Wednesday 13 March: The Government needs to go further to secure Britain’s energy supply

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

753 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 March: The Government needs to go further to secure Britain’s energy supply”

    1. My response and a response to me by some bloke called A. Allan:-

      34 min ago
      I find it interesting that someone has sat like a broody hen on that one for 5 years before hatching it!
      If they were REALLY SOOOO OFFENDED, why the chuffing heck didn’t they make a fuss then?

      Reply by A Allan.
      29 min ago
      And was it a private conversation?
      We are a long way down the Soviet/Maoist route if we cannot be tasteless or crass in private conversations.

  3. The Princess of Wales’ ‘manipulated’ photo is a disastrous own goal. 13 March 2024.

    The photograph of Kate Middleton surrounded by her family was supposed to reassure the public. ‘Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day,’ the caption alongside the picture read.

    Seasoned royal watchers saw a code in the terse statement: you’ve had your fun speculating what’s going on when it comes to the Princess of Wales’s absence from public life on health grounds, but I’m here, I’m fine, and there’s nothing to worry about. This should, under normal circumstances, have put an end to the matter. But then the picture was withdrawn by four international photo agencies, including Getty Images and Reuters. ‘At closer inspection it appears that the source has manipulated the image’, as Associated Press put it. Cue chaos.

    I haven’t followed this story. It’s not really my thing. Nevertheless Nottlers comments have drawn me to it. I am somewhat mystified. What exactly is the story here? So far as I can grasp the Princess of Wales has submitted a family photograph to the press with some signs of photoshopping. I look. Are the heads on upside down? Are there swastikas concealed in Charlottes hair? Does George show signs of dementia? No. There are some minor signs of alteration such as beginners cause when they try to use the software to “improve” the image. That’s it. The only thing that I can think of is that the Press think there is some other story and are leaning on the Royals to force it into the open. Best I can do.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-princess-of-wales-manipulated-photo-is-a-disastrous-own-goal/

    1. It’s because of all the speculation about the Princess of Wales which existed before the release of the photo. The fact that it has been photoshopped slightly has just created a feeding frenzy in the MSM, thus increasing the speculation. I’m not a royalist, but I sympathise with Kate. Leave the woman alone.

    2. I found the photo rather fake – you never can take a picture of four people where they are all laughing their heads off. The vibe was weird.
      Apparently the software mistakes were due to taking a succession of photos quickly and then superimposing them on each other and picking the best part of each image, to ensure that each child was laughing. But the overall effect was a bit manic, I thought.
      Also, rather cloth-eared to release a picture of their family apparently roaring with laughter when excess deaths are so high and people are having hard times.
      It was also unlike Kate to be so careless – she almost never puts a foot wrong, and is usually very attentive to detail. Perhaps she has tech blindness and trusts software too much.

      Rather more disturbing is the comparison with the photo that was allegedly taken of Kate in a car with her mother, also last week. This shows a woman in sunglasses with a slightly swollen face. I can’t recognise people, so I can’t even tell whether it is Kate or not, but I don’t see how it can be the same über-healthy woman with the slim face who is laughing in the family image.

      Then there is the third image, which is the snap of William and Kate in the back of a car, with Kate’s face turned away from William. Could be just coincidence as she glanced the other way, towards some unbelievably light brickwork, but it does evoke images of Charles and Diana looking in opposite directions back in the day.

      According to the Mail, William and Kate are said to be ‘furious’ about the speculation over Kate. Yesterday evening, a lot of it showed up in my Twitter feed and all I can say is, there are some very imaginative people out there. I tried to do my bit for internet sanity by clicking “not interested” on them. But having said that, the RF is looking more and more like a bad soap opera these days. Since the start of the year alone, in their family they’ve had two cancers, a mysterious ailment requiring three months recuperation after an operation and a suicide. And that’s on top of all the shennanigans of the last few decades.

      1. I think the editing was probably done by a member of her staff and she has taken the blame.

        1. I wondered whether it was William who had done it!
          But yes you are right, that is exactly the sort of thing Kate would do.

      2. Morning all.

        I understood that the PoWales was always going to be out of action until Easter and if she only had the operation sometime in January it is only 2 months after.

      1. Brilliant photography Jeremy, capturing the yellow alien the other side of the bridge, too!

    4. The suspicion is, I believe, that the photograph was doctored to give the impression that the Princess is in much better shape than is in fact the case. Personally, I believe it is a private matter and that the public have no right to information which the Prince and Princess do not wish to disclose.

  4. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    THE OPERATION & THE ROSES

    A sexually active middle-aged woman informed her plastic surgeon that she wanted her vaginal lips reduced in size because over the years they’d become loose and floppy. Out of embarrassment, she insisted that the surgery be kept secret and, of course, the surgeon agreed.

    Awakening from the anaesthetic, she found 3 roses carefully placed beside her on the bed.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ba089eadace1a0a6a2aaa954f4c7fde1823076f3f44e40500ca267ca2522e0e.jpg

    Outraged, she immediately called in the surgeon. “I thought I specifically asked you not to tell anyone about my operation”!

    The surgeon told her he had carried out her wish for confidentiality and that the first rose was from him. “I felt so sad for you, because you went through this all by yourself.”

    “The second rose is from my nurse. She assisted me in the surgery and understood perfectly, as she had the same procedure done some time ago.”

    “And what about the third rose?” she asked.

    “That’s from a man in the burns unit – he wanted to thank you for his new ears.”

  5. Covid Inquiry appears fundamentally biased, say scientists. 13 March 2024.

    In a letter to Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chairman, the group of 55 professors and academics express their concerns that the process is “not living up to its mission” to evaluate the mistakes made during the pandemic, assess whether Covid measures were appropriate, and to prepare the country for the next pandemic.

    They warn that a “lack of neutrality” means the inquiry “gives the impression of being fundamentally biased” and appears to have led to “predetermined conclusions, for example, to lockdown faster next time”.

    They’ve just discovered this? I’ve seen many Public Inquiries in my time and the vast majority have always been more concerned with getting the Government off the hook than discovering the truth .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/12/covid-inquiry-biased-say-scientists/

    1. Shock!!!! Horror!!!!!
      Government cover-up. Government lying. Government coercion!
      Who’d a thunk it?

    2. Somewhere deep in the bowels, not a pretty thought, of Whitehall there is a servile civil servant busily filling out requisition forms – and the required copious copies – for more whitewash to restock the already depleted storeroom. The latter being a formerly disused hangar on a formerly redundant RAF base now being readied for an invasion of rubber boat people enthusiasts i.e. fighting age young men of unknown origin and of unknown intent.

  7. The Government needs to go further to secure Britain’s energy supply

    Which begs the question why on earth did they put the security of our energy supply at risk in the first place?
    What is the point of government, otherwise.

      1. Rearrange the phrase, up tits, and you will not be far off the mark.

        Good morning, Anne.

    2. Well, some appear to do quite well out of once being in government e.g. advances for writing books and high fees paid to those who can, or think they can, hold an audience in thrall while they speak. Other modes of making a living post government service are available, I’m sure.

      Experience of working in government is invaluable and highly sought after. What’s not to like?

  8. Good morning, chums. I am totally stuck on today’s Wordle, so I shall go out for an hour’s gardening. See you all later.

    2. Good morning Elsie – of course, I took your post as a challenge…was a bit lucky though!
      Wordle 998 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  9. Russia is ready for nuclear war, Putin warns the West. 13 March 2024.

    President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the war.

    Putin, speaking just days before a March 15-17 election, which is certain to give him another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

    So what he actually said was that he saw no need for a Nuclear Exchange? Just more cheap propaganda!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/13/russia-ready-for-nuclear-war-putin-warns-west/

    2. Russia has been ready for nuclear war since the 1950s. So too has America. So too have the British and the French. Since then, a number of others have joined the club, some of whom highly unreliable and belligerent foes with a grudge, such as North Korea and Israel (the latter having never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty despite demanding that Iran does so). India and Pakistan are both nuclear-ready, and have been mutually antagonistic since they left the British Empire.

      What Putin is saying is almost precisely the same that Kennedy said in 1962 – plonk a military base within reach of our heartlands, and you will be sorry. Fortunately they saw sense in time in 1962, to the credit of Khrushchev and Kennedy. Are Trump and Putin like statesmen? (I have to discount Biden, who is clearly going to lose the election since he is hardly credible and the Democrats have failed to come with anyone better than either).

      What I want to know though is why the UN has been so ineffective at sorting out a serious infringement of sovereignty, setting a dreadful example that no doubt other well-armed powers are eager to repeat? If the UN is to mean anything, it and not NATO should be calling Putin to order.

      1. Jeremy, Israel can be trusted with nuclear weapons. Iran cannot. So much is obvious to anyone with synaptically connected neurons.

  10. Breaking News – Due to the amount of public gaslighting going on over the Islamic protests the government has decided to commission three new gas fired power stations and storage depots to keep up with demand.
    But Labour have said that it is not nearly enough to cover their woke and race baiting agenda for when they get in, they estimate that at least ten will be needed.

  13. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/12/the-great-electric-car-scandal-is-only-just-beginning/
    This should be fun and a catalyst for class actions and big compensation claims. Our business bought its first EV van – a Vauxhall Movano – last year for deliveries in an aggressively Green and anti vehicle city,
    The advertised range was best in class at 260 miles. Fully charged and taken out for the first time its range was 202 miles and that’s without heaters on etc. If that’s not miss-selling I don’t know what is.

    1. There is very little to disagree with in the article. If I were to buy an electric car, it would be a runabout that will take me as far as Evesham or Kidderminster or Hereford and back in an evening and recharge overnight using a 13 amp socket next to the parking spot. Useless for anything else. One day I will restore my petrol-powered 2CV to give it another twenty years of life, and that will see me out.

      More preaching commonsense to the converted. Yet all those claiming authority on our behalf persist in presenting the stupid as a fait accompli, with the explanatory comment immortalised by Lynne (now Baroness) Featherstone “you will get this whether you like it or not”. And she is a Liberal Democrat, which is the party with Focus groups eager to abide by local democracy. Nobody expects any better from Labour or Conservative, and the Flash-in-the-pan parties are not getting into Government any time soon.

      Is my vote worth nothing at all?

      1. Not to the big parties. It may be to the smaller ones. I haven’t voted Tory since 1990 other than a personal vote for a local Tory Councillor and neighbour who is a good egg.

    3. They have interesting ways of dealing with them here too. During the yellow vest protests just before Christmas I saw one that had been “disabled” then wrapped up like a Christmas gift! More recently, I saw another where the farmers had encased it completely with old tractor tyres which I thought was an innovative way of recycling them 🤣Who said the French don’t have a sense of humour?!

    4. Warms the cockles of your heart. The good folks of Sutton also putting the rest of us to shame, amidst a severe clampdown on their activities.

  16. The great giveaway! £3000 to any illegal willing to set up shop in Rwanda. It makes one think. I think the party currently in power is doing its utmost to lose the forthcoming General Election……

        1. Me too, Sue Mac. A wonderfully warm personality. I met him several times in my youth.

          1. I was listening to his final show, when half way through he left it , his illness got the better of him.

        1. The full words:-

          O’ My father had a rabbit and he thought it was a duck,
          So he stuck it on the table with it’s legs cocked up,
          He mixed a bowl of stuffing and he left it on the shelf,
          But when he came to stuff the duck, the duck had stuffed itself!

          So he took it out the oven and he sprinkled it with salt,
          And then he put it back again and said I’ve had a thought.
          “If this ducks a rabbit and it’s only got two legs,
          When it wandered round the garden, how come it laid some eggs! ”

          I’ve never seen a duck Cluck nor yet a chicken quack.
          I’ve never seen rabbit with the feathers on his back.
          I’ve never heard a horse bark or seen a donkey grunt.
          Never seen a heifer with it’s udders at the front. ”

          So he shouted to my mother to “Come and have a look”,
          “I’ve got it in the oven, this thing I’m trying to cook”.
          My mother started laughing, said “This a funny dish,
          Nothing like a duck to me, it looks more like a fish. ”

          So she picked it, and pricked it, and covering it with oil.
          She plumped it, and thumped it, and wrapped it in tin foil.
          Turned up the oven, to get a bit of heat.
          But when she went to close the door it jumped out at her feet.

          I’ve never, ever seen, my mother pass a motorbike,
          She was running faster than a double decker bus,
          Out on the main road and twice round the roundabout,
          People standing looking wondered what had caused the fuss.

          Well we had to go and catch her and bring her to the house,
          Everyone was asking “Do you think she saw a mouse?”
          I went into the kitchen, I thought I’d have a look
          See if I could find the thing my mother tried to cook

          And then I saw a tom cat a sitting on the shelf,
          With an empty piece of tin foil, he’d ate the thing himself!
          And the sad end to my story, I’ll tell before I go,
          Was it rabbit, duck or fish we had, We’ll never ever know!

    2. Strange that this only appears in the Express and is based on a series of tweets (X’s). A Google search and look at the Telegraph and other sites shows nothing, nothing even on the Gatwick site.

  19. Good morning, all. Dull but dry, thank goodness.

    If Al-Beeb’s forecast is anywhere near the truth then rain, in one form of intensity or another, can be expected every day for the next week or so.

    Well, Biden is too far gone to warrant prosecution and yet it’s open season on Trump on any charge TPTB can concoct. Here is Jim Jordan, Republican Representative for Ohio, asking a few testing questions re Biden and the documents he had dotted around the place.

    Jim Jordan Asking Questions

  20. Bonjour a tous!
    To the title:
    I don’t know why the DT entertains the conceit that the government can do this or that.
    The corporate and globalist interests need to secure our energy supply…
    But they don’t.
    We are their captives.
    They need to sell it to us as dearly as they can, keeping us worried about bills – that is, poor and so compliant.

    Just came back from France. They keep telling us how warm it is. View from the pathway:

      2. Did the current Princess of Wales photoshop your photo, LessisMore? Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Do you mean the ambulance?
          Mrs LIM thinks some bloody idiot bought it to embarras her.

        1. Mmm.
          Mrs LIM, not so much, marvelling in wonder many from tropical climes feel when they encounter sky-cotton (the malagache expression for snow).

  21. Wordle 998 4/6

    At last! But I had to go to “clues”. And then I realised that one of the two vowels I found with my first attempt I had not yet found a place for. Who’s a Very Silly Sausage? (Answer: Elsie, although that wasn’t the 5 -letter solution today. Lol.)

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

  22. Good morning all!
    A springlike start to the day at last! Bright overcast, dry, or rather not raining yet, with an almost warm tad above 6°C on the Yard Thermometer. No discernible breeze in the yard, but trees up the hill behind the ex-pub ate gently swaying so a bit of wind about.

    A query.
    This fuss about the Tory donor wanting Di Abbot shot, when DID he make that comment?

          1. It would not surprise me at all if it were a private conversation and the version we hear now is 2nd or ever 3rd hand.

    3. Good morning Bob ..

      Perhaps Miss Abbott has forgotten that the most dangerous of all is her son?

      Diane Abbott’s son ‘had crystal meth delivered to her £1.2million home and chased her with scissors claiming to have a gun in his dressing gown pocket’, court hears
      James Abbott-Thompson was found to have suffered drug-induced psychosis at his mother’s home before being sectioned under the mental health act
      Officers who attended Diane Abbott’s £1.2mn home found signs of crystal meth use in Abbott-Thompson’s room
      In court yesterday he was handed an indefinite hospital order and banned from entering the Foreign Office after attacking police officers there.

      Diane Abbott’s son had crystal meth delivered to her home when she was Shadow Home Secretary, a court heard yesterday.

      The diplomat is then said to have chased her around her £1.2million home with scissors, claiming he had a gun in his dressing gown pocket.

      James Abbott-Thompson was high on a cocktail of drugs when he started ‘threatening his mother with violence’. He then went on a drug-induced rampage, attacking nine police officers, doctors, nurses and security guards at various hospitals.

      Wood Green Crown Court heard the Cambridge graduate had been taking crystal meth, the ‘chemsex’ drug GBL and cocaine since 2013. At just 27, he was posted to the British Embassy in Rome as first secretary for exiting the EU, advising Britons in Italy on their post-Brexit rights.

      But his addiction and mental health issues ended his career.

      Yesterday the ex-diplomat was handed an indefinite hospital order and banned from entering the Foreign Office after attacking police officers there and throwing a stone at a member of the public when he was refused entry after being sacked last summer. Prosecutor Benn Maguire told the court the Labour MP was ‘chased around her home’ by her son ‘who said he had a gun in his pocket’, although no gun was later found.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk…

      1. Why have Diane Abbott and her son had such charmed careers? Cambridge, the diplomatic service, Parliament…he would still be on the gravy train if he hadn’t exaggerated with drugs. Please don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting that either of them earned these privileges – a woman who can’t do basic maths and her drug addict son.

    4. It was interesting to hear Nana Akua (apologies if spelling incorrect) on GBN on the subject. Nana is exceedingly black and, from her perspective, the comment wasn’t racist. If one actually looks at what was allegedly said there are 2 elements:
      1. Saying DA should be shot. This is maybe very stupid/distasteful but it is clearly just hyperbole expressing the view that somebody’s conduct is beyond the pale – how many times does one hear “he should be strung from the nearest lamp-post” or similar without seriously thinking that the person who said it wants the subject hanged. It is in the same category as many alleged comments from Boris eg “let the bodies pile high”. DA may possibly feel that such talk puts her at increased risk because there are some idiots out there and she is a very divisive person who attracts enemies, but she should be making her main complaint to the Guardian. It appears that they have delved deeply in order to make mischief and the alleged 5 years old verbal comment from somebody few had heard of is only in the public forum because they have publicised it in a bid to stop the dreaded Tories get £10M. The Graun is effectively trying to stir up hatred, abetted by the BBC and Jonathan Ashworth MP.
      2. Hester seems to be saying that DA is so dislikeable that she risks making some people dislike all black women. He then makes it clear that he’s not one of those people ie he is actually flagging up that DA’s constant portrayal of herself as a black woman above every other consideration, coupled with her many divisive comments, means that DA is doing a disservice to other black women and he objects to this. Nana Akua was very much on board with this view.

      What we have here is the Guardian acting like some sort of denunciation letter in the French Revolution. The response of various Tory MPs and of Sunak shows that they are incapable of cold rational analysis and are, as ever, just running scared every time the R word (or some similar ‘crime’ like bullying) is alleged. They have absolutely no spine and Sunak shows himself, yet again, ready to throw someone under the bus rather than stand up to it. Labour/The Guardian/BBC etc are now very well practised in this technique which pays them handsome dividends – as we have seen from 2020 onwards. Isn’t it extraordinary how the scandal of the Speaker’s behaviour and its relationship to him having had a visit from Sir Keir has just fizzled out while a possible comment from 5 years ago, taken out of its original context, can be the first story on national news?

  23. Good morning , no it isn’t.

    Drizzle , so damp , overcast and 11 c.

    Golfer is golfing and had an early start , complete with waterproofs etc .

    1. Did you see the famous bronze leaping gazelle sculpture in JHB ?
      There were at least six full size animals depicting a long leap.
      It all disappeared around 10 years ago. A dirty white plastic table and some chairs took up position.
      It matches all the litter and filth on the streets.
      I expect the Carlton Hotel is still closed. So many other buildings have been fire damaged in the city.

  26. I like Rusty Nail’s BTL Comment:-

    1 hr ago
    I wonder if the time has come to add a few more contemporary road signs to the Highway Code?

    The current “Uneven Road” could be amended to include deep holes and renamed “Cratered Road”

    Or the current blue circle sign of a bicycle suggesting Pedal Cycles only, could be amended to “Route to be completely ignored by Pedal Cycles”

    Or a new sign of a person’s head to the ground and called “Environmental Protestor”

    Another new sigh of three persons crowded together – “Protestors Ahead”

    Signs for speed cameras could be changed to show a bag full of cash instead.

    And the current sign of a row of cars called “Queues Likely” could be amended to say “EV Charging points. Queues Likely”

    And finally a picture of a house, called “Stay Indoors and Save a Polar Bear”

    I need to get out more…

    Oh, hang on! edited

  27. 384664+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 13 March: The Government needs to go further to secure Britain’s energy supply

    This political overseeing power is reminiscent of Berlin in Feb 1945.

    So first surely something likened to a stable Government MUST be established.

    We can kid ourselves once again, shuffling the same highly toxic political players and cast a vote
    for a long defunct parties name.

    Mass support someone along the lines of Andrew Bridgen via making the time to establish a new party.

    ALL existing political overseers in the HP sauce factory to be given the DCM for services rendered
    ( don’t come Monday)

    Personally I do not believe that politics is their true calling gangsterism is really their tailored suit.

    Before anything can be achieved we must have a clear understanding of what actually took place these last three plus years and the overseeing organisers, if guilty found brought to book and
    incarcerated.

    Lest we forget on the political overseers playing field many were left dead, plus seriously injured, ongoing.

    MORE OF THE SAME IS NOT AN OPTION.

  28. Good morning all and the squaddies of the 77th,

    A low’rin grey sky over McPhee Towers, wind South-West, 10℃ to 12℃ today.

    It’s good to see Ross Clark continuing the fight against the madness of EVs but he hasn’t really grasped it yet.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1175cf63f0dd657f1f13744ee3e0ceec6e6487737f10f092513afbfa6c4d88f0.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/12/the-great-electric-car-scandal-is-only-just-beginning/

    Trying to jump straight to electric cars has condemned the whole effort to decarbonise road transport to failure. What I really wanted to buy, by the way, was not a diesel car but a hybrid petrol one, with a 50 mile electric-only range and a small petrol engine to provide back up for longer journeys. But no such vehicle seemed to exist when I was looking, and further innovation on hybrids has been undermined by the government’s pre-announced ban from 2035 onwards. As a result, manufacturers are being condemned to make vehicles which few of us will ever want to buy.

    What he doesn’t say is that hybrids with small petrol ‘back-up’ engines (they’re not back-up, they’re primary) also have small fuel tanks so you’d still have a range of about half that of a proper ICE vehicle. The battery-only range is likely to be nearer 25-30 miles and not 50, the fuel consumption goes up dramatically if you recharge the battery while driving on the ICE. And you will still have eye-watering battery replacement costs once it’s life-expired or if it gets damaged.

    What he should be doing is attacking the whole false premise on which EVs are based, the Great Climate Lie that CO2 is a climate control knob, that we need to reduce the human production of CO2 or else we risk runaway global warming. He should also be attacking the mining of the rare -Earth metals necessary to make the batteries and the fact that there is not enough to make enough EVs to replace all ICE vehicles and that the Chinese control the market. Then there’s the inability to recycle them – just like with wind turbines and solar panels. ‘Green’ they are not.

    Come on, Ross, you can do better.

    I learned yesterday that Jaguar is going all-electric from next year. It is doomed.

    1. Battery technology has to improve.

      There are several avenues – one is the use of sodium rather than lithium as a base. Sodium-ion technology is less efficient and takes up more space, but is a great deal easier to mine – the oceans have it in abundance, and doesn’t tend to catch fire in car parks.

      Another is doped graphene. Being one atom thick, the surface area in a graphene lattice must be enormous, with minimal consumption of rare earths. Whether this could be built up using a 3D printer is up to the engineers. The shelf life of a graphene capacitor cell is about a week, but surely this can be improved if combined with something that can lock the charge up better.

      Another is hydrogen, limited to finding a convenient way to hold it, and how much can be produced when it is windy or sunny.

      Then there is the nuclear option. Cheap and easy nuclear fusion generation is a while off, but if you can power a submarine with a nuclear reactor, surely you can power a house or a factory. The main thing is waste disposal – it is not fair to land the cost of this on the Council Tax payer.

      Finally, there is biotechnology. Plants are rather good at converting sunlight to fuel, but do tend to divert productive land away from food or nature conservation. As absorbers of excess carbon dioxide however, they may well mitigate the use of conventional power sources, such as coal, oil or gas.

      1. None of this is necessary. That’s my point. We aren’t going to run out of hydro-carbons and ICE engines can be made cleaner still and more efficient than they are at present.

        I’ll make an exception for a small modular nuclear reactor chain, possibly using molten salt reactors which use spent nuclear fuel to fuel them, turning nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years into nuclear waste with a half-life of a few hundred years. They should be a central part of our energy infrastructure so we can dump wind and solar but goodness knows how much it will cost to clean up the land despoiled by the infernal installations.

        1. My very limited understanding regarding the nuclear option is that the main problem is cooling. They need a significant source of water or similar, even small ones.

        2. The concrete bases of windmills will never be removed – they are there for all eternity now. We will be remembered as an age of huge vandalism.

      3. Several decades ago I was taught, as a rule of thumb, that to get 1Wh out of a battery you had to put 2Wh into charging it. Hysteresis I believe.
        I wonder what the efficiency of modern batteries is?

    2. Debt is haram I believe.
      Edit. On second thoughts I think it is usury that is haram so I guess having an interest free loan is just peachey.

      1. Sharia loans don’t charge interest. I think Cameron (I look forward to the time we have a muslim PM) introduced sharia banking.

  31. Re the DT letters today , they are not that outstanding , are they?

    I liked this comment , it summarises the Letters very well .

    MC

    M Cleary
    6 MIN AGO
    Michael Miller.
    In what way are geothermal and tidal “renewable.”
    Have you simply blurted the word out as they aren’t oil-based?
    Sue Heeley
    Proportional representation? No.
    Simon Milward
    Some asylum seekers/refugees may well be highly skilled. Many are not.
    And why do so many pass thorough safe countries to get to the UK?
    And why do so many lose their papers on their way here?
    And why do so many forget which country they are originally from?
    Robert Ashton
    Where happened to the British bobby?
    Sounds like he retired to the Caribbean on his generous pension and is moonlighting.
    Mary Walton
    Sorry Mary, since you were eight the population of these islands has grown to an unsustainable level. Children’s -and others- right to independence and safety is not threatened by motor traffic so much as the level of people who don’t give a tinker’s cuss about anyone else.

    1. Why indeed.
      And too many why’s for us to comprehend and for our useless government to answer.

  32. She describes it pretty clearly in the article. I have thought for a long time that if you read about them in the Mail, it’s because someone wants you to read about them.
    Think about it – perhaps everyone looks like controlled opposition according Miri because the only opposition people whose names you are familiar with are the controlled opposition?

    2. 75% Increase in Sad Dick Khant’s Council Tax since 2016.

      Shirley it should be

      75% Increase in Londoner’s Council Tax since 2016, caused by Sad Dick Khant

    4. I hope you’ve taken your bank card AS, it can be more expensive than taking you cat to the veterinary practice.

  35. The charge of blasphemy – backed by threats of violence – is being used to silence criticism of Islam. And our cherished freedoms are in peril

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13188701/Charge-blasphemy-violence-Islam-freedoms-peril.html

    The late journalist and critic Christopher Hitchens — Alexander’s father — put it best when he described Islamophobia as ‘a word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons’. His words have never rung more true.
    Of course, hatred towards any group of people based on their religion is inexcusable.
    But just as one can criticise Israeli policy towards Palestine without being anti-Semitic, as a society we must be able to criticise the imperial jihadist dogma of certain Islamist extremists without being labelled ‘Islamophobic’.
    On advice from the police, that well-meaning teacher from Batley Grammar — who showed students a picture of Muhammad — is still in hiding three years later, living under a new identity.
    Countless lives have been torn apart by Islamist anti-blasphemy activists — and many have been killed around the world for speaking out.
    The future of the Britain we love is at stake. If our politicians continue to view criticism of Islam as a hate-crime, then concept creep will continue apace — and the freedom we cherish will be stolen from us.

    1. I wonder how many of these morality police officers are patrolling the nottler community, or are there places where even they fear to tread?

      I refer of course to yesterday’s image of the Prophet (pbuh) being pleasured by an eager porker.

    2. I’ve already had enough of all this imperial jihadist dogma and all the crap it stirs up. . If people want to move elsewhere to live they should blend in, or (polite) go away.
      Why our stupid useless political classes can’t understand this, is unfathomable.

  36. Morning all 🙂😊
    A tad brighter and dry. But more rain forecast, probably four days or it. Just what we need eh.
    And alongside that an incapable government.
    Not what anyone needs but like our weather we just have to put up with it.

      1. Yes thanks, I woke at 6 am and BP down to 145 which is a lot better than 195 plus. It gives me a lot more confidence. I’ll go for a walk later today. Not off road, everywhere is terribly muddy. I don’t want to be stuck in it 🤗

      1. Yes thanks TB, BP down considerably.
        I’ve self medicated. Increased dosages its seems to have been effective. That’s all they do at A&E after a very long, very uncomfortable wait.
        KBO eh.

      2. I had to go back to bed this afternoon for a couple of hours.
        Feeling much more comfortable but still coughing.

        1. There is a really uncomfortable coughing virus doing the rounds , in fact there are several variations on that theme .

          I have it at the moment , sticky throaty cough. NOT Covid , took the test yesterday , sinus nose and wheezy chest , and coughing bouts , they clear then return . Moh gets very annoyed with me , he is of course perfect in every way and his tolerance level is zilch .

          If I am driving with the heat on in the car or the room here feels too warm , I start coughing , and bedtime is a nuisance , I take cough medicine .

          Moh feels the cold terribly so everywhere is warm , although I do sneak in and open the top bedroom window before lights out , because I feel happier with an open window.

          I guess I am a nuisance really and Moh would be better off with me out of the way .. then he can play golf every day and eat exactly what he wants .

          2. You have allowed him to grind you down, Maggie. Because you aren’t valued, you don’t value yourself.

    1. Good grief they don’t half waffle. Blue suit, blue tie – in both person and on the photo? Poor speech really. He’s oddly not very good at public speaking.

      He needs to talk to everyone, democrats and republicans. Yes, there’s ‘we’re’, but it’s partisan. He should be saying you deserve better, I want to give you that.

      I think it’s a malaise that they like hearing their own voices more than actually saying something.

      1. It’s a running joke with them.

        I went to their head office a few times and it’s very much security by politeness:

        Come to a pass controlled door: ‘Hello, who are you here to see?’
        Oh, so and so, about this thing?’
        ‘Oh yes, that sounds great, let me let you in. has anyone got you a tea?’

    5. Lyrics
      Make sure nobody sees you leave
      Hood over your head, keep your eyes down
      Tell your friends you’re out for a run
      You’ll be flushed when you return
      Take the road less traveled by
      Tell yourself you can always stop
      What started in beautiful rooms
      Ends with meetings in parking lots

      And that’s the thing about illicit affairs
      And clandestine meetings and longing stares
      It’s born from just one single glance
      But it dies, and it dies, and it dies
      A million little times

      Leave the perfume on the shelf
      That you picked out just for him
      So you leave no trace behind
      Like you don’t even exist
      Take the words for what they are
      A dwindling, mercurial high
      A drug that only worked
      The first few hundred times

      And that’s the thing about illicit affairs
      And clandestine meetings and stolen stares
      They show their truth one single time
      But they lie, and they lie, and they lie
      A million little times

      And you wanna scream
      Don’t call me “kid”
      Don’t call me “baby”
      Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me
      You showed me colors
      You know I can’t see with anyone else

      Don’t call me “kid”
      Don’t call me “baby”
      Look at this idiotic fool that you made me
      You taught me a secret language
      I can’t speak with anyone else
      And you know damn well
      For you, I would ruin myself
      A million little times

      That is a Taylor Swift song !!!!

      Th internet is a wonderful thing.

      2. You always hear Taylor Swift whinging about her past partners but you never hear her singing about making her partner dinner, or her travelling around the world without him, or…. well, *his side* of things.

    6. A torch eh? Did nothing heavier present itself? In any case a preferable approach would surely have been to photograph the errant pair and send a copy to the local rag and the police complaints team.

    8. Perhaps if he’d turned the torch off he wouldn’t have seen them.
      “I’m sorry officer I didn’t know it was your wife” – “Nor did I until I shone my torch”

  39. Having yesterday asked Fraser (perfectly politely) to rethink his DISASTROUS new commenting systems, I find that as of this morning I get this message whenever I try to post …..

    × We are unable to post your comment because you have been banned by http://www.spectator.co.uk. Find out more.

    I am a subscriber who has paid for the magazine for many years, and have happily stayed within commenting guidelines throughout that time.

    Can someone explain please?

  40. All this hoo-ha about Vet’s fees and charges. I am going out on a limb – BUT – I think it is (a) a sign of affluence and (b) of stupidity.

    When I was a child no one in their right mind would pay a week’s wages (let alone a month’s) having a pet treated. If a dog or cat was sick – put it down. And country folk didn’t pay vets to kill the animal. They’d take it out gently and shoot it.

    I have chums who have spent thousands – at least 5 figures – keeping alive a dog which I knew was very ill the first time ever saw it.

    One has to be realistic.

    There is also a terrible trade in fluffy little pupsel wupsels and kittypoos. A woman in this village has a female cat from which she breeds three litters a year – and offers the kittens on sochul meeja for £400 EACH….. and gets it.

    We were extraordinarily lucky with G & P. A couple in a village 15 minutes away rescued a feral female who had just had a litter. There were five kittens. The wished to keep two – the rest were available for no charge to anyone who they though were proper cat people. We passed that test and chose the two gingers. Prior to that we had seen lots of poorly or frightened or undernourished kittens “offered” for £200+ each.

    This breeding scandal really ought to be investigated.

    1. If I had taken your advice my dog would have been put down eighteen months ago aged 6.

      1. I don’t think it was advice, more an observation on how things have changed. And he’s right about the breeding issue.

        I hope your dog continues to prosper.

    2. I’ve just helped mum adopt a dog. All has turned out good there. However dipping my toe into the pet trade world has left a bad impression on me. I’m glad it’s over if only in the respect of not having to deal with it. I wonder if any commentators are aware of the dog import scene?

      1. Do you mean the people who see a malnourished stray on holiday in the Med and then move Heaven and Earth to rescue it or is this the import of XL Bullies?

        1. I have seen so called “charities” importing strays dogs from eastern Europe and then there’s the Far East, those are called “meat trade survivors”.

          1. There’s also a donkey sanctuary (in Wales I think) that is importing donkeys and appealing for charitable funds. We used to have one of their cards on the board at work.

      2. Yes, sadly. It’s utterly horrific that people ‘buy’ a dog that they don’t understand on a whim of wanting one that’s come from a dangerous background. The animal is usually frightened, having been beaten, making it aggressive, scared and dangerous. They’re fluffed and puffed for sale but are otherwise malnourished and ill treated.

        The scum – and it’s always Romanians, Bulgarians or just the sodding dindos abusing animals in this way should be flogged to death.

        This is why Marion who breeds Newfies is so careful and insists on at least 2 home visits, proof of earnings, to meet the whole family and for the family to meet the mother (I would use the proper terminology but it’s been abused as an insult) for her reaction to the family.

        They also meet an adult male Newfie – which was Mongo in this case – to see the wrecking ball that little puppy would turn into.

    4. But there was also the PDSA where we could take our sick animals and have them treated a donation was all that was required.
      I remember taking our ginger Tom to Hendon on the bus in a zip up holdall.

      1. I took a cat to the vet in a holdall on the bus – it had an access on its back that needed treatment. The vet did what he had to – he said he’d never heard a cat swear as much as that one did.
        The cat survived and so did I. I was 17 at the time. The cat had been a very pretty kitten but grew up to be the oddest cat I’ve ever had. I left it with my Mum when I eventually moved out.

      2. I think you have to be on Benefits to be able to access PDSA or RSPCA veterinary treatment. About 25 years ago I knew someone whose husband actually went on the dole to try to access treatment for their dog. It was- to a hard nut like me- a tragic folie-a-deux as they were going into debt to pay vets’ bills. The dog had leukaemia and went through 4 week cycles of treatment during which he had one week of something approaching a normal life and 3 weeks of either being completely knackered or being as sick as the proverbial dog.

    5. Vet’s bills in the UK are outrageous and unreasonable. I live in France where they are a fraction of what people pay in the UK and the vets do very nicely thank-you, with modern premises and up-to-date equipment. The whole business in the UK has turned into a cartel which includes pet insurance.
      I agree with you about the pet trade though. Years ago I had an argument with a woman who was selling farm kittens on the basis that they would automatically be “good mousers” because they were born on a farm. She disliked cats and knew nothing at all about them, I have had them all my life including kittens from totally domesticated cats, farm cats and totally feral cats. Whether or not they are good mousers has nothing whatsoever to do with where they are born.

      1. When we moved Beast didn’t come with us. I’ve walked around there to see if he’s about but it appears he’s gone home properly.

        Yes, vet bills are stupid. Ours are good – they itemise everything down to the student loan costs of training. Mongo and Oscar’s usual vet, who is a specialist in giant breeds (her masters is in just that) mentioned that a while back a trainee could join at 18 and get the equivalent training while studying. That’s now not allowed which has made costs expensive.

        1. I’ve never had a problem moving a cat with me. However, the truly feral kitten that my father found abandoned by its mother in a barn stayed with us for about a year, going absent more and more frequently until one day he just never returned. He clearly went “home”. I also have a couple of “outside” cats who I think have been abandoned. I feed them outside, but unless the weather is really bad when they ask to come in, they prefer to be outside.

          1. Sounds like “Blacky” – a cat who visited us when we lived in the Aude. Came over the adjoining roofs. Had his own place in the garden – hidden in a wisteria! Twice came into the house – we found black hairs on a bed in a room two stories up. He’d obviously done a complete tour! Knew him for several years. The chaps who bought the house report that Blacky still visits…!

            It will be 4 years this Saturday that we left the house for the last time – after nearly 40 years.

          5. Our family generations are mixed up like a cocktail.

            When we went to a family reunion in Willand, near Cullompton, in 1994 to celebrate the family house that my grandfather, a GP, had built 100 years previously we took the oldest Tracey, my mother aged 90, and the youngest, my son Christo aged 3 months, to the party.

            Christo was the great grandson of Dr Henry Eugene Tracey and one of our ‘removed’ cousins aged 42 who was already a grandmother, was his great granddaughter.

            When Caroline married me two of my nieces had already produced children so she became an aunt and a great aunt at the same time at the age of 26.

          6. We had a “Blackie” too! He was brought home by the resident cat who taught him to use the cat-flap, at first in “secret” and we only got glimpses of him, then he got bolder when we didn’t chase him away. The two cats ended up inseparable – if one got on a lap so did the other. They would sleep together and eat out of the same bowl in spite of each having their own – one would eat then sit back for the other to have go until both bowls were empty! The vet said he was about 10 when we took him in to get him “done”. He survived his best friend who died at 17 by three years which surprised me, he just transferred his affections to me. He would have been at least 20 when he died nearly three years ago.

          7. I remember your very fraught and stressful journey to get home before the lockdown started.

    6. The thing is Bill, a vet these days will put on the emotional pull thing , and pass on false hope to the owner and say , yes there is a strong drug that deals with pain , will cost £200, lasts a month etc etc .

      To be honest , my beloved Jack , who died last September aged 15 years 6 months , was provided with a long innings .. we aren’t wealthy and he had no insurance , because his premiums went up when he was 10 years old , they doubled !

      We had five years of repeat medication , and I could have said goodbye much earlier to spare him the pain of not being able to climb the stairs and get into the car with out me carrying him .

      We have owned spaniels for over fifty years , usually 2/ 3 at a time , they were working dogs .

      Vets these days belong to large organisations , veterinary drugs cost a fortune .. We all by nature have caring natures , but so many animals are neglected by bods who cannot afford the fees .

      We nearly had a heart attack when the younger 10 year old dog broke a canine tooth , and the vet found dental caries in Pips rear molars .. result five teeth were extracted .. Insurance wouldn’t pay out and we ended up with a bill of just over £700.. ( the price of a new dishwasher , car repair etc etc. )

      Decades ago , pet owning wasn’t the thing it is now .

      I heard that when WW2 broke out , domestic pets were put down , people couldn’t feed them due to food rationing .

      Our pets mean the world to us , but I do think now that the huge amounts of dogs , cats and other animals that people own has become ridiculous ..

      Crufts has also created a platform for dogs that don’t look as if they are the real thing , bred by people for maximum profit .

      I hate Crufts , apart from the fly ball and agility , dogs being dogs !

      1. The day Mongo pulled a tooth out because he decided to pull a tree along with him was by far the most expensive of the year.

        Despite his placid demeanour he had to be anesthetised, needed an overnight stop, anti biotics not to mention the extraction itself.

        We could have bought a second hand fiesta for the cost – we’re paying for it over 6 months, but still.

        1. One of my cats recently got feline pancreatitis. This meant (for diagnosis as he has a history of other things) a blood test, an X-ray, an ultrasound and then a week in “hospital”. The whole bill came to €612 and the vet asked if I wanted to pay it in three instalments so I gratefully accepted! I can’t believe UK fees!

          2. More than triple. A friend’s cat had the same thing and her bill was over £2000, that’s about four times. Also, the vet first advised her to have the cat euthanised – for £500 which is about the same as it cost to have my cat treated and cured!

          3. We had our little Lily put to sleep last July (after blood tests which basically showed that most of her organs were failing). The blood tests were done on site (c £200) and the pts (£95). We took her home for burial in the garden. She was at least 16, quite possibly older.

          4. Sorry to hear about Lily, but 16 is a good age, you made the right decision for her and I bet she had a happy life with you!
            Just had a quick check on past invoices, blood tests, also done on site, around 50€ – bit of a difference! Euthansia is 100€ so about the same.

          5. She came to us as a rescue, said to be about 12…. she may have been a bit older, but what a lovely pet she was for the four years we looked after her. She’s much missed, but we now have two lively girls, also rescues, whose owner went into care. They needed a quiet home with older people. Two lovely tabbies.

          8. What do you do when you go on holidays? Our little Gracie is almost 18, seems fine (albeit she has slowed down a lot and spends a lot of time asleep). We don’t want to leave her in a cattery and take away both her home and us, on the other hand it is so difficult to find holiday places that will take even a quiet old cat. My dear brother used to come and stay and she was happy with him, but sadly he is no longer with us.

          9. Since John was poorly he hasn’t been away for longer than a weekend. We have good neighbours either side who are happy to do the feeding as we do for them. I’ve never had to put my cats into a cattery – and it would mean annual injections for them which I wouldn’t want to put them through.

            My last two trips to Kenya were solo.

          10. I do hope John recovers sufficiently to be able to enjoy longer holidays away with you, again.

            We are able to do a weekend too, with likewise kind neighbours, but anything else is difficult.

          11. He won’t fly any more – I managed to drag him to Kenya at short notice in February 2020 but that was the last time. He doesn’t mind me going – either with a friend or on my own. The next trip with a friend is already booked – to Brazil in September to see Jaguars…….and other wildlife. We booked that last summer, so I squeezed in another trip to Kenya in between.

            But having had his triple by-pass, followed by AF, long haul flying would probably be unwise now, not to mention the insurance problem.

          12. I had to have a cat put to sleep about 17 years ago (aged 18) the vet didn’t charge anything because we gave him back some recently purchased medication

      2. Some of those Crufts winners have looked deformed. I remember particularly a German Shepherd with a a very sloping back and crouched rear legs.

        1. Several times MB and I have referred to that appalling result.
          It has really stuck our memories.

      3. I totally agree with you about Crufts, and cat shows too. I have no problem with things like sheep-dog trials though.

      4. I’m with you, Maggie. Our Springer will be 9 next month and is in rude health. When the insurance premiums reached just under £100 per month with us paying the first £90 of any claim we cancelled.
        I now put £150 per month into a savings account to cover vet bills. We have a good relationship with our vet and don’t feel that we are ripped off. We are lucky.

      5. My favourite dog show was in the next village. Twenty of so entries, and they would enter most of the categories, and the judges would try to find a category where even the most disreputable mutt could win a prize. Hilarious was the ‘Obedience’ section, where a winning entry would be one that could get to the other side without nipping at the judge or humping its neighbour. The spaniels would clean up the waggiest tail, even though I think I remember one Labradoodle/ Great Dane/ Irish Wolfhound cross, a bear-like uncontrollable black tumbleweed-with-teeth did sweep all the cups off the table.

          1. Bravo Oscar! One in every village.

            If I recall Tumbleweed won the ‘Most Handsome Dog’ category, but got nowhere in the “Dog the Judge Would Most Like to Take Home” especially after he sat on a chihuaha. The winner of the ‘Dog Most Like its Owner’ was this mangy, rat-eaten scruff of Terrier Mix on a string. On the other end of a string was a matching mangy, rat-eaten old fellow hobbling along behind.

            First prize must go to the Petersfield Sheepdog trials around 1985. ‘One Man and his Dog’ it certainly wasn’t. The contest had to be adjourned because one entry herded the sheep first through all the stalls, and then vanished somewhere into Hampshire, with the judges in hot pursuit, since they needed the sheep back for the next contestant. Actually not exactly vanished, since we could see them all running along on a distant hillside for a while. It was at that fair, they put the morris dancers on a somewhat springy stage. It was like dancing on a trampoline.

          2. I entered my Oscar in “best rescue dog”. I was lucky he didn’t bite the judge (the local vet) 🙂

        2. For a laugh I entered Oscar in Temptation Alley at a local fun show. He didn’t get past the first bowl!

    7. Mongo ‘cost’ £2500. I got him for far less because his sire is Wiggy and we agreed to breed him for 3 litters (which he’s done).

      Oscar was free because he needed a good home – and has become difficult and awkward beyond the usual Newfie stubbornness.

    10. There has been an enormous increase in dog ownership in our area and it started with the scamdemic. Probably quite a few people have got rid of them as the novelty wears off.

      1. It’s being a flexible friend that does it. (Sorry if that’s not intelligible to anybody under about 60)

        1. Gosh – I remember cutting my unsolicited card up and handing it to the Nat West bank in Crawley!

          1. We refused to have one until the day came when there was something wrong with the car and the garage wanted to know how the bill would be paid if it was over £50 as that was the limit of our cheque guarantee card (or it might even have been £30). It was ok in the end as the bill was actually about £13 but I decided the time had come to succumb to the flexible friend.

        2. I never had one of those but I have had a Barclaycard for many years. I don’t use it much but it’s useful to have.

  43. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/great-university-racket-a-national-scandal/

    The article is correct in almost every way. I’ve heard foreigners who’ve taken degrees in the UK complaining that they can’t bring their parents and children with them yet universities are dependent on foreign students. Always have been, well before Blair’s ‘disguise the unemployment figures’ farce.

    Tuition fees haven’t risen, costs have soared – apparently a nearby university is spending £3m a year on heating and lighting. There’s also a strong unionist ethos, an old civil service attitude of ‘well, here’s always more money, it’s just being hidden from us “poor downtrodden faculty on £80K a year + index linked pension” and given to ‘da man’.

    The technical staff don’t want to change. hey pretend to, throwing huge sums at ‘the cloud’ but they don’t know why they need it, so the money is spent, but wasted as they’ve not exhausted their on site systems. Thus they twiddle and fiddle with lots of new shiny buttons and shunt the small up front costs on to the smaller, but growing by the hour costs on cloud services, eventually discovering that that ‘cheap’ solution is now £100k a month. Then , in a panic hey revert back to what they know – finger pointing, blaming and frantically trying to in house again only to run into the same problems as before – a lack of expertise, discipline, management knowledge and adherence to failed process.

    I’m in a 2 hour meeting about agile practices now. Not recorded, not even globally available, on site only. Delivered by someone who has never worked in an agile project. It genuinely could have finished by now but no. It’s a wafflefest of people who don’t understand trying to teach people who won’t change how they can keep doing the same failed things the same way and pretend to follow the precepts.

  45. https://twitter.com/True_Belle/status/1767854990385701174

    GCHQ has created a puzzle to lure a fresh generation of recruits with the “right mix of minds” and has become the first British intelligence agency to advertise for spies on LinkedIn.

    In the colourful image, created with the artist Justin Eagleton, are 13 elements that represent letters of the alphabet. The challenge is to identify the letters and assemble them to reveal a hidden message.

    GCHQ is encouraging keen problem solvers who might process information differently from most people to work with friends, family and colleagues to find the solution, which will be revealed on Thursday.

    Anne Keast-Butler, the director of GCHQ, described as “mission critical” the need to attract a wider range of spies in the digital age.

    She said: “The world is getting more complex and we’re only ever going to stay ahead of those threats by bringing together the right mix of minds that lets us tackle the challenges ahead.

    “For us, that means bringing in people with different backgrounds, different experience, different insights, different knowledge and creating a team where all of us can play our part. For us, it’s clear that that diversity is mission critical. So we’re on a journey to make sure that we reach out and connect to people who’ve never thought of working with us.”

    GCHQ’s new LinkedIn account reflects the agency’s commitment to becoming a diverse and representative organisation. It will also be using the platform to showcase its work.

    The latest puzzle is a reference to the agency’s historic links to code-breaking and part of a tradition of releasing puzzles to attract new talent, while offering a glimpse into their secretive work.

    Staff at GCHQ counter real-world and online threats from nation states, criminal groups, terrorists and others. Jobs include intelligence analysts, data scientists, project managers and engineers. Having a degree is not always a key requirement. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gchq-puzzle-quiz-spy-linkedin-8p6llbqs8

    1. Hope the diverse and inclusive people can solve this. Or do they have a simpler test? Just asking…

      1. Zipped himself in from the outside after killing himself.
        Obviously.
        Or maybe the Skripals done it.

          1. It would be worth tracking that.
            Her death came close to tipping BrExit.
            Qui bono?, in these paranoid times.

          2. That thought did cross my mind.
            The killer was a case of “Don’t Care In The Community”.
            I know how easy it is to manipulate such vulnerable people.

      1. 384664+ up ticks,

        Afternoon OLT,

        With ode to joy playing softly in the background.

        How would that be for full-on piss taking
        Our electorate majority would go for it, that is the saddest part of all.

        1. If you can’t really can’t stand living in the UK any more because of Government policy, you can vote Labour for a vote on assisted dying – or Conservatives who will vote on helping illegals to £3,000 of your cash to convince them it’s not worth staying here without the means to make money.

    2. I would…. then when it went to trial my lawyer would have a field day about identification, reading of rights, being able to understand, wrongly convicted and then walk off with a six figure salary.

      All because big fat state is woke.

  48. Belated Morning All

    Fusion you say…….

    Gates,Bezos and Branson you say………..

    I won’t hold my breath

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/13/nuclear-fusion-energy-britain-grid-sooner-than-you-think/

    Meanwhile the Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d6bec393eb8425214a01e20f877a442c1cfbfe51f8092b985ed1c454cbcc9fe.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1f351d04f7f2162001a6edb1fe71f51ca9a76ba3b61d5874ea9a0c0419df503.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54230cff02262ee50f6485415f6219b9956b71d71f8acc44836812dc8b475bb4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2652d67385a42aaaf32d1193aa6c7eba168093e196262555490a25e0b5e2e415.jpg

    Digs Trench dons tin hat……..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/73b62061921a760295f5c06a9bf9689a19c41533088241659960b0ba8d977178.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c039903ebf81e9fb3f4f3da87e0079b7fd488c15b4ac63fcdbec92d09bd7b8d9.png

    1. Caroline and I have repeatedly expressed out thanks on this forum to the fact that our marvellous GP, Françoise, advised us not to be injected with the poisonous Covid jabs.

    2. I think you may have found the light switch today.

      What women want is … a damn … good ……. moan.

  49. Go on boy, take your chance, go out and enjoy the grey blanket of clouds …. have a walk and pickup your prescription …. or walk down to Aldi’s …. the pavements are dry.

    PS Are you sure I don’t need to take an umbrella?

  50. Why did the taxpayer meet the libel damages of that vacant Tory “minister”? Just asking – as a voter…

    1. I remember when they first fined the lorry companies if illegal immigrants are found aboard their lorries.

      Was this joined up thinking?

      What better incentive for drivers to set the immigrants loose before they are caught.

  52. Archbishops claim Muslim communities at risk over new extremism definition
    Bishops Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell release statement as Michael Gove prepares to unveil new extremism strategy
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/archbishops-canterbury-york-extremism-definition-muslims/

    BTL

    These disgusting Archpillocks are a disgrace to Jesus Christ, a disgrace to their priests, a disgrace to their flocks and a disgrace to themselves.

    More Christians are killed worldwide because of their religious beliefs than members of any other religious group.

    Welby and Cottrell do not give a damn about Christians. Are they trying to reserve places for themselves in an Islamic hell?

    1. What a pity that they don’t have the same caring attitude to their own, Christian flock that they have towards Allah’s Muslim one.

      1. Especially when there’s a “pandemic” around.
        Couldn’t wait to bolt and bar the church doors to keep out those pesky congregants.

        1. Indeed, they didn’t even do that in France where lockdown was even more draconian. The churches remained open for private prayer at the discretion of the priests who were charged with ensuring social distancing and mask- wearing. They certainly weren’t banned from their own churches and in fact our priest conducted a service in the empty church every Sunday and broadcast it on YouTube. I couldn’t believe what Welby did!

  54. Lee Anderson was right: We want our country back

    The UK has become prey to a parasitic shadow culture that accuses us of bigotry simply for holding core British beliefs

    ALLISON PEARSON • 12 March 2024 • 7:34pm

    “For the first time I feel somehow
    That it isn’t going to last…
    And that will be England gone,

    The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
    The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
    There’ll be books; it will linger on
    In galleries; but all that remains
    For us will be concrete and tyres.

    Going, Going – Philip Larkin (1946)

    “I want my country back.” When Lee Anderson uttered those words in his no-nonsense, Nottinghamshire miner’s style, as he announced he was defecting from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, how many of us silently concurred? We, too, would like our country back, if you don’t mind.

    The feeling has been growing for quite some time. There is a sad, wistful kind of unspoken grief that our nation is being abducted by aliens who are hostile to its history and traditions, who pretty much despise everything we love about Britain and who work through any means possible (except democracy) to change and subvert it. Everything is bad about this country, or so they claim, apart from its ability to provide generous funds for their cruelly oppressed lives and rich material for their grievances.

    It reminds me of those parasites scientists have discovered that hijack their host’s brain and body. Apparently, such manipulation can take several forms. For instance, suicide of the host. Well under way in the UK; the Church of England is starving parishes to death while lavishing £1 billion on slavery reparations. See also the RAF discriminating against white males, traditionally rather reliable defenders of our nation against her enemies.

    Another method is decreasing the fear of predators so that the host gets eaten (the universities in bed with the Chinese who nick our intellectual property spring to mind). And then there’s making the host defend or nurture the invader (think cuckoos – you can come up with examples, I’m sure).

    I realise it is considered obligatory at this point to make some “diversity is our strength” assertion. Forgive me if I don’t bother. Unity is our strength and it always has been. Back in the 1980s, when I was doing teacher training in London, the fashionable mantra was “celebrate our differences”. Even in my Leftie, dungareed, Cyclists Against the Bomb phase (so vital in bringing down the Iron Curtain), I had an inkling that wasn’t quite right. Didn’t all meaningful human connection depend on finding points of similarity with another person, not differences? But the international socialists who, even back then, dominated the academies, despised so-called “Little Englanders” and encouraged every tradition except our own. So it was that, as a young teacher, I was told to give pupils “their culture” rather than British culture which, looking back, was a fundamentally racist notion, I think. Why should 13-year-old Satwinder, born in Southall, want to hear stories about the subcontinent? (“Please, Miss, we’re English, we like ice skating,” she pleaded.) Those stories meant nothing to her and teaching them impeded integration while chipping away disastrously at a shared national identity.

    This acute nostalgia that so many of us experience, an intense feeling of loss of country, is not primarily to do with race (there are millions of non-white British, some of them among our greatest patriots), although mass immigration – uncontrolled by the Conservatives who promised voters they would decrease it – has definitely taken its toll. You can’t issue 1.2 million long-term visas in a single year (2022), as the Government did so recklessly, and not expect individuals here to suffer a decline in their standard of living – access to housing, to healthcare which is already among the worst in the developed world.

    Yet this truth, self-evident to anyone in Lee Anderson’s Ashfield constituency, has been strenuously downplayed by our ruling elite. It was not until last week that we heard Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, concede quietly in his Budget that growing our economy through mass migration might not be such a brilliant idea after all. We may have the sixth highest GDP in the world, but our “GDP per capita” finds us limping along in 21st place. If we were paying high taxes for Scandinavian-quality services, that might be bearable, but most encounters with the state, whether it be the National Death Service or public transport, are enough to induce deep despair. If there’s anyone left who doesn’t have depression already, that is.

    It’s official: British people are very unhappy. A huge Mental State of the Year study revealed last week that the UK was the second most miserable place in the world. Somehow, we managed to be slightly more cheerful than Uzbekistan. (Did it stop raining for half an hour by any chance?) Each country was awarded a score. Between 0 and 50 means enduring, 50-100 means managing, and 100 to 200 means thriving. Britain scored a pitiful 49 overall, while the average among all countries was 65. Why would people in South America and Africa be “thriving” when we Brits are just about “enduring”?

    Perhaps their populations aren’t constantly being told their history is something of which to be ashamed. Perhaps their children aren’t exposed to a pernicious gender ideology at school that induces feelings of self-loathing. Perhaps thousands of previously sane young people haven’t been put on “affirmative” trans pathways that maim their bodies and destroy their fertility. Perhaps their governments, when they are elected to promote centre-Right values, haven’t espoused sanctimonious, oat-milk globalism and aren’t busy capitulating to every clamorous minority and Leftist instead of championing mainstream opinion. Perhaps women are still women in those happier countries, men still men, and the difference between the sexes sparks joy not allegations of being “gender critical” (or whatever nonsense term they’ve invented to beat us with).

    Perhaps their leaders haven’t let people holding views incompatible with their values into their countries, with millions of them being a burden on hard-working taxpayers who get called “bigot” if they dare to emit a squeak of disquiet. Perhaps their politicians had the foresight to build enough houses (and sewers, hospitals and nuclear power stations) to cope with the rapid demographic change that people never voted for. Or perhaps they never permitted rapid demographic change in the first place, knowing it would strain the social fabric until finally it unravelled.

    You know, I have a hunch that it’s totally fine in all those places more contented than the UK to be proud of your country and for that uncomplicated patriotism to be a source of nourishment when times are hard. Pulling together, social cohesion and a powerful sense of loyalty and belonging are to be prized above top-down policies of diversity, equity and inclusion. Perhaps Britons are miserable because, appallingly and uniquely, we are taught not to like ourselves, to be guilty and ashamed of who we are.

    They knew that they could never steal our country from us by fair and open means, I think. So, cunningly, groups like Stonewall infiltrated institutions and corporations. Taxpayers’ cash was thrown at lobbyists, even extremists, who pushed ideas that were not recognised by their government and were a dangerous affront to common sense. The NHS spends £40 million a year (enough to pay the salaries of 1,150 nurses) on woke initiatives such as calling a pregnant woman a “birthing person”. Who agrees with that? Third-party providers get rich selling divisive Critical Race Theory propaganda to schools. British children are made to feel like strangers in a strange land. Weak-minded executives, who thought it would be win-win to bolster their company’s woke credentials, allowed a radical, politicised minority to use them to influence the behaviour of the majority.

    Honestly, it’s sinister. Every week, I am sent some story by a Telegraph reader or listener to my Planet Normal podcast that reveals how this cultural coup is being achieved by stealth. Jon, who works at Tesco, was recently asked to complete an online training course on harassment in the workplace. The very first question/scenario pertained to trans co-workers. The scenario read:

    “Refusing to address a trans colleague with the correct pronouns.

    “Words that we use to refer to people’s gender in conversation, for example, ‘he’ or ‘she’. Some people may prefer others to refer them [sic] in gender neutral-language and use pronouns such as they/their and ze/zi.”

    Jon was given two options: “Likely to be harassment” or “Unlikely to be harassment”. “Knowing my right to hold ‘gender-critical views’ (what an awful phrase!),” says Jon, “I clicked ‘unlikely to be harassment’ and Tesco told me that I was wrong. My intention to use pronouns that align with a colleague’s sex and my own sense of reality would in fact be harassment.”

    In another scenario, Jon was told:

    “A non-binary colleague is unhappy that their supervisor is not using the pronouns they have requested. Their supervisor responds that they cannot be made to say anything that is not grammatically correct.

    “Would this be considered harassment?

    “Yes – at Tesco, we treat everyone how they want to be treated, so if someone tells you their preferred pronouns we should respect that and use them … continuously refusing to use someone’s preferred pronouns is unacceptable and could be deemed as harassment.

    “No – The manager is correct and no one can make someone else say something that isn’t grammatically correct. Everyone has a right to say what they think and express their views.”

    Jon was confident that the “No” option was objectively the correct answer. “I was both astonished and not astonished to find that Tesco disagreed,” he says. “The correct answer is NOT the answer which includes the sentiment: ‘Everyone has a right to say what they think and express their views.’ According to Tesco, to think you have the right to express your views and say what you think is an example of harassment. It is harassment if you don’t immediately adopt, sincerely or insincerely, the trans person’s ideology as your own.”

    Jon tells me he could not pass the training without clicking the “Yes” box with which he disagreed. “Whoever is in charge of training at Tesco HQ actually believes that the feelings of some individuals take priority over the liberal values the West has spent centuries building.”

    And that, dear reader, is how they stole our tolerant, decent, beautiful, funny, united Britain. By obliging good people like Jon to agree with things that are anathema to the majority (not least supermarket shoppers) while allowing an aggressive minority to gain enormous power and intimidate the hell out of us.

    So, this is how you end up with two-tier policing of the Pro-Palestine marches through London in which Met officers arrest a solitary protester waving a placard saying “Hamas is terrorism” (official Government policy) while thousands of people calling for the eradication of Israel are allowed to go on their merry, anti-Semitic way.

    That’s why our appeasing Home Office just committed £117 million for security at mosques and other sites to combat “anti-Muslim hate incidents” when, I think it’s fair to say, most Britons strongly believe the nation has other priorities.

    “I feel we are slowly giving our country away,” Lee Anderson said. “We are allowing people to erase our history. We are giving up our streets to a minority of people who literally hate our way of life. We are allowing people into our country who will never integrate and adapt to British values.”

    The Government suspended their former deputy chairman and demanded he apologise for broadly stating (if clunkily) what the majority of its (increasingly former) voters think. Which is one reason why the Tories won’t hold a single seat in the Red Wall, and will struggle everywhere else. By standing for Reform, at least Lee Anderson has a fighting chance. I wish him all the best and hope other Tory MPs will be bold enough to join him. (Why bother staying loyal to a party so disloyal to its own base?) We desperately need a Conservative Party to vote for.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/03/12/i-know-why-britain-is-so-miserable-lost-minority-nonsense/

      1. I imagine that they’ll be gunning (to continue your metaphor) for her very soon.

    2. When David Icke self-identified as a Son of God, the same people said, “Nah, you’re a nutter”! So even if he’d meant what they claimed he meant, that means not all delusions are acceptable? Only those prescribed by the State.

    3. DT appears to have closed BTL Comments. Here’s mine:

      I wonder if Michael Miller of Sheffield, South Yorkshire is aware that CO2 is required for plant life to flourish.

  55. I am off to spend an hour in the garden. Much milder – though the wind takes the edge off the warmth. Play nicely.

  56. That’s a bit of a bugger.
    Finishes my mug of tea whilst listening to Composer of the Week, they’re doing Ennio Morricone this week, so goes and puts my jacket, boots, grabs my ear muffs and opens the door to go out and it’s bloody raining!
    Very annoying.

    2. First rain this year here, too. Should drastically reduce the snow, and wash away some of the dust.

    3. Me too Bob – we had just got ready for a bit of fresh air when it chucked it down – we have some very good kit, but it isn’t as nice going out in the rain!!

  57. We are living in a post logic, post truth world.

    We shut down our industries to save emissions, but outsourcing them to third world countries creates more emissions.

    We refuse to frack for gas because we want to reduce emissions but buy the gas in from overseas and use it anyway, plus transporting the gas here creates more emissions.

    Our politicians profess to believe that a man can become a woman – just because he says he is.

    Islamaphobia is a wicked, wicked sin – but anti semitism can be trumpeted loud and long every weekend in London without sanction.

    Yes, our politicians do need to do more to provide energy security. But will the Gods of Net Zero allow them to do so? After all we could probably get by on fairy dust and rainbows, as logic and truth obviously have no weight in this country any more.

    1. Just last week the chancellor extended the windfall tax on oil and gas companies, but this week the PM said we need to invest in more gas power plants. Where is the logic and joined-up thinking in that?

    2. Remembering that in the early 1950s Britain had access to more nuclear power than the rest of the world put together.
      Today’s ongoing energy cock ups are just other versions of their built in weaknesses and overall stupidity.
      And after allowing milions of people into the UK, dispite many perfect and necessary opportunities they have not built a single new fresh water reservevoir for decades.

    1. Lots of old news in the MSM about an alledged remark made by Lee Anderson that was reported five years ago!

      Even BingAI will not come up with a straight answer of how long ago this private meeting was held.

    1. The only one I ever visited was on the outskirts of Siracusa, Sicily. It’s by the main road, yet as you walk in through the gate, the traffic sounds become quieter. It’s beautifully kept, like your picture, and desperately sad. All those young lads…

      1. It makes your heart leap Obs.
        And due to our current idiots in Parliament and Whitehall ……all of those young lives where wasted.
        Amendment:- over 400,000 men and women died to keep this country safe.
        Our political idiots should be tried for treason.

      3. There are several scattered around various churchyards in Cheshire and North Shropshire.

  61. 384664+ up ticks,

    No worries the indigenous Brit tax-payer will get them a new one.

    Watch: First private Japanese rocket explodes seconds after take-off
    Space mission to put satellite into orbit fails

  63. Navalny’s chief of staff beaten with meat tenderiser by suspected Putin henchmen. 13 March 2024.

    Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff said he was beaten with a meat tenderiser by “henchmen” of Vladimir Putin in an attack on European soil.

    Leonid Volkov’s arm was broken and his leg hit 15 times in the attack after he got out of his car outside his home in Vilnius, Lithuania on Tuesday night.

    Mr Volkov, 43, said the attack was “an obvious, typical, gangster greeting from Putin”.

    These people become ever more ridiculous.

    PS. No comments allowed. (Vlad probably arranged that as well!)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/13/alexei-navalny-ally-leonid-volkov-assaulted-hammer-attack/

    1. Oh, come now Minty. You wouldn’t be implying that it was carried out by some CIA black ops outfit to discredit VP surely?

    2. Oh, come now Minty. You wouldn’t be implying that it was carried out by some CIA black ops outfit to discredit VP surely?

    4. It could be that Mr Volkov had failed to pay up the “protection money” he had promised….

      Just saying.

    1. I look forward to the UK’s Supreme Court rejecting applications to Strasbourg when our own Online Harms Bill becomes law: “No, the Act does not override Article 10.1 of the ECHR.”

      1. They don’t need to have an election until October 2025 at the latest, and as someone pointed out BTL in the DT, once on the statute books laws are hard to repeal, even if Poilièvre does win next time around, as the polls forecast. That said, Daddy Trudeau fixed the electoral boundaries decades ago to make that very difficult indeed.

  65. 384664+ up ticks,

    May one ask, are they putting “showers” over the door ?

    Fertility clinics ‘misleading women’ over chance of having a baby.

    1. I fear that some of the adverse effects of the Covid jabs will not become apparent for many years and that these effects will become hereditary.

      My wife has Coeliac Disease which is an auto-immune disease and this is why our doctor advised her not to have any Covid jabs. I had a stroke ten years ago and take pills to keep my blood pressure stable which is why she (our doctor) advised me not to have them either.

      1. Anyone who had had a stroke or heart condition should not have had a covid jab. Johnson so badly let us down with al this. We have not had jabs or tests or masks.

        1. It wasn’t long after the jabs when I mentioned to medics my thoughts on the obvious links with jabs and increasing cardiology problems, when they were nodding in agreement.
          It also convinced me that many of so called hierarchy had not been given the vaccine but probably sterile water.
          Basically because hardly if any had terrible including fatal reactions.

          2. I also think his stay in hospital was a fake as well. The Australian nurse who ‘looked after’ went off to work in the USA shortly after.

          3. I agree – he came out of hospital (incl. intensive care allegedly) just as chubby as he went in! A colleague of mine had flu in 2015 , was in hospital for a couple of weeks and had lost about a third of his body weight when he came out.

            I did not spot that at the time because, why would you think that the government was putting on a pantomime of the Prime Minister being ill in order to dupe people that there was a deadly plague going round? More illusions shattered!

        1. Me too. I tried to advise my husband, but he insisted on having the first two. I think he has seen the light but I just hope there aren’t any future adverse effects.

          1. I was coerced because it was clearly going to be a requirement for travel. I’ve had numerous jabs for travel purposes but I won’t be having any more.

            No boosters thanks.

  66. Back from garden. Two hours of trimming er, tree trimmings. Salvaging wood that can be small logs and preparing the rest for a bonfire WHEN (IF) we have two days of gentle north wind.

    2. Junior has a kazoo. He can play the big top theme on it.

      Well, he could. I crushed it entirely by accident after rolling the car over it.

      After carefully putting it under the back tyres.

    1. You appear to be having fun and ‘enjoying yourself’. Report immediately to the happiness patrol where this behaviour will be prevented in future.

      1. It’s a lift! Installed when the building was new, and still working beautifully. Has a bit of a history – a notorious advert in the 80s had a model changing into jeans in it – so pretty much every Argentine of a certain age would recognise it.

        Which of course made it irresistible! 🙂🙂

    10. That’s the way to do it, Katy. I think you have more stamina (and a lot more style) than your two compañeros (not sure if that’s feminine), but they look like they’ve enjoyed themselves.

    3. Oops. But, as every fule kno, blicks cannot be racist or by definition of anything wrong including modern slavery.

      2. I’m going to ask my Con MP if he’s going to stand as a Conservative in the next election or stick with his current mob.

    1. I’m not a huge fan of murdering babies, no matter how old they are.

    2. They’re trying to make ‘assisted dying’ legal. I doubt they’ll reduce the limit on abortions. More likely, they’ll push to extend it up to birth. If not after…

      They’re just evil.

      1. Labour has pledged to introduce state assisted killing if they win the next election. Bet it won’t be on their campaign leaflets though.

  73. Quite harrowing I’m afraid, so please don’t read this if it might upset you.

    S.S. Peleus.

    Complement:
    39 (36 dead and 3 survivors).
    Ballast

    At 19.40 hours on 13th March 1944 the unescorted Peleus (Master Minas Mavris) was hit by two torpedoes from U-852 (Heinz-Wilhelm Eck) and sank rapidly about 500 miles north of Ascension Island. The U-boat tried to destroy all evidences of the sinking by shooting at debris and rafts from the ship. During this action some survivors were killed and only four men were alive when the U-boat left the area. One of them later died, the remaining three survivors were picked up by the Portuguese steam merchant Alexandre Silva on 20th April and taken to Lobito, Angola. The master, 31 crew members and four British gunners were lost.

    Type IXD2 U-Boat U-852 was badly damaged on 2nd May 1944 in the Arabian Sea east of Ras Hafun, Somalia by depth charges from a British Wellington aircraft (621 Sqn RAF/E) and subsequently attacked by five other Wellington aircraft (621 Sqn/T, F, D, U & 8 Sqn RAF/G).
    Beached and blown up on 3rd May 1944 north of Bandar Beyla, Somalia. 7 dead and 59 survivors.

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/gr/peleus.jpg

    On 15th June Eck took command of the new type IXD U-852 and put the boat through months of training before leaving from Kiel for the Indian Ocean. Before departure he got a final briefing from experienced commanders like Schnee and Moehle, who warned him that his class of U-boat was among the slowest, heaviest and easiest to hit in the German fleet. He was told to be very careful in the South Atlantic and that wreckage from sunken ships could remain visible to the extensive air cover there for several days after sinkings. That he took these warnings all too seriously was revealed by his behaviour on 13th March 1944, when he ordered the wreckage of the Greek ship Peleus to be machine-gunned after sinking her, despite the fact that some of the survivors of the sinking were floating amongst it. This killed some of those in the water, and was in any case seen to have been unsuccessful in disposing of the wreckage when the boat left to continue patrol.
    U-852 was scuttled on the coast of Somalia on 3rd May 1944 after running aground during an air attack. The crew was captured the day after by a British landing party. The British retrieved the ship’s log, which Eck had failed to destroy, and from it learned of what became known as the Peleus affair. Eck and his officers were tried as war criminals. Three were sentenced to death, but another two were acquitted and later released.

    On 30th November 1945 Heinz-Wilhelm Eck was executed in Hamburg for his role in the Peleus affair.

    1. We have an old book about such dreadful tragedies , and until 10 years ago we had an elderly neighbour who was on Arctic convoy protection in the Royal Navy .. he was a wonderful lucky gentleman .

      Last night , we viewed the terrible story of the Penlee lifeboat , on BBC4 .

      The tragedy affected me so much , after watching the drama and the stories from grieving families that I found it very difficult to sleep properly last night .. the stupidity of the merchant ship captain and the heroic actions of the lifeboat crew who were lost in the angry ferocious waves will remain in my memory for a while , at least.

      1. Those pilots on the Arctic convoy routes took off by catapult and had nowhere to land afterwards. What can one say?

    3. There was an article in this month’s 1940 (magazine of the Friends of the Few) about shooting at pilots who had baled out. Dowding thought the Germans had every right because pilots who would land in England would still be combatants, while Germans doing the same would become PoWs. Pilots actively involved in combat tended to take a different view and were out for revenge for what had been done to comrades. One combat report read, “Aircraft spun down out of control. Crew baled out but as they were over enemy territory, I shot them both”.

  76. Afternoon all. Looking at the tally of comments, have we frightened off our new joiners?

    1. No, we’ve just calmed down having got over the excitement of rediscovering old friends and starting to make new ones :))

      1. Well, some people over on the Speccie are not happy about *someone* posting comments suggesting that Speccie posters come to NTTL. Here is an excerpt from a comment posted by a regular Speccie poster –

        “And now I’m waiting for for approval for my comment below relating to the messaging many of us received from a previous subscriber fishing to move us elsewhere. In case it doesn’t pass muster, big thanks again to Lord Snooty for seeing off the troll”

        It’s lovely that some people have discovered NTTL on the back of the Spectator comment facility being bloody useless, but it might be better if people didn’t continually post on the Spectator for others to come here – it’s boring and tiresome and really only needs to be posted once – not every bloody day.

        1. Agreed. There’s no reason at all we can’t post on both sites – I do. I don’t enjoy the Speccie nearly as much as I did though, and spend less time there.

          2. Same here Peta, I don’t enjoy commenting at the Spectator anymore, the comment system is awful now. Mind you, I’ve always been a bit of a tart on disqus and have visited and commented on lots of different sites (I used to post under another name but that account doesn’t exist anymore). I have ‘lurked’ on NTTL for quite some time, but only joined in recently. I’m not a prolific poster on any of the disqus supporting sites, but I do look in on them.

    2. They probably couldn’t cope with a forum that’s like an evening in the pub. The conversation is serious enough to begin with but after a while it deteriorates and ends in silliness, the equivalent of lobbing peanuts at the barmaid in the hope of lodging one in her cleavage .

  77. A Phew-cken Double Bogie!

    Wordle 998 6/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Got lucky today.

      Wordle 998 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      4. Well done Sue, it took me 4 (yet again) – where do you get that Wordle framework?? It’s brill!

    2. Just back from the local. Getting very political these days.
      Got a lucky birdie this afternoon.

      Wordle 998 3/6

      ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  78. Our idiots in government are now offering illegal invaders 3,000 pounds each if they volunteer to go to Rwanda. They don’t even know who most of them are. And they’ll probably take the next flight back here.

    1. 384664+ up ticks,

      Afternoon RE,

      When you consider where the three K is coming from, who are the idiots, again.?

    1. This was written nearly a month ago, what response, if any, has there been from Sir Muslim Roly-Poly?

      1. Sos, dear heart…it is much too soon for a response. Bridgen’s self inflicted fatal injuries are scheduled for after the general election.

      2. 384664+ up ticks,

        Evening S,

        The only thing that will travel with a sense of urgency is Tommy Robinsons arse Belmarsh way.

    2. If our planet really is warming at the rate we’ve been told, it’s changing too quickly for a 2.4 million-year cycle. I’m confident that will be the response of global warming alarmists.

      1. Global Warming/Climate Change is caused either by perfectly natural occurrences or human activities. If the former, experts should stop blaming humanity and if it’s the latter, start addressing the root cause and not the symptoms. This cause, and greatest threat to the planet, is overpopulation in the third world. However, this issue doesn’t have much in the way of annual international conferences in exotic locations, frequent TV opportunities to earn lucrative fees to pontificate on the subject, a large and profitable book market, substantial government grants to universities to study the subject, large numbers of professorships, Nobel prizes for politicians and so on. It’s much easier and more exciting to preach the gospel of global warming than tell people in the third world that they shouldn’t have as many children as they have done.

    3. Logically, and without question, in a physical sense, all the objects, planets, moons, comets, asteroids et al, affect the the Earth’s climate and temperature. A question of gravity.

      1. Being logical about this.
        If people are happy owning nothing, there is no need for socialism.

  83. That’s me gone for today. At least it WAS milder and we did some useful gardening – at last. Market tomorrow.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  84. Well, after the overcast but milder start today, it’s now turned nasty again and the winds has increased.

          1. Idiotic really when you can get more balanced news from Al Jazeera and PressTV (which is Iranian) than home grown stuff.

      1. I’ll bet there is some excellent blackmail potential not to expose the buyer.
        Still, Phizzee’s thick skinned and a rich man, so they won’t phase him.

        1. I got loads of money, babe.

          ©Personal Services.

          I have a wallet full of twenties and i ain’t got what i want.

          ©Me.

          1. That reminds me that I have to refill the wallet with cash tomorrow when we do the weekly shop.

          2. I had my hair done today. £50… The young lass did a good job. I look like David Cassidy before he snorted himself to looking like a cadaver. I wouldn’t normally bother but i’m seeing Geoff tomorrow.

          5. Hopefully Woking ain’t too woke. Have a good time and let Phizz sort the bill out.

          9. Bugger. Now I’ll have to make an effort. Since haircuts were made illegal, I’ve had precisely one ‘professional’ haircut. And that was only because – having taken my clippers with me to Carlisle, for a funeral – I had no way of clearing up the mess in the hotel room. Hence, I went to the nearest barber, to be told that “Botchergate (is) very dangerous (I think that’s what he said, despite the police sirens outside), compared to my home country” “Which country are you from?” “Kazakhstan,” he replied…

      2. A second hand sex doll does seem a very unhygienic proposition. Still, apparently it’s a bargain.

  86. Just had to turn off the itv news. They showed a picture of Diane Abbot sitting in parliament looking like a smirking martyr.
    I felt a sudden urge to protect my mental health!

    1. I know. She makes me want to hate all black women, although of course I don’t – maybe she should be shot!

    2. Perhaps Miss Abbott has forgotten that the most dangerous of all is her son?

      Diane Abbott’s son ‘had crystal meth delivered to her £1.2million home and chased her with scissors claiming to have a gun in his dressing gown pocket’, court hears
      James Abbott-Thompson was found to have suffered drug-induced psychosis at his mother’s home before being sectioned under the mental health act
      Officers who attended Diane Abbott’s £1.2mn home found signs of crystal meth use in Abbott-Thompson’s room
      In court yesterday he was handed an indefinite hospital order and banned from entering the Foreign Office after attacking police officers there.

      Diane Abbott’s son had crystal meth delivered to her home when she was Shadow Home Secretary, a court heard yesterday.

      The diplomat is then said to have chased her around her £1.2million home with scissors, claiming he had a gun in his dressing gown pocket.

      James Abbott-Thompson was high on a cocktail of drugs when he started ‘threatening his mother with violence’. He then went on a drug-induced rampage, attacking nine police officers, doctors, nurses and security guards at various hospitals.

      Wood Green Crown Court heard the Cambridge graduate had been taking crystal meth, the ‘chemsex’ drug GBL and cocaine since 2013. At just 27, he was posted to the British Embassy in Rome as first secretary for exiting the EU, advising Britons in Italy on their post-Brexit rights.

      But his addiction and mental health issues ended his career.

      Yesterday the ex-diplomat was handed an indefinite hospital order and banned from entering the Foreign Office after attacking police officers there and throwing a stone at a member of the public when he was refused entry after being sacked last summer. Prosecutor Benn Maguire told the court the Labour MP was ‘chased around her home’ by her son ‘who said he had a gun in his pocket’, although no gun was later found.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk..

    3. Politicians flounder as they wrestle with race rows

      Frank Hester’s alleged comments date from 2019. Here we have a hugely successful businessman from humble beginnings. A man of Irish heritage who has talked of the abuse he suffered as a child because of where he was from. A man with a diverse workforce who has become one of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors under the country’s first British Asian Prime Minister. A man now condemned by that prime minister for uttering racist remarks.

      An observation that will enrage the BBC: how much easier life was in the more homogeneous Britain of the past.

      And Mr Hester’s Irishness is interesting. I must have missed the media condemnation of recent protests in the Emerald Isle by Irish ethno-nationalists…

    4. In the interests of protecting my sanity I have foregone watching any news for some time!

  87. – Can you sue your local authority if the air inside a clean air zone is no cleaner that the air outside a clean air zone under the trade description act? especially if you have paid for it.

    1. One of the things i admire about America. Lawyers are prepared to take on the ‘big boys’.

      1. Whilst on balance I agree, the damages that juries award are too often out of all proportion to the damage caused.
        Bankrupting a company so that numerous people, who were not at fault, lose their jobs to make a point seems short-sighted.
        A few million in damages, possibly, a few billion in punitive damages, certainly not.
        And yes I realise that very often the amount paid out doesn’t reach the jury’s award

          1. Even there I find damages in billions going to relatively few recipients at the the cost of the good they do, and yes I do believe much that they do is good, just to make a point is wrong.
            Pelican Brief notwithstanding.

  88. Parliament is milking the Lee Anderson alleged comments about Ann Abbott who was not called during questions today when attempting to speak.

    She has however published a letter in the Independent in the last few minutes (BBC TV News).

    Isn’t it time for Kate to publish another Royal piccy for the MSM?

  89. Evening, all. Been another dull day here; very frustrating as I want the ground to dry out so I can get into the garden. Everything has been held up this year.

    What the government needs to do and what the government WILL (or rather, won’t) do are two completely separate things.

    3. Dear Mayor of London,
      How apt.
      A beaver is slang for a cunt, you most certainly are one of those.

    2. We didn’t. The government did when Blair decided he’d destroy the indigenous culture.

    1. Dear Diane. Go fuck yourself.
      I remember you going out in public wearing two left shoes after your son chased you around the house threatening to stab you with a pair of scissors. How is your son nowadays? In rehab? Prison?

      What we need in this country is not you.
      Hugs and kisses…
      Love Phizzee.

        1. There was a story doing the rounds that Corbyn deliberately engineered it so that his mates would arrive and see her in his bed.

          1. Yes. He is apparently desperate to be seen fraternising with black people and ropers. Down wid da boyz, innit?

    3. Good joke.

      However, on a different level, I have actually manufactured an artist’s trolley that is incredibly similar to the one in the cartoon … this very afternoon.

          7. I did ask him once if he would paint me….He said he didn’t have enough whitewash.

  95. BTL Comment from the DT…

    “matthew mackey
    23 HRS AGO
    Dear Phillip, as a working class natural conservative of 58 years who has voted Tory in every general election since 1983 i say to you …NO NO NO! I gave Boris Johnson and the Tories the benefit of the doubt back in 2019 as i was going to vote Reform at that election, but decided at the last minute to stick with the Tories. So let’s analyse what the Tories have done for me and many working class voters since 2019 shall we….
    1) Higher taxes
    2) Higher energy costs
    3) longer waiting times for see a GP
    4) Atrocious waiting times in A & E
    5) A disappearing police force
    6) Uncontrolled legal immigration
    7) Uncontrolled ILLEGAL immigration.
    8) Roads that are falling apart
    9) A housing crisis for all but particularly first time buyers (the effects of uncontrolled immigration?)
    10) Food prices up 25% since 2022
    11) 9 million benefit claimants (most of then taking the mick because you allow them to
    12) Transgender woke crap
    13) Corrupt Tory ministers
    14) A government that is weak where China is concerned
    15) Allowing a Muslim mayor to instil islamic ideology on Londoners and you, the government being too afraid to confront him.
    The list goes on and on and on and on…..So tell me, why shouldn’t i and many like me vote Reform and thus help destroy this Tory government that isn’t Conservative at all. They had FOURTEEN years to get it right. they are useless. EDITED

    451 Likes

    1. 3) longer waiting times for see a GP.

      I received a telephone call this afternoon from my GP. He was enquiring about my self-taken blood pressure readings. He called me a month ago on the same matter and will call me again in a month’s time.

      The practice sends me an appointment to attend the surgery to provide an analytical blood sample followed by a further appointment for a full OAP’s “MOT” every December, without fail.

      If I require a doctor’s appointment for any other reason I get one within a few days. I would not return to the lottery that is the modern NHS for all the tea in Brazil or all the coffee in Ceylon.

      1. England has gone down the pan, but I’ve worked in too many places not to know that England is the place I’ll stay.
        NHS and government are crap, but Cornwall is a better place to live than anywhere else I know. I can still speak my mind at the pub.

    3. just a couple of thoughts .Some of this stuff is tough to avoid. Some not so much. We have a huge demographic time bomb to fund. Old people cost pensions and are a huge load on the NHS. Pensioners are natural right wing voters, hence triple lock pension costs. The financial crisis and covid took our debt/gdp from 40% to 100% so not much wiggle room there, nicely proven by Liz Truss.
      Point 15 is bollox.
      Higher energy prices are exogenous and -> food prices. Presumably a “real” right wing government is free market, and wont intervene in food prices? I get that some people worry about 12. why anyone cares about whats inside someone elses pants beats me, but there you go. I would say we have bigger fish to fry. How many trans women do you ever meet?
      For police numbers see the chart.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b21165b74c0ff5e7f2a1f31e94463eab96ea130e25c88026649a775cc07f86ee.png

      I had a read of the reform party sales pitch. I can see why it seems attractive to a lot of conservative voters

      1. Bear in mind that old people have paid for their pensions over a lifetime of working. It’s the government who have p1$$ed that money up the wall instead of investing it in a fund that would cover liabilities. Not only did they fail to do that, they granted pensions to people who had NOT paid in.

        1. in effect, my NI today pays your pension today. There is no “pot” . Otherwise how would pensioners have got paid on pension day 1? NI just a tax, like all the others that we pay day to day. Right now we have more retirees per working age person because of the baby boom generation aging. Older people are living longer, which is nice, but if life expectancy goes from 70 to 80 your years of drawing a pension triple. You also spend longer as a frail person who demands more from the NHS. So, I dunno, people work for longer, or get less in old age. The maths is the maths, politicians prefer to kick the can down the road.

          1. It has always been a ponzi scheme because the politicians failed to fix the roof when they had the chance.

      2. I understand a significant chunk of the price we pay for Gas & Electricity is imposed by government to subsidise renewal energy production.

        1. when Russia invaded Ukraine oil and gas prices spiked, and to be fair, the government capped domestic prices. Renewables do diversify our supply away from oil and gas price volatility.

          3. When they work – wind turbines don’t work in still conditions, nor when the wind blows too hard. Solar panels don’t give out peak output when there’s no sun.

          4. well yes, but I imagine that the average amount of sun and wind over the year is reasonably predictable. Gas is an Ass (to store during the summer) each power source has issues. Fossil fuels are also finite. I am not expert, but seems nice that we have lots of shallow off shore sites to stick windmills. Also, as a city dweller, less air pollution is a good thing.

          5. The grid needs a steady supply; it can’t cope with intermittent resources – averaging out the sun/wind amount just doesn’t work. Strange how when we produced coal gas from coking stations we had no problems storing the product. As you say, you are no expert. There is no point in disturbing shallow off-shore sites to stick intermittent power supplies which will need back up by conventional means. If you want to reduce air pollution, plant plane trees along the sides of the roads. Have you any idea of the pollution caused by making wind turbines (which are not recyclable) and the concrete necessary to site them?

          6. The grid needs a steady supply; it can’t cope with intermittent resources – averaging out the sun/wind amount just doesn’t work. Strange how when we produced coal gas from coking stations we had no problems storing the product. As you say, you are no expert. There is no point in disturbing shallow off-shore sites to stick intermittent power supplies which will need back up by conventional means. If you want to reduce air pollution, plant plane trees along the sides of the roads. Have you any idea of the pollution caused by making wind turbines (which are not recyclable) and the concrete necessary to site them?

      3. As for the police numbers chart, we obviously have fewer cops per our population increase, and how many of those are part time?

      4. Higher energy prices are caused by HMG not taking advantage of our own energy supplies; as well as spending too much on HS2, PPE, Nightingale hospitals, Ukraine/Russia war, quangos, NGOs, charities … to name but a few things our money is thrown away on. The only thing HMG is good at is demanding money through HMRC, Land tax, local government taxes, Police and Crime Commissioners and their entourage … I’ll stop there or I’ll still be adding to the list until tomorrow!

        1. we sold the rights to our reserves long ago. I’m pretty sure that quango costs and energy prices arent related.

          1. A shame, I’m truly a fan of reptiles. I have to be careful with Oscar sticking his nose into the gorse though. You never know when an adder is skulking in the early spring sunshine.

    4. Another classic example of double think. He was kidnapped and and taken as a slave to Ireland. He later escaped, came back and wreaked his revenge by converting them all to Catholicism.(maybe I got a little carried away)

  97. Tories are saying if you vote for Reform you will get Labour.
    Unfortunately if you vote for the Tories, you will get the Tories.

    1. I think the Conservative Party have engineered their own destruction. So they can all exit stage Left and pretend the appalling state of affairs are nothing to do with them.

      1. I doubt that Labour actually want to be the government. Our country, like most of the world, has become a poison chalice.

        1. The only thing that would make my life totes sweet in my Autumn years would be to see Lammy as Chancellor of the Treasury and Diane Abbot as Foreign Sec.
          My bags are packed.

          1. I think Lammy is earmarked for foreign secretary. I had an (even more) horrible thought earlier on – supposing he were PM?

    1. Good evening.

      Went out today. Quite rare at this time of year. I got my hair cut. Then went to ask a restaurant friend a question about a rec for a B&B for a chum that is visiting. I am home now but i don’t know how i got here.

      Perhaps i should just watch the film

  101. Where i am you never get to see the same GP. I have seen locums who didn’t bother to open laptop/computer and still said to me from a blood test that i needed to go to A&E immediately. She tried for 30 minutes to get through to the hospital. Me sitting alone in the waiting room after being told i had had a heart attack. She eventually came out and asked me if there was anyone who could take me as she couldn’t get an ambulance.

    Still here. No thanks to them.

  104. Oh bloody Hell:-

    Supreme Court of Canada Argues Lower Court Judge Made “Unfortunate, Confusing” Decision In Referring To Female Rape Victim As “A Woman”

    The Supreme Court of Canada has asserted that a lower court judge should not have referred to a sexual assault victim as “a woman,” a term which they claim was “unfortunate and engendered confusion.” The ruling, published on March 8, goes on to imply that the more effective term would be “person with a vagina.”

    https://reduxx.info/supreme-court-of-canada-argues-lower-court-judge-made-unfortunate-confusing-decision-in-referring-to-female-rape-victim-as-a-woman/

    1. What a great leap forward it is that women are now reduced to body parts – locations of sex organs – in public discourse. I cannot begin to describe how offensive and disrespectful (let alone dishonest) I find this.

      1. The longer this ideology continues to impose its unwanted self on societies the more ridiculous it becomes to all. The only way to make it stick is through fear and force. However I am always reminded of the Soviet saying usually exhaled on a sigh “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”

        1. When we were in Poland around the time of the fall of the wall we were driving on a rough track on the Eastern border (with Belarus) and a chap driving towards us in a tractor sort of veered off into a mini ravine. He leapt out and ran off, leaving the machine on its side with the engine running. Such is Socialism, Full Employment and other people’s money (OPM). Also, I suppose, the power of vodka.

    2. The derangement continues unabated. By this logic in the future there will be issues with the words “person” and then “vagina”.

  105. Should the members of said court be more correctly referred to as ‘Dick Heads’?

          1. Nice to see you’re one of the old Speccie hands who has decided to stick around here rather than drift off.

    1. Whilst that may be modern, I still find it sad.
      I was brought up to believe it was the man’s job to protect the women and children in times of war.

      2. It’s very odd that the whole Pally Ally people go on and on and on about Israel “killing women-and-children” during its attempts to defend itself.

  108. I guess they did have somewhere to land, but only by ditching in the Arctic Ocean.

  109. Utterly off topic and hopefully a mood lightener.
    One of the signs of autumn and spring here is the the ladybirds. We get scores of the creatures coming into the house in the autumn and then vanishing into all the nooks and crannies to overwinter. (for newcomers, chateau sosraboc is an old stone building with lots of internal beams)
    In the spring they suddenly start to reappear and gather in large clumps before flying off, I open windows so they can get out more easily than they get in.
    What intrigues me about them is that we get probably every spot count that there is and yet they still clump together irrespective of spot numbers.
    Does anyone know why this is and can they interbreed?

    1. I think you have the *Spanish* ones (larger, wide bodied, almost hemispherical, very harlequin), which are allegedly dangerous to the English ones (six spot, scarlet, oval bodied, smaller – as seen in Janet and John books)

      1. I have everything from no spots to 13, they are pretty much the same size, as far as I can tell, and their “base” colour variation goes from light yellow right the way through to black.
        They look exactly like the ones we had in the UK.
        We get several sizes, I assume a factor of their relative maturity.
        They are very good news in my vegetable patch, hoovering up aphids.

        2. Then they are “Spanish”. I have no idea whether or not they merit their dodgy reputation.

          2. I know. All these creatures are so beautiful, so miraculous. Looking at your link, they are actually Asian. Don’t know why I thought they were Spanish. We have a surfeit of grey squirrels here and it is a source of marital strife, as I find them deeply entertaining, even though I know they are bad, but Lord O does not share my view.

          3. I like watching them, I know they are a pest.
            We only get reds here, they are very, very shy.
            The reds eat pine cones and because I have numerous very productive pine trees I see them fairly frequently.

          4. How wonderful! I envy you that. In Southern India they have these tiny ones, more like chipmunks really, that have three stripes down their backs, which is because of some compassionate action by Lord Rama concerned with Sita’s abduction and Sri Lanka which I cannot remember (see the Mahabharata).

  110. NHS England to stop prescribing puberty blockers

    This is yesterday’s news and I forgot to post it. I heard the announcement on the radio and was so startled by one sentence that I thought I had misheard: “The government welcomed the decision made by the NHS.”

    I hadn’t misheard:

    Health Minister Maria Caulfield said: “We have always been clear that children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS.”

    While I accept that public services aren’t run by ministers, I would have thought that this one decision was very much the province of the executive.

    1. Braverman dances around the subject a little in this. While the Equality Act is part of the problem and ought to be repealed, the nonsense of ‘hate crime’ and ‘non-crime hate incident’ is in other Acts, notably amendments to Public Order legislation. Even then, changing the law is only one step. It will be far more difficult to rid society of the poison in the minds of people affected by the ‘trans’ madness.

      Fix the Equality Act to restore sanity to the trans debate

      J K Rowling has heroically stood up for women. The Government must find the courage to reform the law

      SUELLA BRAVERMAN • 13 March 2024 • 6:00pm

      What is a woman? This has apparently become one of the most complex questions of our time. Not least for Labour politicians. We’ve borne witness to a litany of positions from His Majesty’s Opposition on this intractable problem. There’s the “Starmer Classic” – namely, that a small percentage of women have a penis. We’ve had the “Cooper Dodge”, where Labour frontbenchers squirm to avoid answering at all. And then the official Labour position, a moment we all waited for: “a woman is a woman”. That clears it up.

      The sad truth is that the debate on transgender rights has become so shrill that reasonable people are terrified of speaking out. For describing the basic facts of life has become a heroic and risky endeavour. To utter such seemingly maddening truths as “a woman cannot be a man” or “boys and girls are different” will invariably lead to accusations of transphobia, far-Right extremism, bigotry or worse.

      But the tide is turning in the UK. And that has been because of brave women who stood up for common sense. It’s the reason why the gender ideology movement has gained less traction in the UK, compared to the US or Canada. It’s why the Government has agreed to ban the use of puberty blockers for children on the NHS. The figurehead of this advocacy for women has been J K Rowling. To judge by the brickbats and abuse that she has received, you’d be forgiven for thinking she’d committed crimes worthy of lengthy spells behind bars. But she has transcended politics to be a symbol of truth in a world of deception and doublespeak.

      Now she has been accused of “misgendering” – or, to translate, referring to a person by their biological sex. For context, India Willoughby is a trans woman. That means, with all respect to India, he is a man. And J K Rowling dared to address him as such. I was pleased that the police decided no crime was committed in her expression of biological fact, but am concerned that, apparently, they did record it as a non-crime hate incident. If true – and if it contained J K Rowling’s personal data – this decision must be reviewed.

      Last year, as home secretary, I changed the guidance on non-crime hate incidents to specifically protect the expression of sex realist views. Indeed, the cases of Miller v. College of Policing and Forstater v. CGD Europe upheld this principle. I made it clear in the guidance that a high threshold was required to warrant the recording of a non-crime hate incident with personal data, the test being whether there is a real risk of significant harm to individuals and/or that there is a real risk a future criminal offence may be committed.

      But the reason why there is so much confusion on everything, from which pronoun to use to how to support gender-questioning children in schools, is that the law is unclear. And that is why no amount of guidance, whether on non-crime hate incidents or for schools, will fix the problem. It is why we need to change the Equality Act.

      The root problem is that the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act is currently contested, especially when read with the Gender Recognition Act. Where someone has changed their sex in the eyes of the law by acquiring a Gender Recognition Certificate, which does not necessarily require surgical alteration, they do not suddenly become entitled to all the rights that come with their acquired sex.

      But the Equality Act protects both gender reassignment, broadly interpreted, and sex. That’s why when it comes to using single sex spaces, access to sports and the protection of children in schools, there is a level of confusion about where the line is drawn and where a trans woman is, for all intents and purposes, still to be treated as a biological man. That’s why we need to clarify the Equality Act to ensure that sex means biological sex, as proposed by my colleague Liz Truss.

      Fundamentally, we cannot legislate for what people may “feel”. It cannot be right that those who self-identify as a different gender must always expect the rest of us to change our speech or behaviour to accommodate their feelings. Otherwise, where does it stop? What’s to prevent me declaring myself a different race, age or nationality, simply based on my feelings?

      The logical endpoint of this debate is a breakdown of truth and justice, and it’s why we must support heroines like J K Rowling in this fight. From more than 100 years ago, Millicent Fawcett’s rallying cry of “courage calls to courage everywhere” applies now more than ever.

      Too many of us tip-toe around this debate and walk on by. But it is thanks to people like J K Rowling that more of us have found the courage to speak out for women, for safety and for sanity. That is why the Government must show that same courage and support a change in the law.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/fix-equality-act-restore-sanity-to-trans-debate/

      2. What have we, as a country, come to if commonsense facts (a woman is a biological female) are even being questioned? As for “sex realist views”, words fail me!

        1. It’s important though, as when the Left get to normalise this sort of nonsense through the media the entire fabric of society changes.

          The Left have always used language to control thought – Orwell saw it during the wars, we’re seeing it now. They’ve always sought power over the mind and as you think in language that’s how they do it,

    2. Braverman dances around the subject a little in this. While the Equality Act is part of the problem and ought to be repealed, the nonsense of ‘hate crime’ and ‘non-crime hate incident’ is in other Acts, notably amendments to Public Order legislation. Even then, changing the law is only one step. It will be far more difficult to rid society of the poison in the minds of people affected by the ‘trans’ madness.

      Fix the Equality Act to restore sanity to the trans debate

      J K Rowling has heroically stood up for women. The Government must find the courage to reform the law

      SUELLA BRAVERMAN • 13 March 2024 • 6:00pm

      What is a woman? This has apparently become one of the most complex questions of our time. Not least for Labour politicians. We’ve borne witness to a litany of positions from His Majesty’s Opposition on this intractable problem. There’s the “Starmer Classic” – namely, that a small percentage of women have a penis. We’ve had the “Cooper Dodge”, where Labour frontbenchers squirm to avoid answering at all. And then the official Labour position, a moment we all waited for: “a woman is a woman”. That clears it up.

      The sad truth is that the debate on transgender rights has become so shrill that reasonable people are terrified of speaking out. For describing the basic facts of life has become a heroic and risky endeavour. To utter such seemingly maddening truths as “a woman cannot be a man” or “boys and girls are different” will invariably lead to accusations of transphobia, far-Right extremism, bigotry or worse.

      But the tide is turning in the UK. And that has been because of brave women who stood up for common sense. It’s the reason why the gender ideology movement has gained less traction in the UK, compared to the US or Canada. It’s why the Government has agreed to ban the use of puberty blockers for children on the NHS. The figurehead of this advocacy for women has been J K Rowling. To judge by the brickbats and abuse that she has received, you’d be forgiven for thinking she’d committed crimes worthy of lengthy spells behind bars. But she has transcended politics to be a symbol of truth in a world of deception and doublespeak.

      Now she has been accused of “misgendering” – or, to translate, referring to a person by their biological sex. For context, India Willoughby is a trans woman. That means, with all respect to India, he is a man. And J K Rowling dared to address him as such. I was pleased that the police decided no crime was committed in her expression of biological fact, but am concerned that, apparently, they did record it as a non-crime hate incident. If true – and if it contained J K Rowling’s personal data – this decision must be reviewed.

      Last year, as home secretary, I changed the guidance on non-crime hate incidents to specifically protect the expression of sex realist views. Indeed, the cases of Miller v. College of Policing and Forstater v. CGD Europe upheld this principle. I made it clear in the guidance that a high threshold was required to warrant the recording of a non-crime hate incident with personal data, the test being whether there is a real risk of significant harm to individuals and/or that there is a real risk a future criminal offence may be committed.

      But the reason why there is so much confusion on everything, from which pronoun to use to how to support gender-questioning children in schools, is that the law is unclear. And that is why no amount of guidance, whether on non-crime hate incidents or for schools, will fix the problem. It is why we need to change the Equality Act.

      The root problem is that the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act is currently contested, especially when read with the Gender Recognition Act. Where someone has changed their sex in the eyes of the law by acquiring a Gender Recognition Certificate, which does not necessarily require surgical alteration, they do not suddenly become entitled to all the rights that come with their acquired sex.

      But the Equality Act protects both gender reassignment, broadly interpreted, and sex. That’s why when it comes to using single sex spaces, access to sports and the protection of children in schools, there is a level of confusion about where the line is drawn and where a trans woman is, for all intents and purposes, still to be treated as a biological man. That’s why we need to clarify the Equality Act to ensure that sex means biological sex, as proposed by my colleague Liz Truss.

      Fundamentally, we cannot legislate for what people may “feel”. It cannot be right that those who self-identify as a different gender must always expect the rest of us to change our speech or behaviour to accommodate their feelings. Otherwise, where does it stop? What’s to prevent me declaring myself a different race, age or nationality, simply based on my feelings?

      The logical endpoint of this debate is a breakdown of truth and justice, and it’s why we must support heroines like J K Rowling in this fight. From more than 100 years ago, Millicent Fawcett’s rallying cry of “courage calls to courage everywhere” applies now more than ever.

      Too many of us tip-toe around this debate and walk on by. But it is thanks to people like J K Rowling that more of us have found the courage to speak out for women, for safety and for sanity. That is why the Government must show that same courage and support a change in the law.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/fix-equality-act-restore-sanity-to-trans-debate/

  112. Well that’s seriously p!ssed me off – there’s a self-serving article by Fraser Nelson on the Speccie on the UAE takeover, where you’re supposed to believe that him and Andrew Neil are only taking thousands and millions of Islamopetrodollars in defence of free speech – you couldnt make it up. What a shower of sh!te……
    Edit: I’ve also had a number of (highly) critical comments ‘vanished’ – welcome to the Islamo hell that awaits us all……

      1. It’s the brazenness I cant stand JD – if they’re trousering millions (but not any more apparently ha ha ha!) I would expect them to shut up and hide, embarrassed, in the shadows. Apparently not……

          2. Tell me about it. I am increasingly engaged in a shadow fight with our narcissistic recently resigned vicar who is trying to cause as much division and damage as he can before he goes by spreading complete lies and of course the gossipy weak minded lap them up. His conduct is completely unChristian and number of people who know what he is doing called his behaviour ‘wicked’. A great advocate for the faith.

          3. Well, I’m sure I dont need to remind you of the quote from Psalms – The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

            I’m backing you, buddy!!

          4. Thank you. It’s a difficult line to walk between rebutting his lies and causing reputational damage to the church.

          7. I’ve mostly been fortunate with clergy. Admittedly, there was the female ‘assistant priest’ who, during an interregnum – on hearing of my impending bilateral below-knee amputation, thought the ‘Christian’ thing to do was to sack me as organist and evict me from my “grace and favour” Verger’s Cottage.

            But a new Rector was appointed. A former Army Chaplain, whose responsibility had included Headley Court, where they put disabled squaddies back together again. I doubt whether the CofE has any clergy, better equipped to decide what I’m capable of.

            Without going into detail, I’m still here (although I’ve now downsized to a most affordable retirement bungalow)…

          8. It’s as bad as I have ever seen in my business career. It’s like dealing with a spoilt two year old.

    2. And how come his earlier article stated that any respite for the DT would not necessarily apply to the Spectator, yet he has failed to explain how this debate affects (or doesn’t) the Spectator as a publication.

        1. Good name for a horse, 4G. I wonder if one could get it past the Wetherby spoilsports?

          2. There was one called Hoof Hearted, though. But I think they’ve got wise to this and much more prissy.

          3. That was one of a couple of names proposed for a horse bought by Mr Potato Head (Wayne Rooney) that was rejected.

          5. Doubt it O, even they arent that stupid (?) – I can hear though, the glorious tones of Peter O’Sullevan – ‘And it’s Fuctifino, from Monumental Dikedd, as we approach the final furlong. (continues p.94)……’

          7. That’s very funny, but I cant honestly decide if it is totally legit! I’ve played it several times though and laughed out loud each time!!

          1. Almost certainly Stephen – but I have to shop in the ‘Northern Waitrose’ aka Booths and they only stock a slightly inferior buggerdi fino retailing at a highly reasonable £25 for a poxy 70cl…..

          5. Well Lola (hi, how you doin’?) not normally.

            However, in the mean streets of Jerez de la Frontera they talk of little else…..

    3. I just wrote a perfectly decent comment on Cymrud Drakeford being allowed to use the covid enquiry as a party political stab-fest and found it was consigned to the black hole of moderation. We are all sliding into the abyss.

      2. I have become completely demob happy at the Speccie. Fraser blocked me BTL ages ago, I keep getting banned then allowed an occasional post and I have cancelled any future payment, so at some point the meter will run out. I don’t really care when because the aspect I came to enjoy and value the most was what went on BTL – all you guys. There are a handful of writers on there that I enjoy reading, but most of them also contribute elsewhere and, increasingly, the groupthink pap that is pushed as standard is making me queasy.

    1. That’s been photoshopped! Anyone can see he’s holding ordinary playing cards not Uno cards so he can’t be playing with his cock……

      1. No, but I’ve one of a beaver at a builder’s merchant. Apparently he’s a regular. Buys lots of concrete.

  116. The great university racket is a national scandal

    These institutions refuse to accept that their social contract with the public is reaching a breaking point

    MADELINE GRANT, PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER • 13 March 2024 • 7:00am

    ‘The streets of Oxford,” wrote the essayist William Hazlitt, “are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out.” Much has changed since the 19th century. Yet Hazlitt’s bold prediction is being sorely tested by the crisis facing the higher education sector, which is often billed as purely financial, but points to something existential.

    The international student racket – overtly discriminating against domestic students – has become too blatant to ignore. This newspaper reports that universities, fearful of going bust, are considering reducing the number of British students they admit, to focus on lucrative foreign students.

    Many provincial universities are opening dubious London campuses to help recruit these golden geese. Even supposedly first-rate institutions have been accused of lowering entry standards for foreign applicants. Such a reliance on a two-tier admissions system destroys any pretence at rigour and is a national scandal.

    This situation elicits dishonesty from all quarters. Some MPs champion university expansion for the short-term cash and employment their local institution brings (all subsidised by graduates and their eye-watering loan repayments).

    For a profession supposedly geared towards discovering the truth, academia practises industrial-level self-deception. Masters’ degrees are fast becoming academia’s dirty little secret. Privately, academics know full well that there’ll be students studying, say, a masters in law who would never, be admitted for a bachelor’s degree. It is an embarrassing wheeze to pretend these students are up to scratch.

    Meanwhile, the post-study work visa for graduates – reintroduced under Boris Johnson – does not seem to be benefiting only the best and brightest. The Migration Advisory Committee, not usually famed for its plain speaking, has called for “a rigorous evaluation of the route”. Separate analysis has shown that more than 50 per cent of international students who switch to a “skilled worker” visa are becoming care workers, putting them on a speedy path to permanent settlement.

    And what of the deal for students? Data journalist John Burn-Murdoch has analysed the dramatic decline of the graduate wage premium over the past 25 years. More than a third of graduates now work in jobs that do not require a degree.

    Arguably this premium was already inflated by the credentialism arms race accompanying expansion, since many jobs that never used to require a degree now do. The Institute for Fiscal Studies claims that one in five students would have been better off financially had they not gone to university at all (accumulating £50,000 worth of debt on the way).

    All this brings into sharper focus the question: what, exactly, are universities for? Are they academic institutions, committed to the pursuit of knowledge, or are they businesses? Are they a private or public good? Do they exist for British students first and foremost, or are they an international export, even poorly-disguised promoters of mass migration?

    University officials insist the stalemate is necessary to keep the sector buoyant, though this is belied by the vast sums splashed on costly new buildings and the explosion of administrative jobs. Support staff outnumber academics at two thirds of universities. No one wants to believe they’re in a non-job, so this bureaucratisation often brings growth for growth’s sake – even ideas that run counter to the priorities of rank-and-file academics.

    New students at St Andrews must attend an induction requiring them to agree with certain statements about “personal guilt” and “unconscious bias”. It embodies the clash between the spirit of inquiry universities are meant to foster and institutional dogma; almost akin to a religious test where students must swear allegiance to a set of ideas which they might later critique in a philosophy tutorial.

    Multiple administrations share blame for this dismal state of affairs; John Major, for abolishing the distinction between universities and polytechnics. Tony Blair’s disastrous mission to send 50 per cent of young people to university brought further expansion (it is grimly amusing that Euan Blair has amassed a fortune from an apprenticeship startup helping school leavers sidestep his dad’s legacy). Under the Coalition, the tripling of tuition fees and the removal of the student cap finally cemented universities’ status as (increasingly venal) businesses.

    Whatever your views on the previous setup, its social contract at least made sense; free or subsidised education, funded by the taxpayer – on the understanding that these were the best and brightest, who might serve their country in some way. As an English graduate, I despise attacks on the humanities, the erosion of the idea of “learning for the love of it”, and the suggestion that a degree’s value should be solely determined by future earnings. However, with half of school leavers attending university, and any outstanding debts “forgiven” by the taxpayer, it inevitably becomes a public policy issue. You can have subsidised education, or the relentless expansion of the sector. You can’t have both.

    British academia was once the gold standard, resting on solid foundations: sound learning, finances and organisation. Now, as the sector’s reliance on smoke and mirrors becomes ever-clearer, how long its reputation can continue to rest on past glories and self-deception remains to be seen.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/great-university-racket-a-national-scandal/

    1. I’d be far more likely to employ someone with decent A-levels in maths & physics than some drip with a degree in gender studies and £50k of debt.

        1. No. If I remember correctly, ‘A’ grades were only awarded to those whose marks were in the top 5% for that year.
          I’m sure that system went out of the window years ago.

    2. Universities are hidebound institutions that are staffed by folk who like how things used to work, unhappy at having to change.

    3. In Cambridge most developments, for example Grand Arcade, are financed by the University Superannuated Pensions Scheme. The income from such developments contributes to the payments of pensions of former University employees. Many of these pensions are expensive to maintain and from time to time the bequests from benefactors fail to keep up with outgoings.

      It follows that the University is obliged to speculate in property and also to seek fresh funds by admitting tens of thousands of Chinese and other nationalities to maintain stability of its pension scheme.

  119. The Government will question health officials for producing draft NHS guidance, which claims not everyone who experiences the menopause is a woman.

    NHS England on Wednesday published a 17-page draft of a booklet online, which was titled the “national menopause people policy framework”.
    It was swiftly withdrawn, amid an outcry over the language it used and the focus placed on those other than women.

    The policy, which would apply to NHS employees in England, detailed what help is available to women in the workplace and how staff and managers can support their colleagues.
    One section said: “It is important to note that not everyone who experiences menopause is a woman.

    “Transgender, non-binary, and intersex colleagues may also experience menopause and will have specific needs.”

    The draft document has been swiftly deleted, with NHS officials claiming it was published in error ahead of a final version being published online next month.
    A source close to Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, said the matter will now be raised directly with NHS England.

    1. It doesn’t give you much confidence in the reliability of their clinical diagnoses if they cannot work out that only women suffer from the menopause, that’s assuming you can ever see a doctor.

    2. “Transgender, non-binary, and intersex colleagues may also experience menopause and will have specific needs.”

      Transgender and non-binary don’t exist.

      I am prepared to accept the 0.0000000000001% of the population may be “intersex.”

      2. They exist because they say they exist but what does not exist (outside the context of the psychotically deluded) is a transgender or non binary person who does not know perfectly well what their biological sex is. It is therefore their own personal responsibility to understand what bits they’ve retained or not retained and therefore whether they should seek screening for cervical cancer or prostate cancer or whatever. If they are taking a cocktail of prescribed hormones it is similarly their responsibility to discuss with the prescriber what, if any, menopausal symptoms they might expect. There is no case for general guidance to be skewed towards this small minority .

    3. Soon this madness will end, sanity prevail and the mentally ill men cosplaying as women to disguise their own deep rooted trauma will be exposed for what they are: nutters. .

      1. When it took off 30 years ago I thought the craze for disfiguring body graffiti would soon die out but more and more people are now tattooed.

        A lot of these things will only change when Islam has taken over completely and Sharia Law will forbid tattoos along with many other things the liberal lefties treasure such as homosexual rights and rites.

        1. I did and do understand why this sort of thing was done as a protest but now it is done as a sign of compliance, and it does make me sick.

        2. People who live in a welfare state and who can’t envisage ever being able to afford their own home don’t have an incentive to save and will tend to splash out on the smaller luxuries that fall within their grasp and can give immediate gratification. In the past this explained the way that satellite dishes mushroomed on council houses and flats but now it helps explain the prevalence of tattoos that may cost hundreds or thousands of pounds. The housing situation means that the search for instant gratification now extends to many middle class young people. Tats and the latest iPhone are ways of signalling affluence when you don’t think you have a prospect of owning something really worthwhile from your own endeavour..

    4. I think it is high time that Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and Ed Davey each had a hysterectomy.

        1. That’s the origin of the word hysteria of course. Hysterical women. Sinister left handers. There are probably other words of dodgy origin but being a left handed woman, those are the ones that come most readily to mind!

          1. I didn’t know that!
            PS You and STP wouldn’t believe the latest developments in our Benefice.

    5. Talking of healthcare. The Canadian system makes it illegal to pay for private care. No surprise, some people are actually nipping down to the US and paying for treatment there.

      The federal Health Minister has just popped up and said that people paying for their own healthcare is immoral, it should be stopped.

      Who the hell do they think they are if they are talking about banning people from getting needed healthcare outside the system. Oh sorry, I will die waiting rather than drive fifty miles for surgery in New York.

      2. In other words, quality of healthcare is something which should not be subject to means. Is this an isolated matter or ought it also apply to life’s other essentials such as food & drink, clothing and accommodation? Food is just about as essential as it gets. Is paying for it oneself immoral?

    6. And while I am at it. The Canadian Supreme Court just took exception to a raped person being called a woman, they insisted on the term person with vagina.

  121. I wonder if i should have told him he is paying for lunch given that last time he was an hour late and we all (me) had lots to drink.

    1. It’s possible, but it’s simply a different thing with a similar name. It isn’t the menopause.

      1. Sure, but the facts of life for an embodied being are that the body develops then decays, grows old and dies. It is ridiculous to deny this, or to suggest that there is some kind of chemical/psychological treatment that will overcome the natural order of things. Far more important to concentrate on one’s inner being and how that can be developed beyond the ordinary.

  126. I did JD, but then I realised if I wanted a top-up I’d have had to drink 3 litres first (not beyond the realms you understand but possibly a bit much for a quiet Wednesday night?)…..

  130. Well, chums, I hope you all enjoyed today. I will now wish you all a Good Night as I head upstairs for bed. Sleep well and awaken refreshed.

    1. Goodnight, Elsie. Got to keep your strength up to make rhubarb crumbles! My rhubarb is now growing apace.

      1. Does the rhubarb growth rate outpace that of your ability to make crumbles of them? Rhubarb jam beckons.

        2. It undoubtedly will as I don’t make rhubarb crumbles and I don’t eat a lot of jam (I have a large stock of raspberry jam from last year’s crop and this year’s canes are already in growth). Plus I have plum and damson in the freezer ready to make more jam! I usually end up giving a lot of rhubarb away – my neighbours are pleased. I suppose I could turn it into wine …

  131. Well, chums, I hope you all enjoyed today. I will now wish you all a Good Night as I head upstairs for bed. Sleep well and awaken refreshed.

  132. I felt the same. When I graduated with my fine art degree, they asked me what I was going to do – I said, “retire”!

  136. This is one of Heath’s weakest columns for a long time because it’s so speculative: Farage here, a start-up there, something other elsewhere. That the Tories are heading for defeat is beyond question but if Labour wins by a big margin, will its triumph really be be short-lived? It will have five years to finish the destruction it began in 1997-2010. It isn’t going to give up the opportunity to finally dismantle the United Kingdom, to set nation against nation and tribe against tribe. It’s not going to give up a 100+ majority before it has to. What damage will be done in that time? Who can say what political groupings there will be at the end of it?

    Sadly, the GE is likely to be just another Tory v. Labour fight because that’s how so many of the public see it: the Tories made a mess so it’s Labour’s turn, just like 1997. Our only hope is that Labour’s embrace of the ethnic minorities turns out to be a deadly one. If it does fall before its time, what will be left of the nation for the new political elite to repair?

    Nigel Farage’s return would be an extinction-level event for the Tories

    The Conservative Party is finished. The only question is whether it loses badly or is utterly obliterated

    ALLISTER HEATH • 13 March 2024 • 6:58pm

    The Conservative Party is toast. There is no path to a Tory victory. Rishi Sunak cuts an increasingly tragic and isolated figure. I write this with great sadness, but the Prime Minister has never looked so powerless, so unable to command the country’s attention. His podium speech on extremism was ignored by Scotland Yard.

    His Budget has made zero impact. There is little prospect of No 10 seizing the narrative. Tory MPs are either in open panic or are trying to coast through their last few months in office, though not in power. The Government has alienated every segment of the Conservative base without gaining any new voters. Its only hope is a schism on the Left that limits Labour’s gains.

    One experienced political figure has put money on a sub-100 Tory seat outcome. The best-case scenario – a 1997-style shellacking with 165 Conservative seats, and a 179-seat Labour majority – looks optimistic. The mid-range scenario – a 1906-Liberal landslide-style thumping, with the Tories losing more than half their seats – feels equally bullish.

    The worst-case scenario – a Canada 1993 replay, where the ruling Canadian Tories lost all but two of their seats – may be too pessimistic and would involve the Lib Dems becoming the Opposition, but it would be foolish to rule it out. The best polls for the Tories put them on 24-27 per cent; the worst on 18-20 per cent, less than John Major’s 30.7 per cent.

    The Red Wall is furious about Brexit betrayal, immigration, defence, the cost of net zero, wokery and a lack of levelling-up; the Blue Wall is appalled by high tax, red tape, low-traffic neighbourhoods, rampant crime, the sub-postmasters scandal and the lack of a pro-growth strategy; the young are apoplectic about house prices; and the country is united in disgust at our broken infrastructure, pothole-strewn roads, calamitous NHS and gradual impoverishment.

    The Tory heartlands loathe the Islamist-inspired extremist chants evident on the demos that hijack central London weekly, and members hate David Cameron’s cowardly decision to turn against Israel.

    The Tories have failed in three critical ways. First, they squandered the anti-establishment protest vote behind Brexit, Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory and which is fuelling every single Right-wing or populist party across the West. The great realignment – whereby culturally conservative, patriotic voters shifted Right-wards, and the ultra-urban woke Left-wards – has been wasted.

    The future of the centre-Right globally is to harness the rage of the working and middle classes, to act as competent revolutionaries, to make people’s lives better via reforms, to root out wokery, regain control of the borders and boost growth. Instead, the Tories have acted as incompetent, purveyors of the status quo. Angry voters are thus voting for Right-wing parties everywhere bar Britain.

    Second, they lost the under-40s: again – this is a British aberration. Donald Trump is leading 51-45 among under-30s, a Fox News poll reveals. Pierre Poilievre, the Canadian Conservative, leads 36-21 among under-30s, and 41-21 among the 30-44s, an Abacus poll shows, partly because of a strong offering on house building and a backlash against Justin Trudeau’s authoritarianism. Populist and Right-wing parties in Europe are also doing well among the young.

    Third, the Tories are catastrophically behind among ethnic minorities. Their erstwhile progress with British Hindus, British Chinese and Christian British Africans has been squandered through ineptitude and the party’s insufficiently robust conservatism. Disgusting racist reported comments by a donor aren’t helping.

    By contrast, the US elections may herald a historic shift of ethnic minorities towards the Republicans, as anti-woke, pro-aspiration, pro-family voters are repelled by Joe Biden’s critical race theory and high taxes. A New York Times poll suggests Democrats have lost most Hispanics, and are only ahead 56-44 among all non-white voters.

    With the Tories lacking agency, it will be incumbent upon Nigel Farage to once again determine their future. Does he give up his media career – he is a brilliant broadcaster for GB News – and cash in his I’m a Celebrity-enhanced reputation to re-enter the nasty, ungrateful world of politics? If he jumps in nearer to the vote, and launches a lightning air war, making a series of striking promises, by how much would his Reform UK jump in the polls? Or does he stand aside, allowing the Tories to be crushed but not obliterated, with the risk that they are subsequently captured by their anti-Brexit Left-wing?

    Farage’s calculation will take account of four factors. He would want not merely to bruise the Tories but inflict upon them their greatest ever humiliation. His revenge would need to be total: he would want to overtake them in vote share. This isn’t as fanciful as it seems: YouGov puts the Tories at 20 per cent and Reform on 14. The caveat is that most other pollsters suggest a wider gap, and Reform may be underperforming slightly in actual votes.

    The second requirement would be for him to win a seat for himself and hopefully others: hard, but doable.

    The third would be to reunite the Right of British politics, either by absorbing any Right-wing Tory survivors into Reform post-election, or by merging into (and possibly leading) a rump Tory party purged of its Lefties.

    The fourth, most tentative goal would be to bolster the case for PR or an AV transferable vote system.

    A Farage re-entry would guarantee a Tory implosion, multiple defections to Reform, and an apocalyptic loss of scores more Tory seats. But whether or not Farage presses the button, there is a gaping market gap on the Right, as well as more broadly for a party aligned with the electorate’s wishes. If Reform isn’t the answer, another group will be.

    Labour’s triumph will be short-lived. It, too, is an unstable coalition between centre-Left and far-Left. It, too, will fail to mend Britain. Political entrepreneurs will soon begin to circle: by 2025-26, it is easy to conceive of a Macron-style Left-Right start-up party boasting 20 policies, all with 75 per cent support in the polls, and fielding a list of candidates (such as nurses and small business leaders) with no prior political experience.

    Such a grouping – which would promise to spend yet more on the NHS, quit the ECHR, build prisons, slash immigration to near zero – would upend politics. One way or the other, the old order is finished, as Rishi Sunak is about to discover.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/farage-return-extinction-level-event-for-tories/

    1. Con or Lab makes no difference. Prime Minister Klaus Schwab will remain in office as before.

    2. The Tory party will be obliterated at the next election and justly so. Regrettably the equally useless Labour Party will probably enjoy a landslide victory despite being an equally exhausted bunch of incompetents with neither ideas nor principles.

      It is almost impossible under the present parliamentary system for the two major parties to be either replaced or supplanted.

      Our country is lost, betrayed by the unspeakably corrupt politicians on both sides who have taken Soros’ and Gate’s monies and sold us all down the river for personal enrichment.

    3. The Tory party will be obliterated at the next election and justly so. Regrettably the equally useless Labour Party will probably enjoy a landslide victory despite being an equally exhausted bunch of incompetents with neither ideas nor principles.

      It is almost impossible under the present parliamentary system for the two major parties to be either replaced or supplanted.

      Our country is lost, betrayed by the unspeakably corrupt politicians on both sides who have taken Soros’ and Gate’s monies and sold us all down the river for personal enrichment.

    4. The Red Wall is furious about Brexit betrayal, immigration, defence, the cost of net zero, wokery and a lack of levelling-up; the Blue Wall is appalled by high tax, red tape, low-traffic neighbourhoods, rampant crime, the sub-postmasters scandal and the lack of a pro-growth strategy; the young are apoplectic about house prices; and the country is united in disgust at our broken infrastructure, pothole-strewn roads, calamitous NHS and gradual impoverishment.

      The Tory heartlands loathe the Islamist-inspired extremist chants evident on the demos that hijack central London weekly, and members hate David Cameron’s cowardly decision to turn against Israel.

      To what does Allister Heath apportion this disastrous Tory performance and why does he feel that a Labour government under Starmer et al. would in any way wish to ‘mend’ Britain?

      The past four years should supply ample evidence of what has been planned and what is happening here and across the Western World/Nations. It isn’t by accident nor incompetence Mr Heath and you do not have to dig too deep to find the influences that are responsible.

      Expose those people/organisations that are really running the Country through their proxies and then we may see some real political change. Fostering the ‘two horse race with the LibDums trying to come up along the rail’ is not helping.

    5. The Red Wall is furious about Brexit betrayal, immigration, defence, the cost of net zero, wokery and a lack of levelling-up; the Blue Wall is appalled by high tax, red tape, low-traffic neighbourhoods, rampant crime, the sub-postmasters scandal and the lack of a pro-growth strategy; the young are apoplectic about house prices; and the country is united in disgust at our broken infrastructure, pothole-strewn roads, calamitous NHS and gradual impoverishment.

      The Tory heartlands loathe the Islamist-inspired extremist chants evident on the demos that hijack central London weekly, and members hate David Cameron’s cowardly decision to turn against Israel.

      To what does Allister Heath apportion this disastrous Tory performance and why does he feel that a Labour government under Starmer et al. would in any way wish to ‘mend’ Britain?

      The past four years should supply ample evidence of what has been planned and what is happening here and across the Western World/Nations. It isn’t by accident nor incompetence Mr Heath and you do not have to dig too deep to find the influences that are responsible.

      Expose those people/organisations that are really running the Country through their proxies and then we may see some real political change. Fostering the ‘two horse race with the LibDums trying to come up along the rail’ is not helping.

  137. This is one of Heath’s weakest columns for a long time because it’s so speculative: Farage here, a start-up there, something other elsewhere. That the Tories are heading for defeat is beyond question but if Labour wins by a big margin, will its triumph really be be short-lived? It will have five years to finish the destruction it began in 1997-2010. It isn’t going to give up the opportunity to finally dismantle the United Kingdom, to set nation against nation and tribe against tribe. It’s not going to give up a 100+ majority before it has to. What damage will be done in that time? Who can say what political groupings there will be at the end of it?

    Sadly, the GE is likely to be just another Tory v. Labour fight because that’s how so many of the public see it: the Tories made a mess so it’s Labour’s turn, just like 1997. Our only hope is that Labour’s embrace of the ethnic minorities turns out to be a deadly one. If it does fall before its time, what will be left of the nation for the new political elite to repair?

    Nigel Farage’s return would be an extinction-level event for the Tories

    The Conservative Party is finished. The only question is whether it loses badly or is utterly obliterated

    ALLISTER HEATH • 13 March 2024 • 6:58pm

    The Conservative Party is toast. There is no path to a Tory victory. Rishi Sunak cuts an increasingly tragic and isolated figure. I write this with great sadness, but the Prime Minister has never looked so powerless, so unable to command the country’s attention. His podium speech on extremism was ignored by Scotland Yard.

    His Budget has made zero impact. There is little prospect of No 10 seizing the narrative. Tory MPs are either in open panic or are trying to coast through their last few months in office, though not in power. The Government has alienated every segment of the Conservative base without gaining any new voters. Its only hope is a schism on the Left that limits Labour’s gains.

    One experienced political figure has put money on a sub-100 Tory seat outcome. The best-case scenario – a 1997-style shellacking with 165 Conservative seats, and a 179-seat Labour majority – looks optimistic. The mid-range scenario – a 1906-Liberal landslide-style thumping, with the Tories losing more than half their seats – feels equally bullish.

    The worst-case scenario – a Canada 1993 replay, where the ruling Canadian Tories lost all but two of their seats – may be too pessimistic and would involve the Lib Dems becoming the Opposition, but it would be foolish to rule it out. The best polls for the Tories put them on 24-27 per cent; the worst on 18-20 per cent, less than John Major’s 30.7 per cent.

    The Red Wall is furious about Brexit betrayal, immigration, defence, the cost of net zero, wokery and a lack of levelling-up; the Blue Wall is appalled by high tax, red tape, low-traffic neighbourhoods, rampant crime, the sub-postmasters scandal and the lack of a pro-growth strategy; the young are apoplectic about house prices; and the country is united in disgust at our broken infrastructure, pothole-strewn roads, calamitous NHS and gradual impoverishment.

    The Tory heartlands loathe the Islamist-inspired extremist chants evident on the demos that hijack central London weekly, and members hate David Cameron’s cowardly decision to turn against Israel.

    The Tories have failed in three critical ways. First, they squandered the anti-establishment protest vote behind Brexit, Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory and which is fuelling every single Right-wing or populist party across the West. The great realignment – whereby culturally conservative, patriotic voters shifted Right-wards, and the ultra-urban woke Left-wards – has been wasted.

    The future of the centre-Right globally is to harness the rage of the working and middle classes, to act as competent revolutionaries, to make people’s lives better via reforms, to root out wokery, regain control of the borders and boost growth. Instead, the Tories have acted as incompetent, purveyors of the status quo. Angry voters are thus voting for Right-wing parties everywhere bar Britain.

    Second, they lost the under-40s: again – this is a British aberration. Donald Trump is leading 51-45 among under-30s, a Fox News poll reveals. Pierre Poilievre, the Canadian Conservative, leads 36-21 among under-30s, and 41-21 among the 30-44s, an Abacus poll shows, partly because of a strong offering on house building and a backlash against Justin Trudeau’s authoritarianism. Populist and Right-wing parties in Europe are also doing well among the young.

    Third, the Tories are catastrophically behind among ethnic minorities. Their erstwhile progress with British Hindus, British Chinese and Christian British Africans has been squandered through ineptitude and the party’s insufficiently robust conservatism. Disgusting racist reported comments by a donor aren’t helping.

    By contrast, the US elections may herald a historic shift of ethnic minorities towards the Republicans, as anti-woke, pro-aspiration, pro-family voters are repelled by Joe Biden’s critical race theory and high taxes. A New York Times poll suggests Democrats have lost most Hispanics, and are only ahead 56-44 among all non-white voters.

    With the Tories lacking agency, it will be incumbent upon Nigel Farage to once again determine their future. Does he give up his media career – he is a brilliant broadcaster for GB News – and cash in his I’m a Celebrity-enhanced reputation to re-enter the nasty, ungrateful world of politics? If he jumps in nearer to the vote, and launches a lightning air war, making a series of striking promises, by how much would his Reform UK jump in the polls? Or does he stand aside, allowing the Tories to be crushed but not obliterated, with the risk that they are subsequently captured by their anti-Brexit Left-wing?

    Farage’s calculation will take account of four factors. He would want not merely to bruise the Tories but inflict upon them their greatest ever humiliation. His revenge would need to be total: he would want to overtake them in vote share. This isn’t as fanciful as it seems: YouGov puts the Tories at 20 per cent and Reform on 14. The caveat is that most other pollsters suggest a wider gap, and Reform may be underperforming slightly in actual votes.

    The second requirement would be for him to win a seat for himself and hopefully others: hard, but doable.

    The third would be to reunite the Right of British politics, either by absorbing any Right-wing Tory survivors into Reform post-election, or by merging into (and possibly leading) a rump Tory party purged of its Lefties.

    The fourth, most tentative goal would be to bolster the case for PR or an AV transferable vote system.

    A Farage re-entry would guarantee a Tory implosion, multiple defections to Reform, and an apocalyptic loss of scores more Tory seats. But whether or not Farage presses the button, there is a gaping market gap on the Right, as well as more broadly for a party aligned with the electorate’s wishes. If Reform isn’t the answer, another group will be.

    Labour’s triumph will be short-lived. It, too, is an unstable coalition between centre-Left and far-Left. It, too, will fail to mend Britain. Political entrepreneurs will soon begin to circle: by 2025-26, it is easy to conceive of a Macron-style Left-Right start-up party boasting 20 policies, all with 75 per cent support in the polls, and fielding a list of candidates (such as nurses and small business leaders) with no prior political experience.

    Such a grouping – which would promise to spend yet more on the NHS, quit the ECHR, build prisons, slash immigration to near zero – would upend politics. One way or the other, the old order is finished, as Rishi Sunak is about to discover.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/13/farage-return-extinction-level-event-for-tories/

  138. I’m also going to turn in (again, I am perplexed to be up so late). Good night all, and huge thanks for your continued hospitality and tolerance.

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