Tuesday 26 May: Shame on the mob hurling abuse at Dominic Cummings for trying to keep a little boy safe

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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 blacklisted.

Today’s letters are finally here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/25/letters-shame-mob-hurling-abuse-dominic-cummings-trying-keep/

688 thoughts on “Tuesday 26 May: Shame on the mob hurling abuse at Dominic Cummings for trying to keep a little boy safe”

    1. Morning Hugh. Sometimes they forget to post a link; today they appear to have forgotten to publish the entire page. We’ll all be lost for words…

  2. DT: “Beach-goers cite ******* ******** lockdown breaches as reason for packed resort”

    All said that since ******* ******** caught the bug, they also wanted to catch it.

    1. Yeah right. It’s all Cummings’ fault. As if they wouldn’t have gone to the beach on a sunny day, anyway.

  3. No letters – most intellugent thing from the D Tel in ages…
    Morning, all y’all.

  4. Thinking a thought watching the news last night.

    I’ve just done an internet search for pictures of ******* ******** and come up with thousands.

    Why would I pay someone to stand outside that person’s house and fight with fifty others just to take another one?

    1. Quite so, Eddy. We all know what he looks like, even my dog could recognise him. A huge waste of time and effort.

      1. Morning Hugh.

        The fact you recognised him without me mentioning his name proves your and your dog’s point.

        1. She seemed supremely indifferent to the manufactured feeding frenzy yesterday, preferring instead to be tearing around Ashdown Forest and combining this with an extended swimming session, with ball, in the hammer ponds. This, along with eating and sleeping, makes for the perfect day.

          1. Terrible! As if he hasn’t broken lockdown enough already! He should be setting an example.

            Oh… I thought you were talking about Dominic Cummings.

          2. I think that’s why they call it ‘a dog’s life’.

            Coincidentally, I was thinking of dogs when I looked in the mirror yesterday and saw the wild man of Bonio.

          3. Sadly, our Springer is in pain and limping badly so Mrs D is waiting to ring the vet at 0830.

          4. Oh dear, do hope you get your poor dog help very quickly. We had a text this morning to say that grandson’s cat had had to be put down very early this morning. He was suffering from arthritis and obviously in a lot of paid last night so grandson and mum took him to the vets very early this morning and he was found to be suffering from liver cancer and the kindest thing was to have him put down. Grandson is devastated, they’d had him for 13 years from a kitten and grandson can’t remember the cat not being there as he was only 3 when they bought the cat. Really really sad to lose a pet.

          5. Oh dear. Anything in its paw? Soaking it in brine might help to bring out a thorn if that’s the problem. Hope it’s nothing more serious.

    2. Waiting and hoping for the MONEY shot? They all live in hope of capturing that fleeting moment.

    3. Morning Eddy. Nearly all the pictures in the “newspapers” are purchased from agencies and are thus subject to competition between them.

    4. I was trying to verify a leftish relative’s claim that DC’s sister was on the board of Idox, the software house co-developing the covid track and trace app, my big mistake was Googling “Alice Cummings” with safe search turned off. 😱
      p.s. Couldn’t find a reference

        1. Assistant Commissioner; District Commissioner? Prolly unlikely….{:¬))

  6. Why are hordes of hate filled journalists and photographers allowed to pursue politicians and surround their targets with no attempt to observe the COVID- 19 guidance. They can also travel anywhere in the UK without challenge as to whether their journeys are necessary. The police in some local authorities fail to observe social distancing when interviewing non dangerous citizens. No action is ever taken against such activities.
    The problem is that the guidelines have not been clearly published and our medical experts want to keep us locked in our homes . They tell us each day at 5 pm to stay in our homes without mentioning that there are exceptions. The experts are more concerned about their “R” factor and appear to have no respect for the welfare of the public.

  7. After ‘abduction’ of activists, life in Zimbabwe under ‘The Crocodile’ looks as bad as with Mugabe. 25 May 2020 • 4:59pm.

    Mr Mnangagwa, after all, is a Zanu-PF man through and through. Not only does he lead the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain 40 years ago last month, but he has often been associated with its most unreconstructed hardliners.

    It was he who took charge of crushing dissent in Mugabe’s early years during incessant attacks by former Rhodesians security forces and ‘dissidents’ mostly from the minority Ndebele tribe.

    As minister of state for national security, Mr Mnangagwa was accused of presiding over the ‘Gukurahundi,’ as the ethnically charged massacres of thousands of Ndebele opposition supporters was known. The president has always denied the allegations.

    It is becoming increasingly difficult to criticise places like Zimbabwe as the UK inexorably declines to join them. At one time (a mere twenty years ago) such a comparison would have been absurd but all the former colonies woes are now here, though in a more moderate (so far) form. The lack of Free Speech, the persecution (as here) of dissidents, the peculation (HS2) of State assets and of course the corruption of the bureaucracy (Home Office) enriching itself by misusing state resources. One suspects another twenty years and there will be no difference at all!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/25/abduction-activists-life-zimbabwe-crocodile-looks-bad-mugabe/

  8. THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD:

    1. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

    1. There are two types of people: those who read the relevant regs, and polis officers. ‘Morning, Grizz!

    3. There are 10 types of people; those who can do binary arithmetic, and those who can’t. 🙂

  9. Good morning, all. Cloudy – but still. All vegetables doing very well. As we have predators – I commend Haxnicks products.

    How dull the morning paper is. And no DT letters – perhaps they think today is a bank holiday….

  11. It’s taken me four years to realise that when I take the battery out of my camera to charge it, which I do whenever I’ve used it, it’s easier to whip out the memory card to extract the pictures than to root around for the USB cable.

    Another useful lesson I learnt last night is that before I go out on a glorious evening to take some sunset pictures, I should remember to plug it back in.

    Still trying to work out why it’s called a memory card when I forgot.

  14. For heaven’s sake DT – get a grip; now we have Bryony Gordon pontificating about Cummings!!

      1. Can’t (and wouldn’t anyway) read it – she’s one of many reasons I don’t want a subscription to the DT!!

    3. I cannot imagine that Bryony Gordon is good enough in bed to justify the editor allowing her to write her garbage in exchange for her sexual favours. So what is going on? Why on earth does anyone anywhere publish her nonsense?

      1. The lump of gormless lard known as Bryony Gordon only has a column in the DT through nepotism. [It certainly wasn’t talent that gave her the gig!]. As the daughter of Jane Gordon, she is part of the same media mafia that gives certain other offspring unwarranted favourable lucrative sinecures.

        Jay Rayner, son of Claire Rayner?
        Claudia Winkelman, daughter of Eve Pollard.
        The list goes on and has a certain similarity.

    4. I was watching the responses to “Camilla Tominey’s” piece about Dominic Cummings yesterday. Universal condemnation of its attitude was the order of the day with the highest number of claimed cancellations I have ever noted.
      A piece today by Charles Moore points out that the attempt to destroy Cummings has failed.

        1. I see from the Opinion page of the DT that the paper is ‘News website of the year’. REALLY? Doesn’t say much for the others!

          1. That’s the short version, Hugh. It actually reads:

            ‘Badly designed and ill-maintained News website of the year’

          2. How can it be ‘of the year’ when the year still has 7 months to run
            Morning Bill

  16. Good morning all.

    Thin cloud, faint breeze & the rose scent is streaming in through the open west windows.

    1. I have ‘no’d’ it BoB, and Good Morning. Lovely day here in low-incidence CV Cambs!

      I suspect the poll has been rigged in favour of ‘yes’ to support Piers Morgan’s righteous indignation and holier than thou attitude.

      1. Sadly, I fear the incessant anti-Cummings & Boris propaganda may be having an effect the perceptions of the public, especially those not inclined to look into the background of the news nor those making claims.

        1. That’s what they are banking on; constant repetition allied to the unthinking reaction of a generation never taught to think critically.

    2. I voted “No” but I seem to be in the minority! I did like this comment [although I’m not sure “broke the rules” is entirely correct] – “I couldn’t give a fuck. We have bigger problems going on in this country , we have people losing their jobs , their homes and more importantly family members and all the press can do is spend 3 days following a guy around because he broke the rules . It changes nothing“

  18. I wonder if Bill Jackson would make an appearance and quote the DT circulation figures.
    Is it starting to pay off reinventing themselves to be the Daily Mirror Mk2?
    No way I suppose we will find out their drop in subscription figures.

  20. Dan Hodges, whom I have always had respect for, and the annoying Polly Toynbee were on BBC news discussing Dominic Cummings going to Durham to self isolate. Daniel Hodges supported Dominic. Polly T had obviously not read the guidance notes nor listened to what DC had said yesterday. She described the trip to Barnard Castle as going for an eye test and said a Durham policeman had told her this was illegal under the driving legislation. In actual fact DC was testing his fitness to drive as he had been weak and his eyesight had been troublesome. He would know that his vision was OK but wanted to find out if he would be in a fit condition to drive the long distance to London. He sat at a table in the rose garden so must not to have wanted to be standing too long at the press conference. The Dunkirk Anniversary was mentioned on the news but still no mention of the Border Force and Nigel Farage’s detective work in mid Channel.

    1. Toynbee should have been taken out years ago. Where is that state executioner when you need him?

      Do any members on this forum who attend: White’s, Boodle’s, The Reform, Brooks’s or The Garrick know the answer?

        1. Nuke the Guardian offices from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure.

    2. https://www.bitchute.com/video/bjtj2mktxu0/

      Akkad Daily: Dominic Cummings Destroys the Remainer Media
      (Bit chute link. YouTube doesn’t seem to like links being posted any more)

      P.Toynbee wouldn’t have taken notice of any guidance notices or listened to D.C. because she doesn’t want to, and it wouldn’t fit her preconceived ideas or narrative.
      D.C. supports Brexit and stopped a plan to extend the transition period, cooked up while he a Boris were both ill. The press won’t admit it, but that’s why they want him gone.

          1. I was about to post the bitchute link – more reliable. YouTube probably found it too subversive for their liking.

    1. 319623+ up ticks,
      Morning Tb,
      “Lest we forget”
      Sadly there are many that would like us all to remember to forget.
      To many Dunkirk is the name of a
      road / building nothing more.

    2. Just imagine that today. The press demanding that Churchill resign; the the Royal Navy should refuse to take part; that the country should surrender – “because, Prime Minister, you know you are going to lose in the end…” “Give In” “Save Lives” “Learn German”.

    4. Sadly, the French Troops were returned to France just in time for the French capitulation.

  23. The West must stand up to China as its ruthless regime flexes its muscles. 24 May 2020 • 9:30pm.

    But the pandemic is revealing something else. For China’s attitude and behaviour have changed since the virus started to spread. Its modus operandi over the past few decades can be summed up in a number of Chinese proverbs about strategy. Teaching China’s leaders to mask their true intentions, they advise them to: “Deck the tree with false blossoms.” If a statesman can show enough guile and subtlety, he can trick a rival into making mistakes that allow a rising nation to supplant a superior power. As the proverb explains: “The guest becomes the owner.”

    You have to laugh at this stuff. China has been built by the West. It has sent its industries there at the expense of its own People and Security. Worse it has made an enemy of Russia at the same time, when common sense tells you that it would have been better to have brought it on board. The West here means the United States, only it can restrain the Dragons rising power. It is difficult to see how this can be done without active hostilities breaking out so war would seem to be inevitable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/24/west-must-stand-china-ruthless-regime-flexes-muscles/#comment

    1. I caught a snippet of an interview last night in which an American commentator was discussing the positions of the the USA and China in economic terms. Much is made of China being the SECOND most powerful economy in the World at the moment but the commentator made the point that China was the SECOND most powerful economy back in 1890. He followed on by claiming that all the signs lead to China becoming almost ungovernable and will break up as the internal economic stresses grow. Interesting thoughts.

    2. 319623+ up ticks,
      As,
      “Mask their true intentions” could very well apply to the current governance
      group as in their hidden agenda concerning the followers of the instruction manual resting between the two dispatch boxes.

  24. Advised by a contact that the Barclay Brothers are no longer the owners of the Telegraph.
    Apparently it was sold earlier in the month.

    2. Presumably a shadowy offshore owner, and not even in the Channel Islands. Latvia or another of those Eastern European states, via a Panamanian shell company…

    4. Presumably a shadowy offshore owner, and not even in the Channel Islands. Latvia or another of those Eastern European states, via a Panamanian shell company…

      1. or China – it’s apparently buying up a lot of businesses at the moment.

          1. Indeed it is a country, but (in my own experience, however narrow that might be) I’m used to seeing that particular phrase. In my defence, M’Lud, I quote:

            “The Baltic states, also known as the Baltic countries, Baltic republics, Baltic nations, or simply the Baltics, is a geopolitical term, typically used to group the three sovereign states in Northern Europe on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.”

  25. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with Longbòw and Axe..

    The MSM are behaving like rabid dogs with their treatment of Cummings, both them and
    the Remainers will do anything to stop Bŕexit. They are foaming at the mouth at the thought
    Cummings being sacked. He didn’t live in London. Cummings went hope, he was putting
    his sick child first, he broke no laws. This is utterly shameful.

      1. Morning Mr Viking,
        I’m still putting ice packs on the husband’s toe and putting
        anti inflammatory gel on there. The toe joint still looks very
        red and sore but the toe joint is slightly less swollen then
        It was. He still can’t walk on is apart from hobbling to the
        bathroom but I think it’s making progress , it does look less
        swollen then it did, I think .

  26. If Cummings is sacked then the MSM will run the country.
    I am also reminded of the treachery some in the Conservative Party who are also
    sticking the knife in. At least we know who they are. Anything to stop Bŕexit.

      1. In cases like him and Bone, it’s because of jealousy. They’ve been talking the talk for years, and then up steps Cummings and walks the walk. They hate him. ‘Not even a party member..’ etc. etc.

    2. That man Baker is a nasty little man.

      What really upsets me is that I once seriously thought he would be a good party leader. No-one likes being wrong but my policy is to admit it when it is obvious that I have been wrong – but it is still extremely off-pissing to find that one made a complete error of judgement.

      1. They soon reveal their true colours. I thought Baker a good egg too
        but sadly not .

    3. The MSM already does. The desperation to pander to the press, for favourable headlines consumes politicians.

      Good government is usually bad politics: cutting taxes, reducing spending welfare for example. The so called Bedroom tax was a good idea. Why should the worker have less than the shirker? Why should blacks not be profiled heavily during stop and search? The green obsession. It’s all to get headlines. Normal people don’t really care about these things. They want more money to spend and more time with their families. They want decent healthcare and good services: they’re paying for them, so they want to know what those hundreds of billions consumed by the state are providing value.

      Thus the media already pulls the government by the nose. Boris’ crushing victory gives him the opportunity to say ‘stuff it’ to the press and to enact good government – not faff with political machination.

    1. Morning all 😆
      Coincedently I have just sent an old buddy an email saying, right now Orwell would be having a field day.

    2. Perhaps while they boo for Boris they could all lie down on the floor and kick their heels on the floor in a proper 2-yr-old temper tantrum and then wail for a good half hour afterwards. Are we allowed to send them to their room without dinner?

      1. They all need to get back to work to give them something more usful to do. Oh……..wait they’ve all lost their jobs because nobody’s buying stuff any more.

    3. They always were. It’s just that they’ve taken the mask off and stopped pretending.

  28. Home Office approaches Australian Border Force chief who helped mastermind return of sea migrants. 25 May 2020 • 9:26pm.

    Mr Quaedvlieg said Britain could adopt three elements of the Australian operation starting with new powers to allow Border Force, Royal Navy and other immigration agencies to turn back and return migrants at sea or on land.

    “The problem is that under your current law, you can’t turn them back and UK immigration policy is such that if they are close enough to UK territorial waters, you have to take them, process them and/or resettle them,” he said.

    “We had that same legislative challenge in Australia. So what the Conservative Government did – and Priti Patel is thinking about in the UK – was to introduce a maritime powers act.

    Morning everyone. This is the most unutterable tosh! Why would we need the advice of Mr Quaedvlieg when Australia’s methods have been known for yonks and UK “policy” can be changed at the Governments discretion with the stroke of a pen. It is just further distraction and delay until the foofaraw dies down.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/25/home-office-approaches-australian-border-force-chief-helped/

    2. Australia has this wonderful island in the Torres Strait, full of cannibals, where they deposit those trying to cross from Indonesia (which we all know is like Portsmouth to Australia’s Isle of Wight, and has caught me out when judging distance there).

    3. Is the Government incapable of hiring a couple of hulks or maybe currently redundant budget cruise liners and parking them somewhere reasonably sheltered to use as holding centres? Inform the illegals that they will NEVER gain British nationality or indefinite leave to remain and they will remain incarcerated on the ships until the identity of their country of origin is revealed and they can be repatriated. A lot less risky and costly than allowing them in and paying for their lives and those of their spawn forever. Human rights lawyers would, or course, create a feeding frenzy.

      1. Morning Korky and everyone. Like the idea of the cruise ships but – instead of parking them somewhere in U.K. waters, costing us loadsa dosh, sail them back to france and unload them there. Wishful thinking I know.

        1. No I think they need a longer cruise than that. Aren’t there some Pacific Islands that are French Départements, which count as French soil that we could deposit them on?

  29. I’ve avoided the news of late and so don’t know if this has been mentioned before, as was hinted at last night.

    For economy, air conditioning systems of old used to recirculate almost all the air extracted from a building, introducing about 10% fresh air to prevent people from pegging out. Filtration was very basic and usually for muck rather than bugs.

    I wonder to what extent bugs are recirculated in today’s air-conditioned buildings.

    1. Exacto! Most air con consists of cooling and recirculating air which, being cool, will appear to be fresh.

      2. Don’t forget that air-con also provides the heating for many large buildings.

    2. Legionnaires disease precautions require regular cleaning of the air filters in the air conditioning system to avoid the disease. Perhaps such a system could be adapted to deal with the atmosphere in aeroplanes

      1. I heard on the news that aeroplane filters are specifically designed to weed out bugs. In comparison, the filters on the building air-conditioning systems of old were very basic.

        Things may have changed, I don’t know.

    1. Am I missing something

      If you are sitting in a car, you are isolated, just with your family SAFE

      If you are baying at the door of someone whose views you disagree with, you are not maintaining a safe distances, therefore a risk to all about you and every one you meet. That goes for each and every one of the MSM sh1tes UNSAFE

      When are the perlice going to act, also did the Exstinkshun Rebellyon people teach them how to block a road with a big TV set, that takes ooodles of power to make it work

      1. Ah, but he might have had an accident.
        He might have had to stop somewhere for fuel, or a loo break and spread the virus everywhere.

        1. I still fail to understand how the pumps at petrol stations are supposed to be a risk of infection. We are told to clean our hands with an alcohol based sanitizer so although we don’t intentionally splash fuel around surely those pumps cannot be a viable home for our little bug.

          As for could, should and might, don’t you realize that we live in a risk free environment nowadays.

      2. If sitting in your car qualifies as safe, shouldn’t the media be directing their mass hysteria drive towards the overzealous way that the police have enforced lockdown rules?

        Several of this parish have suffered as a result of the rules imposed and you can be damned sure that if they ignored the directives, they would not have been told ‘Ok, carry on’.

        I doubt that the PMs top advisor just decided on the spur of the moment to relocate without telling anyone. Did none of these advisors / PR gurus realise that the perceived view of restrictions did not permit his move and media frenzy would follow? Not just Cummings but the whole lot of them failed to prepare adequately.

        As for the braying mob, they have far too much influence nowadays.

        1. He was seen running out of Downing Street on March 27th, having just heard from his wife that she was ill. He drove up to Durham that night. He had every right to protect his family from the baying mob who were already besieging his house at the time.

          1. And he told no one that he was leaving? There is no backup in Downing Street to fill in? Someone dropped the ball big time.

          2. I’m sure he would have.

            But considering the guidelines, the advice from Jenny Harries about exceptional circumstances, and his actions being informed by those, failing to see the concocted furore and potential lies by the media two months later is beyond most people’s planning abilities, I think.

          3. Agreed about the time lag but surely they must expect the worst of the media who have been on a crusade to harm Boris.

          4. I doubt if he has an understudy – he’s paid to think. And he explained why he didn’t ask permission from Boris.

    1. 319623+ up ticks,
      o2o,
      But for the Jay report & the 16 year ,ongoing cover up the rotherham odious issue would have continued.
      Submission, pcism, & appeasement operating at it’s finest, mentally / physically scarring kids for life to keep the good name of the party unsullied.
      That is the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party,still to this day very active.

      1. As for the girl with the horrific injuries, who instead was arrested for breaking her curfew…………

    1. I have the full set as usual.

      [I purchase the “virtual newspaper” version of the DT online (from newspaperdirect.com) for £26 a month.]

          4. Thank you, how kind! I’m still working every hour that God sends, but right now my office workstation is undergoing a deep scan and I’m taking a long and early elevenses. 🙂

          2. Maybe it’s since it’s tied to my account and will only open for me because they have my spondoolicks.

          3. I’ve just cancelled mine – £26 a month was extracting the urine.

  34. Well while you have all been posting, I have been slaving over watering.

    We are lucky enough to have a very deep well. Amazingly, the pump worked second time (no swearing involved) and I have filled all the butts – which were practically empty. 1200 litres.

    That is the good news.

    The less good is that most of the hose connectors are shot… Well, some of them; enough to create “fountains ” at regular intervals..!

    Sometime next year, or 2022, whenever quarantine ends – I’ll see if I can find some spares…

    1. We had a well in Norfilk. We fitted a pump and had garden water on demand. The man that dug the well, his grandson lived in the village and told me how he used to have a bucket over his head when he was deep digging.

      1. The well was the water supply for the four farmworkers’ cottages attached to the farmhouse.

    2. In 1976, during the drought, my in-laws got the pump working on the old well in the wall.

    3. Same here, but without the well or full water butt.
      Have been looking online for a new wand for the watering hose, and possibly a soaker hose.

  35. SIR — Where is the NHS duty of care to its dental patients? They are being left in agony, or worse resorting to do-it-yourself dentistry. Ireland has opened up its dental surgeries, as has Germany.

    Lockdown since March has been miserable, but lockdown with excruciating toothache is a totally depressing existence.

    Frances Jones
    Liphook, Hampshire

    No such problems for me, here in Sweden. My dentist has been open for business as usual and has no qualms in placing his (gloved) fingers into patients’ gobs. Last month I attended for my annual hygienist check-up with the lovely Lena, who wore her normal mask and gloves.

    None of us has yet died or caught any fashionable lurgy!

    1. Perhaps there is a clue to Miss Jones’s dental problem in the name of the town where she lives.

    2. Perhaps there is a clue to Miss Jones’s dental problem in the name of the town where she lives.

    3. Yo Mr Grizzle

      who wore her normal mask and gloves………………………………….and?

          3. Would you need them to Dental spec. There are plenty of similar available for craftwork that cost a fraction of the price.

  36. Afternoon all.

    Here are the DC letters….

    SIR – How heartless this country has become when Dominic Cummings’s only “crime” was having to make a speedy decision under frightening circumstances. Shame on the hysterical media and the appalling mob hurling abuse at a parent desperate to keep safe a little boy.

    Diane Choyce

    London W2

    SIR – After listening to Dominic Cummings explaining why he acted as he did, I think he behaved in a very reasonable way in the circumstances.

    Some of the media have been out to get him and thought this time they had succeeded. He should carry on; he’s doing a great job.

    Anne Robson

    Midhurst, West Sussex

    SIR – If Dominic Cummings was a man of principle he’d admit his mistake and resign, and not place Boris Johnson in an impossible position.

    There are far more important issues to resolve than wasting time on Mr Cummings.

    Helen Penney

    Longborough, Gloucestershire

    Advertisement

    SIR – Boris Johnson’s decision to back Dominic Cummings will come back to haunt him, and may cost him the next election. He has certainly lost my vote.

    How can the electorate henceforward trust a PM who indulges in such cronyism, while it is asked to continue to obey the lockdown rules strictly?

    Kim Potter

    Lambourn, Berkshire

    SIR – Refusal to remove an unpopular favourite has been the downfall of a number of rulers in history. And this one isn’t even pretty.

    Jean White

    Wythall, Worcestershire

    SIR – Do disgruntled Tory MPs really believe that Dominic Cummings is the target, when it’s so obviously the Prime Minister?

    H David Hicks

    Hythe, Kent

    SIR – The sanctimonious humbug towards Dominic Cummings has zero to do with health concerns, zero to do with his position in government and everything to do with revenge.

    The Guardian and Mirror have long stoked hatred towards the mastermind of the successful Leave campaign and the supposedly “impossible” Tory clean sweep in Labour’s northern heartlands at the Christmas general election. They will never be happy until Cummings is burned as a witch.

    Advertisement

    The Covid-19 horror encapsulates Britain’s love affair for mawkish sentimentalism and hypocrisy. Mr Cummings’s real crime is proving he’s human after all.

    Mark Boyle

    Johnstone, Renfrewshire

    SIR – The pack of journalists crowding round Dominic Cummings on Sunday did not appear to be following social distancing.

    Is it one rule for members of the public and one rule for those journalists?

    Jan Thompson

    Winterborne St Martin, Dorset

    A video screen installed by political campaigners in the street outside the home of Dominic Cummings

    A video screen installed by political campaigners in the street outside the home of Dominic Cummings CREDIT: Peter Summers/Getty Images Europe

    SIR – The BBC, introducing Dominic Cummings’s statement yesterday, reported that the Durham police were investigating whether he had “breached the guidelines”. The press questions harped on the same point.

    Perhaps they and others hounding Mr Cummings would actually care to read the law on restrictions on movement (as referred to by the Rev His Honour Peter Morrell, Letters, May 25) and understand that Mr Cummings had “reasonable excuse” for the journeys he made.

    It is worth noting that part of that reasonable excuse involves the despicable pressure on him and his family in their own home from harassment outside.

    Michael Staples

    Seaford, East Sussex

    SIR – Section 6 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 prevents people from leaving home without a reasonable excuse.

    It does not define what constitutes a reasonable excuse; it merely lists some reasons that would not be unreasonable.

    Leaving your home to care for your family is clearly reasonable.

    Patrick Nicholls

    Hemyock, Devon

    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would have sacked Dominic Cummings if he was prime minister. Why, then, did Sir Keir give Stephen Kinnock a shadow minister’s job shortly after he had been rebuked by South Wales Police for breaching lockdown rules?

    Brian Armstrong

    North Shields

    SIR – In our health and economic crisis, political point-scoring and the blame game are now beginning to undermine the effort to rid ourselves of this dreadful disease.

    John Knowles

    Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

    1. …a man of principle…

      It is amost impossible to believe now but such beings did actually exist in the UK at one time, along with things like honour and integrity. We are now reduced to such straits that people snigger when such things are bruited!

    2. …a man of principle…

      It is amost impossible to believe now but such beings did actually exist in the UK at one time, along with things like honour and integrity. We are now reduced to such straits that people snigger when such things are bruited!

    3. Kim Potter doesn’t appreciate that the electorate has very short memories. By the time that the next election comes round, the DC furore will have been replaced by something else. If that is Brexit betrayal it will be far more damaging.

  38. SIR — Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would have sacked Dominic Cummings if he was prime minister. Why, then, did Sir Keir give Stephen Kinnock a shadow minister’s job shortly after he had been rebuked by South Wales Police for breaching lockdown rules?

    Brian Armstrong
    North Shields

    This is because the Labour Party is a many-headed Hydra of Herculean fame. Chop off one of its many grotesque heads two-faces (Kinnock, Blair, Brown, Miliband, etc) and it quickly grows others: Corbyn, Starmer …

    1. 3195623+ up ticks,
      G,
      Plus major, may, cameron ( the wretch)
      ALL forming a coalition.

    2. Good morning, Grizzly

      The greatest drawback about Starmer is that unlike Corbyn he is electable by a terminally stupid electorate.

      1. Good morning, Rastus.

        Modern ‘democracy’. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

        Stupidity does not respect age, race, sex, class, education or standing. It is all-pervasive.

  39. SIR – Charles Moore is right: the United Kingdom needs to review its relationship with China.

    It has an unhealthy dependence on Chinese products. Reshoring manufacturing would benefit the economy, shorten the supply chain and cut carbon emissions.

    It’s clear the Covid-19 pandemic will change businesses and is already resulting in redundancies. However, we should take heart from the early Thatcher years, when unemployment rose rapidly as inefficient businesses closed.

    As a result, a new wave of entrepreneurs was unleashed as the number of new businesses registered for VAT rose from 158,000 in 1980 to 255,000 in 1989; the surplus of new businesses over those deregistering rose from 16,000 to 66,000. In addition, over roughly the same period the self-employed increased by 64 per cent from two million to 3.3 million.

    With suitable fiscal incentives, coupled with our imminent exit from the EU into the wide open waters of international trade, we could turn this crisis into a real opportunity for the British economy.

    Sir Gerald Howarth

    Chelsworth, Suffolk

    1. I agree with this man but am concerned that too many of our elite lack faith in their fellow countrymen and women. Witness their reluctance to discard the EU crutch and their belief that we can’t survive without importing the skills of half the world and its budgie.

      A name from the past cropped up in an article today – Sir John Harvey-Jones. Let’s get the 3D printers whizzing and run off a few thousand copies of him and his ilk.

    2. I agree with this man but am concerned that too many of our elite lack faith in their fellow countrymen and women. Witness their reluctance to discard the EU crutch and their belief that we can’t survive without importing the skills of half the world and its budgie.

      A name from the past cropped up in an article today – Sir John Harvey-Jones. Let’s get the 3D printers whizzing and run off a few thousand copies of him and his ilk.

      1. I had a lot of time for him, Eddy. I can still recall an edition of Desert Island Discs when he was the guest. I was held by his remarkable business sense and his humble beginning. He also had a series on TV where he gave advice to businesses that were struggling.

        1. ‘The Troubleshooter’ was the series, Hugh, and a great programme it was. What impressed me was the way he’d talk to those at the sharp end to get a feeling for the companies rather than just to the management. Not just that but his manner was such that when he did speak to them it was as if he was wearing overalls working alongside them. Wise management learnt a lot from his observations.

          Depressingly, our world is now run by politicians and their media lackeys and the people who can get things done are often ignored or overruled.

  40. SIR – I heard a BBC interview with John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow, on changes to improve passenger safety.

    Apparently, to reduce our need to touch anything, we should expect an increase in facial-recognition technology. He also said that passengers will be wearing face masks.

    Charles Bentley

    Bristol

    1. The same thought has crossed my mind about facial recognition technology with everyone wearing masks….

    3. That increase in facial recognition should be enough to make someone wear a mask.

  41. SIR – At the end of last week we received guidance from our local village primary school as to the measures being put in place for children to return to school on June 1.

    The school is only able to accommodate the return of Year 6. The reason is abundantly clear when you read all the measures. The letter we received was five pages long.

    Children of essential workers having lunch in segregated positions at Kempsey Primary School in Worcester

    Children of essential workers having lunch in segregated positions at Kempsey Primary School in Worcester CREDIT: Jacob King/PA

    The children will be split into bubbles of 12 pupils and not allowed to mix with other pupils. They will have separate toilets, classrooms and outside space (in a marquee).

    There will be no tables. No toys or resources. Reading books and other items will be quarantined for a week once used by one pupil.

    This is not life at school as our children know it. In the week before schools closed, none of these measures were in place. There was extra hand washing but not much else. Understandably the world has changed since then, but to this degree?

    It is hard to understand where all these rules have come from. Is it the Government or the unions, or a mixture of both?

    I was expecting smaller class sizes, perhaps shorter days or weeks. But this? It is prison camp, not school.

    Laura Rogers

    Kemsing, Kent

    SIR – Has there been a case of Covid transmission between the child of a key worker sent to school and one of their teachers?

    Nichola MacDuff

    Wolverhampton

    1. It should make the children want to stay home and continue home schooling. What a horrible way to grow up.

      Surely online teaching is the way to go for the majority of classes and if the teachers don’t like it, well that is a pity. If you want to keep the school attendance down, teach online four days a week and have just a fifth of students in school on their assigned day.

      Reagan had a way of dealing with Air Traffic Controllers that might be a good model to follow.

    3. “There will be no tables. No toys or resources. Reading books and other items will be quarantined” – god, that’s so sad. Poor wee mites, sent to prison for the daylight hours.

    4. It’s a nonsense – and all designed to brainwash the children and perpetuate the climate of fear.

      1. Absolutely.
        If they didn’t have OCD and weren’t antisocial before, they certainly will be now.
        I’m beyond livid. Now I understand why some people get violent, because all other avenues are closed.

    5. Oh, that’s such a surprise….not.
      It’s exactly the same as the measures introduced by some schools in Quebec that I posted about two weeks ago.
      They clearly get the rules from somewhere, especially as they don’t really make much sense so you wouldn’t expect them to be replicated. It looks like the far Left implementing full social control over every aspect of our lives. And not a peep from our pretend Conservatives.

  42. Here we go again.
    I can’t log into nttl.blog on my computer.
    The useless wedsite tells me me user name password and email address are invalid.

    1. Just don’t log out each time. I can’t remember when I last had to go through their log-in rubbish.

      1. I’m the same – about twice a year I find I have been “logged off” the system, by the system. Then the fun is trying to remember my password.

        1. I’ve got a stack of password written in one of those old large desk diaries.
          Many crossed out as various problems occur.

          2. Why ? 😊
            I’m not a security risk, most of them are obsolete anyway. If someone broke in they wouldn’t get onto the pc that’s one password that isn’t in the book 😆

          3. No – my log-in one isn’t in the password manager, and I usually open the laptop with a fingerprint.

          4. Just pull the hard drive, plug it into another PC and off you go. Although why I would want to go to that effort to use your disqus account, I don’t know.

          5. All sorted now I have no idea what I did that was different, it seems I might have no idea what a crosswalk, a bus, a cab, traffic lights, or a bleeding fire hydrant looked like. You have to larrf at ‘modern technology’ it can be so bizarre sometimes.
            Thanks for the assistance folks.

          6. To access passwords on a database, it can be hacked remotely. Then you can break in through brute force and computing power.
            To access the same passwords in a diary, you have to physically go to the diary. Much more complicated and difficult. The KGB / FSB have apparently gone back to paper records for exactly that reason.

        2. I use a password manager so I don’t have to remember any of them – it generates gobbledegook for me.

      2. I don’t I leave the blog up on the headings.
        The problem seems to alternate between my phone and my pc.

        1. When my phone was still working, if I posted from there it used my old Ndovu account, not this one.

        2. I can’t use my phone now as it’s dead, and I rarely use the pc, but it can go into sleep mode just as the laptop does when I shut the lid. All is still there when I reopen it.

          1. I am wondering if it’s because I used Norton security yesterday for any updates.
            But that wouldn’t be the same reason for my phone no opening Nottlers.

  43. Remember those far off days long in the past when we wondered if the EU would set up their own EU paramilitary forces? They are here.
    There is now an EU border force, the “European Border and Coast Guard” standing corps, the first uniformed law enforcement service of the European Union.
    Frontex for short. Pretty snappy, eh? I wonder what kind of guns they have.

    https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news-release/so-far-210-candidates-accepted-offers-to-join-standing-corps-hk1Dxx

      1. Maybe, but this is more. It is all EU not just the half dozen that make up the contributors to Euorgendfor police. Also, it may be that it will overrule member activities. It seems to be supra-national rather than a co-operative arrangement.

      2. They are the Waffen SS of the EU, trained by East German military.

        I suspect that they’d feel insulted if you called them a “law enforcement service”

  44. I went into the town centre today for the first time in almost a fortnight. It wouldn’t normally be unusual for there to be as many as people in the market square as there were. What caught the eye was the queues trailing this way and that, all of them for the banks. To get across the square required cutting through them. You can imagine the looks and, in one or two cases, the snide remarks.

    Most of the shops had the entrances manned. The one that didn’t had plenty of customers in there getting close to one another. One that did (a hardware store) was letting in no more than four people in at a time, even though it’s a big building with a high roof.

    When will the absurdity of it strike home with the public at large? A miserably cold and wet April and May (there have been plenty in recent years) might have had an effect.

    Wake up, Britain…

    1. Possibly the fact that CV cases are increasing in many US states after they lifted some restrictions would be enough to give reason for caution. Maybe crowded pubs are not the place to be nowadays but there is a lot that could open up.

      As many of you have written, your country is definitely overpopulated, our queues are normally quite bearable.

      1. Recorded CV cases are ”increasing” in some states such as Texas because of increased testing.

        That does not mean there are more cases.

          1. Carry on trying to bash President Trump and failing.

            It’s always amusing to watch.

    2. OH went to our local village post office this morning ( he went yesterday, too, as he’d forgotten it was a bank holiday) and said there were queues everywhere. This country seems to have become like soviet Russia. How are we going to cope with that when it’s cold and wet?

      1. We’ll cope like the Russians did, where it was a lot colder in winter.
        At least there was the West to escape to if you were lucky. Now there’s nowhere.

          1. One can hope, but when there’s little choice, people get used to it.
            They’ll shop online and become more isolated instead.
            Alcoholism and suicide will increase, and the death statistics from those will be far worse than those from the CV19 virus. So much for “it’s worth it if we save just one life.” Just one life will be all they save, while presiding over thousands more…
            Brave New Normal World.

      2. I walked to the Post Office in t’next village today, to post a couple of parcels. Ebay sales, I’m downsizing. I was met by a notice that the post office was now only open between 11 am and 3 pm. Thanks, PO. That’s a three mile walk in the sun for nothing. And another tomorrow. Still, at least it’s not as bad as Topsham, where my ex now lives. You have to make an appointment to visit the PO…

    3. My wife went to our village hoping to get to the post office and also pick up an outstanding prescription.
      Out of the normal hundreds of parking space available. Not one available anywhere.
      Now a popular tourist spot along the river. I just hope that the kids will be going back to school before long. What is usually a quite easy going little village is being destroyed. And now, thoughtless litter louts screaming kids and mad cyclist abound.
      I’m thinking of driving up to county Durham. One of my nephews lives in the middle of nowhere.

        1. I don’t need it Bill, nor sat nag, i could drive straight to the old farmhouse right now.
          5-6 hours approx.

  45. SIR —I heard a BBC interview with John Holland-Kaye the chief executive of Heathrow, on changes to improve passenger safety.

    Apparently, to reduce our need to touch anything, we should expect an increase in facial-recognition technology. He also said that passengers will be wearing face masks.

    Charles Bentley
    Bristol

    They should make them remove those face-masks and don a burqa, niqab, hoodie or motorcycle helmet!

    1. I’m finding that it has become socially acceptable to go into shops and petrol stations still wearing my motorcycle helmet… even at the petrol station where, not that long ago, I witnessed a biker being told over the PA system that the pump he was trying to use would not be enabled until he had removed his helmet. O tempora, o mores!

      1. Greetings, Steve, good to hear from you.

        I still keep that postcard you sent me (when you sniffed me out) as a much-treasured bookmark. :•)

          2. Ta. I’m in NHS lockdown until June 30th, but that’s the only non-blessing that I can list, so I am a most fortunate fellow 🙂

  46. Antibody testing will expose the folly of lockdown. 26 May 2020 • 6:00am.

    The breakthrough may yet helpfully show that Ferguson and his ill-informed colleagues got it spectacularly wrong.

    One could point out that Ferguson being right would actually be an anomaly in his career which is one of staggering criminal incompetence. I think that I forecast way before lockdown, or any of the other idiotic measures that have been taken, that the virus would prove to be the lesser evil but the measures taken against it would bring on the Apocalypse. I haven’t changed my mind!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/26/antibody-testing-will-expose-folly-lockdown/

  47. A Mafia Godfather finds out that one of his accountants has screwed him for three million bucks.

    This accountant happens to be deaf, so the Godfather brings along an Attorney who knows sign language to translate. The Godfather asks the underling, “Where is the 3 million bucks you embezzled from me?”

    The interpreter Attorney, using sign language, asks the accountant where the 3 million dollars is hidden.

    The accountant signs back, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

    The Attorney tells the Godfather, “He says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

    That’s when the Godfather pulls out a 9mm pistol, puts it to the accountant’s temple, cocks it and says, “Ask him again!”

    The attorney signs to the underling, “He’ll kill you for sure if you don’t tell him!”

    The accountant signs back, “OK! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo’s backyard in Queens!”

    The Godfather asks the interpreter, “Well… what’d he say?”

    To which the Attorney replies, “He says you don’t have the balls to pull the trigger.”

  49. 319623+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Surely newsprint as with political parties needs peoples support & financial input, so why would one continue to give such and receive in return treacherous soul destroying news, & governance treasonable actions.

    Dover,
    People power as in SILENT THREAT witnesses maybe a rapid call out brigade of a couple of hundred suitably spaced along the lines of the lifeboat alert, watching the landings should suffice, letting the overseers know , we know.

    As far as the politico’s are concerned the herd are unheard when it comes to the parties hidden agenda.

    Individuals writing to MPs is waste basket material.
    At this moment in time ALL are seemingly in collusion
    to destroy a once decent nation & as far as I can see
    making a good fist of it.

  50. I see that the Durham political police force is making further investigations of the Cummings family and of Dominic’s movements, at the behest of their Gauleiter.

      1. Gosh – one might conclude that these wazzocks are political appointments…..

        1. Directing the police – makes them the political police.
          This is bad.

        2. The Durham A/PCVC has been ‘acting’ since September 2019, I believe. The elected PCVC died late last year. How long it takes to call an election I do not know but a piece of string comes to mind.

    2. It seems that the initial complaint from Durham police force was not from the police themselves but from a stand-in Commissioner who is a leading Labour light in the Police Federation or some such Police Union. The original Commissioner is off ill.

      Suddenly things make more sense.

      1. I mentioned that yesterday. The PCC is usually a political bod and I doubted he’d be a Conservative. Now we know.

  51. 319623+ up ticks,
    I hold no respect for any of them laying claim to being brexiteers ( small b) cummins inclusive.
    Heard that vanessa on radio 2 what a number that is then she quoted harman who had the thick skinned, brass necked audacity to say morally…….
    She was talking morals after having conversed with PIE
    back in 79, lest we forget, her,hewitt, & dromley.
    Currently via that vanessa there is more fuss being created & reported about cummins and his kid than about the JAY report and actual long term damage to between 1400 / 1600 kids.
    My personal view, none of the bastards should be on the public payroll.

    1. My lawn was also covered in leaves after the strong winds of Friday and Saturday.

    3. No that’s the winds that have been blowing recently – there have been lots of leafy twigs blown down in the woods round our way.

    4. Well, spring has barely come here to Norway, so autumn in London is quite possible.

      1. Go’morgon, Paul.

        We had a w/e of vey strong winds. Anyone with 1/2 a brain can see that the fallen leaves are green & not brown.

        1. Apart from the curried lentils, we have also had a lot of wind, driving rain, and cold with snow forecast on the hills in SW Norway today – the apple blossom is still tiny, just wee dots of white & pink, the brambles have barely any new leaves, the raspberries still look dead… the only plant that seems to be happy is the rhubarb. Hayfever hasn’t happened yet, no pussies on the trees, it’s weird. Only 3 weeks to midsummer.
          Me, I’m back in sweaters to try to get some warm. Brr!
          Maybe COVID has buggered up the weather, too, as well as the economy?

    5. Our beech hedge has only just renewed its green leaves and shed all the brown ones, which stayed steadfastly in place until the green leaves knocked them off.

      1. The refusal to accept that their new Horizon computer system was a heap of shite and going forward to prosecute a large number of post-masters who’s accounts the system had fouled up.
        In the 4y from the Roll out of Horizon in 1999 to early 2004, 250 were wrongly prosecuted.

          1. I believe so.
            Whoever made the decisions in the Post Office needs to be held to account.

        2. Ah, thanks. I did read a little about that. I’ve seen a pattern previously. Supreme Committee, or equivalent, decide that they need a new system. They then invite various suppliers to talk, and then quote. The suppliers show wonderful presentations and offer wonderful lunches, and wonderful easy outcomes. The Committee then choose the supplier with best lunches and glibbest salesmen. A contract is signed. The winner is often American. Their system has to be translated into English and UK currency*.
          Then, and only then, are the users involved. None of the Committee have ever laid hands on a keyboard. The users are somewhat dismayed to discover that the system is really no better, but it will still take months of work to get sorted and running.

          * A University I worked for had done that. They had dropped SAP as too expensive and adopted an American system (Exchequer, maybe) that was horrible. They tried to run the two in parallel and force copy transactions from one to the other although they had not set up compatible coding for cost centres etc. The result was not good. A “suspense account”containing £6m of unallocated transactions. That was when I was recruited. Dearie me. It was agonising, trying to sort Budget/Actuals so management could make decisions. But it was beyond fixing.
          Oh, and the software added 10c (ten cents)to every result, so nothing could be balanced unless you ignored the 10c. This for a system that was in sterling.
          My wife worked in another University where they did pretty much the same. No one asked the users what might be needed, the Senate just bought another system, and free lunches.
          Oh, and the Cabinet listened to Ferguson!

          1. Something more unintelligible than SAP? Impressive.

            All you need for a catastrophy is a computer company promising the earth and selling contract programmers on a per diem basis. A good example is the Canadian government payroll system that was “delivered” by big computer co in 2011, they still have minor issues – like people not getting paid.

            It is not getting much better, that once reliable computer company is into big layoffs at the moment, it will be a couple of new grads from India expected to fix the problems now.

        3. There was a rather good investigative programme earlier this year on R4 about the Horizon scandal. It seems that no one senior in the Post Office has been prosecuted, but there is a ‘class action’ currently on the go, which will result – quite rightly – in many millions in compensation. After all, lives, businesses and reputations were wrecked by these idiots. And guess who will be picking up the tab for this appalling scandal? Yes, the good old taxpayer!

          2. Both, whichever becomes necessary first according to the circumstances and spin du jour.

    2. Because they belong to the Untouchables , Robert – the “Great and the Good”….

  56. Coronavirus: Minister Douglas Ross resigns over Dominic Cummings’ lockdown trips. Tuesday 26 May 2020.

    “While the intentions may have been well meaning, the reaction to this news shows that Mr Cummings interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked.

    The vast majority do not share the Governments views on Immigration, Foreign Aid, HS2. etc. This has caused no one to resign! Dominic Wotsit is not an MP. He is an employee of the Prime Minster and paid by the Taxpayer. If he has contravened some rule or law it is up to Boris to respond!

    https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-minister-resigns-over-dominic-cummings-lockdown-trips-11994758

    1. MP for Moray. How does he know the vast majority of people have done as the government has asked.

  57. My next door neighbour has come up with a testing method for this pandemic. He says when he farts nobody comes within 2 metres of him therefore obeying distancing rules and it smells so bad that if people don’t smell it then that indicates they could have the virus (all at no cost) He has mentioned patenting it

  58. I am having some thoughts about the future. Conway mentioned the Milgram experiment a day ago. Maybe this is one on a large scale. More thoughts, hopefully broader and integrated, later. (Just a reminder of my previous comment, when the various Royals evacuated London to go to their various summer residences, where were the MSM? Not screaming at them through the palace gates, were they?)
    However, here is a thought that I find interesting. If we enjoy a comedy film we are happy to see it repeatedly, whereas if we watch a thriller, we know the outcome and can’t be bothered watching again.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYUfPTeE0DM

  59. Good morning all

    A sad day particularly for our 16 year old grandson. His cat had to be put down at 2 am this morning as it was so very ill with cancer of the liver. He is absolutely distraught.

    2. Is that his first experience of losing a pet?

      Heartbreaking for a youngster.

      1. Yes even had me in tears and I don’t like cats but Jasper was good for GS. They were real friends.

      2. It never gets any better when you’re older. You know they’re going, but it’s still heartbreaking.

        1. Yup. Still miss Magnificat. He was a great cat – knew how to be a cat.

          1. My family dog Ben thought he was a cat until the day he passed away.
            He was brought up by our cat and thought he was one too.

          2. On the morning that my late hound, Robinson, died, Pluto, the black and white cat, who had known him all her life, washed him all over, just before the vet arrived. They had shared a basket for 13 years…..

            Two weeks later, Pluto died, of a broken heart.

        2. It’s utterly wretched when you lose pets, we know they aren’t with
          us for as long as humans but the loss is the same .

        3. Tell me about it. I keep looking at my 16.5 yr old dog and wondering how much time we’ve got left together. He’s lying on my foot as I type. I try to treat every day as a bonus and not think too much about the future.

    3. Good morning. Very sorry to hear that, your grandsons loss.
      Pets are much loved and very much part of the family.
      My thoughts are with him .

    4. My heart goes out to his young heart. The loss is so very hard to bear that first time. It doesn’t get much easier as one gets older, either. I am tearing up as I write.

      2. Probably when the cat’s pain became unbearable. And the owner probably blaming himself for waiting too long.

    6. Oh no……… it’s terrible when you lose a beloved pet. They bring so much joy, but the pain of loss is acute.

    7. Oh dear. Poor lad.
      Firstborn was absolutely heartbroken when his cat, Magnificat, died in 2016. Cried like a baby – and he’s a big lad into Metal and motorbikes.
      Poor old moggy, he was just old (over 16 years) and diabetic – so it wasn’t a surprise.

    8. Aw, so sorry to hear that. It’s hard to lose a pet. I hate it when people say, “it’s only a [insert type of animal here]”. It’s a member of the family. Console him with the thought that the cat is no longer suffering and they did the right thing.

      1. Tantrum eh. What’s he going to do for a living now ?
        Someone needs to make sure he pays the 10k back they all helped themselves to…….
        Oh right….. he’s already spent it all.

          1. I expect his ‘partner’ will have have given some free advice.
            What a whimp. Typical of the political classes. Gutless useless waste of space and time.

  61. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e758eb54ba3295e5db312fc15162c07638f0eaeb57106fc5e478487d4002fe16.png Well, make your bloody mind up! is it dinner or is it “lunch”?

    The North, schools, and Cockneys: Breakfast, Dinner*, Tea, Supper [*as in “roast dinner at dinner time” (13:00) and “dinner ladies”.]
    Toffs and Aristocrats: Breakfast, Brunch, High Tea, Supper.
    The Rest: Breakfast, “Lunch”, Dinner. [i.e. no tea and refer to supper as “dinner”]

    3. I wish I could succeed and be a social winner
      And I wish my friends arrived at one when I asked them out to dinner.
      I know I’ve got the brass
      But I haven’t got the class
      And the whole situation is getting up …….. I mean’s become a farce.

      [RCT song Nouveau Riche 1970]

      1. Oh dear, those dreadful New Money plebs.

        Never had clarse: never will have. You can’t buy it, you know! :•)

    4. Yes, yes, yes…but that’s for the working clarsses.

      Civilised people have Breakfast at 9.00. Elevenses at 11.00. Luncheon a 1.00. Afternoon Tea at 4.30. Drinks &Canapés at 7.00. Dinner at 8.00.

      2. Yebbut, posh people (yer aristocrats) are puzzled as to why yer pretentious [sorry: “upwardly mobile”] clarse insist on calling supper “dinner”.

        If it’s in yer evening, it’s yer larst meal of the day, hence: supper!

        [Them toffs like us oiks! We’s brother chips!]

    5. I’m confused now as I seem to have fallen through the cracks- I’m a breakfast, lunch and supper sort of guy. I blame the parents!

      1. Bugger me, Sean! [Er … not literally!]
        Were there no dinner ladies at your school?

        2. No school meals in any school I went to in SA – it was a case of bring your own packed lunch. That said, the school day started at 8am and finished in the early afternoon so primary school children often had a late lunch after having gone home for the day. High school was different and packed lunches were the norm

  62. I don’t know who removed Daisy’s latest reply to me so I will repost my reply to it.

    I don’t deny your right to your opinion nor your right to state it.
    I wouldn’t ban Irving, but there is no way I will agree with his conclusions nor yours.
    But as I say, you make me vomit and your loss to the blog would make me happier.

      3. Good evening, Boss.

        I did help her on her way….twice. I fear she has multiple
        addresses, similar to PP.

  63. Just been sent another email from the Ukrainian dating agency mailing list, so I can peruse today’s selection of lovelies to be a potential lockdown companion in lonely times.

    I have a divorcee with an 88% trust level, or a widow with a 45% trust level. Who is best equipped to trust with my life?

    1. Yo jM

      Normally, it is the one who prevents you making has the biggest boobs

    2. Yo jM

      Normally, it is the one who prevents you making has the biggest boobs

  66. We’re all in the big numbers now
    Adding up the damage Britain’s Covid-19 policies have caused.

    It is the end of the affair. We are no longer at epidemic levels of covid-19 prevalence in the UK (0.27% of the population infected, where 0.4% is the low end required to be “epidemic”), and all-cause deaths have slipped back below average.

    An interesting (if long) and thoughtful insight into how wrong it would to prolong the agony

    https://thecritic.co.uk/were-all-in-the-big-numbers-now/?fbclid=IwAR3UXU84thz_mU1Bbcp5T9vTIqsqVIVSEHvSctNGxw406h6R6vpoCxzYDts

    1. Good piece. Boris should lift the lockdown now and get people back to work. Those still vulnerable can take precautions. Let’s abandon social distancing as well – it’ll cause more damage.

      1. One metre is about is about as close you will normally get to others whom you do not know, and that is what some countries are using. Although, for some of the public, the next county would be too close.

      2. I agree, J, hence my posting the article. I really don’t understand Boris’ stubborn holding on to flawed data as a reason to continue on to economic ruin.

        1. 319623+up ticks,
          Afternoon Ntn,
          To put us on an even playing field as the eu..

      3. I decided to have a change of scene yesterday and walked from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner and back to Marble Arch before having a brief stroll through the park and getting on a bus in Baywater. The streets were quiet for a sunny bank holiday afternoon but far from deserted and not one person dodged out of my way as I walked. Some came within less than one foot, let along one metre.

        1. Isn’t a foot good distancing when you are trying to move around in those parts? I can remember just getting off the underground at Marble Arch then just turning right around to get back on a train because Oxford Street was so crowded.

          1. Oh yes, under normal circumstances you’re lucky if you get an inch but currently in the middle class suburbs the dolts really are trying to do two metres, if they’re out at all. From what I can see, life will go back to normal more swiftly in both common as muck Shepherds Bush and the foreigner filled Wed End.

          3. About 50/50 masked and unmasked. The Central Europeans are less inclined. Based purely on observation of course.

          4. They seem very happy to wear them in Asian countries, but then they are used to smogs and pollution.

          5. When I was Christmas shopping at Oxford Circus, in November last year, it was a culture shock for a hick-from-the-sticks, like me.

            I’ve been there many, many times in the past but not for a few years now. Sardines in a can have more “personal space” than I was afforded then. I don’t know what I was breathing but it didn’t smell or taste like oxygen. A heady concoction of bodily gases, sweat, and other odours were suffused with exhaust diesel fumes. I was gasping like a goldfish in a stagnant pond.

        1. Why aren’t you doing your bit for the Home Guard?

          Why aren’t you standing on The Cobb with your pitchfork?

          [Afternoon, Maggie.] :•)

          2. II was the French Lieutenant’s Woman who used to stand on the Cobb.

        2. …even 1 kayak.

          The bloody Inuit are getting in on the act now, are they?

      2. Apparently employing the Australian who mastered their stop the boats game. But I think the crowded and narrow channel is a very different, erm, kettle of fish. Seems more like a PR stunt for the sheeple to believe.

      3. 319623+ up ticks,
        Morning Re,
        Agreeing, ……. may Mk2, mark my words.
        Talking of which,
        Mark, mark, guard dog with a harelip.

    4. Interesting. Alf watched this link earlier. I’ve just tried to watch it and it’s not there any more. More censorship?

  70. SIR – Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would have sacked Dominic Cummings if he was prime minister. Why, then, did Sir Keir give Stephen
    Kinnock a shadow minister’s job shortly after he had been rebuked by South Wales Police for breaching lockdown rules?

    Brian Armstrong
    North Shields

    Can’t touch a Red Prince, Brian.

    1. Steve’s dads a millionaire lord you know.
      Money talks.
      And more famous for falling over on a beach and……..erm….

  71. I have a case of the drooping rhodos. I have had to commence water spraying…

        2. A full bladder is more effective! Can’t be delegated to anybody else.

  72. For anyone who hasn’t seen the film ” Jaws” it’s on ITV4 9pm……………..FFS!

    5. I saw plenty of basking sharks when I used to sail out of St Mawes and also orcas and pilot whales.

      1. I’ve seen one or two basking sharks on my rambles around Mowzel and Marazion. Recently in PZ there
        was a school of dolphins close to the shoreline.

          1. She probably thinks we furriners don’t know how to pronounce Mousehole 🙂

    6. I’ve never seen it, PT but have no real desire that see it either. Or the Sound of Music.

  74. Why don’t the zombie media apologise and resign? Spiked 26 May 2020.

    The Dominic Cummings affair has confirmed one more casualty of the terrible coronavirus crisis. After a long and lingering decline, it seems time to announce the death of objective journalism and the pursuit of truth in much of the British media.

    I think that’s a little tardy! The MSM abandoned Truth with the Iraq War and has never recovered. It has actually foregone journalism in any meaningful sense and simply become Propaganda.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/26/why-dont-the-zombie-media-apologise-and-resign/

    1. You think that your media is bad? Try looking at the US trash for examples of where it has gone wrong. The MSM have completely lost any sense of objectivity when it comes to almost anything, even CV19 coverage simply follows the respective party line and digs for dirt by the “other side”.

      As for Canadian media, pretendy PM came out with a grant scheme to support canadian media so you can guess how little investigative reporting we have nowadays. Trudeau is effectively starting to rule by fiat and there is very little commentary questioning the lack of oversight.

      2. Jacinda invented that idea by giving a large amount of taxpayers’ funds to the media.

        You would be surprised to know that the media now spend their time singing her praises.

  75. PT mentioned below the film Jaws. That film must have one of the most iconic
    theme tunes. Even after you forget films you remember theme tunes.

    Anyway, I’ve been avoided the rabid dogs on the News today , the drama over Cummings is immoral,
    I’ve been in the garden instead and am just about to make a pot of tea.

    1. He says a lot of the right things but he’s wrong in saying web sales should be taxed.

      All that does is make things more epxensive crushing web sales increasing unemployment.

      The solution is very, very simple: scrap business rates. Scrap employer NI. Reduce the taxes on businesses in the high street rather than taxing the othre side more.

      1. The current level of expense to open a shop on or near High St Small-town pretty much prevents small start-ups. I have spoken to High Street shopkeepers who have been forced to close businesses that their family started before WW1. The cost of being there was too much.
        Yet the only businesses with the processes and resilience to tide us through the initial panic promoted weeks of Covid-19 were the local shopkeepers, butchers, greengrocers and the like.

        1. It certainly is a great pity that there is no way of transferring profit from the internet seller to the high street retailer where a buyer has inspected the goods or services in the shop but then bought on the ‘net.

          1. I worked briefly for a Farm Stores operation that went out of business, partly because the owner was not interested and partly for the reason you gave. People would come in and try on wellies, Barbours etc and then buy the on the net.

          2. No different from eyeing up any prospective purchase in a West End store and then buying it from a smaller, more specialist, discount operation. Used to be the common way of doing one’s market research back in the mists of time.

            The old big, high overhead, high levels of service shops have basically gone, driven by price differentials and the modern double income families who simply don’t have time to browse around and be fussed over, even if that was what they wanted.

            The flip side of course, are the specialist shops being put out of business by “big box” stores who can afford razor thin margins because they have the sales volume to compensate.

          3. Yep, destroy the High Street, turn the towns and villages into ghettoes, fill them up with immigrants/underclass, watch crime soar.

            Great result.

            But at least they’ll vote Labour/Democrat.

          4. Technological progress destroyed the High Street and it’s not coming back.

            There’s wishful thinking from the aged that remember vibrant high streets comprised of the odd large store and lots of little specialist family run businesses. The only way to have that back is to uninvent the internet, supermarkets, and retail parks.

      2. Again for like the 100th time business rates are a tax on the landowner which sometimes is the business and sometimes isn’t. It’s one of the few taxes we have on rentseeking. Business rates are fully capitalised into rents over the short term. Increases hit businesses only until their next rent review or until they choose to move to a location where business rates are cheaper.
        Employer NI is paid by employees not the employer. Splitting NI into two halves is just a way of hiding how much NI the employee is really paying, and it’s supposed to make them somewhat grateful to their employer for paying half of their NI costs. All studies show that employer NI hits the employee for more than 90% of the wage spread. It only hits employers when we are talking about headhunted executives that companies will pay almost whatever they have to to employ.
        Business pays virtually no tax, people pay taxes not legal fictions. Almost all taxes on business simply hit employees in lower wage rises, lower salaries. Corporation tax is supposed to be a tax on shareholders but studies show it’s a tax on employees.
        You are too fixated on who is handing over the cheque rather than where the money for that cheque actually came from. Economic incidence is way more important that formal incidence.
        Fcuk the high street model, it’s days are numbered.

  77. A question for Bob of Bonsall; have you become a regular presence over at the DT, using your real name, or am I once more confused? The recent reference to riding the Via Gellia made me wonder… 🙂

    2. I will add that if you’re ever coming down the Via Gellia, call in for a cuppa.
      It’s the house you drive straight towards before the right hander at the Via Gellia Mill.

      1. Thank you, that’s most kind… right now I’m not only working full-time, but my NHS letter says that I’m not to leave home until June 30th. Your invitation is now on file 🙂

    3. Hi Steve – good to see you here! We had a reprise the other day of your collage of the wicked at Christmas 2016!

  78. Czech publisher produces ‘Personalities of the Third Reich’ 2021 calendar. 26 May 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c86be546e41042b002e4364870a7ac6d4460ac96a5978fbbc5c399b8abd437c.jpg

    Michal Klima, chairman of the Foundation for Holocaust Victims said: “I find it intolerable that even in the year marking the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism, Nazi leaders are being legally promoted in this country.”

    He added that he had filed a criminal complaint with the Czech police stating the calendar was promoting a system that suppresses human rights.

    I would not oppose the printing of this calendar though I don’t think that I would buy one. The thought of the photograph above hanging on the bedroom wall is enough to give anyone the creeps. One of the oddities of the Nazi leadership with its fantasies of the Aryan Superman is that none of them looked remotely like their ideal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/26/czech-publisher-produces-personalities-third-reich-2021-calendar/

    2. Publish and be damned.

      If it bleeds the coffers of the neo-nazis, because I doubt it will ever make a profit, that must be helpful.
      When the new generation of recruits look at the old generation of wimps I don’t think they will admire what they see.

    3. Especially Herr Schicklgruber who looked rather like some of the poor folk he got rid of.

    4. If they can ban a “system that suppresses human rights” then why is Islam not illegal in their country?

    5. Wasn’t there a joke that to be a good Nazi you had to be as slim as Goering, as tall as Himmler and as blond as Hitler?

    6. It is deeply insulting and in very poor taste. I’m not normally in favour of banning anything but….

  79. I have just wasted half an hour or so on Flightradar24 watching a plane from Tblisi (destination “unknown”) land at what was RAF Finningley.

    Recently I have noticed a lot of cargo planes to-ing and fro-ing from Doncaster (often to Wuham…).

    What is so special about Doncaster – apart from the sleight of hand used by its council to hide child rape cases??

    1. Close to places where families live who need to welcome their relatives under the reunification scheme, but away from prying eyes perhaps?

    2. One (or possibly both) of 2 reasons. Reason one will be because it’s cheap (landing fees, cargo handling etc) and reasn two will be proximity to Govt. warehousing

  80. Cracking response by Matt Handcock to Robert Peston’s question on the Cummings Farce, which compared the Cummings’ decision to drive up North to self-isolate with the Handcocks’ decision to stay at home with their two kids. “We had child care at home. Dominic didn’t.” End of.

    1. Matt Hancock shut Laura Kuensberg down quickly after her first question brought up the Dominic Cummings question. 40 conservative MPs want Dominic sacked. He answered her question but then moved on to the next questioner. Unfortunately I didn’t see her face when she was shut down. He did the same with almost all of them. Laura Kuensberg is turning into a nasty piece of work. Boris must get his rebel MPs into line as the Brexit deadline beckons.

        1. That’s actually not so.

          If they all voted with the opposition his majority vanishes.

          1. Well, you may be right. I know nothing. But Cur Keir Slammer has said that Brexit is done and virtually dusted, so he and fellow Liebourites who want to leave the EUSSR will vote with the government. Shirley?

            Then I woke up.

          2. By done and virtually dusted, he probably means done in and dusted out of the way 🙁 I don’t trust any of them.

      2. It’s very strange.

        LK was actually relatively supportive of DC, when the story broke, to the point where the Leftwaffe felt obliged to attack her.
        I wonder if that’s why she had first shot at him yesterday.

        There is something happening under this smokescreen and I don’t think it will be good.

    2. Hancock has gone up in my estimation. Tories showing traces of a spine against the Blob.

        1. Health Secretary is only ever given to some poor mutt destined for the chop. Hancock’s doing better than most.

      4. Hancock was swift in his button pressing – Peston was about to bore us stupid with another mumble and he was cut-off.
        Brilliant!
        Almost worth the TV Licence fee to see it.

    1. 319623+ up ticks,
      Afternoon W,
      On account they don’t have a lab/lib/con coalition party.

    2. Only 17 ?
      Ours having been escorted out of France and mainly young men are probably pre trained EU army. Nobody knows where they come from. It’s all guess work.
      Like I often reiterate, you name it our political classes will soon eff it up.
      Sometimes i think I’d rather have Vlad running this country.

      1. 319623+ up ticks
        Afternoon Re,
        Unless he joins lab/lib or con
        unfortunately, he has no chance.

  82. Just back from a run to Matlock to catch sight of 5 x unmarked police cars screaming up the Via Gallia.
    It must be one of Derbyshire Police’s driver training courses.

    1. Don’t tell me: Someone reported Dominic Wotsit jogging up Monsal Dale!

      1. I’m pretty certain that the Via Gellia is used for high speed pursuit training. We usually have them on a Thursday, 5 or 6 at a time, but, presumably, they are trying to catch up on lost training due to the C-19 Wuhan virus disruption.

  83. Afternoon, everyone. Been a strange sort of day. Warm, muggy, but overcast. I didn’t want to get up this morning and I’ve done virtually nothing all day because it was too warm for strenuous work (cutting down unwanted trees, digging out ground elder), but not sunny enough to sit out. Incidentally, my local rag has a poll on whether Dominic Cummings should lose his job. The majority seem to think he should. No compassion, no common sense and I bet they are terrified to go outside.

    1. I would wager a penny to a pound that if further questioning of those wanting him to lose his job were asked, over 90% would admit that they didn’t bother to watch his hour-long interview in the Rose Garden and his clear and polite answers to the aggressive questioning of the MSM.

  84. BBC News at One

    Middle aged men who have confirmed COVID antibodies are known to have far more of them than anybody else and are therefore highly in demand for plasma donations to provide an immunity to the virus.

    Fergus Walsh is in that category but I haven’t seen the BBC offering his services recently in reporting and demonstrating advances in health science.

  86. The Mainstream Media Are Bought, Paid for – and Doomed! JAMES DELINGPOLE. 26 May 2020.

    So why, having spent a large part of my journalistic career writing for national newspapers, am I so strangely reluctant to give a damn?

    Simple. I believe the newspapers — and all those TV news channels suffering similar collapse — have brought about their own destruction. The mainstream media have failed in their most basic duty to report on the news. Instead, what they have served up increasingly is politically-driven advertorial and propaganda.

    In the United Kingdom, the media’s performance has been dismal. There was a time, really not so long ago, when British newspapers — tabloids especially — were famed for their fearlessness, robustness, and cussed untameability. But throughout the pandemic, the entirety of Britain’s print media — both left-leaning and right-leaning — has not just pandered to Project Coronavirus Fear but stoked it with such demented enthusiasm it has managed to frighten almost the whole country into a state of abject, bed-wetting terror, spiked with a nasty hint of Stasi-style snitching, handwringing disapproval and nervy paranoia.

    This is a most refreshing read on a muggy afternoon. It should be read in its entirety because you will not see its like on any MSM platform!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/26/the-mainstream-media-are-bought-paid-for-and-doomed/

    1. Not just the pandemic, BREXIT was a good example of what was coming.

  87. Cheerio, folks. Time for a little drinky poo. In the sun; outside. There is a slight edge to the wind this evening, so I’ll be wearing a shirt…

    A demain, DV.

    1. Hair, I trust.

      After all, you need to do a penance for any grief that you may have brought upon one of the most tolerant women on the planet, coming up to your silver wedding anniversary.

      }:-O

  89. Fox News

    Fox filmed passing No 10 on BBC Six O’Clock News.
    Laura says the Government needs to focus on what’s really important now.
    Where’s Larry?

  90. A few more garden pictures. I wish that I could organise borders etc that create a tableau of colour, height and long term blossoming, but I don’t seem able to achieve that. Veg and fruit, except for bloody redcurrants, aren’t a problem but colourful borders defeat me.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/610146356b873df61331c56465b05c1261cf2c9ee74723a74dfddee0eba240cc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/142a2f7410d69397fddf7e2fae58cd30f31919b409ba6c027e8573bc77ac22ce.jpg

    I’m looking forward to a good crop of blackberries – Oregon Thornless, so easy picking.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2bfc932bc55625a8ce7d8821262afd4a092807a279d6bd0298c0b41e49d75ee.jpg

      1. Haven’t a clue, Conway. Once the label’s broken up that’s it for varieties. That particular clematis had a second flowering last year and lasted into November.

        1. Wasn’t Ernest Markham Minister of Transport in the early days of the M1?

          :-))

          2. I knew that! My post was a joke, of course. (Hence the :-)) at the end of the post.)

          1. I cut it down to the sticks every February/March and it produces lots of leaves but I haven’t had a flower for a couple of years now. It could just have run out of energy – it’s probably about 15 years old now, and is in a small gap in the paving, very close to the house wall. It doesn’t get much water there and I haven’t tried feeding it.

          2. Clematis like a lot of water, so that could be stressing it. A good feed can’t do any harm, either.

    2. We tried blackberries about ten years ago, lots of fruit for a while but then the things just took off and grew too fast to control. I am still digging out the occasional shoot even though the plants were taken out two years ago.

      1. Raspberries/Loganberries are the same, they’re just a useful ‘weeds’ that produce delicious fruit. This Oregon is easy to control, I use about eight canes from the previous year’s growth for fruit in the current year: however, those canes can grow to >12′ during the summer. Loganberries will grow longer than that during the season.

    3. I long ago gave up any hopes of ‘organised’ borders. Our soil is so sandy and free draining that I’m just happy to find plants that can tolerate such conditions. Annual addition of barrow loads of compost from the compost bins have enabled the autumn raspberries thrive so it’s not all negative.
      Stunning peony.

      1. My soil is light with good drainage and I can grow almost anything, except I have problems with strawberries for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, it’s the artistic bit that that defeats me: I am unable to ‘see’ what the plants will mature into and how the colours will blend etc. Too long in the tooth to learn now.

          1. Hi, Elsie. I’ve too many other irons in the fire for this year now that all my building materials will arrive on Friday. Have to get the mixer going and the bricky’s trowel and spirit level on the go. You still on for blackberries?

          1. That’s what one of my friends, who is an amazing gardener – green fingers R us – says.

          2. It’s amazing when you look at all the trees and no two greens are the same in fact there is probably nothing in nature that is absolutely identical but none of it looks out of place, does it.

          3. I was thinking that this morning when I walked my dog; the weeds all jumbled together at the side of the path, but they still looked right.

  91. Off topic.

    Now that the old boy has finally gone to bed.

    Tomorrow is Bill Thomas’s 25th wedding anniversary. Third time very lucky…

    If so minded on the day, please raise a toast to a very tolerant and loving “Most Recent” and also a sardines-on-toast-fish-pun-sequence to BT himself.

    };-))

  95. This was obvious over a month ago, so government has been way behind the curve as usual. The delay in deploying Remdesiver looks entirely due to the fact that HMG globalized the decision making process to Bill Gates and a consortium of nations and the WHO, and deliberately prevented UK doctors re-purposing existing drugs in hospitals at the earliest opportunity in February. How many lives lost as a result ?

    ”Health Secretary Matt Hancock calls Ebola drug remdesivir the ‘biggest step forward’ in treating Covid-19 since the crisis began as it becomes the UK’s first approved coronavirus medicine
    The Health Secretary praised the experimental Ebola drug in tonight’s Downing Street press conference
    Remdesivir has been trialled in NHS hospitals – as well as all over the world – for weeks and shown promise
    Made by the firm Gilead Sciences, it is a generic virus-destroying drug initially made in a bid to tackle Ebola
    NHS doctors will now be able to give the drug to any critically ill COVID-19 patients, including teenagers
    This makes the drug currently the closest thing British doctors have to a cure or treatment for Covid-19”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8357333/NHS-gets-green-light-treat-coronavirus-patients-Ebola-drug-remdesivir.html

      1. You will obviously decline it then if you need it, which hopefully you won’t.

  96. Radio 4 news, 8pm: “The government just can’t drawn a line under the Cummings affair.”

    I don’t think many people are struggling to work out why that is.

  97. Currently watching a Discovery Science documentary about the fault lines in California. Presenter enters an office of the USGS and discusses the impact of a couple of fault lines might have: presenter’s comment to USGS employee’s response, “That’s groundbreaking.” Boom ,Boom Mr Derek.

    1. When the USGS were moving offices to a new building located near a fault line, they took a good look at their prospective new base and said: “Nope, we aren’t moving until it’s made earthquake resistant”.

  98. Just woken from a mega sleep after lunch ….or should that be luncheon….!
    Crispy green salad, sardines, poached eggs and a glass…or was it two of chilled cava…. Bliss!
    I saw a Waitrose,,,,yeah Waitrose delivery van in PZ earlier his morning. Things are looking up…

    Back to zzzzzz…..

  99. How the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity and Carnage. The New York Times – 26 May 2020.

    It was March, and the Taliban had just signed a peace deal with the United States that now puts the movement on the brink of realizing its most fervent desire — the complete exit of American troops from Afghanistan.

    They have outlasted a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war. And dozens of interviews with Taliban officials and fighters in three countries, as well as with Afghan and Western officials, illuminated the melding of old and new approaches and generations that helped them do it.

    Hmmm. Doesn’t seem twenty years since the invasion. Of course everyone who had read any history knew the Americans would be defeated. It was just a matter of how long it would take. To have lost a child in this brainless fiasco must double the pain. All for nothing!

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-war.html

    1. Any country ending in “istan” should be left to its own devices. Let the natives deal with each other.

      1. Ah, but they were putting the boot into the last remnants of an Empire.

    3. The Americans cannot beat those morally and intellectually beneath them for they cannot use their power. It was obvious years ago when the French confronted the Vietnamese. They cannot slaughter the enemy, level all his towns, never take prisoners, poison his wells and fight as the Taliban would fight, as the wretched Palestinians would fight and the soldiers of Pol Pot and the poisonous Ayatollahs.

    2. One law for the “important” quite another law for “little people”

      1. Afternoon Bill – A questioner asked Matt Hancock how many parents following their rights in a child crisis were fined for doing the same as DC. MH said he’ll find out, write to the questioner and announce his findings at the podium when he gets the results. I know many fines were found to have been issued to people who had done nothing unlawful.

        1. I guess if you you are terrified that you, your wife, your children (especially any handicapped ones) might die in very short order, you wouldn’t actually give a flying fluck for “regulations”, “guidance” or the law.

      2. It appears to be one law for left-wingers/pro-lockdowners/remainers and one law for right-of-centre Vote Leavers.

        I have no problem with people breaching lockdown, if I was PM it would have ended about six weeks ago when it because clear that 1 – the NHS can cope fine and 2 – it is not the Black Death. It is the hypocrisy that irritates me. Where are the pitchfork-wielding mobs baying for Leo ‘Mr Hard Border’ head?

    1. His car only had a mild hybrid so didn’t need to be locked down.
      In fact because it would have been rarely used beforehand its battery needed a 528 mile round trip to regain sufficient charge to deal with a Government emergency.

  103. This part of Peter Hitchens’ Sunday column wasn’t featured on here.

    I’ll quibble with him only for referring to ‘proper cyclists’ as though they need some protection. Too many of them are now just as much of a menace.

    One silent killer we should be terrified of

    I see the tireless lobby for horrible electric scooters and e-bikes has got to work again, trying to make out that the Government’s insane attack on public transport (too dangerous to use, allegedly, lest you find yourself sharing a carriage with a virus) means that such vehicles are the future.

    What rubbish. These silent killers are a terrible danger to pedestrians and proper cyclists. They do nothing for the health of their users, who get no proper exercise from riding them, but clutter up cycle lanes.

    They just shift their pollution to power stations, and the ingredients of their batteries require the rape of large parts of the Third World. They are the ideal means of transport for people who have lost their licences through drink or drugs and want to continue to use motor transport. Or for people who can’t or won’t pass driving tests but want to go fast anyway.

    Their supposed speed limiters are a joke, easily overcome. Those cities which have allowed e-scooters have bitterly regretted it, as their pavements have become as dangerous as the roads themselves.

    Yet the excuse of the ‘new normal’ or ‘recovery from the virus crisis’ or ‘protecting the NHS’ will in the next few months be repeatedly used in a hundred such bad causes, from a Stalinist raid on savings (probably in the guise of an ‘NHS surcharge’ which will be impossible to oppose) to a bonfire of the remaining planning controls and green belts.

    And people will fall for it, as they have fallen for the whole phoney crisis.

    1. Afternoon William – these adult electric scooters are relatively cheap – some are in the £1500 range and have a pillion.
      I haven’t seen any up in North Yorkshire but I have seen a few children on them scooting away from their anxious parents
      I won’t be getting one.

    2. Hi Maggie,

      I am trying to catch up, and attempted to play the video. I just get “The media could not be played”. Is it still working, in which case it might be a problem with my laptop… :o(

        1. I think this one is youtube. I went to youtube and found what I think is the right clip – I just couoldn’t access it from here. I don’t normally have that problem.

          I think I turned off the ads. as there are places that I can’t access now (e.g. if someone links through to an article in the DM. However, that is a small price to pay to avoid the irritating ads.!

  105. I would rarely recommend anyone watches BBC’s ‘Countryfile’. In recent years it has become a kind of George Monbiot Show (though with thankfully few appearances by the mad old Marxist). This week’s edition was presented by the girning Sean Fletcher, whose absurd rictus grin would have a monk reaching for the meat cleaver. However, wind past the simpering gimp to about 26m 30s. There is a short feature on the young Welsh couple who are the wardens of Bardsey Island. The woman has the most extraordinary accent, Welsh out of Stornoway and Stavanger. I wound back more than once to listen to her speaking.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jk4j/countryfile-seans-home-patch

    Mind you, I did wonder later whether she was putting on her exaggerated double ‘ll’ sound for the camera or simply had a cockle stuck in her throat…

    1. I see what you mean. One would have though that she would have picked up English by now…!!

  107. Kayaker among new wave of migrants crossing the Channel, as French Navy accused of escorting boats into British waters. 26 May 2020 • 5:09pm

    A kayak and six boats carrying migrants were brought to Dover on Tuesday morning after crossing the Channel illegally, as the French Navy was alleged to have escorted them across the sea.

    The Telegraph understands that dozens more people made it to the UK after being shadowed across the busy shipping lane and into British waters by a French navy vessel.

    That’ll be worth a few quid to the guys in the Home Office. I don’t suppose anyone in France thought it was odd someone crossing the country with a kayak strapped to his back!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/26/kayaker-among-new-wave-migrants-crossing-channel-french-navy/

    1. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but if BXP <1% features, how low can the UKIP vote possibly be ,not to register at all?

      1. 319623+ up ticks,
        Tell me would you
        support / vote for the current
        UKIP knowing the past recent history of the ersatz Nec , because I most certainly wouldn’t.

        1. So, what’s your alternative? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice.

          1. 319623+ up ticks,
            Many restrict the choice to three ie the best of the worst, result,
            guaranteed failure.
            I am looking at Richard Inman, along with Batten, Braine, Carl
            Benjamin, Tommy Robinson, the far right racist, honesty brokers, who before long are going to be sorely needed.

          3. 319623+ up ticks,
            I politely asked you a question which you choose not to answer,
            now you tell me the answer to a question I have not asked, you are coming across as a very disgruntled tory.

          4. Actually I voted UKIP a few times, to no avail, so you could equally say a very disgruntled kipster.

          5. 319623+ up ticks,
            Actually you keep telling me that,and you answer yourself again.
            I do strongly assume ( I must admit) you are a tory and as such,
            and having witnessed the treacherous actions of the tory party
            over the years someone else / party must be blamed.
            Read up on the happenings regarding Gerard Batten / NEc from the 17th Feb. 18 fully, then make an honest judgement.

          6. I’m certainly a Tory at heart.

            And, sufficiently aware to recognise that UKIP is now a lost cause.

          7. 319623+ up ticks,
            You are getting there, now ask yourself after having read up on
            Gerard Battens leadership from the 17th of Feb 18 & the NEc input, WHY UKIP is a lost cause.
            Being a tory you surely must also be a connoisseur of lost causes especially these last two decades, treachery plays a big part.

          8. The problem is, sos, if UKIP dies, what’s left? It needs to rise from the ashes and become a viable alternative.

    2. 319623+ up ticks,
      o2o,
      “Was it all planned” you can bet your cream crackers it was, right from the letter “nige” dropped into the ersatz UKIP nec, claiming Gerard Batten not fit to lead the party, followed by the farage rant and the mass stabbing in the back of 30000 plus members.

    3. 4% for the Greens 🙁 and no real conservative option at all, because the jury is still out on Boris as far as I’m concerned. I want to see real progress in areas like withdrawing from the UK Invasion Pact for a start, and a host of other stuff.

  109. Here’s a name some of you might have forgotten.

    How can the Tories give families the cold shoulder?

    Relatives are the best buffer against the isolation, stress and deprivation of lockdown. Let us see them

    CRISTINA ODONE

    Grandpa’s funeral had to be held in the churchyard, with only four family members in attendance while the rest of us wept on Zoom. My husband was scrupulous about standing the regulation two metres away from his widowed mother, sister and niece – even though when his Mum had to throw earth on the open grave, he made a move, as if to take her elbow and proffer his support.

    We have all had to suppress our instincts during lockdown: no hugging granny, no rumpling the 27-year-old’s shaggy hair, no barbecues with the cousins, aunts and uncles over the bank holiday. We’ve been told this is for our own safety, and that of our most vulnerable members. Yet as the crisis has triggered stress about health, money, and school disruption, it has exposed the best buffer against these setbacks: the family.

    Isolation becomes bearable and recovery speedier when we can rely on our relatives. Even if only through a screen with a tinny echo, children remind us to look beyond today, elderly parents stoke memories of better days, siblings call us to account as only someone who’s seen us sucking our thumb can. We draw strength from these connections, and they see us through the changes that are affecting every other aspect of our life.

    Given these tangible benefits, how perverse that the Government, and a Tory one at that, should do nothing to promote family ties – and quite a lot to crush them. Draconian rules have banned us from visiting our loved ones, even on their deathbed. Grandparents have been robbed of the grandchildren who, for many, are a reason to live. Newly independent 20-somethings are forbidden from setting foot back home even though they seek solace from a bewildering new world.

    Lockdown strictures have been loosened for garden centres, golf clubs and car dealerships but remain stubbornly in place for families. Shopping for geraniums among OAPs apparently does not carry the same risk as visiting a healthy, 20-something son. These skewed priorities betray a troubling ignorance of the human heart, not to mention epidemiology.

    The public know this even if politicians don’t. This is why they are losing patience with lockdown. Why is there a blanket ban on sitting on a chair at the bottom of the garden to speak to a parent or going for a socially distanced walk with a group of siblings and nephews and nieces? Above all, why can’t we be trusted to make these decisions for ourselves?

    If Dominic Cummings believes he can drive from London to Durham safely by relying on his common sense to keep him from infecting others, the Government ought to consider allowing us to use a bit more of our judgement in choosing how and when to see our relatives. It should be sensible enough to realise that nobody will put vulnerable loved ones in harm’s way by taking stupid risks and that we can be trusted to work out what is or isn’t safe.

    We clap along with the Prime Minister for the NHS every week, but no one has urged us to celebrate the one institution that props us up from dawn till dusk. If anything, the message is about sinister incidents taking place behind locked doors and away from prying eyes. Domestic abuse is on the increase – in Devon alone, reported incidents are up 20 per cent. There is a surge in online sexual grooming of vulnerable youngsters. Alcohol sales have trebled.

    This alarming picture only tells part of the story. In many of these situations, home may be where danger lurks, but family members are often the whistle-blowers and the saviours who step in. A beloved child or relative can be the catalyst for change as no government diktat can.

    This is not to say that family interaction in lockdown is always cosy and supportive. As we keep close through phone calls, emails, Zoom and House Party, we feel connected and supported, but tempers can just as easily fray. Living cheek to jowl with your nearest and dearest can test the mildest temperaments; the Office of National Statistics reports one in four adults have struggled with their relationship during the crisis.

    And yet, most of us can overcome a row because family makes us more resilient. It has taught us to give and take, to pick ourselves up when we are down, to raise our aspirations beyond tonight’s drink. This is what we need to bounce back after lockdown. Please hurry up, Boris, and free families to be there for one another.

    Cristina Odone is the Head of Family Policy at the Centre for Social Justice

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/26/can-tories-give-families-cold-shoulder/

      1. I don’t know about being outspoken. Simply being a Catholic was enough for some of her more unpleasant critics.

        1. While I am a great supporter of the Clarendon Code and the Test Act, I would include RCs and presbyterians in those who were admissible.

        2. I can verify that. The school uniform made you a target. Attending the school blocked off some future employment.

    2. The government doesn’t like families – too subversive to the role of the state.

  110. So who is likely pulling the strings against Dom Cummings because they want a Brexit extension ?

    Open Society !

    Soros !

    1. As I said earlier. Who the hell has been financing all of these so called journalist ?
      How is that horrible old monster still living ?

  111. Latest pandemic reports coming in say that nobody died yesterday except for the reporters questioning Cummings in the Rose Garden

      1. Maybe there’ll be a nice job in Seattle for him somewhere down the line.

  116. This is more like it!

    I’m over quarantine when so many of these rules don’t make sense, so I’ve booked a holiday

    Infuriated by the government’s reluctance to ease lockdown, our columnist has booked a holiday in July

    ALLISON PEARSON

    I am not a rebellious person. A classic oldest child, I tend to work hard and aim to please. It takes a lot to light the blue touchpaper of insubordination in my conformist soul. If there is one thing, however, which is guaranteed to ignite that flame it is official idiocy.

    And so it was, after Priti Patel made her announcement about the 14-day quarantine for arrivals in the UK, that I went to my computer, typed in Skyscanner and bought a British Airways return ticket for July 23.

    Where to? I hear you ask. Doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care less where I go, but I will not stand by and see a government I voted for trash what remains of our economy. At a time when most other countries are lifting their quarantines, tail-end Charlie Blighty is just getting around to imposing one, having let in tens of thousands of people from the world’s most-infected hot spots. Apparently, our quarantine is so urgent that the Home Secretary says it won’t begin until June 8.

    Oddly enough, that’s around the time a scientist friend assures me the coronavirus will have petered out and our battered hospitality and travel sectors can begin to recover.

    Well, not if the Government has anything to do with it. British Airways has already made 12,000 of its 42,000 staff redundant. Willie Walsh says the quarantine means BA will have to review its plan to return to 50 per cent capacity in July. More terrible and avoidable job losses may follow.

    Passengers like me, who are arriving back in the UK, will be required to fill in an online locator contact form providing details of where we will spend our fortnight in isolation. We can be contacted at any time and may be subject to “spot checks”. Let’s hope that the Border Force is as good at monitoring your columnist as they are at tracking down illegal immigrants.

    Enterprising readers have suggested that one excellent way of bypassing our quarantine is to purchase a dinghy at Calais, set sail and land at Pett Level with all the other migrant boats. There you are guaranteed a welcoming cup of tea, free accommodation and no monitoring whatsoever.

    I’m afraid that mounting public cynicism is only to be expected. Fatalities from coronavirus in the UK are now largely confined to hospitals and care homes. The chances of being infected in the community are very small, but the Government is painfully slow to release lockdown, still insisting on measures which make no sense.

    Take the fabricated two-metre distance rule. SAGE thought Brits were too stupid to observe any shorter social distancing so gave us the longest length in the world. Two metres is an absolute killer for restaurants, pubs and small shops whereas the one metre recommended by the World Health Organisation would at least give those businesses a fighting chance. SAGE claims that changing it now would be “too confusing”. Let’s do that immediately, shall we?

    As for schools, it’s a fiasco wrapped in a tragedy. One headteacher of an infant school just sent me a copy of the risk assessment she needs to complete this week. You would swear it was weighing up the hazards of a nuclear submarine, not a couple of classrooms containing four- and five-year-olds. “The measures are nowhere near proportional to the actual risk,” the head writes, “Sadly, the noise the teaching unions have made have increased the severity of the measures. If we even suggest not complying with some of them, they are making it clear that teachers will refuse to work.”

    The local authority expects the head to try and enforce “impossible” social distancing while her staff will have to wear full PPE “for any physical contact” with the children. Even examining a grazed knee. Absurdly, she has had to purchase an incinerator to safely dispose of the totally unnecessary protective garments. “My concern is that we know with pretty much 100 per cent certainty that exposing young children to these measures will inflict emotional and psychological harm, and this is to protect them from a virus which poses virtually no risk to their age group. Allison, I despair.”

    Truly, Jonathan Swift should be living at this hour to do full justice to the epic folly of our beloved country which has lost its senses over coronaphobia. It’s almost beyond satire.

    Even conformists should consider rebelling before it’s too late and they’ve imposed the “new normal”. Let’s make a date. July 23. Come fly with me?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/quarantine-many-rules-dont-make-sense-booked-holiday/

    1. We recently discussed the distance rule with our children. We have now decided that a cubit is the right length.

  117. On the one hand, on the other, on the one hand, on the other…

    I don’t want Cummings to go, but I did expect him to at least say sorry

    The special adviser offered a highly sympathetic account of his dilemma – but there was something important missing

    ALLISON PEARSON

    Let’s face it, whatever Dominic Cummings said at his extraordinary press conference it would not have satisfied his critics. The Prime Minister’s special adviser – three parts Wearside nightclub bouncer to two parts warrior wonk – is a lightning rod for the resentment and fury of a Remainer, lib-left dominated media. He reminds them of their failure. He stopped them stopping Brexit. Then he only went and won the general election with a mortifying majority. They hate him. He despises them. That’s all you need to know, although, awkwardly, it’s not just the Cummings’ haters who are troubled by his conduct during lockdown. It’s because I admire him and fervently want him to stay at the heart of government that I wish Dominic didn’t find “Sorry” to be the hardest word.

    Douglas Ross, a junior minister who resigned yesterday, spoke for many loyal Conservatives when he pointed out that Mr Cummings’s interpretation of the official advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who “had done as the government asked”. Ross cited constituents who felt unable to visit sick or dying relatives. “I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the Government was right.” That’s the problem. Did the man who built his reputation by cocking a snook at the “Westminster bubble” behave like just another out-of-touch member of the ruling elite?

    According to Boris Johnson, his brilliant friend Dom acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity” and “followed the instincts of any father”. Well, Prime Minister, for my sins I have watched almost all of the Number 10 daily briefings and, not for one moment, did I get the impression that I was entitled to follow my instincts. On the contrary. Lockdown was about suppressing our deepest and dearest impulses to serve the greater good. How many millions have longed to rush to be with someone they love, how many sick parents have stayed locked in their homes with demanding small children, how many have yearned to hug grandchildren or boyfriends or sisters or fathers, and how many have squashed their impulses right down because they believed, by so doing, they were saving lives?

    Despite the media’s quasi-erotic obsession with him, the name Dominic Cummings means very little to normal people. Observing the feeding frenzy that surrounds that curious scruffy fellow – including the disgusting, threatening behaviour outside his Islington home – the public is inclined to shrug and think “those journalists are mental”. However, the perception that someone who had a key role in imposing a draconian lockdown managed to find some wiggle room for himself and his family is damaging. People really really resent unfairness. To spare his boss any embarrassment Cummings had to be whiter than white. Why on earth didn’t he stop and think what left-wing foes would do if they found out he had moved his family from London to Durham at a time when the entire population was cowering indoors clinging to their 700 toilet rolls and there was tumbleweed on the motorways?

    Ironically, Cummings’s personal press conference took place on a day when Covid19 deaths in England plunged to 59 and scientists were struggling to find cases in the community on which to carry out their vaccine trials. The imminent demise of the virus, not the contagious rumours about the special adviser, should have been the story. Yet the country’s leading journalists insisted on quizzing Cummings on such vital national matters as whether his family take a toilet break on the drive up North? And had he informed the Prime Minister of his travel plans? You know, the Prime Minister who was a bit tied up at the time trying not to die.

    What someone from a country less riven by tribal grievance and partisan journalism would make of this feverish, self-satisfied spectacle I dread to think. Mr Cummings, who had changed out of his terrible T-shirt for the occasion, looked notably cool, calm and collected in a pale shirt, greeting his frothing inquisitors with a pleasant, factual manner which belied his unhinged reputation. Instead of Ra Ra Rasputin sinking his gold incisor into Beth Rigby’s ankle, we got the Man from Del Monte, all peachy persuasion in the Rose Garden, quietly defending his decision to drive his wife and child 260 miles to isolate in a cottage on his parents’ farm. Pity. I’d pay good money to see Dom the Dastardly give Robert Peston a Geordie Kiss in the middle of one of his 17-clause questions.

    Cummings offered a highly sympathetic account of his dilemma. His wife Mary had been taken unwell and, scared that she was unable to look after their four-year-old son, had summoned her husband home from Downing Street. Fearing that he too might have coronavirus, and that there would be no one to look after the child, Cummings decided to take his family to the North-East where his two nieces, aged 17 and 20, had volunteered to mind the little boy if the worst came to the worst. He made it sound like a reasonable thing to do.

    It was a subsequent anecdote, involving a 60-mile round trip to Barnard Castle so that Cummings could “test his eyesight” for a longer drive to London that had you shaking your head in disbelief. Eh? Could his wife not drive? It was as if the accused man had been encouraged by a barrister to come up with a plausible defence for a family jolly that was not permitted under lockdown rules. And failed. “Should have gone to Specsavers,” was the jeering response on social media.

    I’m sorry, but it’s simply not good enough to claim that this is all some revenge plot cooked up by bitter Remainers against the presiding genius of Vote Leave. Several staunch Brexiteers have said they think Cummings should resign or be sacked.

    What is sorely lacking in this episode is any sign of contrition. An early apology from Cummings, explaining that he was deeply worried about his little boy (who is said to have special needs) so he panicked, would have gone down well with the public. Far better than pointing to subsection 97b of guidelines no one has ever seen and claiming that he was acting properly while clearly violating the spirit of the instruction to Stay Home.

    I don’t know about you, but my feelings have swung back and forth on what happens now. After everything Cummings has achieved – and with so much left to be done – it is intolerable to offer him up as a scalp to sneaky snitches who are exploiting a national emergency for their own political purposes.

    But I can totally understand the distress and anger about the behaviour of an adviser who failed to heed his own advice.

    This sorry episode has taken its toll. The Prime Minister’s personal approval ratings have dropped from 19 per cent four days ago to minus one yesterday. Boris squandered his moral authority defending Dominic Cummings because he clearly felt that both he and the nation needed him. Well, the nation needs Boris so Cummings must stay. What matters now, the only things that really matters, is getting out of this appalling situation as fast as possible. And if the special adviser could incorporate a small word into his vocabulary it wouldn’t go amiss.

    The word is sorry.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/dont-want-cummings-go-did-expect-least-say-sorry/

    1. “He made it sound like a reasonable thing to do.” That’s because it WAS a reasonable thing to do!

      1. So why were others stopped from doing what everyone agrees was reasonable? Why are the media or politicians not raising hell about the unreasonable actions by some police forces.

    3. “I’d pay good money to see Dom the Dastardly give Robert Peston a Geordie Kiss in the middle of one of his 17-clause questions.”

      And I’d chip in with half the fee.

    4. Sorry for what, looking after his child. ( that you are allowed to do) Most of these press people have no humanity.

  118. I doubt if I, or many other people like me, would find Dominic Cummings very congenial company but I wish him all the best. As a rule of thumb, I tend to judge people by those who hate them. He, clearly, is loathed by everyone I loathe and, on the strength of that, I am happy to give him my unconditional support, for what it is worth.

    2. Separating the personality of the man from his value as an advisor to Boris is necessary. Basically who cares what he is like as a person, I have never met him and most probably never will.

      His ill advised actions have enabled a swarm of actors to go after him like a pack of hounds, he should have thought it through before driving off with his family. Even then he had a four or five hour drive in which he could have quashed any us vs. them repercussions. So he doesn’t get my unconditional support, it comes down to if Boris can handle him then who are we to disagree.

      1. I fear, that without him ‘guiding’ Johnson, we might get waylaid in our parting of the ways with the EU.

        1. Isn’t that exactly what the PTB and the Establishment
          are aiming for?

          Edited….

        1. Those .pR wizards and spin doctors are paid to have hind sight before something happens.

  120. Recent events have raised arguments about COVID-19 and eyesight.

    Results Across all eye specimens, immunohistochemical analysis revealed expression of ACE2 in the conjunctiva, limbus, and cornea, with especially prominent staining in the superficial conjunctival and corneal epithelial surface.

    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.09.086165v1

    Many of us know that the COVID-19 virus ‘spikes’ invade cells in our bodies that have ACE2 expressions.
    That’s why this acute respiratory disease can also selectively attack any other organs in our bodies that have these expressions
    The different symptoms experienced within the groups of people who have tested positive for the virus are likely to have been due to the different levels of their bodily ACE2 expressions which depend on ethnicity.
    In this post mortem paper all subjects had ACE2 cells in their eyes.

    However evidence of COVID-19 having a causal relationship with loss of visual acuity cannot be established due to lack of sufficient level of verifiable and quantifiable data.

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