Tuesday 29 September: The Government should not go to war against its own people through coronavirus restrictions

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/28/lettersthe-government-should-not-go-war-against-people-coronavirus/

675 thoughts on “Tuesday 29 September: The Government should not go to war against its own people through coronavirus restrictions”

  1. Larf: Photo Op gone wrong. Headline in The Times

    Malta demands return of Attenborough’s fossil gift to Prince George

  2. The most worrying new phrase being repeated by government lately is term ‘viable Jobs’.
    I seem to have developed a good ear over the years for when the government is about to spring something on us.

      1. Jobs that pay public employees 100% to sit on their arrises in front of the telly rather than a desk.

  3. Mix of Muslim, Christian society not possibly peaceful, Hungary’s Orban says. 25 September 2020.

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban Friday rejected a new migration plan by the European Union’s executive, saying the country did not support a “parallel society” of Muslim and Christian mixture.

    “We don’t think a mixture of Muslim and Christian society could be a peaceful one and could provide security and a good life for people,” Orban told Reuters a day after discussing migration in Brussels with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

    “In Hungary, we are very strict that we would not like to have a parallel society, an open society or a mixed-up culture,” he added.

    One would have thought with all the bombings and stabbings etc.taking place in the UK that this would be blatantly obvious but we are in the grip of an Elite Liberal Tyranny who cannot endure the thought that their beliefs are utter nonsense and so we march on to oblivion!

    https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/mix-of-muslim-christian-society-not-possibly-peaceful-hungarys-orban-says

    1. Moslem’s wish to live in a Moslem society in all aspects among only other Moslem’s. They have no intention of integrating. Fortunately, I am old and this is someone else’s problem. I wasn’t asked.

      1. And so, as I have been arguing for years: all Christian immigrants should come to Christian countries and all Moslem immigrants should go to Moslem countries. If they do not want to integrate and want apartheid then let them have it – but somewhere else.

    2. Since we are so eager to hand out British nationality why don’t we give it to Viktor Orban and make him our prime minister too.

    1. Didn’t we all pull our beds together when we stayed with one’s loved one in a twin-bedded room? The trouble was falling through the gap and onto the floor.

    1. Good morning!
      Bright, brisk & dry after a damp night.

      E-mail from Free Speech Union at the weekend makes a few points on compulsory anti-racism training and other matters:-

      Many of our members have asked us what to do if they find themselves at odds with their employers about how best to tackle prejudice and discrimination in the workplace. As I’m sure most of you will be aware, employers, as well as schools and universities, have introduced a raft of new “anti-racism” initiatives in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, from circulating suggested reading lists (Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race) to introducing mandatory unconscious bias training. Is your company or university legally entitled to put your through a disciplinary process for expressing reservations about these initiatives – circulating an alternative reading list that includes Douglas Murray’s Madness of Crowds, for instance – or for refusing to undergo diversity training? Is there a way of expressing your reservations about these initiatives that means your employer cannot legally punish you for doing so? What are the legal limits on what an employer can do to force you to assent to the “woke” orthodoxy on this issue?

      Because we were getting so many questions along those lines, and dealing with so many cases of people who are being punished for dissenting from the BLM narrative, we thought it would be helpful to publish some Frequently Asked Questions on this topic. You can read them here. These will be the first in a series of FAQs we intend to publish, with the next set being about the social media policies of companies and universities and what the law says about how far they can legitimately restrict what you can say on social media, even when you make it clear you’re speaking in a purely private capacity. If you have any suggestions about other topics we should cover, please email me here.

      We did a good deal of research in the course of compiling this first set of FAQs, and one of the people who helped with that research, a journalist called Carrie Clark, has written up her findings in the form of a briefing paper. Carrie looked specifically at the Implicit Association Test, a diagnostic tool that sits at the heart of most forms of diversity training. It’s worth reading in full, but the short version is that this test has been almost completely discredited in the scientific literature since it was first devised in 1998. You can read a summary of Carrie’s paper here.

      By the way, you might find this interesting: an article by the Conservative MP Ben Bradley on why he is refusing to undergo Unconscious Bias Training in the House of Commons.

      Speaker Gets No-Platformed; Free Speech Union Gets Her Re-Platformed
      The FSU had to swing into action recently when Caroline Farrow, a Catholic journalist, was no-platformed by the University of Exeter Debating Society. Caroline was due to speak on Friday, 18th September in a debate on whether prostitution should be legalised, but she was notified at 11am the day before that she’d been disinvited because of her religious beliefs on a range of LGBT issues. This was a clear case of no-platforming and a breach of the University of Exeter’s Freedom of Speech policy.

      As soon as Caroline told us what had happened, I wrote to the newly-installed Vice-Chancellor of Exeter, Professor Lisa Roberts, letting her know that if she didn’t intervene to make sure Caroline’s invitation was reinstated the University would be in breach of its legal duty to protect free speech, as set out in the Education (Nº 2) Act 1986, which was passed, in part, to prevent the no-platforming of visiting speakers at British universities. In particular, it would be a breach of s.43(a) of the Act, which requires universities to “take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students and employees of the establishment and for visiting speakers”. This Act and these words are referred to in Exeter’s Freedom of Speech policy.

      Thankfully, after receiving my letter, Professor Roberts acted quickly and decisively. I received a response from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office at 9.22pm on the day I sent the letter informing me that Caroline had now been re-invited and, when I checked with her, she confirmed this. The following day – the day of the debate – there was another attempt to no-platform Caroline and the Vice-Chancellor had to intervene for a second time to put a stop to it. When the censorious members of the Debating Society’s committee were repulsed they took to Facebook to express their displeasure, saying they’d only agreed to re-platform Caroline because of the University’s intervention. So top marks to the Vice-Chancellor for holding firm.

      You can read an account of the affair on the FSU’s website here, as well as a shorter version on Guido Fawkes here. The FSU also interviewed Caroline about the episode for its YouTube channel and you can see that here.

      As Guido said, “They would have got away with it if wasn’t for that pesky Free Speech Union…”

      The Government’s Internet Censorship Law
      We published our first ever briefing paper earlier this month – a stark warning about the risk the Government’s proposed new internet censorship law poses to free speech. Last year, Sajid Javid, then the Home Secretary, boasted that Britain would soon have “the toughest internet laws in the world” and unveiled a White Paper describing how the Government intended to censor social media companies like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Called Online Harms, the White Paper said the UK would soon pass a law that was similar to Germany’s 2017 “NetzDG”, a horrific piece of legislation that has inspired President Lukashenko of Belarus, Vladimir Putin and the Venezuelan Government to introduce similar censorship laws. Under the proposed new regulations, social media companies will be compelled to remove material “that may directly or indirectly cause harm” even if it is “not necessarily illegal”. As an example of the kind of legal content the new regulator will prohibit, the White Paper singled out “offensive material”, as if being offended is a type of harm the public should be protected from by the state.

      If this law is passed it will infringe the speech rights of tens of thousands of social media users – perhaps even hundreds of thousands – who will see their content regularly censored by companies anxious to avoid the swingeing fines the regulator will use as an enforcement mechanism. We need to organise to stop this legislation being brought before Parliament and later in the year the Free Speech Union will be unveiling an alternative way of dealing with the concerns people have about the unregulated internet (such as instructions on how to make bombs) without interfering with people’s right to free speech.

      You can read the briefing doc here. It was written by Dr Radomir Tylecote, the FSU’s Research Director. Rado made a YouTube video about his report that you can view here, and wrote a summary for the Telegraph that you can read here and another for Spiked that you can read here.

      Ofcom
      If the Government gets its way, Ofcom will be the new internet regulator – one of the reasons the FSU’s attempt to judicially review Ofcom’s “coronavirus guidance” in the High Court is so important. As you’ll recall, Ofcom issued guidance to broadcasters at the beginning of the lockdown, warning them to exercise caution when inviting guests on to the airwaves who were critical of the public health advice being disseminated by the state in case it made the public less likely to follow that advice. We think this is a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression, and have applied to the High Court to have the guidance declared unlawful. We’ve submitted all the papers and the Court will shortly make a decision about whether or not we’re allowed to make our case before a judge. If we can rein in Ofcom now, perhaps it will be more circumspect when it becomes the internet censor in due course.

      One risk of bringing an action like this is that if we lose we’ll have to pay the other side’s costs, which may be substantial. However, we won’t be risking your membership dues since we regard this case as falling outside the activities we’ve asked you to fund. Consequently, we’ve asked the Court to cap our liability at whatever we manage to raise in our GoFundMe Fighting Fund – over £50,000 so far. The more money that’s in that pot, the more likely the Court is to let our case proceed, so please consider making a donation.

      1. Hmm. Another case of the underdog having to seek to buy justice. The uberdog, the Government quango, can run up any amount in legal costs as the taxpayers, the commonality of underdogs, pay the bill.
        (Would it not be fairer if the legal costs of both sides were capped what the underdog could pay?)

  7. Morning all

    SIR – The nation is urged to report to the police anyone who has tested positive for Covid and is not self-isolating. How will they know who has tested positive? Will a red plague cross be painted on their door?

    A O H Lewis

    Peterborough

    SIR – The brilliant idea of fines up to £10,000 for breaking quarantine will mean that many people with Covid symptoms will avoid taking a test.

    If this had been debated in Parliament I am sure such a fatal flaw would have been quickly identified.

    Andrew Scott

    Walton-on-Thames, Surrey

    SIR – I have received an email from the Government urging me to download the new NHS Covid-19 app.

    As I do not have a smartphone, can I ask my doctor to prescribe one?

    Allen Brown

    Stubbington, Hampshire

    ADVERTISING

    Ads by Teads

    SIR – In the Vale of Glamorgan we have been locked up again because of a rise in Covid cases by 34.4 per 100,000 people, over a week. The population is 130,000. So the economy, already on its knees, is being halted once more by – what – 45 new cases in a week?

    This is unsustainable. Sooner or later, if we are to save our way of life, we will have to stand up to this virus.

    Philip Brooksby

    Penarth, Glamorgan

    SIR – Plans should be made for those in care homes to have a visit over Christmas. A relation or close friend could have a Covid-19 test and have access to the care home, wearing PPE.

    Care staff are tested weekly, go home after their shift, shop and lead normal lives, then return to the care home. So why cannot a similar process apply to a nominated relative?

    Richard Willis

    Newbury, Berkshire

    SIR – Sherelle Jacobs (Comment, September 24) is right to speak of our government-by-focus-group ignoring the evidence by continuing to pursue the policy of lockdown. More than four in five of the 41,988 coronavirus deaths in the UK have been of patients over the age of 70, the majority of these being over 80 and suffering from diseases of old age.

    A large proportion of these will have been in care homes, or housebound by infirmity or by government advice and regulations. Lockdown for them will have been irrelevant, apart from isolating them from their families.

    The UK imposed stringent lockdown and suffered 618 deaths per million. Sweden did not impose lockdown, suffered 581 deaths per million, and may have achieved a degree of herd immunity.

    Dr Max Gammon

    London SE16

    SIR – Minor fluctuations and statistical error aside, surely the disease of the pandemic has passed.

    Am I the only fool in the land?

    Dr Jai Chitnavis

    Practising orthopaedic surgeon

    Fellow in Medicine, Trinity Hall, Cambridge

    2. I had an email telling me to download the NHS App sent to my parish council address. The GP doesn’t have that one, so what’s this guff about it being sent to all people for whom their GP has an email address?

  8. SIR – Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said it was “unthinkable” that students could be locked in halls and unable to see their families at Christmas.

    Care-home residents of all ages have been locked in and unable to see their families since March.

    Gail Young

    Dundee

    SIR – Former cathedral choristers of my age will have happy memories of how, between the ages of about 10 and 14, we did not go home for Christmas but stayed on to sing. Our holiday from boarding school began on January 6 – the Epiphany – when my mother had a second Christmas waiting for me.

    Dr Philip Hickman

    North Curry, Somerset

  9. Wasted hospital beds

    SIR – Last Friday my grandson required urgent ear, nose and throat treatment and was unable to get any help from his GP, either remotely or face-to-face.

    His discomfort was such that his parents rang the private hospital where he had been treated before. It couldn’t help because it did not have NHS permission to use its facilities, in case they were needed by the NHS – extraordinary given the hiatus in coronavirus hospital admissions.

    Stuart Vere

    London SW19

    SIR – How can two GPs (Letters, September 20 and 27) claim that all general practices are fully functioning?

    That would require appointments, for the frail and the unwell to receive advice in a face-to-face consultation. Surgeries remain locked and phone queues are prohibitively long.

    Dr A C E Stacey

    Rustington, West Sussex

  11. Did you notice how Bill Gates has got one of his bought and paid for “Global Health Security” articles as the main story in the “Telegraph” today?

    Needless to say it’s very pessimistic and supports lockdowns with gloomy commentary from his bought and paid for Imperial College and London School of Tropical Medicine.

    Perfectly timed to ensure the parliament vote goes the right way for him and Boros.

    Looks like Gates has the UK turkey all oven ready.

  13. Good Moaning.
    We watched the Shipman programme last night. This is an extract from an article on the doctor in today’s DT:
    “The Shipman Inquiry would lead to wholesale changes in medical practice to do with the supervision of GPs, an overhaul of the death certification process, changes 
in the coroner’s system and the monitoring of controlled drugs.”

    We were impressed by a death certificate curtly listing ‘Old Age’ as the cause of death (something we have never seen on a certificate). Nowadays, doctors just write ‘Covid-19’.

      1. The Brain Surgeons on Channel 4 was much more interesting and can recommend it on catch up. After all the doom and gloom it was great to see people being offered hope rather being left to die.

          1. Really terrific. Last week it was a young lad they operated on. I think they’re on the two programmes lar nights both patients were awake during surgery.
            This is real reality TV. Thoroughly recommended.

      2. Just to cheer you up, Maggie, there are two more to go.
        The one plus about Covid 19 is that you cannot see a GP for love nor money and they haven’t been doing home visits for years, so any potential Shipmans are twiddling their thumbs.

    1. Best place for them if they don’t push back, let us oldies get out and paint the town red. However, 10 o’clock is quite late enough for me.

    3. Just so. Confined to rooms in halls of residence, not allowed out, except to collect food parcel at gates, under supervision, not allowed to meet others, no classes to go to, not allowed to go home without forfeiting accommodation (while still having to pay).
      Yes, it is the Glasgow university student experience. Other universities may offer similar.

      1. They took the picture – to post on the twattersphere to show white bitches sneering at encarcerated slaves…

  15. Gillian Keegan is another minister who has trouble with her “-ings”, but not always. Is it an affectation?

  16. Reports show that the UK is the 4th. in the world for the number of coro 19 deaths.
    We are 21st. in the world by population !
    What is going on ?

    2. Johns Hopkins data has the UK in 5th place by total dead, at 42,090, and 10th by dead per 100,000 capita (62,3).
      Just over 1 million have died (how reliable is that number??) out of 7,800,000,000 approximately in the world – so, 0,01% of the worlds population approximately has croaked due to Covid in the last 9 months.
      Expected deaths in 9 months, assuming average lifespan of 70 years, would be about 83,5 million… hmm.
      BTW, apparently, more than 104 million have already been born this year…

  17. Right, it’s bright and sunny here so I’m off to recommence yesterdays work by placing the plastic sheet in the trench I dug and starting to backfill.
    Then carry on digging the footings for a retaining wall up in the garden.
    The first section will be 10 concrete blocks long, or about 12 feet by 5 or 6 blocks high, about 2’ish, on 6″ concrete footing. I don’t think i’ll get it all done today!!

  18. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    From the Tellygraff…

    Sir Desmond Swayne appears to be a rare breed – an MP with balls who is in tune with many and who is not afraid to say so:

    “Many Tory MPs are unhappy about the latest rules, and the way they’ve been imposed. None, however, appear to be quite as unhappy as the right honourable member for New Forest West. Today (Monday) in the Commons, Sir Desmond Swayne treated the Government to a dressing-down of eye-popping proportions. He didn’t just rant and rave. He erupted like a human Krakatoa.

    Of course, it’s possible that ministers were braced for such an eventuality. Back in July, when they ordered shoppers to start wearing masks, a scandalised Sir Desmond railed against “this monstrous imposition”.

    His protest that day, however, was a mere tremor, the faintest rattling of a lone teacup, compared with the seismic convulsion witnessed today. For five furious minutes, Sir Desmond whirled and raged, jigged and jabbered, a perpetual frenzy of spluttering combustion.

    “Less than a year ago,” he began, “I celebrated what I thought was the election of a Conservative administration! But now I’m left wondering whether the Prime Minister hasn’t been abducted by Dr Strange Glove – and reprogrammed by Sage over to the dark side!”

    It wasn’t immediately clear whether “Dr Strange Glove” was just a slip of the tongue, or some ingenious pun on the title of Kubrick’s satirical masterpiece. But if the latter: what exactly did it mean? Do the Prime Minister’s scientific advisers wear unusual gloves? Also, wasn’t the dark side in Star Wars, rather than in Dr Strangelove?

    Still, there was no time to ask questions. The next stage of the eruption was already well underway.

    Politicians, bawled Sir Desmond, should stop being “in thrall to science”. As for Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, their televised statement the previous week “should have been a sacking offence”. In Sir Desmond’s eyes, it had been nothing but scaremongering.

    “What was their purpose in presenting that graph [projecting 50,000 cases a day by mid October]?” he jeered. “It was the purpose of the fat boy in Pickwick Papers: ‘I wants to make yer flesh creep!’ It was Project Fear! It was an attempt to terrify the British people! As if they haven’t been terrified enough!”

    MPs stared, agog. Frankly, some of them looked pretty terrified themselves.

    On and on Sir Desmond raged. “Interfered in our private lives… Eye-watering costs… Crushing of enterprises… Destruction of livelihoods… And all as a consequence of an overreaction!”

    At last the harangue reached its end. “There may be a virus one day that threatens our very way of life,” snapped Sir Desmond. “But this isn’t it! Even if we’re behaving as if it were!”

    He resumed his seat. The eruption was over. The ash-clouds dispersed. Eventually, the benches stopped trembling.

    And to think: that was in response to a 10pm closing time for pubs and tightened restrictions on dinner parties. Imagine how Sir Desmond will react if the Prime Minister declares a second full national lockdown.

    They’ll be able to hear the explosion in New Zealand.”

      1. I’m afraid I’ve become so disillusioned with politicians that I think it was more likely to be motivated by opportunism and personal self aggrandizement by Swayne that genuine concern for the nation.

  19. Good morning all.

    Thank you so much for your wonderfully kind wishes yesterday. It was a grand day for me, some friends even ignored the lockdown rules to call by. Keep safe and thank you all again.

    1. Hope you denounced them…!

      Glad you had a good day – if your weather was like ours, it was very agreeable indeed.

      1. Hello Bill. Totally dull, drizzle by late afternoon. Lookouts posted for defence and so plenty of sunshine from visitors with astonishing cakes and single malt !

      2. He was fine until he became possessed by some sort of demons which made him just as duplicitous as most of his colleagues in Parliament. In fact I was very disappointed to discover that he had feet of clay – I had hoped he was going to be a dynamic new force in the Conservative Party. .

  21. Good morning, all. Late on parade. Turned over for another five mins shuteye and woke 90 minutes later!

    Mild but very damp – drizzling. Everything you touch outside drips on you. Ugh.

  23. Apropos the revolting (for once, how accurate a word) students, moaning about their confinement.

    They could use the time to work.

    They could follow the example of my 13 year old grand-daughter, who, during the long school closure, worked six or seven hours every school day – plus a bit at the weekend. She said it took her mind off the dreariness of not being able to see her chums.

    1. Buy her a nice new slide rule for Christmas. She sounds exceptional. I was a lazy tyke when it came to study.

      1. I have a nice new slide rule. I studied maths fifty years ago. The slide rule is unused… Ho-hum.

        2. So you’re saying (© Cathy Newman) that your granddaughter is the Maffs-challenged Pushy Nurse? As Lewis Carroll concluded: “You are old, Father William…”

          :-))

    2. Intelligent and well-motivated children are even further ahead of their peers as a result of the corona virus.

      1. They will have to be held back then, Rastus. We can’t have them gaining an advantage through applying themselves to learning, can we?

    1. Scaremongering article. I see Wilful Sprite in the comments – I can’t even read the comments now on most things since the paywall was tightened.

          1. Works for me 😊 but you have to get the timing exactly right. Sometimes takes a few attempts.

  26. Just read an obituary in The Grimes which ends with the words: “He died of old age…”

    That must be very, very rare these days…(sarc).

    1. My aunt died of old age at the beginning of March. Passed peacefully in her sleep aged 100. I visited a few days before and played a recording from the IWM archives for her of an interview with uncle talking about his wartime experiences. She enjoyed hearing his voice again. So glad she was never put through the heartache of thinking she’d been abandoned in the care home.

  29. Come out of the Wendy House with your hands up! These coronavirus restrictions are a concerted assault on our civil liberties never before attempted… even in wartime. 29 September 2020.

    The official advice is all over the place, like a drunken hokey-cokey at chucking-out time. The Rule of Six, keep two metres apart, Eat Out, Stay In, go back to the office, work from home, the 10pm curfew — all made up on the hoof.

    Thank goodness MPs have finally summoned up the backbone to call ministers to account.

    Yet all the indications are that the Government has no plans to change course.

    Having wrecked the economy and trashed our freedoms, they will keep on doubling down because they don’t have the faintest idea how to get out of the mess they have created.

    Morning everyone. It’s true. They have no idea what they are doing! The problem is that out of this chaos a Government of National Unity will arise with Blair and Co. grinning like Mad Dogs.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8782781/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-restrictions-concerted-assault-civil-liberties.html

    1. Just been listening to Times Radio, the same thing is happening in France
      Expert doctors are predicting deaths at the same rate as the first wave, policy driven by rises in cases.
      We have to look at the bigger picture than just what is happening here with our government, when the same insane things are happening all over the world at the same time.
      I’ve noticed that our MSM has started reporting the WHO guidelines that no doubt our government is gold plating.

    2. Just been listening to Times Radio, the same thing is happening in France
      Expert doctors are predicting deaths at the same rate as the first wave, policy driven by rises in cases.
      We have to look at the bigger picture than just what is happening here with our government, when the same insane things are happening all over the world at the same time.
      I’ve noticed that our MSM has started reporting the WHO guidelines that no doubt our government is gold plating.

  30. That’s task number one completed. The trench backfilled.
    Next job is hang out the washing the DT put on before she left for work, then it’s get on with the main task of digging out for the retaining wall.
    A couple of before views of the trench:- https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f00954547ae693bed1a7f7d37103575f0895015b5db436b552a67fceeb3e77cc.jpg

    From the other end:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46250f984a4499ef4c4d2d9fd85220f15e3def0b1e135ed1d6e297c476d0f605.jpg

    And after. The blue sheet is a bramble suppression device!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7a1d554f5a3bc8c2e14e651ad140d51ee43671f391e8c2187cb3bb6b21a166f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e31b25661a067bd1d2e5149f7ea85d13f79521c1e246966de04d3ee1764027a.jpg

        1. I have one, except the tool end of the shaft has a steel shoe on it. Also, the webbing case.
          :-))

  31. SIR – Simon Heffer (“The National Trust’s job is to conserve our history – not vilify its heroes”, telegraph.co.uk) did not expect that Rudyard Kipling (who won the Nobel prize in literature) would be placed “at a bargepole’s length from the present generation”.

    Kipling was aware of double standards in his own times. In Something of Myself, he writes of “several men and an occasional woman whom [he] by no means loved…[who] asserted that the British in India spent violent lives ‘oppressing’ the Native. (This in a land where white girls of 16, at £12 or £14 per annum, hauled 30 and 40 pounds weight of bath-water at a time up four flights of stairs!)”.

    He goes on to observe that “collaborating with these gentry was a mixed crowd of wide-minded, wide-mouthed Liberals, who darkened counsel with pious but disintegrating catch-words, and took care to live very well indeed. Somewhere, playing up to them, were various journals, not at all badly written, with a most enviable genius for perverting or mistaking anything that did not suit their bilious doctrine.”

    Kipling’s life should be chronicled, not expunged.

    Ian Parkin
    Durham

  32. SIR – It was Tony Marlow MP, at a 1922 Committee meeting during the battles of the Community Charge (poll tax), who coined the phrase “A government should not go to war against its own people”.

    Huge fines for allowing friends to drink together? The Army called in to help police contact informers against their neighbours? University halls of residence as prisons? Compulsory isolation for unproven disease-carriers? Curfews and lockdowns?

    Michael Stern
    MP for Bristol North West, 1983-1997
    London W3

      1. If any immigrant group can be said to have built Britain, it is the Irish – canals, railways, motorways.

    2. More importantly this country had a set of historic institutions that shaped our culture and many others around the world using pragmatic concepts of observable and verifiable facts to make law under the overarching concept of human value conveyed by Scripture. These protected and defended this country until we ourselves decided we could do without them and elected leaders who carried out this destruction in full view.

    1. Trump is the one they hate.

      For the same reason Lefties deride the TPA constantly citing ‘we don’t know who funds it’ – as if that matters – their objective is to disparage their enemy. They aren’t bothered about the corruption in the quangocracy. They’re happy with that. They *like* those people. The damage they do is irrelevant.

  37. It’s time quangos took a turn to the right
    The fuss over new jobs for former Mail and Telegraph editors ignores the politics of the nation
    Quentin Letts
    Monday September 28 2020, 5.00pm, The Times

    Refined society clutches its dewlaps, the mandarinate is aghast and broadcasting executives empty their filing cabinets into fireplace grates, Vichy-French gendarmes before the liberation of Paris.

    Can it be true? Is the government really going to make Charles Moore chairman of the BBC and Paul Dacre chairman of Ofcom? “Vite, Alphonse. De la benzine et des allumettes!” And in one respect you can understand the shock these mooted appointments have generated. Moore and Dacre are rightwingers who supported Brexit and have been trenchant critics of the BBC. Such barbarians do not normally even make it on to the shortlists for public positions. For Boris Johnson now to change that really would be rather astonishing — in a good way.

    The kneejerk outcry, though predictable, has been glorious. Hugh Grant, actor, anti-press activist and Remainer, issued a tweet saying “Coffin. Nail. UK.” Alastair Campbell, he of Hutton inquiry infamy, raged about Dacre “poisoning public debate”. Alan Rusbridger, once editor of The Guardian and now, like several other centre-left journalists, master of an Oxbridge college, grumbled about prime ministerial patronage. “This is what an oligarchy looks like,” said dear Alan. He quite forgot to mention that he is a member of Facebook’s new, all-appointed oversight board, pay undisclosed but thought to be jammy.

    I should declare my own interests: I have worked for both Moore (when he edited The Daily Telegraph) and Dacre (when he ran the Daily Mail). The two men may be comrades of the right but they are very different beasts and certainly not close to one another. Nor incidentally, is either of them nearly as deaf to alternative views as the left claim.

    The 63-year-old Lord Moore, as he became recently, is bookish and has a slightly tippy-toed gait. He has an Etonian’s handwriting, enjoys practical jokes and is most at home in country churches or in the saddle. In moments of excitement, Charles becomes quite camp.

    Mr Dacre, 71, smoulders. You would not call him camp. He is more at home in the back of a BMW seven-series than on a horse. He has a scalpel-sharp mind, a raw suspicion of elites, ardent belief in aspiration and, less well known, an enthusiasm for opera and theatre. He stomps down corridors with the tread of a second-row forward after a big match. He swears freely.

    So far as one can gauge, there is nothing in those characteristics, or elsewhere in their personal or professional lives, that should discount them from chairing a major national institution; except, except, for this right-wing Brexiteer thing and their past criticism of the BBC.

    A Mayfair hostess might exclaim that it is unfortunate that they are not more house-trained. But that is really the point. For is it so outrageous, in the year 2020, to be pro-Brexit, or of the right, or sceptical about the BBC? Although we now forget, there was a general election only nine months ago and it was won strongly by the Conservatives.

    One of those scorning Mr Dacre’s possible involvement at Ofcom was Jo Stevens, shadow culture secretary, who suggested that the future of the BBC as “an independent, impartial broadcaster” could be in peril. You could more plausibly argue that it will be in peril unless it is chaired by someone whose political views are more in tune with the voters’ new government. Many of our fellow citizens long ago ceased to regard the BBC as impartial, particularly on culture and in terms of small-p politics. The squabble over the Last Night of the Proms showed that.

    It is stressed, more by ministers than by Downing Street spokesmen, that the BBC and Ofcom jobs have yet to be properly advertised. There is still time for Alan Rusbridger to apply for either position, though he would have to give up those spondoolicks from Uncle Zuckerberg if successful.

    Why have the names of Moore and Dacre been floated so early? It may be that Dominic Cummings is merely baiting the centre-left, as a cat will toy with a pink-eared mouse. No 10 may be hoping to keep the pressure on the BBC’s new director-general, Tim Davie. The prospect of Moore and Dacre in these two positions may have the effect on BBC executives that the sight of a police car in the rear-view mirror has on motorists.

    But it is worth pointing out that the chairmanship of the BBC is nothing like as powerful a position as the director-generalship. Likewise, the day-to-day running of Ofcom is entrusted to its chief executive, Dame Melanie Dawes. She is not known for being a pushover.

    If Labour’s Jo Stevens wishes to choose who chairs Ofcom, she and her party should have won the election. Ah, comes the cry, but these appointments should not be so politicised. That response is either touchingly naive or code for “it’s just not political when we do it”.

    The departing Ofcom chairman, Lord Burns, reportedly “fought to ensure that the job went to a civil servant rather than someone political”. Lord Burns is the Sir Humphreys’ Sir Humphrey. Of course he wanted the job to go to a fellow member of the freemasonry of mandarins. That itself would be a political choice.

    The BBC, by its casual and long-standing partiality, has made broadcasting governance necessarily political. The tiller needs a yank to bring the ship rightwards, back to a straighter course.

    1. Full marks, Quentin Letts! Dacre and Moore are a good start, but unfortunately I very much doubt that his piece will make a difference, given the huge stranglehold the lefties have currently. Many years of packing quangos with the Leftwaffe will take a very long time to reverse.

      ‘Morning, C1.

  38. ConWoman

    Dr Schoenefeld was determined to speak, as he had travelled to the UK

    to do so, and he went with about 200 protesters to Hyde Park. I walked

    there with him, and he started to give his speech. For no reason at all,

    when he was halfway through it, the police invaded the small gathering,

    took the speaker equipment away and arrested him.

    Some people tried to passively prevent the police taking him away but

    they were swept aside. I did help a female solicitor to get through

    police lines to try to represent him, but at the time of writing I do

    not know what has happened.

    I have to confess that I was deeply shocked. One point which I found

    disturbing was senior police instructing their officers to not talk to

    the protesters. This seemed sinister because at other demonstrations,

    such as Black Lives Matter, police officers have been encouraged to

    speak to protesters and engage with them. It seems that if you are

    protesting against the government’s lockdown measures, police will not

    speak to you, but if it is a protest the government does not object to,

    they will. The double standard is unacceptable. However, in smaller

    groups, some protesters did manage to speak with police officers, who

    after all have to obey orders, and found that many do not support this

    lockdown government. They know they are being used as nothing more than

    political police.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/this-shocking-police-attack-on-free-speech/

    Double standards you say??

    A picture worth a thousand words…………….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1452ac31495127586db7a111d9b852fbca17de97497182ac8f1f83c271297cb5.jpg

    1. I can’t find this article.
      I really suspect that that it is faked for the Internet.

      It is “date-lined” very early in the time-line, almost as if it was pre-prepared and it might even suggest they have similar set ups for any potential Trump nomination, very unlikely I would hope.

      I know that Demcrats live in the nitty gritty scrapings at the bottom of the barrel, but if this is genuine it really is a new low, even for them.

      If it isn’t genuine it’s a new low for Repulicans and it certainly isn’t remotely funny.

      1. Thought to have been created by a Democrat Troll in order to accuse Trump supporters of creating Fake News.

        1. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
          When first we practise to deceive!’

          Marmion A tale of Flodden Field.

          Lotl will know the next.

          1. I don’t know how original this is – I’ve seen it attributed to Dorothy Parker, among others, but supposedly it was J R Pope??

            O what a tangled web we weave
            When first we practice to deceive
            But when we’ve practised quite a while
            How vastly we improve our style

          3. We did Lay of the Last Minstrel for CSE English, but also touched upon Marmion.
            I went back to reading both, works best if you’re mentally voicing the text in Border Scots, and would love to see both filmed, but NOT by Hollywood!

          4. That is how I managed to read ‘Heart of Midlothian’. Many students were understandably flummoxed by the dialogue; as I read it, I mentally listened to MB’s Uncle Willie and all became clear.

          5. I went with four chums yesterday to watch a low-budget British film called SHYSTERS set in Dundee in the Thatcher years. Despite the broad Scottish accents we all understood the majority of the dialogue, and only two of us had lived in Scotland previously.

  43. Morning all,
    Here’s a conundrum. I take the anticoagulant rivaroxaban. I am having a tooth extracted at the end of next month.

    I asked the dentist if I should stop taking the drug before having the extraction. He says he’s not qualified to advise me and I should ask my GP.

    I wrote to the surgery, they’re not accepting phone calls anymore, and they told me to speak to the dentist. I wrote back telling them what the dentist said. A doctor replied saying they’ll find out from the hospital. I thought I’d short circuit that and phoned the anticoagulation clinic. The nurse said she can’t advise it has to be a consultant and gave me phone number of consultant’s Secretary. As I’m not being seen by them they can’t tell me and my doctor will have to contact them via the ERS system.

    To use an analogy from the bible, It is easier for a man to pass through the eye of a needle than to get a simple answer from the NHS to do with his own body.

    What a shambles.

    1. Afternoon,Alf.

      “I asked the dentist if I should stop taking the drug before having the extraction. He says he’s not qualified to advise me and I should ask my GP.”

      Time, methinks, to get a new dentist.

        1. Oh, come on. If I had retained you to plead for me on a matter of English law and you stated that you weren’t au fait with that particular legislation, I’d be off to Michael Mansfield like a shot!

      2. Afternoon Grizz,
        Not sure the reply would be any different. I have an added complication with the blood condition Factor V (5) Leiden which means my blood is more likely to clot more easily than the other 95% of patients. Perhaps that’s his reluctance to give a definitive.

    2. Extraordinary the way in which they’ll obfuscate and delay – instead of getting on the phone. Bright and helpful ones CAN. Dr Brilliant saved me by one phone call to the NNUH. And there, when I had not seen a Dr in three days and was getting even more despondent than usual (having been told, when I asked a nurse, “Doctor will be round in due course…”) I told a new nurse (aged 28) – and she said, “Leave it with me, I’ll phone him”. Half an hour later Dr appeared.

      1. As with everything these days there is a ‘protocol’ to which the most important person, the patient, is excluded.

      1. Thank you Paul.
        So many ifs and buts.
        I’ll wait for the reply my doctor should get from the consultant.

    4. From memory, you should stop taking rivaroxaban 2 days before the extraction, but it depends on your dose

      1. Thanks Phizzee. Not very conclusive from a small sample.
        Hopefully my doctor will get a clearer answer.

    1. I don’t think they should, but as their GC is a symbol of Imperial Britain, perhaps they should return it.

      1. Apparently the act that bans taking such items was made in 2002, 40 years after St. Dave acquired it.

    2. Strange they don’t go after St. Dave of Attenborough, but pick on a 5 year old boy.
      And how can a shark’s tooth be described as an artefact?

        2. Sharks continuously shed & replace their teeth throughout life, so it may not have come from a dead shark.

          1. Apparently it was a megalodonoshark, so now probably a bit dead, as they generally prospered 3 trillion years ago.

            Note: other factual inaccuracies are available.

    4. Good morning Peddy

      The island is 17 miles long and 9 miles wide, so I guess if EVERYONE wanted to excavate for prehistoric bones and teeth, there wouldn’t be much of the Island left , would there?

      1. Good morning Maggie.

        Malta should get nothing for as long as they continue their atrocious policy of blasting as many migrant birds out of the air as they possibly can. Utter scum!

        2. I thought their method of bird mass extermination was the practice of netting…same effect though.

          ‘Morning, Grizz.

          1. Morning, Hugh. They also use lime sticks (common in other Mediterranean countries too). but young men from that place ‘prove their manhood’ by showing who can blast the most passage migrant birds, large and small, out of the sky with firearms of all types.

      1. I must say I don’t pour beer over my friends very often but if it is a tradition to do so at cricket matches then surely Muslim players should either join in the revelry and wear a sou’wester or stay away from it. Why should he demand that his team mates change their behaviour for him?

        2. He was 12th man, they had just won a trophy.

          I rather suspcet that it might not even have been the player who made the fuss. Simple answer is don’t select him as 12th man if there are likley to be celebrations after the match.

          There is a tradition of spraying drink around, particularly champagne after winning a trophy. I’ve never seen the point of wasting it, but each to their own.

          One might argue he should not have been there at all, as 12th man

    4. My favourite pun joke this year (which someone posted on this site a couple of months ago ) was the one about the King and I star who was a Muslim who did not use aftershave lotion and even though he was a Liverpool FC fan Yul never wore cologne.

    5. If the team was accidentally fed halal meat at lunch would the caterers have to go on diversity awareness courses?

    1. If they are the huge and important community that we are constantly being informed that they are, then they can afford to help themselves.

      Unfortunately their view of “help themselves” appears to be to grab everything in sight,.

    2. 324081+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      Then in short, shorty, the poofs parade will profit is that what you are saying ?

    4. How does the Mayor of London square his enthusiasm for homosexuality with his religious view that homosexuals should be thrown off tall buildings?

  51. Just had a mug of tea and a bite of lunch.
    I’ve got 7′ of the trench for the wall footings dug out and have another 10ish feet to do.
    I should get a fair bit of it done today ready for levelling & squaring off as I put the shuttering in.

      1. It appears not to be raining oop Bonsall. But then the rain radar says it is dry here – and it’s raining quite steadily…{:¬(((

  53. So the sodding Prime Minister doesn’t understand his own rules…..

    “Sorry I don’t have a clue: Boris apologises after he out-bumbles Matt Lucas’s spoof trying to explain how Rule of Six works in North East – as he prepares to address nation again tomorrow alongside Professors Gloom and Doom”

  54. 324081+ up ticks,
    I do believe these viruses have a great deal in common with the lab/lib/con coalition by their interplay,if for instance the lab is lagging the cons will come up with an atrocious action, a lab booster.

    The corona bug will be losing its fear element somewhat, so in steps
    Mr booster, courtesy of the annual flu.

    The transition depends on the ovis swallowing the covid fodder and the fact that flu deaths are nigh on zero whereas covid………….

    Think on, a politically tamed & harnessed covid 19 scam could outlast the mousetrap in running time and what with the eu looking decidedly shaky a replacement scam is sorely needed.

  57. First larf out loud of the day.. Saint David Attenborough accused of handling stolen goods, to wit, one fossil…. The climate change apostle in chokey… There’s a thought.

    2. Shall we ask Malta to give us back the George Cross? And will the Duke of Cambridge be done for receiving stolen goods.

      1. Being thoroughly nasty – given the DoC’s pious attitude to antique ivory artefacts, he has been bitten on the bum.
        And not for the first time: when he first started mouthing off, it was pointed out that Granny had rather a lot of antiques involving nelly teeth.

        1. But, but, but, we need it back to award it to the NHS.

          Agreed re the hard way. The National War Museum in Valletta is an eye-opener.

  58. “Kristie Higgs is deemed to be a danger to children. So dangerous, in fact, that more than a year ago she was

    by the school where she had worked for seven exemplary years. The
    grossness of her misconduct was gross indeed: she shared privately on
    her Facebook page her concerns about the Relationship and Sex Education
    (RSE [formerly known as SRE]) materials being adopted by her son’s local
    primary school. That school is a Church of England primary: the RSE
    materials included books teaching about same-sex relations and
    transgenderism. You may think these books aren’t appropriate for
    children aged 3-11 (in a Church of England school), but if you work in a
    school you have to keep those thoughts to yourself. There is no
    discussion or debate to be had. If you try to have one – even privately
    among your friends on Facebook – you will be deemed to be a danger to
    children.”

    https://archbishopcranmer.com/kristie-higgs-schoolworker-sacked-transgener-ideology-church-england/
    I and I suspect many here have a very,very different view of exactly who “Are a danger to children”
    CoughMermaidscough

    1. Christians fired from Christian schools in a Christian country for expressing orthodox Christian views.

    2. They missed of the ‘A’ it should be Active Relationship & Sex Education.

      Once again the lefties score an own goal.

    1. 324081+ up ticks,
      Morning LD,
      Post re-set,
      My belief is a tree museum is planned and a pocket size plot of green turf will become a bargaining chip.
      Be better all round if johnson got a new squeeze, or better still an inflatable.

      1. ♫ “They took all the trees
        And put them in a tree museum
        Then they charged the people
        A dollar and a half just to see ’em” ♫
        — Joni Mitchell

        1. 324081+ up ticks,
          Morning DM,
          You got it in one, my covert message, earns you another slice of clootie dumpling, well done.

    2. He is living proof that wearing a baseball cap can halve your IQ and wearing one indoors halves it again.

  60. 324081+ up ticks,
    Seems like they have put a night shift on at Dover now, something is brewing and in a following wind regarding incoming potential troops, house,
    meds, education & incarceration rustlers fleeing from a safe country.

    Seemingly the replacements are now entering 24/7.

    A brilliant bent mind has thought this corona virus lock down scam up, that is for sure.

  61. Can the golden age of democracy survive Covid? 29 September 2020.

    As foreign secretary, I travelled to nearly 30 countries and – contrary to the self-flagellation in the press over Brexit – was always struck by how much respect Britain is held in as a country. The hard-headed world of diplomacy can be pretty transactional, but I always sensed that our place at the global top table was about more than our economy – still in the top 10 – or our soft power. We earned our influence the hard way – through our decisive role, alongside America, in the construction of the post-1945 global order.

    What fatuous drivel. Diplomats are diplomatic. That is what they do. They welcomed Robert Mugabe and President XI with open arms. It means nothing! The Golden Age of Democracy is over. It is as dead as a pork sausage. It is not going to return either. The future is one of Power Blocs with Slave populations in a state of Undeclared War until one seeks the Final Hegemony!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/29/can-golden-age-democracy-survive-covid/

    1. There is no such thing as democracy, it is akin to Utopia, a theoretical conceptual aspiration created in the depths of Ancient Greek philosophy.

      1. A man sent abroad to lie for his country – except that nowadays they actively dislike their country and will lie to defame it.

    3. Good morning, Minty

      Jeremy Hunt could have been PM – would he have been better or worse than the Bonking Buffoon who seems to have a remarkable ability to literally father children while metaphorically having lost his testicles.

      1. Saw them both at the local hustings. Hunt has a nasty snide aspect to him and is not above ad hominem attacks.
        He certainly didn’t strike me as being any better than Johnson as a leader.
        However, his article in today’s DT is good.

    4. 324081+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Does that mean our regular hegemony ritual ( vote con keep out lab, vote lab keep out con) these Isles very own nemesis will have a final solution ?
      And will the patriotic armies uniform be inclusive of a big elongated red cross.

  62. Latest Breaking news – reports are coming in that two young people have been seen out enjoying themselves, laughing and having fun.
    The police were soon on the scene, slapped them about a bit and gave them a big fine.
    People have been warned that life is not to be enjoyed under the new normal, anyone found having a good time or even enjoying a hobby or pastime will be seriously dealt with.
    Don’t have fun, having fun will kill Granny.

    1. Granny is already in the cross hairs. Off loading the elderly from hospital into carehomes to make room for covid infections which didn’t exist.

      Now local councils who have always been so strapped for cash for care, they are offering to double the fees if carehomes will take any old person, tested or not.

      1. Our local council is clearly not strapped for cash – it gave my parish council a £10k windfall of rate rebate on something valued at £1900 (and on which we don’t pay rates anyway because we get rate relief) and even rang us up to make sure we applied for it (we had no idea we qualified) before the deadline. Multiply that by all the parish councils in the county and that is a LOT of moolah. Both the parish clerk and I were gobsmacked.

    2. Have fun, kill granny; get your money before Rishi goes in for mass confiscation via inheritance tax.

    3. There was an article in my local rag about two people being fined for not wearing masks in Shrewsbury. Why on earth didn’t they just claim they were exempt?

    4. Protect your loved ones with the official NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app for England and Wales.

      Government trying to force us into downloading the app by saying that it is to protect our relatives. Next they will ramp it up and try to make us feel guilty if we don’t download it.

    1. By cutting down ancient oaks and destroying our forests ? All in the name of a train to nowhere.

      Weakening of planning regulations and mass house building on the green belt?

      Wee Willie is ‘avin a laff.

          9. A homosexual man who enters into a relationship with a woman to disguise his proclivities. She is the beard.

            Do keep up !

          11. He did share a bed with a male advisor while on government business. It’s not as if his expenses would not have covered two rooms.

            The clincher is he wears a baseball cap.

          13. On the plus side he apparently strangled Coe unconscious during one practice session, so he’s not all bad!

          14. That makes Coe an idiot for not submitting or WH an irresponsible idiot for not releasing.

            Or given the protagonists both.

    2. By cutting down ancient oaks and destroying our forests ? All in the name of a train to nowhere.

      Weakening of planning regulations and mass house building on the green belt?

      Wee Willie is ‘avin a laff.

      1. I tend to treat the articles as a warning; know your enemy.
        It’s no good the Spekkie being an echo chamber.

          4. Not so much not listening, but more a failure to understand their objectives and take them seriously.

  65. Nicked,all too true I suspect

    “I am guessing that 99% of the people calling for stricter lockdown
    measures are public sector workers who have always assumed that there is
    a bottomless pit of money to keep paying their salaries, their cast
    iron pensions, their generous sick leave arrangements and of course,
    plenty of money left over to fund their beloved diversity and green
    shit. Private sector workers are only too aware of the precarious nature
    of their continued employment and many self employed do not know where
    the next income is coming from. It is all too easy to advocate stricter
    measures when you have, seemingly, nothing to lose. Somehow, we have got
    to get across to the public sector that they are reliant on the private
    sector, not the other way around.”

    2. I’ve said all along, and especially during the weekly genuflexion to the NHS at the start that attitudes would change once everyone realised we’re the only ones getting paid.

      1. Genuflection or genuflexion, Stormy?

        I would prefer to see genuflection, but I bow to your wishes…

        1. Morning D,
          Well I wrote ct first but changed to x because I thought I remembered getting it wrong before but couldn’t remember which was right. I had an inkling that what I thought was right was wrong so went for the opposite.

  66. Minister claims UK at ‘breaking point’ as he rebuffs pleas to accept more refugee children. Indy. 29 September 2020.

    The UK cannot accept any more children seeking asylum and trapped in squalid EU camps because it is at “breaking point”, a minister has claimed.

    Chris Philp adopted the language of Nigel Farage’s notorious Brexit poster to defend the government’s refusal to ease restrictions – despite the devastating fire at a migrant camp in Greece.

    Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee, the immigration minister was told the UK must “play our part in this humanitarian crisis”, with the camps “desperate and dangerous”.

    But Mr Philp claimed the UK was already allowing in “more unaccompanied asylum seeking children than any other European country”.

    A rare example of the truth breaking out. All the numbers are unsustainable; eventually the whole system will crash or worse!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/refugee-children-migrant-crisis-greece-europe-breaking-point-uk-b692154.html

        3. Just as i thought. Now we have people here saying how many more migrants we need to take because they have no shelter. Think of the children etc. They are now using the excuse of bringing in more migrants through the children For each child we will probably get a dozen other family members.

  67. Boris Johnson was urged to make it easier for migrant workers to enter Britain to become builders and even BUTCHERS today – as he launched a scheme to provide new skills for Brits left unemployed by coronavirus.

    The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) recommended that meatsellers, bricklayers and welders be added to the UK’s shortage occupation list (SOL) – which helps migrants get work visas to fill jobs where there are not enough native applications.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8785541/Boris-urged-make-easier-migrants-plug-shortage-bricklayers-welders-BUTCHERS.html ,

    What , I thought the migrants were being sent home.. we are being well and trully bamboozled , aren’t we

    1. Job shortage lists in full:
      Here are the Shortage Occupation Lists recommended by the Migration Advisory Committee for the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

      Health professionals are the only role listed on the Welsh list.

      The UK-wide Shortage Occupation List includes:

      Health services and public health managers and directors
      Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors
      Biological scientists and biochemists
      Physical scientists (selected roles)
      Archaeologists
      Civil engineers
      Web design, programmers, software developers
      Cyber security specialists
      Medical practitioners including psychologists, vets, pharmacists, radiographers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists
      Nurses
      Paramedics
      Secondary school teachers for maths, physics, computer science and modern foreign languages
      Architects
      Social workers
      IT and laboratory technicians
      Artists
      Interpreters
      Classical ballet and contemporary dancers of certain skill levels
      Some orchestral musicians including those who play string instruments
      Graphic designers
      Meat hygiene inspectors
      Bricklayers and masons
      Fishermen
      Welding
      Electricians
      Mechanics
      Butchers
      Wardens for residential properties
      Senior care workers
      The list for Scotland includes:

      Gaelic teachers in secondary schools
      Chemical scientists
      Housing officers
      Nursery nurses
      Childminders
      Health professionals
      The list for Northern Ireland includes:

      Bakers
      Fishmongers
      Housing officers
      Gardeners

          1. Oh, I dunno – there is slammer McMohammed in the pretendy Edinburgh parliament (the chap Duncan likes so much).

      2. So the uneducated goat herders being imported can fill these posts? They must think we’re stupid. In some places, teachers of “modern foreign languages” means teachers of English. No wonder they need interpreters.

      3. Hi Ho
        I’m Jihadi Mo
        An expert butcher
        I’ll have you know.
        Gizza job
        and I’ll cut off your nob

      4. We surely do not need any more health services and public health managers and directors.

        The NHS is already overburdened with non-clinical paper pushers and clipboard warriors contributing sod all to the health of the nation. The NHS is a bureaucratic nightmare, cumbersome, inefficient, costly and providing a very poor performance by comparison with France and Germany.

    2. But i thought they were just putting millions out of work because they had non-viable non-green jobs, what are they going to do?

    3. We are not being bamboozled Belle. We know perfectly well what is happening. There is just nothing that we can do about it!

    4. 324081+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      The way the peoples support the mass uncontrolled immigration party’s since b liar lifted the latch seems to say they do not mind being daily “bamboozled”

  69. Putin intends to get inoculated against COVID-19. 29 September 2020.

    MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. Inoculation against the coronavirus is the step that allows a decrease in the level of measures of Russian President’s epidemiologic protection. The Russian leader has already declared his intent to get vaccinated, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

    I’ll bet he’s not taking Bill Gates’s Vaccine!

    https://tass.com/society/1206355

    2. Well he won’t be risking the Chinese or Russian vaccines so which vaccine will he risk his life with?

      2. It won’t be a proper vaccine, there will be nothing in the hypo.

        Mind you there’ll have to be something or it will be just Air! Oops!

    3. That’s some of the writing in the wall then. “Take the vaccine and we will relax restrictions”. Otherwise …

  70. Dozens of migrants have made it across the English Channel in small boats for the first time in a week.

    Around 40 people are understood to have been detained as they took advantage of a change in weather conditions as strong winds eased.

    One boat with 13 people – 11 men and two teenage boys – landed on Shakespeare’s Beach at Dover in Kent with a second understood to have landed further down the coast at Kingsdown near Deal.

      1. In fear of being prosecuted because of bad weather stopping the freeloaders claiming the best house and benefits the govt will fly them in – it seems they already are with the way the numbers increase.

  72. One of the ads above states, “Famous Actors That Died And No One Realized”. I understand that they mean no-one knew or cared but it reads as no-one could tell they were dead.

  74. Headline from the DM

    Not even the Government understands the lockdown laws!
    Skills Minister Gillian Keegan admits she ‘doesn’t know’ if friends can meet in pub gardens
    – as it’s revealed council Covid marshals can use ‘reasonable force’ to enforce laws

    So, no powers of arrest but they can bash the citizenry. It’s a disgrace.
    And just how much training are they to receive in what is and is not ‘reasonable force’?

    But for the risk to Brexit I would happily see this so-called government kicked out of office today.

    1. If we leave the EU on 31st. December 2020
      I shall be amazed, I have no expectation of
      any good outcome.
      I long to be proved wrong and will look forward
      to you saying “I told you so!”

      Good morning, Sos.

      1. Me too, Garlands, me too. Good morning. This covid fiasco demonstrates exactly the sort of material from which Johnson is manufactured and cut, I have no high hopes of Brexit from him now. Why should his attitude to Brexit be any different from covid? The man is morally bankrupt, without any conviction whatsoever, in thrall to his advisors whom, it would appear, have substantial portfolios in the field of their advice.

        However, a thought has just occurred to me. If he does deliver a good Brexit, he may well come out of this unscathed with a little political re-invention. Yes, kicked out of office after January 31st with a somewhat subdued (because of covid) Brexit halo, but I suspect his bags are already packed to take on an offered highly paid sinecure by Gates in the US and out of the public eye for a few years. Why, otherwise, would he take an alleged pay-cut in this present occupation, being the Johnson that we have come to know.

      2. I get emails fairly frequently from HMG website about how life will be increasingly difficult for me, a British subject, living in the EFTA. Next time I’m back, apparently I’ll need an international drivers licence… and my “green card” insurance will also need, well, a green card printed (in Urdu, I guess).
        Sigh…

  75. Coronavirus latest news: Global coronavirus deaths pass 1 million. 29m September 2020.

    As the world passes the grim milestone, Dr Mike Ryan, head of emergencies at the WHO, said it was “not impossible” another one million people could die before a vaccine becomes available, while better treatments and effective vaccines might not be enough on their own to prevent deaths surpassing two million.

    The BBC ran with this headline to make your flesh creep. They could have pointed out that only thirteen people in the UK died from the virus yesterday. For this minuscule death rate we are trashing the economy and the country itself.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-covid-news-uk-cases-lockdown-household-mixing-ban/

          1. That relates to 1 million deaths.

            The UK’s share is ~ 4.2% of that million. and our share of the world population is ~ 0.9% so we are being fairly badly hit by Covid, but with the caveats I posted to Stuart Allan, below

          3. For ease of recall I generally use 7.5bn and UK at 67mn, both, I’m sure, will be underestimates.

    2. Reports show that the UK is the 4th. in the world for the number of coro 19 deaths.

      We are 21st. in the world by population !

      What is going on ?

      2. Several possibilites.

        Population density
        An elderly population base

        Sick people who survived here where they would already have died elsewhere.
        Too keen to attribute death to Covid where it is nothing of the sort.
        More/better testing of patients.
        Herding vulnerable old people into care homes where they would be living in extended families elsewhere.
        Greater propensity to travel within the country, spreading it.

        And first and foremost, we’re probably being lied to.

    3. Of course more than two and a half million die every year from Tuberculosis and Malaria. More than four million die of starvation every year and we already have a vaccine for that.

      1. Yup. More than four million die of starvation every year but the breeding goes on unabated, especially within those groups that have little food!

  76. 324081+ up ticks,
    Is it true that the 5 star hotels have taken up “hot bedding” illegals now that a night shift has been introduced at the Dover bridgehead ?

    On Monday, Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs that the government is planning on refusing alleged asylum seekers who come to the UK from safe countries, where they are bound by law to remain.

    “We want to ensure our asylum system is not being abused by those who are not genuine asylum seekers.” Patel said in comments reported by The Times.

    1. She’s always ‘planning’ this and ‘planning’ that, all of which sounds good. But it never happens!

      2. 324081+ up ticks,
        Evening HK,
        They have always used rhetoric to deceive promises, vows, pledges NEVER to be fulfilled.
        The party first mode of voting covers the lie sheet
        aka a manifesto, the politico’s depend on it.

    2. That’s all well and good, but the EU is already trying to rescind the “Dublin Convention”, so they will no longer be “bound by law to remain.”
      The UN would go further.

        2. Since the Dublin Regulation is EU legislation it can be rescinded by the body which created it (that would be the EU) …. just like any other legislation.

          Unilaterally breaking an agreement you’ve made with someone else is just a tad different. Just so you might notice – as long as you don’t close both eyes and turn your head away at the same time.

      2. 324081+ up ticks,
        Evening Anne,
        As with many of them, double agents, the only actions taken in the main over the decades has been anti UK pro eu, in my mind they did not drop the art of treachery on the 24/25 / 6/2016.

  77. That’s me gone for this dreary day. Mild it may be, but the endless drizzle is dispiriting.

    Time for a drink or three.

    A demain.

      1. Oooh, I don’t know. I got a decent start made on the wall I’m planning.
        This is when I started:-
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05f32ef7600a07d09d6fc7f79d507296472271e5e0376e06d78d23409fd67a3d.jpg

        And these are when I finished:-
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b307a5acad2debb81bb9cc11720030f5246d51a244b2c425c7f3f2543f1fc30e.jpg

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9805cc3a12d10a3ca3b0ac71daddcd17d7a9e773fc3081c481eda3fe87f7fc0.jpg

        And this was our Christmas tree 25 years ago, can anyone identify what variety it is??:-
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72682dc2dc2f2db7979c52cc2835eb0d34b83263aa84d8fb7bcf082f38b1531f.jpg

          3. The Norway Spruce in my garden is 17 metres high.

            Far too high for me to shin up and decorate it for Christmas!

          4. No. The needles are wrong shape.
            I have a Norway Spruce at the Cromford end of the garden that was, apparently, an ex-Christmas Tree planted by the previous occupant when he was a lad.
            It must be over 100′ high now!

      2. Dull, foggy, damp, not even cool or properly rainy, thoroughly dismal day.
        :-((
        At least, it can only get better!

        2. Been fine here and fairly mild for the time of year. I was working out in the garden in my shirtsleeves.

          2. I am just starting to put my garden to bed. I stashed the parasol away in my studio (I never get time to go in there these days) and in the next few days I shall be cleaning up the table and chairs, side table and lounger, oiling them and storing them. October will soon be here.

      3. KBO, Annie and Bill. I got nothing but grief from the Insurance Company today. They want me to do all manner of things to progress the drains leak, but won’t send an assessor round to give me advice as to what I need to do until I have done it. (At least, that’s what I think the tea-girl who rang me three times today seemed to be saying.) I kept asking her to put what she was saying in writing to me. She sent me an email with an attachment which my laptop cannot open. If I cannot open it or need more help I need to send her an email. (Which will be dealt with in 5 working days!) AAARGHHH!

        But, I am keeping on buggering on, nevertheless.

        1. Have you got open access software on your computer? I believe you can download it free. It will open documents written in Open Office, in case that’s the problem.

          1. I think that would be helpful if I knew what you are talking about, Conners. No offence, but I am as good with computers as Annie is with Maffs. I think the email attachment is either in .doc or .jpg form, whatever that means.

          2. If it’s .doc it is a Word document and you will need a word processor (Word) to open it. If it is a .jpg, it is a picture and you’ll need a program like Paint Shop Pro or the Mac equivalent to open it. If it is a .pdf you will need Adobe Reader (which you can download free from their website). I hope that helps. Some people don’t like using Microsoft and so will have a program called Open Office to write word documents. They will not have a .doc, .docx or .rtf suffix. I think they have something like .ons and Word can’t read them.

          3. Thanks for that, Conners. I shall go back to the email the Insurance Company sent me tomorrow and see exactly what it is, and try to work out what to do based on your advice. I’m pretty sure that I keep on downloading the latest version of Adobe. Whether that is the same as Adobe Reader, I am not sure. But thanks again.

  79. Have you noticed George Alagiah on BBC News at Six this evening has coughed twice on air in 15 minutes?
    I am sitting within two metres of the TV screen – should I self isolate?

    2. Being serious for a moment; given that he has resurgent bowel cancer, those coughs are rather worrying.

      1. The cancer was found to have spread to his lungs, liver and lymph nodes in April.

        He said in June that his oncologist has not yet told him to “sort his affairs out”.

          1. I noticed it somewhere when the interview was published in June – so I went and dug it out again tonight. It’s a rough deal …

  80. – For some reason my bank keeps sending me letters offering inducements to switch my business account to another bank, not sure what is going on here.

    3. What I need is a keyboard cover to stop them walking on the keys while I’m working. I keep ending up with very odd settings that take me ages to unscramble.

        2. So does Lily, but it doesn’t stop her. She’s cuddled up next to me now, with her head aginst the laptop keyboard. Makes Typing rather slow.

          2. She seems not to – but sometimes watches wildlife programmes on the telly – Suzie used to as well. Lily just finds the laptop a nuisance.

          4. One of my cats, Bob, was watching a TV cooking prog. The woman cracked an egg, that fell in to the bowl. Bob immediately went UNDER the telly to see were it had landed.

          7. Lucky, my neighbourhood cat who comes each morning to me for her breakfast, loves to “help” me with the gardening. I have to gently push her out of the way to get anything done.

          8. Next door’s cat used to drape herself around my neck when I was gardening; I looked like someone wearing a fox fur!

          9. Missy loves helping me in the garden. Once she watched me for a long time while I thinned out & transplanted Lunaria (Honesty) seedlings – she approved. Next day I was ripping out Herb Robert seedlings in a different pat of the garden – she did not approve & tried to stop me.

  82. PROJECT FEAR STRIKES AGAIN.

    Because the daily figures are so low – insignificant, really – they are now showing the weekly total….

    “Coronavirus deaths in England and Wales increased for the second consecutive week and were back above 100 in the seven days to September 18, official figures show.”

    EDIT – that’s 14 a day…..gosh…..

    1. The mad Scottish medic-in-charge, who is actually a dentist, was quite hysterical today on wee Nickis propaganda programme. It was quite funny, if he hadn’t been so serious with the “facts”.

        1. Well, forgive me, but what the Hell was that all about?

          A guy can pull a trigger and another guy can feed a belt.

    2. It seems to be “whatever it is, don’t do it – especially if it’s sociable or enjoyable” and “if we catch you enjoying yourselves, we’ll fine you”.

  85. Posted on yesterday’s page by mistake

    Excerpt from o e of the letters…
    “Her view that “it is … young people who have suffered most through lockdown” is self-centred, when in fact the care-home-dwelling elderly and care-giving NHS front-line staff have paid the ultimate price.”

    Not at all. The yoof have been best placed to keep in touch during the kerfuffle, what with their superior IT savvy.

  86. ‘I think only Twitter can take people off Twitter’: Gary Lineker LAUGHS in face of BBC boss Tim Davie after he warned he will strip stars of their social media accounts if they breach impartiality rules.

    He’ll be laughing on the other side of his face if it’s made a “gross misconduct” sackable offence and they use it to get rid of him.

    1. I think Mr Davie was naive. He can’t “strip” anyone from Twatter. But he can direct that a particular programme be ended. And he can choose to terminate a person’s contract (though I concede it might be expensive). Money doesn’t seem to count for much with the beeboids, so what’s a few million quid to get rid of a smug, self-entitled, smarmy, leftard?

          5. Yes. A “smarta träskor” who regularly whups the contestants of Only Connect and University Challenge.

    2. I don’t do Twitter and have no knowledge of how it works. However there are, apparently, several on here who do.

      Is it possible to poke Lineker with a stick and goad him into posting something that he might regret?

      1. I don’t think the fluckers actually READ stuff that the great unwashed send them. They are like MPs in that regard.

    3. Lineker is so arrogant and gives the impression that he is untouchable at the BBC. I hope Tim Davie sacks him pronto.

      There are plenty of better football pundits who would do the job better for a quarter of the sums paid to Lineker.

    4. I’m still waiting for him to take in his personal “migrant” into his luxury house. Just like all the other celebs who said they would a good while ago.

  87. 324081+ up ticks,
    The question we should be asking I believe to protect our family’s & our own rear exits is, are these new laws / rulings a deliberate campaign to confuse & further anger the peoples deflecting from a real act of treachery
    about to befall us in the near future.

    I truly have a strong feeling we are approaching some sort of odious end game that does not bode well for these Isles

    1. is that a she? Just asking for a friend!

      They just don’t realise the damage that they are doing to the democratic cause do they?

      1. They don’t care. They have channel vision and care temporarily only for their mistaken cause, whatever that is, usually the flavour of the moment in anarchist circles.

        They will be warring against those with religious convictions viz. Christians next.

        1. For once I think that we may be further down the path to oblivion than you are in the UK.

          With only a few hundred years of history, many of our founding fathers are being erased from our conscience. Leaders like John A Macdonald are now decried as racist and sexist, they should be written out of the history books. There will be nothing left.

          Hell they are even after Christopher Columbus in the US!

    2. Good night, Peddy. I went to bed at around 10 pm on Tuesday evening, but woke up concerned about my drainage pipe leak and hassle from the Insurance Company. So I’m up to read a little before a (hopefully successful) return to the arms of Morpheus. See all you NoTTLers on Wednesday.

  90. Tonight is the first debate between Biden and Trump.

    The Dems are getting very worried about Sleepy Joe. This morning they demanded two breaks every 30 minutes during the debate. They agreed to an inspection for electronic ear devices a week ago but have now withdrawn the agreement. And they have refused drug tests.

    Surely they aren’t thinking of cheating, are they?

    Some wag said that it’s going to be such a scream that he will have to go out to buy extra popcorn!

    1. Trump needs to be a little bit careful, in such a close race, a sympathy vote might just tip it.

      What he needs to do is to allow Biden to bury himself and just stand and listen when he goes gaga.

      2. Agreed but Biden will get a lot of help from Chris Wallace, the person asking the questions. He is a liberal who hates Trump! So much for an impartial moderator!

        1. A trump hating liberal? He is a news anchor at Fox News.

          If the moderator picks sides, it will not be for Biden.

          1. On a slightly more serious note, Fox is likely to be the least anti-Trump of the three doing the debates.

            Silence is Trump’s best ally.

          2. Yes, there is much criticism of Fox for hiring Wallace in the first place. Perhaps they did for ‘balance’ but the rest of the shameless MSM in the US and the UK don’t give two hoots about balance!

        3. The question is whether Biden vs Tele-Prompter is a 0-5 loss.

          Even the most biased referee can’t give six penalties for handling out balls.

    2. How do you have two breaks every 30 minutes? Surely you just have one?

      Bluntly, if he can’t cope with 30 minutes of debate where all he has to do is listen and speak how will he cope as president?

  91. I read somewhere that Rishi Sunak is prepared to resign if the dolts Johnson and Hancock impose a second full lockdown.

    Good for him. I reckon he realises that those two idiots have caused immeasurable damage to our finances and jobs. He presumably realises that this was completely unnecessary given the low number of deaths attributable to Covid even allowing for the falsification of numbers. There has been an obvious and deliberate misattribution of death from other causes to Covid.

    1. Time is rapidly running out for bumbling bungling Boris. For whatever reason he’s simply not up to the job. If he’s still not fully recovered then he needs to take time out or move over for someone else. A poll a few days ago was the first I have seen since the election where Labour is ahead. The clock is ticking…

      1. I listened to a bloke on Radio 4 this morning who claimed to be suffering from ‘Long Covid’. He reckoned he was still experiencing fatigue six months after being diagnosed with Covid and a bacterial pneumonia.

        Being charitable I suspect Boris has lost his energy and is exhibiting the same symptoms as the bloke with Long Covid. If not Boris has an oven ready excuse to resign and hand over to Rishi Sunak at the soonest.

  92. Goodnight, everyone. I’m going to listen to some music, do some codewords to keep the brain exercised then retire for the night.

  93. Evening, all. The government shouldn’t go to war against its own people full stop. Mind you, they’ve been at war with us for some time; it just stepped up a gear when we became uppity and voted to leave.

  94. We have in place the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act. I have observed that the DPA is commonly used to avoid giving out information requested under the FOI. I have a number of FOI responses replete with black lines. The DPA is frequently used on its own for similar purposes.
    I am a member of a club that has refused to circulate to members the names and contact details of all members, in fear of the DPA. I am a member of three clubs that do share member information to all members. This makes sense as members can contact each other, share views, arrange meetings, and buy and sell.
    I am at a loss to understand how citizens have benefited in any way from either of these laws. They have become a considerable inconvenience to surfing the net. To avoid the implanting of cookies and the extraction information about yourself, you have to “opt out”. In any sensible world you would have to “opt in”.
    Opting out on a single page could involve visiting the websites of several hundred advertising companies.
    So it is with a sardonic smile that I note that a Scottish Government Enquiry into the “Salmond affair” has come to an abrupt halt. This is because the Scottish Government , and other parties, will not release documents to the Enquiry.
    (A tangled web of deceit, treachery and stupidity – no, not the “Salmond affair”, although it may be, but the laws ostensibly protecting us are now shown to be essentially mechanisms for protecting officials, bureaucratic failures and the amour propre of incompetent politicians.)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-54343018

    1. The EU introduced the DPA rules – what else would you expect? I said when they were being introduced they’d make life difficult for the ordinary bod without any discernable advantage over what had been in place previously.

    2. ‘Evening, Horace, it’s (probably) been said before but Salmond and Sturgeon – something fishy there.

      There is an awful smell in the house of Caledonia.

    1. Does this mean that we now have to move on to the the Rule of Four-and-a-half and go to bed at 9pm, King Stephen? Or that we will all be dead by Christmas unless we move to a University Hall of Residence?

      1. Thank you – there’s a fair amount of work to be done on the house so not likely to be moving in for 6 months!

  96. Boris should do us all a favour and bugger off. He can take Hancock and Patel with him.

    I have never thought less of politicians than these three charlatans. They make Cameron and May look radiant by comparison and they were shit useless.

    Edit: Apologies for my robust language but if I wrote my views in more apposite language I would be banned for profanities.

    1. Could you hang on a few minute before ordering the buggered off bus, we have quite a few charlatans over here that should join them.

      There again, at least our useles pile do admit that they are liberals.

      1. I grieve for you. You must by now have mountains of shit against your ruler. His father was involved with the Mafia as I recall. Why no research and exposure?

        1. thanks.

          The bigger problem is that a majority approve of our pretendy PM and his entourage. Not a week goes by without a fresh accusation of corruption but Trudeau seems able to weather the storm.

          We once had a progressive conservative party who were strong on fiscal responsibility but soft on social issues. We certainly need them now.

  97. Pity the rag she writes for is complicit in spreading project fear throughout the country.

    I got locked out of Twitter for having the ‘wrong’ opinion on Covid
    Allison Pearson 29 September 2020 • 7:18pm
    6-7 minutes

    I woke yesterday morning to find that I had been locked out of Twitter for “violating our rules against abuse and harassment”. I was dumbfounded. Which of my recent tweets had been abusive or harassed anyone? I glanced down the email to see something I had posted last week in response to yet another We’re All Doomed! report on the BBC news. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”

    Whether you agree with my tweet or not, it accurately represents the opinion of a number of distinguished scientists, including Oxford’s Prof Sunetra Gupta (whom I interviewed for the Planet Normal podcast) and Prof Michael Levitt, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2013. Neither is a wacky Covid-denier. They just happen to agree that the worst-case scenario of 500,000 deaths arrived at back in March by Professor Neil Ferguson, which presumed (wrongly) that all age groups were equally susceptible to the virus, was possibly inflated by a factor of 10 or 12. They also reckon that the best strategy now is to shield the elderly and the vulnerable and allow the virus to infect the healthy population, notably the young, so we build up that terrific community immunity that seems to have served the Swedes so well.

    Why would Twitter object to my sharing that evidence-based idea? Especially as the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show there is no enormous spike in Covid deaths, which makes locking up 25 per cent of the population look ever more cruel and futile. Is it a coincidence that the Twitter algorithms, which put me on the Naughty Step for 12 hours, align so closely with government policy? Or is it that Lefties get to shut down any version of the truth but their own?

    If there’s a risk that the present lockdown strategy will do more harm than good – a suspicion which sadly grows by the day – then surely there has to be free and vigorous debate of the kind we gratifyingly started to see in Parliament this week, as 50 Tory MPs volubly registered their concerns.

    Increasingly, what we are witnessing is a brutal stand-off between The Science (or one aggressive, politicised version of it) and Humanity. Take a recent headline in this very paper: Ministers will do whatever it takes to save Christmas. Too kind!

    Look here, Christmas is not for Matt Hancock to withhold or bestow on a grateful, cowering populace. Christmas has done very well for more than 2,000 years, it has survived wars and pestilence far worse than Covid, reuniting families, shining the light of love and hope into the darkest corners of our history. Christmas is non-negotiable. (Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury, rather than recommending the NHS app, could have made that point rather forcibly himself.) For the Government to pretend that the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ is in their gift, but only if we comply with the rules, is disgusting, frankly.

    My friends are a pretty law-abiding bunch, but none of them has any intention of obeying the Rule of Six over the festive season, especially when small children are counted in your half-dozen in England but not in Scotland or Wales. So a new grandchild, a babe in arms, can make the difference between being allowed to invite a widowed uncle for the one day of the year when he gets a slap-up meal with all the trimmings. What is the logic behind that? No one has a clue. Not our Prime Minister, burbling bafflingly yesterday about households being allowed to mix indoors in the North East (er, they’re not). Nor his squirming skills minister, Gillian Keegan, who admitted she didn’t know whether, under punitive new laws smuggled on to the statute book under cover of darkness, friends were allowed to meet in a pub garden.

    Oh, for crying out loud, just stop it with your ludicrous no loud singing or dancing. At the start of The Great British Bake Off, Matt Lucas did a wickedly good impersonation of a hapless Boris announcing the latest back-of-a-fag-packet wheeze: “We are now approaching Phase 46!”

    Sorry, but it’s gone beyond a joke now. People are suffering, really suffering. Here is Russell’s story: “My mum (82) and my dad (83) live in Newcastle. My mum is bewildered by this latest lockdown, she has had to cancel meeting her friends, which is about the only thing that has kept her going. She feels a sense of hopelessness. It has been six months of mental pain and loneliness. She says they don’t have long left and she wants to LIVE. They have a new grandson due in November but have no idea when they will see him. Their niece is getting married in December and they cannot attend. They know they will probably see very little family around Christmas. How much misery is this government going to cause before it ceases its reign of terror?”

    Good question. Perhaps Boris would like to address it at his press conference today. The cure is now far worse than the disease, Prime Minister. There are people who would rather die than live in this theatre of the absurd. The risks your scientists frighten us with are vanishingly small. Even under Imperial’s worst case scenario of 500,000 deaths without lockdown, only 99.3% of the UK’s population would not have succumbed to the virus. Many will suffer with loneliness and some will lose the will to live. Many, many more will perish from other diseases. It’s quite simple; shield the vulnerable and let the rest of us get on with pulling this great country out of the mire.

    You may get locked out of Twitter for saying it, but I won’t stop. Censorship be damned. The truth will out.

    2. “The truth will out.”

      Note for readers: Especially if you have a regular column in the ‘Daily Telegraph’.

    3. But that’s the point isn’t it? By preventing the truth from being heard, it won’t get out. They’ll define what can be said and who can say it.

      1. The truth always gets out, Heath and the EEC as an example, problem is normally it is too late!

    4. It is naive in the extreme to expect Welby to stand up for Christianity. He wasn’t appointed ABofC to promote the Church.

      1. On Saturday 9 April [2016] the newspapers filled their front pages with the revelation that DNA testing showed that Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury since October 2013, was not fathered by his mother’s first husband, Gavin Welby, an alcoholic former whisky salesman. Instead, he was the result of a fling immediately before their wedding, with Sir Anthony Montague Browne, Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill. Serious newspapers noted that it was fortunate that the Church of England had amended its canon law in the 1960s to remove a longstanding prohibition on illegitimate men becoming bishops, claiming that otherwise Archbishop Welby’s appointment to Canterbury (and previously as Bishop of Durham) would be void ab initio, along with all his actions in that role.

        [historyandpolicy.org]

          2. Ergo, should a future Prime Minister nominate a Muslim for ABofC – the incumbent Monarch would not have the right of veto …

          3. Not a problem, I think. The next ABofC may be given to the current Prince of Wales to accept and – as we all know – he plans to be the Defender of All Faiths.

          4. I know nothing about Anglicanism, but you’d think that the Queen would have a veto in such appointments since she’s supposed to be the Head of the CofE.

      3. The New World Order has no provision for organised religion. The CofE hierarchy are all Common Purpose graduates. Most of the clergy in Guildford Diocese think that the future is Zoom. It’s not looking good.

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