Tuesday 26 November: Tax increases have jeopardised the future of the hospice movement

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

691 thoughts on “Tuesday 26 November: Tax increases have jeopardised the future of the hospice movement”

  3. добро утро Джеф и всички
    (Pronounced: dobro utro Dzhef i vsichki)*
    Today's Tale
    Patrick picked Maureen up at the local Rave Party. Later he took her home and she asked him to go to bed with her.
    “I’ve got no protection,” said Patrick.
    “That’s O.K.," said Maureen, “but be careful.”
    Patrick was just working up a full head of steam when he stopped dead and looked at her and said, “You don’t have AIDS, do you?”
    “No,” said Maureen, “of course not!”
    “That’s a relief,” said Patrick, “I don’t want to catch it twice.”

    *Bulgarian this morning

    1. Two and a half million in six days – good going. Nearly six moths yet to go: See my latest research.

    2. Two and a half million in six days – good going. Nearly six moths yet to go: See my latest research.

    3. 'Moaning, Annie. There is a follow-up petition that seeks support for punishing broken manifesto promises:

      https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700035

      It could be a long haul but we have to start somewhere. Currenly they can lie through their teeth with complete impunity. Alongside this shower even Alan B'Stard would look like a novice.

  5. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's No|TTLe site.

    Wordle 1,256 5/6

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

    1. Wrong dress, wrong colour, wrong shield, wrong sex, wrong text language, Must be a Government authorised cartoon.

  9. Reeves’ Official Bio Edited from “Economist at HBOS” to Worked in “Retail Banking”

    After Guido debunked Reeves’ “economist at HBOS” myth, her LinkedIn CV was quietly edited to say she worked in “retail banking” at Halifax. It turns out, that’s not the only official bio that’s been edited…

    The Times Guide to the House of Commons – “the authoritative guide to the 2024 British general election results” which includes all MP biographies – has also been quietly changed. In 2010 and 2015, Reeves’ bio claimed she was an “Economist: at HBOS, the Bank of England (inc. stint at Brit Embassy in Washington). That description didn’t last long…

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-25-at-16.54.53.png?w=1096&ssl=1

    In the latest edition of the of Guide – the hardcover published November 7th 2024 (after Guido’s story) – Reeves’ bio has changed again to: “Worked in the retail arm of HBOS, 2006-09, economist at the Bank of England.” Yet another example of Reeves’ career history being edited, presumably with an intervention from her team…

    November 25 2024 @ 16:48

    1. Mr Blue Sky
      8h
      Reeves' speech went down like a cup of cold sick at the CBI conference. No applause at the end of her grovelling speech.
      She is on borrowed time.

      Top hat
      8h
      An open goal and what are the Tories doing?? Absolutely nothing!!!

      Mr Davies
      8h
      Hah, she's not even saying what role she had now, just where she worked.
      Sack her and prosecute her for fraud.

      Jon Richmond
      6h
      No mention of her Nobel Prize in economics- or her Pulitzer Prize for fiction ?

      Dame Priti Appalling
      Jon Richmond
      5h
      Can you get a Pulitzer prize for plagiarism?

  10. Pro-Russia TikTok candidate takes surprise lead in Romanian elections. 26 November 2024.

    A pro-Russian critic of Nato has taken the lead in the first round of Romania’s presidential elections, in a shock result that could upend its support for Ukraine.

    Calin Georgescu, an ultra-nationalist who campaigned heavily on the Chinese social media network TikTok, came in first place with 23 per cent of the vote.

    Any break in the Globalist control of Europe is to be welcomed. That he’s a Vlad supporter is a bonus.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/25/pro-russia-candidate-lead-romania-election-tiktok-campaign/

  11. 397397+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Three main figures supporting the political underworld still being listened to and given succour by the majority voter, stride with authority among us.

    Two pf the three bent as nine bob notes the governing one with a very dubious past as yet to be revealed fully.

    This is the result of a continuous voting pattern inclusive of
    We always vote labour / we always vote tory / we always vote for the best of the worst, we never vote, consequences of NO consequence.

    https://x.com/TokyoMatt8/status/1860700644954571259

  12. 397397+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Three main figures supporting the political underworld still being listened to and given succour by the majority voter, stride with authority among us.

    Two pf the three bent as nine bob notes the governing one with a very dubious past as yet to be revealed fully.

    This is the result of a continuous voting pattern inclusive of
    We always vote labour / we always vote tory / we always vote for the best of the worst, we never vote, consequences of NO consequence.

    https://x.com/TokyoMatt8/status/1860700644954571259

  13. 'Morning All
    I see the Starmerfuhrer is in the bunker moving troops to ukeland and the airforce to israel
    What could possibly go wrong…….

    1. Same here.
      Looked like calm air when I looked out of the bathroom window, not a tremor of movement from the leaves outside.

  15. Tax increases have jeopardised the future of the hospice movement

    That's okay we will soon have assisted dying, it should save taxpayers a fortune

    1. If the Bill passes, decisions of death can be made by "a responsible adult"

      Who decides who is responsible?

  16. Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b83a672a4ad0455a60114cbd8f6d81345ec72853130a63934317f8b05645a0ce.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8a3ad34a3ac54f5ac258294bf7e1dcfa20c7bb74e39f501b58395ea4dc74f6e.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d6c64fea2dd9c2a1de25ba20fa7a75e81acd97b3f078d5772407d3211cdbee4.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/302f79ea6ed517c9195ba36d13e25ce0e84b9f5a51e960b7a5babdb5de61d0f7.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48f9bed5edd2d5446921fafddfcb1f56e50cc7c738469522e9f9b457f883ab6c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45fb7a25d69e1963c094220777ff683260ddd70d6e7a30e121c102c0ea5de6b1.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46b79aa85eaffa031da80145f48b5f85a71bc393507d16fd56a36a4ff2d57785.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8d01c01653980535f33e9441678f5c0fa6ff85c1de0c8e5259469218a50b612.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/979ecf62579f8f3568584bbd08e926695717c15c9a022a7d33ec08bd1db7025b.jpg

  18. Morning, all Y'all.
    Dark. Warmed up with west wind to about 8C (plus…). Freezing North winds promised for tomorrow & weekend – but at leat the clouds will blow away, to let it get even colder.

  19. In my recent visit to the hospital it was discovered that I have non-proliferative retinopathy. Any observations or advice from fellow sufferers is welcome.

    1. From Chat GPT:
      "Non-proliferative retinopathy (NPR), often referred to as non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), is an early stage of diabetic retinopathy, a condition that affects the retina in people with diabetes. It is characterized by damage to the small blood vessels in the retina, but without the abnormal growth of new blood vessels (which defines the more advanced proliferative stage).

      Key Features of Non-Proliferative Retinopathy
      Microaneurysms: Tiny bulges in the retinal blood vessels caused by weakened vessel walls. These are often the earliest visible signs of NPDR.
      Retinal Hemorrhages: Small blood leaks into the retina due to damaged vessels.
      Exudates: Yellowish deposits of lipids or proteins in the retina, formed when damaged vessels leak fluid.
      Retinal Edema: Swelling caused by fluid leakage, potentially affecting the macula (the central part of the retina responsible for detailed vision), leading to macular edema.
      Cotton-Wool Spots: White, fluffy patches on the retina indicating areas of poor blood flow and nerve fiber damage.
      Venous Beading or Irregularities: Changes in the retinal veins, often seen as an indicator of worsening disease.
      Progression
      NPDR can range from mild to severe, depending on the extent of vascular damage and retinal involvement.
      If untreated or poorly managed, NPDR can progress to proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), a more severe stage where abnormal blood vessels grow, increasing the risk of vision loss.
      Symptoms
      In its early stages, NPDR is often asymptomatic. However, as the condition progresses, symptoms may include:

      Blurred or fluctuating vision.
      Difficulty seeing in low light.
      Dark or empty spots in the visual field.
      Management
      Blood Sugar Control: Maintaining stable blood glucose levels is the most critical step in preventing progression.
      Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Management: These help reduce the impact of vascular damage.
      Regular Eye Exams: Essential for early detection and treatment.
      Laser Treatment or Injections (if needed): For complications like macular edema.
      Early detection and intervention are crucial to prevent vision loss associated with NPDR.

  20. Michael Deacon

    The real question about Rachel Reeves’s CV

    To begin with, I was appalled that anyone would even dream of suggesting Rachel Reeves lied on her CV. How dare they show such disrespect to the first woman to win the Victoria Cross, the Turner Prize and Premier League Goal of the Month.

    Sadly, however, I’m beginning to fear that there might be something in this story after all. Until very recently, Ms Reeves’s profile on LinkedIn boasted that from 2006-09 she was an “economist” at Bank of Scotland. Yet it’s now been reported that her job was merely in customer relations.

    I can see why politicians might wish to embellish their CVs. In the same position, I’d much rather that voters thought my job title was “economist”. Because then I could go around saying, “I was an economist, so I know how to run the economy.” Which sounds rather more impressive than, for example, “I was a head of customer relations, so I know how to record this call for training or monitoring purposes.”

    Anyway, we shouldn’t necessarily assume that Ms Reeves is a liar. It’s possible that she’s simply a harmless, Walter Mitty-style fantasist. Then again, Walter Mitty fantasised about exciting things, such as being a fighter pilot or an assassin. If Ms Reeves only fantasises about being an economist at Bank of Scotland, this suggests an alarming lack of imagination.

    Either way, the real problem with this peculiar episode is that it could undermine public trust. After all, if we can’t be sure that Ms Reeves was an economist at Bank of Scotland, we can’t be sure about anything she says. In fact, are we absolutely sure that she’s Chancellor?

    She regularly professes to be, but I’m starting to wonder. Last month, the Telegraph revealed that Ms Reeves claimed £1,225 on expenses to pay someone else to help file her tax return. Is that really a task with which an actual Chancellor of the Exchequer would require professional assistance? It’s like a Cambridge professor of mathematics needing help with his 10 times table, or a farmer having to google how many legs a cow has.

    The Prime Minister must clear up this mystery, and fast. Until he does so, suspicions are bound to grow that Ms Reeves is only pretending to be Chancellor in order to burnish her CV, and thus land a better job. Such as economist at Bank of Scotland.

      1. This and the decision to only build Jaguar EVs spells the death of Jaguar. I drive an 11 year old Jaguar XF `Sport Brake Diesel. I get 50+ mpg at motorway speeds and can drive from the South coast to the Midlands and back twice on a single tank of fuel. Why would I buy an EV?

        1. Hey Adrian.. we've identified a new customer.. he'll be out in fifteen years.

          Trans paedophile rapist, 51, bonded with girl, 11, over Star Wars before subjecting her to sickening campaign of abuse: Judge tells pervert, who now identifies as a woman, to expect 'issues'

  24. Morning all! Clear sky and sun may be coming up behind the hill I hope.
    O H is better this morning – he's got up to make the tea. I thought he was a goner yesterday. Overdid it at the weekend I think. Still has the cough but it's not as bad. I hope.

      1. We had a long day on Saturday at the charity fair and the drive home afterwards in the wet. But after the concert on Sunday driving through the floods in the dark was very stressful.

  26. Rod Liddle
    Is swimming racist?
    25 November 2024, 1:27pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2CTD3XW.jpg
    Leicester University is offering swimming lessons to black students (Credit: Alamy)

    Ithink we can all be delighted that, at last, the University of Leicester has taken action to end one of the real problems associated with swimming pools – the presence there of awful white people, swimming about all over the place. Odious, arrogant, pasty-faced white people with their mewling, stupid white children. White people doing the breast stroke and the crawl. White people climbing out of the pool looking horribly white. White people deliberately infecting the global swimming majority with their filthy white verrucas.

    The university, alongside the Unity Swimming organisation, is running segregated swimming sessions for black and ethnic minority people. Unity Swimming says its stated intention is to: “Provide a safe space, to improve swimming confidence, positive mental health, fitness, water safety and aquatics career support and funding for Black and Asian communities.” And so they are holding lessons for ‘individuals from underrepresented communities’. Hop off, whitey.

    It is true that black and Asian people are, on average, less likely to be able to swim than the white supremacists. But I’m not 100 per cent certain that’s our fault. If it is the presence of white folk around that stops them learning to swim, wouldn’t it be a good idea, in this integrated country of ours, to teach them to overcome their fear of white folks before they are taught to overcome their fear of water? Or maybe do both at the same time, by not holding segregated sessions?

    ****************************

    Gay Icarus
    19 hours ago
    Fear of water doesn't seem to stop them from invading the UK in massive numbers in unsafe dinghies.

    Fred Scuttle
    18 hours ago
    This reminds me of a tv series in which the female presenter visited various beauty spots around the country and spoke to people enjoying the countryside. In the Peak District she spoke to a "black female walking group". When she asked why they had formed their own group their founder replied that she had found there was little "representation" in the countryside and few people "who look like me". Another among them tearfully said she was so happy to have been able to join a black group because when she had tried walking with a white group she felt "unsafe". Unsafe. How? Did they refuse to share their Kendal Mint Cake with her? Had they looked at her the wrong way? Or did they fail to treat her as special and instead just like everyone else? The presenter didn't ask her why she felt unsafe, she simply said "awwww… come here…" and gave her a hug, her eyes filling with tears. There should have been a follow-up. An absolute turn off, I didn't watch any more of it.

    It seems to me some ethnic minority people want special treatment because they see themselves as special. It's quite narcissistic. Like the black walkers group, those learning to swim should do so without the need for segregation. It's ridiculous that they move to this country and then want to segregate themselves. Integrate, or leave.

    1. I was once told very very few Eskimos can swim.
      Obvious really, who would want to learn to swim in their local seas and rivers. 🥶

      2. It may be an apocryphal tale, but I was told that many sailors in the era of wooden vessels did not learn to swim because it would merely prolong the agony if they fell overboard or the ship was sunk.

    4. This is a European country in Europe. People are white for a reason (lack of sunshine). If they don't want to mix with the indigenous and want more people like them, I suggest they leave Europe and go where being black is the norm.

    3. Jaguar, poor old Jaguar .

      What used to be a grand desirable car , has been trashed and reshaped into a LGBT icon .. with a marque which is nothing but a careless scribble .

      1. Nod to Florrie Forde.

        "DraGUar, FaGUar …
        Oh what a wokey ad you are.
        Yes, by gad you are
        FaGU, DraGU aaarrrr……."

  29. Trans paedophile rapist, 51, bonded with girl, 11, over Star Wars before subjecting her to sickening campaign of abuse: Judge tells pervert, who now identifies as a woman, to expect 'issues' during 15-year jail term.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14124887/Trans-woman-51-bonded-girl-Star-Wars-subjecting-sickening-campaign-rape-abuse-Sinister-support-worker-jailed-15-years.html

    She is a HE. And an ugly grotesque one at that.

    Also, where were the girls parents in all this. It sounds like it went on for a long time.

    3. Should have 'it' cut off and stitched to his forehead – then his hands cut off and stitched to his arse.

  30. Reeves' CV. If she did elaborate it, the question is why did she do that. It can't have been to get the job, that was hers anyway so it can only have been to impress someone external to the in crowd – the voter, the business faction? What it illustrates is her real capability and mentality, which is certainly not what is needed for a politician and the person running the nation's economy.

    1. Hubris – mendacity – treachery – spite – envy – sadism – arrogance – lack of humour – insensitivity to others – megalomania – all whipped together into a toxic mixture.

  31. Reeves' CV. If she did elaborate it, the question is why did she do that. It can't have been to get the job, that was hers anyway so it can only have been to impress someone external to the in crowd – the voter, the business faction? What it illustrates is her real capability and mentality, which is certainly not what is needed for a politician and the person running the nation's economy.

  32. Reeves' CV. If she did elaborate it, the question is why did she do that. It can't have been to get the job, that was hers anyway so it can only have been to impress someone external to the in crowd – the voter, the business faction? What it illustrates is her real capability and mentality, which is certainly not what is needed for a politician and the person running the nation's economy.

  33. Morning all 🙂😊
    A bright start fingers crossed.
    Tax increases jeopardise full stop.
    Same old story, every single thing they come into contact with they eff it up and big time.
    And still over 8 million pounds each day paid for keeping illegal invaders comfortable.
    Stoopid politicos.

  35. Today Free Speech asks the question men have been asking for generation, a question that shapes our lives, but which has never been answered satisfactorily: Why Do Women Worry So Much?

    With the assisted dying bill about to be voted on, we ask you to vote on the subject at the top of the Today page . Up to now, our readers are generally negative about it.

    If you have not already done so, please sign the petition to parliament calling for a new general election At 0800 this morning it had attracted 2,552,513 signatures, up 692,912 in 24 hrs. It is not going to result in a new election, but it is highly embarrassing for the Labour tin pot tyrants, and might encourage more to cross over into the resistance. Please sign by following this link .

    Energy Watch: Demand at 0800: 38.393 GW. Supply: Hydrocarbon = 42.8%; Renewables = 30%; Nuclear = 7.66%; Biomass = 7.9% and Imports 8.7%.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

    1. 397397+ up ticks,

      Morning Pip,

      If so, and were found to be in uniform then we are truly at war with Russia.

      If that is a fact then do the peoples know ?

      1. Same thing with Brexit. Brexit wasn't the problem – the problem was that the elected politicians and civil servants deliberately refused to implement it properly and grab the opportunities it offered.

  39. Yo and Good Day to you all, from a Panel Charging Costa del Skeg

    Warmish outside…. I think

  40. Morning folks. Was back in resus at the hospital in the early hours and not coping very well today. Have a face to face with a GP at midday though not sure what I’m expecting them to do. What I’d really like is to turn the clock back!

      1. Being an old b*tch is far better than the alternative

        get well soon, Sue

        We are all rooting for you

      2. Being an old b*tch is far better than the alternative

        get well soon, Sue

        We are all rooting for you

    5. Sorry to hear that Sue , what on earth is going on .. Was it your AF again ..

      Please stay calm , do you have anyone to help you through this .

      If it is AF there are ways and means of sorting you out .

      Please do not be fearful , at least they are aware of your situation , and you should be sorted soon.

    8. Take a written list of questions, it's all too easy to forget something that concerns you in the time available.
      Good luck.

      2. Yup, when visiting Doctors and Solicitors (especially the latter, at their hourly rate) I take a printed Shopping List, one for me and one for their files. It works much better than an 83-year-old memory. And best of luck, Sue.

      3. Yup, when visiting Doctors and Solicitors (especially the latter, at their hourly rate) I take a printed Shopping List, one for me and one for their files. It works much better than an 83-year-old memory. And best of luck, Sue.

  42. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d97ac63c24aa03e900783b76195d662ac00dd1e6/0_0_1988_1324/master/1988.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=517992e746342bd1e24c56a1d1650587 Common cranes fly above a reservoir at sunset near Balmazújváros, eastern Hungary

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/36293112f60170d74ef030ce877e27ac36d87abd/0_0_5000_3223/master/5000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a662be3255e2379eccbb44cea1f78ae0 A red squirrel forages for food at the Widdale Red Squirrel Reserve in the Yorkshire Dales National Park

  43. Gutted about England’ quarterfinal loss in the Amputee Football World Cup.
    Turns out there’s no second leg.

    Nods to Geoff

  44. Morning all

    Fine day , 5 c and Moh golfing ..

    Looking out of top window across the village , a long line of fog was rising up from the River Frome , very pretty .

    I have been watching TRT World , very interesting .. Caspian sea is drying up . Power hydro plants in parts of Africa clogged up with tons of plastics , the Sudan , poor old Sudan is a total mess. Shocking drought in Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries ..

    South Africa , 957 women and 315 children were killed in SA over a three month period.

    Shades of things to come in the UK with a Commie government in charge.

    1. "…… the Sudan , poor old Sudan is a total mess."

      After having retired from the Sudan my father revisited the country on his way south to see his brothers in South Africa and Rhodesia. He was met by some elders who said to him:

      "The only thing you ever did wrong was to leave us."

      They had a point. Since the British left the country has been ravaged by a full Apocalypse: endless civil war, religious persecution and genocide, plague, famine, collapse of infrastructure and finally partition.

      1. Like wise when Wilson pushed Ian Smith out of Rhodesia and Mugabe took charge, he wrecked the country and murdered thousands because he knew they would never vote for him.
        Did any of your family know the Carr family from Salisbury ?

      2. My brother in law, from Kenya, but left at independence then visited a few years later, got the same reaction from the natives. He was a district police chief. He said some people literally wept on seeing him. Wished he and the rest of the British had never left.

        1. AW Kauma on http://going-postal.co m has written/forwarded many articles on Kenya. Many of these relate to the student protests, held each week since June, against Ruto and his government. Something else that never finds time or space in our clickbait-chasing media.

    2. The Caspian Sea "breathes", the level rises and falls regularly.
      When I was last in Baku (early 1990s), there were stranded ships a way up the beach – like half to one mile from the water's edge, and the water level was rising.

      1. I have heard about quite a lot of boats that were stranded long ago in the beach sand Namibia.

  45. It’s AF. No, we don’t yet know why. There’s fluid retention too, which may also be the heart. One of my work colleagues just rang and is coming with me to the GP at the hospital. (She’s a friend and honorary nottler!)

  46. Assisted Dying
    This is an NTTL post which I vowed never to make, but it is very topical. I'm sorry it is a bit long.

    After various assessments, In April 2017 my wife of 57 years was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, a variant of Parkinson’s disease with much less tremor but much more cognitive decline. In December 2019, she fractured her hip in a fall and never really walked again, other than a few steps. So she was bedbound, increasingly demented and eventually doubly incontinent.

    Fortunately, I was fit and affluent enough to nurse her at home with the aid of domestic Carers who visited three times a day to wash her and change her pads. There is no government support to pay for private Carers. Nor is there any path to Hospices unless the patient is definitely within six months of a terminal condition.

    After three years of decline, it was determined that she was at ‘End of Life’, meaning nothing further can be done. The infamous Liverpool Pathway was begun, with the withdrawal of all food and drink, Midazolam to control any anxiety and Morphine to relieve any pain. She was also using an oxygen concentrator, whose level I could control.

    As a retired experimental pathologist, I was monitoring her blood oxygen concentration frequently with a small oximeter. When the O2 level went down alarmingly, I phoned the surgery and was advised NOT to be reading it every couple of hours. I wish the doctor had told me why.

    Eventually, after five days without food or drink, she expired, a blessed relief for both of us. Since then I always beat myself up by thinking that if I had not kept measuring her oxygen levels and increasing the flow she might have been able to depart sooner and more humanely.

    If any experience was designed to make one an atheist, (if not already), that was it. Where was the loving, all-powerful God? To cap it all, last time the Assisted Dying debate was in the news, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and a Life Member of our Canterbury Rotary Club, supported assisted dying in a letter to The Telegraph. He has written another similar one today, partnered with a letter in the same vein from Frederick Forsyth, CBE. I believe that both have experienced these sad declines in their own family. Nobody should be forced to go through this.

    Nottlers know that I am a cheerful soul, posting jokes every morning. I will be 84 years old in January 2025. My father lived to almost 99, his sister to 103. My mother’s sister lived to 100, so there is a good chance I might reach my century if I wanted to.

    But it should be MY decision when I want to go, not anyone else’s. All I would ask for is the means to let myself escape.

    When I have ‘had enough’, I do want to control the time of my own leaving, and my favourite Christmas present each year would be a fresh bottle of morphine syrup. A few glugs of that and “Goodbye All”. I am preparing an Advanced Care Directive to make sure that my wishes can be carried out if I lack competence.

    1. More than five decades ago , I remember doctors prescribing a mixture called a Brompton cocktail for terminally ill patients , when I was a student nurse .

      1. When my 98-year-old Dad had to go into a Care Home because he was unsafe at home, he HATED it. After just 10 weeks he was close to death, the result (in my opinion) of him deliberately going without food and drink. That takes a lot of 'intestinal fortitude' ('guts', to you and me), and at the end I'm pretty sure his GP, who had known him for more than 30 years, attended and probably just upped the setting on his Morphine pump to help him over. They were both of an age to remember the deliberate ending of King George Vth.

      2. Yes, I remember administering that.
        It's government involvement in the process that frightens me.
        There are so many "reasons" for extending the remit. Especially in a country that is financially strapped.

    2. It is terrible to watch an individual decline with dementia. I took in my mother who also had LB dementia and she was with us for 3 years until she broke her hip. In hospital she was never mobile again and declined there over 10 weeks until death. The end was a blessed relief from the condition but the drawn out process is harrowing.

      1. KP, at least if you read up the literature you know that the average life expectancy of those with LBD is from 5 to 8 years from Diagnosis, as my dear wife's was. So it is unlikely to go on for many years of 'healthy' living, as the case with Alzheimer's Disease.

    3. I didn't want to continue reading that after the first few lines. It's too upsetting for me, so I cannot imagine how it was for you, day by day.
      Thank you for reminding us of why one might need assisted dying. I would like to believe that it would be used for good reasons, but in the current climate, I cannot be sure that it would not be misused.

    4. While I might be fully on board with your desire to decide to go when you want to, unfortunately, given the tendency to mission creep it won't end up like that once the bill becomes an Act.

        1. Woke promotion excluding real women.

          The court ruling on wether men in frocks or those who just identify as trans are allowed into women only spaces is today.

          1. Is that the Scottish case or a different one?
            They will pass judgement next year.
            I suspect they might just as well pass wind, for all the good it will do in stopping this nonce-sense

  48. Listening to delegates at the COP .. telling rich countries to pay more tax and tarrifs to assist developing countries ..

    What do they mean by developing countries .. I think developing countries are expanding so quickly re the birthrate .. yet what happens to us here in Europe when our white birthrate crashes , and the black/ brown breeders keep on breeding here , same old , same old .. back to square one .

    1. I wonder at what point developing moves to developed and those countries should pay the less developed rather than us.
      And I wonder when they all become developed when they will start to repay their money?

      "Never, they say", well there's a surprise.

    2. Global Warming/Climate Change is caused either by perfectly natural occurrences or human activities. If the former, experts should stop blaming humanity and if it’s the latter, start addressing the root cause and not the symptoms. This cause, and greatest threat to the planet, is overpopulation in the third world. However, this issue doesn't have much in the way of annual international conferences in exotic locations, frequent TV opportunities to earn lucrative fees to pontificate on the subject, a large and profitable book market, substantial government grants to universities to study the subject, large numbers of professorships, Nobel prizes for politicians and so on. And, of course, substantial bribes from organisations with a vested interest in perpetuating the climate change project. It's much easier and more exciting to preach the gospel of global warming than tell people in the third world that they shouldn't have as many children as they have done.

      1. Global Warming/Climate Change is caused either by perfectly natural occurrences. or human activities.

        That's all you need to say, Dhobi. AGW is the Great Lie of the Millennium

        1. Yes, perhaps I should have written “Global Warming/Climate Change is caused either by perfectly natural or, IT IS CLAIMED, human activities”. Whether or not it is caused by human activities does not change the fact that the biggest threat to humanity is over-population.

  50. Muslim rioters rampage with police blessing: Today Amsterdam, tomorrow Britain?
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/muslim-rioters-rampage-with-police-blessing-today-amsterdam-tomorrow-britain/

    BTL

    "Liberated" Feminists and Gays for Palestine must clearly be masochists who long to be inflicted with pain and punishment. Their day will come!

    Today Iran and Afghanistan tomorrow – or probably in under 30 years time – in the UK, France and Holland we shall have Sharia Law and Taliban type rule.

    But we mustn't say or do anything to stop it – it would be racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic to do so!

    1. This has been the reason our authorities have been backing away from action against the Palestinian flag waving and street campaigns for years.
      I remember marches against Israel years ago when the marchers carried banners calling for the death of those who opposed them. And the police escorted them They push and push until they can take control.

  51. Could have been worse:
    Wordle 1,256 4/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. And not a mention of climate change or G-warming. Something that's done at very given opportunity now.

  53. Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU petition (c 20 Feb 2019)

    By 24 March 2019, the petition had received 5 million signatures, and is the most-signed online petition to the UK parliament on record, it reached 6 million on 31 March, and closed on 20 August with a total of 6,103,056 signatures, the highest figure obtained for any British petition since since the Chartists' petition of 1848.

    How many were GovBots?

  55. Beware, there's a widespread outbreak in poultry Expurts.
    H5N1 bird flu vaccine ready to go.

  57. I wonder if Rachel Reeves's CV biography in five years time will cover up all mention of the fact that she was once Chancellor of the Exchequer of a country that has been made completely bankrupt!

      1. Mouse droppings found everywhere, she claimed they were black sesame seeds and very nutritious..

    2. I read this morning she's promising never to raise taxes again after this round. Ah well, another one for the discarded promises list.

    1. I was reading about the roman invasion of Britain 55 54 bc.
      I seems that up to 10 thousand men came along the river Lea from the Thames in Boats to land in Wheathampstead Hertfordshire near St Albans. The river Lea now is about 15 feet wide and three feet deep, probably a bit wider and deeper at the moment because of the recent rain.
      It must have been quite a sight back then.

  61. There is no point putting a guy in charge of a big cat brand when he's never really seen a pussy in his life.
    ©K Hopkins.

  62. 2008, Jaguar Cars together with the LandRover was brought by TATA MOTORS India from Ford. Currently, Tata holds the company as a subsidiary after merging both Jaguar Cars and Land Rover with Jaguar Land Rover Limited. Tata Motors Limited is an Indian automotive company. Jaguar Land Rover Limited is owned by Ratan Tata under Tata Motors.

    https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F7mgunjnrnei11.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc1681238f0cd6697c6ebab5c73005922538791a1

    Six years ago: LandRover got there before Jaggie.

  64. Stupid guess at row three

    Wordle 1,256 4/6

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

  65. Who knew ?
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-politics-live-minister-says-some-benefit-claimants-stealing-from-the-state-as-labour-unveils-crackdown/ar-AA1uLttH?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=42b233133c8242d8a505082aeb15e8ce&ei=61

    And he's feet are deeply in the bog of denial.
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/keir-starmer-breaks-silence-to-respond-to-petition-demanding-new-general-election/ar-AA1uIiyc?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=42b233133c8242d8a505082aeb15e8ce&ei=74

  66. 397397+ up ticks,

    I do really believe the loss to the elderly of the winter fuel payment, which can in the short tern have very dire consequences be more important of the two petitions,, and should be treated to the same if not more, in life saving volume.

    The unseating of the "TOOL" can be seen as a longer term issue
    with keeping up, and improving the input daily

  67. Morning all, just! Sunny day and cool, rather nice actually. Nothing very interesting to report. I'm sure, like me, a lot of you are delighted with how the petition is doing. Let's hope it is the first shot across the bows of a campaign that ends quickly in victory. Far sooner than 4 or so years.

    1. I fear it is a complete waste of time. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I simply cannot see Cur Ikea Slammer and his gang giving a toss.

        1. Exactly, they can ignore the dissent.
          All they need to do is keep their MPs happy, even if it means providing security staff to protect them from the masses.

          2. It will have been "debated" and rejected long before then, and consigned to history, even if the numbers continue to rise..

    1. That's great.

      Now we await news of the two Muslims who broke a policewoman's nose in an altercation.

      ………….still waiting.

      ……………….and waiting.

      1. If it was deliberate action I agree.

        I am becoming so suspicious of people’s motives that I wonder whether it was actually his own tractor or the driver was a left-wing employee causing trouble

  71. This could be challenging. Trump is promising a twenty five percent tariff on all goods from Canada if immigration and drug problems are not resolved by the time he is back in power. That would go directly against Trudeaus open immigration programs and cracking down on drug smuggling would need tough policing – another no no to the village idiot.

    Trudeaus response is that we can impose tariffs on American goods.

    Life around here could become very expensive very quickly.

  74. Wealthy Rush to Leave Taking Billions from UK With Them

    Wealthy non-doms are rushing to leave the UK before April thanks to Reeves’ new measures, say tax advisers. Taking their £118 million of investment each with them…

    Lawyer Philip Munro from Withers says the budget has “crystallised” decisions to leave after Reeves confirmed the 15-year-old regime will be scrapped, instead imposing IHT on people’s UK assets for their first 10 years of residence. Leaving a huge hole in the Treasury’s coffers as non-doms head for the exit…

    The Treasury hopes to rake in £12.7 billion over five years from the changes – a figure the OBR flagged as “highly uncertain” – and now Alexandra Britton-Davis, partner at accountancy firm Saffery, has warned the exodus coming will create a major dent in the government’s projected gains. In September, 63% of non-doms said they’re planning on leaving within two years, and now they’ve started packing their bags. HMRC raked in £9 billion from the UK’s 74,000 non-doms last year. So long to that revenue…

    26 November 2024 @ 12:27

    1. The same happened with Norway a couple of years ago.
      Made a big hole in the income tax accounts, wealth tax and so on, to the extent that many local authorities now planning property and tourist taxes to fill the huge holes in their accounts.
      Hooda thunkit, eh? The rich leaving to protect their money…

      1. The Warqueen put it this way – government is a thug, smashing into puddles and trying to catch the drops. It should be bringing a thimble to a lake.

    2. The Treasury never publishes the net figure. It always promotes what it has raised from taxes, never the cost of those taxes. It's all very well blithering on that another 10bn has been raised (3 days state waste) but if 50 people have been made unemployed and 2 business closed that likely 5m in welfare demand every year from now on.

      1. How much will VAT on private school fees end up costing the state – not just in money but also in trauma?

        The government is addicted to inflicting pain on both the old and the young.

  76. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/25/britain-has-reached-its-worklessness-tipping-point-economy/

    A culture of inactivity is seeping down to the next generation; children on the estates are growing up in households that in the words of one resident “don’t understand the concept that if you work hard, then you can get on.”

    I highlight that phrase as it is not true.

    Government has made everything expensive. You typically get 5 rather than 6 items now compared to 20 years ago and those items are more expensive. Taxes are at an all time high. Never has so much been taken from the employees salary. Bills for utilities are higher than they have ever been. Fuel taxes are comically high. And for what? What do we get for this egregious theft of our income? For this devaluation of our currency? Folk ask where the money is going and it's simple – Soton CC employs 20,000 staff directly. More, such as bin men as contractors. Then there's Hampshire CC. The ministry of defence alone employs more people than IBM globally and, as IBM still own manufacturing plants, that's a lot of people.

    It is simply not true that if you work hard you get on. You don't. What happens is, you work hard and see half of your income destroyed by the state directly inn employer NI, employee NI and income tax and then you have to pay all the taxes levied by the companies selling your products you buy.

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/09/09/jeremy-clarkson-issues-two-word-plea-spending-eye-watering-amount-pub-21569773/

    The Grand Tour star also noted he would pay out more for killing his own pigs for meat at 74p per sausage than buying from abroad at 18p a sausage.

    It's all down to tax, Jeremy. That's why nothing is built, grown, sold, made in the UK. It's simply too expensive. Made so by regulation, tax and devaluation.

    2. I was at the annual Hardman tax lecture last night at the ICAEW. Subject was regulating tax advisers.

      The elephant in the room that wasn’t mentioned however is that tax advisers wouldd’t necessarily be needed if our system wasn’t so complex and our taxes too high. Sure, some people will always want to avoid paying any tax, but when modest earners like me are looking at out tax bills and thinking we are paying too much and yes please I would like to avoid some tax by paying into a pension for example, then we have a problem.

      1. The wife has said the same many times. If the tax code were half a dozen pages, as it could be, there's be no bother, no one would try to avoid tax. However as government has tried to become more inventive in how it robs us the tax code has become vastly more complicated and full of loop holes that rightly get exploited. A simpler, smaller, less offensive tax code would make everything easier. The state would get less but from a far wider tax base, resulting in far higher tax receipts both from the current base and the far wider levels of growth.

        Some folks suggest regulation has made our economy a third the size it could be.

        1. Yes; and one of the stock responses to any question appears to be “let’s regulate it

        2. Rats. Bought chocolate biscuits in ALDI.
          More dosh for the government to piss up the wall.
          Should have chosen digestives.

    1. Not in the government interest in truth. The interests of the public would be helped by a proper prosecution.

    1. Just how pathetic we have become as a country.
      Lets hope we follow America. ( never thought I would ever say that.)

    2. #be kind and inclusive, y’all

      (Except where we don’t like your opinions, even if they are “legal” (still)(just) – in which case we will vilify and “other” (spit) you)

  80. I've just read a couple of interesting and insightful articles on the clerical career of Justin Welby by someone who worked with him in various church roles. While being undoubtedly critical of the outcome of his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, the author does provide a good deal of background and hints at the character flaws in Mr Welby that saw their end result in his resignation. I've read many articles by this author before, and I broadly respect his opinions and writing.
    https://stream.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-woke-welby-the-arch-virtue-signaler-of-canterbury/
    https://stream.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-woke-welby-the-arch-virtue-signaler-of-canterbury-part-2/

    One thing that I noticed in Part 2 was the following:
    "Unsurprisingly, the archbishop has ferociously attacked the Jewish state of Israel. In August, he even released a statement welcoming the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria. Welby called it “unlawful” and accused Israel of “systemic discrimination” against the Palestinians. [Para.] In response, more than 20 Christian leaders representing a variety of ministries in the UK with links to the Middle East united to condemn the legal opinion the archbishop promoted as “biased, uninformed, naïve, and ultimately unbiblical.”"

    This event was referred to in another article as being the deciding factor in the fall of Mr Welby from his position. Readers here might well be sceptical about any causative link, but it is hardly surprising that the God whom Mr Welby affiliates himself to should be displeased at Mr Welby's attacks on God's chosen people. See: https://www.cufi.org.uk/news/welby-prayed-god-would-turn-the-world-against-israel-and-was-judged-for-it/

    1. I questioned our young assistant priest at church on the issue of the New Testament overriding the Old Testament and he said no, God doesn’t renege on His promises therefore what He promised the Jews still stands, as do the promises Jesus made to His followers.

          1. The wrecktorette said we should have a Bible at our bedside. I asked her what made her think I didn't. She rushed off.

      2. Hi, Sue,

        You are blessed with the ability to attend your St Barts. Here in Surrey, our Untied* Parish of Seale, Puttenham and Wanborough has St Bartholomew, Wanborough. It's a Saxon church, has served as a cow shed, but played amajor part in training SOE agents in WW2.

        *It's supposedly united. Untied fits the bill…

      2. From accounts that I have read of his ministry on a personal level I would say that he is a sincere Christian, dedicated to serving God. Many (including myself) would disagree with the decisions and actions he has made in putting that desire into practice.

    3. As a middle-of-the-road Anglican church organist for fifty-odd years, having seen the damage wreaked by Evangelical happy-clappy clergy, I have a dog in this fight.

      I personally know two high-flying organists with massively succesful choirs, who were summarily dismissed, on the occasion of the new incumbent's first service. It seems that Winchester Cathedral now has similar issues.

      I'm not, and never been a fan of Welby. But I believe he's been "stitched up". He's in a no-win situation. Despite being just an 'umble village organist, I had a conversation with Tim Welby (one of Justin's sons) a year or so ago.

      One of his brothers "had issues" relating to drugs. Our Rector has recently met Tim, who has a multitude of health issues, too.

      The current Bishop of Guildford has announced to the Diocese that he too was abused by John Smyth. Since he's a friend of Welby, I do wonder whether our Archbishop was also subjected to the same treatment.

      Just saying.

      2. While I note what you say, Geoff, I think that Welby showed in so many different ways that he was completely out of his depth and totally unsuited to be a bishop, let alone ABC – that getting rid of him on any pretext would be better than him staying.

        It was unbelievable and unChristian that he demanded the closure of churches during he plague – the one time since the War when many sought religious comfort and support.

        1. I fully agree, Bill. Where does the Anglican Communion go from here?

          My revised contract, due to being thrown out of my rather nice rent-free detached Verger's Cottage, expires at the end of next September. The parish was prepared to cover my rent up to a ceiling of £1,250, if I lived within three miles of the parish. Meanwhile, they rented Glebe Cottage out on the open market for £2,250.

          I was on the brink of renting a new-build-for-rental flat in Aldershot. Cue lockdown.

          Thankfully, a small, local housing society had a vacancy. My initial rent was £260 per month. Thus potentially saving the parish £990 per month. Unfortunately, the Rector has studiosly ignored the fact that my rent is now over £300. So I suck it u0.

          1. You should have put your foot down, Geoff!

            As to your question – I honestly think it will dwindle to a slightly weird sect.

        2. As I said, Bill, I'm not a fan.

          And the lockdown thing was quite wrong, and utterly bizarre. As Verger, I was arguably allowed to enter the Church for security reasons. Our Rector wasn't allowed to enter, even if alone.

          All I'm saying is that Welby is human, with all that that entails. Where the CofE goes from here is anyone's guess. My contract expires at the end of September next year. Our former assistant Curate left the parish just over a year ago, to take on a church in Farnborough, on a two day per week basis. I attended his licensing service. Lovely people, or so it seemed. He's recently resigned the post. Apparently, some of his flock made his life impossible. I had considered worshipping at his church, post retirement, since it's accessible on Sundays by train and bus. Oops. Thankfully (not least because our Rector strongly advised him) he kept the day job.

          1. When we lived in Laure (France) we often went to the RC church in the village. Decent Curé; same God. What’s not to like?

            “Making life impossible” – just ask our last three incumbents. Fortunately, there is now a gay woman priest who is brilliant in every way (except for the BCP) whose life is being made a misery by her (not OUR) PCC.

      3. Thanks for the insight. As human knowledge (especially my knowledge) on Justin Welby's full circumstances is limited, I refrain from judgemental comment, and leave that judgement to God who knows everything. I agree that Mr Welby has been the 'fall guy' to some extent, as the abuse was committed by a layman of the CofE who was chairman of the trustees of the Iwerne Trust which was not under the management responsibility of the Diocese – it was the trustees as a whole who were immediately responsible, and (to the best of my knowledge, which may be incomplete) other trustees were CofE clergy. It's a horribly fuzzy and grey area when it comes to accountability. And as I'm sure you already know, people outside the CofE who think that the Archbishop is like a CEO with management responsibility, authority, and accountability really do not understand the CofE at all.

        I agree about the damage to the musical choral tradition that can be done by happy-clappy evangelical vicars when they arrive at a new church. This happened at a church near me a few years ago.

        1. The damage done by a happy clappy rector is why I am now part of the diaspora (along with about 90% of the population i e the congregation) from my previous church. Why Welby's role became untenable, I believe, was because it became obvious that he knew about the abuse and didn't do anything.

      4. I think you could be right there, Geoff (Freud certainly would). However, even if you are, it does not make him a suitable ABC especially if he doesn't have the self-awareness to acknowledge his personal damage.

          2. The Royal Artillery marches at a leisurely 120 paces per minute – and they are deadly. Six months to go. I think we will get there in the end – but it will be ignored, as usual.

  82. "Player who failed to meet gender rules is named BBC’s Women’s Footballer of the Year
    Zambia’s Barbra Banda honoured despite withdrawing from Women’s Africa Cup of Nations over high levels of testosterone."
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/26/barbra-banda-bbc-womens-footballer-of-the-year-testosterone/

    Having a high testosterone level may be regarded as a misfortune but keeping your penis looks like carelessness!

    (The report in the DT does not comment on her genital status.)

      1. Yo, Mr Effort.

        Brian "Pitbull" Moore may well call it Wendyball, but that has not stopped him from being a season ticket-holder at Chelsea.

    3. I went cold when I saw that.
      Shades of the two Royal Signals lads lynched by the mob in Belfast.

    4. Great British Energy seems to be the answer to almost any question. But what does it do apart from absorb funding!

  86. The doctor I saw today promised that he’d try and get my referral brought forward and bless him, he’s done it. I have an echocardiogram booked for 6 December at the Westminster Cardiac Centre.

    5. When OH went for his echocardiogram the specialist nurse came out and said he really should go straight round to A&E. He wasn't ready for that and wanted to go home. He spoke to one of the GPs who said the same…… they printed off a letter and full medical history and off we went. He was admitted very quickly.

      I hope yours is more of a positive outcome, Sue.

    6. Good on him and good luck to you. Do you have to stay in hospital? If so i will come and annoy you.

    7. I went to see my doctor about what turned out to be heart problems,. After I described the symptoms, he just turned away and started typing away on his keyboard. A&E are expecting you, can you drive yourself there?

      So the lack of urgency could well be a good sign.

    11. God, Sue, sounds brutal. My thoughts and prayers added to all the others here. How loved you are. Stay strong!

  87. Phew!
    Back from Stepson's after helping him sort out paying his electricity bill and logging a gas meter reading with British Gas.
    Did a bit of shopping on the way back and have just sorted that out and put the leftover veg on to fry.
    Got some sausages to go with it and will fry some eggs as well.

    Got a load of Christmas sweetmeats from Lidl's which will go as stocking fillers for the brood.

    1. And before anyone asks, I'm now sat relaxing with a mug of tea and catching up with 170odd posts on here!

  88. This one is important.. no really really important.
    Remember Tickle vs Giggle in Australia? That case confirmed that Oz had been totally captured by the commie-woo-woos.
    Now it's UK's turn.

    UK’s highest court set to rule on definition of a woman
    Supreme Court judges set to hear legal challenge over whether trans women can be regarded as female

    1. Science vs. Settled Science.
      Woman's Rights vs. Trans Rights.
      Logic & objective truth based on evidence based observation vs. A feelin.

      1. Hang on, no science is ever really truly settled. I would go for an exceedingly high level of confidence in the validity of the theory.

    2. Science vs. Settled Science.
      Woman's Rights vs. Trans Rights.
      Logic & objective truth based on evidence based observation vs. A feelin.

      1. judge found ‘sex is changeable’..
        Foreign Secretary confirms.. Men really can grow a cervix.

        “Post-gender transition should be the most joyous years of my life. I had my new life ahead of me, and now I am being dragged back to court for who knows how long. All because of a very small group of people who are committed to making the lives of people they’ve never met very difficult,”

        “Trans and gender diverse people exist. Our legal system recognises this. Society at large recognises this. I shouldn’t have to spend years of my life in court to either prove I exist or to have my existing legal rights upheld.”

        freedom and equality of all women.

        “It affirmed that women who are trans are indeed protected from discrimination under the current laws, the same as all other women. It is unfortunate that these Nazis are trying to undo this positive progress.”

        lived as a woman since 2017, had a birth certificate stating her gender is female, had gender affirmation surgery and “feels in her mind that psychologically she is a woman”.

        1. That Algerian boxer at the Olympics was brought up as a girl because her external genitals looked like a female. But genetic testing should weed out all those who really aren't female at all.

          3. There is no way that person should be the role model for women in sport. It’s an unfortunate birth aberration but male bodies should not be able to compete in sports against women.

        2. There is no freedom or equality for real women whose spaces are invaded by the biologically male who happen to live in fantasy land.

      5. I think you will find that Millipede has overturned the laws of physics, all of which are now superceded by his wish list.

        1. That wouldn’t cut it. Why was he driving there? I guess he was rescuing stock or people.

          1. He could be one of those less thoughtful agricultural workers who gladly drive slowly on main roads and gather a queue of vehicles a mile long. There are several round here.

            Just saying.

          2. Do not forget, just before they pull-off the road, they phone their mate (who has an even slower Tracator) to pull onto the road

          1. But the point is against the government, not the individuals and businesses. No, I rather think this is somewhat more macabre.

    4. A few years back the town of Halstead near us flooded. Large oil tankers caused immense damage to shopfronts with the wake from their vehicles. The buildings had flooded but the wake caused glass to shatter.

      I frankly think the tractor driver was stupidly inconsiderate. He could have driven his monster tractor slowly to get to his destination and caused less disturbance.

      A further observation is that similar tractors driven it often appears by young men hurtle through our rural village. They leave mud and grit everywhere and frighten the life out of dog walkers. I would prefer if they would stick to the fields but even on the byway they drive at speed and churn the ground surface.

      The byway was repaired just a few years ago with compacted hardcore and tarmac planings but is now potholed thanks to farm vehicles.

    5. A few years back the town of Halstead near us flooded. Large oil tankers caused immense damage to shopfronts with the wake from their vehicles. The buildings had flooded but the wake caused glass to shatter.

      I frankly think the tractor driver was stupidly inconsiderate. He could have driven his monster tractor slowly to get to his destination and caused less disturbance.

      A further observation is that similar tractors driven it often appears by young men hurtle through our rural village. They leave mud and grit everywhere and frighten the life out of dog walkers. I would prefer if they would stick to the fields but even on the byway they drive at speed and churn the ground surface.

      The byway was repaired just a few years ago with compacted hardcore and tarmac planings but is now potholed thanks to farm vehicles.

  90. Russophilia, not Trump, is Ukraine’s greatest threat. 26 November 2024.

    A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Russophilia. All eyes in the West are focused on whether the incoming Trump administration will force Ukraine to submit to the Carthaginian peace proposed by Vladimir Putin.

    But Ukrainians don’t only need to worry about American isolationism. Just as big a concern for Volodymyr Zelensky is the rise of pro-Russian political parties across the European Union, demanding an end to arms supplies to Kyiv and even undermining Nato itself.

    In other words the peasants are not swallowing this Anti-Putin guff.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/forget-trump-russophilia-is-ukraines-greatest-threat/

    2. Ah, for a genuine rewilding approach, with trees along the river bank and the river dredged regularly.

    1. It'll take a year or two for the jobs to go, but once those go, it's not just them, it's the ancillary jobs: drivers, maintenance technicians, supply chain the people selling the factory lunch, every one selling products the workers bought.

      Gods I hate this government. They're insane. They simply don't seem to care. Green is a con. It's a lie. It's a complete, invented farce. Net zero is a hoax. It's plain communism. The Left simply don't understand or care.

    3. Is this all part of the WEF/UN's plans to make people stop eating proper food and poison us all with weeds?

    4. Uniparty's zero-emissions mandate phasing out petrol & diesel engines. Demand not in the market for EV.. face fines if they do not meet targets.
      Manufacturers now closing all factories.

      Reality meets Demand.

      1. Same in Germany where VW are closing plants and where support for the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russia and pipeline destruction initiated by Biden have given rise to power price rises on a scale never seen before.

    5. Uniparty's zero-emissions mandate phasing out petrol & diesel engines. Demand not in the market for EV.. face fines if they do not meet targets.
      Manufacturers now closing all factories.

      Reality meets Demand.

    6. Uniparty's zero-emissions mandate phasing out petrol & diesel engines. Demand not in the market for EV.. face fines if they do not meet targets.
      Manufacturers now closing all factories.

      Reality meets Demand.

    9. Pretty sure Smithfield Market goes back nearer a thousand years. It was originally the King’s meat market and until relatively recently it was livestock of course. I assume Cowcross Street was exactly that.

      1. I wanted to but I am tryinng to be polite.

        I'd really like to beat Milioaf with a plank of wood, then shove the broken remains in his eyes, stamp his teeth out and force Starmer to eat them. While he's still chewing and Milioaf bleeding I'd kick them both up Theresa May's backside until she burst.

        Then I'd get really angry and start on the rest of the fools blithering on about green communism.

        Why can't we get rid of them? No, why can't we force Milioaf to repeal the scam? Why do we, his master, his employer have the power to make him squirm and squeal as he is forced to undo the thing he has dreamt of? Why can we not stop the 200bn in subsidy poured into windmills from our bills?

        1. Please can we resurrect Good KIng Hal/Oliver Cromwell/Edward I/William the B'stard/Arthur Wellesley etc….
          For really effective action, how about Boadicea or Nero? Heck, even Attila the Hun or Vlad the Impaler could lend a hand. (I'm no xenophobe.)

        2. I read that Vauxhall is closing its EV Van plant in Luton with the loss of around 1100 jobs. The owners say it is a direct result of the government insistence on percentages of EVs and penalties if those numbers are not met.

          Ellesmere Port wil continue production but for how long?

          1. To reduce unemployment by one million requires the creation of 1000 jobs per day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year for the best part of 3 years… so good luck with that everyone…

  96. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2983230bc2ae1086cc925c4687f341ad36c30ca06651689c7334f08e5b33a772.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81530ee94c06ca5bfef78a2242b4a0cdac56943e77b6413c9fa814ef49c8542e.png Time for some dead piggy action (Please look away now if you're a RoP advocate).

    Top picture: is a bag of pork shoulder [1,333 g (≈ 3lbs)] that I hand-cut into 6mm [¼"] cubes. I then mixed in 2% of its weight in salt and 0·2% of its weight in both white pepper and dried sage. It will remain in the fridge, maturing, until Thursday when I shall use it to make pork pies. These will be the first I have made since March this year.

    Bottom picture: I've just vacuum-sealed two bags: one containing a lump of pork loin and t'other with a slab of pork belly. I've added salt and black treacle to both bags before sealing and they will now remain in the fridge for a week, dry-curing into bacon. After rinsing them off and soaking in cold water for a day, I shall hang them for a week before cold smoking them for 48-hours. They will then be sliced and frozen in portions.

    I like a bit of piggy, me.

  99. A second Phew!
    Aforesaid meal of sausage, fried leftover veg, egg & tinned tomatoes duly eaten by self & Grad. Son and the DT's just tucking into hers now, 10 minutes after arriving home from work!

    Able to sit and relax a 2nd time as Grad.Son has just washed the dishes!

  100. An open goal for Reform & Farage..
    Just make a statement.. "We will end this policy, end this mandate."

        1. Erm.. Mola (discreet cough) just reminding you of the tales of the black non swimmers that you were too drunk to recount t'other day and promised to tell later…

          1. Too late this evening, revolves around swim tests at Shell compound in Port Harcourt in the 80s.

  101. A paranormal par Four!

    I got there in four.

    The icon for transferring downloaded images is missing.

    I remain sick as a dog; don't ask!

    2. Same again, again!

      Your divots are often quite similar to mine, I think we use similar start words….. take it easy, Rene….

      Wordle 1,256 4/6

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

    5. Took me five.

      Wordle 1,256 5/6

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

        1. Pulse still in the 98-107 range that the guys in A&E got it down to at midnight and though it feels uncomfortable, the doctor was happy with that. My beta blocker dose is up to 5mg daily and an echocardiogram is booked for 6 December. There was a guy in the opposite bed last night whose pulse was textbook but he was struggling to breathe and being given oxygen. I’m breathing normally at least.

          2. If it would help, Sue, I'd give you a massive hug.
            Do I need to get a flight in your direction?

    6. HHave Some of my divots, I have plenty.

      This don't ask is taking it's time to go away.

      Wordle 1,256 5/6

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

    8. Me too

      Wordle 1,256 4/6

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

  102. Being denied the chance to comment on the BBC's choice of Female Footballer of the the Year people are commenting under the Celia Walden article instead.

    The days of woke bullies and their hate campaigns are coming to an end
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/25/hbo-defence-of-jk-rowling-woke-mind-virus-in-retreat/

    Here is a BTL comment on the subject of KevWendyball :

    Testosterone levels and chromosomes are important as are genitalia. How is the BBC's female footballer of the year equipped in this matter and have the BBC judges had a look-see?

    1. Reading elsewhere, it was the viewers choice, although I think, shortlisted by the Beeb. But why people vote for a bloke in the women's category, I have no idea.

    2. The Ron Paul Liberty Report just ran a piece on Walmart dropping all of its DEI nonsense as a result of the influence of a single person.

      People and large corporations are waking to the new reality. Nobody wants the wokery and LGBTQ rainbow crap aimed at children.

  103. Evening, all. Bright and dry again, but not very warm, alas. Still, one day nearer spring (and getting rid, hopefully, of the wreckers in Wastemonster). I see that their latest bright idea is to ensure that the useless, having been given a job, cannot be sacked from day one instead of over a year. This is supposed to "grow the economy". I am more convinced than ever that none of them has ever had a job in the real world, let alone employed anyone or run a business.

    As for the hospice situation; they won't need sausages, sorry, hospices, as they will be killing everyone as soon as they become a burden. You know it makes sense (to a leftie).

  106. Started to send Christmas cards .. bit later than usual for overseas , usually send beginning of November .

    Just testing the water by posting them now.

    2 Christmas cards … one to South Africa and one to Australia .. over £7. nearer £8 .. I nearly fainted ..

    I will have to send messages to the rest of the SA family .

    2. PR is great until the people who hold the casting votes are minorities who do not want British laws and practices.

      I guarantee that if PR is adopted there will suddenly be far more Muslims standing on a Sharia ticket.

      2. How about a variation on the American system? What we need is a government voted for by the majority of the electorate. Yer actual Demos Kratos. The minorities should only have representation proportionate to their numbers.

        1. The minorities should only have representation proportionate to their numbers.

          But that's the problem, if they can block vote, which they will, they can hold the balance of power and demand privileges in exchange for their votes.

      2. It’s June Slater. She is a favourite among NoTTLers. She talks common sense and thinks like a NoTTler.

      1. Recently I seem not to be able to vote on any of these petitions.. It never sends the confirmatory email that i have to acknowledge in order for my vote to counted – I have checked my trash and anywhere else it could have gone to, but nothing. That has happened in the last seven months on three petitions that I tried to sign for. Any clue as to how I can check this?

        1. Have you checked that the email you've put in is correct? I mistyped mine once and just spotted it on the "is this your email?" page so I could correct it.

          5. I don't know what to suggest then, except perhaps you may have inadvertently blocked their email address.

          6. Thank you anyway for your suggestions. I hadn’t thought of the blocking – I’ll try looking at that.

    2. Man, posing as a woman, rapes 10 year old girl in ladies toilet.
      Caught by real men and castrated on the spot.
      Justice seen to be done would have been a better outcome.

  112. That's me for today. Cold one – not much cop – stayed in and read "Church Going" by Andrew Ziminski. Very interesting – despite a slightly ponderous style and an infuriating use of "pronouns". eg "The stonemason would have done this by eye. They would have held the chisel….."

    Worth getting out of your library – if you have one.

    Have a jolly evening – before tomorrow's rain.

    A demain.

  113. Oh dear, poor things. Can Putin extend the ban to UK?

    "Kremlin bans ministers including Reeves and Rayner from entering Russia. Moscow accuses 16 Cabinet members of ‘reckless policies’ and ‘anti-Russian activities’."

    Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister & Housing Secretary
    Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary
    Shabana Mahmood, Justice Secretary
    Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer
    Patrick McFadden, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
    Ed Miliband, Energy Secretary
    Wes Streeting, Health Secretary
    Steven Reed, Environment Secretary
    Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary
    Liz Kendall, Work and Pensions Secretary
    Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary
    Hilary Benn, Northern Ireland Secretary
    Joanna Stevens, Welsh Secretary
    Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons
    Angela Smith, leader of the House of Lords
    Maria Eagle, Deputy Minister of Defence
    Benjamin Judah, advisor to David Lammy
    Gurinder Josan, Labour MP
    John Derek Twigg, Labour MP
    Andrew Snowden, Conservative MP
    Keith Bissett, RAF Commanding Officer
    Victoria Foy, president of Safran Seats
    Adrian Eves, director/board member at Callen-Lenz Associates
    Matthew Foster, director/board member at Callen-Lenz Associates
    David Holmes, director/board member at Callen-Lenz Associates
    Simon Muderack, chief executive of Windracers Group Ltd and Distributed Avionics Ltd
    Catherine Wright, director/board member at Windracers Group Ltd and Distributed Avionics Ltd
    Stephen Wright, director/board member at Windracers Group Ltd and Distributed Avionics Ltd
    Tom Ball, journalist at The Times
    Dan Woodland, journalist at the Daily Mail

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/26/kremlin-bans-rachel-reeves-angela-rayner-entering-russia/

    1. It isn't. I took mine to KwikFit (I recommend) for first service, mechanics all interested 'the future' yadda yadda…I said no they're not yadda yadda….this year, mechanics all lovely as usual but zero interest in EVs. Range is the problem, and also charge – only Tesla have the fast ones.

    1. Before it's too late it's time many of us better start thinking about what kind of world we want to leave to Keith Richards.

  116. 397397+ up ticks,

    I do not think he is likely to get a parliamentary pass to visit the HOC so no worries there then.

    Dt,

    Terrorist friend of Manchester bomber freed amid warnings he poses ‘high risk’ to public
    Abalraouf Abdallah who has ‘propensity to radicalise others’ still shows ‘intent to commit terrorist-related’ crimes, says psychologist

  117. Britain has pledged billions to tackle climate change – but where does the money really go?

    Cop29 has ended with a £240bn annual pledge to help poorer countries reduce emissions. But there’s no agreement on how the funds are spent

    Adam Luck
    26 November 2024 4:26pm GMT

    Less than two weeks before the Cop29 climate summit, there was an announcement in South Africa that generated little heat and still less light. The state power company Eskom pledged to slash emissions across its coal-fired power stations in order to secure £2 billion in climate finance.

    This may have come as some relief to those living near its 14 ageing plants, where asthma rates are almost 42 times higher than even China’s (which has an atrocious record of air pollution).

    But one man who is unlikely to hold his breath is former Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter, who last year said as his parting shot that the company loses over £44 million a month to corruption.

    Yet South Africa is one of the world’s largest recipients of climate-change finance from hydra-headed global climate funds designed to guarantee a zero-carbon future.
    Highest emitters amongst high-recipient climate countries

    Average CO2 emissions per person of countries who have recieved over $100m ($ recieved)
    024681012
    Mongolia ($471m)
    Kazakhstan ($227m)
    China ($581m)
    South Africa ($866m)
    Turkey ($501m)
    Argentina ($251m)
    Barbados ($132m)
    Chile ($338m)
    Maldives ($152m)
    Mexico ($561m)
    UK emissions

    Source: Climate Funds Update, cumulative to 2023. CFU tracks 27-major climate funds, although many other funds exist. Only looks at bilateral funds, rather than money contributed to regional organisations or multiple countries at once.

    Now that Cop29 has come to an end amid predictable controversy, we can be sure that South Africa’s ruling African National Congress will be one of the big winners when it comes to the spoils. And what spoils – because the rich countries, including the UK, have pledged to pay £240 billion per year by 2035 to help poorer countries confront global warming. This, the UN (among others) has crowed, represents a tripling of the previous target.

    Granted, the devil will lie in the details – critics have already pointed out that there is no accounting for inflation in the £240 billion. Greta Thunberg is not alone in denouncing it as hot air.

    But as the particulate dust settles behind the scenes, recipients and donors have already launched furious lobbying operations to influence who gives what and who gets what.

    When it comes to contributors, the UK comes only second to the US in terms of pledges, with the UK committed to give £7.7 billion and the US £8.4 billion. Germany follows with £6.9 billion, Japan with £4.9 billion and then France with £4.3 billion, according to Climate Funds Update (CFU), which monitors the myriad climate finance initiatives.

    UK has contributed large portion of climate financing

    Proportion of climate funds contributions
    Proportion
    of climate funding
    United States
    17%
    United Kingdom
    16%
    Germany
    14%
    Japan
    10%
    France
    9%
    Norway
    7%
    Canada
    4%
    Sweden
    4%
    Source: Climate Funds Update. CFU tracks 27-major climate funds, although countries may also contribute bilaterally or through other funds which aren't tracked.

    One of the reasons delegates settled on a deadline of 2035 is because they wanted to “Trump-proof” the agreement and it seems highly unlikely Donald Trump will be bound by previous pledges.

    That almost certainly means that Sir Keir Starmer’s government will lead the developed nations by some considerable margin when it comes to doling out climate change finance.

    Energy Secretary Ed Miliband hailed the Cop29 package as “critical” if they are to “drive forward the clean energy transition…essential for jobs and growth in Britain” He added: “We pushed for ambition in Baku and have restored the UK back to a position of global climate leadership.”

    Last year, Miliband’s predecessor Claire Coutinho announced that the UK was the first country in the G20 to halve its carbon emissions, from 660 million tons in 1971 to 319 tons in 2022.

    This should be set against the fact that the UK is currently the sixth largest world economy, with GDP worth £2.9 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund.

    Just one place above the UK, however, is India, with an economy valued at £3.1 trillion. But according to the CFU, it is also the biggest recipient of climate finance at £1.2 billion.

    Following India is Brazil, then the sub-Saharan region, Indonesia, South Africa, Morocco, Bangladesh, Latin America, and then China, the world’s second-largest economy.

    It is exactly these regions that saw a jump in climate finance between 2021 and 2022, according to Telegraph analysis of figures from the Climate Policy Initiative.

    The biggest increase — 46.38 per cent — was in East Asia and the Pacific. Sub-Saharan Africa observed the second biggest increase at 45.43 per cent.

    China remains a developing country, according to the UN, but it had contributed around £27 billion in climate finance by 2021, according to the thinktank Center for Global Development. But much of this is wrapped up in China’s controversial Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative, which has been accused of acting as a quid pro quo for Beijing hoovering up natural resources across the developing world.

    What China and India also share, however, is that they are among the world’s largest polluters. China alone accounts for nearly 30 percent of global emissions, thanks to its reliance on coal.

    South Africa is one of the middle ranking polluters thanks in part to its coal-fired power stations and it is these power stations that have raised alarm bells about climate finance corruption.

    Transparency International (TI), which helps highlight corruption, has published a series of reports that raise uncomfortable questions about where this finance actually ends up. It has warned that “billions of dollars…could…disappear through graft or negligence” and one of the key elements of climate finance delivery is through Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs).

    These partnerships are meant to help countries transition from coal to green energy by engaging with and focusing on poorer communities, and there is £37 million allocated to doing so. But TI has warned that when it examined JEPT programmes in South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam, it found “that corruption is a very real threat”.

    The case of Eskom and de Ruyter was, said TI, “a prime example” of the risks associated with vast sums of money being funnelled into these countries.

    And when you look at the smaller countries who have received the largest climate finance packages per capita, you can see that many score poorly on Transparency’s corruption index.

    Corruption Perceptions Index 2023: The 10 worst countries

    Country
    Score (out of 100)

    Somalia
    11

    Venezuela
    13

    Syria
    13

    South Sudan
    13

    Yemen
    16

    North Korea
    17

    Nicaragua
    17

    Haiti
    17

    Equatorial Guinea
    17

    Turkmenistan
    18

    The TI Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which is widely respected, uses data on bribery, corruption, nepotism, rule of law and transparency to rank countries.

    The Maldives, which Telegraph analysis shows has received climate finance of £120.9 million, and the Comoros Islands, which received £77.9 million, both scored poorly on corruption.

    But there is an unhappy confluence between those worst affected by climate change and those with the worst record when it comes to corruption.

    Among those worst affected are those in the sub-Saharan region, including Chad, Mali, Liberia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Yet Somalia ranks worst on the CPI with Chad, Sudan, and the Congo all high up the TI list for the most corrupt countries.

    But these countries will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes for a slice of the pie before COP30, which will be held in Brazil, looms into view next November.

    The new Trump administration will likely turn its back on Cop30 and they are not alone. Argentina’s new far-Right leader, Javier Milei, has called climate change a “socialist lie.”

    New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch recently told Starmer that she also rejects the consensus. Meanwhile, the UK starts to look like a climate change cash machine.

    So, what is increasingly clear, is that while scientists are warning us our climate is breaking down, so is the political consensus about how to tackle this problem. Or whether, in some cases, the problem even exists.

    *********************************************

    2 hrs ago

    Straight from the poor in Britain, to the Swiss bank accounts of wealthy and corrupt officials and politicians in developing countries.

    2 hrs ago

    Not all of it. Some will go to German wind turbine manufacturers and Chinese solar panel manufacturers.

    Comment by Shropshire Lass.
    2 hrs ago

    Contributions per working adult:

    US: £33

    Japan: £39

    France: £96

    Germany: £108

    UK: £150

    Why are we paying 40 to 450% more than all other G7 countries? Even though we have the lowest emissions?

    1. "Why are we paying 40 to 450% more than all other G7 countries? Even though we have the lowest emissions?"
      Because your prime minister is a cunt.

      1. Canute had a point (to show his courtiers that he couldn't control the waves). There is no point whatsoever to Milioaf.

  119. Tits up Warning!

    Britain’s public sector accounts will not be signed off by the official audit watchdog for the first time amid turmoil over council finances.

    “Inadequate” figures on the vast majority of local authority finances has led the National Audit Office (NAO) to “disclaim” the nation’s Whole Government Accounts (WGA), which combines the accounts of more than 10,000 public bodies.

    The regulator warned of “severe backlogs” in audits of local authority finances, which meant it did not have “sufficient, appropriate evidence” to form an opinion on the entire WGA.

    Just 43 of England’s 426 local authorities submitted data to the WGA that was considered reliable.

    1. I yearn for the Old Days when council officials and expenditures were overseen by a competent Town Clerk. The National Audit Office has known for decades that council expenditures are not properly audited.

      During my lifetime I have watched the transformation of councils, whether City, District or Metropolitan into imitations of government. Thus we have a Chief Executive on a vast salary and an Executive comprising all sorts of crooked individuals, often old retired men who failed in business, most with some personal financial interest in decision making. Corruption is rife and the days of altruistic intentions by councillors are a distant memory.

      1. The Audit Commission which did a reasonable job Auditing District Councils. The commission was abolished by a Conservative Minister*. I worked with a lot of District Auditors who were as straight as a die and would not compromise their opinion and would deliver adverse audit opinions if the evidence supported it.

        * Eric Pickles whose local authority once received an adverse audit report I believe…

        1. I agree. The point I was making is that councillors see themselves as ‘cabinet members’ imitating government and carrying out there petty party political squabbles under the guise of authority. Most are useless.

          I would suggest anyone attend a council planning committee as I have been obliged to do over the years to witness the shenanigans. Most would assuredly emerge in shock.

        2. Those were the days.
          I spoke as I found, and lost my job or got moved to other areas several times as a result.

          Oddly enough, many people who lost their jobs because of what I said/wrote were happy to keep in touch.
          Some even offered me new employment.
          Why?
          Because they were the ones who got fired, rather than those in power who should have been fired as a result of my reports and they appreciated that I didn't back down. They wanted an honest opinion on the businesses they had taken over.

          The people in power always protect their own.

      2. I think it's still true that there is altruism at parish council level. After all, we aren't paid, not even expenses.

  120. Tits up Warning!

    Britain’s public sector accounts will not be signed off by the official audit watchdog for the first time amid turmoil over council finances.

    “Inadequate” figures on the vast majority of local authority finances has led the National Audit Office (NAO) to “disclaim” the nation’s Whole Government Accounts (WGA), which combines the accounts of more than 10,000 public bodies.

    The regulator warned of “severe backlogs” in audits of local authority finances, which meant it did not have “sufficient, appropriate evidence” to form an opinion on the entire WGA.

    Just 43 of England’s 426 local authorities submitted data to the WGA that was considered reliable.

  122. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Peace is apparently closer than ever in Lebanon. So expect more bloodshed.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Israeli cabinet to accept an ‘outline for a cease-fir’ with Hezbollah on Tuesday night, raising hopes that the fighting in Lebanon could soon be suspended after more than a year of conflict.

    ‘The length of the cease-fire will depend on what happens in Lebanon,’ Mr Netanyahu said in a televised address. ‘With the full understanding of the United States, we are preserving full military freedom of action – if Hezbollah breaks the agreement and seeks to arm itself, we will attack.’

    On Sunday, Hezbollah sent some 250 rockets into Israel. It was one of the largest attacks since the group started firing missiles in support of Hamas more than a year ago. One local council in northern Israel announced that children would now be taught only in classrooms less than 30 seconds from a bomb shelter. The day before, Israel had dropped a massive ‘bunker-buster’ to bring down a tower block in the heart of Beirut, reportedly targeting a senior Hezbollah commander. As many as 29 people were killed, and 65 injured, most, if not all, civilians: it seems the Hezbollah commander was not at home.

    In Gaza, Joe Biden has a bad record of announcing ceasefires, only to see the bloodshed continue and even intensify. Perhaps he was trying to bounce the parties – Hamas and Israel – into making an agreement they were close to but had not quite achieved. Or perhaps Benjamin Netanyahu was playing him for a fool, daring the Americans to cut off military aid if he didn’t stop the bombing. Either way, it was the opposite of ‘talk softly but carry a big stick’ – a personal humiliation for Biden and an embarrassment for the United States.

    In Lebanon, there has been no premature presidential announcement, just a briefing by US officials to Friday’s New York Times. The terms of the deal are said to be as follows: the Israeli military withdraws from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah moves its heavy weapons north of the Litani River, about 10 kilometres from the border. Hezbollah undertakes not to smuggle more weapons into Lebanon. There is a 60-day transition period, during which the Lebanese army would move back to areas close to the border (they fled when Israeli tanks started rolling in). Monitoring of the ceasefire is led by the American military.

    Several problems are immediately obvious with these arrangements. Are Hezbollah really going to accept the word of an American general as the arbiter of whether the truce has been breached? And as they try to rebuild, it will be difficult for them to resist the temptation of bringing in more weapons from Syria and Iran. It also seems unlikely, from past performance, that either the Lebanese army or the UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, will be capable of stopping Hezbollah from sneaking back into the border area. UNIFIL’s mission is to keep the border demilitarised – under the terms of the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war – but Hezbollah were able to build their tunnels without much trouble: the mouth of one emerged just a few yards from a UN base.

    There’s another problem for the deal as leaked. Lebanon wants France to be part of the committee to monitor the ceasefire. But Netanyahu was apparently furious when France announced that it would act on the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for him. Biden reportedly spoke to Emmanuel Macron, telling him Netanyahu was right to be angry: it was not possible, he said, to implement a deal while also trying to arrest one of the signatories.

    According to the US officials’ briefing, the ceasefire comes with a get-out clause for the Israelis, contained in a side letter. This letter apparently gives Israel assurances that the US would support military action if Hezbollah did start moving back into the border area, if weapons smuggling resumed, or if there was an ‘imminent threat’ from Lebanese territory. Israel could take action if the Lebanese military failed to deal with the threat and after consultations with the US. The Israeli media put a rather different spin on this. One newspaper said the outgoing defence minister, Yoav Gallant, had made clear that any violation of the ceasefire would prompt Israel to ‘immediately’ take down three buildings in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut.

    Stopping this campaign will be politically difficult for Netanyahu

    The deal is being mediated by a US special envoy, Amos Hochstein. He has been working at it for more than a year and, according to some reports, had threatened to resign if Netanyahu did not accept the proposals. CNN quoted ‘a source familiar with the matter’ as saying Netanyahu had finally agreed to the deal ‘in principle’ but still had ‘some reservations’. This sounds very much like what happened many times in the Gaza mediation – talk of progress, hints from the Israeli prime minister, then a last-minute collapse. Netanyahu’s final decision will depend on two things: whether Israel has yet achieved its war aims in Lebanon; and domestic politics.

    Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah has been, from its point of view, a spectacular success. Despite Sunday’s barrage, Hezbollah’s missiles are no longer the threat they once were – many have been destroyed, along with the tunnels that housed them. And Israel cut a swathe through Hezbollah’s most loyal and effective cadres with its innovative pager bombs. It also killed ten of the 12 members of the group’s Jihad Council; it assassinated the charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah. One report says his replacement is hiding in Iran, afraid that setting foot in Lebanon will bring down another bunker-buster.

    But stopping this campaign will be politically difficult for Netanyahu. His governing coalition could fall apart without the backing of ultra-nationalists, who have been waiting a long time to hit Hezbollah. They include the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who posted on X that any ceasefire agreement would be ‘a big mistake – a historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah’. He wrote: ‘Precisely now, when Hezbollah is beaten and longs for a ceasefire, we cannot stop… We must continue until the absolute victory!’

    Whether there’s a ceasefire also depends on Iran. Hezbollah was always Iran’s militia in Lebanon. With Hezbollah in such disarray, Tehran must be presumed to have put the group even more tightly under its control. You might think that Iran would want a ceasefire now, as quickly as possible, before more of Hezbollah is destroyed. That would give them a chance to preserve something of what used to be called their ‘strategic deterrent’ against Israel. But Tehran has more than just Hezbollah’s position to consider.

    Iranian officials say Iran is preparing to ‘respond’ to Israel’s attack on it last month. That strike, which destroyed a large part of Iran’s air defences, is part of a steady escalation. If it continues, Iran will need to use Hezbollah. And – in a separate, astonishing development — Iran has been accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump during the presidential election campaign. If true, that was rash of the mullahs: Trump holds grudges. Will it push him to join Israel in an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme, its oil facilities, or the leadership itself? If so, any ceasefire in Lebanon could be a fleeting achievement, a prelude to the wider war in the Middle East threatened ever since Hamas attacked Israel a year ago.

    WRITTEN BY
    Paul Wood
    Paul Wood was a BBC foreign correspondent for 25 years, in Belgrade, Athens, Cairo, Jerusalem, Kabul and Washington DC. He has won numerous awards, including two US Emmys for his coverage of the Syrian civil war

    2. Sounds almost like USA has reached some kind of 'rapprochement' with Iran. Coming days and weeks will tell.

      1. Biden might have some parting agreement with Iran but I don't see Trump agreeing with anything Biden achieves.

          3. If deals around smelting mean they stink, perhaps.
            He’s hurt his own country’s end-user production.

    3. This so called peace in Lebanon is entirely manufactured to ensure Biden’s supposed ‘legacy’.

      God knows what this ‘legacy’ is costing the US taxpayer and what the demented old fool has promised the evil bastards in Lebanon. Expect hostilities to resume when Trump resumes office.

  123. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Nigel Farage ought to terrify the Tories. He has terrified them many times over the past decades. But until now, he hasn’t had the force of the US president, the richest man in the world, and the global online right behind him.

    As the struggle to become the dominant voice on the British right intensifies, Kemi Badenoch and the Conservative party look like yesterday’s news by comparison.

    Who is to say Farage cannot supplant the Tories as Trump supplanted the old Republican elite or Marine Le Pen supplanted the Gaullists?

    The latest example of how rapidly the political weather is changing was Elon Musk’s rant that the ‘people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state’. Along with a portion of his 205 million followers on X, Musk backed pub landlord Michael Westwood’s petition which stated that, because Keir Starmer has ‘gone back on his promises,’ Parliament must be dissolved.

    Even by Musk’s standards, the campaign is absurd. We are not governed by American billionaires, any more than we are governed by tyrannical policemen. We are a parliamentary democracy where petitions are a sideshow. I seem to remember there was one in 2019 to ‘revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU’. It received 6,103,056 signatures – I may even have signed it myself.

    Reader, we did not remain in the EU.

    Unless Starmer decides to go early, the next election will be in September 2029. Nevertheless, Westwood had two million signatures at the time of writing – an impressive total. Labour politicians cannot just ignore this. The narrative that Starmer breaks his promises has taken hold everywhere from the Corbynistas to the Faragists.

    Labour must surely know, too, that like the Eye of Sauron, the global right focuses on one target at a time. A few years ago, it was Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand. Now it is Keir Starmer’s UK.

    But contrary though it may seem, the Tories ought to be more concerned.

    Farage is their rival. Reform is taking their votes. It’s not just that Conservative politicians have never been able to mount an effective attack on him: Farage and Reform look now as if they represent the future of right-wing politics.

    With Trump’s victory, the leader of Reform is more likely to be invited to the White House than the leader of the Conservative party.

    Musk and his network do not amplify Kemi Badenoch. They amplify Farage, and Tommy Robinson, and the causes they espouse.

    Sometimes you need to take a deep breath and take stock of how times are changing. When Farage went on GB News to discuss the police questioning of Allison Pearson, to quote one example, Elon Musk was watching. ‘This is insane,’ he cried. ‘Make Orwell Fiction Again!’

    How easily we have become used to the world’s richest man and confidant of the US president watching a small UK TV show, hosted by the leader of a party of five MPs, and furiously amplifying its message to a global audience.

    The Tory party is so used to having its back covered by the Tory press that it seems lost in a new world where Musk and Trump cheer on its rival on the right and give Farage a far greater global presence than its leaders.

    Peter Mandelson, who reacts to changes in the political wind faster than a well-oiled weathercock, can see it. In his role as a Starmer outrider, he said that Labour should ‘redouble its efforts’ to find common ground with Musk.

    I doubt accommodation with a nationalist America, that wants tariffs and a cut to its European defence commitment, is possible. And any deal with Musk, let alone with Farage, would infuriate centre-left opinion.

    But Mandelson is right to see Farage as a representative of the dominant force on the global right. Who is to say Farage cannot supplant the Tories as Trump supplanted the old Republican elite or Marine Le Pen supplanted the Gaullists? Across the west, traditional centre-right parties are either being replaced or taken over by the radical right.

    The power of the Republican establishment began to fall in 2013 when its leaders said they would accept legalising the status of millions of undocumented migrants in the US. Trump saw his opportunity and used the backlash to destroy the old regime.

    David Cameron promised to reduce immigration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. Brexit was meant to secure our borders. None of the promises came good and, whether you look on it with approval or dread, the opportunities for a radical realignment here are clear to see.

    Never believe complacent English voices who assure you that ‘it can’t happen here’. It can always happen here. There is no guarantee that the Conservatives will continue to dominate right-wing politics.

    Nick Tyrone, a Lib Dem activist turned political researcher, made the point for me when he said that, after Trump’s victory, everyone in British politics was comfortable with their roles except the Tories.

    The narrative that Starmer breaks his promises has taken hold everywhere, from the Corbynistas to the Faragists

    Farage and Reform are Trump’s friends and imitators. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are anti-Trump parties. Labour is in its heart anti-Trump too, of course. But it can also say that it is the party of government that will cut a deal with the devil if it’s in the national interest.

    Where is the Conservative party? What is its point? It perhaps takes Liberal Democrats to see how fragile the Tory position has become, as they have been the beneficiaries of its decline. At the last election, they took seats that had always been Tory. In Henley, Chichester, the Cotswolds, Esher and even Tunbridge Wells for goodness’ sake, moderate people on good incomes abandoned a party that was once their natural home.

    This Tory loss of so much of the respectable southern middle classes is the most significant political change in years. The fact that the media has largely ignored it does not make it any less significant.

    If the Tories go ever more Trumpian, no one will be more delighted than Ed Davey. If they move to the centre, Nigel Farage will celebrate.

    You can’t appeal to Esher and Essex at the same time. The last people who should want Starmer to call an early election should be the Conservative politicians who will be torn to pieces in the process.

    Nick Cohen
    WRITTEN BY
    Nick Cohen
    Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book

    1. Why is it not surprising to see the words 'Peter Mandelson' & 'a well-oiled weathercock' in the same sentence?

          1. Bad boy! (BTW I thought rug munchers were of the Sapphic tendency? Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life…)

          4. Oh, you're a bit behind the times. That was in the days before routine depilation. No rugs to munch on anymore.

          7. Reminds me of the Men at Work song ‘Down Under’….
            I said do you speak my language? She just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich (?)……the possibilities are endless….

    2. Despite all this 'good stuff', which I dont deny, I'm starting to feel a little ambivalent about Our Nige.

      He's missed a couple of major opportunities on policy issues – probably a bit too detailed for his attention span?

      His relationship with Trump is very promising, however, he really cant be seen to be just a nodding acolyte and I'd like to see how that relationship translates to the benefit of UK PLC.

      I'm still supporting him though…..

      1. Ultimately I don't think he is really up for it, he has said words to that effect in the Winston Marshall interview.

          1. Probably lost interest now that he realises the limits on his parliamentary influence and is wondering ho he will survive five years in Clacton.

          4. Teen language, G4..means ‘for sure’…often ‘fo shizzle ma nizzle’ which I’m told means ‘for sure, my man’. Go figure…🤣

          5. I’m impressed yo down with the kids, KJ, perhaps you could offer a translation service for old farts like me??

          6. I’m an old fart myself G4…these sayings became some sort of family heirlooms when young uns were teens. Happy to translate if req’d..Kate x

      3. Hear you G4…my spidey sense telling me it's more of a one-sided relationship, and I think NF knows it – I still respect him, too.

    3. "Reader, we did not remain in the EU." If you believe that, Nick, I have a bridge to sell you. Look at the amount of EU legislation to which we're signed up, the VAT we're paying, the status of Northern Ireland … and that's only for starters.

  124. YouTuber in Manchester attacked and chased by unhinged keffiyeh wearing woman, her "you're a racist" crusty punk friend joins in. Watch the exchange unfold. This is a good example of how far down a rabbit hole of anything goes a political ideology can take people. Notice also the strange performative vocal affect the main antagonist has adopted for her personality. Also the utter glee on her face as she initially sets about her business. Dutch fans of Feyenoord FC are in Manchester, imagine the response if this was a couple of their lads up to this.

    https://youtu.be/rRlODGHSZbE?si=YLtCEfiDQRndLPvV&t=11m55s

    3. I'm not sure I'd want to feature in someone's amateur documentary/report. On the other hand, those two ***** should be off the streets, along with the cross-eyed Scouser.

      1. My current understanding of the law is people are free to film in a public place, if you don't want to be in the film get out of the way.
        I don't think there is any provision for setting about the camera holder and their equipment.

          1. In this instance you might notice they start shouting at him, he goes over. However as things develop she comes at him.

  125. Labour has just let slip the true cost of net zero

    The country that birthed [sic] the industrial revolution now has the world's highest electricity prices and only the ghost of an industrial sector

    Annabel Denham, Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    26 November 2024 6:21pm GMT

    Les jeux sont faits, Ed Miliband. The chips are down, the game is up. We knew Labour was no closer to solving the energy trilemma than scientists are to explaining dark matter. That, for now, we cannot have net-zero emissions, security of supply and affordability. We knew that using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2 was less a display of moral leadership on climate change than it was brazen hypocrisy.

    Perhaps most importantly, we knew that the pursuit of net-zero policies, regardless of cost, would impact our lives in ways the gentleman in Whitehall could not possibly foresee. It already is, as anyone who has driven into a clean air zone can attest. Yet the ruling class insisted on living in some alternate reality where there were no trade-offs; just cheap, abundant, secure renewables.

    So we should thank Bill Esterson, Labour chair of the Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, for letting the cat out of the bag. "We will all have to change our lives" if we are to decarbonise the grid by 2030, he has just admitted. Keir Starmer is offering no such candour; at Cop29, the climate jamboree many world leaders had the good sense to snub, the Prime Minister not only set us another target (an 81 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035), but peddled the line that he "won't be telling people how to behave".

    This will surely only be true in the most literal sense. Impose congestion charges in British cities, and people might be forced to travel by other means, or not at all. Foist mandates on car manufacturers to sell a certain number of EVs on penalty of hefty fines, and they may be forced to cut sales of petrol vehicles, pushing prices up and consumers out. Introduce green levies on energy bills – they now make up 16 per cent of electricity bills – and households will have to cut spending elsewhere. Did the Government "tell" us to change our behaviour? No, it just left us with no alternative.

    And we are only in the foothills of the transition. Yes, the UK last year became the first country to halve its emissions since 1990 – a milestone about which the eco-zealots remained surprisingly quiet. But this was achieved by accelerating existing trends, such as abandoning much domestic production, and we could rely on renewables because fossil fuels were there to provide baseload power. The next half will be far more painful – though the climate cult will likely dismiss such concerns, insisting that clean energy sources are "cheap" and jobs will be provided aplenty.

    Clearly, when wind turbines are running the marginal cost of energy produced is close to zero, whilst energy produced by gas has a positive marginal cost because we have to purchase the fuel. But gas-fired power stations are easy to build and link to the grid. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are costly to install and maintain, especially offshore. They don't have a long life, are in places far from population centres, and are expensive to link to the grid. They also need backup when the wind doesn't blow, or if it blows too hard. But these issues are hidden by government subsidy and delusional eco-hype.

    Yet the Tories are hardly in a position to challenge it – assuming they want to. The timetable they set for the transition to clean energy was excessively ambitious. They did nothing about the 2008 Climate Change Act, failed to dismantle the supposedly independent Climate Change Committee, and enshrined the Net Zero by 2050 target in law. As a result, the country that birthed the industrial revolution and created the oil refineries and steelworks that transformed people's lives, now has the world's highest electricity prices – and only the ghost of an industrial sector.

    Some 199 years ago, the first steam locomotive carried passengers in the North East [well, almost corrrect]. Why did this breakthrough happen on our small island? For the same reason we pioneered large factories, mass electrification and gas for cooking: because we had cheap coal. No country in the world has ever prospered without affordable and abundant energy. That Labour fails to accept this is as alarming as its belief you can grow an economy by lavishing money on the public sector. It is making us poorer by the day, telling us we're imagining it – and then giving an exasperated sigh when we complain.

    "The clean energy transition is unstoppable," said the fanatical Miliband yesterday, as Vauxhall announced the closure of its Luton factory. "Unstoppable because clean energy is the route to energy security. Unstoppable because it is the economic opportunity of our time." A noble lie is still a lie.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/ed-miliband-hammering-final-nail-in-britains-coffin-labour

    1. Worlds most expensive? If you include all of the taxes and other gubbins, we just paid the equivalent of 13p per kWh in October. Overnight rate was 7.6 cents/kWh.

      It would have been even less if Trudeau kept his tax hands out.

        1. Ouch. Apart from politicians I bet that not many people have seen their take home pay match those increases.

    2. It's clear they intend WE should change our lives (but they won't be affected, natch), but SHOULD we? What's the point? It won't make any difference to the amount of plant food that China and others (Germany, I'm looking at you) are belching out.

  126. Thought for the day.
    When you and I were young, a mandate was an authority to do something.
    Now it is a requirement to do something.
    How times have changed.
    And not for the better.

    1. My only dislike of the video is his lack of geological knowledge. We live on the Earth's crust, the weathered bit of it perhaps, but I can see across the valley to un-weathered outcrops of the crust.

  128. Just pointing out that we are suffering a vibe-cession. That 's what our beloved finance minister told us – we are doing well financially but people have just lost the vibe.

    You thought that Trudeau was a few screws loose, the rest of his crew are even worse.

      1. They are talking about countervailing tariffs on the US as a response to Trumps call of 25 percent tariffs.

        Do that and we won't even be able to afford the screws to screw ourselves.

  130. Strange thought hit me ..

    Last week I started to buy the DT, the first time really since my parrot died a few years ago ..

    My old DT was a good broadsheet spread out fully in the bottom of his cage to catch his droppings , I always made sure a political face was facing upwards .. usually Mrs May or some one slimier.. but I enjoyed the paper , but was saddened when a lot of the old journos were replaced.

    Shocking price now .. costing £3.50 , once again Moh who has no time for for newspapers except the crossword .
    I used to love the smell of newsprint and fresh paper , and now stretching my arms out wide , to fold and hear it crinkle is something I realised I had missed .

    I won't buy it regularly , but will sometimes.

    Our marriage, batches and despatches have all appeared at one time or the other .. The last one was my much missed aunt , twin sister of my father , who featured in a huge centre obit over 11 years ago .

    Times change , I guess not many people can afford the price of a departure/ birth or whatever in the DT.

    I liked the article recommending a short stroll after the evening meal .. we try to do that during lighter evenings with the dog . This evening it is teeming down with rain, the only time the brolly will be erected is when Pip is encouraged outside into the muddy garden for his late evening wee.

    The DT.. £3.50 v sending a Christmas card to Australia ..£3.50 .. I guess things balance out!

    3. Well done, Maggie. I remember the Daily Smellygraph being bought along with the Daily Mirror by my dad every day, back in the 60s. "To see the balance." he would say. I preferred the D Mirror's cartoons to be honest.

      1. Hi Mm
        Funnily enough , have always read the DT, and even when I was small, Dad always read it when overseas versions were gossamer thin like airmail paper .

        This may sound a bit cranky , but Dad liked the news paper smoothed and not disrupted before he had read it , not left untidy, I also used to get annoyed when the paper was left carelessly uneven. Just the same as toothpaste squeezed from the middle.. I am only fussy about very few things .

        Dad liked proper news , as well as good cricket reports as well as the crossword .

        My mother and younger sister used to fly through the enigmatic clues , very competitive , and Dad would just bite his tongue .

    4. "Last week I started to buy the DT, the first time really since my parrot died a few years ago .."

      That is just the very best opening line I have ever read.

  131. If the election petitioners had their way, Farage would pile up the votes

    July’s vote should have happened this month. Rishi Sunak’s impetuous decision is one Tories will long regret

    Philip Johnston
    26 November 2024 4:21pm GMT

    Once again, I look to the BBC’s drama Wolf Hall: the Mirror and the Light for inspiration and a reminder of some of the less remembered moments in our history. Sunday’s episode (and how nice to have to wait for each one rather than binge) concerned the insurrection during Henry VIII’s reign, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

    This was an uprising in the north of England against the king’s break with Rome. There was also popular anger over the rising tax burden, the cost of food and the enclosure of common land. In times of autocratic rule, one way of seeking a change in policy was to petition the king and hope he was in the mood to compromise. Magna Carta was essentially a petition in which the barons made certain demands of the Crown.

    The alternative, should the monarch refuse to listen, was an armed rebellion. Our history is littered with such events, among them the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; the Cade rebellion in 1450; and Kett’s 1549 uprising in Norfolk. They rarely ended well.

    The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 was a serious threat to Henry’s rule since the rebel army numbered more than 50,000, far greater than the impecunious king could muster. After capturing York and Pontefract, they drafted a petition with a list of their demands only to be duped into an agreement that unravelled, culminating in the grisly execution of the ring leaders. The body of Robert Aske, the one-eyed lawyer who emerged as the “chief captain”, was gibbeted in a cage and hanged in chains outside Clifford’s Tower in York, where his remains were left to rot as a warning to others.

    Taking on the role of a latter-day Aske, though hopefully without the gruesome consequences, is pub owner Michael Westwood, who posted an online petition last Thursday calling for another general election. He expected to garner the support of a few thousand disgruntled voters, but by now it has over 2.6 million signatures.

    Time was, not very long ago, that these petitions were on paper and had to be wheeled up Downing Street on trollies or delivered by van to the House of Commons. These took longer to collect and required greater effort, but some dwarf Mr Westwood’s. In 1945 a petition presented on the behalf of the British Federation of Old Age Pensioners claimed six million signatures and asked for legislation to improve the condition of OAPs. This was equivalent in number to 18 per cent of the electorate.

    The biggest of all was the 1842 petition presented by the Chartist movement and containing 3.3 million signatures – around a third of the adult population – demanding universal (albeit male) suffrage. With an electorate of 48 million, Mr Westwood’s petition still has some way to go to match those, but he may yet.

    Of course, even if he does it will make no more difference than the Brexit petition – signed by six million people and calling for Britain to stay in the EU – did back in 2019. I wonder how many of those demanding another election signed that one. Not a lot.

    Mr Westwood’s petition states that “the current Labour Government has gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead-up to the last election.” If telling fibs and half-truths were to be the trigger for a new election we would be going to the polling stations on a weekly basis, whoever was in office.

    For good or ill, we have a first-past-the-post parliamentary system that bestows disproportionate power on the winner. Labour won a majority of more than 170 with just 33 per cent of the vote on a 60 per cent turnout, the lowest level of popular support in modern times.

    Sir Keir Starmer claims a “mandate for change” which he does not possess despite his total command of the Commons. This democratic deficit is especially noticeable when the Government makes a complete pig’s ear of everything, as this one is doing.

    The Prime Minister says he is less than five months into the job, so give him a chance; yet the trajectory of travel and the policies already introduced will make everything worse. It would be to the country’s great advantage if he could be removed now but sadly that is not possible.

    Of course, we would be having an election now had Rishi Sunak not made the suicidal decision to call the election for July, 20 points behind in the polls. Everyone, including his own Cabinet, expected the vote to be this month, probably last Thursday.

    Had he waited he could have fought the campaign on a record of lower inflation, reduced interest rates and reasonable growth prospects. The Tories would still have lost because the country was weary of the shenanigans inside the party, but probably not by as much.

    Instead of losing 251 seats they might have clung on to a further 100 had Nigel Farage not returned to lead Reform. He would have been away this month helping Donald Trump in his presidential bid.

    The early election was a strategic blunder of historic proportions. Why did he do it? In his recent book, political journalist Tim Shipman, says a “punch drunk” Sunak ignored the advice of his campaign advisers because he was at the end of his tether. “He was not enjoying office. In the end, his approach was, ‘Nothing else is working. Just bring it on.’”

    It was presented to the Cabinet as a fait accompli. If those were his true motives then I am amazed his party is not more angry with him.

    We do not know the counter-factual. The defeat might have been worse still, though I doubt it because Reform would not have done as well without Farage. But if there were to be another election now, having seen how bad Labour has been and with the country still angry with the Tories, the chief beneficiary would unquestionably be Reform, though the party remains hamstrung by the electoral system.

    Under proportional representation, Reform would have won 94 seats rather than five in July. If Mr Westwood were to get his election then Labour would probably still win, so the problem would remain. Under PR, however, Starmer would not have a majority and would have to cobble together a coalition with the Lib Dems and Greens. The combined Right would be a force to reckon with.

    So the petition that would have the greatest impact would be a demand for proportional representation. In fact, there is one currently on the parliamentary website. It has 13,000 signatures.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/if-election-petitioners-had-their-way-farage-pile-up-votes

    1. As ever, the government of the day lied to Aske. They promised him pardon then arrested him and executed him. Plus cela change …

        1. Many are (big admirers). It is probably a failing on my part, but I find her prose leaden and convoluted and, though having persevered (ploughed through) much of it on recommendations from those I respect, I found myself terminally bored (and I'm a person hard to bore).

          2. I'm sure the historical ones are, AA. Hefty tomes, indeed. She's also written some other genres – erm – see Belle above.

      3. She was clever , her bones were those of a resurrected mummified cat .. she knew many things .I think she must have been terrifying as a person ..

        Who was her muse .. a flicker of a ghostly shadow who guided her hand across her vellum ..

        Sorry but her writing makes me shudder.

  132. 397397+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    For years many were deemed to be "fruitcakes" that title being among the nicer names laid on them by the very peoples that gave succour to these treacherous foreign terrorist, this done by the polling station and their odiously misguided party support ever since "miranda" laid out the welcome mat to the dross of the world.

    Many of us wanted controlled immigration, many more of us settled for uncontrolled immigration, with a very rich vein of criminality many of whom fed on the nations children's innocence, no matter as long as their party obtained the power seat.

    https://x.com/AngelInvestGuy/status/1861361468664336398

      1. Some people on their way to court for trial, I understand. Or perhaps it was emerging from court afterwards.

    2. It's a long read…

      The BBC fact-checking unit accused of political bias

      BBC Verify employs 60 staff, but its record of providing 'impartial, independent analysis and information' is questionable

      George Chesterton
      26 November 2024 7:07pm GMT

      In a culture saturated with misinformation and fake news there would, on the face of it, appear little to argue against the creation of a dedicated BBC fact-checking unit in March 2023. But 18 months later questions are being asked not only of BBC Verify's efficacy but of its guiding principles. Can it provide a service valuable enough to justify its resources and staffing? And do its actions too often result in even less faith in the news?

      BBC Verify employs 60 staff including analysis editor Ros Atkins and social media investigations correspondent Marianna Spring to, in the words of CEO of BBC News Deborah Turnesss, "form a highly specialised operation with a range of forensic investigative skills and open-source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities at their fingertips". It was personally championed by Tim Davie, the director general, who described the unit as "critical", in a speech delivered after its launch last year, and said it would "increase understanding of how we go about finding the truth".

      A year and half on, critics argue that BBC Verify has serious problems: some accuse it of political bias, others of making too many errors or lacking clarity. More still, including ex BBC staff, are questioning its purpose, highlighting its inherent contradictions.

      "BBC Verify claims to represent a new gold-standard in BBC reporting but the frequency with which it has had to correct stories does not suggest that it is meeting these lofty aims," says Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC television.

      Last week Verify found itself involved in a controversy over the reporting of the farmers' protests against changes to inheritance tax announced in Rachel Reeves' budget. In its initial report on the debate over the number of farmers who could be impacted by the new rules, it quoted Dan Neidle, a lawyer and former Labour activist, as an "independent tax expert" and cited his claims as evidence that the government's estimate that as few as 500 farms would be affected was "likely" to be correct.

      The report dismissed a counterclaim by the Country Land and Business Association that as many as 70,000 farms could be affected (the association, which represents landowners, pointed out the BBC analysis failed to take account of the loss of business property relief, which covers farming machinery potentially worth hundreds of thousands of pounds).

      But the real problem arose when Sir Keir Starmer used BBC Verify's assertions to support the policy in a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, triggering accusations of political bias. The Verify story deleted the sentence that the number of farms affected was "likely to be around 500" without highlighting the fact that the amendment had been made. According to the BBC, the change was made before the prime minister spoke. It didn't exactly help that the story had to be corrected because the original mistakenly confused hectares with acres.

      By the end of the week, BBC Verify published a new article conceding that the figures were contentious but without any reference to Neidle, although it still backed the government's estimates and cited different sources to back up its analysis.

      The BBC spokesman said: "Dan Neidle's analysis wasn't removed – the below 500 figure was taken out for brevity as it was repetitive. The new piece is a deep dive on the numbers using analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and CenTax to explore the figures as thoroughly as possible in the light of the discussion. This article is clear we stand by our original assessment and it explains why."

      On suggestions of bias in favour of the government, a BBC spokesman said: "We've covered different points of view on this story and given an impartial, factual analysis of the numbers involved."

      The row over farmers' tax encapsulates a bigger question about Verify, given that its stated aim is "fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analysing data and – crucially – explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth", in that if its conclusions are unclear or inconclusive, what has the audience really gained?

      "The aim of BBC Verify is to provide impartial, independent analysis and information to audiences, using a range of sources," said a BBC spokesman.

      "Verify is a bit of an insult to the rest of the journalists at the BBC," says one source inside the Conservative Party, which has often found itself under the unit's spotlight. "Why do you need a special team to check facts – isn't that what all BBC journalists should be doing? They are filling a non-existent hole in the market. It's been heavily resourced but you look at the people involved and most look very junior. It feels patronising.

      "I don't know anyone in the media who takes it seriously," the source adds. "And those journalists probably feel slighted that here comes 28-year-old Marianna Spring who reportedly embellished her CV [when applying for a job in 2018] but is now the final arbiter of truth."

      In September 2023, months after BBC Verify was set up, a report in The New European claimed that Spring embellished her CV when applying for a job as a Moscow stringer for a US news site in 2018. She allegedly applied to Coda Story saying that she had worked alongside Sarah Rainsford, a BBC foreign correspondent, for the broadcaster's coverage of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It later transpired that she had only met Rainsford in a few social situations.

      Spring was then reported to have then sent an apology email to the editor, citing her own "awful misjudgment" and assuring her that she was "a brilliant reporter". The BBC declined to comment on the report.

      A month later, the corporation's reporting of the deaths at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on October 17 presented a major test for Verify. A breaking news report on the BBC News channel stated it was "it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes". Shortly afterwards, western countries including Britain concluded that the deaths were most likely to have come from a misfiring Islamic Jihad rocket, something reported by the BBC.

      Two days after the incident that killed several hundred people, a Verify video was reporting that the situation was "still unclear" and that there were "competing claims and counterclaims". Seven days after this, Verify produced a report looking at it again, which included the line "the exact cause of the blast is still contested", despite reporting the UK, US and French governments had attributed the deaths to Palestinian militants. More than 1,700 words of analysis of witness accounts, the bomb scene, expert views and videos of projectiles seen on the night, ended without conclusion. Verify said it was not able to establish the truth about the footage of the rocket or draw findings from what the reporters learnt from the crash site.

      A BBC spokesman said: "Without access to the site or physical evidence, most experts are of the view that it is hard to give a truly definitive verdict."

      "Maybe the hospital of Gaza made them more cautious and has led to them being less definitive but, if that's true, what's the point?" says the Conservative source. "I don't see what it's adding, other than a great big salary bill."

      Assumptions such as the one made in the moments after the blast mean the existence of Verify only adds to the spotlight on the BBC's own errors. Although not directly related to Verify, in January the BBC apologised for reporting unverified claims from Hamas that the IDF had carried out "summary executions" of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

      "BBC Verify seems to have an unhealthy obsession with stories related to Israel," says Cohen. "In the year of a UK election, a US Presidential election, the war in Ukraine, conflict and famine in Sudan, climate change threats and much more it is striking how often BBC Verify has focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict."

      A BBC spokesman said: "The BBC holds itself to high standards of impartial reporting and rejects the suggestion that we are biased in any way in this conflict. This is a challenging and polarising story to cover, and we are dedicated to providing impartial reporting for audiences in the UK and across the world."

      Verify endured further controversy over its coverage of the war in Gaza when it used an Iranian-backed journalist as its eyewitness source for the deaths of 122 Palestinians, who were killed when an aid convoy was mobbed. Verify quoted claims by Mahmoud Awadeyah, who works for the Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian outlet with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that Israeli soldiers had fired "purposefully" and "directly" at the men trying to get to their food on the trucks. His social media feed has reportedly featured posts that appear to praise a January 2023 terrorist attack that left seven Israelis dead.

      The BBC responded to this at the time with a statement to the Jewish Chronicle: "The BBC is not allowed access into Gaza, but we use a range of accounts from eyewitnesses and cross reference these against official statements and footage, including from the IDF. The fact that someone has expressed an opinion on social media doesn't automatically disqualify them from giving eye-witness testimony. It is simply wrong to claim an agenda on our part – and ignores much of the journalism we have done, including BBC Verify accounts of the Supernova festival massacre."

      In August this year reporters from Verify and the Global Disinformation Team published a report about the overthrow of the Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the main thrust of which was to assert that stories of religiously motivated Muslim attacks on the Hindu minority during the civil unrest in the country had been exaggerated by far-Right activists online, including Tommy Robinson.

      Although the activity of the far-Right online is not contested, a description in the report of an allegedly benign occupation of a Hindu temple in Chittagong during the civil unrest has been challenged as misleading and lacking context, since those the BBC described as Muslim students protecting the temple came from a madrasa founded by the radical Islamist party Hefazat-e-Islam known for its anti-Hindu extremism, something the BBC had itself reported on. This has led some to accuse Verify of playing down Islamist violence for fear of appearing Islamophobic. Verify admitted "Working out exactly what has happened in Bangladesh over the last few weeks has proved difficult." [Much easier in Gaza, eh!]

      A BBC spokesman said: "We stand by our journalism and don't accept that we played down anything."

      Any accusation of bias against the BBC has implications for Verify. The BBC's decision to refer to the transgender murderer of Jorge Martin Carreno in Oxfordshire as a woman throughout the coverage of the trial and sentencing in February this year generated more controversy. Scarlet Blake was a biological male who is serving a sentence in a male prison. The BBC did not even mention Blake was transgender in initial reports. The judge at the trial said upon sentencing: "You attributed your morbid interests to a split or dissociative personality… You adopted the persona of a cat. You talked about the difficulties you had had since transitioning in childhood to live as a woman and about your troubled relationship with your parents. All this was part of an elaborate attempt to rationalise what you had done and shift responsibility to others."

      It is argued by critics that if Verify is to have meaningful value to a broader understanding of the issues it should examine and explain the intricacies of such contentious cases. The suggestion is that by omission, Verify reveals the limitations of its scope by avoiding subjects it finds problematic.

      A BBC spokesman said: "Verify does not provide an analysis of every single story – however, it was covered by wider BBC News reporting. It should be self-evident Verify is not shying away from 'problematic' or 'divisive' stories."

      "The real question is what is BBC Verify doing that other journalists at the BBC could not be?" says Cohen. "Given the quality of its performance to date it does look like the licence-fee money being spent on BBC Verify could be more effectively spent elsewhere."

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/bbc-verify-fact-checking-unit-accused-of-political-bias

      1. Good evening William

        I have just finished reading that article as well.

        The comments are succinct and very abrasive .. great stuff .

        BBC have their own agenda .. convoluted lies and damned lies , they are their own alternative political party .

        1. I had cut and edited it for posting tomorrow but now you've mentioned it…

          The ubiquitous journo's 'insider' who says "Why do you need a special team to check facts – isn't that what all BBC journalists should be doing?" is correct. Don't they have any real specialists anymore? Mind you, they'd probably still be biased.

        2. I had cut and edited it for posting tomorrow but now you've mentioned it…

          The ubiquitous journo's 'insider' who says "Why do you need a special team to check facts – isn't that what all BBC journalists should be doing?" is correct. Don't they have any real specialists anymore? Mind you, they'd probably still be biased.

  135. Well, chums, my bedtime approaches. So Good Night all, sleep well and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

  137. I see we now have a genetically male footballer named as Woman Footballer of the Year.
    Why do the real women put up with this gaslighting?

    1. Absolutely shocking isnt it?

      Apparently she failed the sex test as she couldnt get her balls in the sample bottle…

      It's a BBC award – no effing surprises there….

      1. “She” appears to be a he. Let’s at least call him by his apparently correct pronouns

    1. Are Plod deliberately trying to look political and inept? Can they just not help themselves?

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