Tuesday 7 May: The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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564 thoughts on “Tuesday 7 May: The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    B&Q JOB APPLICATION

    This is an actual job application that a 75-year-old pensioner submitted to B&Q in Tunbridge Wells.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1bf687e6361085c0a3e005df1b57f5080880d5241c689590a8d00220fd2239a.jpg
    NAME:
    Kenneth Way (Grumpy Bastard)

    SEX:
    Not lately, but I am looking for the right woman (or at least one who will cooperate)

    DESIRED POSITON:
    Company’s Chief Executive or Managing Director. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying in the first place – would I?

    DESIRED SALARY:
    £150,000 a year plus share options and a Tony Blair style redundancy package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

    EDUCATION:
    Yes.

    LAST POSITON HELD:
    Target for middle management hostility.

    PREVIOUS SALARY:
    A lot less than I’m worth.

    MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT:
    My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

    REASON FOR LEAVING:
    It was a crap job.

    HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK:
    Any.

    PREFERRED HOURS:
    1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

    DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?
    Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

    MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?
    If I had one, would I be here’?

    DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 lbs?
    Of what?

    DO YOU HAVE A CAR?
    I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

    HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITON?
    I may already be a winner of the Reader’s Digest Timeshare Free Holiday Offer, so they tell me.

    DO YOU SMOKE?
    On the job – no! On my breaks – yes!

    WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?
    Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy Swedish supermodel with big tits and who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

    NEAREST RELATIVE?
    7 miles

    DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?
    Oh yes. Absolutely.

    They hired him…
    But…

    After landing my new job as a B & Q “Greeter” – a good find for many retirees. I lasted less than a day.

    About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting tattooed babe walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

    As I had been instructed, I said, pleasantly, “Good morning and welcome to B & Q.” I then said, “Nice children you have there. Are they twins?”

    The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, “No, they ain’t effin twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7, why the hell would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just effin stupid?”

    I replied, “I’m neither blind nor stupid, Madam. I just couldn’t believe someone shagged you twice… Have a good day and thank you for shopping at B & Q.”

    My supervisor said I probably wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

    1. The flaw in the punchline is that that scenario wouldn’t have been necessary as the kids probably had different fathers.

  5. Britain’s next political earthquake could utterly destroy the Tories. 7 May 2024.

    Still, the most interesting thing about the impending revolution is the unprecedented anger fueling it. While Tory England feels loathed and abandoned, just like the Rust Belt in 2019, this is intermingled with the sense of deep betrayal that has never been seen before – even in the Red Wall. Traditional working-class politics never recovered from industrial collapse and the death of the unions. In contrast, the Thatcherite religion of self-reliance and low taxes had not quite been crushed by historic forces. Now it has, and the Tory grassroots’ sense of betrayal is as coldly lucid as it is grandly epic. A view has crystallised that the ruling party has not only cataclysmically violated the spirit of conservatism, but that this has wrought damage on the country on a scale that is truly awesome. It is thus impossible for millions of the Tory faithful to vote for their party with a clear conscience. Many would rather be slightly poorer under Labour.

    A little apocalyptic but it suits my mood. I have given up on saving the UK and its people by legitimate means. We need revolution. Only the utter destruction of the traitorous Political Elites can save us from Genocide.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/06/britains-next-political-earthquake-could-destroy-the-tories/

    1. It might bring it on though. The problem with revolutions is the naïve hope that what follows would be better than what was replaced. Frying pans? Almost certainly the destruction of the traitorous Political Elites would create a vacuum eagerly filled by various Islamist factions
      .

      One reason why modern monarchies are far less likely to descend into tyranny is that there is one political elite that does not depend on corruption to get ahead in life. A monarchy acquires privilege at birth, whether one likes it or not, or whether one merits it or not. The main thing is to hang on to this privilege by looking after one’s subjects – noblesse oblige – that has over the centuries created a far more benign elite than anything politics can deliver.

      What we have today though is the cruel wind of fate in the form of cancer, that has disabled the King for a while, and the next four in line (a close family whose top priority right now is caring for Mum), with the next three scarpering to California, and No.8 being the Duke of York.The Firm is currently reliant on Nos. 14 and 17 and a wicked-stepmother-turned-Queen, who are actually making a fair fist of it.

  6. Good Morning Folks
    The bank holiday is over, hence a nice sunny start here

  7. The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline

    The realisation that whomever you vote for and whomever wins the policies will remain the same, just as they are waking up to in Ireland at the moment, triggered the sharp decline.

    1. Yes but the way that Boris was defenestrated accentuated that realisation. Even if you believe he was part of the problem, it became very clear that ‘who runs this place’ is not anybody who gives a toss about British people.

  8. Putin sits at the heart of the West’s illiberal axis. 7 May 2024.

    Two years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin cast the war as part of a grander civilizational struggle. The conflict across the border was not just about territory or the political dispensation in Kyiv, Putin argued, but the tip of the spear in a larger clash between the corrosive effects of liberalism and the more traditional values supposedly embodied by his regime.

    “We can see what is taking place in some countries where moral standards and the family are being deliberately destroyed and entire nations are pushed to extinction and decadence,” Putin said. “We have chosen life. Russia has been and remains a stronghold of the traditional values on which human civilization stands.”

    You have to like him!

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/07/putin-russia-west-illiberal-axis-georgia-hungary/

    1. There must be better ways of doing traditional civilisation that doesn’t involve blowing seven bells out of one’s neighbour.

  9. Good morning, chums, and a big Thank You to Geoff for providing today’s page. Alas, I have no Wordle results to report. I found the final four letters in three, but that left around six different options for the first one, and the three I tried out were all wrong. So I failed to succeed today. Now that the Bank Holiday is over, enjoy your day.

    1. Morning Elsie. I had a stroke of luck and guessed it the first time, but as you say there are a LOT of options!
      Wordle 1,053 4/6

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

    1. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll begin to see entries of britcoin on the left hand side of the ledger BofE consolidated fund and a corresponding amount on a commercial bank’s ledger liability to balance it. Then some btc & ethereum and other stable coins appearing in the national loan funds and gilts account.

      As for lumps of Gold.. those with long memories can recall hedge funds buying up ingots of aluminium. Ask them how that turned out.

      Or ask me how I feel about the storage bill I receive every month for my bullion, then ask me to compare it to the btc I purchase around the same time twelve years ago.

      1. You mean a Bank of England digital shytecoin? Can’t wait!
        A lot of central banks seem to be stocking up on gold, and with respect, 5000 years of history says it’s not a commodity like aluminium.
        Swings and roundabouts. People have lost their bitcoins for various reasons.

    2. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll begin to see entries of britcoin on the left hand side of the ledger BofE consolidated fund and a corresponding amount on a commercial bank’s ledger liability to balance it. Then some btc & ethereum and other stable coins appearing in the national loan funds and gilts account.

      As for lumps of Gold.. those with long memories can recall hedge funds buying up ingots of aluminium. Ask them how that turned out.

    1. RT have several articles and some very harsh words on MAcron today, standing next to an article on exercises of tactical nuke deployment and a blunt warning to the West.

      The message is Eff about and find out.
      But this childless little psychopath does not care. And neither do his handlers.

      Very dangerous times.

    2. This is a Welsh dragon, fierce and breathing fire. Chinese dragons are fat and smiley and dispense benevolence. They probably have bigger appetites though.

  14. They like to deceive…

    Scottish salmon industry challenged over move to drop ‘farmed’ from labels

    Fish welfare campaigners say Defra decision facilitates greenwashing and will mislead consumers

    Haroon Siddique
    Tue 7 May 2024 05.00 BST

    Animal welfare campaigners are challenging the decision to allow producers of Scottish salmon to drop the word “farmed” from labelling.

    An application by the industry body claimed changing the protected name wording on the front of packaging from “Scottish farmed salmon” to “Scottish salmon” made sense because wild salmon was no longer sold in supermarkets, which consumers were aware of.

    But charities and chefs have criticised the decision by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), taken last month, to allow Salmon Scotland’s application, saying it facilitates greenwashing and will mislead consumers.

    Rachel Mulrenan, of WildFish, one of the organisations bringing the legal challenge, said: “As sustainability issues become increasingly important, this is a thinly disguised attempt by the Scottish salmon farming industry to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes, both in the UK and further afield.
    *
    *
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/scottish-salmon-industry-challenged-move-drop-farmed-labels

    1. I haven’t eaten farmed salmon for 30 years since a documentary showed the bloody awful desert under the farms and the poor flabby lice ridden condition of the fish
      Farmed salmon is cheap wild salmon is much dearer and is a rare treat but the texture and flavour are far superior

      I have given up on packaged sea bass as well as I suspect this is also “Farmed”

    2. There is a certain logic to it when you consider the plight of the wild Atlantic salmon in and around Britain. Its very existence teeters on the edge. How many salmon anglers can take a fish they catch for the table these days?

  15. Good for her…straight as an arrow…

    British Darts Player Refuses to Face Trans Opponent, Forfeits Match

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/05/Deta-Hedman-640×480.jpg

    1:55
    Champion British darts player Deta Hedman declared she “wouldn’t play a man in a ladies event” when she forfeited her quarter-final at the Denmark Open against transgender opponent Noa-Lynn van Leuven.

    Hedman, long a vocal critic of rules allowing men to compete in women’s darts tournaments, refused to play Van Leuven in Esbjerg and missed out on the chance to fight for a spot in the semi-finals.

    The Daily Express reports when it was claimed by a journalist on social media that Hedman had told tournament organisers she could not play due to illness, the 64-year-old directly responded: “No fake illness, I said I wouldn’t play a man in a ladies event. Don’t listen to @phillbarrs he knows sweet [f*** all], nor does his reliable source.”

    Hedman is a three-time WDF World Champion runner-up, and has been a fixture in the women’s darts world since the 1980s, having played in both the World Masters and the Dutch Open amongst her numerous other career highlights.

    Just before her trip to Denmark, Hedman posted a picture on her Facebook page which contained the message: “Women & Girls deserve to be CHAMPIONS in their own sports.”

    She also took to X to declare that women’s sports need to be protected.

    2. What it needs is for all the other female competitors, in darts and all other sports, to do likewise.

    4. Darts is one of those rare sports where the women’s game is indistinguishable from the men’s, and all could compete together.

      1. You could say the same of billiards and snooker and chess – but the fact remains that at the top level men are better in all of them so I can understand women thinking it is not fair for men to compete in their division.

        My wife is better than I am at virtually everything – but I am still better at crosswords and sudoku.

        1. Men do have a physical advantage over women in billiards and snooker. The average male is taller and has a longer reach than the average female. This means that women are more likely to need rests and extensions than men. Snooker players prefer not to use them if it can be avoided.

      2. Pretty sure a woman’s arms and hands are not the same as a man’s. Not to mention shoulders.

        1. Women have what is called the ‘carrying angle’ ie a woman can carry a basket with a handle more easily than a man because there is a different angle between upper arm and forearm (mens’ elbows are straighter when their arms hang down – I’d need a diagram to explain properly). I find wide (palms-up) bicep curls much easier than my husband does. Maybe this difference also affects dart throwing but I suspect it could be just a matter of the force in the throw so the dart travels straighter. That and greater likelihood of a misspent youth with hours of darts practice.

    5. Fully support her decision.

      Isn’t it funny that it’s only men masquerading as women who try to beat women in their chosen sport (is darts even a sport?) and never women masquerading as men who try to beat real men.

      1. sn’t it funny that it’s only inadequate men masquerading as women who try to beat women in their chosen sport (is darts even a sport?) and never women masquerading as men who try to beat real men.
        Fixed it for you.

    6. She makes an excellent point.
      Is there any way Nottlers could get in touch and congratulate her ?

  17. Nigel Farage used disabled parking space for 45-minute M&S shop. 7 May 2024

    Nigel Farage has been pictured using a disabled parking space for a 45-minute M&S shop.

    The former Ukip leader was photographed entering a white BMW parked in a spot marked “disabled” near St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, central London.

    The images, which date from April 11, show Mr Farage carrying a union flag M&S bag for life into the car before his chauffeur closes the door.

    The horror! This is of course like one of those word games. You have to read the article to work it out.

    The first thing is that it is not his car and he’s not driving. It’s quite clear that the chauffeur dropped him off and then presumably made himself scarce (this is omitted since it would make the whole savaging exercise redundant) until Mr Farage called him and he returned to pick him up. It shows us the nit picking nature of the Surveillance that Farage is subject too. Someone must have paid for it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/06/nigel-farage-used-disabled-parking-space-45minutes-london/

      1. Can you imagine how old bill would have reacted if that had been very far and extremely ‘right’ English Tommy getting into that car with that bag.

        1. They would have arrested him. Then made something up to justify it. They deserve to be called pigs.

    2. It is my firm opinion that disabled parking is over-catered for. At least half the disabled spaces in car parks are usually empty. And why should they park free? If they can afford to run a car, they can afford to pay to park it like the rest of us. Of course, the parking is not really ‘free’. The rest of us are paying for it.

      Dons tin hat.

      1. I agree .

        The LTN survey that Ndovu posted a link to last week had a question: do you agree that Blue Badge holders should be able to drive through LTNs. My answer was an emphatic no.

      2. Disabled parking round us is reserved for disabled badge holders, so they can stop & exit the car reasonably. They still have to pay.

    3. This is entirely typical of our biased MSM.

      The parking at Rennes Airport is not easy so when Caroline goes into the terminal to meet our students or friends I drive off to park half a mile away. As soon as Caroline has met everybody she rings me on my mobile phone – I do not need to answer it – I just drive to the front of the terminal and pick her and our guests up.

      1. The much hated Luton Airport has a rail system called Dart. It takes passengers to and from the free for pick ups, pull in car park at the front of the airport. Even a local bus goes there and pensioners can use their free passes.

    4. At least he bought something from a shop and didn’t steal it.
      I’ve mentioned this before, but last July the evening before my catheter ablation my good lady and I stayed overnight in London after our meal we sat on a bench just outside St Barts hospital. There was a large SUV parked in a disabled bay with of course the badge on the dash.
      Two women in head covering and long clothing approach the car and stood waiting for three bearded men to catch up. All appeared perfectly fit and able to walk. The car was opened they all climbed in easily and it drove off.
      If they really want to investigate they should investigate the issue of Blue Badges and if the recipients are actually disabled. But let’s face the facts they obviously live in London and might have had acquaintances in the department of blue badges.

  18. Good Moaning.
    Yellow thing in sky. Warm. Contrails. We’re all doooooomed …… chunter, chunter.

    2. Good morning ,

      Was a bright sunny early morning , now misty, cloudy , slight breeze 12c.

      Another week , and Moh’s 78th birthday on the 13th, I have less than a week to think of a suitable treat.

      I did think a Spitfire flight might be nice , but when I looked up the price I shuddered ..

  19. Good day all and the 77th,

    After a misty start the bright yellow orb smiles down on McPhee Towers. Wind in the North, 10℃ going up to 18-19℃ today. That’s better. Should be a nice day.

    I must have a word with my Oxford graduate daugher about this.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b130e7ea60061c001ecdca89fa7c4f9aeec363a74a4e116aa654741d12f755e1.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/06/oxfords-new-chancellor-must-not-be-chosen-by-woke-politburo/

    Stand by for a one-legged, BAME, vegan, lesbian-born-male Chancellor.

      1. My first comment today mentions how dim our politicians literally are.

        These pictures are other great examples of just how dim and short sighted they are. It chimes well with my earlier comment i.e. the stupidity of politicians getting rid of reliable sources of power generation when their future evil plans demand quite the opposite.

        You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

    2. I think it emphasis just how low the British labour party will stoop to get control. How can any single one of them even consider promoting a cause with a middle age middle east mindset from centuries ago, in which their adgenda has never been able to adapt to anything other than their own ongoing destructive hatefulness.

  21. 387096+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    I do believe that I did post that from the outset the wretch cameron DID have a fall back plan, for if the referendum did the seemingly impossible as in striking a major blow for freedom, and won.

    The treacherous treasa was in the wings, waiting as an already
    selected placement candidate,

    The party leader farce and its odious repercussions will run into the future far longer than the mouse trap ever will.

    The gove creature playing the assassin cum pm candidate, using knife play on johnsons , a victim back, then leadsom after one feeble attempt found the kitchen far to hot, ALL playing a part, ALL laying down as a treacherous path for treacherous treasa
    the female ASP activist of the tory, in name only party.

    The theresa May was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party and appointed as Prime Minister on 13 July 2016. In her first speech as Prime Minister she committed her government to tackling what she described as “burning injustices”.

    When the petrol she had brought to add to the “burning injustice”
    being suffered at the time backfired, she handed the ruling baton to bojo “make him PM he makes us laugh”, seemingly ALL THE BLOODY WAY TO THE CEMETERY as his stint as top ranker, political WEF/NWO don has shown.

    Tuesday 7 May: The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline,

    The johnson chap is one of the continuous line of WEF political overseers that have been openly active these last four decades
    using the name TORY title as an umbrella magnet to attract the gullible, once again, again,again.

    Tuesday 7 May: The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline

  22. Good morning, all. A fine sunny start to the day here in N Essex.

    How dim are our politicians when it comes to power supply and the sources of the generation of power?. Zealots of the stripe of Miliband minor see renewables as the answer to power generation and at the same time saving the planet from the catastrophe of “boilng”.

    From 3 minutes 20 seconds in.

    War Room – AI and Power Requirements

    Here, we see Larry Fink CEO of Blackrock, explaining how the AI revolution – it’s an undeniable fact that the globalists will require vast processing capability for their AI and for the enormous databases to enable their plans for worldwide control, CBDC, tracking, digital lD etc – and that the processing demand for power will be huge and that that power supply must be reliable.

    Then we have a World expert on power, Dave Walsh, explaining how renewables cannot not do the job and how huge investments in reliable energy sources will be required. This at a time when energy provision from reliable sources is being reduced by the very politicians who will require a much enhanced reliable source of power to enable their dystopian plans.

    Squaring this circle is far beyond the abilities of our blinkered politicians.

          1. Blue sky and warm here.
            I was considering not going abroad any more. Not just the expense but also the traveling. After this long grey Winter i have changed my mind. The weather today reminds me of what life can be like.

          3. Sitting in the now reduced size seating and having young children behind you kicking and pulling your seat is pretty uncomfortable.
            Also on long haul with more legroom when the selfish people in front of you lean their seats back in your face.

          5. This time the aircraft had around 35 Jewish people, families who had been on some sort of celebration either in Spain or Portugal. My word they were very noisy. But I felt ‘oyve what could I do already’ Start a war ?
            😏🤫

  23. Good morning all.
    A damp, grey start with an almost imperceptible drizzle and a tad over 8°C on the Yard Thermometer.

  24. I see fed up retailers, brand owners and normies are going back to the future of 1829 by taking control of the investigation & prosecution of thefts by ne’er do wells, rather than relying on the plod or CPS who can’t be bothered.

    It’s much quicker, more efficient and many times more successful to proceed with a private prosecution.. providing you have the money and resources to the do the leg work. Anyhow David Hanson became the first ne’er do well to be jailed by private prosecution.

    And another indicator & glimpse of the future.. “you’re in, you’re in.. you can fxxx off”
    Tesco in Bristol has started checking customers on CCTV before letting them into the store in a ‘nightclub-style door policy’.

  25. Music on the moors
    SIR – I was saddened to read of the death of legendary guitarist Duane Eddy (Obituaries, May 3). It reminded me vividly of 1967 and the first time I tackled the Lyke Wake Walk – a long-distance challenge across the top of the North York Moors.

    Much of the walk at that time was along heather-clad sheep tracks, but there is a section that follows the route of a disused railway for several miles. I took the opportunity to stride out and found myself humming a Duane Eddy song that had just the right rhythm, which boosted my morale.

    The walk is about 40 miles long, so Forty Miles of Bad Road seemed wonderfully appropriate.

    Frank Priestnall
    Skipton, North Yorkshire

    I hope I have not had a memory lapse , but I remember the Honey Hit parade theme tune from boarding school days , when my ancient tiny little transistor radio used to sit on on the dormitory radiator , the warmth gave the radio extra life .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKm2_67xtVs

    1. The tune immediately came to mind TB. I wasn’t a fan of Duan Eddy back then. Perhaps I wasn’t quite ready🎸🤭

    2. I enjoyed Duane Eddy’s music in the 1960s and I have a couple of his vinyl gramophone records. But we have come a long way since then.

      One of my favourite musicians and arrangers is Josh Turner. He assembled an orchestra to perform their parts separately in the Band’s classic The Weight and then spliced them all together. This really is worth listening to and watching.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Load+Josh+Turner&oq=The+Load+Josh+Turner&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCTM3OTg3ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9ab5f538,vid:CJPFimuge24,st:0

  26. Morning all 🙂😊
    What a lovely start to the day not a cloud in the sky.☀️
    So the Conservatives are using Johnson as their prefered excuse for their long list of failures.
    I think this simply undererlines their inherent ignorance, they are supposed to be intelligent. And it stems from their inhouse, well fertilised and incapable attitude. With far Too much emphasis on the word’s ME and I.
    Every single person out side of the political world knows exactly what the problem is. 650 plus idiots thinking that they already know everything.

    1. Remember Johnson gave us lockdown and proved he is not fit for the job, any job.

      1. Profligacy and incontinence is all we got from Johnson. Big words signifying nothing. A bloviator who ran with the political stampede towards mediocrity.

      2. Nobody knew what they were doing during the panic Spring of 2020. Lockdown was one remedy of many being trialled then, although it did go on far too long. By 2021, Covid had evolved out of its lethality and was by then at worst a form of common cold that lasted a week, but left one feeling low for months.

        Johnson’s reputation collapsed because of one little old widow sitting on her own. covered all in black like the pillarboxes bearing her initials, in a great big church mourning her husband at his funeral, at the same time her PM was living it up in Downing Street, disregarding his own regulations. One law for Queen and subjects, and another law for politicians with power over us all.

        2. The first lockdown was understandable. Folk could say ‘OK, this sort of makes sense’.

          However, when the inevitable happened and lockdown ended and more testing began, obviously the number of detected infections also rose – we were looking for them, after all.

          The panic that ensued was truly moronic. The demand to lockdown again silly. Then we had folk going on holiday, then more lockdown, then Christmas and, apparently, the virus also had a holiday. What staggered me was how happily people lapped it up without thinking about it logically.

          You like to think you’re surrounded by rational, intelligent beings. To find they’re mindless, ignorant fools is quite disturbing as such folk cannot be predicted.

          1. The first lockdown went on far too long. Then they imposed the ridiculous mask mandate. Apart from masks that summer was fairly normal – until the second and third lockdowns…. I didn’t see my sons that Christmas and they pushed the jabs as a way ‘back to normal’ – it was all theatre and designed to make people take the jabs.

          2. Added to which the first “next” lockdown of any new virus scare will cause us all to be wary given the history of the last round of idiocy, even if by some unlikely chance it’s actually required. The prats who run the country have broken the contract with its people, possibly to an irretrievable extent. That’s the longest term damage done by their foolishness.

            On the other hand a salutary lesson about the wisdom of avoiding spivs and scammers?

          3. I think if they try that one again there will be a lot less compliance. I still have my little exemption card from mask wearing that they kindly made available for download. I only wish I’d done that sooner. I didn’t realise how much I rely on lip reading until every one was masked.

            I will never trust them again, certainly. I’ve always been a compliant and law-abiding citizen, but they went too far with the gaslighting and ridiculous “distancing” and especially the fear campaigns. “Look her in the eyes” etc was shameless.

            Even more damage was done to children – the lack of education and the damage to small children learning to communicate.

          4. It was abuse all around. Abuse of process, abuse of the “political contract”, abuse of human rights, abuse of Truth itself.

            I got the notice downloaded onto my phone as soon as it was issued. I never had to show it. I found staring seriously at challengers in a “you’d better make this convincing” manner tended to grind any officialdom or spontaneous busy-body into submission on its own.

        3. That picture, seen in the papers, was terribly sad. Queen or not, nobody should be treated like that.

    2. “Mr Stride, a close ally of the Prime Minister, said a lot of Conservative voters “stayed away” from the ballot boxes at the May 2 contests because they were “disgruntled”.”

      No, Mr Stride, we are incandescent with fury. We are not a bit “disgruntled”. The Tories’ basic problem is identical to the problem that of the majority of seat warmers in Westminster have. You have systematically excluded the public’s voice from any debate for well over a decade. You have forced through unwanted policies despite us. You’ve noticed that fewer people even bothered turning out to vote and decided to look the other way.

      Mr Stride adds, “But the general election later this year will be an “entirely difference contest”.

      It won’t. This isn’t just some sort of slap on the wrist protest. You’ll still be swimming against the wishes of the electorate.

    3. All gone to Oxford; all think the same way; all know each other. It’s a kind of incestuous intellectualism.

    4. The one thing Johnson got right was his prorogation in 2019. He exposed the hyprocrites in the HoC and demonstrated the danger of judge-led law making. Sadly, his ‘amended’ deal was still unsatisfactory but subsequent events pushed all that aside. His great failure was to not follow his instincts on the dangers of lockdown.

    1. 386095+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      🎵,
      A very serious starry,starry night issue, perhaps they’ll listen now.

    2. In the coming years we are going to need more men like Tommy Robinson. Farage…not so much.

      1. 386096+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Pip,
        I did post in the past a great need of Tommies will be coming our way shortly as in Atkins, Robinson, etc,etc and in my book that has already started, I would say as soon as the islamic instruction manual was placed betwixt the dispatch boxes in parliament.

        1. Afternoon. In a Christian country they should swear on the bible or not stand. This invasion of an alien religion is already causing trouble.

  29. ‘Morning All

    Bright and sunny what’s going on??

    Medley

    https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1785640817412993355

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3120c02632d3d614f483f5d57f0dd89d6f4290a744a2bc3841d6bab908171e35.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f04f3f7157583f4362d884f703c350394b17c8c75c0bdb56cb3f33059a2d550e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd9ab85e0e099fd334417a6c1c359bb6cbc8c883f0e035c7995339c50e57c9fc.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1b55a60bf28cc1582932850bdb87a46636b55b9fec837a59c0f2a972283eeb9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58184d9752ec4d87412ac6f5c94d6ebab3b6cc833f59eece5107a720564bfb1e.gif

    2. Whenever I see a photo of Bill Gates I think: he’s the chap who conned IBM into using his computer operating system (OS) for their PCs, thereby inflicting the crappiest OS in history as the default OS for PCs throughout the world.

    1. Which, interpreted and if true and not just a scare story, means that they combined and manipulated infected tissue samples and injected the hamsters with the substance produced. Airborne viral pathogens have never beeen proven to exist so the message must be to resist swallowing or being injected with any dodgy substances.

        2. Apparently they’re eaten in parts of South America but it seems unlikely that a Chinese lab would actually sell it’s experiments at market?

          1. They eat guinea pigs in Peru. I wish I’d taken a photo of the large mural “Last supper” at a restaurant we went to. Jesus and the apostles were dining on guinea pig.

          2. I think I’ve seen that mural and do have a photo of it. Were you in the Sacred valley in a hacienda on the Urubamba river that had been converted to a hotel/restaurant? I expect there are others around, but if it is the same one it is pretty spectacular!

          3. Yes – exactly there. I was feeling a bit grim that evening so probably the reason I didn’t take a photo. I wished I had afterwards. We were staying somewhere nearby, not actually there. I’ll have to look up where we stayed. I’d love to see the photo if you can share it. It covered a whole wall.

          4. I thought it must have been there. I will find the photo then figure out how to transfer it here if I can! We didn’t stay there either but went there for lunch. There was also a tame vicuna in the grounds which is very rare.

          5. Thanks so much for the photo! I haven’t been able to post photos since I got this new laptop at Christmas, but I can still do it from my phone. Though of course only the phone pics, and not the thousands I have on here. I’ll have to ask my son to sort that out sometime. We saw some wild vicunas but I don’t think we saw tame ones.

          7. I think it could be! Thankyou! Though I thought the guinea pigs were a bit more obvious….. we ate in the evening so I don’t remember seeing the window below. We’d spent the day at Macchu Picchu and in the evening we were staying at Aguas Calientes. Is that where you were? We were there in 2005. We spent about 10 days in Peru and a month in Bolivia. I’ll have to read my notes again.

          8. The mural took up a large gable wall above a window at one end of a very big dining-room. There was actually only one guinea pig on the table, bread and a lot of local fruit etc. We went in 2011 and were actually on our way to stay in Aguas Calientas before going up to Machu Picchu the next day.

          10. My pleasure – I’m sure it is the same one, I doubt there can be two! It is very much in the tradition of the Cusco School of Art set up by the Spanish to help the locals convert to Catholicism. However, they never persuaded the artists to conform to “European” images of the deities or the bible stories so they had to let them do their own interpretations which is what has made it so interesting. So Last Supper is of guinea pig and local fruit and the Virgin Mary nearly always wears green or gold but never blue or white!

          11. We went into a great many churches on that trip. Many of them with very elaborate interiors absolutely glistening with gold leaf everywhere. Must have cost an absolute fortune to do and the people were so poor.

            In Bolivia we went on the”Mission circuit” – little churches set up by the Jesuits. Two in particular made a big impression – in one little church a young boy, no more than 12, whose father was the caretaker, played the organ for us – a small chamber organ which opened up like a cupboard. He was very talented and there is a strong musical tradition there. Another very talented musician was a young man, aged about 18, who walked in, opened up his violin case and started to play.

            We also went to a concert where a group of young people played their music. A lot of original Baroque music was found in an attic somewhere and the kids love to play. I bought their cd – but sadly it must be warped as it won’t play now.

          12. Hamsters?
            I think you mean Guinea Pigs!
            Hamsters came from Syria.

      2. I’m fairly sure the minor cold I had last week came from an airborne pathogen I picked up on the crowded train the previous weekend. It wasn’t by any means the worst cold I’ve had – but it was the first for over four years and left me feeling tired and grumpy.

    1. My good lady has already mentioned today that the grass front and rear needs cutting. Oh dear I can’t get out of it.
      Some of the rear garden is still in shade.
      Two hours work. But just think of the wonderful compost…….later.

    3. Ditto here are couple of hours ago, so now have washing up the “garden”.

  32. I’m rather looking forward to seeing the new production, version, of Fawlty Towers.

    1. I was about to say that it’ll be like most modern “comedy” and just consist of tossing puerile insults at anyone or anything that doesn’t fit a prescribed agenda but I see that it’s actually being written by Cleese senior and daughter. His recent GBN series was entertaining so perhaps there is hope.

        1. Really? At the time of the original goose-steps, yes, as everyone was very familiar with the war and taking the urine out of the Nasties, but now? No. That joke’s time has passed, it is a non-joke, it has ceased to be.

          1. I expect the audience to be of an age where they watched the original. It’s a good thing that someone is producing non woke productions.

  33. Lit the bonfire at 9 am – almost all gone. Very satisfactory. Chilly out. At 4 am there was heavy fog.

      1. Still haven’t seen any swifts here. Too cold on this hilltop. How many have you got so far?

        1. Still just the one. But our friend Mark (see his blog – Bristol Swifts) is confident the rest are on their way and will arrive with the warmer weather.

          1. Ta. They are probably still lolling about on the French Riviera before getting down to the serious business of nest building and egg laying.

          2. Our first one home is at least 10 years old now and wants to get on with things. She sometimes has to wait several days for her mate to turn up. There’s no way of telling but I’m sure she’s the female.

          3. “I’m sure she’s the female.”

            I think you’ll find, Jules, that all shes are female. Everywhere. Every species.😉

          4. Ok – I’ll rephrase that – I’m sure the first one home is the female. Better?

          6. Even the trannies? Most of those are male in spite of their stupid she/her pronouns.

          7. No. Trannies are biologically male, despite what the brainless cretins wish you to call them.

          8. With storks, it’s always the male who turns up first and his wife follows a few days later.

          9. It’s impossible to tell with swifts as they are identical. But my gut feeling is the female is keen to get home first.

        3. We had a couple last week- not seen since. Buggered off home, I expect!

          1. That’s Rishi’s fault.

            The swifts around here usually disappear for three or four days after initial arrival and go to the lakes fed by the River Avon down in the Vale of Pewsey where they gorge on the fly life. Then they return to ‘socialise’.

          2. The breeding pairs return to their nest sites and get on with the business. The younger ones spend the summer socialising and then they start ‘banging’ on the nests to see who’s in.

          3. We have had a number of swallows. On my Sunday ride I saw swallows, 2 deer and a couple of hares. Love to watch the hares but they are bit of a liability with the horse because the remain quatted down in the grass and then run when the horse is about a foot away. So glad that McGinty is not spooked by them as Guiness or Otis would be.

          2. I don’t have a prostate but I still have to get out for a pee in the night – sometimes several times.

          3. That is bearable so long as you can get swiftly back to sleep on return to bed.
            Still being awake 1½h later is a bit of a bugger.

          4. Sometimes I do have that trouble, but generally speaking I can go back to sleep again ok.

    1. The north wind= excellent for bonfire – is a chilly one. No sun. So it feels cold. Also, the AGA had its half-year service this morning – so there is no heat at all in the house.

      1. We’ve had the heating on until today – the first time it didn’t come on. It’s sunny here now after a grey start.

        1. It is now more than a month since we had the heating on – although we have lit the wood-burner a couple of times.

          1. We feel the cold here! It’s a while since we lit the woodburner though.

      2. We would love to have a bonfire but we would be heavily are fined if we did so.

  38. Good Morning All from a beautiful sunny Wiltshire in all her glory this morning.

    All of yesterday’s plans carried out successfully.

    Looking forward to some interesting discussions here 🙂

      2. Hi Pip. Frankly I detest the man but sometimes I have to listen because of his guests.

    2. If the existence of God becomes a provable fact then belief is redundant and no longer necessary.

        1. Hello, I tried to respond to on Saurdays chat, forgetting the thread was closed and on today’s thread. Next time you’re around and I am at the same time, I’d be interested to hear about the Nottlers off line communication- 45 is a decent amount- I don’t think I’d have an issue providing my Gmail to add to others, my Gmail I use for goodreads etc , a useful way to keep in touch .
          Hope to catch you whenever next online, I’m just off to a meeting with our Lib Dem councillor who really does wear socks with sandals as well as wanting to destroy this area .

      2. You know about the dyslexic insomniac, who lies awake all night wondering if there is a Dog?

        1. And the dyslexic, incontinent insomniac who lies awake all night wondering if there is a Bog?

      3. I have actually met and spoken to God – but I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t believe in him.

    3. Thank you so much for this! I enjoyed it on so many levels. What a lovely man. And Piers maybe not such a complete plonker as preciously thought.

      1. It’s a fascinating conversation. I discovered that there is more of Stephen Mayer on You Tube if you would like to hear more of his thinking.

  40. I noted some remark about Boris –
    I have been given a book – autobiography of someone I have known for a number of years – he had been a UKIP MEP. In the book he comments on the people he met over the years. 2 stand out in my memory and I paraphrase …
    Boris Johnson is a Lie. My friend was helping to organise an event at which Boris was to the be the main speaker. He describes Boris as being smartly dressed – striding the room, barking orders liberally slattered with swear words – until the BBC stopped him and asked for an interview. Boris says – give me 5 min – at which point he adjusts his jacket – gets the buttons wrong, skews his tie and ruffles is hair so that he looks like his usuals scarecrow and carries out the interview. After which – he resumes his previous position and does his speech.

    The man is lie through and through.

    The other description which sticks in my mind -probably because it was not unexpected is that of David Carmeron who he describes (again I paraphrase) as a deeply unpleasant person with a born to rule attitude who treated his staff and subordinates with distain and had a temper to match that of Gordon Brown

    The Tory Party certainly know how to pick ”em don’t they?

    1. I came across both these men at university, and Boris’s scarecrow act has never fooled me either. Cameron was witheringly unpleasant to almost everyone who crossed his path. I should think he must have made more enemies in his life than almost anyone else in Britain. I later heard a Conservative party activist observe that DC and George Osborne “closed their address books when they left school” and both were entirely uninterested in, and seemingly contemptuous of, their fellow men.

      2. Did you know Delingpole who also says he knew them both? And Gove.

        1. Came across JD, didn’t know his name at the time. Had plenty of opportunity to observe Gove. Another grade A a55hole imo.

      1. The lower message has been written by somebody who can’t manage English spelling.
        The upper message has been written by somebody who can’t even manage American spelling.

          1. It is, but those who cannot spell are not likely to be in a position to give a reliable account of this matter.

  41. First 14 letters wrong or wrongly placed:
    Wordle 1,053 5/6

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

    1. It wasn’t looking good for a while

      Wordle 1,053 4/6

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

    2. I made a dumb mistake on try three but it helped with try four.

      Wordle 1,053 4/6

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

    4. Surprising birdie today – another potential stinker, two on the trot. Was fortunate to get the key letter in my second start word!

      Wordle 1,053 3/6

      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  42. Early lunch.
    Grapes, sliced apple, sweet pickle.
    Lincolnshire Poacher with plum bread, Tunworth, Baron Bigod, biscuits and Welsh butter.
    Large glass Sancerre.
    Heaven.

    1. Dinner (1200 hrs).
      Grilled gammon steak, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, broad beans, parsley sauce.
      Large cappuccino.
      Delightful.

          3. Yes. Sweden does not allow imports of dairy products from nearly all non-EU countries (exceptions do not include the UK).

            In general, the import of meat and dairy products to Sweden from non-EU countries is not allowed. Exceptions are made if you import food from Andorra, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino or Switzerland.

            The following foodstuffs can be imported without restriction:

            Bread, biscuits, chocolate and sweets, unless mixed with or filled with meat products
            Meat extracts such as broth or stock cubes
            Other broths or aromas for soups, if packed for the end consumer, that contains meat extracts or fish oil
            Pasta and noodles unless containing meat products
            Olives filled with fish
            Packed and marked products that do not contain meat o dairy and less than 50% processed egg and fish stuffs, provided that the product can be kept in room temperature or is fully cooked
            Gelatine capsules without filling
            Food supplements

            For more detailed information contact the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) or Swedish Customs.

            https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-for-foreign-affairs/diplomatic-portal/diplomatic-guide/13.-customs-privileges-and-duty-free-import/13.5-restrictions#:~:text=13.5.-,2%20From%20non%20EU%20countries,Norway%2C%20San%20Marino%20or%20Switzerland.

          5. Strange, but I have ordered Primula cheese in tubes from BritSuperstore online and received them in the post.

          6. Have you done so since the UK left the EU? Then again, as much as I enjoy Primula cheese in tubes, perhaps it doesn’t quite count as dairy on a technicality, or maybe the sealed package provides it with an exemption.

          7. A good friend (who used to comment on the DT letters’ page) used to send me packages of Primula in the post with the Customs label marked ‘toothpaste’.

          8. I’m waiting to hear if they deliver to Sweden. Let you know. Or if i can post it without customs stealing it.

    2. SpagBoll. pear. with portugese red wine by Symingtons. Thick ham butties for tea.

    1. “Demand 1. Apologise for your comments greenlighting a genocide and for not backing the ceasefire in Oct/Nov 2023”

      I wish someone with a spine would tell these cretins there is no genocide, and that there was a perfectly good ceasefire in operation prior to 7th October 2023. But I doubt anyone will.

      1. Of course. But Starmer is between Scylla and Charybdis – a jewish wife and a muslim vote. No doubt he will try to please them both, and end up pleasing none (what we the British think will of course be totally irrelevant to him).

  44. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c71cefd9a8347a77770b885d3633bb785b263acc0ba851a61aebaafb35d5f06.jpg Before.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29f05d15f47e32f889e356d93dcf6e810c8d02c2a0c4eb6016d9bcc79edcc32a.jpg After.

    Bright and sunny here. I was out in the yard at 0645 hrs painting the new section of wall outside my workshop. I then went into the workshop to finish painting some timber panels (lats) that will be affixed to the outside wall in order to match the existing timber-cladding. After a couple of mugs of tea I mowed the lawn. I then went indoors to cook and eat my dinner and wash-up afterwards. I’m now enjoying my cappuccino while I read NoTTLe before going back outdoors again. Sunshine is far too good to waste.

      1. I’ve strimmed the perimeter of the garden in the past couple of hours. Still not a cloud in the sky.

  45. ‘The fall of Boris Johnson triggered the Conservatives’ sharp decline’? Nope, the decline was already in progress. Cameron careened the Conservatives away from the path of sanity and Theresa picked up the pace. And then Johnson put his foot hard down on the accelerator. Then Sunak took over. Sans map; sans brake; sans everything. And now where is the Conservative Party? Churning around clueless in the middle of the wilderness postponing the inevitable. Vote Reform. Labour will probably get in anyway so use your vote to sort out the Conservatives.

  46. US and most EU countries to boycott Putin swearing-in ceremony. 7 May 2024.

    The US and most EU nations will boycott a Kremlin ceremony to swear in Vladimir Putin for a new six-year term as president on Tuesday, but France and some other EU states were expected to send an envoy despite a plea by Kyiv. “No, we will not have a representative at his inauguration,” Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said. “We certainly did not consider that election free and fair but he is the president of Russia and he is going to continue in that capacity.”

    You have to wonder why he didn’t choke on his own words! A US administration operation is ongoing at present to prevent Trump becoming the next US President. To achieve this they have suborned the entire legal system, something Vladimir Putin has never dreamed of. I am of course something of a supporter of the Russian President. A position made much easier by the nature of his opponents. Most of whom are traitors to democracy, freedom and their own people. It’s easy to say to me, “Ah Minty but you don’t live in Russia. You are not going to be called up to go to Ukraine.” This is true but my appreciation is based on the observation that we share the same enemies. There is not one Western Leader that I do not fear and loathe. They are the true enemies of the indigenous people of the West.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/ukraine-war-briefing-us-and-most-eu-countries-to-boycott-putin-swearing-in-ceremony

  47. US and most EU countries to boycott Putin swearing-in ceremony. 7 May 2024.

    The US and most EU nations will boycott a Kremlin ceremony to swear in Vladimir Putin for a new six-year term as president on Tuesday, but France and some other EU states were expected to send an envoy despite a plea by Kyiv. “No, we will not have a representative at his inauguration,” Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said. “We certainly did not consider that election free and fair but he is the president of Russia and he is going to continue in that capacity.”

    You have to wonder why he didn’t choke on his own words! A US administration operation is ongoing at present to prevent Trump becoming the next US President. To achieve this they have suborned the entire legal system, something Vladimir Putin has never dreamed of. I am of course something of a supporter of the Russian President. A position made much easier by the nature of his opponents. Most of whom are traitors to democracy, freedom and their own people. It’s easy to say to me, “Ah Minty but you don’t live in Russia. You are not going to be called up to go to Ukraine.” This is true but my appreciation is based on the observation that we share the same enemies. There is not one Western Leader that I do not fear and loathe. They are the true enemies of the indigenous people of the West.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/ukraine-war-briefing-us-and-most-eu-countries-to-boycott-putin-swearing-in-ceremony

  48. Amid terrible local election results last Friday, the Office for National Statistics quietly slipped out figures that are a far more worrying and damning indictment of the last 14 years of Conservative rule than anything that happened at the ballot box.

    The source of most of our problems – the public and welfare sectors.

  51. Wordle 1053 4/6

    🟨⬛🟨🟩⬛

    ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛

    🟨⬛⬛🟩🟩

    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. And why is it wearing a mask?? Too frightened to be identified as a nutter?

      1. Frightened of breathing the same air as normal people – might start thinking rationally.

          1. Keeps the hands clean when stoning a child for refusing to be married to her uncle or grandfather.

    2. I’m puzzled by what appear to be images of melon slices on the placard.

        1. Corresponds to HisHerIts scarf and shirt.
          I’d wager your guess is correct.

        2. Uncle Tom niggers are called ‘choc-ices’ by other white-hating niggers.

      3. The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol is not new. It first emerged after the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel seized control of the West Bank and Gaza, and annexed East Jerusalem. At the time, the Israeli government made public displays of the Palestinian flag a criminal offense in Gaza and the West Bank.

        To circumvent the ban, Palestinians began using the watermelon because, when cut open, the fruit bears the national colours of the Palestinian flag—red, black, white, and green.

      4. Green on the outside and red on the inside. I can’t recall whether originally that was an insult or something more meaningful in their world view.

        A coconut, brown on the outside, white on the inside, is an insult.

    3. There’s the phrase ‘useful idiots’. Well, this placard holder is a useless idiot.

  54. Data of 270,000 service personnel ‘exposed in Chinese MoD hack’. 7 May 2024.

    Around 270,000 service personnel may have been hit by China’s hack on the Ministry of Defence, it has emerged.

    The hackers gained access to payroll information including names, bank details and some addresses of serving personnel, reservists and veterans, in the data breach.

    I am not a fan of the Chinese Communist Party and yet I wonder why they have undertaken an operation that can bring them only small Intelligence returns and massive diplomatic difficulties as well as provoking a response . Though I’m not a cyber geek my understanding is that tracking those responsible for Hacking is fraught with immense difficulties and yet the UK is able to point these people out with monotonous regularity. In these times I find it much easier to believe that they are self-inflicted.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/07/service-personnel-hit-china-mod-hack/

      1. I wondered about that too, but I see the total includes reserves and veterans.

      3. The figure probably includes those who are retired and reservists, etc. By hacking TV licence data around the Cheltenham area, some foreign state obtained names and addresses which would have included some people employed at GCHQ. Secure databases are feasible, but slower.

  55. Any more claims that Mike Tindall is to oust Prince Harry from the Invictus Games? No? I thought not.

          2. Had a spot of Vic Reeves on earlier. What ever happened to British TV comedy?

          1. I wonder. It is the kind of thing that would tempt one to roundly take the piss, which might put a stop to it.

          2. It is unfortunate, because I know that Young is trying to do the right thing. But he does remind me of the ghastly Hislop….(in look and gestures..)

          3. I know what you mean, Bill. He does display the potential to descend the same way. I hope he does not succumb.

    2. I’m a fan of Toby Young in verbal flow, more so than his writing. I recommend The Weekly Sceptic, a nice balance from Young and Dixon.

      However in this instance I beg to differ Chris Packham’s “THE SCIENCE” is Climate Disinformation. On the contrary there’s a lack of any information, just recite in unison the cult chant of “THE SCIENCE”. In the pay of Big Oil appears to be an outright lie.

  57. A new show featuring Marcus Wareing…Simply Provence. He visits a primary school where none of the children are obese unlike one in three in the UK. The children enjoy table service of a three course meal featuring lobster bisque. In the UK they get heavily processed chicken nuggets and chips.

    QED

    1. I would wager they have far better table manners and dining etiquette too.

      British children slop their food down like pigs because their not-fit-for-purpose parents and beyond-useless teachers are clueless about discipline (or, indeed, about anything).

      1. I agree. Though McDonalds in France is is possibly the company’s busiest franchise.

      2. I had a thought about lobster bisque. It does make economic sense to feed it to children. All the flavour comes from the head and the shell. You don’t need to put the lobster meat in too.

      3. Just watched it. The children all seemed to be white !
        Just one lady cook cooking local organic veg. Teachers acting as monitors. The children were all served at table. And well behaved. I know the cameras were there but we are still talking about 5 year olds.

    1. The painted insides of the cylinders (and the pistons … and piston rings) gives it away.

      1. Go on then – how so? (What is it? This is reminding me of “Our Man in Havana”)

  59. The big yellow thing in the sky induced an outside lunch of greek salad and good ham a couple of ciders may also have been involved
    now off for a nap……………….laters

    1. Greek salad is my go to. The only reason i buy expensive olive oil. I used to make it by the dustbin load. Bin used only for that purpose, when i worked at a Taverna.

      1. I love Greek salad…..but only in Greece. Like retsina it doesn’t seem to work in these climes for me.

        1. In the late seventies early eighties there was a Fish and Chip restaurant named The Seafresh near Vauxhall Bridge Road at the Victoria end. There was always a long line of black cabs parked in the street outside.

          The restaurant was run by a Greek family. The food was excellent and the only wine served was chilled Retsina. On our visits I much enjoyed the food and wine which seemed to me the perfectly accompaniment to the skate or haddock served.

          The long line of black cabs was a testament to the food on offer by which I infer London cabbies, discerning folk, chose to eat there.

          1. Actually, fish and chips with retsina sounds like quite a promising combination. I may try and give it a go.

            Greek salad might make a good accompaniment as well.

          2. I always prepare a Greek salad before going out to get a take-away from our local fish and chip emporium (a Greek-Cypriot establishment) but that’s partly because my disabled son nicks half of my calamari and all the chips.

        2. I know what you mean. It’s the same with a tricolore salad. You have to source the best buffala. Tomatoes slow grown in the Med and proper Basil. You buy those ingredients from an English supermarket and it’s completely tasteless.

          1. Not necessarily, if you time it right and use fabulous olive oil, Phizzee (and the right seasoning)

          3. I know what you mean about tricolore salad. I’ve only eaten it in the UK and although I could feel things in my mouth I couldn’t taste anything.

          1. Retsina is disgusting. it tastes like turpentine. Even the most hardened alcoholic steers clear.

          5. Ouzo’s great if you like aniseed. Resinated wine does actually taste of how pine lavatory cleaner smells – in fact, I seem to recall that it is also known as Domestos, or something very similar

          6. If you really want something foul, produced in Sweden, you should try (and avoid) Bästa Drop – A Swedish Schnapps – it’s foul, George!

          7. I’m not a fan of most Swedish snaps, Tom. I much prefer a German schnapps.

          8. After A-levels a group of us travelled overland to Greece. We had the digestive capacity of ostriches in those days but even we avoided retsina.

        4. Current favourite is Bloody Mary, followed by Scotch and ginger ale and then Belgian beer.

          3. Yes, I think I’ve heard that term before. A premixed version is available called ‘BigTom’ ( I think) in the supermarket.

    1. Bast**ds. They should have their hands and legs amputated – then returned to their native sh*tholes.

    2. My father was born in Cheam and my mother in Cardiff. England or Wales, what’s it to be?

      1. Whichever you choose. Personally I regard England and Wales as being England, with Wales just a district with a particularly distinct identity and history.

        1. Wales is quite distinct from England. England has a great affiliation with its traditional counties, and to a lesser extent its ancient kingdoms such as Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria. Wales, like Scotland, is split between North and South, with North Wales being more Welsh-speaking and centred around the slate industry, whilst South Wales was more founded on coal in the valleys. Sheep, song, leeks and daffodils unite the two parts. Pembrokeshire is regarded as more English than the rest of Wales. Like much of Celtic Britain, society is less centred around villages, and more around homesteads that are distributed more evenly around the land with no defined centre.

          These distinctions are indigenous, and are not these days understood in the cities, with its vastly greater population of settlers from abroad.

      2. One of my great grandfathers came from Naples. Does that give me carte blanche to ride a Lambretta without a helmet and pinch the bottoms of pretty young women?

      3. 386096+ up ticks,

        Evening JM,

        Depends what the crime was if really serious and as a added punishment , Wales.

          2. I was thinking of him when I wrote it. Was it Railway cuttings or was it the sidings?

          4. 386096+ up ticks,

            Evening LS,
            would not lower myself, no offence meant, my childhood and upbringing was in Kew , schooling in Kew & Richmond,my gang and I should have been hung / hanged
            early doors for woffling the Kings apples / pears from in Kew Gardens.

      4. My father was born in Hickling, Norfolk and my mother in Iver, Bucks, so, apart from previous generations I claim 100% English.

  61. These anti-Israel student protests lay bare the brazen hypocrisy of the woke Left

    They used to rail against ‘cultural appropriation’. So how come it’s all right for non-Palestinian students to wear the keffiyeh?

    MICHAEL DEACON, COLUMNIST
    7 May 2024 • 7:00am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/06/TELEMMGLPICT000376550967_17150136330970_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqAJKf8gPvN_ApGppqLcR-MJgojZYlP8f0i9h2tPqCNsM.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Pro-Palestine student activists take part in an encampment in front of the Oxford University

    The BBC seems eager to reassure us that the students taking over campuses to protest against Israel are gentle, peace-loving pillars of the community – rather than, as some members of the public might have supposed, a pack of brainwashed, Jew-hating apologists for terrorism. To this end, on Sunday the BBC News website ran an article headlined: “Inside a ‘peaceful and proud’ Gaza protest camp at a UK university.”

    The article certainly made all involved sound like lovely people. There was just one small snag.

    Directly beneath the “peaceful and proud” headline was a photo of a student protester whose face was completely obscured by a big black mask.

    Now, I’ve no doubt that this student – who for some reason asked not to be named – is a delightful human being who wouldn’t hurt a fly, not even a wicked Zionist one. I would just say, however, that if I were staging some form of protest, and I wished to show the public that my goals were entirely peaceful, I would probably decide against wearing a big black mask. Otherwise, the public might think that a) I looked a tiny bit intimidating, and b) I was carefully concealing my identity because I intended to commit some kind of crime, possibly a violent one.

    Just a thought.

    Still, it isn’t just masks that seem to be de rigueur at these protests. There’s another item of clothing that is possibly even more popular. It’s the keffiyeh: a type of traditional Palestinian scarf that is typically used as a headdress. And it’s being worn by lots of Left-wing students – even those who happen to be white.

    Which is fascinating. Because, for the past decade, Left-wing students in both Britain and America have been telling us, very loudly and angrily, that white Westerners shouldn’t wear the traditional clothing of other ethnic groups – because this is “cultural appropriation”. And “cultural appropriation”, they’ve repeatedly warned us, is offensive, hurtful, and almost certainly racist.

    In 2019, for example, the students’ union at the University of Sheffield declared that it was insensitive to wear a sombrero. In 2018, the students’ union at the University of Kent decreed that it was unacceptable to dress up as a Native American (or “Red Indian”, a term which is itself now considered unacceptable). And in 2015, hundreds of students at Yale staged furious protests after a female lecturer said people should be free to wear whatever costumes they wished, including those from other cultures. Shortly afterwards, she resigned.

    Perhaps, however, this lecturer was simply ahead of her time. Because in 2024, it’s apparently deemed wholly acceptable – even admirable – for white Westerners to don the clothing of another ethnic group. As long as they’re doing it to demonstrate their hatred of Israel, anyway.

    To be clear: I’ve got nothing against white people wearing the keffiyeh. All I’m saying is that, when Left-wing activists decide to make abrupt changes to the rules they’ve sought to impose upon society, I wish they’d let the rest of us know. Say, by sending out a helpful memo or press release. “ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS. Cultural appropriation is no longer considered a heinous offence against marginalised and oppressed minorities. Instead, it is now considered a noble expression of solidarity with them. Please update your records accordingly.”

    Something along those lines. Just as a courtesy. Otherwise, it’s not easy for the rest of us to follow the rules, if we’re no longer sure what they are.

    LGB tea
    Over the course of my lifetime, one of the most striking linguistic developments has been the changing usage of the word “queer”. When I was growing up, it was a term of homophobic abuse, used only by bigoted thugs. In recent years, however, the word has been successfully reclaimed. As a result, many people are now proud to call themselves “queer”.

    Until yesterday, however, I didn’t realise that food could be queer, too.

    But it turns out it can. Boston University, reports the New York Times, has just hosted “the inaugural Queer Food Conference”. Around 160 attendees paid $45 (£35) a head to discuss “queer food”, analyse “food spaces” from “queer, Marxist, feminist and anti-colonialist perspectives”, and celebrate foods that “challenge binaries and any kind of normativity”. (One speaker, “a non-binary transgender lesbian”, cited okra. “The way you slice into okra and it’s crunchy and ooshy-gushy – a lot of people think it’s weird. But okra is queer.”)

    For me, at least, this is a real eye-opener. I must admit, it had never previously occurred to me that the food on my plate might have a sexual orientation, or a gender identity.

    But then, I suppose that’s just my cisgender heterosexual privilege showing.

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

    chris reece
    6 HRS AGO
    Try and find anything by the BBC on the Green Party’s Mothin Ali. An election victory speech that is a fascist hate rant with his intimidating male mob . Victory speeches in this country are traditionally magnanimous, offering something to those who didn’t vote for you, maybe a mention of a single green issue if you are on a green ticket. Once more our national broadcaster which we all have to pay for looking the other way. It’s a dangerous toxic facilitator of hard left fascism.

    1. Power is all the Left cares about. Nothing else. They’ll lie, and cheat, even kill to get it.

    2. The masks are to conceal their identity and also because the eternally fashion conscious youngsters see them as a show of extremism (I might be going to do something illegal so I’ll hide my face).

      1. They must get some sort of a weird a kick wearing those face nappies and breathing in their own snot.

        That’s why I refused to wear a physog jam-rag when the “covid” hysteria was at its height.

    3. The entire show at the elite universities is funded by Gates, Soros and Rockerfeller and their fellow globalists. It is the same with the street protests in London every weekend.

      The tents, banners and flags are mass produced and collected by activist groups from designated places, all funded by the billionaire class who seek a breakdown in law and order and to wreak division in our society.

      1. I fear that you are correct. Why are they so gullible? And the media…

        1. Orders from WEF.

          Any ‘breakdown’, i.e. civil disobedience should be led by us – we the people!

    4. The entire show at the elite universities is funded by Gates, Soros and Rockerfeller and their fellow globalists. It is the same with the street protests in London every weekend.

      The tents, banners and flags are mass produced and collected by activist groups from designated places, all funded by the billionaire class who seek a breakdown in law and order and to wreak division in our society.

  62. From Coffee House (Gareth Roberts)

    The attacks on Britain’s history have backfired
    Comments Share 7 May 2024, 11:10am
    UK university courses on race and colonialism are facing the axe due to cuts. ‘There’s not very much about race and colonialism on the curriculum to start with,’ fumed Professor Hakim Adi at the report, which revealed that Kent university’s anthropology course and a music programme at Oxford Brookes is under threat. Adi, a former leader of Chichester university’s history of Africa programme, told the Observer: ‘It sends a signal from those in power that these types of subjects are not desired…they just won’t be taught in higher education, if this trend continues’.

    This empire obsession is very strange and unfair
    To which one is tempted to reply, in the words of Sergeant Major Williams from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind’. I’m surprised at Professor Adi’s assertion on race and colonialism being sidelined: it often seems as if we talk about little else, particularly in the universities, where ‘decolonisation’ is the starter, main course and pudding of the discourse.

    This empire obsession is very strange and unfair; it revives the long-gone imperial and colonial past and views it through only one tiny lens, as if it was in any way directly relevant – indeed central – to modern British society. I’m all for studying history, but this way of studying the past is flawed: it’s as if someone was to dredge up the wars of the Spanish succession every time there is a discussion on low traffic neighbourhoods. Isn’t it strange how people only yack on about history when they can find a way to use it to charge up their own contemporary grievance and resentment?

    Wouldn’t it it better – certainly better for the individual – to forget what happened in the past? My own ancestors, beyond three or four generations, are totally lost to history. Some tentative investigations have only confirmed the handed-down stories that they were an unbroken lineage of agricultural peasants or indentured servants going back indistinguishably into the mists. I’m pretty sure they led impoverished existences of backbreaking toil and powerless misery. But would it be worth my time, or anybody else’s, obsessing about them and their sorry lot?

    Surely it’s preferable to let these things fade. We have our own lives to muck up, after all. The Norman Conquest must have been a shocking and seismic event in the eleventh century, but it wasn’t too long before everyone forgot about it and muddled together. People certainly remembered it, of course, but it didn’t matter any more.

    Younger readers may be surprised to hear that, not so very long ago, most of us preferred to live in this way – to look forwards rather than backwards. Yes, we were interested in the past. But most of my generation gleaned all we knew of colonisation from bank holiday afternoon screenings of Zulu and Carry On Up The Khyber, or sitcoms like the aforementioned It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, which portrayed the British abroad as blithering posh idiots and daft squaddies, neither of which wanted to be there. We lived, after all, in the world of The Specials, Soul II Soul and Desmond’s. The idea of real nostalgia for colonial days would’ve been laughable. I vividly recall during my first term at university in 1989 a fellow student (who was not an idiot) asking the lecturer ‘Sorry, but what’s the “British Empire”?’

    It isn’t only dull academics who can’t stop banging on about the Empire. The lost tribe of the Remainers have it as a permanent gripe, with their bizarre characterisation of Leave voters as nostalgists for the days of Sanders Of The River and Gunga Din.

    Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear at the loss of uni courses on the subject
    I grew up in what was then a rock-solid Conservative constituency. I was surrounded by Tories and ardent Eurosceptics – and I never, not once, encountered this view of the Empire. Many other things occurred, yes, some of them rather unpleasant, but never this. We kids were encouraged towards racial and cultural harmony, in what was also a highly racially mixed area for its time, with the standard liberal regret for the incomprehensible past. I remember a very Tory teacher steering me gently away from the works of Sax Rohmer, as they were really unpleasantly jingoistic and racist. And that was 45 years ago! Certainly a desire to strap on the old pith helmet, go subjugating to the ends of the earth and fructify on the dusty veldt never cropped up. These people were much more bothered about Arthur Scargill.

    They were right to focus on the ills of today. Indeed even those who don’t like the Empire much should realise that talking about it so much has backfired. This peculiar phenomenon – where the people who bang on about imperialism and colonialism are the only ones to give it more than a moment’s thought – has given rise to a peculiar Streisand Effect. The obsession with atoning for Britain’s past has given me, and certain others if the satirical online meme of Anglo-futurism (AI art of London full of spaceships flying Union Jacks etc) is anything to go by, a renewed interest in formerly naff tales of pioneering pluck. It also made me read up on the actual history – the slavery-destroying British Navy (the West Africa Squadron is a forgotten story that really needs telling), and the huge public appetite for the emancipation movement in Victorian Britain. Neither of which you’ll hear anything about from the mavens of ‘decolonisation’.

    So forgive me if I don’t shed a tear at the loss of uni courses on the subject. Okay, we shouldn’t totally forget. But we should remember in a different way – and not feel guilty for Britain’s wonderful history

  63. I have contacted the seller and asked them if they will deliver to Sweden. Still waiting.

  64. Well, yes.

    I don’t think that Boris was a great Prime Minister; he wasn’t tempramentally suited to it. Lack of attention to detail, too easily swayed by others, needed to be liked by everyone.
    He reminds me of the quote describing Charles the Second, the King who “Never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one”.

    But Boris had one thing that no one else had. He was popular, and that popularity translated into votes.
    He won London twice. He thrashed Corbin.
    He was an electoral asset, and he was the Tories only electoral asset. If you doubt that statement, look at Truss and Sunak.

    When you have an asset, you keep it; you defend it.
    So when elements in his own party cringed before the media and conspired to get Johnson removed because of “partygate”, it was entirely the wrong thing to do.
    They should have circled the wagons; defended their asset.

    But no, they were all too grown up for that. “The adults are back in the room” gloated Sunak’s co-conspirators.
    How is that working for you now chaps?

    2. Another similarity between Boris and Charles II was their penchant for fathering offspring with sundry and various women.

      1. Absolutely, Sos. If only it weren’t for the Climate Crap and the vacuous wifelet.

    3. I always thought he was ghastly, but I didn’t know what was to follow.

    2. BTL:

      Cobra Wing
      1 day ago

      So let’s see, first they don’t think they should have to repay their college loans. Then they don’t feel there should be any consequences for the total disruption of their campuses. Now, they should all receive passing grades for a school they didn’t pay for and for a school they tore apart?

    3. Only left wing extremists go to Hell. (And Remainers, cyclists and Muslims, obviously.) My dog has a theory that if a Muslim lives a very wicked life indeed they are reincarnated as one of Satan’s diabolic imps, better known as cats.

      1. I hate to be picky, Squire but I think you omitted the ‘should’ before go to Hell!

      3. 🐈🐈‍⬛🐱 from Terpsi with love 😁 but no uptick for you or your dog .

          1. Maybe you and your dog might grow some fondness for felines and i shall charm the gods to bring you sunshine, seems a fair deal 😁

    4. If you like that then members of the public intervening with JSO across the world are a good ol’ hoot.

  67. Olly Alexander, the UK’s chosen representative in the upcoming Eurovision Song contest, declared “It is kind of sad to me that we don’t have gay popstars singing about men using a male pronoun,” “but that could change hopefully.” Though his work with Years & Years openly references his sexuality,
    Alexander said “can’t speak for all gay people, because there are so many different issues, and experiences, and different shapes and sizes. But I can speak for myself, and that is what I’m doing.

    What a rebel – a raving poofter wanting to use male pronouns! Whatever next?

      1. I am completely foxed by what this person actually is or purports to be? It appears to wear a bra (to need to wear a bra) and has an androgynous voice along with effeminate fat distribution. Anyone enlighten me?

        1. Fortunately, I know not of whom you speak. I expect Grizz will tell you: he knows a great deal about popular music…{:¬))

      1. Olly Alexander was once the frontman for the pop group Years & Years. Those quotes came from an interview he did with the website DigitalSpy nearly 9 years ago, published 8 July 2015. Here are the relevant questions and his replies in full. They make more sense in context.

        ‘Real’ is one of the few moments on the album where there’s a gender specific reference that you’re singing the song about a male lover. Was keeping that more neutral throughout the rest of the album a case of allowing a wider audience to be able to relate to it?

        “Most of the album is written like that because that’s how I’ve grown up listening to songs. I’ve thought a lot about this, that relationship of ‘you and I’ is so prevalent among music and all my favourite songwriters. I remember listening to Joni Mitchell and how she would write songs, and she was talking about how as soon as she put herself in, then that ‘you and I’ relationship is what unlocked all the songwriting places for her.

        “I think that’s just how I learnt to use my voice as a songwriter, like whenever I write a diary because I wanted to hide who I was writing about, it would always be ‘you and I’. But then it was important for me to get some male pronouns in some of the songs, so I did it for ‘Real’ and ‘Memo’, and then one song on the deluxe. It is kind of sad to me that we don’t have gay popstars singing about men using a male pronoun, but that could change hopefully.”

        It feels like music is in a good place for gay artists, but do you think there is still some way for it to go yet in terms of letting artists truly be honest in their work if they have to appeal for a mainstream audience?

        “I think there are a lot of factors involved with mainstream success. There are loads of reasons why an artist is successful and I think what people loved about Sam [Smith] was that it felt like it was coming from an authentic place. But I think, yeah, there’s still a way to go.

        “I’d like to hear a gay artist express their sexuality in a really open way. That’s something I’ve sort of tried to do a little bit on this album, but to be able to talk about sex is possibly new for gay artists, so I’d like to see that in the mainstream. I think you’re right – music does feel like it’s in a much more accepted, tolerant place; even with Miley Cyrus, when she doesn’t identify with either gender, and we’re getting used to these ideas of about non-binary gender, which is a good thing.”

        As Years & Years become more established, would you be willing to be that popstar that expresses their sexuality through music, leading the way for others to do so too?

        “I get asked, ‘How do you feel being a spokesperson for gay issues?’, and what I’ve come to think is I can’t speak for all gay people, because there are so many different issues, and experiences, and different shapes and sizes. But I can speak for myself, and that is what I’m doing if I’m going to be writing songs and giving interviews, I want to be able to speak about something I care about.

        “I also believe if you want the world to change, or you want to see social change, you have to be an embodiment of it, so I am 100% for pushing equality and equal rights always. I guess that is as much part of the agenda as the music is really, because it’s just who I am.”

        https://www.digitalspy.com/music/a657111/years-years-interview-its-sad-we-dont-have-gay-popstars-using-male-pronouns/

        1. Fair enough. I just wish that post-modern people would recognise that some things (thoughts, religion, sexuality) are private and should remain so.

          1. They don’t begin to comprehend they are being weaponised by the mad-Left. I’ve grown up through this period of the flowering of things like “Bring your whole self to work” nonsense. No. It’s none of your business or likewise none of my business. Privacy.

            Which then follows with the tactical strategy of positive affirmation vs peaceful tolerance. The Liberal Left seems so utterly inept at spotting this, they cannot draw a line and say no, which the devious Neo-Marxists continue to the push against.

            When Classical Liberalism was formulated other things were in place for it to make stable sense. Christianity, The British Empire (for all its faults), The Family, Patriotism, Social Civility, Individual Responsibility. One could go on. But all of these things have been attacked by the Left, directly or in memory.

            At one end it leads to a situation where stating a “Mind your own business” you get “aren’t you an old fudy dudy” in return. At the other end it has opened the door to a situation where Western students are incapable of saying no to the claims of genocidal Islamists who in turn have adopted the Social Justice victim rhetoric of the mad-Left.

        2. Not interested enough in these strange people, Stig. I find them totally odd and queer.

        1. Greetings, Stig. No, the reason I made that comment was because Marc Almond was interviewed, some time ago, as to why he chose to record a cover of that particular old standard.
          His reply was that he thought the lyrics were appropriate to describing his own feelings in his relationship (with a man).

  68. Olly Alexander, the UK’s chosen representative in the upcoming Eurovision Song contest, declared “It is kind of sad to me that we don’t have gay popstars singing about men using a male pronoun,” “but that could change hopefully.” Though his work with Years & Years openly references his sexuality,
    Alexander said “can’t speak for all gay people, because there are so many different issues, and experiences, and different shapes and sizes. But I can speak for myself, and that is what I’m doing.

    What a rebel – a raving poofter wanting to use male pronouns! Whatever next?

  69. Phew! A clueless Bogey Six!

    Wordle 1,053 6/6
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    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Stroke of luck (but could have been luckier). One of those really irritating ones Wordle 1,053 4/6

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

    2. A lot of possibilities today.

      Wordle 1,053 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
      🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
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    3. Par four but a silly mistake on guess three.

      Wordle 1,053 4/6

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      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Posting again as I feel so insufferably smug on getting a birdie! Another potential stinker (two days on the trot, now, squeaked in with a 6 yesterday) but I was very fortunate to get the key letter in my second start word! Get in!

      Wordle 1,053 3/6

      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  70. Bring on the Reformation…

    “Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the UK Government needed to accept it was in a “war” with China following reports Beijing was behind a cyber attack on a Ministry of Defence database.

    The former Cabinet minister, a vocal critic of the Chinese regime, said the UK had been “pretty hopeless” at challenging Beijing over wrongdoing.

    He told Sky News: “The reluctance I think comes from this panic that somehow if we upset China, China will kill the business. That is not going to happen because China is itself desperate at the moment for trade.

    “They will blow hard at us but we have got to recognise if we don’t stand up for the defence of our freedoms, our human rights, our right to speak out if we wish it, then we will be worth nothing in the free world and I am afraid China is winning this war and we are not even prepared to accept that it is a war.”

    1. Are we not mildly hampered by having a dreadful non-elected sinophile Foreign Secretary and a Chancellor married to a Chinese spy?

    3. ID Smith wants war with China. The idiotic Cameron wants war with Russia. The future’s bright – thermonuclear bright.

    4. China is the least of your worries.. there’s Islam for starters.. however, nothing as sinister, worrisome, dangerous & powerful as the Progressive Liberal.

  71. Well – that’s the gardening done. Back-breaking! The bonfire was over and done by lunch, then, after that, the MR discovered a hawthorn tree that had been blown over. Chopped it it into small bits and placed on the hot embers. All gone. Just as well as the spines were 4 inches long….

    Now to sit down for a rest.

    2. I’ve just done the same thing trimmings from my work shop. Small branches and many more too large for recycling bin. All gone and also sorted out the lack of rainwater arriving in my 5 butt’s, rotting leaves and rotting apples in the gutters and pipe work. And my water pump has stopped working so I had to transfer with a bucket. Tough going.
      Sitting down with a beer now.
      Worn out.

        2. Two with our pasta dish. 🍷🍷 cheers. For the ‘king hard work.

          2. He lives on a steep hill.
            That’s tough going.
            I’m just getting past it Tom.
            Thinking of moving.

    3. Well done Bill , we came home from our short outing , and Moh mowed the grass then ran out of fuel , so had to go to the petrol station to buy some .

      1. Had it been me that ran out of fuel, Belle, it would be a visit to the off-licence that was the solution.

  72. I wonder what their Hell is like (moslems)? Their Heaven sounds extraordinarily banal and outright horrid for the women.

    2. There was a silly film released last year called ‘Barbie – the movie’ or something like that. Everything was pink and the women were in charge (as far as I can tell from the reviews – I’ve not seen it, obviously). I think that might be the Muslim Hell.

    3. I suspect those 73 virgins (or whatever the number is) are virgins for a reason……they all look like Greta Doom-Goblin or Nicola Sturgeon.😂😂😂

      1. Strange how the Muslim Heaven rewards the ‘faithful’ by allowing them to do things they are not allowed to do while on earth – drinking alcohol and screwing around.

        1. That’s for the men. For the women, the reward is to be “reunited with their husbands”

          1. I thought most Muslim women go to hell – and would their husbands want to be re-united with their wives when they’ve got 72 virgins to keep them busy?

          2. Sort of my point. Most muslim women throughout the world seem to be condemned to Hell from the moment of their birth, if even that is accomplished,

          3. Have you seen the recent campus tantrum praying to Allah by what must be mad-Left Feminists? It’s a funny old world.

          4. Haven’t seen it AA, but I keep thinking that nothing will surprise me, then it does. Are these people stupid? Brainwashed? Drugged? What is the matter with them?

      2. There is a wonderful take on this on a (years old) episode of Family Guy, where Mo turns up in heaven and is led into a roomful of 72 computer nerds withs acne, halitosis and “British teeth”

  75. 23c this afternoon in Weymouth , decided to pop down there quickly with Moh for a non shop , unsuccessful at the small M+S on the seafront .

    I usually buy his trousers , his size hasn’t altered for over forty years , still slender and predictable .. We parked up and walked along the esplanade , the tide was as far out as I have seen it for a while , golden sand , people enjoying the sunshine , and some were paddling . White Nothe cliffs were shining , gulls were behaving and a couple of tankers were anchored in the bay .

    A total contrast to Covid crisis when the bay was full of empty majestic cruise liners , Cunard etc .. was that a dream? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ea5c146aa86113b533d310589e19187cb0dd04241f92b279ecbbd86aaf4a862.jpg

    Moh didn’t want to shop , so he sat on the Esplanade wall and enjoyed the sun whilst I whizzed around the small store and bought a bra!

    After 15 minutes I rejoined him and we walked back towards the pier, lots of people were just soaking up the sunshine sitting on the beach front seats in front of some lovely flower displays , eating ice cream , drinking tea from flasks or just people watching .

    We stopped and had a cup of tea and shared a dish of chips at one of the little places along the beach front , and the sun felt quite warm .. The lady who brought our tea to us said , “Watch out for the gulls , they might try to snatch food from your table “.. no problem , but a couple of jackdaws were hopping around looking for crumbs .

    On days like these , just a couple of hours suffice , not too much , no demands , and we all know deep down , no flash behaviour, just lots of nice people enjoying themselves , knowing we are all in this together ..

    To hell with politics and world traumas , us Brits are a decent bunch on the whole despite the fact many are suffering from hard times .

    2. Hi Maggie. I tend not to wear ‘formal’ trousers these days. But I dug out a 36″ waist pair for a funeral a couple of months ago, and I couldn’t fasten them,..

      So I bought a 38″ pair from M&S, I complained bitterly to the sales lady that they must have shrunk. Wore the new pair for the first time on Sunday, and they spent muich of the day around my ankles. I think I need to cultivate a discernible waist.

      2. Usefully, M&S do some trousers with an elastic section on either side allowing them to stretch up to the next size viz a 36 will stretch up to 38.

      3. I think you need to consider the Grizz regimen !!!

        I do apologise for making a personal observation and being rude but…………………………………………………………………………….You looked a little jowly last time i met you….Sorry.
        Do i post or not…….

      5. Geoff

        M+S sizing is all over the show because stuff is manufactured in the Far East or Bangla/ Pakistan/ Vietnam .. some of their sizes are really odd and the materials are shoddy . Moh doesn’t get his golf wear from M+S .

        Same applies to Ecco ladies’ shoes , all too narrow now , why , made in far east instead of Europe .
        Sizes are hopeless , and I have had to send shoes back ..

        All Moh wanted was some decent Chinos or Cords .. he has never ever ever worn denim jeans , even when he was a lad .. He hasn’t got a jean wearing bottom ! (sadly)

    3. Excellent TB it sums up how we feel sometimes. Golf keeps Yoh slim and fit.
      I wish I could still play.
      Have great summer in lovely Dorset. 😊

    4. Idyllic, Belle. Glad you had such a day, they don’t seem to come round so very often.

  76. That’s me finished for today. Exhausted. Glass of wine in five minutes….

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Just booked flights and accommodation in Qui Si Sana for September. I might apply for residency.

        1. September is still warm enough for T shirts. Though i did go one year where they had torrential rain for two days. The road up the hill to the little shop was a river ! I managed to keep my flipflops. Just.

      2. Good idea many of us have had enough of the UK. You’ll be able to watch its further demise on TV and know you did the right thing at the right time.

        1. It often takes money to settle somewhere else. Something that GenZ don’t have. I intend to be one of the first in the lifeboat out. I won’t be looking back. Idiots.

          1. Total cost, please, Philip and typical monthly rental for a 2 bed flat?

          2. Leaving out medical insurance and other addons you can rent cheaper in Malta because they haven’t suffered swarms of invaders. You can get two bed apartments from 60 euro a night depending on where you want to stay. Gzira was 70 euro per night in a gated complex.

            The rate i normally pay for holidays is higher than longer stays…plus i also want a bit of luxury. St Ursula in Valletta was costing me 120 euro a night but it was a duplex with views over the Grand Harbour.

            If you manage to book for a month or two the daily rate drops.
            Even in poorer areas people are far more polite and friendly than what we can experience here.

          4. I have been going twice a year for the best part of 20 years. I was getting a little jaded but after all the shit and a damp Winter !
            There are reasons why we have strong ties with Malta.

            I know they have an animalistic attitude to birds and such but if you are left with nothing but cats and rats you will eat anything.
            The Maltese i have met tend to trap birds but keep them in open balcony aviaries.

          5. So there IS a dark side to all these foreign paradises you guys always compare favourably to our own humble and abused abode

          6. Malta is better for birdies than France. In France they drown them in Cognac and shove figs up their arses.

          8. Didn’t the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John have a Malta connection?

          11. If you look closer you will see a recent ish one was British.

            I had a bird eye view when all the religious folks gathered at St Ursula. My apartment (townhouse on top of a townhouse) overlooked St Ursula. Fleets of Limousines. These people don’t travel coach !
            I had a very polite gentleman in a dark suit and glasses explore my balcony and sundeck.
            He refused nibbles !
            The following day limos were cheaper than chips.
            I also tried to blag my way into San Anton Palace but got turned back ! Bastards !
            I had an even better apartment at a later time. Just one away from Upper Barraka Gardens when Prince William made his speech about Malta independence and the Cross.

            security drones buzzed my terrace but they probably already recognised me by that time as harmless.

          14. I don’t blame you Phiz, do you know how many times a month I wish we had stayed in Oz.

          15. I have heard of ‘slow boats’. You can book a cabin on a ship. Minimal luxuries and eat with crew. There are ways.

          18. The first 5 years were difficult for me, I missed family and friends, but now seeing how my grandchildren are taking advantage of all the opportunities available to them, I have no regrets.

      3. Dont! Just start singing ‘And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green’ – always works for me……

      4. Dont! Just start singing ‘And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green’ – always works for me……

    1. I got a downvote for mentioning it earlier today but honestly, what is the difference between this and making him Tsar?

  79. Brief good evening from Audrey and I .
    I have seen Exmoor Ponies in an area they don’t frequent –
    I wonder whether that is a sign of where i should place my tent
    Metaphorically speaking. Anyway I should go down for food.

    1. Your second and third two lines indicate that you are a poet, but you don’t know it.

      Ennjoy the pones – they are little buggers :+)

      1. In less than two months, we’ll be woken at 0400 hrs by the rooks and jackdaws squabbling loudly and eating their fill of cherries.

    3. I do hope that Black Russian doesn’t include coca cola that philistines in the UK add to it.
      Though i must say after 4 Margaritas and then Vodka and Kahlua until 4 o’clock put me in Matre Dei on the first night of a holiday. Blood all over the place. Just call me old fashioned.

      1. Three ice cubes in a glass with 15g Kahlua, 40g Finnish vodka, stirred (not shaken) and then strained into a cocktail glass.

        1. I remember those! So cool – along with Sobranie Cocktails and Passing Clouds (which were oval)

    4. Cheers Grizz I’ve got a large Jura single malt with ice. Erin’s at her ladies monthly book club. I’ll be flat out by 21:15.

    1. Exactly! if only these people would have any interest at all in the historical truth.

        1. The thing is, AA, if the lies they spouted and chanted were true, they would have a point. But they’re not, they are (well) downright lies – malign propaganda. I don’t know why any reasonable person cannot be arsed to find this out, especially considering what is at stake.

          1. A good observation dear opopanax. I will reflect on this. The word “cult” immediately springs to mind. Whilst it does hold water I don’t feel it provides a completely satisfying answer. Andrew Doyle has used a New Puritans riff in his new book. John MacWhorter calls it an “Elect”. All these are religious in analogy, which works, but something else is afoot. Cluster-B Narcissism is a theme Joshua Slocum develops with insight.

            Whilst writing this the idea of a Mass Formation Digital Psychosis could be a hypothesis worth developing. The internet is key in all of this.

    2. The Dev is in the detail. Have a glance at this article from The Telegraph:

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/06/pro-palestinian-protesters-heckle-holocaust-memorial-march/

      Of course some reporters do not have English as a first language, but I almost cried when I read the following sentence: “Historians believe as many as 1.1 million people, including a million Jews, died at Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945.” For those of you are puzzled, ‘believe’ implies an absence of evidence. ‘Estimate’ would be more appropriate, IMHO.

  83. Well lovely day, didn’t get around to cutting the grass. Lots of other important things were done, but that are hard to notice but also essential. But because (for a change) its not going to rain tonight or tomorrow, my side kick and adviser now at her ladies book club night, has already suggested I cut the grass tomorrow.
    Yes dear, of course dearest snip snip snip. xx
    Good night all.

    2. Same here. Accounts update postponed until tomorrow, though I know I shouldn’t!

    2. Frank Zappa asked “Who are the brain police?”. Well we know now, the police.

      1. Zappa also said – Anything more than a mouthful is wasted – not sure what he was on about……

    3. It is a clear political message. The police are not respected if they are not impartial.

      1. Or is it that the police are an effete band of fat, chin-bearded pooftas who police everything but crime? Tricky one.

    4. President Ronald Reagan:

      “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat”!

  85. I have just had a little look around my Disqus account to see what some of my favourite commentators from the old Spectator BTL days are up to. I caught this gem from dear old Captain Black 18 days ago:

    “Every last monument on Earth is to be demolished and replaced with a fibreglass colossus of George Floyd’s face.”

    That needs plastering on the side of a mega Tesco or flying behind a light aircraft circling the land.

    1. Ha ha, evening mate, I’ve just seen your posts on a Telegraph article. I assume it was you.

      While I’m here, something weird happened earlier in the comments on a Spectator article I had open on a desktop browser, that pompous bloviating windbag Bidochon became unblocked.

      I think the Spacca are tinkering with the comment mechanism again. It’s basically Disqus, but with less functionality.

      Needless to say, I blocked the imbecilic bell tip again, pretty sharpish.

      1. I have a sneaking suspicion that guy gets a sexual turn on from his constant disagreeable bloviatting. A very angry man.

        Yes I have been over to Telegraph Towers of late. I hope to see you to see you in that parish!

    2. As a matter of interest, AA, can you access the Speccie comments through Disqus? I am being bombarded with offers since I cancelled, but feel as pissed off with them as I do with the Coninos. Yet I miss some of the writers and a lot of the BTL, even though it is so lovely here, but different.

          1. What I mean is, their comments section uses Disqus, but it’s a different account to the one you used to use. Do you recall the message that appeared a month before the switch?

            It said that you had to set an alias, or you’d end up posting under the name on the subscription?

            Well, they create a new Disqus account with that name.

          2. But i used the same name and cannot roam around the Speccie comments as i used to and couldn’t even when i still subscribed under their new system

          3. I happened to stumble across the Disqus page for my new account. From there, I can find any other account page that I reply to. And sometimes on.

            Honestly, it’s a bit of a shambles. They should have just left it alone.

            It still don’t think comments work in the App, which was their whole motivation, first breaking it.

        1. Very true, Sir J, and much appreciated – it’s just the multiplicity is different.

      3. Someone who has a new Spectator account upvoted one of my old comments. Thus I had only to examine his posting history. This gave access to other current Spectator posters including the ubiquitous Robert Bidochon. This opened the possibility of reading most comments although you cannot answer if you haven’t an account.
        It is not, as many say, threadbare, but it isn’t as interesting as it was before the change.

      4. Short answer no. I was curious as to where the old gang might be hanging out, separate to this parish. TCW seemed to pop up. I see here Mr Kettle might of somehow managed to figure out how you view replies with the new Spectator made account but I haven’t.

        I had followed several people BTL at Spectator, who’s insights I found illuminating. It’s such a shame. They broke something really unique, authentic and valuable.

    1. The lazy, greedy, troughers should be there for every debate, without their phones, paying acute attention and contributing on behalf of their constituents. That is what we pay them for. What a f*cking joke our political class has become. they have shown similar contempt and disrespect to Andrew Bridgen when he has bravely voiced the concerns of the unheard.

      The Commons has become like the Lords and the Lords has become like a bloated – (aposiopesis).

      Useless, self serving, greedy, ineffectual and a drain on all of us, the lot of them

  88. Well, chums, another day over. Good night, everyone, sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  90. Just before I slink off to my basket I want to say one thing (which i was trying to say in a reply way below, which I just can’t find) to do with the slammers demands to “Sir Keir”, our next Prime Minister, so we are told:

    Nothwithstanding that all these demands are directly anti-democratic, no 18 is openly sinister:

    “Remove the archaic “spiritual influence” offence from statute.”

    They are demanding that it is no longer illegal for a bloc vote to be commanded by a religious leader, to put that in simplistic terms.

  91. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

  92. Night night all, sleep well and enjoy both lovely dreams plus deep rest away from such frivolities.

  93. Oxbridge protestors can’t hide their ignorance

    Students and staff are united through their foolish misunderstanding of Israel’s founding

    NIGEL BIGGAR • 7 May 2024 • 4:05pm

    It’s no surprise that the widely broadcast pro-Palestinian protests in the US should have inspired some Oxford students to pitch their tents outside the Pitt Rivers Museum, decrying Oxford University’s historic complicity in the British Empire’s “disastrous colonial legacies” in Palestine.

    But, if no longer surprising, it remains dismaying that (to date) 301 Oxford academics and staff have signed an online letter declaring their support of the students’ “entirely reasonable” demand that the university disinvest from “Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.

    There’s no cause for panic. The signatories represent a fraction of the 15,000 professors, research staff, and doctoral students at Oxford. And the letter’s leaders include professional online protesters. The very first signature and half the top ten belong to colleagues who signed one of the three online mass denunciations intended to “shut down” my Ethics & Empire project in December 2017. That said, the short list does contain some big names like that of the historian Avi Shlaim, as well as other names bearing big titles, such as the “Chichele Professor of Social and Political Thought”.

    Yet, what should still dismay is that highly educated grown-ups in one of the world’s leading universities – some of them occupying very senior positions – have got their history, ethics, and law so wrong.

    The simplistic postcolonial stereotype of “colonisation” comprises the invasion and seizure of land from native peoples by rapacious settlers. But before 1914 the land in Palestine on which Zionists settled had been purchased from Arab landlords. Moreover, many of the settlers were refugees from murderous pogroms in Russia. Naturally, Arab peasants who had worked the land for generations resented it when their tenancies weren’t renewed. The process was legal under Ottoman law.

    In 1922 the League of Nations mandated Britain to administer Palestine, in order to build a new independent Arab state and a Jewish homeland out of the ruins of the irredeemable Ottoman Empire. In 1930, faced with violent Arab unrest, the British considered restricting Jewish immigration but decided against it out of sympathy for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. When Britain unilaterally withdrew from Palestine in February 1947, Zionists occupied only ten per cent of Palestinian territory.

    The main displacement of the Arab population happened after that, when invading Arab armies attempted to crush the infant State of Israel in 1948-9. This propelled 750,000 Arabs to flee, abandoning their land. Many were expelled. Yet, when Arab troops occupied Jerusalem, Jews too were forced out and about 900,000 more were driven from Arab countries, most seeking refuge in Israel.

    The actual, tragic history of Zionist settlement in Palestine cannot be squeezed into the simplistic postcolonial template of “colonisation”.

    As for ethics, the large-scale killing of civilians by itself doesn’t amount to a violation of the laws of war. Most of the Anglophone West regards the war to defeat genocidal Nazism in 1939-45 as morally justified. And yet Allied warfare inflicted huge costs upon civilians. One estimate has it that British and American bombers killed over 350,000 non-combatants in Germany. Air raids over France killed 70,000 French civilians – 30,000 during the crucial Normandy campaign alone.

    The dreadful truth is that the prosecution of war invariably involves civilian casualties. And when there are sufficiently compelling reasons for fighting – say, self-defence against a manifestly genocidal Hamas – those casualties may be, tragically, justified. That’s why the laws of war don’t forbid the killing of non-combatants as such, but only their intentional and disproportionate killing: the objective must be a military one, and the harm done civilians incidental to the military purpose and no greater than necessary.

    Now, while the Israeli Defence Force has a long record of being scrupulous in its choice of military targets and minimisation of risk to civilians, it’s possible it has transgressed in Gaza. It’s possible its military operations have either positively intended to kill civilians or imposed harm unnecessary for achieving the intended military objectives. However, to establish culpability would require specialist military expertise and a close knowledge of the facts on the ground that none of the Oxford signatories have.

    On the matter of law, the International Court of Justice has not, as the Oxford signatories claim, judged the situation in Gaza as “plausibly amounting to genocide”. In paragraph 30 of its January 2024 ruling of the case brought by South Africa, the court made quite clear that it was “not required to ascertain whether any violations of Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention have occurred”.

    There is much about Israel’s conduct that deserves criticism, above all the lack of a strategy for peace that the talking heads of former Israeli security chiefs lamented a decade ago in the documentary, “The Gatekeepers”. But that doesn’t excuse Oxford academics from signing up to cartoonish history, naïve ethics, and misinformed law.

    Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/05/07/oxford-cambridge-palestine-protests-icj-genocide-students/

    1. Does that mean that the latest AZ jab will kill you quicker and more certainly?

  95. Green London Assembly member steps down after just three days

    Sian Berry says she is quitting to spend ‘even more time’ in Brighton where she hopes to become an MP at the next general election

    Dominic Penna, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT • 7 May 2024 • 3:51pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03f1d40b1c6305dceeacf4352dde9b2b0f0c6fbe50ced9493679fef0f2516d5b.jpg
    A Green Party politician has been accused of treating voters with “utter contempt” after stepping down from the London Assembly just three days after she was re-elected.

    Sian Berry, a former co-leader of the Greens, said she was quitting to spend “even more time” in Brighton, where she hopes to become an MP at the next general election. Ms Berry has been selected as the Green candidate for Brighton Pavilion – a seat currently held by Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP, who is quitting politics at the end of this parliament.

    London-wide assembly members, including Ms Berry, are elected through a list system, under which people vote for a party rather than individual candidates. The vacant position will be filled by Zoë Garbett, the Greens’ unsuccessful mayoral hopeful, who was below the elected Green assembly members on their party’s list.

    Ms Berry said: “I will miss City Hall and the wonderful staff team there, and especially miss the chance to work alongside Zoë Garbett in the run-up to the general election. She will be a superb Assembly Member and I can’t wait to see the impact she will have. My work holding a Labour mayor to account means I am ready to do the same with a new prime minister, and I am looking forward to spending even more time in Brighton, listening to what matters to people here.”

    Ms Berry has stood as the Greens’ London mayoral candidate three times and served on the assembly since 2016. Her decision to step down was met with a backlash from her political opponents and came despite her previously insisting she would only resign if she was elected to the Commons.

    Kevin Brennan, Labour’s shadow victims minister, said: “This is the practical embodiment of political cynicism and treating voters with utter contempt. I hope electors in Brighton Pavilion have taken note.”

    Theo Jupp, a Liberal Democrat councillor, added: “The pint of milk in my fridge lasted longer than Sian Berry.”

    A YouGov poll last month, which forecasted the results of the next election by constituency, projected that while the Greens are set to hold Brighton Pavilion, they are on track to do so with a significantly reduced majority of 11 per cent, following a 34 per cent majority in 2019. The Greens were also ousted from Brighton council at last year’s local elections as a resurgent Labour Party won a majority on the council for the first time in 20 years.

    Ms Garbett said she was “excited to join the Assembly and get to work for Londoners”, adding: “There is so much to do to improve the quality of our lives in London, stand up for people on the margins and hold the mayor to account.”

    The NHS worker’s key mayoral campaign promises included a London Living Wage of £15 and free bus travel for under-22s.

    A source close to Ms Berry insisted that because Tuesday was the first working day of the new London Assembly, she had resigned her position as quickly as possible.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/07/green-london-assembly-member-sian-berry-resigns/

    There are thousands like Miss Berry in this country who are playing at politics, taking taxpayers money but doing nothing more than posturing.

  96. I read that Border Force “outages” have caused havoc at UK airports and caused interminable delays to those seeking to get away from hellhole Britain for deserved holiday breaks.

    I suppose this is the same Border Force so eager in the most chaotic Channel weather conditions to facilitate the import of young African blacks and assorted Muslim Asians into our country on a daily basis.

    What has happened to our country?

    2. 387127+ up ticks,

      Morning C,

      Electoral treacherous fools, fake party before country, ruled the roost for far to long, is what happened.

    3. Take ’em off the Channel and redeploy them to the worst-stricken airports. Make ’em do their job!

  98. Too spicy for me, I make my own. And I’m a big Tom by myself at 6’2″.

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