628 thoughts on “Wednesday 11 December: Voters shouldn’t underestimate the danger of a hung parliament”

  2. SIR – As a former producer and reporter for Channel 4 News, the BBC and ITN, I concur completely with the views of Lord Grade (Letters, December 10) – the best director-general the BBC never had – on the posturing of Andrew Neil and others.

    When being trained by the BBC, we were told that nobody is obliged to appear on television; if a guest turns you down, it’s not his or her problem, it’s yours. The message was: don’t be so vain as to think everyone you ask must agree to be interviewed.

    The blustering of Mr Neil and the petulant prank with melting ice sculptures by the present editor of Channel 4 News do no favours to the channels on which they have the privilege to broadcast, nor to the many talented people working for them.

    Rob White
    London N3

    You’ll never work for broadcast MSM again. Far too honest and and realistic.

  3. SIR – Following Charles Moore’s observation (Comment, December 10) that defence has hardly been discussed in this election campaign, I had the pleasure of attending the commissioning ceremony yesterday for our second aircraft carrier, the Prince of Wales, at Portsmouth, meeting many of her highly trained and motivated crew. We are rightly proud of our brave and dedicated servicemen and women, but what would their future be under Labour?

    Since the Prime Minister is the Queen’s representative in discharging her responsibilities, it is inconceivable that Jeremy Corbyn could deliver the Government’s number one priority, namely the protection of United Kingdom and its citizens. His record on terrorism, security and defence makes him totally unfit to hold office and, were he to come to power, our key allies would not share key intelligence with us.

    Voters need to be fully aware of the dire consequences for the security of the nation of installing Mr Corbyn in Downing Street.

    Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
    London SW1

    Fair enough but how many of HMS Prince of Wales’ ‘highly trained and motivated crew’ on display were borrowed from HMS Queen Elizabeth which recently returned to Portsmouth from its training exercises offshore the USA?

    1. …defence has hardly been discussed in this election campaign…

      We don’t actually have any in any meaningful sense!

    2. I personally know two people that work Dockside at Portsmouth. They struggled to get qualified crew for the first ship who had the correct level of clearance let alone ability.

  4. The Afghanistan war is more than a $1 trillion mistake. It’s a travesty. Ben Armbruster. Tue 10 Dec 2019 .

    The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were killed, injured and subject to years, if not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn’t want to admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don’t start holding these people to account – and it’s not just about Afghanistan – the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that it’s probably more likely than not that in 50 years there’ll be another batch of “papers” revealing once again that we’ve failed to learn obvious lessons from the past.

    Morning everyone. I agree with Mr Armbruster about the waste of the war in Afghanistan. Who would not? Though his hope that it will not be repeated is I am afraid a false one. The US is not alone in fighting wars in remote places. It is a function of Empires from the beginnings of human history. The Assyrian invasion of Israel, the Roman incursion into what is now Saudi Arabia, the British in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. All are identical in motive. The seeking of what Fuller calls “Unattackable frontiers” and which is now described as National Security. It serves other purposes as well of course. It keeps the military honed for battle and more importantly occupied away from the politics of the time. It also boosts patriotism and supplies boogeymen to manipulate the masses. It can no more be dispensed with than Income Tax. The only cure is Imperial Decline and that is not in the foreseeable American Future. The United States is not simply the greatest power in the world today it is the greatest there has ever been and there is no sign, cultural, economic, demographic, whatever, that this hegemony is weakening, in fact there is good reason to think that it will grow in the rest of the century. The only cloud on the horizon for the US is Nightfall; a nuclear exchange. This of course cannot be predicted but the rise of China, the marginalisation of Russia and world economic and social instability suggest its likelihood. There may be worse things coming than Afghanistan!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/10/the-afghanistan-war-is-more-than-a-1-trillion-mistake-its-a-travesty

  5. SIR – December 16 is the 75th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most significant battles of the Second World War. It is generally seen as an American victory in which the British played little part. In fact, about 200,000 American soldiers were put under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery.

    With these and 55,000 British and Commonwealth troops, Montgomery fought a decisive action behind the Meuse river that stopped the German advance and prevented them from seizing Antwerp. His refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough. The air attacks that consolidated the German defeat were led by British Air Marshal Arthur Coningham who, with his American second-in-command, directed both RAF and USAF sorties (of which 1,243 were flown by the RAF).

    Montgomery’s dispatch to the BBC about the battle was intercepted by the Germans and rebroadcast with an anti-American bias. It caused uproar.

    To assuage American outrage, Montgomery was obliged to apologise and Britain’s contribution was written out of history. Churchill called it “an ever-famous American victory”, but without Britain it would probably have been an ever-famous American defeat. It is time our veterans received the recognition they deserve.

    Nicholas Young
    London W13

    Interesting. Tell Hollywood.

    1. With these and 55,000 British and Commonwealth troops, Montgomery fought a decisive action behind the Meuse river that stopped the German advance and prevented them from seizing Antwerp. His refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough. The air attacks that consolidated the German defeat were led by British Air Marshal Arthur Coningham who, with his American second-in-command, directed both RAF and USAF sorties (of which 1,243 were flown by the RAF).

      This is as much a farrago of the truth, albeit from a British perspective, as the Hollywood accounts of the battle!

      1. Whatever the truth of the matter the German surprise attack was thwarted by the Allies including Patton’s men. I say “Nuts” to the argument.

      2. From what I’ve read, from a number of authors, Montgomery quickly ensured that the Germans would never get across the Meuse by deploying his forces appropriately. When he took command of the North of the Bulge he employed the ‘expanding balloon’ defence i.e. giving ground and concentrating his forces thus allowing the Germans to expend their energy and dissipate their forces over a great area – he probably knew from Ultra that the Germans were short of fuel. This move allegedly infuriated some American generals as it was not a tactic they were familiar with and was against their ‘attack, attack’ ethos. However, it worked and some of those American generals did see the value of that tactic. British and Commonwealth troops held ground in defensive positions rather than doing much of the fighting.

        The Bulge was an initial American shambles redeemed in the most part by the valour of American forces.

        There is a story that General Horrocks, if I remember correctly, wanted to allow the Germans to cross the Meuse around Namur and then defeat them on the field of Waterloo. Probably made in jest as the Meuse was a barrier that was never going to be allowed to be breached.

      3. I agree. I did a battlefield tour of the Bulge when I served in the TA (after regular service). We all had to give presentations at various locations so much study was required. Much of my info came from books by the prolifiic military author Charles Whiting who concluded that, yes the British Army stopped the Germans at the extent of their thrust, but that most of the fighting was done by small pockets of Americans standing and fighting. (Paraphrasing Whiting).

        Too much has been made of the panic in the rear echelons and not enough of the reality. The presentation I gave involved the rapid formation of three armoured columns by the US Army to carry out ‘Recconaissance In Force’ in other words, probe the enemy and give him a kicking where you can. All three columns were scratch-formations, all with no artillery support. They just got on with it.

        And I’m sure the 101st at Bastogne would be delighted to hear Monty claimimg so much credit /sarc.

        Hollywood, as you suggest did their own veterans a disservice in that awful film.

  8. – Climate change crap on all stations this morning, Greenland ice is melting faster than 20 years ago, I wonder if they will discover more Viking settlements under the ice fields if it does.

  9. Putin’s plan for America is working better than he could have hoped. CNN 10 December 2019.

    With its meddling operation in 2016, Russia had planned to inject the nation with bad blood, setting Americans against one another, fanning divisions and undermining confidence in US democracy.

    It worked better than President Putin can have dared hope.

    Vlad must sit in the Kremlin wishing he had just one tenth of the influence attributed to him by the US MSM. That he could have achieved the above with a few facebook posts is beyond all credibility. On the plus side he must congratulate himself on having the good fortune to have had the most divided, self-interested and corrupt polity in American history!

    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/09/world/meanwhile-in-america-december-10-intl/index.html

    1. If Putin wanted to destroy the USA he would be supporting the Democrats and all the cranky liberal elites

  11. The postal vote factories must be really busy.. and it must cost a fortune now in carrier bags to get the votes in on time.

  13. Don’t get excited. BoJo thinks that the Foreign Office might do a better job of spending our borrowed money.

    Tories are planning to AXE the £14billion foreign aid department if Boris Johnson wins election
    *Department for International Development (Dfid) has faced frequent criticism
    *Controls most of Britain’s £14billion aid budget and was set up by Labour in 1997
    *Johnson argued that cash might be better targeted if managed by Foreign Office

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7778499/Tories-planning-AXE-14billion-foreign-aid-department-Boris-Johnson-wins-election.html

    1. If the object is to give all our money away for no benefit to anyone but the super rich and evil dictators then you can rely on the liblabcon.

      1. All the leaders of the main parties lurve to give away our money in the form of ‘Aid’ because it gives them a seat at the top table of UN conferences etc. It is nationalised virtue signalling at its most obscene.

      1. These parents require some severe questioning as to their motives. A lot of this, as with the wee Thunderbug, amount, in my book, to child abuse.

      2. ‘Munchhausen’s By Proxy’ A phrase I’ve used myself on Discus with regard to this matter. Isn’t it strange that we never seem to hear from the fathers? Is there a single mother issue here I wonder?

  16. Questions

    have been raised as to why visitors were allowed on the island after

    seismic monitoring experts raised the volcano’s alert level last month.

    “These questions must be asked and they must be answered,” Prime

    Minister Jacinda Ardern said in Parliament as police announced that they

    were launching an investigation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/10/new-zealand-volcano-no-signs-life-island-britons-feared-among/
    What’s Jacinda going to do??
    Order the volcano arrested for a hate crime??

  17. Morning all

    I guess the NHS is being crippled because many many NHS doctors are using lucrative loopholes to further private practise on the side.

    A couple of years ago , I needed a scan and was sent off to a private hospital .. for a scan at 7pm at night .. The NHS still works to fixed hours .. My thoughts are that NHS equipment should be available 24/7 and not just for emergencies.

    I have also been told that managers and facilitators could be the root of many problems , and companies that supply equipment and goods are raking in profits to the extreme .

    Still, funny isn’t it that Labour haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room that they created with their open doors invitation to every migrant outside Christendom , have they?

    Anyway , yesterday lunchtime I hosted my elderly ex veterans Christmas do , and if you could have heard the comments from good still strong able minded elderlies re the election .. they are all Brexiteers , Thatcher type Tories and feel really bitter about the mess May landed us in , they feel Boris has given things a good try, Farage is all gas and gaiters , and Corbyn and his thickos will cause indescribable damage to the country in the blink of an eye .

    O come all ye faithful , joyful and triumphant … hmmmm

    1. ‘Morning, Belle.

      So did you have to pay for your scan in a private hospital?

      Btw, to further private practise practice on the side.

      1. No , i didn’t .. the NHS facilitated my appointment , rang me up to ask whether I would be available at a particular time , and I said yep, I’ll jump when asked .. and I did quite happily.. There were several other patients who were referred as well as me. It was very enlightening..

        You will be interested to hear though that the technicians / xray staff were German and Norwegian !!!

      2. Oh dear, Peddy, if we are really going to be pedantic, in order to highlight the offending phrase, it is much, much better to copy it in italics, with quotation marks and ellipsis, thus.

        “…to further private practise practice on the side.”

    2. Well done to you and the vets, Belle. My view on their views though, are that they’ve got the Johnson/Farage descriptions the wrong way round.

      1. Hi Mola,

        We have about 4 Ukip members .. they are/ were very strong and supportive … they expected so much more from Ukip / Farage’s Brexit party .

        I fear that many people will feel broken up after this election is over.

        1. Unfortunately you are right. Like most politicians Farage is a flawed character.

          It might be educational for some of his supporters to examine why so many of us who did the “backroom” work for him declined his invitation to join The Brexit Party.

          Oh – and on standing down his candidates – I do not think it had much to do with not harming Brexit. More to do with the fact that he did not have enough candidates of the calibre he required to stand in all of the seats.

          Evidence for this is the phone call I recieved on the Sunday before he stood them down – asking me to stand for Brexit Party in Devizes.

          I declined – and I have never registered any interest in that party.

          1. Good morning m’dear. I hope you are keeping well.
            After all the lies, smears and obfuscation, all I hope for on Friday is Corbyn NOT being in No.10 and even that is looking forlorn.

    3. Good Morning Belle and Friends.

      It is good to know that there are still some folk around who have beliefs and moral fibre.

    4. Morning all. Labour are hypocrites (I know, you already knew). I worked at a private hospital from 2000 onwards for nearly 10 years and we had patients from Portsmouth sent to us for X-rays to catch up with the waiting lists back in the T Bliar era. There was very little money in it we had ton”charge” the NHS more or less what we were told it cost them.
      I totally agree that. NHS facilities/personnel should be available 24/7, more of them should be working shifts as many many other people have to. Also at the time of 2000 when having to organise MRI/CT scans at an NHS nearby hospital, as we didn’t have all the equipment, we were told private patients offset the costs for the NHS.
      Really if I need treatment in hospital I don’t care if it’s private or NHS as long as I’m seen.
      Talking to other people about health treatment it does seem as if people are much less of a “the NHS is the envy of the world” mindset. Which other country thought it sensible to copy it? A mix and match approach is by far the better way to provide health care and the NHS should not be treated as if it were a sacred cow.
      Edit:MRI not MTI.

      1. Morning to you.

        I absolutely agree with you. My long gone father in law had waited over 3 years for a new hip whilst Labour were in power , he was eventually referred by the NHS to the Nuffield in Southampton for his op .. he was in hospital for ten days .. then put to convalesce and have physio in the old FW ( daren’t mention the name .. ) then he developed MRSA through sloppy nursing and treatment .. was transferred to the General , and died of everything from here to kingdom come .. on my birthday .

        The tragedy is that he was nurtured and nursed beautifully in the Nuffield.. there he was , a retired sheet metal worker , who had built Spitfires during the war .. he couldn’t believe his luck… then his decline in health began as he was sloppily treated when transferred to another hospital , I was having to bring food in for him, and actually emptying his catheter bag … and worrying like hell about the infection that set in that eventually killed him ,poor dear man.

        Some parts of the NHS cannot cope with criticism. Frontline is fine , but the in between bits are ghastly , too ghastly for words and to write about .

      2. My husband was treated recently as an NHS patient in a private hospital and we couldn’t have asked for better service. I agree the NHS facilities should be open for longer hours – nurses seem to be the only ones who do night duty.

        Mix and match of private and NHS makes sense – and insurance instead of free for all as well. Why should it be free for anyone who rocks up here?

        1. I suspect a lot of the public feel the same about private/NHS healthcare but no politician would dare to say so.
          Edit to add: trust all is well with your husband.

          1. Thankyou – yes he’s a bit frustrated because he can’t play sports at the moment, but the physio is gradually improving his mobility.

    5. I think the younger surgeons are certainly doing private work on the side as the orthopod who treated J does. The older ones, however, are concerned that their pensions are now on the maximum and why should they be working extra time only to see it snatched back in tax.

      Other than that – as Boris’deal, imperfect as it is, is the only one on offer, I see no alternative than to vote Tory this time and hope we don’t get Corbyn & McDonkey to make this country into Venezuela.

  18. My comment today on John Redwood’s Diary, from his reply I’m not sure that JR saw my attempt at being ironic.

    RAF
    Posted December 11, 2019 at 6:55 am | Permalink

    Sir John,

    Consumers could do with a post Christmas present of keeping more of their earnings to spend on their priorities.

    Why should consumers be concerned about the above when all they have to do is vote for the Corbyn/McDonnell axis and receive all that free stuff?

    Reply Because that would end in economic disaster as it always does and we would all be worse off.

  21. After considering the campaigns of all four candidates presented to me, their parties and their leaders, I have made my decision.

    For me, it is between expressing my feelings by reducing the turnout by staying at home, or spoiling my ballot paper. I have decided on the latter, since a short succinct statement might actually be seen, albeit fleetingly, at the count, whereas a vote or a non-vote would register with nobody.

    My disappointment is primarily with the failure of all the candidates to address the Laffer Curve in order to enable national expenditure to be at least matched by direct taxation. None have done this, and therefore all the parties’ manifesto commitments are unsustainable, and therefore all fail the nation.

    This is my judgement.

      1. The final ‘Madcap’ morris dance weekend in Malvern as its 66-year-old founder retires it while it is still in its prime. Any future event will have a different name. ‘Zimmer Morris’ perhaps?

          1. The Welsh border tradition of the English marches traditionally danced on Boxing Day. It was a form of aggressive begging, when fruit workers were hard up after Christmas, and people would pay them to go away.

            They would put tattered ribbons on their shirts, and black their faces with soot, so they would not be recognised by future employers.

            Border dancing had a revival in the last 40 years, as the dances are simpler than the Cotswold tradition. There is also not this convention against men and women dancing freely together, as they often would today.

            The biggest issue though is with face blacking, which today is regarded as a hate crime. Nobody dare do cultural appropriation with Welsh miners, who are a bit touchy about losing their livelihoods.

            Sadly, like most benign cultural traditions (other than hip-hop rapping, which is supported by the politically approved), it is dying out after Disclosure & Barring has effectively shut out the youngsters, since few people want to go through the intrusion and criminalisation of submitting to Safeguarding procedures.

  22. A brief Good Morning from a Saxon Queen.
    Whilst Labour have their Pavlov dogs on the streets fighting
    and brainwashing as the left always do very well,
    winning hearts and ” intellects. The right wing just play
    nicely with earwax and try and be nice .
    This is a fight for our democracy, freedoms and way of life,
    we are fighting the hard left and it’s terrorist supporting leader
    and those behind him who are just as bad.
    Momentum now control the Labour party, they will decide it’s leaders
    from now on. If anyone thinks that a hung parliament will do
    anything but allow Corbyn in by the back door then they are fools,
    Corbyn has a coalition already in making with the SNP and
    the Lib Dems, all three of them have the amalgamated numbers
    In the Hoc to push anything through.
    No one has the right to give me the national security risk that’s
    Jeremy Corbyn, the man is a current danger and once the hard left are
    In we’ll never get rid of them. They’ll change the way we vote,
    remove us from NATO, introduce more chums from the Middle East
    with unlimited immigration and will allow 16 year olds and EU nationals
    who are not UK citizens to vote .
    I tomorrow shall vote Conservative .

    1. Good Moaning, My Lady.
      I was wondering where you’d gone.
      I hope those uncouth Vikings haven’t been giving you a hard time.

    3. Morning A,
      Then you agree to the very voting pattern that has brought us over the years to our present odious state as a nation.
      In this instance I do agree it is the only way out but with a very strong proviso
      that the lab/lib/con pro eu mass uncontrolled immigration,
      PC / Appeasement coalition party be ditched post General Election, along with ALL current political participants.

      1. Tony Blair I believe won with a 90 seat majority,
        he had a free reign and changed not only the face of this
        country but interfered with indoctrinating our values
        saying all that was Conservative was ” nasty ” .
        We have not had a decent Conservative majority since
        before Blair. We had a Lib Dem lead coalition .
        We need a very large Conservative majority or we are trapped
        with Labour/ SNP / Lib Dems/ Green Party etc in a
        coalition together voting for what they want or not want
        or Labour on their own for a Marxist eternal reign of terror.
        That is the reality of the situation and you throwing stones
        Isn’t going to change that .

        1. A,
          Ever since Margaret Thatcher received the order of the knife the tory party has been hoping the next leader will be an improvement
          on the last but alas……
          These parties / supporters / voters are locked into a keep in,keep out, party first mode of voting & damn the consequences regarding the Country.
          This is not stone throwing it is fact.

          2. Morning A,
            Do not type rubbish it does not become you.
            The choice many are making today is what kind of rubbish they want, per usual.
            The continuing lab/lib/con pro eu vote over the years has devastated these Isles.

        2. Tony did not have a free reign. You must be thinking of the Queen.
          The coalition may have been lead, or copper or tin.
          Whatever, the Conservatives lost the plot even before May took over, and have few of

          real talent. If Labour were not so evil, the Conservative vote would sink like a stone. Or lead.

    1. The truth, really. I have not been able to see my GP in the last four years. (Google is your doctor now). A couple of days ago our local General Hospital announced that it did not want any more cases to turn up, unless they are really really serious, as they were fully occupied. I hope I do not get anything serious* as the next nearest hospital is 35 miles away, and is also full up.
      *I’m not sure why that means. Broken finger? Stroke, something in between?

  24. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    Of course, when stunts are one’s only ‘argument’

    there are no other options … though I hope these ‘bees’ had a

    thoroughly miserable time before the police were able to release them.

    Their ‘attack’ however is symptomatic

    for this whole GE campaign: stunts and photo-ops by the contestants,

    pseudo-debates on telly used by the ‘comperes’ to embig themselves,

    polls used blatantly as campaign material, no debate about the main

    issue: Johnson’s ‘oven-ready deal’, with TBP party being painted as the

    real enemy of Johnson rather than Labour’s Remain proposals.

    Both parties have kept their top names

    out of the limelight as much as possible – anyone remember Keith

    Starmer? Diane Abbot? Jacob Rees-Mogg? – thus fuelling the MSM’s intent

    of turning the GE into a US-style presidential election and curtailing

    proper debates.

    Well, tomorrow it’s our turn – tomorrow we have our say

    in the only ‘opinion poll’ that matters. I hope the main combatants are

    going to chew their fingernails to the elbows, waiting for the results.

    For once, there’s nothing they can do. It’s up to us – so go to the

    polls tomorrow and KBO

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-wednesday-11th-december-2019-one-day-to-polling-day/

    1. As Nigel Farage said yesterday: nobody has any real details of the Johnson WA. Boris Johnson has told us nothing about it and nobody in the MSM has asked him any searching questions. All that Johnson has said is: “It is ‘my, brilliant, new, oven-ready Brexit deal“.

      The trouble is that:

      i) It is not his deal – it is a rehash of the May/Merkel/Barnier ‘deal’;
      ii) It is not brilliant;
      iii) It is not ‘new’;
      iv) It is not oven-ready – at best it is half-baked;
      v) It is not Brexit.
      vi) It is not really a deal at all.

      It defies belief that we are going into the election billed as the ‘Brexit election’ with so little sensible information about what is being pushed upon us. It also defies belief that the only alternative to Johnson is Corbyn so the voters who want a proper Brexit do not have an alternative and will have to vote for the blinking idiot.

    1. My first reaction to a 4-legged creature is to check whether it’s a male or female … and I note that it doesn’t have the numerous teats which would indicate a female ….

    2. No wonder that Hugh Grant is in favour of Jeremy Corbyn. They both seem to be enthusiastic about being dominated by domineering women of colour.

  29. I note the Rohingya are back in the headlines,perhaps it’s time their co-religionists stepped up to the plate…………….

    Where is the largest Rohinga community in Europe??

    Yup,you guessed it

    Right here

    The Bradford Rohingyas, the biggest community of the ethnic group in Europe, have watched with increasing horror as more than 670,000 of their ethnic group – often described as the “world’s most persecuted people” – have fled the destruction of their villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
    Pehaps Buddhists didn’t fancy being “Ethnically cleansed” and their religion and temples destroyed??
    CoughAfghanistancough

    1. Perhaps if for the last 20 years they hadn’t raped, murdered, kidnapped, abused, child raped, burned, stolen and robbed the Buddhists living next door they wouldn’t now be looking for somewhere else.

      I mean, 20 years of it. We got fed up after 5.

  30. Well two reputations as electioneers/strategists are at risk on Thursday: Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I must say I have found the Tory campaign uninspiring and the strategy of no deal with the Brexit Party may well have damaged both parties. I also think we should have seen more of some talented or appealing Cabinet ministers with a message which would appeal to Labour leaversm such as Priti Patel and Andrea Leadsome plus backbenchers with a common touch, sucg as Mark Francois and Steve Baker. But no, we have had an endless stream of photo-opps with Boris donning so many uiforms/overalls ….

    1. Here in Scotland there appears to have been little or no mention of the elephants, Brexit and immigration. We do have the very big squirrel of Indyref2 but that is a chimera rather than an elephant.

    2. Tory campaign uninspiring?
      Around here the Tory candidate hasn’t even bothered to send any electioneering pamphlets around.

    3. But Steve Baker and Mark Francois have humbly betrayed their cause of a proper Brexit just as the oleaginous Rees Mogg and his Delilah/Jezebel sister have done. (Yes, biblical comparisons are appropriate for this deceitful hussy.)

      I believe, as I said at the outset of the campaign, that Boris Johnson would have a convincing victory if he made a pact with Nigel Farage’s party to go for a real Brexit. He has rejected this pact and the result may well be that Johnson does not even secure a working majority. How can people blame Farage for putting Brexit at risk when the fault lies entirely with the Conservative Party?

      1. I was putting a (non-normative/positive) proposition about the effectiveness of Johnson/Cummings not about morality. If we must continually emote on these matters, I do believe that many ERG tories are decent people, with principles, who have had to compromise … and they know that with a Tory majority and the WA passed it is possible to get tougher with the EU in 2020 and get them in a “decent Deal or No Deal” bind.

        1. Good morning, Lewis,

          I fear that as soon as the current proposed WA is effected that Britain will be completely trapped in the EU for the foreseeable future.

          ‘Remain for the time being’ could be a better option and it would enable us to get out of the EU completely more quickly. We could then start again from scratch without any of the obfuscation deceit and delay that May has used and Johnson is still using.

          2. Those who do any DIY – as I suspect many of us here do – know that when something is broken beyond repair the best thing to do is to accept reality, throw away the broken item and start again from scratch. That gets the job done not only far better but also far more quickly

            Sounds very like Brexit to me.

    1. My wife Caroline was right at the time of the referendum and she heard of the ‘Leave victory.’ “It will never happen,” she said.

      She knows as well as I do that EU enslavement is incompatible with Britain and the British but she also knows how very treacherous all politicians (including the Dutch and the French politicians) are.

      1. Morning R,
        I know eventually it will happen, God forbid, via violence, but happen it will.
        As soon as I heard “victory is ours, leave it to the tories” I knew trouble was afoot, the 9 months delay triggered full on treachery condoned by hard core supporters / voters of the lab/lib/con coalition party.
        ALL the peoples on the right side of thinking were castigated, put down, & hate smeared we are now witnessing the results.
        The politico’s next move will be full submission the footings for that are already in place in many areas of GB as with a mosque on each corner & one in the middle.
        The sad thing is many indigenous will still be in the keep in / keep out voting mode.

      2. Let’s hope for a Marxist government on Friday…… in alliance with our European ‘friends’.

  34. (From elsewhere)

    I’m still a bit undecided about my vote direction thisThursday.

    I’ve obviously taken into consideration what I consider to be the following points on the two main parties.

    On the one hand the Conservative Boris Johnson is a bit of a rascal with the ladies and can sometimes bend the truth a bit, he’s also a bit posh.

    And on the other hand..

    Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn Invited two IRA members to parliament two weeks after the Brighton bombing.
    Attended Bloody Sunday commemoration with bomber Brendan McKenna.
    Attended meeting with Provisional IRA member Raymond McCartney.
    Hosted IRA linked Mitchell McLaughlin in parliament.
    Spoke alongside IRA terrorist Martina Anderson.
    Attended Sinn Fein dinner with IRA bomber Gerry Kelly.
    Chaired Irish republican event with IRA bomber Brendan MacFarlane.
    Attended Bobby Sands commemoration honouring IRA terrorists.
    Stood in minute’s silence for IRA gunmen shot dead by the SAS.
    Refused to condemn the IRA in Sky News interview.
    Refused to condemn the IRA on Question Time.
    Refused to condemn IRA violence in BBC radio interview.
    Signed EDM after IRA Poppy massacre massacre blaming Britain for the deaths.
    Arrested while protesting in support of Brighton bomber’s co-defendants.
    Lobbied government to improve visiting conditions for IRA killers.
    Attended Irish republican event calling for armed conflict against Britain.
    Hired suspected IRA man Ronan Bennett as a parliamentary assistant.
    Hired another aide closely linked to several convicted IRA terrorists.
    Heavily involved with IRA sympathising newspaper London Labour Briefing.
    Put up £20,000 bail money for IRA terror suspect Roisin McAliskey.
    Didn’t support IRA ceasefire.
    Said Hamas and Hezbollah are his “friends“.
    Called for Hamas to be removed from terror banned list.
    Called Hamas “serious and hard-working“.
    Attended wreath-laying at grave of Munich massacre terrorist.
    Attended conference with Hamas and PFLP.
    Photographed smiling with Hezbollah flag.
    Attended rally with Hezbollah and Al-Muhajiroun.
    Repeatedly shared platforms with PFLP plane hijacker.
    Hired aide who praised Hamas’ “spirit of resistance“.
    Accepted £20,000 for state TV channel of terror-sponsoring Iranian regime.
    Opposed banning Britons from travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS.
    Defended rights of fighters returning from Syria.
    Said ISIS supporters should not be prosecuted.
    Compared fighters returning from Syria to Nelson Mandela.
    Said the death of Osama Bin Laden was a “tragedy“.
    Wouldn’t sanction drone strike to kill ISIS leader.
    Voted to allow ISIS fighters to return from Syria.
    Opposed shoot to kill.
    Attended event organised by terrorist sympathising IHRC.
    Signed letter defending Lockerbie bombing suspects.
    Wrote letter in support of conman accused of fundraising for ISIS.
    Spoke of “friendship” with Mo Kozbar, who called for destruction of Israel.
    Attended event with Abdullah Djaballah, who called for holy war against UK.
    Called drone strikes against terrorists “obscene”.
    Boasted about “opposing anti-terror legislation”.
    Said laws banning jihadis from returning to Britain are “strange”.
    Accepted £5,000 donation from terror supporter Ted Honderich.
    Accepted £2,800 trip to Gaza from banned Islamist organisation Interpal.
    Called Ibrahim Hewitt, extremist and chair of Interpal, a “very good friend”.
    Accepted two more trips from the pro-Hamas group PRC.
    Speaker at conference hosted by pro-Hamas group MEMO.
    Met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh several times.
    Hosted meeting with Mousa Abu Maria of banned group Islamic Jihad.
    Patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign – marches attended by Hezbollah.
    Compared Israel to ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.
    Said we should not make “value judgements” about Britons who fight for ISIS.
    Received endorsement from Hamas.
    Attended event with Islamic extremist Suliman Gani.
    Chaired Stop the War, who praised “internationalism and solidarity” of ISIS.
    Praised Raed Salah, who was jailed for inciting violence in Israel.
    Signed letter defending jihadist advocacy group Cage.
    Met Dyab Jahjah, who praised the killing of British soldiers.
    Shared platform with representative of extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
    Compared ISIS to US military in interview on Russia Today.
    Opposed proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
    Attended conference which called on Iraqis to kill British soldiers.
    Attended Al-Quds Day demonstration in support of destruction of Israel.
    Supported Hamas and ISIS-linked Viva Palestina group.
    Attended protest with Islamic extremist Moazzam Begg.
    Made the “case for Iran” at event hosted by Khomeinist group.
    Photographed smiling with Azzam Tamimi, who backed suicide bombings.
    Photographed with Abdel Atwan, who sympathised with attacks on US troops.
    Said Hamas should “have tea with the Queen”.
    Attended ‘Meet the Resistance’ event with Hezbollah MP Hussein El Haj.
    Attended event with Haifa Zangana, who praised Palestinian “mujahideen”.
    Defended the infamous anti-Semitic Hamas supporter Stephen Sizer.
    Attended event with pro-Hamas and Hezbollah group Naturei Karta.
    Backed Holocaust denying anti-Zionist extremist Paul Eisen.
    Photographed with Abdul Raoof Al Shayeb, later jailed for terror offences.
    Mocked “anti-terror hysteria” while opposing powers for security services.
    Named on speakers list for conference with Hamas sympathiser Ismail Patel.
    Criticised drone strike that killed Jihadi John.
    Said the 7/7 bombers had been denied “hope and opportunity”.
    Said 9/11 was “manipulated” to make it look like bin Laden was responsible.
    Failed to unequivocally condemn the 9/11 attacks.
    Called Columbian terror group M-19 “comrades”.
    Blamed beheading of Alan Henning on Britain.
    Gave speech in support of Gaddafi regime.
    Signed EDM spinning for Slobodan Milosevic.
    Blamed Tunisia terror attack on “austerity”.
    Voted against banning support for the IRA.
    Voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act three times during the Troubles.
    Voted against emergency counter-terror laws after 9/11.
    Voted against stricter punishments for being a member of a terror group.
    Voted against criminalising the encouragement of terrorism.
    Voted against banning al-Qaeda.
    Voted against outlawing the glorification of terror.
    Voted against control orders.
    Voted against increased funding for the security services to combat terrorism.

    So it’s a tricky one really.

    1. Boris is a Tory and Tories eat babies and sacrifice virgins and get rich and laugh at the poor people.

      Corbyn promises you £1 million pounds and will make the evil rich pay for it, because they’ve had it easy for so long.

      Yeah, sorry. I can’t do it. Lefties are nutters. Vote for Boris.

    2. In his defence, having seen it, regarding this: Said Hamas and Hezbollah are his “friends“.”

      It was a conference to try to find peace in the middle east. Corbyn was trying to set an example of decency toward what were, at the time considered pariahs, vicious lunatics hellbent on murder.

      (who, it should be noted, are *still* vicious lunatics hellbent on murder).

  35. I’m hazarding a guess, but I expect to see another couple of NHS related “scandals”, one of which will surface just in time for the early evening news today and another that will break overnight in time to be all over tomorrow’s news.

    1. That’s the way to do it!*. The optimum time is probably three days beforehand, but I’m sure you are right that there will be a few fake stunts this afternoon.

      *(Oh no, it’s not! Oh yes, it is!)

        1. Why didn’t these people see their GP first? The baby was only three weeks old so the GP surgery would have prioritised her.
          It’s no wonder A&E struggle to cope. And clearly the nurses were taking care of the baby.

        2. It would have to include the NHS and children, both dear to our hearts and maybe throw in a well loved family pet as well….

          Any ideas for a GOTCHA HAPPY HOUR..?

          6. You do? Come down see me sometime. The last Mod took a week to recover. I do do a good spread……….

    1. One might be wondering what is the connection between Myanmar and The Gambia.

      The Gambia, a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, has taken the legal lead in drafting the claim against Myanmar. It is being supported by other Muslim states. An initial hearing is expected at the ICJ in December.
      In the application, the vice-president of the Gambia, Isatou Touray, describes her state as “a small country with a big voice on matters of human rights on the continent and beyond”.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/11/gambia-rohingya-genocide-myanmar-un-court

      1. “with a big voice on matters of human rights on the continent and beyond”

        But not MY country of course,ask the disappeared

        Oh Wait

        .However, its role was quickly expanded to meet both real and perceived

        challenges from civilian critics and opponents. Despite the transition

        to a civilian government in 1996, the original military decree was

        retained, allowing the NIA to operate outside the correct legal

        framework. The NIA also gained a “feared reputation for harassment of

        the political opposition and news media critics of the government”.[3]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Intelligence_Services_(the_Gambia)

      4. Golly. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation includes Nigeria and Mozambique, both members of the Commonwealth, as well as Algeria which has applied to join. Maybe others, I got fed up looking. Also, of course, Saudi Arabia which often supports muslim expansionism such as building mosques in the UK.
        It all gets murkier and murkier.

    2. What the hell is the EU doing with our money pledging 75m euros immediately to The Gambia and then another 175m euros in the future?
      Why isn’t this plastered all over the MSM and why, why WHY is the EU trying to inveigle some other poor country into its web?

    1. “Sally-Ann Hart faces inquiries over alleged Islamophobia and antisemitism”. Don’t you just hate false equivalence. I note their selective use of capital letters too.

      1. It’s been coming up for a while now, the Muslims jumping on the anti-discrimination bandwagon. ” Hey, we’ve been discriminated against too. I know we haven’t been oppressed for two thousand years or six million of us murdered in a holocaust, and I know we did 9/11 and are still randomly murdering people on the streets of London and committing atrocities all over the world, but it is absolutely unacceptable that people should say bad things about us “

    2. Didn’t we discuss the piece in CW yesterday about the minimum wage meaning those with learning disabilities can no longer get paid work? Hart’s views are probably no more extreme than ours.

      2. I think this question first arose a few years back. What makes this a difficult point is distinguishing between very sad cases like this (where there really is a very sad problem) and the bland statement that ” disabled people should be paid less than ” normal ” people, which spoken or unspoken was very common until the Disability Discrimination Act 1997 as it then was, came into force. ” Disability ” covers a multitude of problems of mobility, vision, hearing, etc. which always used to provoke a negative reaction from some employers and of course others,

        1. Of course, but there are many jobs that could be done (maybe less efficiently) by people with some disabilities, including Downs, but how many employers can afford to pay them for half the work rate of the non-disabled? Their only option now is volunteer placements.

  39. Greta at the Climate Change Summit –

    “The teenage activist’s appearance came after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called her a “brat”.

    I like Mr Bolsonaro. He is a nice man, kind to animals, and has a wonderful way of speaking.

    1. Quite why is she even there. She know nothing of the subject other than repeating the mantra of the other Greenies

      They also come out with arbitrary dates by which we are supposed to be carbon neutral. Anyone with any real scientific, Engineering and business knowledge would know that those date are impossible to meet even if you throw unlimited amounts of money at it

      UK CO2 emission as a percentage of world emissions are totally insignificant i any case amounting to about 0.1%

      1. Nearer one % I think BJ, and falling, as we become less industrialised, having shipped all manufacturing to the Far East.

      2. Politicians don’t know anything about it either.

        Smply put, it’s an engineering problem made a political one. Politicians love it because it gets them lots of money in tax and to sounds important.

        Bluntly, we need to resolve the causes of pollution. The first being the WEEE which is an EU law preventing us from creating a certain amount of landfill.

        To do this, we lie, pack it all in containers and ship it to Africa. They then kindly dump it in the sea for us. Until we leave the EU we cannot change this law.

  41. A Christmas Carol, first-look review: swearing, subversion and an OCD Scrooge in BBC One’s bold retelling. 11 December 2019.

    There is no author more festive than Charles Dickens – after all, his fiction set the template for how we now celebrate Christmas. However, the BBC’s bold and slightly bonkers reimagining of A Christmas Carol, his much-loved 1843 novella, would have surprised him and will no doubt shock period purists. This is Dickens but not as we know it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/406cce17241962f082a9cddb265f1c09f632f4fd93c5433aa72274ca2c7b41c4.png

    I guess the viewers are not impressed with the possibilities of Woke Dickens!!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2019/12/11/christmas-carol-first-look-reviewswearing-subversion-ocd-scrooge/

    2. How on earth can the modern generations understand history if everything is re-written for them in contemporary style ?
      New version oth the Wars of the Roses coming up – The War of the Pansies -………….

      1. “Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.”
        — Marcus Tullius Cicero

        “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child”

  42. BBC1 Christmas Day

    Each year I thing the BBC’s offering on Christmas Day cannot get worse but it does

    Is it just me that thinks it bad ?

  43. North Enfield

    I had not been that way for well over a decade and I was shocked as I went along the A10. It used to be full of light Industry along there and must have employed tens of thousands of people but now it has all gone nothing is left it is now just retail , fast food and Cinemas

    I would guess it must have kiiled the shopping at Edmonton Green. Enfield town and Waltham Cross. It seems to be a crazy over provision of retail

    1. No she was placed n that position by A&E as they did not have a bed for her. She was as well emitting to much CO2

  45. There are unconfirmed rumors that CCTV footage has been seen of the LGI and it claims it show the parents taking the child off of a hospital trolley and putting him on the floor.As I say I cannot find any confirmation of it so may be just twitter rumors. I cannot though see a hospital ever placing a patient on the floor so I suspect there may be some substance to this story

    1. Bill.
      If you and anyone else see something on Twitter that is unsubstantiated and therefore an unconfirmed rumour, by repeating it here or anywhere else you are contributing to the spread of ” fake news “.

      1. Whilst I agree with your sentiment, the problem we have is that the only way we seem to discover the truth that we are not supposed to find out appears to be via leaks and social media.
        The MSM seem to delight in putting things they don’t like somewhere in the darkest depths of their output, later claiming that they did expose it, if the issue gets elevated to the front pages.

  46. Homebase, B&Q, House of Fraser, Sports Direct and WHSmith have been rated the worst online retailers in the UK, according to an annual Which? survey./b>

    Shoppers complained about Homebase.co.uk ignoring complaints and selling products that were out of stock in a survey of more than 7,500 Which? members asked to rate the online shops they used over the last six months.

    The highest rated shops were all specialist retailers, topped by LizEarle.com, RicherSounds.com and WexPhotoVideo.com which all achieved an overall customer score of 93%.

    Homebase ranked last with 57%, achieving just two stars for its range of products and two stars for value for money.
    The online stores of two Mike Ashley-owned brands – HouseofFraser.co.uk and SportsDirect.com – were both in the bottom five on 60%, just under B&Q’s website DIY.com (59%), and WHSmith.co.uk (62%).

    HouseofFraser.co.uk received complaints about its delivery costs, while one WHSmith customer said: “I ordered something only to be told three months later that it was out of stock.”

    1. I’ve used Wex (formerly Warehouseexpress) many times over the years going back to 2002. Excellent service every time.

  47. British pub numbers grow for first time in decade

    A problem with many is that they need to raise their game. Many are far to basic and the service is not good

    The decline of the British pub may be at an end, according to official figures showing that the number of pubs has increased for the first time this decade.
    The UK ended March 2019 with 39,135 pubs, 320 more than a year earlier, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). It is the first net increase since 2010.

    1. A nice pub in the next village closed in 2012. Lovely old building – it was bought by the owner of Superdry and has now reopened last month after an extensive refurb.

      1. But he’ll have banned crusty old leavers. Alcopops only in future to tempt the kiddies in.

  49. Wonder how much Goldfinger spent on the election ?

    £many millions judging by the mountains of LD leaflets, endless Remain Alliance stuff, propaganda… and his assorted candidates..

  50. How comes all the Students like Jeremy? Were they not saying anyone over 70 should not be able to vote? If they cannot vote if over 70 I dont see how they can want him as PM

  51. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/11/revealed-49-seats-brexit-party-splitting-leave-vote-risking/

    Revealed: The 49 seats where the Brexit Party is splitting the Leave vote and risking a hung parliament

    This confirms what many of us have said all along. If Johnson had accepted a pact with the Brexit Party or if he had committed himself to a proper Brexit he would now be on the brink of a comfortable victory.

    If we get a Corbyn government do not blame Nigel Farage, blame Boris Johnson.

    1. In a harsh and cynically-minded world, that is distrustful of the media’s words and of Boris’s intentions, that headline could be re-written:

      “Revealed: The 49 seats where the Brexit Party can stop this surrender treaty being passed and give the United Kingdom a chance of really Leaving the EU by achieving a hung parliament.”

      The result of the election will all depend on how many people see what comes next if this Withdrawal Agreement is passed. At least the polls have been forced back closer to reality as the election day dawns. They are saying what has been said by many others for weeks. The Labour party is a train-wreck and is likely to lose 30+ seats. It is hard to scare people with the idea that Corbyn is a real threat anymore.

      The media have also pretended that hard-core Labour voters in the North of England have all converted to the Conservatives now. Given the choice, I would prefer those regions to do the same as they did in the recent Euro-elections and go for the Brexit Party. The way that things are now, I would feel a lot more comfortable with another 30 Ann Widdecombes in Parliament than another 30 Philip Hammonds.

      1. Labour is a train wreck – but young idealistic voters still think Corbyn will give them all free stuff. When he’s ditched and McDonkey is the leader people might come to their senses.

        1. The last coalition government which was won by a younger voter class, failed the ones who voted for them … Clegg broke every promise going !

          5. Quite so, Richard. But one has to hand it to whoever took snippets of Clegg’s speeches, applied autotune to them and came up with the ‘song’ in the video…

        2. Funny you should mention McDonkey. Hee Haw !

          Definitions. Heehaw. (Noun) Scottish vernacular meaning nothing or very little. Comes from Glaswegian rhyming slang for “F**k aw” (“aw” being vernacular for “all”). The Scots have a wonderfully rich & varied lexicon derived from Nordic, Gaelic, English, European sources plus created words/phrases.

        3. Believe it or not Corbyn is the moderate face of the current Labour Party! Its immoderate face is waiting like ‘greyhounds in the slips’ as a chap who expresses his ideas rather well put it.

    2. Al the polls were suggesting it was quite tight particularly when you take into account the margin for error with this polls
      WE would only probably be talking about 50 Labors seats where the Conservatives should have stood aside. In none of them would the Conservatives stand any hope of getting elected

      1. ‘Yer ’tis me ‘andsome

        Revealed: The 49 seats where the Brexit Party is splitting the Leave vote and risking a hung parliament
        Save
        328
        Nigel Farage is under increasing pressure to stand down Brexit Party candidates
        CREDIT: DANNY LAWSON/PA

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        Camilla Tominey, associate editor Jack Walters
        11 DECEMBER 2019 • 11:18AM
        Follow
        The Telegraph has identified nearly 50 seats where the Brexit Party appears to be blocking a potential Tory victory, piling further pressure on Nigel Farage to stand candidates down after pollsters refused to rule out a hung parliament on Thursday.

        The Brexit Party leader is already facing calls to put country before party after two of his prospective MPs stood down in Lincoln and Redcar – which are both on the list of viable Tory targets – to make way for the Conservatives.

        Today, Brexit Party founder Catherine Blaiklock has revealed she is voting Tory and has described Mr Farage’s strategy as a “disaster,” saying: “Nigel has failed catastrophically, because you’re not going to get a WTO Brexit. You have to compromise … If you want Brexit, you must vote Tory now.” It came after Reece Wilkes stood down in Lincoln and Jacqui Cummins said she would no longer be “actively contesting” Redcar.

        Taking the projections of You Gov’s latest MRP poll on Tuesday night, which predicts voting intention in every constituency in the UK, analysis suggests that there are a total of 49 seats where the Brexit Party appear to be playing into Labour’s hands by splitting the Leave vote.

        –– ADVERTISEMENT ––

        The constituencies – which are largely across the so-called ‘Red Wall’ of the Midlands and the North, include Tony Blair’s old Sedgefield seat, Bolsover, which has been held by Labour’s Dennis Skinner since 1970 and North West Durham which has never voted Conservative before.

        The research comes after Mr Farage doubled down on Tuesday by urging Tory Brexit supporters to vote tactically for his party in more than 100 constituencies he said the Conservatives “have not won in living memory and are not going to win in this election”.

        The Brexit Party then published a list of 132 seats where they are standing candidates and the Conservatives have not won in 50 years, urging leavers “not to waste your vote”.

        But the Telegraph seat analysis suggests that the Tories do stand a chance of winning some of these seats if the Brexit Party was not running against them while Mr Farage’s MPs appear to have no chance of being elected in any of the constituencies.

        In North West Durham, for example, Labour are currently in the lead on 41 per cent, with the Conservatives trailing on 36 per cent. But if the Brexit Party’s 11 per cent was taken out of the equation – and considering the fact that their supporters are leavers not remainers – the seat could feasibly swing to the Tories for the first time in half a century.

        The list also shows that the Brexit Party is not in the lead in any of the constituencies. Even in Hartlepool, where Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice is the candidate, the party is on third place on 22 per cent compared to Labour on 39 per cent and the Conservatives on on 31 per cent.

        Former Tory Party chairman Brandon Lewis told the Telegraph: “This election and latest polls show that if people want Brexit done there is only one way to ensure that, which is to vote Conservative. A vote for the Brexit Party will only lead to a hung parliament and a Labour victory.”

        This morning the Brexit Central website, set up Matthew Elliott, the former chief executive of Vote Leave, urged Brexit Party voters to support the Tories, saying it was the only way to avoid a hung parliament that would “kibosh Brexit entirely”.

        Writing on the website with editor Jonathan Isaby, a former Telegraph journalist, the pair of staunch Brexiteers said: “We now find ourselves at a watershed moment in which there are only two scenarios.

        “The first is that Boris Johnson secures a Conservative majority at this election, puts his Withdrawal Agreement Bill in front of MPs before Christmas and then secures our withdrawal from the EU by the end of January.

        “The second scenario is that Boris Johnson fails to get a Commons majority and an assembled hotpotch of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs ensure that the Brexit we voted for in 2016 is blocked and a new referendum is held between Remain and a version of Remain they would call Brexit. And that referendum would in any case be rigged by giving the vote to 16-year-olds and EU nationals.

        Lance Forman MEP
        ✔
        @LanceForman
        All Brexit Party candidates should follow Reece Wilkes’ honourable and brave decision to ensure Brexit happens and to stop an antisemitic Marxist coming to power.

        Well done Reece. 👏👏https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7774035/Brexit-Party-election-candidate-vows-stand-avoid-splitting-Leave-vote.html …

        Brexit Party election candidate vows to stand down
        Brexit Party candidate Reece Wilkes, who is standing in marginal Lincoln, urged voters to back the Tory hopeful to make sure Brexit happens.

        dailymail.co.uk
        1,284
        00:30 – 10 Dec 2019 · Barnet, London
        Twitter Ads information and privacy
        547 people are talking about this
        “We are well aware that some of our readers are not totally enamoured of the Johnson deal. Of course it isn’t perfect. But it is the only form of Brexit on offer. The only alternative to the Johnson deal is no Brexit at all.

        “Tempting as a vote for them may be to Brexiteers, the Brexit Party are not in a position to form a government. In fact, every vote for the Brexit Party – or any party other than the Conservatives – is simply one more vote towards creating another hung parliament that would kibosh Brexit entirely.”

        A Brexit Party spokesman told the Telegraph the MRP seat projections “don’t translate as you are suggesting”, adding: “It doesn’t work like that. The people who are voting for us are not Tory voters they are Labour voters. If we don’t stand those people either stay at home or switch back to Labour – they don’t go and vote for the Tories. The Brexit Party isn’t an entry drug for Conservatism. If the Tory party can’t win against a discredited, profligate, anti-Semitic Marxist, it’s not our fault.”

  52. Cooee, NoTTLers!

    HERE’S A THOUGHT OR TWO:

    If you want to remain in the EU, then vote LibDem tomorrow. If you want a Corbyn-led coalition government, then vote Labour tomorrow. If you want a proper Brexit but are unsure if Boris can be trusted, then vote Conservative tomorrow (and keep your fingers crossed). If you hate politicians with a vengeance and to hell with the consequences, then abstain, spoil your ballot paper, or vote for a party which has no hope of winning a majority of MPs – mainly because they do not field 326 candidates or more – i.e. vote Green, Independent, the Brexit Party or the Monster Raving Loonies. The question you have to ask yourself is “Which is the least worst option?” DISCUSS.

    I personally shall be voting Conservative because:
    My local Conservative MP is a decent chap and a Leaver, I am impressed by how Boris has conducted himself in the few months he has been PM, and a hung Parliament will lead to more dither and delay – we need a government with a decent, sizeable majority and not the one which Boris inherited which allowed the other parties to tie his hands and obstruct his every effort.With a strong majority and a new Speaker then all things are possible.

    I have no illusions about the future. I believe both of the main parties will find reasons to “postpone” their promises if elected (“It was just an aspiration”) but will Boris give us a real Brexit in the coming weeks? If so, I shall rest content that my vote was cast correctly. If not, then I have only two options: emigrate or buy myself a pitchfork.

    And now I shall depart this site for a couple of days, and return when it is all over.

    1. Good morning Elsie

      Thank you for putting sense and sensibility back on track .

      We have to the the right thing because we believe it is right … no ifs and buts.

      1. Morning TB,
        In my mind the wrong thing has been done voting wise for years and sad to say that voting pattern must be continued to win the General Election.
        ALL three have proved to be pro eu & as I see it, anti UK, so
        post GE there must be very radical change, before an underlying alien force takes over completely.

          1. TB,
            Then only to be expected, the same result, all
            round anti country / peoples crap as in the only change will be that deterioration will speed up.

      2. You lost an important word (do) there, Mags but we forgive you and understand the sentiment expressed.

        I know, my fingers sometimes out-race my brain.

  53. Whether or not it was decided we’d get the election results on Friday the 13th, I don’t know but it seems there may be a bit of chaos ahead.

    Good, say I, bring it on. Our political class and its media lackeys have brought our democracy to its lowest point in many a year and deserve all the chaos they get.

    I’ll be voting as one of ‘the few’ to show the many that whilst the party shining a light on our future relationship with the EU if we sign up to BRINO may not win the war at this point, it will at least prevent it being lost.

    Bring on the Reform Party.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12ba07157697a0b6165ee4a371a0246c76d2333d3460a4614968aaab34ccb700.jpg

  54. A diversion from the tedium of the moment, following a few discussions about B+W photography as a past hobby yesterday I decided to rootle around the loft to try and find some old negatives, all I found were a few from Sept 1970 , Hyde Park , Speakers Corner.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2336a8de518ebbe9f14df367aaa8dc2906cda72bd7767e4fc3a1691da1eb513.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84fc35bc8a3a0df206a6534adfaf2dbc117622dce78ed8834d32778d5e30a353.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9f304432394617c622fb06a0c9936ff3ca462f2745f54d91bd8c07ae545517d5.jpg

    1. Top one of Liam Neeson before he took up killing people in film and the bottom one a young Jezza Corbyn extolling the virtues of Marx?

      2. Middle one today would be Boris Johnson carrying a board saying ” Brexit is Coming “. La plus ca change .

      4. It may be Liam Neeson. I thought that as soon as I saw the photo. Liam Neeson played the part of a preacher in “Pilgrim’s Progress” in 1978.
        It would not be odd for a Method actor to try preaching at Speaker’s Corner, he appreciated Ian Paisley’s style.. However, the date is not consistent with this notion.
        The magazine that he is holding, “Anarchy3, the Acid Issue” was published in 1970, by Ubi Dwyer, and Irishman from the South.

        Edited.

        1. I know.

          I stumbled across it a while back and have tried it out. One picture, my Primary School class, nearly knocked me off my chair when I saw it. I never knew I was coloured in my younger days.

        3. The guy with the beard looks a bit peckish as he is looking at the mans head. You can almost see the words “brains, brains” behind his eyes.

  55. DM story

    Boris Johnson hides in a FRIDGE to avoid GMB interview during his milk round after his minder blocks reporter and tells him ‘for f*** sake’ LIVE on air – leaving Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid shocked

    So it is not just Andrew Neil who terrifies Boris Johnson – any journalist will terrify him.

    I must ask myself: “Has Johnson become so cowardly and frightened that he no longer wants to win the election?” His fear of journalists and his refusal to answer serious questions about Brexit make me think that winning the election is the last thing he wants to do. Open displays of cowardice and determination to avoid being questioned could well help him to lose if this is what he truly wants.

    His jokes are becoming pathetic – he has lost the ‘ha ha’ factor and would have been happier in the ditch. A feeble joke I admit – but no feebler than Boris’s inane current attempts at humour.

    (Of course we must all vote for Johnson because the alternative, Corbyn, is like Ponto, the lion who compares unfavourably with the Nurse in Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary tale about Jim)

    2. It’s exactly as it has been for my whole voting life: one has to vote against the candidate who might win, but would be disastrous, rather than FOR the candidate who might be OK… The Communist party would be a disaster and from the most recent polls, it’s too tight to allow oneself the luxury of a vote for the party whom one would really like to succeed.

    3. Poor old Johnson he’s on a hiding to nothing with the MSM. He can’t even take a few minutes off and find a place to chill-out than he’s accused of hiding himself away.

      On serious note, how will he handle the MSM should he win tomorrow and then his, “Oven ready deal,” turns out to be an under-cooked version of May’s betrayal? There will not be a ditch muddy enough or deep enough for him to hide from the MSM.

      2. The MSM is so pro-Remain that nobody in it is prepared to question whether Boris Johnson’s deal is any good from a Brexit point of view.

        A more Pro Leave MSM would be hounding Johnson for having won the Conservative Party leadership under false pretences. How many people only backed him because they thought he would be a champion of a WTO Brexit? These people who backed him must feel completely betrayed.

  56. Jo Swinson vs biological truth. Spiked. 10 December 2019.

    She was then asked about the physical difference between male and female bodies, particularly in terms of strength, and whether feminists are right to suggest that this is a good reason for keeping men out of women’s prisons or rape-crisis centres. Swinson replied: ‘I don’t think that there should be some kind of hierarchy of equality.’ She continued: ‘Trans women are some of the most vulnerable women in our society.’

    You have to read this article to get just a glimmering of how mad this woman, man, thing really is!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/10/jo-swinson-vs-biological-truth/

    1. No,no,that 1.4 million from Ferring,Tranny Pharma had no effect on policy whatsoever
      No Sireeee
      Just as cash to Hubby’s “Tranparency” has nothing to do with “Bollocks to Brexit.”………………….

      1. You have to admit Bob that to have beliefs that defy reality something has to be seriously astray!

  57. Weather or not, I’m looking forward to this weekend since it’s when the winter’s evening sun will be ‘hovering’ at its lowest point in the sky. After which, and bit by bit. it’ll start to climb as the days pass and nights will be getting lighter.

    1. The downside is that to even things up, the sunrise gets later until 5th January.

      Even then there’s good news attached to that. It’s holidays, so we can have a lie in and sleep through it.

      1. Since I don’t always get up early these days and since in any case the day is becoming lighter rather than darker, it doesn’t bother me.

      1. Thanks peddy.

        It must have been a great relief to our ancestors to know that the lights weren’t going out for good.

    3. I studied John Donne’s poetry when I took my “A” level English many years ago. And of course one of the Dean of St Paul’s sermons gave Ernest Hemingway the inspiration for the title of one of his best known books.

      A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day by John Donne

      ‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
      Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
      The sun is spent, and now his flasks
      Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
      The world’s whole sap is sunk;
      The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
      Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,
      Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
      Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.

      Study me then, you who shall lovers be
      At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
      For I am every dead thing,
      In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
      For his art did express
      A quintessence even from nothingness,
      From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
      He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot
      Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

      All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
      Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
      I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave
      Of all that’s nothing. Oft a flood
      Have we two wept, and so
      Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
      To be two chaoses, when we did show
      Care to aught else; and often absences
      Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

      But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
      Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
      Were I a man, that I were one
      I needs must know; I should prefer,
      If I were any beast,
      Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
      And love; all, all some properties invest;
      If I an ordinary nothing were,
      As shadow, a light and body must be here.

      But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
      You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
      At this time to the Goat is run
      To fetch new lust, and give it you,
      Enjoy your summer all;
      Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,
      Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
      This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
      Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.

  58. A comment from the rather PC, and Leftish, Political Betting dot com site:

    I can`t ever remember an election when folk actually wanted a hung parliament.

    It would put us back in the position we were in before the election was called, but with one crucial difference: no Bercow. This means that exiting with no WA on 31/1 would be very likely – or , to put it another way, how could a no WA exit on 31/1 be averted?

    2. I’ve just had the local LibDum councillor knock on my door. We had a nice chat, I told her why I gave up supporting her party many, many moons ago and she wasn’t surprised at my reasoning. I told her very briefly what I thought of the cabal in Brussels and then she tried the worn out tropes of, “Peace in our time and better to be at the table changing things,” but I put her straight on my feelings about that rubbish. When I told her I wasn’t going to vote she wasn’t surprised and added that quite a few others were of like mind. We parted amicably by wishing each other a Happy Christmas.

  60. Another cover-up in Scottish NHS. The main hospitals in Glasgow and Edinburgh seem to be deadly traps. Other hospitals are available in Scotland, but you wouldn’t want to go to many of them. Although this story is old it resonates with recent incidents involving the death of children in Glasgow and the failure of the new Edinburgh Sick Kids to open as it is not fit for purpose.

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/deadly-infection-warning-after-patients-14169210

    1. Ah but do not they claim they are doing better than England?

      I dont know about Scotland but Wales uses spin to say it does better, It allows longer waiting times before they are recorded

      I remember a farce at one time. Wales was sending patients to England and the Welsh NHS wrote to the English NHS complaining that they were being treated to quickly and that they would not pay unless they had to wait until the Welsh waiting time had expired

      1. At one point earlier this year waiting time in one Scottish A&E reached 17 hours…
        What the Scottish Government says is not linked to reality.

      2. Dyking in a ditch?

        Will Ms Davidson’s dire threat be enough to stop people voting for the SNP?

  62. Last night Glenn Campbell, a senior rabid BBC Scotland reporter, insisted that Scotland needed immigration. He said that immigration was needed to support the ageing population.
    This argument, is, of course, a blatant Ponzi scheme. The incomers will grow older and need more people to support their old age. Either they outbreed the Scots in which case Scotland becomes a foreign country in which the Scots become a minority, or more immigrants come in, in which case the Scots become a minority in their country.
    This has already happened in parts of England, where the natives are an unwelcome minority.
    The alternative is to get used to having a smaller population, as in the 1950s. Tomorrow’s World promised us that machines would make us productive and rich. So why not?

    1. Yep Britain will become a mongrel nation .

      We pay more attention to the pedigrees of our dogs than we do the health and wealth and safe environment of the country .

    2. What happens if the people you bring in are not exactly contributors to the system and instead just a cost? Now you’ve got two drains on the system – the older population and the incomers who you said would pay for the older folks.

  63. COFFEE HOUSE – Labour’s anti-Semitism shame must never be forgiven
    Douglas Murray – 11 December 2019 – 12:29 PM

    Sometime around the start of this decade, before anti-Semitism was as cool as it has become, I was standing on a stage in London with a couple of rabbis and a Muslim. And if that sounds like the start of a joke then what followed wasn’t. We were there at the request of a new Jewish group to speak out against the anti-Semitism that we already saw on the rise in the UK.

    I’m not much given to protests myself as long-time readers will know. But the day showed some solidarity with British Jews and we all went home at least partly feeling like some good had been done.

    But one thing about the day stayed in my mind. During her remarks, one of the rabbis summoned up the famous phrase of anti-fascists in the 1930s. ‘They shall not pass’. Or ‘No Pasaran!’ as the Spanish communists had it.

    I’m not wild about the Spanish connotations of that phrase. But in English it still had some utility. Not least because it was famously used by the Jewish community and their friends in 1936 when Oswald Mosley sought to march his fascists through the East End of London. When Blackshirts tried to intimidate British Jews eighty years ago, ‘They shall not pass’ meant something and was a slogan worth rallying around.

    In the early 2010s, I wasn’t so sure. After most of us had drifted home from our protest I said to a friend that there was something troubling about the rabbi’s use of Cable Street and her summoning up of the spirit of 1930s anti-fascism. The question that begged to be answered in my mind was ‘Who? Who shall not pass?’

    It was easy enough in 1936. The former Labour MP Oswald Mosley had by then named his movement the ‘British Union of Fascists’. They advocated for fascist policies and wore military uniforms (a last step that had helped cause the separation of Mosley’s movement from more mainstream MPs like Harold Nicholson). So in 1936 it was fairly easy to spot a fascist and anti-Semite. They were literally wearing uniforms. But if you were to say ‘They shall not pass’ in the 2010s who were you talking about then? Who were the people we were determined to hold off?

    I don’t think it remotely hyperbolic to say that throughout this decade one of the answers to that question has clarified. Throughout this decade there have been many ugly, unpleasant forces bubbling away in the corners of our society. But only one has broken out to such an extent that it has taken over a major political party and now has a chance – a remote one, perhaps, but a chance nonetheless – of forming a government in the United Kingdom later this week. That is the Labour party of Jeremy Corbyn.

    A huge amount has been written about Corbyn’s anti-Semitism and links to anti-Semitism. I suspect by now that minds have been made up on every side and that the people who are willing to pretend that it is all a smear campaign organised by the right-wing media have deluded themselves beyond redemption. But for me, in his lifetime of support for anti-Semitic bigots wherever in the world he could find them – a couple of irrefutable facts stand out.

    One is Corbyn’s support for Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh. The pair were convicted in the 1990s in connection with a car bomb explosion outside the Israeli Embassy in London and another against a building in London that housed a number of British Jewish charities. Not only did Corbyn run a campaign to get these two released from prison, but when they were released he acted as a character referee for at least one of them, claiming that Botmeh was a suitable person to be involved in the governance of a British university. Why would he do that? Of all the people in the prison system up and down this land, why would Corbyn have put such effort into getting a release for these two (and praising them, at that) who had been involved in the bombing of Jewish targets in London?

    There are too many similar actions in Corbyn’s resume to cite here. But one other voice rings in my ears as I write this. The voice of an Israeli Jewish friend. Having not been back to the UK in some years I hear now the question he asked me as we travelled in a taxi together in Jerusalem last year. ‘You know, I thought I knew Britain, Douglas’ he said to me. ‘Good and bad, I thought I knew it. But how do you explain Jeremy Corbyn?’ This was just after the ‘wreath row’ when Jeremy Corbyn was accused of laying a wreath at the grave of the men who killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. ‘I mean – honouring the men who killed the athletes at Munich?’ my friend went on, shaking his head in quiet amazement. ‘And this man is accepted by the British public?’

    As I say, I could easily go on. Anyone could. And for those who are still inclined to vote for the Labour party on Thursday perhaps nothing can now be said. They include people who hate the Conservative party and think that they must always vote Labour for tribal reasons. And they include people who think that whatever the unpleasantness that may linger around Corbyn and McDonnell and co it can be put down as a second order of business after the priority of getting the Conservative party out of office.

    Well, I would like to make another suggestion. Jeremy Corbyn will lose this election and every effort should be put into ensuring that he loses it big: that what happens on Thursday is not just a defeat, but a defeat of such crushing totality for the Labour party that it takes it years to recover. It should be such a defeat that it is not possible for a Keir Starmer or Emily Thornberry to simply pick up the reins and go back to business as usual. Other left-wing parties may emerge and flourish. But the Labour party must never be forgiven for what it has offered to the public at this election. What Corbyn has brought into the mainstream has toxified Britain and the party that allowed it to happen should be held to account.

    Nor should his wider rabble of supporters simply be allowed to slip away. Instead, they should each themselves be held accountable for what they have done – as the Mosley-ites were in the ‘30s. All those Labour MPs who decided to support Corbyn because he was the leader that they had. All the weird media creations who have popped up on the television day-after-day (with no identifiable credentials other than brute loyalty or loyalty to a brute). And all those columnists and ‘journalists’ of the left who pretend that they have spent their lives ‘tackling’ racism only to spend recent years campaigning for the most racist force in British politics to gain power and making Britain a pariah among the nations.

    In 1936, it was a former Labour MP who had to be stood up to by the Jews of Britain and their friends. In 2019, it is the serving leader of the Labour party who has to be stood up to. It is Jeremy Corbyn who must be stood up to with those historic words: ‘They shall not pass’.

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

    Turning_Tide • an hour ago • edited
    People don’t care.

    For Labour supporters, being a posh tw@t who went to Eton is a bigger sin than being anti-Semitic. What is worse, such people regard themselves as holding the moral high ground, being vociferously opposed to racism and bigotry. So they don’t even recognise anti-Semitism as racism or bigotry.

    I’m normally resistant to project fear/alarmism, but I do find the prospect of a Labour government to be seriously scary in all kinds of ways.

    Federalist Papers • an hour ago
    Powerful article Douglas, but Corbyn has already costed the effects of his anti-Semitism.
    The muslim electorate is 2.5m (and rapidly rising) Jews represent 250,000 and falling.
    Unlike Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Seamus Milne can do the maths.
    The judenhass of the Momentum thugs is a given, and they’re voting for Corbyn anyway – early and often.

    Hypnoticreindeer • 2 hours ago
    The moronic British public is more concerned with a picture of a four year old with the flu lying on some coats I’m afraid.

    1. If I, without being an expert or having a particularly good memory, but always a follower of the news,
      did not know a lot of that about Corbyn, how is the ” man in the street ” supposed to know.
      (Apologies to transgender NOTTLers – ” person in the street “.

    2. An old friend recently told me that she can’t understand why people say that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. I said perhaps the way he hangs out with Hamas and Hezbollah has something to do with it. Why, she said, that just proves that he likes to meet people. I attempted to explain patiently and the response was, “I know someone who’s Muslim and she doesn’t hate Jews”. “Have you asked her” should have been my reply but at that point I gave in and decided not to bang my head against ignorance and stupidity.

      1. It’s dreadful to have people that you otherwise like, coming out with stuff that you despise. Good luck Sue; it has got to the stage where I have withdrawn, to some extent, from some former acquaintances who I just see now as being so unable to justify their mantra for staying in the EU. . Just that “we’re better off/ more secure”. Or just wanting to buy (and live for 6 months when it’s cold here) their place to retire to, in Portugal without problems.

        Many, many people don’t/can’t work out things enough to be able to give a cogent argument. That’s very sad..

        There are some people, whom I used to like, but their selfishness has now driven me off.

    3. Afternoon Z,
      Personally I would put the welfare of children on par or of more importance
      than the Jewish issue as in, there was a blitzkrieg in rape & abuse revealed via the JAY report in the rotherham area initially, plus.
      The lab/lib/con have two shared policies & they are mass uncontrolled immigration & PC / Appeasement, therefore the blame for the odious 1400 /1600 paedophilia victims must be shared equally.
      Post General Election I pray we witness a nuclear meltdown of the mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella coalition party.

  64. Wot’s up with the weather.
    Bright sunshine here and simultaneously we have an almighty hailstorm; fortunately only small hailstones.

    1. Heyup Sos!
      Started bright cold up here, then got more than a bit wet and now, just as the sun sinks below the valley top, it’s brightened up again.
      Still bloody cold though!

      1. It’s quite warm here, that added to the strangeness.

        It stopped in less than 15 minutes and the hailstones disappeared in less than two.

        On the positive side it’s knocked down most of the remaining leaves.

        1. We had a storm cell pass over last night with the Met Office’s Rain Radar shewing red and a patch of white.
          I was rather glad I was indoors!

          This morning there was the customary stream across the road junction, but a 5min effort with the broom unblocked the two rainwater gullies it should have been going down.

    1. If it were done in a spirit of co-operation, the time scale would not matter a lot. But negotiating with the EU is like Donald Trump trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nukes.

    3. I thought he was supposed to be standing down, as well as Juncker? Maybe, as he has got an EU stooge similar to May, he will keep on, to get his billion euro payout.

      1. Barnier did such a good job on the WA & PD that he has been appointed chief negotiator for the trade talks.

  66. Afternoon all.

    Hitch-hiking Nun

    A priest was driving along and saw a nun on the side of the road, he stopped and offered her a lift which she accepted.

    She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her habit to open and reveal a lovely leg.

    The priest had a look and nearly had an accident.

    After controlling the car, he stealthfully slid his hand up her leg.

    The nun looked at him and immediately said, “Father, remember psalm 129?”

    The priest was flustered and apologized profusely. He forced himself to remove his hand.

    However, he was unable to remove his eyes from her leg.

    Further on while changing gear, he let his hand slide up her leg again.

    The nun once again said, “Father, remember psalm 129?”

    Once again the priest apologized. “Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.”

    Arriving at the convent, the nun got out gave him a meaningful glance and went on her way.

    On
    his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to retrieve a bible and
    looked up psalm 129. It said, “Go forth and seek, further up you will
    find glory.”

    MORAL OF THE STORY: Always be well informed in your job or you might

    miss a great opportunity!

    1. The thing that strikes me about that is that Turkey is planning to build its own fighter jets, something the UK ceased to do last century. (After giving away all of our technology to the Americans.)

  68. I have been cogitating over a Russian tea.
    The Myanmar Rohinga case may be a test case. The UN definition of “genocide” includes mass deportation, even if no one is hurt. If The Gambia loses, well , no matter. They will be rewarded. If they win, then there will be precedent for deportation of muslims to be blocked by the UN. So, we won’t easily be able to rid the UK of muslims, if we should ever want to.
    Looking ahead, we need to leave the EU, leave the UN and all of its agencies, disassociate ourselves from international courts of all kinds, and leave NATO.
    I cannot see any downside to this. If we were to be attacked by a foreign power it is highly unlikely that any member of NATO would become involved. International courts are only ever used to attack us and the UN agencies would happily take all of our money.

    1. I am glad that Donald Trump’s ideas about the EU and the UN are spreading. The man has done a great deal of good since he was elected, and I hope he is re-elected next year.

    3. Listen up HP, IMHO the foreign power
      thanks to those continuing to support mass uncontrolled immigration parties
      are in situ & being, in the main nurtured by the establishment, also added to on a daily basis.

  69. Migrants Account for Nearly Half of Rapists in Italy

    Well it would tend to indicate the levels will be similar in the UK I can see no reason why they would br very diffrent. It may be difficult to establish from official data as they tend not to mention they are migrants

    Data from the Italian Interior Ministry has stated that 42 out of 100 rapes in the country are committed by migrants and the numbers continue to rise.

  70. How robots are transforming Amazon warehouse jobs — for better and worse

    Stowing( usually called Put Away in UK) them randomly is not what is normally done. They analyze things so items that are high runners are close by./ Items that are slow sellers are put more out of the way

    Stowers in older Amazon facilities used to walk up and down long aisles pushing a cart full of products, placing them randomly on shelves where they found space, and scanning them with a handheld device to mark their location in a system.
    Now Amazon robots carry empty shelving units — known as pods — to the workstations of stowers, who take products placed in front of them and fit them into open shelf space inside the shelving pods.
    When the pod is full, the stower presses a button that sends the robot and attached shelving unit rolling across a caged-in area of the warehouse, and eventually to the workstation of a “picker.”
    Like stowers, pickers in older facilities walked miles on end each day, plucking a product off a shelf, scanning it, and placing it into a cart they pushed the whole way. But, they, too, now remain standing at their own workstation in Amazon’s robotic warehouses, plucking items off of shelving units that robots carry right to them.

    1. Romanian born ? Nuts. Just another bloody Muslim immigrant. And two kids already at the age of twenty. Castration would be nice.

      1. Dash For Cash was an American Quarter Horse racehorse and an influential sire in the Quarter Horse breed.

        Not many people know that sweetie…..x

        1. The other three quarters were made of Ass, Donkey and Zebra.

          Not many people know that salty…..x

    3. They have no idea, do they? They think their little world is going to continue as normal regardless of whom is voted in. They do not realise that in a few short months they could possibly be housing a family of immigrants in what they regard as their home, or private property could be abolished, depending on where they put their X on that little sheet of paper. They have no idea.

    4. They have no idea, do they? They think their little world is going to continue as normal regardless of whom is voted in. They do not realise that in a few short months they could possibly be housing a family of immigrants in what they regard as their home, or private property could be abolished, depending on where they put their X on that little sheet of paper. They have no idea.

    1. i did this exercise as a back strengthener after my accident.

      I’m podgy but I’m fairly sure I’m not a woman. I ‘m not sure there are many women who can bench press 110kg without significant training.

      1. To be fair, there aren’t too many men who can press that either.

        Could you stand up from that head on wall, straight back, position?

        I can still press a reasonable weight, but I can’t stand up from that bent position, not even close to being able to.

  74. BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg faces backlash for ‘influencing the vote’ by breaking election rule

    If this article is true is could be a serious breach of electoral legislation. AS far as I know Postal votes remain sealed and are counted on the day

    Ms Kuenssberg has been condemned on social media by LBC producer Ava Santina after a video of the BBC journalist was uploaded that saw her reveal she has seen postal votes. Ms Santina said: “The reason broadcasters are not allowed to reveal postal votes before 10pm polling day is it influences the vote. “I really have no explanation of how this is allowed under broadcasting code.”
    Related articles

    Others attacked Ms Kuenssberg for broadcasting what she claimed was a slump in Labour postal votes, with one voter claiming Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had also been shown posts votes.

    1. Nothing will happen. The Tory leader in Scotland, Dacvidson, revealed similar information in a previous election. Nothing was done.

    1. Bill Clinton put his meat where it didn’t belong and got away with it.

      Trump’s meat isn’t on the line while the lower house is Red in tooth and claw.

    1. The BBC owns the UK broadcast rights in this film and the rest of the RKO catalogue but the copyright will expire within the next 10 years or so and a French studio called Lobster Films are currently scanning the whole collection to make digital copies. They specialise in preserving films from the 20s, 30s and 40s and are real enthusiasts. (I’ve met the two guys who run Lobster.) There’s little interest at the Beeb these days.

      1. Thanks for the info. The BBC put some very good silents on years ago (Pandora’s Box etc. ), then they gave up culture for football.

  77. Brexit: Free trade deals ‘won’t offset leaving EU’

    A load of unsubstantiated nonsense. Even with all the spin they applied the best they could come up with very worst case was the UK economy would decline by 1.8% and that well withing the margin of errors for this things in any case

    The more likely scenario is we may see a small dip in the UK economy for a few months before it moves ahead. To a great extent as well it depends on whether the EU wants too be silly

    Car e & Food exports to the UK are vital to the EU anything else has hardly any tarifs in any case

    1. The reasons for wanting to be OUT are totally unrelated to trade. If our economy is knocked for six and we have to start from scratch again, we will FREE OF EU CONTROL, and that will be a GOOD THING.

      1. The claim trade with the EU will plummet does not really hold up. We will still be trading with the EU. Tariffs may have a small impact but not a lot only Food and cars have high tariffs and they are there to protect French farmers and German car manufacturers. I would be pretty sure that if France and Germany faced apply EU external tariffs to exports to the UK they would soon reach an agreement. High tarrifs on car & food would also benefit our farmers and car manufacturers for the home market

      2. respectfully, they are at the heart of it – but for parallel reasons.

        We must leave the EU. That is a given. However, the primary reason is to control our own economy. To set our own taxes and our own laws on trade. Specifically we, as a country must be allowed to trade with whomever we like, however we like.

        Now, the Eu wanted to stop that specifically so that nations wouldn’t start to become competitive and disparate, so yes, it’s throttling coils must be thrown off but for trade.

        Without question there are plenty of other reasons but, for me, the primary one is trade. We are a trading nation. Preventing the UK from that freedom disables us entirely – precisely what the EU wanted.

      3. Trade is stil important but we dont want an ever growing UK population we should be focusing on improving our poor productivity thats what will improve living standard and give a real increase in wealth

        1. Funny we improved productivity from 1980 to 2007 and living standards rose more slowly than ever except at boardroom level where most of the gains ended up.
          Productivity comes from investment. Investment since Thatcher has gone largely into land causing us to be a nation split between low paid wage slaves and non-working rent-seekers who are extracting as much wealth from the productive as they possibly can to maintain their lifestyles.
          Meanwhile because we refuse to tax wealth and tax only flows of money the productive are paying over 85% of all taxation. Again this encourages people to look for ways to rentseek.
          The answer according to most Tories is more of the same as the last 40 years. Cut public spending. Transfer the jobs to the private sector. Then hope people invest rather than buy land. It hasn’t worked yet because all tax incentives are for rentseekers in neoliberalism.

          2. Where?

            Income tax? lol. VAT is a tax on transactions. CGT is a transaction tax. Corporation tax? is an income tax. NI is an income tax / social fee. Council tax is sort of a wealth tax but it’s a poorly designed one as it costs only twice as much for a 10 million quid mansion as it does for a 2 up 2 down cottage. Dividend tax is an income tax. Stamp duty is a transaction tax. APD is a transaction tax. Fuel duty, alcohol duty, cigarette duty all transaction taxes.

            Where are these wealth taxes now I’ve accounted for well over 85% of revenue.

        1. Thank you – I see it’s Uni of Sussex (Pro EU) and Chatham house – ardently pro EU and Left wing.

          1. No real detail and in any case it is just forecasts and these so called expert cannot even get it right for the next quarter let alone a year ahead. A lot depends on the deals we strike and we will do so. The rest of the world is a much bigger market than the EU and a growing market and we still have lots off good links with the commonwealth countries

            WE should also with Africa be looking at trade and not aid

    2. The majority of them appear to have dropped off of the ugly tree and hit more than a few branches on their way to the ground.

  82. Q: What’s the most important tax reduction that thhe Tories should have committed to in their manifesto? (they didn’t, of course, they’ve just mumbled a bit about it)

    A: It’s a small one: a tax reduction of 154,50 pounds each year year (forever) to all BBC licence-fee payers (note this is a progressive change, because it is a regressive tax).

          1. Sorry, didn’t see your post. We’re all paying tax on certain items we buy, services we use. Even if some pensioners aren’t paying income tax, they are still paying taxes.

        1. My mother worked hard and paid into a workers pension scheme for all of that time. Even though she is retired she gets a tax bill every year because her pension payments are above the tax threshold. She lives very humbly as well and should be rewarded for her foresight, not taxed again.

          3. It’s just a bit of spin that suggests that Income Tax is the only tax that counts. A lot of people pay a lot more in stealth taxes than is taken honestly and openly in Income Tax.

            It is what brings the whole damned system into disrepute, and the reason I am spoiling my ballot paper tomorrow.

          4. Income tax, for any income above the personal allowance – which is conveniently just above the single person State Pension which in turn is counted as taxable income even though you have paid for it through NI in the first place.

  83. Urgent warning as baby milk recalled due to ‘health risk’

    Why they put Organic on it who knows> Well I do know it means they can charge the mugs more for it

    Hipp UK has issues the recall of its Hipp Organic Combiotic First Infant Milk Starter Pack (6x90ml) due to the presence of fish oil, which is not stated on the outer box.
    The packaging error means the product is a possible health risk for anyone with an allergy

    1. ”
      Hipp Organic Combiotic First Infant Milk Starter Pack (6x90ml)”
      That’s enough to make any kid feel ill !!!

      1. Designed to attract the veggies, Stick organic on it or call it a Super food and they will pay well over the odds for it

  84. Retailers Complain life is Tough and they want help

    Perhaps a bit of come comeuppance for the retailers who played a good part in destroying our manufacturing industry

    1. In the Express too.
      Very sad that he was still barred from the BBC for his views on global warming.

    2. That is sad. One of those few who stood up and told the truth about Climate Change. Which made him an outcast, but he said it anyway.

    3. I suspect that he will be shown to have been correct about the great green scam.

      A shame he won’t be alive to see it.

    1. The Power of Youth title gave me a mental image of a pedal contraption under every school desk with the youngsters pedaling like the clappers to keep the lights on and the torches having to come out when one of them goes for a wee.

    3. I found the writing in the small print ‘The Power of Youth’ to be somewhat creepy. For the last ten years the media has been trying to set the young at the throats of the older generations. It started with the 2008 crash and headlines such as ‘The baby-boomers have stolen your futures’ – I thought at first this was to deflect attention from where the blame truly lay – our politicos – but latterly it has become more intense with a hint of sinister overtones. I fear something is a-foot.

        1. So helpful in all of this that family ties are being severed by various government policies over the years. Anyone of a cynical mind would this that this were deliberate with just such an outcome in mind….. families scattered across the country, in many cases grandchildren unaware of the fact that they have grandparents, any respect for the elderly long since disappeared…. cult of the young emerging since the 1960s…

          1. The cult of the young in the 1960 was based on the commercial understanding that sex and music made money. The young and old generations both lived in different worlds, then as now.

    4. There is something in the water, I previously suggested that its the manifestation of CJD after all these years, but who knows. Great swathes of people seem to accept ideas these days because they are pronounced from a political a platform, its probably because they are too dull to think for themselves. But the acceptance that the end of the world is imminent and also of comrade Corbyn’s ideas by large numbers, I find rather depressing as it seems to have a momentum all of its own. I sincerely hope that on Friday we are just left with St Greta of Asperger and pictures of cats to worry about.

      1. I suspect that it is increasingly the case of “Read this script and there is money and job security for you. Think for yourself and tell the truth and you are on your own.”

        Many people will just go with the flow.

      3. One Muslim lad said to the other – ” You heard what Greta said. It’s the end of the world on Thursday. What shall we do ? ”
        The other thought for a few minutes, and replied – ” Go out and get a few girls of course “.

  88. God have mercy upon us.

    Look at the DT front page. A smirking self-satisfied Boris Johnson wearing an apron with ‘Get Brexit Done’ emblazoned upon it holds up an oven ready pie as a symbol of his pathetic abortion of a Brexit.

    (Why does this make me think of the cowboy Wyatt Earp? I do enjoy Victoria Coren’s Only Connect)

    Woodrow – Petronella – Boris Johnson – Abortion

    2. I see they are trying to blame the council.Cleary it is very complex to fill a form in even when instructions are provided they fely the council shoul have run a course at the Uni so they would know how to fill them in

        2. No, no, unthinkabold! Follock and deep folly! Jill Backsole’s unclaribold postage, trickly-how with typloppers and misspellit there, demonstrale a lackly of the basic fundamolds of the Engly Twenty-fido, causing plusty problems for Notlloders readage, although puzzlit and concentrale with knitmost browlopper and grimage facebole.

          Oh yes!

          2. Thank you for that – it really did make me laugh out loud – it was a ‘perish the thought’ response from the heart.

      1. I don’t know.

        Undergraduates are still being brainwashed, it’s the graduates who are not the brightest of beings, their polish has been ground off..

        1. When at University in the early seventies there were many lefties usually from the social science and sociology departments. They were Incredibly scruffy and very vocal but thankfully outnumbered by the majority engineers, architects, chemists and biologists.

          Needless to say the Lefties occupied the University Union and it’s long Bar spending much of their time gazing at half empty pint mugs of beer at others’ expense.

          These wretches contributed nothing positive and were a drain on resources.

    1. Now why wouldn’t he support it. I wonder. Trump has access to ALL THE FILES ….. but things have to happen in the correct order for optimum results. Now if that order can be interrupted, circumvented by impeachment, then….. (OMG I have turned into PP…..!).

      1. Not so sure. Hillary Clinton we are told destroyed tens of thousands of files kept on her private server. Thus far she has escaped prosecution and justice.

    2. I imagine the opinion of both Clinton’s is the effective kiss of death to the Democrat Impeachment process. This whole saga is so evidently a result of the embittered failure by Hillary Clinton who imagined a divine right to the Presidency following years of graft.

      You would think the Clintons and by extension the Obamas would now leave quietly having gained immeasurably from their skimming of State funds.

      Quite how any sentient being could not bring themselves to question why Joe Biden’s drug-addled son is being paid large sums by a Ukrainian Gas outfit remains a mystery to me personally. The same applies to the offspring of several other key Democrats pushing their impeachment agenda.

          4. You lost me there. It was manufactured by Rootes Group.

            My uncle Billy had a Hillman Minx Registration Number WYD 555.

            Dementia has apparently given me a miss this time around.

          5. I didn’t own an Imp but friends who did would have suggested that the makers forgot the odd bit as they were not totally reliable.

            Much like too many of the British cars of that era

          6. I believe they were prone to warped heads and the “wet cylinder liners” being a pig to get aligned when replacing the head.

  91. Electoral Calculus Prediction (To 10th December)

    Based on a basket of recent polls

    Con 348
    Lab 227
    Lib Dem 13
    Green 1
    SNP 41
    PC 2
    DUP 10
    SF 7

      1. Basket case. Even more concerning is quite a few people think he can deliver his crazy policies

  92. I think everyone here is just marking time waiting for tomorrow. A sort of uneasy feeling like it must have felt the day before the outbreak of World War Two.
    I am wondering whether my spoiled paper will contribute to Global Warming, or whether I will be arrested from the DNA on it. I will go to the polling station anyway, mostly to see if anyone else turns up. The Labour lot are all three miles away in the Jamaican sector.
    If there is a winner tomorrow, no matter, because whoever it is we will be the losers.
    Must remember to put the bin up tonight. It’s full of election garbage.

  94. Some bright spark is thinking of taking his pet pig to the polling station and spending rather a long time there

    1. I am in a minority. I always hated her and thought she was the the ugliest woman alive. I feel better now that I know that she was really a castrato.

  96. $1.32 to the pound at the moment. The markets must have confidence that whatever the result, there will be no Brexit.

      2. The market would be very jittery if they were expecting Corbyn. To aan extent the market is reacting as expected falling share prices tend to push up the value of the pound. I expect as well they are factoring in higher interests rates as they all saying they will spend and borrow more money and high levels of debt tends to push up rates

  97. Getting fed up with hearing the Libdems and Labour keep repeating that if we stay in the EU that we will get a boost to industry and jobs when the opposite has been happening over the last forty years of EU membership

  98. – Just one more day to go before politicians stop listening to the electorate again for another five years or so

  99. Just wondering If the Conservatives win tomorrow because Labour voters refuse to go out in the bad weather will they blame the result on climate change?

  100. An Interesting hypothetical question

    What would be the legal position if a Lesbian went to bed with another lesbian and one of them got pregnant as one of them was a transwoman.

    That should keep the lawyers busy trying to get their head around that

      1. Then with your experience you will probably know; with Labour women it is best done with your eyes shut.

  101. Late Laff

    I was
    having severe headaches and got tests done , the doctor phoned me and
    tells me you will have to go into hospital for castration. FFS that’s a
    bit severe I said .
    You have a very rare
    condition that causes
    your testicles to press on your spine and the pressure creates one heck
    of a headache. The only way to relieve the pressure is to remove the
    testicles.”

    I was shocked and depressed. I wondered if I had anything to live for. I had no choice but to go under the knife.

    When
    I left the hospital, I was without a headache for the first time in 20
    years, but I felt like I was missing an important part of
    myself. As I walked down the street, I realized that I felt like a different person.

    I
    could make a new beginning and live a new life. I saw a men’s clothing
    store and thought, “That’s what I need… a new suit…”

    I entered the shop and told the salesman, ‘I’d like a new suit..’

    The elderly tailor eyed me briefly and said, “Let’s see… Size 44 long.” I laughed, “That’s right, how did you know?”

    “Been
    in the business 60 years!” the tailor said. I tried on the suit; it fit
    perfectly. As I admired myself in the mirror, the salesman asked, “How
    about a new shirt?” I thought for a moment and then said, “Sure.”

    The
    salesman eyed me and said, “Let’s see, 34 sleeves and 16-1/2 neck.” I
    was surprised. “That’s right! How did you know?” “Been in the business
    60 years.”

    I tried on the shirt and it fit perfectly. I walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, “How
    about some new underwear?” I thought for a moment and said, “Sure.” The salesman said, “Let’s see…Size 36.”

    I laughed, “Ah ha! I got you! I’ve worn a size 34 since I was 18 years old.”

    The
    salesman shook his head, “You can’t wear a size 34. A size 34 would
    press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one
    hell of a headache…………………………….

  105. Nearly there. What can we hope for? It’s rather depressing that this election is not so much about the virtues of a party but the vices of its enemies. Labour’s only hope of stopping the Tories appears to be for Johnson to fall well short of 326 (somewhere in the 280s) and to then cobble together a multi-party coalition. Would that last? I doubt it. There are so many unknowns, with the media reporting on national and regional opinion polls that take no account of local campaigns.

    For the sake of the real issue, we must hope not only that the BP wins enough seats to hold Johnson by the throat but that there are some surprises, perhaps independents and even independently-minded Labour members who will back a proper exit. Do not discount the possibility of the EU playing its part with an own goal (hopefully before Johnson nets one at his own end). And if the Tories do get a majority of sorts, with or without agreements, there is the hope that some on the Left will completely lose their heads, especially over the EU, and hand Johnson a moral victory. They really are that dangerous.

    Some Nottlers appear to be losing their nerve and have given up hope already. Don’t. This saga has some way to run…

  106. Texas Navy base on lockdown: Shelter in place as US Navy warn ‘this is not a drill’

    Not much detail at present as to what this is about

    A United States Navy naval air base in Texas is currently on lockdown with them warning “this is not a drill” as a suspect is in custody.

  111. Aldi sources 75% of goods from UK which makes it odd that other supermarkets do not get anywhere near that level in fact many such as Saisnburys are going in the other direction and the quality goes downhill

  113. Christ, just got back from an ‘early Christmas drink’ at a new neighbour’s place. Almost died of thirst. How can you run out of dry white wine, in fact any type of white wine? I’m not fussy, and I even took 2 bottles of white Rioja along, plus a bottle of Soave for the missus. Red and decent white really don’t mix. Fortunately, politics only emerged far enough for denunciation of all bloody politicians to be agreed upon.

    1. I had to defend the Farage a bit as they were all bloody remainers, the missus excepted. My tongue is extremely sore as I had to bite it so frequently.

  114. David Bellamy has died.

    Apparently he was very much respected by his students at Durham University. The wife of one of my best friends studied Biology with him and said he was truly inspirational.

    He was a highly intelligent man who was very much opposed to the EU and also saw through the false environmentalists and was shunned for doing so. He will be proved right about climate change – but possibly not before the economies of the Western world have been destroyed in order to cope with a non-existent problem.

  116. Good grief. Have we completely lost faith in the intelligence of our voters. Nobody with half a brain could possibly vote for Swinson and Corbyn. They are the most vacuous of the present mix of politicians on offer, Swinson a mere empty headed head girl type with no experience and Corbyn a lifelong Marxist and supporter of terrorists.

    There is no accounting for the Glaswegians supporting Sturgeon. That lot have always placed their animosity towards their paymasters, us English, way above their own self interests.

        1. Her majority is about 5000 but the SNP have held that seat and Swinson does not seem to be that popular

        2. Where will the party find a volunteer with a rock solid majority who is prepared to accept a peerage to allow her back in?

    2. Sadly there are plenty of morons around – lots of “I’m voting Labour” stickers in Nottingham today, and even one saying “Vote Soubry”

  117. The Reform Party needs Reform party

    Not that impressed with the name myself. It needs a proper constitution and a proper regional structure and a proper set of policies

  118. Even if the worst does come to the worst tomorrow, and the process begins to hand legal control of the United Kingdom to the European Union, then that is still not the end of any chance of freedom from them. The deep cracks are appearing across the EU and they do not have the paramilitary police force yet to impose a curfew across 1/2 of Western Europe. There are increasing calls for at least a shred of democracy to be retained. These calls will be ignored, but they are there.

    After a few years under their control then the kind-hearted British people will come to realise what the EU really is. They hate us. They are not a business competitor trying to get a good deal for themselves. They HATE us and want to hurt us so badly that we are reduced to begging them to let us come back, as Barnier once said (the hurt part.) There are a number of reasons, but first and foremost we voted to Leave. No matter what happens now, some people in Europe can ask: “If the EU is so good, why did a country like the United Kingdom vote to leave it?” This upsets them more than can be easily expressed.

    We are in a democracy though, and I am not going to look down on people for their voting choices. Especially if you have no Leaver MP to vote for, as I don’t. I would say something to those who are in a seat where there is the option of voting for The Brexit Party or a Conservative though, which will be in many cases in a seat that the Conservatives have no chance of winning at all, while TBP might. Take a real look at what the EU are and where they are trying to drag Europe.

    We have all had a bad experience with some people in our lives before. If you had a neighbour who had been stealing from you for decades. If they had treated you with sneering contempt while they took your money, and talked behind your back and laughed at you while they were doing it. If you had one who looked at you with deep hatred in their eyes… Would you suddenly trust them to be the legal guardian of your estate? Would you give them your bank account details and the passcode numbers to your accounts and savings? This is what the Withdrawal Agreement does to the United Kingdom and our MP’s at the top know it, which is why they won’t talk about it. Final legal authority will lie with the EU not The United Kingdom.

    I would very much like to have the chance to vote for The Brexit Party, but they are not standing here. If you have the opportunity to vote for them, or cast a vote for the Conservatives in a seat that they cannot win, I would strongly take a chance with TBP. They cannot possibly be as bad as the MP’s that we have had for the past 3 years. There might even be the chance of a No-Deal Brexit finally happening if enough of them get voted in, and the ERG stop being surrender monkeys and remember that they are supposed to be Conservatives.

    2. Good evening Merideth

      As usual we seem to agree entirely. I wonder if we even share the same down-voter!

  119. Tactical Voting

    I dont like it but FPTP forces it so tomorrow if you have a Brexit Party candidate standing look at the 2017 results. If the Conservative are in with a real chance of winning vote Conservative. If the Conservatives have no hope vote Brexit Party . It is not ideal but getting Corbyn is even less ideal

  120. I have just read more tosh from the idiotic brain dead deputy leader of The Greens. As it happens we have been without power for more than 24 hours. The UK Networks people have attempted to restore power by means of generators placed in strategic villages.

    Several of these installations failed in one way or another. It is rumoured that Irish Travellers (from a camp in nearby Ridgewell) syphoned the oil from the one in adjacent Stoke by Clare. Our own Generator in my village of Ashen failed several times, the latest of which because when power was eventually restored the whole village attempted to boil a kettle.

    I mention all of this because the fucking singular Windmill that despoiled our views across the Stour Valley was quite evidently unable to produce anything of worth. Instead we were reliant on diesel generators scattered around the district, several of which could not cope with the load or else ran out of fuel, stolen or depleted by inattention to need.

    I am left thinking what a bloody sorry state we are in as a country. Nothing is organised properly and we seem to lurch from one crisis to the next. Any politician able to offer a simple fix to the fundamentals will get my vote.

    Any suggestions?

    1. “Any suggestions?”

      More nuclear power.

      ‘Tis a pity that Brown sold off British nuclear expertise with the sale of Westinghouse …

  121. 24 hours from now the die will be cast and it will all be over, apart from the vote rigging and the ballot boxes that go on a magical mystery tour between the polling stations and the counting centres. The wine will be flowing, well here anyway, and I’ll be watching “The Blacklist” episodes to fill in the time before 02:00 AM when I switch to ITV news. (I’m not watching Sky News this year if Bercow is starring on it.)

    Good luck to us all and to the United Kingdom. Time to leave with a smile.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c18cb763a4dd8d31c4f4310e2c26252a3d93eac7467c18042545e7d81499164.jpg

    3. Those sob stories don’t ring true. I suspect the Post Office paid up to get rid of the case on the advice of their legal advisors.

  123. DT Headline to send us all to bed in trepidation for the morrow

    General election on a ‘knife edge’ as last poll of campaign shows Tory lead cut to five points

    So Boris Johnson took the gamble not to form a pact with the Brexit Party which would have given him a certain victory and his pathetic vanity might have scuppered Britain for ever.

    If we all lose will the buffoon even have the grace to apologise?

    1. No, he is an arrogant git who will blindly lash at at all those who had the audacity not to believe his Brexit lie and consequently chose not to support such betrayal.
      I am proud to say I stay true to my convictions, my Tory MP who voted 3 times for May’s deal will not be getting my vote.
      There were 17.4m who voted leave, if so many now choose not to support the only party who still believes in Brexit, they get the country they deserve.

      1. vvof – If your MP is a Tory, then Nigel Farage has stood down the candidate who would have stood against him. So how are you going to support the only party who still believes in Brexit? Or do you plan to not vote at all?

        1. I plan not to vote at all. The first time ever and I have never felt so disenfranchised as I do not believe Johnson or the Tory party truly believe in Brexit.

  125. Statement from Mark Budden, Network Rail Anglia Route Director, and Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia Managing Director

    The problem seems pretty certain to b with the new trains as older stock is not affected. There was a near fatal collision as a result of a failure. What seems to be happening is the signalling is not properly detecting that a train is on the track. This result in a near fatal collision at a level crossing. A train was approaching the crossing and the gates were closed for road traffic but as the train got nearer the crossing the gates opened and case started to go across. The train missed a car by a split second. One possibility is one section of track had correctly detected a train was on it but the train then moved onto another section of track and it was not detected. Even this failure though should not have caused the gates to open it tends to indicate a poor design of the system it should have failed safe and the crossing gates should have remained closed. THe train should then have stopped and advice sort from the signalman

    https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/travel-information/service-disruptions/statement-mark-budden-network-rail-anglia-route-director-and#

  126. Today we have a stark choice . We either elect a bad party or an even worse party.

    It is a clear sign that our political system has failed. Another problem is with both parties we have little idea as to what we will really get as Manifestos are just for elections and are torn up afterwards. Another big issue is other than the leaders we do not know who will actually be running the parties. WE can make some guesses but we do not know who exactly will be i each parties cabinet and that is quite important information

    If you look at Labours current front bench it is not an attractive offering https://labour.org.uk/people/shadow-cabinet/

    Current Conservative Front Bench https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Government_frontbench

  128. Compare domestic energy suppliers’ customer service

    A lot of it is subjective and billing issues are often down to the consumer who does not provide regular meter reading . The energy supplier is only required to reader the meter once a year

    It has only measured time to answer the phone and has no data on how well their only line service work

    https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-citizens-advice-works/citizens-advice-consumer-work/supplier-performance/energy-supplier-performance/compare-domestic-energy-suppliers-customer-service/

  129. Our Unsafe NHS

    Statistics that rapes in NHS hospitals have more than tripled, there were 112 in 2014, and by last year that number was 370. Note figures are for all of the UK)

    It is unclear as to what measures the NHS is putting in place to deal with this

  130. Most schoolmasters get onto the habit of asking people questions in the hope that it will make their pupils think seriously of an answer.

    My question today is:

    Why do voters – even those who will vote Conservative – no longer trust Boris Johnson?

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