Tuesday 5 November: The Budget killed off any remaining hope for British manufacturers

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),
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647 thoughts on “Tuesday 5 November: The Budget killed off any remaining hope for British manufacturers”

  2. Good Morning Geoff and everyone
    Today's Tale: Hired Help
    The wealthy socialite had a night out with her friends.
    She woke up the morning after, totally naked and with a terrible hangover.
    She rang for the butler and asked for a cup of strong coffee.
    “Giles,” she said, “I can’t remember a thing about last night. How did I get to bed?”
    “Well, Madam, I carried you upstairs and put you to bed.” “But my dress?”
    “It seemed a pity to crumple it, so I took it off and hung it up.”
    “But what about my underwear?”
    “I thought the elastic might stop the circulation, so I took the liberty of removing them.”
    “What a night!” she said. “I must have been tight!”
    “Only the first time, Madam.”

  3. Good morning, chums, and welcome to Bonfire Night and the US elections. Also, thanks to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,235 5/6

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

  4. Morning, all Y'all.
    Terrible stories and videos from Spain. Hope there's no more bad news to escape from Valencia and area.
    Some of the video is terrifying – a wave of muddy water the height of the kerbstones washing up the road at running speed, for example… and divers cannot enter flooded carparks to search, because the visibility is too awful. But then, I guess there's no hurry there any more.

    1. A year’s rainfall within a few hours exposed failures in the national weather warning system, lack of preparedness for extreme weather and shortcomings in emergency services. Human-caused climate change intensified all of the 10 deadliest extreme weather events of the past 20 years.
      Unquestionably climate change is the key contributing factor in these extreme rain events       Irish Times

      So, these scientists can tell us what the weather is going to be like in ten years time and what caused it – cow farts and petrol driven cars, but they can't forecast when a years worth of rain is going to fall within 24 hours. . . but, the science is fixed! You've got to believe it.

    2. Instead of a modest annual budget from the local ayuntamiento(s) for maintaining the depth of usually-dry riverbeds and a capital expenditure of several million euros on a planned diversion scheme (drawn up more than TWENTY years ago), the taxpayer will now be on the hook for an estimated ten thousand million euro reconstruction scheme.

  6. 395895+ uo ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Whistle blower,

    What
    @Keir_Starmer
    &
    @UKLabour
    didnt tell us they were going to do…
    Destroy UK farming.
    Screw farmers.
    Destroy UK food security.
    End UK steel, coal, oil, gas.
    Import all steel, coal, oil, gas, electricity.
    Cronyism, hypocrisy, lies & freebie grabbing galore.
    Tax, tax, tax.
    Borrow, Borrow, Borrow.
    Spend, Spend, Spend.
    Screw the hard working, pensioners, the successful, business owners, wealth creators & those who've saved & made provision for the future.
    Screw motorists.
    Open Borders.
    Two Tier policing & justice.
    Appease Islamists & facilitate the Islamification of the UK.
    Suppress the British & British culture.
    End free speech.
    Label the country Far Right.
    Did I miss anything?

    https://x.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1853594801041707262 Most importantly bump off the wise elderly. https://x.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1853594801041707262 https://x.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1853594801041707262 https://x.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1853594801041707262

    1. 396785+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      The sad thing is lab were given the reins of power by the peoples out of sheer criminal spite via the stupid voting pattern "their" party must be taught a lesson, regardless of consequence,

  7. 'Morning All
    Medley Time
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/213cab54d31c3df480e04b43f485c9d68658e5cfdf7b4274c7f75740c23df730.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/923fe4caa025a6a8331dd46c1e29d485d01333b641fcea6b31198d763b99778a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8863b72ec0876ab84c05c6d1e447058c83a9382e99e3b6d67a07caddd4d5f22.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38d78a62690bdbfb66886d5749c364eb31cfc75011fd010af16f6c0cf0018348.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1620a9ac7c63e76cfdd3bd2e5692b95449653faf240345352fac54e7175cecde.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15663953a36d8345b2869de89bcf60bbb8b44f3959b2412843cfd8d4bd527a9e.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fe9d03bec3f99d9329a5246a890ef3621032620e8b8c8c03ce3eac56347d7e16.jpg
    Finish with a Laff
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c42e5d7d0a6b61125b04343f17b4d98f9ed9258602cc877ad37821225b9f6ea.jpg

    2. We needed a laugh after the previous horror.
      The 'Know Islam, no peace' is possibly the scariest.

  8. Finally, the end of ‘the British empire’ – and maybe an honours system a modern country can live with. 5 November 2024.

    Britain, keen to highlight their achievements as outstanding citizens who have made a notable contribution to how we live, dangled the recognition of a state-backed honour in front of each of them. And each, ultimately unable to reconcile the link between those honours and the misty-eyed evocation in the title of Britain’s brutal empire, said “no thanks”. Or “up yours”, in the case of Zephaniah, who said: “I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery.” Many others, without publicising their decision, have rejected honours privately.

    Any self-respecting person would decline these honours. They are a reward for corruption and villainy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/04/british-empire-honours-system-king-charles

    1. Benjamin Zephaniah did it. So did ​Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Howard Gayle, the pioneering black footballer, did it without a second thought.​

      The turd faced ingrates shouldn't have been offered it in the first place.

    2. Benjamin Zephaniah did it. So did ​Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Howard Gayle, the pioneering black footballer, did it without a second thought.​

      The turd faced ingrates shouldn't have been offered it in the first place.

    3. I get angry when I see and hear the BBC treat Zephaniah as a great black folk hero.

  11. The Budget killed off any remaining hope for British manufacturers
    Manufacturing uses far too much energy and wrecks our net zero CO2 targets.

  12. Big Day Today
    I was just thinking

    They should invent a board game for US elections along the lines of Cluedo, who stole the elections for the democrats ?

    Was it Colonel Media with the gaslighting on the tv?
    Was it Professor Deepstate with the counting machines in China?
    Was it Reverend Grimreaper with the long dead postal voters from beyond the grave?

    I reckon it would be a winner.

  15. Good morning all.
    A dull, misty start with the mist again clinging to the trees up the sides of the valley. Almost calm air and 5°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    A BTL Comment from Andy Bebbington:-

    33 min ago

    If you happen to read this BBC Verify article on the new farm tax:-

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o

    Keep in mind that their, "independent expert", Dan Neidle is in fact a senior Labour party activist. Details here:-

    https://order-order.com/2024/11/04/bbc-verify-fails-to-mention-independent-expert-is-senior-labour-activist/

    Somehow the, "independent", fact checking service which our, "unbiased", national broadcaster provides for us forgot to mention this.

    2. Why do BBC commentators and news reporters always have a large roll of toilet paper within reach? It is to wipe their mouths out after they say the phrase "BBC impartial". The BBC spend vast amounts on toilet paper.

  16. Fantasy, pure fantasy thinking from that idiot Miliband, this Government s going to take our country back to the Stone Age to reach their Net Zero utopia.

    Millions more households to be asked to switch off to hit Ed Miliband's net zero targets
    Matt Oliver, Jonathan Leake
    6–7 minutes

    Millions more households could be asked to regularly switch off light and appliances under Ed Miliband’s plan for a clean power grid by 2030, an official review has found.

    The Energy Secretary has been told that the Government’s pledge to rely on wind and solar farms for most of Britain’s power needs is technically achievable but will entail a “Herculean effort” on every front.

    Advice published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said a quadrupling of so-called flexibility is needed in order to ensure the grid can operate without the use of fossil fuels.

    In practice, this means convincing larger numbers of households and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity consumption during low-wind periods or times when the grid is otherwise constrained – either through higher prices or by paying them incentives.

    Some 2.6m households and businesses took part in schemes that paid rewards for cutting power use last winter, according to Neso.

    To reach Mr Miliband’s target, the amount of flexibility must rise from 2.5 gigawatts today to at least 10.4 gigawatts – implying that millions more will need to sign up.

    In its report, Neso also warned that Britain’s existing power markets were “not fit for purpose” and called for the Government to consider a controversial regional pricing system instead.

    “Failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall,” the report says.

    Around 80pc of the targeted power savings are to come from convincing consumers to charge electric cars or run appliances such as washing machines at less busy hours, or by asking industrial consumers such as factories to cut their grid consumption, Neso said.

    It added: “Levels of demand flexibility can increase by four-to-five times by 2030, with significant benefits for the transition to clean power by moving energy demand away from peak periods.”

    Savings will come from issuing “the right signals at the right time”, which “directly impact the choices [consumers] make on a day-to-day basis, such as when to turn on their appliances”.

    However, Neso admitted there was “a broad range of views” about how realistic its target was and that consumers risked being unable to benefit if they lacked the latest technologies.
    Plans are ‘potentially damaging’

    Kathryn Porter, an independent energy analyst at Watt Logic, warned that relying on demand reduction from industrial businesses also risked being self-defeating if they simply switched over to “behind-the-metre” diesel generators.

    She added: “Neso’s plans to rely on demand-side response to deliver a major part of the net zero 2030 target are both optimistic and potentially damaging.

    “On low wind days in particular, there would need to be both a significant reduction in consumption which would be economically and socially damaging, and an increase in behind-the-metre generation feeding into the grid.

    “This is most likely to be diesel generators operated by businesses as back-up generation.”

    Elsewhere, Neso laid bare the sheer scale of the challenge facing ministers if they are to reach their clean power target by 2030.

    The report sets out two possible “realistic” scenarios for reaching the goal, including one where more renewables are built and households are more flexible, and another where more “dispatchable” power sources such as nuclear, hydrogen and gas with carbon capture are used.

    However, both scenarios still involve a trebling of solar power and offshore wind capacity, a doubling of onshore wind capacity, a four-fold increase in battery capacity and a lifetime extension for at least one of the country’s ageing nuclear power plants – all in the next five years.

    At least one reactor at Hinkley Point C, the delayed and over-budget nuclear power station being built in Somerset, would also need to switch on by 2030 – a prospect seen by many industry insiders as currently unlikely.

    Gas-fired power plants would still provide up to 5pc of the country’s electricity to ensure security of supply.

    Meanwhile, wind farm developers said the Government would need to urgently support a string of new factories to build cables, blades, foundations and towers needed for legions of new turbines.

    “Urgent action” was needed to overhaul the planning system, digitise key systems, overhaul markets and establish key supply chains, the report said.
    ‘Ambitious programme’

    Fintan Slye, chief executive of Neso, said: “There’s no doubt the challenges ahead on the journey to delivering clean power are great.

    “However, if the scale of those challenges is matched with the bold, sustained actions that are outlined in this report, the benefits delivered could be even greater.

    “A clean power system for Great Britain will deliver a backbone of home-grown energy that breaks the link between volatile international gas prices; that is secure and affordably powers our homes and buildings; that decarbonises the transport that we take to school and work; that drives the businesses of today and catalyses the innovations of the future.”

    Dan McGrail, chief executive of RenewableUK, which represents wind developers, said: “It’s great to have clarity on what the renewable energy industry needs to deliver to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030.

    “This is an ambitious programme to move to a more secure and cost-effective system – and we can meet these targets as long as the Government continues to work closely with us to put the right policies in place as soon as possible.

    “It’s critical that an effective industrial strategy comes alongside this programme to roll out more renewable energy projects.

    “There’s a golden opportunity for the UK to secure new supply chain investments across the country – and thousands of jobs – if we put the right framework and grants in place to compete with the EU and US.

    “Consumers will benefit too, as today’s independent report shows that the cost of running a system based on renewables is significantly cheaper than one based on high gas prices.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/05/millions-more-switch-off-ed-miliband-net-zero-targets/

    Meanwhile in the real world below is the National Grid generation figures now this morning at 07:20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/726df78b96002ad02d1c30eeee50a134e1345d138306181aa5076911e0f05c65.png

    1. How about trading with little bits of metal rather than energy-hungry cybermoney, and walking to work rather than driving around in Celeb-sized electric SUVs?

      1. Fine if you live near your work, but where I live a car is essential. There's no work nearby and public transport is as good as non-existent.

        1. There’s work to do therefore re-ordering society, so that people may live closer to their work, and work closer to where they live.

          I have romantic ideas about the traditional English village, which was largely self-contained, with all the most important trades available within walking distance, often under the patronage of the Lord of the Manor.

          There are all sorts of problems about returning to a feudal system, but I am sure with a bit of debate and modern thinking, this can be improved on.

      1. If we can spare it from the grid, 11kv up his backside would do wonders. (At least for us if not him 😂)

    3. Apologies Oldie, you got there first. I note the reference to "grants"…why not? We are already loaded down with ridiculous subsidies so a few more crazy financial inducements won't be noticed.

      Will they?

      1. No apologies needed, I find it reassuring that great minds still think alike even these days.
        You are correct with your assessment of the grants, after all every tax payer has a money tree somewhere, at least that’s what our political “masters” assume.

    4. Among all that unrealistic guff, one thing strikes me: "… breaks the link between volatile international gas prices; that is secure and affordably powers our homes and buildings". Fracking would do that; energy security, not subject to volatile international gas prices and, if they don't tax it out of existence, affordable.

  17. Fantasy, pure fantasy thinking from that idiot Miliband, this Government s going to take our country back to the Stone Age to reach their Net Zero utopia.

    Millions more households to be asked to switch off to hit Ed Miliband's net zero targets
    Matt Oliver, Jonathan Leake
    6–7 minutes

    Millions more households could be asked to regularly switch off light and appliances under Ed Miliband’s plan for a clean power grid by 2030, an official review has found.

    The Energy Secretary has been told that the Government’s pledge to rely on wind and solar farms for most of Britain’s power needs is technically achievable but will entail a “Herculean effort” on every front.

    Advice published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said a quadrupling of so-called flexibility is needed in order to ensure the grid can operate without the use of fossil fuels.

    In practice, this means convincing larger numbers of households and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity consumption during low-wind periods or times when the grid is otherwise constrained – either through higher prices or by paying them incentives.

    Some 2.6m households and businesses took part in schemes that paid rewards for cutting power use last winter, according to Neso.

    To reach Mr Miliband’s target, the amount of flexibility must rise from 2.5 gigawatts today to at least 10.4 gigawatts – implying that millions more will need to sign up.

    In its report, Neso also warned that Britain’s existing power markets were “not fit for purpose” and called for the Government to consider a controversial regional pricing system instead.

    “Failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall,” the report says.

    Around 80pc of the targeted power savings are to come from convincing consumers to charge electric cars or run appliances such as washing machines at less busy hours, or by asking industrial consumers such as factories to cut their grid consumption, Neso said.

    It added: “Levels of demand flexibility can increase by four-to-five times by 2030, with significant benefits for the transition to clean power by moving energy demand away from peak periods.”

    Savings will come from issuing “the right signals at the right time”, which “directly impact the choices [consumers] make on a day-to-day basis, such as when to turn on their appliances”.

    However, Neso admitted there was “a broad range of views” about how realistic its target was and that consumers risked being unable to benefit if they lacked the latest technologies.
    Plans are ‘potentially damaging’

    Kathryn Porter, an independent energy analyst at Watt Logic, warned that relying on demand reduction from industrial businesses also risked being self-defeating if they simply switched over to “behind-the-metre” diesel generators.

    She added: “Neso’s plans to rely on demand-side response to deliver a major part of the net zero 2030 target are both optimistic and potentially damaging.

    “On low wind days in particular, there would need to be both a significant reduction in consumption which would be economically and socially damaging, and an increase in behind-the-metre generation feeding into the grid.

    “This is most likely to be diesel generators operated by businesses as back-up generation.”

    Elsewhere, Neso laid bare the sheer scale of the challenge facing ministers if they are to reach their clean power target by 2030.

    The report sets out two possible “realistic” scenarios for reaching the goal, including one where more renewables are built and households are more flexible, and another where more “dispatchable” power sources such as nuclear, hydrogen and gas with carbon capture are used.

    However, both scenarios still involve a trebling of solar power and offshore wind capacity, a doubling of onshore wind capacity, a four-fold increase in battery capacity and a lifetime extension for at least one of the country’s ageing nuclear power plants – all in the next five years.

    At least one reactor at Hinkley Point C, the delayed and over-budget nuclear power station being built in Somerset, would also need to switch on by 2030 – a prospect seen by many industry insiders as currently unlikely.

    Gas-fired power plants would still provide up to 5pc of the country’s electricity to ensure security of supply.

    Meanwhile, wind farm developers said the Government would need to urgently support a string of new factories to build cables, blades, foundations and towers needed for legions of new turbines.

    “Urgent action” was needed to overhaul the planning system, digitise key systems, overhaul markets and establish key supply chains, the report said.
    ‘Ambitious programme’

    Fintan Slye, chief executive of Neso, said: “There’s no doubt the challenges ahead on the journey to delivering clean power are great.

    “However, if the scale of those challenges is matched with the bold, sustained actions that are outlined in this report, the benefits delivered could be even greater.

    “A clean power system for Great Britain will deliver a backbone of home-grown energy that breaks the link between volatile international gas prices; that is secure and affordably powers our homes and buildings; that decarbonises the transport that we take to school and work; that drives the businesses of today and catalyses the innovations of the future.”

    Dan McGrail, chief executive of RenewableUK, which represents wind developers, said: “It’s great to have clarity on what the renewable energy industry needs to deliver to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030.

    “This is an ambitious programme to move to a more secure and cost-effective system – and we can meet these targets as long as the Government continues to work closely with us to put the right policies in place as soon as possible.

    “It’s critical that an effective industrial strategy comes alongside this programme to roll out more renewable energy projects.

    “There’s a golden opportunity for the UK to secure new supply chain investments across the country – and thousands of jobs – if we put the right framework and grants in place to compete with the EU and US.

    “Consumers will benefit too, as today’s independent report shows that the cost of running a system based on renewables is significantly cheaper than one based on high gas prices.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/05/millions-more-switch-off-ed-miliband-net-zero-targets/

    Meanwhile in the real world below is the National Grid generation figures now this morning at 07:20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/726df78b96002ad02d1c30eeee50a134e1345d138306181aa5076911e0f05c65.png

    1. BTL Comment:-

      R. Spowart
      just now
      Message Actions
      Mr. Milibrain can go forth in short, sharp jerky movements.

      And, when he has gone forth, can go even further in the same style.

  19. this week’s Secret Prisoner column:

    “Last week, I wrote about why I loved jail, but now I have to be honest about the miseries of incarceration. The first thing I did after arriving at prison was to make a ligature.

    Then, I learnt that the prison officers are trained to cut you down very fast, so you thereby fail to achieve strangulation. The risk was being resuscitated as a paraplegic, which I thought to be too high.

    I have also since learnt that there are other ways to kill yourself in here. But I no longer want to. When I came here, I thought that – whatever the justice or injustice of my captivity – I had brought the greatest conceivable shame and disaster upon myself. Prison existence was so alien to my concept of myself that I did not want to endure it.

    But now I think differently and I would even say that I could survive a long sentence. I say this because I think prison is far less effective as a deterrent than people imagine. And I am in no way special – I am actually a bit of a self-pitying, sulking wimp. But I think you too, reader, would find the experience equally endurable. Thousands do: my experience is typical, I would say, rather than exceptional. We need less than we think we do, and we are a lot tougher than we believe we are.

    But still, there are deep, scarring deprivations. The greatest is family – I strongly miss my children. For the first four months, I wrote to them every day. Then I discovered that if I did not think about them – stopped myself from doing so – it wasn’t so bad. The tears and the rage subsided a bit and then entirely.

    The vandalism of human beings, relationships and meaningful communication is what the criminal justice system specialises in. You have to get over that. And you adapt. You give away so many of the things that, in truth, align with your dignity, identity and independence, but which you are forced to accept have been stripped from you, possibly forever.

    We have hardly any natural sunlight; that is an extremely precious thing to lose. I am first out in the yard at 8am and last back in half an hour later. Our west-facing yard in Wing A gets no natural sunlight at that time of the morning between September and March, so I have already felt the last direct sun I will see for months. We are prescribed free vitamin D pills because it is recognised that we would otherwise be deficient, barring the small number of us lucky enough to get outdoor work in recycling or gardening.

    I raised my children to enjoy cycling, walking and swimming. I love nothing more than being out in the mountains with them. As a family, we were always happiest when we were in the Lake District, and the single biggest blow I’ve experienced was finding out they went without me this year.

    You can’t play tennis in prison (though you can play badminton) and you can’t swim. I enjoyed being one of those slightly boring middle-aged men who trawled up and down the lane in the local swimming pool.

    Outdoors – the sea or a cold, fast-flowing stream – is the most wholesome and exciting place to swim. The idea of the sea is always with me in here for the curious reason that a prison can sometimes feel like a ship, or an old-school hulk: three decks, metal railings, a suicide net that looks somehow rather nautical and cells like cabin doors, with little portholes behind which men don’t sail anywhere, except perhaps through time.

    At midday, when the overhead sun casts shadows down the landings, you can climb to the top floor if you’re out of your cell and lean out, maybe catching a bit of warm light. Like a forbidden pleasure, you can close your eyes and imagine the views – vast, oceanic distances, the beach and lands you’ve left behind receding even further.

    Next week, the Secret Prisoner writes about the relationship between prisoners and their guards”

  21. Guten Tag Alles,

    Misty at Schloss McPhee, wind light and variable, 8℃ topping out at 13℃ later.

    Whatever else you say about the BBC it does do some good drama and I'd been looking forward to this.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/809657de4c4a28a72e647fc7d5980fe1fe83f6441ac9d16dd21322d02ed156fa.png

    They wouldn't, would they? They wouldn't ruin it with colour-casting in 16th Century England? They would and they did.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/wolf-hall-the-mirror-and-the-light-eps-1-3-review/

    BTL comments.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aefa91dc74305c85548c638023339cef273f0d3f7fa9aa83e6f40c31c730fe2a.png

    1. Bit o/t..I have a copy of a copy of a Holbein paintings/drawings of his time at Henry's court…he could draw a single line showing the true nature of the characters, one example being Cromwell sitting at his desk, the expensive wallpaper of the time on the wall behind him- but with a tear and the paper hanging down. Another is Henry, showing in his face especially in his eyes the arrogance, the power, the ruthlessness, the slyness of his character. Cromwell made a big mistake crossing Henry, execution soon followed.

        1. https://www.magnoliabox.com/products/portrait-of-thomas-cromwell-42-35383332
          On this one, the red line is only at the top left, not all the way down. Some images are digitally corrected, we may never know which is authentic. It has been posited that Holbein was suggesting that Cromwell was treading a thin and dangerous line because of his support of Ann Boleyn. Holbein, together with his brother, had a formal art education – imo that can’t be beaten (unless you’re Picasso with a wealthy female benefactor 🙂

      2. Helped along by the dislike of the noble courtiers who thought that Cromwell had got above himself, rising from lowly origins.

        1. Yes, saw the opportunity to defenestrate the pair of them. Anne helped them quite a bit with her behaviour tho:-)

      2. kb, I haven't yet seen Neil Oliver's piece, but having lived in USA I would think it much more likely that FBI, not CIA, would be driving Martial Law. CIA deals 'only' with foreign matters, FBI deals with home affairs.

        1. True, but given the huge influx of foreigners into the USA under Biden/Harris, perhaps the CIA is needed on home soil too.

  23. Sir Mick Jagger has urged his American fans to vote for Kamala Harris as the multi-millionaire reminded his eight children of the failings of capitalism.
    He revealed his kids were backing Kamala.

      1. He also went to a Grammar School. Typical socialist. What's the betting his kids were educated privately?

  24. Sir Mick Jagger has urged his American fans to vote for Kamala Harris as the multi-millionaire reminded his eight children of the failings of capitalism.
    He revealed his kids were backing Kamala.

  27. Lead Letter, the end of a dream:-

    SIR – I’m a proud product of Margaret Thatcher’s dream. I lived in a council house with my Mum, Dad and three siblings. I went to a comprehensive school, left at 16 and got a job in a factory. By the time I was 20, I had learnt a trade and started my own business. In a few years we employed professional designers and patented products that have since sold in their hundreds of millions. In 2000 we won a national award as the most promising company for the new millennium.
    The biggest threats to success have been Chinese subsidies and the minimum wage. In 2008 the credit crunch arrived and the minimum wage had doubled. We gave in, closed down a factory of 175 people, and outsourced to China. A very dark day.

    In the years that followed we continued to mix low-cost outsourced products with higher-value UK-made goods. Covid was tough, but we found a way. There are now four factories in Britain, employing 150 people. The company makes £50 million in sales.

    In the last seven years our factory wages have ballooned. When people look at the minimum wage, they forget that overtime can be as much as double the hourly rate. Then you have the natural knock-on rise that the annual minimum-wage increase causes.

    The raising of the minimum wage and the hike in employers’ National Insurance (NI) in last week’s Budget made us review our position. We have loved employing unskilled people, giving them a step up in life, but manufacturing in the UK is no longer sustainable; we will close down our factories and outsource everything.
    Owning a UK manufacturer was a dream. It is now a folly.

    Kevin Hancock
    Braintree, Essex

    1. I wonder how many others are doing similarly.
      Too many is my guess and many of those made redundant will become a cost to the state not a contributor.

    2. Everyone, however poor, has to pay Council Tax and Standing Charges just to stay still. Then there is 20% VAT and all sorts of other charges and demands and subscriptions simply to be part of civilisation. No wonder the Living Wage and Subsistence allowances are set so high, and so high that no start-up business can hope to sustain it when competing with those who do not place such a burden simply to stay alive.

      If we were to drop the amount required to live modestly and frugally, and charge more for those choosing to be extravagant and show off their elevated status, then perhaps the Chancellor might be minded to take the burden off our seedcorn businesses?

      1. Yo JM

        to be extravagant and show off their elevated status,

        You have just described Starmer's guvernmunt

    3. Kevin Hancock's experience is Reeves's genuine 'Black Hole': a government manufactured entity that will suck everything that comes into its sphere of influence into oblivion. This is the elites'/globalists' goal, pursued by the TINOs, albeit at a more leisurely pace, now being highly dosed with steroids by this latest shower.

      Incompetence is not the main driver in what this government is up to.

    4. I thought Thatcher had closed down UK manufacturing. At least, that's what Labour blobs routinely tell us.

  28. Good Moaning.
    Tray of shortbread at the alert.
    Pet 'Pooter Nerd is spending his morning at the Dower House sorting out lap tops.
    I may – or maybe not – be able to keep up a running commentary.

  29. Foggy morning all! Have you seen the story in Daily Sceptic about the town in Australia where the unreliable wind and solar power system broke down and the back up diesel generator also broke down, leaving people with no power for two weeks 😢? Hubris hit!

    1. Thatcherites scoffed at John Seymour's 'Self Sufficiency' movement of the 1970s, calling them "beard-and-sandal hippies", but when the electric is down and nobody can get hold of diesel, these "hippies" make themselves cosy.

      Ingenuity is the greatest blessing bestowed on humanity.

        3. That is something I would like to have.
          I still have thermal long johns and tops from when I worked with/for a barmy woman who insisted on having heating off and windows open, even on those bitter days when the frost never melted & temperatures never rose above zero. When an inspector quizzed her on why the room was so cold, she lied and said we only had to ask.

  30. Free Speech has three new articles today; one on the very rich organisations Elizabeth Nickson thinks are spending vast amounts of money to ensure Trump cannot win, the second by Demosthenes on why it was necessary for Britain to fight World War 1 , as part of our Remembrance Day parade, and one by yours truly on what it would take to get me to vote for Kemi Badenoch's Tories with a poll allowing you to vote on whether you would vote for Badenoch's Tories, vote on the conditions I set out, or never vote for them in any circumstances.

    Please do read them and leave a comment or two, as FSB thrives on comments.

    Also, if you have not already done so, please sign up for our newsletters and consider writing an article for us.

    2. The First World War Was NOT Pointless:

      A superb exposition of the First World War, its consequences and today's troubled times. Every schoolchild should be given a copy – and every politician made to learn it by heart. Top marks to Demosthenes of Hertfordshire.

  31. Good morning, all. Overcast, dry and calm, again.

    Watch this and realise that the inmates really are attempting to take over the asylum. Meddling with the real staff of life i.e. genetics, is beyond stupid. How can they know what the results will be a generation or two down the line? Rep Massie identifies two dangerous developments: how many more are out there and evolving into goodness knows what?

    https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1853454353052450964

    1. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi psychopathic horror film. But with events of recent years, I can believe it.

  32. 395895+ up ticks,

    They're hitting smoking again outside schools, hospitals, pub gardens etc,etc,etc, I quit years ago but it is a personal choice in the long run, and NOT for the politico's to manipulate peoples daily lives with as in
    their worries in regards to our welfare.

    At the same time as their concern for our welfare is worrying them they are cloud seeding the skies with heaven knows what shite all to be covered by a vaccine that is still in the lab, awaiting the fools uptake.

    Plus welcoming ALL sorts of trouble and murderous strife via their daily organised Dover invasion front.

    If you ain't got the message by now that
    " Death via natural causes" is very old hat, you had better shape up before your local lab/lib/con MP ships you OUT.

  34. 'Morning Peeps,

    Our very own eco-maniac is at it again – from today's DT:

    Millions more households could be asked to regularly switch off light and appliances under Ed Miliband’s plan for a clean power grid by 2030, an official review has found.

    The Energy Secretary has been told that the Government’s pledge to rely on wind and solar farms for most of Britain’s power needs is technically achievable but will entail a “Herculean effort” on every front.

    Advice published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said a quadrupling of so-called flexibility is needed in order to ensure the grid can operate without the use of fossil fuels.

    In practice, this means convincing larger numbers of households and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity consumption during low-wind periods or times when the grid is otherwise constrained – either through higher prices or by paying them incentives.

    Some 2.6m households and businesses took part in schemes that paid rewards for cutting power use last winter, according to Neso.

    To reach Mr Miliband’s target, the amount of flexibility must rise from 2.5 gigawatts today to at least 10.4 gigawatts – implying that millions more will need to sign up.

    In its report, Neso also warned that Britain’s existing power markets were “not fit for purpose” and called for the Government to consider a controversial regional pricing system instead.

    “Failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall,” the report says.

    * * * *
    Total demand is currently 35.78 GW. Wind is contributing a massive 0.95 GW, ie 2.65%. That evil fossil fuel, gas, is currently 60.95%.

    Goodbye prosperity, hello penury. Thanks, Minibrain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/05/millions-more-switch-off-ed-miliband-net-zero-targets/

      1. In Spain even if you have your own solar panels the Government raises a tax on your own power usage.

    2. The Energy Secretary has been told that the Government’s pledge to rely on wind and solar farms for most of Britain’s power needs is technically achievable but will entail a “Herculean effort” on every front.

      It will also reduce us all to abject poverty.

    3. My electrical power tripped off this morning and the culprit was tha espresso coffee machine.
      However during the short power outage the washine machine stopped and my desktop PC turned off without resetting.
      During a longer break people will have to go around dirty and have difficulty charging their smart phones which they use to pay their inheritance tax.

    4. "Safe and Effective" all over again with an additional dressing of "Secure". Keep grandma's lights and heating on by turning yours off. You know it makes sense. Oh, and don't forget to get out and bang a saucepan with a spoon – both heading for redundancy as both power and food come under threat from this shower – for Miliband minor on Thursday evenings.

      Millions of cold and hungry people make for a formidable resistance movement.

      1. I am beginning to think that millions of passive Brits would sooner wither away cold and hungry in their hovels with their phones clutched in their hands than get out there and make a fuss and actually do what is necessary.

        1. Lack of food and being exposed to bouts of coldness might not trigger many people but make their phones inoperable…

    5. He's such a knob, he should be sent to China and the Middle East as an energy consumption 'Ambassador'.
      He might even learn something.

    6. HJ, nice to see you back recently.

      "They" don't need to convince consumers to switch appliances and lights off. Every Smart Meter has a built in remotely accessible Kill Switch so that consumers who have them in any zone can be disconnected completely. What can one do?

      As a retired scientist and a realist I could foresee blackouts occurring as the demand for electricity ramps up and the idiotic Net Zero reduces the supply, especially in Winter.

      With my solar panels generating up to 7.5 kilowatts peak, I have had a Smart Meter since May, and my first full quarterly electricity bill yesterday shows I have sold £261 worth of electricity to the Grid.

      But my setup is designed such that if (when) there is a power cut, my large batteries cut in as a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) that can seamlessly continue to feed all the upstairs 13 Amp sockets and all the house lights with power until the stored 10 kWh of battery energy is used up. Blackouts are most likely to occur in winter during the Peak Consumption period from 4PM to 7PM.

      Hopefully there will have been enough sunshine during the short winter days to keep the batteries fully charged. If not, the system is programmed to take in 'cheap' electricity from the Grid at night to keep the batteries fully charged before the day begins.

      So during a power cut I can run the fridge(s) and freezer, and cook in a limited way using a microwave oven, plus the Central Heating boiler and pump (which need electricity too) will continue to operate.

      I may be 83 but I'm not stupid.

      1. Good plan.
        Last winter (or was it the one before? Memory not as good as it was!), when power cuts were expected, we bought a camping stove and gas bottles, so that we could at least have hot drinks and soup. In the end, there were no power cuts, but never say never, especially with the current economically and scientifically illiterate maniacs in power.

      2. Kind of you to say so, RC. I would prefer to be around a little more often, but various other duties usually prevent this.

      3. I have asked my electrician to fit a changeover switch so I can run my heating pump and fridge-freezer from my generator. I have Calor gas to cook if the Rayburn isn't lit. I'm 76 and like to be prepared.

  35. 395895+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    UK Gov’t Pretending to Care About Border Control This Week, Throws More Money at the Problem

    After overseeing months of thousands more illegal boat migrants landing on British beaches, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that his government would throw more money at the problem, committing an additional £75 million to various initiatives, none of which include sending the boats back to France.

    £ 75 million PLUS,

    1. There was talk of new drones to monitor the Channel. Jeepers.. they know where the invaders are, they go and pick them up. We all know the solutions but they cannot be mentioned.

      1. 395895+ up ticks,

        Morning KP,
        Then it must be mentioned LOUDLy, are we men or current lab/lib/con supporter / voters ?

      2. There are reports of Russian drones targeting Ukrainian civilians – in this case however they are equipped with releasable grenades.

  36. Good morning . Pray for America to vote for Trump today.
    He's far from perfect, if I were American then I'd preferred DeSantis / Haley – Trump Is a firebrand but he's also the strong leadership America needs. Harris is just like Starmer over the pond and would be an absolute disaster.

    1. Elon Musk checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said everything is Ok.

  38. Apologies to i believe, Rik.

    Posted yesterday a picture showing dams that had been removed in Valencia.

    Valencia government denied this was happening.

    Well it is happening and not just there. All over Europe and America.

    Supposedly to restore natural ecosystems and increase fresh water fish stocks.

    1. An attack on our food, our water….. it is more than a coup, this is open war on humanity.

    2. Probably the outcome of no control in rain fall after cloud seeding.
      At least it was admitted in the middle east.

    3. Even before the disaster in Valencia I had made the point about the Somerset Levels where the whole area became flooded for months because the EU, for 'environmental reasons' banned dredging which had worked effectively for centuries. Owen Paterson, the only competent minister in Cameron's government at the time, was sacked by the European fanatical leader for pointing this out.

      The Valencia area has always been prone to flooding and this year the sudden rainfall was exceptionally great. But there seems to be no doubt that the EU's environmental intrusion has greatly augmented the problem.

  39. Morning all 🙂😊
    Totally grey again.
    Why doesn't someone from the government opposition speak out and tell everyone what is going on out there. There is obviously a move to change our way forward in life and control any aspects the 'They' dont agree with. There is no way this country needs hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, we already have enough people living off the British taxpayers, including our useless politicians and the people in the next building.
    Oh,….. I've just remembered that there was some one brave enough with probably insider knowledge to say their bit, but they snatched that person off the street. Perhaps this is why there is not one word of opposition to the happenings in the UK.

  40. Gunpowder, treason and plot – failed. Could do with another attempt:
    Did better with Wordle though:
    Wordle 1,235 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. The fault lies with Boris Johnson.

      Before the 2019 general election he should have deselected all Conservative candidates – including sitting MPs – who were in favour of staying in the EU.

      I also blame Nigel Farage for agreeing to stand down his Brexit Party candidates in seats held by remainer Conservative MPs.

      Brexit was strangled at birth.

    2. Yes it’s not good enough, you’d think they would, even might understand by now what the public actually wants.
      It shows that as we all know they are completely out of sinc with the British public.

  42. I see that the Black Face of White Supremacy is announcing her "team".

    Looks suspiciously like the same old same old.

    Thanks for nothing, Mrs Badenoch.

  43. I see the "blocking" is not working – blocked people's garbage still appearing! As of yesterday.

  44. BBC criticised for screening Chris Kaba documentary while bounty remains on officer’s head

    Timing of programme described as ‘very questionable, given that there remains a significant threat to Sgt Martyn Blake’s life’

    Sal Naseem, a former regional director for London at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), also revealed the watchdog had been under pressure over warnings of possible public disorder.

    Typical BBC

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/04/bbc-under-fire-chris-kaba-documentary-bounty-officer-murder/

      2. They wind people up, but wont allow comments. It's as if they can't admit they have made just another serious mistake.

    2. I watched the documentary on iPlayer last night. The start was very questionable with not a white face seen on either the reporter or any of those being interviewed. The head of the IOPC at the time (another non-white face) all but admitted that the decision to prosecute the police officer was driven by the fear of “community” unrest and was well before all the evidence had been assembled. He struck me as weak and ineffective. However, the reporter did seek views from other police officers about the event and a degree of balance was achieved. Those in the “community” all claimed that all they wanted was the truth and justice but, when a jury took only 3 hours to conclude that the police officer was not guilty of murder, it turned out that the truth and justice they wanted was of the lynch mob type. Neil Basu made the most objective and fair statement about the event but he will probably be called a “coconut” by the “community”.

        1. In theory, yes, but I suspect that the “community” would soon have discovered his identity.

      2. That's the Neil Basu who said he would have joined the BLM rioters if he'd not been a policeman.

        1. Yes it is and I was not expecting him to be in support of the firearms officer. However, he said everything that I would have hoped of a senior officer of the Met so I give him full credit.

    1. Margaret Thatcher abolished all The Metropolitan County Councils, not just Greater London Council.. for good reason.
      Would Kemi? Nah.

    2. We spent some time in Turkey on our boat, Mianda.

      When we were in Fethiye our anchorage was within a short distance of a mosque and so we heard the Call to Prayer transmiited on a crackly PA system five times a day.

      Funnily enough virtually nobody in Turkey understands Arabic so these calls to prayer were as much gobbledegook to the indigenous population as they were to us.

      When my father left Cambridge and joined the colonial service he had to take the civil service Arabic exams and he passed out top of his year. However when they got to the Sudan he was able to communicate very well with the tribal chiefs and dignitaries but my mother, who was not an academic in any way, was able to communicate perfectly with the kitchen staff and servants who could not understand my father's sophisticated Arabic at all!

    3. The majority in London speak either Urdu or Bengali and don't speak a word of Arabic other than loan words. What Khan means is learn Koranic Arabic, which no one alive speaks, anymore than we speak Latin, because it is going to be compulsory when you are forced to convert to Islam and learn your prayers. Doesn't matter if you understand it, just repeat it mindlessly as most non-Arabs do when saying their prayers.

    4. No way, never. THEY should create harmony by learning at least basic English, and stopping their filthy, degenerate, murderous ways.
      It's a pity there isn't an 'angry' option on the posts.

    5. I asked Google Translate for Fuck Off in Arabic and it gave me إذهب إلى الجحيم which it turns out is actually Go To Hell but that'll do?

    2. So the continuing effort to destroy the monarchy goes apace. When that happens it will be the end and we, the English, might just as well start suing for the creation of our reservations. Hopefully we can get a good deal like some of the the native American tribes. Navajo is pretty impressive and so is the Uintah Reservation.

        1. I don't think they are causing their own destruction at all. If it was allowed to operate off its own bat, I would agree with you. But since it is obliged to do what it is told by government, I think it far from fair to criticise them. That, as a monarchist, is a source of anger to me, the late queen allowed the monarchy to be reduced to a figure head with no power in the everyday world. I think that was a fundamental wrong that she made no effort to resist. I can only remember one occasion when she imprudently tried and failed. In that aspect of things she was extremely lazy and did not further the well being of the monarchy at all, she was far to passive and now, Charles being bound by her precedents is not able to do much either and then the public complain as if he were as free as a bird. And, in fact, when people do find out that he is trying to exert some authority, the left go ape and demand he be put in his box, like a damn puppet. I wish he was able to speak directly to the people, it would be better for the monarchy and the people.
          Further I would be willing to bet that neither the king or William had a clue about the ambulances. I would assume that what goes on in the estates is left to a board or some such and The King and his son go about their other duties representing the country.

          1. When the King publicly supports Net Zero, WEF etc, I believe he is politicising the monarchy which will be its downfall.

          2. He has never, to my awareness, ever promoted net zero. But it is certainly true that people attribute a lot of sins to him that he is not guilty of.

          4. I don't think the late Queen had much choice in the matter. She walked a tightrope. We never knew what she really thought. Charles has been a bit too open in his views.

    3. Brave of Chuck III to "host" electric ambulances – he probably needs the NHS cash to offset the extra insurance costs due to the fire risk??

  47. What's the phrase?.. Follow the money..
    Over $1 billion turnover on Polymarket betting on Election24.
    63%/ 37% in Trump favour & rising.

    Antifa destroy ballots after fires in election drop boxes in Oregon, Pennsylvania & Vancouver.

        1. Late Spring I believe, so slightly late for snow, but presumably it depends on the height.

      2. One of my nieces lives there and she's is always out hiking in the hills and mountains. She says there is more snow there than people realise.

  49. What a shame TV presenters all seem to think it's okay to wave their arms around all over when making a presentation.
    And we all know how difficult it is to get an appointment with a doctor/GP why do we see so many of them on our screens ?

    1. Google Dr Stephanie Seneff. She has studied and researched statins for over ten years. Very interesting info re newborn babies. I have stopped taking statins.

      1. I refused my surgery's offer of statins. They were offered because my medical profile suggested they might be beneficial. Yeah, right. Beneficial to their bank account, no doubt, not to my health.

    1. I am afraid, to be honest, that the election will be stolen again. Then God help us all, it will not be a disaster just for the USA but for us and the world in general. It will become a far more dangerous place as wars spread and break out much to the delight of the warmongers in the USA.

      2. There may be plans in place, the storm really is upon us now. The can cannot be kicked any further down the road, Trump looks remarkably unstressed. The opposing forces have looked very stressed. There is too much at stake now, all is not as we see it. The 'child trafficking' for example is not as it seems.

      1. The BBC are still ranting on about the floods in Spain, showing shots from two days ago.

  55. 395895+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Has the political overseers and their
    member / supporters not got the balls to declare open warfare on the indigenous peoples ?

    Dt,
    Britain to take dozens of asylum seekers from Chagos Islands
    The Government drops its opposition to cases brought by Tamil asylum seekers and 64 people, including 16 children, will be permitted entry

    I strongly assume they, the overseeing politico's, have the spare room in their houses, to be fair I never thought they, the overseeing politico's, would ever put anyone up, just shows you can be wrong.

    1. I can no longer look at Daily Mail clips on line they insist that I accept their recent changes.

      1. As soon as you log on to DM watch the place marker on the right. It gets smaller and goes to the top, when it is very small click on the X on the top left to stop it loading the next bit (the demand). If you are too slow and it loads, click on the reload sign – where the X was and do it again. this works with the Telegraph and other sites too.

      2. If you have Safari, click on File – click on Share – click on Reader – click on your address.
        Works about 90% of the time. Occasionally, especially if it's a new item, it won't work for a while.

    1. 'France is constructing and planning many new reservoirs, also known as "mega-basins", to address water shortages:
      Sèvre Niortaise basin: This basin is storing water for the Marais Poitevin, and includes the Sainte-Soline reservoir, which is being replaced by a new reservoir with a capacity of 720,000 cubic meters.
      Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon reservoir: This reservoir is operational in the western Deux-Sèvres department.
      Priaires and Epannes reservoirs: These reservoirs are under construction in the western Deux-Sèvres department. '

        1. Even so, there are massive protests from local people every time – and violent ones, with police getting involved and people getting hurt and even dying… It is often the eco-crowd who don't want these mega-basins as they upset the local ecosystem.

          1. edited.
            https://damremoval.eu/portfolio/nacho-rojo/
            Yes, some weirs and dams etc could possibly be removed, but wouldn't fish ladders be easier to install?
            Today on 20 Minutos website there is an article about a scheme to connect the Paiporta drainage channel (arroyo) to the main river channel, the Turia. For those who do not read Spanish, the floodwater diversion project has not been carried out owing to budgetary constraints and environmental concerns. Yes, bugs and plants outrank the little people.
            https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5650631/0/ribera-mantuvo-parados-durante-anos-dos-proyectos-que-buscaban-evitar-riadas-sobre-las-poblaciones-mas-afectada-por-dana/
            Also a Wiki article about the channel that runs through Paiporta, one of the worst affected suburban villages.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambla_del_Poyo

          2. After the tragedy in Valencia the Spanish eco-crowd now have blood on their hands, which will doubtless further encourage them.
            https://damremoval.eu/portfolio/nacho-rojo/
            Yes, some weirs and dams etc could possibly be removed, but wouldn't fish ladders be easier to install?
            Today on 20 Minutos website there is an article about a scheme to connect the Paiporta drainage channel (arroyo) to the main river channel, the Turia. For those who do not read Spanish, the floodwater diversion project has not been carried out owing to budgetary constraints and environmental concerns. Yes, bugs and plants outrank the little people.
            https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5650631/0/ribera-mantuvo-parados-durante-anos-dos-proyectos-que-buscaban-evitar-riadas-sobre-las-poblaciones-mas-afectada-por-dana/
            Also a Wiki article about the channel that runs through Paiporta, one of the worst affected suburban villages.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambla_del_Poyo

          3. After the tragedy in Valencia the Spanish eco-crowd now have blood on their hands, which will doubtless further encourage them.
            https://damremoval.eu/portfolio/nacho-rojo/
            Yes, some weirs and dams etc could possibly be removed, but wouldn't fish ladders be easier to install?
            Today on 20 Minutos website there is an article about a scheme to connect the Paiporta drainage channel (arroyo) to the main river channel, the Turia. For those who do not read Spanish, the floodwater diversion project has not been carried out owing to budgetary constraints and environmental concerns. Yes, bugs and plants outrank the little people.
            https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5650631/0/ribera-mantuvo-parados-durante-anos-dos-proyectos-que-buscaban-evitar-riadas-sobre-las-poblaciones-mas-afectada-por-dana/
            Also a Wiki article about the channel that runs through Paiporta, one of the worst affected suburban villages.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambla_del_Poyo

        2. If France had England's population density, there'd be more than 200 million of 'em.

      2. Something the french had to do after flushing toilets had been brought in to use 🤔😑

        1. When I was living in France in the sixties (in the Loire valley), the house had an earth closet at the end of the yard. Un WC a la Turque it was known as.

    2. 'Germany is working on a national water strategy to address water shortages and climate change, including building and protecting new reservoirs.'

    3. We have our own well 30 metres deep and an electric pump which automatically keeps the tank in the house full. The water is better than mains water but we have a filter system to reduce the iron that is in it.

      1. In 1976 in the drought that summer, my erstwhile brothers in law got the old pump in the wall working. At least they could keep the garden watered with the well water.

    4. Yes, AND build the reservoir. In fact, build a dozen more. And half a dozen coal plants, a dozen gas CCGT plants and 20 SMR reactors and 100 micro reactors. The micro can take the strain now – offer free electricity to any street housing one.

      Our road would leap at it.

      Stuff all the waste on green nonsense. Create real jobs that provide real benefit.

      Have another group pack gimmigrant criminals into shipping containers and deport all men not with a family back to dindu land.

      Sack half the civil service and cut taxes.

      See? It's really, truly, honestly easy to grow an economy.

    1. Ours are 20m criminal gmmigrants, with thousands more arriving.

      The invasion won't end until we're out there in a gunboat.

    1. "Former Spice Girl says she and husband David have figured out how to be more discreet" she said from her £16 million yacht in the Med.

  61. I look very briefly – accept their cookies then delete on exit every time. It's become impossible to browse with all the pop ups.

    1. A delightful colleague of mine who taught English also ran a school bookshop so that the pupils could order and buy their own books. It was situated in an alcove at the foot of an impressive marble staircase.

      I remember John's voice booming out and resonating throughout the building: "No, Piers, you can't order 'The Pop Up Kama Sutra' – it is out of stock!"

  62. 'Spain has a number of new and existing reservoirs, including:
    Gibralmedina reservoir
    A project that will supply water to the Costa del Sol, the Campo de Gibraltar area, and for agricultural irrigation. The reservoir will be located on the Gibralmedina stream, a tributary of the Guadiaro river.'

  63. Newsflash – the budget killed off Britain. The Left simply have no concept of how money is made, where it comes from or how damaging their stupidity is.

    1. There are so many Communists in the government that I can only conclude that Starmer., Reeves and Miliband are determined to destroy the economy to facilitate the UK becoming a Communist state as soon as possible.

      1. Starmer, Reeves and Miliband believe their seats at the WEF High Table are assured. Those three chumps care nothing whatever for our country, its cultural history or its people.

    1. When the body was removed from the prison, suddenly the face covering slipped off in front of the rather convenient camera. Funnily it didn't really look like the supposed 'suicide' victim.

      1. I watch one today collecting our general waste bin the white guy on the other side of the road was two handed quick and efficient. But the driver of the truck had to keep leaving him waiting with two bins while the other one kept opening the bins to see if he could pull out the binbags and put them in the back of the truck by hand. Even tried to asses if he could tip one into another if there was space. I wondered why he just couldn't follow the fine example set by his work colleague. Consequently there were some items left in the bottom of some of the bins.

        1. We have a BAME on our bin team. Seems to me the others were making sure he did his share by giving him the bins to tip in the lorry while they dashed off and got more.

  67. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    It’s polling day across the pond and Steerpike is keen to have a flutter. Opinion polling in the US election suggests the safe money is on Kamala Harris, but his fellow gamblers seem to be telling a different story.

    Data analysed by Mr S’s friends in the Speccies’ data dungeon shows money is pouring in behind The Donald. Trump has a nearly two thirds chance of returning to the White House in January, according to an analysis of implied probabilities. Do the punters know something the pundits don’t?

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

    1. I posted earlier.. currently a billion $ turnover on Polymarket with Trump at 62% to win.. Kamala 38%.
      Follow the money.

        1. Yeah I saw it. I don't think he's going to win unless it's a landslide. If it's close the votes will be rigged against him. They won't let Trump win the presidency again.

      2. I think my Trump moment arrived when he said they were eating the pets in Springfield Ohio. Kamala would not be my first or even second choice, but Trump cannot come back. And if he loses he'll be gone forever and maybe sensible candidates will be available next time round.
        My worry is the international situation, but I don't think Trump could even manage that now. Kamala will be a puppet whose strings will be managed by the grown-ups. Let's hope they know what they're doing.

          1. There's a time to shout out about eating pets in Springfield and there is a time to debate sensibly. And if you don't know when that time is you should avoid talking about eating dogs and cats altogether.

          3. It means you should not demean your presidential campaign and embarrass your supporters making ridiculous allegations about eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. He didn’t look or sound clever and certainly not presidential.

          5. it embarrassed his supporters and was detrimental to his campaign. All he did was expose himself to ridicule.

        3. Trump was the only US President in about the last twenty years who never

          declared a shooting war.

          Shooting wars are extremely expensive, so it's better to have a business man in

          charge of negotiations who blusters and threatens but doesn't waste taxpayers'

          money on very expensive military fireworks.

          Remember that whatever you think of him personally, he was the only President who

          persuaded Kim Jong Un to wind his neck in.

          1. The last four years may have been better managed if Trump had been president. Afghanistan, the invasion of the Ukraine, the attacks on Israel, probably under a Trump administration at least some of the tension would have been reduced or even never have occurred. We can only speculate.
            But the man is old,unpredictable and I wouldn’t like to bear responsibility for electing such a larger than life figure.
            Kamala Harris is a marionette whose strings are being pulled by more experienced people. One can only hope that her caretaker president role finishes in four years time.

  68. Letters to the Editor
    SIR – I was struck by how my Labour-supporting friends have judged the Budget – and it’s not good news for the party. Most found it a directionless mess. Others said they hated its anti-business, anti-private-sector nature, calling it spiteful. I’ve had the rare pleasure of agreeing with them.

    Adrian Payne
    Epsom, Surrey
    05 November 2024 12:02am GMT

    1. anti-business, anti-private-sector nature, calling it spiteful.

      Dear Adrian.. Ade.. Are your friends low IQ, been living under a rock or.. just innocent & naive.

  69. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    My reaction to fireworks is a bit eccentric. Lovely, I think, but can’t they be more meaningful? To be more precise, this is my view of Bonfire Night, formerly known as Guy Fawkes night. It would be nice, I think, if we could revive the annual event as a celebration of our shared values. To be fair, it retains a faint gunpowdery whiff of this. Most Britons are aware that we are celebrating a historic victory over terrorism. But the awareness is fading.

    Ideally, Guy Fawkes would have belonged to some obscure sect that is now safely defunct

    The main problem with trying to revive the meaningfulness of this festival is that it is linked to anti-Catholic bigotry. Ideally, Guy Fawkes would have belonged to some obscure sect that is now safely defunct. Then we could all innocently burn him in effigy, for he would be a mere symbol of terrorism.

    Another problem with trying to re-inject meaning into Guy Fawkes is that 1605 is pretty far in the past. Yes, parliament was already important, and there was already a noble tradition of the rule of law and so on. But these stirrings of liberty could still be muffled by a monarch in a mean mood. It was only at the end of that century that England became recognisably modern, when it created a constitution that cancelled the possibility of tyranny, in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

    If only there were some way of widening the meaning of Bonfire Night – so that it also referred to this later event, and helped Britons to know their history. For, let’s be honest, almost no one without a history degree has heard of this revolution.

    A ripple, not a wave, will decide the US election
    Well, there is. For it happens that the routing of the tyrannically inclined James II, and the arrival of William of Orange, also occurred on 5 November. Whether this was a coincidence or a cunning bit of Protestant PR, I do not know.

    What I propose is this: we should bother educating our teenagers (and their parents) in the history of this country. Every 5 November, there should be educational events telling the story of the seventeenth century in England. There should be drama workshops, lighthearted lectures, people dressed as Oliver Cromwell, a festive bustle in Parliament Square.

    The weird thing is that history syllabuses seem to avoid this period. The average history student jumps from the Tudors and the Cold War at GCSE to the late Georgian era at A-level, plus more Cold War, plus the Russian Revolution. The really decisive bit of our history is passed over as if it’s an irrelevance or embarrassment. Let the authors of history syllabuses please explain themselves. Maybe they are scared of looking ‘Whiggish’ if they ask students to focus on this period. But the result is that no one under 50 knows what ‘Whiggish’ even means. I don’t get it. It’s bizarre. This ideology basically gave rise to political liberalism, which remains our political reality – just about, thank God – but we fail to be proud of it. Unlike the Americans, who nicked the whole ideology a century later.

    Incidentally, this day is also when America votes, every four years. Some years it will add to the festivity of Freedom Day – that we can smile or frown at what our noisy cousins have done with their English inheritance.

    Theo Hobson
    WRITTEN BY
    Theo Hobson
    Theo Hobson is the author of seven books, including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values

    1. The seventeenth century was the era that Britain left behind the agrarian based system and moved on into a capitalist society.
      Slowly, and very bloodily.
      It is a formative hundred years and should be taught. Charles I was too stupid to understand that evolution rather than revolution was the original intention. His stubbornness merely made matters worse.
      The French didn't read the signals – their reaction to the Fronde was exactly the wrong one. France's inevitable change came later and was even more bloody, aggravated by another century of repression through outdated methods of government.

      3. 90 percent of my history time at school studying the Tudors and the Stuarts. O level, A level history and some primary school, indeed it was more interesting then because it was the first time. In every history exam right up until my A levels ‘how did James II turn the country against him?’ or something very similar always came up. Anything after 1714 I had to learn on my own.

        1. Lucky you. I would have much preferred the Tudors to European History from the end of the Hundred Years War to 1914 and British History from 1812 to 1914.

          1. 1485 to 1714 does rather limit you. Yes, I enjoyed history classes, probably my favourite subject at school and i revel in movies and books set during these 200 years. But I did end up with the feeling that my education had been rather neglected at least as far as history was concerned.

    2. Don't worry Theo in no time at all there'll be no native culture and we'll be celebrating Diwali. We might even bring in suttee.

  70. Labour MP Chris Webb mugged while returning to London flat. 5 November 2024.

    Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Webb, 38, wrote: “Last night, as I was returning to my flat in London, I was attacked and mugged by a group of individuals.

    “Luckily, I have no injuries and I am ok. Unfortunately, they just took my phone so I’m without one for the foreseeable future.

    No description then? It was undoubtedly a gang of far Right white supremacists. Lol.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/05/labour-mp-chris-webb-mugged-while-returning-london-flat/

    1. "Unfortunately, they just took my phone"

      Yes, a shame they didn't get your wallet and stab you as well.

      1. I wouldn't want them to be stabbed. David Amiss was tragedy enough.

        I would like them to admit that uncontrolled massive immigration has been an utter failure that has made this country far worse.

        1. It was hisconstruction of the sentence which reads as if he hoped to have been robbed of more than just his phone.

    4. "I was targeted by around five or six young individuals who stole my phone..“
      "The officers who assisted me went above and beyond and are a remarkable credit to the force.”

      Hilarious comments on his X feed.

      Thanks for the detailed description, very helpful when navigating Londons streets.
      I’ll keep my eye out for “individuals”.

      Terrible, you need to stay alert around individuals.

      Keep your eyes peeled for individuals lads..

      I saw a menacing group of individuals earlier – could it be the same one? What did yours look like?

      1. Surely a 'group' and 'individuals' are antonyms? Doesn't he mean a 'gang of yooves' which means blacks?

    5. If I ever go to London again I think I’ll take an old Mobile phone with me and if mugged hand it over explaining that the battery is flat and needs recharging!
      Might also take an old wallet with a few store cards in it!

      2. I did take a second wallet when i was in London recently. I had £100 in cash to cover lunch. £10 in the decoy.
        I wasn't going to hand over to some scrote my Aspinals wallet which cost £150 !

      4. A friend was once tricked by divers types in Barcelona and they took her handbag from the car. A seasoned traveller, she keeps the cards etc on her person, so their haul consisted of sanitary towels.

    7. " Unfortunately, they just took my phone so I’m without one for the foreseeable future."
      Why? Get down to carphone warehouse.

    1. It was always like this. Covid taught us that. These are the same people who vote for Labour. Petty, mean, nasty people who hate everyone else.

  72. Don't mess with farmers, Rachel Reeves. You'll find yourself in the mud

    Rural protest is coming to town – Britain may soon be witnessing scenes more familiar from France, the Netherlands and India

    Isabel Oakeshott • 4th November 2024

    Really, Rachel Reeves should know better. Politicians who take on farmers almost always end up in a mess – and so it is proving with this Chancellor, who may be about to pay a very unpleasant price for her Budget stinker.

    Slapping a shock 20 per cent inheritance tax on family farms, Reeves is testing just how much excrement the agricultural community is prepared to take. Now there are moves to show her exactly where they draw the line – using human waste.

    Not content with small gestures, farmers are preparing to demonstrate their displeasure by refusing to accept any more human waste on their fields. Just imagine the headlines if they press ahead with their threatened "sewage strike," and the looming environmental disaster as water companies (whose record hardly inspires confidence) scrabble to find somewhere else to dump the stuff. Talk about the ordure hitting the fan.

    We all know what Reeves was thinking when she came up with this particular revenue raiser: that she could raise a few million from the odd Marquess. Just as Labour backbenchers cheered at plans to whack owners of private jets, she knew they'd savour the thought of hitting the blueblood owners of vast country estates.

    What she apparently failed to appreciate is that the vast majority of those affected by her naïve new tax will not be Viscounts or Earls – but hardy sorts in boiler suits who work from dawn to dusk to keep the nation in food. Their small family farms are the backbone of the rural economy: worth a lot on paper, but generating little profit.

    Thanks to Reeves, hundreds, if not thousands, of these great traditional businesses may now be broken up. Now wonder talk has turned to how to persuade the Chancellor to U-turn – or at the very least teach her a lesson.

    Reeves need only look to the Netherlands to see what can happen when governments take on farmers. Faced with a similar existential threat when their government threatened to shut down their farms, Dutch livestock producers created merry hell.

    In their most dramatic protest, they drove some 2000 tractors to The Hague, causing the biggest traffic jam in their country's history. Clogging highways from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, they created more than a thousand kilometres of tailbacks.

    Further afield, the government of India was rocked by protests when it tried to reform the way farmers are paid. During the pandemic, thousands of furious smallholders set up a permanent encampment outside Delhi and organised wave after wave of violent blockades. Some 700 people are said to have lost their lives in the demonstrations. In the end, prime minister Narendra Modi was forced to cave, repealing three hated new laws.

    It seems very likely that Reeves, who has zero experience of rural life, drastically underestimated the scale of the backlash to her plan to remove death duty exemptions for agricultural land and buildings. In giving farmers more than a year of notice before the new policy is implemented, doubtless she thought she was doing them a service.

    She failed to consider just how desperate some very elderly and ailing farmers may be to spare their heirs the burden – with potentially tragic consequences. Already, there is dark talk among farmers of possible suicides in the run up to the April 2026 deadline. One ageing father is said to have observed to his son – not in jest – that if he took his own life just before the new tax comes in, it would at a stroke, save the family farm, making it the single most productive day of his working life.

    What a horrific thought. By both nature and nurture, the noble souls who work our land, often for precious little reward, are no nonsense types. They are ready to show they are not to be trifled with. Whether the talk is of sewage strikes or suicide, it should not be dismissed as hyperbole.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/04/dont-mess-with-farmers-rachel-reeves

    My immediate thought was that a 'sewage strike' is just the kind of thinking needed to take on this dangerous band of Marxists. Unfortunately, on reflection it's simply likely to harden attitudes towards farmers. Do not think that a majority of the public will be on their side. The urban prejudice of much of the UK stiil sees them as barley baron millionaires, poisoners of the land and air, or lonely pyschopaths killing animals 'for fun' and threatening walkers with ancient shotguns.

    I expect Max & Co will invite Moonbat and Packham to advise them on Farming For The New World Order.

    1. I suspect the Treasury – who've wanted this tax for years – completely ignored the deleterious effect it would have on farmers (because they don't care about them except as a cost) and so pushed this as an earner on Reeves.

      Now Reeves is lumbered with it and, I imagine is having a fit trying to justify it because she wasn't told (and wouldn't understand) the implications of the landowner taxes. She can't renege because if she backs down on this one folk will say 'What about the other stupid taxes?' of her appalling communist budget.

      It'd expose her as a weak, incompetent woman who has no idea what she's doing – like the rest of the cabinet.

      1. She wouldn't have to change anything. Simply introduce a few clauses granting exceptions and thus eliminating the teeth. Keep the law but protect the heirs.

        1. Under the new IHT rules the older farmers can get the more likely they are to keep their heirs on.
          At the moment there is urgent need for a heir restorer.

        2. Just another loophole in a tax code full of loopholes. Scrap this – in fact, scrap inheritance tax entirely.

      2. She wouldn't have to change anything. Simply introduce a few clauses granting exceptions and thus eliminating the teeth. Keep the law but protect the heirs.

    2. What letter of the alphabet can you add to IHT to turn it into something equally, if not more, unpleasant?

    3. Even our Limp Dim MP has had her picture in the papers with farmers calling for a reduction in the tax. Whether being in a conservative constituency has had an influence on her or whether she's just spotted a popular bandwagon to jump on I've no idea.

    4. I think it was John Redwood on GB News last night who said that he hoped the farmers would make a sensible protest but that they would not spray slurry and manure over government buildings; I do hope they do!

  73. Bonfire Night in Lewes

    Tonight's festivities (for the locals only) involves the burning the images of recognisable celebrities rather than Guy Fawkes who is somehow the forgotten mastermind who failed to blow up Parliament. The locals try to redress this historical infamy.

    Will the BBC be reporting such imagery?

    2. I did wonder when I was trying to get my incinerator to light whether I could put an effigy of Two Tier Kier on it. In the event it was a damp squib, but the thought was there.

  74. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    At long last, the Tory leadership race concluded at the weekend after Kemi Badenoch was crowned victor on Saturday. But while the Conservatives finally have some semblance of stability with their newly-appointed leader and shadow cabinet, it’s not all good news for the blues. Nigel Farage has now claimed that since Badenoch’s weekend win, his party have seen a surge in membership figures. How very curious…

    Quizzed on LBC today about whether Reform has seen a boost in sign-ups, Farage insisted:

    Seeing it already. We’ve gone through 95,000 members this morning. So we’ve gone up 1,500 in the last three or four days. And these are Conservatives who are hanging on to see whether the party could change direction. For us as a party, it’s very good news.

    Going on, the Clacton MP – interviewed while he attended a Donald Trump rally in the States – blasted Badenoch as a ‘continuity candidate’, before warning the new leader: ‘There are two parties within the Conservative Party. You’ve got the Reform-minded people and the Liberal Democrat-minded people, and they are so far apart, it’s not true.’ The Reform leader’s remarks come after a Telegraph op-ed by Farage on Saturday in which he claimed that ‘the grandees and their centrist media friends did everything they can to ensure that Badenoch won’, adding:

    She will, of course, pose as tough as ever, but her record – if you compare what she has said with what she has done over the last few years – makes for dismal reading.

    Shots fired! Farage’s latest intervention follows his online feud with Badenoch that escalated over the Conservative party conference last month – causing the now-Tory leader to post in an acid-tongued tweet that Nige’s animosity comes from seeing her as ‘a threat to winning Reform voters’. Ouch. It seems they won’t be setting their differences aside any time soon…

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

    1. Nigel Farage has now claimed that since Badenoch’s weekend win, his party have seen a surge in membership figures. How very curious…

      Not so curious after Badenoch claimed that her policy for dealing with immigrants involved assimilation.

      1. There's a massive difference between legal, economic migration from those who have a skill we want and need and dinghy invasion by criminals.

          1. More than that, I'd wager. Maybe by a factor of ten. I refuse to believe we should be hiring Indian developers when we have local ones.

        1. I read it on my tablet but apparemtly a search on the internet reveals that the word assimilation and immigration may not be used together under EU rules.

          ‘Missing: assimilation ‎| Show results with: assimilation
          Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more’

          1. Oh, I asked as I could find no reference to her having such a policy but that explains why. Thanks.

    2. Remember it might Perhaps be a good day for a Bonfire of the Vanities Nigel.
      Match everything you see and hear.

    3. The last thing the Conservative Party needs is a leader with hubris and a closed mind.

      The fact of the matter is that if Reform continues to grow to a position where it has the same number of votes as the Conservatives the Labour Party will always win in a FPTP system.

      Something's gotta give.

      If it doesn't before the next general election we'll be stuffed for the foreseeable future.

    1. it is astonishing that so many feminists and homosexuals are enthusiastic about Islam.

      1. Like many Lefties, they hate the other. It isn't about supporting one side, it's ganging up against those they hate.

  78. Government official is arrested after more than 400 sex tapes leak of him 'sleeping with the wives of prominent individuals'
    The married director of the National Financial Investigation Agency, Baltasar Ebang Engonga, is seen in flagrante with various partners at his office in the Equatorial Guinean finance ministry. Daily Fail

    Ebang Engonga – his name should have given them a clue.

          2. I still have my copies of A Singular Man, The Onion Eaters, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthasar B, The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman and The Ginger Man.

            Great fun to read in the early seventies.

  79. Took the dogs out for a walk. As we pootle along a little old lady is coming the other way.

    Mongo nudges the others off the path and on to the road and promptly sits down. I think 'Bally heck, we've only got to the end fo the road. I can't be doing with his stubbornness.

    As I'm pulling at him he looks at me, then at the old lady, me, old lady – I don't see what he's looking at until Speedy hoves into view. As she draws level little old lady pats great beast on the head and passes us by.

    Mongo looks back once, then sets off again as if to say 'come on, times' a wastin'.

    Ruddy beast.

  80. Consumers will benefit too, as today’s independent report shows that the cost of running a system based on renewables is significantly cheaper than one based on high gas prices.”

    This is a proven lie. If unreliables were cheaper they wouldn't need massive subsidy. They'd be.. reliable. They're also not remotely 'renewable' being so destructive to the sea bed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/05/millions-more-switch-off-ed-miliband-net-zero-targets/

    1. And don't forget the fossil plant on standby in case the renewables stop their ever-generous giving…

    2. And which "independent" report, which must have been authored by people who never studied arithmetic, might that be? Why is it compared to only "high" gas prices??

    3. And which "independent" report, which must have been authored by people who never studied arithmetic, might that be? Why is it compared to only "high" gas prices??

  81. Had my chest x-ray this morning ..

    I am amazed and shocked and quite in awe of the new equipment used to x-ray my chest .. It was similar to a large whiteboard screen .. stand in front with gown on, grip two handles , one either side , deep breath then exhale .. that's it .. so simple ..

    3. The stance you describe reads like a script from a porno movie, Belle…
      Sorry. Need to get out more.

    4. Yep, had one done 3 weeks ago. Checked in 10 minutes early and walked out with 5 minutes still to go.

    2. Is Miranda panting like a hart for cooling streams when heated in the chase? I cannot believe she lusts after the mendacious Mr Johnson.

          1. A lovely hymn. When I first heard and then sang it at prep school I thought it was the heart that was panting and not a sort of male deer.

    1. As noted further down the article, the Daily Sceptic had previously reported on the inaccuracy of many Met Office weather stations.

  85. 395895+ up ticks,

    I must surely have company in thinking that the milliband is operating in the nud, and the majority are avoiding the fact that not only is he in the altogether but criminally insane.

    The smart meters cannot be in the majority as of yet
    otherwise the headbanger would NOT be asking the consumer to turn off in peak time, we would be turned off.
    The cost of burying the 600 miles of cables will be six times greater than the cost of pylons, an opposition lady in Derbyshire disagreed making it far less than the nutters planned abuse of the countryside.

    They are saying to achieve net zero and be totally green we must be prepared to sit in the dark awhile,
    My preference is to sit in the light and stay white.

  86. What a surprise. NOT

    Chaos as voting machines go into meltdown in multiple locations – with an entire COUNTY prevented from casting their ballots in critical battleground state causing huge lines

    Voting machines down in Cambria County, Pennsylvania
    Election officials have reported that several ballot scanners are down in Cambria County in the swing state of Pennsilvania.

    Voters have shared footage of people standing in line as the voting process was interrupted by the technical issues.

        1. Officials in British Columbia have suddenly found a box of uncounted ballots from the recent election. The election was extremely close with several recounts still underway.
          No issues, no impact on the result claim the officials even though some riding were won with single digit majorities.

  87. The more I see and read about J D Vance the more convinced I become that Trump must win for the good of the free world.

    If you had to choose between Walz and Vance to have to take over the Presidency it's no contest. Walz is even worse than Harris

    Trump's running mate JD Vance just voted in his hometown of Cincinnati. His wife Usha and children looked on as he talked to the press afterwards.

    He said he felt good abouy the way the result was headed and admitted he missed a call from the former president at 3am because he was in bed, asleep while Trump was flying back from his final event.

    He was asked what he could do to heal the political divide in the country.

    I think our message is, first of all, we do expect to win. But obviously, no matter who wins, half the country, as you said, is going to be at least partially disappointed. I think my attitude is the best way to heal the rift in the country is to try to govern the country as well as we can, create as much prosperity as we can for the American people, and remind our fellow Americans that we are all fundamentally on the same team, however we voted.

  88. Free Speech has three new articles today; one by Elizabeth Nickson, who asks Will Trump Be Cheated and tells of the very rich organisations she says are spending vast amounts of money to ensure Trump cannot win, the second by Demosthenes on why it was necessary for Britain to fight World War 1 , as part of our Remembrance Day parade, and one by yours truly on what it would take to get me to vote for Kemi Badenoch's Tories .

    Please do read them and leave a comment or two, as FSB thrives on comments.

    Also, if you have not already done so, please sign up for our newsletters and consider writing an article for us.

    1. Took me a while to realise your Demisthenes wasn't the Ancient Greek guy normally referred to.

  90. I bumped into my ex in town earlier and we ended up having a coffee together. As we were saying goodbye she said, "You've changed. I only broke up with you because you were so immature, but you seem like you're more grown up now. Why don't you give a call sometime?"

    I wonder if she'll feel the same after finding the "I LOVE ANAL" sticker on the back of her coat.

        2. Can I suggest, Phizzee, that you write LoL after your posts to let us know that you are telling a joke?

    3. You might contemplate this poem by W.B. Yeats and especially its last verse:

      Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop : William Butler Yeats

      I met the Bishop on the road
      And much said he and I.
      `Those breasts are flat and fallen now
      Those veins must soon be dry;
      Live in a heavenly mansion,
      Not in some foul sty.'

      `Fair and foul are near of kin,
      And fair needs foul,' I cried.
      'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
      Nor grave nor bed denied,
      Learned in bodily lowliness
      And in the heart's pride.

      `A woman can be proud and stiff
      When on love intent;
      But Love has pitched his mansion in
      The place of excrement;
      For nothing can be sole or whole
      That has not been rent.'

    5. She'll get a somewhat less than romantic surprise if an admirer asks her to pucker up.

  91. Did you have to wait very long for your results, MM, because I was told 10 days or more.. so things haven't changed all that much for an x-ray read . Probably a shortage of bods who read and report on such things .

    Are you okay , well you know what I mean !

      1. Goodness me MM, an on going cancer check, what is going on .. is this recent , or a review or a new examination ?

        Life is scary at present .. things with me haven't been right since my first Covid jab , AZ, when I ended up in A+E with side effects and a brain scan .

        My lungs are a bit noisy and I have a cough like a sea lion at the moment , it is sporadic .. driving Moh and son mad .. I am fine when I am outside .. cool temps , but cough like mad at bedtime and during the night . Might be nothing , or COPD . Antibiotics a month ago shifted green gunk , but not the cough !!!

        I just want to be 26 years old again ..

        1. It’s what it is, Belle, large deficiency in B12 which can be a cancer symptom but not necessarily so. On vera.

          26 years old and what we know now we could rule the world!

          Haha!

          2. Cheers, Belle. I have to say the 6 large loading doses of B12 have perked me up quite a bit.

  92. Phew.
    PPN has been and sorted out an array of 'pooter problems.
    He did whizzy things with a combination of the keyboard and magic stuff in his tool bag; the Allans can now surf the web and do clever design stuff without fear of a mushroom shaped cloud appearing over the Dower House.
    In return, PPN left laden with shortbread, chocolate chip traybake and jars of crab apple jelly.
    Nothing works as well as bribery.

  93. Will you ever repay your student loan under Labour?
    Calculate how much your debt will cost you and the chances of it being written off
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/repay-your-student-loan-calculator/

    BTL

    The crime is not students loans – the crime is the usurious interest rates that are charged meaning that most graduates will be permanently in debt.

    In civilised countries student loans are interest free; in civilised countries students can set their loan repayments against income tax when they start to earn and pay tax;

    in civilised countries employers are given tax incentives to help their employees pay off their student loans; the 'Powers That Be' in civilised countries realise that a well-educated and well-qualified workforce is essential; the PTB in civilised countries realise that young people who start their working lives hideously lumbered with unrepayable debt are not likely to be cheerful, optimistic and and productive.

    What a shame that the United Kingdom has become such a very uncivilised country.

    1. I have an interest in the figures as I have a step daughter in her final year. If you have a debt of £50k and earn £50k your repayment to HMRC will be about £2070 pa (50-27k x 9%) but your interest payments with be around £2500 pa at 5% interest. Its a dreadful system, very few will come close to paying off the capital and, of course, it will continue to increase at CPI + 2.5%

      1. This is why Caroline and I were extremely frugal and paid both the fees and living expenses for our sons to make sure that they both left university completely debt free. Both if us were funded through university by our parents and started our working lives debt free so we decided that this was the least we could do for our boys.

        We have been amply repaid since they both got jobs immediately on graduating and have not asked for a penny piece from us since. Henry decided to do an M.Sc. in Computer Science and Data Analytics at York University while he was in a job – not only did he pay for this entirely himself but he was awarded a distinction and was top of his year. Very proud parents!

        He is flying to Australia this evening with his girlfriend whom he met on his very first day at UEA eleven years ago. Jessica has recently been awarded a Ph.D in Maths and her university is sending her to Australia for an academic conference; Henry is accompanying her and will do his office work 'from home' in Australia! When the conference is over they are going to Tasmania for a holiday before returning to the UK and then coming to us for Christmas.

        1. Tasmania, the Beautiful

          Rastus, beware!

          Tasmania at this time of year is lovely. Not too hot, with a climate like mid France and an environment like Cornwall in the west and Scotland in the east. Not like the hotness that prevails in eastern or western mainland Oz. Property prices are lower than here, as well.

          A good (and elderly) friend of mine was widowed and left to stay with her daughter, who has a horse-raising ranch about 20 miles west of Hobart. She managed to immigrate because they were family but it still took the bureaucracy 18 months or more.

          When I visited in 2002 I could have stayed much longer, and even thought of eventually emigrating there if the UK got too messed up (like now).

          Several of friends my age have "lost" their offspring who went to Oz for a few months and settled instead.

          You have been warned. RC

          EDIT: Just checked my photos and it was March 2007 – my memory is really getting terrible. Been back to Oz several times.

          Caught up with a school friend last year and one of his 2 daughters (the one with the grandchildren) went to do a PhD in Glaciology in New Zealand, where apparently the best glaciers live. The daughter got married out there.

          He and his wife got fed up with travelling so far for short trips, so they downsized in England and bought an apartment near their daughter (and the grandchildren) in Wellington, the NZ capital. So now they stay the best 6 months for weather in each country. Nice choice.

        2. It's horrible. All of my children have avoided the debt, either by studying p/t and funding themselves or by not going. They won't take a penny from me!

          1. Mine avoided the debt because 30 years ago living expenses were paid (more or less) by a grant and the tuition fees were much lower. They worked during the holidays and both paid off their loans very quickly.

  94. Prevening, all. As it's Bonfire Night and I have a pile of prunings to get rid of, either by chipping or incineration, I decided I'd light a bonfire. Only in deference to my neighbours I thought I'd light it in the incinerator to keep the smoke down (didn't stop next door coughing ostentatiously, despite the thin wisp escaping from the top of the "dustbin" and my being unaffected, despite standing right by it). How can I put this? I failed miserably. I produced some smoke, a lot of flame and it went out – repeatedly! I used a whole box of firelighters and still nothing. Bob of Bonsall with his brash burning I clearly am not (it's what comes of never having been a Boy Scout). I have abandoned it and come inside while the night draws in. It will probably now flare up and cause a conflagration.

    Quite why anyone would have thought British manufacturing had any future under a Labour government and net zero lunacy is beyond me.

    1. Sometimes, Conners, life is just a bitch – without specific malice, just to pi$$ you off royally.

      1. In fairness I have no difficulty lighting fires in grates or in the Rayburn. I should have thought ahead and applied the same principles to the incinerator. Better luck next time!

      1. They had been drying off for months and all the leaves had shrivelled and fallen off. I chopped them up so they were in fairly small pieces as well.

          1. I did consider that, but by then it was too late. We've got fireworks now. I'll be sending Kadi to bed.

    3. If you're using an incinerator, try this:-
      Stand a piece of 4×2 in the middle
      Pack the cuttings around it with the driest bits next to the 4×2
      When it's full, remove the 4×2 to leave a hole in the middle
      Loosely place paper and torn cardboard into the hole to about ¼ of the depth. lightly tamping with the 4×2 if necessary
      Shredded documents work well, but not too many and not tamped too tightly
      Light a spill of paper and carefully drop it onto the paper
      With a bit of luck the paper will catch and start to draw air up through the centre of the pile

          2. He's pacing around at the moment; El Alamein is being recreated about half a mile away. I've got music on, but it isn't calming the stressed beast. He went upstairs then had to come down again. He doesn't know what to do with himself.

        2. Of course.
          That is essential as it keeps your hands occupied as the fire slowly gats started.

      3. Thank you, Bob. I will try that method next time. As it happens, I do have a piece of 4×2 that will do the job.

  96. An eightsome Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,235 3/6
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. A few more
      Wordle 1,235 4/6

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

    2. Well done. Par here.

      Wordle 1,235 4/6

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

    4. Well done. I'll go get my dunce cap and sit in the corner.

      Wordle 1,235 5/6

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

    5. Too good Rene, too good…. boring here again….

      Wordle 1,235 4/6

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

        1. I usually do it first thing in the morning for this reason. But today I had to leave at quarter past six am and only got home in the evening 🙁

    7. I screwed up not once but twice.

      Wordle 1,235 5/6

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

      1. I just screwed up!

        Wordle 1,235 5/6

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

  97. Just had an interesting conversation with a pensions advisor.
    It seems that the UK Government has slapped a 25% charge on people offshoring their pension… mine went to sunnier climes about 25 years ago, but might have drowned in recent floods… WTF? 25% theft tax in your pension? Jayzuz.
    I (somewhat inebriated, it must be declared) am in even more awe of my Father who gave me pensions advice way back in the 1990s, before he died (obviusly) and before we quit the UK. Smart man, I wish he was still around so I could shake his hand, and give him a hug or several.
    It's enough to make a grown man cry… oh! I am.
    Thanks, Pa. Good call – again.

  98. Trump must win, if only to reduce Naughtie to spluttering indignation. He's just been on PM, adopting that oh-so-casual approach that he thinks makes him sound so reasonable.

    The BBC is playing up the closeness of the polls. Can we hope that a large proportion of US voters have been copying the UK of recent times by playing the pollsters?

    1. Trump will win in a landslide. Early voting in key swing states accords with the betting odds.

      In addition Trump has an army of advisor lawyers and roving lawyers on hand to challenge any shenanigans this time around.

  99. That's me gone. Dreary day. Dentist for check up tomorrow – all these excitements…

    Have a jolly evening wondering whether there was, perhaps, something to be said for voting in person – at a polling station – using a piece of paper and a pencil…..

    A demain.

  100. Can't we ship them out?

    Tory Wets Ramp Up Anti-Trump Activism Ahead of Election

    With just hours to go until polls close in the US presidential election, wet Tories have gone into overdrive in their anti-Trump fervour. Ex-Tory leader William Hague has been busy promoting his latest Times opinion piece on Trump titled “We all need him to lose.” Wannabe-Oxford Chancellor Hague pours pro-Labour rhetoric into his impassioned defence of Kamala:

    “Isn’t Britain’s new government influenced, in its ambitions for renewable energy and deficit spending to fund public investment, by the confidence of the Biden administration in pursuing those goals? Wasn’t the ill-fated Tory mini-budget of two years ago based on a misreading of Reagan’s tax-cutting agenda all those years ago? Whatever our past affiliations, we should all be Democrats.”

    This is echoing arch-wets like erstwhile Tory minister Robert Buckland, who defended Labour’s volunteer campaign for Kamala and said: “I feel that the record of Donald Trump in the presidency is an affront to those who believe in traditional Republicanism.” Meanwhile anyone who wants to talk to podcaster Rory Stewart can barely get a word in between his pro-Harris bleating…

    Hague’s tweet of his own article has been seen 1.2 million times. He wrongly claims “no American voter is likely to be influenced by our views” in Britain. There are of course around 200,000 American citizens who can and do vote in US federal elections like this one. Emily Maitlis reckons Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris has “fundemantally changed the race” – Hague must have figured his heroic intervention would have a similar effect…

    5 November 2024 @ 16:34

      1. They wonder why they lost after that load of codswallop. Hague either got turned (skeletons in a cupboard?) or it was the effect of all those pints he claimed to have downed.

        1. That happens to a lot of people.

          Many people who swatted like Hell to get to Oxbridge peaked too soon and became extremely dull school teachers. I have had to do to with several dullards who peaked at 18 and went downhill ever since.

          The same thing happens in politics – if you look at MPs' cvs you will find a lot of seriously stupid people who went to Oxbridge.

      4. We know he has lost the few marbles he ever had but now he sounds completely drunk. He used to be able to outwit Blair at PMQs and he used to be very witty and quick.

        Drugs, alcohol or sodomy – what is it that has destroyed him?

      5. We know he has lost the few marbles he ever had but now he sounds completely drunk. He used to be able to outwit Blair at PMQs and he used to be very witty and quick.

        Drugs, alcohol or sodomy – what is it that has destroyed him?

      2. Trump's advisors should tell him that Hague and his opinions are neither of consequence or influence, therefore, even if Trump does feel insulted, assuming that word of Hague's musings ever get back to him, it ought not have any bearing on or influence over his relations with the United Kingdom in the event of this election propelling him back to the White House, any more than the words of Katie Price, Wayne Rooney Alison Hammond or me.

        1. Agree, but that’s not the point. If Hague wants to continue his career in public life by being Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, he is likely to find himself coming in contact with Trump or with members of his administration, including the US Ambassador to Britain. Not very diplomatic to start off by insulting them. I suppose he’s playing to Oxford dons – but what a mediocre, third rate card to play! They can read those opinions in the Guardian any day of the week.

          1. I don’t give a fig for Hague and his continuing career, neither will Trump. Hague is a rapidly fading political figure with little or no influence. His opinions will have no effect on UK-US relations during Trump’s upcoming second term as President.

    5. Yes, on Guido. Hague's a dope, remember the flat back wagon 'Save the £'. Anne Widdicombe despaired of him.

    7. They may not like Trump, but can't they remain neutral instead of recommending that cackling idiot Harris?

    1. I remember the photo op, she wouldn't agree Germany to pay it's fair share of NATO budget. Look at all those wimps, standing around. Exit polls in couple hours 🤞🤞

  103. Why when it is reported on the media it appears perfectly reasonable for women to vote en masse for Kamala but there is something strange about young men voting for Trump.

    1. I saw the first words, "New Bedford MA…" and immediately thought that the Bedford marque had been resurrected with a model called the MA!!

    1. He's starting to remind me of the old boy from 'The Fast Show'.
      "But of course I was vey vey vey drunk, ha ha!"

      1. I like the 'Quare' sketch…seems like a quare, probably is a quare…what do you think Bunty? 'oh yes definitely a quare'. Also George Whitebread, have met a few of those…😆😆😆

        1. Me. It is not as though he was not given the best tutelage at Trinity College Cambridge whose Chancellor at the time was Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, whose scholars included nuclear physicists and eminent writers and thinkers. He was given Glyn Daniel as a personal tutor and still failed to learn anything from his position of great privilege.

          The first drink I ordered in the Saracens Head was a half pint of bitter when I turned 18. His was a Cherry Brandy. Jesus wept.

          1. I don’t judge someone by what they drank as a callow and rather unworldly youth 57 years ago.

  109. Lovely people these Lefties.. Lovely lovely people ..
    Impeached Trump twice. Tried him as a private citizen. Then tried to remove him from 16 state ballots aborted by the supreme court. Subjected him to 5 criminal & civil law suits designed to bankrupt him. Targeted for assassination on two occasions with deliberate collapse of secret service performance. Really lovely people.

    Their crazy deformed cousins are in power in the UK now.

  110. Lovely people these Lefties.. Lovely lovely people ..
    Impeached Trump twice. Tried him as a private citizen. Then tried to remove him from 16 state ballots aborted by the supreme court. Subjected him to 5 criminal & civil law suits designed to bankrupt him. Targeted for assassination on two occasions with deliberate collapse of secret service performance. Really lovely people.

    Their crazy deformed cousins are in power in the UK now.

  111. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    As the US presidential race rollercoasters towards its finale, many Americans are already bracing themselves for a close and highly contested vote. The uncertain outcome of the election is just the beginning of what could be a fraught period for the United States and the world.

    There are 76 days for mischief, or worse, between this year’s election date and the transition to a new president being sworn in on 20 January. Traditionally, this period has been used by the president-elect to piece together a cabinet, reward staffers and large campaign donors with senior positions, refine policy priorities, entertain foreign officials eager to ingratiate themselves, and studiously avoid any hard commitments that may handicap the administration down the road.

    Questioning the legitimacy of the election results will increase the risks for the United States

    Post-election, outgoing presidents and their administration are the lamest of lame ducks and eager to move on. Joe Biden will be doling out last-minute political favours, hosting farewell dinners, and hiring an architect for his presidential library – as well as raising the money to pay for it. His senior team will be busy parlaying their government jobs into private sector sinecures, signing on with speaker’s bureaus, and re-acquainting themselves with their family members.

    The dangers of this political twilight period are entirely self-inflicted. Much of what happens during this two-and-a-half month period could be done well before or immediately after the election.

    The US has legislation on the books designed to telescope the orderly transition of power. The Presidential Transition Act requires that office space and IT support is provided to the two candidates as soon as they are officially nominated at their political conventions. The Act also requires the existing administration to begin transition planning six months before election day, and to designate a senior career official to coordinate transition planning across all departments and agencies.

    Separate legislation allows each candidate to submit requests for security clearances for transition team members who may need access to classified information. The law directs that these security clearances be completed by the day after the election, if possible. While the president can appoint more than 4,000 people, many senior officials could be vetted, confirmed by the Senate, and ready to assume their responsibilities soon after the election.

    This transition period actually used to be longer. When the Great Depression hit during the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt had to wait until 4 March,1933, to be sworn in. By that time, the banking system had crashed and unemployment was close to 25 per cent. In response, the 20th amendment to the US constitution moved the inauguration date up to 20 January, where it remains.

    The British system eliminates this uncertainty. The prime minister voluntarily evacuates 10 Downing Street soon after losing an election. (Surprisingly, there is no legal requirement to do so.) There is no ambiguity over where governmental authority resides.

    Questioning the legitimacy of the election results will increase the risks for the United States. The Republican National Committee is involved in more than 120 lawsuits across 26 states to ensure, it claims, that people do not vote illegally. They are planning to recruit and deploy 100,000 ‘election integrity directors’ in battleground states, along with an ‘election integrity hotline’ to report any alleged irregularities. Republicans have introduced legislation in Congress and in state houses around the country designed to prevent voter fraud, thereby laying the predicate for legal challenges if the election results don’t go their way. Democrats argue that sufficient laws and other safeguards already exist and these efforts are merely designed to deter people from voting.

    Trump has already suggested that his accepting the outcome is conditional on it being ‘a fair and legal and good election’. If he loses, it is likely his supporters will again reach for extrajudicial remedies, as they infamously did on 6 January, despite far more precautions in place this time around.

    The risks extend well beyond America’s shores. Foreign governments like Iran, Russia and China are already exploiting social media to promote disinformation, inflame public opinion, and sow domestic dissension, and they will continue to do so. The spectre of unrest and violence engulfing Washington or other major cities across the United States would give comfort to authoritarian regimes.

    Bad actors could also seize this window of opportunity to issue threats, start a conflict, develop nuclear weapons, or generally behave badly. Putin’s war against Ukraine shows no signs of abating and, indeed, may escalate. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could test another nuclear device, which would spur additional calls in South Korea and Japan to acquire their own nuclear arsenals.

    The Middle East is already aflame with multiple wars ongoing across the region, and may expand further. The regime in Tehran is reported to be only days away from assembling a nuclear weapon. The ayatollahs could decide that a presidential transition presents the best time to complete Iran’s decades-long project of becoming a nuclear power. And China continues to claim vast swathes of the South China Sea, arm Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and repress its own people.

    So here we are, only a few days away from the most consequential election since the end of the Cold War – buckled in, white knuckled, and pulling Gs as the rollercoaster races through its final hairpin turns. Among all these uncertainties, having an extended period to transfer presidential authority seems both unnecessary and dangerous.

    WRITTEN BY
    Mitchell Reiss
    Mitchell Reiss is chairman of the International Churchill Society and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

    1. Democrats argue that sufficient laws and other safeguards already exist and these efforts are merely designed to deter people from voting.

      If people are genuinely entitled to vote, why on earth would they be deterred?

      If they are NOT entitled to vote why is deterring them a bad thing?

      1. I really don’t understand.
        Here in Spain a person has to produce his identity card or passport in order to vote. I think that is the norm in most countries.
        No one believes me when I explain that the few times I voted in the UK for example it was enough to simply give my name and address.
        A system where voters are not required to properly identify themselves opens up unlimited possibilities of electoral fraud.

        1. English Normies would never dream of trying to cast a fraudulent vote in any UK election …

          And I say this without any academic training or qualifications in psychology.

          1. Many years ago my sister and I were both resident in foreign countries, unable to vote. But we discovered that other family members, taking advantage of our absence, voted in our names. Why? I suppose because they could.
            Someone I knew from Birmingham again years ago told me stories about her father’s experience as a driving examiner of Indian boys who all seemed to have similar names taking the driving test for different family members. Why? because they could.
            They say that electoral fraud has never been detected or is so low as to be unimportant. Why do they say that? Because they’ve never seriously investigated it.

          2. That might have been true decades ago, but the past is a different country (now a foreign country!) and they did things differently then.

  112. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    As the US presidential race rollercoasters towards its finale, many Americans are already bracing themselves for a close and highly contested vote. The uncertain outcome of the election is just the beginning of what could be a fraught period for the United States and the world.

    There are 76 days for mischief, or worse, between this year’s election date and the transition to a new president being sworn in on 20 January. Traditionally, this period has been used by the president-elect to piece together a cabinet, reward staffers and large campaign donors with senior positions, refine policy priorities, entertain foreign officials eager to ingratiate themselves, and studiously avoid any hard commitments that may handicap the administration down the road.

    Questioning the legitimacy of the election results will increase the risks for the United States

    Post-election, outgoing presidents and their administration are the lamest of lame ducks and eager to move on. Joe Biden will be doling out last-minute political favours, hosting farewell dinners, and hiring an architect for his presidential library – as well as raising the money to pay for it. His senior team will be busy parlaying their government jobs into private sector sinecures, signing on with speaker’s bureaus, and re-acquainting themselves with their family members.

    The dangers of this political twilight period are entirely self-inflicted. Much of what happens during this two-and-a-half month period could be done well before or immediately after the election.

    The US has legislation on the books designed to telescope the orderly transition of power. The Presidential Transition Act requires that office space and IT support is provided to the two candidates as soon as they are officially nominated at their political conventions. The Act also requires the existing administration to begin transition planning six months before election day, and to designate a senior career official to coordinate transition planning across all departments and agencies.

    Separate legislation allows each candidate to submit requests for security clearances for transition team members who may need access to classified information. The law directs that these security clearances be completed by the day after the election, if possible. While the president can appoint more than 4,000 people, many senior officials could be vetted, confirmed by the Senate, and ready to assume their responsibilities soon after the election.

    This transition period actually used to be longer. When the Great Depression hit during the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt had to wait until 4 March,1933, to be sworn in. By that time, the banking system had crashed and unemployment was close to 25 per cent. In response, the 20th amendment to the US constitution moved the inauguration date up to 20 January, where it remains.

    The British system eliminates this uncertainty. The prime minister voluntarily evacuates 10 Downing Street soon after losing an election. (Surprisingly, there is no legal requirement to do so.) There is no ambiguity over where governmental authority resides.

    Questioning the legitimacy of the election results will increase the risks for the United States. The Republican National Committee is involved in more than 120 lawsuits across 26 states to ensure, it claims, that people do not vote illegally. They are planning to recruit and deploy 100,000 ‘election integrity directors’ in battleground states, along with an ‘election integrity hotline’ to report any alleged irregularities. Republicans have introduced legislation in Congress and in state houses around the country designed to prevent voter fraud, thereby laying the predicate for legal challenges if the election results don’t go their way. Democrats argue that sufficient laws and other safeguards already exist and these efforts are merely designed to deter people from voting.

    Trump has already suggested that his accepting the outcome is conditional on it being ‘a fair and legal and good election’. If he loses, it is likely his supporters will again reach for extrajudicial remedies, as they infamously did on 6 January, despite far more precautions in place this time around.

    The risks extend well beyond America’s shores. Foreign governments like Iran, Russia and China are already exploiting social media to promote disinformation, inflame public opinion, and sow domestic dissension, and they will continue to do so. The spectre of unrest and violence engulfing Washington or other major cities across the United States would give comfort to authoritarian regimes.

    Bad actors could also seize this window of opportunity to issue threats, start a conflict, develop nuclear weapons, or generally behave badly. Putin’s war against Ukraine shows no signs of abating and, indeed, may escalate. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could test another nuclear device, which would spur additional calls in South Korea and Japan to acquire their own nuclear arsenals.

    The Middle East is already aflame with multiple wars ongoing across the region, and may expand further. The regime in Tehran is reported to be only days away from assembling a nuclear weapon. The ayatollahs could decide that a presidential transition presents the best time to complete Iran’s decades-long project of becoming a nuclear power. And China continues to claim vast swathes of the South China Sea, arm Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and repress its own people.

    So here we are, only a few days away from the most consequential election since the end of the Cold War – buckled in, white knuckled, and pulling Gs as the rollercoaster races through its final hairpin turns. Among all these uncertainties, having an extended period to transfer presidential authority seems both unnecessary and dangerous.

    WRITTEN BY
    Mitchell Reiss
    Mitchell Reiss is chairman of the International Churchill Society and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

  113. University scraps English Literature degree as ‘no longer viable’

    Canterbury Christ Church University blames a decline in applicants as it drops the subject for new students

    Telegraph Reporters
    05 November 2024 6:30pm GMT

    Canterbury Christ Church University is scrapping English Literature degrees because of a decline in applicants.

    The university, based in Kent, said the course was “no longer viable in the current climate” and would not be offered from September 2025.

    Canterbury has a played a significant role in the history of English literature, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and as the birthplace of Christopher Marlowe and Aphra Behn.

    Students in their first or second year will be able to finish their degree and those completing a foundation year will be given the chance to switch to alternative courses.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/05/TELEMMGLPICT000227966194_17308299151530_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqzsG1RmRUWpnHvml0pBVGHPlZBRoezaD186OgGOZAjuQ.jpeg?imwidth=680 *
    *
    *

    1. Philistines.

      Not a proper university.

      We had a student on a French course with us last week. She is also studying English Literature at IB Higher but does not have to study a single work by Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer.

      I despair.

      3. I learned a lot from an American friend who was professor of English Literature at Utrecht in the seventies. We met in the Donaldson Library (under the dome) at University College London and became great friends.

        I was introduced to the writings of Malcolm Lowry and several other authors of whose works I had no previous knowledge. Michael Routh later became an authority on Christopher Isherwood and doubtless other authors.

        Unfortunately we lost contact but I remain in contact with his Dutch student who was then studying at Kings College under his guidance and is now a therapist in Rotterdam.

  114. University scraps English Literature degree as ‘no longer viable’

    Canterbury Christ Church University blames a decline in applicants as it drops the subject for new students

    Telegraph Reporters
    05 November 2024 6:30pm GMT

    Canterbury Christ Church University is scrapping English Literature degrees because of a decline in applicants.

    The university, based in Kent, said the course was “no longer viable in the current climate” and would not be offered from September 2025.

    Canterbury has a played a significant role in the history of English literature, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and as the birthplace of Christopher Marlowe and Aphra Behn.

    Students in their first or second year will be able to finish their degree and those completing a foundation year will be given the chance to switch to alternative courses.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/05/TELEMMGLPICT000227966194_17308299151530_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqzsG1RmRUWpnHvml0pBVGHPlZBRoezaD186OgGOZAjuQ.jpeg?imwidth=680 *
    *
    *

  115. Just put £20 on Trump to win the popular vote at 3/1 with Bet365 – cant believe it's that generous, they have him to win at 8/13!!

    1. The popular vote will almost certainly be Harris, because all the very high population cities and States in the USA tend to be Democrat denominated.
      And the "crook" votes are almost entirely Democrat, they're better at cheating than the GOP.
      Far better.
      Far far better.

      1. Possibly, but I felt 3/1 was too good to miss – I think the GOP will benefit, like the Tories do here, by the phenomenon known as 'Shy Tories', where people lie to the pollsters as they are embarrassed to admit they're voting Tory/Republican…. we'll see.

      1. I should know better, KJ, my old man always used to say – dont ever bet on anything, son, you’ll never see a bookie with the arse out of his kecks (translation available on request)…….

        2. You probably should …nevertheless…😊😊 go for it..no risk no reward. Your OM quite right tho. Speaking of a bet, Netanyahu sacked Gallant this evening, reported G was on the verge of a peace deal. Never saw that one coming 🙄

  118. Thought for the day as America decides.

    What would governments look like if people who were employed in the public sector were not allowed to vote and
    why should people be allowed to vote for the people who pay their wages?

    It's a perfect example of a conflict of interest and they should be forcibly recused because of it.

  122. Just placed a range of bets in the US election:

    Number of electoral college votes for Trump

    Some State Races: Pa. Mi. NC

    Number of GOP Senate Seats

    Control of House (odds here are AGAINST GOP)

    I have used Barnes and Baris as guides.

    1. Now, having done that, place some accumulators, but perm out your least confident bets.

      Then, place an accumulator purely on your least confident bets.

      Make a ton of money.

      Good luck.

  123. From Coffee House,the Spectator

    The crowd gathers, wrapped in thick coats and scarves, the crisp air mingling with the scent of hot chocolate and warm smoke from the bonfire. Children sit on their parents’ shoulders, eyes wide with anticipation, as the first crackle in the sky is met with an appreciative cheer. As more fireworks light up the sky, the excitement begins to wane. Each pop and bang elicit fewer reactions, and the comfort of shared laughter and idle chit-chat begins to take hold. Soon enough, the fireworks become little more than a backdrop to the real joy of the evening – familiar faces and easy conversation.

    Sheltered in our homes, a very different scene unfolds: our pets shaking, crying, attempting to escape

    Sheltered in our homes, a very different scene unfolds: our pets shaking, crying, attempting to escape. It’s a 5 November tradition that’s as predictable as it is distressing. The UK is home to 13.5 million dogs; around 6.75 million are visibly scared of fireworks. As a result, these dogs can sustain physical injuries, suffer from prolonged anxiety, and even have shorter lifespans.

    In my household, the only remedy for our dog, Mollie, is the deep, monotonous drone of the tumble-dryer – understandably, she prefers the machine’s humming to sporadic explosions or, her former therapy, the cheerless melodies of Starsailor. Mollie’s experience isn’t exceptional; each year, the RSPCA receives hundreds of complaints about fireworks. But household pets are only the tip of the flame. Once the bonfires are lit, countless wild animals are thrown into a warzone without humans and tumble-dryers to keep them safe.

    Fireworks can make panicked horses collide with fences, birds scatter in distress, and foxes abandon their cubs. Although limited, the scientific literature paints a pretty clear picture: human-made noise is ‘detrimental to wildlife and natural ecosystems’ and impacts the overwhelming majority of species.

    When we inflict pain and suffering on animals – when owls are caged and dolphins harpooned – we experience empathy and concern. Something about these acts strikes us as wrong. It’s the job of philosophers to understand what, if anything, makes them wrong. Like Guy Fawkes, our ancestors were enthusiastically religious – humans from the heavens, our fellow creatures from the dirt – but we know better now. We come from, and will return, to the same place: the cruel, blind processes of the natural world. To borrow from Mary Midgley, ‘We are not just rather like animals; we are animals.’ Our moral kinship consists in this fact: we share with our fellow creatures a capacity for pleasure, pain, happiness, and suffering. In the case of fireworks, the question we have to ask is as follows: is our pleasure worth their pain?

    Less than a third of Brits enjoy fireworks ‘a lot’, according to a recent government report. Most of us enjoy fireworks ‘a little’, ‘not that much’, or ‘not at all’. That doesn’t seem nearly enough enthusiasm to justify the harm caused to animals. Each year, we sleepwalk into a parade of animal misery and, the worst part is, so few of us care about the explosions.

    There are things to be done, at both the state and individual level. Fireworks for private displays are currently limited to 120 dB. (There are no such limits for public displays.) Birds respond to frequencies above 40 dB and, for dogs, anything above 85 dB is ‘playing with auditory fire’. The compromise is obvious: governments should legislate against fireworks that aren’t ‘silent’ or low-noise. The flashes will still cause harm; but it’s a step in the right direction. At least, this way, the firework fanatics can enjoy their glitter and sparkles.

    At an individual level, using non-silent fireworks is rarely defensible. The RSPCA has published an interactive map that shows how many cats and dogs your private display will affect. There are very few residential areas where the numbers are reassuring. In my garden, for example, setting off a standard 120 dB firework would frighten around 2,000 dogs. I have to ask myself, honestly: is it worth scaring so many dogs – let alone the birds, foxes, cats, sheep, cows, horses, and the like – for a flash of tinsel in the sky? It would take some fuzzy logic to justify that.

    So, this 5 November, let’s choose traditions that don’t come at the cost of unnecessary suffering. As we gather to celebrate, let’s remember what really matters. So long as we share the night with the people and pets we care about, the rest is just (unwanted) background noise.

    WRITTEN BY
    Jack Symes
    Jack Symes is a philosopher and researcher at Durham University

    1. It's not a fun time for us but Mongo tends to stick with Junior – who doesn't like bangs, fire or burning things generally – and thus has a calm, friendly face to be with. Oscar is jumpy, Lucy very worried but both are with us downstairs. Lucy actually has her head on my shoulder (she has a longer snout than your average Newfie. We think there's Labrador in her parentage.

      1. I found out Kadi's Hotter Dog fleece which is like a huggy coat with sleeves and put it on him. It seemed to help calm him down (or maybe it was that the bangs were fewer). I bought Oscar a calming vest but he wasn't impressed so I gave it away.

    1. Obama really has a big opinion of himself, doesn't he. He was only elected on such a popular wave because everyone hated Bush and the neo-cons, and then they all lined up behind him. Anyway he is spiteful and whiny and is only going to be less and less popular.

      1. I saw a video of the deranged William Hague earlier. The visual comparisons with Obama are striking in that both appear to be on the cusp of expiration. That cannot come too soon for me.

      2. I think he knew perfectly well what the pharmaceutical industry is – many of their worst crimes have been committed in African countries. From that clip, he seems to be accusing them of releasing viruses and then selling people the “vaccines” against them. Not sure it works quite like that – I think PR has a lot more to do with it than actual viruses – but he’s right about their villainy.

    1. The intent is to confiscate the land to force it into the hands of those more 'favourable' to government policy.

      2. I believe it is more likely a land grab by Bill Gates in order to promote GMO crops and otherwise disrupt our historic food supply systems.

        I just wish someone would shoot the fucker before he inflicts yet more damage on our country.

  133. See that commercial vehicles are now heavily taxed – all down to the 'green' agenda of course.

    Plumber drives a pick up truck as well as having company vans. He said that now his vehicle costs have increased ten fold he'll have to pass that on. Let's say he does 3 jobs a day, 250 days of the year. Previously that'd be about £1 per call out. It's now going to be not 792, but over £8000. His hourly rate of £80 is now £90.

    What other choice does he have?

    1. Formerly pick up trucks of the double cab type weren't classed as commercial vehicles. Now they are.

    2. You will own nothing and be happy. The budget is just following the course laid down by the WEF/UN. The plan is really coming together.

    1. Honestly, what did anyone expect? Labour like unlimited invasion. It expands their voter base.

    1. And described the police officer who unfortunately shot Chris Kaba in the line of duty as a hero. Good start!

  148. I agree, but my original point was that it won’t do Oxford University much good if its Vice Chancellor sabotages its relationship with the US administration with undiplomatic comments.

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