Tuesday 9 September: Rail unions can’t be allowed to keep holding the public to ransom

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

734 thoughts on “Tuesday 9 September: Rail unions can’t be allowed to keep holding the public to ransom”

  1. Good morning all.
    And, as we approach the Equinox, the shortening of the daylight hours accelerates and it gets cooler with a tad over 9½°C, the first time into single figures. I think I can say Autumn has arrived.
    But a lovely clear sky this morning with the sun not risen yet, with a slightly gibbous waning moon hanging behind the trees opposite.

    A letter:-

    Cooper and Chagos
    SIR – Con Coughlin (Comment, September 7) argues that the new Foreign Secretary’s first job is to repair relations with Israel, which Yvette Cooper’s predecessor, David Lammy, undermined. While I support Israel, our relations with it are far down the list of Britain’s priorities: we are irrelevant to the war against Hamas.

    Far more urgent for Ms Cooper is to persuade the Prime Minister to cancel the impending giveaway of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The instruments of surrender for the British Indian Ocean Territory are making their way through Parliament and are not yet complete – but the chance to reverse this pointless policy is fading fast.

    A foreign secretary who participates in her country’s international humiliation and loss of sovereignty is admitting her ineffectiveness and is not worth the title.

    Robert Frazer
    Salford, Lancashire

    3. It's time our politicians realised that the UK no longer has an empire and we are a fading world power. Just get used to it and stop pretending that the world is listening to us, or looking for our "leadership"

      Look over your shoulder and see who is following our lead – nobody, that's who. It's a form of modern cuddly, environmentally friendly neo-colonialism, but retains a notion that we have a duty to lead. No we don't.

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site. A wordle Par today, after a good night's sleep without any dreams nor nightmares.

    Wordle 1,543 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,543 3/6

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  9. If Reform win the next election will they have to scrap the hate speech crime law? it appears to be designed with vaguely worded interpretation making it far too easy to be used politically in a two tier way to close down free speech, making us no better than North Korea according to public opinion.
    Reform will have to either scrap the law or change it to include all hate speech.
    Generalising whole communities or areas of the country is racist could incite people to discriminate against them or even harm them, in just the same way as say blaming all immigrants for the sex attacks on women and random street attacks is supposed to do.

      1. Farage and Reform UK maintaining the status quo, including all of Blair's machinations, could be his and Reform UK's undoing.

        David Starkey has spoken about a "Great Repeal Act" to cleanse the Blair et al. infection that is poisoning the UK. IIRC, Ben Habib, Advance UK, has mentioned this political axing also.

        Parties who plan to adhere to legislation that restricts the UK and its people from being free and forward looking entities must be eliminated via the electoral system. Reform UK included if they will not endorse major change.

        Starkey & Littlewood – The Conservative Comeback

        1. I don't think Farage has the foggiest idea of the opposition he will face, of the tangled knot of legislation labour introduced solely to chain another government in statist red tape.

    2. What is happening with Reform and defecting Tories reminds me of the fanfare surrounding the creation of the SDP, and we know how they ended up.

  10. Morning, all Y'all.
    Just about to rain. Sigh…
    Final job done on the kitchen & bathroom renno. Electrician finally turned up to properly fasten the cables he's managed to forget, and close up the junction box. I got his phone number, as we'll be needing electrical input later for other smaller jobs, and I'd prefer to deal with him on his own, not the company he's contracted to. Later in the evening, received a text from him telling me that the contractor was saying that I have to pay the electrician myself for finishing off work he hadn't done yet, and that this was extra. Replied to him & the contractor that I would not be paying more to anybody for them to complete the scope of work originally agreed and part of the fixed price contract.
    I'm guessing this was the electrician trying to get paid twice for the same work… so, we won't be using him again, after all.

    2. That's a shame and a bit stupid of them. If you find a good set you keep with them and keep giving them work. It's in their best interests to keep you on side with tiny elements that benefit you as they make money from you default going back to them for work.

      1. Indeed.
        I’d even discussed getting in direct contact for small electrical work just before the event too!

  12. Oh dear.. another one.
    No green heat pump for me.. only for thee.

    Receipts show that in February, Mr Miliband claimed £121.18 for gas from the taxpayer, indicating that he still relies on a gas boiler at his constituency property in South Yorkshire.

    4. Happy to pay his bills. As well as those "less fortunate" who need help with their bills/.

      /Sarc. No, i'm not; including not being happy to help those "less fortunate". Because a lot of those who are claiming it want 24-hour heating so they can walk round in their shorts. Those who genuinely need it never get it. Plus. We all managed to survive in the old days with no heating. And what are all these charities for, it it isn't to help people in need of charity?

  13. Good morning, all. Clear sky at 06:00 with the large bright Moon high in the south-west.

    The following made me think of all of the Rugby Union fans on Nottle. How often is this level of innovation/skill seen in RU matches? Could a player get away with this trick higher up the class ladder?

    https://x.com/HoodedClaw1974/status/1965127132256125031

    Here is an example of sublime skill and balance at the top in football.

    I have to admit that I rarely watch football these days. I have tried to watch but I am put off by the goalkeepers having more touches on the ball than the playmakers. Too many adequate 'passing technicians' and too few with the flair and ability of Griezman.

    https://x.com/Pizzy_kay/status/1965060120351854657

    1. That rugby lad will certainly not do! That kind of maverick behaviour will certainly upset the prawn-sandwich-munching pink-gin brigade at RFU HQ.

      Innovative and highly talented show-offs, like Danny Cipriani and Marcus Smith, will always get short shrift. Better to have boringly dependable losers like Ben Youngs.

      [Yes, I know that Cipriani and Smith were fly-halves and Youngs was a scrum-half, but you get the message!]

  14. 10 hours ago
    Well … another triumph for Comrades Milliwatt and Reeves. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has abandoned plans to invest £3 billion pounds into the UK and will instead
    plough his money into the US. Citing an “unstable financial regime” he is clearly
    aware of the UK’s impending Bankruptcy.
    http://www.gbnews.com/money/energy-jim-ratcliffe-labour-north-sea-tax

    This isn’t the only damage that Milliwatt has done, closure of the Lindsey Oil Refinery in Killingholme despite the interest of competitors buying the plant

    … deemed to be not “commercially viable” …. the simple truth is that the Communists want the UK to entirely dependent on Foreign powers for our energy and to ban Oil consumption entirely.

    1. How then will pharmaceuticals be made? Plastics? Glass? Rubber? They're morons who have no idea what they're doing.

      It should be compulsory that Lefty greens live in the world they demand others do – one without the proceeds of energy, oil based materials or tools. It'd start by cutting them off from any communications method at all, which could only be a good thing.

  15. 'One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.'

    Greta's The Global Sumud Flotilla confirms that one of the main boats, known as the 'Family Boat' – that was carrying GSF Steering Committee members – was struck by what is suspected to be a drone.

  16. SIR — I hope that King Æthelstan (Letters, September 8) becomes more widely known and celebrated as we approach the 1,100th anniversary of his founding of England.

    This might also lead to a greater interest in the Dark Ages, which helped to forge our identity and rich language.

    It was a time of myth and legend, of Bede and Beowulf and strong kings, including Offa and Alfred the Great. The battles between the Saxons and Vikings were brutal. The Vikings were fearless – it would have been a terrifying prospect to face them when they were led by such men as Eric Bloodaxe.

    As I fondly recall my dear Auntie Elsie telling me, while dandling me on her knee when I were nobbut a sprog: "Never underestimate the power and ruthlessness of a Bloodaxe, young Olaf!"🗡️😉

    1. SIR — You report that King Æthelstan is “only an option” in the history national curriculum. You might have added that this gives him the same status in the curriculum as Winston Churchill and Henry VIII.

      Along with all landmark events of British history they are listed only as “non-statutory” examples of what could be taught. Statutory topics, however, include aspects of either Islamic history, West African history or Central American history.

      Chris McGovern
      Chairman, Campaign for Real Education Heathfield, East Sussex

      Indeed, Chris. It seems that all education has been replaced by brainwashing in this benighted day and age.

        2. An admirable lady and very astute businesswoman who ran a successful hotel for officers in the Crimea.
          However, a nurse she was not.

          3. She had one black grandparent – that is how "black" she was. And her diaries record that she had a low opinion of her black servants.

          4. Indeed. Her business skills we admirable for a woman th the time and that is what she should be remembered for.

      2. It's how the Left propagate. Never tell the truth, erase history, re-write the past.

        “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

    2. Good grief, young Grizzly, I had almost forgotten dandling you on my knee when you were nobbut a sprig. Lol.

    2. He doesn't have the nounce to have noticed does he…..most of the millionaire's have already fled the country.

      1. Even the departing French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, has warned his successor – whoever that might be – not to do what the UK has done and over-tax those with money because it will drive the rich to go elsewhere.

        1. The best way to extract money from rich people is to give them a chance to get even richer. Allow them to invest, to buy a factory, to hire 50 staff making and selling things.

          That's how markets work. That's how economies grow. They DO NOT grow by destroying the earned wealth and mutilating jobs.

      2. He still thinks they'll pay for his demented plans.

        It's not about 'taxing the rich', it's about just taking more money from everyone, solely to expand the public sector and his powerbase. It's about forcing socialism.

        I don't think this union idiot understands. The best thing a worker can do is move to another employer. Their strength is in withdrawing their labour permanently, for better rewards, better time, more holiday, more pay. That's how businesses improve as well, by competing to attract the best talent they can. Unlike the static public sector and failed left unions, the private sector is constantly competing for resources: especially the best people.

    2. She was on the TV last weekend it looked as if she'd been launching quite a few quid from her expense claims, having her elderly teeth refurbished.

  19. Good Morning!

    Remember we asked if the British Army Turn Its Guns on the People? Well, in a hopefully unrelated twist to that question, Maryam Gholami, a Muslim herself, raises concerns about Shabbana Mahmood's elevation to Home Secretary in her article Faith, Power, and the Ministerial Oath: Why Britain Deserves Clarity from Its New Justice Secretar y.

    Yesterday Part 3 of John Drewry's Dichotomy was a belter. Please read it if you missed it. Also have a look at his book, ‘ REASON IN MADNESS ' about the irrepressible nature of the human spirit.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's average power requirement was 29.2 GW, sourced from Gas, 25.9%; Solar, 9.8%: Wind 22.7%; Imports, 18.4%; Biomass, 8%; Nuclear 11.2% and Miscellaneous, 4.1%. The imports were from France and Norway – highly volatile sources at the moment.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. Perhaps it's Time to get a set of the right sort of protective clothing. A letter box black scarf for the ladies and long ankle length shirts and silly hats for the chaps.
      Or would that be seen as bending over and kneeling ?

  20. Starmer’s Chagos surrender may cost taxpayers £12bn more than feared

    Analysis by Taxpayers’ Alliance suggests true figure could be as high as £47bn over the next century

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/08/labour-starmer-chagos-mauritius-cost-taxpayers-12bn-more

    *********************************
    Amanda Yates
    20 hrs ago
    Do you actually believe Starmer and Lammy give a fig for what it will cost the UK taxpayer or the public reaction? It was never of any concern to them.

    Robert Robert
    9 hrs ago
    Reply to Amanda Yates
    ….Nor Hermer, who is apparently refusing to release the minutes of a secret meeting held with Mauritius' legal adviser Phillipe Sands last November.

    Hermer, Sands and Starmer are old buddies, it should be remembered, as should Labour's penchant for lying and lack of transparency

    1. That's quite an increase on £3.5 billion which is what, IIRC, our thoroughly open and transparent PM told Parliament it would cost? I wonder how much of that money will attach itself to the sticky fingers of the Three Amigos?

    2. It's not just that they are constantly lying, they are terminally stupid as well.
      Perhaps it's them that should be locked away in an old army camp.

      1. I don't think they're stupid. I don't think they care what the cost is. They spin and lie to pretend it's something it isn't and push that to the public.

        Yes Minister had an 'interview' programme. It was one of the funniest going, with Hacker wafting back and forth reading an autocue. The Broadcast director says in reference to the Trident program that 'It looks as if you have the facts at your finger tips but almost no one believes them'.

        No one believes Starmer. They lie continually, habitually reflexively.

        1. They behave in exactly the way they want to. Basically because there is no proper control over them.
          They got rid off Elizabeth Filkin the mp they installed to monitor their expenses claims. Someone should have been overseeing every move they make. Disgusting creatures all of them.

    1. I don't see a problem here. Yes, defund the police – for her. Don't reduce their funding, but do simply stop responding to Lefist squeals.

      Open season on the most troublesome, useless fools in the country.

  22. 412498+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    A tad disconcerting for the patients one must admit but it all helps to get the numbers down in regards to the great cull campaign,besides the foreign employees can understand each other being in many cases from the same tribe and it does give diversity and the BIG plan a boost, via the cemetery.

    https://x.com/MarlonTag/status/1965097723767542112

    1. Nearly forty years ago I was operated on by an NHS dentist whose English I couldn't understand. I pretended to understand him because I was afraid he would be angry with me if I kept asking him to repeat himself.

      1. Longer than that ago, early 70s I visited my local dentist and we were talking about South Africa where I had just been living for over two years. I made the mistake of saying that I didn't really like the afrikaans people they were too blunt. Open your mouth he said……my grandfather was afrikaans. Whoops 🤭

        1. He probably agreed with you.

          One of our clients has an outsourced IT support team. I can't understand the monotone oddly inflected babble the Indians speak in. I don't think the IT director does, either. Thankfully it doesn't really impact me that much but I do worry that they won't have a clue what they're doing.

          1. I like the Indian accent because I associate it with Indian colleagues, with whom I have mostly had positive working experience. It takes a bit to get one's ear attuned, but it's not unattractive.

          3. On previous occasions I have said that I don't understand what they are saying, they start to shout. Which makes things even worse.

          5. I got collared at Temple Meads yesterday by a very tall and attractive Indian girl who tried to sign me up for a charity donation scheme. I managed to escape her clutches only by saying I was in a rush and had a train to catch…….

          6. I remember he had a bit of a smirk on his face. He did have a double barrelled surname. Partly Scottish.
            Your comment has reminded me that I have to phone Virgin media today, that means trying to understand what the Indian's might be saying. I remember when they had a complaint/customer service department in Swansea. Very helpful and excellent service.
            Not any more, it's absolutely useless.

          1. I think have mentioned that I saw him live, when I lived in Port Elizabeth.

            I found there were two versions of afrikaans people. The verlighters and the verkrampters. One of my nieces lives near Cape Town but she will never discuss anything to do with the social scene over there. Her eldest daughter is already living and working in the UK.
            But our neighbour who lives mainly in the Dordogne region of France was born and bred there strangely only about a mile from where I lived near Ellis Park. She has a different opinion on how life has changed since she left. He sister and mother moved down onto the south coast.

    2. My part time job is in the OOH centre of a psych hospital. I can't understand a single person I call.

    2. The Left have been lying for the last 50 years. When the marketing doesn't work, they change tack. It's just about keeping people afraid so money pours into their pockets.

  25. David Cohen
    Is Jacinda Ardern hiding from Covid scrutiny?
    7 September 2025, 6:16pm

    During the five years Jacinda Ardern led New Zealand, much was made of her ‘transparent’ style of touchy-feely leadership and willingness to deal with thorny questions. Yet on the biggest issue of her record – her zero Covid policies – the former Prime Minister has gone missing.

    A planned week-long public hearing at an inquiry in New Zealand into the nation’s Covid response was abandoned last month, after Jacinda Ardern and other senior figures from her government unexpectedly refused to testify.

    Ardern’s no-show came as a surprise to many, including the country’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, who said his predecessor’s decision was ‘not right’.

    Summarising her decision not to speak publicly about her handling of the pandemic, the commission said Ardern and her former allies – her health minister, Ayesha Verrall, the minister in charge of the Covid response, Chris Hipkins, and her high-spending finance minister Grant Robertson – believed that the exercise would merely be ‘performative’ rather than ‘informative’.

    The erstwhile ministers had also been concerned that the livestreaming or publication of their evidence could become fodder for epic online trolling.

    A spokesman for Ardern said she had already provided ‘extensive evidence, including a recent interview that lasted three hours’ for the commission, which is currently in its second phase of evaluating the country’s response to Covid – homing in on the later period when much of the gloss came off the Ardern juggernaut.

    A touch wearily, Hipkins, who has led Labour since Ardern stepped down in early 2023, said he had already spent years talking about the subject.

    As Ardern’s minister in charge of the Covid response, Hipkins oversaw the implementation of a raft of policies that saw cities locked down for months at a time, all but the luckiest expatriate Kiwis denied entry back into their country and, most controversially, Ardern’s ‘no jab, no job’ policy for public servants in education and health who refused the vaccines.

    The last measure led to a month-long occupation outside parliament that ended with running street battles between police and hundreds of protesters.

    In the wake of the chaos, the telegenic leader’s hitherto unassailable poll numbers began to crash, and within a year she decided to call it a political day – even as her reputation abroad remained as high as ever in social democratic circles.

    Her latest decision to stay mum about the central event of her life seems awkwardly timed. With political life now behind her, Ardern has been promoting a bestselling new book about the ‘different’ kind of leadership she brought to world politics.

    Billed as an ‘inspiring story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt changed our assumptions of what a leader can be’, Ardern’s new work has also been criticised in Britain as a 350-page transcript of a less-than-enthralling therapy session.

    Surprisingly little space is devoted in the book to lingering questions over her handling of the pandemic. The period is mainly recounted in the context of a factual retelling of landmark moments without much reflection on the kinds of pratfalls that almost certainly would have been raised at any public hearing in New Zealand.

    It could be that she has simply moved on to brighter things. Since leaving politics, Ardern has nabbed a number of plum stateside academic roles, including dual fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School – the university’s school of public policy and government – and a recent commencement speech at Yale.

    This year she became a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, where she offers what the school describes as her insights into ‘leadership in times of crisis, commitment to public service, and deep understanding of governance’. Presumably not to be repeated beyond closed doors.

    2. A Blair protege indeed! She needs to be summoned, not asked to attend, and then prosecuted and imprisoned!

    3. Let us not forget that ten thousand government employees received waivers from vaxx mandates in NZ.

    4. Now troughing alongside Blair. She demonstrated how the hard Left respond to crisis: using force. She, Trudeau and all the other blithering fools desperate to ruin other people's lives.

      The hysteria, lack of information and sheer bilge they pumped out was tedious in the extreme. She deserves to be trolled, mocked and ridiculed. Her behaviour during that time was utterly moronic.

      1. She's hung round Blair and Chuck as some form of greenie limpet.
        (And I'm not referring to her grassy diet.)

  27. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bright again 11c, more rain on the way later.
    Here we go again with the unions making stupid demands on the public purse. They are already paid around twice as much as they are worth. It's about time the underground trains
    are driver less and guards are not necessary.
    The ticket office's are mostly automatic now. Other countries can do it using modern technology spot on in Singapore and parts of Australia. Probably parts of Europe.
    Why do we have to live under the constant threat of a few far left union monsters ?
    Our useless current politicians seem to admire their actions.

    1. Ronald Reagan had the right idea – sack the lot and make them re-apply for their jobs. On his terms!

      1. Earlier on bbc news they showed a packed cabinet meeting in downing Street his new cabinet since the forced reshuffle. A good opportunity for the SAS to have popped their heads around the door and force a march to the vacant Dartmoor prison.

    1. The constant 'Oh, it's bad for you' isn't washing. Everything's bad for you. Living is bad for you! Every day you get a bit closer to death.

      While you're alive the sate has no business nannying and hectoring to control how you live.

    2. It is, but cows (and potentially milk and meat) are being poisoned with Bovaer in the UK (the handling of which as a cattle feed additive can cause male infertility) and mRNA jabs in the US.

      1. 412498+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        Buy organic if poss. we have been assured via the local farm /milk deliveries NO additives, in saying this pressure from the nasties could always be applied and the situation change.

        We also purchase Grahams milk and
        kiefer yogurt.

        1. Agree totally, and I do the same. Incredibly, many people, even country people are still unaware of Bovaer.
          I do not believe that the parasite class will issue any attack that will hit themselves, i.e. the attacks will always be things that people do to themselves by their own choices.

          1. I think it unremarkable that many people are unaware of Bovaer. Being unaware of stuff is the norm. You are in an elite minority for taking an interest. The storylines of soap operas, football results and transfer gossip, and the intricacies of tv game shows are far more widely understood.

          3. Our dairy actually has a disclaimer on their website stating that they do not sell Bovaer milk.

          4. Milk and More published a letter last year stating none of their milk was laced with Bovaer – so we have to believe that's still the case. I haven't checked on the website.

        1. There's quite a long thread on X – everyone seems to be going back to whole milk and butter. We never left it, though I did use spreads for some time. Just block butter now.

    4. We never stopped buying full-fat milk, yogurt and butter. Nanny state, everyone should decide for themselves.

      1. Nor did we. Can't stand the chalk and water skimmed rubbish. The creamier the better on my breakfast.

          1. I grew up on whole milk, brought from the farm by horse & cart. I have one of the horseshoes hanging on the shed. When the farm gave up, Mum switched to gold top as she found the milk from the coop was like chalk and water.

          2. Ditto. Wasn’t there a green top at one time? for ‘organic’ (I find it difficult to believe ‘organic’ unless I’ve grown it myself – without modern day farming we’d likely starve – numbers of people is the problem).

          3. All the milk was organic when I was a child. The cows were "tuberculin tested" so TB free and it was not pasteurised either.

          5. Thanks Bob…likely have to find a local farmer and buy direct. Friend of mine worked for the MMB, drove a tanker to collect the milk in bulk from farms – said never seen such ‘sh****’ conditions, was appalled. Another one worked locally, occasionally had to collect at early evening in winter, saw many pairs of green eyes ahead of him….never far from those.

          6. My ex drove a milk tanker for years after he left the army. Bulk collection and artic delivery to big London creameries.

    5. I can't drink full fat milk any more – I think it's 'orrible. The last time I was given some was in in a cup of tea. It was far too creamy.

      1. It's the only sort I drink. I've no time for pissy milk that has had all the best stuff (flavour and nourishment) removed.

  29. Bridget Phillipson enters Labour deputy leadership race
    Education Secretary vows to take ‘fight to Reform’ as she becomes second MP to throw hat into the ring to replace Angela Rayner
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/09/bridget-phillipson-enters-race-replace-rayner-labour-deputy/

    BTL

    She brings destruction wherever her spiteful envy leads her – look what she's done to education and private schools which used to be the envy of the world.

    The only advantage of her becoming deputy leader would be if and only if (iff) it took- her hate-smeared, filthy hands out of education so that she can inflict no more damage on children.

    1. I'm sure potential Reform voters will soon return to the Labour fold when they see Philipson's wonderful record of closing private schools…

      2. Yes, the deputy leader of the Labour Party is not automatically the deputy prime minister when there is a Labour government but it is usually the case.

        When Rayner resigned from being deputy prime minister she could have remained as deputy leader of the party had she chosen to do so. One of the distinctions between the two roles is that the prime minister decides who should be the deputy prime minister but the deputy leader is chosen by a vote of Labour MPs.

        I have made this distinction clearer in my post. When I was a student and had to study philosophical logic the difference between if and only iff was an important one.

        1. I think nowadays the Deputy Leader is chosen by the party membership, after the MPs have had a prune of potential candidates.

        2. I think nowadays the Deputy Leader is chosen by the party membership, after the MPs have had a prune of potential candidates.

    3. 'Glib' and 'oily' were the adjectives borrowed from King Lear which I used to describe him when writing an ironical impersonation of Tony Blair in my song about the populist prime minister.

      Glib and oily Mandy's lies and mortgage I could not excuse
      Twice I sacked the sleazy bugger though his spittle shone my shoes.

  31. 412498+ up ticks,

    The truth will out,
    Badenoch tells Starmer: Let’s work together to cut welfare bill
    Tory leader challenges the Prime Minister to put aside party politics and find solutions ‘in the national interest’

    In reality,

    Badenoch tells Starmer: Let’s continue to work together to cut welfare bill so as to give more invaders a cut as they hit the beach.

    Tory leader challenges the Prime Minister to put aside party politics allegedly telling him we have jointly crewed a political " Country Destroyer"ship these past thirty plus years why seemingly change course now ?

    And find solutions ‘in the national interest’ what's that all about ? what nation ?

    1. This on top of the ridiculous large piece Jenga video. Hope Jenrick, Philp, others, consulting their local groups.

        1. It was out recently, likely find it on YouTube or similar. I think the aim was to show the numbers of policies on which Labour has backtracked, as she threw each piece out she named a policy…eventually so many thrown out the tower collapsed. If you’ve ever played Jenga you’d understand, Stig. Grandchildren still love it. Politicians maybe not so much 🙂

          2. Yes. You start by building a tower with the pieces, then take turns to ease out a piece until the whole thing collapses, when you have a loser. It's surprisingly good fun.

  32. It is interesting that virtually no western country can produce politicians who actually care for their population. Depressing, really.

    1. It is not chance, Bill. Under Cameron, the good people from my generation were simply deselected from Tory seats and not allowed in the Commons. They are the ones who should be at the top now. example: Westminster, Finchley 2010

      1. Agreed – but it is the same all over Europe. Look a France right now. Just as chaotic as the UK.

  33. Pub puritan

    SIR – In the early 1980s, after a day’s sailing on Lake Windermere, my friends and I would go to a small back-street pub (Letters, September 8) in Bowness, Cumbria, to slake our thirsts with its excellently kept bitter.

    Our main entertainment was to watch tourists order pints of shandy – half beer, half lemonade. The stony-faced landlord would fix his hand on the pump, stare the customer in the eye, and say: “I don’t spoil my beer with anything.” He also kept the pub piano padlocked.

    William T Nuttall
    Rossendale, Lancashire

    Sounds quite typical of Northerners. Getting enjoyment out of the discomfort of others. If Tripadvisor and Twitter had been around then he wouldn't get any tourists as customers.

    The duty of a Pub Landlord besides keeping a good cellar and an orderly house is to be a good host.

    That miserable git sounds a bundle of laughs.

    1. Not just northerners. The porter(?) at the village station when I was a child got satisfaction out of telling the workers down from London for the government facility that there was No Taxi, and watching them traipse off up the hill with their bags.

      1. I think it is at least the same if not more. So that landlord would be selling less beer at a higher profit. Idiot and a beer snob.

    3. We Northerners love to make soft, warm-shandy-drinking Southerners squirm. We call it 'sport'.

      Quite naughty though: it is wicked to mock the afflicted!🤣

      1. I'm not a beer drinker. But on a hot day a glass of lemonade and a dash of Bitter is refreshing.

    4. That would be my first and last visit.
      Being "straight" with people is often shorthand for "being bloody rude".

  34. Perhaps one of the sharper political brains on this forum can give me — a bear of small brain — a bit of a hand here. A report in the DT says that Emmanuel Macron has now 'lost' his third prime minister.

    My question is: If he is president, why does he need a prime minister? Trump doesn't have (or need) one. If the president makes all the decisions, what does his lackey prime minister do?

    It is all a bit Tiers-État for me.

    2. Misspent youth on university politics courses…One does the state visits, the other rules the country.
      The Americans combine both roles in one figure. They criticised Mrs Thatcher when she attended a White House barbecue wearing what they thought were office clothes, but she was just trying not to overstep her role. We have a royal family for that sort of thing.

    3. I've never understood the Frogs' political set up. Why the Sifth Republic? Will there ever be a Sixth Republic and if so, how and why?

    4. Indeed, Emmanuel Macron does not "lose" Prime Ministers, that is sloppy reporting.

      When Charles de Gaulle set up the Fifth Republic, he wanted a strong executive figure as head of state – after the mess of the Fourth Republic which nearly brought the country to civil war in the fifties with the Algeria crisis with its parliamentary vacillation, he had a point. He therefore gave the head of state a huge range of powers, including that of choosing his own Prime Minister. Note that the French PM is not elected by the people, but chosen by the President. The PM can be anybody: he/she does not have to be in any sort of elected office – hence the choice of Jean Castex by Macron during the covid crisis. The PM then makes up his government (again, the members of said government need not be in elected office) and proposes this to the President who may or may not ratify his/her choice and will certainly make "suggestions" as to who should be appointed where.

      The only constitutional brake on this process is that the President must choose somebody with whom the legislature (i.e. the Assemblée Nationale, the British equivalent of the House of Commons) is going to have a sensible working relationship. It could be deemed anti-constitutional for the President to appoint, for example, Mélenchon, with his rabid anti-establishment and anti-Semitic pronouncements. The Constitutional Council oversees this and has the power to prevent an appointment.

      When de Gaulle set up this system, the National Assembly consisted mainly of two parties, so it all worked pretty well and certainly provided a stable and strong executive for a number of decades.

      Macron created his own problem by calling a parliamentary election last year – there was no need for it and, contrary to his own belief, it returned a widely split parliament with the Rassemblement National being the largest single party represented. The nutty left formed a parliamentary coalition that was larger than the RN, but Macron, to be true to his political views, could not chose a Prime Minister from either the RN or the nutty left coalition. Hence the mess we're in: after the 2024 election, he took the whole summer to finally end up choosing Barnier. Parliament decided they could not work with him and threw him out with a vote of no confidence. Bayrou requested Parliament's confidence and got a resounding "no".

      So, you ask, why does the President need a Prime Minister? Trump might not have one in name, but he still has his office and I would suggest that Vance is a sort of equivalent to the French PM. The French PM has a particular rôle, though, which is that he is allowed to address parliament and to work directly with its members. The French President is not even allowed into the building – separation of powers, in name only.

      2. Well. Apart from being voted in, what's the difference between that and an elected monarch?

      3. Thanks, Caroline.👍🏻😊

        [I shall order my leg of pork next week to make my julskinka (Christmas ham).]

    1. Of course – but, personally, I really dislike children being used to promote adult ideas.

        1. I know – but she has no idea of the relevance of the message she is carrying. I just think it is exploitation.

      3. 412498+ up ticks,

        Morning BT,

        Point taken but in this case the children have a LARGE dog in this fight and regardless of the police / councilor’s “they can be seen but not heard” the very reverse HAS to be the order of the day.

        1. Yes, but Bill is right – WE need to take responsibility, the child should get on with being a child (I know it's AI generated but it's the principle).

          1. I also agree with Bill (though every time I click on Bill's posts, I cannot post a reply). Also can I say that I also think people who dress their pets in silly costumes (I am not thinking of coats to keep them warm when taken on "walkies" in winter months) are acting totally inappropriately and their actions are not "cute".

      5. I totally agree. The gutless adults who parade children in this fashion should be made to come to the fore and stand by their beliefs and opinions, rather than cower behind innocent youngsters.

    2. Deport them? Don't let them in in the first place.

      How difficult is it to puncture those rubber boats?

      1. Where is the SAS underwater scuba dagger force when we need it to stab the rubber dinghies?

        3. But the boats will be full of women and children and the men will be on the shore preparing meals for the departing families.

      2. The Left want them here. They want to import the useless wasters because then they can label, insult and attack their enemies – normal people.

      3. If the US can put two bunker busters down the same hole, Im sure it is possible to puncure a rubber boat by drone or rifle dart. As we all know, it is a matter of will.

  36. Will Germany bail France out, and if so, will they be as harsh as they were on Greece and Cyprus?

  38. Morning all – I found my phone was dead so Nottl has had to wait today……… washing's on and I'm having a bowl of muesli and fruit.

      1. My normal breakfast – Morrisons Extra Fruity Muesli. I add extra cashew nuts and almonds and today, grapes. With whole milk and extra cream. Keeps me going for hours as I don't bother much with lunch.

  39. I am in Dublin. It is raining 🙂

    Today, I followed gaggles of schoolchildren on my way into work. All authentically Irish. However, that is not my experience elsewhere: the bus driver was foreign and none of us could understand a word he said; the people behind the tills are foreign and one tried to scam me – overcharge me, I'm confident it was deliberate – and another needed me to ask him three times to do his job. The staff at the hotel are all foreign (but delightful). But walking back through St Stephen's Green last night at 7 pm was not a particuarly nice experience – pockets of brooding Diversity lending its strength to Ireland

    I read the Irish paper today – it's the same woes as we have here, high taxes, budgets (Oct 7th I think in Ireland), people not being able to afford houses – two people in the office mentioned it to me seprately yesterday, how hard it was to afford a house.

    Meeting now – must dash

    1. I was only in Switzerland for a couple of days – but there seemed to be less diversity than here.

      1. They have a large immigrant workforce, but only who they need. Those people also leave when their work day finishes.

        1. Well my son is part of that immigrant workforce – he's been living there half his life now but although he has Swiss residency he is still a British citizen.

      2. The Federal government can be told by the general population what it has to do – thanks to properly organised and implemented referenda.

        1. Yep – but remember those two stupid women and their nobbling the government with their 'climate' stupidity.

      4. OOh, I don't doubt it ndov.
        other not very diverse countries: Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran…

      5. An old friend of mine, Cat = Catherine, a Swiss woman, hated the place. She maintained the place was so regimented that, at night, the mowed the mountain meadows. She took out British nationality.

      1. Many years ago, I was invited to go to Dublin to address a high-level (for Ireland) government meeting. I duly arrived and went to the venue – to be greeted by the woman who had invited me: "I'm terribly sorry – there's no one here today; I quite forgot that it is Dublin Races today…" So I flew home.

      2. I've only been once – in 2003. We stayed in a few different B&Bs – a couple of very nice, friendly hosts, and one pub-type place which was awful – unfriendly, even hostile people in the bar, food not good, bed was like a rock and the shower was mildewed. We'd booked for three nights but left after one.

  40. Good morning (don't ask! 🤣) Nottlers all!

    Just wondering if anyone has grandchildren / children of whom they might ask about groups who sing in British English they enjoy listening to? I am.giving a lesson tomorrow to a girl of 20, and one of the things I always find helpful in learning a language is to listen to music I like in that language. Except I currently find myself utterly clueless in this regard for British stuff.

    I've sent messages to young members of my family, but hold out little hope of replies: it seems to be OK to ignore auntly communication until one urgently needs something from them… 🙄

    Thanks for any help!

    Katy

          5. I think they probably were and they looked very young. Especially the one in the lacy bra and the furry caterpillar eyelashes. I don't think my mother would have let me out looking like that.

        3. I was in a pub quiz one day, when Taylor Swift was mentioned. I remarked "Never heard of him". After guffaws of laughter from the younger members of my quiz group, it was clarified that Taylor is female.

    3. Queen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Status Quo, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Blur, the Kinks, how many do you want?

      2. That’s really useful. Thanks, Caroline. I’m in one of the only places in the world where a British accent is valued above an American one, and wish to capitalise upon that advantage.

    6. The only thing I can think of is English folk music, people like Tim Heart and Maddy Prior. Or you could do old songs like this.
      I post this one because on the album there are lots of songs listed. Now a days you will not find songs with a natural English accent, there's a reason for that and it isn't to do with copying Americans. Or The Incredible String Band. A favorite band of mine.

      https://youtu.be/cpjw-PYwlbQ?list=TLPQMDkwOTIwMjUtujcZbkQIaw
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fubpTvwzq2k

    7. Chas 'n' Dave? Chas Hodges sang with a cockney accent. The Proclaimers? They sound very Scottish.

        1. I've opened the link but the lyrics do not scan nor do they rhyme. Is it a form of free verse? What's more, try as I might, I cannot discern any love in the words. It must be an unfamiliar -philia.

          ps. As you've corrected your link, my comment no longer stands.

          1. I think Rastus may have posted the wrong link. He still had the Michael Deacon piece on copy and pasted it again.

          2. The wrong post was only up for a moment or two

            My internet connection is not very reliable today.

            BTW It is Peddy The Viking's birthday in a couple of days. He was the champion corrector of other nottlers' posts!

          4. When I make a mistake like that, I either delete and repost, or post the correction as a reply to save readers from having to refresh the page.

    9. The New Seekers and The Highway Men were very profound in their pronunciation of lyrics. If that's helpful.

      1. So were the original Seekers. Judith Durham, their lead singer, had a very clear voice. An Aussie but you would not have known it.

        3. Yes lovely voices it made it easy to understand and remember all the words.
          It’s going through my head now.
          There’s a new world somewhere
          they call the promised land
          and we’ll be there one day
          if you will hold my hand.
          She passed away about 3 years ago.

    10. I wish I could help but my daughter (just 22) listens to old stuff on Heart such as Duran Duran or the Killers and my son, heaven help us, he listens to all sorts of efnik rubbish (he is nearly 21). Sorry.

    11. More suggestions: Vera Lynn, Kate Bush, Ian Dury, Chris Difford & Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Paul Weller of The Jam, The Style Council and solo, Guy Garvey of Elbow, Cilla Black (Liverpool Lullaby in particular), Petula Clark, Feargal Sharkey of The Undertones and solo, and, if you want an Irish (Republic) voice as well, Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries.

    12. More suggestions: Vera Lynn, Kate Bush, Ian Dury, Chris Difford & Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Paul Weller of The Jam, The Style Council and solo, Guy Garvey of Elbow, Cilla Black (Liverpool Lullaby in particular), Petula Clark, Feargal Sharkey of The Undertones and solo, and, if you want an Irish (Republic) voice as well, Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries.

    14. In a humorous/novelty vein: Peter Sellers (not Goodness Gracious Me), Bernard Cribbins, Benny Hill, The Singing Postman (Allan Smethurst), Arthur Mullard & Hylda Baker, Bernard Bresslaw, Mike Reid, Dora Bryan, Sheila Hancock, Beryl Reid.

    15. These are my final suggestions (for now): Victoria Wood (humorous) and Marc Bolan of Tyrannosaurus/T. Rex (fey English).

    16. Good morning Katy and everyone.
      Girl? Aged twenty surely she is a young lady.
      As for songs, try Cantajuegos!

  41. It really is a very nice day. Completely still and sunny. After lunch we are going to Holkham beach to have a mile long paddle as the tide
    comes in over the warm sand. We did that every day in Brittany and, my dear, the difference to ones feet. They became as smooth as those of a newborn baby. Wonderful feeling.

        1. We’ve been there a few times lots of riders using the huge sandy beach when the tide is out. Lovely spot.

  42. Well, that's a 3½' x 10" length of concrete laid for the retaining wall extension at the Cromford end of the "garden". I plan extending the two terracing walls by a similar amount, but need to dig the footings out first.

  43. Good morning all.

    Breezy day , not cold, lots of huge clouds , the leaves are rustling and we know this is September .

    Moh had a great day out yesterday when he cleared off with golf mates to Surrey to play golf at https://www.foxhills.co.uk/

    He navigated the busy motorway quite well, so he said , car behaved itself , his beloved fast Renault Laguna with out of date Sat nav .. very comfy though seeing as though it is a 58 plate , heated seats , lovely and a lousy radio reception, but it pleases him and is still good value considering it is a diesel .

    The beauty of it is the boot can accommodate a pile of sacks to take to the tip or two sets of golf clubs with fold up trollies.. priorities are paramount ..

    Anyway , he said he was glad to get home safely because of the rush on the roads , and he is not used to driving in the dark anymore, neither am I!

    The after the game snacks and coffees , well he showed me the bill which they split four ways .. was £72 .. everyone was shocked apparently .. outrageous prices for nibbles , considering the cost of the day out was expensive as well as the travel .

    No wonder Rachel Reeves wants to tax everyone to death if she knows what the standard of living in the home counties is, and the willingness of people to pay disgusting prices!

    Hmm , yes well, Dorset offers better value for money !

  44. One of the quickest yet solved but there were a lot of choices for the correct one:
    Wordle 1,543 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  45. Lots of letters on ID cards recently. The splendidly monikered Hamish Hossick gets to the point in fewer words than most.

    FRIDAY

    ID card overreach

    SIR – The proper function of government is to protect the rights of the individual. Fundamental to this is the protection of citizens from violence, which the state does by placing the legitimate use of force under democratic control.

    The problem with the introduction of digital ID cards (report, September 3) is that they could be required to access multiple services, going beyond the bounds of simply establishing legal identity in the way that passports, birth certificates or marriage licences do.

    A society in which ID cards are needed in order to act is one that accepts the giving up of freedom as the price of security. This gifts the government greater control and limits the citizenry's freedom to act. Identification is necessary – but not as a licence to exist.

    D S A Murray
    Dorking, Surrey

    SIR – In the course of normal domestic life, I have recently used a credit card, a debit card and my driving licence. At other times I might use my bus pass or national insurance number for routine transactions.

    I fail to see how there can be any honest objection to national identity cards, and can see distinct benefits to their introduction.

    John Chillington
    Wells, Somerset
    ____________________________

    SATURDAY

    Sinister ID cards

    SIR – John Chillington (Letters, September 5) sees no "honest objection to national identity cards".

    He refers to the benefits, but the question is not what such a card will conveniently grant you access to; rather, it is what you could be arbitrarily denied access to.

    Mr Chillington should not be so willing to put his liberty at risk.

    Hamish Hossick
    Dundee

    SIR – John Chillington, who is relaxed about the introduction of ID cards, lists various forms of proof of identity that he already uses routinely.

    Why, then, is there any need to introduce another one?

    James Hogg
    Southwold, Suffolk
    ____________________________

    MONDAY

    Intrusive ID cards

    SIR – Whether it is incompetent legislation or police overreach, the fact is that people are being publicly arrested ("Protesters chant 'Free Palestine' as police swoop", report, Seprember 7) or having prejudicial notes placed on their police records for expressing their opinions. Reassurances that free speech is safe ring hollow under these circumstances.

    Supporters of identity cards (Letters, September 5) present them as harmless or claim that "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". Those of us who grew up with family trapped behind the Iron Curtain know this is not true.

    Even if carrying an ID card is not compulsory, how soon will it be that failure to do so is treated by police as evidence of wrongdoing? How soon will it be too risky not to carry one, in a world where police no longer have to identify themselves to citizens, or where failure to carry one on principle places your name on a database or watchlist created by a police force rooted in petty legislation rather than inspired by fundamental values?

    As Graham Linehan's case (Letters, September 5) proves, freedom is lost a piece at a time, until it is too late to realise where each step is taking us.

    Victor Launert
    Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

    SIR – Rolling out ID cards, at vast expense, will not improve the security of our country. A driving licence or passport to confirm identity is enough.

    Joe Obrart
    Stanmore, Middlesex
    ____________________________

    TUESDAY

    Purpose of ID cards

    SIR – I live in France, which has ID cards (Letters, September 8). It is no burden to carry one. On the other hand, ID cards have seemingly no effect on crime: French prisons are full. Judging from the level of terrorism they have no effect on this either. And it makes not a jot of difference in my dealings with government bureaucracy.

    All this leads me to wonder if the British Government is being disingenuous about the purpose of introducing ID cards. Such a scheme will require the state to employ thousands more bureaucrats, each of whom will probably have a gold-plated pension. It will also involve an expensive IT system, which inevitably will not work as intended.

    Christian Gaze
    Blousson-Sérian, Gers, France

    SIR – Most adults have a passport or driving licence, as noted by Joe Obrart (Letters, September 8), but we also have a unique National Insurance number. That is quite sufficient. This Government cannot afford to waste yet more money on another ill-thought-out scheme.

    Sally Giles
    Alresford, Hampshire

    SIR – Joe Obrart suggests a driving licence or passport is enough to establish identity. My wife and my elderly aunt have neither – so what do they, and the many like them, do? They also don't have mobile phones. Opening a bank account or claiming an inheritance is therefore a nightmare.

    They don't have "freedom" when institutions won't even recognise their existence.

    David Leech
    Balcombe, West Sussex

    1. You can immediately see where this authoritarian government would use 'ID cards'. The first would be when buying food. Then it would be on energy – you're over quota. Your energy use is rationed. Then it'd be for internet purchases, then just for internet access, to publicly identify you to each and every site you visit until only permitted sites are allowed.

      They would never, ever stop destroying our freedoms and choices. They're utterly insane fascists.

    2. Even David Leech's wife and aunt must have NI numbers or they wouldn't be able to access their state pension. We just don't need yet another layer of authority to establish our identity or right to our entitlements.

      1. It'll never happen, Ndovu – much easier to chip us at birth (as most pets are now, chip containing vet details of chipping). And how do we know we're not already chipped, babies been having a heel prick to verify blood group for years….

        1. I thought the heel prick was to administer vit K for some reason, rather than establish blood group. I never knew my blood group till I was pregnant.

          1. I never knew mine until I went to donate blood. Mine the only card of one particular colour. I’m AB+, donation always used according to txt msg. I was the only donor to have a nurse with me at all times, often the same one, talking about his g/f. Also had my DNA tested, almost half British ancestry, some French, Asian/Russian. Mongrel or what…

          2. Your blood is an unusual type so they’re probably glad to have it. Mine is O+ so they’re glad to have that too, but they stopped wanting it after i had breast cancer.

            I’ve resisted having DNA tested, although I was a keen family historian for many years. I don’t know how accurate those tests are, and I also don’t want random strangers appearing and announcing we are related. I have found several long lost rellies by conventional means.

          3. I was happy to give it, occasionally newborns needed it having both parents AB-. Yes, that’s the downside of DNA testing, unless it’s what someone seeks which I didn’t. All my relatives now dead, apart from next generation, good to read you found some of yours 🙂

          4. That reminds me – I must go and see the two sisters again – they are my third cousins and both over 90, but quite lively and they see my posts on Facebook…….

          6. They probably could if they suspected some criminal activity, or something more sinister than that.

    3. In the US, a driving license is the most accepted form of ID. The various states issue their own licenses and will also issue an ID card in basically the same format to people who do not drive.

      When we moved to West Virginia from Maryland some years ago, we were required to prove we were in the country legally, by either producing US birth certificates or proofs of legal residence in the case of non native born such as ourselves. All done face to face in the local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office, with licenses and vehicle titles and registrations dealt with on the spot – walked in with Maryland paperwork and walked out with the WV equivalents, including new license plates.

  46. I noticed that my shirt was uncomfortable last night, so I weighed myself. I have gained 2 kg – so a crash diet starts today. No beer; no wine; no sweets; no ice cream – small portions. Exercise – far too easy to put it off…. Back to normal, I hope in a couple of weeks.

    1. Good morning Bill ,
      Eating fish for a week might help , not fish and chips, nicely grilled/ baked or whatever .. or even sardines on toast ..
      Runner beans , have they finished yet, I love runner beans , and broccoli , not so keen on asparagus though .. but vege and fish , my runner son and moh will eat forever ( I am partial to a chocolate biscuit )

    3. Just eat a balanced diet – no fad dieting, with as you say, reduced portions. And it's much easier to reduce caloric intake than ttrying to burn it off through exercise.

      1. That is what I always do. It is the pleasurable extras – beer, wine, sweets – that do the damage. Giving them up for a few weeks is not a problem.

        I agree about exercise. At home I am just lazy. In Brittany last month, we walked three or four miles a day and felt better for it bodywise.

      2. I find a reduction or an increase in carbs has the most effect on my waistline. No idea what I weigh, but if my trousers get tight and I feel bloated, then a reduction in intake is necessary.

  47. This attempt to destroy Nigel Farage is the Left’s most desperate yet
    Supposedly the Reform leader is a ‘hypocrite’ for criticising Angela Rayner. There’s just one small problem
    Michael Deacon: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/09/nigel-farage-stamp-duty-house-clacton-angela-rayner/

    Michael Deacon is once again on top form. On the subject of the left trying to pin evasions of stamp duty on a house Farage did not buy is splendid. If we all have to pay stamp duty on other people's houses then Labour has truly lost its way.

    And in the second part of his piece Deacon comes up with a revolutionary approach to becoming more popular – all Starmer has to do is to stop making mistakes!

    A couple of BTLs

    First poster:

    You’ll never educate a brainwashed leftie.
    If they scream it loud repeatedly they’ll believe it will be true.

    Response

    "What I tell you three times is true," said the Bellman when addressing his fellow crew members on their sea venture to hunt a snark. Unfortunately the lefties never stop at just telling us things just three times – they go on and on telling us over and over again.

        3. They are a warning.

          Human stupidity only started when they commenced munching on vegetation (the archaeological record proves this beyond dispute). Problem is, that out-of-control stupidity makes people push their fingers in their ears and scream, 'No, No, No, No, No!

          Eat crap: get ill. And there are dozens on this very forum who supply ample proof of this.

  50. 412498+ up ticks,

    We look back to be sure for the simple reason to look forward we would mostly be reviewing court case files regarding child victims, casualties of the pakistini
    paedophile rape gangs introduced to theses Isles via the the polling stations in supporting the lab/lib/con coalition party

    Why the 1970s was the golden age of children’s TV
    As Bagpuss heads to the big screen, we look back at the best kids’ shows of the era

    3. Captions aside..

      Jeeez these two.
      WTF has Keir done here with the Jihadist in control of the UKs police force. Is he trolling?
      Is this peak-Starmer.
      Will the UK survive until 2029?

    6. 'and these are the latest crime numbers for inner London – a great success I think you'll agree, minister'

    2. Labour MPs will never support a vote of no confidence in the government – turkeys will not vote for Christmas.

    12. Whoops kept that quiet, I hope you're having a good day Connors belated happy birthday to you. 🤗👍🥂🍾🍻cheers buddy.
      Another virgo 🤩

  55. Simon Hunt on maneco64 today
    A few minutes in, he shows the graph that superimposes inflation in the 70s on the present day (spoiler: the 1980 peak is coming round again)
    I watched it at 1.25 speed, they both speak slowly so you could probably watch it at 1.5!
    Also, he mentions some rumours he has heard from the UK.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWsrUfsAgcA

    1. Does the article tell us what DMSO is? I couldn't see it did.

      DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide, is a by-product of paper making. It comes from a substance found in wood.

        1. I'm generally suspicious of things that claim to cure so many different health issues.
          This miracle answer might suggest that humans are adapted to eat woody vegetation for the beneficial effects on the human body.

          4. Oh cinnamon, where you going to run to?
            Oh cinnamon, where you going to run?
            Oh cinnamon, where you going to run to
            All on that day?

          5. Oh cinnamon, where you going to run to?
            Oh cinnamon, where you going to run?
            Oh cinnamon, where you going to run to
            All on that day?

        1. Possibly so, but a succinct explanation at the start of such a long article might help those, like me, who had not heard of it or its potential benefits.

    1. How times have changed. For better or worse? I was 12 when The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris was published in 1967 and I learnt more about sex from reading that than anyone at home or school had managed to communicate up to that point. That said, when further enlightenment came, it was both realistic and had a sound moral basis.

      1. Go back into the '30's, and many young women still went into marriage very innocent indeed compared to later years. Even into the '60's "good girls" didn't – unless they had a ring on their finger. The swinging '60's was not so swinging for most. No pill and no abortions in those days, but many tales of condom failure. A couple of my fellow junior engineers had rushed nuptials back then due to that reason. Also, it was not unusual for the first born to arrive 9 months after the wedding night. But couples tended to stay married, even though they married young. Only stipulation from my then future father in law is that we should wait until his daughter was 21. Which we did, getting married 2 weeks later.

        2. 60 years ago

          My sister: Mummy, I have met the man I love and we want to get married as soon as possible.

          My mother: Don't silly you're only 20 years old! You will have to wait until you are 21.

          3 Months later

          My sister: Mummy, I am going to get married in two months time.

          My mother: No you are not. I forbid it and so does you father!

          My sister: I don't think you understand me, Mummy. I am going to get married in two months by which time I shall be three months pregnant.

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

          Two Months later

          My sister married her lover, they had four lovely children and lived happily ever after.

    1. His daughter Mary has joined Reform, she's trying to persuade him to do the same. Think the video is on YouTube.

        1. If JRM replaced Zia Yusuf and Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib were welcomed back into the Reform Party I would try to suppress my reservations about Farage and vote for it.

          2. I find JRM is very plausible.

            However if Angela Rayner is justified in saying that a lot of snobbery was directed at her then I think that it is true to say that just as much inverted snobbery has been thrown at Jacob Rees-Mogg.

          3. Yes, but I have always thought that Jacob hides behind his public persona just as Boris does (though he is a far better person than Boris).

          4. Do you have a vote in the UK? If not, I am willing to cast a vote for your preference on your behalf… for a consideration. 😉

          5. Actually I do have a vote and I could have voted in the 2024 general election but I abstained.

            Blair disenfranchised me in the UK after I had been resident in France for 15 years even though I am British. I was effectively disenfranchised in France too as only French nationals are allowed to vote in general elections in France. I used to be able to vote in local lections before Brexit.

    1. Of course. If it had been done on a judges home he/she would have been delighted by all the pound signs going off in their corrupt brains as they contemplated the lucrative reward they would have received in selling it.

    2. Look at that bunch of phone-clutching zombies! Do they even still exist if you take their phones away?

      1. People seem to do that with street fights, accidents, thefts…and other events they can then just walk away from.

      2. The morning Grenfell Tower was on fire, Wood Lane W12 was lined with people recording it on their phones. No discernible thought process.

  60. So where does your local NHS trust feature in the newly published rankings? Imperial College is at number eleven. I heard from them today. I’ve been enrolled on the cardiac rehabilitation programme at Charing Cross Hospital commencing from the first week of October.

    4. Agree. Milliband should be put to work on a farm for a month, he'd soon learn it's not the easy life he thinks.

      1. The man has never done an honest day's work in his life. A proper job would do him in. Oh, wait a minute…

    5. Rather have 27% of left/labour politicians culled, better 87%, and that certainly would help the climate with the loss of toxic hot air from them.

  62. I wonder how many of you are aware of the rioting going on in Nepal? Why is is relevant? Because the government decided to block all social media companies, Facebook, X, etc because they refused to agree to being fined if the government decided that they had violated the new rules set by them. Sound familiar? So far 19 people are dead and the homes of politicians are going up in flames, as the demonstrators turn on the corrupt politicians. There seems to be a lesson in that for us. But I'm not sure what it is.

    1. I hope the people are rioting because they love free speech, not because they want Facebook access?

      1. The importance of social media is that without it businesses are destroyed in todays world. But yes, they are demanding freedom of speech.

      2. 412498+ up ticks,

        Afternoon O,
        Would have been more understandable if I had completed the starter word, "NOT", in starmers or the WEF/NWO agenda to benefit the United Kingdom via the farmers.

    2. They'll need to do better than that..

      Try joining up with Tommy R.. block every single motorway until; parliament is dissolved.. throw it back to The Will of The People, and the King is executed.

      Then again.. the Farmers don't want Jeremy Clarkson speaking for them.. so what chance Tommy.

      1. What would be the apposite word for the murder of (eg)Tony Blair, Keir Starmer Bill Gates & co?

        ChatOpo: Well we have suicide, regicide, fratricide, matricide, genocide, etc..

        "Countryside".

    3. I don't think starmer has no interest in farming. He's copied examples and trained the police to be come his sheep dogs and turning the public into his own obedient herd.

        1. Snore……
          Back it off stig I've got enough problems in my life at the moment with being picked up on 'king grammar mistakes.

        2. My reply seems to have vanished.
          I said back it off I'm getting fed up with your nit picking.
          I've got enough problems in my life at the moment. I don't require any of your insignificant comments.

    4. Starmer do the right and sensible thing? Best laugh in ages. Labour hates the countryside almost more than it hates the country. Too indigenous, too hardworking, too in touch with reality.

      1. He loves the EC. Ukraine cases up in April, will he last that long, and if he does will he continue after them. And now we have Ange discredited, who are we looking to next…

  65. Ratcheting up and up and up
    Israel bombs Hamas leaders in Qatar: Furious Doha condemns 'cowardly strike' as Middle East powder keg threatens to explode
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15080817/Blasts-heard-Doha-Israels-IDF-claims-responsibility-strike-targeting-senior-leadership-Hamas-Qatar.html

    I love the way Qatar calls it a cowardly strike.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed23acb98188a4d7e1ba2d8aa6a742440cc065aa60b2b4334194791825b67d55.png

      1. Unfortunately it could be the fuse that ignites a combined Arab military assault.
        It may prove to be counter-productive.

        1. Israel has defended itself from multiple Arab countries before.. And these days they have nukes hidden all over the country.

          1. Different times.
            A nuclear response would set a terrible precedent and I have little doubt that the Muslims could get access to nuclear weapons if Israel used theirs. There are plenty of crazy States who have them now.

    3. Ha. No messing about.
      And I really really really hope that Israel slaps one down on a western rogue state like; France, Birmingham, Bradford, South Africa.

      1. Indeed.
        I hope they've got huge stockpiles of arms and ammunition or it could go nuclear.
        I hope the Abraham Accords don't start to unravel.

  66. Afternoon all. Who is going to stop the rail unions holding the country to ransom? We have a Labour government. I don’t know about beer and sandwiches at number 10, these days it’s more like champagne and caviar.

    3. Hope you’ve enjoyed your birthday! Did your housemates notice? I expect Labour will cave in and credit themselves with ending the disruption, just as they did in the 70s.

      1. Step in with a bung of taxpayer’s money, you mean? Yes, I’ve had a good day so far, thanks. Went out for a coffee and the dogs got a lot of fuss and treats. As far as they’re concerned it’s all about them😀

  68. Sigh……..this just can't carry on
    "A migrant unlawfully detained at Brook House immigration removal centre at Gatwick for three months and subjected to degrading or inhuman treatment was awarded £203,995 in damages last October.

    That's more than you would get for losing a leg.

    Now 200 have launched legal claims against Manston wanting £500/day plus exemplary damages on top.

    It needs emergency legislation that anyone lodging a claim gets returned back to the sea."

      1. They were always banned when I was a young lawyer. Then "no win no fee" (copied from the USA) was introduced. I was against it from the start. And still am.

        1. I'm not keen on "class action" lawsuits either, except that they can cut down on absolute court time.

          1. Many of them here are ridiculous, with the only "winners" being the shyster law firms that sue for zillions, knowing big companies will probably settle to keep themselves out of the news.

      2. As i doubt "degrading and inhuman" treatment included batteries to the bollocks more like attending a minor public school I hereby volunteer to endure the same treatment
        I could use £68,000 a month for 3 months

  69. Well – that was glorious. Two mile walk across the beach at Holkham. Haven't been there for 12 years. Access and parking arrangements greatly improved. Got to the sea edge as the tide turned. Feel fitter already. Across country drive along empty lanes. Bucolic in the extreme.

    Anything happen while I was out?

    1. The dogs got up and moved about.

      I felt my heart get squeezed as one idiot won't talk to another idiot?

  70. Coming to a leafy little village near you.

    Israel orders all one million Gaza City citizens to evacuate and warns it will 'raze' the strip if Hamas does not release all hostages

    1. It is a terrible case.
      Nearly ten years ago, my Italian friend expressed astonishment that Germans were so casual on trains. She said that she doesn't read or look at her phone because she is afraid of being robbed or attacked. I am quite surprised that the victim in this case, late at night, was concentrating on her phone. Of course, she ought to be able to, but is it wise, with nutters like that around?

      edit: the GoFundMe has apparently now been removed.

      1. There was a young white lad murdered (stabbed) at an athletics meet earlier this year by a BLM and he had a huge fund-raiser as well. Cannot remember his name but it was front page news at the time.

    3. What horrified me was the total lack of reaction from other passengers.
      Granted, they may not have been quick enough to save the poor lass, but he was walking round the carriage afterwards and, apparently even got off the train.

    4. That's Terrible, despite taking about it a lot they never show a photo of that horrible out of place POS who murdered those three lovely children in Southport. And stabbed others frightening the absolute lives out of them.

    1. I have the impression there were fewer butterflies around this year, but we did have a very dry spring which is bound to have affected some species. I expect they will be back in a year or two.

      2. The butterfly count is in July and a lot had gone over by then. Their peak this year was in June.

    2. We've had an exceptionally good year, but I leave about 4 acres very wild. They adore the wild mint.

    3. I've seen more butterflies this year than in the last few years, but fewer species. Commas, were abundant, but large whites have been present to almost plague proportions. We've recently seen them heading south, against the breeze 10 miles offshore, towards France.

    4. Many complex reasons for their numbers. Which plants did well with local weather conditions, predators and the numbers of their offspring.

    5. We've had lots of Segs Blancs, white ones in our gardens, a few of the admirals and that's about it.

      1. Just a couple of painted ladies, Eddy – and I've yet to see them together, so could even be just the one. I'm hoping for a moth lamp for Christmas (I follow Trevor Pendleton – Ramblings of an entomologist, on UTube).

    4. Our mob will try not to notice, they are too busy arresting people who are in their opinion waving the wrong flags.

  74. Wordle No. 1,543 3/6

    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 9 Sep 2025

    A sprig for Birdie Three?

    1. Same here – starter words went well again!

      Wordle 1,543 3/6

      🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. You must be getting better health wise, Sue Ed, if your beating me at Wordle every day is anything to go by! I hope your trip to the local hospital to have your stitches removed this Thursday goes well and painlessly. Love from Elsie xxx

  76. Well, rumour has it that the "Drone Strike" on the Green Goblin's boat was, in fact, a flare or firework set off by one of those on board!

  77. https://order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Featured-Images-11-1.png
    Labour Admits “Legal Threat” Government Claimed Forced Chagos Surrender Is Bogus

    Labour has revealed the “legal threat” which it claims forced it to give away the Chagos Islands. It’s bogus…

    Defence minister Luke Pollard admitted in the Commons today that the legal basis for the “threat” is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea:

    “Had we not signed the treaty, we could have faced further legal rulings against us within weeks, because the negotiations begun by the Conservatives had been stayed. Further legal rulings might have included arbitrary proceedings against the UK under annex 7 of the UN convention on the law of the sea, known as UNCLOS… A judgment from such a tribunal would be legally binding on the UK. It would impact on our ability to protect the electromagnetic spectrum from interference, and impair our ability to ensure access to the base by air and sea, to patrol the maritime area around the base and to support the base’s critical national security functions.”

    One problem with that: The UK can and always has been able to exempt itself from cases under the convention which concern:

    “disputes concerning military activities, including military activities by government vessels and aircraft engaged in non-commercial service, and disputes concerning law enforcement activities in regard to the exercise of sovereign rights or jurisdiction excluded from the jurisdiction of a court or tribunal”

    Labour has itself admitted the UK’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum cannot be interefered with by rulings of the ITU. Oh dear…

    There has been a big row in the Commons today over the matter with Tories pointing this out. Shadow Armed Forces Minister Mark Francois tells Guido:

    “During today’s Commons Debate on Diego Garcia, the Government’s legal case collapsed, under close scrutiny. They finally revealed that the “legal threat” to justify their £35 billion surrender deal is based on the UNCLOS Treaty – from which we in Britain already have a clear opt out for “disputes concerning military activities” in Article 296. The whole case is a sham, as Parliament has today discovered.”

    Labour and Starmer repeatedly refused to specify which grave legal threat forced the surrender. Now we know why…

    September 9 2025 @ 17:05

    10 minutes ago
    Christ! I could have told them our military activities are exempted from UNCLOS VII. Capitulate to accumulate!

  78. Labour-Linked Hope Not Hate Labelled Defending Women-Only Hospital Wards as “Far Right”

    Guido has been charting the ways the left-wing group Hope Not Hate has veered from its supposed purpose of fighting racism. The Labour-linked group is now operating at the highest levels of Keir Starmer’s government, and, after the reshuffle, Labour HQ…

    Not satisfied with labelling dozens of centrist Tory figures as “extremists“, Hope not Hate also blasted the Conservatives for: “increasingly adopting far-right tropes and conspiracies – “invasion” of asylum seekers, the “misguided dogma of multiculturalism”, trans women having “no place in women’s wards”, lefty “activist lawyers”. Simply put, this empowers the far right, as their rhetoric is legitimised by the political mainstream.” The boy who cried wolf comes to mind…

    The only difficulty – and the irony – is that by Hope Not Hate’s definition, that would make Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, and Keir Starmer himself “far-right”. They all on record supporting women-only wards…

    Labour’s close links to the group is causing grumbling among realists on the backbenches. Is the relationship sustainable?

    September 9 2025 @ 16:34

    30 minutes ago
    Men are women
    Foreigners are British
    Bankruptcy is prosperity
    Criminals are victims
    lslam is freedom
    Trash is culture
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a87f911457e45a003d2613479e78dd587f0af2d7b64767ccae7c385d598d0f74.png https://talk.hyvor.com/media/website/14037/PDLfgJfBc6UcIUvSKIJUydllJlLPLJKcWsMSx3Rt.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e7279b18f3c0036925198f24cae8f896ba984e1ff7b877c19d0c088eb6fec61.png

        1. If you disregard the fact that Prince Philip renounced his claim to the Greek and Danish thrones and took his maternal grandparents' name anglicised from 'Battenberg', King Charles' name should be either Battenberg, Mountbatten or Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.

      4. Don't hear/see too much of him and Mrs King, mostly Wills n Kate n fams. No-one wants to know about Harry.

        1. I see Harry has just donated over £1M of "his own money" to save the Children! Sorry mate, I still think you're a half wit!

          1. A public display of a young lad who lost his mum too soon. And a halfwit for a father. To say nothing of his stepmother. For everyone to see, hear, read about. Queen Elizabeth (and especially Phil) must be rotating.

  80. Quote of the Day

    Labour peer and Blue Labour founder Lord Glasman told Times Radio:

    “I think New Labour was something of a farce and now Keir Starmer is a genuinely tragic figure in that he leads a government where the party itself is still committed to all the holy grail of progressivism, globalisation, multilateralism. The future is bilateral. It’s life or death now for Labour….[Somebody from the progressive left] would just accelerate the extinction of the party.”

    1. That's pretty interesting, that someone in the Labour party sees beyond WEF politics. I don't think the Tories have clocked that yet. What does he mean by "the future is bilateral" though? a return to the cold war?

      1. Bilateral = Nation States make Arrangements/Treaties with other Nation States, not with self-important amorphous multilateral bodies.

  82. That's me for today. Excellent walk on the sand this afternoon. My self-imposed exile from hooch is a bore – but I shall survive. The MR is at a PCC meeting – what larks: such joy.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  83. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/253d3b2bfefb748cbab656f7d01dfb231fe8e832d2d9866f3d4cff79d3167088.png
    Chagossians Refer Starmer to International Criminal Court Over Surrender Deal

    A collection of Chagossian human rights groups has referred Keir Starmer and other British officials to the International Criminal Court over the Chagos Surrender. He won’t like that…

    The group says the referral – under Article 15 of the Rome Statute – is on the “basis of participation in forcible deportation, persecution, and other inhumane acts constitutive of crimes against humanity. The Chagossian human rights situation has deteriorated to the point of irreversible harm, especially given recent developments in Mauritius, and senior members of the British government are personally responsible for enabling this disaster to occur.” Chagossians are famously treated as third class citizens by Mauritian authorities, who seek to ban them from the Chagos islands…

    The group goes into some details as to what evidence the ICC prosecutor will be leafing through:

    “Many of the Chagossian population in Mauritius have been departed Mauritius with few belongings and the literal clothes on their backs since October. They are being harassed and driven out, under the diplomatic and political cover of the Treaty. Hillingdon and Crawley Councils, as ports for asylee entry, have been overwhelmed to the point that there have even been cases of newly arrived Chagossians sleeping rough on the streets. Senior members of government in the UK have been aware of these departures en-masse from Mauritius, and acquiesced to them as an apparently acceptable consequence of British foreign policy.”

    Over August Chagossian representatives have also sent emergency requests to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The campaign against the increasingly expensive Chagos Surrender goes on…

    September 9 2025 @ 10:29

    7 hours ago
    It’s not just Chagossians who have a case against starmer, We British taxpayers do too. He is throwing our money at Mauritius for no reason at all, it was not in the Manifesto and the loss of our Sovereign Indian Ocean military and communications base and Island territory leaves us wide open to our enemies.

    K
    6 hours ago
    Indeed, this is beyond moronic. It’s utterly fucking stupid!!!! Yet, he’s trying to spin it as a win. Jonathan Powell and co should be pilloried for this.

    F
    7 hours ago
    Chagos was one of the biggest betrayals that has ever been foisted on the UK, not to mention the expense.

    Lammy’s time at the Foreign Office was a disaster that is far worse than is generally acknowledged.

    For example, thanks to Lammy, there has recently been a little-published row with Egypt. This is because that malevolent organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been allowed to demonstrate outside the Egyptian Embassy in London. The MB is responsible, directly or indirectly for all Islamic terrorist atrocities for many decades, and is banned in several countries, including Egypt where it originated, but it is allowed to operate with impunity in the UK.

    In retaliation, the Egyptians removed security barriers from the British Embassy in Cairo, forcing it to close.

    Having studied the MB ever since I first went to Egypt in 1969, my sympathies are 100% with the Egyptians.

    E
    7 hours ago
    What an interesting and richly deserved development. I wish them every success.

    I
    7 hours ago
    Hold on… Migrants rights trump British rights as laid out in Epping vs British Government

    Therefore Chagossian rights trump British Gov rights… right?

    D
    7 hours ago
    Well there goes TTKs ‘perfect human rights record’. It could not happen to a nicer guy (or bunch of people). I hope the Chagossians get what they want frankly.

  84. It's chilly tonight, just tucking into a pea and bacon soup with some buttery toasted homemade rye sourdough.

    2. My main meal today – just eaten – was bacon, egg, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage and brown sauce. Delicious!

  86. Red light is now flashing. All hands on deck. The straw that breaks the..

    Early Day Motions for Shabana Mahmood – MPs and Lords

    UK Parliament
     https://members.parliament.uk › member › earlydaymoti…
    List of Early Day Motions (EDMs) by Shabana Mahmood. RECORDING OF ISLAMOPHOBIA AS A CRIME.

    1. And I suppose the lobotomised little authoritarians in the parliamentary Labour party will obediently line up to vote for it.

  87. There seems to have been a very interesting palestine-related event in Qatar, Anyone know the details?

  88. There seems to have been a very interesting palestine-related event in Qatar, Anyone know the details?

  89. A Roman Catholic is specifically excluded from succession to the throne. The Sovereign must, in addition, be in communion with the Church of England and must swear to preserve the established Church of England and the established Church of Scotland. The Sovereign must also promise to uphold the Protestant succession.

    The Duchess of Kent will have a Roman Catholic funeral – it will be the first occasion when this has happened in the current royal family.

    But if a Roman Catholic, a Christian, cannot accede to the throne then surely it would not be unreasonable to demand that the holder of any of the great offices of state should be a Christian and not a Muslim or a follower of any other religion.

    By this reasoning the current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, whose Muslim faith is the most important thing in her life, should never have been appointed.

      1. A good idea!

        Many hypocritical politicians might claim to be Christians but it would be rather more difficult for a woman such as Shabana Mahmood, whose Muslim faith is the most important thing in her life, to claim that she is a Christian!

      2. No. KIng first, God second as the old quote goes. Countries that let religion dominate always end up totalitarian.

  92. Stop press – Sebastien Lecornu has been nominated as the new French prime minister. One of Toyboy's party – "he is unmarried". He won't last, I promise you!

    2. Of course the old euphemism for a chap being a homosexual was that he was not the marrying kind.

      1. If I were the marrying kind,
        Which thank the lord I’m not sir,
        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a rugby full-back.

        And he’d find touch,
        and I’d find touch,
        We’d both find touch together.

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Finding touch together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be wing three-quarter.

        And he’d go hard,
        And I’d go hard,
        We’d both go hard together.

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Going hard together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a centre three-quarter.

        And he’d pass it out,
        And I’d pass it out,
        We’d both pass it out together,

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Passing it out together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a rugby fly-half.
        And he’d whip it out,
        And I’d whip it out,
        We’d both whip it out together,

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Whipping it out together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a rugby scrum-half.

        And he’d put it in,
        And I’d put it in,
        We’d both put it in together,

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Putting it in together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a rugby hooker.

        And he’d strike hard,
        And I’d strike hard.
        We’d both strike hard together.

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Striking hard together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a big prop-forward.

        And he’d bind tight,
        And I’d bind tight,
        We’d both bind tight together,

        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Binding tight together.

        If I were the marrying kind,
        etc…

        The kind of man that I would wed,
        Would be a referee.
        And he would blow,
        And I would blow,
        We’d both blow together,
        We’d be alright in the middle of the night,
        Blowing hard together.
        https://www.erc69.nl/song/if-i-were-the-marrying-kind/

        1. The version I sang was the non-poof version:

          " ………. the kind of girl that I would marry would be a full-back's daughter"

          etc.

        2. Number Eight's daughter – she'd sniff butt, and I'd sniff butt, we'd both sniff butt together.

          Second Row's daughter – she'd grab crotch, and I'd grab crotch, we'd both grab crotch together.

    4. "he is unmarried".

      I'm unmarried. In a perfect world, I wouldn't be. But here I am, aged 68. Sometimes, life doesn't work out as one would wish. If my marital status is now a problem, I'll willingly close the site down at the end of the month, in alignment with my "enforced" retirement as a church organist. And you lucky married folks can carry on without me.

      1. I too am unmarried largely because circumstance conspired to have it that way. I’d welcome a husband, children and grandchildren but I do have family and friends who care and for that I’m grateful. How is your sight? There was someone on my ward at HH who’d had bypass surgery and is diabetic and experiencing sight problems.

      2. There might be one or two (not me, honest guv!) on here who might challenge the phrase 'lucky' married folks……

    1. 80 million and he charges us for gas on his second home.

      The French are getting closer to revolution.

      What does he think will happen here?

      There will be people lining the streets watching.

      Then cheering.

      1. His "£80,000,000 is all in Carbon Credits", not easy to cash in, which is why he's such a Net Zero zealot.

      3. Can you imagine, 80 million farts would cause so much pollution.
        Maybe that'll be his next project.

    2. More like, reclaim your country before it's too late. And with the lily livered politicicans of all parties, it probably is already too late.

      1. I’m not sure it’s supposed to be Winston, Eddy! I think it’s a depiction of Mr. Modern UK, and I’m not too sure I like it, although I agree with the sentiment!

  100. FFS – for the second time in this year's Vuelta the race has been seriously compromised by a bunch of pro-Gaza demonstrators. Luckily this time there was a "finish" so someone did win the stage, but 8 kilometres short of the planned finish. The organisers are trying to get Israel – Premier Tech to leave the race; they are [rightly in my view] saying that that would be giving in to terrorism. I thought the Spanish would be more robust with the protestors but it seems they too are wary of those with "protected status"?

      1. Word's out that they are very wary of offending Muslims and so open themselves up to terrorist attacks.
        But the PSOE has always been pro Palestine and anti Israel for as long as i remember going back to one of the first legal PSOE meetings I attended I think in 1977.

        2. Yes, back in the late 1970s it was cool to be left wing in Spain.

          Are you planning to write your memoirs one day, 'Fifty Years a Guiri'?

      2. Back in 1492, their argument with the Jews was that the latter had conspired with the Moors by paying the jizya tax.

        1. Worse that that, Jewish money lenders were lending the Moors money which allowed them to wage war.

  101. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    When the government of Qatar condemned the Israeli airstrike in Doha as a ‘cowardly’ act, it revealed less about the operation itself than about the priorities of the state voicing the charge. In reality, the strike was an extraordinary and unprecedented move: Israel launched a precision airstrike inside Qatari territory targeting senior Hamas leadership, aiming to eliminate figures at the apex of the group’s external political and financial hierarchy. It was a direct and deliberate attack on the masterminds behind terrorism, carried out by Israeli fighter aircraft with exceptional range and accuracy. The operation marked a bold assertion of Israeli extraterritorial power and strategic doctrine.

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    There is nothing cowardly in striking the heart of an organisation responsible for one of the most cold-blooded and deliberate acts of mass violence in the region in recent memory. There is nothing timid in sending fighter jets thousands of kilometres beyond one’s borders to hunt the masterminds of a terrorist war machine. There is, in fact, only one word that accurately captures such an act: bravery.

    This was an operation of principle and precision, carried out by the only Jewish state in the world – a country under siege since the day of its founding, and yet one that still upholds the duty of self-defence without apology. Israel has done what so many others fear to do: pursue the architects of mass murder wherever they may hide, even in the glittering towers of Gulf affluence. It is the exact opposite of cowardice. It is the projection of resolve.

    According to reports, the Israeli strike was aimed at the senior-most tier of Hamas’s external political and financial command structure. Among those believed to have been present in the building at the time of the attack were Khalil al-Hayya, a veteran leader from Gaza and one of the movement’s key wartime negotiators; Zaher Jabarin, head of Hamas’s financial apparatus and architect of its global investment networks; Mohammad Ismail Darwish, chairman of the group’s powerful Shura Council; and Khaled Meshaal, former political bureau chief and long-time figurehead of Hamas abroad. Though the full casualty list remains unconfirmed, sources affiliated with Hamas have acknowledged the deaths of al-Hayya’s son and chief of staff – significant in themselves, and suggestive of proximity to senior leadership. The Saudi channel Al Arabiya has reported that both al-Hayya and Jabarin were killed in the strike.

    These are not symbolic figures. They are not mere mouthpieces or bureaucrats. These are the men who fuel, fund, justify and direct Hamas’s campaign of murder and hostage-taking. They operate from luxury abroad while thousands die in Gaza, commanding and sustaining a terrorist structure that thrives on destruction. To strike at them is to cut at the spine of Hamas’s operational coherence.

    Israeli sources say this operation had been in planning for months, with weekly consultations across intelligence and military command to ensure operational readiness. The decision to proceed followed what officials described as a hardening of Hamas’s negotiating posture – an indication that diplomatic paths were being used only as delaying tactics by a leadership convinced of its own impunity. Israel, however, had not forgotten its pledge: that those responsible for the 7 October atrocities would be pursued wherever they were. Unlike so many actors on the world stage, it does not trade in hollow threats.

    And neither, crucially, does the United States. The coordination climate is worth noting. A reported joint air patrol involving Qatari, American and British aircraft was in the skies during the strike. The Centcom commander had visited Israel just days before. Yet Israel has taken full ownership of the action, with the Prime Minister’s Office declaring unambiguously: ‘Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.’

    This moment also marks a geopolitical shift. Through actions such as these, Israel is continuing to assert its new role not merely as a defensive regional actor, but as a decisive one: a state that will strike far beyond its borders to uphold its interests and punish its enemies. Israel is gradually asserting itself as a regional superpower, able and willing to act to change the balance of power and level of threat in the entire region. This does not go unnoticed in the region: ten warplanes participated in the raids on Qatar, covering a distance of 1,800km and passing over Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. They launched ten missiles at the headquarters of the Hamas delegation meeting in Doha. Nobody stopped them. These were the same countries which actively helped Israeli defence against ballistic missiles launched from Iran. Some reports even suggest Britain may have played a part. It’s important to observe how these states act when the heat rises, rather than listen too literally to what they say in hand-wringing, pearl clutching statements after the event.

    This Israeli transformation is taking place with the unambiguous backing of the United States, whose own credibility has been reinforced in turn. This is not the language of appeasement, but the grammar of deterrence. Donald Trump clearly understands the weight of threats followed by consequences. Obama’s red lines in Syria, and Biden’s ‘don’t’ to Iran were both worthless. Trump’s ‘gates of hell’ and ‘last warning’ to Hamas turn out to actually mean something. That posture, the promise of retribution and the certainty of its arrival, is what makes peace possible in a region where weakness invites catastrophe.

    Israel proved not only its intent, but its capability

    Those who decry these actions from the sidelines, whether in Europe, Canada, or elsewhere, are not standing for law or peace. They are standing aside. And in doing so, they are forfeiting relevance in the future security order of the Middle East. To condemn those who act, while shielding or excusing those who slaughter, is not neutrality, it is abdication.

    In time, more details will emerge of who exactly was killed. Hamas, like all terrorist organisations, lies first and revises later. This pattern has repeated with precision: immediately after the strike in Doha, Hamas sources claimed none of the senior leadership had been eliminated. But then came the first admissions. The same pattern played out following previous Israeli strikes on Mohammed Deif, Abu Ubaida, and even Ismail Haniyeh: denials followed by gradual confirmation as truth caught up with propaganda.

    Even if not every target in this strike was eliminated, Israel did what it said it would do: it proved not only its intent, but its capability. The real message is that it can act, and it will. This is now a consistent doctrine. It has done so in Yemen, eliminating Houthi commanders; in Iran, where nuclear scientists have been targeted; in Lebanon, where senior Hezbollah operatives have been struck; and now in Qatar, where Hamas leaders believed themselves untouchable. No one is untouchable. Not anymore.

    Even when individual missions fall short of complete tactical success, they reinforce a deeper strategic reality: There is no sanctuary. There is no safety. Not in the bunkers of Gaza, not in the compounds of Beirut, not in the high-rises of Doha.

    As the new regional superpower of the Middle East, Israel is proving it can act as and when needed, even inside Qatar, one of the the richest and one of the most politically powerful states in the Arab world. In an age where evil no longer hides, only strength will suffice.

    WRITTEN BY
    Jonathan Sacerdoti
    Jonathan Sacerdoti is a broadcaster and writer covering politics, culture and religion

  102. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    What a difference 48 hours can make. On Saturday afternoon, Lord Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the United States, was treading the green and pleasant lawns of Ditchley Park near Oxford, where he was giving the annual lecture to an audience made up for the most part of the great and the good of UK foreign policy.

    The landscape was quintessential England, it was a perfect late summer day, with golden light. Mandelson’s subject, nicely timed for ten days before the US President’s second state visit, was ‘Britain and America in the Age of Trump – and Beyond’. He managed, in characteristic Mandelson fashion, to argue that in most respects the interests of the UK and the US were aligned, while also noting the constraints of the ‘special relationship’ – a term he seemed not to place in inverted commas.

    Then, on Tuesday morning came the publication, thanks to a Congressional subpoena, of a birthday greeting that Donald Trump has strenuously denied he penned for the then-unconvicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. Also in the news came the details of other birthday well wishers, including Bill Clinton, billionaire Leon Black, Harvard law school professor, Alan Dershowitz and… one Peter Mandelson.

    As much as the timing of Mandelson’s lecture was ideal – uncontentiously raising the curtain on what could be a difficult state visit – the timing of the birthday-book revelations could hardly have been worse, at least from a UK government perspective. It is a visit, as Mandelson indicated, that has been carefully choreographed to maximise ceremony and avoid controversies. Agreements to be signed will focus on technology, an area that everyone can agree is a jolly good thing that plays to both countries’ strengths. This now risks being sullied by a double taint.

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    Now, just to be contrarian for a moment, it might be just about possible to argue that for Mandelson and Trump to have a common ‘pal’ in the late Jeffrey Epstein – an association a long time ago now regretted by both – could be an asset that adds a certain something to the UK-US ‘special relationship’. Mandelson and Trump’s worlds have overlapped before; they have more in common than might have been thought. Personal diplomacy is the way Trump works. But how good a look is it really for the US President and ‘our man in Washington’ to share a common taint – real or alleged? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

    Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States – the top job in UK diplomacy – was not without controversy, both because it is unusual for the UK to make top diplomatic appointments on political grounds, but also because of Mandelson himself and the various scandals that beset his political career. Personally, having seen Mandelson on visits to Washington in the late 1990s, I had different concerns, about his ability to communicate effectively on the other side of the Atlantic, and whether he could learn to ‘speak American’.

    That particular concern was swiftly allayed. Mandelson has applied all his personal charm and savvy with evident success, helped along by an unconventional President who appreciates the personal approach. He would appear to have won the ear of Donald Trump in record time, and the careful programme put together for the President’s second state visit is one result.

    But the revelation of Mandelson’s Epstein association, it seems to me, makes for a problem. If these documents had been public, or even mooted, as Mandelson was being considered for HM ambassador to the US, would he have been appointed? I very much doubt it. We are not talking about a contested signature here, which is the main issue with the alleged Trump greeting to Epstein, but a cheery personal message and photographs whose authenticity would appear beyond reproach.

    And yes, those were different times, when blind eyes were often turned to the doings of super-rich men, with their private planes, pleasure-islands and attractive young women at their beck and call.

    But this is now, and it is not acceptable for a public figure to have been associated with a convicted paedophile, such as Epstein, who committed suicide while awaiting trial for sex-trafficking. The perils may be less for Trump than for many others: with Trump, certain behaviours are effectively factored in and did not prevent him gaining an electoral mandate. But even he understands the potential damage from the Epstein birthday card, which is why, rather than laughing it off, he chose to sue the Wall Street Journal.

    And in the UK? If the latest Epstein revelations would have scuppered Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador, how acceptable is it for him now to stay in his job? How far might those photos complicate Mandelson’s ability to command respect as UK ambassador in Washington – in a country where the Epstein files, real and rumoured, have become a touchstone political issue?

    Even a distant and publicly regretted association with Epstein, or someone else of his ilk, is going to weigh heavily on the CV of anyone who is in public life. Mandelson will no doubt survive to see the successful progress of Donald Trump through the UK next week, but then? That is another tricky item that will be surely be landing in Sir Keir Starmer’s already overflowing inbox.

    WRITTEN BY
    Mary Dejevsky
    Mary Dejevsky is a writer, broadcaster, and former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington.

  103. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    So at last, the vexed question of who is going to succeed the now 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch has been settled. A deal has been announced that reveals that Murdoch’s eldest son Lachlan, the chairman of News Corp and CEO of Fox Corporation, will now be taking control of the family business. His siblings – sisters Prudence and Elisabeth and younger brother James – will each surrender their shares and any influence in the company to him, in exchange for a pay-out estimated at just over a billion dollars each. This concludes a torrid saga that was widely believed to be the major inspiration behind Jesse Armstrong’s acclaimed show Succession – and has ended in a surprisingly similar fashion.

    Rupert Murdoch, love him or loathe him, is nobody’s fool

    Rupert Murdoch, love him or loathe him, is nobody’s fool. He has a fair claim to be the single most consequential figure in newspaper publishing since Lord Beaverbrook. His canniness perhaps led him to concerns that the liberal-leaning James and Elisabeth, in particular, might attempt to dilute the right-wing politics that the News Corp empire has largely built its success and reputation on.

    Lachlan was therefore always his chosen successor, or, in the parlance of Logan Roy from the show, his “number one boy”. To this end, Murdoch had attempted to alter a family trust that would have divided the corporation equally between his four eldest children to allow it to pass directly to Lachlan, but his efforts in this regard were unsuccessful. Last year, both he and Lachlan were accused of “bad faith” in this attempt by a Reno court, which means that this resolution, expensive though it might be, is as conclusive, and successful, as they both might have wished for.

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    Given that Lachlan has been in day-to-day charge of the business since September 2023, with his father given the honorary title of ‘chairman emeritus’, it is unlikely that anything very considerable will change in the future. Although it was suggested that Rupert was queasy about Donald Trump, and had leaned closer to supporting the Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Lachlan has no such qualms about solid MAGA values. He is likely then to continue his empire’s backing of the US president and, doubtless, JD Vance if and when he chooses to run. It is unlikely that James and Elisabeth, in particular, would have been so wholehearted in their support of the Republicans, but now they have been handsomely paid off, the question of their personal sympathies no longer affects News Corp’s day to day running.

    Succession showed the Roy family being similarly and violently torn apart, as the three siblings Kendall, Shiv and Roman (with their elder half-brother Connor lurking in the background) initially appeared to unite to frustrate media mogul Lukas Matsson’s takeover of their company Waystar RoyCo, but their long-standing enmities and rivalries eventually saw them betray one another, allowing Matsson to come in through them and appoint the buffoonish Tom Wambsgans as CEO. It is unlikely that Lachlan will do anything so extreme: NewsCorp will remain a Murdoch family business for the forseeable future.

    Yet the highly publicised schism has led to a rupture in relations – only Lachlan was present for Rupert’s fourth wedding to the Russian biologist Elena Zhukova last year – and when it is time for the magnate to ascend to the great newspaper building in the sky, he may wonder whether his politicking and manipulation was worth it, after all. Or on the other hand, this notably unsentimental man, if asked whether he regretted his actions, might take a leaf out of Logan’s book and repeat his catchphrase, a hearty “Fuck off!” In either case, this most fascinating of media sagas appears to be at an end – but in the ever-effervescent world of the Murdochs, you wouldn’t count against a late-breaking headline-grabber, either.

    WRITTEN BY
    Alexander Larman
    Alexander Larman is an author and books editor of Spectator World, our US-based edition

  104. GOALLLL Harry Kane against Serbia.
    I've never seen such fake injuries and pathetic diving. 2 nil already, another goal for England.

  106. May I ask please what has happened to the superfluous remark by Stigence regarding one of my earlier comments. He appeared to be belittling me on some sort of supposed error in my grammar.
    It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened. I told him frankly that I don't need this in my life. I'm here because I find it a very enjoyable entertaining part of my life.
    It was bad enough when the bullying, 'peddy the viking' was involved here picking fault. I don't want to leave this site, but can someone please have a word. Such unnecessary criticism is not at all relevant or really necessary.
    Plenty of mistakes are made on here
    in grammar or spelling, but it's irrelevant and mainly all about having a bit of fun and a general sense of proportion.
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well 😴

    3. Don't worry , he says daft things to me .. I began to question whether he was Peter Anderson / Peddy , but hails from the wrong part of the country .
      Perhaps Stig is an articled clerk ?

    5. Don't let it get to you, Eddy – Stig has been very touchy recently and has closed and reopened his account twice. He's not the same as he used to be – maybe a problem of some sort. Whatever he's said – don't let it get to you. We all enjoy your company here.
      See you tomorrow.

      1. Well said, Ndovu. Unless Geoff intervenes, far as I'm concerned it's not serious – sticks n stones etc. And thanks to you as Moderator, too.

      3. It seems he might have disagreed with you Ellie, sadly some one has down voted you twice.
        Thanks for your support. 🤗

    6. It was a snide remark – uncalled for – but I've let it stand. Your 'double negative' could be taken either way – that Starmer has no interest in farming (and doesn't care) or that he has – and wants to wreck farming.

    7. Ignore the twit. Your comments are very much to be welcomed by me and many others I am quite sure.

      Peddy the Viking is most probably dead. He was an unusual contributor with much of interest to say but overstepped the mark in his targeted criticism of others.

    8. Ignore the twit. Your comments are very much to be welcomed by me and many others I am quite sure.

      Peddy the Viking is most probably dead. He was an unusual contributor with much of interest to say but overstepped the mark in his targeted
      criticism of others.

  108. From the Telegraph
    At the risk of being arrested, I suggest Met chief Mark Rowley is a total muppet
    It is disingenuous in the extreme for the commissioner to say officers’ hands are tied in cases like that of Graham Linehan

    09 September 2025 7:27pm BST
    Careful how you answer this, but which of the following words best describes Sir Mark Rowley? Muppet, twerp, plonker, nitwit, wazzock, total wazzock, numpty, plank, tinpot or “pathetic little gremlin in a police hat that doesn’t fit”.

    That last one is the suggestion of Alan, a senior police officer and Telegraph reader. It’s fair to say that Alan is underwhelmed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s recent remarks on protecting free speech. Since the well-loved Irish comic writer Graham Linehan was arrested last week by five armed officers at Heathrow over a few tweets about transgender, the Met has been put under the spotlight and made to appear foolish.

    Even the Lefties have conceded it all looked a bit police state. Linehan, supported by the Free Speech Union, is suing for wrongful arrest. The testimony on the UK’s diminishing free speech by Nigel Farage to a US Congressional committee ramped up the pressure. A rattled Sir Mark has hit back saying he wants Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary, to change the law so police are not obliged to record or investigate complaints when there is no evidence that the suspect intended to cause real-world harm. Officers, he says, should be given more discretion to “use common sense”.

    At the risk of being handcuffed for causing “distress”, “alarm” or “anxiety”, I say: “Sir Mark, you disingenuous muppet, you!” It’s perfectly clear that the police have discretion to ignore complaints, even crimes, if they want to. Let’s see now:

    Phone theft – ignored.

    Shoplifting – essentially legal.

    Carjacking – we’ll send you a crime number.

    Burglaries – help yourself, lads!

    Sexual harassment, child gang rape – er, sorry, cultural sensitivities.

    For Sir Mark to claim that his officers were unable to use their common sense and ignore a complaint from a notorious trans activist about the Father Ted creator is to insult the public’s intelligence.

    Baroness Emma Nicholson nailed this weaselly dissimulation in a delicious letter to Sir Mark in which she unpicked the Commissioner’s logic with a glittering bodkin so lethal it could have been wielded by Jane Austen. She disputes that Linehan’s “F— ’em” tweet was an incitement to sexual activity nor that “Punch them in the balls” (advice given by every mother to a daughter encountering a male predator) was to be taken literally. “If your officers can identify one phrase as not meant literally,” she wrote, “surely they ought to be able to do that with the other and dismiss the complaint.”

    You could cut your hand on the Baroness’s scorn. She goes on to accuse the Met of allowing itself, to all appearances, to be “exploited as tools” by former police constable Lynsay Watson, a long-time Linehan trans antagonist. Dismissed for gross misconduct by Leicestershire Police, Watson is a serial litigant against several forces and institutions. “Were your colleagues wary of being added to the list? Were they simply ignorant? Or are they, as you assert, mere automatons impelled to act unthinkingly once their buttons are pushed?” Baroness Nicholson enquired innocently.

    Her closing salvo has entered the annals of political satire: “Instead of blaming Parliament for your officers’ inability to think for themselves intelligently, perhaps you might firmly tell them, please, to stop being stupid.”

    Oooff! That must have put Commissioner Rowley off his brekkie.

    Recommended

    Equally incredulous is Cathy Larkman, a former Welsh superintendent, who was caught up in an online trans row. Police spent 10 months investigating Larkman, who did 30 years of proud service, for – brace yourselves – calling a transgender activist Fred instead of Freda. Two police officers showed up at Larkman’s house over three tweets (one was two years old) which, as she says, came “nowhere near” the high bar for malicious communication. Asked by Talk TV’s Kevin O’Sullivan for her reaction to Sir Mark’s remarks about the Linehan arrest, Larkman said: “Officers have discretion. To suggest they had no choice is poppycock.”

    I do hope poppycock hasn’t created feelings of harassment, alarm or distress in any poppies who may or may not be in possession of male genitalia at the present time. Can’t be too careful, can we?

    Larkman says she laughed because it was “so ridiculous”. Linehan says he laughed as the officer interviewing him parroted the received trans wisdom about “gender assigned at birth”. (“But he’s a man,” Linehan objected.) Baroness Nicholson sent the whole thing up uproariously. All three are to be highly commended for their defiant wit and sturdy grasp of reality.

    Alas, humour, although still legal at the time of writing, offers very little protection against the prevailing Orwellian madness. Mock the police as much as you like, for ridicule is the least the dolts deserve, but they continue to arrest 30 people every day for offensive online messages.

    This is seriously scary stuff. Over 13,000 bewildered citizens, including your columnist, were caught in the non-crime hate incident/hate crime dragnet in the last 12 months alone. A po-faced ideological purity finds mirth and banter insensitive and is allowed to inflict those views on a population which, by and large, can’t abide them. Look at the video, currently doing the rounds on social media, of an officer and his three colleagues apparently arresting a man for calling someone a “muppet”, commonly an expression of playful exasperation. Truly, we have come a long way from the gravelly, jaundiced detectives of my youth who would bark: “You’re nicked, ya muppet!” Today, The Sweeney’s Jack Regan would have had to arrest himself for using a British slang term that could potentially lead to a harassment charge under the Public Order Act 1986.

    I’m afraid it is simply not credible to claim, as Sir Mark Rowley does, that, if only the law were changed, the police would eagerly return to the good old days when they would greet cheeky quips or even loud-mouthed rudeness with a brisk: “Grow up, son!”

    Sir Mark, in his oversized hat, promotes the Met's community outreach programme with London mayor Sadiq Khan
    Sir Mark Rowley, in his oversized hat, promotes the Met’s community outreach programme with London mayor Sadiq Khan Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA
    The pattern is always the same. When the police want to behave like social-justice activists they demand “operational independence”. When they get found out suddenly they want “guidance”.

    None of this is by accident. The stretching or misinterpreting of legislation that was intended for genuinely threatening scenarios to intimidate or criminalise people for expressing legitimate opinions is deliberate policy. It is presided over by one of the worst, most un-British bodies in Britain: the College of Policing. This quango states its purpose is “to support everyone in policing to reduce crime and keep people safe, including by sharing knowledge and good practice”.

    Its true aim is more worrying, I think, and lacks democratic accountability. According to one senior officer, the College sees its role as promoting and supporting equality and diversity, and “supporting difference”. Entirely captured by transgender activists, the College brainwashes police officers to spout slogans like Maoist cultural revolutionaries – “Hateful and offensive! Hateful and offensive!” Anyone who hopes to climb the career ladder must be able to demonstrate their fidelity to progressive, Left-wing ideas, no matter how bonkers they may be.

    A mallet to free speech

    Only last month, the College issued guidance on female genital mutilation (FGM) which stated that “transwomen, with or without a gender recognition certificate” are just as threatened by FGM in the UK as “women and girls”. That is an abhorrent, grotesquely misogynist statement with no basis in biological science. Are millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money really being spent on an organisation which claims that the barbaric practice of slicing off of a labia, to deny females sexual pleasure, can be carried out on men who, by definition, don’t have a labia? What an insult to British womanhood.

    It was the College of Policing that came up with the Kafkaesque non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) which supposedly allowed police to collect information on “hate crimes” that could escalate into more serious offences. In practice, they have been a mallet to free speech.

    The police have not been afraid to weigh in on petty grievances and private matters of morality. Not afraid and not qualified. But online thought crime is one of the police’s few growth areas, a way of ushering in a progressive utopia, so why bother asking complainants about their motives?

    “The police now think their main purpose is not to uphold law and order but to protect certain identity groups who have been designated victims of historical injustice by the wokerati,” says Lord (Toby) Young, founder and general secretary of the Free Speech Union. “And not just protect them from ‘hate crime’ but from hurty words too.” While Young accepts that the original intention may have been benign, “police have allowed themselves to be turned into the paramilitary wing of the radical progressive movement”.

    He’s absolutely right, and it should chill our blood. Seeing the danger, Suella Braverman, when she was home secretary, wanted to scrap the College of Policing but there was no way Rishi Sunak or No 10 were going to agree to anything that radical. Instead, Braverman introduced statutory guidance for NCHIs which set out clear examples of when free speech should be protected. She included instances of people like Graham Linehan expressing “gender critical views” and made it clear they should not be NCHIs. The police ignored the guidance.

    On Tuesday, Sir Andy Cooke, the head of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the police watchdog, said officers should “separate the offensive from the criminal” and that “non-crime hate incidents are no longer required”. Well, well, well, that’s a screeching handbrake turn Jack Regan would have been proud of in his gold Ford Granada.

    Common-sense response?

    I took a look at the statutory code of practice for the recording of NCHIs which became law in June 2023 under sections 60 and 61 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. As well as stipulating a proportionate, common-sense police response, it states that the terms “subject” and “complainant” should be used, not “suspect” and “victim”.

    Funny, then, that the two policemen who came to my door last Remembrance Sunday told me, when I asked who my accuser was, that they were to be known as “the victim”.

    We don’t like to think these things are political, do we? Those of us who were raised to respect and trust the police still, despite everything, long to respect and trust them, not look at a passing panda car with a frisson of dislike. So I was upset, quite shaken actually, when my solicitor told me recently that the body-cam footage Essex Police handed over shows one of the two officers, before they rang my bell, saying quite clearly, “Daily Telegraph journalist.”

    “There is no doubt in my mind that they wanted to make an example of you, Allison,” says my senior source in that wokest of forces. Because, like Graham Linehan and the thousands of others they hound and arrest, often over the sum total of nothing, our two-tier police targets people like me who apparently have the “wrong” views, while anti-Semitic posts are excused as “in the heat of the moment”.

    So, no, Sir Mark Rowley, we don’t need a change in the law to return to common sense. We need a change in the police. A huge change, a purging of the activists, a bonfire of woke propaganda, a return to policing for the many not the few.

    The College of Policing must be scrapped. And you, Commissioner, should tender your resignation for the shameful arrest of a comic genius who has a hundred times more courage and integrity than you. Who cares if people are offended? That’s life. Take the good Baroness’s advice and stop your officers being stupid, you muppet. Oh, and get a hat that fits.

    More from Allison

    1. Wouldn’t piss on plod if he were on fire. What a way for the institution to fall – where i (like everyone here) was brought up to run to a policeman if on trouble.

  109. My twitter feed has failed again , and the idiots said they had sent a reactivate note to an old email. I have been with Twitter/ X since 2009 .

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0af03c12973f877765063483fa0ca33748808af7efcd9764ed4f0db33d922ca3.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8593145470ab74d65f974aeeae7f5c75d5dce3300e94b1776be443227c66c2a.jpg

    True_Belle
    67.8K posts

    True_Belle
    @True_Belle
    Life in the countryside can be very interesting , living here near the Dorset Jurassic coast . Been on Twitter since its birth . I am fed up with politicians !
    Purbeck Joined September 2009.

    I cannot access my profile .

    I lost the real me probably last year , and had to re do my account , now I have lost both , so feel really and truly peed off.

    1. Can't you pick up either of them? Make sure you don't run CCleaner again – at least you still have Nottl…… You'll need to start again, again……… have you still got facebook?

    2. I’ve given in and downloaded the X app, which I didn’t really want to do but it refuses to open in Safari and without the work laptop, that’s all I have on my phone. Irritating!

    4. There's quite a lot of stuff in the Help screens – can you try getting them to help you get back in?

    5. I was banned some years back and decided it was a bear pit and didnt go back. I can still see content but not post. How about just registering as a new account, you may have to use another email.

      1. That's what she did a few months ago – but she has now lost access to both. Probably due to injudicious use of CCcleaner yesterday.

        I was suspended for five months in 2020 – which was annoying…… all because I couldn't receive a text due to having no phone for several months that year. It took ages to get their 'Help' people to unsuspend me eventually. I was still able to use the Hedgehog Hospital account though.

  110. Well, chums, today has been another good one. So I've decided to have an early night. Good night all, see you all early tomorrow morning.

      2. Thanks, Conners. When you finally go to bed yourself – with Kadi and Winston sleeping nearby – I hope you have a restful night. Now I'm off to bed.

  111. Some butterfly species failed to thrive in the UK's hot summer after historical low numbers in 2024, a charity has said.

    The small white, large white and Jersey tiger moth were seen in record numbers in 2025, according to Butterfly Conservation.

    However, the holly blue, common blue and meadow brown had a poor year according to the charity's Big Butterfly Count, which recorded sightings by volunteers in July and August.

    The Dorset charity urged retailers to help end the "butterfly emergency" by removing synthetic pesticides from sale.

    Head of science Dr Richard Fox said: "Many of our common butterfly species are facing significant pressure from challenges linked to habitat loss, climate change and pesticide use.

    "We know the weather impacts their numbers and with the summer we've just had we should be seeing them in far greater numbers."
    The UK summer was the hottest on record, following the sunniest-ever spring, which the charity said provided good conditions.

    More than 125,000 members of the public submitted sightings to the Big Butterfly Count, which was launched in Winchester, Hampshire, on 18 July and ran until 10 August.

    The most numerous species were the large white, small white, gatekeeper, red admiral and meadow brown.

    The small white recorded its best-ever year despite a record low in 2024, which had a wet spring and cool summer.

    However, the small tortoiseshell, which had its worst count in 2024, recorded a below-average year and has declined by 60% since 2011, according to the East Lulworth-based charity, external.

    It said this year's overall figure of 10.3 butterflies seen per 15 minutes was "only broadly average by modern standards and has done little to reverse longer-term declines".

    Dr Fox said trends over 15 years showed more than twice as many widespread species had declined significantly compared with those that had increased in number.

    He said: "There remains a need for us to take urgent action to support our butterfly populations, including improving the environment in which they live, restoring habitats and reducing pesticide use.

    "Until we do these things we are unlikely to see a great recovery in butterfly numbers, regardless of how much the sun shines."

    1. We didn't take part in the count, although we have been members of BC for over 30 years, but numbers in our garden and around here were better than usual. Nothing out of the ordinary, but last year was quite poor and there were certainly more around this year. But lots of things affect them, apart from weather – like conditions over the winter, survival of the caterpillars, abundance of their foodplants, pesticide usage in the countryside and gardens……..many factors.

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