Tuesday 9 April: A truly modern NHS would not be at the mercy of the postal system

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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906 thoughts on “Tuesday 9 April: A truly modern NHS would not be at the mercy of the postal system”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story
    HOW TO GIVE A CAT A PILL

    1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As the cat opens its mouth, pop pill in.
    Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
    2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa.
    Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
    3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
    4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand.
    5 Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
    6 Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe.
    Call spouse in from the garden.
    7. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.
    8. Retrieve cat from curtain rail. Get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.
    9. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw
    10. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans and drink one beer to take taste away. Apply Elastoplast to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
    11. Retrieve cat from neighbour’s shed.
    12. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.
    13. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink.
    14. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whisky compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw tee-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
    15. Call fire service to retrieve the damn cat from the top of the tree across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take the last pill from its foil wrap.
    16. Using heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed, tie the little *&#%^’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Be rough about it.
    17. Hold head vertically and pour two pints of water down throat to wash pill down.
    18. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to A & E. Sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.
    19. Arrange for RSPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.
    How To Give A Dog A Pill
    1. Wrap it in bacon.
    2. Toss it in the air.
    3. All done!

    1. Good morning, Sir Jasper. I hadn’t seen this one before, but I’ve just spent the last five minutes laughing my head off. The hidden punch line was a bonus.

    2. I first saw this one about 15 years ago – it is hilarious! Glad to see it being recycled 🤣

  4. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/police-scotland-cannot-cope-deluge-hate-crime-reports/
    Good morning. Hate crime reports in Scotland are on track to exceed the total of all other crimes in the Scottish Socialist Republic, with Scotchplod saying it will have to stop investigating other crimes as people pursue private vendettas via the law.
    No one here saw that coming, did they?
    In a few years Scotland will be the first country in history where everyone has a criminal record.

    4. I can just imagine the thoughts of one of my many Scottish cousins on the ridiculous and harmful ‘hate crime’ laws. He tends to not mince his words. Another cousin, who is rabidly pro-indy and pro-SNP, probably thinks all is hunky dory.

  6. Only a Speaker’s conference can restore standards in public life. 9 Aprill 2024.

    We need new ethical timbers to stop the rot and the downward spiral in our Parliament.

    Standards in public life have declined over recent years. So has public confidence and trust in the political system. Once lost, trust is difficult to regain. It is an understatement to say, as the Committee on Standards in Public Life does, that: “The existing standards framework is not functioning as well as it should.” The ethical timbers have rotted, and we need something to replace the old wood. A change in culture is necessary but what of the bodies that should monitor ethical standards, the ethical fifth estate?

    You can put lipstick on the pigs but they are still pigs.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/speakers-conference-can-restore-standards-in-public-life/

    1. The standards regulations in our county and town councils are the longest regulations of either body. That says it all.

    2. Why has Hoyle not been sacked for his craven and partisan submission to Sir Kneel Korma in the pro-Hamas debate?

    3. Through tattered clothes small vices do appear.
      Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
      And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
      Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.

      [King Lear]

  8. Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well. I’m just in from a good hour’s gardening before the rain started. now to go and see if I can solve this morning’s Wordle. Well, it was tough today, but I did it in five:

    Wordle 1,025 5/6

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

    2. I thought it was a tough one too, but in retrospect it was completely obvious! My son got it anyway!
      Wordle 1,025 4/6

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

  9. Back Ukraine to show ‘borders matter’, Lord Cameron urges Republicans. 9 April 2024.

    Lord Cameron has told Republicans blocking a new aid package to Ukraine that Kyiv must defeat Russia to show that “borders matter”.

    The Foreign Secretary’s message, ahead of a visit to Washington DC, is an attempt to appeal to the party’s belief in strong national borders.

    But the UK Government has no interest in its own borders!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/09/back-ukraine-borders-matter-cameron-tells-us-republicans/

    1. The cheek of him. It’s the same with so many of them: Boris, Sunak esp. Borders matter in other countries but not ours. I despise them.

      1. I’d prefer it if he bu88ered off back to his shepherd’s hut and we never saw or heard from him again.

    3. Back Ukraine’s border with another unaudited $60 Billion?

      Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene has asked for the forensic audit of how the earlier donations were spent: surprisingly, she hasn’t been informed.

      Surely the USA government, or any government for that matter, doesn’t splash out millions/billions of its taxpayers’ money without an accurate audit trail?

        1. Before the war the Ukraine was the acknowledged to be the most corrupt state on the planet. It’s worse now if that is possible.

          1. Before the war Russia was three places above Ukraine on the corruption scale. I’m not saying it wasn’t/isn’t corrupt, but show me an ex-USSR country that isn’t.

          2. The corruption being driven by former Soviet Apparatchiks and Nomenclature assisted by Western WBankers providing them with money laundering services.

        2. Maybe so, but that very fact may go some way to explaining why we are continuously assailed with adverts asking for charitable donations to support Third World countries with their water supply and education for girls programmes.

      2. Zelensky now has several expensive homes including a mansion in Florida.
        Gosh! He became very wealthy very quickly.

          1. No evidence at all, and Forbes estimates his total wealth to be between $20 and $30 million. He was a successful TV comedian prior to his political career; comedy is financially rewarding compared to popular music, partly because there is no need for tonnes of equipment and wages for supporting musicians, ie there are much lower overheads.

          2. The troble is, he’s no at all funny but more like an evil, money,grubbing politician in the thrall of the west..

          3. He made his money from a TV production company which he started and later sold. Chris Evans did the same and made over $200 million.
            Like Trump, Zelensky is too rich to be corruptible.

          4. I know, and he also had his own TV production company. What is also little known is that he is a qualified lawyer so he is not stupid. I’m sure he did invest some of the money he made in property – who doesn’t? – but Highgrove House won’t be among them!

          6. I couldn’t see it there, but I have seen it elsewhere. Apparently that was why his wife met with Camilla! The problem is, that those who want to will believe it. Highgrove House will, of course, be registered along with its owner, in the Land Registry and I suspect that a quick check will reveal that ownership has not changed since King Charles bought it before he married Diana!

      3. The USA didn’t not act alone. How many billions has the EU Commission handed over as protection aid to the Palestinian Authorities, and were the funds ever audited? Who paid for all that cement and aggregate used in tunnel construction? Although many US Democratic Party supporters/voters are Jewish (or are of Jewish heritage), not all Democrat politicians appear to be pro-Israeli.

    4. Good morning Minty, and everyone. One should not forget that Baron Cameron of Somewhere’s ancestors were themselves refugees for a while, and depended on the kindness of others (the French).

  10. Good morning all.
    A slightly colder 4½°C outside and still raining after last nights downpour.

  11. Good morning all, and the 77th,

    Grey and wet at McPhee Towers, Wind in the West, cooler again at 5℃ rising to 10℃ today. Should stop raining soon.

    A little problem from from the letters which might be becoming more common:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d35c274957d5adb64cb4025fc2bbc2820524b245e5796ff324bfd51b409e0a13.png

    Being shadow-banned on the DT, I’m unable to leave a comment that Fiona Wilson might see. Surely the solution is for her and her husband to have a de facto divorce by designating separate primary residences? It may mean having to pay for mail redirection but that’s a small price to pay for halving the potential Council Tax charge. Or am I being too simple?

    1. Ironically, it would actually mean that they would each, as single occupants, be eligible to claim 25% discount so they could pay less than at present. However, as the current Angela Rayner debacle has illustrated, I think they would actually have to live separately in the 2 properties or fall foul of electoral law.
      Having said that, I find electoral law somewhat perplexing. Every time we have an election there is a big push (especially from the Lib Dems) to get voters to register but no focus on the fact that anybody who hadn’t previously registered has broken the law unless they have just moved home.

        1. Currently X and Y pay full council tax for property A and property B > Total bill is A + B
          In Gove’s brave new world, they pay. A + 2B
          If they split up and X lives in property A while Y lives in property B they pay 0.75A + 0.75B

          1. Yes I understand that but it applies only if B pays double council tax as it’s classed as a second home

    2. My understanding os that defacto separation would work…i have thought about it!!!

      1. I’m considering it for pension taxation purposes. If I were to divorce SWMBO and split my pensions with her while continuing to live as ‘partners’, I reckon it would save us £10k a year in income tax.

  12. Good moaning.
    And welcome to the Department of the Totally Unsurprising.

    “A man suspected of fatally stabbing a mother who was pushing her baby in a pram was previously charged with threatening to kill her.

    Habibur Masum, 25, was on bail at the time of the attack on 27-year-old Kulsuma Akter in the Westgate area of Bradford on Saturday. …..

    ….. On Monday, it emerged that Masum had appeared at Tameside magistrates’ court in Greater Manchester in November accused of assaulting Ms Akter and making threats to kill her.

    He had pleaded not guilty to the charges and was due to appear in court for a further hearing in August.”

      1. Jolly good, no doubt his right to family life will feature in the legal aid funded appeal against deportation in due course (assuming that his ‘community’ doesn’t squirrel him away on the grounds that women’s lives don’t matter)

    2. We know he’s been here for two years on a student visa or something like that. I wonder how long the deceased had been here.

      1. Aaaaaand …. another goal in the game of bullsh!t bingo.

        “Friends described him as a “normal student” who enjoyed playing football and cricket.”

        Just add “A* student”, “always said ‘good morning'”, “kept himself to himself” …… oh, and his Nan back in Bangladesh is in bits.

        3. He is probably not at all bright – probably aussi épais que la merde d’un cochon

          (As they don’t say in France. Caroline always scolds me when I try to translate English idioms into French)

        4. He is probably not at all bright – probably aussi épais que la merde d’un cochon

          (As they don’t say in France. Caroline always scolds me when I try to translate English idioms into French)

      2. The Police made a statement that he is married back in Bangladesh.

        I wonder whether his wife has been questioned about his behaviour?

    3. We know he’s been here for two years on a student visa or something like that. I wonder how long the deceased had been here.

    4. That’s how hard it is for abuse victims to get protection from the system. They just sit around until the victims get killed, then they do something.

      1. It was presumably a male police spokesperson who announced that the baby is ‘safe and well’. Without its mother?

      2. Something similar applies to road accidents. They take the last five years, never mind that there were fatalities in the preceding years. We have to have more poor devils killed before they appear on the statistics.

      1. The heads of those who set him free on bail should roll – literally.

    6. What is happening in our country is sickening. The idiots who claim they are in charge are responsible for these deaths and should be removed from public life, irrespective of how they might complain.

  13. Good morning, all. A grey and breezy morning. Drizzle expected shortly. So much for Spring springing.

    1. Warmest March since records began apparently. Not down here, and the BBC should note that the climate has been bobbing along for a little longer than 150years or so it refers to.

      1. Wettest February, Warmest March. Windiest April next?

        THE BBBC doesn’t care about truth; it has an agenda to push.

        1. I awoke early on my TUI cruise home day and was assaulted by the BBC on the telly with the headline news of ‘climate’. You might of thought wars in Europe and the mid East might draw some attention, but no! With today’s bonus of the Swiss case, they must be opening the Bolly. Never cruised before but thought I would try a week out of Palma. I thought it was very good and all the arrangements were excellent. It is essentially an all inclusive bar on the ocean with the option of cultural stops. As ever, its what you pay vs your own expectations. Much of the clientele were lucky the whaling fleet wasn’t in our area as its Brits on holiday showing the flesh and not a pretty sight, but we enjoyed a week with trips on shore and a few cold ones in the evening.

  14. 385649+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Trans children have been lied to by adults – the Cass report may now see the legal dam break
    The alarm bells have been ringing for some time, but now the entire narrative around adolescent gender dysphoria is breaking
    apart

    Surely the whole issue of childhood has got to be looked at in depth then ACTION taken without argumentative hesitation.

    Children run the gauntlet from womb to teen at the hands of the infrastructures manipulators with many a teacher following a RESET / NWO agenda and practising their. I’m sure, chinese taught brain washing techniques in support of the governing political overseers.

    Years ago in the sane era when kids were out of the house from light to dusk,scrumping ect,ect, in school you learnt your three Rs or you got a clout in various forms, the cane being one until some bright spark said that the cane would leave mental scars, that was the start of the retarded hogwash era.

    Out went the teacher and his cane and imaginary scars, in stepped the new order mind manipulators and the very REAL
    mental scar issues in number that went through the ceiling.

    These governing parties as clearly shown these last thirty plus years have been constructing an infrastructure that is anti childhood IMHO, they have, with majority voting consent imported paedophilia big time and as 2019 has shown are continuing to do so.

    As witnessed there is no starting age in regards to the gauntlet, and as seen, the end product in many cases is truly horrendous.

      1. Good piece by Lionel Shriver and I’m sure she’s right. Some good comments too.
        I have to say I’ve never believed these nonsense ideas.

      3. That is a fantastic article by Shriver. I know she blotted her copybook ref voting for Sir President the Hair Sniffer but she gets it right in this article. We have had a series of mass psychosis’: Covid, Climate Apocalypse; Gender stuff. Why?

        Personally, I think it due to the rise of the internet which has compressed our worldviews. Disparate people’s have been brought together with a jolt and it has increased paranoia. Of course, ruling elites have had to get into the act and only exacerbated things and inflamed tensions – ‘for the good of humanity’. It’s a tinderbox.

  15. The Babbling Poltroon is clocking up the airmiles. Wonder if he flies on commercial airlines….

  16. I’d like to be able to listen in on this one.
    I hope Trump tells him to go forth and decease.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13285945/Lord-David-Cameron-jets-Florida-meet-former-president-Donald-Trump-years-calling-divisive-stupid-wrong.html

    Lord David Cameron jets to Florida to meet with former US-president Donald Trump to bolster Ukrainian war effort – years after calling him ‘divisive, stupid and wrong’
    Lord Cameron flew to Florida to meet former president Donald Trump
    He is currently on a diplomatic tour of the US to lobby support for Ukraine
    Cameron has made several disparaging remarks about Trump in the past

    His best response to Cameron might be:
    “Why should I waste time with you? Your shadow strikes me as more intelligent, I’ll deal with him, not you.”

    2. Yo and Good Moaning all.

      Could some one please answer these Two Questions

      1. How many US Servicepeople died as a result of enemy action when Mr Trump was President?

      2. How many UK Servicepeople died as a result of enemy action when Conmoron was prime minister or pot stirring in the Cabinet?

        1. I was referring, in particular, to London parents. Most of them are a different breed. Most of them looked down on the shires and sought to create their own Metro Utopia. And now, predictably, it’s all gone wrong and they are forced to escape…to the shires. Presumably to enlighten the rest of us.

          1. As a business consultant my contracts forced me to move here and abroad but you cannot escape the ‘diversity’ problem.

          2. Yes, there will be families who had to live there for work but significantly more fed/supported that anti white, anti Brit machine and/or were cheerleaders for it.

          3. People come here and complain about mud on the roads (the fields are muddy and tractors bring it on to the roads), cocks crowing, church bells ringing, the church clock striking, horses leaving manure on the roads (it would never occur to them to collect it to put on their roses), and all sorts of things that we country dwellers take for normal.

  18. Good morning
    This is a measure of how much people in different countries trust their government, civil service, NGOs etc, with interesting comment from Arnaud Bertrand on Twitt.
    BRICS (where’s Russia??) seem to score a higher average than the west…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/310fb0ad821b589e34e71d9e89d97474597eb2c18c125e0117ecd4703feb8de5.jpg

    Arnaud Bertrand
    @RnaudBertrand
    I look forward to this survey every year – the Edelman Trust Barometer (https://edelman.com/trust/2024/trust-barometer) – because I find it’s so revealing of what’s happening in the world.

    Trust is the glue that binds societies together. When trust is gone, society collapses. Because with trust comes legitimacy, and without legitimacy, a political system is… well, illegitimate. And illegitimate governments walk an ever tighter rope, they’re on borrowed time.

    What we’ve been seeing for a few years now is trust falling fast in Western or West-adjacent countries (the UK is now the lowest trust society in the survey, followed by Japan, and with South Korea, Germany and the U.S. not far behind).

    At the same time trust levels in many powerful global South countries is sky high, with China leading the pack, followed by India, the UAE, Indonesia, etc.

    This crisis of trust should be taken immensely seriously in the West. All the hypocrisy, gaslighting, all the lies, all the incompetence are taking a toll that will be increasingly difficult to reverse.

    Let’s remember one of the most important teachings of Confucius, undoubtedly one of the most profound thinkers in history on governance and how to structure societies. This is straight from the Analects:

    “Zigong asked about government. The Master said, ‘Sufficient food, sufficient weapons, and the trust of the people.’

    Zigong asked, ‘If it could not be helped, and one of these had to be dispensed with, which should be foregone first?” The Master said, “Dispense with the weapons.’

    Zigong asked, ‘If it could not be helped, and one of the remaining two had to be dispensed with, which should be foregone first?’ The Master said, “Dispense with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of all men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.'”

    1. How could anyone with common sense trust a government that locks up its own population, encourages mutilation of children, allows the whole world to come here and sponge off us, and tries to brainwash everyone into the self-harm of Net Zero?

      1. I am a bit surprised that the trust is so high in China after the brutal lockdowns there, and the collapse of property companies – perhaps they only affected a small number?

          1. I watched a short video from some idiot westerner in China recently, where he was extolling how much public behaviour has improved since 2019. He didn’t think of ascribing it to the social credit system!

    2. We have a situation where we must take it for granted that we will be lied to and cheated by those whom we must rely on to be honourable, and that these liars and cheaters will be well rewarded, according to the sacrosanct workings of the “Free Market”. From this presumption, enshrined in Law, we must make our lives work.

      Do you remember the 1970s game ‘Mastermind’ – where one has coloured counters, one for the right colour but in the wrong place, and another for the right colour in the right place. It is similar to Wordle (except that my system does not allow me to see peeps here playing the game, because the interface has had an upgrade).

      Well, now trying the game when it is perfectly acceptable, and indeed preferable to lie when making a declaration. It makes the game much harder, and really it is luck that delivers the right combination. Even then there is no need to declare correctly that one has got it right, and so the game goes on in an aimless manner. A bit like modern life really.

      A better way to play this game is one I played as a child – liar dice, which is a variant of poker. Lying is part of the game, but at some time there is a challenge and the true state of the dice is revealed.

    3. I’m surprised Japan is equal with us.
      They don’t allow people to arrive on their island’s and help themselves to everything they can grab.

      1. Financially they are in a terrible state after years of US oppression. They’re now accepting third world migrants.

        1. Surely they would have learned lessons from the mess the rest of the world is in now.

    1. New housing built on green belt and agricultural land.
      We had a flyer from our Limps who run the St Albans Council.
      Boasting of all the things that they have done recently. Silly little things, like refused planning for home extension. But no mention of pot hole repairs which haven’t been done for years. And not a word about the planning proposals for around 200 houses in different parts of our area alone, on our green fields.
      Out village will be ruined.

      1. I was at a meeting tonight to protest against a housing development in a small village that has already had four housing developments completed recently. The developers claimed that they had village support, but nobody there had been contacted to ask their views and the majority were agin it.

        1. As bungs fill their bank accounts, the lying is not only perpetual from the top down. But from the bottom up.

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Oh dear more rain, or words to that effect.
    It’s been very obvious and more noticeably recently that the powers that be have been subtlety bringing the NHS to its knees.
    First dentistry, although there was or maybe still is a subsidiary payment for dental treatment, it’s long been absorbed by their profit margins. And although there is a big stink at the moment regarding people having private treatment and suffering very serious repercussions. Because there is no emergency backup. If you have any underlying health issues they won’t usually touch you at a private hospital.
    So many people I know now are taking out private sector insurance and avoiding the NHS despite the costs. That’s one of the reasons GPs are rarely available for face to face appointments. And so many Sureons etc have moved to the private sector.
    And when you do go to a private hospital the car parks are rammed. 10-15 years ago that was not the case.

    1. When my OH had his shoulder repaired at the Spire hospital in Bristol, the car park was always full and we had an altercation on one occasion with someone. He was there as an NHS patient, though he did see the consultant initially privately. He told us to go back to the GP for a referral for the surgery. This was in 2019. He also had another unrelated op at a local hospital and paid for surgery to be done rather than wait a couple of years. Both those surgeons did NHS work as well as private.

      1. The cardiologist who I saw at Watford more than 8 years ago who was excellent, friendly and very attentionive to his patients. Has now sadly moved into the private sector.
        The cardiologist I was assigned to the second time around. Was awful, in four years I saw him only once. Phone calls and emails is all he could manage. He had absolutely no interest in his patients at all.
        I bumped into a old work colleague, who had the same Afib problem’s. He was also under the same person and said exactly the same thing as I did. He had already transferred elsewhere.
        Now I think that doctor and his secretary have gone elsewhere. Heaven help his patients. Hopefully where they can inflict no further misery.

        1. My OH eventually contacted the surgeon who did his by-pass op – this brought an immediate appointment for all the tests to be done again at our local hospital. They put him on amiodarone, which made him ill, so the next step was a cardioversion. He had that at the end of January, and he does seem to be better, with more energy. No follow up checks have been done yet.

  26. Rwandan homes earmarked for deported migrants sold to locals
    Last year a Kigali estate was approved by Suella Braverman as home secretary. Now 70 per cent of its properties, once set to house asylum seekers, are taken

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rwandan-homes-earmarked-for-deported-migrants-sold-to-locals-82nvgpptq

    Most of the properties on a new housing estate in Rwanda that were earmarked for migrants deported from the UK have been sold to local buyers, the developer has said.

    “Sold” signs have sprung up in the neat terraces of the Bwiza Riverside estate while the UK government has wrestled with numerous setbacks delaying the deportation scheme’s implementation.

    Of the 163 affordable homes, 70 per cent are taken, the developer ADHI-Rwanda said. A manager at the estate in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, said they had gone to “private people who want to live in them”, leaving space for only a few dozen migrants if flights ever take off.

    Suella Braverman approved of the estate on a visit to Kigali last year, describing the homes as “beautiful”. She said during her visit in March last year, when she was home secretary, that Rwanda could “resettle many thousands of people” under the agreement with the UK.

    A film of Braverman’s visit to Bwiza, promoted by Rwanda’s state media, shows the home secretary plumping cushions in a furnished unit. She says: “These houses are really beautiful — great quality, really welcoming — and I really like your interior designer.”

    Nicholas Walton
    4 MINUTES AGO

    Had government being sensible and sold the Rwandan solution in this way instead of as a cruel homage to the their right wing things might have been different . Imagine coming from the poverty of Afghanistan. What would you choose a new life in a pristine home in the warmth of Africa or a life initially on benefits in an ex army camp? But politics is never really about improving the lives of those you would prefer not to be present is it?

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    G Hilleard
    7 MINUTES AGO

    Hilarious. What a brilliantly thought out scheme.

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    Chris Waters
    9 HOURS AGO

    Despite being an absolute scandal that Sunak has handed over hundreds of millions of British taxpayers funds to Rwanda it’s actually quite funny that they have now sold the housing that was going to be used .

    This scheme is an utter disaster from start to finish

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    Maggie Wrench
    6 HOURS AGO

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    Nigel Ash
    9 HOURS AGO

    This Tory party is a joke that gets funnier and funnier with each passing day. They make the Thick Of It look very lame in comparison.

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    Nigel Ash
    9 HOURS AGO

    Malcolm Tucker would have had a heart attack long ago.

    Reply

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    Zbig Cichocki
    1 HOUR AGO

    Not very funny for a taxpayer travelling on pot holed roads around Stratford upon Avon (the ones that are open which is very few).

    Reply

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    Colin Simonds
    9 HOURS AGO

    Bravermouth and Soonout’s awful scheme sold down the river by Rwanda!

    Wonderful.

    I can not stop giggling like a 5 year old at this whole farce.

    Maybe some of have gold wallpaper. For £500million spent/wasted – they should all have?

    Is Rwanda a safe country for our money?

    Reply

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    Bernard Yapp
    8 HOURS AGO

    So firstly the govt doesn’t have the planes to send illegal migrants to Rwanda. Now it seems the houses earmarked for these migrants have been sold. Houses partly funded by British taxpayers, to the tune now of £500mio. Money which could have gone towards building affordable homes here, or helping …

    See more

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    Angelin Perry
    3 HOURS AGO

    Maybe send the homeless to Rwanda? (This is a joke)

    Reply

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    Emmie McLeod
    42 MINUTES AGO

    They did have a plane with a few ready to take off don’t forget…until charities stepped in to stop it.

    But the financial situation for the last years has been dreadfully managed.

    Reply

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    Rob Allison
    4 MINUTES AGO
    Replying to Emmie McLeod

    That charter company later withdrew from the scheme due to adverse publicity.

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    Dave Cooper
    9 HOURS AGO

    When they finally arrive then Rwanda will probably need to accommodate our deported migrants in their 4 Star hotels? Strictly short term of course, which will at least provide familiar surrounds. Can this situation possibly get any more ridiculous!

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    Mark Herbert
    9 HOURS AGO

    Probably.

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    C Rayfield
    9 HOURS AGO

    PPP? So the UK will be paying stiff interest payments for a while/eternity? The standards are excellent by the standards faced by most of the world’s population. I can see why half of India, Pakistan, Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda would aim to get them.

    It must be comforting to those prosecuted for sleep…

    See more

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    Geena Kaur
    8 HOURS AGO

    You can’t but help laugh your t!ts off.

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    J Andrews
    7 HOURS AGO

    Is this the new Tory “right to buy” policy? They’ve built more new housing in Rwanda than the UK.

    1. All downstream issues, but the real solution would be to address the root cause which this Government steadfastly refuses to do.

    2. Of course the Rwandans have sold them. I would have, because they certainly won’t be expecting any imports from Britain to ever arrive.

  28. Tax Avoidance versus Tax Evasion

    Although I would normally run a mile to avoid the Today programme, this morning I listened closely to Rachel Reeves (our next Chancellor of the Exchequer, for sure) being harassed (sorry, interviewed) by Nick Robinson on Today at 08:10 to 08:20. I was particularly interested when she kept repeating that she would go after Tax AVOIDANCE to collect just under a billion pounds a year. She didn’t mention Tax EVASION once.

    In my book, Tax AVOIDANCE is arranging your finances quite legally so that they do not attract tax. A popular example is the ISA. If you are a 40% or higher tax payer, each time you put another £20,000 into an ISA and receive say 4.5% interest, that is £900 interest in your pocket, tax free. If it is not in an ISA wrapper you will pay 40% (or more) tax on that and receive only £540. You are perfectly legally choosing to receive £900, not £540. Only an idiot (or a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist) would choose the lower number.

    So watch out, ISA holders, Rachel may be coming for you.

    1. I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate, as you intimate.

      Edit. They really are trying to stop people aspiring to do well.

      1. Agreed, she more than likely doesn’t know the difference. The Tom Cruise film “The Firm” was made before she was born!

        1. It beggars belief that someone so economically illiterate could become the chancellor. Has she been taking lessons from Abbotapotamus?

      2. If Rachel doesn’t know the difference between Tax AVOIDANCE (legal) and Tax EVASION (illegal) than Gawd help us all.

          2. Primary school dinner ladies can be affable mother-hen like old dears. Rachel Reeves was the pushy girl at school whom they foolishly made a prefect who bossed everybody about and was universally loathed by her contemporaries.

          3. On this theme why is it that the sort of people whom we despised at school: prissy, small-minded sneaks and the like – are now in positions of authority and boss us all about?

          7. The primary school dinner lady I remember – Mrs Stevens – was an absolute bitch who deliberately put salad cream on my packed lunch biscuit.

        3. It wouldn’t surprise me to find she intends to close every loophole. Can’t have people thinking their money is their own, can we?

    2. Maybe Rachel has something to hide. Don’t want the dogs sniffing up the wrong skirts, now do we. Just saying…

    3. If she doesn’t know the difference between “tax avoidance” and “tax evasion” she has no business being Chancellor.

    4. I buy working dog food for Kadi because it attracts no VAT. That’s tax avoidance.

  29. Oxymoron of the day, courtesy our esteemed Foreign Sekretary Lord Camoron: “Borders Matter”

    1. He’s not a proper lord he’s a common little twerp who should have been permanently gated and never let out when he was at Slough Comp – as his school was sometimes called.

      .

    2. Another Muslim led party. Either SNP or labour will win the next Scottish election and either way we will have a Muslim first minister – so we is fuct

      1. But you can rejoice because you will have a non-white leader on the road to Mecca!

  31. I like these 2 DT letters .

    Mourning the loss of BBC radio favourites
    SIR – I can no longer listen to BBC Radio 2 in the afternoon, with Scott Mills having replaced the wonderful Steve Wright (Features, April 6). I have lost Saturday afternoons since “media personality” Rylan Clark took over, and will no longer be able to listen from 11am on a Sunday after the sunny, funny Michael Ball is replaced by the wittering Paddy McGuinness.

    Touch Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the 70s on a Sunday afternoon at your peril, BBC – lest you lose the few remaining over-50s listeners you have. Gen Z and millennials do not listen to you – so stop trying so hard to chase them.

    Patricia Walsh
    Oxford

    SIR – Classic FM (Letters, April 7) has introduced hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, to classical symphonies, concerti and opera, which many will have gone on to explore in greater detail. I’d urge some of your correspondents to bear this in mind and leave Classic FM be.

    Chris Hulley
    New Milton, Hampshire

    Moh likes Angel on DAB… lots of oldie music , stuff like jazz , musicals, 50’s and 60’s stuff that parents listened to..

    DON’T SAY A WORD

    I enjoy some chillout music , shhhh.

    1. Classic FM used to be accused of being dumbed down compared to Radio 3. That’s no longer true. As for introducing young people to classical music, Classic FM sponsor £5 tickets for under 35s at the Wigmore Hall.

      1. Yes, accused by the BBC mostly I seem to recall. What was their snidey comment back in the day? Ah yes, Classic FM is just an all day long broadcast of “your 100-best tunes”.

        1. My mother, an avid music lover, summed it up succinctly “someone ought to shoot that bloody bird”.

        2. It’s fair comment on the short time I stuck with Classic FM – I don’t know what it’s like these days but the ads drove me away.

          1. It’s going through a bit of a grind currently I think, but it does that from time to time. There are only so many times in a day you’d want to hear Adagio for Strings by Barber or Dives and Lazarus.

            The thing is, I always think of the good things it introduced me to, e.g. Requiem for my friend by Preisner or Garbarek with the Hilliard ensemble. It can do that, even though I’d count myself well versed in classical music.

      2. I listened to Classic FM for a while when I first got a car radio about 25 years ago…. I couldn’t stand the ad breaks and the way they would play just snippets of good music. I only listen to R3 when I’m in the car, and I don’t go far, but at least it’s ad-free.

      3. A sound engineer explained that Classic FM compresses the sound more than R3, which tries to replicate concert dynamics.

        There is some logic in this. In a live concert, it is very exciting to go from a whisper-quiet pin drop to the terror of a full orchestra at full pelt, and using the volume changes expressively. Listening to a CD at home though, it can get annoying when one moment it is too loud for comfort and the next too soft to be heard. Classic FM listeners often enjoy their music doing other things, and so must compete with background noise and still be heard and enjoyed, so is best to keep the broadcast volume fairly constant.

        What I find irritating is when some TV channels pump up the volume for adverts and turn it down for the programme. They do this, so that the sales message can be heard when in the other room, but my reflex reaction is to mute the sound, defeating the object.

        The main difference between Classic FM is that it endeavours to broadcast only music people want to listen to, whereas R3 will broadcast music they thing you ought to want to listen to.

        1. Increasingly what they think you ought to want to listen to is the latest scraping the barrel offering from the black one legged trans-lesbian. Mind, when I swtiched on Radio 3 this morning the first thing I heard was the Grand March from Aida played by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein and that set me up for the day!

        2. “whereas R3 will broadcast music they thing you ought to want to listen to.” Historically this is unfair and misrepresents the old remit. The general thrust was to introduce the listener to the broader and deeper Western Classical canon. A play list collated by those who had spent much time swimming those waters. A good faith appeal to expertise, not soiled by ideology outside of the admiration of the music making of the past and worthy present. A great argument for public broadcasting.

          It’s been many years since I have listened to Radio 3, I know my canon and general don’t need that guidance. But my pessimism based on the wider Marxist rot at the BBC you are probably correct in your observation.

          1. My mother often grumbled at R3’s penchant for music she described as “plink-plonk” and parodied last year in Alma Deutscher’s most recent opera ‘The Emperor’s New Waltz’, where melody was regarded as passé by those who know about these things, and therefore not regarded as proper. In her opera, it culminated with the children’s chorus walking out because they thought it was horrible (and like the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s fable was not afraid to say so), and only came back when the hero produced a ballad on his guitar and rescued the situation. What she missed, however, was the tunelessness of contemporary 21st century popular music, even compared with the popular melodies of the mid-to-late 20th century.

            I once had to sit through an aria composed by Berg, about a lady who had lost the will to live, and he transmitted this feeling to his audience with great effectiveness.

    3. I’ll stick up for Classic FM in its early days, despite the ads and the presenters errors. When I first became interested in classical music in the late 80s/early 90s, there was just Radio 3 to listen to. This was in its John Drummond period, all modernism and noise. Classic FM came along in 1992 and I heard an enormous number of works in a very short time, many of them from the classical and romantic period. I simply wouldn’t have come to know many of them so quickly with only Radio 3.

      1. I listen to Classic FM most evenings, though the playlist can be a bit repetitive. I mute the sound during news headlines, which could have been written by a BBC intern.

        1. I listen to it a lot less now but in its first two years or so there were few evenings when I didn’t turn on for the evening ‘concert’. Free samplers, as it were!

  32. I forgot to say good morning to you all .

    Wind, chilly and 8c.. and showery ..

    Pair of bullfinches feeding on the bird table , besides the sparrows , great tits , starlings and hedge sparrow , and a wren searching for insects here on the rockery .

    1. Good morning. Planted out all my fruit, veg and herbs yesterday. Then we get high winds !

          3. The cold water will have killed the roots and they’ll dry out all the faster in the wind…

          5. Not cold?
            Oh dear.
            Then that’s really unlucky.
            Warm water will overstretch them, you might as well have added vinegar and put them out of their misery

          6. It will be fine. If not i will just get the gardeners in and pay them to correct my mistakes.

    2. We have starlings nesting in two of our boxes, and bluetits in another….. waiting for the swifts to arrive.

      1. We’ve got starlings in the eaves. It’s a very old country cottage and so they’re the sort that overhang the walls. They are very kind, though. They stay silent all night, but at 06:30 prompt they wake up and start ruffling feathers and scratching about.

        1. We have eaves, but they don’t overhang much. Most of our boxes are awaiting the return of the swifts, but they all have cameras in. My OH is not able to do as much as he used to, but this keeps him busy.

          1. Nice use of cameras. The house martins that used to have their nest on the west side got it blown off a few years ago and so ever since they’ve gone across the paddock to set up house there. They always inspect here first for a few days, though. Some might build again, now that we’ve had a wet winter. That’s always important.

  33. From the Letters page: …. “The whole story has highlighted, once again, the need for the NHS to be more efficient in how it spends the vast amounts of money it already has – before it (or any politician) claims it needs more.”

    Perhaps a comparison between 2 equally vast, but vastly different, organisations would be illustrative of the problem – and might lead Politicians towards the solutions that every one of them can see, but vanishingly few dare mention.

    The overriding rationale behind our national response to Covid was to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. The economy was broadly shut down to allow the NHS to cope, with most other NHS services curtailed to meet Covid-related demands. The butcher’s bill for this single-minded focus on Covid, to the exclusion of almost any other medical condition, is yet to be fully tallied, and will affect this country for years to come.

    The initial spike in demand due to Covid amounted to between 2 and 2.5% of the NHS’s annual provision of service. To allow the NHS to achieve that we crippled the national economy and trashed many thousands of businesses and livelihoods.

    The Supermarket industry had to meet a spike of over 30%. They managed to achieve that thanks to their ability, as businesses, to change working practices, supply chain demands, deliveries etc in a matter of days.

    If we had an NFS (National Food Service) that reacted with all the inefficiency of an organisation like the NHS, we might have starved. We almost certainly would have faced severe rationing.

    We need to look at the Private Sector and Public Sector business models of each and note the difference in reaction time and capacity to adapt to a crisis situation. The structural inefficiencies of the NHS, with its top-down, lumberingly bureaucratic nature, means it struggles to provide better outcomes.

    Supermarkets were able to meet the demand by being more agile, less bureaucratic and far, FAR more efficient. Supermarket chains have spent years competing with each other and so have ruthlessly cut down on waste. If a process can be streamlined it will be, almost immediately, and across all stores in the chain. If an innovation is identified that brings even the slightest improvement or saves the smallest amount, it will be adopted and rolled-out as fast as possible.

    No one, not even the biggest cheerleader of the NHS model, could pretend our health service does that. At all.

    That, I would suggest, is the principal differentiator in their relative abilities to react well, and quickly, to a crisis and – in ‘peacetime’ – to deliver service fit for a C21st developed nation.

    One of the big issues is that a Govt’s health policy is only measured by what monies they make available, rather than the outcomes the NHS delivers. Thus insane levels of waste are excused, reforms are scoffed at, whilst the gaping maw of the NHS requires ever more billions to be shovelled into it, for ever-dwindling returns.

    Post-Covid the public are finally being slightly more clear-eyed about this problem.

    1. Supermarkets have streamlined management. They can make a decision very quickly. Their call centre staff reply promptly and can make decisions without seeking higher authorisation.

      The NHS is a bloated bureaucracy requiring endless meetings and paper shuffling to achieve next to nothing. Meetings about meetings about meetings. It’s like the film ‘Brazil’.

      Fire all the middle managers !

      1. All Govt spending on the NHS – in real terms and as a percentage of GDP – always seems to be measured against what NuLabour spent, as though PFI contracts and off-the-books largesse was the template we should wish to emulate now.

        Of course we need an NHS to be properly run and that may require a management tier but when you see that over the Blair/Brown years the spending on managers in the NHS went from £189,922,000 in the 1997/98 budget to £1,041,803,000 in the 2009/10 budget, an increase of 449%, you have to ask, “Who thinks that money well spent? Did it proportionally improve the service in any noticeable way?”

        Hospitals used to be run by Matrons and Ward Sisters, when they went it was left to the “managers” and then the rot started.

        2. Matrons still exist, we have one in our cottage hospital, but she is also “Matron” of two other local hospitals. However her role is no longer medical or patient care, her day is filled with budget and staffing administration but she has no financial authority and can’t commit any budget without authorisation from the Trust. The “service” delivery is no longer her responsibility, it has also been centralised into the bureaucracy of the Trust. I don’t know what other Trusts are like but if you want an example of contorted, bureaucratic and out of touch management our NHS trust must come close to being a classic example.

          1. Matrons only exist in name – their scope of responsibility is wholly eroded.

            Returning to the previous iteration of Matrons and Ward Sisters would be of enormous benefit – but I wonder if the nurses of the C21st would be quite so in awe of them as they would have been when my mother was one?

      2. “Supermarkets have streamlined management”

        And so, Phizzee, for the benefit of the court, how many politicians are there running the supermarkets?

        Thank you, my case rests m’lud…

          1. Hmm, not sure I would like to get my healthcare from Sainsburys though. The supermarkets are very dishonest.

          5. It’s the focus on core business, not flimflammery on the way to doing whatever. And the result is measured in hard numbers, many preceded by “£”.
            Of course, the NHS has hard numbers: Patients in, patients out feet first, patients out by walking, cost. So, it’s the management at fault, as it usually is.

          6. Hmm, mass murder? That’s why, as a rising 80-year-old., I refuse to be hospitalised..

    2. “…The butcher’s bill for this single-minded focus on panic over Covid…”

    3. “…The butcher’s bill for this single-minded focus on panic over Covid…”

        2. The opening pages of their website are dedicated to pills and potions – doesn’t look as though they care about health at all – just profits.

      2. ….
        In an article for The Sun, he said: “We will also use spare capacity in the private sector to cut the waiting lists.

        “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster, while working ­families like mine are left waiting for longer.”

        Mr Streeting argued that the NHS must be “a service, not a shrine” and promised that it would not receive any additional funding without “major surgery” to the way it works under Labour.

        “It’s a 20th century service that hasn’t changed with the times and isn’t fit for the modern era,” he added.

        “It catches illness too late, which means worse care for patients at greater cost to the taxpayer… This can’t go on. If the NHS doesn’t change, it will die.”

        1. After visiting Singapore’s health service and seeing how efficiently it’s run for far less

          cost than the NHS Mr Streeting wrote a really interesting and sensible article in

          the Sunday Times on the future of the NHS in his hands.

          Let’s see if The Blob manages to frustrate him.

    2. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the police gave him a good kicking while resisting arrest.

      2. Probably asked him if he’d like to make a report of hatey speech by the media first, in reporting his case.

      3. Certainly not.

        The BBC says that mosques have been opened so that the faithful can pray for him.

    4. “Don’t use the wrong pron ……… Too Late…..
      Now we”ll have to release him.”

  36. Morning all. Gloomy day etc so forth and so on, so normal weather.

    This in the Telegraph today
    Children must not be rushed to change gender, report warns
    Young people who believe they are transgender may have mental health problems, a major review is set to find
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/trans-children-mental-health-issues/

    Who would have thunk!

    So it takes the experts this long to figure out what the rest of us peons have known from the start. Thank God they are here to advise us all like they did with Covid.

    1. “May have”…….. I could have told them that years ago for nothing. How many children’s lives have been ruined since then by drugs and surgery? To achieve what?

    3. I forget the figures, but a significant proportion are autistic, and need protection from the lunacy.

    4. Similar news here:
      https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/uk-schools-set-to-teach-controversial-gender-ideology-to-kids-in-new-rules-shake-up/ar-BB1lhW75?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=0a095082b0524befb554cd5aa2801275&ei=13
      A spokesperson (Was it a spokesman or a spokeswoman? It can only be one or the other.) said, In a statement on the matter, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that “No one should be forced to use preferred pronouns”. The spokesperson explained that “social transitioning is not a neutral act” and that no one should have to “accept contested beliefs as fact“.
      Unless, of course, we are told to accept as fact man-made climate change/global boiling/net zero or other unscientific fantasies.

    1. Oh FFS
      The Monday scrabble sessions in my Old Folks Farm are brutally competative and a great way to keep the mind working

    2. How do you see, and get the tiles to stick to, the squares that are face down on the table?

    3. More inclusive?? Dear Lord; who are they intending to include? Those who cannot deal with multiplication by three?

  39. Islamic State ‘threatens terrorist attack on tonight’s Champions League games’ – including Arsenal vs Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13286877/Islamic-State-threatens-terrorist-attack-Champions-League-games-vowing-attack-Parc-des-Princes-Santiago-Bernabeu-Metropolitan-Emirates-Stadium-message-reading-kill-all.html

    God forbid it should happen, but if it does I hope it takes out numerous Hamas supporting and Pro-Palestinian Islington luvvies instead of “normal folk”

  40. Woman found stabbed to death in upmarket London street

    Police launch murder inquiry following the fatal attack near Hyde Park

    Telegraph Reporters
    9 April 2024 • 9:34am

    A murder investigation is underway after a woman was found stabbed to death in her home in Westminster, the Metropolitan Police said.

    Officers were contacted on Sunday by friends of the woman who were concerned about her welfare.

    Police went to her home in Stanhope Place, Bayswater, on Monday and found the woman dead with several stab injuries.

    No arrests have yet been made.

    Scotland Yard said it is working to trace and inform the woman’s next of kin and a post-mortem examination will be held in due course.

    Detective Chief Inspector Adam Clifton, from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, is leading the investigation and said: “I understand this news will be concerning, and that local women especially may be worried.

    “Our inquiries are in the very early stages and we are keeping an open mind as to the motive, however, I can assure people that my team are working 24/7 to establish what happened to the woman, and to identify and arrest whoever may be responsible for this attack.

    “My officers now need support and information from the public. I want to ask local people to check doorbell cameras, and for drivers in the area to think about whether they’ve seen anything unusual that might have been captured on dash cam. Did you notice any unusual activity at the address? If you did then it is imperative that we hear from you.”

    Chief superintendent Louise Puddefoot, lead for policing in Westminster, added: “Our thoughts are with the woman and her family.

    “My officers will do everything we can to support the investigation and they will be stationed in the area to speak to anyone who has any information or concerns they want to share with us.”

    3. Woman found stabbed to death in upmarket London street.

      Typical DT shoddy reporting. She was found in a house

      A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as tarmac, concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street

      1. “A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment – identified by the many potholes”.

      3. Twenty years ago, all DT reporters and editors were obliged to follow Simon Heffer’s unimpeachable Style Guide for written English. That guide was summarily dispensed with when the Barclay Brothers took over ownership from Conrad Black.

        The now-customary appalling standards in reporting, writing and editing in this sad rag have been plummeting downhill at an ever-increasing rate since that time.

        1. But even in my mother’s day (she died in 1989) there were typos and mistakes galore.

    4. Woman found stabbed to death in upmarket London street.

      Typical DT shoddy reporting. She was found in a house

      A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as tarmac, concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street

  41. ‘Morning All

    I’m Failing……..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7163614e8e2c330659ecb551ef560d600c496de170b2815dbf089818ea024eab.jpg

    Rest

    Day Late

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=568,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/160/302/655/original/107b8ab85c5832fb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6187be20341e2201fa24c708d038f5e2a0ea342a8f8360b3c25590743b0389a6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba0d637624509c193a9f0fe7d15615e084431da64e99059b7fa4cf96aabbb123.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bc66a90e583f934972ab89d6fa7f40b8c754caaee0eced108f2409835f6f0fe.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48bf3a6437bd2a5a83e13cde617b6cd33f45ec7703c983ea11339d09c51ac432.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b8c303cbd10f32195935b89e9ba1fefd0d640263d73b71d8cfd3dabb3fc4316.jpg

    1. Secretly tape all the indoctrination courses/lectures/meetings. For insurance/evidence and who knows, future investment purposes. Future generations will be incredulous.

  42. I would back that bet, James and she’s probably into every avoidance scam possible.. I know, I’ve used them myself.

  43. At least they are efficient. That can’t be said for this (or probably any) government.

      1. Same as the government has done then…….. good psyop to keep people scared and taking the rat juice.

  44. Hello . We tend to listen between Classic FM and Radio 3 but Classic FM needs has the awful Dan Walker between 8–10 weekdays – he’s really dumbed the station down and has no idea about classical music. I still very much like Alexander Armstrong’s show, Aled Jones whose very knowledgeable about classical music and they’ve moved Alan Titmarch from Saturday morning to the afternoon. Still listen to ClassicFM just not when Dan Walker is on . The adverts are very depressing, mind you and too much news .

    We now listen to Radio 3 first thing ( week days ) it’s more gentle in many ways, the lady who reads the news has a delightful voice and there isn’t too much news and no adverts. But it can be very heavy going with the opera, music from foreign countries, ‘ ‘ old time show biz ‘ music and they have moved their Jazz to the middle of the night But their classical music first thing is very and you hear composers that you’ve never previously heard of as well as the popular well known composers.

    1. I only listen to the radio when I’m in the car – always R3 but I don’t go far so don’t hear a great deal.

  45. Isn’t it about time the DT stopped mimicking the BBC telling us that we are living in the hottest months evah! The idea that CO2 controls climate is ludicrous.

    1. Hallo. Welcome back. I figure the old ice age warnings were closer to the mark.

    2. I’d like one of these so called “climate experts” to explain why, if last month really was the warmest March on record, we were so cold in the evenings that we had to light the stove?

    3. I’d like one of these so called “climate experts” to explain why, if last month really was the warmest March on record, we were so cold in the evenings that we had to light the stove?

  46. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday warm sunshine and shorts. Today bitterly cold, stove and two pullovers. Clearly global boiling has a lot to answer for.

  48. And in other news:

    “Now Humza Yousaf’s brother-in-law is arrested”

    As slammers can do no wrong, I expect the Palestinian drug dealer will have all charges dropped and be given substantial compensation.

  49. Nice family…

    The brother-in-law of Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s First Minister, has been charged with abduction and extortion in relation to the case of a man who died after falling from a window.

    Police Scotland said the 36-year-old man was seriously injured in the incident at a block of flats in Morgan Street, Dundee, on Jan 10 and later died in hospital.

    Ramsay El-Nakla, the brother of Mr Yousaf’s wife, Nadia El-Nakla, will be the fourth person to appear in court in connection with the case.

    Mr El-Nakla, 36, has been charged with abduction and extortion.

    Jennifer Souter, 38, appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court last Thursday charged with culpable homicide. Ms Souter, from Dundee, did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody.

    1. “It comes three months after El-Nakla first appeared in court on charges of supplying heroin and being in possession of cocaine and cannabis. ”

      Charming family – shudda stayed in Gaza.

  50. Humza Yousaf’s contaminated police force goes against everything Robert Peel stood for

    Our former PM envisaged policing as built on public trust. He would have hated everything about Yousaf’s ‘hate crimes’

    PETRONELLA WYATT
    8 April 2024 • 7:00pm

    First Minister Humza Yousaf’s Hate and Public Order act is an update to Scotland’s anti-hate laws
    First Minister Humza Yousaf’s Hate and Public Order Act is an update to Scotland’s anti-hate laws CREDIT: PA
    If Robert Peel were alive today, what a shining mark he would be for men like Humza Yousaf. Indeed, he would probably call for the police force he founded to be defunded.

    I have seldom disliked anyone as much as Mr Yousaf. No doubt my distaste for him, like any other human prejudice, is due to an inner defect of my own. In this case, it is probably my incapacity to tolerate fools, and the flaw I possess when it comes to comprehending petty monocrats. But in this I have a sage companion. The father of modern policing would be horrified by the use to which his force has been put and the way his original aspiration has been reduced to a depressing joke.

    Like a man of God, let us return to the old texts. Sir Robert’s vision of policing was characterised by the high ideals of community engagement, consensuality and the prevention of violent crime. These did not include prying into conversations in which a member of the chatterati mocked a minority, as the police in Scotland are now obliged to do thanks to Yousaf’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act.

    On the contrary, his “Peelian Principles” emphasised the salient importance of the civilian nature of the police, maintaining public trust and safeguarding individual freedoms. The idea of a hate crime would be anathema to him.

    It is instructive to remember Peel’s conviction that the effectiveness of his bobbies lay not in their coercive powers but in their ability to work closely with, and for, the people. The 1829 Metropolitan Police Act instructed the new force “to recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect”.

    We often forget that the founding of a police force was a deeply controversial act that met with squawks and censure on all sides of the political spectrum. The first bobbies were forced to contend with rioting on the part of the public, which regarded them as a dangerous and anti-British encroachment on its freedoms.

    In considering the force today, Peel would doubtless appreciate the advancements in technology that have enhanced the efficacy of law enforcement. The use of data-driven strategies and forensic science would tickle his practical mind. But at the heart of his creed was the fundamental idea that bobbies should be seen as the public’s impartial friends rather than as its partial oppressors, and that their legitimacy depended on the trust and co-operation of the citizens they served.

    In the days before the pestilence of official public service, many of the multifarious duties now carried out by social workers, NHS employees, psychiatrists and bogus experts either fell to the police or were not discharged at all. In the late 19th century, an ordinary copper in a quiet residential section might, in a single day, have put out a couple of kitchen fires, arranged for the removal of a dead horse, rescued a dog or baby from a sewer, guarded an epileptic having a fit on the pavement and settled peaceably an argument between a husband and wife. Criminalising opinions would have seemed to him an abomination that would disgrace a race of alley cats.

    I have often said that democracy has a suicidal smack. The 19th-century person may not have enjoyed the benefits of our modern plutocracy, but he was freer than us by far. His politicians had the essential characteristics of honesty, clean tradition and, like Sir Robert, courage.

    Politicians of Yousaf’s sort are forever grasping at straws held out by the blinkered. Thus the police have been gradually and irredeemably contaminated. One needs no pretty logical gymnastics to recognise that, in order to regain public trust, the force must remember that it is civilian and cannot adopt the adversarial approach of a waterfront saloon antagonist. Like democracy itself, it is always inventing social and cultural distinctions despite its theoretical abhorrence of them. The Bobby must stand once more under bond of obligation to the citizenry.

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

    John Kelly
    13 HRS AGO
    When I became a police officer in 1979, our intake was addressed by one of our Assistant Chief Constables, whose principal point was that the police service was the one true public service, based on the principle that we would do anything to help someone in need of assistance, and that if we were not capable of doing so, we would source someone who could. That seemed to me to be a pretty decent summation of the motivation which drove us to join the service.
    Regrettably, I see little or nothing of that altruism in the police service now presided over by the likes of Humza Yousaf, a man so blinded by his own false perception of hatred and conflict around every corner that he has deployed the police and judicial system to combat threats which simply do not exist to the extent which he imagines. In doing so, he has destroyed public trust in policing in a way which will not be readily regained.
    So much damage has been inflicted on Scotland by Sturgeon, Yousaf and their associates. The misuse of the police service is only the latest manifestation of their ineptitude and authoritarian impulses.

    Patrick Wehrle
    4 HRS AGO
    Reply to John Kelly – view message
    No it’s deliberate way to introduce a blasphemy law to stop you criticising Islam so Islam can take over more easily and more quickly-it’s not that he sees threats everywhere. He wants a caliphate.

      1. Only around 33% voted for the Scottish Nationalist Party, the vast majority of those in the East of Glasgow, NW Lanarkshire, and Dundee. The Nationalists have worked hard to get the judiciary and media under their control. The police were effectively neutered when the Nationalists combined the various forces into Police Scotland. Much like NHS Scotland, the same party has trimmed the budget whilst heaping blame on Westminster for cuts.

        The remaining 66% of voters are split between various partys but, if Scooter Boy falls at the next election, Sanwar (son of Sanwar) will be more of the same.

        The Scottish Nationalist Party have worked hard to emulate Sinn Fein/IRA, which has worked on the eastern Glasgow voters and many of those dependent on the taxpayer for their lifestyle. Meanwhile, on the less frequent occasions that I head out for a pint, I find I avoid the seemingly intelligent acquaintances who swallowed the scamdemic jabs and rules as if they were written in stone, and feel the need to blame Wesminstur for any perceived failings north of the border.

        After 31 years in the RAF doing my, admittedly small, bit to fight off the marxists and enemies of the State, it’s a galling to find those same factors coming into play domestically.

  51. Humza Yousaf’s contaminated police force goes against everything Robert Peel stood for

    Our former PM envisaged policing as built on public trust. He would have hated everything about Yousaf’s ‘hate crimes’

    PETRONELLA WYATT
    8 April 2024 • 7:00pm

    First Minister Humza Yousaf’s Hate and Public Order act is an update to Scotland’s anti-hate laws
    First Minister Humza Yousaf’s Hate and Public Order Act is an update to Scotland’s anti-hate laws CREDIT: PA
    If Robert Peel were alive today, what a shining mark he would be for men like Humza Yousaf. Indeed, he would probably call for the police force he founded to be defunded.

    I have seldom disliked anyone as much as Mr Yousaf. No doubt my distaste for him, like any other human prejudice, is due to an inner defect of my own. In this case, it is probably my incapacity to tolerate fools, and the flaw I possess when it comes to comprehending petty monocrats. But in this I have a sage companion. The father of modern policing would be horrified by the use to which his force has been put and the way his original aspiration has been reduced to a depressing joke.

    Like a man of God, let us return to the old texts. Sir Robert’s vision of policing was characterised by the high ideals of community engagement, consensuality and the prevention of violent crime. These did not include prying into conversations in which a member of the chatterati mocked a minority, as the police in Scotland are now obliged to do thanks to Yousaf’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act.

    On the contrary, his “Peelian Principles” emphasised the salient importance of the civilian nature of the police, maintaining public trust and safeguarding individual freedoms. The idea of a hate crime would be anathema to him.

    It is instructive to remember Peel’s conviction that the effectiveness of his bobbies lay not in their coercive powers but in their ability to work closely with, and for, the people. The 1829 Metropolitan Police Act instructed the new force “to recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect”.

    We often forget that the founding of a police force was a deeply controversial act that met with squawks and censure on all sides of the political spectrum. The first bobbies were forced to contend with rioting on the part of the public, which regarded them as a dangerous and anti-British encroachment on its freedoms.

    In considering the force today, Peel would doubtless appreciate the advancements in technology that have enhanced the efficacy of law enforcement. The use of data-driven strategies and forensic science would tickle his practical mind. But at the heart of his creed was the fundamental idea that bobbies should be seen as the public’s impartial friends rather than as its partial oppressors, and that their legitimacy depended on the trust and co-operation of the citizens they served.

    In the days before the pestilence of official public service, many of the multifarious duties now carried out by social workers, NHS employees, psychiatrists and bogus experts either fell to the police or were not discharged at all. In the late 19th century, an ordinary copper in a quiet residential section might, in a single day, have put out a couple of kitchen fires, arranged for the removal of a dead horse, rescued a dog or baby from a sewer, guarded an epileptic having a fit on the pavement and settled peaceably an argument between a husband and wife. Criminalising opinions would have seemed to him an abomination that would disgrace a race of alley cats.

    I have often said that democracy has a suicidal smack. The 19th-century person may not have enjoyed the benefits of our modern plutocracy, but he was freer than us by far. His politicians had the essential characteristics of honesty, clean tradition and, like Sir Robert, courage.

    Politicians of Yousaf’s sort are forever grasping at straws held out by the blinkered. Thus the police have been gradually and irredeemably contaminated. One needs no pretty logical gymnastics to recognise that, in order to regain public trust, the force must remember that it is civilian and cannot adopt the adversarial approach of a waterfront saloon antagonist. Like democracy itself, it is always inventing social and cultural distinctions despite its theoretical abhorrence of them. The Bobby must stand once more under bond of obligation to the citizenry.

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

    John Kelly
    13 HRS AGO
    When I became a police officer in 1979, our intake was addressed by one of our Assistant Chief Constables, whose principal point was that the police service was the one true public service, based on the principle that we would do anything to help someone in need of assistance, and that if we were not capable of doing so, we would source someone who could. That seemed to me to be a pretty decent summation of the motivation which drove us to join the service.
    Regrettably, I see little or nothing of that altruism in the police service now presided over by the likes of Humza Yousaf, a man so blinded by his own false perception of hatred and conflict around every corner that he has deployed the police and judicial system to combat threats which simply do not exist to the extent which he imagines. In doing so, he has destroyed public trust in policing in a way which will not be readily regained.
    So much damage has been inflicted on Scotland by Sturgeon, Yousaf and their associates. The misuse of the police service is only the latest manifestation of their ineptitude and authoritarian impulses.

    Patrick Wehrle
    4 HRS AGO
    Reply to John Kelly – view message
    No it’s deliberate way to introduce a blasphemy law to stop you criticising Islam so Islam can take over more easily and more quickly-it’s not that he sees threats everywhere. He wants a caliphate.

    1. The sad thing is, who’s surprised? where are the calls for him to resign in shame?

  53. Can’t get over the brass neck of David Cameron going to visit Donald Trump.

    If I were Trump, I’d make him wait and after half an hour send some unsuitable, inappropriately dressed, minion to ask Cameron what he wants??

    Trump doesn’t have to give a fig about Cameron who will have no future after the enxt UK election.

    1. Would you send David Lammy instead? That would be a short but interesting meeting!

    2. I doubt if Trump even knows who Camoron is.

      When I was in Saudi it was accepted that you sat outside the Saudi’s office for quite some time as a statement of who was in control – the relevant regard for a visitor was measured in how long you had to wait. In some cases it was several hours.

    3. I doubt if Trump even knows who Camoron is.

      When I was in Saudi it was accepted that you sat outside the Saudi’s office for quite some time as a statement of who was in control – the relevant regard for a visitor was measured in how long you had to wait. In some cases it was several hours.

  56. RECORD HIGH WAGES FOR COUNCIL OFFICIALS AS HUGE TAX HIKES HIT TAXPAYERS

    As taxpayers have been hit by a fresh wave of council tax hikes, council officials will not be feeling so glum. It turns out, as taxpayers save their pennies to pay their councils, 3,106 officials pocketed more than £100,000, while 829 cashed in £150,000 in 2022-23. A record high figure of pen pushers having higher wages than even the Prime Minister…

    These figures, revealed by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, come as consistent calls about stretched budgets and struggling services dominate the local headlines and worries arise as over 40 councils claim to be on the brink of bankruptcy. Perhaps the surge in town hall salaries has something to with it…

    John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

    “The new financial year has seen council tax soar across the country, and taxpayers will notice that top brass pay has simultaneously surged. Residents can use these figures to ask whether precious funds are really going towards frontline services, or whether town hall bosses can get better value for money.”

    Nice work if you can get it…

    1. What is even more annoying is that I doubt most of them would earn even half that in the private sector.

      I used to be on the job mentoring list for undergraduates at my college but stopped when it became apparent that so many students had their eyes on the public sector.

      1. I very much doubt if more than half of them could even get a job in the private sector.

  57. Got it together eventually . . .

    Wordle 1,025 4/6

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

    1. I thought that I would try a naughty word, it wasn’t quite the expected one

      Wordle 1,025 5/6

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

      1. I’m surprised it accepted that, foreign language and all that. A few days ago it accepted PRIMA which as far as I know is only a word in German! And Latin of course, but not in general use?

      2. I’m surprised it accepted that, foreign language and all that. A few days ago it accepted PRIMA which as far as I know is only a word in German! And Latin of course, but not in general use?

  60. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc292090d61f9bb5f8efc9a57ac76974404164e506c8e0de96b3f6bb786689b2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b6d14c6332f0805e3ab91451f60f1415b1d45539e5e6694b25fb7c03157222f.jpg
    With apologies to the sons (and daughters) of Kernow — Plum-Tart and Molamola being prominent — I have just knocked-up 25 Emmet Pasties (well, as an outsider I’m not permitted to call them ‘Cornish’ Pasties).

    Four square ones made from ready-rolled puff pastry, and 19 half-moons made from my own recipe all-butter shortcrust pastry.

    The filling was made from 2·3 kg chuck beef, finely chopped; three medium onions, finely chopped; three medium potatoes, finely chopped; and half a swede (‘neep’, ‘turnip’, ‘kålrot’, rutabaga’, call it what you will), grated. All mixed together in a large bowl and seasoned with a tsp white pepper, three Knorr beef stock pots and a heaped tsp of Bovril.

    I’ve just demolished one of them with a dish of home-made pea-and-ham soup!😋

      1. Thanks. They taste even better than they look (Philipizzi insists all my food looks ‘beige’).

        I love it when pastry melts in your mouth.

    3. I like pea soup but it gives me the runs. Fond of meat pies and pasties too and don’t doubt that yours outclass M&S.

      1. Thanks, Sue. I hope they do. Pea and ham is my favourite soup: followed by French onion, minestrone, and tomato.

      2. I certainly would do if I still lived in the UK. Unfortunately I moved to live in southern Sweden 12 years ago; hence the necessity for me to make my own pasties; as well as bake my own bread, cobs, scones and teacakes; cure (and smoke) my own bacon; make my own sausages and sausage rolls; Yorkshire pork pies; Derbyshire oatcakes; crumpets and pikelets; and lots more English goodies. There always seems to be a knock on the door from locals who are interested in this strange ‘foreign’ food, with more than a few willing to sample it.😊

        Most of what I have baked today will be given as gifts to friends locally. The rest is now in the freezer.

    6. Please excuse the much-travelled-man-of-the-world namedrop, but the best patsies I ever had were in Zimbabwe. And the pies. All organic and fresh.

  61. Good afternoon All,
    I hope you are all well and happy – even if you are suffering yet another storm as we are here in Wiltshire.
    I really popped in to say that my health which has been problematic has improved so very much. Not operating at full strength but somewhere about70% – so I am thinking I may need to resurrect the “beware of the dog” sign for the Jehovas witnesses. (not really sure how they find us in arse end of nowhere – normal people seem to find us quite difficult to locate.)

    Well, the world is in a pretty poor state at the moment so we all need to get out there and do our bit.
    Just me rambling again. 🙂

    1. Very glad to hear you have recovered to the point of being considered a potential biting hazard. Proper Nottler spirit, that. 😉

  62. I spend a lot of time staring at the tomb of Prior Rahere, a London saint. While on pilgrimage in Rome in the early 12th century he fell ill and was nursed back to health at San Bartolomeo all’Isola in the Tiber. He vowed that if he survived and made it home, he would found a hospital for the poor of the City of London. 901 years later that hospital is still there and it’s only been run by the NHS for 76 years. It was a free hospital for the other 825 years too.

    People ask the silly question, what was the point of medieval hospitals and the answer is very simple. The wealthy were surely attended by their physicians and apothecaries in their own homes therefore hospitals were only needed by the poor and the medieval poor were dirty, infested and malnourished. The first thing the monks did when they took someone in was wash them. When they were thoroughly cleaned up, they were given warmth, shelter, food and rest. Cared for by people who actually gave a damn whether they lived or died and that’s no mean thing.

    1. There were lots of ancient hospitals before the NHS. They were doing fine and had good reputations. The lie is that they needed to go so that the NHS could take their place. I don’t think even the post war Labour Party believed the NHS was actually required. Just the usual weaning onto the State teat was all it was about, really. Now we have an all devouring monster in “our NHS”, a model so-called envy of the world that no one copies despite its supposed superiority.

      More power to the monks, I say.

      1. Most people seem to believe the lie that before the NHS there was no healthcare for the poor in Britain.

        1. I know, disgraceful propaganda it is too. Funny enough they didn’t seem to need an army of administrative staff back then, either.

        2. Many of the hospitals were endowed by the rich. It was considered their duty – noblesse oblige, after all.

    2. When I went into hospital to have my tonsils out (I was six), the first thing was I was bathed. Then given a clean bedgown before being put between crisp white sheets. No visits from parents, strict rules and the hospital smelt of disinfectant. Compare and contrast.

  63. Reform UK hits highest ever level of support in new poll. 9 April 2024.

    Reform UK has hit it’s highest ever level of support in a new general election poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.

    The survey, conducted on April 7, put Reform on 15 per cent of the vote which was up by one point when compared to the company’s previous poll on March 31.

    Needs about twenty to be in with a shout.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/09/rishi-sunak-latest-news-suella-braverman-reform-cameron/

      1. I’m just imaging the levels of deranged cope if Reform or whoever coming from the Right get to the stage where they get a significant block of seats. Hope Not Hate, The Graun, BBC, Ian Hislop, Gary Lineker et al.

      2. Farage already has a contract with Trump to go over to the US as a Campaign adviser for the presidential election. He is not coming back into UK politics – does not pay enough.

    2. I truly despair of the intelligence to the British Electorate – and the News media.
      Reform UK – is a construct – a Ltd Company registered with the Electoral commission. It has only 2 persons of influence – and if memory serves only 1 Director. It has no members – only supporters who donate to the party. It has no internal elections and the supporters have absolutely no say in anything at all.
      It is no accident that it has been set up like this. Farage found that leading a democratic party irksome because people disagreed with him and he could not “lay down the law” All appointments – candidates etc are the gift of Tice with Farage’s permission – and Farage will appoint only his fan club and sycophants.
      Please don’t be deceived into supporting these 2 charlatans. Farage is just out to line his pockets and Tice is a mediocre business man who cannot afford to buy a football club.

      Farage is really not the Mesiah – I promise you. Reform is really not the answer whatever the question.

        1. I have said elsewhere that Reform have stolen and watered down most of their policies from UKIP – who by the way would never dream of letting Hope not Hate vet their candidates – so you would be better off voting for the Organ Grinder than the Monkey. Check out UKIP.org. They have a leadership election going on (Reform never heard of those) and your can link through to have a look at the candidates. Hamilton is retiring so I hear., I parted with them over Batten but it seems to me that they have steadied the ship and regained their mojo.

          1. One hopes so, but I fear that they killed themselves and won’t be resurrected in time to do anything at the next election and 5 years after that it will be too late anyway.
            I am very depressed by the way things are heading.

          2. I largely share your thoughts but one has to look for the positives where they exist – and not just in politics! I have learned from being ill. I lived in a fog of diagnosis until I managed to grab the idea that there is more life. We simply have to make the decision to live it – health, politics – everything.
            .

        2. Monster Raving loonies if there are no better candidates in your constituency. That or spoilt paper is better than liblabcongreenreform.

      3. Hello – glad to hear you are feeling better, we met at Corsham a few years ago. Thanks for this – I’d not looked into how Reform was structured. To be honest as far as I’m concerned every one of them, Reform, Conservative, Labour are a load of charlatans populated by second rate individuals who would not survive in the environment outside the incestuous world of politics and civil service, mind you certain business sectors are not much better!.

        1. Our membership of the EU is responsible for the poor quality of our politician imo. As the laws were handed down by the EU good people who would otherwise have volunteered to serve the country to make it better saw that they would not be able to have any influence or make any difference – many of them gave up on politics pure and went to the NGOs. Now it seems to me that most of the political class are little more than over promoted middle managers waiting for dead men’s shoes.

          1. I agree, government, national and local, no longer “govern” they simply manage, rather poorly at that. National government is constrained by external matters and local government is held in a budgetary and regulatory straightjacket imposed by central government.

          2. Yes. And part of the problem with our judiciary too, which seems to have moved from common law of equity to who knows what.

        1. Since most of their policies are watered down UKIP ones I would urge you to check out UKIP.org – where a Leadership election is taking place as Hamilton is retiring. There you can see not only the policies but link through to the candidates to just their calibre.

  64. When Dave met Donald: Lord Cameron holds talks with
    Trump in Florida as Foreign Secretary tries to unlock US funding for
    Ukraine war – years after calling ex-president ‘divisive, stupid and
    wrong’.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13287139/When-Dave-met-Donald-Lord-Cameron-holds-talks-Trump-Florida-Foreign-Secretary-tries-unlock-funding-Ukraine-war-years-calling-ex-president-divisive-stupid-wrong.html

    So that is why the slimy little shit was sent. I hope Donald Trump tells him to fuck off.

    1. Mr Trump is a greater man than Cameron (not saying much tbh) and when in office he will face down Putin and support Ukraine. if Putin does not make peace on terms acceptable to Ukraine. Mr Trump was an effective foreign policy President who still believes in Western civilisation and who knows who its enemies are.

        1. I have stood inside the bedroom of the house where The Don was born.

          ‘The Don’ being Sir Donald Bradman and the house is at 89 Adams Street, Cootamundra, NSW.

          2. A chap with whom I was at school, Donald Manley, writes crossword puzzles for many newspapers. He uses pseudonyms each of which refers to a Don or a Donald such as: Quixote, Bradman, Duck, Giovanni etc. He has not yet used Trump!

    3. It doesn’t really matter anymore Id imagine Donald Trump who loves the UK will be charming to slippery Cameron.
      I’m far more interested in how itll be when the Tottenham turnip racist Mugabe wannabee, Lammy meets Donald Trump.

        1. Yes, but i didn’t know which way to spell it, and this being nottl I thought I’d go for donkey

  66. Scientists don’t know why it’s getting warmer – but they do.

    ‘Uncharted territory’ fears after record hot March

    …scientists are struggling to explain exactly why the end of 2023 was so warm…”Our predictions failed quite dramatically for the specifics of 2023, and if previous statistics don’t work, then it becomes much harder to say what’s going to happen in the future.”

    But scientists are certain about one thing: the way to stop the world warming is to rapidly cut emissions of planet-warming gases.

    1. The South Pacific undersea volcano with the unpronounceable Polynesian name that erupted last year was the largest eruption since Mount Tambora in 1815 which chilled the world’s temperatures for two years, and instead of ejecting huge quantities or ash and dust into the upper atmosphere that would cause a sort of nuclear winter, it ejected vast quantities of water vapour to the very edge of space which now straddles the globe and acts as a hot water blanket as water vapour is a real greenhouse gas. Scientists believe it will take up to three years to fall to Earth in precipitation. You’ll never hear this on the BC.

    2. Gag all the politicians – they emit more offensive gases in a day than all the cows and camels in the world do in six months.

    3. Hot March? March was cold. And wet. And blustery. We had the heating on most of the time. Just like February. We also had a cold, damp spring last year, it didn’t improve until around the time of the late spring bank holiday. I think they are desperate, manipulating perceptions and telling porkies as more of us are waking up.

      1. It is the language of the apocalypse that bothers me. When warm is hot, where does hot go?

  68. That worked out well.
    The 11:06 ex-Bonsall bus to Matlock was on time which gave me just over an hour to do a bit of shopping.
    Shopping concluded with ½h spare, so into a cafe for a pot of tea and a sticky, with the return bus being spot on at 12:36!
    Shopping sorted and sausage rolls & oven chips on for Graduate Son and self.
    2nd batch of rolls & chips ready to put on so they’ll be ready for the DT and Welder Son when they get back from work.

  69. Spotted on BTL commentson an article about wider cars:

    “For those of a certain age – if you were born in ’33 you would be 45 in ’78 … is that a record?”

  70. Spotted on BTL commentson an article about wider cars:

    “For those of a certain age – if you were born in ’33 you would be 45 in ’78 … is that a record?”

  74. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-tories-deserve-our-contempt/

    Although of course I agree that the Conservative Parlamentary party deserve nothing but contempt, they are all wet liberals and will lose the coming election this autumn which of course they clearly want to lose, it’s obvious they want to pass the buck to labour whose way ahead in the polls.

    But Id like to know the about the motives of this writer Gareth Roberts ( i am aware he’s not amongst the new Leftist and Muslim writers – he’s well known ) . he’s getting lots of pats on the head with the responses ( but he’s not mentioned Reform and shan’t do ) He doesn’t think the ‘ threat of Labour is so bad ‘, He has a ‘ Goulish fascination of what the Starmer government will bring ‘ He speaks of ‘ Lammy as not having a coherent sentence in his head ‘ we know thats true . He believes the Tories will be dead in 2024 ( very true ) but he also thinks labour shan’t last very long er .

    I’m aware that the article is one of many such easy and lazy clickbait articles on this subject for the now inferior comment boxes but when will the Spectator and any magazine tell the truth about the incoming Labour goverment . It’ll be longer then 10 years . Sneaky stasi Lawyer Starmer has said that he wants EU immigrants in this country to be able to quickly vote without previous hassles . He’ll enable 16 year olds to vote . the bulging muslim constituences will vote for Muslim MPs – as Muslims will always vote for Muslims – we’ll have Muslims passing laws in Parliament rather like Khan is perminent in London . What is this fascination with this coming Stasi Islamic state in the UK . Islamophobia will be illigal – antisemitism is here to stay as well as the increase of hate on our streets – the Israel / Gaza war helps both Muslim and Jew hating Lefties. Christianity will be next and I cant imagine even Blair taking to the Knee like Starmer and Raynor . But the huge elephant in the room is the ever increasing threat of militant Islam , not only on our streets but in our Parliament representing Muslims . Labour are just useful Idiots . But when are the press and magazines like the Spectator show some integrity and speak about Islam.

  76. https://thecritic.co.uk/ Asuperb article by The Critic .

    ‘ Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ‘ . A growing and subtantial minority of Americans hate both presidental candidates .” The double – haters – folks who cannot stand either candidate are close to 20per cent- they’ll wait until the very last moment in the polling booth and decide at that point ” .
    I suppose that’s the same for us all .

    3. Agreed, most of my neighbours in WV that I have talked to, are fed up with both parties candidate.

      1. At a Squeeze, I think I would rate Julian Miles Holland as a more-than-decent ivory-tinkler.

    1. “We row for GB women – but that does not stop ‘mansplaining’ at the gym”

      FYI verb (used with or without object) (of a man) mansplaining

      To explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner,
      typically to a woman already knowledgeable about the topic:

      He was mansplaining to her about female friendships!

      1. We can. Honda and Nissan have done this. I’d still argue that it’s unnecessarily complex, though. There’s nothing wrong with internal combustion engines for most applications. Adding the hybrid/electrification stuff is just costly in terms of price, additional raw materials and the inevitable extra bills and waste for replacement parts. No-one seems to consider that last one in regards to the environmental impact…

  79. I watched the Reeves and Rowlatt show on BBC Breakfast TV this morning.
    Rachel said Labour had costed and funded its spending plans but Justin admitted that El Niño has been a major factor in making climate change a lot worse than our anthropogenic activities.

    Does Labour realise that the Conservative Government has already come to the conclusion that here in the UK we just can’t afford a lifestyle without fossil fuels and that the aims of net zero cannot be achieved through placing legislative limits on global warming.

    History shows that whole civilisations and kingdoms are more vulnerable to ocean currents created by the repeating El Niño phenomenon than any humankind influence.

    https://nautil.us/el-nio-has-ended-kingdoms-and-civilizations-235985/

  80. Well I have just been on Amazon looking for something to read and come across two Judge Dee novels by Robert van Gulik that I first read forty years ago but were not on Kindle. They must have been recently added. I’ve bought them and feel a pleasurable anticipation at renewing my acquaintance with them.

    1. It is in the best interests of land owners to keep their land in good heart. It’s the get rich quick developers (I’m a bit jaded because I had to go to a “consultation” where they told a pack of lies – they kept changing their story – about a development nobody in the village wanted and which would have a primary entrance onto a busy and dangerous road. We all know it will go through, despite opposition) that want to wreck the land. They wouldn’t build on brownfield sites because it was “too expensive”.

  82. https://www.decanter.com/ A little early in the day but I do get decanter magazine, its superb .

    It’s of wine, whisky, wine investments, growers and regions, events travel and recommendations It’s a little geeky but so am I .

    1. I bought crystal Whisky and Brandy decanters from the shop at Sandringham. They have the Crown and Feathers crest engraved on them. Posh is me. :@)

      2. I got my crystal decanters (whisky, brandy, sherry and port) as birthday presents. The advantage of having family in the cut glass crystal business 🙂

          4. …erm…guilty as charged. I met Geoff Graham recently. As it was his birthday i gave him some Malt whisky. I gave it to him in a brown paper bag and said…just in case you want to drink it now. :@)

  86. They sound rather fine. Ive only been to Sandringham shop once but it was closed and only open to provide sandwiches and tea for those paying respects to the Queen on her passing but when Im back there i will have a look around .

    1. IIRC the shop is accessible without the need for paying to go in the house. (when it’s open of course)
      I love Sandringham. You come off the A road and suddenly the verges and trees are as the rest of England should look like.

        1. There is something really creepy about her. Good historian, I grant you…but…

        2. She’s happily married of the past 40 years to classicist and art historian Robin Cormack. I’d imagine both of them are eccentric .

        2. I have studied Rome and the Roman Empire since 1948.

          Professor Beard is the one who is unnecessarily obsessed – she brings sex into every talk and programme she makes. She gave a lecture on Roman politics at the British School at Rome – and even there managed to drag references to sex into what was a serious subject.

          1. I thought the Roman Empire fell in the late 400s, I didn’t realise it had a resurgence in 1948.

          4. Give her a break Bill it’s probably the only sex she’s ever had.
            …….I’ll get me bits and pieces.

    4. Maybe it’s shallow of me but I just wish that she had sufficient respect for her audience to feel that we’re worth the effort of her dressing nicely and having her hair done professionally.

      1. Agree completely. That North Oxford style smugness – I’m too intellectual to care about mere appearance – but she’s raking in the money

      2. I was always taught that one should be well turned out from respect to your tutot/instructor/audience or whatever.

      2. You have to put up with working with them to get a job in that field.
        Of course they think it’s because they’re the cleverest of their generation. The rest of us know that the really intelligent people left academia and did something useful instead.

      1. Does he actully know what happend to Thomas Bekett 29th December 1170 ? In Canterbury Cathedral.

  89. Had a very successful lunch do today with many happy veterans , the oldest will be 100years old in July . Sparkling humour and brilliant mind .

    Now feel exhausted , because that is what chattering does .

    2. Open defecation is common in Africa. A reason they don’t have clean water. More Water Aid wells are pointless when the natives will use them as toilets.

      1. Also in the subcontinent. Probably for the “Global Majority” countries worldwide (sorry posted at the same time as the above BB2 informative post

        1. Thanks. I’ll watch later. As I understand it, the Nigerian government tried to copy the very successful campaign to end open defecation in India. The Indians believe that it defiles their home to do it indoors but are happy to use an outdoor toilet. The same approach had far less success in West Africa.

      3. That is why the entire population of that shithole of a continent, Africa, wants to leave there and convert a different continent, Europe, into another shithole.

        Where will they go when they’ve turned the entire planet into a shithole?

    3. Belle, I seem to recall the absence of Public Lavatories is one of your pet Bete noirs…..I now see why….

    4. What is the individual in the second clip and how is that done? Is some kind of equipment involved?

      2. That meme is doing the rounds.
        Sonny Boy Sir has also circulated it this evening.
        (I wonder if he’s sent it to his daughter in Edinburgh?)

    1. Total sleezeball. Just having that as the ‘leader’ should be enough to persuade even the dumbest to not vote for the SNP. In comparison, he almost makes the fish woman seem decent.

    2. Wasting their time on this while they should be following up all those trans complaints.

  92. Wadda palaver today. I simple blood test at a local GP practice. Went a tad pear-shaped, the poor young nurse couldn’t find a vien in either of ‘Mr Stones’ arms.
    But I made her laugh, she’d never heard of the Tom Jones syndrome. As in “it’s not unusual”.
    So I was sent to the blood clinic at the local hospital. Now appointments only. But the GP receptionist gave a new form for an urgent appointment. One of those lovely well practiced lady phlebotomist sorted it out in 5 minutes. Brilliant.
    Now to wait for doc’s appointment next week. 😊🤞

    1. I had a similar experience with a blood test at our previous health centre. After many prods, the HCA managed to stab a nerve. Ouch! I suggested she needed to bring a more experienced colleague in. After that, I always made sure to have the 6 monthly bloods taken by the proper phlebotomist who is the only person I miss from there.
      Many years ago, I had to get a blood test at hospital – they sent in a very new, trainee doctor. Useless, in spite of him coming from Romania (presumably not Transylvania though ….)
      Good luck with the results.

      1. I have to say that the vampire at the local cottage hospital is brilliant. Quick, efficient and painless. !A slight scratch” is an overstatement. Should she be off duty for any reason, the best thing is to turn tail and run!

      2. Described by Mother’s friend as a “flea botanist”! I reckon some of them really are!

    2. Did she try your foot? By crap, that hurts. One of those “the tears actually jetted out of my eyes” moments… 🙁

    3. Were you at all dehydrated? I’ve been advised to drink water beforehand.

      1. It’s always the same Stig I know all the ins and outs.
        I’m not at all vein. That song’s not about me.

    4. If I need a blood test the local district nurse who lives up the road stops on her way to work, does the necessary and drops it off at the lab in the town along with the others she takes. I don’t feel a thing, maybe because I am still half-asleep 😁

    5. I don’t recall ever having a blood test………I keep away from doctors as much as possible.

        1. Just thought of when I did have one – a pre-op check prior to breast cancer surgery in 2010. The phlebotomist was very efficient but I had to wait for some time with loads of other people.

    6. The vampires at our hospital are models of efficiency.
      Sadly the same can’t be said for the rest of it it.

      1. I Ioved them, I use to have to take warfarin. Meaning many blood tests.
        I became quite friendly with some of the ladies.
        I’m glad they changed the lead up to the jab to “Sharp scratch”. ……

        1. Sometimes one just wishes for one of the memory erasers that they used in Men in Black.

          1. It’s costing our country more than 9 million pounds every single day to keep feed and cloth these illegal invaders.
            And the idiots in Wastemonster still can’t see anything wrong.

  95. A combo Par Four, perhaps!

    Wordle 1,025 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Yep, combined four.

      Wordle 1,025 4/6

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

    2. Bit iffy 5.

      Wordle 1,025 5/6

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

  96. Evening all! Hope you had a lovely day : -)

    Wordle 1,025 4/6

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

  97. Afternoon, all. I’m on early because I’ve discovered I shan’t be at home for the P&CC elections and I want to either write something rude on the form or vote for a non-Big 3 candidate (I think there will be one), so I had to put the computer on to apply for a one-off postal vote. Quite why anyone would not know their correct date of birth in this day and age is beyond me.

    A truly modern NHS wouldn’t look remotely like the one we’ve got, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

    1. Parish Church Council meeting. Good luck with that, ive heard about them .

      1. Our PCC hasn’t met yet this year. Despite the fact we need an APCM by May and the accounts haven’t been signed off. These are the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

  100. That’s me for this miserable day. Cold, gale blowing and rain most of the day. Cats peeved. Adults too.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. There’s no hope for them, is there? I’m in my 70s too, poor dears. I’m not worried by “climate change” at all……..

      1. One poor dear complained that she couldn’t go outside for three weeks during the heatwave last summer. Very sensible if you ask me, I don’t go outside during heatwaves either unless I have to. I don’t go outside in the rain either. It’s called “weather”. When I can’t go outside for 52 weeks without “boiling in my own sweat” then I’ll believe in climate change 🤣

        1. BBC news having a field day with that one – followed by Justin Rowlatt and then a report on the floods…..

        2. I spent two weeks in Kenya in February…….it was quite warm there but nothing I couldn’t cope with. We did have a siesta in the hottest part of the day.

          1. I grew up in Africa but have always had trouble dealing with excessive heat. It hasn’t got better as I’ve got older either! I didn’t enjoy much of last summer here in France at all, but it wasn’t as bad as the summer of 2003.

          2. We had a warm summer here that year, too. Quite a number of elderlies popped their clogs.

          5. Worked in the Libyan desert, outside, for two weeks in July some years ago.
            It only became uncomfortable when we were inside a closed compound surrounded by corrugated iron – reflected the sun, and choked off any breeze. Then we measured 65C. Otherwise, was fine.
            You just need to a) slow down, and b) stop moaning about how hot and uncomfortable it is.

          7. T’was warmest I ever had outside of a sauna.
            But we had an inspection job to do, so…
            Libya was a fine place until some d*ckhead decided Ghaddafi had to go. Yer average Libyan is a fine person – similar to an introverted Egyptian, nowhere near the same desperate urge to sell you shit, bother you. Most reserved and dignified. Tripoli was a fine city, even without alcohol.

          8. I really do not understand, to this day why they did that, Ober. Unless they are even badder hats than they have now been revealed to be

          9. At 65C I wouldn’t have been moaning about anything – I’d have been unconscious 😆

          10. Having lived in Singapore, Australia and S Spain I adore the heat.
            And now live and freeze in Scotland!

        4. I went to Greece during the “heatwave” about 30 years ago and just wore light, loose clothing made of linen or cotton. Then stayed out of the midday sun and drank lots of water.

      2. One poor dear complained that she couldn’t go outside for three weeks during the heatwave last summer. Very sensible if you ask me, I don’t go outside during heatwaves either unless I have to. I don’t go outside in the rain either. It’s called “weather”. When I can’t go outside for 52 weeks without “boiling in my own sweat” then I’ll believe in climate change 🤣

    2. The ruling is binding and can trickle down to influence the law in 46 countries in Europe including the UK.

      Perhaps the Government’s thinking about UK leaving the ECHR so that we can keep using fossil fuels to power our internal combustion engines is not such a bad idea after all.

      1. It’ll be really nice if Switzerland gets stroppy and tells them to do one. Also, I thought CH was big on referendums, so one on leaving this nasty, arrogant and out of touch little court would be instructive.

      1. No food either without oil and farm animals to provide fertilizer for their mono-culture vegetable crops!

    4. No issues here, we are doing climate action. Trudeau is using climate change as a reason to look at buying some nuclear powered submarines. Supposedly the melting arctic aims many Chinese and Russian submarines to operate up north with impunity.

    5. Farage opening with that story on GBN. The Swiss biddies who brought the case look like typical middle class old hippies and the guy he’s got in the studio is talking bollocks about The Science (with great emphasis on The) his religion.

    6. People are going to look back and think we were half-witted!
      I am convinced that this era is going to become one of those famous times that will be talked about, and everyone will have an opinion about what they would have done.

      1. Like Prohibition or McCarthysm?
        Maybe. Or maybe this is just the beginning of worse to come.
        Too much money at stake, I fear.
        I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

        2. There is light at the end of the tunnel – it’s just the end of a long economic cycle. When they’ve got the new currency up and running, and unwound the ridiculous level of debt that THEY got the fiat currency system into, things will calm down a bit. The west won’t have the same standard of living though, and a lot of people are about to get wiped out by the next Great Muppet Reaping.

      3. Think we were half-witted? With hindsight, they’ll KNOW we were half-witted (and that’s being generous!).

    7. Let us hope that the Swiss put it to a referendum and the population as a whole tell the ECHR to stick their judgement where the sun doesn’t shine.

    1. For some reason they had a green party politician on a panel reviewing Trudeaus latest giveaway last night. Probably invited him because they did not want a conservative pointing out how disastrous the policies are.

      Their party representative certainly lived down to this level.

  105. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/09/female-james-bond-007-ian-fleming-biography-susan-hayward/

    ‘ The woman who was going to be Bond . Susan Haywood was thought to become the Ian Flemming creation just before Sean Connery got the role- who’d have been Miss Moneypenny . I thought all this nonsense was new but seems not . Btw my opinion Sean Connery was the one and only James Bond.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9f0a78c0a3b7a3a116d2aa0b1b38d4ebf80d8090c8a77faf9a383e90919c62b.jpg

    1. I’ve always been a great Bond fan, not all of them fit the description. But I think with the sad parting of James the sixth.
      That will be my lot.
      Daniel Craig was my favourite..

      1. Craig is a great actor. He brought a new appropriate twist to Bond in Casino Royal. It went drastically down hill from there to the extent I haven’t bothered with that last one. It looked utterly dreadful.

          1. Ah, hadaway, man woman! I bet ye wouldn’t tell him that, Pet, when he was playing ‘Wor’ Geordie Peacock!🤣

          2. Ah wye hinny, ah sortainly wud tell ‘im!He’s a duff actor and he’s a short arse wi’ attitude!

        2. I liked his less self important ‘womanising’ approach, more his duty than trying to make a name for himself.

        1. No Peta 🙂 . On my new ITV X thingy I’ve found superb old episodes of The Saint with a young and dashing Roger Moore . Whereas James Bond is the darkly handsome Sean Connery .

          1. I fell in love with The Saint in my early teens – James Bond was the natural progression! Sean Connery was second best 😆

          2. What was so nice about Roger Moore is that he knew he was ridiculously handsome – Godlike – yet knew how to take the p out of this attribute.

      2. Nah! 1. Connery. 2. Craig. 3. Timothy Dalton.

        Moore was crap — my least favourite — who had the acting ability of a clothes peg! Even George Lazenby, who knew his limitations, was far more watchable.

        1. Joint Ist? Connery and Brosnan (Brosnan contractually unable to continue). Timothy Dalton = meh. Weirdly, Lazenby was borderline good, but not a proper Bond (too neanderthal). Worst = Craig, although i liked him in “In Cold Blood” and a good actor – just a little bit “construction worker as sex object” for Mr Bond. I guess we all have our own weird fantasies. Moore was great as a piss-take. He, by the way, was a really nice man.

          1. Daniel Craig was wonderful as ‘Wor’ Geordie Peacock in Peter Flannery’s unmissable Our Friends In The North.

          2. Brilliant TV – and just a perfect end to the series when they played ‘Dont look back in anger’ by Oasis.

          3. I have it on DVD and I rewatch it every couple of yers. The casting was faultless. One of my favourite actors, Malcolm McDowell, was in splendid form with his portrayal of Soho porn king, Benny Barratt.

          4. I re-watched it completely a few years back, it’s probably time for a revisit!

            What a fantastic series, when you look at the careers it launched – Daniel Craig, Chris Eccleston, Mark Strong, Gina McKee – just awesome.

            McDowell is a legend – If, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon (one of my personal favourites) etc etc

    3. Could it be that Dlyan whatever that did us a favour by promoting Bud Light becomes the next Bond?

      That would be the final woke nail in the Bond franchise coffin.

    4. Nicolas Shakespeare’s book was published three months ago, it is not “upcoming.” I have a mild claim to fame as I feature in it.

  106. What a terrible shame, today the trees are covered with various coloured blossoms.
    Typically of our horrible climate it’s being lost by howling gales and cold weather. It’s such a sad feeling when this seems to happen nearly every year.

    1. Last spring was a rare one of warm sun, little wind and modest rainfall. It resulted in one of the greatest displays of hawthorn and wild apple blossom that I can remember.

      1. Nothing will ever beat the wonderful Jacaranda blossoms I’ve seen abroad. Stunning.

          1. Uptick for the quintessentially English “They’re a bit showy”. 🤣🤣 Reminds me of my mother. 🙂

          2. I turned into my mother some time ago…… I hear her voice and see her face in the mirror……

          3. Yerss… happens to us all. I’ve worked hard not to turn into my Father, once he had his stroke. It’s hard…

          1. Does anyone apart from me remember the limerick which rhymed cloister, oyster and moister?

    1. How does he do it? it is rare for him not to produce a work of absolute genius!

    1. Between Camoron, Gove, Hunt, Sunak, Johnson and others I can’t immediately think of, I don’t think I have seen a greater bunch of two-faced bastards anywhere else. They most certainly do not promote inspiration.

    2. The pig-faced prat’s lecturing of the Yanks today was, even for him, a particularly low moment.

      1. 385649+ up ticks,

        Evening WS,

        Trump could have cemented good feeling
        relationships with the decent indigenous of England, via a well planted boot up fattwats ermine clad arse.

        Actions speak louder than words.

  111. If anyone is still counting, Trudeau gave away 1.5 billion for housing on Sunday, 15 billion on Monday for defence and today it is a miserly 500 million for youth mental health. However, there is still time to spend more today.

    We have lost count of his promises and still haven’t seen anything about how we are supposed to pay for his bribes to normally liberal voters.

  112. Very sad: The loss of an old building – 150 years old mud mosque.
    https://punchng.com/eight-killed-as-150-year-old-mosque-collapses-in-zaria/
    At least eight worshipers were killed and 25 others sustained injuries as a section of the 150-year-old Zaria Central Mosque collapsed on Friday during prayer session.
    The incident, it was learnt, occurred at about 4pm while the worshippers were praying.
    One of the survivors, Mallam Shehu Nagari, said the incident happened when they were in the second Sujud of Asr prayer.
    According to him, the affected portion of the mosque suddenly collapsed on those sitting directly under it.
    Nagari said all he knew was that the affected worshippers were covered by the rubble because the section was built with mud over 150 years ago.
    As of the time of filing this report Nagari said he couldn’t ascertain the actual number of victims involved in the incident.
    The Emir of Zazzau, Mallam Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli, who confirmed the incident, said the victims were observing the Asr prayer around 4pm when the incident occurred.
    “We had earlier observed a crack on the wall of the mosque yesterday (Thursday) and were planning to deploy a team of civil engineers to effect repairs when this unfortunate incident happened,” he added.
    The monarch, while offering his condolences to the family of the victims, asked Muslim faithful to pray outside the mosque pending the repairs. He said funeral prayer for the corpses would be observed at 8.30pm later on Friday at the palace.

    Meanwhile, the Kaduna State Police Command on Friday night confirmed the death of eight persons in the incident

    2. Christian cathedrals used to collapse in the Middle Ages due to insufficient foundations or faulty construction. Masons learnt from their mistakes. It would seem that Muslims are several hundred years behind the Western world in construction techniques. No surprise there, then.

      1. Gosh
        /sarc
        But I have visited that mosque, when I lived there. It was rather well decorated, and an exhibition of (primitive?) art. I’m sad it’s all broken now.
        Since I do maintenance engineering, maybe some maintenance would have helped? Just a thought.

  113. I simply have to share this with you dear Nottlers, from a comment on a DT piece about a poor woman getting HIV. “Wait, what?”!

    John Henson
    2 HRS AGO
    It’s predominantly spread via any interaction involving blood and/or semen. You cannot assume a partner does not have the virus. Artificial Victorian-era constructs such as heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality do not help here. Unprotected anal sex or needle sharing between intravenous drug users are the most risky behaviours.

    3. I wonder how anybody cannot know this, after all the fuss and buggeration (if you see what I mean) over the last 40 years…?

      1. As a point of clarification I am looking at the sentence “Artificial Victorian-era constructs such as heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality do not help here.”

        1. There’s nothing artificial about heterosexuality; it ensures the survival of the species.

          1. Welcome to the half-baked yet uttered with the wisdom of a deity assertions of Foucault.

    6. It is apparently very rare for a STD Clinic to see any female patients over the age of 45. The moral of this story is: Sleep with women over 45 years of age!

  114. I was just thinking that there have been a lot of honour killings through this Lent and Easter period.

    No wonder they are trying to play down the religious festival.

    1. Coincides with Ramadan. Which is driving all the killing? And – were they hungry?

      1. They usually get over fences and steal sheep. And throw the bits they don’t use over someone else’s fence. Or just at the sides of the roads.

      3. The whole Ramadan fasting farce is utter bullshit.
        Most people go for 12 hours, or thereabouts, between meals overnight.
        A few extra hours is nothing.

      4. It’s like the joke about the vegans (how do you know if someone is vegan? they tell you within the first 5 seconds. or some such).

        How do you know a roper is fasting? They tell you within the first five seconds…

          1. It is, Sue – I think derived from observation of the very powerful effects of nature on the denizens of this tiny planet in an immense universe over which we humans have zero influence. Even our one satellite exercises a huge pull on all the waters of the earth, on all living beings here.

  115. Ha! The Victorians rightly filed everything else under criminal and/or loony.

  116. Yes, he is a brilliant actor, I agree. Just not *my idea* of James Bond, particularly not with the wokery

  117. Haven’t a few important Christian constructions become fire damaged due to ‘electric faults’ or similar ?

        1. Not yet I think. But we did see a very interesting programme on telly some time ago and they are taking great care to do a good job.

    2. So where were our pathetic and useless police ???
      We’re where our political idiots ???
      And remember what happened to the man near the same place in London who tried to read the justifibly accurate anti Islamic speech written by W. S. Churchill.
      And to the lady who tried to read the names of the dead soldiers at the cenotaph.
      I think I would have shoved that mic up his stinking backside.

    3. I wouldn’t actually mind that if they weren’t such violent, entitled bullies. They should fuck off to countries where they are welcome and their repulsive creed is observed.

    4. He is doing this wail to cause maximum offence to the indigenous population and put a slammer imprint on whatever appears to be British. What vile people they are.

      1. Like a dog marking its territory by peeing on everything, only not as benign.

        1. Jasper peed all over my chives the other day. I won’t be using them again in a hurry! But i forgive him.

          1. I used to have a Jasper (he was a patterdale cross), but his name got shortened to Jaz.

    6. “Shocking Noise”

      (as Dr Augustus Fagan observed when he heard the Llannabba Brass Band start to play at the school Sports Day)

  119. Fuck off arsehole, if you want to do this, go back to Saudi Arabia.

    I do wish that passers-by would just barge through the stand and swear at him.

  120. Note the use of a loud f*cking PA. I find this very appropriate and fitting.

  121. Note the use of a loud f*cking PA. I find this very appropriate and fitting.

    1. Farmers are warning of food shortages as record rainfall threatens to bring the first season without a harvest on some farms since the end of the Second World War.

      Vast swathes of farmland are still under water following an unprecedented period of flooding, with 11 named storms since September and the wettest 18 months on record.

      The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has predicted that wheat yields will be down 15 per cent, winter barley down 22 per cent and oilseed rape down 28 per cent – the biggest drop since the 1980s.

      Joe Stanley, an arable and livestock farmer at a research farm in Leicestershire, said he and his colleagues were facing the first year without a harvest since the land was first farmed after the war.

      “Unless it basically stops raining today and then it becomes nice and sunny and windy, we’re not going to get any crops in this year. That’s a real danger,” he said. “Many farmers will be in the same situation.”

      Waterlogged fields at a farm near Outwell, in Norfolk, earlier this month

      Waterlogged fields at a farm near Outwell, in Norfolk, earlier this month CREDIT: Getty Images/Martin Pope

      Farmers are also facing the prospect that crops planted during the autumn will not have survived the flooding brought by repeated storms, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said.

      It warned that households could feel the effects of low crop yields and reduced lamb numbers, because many lambs have not survived the unseasonably cold temperatures and heavy rainfall.

      “It’s no exaggeration to say a crisis is building,” said Rachel Hallos, the NFU vice president. “While farmers are bearing the brunt of it now, consumers may well see the effects through the year as produce simply doesn’t leave the farm gate.”

      She added that the situation was a “growing issue for UK food security”, and welcomed a new fund for farmers affected by flooding.

      Mr Stanley said farms were facing “an existential moment” because of the changing climate, which could put many out of business, reducing UK food security.

      “The problem that we’re facing is that weather is becoming so extreme that it is overwhelming our ability as farmers to continue to grow crops at all in some places,” he said.

      tmg.video.placeholder.alt 7k-haWtT2aY

      Mark Chatterton, a director at business advisers Duncan & Toplis, has estimated that the impact on farm businesses could be significantly worse than the 2019 floods, which led to an 18 per cent reduction in profits.

      Farms in areas around the Midlands and the South West hit by Storm Henk in January will be able to claim grants of between £500 and £25,000 under the new fund, three months after it was first announced.

      Mark Spencer, the farming minister, said: “I know how difficult this winter has been for farmers, with extreme weather such as Storm Henk having a devastating impact on both cropping and grazing, as well as damaging property and equipment.

      “The Farming Recovery Fund will support farmers who suffered uninsurable damage with grants of up to £25,000, and sits alongside broader support in our farming schemes to improve flood resilience.”

      Related Topics

      Farming, Flooding, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), UK Wea Farmers are warning of food shortages as record rainfall threatens to bring the first season without a harvest on some farms since the end of the Second World War.

      Vast swathes of farmland are still under water following an unprecedented period of flooding, with 11 named storms since September and the wettest 18 months on record.

      The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has predicted that wheat yields will be down 15 per cent, winter barley down 22 per cent and oilseed rape down 28 per cent – the biggest drop since the 1980s.

      Joe Stanley, an arable and livestock farmer at a research farm in Leicestershire, said he and his colleagues were facing the first year without a harvest since the land was first farmed after the war.

      “Unless it basically stops raining today and then it becomes nice and sunny and windy, we’re not going to get any crops in this year. That’s a real danger,” he said. “Many farmers will be in the same situation.”

      Waterlogged fields at a farm near Outwell, in Norfolk, earlier this month

      Waterlogged fields at a farm near Outwell, in Norfolk, earlier this month CREDIT: Getty Images/Martin Pope

      Farmers are also facing the prospect that crops planted during the autumn will not have survived the flooding brought by repeated storms, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said.

      It warned that households could feel the effects of low crop yields and reduced lamb numbers, because many lambs have not survived the unseasonably cold temperatures and heavy rainfall.

      “It’s no exaggeration to say a crisis is building,” said Rachel Hallos, the NFU vice president. “While farmers are bearing the brunt of it now, consumers may well see the effects through the year as produce simply doesn’t leave the farm gate.”

      She added that the situation was a “growing issue for UK food security”, and welcomed a new fund for farmers affected by flooding.

      Mr Stanley said farms were facing “an existential moment” because of the changing climate, which could put many out of business, reducing UK food security.

      “The problem that we’re facing is that weather is becoming so extreme that it is overwhelming our ability as farmers to continue to grow crops at all in some places,” he said.

      tmg.video.placeholder.alt 7k-haWtT2aY

      Mark Chatterton, a director at business advisers Duncan & Toplis, has estimated that the impact on farm businesses could be significantly worse than the 2019 floods, which led to an 18 per cent reduction in profits.

      Farms in areas around the Midlands and the South West hit by Storm Henk in January will be able to claim grants of between £500 and £25,000 under the new fund, three months after it was first announced.

      Mark Spencer, the farming minister, said: “I know how difficult this winter has been for farmers, with extreme weather such as Storm Henk having a devastating impact on both cropping and grazing, as well as damaging property and equipment.

      “The Farming Recovery Fund will support farmers who suffered uninsurable damage with grants of up to £25,000, and sits alongside broader support in our farming schemes to improve flood resilience.

        1. Not a problem, Paul. Remember when we couldn’t find any loo rolls because people were panic buying them? Why not go to the shops tomorrow morning and stock up on baked beans, Weetabix, steak and kidney pies in sealed tins, etc. etc. and as much as you can cram into your fridge and freezer? Problem solved. Lol.

        2. Their wargamed scenario of food shortages includes “livestock farmers going bankrupt” though.
          If grain crops are in short supply, and food prices rise, and some land is too wet to be planted with crops, that shouldn’t mean livestock farmers going bankrupt! They might raise smaller/fewer animals on pasture instead of grain, but they should be doing well, with plenty of customers for their meat.
          “Livestock farmers going bankrupt” sounds suspiciously like the “you will eat bugs and mRNA-infused hydroponically grown salad” agenda.

        1. Don’t bother! I found out that Nigerian poverty minister ‘had £19m in her bank accounts’ as a result of your bonus material!

        2. Does living in Scotland make you take the opportunity for a freebie more seriously?

      5. I’ve got the same problem with my garden. The land’s too waterlogged to sow the seeds. I shouldn’t be treading on it at all and as I didn’t get it dug last year and there’s been no possibility of finishing the weeding this year I am going to be very late if I get the seeds in at all.

      6. What unseasonably cold temperatures? Not where I live. It’s been one of the mildest winters in memory. I cannot recall when a winter had frosts so few in number and so brief. Snow has been almost entirely absent, other than one solitary overnight dusting. If climate change is real, it will come in the form not just of hot, dry summers, but also mild winters such as this one has been.

    1. We met the glorious Omar in Istanbul! He had lived in Falkirk but moved back to Turkey with his Falkirk Bairn wife. We were there during ram a Dan a thingy, and he sustained his fast with lots of vodka! I don’t think he was a very good muzzie, but he was very funny!

    2. We met the glorious Omar in Istanbul! He had lived in Falkirk but moved back to Turkey with his Falkirk Bairn wife. We were there during ram a Dan a thingy, and he sustained his fast with lots of vodka! I don’t think he was a very good muzzie, but he was very funny!

  125. OT – but to all those out there still subscribing to the Speccie.

    I cancelled today (on-line), citing ‘changes to the comments section’ as the reason, it was a drop-down option.

    I was immediately offered 3 months for £1 per month (standard charges are around £30 per quarter) so I signed up – I’ll do the same again in 3 months and if they dont come up with something similar I’ll be off!

      1. The only solution is to stop naming storms. Never happened before weather had a name.

        1. But it will go away if we all buy a Tesla, won’t it? Please say it is so! (said on a rising inflection, sounding panicky…)

      3. We had snow and sub zero temperatures into May just over a decade ago and we still had a harvest,

      4. ….

        Most informative thong (sic) you’ve posted for a while.

        Open goal, irresistible, sorree

    2. Thanks for the tip, I’m in a similar boat regarding the comments section. No soul.

  126. Looking at the business pages it seems a lot of UK plc is on the brink of debt fuelled failure.
    15 years of ZIRP have finally presented their bill.

          1. That’s a guess and could be wrong of course – don’t know what the RP means apart from Received Pronunciation. Rest Peace……. Royalty Protection……….

      3. Herr Oberst, I have often said there is a fortune to be made by anyone willing to publish a book of acronyms and other obscure collections of letters. Unfortunately I am unlikely to do this as I do not expect to live another hundred years. Also, who would buy a volume weighing one hundred tons? Readers might be better advised to do what reputable journalists do: write (for example) “15 years of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) have fact presented their bill. And a majority of economists think that ZIRP is not…” etcetera. (I should add that “etc” along with “e.g”, “btw” and many others are well-enough known as to need no explanation.

    2. One thing Bill Gates was good at was financial planning in Microsoft – he had a good financial director and one of his basic rules was to have a reserve of at least one year’s salary for all employees.

  127. As a ‘bye the way’ the TV show, “The Likely Lads” was on in 1976, 48 years ago

      1. I seem to remember the original series ended with one of them being returned from the army with flat feet on the same lorry which picked up the chubby one who joined up to see his old mate.
        I could be wrong.

      2. The Likely Lads was a hit show in the 1960s. Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads was its 1970s sequel.

  129. 385649+ up ticks,

    A political fattwat leader of the planning failures department,

    “We have a very clear Plan A for how we bring this conflict to an end – we have a temporary pause, we turn that into a sustainable ceasefire, we see Hamas leaders removed from Gaza, we see the terrorist infrastructure taken down. That is the way to have a political process that brings the war to an end.

    “But if that doesn’t work……

    believable reality,

    “We have a very clear Plan A for how we bring this conflict to an end – we have a temporary pause, we turn that into a sustainable ceasefire, we see Hamas leaders removed from Gaza and Dover bound, we see the terrorist infrastructure taken down and mothballed for future use. That is the way to have a political process that brings the war to an end, for a spell,

    “But if that doesn’t work, we run.

        1. She Who Must Be Obeyed: the world-weary way Horace Rumpole referred to his wife, Hilda, in Rumpole Of The Bailey.

        2. She Who Must Be Obeyed. Ref Rumpole of the Bailey programmes on TV yonks ago. Loved them, me. Leo McKern was the perfect choice for Rumpole.

    5. I’m not quite sure what to make of all that.
      My good lady is mid 70s, three sons and four grandchildren to cope with, and daft old me. And looks younger than that.

    6. This is ridiculous. TBH, it is the Mail being exploitative and an ordinary woman seeing three lemons and not realising how hollow it will make her feel to appear in a national newspaper claiming to be exceptionally beautiful when she is simply not actively repulsive. Poor woman – she is in for a hard time on TwatterX and she needs to grow up fast.

    2. How wonderful! i hope very much indeed that this skill is being passed on. Maybe our organists on here can tell us.

    3. Organ music is such a beautiful sound. So rich and meaningful.
      I’m off in a few minutes as well.been watch Ireland 🇮🇪 vs England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ladies. Well done girls. It better to watch than a lot of the mens games. Keep it up.

      1. Nah! Even my dear OH says I’m considerably better looking than the freckled one!

          2. Read that as “…I chose him…!” – excellent taste you have, Sue.
            😉

  135. Way back in 1990, I started work in Scotland, leaving the nuclear industry (based in the South of the UK) for offshore oil, based in Aberdeen. I was 29, married 7 years, and thus separated from SWMBO who worked in Sussex.
    This song, by Sinead O’Connor (now deceased) was played that spring – every time I drove from Aberdeen to Ardersier on a Monday, stupendous weather across the hills, making me miss my lovely wife every time more.
    https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk?si=Mx90Pf37Nnx21x87
    The emotion still gets me right here. I haven’t told her, it’s too difficult to express.
    Youse guys will understand, I’m sure.

      1. Indeed.
        Ref the post below, a lesson learned.
        Sinead needed more than I could give, I fear.

    5. I have another piece, by Vivaldi, that I associate with a beautiful friend, who killed herself with pills, in her car.
      I can’t get over that I was supposed to be her friend, yet didn’t/couldn’t help her when she needed it. Left a husband and two young boys, too.
      That really does break me up, every time. It’s very hard to listen to, despite being the most beautiful music … but a lesson to me, at least, to make space for everyone I know, so I can maybe help out if necessary: support in whatever way possible.
      https://youtu.be/7O049oi2Dxw?si=jEyIUZPrWT6jd09n

      1. How very heartbreaking, you were her friend otherwise you’d not have remembered. People live on when remembered, souls and those we care about never depart. Wonderful music.

        1. Here’s some Lapp /Sami joik tht does the same. One doesn’t sing, one joik’s, apparently. A person, a thing, an event.
          https://youtu.be/tCL9FiAuezk?si=HKCh29fqcf122wGJ
          Comments:
          This Sapmi/Sami Joik ( Sapmi/Sami Joik/song is the native Scandinavian and northern russians) is being sung /joiked by Jon Henrik Fjällgren expressing his feelings when his BEST friend Daniel had died….
          I can’t help it but I get really really SAD when I hear this Joik…..
          I don’t know if it’s “right or not” to thank you….But:
          Aillo GITTU (sami language meaning: Thank You very much) Jon Henrik Fjällgren for letting us hear and feel your SADNESS
          @blatherskite9601
          for 0 sekunder siden
          That’s what Joik is about – to joik someone or something that you feel strongly about. In this case, his friend.
          Imagine – someone misses you so much he Joiks your absence – and such music, too. What a way to be remembered, in joik and emotion. What a priviledge

          1. Thank you. A window into another part of our bizarre world with a unique beauty

  136. Hell’s teeth, I might even look younger than that…
    In the right light and from a great distance

    2. As my mother would have said ‘she could very well pass for 45, at night, with the light behind her’!

  138. Sleep?

    Judge: “Did you sleep with this woman?”
    Defendant: “Not a wink my Lord”.

  140. I’ll be off shortly, so Good Night to all Nottlers. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning.

      1. Powdered milk or better still buy a cow and keep it indoors out of the wet. Lol.

        1. Please respect me too, King Richard. My name is Elsie (I used to live in Chelsea), a friend of Sally Bowles.

          1. Little Pippa by Spike Milligan
            pip pip pippety pip,
            slid on the lino,
            slippety slip,
            fell down stairs,
            trippety trip,
            tore her knickers,
            rippety rip,
            started to cry,
            drippety drip,
            poor little pippa,
            pippety pip.

  141. Tory backlash against European Court of Human Rights climate ruling

    Senior Tories urge Rishi Sunak to take Britain out of European Convention on Human Rights after landmark decision

    Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
    Ben Riley-Smith, POLITICAL EDITOR
    Jonathan Leake
    9 April 2024 • 9:30pm

    The Energy Secretary has led a Tory backlash against the European Court of Human Rights after it issued a landmark ruling that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change. Claire Coutinho said she was “concerned” that Strasbourg judges were taking over decisions best made by elected politicians.

    Senior Tories urged Rishi Sunak to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the wake of the ruling. They accused the court of acting in a “profoundly undemocratic” way and being “bent out of shape” by “progressive” activists and politicians.

    The row came as an exclusive opinion poll for The Telegraph revealed that half of Conservative voters believe the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Some 49 per cent of people who backed the party at the 2019 general election wanted to quit the convention, according to Savanta polling, with 35 per cent wanting to stay. In 2022, polling had found that 43 per cent of Tory voters favoured quitting the ECHR.

    Last week, Mr Sunak raised the possibility of the UK leaving it if the Strasbourg court continued to block his delayed plans to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda.

    On Tuesday, Ms Coutinho said: “I’m concerned by the Strasbourg court decision. How we tackle climate change affects our economic, energy and national security. Elected politicians are best placed to make those decisions.”

    She made the comments after – in the first judgment of its kind – Strasbourg judges ruled that the human rights of a group of elderly Swiss women had been violated by the failure of their government to act quickly enough to tackle climate change. The court found the Swiss state had breached article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life”.

    The ruling is binding to states that are signatories to the convention, like the UK, and will trickle down to influence the law in 46 countries in Europe, including Britain. It means individuals and groups could sue for a breach of their human rights if the UK Government fails to meet its net zero or environmental targets.

    In the UK, attempts to make such cases on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights have, until now, not succeeded. However, in a landmark net zero case last year, the High Court suggested UK courts would “keep pace with Strasbourg jurisprudence” as it continued to evolve.

    Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, said on Tuesday: “This is the latest example of the expansionist doctrine practised by the justices of the Strasbourg court. By viewing the ECHR as a “living document” they continually stretch its reach in ways no signatory ever agreed to. It’s profoundly undemocratic.”

    Danny Kruger, the co-chairman of the New Conservatives group of MPs, urged the Government to quit the convention, saying: “The Strasbourg court is setting itself up as a legislator in place of elected governments. The ECHR has been bent out of shape by activists and politicians who want to seem progressive and internationalist by junking both nations and democracy. We should leave.”

    Sarah Dines, a former Home Office minister, said: “It is yet another manifestation of woke legal fantasists further corrupting the ECHR in an effort to force unacceptable legal decisions upon the populations of ECHR signatory states. The European Court of Human Rights is now little more than an NGO serving the interests of unelected and unaccountable NGOs.”

    The concerns were not restricted to politicians. In a dissenting opinion to the majority judgment, the British judge in Strasbourg said: “I fear that, in this judgment, the majority has gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this court to do and, unfortunately, in doing so, may well have achieved exactly the opposite effect to what was intended.”

    The Right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Switzerland’s biggest political party, said: “The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights is a scandal… the SVP strongly condemns this interference by foreign judges and calls for Switzerland to withdraw from the Council of Europe.”

    The group of 2,000 women behind the legal action, all aged in their 70s and over and backed by Greenpeace, said Switzerland’s government violated their human rights by failing to act quickly enough to address climate change. They argued that their demographic group was particularly vulnerable to climate-induced heatwaves, with one woman saying she could not leave her house for three weeks during the summer.

    Jessica Simor KC, for the claimants, said Switzerland’s efforts to prevent a global temperature increase of more than 1.5 degrees celsius had come nowhere near achieving that goal. She acknowledged that it was the first case of its kind to reach the human rights court, but said national courts had previously used Strasbourg case law to require action by member states.

    The Savanta survey was part of the Telegraph-Savanta poll tracker, which is published every Tuesday evening throughout this election year. Its findings also offer a glimmer of hope to the Tories after a challenging few months. Labour’s lead has shrunk to 15 percentage points, down from 21 a fortnight ago. The reason for the narrowing is unclear, but it is statistically significant.

    Some 42 per cent of respondents said they would back Labour at a general election, down by three percentage points. The Tories were on 27 per cent, up three percentage points.

    Support for both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats was at 10 per cent, while the Green Party was on three per cent.

    More than 2,000 adults in the UK took part in the survey, which was conducted between 5 April and 7 April.

    This year Savanta’s polling has had the Labour lead over the Tories fluctuating from 12 percentage points to as high as 21, indicating that some voters could still be weighing up how they will vote when the next election, expected in the autumn, is called.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/09/tory-backlash-european-court-human-rights-climate-echr/

    1. Putting aside the string vest claims of Climate-woo. The consequences of arrogant myopic Leftist boomers has destabilised The West. No democracy, just the tyranny of the victim dished out by their ghoulish transnational lawfare. These stupid women don’t understand the precedent this sets up, in the same way Neo-Marxist Feminists don’t understand how they opened the door for the cry-bullies of Trans activism.

    2. In the unlikely event of this Conservative administration leaving the ECtHR before the next General Election, the incoming Labour government will rejoin it tout suite.

    3. How do I get this publish to those 2.000 Swiss Fraus:

      Climate Change and You

      The climate ‘science’ is wrong. CO2 being 0.04% of the atmosphere is a cause for good, as it is essential for plant life.

      The atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. The remaining 1% are various trace elements of which CO2 is but a small part.

      The greatest cause of any change in the Earth’s climate, is due to the cyclical nature of the Sun’s phases, which may lead to vast differences between ice ages and continual heatwaves

      Check https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/challenging-net-zero-with-science/

      Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

  142. Interesting how the music tracks posted below show emotions beyond the simple, in fact very vomplex, despite the different styles of performane and singing – even if you can’t understand, the emotion comes through. Fascinating!

    2. Surely that’s what music *does*? I shall never regret having spent so many years in service to it!

    3. Surely that’s what music *does*? I shall never regret having spent so many years in service to it!

      2. No chance.

        (or he’ll do it just before the election so it can be immediately revoked.)

  145. The NHS is killing us – it is an enemy of Britain

    Being born British should not be a death sentence but, as long as we go on believing in the National Health Service, it will be

    ALLISON PEARSON • 9 April 2024 • 7:00pm

    At last, some good news about the NHS. Sounds unlikely, I know, but please bear with. A neighbour went to A&E recently to get a nasty burn treated. “Honestly, it was like the Third World,” a shocked Kate reported. So many people were sitting on the floor, she said, that traversing the human tide to get to the reception desk was almost impossible. “At one point, a nurse shouted that anyone who was sitting on a chair who was merely accompanying a patient should stand up. When they stood up, they were told to vacate their chairs immediately, but there was literally nowhere for them to even stand.”

    People who couldn’t make it through the fray to the toilets threw up where they were. The stench was awful. Throughout that same night, 13 ambulances carrying patients were parked outside the biggest hospital in the east of England. A&E had no capacity to admit them.

    Kate waited 12 hours before she finally spoke to someone medical (brusque, not kind). Apart from the skein of skin falling off her scalded hand, she was fit enough to endure the hellish conditions, but she saw older people give up and leave A&E. “Imagine being in your 80s, feeling terrible and surrounded by drunks with no hope of getting a bed until the morning. I just thought, ‘My God, what kind of country have we become?'”

    Which is the correct reaction, and one that contains a grain of hope that the powerful hold the NHS exerts over the popular imagination is waning fast. Through painful personal experiences like Kate’s, people who were once true believers in the “national religion” are acquiring valuable immunity to the myth of the NHS’s saintliness. The blinkers are falling from our eyes. In the words of one despairing doctor: “The NHS is run by managers for the benefit of managers. Patients don’t count.”

    Let me tell you how it is, because so few dare. The NHS is the enemy of the British people, not our friend. That is a very hard thing to accept, I know, because it goes against everything we have been taught. They have even trained us to use the familiar “our NHS” to make a monstrous socialist bureaucracy that swallows £160 billion of taxpayers’ money every year sound like a lovable old member of the family, somebody you can always rely on. But you can’t. It’s worse than you can possibly imagine.

    The NHS is now in such a state of collapse, so chronically kaput, that it is actually killing people. Men, women and children who should be alive today are dead because they were born British. Lost forever to their loved ones because Britain has a health service with some of the worst outcomes in the developed world.

    Take just one example. Prof Pat Price, a world-renowned oncologist, paints a terrifying picture of cancer care. “Despite all the positive PR from NHS England,” says Prof Price, “cancer waits in January were the second worst on record. Three thousand patients are waiting more than three months to start treatment.”

    The NHS promised it would get cancer waits back to pre-Covid levels by March 2021 but now it says the aim is to get it back to 70 per cent by March 2025.

    “It feels like everyone has given up and accepted we can’t do it so they just rely on PR instead,” says Prof Price.

    Still think the NHS is “the envy of the world”? If, God forbid, you get cancer in the UK, the target for you to start treatment is 62 days after diagnosis. Even that risible milestone is frequently missed.

    “Tell doctors from other European countries that our target is 62 days and they can’t believe it,” adds another leading oncologist. If you were French, German or Spanish, you could expect to start cancer treatment in a fortnight, if not before. Being British can be a death sentence.

    “We still have such a huge backlog from so many services being shut unnecessarily during Covid,” says a London GP. “Heart disease waiting times for tests, diagnosis and treatment are worse than I’ve ever seen. In some areas, target times are being abandoned because they can’t be met.”

    Can we please pause a minute to let that sink in? Critical targets are being abandoned by the NHS because they know they will never be met. What a cynical, shameful, secretive admission of failure that is. Yet, instead of owning up, in true Stalinist style NHS managers pretend there never was a target to miss in the first place.

    Yet, I can guarantee fleets of NHS communications staff will go on pumping out perky propaganda so the public is falsely reassured. And costly posters and leaflets will demean and insult pregnant women by calling them “ovary owners” and “birthing parents” because Left-wing identity bilge is more important to the NHS than, for example, making sure maternity units are safe.

    Until recently, politicians have been too scared to challenge the NHS, such was the public affection for the institution. Today, their protestations of fealty to this greedy leviathan sound increasingly deranged. When Jeremy Hunt used his Budget speech in March to claim that the health service is “the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British” many people watching at home cried: “You what?” Like many wealthy people, the Chancellor has the option of going private and not joining an eight million-plus waiting list.

    Even the most devout NHS worshipper is clearly starting to have doubts. According to the recent British Social Attitudes survey, dissatisfaction with the NHS is at an all-time high, with less than a quarter of people satisfied with our health system.

    Who can blame us? The stats are as terrible as they are relentless: more than 150,000 patients were forced to wait more than 24 hours in A&E before getting a hospital bed last year, a tenfold increase on 2019.

    More than 250 people a week die needlessly because of long A&E waits.

    Those are just the official data. Many of us will know of relatives or friends who are too scared to go to hospital (because they think they will die of sepsis or neglect), who have spent several excruciating hours on the floor at home awaiting an ambulance, who have given up even trying to get a GP appointment (more chance of a blind date with a unicorn, quite frankly). Or they’ve found out that their “urgent referral” means an initial hospital consultation in June 2025 and have raided their savings to go private for their hip operation.

    Why not go private if you can when the alternative is a sick joke? “One of my patients received four letters on the same day from our local hospital,” says the London GP, “two letters giving her an appointment on two different dates, and two letters cancelling them both!” That’s peak NHS for you.

    Labour, which has always scaremongered about creating a “two-tier health system”, is now openly saying it would use the private sector to help reduce waiting times. Sir Keir Starmer may piously sing on the stuck record of “our NHS” crumbling due to inadequate Tory funding, rather than the true explanation: inadequate NHS management. But shadow health secretary Wes Streeting shows more guts than any Conservative predecessor when he says there will be no more cash without the “major surgery” of reform. “It’s a service not a shrine.”

    I like the way Streeting calls out those Olympian hypocrites, the “middle-class Lefties” who cry betrayal over “free at the point of use” while paying for private medicine to get quicker treatment themselves.

    Reform UK has gone one better than Labour. Richard Tice’s party promises to spend the cash committed to the reckless, futile pursuit of net zero on tax relief of 20 per cent on all independent healthcare and insurance. That should incentivise those who can afford it to go private and free up the NHS for those who can’t.

    This is the future. By 2050, every working person will have some form of private insurance supplemented by the state, I think. That same system, by the way, which operates in all civilised countries with far better healthcare than our own because they aren’t a cult member worshipping a grotesque, cruel deity called “our NHS”.

    Out of interest, I asked a source in NHS England what all the senior managers like CEO Amanda Pritchard made of the recent appalling headlines about their failing organisation. Surely, they must be worried? “There isn’t even any acknowledgment of either the (dis)satisfaction survey or the stories about A&E waiting times killing people,” said George. “Working at NHS England is like being on the International Space Station. You wouldn’t think there was much connection with the actual world of treating actual patients in actual hospitals. It’s all about the latest restructuring which has taken 18 months so far. They really couldn’t care less.”

    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the arrogant, unaccountable bureaucratic caste which gobbles up billions of pounds of public funds yet gives such bad value for money that Kate and millions like her spend the night from hell in A&E.

    Being born British should not be a death sentence in any circumstances. As long as we go on believing in the NHS it will be.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/04/09/nhs-enemy-of-british-people-cancer-deaths-waiting-lists/

    1. Never mind the NHS. The way things are going being born white in Britain will be a death sentence.

    2. Good evening WS

      I hosted a lunch for 26 quite elderly veterans and wives today , we all had lunch at our local RBL.

      These dear people are still strong and able , but like most of a certain age , have niggling health problems ..

      Some one needed a valve ablation (cardiac ) postponed for another 6 months after a years wait , others , knee ops , gastric investigations , pain relief in shoulders , back, etc .. The only op that seems to be on time is cataracts!

      All agreed that the NHS was crumbling re GP system and minor injuries like falls etc .

      The worst ever ever complaint were the treatment of stroke patients .. poor people become non existent in the health system , as are those who succumb to the many types of dementia .

      Older people are scared , they have come through a lot , served their bit for the Queens shilling , bought their homes , saved their money , been frugal and lived good strong lives , not dependent on the state , and are now fearful of government decisions and unhealthy outcomes … Later on in life , been owners of businesses, some were craftsmen , engineers , inventors etc etc .

      Well actually , they all also share a great sense of humour and are proud , perceptive and furious that Britain is succumbing to bad decisions of leadership.

      As I said earlier the eldest will be 100years old in July and is the widow of a Normandy veteran and a sister of her brother who served in the Middle East in the late 1940’s / 1950’s .

      Where is the respect this government / any previous governments should have shown ?

    3. Last October I had a problem with diabetic neuropathy (that which cost Geoff his feet)
      my apointment for a hospital check isSeptember this year
      Envy of the world…………..

      1. I sympathise with you. I have peripheral neuropathy and am not diabetic.
        Nowt they can do to treat it as far as I know.

    4. Hmm, mass murder? That’s why, as a rising 80-year-old., I refuse to be hospitalised..

  146. You’ve still lost me, Sue Mac. (Tea is two letters too SHORT for Wordle.)

  147. I was wondering when Rieu was going to pinch her arsë then the ensuing chase up and down the aisles and through the orchestra.

    1. Ha ha ha! She’d have to have been dressed like a saucy nurse to make it work!!

  148. Night night all. Basket time for me. Sleep peacefully all and tomorrow will bring renewed hope

    1. Mrs Hindsight knew all this in March 2020? Why did nobody listen to her?

      1. By March 2020, or soon afterwards, it was obvious that peeps employed at Tesco etc were pretty well immune to covid. Despite meeting thousands of customers daily.

        So what we saw around us wasn’t the same as the terrible stories and lies coming from Johnson, Hancock, Whitty etc.

        Therefore something strange was going on and it soon dawned on me what that thing was..

        Compulsive liar and mass vaccinator Bill Gates who had taken over the Covid Show for his own malign purposes.

        That’s why nobody in my fam had the vax.

        1. I had the covid. Like a bad cold / light flu, so it was. Caught at a meeting up at the airport just as reports of Covid were coming out. No big deal.

          1. I had what might have passed for covid. I personally think it was a bad cold/light flu. After all, the tests wouldn’t be able to distinguish – would they?

      2. A lot of people were actually sounding the alarm in March 2020. I didn’t understand what they were saying at the time. They were just awake earlier. I didn’t twig until the May of that year, when it became clear to me that covid wasn’t more dangerous than flu.

        1. Well spotted, Paul. It’s a bit like the mid-morning “Weather Forecast” I hear on my favourite radio station: “Sunrise was at 6.10 am this morning”.

          1. Both you, Elsie, and Paul, will be included in my “Good Morrow” heralding today’s story.

  151. Wordle 1,026 6/6

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

    The above Wordle is for Wednesday the 10th of April. I almost didn’t make it!

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