Tuesday 26 March: Labour’s crusade against private schools should be a warning to voters

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.

719 thoughts on “Tuesday 26 March: Labour’s crusade against private schools should be a warning to voters”

  1. Good morning, chums. Another day dawns, but I’m afraid I failed to get today’s Wordle.

      1. “Poli sana”, Mir? Are you suggesting that your local police are nuts? Lol.

        1. Lol no it’s the remaining Swahili that I remember from my time in Africa. It means “very sorry”.

  5. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    MISTAKEN IDENTITY

    An Alabama pastor said to his congregation, “Someone in this congregation has spread a rumour that I belong to the Ku Klux Klan. This is a horrible lie and one which a Christian community cannot tolerate. I am embarrassed and do not intend to accept this. Now, I want the party who said this to stand and ask forgiveness from God and this Christian family.”

    No one moved. The preacher continued, “Don’t you have the nerve to face me and admit this is a falsehood? Remember, you will be forgiven and, in your heart, you will feel glory. Now stand and confess your transgression.” Again, all was quiet.

    Then, slowly, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde with a body that would stop a runaway train rose from the third pew. Her head was bowed and her voice quivered as she spoke.

    “Reverend there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I never said you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I simply told a couple of my friends that you were a wizard under the sheets.”

  7. Secret court for speeding and TV licence fee offences must end, magistrates urge. 26 March 2024.

    Prosecutions of speeding, TV licence fee offences and truancy must no longer be held behind closed doors, magistrates have demanded.

    In a major intervention, the Magistrates’ Association – representing Justices of the Peace across England and Wales – has called for an overhaul of the “secretive” Single Justice Procedure (SJP) which has resulted in vulnerable people being prosecuted behind closed doors without being present or having any legal representation.

    The Star Chamber? Why am I not surprised?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/25/magistrates-secret-court-for-speeding-and-licence-fees/

    1. I retired 12 years ago as a Magistrates Court Usher and our TV licensing and Speeding courts were open to the public. I wasn’t aware it had been changed.

    1. They’re stuffed either way. I doubt Sunak cares. Their entire agenda has been to drive the country into the ground. Pretending otherwise is the sort of wilful refusal to accept fact as can be imagined.

      They’re evil.

  10. Tali Ho!

    “The Taliban’s Supreme Leader has vowed to start stoning women to death in public as he declared the fight against Western democracy will continue.

    “You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death,” said Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada in a voice message, aired on state television over the weekend, addressing Western officials.

    “But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public,” he declared in his harshest comments since taking over Kabul in August 2021.

    “These are all against your democracy but we will continue doing it. We both say we defend human rights – we do it as God’s representative and you as the devil’s.”

    Sometimes I’m deeply ashamed to be a man.

    2. With things like Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada inhabiting this Earth, I’m deeply ashamed to be a human being.

    3. “… We both say we defend human rights – we do it as God’s representative and you as the devil’s.”

      Fair is foul and foul is fair. Islam is a Satanic religion.

    4. And of course this is still going on…

      Bacha bāzī
      is a practice in which men (sometimes called bacha baz) buy and keep
      adolescent boys (sometimes called dancing boys) for entertainment and
      sex.

      ‎Dancing Boys · ‎Bacha posh

      Wikipedia

      https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Bacha_posh

    1. I’ve one – the guardian employs journalists? Do they really mean activists with a pen?

  12. Beijing’s threats must be firmly challenged. 26 March 2024.

    Mr Dowden said that while the attacks had not affected the democratic process, the Government nonetheless proposed to impose sanctions against two Chinese individuals and an entity alleged to be involved in the espionage. The Chinese ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office for an explanation.

    Tea and biscuits one presumes? I doubt that the Embassy even bothered to inform Beijing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/03/25/beijing-threats-must-be-firmly-challenged/

  14. Good Moaning.

    I’m sure there are blighted churches that could provide a smear of ‘evidence’. Sheer genius.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/25/anti-ulez-protesters-hang-bat-boxes-camera-poles-protected/

    “Anti-Ulez protesters hang ‘protected’ bat boxes on camera poles

    Bats and their roosts are legally protected and it can be an offence to disturb or destroy a place used by them – but only if a bat is there

    25 March 2024 • 7:14pm

    Bat boxes have been attached to ultra low emission zone (Ulez) camera poles in what appears to be an attempt to frustrate efforts to enforce Sadiq Khan’s clean air scheme.

    The £10 animal boxes have been installed underneath number plate recognition cameras in Chessington and North Cheam, in south London.

    Laminated signs underneath the boxes read: “Stop! This is a bat box. Bats have been observed to be using this bat box as a resting place.”

    Anti-Ulez campaigners have not claimed responsibility for attaching the bat boxes to the camera poles, but some have said the move could make it difficult for Transport for London (TfL) to install or repair cameras because of conservation laws designed to protect bat habitats.

    Bats and their roosts are legally protected in Britain and it can be an offence to disturb or destroy a place used by the animals for feeding or resting, or to obstruct access to a bat roost.

    ‘Think they are above the law’

    One anti-Ulez activist who claimed to be familiar with the strategy told MyLondon: “The purpose of the bat box is to make it difficult for TfL on any installation, be it a new pole before the camera is installed or a pole where a camera has been damaged, removed or covered et cetera, and the team is returning to attempt to reinstall, repair or clean a camera.

    “It will be interesting to see whether TfL and the sub-contractors think that they are above the law regarding bats and will ignore any warnings.”

    Kingsley Hamilton, of the Action Against Unfair Ulez website, told The Sun: “I’m sure whoever is behind it is extremely grateful to TfL for providing the poles to house this protected species.

    “Sadiq Khan [the Mayor of London] will not want to be seen to be tampering with their homes after claiming to care so much about protecting the environment.”

    TfL said it was a crime to interfere with its network of nearly 4,000 cameras, but a spokeswoman would not confirm if the boxes would be removed.

    However, Joe Nunez-Mino, of the Bat Conservation Trust, said: “A bat box by a main road is not going to be used. I’m not saying it’s a zero per cent chance it will be used but it’s very low.”

    He added that boxes must only be opened by licensed bat workers.

    Planning expert David Bird, a solicitor at VWV law firm, said: “Unless bats have moved in, TfL can just take them down.”

    There have been months of protests against the expansion of Ulez.

    In February, protesters blocked more than 80 cameras in Sutton. In January 2024 police investigated a spate of suspected anti-Ulez attacks after eight sets of traffic lights were cut down with an angle grinder in Bromley, all of which had cameras attached to them.

    In November 2023 the Met Police said nearly 1,000 recorded crimes had been linked to Ulez cameras either being vandalised or stolen.

    The £12.50 daily charge for older polluting vehicles was widened to all 32 London boroughs in August 2023 following months of controversy, having previously ended at the North and South Circular roads.”

    2. The weasel words of the final paragraph slip in a lie for PR purposes: “The £12.50 daily charge for older polluting vehicles…”

      An ignorant reader (and that is most of them) will presume that all older vehicles are “polluting” and that those first registered after 2005 are not. It also presumes that EU regulation guarantees that vehicles are non-polluting to the point that it serves Net Zero best, if I still lived where I was born in Middlesex, by scrapping my 1987 2CV and replacing it with a modern SUV, which have never been so popular.

      I am sick of those manipulating the truth through linguistic tricks. It is spinning, and makes cynics of all of us. What hope then for the genuinely honest?

      1. I’m going to have to award a yellow card for slandering weasels – they are noble creatures who have nothing to do with either Khan or the Telegaffe!!

      2. The ULEZ and various other assaults on the motorist are having knock-on effects to my neighbourhood as it is one of the most central areas to still have unrestricted on-street parking. We have increasing numbers of people just ‘garaging’ their cars here for periods of up to a month as they only pay the ULEZ on days they are used. I think some people keep an old car for occasional or weekend use and are prepared to take public transport here to collect it. A 20 year old car that doesn’t belong to me or any neighbours has currently been sitting outside my house for a fortnight and has been a major nuisance because I’m having building work done – if it had been a neighbour ‘s I could have got them to move it. Ultimately, of course, there will be enough residents wanting us to have controlled parking for the council to get their wish and be able to levy a charge.

        1. I sometimes use unrestricted parking when preparing for a concert in the city, but I leave within the day and never overnight. There is nothing worse than being late for a rehearsal because of having to drive round and round looking for somewhere that isn’t either Residents Permit only or being exorbitantly charged yuppie prices in the Pay & Display. Once I parked in Dover when taking a bicycle to France to visit an old flame in Lille, and this did get me a rude note on my windscreen when I got back.

          Maybe there could be a change in the law, whereby a car parked on a street for more than a fortnight would have an Abandoned Vehicle notice pinned on it, requiring someone to call a number to say when it is going to be moved off the street or to have it impounded. If the same vehicle repeats this too many times, then another notice is issued prohibiting that vehicle from parking on that street again for three years.

          1. Lots of Londoners park on the street and 2 weeks is probably too short a period as some might go away for 3 weeks holiday. But they park where they live. What we have is people who don’t live locally leaving cars for extended periods. They almost certainly don’t realise that this can be slightly risky because the council has a habit of suspending parking with a week’s notice for doing various road works and they impound cars that are left on the day of suspension. It is unchristian but I hope that this may happen to one particular car that I notice gets parked for long periods in various local locations.

    3. Khan will tear them down personally to get his tax in. Remember – these people are not sane. They’re not rational. To them, the end justifies the means. Nothing – nothing at all – will stop their demented psychotic crusade.

  16. Euroviews. What does Putin’s farcical ‘re-election’ mean for the EU? 26 March 2024.

    Vladimir Putin now adds another six years to his reign in the Kremlin after “winning” a fraudulent election on 17 March with 88 % of the vote.

    Now he may feel inclined to become even more aggressive towards Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

    The risks for the EU and its civilization are now truly existential. If we rule out appeasement, a counter-offensive must now be developed.

    Would it be too much to point out to this moron that Vlad’s election was far more legitimate than that of Ursula von der leyen who took the added precaution of not having one. The whole of the EU is an anti-democratic farce designed to bypass the people.

    https://www.euronews.com/2024/03/25/what-does-putins-farcical-re-election-mean-for-the-eu

    2. Would someone kindly point out that the EUis entirely designed to exclude the voter? It doens’t even bother with the sham of elections. Then there’s Lagarde going to the IMF instead of an actual economist. The myriad farce of the Left to pretend they’re virtuous and that they’ve not done far worse than Putin is laughable – of course, the Leftwing media won’t accept this.

    3. Anyone declaring Vlad’s election as fraudulent whilst accepting Biden’s as legitimate has a very shaky grasp on reality.

  18. Good morning, all. Bright and dry at the moment with rain forecast for the afternoon.

    We have experienced a high level of rainfall recently, could the answer be because of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption of 2022?

    Dr. Javier Vinós has raised his head above the Climate Change parapet and proposes that the above eruption is a very good candidate for being named as the culprit of recent warming.

    Heretic!

    Article at Daily Sceptic

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c18dadd50ce80f84d4d52530572fd4f0d0272a3d60d35bb2fdd5856afa65b34b.png

    The climate events of 2022-24 have been “truly extraordinary”, notes Dr. Javier Vinós writing in Dr. Judith Curry’s online blog. The rare convergence of a number of events “that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years” represents a “unique learning opportunity” for climatologists. Interestingly, Dr. Vinós downplays the roll of the current El Niño. He says that the January 2022 Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption, that boosted upper atmospheric water vapour by a remarkable 10%, is the most likely cause of the recent warming, which in turn led to an unprecedented three sudden stratospheric warming events. As the excess water leaves the atmosphere, observes Vinós, it will induce a cooling effect at the surface potentially lowering temperatures for the next three to four years.

    The Hunga Tonga eruption was an extraordinary event since it blasted an enormous amount of water vapour into the upper atmosphere without the usual volcanic ash. Dust particles spread throughout the atmosphere can have a temporary cooling effect, as in 1815 with the Mount Tambora explosion, but water vapour has warming properties and is considered the most potent ‘greenhouse’ gas…

    Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vapourised water, states Dr. Vinós.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0dbee0db3e3ccee3cecd2f4400618ff43e453c8b031c01cd0a80ec23c69c448e.png

    The above drawing shows the dramatic increase in water vapour since the start of 2022. It illustrates the movement of the volcanic water from the tropical regions to the mid and high latitudes where it will gradually leave the atmosphere in the coming years.

    1. The Swedish Muppet has been very quiet. Why is she not demanding that volcanoes be banned?

      3. An ‘scientist’ who thinks science has no further progress or data to find on a topic is an activist, not a scientist and should be told so.

        The idea that mankind is responsible is a lie to force socialism, poverty and misery.

    3. An academic who writes on climate matters explained this to me months ago and told me the effect would be accentuated by the fact that we are in an El Nino cycle as well. Thank you for the chart as that is the first time I have seen it.

    4. There was an article published by NASA a couple of months after the eruption. It stated that global ocean temperature was likely to rise by up to one degree as a result.

  19. Morning all.

    I keep getting a pop up advert for a ‘Needless Glucose Monitor’.

    They’re not going to sell many unless they sack their marketing manager and replace her/him with someone who can write properly!

    1. Reminds me of an ad seen for second-hand computer. Last sentence read ‘Very little use’.

    2. I watched my gym instructors video of her dog the other day and adverts appeared. As she huffed and puffed to close them, another one blanked out her whole screen.

      I said ‘what’re those?’ And she looked at me as if I were an alien – so I played the same video on my phone and no adverts, no flickering, no screen globbing. I don’t want to see them, so I remove them. Advertising companies forget – it’s my device. They can throw tracking cookies if they want, but there’s no information going to them as those are black holed.

      1. I thwack what I can, but as I have no intention of paying for YouTube, have to suffer four or five seconds of advertisements on there. 🙄

    1. This is because we’re British and decent people. They went back to work. In realiyt, the farmers should have ignored plod, waited until the usual scum started whinging about Palestine and then driven combine harvesters through them, spraying slurry on the torn bodies.

      That would send the right sort of message.

  21. Even without labour’s spiteful move to put VAT onto fees, is private school worth it these days? Or have even they been captured by the cult of woke? Certainly my ex school has

    2. Winchester certainly has been. Endless forcing of ‘climate change’ into everything – even a CBA exercise was made about windmills. Worse was the teacher forcing something called ‘moral good’ in economics.

      We are stuffed. The Left have their fangs in everything.

    1. And then one day you’re driving along in your Chinese EV and a little man in Peking will press a button and shuts you out of the controls and you’ll slam into another vehicle or obstacle at maximum speed. Worth saving £10k for…

      1. The Chinese are the least of our worries. Our own government is determined to destroy our lives.

  23. Good morning

    Fine but dull start to the day , 9c and cloudy .

    Green buds are really accelerating . Lilac leaves have sprung into life .

    1. We now have crocuses and snowdrops at home. Beautiful, they are.
      And the rhubarb seems to have a massive erection… weird.

      1. A very few mangy daffodils are poking their heads up in odd corners of the lawns outside.

        1. Lawn away from the house is still covered in snow. Not so thick any more, hopefully gone soon.

      2. A very few mangy daffodils are poking their heads up in odd corners of the lawns outside.

    2. We now have crocuses and snowdrops at home. Beautiful, they are.
      And the rhubarb seems to have a massive erection… weird.

    3. I, for one, will be very glad when the leaves cover all the bare branches here in The Borders.

      It’s been a bleak mid-winter. Roll on Spring.

  24. Not everything that happens to Muslims at work is down to religion, tribunal rules
    Employment judge rejects claims that a doctor was ‘racially profiled’ when she was asked to roll up her sleeves in line with hygiene rules

    Telegraph Reporters
    25 March 2024 • 3:35pm
    Related Topics
    Jobs and employment, Racism, NHS (National Health Service), Religion, Islam, Care Quality Commission (CQC)

    Not everything that happens in the workplace to a Muslim will be related to religion, a tribunal judge has said.

    Employment Judge Kirsty Ayre ruled an NHS consultant was not discriminated against after bosses told her to roll up her sleeves at work in line with hygiene rules.

    Dr Farhat Butt, who wears a hijab and covers everything other than her hands, feet and face while in public, said she was “racially profiled” and then “bullied” by managers into exposing her forearms.

    She had stepped outside into a hospital corridor, which she believed was a non-clinical area and meant she didn’t have to comply with the “bare below the elbow” hygiene policy, when she was spotted and an altercation unfolded that “escalated very quickly”, an employment tribunal heard.

    She sued the health service for religious discrimination and harassment.
    .

    However, her claims were dismissed after the tribunal ruled the row did not relate to her being a Muslim.

    The tribunal heard Dr Butt worked for an NHS Trust in Bradford but worked one day a week as a visiting consultant ophthalmologist at Airedale General Hospital, in Eastburn, West Yorkshire. On days she works, she carries out an ophthalmic surgery.

    The panel heard there were hand hygiene guidelines in place that required staff to be “bare below the elbows to facilitate effective hand hygiene”.

    ‘No clear definition’
    However, the code says while “we expect all members of staff in clinical areas to be ‘bare below the elbows’ we also recognise the specific needs of our staff on cultural, religious or disability grounds” and offers disposable sleeves as a result.

    This also applied to uniform policy but Dr Butt said there was “no clear definition” of where the non-clinical and clinical areas were.

    “When she is working in what she considers to be a clinical area, she ensures that her arms are bare below the elbow,” the hearing was told.

    However, when she left clinical areas she would roll her sleeves down so that her forearms were covered.

    On Dec 6 2022, she was “challenged” about not having her sleeves rolled up. After leaving the operating theatre to go to the bathroom to make a phone call, she had her sleeves “fully down” by the time she was in the corridor.

    Mary Hytch, the director of nursing, and two other bosses saw Dr Butt. Mrs Hytch believed her to have been in the anaesthetic room without her sleeves rolled up and to get her attention, she raised her voice slightly and said: “Excuse me.” She then asked her to roll her sleeves up.

    This left Dr Butt “upset” at being challenged and this showed in her reaction in an altercation which “escalated very quickly” and during which voices were raised on both sides.

    ‘Bullied’
    The panel heard Dr Butt was “not happy” and “very upset” at being challenged because she believed she was complying with the policy.

    After the length of her fingernails was also criticised, Dr Butt was “unable to continue at work” and cancelled her operating list for the day.

    In an email, she said she had been “racially profiled and bullied into rolling her sleeves up”.

    After no outcome was reached in an informal manner, Dr Butt escalated her complaint and said the situation which had made her “feel targeted” had not been handled “professionally or appropriately”.

    She refused mediation and an independent investigation was launched in March 2023 as she complained of “deep-rooted problems” with discrimination.

    A report found Mrs Hytch’s request for Dr Butt to be bare below the elbows was “not racially motivated but rather a request made to ensure adherence to the policies”.

    However, it was recognised that the incident had been “stressful” for her, and found it was “disappointing” that the discussion had escalated so quickly.

    She also complained about an incident on Dec 13 2022 when a nurse approached Dr Butt and “instructed her to roll up her sleeves”.

    Row escalated quickly
    However, Judge Ayre concluded the initial challenge of Mrs Hytch was “not because of religion” and therefore not discriminatory.

    “Not everything that happens in the workplace to a Muslim worker will be related to religion, and [Dr Butt]’s own evidence was that religion was not discussed on the day,” she said.

    “Rather, she gave another reason at the time for not rolling her sleeves up, rather that she believed she was in a non-clinical area of the hospital.

    “We accept that the initial challenge was polite and find that the reason matters subsequently became heated was because of [Dr Butt]’s response to being challenged, combined with Mrs Hytch’s response to her not doing as she was asked.

    “We also find that the reason Mary Hytch initially challenged [Dr Butt] was because she genuinely believed that she was in breach of the policies.”

    However, she added: “The situation was not handled well by either party and as a result it escalated quickly.

    “It cannot however be said that the escalation was because of religion.

    “There are plenty of altercations that take place in the workplace because both parties become angry and upset, and we find that was the case here.”

    They do what they want , and I wonder whether she was properly qualified and tested out ?

    1. It really is time to ban that entire demographic from the world. Move them to the moon or something. Let them whinge and whine at each other in the silence of vacuum.

    2. I would not want to be medically treated by anyone who dresses in such a manner. The dilemma of what to do in such a circumstance vexes me more as the end of life approaches and the likelihood of such a scenario increases.

      1. All the fasting slammers especially when Ramadan is in June Would you want to be operated on by one? One driving an HGV? Etc.

    4. The NHS should have invoked the 2nd Amendment to enforce the right to bare arms.

      I’ll fetch me musket.

    5. I spent this afternoon in the RJAH and on the walls it clearly showed a medical person with the slogan “Bare Below The Elbow”. No ifs, buts or caveats. The RJAH is a centre of excellence and you have to be invited to work there.

  25. Good morning all.
    A cool 2°C this morning, but bright and dry with a light overcast.

    It appears that there are Police and Crime Commissioner elections in the offing.

    Crime commissioners
    SIR – I am interested to have received a ballot card in the post yesterday morning for the election of a police and crime commissioner for Suffolk.

    Apart from considering that the money spent on this would be better used for crime prevention, I have no idea who the current local police and crime commissioner is, nor what they have achieved for my community.
    What should I do with my vote?

    Terry Holloway
    Great Wratting, Suffolk

    R. Spowart
    6 HRS AGO
    Message Actions
    Good morning fellow insomniacs.
    Terry Holloway has a simple course of action regarding the upcoming election of his local PCC.
    First, find out who the current incumbent is and check their record.
    Then, look up to see who the other candidates are and study their backgrounds and manifestos.
    Having done that, he will be much better equipped to make his choice and also better equipped to advise his friends and family on who they should vote for

    .

    1. Yo B o B

      I still say that enough crime is generated in UK, especially now the invading troops are adding to the number of crooks already resident here, without the need for a Commissioner to add even more.

      Perhaps a Police and Anticrime Commissioner is needed

      1. Morning OLT

        How about this little gem .

        Most villages have many defib machines dotted around the area .. easily accessible .. now the latest must have is .. Bleed kits … at least 2 kits are required .. and they should be safe and secure … so that the local kids cannot break into them .. and creep around looking like bandaged Egyptian mummies .

        The other thing is that supermarket staff ( small supermarkets ) have been advised not to challenge or pursue thieves . Great danger to staff and any onlookers , thieves are becoming more vicious .

        Last year as I was putting my pound into the trolley to retrieve it , a thief ran past me with 2 legs of meat in each hand , with several staff chasing him . I wish I had shoved my trolley in his way , but too late and not thinking straight .

    2. Yo B o B

      I still say that enough crime is generated in UK, especially now the invading troops are adding to the number of crooks already resident here, without the need for a Commissioner to add even more.

      Perhaps a Police and Anticrime Commissioner is needed

    3. That sort of information is deemed “inappropriate” during an election. Since 2015, we must rely on TV debates and vox pops.

    9. Grattis på födelsedagen, Caroline. Hope it’s a good one. 😊🥂👍🏻🍾🎂

      1. Yes. Caroline chose the ingredients, mixed them, stirred them while I stood by and gave her invaluable advice!

    13. 🎶🎵Happy Birthday, Caroline – enjoy your ☀️day! 🎶🎉🥂🍾🎂🍰🎉

  27. G’day all and 77th squaddies,

    Light cloud overhead at McPhee Towers this morning, wind in the East going South-East, 6℃ and staying cold in the expected heavy rain.

    Sherelle Jacobs thinks that by having a new leader, the UnConservatives will be able to avoid total annihilation.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69b72a307fad59657eaf406039954daa31aaffc7b2a674669dfee2e7962a58d7.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/25/a-new-tory-leader-is-the-only-chance-of-avoiding-extinction/

    What she misses is that the forthcoming General Election will effectively be a binary referendum on which of two appalling options is the better one to manage the same appalling policies that the nation does not want. I suspect that the winner this time will be the ‘none of the above’ party with the line drawn under the Trilaterals of the ConLabLib blob.

    1. Replacing him is pointless. He’s useless, but then they all are. The strench of Left wingery must be burned out and that means sacking more than half of whitehall as well, then removing the ability for the state to levy taxes and to debase the currency.

      Their power is in money. Take that – and the ability to pass bills – away from them and government will finally start to serve the people. Wouldn’t matter if the loathesome sewage Blair was in. He’d be paralysed by the pblic – as it should be.

        1. Good idea. Then let’s sub-contract out the government to somewhere like Singapore or perhaps South Korea.

    2. Replacing one WEF placement stooge (Sunak) with another (Mordaunt) is a pointless and futile exercise, but I doubt the ‘members’ are bright enough to realise this.

      A ‘dream ticket’ of Badenoch and Braverman is the only way back to common sense.

      1. I don’t see an Anglo-Celtic alpha male in that ‘dream ticket’. It’s a ‘no’ from me. We still await the Caesar.

        1. That is because there aren’t any Anglo-Celtic alpha males, with the sufficient “stuff”, available.

        1. I ain’t voting for any politician of any party. To do so would make me complicit.

    3. Stand back a little and it appears that Mr Sunal has inherited a pair of Dame Edna’s spectacles.

    1. There’s yet another block of flats being built on Wood Lane, where the BBCs multi storey car park once stood. (No need for a car park?) It’s actually quite a handsome building for a change but the flats are not being offered for outright sale. It’s renting and shared ownership only and yes, I get that most property in London is unaffordable for most people but it still indicates a deliberate direction of travel, so to speak. Perhaps an unfortunate metaphor in this case!

      1. No parking on Wood Lane and I doubt if charging facilities for the new generation of EVs has been provided.

      2. There are three streets of houses in Cornwall that were built under shared ownership. The construction company sold their shares and now a company offshore/tax haven owns part of the leases.
        The houses are now unsellable and their ground rents have doubled.

  29. Oh bugger:-

    Baltimore bridge collapses causing ‘mass casualty event’
    A 1.6-mile-long bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, has collapsed after it was hit by a cargo ship, sending several vehicles into the water.

    Rescue workers were searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water, said Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department.

    “Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people,” Mr Cartwright said. He said it was too early to know how many people were on the bridge but called the collapse a “developing mass casualty event”.

    Videos from a live stream of the bridge showed several of its spans collapsing after it was struck by the cargo ship.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-maryland-ship-collapse-latest-news/

    The video attached to the article is rather harrowing.

      1. Bash the support and the whole bridge just folds. Looks like some traffic on the roadway by the right-hand pillar – looks like headlights. Hope those poor buggers got out of it OK.

        1. I don’t know how bad it is but it was 1.30 am. The bridge would have been full of traffic if it happened in the day time.
          Let us hope they survived.

      3. I wouldn’t want to be the captain or the two pilots on board. This is an extraordinary navigational failure, always assuming that the ship’s power plant(s) and guidance systems were functioning correctly.

      5. What an awful thing to happen in this modern world of super technology.
        You can’t wave a flag but…….

      6. IMHO, this is an example of inherently bad design.

        The Francis Scott Key Bridge (named after the composer of “The Star Spangled Banner“, collapsed after the Singapore-flagged container ship Dali collided with one of its support pillars.

        To lose one span is unfortunate; to lose several spans – because of damage to one – smacks of carelessness!

        Perhaps the spans should have been independent structures as are Bailey bridges?

        1. Wasn’t the problem with the “unsinkable” Titanic that there was a gap at the top of the bulkheads that allowed them to flood one after the other?

      7. Good grief! (Stronger swear words are available)

        Edit. Plus, wouldn’t want to be the ship’s insurer.

  32. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/26/threat-blackouts-looming-politicians-clueless-what-do-to/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/energy/energy-customers-smart-meters-face-pay-more-busy-times/

    The first article discusses that politicians have no idea how to solve the energy crisis.

    The second details how they intend to: ‘climate change’ was all about destroying the economy. That was it’s only plan. The way they’ll force it is by simply stopping people using energy.

    The entire political class should be burned. They’re mendacious, spiteful, stupid, vicious nasty excrement. Then start on Whitehall and sackevery 2nd person and hte entirety of the department for energy.

    When the lights go out I’ll find these vermin and do the country a favour. All those unpowered lamposts will have new purpose.

    1. They don’t have the guts to call out the real and most obvious problems of our planet. Too many people in close proximity of each other. Too many people travelling from low energy consumption countries, Asia and Africa
      to countries where energy consumption is already high. And high in population.
      China and its obvious obsession of burning millions of tonnes of coal. While thousands of their people are leaving their own country to live where the coal and other minerals are coming from. Australia.
      Air travel, which seems to be increasing by the day.
      Too many cars drivers obsessed with speeding, on our own roads. Traffic jam’s everywhere.
      Really the list is endless, but the smugness and self obsession of the do nothing, political classes is just another problem we have to put up with.

      1. Martin Lewis was on R4 last night exposing the scandal of this – 1 in 5 is thought to be broken.

  33. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/26/threat-blackouts-looming-politicians-clueless-what-do-to/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/energy/energy-customers-smart-meters-face-pay-more-busy-times/

    The first article discusses that politicians have no idea how to solve the energy crisis.

    The second details how they intend to: ‘climate change’ was all about destroying the economy. That was it’s only plan. The way they’ll force it is by simply stopping people using energy.

    The entire political class should be burned. They’re mendacious, spiteful, stupid, vicious nasty excrement. Then start on Whitehall and sackevery 2nd person and hte entirety of the department for energy.

    When the lights go out I’ll find these vermin and do the country a favour. All those unpowered lamposts will have new purpose.

  34. SIR – Britain has one of the most unequal educational systems in the world. This became painfully obvious three years ago, when the private sector was allowed to award itself higher A-level grades in the teacher assessment fiasco.

    I recently retired from teaching, having done a five-year stint in a fee-paying school and then 33 years in the state system. The state sixth-form college where I taught has been shackled by VAT for years, despite protests made to the Government, so it rankles when I hear representatives of the private sector trying to justify its VAT exemption.

    It is a little-known fact that state sixth-form colleges give the best value for money in England when you factor in value-added scores – despite the intolerable financial pressures put on the sector.

    Sir Keir Starmer should give state sixth-form colleges VAT exemption, strip fee-paying schools of their ridiculous financial privileges and plough the money back into helping cash-strapped state schools and colleges. It is high time that this embarrassing injustice was redressed.

    David Huggon
    Retired head of Spanish, Colchester Sixth Form College
    Wivenhoe, Essex

    Dave is a keen cyclist who wants a ULEZ scheme in Colchester. Dave writes to the Guardian on behalf of refugees. Dave doesn’t understand basic maths and the principle of cause and effect. Dave is a dick.

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-calls-ulez-type-scheme-080000329.html
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/09/contempt-for-refugees-laid-bare-in-tories-small-boats-plan

    2. I rather incline to the view that the state should get out of education altogether. It has done nothing but make a mess of it.

      2. The state makes a mess of everything. This is because it is a useless, incompetent, remote, detatched unwanted waste of money.

      4. Both education and healthcare were once provided by the church but now that institution is no longe fit for purpose either. Classical literature was taught in Latin and Greek. Today mastering the vernacular is problematic.

    3. Now now, David is a teacher who suffers from ‘intolerable pressure’ because he is a greedy whelp who wanted a cushy pension and to whinge about how horrible ‘da torwees’ have made everything he wallows in.

    4. They will not be satisfied until they have destroyed education through their demands for equity along with the lure of diversity and inclusion.

  35. 385000+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The delights the current majority voter have yet to realise if continuing to adhere to the voting pattern past that has, via the polling stations, made these actions possible in todays society.

    National sports, football, cricket,racing will be replaced as eventually the indigenous spectators will be, with slicing & dicing (fgm), internal family murders,(honour killings) and now Saturday market square stoning’s, will kick off at three.

    DT,

    Taliban leader says women will be stoned to death in public
    Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada says rights that the West demands for women in Afghanistan go against harsh interpretation of Sharia

    1. You won’t see any of the purple haired feminists bothering to fight for them over there though. So much easier to wave a placard and annoy people here than to actually do something that could risk your life.

  36. Not sure if this was put up yesterday – I haven’t the time nor the inclination to check >700 posts. This could apply to any party that has been in power or shared power over the last few decades. Anyone believing that the Labour shower are going to fulfil their promises should stop smoking/drinking their wacky stuff of choice.

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1772256754555920644

    1. The irony, under Gove’s miserable act; that’s extremism. Wanting democratic accountability is ‘extremist’. That’s how much damage the political class vermin have done.

  37. Not sure if this was put up yesterday – I haven’t the time nor the inclination to check >700 posts. This could apply to any party that has been in power or shared power over the last few decades. Anyone believing that the Labour shower are going to fulfil their promises should stop smoking/drinking their wacky stuff of choice.

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1772256754555920644

  38. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunshine again and blue skies. A lovely start to the day.
    Everything labour does or has in mind to do, is going to hurt somebody. Their collective intentions will eventually hurt everyone who doesn’t vote for them and after the Blair/Brown years never will vote for them again.

    1. Never underestimate the stupidity of the Labour voter. They have to be stupid to intentionally forget the past and always, always seek to blame ‘Fatcha’. The Blair era to them was a golden age, Brown’s tenure a marvel and the banking crisis – which Brown exacerbated – nothing to do with them, guv.

      Since then, ‘da torwees’ have ruined everything – by continuing Labour policies but they ignore that.

      Until the state is under the booted heel of the citizen, nothing will change.

  40. Slammer “dame” slams slammer protesters – sort of.

    I did find it odd that she proposes that “protests” (aka violent affray) should not be allowed outside schools – rather than suggesting that the effing perlice farce actually do their effing job and arrest the bastards. And the effing courts bang them up for many years.

    Sorry – rant over. Rush of blood etc etc…

    1. Now now Bill. Have a sit down. You’re expecting the incredibly expensive and well paid public services to do their jobs.

      That doesn’t happen in diversity strength any more (yes, the country has been renamed – and lowercased, to allow the participation of all abilities). It’s more important to look at this as a necessary learning opportunity – for yourself – as you accept that this vibrant new future is now normal and the world you remember has gone – under the grand rainbow banner and jackboot of the caring, sharing bettererers.

    2. The proper Conservative Woman guest on GB News said last night that she suspected that this Report was timed ( and intended) to soften up the public for ONLINE CENSORSHIP. I share that suspicion.

  41. Sugar-free Easter eggs

    SIR

    – My wife is among the estimated seven per cent of British adults who

    have Type 2 diabetes. I have searched our local supermarkets for a

    sugar-free Easter egg to give her, without any success. Surely at least

    one chocolate maker should provide for this forgotten group.

    Derrick G Smith

    Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

    Obviously just wanted to moan. https://www.amazon.co.uk/diabetic-easter-eggs/s?k=diabetic+easter+eggs

  42. One aspect of being an actor is to delve into the spirit and personality of a character, so that on stage one becomes that person, saying and reacting accordingly. Very early on, I knew I had to suppress my own character and not let it intrude in any way on my portrayal.

    When I read at Church or sing the psalm, I must be invisible, so the full power of what is said can be transmitted undiluted from the page to the congregation. Conventional thinkers insist that it be delivered in a flat monotone, but I disagree with that. It must carry the full expression, but interpreted in such a way as to honour the author’s intention, not my own preferred wishes for what it is saying. Every word must be understood, even if spoken in a foreign tongue. Sometimes I must speak what I profoundly disagree with, but if I have the responsibility of relaying what is written, who am I to put my own beliefs in the way?

    Taking a battering recently has been “King and Country” conservatism. This was ridiculed in my youth by those with the luxury of living under a stable and benign monarchy, and whose institutions could be relied on to be honourable and true.

    This is no longer the case. The current demise of the Conservative Party cannot be remedied by returning to a supposed golden age of Thatcherism, since those pushing for that seem to ignore that it was this (and its latest incarnation in the image of Liz Truss and Keir Starmer, and for that matter Richard Tice) that brought about the breakdown of these institutions that were once so admirable.

    My hope therefore lies with the King, who despite his own human frailties, has shown to me over many years to be conscientious, honourable, decent, diligent, kind and putting duty to his country first.

    Then there is the Princess of Wales, who has recovered the dysfunctionality of a royal family riven by scandal and divorce, with her own rock-solid Middle England upbringing, and is to me the figurehead of a revival of the lost dignity [edit – better word] of our institutions.

    It concerns me greatly therefore that both these important national figureheads have been laid low by cancer, and can no longer be expected to bear the great burdens put on them by duty. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but they deserve all the time they need to look after themselves and recover out of the glare of public attention.

    Whilst I am not arguing for the sort of regency that covered for George III in his madness, or even that for Elizabeth II in extreme old age, it is clear that the royals need some reliable support right now.

    In the family, the Prince of Wales’s priority is with his wife and children, and Queen Camilla’s with her husband. The Sussexes are out of it, and so it must be said are the Yorks. I cannot see Beatrice leading the Trooping of the Colour somehow. We therefore come to the Princess Royal and her family, and the Duke of Edinburgh and his. Both these two royal siblings have made a point of sparing their children of the burden of being royal, and it could hardly be expected of them now.

    Therefore we come round to my opening paragraph. Last week, I had the pleasure of playing a royal courtier in a production of ‘Die Fledermaus’ that was as good, if not better, than anything produced in Vienna. Ivan was manservant to the Prince, but he was also bouncer, fixer-upper, dispenser of vodka, adviser and coverer-upper. In the opera, he had little to say or do, but was a looming presence throughout and reinforced the Prince’s authority, even when the Prince was more interested in a good time.

    In supporting King Charles and the Princess of Wales, it is perhaps down to the courtiers more than ever, at a time of national institutional breakdown, to provide the heavy lifting, and cover that is diligent, reliable and honourable as that we expect from these two recovering royals.

  43. I understand Scotland had a World Class education system. Now by all accounts it has a 3rd World education system?

  44. Gosh – the stuff of legend: (from The Grimes this morning)

    “The 248 passengers on the Kuala Lumpur to Perth leg of BA’s Flight 009 on June 24, 1982, settled back in their seats, ordered their drinks and were trying to rest. Suddenly the voice of Eric Moody interrupted them with an announcement that has gone down in aviation folklore: “This is your captain speaking. We have a small problem and all four engines have stopped. We are all doing our damnedest to get them working again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”

    Moody had joined the Boeing 747, known as the City of Edinburgh and operating with the call sign Speedbird 9, in Malaysia. The night was moonless and flying conditions were smooth. After settling into a cruising altitude of 37,000ft he enjoyed a meal of Malaysian satay with Roger Greaves, his senior first officer, and Barry Townley-Freeman, his engineer. There were 15 crew members on board including Moody, making it 263 lives he would save that fateful evening.

    Deciding to stretch his legs, he made his way downstairs and started chatting with the purser, but almost immediately was summoned to the flight deck. Climbing the stairs, he noticed smoke and a smell that he described in The Log journal of the British Air Line Pilots’ Association as “acrid or ionised electrical”.

    Back in his seat Moody witnessed a stunning display of what appeared to be St Elmo’s fire, a natural phenomenon caused by flying through electric thunderclouds, though it was a cloudless night. At 10.42pm Townley-Freeman announced: “Engine failure number four.” Moments later the problem was compounded: “Engine failure number two… Three’s gone… They’re all gone.”

    Although Moody had practised for a four-engine failure on a simulator, in his mind “four engines do not fail”. Some of the instruments froze, while the needles on others dropped off the scale. Meanwhile, their speed was falling. As his crew tried desperately to restart the engines, Moody put the autopilot into a gentle descent. Turning to Greaves, he said: “OK Roger, put out a Mayday.”

    At 26,000ft the cabin-pressure warning horn sounded. The crew reached for their oxygen masks, but Greaves’s mask fell apart. Again, they tried restarting the engines, treating passengers in window seats to the apparent sight of four engines on fire. At 14,000ft the cabin oxygen masks dropped and Moody made his famous announcement.

    According to those present, many of whom had boarded in London, there was no hysteria. “Mothers moved to comfort their children, husbands reached for their wives’ hands and air hostesses worked their way down the cabin, teaming solo passengers with a companion to accompany them into the darkest of nights,” one recalled. Others wrote farewell notes: “Ma, in trouble. Plane going down. Will do best for boys. Love, Pa,” read one man’s message to his wife.

    Having diverted Speedbird 9 towards Jakarta, Moody decided that at 12,000ft he would turn out to sea and attempt to ditch on the water, thus avoiding a land disaster. “I think we had another ten minutes of glide left,” he said. As the aircraft drifted towards a dark and watery Indian Ocean grave, there was sudden jubilation in the cockpit: engine number four had restarted. After an interminable 90 seconds, the other three engines restarted. Even then the crisis was not over: number two failed again.

    Approaching Jakarta airport, Moody could barely see the runway lights and asked for them to be turned up, not realising that his windscreen was covered in ash. The landing itself was smooth. “The aeroplane seemed to kiss the earth,” he recalled. In the cabin passengers broke into applause and cheers.

    Yet Moody still had little idea what had happened. “One of the stewardesses gave me a couple of cough-mixture sedative-type pills and I had 12 hours’ sleep,” he said. Eventually the cause was identified: Speedbird 9 had flown into a storm of ash billowing up from Mount Galunggung, an active volcano in west Java, which had clogged up the engines.

    Moody and his colleagues were fêted as heroes and he received several awards, including the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, and a set of crystal decanters from Lloyd’s of London, the aircraft’s insurers. “I suppose I did save them a couple of million pounds,” he quipped. Betty Tootell, one of the passengers, later wrote a book called All Four Engines Have Failed (1986).

    Eric Henry John Moody was born in the New Forest in 1941, the son of Henry Moody and Margaret (née Wiseman). He grew up wanting to fly. “My father took me to a VE Day air show at Beaulieu and my big crush began there,” he said. “I had my first flying lessons at 16 and a private pilot’s licence at 17, before I had a licence to drive a car.”

    At 19 he was accepted as a trainee pilot by BOAC, but the company then dropped a bombshell: it was oversubscribed. Unable to reject him on academic grounds because he had six A-levels, the company told him that his nose was crooked. He was 21 before he found a surgeon willing to correct it. At his next interview he was told: “You must be bloody keen, just the sort of man we want.”

    In 1966 he married Pat Collard. They lived in Camberley, Surrey, and had two children, Iain and Sarah. He continued to fly 747s for BA, including the repaired City of Edinburgh, until being forced to retire at 55 after more than 17,000 flying hours.

    When asked, Moody tended to play down his role in what became known as the Jakarta Incident, joking with the Airline Ratings website in 2014: “When I learnt to fly in the Fifties, flying was dangerous and sex was safe. When I retired in the Nineties, that had gone the other way around.”

    Eric Moody, airline pilot, was born on June 7, 1941. His death was reported on March 19, 2024, aged 82

    1. From a retired BA pilot: “He used to introduce himself ‘Hello, I’m Eric; world’s largest glider pilot’.”

    1. Given that the entire point of the endless lawfare is to force Trump out it’s a last ditch effort of the Democrats to cling on to office.

      The Left never play fair – they can’t. If they do, they lose as logic and rationality crash home.

      1. They might be succeeding though, Trump is going through a lot of PAC money paying fines and legal fees that would normally go to election campaigning.

        Trump doesn’t need the campaign money but Republicans lower down the food chain are losing out.

  46. A right to protest is one thing, stopping everyone else going about their lawful business is abuse of privilege.

    A significant proportion of these protesters will be living off mummy and daddy or on benefits.
    There must surely be laws against such protests, where they refuse to move on or disperse or chant hate.
    Arrest them all and fine them. Again and again and again until they are penniless.

    If they can’t/won’t pay, confiscate property, give them community service orders picking up litter and mending potholes would be good starters and if they refuse to work imprison them.

    Stop their benefits.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13237751/richard-littlejohn-mob-rule-shuts-British-Museum-anarchic-lunacy-police-reclaim-streets.html

    1. Presumably the Muslipolitan Perlice stood and watched? Or didn’t even bother to turn up?

      The article is behind a paywall.

    2. I am not sure that minced protester will be a good filling for potholes but what the hell, let’s give it a try.

    3. In practice, the right to protest should be limited to making a point, maybe a few times. But the crippling of parts of London and the resources spent on control are not justified week after week, especially as we can do very little about what’s happening in Gaza.

    1. Presumably the Muslipolitan Perlice stood and watched? Or didn’t even bother to turn up?

      The article is behind a paywall.

      1. Put on your VPN.

        I think you’ve replied to a different article post.

        A few quotes:
        Mob rule returned to the streets of London on Sunday, forcing the closure of the British Museum. Hundreds of masked demonstrators laid siege to the main gates, blocking access to visitors and trapping others inside.

        The protest was organised by an outfit calling itself Energy Embargo For Palestine, another Far-Left front organisation bringing together anti-Israel fanatics and Just Stop Oil headbangers.

        They have managed to link the war in Gaza to the museum’s ten-year £50million sponsorship deal with BP, which has been awarded an offshore licence to explore for oil and gas in Israeli waters. Protesters waved Palestinian flags, and brandished banners including ‘Boycott the British Museum’ and ‘BP fuels colonial genocide’ — two of their current favourite buzzwords.
        Time and again we have seen this type of demo disrupt daily lives — closing bridges, blocking motorways and airport approach roads, stopping ambulances getting to hospital and parents taking their children to school. Buildings have been defaced, paintings attacked in art galleries, the list is endless. Now it’s the turn of the British Museum, because of a tenuous link between its sponsor BP and Israel — sorry, the ‘Zionist Entity’.

        There’s little to be gained by pointing out that Hamas — which has been occupying Gaza for the past 18 years, started this war and is hell-bent on genocide against Israel — is bankrolled by Iran, which relies on oil exports for its wealth.

        The mob isn’t interested. They only target Israel and the West. Any excuse will do — climate change, ‘colonialism’, ‘genocide’, slavery, you name it.

        The purpose is protest.

        1. No – it was your post that I replied to. And my question remains unanswered!

          EDIT – no it wasn’t! You are right. It was your post below. I’ll try again. (Old age…)

          1. This post was about Germany.
            The British Museum one was where I quoted from in this thread and yes they did stand around.

        2. No – it was your post that I replied to. And my question remains unanswered!

          EDIT – no it wasn’t! You are right. It was your post below. I’ll try again. (Old age…)

      1. I can. I’m an ESCapologist in my spare time…

        Why is the Church of England so horrified by ‘whiteness’?

        The CoE’s adoption of trendy woke jargon has become a pitiful embarrassment
        Michael Deacon
        Columnist
        26 March 2024 • 7:00am
        Michael Deacon

        180
        Miranda Threlfall-Holmes
        ‘Anti-whiteness’: Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, the Archdeacon of Liverpool, has announced that she is very much opposed to whiteness

        Perhaps the time has come to rename the Church of England. These days, it would make more sense to call it the Church of America. Because, of late, it seems to have become utterly fixated with parroting American ideas about racial politics.

        First, we read that the CoE hopes to raise £1billion to atone for slavery. Baffled parishioners must have wondered what possible link there could be between their village church and the transatlantic slave trade. Is the organist an indentured servant? Does the verger run a sugar plantation?

        But there was more to come. Next, we read that CoE parishes have been told to “embed racial justice” by drawing up “race action plans”. And now, we find a growing determination to tackle the supposed problem of “whiteness”.

        Last month, a CoE diocese advertised for an “Anti-Racist Practice Officer”, whose job would be to “deconstruct whiteness”. And at the weekend just gone, the Archdeacon of Liverpool – who is herself white – announced that she was “anti-whiteness”.

        Oddly enough, this boast was not greeted with universal admiration. Indeed, quite a lot of people seemed to find it offensive. So she hastily sought to clarify her position. “‘Whiteness’ does not refer to skin colour per se,” she explained, “but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as ‘normal’ and everything else is considered different or lesser.”

        Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this explanation helps. After all, there is already a word for “viewing the world” in this way, and it’s “racism”. So why, to avoid causing confusion and offence, didn’t she just say she was against that?

        Of course, “whiteness” is a newer, trendier term. So maybe she thought that saying “whiteness” would make her sound more cutting-edge. More dazzlingly au courant. More American.

        Alternatively, perhaps she was just trying to impress the young. For many years, CoE vicars have been desperate to find ways of doing this. Frankly, though, I preferred it when they grew beards and played the guitar. It was actually less embarrassing.

      2. The real victims of pension injustice
        Debate continues to rage as to whether women born in the 1950s deserve compensation, to make up for the Government’s supposed failure to warn them about the rise in their state pension age. In my view, though, both sides of this debate are missing the point. Because the real victims of pension injustice aren’t women.

        They’re men.

        Think about it. Both men and women now retire at the same age. But this is grossly unfair. On average, after all, we men die five years before women do. Logically, therefore, we should be entitled to retire five years before women do, as well.

        Yet, until recently, it was the other way round. Somehow, women were allowed to retire five years before men. What a scandal. Our grandfathers were robbed. Just think of them, toiling away at work well into their 60s – when, in a just world, they’d have had their feet up at home, while their wives were sent down the mines instead.

        To atone for this historic injustice, the Government must do two things. First, it must immediately lower the state pension age for men by five years. And second, it must pay compensation to existing male pensioners, by giving them the five years’ worth of pension payments they missed out on. Arguably, it should go even further, by giving them the pension payments their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers missed out on, too.

        Inevitably, the Government will protest that it can’t afford such a vast payout. On the contrary, however, there is a way of funding it that is both simple and just. For generations, British women have been retiring far too early. To make up for this, the women of today should all be made to work longer – say, into their 80s, or if need be their 90s. The extra taxes they end up paying can then be used to fund compensation for men.

        I for one fail to see how any fair-minded person could object to this eminently sensible proposal. But in case ministers remain unpersuaded, I’ve decided to launch a special campaign, just like the women did. When they were unhappy about their pensions, they organised a campaign called Women Against State Pension Inequality – aka WASPI.

        I have two possible names for my equivalent campaign. It will either be Gentlemen Ending Retirement Injustice And Targeting Redress In Considerable Sums – aka GERIATRICS. Or, alternatively, Group Rectifying Untold Misery Plus Years Of Ludicrous Discrimination By Urgently Granting Gentlemen Earlier Retirement Status – aka GRUMPY OLD BUGGERS.

        Whichever name we settle on, I urge the men of Britain to join me in the fight for a brighter, lazier future. Together, we shall march on Parliament, demanding the right to give up work and hit the golf course – before arthritis ruins our swing.

        1. My old laptop would bypass the paywall but the newer one doesn’t. I
          think it’s a function of how the website works on different (or out of
          date) browsers.
          Michael Deacon is getting much better these days.

          2. He used to just write whimsical but non-funny pieces. These days he seems to have been given his head to say what he (and we) thinks.

      3. “P erhaps the time has come to rename the Church of England. These days, it would make more sense to call it the Church of America. Because, of late, it seems to have become utterly fixated with parroting American ideas about racial politics.
        First, we read that the COE hopes to raise £1billion to atone for slavery. Baffled parishioners must have wondered what possible link there could be between their village church and the transatlantic slave trade. Is the organist an indentured servant? Does the verger run a sugar plantation?
        But there was more to come. Next, we read that COE parishes have been told to “embed racial justice” by drawing up “race action plans”. And now, we find a growing determination to tackle the supposed problem of “whiteness”.
        Last month, a COE diocese advertised for an “Anti-racist Practice Officer”, whose job would be to “deconstruct whiteness”. And at the weekend just gone, the Archdeacon of Liverpool
        – who is herself white – announced that she was “anti-whiteness”.
        Oddly enough, this boast was not greeted with universal admiration. Indeed, quite a lot of people seemed to find it offensive. So she hastily sought to clarify her position. “‘Whiteness’ does not refer to skin colour per se,” she explained, “but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as ‘normal’ and everything else is considered different or lesser.”
        Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this explanation helps. After all, there is already a word for “viewing the world” in this way, and it’s “racism”. So why, to avoid causing confusion and offence, didn’t she just say she was against that?
        Of course, “whiteness” is a newer, trendier term. So maybe she thought that saying “whiteness” would make her sound more cutting-edge. More dazzlingly au courant. More American.
        Alternatively, perhaps she was just trying to impress the young. For many years, COE vicars have been desperate to find ways of doing this. Frankly, though, I preferred it when they grew beards and played the guitar. It was actually less embarrassing.”

  49. A struggle today . . .
    Wordle 1,011 5/6

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

    1. I’m with you.

      Wordle 1,011 5/6

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

      1. Wordle 1,011 6/6

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

    1. I just cannot think what is different about the last four years compared to the 100 years preceding them. Nope – not a clue.

    2. You won’t find any enlightenment in Canada, they are still suppressing any negative covid commentary, a paid off media and vindictive court will do that.

    3. I was under 50 when I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. It’s nothing new.

      2. My daughter was in her late 30s when she discovered she’d got breast cancer. Thankfully caught early and iradicated

        1. Treatment has improved since then. But my father was only 39 when he died of a brain tumour – Glioblastoma. It’s still a killer.

  51. I wish that Peddy was still around, I need his knowledge of the English language to interpret the latest word salad from the unwanted Trudeau whilst he was giving away a few more million.
    Create an equitable, feminist, and inclusive digital sphere
    reclaim “civic space to confront the climate emergency.”
    understand how climate change interacts with democratic decline

    What the hell does he mean?

    3. Anyone with a good grasp of language will just end up spattering their brains all over the keyboard, faced with that! 🙄

    4. The “climate change” nonsense has caused the “democratic decline”. People have been brainwashed with nonsense for so long they are incapable of independent thought.

      1. I’m just waiting for one of his speech writers to put in ‘freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength.’ (it’d make a change from diversity, I suppose).

      2. I’m just waiting for one of his speech writers to put in ‘freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength.’ (it’d make a change from diversity, I suppose).

    8. That verbless word salad is an example of someone speaking and saying nothing. It is the use of air to generate waffle.

      It is, basically, Leftyspeak. Or Newspeak. Nonsense verbiage.

    9. It’s the same sort of shite spoken by the art critics when looking at a modern painting – I’m sure they have a list of meaningless words from which they can choose, in any order, to describe a painting of a turd to suggest they know what they are talking about

    11. Does he have an automatic speech generator to put together those random mixtures of woke words?

  52. Just done a turn round the garden. A very agreeable morning. Still. Warm. 22ºC in greenhouse (where vents working!!)

    Gardening after lunch – preparing potato bed for Good Friday. Then more digging of the “new” area.

      1. That’s me. When I can remember!

        Actually – it is all driven by the MR – she spends the morning slaving at marking exam papers (as well as being Chief Examiner and dealing with myriad queries). Now she is making soup. Then we’ll be outdoors. 5pm – she is back at the exam stuff. A remarkable lady. An ace gardener, too.

  53. I spent much of yesterday self-flagellating whilst contemplating colonialism.

    .
    .
    .

    No, don’t worry. Have not suddenly turned woke 🤣; I needed to refresh my visa here, and the easiest way to do that is to leave the country and return, so I hopped over the river to Uruguay for the day, to Colonia del Sagramento.

    The mosquitos were appalling – endless clouds of the buggers, with the added excitement of never knowing which bite will give you dengue (I have a few friends flat on their backs with it at the moment); my guide on the walking tour I took showed us a tree whose branch tips, broken off, give off a faint scent that apparently repels mozzies. All of us spent the day furiously swatting at our own flesh. It felt very apt for Easter week.

    As to the colonialism, I have to admit to a constant feeling of glee that, for once, It Wasn’t Us!! The Portuguese and Spanish spent a long time here fighting each pther and occasionally putting up buildings. It was noticeable that the history was presented without the ‘mea.culpa’ glass now requisite in the UK; refreshing!

    Very relieved to report that the Argentines let me back into the country, and I chugged back into Buenos Aires on the ferry with a definite feeling of homecoming. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7d40eff7e5e58c75e55f6ae0c90859714afced8d7edb44c634dcc6a8828913d.jpg

    1. What magic is this?? You mean the authorities require a visa that must be renewed or you would be deported??
      Raaaaacists!!
      (I post as someone who cocked up his visa once and spent a night in a Thai immigration jail)

      1. To be fair, I could have just overstayed and paid a derisory amount upon leaving the country, but am minded to Do Things Properly. (This will amuse those who know me from my reaction to the covid farce.)

        Gosh – a night in a Thai jail is no fun, even if it does make a good anecdote!

    2. We certainly weren’t the only colonialists by far in Western Europe, although anyone would think we were by all the noise and flak we have to take for our former overseas ventures. Those were the days.

      I am relieved you don’t have to be a fugitive in Argentina (there is a title for your autobiography) and wish you every success in avoiding the dreaded dengue.

      Believe it or not, the sun is shining here today after weeks and weeks of rain. Slowly but surely we are tiptoe-ing and lurching into an English spring. I love your photograph, so evocative. Happy Easter, ashesthandust.

      1. Happy Easter to you, too! Glad the sun is starting to shine on you.

        I have some rather nice photos of the day but Disqus is refusing to let me post them. 🙄

        1. I’ve been unable to post photos here since I started using this new laptop after Christmas.

          2. I’ll give it a go. My limited skills wouldn’t let me do that and uploading in the normal way gave me this message:
            You must be logged in to upload an image. I am logged in or I wouldn’t be able to post anything……

          3. If you are on a PC, try a different browser. I can’t upload images from Firefox but Edge is OK.

          4. It’s a laptop running Debian. I do use Firefox, not sure if I’ve got Chrome installed on here (my son set it up when he was here at Christmas) but I don’t use anything by MS.

    3. Lovely photo. The Portuguese and Spanish did a fine job in South America. They stopped the indians eating their neighbours. They didn’t steal gold either. The tribal people used gold to try and pay off the invaders in the hope that they’d just take it and go away. Why are some of us eaten alive by mosquitos while others just don’t seem to have the same appeal? Last time I was badly bitten it was in Shepherds Bush. The bites were nasty but of course there isn’t the same level of risk though one beauty did become infected and required antibiotics.

      1. The Aztecs practised human sacrifice and cutting out the living hearts of their victims on a truly industrial scale. The reason Pizarro’s tiny band of Spaniards overthrew them was because all the subject peoples rose up to help them and wouldn’t be satisfied until their tormentors were destroyed.
        The Incas weren’t miles better.

        1. Exactly. The Spaniards taught the persecuted tribes siege warfare and armed them.

      2. The Italians call it sangue dolce (sweet blood). Small consolation for being eaten alive.. 🤣🤣

      1. One of the epidemiologists raising it was on R4 yesterday saying it’s 20% up and only started rising in the 1990s. They haven’t a clue as to the cause altough she speculated new chemicals in the environment or ultra processed food.

          2. I wouldn’t dismiss the chemicals in the environment and food as one cause. I’ve been treated twice for BC.

            The first time I was 48, and found a lump for myself. The second time I think was probably over-diagnosis via screening of something so small as to be insignificant at the time. It was dealt with anyway.

          3. I wouldn’t be surprised either about the causes.
            Bless you Ndovu – I hope that that it’s the last time you are troubled by that vile disease.

          4. So do I – but it will get me in the end as one organ or another falls victim to it – as it did both my parents. In the meantime I will live as I wish and not as the government wants.

  55. ‘Morning All (just)

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/995a283e7d2b9bd51423bb165f3f9e7c7eb282f0978ea1b513d4223989193119.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be2dca750bc8daf22cf53f2b48fa6919c12c7de3e688c8990c0622ef861a334c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f75b4a25b6ece61642321c643d63792db40671f33c6f2821c742b597cc2ef2b9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f723ee49a001c4e868ea79c905639b15f755f1c93fb3a6666dd966fb7424a50.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e0c1158fdd75fa1d297fd3ae666ef8d221cd329194b3fa61f315c00d2646fc1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afdbe1b0c3c17cd653afe716f3caa90ea411b67fa6f4ce53560468206f3585e5.jpg

    Aha!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ba52769f343ef1b8462ec31d999bab5f15f44764d868a456c9d7ee8012eaa64.gif

    1. I stopped arguing with a Lefty with ‘You can continue arguing, but the facts support my view.’ No doubt they’re still there, ranting away, desperate to prove themselves right, happy that they’ve had the last word but equally frustrated that deep down, they know they’re wrong.

    2. That “border force” never looked like that in 1940. They are all T9s – two seater trainers! I’ve flown in EDB.

  56. Nice one from the Spekkie.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/lets-kick-racial-justice-out-of-the-church-of-england/

    “Let’s kick ‘racial justice’ out of the Church of England

    Gareth Roberts26 March 2024, 6:00am

    Holy Week is the most important part of the year for many Christians, but it will come as little surprise that some members of the Church of England appear to be focusing on racial justice rather than Jesus.

    ‘I went to a conference on whiteness last autumn,’ the Venerable Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, archdeacon of Liverpool, wrote on Twitter. ‘It was very good, very interesting and made me realise: whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender. So yes, let’s have anti-whiteness, & let’s smash the patriarchy. That’s not anti-white, or anti-men, it’s anti-oppression.’

    This wisdom was revealed to her from a secular Sinai – a ‘Racial Justice Conference’ in the slightly less epic setting of Birmingham – whose promo bumf included the exciting attraction that it would ‘encourage white participants to take next steps in facing their own whiteness’.

    Let’s get the obvious cracks over first. Miranda Thelfall-Holmes (who is, of course, white by the way) is a name for a trendy vicar that any decent editor on a comedy show would immediately strike out for being too obvious. But reality has a habit of being crude and stereotyped in this way. Why stop there? The Rev Candida Piddlington-Smythe. The Most Reverend Fruitella Hockeystick-Jones.

    Thelfall-Holmes’s pronouncement is so desperately small and banal. Anybody who has worked in, or with, an institutional body or big corporate organisation in the last ten years will recognise the signs of ‘I’ve been on a DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) course’-ism – the shining eyes and the slightly over perspiring glow of the new convert. When challenged on her tweeted proclamation – it went down like a cup of cold sick in a communion chalice, unsurprisingly – the Ven. MT-H was quick to reassure her detractors that they just didn’t understand:

    ‘I was contributing to a debate about world views, in which ‘whiteness’ does not refer to skin colour per se, but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as ‘normal’ and everything else is considered different or lesser.’

    Another vicar asked, with marvellous understatement, ‘Slightly confused by this, so being born white is wrong?’ MT-H had to unpack it a bit: ‘No, that was my exact point! Seek out the training.’ ‘Seek out the training’ must be, I think, a new translation from the Book of Proverbs 19:20: ‘Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.’ For lo, ye shall eat abundantly of the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Anti-Whiteness.

    Far be it from me to advise the holy, but I would have thought the Bible – the ancient wisdom of the creator of all things, with its conclusive message of redemption for all – might be a better steer for the clergy than a lot of tenuous claptrap knocked up by some loopy Californian-types.

    Threlfall-Holmes is just another terrible mediocrity. And, yes, there will always be such cut and paste, click and drag people about in big institutions, following whatever is high status and fashionable and feels important. That is the kind of person attracted to administration. The trick is to ensure that the ideas these tractable ninnies are out there parroting aren’t mad or dangerous ones.

    Because yes, it is funny, but there’s a serious point here. We must confront two big questions: is racism a serious universal human flaw to which anyone, given the right conditions, can partake in? Or is it, rather, whatever is not socially acceptable to the elite class at any given moment?

    The reality is that there is nothing clever about the archdeacon’s semantic hair-splitting; and there is nothing good to be gained from talk of ‘anti-whiteness’. Thelfall-Holmes says she wasn’t talking about skin colour. Fair enough. But couldn’t she use another word in its place? Or, better still, Thelfall-Holmes should think twice before attending another ‘conference on whiteness’.

    Remember that campaign for kicking racism out of football? Time for something similar: Let’s kick racial thinking out of the Church of England, swiftly and firmly.”

    1. The Rev Double-Barrelled seems ideal material to replace the present Archprick Welmeaning.

      2. She mitre be an ideal choice, although she would have to black up first to hit the right spot.

    2. From an organisation which exists solely to concentrate and abuse power this is somewhat hypocritical.

    3. The ArchWoken of Liverpool along with the WitchBishops of Dover and London seem to have ruled that Pride is no longer the Original Sin, quite the contrary, and that it is White Skin that is the foundational Sin.

    4. Sorry to disabuse the idiot, in Western Europe, being white IS normal. It’s being African or Asian that isn’t.

  57. OT – the MR is making today’s soup. TROMBETTI. There is still half of one of last year’s crop left – and it is nearly April. What a vegetable – a gift that keeps on giving.

      1. See my reply to Ogga.

        I also put my diet on hold last week to assist in shaking off this damn shingles attack.

        1. Are you down to your desired weight? I hope the shingles is getting better. I hope you don’t get the ‘post herpetic neuralgia’ that the anti-virals seem to stop. I’ve had no recurrence of the pain since I had it five years ago. My aunt suffered with it for the rest of her life.

          1. Not yet. I plateaued over the Christmas period and started to get back on course after winter but that has been held up. My intention is to achieve my desired weight by the end of spring.

      2. See answer to Ogga, above.

        I’ve put my diet on hold for the past week while I beat off this damn shingles attack.

      2. I placed the enamel plate on a pizza stone that had been heating up in the oven for 20 minutes. 25mins @ 190ºC. Job done.

      1. 😉Oh, I carb-up at least once a fortnight. Can’t lose too much weight too quickly!

    3. Any fucking brain-dead vegan even thinking of attempting to separate me from my proper (animal-based) food will soon be wishing they had not been born.

        1. Are you my new personal groupie, Squiff? My my, I am flattered.

          It seems like a long time since my posts were randomly attacked by an educationally subnormal, gramatically-challenged interloper. I do feel quite honoured, even if I can run rings around you intellectually.

    5. Our daughter-in-law’s brother adopted a strict vegan diet getting on for five years ago. Not so long ago someone gave him a hug and his rib snapped. When we last saw him, later last year he didn’t look healthy – not unwell – just no young person glow about him, even though he does run train and run marathons.

  61. Bastards of the year award goes to…

    EXCLUSIVE Fury as two brothers who
    survived Hamas music festival massacre are ‘detained for HOURS by
    aggressive anti-Semitic staff at Manchester Airport – just for being
    Israeli’: Home Office begins probe into ‘demeaning’ treatment of pair

    Do YOU know the men who were detained? Email tips@dailymail.co.uk

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13237837/Survivors-Nova-Music-Festival-detained-Manchester-Airport-Israel-Border-Force.html

      1. I was there with my daughter in August 2022 as part of my “teaching her how to travel”. I used to spend a lot of time in Argentina and Brazil when i worked for the bank before i got married and had the children; and prior to that, I spent a year backpacking in South America when I was 29. Love the place.

  63. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange’s US extradition appeal delayed. 26 March 2024.

    Julian Assange faces a further wait to find out whether he can bring an appeal against his extradition to the United States after judges at the High Court adjourned their decision.

    In a ruling on Tuesday morning, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson ordered the US to provide certain assurances, meaning that Assange will now not be immediately extradited.

    At least Vlad gave that creep Navalny the opportunity to get out!

    No comments allowed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/julian-assange-extradition-appeal-delayed-london-high-court/

  64. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange’s US extradition appeal delayed. 26 March 2024.

    Julian Assange faces a further wait to find out whether he can bring an appeal against his extradition to the United States after judges at the High Court adjourned their decision.

    In a ruling on Tuesday morning, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson ordered the US to provide certain assurances, meaning that Assange will now not be immediately extradited.

    At least Vlad gave that creep Navalny the opportunity to get out!

    No comments allowed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/julian-assange-extradition-appeal-delayed-london-high-court/

  65. The ones locally take coins or app but not card. So I don’t park there now – however if I do need to go into town for anything it’s “Free after three” soon to be “Free after two” so sod them. I do my shopping where the parking is free whatever time I choose to go.

    1. Ooh. For the second time in 5 minutes, i wouldn’t want to be the insurer on this. Tho i suppose they can blame it on glowball warming.

    3. A beautiful sight. Do it again, Mother Nature – take a few wind generators as well, next time.

  67. Just tried ‘drag and drop but still got the stupid message in red box
    You must be logged in to upload an image.

  68. According to the UK government, the Chinese are now cyber hacking ordinary people and even editing their social media posts.

    But this no true. Just vely bad rumour. China ok.

    2. Many years ago – 2011 I think – I was reading an article online in the Chinese newspaper (in English) and suddenly several people got a spam email from me. Those were people I’d emailed sometime before and whose email addresses had been saved by Gmail. I never save anyone’s addresses on Gmail since then as it’s so easy for hackers to use them spuriously.

    3. …and even editing their social media posts.

      No that would be the Telegraph!

    1. Poor dear. She found that a post-politics world out of the limelight wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

      1. I hold in the greatest respect ladies of an age. Quite few i have met through this site. They tend to have lives well lived and stories to tell. If any of them behaved like that i would throw a bucket of ice cold water over them.

  71. Population decline will destroy the West as we know it. 26 March 2024.

    The world we and our ancestors have lived in for the last three centuries is ending and we are entering a new one. Many things we have taken for granted will no longer be true. The reason is, that as a new report from the Lancet makes clear, three hundred years of steady and often rapid population growth has ended. By 2100 global population will have peaked and started to decline. This is a major historical turning point. Also, it is not simply a matter of a static or (actually) declining world population – the nature of that population will also change. It will be much older, with the report estimating there will be twice as many people over 80 as under five – nearly 900 million over-80s worldwide.

    It is not population decline that is going to do for us but population replacement. The West is already lost.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/population-decline-should-terrify-the-west/

    1. These creatures do not think in terms of race or nationality, to them every person is but a unit, to be placed and treated according to their diktats

    2. The flaw in that argument is that people are not all the same. Racial differences are real. Both IQ and life expectancy are lower in the races being imported into Europe. Agenda 21/30 aims to drag Europeans down to that level by hook or by crook, sparing only the Chosen People, who in this scheme of things are not the Children of Israel.

  72. Population decline will destroy the West as we know it. 26 March 2024.

    The world we and our ancestors have lived in for the last three centuries is ending and we are entering a new one. Many things we have taken for granted will no longer be true. The reason is, that as a new report from the Lancet makes clear, three hundred years of steady and often rapid population growth has ended. By 2100 global population will have peaked and started to decline. This is a major historical turning point. Also, it is not simply a matter of a static or (actually) declining world population – the nature of that population will also change. It will be much older, with the report estimating there will be twice as many people over 80 as under five – nearly 900 million over-80s worldwide.

    It is not population decline that is going to do for us but population replacement. The West is already lost.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/population-decline-should-terrify-the-west/

  73. The triumphant USA is now producing more oil and gas than any nation ever has. 26 March 2024.

    The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in January that US domestic production of crude oil for September 2023 set a new all-time high of 13,247,000 barrels per day. That fact probably deserved more notice than it received given that it was the most oil any nation on earth had ever managed to produce in a single month. The high-tech modern US oil and gas industry is completely transformed.

    Even more remarkable is the fact that US producers managed to break the record in November, and then exceed the September number again in December, the most current month for which full data is available. It is likely November’s all-time record of 13,319,000 barrels per day (bpd) has been exceeded at least once again during the first quarter of 2024, as producers find ways to wring more production out of each wellbore.

    I suppose that if you blow up the competitions pipelines and sanction their sales you could expect a rise.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/25/usa-oil-gas-production-world-record-level-energy-security/

    1. HMG – thanks for destroying our own energy supplies and forcing us all to pay far more for their energy. All in the name of the eco-lunacy.

      1. I would love to post a photo of the Red Menace but I can’t work out how. She is growing like a weed.

  75. No teacher should have to face extremism like this
    We have long-highlighted schools as sacred spaces but now protests are putting them and our educators under threat
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/03/26/dame-sara-khan-protests-schools-batley-grammar/

    BTL

    Multiculturality cannot work if monocultural people enter the equation.

    Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs seem to be able to rub along with each other well enough – but one unmentionable group does not do so and does not want to do so.

    1. We have allowed far to many of the wrong sort of people into out country, and sooner or later it has to be faced. We cannot keep doing nothing about it.

      1. We cannot keep doing nothing about it.
        …..but we will for the foreseeable future.

  77. Letters: Labour’s crusade against private schools should be a warning to voters
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/03/26/letters-labour-crusade-private-schools-warning-voters/

    Of course the Conservative Party won’t fight this as it too wants to appear anti-private school. Remember Cameron took his children out of private schools when he went into politics and put them straight back into private schools the moment he resigned as PM. A total hypocrite!

    BTL

    In France I pay my taxes and this entitles me to education for my children. If I wish to use a private school I do not lose my entitlement – I just pay the difference because the state gives each school the same amount per child as it costs the state to educate them. The private primary school in which my two sons were educated was so efficiently run that we did not have to pay any school fees.

    And when I had a hip replacement done it was done in a private clinic. My obligatory state insurance scheme entitled me to have the same amount of money reimbursed as if the operation had been done in a state hospital. So ‘going private’ cost me no more. .

    What a strange idea – the French seem to think you should not be robbed of what you have paid for. Is it possible to conclude that in terms of both education and healthcare France is a far more civilised country than the UK?

    And French university students who receive loans are not robbed by criminally high, usurious rates of interest as they are in the UK.

  78. Bastards. I’ve just been struck off by my dental practice. A loyal NHS patient from pre-Blair days and now I’ve been put at the back of the queue. Once they had nine NHS dentists. Now they have one…

    Denplan, Sir?

    1. Tell them you have just arrived in a rubber boat and are a hate filled illegal. Who might just blow up the building.

  80. Windsor Castle opens its doors to Muslims observing Ramadan as they gather in the grounds to break their fast for the first time in history. D Fail
    Such a kind man/person/thing is Charlie. Was his Camel Camilla properly dressed to receive his guests?

      1. Unfortunately, Charlie boy has been enamoured of Islam from an early age. He is not sufficiently learned or discriminating to see the difference between Sufism and other Islamic sects, particularly the murderous ones. Hence the insistence that it’s the “Religion of Peace” It is a great pity. Most Sufis throughout the Middle East have been ruthlessly murdered by their less spiritual Muslim brothers. It is very sad, as this could have been the salvation of Islam, but it’s not, so far.
        Look up “Beshara” to see what he subscribes to.

        NB: It is my belief that Sufism is a much older and more authentic spiritual path that, like other ancient Persian wisdom, was subsumed into Islam and somehow preserved within it as the Spiritual/Mystical wing, hence (very nearly) saving it from being the false, heavily politicised and nihilistic dogma that it has become. You can still find authentic Sufis throughout the world, but you have to look very carefully.

        1. The fact that he thinks that it is actually a religion, not a murderous, barbaric and evil ideology, fills me with horror at his stupidity.

          1. It’s because he has been exposed to an ancient spiritual self-development system (based on universal love in the selfless sense, very much like, and compatible with, the tenets of Christianity) that does work; also to some of the beauties of the ancient cultures that Islam grabbed and claimed for itself. Persian art and mathematics, for example. I wasn’t having a go at him, Sue, and I can see how it happens. The fact is that both doctrines now call themselves Islam, but the dogmatic, murderous interpretation has gained ascendancy. It must be stopped. Unfortunately the other strands to which I refer get murdered alongside all other non-submissives to the Caliphate.

          2. My brother in law, who is Greek and quite Orthodox, met Charles a couple of times when he was ‘retreating’ amongst the monasteries on Mt. Athos. Certainly the selfless, spiritual life seemed to suit him along with the austerity and absence of women. But the dogma and utter rightness of islam is at odds with a Royal responsibility.

      1. We did get some warning of this when it was announced he would be ‘defender of the faiths’…’they’ have been planning this for a long time.
        I know he had an unhappy childhood and rough schooling. I think he should have been sent to an inner city comprehensive. Then he would have learned what rough was.

        Because he didn’t, he has no street. All the time the ragheads say nice things to him the stupid needy bunt believes them.

        We would probably have been better off under Edward VIII.

      1. Saltire and EU flags

        CREDIT: Jane Barlow/PA

        Nationalism thrives when certain elements are in place.
        One of those necessary elements is the public’s willingness to believe an assertion provided it’s stated with enough confidence. Another is a degree of optimism that is so unrealistic as to be almost self-destructive. And a third is a conviction that emotional resonance matters more than hard economic facts.
        Thus has the campaign for Scottish independence prospered in recent years. But recent events have not conspired to create as healthy an environment for the separatist movement as in bygone years. The hegemonies of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have receded into the past, and along with them the arrogance and self-belief of the SNP.
        Instead we have hapless Humza, beset by unfavourable polls, a politically difficult police investigation into his party’s finances, and a desperate search for a realistic path to independence that has so far not been found.
        And with a general election on the horizon, and the prospects of 20 or more SNP MPs having to find alternative gainful employment, now is not the time for an unhelpful economist – an independence-supporting one at that – to regale the nationalist movement with decidedly inconvenient facts.
        Professor Mark Blyth is a former member of the Scottish Government’s own economic advisory council. Even before his appointment was announced in 2021 he was busy telling audiences that the lack of detail in the SNP’s plans for independence robbed it of any credibility:
        “The problem that I’ve seen so far is the complete lack of specificity as to ‘here is what the Scottish business model is now, here is where we want to be, this is how we’re going to get from here to here by doing this’. Instead of which what we’ve got is ‘Denmark is awesome, we should be like Denmark, if we were independent we would be Denmark’. No, you wouldn’t be Denmark. Denmark took 600 years to become Denmark.”
        Well, quite.
        And Professor Blyth was just as scathing about nationalists who sought to use Brexit as an excuse to advance Scotland’s independence from the UK. They needed to understand that Scotland separating from England was “the biggest Brexit in history, because the last time Scotland was fully economically independent, the word capitalism hadn’t been uttered. It’s been together for over 300 years, so if pulling apart 30 years of economic integration with Europe is going to hurt, 300 is going to hurt a lot.”
        Scotland exiting the UK would be “Brexit times ten”, according to Blyth.
        So the organisers of last weekend’s weirdly named Scotonomics Festival of Economics might have known what they were in for when they secured the Dundee-born academic’s participation in the event, via video from his home in the United States.
        He did not disappoint. He was scathing about the long-cherished nationalist trope of creating a Nordic style economy once Scotland has broken free from the UK. Such claims were akin to saying “I’m a supermodel because I also have legs. It’s simply not true when you really think about it.”
        But inviting an audience of nationalists to “think about it” is just as unhelpful as pointing out economic facts. The case for independence has been built, for as long as it has existed, on a series of unprovable assertions. Their persuasiveness lay in the difficulty in proving them untrue – a bit like trying to prove the Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist.
        But now Professor Blyth, who once advised the Scottish Government on economics and who is himself a supporter of independence, has gone and spoiled everything by committing the movement’s most heinous crime: he has told the truth.
        To many nationalists, none of this will matter much. Emotional resonance, as noted previously, matters more to them than facts and stuff. The skirl of the bagpipes and the stirring sight of a bedraggled St Andrew’s flag fluttering in the cold Scottish air counts for far more than hard figures about GDP, exports and currencies.
        Professor Blyth’s warnings that without a robust economy to support an independent Scottish currency, Scotland risked becoming a “mini Argentina”, holds no water for those who hark back to the good old days of the 1300s.
        For them, fainthearts like Professor Blyth matter less than Bravehearts like Mel Gibson. But there will be others in Scotland who might be persuaded that, after all the bluster of the last decade or more, economic reality, disappointing though it is, might be allowed to displace the shortbread tin version of nationalism that has dominated politics in Scotland for too long.
        Humza Yousaf’s problems just got worse. And this time he can’t blame the Unionists

      2. Sell a piece of your land for migrant housing. You could afford to pay the subscription then.

        1. Don’t tell ’em Pike !

          It is to do with settings and pop ups. Don’t ask me how but when i go to the DT all articles open. If i open a link to the DT that someone else has posted i have to use the ESC key almost immediately. Then it opens.

          2. They wouldn’t dare ! I’m no charity case !

            They are lovely and generous though. You should meet them………….scrub that. :@)

      4. They appear to have discovered the Tom, Dick and Harry tunnels as the Esc button doesn’t seem to work anymore.

  83. Rishi Sunak has suffered a fresh blow after Robert Halfon, the Skills Minister, quit his post and announced he will stand down as an MP at the next election.
    Mr Halfon, the Tory MP for Harlow in Essex, became the 63rd Conservative to announce that they plan to quit Parliament on Tuesday.
    In a letter to the Prime Minister he praised Mr Sunak and said he would “wholeheartedly support” his government from the backbenches.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwwaWVP2PGE

    rtemis

    Fun fact: this song is 100 beats per minute. If someone goes into cardiac arrest you can give chest compressions to the beat of this song. It got me through my cpr certification. Don’t sing “bites the dust” out loud though. That would be in poor taste!

  85. Fincancial problems? What financial problems?

    “Donald Trump has entered the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people after shares in his social media company surged on their Wall Street debut.

    Shares in Trump Media and Technology, the company behind Mr Trump’s Twitter rival Truth Social, rose by more than 50pc after it arrived on the Nasdaq exchange through a merger with a listed cash shell…”

    1. There was mention of him paying the appealed fine of $175 million Dollars in cash. I really hope he does it in Dollar bills. Legal tender and all that.

        1. Wouldn’t that be fun, In the UK many years ago we had the metric martyr who was punished for selling potatoes in pounds.

  86. USA: $DJT has given the many with TDS** a very unhappy day. ** this includes far too many crooked judges and DAs to list and the present US Attorney General:

    Donald Trump has entered the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people after shares in his social media company surged on their Wall Street debut.

    Shares in Trump Media and Technology, the company behind Mr Trump’s Twitter rival Truth Social, rose by more than 50pc after it arrived on the Nasdaq exchange through a merger with a listed cash shell.

    This values Mr Trump’s majority stake in the company at more than $5.5bn (£4.3bn), sending his estimated net worth to more than $8bn.

    This would be enough for entry into the list of the world’s 500 richest people in Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

    TMTG started trading on Tuesday under the stock ticker “DJT”

    The deal cleared its final hurdle last Friday when voters in Digital World Acquisition Corp, the listed shell company TMTG is merging with, approved the deal.

    Restrictions associated with the listing mean Mr Trump is unable to sell shares for six months.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/26/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-bank-england-interest-rate-cut/

  87. Nice little three today

    Wordle 1,011 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  88. Some of you think that you have trouble with the church losing its way?.How about?

    Calgary church to merge drag show with Easter Sunday service as ‘sacred act of protest’
    Calgary Unitarian minister Samaya Oakley says the church wants to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

      1. Last time I was in a Quaker Meeting House the surrounding literature was certainly huffing down the Woke gas.

    3. Well, as a supporter of diversity i hope those LGBGTQ+ are all wearing oversized prosthetic penises. We wouldn’t want to let God’s message get in the way.

  89. A Reeve-like Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,011 3/6
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Happy with a par here.

      Wordle 1,011 4/6

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

  90. That’s me done for today. Useful afternoon in the garden. Cats very much enjoyed the better weather – ambushing and chasing each other – investigating what the MR and I were up to. Spring is in the air. Allegedly.

    Tomorrow morning to Narridge for “shopping”. Ugh. The MR wants me to buy two pairs of trousers. There are few things that I like least than bloody clothes shopping. Still, I know my place etc. And I am going to buy a piece of jewellery for her to mark a “significant” birthday in the offing.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – later.

    1. We had a sunny morning and a wet afternoon here.

      I hope you find the MR something she likes.

  91. BTL

    Clapham chemical attacker granted asylum despite failing Christianity test
    Abdul Ezedi’s conversion accepted as genuine by judge even though he could not answer basic questions
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/clapham-attacker-abdul-ezedi-christianity-asylum/

    This is called Taqiyya.
    Muslims are allowed to lie if it advances the cause of Islam.
    Christians and Jews are expected to follow the Ten Commandments – Number 9 is: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

    According to Welby’s new Anglican teaching turning the other cheek means we should also turn the nether cheeks so that we can be kicked in the posterior!

    2. Allah is described in the Koran as ‘the best deceiver’, whereas in the Bible, Satan is described as a deceiver, ‘the king of liars’. It is not difficult, therefore, for Christians to infer that Allah is, in fact, Satan, and that Islam is a satanic cult.

      1. Do you happen to know the Surah reference for that? I’d like to be able to quote ‘chapter and verse’ (or equivalent) if I use that in the future.

        1. Qur’an 3:54 – “And they cheated/deceived and God cheated/deceived, and God (is) the best (of) the cheaters/deceivers.”

          1. Thank you. I’ll do some further research as translations of the Arabic can vary – for various reasons 😉

  93. Well our resigned vicar has is now alienating his erstwhile supporters by putting on village social media a long rambling announcement about his resignation which is a paean to utter narcissism and solipsism, portraying himself as a martyr in Holy Week of all weeks. He’ll be nailing himself to the church door next. He’s apparently frightened to go into the village in case he meets someone – an old lady (pushing 90) told him off for his behaviour and apparently he’s now having mental ‘elf as a result.

    Increasingly the congregation and village are seeing him for what he is but still he publicises his martyr act. He’s also now denying the lies he previously told people, people who will give evidence against him when the inevitable enquiry starts – the Diocese are I suspect wanting to support their ‘man’ but beginning to realise that he’s stirred up a hornets’ nest.

    Meanwhile we do not say anything but keep our dignity while he exposes his own lies and character, and the neutrals and some of his supporters draw their own conclusions accordingly. Devon villages, eh?

    1. Village social media is a blight on rural life.
      Did your vicar train during Welby’s time? I have noticed an enormous drop in the quality of newly minted vicars since Welby’s malign influence took a hold.

      1. Cider – there would be no evidence by the time the acid had done its job and it been drunk. 🙂

          2. I nearly ran over a pheasant on the way home from the RJAH this evening. Pity it’s out of season.

          3. It’s quite a faff to prepare even when cleanly shot. Helluva badger on our lane just now. I must say that, whatever my beliefs, I really, really wouldn’t!

          4. I nearly got it with the nearside front wing. Of course, then I would have had to put it out of its misery.

          5. My ex picked up a dead pheasant once but when he came to pluck it, he decided it was a bit too far gone……..

          6. Yes – that whole hanging business – my MiL used to wait until the entities she referred to as “Meggots” appeared in the carcasses before she even plucked and dressed them. Not for me!

          7. No……..That one was a bit green so neither of us fancied cooking and eating it, even without maggots.

      2. Recently I watched a video (TheHighwire?) that exposed the USA’s control on foods. A farmer, in Pennsylvania if I remember correctly, was selling natural foods, including his own cheeses and slaughtered meat, by mail-order. His customer base grew but officialdom are trying to shut his business down on health grounds. I’m not certain but the farmer may have been Amish.

    2. Their food standards are appalling. I feel so sorry for Americans trying to buy food that doesn’t in some way poison them.

    3. Maybe this is another reason why we’re apparently all getting so fat, ill and stupid. Suits Pfizer down to the ground.

      1. They have been fat, ill and stupid for some time. Who knows, this “cheese” just might be a vast improvement on those plastic squares that they think is cheese.

        Apparently their “chocolate” is just as diabolically disgusting.

        1. Not all of it, but Hershey’s kisses are so awful that I suspect even Phizzee couldn’t find a use for them.

  96. Good night, all. An early night for me today, despite lots of Zeds. Sleep well and I hope you awake feeling healthy and happy.

        1. Very good! One of my nephews is a bingo caller in Exeter, his parents are ambivalent about it, surprisingly!

  98. “Archdeacon resigns following inappropriate relationship with woman
    Paul Thomas had resigned from his post and he will also face a three-year prohibition from the ministry”
    Presumably it would have been fine if it was another man,

    1. Perhaps it complained when he realised “she” was a tranny and he refused to bend over for “her”?

    2. I put the link up when I logged in. He struck me as sound, maybe too sound for the female hiearchy?

  99. Do bullies really prosper later in life? The psychos from my school didn’t
    Robert Crampton
    Tuesday March 26 2024, 12.02am, The Times

    School bullies earn more than their victims in adult life, research by the University of Essex says. Or, at least, so say the headlines. What the academics actually found out was more nuanced. Out of a sample of people born in 1970, those whom teachers had deemed “aggressive” at the age of 10 earned, aged 46, on average 4 per cent more than those kids described as worried, anxious or fussy. Meanwhile, the 10-year-olds who’d done best in tests earned 6 per cent more. So, while it may pay to be aggressive, it pays more to be clever.

    The researchers have emphasised that they are not suggesting that parents encourage their kids to indulge in playground persecution as a means to future high earnings. This is a relief. If a huge sociological study hailed bog-washing the speccy kid as a suitable strategy for achieving adult affluence, we couldn’t really call ourselves a civilised society any longer, could we? In any case, having everyone secretly despise you aged 10 isn’t a price worth paying for a lousy extra 4 per cent on your pay packet 36 years later.

    We like to think bullies do not prosper beyond the peculiar confines of a school environment and, anecdotally, I think that’s right. There were a great many bullies at my secondary school, 1975-1982, not least among the teaching staff.

    Some of the lesser bullies, the more occasional bullies, have done well since, and some haven’t. Some channelled their love of a ruck into rugby, boxing or the military and then later calmed down. But of those lads who comprised the school premier league (or rather, the first division, as it then still was) of intimidation, oppression and an extraordinarily rapid recourse to savage violence, they have all failed spectacularly as adults.

    School bullies earn more than their victims in adult life, according to research

    There was one boy who revelled in the title “Cock of the East Block”, which meant he was considered the hardest customer in one half of the school. Anxious to maintain his status, he approached my friend Chris, who he’d heard was quite tasty, and unceremoniously kicked him in the crotch. We were 14.

    Four years later, the former Cock of the East Block was in HMP Hull, having grown impatient queueing for a nightclub in town and, endeavouring to speed things up, walked to the entrance and stabbed the bouncer.

    Another utter psycho would strut around with his shirt off in winter attacking anyone who gave him a funny look, an offence upon which he ruled as judge, jury and executioner. He has spent decades in and out of various jails as well.

    Another one, who used to carry a hammer in the side pocket of his three-button Oxford bags, trousers he would often drop to expose himself to girls in the first year, is now on the sex offenders register. A fourth hard man went to sea, at the fag end of Hull’s trawling days, and was lost overboard in suspicious circumstances, having presumably met his match on deck.

    That’s just the ones I know about, but safe to say, I don’t think any of those once ferocious sadists are leading happy, affluent lives as contented 60-year-olds. Their many victims should be consoled that justice has a habit of being done.

    What my ‘resting face’ says
    Gillian Anderson, who has played Margaret Thatcher and now Emily Maitlis, says she gets offered roles as clever women because she has “resting intellectual face, like I’m thinking about Proust, instead of dinner”.

    She’s probably right, people make all sorts of assumptions based on your appearance. Often, such assumptions are not complimentary. Witness “resting bitch face”, a phrase that feminists have now managed to subvert, but which, all the same, isn’t very polite.

    I don’t know what my “resting” face is. I guess it depends on circumstances. Catatonic face? Stressed face? Fury face? I must have an especially ambiguous default, because the two most frequent mistaken assumptions strangers make are radically different: some ping me as an easy-going, happy-go-lucky guy; others see barely suppressed anger. Neither is accurate. Particularly the first one.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/do-bullies-really-prosper-later-in-life-the-psychos-from-my-school-didnt-mtftfzwq0

      2. Not all of them; I’ve taught some psychopaths in my time; they didn’t end up well (stabbed or in prison).

        1. I have an aunt who was a teacher all her life. She said that a few children are just born bad, can be spotted as such at a very early age and never change.

          1. It’s like the spate of cockers that were produced by a Crufts winning stud dog that suddenly attacked their owners. The vets sent round a questionnaire about the breeding of these dogs and they all traced back to this one champion. It seemed he was a nasty aggressive dog, but because he was a Champion breeders sent their dogs to him – with disastrous results.

  102. Just a thought.
    I wonder how many Muslim terrorist groups are looking at Baltimore and thinking “that looks a good idea”?
    I’ve long thought that a largish vessel rammed into the Thames barrier could cause absolute mayhem.

    1. As a matter of interest, do you think, sos, that this might have been what happened in Baltimore? Watching it, it does look mighty strange.

      1. Possibly, but my take at the moment is just incompetence.
        I’d like to know how strong the wind was; the tidal range isn’t that great.

        1. Well, the lights kept going on and off and then their seemed to be a thick pall of black smoke engulfing the front of the boat just before it hit. Or maybe it was just a digital artefact.

          1. Apparently it lost its steering which suggests engineering failures/incompetence.
            I’m sure the “inquest” will tell us.

        2. Full moon, apparently, when the tidal rise and fall is at its greatest. Also heavy rainfall the last few weeks – greater flow.

          1. Even so, not all that great so far up the waterway.
            My money is still on human error/incompetence.

          4. Full moon was a few days ago – last Friday I think. The Beeb seemed to think the lights went out on the ship and for some reason it went off course.

          5. Which, on AlBeeb’s record would mean that the lights stayed on and for no reason it went off course. Watch the video of the whole thing. It is really interesting. To me, for example, it does look as if the container ship was sabotaged, but no-one else seems to be of this opinion.

          6. “The next full moon—also known as the worm moon—takes place on March 25, 2024.” So that was yesterday, Monday.

        3. Apparently the ship suddenly lost power, sent out a Mayday call immediately saying they thought they might drift into it and the bridge was quickly closed, but there was nothing they could do about people already on it.

  103. Evening, all. Voters have the example of Attlee’s government, Wilson’s Government, Sunny Jim Callaghan’s government, Blair’s years of destruction and Brown’s economic mismanagement. Yet still they continued with the triumph of hope over experience. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it and inflict it on others.

    I see the Archdeacon of Salop has been forced to resign. He struck me, whenever I heard him preach, that he was good at his job and sound. I wonder if that’s why they’ve got rid of him – was it a honey trap? (the spelling of “consentual” was in the original statement)

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/shrewsbury/2024/03/26/archdeacon-steps-down-after-brief-consentual-but-inappropriate-relationship/

    1. This is how it’s grown in the Rhubarb Triangle. I force mine, too, but only to the extent that I put tall chimney pots round them. I leave the top open.

      1. I have heard of the rhubarb triangle. So elite. I have also heard of the sinister Bermuda triangle – and the Golden one in the far east

    2. Uncommon in Norway, seen to be exotic. We have a decent growth in the garden!

    3. { believe something similar can be said of mushrooms – except in their case you can see them grow! nature is stupendous.

        1. I said “long and thin” and HG replied “rhubarb” before I got any further.
          She knows me too well.

      2. Boil the leaves in water and you have Oxalic acid, good for bleaching stains out of timber.

    1. Let them in.
      Give them absolutely nothing, not even a brass farthing.
      No money, no health care, no food, no housing, no education. Nothing.
      Let their communities support them, and pay them minimum wage for any work they can do.

  111. Boss of Ferguson Marine sacked after revealing that the ferries which are £250m and 6 years over budget will be even later and more over budget.

    1. “Protect”? Come on now Boots, even they pharma companies have stopped making that claim. Reduce harm is the fairest wording surely?

    2. Interesting. Were I short of money I might consider risking the jab if I were being paid £100.

    3. I know people who’d queue up to buy this. They still wear masks. They don’t understand anything about biology, virology or vaccines.

    5. I take it that chemists (pharmacists, apothecaries …) are exempt from the Hippocratic Oath?

      2. I received a reply from Iceland regarding their tick effort on hot cross buns. They said it was not on all their buns, just a few to test the market. I replied it was the thin end of a very fat wedge and another potential nail in the coffin of our culture and traditions.

    3. As the guy underneath says – don’t give them ideas. But funny though. Talibuns. Very good.

  114. Cadbury store accused of erasing Easter by selling ‘gesture eggs’
    Omission of the word on signs at discount outlet ahead of the religious holiday provokes anger among Christian community

    Blathnaid Corless,
    CONSUMER AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT
    26 March 2024 • 4:26pm

    A Cadbury store has been accused of erasing Easter by advertising chocolate eggs as “gesture eggs”.

    The brand’s discount store in Springfields Outlet in Spalding, Lincolnshire, is displaying signs offering customers a two-for-£10 deal on “gesture eggs”.

    The omission of the word “Easter”, particularly when advertising its popular Easter eggs synonymous with the religious holiday, has provoked anger among the Christian community.

    “If it wasn’t for Easter, we wouldn’t have a reason for Easter eggs,” said Tim Dieppe, the head of public policy at Christian Concern. “So I’m wondering why Cadbury wants to erase the connection between Easter and eggs, because if people stop celebrating Easter then they might stop buying Easter eggs.”

    Cadbury said the Springfields Outlet store was run “completely independently” by Freshstore and denied having any involvement in the “gesture eggs” promotion or poster accompanying it.

    One dismayed shopper also posted a picture of the sign advertising “gesture eggs” to X, formerly Twitter, writing: “The world’s gone.”

    It is understood that the eggs on display have been named as “Special Gesture” eggs, and “Easter” is still used in other areas of Cadbury’s advertising.

    ‘Easter’ has gone missing before
    It is not the first time the chocolate company has come under fire for omitting the word “Easter” in its marketing.

    A row erupted after a National Trust Easter egg trail, sponsored by Cadbury, was renamed the “Great British Egg Hunt” in 2017.

    Cadbury said at the time it wanted to appeal to non-Christians, saying: “We invite people from all faiths and none to enjoy our seasonal treats.”

    Meanwhile, staff at some universities have been told in recent years to avoid using the terms Christmas and Easter.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/cadbury-accused-erasing-easter-chocolate-eggs-gesture/

    1. I had the opportunity to meet up with a co worker – a Muslim we all mocked mercilessly. He said – over a glass of fanta – that all this stuff is nonsense. His girls love Easter. He explains it’s not a muslim festival but that they (he, they, all muslims) should respect the beliefs of others and not make a big thing out of our own.

      Simple, decent common sense.

      1. Hmm, you have heard of taqiyya, I take it. Islam means submission and all kuffars are “lower than cattle”. The whole point of being a muslim is to make a big thing of being one.

        1. Not Imran. He is too decent a bloke. In fact, the reality is that there are many many muslims who are just normal folk, getting by just like the rest of us.

          The problem is – every terrorist in recent years has been a muslim. They don’t help themselves.

          1. If only they would just stand up and say, after each atrocity, that the terrorism is disgusting – disown it – rather than whinging on about a fear of a backlash in the form of Islamophobia (whatever that is) we would all feel ourselves to be on the same side.

            Actually, the same thing used to piss me off about the Church of Rome during the iRA reign of terror. Just a little condemnation from the Pope would have gone a long way.

          2. And the reason that terrorists have been muslims is …? They all read the same book and subscribe to the same ideology.

    2. Margaret, please ignore what people “tell” you to say. Just carry on saying whatever pleases you.

      I do. Anyone getting upset about that I just tell them, “Hard luck!”

  115. https://wingsoverscotland.com/into-darkness/

    This isn’t Orwellian. It’s insane. The over reach, the arrogance, the desperation for control is psychotic – no, it’s outright terrorism. It is an abject abuse of power for no other reason than to have it. This suppression of freedom of speech – that it got close to statute – is an abomination.

    Sunak has done the exact opposite of everything he should but just this once he should stand up and say no to the SNP. Bah. Who am I kidding. No doubt the wasters are eager to bring that same law here.

    1. It is the end of free speech. I do not have enough words to condemn those that initiated this power grab!

    1. The World Economic Forum has all angles covered, including the Church of England, because Justin Welby is a World Economic Forum ”agenda contributor”.

      Who appointed Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury?

      World Economic Forum ”Young Global Leader” David Cameron in 2012.

      Just in time for the Marriage Act 2013.

      Who wanted the Marriage Act 2013?

      David Cameron’s puppetmaster, George Soros, at the World Economic Forum.

      ”In May 2017 the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) granted Cameron’s appointment as a Director of U2 Frontman Bono’s One Foundation which is also supported by Bill Gates and George Soros’s Open Society”

      Coincidence?

      I don’t think so.

      1. There is nothing in this world, at this point in its history, that can be regarded as co-incidence.

        1. “Lord” (no laughing at the back please) David Cameron is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and one of George Soros’ many operatives in the Westminster puppet theater. Sunak is a WEF, Gates and Schwab operative parachuted in to follow their instructions. The billionaires obviously wanted their trusted former PM puppet back in office. The beauty of it is that Cameron will still be there after the Conservatives lose the election.

          When he was in opposition and as Prime Minister, David Cameron worked with George Soros just like Tony Blair and appointed a number of Soros’ friends to senior positions. Including WEF Board Trustee Mark Carney to the Bank of England, Lord Andrew Adonis to the National Infrastructure Commission and Lord Kim Darroch as British Ambassador to Washington who was subsequently appointed Chairman of George Soros’ Best for Britain. David Cameron’s policies were virtually identical to Soros’ policies and, with George Osborne, David Cameron promoted Soros’ views about Brexit on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts. That’s why Cameron’s Conservative Party voted for the Climate Change Act in 2008 and later provided the Marriage Act 2013. Because both were desired by Soros. After stepping down, David Cameron became a director of an organisation financially supported by George Soros’ Open Society and Bill Gates.

          George Osborne, surprisingly, recently praised David Lammy who visited Soros for private talks in New York. Lammy is a Soros operative and similarly George Osborne who of course worked with David Cameron.

          So the appointment of Lord David Cameron is yet more proof that the WEF have their puppets in positions of power and that the WEF controls Britain.

          1. All of our mainstream politicians are bought whether by Soros or Gates. This fact is not an observation but a reality.

            At the next general election we have an opportunity to reject the lot of them by voting for anyone standing other than the mainstream parties.

            This could be voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party or any other independent alternative. The principal aim is to starve the worthless mainstream Lib Lab Con and Green monopoly parties of any votes whatsoever.

    2. It’s been taken down. What shocked you, mum? Fox’s language – or what he was reacting to?

    1. This idiot should be deported forthwith. We are a civilised country and will not tolerate ignorant insurgents who wish us harm.

      This nasty person should return to his homeland and preach his hateful religion and inhuman beliefs there.

      We are altogether sick to the teeth with these fools infiltrating our civilised society and pontificating about their ignorant beliefs among us. They are not wanted and should just go home before they are expelled.

      1. 385018+ up ticks,

        Morning C,
        The lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled / party controlled / paedophile umbrella )( rotherham) coalition cartel. are now currently grooming the decent indigenous peoples of these Isles in a pro islamic mode as in, the rape & abuse of simple minds.

        This coalition of moral criminal intent will have no truck with deportation, only importation.

    1. Conners, a question about dogs. Did having Kardi, when poor Oscar died, help by having another dog to cuddle? Asking as an Oscar loving fool. To be honest, I hope he sees me out as the family love him almost as much as I do.

      1. Yes, although I miss Oscar dreadfully, despite not having had him very long. It would have been much worse with no little paws pattering or a funny little face looking at me expectantly. I am not going to get a companion for him immediately, but eventually when Kadi is getting older (he’s 8 now) I’ll be on the lookout for a friend for him.

  121. Tribunal of gender-critical teacher collapses over panel member’s political and religious slurs

    Hearing of educator who wouldn’t use a girl’s preferred pronouns founders after one of board criticised Tories and expressed atheistic views

    Louisa Clarence-Smith, EDUCATION EDITOR • 26 March 2024 • 8:38pm

    A tribunal hearing for a teacher who says she was wrongly sacked for “misgendering” a pupil has collapsed after a member was accused of making anti-Christian comments and posting Tory slurs on social media.

    All three members of the tribunal in Nottingham, including the judge, have recused themselves to avoid a “perception of bias” against the teacher, who refused to use an eight-year-old’s preferred pronouns.

    The teacher claims she repeatedly raised concerns about the girl’s well-being after teachers were told always to refer to her with male pronouns, and to allow her to use the boys’ toilets and dressing rooms.

    The teacher, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the child, was told that her Christian beliefs, if acted upon, could be an act of “direct discrimination”. She is suing Nottinghamshire county council and one of its primary schools for unfair dismissal and religious discrimination.

    The decision of all the tribunal members to recuse themselves comes after social media posts that were alleged to “advocate religious discrimination” came to light.

    Jed Purkis, a non-legal member of the tribunal hearing, responding to a comment that only atheists should be in public office, said: “Damn right, you won’t catch us killing in the name of our non-god.”

    In another social media post, which has now been made private, he responded to the question, “What’s a good collective noun for Tories?” by suggesting a “tumour of Tories” and a “cesspit of Tories”.

    After the discovery of Mr Purkis’s comments, the teacher’s lawyer, Pavel Stroilov, made an application for refusal, alleging there was “a possibility of bias”.

    He said that in the social media exchange, Mr Purkis appeared “to agree with a view which expressly advocates for religious discrimination in public life”.

    He argued that it would not be sufficient for only Mr Purkis to step down, since the other two judges had presided over the trial together over six days and would be perceived as influenced by his view of the case.

    The tribunal, agreeing with the argument, acknowledged that “doubt would arise in the mind of a fair-minded and informed observer” regarding their impartiality, The Times reported.

    Responding to the recusal, the teacher said: “It means a further delay to me receiving justice, but I have to have a fair trial.”

    Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is representing the teacher, said the teacher’s story “exposes the confusion and untruths being embedded in primary schools over human sexuality and identity which are developing into a public health crisis.

    “We will continue to pursue justice for as long as it takes in this case.”

    Nottinghamshire county council is defending the claim, but has not commented. A spokesman for the judicial office said: “We would never comment on a decision made in a specific case.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/tribunal-gender-critical-teacher-collapses-anti-tory-slurs/

    The more I read of cases like this, the more I find I am lost for words. How do you describe the nonsense of ‘pronouns’ (this special variety) without tying yourself in knots attempting to offer reasoned arguments against the unreasonable? That the teacher concerned is a Christian shouldn’t be relevant. This shouldn’t be a case of religious discrimination. It’s an offence against reason.

    And my first thought on reading of Mr Purkis’s comments about God was “I hope he isn’t a committed socialist, an inheritor of the great, rationalist, atheistic traditions of Uncle Joe & Co.” Well, he is (probably). He’s a former GMB official. Here he is having a nice day out somewhere in limestone country.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ee874b9aeef198a5204a739faf018f86acb809eaeca9e862a8399050e08d345.jpg

    And here are his views on the EU (shame he doesn’t know his singular from his plural or his…)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0809026e208adbd6eeaabb0194f7c0431a7493f8845979262c84b9f25ce8ee6a.jpg

  122. Tribunal of gender-critical teacher collapses over panel member’s political and religious slurs

    Hearing of educator who wouldn’t use a girl’s preferred pronouns founders after one of board criticised Tories and expressed atheistic views

    Louisa Clarence-Smith, EDUCATION EDITOR • 26 March 2024 • 8:38pm

    A tribunal hearing for a teacher who says she was wrongly sacked for “misgendering” a pupil has collapsed after a member was accused of making anti-Christian comments and posting Tory slurs on social media.

    All three members of the tribunal in Nottingham, including the judge, have recused themselves to avoid a “perception of bias” against the teacher, who refused to use an eight-year-old’s preferred pronouns.

    The teacher claims she repeatedly raised concerns about the girl’s well-being after teachers were told always to refer to her with male pronouns, and to allow her to use the boys’ toilets and dressing rooms.

    The teacher, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the child, was told that her Christian beliefs, if acted upon, could be an act of “direct discrimination”. She is suing Nottinghamshire county council and one of its primary schools for unfair dismissal and religious discrimination.

    The decision of all the tribunal members to recuse themselves comes after social media posts that were alleged to “advocate religious discrimination” came to light.

    Jed Purkis, a non-legal member of the tribunal hearing, responding to a comment that only atheists should be in public office, said: “Damn right, you won’t catch us killing in the name of our non-god.”

    In another social media post, which has now been made private, he responded to the question, “What’s a good collective noun for Tories?” by suggesting a “tumour of Tories” and a “cesspit of Tories”.

    After the discovery of Mr Purkis’s comments, the teacher’s lawyer, Pavel Stroilov, made an application for refusal, alleging there was “a possibility of bias”.

    He said that in the social media exchange, Mr Purkis appeared “to agree with a view which expressly advocates for religious discrimination in public life”.

    He argued that it would not be sufficient for only Mr Purkis to step down, since the other two judges had presided over the trial together over six days and would be perceived as influenced by his view of the case.

    The tribunal, agreeing with the argument, acknowledged that “doubt would arise in the mind of a fair-minded and informed observer” regarding their impartiality, The Times reported.

    Responding to the recusal, the teacher said: “It means a further delay to me receiving justice, but I have to have a fair trial.”

    Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is representing the teacher, said the teacher’s story “exposes the confusion and untruths being embedded in primary schools over human sexuality and identity which are developing into a public health crisis.

    “We will continue to pursue justice for as long as it takes in this case.”

    Nottinghamshire county council is defending the claim, but has not commented. A spokesman for the judicial office said: “We would never comment on a decision made in a specific case.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/tribunal-gender-critical-teacher-collapses-anti-tory-slurs/

    The more I read of cases like this, the more I find I am lost for words. How do you describe the nonsense of ‘pronouns’ (this special variety) without tying yourself in knots attempting to offer reasoned arguments against the unreasonable? That the teacher concerned is a Christian shouldn’t be relevant. This shouldn’t be a case of religious discrimination. It’s an offence against reason.

    And my first thought on reading of Mr Purkis’s comments about God was “I hope he isn’t a committed socialist, an inheritor of the great, rationalist, atheistic traditions of Uncle Joe & Co.” Well, he is (probably). He’s a former GMB official. Here he is having a nice day out somewhere in limestone country.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ee874b9aeef198a5204a739faf018f86acb809eaeca9e862a8399050e08d345.jpg

    And here are his views on the EU (shame he doesn’t know his singular from his plural or his…)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0809026e208adbd6eeaabb0194f7c0431a7493f8845979262c84b9f25ce8ee6a.jpg

  125. “Mister” Purkis. Not a nice man, yet sitting in judgement over a Christian.

    “A TRIBUNAL hearing for a teacher who says she was wrongly sacked for “misgendering” a pupil has collapsed after a member was accused of making anti-christian comments and posting Tory slurs on social media.

    All three members of the tribunal in Nottingham, including the judge, have recused themselves to avoid a “perception of bias” against the teacher, who refused to use an eight-year-old’s preferred pronouns.

    The teacher claimed she repeatedly raised concerns about the girl’s wellbeing after teachers were told always to refer to her with male pronouns and to allow her to use the boys’ toilets and dressing rooms. The teacher, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the child, was told that her Christian beliefs, if acted upon, could be an act of “direct discrimination”. She is suing Nottinghamshire county council and one of its primary schools for unfair dismissal and religious discrimination.

    The decision of all the tribunal members to recuse themselves comes after social media posts that were alleged to “advocate religious discrimination” came to light. Jed Purkis, a non-legal member of the tribunal hearing, responding to a comment that only atheists should be in public office, said: “Damn right, you won’t catch us killing in the name of our non-god.” In another social media post, which has now been made private, he responded to the question, “What’s a good collective noun for Tories?” by suggesting a “tumour of Tories” and a “cesspit of Tories”.

    After the discovery of Mr Purkis’s comments, Pavel Stroilov, the teacher’s lawyer, made an application for refusal, alleging there was “a possibility of bias”. He said Mr Purkis appeared “to agree with a view, which expressly advocates for religious discrimination in public life”. He argued that it would not be sufficient for only Mr Purkis to step down, since the other two judges had presided over the trial together over six days and would be perceived as influenced by his view of the case.

    Responding to the recusal, the teacher said: “It means a further delay to me receiving justice, but I have to have a fair trial.”

    A spokesman for the judicial office said: “We would never comment on a decision made in a specific case.”“

    4. You are a star. Are there any expenses?
      Can I contribute? You are doing such a good job.

  127. I see that a few well worn tropes are putting their heads above the parapet today.
    One that caught my eye was that apparently we as a society are not listening to children and young people enough.
    Personally I’d say we listen too much to anything that comes out of their immature mouths!
    However, proper parenting should ensure that individual children are listened too by their parents and helped to develop into functional adults.
    Unfortunately proper parenting is so last century!
    All must work and so children become a sort of collective group in society with adult rights to be fought for.
    It seems we are not paying enough money for them to thrive and it’s the wicked older people who are depriving them.
    I’m sorry, did I miss something here? I’m still trying to find out what native demographic all this respect and input is given to in this country and all I can come up with is militant ropers and illegal gimmigrants.
    I think it’s about time all of the people in this country stopped being victims of divide and rule and got together to put a stop to this global nonsense

    1. Grrrr. We don’t have to listen to children – all we have to do is not force them to stay inside, remove meaningful education from them and jab them with dangerous experimental potions!!

      1. Well that’s not what I was saying. By preventing parents from sticking up for their rights to decide for their children, thus protecting them from the whims of a dysfunctional society, the answer promoted by society is to make them a separate entity and accommodate their demands as with other adult groups.
        If you go with the trans thing, this can mean listening to and accommodating primary school children.

        1. I understood that you are not going along with this nonsense. But it annoys me to see the same people who were all for lockdowns now saying that we must listen to children now. They only care about the latest issue that has been injected into their brainwashed heads, they don’t care about children.

          1. Yes, sadly you are right. I wish it was different.
            Poor children, growing up in a world that only sees their market value to support conflicting ideologies

          2. Yes, sadly you are right. I wish it was different.
            Poor children, growing up in a world that only sees their market value to support conflicting ideologies

Comments are closed.