Wednesday 10 July: Britain needs sustainable new towns – not more slapdash developments

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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619 thoughts on “Wednesday 10 July: Britain needs sustainable new towns – not more slapdash developments”

    1. It is! Been hard at it this last week, and I'm totally destroyed. Normally I just do office work, not building / farming / demoloition, you name it. Even the aches have aches.

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Plumbers Я Us

    Isaac and Yetta had been married for forty years and had got pretty used to caring for each other, to the extent even that, after visiting the bathroom, he would leave the seat down for her, and she would leave the seat up for him.

    One day, however, Isaac had other things on his mind and forgot to lower the seat. So, the next time Yetta went in there, she sat down as usual and got firmly stuck! She called to Isaac for help, but try as he might, he was unable to free her.

    "It's no good, Yetta, I'll have to call the plumber," he said.

    "But I can't have a stranger seeing me all exposed like this," she wailed.

    So, Isaac took off his black yarmulke and placed it so as to preserve her modesty. He then called the plumber, who came along and told him to wait outside the bathroom. There was the sound of much pulling, pushing, tugging and shoving until finally the plumber came out and said "I have good news and bad news."

    "What do you mean?" asked Isaac.

    "The good news is that your wife is now free," said the plumber.

    "And the bad news?" Isaac asked anxiously.

    The plumber replied, "I'm afraid we lost the Rabbi!"

      1. A Rabbi traditionally wears a yarmulke (my spelling) the small black skull-cap. Ask any Jewish friends for help.

  4. Morning folks.

    There is an exceptional piece of investigative journalism on the DT's website. Well worth reading if you subscribe (but too long to copy & paste)

    "Lucy Letby: Serial killer or a miscarriage of justice?
    Experts question evidence after former nurse found guilty of ‘cynical campaign of child murder’

    (Comparisons are being drawn with the Post Office prosecutions)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/lucy-letby-serial-killer-or-miscarriage-justice-victim/

    1. Morning Stephen. I didn't read up on the details of this case but it had the aroma of a miscarriage.

    2. Beat me to it.
      It is a very detailed article which really is too long to post as 'reader'.
      I have always felt uncomfortable about the case and this piece confirms my feelings.
      It reads as if the hospital management and its staff were looking for a scapegoat to cover the fact that the hospital as not suitable for the very specialised work that it had somehow undertaken.
      Good to see the DT undertaking investigative journalism.

      1. It is true that this case is stuffed with circumstantial evidence. Neverthless, it is up to the jury to decide whether guilt has been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

        Those like us with access only to online reports cannot be as well placed as those presented with all the evidence that can be produced and tested by a set of advocates employed to put both sides of the argument and presided over by an experienced and impartial judge.

        This does not rule out a stitch-up though, and there have been far too many miscarriages of justice not to warrant serious public suspicion of an institutional breakdown. If Letby has been scapegoated, then further trials at more senior levels are overdue.

        A day's grovelling in front of a select committee, followed by bonuses as usual, will not do.

        [edit because of irritating smartware slowing up the system and slipping in typos]

    1. Higher levels of magnesium in the body are associated with better sleep, longer sleep times, and less tiredness during the day. Studies of older adults also found that magnesium supplementation helped with falling asleep faster and protected against waking up earlier than intended.

      https://www.sleepfoundation.org/magnesium

  7. 389606+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 10 July: Britain needs sustainable new towns – not more slapdash developments

    Wednesday 10 July: Britain needs sustainable new towns – not more slapdash developments for the very reason if truth be told
    ALL the established ones are beyond full and the
    re-population program is in jeopardy of stalling due to the indigenous taking the unfortunate stance of " wising up"

    It is in the planning pipeline that Little Paki and Mogadishu will be the first constructed from flat packs to relieve pressure on the hotel campaign, we are in point of fact opening a second front
    on the proposed "Take over" coup,

    1. Morning Johnny, Clouding over now and rain forecast for later (yellow warning in place)

    1. I have only read the first 30 minutes of this, and time is short at present, but I shall continue and watch the entire interview when time permits. I have seen more than enough in 30 minutes to give it an upvote.

      1. Its very shocking what has gone on. With governments not facing up to the very real problem they have caused.

  10. Islamist intimidation is poisoning our politics. 10 July 2024.

    A peaceful democracy depends on the maintenance of certain conditions and behaviours. These include allowing MPs to go about their business safe from intimidation and threats, freedom of movement without fear for all members of society, and a zero tolerance approach to racism and misogyny.

    One of the oddities of Cultural Marxism is that it has raised the profile of all those things that it was meant to abolish

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/islamist-intimidation-is-poisoning-our-politics/

  11. Good morning, chums, and thank you Geoff for Wednesday's NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,117 5/6

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  12. Putin is about to deliver Nato’s final humiliation. Hamish de Crettin-Gordon.

    There should be no surprise over the barbaric Russian attack on a children’s hospital and maternity clinic in Kyiv this week, killing 36 people – it’s what Moscow does. Between 2014 and 2022, during the Syrian civil war, on over 1,000 occasions I saw how the Russians and Assad regime wilfully attacked hospitals and healthcare workers; how the attacks ultimately enabled them subjugate the population, utilising every method of war – including chlorine gas – to destroy the will of civilians to resist.

    This is typical of what one gets in the MSM nowadays. Complete and utter lies that rival the 1914 atrocity propaganda about the German Army.

    The first thing of course is that Assad was fighting an Islamist insurgency financed and organised by the West and its proxies. Its aim was to destroy Syria. Hamish almost certainly played a part in this as a representative of Mi6. I have no personal doubts that he was also the person behind the False Flag chemical attacks. There is a single signature to them all. If he had his way this would be repeated with Ukraine and Russia. His attitude is now almost ascendant in the West.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/putin-is-about-to-humiliate-nato/

    1. I wonder what the cretin thinks about people dead from a chemical attack getting up when they thought the filming had finished.
      The little child rescued multiple times by different men.
      The woman with terrible injuries laughing and joking with the ambulance crew.
      I'm sure there are more. These people are not very bright.

      Good morning.

  14. Britain needs sustainable new towns – not more slapdash developments

    How does one create a sustainable town with no industry or services and means of travel elsewhere to work all under net zero?

    1. For sustainable read 15 minutes neighbourhoods. Basically, it's an open prison with Blair's digital ID, face-recognition surveillance and cancellation for breaking the rules all acting as the razor wire topped walls.

      To mangle the Eagles' lyrics "You cannot check out and you can never leave". Well, not until your termination date.

      1. “The Fixed Period” by Antony Trollope. Life imitating art again.

      1. That's the word I was looking for! Could only think of the Weegie "kyllinger", and that was no help!

    1. Ooops
      Are some Nimbys more equal than others
      Do we have two tier Nimbyism under Labour?

    2. He missed the opportunity to become a multimillionaire, they usually take huge bungs from the developer's.

      1. Isn't this what "growth" is about? Truss overegged the pudding, but Starmer was clever enough not to let on until it could be forced on the nation as a fait accompli.

  17. Good morning, all. They WERE lying about today being sunny. Grey and damp. God, it's depressing. Bloody labour government.

  18. Par 4 today

    Wordle 1,117 4/6

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  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bright but not warm at the moment 20c by lunchtime. Really ?.
    We don't need more housing it will wreck the countryside and destroy already established towns and villages. We don't have and never will have the infrastructure to cope, we need less people, not an encouragement for more to turn up. . Why are our politicians so predominantly thick ?

    1. 389606+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Will he find it to hot to stay in rotherham, or even England, enen with police protection that will surely be offered.

    2. Another one.
      Osama Bin Laden's right hand man is here living on benefits in a million £ house all provided courtesy of the British taxpayer.
      There are also several retired Hamas leaders living in London on benefits in taxpayer paid for accommodation.
      Why do we do this?

      1. 389506+ up ticks,

        Morning Pip,
        In my book many find it easier to go with the flow, and the flow was
        re-routed about four decades ago,
        Many eventually found it more comforting not to admit to being wrong in the polling stations but to follow the usual voting pattern as mum & did did.

        These last years since the referendum have proved to me that England has found it very hard to “walk alone” and independently of foreign intrusion.

    3. Why are they here? Why has the government not deported them? Why are we paying for them? Frankly, every middle easterner travelling through the UK should be finger printed, face ID'd and DNA sample taken.

      2. 389606+ up ticks,
        Morning W,

        Completely agree, instead we seem to have via “miranda” the creature that crept from the crypt in the park public toilet after a cottaging mission, wanting those needs for the indigenous peoples.

  21. Good morning all,

    Grey but slowly clearing up at Castle McPhee. At least it's not raining. Breezy from the South-West going West, 11℃ and we should see 20℃ this afternoon. It's almost summer.

    What a catastrophe has befallen us. Who put these two in charge of anything?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/154a04ce6e7964992402db5de8f95ee898e7a5134a499bc652f53157932ed878.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Philip Johnston has got it broadly right but he should have been more precise. It's another front in the state's war against the British people.

    1. Somebody outspoken and significant has to stand up to and against these far left hatefilled idiots, they are wreckers.

        1. I think what will be happening since labour have become the government is going to seriously test his abilities.
          And question his sense of dedication towards general political sanity.
          Shame we don’t have proportional representation. The system stinks.

          1. If Reform win next time, the system will be working fine though. I'm in two minds. PR sounds fair but if zealots win support they would find it easier to cause trouble. With FPTP, a party would have to have majority support. The thing about FPTP is it can become a duo-monopoly to the detriment of democracy.

          2. We’ve never had a true democracy.
            More people vote against the incoming government every election.
            Proportional representation is the only way forward.

      2. Folk try. The state sets out to ruin them. Has anyone been sacked from Coutts/halifax over their comments about Farage? Only the top boss, and she no doubt has slid into a new non-job.

    2. I have been studiously ignored by those with influence who decide what we are to think and who cancel those impertinent enough to vary.

      Planning regulations are primarily there to protect the quality of life of all of us, which includes preserving national heritage from despoilation. Whilst their implementation by conventional thinking jobsworths barely capable of passing the Turing Test are not helping, it is not the regulations that need changing so much as those administering them, which must include Government.

      Some suggest the problem lies with the construction industry – that we lack the resources in both skills and materials to build affordable homes viably without serious compromises over quality or availability, and by skimping on supporting infrastructure, leading to tons of sewage being dumped into rivers and flood plains being opened up for cheap housing, leaving payers of insurance premiums to pick up the tab.

      Others suggest, with some justification, that uncontrolled immigration caused to a major degree to cutbacks in border control and aggreement with international treaties on freedom of movement drawn up when the world's population was half what it is today and when the Earth's resources were not then overburdened by excess humanity. How can Africa and Asia fast breed into a climate catastrophe and think that the answer is to ape their colonial forebears and overspill into Europe, realising the error of their ways, and tries to cut back on the burden?

      The point that nobody, who is politically correct, cares to mention though is the effect of family breakdown and the perversion of the family unit, on housing demand. Put bluntly, you need twice as many family homes for a divorced couple than you do if the marriage stayed intact.

      Furthermore, treating private landlords as pariahs and targets of hate, to be bludgeoned with regulation and reliance on professionals with conflicts of interest might tackle the Rachmans, but the organised criminal with houses of illegals will find a way round the law. What this campaign does do though it to knock out the pensioner, often widowed, eager to remain in their homes, loved over many decades, who take in a lodger to fill the gaps and eke out the pension. This is a mutual benefit – someone setting out into independence, often very young and not yet settled down, can find a reliable home that is not a burden or a commitment that is unwise at that time of life, and in return provides companionship, a level of assistance, and a little money for a lonely old person. Yet, now they must employ a gas engineer each year to charge for recommending a new boiler, since this is where money is made.

      Not just the pensioner taking in a lodger, but also someone stretching finances to buy their first home, who could use the extra cash to bring down the mortgage a bit before starting a family and giving over the spare room to a nursery. Sometimes, this could be a house share between two sets of young people getting on the ladder and finding they can get on if a rung is placed half way.

      Yet we are told by Those That Know Better that planning reform is The Only Way. Do they lack imagination?

      1. An env health chap I know made the point that he investigates an HMO, the landlord slings out the offender(s) and puts new ones in and waits to get caught again. There is really nothing he can do as by the time he's caught up with the landlord there's no problem.

        Then there's the comical irony of writing to let them know of an inspection prior to doing so.

    3. It's clear that the state i.e. many within the political class, the civil service, NGOs/Quangos are waging a cultural war against the British people. The question is, why? I've read many times that that cabal "hate the British people" (I may have used those words myself) but that simple statement doesn't answer the question but poses other questions e.g. why do they hate us? What benefit will be derived from destroying the British people and the potential they offer? How does importing unruly, uneducated, anti-Christian, anti-Western culture and religious extremism improve the lot of these islands?

      The "diversity is our strength" mantra is complete tosh. The evidence is in plain view on the streets of many of our cities and towns but the cabal keep repeating the mantra. Perhaps the election of this Labour government will finally open the eyes and minds of the British people to the threat they, their children and their grandchildren are facing.

      1. Sadly, you are right. Until they are a sustained threat to the ruling elite the ruling elite will be in denial. As for why wokies have arisen, I blame the telly. Telly is a fiction and the best fiction is based upon social justice type stories. We now have generations which have been overly influenced by fiction/social justice values which distort reality. Arts graduates are the worst to be influenced. It is disastrous that most of our ruling elite are arts graduates – well, it is to be expected as they will all have promoted one another, with their echo chambers having become more and more distorted and distant from reality.

      2. Sadly, you are right. Until they are a sustained threat to the ruling elite the ruling elite will be in denial. As for why wokies have arisen, I blame the telly. Telly is a fiction and the best fiction is based upon social justice type stories. We now have generations which have been overly influenced by fiction/social justice values which distort reality. Arts graduates are the worst to be influenced. It is disastrous that most of our ruling elite are arts graduates – well, it is to be expected as they will all have promoted one another, with their echo chambers having become more and more distorted and distant from reality.

    4. That photo should have the caption, 'So this is the wrecking ball we're going to use.'

      Ang looks like she wants to go first.

  22. Having a new bathroom fitted
    Just been discussing how he will get the bath up the stairs
    I suggested not to fill it with water first
    Got a cold stare

    2. Watching the chaps carry the glass panes up ours – 2 sets of switch backs – was a bit like watching bomb disposal. The chaps stopped at the mid point. The fitter mentioned each pane – 2 metres high, 1 wide and 7mm thick weighed about 30kg I had a new found respect. Ignoring the giant slavering beasts eager to dash past them, the cat wandering about to trip them up.

      It was a huge logistics operation.

      1. Getting our corner bath upstairs was a trial, even though it didn't weigh very much. Many corners to navigate – and they could come in at the middle floor level, as well, avoiding the bottom flight of stairs.

    1. Job sounds a doddle. I'm a compulsive reader.
      May I have the job to supplement my pension?

      1. Only if you pay tax on it.
        There are a lot more labour mps who will be drawing expenses.

        1. Ah yes. Must keep the cherubs in the stye to which they have rapidly become accustomed.

    2. Anyone who proclaims to love books yet wants to destroy those she disagrees with does not love books.

      The purpose of reading is to learn. The point of the printing press was to share ideas.

      1. Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me
        From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

        When Prospero was exiled the good old Gonzago made sure he had some good reading matter to hand as he set off on his trip to the island where it turned out that, Caliban, the savage who was the 'hagseed' of his his mother the witch, Sycorax was the only native there. Those who have read or seen The Tempest will remember that Caliban tried to rape Miranda as savage natives on Mediterranean islands tend to do.

        When the well known actor, Richard Burton – who owned several houses – was asked which one was his home he replied: "Home is where the books are."

    5. But what strange art, what magic can dispose
      The troubled mind to change its native woes?
      Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
      Others more wretched, more undone than we?
      This BOOKS can do;–nor this alone; they give
      New views to life, and teach us how to live;
      They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they
      chastise,
      Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
      Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
      The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
      Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
      They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
      Nor tell to various people various things,
      But show to subjects what they show to kings.

      By George Crabbe

    1. I see the heavy artillery of Jordan Peterson (8.4 million subscribers) seized the chance to interview "someone who dare not speaketh his name" in Canada, and reveal to his wider audience the lengths at which UK politicos & Leftie civil serpents made an unholy alliance with a full blown religious fundamentalist nutjob group in order to cover up & hide a myriad of crime by everyone's fav religion of many peaces.

  25. "Sur mon tête, mon fils." "Malade comme un perroquet."

    Nothing going right for yer French this week!!

    1. He must be a politician.
      They talk out of their own arese's without noticing others.

  27. Good morning, all. Overcast at 06:00 is breaking up and sunshine is appearing. The hoe will see some action this morning followed by the mower after the grass has had a chance to dry out.

    Drinks evening at the Wivenhoe Black Buoy to look forward to.

    The Tories truly are in disarray: is it incompetence or something more nefarious? If the Tories continue with this level of performance and Reform acquit themselves well in Parliament and around the Country then there can only be one result.

    https://x.com/Con_Tomlinson/status/1810774111116722260

    1. It is a great pity that 69 sitting conservatives don't go and join Reform. Reform would then become HM Opposition!

      1. An excellent idea.

        One of the tragedies of this election is that even right of centre Conservative MPs failed to see before the election that the Conservative Party had moved too far to the left. They should have defected to the Reform Party seral months ago.

        Margaret Thatcher, on the right of the party won three general elections; even the faux right charlatan Johnson saw that he had to pretend to be right of centre to win a significant victory. On the other hand, David Cameron, on the left of the party only scraped in with the help of Nick Clegg; Theresa May who thought conservativism is nasty only scraped in with the help of the DUP. Why were Conservative MPs so thick that they could not see this?

        Jonathan Gullis, the ex-deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Braverman who lost his seat in Parliament last week seems to have learnt absolutely nothing. He said yesterday that Braverman is not the person to reunite Tories, and added: ‘I think Suella’s rhetoric at times could be overly explosive, overly divisive.' Gullis is a true emblem of the Conservative Party's abject failure.

        What a damp squib Gullis is – the Conservative Party needed a lively firecracker or a rocket. What a shame that sensible true conservatives had not defected to Reform when there was still time.

        King Stephen's idea is a sound one. Conservatism (with a small c) would receive a significant boost if a good number of what remains of the Parliamentary Conservative Party defected to the Reform Party now.

        1. On reflection it would probably have to be more than 69 because the those with a Lib Dem bent (a term used advisedly) would probably go and join the Lib Dems!!

    2. Just plain bloody incompetence. Again.
      Forget maffs till 18, teach 'em to read a clock.

  28. the Matt cartoon is brilliant (again) today, if anyone is able to post.

  29. Good Moaning.
    What has gone wrong? No rain. We'll be fried to a crisp.
    Is it all my fault for daring to exist?

    2. I'd like it to not rain until about mid afternoon, around 4. It'll give the clothes a good airing.

    3. Come on Anne I've got to walk to the village and back this morning for a coffee and a chat at 'the men's shed'. And carry my huge golf umbrella open or closed.☔.

  30. It was raining gently a while ago, now it's set in in biblical proportions (as promised yesterday). Beginning to wish I had a boat…

      1. One could just barge in. I believe the sale condition is "buyer collects"…!!

  31. Trying to organise a surprise birthday for the Warqueen. I ask ten friends, the blokes all reply within the hour – yes, I can make it. The married chaps though 'hang on, I'll have to ask the Mrs.'

    Days pass without message. I ask again. Oh, they don't know. So and so and so and so…. it's an afternoon, for one day.

    1. A Lady needs time to prepare. A 'bloke' will happily turn up in sweater and jeans but women tend to have higher standards. Hair, Make-up, Frock. And the opportunity to go shopping for new shoes. Which as you know can take a day !

  32. Good morning all.
    A damp start after more overnight rain with 11°C, but the rain has ceased for now.

  33. Starmer’s family home would today be out of reach
    Laura Perrins https://www.conservativewom…

    This article shows how the lives of ordinary people have been blighted by high house prices and how Labour will do absolutely nothing to address this problem. But aspiring, competent working-class people are going to find it even more difficult to get a decent education under Labour.

    BTL

    This 'working class' child, Keir Starmer, in a family with four children also had the chance of going to the excellent Reigate Grammar school on a bursary.

    When VAT is added to private school fees these excellent places of learning will no longer to be able to offer bursaries.

    Starmer is following the example of Blair. The first thing he did in 1997 was to abolish the assisted places scheme which enabled clever children to go to private schools which offered the facilities which their local schools did not offer.

    Why does Labour want to tax ambition and aspiration? Why do Labour politicians want to blight the lives of poorer people by pulling up the ladders on which they have themselves climbed?

    Welcome to 5 years of Hell.

      1. I don't think so. They have no problem with their favourites having ambition and aspiration, but the less that is given over to the hoi-polloi, the more there is to spread around the Deserving Category.

        True leftwingers do not feel envy, since they regard this as an abomination at all levels with the same zeal that Puritans abolished Christmas.

    3. Without a client underclass, socialism loses its raison d’être. In the same way that charities don’t abolish themselves by actually solving problems.

        1. Africa should have clean water after nearly a hundred years of stand pipe work.
          However it does not help that the local head man takes them all out and flogs them as soon as the meja has gone away.

        2. Africa should have clean water after nearly a hundred years of stand pipe work.
          However it does not help that the local head man takes them all out and flogs them as soon as the meja has gone away.

    5. Labour members have huge inferiority complexes and only feel happier when they crush and coerce ..

      Another bleat that I have is that the Labour candidate selection was based on diversity and the rest .

      That explains why 50 new Labour MPs including our new 28 year old South Dorset LABOUR Mp who is gay.

      https://mps.whoare.lgbt/

      1. They can be counted on to support families then?? And to support traditional values??

  34. Good morning,
    Bright, dry start here, just outside Grantham. 18°, wind of 5mph.
    Mrs smileymiley off to Yorkshire photographing with a couple of her friends.
    Just put the bedding into wash, will hang out later.
    Will go out on the motorcycle for an hour or so. Then back to mow the lawn, dead head & pick some strawberries, cut up a load of chicken breasts for the freezer, will make a Szechuan chicken with some of them for when Mrs smileymiley comes home. Also got to make room for 2 1/4 tonnes of logs coming early doors tomorrow!
    Busy day….

    3. Are you some one else when you are not smileymiley ?

      For a moment I thought you were Bob from Bonsall, but wrong area , I guess he would be the one chopping logs , and has his own plentiful supply?

  36. 389606+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    King allows public to peek from royal balcony from next week – but one thing will be missing
    The world’s most famous net curtains are thrown open as the East Wing opens up to the public for the first time

    Will this in any way go towards stopping the daily invasion fleet
    Or will complementary tickets be issued on landing as a prelim view of the layout prior to the hostile take over of the realm.

  37. Am I the only person slightly sickened by the photos of Cur Ikea Slammer holding hands with his fragrant lady wife?

  38. Morning all. Here's my reminder to visit Free speech Backlash, but it's a reminder with a difference, as I wrote an update on the site after just over a week online. You lot get a mention, and Geoff's superb site is given warm words and a thank you.

    1. Hi Tom
      Noticeable last night in the comments were a lot of comments from those who post here. Almost a home-from-home!

  40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWMYakaSCu8&list=WL&index=59 Apologies, up front, for posting this clip.

    I cannot make my mind up as to what, exactly, this putrid turd of an excuse for a woman actually is. I know it is far shorter, and much wider, than the average human, but I still cannot see the point of having a rancidly and gruesomely ugly professional gargoyle-imitator giving warped, pointless and insane opinions.

    Over to you for the comments.

    1. Ann Widdicombe's evil twin.

      She really is vile. I watched how she behaved when she was in America. She put on a fake accent and insulted every Republican she came across. I was hoping someone was going to lose their temper and lamp her.

        1. She’s repulsive.
          She went around Australia stirring up trouble between the indigenous and the larger population.
          I can’t see her doing anything like that for the indigenous here. But that wouldn’t fit with her nasty and horrible life’s adgenda.

    4. "We have to change England, it's in a miserable state.."
      "What would I do?.. arrest Nigel Farage."
      "Look at me, me, me.. I'm a celeb, I know about lots of important stuff cuz I'm better than you, vote like I say or I'll be sad."

      1. The words and thoughts of so many of the thespian type of lamebrain. So boring dahlink.

    5. "We have to change England, it's in a miserable state.."
      "What would I do?.. arrest Nigel Farage."
      "Look at me, me, me.. I'm a celeb, I know about lots of important stuff cuz I'm better than you, vote like I say or I'll be sad."

    6. Christ, she is boring!
      Change the record, Miriam, love. Change the record. Or, FOAD.

      1. Personally, I would arrest her it, Convey her it in a transporter plane to New Guinea. The spit-roast her it over a fire for the delectation of the locals.

        1. Hey Beatnik, your preferred al fresco cook up is done from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron in some train yard, Dude! It might need to be a supersize cauldron, Hombre!

          1. Hey, Dean. Your'e not wrong, Dude. Them New Guinea Bros eat 'Long Pig'. I'm not sure if they have railroads over there in cannibal central, Compadre, but substituting short fat porker for long pig might be a delicacy too far, Hombre.

          2. Hey Beatnik, those cannibal dudes would be in Hog Heaven with this champion porker, for sure, Man!

      2. Personally, I would arrest her it, Convey her it in a transporter plane to New Guinea. The spit-roast her it over a fire for the delectation of the locals.

    7. I wonder what her its views on transgender issues are.

      She It seems to be without either sex or gender. She It is clearly not a woman; she it is clearly not a man and yet what is she it?

    8. The irony of a Jewess calling for the imprisonment of a political rival. Now where have we seen that before – Germany in the 1930s?

    9. I thought she is now an Australian citizen.
      What has Britain's election got to do with her?

    10. Oh it isn’t real. It is made up of all the yukky bits the bbc had leftover after Saville.

  41. France’s former first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been charged with corruption offences in connection with an investigation into alleged Libyan financing of her husband Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign.

    The 56-year-old was charged with hiding evidence and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud, a judicial source confirmed.

    She has been barred from being in contact with all those accused except her husband, the source said.

    The singer is suspected of concealment of witness tampering and involvement in an attempt to bribe Lebanese judicial personnel, among other violations.

    Edited to add:

    The former president is set to stand trial in 2025 over the allegations that he conspired to take cash from the Libyan leader to illegally fund his subsequently victorious 2007 bid to become French president.

    1. I'm thinking "Associating with Wrongdoers" would be a great subtitle for Phizzee's party… 😉

    1. The Left in France is just as nasty and vindictive as the left in the UK and the USA.

      Britain's nastiest and most vindictive exremental left wing MP is Chris Bryant! His recent appointment as a minister is a reward for his nastiness and vindictiveness.

      1. “Marine Le Pen faces fraud inquiry over presidential campaign
        National Rally figurehead is under investigation for alleged embezzlement, forgery and fraud in her 2022 campaign finances”

    1. And I'm off to drop step-sons washing off and then pay a hospital visit to him.
      Enjoy your dogwalk!

      1. You must be running a laundry business. I have been reading the comments for months now and you have to do this at least once a week?
        I hope he appreciates it.

        1. Not so much once a week, but when he was first hospitalised, I found a "patient's belongings" bag full of clothes in his bedside locker that had been there, soaked with urine, for 4 or 5 days.
          That was the 1st lot of washing.
          Then I found that a heap of clothes in his flat were all dirty and that formed the 2nd & 3rd batches.
          I then found some bedding and another pair of uninated jeans and other clothing which formed the 4th & 5th loads.

          1. Oh god poor man! I hope he is feeling much cleaner and fresher now. What a good stepdad you are. Will he be in hospital long?

  46. This is both amusing- as it is Count Dankula presenting this horror story of today's Britain but it is absolutely terrifying. I find it hard to reconcile that this is where we are, today. This is an English police force- not the abomination the SNP created north of the border. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oaxehafOyU

    1. Well, I'm sorry but it's not sinister, not surprising, not shocking at all.

      Warnings about this warped ideology have been plastered all over social media for about six years.
      Either voters weren't paying attention, or they are sick. Either way the UK has at minimum five years, more likely a decade of this.

      Now is hardly the time to complain.. it's barely a week since the landslide.

      1. I presume that the madness detailed above is from the previous Conservative administration that appeared to be happy to embrace the Woke tidal wave while allowing the various law-making and enforcement agencies to act in this way.

      1. because after the election Labour & SNP believe the people are gasping for more of this.

  47. Sorry , but I am going to whinge and whine regarding this , okay , so pull me up if you think I am wrong.

    Lloyd Hatton

    South Dorset

    First elected
    05 July 2024
    Identity
    LGBT+
    Source
    LGBT+ Labour
    Source date
    05 July 2024
    Official information
    Lloyd Hatton on the UK Parliament website
    Notes on entry
    LGBT+ Labour lists this MP as part of the “Chris Smith List”; a list of LGBT+ candidates in receipt of funding from LGBT+ Labour in support of their campaigns. https://mps.whoare.lgbt/

    1. I personally don't care where someone puts their bits. If that affects their ability to legislate then they should be removed. This is where referism, recall and direct democracy come in. If government decides to do what it wants rather than what we want, we get rid of it.

      1. The Chris Smith list , Wibbling .

        In receipt of funding from LGBTLabour,

        Yet good straight candidates who want to have a go would find it very difficult getting funding to become an MP..

        I don't care really because no 2 son is of a similar disposition and has a partner , and they have difficulties .

        What I care about is this , and where did Chris Smith vanish to , because there were hints that there was something wrong

  48. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/labours-meddling-come-at-cost-not-just-for-wealthy/

    Labour don't understand wealth creation. I don't know what it is about the Left wing mind but it really has trouble with other people having property – unless it's theirs, then they are brutally ruthless about it.

    All this 'unearned income' drivel appeals to the ignorant because to them, what someone has invested and sees a return on is not 'real work'. It's just 'free money' they get for doing nothing. This is easy to sell to those who don't defer their income. This is why taxing 'da wich' is always so popular with Lefties. After all, it's money just sat there, you've not 'earned it' have you? So it's absolutely fine that it is confiscated and the investment destroyed.

    1. Nobody, be they from the Left, Right or Centre, likes paying taxes. It is also a rule of human nature that if you can get something for nothing, this is better than paying for it. How else was the slave industry sustained over millennia, and still is among some cultures with protected characteristics?

      Why irks me most though is paying for something, and then being diddled. It is one thing paying a premium, but at least getting something worthwhile in return, it is quite another to be forced into becoming the victim of a well-organised scam. That really hurts.

      What has been sorely missing since Jim Hacker became PM, is someone of Cabinet rank tasked with seeing that all public money is wisely spent and every taxpayer, especially the rich with deeper pockets, can know that their money is making the country and the world a better place, and that nothing is wasted.

      A big ask maybe, but is there any political party prepared to adopt this policy for once?

      I once did a survey in Pershore High Street, working how much people were prepared to pay extra for their food to be grown without poisoning the landscape. The optimum was about 15%. Too much, and people would say – sod the chemicals, I'll just go for the cheaper; too little, and the producers would argue there is no money in it, withdraw from the scheme and under supply-and-demand, prices would rise back up, usually beyond the 15% optimum.

      The same could be said for many public services attracting a premium in return for something beneficial. However, woke compliance and Safeguarding seems to attract most of the money going, and I argue that neither are even beneficial, except to those in the industry raking it in.

      Very little of the Council Tax goes on anything decided by elected councillors, and this is set to drop as the Chancellor holds back on Income Tax, NI and VAT and piles it instead on the hapless and bankrupt councils.

        1. There is a difference between extortion and theft, but not much of one. It all depends on the scale of the duress. Thieves don’t ask for permission, whereas tax carries with it a legal and binding agreement.

          3. It’s theft. The legal and binding agreement only works one way. The government are supposed to spend the money on behalf of the nation, but this has never been properly defined either by contract or common law.
            Also, the government can vary the law at will ergo “agreeing a mutual amount” with multi nationals like Amazon, but bringing the full weight of the law to less wealthy individuals.
            This is not an honest contract.
            Tax was invented to fund wars and was never rescinded, but just used by politicians to grow the state and with it their power; so I say all tax is theft.

      2. I've always pointed out to those calling for increased taxes that they can always write a cheque to HMRC without being forced to pay more!

        2. I am reasonably content to pay more taxes if I felt they were going to a good cause.

          1. I take the view that I know how to spend my money far better than the government (either national or local).

        1. Oh……I did a ‘speed awareness course’ 10 years ago. I survived. Been a good girl since then!

      1. No, 60 in what is er, a 60 mile area but that particular stretch was 50 mph – it was a road I am not familiar with – I had been doing an emergency babysit for our daughter-in-law (no good deed goes unpunished) and I was on my way to an appointment I had a accidentally missed the previous month and I didn't want to let the lady down again. I knew there was a turn-off along the road but it seemed much further along than I had remembered. So, the equation is unfamiliar road + rush + pressure and other things going on = didn't notice the 50 mph sign, especially as there was something in front of me although I was not on his tail, and something behind me. We all seemed to be travelling at the same speed. I've not had a speeding offence for thirty five years.

          1. Somewhat tedious in an air-conditioned soul-less hotel room with no natural light. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it did remind me and brought things to the forefront of my mind. As things go, it went…. all things come to pass and nothing lasts forever, as I remind myself these days.

    4. It's a great system. Be warned it's a one off and there's no second chance.
      https://youtu.be/fCxvIW0pLa0?t=3
      I'm a convert. The catastrophic damage to an innocent bystander's body that a speeding lump of metal controlled by a distracted driver.. is underrated.

      1. Is it right, technically, that Mikey should have stopped at amber traffic light?

        2. Yes, he should have stopped at the amber light and then further on he ignores the cycle lane near Shepherd's Bush Green.

      2. That's what has happened in our country cycling has become weaponised.
        There is a TV presenter who does this as well. But for some unexplained reason he's not presenting his agitative programme on tv any more.

        1. I would argue that Vine is using his programme as a platform for his personal crusade which must break the rules for impartial broadcasting. Plus cycling without due care etc as he is not watching the road while "policing" other road users.

        2. I would argue that Vine is using his programme as a platform for his personal crusade which must break the rules for impartial broadcasting. Plus cycling without due care etc as he is not watching the road while "policing" other road users.

      3. It matters not whether you are parked or not – if you are inside a vehicle with the means to start it then you are deemed responsible for what you are doing in it.

        That means technically that if you are asleep in bed inside your motorhome you can still be caught sleeping whilst in charge of a vehicle. I'm not sure if using protection whilst having sex would absolve you from unseen consequences.

  52. And, folks, especially for Phil:

    "Buddy's best bites! Jamie Oliver's son, 13, releases first recipe book Let's Cook – including rocky road and fish finger sandwiches"

        1. I can do that by spying on you on google streetview. Your windows need cleaning.

      2. First catch your fish, then cut its hands off and remove the fingers.
        Open your loaf of sliced bread and plaice the fingers between two slices.
        Watch out for bones and fingernails.
        Enjoy….

      1. Young Phil might suggest that Buddy (who on earth would name a child that?) is brighter than his eminent father.

    3. Oh god! Buddy sounds as intelligent as Brooklin Beckham. He was so awful they had to get a billionaires daughter to marry him.

    4. Oh god! Buddy sounds as intelligent as Brooklin Beckham. He was so awful they had to get a billionaires daughter to marry him.

  53. Hunt for man ‘with crossbow’ after three women murdered. 10 July 2024.

    Three women have been found dead at a home in Bushey as police hunt a man suspected of a triple murder who may have a crossbow.

    Kyle Clifford, 26, is wanted in connection with the incident which took place in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday.

    He is white so it’s open season.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/10/three-women-murdered-hertfordshire-manhunt-kyle-clifford1/

    1. There is discussion regarding his ethnicity. I would venture that he may well be a member of the original Abrahamic religion- which is relatively small in number. I state this as I once had a client who had the same surname of Clifford who was of that persuasion and from the north London/Hertfordshire area. .

    1. Morning vw. Well I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Kyle Clifford sounds pretty convincing.

    2. Morning vw. Well I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Kyle Clifford sounds pretty convincing.

  59. Labour SNP —- it's a fight to the death as far as they're concerned.

    Something you may not have thought on this, is that there's a lot of people who can't move on this.

    And because that's the people who have transitioned their own children. So those people are going to be like the Japanese soldiers on Pacific Islands who didnt know the war was over, and they want to fight forever. This is why this is the worst worst worst social contagion that we'll ever have experienced. And a lot of people have done the worst thing that you could do, which is to harm their children irrevocably. Those people will have to believe that they did the right thing for the rest of their lives.. for their own sanity and for their own self-respect. So they'll still be fighting.

    And each one of those people destroys entire organisations and entire friendship groups. I've lost count the number of times somebody has said to me of a specific organistaion that has got turned upside down on this.. Oh the deputy director has a trans child. Or the journalist on that paper, who does special investigations has a trans child. the entire organisation gets paralysed by the one person. And it may not even be widely known at that organisation that they have a trans child, but it will come out. And now you can't talk truth in front of that person, and you know you can't.
    Because what you're saying is "you as a parent have done a truly like a human rights abuse level of awful thing to your child. That cannot be fixed.

    There are specific individuals who are really actively against women's rights here. And it's not known why they are, but I happen to know through the back channels that it's because they transed their child. And so those people will do anything for the entire rest of their lives to destroy me and people like me. Because people like me are standing reproached to them. I don't want to be, I'm not talking directly to them. I don't spend my time bitching about them. But the fact is that just simply saying We will never accept natal males in women's spaces. Well, it's their son we're talking about, and they've told their son that he can get himself sterilised and destroy his own sexual function and women will accept him as a woman. And if we don't there's no way back for them and their child. Thy sold their child a Bill of Goods that they can't deliver on. And I'm the one that has to bullied to try and force me to deliver on that. So they are the people that will be keeping this bloody movement going. I'm sorry to say because they've everything to lose. And it's a fight to the death as far as they're concerned.

    Helen Joyce.

    1. sums up most Lefties..

      And now you can't talk truth in front of that person, and you know you can't.

  61. A leading article from The Critic this month – a magazine which I again commend to anyone with conservative views:

    "A decade into its rule and still fully protected by an invincible parliamentary majority and undented moral self-righteousness, what might the Labour government look and feel like? Let us imagine its tenor through those it might honour.

    Take the senior policeman, whose many other virtues notwithstanding, “also plays a central role in delivering the Police Race Action Plan to ensure there is more diverse leadership across the service”.

    Or the doyen of university admissions who “is committed to helping students from diverse backgrounds [and] supports previously marginalised student groups, care leavers, LGBTQ+ individuals, those with disabilities, and others facing mental health challenges”.

    Or the future City of London bureaucrat, who “has influenced quoted companies to embrace NetZero targets and the wider ESG agenda and under her leadership, the LSE is now the leading provider of green and transition finance.

    She is a pioneer for women and the LGBTQ+ community in financial services, fostering diversity and inclusion in finance and championing initiatives to create more inclusive work environments.”

    Except, of course, all this is real. It’s from this June’s King’s Birthday Honours list at the culmination of 14 years of Conservative government. The expansive prose used has broken free from the opaque, undemonstrative language formerly employed in official communications issued on the Crown’s behalf.

    Here, in its place, are the assumptions and aspirations of Britain’s civil service, nodded through by Tory ministers. This is what is good, these are the principles that guide us. Sir Keir Starmer will not change this; he will embody it.

    It is entirely wrong to characterise Starmer’s Labour as being “progressive illiberalism”, for Starmer is liberalism pure and simple, shorn entirely of socialism and the concerns of labour. There won’t be the money to try socialism; they’re not proposing to; but they will continue the dreadful work of the government they have defeated.

    Normally when a party sweeps back to power in the British political system, all the windy talk is about how the winners have “accepted” the best policies of those they’ve defeated. That Thatcher’s “greatest achievement” was Blair’s New Labour, that the Tory modernisers of Cameron, Osborne and Gove were the (true) “heirs to Blair”.

    Of course they must have been, for how else would they have won, save by sensibly tacking back to the centre they must have abandoned in order to lose power?

    Or so runs the smug assumption. But this time the truth is stark and undeniable: far from being converted to the beliefs of Rishi Sunak’s Tories (and thus making themselves fit and moderate for office), the opposition party winning back power in 2024 simply realigns the politics of the country’s nominal masters with those of its actual rulers. And those are the judges.

    Modern Britain is the creation of its worst prime minister, John Major. As his government dissolved in sleaze, and as pure short-term expedience tried to dodge one more shabby scandal, Major turned to the cranky Catholic jurist Michael Nolan, who presided over a committee of the bland and prejudiced to establish the “Nolan principles” for public life. These are now the DNA of the modern British state.

    They reach their absurdity in such nonsense as another learned KC, this time an Oxbridge head of house to boot, muttering to himself in book-length form such madnesses as — and how we wish we were making this up — Boris Johnson failing to appoint someone the blob wanted to chair a quango was “probably unlawful” (not least because this excellent chap “had an impressive CV and good background”).

    This is the framework the 14 years of Conservative government entirely failed to challenge. Not least as basic patronage: Ken Clarke, Michael Gove and Liz Truss, different as they are, all had in common their complete inability as Tory justice secretaries to appoint judges that liberals might dislike.

    Hand in hand with Nolanisation is such self-serving civil service presumption as the cabinet manual (the product of Britain’s worst cabinet secretary, bar the current incumbent). It unilaterally purports to codify that which is merely conventional, all prior to inevitably placing Mandarin fantasies at the service of interventionist judges.

    They make up what they would like to be true, without any of the inconvenience of publicly legislating it as a fact, then wait for the courts to make it so.

    None of this will be changed by Starmer. Why would it be? This is the system for which he honestly and sincerely stands.

    But how did this come to pass? What want of Tory honesty and sincerity made it so? It has been because Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Sunak, and, yes, Johnson and so many others wanted it so.

    Toryism has not happened for the last 14 years because it was impossible or because it was defeated, but because the people leading the Tory party did not want to do it. They might mouth its platitudes, not least at election time, but the Conservative Party has been led by orthodox and bigoted liberals every bit as much as the Labour Party now is.

    Primarily this has been the fault of Tory modernisers, whose failure in Rishi Sunak is now total, if not terminal. It failed as a campaigning technique to secure an outright majority against Gordon Brown in 2010 and proved unsustainable without Brexit thereafter.

    Its infamous chumocracy selection of candidates has left a retardataire cohort of MPs picked for (unsuccessful) marketing purposes, demonstrably incapable of providing a slate of even moderately competent ministers.

    The leaving of the EU which these politicians did not want, and most of them sought to frustrate once the people surprised them with it, has been mulishly squandered. Real effort and determination was made, even to the brink, under the supremely incapable Theresa May, of almost prematurely destroying the party.

    Luck as much as anything else saw them gain a leader obliged to once again campaign for the sort of Brexit no one should imagine Boris Johnson ever truly sought, still less expected.

    Then came Sunak — the man who failed to beat Liz Truss but nevertheless ended up prime minister. Peevish, entitled, cloth-eared and cheered on by the most pompous bores in the country.

    Beloved as a “grown-up” by The Times, Sunak, from the groomed start to the catastrophically inept end of his political career, has been indulged where others would have been hysterically denounced by those who ululated over him.

    A Chancellor, who wanted to be PM, whose wife was a non-dom and held onto a foreign state’s residency permit? Let us not be coy: Sunak benefitted here from an indulgence which would not have been given to any previous occupant of that office, still less one with, say, Russian oligarchical in-laws.

    His political career, which started at that forging house of Tory self-harm, Policy Exchange, should never have taken off, but it’s too late now to cry about that.

    We are now at the point of myth, and the central one offered to us is Thatcher-in-opposition. This, apparently, is how the Tories should get out of the mess they have got themselves into. They should do what she is supposed to have done.

    There should be thinking, and think tanks, and thinkers, and beliefs, and coherence. This, to quote the great Tory thinker Maurice Cowling, is balls. As what there should be now in opposition is what there ought to have been in office: bloodiness.

    According to George Osborne, a pettish John Major told him soon after the 1997 election, when Major had brought the party to the brink of ruin, “We will never win while we remain in thrall to the hard right of our party.”

    This Major said in private to account for his defeat. It was not his fault, but that of the mysterious “hard right” (who weren’t in his cabinet and whose prescriptions it didn’t follow).

    Not one of his successors led the party from anything close to its “hard right” either. Nor can anyone honestly claim Cameron, May, the Johnson who governed and Sunak were “hard right”. This is a lot of historical weight to place on the 45 days of Truss and the leadership campaign of Iain Duncan Smith. As lies go, it is an insultingly transparent one.

    It is obvious why the guilty men wish to avoid responsibility for what they have done. It is less clear why anyone right-wing should extend this indulgence to them. The legacy of the 1997 left was no more unpicked by the 2010–24 Tories than that of the 1945 left was by the 1951–64 Conservative government.

    In many ways, thanks especially to expansive judicial conceit and the lingering ravages of our immersion in a European legal order, the 2010 Equality Act that the Tories refused to change, allied to the Human Rights Act, will provide yet more solid bedrock for the premises of the left than the NHS and BBC have been.

    To these, Labour will now add a Racial Equality Act and finally implement the socioeconomic rubric of their Equality Act. What will the Tory party offer in response to this? Nothing save capitulation and collaboration, unless they finally reject the language of the left.

    The Tories offered incompetent managerial liberalism in an age too cold for its comforting delusions. They were saved at the start by the prosperity that China appeared to gift the world, then by a Brexit most of them hated.

    Nothing will save them now, save finally disagreeing with everything they have done in office. "

    1. “They make up what they would like to be true, without any of the inconvenience of publicly legislating it as a fact, then wait for the courts to make it so.

      None of this will be changed by Starmer. Why would it be? This is the system for which he honestly and sincerely stands.”

      How true. And the last half dozen paragraphs were depressing too.

    2. " the cranky Catholic jurist Michael Nolan" and " mulishly squandered". The anonymous author has a way with words.

    3. I agree with most of the article bar one thing – there is nothing remotely liberal about what has been pushed onto us over recent decades. It is authoritarian, corrupt, incompetent, spiritually rotten and lacking imagination, discretion or integrity, and often turns to the sort of cruelty towards the vulnerable that gave credibility to David Cameron when he argued, as he did in 2010, that his party was more compassionate than New Labour.

      It is only called "liberal" because we are instructed by our masters to follow the Americans in defining cultural terms, because we have utterly lost sight of who we are as a people. True liberalism entails taking responsibility and having as much regard for our community and our fellow creature as we have for ourselves. That way, we earn our freedom, and this is something that every generation needs to guard assiduously instead of leaving it to the "experts" or the State, with their favoured categories.

    4. The critic is a good read, but they do nt have a comment section 👹👹👹👹

    1. Minty, that's in poor taste. Three people killed, and a man and his daughter have lost most of their beloved family.

  63. "Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers message to world: Britain is the place to do business"

    It sure is: for people traffickers, money launderers, Roma beggars, African prostitutes, Romanian muggers and Albanian gangsters.
    Look how diverse we are !

    1. Expensive energy, a government that doesn't know what a woman is, extortionate taxes and the door open to unvetted criminals? yes, I'm sure a lot of businesses will be tempted!

    1. I know someone whose first and last names are contained in your first sentence. He has autism and is a walking encyclopaedia of the BBC Proms. Name a piece of music and he'll tell you when it was last performed there and by whom. Also, apart from his face, every inch of his body that doesn't have hair on it is tattooed (not that I've seen every inch but I believe him)!

    3. For goodness sake. This is the problem. Just because there's no more press publicity about pakistani muslim paedophiles doesn't mean they have stopped raping children.

    2. Q: 'Marry me.'
      A: 'Yes'.

      Oh that poor girl.

      As a funny story on the odd relationship the Warqueen and I have when we had been together for a few weeks she started leaving the bathroom door open. She told me because I had to learn that she was both real, not a porcelain princess and not going anywhere.

      After 3 months she moved in. 3 months after that we slept in the same bed for the first time.

  67. And another thing. Why did Cur Ikea Slammer NEED to take his missus to America?

    3. He has heard rumours about Trudeau and wants to show that he is not available for a little off listening action.

  68. Jacob Rees-Mogg and family to star in fly-on-the-wall documentary
    Former Cabinet secretary says the series, to be released later this year, ‘may be a bit more Fawlty Towers than Downton Abbey’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/10/jacob-rees-mogg-family-discovery-plus-documentary/

    Has old Grease Smog become a Notoriety Junkie?

    (The smooth Jacob needs to be a bit more like his hairy brother, Esau. Genesis Ch.25 V.25)

    BTL

    He is following Farage who was on the 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' programme by seeking exposure on TV.

    He should now follow Farage and join the Reform Party which has policies which resemble his points of view far more closely than the left of centre Conservative Party which must die as quickly as possible.

      1. Do tell! How many differences are there in this spot the difference competition?

    2. I thought I already saw one, some years ago Rastus? Speaking with Nanny, taking Jess Phillips out for a drive in his car. Can't find anything online. Some kind of recurring nightmare perhaps.

    3. Can I point out that Jacob ran the hugely popular debating club on the top floor of the Old Bank of China building in Hongkong during the 90s. Packed to the rafters. He was always a great host and would often break into Latin for comedy effect to keep the Muricans happy.

      Highlights for me were the Emily Maitlis epic fail and the well-posh wickedly funnee Brits running rings around the oh-so-very serious AmCham presidential wannabes.

    4. Has he taken leave of his senses?
      I really thought he had more wit than that. He must be carried away with how wonderful their lives are. Downton Abbey indeed – I bet most people's thought on hearing "fly on the wall documentary" was At Home With the Kardashians!

      edit; for the first time in my life, I am not a little bit wistfully envious of Jacob.

    1. It's fine, he's making the increase having given Zelensky the OK to attack the Russians with British Strom Shadow missiles.
      edit for clarity

  70. Six Nations considers 'Super Saturday' schedule change

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/articles/cnk4qkznxw3o

    The three matches with the lowest television audiences – Wales against France in Cardiff, Ireland at home to Italy and France hosting Italy – all took place on a Sunday.

    Might it have something to do with the games themselves? They weren't exactly unmissable championship deciders..

  71. Biden is not too old, suggests Starmer. 10 July 2024.

    Sir Keir will have a bilateral meeting with Mr Biden on Wednesday, and in the evening he and his wife, Lady Starmer, will attend a dinner at the White House with other Nato leaders.

    Asked what he wanted to get out of the meeting, he said: “I’ve already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that – this is obviously a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US.

    God give me strength.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/10/joe-biden-not-too-old-keir-starmer-suggests/

    1. I do hope their dinner is early evening. The President is a very busy man and he has lots to do. People to meet. Young girls to sniff. Launch nuclear missiles.

        1. I've been in bed all day today.
          When I got up I felt terrible a thumping head ache my eyes are out of focus. Due to my cataract removal three weeks ago.
          No help whatsoever from the hospital. They told me to go to A&E !!! Last time we went there, we were in for 10 hours before being seen.
          But Boots opticians were more helpful suggesting it may take another week or so to settle down.

          2. They are just putting you off, most people are back to normal a couple of weeks after cataract surgery. It needs checking

        2. Democrat excuses for his poor head to head performance include not getting enough sleep.
          Putin does not think Joe Biden is any worse than he was when they met three years ago but conceded that his recent performance may have been affected by his failure to duck when disembarking from his helicopter.

        3. Democrat excuses for his poor head to head performance include not getting enough sleep.
          Putin does not think Joe Biden is any worse than he was when they met three years ago but conceded that his recent performance may have been affected by his failure to duck when disembarking from his helicopter.

      4. They should have made it a lunchtime meeting, let Biden have his afternoon nap right after lunch.

    3. I once spoke to the speaking clock. Does that count as a very special relationship?

    4. Is there anyone that Starmer is not in a special relationship with?
      He started with numbnuts Trudeau, then the EU and now the US.

      1. He isn't in a special relationship with the indigenous working class for a start.

    5. Hasn't Starmer had the memo that they're ditching Biden? Starmer will just make himself look like even more of an idiot if he goes there and doesn't 'notice' that Biden's suffering from dementia.

      1. The only way Trump will give him the time of day is to tell him his plane's due to take off.

    6. “I’ve already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that…

      What Smarmer means it that he hadn't the foggiest what Biden was talking about and he is worried that he agreed to something that he shouldn't have done.

    7. It isn't Biden's age that's the problem. It's that he is clearly ill, suffering perhaps from dementia. He is clearly mentally incompetent.

  72. I believe that the England Wendyball Xl is taking on the Netherlands this evening and that the match will be shown live on ITV.

    The fact that this match, which is one of the most important for the country's team in recent years, will not be presented by the BBC makes me think that the BBC's chief Wendyball pundit, crisp salesman and apologist for brutal murderers is being paid far too much money when he won't even be doing the match.

          1. Charles Dickens introduced us to Mr Bung the newly elected Beadle. In sketches by Boz.
            And so it has continued and will do.

  73. All the people that think that England will play a more exciting upbeat style of football tonight are most likely to be Labour voters that expects socialism to work this time round, say Scientists

    3. They're not getting Socialism though. More the same as they have been getting for forty or more years. The only change is that a radical Labour Party of Momentum has been replaced by Continuity Conservative, as we have come to know it. Starmer is no better than Truss.

      The lettuce is a better socialist, but I see the Minister for Lettuce is a former LGBTQI+ leader of Lambeth Council more interested in protecting young black men with mental health issues. What chance for the lettuce when there are homes to be delivered?

  75. Hmmmm – Mrs B likes Wimbledon so we are watching it from time to time – there must be hundreds of spectators there, all sitting close to each other. Why then do the BBC interview the winners from a distance of some 6 feet [ie ~2 metres apart – where did we hear that mentioned?]?

    1. Perhaps the players don't want to be near the bbc representatives. 🤔🤫
      Our middle son and his lovely wife had tickets for court one on Saturday.
      But had to let them go because their children had both caught infections.
      Their youngest, twelve months. Had conjunctivitis. They had their money refunded but spoiled my chances of recording them at the event.
      And possibly passing on the infections.

  76. Afternoon all! Speccie Lovefest Summer Party piccies up. Fill yer boots! No comments allowed this year. Can't think why.

  77. Off out to dinner shortly – through the continuing rain.
    We're celebrating, quietly and damply, our 42nd wedding anniversary. What a saint I married all those years ago – she's managed to put up with me all that time, God alone knows how. I used a lifetime's worth of luck when she agreed to wed, and she's been the source of all that's wonderful in my life.

        1. We have recently had two pairs of couples in our parish who celebrated 70 years of marriage.

          1. Wow, good for them. We are only up to 49, so maybe hope for us yet if labour doesn’t rinse us too much!

          2. We have had 36 years – these couples had twice as many years married as we have had so far.

            Our next target is our Ruby which will be in 2028 by which time I shall be 81. I'll have to get to 91 to get to the golden and 101 for the diamond.

          3. Wow, good for them. We are only up to 49, so maybe hope for us yet if labour doesn’t rinse us too much!

        2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

          Listen: Science minister slams Brexit
          Comments Share 10 July 2024, 2:49pm
          Another day, another drama. This time Sir Patrick Vallance is in the limelight, after attacking Brexit on the BBC. The new science minister – and former scientific adviser to the government – has given a rather curious interview this afternoon in which he has slammed the decision to leave the EU and refuses to rule out free movement. Golly.

          Speaking to the Beeb today, the new peer started by telling his interviewer he was ‘surprised’ but ‘honoured’ to be asked to be the science minister by Sir Keir Starmer. The conversation then took a rather, um, bizarre turn. Turning to the ‘problem’ of Brexit, Vallance said that visa rules should be eased for researchers, and added that UK needs to be part of an ‘international’ science community. Sarah Montague quizzed the new minister on the upcoming G7 science meeting in Bologna. ‘How do you think that the United Kingdom is faring relative to other countries?’ she asked.

          PV: Well we’re really good at science but we need to be part of an international science community. People need to know the UK is open for science partnerships.

          SM: How much did Brexit set us back then?

          PV: Brexit was definitely a problem for science. We were part of a very successful European funding scheme with very large collaborations, right the way across Europe which took a setback. And we had to leave that scheme and getting back into it has been a big achievement and I’m really pleased we are back in it.

          SM: So would you be pushing the Prime Minister to make a much closer relationship with other EU countries, even if it comes at the cost of perhaps making concessions on free movement?

          PV: You can’t do the type of science that everyone’s trying to do and make progress in isolation. You need brains that come with other backgrounds, other thought processes, other training.

          SM: And do you need a more benign visa regime? All the rules have just been tightened, that’s the direction of travel. Is UK science going to suffer as a result of that?

          PV: We know there’s an impact of the difficulty of some of those schemes so that means that there is an opportunity there to make this easier again for people who do come into do contributions to scientific knowledge creation and indeed companies. We’ve just got to be realistic about how we do that. We need to be as competitive as other countries in terms of attracting that talent.

          Oo er. Mr S isn’t quite sure that’s the line the Labour lot would have signed off on…

          2. That "successful European funding scheme" was paid for by our contributions seeing as we were one of the very few net contributors.

    3. Congratulations and Have a lovely evening youms.
      My younger sister is 54 years wed today.
      Ours is 50, 31st of August.

      1. My elder sister, Belinda, has now been married for nearly 68 years. She married at the age of 20 and as a consequence two of her four children are older than my wife!

        Her husband will be 88 on Sunday.

    9. Happy Anniversary! Congratulations to you both, and have a lovely evening x

    10. Now that is one helluva coincidence!

      It is also my 42nd wedding anniversary today – well, 42 years ago it was a Saturday (and a very nice day in the UK, were you in Scandi then? Have I got that right?)

      We've postponed our dinner out till Saturday as I wanted to watch the footy (Yes, yes, I know!!) but I look back over the years and wouldnt change a thing, just awesome all my life (she's pointing a gun at my head….)

        1. Unfortunately…… yes, but it's diminishing now as more and more of them are dead.

        1. Cheers, Conners, I couldnt believe it when Oberst posted that! We’ve got a big do with all the family on Saturday – so I was able to watch the footy tonight!!

          Get in England!! Thank God the Final’s on Sunday…..

          1. Was at a funeral today – thankfully it was all hunting and racing folks. No footy whatsoever.

          2. Ah sorry mate, they get more and more frequent, dont they? Hope it passed off well…..

          3. Yes, thanks. He was 93 and had a peaceful end. It’s that time of life, unfortunately; my older (and even some younger) friends are dropping off their perch.

    11. Congratulations! We are almost 43 years married, but MH has turned into a sulky grump at times – his mother warned me 43 years ago!

    13. Happy anniversary. We never got past 42 – the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

  79. The killer’s brother murdered someone a few years ago too

    A driver has been found guilty of deliberately mowing down a moped after his "prized" Ford Mustang was damaged.

    Bradley Clifford, 23, from Enfield, chased Soban Khan, 18, and Jahshua Francis, 19, after they struck his car with a bottle, the Old Bailey heard.

    They were both flung into the air by the collision, and Mr Khan was beaten by Clifford as he lay on the ground fatally injured, the jury was told.

    Clifford was found guilty of murder and attempted GBH with intent.

    The jury heard he became "enraged" when his high-performance Ford Mustang EcoBoost's wing mirror was broken in the early hours of 5 August.

    He then began a "rapid, brutal and unrelenting" pursuit through the streets of Enfield, north London.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43977756?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3HA_XorlTV6eRzZLlP_qoZraD7hM1pmHah38hzZE3KCJpWEe2u4hani5w_aem_vHlt3KJvaT-qwKGqbx9gwQ

    2. Coincidence? That really reminds me of another photo of a murderer seem very recently.

    3. If the brothers are in the same prison when the younger one gets convicted, it will make it easier for family visits. Although by the sound of it, the whole family are the same so could all end up inside.

    4. Hur hurr… ecoboost Ford Mustang. He really wanted the V8 version.

      Why did the asians throw a bottle at his car?

  81. In spite of the arrival of a Labour government in the UK events in France have led the pound to soar against the euro

    1. 1.28 US dollars to the pound which is historically low but still the best it's been for quite a long time.

      1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

        The problem with Rachel Reeves’s ‘National Wealth Fund’
        Comments Share 10 July 2024, 1:25pm
        What country ever went wrong with a sovereign wealth fund? It is easy to envy Singapore and Norway – the latter of which now has £1.3 trillion squirrelled away, equivalent to £240,000 for every citizen. Britain would be in a much better situation now had it, like Norway, invested its windfall from the North Sea, rather than chucking it into the pot of general day-to-day expenditure. Paying state and public sector pensions liabilities out of tax revenue rather than from a long-term investment fund is going to become an ever more serious burden on the state.

        We shouldn’t, then, sniff at Rachel Reeves’ idea for a ‘national wealth fund’. It is just that what the Chancellor has in mind is very different from what Norway has. Firstly, there is the question of scale. Britain doesn’t exactly have a lot of state wealth to invest just at the moment. While Norway’s fund has been grown from half a century’s worth of oil and gas revenues, Reeves’ fund will be started with a modest £7.3 billion squeezed out of the public budget, in a context of a government that is heavily overdrawn on its current account. From a personal point of view I would look to pay off my credit card balance before I started having a flutter on the stock market.

        But then Reeves’s fund isn’t predominantly about accumulating wealth. While the Norwegian fund has its £18 trillion spread over 9000 companies in more than 70 countries, Reeves is looking to concentrate on one asset class, and an extremely dodgy one at that: early stage green technology. She wants to invest in green steel (made using hydrogen rather than coking coal as a reducing agent), in hydrogen production from electrolysis of water and in carbon capture and storage – the sort of technologies we need, in other words, if we are to get anywhere near reaching Britain’s 2050 net zero greenhouse gas emissions target without returning to the stone age.

        I can tell you what investing in this sort of stuff is like from personal experience. Three years ago I bought a small stake in a company called ITM power – whose business is in producing green hydrogen – at 240 pence a share. It was great at first as the shares galloped up to over 600 pence. I thought I would just wait until I had trebled my money and then sell at least half my holding. But then I went away on holiday and forgot about them. Their price now? Er, 57 pence a share.

        That is what Reeves can expect to happen to her National Wealth Fund. She will have losses galore. If she does make us a profit it will come on the back of fantastic returns on one or two holdings – while most others collapse. That is the nature of investing in early-stage companies.

        What Rachel Reeves is setting up doesn’t really deserve to be called a National Wealth Fund
        This is not to say that it is wrong for the government to invest in green technology. Clearly, there is a national interest in cleaning up our energy system and the like. And if taxpayers are going to put money in, it is better that we buy a stake rather than simply handing out grant after grant. Then we can at least share in the success stories. Moreover, it is a relief to know that Reeves and her Treasury officials won’t be picking the stocks themselves. They plan to leave it to the National Infrastructure Bank set up by Rishi Sunak when he was Chancellor in 2021 – and which will have to take a very hard-headed attitude and be prepared to ditch companies whose ideas are failing. Governments, it hardly needs repeating, have a pretty appalling record at trying to ‘pick winners’. They tend to go for all the highly visible stuff and prestigious stuff, like making cars and aeroplanes, and miss out the boring companies which are making the better profits. They also have a habit of chucking money at companies which happen to employ large numbers of people in marginal constituencies – not the greatest investment technique.

        For years, Britain has seemed to possess a Sovereign Poverty Fund that invests our cash in basket cases like Royal Bank of Scotland (now NatWest) and then sells out at the first hint that a company might actually make a profit. Taxpayers bear the losses and leave private investors to enjoy the gains. It would be a novelty for our cash to be invested purposely to make a profit. However, what Rachel Reeves is setting up doesn’t really deserve to be called a National Wealth Fund. It is really just a novel way of subsidising green technology. Seen in that light it is not such a bad idea – just don’t expect it to pay your pension.

        1. I have a nasty suspicion HMG will try to ‘encourage’ insurance companies and the like to ‘invest’ in this new fund.

        2. Reeves wants to invest in a massively loss making industry supported entirely by massive taxation with the idea that this will allow the government to build a nest egg for the future. Are they idiots, or just stupid?

          Has it occurred to her that not wasting the money on 'green' subsidy and cutting taxes on conventional energy would be a far better way to generate real wealth?

        3. Norway set up their fund in the 1970's becase Norway was a small, poor country back then, and has never had an industrial revolution. Suddenly, there was lots of oil money, a huge bonanza, and being a country that was then run by farmers, they decided to squirrel the bonus away – prudent, eh?

  82. We're at Firstborn's, so unless we drive 40 minutes each way, the choice is freshly made Norwegian / French, or industrial scoff (meatballs & potatoes kind of thing, with boil-in-a-bag sauerkraut…). Guess which we'll be going to. Now, in fact.

  83. Off topic
    A first, and I rather hope a last, for me.
    I've just been stung on my earlobe by a wasp.
    Burns like Hell.

        1. That reminds me…

          What's the last thing that goes through the mind of a fly when it hits your windscreen when you are travelling at 60 mph?

          Its arse!

        2. That reminds me…

          What's the last thing that goes through the mind of a fly when it hits your windscreen when you are travelling at 60 mph?

          Its arse!

        3. Unlike bees, wasp stings are not barbed and can be pulled out of the victim and reused.

  84. A cadaverous Bogey Five?

    Wordle 1,117 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Oh it wasn't that bad
      Wordle 1,117 4/6

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

    2. Slim chance but my fourth guess turned out to be right.

      Wordle 1,117 4/6

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

      1. 3 today. Feel pretty pleased after a blank first line.
        Wordle 1,117 3/6

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

      2. Working my way from the back.
        Wordle 1,117 4/6

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

    3. Unbelievable – I had 4 guesses and blew it! What a plonker!

      Wordle 1,117 X/6

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

      1. I hate when that happens, you go from "oh, I'm gong to get it in 3" to hopelessness!

    4. Managed a 4 today as alternatives were running out.

      Wordle 1,117 4/6

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

  86. Dawn of light lying between
    A silence and sold sources
    Chased amid fusions of wonder
    In moments hardly seen forgotten
    Coloured in pastures of chance
    Dancing leaves cast spells of challenge
    Amused but real in thought
    We fled from the sea whole

    Dawn of thought transferred through moments
    Of days under searching earth
    Revealing corridors of time provoking memories
    Disjointed but with purpose
    Craving penetrations offer links
    With the self instructors sharp
    And tender love as we took to the air
    A picture of distance

    Dawn of our power we amuse
    Re descending as fast as misused
    Expression, as only to teach love as
    To reveal passion chasing
    Late into corners, and we danced from the ocean

    Dawn of love sent within us
    Colors of awakening among the many
    Won't to follow, only tunes of a different age
    As the links span our endless caresses
    For the freedom of life everlasting . . .

      1. Indeed he did sing the opening stanza from the 1973 album Tales From Topographic Oceans.

    3. It's an early AI algorithm: Close To The Edge + Sound Chaser = The Revealing Science of God

  87. That's me for his dreary day. There was a moment of sunshine this afternoon – but nothing to write home about. Grey and dreary again tomorrow.
    Market day. Exciting things such as refuelling the car….

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain – eventually.

  90. Just put on the itv news and then turned it off.
    It came from Dortmund and was all about football. I can’t believe it. The whole of the news both local and national focused solely on football, with a bit about Flip flop sucking up to Biden for contrast.
    It’s great for people who like football, but those of us who don’t are ignored, and only offered reruns of coronation street and stupid game shows.
    So glad I cancelled my tv license.
    All I have seen over the last few weeks is people getting hysterical and jumping up and down like chimpanzees on speed and completely emotionally incontinate.
    Still, I suppose a few weeks without the box will do me good.

    1. All part of the bread and circuses distraction. WWlll is about to break out but hey-ho! Football is on the telly so it can't be too bad!

    2. Given up with broadcast TV, instead use t'Web for news and YouTube for entertainment.

    3. Ours is tuned to the tennis at Wimbledon, but he'll probably watch some of the footie as well.

  91. Just put on the itv news and then turned it off.
    It came from Dortmund and was all about football. I can’t believe it. The whole of the news both local and national focused solely on football, with a bit about Flip flop sucking up to Biden for contrast.
    It’s great for people who like football, but those of us who don’t are ignored, and only offered reruns of coronation street and stupid game shows.
    So glad I cancelled my tv license.
    All I have seen over the last few weeks is people getting hysterical and jumping up and down like chimpanzees on speed and completely emotionally incontinate.
    Still, I suppose a few weeks without the box will do me good.

      1. It is, G, but it doesn't seem to have done them much good. Rumours Mr&Mrs Z about to leave town, or possibly even gone already.

      2. I eat Chicken Kiev, in the same way that I eat Peking Duck, Bombay Duck and Madras Curry.

        1. I think I prefer Beijing Duck, Mumbai Duck and Chennai Curry (I watch the IPL!) PS Do they still do Bombay Duck? I used to love it but I heard it was banned by the EU.

          1. I don't know. Like you I love it but I've not seen one for years.

            It's a bit of a bummalao.

        1. Dont disagree but, to be fair, as an announcer it will still sound the same!!

    4. Should English spelling be adjusted to take account of regional dialects? Ukraine (old Russian for Borderland) has only existed as a defined region since 1922. You don’t get a distinct and unique language in a hundred years. It’s a dialect of Russian. In Russian it’s still Kiev

    5. They are the current Presidents, so who knows if this is a spoof, although I suspect so.

    1. And then there's the 500 tons of concrete poured into the ground to hold the thing up, the copper in the cables, the plastic around the copper, the kevlar around the plastic… and on, and on and on..

      There's a basic rule of energy that states the more you use, the more efficient the generation and use of it becomes – thus we don't burn wood in a fire when we have gas central heating. Even Drax, an appalling conceit burns wood more efficiently that my mother's log burner.

      Someone postulated to invest in candles to prepare for when the greens really get their way. Thing is, we won't be able to make them, let alone transport or sell them. The Left have got to be stopped, permanently.

  94. England line-up announced.
    Southgate has decided to change from boredom to dobmore.

    2. Do I take it from the flags draped around the office today that they’re playing France?

        1. Having seen where the idiotic Pickford plays….who knows!🤦🏻‍♀️

  96. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13620791/Triple-murder-suspect-Kyle-Clifford-CAUGHT-cemetery-tying-BBC-stars-wife-daughters-shooting-dead-crossbow-huge-manhunt.html

    A fugitive accused of murdering three people with a crossbow has been stretchered away from the scene after being caught in a cemetery following a huge manhunt.

    Kyle Clifford, 26, was seen being bundled into the back of an ambulance in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield, north London, by armed police and paramedics on Wednesday afternoon.

    Witnesses said they saw the suspect being stretchered away while receiving medical treatment before he was taken to Royal London Hospital.

    Officers said 'no shots were fired by police' and Clifford is being treated at a major trauma centre for his injuries.

    I'm sorry, but why don't they just stand around and watch while he dies of his major trauma?
    Oh let me guess, it might not have been him that killed the women.

    1. They were very quick to point out that no shots were fired! Why on earth not? Cheap and easy, and of course it was him!

  98. Ah, well whatever the reason, it’s an improvement on the alphabet soup banners!

    1. Countries With Red, White and Blue Flags
      1
      Australia
      2
      Cambodia
      3
      Chile
      4
      Costa Rica
      5
      Croatia
      6
      Cuba
      7
      Czech Republic
      8
      Dominican Republic
      9
      Fiji
      10
      France
      11
      Iceland
      12
      Laos
      13
      Liberia
      14
      Luxembourg
      15
      Nepal
      16
      Netherlands
      17
      New Zealand
      18
      North Korea
      19
      Norway
      20
      Panama
      21
      Paraguay
      22
      Russia
      23
      Samoa
      24
      Serbia
      25
      Slovakia
      26
      Slovenia
      27
      Thailand
      28
      United Kingdom
      29
      United States

      YAWN! Other colours are available, you boring muppets!

    1. Hold up, G…only a rumour so far:-) Been plenty of those, Mrs Z seen shopping in New York etc. It'll take the Yanks to flip first I imagine, turn the spigot on the dollar flow.

        1. Thx Sue..one way of returning some of the dollars to the US. I read something about that a good while ago, aren’t the Obamas neighbours…??

          1. Its on the front page of the DT

            https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/10/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news51/

            "Ukraine has criticised Russia for serving “chicken Kiev” at a UN Security Council dinner.
            Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, shared an image of the menu which highlighted “chicken Kiev served with potato paille”.
            “The moral decay of Russian diplomacy is glaring,” he said.
            He criticised diplomats for attending the dinner, which he described as being funded with “blood money”.

            Are you perhaps the Ukies produced it to discredit Russia?

          2. I was referring to the Zelensky property in Florida claim.
            Are you perhaps unable to follow the thread?

      1. Even fleas don't have a recognition problem…

        'The wonderful thing about fleas
        Is that you can't tell a he from a she
        But he can
        And she can
        Whoopee!"

  105. Awake again, having slept until 19:00, taken my magnesium and determined to return to bed by 22/23:00 hrs to get a night's sleep.

    1. May I ask if you find magnesium helps with sleep, Sir J…and if so recommend what you take please? Thanks, Kate.

      1. Seems to work (also prevents cramp) two a day, one in the morning and one before bed, Kate.

        1. Double bubble in that case, thanks Sir J. Someone told me to drink more water to avoid cramp..a) didn’t work and b) spent half the day in the bathroom. Will purchase some 🙂

      2. Nothing I’ve tried, Kate, helps with sleep, except tiredness – and probably death!

        1. Well yes, that would help, permanently.:-D..Tried Ovaltine (Original) last night .. (not Light version) contains magnesium carbonate. Also trying one of those coverless duvets 10.5 tog. I think sleep patterns change as we age, unfortunately – I need a daytime sleep now when I never used to.

  106. Wishing you all a very pleasant, deep and refreshing sleep. I've had it for tonight, eyes gone wonky 🙁

  107. The deadly weapon you can buy online for just £50: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper considers urgent changes to crossbow legislation after string of violent attacks across Britain

    Would that be a bowstring?

    1. Peter Hitchens pointed out on GBN earlier this evening that banning guns just means the weapons become more primitive.

    2. Hmmm. I've heard mutterings about banning crossbows a few weeks/months ago. All very convenient. Govt has form on this.

    3. Half a mo! My introduction to Archery course doesn't start until Mid-August!

    4. You can buy a bow that'll bash through wood at 20 metres. We've half a dozen of them for Junior's archery club.

      There's an epee upstairs for the Warqueen's fencing. In the kitchen there's a carving knife.

      Bluntly, anything can be a weapon. The state no doubt wants to legislate everything harmful but that doesn't work either.

          1. Very impressive. I suppose in action you would use the element of surprise by lifting your kilt with your free hand to such an extent that the enemy is gobsmacked where upon the claymore comes crashing down on their skulls!?

      2. I don't know if they are still available, but I used to have a speargun for fishing.
        It would do similarly, even with the protective tip cover, I shot mine through a pillow and bedhead while testing it.
        Yes, I know most male Nottlers claim to do similarly…

        1. One of the most notorious speargun fishermen of large predatory fish in the French Mediterranean in the 40s and 50s was Jacques Cousteau.

      3. The Prevention of Crimes Act categorises three types of "offensive weapons".

        1. An article specifically designed for offence (e.g. guns, knives, swords, etc).
        2. An article not normally offensive, but at the time is used as such (e.g. a cricket bat, a brick, etc)
        3. An article that has been deliberately modified or altered to make it an offensive weapon (i.e. a sharpened stick, etc).

    1. Absolutely NO health and safety there.
      Spectators mill around and if the thrower misses or the axe doesn't "take" it can fly anywhere.

  110. I'm doing my best to support England, but they are crap. That wasn't a penalty in the first half.
    Come on Spain 🇪🇸
    I've had enough of it. It's too frustrating to be watching. There,…… I'm off the hook of Holland.

  111. The UK doesn't need 'sustainable' new towns. It needs to stop paying people to breed. It needs to restore a market to housing. Both of those mean smaller, less intrusive government.

    'Sustainable' towns means a police station, hospital, green space, at least 5 primary schools, 2 secondary schools, a reservoir, a power station, dozens of miles of roads.

    What's the government planning to do? Build unreliable windmills. Refusing to build reservoirs, deliberately crippling traffic. The state cannot pursue a hard Left agenda of massive uncontrolled gimmigration and 'green communism'. There isn't the capacity, there isn't the money. Continuation of Tory policy of forcing socialism does not work.

  112. Ooops!

    "While politics and geopolitics dominate the headlines—whether it's Joe Bien's mumbling and stumbling or the risks of World War III in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or the South China Sea—many seem to overlook the ongoing commercial real estate crash in the US. This CRE downturn is set to worsen as remote and hybrid work models drastically reduce demand for traditional office towers.

    Bloomberg cited data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, reminding us that banks will face a $1 trillion maturity wall of CRE loans at the end of this year. This only means more bank failures are ahead because of the bad property debt held on balance sheets.

    "Compared with the Savings & Loans crisis and 2008, we're still in the first or second innings" when it comes to distressed CRE assets, said Rebel Cole, a finance professor at Florida Atlantic University who advises Oaktree Capital Management, adding, "There's a tsunami coming and the waters are pulling out from the beach."

    In a recent note, John Brady, global head of real estate at Oaktree, explained, "We could be on the precipice of one of the most significant real estate distressed investment cycles of the last 40 years."

        1. That’ll larn ye, as they say in Norfolk. Always proof-read before posting, is my motto

    2. It’s the same over here, what with WFH and the workshy. Only to be expected with empty office blocks everywhere.

  113. I find it starkly confusing that government seems to think it can destroy and call it growth. It literally is desperate to say that black is white against all reason or common sense.

  114. Top tip:

    If England's Wendyballers make it through to the final, and if you need to go to IKEA I guarantee the place will be empty then and you can be in and out before the National Anthems have finished!!

        2. Yes it was a bit, wasnt it? Couldnt believe it myself to be honest!

          What the hell, it’s tournament football and we’re in the Final! Get in there England! Let’s effing win it now!

      2. Even I watched it and to my very inexperienced eye thought that England looked the better side – then I saw the stats and I was right!

        1. Well done PJ – I know you’re not a fan but we all have to get behind the boys as I think we can win this and I want Gareth to get a knighthood! (I dont really….)

          1. The sooner the woke Prince of Wales grants Gareth the knighthood the sooner we might be rid of him and recruit a top international manager to manage the England Team.

            Knighthoods count for little these days, they are more often than not rewards for corruption. Likewise elevation to the Lords is almost exclusively reserved for the worst criminals acting on behalf of our own utterly corrupt deep state.

          2. Abso-bloody-lutely – but, given a free range, I have no idea who that might be – apart from Pep, obvs!

        2. Yes. To my eye England were the better side. I retain the memory of the Dutch manager when a player fouling David Platt in the penalty area and then scoring from a free kick when he should never have been on the pitch.

          Justice was finally served despite the referee who has shall we say a criminal record in football terms viz. match fixing, bribes and the rest.

    3. I watched some of the game. We appeared to try to score, an advance in tactics.

    4. Not really. It has been seat of the pants stuff. Obvious necessary substitutions far too late. With the quality of the bench the win over Netherlands proves the point surely. Winning goal made by late substitutes Cole Palmer and Ollie Watkins.

      My wife believes that Southgate wishes to torture us and he surely does every single match.

      1. It’s my belief that most of the talent discovered in the players is nearly all coached out of them! They so often go sideways and backwards instead of running at the opposition. And we do not tackle enough, just let the other team run at our goal.

  117. Evening, all. Britain does not need any new towns, especially not to house incomers who hate us. The rate of increase in the population is anything but sustainable.

    1. The Guardian

      Reports of our booming population are predictably being used to spout bigotry on immigration. A lack of room is the least of Britain's problems.

      1. So what are Britain's problems, according to the Grauniad? The indigenous population?

      3. Well canada has the space but no one wants another mass influx – apart from the idiots in government, they keep telling us how wonderful this multi culti will be.

        A million incomers last year but no jobs, housing, schools, healthcare or any other necessities of life. I am sure that a few thousand sand worshipers from gaza will help.

  118. Well, chums, it's just turned 10 pm which is my bedtime. So Good Night to you all, sleep well, and I'll hopefully see you all tomorrow.

  120. Right, that's me off to bed.
    Srepson is no longer sectioned, but is remaining in the hospital on a voluntary basis.
    A lot better than he was a couple of months back, but still not right.

  122. Football, what can I say?

    The house shook slightly when the tension rose!

    A cup of hot chocolate and a slice of cake soothed them!

  123. Well done the lads. Before I go to bed I'll leave you with this;

    (All bellowed)

    Vincent van Gogh!
    Rutger Hauer!
    Eddie van Halen!
    Anne Frank!
    Michael van Gerwen!
    The boy who stuck his finger in the dyke…
    Dick van Dyke…..
    Your boys took a heellll of a beating!!!!!

      1. Effing right! Showed those orange gits!! C’mon England (I’ve been told by my 6 year old Grandson I have to do this!)!!

      1. And Dick van Dyke was from the USA, although somehow he thought he was a Cockney! 🙂

    1. My BTL comment:

      We are being set up as a Caliphate by Labour – who have their WEF orders.

  125. Another day is done, later than sworn to, but a single malt snifter is in order, so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless all you Gentlefolk. If we are spared! Bis morgen früh.

    1. Didn't last long, so I've changed my pill routine to 22:00 in desperation to be able to sleep.

    1. 'Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the work and effort you have put in to keep us all going. Well done!

    4. I am hoping to get to Phil's party on the 10th. Are you able to provide me with the contact details or address. I'm not sure of the correct protocols and would appreciate enlightenment.

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