Tuesday 3 June: Tough talk won’t be sufficient to defend Britain from her enemies

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

518 thoughts on “Tuesday 3 June: Tough talk won’t be sufficient to defend Britain from her enemies”

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page. I'm delighted to tell you all that 8 days ago, on Monday 26th of May, I got the Wordle word (DRONE) in just two lines, i.e. I scored an "Eagle". Well today, Tuesday the 3rd of June, I scored another "Eagle". I am really chuffed!

    Wordle 1,445 2/6

    🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  3. Good morning. I am on my way into the ICAEW today (Chartered Accountants’ Institute). They are still very keen on “Pride” and are hosting an LGBTQTBY(£a0€@|>=? Ball later this month. I shan’t be going, obvs.

    1. The Warqueen found all this BS nonsense as well. What really annoyed was the hypocrisy of the public waffle but internally such was suppressed over just making money.

    2. We have a lot of that going on just now. Driving me nuts.
      Your sexual proclivities are irrelevant to doing Engineering, so why keep harping on about it? I neither see nor hear any discriminatory behaviour, no jokes, whatever, so let it lie.

    1. Sorry, Citroen1, but I just can't read "Thumbnails". (Good morning, btw, and I did see and enjoy the Blower cartoon.)

        1. I've tried every which way to read "Thumbnails" Citroen1, but always unsuccessfully.

    1. Is that Sgt Prepper (with his lonely hearts club band of brothers)?

      Morning Michael

    1. I Green
      1 min ago
      Will young men of a certain religion also be allowed to access weapoms and military training?

      John Thomas
      1 min ago
      Anyone with a day of Army experience will tell you how bad an idea this is.

      A better one might be to reduce the number of children in the country who would rather join ISIS.

      I will be Quick
      2 min ago
      Sir Kier “Action Man” dolls by Mattel in stores near you. Kids will love him.

      1. Replying to I Green: what makes you think that these young men aren't trained in weapons handling etc.? 800 to a 1000 a day is equivalent to a battalion, 3 days of this level of arrivals creates a brigade, and on it goes.

    3. Conscript him into the army along with the rest of the Labour party and have them set to mine clearance.

    4. Did any equestrian Nottler riders ever chase foxes with the Berkeley Hunt?

  8. Yo and Good Moaning All, from C d S

    Have not looked out of the window yet!

  9. 406735+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Tough realisation very hard for the tribal voter to take is OUR main enemy is WITHIN, ensconced in PARLIAMENT directing the order of play.

    ALL opposition is currently running on failure to, as reform will show via being led by Sweating Nitroglycerin "nige" who's past pedigree shows unstable elements.

    No safety net, anti treachery party is rank stupid as will, IMO be sad to witness.

    Tuesday 3 June: Tough talk won’t be sufficient to defend Britain from her enemies

  10. Good morning, Aeneas. I'm sorry, I realise you're trying to be helpful, but I have no idea how to do what you suggest.

    1. if you are using a Windows computer, right click on the thumbnail. A menu should pop up. Left click on ‘Open image in new tab’ or ‘Open in new tab’.

      1. I'm using an iMac, Aeneas. Are you able to help me with one of those?

  12. Sir John Thomas
    47m
    Britain has failed to sign a letter from a string of countries demanding reform of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
    Denmark, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland all said there was a need to 'look at' the influence of Strasbourg judges.

    Edmund Waller
    Sir John Thomas
    12m
    With Starmer and Hermer at the helm, the failure to sign is no surprise at all.

    It’s only Me
    Sir John Thomas
    13m
    It’s not the right group of countries, is it!! The government will never sign it with these countries, too right wing.

    1. Though we no longer have an empire and are no longer a major power, there is still a need among the establishment to wield "soft power"'; a form of benevolent neo-colonialism of wokeness. How often do our leaders talk of "Britain leading the world" in whatever it is – net zero, slavish adherence to international bodies etc?
      The truth is that the world is not looking for our leadership. Look over your shoulders and see that nobody is following.
      Though they are quite willing to take our money, which Starmer and co are only too willing to give away.

  13. Good morning, all. Overcast and breezy here in N Essex.

    Starmer, in the role of warmonger, is a sad representation of a 'little-man' politician. Empty claims supported by a level of cringeworthy verbosity does not make a leader. A 'grown-up' politician as a leader would be doing everything possible to end the conflict. Starmer, however, continues posing on the European/NATO stage as a potential leader of a coalition that will defeat Russia.

    The cartoons and picture put up by Citroen1 express his position perfectly.

    Here, a Redacted report on what has happened/is happening in Russia and Ukraine puts the situation in perspective, and the outlook is grim. Sensible people would be working for a settlement but it appears that the patients are in charge of the asylum.

    https://x.com/TheRedactedInc/status/1929661050200232269

    2. It's awful being at this dangerous time in history and having a 'leader' like Starmer imposed on us from on high.

      1. Starmer is NOT A LEADER, he is following orders from the AlphaBet mob

        WET, NWO Davos etc

        1. I agree – hence my inverted commas! He’s just a tool of the Bilderberg group!

    3. I fear that Starmer wants his own version of the Falklands war to distract attention from his multiple failings,
      That's what led Galtieri to his disastrous and projected Margaret Thatcher from an unpopular PM to heroic status.

    1. alphaecho
      Monty
      54m
      Even BBC news points out the driver arrived at 14 years old from overseas and already had eight penalty points prior to that offence.

  15. The first big test for McReform at the Scottish Parliamentary by-election for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency on Thursday.

    Gotta hand it to him.. Farage has made it a drill-baby-drill vs Nutty Zero.. and an anti-Pakistani mafia election.

    1. A rare good decision then. I want to see a clear commitment to chucking net zero out of the statute books.

        1. We might want that, the Left want shambolic, big state chaos. That demands ever more big state.

    2. I’m thinking his ‘there’s a case for looking at the Barnett formula again’ stance will not help his chances. It would be good if Reform get a lot of support tho I’m not holding my breath.

    1. There's medication you can take for farting. The grey I think you're relying on make up.

  17. Good morning all.
    A tad cooler this morning, blustery & also dull and damp after overnight and early morning rain. A little below 13°C on the thermometer.

  18. Good Morning!

    Today's FSB article, Rape Gangs – Application for a Statutory Inquiry by Chairman of the English Democrats, solicitor Robin Tilbrook, sets out his legal case and application for a full judicial inquiry into the ongoing shame of the Rape Gang scandal, indicting not only the vile creatures who perpetrated it, but also those in the authorities, police and social services who ignored and covered it up. Please show your support by reading and leaving a comment or two.

    In her article The Rise of Chrislam (or Islamianity) Sonya Porter argues that the accommodations made by Christians in Europe to the new force that is Islam will result in the merging of the two religions and largely, in effect therefore, the incorporation of mainstream Christianity into a new, but little changed, Islam. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

    In Anti-Free Speech Laws Are Illegal! FSB argues that the State is now acting illegally by removing rights it has no right to remove, as guaranteed by Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights and Common Law. It also states the Parliament cannot pass laws inhibiting these rights without destroying the democratic accountability that gives it the right to make laws. We are, therefore, suffering tyranny.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 14.4%; Solar, 10.3%: Wind 39.4%; Imports, 13.8%; Biomass, 2.8%, Nuclear 16.2% and Miscellaneous, 3.2%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  19. Police begin major new search for Madeleine McCann. 3 June 2025.

    Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are to begin fresh searches close to the former Algarve home of the prime suspect in the case.

    Around 30 German police officers, along with forensic specialists, will examine a site on the outskirts of Praia da Luz, where convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner was living at the time.

    Jack the Ripper spotted near Whitechapel .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/02/police-begin-fresh-search-for-signs-madeleine-mccanns-body/

    1. Yawn. No matter how sad this was the McCanns really need tt let it lie.

      1. I think it's the German police rather than the McCanns themselves. They need more evidence to get a conviction.

        1. The British police gave up when they had all been to Praia da Luz on highly paid 'working" holidays

    3. I’m just wondering how, every so often, this case pops up again. Do the McCanns have some influence somewhere?

  20. And £200 from ERNIE shared between self and the DT with her getting the major part of £125.

        1. In the 3 1/2 years of having them I've only ever not won 4 times
          Tip – buy another one and increase your chances by 100% :o)

          1. Mine were an inheritance from my mother, both my sister’s in the three way share win on a regular basis…..

    3. Dangnabbit! I haven't won a penny since starting and had rather hoped to win the jackpot.

      Could pay the vet bill!

      Being honest, if I only won £100 or so it'd be nice.

  21. Starmer will spend billions to beef up Britain's defences to make country 'war-ready'..

    Not so fast.
    Asymmetric/ irregular warfare just became way more viable. Traditional organized militaries are toast.
    ..the potential for adversaries to hide and deploy missile systems inside standard shipping containers, making virtually any cargo ship, truck, or rail car an undetectable covert mobile launch platform.

    https://x.com/ElisaIgorevna/status/1929245106554413332

    1. Who are we fighting, Starmer? Who, exactly is the threat? It's not Russia. It's you and your lot!

  22. David Shipley
    England now has a blasphemy law
    2 June 2025, 4:35pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Quran_SE.jpg

    Officially, blasphemy was abolished by New Labour in the 2008 Criminal Justice Act. But today, with the conviction of Hamit Coskun, blasphemy laws now exist in England.

    This law has been created by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and District Judge John McGarva. Between them they have prosecuted and found a man guilty of a ‘religiously aggravated public order offence’ because he burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate. The CPS mounted a prosecution conflating the religious institution of Islam, with Muslims as people, and a British judge has accepted this. Islamic blasphemy codes are now being enforced by arms of the British state, via what the National Secular Society describes as ‘a troubling repurposing of public order laws as a proxy for blasphemy laws’.

    Hamit Coskun burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in February, before being attacked by a man named Moussa Kadri who has since pleaded guilty to the assault. Mr Coskun was initially charged under the Crime and Disorder Act with ‘intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam harassment, alarm or distress’. This means that the Crown Prosecution Service were treating Islam itself as a person, and a victim of Hamit’s Quran burning. Under English law this is nonsensical, as only people can be harmed in this fashion, so this charge, if it had been successful, would have established a special, protected status for Islam. Weeks ago I made a Freedom of Information request of the CPS, asking in how many instances of ‘the religious institution of Islam’ appeared in recent indictments. Just this morning they responded, saying that it would take too long for them to review all the charges they had made, and that they would not comply with the FOI request.

    The new charges under which Hamit has been convicted are scarcely better. The CPS claimed, and Judge McGarva accepted, that Hamit committed a crime because his actions caused distress, harassment and alarm (presumably to the man who attacked him), and that this was motivated by his hostility towards Muslims.

    This is an insult to religious freedom and free speech. As Toby Young, Tory Peer and Director of the Free Speech Union said to me, ‘No one should be prosecuted for burning a copy of the Quran, any more than they should be for burning a copy of the Bible. We have repealed our blasphemy laws and should not attempt to bring them back via the courts’.

    The National Secular Society agrees, saying that ‘the outcome of this case is a significant blow to freedom of expression and signals a concerning capitulation to Islamic blasphemy codes.’ As Toby Young says, ‘some religious people are going to be offended when their blasphemy codes are breached, but being offended from time to time is the price we pay for living in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society. Social cohesion requires that we tolerate the different religions practised in our midst; it doesn’t mean we have to respect their blasphemy codes’.

    Despite the generous and committed support of the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union, Hamit Coskun has been found guilty. This must not stand. Laws should not be created by the CPS and the judiciary defying the explicit will of parliament. It was the work of centuries to build a society in which men and women could speak freely, and not live in fear of criminal punishment if they offended other people’s religious beliefs. We must guard that society with fierce purpose and utterly oppose those who would threaten it.

    Written by
    David Shipley is a former prisoner who writes, speaks and researches on prison and justice issues.
    **********************************************

    Geoff Spanner
    15 hours ago edited
    It will stand. Just as the sentence of Lucy Connolly stood. I'm afraid people who believe in free speech are now very much on the back foot in Britain.

    If we want our country back, if we want to prise it from the grip of increasingly authoritarian government, we are going to have to take a genuine risk and vote Reform – as the only viable alternative – into government.

    I'm ambivalent concerning Farage, and by no means consider him an ideal candidate for PM, but Starmer's Labour has simply got to go next time we get a chance. And not just go, be utterly demolished – pounded so severely there isn't a trace left from which to rebuild.

    The sâme, notwithstanding Jenrick's earnest attempts to revive his party's fortunes, goes for the Conservative party. This is the Tories' Britain just as much as it is Labour's – and it is not the country I remember or the country I want in the future. It is now a corrupt country.

    Jolly Radical
    15 hours ago
    Found guilty by a judge with no jury of a crime invented by the civil service!

    Kafka would certainly approve.

    Badvok
    15 hours ago
    From the Telegraph today –

    Katy Thorne KC, Coskun’s barrister, had argued that even the amended charges against him effectively criminalised any public burning of a religious book and were tantamount to blasphemy laws.

    “It is effectively chilling the right of citizens to criticise religion,” she said.

    She said Coskun’s actions were not motivated by hostility towards the followers of Islam but the religion itself.

    Judge McGarva, however, said he did not accept that argument.

    Addressing Coskun, he said: “You believe Islam is an ideology which encourages its followers to violence, paedophilia and a disregard for the rights of non-believers.

    “You don’t distinguish between the two. I find you have a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers. That is based on your experiences in Turkey and the experiences of your family.”

    Judge McGarva, it's a fact that Islam encourages its followers to be violent towards and have disregard for non-believers.

    Islam teaches Muslims that non-Muslims are for exploitation.

        1. What makes islam so different ?
          Its medieval mindset.
          During their take over of Spain the ‘barbary pirates’ use to sail around our shores and steal children to take back to Alhambra kept in nearby caves for the hierarchy to use as sex toys. When they had finished with them they fed them to the pet lions.
          Now they steal their sex toys straight off our streets. And nobody does anything about it.

        2. George Galloway says Yahya Sinwar ‘died a martyr’s death’ D Telegraph.
          Former MP under fire for ‘absurd’ claim that head of Hamas ‘would appear to have been murdered’ by the IDF.
          Turd Galloway described the man behind the Oct 7 terror attacks as having “died a martyr’s death…

          Why is this IRA and Islam supporting turd free to spread his hatred of the British and being paid to do so? He should be in prison for treason.

    3. "…I find you have a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers. That is based on your experiences in Turkey and the experiences of your family.”…"

      That is based on experience. So is everyone else's. There's a reason no on wants muslim here. They're a damned menace.

      This is also why endless law was enacted by the hard Left to protect this savage, feral group of feckless anti social xenophobic invaders.

    4. How incredibly arrogant of Judge McGarva to think that he knows more about islam than someone who grew up under that religion in an islamic country.

  23. Brendan O’Neill
    Ireland has been consumed by hatred of Israel
    2 June 2025, 6:57am

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GettyImages-2191321265.jpg?resize=1536,1024

    Anew religion blights the Republic of Ireland. Catholicism has been supplanted by a far more cultish creed. Its doctrines are declared with great fervour, its icons scar every town and village. You will struggle to find one person who has not converted to this strange and all-consuming faith. Its name? Israelophobia.

    I knew Ireland was hostile to Israel but I had no idea how bad things had got. It’s suffocating. Wherever you go, whether city or bog, you’ll see it and hear it – that swirling animus for the Jewish State. The political class speaks of little else. The media are feverishly obsessed. From every political party, every TV set, every soapbox, the cry goes out: Israel is evil!

    It feels like the Jewish State has become a Satan substitute in post-Catholic Ireland

    It’s inescapable. It’s all over Dublin, of course, long a hotbed of leftish activism. You won’t walk five metres there without seeing a youth wearing a keffiyeh and a look of smug self-satisfaction. The Palestine flag flutters at Trinity College. Even the Hamas flag has been waved at protests in the capital: leftists for fascism.

    In the country too, where Dublin fads once held no sway, Israelophobia has put down roots. I find no relief from its dogmas out in Connemara, where my parents are from. Palestine flags fly in random fields. ‘STOP’ road signs have had the word ‘GENOCIDE’ attached to them, meaning everywhere you turn you’re reminded of that most unholy nation. There were once statues of the Virgin Mother on Ireland’s roadsides, imploring you to resist evil; now there are dire reminders of the evil Israel commits. It feels like the Jewish State has become a Satan substitute in post-Catholic Ireland. You prove your virtue through renouncing it.

    On a drive from Connemara to Clare I switch on the radio. The first thing I hear is an interview with a folk singer from Galway who’s become a national treasure by going on a ‘hunger strike for Gaza’. The presenter fawns over her with holy reverence: Ireland’s new saints. She called off her strike after seven days – less Bobby Sands than a body detox. The interview bleeds into a breathless report on famine in Gaza. I turn it off; only silence brings respite from the religious fury.

    Even pubs bow and scrape to the new faith. A bar in Bundoran in Donegal has banned ‘all Zionists’. Zionists are the devil here. One was spat on in Dublin and told to get out of the country. So much for Ireland’s old cry of ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’: a hundred thousand welcomes.

    I take a pint in a quiet bar in Clifden. A TV in the corner is whispering about genocide. It’s a panel discussion about Israel’s crimes against humanity. They all agree. It’s interrupted by news of Gerry Adams’s libel victory over the BBC. Gloating Gerry is in a keffiyeh. They say it’s the one gifted to him by Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of the neo-fascists of Hamas. You can’t so much as finish a drink without hearing the cult’s claims and seeing its paraphernalia. The old priests would have killed for such reach.

    Politicians of all persuasions genuflect at the altar of Israelophobia. The Dáil is a sea of keffiyehs some days. A proposed new law, the Occupied Territories Bill, would make it a criminal offence to trade with any person or business in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The moral deviant who does so risks five years in jail. One envisions pilgrims returning from the Holy Land and being grilled by gardai over whether their holy trinkets were bought from a Jew in a settlement. ‘You traded with the Zionists? Off to Mountjoy.’

    This week both the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, said Israel is committing genocide. Martin, frustrated by his failure to convince other nations to sign up to this vile calumny against the Jewish State, called for a ‘broadening’ of the definition of genocide. They’re shameless. They want to alter the very meaning of words in order that they might frame Israel for the gravest crime. Like all witchfinder cults, they twist truth to ensnare the demons they irrationally fear.

    Some say the reason Ireland feels so strongly about this is because we too experienced ‘colonial repression’. What an insult to the men and women who fought for Ireland’s freedom to speak of them in the same breath as the murderous obscurantists of Hamas. Israel is not waging a colonial war on Gaza, as Britain once did in Ireland: it is pursuing the army of anti-Semites that raped and murdered hundreds of Jews in the 7 October pogrom.

    If Ireland’s fury is just ‘solidarity with Palestine’, then why does it feel so hateful? So stifling? Why does it involve the expulsion from public houses of Jews who believe in a Jewish homeland? And the spitting on such Jews? And the criminalisation of trade with such Jews? And the waving of the flag of the army that butchered a thousand Jews 18 months ago? Ireland is in the grip of a new hysteria. The country I love has fallen. Who will save it?

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

    NumberMuncher
    a day ago
    The basic point is that a lot of Irish people see nothing wrong with terrorism.

    Bill Rees
    a day ago
    I always thought that the Holocaust was a historical aberration.
    Recent events have demonstrated that the conditions for antisemitism to flourish can arise anywhere, at any time.
    The condition is clearly contagious.

    A real liberal
    a day ago edited
    It’s just Ireland showing its true free-loading fa*cist colours. Let’s isolate off this enemy state. No free movement for Irish nationals. No voting in British elections. No defence agreement, tacit or explicit. Tariffs at the Irish sea. And let’s hope Trump’s tariffs crush its cheating economy. The free world simply needn't tolerate this charmingly vile country

    1. Ah so that's it! The Irish tricolour is incorporated into the Palestinian flag – does that make them fellow travellers?

    2. It's somewhat insulting that these immature, childish wasters think they represent the entirety of Ireland – and want to believe they do.

      These are immature, petulant, tiresome characters with no concept of right and wrong – and muslim is always wrong.

    4. I have always sympathised with Shylock for the way he was treated by the Christians in Venice:

      Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
      In the Rialto you have rated me
      About my moneys and my usances:
      Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
      For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
      You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
      And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine.

      If you prick us do we not bleed?
      If you tickle us do we not laugh?
      If you poison us do we not die?
      And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

    6. I remember that when travelling to join vessels and going into or out of Arab countries, any of the crew with Irish passports always passed through customs and security with 'a wave of the hand'.

    8. Well said Brendon O'Neill. Ireland's support of terrorism has deep roots in religion – just like most of the present world's lethal problems.

    10. When one considers the amount of the amount of assistance given to the IRA by the PLO, Black September and Arab countries, is the Irish support for the Hamas terrorists REALLY that surprising?

  24. Brendan O’Neill
    Ireland has been consumed by hatred of Israel
    2 June 2025, 6:57am

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GettyImages-2191321265.jpg?resize=1536,1024

    Anew religion blights the Republic of Ireland. Catholicism has been supplanted by a far more cultish creed. Its doctrines are declared with great fervour, its icons scar every town and village. You will struggle to find one person who has not converted to this strange and all-consuming faith. Its name? Israelophobia.

    I knew Ireland was hostile to Israel but I had no idea how bad things had got. It’s suffocating. Wherever you go, whether city or bog, you’ll see it and hear it – that swirling animus for the Jewish State. The political class speaks of little else. The media are feverishly obsessed. From every political party, every TV set, every soapbox, the cry goes out: Israel is evil!

    It feels like the Jewish State has become a Satan substitute in post-Catholic Ireland

    It’s inescapable. It’s all over Dublin, of course, long a hotbed of leftish activism. You won’t walk five metres there without seeing a youth wearing a keffiyeh and a look of smug self-satisfaction. The Palestine flag flutters at Trinity College. Even the Hamas flag has been waved at protests in the capital: leftists for fascism.

    In the country too, where Dublin fads once held no sway, Israelophobia has put down roots. I find no relief from its dogmas out in Connemara, where my parents are from. Palestine flags fly in random fields. ‘STOP’ road signs have had the word ‘GENOCIDE’ attached to them, meaning everywhere you turn you’re reminded of that most unholy nation. There were once statues of the Virgin Mother on Ireland’s roadsides, imploring you to resist evil; now there are dire reminders of the evil Israel commits. It feels like the Jewish State has become a Satan substitute in post-Catholic Ireland. You prove your virtue through renouncing it.

    On a drive from Connemara to Clare I switch on the radio. The first thing I hear is an interview with a folk singer from Galway who’s become a national treasure by going on a ‘hunger strike for Gaza’. The presenter fawns over her with holy reverence: Ireland’s new saints. She called off her strike after seven days – less Bobby Sands than a body detox. The interview bleeds into a breathless report on famine in Gaza. I turn it off; only silence brings respite from the religious fury.

    Even pubs bow and scrape to the new faith. A bar in Bundoran in Donegal has banned ‘all Zionists’. Zionists are the devil here. One was spat on in Dublin and told to get out of the country. So much for Ireland’s old cry of ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’: a hundred thousand welcomes.

    I take a pint in a quiet bar in Clifden. A TV in the corner is whispering about genocide. It’s a panel discussion about Israel’s crimes against humanity. They all agree. It’s interrupted by news of Gerry Adams’s libel victory over the BBC. Gloating Gerry is in a keffiyeh. They say it’s the one gifted to him by Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of the neo-fascists of Hamas. You can’t so much as finish a drink without hearing the cult’s claims and seeing its paraphernalia. The old priests would have killed for such reach.

    Politicians of all persuasions genuflect at the altar of Israelophobia. The Dáil is a sea of keffiyehs some days. A proposed new law, the Occupied Territories Bill, would make it a criminal offence to trade with any person or business in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The moral deviant who does so risks five years in jail. One envisions pilgrims returning from the Holy Land and being grilled by gardai over whether their holy trinkets were bought from a Jew in a settlement. ‘You traded with the Zionists? Off to Mountjoy.’

    This week both the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, said Israel is committing genocide. Martin, frustrated by his failure to convince other nations to sign up to this vile calumny against the Jewish State, called for a ‘broadening’ of the definition of genocide. They’re shameless. They want to alter the very meaning of words in order that they might frame Israel for the gravest crime. Like all witchfinder cults, they twist truth to ensnare the demons they irrationally fear.

    Some say the reason Ireland feels so strongly about this is because we too experienced ‘colonial repression’. What an insult to the men and women who fought for Ireland’s freedom to speak of them in the same breath as the murderous obscurantists of Hamas. Israel is not waging a colonial war on Gaza, as Britain once did in Ireland: it is pursuing the army of anti-Semites that raped and murdered hundreds of Jews in the 7 October pogrom.

    If Ireland’s fury is just ‘solidarity with Palestine’, then why does it feel so hateful? So stifling? Why does it involve the expulsion from public houses of Jews who believe in a Jewish homeland? And the spitting on such Jews? And the criminalisation of trade with such Jews? And the waving of the flag of the army that butchered a thousand Jews 18 months ago? Ireland is in the grip of a new hysteria. The country I love has fallen. Who will save it?

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

    NumberMuncher
    a day ago
    The basic point is that a lot of Irish people see nothing wrong with terrorism.

    Bill Rees
    a day ago
    I always thought that the Holocaust was a historical aberration.
    Recent events have demonstrated that the conditions for antisemitism to flourish can arise anywhere, at any time.
    The condition is clearly contagious.

    A real liberal
    a day ago edited
    It’s just Ireland showing its true free-loading fa*cist colours. Let’s isolate off this enemy state. No free movement for Irish nationals. No voting in British elections. No defence agreement, tacit or explicit. Tariffs at the Irish sea. And let’s hope Trump’s tariffs crush its cheating economy. The free world simply needn't tolerate this charmingly vile country

  25. Are air raid sirens still a 'thing' (flood warnings)? IIRC, when I was a child there was a siren near a local dairy that was about half a mile away as the crow flies. It was tested occasionally.

    https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1929525220244660247

    Sirens were also used to call out the part-time firemen: I know this for certain because when I was an apprentice technician I pressed the wrong relay in the control box at Long Melford's fire station: the siren hardly got going but around half the crew turned up (I believe that there was another personal call-out system activated by my action). Embarrassed? Very much so.

    1. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

      Nuff Said

    4. We have civil defence practices, with the sirens, typically twice a year. Spooky, it is, makes you shit yourself when that wailing goes out over the valley.

  26. I believe I may have invented a new term. So I asked Grok.

    "The term "Pisshit Maker" does not have a widely recognized or standard definition in mainstream dictionaries or common usage. However, based on available information, it appears to be a conflation or variation of terms found in slang or niche contexts. The closest related term from historical records is "Piss Maker," which appears in the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue and is defined as "a great drinker, one much given to liquor." This suggests a person who consumes large amounts of alcohol, leading to frequent urination.

    The term "pisshit" (without "maker") also appears in modern slang, particularly on Urban Dictionary, where it is described in multiple ways:

    As an exclamation of frustration, often related to toilet-related mishaps.
    As a verb describing a messy or forceful act of defecation, such as splashback or runny diarrhea caused by greasy food.
    As a noun referring to the resulting mess or the act itself.
    "Pisshit Maker" could theoretically combine these ideas, implying someone or something that causes or produces such a mess or situation, but this is speculative as no direct definition for "Pisshit Maker" exists in the provided sources. Alternatively, it might be a misspelling or creative variation of "Piss Maker" or related slang. Without further context, it’s likely an informal or invented term not widely documented. If you meant something specific, could you clarify the context or source where you encountered it?

    Feel free to apply the term to the bete noir of your choice!

    1. Were you by any chance pondering on the subject of HM Government when you invented this new term?

  29. Morning all 🙂😊
    As forecast, Grey windy and starting to rain.

    The enemy of our country is now the labour party, followed closely behind by a large section of the conservation party. Behind the lies, the damage to our social structure they have deliberately carried out over the past twenty plus years can never be rectified.
    And never an explanation of why or what they are trying to achieve, if anything at all.
    And all they all seem to agree on, that it is always the fault of the British public. Who despite reactions against these people in politics, are never listened to. Until it's too late.
    As we are finding out once again to our cultural economic and structural despair.

      1. The first was fought to remove the old empires and replace them with the new world order. Sadly the old empires had become degenerate and moribund and were easily removed. The new order was sold as an enlightened era of democracy. Yeah, right. Socialism driven by the relativist fallacy. Revelations here we come.

    2. True, but economics had a ig part to play in that. Ironically we're seeing the same bolshy nonsense from Starmer as Germany saw from Hitler.

      However, unlike Hitler Starmer knows his enemy is not such and just an excuse to sabre rattle to cow a frightened populace and allow him to make stupid, damaging actions while having a boogey man.

  31. Yo, again.

    Looked out of the window….

    In C d S it is cold, wet dank, dark, windy, raining, no Sun.

    Thank goodness for Global Warming

    2. Same here, OLT, on the far western slopes of East Anglia. I've got my winter woollies on again.

      1. "Slopes", "East Anglia"? A bit like Holland, the only slopes I recall were to get the roads over railway lines or canals and rivers.

        1. Same here…. our area of s. Cambs slopes away into Bedfordshire. It’s because it doesn’t slope, you see, except for the 600 ft hill (most easterly wing of the Chilterns at the end of our garden which really marks the most southerly limit of the fens).

  32. I do wish Starmer would shut up about Ukraine and Russia. He has been briefed on the situation but likely doesn't understand the history.

    Instead, he's using it as politicians always do: a sort of straw man argument to continually present a 'threat' to 'do something about' when, in truth, Russia is utterly uninterested in the UK.

    1. Absolutely Correct.
      Right from the word go, it's got absolutely nothing to do with us whatsoever.
      We've done our bit letting some of them move in.

    2. At this point, I'm practically begging the Russians to come and free us from Starmer. Winston Churchill he ain't.

      1. Strange. We gave a friend that can’t play back Facebook comments. We don’t have Facebook but always manage to playback. If you can’t get the sound you have to tap somewhere above the message.

    1. Climate denier . . . . Blasphemer !!!!!!!! You vill be arrested and severely punished for your crime of disbelief !!!

    1. They should be rats not squirrels, still vermin but not with a cuddly look.

    1. Could some kind person nail a solar panel to Ed Miliband's head. It is desperately in need of some enlightenment.

    2. Heavens above. HMG will stop at nothing – stealing people’s money, their land and their homes. What can we do about all this stealing?

      Obviously no one is safe from the state’s clutches. What a country we live in. God help us.

    4. That is appalling, and a lot of homes would be at risk if Milliband is allowed to get his hands on them!

      1. All of them and especially rural homes. This is how they will herd people into their ’15 minute cities’ which are not yet under construction (or perhaps never will be, it will be favela type slums for us). We need to organise and rebel or it really will be too late, we need to realise that an attack against one is an attack against us all.

        1. The idea that solar power stations need to take over people’s homes is utterly ridiculous.

  37. Raining here now. I know we need it to combat global boiling but it is a bit depressing. Also cold….

  38. Just the announcement will have slashed the property valuations, the developers will doubtless attempt to grab on the cheap.

    1. We are all at risk. One way or another they will attempt to dispossess us of our properties in order to achieve their ambitions. "Ownership of private property is theft".

      1. Except their own of course. The soviets said each person needed only 100 sq ft of living space and anyone with more must be forced to share but party members had a dacha in the country.

      1. We feel like it but resist. I know it was shyte weather 81 years ago – but the lads hunched in landing craft etc didn’t have CH. So we’ll do without, too.

    1. 'Summer's' arrived here in Oxfud too. Cold, cloudy, wet and miserable.
      Weather not much better.

  41. Of course not.

    It is now well known – and will be the historical view – that the Israelis deliberately set up the "attack" by Hamas in order to have a pretext for destroying Gaza.

    2. We had two very young blue-tits fly into our kitchen window yesterday – I got outside just in time to chase off a squirrel [long tailed tree rat!]. Both alive when I got there but sadly one died shortly afterwards. The other one had to be watched for a while to ensure it was safe, but eventually seemed to recover and flew off into a nearby tree – hopefully OK.

  44. Government theft, pure and simple.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn45d72eyo
    The UK government has threatened to sue former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich to make sure the money from the club's sale goes to Ukraine.

    The £2.5bn in proceeds have been frozen in a UK bank account since the sale, with Mr Abramovich sanctioned after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    The UK government wants the money to be for Ukrainian humanitarian aid, but Mr Abramovich has said he wants it to go to "all victims of the war in Ukraine".

    In a joint statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: "While the door for negotiations will remain open, we are fully prepared to pursue this through the courts if required."

    3. Well, they’re stealing money on a grand scale from British people and giving it to foreign invaders who shouldn’t be in this country at all. Seeing as we are all now reduced to penury they will look elsewhere but I bet they’re still stockpiling the free gifts that should be taxed at tye highest rate of tax as a benefit in kind.
      They are evil beyond belief.

    4. If the Russians ever come wanting it back, I hope they will sue Reeves and Lammy personally…

  47. 'Morning All
    Sick of the drip,drip drip of denigration (can I still use that word?) of Britain and our proud history
    A nicked rebuttal
    "Another day, another bitter monologue from someone living in Britain funded by Britain using British freedoms to spit on British history.

    Narinder, if this country was that savage, you’d still be whispering in a shack, not shouting on a verified account.

    You call the British Empire one of the worst in history?
    Compared to what? The Mughal harem system? The Arab slave trade? Sharia stonings? Aztec human sacrifices? Zulu tribal purges?

    Let me guess that doesn't fit the narrative.

    No empire was perfect.
    But only one abolished slavery globally, built railways instead of rubble, legal systems instead of warlords and left behind parliaments, not blood cults.

    Britain wasn’t the oppressor of the world.
    It civilised it.
    And you’re proof because you’re not surviving under it.
    You’re thriving because of it.

    You want to talk savagery?
    Try being a Dalit under the caste system.
    Try being gay in Saudi.
    Try being a girl in Taliban territory.

    Britain isn’t a stain. It’s a standard.
    The Empire’s not perfect but it was better than what it replaced, and a hell of a lot better than what’s trying to replace us now.

    We won’t kneel.
    We won’t apologise.
    And we won’t let self loathing take root where pride should live.

    We built. We led. We mattered.

    And we still bloody do."
    Hear bloody hear!!

    2. The Indians claim they taught the British to wash. So did the Romans.

    3. Have you noticed that after the British had an Empire, on which the sun never set, every nation wanted one. 🤔

    4. Narinder Kaur – Never heard of her but then, I have never seen Big Brother. She sound like a self centre scrubber.

  48. Proper downpour out there now! First time for weeks and weeks. Water running into the butts nicely. Won't need to do any watering tonight. I've been to get my hair done…….!!

    Had to use the brolly just to get from the car to the door.

    1. Luck you, I don’t have enough hair to have it done. vw does mine with a trimmer. I’m very low maintenance in some respects but not others. 😉

      2. I don't have a lot – it's very fine and white now – but I keep it fairly short and it was flopping over my eyes…..

  50. Another threesome. After the second line there was only one possible answer:
    Wordle 1,445 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. When I got my "Eagle"today I had to guess at the 3rd and 5th letters, which proved to be correct. But then I noticed that I could have chosen the same 3rd letter but a different 5th one. Had I done that, then I would have taken 3 attempts and so, like you, only have got a "Birdie".

  51. The photo of Starmer all dressed up as action man makes me want to vomit. Enough said.

    3. Starmer has many nicknames deriving from his corrupt acceptance of gifts and unusual proclivities but the most apt is “008”. The silly sod sees himself as some sort of James Bond heroic figure. It is all fiction and as with “007” always was.

    4. Starmer has many nicknames deriving from his corrupt acceptance of gifts and unusual proclivities but the most apt is “008”. The silly sod sees himself as some sort of James Bond heroic figure. It is all fiction and as with “007” always was.

    5. Starmer has many nicknames deriving from his corrupt acceptance of gifts and unusual proclivities but the most apt is “008”. The silly sod sees himself as some sort of James Bond heroic figure. It is all fiction and as with “007” always was.

    1. Starmer wants a bogeyman, a nebulous threat that isn't.

      He is desperate to shift the blame for the catastrophic mess he is deliberately making of the country on to some faux external actor.

      1. Starmer, along with the leaders of the major EU countries, has no personal sense of the geopolitical realities. This is because they are all briefed in what to say by those educated in painting a picture in words which denies the truth and substitutes some theatrical drama narrative in its place.

        In the Ukraine war Russia has already won and must continue its attritional warfare until the Ukrainians submit to its demands. No amount of bluster and idle threats by broken vessels such as Starmer, Macron, Blackrock Merz and the other western midgets will have any deterrent effect on Russia.

        The UK is no longer a major military power and might do better to adopt a more passive non-confrontational opinion on the events in Ukraine or the EU for that matter.

        Without US monetary support NATO is a busted flush and its structures should be dismantled at the soonest.

        Russia is no conceivable threat to the UK and we should be seeking good relations with the Russians as opposed to sticking pins into Putin’s fetish.

    3. Not helped by knowing that years later they will probably be prosecuted for having done their job.

  53. Good afternoon, all Y'all.
    Sunny. Day started rather busy, so it took a while to get a moment to wish all Y'all a Good Day. Apologies for that.

  54. Lefties emphatically maintain that behind closed doors.. sharp as a needle he was, defo.

    Was Biden dribble dribble competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen pardons or other means?

    Trump admin opens bombshell investigation

      1. Probably something similar to what was administered to my MiL when the nurses asked us to leave the room while they 'made her more comfortable'. She passed away with in 40 minutes.

        1. Oh, man. What a sad scenario.
          It can't be much fun for the needler, either, deleting people like that.

          1. Mil illness was incurable and she had been ill for some time. But what they did was so obvious. To me, but fortunately not to my good lady, at the time.

    1. Don’t know about you all but I think it’s all deliberate, all part of the plan. These are not men fleeing from war, famine etc, wouldn’t they bring their womenfolk with them? These men are here either to subdue us when we become angry enough to cause civil unrest or have already been trained for war. Against us.

      1. I totally agree it's something that has been set up by the NWO and designed to try and equalise freedom and finances around the planet. But it will have no real effect on the rich and famous. But of course it's just another ill prepared act of aggression against indigenous populations. Oh but hang on, if were were indigenous Australians New Zealanders Americans we might have a bit of back up and be able to to stop this invasion. But being British we are not so lucky.

      2. Why bring the women and children when you can rob and rape almost with impunity and be housed fed and given pocket money while doing so.

      3. The men themselves don't even have to know anything about it. If the supermarkets don't get any deliveries for a week or two, nature will take its course.

        Don't forget to read your daily article about solar storms cutting the internet off in the Daily Mail/other rag of choice…

  56. Hi all, but drizzly here, and pretty dull too.

    Our dil is seeing a Rheumatologist this morning as she has RA and is suffering quite badly with it just now. She’s had X-rays of hands, feet and chest and has now been told she also has osteoarthritis. Poor poor girl. She’s 55 and, being a nurse, knows exactly what the future may mean. She’s been put on a low dose of methotrexate and has had a steroid injection in the glute. We pray they will all help to alleviate the pain she’s in.

    1. Good luck to her.
      She has my sympathy.
      It's no joke, and can be very painful at times.
      The injections provided some relief but it was temporary. Unfortunately it's in my family so I came by mine through the genes.
      Too much contact sport probably didn't help either.

    2. Ooo… poor lass. She has my sympathy by the bathload. Knowing the future is definitely a curse in that case… bad enough with pain in the present. Hope she gets some relief.

    3. Poor girl, what a terrible time she is having , and so much painful suffering in her limbs

      Where do these terrible afflictions come from , why , why why .

  57. Wordle 1,445 5/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
    🟨🟨⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    Not a real word if you ask me.

  58. Wordle 1,445 5/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
    🟨🟨⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    Not a real word if you ask me.

    1. I don't support many campaigns like this – but I think this one is worth a small donation. This dreadful government shouldn't be allowed to give away UK territory on such spurious grounds without any scrutiny at all. The Chagossian ladies did their best but it's our territory as well and a huge amount of taxpayers' money to be paid to Mauritious for 99 years – for a piece of land we already own.

      1. Somehow it gets right up my nose that Starmer highhandedly gives away territory without bothering to consult or inform its original inhabitants, who have already been treated appallingly by the British and the Americans. Just adding insult to injury.

        1. Yes – and it’s never belonged to Mauritius. Plus the billions we will pay for the privilege.

      2. I agree – donation made, although I doubt it will get anywhere given the probability that a few powerful people almost certainly stand to make a lot of cash from the deal!?

    2. Starmer deserves shagging with a barbed wire pole for this. The only problem being, he'd probably enjoy it.

  62. He talks a good talk, he's smart and could run rings around Starmer's rabble.. but but..

    Zia Yusuf on Reform’s Bold Plan to Save the UK | The Peter McCormack Show

    Either they're hiding strategic policy to 'Undo Blair-Brown-Cameron-May' (which I agree shouldn't be aired).. or they have zero intention of doing so.. in which case they're peeing in the wind.
    I guess you won't find out until 2029.

    2. I don't believe Reform have the slightest idea of the scale of what would need to be done, the order it would have to be done in, the opposition they'd face nor the impact such would be.

      All this we'd stop windmill subsidy – fine, but then those companies would sue the government and win. The contracts extend to 2040 – long after the complete failure of the windmills themselves (yes, Milioaf has ensured we'd be paying for something that wouldn't exist. He's that spiteful).

      1. I appreciated her Dad's singing – he always had a loosening effect on girlfriends of the time. Or on their clothes, anyway…

        1. I remember an old barber telling about a colleague who once poisoned his wife with a razor…..
          He gave her arsenic.

    4. I couldn't give a stuff if he's gay. I'd feel sorry for his wife and children who he has abused for political gain but his sexuality is irrelevant.

      What he says and does is the problem. He, and the rest of his cretinous party needs to be removed and rendered into candle wax.

      1. Any sort of sexuality – hetero, homo or bestial – with reference to this horrible man is totally disgusting.

  64. Cage Warriors 189 event in Rome
    Irish MMA fighter Paddy McCorry shouts 'Free Palestine' as he beats Israeli opponent and former soldier
    Paddy McCorry shouted 'Free Palestine' in Shuki Farage's face as he fought against him.

    Their fetish for Jew hate will be their downfall.

    1. Religious indoctrination. The thickies don't know they are being brainwashed – which doesn't take long because the usually only have a tiny brain.

    2. Very inappropriate at a sporting event. If he feels that strongly, he shouldn't take part in the contest.

    3. There's something desperately wrong with the muslim mind. It's as insane as the Lefty one.

  65. We watched a TV documentary last night about life at the port of Dover.
    No inflatables or Border Control vessels but loads of incoming bananas – was there a slip up there?

    Anyway it was reported that bananas start Ethylating at above 14 degC.
    The Waitrose delivery this morning came with soggy bananas so MOH rejected them – I measured them with my laser thermometer at 17 degC.

    1. Interesting. Supermarkets here do not keep their bananas cool – they are at store temperature which is probably around 18-22C depending on season – they don't want to spend too much on HVAC.

  66. We watched a TV documentary last night about life at the port of Dover.
    No inflatables or Border Control vessels but loads of incoming bananas – was there a slip up there?

    Anyway it was reported that bananas start Ethylating at above 14 degC.
    The Waitrose delivery this morning came with soggy bananas so MOH rejected them – I measured them with my laser thermometer at 17 degC.

    1. More stress for the animals, too, as they will have much longer journeys to slaughter than before.

      1. More chance of spreading disease as animals are transported around us country.

    2. Onerous legislation added to the closures. I don't understand why we are pandering to the revolting muslim. They bring nothing to this country. It is some sort of cultural rape how they're forcing their disgusting attitudes on us.

      1. 406735+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        They are allowed by the peoples democratic vote that resulted in another odious elected party, who are following their break down and erase the English spirit agenda, and seemingly tis working.

  69. Afternoon all. I am logged in to a local cafe network while I slurp my coffee. Make the most of it while you can!

    Words is about all we have and they don’t mean what they say

    1. Politicians lie habitually. It's all they do, so desperate are they to get on telly.

      How goes the battle with talk talk?

      1. No progress. I think I will just abandon them and go with three. I have been out all day and am busy until nextb week so will have to put things on hold.

  70. Horrible out. Rain pause – but more on the way and a real hooley blowing.

    1. Better to demand we leave the ECHR – that's what Starmer and co are interpreting to provide gimmigrants with massive amounts of welfare.

  74. Morning Has Broken Poem by Eleanor Farjeon
    Sung by Cat Stevens

    Morning has broken like the first morning
    Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
    Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
    Praise for them springing fresh from the world
    Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
    Like the first dewfall on the first grass
    Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
    Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
    Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
    Born of the one light, Eden saw play
    Praise with elation, praise every morning
    God's recreation of the new day
    Morning has broken like the first morning
    Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
    Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
    Praise for them springing fresh from the world

    A remarkable woman Eleanor Farjeon. I had never heard of her before today. Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Farjeon

    1. Really, Per? She was my very favourite writer when I was a child! Beautiful stories which allowed your imagination to run wild, and such a range of wonderful characters and places. Her description of the clock at an English cathedral still with me, although I’m struggling to remember which city it’s in! Must go and consult her book of Stories, Verses and Plays! Thank you for reminding me!

    2. One of my most favourite hymns .

      I had heard of Eleanor , but not in the detail on the Wiki page .

      Thankyou for sharing that info , Per.

      1. Beautifully sung. The man is a an extreme weirdo, a raving nutcase – Make a better Prime Minister than Starmer though!

    4. The song wasn't by Cat Stevens – it was already an established hymn we used to sing at school.

  75. Riggs pablum

    Steerpike
    Fact check: top policewoman’s grooming gangs claim
    3 June 2025, 11:46am

    To BBC Newsnight, where Deputy Chief Constable Becky Riggs – the national policing lead on child protection and abuse investigations – has hit back at claims by shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick about grooming gangs. Speaking on the programme last night, Riggs said it was ‘not true’ that these types of crimes are committed predominately by British Pakistani men – despite acknowledging that they are ‘overrepresented when you look at their share of the population’. So what is true?

    Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population

    Well, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population, according to figures from the Hydrant Programme, which investigates child sex abuse. Around one in 73 Muslim men over 16 have been prosecuted for ‘group-localised child sexual exploitation’ in Rotherham, research by academics from the universities of Reading and Chichester has revealed.

    ‘All of these issues need tackling,’ Riggs added, insisting: ‘I’m not here to lessen any of this type of offending in the slightest. These are all abhorrent crimes.’ She goes on: ‘[Group-based offending] comes in all shapes, sizes and forms. So whilst there is a real focus in terms of Pakistani Asian males grooming gangs, you will see from that data that it will tell you that there are other risks to children as well.’

    Yet Riggs’ appears to be referencing a much broader definition of ‘group-based’ abuse – which Hydrant says is ‘defined as ‘two or more individuals…who are known to one another and are known to be involved in or to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children and young people.’ When the focus is specifically on grooming gangs, in these cases many offenders do have a Pakistani background. Talk about cherry-picking, eh?

    Watch the clip here:
    https://youtu.be/1-8-ZWLHbFU
    *************************

    wwtt10
    3 hours ago
    "If we admit that Muslim grooming is a thing, we will have to get off our backsides and do something, and these people will fight back! I'd much prefer to be handing out NCHI's to people who don't try to kill me"

    Summarised correctly?

    MikeBrighton
    3 hours ago
    The police are so lost.
    Pakistani Muslim rape and torture gangs have been operating in the north of England since the 1980s and probably before. The police and community were aware and did precisely nothing.
    Now the scale of what happened is broadly known. Many of the perpetrators have received prison sentences (sometimes laughable). Many are still out there hiding in plain sight.
    The girls who were abused are now women and are rightly speaking out.

    The state rather than holding a full enquiry to establish the failures, hold people to account, prosecute those still ‘hiding’ and put in place measures to ensure this stops and never happens again …… is in full denial mode.
    The Police are utterly compromised and running from their accountability in this.

    It is the largest political scandal that has ever occurred.
    The enquiry must happen. The political establishment and especially the Labour Party must be held to account. The Police must be held to account.

    Barraco Barna
    3 hours ago
    I saw this and I have to say that Deputy Chief Constable Becky Riggs is completely clueless and in denial about the scale of Muslim grooming. She is part of the problem and not any part of the solution. She seemed afraid to state what is obvious.

    2. 1 in 73. Clucking bell. That's over 100,000 pakistani muslim paedophile rapists in the country. In fact, closer to 150K.

      But of course, same as the home office found by comparing raw numbers, not population percentages – that white men were more likely to abuse children, you can fabricate any statistic to say what you like – as the state regularly does.

      Mike Brighton: there will never be an inquiry. The Left have too much to lose. When hundreds of thousands of dark stones are over turned and the worms of socialist, diversity officers, social workers, welfarists, cops are discovered as not only having hidden the rape of white children by pakiland paedo muslim there'd be actual lynchings as people storm council offices and drag scum away from their desks and hang them by the dozen there and then and the commie Left simply erased overnight. We'd need an entire jail for the rapist endorsers, let alone the pakistani paedophile child rapists.

    4. Whilst the underlying crime might be the same, there is an enormous difference between a couple paedophiles acting together grooming a child and a gang of ten and often more gathered to drug and rape and torture vulnerable girls and bring in many friends who don't get prosecuted.

      The two should not be treated as being the same and is is disingenuous of the authorities to do so.

  76. "BBC director pushes for higher licence fee after ‘grinding cuts’". – Should that be after Grindr cuts?

    1. Nicely done sir!

      If the BBC wants more money it should earn it, by moving to a subscription model. It is wrong that you have to pay Tesco to shop at Waitrose, same as it's wrong you have to pay the BBC to watch ITV.

      We don't own a television so it's never bothered us.

    2. Hypocrites all. I'd suggest that their cimpulsory licence fee paying viewers numbers have gone through the floor.
      Way off target with their programs missing it all too far to the left.

  77. Andrew Tettenborn
    Brace yourselves for more Quran-burning trials in Britain
    3 June 2025, 10:21am

    You might well have felt slightly repelled if last February you had passed someone ineptly trying to set fire to a copy of the Quran on the streets of London, while simultaneously using some remarkably fruity language about Islamic doctrine and its effect on believers. The man was Turkish dissident Hamit Coşkun: much to the disgust of a passing Muslim, he was burning the book outside the Turkish consulate as a demonstration against the excessive Islamification of Turkey under Recep Erdoğan.

    But whatever your distaste, you should be very worried about the fact that this man has now been branded a criminal – indeed, a hate criminal. Yesterday a district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court had no compunction at convicting him of a religiously aggravated public order offence of engaging in disorderly conduct likely to cause distress. The judgment (available here) makes fairly dry reading. But its effect on free speech is very concerning.

    One is the judgment’s tone. Fifty or sixty years ago, there might have been at least an attempt to mould the language of public order laws with one eye on their potential effects on free speech. No longer: this is a dry exercise in literal statutory interpretation, with free speech coming in not as a home-grown value but merely as an import from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Given that seven years ago the Strasbourg Court upheld an Austrian’s conviction for insulting Muhammad by referring to the youth of his third wife Aisha, not surprisingly there was no aid to be had there.

    This conviction also seriously imperils full-blooded public discussion of religion. Religious controversies generate strong language in speakers and yet stronger sensitivities in listeners. It was for this reason that, when Parliament made it a crime to foment religious hatred, it specifically excepted “expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse” of religions or the practices of their adherents. Yet it now seems that these free speech protections can be circumvented by simply charging a public order offence instead of a religious hatred one. You distressed someone by the intemperate words you used about his religion or by your disrespect for its sacred objects? If a policeman is around, you’re liable to be nicked.

    For all the judge’s insistence that this was just a public order case, Coşkun’s conviction has in large measure quietly revived the old crime of blasphemy. Indeed it has also made it still more intrusive by extending it to non-Christian religions. That crime, which we all thought defunct (it was abolished by statute in 2008), involved writing or actions apt to shock and outrage the religious feelings of Christians.

    What was the basis of Hamit Coşkun’s public order criminalisation? That he had caused distress to a pious Muslim by shocking and outraging his religious feelings. Admittedly there was also a theoretical requirement of disorderly conduct, but since this was held to be satisfied by the strong language he used, it added little. For anyone but a lawyer, the position is clear. Contrary to Parliament’s intent and our freedom, blasphemy is now roaring back, in substance if not in form.

    But it’s not simply the principle of the thing. The practical implications, if this decision stands, are equally worrying.

    One thing is that there now exists a heckler’s veto on steroids. In future, if someone doesn’t like strong language being used about their religion, they just need to complain to the police, who can then threaten to arrest them. Speakers with strong religious views and a taste for striking language, watch out. You have been warned.

    In practice if not in law, this decision incentivises seriously unbalanced policing. Suppose someone burns or brutalises the Bible, the Vedas or some other holy book, disconcerting a passer-by. A crime? Very possibly. But the police and the Crown Prosecution Service can always decline to get involved on the basis that it’s just high spirits: better just to let sleeping dogs lie. Indeed they probably will; Christians and Hindus, after all, are a forgiving lot. But the Quran? That’s different: organised Islam is strong and vociferous. There will, it’s a racing certainty, be more Quran-burning trials: as for other religious insult prosecutions, don’t hold your breath.

    What of the future? There will, we understand, be an appeal; meanwhile Tory MP Nick Timothy has already said that he will table legislation to prevent religious sensibilities trumping free speech. What of the government? For the moment, one suspects Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will intone disingenuously that no, we don’t have blasphemy laws; this is just an ordinary conviction of a tiresome troublemaker. But can she hold this position? This is the sort of thing that bothers many of the voters Labour desperately needs to woo. Given enough pressure from the Tories, Reform and for that matter free-thinking Lib Dems, we might even get some real free speech. Stranger things have happened.

    Written by
    Andrew Tettenborn is a professor of law at Swansea Law School

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

    Andrew
    5 hours ago
    Meanwhile the Batley school teacher is still in hiding and not one Muslim has been prosecuted for threats to kill.

    Veritas numquam perit Andrew
    4 hours ago edited
    If you belong to the ROP you can assault as many airport security staff as you want. It worth noting the keen BBC interest in this trial, which never happened.

    Charles Vaughan
    4 hours ago
    Organised Islam is not just strong and vociferous; it is violent, and our current rulers are terrified of violence. Unfortunately, the longer you delay a necessary conflict, the worse that conflict will be.

    Harry Newiss
    4 hours ago
    This judge has basically now laid down that if people react violently to someone's speech, the latter is a criminal. That is a recipe for total anarchy.

    Boot Harry Newiss
    4 hours ago
    It's not anarchy, because the violent reaction is only excused if it occurs in a Muslim. It's social engineering, not anarchy.

    Veritas numquam perit
    4 hours ago edited
    How is it possible that a man "distressed" by the islamification of his once secular country Turkey, should find himself jailed by an Islamified British court, concerned by the distress of British Muslims who claim distress that the UK has not islamified enough. How is it possible our courts now jail those who offer no physical threat but allow those which would a free pass and worse deem their outrage the one worth protecting. Hamit Coşkun has been well and truly Starmer'd.

  79. Philip Johnston
    It should be legal to make people angry, even by burning the Koran

    Whether desecrating a holy book is unlawful should not depend on whether a mob will riot

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/06/03/TELEMMGLPICT000426435765_17489570537410_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=1280
    Hamit Coskun arriving at Westminster magistrates’ court, where he was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence Credit: Ben Whitley/PA Wire
    Philip Johnston
    03 June 2025 2:41pm BST

    Had Hamit Coskun torched a bible on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral would he have been charged with any crime? If he had set fire to a copy of the Torah outside a synagogue in north London’s Stamford Hill, what then? Judging by this week’s conviction of Coskun for burning a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in London it all depends on the reaction. His case has become a totemic free speech issue, yet it is really about how the courts interpret the law on public order and so-called “hate” offences.

    People take the desecration of holy texts extremely seriously. The limits of tolerance were tested in Sweden a few years ago when a Muslim activist threatened to burn a Torah scroll outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. The odd thing about this was that provided permission from the police had been sought it was a perfectly lawful thing to do.

    But when the go-ahead was given under a constitutionally protected right to “freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration.”, the roof caved in. Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, said “permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate.”

    The threat (which in the event was not carried out) was made in response to a series of Koran burnings in Stockholm that caused fury in the Islamic world and led to an attack on the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.

    So, are such texts to be protected by law or does freedom of expression mean those who do not share the faith, or hold any religious beliefs, are licensed to do whatever they please?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/06/03/TELEMMGLPICT000340900533_17489575495010_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqqr2qDJVKrIThxsCXhnElpAX0j_XjO3fMnbQ7kRpkGyI.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Salwan Momika, who was murdered this year, was granted permission by Swedish police to tear apart and burn the Koran during a demonstration outside a mosque in Stockholm in 2023 Credit: Jonathan Nackstrand

    Many people in response to the Coskun case appear to believe free speech is an absolute in this country; but it isn’t and never has been. For a few centuries, it is true, people have been free (or used to be free) to say what they thought provided they did not incite violence.

    One exception was the common law offence of blasphemy and the related crime of blasphemous libel. These were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and in Scotland only last year. They continue to be offences in Northern Ireland and apply only to the Christian faith. Burning a bible in Armagh would, presumably, be considered blasphemous.

    English law does not forbid the burning of a holy book. Indeed, the district judge in the Coskun case was at pains to say he was not being arraigned for this but for disorderly behaviour under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986.

    Coskun, a Turkish-born opponent of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, held the burning book aloft and shouted “Islam is the religion of terrorists” and “the Koran is burning”. It was what happened next that made this a crime. A man emerged from an adjacent property and attacked Coskun, threatening to kill him, and a passer-by joined in. He was found guilty of disorderly behaviour “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress,” motivated by “hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam.”

    The judge said: “What made his conduct disorderly was the timing and location of the conduct and that all this was accompanied by abusive language… That the conduct was disorderly is not better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people.”

    Yet if someone carrying out a legal activity, namely burning a book, is attacked then surely it is the assailant who is at fault. Arguably, Coskun was not aiming his protest at Muslims but at their religion. The two are not the same, even if adherents disagree, and our right to criticise a religion must be upheld.

    But our free speech protections have become so tied up with other laws that they are rendered redundant. The prosecutor in the Coskun case said his conviction did not represent any restriction on criticising religion but that is disingenuous to put it charitably.

    The cause of this legal confusion is the expansion of a multi-cultural society and Parliament’s belief that criticising a faith is a proxy for racist hatred. Politicians believe we need laws to protect minority groups from abuse; but these are now used to shut down perfectly legitimate opinions and activities. Over the years we have seen the gradual prohibition of ideas because they hurt someone’s feelings or make them angry. But as long as there is no attempt or intention to provoke violence, why should this be a matter for the criminal law? Moreover, why should it be forbidden to criticise any faith whether it be Islam, Judaism or Christianity?

    We are assured that this is still permitted and yet it evidently isn’t if to do so leads to an arrest because it inspires a hostile reaction. The Public Order Act means any conduct deemed “likely” to cause someone “harassment, alarm or distress” can be punishable. The word “likely” needs to be removed from legislation since it is impossible to define.

    Indeed, the fault here lies with Parliament’s constant tinkering. America’s founding fathers introduced the First Amendment to the constitution because they did not trust the legislature to uphold free speech. It states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech”. That is unambiguous whereas legislators here have done nothing but meddle to the point where no-one is clear where the boundaries lie any more. There is more to come with a new definition of “Islamophobia” being drawn up by a committee appointed by Angela Rayner due to be published next month.

    The Coskun case has become a cause célèbre, taken up by the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society which objects to the revival of a blasphemy law and is backing an appeal. In particular, it is seen as a unique protection for Islam, though I doubt Hasidic Jews would take kindly to a Torah being burned outside their synagogue after a Shabbat service. Any threat of disorder would presumably trigger an arrest, though I would not be confident of that.

    The cost of defending freedom can come at a much higher price than the £240 fine received by Coskun. The Swedish Koran burner, Salwan Momika, was murdered in Stockholm earlier this year.

  80. From the Telegraph

    The BBC is spouting gender nonsense again with its new trans drama. When will it learn?
    The Supreme Court ruling that biological sex is real should have been a wake-up call, but the arts world still believes in fairy tales

    Suzanne Moore 02 June 2025 6:04pm BST
    An adult man does not know what it feels like to be a girl. But that didn’t stop transgender writer Paris Lees telling us in his 2021 memoir.

    Of course, with What It Feels Like for a Girl, Lees is entitled to choose whatever book title he likes, particularly if he wants to also riff off a Madonna song.

    But now that the memoir has been made into a BBC television series of the same name, what it feels like for licence fee payers is another matter. Because, for a very long time, the BBC has run roughshod over the feelings of those not enamoured with the trans cult.

    Lees was promoted by the BBC early on, via appearances on Question Time. He also wrote columns for Vice and even Vogue. (Lees uses the pronouns she/her, but, for the purposes of this column, I’m using he/him.)

    You can see why he appealed: he’d had extensive facial feminisation surgery, was witty, and was, as was the fashion, “feisty”. I objected to some of the things he said he now enjoyed, as a woman – such as being taken shopping and being cat-called. We exchanged friendly emails at one point, and then I forgot about him.

    Until this week, that is – on the eve of his new TV series. Lees is commonly referred to as a “doll”. This is an old slang term for biological men who “pass” as women (dim celebrities wear “Protect the Dolls” t-shirts in support of them). Trans people who don’t “pass” as women are called “bricks”.

    Transgender writer Paris Lees
    Paris Lees was the first transgender presenter on BBC Radio 1 and the first transgender panellist to appear on Question Time Credit: Matt Crossick/PA Wire
    It’s not very kind, but there you are. In propelling Lees back into the spotlight, the BBC is pushing the notion of trans identity as fun and “culturally significant”. It’s also subtly sanctioning the darker side of Lees’s history.

    On his 14th birthday, Lees went into a public toilet with a man. Even now, Lees describes himself at that time as a rent boy (though acknowledges he was also a victim of abuse). At the age of 18, he was convicted of robbery with violence for an attack on an elderly man and sent to prison. The man was severely beaten. While inside, Lees began to identify as a trans woman.

    Yet none of this violent history seems to have bothered the BBC. Instead, it’s tying itself in knots over what pronouns it should use to describe Lees. In the episode guide, it uses they/them to describe him when he was a biological boy (and known by his former first name, Byron). Then Byron becomes she/her when he self-IDs as a woman.

    The storyline of What It Feels Like for a Girl is also one of gay conversion, which is in itself questionable when conflated with trans conversion. An adult man can certainly know what it feels like to be a boy who is bullied for being gay and effeminate. But as Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, says: “Presenting the idea of an effeminate boy ‘becoming a girl’ as an edgy coming-of-age story is presenting delusion as self-discovery. This series will promote a regressive, dangerous, impossible and fundamentally homophobic dream to another generation of gay young men.”

    tmg.video.placeholder.alt dQYATRlTKJ4
    The homophobia within the trans cult is why so many principled gay men have become allies of women like me. We want to say to boys that they can be effeminate, and girls can be butch, and none of them needs to alter their bodies. (In the new series, Lees himself is played by a male not a trans actor, Ellis Howard, which has, of course, upset some.)

    The Supreme Court ruling that said biological sex is real should have been a wake-up call to the BBC. Instead, it has left the BBC and many other cultural institutions reeling, because to question gender ideology in the arts world is to be ostracised and often fired. Far from being dissidents, the arts have bent the knee to trans orthodoxy to a sickening degree.

    Since the ruling, we have seen programmes like Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour struggle to get on board with reality. They have pandered to men who have transitioned, but are hostile and incredulous when faced with the likes of Helen Joyce, the incredibly articulate gender-critical activist who has been snubbed by our national broadcaster.

    We constantly have to read on BBC websites about “women” who have committed rape. Male sports cheats are referred to as women. We have had a decade of this. I cannot call it brainwashing, because anyone with a brain can see it doesn’t wash at all. On every salient point, from puberty blockers to single-sex spaces, the pushback has been real and righteous. The culture has to catch up.

    Even if Lee’s TV series was commissioned some time ago, there has to be an acknowledgement that times have changed. For example, who would now make the ITV series Butterfly, broadcast in 2018, about an 11-year-old boy who believes he is in the wrong body and then gets puberty blockers? The consultant on that series was Susie Green. She was then head of the controversial trans youth charity Mermaids, but is mostly known for taking her son to Thailand for “sex reassignment surgery” on his 16th birthday.

    Lees is hardly new to this game, nor a media outcast. Cath Leng, a former BBC journalist, wrote recently about a meeting in 2013 between Steve Herrmann, who was in charge of BBC Online and the BBC News style guide at the time, and two trans activists. One of them was Paris Lees. They told Hermann that the BBC should use trans people’s “preferred pronouns”… and thus self-ID was installed at the heart of our national broadcaster. Were the public ever consulted?

    What it feels like for a girl? What it feels like for this woman is that the BBC takes our money but ignores our views.

    What it feels like is being bullied for knowing that womanhood cannot be purchased, however many fairy tales you tell.

    More from Suzanne

    1. I'm sending 'it' an extra large cucumber. I have instructed Amazon to deliver it via the tradesman's entrance.

    2. I'm sending 'it' an extra large cucumber. I have instructed Amazon to deliver it via the tradesman's entrance.

  81. He: I've got hiccups Micheline, give me a fright. She: I'm pregnant!
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/502406431_1245054653911265_158542320974761476_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=BVMmMyR8ix0Q7kNvwHKobVk&_nc_oc=AdkmuBqMvcPw3DMHNyS2MmUm1Wi52vT73tXaHqMhYJePU60siT2fFkLnepafR2Rtp0phEhOSvG8q2GM4bM7vl3r6&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=-t6lfqWzJgr46RBCC8Wvyw&oh=00_AfIFt2XGzp9RocioxZ4Th59uK-6UFgF1QKknT7XupVqKqA&oe=6844CAEF

  82. The weather was quite erratic earlier , drizzle , then strong wind then downpours and then sunshine .

    Sunny now , I put my Strelitzia pots in the garden to give the plants some rain and sunshine , they were in a sheltered position . I do hope I see some flowers soon .

    Moh and kept busy this morning , I got the ironing board out and ironed a dozen hankies or more , pillowslips, cotton tops , and golf stuff .

    Moh discarded many old pairs of socks and pants , and tidied his wardrobe !!

    He still won't decide what to do with some stinky shoes though!!!! ( and his Motorcycle boots)

    We can't help feeling that Starmer is bigging up the war thing , creating distractions and poking the bear .. He is doing a Blair, isn't he , with a slight touch of Cameronitis .

    I mean , if Putin wants to get really nasty , he wont wait for new submarines or aircraft carriers, will he .

    Damnation to hell for Starmer , if he decided to put multiples of British boots on the ground in Ukraine .

    What do you think?

    1. Russia has more men at arms than the UK and EU countries combined and then several times over. Russia has the ability to mobilise which the west does not have and has the factory means to mass produce armaments and vehicles for their delivery unmatched by the west.

      Russia has no designs on Western European countries and has never sought war in its history as a nation. It has the will to defend itself and will unashamedly do so robustly and with conviction as we see in the Ukraine.

      To Russia the conflict in Ukraine is an existential threat whereas to the west it is merely a disguised attempt at a land grab.

    2. Russia has more men at arms than the UK and EU countries combined and then several times over. Russia has the ability to mobilise which the west does not have and has the factory means to mass produce armaments and vehicles for their delivery unmatched by the west.

      Russia has no designs on Western European countries and has never sought war in its history as a nation. It has the will to defend itself and will unashamedly do so robustly and with conviction as we see in the Ukraine.

      To Russia the conflict in Ukraine is an existential threat whereas to the west it is merely a disguised attempt at a land grab.

  83. The Home Secretary Pixie Yvette Cooper facing questions from the cross-party group on a range of topics including migration.

    First up.. families are being told to change their victim impact statement to "avoid offending the defendants".. LOL

    1. The French weren’t ready for a surge in Channel crossings.. LOL
      Would they have been if the surge was incoming?

    2. Personally, I would have binned victim impact statements years ago. The criminal doesn't give a hoot. The victim/relative is just being given an opportunity to say how awful it all was. Well, forgive me, we can work that out from the evidence.

      2. It's yer modern Britain feelings are v.important apparently. A year ago I didn't think the Radio 3 presenters could get any worse with their inane rabbiting on their 'shows' . The weekend just gone proved I was wrong. I give in!

        1. I gave up on R3 years ago, when skilled and knowledgeable broadcasters were replaced by gushing totties.

  84. From Coffee House the Spectator

    Twenty years on from its spectacular revival it looks like Doctor Who might not be returning to our screens again in the immediate future. I haven’t actually watched Doctor Who for a long time, but because I wrote an awful lot of it for years – on TV, but also books, comics, radio plays, yogurt pot labels, you name it – people always ask me what I think should become of it. My answer? I’d cancel it and flee for the hills.

    Doctor Who was born in an age when we didn’t need to rabbit on about our ‘values’

    Twenty years is an incredible run, almost equalling its original marathon from 1963 to 1989. In TV parlance, it needs to be ‘rested’.

    Stepping back from a thing enables you to see it from the outside, which has been quite a jolt. I’ve seen Doctor Who whizzing by from the corner of my eye for years now, the way others see it. From that buzzards-eye view it seems like absolute screaming madness.

    When any long-running endeavour hits trouble, you have an opportunity to really peer at its fundamentals. What is it for? Who is it for? Is it worth all our bother? Like the Conservative party, Doctor Who is a lingering institution fashioned in, and for, a lost age. Perhaps we need a Badenoch-style analysis of what went wrong?

    Firstly, and it seems incredible it should be necessary to say this, but Doctor Who does not contain the meaning of life. It should never go anywhere near the profound, except in the lightest, most playful terms. There is nothing wrong or small about being a weekend treat that’s mainly for children and indulgent parents. There are many slight, passing things that enhance life, but we don’t look to bouncy castles or trips to the zoo to reveal the secrets of existence, or politics, or anything else.

    Doctor Who was born in an age when we didn’t need to rabbit on about our ‘values’, and certainly not in our pulp pop culture. Looking back twenty years on, its revival in 2005 as a prestige production was a warning sign that something was very wrong with the TV industry in general, as if Basil Brush was back but written by Dennis Potter and freighted with mortal significance. In its original run, it had the unique ability to lift up TV writer ‘hacks’, and make them fly a little; the revival sometimes seemed to have the reverse effect.

    It is unique in several ways. It is not another ‘sci-fi’ in the accepted sense, more a very peculiar genre of its own. And it is absolutely not a saga, more a fun trip somewhere new every story. My iron law of Doctor Who is that if something carries over from one story to any other (barring the Daleks), it’s almost always going to be a bucket of incomprehensible nonsense. But that picaresque, fly-by-night quality at the core of the thing is anathema to modern TV, which is all about sagas, journeys and arcs.

    To be fair the makers of Doctor Who tried to pare it back to basics in 2018 for the first series featuring Jodie Whittaker, but it unfortunately just wasn’t good enough. When that didn’t set the world alight, they panicked and threw the kitchen sink of the series’ baffling history and lore at it, to ever diminishing returns.

    Another issue is Dr Who himself. He is not a character part, but a personality part. He is loveable and fun to watch, with entertainingly naughty and askew interactions (Tom Baker and Matt Smith did this particularly well). You can run a show for years on that simple basis, refreshed for a new generation of youngsters with a new actor every few years. A few gags, a few scares for the kiddies, end of.

    But if you treat the Doctor as an acting part, which we did, you very swiftly run out of new things to say, and he becomes a pompous, maudlin berk. The whole affair starts to revolve around him, as a fetish – everyone starts up with cod poetry dialogue – ‘he’s like ice, fire, rain and stars etc etc’. He just can’t take that weight (and see also James Bond and Batman). Angst and the Doctor just doesn’t ring true, and pretty much nobody tunes in to see him all of a tear-stained dither.

    This show is meant to be a treat for the young at heart, a liberation from the drudgery of work and school. It is absolutely not for its obsessives. They will always watch, even if – especially if – they hate it, and are the very last people to be catered to. ‘Content’ that drives social media ‘engagement’ is the wild goose of the modern TV industry; having a silo of a few thousand tweeting nutters makes absolutely no difference to your bottom line, and they scare ‘normies’ off your brand.

    Because Doctor Who is for everybody. One fine, far-off day somebody may remember that, and – though it seems impossible right now – it could thrive again, in whatever shape the media takes in the future. But I’m afraid the Tardis needs a prolonged period among the mothballs.

    Gareth Roberts
    WRITTEN BY
    Gareth Roberts
    Gareth Roberts is a TV scriptwriter and novelist who has worked on Doctor Who and Coronation Street

    1. I've never watched this programme but all my life people have gone on and on about it. Hopefully I will never need to watch it now…

      1. It was the first progamme I watched on British TV when I arrived from the US in 1964. (I had been to the UK before on holiday but only saw Bill and Ben).
        It was about the battle with the Daleks which became the game played by all the children at my school. Gareth Roberts hadn't even been born.
        As I remember there wasn't much more on TV, British television and radio being very much under the tyranny of the BBC.
        The sets were all a little makeshift but it was very imaginative and cultural, I suppose as my parents, who defended British values against American materialism, would insist TV should be. After the adventure with the Daleks they made their way to ancient Rome, Nero burning and fiddling if I remember correctly, and Doctor Who was accused of inspiring the whole incident.
        Every programme has its sell-by date although often TV channels fail to recognise this.

    2. I was never a fan of Doctor Who.

      I do recall the stupidest kids running around the schoolyard shouting “exterminate” which was enough for me to dislike the nonsense, that and the cardboard Daleks which were unable to master a few stair treads.

      1. As I remember the real dumb kids (using the American expression) played football and a thing called tikee? on the lines ( north of England) The really bright ones played Doctor Who. Memories vary.

          1. Maybe. In the south they called it 'he'?. In America we'd called it 'tag'. I never saw these words written down.
            What we called 'hooky' in the US, became 'wag' in Manchester and 'truant' in London.
            Probably there were lots of other games and expressions that changed from place to place but memories like old soldiers fade away.

  85. On t'bus home after a very pleasant lunch with a gaggle of Nottlers.

    I think I'll sleep all the way

      1. I only allowed her one glass of Malbec. The food was cheap. The drink prices were off the scale !

  86. Dutch government collapses over Wilders’s migration demands
    Hard-Right leader’s ‘irresponsible’ decision to leave coalition triggers snap election
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/03/dutch-government-brink-collapse-wilders-exit/

    Starmer was – and probably still is – a Communist and several members of his government are too. They are Hard-Left

    Hard-Right seems to be a term of abuse as far as the MSM and most British MPs of all parties are concerned.

    To my way of thinking Hard-Left is considerably nastier.

    Good luck to Wilders – he may well become the Netherlands' prime minister after the next general election..

    (In February 2009 he was banned from entering the UK because of his 'Islamophobic' opinions!)

    1. Dutch politicians are scared of upsetting their immigrant communities, which like Britain and France, they have allowed to get far too large.

  88. Wordle No. 1,445 3/6
    .
    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 3 Jun 2025

    Clerk for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done, just a par here – not totally happy with this word…. only went for it when there were absolutely no alternatives!

      Wordle 1,445 4/6

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

    3. MMy Abbreviationy result today

      Wordle 1,445 4/6

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

    4. Well done, me too.

      Wordle 1,445 3/6

      🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. And me.

      Wordle 1,445 3/6

      🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I love the simplicity of your wedding dress. No meringue for you !

          You look stunning.

          1. Thank you , Phizzee x

            We had a budget , my family were living in SA, R’s parents , brother , pals . my pals etc .. and we had 36 hours leave !

          2. SWMBO had a lovely, simple, dress very similar to yours, made by her Father (a printer), and a small skullcap with "pearls". It's where the lady provides the decoration, not the cladding.
            That is one beautiful Lady there, Belle. Superb!

  91. POLL: Majority of Brits Unconvinced By Starmer’s Chagos Surrender Excuses

    More in Common has polled Brits on the Chagos Surrender. Cost: £30.3 billion…

    The key figures:

    44% of all Brits oppose the Chagos deal compared to only 18% who support it. Over double…
    Labour voters are the only party group more in favour of the handover at 36% in support vs 28% against. All others, including Greens, are opposed…
    38% of Brits are unconvinced by Starmer’s explanation for handing over the territory vs 26% who think it washes. Remove the don’t knows and it’s a 59% – 41% split…

    Guido dissected Starmer’s false excuses on the day of the deal. China’s subsequent “massive congratulations” to Mauritius blew up Starmer’s main claim – that the UK’s enemies were opposed to the handover…

    On a granular level it’s Tory and Reform voters most opposed as you would expect. Previous polling has been done before the deal was announced. With the details out the figures have only swung against Starmer…

    June 3 2025 @ 15:28

    Ernest Nowell
    1h
    A lot of Brits think they are witnessing a huge Government backed fraud !

    Shaitan 👿
    Ernest Nowell
    1h
    Starmer is going to get a cut of the action via his mate Phillipe Sands.
    There is no other reason to push this travesty of a 'deal' through.

    It's bound to leave a paper trail of some sort to Starmer…we can only live in hope that the next government do their utmost to expose this for what it is and reverse if it humanly possible.

    Lady Chablis
    2h
    This must be the worst and most ridiculous deal ever negotiated. Negotiated is not quite the right word.

    1. I think the BTL comments sum it up admirably! Paying someone to take over what we already own is lunacy!!

    2. Starmer's way of negotiating to ask ask what his 'opponent' wants and give it to him – or her – immediately and with added advantages.

      This is perfectly illustrated not only with the Chagos sell out but with the EU surrender re-alignment.

  92. "Windsor Castle break in: security scare as intruder is arrested"

    Local people say he is known as Harry Sussex…….

  93. The misdirection aka bullshit, is beyond belief. The smugglers are not the only group that do not care for the UK, this government has shown in less than a year that the UK and its people are not anywhere near being a priority.

    Smashing the gangs at source is mere smoke and mirrors. What evidence of the "smashing" will be produced? A drop in numbers crossing on RIBs by using alternative routes and different methods of transports?

    With lying endemic within this government it will not be difficult to create the illusion of something being done.

    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1929875951057346885

      1. Anyway, I do not vote for a government to "smash" things. A little bit of behaving like responsible adults and defending our country as our forebears did would suffice. You didn't hear Queen Elizabeth I telling the navy that she was going to "smash the Armada."

  94. Lookee lookee here. And knock me down with a feather. Al-Beeb has marked its own homework and decided it has done nothing wring. Who’d a thunk it?

    “Dear Audience Member

    Thank you for getting in touch about our BBC News website coverage on 20 May where we reported on the dismissal of Lucy Connolly’s appeal against her sentence for inciting racial hatred.

    Some people contacted us as they were concerned about our reporting. In particular with regards to this line: “Lucy Connolly, from Northampton, was jailed for 31 months in October after calling for "mass deportation now" and urging her followers on X to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers”.

    Some people told us that they believe Mrs Connolly did not ‘urge’ and rather that the tweet was passive and she was expressing indifference.

    The three appeal court judges state (paragraph 56) in their ruling: “…the words of the tweet are on their face an incitement to serious violence.”

    Therefore we believe that in saying urging we have fairly reflected the ruling of the appeal court judges.

    Some readers also said that we should have quoted the whole tweet (which contains swearing) in our article. The BBC News style guide says: “We do not adopt the convention of using asterisks. If possible, omit the offending term from a direct quote or use indirect speech.”

    We have quoted from the tweet to be in line with our guidelines. However, there is a link in the article to the full written judgement which contains the unabridged tweet on the first page – should our readers wish to find out more information.

    In closing, you may or may not be aware of this follow up article from the 25 May focusing on the wider issues raised in the Lucy Connolly case. The article poses the question: is free speech under threat?

    We are sorry if you did not appreciate our coverage on this occasion but believe we reported fairly and accurately and in line with our commitment to impartial journalism.

    We would like to thank you again for contacting us. All feedback from readers is appreciated and shared with senior editors so that they are aware of audience concerns.

    If you’d like to understand how your complaint is handled at the BBC, you might find it helpful to watch this short film https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints . It explains the BBC’s process for responding to complaints, what to do if you aren’t happy with your response and how we share the feedback we receive.

    Kind regards,  

    BBC Complaints Team
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints ”

    1. Why would the Russians bother?
      1. Britain is destroying itself without any outside help.
      2. Why would Russia want to take on a basket case?

      1. These progressives really annoy me. I would sooner be part of Greater Russia than a vassal and slave to the WEF or the Club of Rome. Which are pretty much interchangeable.

        What makes it make me want to scream is people like Adhern, Macron, Trudeau and Starmer being their broken stringed puppets mouthing off about how they are going to improve the lives of the citizens when the intention is the opposite.

  96. Breaking News,

    Diane Abbott has advised the elderly to buy thermal socks this winter, as the government has abandoned their targets for heat pumps in every home

  98. That's me for this (for my part) a non day. The MR slaved at exam marking this morning, then did a couple of hours in the windswept, chilly garden. I read a book and enjoyed this month's Literary Review.

    Slightly concerned when my French pal Henri (he of the mountain scaling and skiing in the Pyrenees) mailed to say that he had had a mild stroke. He is nobbut a lad , 73 I think. Reminds us all to live each day…etc.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  99. Palentir – the company behind JD Vance – has been brought into the US government to create the kind of sprawling mega-joined-up data system that will hide behind the digital ids to enable the government to control every aspect of people's lives to the point where you will own nothing and be happy…

    This commentator is a bit freaked out, but it's not good news
    https://thesilverindustry.substack.com/p/the-great-taking-has-arrived-all?publication_id=1857579&post_id=165114189&isFreemail=true&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    Same playbook all over the west – they make the opposition so horrible that people vote for their own demise. What's the betting that Reform will play the Trump role and implement this in the UK?

    2. "Imagine a future where every financial transaction, every social media post, every tax return, and every health record is fed into a central AI-powered database."

      I thought it already was.

      1. Not one central database I think. A lot of government-owned information isn’t joined up. There’s government data that the private companies don’t yet have access to – or at least they probably do now in the US.

  100. I will post the pic from today's lunch at the Lanesborough tomorrow morning.

    Absolute luxury. £52 for a three course lunch with a complimentary glass of Champagne. Excellent value in a stunning venue. The service was top notch.

    I finished with a glass of Cognac. The waiter asked me which i would prefer. I said the cheapest !

    They had three pre French revolution Cognacs on the list starting at £3,500 a shot. I went for the £17 Hennessy.

    1. Surprised they allowed riff-raff such as you through the door! I expect you bribed them with bitcoins.

      1. From the moment my limousine arrived and they opened the door for me i was treated like Royalty.

        I expect your ears were burning all afternoon. :@)

    3. A duck walks into the Lanesborough…and orders a bottle of cognac..
      The bartender says, "That's gonna be pretty expensive. How are you gonna pay for all that liquor?"
      The duck replies, "Just put it on my tab."
      Phizzee, sitting nearby, cheekily says, "Don't you mean 'put it on my bill'?"
      The duck says to the bartender, "Okay, as he says, put it on his bill."

  101. Will 2025 be the year that the UK swapped blast furnaces for blasphemy laws under Screw Labour?

    1. Probably because they're sick of little Napoleons strutting their stuff while telling porkies.

      1. See the comment below i just made. I think today's lunch created a telepathic connection.

        You get the wool and knitting needles and i will start the barbecue for their chitterlings.

  103. I once stayed at the Lanesborough (on exe's of course!) – it was excellent and just a little 'old school', I liked it immensely.

    1. I don't know when you were there but they had a £100 million refurbishment. And it shows. It was stunning. The level of professionalism from all staff was top notch.

      And they allow doggies.

      1. Woof woof! It was very nice. And only £350,000 per night to stay in the suite that was the maternity ward when the building was a hospital. A snip for any billionaire who was born there.

          2. Bill Thomas will be jealous. I met the house marmalade cat in the foyer.

            Well…i say met. I said hello puss and it gave me a condescending look.

      2. I think it had to be early 2000s – as I recall the staff were outstanding then!

    1. Just sent that to my Lieutenant Commander RN retired, chum. She's the one that has to build them. So i sent her some used paperclips…for the cause.

  106. Just the one. I couldn't afford the easy finance terms they offer. That was a joke made by the waiter.

  108. Another Madeleine McCann investigation – another blind alley? BBC national and local news have reported on it. East Midlands Today featured it and then followed up with the case of Polish immigrant Izabela Zabłocka, who disappeared in in Derby in 2010 (I mentioned it here last week). Human remains have been found in at a property in Normanton. I expect there will be some very particular reporting on this one; insinuations were made in the previous report.

    1. I think the McCann investigation is to find some evidence they can pin on the latest suspect before they have to release him from his current sentence.

      1. Nailed it.

        They really can't allow themselves to look as stupid as they are.

        What happens next is 'they' will fabricate the evidence.

  109. Best biscuit in the world, if they really are biscuits… Stroopvaffel. Absolutely superb! Another excellent thing from the Netherlands!

    2. Not for me, Herr Oberst, I much prefer home-made cakes to biscuits any day.

      1. Not really a biscuit, more a stiff waffel with syrum in between ghe layers. Place over your afternoon tea, on the mug, to warm up from the steam, then eat before is softens and slides into the tea… gets a bit messy, that.
        Closer to Heaven one cannot get whilst remaining earthbound!

    3. I buy them occasionally from Asda – I agree they're a sort of caramel biscuit/sweet mash-up but once you start eating them it's very difficult to stop!

    4. I have done nothing but lay about for nigh 4 weeks and have put back on the weight I'd lost. I also can't diet until this wound has healed.

      So I am royally *******ed off.

      1. Bummer. That’s hard. Are you allowed anything pleasurable – wine, dancing girls, …? Take your mind off it?

    5. I used to enjoy them when I was stationed there 1988-1991. Didn't try one again until my next visit in 2008. Got home and found they were on sale in Lidl!

    6. Gold Medal- Thomas J Fudge's dark chocolate Florentines are my current fave.
      Silver medal – and what I actually buy because the above are too expensive – are McVitie's dark chocolate digestives.
      Dark Choco Liebniz get a mention in dispatches.

    1. I was a bit slow on the uptake here, WS. For those equally less observant, the pot is a Police Box, just like the one inhabited by Dr. Who.

  111. Exactly!
    I've been on no-sugar diet for a few months, finally finished yesterday (with some weird effects) and am now enjoying red wine & stroopvaffel (in moderation). Feeling more energised and positive already!

    2. Best of luck, Oberst – I'd really struggle on a no-sugar diet – I'd miss the sweeties/bikkies too much!

      PS the words stroopvaffel and moderation are not comfortable bedfellows……..

      1. Had to have as-low-as your-boots sugars for my PET scan, or it doesn't work. Loads of insulin, injected for a week or 3 before, to get it all trimmed and reliably low… glad that's over, as is my gut fat (insulin site) and fingertiip (measurement site).

  112. Collapsd a couple-three days ago. Bruised elbows, maybe broke something in my butt, it's so painful.
    :-((
    Diet needed so the PET-scan would work – it depends on sugar flows. Sugar measurements daily, insulin injected in the evening, finally had some control so the test with radioactive sugar could go ahead, but… ChatGPT inquiry suggested the loss of memory and general unsteadyness, bad mood, etc was a shortage of sugar. So far, a fcukking great plate of spaghetti pesto and severla glasses Chianti habe made things feel so much better!

    1. Glad to hear it. Not to distract from your health news but…

      I was falling over every few weeks and cracking my ribs. Damned painful and taking a long time for the fractures to heal. Coughing was a nightmare.

      Generally my friends and the GP said it was put down to the fact i drink quite a lot.

      After finally being investigated by a private consultant it was because at odd times i would lose all feeling in my left leg due to peripheral arterial disease and i would lose function and go over.

      Always get a second opinion.

      I still drink quite a bit but strangely i haven't fallen over and my ribs are fine.

      Thanks to a proper diagnosis and the appropriate blood thinners. Hurrarop!

      1. My problem seems to be synkope (in Norwegian). Brain hard reset. Stops everything, including memory, so the reboot takes a while, and leaves one wondering WTF? Currently, bruised (I hope) coccyx and elbows from the lates on Sunday. Thought I was past that, so not driving any more until cause isolated and controlled.
        Buggerit.

        1. It suggests to me that you need to think about how to go about life and daily tasks.

          You do remember you agreed to KR 750,000 for this advice?

  113. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/31/nigel-farage-strategy-general-election-reform-victory/

    The fervent support for Reform is worrying. Yes, the country is desperate for improvements but Reform are not offering anything genuinely new. It's all edge fiddling, just at a bigger scale. More tax, more waste, more spending, more giveaways – nothing genuinely structural to resolve the problems the country has – those are painful, difficult.

    Is it because the electorate simply couldn't understand them? Can Farage not articulate them? Yet if he doesn't start doing so when /if Reform are elected to the same comedic farce as Labour we'll just get more of the same lies and treachery of 'oh, things are far worse than we imagined'. No! They're NOT. They are all fixable, it just takes imagination, creativity and passion and an honest, open discussion and not one political party is making that case.

    1. Put yourself up as a Reform UK candidate for the next GE and make sure they are behaving as you want them to. None (I hope) of the Reform UK candidates will have previous form for going along with current and previous governments' lunacy regarding our country.

    2. I think the support is based more on sheer despair. I doubt any great hopes are attached to it.
      It will interesting to see how Reform manages the appalling waste in the councils where it is now in charge.
      Overall, I think people just want to give the greedy, lazy, arrogant and treacherous politicians a good boot up the bum.
      The following deluge is, if not welcome, at least will provide bucket loads of schadenfreude.

      2. I think those councils taken by Reform will find massive push back. Any thing they try to do be it emptying bins or whatever will be met with organised resistance.
        Does this sound familiar in any way?

        1. As I understand things local councils don’t have a great deal to fix within their power. Most of it has been centralised.

          1. This is true. Local councils have allowed themselves to become puppets of puppets. Funding is the issue and if they resist it is then cut.

          2. There is also a core of full time senior council employees who act like Whitehall.

        2. This is, of course, true. There is already a concerted attempt to organise council coalitions just to keep Reform (often the most councillors but not the overall majority) at bay.

          1. What i found sickening some time ago was the council of Mayors. Khan being one of many.

            All of those towns and cities are seeing the worst levels of crime.

            This is what they want.

      3. It might be a 'forlorn hope', Anne, but currently, it's the only one I have.

      4. People who might have changed British politics Oliver Smedley, Enoch Powell,, David Davis, Nick Clegg, Peter Shore, Barbara Castle Full of sound and fury….but the country was probably better off without them. The US is experiencing its Donald Trump moment, what happens when these guys get in

          1. All populists. Alternative politicians. I would have mentioned more but I’m writing from memory and quickly.
            Barbara Castle campaigned against the EU. Clegg promised free universities and a new voting system

    3. These populist parties are useful as a stopgap, as impetus to traditional political parties to get their fingers out and look for solutions. But they never adequately replace and should they manage to secure power they tend to disappoint. These people lack experience and in the end expertise. Farage is great as a threat but dangerous as PM

    1. Then you need to be careful. I have a second hand zimmer frame i can sell you slightly bent

      1. No good, I'm afraid. Suddenly brain stopping can't be helped if I'm zimmering, as that involves stabding and then falling 5'8" to the ground.
        I use the lift at work, and have stopped driving, and shooting. No fun. Tought it was over, so need to build up a reasonable period when it doesn't happen again before restarting.
        Will bug the nice lady Dr about it in appointment in a day or 2.

        1. I apologise for my levity. We are all getting 'there'. Hearing about other people's conditions helps all of us.
          Blank is off tomorrow morning to argue between the doctor and the consultant.
          Not the best of places to be.
          We at least can speak to each other on here where trying to say the same to the medical profession is more difficult.

    1. I'm saddened by the apparent fact that so few have watched this video….

    2. I'm saddened by the apparent fact that so few have watched this video….

  118. That's me away to bed. 22:23 local, and I'm wrecked.
    Sees i morgen, godtfolk!
    Good night.

    1. The only thing keeping me up is the viagra Annie Allan slipped into my G&T for a laugh. Next time i see her we will have a stiff talk.

  119. The Tetley Tea analogy.

    The UK is the Tardis, small from the outside, enormous on the inside…let em' in!

  121. My husband went to the funeral this afternoon of a friend he used to row with. She was 54, with a 17 year old son. Motor neurone disease.

    I remember fondly. At our wedding, I attempted to throw my bouquet at two of my single friends. She leaped in front of them and wrestled the bouquet out of their hands. It was very impressive. She married her long-term boyfriend a year after.

    RIP, T.

    1. That's no age to go……. I've lost a few friends in the last year or so but they were in their seventies. My elder son is 54. Motor neurone disease is a terrible one.

      1. I have a nephew with cancer though he seems to be responding well.

        I might be taken the wrong way by some but this is why i feel life is to experienced and try things out. Meet with friends. Have lunches. Just do.

        1. Yes. I do that. I enjoy meeting my friends for lunch. You have to live while you can.

    3. A sad loss and far to early.
      Though on 1st reading I did wonder what your husband and friend used to argue about!

  122. And that is me off to bed.
    A single night trip to the East Riding of Yorkshire planned for tomorrow after some successful bidding on a couple of auction lots, pick up and return home Thursday.

    1. Forgive me for asking but what is the purpose of all these auction acquisitions? Got free rental on a shed at Eastleigh?

          1. No idea but I understand the first underground train was propelled by suction. It wasn't a success because the leather flange seals quickly wore out and caused a loss of suction…

  125. I've seen (a very few)very recent references to a Supreme Court ruling that Starmer has exceeded executive authority in his "covert attempts" to align UK policy with EU regulations. Has anyone seen, or does anyone have a link to a reputable comment on this?
    I can't work out whether this was something that is recent or not.

    1. Rather premature gloating by the left, I feel. There will be a lot of people who will have a migrant somewhere in their ancestry.
      Unless of course they keep importing young men at the current rate…

  128. Michael Gove, his ambitious ex-wife and how the wealthy Camerons treated them like ‘staff’
    A new memoir by Sarah Vine reveals how she and the former Cabinet minister failed to fit in with Lord Cameron and his moneyed circle
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/03/michael-gove-and-the-money-gripes-behind-a-government-feud/

    When I was at prep school my best friend, Joe, was set to go Eton. My parents decided not to send me to Eton but to Blundell's, a solid west county public school, where my father had been.

    The reason my parents gave me was that that they feared that if I went to Eton I would not be able to keep up with my wealthier friends.

    Nevertheless Joe remained my best friend and he was my best man when Caroline and I got married.

    1. Very sensible of your parents. A girl in my daughter's class was moved from our admittedly rather ramshackle rural school with the children of farmers and local businesses to a posh one with a lot of rich, titled kids. The mother was cock-a-hoop. The kid subsequently became the class drug dealer!

      Cameron was blightingly rude and dismissive to everyone outside his own circle at university. Later, I heard someone in the Conservative party say that he and Osborne were known for such behaviour, even while they were active in the Conservative party. Makes it even more surprising that he was elected leader….in my opinion his social meanness was enough to disqualify him from the role. Someone who can't hide his contempt for the common herd is unlikely to do right by them as leader.

      Gove was always a nasty piece of work in my opinion. He did socialise more widely, but only with people who could further his career as far as I could see. I personally always found him to have a repulsive aura around him. Others didn't see it and thought highly of him as a rising star. It doesn't in the least surprise me that the Camerons treated the Goves badly.
      I cannot help liking Sarah Vine, though I have never met her and she has sold her soul with the propaganda that she pumps out for the Mail.

  129. Well, chums, it's Bedtime For Bonzo (an old film with Ronald Reagan) and for Elsie, so I'll wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well & see you all tomorrow.

  132. Morning. 🙂
    My phone battery gave up on me last night. Too much use I guess.
    Back later.

Comments are closed.