be the boss of the British Hawk and Owl Trust.
          At the time he hadn’t heard the comment about owls not breeding because of all the wet weather.
          Because it was too wet to woo. 🦉🦉

    3. There's handsome..frogs in our pond are all quite small. Years ago, when I kept chickens one caught a toad which changed to many glorious colours in alarm before I caught the beggar. Probably have newts too in your pond, handsome creatures.

      1. An ingenious member of the Toad family managed to hoot his horn and then drive his car into the pond.

      2. The head shape, lack of warts, and the black patch behind the eye mark it as the common frog Rana temporaria.

  49. Just I prepare to go out gardening, the sky clouds over… {:¬((

    Back later (or sooner).

    3. I've just had my first visit from my new Head Gardener (he does the work and I pay for his labour) which today worked out well because it saves me from incessant back pain. Also, instead of paying the usual £20 per hour (a normal rate) he says he can keep the garden in tip-top shape with just two monthly one hour visits for £25 per visit, which over the month will cost me £50 instead of £80. A win-win all round.

        1. Every one of us is as mad as a rat about it, Alec (I know a few Muslims and they are too). Don't think I heard you swear afore 🙂 hope you are ok. Did you read Sir Keir has been served divorce papers…story there I think. Chin up, as they say x

          2. I think it was probably spoof, or wishful thinking?, Rastus. Can no longer find the headline. Either untrue or a block on it. There are all sorts of rumours around about his wife, and his relationship with Lord Ali, and have been for a while.

          4. I’ve voted ever since I could, David. Think I may have finally learnt my lesson…:-D

          5. You haven’t heard me swear? where have you been? ;o). Not heard about Starmer – he certainly should be separated (from his breath) x

          6. It’s not easy to swear online..have to use eg #$%&£€¥ etc..I think his days are numbered. Jenrick seems to have found his mojo, we’ll see. Are you painting? I’m still in a rut, reduced to Japanese colouring book today…sigh…swear..🙄😄

          7. Morning Kate, not done any painting for a week – I have to await inspiration x

          8. Same here Alec. Have even bought a (Japanese) colouring book in desperation, using crayons (aka coloured pencils, now) x

    2. No, we ar enot being fleeced. The energy companies are nothing to do with the cost of energy. They're just passing on taxes to the customer, as business has to. We are being buggered by the government, because more than two thirds of the cost of energy is tax, given to windmills in subsidy.

      Then, to inflate the price of gas, government heavily taxes it. It then gives that tax money to unreliables.

      We're stuffed coming and going by big, fat, state over a tax scam called 'climate change'.

    4. Yes, by HMG. HMG has managed to shift the blame onto the energy companies by propaganda, as usual, and Joe Public falls for it.

    5. An economic expert like Rachel Reeves will tell you that the best way to growth is by having the highest electricity costs in Europe.

      And she wonders why people are not very impressed by her cv!

  51. From Coffee House the Spectator

    19 Apr 2025
    Coffee House
    Ross ClarkRoss Clark
    No wonder tourists don’t want to come to Britain
    22 April 2025, 12:55pm

    Compared with the mobs chanting against sunbathers on Tenerife or the new entry fee just to set foot in Venice, Britain’s own war on tourism may seem mild. Nevertheless, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the UK government is ‘sabotaging’ its own tourism industry. In 2024, it says, international visitors spent 5 per cent less in Britain than they did in 2019. The reason for this, it adds, are deliberate policy choices by the government. The end of VAT-free shopping for international visitors, a rise in air passenger duty and the new requirement for tourists to seek electronic travel authorisation – a mini visa scheme – before they travel to Britain have all contributed to the fall.

    Brexit didn’t have to mean making booking a holiday in Britain a pain in the backside for EU citizens – no one on the Leave side campaigned on that policy – yet that is how the UK government has chosen to use its freedoms. Foreign visitors must now pay £16 for the privilege of partaking in some footling piece of bureaucracy which is doing absolutely nothing to slow down illegal migration, only to deter legal visitors.

    No wonder would-be tourists are voting with their feet and going elsewhere. The only consolation for the tourism industry is that the UK government isn’t quite as foolish on this as the Labour administration which runs one-party Wales is. There, in response to an MPs’ report bemoaning the lack of visitors to Wales, the government’s tourism arm has launched a campaign to attract more visitors with the slogan ‘2025 – the year of Creoso’ (‘welcome’ in Welsh).

    The Welsh government seems to lack the insight to see that it is simultaneously doing as much as it possibly can to destroy its own tourism industry. From 2027, tourists will be charged a £1.25 tax for every night they spend in Wales. That is, if there are any tourists left by then, because the Welsh government, combined with its loony councils, has just about finished off the market for self-contained holiday accommodation.

    Under new rules, holiday homes must be rented out for at least 182 nights a year – an impossible number in just about any rural or coastal location – or be liable for a council tax premium intended for second homes. This premium can be levied at anything up to 300 per cent – which means owners paying up to four times normal council tax, incurring bills of over £10,000 as a result. At this level, the economics of almost every holiday home will become impossible (although the caravan of former First Minister Mark Drakeford seems remarkably to be exempt from the levy, on the grounds it has a planning restriction preventing it from being used as a full-time home).

    2025 is not the year of ‘Creoso’ if you are trying to provide accommodation for the tourists the Welsh government says it wants; rather it is the year of ‘dywarchen, chwi chwiliwr rhent drwg’ – which, according to Google Translate (and very possibly wrong), is Welsh for ‘sod off, you evil rent-seeker’. If you want a tourist industry, funny enough, it helps to be able to provide somewhere for them to stay. And in the modern age that is more likely to be a self-contained house with a touch of luxury rather than a caravan or B&B run by a landlady in fluffy slippers. That Welsh ministers cannot seem to see what they are doing to their own tourist industry makes one seriously worry about the calibre of politician which devolution has given us.

    Ross Clark
    Written by
    Ross Clark
    Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better

  53. Sitting patiently mid morning (scuz the pun) waiting for my appointment the people who were in the queue after me (queue jumped) and ended up in front of me because she complained at the reception desk. In all i was one hour late for my eye appointment.
    But hopefully all sorted with a new supply of drops. Nothing serious just liquid retention at the back of the lens. Oh well…life goes on. Feet up and relax.

      1. My view for driving was passed by the Consultant. But I now have another two small eye drop containers to use before I book my appointment at Boots eye WGC. Drops three a day, It should be okay in about three weeks.
        I had the same problem with the right eye last time.
        Thanks for asking Phizz.

        1. We Nottlers can’t do much but we do what we can.

          Would it be too much to reach the South of England for my bash?

          I know we are spread out but i don’t know how easy or accessible it is for people.

          Some of the buggers have yachts and Chateau. !!!

          2. I’d love to come phizz but we only have one vehicle now. And Erin spends a lot of time looking after grandchildren in our mid Herts area.
            But not old grand dad.
            But all the same give me a rough idea where you are. 🤗

      2. It’s funny how when you have to go to a clinic or hospital how many people are far worse off than you think you are. 😊

  54. Pope Francis ‘Favoured Ideas That Keep Poor People Poor’

    There’s only one international news story in town as Parliament grinds back into gear: the death of Pope Francis. The funeral will probably be attended by a senior Royal rather than Starmer, but another jet-setting Labour minister will no doubt get the gig…

    Francis’s reforming (and free market sceptic) legacy is panned in a searing screed from the Wall Street Journal editorial board this morning:

    “His papacy was marked by anti-Americanism, and not merely against Donald Trump. He seemed to believe that Latin America is poor because the United States is rich. That’s a recipe for stagnation and despair because the real reasons so many in Latin America languish in poverty are at home: Lack of the rule of law, business-government collusion, protectionism, and other barriers to human flourishing… Less forgivable was his deal with Beijing as pope that gave the Communist Party influence in the choice of bishops. Conditions for Catholics in China have worsened, though the Vatican has renewed the kowtow several times. The Vatican has stayed silent on the plight of publisher Jimmy Lai, who is China’s best-known imprisoned Catholic.”

    Francis’s many devoted defenders – prominent across broadcast media right now – would no doubt dispute that interpretation. You could say the Journal shows no mercy…

    And as for the runners and riders, Guido notes there are a number of solid Conservatives in the offing, including Hungarian Cardinal Erdo and Guinea’s Cardinal Sarah. Take note Tories, no betting on this one, it’s up to God…

    April 22 2025 @ 11:15

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0ed83eb6e617d49206d8a296b98c3e9687bdf9415a13c544359192ecb96c844.png

    2. I know it is wrong to speak ill of the dead. As a Christian i was taught that.

      What i would have liked to hear is the truth while he was alive.

      He sits on his throne with billions of worshippers and you can't speak truth to power.

      The same problems we are now experiencing with another medieval religion.

      1. There were plenty of R.C.s who were opposed to Francis from the outset and said so. He pushed to the front of the running by Merkel amongst others.

        1. To be a good Catholic, you have to accept Papal Infallibility. People who do not accept that basic RC tenet should probably leave the church.

          1. I once was a good Catholic.

            Papal Infallibility only applies in matters of faith, for example, the Immaculate Conception. It doesn't count in everyday matters or politics.

          5. Papal infallibility only applies when pronouncements are made ex cathedra. Other witterings are not infallible.

        2. Didn't realise Angel Merkel had been made a cardinal in the Catholic church prior to the election of Pope Francis, Citroen 1.

        3. Didn't realise Angel Merkel had been made a cardinal in the Catholic church prior to the election of Pope Francis, Citroen 1.

        1. You remind those who are so remote from real life but have the power to control things about the way reality works.

        2. It's a phrase coined to describe the Swedish Moppet reading the WEF script at Davos. Or more recently a female American bishop being rude to Donald Trump because she can no longer claim millions of dollars via USAID.

      3. People have been speaking the truth during his lifetime – the late Pope Benedict left a coded message in his Latin resignation letter telling the world that he was forced into resigning. It was passed off as "an error." There is speculation that Francis's well known bashfulness about assuming the trappings of Popedom was due to the knowledge that he had been elected under false pretences rather than any innate humbleness.

      4. Phizzee, it is wrong to speak ill of the dead immediately after their passing. After a period of time, one can be more objective.

      5. Phizzee, it is wrong to speak ill of the dead immediately after their passing. After a period of time, one can be more objective.

    3. When I read that list of conditions holding Latin America back I couldn’t help thinking that we had those here.

    5. Latin America can be summed up in one word – corruption, and on an epic scale at that. Part of that problem being criminal gangs paying off cops and judges, etc.

      Mind you , if some machete wielding thugs turned up at any of our doorsteps, showed us a suitcase full of money and told us that either they could make us very rich, or hack us to pieces (which is what the drug gangs do), would we do any better?

    6. I hear that TT/FG/Never here Kier is aiming to attend the funeral, presumably in addition to our actual head of state or his representative!

        1. But "Lord" Comical Alli will give him half a dozen new suits – so it is not all bad!

    8. OK, so how many, here and on X-Tw@ter, Faceache etc, thought that was a real headling?

  55. Afternoon all. Some fitful sunshine here. I walked the dogs into town and now I’m shattered. I went to the butcher’s on the way home and bought a lamb leg steak. It’s roasting in the oven and I will have broccoli and cauliflower to go with the roast spuds and parsnips.

    It’s a sign of the madness of the times that it was ever necessary to have a court ruling on something so basic.

    2. Everything seems slightly crazy and even more expensive post-Covid. You (and dogs) enjoy lamb dinner 🙂

      1. It took so long to cook that they had finished theirs before I ate mine. They will have a very nice breakfast tomorrow.

        1. 😀 I think if I die, with only my dog for company, he would eat me….he’s sleeping heavily at present after his dinner and warm weather.

    3. Maybe it is madness, but to add clarity for those who have difficulty with it, perhaps there should also have been a definition of what a man is.

    4. It's been lovely here so far.
      As things were damp after the recent rain, I've fired up the oil drum and burnt a lot of garden rubbish.

    1. I cut back a bush here and I think I've killed it off entirely. Are those full house height windows, on the left, Bill?

      1. Often it is a mistake of the device one is using. On my lappy the screen slides to the right just as i am about to give an uptick.

        But seeing as it is you she probably thought you needed a good kicking for showing off….innocent face.

        1. It is just possible that Angie is a chap. The pseudonym is as everyone knows a pun on a medical condition.

    5. Be careful pruning wisteria at the wrong time of year – my husband did three years ago and the poor thing is struggling to recover…

  57. 404560+ up ticks,

    Surely after forty odd years one must ask oneself are we using the right tools for the job in hand ?
    For instance,

    We are approaching this treacherous leading political nutcase with a spanner what internal thread he has has long been burred over with treachery. deceit, and lie upon lie.

    Thereby the only credible answer is a gas mix of 20/7 Oxy-Acetylene overcomes ALL
    obstinate nuts.

    https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1914652948895838272

  59. With America gone, WHO pandemic accord is finally agreed

    The deal – a legally binding pact to strengthen global defences against pandemics – is settled following three years of negotiations

    Members of the World Health Organisation including the UK have finalised a draft Pandemic Agreement – a legally binding pact aimed at strengthening global defences against future pandemics.

    The deal – which is expected to be ratified at the World Health Assembly in May – was reached just after 3am on Wednesday, following three years of arduous negotiations.

    It marks only the second legally binding accord in the WHO’s 75-year history, the first being the 2003 tobacco control treaty.

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/world-health-organization-pandemic-accord-agreement-treaty/

    1. I shouldn't worry. The record keeping with the NHS is diabolical. If you were to say to your GP you had had whatever poisonous injection they wouldn't know if you were telling the truth or not. They would just accept what you said for the easy life. Happens all the time.

        1. It does seem to be the case that they are motivated by money.

          One would think that a GP that sent you to a Consultant and they did what they do the GP would then be up to date.

          I have seen my records and that is not the case.

          At least the last GP i saw had my records open rather than Google.

          1. I use the NHS app on my phone as it's a very efficient way of ordering repeat prescriptions but the other information on there is very hit and miss. I see that while most of my hospital appointments don't appear on the app, the up-coming consultation with the cardiac surgeon does.

          2. I don't have a phone that does that but i can access Anima through my laptop. However i cannot order repeat prescriptions of acute medicines that way. I have to go through the other platform that they don't want me to use. Joined up? No.

          3. Write to the Oik Sweeting – I know he'd love to hear from you, as he is soooo keen on "modernising" the Envy of the World.

            I'd like to run Mrs Sos's recent medical experience in yer France past the Oik and ask WHY can't we do the same.

  60. Massive fire just North of Pompey Dockyard. Lots of nasty black smoke. Looks like the Tipner Recycling plant. Same old story.

      2. False alarm. Just a load of oil based plastic luxury yachts spreading through the marina.

        2. Is that the marina eldest Daughter I me walked past going to and from the Hayling Island Ferry?

          1. Tipner is on the left of the Island. Hayling is on the right. (looking at from the sea)

      3. False alarm. Just a load of oil based plastic luxury yachts spreading through the marina.

  61. Wordle No. 1,403 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 22 Apr 2025

    Culture for Birdie Three?

    1. Five today. There are two howlers in my fourth guess but also a useful clue.

      Wordle 1,403 5/6

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

      1. Another Not A Word!
        Wordle 1,403 3/6

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

    2. Well done! Had another good start and managed to convert this one into a birdie (at last)…..

      Wordle 1,403 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. No culture here

      Wordle 1,403 5/6

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

    4. My main starter word paid dividends, leaving little choice.

      Wordle 1,403 2/6

      🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  62. No more Popery! Talk about making a lot out of a little. The Argie (great pal of Galtieri, by the way) "lies in state" until the funeral on Saturday. (Shouldn't wonder if he didn't start to hum a bit…) Then nine days of mourning. Then (appropriately) all the Men in Red are locked up until the pink or rainbow smoke appears.

    By then I think the word will have had enuff.

    EDIT. And to show how topical we are in Fulmodeston, the film "Conclave" is being shown on Saturday in the village hall!

    1. I'll never forget my first visit to Edinburgh in 1955. A large graffito on a wall near the station proclaimed WE LOVE OUR POPE. and some wag had added a YE at the end of the message.

  63. On the way home from the Clinic around lunch time Vine on radio 2 was talking about Snagging, (checking the quality of the work and checking for errors) on new build housing. Some of the stories people rang in to talk about were horrendous. Rising damp, water leaks, floods, leaking roofs, doors not fitting, window problems, you name it.
    A classic example of not using trained skill labour. Typically some thing else that has been effed up in this country. How does Rainer think that labour government are going to build all those new homes ? The apprenticeships for the indigenous trades no longer exist and there are already not enough bricks, let alone roof tiles.

  64. ‘If we want to unite the Right and change politics, we need to get behind Reform’
    Pollsters predict local elections will see Conservative voters switch party, but some fear that will split the vote and weaken both sides
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/22/unite-the-right-tories-negotiate-reform-local-elections/ https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97ed4fe824d43240438a0eb739daee1c9b584a8334fd2046eeb581abf68ac0eb.jpg

    I believe that The Daily Telegraph has too!

    2. He's probably worked out a way to still live off the political system and to escape from becoming british PM. It's all become too close for comfort for him.

      1. Every single numpty wannabe party that started up since Labour were successful in 1900 have quickly fallen by the wayside.

        Every fucking one of them.

    1. Well if you are going to be mean to me can i have my £50 back? I don't care if your Church falls down any more…………..

  67. Quango boss on nine boards misses quarter of meetings – but still rakes in £145k

    Martin Spencer was a board member of more government bodies than anyone else in the public sector in 2022-23

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/04/21/TELEMMGLPICT000421027560_17452513782860_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq5yQLQqeH37t50SCyM4-zeGcv5yZLmao6LolmWYJrXns.jpeg?imwidth=960
    A quango boss was paid £145,000 to sit on the boards of nine government bodies but missed one in four meetings, analysis has revealed.

    Martin Spencer was a non-executive board member of Ofsted, Companies House, the NHS Counter Fraud Authority and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, among others.

    He sat on more quango boards in 2022-23 than any other individual in the public sector, holding nine such positions, the TaxPayers’ Alliance said.

    The total remuneration for his roles was £145,000, according to the think tank, despite his missing 18 of the 65 meetings he was eligible to attend. It is not known why Mr Spencer did not attend the meetings, which took place over the course of the 2022-23 financial year.
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/21/quango-boss-earns-145k-but-misses-one-in-four-meetings/

    1. He obviously thinks QANGO means Quite A lot of Not GOing.
      A pedant writes: surely there is no Uin QANGO – it's Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation, isn't it?

      1. There is also no 'U' in QANTAS.

        It was originally Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service long before it was adopted as the national airline.

      2. It is, but must people put in the "U" and I suspect fewer would know your correct alternative.

    2. what sickens is that htese are serial meeters, so achieve nothing but spend an awful lot of time taking our money. It's the same names, over and over again, too.

  68. Good late afternoon / evening, it was quite warm today but now somewhat chilly .

  69. That's me for today. A very pleasant one – sunny (most of the time) and warm. Potted on 48 tomato plants; planted out a bed of beetroot (variety Boltardy = brilliant).

    The only downside was going through the laborious process of booking Eurotunnel (their new website is confusing in spades) to get to "Pay"; entered all the numbers, expiry dates etc….pressed "pay now" – "transaction declined". I used a different card and all went through. Rang the credit card company this afternoon. Apparently, I had entered the wrong "last three number code". Possible, I suppose – but improbable. However, the very helpful young woman assured me that all was well with the card itself. I was just a bit anxious….

    An added joy is that my sister-in-law is clearing her house in Wivno prior to (fingers and toes crossed) sale and is getting rid of most of the garden stuff – among which was a container of good, old-fashioned proper slug pellets – the meta ones – now illegal, of course. I shall use sparingly but with great pleasure!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. My credit card often gets "transaction declined" – I find that trying early in the morning usually works.

    2. I did some slug hunting yesterday and got a handful including a lot of smalll ones.

      Of course, now i have two dependent frogs, i shall have to rethink my slug-slaying activities.

    2. I worked at a school in Chiswick a long time ago. The caretaker was an ozzie. He told us a story about one of his mates who flew over to stay for the Summer but it was raining when they picked him up from LHR. Of course their buddy only had tee shirt shorts and Thongs on (flip flops). Took him back to the flat and he moaned about everything including TV.
      They took him to the local pub in the evening. Fullers. He moaned about the beer….. calling it all pommy piss.
      They gave him a barely wine in a pint glass topped up with 6.8% ESB. After two he keeled over. That Shut him up.

          1. When I was young and worked as a farm labourer, HSB was a great way to end the day at the pub. Sad that it's become dull.

          2. I recall drinking so much that I couldn't see beyond the end of the bonnet on my old Mini. Still got back to the farm OK, ready for work at 06:00 in the morning.

        2. ESB isn’t what it was. It tastes quite ordinary these days, unless it’s my palette mellowing.

  72. LOL of the day..

    April 22nd has been declared a national day of remembrance for Stephen Lawrence, a time to reflect upon his ‘legacy’

    2. How nice. I expect David Lammy and Dianne Abbot clapped.

      What happened to him and his friend was the worst thing some young innocent person could possibly happen to.

      I have been subject to similar treatment when walking to work to at Bistro Montparnasse. I wasn't stabbed to death however their were three of them. They crowded me and then punched me in the stomach.

      I still had to work my shift.

      A few years later the BBC did a documentary about Sommers Town and how the people living there were so deprived. The cunt that punched me was shown as a victim.

      I was just walking to work.

      I might look him up some time. Seeing as i am a fit 60. And he will be in trouble.

    3. In theory the crime figures broken down by race and ethnicity are about to be released. I don’t believe we’ll be told the truth. The US has always published those figures. Black Americans are 13% of the population and commit 48% of violent crimes. Only 3% are white on black.

    8. That’s annoying (being as its my birthday and I’m not a Stephen Lawrence groupie).

    9. The RIBA has long had a Stephen Lawrence Award, apparently the lad was hoping to become an Architect.

      His mother is a Baroness.

      The last famously promoted black Architect was the Ghanaian David Adjaye but having knighted him he has apparently fallen out of favour with the government (for some reason to do with his workplace behaviour or so I read).

    10. The RIBA has long had a Stephen Lawrence Award, apparently the lad was hoping to become an Architect.

      His mother is a Baroness.

      The last famously promoted black Architect was the Ghanaian David Adjaye but having knighted him he has apparently fallen out of favour with the government (for some reason to do with his workplace behaviour or so I read).

  74. I wonder how many Cardinals will arrive from foreign climes on private jets and for those who don't, the break down of the class of travel on commercial airlines.
    I doubt many will arrive cattle-class.

  75. Just been listening to a Catholic priest living in Gaza, claiming to have spoken to the Pope regularly.

    It is painfully obvious that he doesn't realise that he and his flock are only alive on the off chance that the Israelis might kill them inadvertently, and that Hamas can then maximise the propaganda value of their deaths.

    Idiot.

    1. I'm afraid I gave up on religion aged around 16. My school was church of England. They talked such BS About it all.
      My theory is if you tried to enthuse people with such impossible to believe BS in modern times, you would probably be arrested.

      1. Post-war, church was quite poorly attended, didn't really recover. Only time I saw standing room only outdoors was at my mum's funeral. Now, we have the Green Religion, Net Zero etc…

  76. Washing up finished and kitchen tidy, not that I made any mess. But cleaning and tidying is a good repayment for my good lady driving me to the hospital/clinc and back home again.
    Not that I'm going to bed yet, but signing orff until St George's day.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 I'll bet its deliberately kept out of the lime light tomorrow. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Just following orders.
    Goodnight Nottlers.

    2. Nothing there Sue ?
      Just re opened and it's found.
      All of these terrible people are on a Bung from NWO.

      1. I googled him and he looks about 25! And being Irish, I imagine he loathes Britain!

  81. An international policy advisor at the Department for Work and Pensions has been warned he could face jail after faking a sicknote and pocketing £40,000 in bogus expenses so he could travel the world.

    Maurice Okello pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to forging a medical note so he could go on holiday and fraudulently claiming £41,476.91 under the guise of work travel.

    The 39-year-old from Harrow visited destinations including Tampa in Florida, Boston, Mexico City, Marrakech, Kos in Greece and Prague between December 2022 and September 2023.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14635473/Civil-servant-faces-jail-pocketing-40-000-bogus-expenses-faking-sick-note-travel-world.html

    Of course , guess what , as black as the ace of spades.

    1. This product is currently out of stock and unavailable.
      Did he buy up the entire stock?

  84. A useful bit of garden rubbish burning done today and I've not long had a bath, so I'm off to bed.
    Good night all.

  85. Well, it's almost my bedtime too. So Good Night all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow.

    1. Good night, Conners – and Kadi and Winston. I stayed up until one minute past midnight to check my bank balance (no change) and attempt Wordle (failed after 6 attempts – aaargh!).

  90. Well, BB2, I was not accusing you of making anything up. I just wanted to see any evidence. And, since reading and re-reading your reply which quoted a very lengthy link, I am still not convinced that the matter is clear. I do, however, bow to your superior knowledge of Latin. What do other NoTTLers think?

    1. Sorry – the ?? was meant to indicate a jokey reply.
      What I mean is, this is exactly how Latin scholars' minds work. There is no way this phrase was accidental or a mistake, especially as Benedict went out of his way to emphasise that he wanted to write his statement in Latin so that he would not make a mistake. Why not his native language, German?
      People have been aware of it for some time I think but it was only made public once Benedict was beyond the threats of those who pushed him into resigning.

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