Tuesday 3 December: The PM can no longer avoid responsibility for soaring immigration

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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581 thoughts on “Tuesday 3 December: The PM can no longer avoid responsibility for soaring immigration”

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,263 3/6

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  3. Morning Geoff and Everyone
    Today's Tales should ring a bell, after you've groaned
    Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, had a unique way of ringing the church bells. He would stand on the parapet, calculate the wind speed, swing off towards the bell and kick it with his feet.
    Unfortunately for Quasi, he misjudged the wind one stormy day, twisted in mid air, hit the bell with his head and fell to the ground, dead. A crowd quickly gathered and a policeman was called.
    “Does anybody know this man?” the policeman asked of the crowd.
    One man came forward, looked at Quasi and said, “No. but his face rings a bell.”

    Quasimodo's twin brother was hired to replace Quasi after he died. Quasi had taught him how to swing on the rope and kick the bell with his feet. The brother misjudged the wind one day also and fell dead on the pavement.
    A crowd quickly gathered and a policeman was called.
    “Can anyone identify this man?” asked the policeman of the crowd.
    “Yes,” said someone, “he’s a dead ringer for his brother.”

    2. As MP, he has more influence than the rest of us put together. Then he must get going.

    3. He is beginning to be disliked by all the right people!

      He is the sanest, most rational and successful man in the Reform Party because he has had such success outside the world of politics.

    4. Have you seen the video of pro Palestinian demonstrators invading a church during mass last Sunday?

      1. No.

        I fear that a call to arms (Jihadist) via social media is going to go out between March and May 2025. Something I've been told.

    1. It is a very useful distraction from the list above. The truth must not be heard by the ignorant UK voters.

    2. It is a very useful distraction from the list above. The truth must not be heard by the ignorant UK voters.

  8. UK supermarkets join Lurpak maker’s trial of methane-reducing chemical in cows. 3 December 2024.

    ‘The latest innovation we’re looking at is Bovaer. Bovaer is a feed additive developed by Dutch company DSM that allows farmers to reduce enteric methane emissions from our dairy herds. Enteric methane being what the cows produce during their natural digestive process. Today, we’ve been working with Arla and DSM as part of the Bovaer set-up process, learning about what’s involved and how we can make the pilot as successful as possible.

    If anything illustrates the utter madness of the climate lobby it must be this attempt to save the planet by stopping cows farting.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/methane-reducing-feed-additive-trialled-in-arla-dairy-farms/

    1. We find it interesting that a Danish company is experimenting on the British population rather than the Danish one.

      Could it be that the Danish government considers the experiment unsafe?

      What other reason could there be?

        1. Lurpak is made in Denmark so you're OK with that. The Danish government won't have Bovaer in their products.

          The important thing is to not feed any Arla products to male children or male grand children.

      2. As I commented yesterday, Denmark has some fierce food additive & purity laws.
        I don't think it would look good if they had to change the law to put this stuff in milk. And slurry.

    2. If it was developed by a Dutch company why is it not being trialled first in the Netherlands?

      I think that we know the answer.

    3. With all the chat going around about Bovaer being fed to dairy cattle. We thought we’d take the chance to explain why we think our cows need to reduce their methane emissions
      – Our cows own 4 private jets, a sea plane ✈️ and a helicopter.
      – In 2022 our cows took 392 flights, averaging just over one daily.
      – The cows investments, including travel, yachts and dwellings are responsible for just over 6 million tonnes of CO2 emmissions
      Oh no, sorry. That’s Bill Gates, one of the backers of Bovaer.
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330145297516799/permalink/1881729049025085/

    4. With all the chat going around about Bovaer being fed to dairy cattle. We thought we’d take the chance to explain why we think our cows need to reduce their methane emissions
      – Our cows own 4 private jets, a sea plane ✈️ and a helicopter.
      – In 2022 our cows took 392 flights, averaging just over one daily.
      – The cows investments, including travel, yachts and dwellings are responsible for just over 6 million tonnes of CO2 emmissions
      Oh no, sorry. That’s Bill Gates, one of the backers of Bovaer.
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330145297516799/permalink/1881729049025085/

    1. Good morning, Annie. This cartoon appeared on yesterday's NoTTLe site, and I still don't understand it. The character on the right looks nothing at all like John Prescott. Explanation? Oh, the penny has just dropped – is he/she meant to be one of those Teletubbies from the new Jaguar ad?

      1. Did you see the new car? Picture on the Telegraph front page, in oh-so-gay pink, and the ugliest car since the Honqi was developed.

  13. 397928+ up ticks,

    It was hard work these past 40 years, seemingly by many as abusing the polling stations by returning the old politico reliables
    to office time and time again but it had to be done to satisfy the majority voters needs.

    As we witness in todays society the solid support the lab/lib/con coalition has received these past 40 years has paid off in a complete change of venue, enjoy.

    https://x.com/NotFarLeftAtAll/status/1863259902367428913

  14. 397928+ up ticks,

    Has anybody thought that he could be going for the Grand Mufti
    title ?

    Tuesday 3 December: The PM can no longer avoid responsibility for soaring immigration

  15. Free Speech has two good short articles today, Araminta Smade’s depiction of what really happened to the Skripals , and Nanumaga’s short essay on the impact of Trump’s victory, in the US and here. As ever please read and comment.

    Apparently today is Giving Tuesday, and FSB is asking you to give – if you can afford it. FSB’s running costs have just gone up because we now need our own server, so if you have a few bob to spare, donations will be gratefully received. Also, the Maggie Oliver Foundation , which helps victims of the grooming rape gangs, is asking for donations. If you have to choose between FSB and the MOF, choose Maggie, as hers is the more deserving cause. Thanks.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. Morning, Tom.
      When posting an article on FSB, is it in purgatory until you approve, or else how is it done?

          1. Gammon to right of them, Gammon to left of them, Gammon in front of them
            Volleyed and thundered!

      2. Morning Herr Oberst

        No. It’s all immediate. Nothing is blocked by FSB. Sometimes disqus throws a wobble but we have no restrictions at all. I have just checked the disqus admin site, nothing pending or in the spam section.

        The site (eg FSB) can impose restrictions, such as naughty words, etc, that automatically get a post sent to the pending bin in disqus (which has a long list of suggested naughty words), but like Nttl, FSB does not use any.

        If you want any further info, or are having problems posting on FSB, please let me know.

        1. Thanks! I'll put together a few thoughts when I get a moment (the way things are going, that'll be after retirement…)

  18. Morning, all Y'all.
    Clear sky, cooling rapidly. Gritter came by at 01:13, with more lights than the sun, and woke me up. Fooey.

    1. Morning Citroen ,

      When I was a little girl , like most children of my era , we read Enid Blyton books ..

      Noddy was so sweet , but when the Golliwogs came out of the wood to attack his little yellow car .. that was so frightening .. the illustrations were bold , and dear kind plump Mr Plod the policeman was always there to save the day .

      What did Enid know , when she wrote her books in the late 1940's?

        2. Look at our magnificent and beloved specimen of policemanship : Grizzly.

          He has lost several stone and is now fit, slim, svelte and dashing and not at all like Mr Plod.

        1. Exactly , and the illustrator Beek was a Dutchman .

          Harmsen van der Beek is the original illustrator for the Noddy books by Enid Blyton:
          Known for: Creating the jaunty look of the popular character Noddy
          Signed work: Beek signed his work as “Beek”
          Death: Died in 1953, leading to other illustrators being used for the Noddy books
          Assistant: Peter Wienk, Beek’s assistant, was one of the illustrators who took over after Beek’s death

      1. Not only incomprehensible but so bloody ridiculous it is hard to believe his annoyance is anything but a joke, a lampoon of the stupidity and backwardness of Islamic ethics, so called.

    2. Who is it who tries to ruin video clips like this one of Margaret Thatcher with extra noise on top of the clip?

      I have often noticed this phenomenon.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊.
    Not frosty as forecast, which is good.
    Sod politics…..
    Busy day today, opthalmic appointment this morning 10:30.
    Afternoon at Addenbrooks hospital to watch our lovely, 6 years in April, grandson ringing the bell to celebrate that he will be clear from his treatment for leukemia.
    We are really looking forward to this.
    Slayders all. 🤗

    1. Wonderful occasion, Eddy! A relief all round! Good on the lad.
      That actually made me tear up, so it did…

    4. Good morning Eddy

      I am so glad to hear the good news about your grandson ..

      Keep battling on and have an enjoyable day.

      You've got to have hope .x

  24. 'Morning All
    Medley Time
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    1. Very sensible idea to very sensible people but with a major flaw from the politicians' viewpoint i.e. destroying prime farmland and the productivity that land creates is a priority in the agenda they're following.

    1. Surely this has to be a REALLY good FAKE, like the Trump and Musk "Stayin' Alive" dance fabrication yesterday (or was it the day before?).
      If it IS real, then Britain has problems. Essentially, if you don't like the RoP folk here, then you can leave (not them, they're lovely).

      1. 397928+ up ticks,

        Morning RC,

        Then may one ask if the long term indigenous leave who will foot the islamic welfare bill ?

    2. Surely this has to be a REALLY good FAKE, like the Trump and Musk "Stayin' Alive" dance fabrication yesterday (or was it the day before?).
      If it IS real, then Britain has problems. Essentially, if you don't like the RoP folk here, then you can leave (not them, they're lovely).

    3. Surely this has to be a REALLY good FAKE, like the Trump and Musk "Stayin' Alive" dance fabrication yesterday (or was it the day before?).
      If it IS real, then Britain has problems. Essentially, if you don't like the RoP folk here, then you can leave (not them, they're lovely).

    4. Learning about his background, I think his idea of security is the triumph of Islam in Britain and the end of English culture.

  28. Good morning all. A bit late after having a bit of a lie in.
    Cloudy with patches of blue and a chilly -2°C on the Yard Thermometer.

      1. Good morning, Jules. The other day you described having a power cut and then an outside light that wouldn't turn off. (At least I think that was the sitch). I just wondered whether the outside light was on a timer. Power cut = timer stops; return of power = light out of sync. Just a thought.

        1. It's not on a timer but was supposed to be motion sensitive. It hasn't worked for ages. Then came the power cut and it was on and wouldn't go off. So OH turned it off at the fuse box and we had no lights or Internet in that part of the house. He put the power back on and the light was back to normal – off.

  29. 397928+ up tick,

    No longer avoid ? far from it I do believe he pays close attention to every boat that his "escort department" brings ashore.

    When you are constructing a parallel society every little helps as the old lady said as she peed in the Medway.

    Tuesday 3 December: The PM can no longer avoid responsibility for soaring immigration

  30. Yesterday I described how we get out jigsaws from Fakenham Church jigsaw fair. The MR shocked me at supper when she said that the Church was stopping the fairs (and their book swap) because renovations and "improvements" internally have meant that there is no room to store puzzles and books. A bit of a blow, really.

        1. Verschlimmbesserung

          A German noun word for an attempted improvement that only makes things worse.

  31. We are at war with Russia. It's pretty obvious what's going to happen and soon. Ukrainian troops are our proxies… who do you think Putin's will be ?

    Be prepared. Get sharpening up. And man up.

    1. Not obvious at all. I trust far more in the good sense of Putin than the idiot politicians in the West. Nothing will happen until Trump becomes President other than the effort to whip up hysteria on the part of the MSM, the mouthpiece of the half wits in government.

      As for the Ukrainian troops, they are decimated and all they will do is hang tight, they can go no further. It has been observed that their losses are so dreadful that they are suffering causalities that put their situation on a par with the disaster of the siege of Leningrad. That is an American estimate by the way, not Russian propaganda.

      1. As seen in Aftenposten today, the Ukie desertions are increasing rapidly and Zelensky is firing generals. They redict collapse soon – maybe why the NATO forces are likely to be committed, as then the war can continue a destructive while longer.
        Also a small article that the US doesn't have enough missiles and heavy/expensive bangy stuff for anything like a long engagement.

        1. 'Paris and London are trying to prepare options for different scenarios so that if the new US leadership asks how European countries can get involved, they have ready options to support Kyiv.'

          Such a move was needed to guarantee the participation of European countries in peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in the event of mediation by US president-elect Donald Trump, according to the Radio Liberty source.

          French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said that Paris 'does not rule out any option' concerning troop deployment, while former UK prime minister Boris Johnson said last week that a European force should protect the frontier with Russia.

          'I don't think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians… But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you're going to want to have multinational European peace-keeping forces monitoring the border, helping the Ukrainians.'

          He said: 'I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British.'

          To Hell with them all.

        2. With regard to the lack of missiles. the same problem exists with the EU and Britain. Simply demonstrates that it is all mouth and no do.

      2. "… hysteria on the part of the MSM, the omouthpiece of the half wits in government."

        Well said. Who believes them, anyway. Jonathan?

          2. My sympathies. Also having problems today but I try to remember thst there are plenty of other out there in a condition far worse. I think that psychological attitude is more than half the battle. That their worse should cheer you up, LOL.

  33. Good morrow gentlefolk, especially Geoff and thanks for his wonderful work on this site.

    Late on parade. I cannot seem to get enough sleep!

    1. Morning, Tom.
      At this time of year, with cold and dark everywhere, a comfortable zed or two is about the only thing worth doing. Telly is carp, news depressing, alcohol a) no solution and b) expensive. Work is stressful and a PITA.

  34. 54 years ago I was in Tidworth Military Hospital having just given birth to a baby boy. 6 lb 5 oz and the cord wrapped round him twice. He survived and so did I.

    2. I was treated in Tidworth in the mid 70s for a broken heel bone. They put me in a bed next to an A-Rab with TB. What happened to isolation hospitals?

  35. Gregg Wallace

    The complaints against him, seem to me, to say more about the complainant, than him

    in a word he is UNWOKE

    1. Yo OLT.

      Lisa Faulkner complained about the fact that Greg told vulgar sexist jokes to the crew while she was competing on Masterchef in 2010. She eventually won the competition and there is a photo of her Greg and John smiling to the camera. Lisa had been so traumatised by Gregs vulgarity that she happily put her arm around him!

      She went on to have an affair with John Torode while he was married to another woman. Then married him.

      Gregs comment about middle class women of a certain age was entirely correct. Look how many other women from years ago were suddenly offended by his behaviour.

      Yes he is vulgar. So what. I would prefer to spend time in his company rather than women like her. Kirsty Wark for fucks sake !!!

      1. I think Gregg Wallace is a bit of a prat, but I have encountered many men similar to him , and of course some chaps have been like that since they were small lads .

        I attended a meeting recently , a regular monthly meeting which is on the same evening as the local youth club / scouts/ cubs or whatever .

        I locked my car up and wandered over to the hall carrying my folder and other bits and pieces , my group were chatting .

        Several youngsters, attention seeking little brats milling around us , larking around , and one of them jumped in front of us before we went into the hall , emitting the loudest smelliest fart ever !!

        Us adults yelled " Oi, enough of that ".. and the kid who did it shouted out .. "Big fart for old farts" and a few of the lads ran around doing the Michael Jackson rubbing the groin action ..

        Some parents don't have boundaries , and they don't teach their children what is what .. because most modern parents are a different breed anyway.. Self gratification and me me me types.

        The youth group leaders these days have their work cut out!

        1. There's been a lot of comment about the pillock Wallace, but almost none from women. I'd like to see women's opinion, as it seems that the merry banter was directed at, or close to, them. Is such behaviour experienced as common (as in, frequent, as well as oikish)?

          1. I commented previously that Nottler ladies would have either put him in his place or taken it in their stride.
            I think this is a case of they don't like him. Find him offensive. And because they can…try to destroy him.
            Their behaviour and attitude has possibly destroyed the show. All those others involved will also have to look for new jobs.

          2. He is a complete wazzock. Thinks he is the life and soul; thinks his "jokes" are fantastic. Unable – ever – to keep his mouth shut – or his hands to himself.

            But not a Harvey Weinstein or a Russell Brand by any means. The beeboids should sack him for being a bore. End of.

          3. Yep , I would have asked him whether his schnitzel ever went soggy?

            I am certain he might be semi illiterate by virtue of confusing Master chef with another idiom ..

            He was the edgy working class lad thrown into the Millefeuille of of intellectual Master bakery ( don't read that too quickly) whilst the other contestants flirted wooed when they found their meal tickets and celebrity .

          4. Rather like the Z level actress who tried to destroy Strictly.
            (A programme I haven't watched since Bill Bailey won it. By that stage, he was the only reason I watched it in the first place.)

          6. It's all so trivial. A group of women have suddenly decided to take offence over a white guy telling dirty jokes ten years ago and there's a storm of faux public outrage. Yet when an African Moslem murders three children and it turns out that he's only in this country at all because a corrupt lawyer called Keir Starmer connived to help the family avoid justice in their homeland, public discourse is promptly shut down.

          7. Don't worry Sue.

            This drama about Wallace will continue in the media until the Arla scandal

            has been forgotten.

        2. I went to a co-ed private school.
          There were boys, particularly in their teens, who were inept and gross. We knew who they were and either ignored them, mocked them or gave them a wallop.
          And these boys could come from professional families, farming, local businesses or any other background. They were just socially inept.
          One went on to become a millionaire by selling his family farmland to developers.

          1. Sounds as if you had a great life experience and a sensible attitude .

            My learning curve started when I was just over 18 years old .. starting my student nurse training in the Navy!

            I had only attended girls schools from the age of 11!.

            Boys were an enigma , and I didn’t know too much about laddish lads / men/ old men .

            Learnt to turn the other cheek and do you know the worst experiences were when I was involved with the Tories .

            Usually alcohol induced stupidity !

    2. The BBC thought they were being avant-garde and socially diversive by employing a bit of rough to present a cookery programme.

      Why is everyone surprised when a bit of rough behaves like a bit of rough? Surely that was what the BBC employed him to do.

    3. The BBC thought they were being avant-garde and socially diversive by employing a bit of rough to present a cookery programme.

      Why is everyone surprised when a bit of rough behaves like a bit of rough? Surely that was what the BBC employed him to do.

  36. Good morning all! Another gloomy day but not terribly cold here in West Sussex. As for the wind, which is still non existent up here, apart from the storm at the beginning of last week, here is an article about hot air, the farce continues. By the way, I use the term 'up here' because I am literally situated on top of a hill, the highest point in Fernhurst. So if the wind is quiet here it must be practically comatose in the valley below.

    Britain paying record £1bn to switch OFF wind farms to stop power surges overwhelming the grid due to high winds

    Britons have shelled out an "absurd" £1billion to temporarily shut down wind turbines in 2024 alone, a damning new report has revealed.

    With Britain's energy grid struggling to cope with the power generated by high winds, turbines across the land have been "curtailed" to protect it from surges.

    The so-called curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid – and households and businesses are expected to pay for this through their bills.

    And in the first 11 months of 2024, the cost of the temporary shutdowns has skyrocketed into 10-figure sums – beating out 2023's £779million and 2022's £945m.

    The data, unearthed by Octopus Energy and first reported by Bloomberg, has sparked incredulity from energy specialists, who warn that cheap power is "going to waste" at the same time that new wind farms are opening up across Britain.

    Clem Cowton, director of external affairs at Octopus, said: "The outdated rules of our energy system mean vast amounts of cheap green power go to waste.

    "It's absurd that Britain pays Scottish wind farms to turn off when it's windy, while simultaneously paying gas-power stations in the South to turn on.

    "We need to change the rules that govern our system to make the most of our homegrown energy and get bills down for British households and businesses."

    Octopus and other firms have called for the country to shift to a regional pricing system, which they say would incentivise more wind farms to be built closer to the areas which need power most.

    At the moment, electricity is transported to the higher-demand South from producers in Scotland and the North – and if the energy firms have their way, there wouldn't be as much of a need for the hundreds of miles of cables which make this happen.

    On the other hand, the energy firms' plans would likely lead to homes and businesses in the South paying more for their energy than those in the North, which would doubtless prove highly controversial.

    Jason Mann, an electricity markets expert at FTI Consulting, said the high curtailment costs came as a result of the lack of cables to transport power to the South.

    But he also argued the £1bn cost was partly the result of Britain's national electricity pricing system.

    Mann said: "Congestion costs are an inevitable problem under the current market design we have in Britain.

    "Increasing the amount of transmission capacity we have can alleviate the problem but not fully… It will remain an enduring issue.

    "At some point you have to do something that encourages greater demand in the North, for example lower prices."

    According to the National Energy System Operator (Neso), curtailment costs are on track to reach £6bn in just five years if the status quo continues.

    1. Probably the only way to get companies to build and operate wind turbines is to give them a contract to deliver or not against payment, payment to continue when the wind doesn't blow or blows too much.
      If only oil & gas were paid whether or not you had your heating on or were filling your car at the pumps.

    1. How can you tell whether Keir is talking or farting?

      When he is farting the sound makes more sense, the smell is less offensive and the product is less harmful to the environment.

  38. Arla have gone to great pains to deny that Bovaer fed to cows goes into the milk. They must be unaware that old dairy cows not only enter the food chain for humans but some chefs specialise in using that meat.

    Good morning.

    2. Morning Phizzee,

      I wonder how local sewage farms cope with the poopy smell factor ..

      Muck spreading on our fields fills the air with countryside smells , and when muckspreading occurs the fields are full of seagulls and crows , rooks etc .. If chemicals are being added to cattle feed , what then ?

      How about the cattle lucky enough to graze on grassy pastures , horses , goats .. Caravan parks , music festivals .. the poop smell factor is part of everyday life .

      This poop smell additive is another scam ..

      Good milk producing beasts will be scarred and shunned by the public who consume their products.

  39. 'Morning, Peeps and Geoff,

    Headline in the DT – "Starmer warns Trump: Britain will not side with US against EU
    It is ‘plain wrong’ to suggest UK must make ‘either/or’ choice between its allies, says PM"

    FreeGearKeir adopting his usual position 'on the fence'. When he does eventually get off – or falls off, more likely – he will inevitably land on the wrong side.

    Must dash, that wood isn't going to chop itself…

    1. Europe, or more specifically, the EU, which is what Starmer means, might be a friend to globalists like him and his class, but to the rest of us they are the enemy. There is no choice other than the Americans.

    3. To be fair, the headline was misleading. He made it clear he wanted to work with both.

  41. Bit of a struggle:
    Wordle 1,263 4/6

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  42. NATO Official Reveals: France and UK Plan to Send Troops to Ukraine

    An interesting headline on MSN News. Enjoy!

    1. Better hurry up, then.
      Headlines over here have it that the Ukie army is collapsing (too many desertions) and Zelensky is firing his generals.

      1. The British government appears to want to waste taxpayers' money in hopeless situations.

        Why?

        I have no idea.

      2. The British government appears to want to waste taxpayers' money in hopeless situations.

        Why?

        I have no idea.

    2. Britain and France meddled in the Crimean War. Why? Propping up the ailing Ottoman Empire in 1856 only to kibosh it in 1917 anyway and besides, the Turks were the bad guys.

    4. It is a good marketing ploy. Why wouldn't someone sign up to Nectar !

      Pimms was at £20 and with Nectar £10. Same with a litre of Baileys.

          1. If I buy with cash, they can’t analyse my purchases and add them to the database. Facial recognition is threatening my privacy, so I buy as much as possible from shops that don’t have it. I’ve never uploaded a photo of myself to the internet, but I’ve no doubt big tech has managed to steal one from somewhere.

  45. Good morning folks.

    Some of you will have seen by now that latest Jaguar car that is due to go into production.

    Here is one from 7 years ago that the company decided not to put into production. Call me old fashioned but I like the 217 car more…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/913c78d172736d336b5d9563772b3755ccda81fd27784c9c97d5dc95a3fb972d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f5a8b6e3f11cc19ea44e7511ed586374fd9d078f7219b91a7bf3906fdfb345a.jpg

        1. Answer me this: what makes he likes of Gregg Wallace; William Sitwell, Jay Rayner and a handful of other fatheads think that they know more about food than I (and many other 'ordinary' people) do?

          The fact is they do not, and in many cases they know much less. Just being a privileged wanker who has ready access to top restaurants and chefs does NOT make you more of a 'food expert' than Joe Soap.

          1. They spend a good deal of time doing it. They get paid a lot of money for it. They get to eat for free. And in the case of AA Gill and Grace Dent they are hilariously funny and cutting.

          2. Everyone spends a good deal of time eating (but not getting paid to do so).

            "They get to eat 'for free'." Please remind me, what does the vacuous expression 'for free' actually mean?

  50. I see Lady Victoria Sponge was wheeled out yesterday to say hello to the Downing Street Christmas tree. Can't tell whether her frock was a new one…

    1. I noted that too.

      Are we to believe that they are not a happily married and united couple?

      To be honest I have only heard speculation that they have split up – I am not sure that there is any evidence..

        1. Maybe she doesn't think Net Zero Renewable Solar Windmills and Insectivorous eating are sensible.

    4. I can't listen to his videos because the pauses between sentences in natural speech are completely edited out, so every sentence start is an unwelcome jolt. Pity, as his message is interesting.

  53. Nigel Farage calls for a referendum of Chagossians on ‘rotten’ island deal
    Reform UK leader claims Donald Trump’s team is ‘appalled’ by agreement to give archipelago to Mauritius
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/02/nigel-farage-referendum-chagos-islands-rotten-deal/

    BTL

    The Lib/Dems are doing very nicely out of FPTP and indeed, under PR they would have had fewer seats than Reform.

    Is this why Davy – the leader of the party which has always argued in favour of PR – has lost his zeal for it?

    When the Reform Party has more seats in the House of Commons than all the other parties combined will Farage still be in favour of PR?

  54. A long piece from the DM.
    If true why hasn't it been trumpeted all over the vaccine loving MSM? My bold italic highlight below.

    Here's the proof anti-vaxxers have got it wrong – it's NOT the Covid jab making people ill, says PROFESSOR ROB GALLOWAY
    Being known as the sick man of Europe is not the accolade anyone would want. But would it surprise you to learn that since Covid we've become even sicker?
    The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that 36 per cent of working-age people had at least one long-term health condition, an increase from 31 per cent pre-Covid.
    Even more alarmingly, more than 2.5 million people were economically inactive because of long-term sickness, an increase of over 400,000 since the start of the pandemic.
    And yes, there's no doubt that this is due to the damaging impact of our lifestyle, including obesity, lack of exercise and eating ultra-processed foods (which make up 60 per cent of the average Briton's diet).
    But I want to suggest another factor – the long sting in the tail from Covid.
    Now I know that plenty of people think what's driven the rise in ill health is the vaccine: I get a lot of stick and threats on social media when I write about the benefits of it, with people saying I'm missing the point about the harms and accusing me of being a vaccine zealot.
    To a point, I can understand why some people are so overwrought: the mistrust many of us now have about drug companies generally, the failed hope (as I, too, initially believed) that vaccines would prevent you from getting Covid, and the lack of long-term safety data, have led many to question them.
    However, the results of a new study finally put that argument to bed.
    The research was published last month with little fanfare, but buried in the small print of the results section was something quite eye-opening.
    Initially, we all thought Covid was just a respiratory illness. Sadly, it's more complicated, with a greater number of manifestations than any of us could have imagined. For the virus seems unique, as not only does it damage organs, but it can alter our immune response, cause chronic inflammation and change the hormonal controls in our body.
    (This uniqueness makes the chances of Covid being manmade – by accident or deliberately, we will never know – in a laboratory a reasonable theory, rather than just insane conspiracy.)
    These factors all raise our risks of several long-term illnesses after a Covid infection, ranging from lung clots to strokes and heart attacks and even an increased risk of dementia.
    And this new study now reveals it also raises our risk of developing an autoimmune condition.
    As someone who has a strong family history of these (my grandmother and cousin had rheumatoid arthritis) and who himself suffers from Crohn's disease (which got worse after my two episodes of Covid), this paper caught my eye.
    Published in the well-respected JAMA Dermatology journal, the study – by researchers in South Korea – was based on the medical records of more than six million people: half of them had had Covid and half were matched as 'controls' – which means they had similar characteristics except for not having had Covid.
    The Covid patients all became ill before October 2020 (when not all had been offered the vaccine). The results were astonishing.
    If you had Covid, you had a 35 per cent greater risk of developing Crohn's and a 15 per cent increased risk of ulcerative colitis (these are both debilitating conditions that cause inflammation of the digestive tract); a 9 per cent increase in rheumatoid arthritis (where your immune system attacks the tissues in the joints); and an 11 per cent increase in ankylosing spondylitis (which causes an inflamed and painful spine).
    There was also a 13 per cent increase in Sjögren's syndrome (where the immune system attacks glands that produce saliva and tears, causing very dry mouth and eyes); and a massive 45 per cent increase in Behcet's disease (which attacks your blood vessels, causing symptoms ranging from mouth and genital ulcers to joint pain).
    The researchers also found that patients who'd been to intensive care with Covid – a marker of a severe infection – were at even greater risk of later developing an autoimmune condition.
    But buried deep in the supplementary pages of the results section of the paper was the most important information.
    Figure 11 was a table labelled 'Subgroup Analyses of Autoimmune Connective Tissue Disease Risk by Vaccination Status'.
    This innocuous-looking table compared the risks of getting an autoimmune condition if you had Covid in people who had the full vaccine course, an incomplete vaccination course, and no vaccination.
    The results were startling. For example, overall there was a 13 per cent increased risk of developing Sjögren's syndrome after having Covid.
    But if you were unvaccinated and developed Covid, you had a 76 per cent increased risk of Sjögren's. The increased risks were replicated for all other conditions: rheumatoid arthritis went from a 9 per cent to a 55 per cent risk; Crohn's from 35 per cent to 121 per cent; ulcerative colitis 15 per cent to 191 per cent; and so on.
    Even more remarkably, with some conditions such as psoriasis there was no risk if you'd had Covid but were vaccinated – yet if you weren't vaccinated and caught the virus, you had a 95 per cent increased risk of developing the condition.
    The researchers concluded that the results 'may provide evidence to support the hypothesis that Covid vaccines can help prevent autoimmune diseases'.
    No one wants to inject a vaccine into their body, especially one without long-term safety data.
    But what we do know is that Covid vaccines have not contributed to the rise in ill health, just the opposite.
    Not only would many millions more have died, but the post-Covid burden of ill-health would have been far greater.
    So following a pure scientific approach with no conflicts of interest, I'll continue to take the Covid vaccine.
    And if I'm anywhere where I'm at risk of catching Covid, such as a busy A&E department or on an aeroplane, I'll wear a mask, despite feeling socially uncomfortable about it. I do not want to put myself at risk of getting long-term post-Covid complications – or add to the rising ill health in this country.
    But if the evidence changes, so will my opinion and you'll be the first to know.
    That's not zealotry. That's putting patient welfare above all else.

    1. "And if I'm anywhere where I'm at risk of catching Covid, such as a busy A&E department or on an aeroplane, I'll wear a mask, despite feeling socially uncomfortable about it. I do not want to put myself at risk of getting long-term post-Covid complications – or add to the rising ill health in this country."
      What abject bollocks this part destroys any credibility the man has he may as well wear a chain link fence on his face
      Masks Indeed!!

      1. No explanation of the hundreds of thousands who died or were injured through strokes, clots, heart attacks, bells palsy, etc. Yet didn't have Covid but did have a number of so-called booster jabs which are wrongly called vaccines.

      2. If masks do anything in these circumstances, they probably concentrate the viral load as you are inhaling more of what you have just exhaled.

      3. What all these gormless, brain-dead mask-wearers are unable —due to their ingrained stupidity — to comprehend is that even if the wearing of a face-tampon was viable, it only covers the nose and mouth.

        They are far too stupid to understand that a virus has a free ride through the eyes, since tears drain down into the nasal cavity — and then onwards into the lungs — via the tear ducts. Try explaining that to them, though and it will be akin to reading War and Peace as a bedtime story to a protozoan.

        1. One has only to see how researchers in viral laboratories are protected to realise how utterly futile and pointless are face masks.

          1. Wearing a cloth face-nappy as protection against a virus, is exactly the same as standing inside a tennis court as protection from being a shot by a man with a machine gun standing outside that court.

    2. So we're being asked to believe that catching a respiratory virus (covid) brought on all these auto-immune diseases? But colds and flu didn't have this effect? And the vaccines (if they had had them) would have stopped them developing them?

    3. What are the chances that Long Covid is in fact due to the genetically modified therapeutic misnamed a vaccine? IIR Dr John Campbell has been questioning why this aspect hasn't been studied in depth by clinicians. I can't think of any good reason why they wouldn't look at this possibility….

    4. Covid doesn't exist. The massive rise in anxiety due to the intense scaremongering and the very real onslaught to destroy our way of life has increased ill-health.

      1. I'm fairly sure it exists, what I don't know is how deadly to people in reasonable health it really is.

        1. It has never been isolated in a laboratory. Every time it is influenza A or influenza B. It was the 'flu.

          1. It certainly felt like the 'flu when I had it. Nasty at the time. I'm glad I had it before the hype started. I just treated it like 'flu and expected to get better. Had it been after operation Fear started, I might have expected to die and that could have influenced the outcome.

      2. Try telling that to my good friend (and ex-boss) who is, today, going for her umpteenth 'Covid' jab and who flatly refuses to listen when I attempt to advise her of some some common sense.

        It seems that I am a 'conspiracy theorist' who knows nowhere near as much on the subject as her 'trusted' GP does!

      1. Sweet FA for me … again … same as for every month since 1956!

        Mind you. I've only got three Bonds. What is the minimum number you would suggest I ought to buy in order for me to start winning?

          1. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, that is a tied-up £50,000 that is the continual subject of deflation and which never accrues any interest?

            That would seem to be a bit like lighting up your cigars with £50 notes.

            Am I right … or am I not wrong?

        2. I've got a £1 bond from 1956 too. Never paid out of course. Maybe I should put the certificate on ebay for rarity value

  57. 397928+ up ticks,

    I'm AGHASTED, shook to me piles, even to simple minds no finance coming in, no welfare GOING OUT,maybe the hoteliers will, in a kind hearted manner, keep their guests for a month of so but will not adopt them as family.

    The welfare infrastructure will have to cut back to paying out those who have previously paid in that will seem as fair tomany as lammies bum but what can we do.

    The invasion campaign will to suffer a set-back with the smuggler chaps accommodating return loads with the RNLI working 24 / 7 with no time for rescuing those in peril on the sea.

    UK productivity crisis worse than feared as net migration surges
    British output shrinking even faster than thought after statistics body underestimates net migration

    1. Grist-to-the-mill for all my theories.

      If this is the standard of today's moronic generation — who have already become parents themselves — how much deeper into the bottomless mire of depravity will future generations sink?

      If this is not the start of the final implosion of the entire human species … then I don't know what is.

      1. Sir Isaac Newton stated, in his Third law of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

        What that great scientist did not realise, at the time, was that his hypothesis was not solely applied to physics.

        It equally applies to the modern cretinous movement known as 'cancel culture'. As soon as culture (i.e. civilisation) is 'cancelled', then the equal and opposite reaction is to introduce rusticity, barbarism and boorishness in its place. This has already started and it is going to get much worse.

    2. What chance do youngsters have these days. I don't believe in the religious 'Hell', and who needs one anyway at the moment.

      1. My children aren't interested in mainstream satanwood rubbish. Gen Z has the whole internet to play with. This kind of stuff is pushed by an increasingly desperate industry that most young people are just bypassing.

      2. My children aren't interested in mainstream satanwood rubbish. Gen Z has the whole internet to play with. This kind of stuff is pushed by an increasingly desperate industry that most young people are just bypassing.

    3. 1940s hurty words and no mention of gays, drugs or violence. Dean Martin and the song should be erased from history.

  59. "I'll wear a mask"

    Yes I thought too, for one so keen to follow the science there's a massive chunk he appears to have missed altogether.

    4. At what point does the penny drop that we are living under a regime most of us don't want or ever asked for?

  61. Is there a cure?
    Do they just die out.. however, not before they have trashed their heritage.

    This Helen Dainty character.. cycled from Australia to UK to trace her family roots. All thumbs up & good so far.
    Anyhow she arrives in the quaint village of Uffington & The White Horse in Wiltshire.. all thatched cottages, a parish church and local community doing their stuff. She even traces her parents house before they emigrated.

    It's all Elizabethan Serenade & Ronald Binge.. then it's all shattered as she gets into a social media spat about the You-Know-Whats about to be rehoused down the road.

    She writes: The UK has benefitted enormously from migration over the years, and I am very proud of the multinational country we have grown into.
    And if we didn’t want economic migration down the track we probably shouldn’t have invaded and colonised so many countries, often establishing English as the lingua franca, thus making Britain the obvious economic migration choice after we pillaged their countries
    .
     https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/554b3478e423db4c5b7daae1756656852ef52473f8c06ac4fe673cf8c47086c0.png Then cycles off to safety to spout her progressive liberal caring sharing values.

    1. Perhaps she should consider:
      (i) how large parts of Africa and Asia might have turned out if they hadn't been invaded by the desert death cult.
      (ii) why it is that very few from the Anglosphere wish to come to the UK.
      (iii) why so many Africans and Asians are migrating to non-English speaking Europe.

      1. Literal translations being "Frankish tongue". The Frankish empire being France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Monaco, Germany, Italy, Andorra, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Liechtenstein, San Marino and the Vatican City. None of them ever conquered by the English?

      2. Yet when I went to stay with a Greek friend, the friend's mother only spoke Greek and French. We conversed in French and that was a "lingua franca". Same with the Polish artists who came over to supervise us when I did my fine art degree.

    4. Is she a man? I only ask because many of these so called liberal progressives are fucking ugly.

      Asking for an ex-friend…

    5. "…cycled from Australia to the UK"
      You can't say she doesn#t give fair warning of being a nutter. Should have taken the plane as nature intended.

    1. Is that real or an AI generated Greg Wallace imitation?

      If it's real, that is really sinister

      1. I would agree that one has to suspect everything these days, absolutely everything. But the outcry is one commensurate with that of someone who eats babies for breakfast.

    3. Apologies, Poppiesmum, this just popped up on my X feed and I thought it was current. I'll delete.

  66. So much to do.. so little time (before Elon & Donald J bring down Labour).

    Elgin Marbles. Tick.
    Chagos Islands. Tick.
    Gibraltar. Next up.
    Falkland Islands. New Year's Eve.

    UK to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens ahead of a crunch meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street.

    1. There is an enormous untapped oil field off the Falklands. I'm not surprised he wants to give it away.

      1. Not to mention our mineral rights in Antarctica, commensurate with the 'nearby' Falklands coastline. Which is why we 'went to war' with Argentina in 1982.

    2. Didn't Lord Elgin buy the marbles (which would have been destroyed to make lime if he hadn't rescued them)?

    2. The problem with Labour is that they have far too many middle age women of a certain class lacking a sense of humour.
      I was about to add "and lacking balls" but then remembered it was the Beeb, so we can't be too sure.

  72. Ah!
    That's an hour of wood chopping, chainsaw sharpening, followed by more chopping!
    The maximum length of the logs is dictated by the 15" width of the woodburner, so I aim for a maximum of 14".
    One of the logs looked a bit long, so I checked and it was 17½" so had to saw it before chopping.
    Then after a mug of tea, out again for a bit more and Grad.Son advises me that I've done enough to finish off the stack he's filling.

    Just had some lunch, curried chicken leftovers, and will be off to Matlock for a bit of afternoon shopping as the DT will be visiting a friend after work.

  73. In today's Daily Mail the supermarket chain Morrisons state that Bovaer doesn't go into milk, but remains in the cow.

    In that case should dairy cows be banned from entering the human food chain as they do at present?

    Or are we being given a load of twaddle?

    1. Twaddle.

      They suggested that Bovaer was destroyed in the cow digestive system.

      I wouldn't trust a multi-national corporation to employ an expert that didn't agree with what they wanted.

    2. I received a lovely reply from Tims Dairies yesterday to say that their produce was Bovaer free at every stage in the chain of production. Their yoghurts are delicious, I have their Kefir for breakfast every morning.

  75. "Premier League club Ipswich Town have confirmed their captain Sam Morsy refused to wear a LGBTQ+ rainbow armband for religious reasons"

    The Metro

    Every little helps, I'm sure.

  76. Had the most frustrating hour ..

    Writing family Christmas cards and some friends .. and I am stuffed .. I am not as organised as I used to be re addresses , usually find BT phonebook and addresses on line useful facility to find addresses ..

    Apparently no longer available, stopped in March .

    Am I right or am I wrong ?

    My coal delivery arrived .. price has gone up since last year. Not coal anymore but those oval type things, actually not too bad re lasting flame and warmth .

    1. I look through the previous years cards and note them in my address book. If you don't know their address why are you sending them cards?

      1. I do know their address , but my memory is sometimes dodgy , people move home , people send me cards and I haven't a clue where they have moved to..

    2. "Phone Book"?

      Have you not tried looking in the Telephone Directory?😉

      There used to be such a local directory inside every telephone kiosk. i.e. NOT "phone booth"!

      1. There are no telephone directories – national or local – these days. And the online version operated by BT n'existe plus.

      1. I have an address book .. a very old one .

        People move home , get married , divorce , die , or just send cards every year with no indication where they have moved to.

        Good old BT on line provided addresses.

    2. Not aligned with Banks core ESG values. ie. Somewhere there's a problematic 'like' from the CEO on an Orange-Man-Bad Tweet.

      Environmental: biodiversity, climate change, pollution, resources, water security.
      Social: Labour standards, human rights and community, health and safety, customer responsibility.
      Governance: Tax transparency, risk management, corporate governance, anti-corruption.

  80. There are some amazingly dim people around. (Yes, Grizz, I can see you rolling your eyes and muttering "Told you so".)
    Spartie developed a cough – nothing serious, fortunately, just a viral lurgy that rest and doggy Paracetamol should settle.
    While the vet was giving Spartie the once over, another dog was brought in; it had eaten chocolate biscuits that had been lying around. The nurse brought through the half chewed packet as well as the biscuit remains so the vet knew exactly what had been ingested.
    I remarked about this being a typical Christmas problem. The nurse raised her eyebrows and said that this was the second time in three days that the dog had been brought in for chocolate scoffing. The previous time it had wolfed down Snickers bars.
    I know family members can be careless, but if this was the problem …. just don't keep chocolate in the house.

    1. Brilliant article thank you ..

      I picked this chunk for everyone to digest, but of course we all know this anyway, but does the government?

      Immigration, however, isn’t the only source of the resulting change in the racial and ethnic demographic of the UK. Birth rates per woman in Nigeria are 5 children, in Zimbabwe 3.8, in Ghana 3.7, in Pakistan 3.3, in India 2.1, in Sri Lanka 2.1, in Bangladesh 1.9. So if, at the current rate, we receive 6 million immigrants from these countries over the next decade, of which half are women that are or will grow to be of reproductive age, these figures could easily double. In contrast, in 2019 birth rates among UK-born mothers was 73 per cent that of foreign-born mothers.

      The orthodoxies of woke might insist that, as soon as someone enters the UK, they magically turn British not only in law but in every other respect, but the habits of culture are national in their origins and formation, and families from nations with far higher birth rates than the UK don’t magically reduce when they settle down in the UK. Indeed, in 2019, before the sudden increase in immigration from the Indian subcontinent and Sub-Saharan Africa, the highest birth-rate in the UK was among mothers born in non-EU countries in Europe (1.8 times as high as UK mothers), followed by mothers born in Africa (1.6 times as high), the Middle East and Asia (1.45 times as high). If we take into this account the large numbers of Asian and African families already living in the UK, both foreign and UK born, immigrants to the UK are reproducing at maybe double the rate of the White British population.

      https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2024/10/02/the-great-replacement-immigration-to-the-uk-part-one/

  83. It is very long and describes how bad life for the indigenous inhabitants of the UK has become. I hope Simon Elmer remains free to fight on our behalf. Brave man.

  84. Breaking News
    The BBC are cancelling the Greg Wallace Christmas Specials
    They will show old re-runs of The Bernard Manning Comedy Hour, Benny Hill and Alf Garnett instead

  85. Excellent comment BTL in The Grimes on the "issue of the week":

    "Why isn’t it sufficient for someone to say that they don’t appreciate his barrow boy sense of humour, rather than trying to publicly dismember him ?!!"

    1. Sorry to hijack your post, lacoste. I just had an email from William Stanier saying the site was down. He’s partly correct, since I can’t access it either at present. The problem seems to be with the server at Bluehost, which is where each new page is hosted.

      Once loaded, comments go to Disqus’ server, without involving Bluehost.

      The moral of this story is: don’t close Nottl at the moment, otherwise you won’t get back in until the issue is sorted.

      This has been a public service announcement…

      2. Any minute now either Fallick Alec or Phizzee will produce a Pubic Service announcement 😉

      3. It's a bit like the leccy, if you pay the bills Geoff, this would never have happened…….

    2. Have mine.

      Wordle 1,263 4/6

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

    3. Another case of choosing the wrong one – this is getting irritating! Bogey here… it was the outage wot dun it!!

      Wordle 1,263 5/6

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

        1. Just looked up my times – 1:23:53 which put me 14th in my group of 50 (whoever they are) and 62,793 overall, so some room for improvement! – I had several goes at some of the later levels so I guess that’s what affects your time.
          I see what you mean about cheats/bots – some of the fastest times were sub 4 minutes – Ridiculous!
          Will the next one be when it’s double points for TriPeaks, or was that just a coincidence?

          1. Just a coincidence I think.
            The groups are formed as people start playing.
            Pro rata you should probably have been around 7th in a normal group of 50.
            I’m guessing you had a number of unlikely looking results.

            I’ve been in groups were I’ve won, but pro rata I shouldn’t even have been on the podium. Luck of the draw.

          3. If you look on “calendar” it lists all the events for the month.
            There is a tri peaks mini on Monday 9th .

    5. Me too

      Wordle 1,263 4/6

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

  87. Britain is facing a crime tsunami that could sweep Starmer away

    Order could be restored, as 1990s New York proved – but this Government does not have the will for it

    Sherelle Jacobs
    02 December 2024 7:29pm GMT

    Many of us in this country feel it; the prickling sense that our streets are succumbing to disorder. My neighbourhood – on the “wrong side of the tracks” in Notting Hill – is tragically wasting away like the crackheads on its street corners.

    What was once a cheeky enclave in an area dullened by gentrification is now definitely dystopian. It was the sound of Portobello that first drew me in – the crackle of rock ’n’ roll LPs and taffeta gowns catching the wind on the vintage stalls. Now I wear earplugs to drown out the shrieks of drug addicts having psychotic episodes. Shoplifters raid Tesco with an air of discerning nonchalance – even tutting at the staff that a favourite biscuit brand is out of stock – before striding out with booty.

    Both of my neighbours have been burgled. I don’t know whether I live in a Western or Grand Theft Auto; punch-ups are common and cars no longer stop at zebra crossings. Elderly Jamaican men, priced out of the area, sit possessively on porches smoking grass as they marinate in memories of the “raging” 1960s, ghosts from another era.

    Such anecdotes ought to keep Sir Keir Starmer up at night. While immigration and the NHS crisis are widely believed to be the do-or-die challenges that threaten to overwhelm Labour, crime could be the issue that strikes it from behind. Though Labour has been largely preoccupied with other problems, it is increasingly rattled by the polls; these show that the number of people who consider crime to be the most pressing issue has doubled since 2016. Starmer has thus put cutting crime at the forefront of his “plan for change” this week. This is expected to feature various sticking plasters, potentially including tags for knife offenders and more community support officers.

    Such gestures are unlikely to alter the sense that Britain has become a lawless land, where decent people are condemned to live in constant anxiety over crime. Nor are they likely to allay mass dismay that petty criminality has become a risk-free career choice, with outlaws brazenly taking for free what others work hard to honestly earn.

    London has something of 1980s New York about it. “New York New York, so bad they named it twice”, the criminals used to sing. London outlaws today rap “Steal it, Sell it, Sorted” – in mockery of the slogan announced regularly on the Tube. Like the Big Apple 40 years ago, several of our capital’s boroughs are on the brink of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, chunks of Red Wall territory, ravaged by County Lines gang warfare amid collapsing police services, have essentially been seized by organised crime. Having walked the streets of both Cleveland, Ohio and Cleveland, England at night, the former to me felt safer.

    True, concerns about crime are partly psychological. Overall, Britain has never been safer. Most crime has plummeted by 90 per cent over the past 30 years. London’s homicide rate has halved over the last two decades. At the same time, there are cracks in this picture – and they are deepening. Shoplifting mushroomed by 30 per cent in the year to June 2024, and burglaries involving knives have spiked. With policing budgets partially reliant on council tax, crime is surging in deprived Red Wall towns.

    Labour does not have a plan to deal with this. Low-level crime is now effectively decriminalised: in half of neighbourhoods, no burglaries have been solved over the past three years. Cannabis is legalised in all but name as police warn that dealing with the drug is “just not a priority”.

    Labour MPs sigh that, like immigration, crime is an “intractable” problem. They lament that the Tory austerity hollowed the police force, and there isn’t the money to reverse the damage in this stagnant economy. They bemoan that incarceration is a futile ritual, with an underclass trapped in a loop of reoffending. The trouble with the liberal Left is that they mistake crunch points for vicious cycles. In truth, Starmer could smash crime if he only made the tough calls.

    There is much that Britain can learn from New York’s triumph over violent crime in the 1990s. The formula was simple and controversial. A beefed up police force arrested 20 per cent more people, and threw almost 25 per cent more people into jail. Though the city was broke, it raised the cash to do this by privatising infrastructure and taking hard decisions on public spending. The then mayor Rudy Giuliani was demonised for refusing to pour money into crumbling schools and slashing budgets for things like youth centres, which liberals incorrectly assumed would undermine hardline efforts.

    Experts are divided about NYC’s famed “broken window” approach. which saw police cracking down on minor nuisances. But it made people feel better. It also had symbolic power, preventing street corners where troublemakers congregated to play loud music from becoming more dangerous into the night. And by cutting taxes on everything from hotels to clothes, it encouraged a boom that motivated people on the margins to hold down jobs.

    It is doubtful that Labour could ever pursue such a model, which violates its deepest beliefs. Cracking down on minor crimes would require it to renege on its commitment to “racially sensitive” policing in multi-ethnic areas. Building more prisons is unthinkable to a movement that has swallowed whole the received wisdom that “incarceration doesn’t work” – a view that conflates prison’s poor record as a rehabilitating institution with its role in deterring people from crime in the first instance.

    Labour will pay the price for its paralysis. Crime risks driving more Red Wall voters away from the party. Fear at the endemic disorder on the streets and outrage at the chronic disorder on the border are also starting to feed off each other in voters’ minds. It is also no longer unthinkable that a crime panic could trigger a collapse in its young support. One emerging characteristic of Generation Z is its reverence of order. They are exchanging viral recordings of London phone-snatchings and Bond Street shoppers shoving their Louis Vuitton purchases into Primark bags.

    The Shadow Cabinet are starting to get tentatively excited about the long-term opportunity this presents for the Right; it is dawning on Tories that a vow to build more slammers – not just more houses – might help win over young voters.
    Crime, they say is the dog that hasn’t barked. A more appropriate metaphor might be that it is the great white shark that hasn’t surfaced. Labour is drifting into a political mauling that could prove not just brutal but fatal.

    2. William Joseph Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) an American businessman and twice-served NYPD Commissioner, is surely the hero of the piece ?

      David Cameron wanted Bratton to come to London; Teresa May forbade the appointment . . .

    3. "Most crime has plummeted by 90 per cent over the past 30 years." I think you'll find that's most REPORTED crime, as opposed to actual crime. People don't bother reporting it because they know that, unless they need an incident number for their insurance, nothing will be done.

  88. Germany’s coalition government has collapsed under the pressure of huge job losses thanks to net zero decimating its industrial base.

    For goodness sake. Just repeat again again & again through a whiny nasal gush..

    I say it again really clearly today: Growth.
    And, frankly, by that I do mean wealth creation…

    1. And the French government looks as if it is about to collapse as well.

      Starmer, that excellent pragmatist, will probably decide that now is the time to take us back into the EU to help bail both of them out.

      The Tories should be hanging their heads in shame for not having had the strength to stand up to the Blob and getting a proper Brexit done.

  89. Par four today.

    Wordle 1,263 4/6

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

  91. What with that plus France's financial problems it's really about time that Britain

    rejoined the EU to bail them out with British taxpayers' money.

    I'm sure that a great job in Brussels will be Starmer's reward.

      1. I’m not quite sure it will be that high. The President’s post always goes to a European.

        1. As opposed to an Africa or Asian, you mean? Much as I might see Starmer as a lizard, I think he is actually European (as in the continent).

          1. I’m sure that he considers himself a European, but do the Europeans consider him a European?

  95. Starmer lurching from one crisis to another? The man has lost the plot, banning pre-watershed adverts for PORRIDGE.

    Now, what about toxic ingredients in cattle fodder? The silence is deafening on this move, as one would expect.

    I'm a regular eater of porridge with added fruit, sweetened with home made jam and topped off with Greek yoghurt. Very filling and long-lasting.

    https://x.com/EssexPR/status/1863988364443034082

    1. For the next two months they are removing tax on christmas kiddie gift items, including junk food in Canada. Some very convoluted rules on what becomes tax free but what remains taxed – so for example, Christmas trees are tax free, tree decorations are not.

      It's a totally screwed up pitch by trudeau that we think they hope will buy them some votes. Retailers are not impressed that halfway through their biggest sales period, they need to reset their tills to update the taxed / not taxed list.

      but porridge remains tax free.

      1. I imagine it'll be a royal pain to change and most won't, buying Trudeau some minor popularity to utter ineffect.

        While a sales tax is the least pleasant of all taxes, it is one everyone pays. Thus rather than having a 20% tax on some things and additional taxes that do nothing to change behaviour except destroy opportunity (making it, for example more expensive for a shift worker to get to the factory early in the morning) so why tax applpy a blanket tax on everything of 10% and the local council receive that income – and ONLY that income.

        That makes councils operate in a market so they have to encourage business. The anti car desperation, the destruction of enterprise, high ground rents – all ends as business finds itself wholly dependent on the public havinng money and buying things. Everyone contributes, some councils could say 'look, we'll charge 8%. not 10! and business floods to them.

      2. One thing I found hard to come to terms with when I was in Canada was the fact that the tax was added at the till when I went to pay, so what I thought I was buying was actually much more expensive.

    2. How on earth is porridge a junk food?. I have a big bowl every morning with a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and some sultanas, lasts me until my evening meal

      3. Oats seem to be a cleaner-up of toxic soils, I read today. If I can find it again I will post.

      4. I leave out the sultanas, but Mornflake Jumbo Oats are my daily breakfast. Ground cinnamon included.

        Fair enough – I would hate to eat unhealthily. I've just ordered a gross of PopTarts…

    2. Younger son wrote to the JWFI to ask to be given a chance to work in a top restaurant.
      Fortunately (with hindsight) he was not chosen.

      1. I suppose he was the archetype for "assisted dying"…..just imagine him turning up at your bedside.

  97. Well done, Sir Cur and Thieves.

    "Colchester hospice faces major financial struggles

    A COLCHESTER hospice needs to fill a £1,000-a-day black hole to keep operating, bosses have revealed.

    St Helena Hospice is facing serious financial difficulties, which could see cuts to essential services for people needing end-of-life care.

    The charity is mainly affected by the increase in the employers' rate of National Insurance, which bosses say is “deeply worrying”.

    Chief executive Mark Jarman-Howe said: "St Helena Hospice is facing significant cost pressures, with concerns over recent Budget announcements leaving a financial black hole of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

    “It already costs us over £54,000 each day to operate, and next year, we will need to find an additional £1,000 daily to cover the gap.

    “This could mean turning away up to 44 families who need in-patient care at the hospice in Colchester – a scenario no one should accept.

    “This estimate is expected to rise once we finish working through the impact on our trading subsidiaries that provide vital income to help us subsidise the NHS.

    "We will of course also need to consider uplifts to maintain a small differential for staff in roles where the market rate is just above the national living wage.”

    The charity is currently absorbing unfunded wage rises, and NHS contributions fell short by 20 per cent this financial year, Mr Jarman-Howe said.

    More help through local and national NHS grants is essential to ensure survival. Mr Jarman-Howe is also asking the NHS to increase grants to the hospice next year and says an adequate, long-term funding settlement is "long overdue" for hospice, palliative and end-of-life care.

    He said: “It is becoming increasingly difficult to support local patients and families.

    "We urgently need help from the Government to safeguard the services we’ve built over the past 40 years.

    "Politicians and the NHS must step up. We must ensure that we operate within what we can afford, as we cannot sustain the deficits St Helena has seen in recent years. “In the meantime, I would like to express a heartfelt thank you to all the individuals and businesses helping their local charities and hospices to continue providing their vital support. We're grateful for your continuing support.”

    Colchester Council leader David King is backing the call to lobby MPs to reconsider the impact of National Insurance changes on charities and hospices.

    He has also contacted the Chancellor and the Health and Social Care Secretary about the issue.

    He said: "I fully support St Helena Hospice’s call to action. The recent Budget changes, including the increase in employers’ National Insurance rates and the rise in the national living wage, place a significant financial burden not only on many businesses, like nurseries and hospitality, but importantly on our local charities.

    “Hospices and other charities across Colchester are vital to our community, providing essential care to our residents during some of the most challenging times of their lives. “The exclusion of charities and hospices from the National Insurance exemption granted to the public sector is a serious oversight, which could result in reduced care for many families in need.

    “We urge our MPs to advocate for a reconsideration of this decision. Hospices must receive equitable funding and support to continue their invaluable work." "

    1. Clearly the fault of the Conservatives who – for the last 14 years – have destroyed…etc etc

      2. Come on William you and the vast majority already know that our political idiots without exception eff up everything single thing they come into contact with and big time.

      1. Having met hospice staff they're really quite amazing and do great work in soul destroying conditions.

        1. It must be hard, knowing that none of the patients will be cured. I have great respect for them.

    3. When the death production line gets rolling, this will become a non issue.

      Want hospice care? That is a sign that you are ready to go.

    4. Here we are now, new young Labour MP for South Dorset , and our hospices are also on the edge .. https://www.weldmarhospicecare.org/patients-family-friends/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA9bq6BhAKEiwAH6bqoDeTpQXc6c_DQhTVVzzE2PXhVHzTJS2MIejevZZISjOeT0PJhnHTMRoCMYsQAvD_BwE Well and truly on the edge .. NHS needs to make cuts in other directions ..

      Your article is identical to the requirements needed in our area .. Huge black hole cause by the new government 's lack of empathy for the care of end of life patients ..

  98. That's me for today. Ventured into the garden after lunch for an hour's sawing (with an electric saw…I'm no fool).

    Looks as though it will be chilly tonight and cold tomorrow though sunny. "And that's your weather…" © Beeboid morons..

    Have a jolly evening – there is a prog suggesting that Richard III DID kill the two princes. Just as well LotL isn't around – she'd go maaad!

    A demain.

    1. Their "evidence" is nothing of the sort! Merely that someone related to the keeper of the tower (?) had a chain belonging to the elder Prince. It could have been part of a deal to let them escape, just as easily as being looted after their deaths. In fact if it was part of a murder, why would it be identified by name in the will?

    3. Speaking of Lottie, since Maggie posted a video of Trinity College, Cambridge choir, which just happened to be accompanied by Ann's organist nephew, I still get notifications from YouTube.

      Here's the latest offering…

  101. Police chiefs’ experience hits 20-year low

    CHIEF CONSTABLES are less experienced on average than at any time in the past 20 years, an analysis suggests.
    The 43 chief constables heading forces in England and Wales have on average served two years and 10 months in their current roles, two years fewer than the average of four years and two months over the past 20 years. This is a further drop on 2018, when the average tenure had fallen to 3.5 years.

    The research comes amid a slump in public confidence in the police after a series of misconduct scandals, falling charging rates and cuts to neighbourhood policing. The proportion of the public saying they have confidence in the police has fallen from 50 to 38 per cent in the past four years, according to Yougov.

    The data does however show a marked increase in the number of women at the top of policing, which has doubled in two decades. Women make ‘As a chief who spent eight years in one force, I believe that consistency is good for organisations’ up 36 per cent of current chief constables in post, compared to 14 per cent over the past 20 years on average.

    There are no current chief constables from an ethnic minority background, and only one person from an ethnic minority background – Mike Fuller – has made it to the top job since 2005, according to the data up to November this year. Mr Fuller was chief constable in Kent from January 2004 to April 2010.

    Dame Sara Thornton, the first chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said she was “disappointed” by the decline in experience of the officers leading forces, suggesting it could be linked to delays in promoting them to the top jobs.

    “At the NPCC five years ago, I commissioned work which found that (on average) chiefs had less experience than they used to. It’s disappointing that the situation has worsened,” she said. “As a chief who spent eight years in one force, I believe that consistency and continuity are good for organisations.”

    The worst aspect is that none of these useless twats — the vast majority of them ‘woke’ social studies graduates — have no experience, whatsoever, of:

    ● pounding, and getting familiar with, a ‘beat’;
    ● getting to know their local criminals;
    ● feeling collars;
    ● forming excellent relationships with the public;
    ● attending the scenes of murders, sudden deaths and many violent crimes;
    ● informing recently-bereaved family members of a death;
    ● and a thousand other bread-and-butter jobs taken for granted by a beat officer.

    Installing a graduate-entry scheme halfwit as a Chief Constable is precisely as idiotic as recruiting Chantelle, from the pick-and-mix counter at Woolworth's, and making her an Admiral of the Fleet, a Field Marshal or a Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

    1. Never mind your Dixon of Dock Green criteria, the important question will be how many women, visible minority and lgbtq2s+ officers have been promoted to senior positions in the force.

    2. Much like the clergy, political clss or any area of public life, if you want to progress the last thing you do is actual work.

      1. Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
        And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!…

        (W.S.Gilbert : HMS Pinafore)

  102. Apparently the love match between Trudeau and Trump was not all joy and mutual understanding. During their little dinner meetingTrump suggested that if our little emporer could not sort out the border, we should be taken over and become the 51st state. Cue heads exploding at the thought.

  103. https://order-order.com/2024/12/03/reeves-refuses-to-repeat-her-no-more-tax-rises-commitment/#comments

    Reeves seems to be one of these people who sees they can take whatever they like, waste it and then come back for more with impunity. She seems to exist in a consequence free environment. I put this down to her never having actually worked in her life and like all the Labour front bench, being a fraud.

    Is she thick? Does she, nor the Treasury, OBR not understand if you simply destroy the tax base through… tax – it isn't there to provide the money the state wants to waste on the debt it has created because of it's tax policies.

    1. Start up a high risk tech business during the Reeves regime? You avin a larf?

      Could easily bankrupt your family if you die. Dependents could potentially lose everything, including their homes.
      Reeves' Inheritance tax on businesses will be calculated at the point the owner dies. If, say, the shares crash to nothing after the founder and driving force dies HMRC doesn't care. It still wants its money.

      A family could end up with a business with no value at all and an inheritance liability of £1million to settle.
      Solution? Go to Singapore.. Not that Reeves cares. She believes the private sector are evil.

      1. I don't think she even has the faintest idea how business operates. She seems to think she can just take and take without consquence. She's either thick or insane.

        But the problem is, she's not really setting the budget. She's a dumb idiot after all. No, this all comes from the Treasury who create these moronic, destructive policies.

    2. One of the readings from tonight's event was about the decree being sent out that everyone should go to their own town or village to be taxed. My thought, was, "nothing changes!"

  105. FSA claims that milk is safe to drink despite BBC showing it being poured down a toilet. It is important to note that flatulent emissions over a toilet can result in anthropogenic methane explosions that could possibly have been avoided should the milk have been ingested instead.

  106. Oi Sam..
    (as in Sam White former Chief of Staff to Keir Starmer.. and who also worked with Louise Haigh at Aviva)..
    Rumours suggest it wasn't just one phone that went missing. How many? Half a dozen? Twenty?
    Do tell.

  107. Evelyn Hall….
    All went well for the little fella's all clear bell ringing at Addenbrooks today.
    'Magic' happened, my good lady came up with the idea of leaving our car at Trumpington Park and ride. We jumped in the bus using our bus passes, don't let nasty Reeves know. It took us right into Addenbrooks hospital via Royal Papworth. The whole area is like a huge city for medication.
    The little fella's event took place, as shy as he is, with all of the lovely staff that care for the little ones with leukemia. His parents spent 40 minutes in the office while he played and his little sister heaped attention on her self by making lots of noise until her daddy came out to rescue those in the waiting room.
    She's only 14 months old 😅😂
    A lovely experience, hopefully that will be the same for the other children with the same condition we saw today in that wonderful hospital department.
    Thank you so much Addenbrooks. 🥰😍

    1. Lovely to read some good news for once, Eddy! Wonderful for the wee lad, parents, grandparents… a great relief all round!

      1. And It made the long drive home in the dark much easier Obs.
        Early night tonight, one merlot nothing to do tomorrow, perfect.👍👌

    2. Lovely to read some good news for once, Eddy! Wonderful for the wee lad, parents, grandparents… a great relief all round!

    7. I love your account of your day , Eddy .

      We can all remember how distraught you were when your little grandson was diagnosed with his terrible illness.
      The NHS performed at it's very best for your family and all the other little children I expect .

      I hope your medical experience that you were scheduled to receive went well , also. x

      1. Thankyou TB x I expect he'll be back at school in the morning (which he loves) as if nothing has happened. For a nearly 5 year old, he has quite an air of nonchalance about him.
        A lovely little chap who just likes to get on with things.
        After my opthalmology appointment at Hitchin on the way to Addenbrooks and 5 hours of blurred vision due to drops. I think I at least will be asleep before 20:30 😴
        Good night.

  108. Evelyn Hall….
    All went well for the little fella's all clear bell ringing at Addenbrooks today.
    'Magic' happened, my good lady came up with the idea of leaving our car at Trumpington Park and ride. We jumped in the bus using our bus passes, don't let nasty Reeves know. It took us right into Addenbrooks hospital via Royal Papworth. The whole area is like a huge city for medication.
    The little fella's event took place, as shy as he is, with all of the lovely staff that care for the little ones with leukemia. His parents spent 40 minutes in the office while he played and his little sister heaped attention on her self by making lots of noise until her daddy came out to rescue those in the waiting room.
    She's only 14 months old 😅😂
    A lovely experience, hopefully that will be the same for the other children with the same condition we saw today in that wonderful hospital department.
    Thank you so much Addenbrooks. 🥰😍

  109. Looking at what is happening in South Korea
    I wonder if Charles could step up to the plate here and boot out that lot in Westminster

      1. Who’d a thunk it that an energy-intensive industry might suffer with today’s high energy prices?

  111. In a recent chat with a couple of friends we wondered just how many politicians and Lords are noted and recognised millionaire's.
    It really would be interesting to know and how and even when they reach that status.

  116. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    There have been a lot of political firsts this year: Labour’s supermajority, Reform UK’s Westminster seats and the incorporation of an, er, bungee jump into the Liberal Democrat election campaign. Now all eyes are on a curious development in Westminster today that has the potential to alter the UK’s entire voting system…

    In a rather interesting move, the Commons voted this afternoon to introduce a bill to legislate on proportional representation. The ten minute rule motion was introduced by Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney and calls for:

    Leave [to] be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and for local government elections in England; and for connected purposes.

    Olney’s motion narrowly passed by 138 Ayes to 136 Noes – receiving cross-party support from most Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, a chunk of Starmer’s army and a handful of Green and Independent politicians. Those opposing the issue included the majority of Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue, while Sir Keir’s party demonstrated its uncertainty over the idea with a rather large bloc voting against the PR proposal.

    In a rather amusing development, while the majority of Farage’s crowd voted in favour of the motion, Reform’s Rupert Lowe appeared to have missed the memo about PR featuring in, um, his party’s own manifesto. The Reform lot are particularly keen on the idea because, as pointed out by Richard Tice just days after the July election, they believe they would have got almost 20 times as many seats under a PR voting system – with Tice making no bones about his thoughts on the ‘absurdity‘ of the current first-past-the-post method. Yet despite the outspokenness of his colleagues on the matter, it would appear that Lowe is less sold on the strategy…

    Whether the motion will lead to substantial change is quite another matter, given ten minute rule bills don’t tend to turn into law. Regardless, Olney has declared it an ‘historic day in the fight for fairer votes’. Will Britain’s voting system face complete upheaval in the years to come? Watch this space…

    Steerpike
    WRITTEN BY
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. well at least Steerpike didn’t get led astray and write about the “neighs”.

      Got to love my MP, the horse. Giving St Jacinta a gallop for her money.

  117. This week’s secret prisoner column. It’s very poignant.

    “Outside, as a parent and busy with my businesses, I didn’t have enough time. Ever. Here, there is lots of it. I cannot remember when I last watched almost all of Wimbledon, the Olympics and the British Open and listened to Test
    Match Special for whole afternoons. I’ve done so without guilt, and with that enriching accumulation of informed viewpoints about players and competitions which you only get from studying something at leisure. Nothing to bet on, of course, although some more enterprising prisoners stage sweepstakes where you can win vape caps. As I was never much of a gambler, abstaining from these is easy.

    It’s not just me. Others have time too. So l have rediscovered drawing in prison because prisoners make excellent subjects: they stay still, sitting vaping and chatting. Officers, more occupied and scurrying around, are harder to capture.
    I’m no great shakes as an artist, not by the outside world’s standards. But we can’t take photos in here and so the artist has a heightened value as a witness and commemorator. Hence, by prison standards I’m a Rembrandt, a Leonardo – it’s touching sometimes that inmates ask me to copy photos of their children and their girlfriends.

    My mangled efforts invariably make their children and girlfriends look like mutant dwarfs and ogresses, but no one seems to mind. They pay me a box of vape caps or, a luxury I am delighted to be able to access through our weekly canteen, a 200g refill packet of Gold Blend.

    I adore the game of chess and prison has, at least, relieved me of my addiction to internet chess. Here, inside, I play real games. I am an average club standard player with a rating of around 1700, but they consider me a prodigy in prison. I tend to play at knight or even queen odds (removing those pieces to give my opponents an advantage), but what I really enjoy is taking young prisoners and just teaching them the moves. Within a few hours you get a couple of fellas feeling like they are Kasparov and Karpov.

    I do feel a pang that they are not my kids, who were getting quite good – but, as the playwright Arthur Miller taught us, they are “All My Sons”, and you can make authentic connections with people in here for whom a little attention and kindness is like oxygen.

    Prison has helped to teach me something about our collective humanity that I needed to learn. And I do have something to offer. I cling to this as a human being who wants to give affection and share humour, and prison gives me the chance, sometimes, to make a difference.

    I have had the privilege, several times, of serving as an amanuensis when prisoners, before sentencing, have the opportunity to write personally to the judge. When I learn their personal histories – so many put into care as children, so much violence, such longing to support their own children, such obvious yet unavoidable mistakes (usually in terms of using and selling drugs) – I have to feel ashamed.

    I had every opportunity: a loving upbringing, a fantastic education, financial security. But almost all prisoners have had perhaps not a single card dealt to them which might be called advantageous. Many lack confidence and so many doubt deep down that they could ever overcome their obstacles to succeed in the outside world. By success, I mean just surviving and paying your way – having a place to live and enjoying lasting family relationships.

    Inside, when everyone is going through much the same thing, the outward pretence of toughness subsides. There is something about it being communal that brings people together. My padmates have been, in a couple of cases, proper friends of the kind you sometimes make in boot camps and boarding schools. There is authentic camaraderie in prison.
    Once you are habituated to it you look for the little positives, and they become quite big positives. You realise that, actually, we need very little to survive and, with very little, we can do much more than we expect.

    And when you realise that prison is failing even to punish you, that is when you can say, as many in here do with satisfaction and pride, with that prisoners’ collective sense of us against them, the self-preservation society: “F— the system”. The Italian Job’s Mr Bridger would be proud.”

    1. Thank you for posting these. They are fascinating and very thought provoking. And yes, very poignant.
      The writer appears to be a thoughtful and kind man who, for whatever reason, transgressed his own moral standards.
      His loss seems to be his fellow prisoners' gain. By just listening to them, let alone boosting their confidence by teaching them new skills and hobbies, he has probably done more for them than any amount of official 'help'.

  118. a propos my comment below on the Secret Prisoner, I read (listened to) Chris Atkins’ book “A Bit of a Stretch” a few years ago. Again, like today’s Secret Prisoner column, he writes of the lost souls who never stood a chance in life and for whom prison can never work because these men have no hope. Definitely worth a read (or a listen). And to remember how lucky we are.

  119. a propos my comment below on the Secret Prisoner, I read (listened to) Chris Atkins’ book “A Bit of a Stretch” a few years ago. Again, like today’s Secret Prisoner column, he writes of the lost souls who never stood a chance in life and for whom prison can never work because these men have no hope. Definitely worth a read (or a listen). And to remember how lucky we are.

    1. I’ve faced challenges in my own life – and that’s why I’m so passionate about creating opportunities for those who feel held back.

      "I hold back all my colleagues and they give me a good feel and vice, yes vice, versa."

    2. What have you ever done, Raynor? You've never earned anything for yourself. You wasted your education, you got your job through nepotism and fraud, riding a Left wing wave to promote women which has seen catastrophic consequences for this country.

      You are a talentless hack, with no quality, value or use. You've lived inside an expense account – either welfare or political your whole life. No other organisation bothers to create lists of women – one of whom is a man – because everyone else is busy producing something of use to society.

  121. O/T…A lady that does my dogs and won't allow me to pay her any money left her fur coat behind.

    She saves me a lot of money where grooming Dolly and Harry are concerned.

    I texted her and she is in town and would come round.

    Apparently she was just down the road on a sunbed.

    When she eventually arrived i had to force £70 down her cleavage.

    She dropped £20 which Harry offered back to her.

    We sat on the bed discussing this.

    I get to keep the fur coat.

    I have told Rik and Geoff that most of what i post is for laughs and not necessarily true,

    She's coming back tomorrow.

    Some people are fun.

      1. Funny you should mention that.

        I'll get her coat…

        As an aside it is a rather nice. Wolf i think.

          4. Kind, considerate, generous…
            miserable as sin, everyone’s nightmare…

            I won’t say worst, I’ve been on Nottle long enough to know that there is strong competition!

    2. If the chap who washes and brushes mine says no I'm sunk. Not only does he charge me £30 instead of 80 but he takes all three on at once so I can go off to do other things.

  124. From the Daily Telegraph

    ‘Sinister’ Oxford Union debate on Israel broke law, dons tell Hague
    Open letter to chancellor calls out ‘failure on all counts’ to protect Jewish students from ‘antisemitism’ for ‘apartheid state’ motion

    Camilla Tominey
    An Oxford Union debate on Israel in which a speaker described the Oct 7 attacks as “heroism” broke the law, dons have told Lord Hague, the university’s newly elected chancellor.

    Baroness Deech, Prof Sir Vernon Bogdanor and the philosopher Prof Peter Hacker are among 300 signatories of an open letter decrying the “inflammatory rhetoric, aggressive behaviour and intimidation” witnessed during the event last Thursday.

    The Oxford Union debated the motion: “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide.”

    It came after Jonathan Sacerdoti, the son of a Holocaust survivor who was the opposing speaker, wrote a piece for The Spectator accusing the Oxford Union of “disgracing itself” by allowing “the forces of bigotry, hatred and mob rule” to breach a “once proud institution”.

    In the letter, the signatories said: “We unequivocally condemn the incendiary remarks made by some speakers in support of Hamas and terrorist violence. Such statements are not only morally reprehensible but also in clear violation of the law.”

    Mr Sacerdoti described the atmosphere in the chamber as “hideous, sinister, and suffused with tension”, with one female student removed for “screaming obscenities”.

    He wrote: “This was not an audience interested in debate or even in hearing arguments. It was a baying mob, openly hostile and emboldened by the president’s refusal to enforce the most basic rules of decorum. They interrupted every pro-Israel speaker with jeers, coughs and outright abuse.”

    The open letter tells William Hague, the chancellor, the debate in which a speaker calls the Oct 7 attacks 'heroism' broke the law
    The open letter tells William Hague, Oxford’s chancellor, the debate in which a speaker calls the Oct 7 attacks ‘heroism’ broke the law Credit: The Office of William Hague/PA
    He also accused Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, the president of the Union, who is an Egyptian Arab, of being “openly biased from the outset”, and “fostering an environment of unchecked hostility”.

    When one of the speakers for the motion withdrew, Osman Mowafy forwent his impartial role as chair, and spoke in favour of Israel being an apartheid state.

    According to Mr Sacerdoti, Mosab Hassan Yousef, a fellow speaker and the son of a senior Hamas founder who defected to Israel’s side, was met with jeering derision and cries of “traitor” and “prostitute” by some in the audience as he recounted his story.

    Mr Sacerdoti added: “Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli Arab who has dedicated his life to dismantling the apartheid lie, faced similar treatment.

    “The international law commentator Natasha Hausdorf was hectored to finish her speech far quicker than her proposition counterpart.”

    He also says that when Mr Yousef asked the audience to raise their hands if they would have reported prior knowledge of the Oct 7 massacres, “the vast majority of the room remained still”.

    The open letter calls the debate a “failure on all counts”, suggesting that the debate subjected Jewish students to “antisemitism and intimidation”.

    It reads: “Debate should challenge ideas, not debase and attack entire communities. Free speech is vital but it must be exercised responsibly and within the bounds of the law.”

    The open letter to Lord Hague says 'debate should challenge ideas, not debase and attack entire communities'
    The open letter to Lord Hague says ‘debate should challenge ideas, not debase and attack entire communities’
    During the debate, Miko Peled, a pro-Palestinian activist speaking in favour of the motion, described the Oct 7 attacks as “heroism”.

    Yousef Haddad, a pro-Israel activist, was ejected from the chamber after dismissing audience members as “terrorist supporters”, at which point he put on a T-shirt that read “your terrorist is dead” with a crossed-out face of Hassan Nasrallah, the former Hezbollah leader.

    Mr Haddad later took to X, formerly Twitter, to describe Oxford as being “occupied by antisemitic … and racist Middle East peoples”.

    One student in the audience said: “I have never felt so targeted at Oxford. The rhetoric from Peled glorifying violence, and Haddad’s provocative behaviour, made the chamber totally toxic. Outside, the chanting from protesters only added to the intimidation.”

    Mr Sacerdoti told The Telegraph: “The Union’s president deliberately cultivated an environment of hostility towards me, my colleagues, and anyone prepared to challenge the inflammatory motion he chose.

    “Institutions like the Oxford Union must not become playgrounds for sinister cliques pushing divisive and prejudicial agendas.”

    In a statement, The Oxford Israel Society, representing Israeli students at Oxford, said: “It was pure unfiltered hatred. We left the debate feeling physically ill and unsafe, ultimately deciding to leave together rather than alone”.

    Ben Freeman of the Pinsker Centre, a charity advocating for respectful debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said: “This event was a debacle, showing the chaos that ensues when divisive extremists hijack crucial debates in tense campus environments.

    “Oxford must step back, reflect, and ensure that future discussions uphold the standards of respect and reasoned debate that this university should represent.”

    The motion was carried 278 ayes to 59 noes.

    Mr Osman Mowafy said: “During the debate, the president, in accordance with the powers conferred on the chair in the rules of the Oxford Union, directed two individuals to withdraw from the floor of the house.

    “The first was a member who was repeatedly interjecting and disrupting the speech by Mr Jonathan Sacerdoti. The second was Mr Yoseph Haddad who was intimidating a member seated behind him.”

    “Claims that the debate was badly chaired or that students were not wishing to participate are subjective claims; a debate as contentious as this one would have those unhappy with it no matter what had happened, as evidenced by the coverage of the debate long before it even took place.

    “All speakers on side opposition exceeded significantly their time, and at all times their ability to make their speech was ensured and any heckling was shut down by myself.

    “The video recordings of the speeches will be released on YouTube in the usual manner where these matters can be judged better.”

  126. No. I checked it was Alexander Pope in his Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot. That is the prose poem where he ridicules the Earl of Bristol: “milk white curd of asses milk”.

    1. Thank you I will remember that in future. It was also a headline when Mr Jagger was charged with a minor drug offence back in the 1960s

    2. Thank you I will remember that in future. It was also a headline when Mr Jagger was charged with a minor drug offence back in the 1960s

  127. I think the limiting of the audience was a particularly sinister aspect of it. If you look at the photos, the chamber is half empty. There should be people in the gallery and on the benches either side of the President's chair. In the 80s when Gerry Adams spoke there, people were crammed in. In fact pretty much every debate was crammed.
    At one debate, Ray Honeywell spoke. Can you imagine, a man who had been condemned as a racist by the national media, with no internet opposition in those days to give an alternative view? His rational arguments were listened to in silence, and ended up persuading the audience of mainly left wing students, who voted for his side (I forget what the motion was).
    What's the point of having a debate if the audience is cherry-picked?

    1. Almost all fruit is treated in this way. It is an anti-fungicide. Considered to be low toxicity.

  129. Leader who fell from grace over economic woes and gift scandal
    It took only two years for South Korea’s conservative president, Yoon Suk-yeol, to learn the limits of his power.

    Listen up Starmer .. listen and learn!

    You will be next.

  130. For those into salacious articles the DT has an expose on ‘Threesomes’ The top comment is from William Kemp (Shakespeare in Love?).

    “I’m still trying to persuade my wife into a twosome!”

    1. Apparently it was the Ancient Greeks who invented Threesomes, but it was the Romans who thought of adding women…….

  131. For those into salacious articles the DT has an expose on ‘Threesomes’ The top comment is from William Kemp (Shakespeare in Love?).

    “I’m still trying to persuade my wife into a twosome!”

    1. Scruffy git. You'd have thought he could have looked more presentable given his millions

    2. No actually I quite admire them for what they have achieved in life, especially him.
      He was a good footballer who made personal sacrifices to extend his playing carer representing his country and he certainly went up in a lot of peoples estimation, mine included, queuing all night to pay his respects to the late Queen.

      1. Becks is a good role model. Faithful to his wife and family. Very unusual among celebrities. Especially footballers.

        Their children seem well grounded too. Even though they seem to chase after fame.

    3. No actually I quite admire them for what they have achieved in life, especially him.
      He was a good footballer who made personal sacrifices to extend his playing carer representing his country and he certainly went up in a lot of peoples estimation, mine included, queuing all night to pay his respects to the late Queen.

  134. In my day a Lady of a Certain Age would have kicked Gregg in the fork if he presented her with his besocked unit.

    1. Today's laydees are said to be empowered, but listening to the bleating from the telly totty, I surmise that yesterdays women were made of stronger stuff. Man rubs woman's bottom, gosh, I think it is time for a war to reset values.

      1. I have just started reading the biography of ATA pilot Mary Ellis. Women's Lib was late to the starting blocks judging by the exploits of her and her female co-pilots. Today's bunch of wimps bear no comparison.

        1. Mary was apparently a lovely lady, from a farming background IIRC. In 2018 there were only a couple of ATA pilots still living, and one of them was male, but averse to publicity, or so I heard.

      2. I have just started reading the biography of ATA pilot Mary Ellis. Women's Lib was late to the starting blocks judging by the exploits of her and her female co-pilots. Today's bunch of wimps bear no comparison.

  136. Well, chums, it's not quite my 11 pm bedtime yet, but I think I'll have an early trip up the stairs to bed. So I wish you all a Good Night, sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning.

  137. Evening, all – at least those of you who are left. I've not long got back from the RAF Shawbury Christmas Carol Concert in Shrewsbury. The band, as ever, was excellent, but alas! they changed the words of some of the carols to erase "man" from them. They also sang the last verse of O Come All Ye Faithful, which is reserved normally for Christmas morning. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable.

    Teflon Two Tier has sloping shoulders. He'll try to evade responsibility for everything (while picking up the extra cash for responsibility, of course).

    1. The emasculation of the language of hymns is now commonplace. I take my own copy of a hymnbook with me to services so that I can sing the unmodified words.

      1. They seem to have replaced any mention of man or men with something "neutral". I'm surprised Christ hasn't been feminised!

  138. Evening, all – at least those of you who are left. I've not long got back from the RAF Shawbury Christmas Carol Concert in Shrewsbury. The band, as ever, was excellent, but alas! they changed the words of some of the carols to erase "man" from them. They also sang the last verse of O Come All Ye Faithful, which is reserved normally for Christmas morning. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable.

    Teflon Two Tier has sloping shoulders. He'll try to evade responsibility for everything (while picking up the extra cash for responsibility, of course).

  141. Goodnight, all. I was rung up this afternoon by a woman from RAFA to ask if I was okay and was there anything welfare could do for me – did I need a befriender? Considering I'd just been to the RAFA Christmas beanfeast and was going to the concert tonight, I said, "no thanks". My ex-RAF chum had similar. That makes me wonder why Tom is so isolated as he's living in RAFA accommodation. I'm off to the coffee morning tomorrow and the Fellowship lunch on Thursday, followed by another concert on Friday, a trip out on Saturday and church on Sunday with another concert in the evening. It's all go! I'm looking forward to a few days off the following week!

    1. I am housebound, Connors, and walking 20 steps is now painful to my left leg and lower back.

  142. 'Morning, all. It's a hard life when you have to get up this early to go out fishing. Have a good day.

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