Tuesday 7 February: It was politically inept of Tory MPs to abandon Liz Truss so readily

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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541 thoughts on “Tuesday 7 February: It was politically inept of Tory MPs to abandon Liz Truss so readily”

      1. Thanks for that. I’ve worked out what happened – I was up a little earlier today, and while I started to post the new page, I had time to divert my attention to breakfast, and the rest is history… 😟

        1. You are, of course, forgiven. We’re all just pleased that you’re well.
          Don’t let it happen again. 😂😂😂

          1. No sausage, just porridge. And toast. Today (Wednesday) , having posted the new page on time, I had a celebratory boiled egg, with soldiers… If only because I feel I should occasionally use my eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher…

        3. ‘Morning Geoff. If you are trying to get yourself sacked you will need to disappear for several days, not just the one. Must try harder!

    2. A few of us have posted on yesterday’s page as the laggardly Geoff had not done his duty this morning 😂!

  6. I had thought to try and copy today’s comments from yesterday’s page but it is far too large and pictures as well, and the latter need special handling..

    1. Reds under the bed? During lockdown we had ‘dob on your neighbour’ and people did. The Left are insidious. As soon as you think they’ve been dealt with – Hitler, the Nazis – hey come back calling themselves ‘liberals’ or ‘progressives’.

  9. 370846+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Forget coronation chicken, Asian-style lamb is a dish fit for a King
    Britons are urged to celebrate the King’s Coronation with a roast rack of lamb with Asian-style marinade and a strawberry and ginger trifle

    Halal no doubt , these people are really -ucking MAD if you reconstruct a lamb to its former self via supermarket prices
    it would likely cost in excess of 15 K plus the gas used in cooking
    would have you going on twitter seeking a crowd fund.

    As for a ginger whinger at Windsor trifle that is not an issue that should be trifled with at ALL in my opinion.

    1. Profiteroles with vanilla custard, followed by chocolate mousse and strawberry cheesecake followed by a peaty brandy, then tiramisu. To wrap it all up, biscotti.

      1. What the hell for? No one cares what fiction that contains. Or perhaps he’ll read the bit about raping children to show it up?

      3. 370846+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        Would not surprise me in the least
        what with oath taking in parliament
        via the quran & halal on the parliamentary canteen menu

      4. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but what I can’t understand is the public Bank Holiday which is to be held two days after the Coronation. Had they made both the Bank Holiday and the Coronation on the Friday, then that would have made sense, it would have been a BH to enable the public to watch the Coronation without a loss of pay. And it would still have enabled everyone to have a “long weekend”.

        1. Most people these days have the facility to record it and watch at their leisure – fast forwarding through the Quran bit.

  11. We’re off to Oxford today for OH’s six week check- up so won’t be here much. Sunshine and clear skies after the hard frost.
    It’ll be the furthest I’ve driven for a long time as I don’t go far these days.

    1. Good luck. Once you get to Oxford you’re only allowed to stay 15 minutes or summat like that…so I’ve been told.

      1. I don’t think that’s come in yet….. but the hospital car park is far too small and always full. But it is cheaper than the Gloucester one.

          1. My application went sideways I’ll have to start it again.
            It’s strange how so many important tasks on websites can be so bloody difficult.
            We have local street lighting problems, I contacted the District council on the advertised website, and it all went pear shaped, I’m convinced they make it deliberately difficult. You can’t get through on a landline.
            And yesterday I received a reply from the orthopaedic department, after 30 years of problems with my left knee. I’m still not on the friggin waiting list for an op.

          3. I’ve been told I’ll be on the waiting list after my next useless and quite pointless appointment.
            I must hold the record, it all started at least 30 years ago.
            But hey there’s always someone worse off, in any circumstances.

  12. It’s not really fair criticism to focus just on tory MPs as being politically inept.
    The whole lot of them are. And that is far too polite.
    It’s been said that Bore-us is about to return with all guns blazing. Probably a water pistol with a leaky handle. Useless POS.

  13. It was politically inept of Tory MPs to abandon Liz Truss so readily

    I don’t think MPs have much say these days and those that try get cancelled themselves.

    1. It is a strange state of affairs where the right thing to do is actively, coherently assaulted by the statists. Whenever Truss’ policies are raised there’s a concerted assault by one post commenters attacking her. The hallmark of the Lefty, never play the ball, play the man. Don’t let people think, just smear.

      It’s truly tiresome. However, as I got sick of seeing these people I’ve done some digging to match user posts and pseudonyms to IPs, next step is to find patterns and then identify those people. Having their address published and them exposed as a paid troll will do wonders to silence them.

  14. Good moaning all,

    A lovely morning at McPhee Towers, sunny, clear, calm -1℃. I bet the windmills are churning out the gigawatts.

    Continuing the topic of the common law, this video is lifted from the website commonlawconstitution.org.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enkf4OXZa0A

    It is is fascinating. Never having done jury service, I found it highly educational even at my advanced years. Watching the jury pull this case to pieces and question the very law itself is something that should be shown to youngsters in every school in the land. We have been poorly educated for many decades, centuries even, about the rôle of the Jury in a Common Law jurisdiction. Few know at all about the rôle of the jury not only to find a defendant innocent or guilty but to question the very statute that brought that defendant to court in the first place. This in the land that gave the world English Common Law and 1215 Magna Carta.

    The good news is that there appears to be an awakening now happening here and people are beginning to see the rediscovery of Common Law and Jury Nullification as a means to help us to defeat the dark forces which seek to subjugate us all in 2023.

    The bad news is that this trial took place nearly 40 years ago. What are the chances that in the UK in 2023 you would find 12 random people as intelligent, educated, articulate and open-minded to serve on a jury as the 12 upright citizens of Wisconsin seen here.

    1. 12 Angry Men is one of my favourite films. It exposes the prejudices, the fears, the personal dislikes of each jurist as one man stands firm to get to the truth of the case – without violence, coercion or intimidation, just reason.

      However as you say we simply don’t have people with sufficient intellectual calibre any more.

    2. 12 Angry Men is one of my favourite films. It exposes the prejudices, the fears, the personal dislikes of each jurist as one man stands firm to get to the truth of the case – without violence, coercion or intimidation, just reason.

      However as you say we simply don’t have people with sufficient intellectual calibre any more.

    3. I was the dissenting voice on a trial more than 20 years ago. The bloke was clearly guilty of child abuse but he was acquitted.
      The children were interviewed on video and had clearly been made sexually aware. Of course these days that kind of abuse is now routine in schools.

  15. ‘Morning, Peeps. Frosty start here.

    The Letters are generally rather dull today, so here is Charles Moore’s column instead.  Worth reading in my view.  In particular his comments about net zero and diversity are spot on:

    COMMENT

    Net Zero is the NHS’s latest excuse to skip work

    The truth is that becoming a greener NHS involves doing less and seeing fewer patients

    CHARLES MOORE 7 February 2023 • 6:00am

    Did you know that the NHS “became the first health system to embed net zero into legislation, through the Health and Care Act 2022”? The health service boasts of this fact, but I find it depressing.

    Surely what patients need now is treatment, not massive projects to hit arbitrary targets, most of which are not directly related to health.

    A friend who is a front-line hospital doctor writes to me eloquently on the subject. Having come through Covid and now battling with the effects of strikes, he gets short-tempered with “being bombarded endlessly by email by diversity, LGBTQ+ network/month identity spam”; but this is nothing beside the mountain of material about decarbonisation which flows from hospital trusts, royal colleges and NHS leaders.

    He goes on, “There are endless Microsoft Teams meetings announced on this stuff and of course I have never had time to attend and don’t imagine anyone who is actually involved in treating patients does attend them.” A good way of cutting waste “would be to sack all those who do have time for it and then stop any further such events/news from slowing down the health service”. The doctor also senses hypocrisy, since he believes the NHS to be the biggest greenhouse gas producer in the UK. And while it is true that air pollution “does have a measurable impact on people’s respiratory health in large urban centres, all other claims of morbidity and mortality are absurdly indirect, speculative and falsifiable”.

    One of the three main aims of the policy advanced by The Lancet, the Royal College of Physicians and the BMA is to end the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. The energy prices involved would make people poorer. Getting poorer is usually a sure way of getting unhealthier.

    The front-line doctor concludes thus: “Many of the ways of becoming a greener NHS involve doing less; seeing fewer patients, performing fewer operations, prescribing less medicine and using fewer ambulances. All of which the health service is achieving at a phenomenal rate!”

    Historians will see that one of the most extraordinary developments of our times has been to exploit public services, businesses, schools and so forth, to disseminate propaganda only slightly related to the work of the body in question.

    This week, I received the glossy “new strategy” of a local charity which helps people in need, often in rural settings. As well as rightly continuing to address poverty, it wants to “dig deeper to include commitments such as embedding equality, diversity and inclusion across our organisation and work, and supporting local action to address climate change”. These aims are more political than charitable. All that digging deeper will be at the expense of the people who most need help.

    Political reality

    Liz Truss’s defence on Sunday of the economic policies which helped force her resignation was quite convincing. She was right to look for ways of liberating the economy from its low-growth prison.

    What her argument lacked, however, was the political context. I do not so much mean the state of public opinion – though that, too, was rather unfavourable. I mean the nature of the formal political contest which she won, and of the more informal ensuing one which she so quickly lost.

    In her Sunday Telegraph essay, Ms Truss speaks of having a “mandate”. She did have such a thing, in the sense that she won according to the rules. But the mandate was not real.

    The Conservatives’ method of electing a leader is, at least when the party is in office, a disaster. It gives the active power to the party membership, who decide between the final candidates. It often fails to secure the full backing of MPs.

    This goes against the most basic fact of our parliamentary system, which defines any prime minister as the person who can best command a majority in the House of Commons. The current Tory system means that MPs can be thoroughly half-hearted about the person chosen to lead them and feel under little moral obligation to serve her (or him). This in turn means that the winner is extremely vulnerable to an internal coup.

    Ms Truss hints at her difficulty here when she says that “by the close of the ballot” she had “the backing of the majority of MPs declaring a preference”. In other words, she did not have the explicit backing of an overall majority of Tory MPs. Significant numbers had it in for her. The followers of Rishi Sunak noted that, in victory, she did not congratulate him on the contest. Nor did she seek, by her appointments, to bind in enough of the defeated. She acted as if she had won hands down. It would have been more prudent to have started cautiously and built bridges with colleagues.

    The traditional genius of the Conservative party is that it is fashioned for government, which it knows can be secured only through the loyalty of its MPs. These skills seem to have deserted its senior politicians in this century. Instead, a fairly small faction briefly seizes power and tries vainly to exercise it, until brought down by sceptical colleagues.

    The traditional genius of the Conservative party is that it is fashioned for government, which it knows can be secured only through the loyalty of its MPs. These skills seem to have deserted its senior politicians in this century. Instead, a fairly small faction briefly seizes power and tries vainly to exercise it, until brought down by sceptical colleagues.

    After his first leadership contest of 2022, Mr Sunak seemed to have understood this problem better than his rivals. He therefore won second time round. He will do a great service to his successors if he can change the system so that MPs resume responsibility for choosing their leader.

    * * *

    Some good BTLs:

    Christine Ten Holter 1 HR AGO

    Judging from some of the rubbish Universities are coming out with these days, I can’t help feeling that it would be better for the nurses anyway, not to go to university but, as in the old days, to encourage compassion and dedication to their patients as the number one requirement. Another wonderful project of Mr Blair’s, as are so many of today’s ills.

    G Hazelwood 1 HR AGO

    A vast amount of equipment used by the NHS originated from oil derivatives. Think syringes, tubes, packaging, aprons, gloves, etc etc.

    The NHS would not exist without oil and minerals extracted for the earth.

    The reach of the green lobby into our lives knows no bounds. If they don’t kill us through hypothermia, they will do so by diverting funds from medical necessitates to unproven green nonsense designed to impoverish us.

    E Pittman1 HR AGO

    Teachers too.I couldn’t help but notice recently a BBC news report depicting a typical classroom.Scrawled across the blackboard in large capitals the words”Climate change”.Obviously it was carefully chosen by the BBC who can’t get through any news bulletin without mentioning the words”climate change” but it does seem it’s all oour kids are being brainwashed by in our schools these days.

    Ian Bagster 1 HR AGO

    I finally understand what net zero is. It’s the combined IQ of the people who dreamt it up.

    2. She had dropped her children off at school and was walking the dog home. Her husband was at home or at work.
      That river looks too still and placid to drown any one. She would have been able to get out easily if she’d fallen in.

      2. The Daily Express shows on a map that her dog was found near a caravan park.

        Most dogs, when they’ve lost their owner, return to the last place that they saw their owner.

        …and just to complete, isn’t it interesting that the Police have never commented about asking anyone living

        or working in the caravan park whether they saw/heard anything. Yet she walked right past it.

        1. Spot on, if she was in one of the caravans the dog would stand and bark.
          My personal opinion (only) is ‘she’s done a runner’.
          Just sayin’.

          1. I partly agree Eddy. If she had gone voluntarily to one of the caravans you would certainly be right.

            However in a violent abduction the dog might very well have bolted terrified, and only later returned to

            the area of the abduction…..the last place that it saw its owner.

            Whatever happened, I find it interesting that the Police are so determinedly ignoring discussing

            the caravan site and its occupants.

          2. I wonder if there is something rather too “sensitive” about the ethnicity of the caravan site’s occupants for people to be encouraged to consider the matter?

          3. Yes, someone suggested that she may have moved away in order to to protect the children from her (unlikely as it seems) abusive partner.
            Or it could be a continuing criminal investigation and the police are using the river story as cover, while they try to track down the abductor who could easily kill his hostage.

      3. Not necessarily. The cold water could have caused shock, as in “Cold water shock causes the blood vessels in the skin to close, which
        increases the resistance of blood flow. Heart rate is also increased. As
        a result the heart has to work harder and your blood pressure goes up.
        Cold water shock can therefore cause heart attacks, even in the
        relatively young and healthy.”

    3. Partner, tusk tusk. Working from home, I do believe. Lots of accusations on the social meejia apparently. Very odd case because the lady seems to have gone missing in 10 minutes.

    1. That’s right Maggie. The rich Arab countries caused the earthquakes by their fracking, innit.

    2. They didn’t even take in one single refugee from Syria although they have room for one million at Mecca.
      It’s another way of spreading their religious disease.

    1. The intent is to scam you for tax. The more they control, the less power you have. If people cannot pay in cash then every penny is taxed and removed from you without your permission or consent.

      Considering how incompetent government is, who foresees endless mistakes?

    1. Of course (ho ho) it will be done in working hours.
      I very much doubt anyone would give up their free time to attend such nonsense.

    2. Now imagine if they weren’t paid unless they actually did the work. I imagine a lot more of them would be pushing to not have their time wasted.

      It’s not just the meeting, it’s the time before and after context switching/re-arranging work. Chances are it’s a good 4000-5000 hours lost, not to mention the cost of the individual’s time.

  25. We’ve got one window with condensation between the double glazing. Not sure whether to see about resolving it or just ignoring it while we sell.

    Has anyone else had this problem, and what did you do?

        1. It may put off some buyers. I’m not sure, but could it adversely affect the compulsory ‘energy’ certification sellers must obtain? Maybe get a cheap replacement.

          1. Aye, spoken to a glazier who said ‘it’ll come up on the survey and they’ll recommend replacing the windows, which’ll reduce the cost. Quote for a replacement was £108. I’m assuming without VAT or fitting (as my life doesn’t work nicely, so might be £500?

      1. Don’t tempt me! Looking at some places for sale you realise the effort I’ve gone to to make the place presentable. Some we can’t change, such as the bed being in situ but at least we’ve put clean linen and made it. While having the desking in the (grandly titled) office isn’t especially nice most of the cruft has been moved off.

        Junior and I even packed away his legion of Lego, leaving only one or two kits out so his room looks less cluttered. It’s still ‘damp’ inside though. Always feels clammy during winter and achingly humid in summer.

        1. Beg, borrow or buy a Dehumidifier.
          Check state of walls with a Damp Detector (cost 10-15 Squid
          Open windows on sunny day

          I know you will have done all of the above, but may help someone

    3. We have this problem with one of the panes in the conservatory. so far we’ve done nothing but it won’t clear by itself. I believe there are companies which can suck the condensation out or it will need replacing.

    4. I had the same problem last November. I contacted the same company which had fixed another window for me 6 or 7 years ago, they came out and gave me a quote. The window is 120cm x 50cm, and the cost was £103 inclusive of VAT. They make up a new double-glazed sealed unit at the factory, then take the old unit out of the frame and replace it with the new one. It took about a week and a half from quote to fitting.

  26. Russia pouring troops into Eastern Ukraine ahead of new offensive. 7 February 2023.

    Russia is pouring reinforcements into Eastern Ukraine ahead of a new offensive that could begin next week along a front where there have been relentless battles for months, a Ukrainian governor said.

    “We are seeing more and more [Russian] reserves being deployed in our direction, we are seeing more equipment being brought in,” said Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk.

    The triumphalism of a week ago has largely vanished from the MSM coverage. In fact todays reporting is not only down beat but minimal. It could be that the Ukies are in dire straits and, as is the way with liars, no one wants to own up to it. Unfortunately living in a world of lies one simply has to wait on events for the truth to seep out!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/07/russia-ukraine-war-news-latest-tanks-wagner-bakhmut-putin/

  28. Yesterday I posted this .gif showing the layout of the ‘Spitfire’ Kona variant, how the ‘Merlin’ EV variant engine could be started and stopped and the location of the cockpit voltmeter which can monitor both the 12 volt Auxiliary Battery’s charging and operational voltage level:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c3dde07382aed6ff66aff5bd6fc6d6aa8a35cee4be175fd38224078d7ee5c66.gif

    As a reminder, the Spitfire MkV has an engine driven generator with a 29 volt output:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f59dd17a9d5b257e2c311b96daf9f332e0f6e01a8617e5210fa81915464d6b13.jpg

    and this can be monitored by the cockpit voltmeter:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fa745d443a035c0ca3246abf2aae452805fb426056abb7ae498e59355292776.jpg

    1. It’s all jolly interesting. Was the engine started by ground ‘jump start’ assistance?

      2. No wibbling,

        Up until now all starting has been achieved on a medium charge (orange) auxiliary battery voltage status.
        Main battery is 60% full so you’d think there would be enough energy in the car to start itself – but that is not necessarily the case.

    3. Well, having plugged in the ‘Trolley Acc’ to the kite I found it locked in:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d6613a292e253bded6cad17cbfdc36d93de23cc7c140ed1ab444e0339c60c53.jpg

      and then the front indicator lit up – all after the main battery had reached the latest fill target of 60% (40kWh).

      So external power looks as though it will be drawn to provide extra charge should the auxiliary battery fall below a certain voltage.

      I think this is around 12.5 volts.

    2. This of course is the real purpose behind the On Line Harms Bill. To shut down dissident voices.

  30. Here’s a difficult situation to try and fathom out. Previous and Desperate shortages of forecourt fuel in the UK depriving motorists of travel. All blamed on Vlad of course.
    Yet now along with Shell, BP have just announced 26 billion pound rise in profits.
    How did that happen ?

    1. Because energy is capped at the cost of the most expensive. This was designed to protect wind from the market – as it’s unreliable, intermittent and inefficient so the state imposed contracts for difference which ensure that all energy is sold at the cost of the highest.

      Thus Shell might drill oil for £1 but they get to sell it for the cost of wind.

      1. It is astonishing that so few people realise just how the PTB are using this false environmental crisis to con the public.

        There is no climate crisis. Carbon dioxide is benign. Man man global warming is a myth.

        We should not reduce the use of fossil fuels until there are readily available economically priced alternatives.

        1. Yep, it’s all a con. A reinforced con pushed from school age. That was always the intent – make it so ingrained and reinforced that the lie becomes ‘fact’ when it is, and will always be a lie.

          1. It’s all been designed to cover the costs of the usual ongoing cock ups by the political classes.
            Tax the profits and pay for the mistakes. Illegal immigrants. 7 million it amounts to each day.

        2. I worked out from my most recent energy bills that it’s probably costing us, two and our Lab around 40 pounds a day to heat our home.
          What other choice do we have.

          1. That sounds a lot. Do you live in a large house?
            Try just heating the room you are in and use electric blankets for the bed.

  31. GB News has meekly caved in to Ofcom and effectively ‘cancelled’ Mark Steyn by exploiting his heart attacks to give him a new unsignable contract. It is clear that Toby Young, the champion of free speech, will have a lot of work to do and will probably be invited onto GB News far less and when he does appear he will probably be given clear instructions as to what he should not say about Mark Steyn’s effective sacking.

    We have yet to hear any comments on this matter from Steyn’s so-called colleagues and fair weather friends such as Wootton. Dolan, Farage, Fox and Christys.

    If a self-proclaimed free speech TV channel can kowtow to Ofcom and punish free speech then GB News’s treatment of Steyn should make us all very worried indeed.

    1. Ofcom will fine GB News into extinction. Steyn is merely the easiest target, others will be isolated and attacked similarly.
      Ofcom follows up the complaints and the Left are always the principal complainants.
      Perhaps if more people did similarly to al beeb they too would be placed under investigative pressures, but even there I very much doubt Ofcom is even-handed.

      The playing field is uneven.

      1. And how long will Neil Oliver survive?

        As far as free speech is concerned we are completely stuffed.

        1. Oliver tends to be more direct, but somewhat less controversial. He normally uses information that is better sourced and explained, so he is less able to be attacked on grounds of spurious woke/made up offence, which is how Ofcom goes for Steyn.
          Also, he doesn’t tend to have guests, who have often been Steyn’s loose cannons; so I hope he will last a lot longer.

          1. He does have guests. He had William Keyte of the common law constituion movemnent on last Saturday to explain the power of juries.

          2. But nowhere near as frequently as Steyn, and the case in point was more a presentation than a controversial discussion. Far more academic/factual than Steyn’s so often are.

          3. How true. The Ofcom investigation into a Steyn broadcast in October in which he interviewed Dr Naomi Wolf was just asking for trouble. Where there is opposition to the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, its spokespeople should be credible, otherwise the arguments will be gravely undermined. Why on earth did Steyn give a platform to the deranged Wolf? I don’t know precisely what she said on his show but she’s a nut job.

            Ofcom investigates GB News over ‘anti-vaccine comments’ made by guest

            Connie Evans, PA Entertainment Reporter
            12 October 2022

            Ofcom has launched an investigation into GB News after a guest on the Mark Steyn programme made comments about the Covid-19 vaccine rollout which potentially breach the regulator’s broadcasting code.

            The broadcasting watchdog received 411 complaints about Naomi Wolf’s comments, which she made while in conversation with Steyn, 62, on October 4.

            American feminist author and journalist Wolf, 59, is best known for her book The Beauty Myth, which led her to become a spokeswoman for what has been described as the third wave of the feminist movement.

            During the interview with Canadian author and radio and television presenter Steyn, Wolf discussed her claim that the Covid-19 vaccination could cause problems with women’s health.

            After beginning its investigation into the free-to-air television and radio news channel, which launched last year, Ofcom said: “We consider that comments made during an interview with author and journalist Dr Naomi Wolf about the coronavirus vaccine rollout raise potential issues under our Broadcasting Code.

            “Specifically, our investigation will consider whether this programme broke our rules designed to protect viewers from harmful material.”

            Last year, Wolf was suspended from Twitter after spreading vaccine misinformation, including one tweet that claimed vaccines were a “software platform that can receive uploads”.

            She also compared top US Covid adviser Dr Anthony Fauci to Satan.

            GB News has been contacted for comment.

            https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ofcom-investigates-gb-news-over-154436066.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEKK9pO3UNyNDfFtRyKxjqvjv9_ZOkuajqEmswofJllJAAcaV-ijRazjBeB8-FKtItts2j-ocG9XUg-kfH3OjbKYyY7xzRUO6qTofo9HMXXr9ESZexRtabzxgbYdIDDqPz27bkO9Q1Il5UOUHrf91xzc7d4ToapLaEGtwHfQVLXz

            And, for good measure:

            …she wrote that vaccines “let you travel back in time”; she argued that the urine and feces of vaccinated people should be separated from society…

            https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/13/covid-19-and-the-new-merchants-of-doubt/

    2. Ofcom it totaly woke far left. It should be made up of members of the public.not ex BBC people and the like.

      1. The big boast of GB News is that it discusses the topics that other news channel do not discuss.

        This is now a lie because GB News has decided not to discuss Covid Vaccine injuries and Pakistani rape gangs.

  32. Good Moaning.
    Today we’re up and down the stairs like the Assyrian empire.
    I bet Sennacherib didn’t have to carry boxes of pictures and crockery.

    1. We had that here some years ago.
      Not enough meat in the meals. Poor mobile signal. Too far from the city. Not enough pocket-money.
      Bastards.

    2. ‘Ungrateful’ is putting it mildly. Greedy savages who won’t want to integrate, will never learn our language (after all – translators are ‘free’ so there is no need.), have no intention of following our laws & customs and – the man and boys in particular – potentially pose a risk to security and public safety. Five children already ….No doubt, in due course they will want to bring in their large extended families too.

    3. Gratitude in spades…..

      (Between you and me, I’d complain about having to live in Scotland….) Seeks shelter.

  36. Just logging a pause. Nine barrow loads so far.

    According to The Grimes, Shitts is to be promoted ever nearer the centre of government. Minister of “Energy Security”. Yeah right…

  37. ‘Spitfire’ Kona

    I left the Kona overnight after doing a one hour auxiliary battery charge last night with the engine running. Sounds a waste of fuel from the main tank but it was 60% full (about 40kWh).

    This morning a charge test reported 12.6 volts but still a 98% charge level:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/381f546b0653ac67345936d1c03fc3c9796e6c145ce6288afbb1b45a008dd213.jpg

    I topped up the auxiliary battery this morning from the ‘Trolley Acc’ i.e. the mains 240 volt supply for the duration of the main battery top up deficit (about 10 mins at 2kW rate):

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/858f98cad84b4a9bdcd9295d0617d19008d462d54dbb281afdfe92ac29ac427f.jpg

    Auxiliary started charging at 14.73 volts and gradually rising.

    1. Good morning, Maggiebelle

      What is your source? We are having to pay substantially more than the figure quoted above in France.

    1. Good Morning, Mr Bear

      Is inter-regional discrimination on the rise? Do Northern Lives Matter?

      1. Good morning, Mr Headmaster, sir.

        Not at all, at all. Those southerners make good pupils. Did you know (fact this) that cockneys name their meal times in the same, proper, ancient, time-honoured was as northerners do, i.e. breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. If you don’t believe me, just ask one.😊

          2. I wish I could succeed and be a social winner
            And I wish my friends arrived at 0ne when I asked them round for dinner
            I know I’ve got the brass
            But I haven’t got the class
            And the whole situation is getting up my arse!

          3. I think you’ll find that in more enlightened circles, ‘brass’ and ‘class’ rhyme with ‘ass’ and ‘mass’.

          4. But in educated circles, the opposite is true.

            How do you pronounce Medicine, Venison, Coventry, Aberystwyth?

          5. “But in educated circles, the opposite is true.”

            There are far more educated people in the North than there are in Norfolk. [And far less inbreeding too.]

    2. When i use to travel into London on the underground from Mill Hill East, or later in life St Albans, it was quite obvious nobody else was on board the train, people just stared into space.

      1. Good afternoon, Maggie. 😘

        It is not easy to know what or how to think when something like this happens. With the complete paucity of any tangible evidence all one can do is speculate.

        1. Go’dag min ven!

          Does it say anywhere what happened to the dog? Hasn’t it been able to help?

          1. Hej, min vän.

            All I know is the dog was found running free in the field. I’ve not read anywhere about where it was taken to or who took it.

          2. You would think that the dog could lead to a place where she and it parted company, if there was an accident?

      1. That’s because you keep licking self adhesive stamps. ( Listening to Hamish and Dougal.)

    5. Nowt else to do whilst one waits for bus/train/ambulance. Isn’t everybody on strike over there?

    1. Mobile phones are popular amongst the young fellas coming to scrounge.
      Are they inviting all their relatives to join them ?

    1. We have been fed the line “the EU is finished” many times before but this may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I do hope so.

      “ Astonishingly EU politicians are immune from prosecution except in extreme circumstances”.

      In the meantime our own government is stitching us all up in knots with the CBDC being brought forward to 2025. Not to mention handing over to WHO the authority to “vaccinate” us whenever it likes. What a future to contemplate.

      1. I’d rather just end it all than ever submit to a forced jab. My life is pretty boring anyway. Now at the age/stage where I need to start serious decluttering to make matters less inconvenient for the sons and husband in due course. Clearing out mother-in-law’s house in 2021 started me thinking this way.

        1. Alf and I have been thinking of moving to a bungalow or a flat/apartment, really due to his knees which will never get better, and to think of him falling over or down the stairs is starting to weigh on my mind (he’s 6’6” and not skinny.). No way I could help him up. We’ve done a very tiny bit of getting rid – but hardly scratched the surface. We have quite a bit of crystal ware and neither of our children would want it. It’s a bit of an overwhelming task to be honest. And I’ve been thinking of our kids having to clear things out but Alf doesn’t seem too worried about it.

          1. Stair lift? By the time you have paid all the cost associated with buying a new place and moving, you will have paid a lot of money and have nothing except a smaller home.

            A neighbour across the road has split their large Edwardian house, extended downstairs (where they now live) and sold the now converted upstairs flat. You could even let the flat, and keep the equity of the whole house that way.

          3. In many ways, I would quite like a bungalow but have a couple of reservations. When it is stupidly hot overnight, we like to have the bedroom windows wide open but would not want to do that in a bungalow. But, unless we have a major clear-out ……
            We would also need to have three bedrooms – one for each of us for most of the time (joys of snoring) – and for when our older son and his children are over from Canada.

          4. Internal screens or wrought iron screen inside the windows and then you can leave the windows open and still be safe.

          5. It’s an option, but to my mind bars/screens suggest the property has something worth stealing.

          7. In many ways, I would quite like a bungalow but have a couple of reservations. When it is stupidly hot overnight, we like to have the bedroom windows wide open but would not want to do that in a bungalow. But, unless we have a major clear-out ……
            We would also need to have three bedrooms – one for each of us for most of the time (joys of snoring) – and for when our older son and his children are over from Canada.

      2. They are not allowed to hand that over. Just like all the other things that are handed over. We are supposedly a sovereign nation… – and then I woke left my slumbers and sat up

  45. News from GBN….Richly Suntanned is going to “…create the new department of Energy Security and Net Zero. Grant Shapps will oversee the new energy grouping.”

    This is insanity on a grand scale. Well, that’s my mind finally made up for the next GE!

        1. That’s actually very poignant.

          The problem is, voting doesn’t make a damned bit of difference as the policies of the state are not set by the government we vote for. They’re set by unaccountable untouchable mandarins.

          (Satsuma’s, of course, are too small).

      2. I strongly suspect that when Labour get in they will give the vote to 16 year old children to replace you and all those like you and to ensure that never again will there be a Conservative government.

        1. Yup because 16 year olds don’t have the experience to suss out the results of Labour’s policies (nor do they learn from history).

    2. Shunk does know that there can be no energy security while et zero is on the table, doesn’t he? What a total bag of effluent.

  46. “Conservative” party office in town has broken conservation laws for replacing windows.

  47. “Conservative” party office in town has broken conservation laws for replacing windows.

  48. Why the Trevelyans are wrong to pay reparations for slavery. 7 February 2021

    To atone for Sir Charles’s actions, should Ms Trevelyan pay reparations to Ireland, as well? If she does, people from all over the world will be scouring her family tree, eagerly hoping to find that their country too has, at some point in history, been plundered, harmed or at least insulted by a Trevelyan.

    Even if she doesn’t cough up another penny, though, I’m not sure her donation to Grenada is wise. This is because support for reparations is based on the fashionable progressive notion that the people of today should be held responsible for the crimes of the past. But the notion is absurd. Because by that standard, practically no one on Earth is innocent.

    Yes, the British once kept slaves. But does that really mean British people today should be punished for it? If so, should Italians be punished because the Romans took slaves? Should Moroccans be punished because the Barbary pirates took slaves? What about the slavery in ancient India, Babylonia and Mesopotamia? Who will pay reparations for that – and to whom?

    In trying to understand what is passing through the mind of this woman one should point out that she is a BBC Journalist and thus pre disposed to Wokery. Reparations of any kind for historic events are essentially a con trick. No one is responsible for the actions of their father let alone some long dead ancestor.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/02/07/why-trevelyans-wrong-pay-reparations-slavery/

    1. As I have said before, by the same token all living Germans should be held responsible for the acts of the Nazis (who enslaved populations of conquered countries) and should pay reparations. I seem to remember that it was tried once, and didn’t end too well.

      1. Maybe there should be a tail off relief as with Death Duties based on last recorded enslavement.

        1 year ago reparations — 100%
        3 years ago reparations – 60%
        30 years ago reparations – 40%
        50 years ago reparations – 20 %
        70 years ago reparations – 10%
        100 years ago reparations – Zero

        That should put the UK in the clear but some heavy bills for Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

    2. The British never kept slaves. A miniscule amount of British people might have dealt in slaves and very few (rich) British might have have a stake or shares in any such company.

      It is sheer opportunism on the part of some POC. Let’s call a spade a spade…

      1. The historical position in these islands is that no one could breathe their free air and be a slave. Therefore all slaves landed here were set free.

        1. Indeed. So this country was not, as some claim, built on the back of slaves. That might be more true in the case of the USA, but these stirrers should distinguish between countries. Obviously they aren’t the most educated of people.

  51. Joe Bribem seeking more tax to give away to his clients.

    Biden declares war on billionaires! President will demand super rich pay more tax – and call for increased corporate levies in his second State of the Union address today
    Joe Biden on Tuesday delivers his second State of the Union address, and his first to a divided Congress
    The president wants to focus on the lowest unemployment in 50 years, pandemic recovery, the climate change bill and support for pregnant women
    He also wants to quadruple the levy on corporate stock buybacks and will renew his calls for a minimum tax on billionaires: neither proposals are likely to pass

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11721101/More-tax-billionaires-quadrupled-levy-corporate-stock-buyback-Bidens-SOTU-say.html

    1. The ‘super rich’ don’t pay tax. Their companies don’t either. What happens, Biden, you oafish moron, is that the money you try to grab moves away from you.

      When Trump *cut* taxes, more tax was raised. I know you don’t understand this, or why, but the simple truth is that if you want more of something, cut taxes. If you want less, raise them. The same applies ‘to taxes’.

      1. If they are American citizens and they wish to continue to be American citizens they pay tax.

        They may be able to avoid relatively more than Joe Blow, but they will still pay tax and a lot of it.

        2. How, though? Why not create a vehicle in, say Lichtenstein that holds your assets and your company. You then work for that company and it pays you a salary, but that income is kept under a specific value.

          Or bung it all into assets, such as shares, where you’re paid from the dividend, which again are bought through a third party. Capital flight is very real – you cannot keep taking people’s money without them doing something about it. It’s tantamount to letting the bully win.

          1. The US revenue charges you on all earnings wherever they may be earned/placed.
            I believe you can offset tax paid in the local jurisdiction but they will chase you for up to the US levels due, you can probably lie about it but if they discover what you’ve done the penalties are Draconian.

    2. He needs to watch the support for pregnant women proposal – the trans-brigade will be out claiming discrimination.

  53. Afternoon All

    Funny Old World

    I note further comment on the “missing woman” yet tens of thousands go “missing” in the UK every year I’m puzzled about what makes her so special to justify the acres of newsprint and endless tv coverage………..

    All very strange

    Meanwhile Medley Time

    Hustler

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8fa0863b715a6d9efb04b3f365e26507cae00b051649d11951ad4ac2d44b29e6.gif

    Arghh

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14c55ebd77ea89fa3a324eaadb8a144836c18f5daaa8c69d158252e0244ac599.jpg

    Honeypot

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7848490dac2250dce99860a97ceb903b34ea61a55a356ef170d98cd4f7c4e39d.jpg

    Modern Life…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31379bfc7cf9ace7066c7e03f22054fe384ff482e3c5ec6a2bd5a88934c607c8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9aaab02fa1f6144fcd0ff7a929c6d53874044af9313461cfd2165bcfba1bbd13.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81696783879301c5ab5a9467f31d28e6e59017753304961a8b601f134b4fb358.jpg

    Oops

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c450da4318e7513079af4da93e230c9c61b252e3bec58c820e598e0971043c5.jpg

  54. Not only have the trans army infiltrated everywhere, they are in positions of control.

    Talking About Protecting Women and Girls Could be ‘Transphobic’, LGBT Group Warns Prisons

    Discussions regarding the protection of women and girls in UK prisons could be “transphobic”, a pro-LGBT group has claimed.

    The Pride in Prison & Probation (PIPP) group, a government staff organisation that supports LGBT ideology, has claimed that discussions surrounding wanting to protect women and girls could be “transphobic”.

    It comes amid public outcry in Britain over attempts to house male rapists described as so-called “transwomen” in female prisons, despite previous evidence describing such arrangements as putting women and girls housed at serious risk.

    However, according to a report by The Times, PIPP believes that such talk of protecting such prisoners could be problematic, and has reportedly emailed staff within the Ministry of Justice ordering them to stay away from certain terms and phrases.

    Within the alleged email the group — which reportedly sits on the HM Prison and Probation Service board which, among other things, allocates transgender prisoners — claimed that discussions of “protecting women and girls” could be considered “transphobic” if used in a “coded” manner.

    The message also orders civil servants to stay away from around 35 different terms and phrases that it describes as having the potential to be discriminatory against transgender people, including “protect women’s spaces”, “actual/real woman” and “adult human female”.

    Despite the power held by the group within the prison service, government officials have reportedly tried to “distance” the department from the pro-transgenderism group’s views.

    With the email by the group reportedly being sent to staff in November, the message represents a precursor to the ongoing controversy surrounding transgenderism, with certain elements within the UK desiring to house male “transwomen” with real female prisoners.

    For instance, there were attempts made to house convicted double rapist Isla Bryson — born Adam Graham — in a women’s prison in Scotland before authorities in both Holyrood and Westminster stepped in, with the latter even going so far as to ban the practice of housing biological males in women’s prisons.

    Such a ban however was conditional, with males being able to gain access to such prisons should they be granted the privilege by a responsible government minister, though the pro-LGBT Tory Party has insisted that such permission will only be given in “exceptional cases”.

    That alone may be enough to make many female prisoners nervous however, with one report from May last year finding that so-called transwomen were in the past often prioritised by the prison service, even at the expense of biological females who were previously sexually abused.

    “The safety of female prisoners is being put at risk, and their dignity and privacy undermined, by being incarcerated with biological males, some of whom are known sex offenders,” a report last week discussing the issue claimed.

    “The claim that this is a fair balancing of rights does not stand up to scrutiny, particularly in view of the fact that alternative arrangements could be made within the existing prison regime which would enable trans-identifying male prisoners to safely ‘live in their acquired gender’ without being housed in the women’s estate,” it went on to say.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/02/07/talking-about-protecting-women-and-girls-could-be-transphobic-lgbt-group-warns-prisons/

      1. Takeover an existing prison and put all transsexual prisoners there, otherwise those with penises should go to male prisons and those with vaginas to female prisons; their choice.

    3. Why don’t trans”women” who have been convicted for rape want to be in male prisons – are they afraid of being raped?

    2. If we thought we were up Net Zero’s shit creek without a paddle before Shapp’s appointment we will be royally flushed over the waterfall after his appointment. Where do they find these people, no rock unturned, I suppose.

    4. Energy security means drilling more of our own gas and oil to make up for the shortfall in energy arising from the net zero policy of not drilling more of our own gas and oil.

    7. I should have thought “energy security” and “net zero” were contradictions in terms.

    1. korky, I don’t think that it’s anything to do with Climate Change.

      Greater London Council stated that they would make an extra £260million a year in taxes.

      1. ‘Climate change’ is the excuse for creating these ‘open-air prisons’ with control and restriction of people’s freedoms the real aim. Oh, and making a bit of extra cash on the side to piss away is always in the plan.

    2. Can’t possibly be Dorset County Council, the roads are in far too good a state of repair.

  58. “Epsom College head ‘was shot dead by her husband, who then killed their daughter, seven, and himself in murder-suicide’ after she made ‘distressed call’ to a relative – days after police spoke to him about his shotgun licence.”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html : New DM Headline..

    The poor woman and her little daughter.

    Very often successful career women who should be capable of making sensible judgements and decisions are completely incapable of making the right judgement in their personal decisions.

    As we suspected. To be honest before the murder story broke both Caroline and I took one look at the photo of the man and said: “He looks like a wrong’un.”

    1. I could live to be 100 but never, ever will I understand what makes people do things like this. Same as those who abuse and kill children and animals.
      I just don’t get it.

        1. They do. I knew a couple of lads in the school in CT who had dead eyes and could veer from charm personified to cold, hard nastiness.
          I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that either or both are in jail for something terrible.

          2. Murderous would be my guess and one of them could be abusive too, I suspect. Long ago now.

    3. MB and I made the same judgement.
      Successful wife and not so successful – and resentful – husband.

      1. I’ve just read this in the DT:

        “Mr Pattison has not previously been reported to the police. However, The Telegraph has learnt that in 2016 he reported his wife to the police for allegedly hitting him. However, he dropped the complaint and there have since been no reports to the police.”

        Did she hit him? Or did he make it up? He sounds like a very screwed up man.

        The poor little girl would have been only one year old then and Emma Pattison would have just moved from Guildford High School to become the Headmistress of Croydon High School.

        How very lucky many of us here are to have more tranquil and loving married lives!

        1. Yes, I certainly do now! I just want my husband to be OK again and for things to be as normal, or what passes for it here, as possible.

        2. Quite a step to take to kill your family. Pressures in families arise from finances, careers or relationships, or an interaction between these factors. Doesn’t seem like money would be a problem but sometimes people are stupid with wealth. Which leaves relationships and careers. Tragic.

  60. Brendan O’Neill
    The sinister celebrification of Shamima Begum
    7 February 2023, 8:07am

    So is Shamima Begum a celebrity now? Tonight, a documentary about her airs on BBC Two. Over the weekend, her picture was splashed on the front page of the Times’ Magazine. ‘I was in love with the idea of the Islamic State. I was in denial. Now I have a lot of regret’, says the strapline, next to a pic of a madeover Begum sporting a fetching vest, baseball cap and fire-engine red nail polish. How long till she has her own reality TV show? The Only Way Is Raqqa, perhaps.

    The media’s sympathy for Shamima Begum is starting to creep me out. Lovingly framed, soft-lens photos accompany the interview. She stares doe-eyed into the camera and pleads for our understanding. The reason she fled Bethnal Green for Raqqa was because she was ‘not content’ with her life, she says. Fetch me my tiny violin. Most teens are not content with their lives but they don’t run away to join a genocidal death cult that was beheading Christians and burning to death Yazidi girls in iron cages.

    This is the thinnest and most nauseating claim to victimhood I have seen in some time

    The Times piece is written by Josh Baker. He also made the BBC’s ten-part podcast about Begum. One of the episodes was called ‘I’m not a monster’. Some wannabe celebs would give their left arm for a glamorous magazine photo-shoot and a hit pod on BBC Sounds. Forget going on Love Island or Big Brother – it seems the speediest route to stardom these days is to throw your lot in with a psychotic foreign terror group.

    Baker does press Begum in his Times’ piece. He challenges her on certain inconsistencies in her story. But overall it’s an empathetic portrait. Apparently racism in the UK was partly to blame for Begum’s decision to go on a 3,000-mile trek to join the murderous dystopia of the Islamic State. She wanted to be ‘accepted by (British) society’ but she never felt that she was, ‘because of racism and other things’.

    This is the thinnest and most nauseating claim to victimhood I have seen in some time. For Shamima to implicate Britons, us apparently bigoted imbeciles, in her decision to align with the forces of barbarism is perverse. In this telling, the problem was not so much Begum’s morally depraved choice to sign up with the enemies of humanity – it was the failure of us terrible Brits to make her feel content here at home. We’re the real villains of the piece.

    To appreciate how unusual it is for the newspaper of record to give space to Begum to play the pity card, imagine if the scenario was a little different. Imagine if a white British boy had run away to join a neo-Nazi movement that was massacring black people in their thousands. Do you think he’d get a sexy photo shoot at the Times and a soppy pod with the BBC? Do you think the middle classes would nod sympathetically over their granola as they read his pained pleas about never feeling ‘content’ at home? ‘Poor lad.’ Not a chance.

    Identity politics is at play in the celebrification of Shamima. The chattering classes’ view of British Muslims as victims, as an oppressed category, has unquestionably shaped their attitude to Begum. Some even present her as a survivor of Islamophobia. A writer for the Metro says she was the target of a ‘media-induced Islamophobia frenzy’. Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu suggested Shamima’s citizenship was only stripped ‘because she is brown’. This is such arrant nonsense. The British-Canadian Jack Letts also had his British citizenship rescinded when he worked for Isis and he’s as white as me.

    There is something really off in the transformation of Begum into a celebrity sufferer. It steals the focus from those who really suffered – from the Yazidi women, Kurdish citizens, Christians and ‘heretical’ Muslims who were slaughtered on a neo-fascistic scale by the organisation Begum joined. Every tear shed for Shamima’s Islamic State experience is one less tear shed for those who experienced the Islamic State’s ferocious, apocalyptic violence.

    I can’t help but wonder what Yazidi women will think if they see that cool, sad photo of Shamima on the front of the Times’ magazine. They have every right to think Britain has lost the moral plot. Indeed, a couple of years ago the Muslim Council of Britain published a report slamming the UK media’s treatment of Islam. The report was widely praised by liberal and leftish observers. One of the media articles flagged up as problematic in the report was a Daily Mail interview with a Yazidi woman who had been enslaved and raped by Isis. The MCB suggested the Mail’s decision to turn one of the woman’s comments into a big, blown-up pull quote – the bit where she said Isis members considered it ‘Islamic law’ to rape non-Muslim women – was wrong. It risked ‘perpetuating falsehoods about Islam’.

    Take that in. Stop for a minute and think about this. You now live in a country where an interview with a Yazidi victim of the Islamic State’s terror can be treated as problematic, while a soft, friendly interview with a former Islamic State supporter is viewed as normal. We are well and truly through the moral looking-glass.

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

    GalahadThreepwood
    5 hours ago
    Funny how the same siren voices saying that this person was a deluded child are the ones pressing for 12 year olds to be allowed a sex change without their parents’ consent, isn’t it?

    One might think that their real motive is the destruction of all civilised values if one were a cynic.

    But of course, such a thought is unworthy of me (and if expressed publicly and attributed to me might lead to social ostracism).

    @PhilKean1
    5 hours ago edited
    .
    I cursed the day that an unprincipled, bottom-feeding journalist sought her out and publicised her situation.

    I repeat my question: WHO is going to stand up for the 3 DEAD babies who were born into conflict, destitution and danger? Why has the hard left forgotten about them?
    There’d be shock, horror and calls for punishment and retribution if 3 children had been treated HALF as bad on British soil.

    This evil woman must NEVER be allowed to set foot in Britain again. Once she’s here, she’ll be staying, regardless of any judgements against her. There are no punishments in soft Socialist Britain that match the gravity of the crimes she has committed.

    There was NO trafficking, no coercion, no pressure and no reason to go and join a group that EVERY person who could read or operate a Laptop knew was an evil, murderous Death Cult.

    Everyone knew that the people she aspired to join and assist in their evil enterprise were engaged in murder, torture, burnings, rapes and beheadings. And many people who held British passports who relished the prospect of unrestricted killing went out to join the evil Death Cult many months before she did.

    1. No doubt if she is welcomed back, even given any renouncing of ‘terrorist activities’ she will be treated like a heroine by her compatriots….

      1. They’ll try for Mental health issues and a million pounds in compensation.

        She knew what she was doing and what the risks were.
        Her mistake her problem, she’s got to live with it.

    3. … “3 DEAD babies” ….
      I doubt there ever were any babies. All we ever saw was flowing black clothes with the arms arranged in a ‘motherly’ way or a bundle of faceless rags.
      Quite frankly, if there had been any babies, given their circumstances, that would mean 3 more murderous thugs to kill and maim unbelievers.
      Either way, the world doesn’t need the spawn of people like Begum and her latest ‘husband’.

  61. Sir Anthony Seldon (poseur extraordinaire), asked on Times Radio for his opinion on the climactic finale to Sarah Lancashire and James Norton’s BBC crime series, reflects: ‘I thought Happy Valley was a yoghurt.’

    1. More of a wanqueur, as well!

      He came dashing up to me at a memorial service and asked whether I was, “A headmaster or someone important…!!” I kid you not. Very small man, too..

        1. I can remember in the past some pompous woman at a business gathering saying to me waving her arms around and do you know who I am ?
          I just said no and please don’t bother to tell me.
          She wasn’t happy.

      3. Apparently the chap who used to be the master of Wellington College demanded adulation from his staff.

  62. Sir Anthony Seldon (poseur extraordinaire), asked on Times Radio for his opinion on the climactic finale to Sarah Lancashire and James Norton’s BBC crime series, reflects: ‘I thought Happy Valley was a yoghurt.’

  63. While I agree with Mark Brolin’s assessment that Brexit has been unfairly depicted in many quarters and maligned by events for which it bears no responsibility, I barely recognise the United Kingdom which he’s seeing. I see a UK still in thrall to the very attitudes which prevail in the EU, not the economically dynamic, democratically re-energised nation he sees. Perhaps I’m being too impatient.

    The real Brexit prize – that the UK has regained its democracy – is starting to be pay dividends

    IMF modelers overinflated the costs of Britain leaving the EU, and they are still getting their numbers wrong

    MARK BROLIN
    7 February 2023 • 1:55pm

    Among inside-the-box commentators it is currently fashionable to claim that it is nowadays a no brainer that Brexit was a mistake. It is not hard to suspect that the ultimate purpose behind this claim is to ready voters for a return to closer EU ties. Trash talking of both UK achievements and UK prospects play a key part of the push. So does the pretend notion that things are a lot peachier elsewhere. Inside-the-box modelers line up to provide supposed evidence immediately trumped up into “breaking news” gloating opportunities.

    The recent IMF predictions — and the manhandling of these predictions — can be used as a textbook example. Going through the IMF numbers it turns out that the 2022 UK economy, yet again, did significantly better than the IMF had expected (4.1 per cent growth). Simultaneously the UK outperformed the EU economy (3.6 per cent growth).

    The IMF dishing out predictions about the UK economy that in the end proved too dismal has become the rule rather than an exception. This problem is not likely to go away for two reasons. First, it is no secret that Brexit Britain has challenged both the IMF mindset and IMF forecasting credibility. Notoriously its forecasters never provided a proper mea culpa after arguing, in no uncertain terms, that UK recession would swiftly follow if the electorate picked Brexit. Instead its modelers now claim they will be belatedly vindicated. IMF economists are now strongly incentivised to jump on every piece of evidence that can be used to suggest that the UK economy is about to sink down into the sea, a bit like Atlantis. Numerous media outlets have proven eager to always bury the positive bits and drumming up the negative prophecies.

    The second key reason the IMF is so keen on backing the Brexit-disaster storyline? Its modelers genuinely believe it to be true. Part of that problem is related to the fact that economic models are heavily biased towards considering easily understood in-your-face numbers while ignoring factors that are harder to quantify. It is, for example, easy to acknowledge that it is not ideal to neighbour a big power, the EU, bent on punishing Brexit Britain for demanding a divorce. So here we are. Vast internal market versus smaller internal market. Tariffs. A cross border trading situation Brussels pretends to be as complex as rocket science — so that special case Northern Ireland can remain partial hostage within the EU economic area. Meaning the UK would have been better off without Brexit, right? Well, an economic model that fails to pay heed to any Brexit upsides will certainly have to arrive at such a conclusion.

    So are there really no Brexit positives? Oh yes, even if it seems like IMF modelers would swallow their own tongues before acknowledging as much. Examples? Well, the UK is now freed from economic and political sinkholes such as EU monetary policies that suit Italian banks, EU agricultural policies that suit French farmers, the EU lobbyist circus that suits Europe’s oligopolists, the ticking bomb Euro project that suits EU public servants and EU energy policies that suit the German energy sector — and until five minutes ago also Vladimir Putin and a number of Russian oligarchs. Thanks to Brexit the UK avoids all the distortions involved as well as paying the early multibillion pound net contribution. The UK has avoided paying into bureaucratic waste projects, including the “corona recovery package”. It is an €800 billion project (now renamed “EUNextGeneration”) that has almost nothing to do with the pandemic.

    By far most important Brexit dividend, certainly not part of any IMF model, is that democracy has been recaptured. This is so immense — and yet underdiscussed — that at times it come across as even underestimated amongst Leavers. Despite the fact that the strong correlation between grassroots democracy and economic long term growth is indisputable (grassroots democracy correlates just as strongly with political stability).

    Democratic vigour is nothing less than the key reason it has for a long time been a big win in the lottery of life to be born in the world’s most traditionally democratic countries — countries like the UK, the US, the Nordic Countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Ultimately the collective brain power of democratic nations is much superior to societies in which democracy has not been eroded. This is why the history of real grassroots democracy is also strongly correlated with innovation and entrepreneurship, more push-back against cartels and political vanity projects, a freer press as well as governments more responsive to public concerns than in countries dominated by the top-down mindset.

    This is not a political argument in the traditional sense because the value of real “people power” has been manifested both in societies with a so called capitalist tradition (such as the UK and the US) and in countries with a strong social democratic tradition (the Nordics). Europe will be more dynamic if its people can elect and oust its top dogs rather than if it is ruled by unelected Commissioners. In the real world neither political nor economic progress is ever achieved through power centralisers operating behind shiny but usually closed palace doors while claiming to know better than the people what is best for the people.

    Progress is achieved through political tribes and vested interests openly pushing against one another, one nanometer at the time, until a mutually tolerated power equilibrium is established. Fairness is achieved only when all groups receive a fair hearing. The EU set up is decidedly unfair while structurally favouring the always vocal top-down forces: career politicians, bureaucrats and the lobbyocracy. Less organised groups — including not only the Somewheres of society but also (smallish) entrepreneurs, taxpayers and even consumers — with fewer and less influential mouthpieces are treated as uneducated throwbacks if showing the audacity to raise concerns against their “betters”. So it is yet another massive Brexit dividend that the political class is forced to take the valid concerns of red wall voters more seriously, including fears about the economically detrimental effects of “Blob” rule.

    Brexit has safeguarded the fact that the British press remains less influenced by top-down thinking than that of any other country in Europe. Yes, a freer press guarantees a messy public conversation but also that both political and economic challenges are aired more rigorously. The strength of a society in which a journalist can shout “Hey, Prime Minister..” and then make him or her squirm is a beautiful thing. Contrast this with Ursula von der Leyen who rarely faces the press unless the events are so carefully and pompously choreographed that they resemble 19th century monarchs granting their subordinates an audience. EU correspondents tend to offer critical analysis of the critics of those in power rather than of those actually in power.

    Typically modelers and EU journalists do not even register that the eurozone is turning ever more into an economic museum, that London remains the unicorn capital of Europe and that the UK, since Brexit, has been the only major country in Europe without a party of discontent. Only with gritted teeth will they possibly acknowledge that the UK, thanks to Brexit, developed Europe’s fastest vaccine program as well as offered Ukraine swift moral and military support during a crucial time when Germany and France vacillated. It is never admitted that the British press corps is the only press corps in Europe that is even close to doing what it is supposed to do: speak truth to both political and economic power. Sure, the economic effect of a free press is hard to quantify but nobody should doubt that its value, in the long run, dwarfs all kinds of tariff costs — especially when the UK is now, again thanks to Brexit, free to negotiate partnerships involving high growth trading areas such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    So how are those of us tackled who make an effort to comprehensively answer the Brexit dividend question? “Absolutely nothing to see here. Now let us return to our economic models, they clarify the Brexit mistake, right? You still cannot present one single argument that explains why Brexit is a good thing, can you!”

    Nonetheless, the Brexit dividends are both real and ridiculously underestimated. It still cannot be expected that the UK political class will make quick and wise decisions but it can be expected that the UK will continue to make quicker and wiser decisions. Over time the difference will be gigantic in money terms. So far from Brexit Britain sinking into the sea it is destined to outpace EU27 in a major way. So what about the economic models, like those pushed by the IMF, de facto betting against democracy? Now as always such models are worth nothing besides puff pieces for the latest bunch of power centralisers promising glory and delivering discord and stagnation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/07/real-brexit-prize-uk-has-regained-democracy-starting-pay/

      1. Me Too: Par Four.

        Wordle 598 4/6
        ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
        ⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
        🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. And me.

          Wordle 598 4/6

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

      2. And me.
        Wordle 598 4/6

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

    2. Well done! Qui est un garçon astucieux, puis!

      (I always enjoy annoying my lovely wife by borrowing English idioms or expressions which don’t really work in French)

  65. Sunak seems to be on his second envelope already…

    New CEO arrives. His predecessor gives him three envelopes. “When I go, open the first one.”
    CEO opens the first envelope. “Blame your predecessor. When that excuse runs out, open envelope 2”
    Sure enough, after a while, he can no longer get away with blaming his predecessor so he opens the second envelope. “Have a reorganisation. When that no longer works, open envelope 3”
    So the CEO has a reorganisation but after a while he is struggling again. He opens envelope 3. “Prepare three envelopes…”

    1. Very disappointed, of course, to see Mark Steyn go. However, not convinced about other presenters ‘holding back’ as she describes. She admits to not watching the channel so, maybe if she did, Katie would have a different opinion, especially where Farage, Wooton, Christys, Dolan, Fox and others are concerned, as they all seem pretty forthright to me.

        2. Here are some email addresses to express our disgust:

          dan.wooton@gbnews.uk
          patrick.christys@gbnews.uk
          mark.dolan@gbnews.uk
          laurence.fox@gbnews.uk
          nigel.farage@gbnews.uk

          I hope these work. When I sent my emails to them the emails did not bounce back. This is what I sent:

          GB News has meekly caved in to Ofcom and effectively ‘cancelled’ Mark Steyn by exploiting his heart attacks to give him a new unsignable contract. It is clear that Toby Young, the champion of free speech, will have a lot of work to do and will probably be invited onto GB News far less and when he does appear he will probably be given clear instructions as to what he should not say about Mark Steyn’s effective sacking.

          We have yet to hear any comments on this matter from Steyn’s so-called colleagues and fair weather friends such as Wootton. Dolan, Farage, Fox and Christys.

          If a self-proclaimed free speech TV channel can kowtow to Ofcom and punish free speech then GB News’s treatment of Steyn should make us all very worried indeed.

        3. And the issue of “unexpected deaths” by those who were vaccinated plus the continuing saga of Muslim child grooming and gang-rape has also been dropped by GBN presenters.

          1. My husband has to go for an abdominal drain tomorrow because his stent is blocked after the 2nd AZ jab. This fluid build up is seriously hindering his recovery from his broken femur.
            His specialist won’t consider another try at unblocking or replacing the stent as it’s deemed too risky.
            Our NHS? Ha bloody ha.
            It’s like getting blood from a stone to get anywhere.
            The NHS is out of control and the patients are the lowest in the list of concerns.

    2. I have posted several comments expressing my disgust. Click on my avatar to see what I have said.

      I have also sent an email expressing my sense of revulsion at GBN’s betrayal of free speech to all the main GBN presenters such as Dolan, Wootten, Christys, Farage and Fox, I am not holding my breath for a reply.

    3. I have posted several comments expressing my disgust. Click on my avatar to see what I have said.

      I have also sent an email expressing my sense of revulsion at GBN’s betrayal of free speech to all the main GBN presenters such as Dolan, Wootten, Christys, Farage and Fox, I am not holding my breath for a reply.

    2. I think there’s been a typo, he meant to say, Jeremy Hunt has put back the cause of low taxation by years.

      How on earth can he even begin to justify what he’s written?

    1. Good afternoon Maggiebelle

      Most of us here agree that we have had more than enough but the PTB still think we could take more.

  71. That’s me gone for today.. It was a relief to find that Our Great Leader and Founder was absent-minded and not in Intensive Care.

    Have a jolly evening drafting your letters welcoming Shitts to yet another “office”…

    A demain.

        1. OK, got it.

          No, I wasn’t asleep, as I posted today’s funny on yesterday’s page, as it had gone 08:00 and no Geoff.

          I shared others’ anxiety that there might be something wrong.

    2. Will he have further to travel from his huge mansion at Brookmans Park. Not in his Hatfield constituency.
      Being in politics seems to pay lot more than expected.

  72. Private schools should be taxed like dining out, says Rachel Reeves
    Shadow chancellor defends Labour’s plan to introduce new levy on independent schools and says every penny would go on funding state schools
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/07/private-schools-luxury-must-taxed-says-rachel-reeves/

    BTL

    Don’t squeeze too hard!

    Does this stupid woman not realise that if most private schools go out of business then there will be far more pupils which the state system will be obliged to educate! This will mean that there will not be more money to spend per pupil but very substantially less.

    1. Why is it that both main political parties never mention lowering government spending? It’s always tax, tax, tax more.

      How about banning any and all NHS “Diversity and/or Inclusivity Managers” appointments for a start? How about stopping ‘call your GP’ advice on tv? The advertising budget must have been smashed to pieces long ago – with the scamdemic scandal?

    2. Can private school parents also withhold the part of their taxes that goes towards paying for state schools then? Only fair!

  73. I presume it must be April 1st
    Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns ‘He’ and ‘Him’ when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase ‘our Father’ from the Lord’s Prayer
    God could be referred to in ‘non-gendered’ terms in Church of England services
    Bishops announced they are launching major ‘project on gendered language’

    If this is genuine the Church is dead in the water, Islam may as well take over as the State religion.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11722729/God-non-gendered-Church-England-services.html

    1. The poor old CofE is falling over itself trying to keep up with the latest woke developments. It’s like a hamster on a treadmill.

          1. Agreed, hence agnostic, rather than atheist.
            If there is a God then presumably there must be a Devil;
            The existence of Mohammed, Tony Blair, Adolph Hitler, Stalin and Mao etc rather suggests there is a Devil. Therefore there ought to be a God.

        2. I have upvoted you for your comment but I have had serious doubts since my teens and the older I get, the less I believe.
          Brought up as a Christian and most of the tenets aren’t bad guidelines; it’s the supreme being stuff I have trouble with.

          1. I think, Ann, that there has to be something bigger than us.

            I go on to think, otherwise what’s the point of it all.

          2. Well, no-one can prove there is a god but no-one can prove there isn’t. I think our gods live within us and make us the people we are.

          6. The look that glazes over the eyes of JWs when I say I believe Jesus lived and was a good man but I can’t do the god bit.

          7. The JWs were a pain in the proverbial in CT; down south it was the Southern Baptists. They would not take NO for an answer.

          8. Two JWs called on us on Saturday morning. I opened the door and it was very cold, I invited them showed them into the sitting room and asked if they would like a cup of tea. Eagerly they said yes please. I brought them in a cup of tea, sat down and asked what they wanted.
            They replied “we don’t know as we’ve never got this far before. 🙂

          9. When I was doing my teacher training course, my flat mate and I were pestered by JWs. They somehow got hold of a list of where students lived. Their motive was to convert a new teacher and thereby convert a class. We kept two hockey sticks by the front door (flat mate was a PE major) and chased them off with those.
            I gotta stick now which can and will be used for similar purposes!

    2. I always pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven…” To say ‘Who’ is to identify him as a human, which clearly he is not.

      2. I used to too, but every service we attend uses “who” so it has become ingrained.

        I must admit to getting fed up with people glaring at me when I use what I believe/d to be the correct versions of prayers and hymns.

        If Luke 11 is to believed “which” is the correct version.

    3. I always pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven…” To say ‘Who’ is to identify him as a human, which clearly he is not.

  74. Rose, who wishes to stay anonymous, raised her two sons as gender neutral with her wife, which was reflected in their clothes, toys and language.

    Well, well; a couple of lesbians who were happy for their son to pretend to be a girl but realised their idiocy when the younger son wanted to join in too.
    I suppose one should be grateful, for the boys’ sake, that they saw the light.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11722129/Mother-admits-regrets-letting-son-4-transition-girl-identity.html

    1. And in addition to those who have suffered Covid vaccine injuries and death Mark Steyn was determined to expose the Pakistani rape gangs.

      The banning of Mark Steyn from GB News is a disgrace and it is completely shameful that none of his colleagues at GB News is prepared to speak out in his defence.

  77. Here’s an interesting bit of video of the late Carl Sagan talking about the potential for things to go titsup when science assumes too great a role and nobody understands it.
    https://twitter.com/bfcarlson/status/1622940924564107265
    I rather like this, because it reassures us that there is an element of predictable chaos and stupidity to the current bid for totalitarian power by evil billionaires. They certainly aren’t all that bright – look who they picked as their tools!

    Bill Gates, a man so stupid that nothing he says would be taken seriously if he hadn’t been rescued from being a college dropout and put in charge of The Next Big Thing.
    Sam Bankman-Fried, a man (?) who makes Gates look like St Augustine.
    Mark Zuckerberg.
    Klaus “ve penetrate Cabinets” Schwab.
    Charles Windsor, father of Harry.

    1. I use to love watching Carl Sagan.
      But his velvet voice sometimes made me doze off. COSMOS………

      1. Responsible for the blue dot photo shot of the Earth from billions of miles away if I remember correctly.

  78. MoH likes to watch an American TV programme; ‘Say yes to the dress’ – it focuses exclusively on Brides to be trying on their perfect wedding dress. I happened to enter the room when one such bride to be was having trouble breathing in one gown. But then again her superstructure was off the Richter Scale at a 36JJ (sic)! I never knew that such an embonpoint was possible!

  79. Greetings friends from far-flung work places which are hours and hours behind the UK.

    Fairly frantic at the airport!over the weekend, as work travel hadn’t let me know that countries are still requiring Covid measures before they let you in. Luckily (?) i still had something to hand from when i went with No 1 child to Argentina in August last year. I notice according to the NHS app, my vaccination status “expires” in August this year. Well, I won’t be renewing it, so we’ll see how my trip to Singapore in Q3 pans out.

    Turns out where i am also requires apps to be downloaded and filled in – “pre-immigration” travel, it’s called. It’s all getting a bit too much for me – travel is no fun anymore even when it’s business class.

    It’s still early-doors where i am whereas if i were at home i’d be heading off to bed soon.

    Enjoy all your banter – sensible stuff in an otherwise increasingly insane world.

    1. Enjoy your trip.

      What if you don’t have a smart phone for the apps? Or a phone at all for that matter.

      1. Indeed. You are shut out. It’s deeply depressing- also the fact there are still many countries which you aren’t allowed to travel to without your “Covid” pass. Covid is soooo 2020 but here we are three years later, still wearing masks to board planes and ticking boxes that we don’t have colds.

  80. Edit for link

    EXCLUSIVE: Judge rules Meghan and Harry must be GRILLED in deposition over Samantha Markle’s claim the couple lied about her in Oprah interview – exposing even more of what’s left behind their curtain of secrecy
    Meghan’s half-sister Samantha Markle is suing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for $75,000 in damages over claims they made in their Oprah interview
    A judge ruled that Meghan and Harry will be grilled by Samantha’s lawyers on subjects like whether Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles were racist
    Meghan’s lawyers asked the judge to stop the discovery process, but she refused

    Deep breaths:
    Ha ha ha ha ha
    I doubt it would happen, but I would love those two to be grilled under oath.

    Then boiled, baked and fried.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11723917/Meghan-Harry-deposed-Samantha-Markle-lawsuit-judge-rules.html

    2. Where is the morality in coming to this country and expecting others to support the children which this couple chose to have?

    3. I wish I could get that, but I’m indigenous, white, pale and male.

      I’m going for carer’s allowance, housing benefit and reduction in council tax.

      Like everything to do with the snivel serpents, DfWP, and local council – just wait – and pray.

  82. Well we had a long day in Oxford – a detour on the way there because a road was closed and so a tour of the Cotswolds to find a different way through. We arrived about 1 pm, which was what I was aiming for, and eventually found a spot in the car park. Then I had to find the husband, as I’d dropped him off before parking. He’d found a member of staff to guide him, so that was handy.
    His appointment was 1.40pm, so we had time for a quick bite to eat.

    Then we had to wait…….. and wait…….. though he did have an ECG, and a chest xray. More waiting…….. we were finally seen by the registrar at about 3.15pm. A nice young Italian doc. He went through the medication, and agreed OH could drop a couple of items.

    We left the hospital about 4, he decided to drive so off we went. Started off ok, then somehow a wrong turning, and we were heading back into the city. It was rush hour traffic, too. So we spent an hour crawling along with the sun very low and scorching our eyes. Finally found the right route after we’d passed younger son’s old college. Quite a spectacular sunset too. Arrived home in the dark, about 6.30pm, ready for a meal and a glass of wine. Early night to follow now.

      1. We’ve just watched the second part of Silent Witness – I think it was last week’s.

        We celebrated his recovery with a glass of wine and lamb steaks with peppers, courgettes, & salad.

    2. Glad you are home safe and sound.
      Our day tomorrow; my husband is going for the abdominal drain, brought forward from Friday. This is because his stent is blocked since the AZ jabs.
      I need to get him out to the cab with his walker and bag and then bring it back in for the return.
      Meantime, I shall go to the shop and then he will call me and let me know what’s going on and I will get the bus there and we’ll get a cab home.
      All we want is to be well and I bet your husband feels the same.

      1. That sounds a bit of a nightmare to get him ready and sorted. Can he have the stent refitted?

        It’s good to be back to almost normal here. He can walk a reasonable distance now and uphill as well. It was a long drive home, especally with the wrong turn and and the low level sun, but he coped with that. I drove this morning so I was quite glad not to drive home, especially as it was so much later than I’d thought and I’m not safe to drive in the dark now. We did 110 miles round trip – with a bit extra for the detours.

        Just need to get him fit enough to play his sports again and the piano. His scar has healed very well.

        1. They won’t attempt another go at replacing or unblocking the stent. Too risky apparently. And all the red spots are still coming up on both my arms.
          Tuesday next week I have a follow up with my consultant re my face- and it won’t be good. I want answers about these red spots- want to bet a fiver on me getting a truthful answer?

          1. They’re still not telling you anything? It’s time they did. It’s a shame about the stent – I would have thought that could be done.

            I hope the face follow up will be more positive than you think.

      2. Hope all goes well tomorrow. Oscar seems to be living at the vets at the moment; he’s got to go again on Thursday to be sedated for treatment and the opthalmologist is concerned about how best to treat his eyes. He’s got an ulcer forming on the “good” eye now. Unfortunately, Oscar is not a co-operative patient. It’s worrying – as much for him as for my bank account.

        1. Sorry to see that Oscar is still suffering with his eyes, all the best for him and yourself, it’s not easy, is it?

        2. Our furry friends do cause us angst at times. Will think about you and Oscar and Kadi.

    3. I see Charlie can’t make up his mind whether the anointing should be shown or not. There will be a canopy to shield the moment, but with a “window” in it! Good grief!

      1. Welby was appointed by the atheist Cameron with the instruction to demolish the Church of England and in terms of what he is doing he is a great success.

    5. I should imagine most vicars, certainly those in rural areas, will see the light and not implement this rubbish from on high due to the reaction from their congregations.

      Even worse was the draping of the rainbow flag over the altar, which happened recently. The replacement of God with politics – and cruel ones at that.

      1. The local CofE vicar, approx. 25 years younger than I am, has long being spitting fire and brimstone from the pulpit denouncing Welby as something like the anti-Christ. He’s really good fun.

  86. Goodnight Y’all. Tired but always am these days.
    Not sure about being here tomorrow if and when.
    Glad Jules’ husband is home OK and hope everyone else is OK. Sleep well.

  87. Evening, all – those hardy few who are still here. I don’t think being politically inept crossed anybody’s mind. After all, Befehl ist Befehl.

  91. Good morning everyone

    Chilly cold foggy morning here brrrr.

    Spannels were jostling to get out into the garden to relieve themselves .. steamy pee and footmarks in the frosty grass.

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