Wednesday 13 November: The next head of the Church of England must work with abuse survivors

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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734 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 November: The next head of the Church of England must work with abuse survivors”

  2. Good morning, all. As I haven't been to bed yet, I'm taking the opportunity to be among the first!

    1. Well, Conners (and Kadi) when you finally get back to bed I hope that you both sleep well. I awoke at around 2 am and have spent a good hour and a half completing today's Wordle and surfing the net. So now I am off to bed to sleep until 6 am. Good night all.

  3. My visit from police on Remembrance Sunday is living proof of our two-tier justice system

    A knock on the door to be accused of a non-crime hate incident from a year-old tweet is not what people fought and died for in the war

    Allison Pearson ā€¢ 12 November 2024 ā€¢ 9:02pm GMT

    9.40am: All my things were laid out ready for Remembrance Sunday. Black dress, black opaque tights, coat, a new poppy to go with the vintage enamel one that glints in my jewellery box awaiting its annual outing. I was still not dressed when Himself called up to say that there were police at the door for me. I did vaguely wonder what on earth they were doing here ā€“ something to do with our road being closed for the parade? But I went downstairs to greet them at the door and apologised to the two young constables standing outside for still being in my dressing gown. I wasn't sorry for long.

    PC S, the one on the left, who did all the talking, told me that they were here to inform me that I had been accused of a non-crime hate incident (NCHI). It was to do with something I had posted on X (formerly Twitter) a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred, apparently.

    WHAT? I stood there in my slippered feet trying to take in what the police officer had said; our market town was filled with the sounds of preparation for the forthcoming parade ā€“ a distant drummer, the metallic clang of barriers going up. Life going on as normal, but this wasn't normal; it was far from normal.

    "What did this post I wrote that offended someone say?" I asked. The constable said he wasn't allowed to tell me that.

    "So what's the name of the person who made the complaint against me?"

    He wasn't allowed to tell me that either, he said.

    "You can't give me my accuser's name?"

    "It's not 'the accuser'," the PC said, looking down at his notes. "They're called 'the victim'."

    Ah, right. "OK, you're here to accuse me of causing offence but I'm not allowed to know what it is. Nor can I be told whom I'm being accused by? How am I supposed to defend myself, then?"

    The two policemen exchanged glances. Clearly, the Kafkaesque situation made no sense to them, either. I think, even by then, they dimly surmised they had picked on the wrong lady.

    Shocked. I was definitely shocked. Astonished. That too. Upset. How could I not be? It's never nice having the police at the door if you're a law-abiding person, because police at the door can mean only one of two things: tragedy or trouble. But to have them here on the saddest, most solemn date in the calendar with this kind of malevolent nonsense. It was surreal. (I have hundreds of black and Asian followers on X/Twitter; none of them ever suggested I'd said something bad or hateful. Besides, who decides where you set the bar for what's offensive?) This is supposed to be 2024, not 1984, yet the police officers seemed to be operating according to the George Orwell operational manual.

    All those fluttering feelings and thoughts were elbowed aside by a surge of instinctive anger. A non-crime ā€“ what the hell?

    "Today," I began, trying to compose myself and aware of people on the other side of the street stopping to stare at the woman in a dressing gown addressing two coppers, "we are commemorating hundreds of thousands of British men, most of them roughly the age you two are now, who gave their lives so that we could live in a free country, not under the jackboot of tyranny. And you, YOU come here on this sacred dayā€¦ You know, those soldiers, they could never have imagined that their country, our country, the country they died for, would ever become a place where the police would turn up at the door of a person who has done nothing wrongā€¦"

    I think that's roughly what I said. It's what I felt, anyway. And as I spoke, warming to my theme, which was freedom, I realised how truly appalling this was. How un-British in the most painful way, this unwarranted intrusion of the state into my private life, this humiliating public reprimand for some casual comment online that had done what, exactly? Hurt whom, exactly? Stirred up hatred how, exactly? It was bloody outrageous.

    We are living through an epidemic of stabbings, burglaries and violent crime ā€“ not the non-crime variety ā€“ which is not being adequately investigated by the police, yet they had somehow found time to come to my house and intimidate me.

    I really don't know what post they were referring to, although I do know that a year ago, I was consumed with the aftermath of the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas and the anti-Semitic slogans being brandished and chanted at pro-Palestine marches.

    Standing there on the doorstep, I suddenly thought of my friend who earlier this year had reported domestic violence, coercive control and fraud by their partner to the same Essex police force that this pair before me belonged to. The lackadaisical response from a constable assigned to the case was that a) It was a first offence so the abusive person probably wouldn't get charged so not worth bothering; b) The prisons were full so not worth bothering; and c) It was only my friend's word against their partner.

    I drafted an Exocet of a reply for my friend. It told the policeman concerned that he had a duty to investigate this serious crime and that there was abundant evidence from banks, credit card companies and family members. With some reluctance, the force eventually made an arrest after the constable whined in a letter to my friend about the excessive language I had used in the Exocet which I had targeted at his lazy rear end.

    On Sunday morning, I suppose there was a certain grim satisfaction in knowing that, here I was, living proof that two-tier justice exists in the UK.

    If I went to a supermarket and helped myself to Ā£199 of groceries, the police would almost certainly do nothing. We know that for a fact. Retailers all over the country have been complaining for months about soaring incidents of theft. But the police prefer to go after middle-aged women like me. People who have said something someone on the internet didn't like.

    "Don't you think you're wasting police time?" I asked the two young coppers. The one with a beard on the right had shuffled sideways and was now some distance from the door after my stirring Remembrance Day peroration, perhaps hoping to stay away from the blast area should your columnist self-combust. A very real possibility given the provocation.

    "If my Twitter post was a year ago, why has it taken 12 months for you to come here and accuse me? What have the police been doing all that time?"

    Awkward silence. They were only doing their job, I knew that, and I almost felt sorry for them, but how sinister and odious that job has become. PC S asked for my phone number and email address in case they needed to call me in for an interview; I gave him my email only. What did those young officers feel as they left my home? Any tingle of shame for defiling Remembrance Sunday with authoritarian behaviour that would not have been out of place in the regime Britain gave her treasure and the flower of her youth to defeat? More likely, they went to Costa round the corner to grab a coffee and have a laugh at the crazy woman in the dressing gown who had ranted some stupid stuff about living in a free country: the unthinking commissars of wokery and censorship.

    Look, I was lucky. I am reasonably well-informed, I have a wonderful platform here at The Telegraph and as a member of the Free Speech Union (FSU) I can get crucial advice about how to fight back against vexatious NCHIs solicited by grievance mongers who despise those of us who hold centre-Right views and who don't agree that uncontrolled mass immigration has been an altogether unmitigated blessing. But a person who was more vulnerable and unsupported than I am would have been very scared by what I had just experienced. A visit from the police has a chilling effect on free speech, and that's exactly what NCHIs are designed to do, I think. Not just to shut down "hate", whatever that is, but to make thinking outside the new approved public morality a dangerous activity.

    On Tuesday evening, Essex Police issued a statement to The Telegraph saying that they were investigating me under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly "likely or intended to cause racial hatred". In other words, my tweet was being treated as a criminal matter, rather than a non-crime hate incident, but that is not what I was told on Sunday.

    Purely by chance, I was scheduled to interview Bernie Spofforth on Monday for this week's Planet Normal podcast. After the Southport massacre, in which three little girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, Bernie, a successful Cheshire businesswoman, retweeted a post that misidentified the alleged attacker as an asylum seeker. (The police told her that using the phrase "asylum seeker" was "racist". Bernie had added the caveat, "If this is true".) Normally the most conscientious researcher, Bernie realised her mistake and deleted the retweet within an hour, but not fast enough to avoid being partly blamed for inciting the Southport riots. It was a preposterous insinuation, and cynics might suggest the authorities were grateful for a white, middle-class scapegoat (look how keen they are to throw up a smokescreen around a crime if there is any hint of Islamist involvement). Six police officers came to Bernie's farmhouse in three vehicles, including a van for prisoners. Treated like a terrorist in front of her ashen husband and daughter, she was taken to the police station and held in a cell for 36 hours. Just for a social media post, please note; not for being in possession of a bioweapon.

    Bernie's harrowing ordeal was followed by an NFA (No Further Action) ruling, because police evidence came nowhere near reaching the necessary threshold. Nonetheless, an emotional Bernie told me that, formerly a brave campaigner for truth in public life, she had been "destroyed" by what the police had done to her and the resulting damage to her reputation and career. Although my own brush with the law on Remembrance Sunday was a mere midge bite compared with what Spofforth endured I found myself getting tearful as I talked to her. For crying out loud, what has our country become? Big Brother really is watching us.

    I asked Toby Young, the founder and general secretary of the FSU, to explain NCHIs to me. The idea, Toby says, is if you nip hateful behaviour in the bud while it is still non-crime, the person won't go on to commit an actual crime. The trouble is, there is not a shred of evidence that it does anything of the sort.

    In January 2020, an ex-police officer called Harry Miller was shocked to be interviewed by a Humberside police constable after the force had received a complaint over tweets he had made in which he questioned whether transgender women were real women. It was recorded on a national database as a non-crime hate incident. "Even though I had committed no crime the constable said he needed to check my thinking," recalled Miller, who said it made him frightened for his country's future. Me too.

    Harry Miller went on to win an important case in the Court of Appeal (Miller v The College of Policing) which concluded that the recording of an NCHI interferes with the right to freedom of expression. Additional safeguards were necessary. Such interference, the court said, is lawful only if it can be justified as seeking to achieve a legitimate aim ā€“ namely the prevention of crime or disorder or the protection of the rights of others ā€“ and if the recording is made in accordance with a common-sense approach.

    I'm afraid that commodity has been in perilously short supply. The FSU found that a quarter of a million NCHIs have been recorded since 2014 in England and Wales alone ā€“ an average of more than 65 a day. So it seems I am in good ā€“ or bad ā€“ company as a non-criminal. Young points out that the FSU managed to get an NCHI removed from no less a person than a vice-chair of the Conservative Party last year. And even Amber Rudd, when she was home secretary, had an NCHI recorded against her after an Oxford professor complained about a speech she had made at ā€“ wait for it ā€“ the Tory party conference.

    If a senior politician can get slapped with a non-crime hate notice for making the not entirely controversial or repugnant suggestion that British job applicants should be prioritised over foreign workers, you know we really are in bonkers Alice in Wonderland, sentence-before-the-verdict territory.

    When Suella Braverman became the secretary of state, she saw, quite rightly, how NCHIs are in direct conflict with free speech, which she considers to be "a cornerstone of our democracy". She wanted to get rid of them altogether but, not for the last time, Rishi Sunak was too timid to do the right and the Conservative thing. Instead, Braverman (assisted by the FSU lobbying in the Lords) introduced legislation that made the recording and retention of NCHIs subject to a statutory Code of Practice. That forced the College of Policing to issue new guidance telling officers to record an event as a non-crime hate incident only when the subject was motivated by "intentional hostility towards a person based on a particular characteristic (disability, race, transgender etc)". In theory, the evidence bar was now set very high and would prevent police hanging on to personal data like mine, which might come up on a search and cause problems in the future. Forces were on notice to take decisions that were sensible and in the public interest. In practice, police continued to do what most people regard as a complete waste of time and the number of NCHIs actually increased.

    I am told by a senior Home Office source that chief constables like NCHIs because they win them Brownie points from various pressure groups. "Good news, we recorded 15 NCHIs for Islamophobia this month!"

    I'm afraid I don't share their enthusiasm for those blunt instruments of censorship and social control. Was it really in the public interest to send two police officers to my house on Sunday morning? What proof did Essex Police have that I was "motivated by intentional hostility" in a tweet 12 months ago whose contents they refuse to disclose? What threat of actual crime or disorder do I pose to anyone with a protected characteristic ā€“ if any? How much common sense informed the police's approach?

    Most people would think this was stark staring mad, I reckon, yet it seems that Yvette Cooper, the new Home Secretary, may want to repeal Suella Braverman's statutory instrument and unleash ever more spurious NCHIs, presumably to encourage the British people to keep their traps shut. That does not suggest a happy, confident country or a political class that believes it governs with popular support. As the writer Charles Bukowski observed, "Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others."

    Let's hope Yvette Cooper changes her mind and police stop bothering people who have done nothing wrong and stick to the bad guys. "There is zero evidence that recording non-hate crimes reduces hate crimes," insists Young, "It's just a smokescreen. The real reason is to punish people who don't comply with the gospel as promulgated by the church of woke."

    I didn't go to the Remembrance service after all that, the vintage poppy brooch went back in its box. I felt this terrible sadness. (What about my civil liberties ā€“ do I have any?) I want to be proud of our country on that most solemn day, not ashamed and fearful of what we have become. Surely, if we know anything it's that those who laid down their lives died for us to be free. Their astonishing sacrifice should be honoured, not traduced by stupid authoritarian measures like NCHIs. That really would be a crime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/12/my-visit-from-police-is-proof-of-two-tier-justice-system

    2. Disgusting authoritarian actions. The police are reduced to servile puppets of leftist tyrants. The police chiefs and the politicians who implement this oppression should be held accountable. 1984 writ large.

    3. An appalling state of affairs – I suspect Cooper will, with Two Tier's full support, remove Braverman's amendments so that the government can continue to wage war on free speech! The key point in Allison's recounting of her Kafkaesque ordeal might be "here I was, living proof that two-tier justice exists in the UK". No wonder the police have lost almost all respect and confidence among the ordinary [aka "far right"] people in this country!

    4. "It's not 'the accuser'," the PC said, looking down at his notes. "They're called 'the victim'."
      How can there be a victim if there is no crime?

    1. If he and his fellow travellers just shut their mouths it would go a long way towards curbing toxic emissions.

  5. Chancellorā€™s Sister Ellie Reeves Decries Family Politics

    Cabinet Office minister Ellie Reeves was talking up the benefits of Labourā€™s peer-ejecting House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill in the Commons today:

    ā€œAs a matter of principle in the 21st century it cannot be right for there to be places in our legislature reserved for those born into certain familiesā€¦ the aim of this bill is to remove the right of people to sit and make laws in our legislature by virtue of an accident of birth.ā€

    Very Ellie-quent. Her sister Rachel was probably nodding in agreement from the Chancellorā€™s office, while her husband the ex-MP John Cryer was likely watching from his seat in the Lords. Incidentally both of Johnā€™s parents were themselves Labour MPsā€¦

    Politics has always been a family business in all parties. Founding member Ramsay MacDonaldā€™s son Malcolm became a Labour MP. Not to mention four generations of Bennsā€¦

    12 November 2024 @ 17:37

  6. Isabel Oakeshott
    Migrant hotels will wipe out this generation of Labour MPs
    The Home Office takeover of a Best Western in Altrincham has directed community anger at the newly elected MP

    12 November 2024 5:27pm GMT
    Isabel Oakeshott
    But for a twist of fate, Connor Rand would not be an MP.

    The first Labour MP to represent the constituency of Altrincham and Sale for a century was only selected to stand at the general election at the very last minute, after the existing candidate pulled out for personal reasons. Now this quiet trade unionist, who has never been in the public eye, has been thrust to the frontline of the battle over illegal immigration ā€“ and is discovering just how uncomfortable it can be.

    Rand is facing an onslaught from constituents over the sudden arrival of up to 300 male asylum seekers in the market town ā€“ and understandably so. For locals have been caught completely off guard. When they voted Labour, some may have been encouraged by a pledge to end the use of hotel accommodation for illegal migrants. To their dismay, now one has sprung up right in their midst.

    The first residents knew of it was when Best Western Cresta Court Hotel suddenly cancelled all bookings ā€“ including weddings ā€“ to make way for the migrants. To say feelings are running high is an understatement. A public meeting held in a church, designed to address concerns, quickly descended into acrimony, as those alarmed by the prospect of dozens of undocumented young men hanging around the community clashed with ā€œRefugees Welcomeā€ campaigners.

    Furious residents heckled a local police inspector sent to field questions, while a handful of pro-asylum seekers hurled insults at those who dared express any disquiet. Amid the furore, Rand seems like a proverbial rabbit in the headlights.

    Chief among the fears of those who live near the new migrant hotel is crime. As anxious mothers pointed out at last weekā€™s fractious meeting, the Cresta is within walking distance of two all-girls schools. Few have much confidence that the authorities can be sure who all the new arrivals are ā€“ and that none have criminal records.

    Such fears are not (as the usual placard-waving suspects tried to claim at the public meeting) ā€œracist.ā€ They are entirely reasonable. It is well known that many of those who cross the Channel in small boats deliberately jettison their passports and other documentation en route. Moreover, a number of asylum seekers and other illegal immigrants have been linked to truly heinous crimes in this country.

    Earlier this year, for example, a Moroccan asylum seeker was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an innocent British pensioner in ā€œrevengeā€ for the Israel-Hamas conflict. The judge in the case said the killer wanted to ā€œfrighten the British people and undermine the freedoms they enjoy.ā€ In another case last month, a 27-year-old woman working in a migrant hotel in Walsall was stabbed to death.

    Quite how many other violent crimes and other shocking offences are committed by illegal migrants is uncertain because the Home Office very deliberately does not collect such statistics. It would be easy for police to obtain information about those who are caught and arrested, at the very least. The absence of official statistics only fuels suspicion of a cover up.

    In a response that has inflamed many of his constituents, the newly elected MP for Altrincham seems content to parrot vague assurances that the authorities have it all covered. He has told locals that all the new arrivals have been checked out, and there is no reason to fear any spike in crime.

    Unsurprisingly, the community is far from convinced. Indeed, they feel completely fobbed off. Amongst angry locals, there is now talk of bombarding him with daily emails, and staging peaceful demonstrations. At this rate, Rand may soon rue the day he unexpectedly swapped a life out of the limelight for his new role as an MP.

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

    In Labours eyes, illegal immigrants are more important than British people. The order is
    1. Illegal immigrants
    2. Legal immigrants
    3. Public Sector workers
    4. Benefit claimants
    I am afraid the rest of us donā€™t matter at all.

    Marcus Walford
    7 hrs ago
    Reply to barry smith
    I would add in prisoners between 1 and 2.

    1. The ā€œRefugees Welcomeā€ people need to put their money where their mouths are and step up and house them.

      they never do, though. Itā€™s always someone elseā€™s responsibility.

      1. I bet the "refugees welcome" people either don't live anywhere near where the "refugees" are housed or live in gated communities.

  7. Good morning, chums, that was an early start to the day – thanks, Geoff.

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Complete fail today!
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      1. Almost joined you.

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    1. We have Green nits at work. In their defence, they like to think they are good people and doing the right thing. Of course, they also like to go on holiday. Last year I said to a few of them ā€œGood idea, get it in before they ban itā€.

      To a man (and woman blah blah) they expressed surprise. ā€œno they wouldnā€™t!ā€

      Some people really donā€™t have the brains they were born with.

      And i work with clever people (nb clever does not equal intelligent, in my book).

    2. Less flying? 2TK probably does more flying than the plebs (apart from those who are pilots) put together!

  12. Boris Johnson says British troops may have to go to Ukraine if Trump cuts support. 13 November 2024.

    Boris Johnson has warned that Britain may have to send troops to Ukraine if Donald Trump cuts funding when he takes over as President.

    The former prime minister told GB News that if Russia gains the upper hand in the conflict, the UK may have to do more to defend Kyiv.

    Is he dipping a toe in the water on behalf of Starmer here or is it just Boris babbling? Whatever, we donā€™t want to be involving ourselves any further than we already do in this bloodbath. Just in passing I posted a comment on the threads. It was removed without notification.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/12/boris-johnson-russia-ukraine-donald-trump/

  13. Todays Mail on Line.

    President-elect Donald Trump has officially tapped Elon Musk to 'dismantle' the $6.5 trillion bloated US bureaucracy by spearheading the newly created 'Department of Government Efficiency.'

    Trump made the bombshell announcement Tuesday night saying Musk will co-lead the 'Manhattan Project of our time' with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

    'This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!' Musk said in a statement.

    1. We could do with that here. It is Government in the UK that has choked off all independence and initiative. We could sack 50% of the Civil Service without noticeable effect.

    2. At least he has now admitted that the temperature on the planet is controlled by the sun and not by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

    5. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
      Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
      Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
      For nothing now can ever come to any good.

      (W.H. Auden from Funeral Blues)

  18. Morning Geoff and everybody,
    Looks like even 06:30 is 'Late on Parade' this morning.
    Today's Tale
    Irene was suspicious that her husband, John, was fooling around with other women.
    Theyā€™d had an invitation to a fancy dress ball so Irene devised a plan to catch John out.
    ā€œIā€™ve got a headache,ā€ she said to John. ā€œWhy donā€™t you go to the fancy dress ball on your own?ā€
    So John donned his gorilla suit and left for the ball.
    Irene put on a monkey suit and headed off to the ball later in the night.
    Soon after she arrived, there was John, carrying on like a sex maniac and flirting at every opportunity.
    She made her way over to him and whispered in his ear, ā€œHow would you like to take me out in the garden and give me a good screw?ā€
    So he rushed her outside and screwed her on the lawn.
    Irene left the ball early to be sure she was home before John.
    When they awoke the next morning, she asked him, ā€œHow was the ball last night?"
    ā€œPretty boring,ā€ he replied. ā€œI finished up playing cards with a couple of other fellas upstairs.
    Do you remember Alan Jones? Well, I lent him my gorilla suit, and he told me that he had a great time!ā€

    1. 396834+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      I do believe in todays society
      ASSISTED LIVING should be the order of the day maybe something along those lines could be organised after a major delousing campaign
      is bestowed on the Palace of Westminster and ALL within.

      1. I made that point to a neighbour (not the one I took racing) this morning when we met as I was walking Kadi.

  20. Who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury? 13 November 2024.

    Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Francis-Dehqani.

    Francis-Dehqani grew up in Iran before her family was forced to flee the country during the 1980 Iranian Revolution. She became the Bishop of Chelmsford in 2021 and entered the House of Lords in the same year. She is also the lead Bishop for Housing and chair of the Board of the Church Army. A keen writer, Francis-Dehqani has been praised for her focus on Christian service and spirituality and she is generally in favour of including LGBT couples.

    She has to be the one. Female, foreign and ticks all the LGBT Boxes. Welby may be gone but the Wokeyā€™s remain.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-will-be-the-next-archbishop-of-canterbury/

  21. Good Moaning.
    "Tell us news, not history" grunts The Boss.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/13/chihuahuas-prove-smallest-dogs-are-among-smartest-breeds/

    "Chihuahuas prove smallest dogs are among the smartest breeds

    Pint-sized pets have the biggest brains for their size, study reveals

    13 November 2024 6:06am GMT

    Chihuahuas are among the smartest dogs because they have the biggest brains for their size, a study has found.

    The Border collie and Belgian malinois are sometimes labelled as the smartest of all dogs, but scientists have now found smaller breeds can hold their own.

    Brain capacity relative to body size is a widely used measurement by scientists to determine the smartest animals, with a bigger brain normally associated with higher cognitive ability.

    But dogs do not adhere to this rule, the study has found, because they have been bred by humans and not nature, which has changed the layout of their brains.

    Analysis of almost 1,700 dogs from 172 different breeds revealed pint-sized ā€œtoyā€ breeds like the pug, chihuahua and pomeranian have the biggest brains compared to their body.

    A chihuahua
    Smaller dogsā€™ bigger brains could have evolved because of humansā€™ intervention in the breeding process, the study found Credit: Kohei Hara/Digital Vision
    Working dogs, such as the Siberian husky and rottweiler, have the smallest brain-body ratio.

    The findings upend conventional wisdom that these breeds are some of the smartest because they are easy to train and used by people for jobs.

    ā€œBrains are a complicated thing to understand, it is the organ we know the least about,ā€ Dr Ana Balcarcel, an evolutionary scientist at the University of Montpellier and the lead author of the study, told The Telegraph.

    Dogs that are bred for human assistance ā€œjust happen to have the smallest brainsā€, she added, which was a ā€œsurprisingā€ finding.

    The scientists had expected that the dogs often thought to be the smartest would have the bigger brains, to fit with what is seen in other species.

    The reason for dogs bucking this trend, the scientists think, is because they have been bred and evolved by humans to meet our desires, and not by nature.

    ā€œThe results are actually counter-intuitive and counter to the patterns that we have seen throughout the evolution of the mammalian brain,ā€ Dr Balcarcel said.

    ā€œThroughout time, most animals have increased their relative brain size. The hypothesis is that a bigger brain helps us to survive, it helps us to out-compete other animals.

    ā€œIn the dog, itā€™s exactly the opposite ā€“ in this one way that we are measuring cognitive ability.ā€

    Little dogs more fearful and aggressive

    The big-brain trait of little dogs was also found to be linked to higher fearfulness and aggression, and could explain the combative nature of feisty terriers.

    Dogs with big brains for their size were found to be more attention-seeking and more prone to separation anxiety, data show, as well as more likely to be aggressive towards both humans and other dogs.

    Working dogs with smaller brains, however, were significantly easier to train, the study found.

    ā€œWorking dogs are known for performing the greatest diversity of human-assistance roles of any functional category,ā€ the scientists write in their paper, published in Biology Letters.

    ā€œThese specialisations include search-and-rescue, detection (i.e. medical), assistance (i.e. guiding), policing and protection (i.e. military) and are arguably more complex than those of other dogs.ā€

    These dogs have better ā€œexecutive functionā€, the scientists say, which previous studies have used as a definition of intelligence in its own right because it is related to better behavioural control and short-term memory skills.

    But Dr Balcarcel says that owners of other dogs, including toy breeds, can now push back on the claim that working dogs with their high ā€œexecutive functionā€ are the most intelligent.

    ā€œWhile your dog may not possess ā€˜higher executive functionā€™ like the service dogs in the ā€˜workingā€™ class, they likely have intelligence in their own way,ā€ she said.

    ā€œIt is likely just a different set of skills and behaviours which they possess, but is not correlating with larger brain size. In short, intelligence can and should be measured in different ways, not just total brain size.ā€

  22. Morning all. On the old public transport today with the rest of the Great Unwashed as I am out after work tonight. Just reading the Allison Pearson story (someone has already posted it but how shocking (but not surprising)).

    I will say, we appear to be nearly back at pre-Covid times. In the old days the Tube would be full at Kew Gardens and after Covid not at all; but today it was full at Turnham Green.

    1. Has that idiot seen the energy dashboard for last week, where the UK was basically running on gas, with wind providing less that a fart all week.

  24. Allison Pearson and CCTV
    I woke at 05:45 today and spent a long time reading on this morning's DT Letters the shocked responses to Allison Pearson's article about her monstrous Police 'interview'. I now note that Allison's complete article (no comments allowed) has been re-published seven hours ago by William Stanier as the second item in today's ultra-early Nottl blog. Good! It is horrifying reading.

    When I had a (female) Police Support Officer (I think – she didn't say) on my doorstep over a year ago enquiring about a local incident, I was grateful that I have CCTV in my front porch. There is a large (dummy) old-fashioned CCTV camera high up next to the front door, with a clear Notice, printed in red, that reads:
    'WARNING – THESE PREMISES ARE PROTECTED BY CLOSED CIRCUIT TELEVISION'
    So there can be no doubt.

    It happens that there is also a small, inconspicuous REAL CCTV camera at about waist level, which not only alerts me anywhere in the world that someone is in my porch, but records both sides of any conversation that takes place. So I know EXACTLY what the PCSO (or whoever) says and my own responses. One downside is that when I was in San Francisco in September 2023 it woke me up at 03:00 because my Postman was delivering a letter in the porch at 11:00 AM UK time. But it also helped when I (remotely) saw my next door neighbour's son leaving a bunch of cut flowers in my porch at Christmas while I was away for a week. I texted him to please take them back to avoid their drying up.

    After all of my large glazed flower pots were stolen from my front garden a few weeks ago I fitted a second identical camera in my porch. This one is watching the front garden, where the stolen pots were situated, in case someone returns to steal the large green plastic pots that I have used to replace the stolen ones and try to beautify my front garden. Two weeks ago it recorded a pickup truck, with the rear flap down for quick access, slowing down outside my house and looking pointedly at the front garden. Perhaps he was just trying to find a particular number. I shall never know.

    1. Poor Alison , she and others are being targeted

      "If we lose freedom of speech, itā€™s never coming back." ā€• Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter.

      1. "If we lose freedom of speech, itā€™s never coming back." ā€• Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX

        and Tesla and owner of Twitter.

        That comment has cheered up a considerable number of lefties

  26. Puts my niggles into perspective.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/11/12/sammy-basso-rare-aging-condition-campaigner-died-obituary/

    "Sammy Basso, activist who sought a cure for progeria, the rare aging condition from which he suffered

    He founded the Italian Progeria Association aged nine and was later thrilled when Pope Francis gave him a call

    Sammy Basso, who has died aged 28, was born with progeria, an extremely rare genetic disorder which causes sufferers to age rapidly and appear older than they are; refusing to give in to despair, he sought to raise awareness and participated in the search for a cure as a patient, a research subject and a scientist.

    Progeria, also known as Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, afflicts one in 18 million people worldwide and is caused by a single error in an individualā€™s genome that gives rise to a toxic protein called progerin, shortening the lifespan of cells and causing victims to suffer health problems associated with old age.

    While others their age are mastering a bicycle, progeria sufferers endure baldness, wrinkled skin, hardening of the arteries, arthritis, brittle bones and a wizened stature. Most victims die in their early teens. The disease does not affect the mind, which is the only indicator of the victimā€™s real age.

    With Rita Ora at a charity event in Chipping Norton in 2023
    With Rita Ora at a charity event at the Soho Farmhouse in Chipping Norton in 2023 Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images
    Sammy Basso was born on December 1 1995, in Schio, in the Veneto region of Italy, to a factory worker and his wife. The family later moved to nearby Tezze sul Brenta. Doctors were puzzled when, at the age of six months, Sammyā€™s growth slowed dramatically ā€“ he never grew taller than 4ft 6in (1.4m) or heavier than 3st 3lb (20kg). He was two when he was diagnosed with progeria.

    His parents, devout Catholics, tried to give him as normal a childhood as possible. He attended school and when he was five his parents took him to America where, for the first time, he met other children with progeria at a meeting in Washington.

    In 2005, when he was nine, he and his parents founded the Italian Progeria Association Sammy Basso to make the disease better known and to raise money for research. Sammy was thrilled when Pope Francis gave him a phone call.

    <mqdefault.jpg>
    In 2007 he returned to the US for the first clinical trials of lonafarnib, which helps prevent the build-up of the toxic protein. The Food and Drug Administration subsequently approved the drug, but Basso initially struggled to reconcile the trials with his Christian faith. God, he felt, had given him progeria for a reason and it would be wrong to go against the divine will by researching a cure.

    But eventually he was persuaded that science, too, ā€œwas a gift of God,ā€ and he determined to become a scientist himself. In 2018 he took a degree in natural sciences from the University of Padua, followed in 2022 by a masterā€™s degree in molecular biology; his thesis explored the correlation between progeria and inflammation.

    He then joined a research group of scientists from Harvard and the National Institutes of Health involved in developing gene-editing therapies, and was accepted to go on to study for a PhD. He travelled internationally to raise awareness, gave TED Talks and participated with scientists in a research group that is seeking a cure.

    Basso with his parents Amerigo and Laura at the Soho Farmhouse in November 2023
    Basso with his parents Amerigo and Laura at the Soho Farmhouse in November 2023 Credit: John Phillips/Getty Images for BoF
    Throughout his ordeals he remained remarkably cheerful, enjoying parties and dancing and even making a joke of his condition. A group of friends formed Sammyā€™s Runners to run marathons raising awareness of progeria while pushing Basso in a wheeled chariot.

    Bald and wizened with a hooked nose, Basso looked a bit like ET and once stood outside a friendā€™s house on Halloween, cheerfully handing out sweets to young trick-or-treaters. On another occasion he posed outside a UFO museum in New Mexico in oversized green ā€œalienā€ sunglasses, looking like a real visitor from outer space.

    In 2019 he was appointed to a knighthood by the Italian president Sergio Mattarella. Basso was the oldest-known person living with progeria when he died after a night of dancing while having dinner with friends in a restaurant in Asolo.

    Sammy Basso, born December 1 1995, died October 5 2024"

    2. Maybe if he hadn't danced while he had dinner he might still have been here! RIP, a life well lived, despite it being cut short.

  28. A DT article from early October.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/05/widen-access-to-assisted-dying-say-labour-mps/

    "Extend assisted dying to those without terminal illness, say Labour MPs

    Call for bill to go further and apply to those who are ā€˜incurably sufferingā€™

    Camilla Turner05 October 2024 8:17pm BST

    Dozens of Labour MPs are pushing for more people to be eligible for assisted dying, The Telegraph understands.

    Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP, will table legislation on Oct 16 to legalise assisted dying after her Private Memberā€™s Bill was selected for debate. Her decision to propose the law change means there could be a free vote by MPs before Christmas.

    The bill is expected to give terminally ill adults the right to choose to shorten their lives if they wish.

    As many as 38 Labour politicians, including 13 who hold government roles, are understood to back proposals for the bill to go further and to apply not just to the terminally ill, but more broadly to those ā€œincurably sufferingā€.

    They are among a cross-party group of 54 MPs calling for the scope of the bill to be widened, according to Humanists UK, which has long called for a change in the law. It is likely to raise fears over introducing ambiguity into who would be eligible for state-sanctioned euthanasia.

    A key fear of those who oppose assisted dying is that too loose a definition of who qualifies could lead to people suffering from depression and other non-terminal health issues being allowed to take their own lives.

    Backers of a change in the law say that it is inhumane to keep the terminally ill alive if they are experiencing unbearable suffering.

    A change would also end the practice of terminally ill people travelling abroad to end their lives, often separated from their friends and families.

    It will be the first time the topic has been debated in the House of Commons since 2015, when an assisted dying bill was defeated.

    While polling shows that a majority of the public backs legalising support for terminally ill people who wish to end their lives, the issue could cause serious divisions across parties.

    Ahead of the billā€™s first reading, Ms Leadbeater must decide on its title, which will determine the breadth of the debate. If the bill is defined narrowly as assisted dying for the terminally ill, it would make it difficult for MPs to debate the merits of whether the legislation should be broadened in scope.

    But if the bill is given a more open-ended title, it means MPs could introduce amendments, including on whether those with incurable illnesses should be eligible for legalised assisted dying as well as the terminally ill.

    Ms Leadbeater said she intended for the bill to be focussed on legalising assisted dying for those who were terminally ill but added that it was ā€œimportant that the debate is broad and robust and very openā€.

    ā€œI havenā€™t decided the title of the bill yet,ā€ she said. ā€œI will meet and speak to people with different views. I am open-minded and the important thing is that the debate needs to be broad. Itā€™s always really important to get back to the point that itā€™s about choice.ā€

    Several Labour MPs are expected to seek meetings with Ms Leadbeater in the coming days to discuss the wording of the bill.

    Suffering ā€˜not limited to terminal illnessesā€™

    Lizzi Collinge, the Labour MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, said she believed assisted dying should be legalised for those with incurable illness and had already written to Ms Leadbeater about the issue.

    ā€œIt is an important position because ultimately this is about human suffering,ā€ she said. ā€œUnfortunately suffering is not limited to those who have a terminal illness. Some people who do not have a prognosis of six months or less will be suffering in a way that no matter what you do, no matter the care you receive, their suffering becomes intolerable. That, I think, needs to be reflected in the law.ā€

    Nathan Stilwell, Humanists UKā€™s lead campaigner on assisted dying, said he was ā€œthrilled to see so much support in this new Parliament for assisted dyingā€.

    He added: ā€œHumanists UK has consistently campaigned for over a century for a compassionate assisted dying law that includes the incurably suffering and terminally ill.

    ā€œWeā€™ve been continuously speaking to MPs and have identified at least 50 who would want to see an assisted dying law that allows people who arenā€™t necessarily dying, but are incurably suffering from conditions like multiple sclerosis and locked-in syndrome the right to choose. We suspect that when MPs begin to read the proposed changes, that number will be higher.ā€

    1. Didn't take long for that to come on the agenda, did it? What's next – the old, the unemployed?

      1. Don't forget all the other "useless eaters" that the genocidal maniacs want out of the way. The whiff of the UN, WEF, WHO etc. is evident in this clamour for mass death.

        1. Shame that Schwab, Soros etc. obviously forget their own age. And they are not even Useless Eaters, they are Extremely Harmful Eaters.

    2. Hopefully their utter lust to get more people dead might wake a few people up to what this bill would really mean, as opposed to the rose-tinted version that's being initially presented.

    3. Add a clause to the effect that no relative, by blood nor by marriage, can receive a penny from a will, and I suspect enthusiasm would wane.

      1. Add a clause that no politician or political party can receive a bequest from a will and………….

      2. Exactly.
        Having experienced families arguing that "auntie doesn't need day clothes, she's going to die", and every last bit of used soap and started boxes of paper hankies hoovered up before the body is cold.

    4. If the bill is as open ended as it seems most MPs who vote for the bill would qualify for assisted dying because they are so sick in mind.

  29. Good morning, all. Grey day – again. I see we have only had ten minutes of sunshine this November….. Must be great for solar panels etc…

  30. Good morning all ,

    Mackerel sky, patches of blue , no breeze 8c. Moh off to play golf ..

    Re assisted dying … doesn't palliative care mean anything anymore?

  31. Good morning, drifts in with the rural smells of autumn.
    Very pleased that the anti Christ Welby has resigned, he was nothing but a left wing activist and a very weak man .

    1. He is. Christian Concern used to organise letter-writing campaigns about various theological issues of the day. When Welby was enthroned, the tone of the replies changed from a neutral "thank you for your letter" to a contemptuous " only the usual suspects are contacting us (so we will ignore you)" (paraphrased, but that was the gist). Nothing but Labour party activists who don't like dissent.

  33. Telegraph View
    Sir Keir may come to regret his trip to Baku
    Replacing one set of unrealisable ambitions with another is not sensible

    Sir Keir Starmer speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan

    Telegraph View 13 November 2024 6:00am GMT

    The danger for heads of government attending an event like the climate change jamboree in Baku is that they are required to announce something to make the trip look important. It would help explain why the leaders of some of the biggest carbon dioxide emitters on the planet chose to stay away to avoid being committed to something they cannot deliver.

    Sir Keir Starmer has no such compunctions. He not only attended the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan but came armed with yet another set of decarbonisation targets even though Labour has already brought forward those announced by the previous government.

    The Prime Minister said the new ambition was to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035 rather than 78 per cent. The goal, he added, was to limit global warming to 1.5C. But nothing the UK does can achieve this given its minuscule contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

    Replacing one set of unrealisable ambitions with another is not sensible even if it goes down well at a junket like that in Baku with its 50,000 attendees. The Prime Ministerā€™s desire is to be seen to ā€œlead the worldā€ on climate change but his job is to ensure his country is not rendered vulnerable by the pursuit of impossible targets.

    Sir Keir said there was ā€œno national security, no economic security and no global security without climate securityā€. But this is just an empty slogan not a policy that can usefully be adopted by an advanced industrial nation. When the consequences of this mad dash to net zero become apparent in a few yearsā€™ time Sir Keir may come to regret his trip to Baku.

    1. Good morning Lacoste ,

      I heard that only 20%of the population voted for Labour in the GE

      Idiot Starmer must have been aware that those who didn't attend the conference in Baku have other things to think about other than expensive global warming ambitions .

      Electricity dependence, the man must be bonkers .

      Remembering the miners strike , the fuel shortages , power shortages , and the two huge gales 1987 and 1991.. My family and others were without power for nearly a week on both gale struck occasions .

      1. I think 20% of those eligible to vote, Maggie.
        And, of course, a large number didn't even bother to vote.

          1. Lest we forget TB, it's quite normal for our political idiots to eff up every single thing they come into contact with.

    2. ā€œSir Keir said there was ā€œno national security, no economic security and no global security without climate securityā€. But this is just an empty slogan not a policy that can usefully be adopted by an advanced industrial nation. ā€

      Milibrain said the same yesterday.

      Do you think they believe it?

      Or is it, as stated, just an empty slogan that they havenā€™t even thought about and are just mindlessly regurgitating?

      We are led by Clowns. And have beeb for a long time now.

      1. Same old story……none of them have a clue what they are doing until its too late to rectify. Then having achieved absolutely nothing as we see every few years. Still on the same salaries and all other expenses. They sit down on the opposite green benches. And do even less.

    3. Note to Miliband minor:

      Those widely separated isobars are not going to help dry my washing today. The promised sunshine will help a tad but I'll need electricity to finish off the drying – but the windmills will not be generating much of what I and millions of others need, <13% currently.

      Geddit yet, Ed?

      2. And when the isobars close up, the wind will probably be too strong so the bird mincers will have to shut down or catch fire! Luckily the government will still pay them for not generating!!

  35. Victory! My human right to refuse the jab!

    …and I'm still refusing.

    HomeCOVID-19Victory! My human right to refuse the jab

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  37. Matthew Lynn
    Starmer and Miliband have just rolled up at the biggest circus in town
    Cop has become an expensive farce that does more harm than good for the cause it was designed to help

    Sir Keir made the 3,000-mile trip to Baku with promises to make the UK a ā€˜global leaderā€™ in the fight against climate change Credit.

    It turns out that it wasnā€™t a practical joke after all. The Cop29 summit really is being held in Azerbaijan, a country where fossil fuels account for 90pc of exports.

    Next up, perhaps they could hold it in Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, site of the largest oil field in the world, or in Taean in South Korea, the site of the worldā€™s largest coal-fired power plant.

    After all, this is an organisation that long seems to have abandoned any sense of shame, and which has been growing more and more overblown with every year that passes. World leaders such as our own Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and his chief green commissar, Ed Miliband, still dutifully show up, and announce some new targets.

    But the blunt truth is this: the Cop circus has turned into an expensive farce ā€“ and it is time it was cancelled before it does any more damage to the global economy.

    It is not often that I agree with Greta Thunberg, but when she describes the choice of Baku for the latest Cop climate summit as ā€œa chance to greenwash their crimes and human rights abusesā€ the campaigner was, for once, getting it completely right.

    Given that there are perfectly good conference centres in Germany, Canada, Sweden, or indeed the UK, it is a completely inexplicable decision.

    Greta Thunberg said letting Azerbaijan host Cop was 'a chance to greenwash their crimes and human rights abuses'
    Greta Thunberg said letting Azerbaijan host Cop was ā€˜a chance to greenwash their crimes and human rights abusesā€™ Credit: Irakli Gedenidze/REUTERS
    Many of the worldā€™s most important leaders decided to skip this one, including Joe Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, but with depressing inevitably Starmer and Miliband made the 3,000-mile trip, with promises to make the UK a ā€œglobal leaderā€ in the fight against climate change.

    They even had a new target to announce, promising to reduce the UKā€™s carbon emissions by a more ambitious 81pc compared to 1990 level by 2035. They will probably be back next year promising 80pc.

    The trouble is, the Cop circus has turned into an embarrassment to everyone concerned. Year after year, politicians, lobbyists and activists fly into an expensive resort, and spend a few days announcing fresh carbon targets and delivering pious, hollow speeches about climate change that always sound like they were written by AI.

    In reality, it is time to cancel the whole charade ā€“ for three reasons.

    First, it has turned into a blatant form of greenwashing. Only last week, the executive in charge of Azerbaijanā€™s Cop29 delegation, Elnur Soltanov, was caught on camera discussing ā€œinvestment opportunitiesā€ in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

    ā€œWe have lots of gas fields to be developed,ā€ he told him cheerfully. Likewise, the last two summits have been held in Egypt and the UAE, not countries you would automatically choose for their commitment to leading the world on renewable energy.

    Azerbaijan's Cop29 delegation, Elnur Soltanov, was caught discussing 'investment opportunities' in the state oil and gas company
    Azerbaijanā€™s Cop29 delegation, Elnur Soltanov, was caught discussing ā€˜investment opportunitiesā€™ in the state oil and gas company Credit: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
    In reality, the summit at best has often turned into a way for the oil and gas companies to pay some lip service to fighting climate change, and at worst it has become a place for hustling energy deals in the bars of some swanky hotels.

    We can all argue about whether the climate emergency is threatening the imminent extinction of the planet, or whether it has become slightly overblown. But surely we can all agree that nobody needs a big trade show for the oil industry masquerading as a climate summit.

    Next, it encourages pointless grandstanding. It is a relief for taxpayers in Germany, France and the US that their leaders are skipping the event this year: if they had shown up, they would have no doubt felt they had to announce some target or other that would add 50 quid to everyoneā€™s fuel bill.

    An annual summit, with saturation coverage by the global media, encourages hyper-meddling, with leaders pressured into making pointless announcements, as Sir Keir and Green Ed did for the UK on Tuesday.

    If we were serious about international co-operation to mitigate climate change, it would be far better for officials and scientists to meet quietly over Zoom over several months and work out what needed to be done, how practical it was, and how much it would cost. High-profile virtue-signalling doesnā€™t help anyone.

    Finally, what the climate issue really needs right now is some sober analysis. Over the last decade some countries have made a lot of progress, and others less so, while some technologies have proved very effective, and others have been expensive failures.

    We know a lot more about the drawbacks of electric vehicles, for example, now that there are lots of them on the road, and we know how reluctant most people are to buy heat pumps even when huge subsidies are thrown at them.

    Against that, we know a lot more about mini-nuclear reactors and about battery storage than we did even a couple of years ago. We need to spend a lot more time on cost-benefit studies, figuring out what carbon-reduction strategies are working and which arenā€™t, and how emissions can be reduced at reasonable cost, and without inflicting unnecessary damage to the industrial base, loading too many taxes on households, or driving up government deficits to unsustainable levels.

    The Cop summits are not interested in that. They are too busy providing a platform for empty targets and stale rhetoric.

    The harsh truth is this: the annual Cop circus is doing nothing for the climate. It has turned into an annual charade that promotes an endless series of wasteful initiatives, and which, tainted by the whiff of corruption, by now does more harm than good to the cause it was originally designed to help.

    Before Cop30 rolls around ā€“ in Brazil, only the sixth-largest emitter of carbon in the world ā€“ it would be better for everyone if the whole thing was cancelled.

      1. Magical thinking from tenth-rate individuals who have never created anything positive in their pathetic stupid miserable lives.

      2. "We will lead the way in the industries and technologies of the future" – how? Industry and technology almost certainly need a reliable energy supply and Britain surely cannot supply that if Milioaf and Two Tier get their way?

    2. I visited Baku a couple of times during my time as an airline pilot. When we opened the doors, you didn't just smell the oil in the air, you tasted it. Great choice of venue and the President kicked the whole pantomime off by praising oil and gas as a gift from God! Which they are, of course.

    3. Does anyone know whether Starmer and Milliband shared a private jet, or did they

      each have their own private jet to Baku?

    4. Climate has been changing since the earth was formed and man will never be able to stop it

    5. Baku and its oilfields were a major target for Nazi Germany for obvious reasons. They never made it but our clown of a PM has done just that; to preach that fossil fuels are not important to him, nor to the UK's (waning) industry and its beleaguered people.

  38. Morning all. Keeping up with the news, we have an article on Welby's exit . While not in any way lamenting this, rather than simply following the MSM's outcry, we ask whether Justin has received justice, or if he is the victim of a witch hunt, . Please read and tell us what you think.

    Energy Watch: 0800 13 November: Total demand 39.005 GW. Supply: Fossil (gas) 21.5 GW – 55%; Renewables 4.9 GW – 14%; Other, nuclear and imports 4.8GW and 2.5GW – 18.7%, wrongly named low carbon such as biomass 4.7 GW – 12.3%. If Miiliband's de-carbonisation lunacy was applied now, the result would be sytem over-overload and blackouts.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  39. Š”Š¾Š±Ń€Š¾Šµ утрŠ¾, тŠ¾Š²Š°Ń€ŠøщŠø,

    It's a sunny morning at Castle McPhee, wind in the North-East, 6-10ā„ƒ today.

    Well, 'bye old chap.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc75b9695ca8f2921474a05aa50c27747e6cdedbb095a690526ef768b3165b7c.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/12/justin-welbys-inaction-enabled-john-smyth-commit-crimes/

    The trouble is, whoever replaces him will likely be just as destructively left-wing. They are an appalling bunch, the bishops. It would be nice to know if there is anyone among them on whom we could depend to be an actual Christian who would just look after the spritual health of the nation – and nothing else.

    1. As I have said many times on this forum I am convinced that David Cameron selected Welby with the specific intention of destroying the Church of England.

  40. SIR ā€“ As Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby was guilty of sins of omission and commission. He did nothing when the London diocese hounded a priest, a close friend of mine at Cambridge, over untrue allegations of sex abuse, driving him to take his own life in 2020.

    On the other hand, he was happy to sacrifice the reputation of the great Bishop George Bell in 2015, many years after his death, on the basis of a single uncorroborated complaint of sex abuse. He failed to get the complaint properly investigated, and, despite two independent inquiries, stubbornly insisted that Bell remained under a ā€œsignificant cloudā€ until finally withdrawing the hideous slur in 2021.

    Welbyā€™s departure ends an unhappy chapter in the history of the once glorious Church of England.

    Lord Lexden
    London SW1

    Oh dear me , men in religious garments , kiddy fiddling appears to be really embedded in all religions , the arts and certain media avenues ..

    Has anyone analysed why this is so ?

      2. I'm not sure about being celibrate, they need calibrating.
        They seem to be working at 'their jobs' from different sources.

  43. 396834+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Why old, sick and workless Britain is getting closer to breaking point
    Rising economic inactivity is hollowing out the tax base and ballooning the benefits bill

    Breaking point must surely mean society levelling up due to the peoples actions targeting the political ./ pharmaceutical top ranking elite in a cleansing delousing campaign.

    In the right years prior to PM Thatcher(RIP) in construction we
    worked until termination of contract, then went " down the chat"
    signed on to cover your insurance stamp, I personally had one job from the LE in all the years in construction.

    We knew of peoples in our town that had never worked since leaving school, going on the panel was a way of life, but for the majority to signon the sick for no reason other than the benefit was to tempt providence, and badly dent self respect, definitely not so today.

    Could it be that LMF is a major cause today, in both adults and children?

    1. What happens when we have more people ā€œon the sickā€ than mugs actually working?

      1. 396834+ up ticks,

        Morning MIR,

        Anarchy, dog eat dog cleansing society
        to await the islamic takeover.

        Unleash the dogs of war from the hotels to restore and keep order.

      2. Remember that only a few months ago the ONS revealed that 1.1 million "asylum seekers" had

        stated on their application forms that they had no intention of working once they were

        awarded settled status .

  44. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/78e5676dddd2955f521f22ec61d1a0065e8b5ade3d012c330963f67d9c8e463e.png
    Two white storks Ciconia ciconia landed, just a few minutes ago, in the paddock to the north of my garden. They then flew off west but one alighted, temporarily, on the chimney stack of a neighbour, long enough for me to grab a few snapshots of it (even though there is still the remnant of an early-morning mist that has not fully dissipated yet).

    I didn't notice whether or not it dropped a laden blanket down that chimney before flying off!

      1. Indeed they are, Paul.

        I've had massive Vees of common cranes flying over on their autumn migration over the past few weeks but, in common with the storks, we get a few of them overwintering here.

    2. Egrets – I've had a few
      But there again, too few to mention.

      But, according to my biology teacher, it was the bi-coloured stork that delivered many of us into the world!

      1. Hence my final paragraph.

        And egrets, a completely different family, look nothing like a stork.

  45. Morning all šŸ™‚šŸ˜Š
    What a lovely sunny start.
    according to a Facebook joke this morning Gary Lineacre could be the new AB of Canterbury. He'll get everyone cross.

    1. That's generally not how hereditary monarchy works, ogga. William of Normandy imposed himself and his family but they had what it takes. Does Tommy have a family with the mettle to establish a new dynasty? Oliver Cromwell didn't.

      1. 396834+ up ticks,

        Morning SE,
        This is no time to be pussy footing about sue look at hereditary monarchy and where it got us, we either go for RADICAL CHANGE or we submit and take the reset path.

        AKA,
        Tommy Robinson is one man regardless of his family connections, that with his following, and a place in parliament WOULD make a difference, if only for the children’s sake, I can think of no other this could be said of in the palace of westminster.

        OK maybe he can work up to king
        I would settle for an honest voice in parliament.

        #
        #

        1. Once you get people being voted in as monarch you risk a King Tony Blair, King Starmer. That's even worse.

          1. 396834+ up ticks,

            Afternoon HL.
            The pair you mention are in their own rights kings ” miranda” is king pin of the park public toilets
            cottaging dept.

            Tother is king of the political underworld currently in power,
            murder inc, inclusive, both bent bastards.

            Tommy I know is radical change in the extreme by the same token the monarch is pro WEF in some ways but many of his political subjects are enmeshed deeply in a new world order in which kingo won’t play a part.

            A new planned political dictatorial type agenda is in the making, new ball game calls for new fresh patriotic balls, hence the likes of an opposition leader of Tommy Robinson ilk would be a MUST.

        1. Yes, his claim comes from the Beaufort line, doesn’t it. His mother being a descendant of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.

          1. One of our granddaughter's friends has joined the police, after graduating with some degree or other.
            She is a lovely girl, but on the few occasions we've been in the same company, I self-censor my conversation as I'm none too sure whether she has to report back anything that might be deemed "controversial".

      2. I'm sure that the Khant was rubbing his hands as he authorised those demos. And more of his supporters being imported by the day…

    2. I did, plod could or would not tell her what tweet it was nor who her accuser was.
      I understand Sunak was encouraged to rid us of these hurty feelings accusations when PM but true to form he never did.
      TTK is likely to double down on this carp!

      1. There were stories that in soviet Russia children were encouraged to betray their parents and afforded anonymity if they did so.

        It is clear from the economic policies of Labour that they are determined to impose communism upon the UK – but it is not just economic communism Starmer, Cooper, Lammy and Reeves want to impose – they want the whole caboodle with total suppression of free speech and covert spying and prying into people's lives..

        2. Then let's hope that any children they might have are enlightened enough to shop them, eventually.

        3. They may well impose the whole caboodle on us until the next GE in 2029 (if not sooner) but my greater fear is that if the Conservatives regained power they would let most of it stand.
          They have form doing this, ask yourself how much of Blairā€™s handiwork did they repeal?
          I didnā€™t see much evidence of conservatism in the past 14 years, I donā€™t expect them to start if they regain power in the future.

  49. Ndovu, in case you hadn't seen it, William Stanier kindly posted it IN FULL as the fourth entry this morning.

    For those without Tellygraff access, just choose "Oldest Comments" on NTTL today and you can read the full text.

    I am sitting here, measuring my Blood Pressure to submit daily to my Surgery for the next 7 days. It is UP since yesterday after reading Allison's item and replying myself this morning. Better watch something else for 10 minutes to relax my heart!

    1. Do not submit to Big Pharma and take those horrible Amlodipine etc.. drugs.
      Much better & healthier alternatives.

      2. KB, just to be clear, I am a retired histopathologist with at least two publications in the Scientific literature on alterations to the structure of the heart. I do not take ANY medications, just daily Vitamins because at the age of almost 84 (in January 2025) I don't go out or exercise enough.
        I persuaded my GP (who called me in about my slightly elevated Cholesterol levels and suggested Statins), that there was NO WAY I would take those muscle-damaging drugs.
        Many of the 'elderly' folks I play Bridge with are taking 5, 6 or 7 different drugs – a sure sign that these are mutually interfering. When I worked in a hospital in New York in 1969-70 I was told, somewhat flippantly, that American Pharma companies "specialize (sic) in diseases of the Rich". How true.
        EDIT: when in Kowloon I have stayed at the Salisbury Hotel – the upper floors of the YMCA Hong Kong. Super place – at least it was before recent crack-downs that have stopped me visiting.

        1. That reminds me of a Twitter conversation I had in 2020 with a woman in Accra, Ghana, who informed me that life there was going on as normal because they simply didn't have the luxury of indulging in Covid. No hiding behind the sofa while someone else delivered essentials. Without mentioning hypochondria, she was blunt about it being something only the industrial world could afford.

      3. KB, just to be clear, I am a retired histopathologist with at least two publications in the Scientific literature on alterations to the structure of the heart. I do not take ANY medications, just daily Vitamins because at the age of almost 84 (in January 2025) I don't go out or exercise enough.
        I persuaded my GP (who called me in about my slightly elevated Cholesterol levels and suggested Statins), that there was NO WAY I would take those muscle-damaging drugs.
        Many of the 'elderly' folks I play Bridge with are taking 5, 6 or 7 different drugs – a sure sign that these are mutually interfering. When I worked in a hospital in New York in 1969-70 I was told, somewhat flippantly, that American Pharma companies "specialize (sic) in diseases of the Rich". How true.
        EDIT: when in Kowloon I have stayed at the Salisbury Hotel – the upper floors of the YMCA Hong Kong. Super place – at least it was before recent crack-downs that have stopped me visiting.

  50. Ndovu, in case you hadn't seen it, William Stanier kindly posted it IN FULL as the fourth entry this morning.

    For those without Tellygraff access, just choose "Oldest Comments" on NTTL today and you can read the full text.

    I am sitting here, measuring my Blood Pressure to submit daily to my Surgery for the next 7 days. It is UP since yesterday after reading Allison's item and replying myself this morning. Better watch something else for 10 minutes to relax my heart!

  51. Ndovu, in case you hadn't seen it, William Stanier kindly posted it IN FULL as the fourth entry this morning.

    For those without Tellygraff access, just choose "Oldest Comments" on NTTL today and you can read the full text.

    I am sitting here, measuring my Blood Pressure to submit daily to my Surgery for the next 7 days. It is UP since yesterday after reading Allison's item and replying myself this morning. Better watch something else for 10 minutes to relax my heart!

      1. Damn.. we''ll get him later.
        A father-of-three who admitted encouraging others to vandalise Ulez cameras walked free from court on Wednesday.

      2. Damn.. we''ll get him later.
        A father-of-three who admitted encouraging others to vandalise Ulez cameras walked free from court on Wednesday.

  53. @hertslass:disqus I believe @aalocrian:disqus is trying to contact JD in relation to church dealings, maybe you can help .

      1. I shall do so, GGG also wishes to make contact so I’ll do the same .
        I’m still having issues with my gmails but I shall post it to you on an old thread which is still open on this site – no one else will see it . Thank you.

        1. I’ll keep an eye out. Please let me know on NoTTL if you can’t get through – a couple of people have had problems although I have received posts from others.

      1. My pleasure AA. I’ve known JD online for 7 years and know he has great respect for your views and would be delighted to make contact. I’m sure he has much to say about Welby, even if just to you . Maybe you can tell him that many miss him and his views, maybe he’ll get his disqus issues sorted. As said Hertslass has his email on the contacts list for Nottlers .

  54. Wes Streeting
    I listened to the Health and Social Care Secretary being interviewed by Amol Rajan on Today (spit) from 08:10 to 08:24. Listen on BBC Sounds and find that time slot if you want to hear it.

    I hope he can be allowed to implement some of the measures that he was pushing, e.g. super-maximum salaries as rewards to Managers (what about Staff?) who show outstanding performance in their jobs. And some way of telling Hospices, who even in the middle of November 2024 have been given no idea whether and how much they may receive from the Treasury for 2025, let alone a year ahead. They are already worried at the increases in Employer NI and Minimum Wages that they will suffer.

    When I was working for an Oil Major we used to have up to 10% SuperMax Bonus in a year in which we were deemed "Outstanding". But in the NHS this would surely be decried as it distorts pay scales in what is probably Europe's largest employer.

  55. Will Trump demand a peep into the info on unidentified aerial phenomena? The first President since Bush senior & Carter to be granted access. Given the sophistication of Radar & other sensors the archives will be a bigger-than-big wow if posted on X.

    The clever clogs reckon another life form is amongst us rather than out there in outer space. After all it took us until 1729 to recognise fungi as a lifeform, and 1665-83 to discover a microganism.
    Are we about to discover & formally define a fifth lifeform after animal plant fungi & microorganism.. one that can handle 3000G forces & whizz along at 13,000 mph in air, water & space?

    Ed demands answers.. Do these new lifeforms threaten our climate security?

    1. Two more blurred photos in the papers in the last week – one of the Loch Ness Monster and the other of a Black Leopard prowling about in Kent.

      I wish those people privileged enough to witness such phenomena had better cameras with sharper focus.

      1. Why is the giant cat always black?
        Did it land from a dinghy years before our current invaders?

  56. Why no room at the Cenotaph for Farage?
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-no-room-at-the-cenotaph-for-farage/

    A couple of BTLs :

    David Wright

    The Establishment has always loathed Nigel Farage as I have experienced personally.

    Rastus C. Tastey reply to David Wright

    As Shakespeare's Julius Caesar observed:

    "Such men as these be never at heart's ease
    When they behold a greater than themselves."

    The trouble is that Nigel Farage gives them all a massive inferiority complex!

    1. There was room, it was obviously another stupid and purile political stunt.
      As Colonel Nathan Jessop said in this case the (they) "you can't handle the truth"!

    1. Our renewal is nearly due. As we usually do we shall find a way of paying only a fraction of what they are asking!

      1. just noticed this “The Telegraph is now free to access for students.
        All it takes is a valid student email address to claim 12 months free”

      1. I cancelled my subscription when they kicked Disqus off their site but I still get daily emails offering the best deal ever that I can't possibly refuse. The free access message for today has just arrived and been deleted like all the others, though I might have a look.

  58. One for the euthanasia brigade.
    I wonder how many poor sods won't be allowed to change their minds?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14076551/Woman-22-decides-not-euthanised-moment-changes-mind-receive-lethal-injection-four-year-bid-convince-family-needed-die.html

    Woman, 22, decides not to be euthanised at the last moment and changes her mind as she is about to receive lethal injection – after four-year bid to convince her family she needed to die

    3. She was lucky the executioner didn't get her family to hold her down whilst she administered the injection as happened to one lady some years ago.

      1. Yes, that was dreadful. And some Court or other upheld that; it was somewhere like Belgium or the Netherlands, I believe.

    1. Religious cloaks can have many spiritual meanings, including:
      Authority
      In the Old Testament, a cloak was a symbol of authority. For example, when Elijah met Elisha, he threw his cloak around him, which symbolized the power of God resting on Elisha.

      Giving
      When people spread their cloaks before a king, it symbolized giving the king everything they had and needed.

      Identity
      In some orders, wearing a cloak can invoke a sense of obligation to virtues like loyalty, obedience, and respect.

      Salvation
      In Protestant faiths, sacred vestments can symbolize salvation, divine attributes, and virtues.

      Holiness
      Putting on sacred vestments is a ritual that symbolizes holiness and leads people from the secular to the sacred.

      Emulation of celestial beings
      Wearing sacred vestments can be a way to emulate celestial beings like angels and the Lord.

      Anticipation of resurrection
      Wearing sacred vestments can anticipate the resurrection when people will be clothed with immortal bodies.

      The word "cloak" comes from the Old North French word cloque, which means "bell". This is because the garment was shaped like a bell.

    2. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

      (The Scottish Play)

      In many religions clothes are symbollock – with the emphasis on the last two syllables.

      1. G&S aside (šŸ¤£šŸ¤£), it's the same idea, isn't it? To emphasise the office rather than the person who happens to hold it.

        1. We had a rector – years ago – who had a different frock for every service. He also went in for prostrating himself. Didn't last long – despite his sumptuary outfits, he "didn't care" for the Prayer Book and the proper Bible.

  62. An hour's chopsawing of several mushroomtray's worth of sticks, mostly green elm that will need a bit of seasoning, the splitting of the thicker sticks and a catch up on the posts whilst listening to Radio 3 with a mug of tea!!
    Now I'm back off up the Hill.

        1. The Delingpod this week is with Mair Hughes and is about architecture – if you don't subscribe, it will be available soon. Might be of interest to you?

      1. When I try to post an image, ever since I've been using this laptop (nearly a year now) it tells me I must be logged in to post a photo. It's quite annoying, but hopefully my son will sort it for me when he's here at Christmas.

      2. You must be logged in to upload an image. Just tried that and it didn't work so it's something else.

  64. Good morning, NoTTLers!

    Human rights law ā€“ the ECHR and the HRA ā€“ has a rule of law problem, introducing a kind of make believe into our law and politics. Judges purport to give effect to legal rights that protect fundamental human rights. Yet in practice they often end up choosing what rights people should enjoy from time to time, which results in an unstable body of case law. This is a terrible way to make law or to decide on the merits of law. Judges adjudicating a dispute lack the institutional competence to find or to evaluate the reasons for or against legal change and, especially, they lack the democratic legitimacy to take responsibility for what should be done.

    An excellent piece on why Blair's Human Rights Act especially is so detrimental to our legal system and our rights.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-trouble-with-the-human-rights-act-2/

      1. Herewith

        The great flaw in the Human Rights Act

        Our new governmentā€™s most closely-held commitment is to the primacy of human rights law. Shortly after taking office, Keir Starmer vowed that under his leadership the UK will ā€˜neverā€™ leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Last month, the Attorney General, Lord Hermer KC, undertook ā€˜to counter the false choice, offered by some, between parliamentary democracy and fundamental rights.ā€™ Fair enough, save that Lord Hermer has confused protection of fundamental rights with judicial application of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA).

        The HRA invites judges to answer questions that they are ill-suited to answer

        It is true and important that Parliament enacted the HRA and has not yet repealed it. But it does not follow that judicial enforcement of that Act is the ā€˜vindicationā€™ of democracy, as Lord Hermer put it. The HRA arms British judges to question the merits of legislation and policy on uncertain grounds, systematically undermining legal certainty and, worse, disabling parliamentarians and the public from deciding freely how we should be governed.

        Human rights law ā€“ the ECHR and the HRA ā€“ has a rule of law problem, introducing a kind of make believe into our law and politics. Judges purport to give effect to legal rights that protect fundamental human rights. Yet in practice they often end up choosing what rights people should enjoy from time to time, which results in an unstable body of case law. This is a terrible way to make law or to decide on the merits of law. Judges adjudicating a dispute lack the institutional competence to find or to evaluate the reasons for or against legal change and, especially, they lack the democratic legitimacy to take responsibility for what should be done.

        This is the core of the case against the HRA. The full force of the critique can be difficult to appreciate without some acquaintance with the vast case law to which the 1998 Act has given rise. With this in mind, Policy Exchange has today published a paper that helps to illuminate the impact of the HRA across time and across a wide range of policy domains. The HRA came into force in October 2000 and our new paper considers one striking or notable case decided in each calendar year of the Actā€™s operation. The twenty-five cases display the ways in which human rights law has changed the role of the court, requiring judges to answer political questions and then to employ novel (unpredictable) techniques of legal reasoning, unsettling the law.

        Much public and parliamentary concern about the HRA has centred on migration, and in some cases lawfare or counter-terrorism law. Several of our twenty-five cases concern these topics, but many do not, arising instead in the context of criminal justice, housing, or social policy. In two striking cases, Rabone (2012) and DSD (2018) the Supreme Court imposed new positive duties on the NHS and the police respectively, disrupting the traditional common law approach to legal liability and distorting operational priorities. These cases spur other litigation and indeed this is a common theme, with several of the cases we note forming the tip of an iceberg of litigation and legal risk, which gravely complicates day-to-day government.

        Human rights law encourages the myth that the courtā€™s answer to a political question is somehow different

        This is certainly true of Ziegler (2021), in which the Supreme Court allowed an appeal against conviction for deliberately obstructing the highway. The Court ruled that the rights of protestors, in this case against the arms trade, would be violated if convicting them of an offence would be a disproportionate response to their particular protest. This ruling has made life very difficult for trial courts in subsequent cases, not to mention the police on the ground. The judgment has also given rise to a host of further legal arguments about its extent and implications. In this case, as in others, the Supreme Court made bad law in attempting to apply the HRA.

        Judges are good at adjudicating cases fairly according to settled law. They are not so good at answering political questions. Human rights law encourages the myth that the courtā€™s answer to a political question is somehow different in kind and should not be robustly challenged by those who disagree. Strictly, the HRA leaves Parliament free to decide how to respond to a judicial declaration that legislation is incompatible with human rights law; but in practice, Parliament comes under considerable pressure simply to comply, to suspend its own critical faculties.

        The problem is illustrated in our twenty-fifth case, Dillon (2024), in which the Northern Ireland High Court concluded that key provisions of the recently enacted Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 were unjustifiable. The Act aimed to draw a line under the Troubles, bringing an end to a cycle of expensive and fruitless litigation and investigation. The High Court rejected this rationale, concluding that there was no good reason for the legislation, which is a point of view but not a matter on which legal expertise has any bearing. The new government had already committed to repealing and replacing the 2023 Act but seems in addition to think that it would somehow be wrong for it to disagree with the judgeā€™s evaluation.

        Later this month, Parliament is set to consider a proposal to legalise assisted suicide. Two of the cases we profile in our Policy Exchange paper, Purdy (2009) and Nicklinson (2014), concern this topic. Both involved use of the HRA to campaign for a change in the law. But whether to change the law is a question that only Parliament can responsibly decide ā€“ no parliamentarian should ever outsource his or her judgement on this type of question to the courts.

        The same holds more generally. The HRA invites judges to answer questions that they are ill-suited to answer, which encourages litigation to become politics by another means. In many cases, British courts will give poor answers to political questions, making bad law and/or undermining good law. Even if the courts resist this temptation, government action is constantly liable to challenge in this way, which is costly and debilitating. In thinking about human rights law and its future, parliamentarians and the public should look closely at the cases we have profiled, which confirm the negative impact that the HRA has had and looks set to continue to have.

        Richard Ekins KC (Hon) is Head of Policy Exchangeā€™s Judicial Power Project and Professor of Law and Constitutional Government in the University of Oxford. He is the co-author of the Policy Exchange paper ā€˜The Impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 in Twenty-Five Casesā€™.

        Written by
        Richard Ekins
        Richard Ekins KC (Hon) is Head of Policy Exchangeā€™s Judicial Power Project and Professor of Law and Constitutional Government, University of Oxford.

        1. If 2TK stated we'll never leave the ECHR, will we be leaving it? He's lied about everything else.

  65. Good morning, NoTTLers!

    Human rights law ā€“ the ECHR and the HRA ā€“ has a rule of law problem, introducing a kind of make believe into our law and politics. Judges purport to give effect to legal rights that protect fundamental human rights. Yet in practice they often end up choosing what rights people should enjoy from time to time, which results in an unstable body of case law. This is a terrible way to make law or to decide on the merits of law. Judges adjudicating a dispute lack the institutional competence to find or to evaluate the reasons for or against legal change and, especially, they lack the democratic legitimacy to take responsibility for what should be done.

    An excellent piece on why Blair's Human Rights Act especially is so detrimental to our legal system and our rights.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-trouble-with-the-human-rights-act-2/

  66. Good morning, NoTTLers!

    Human rights law ā€“ the ECHR and the HRA ā€“ has a rule of law problem, introducing a kind of make believe into our law and politics. Judges purport to give effect to legal rights that protect fundamental human rights. Yet in practice they often end up choosing what rights people should enjoy from time to time, which results in an unstable body of case law. This is a terrible way to make law or to decide on the merits of law. Judges adjudicating a dispute lack the institutional competence to find or to evaluate the reasons for or against legal change and, especially, they lack the democratic legitimacy to take responsibility for what should be done.

    An excellent piece on why Blair's Human Rights Act especially is so detrimental to our legal system and our rights.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-trouble-with-the-human-rights-act-2/

  67. I hear that the 'young Welsh boy from Cardiff' who killed three young girls at a Taylor Swift party is due in court today. Justice for Jihadis is so slow compared to the protestors.

      3. It will be a mental health issue. He still needs to be locked up forever Hannibal Lecter style.

        1. Of course he has a mental health issue. Sane people don't commit cold-blooded murder. Motivation cannot be objectively quantified. If it is established beyord doubt that he committed the murder then he should hang for it. End of. His life has the same value as that of a rabid dog.

          1. I was for a long time torn between agreeing or disagreeing with capital punishment. On the one hand there is the argument that it is wrong to risk that even one innocent person might be hanged (as eg. Timothy John Evans). On the other hand, I was finally persuaded by the argument that if even one criminal who would have been hanged is later freed and again commits murder, then that later death was avoidable. (That is before even taking into account the number of people that any particular murdered might already have killed/go on to kill.)

            For every one person that might have been wrongly hanged (and surely hanging could be reserved for those where the evidence is unequivocal), several people have been killed by those who arguably should no longer be here. IMO the numbers stack up to make hanging the lesser of two evils.

    2. Given that the tiniest error in process can result in such animals being acquitted on a technicality, it needs to be.
      Unfortunately.

    3. They still keep reprinting the picture of him as a little boy and not the deranged lunatic he became.

      1. And they still ignore the question of what part his parents played in the Rwandan Genocide.
        Were they the Tutsi victims fleeing the country they claim to be, or Hutu killers?
        Also, what part did the Government play in them arriving in the UK from a safe haven in Uganda?

      1. Nice chap but a terrible tillerman! Anyone who watched him on his series Great Canal Journeys will know what I mean. Wiki mischievously includes this:

        In 2020, West and Scales were replaced by TV personality Gyles Brandreth and actor Sheila Hancock for series 11. In the first episode Timothy West gave the two novice canal boaters a crash course in narrowboating.

    2. How very sad – his poor family – and especially so for his widow Prunella who is stricken with Alzheimer's.

      1. Not only did he play many Shakespearean roles including King Lear, Prospero and Macbeth but he also appeared in East Enders and Coronation Street.

        I enjoyed the television programmes he and Prunella made on the canals on their narrow boat.

      2. I remember him when he was leading actor at the Old Vic playing opposite Dorothy Tutin. He was a great stage actor and had an ability to animate everything he touched.

  70. From Coffee house, the Spectator

    Hereā€™s a tip. If youā€™re having trouble getting the police to promptly attend after a burglary, tell them the scumbag tweeted something mean about you as he made his escape. If the outrageous experience of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson is anything to go by, this is sure to shoot you right to the top of plodā€™s priority list.

    The British experiment in policing ā€˜hateā€™ has become as farcical as it is authoritarian

    Yesterday, Pearson revealed that she was visited by Essex police on Remembrance Sunday ā€“ not because she had been burgled, but because of a tweet she had posted a year ago. In a farcical exchange, she alleges, two officers refused to tell her which tweet, or who had accused her of this speech-crime. We can sometimes overuse ā€˜Orwellianā€™ or ā€˜Kafkaesqueā€™, but if Pearsonā€™s account is accurate this exchange surely qualifies.

    Thereā€™s some confusion as to what crime, if any, Pearson is alleged to have committed here. She says the officers told her she had been reported for a ā€˜non-crime hate incidentā€™ ā€“ referring to the controversial police practice under which speech, even if it isnā€™t illegal, has been logged as ā€˜hatefulā€™ on the basis of accusation alone. Essex Police, meanwhile, claimed last night that they have opened an investigation relating to material ā€˜likely or intended to cause racial hatredā€™, which is criminalised under the Public Order Act 1986. They say it relates to a post that has since been removed, and that they asked Pearson to attend a voluntary interview.

    The cops would do well to explain what is going on here ā€“ and fast. Most people will struggle to believe that Pearson, a popular author and columnist, suddenly ā€“ 12 months ago ā€“ began spewing racist bile. If she had, we surely would have heard about it. Given the alarming expansion of speech policing in recent years, many will suspect that this is another outrageous example of censorious over-reach.

    If anyone can fix Americaā€™s bloated state, itā€™s Elon Musk
    After all, we now live in a country in which people are arrested, prosecuted, even convicted, for misgendering people. Or for making offensive skits on YouTube. And this has long threatened to catch up with the more right-wing or just un-PC sections of alternative and mainstream media, given that the woke left seems to dictate what is and isnā€™t considered offensive these days. Back in 2020, historian David Starkey and pundit Darren Grimes were investigated over potential public-order offences, because of ill-judged comments Starkey had made about slavery on Grimesā€™s YouTube channel.

    Enough is enough. No opinion is so offensive that it should be a police matter. Even the most genuinely hateful ideas should be met with more speech, not censorship. But as anyone who has been paying attention will know, the pretence that our speech laws are purely there to criminalise fascists and racists fell away a long time ago. We have allowed censorship to go so unchecked that even newspaper columnists are now bearing the brunt of it, all while police waste their own time and allow actual crime to go unpunished.

    The British experiment in policing ā€˜hateā€™ has become as farcical as it is authoritarian. It makes you long for the days when ā€˜PC policeā€™ was a tongue-in-cheek tabloid zinger, not a literal description. Oh how far weā€™ve fallen.

    Tom Slater
    WRITTEN BY
    Tom Slater

    1. I was planning to be rude about my brother living in Suffolk.
      Maybe I should keep that to myself.

  71. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The humiliating post-premiership of David Cameron is the gift that keeps on giving. He might have been gone from No. 10 for more than eight years, but pretty much everything involving him thatā€™s happened in British national life since his departure has been a reminder of the awful emptiness of his time in office.

    At most, the Big Society was a woolly phrase ā€“ and the NCS

    The list of Cameron embarrassments is as long as the list of his accomplishments is short. There was Daveā€™s time as a spiv lobbyist, failing to charm former colleagues in government for Lex Greensill. There was a cameo appearance as foreign secretary, a spell distinguished by precisely zero foreign policy successes. Heā€™s even failed at being idle: fellow members of his posh golf club are annoyed at his charmless conduct on the links.

    Now we learn that the National Citizensā€™ Service (NCS) is being abolished, as the government ā€“ sensibly ā€“ rethinks wider support for young people who face dreadful rates of mental health problems and related economic inactivity. This has made poor Lord Cameron sad. Not, apparently, because of the impact on other people, but because of what it means for him.

    Itā€™s important to understand how important the NCS is to Cameron. Insofar as anything can matter to a politician whose defining feature was not caring about things, NCS mattered to DC because it was supposed to help prove that he mattered, that his time in office meant something.

    The vital bit of Cameronā€™s whiny comment on the end of NCS is this: ā€˜It was the Big Society in action.ā€™ To Dave, this is self-explanatory, but if they ever knew about it at all, most people have now forgotten the Big Society.

    The ā€˜Big Societyā€™ was one of Cameronā€™s pre-government slogans, but it was meant to be a lot more than that. Cameron sometimes like to think of himself as an intellectual radical re-thinking the relationship between the state and the population.

    On a wall in his Downing Street flat he had a copy of an 2010 Economist cover showing him with a Union flag mohawk under the headline ā€˜Radical Britainā€™. That summed him up rather well, a very conventional establishment chap who fancied himself daring and bold ā€“ because other establishment chaps said so.

    But what did that ā€˜radicalismā€™ mean? Sure, there was austerity, but if there was an intellectual strategy informing cuts to public spending, it didnā€™t extend beyond ā€˜only cut stuff our voters donā€™t use or care aboutā€™. Thatā€™s routine politics, not a big idea.

    So the Big Society (naturally reduced by many to ā€˜BSā€™) was Daveā€™s attempt at such a big idea, some intellectual heft to support the shiny-faced spin of his leadership. Unfortunately, Cameron never really worked out what it meant ā€“ that would have meant doing some hard work and hard thinking, after all. At most, the Big Society was a woolly phrase ā€“ and the NCS.

    And now that is gone too. Cameronā€™s legacy is now even thinner: underfunded services; some school reforms that someone else came up with; and the accidental end of Britainā€™s EU membership. Whatever you think of Brexit and whatever its eventual consequences, it can never be counted to Cameronā€™s credit because he didnā€™t want it. It sprang from his errors and his weaknesses, not his decisions and his strengths.

    Almost exactly 200 years before Cameron left office, Shelley completed Ozymandias, a poem that could have been written for him:

    I met a traveller from an antique land

    Who said: ā€œTwo vast and trunkless legs of stone

    Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

    And on the pedestal these words appear:

    ā€˜My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!ā€™

    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

    The lone and level sands stretch far away.ā€

    That sneer of cold command is still here, but the NCS, the Big Society and Cameronā€™s vain dreams of domestic reform are gone. Now nothing remains, Dave, beside Brexit ā€“ and the hand that mocked.

    James Kirkup
    WRITTEN BY
    James Kirkup
    James Kirkup is a partner at Apella Advisors and a senior fellow at the Social Market Foundation.

      1. Yeah, but here he is perhaps deemed a failure, his only success inadvertently taking the UK out of the EU, but his brief return to Tory government gave him a peerage and a seat in the House of Lords. He may have flunked but heā€™s come up smelling like a rose.

    2. Cameron is a total yob and no amount of money, Eton schooling and political rank will change that.

      The Wife of Bath, in the Prologue to her Tale, is very interested in what it is that makes a gentleman. She avers that it is not by how much money or land you possess or what titles you have but by your actions that you are or are not a gentleman;

      gentyl dedys meketh gentyl men.

      David Cameron is not a gentleman.

    2. Don't worry, Ed's on his way, in a fuel guzzling AirBus of course, with a bucket of sand.

  75. Starmer Spends Three Working Weeks On Private Flights in Travel Obsession

    Starmer is flying back from Baku tonight. Some hacks are asking ā€“ is Keir flying too much?

    Guido has crunched the numbers by tracking Starmerā€™s flights on government jets for overseas trips since 5th July. The PM and his crew have racked up an astonishing 125 hours and 30 minutes of flight time since they got into government. That means Starmer has spent, in hours, the equivalent of over three working weeks jetting around the globeā€¦

    Starmer has set an even stricter carbon emissions target for the UKā€™s citizens to adhere to in Baku than already existed. The country has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 60% in just over a decade. Guido has a suggestion for where to startā€¦

    3.16kg COā‚‚ are emitted per kilogram of jet fuel combusted. An Airbus A321, the model which Keir loves to jet around on, consumes between 2,200 and 2,440 ā€“ which means it puffs out approximately 7,331.2kg (or about 7.33 tonnes) of COā‚‚ per hour of flying.

    In the UK the average car driven for the average amount of time releases 1,393,920 grams of COā‚‚ into the atmosphere each year. Which means Starmer has exceeded the annual emissions of an average UK car by about 660 times ā€“ and thatā€™s just since the summer electionā€¦

    Keir was known for his love of limos back in the DPP job and racked up Ā£250,000 in personal travel expenses. This has blown that record out of the water. Does the PM have a phobia of not flying?

    1. Someone below the line of the Guido article called 2TK ā€œlanding gear Kierā€, which i liked

  78. Musk says investigating journalists for non-crimes ā€˜needs to stopā€™ after Allison Pearson case
    Worldā€™s richest man weighs in to support Telegraph writer after officers told her of inquiry into year-old social media post

    Musk has written on X, the social media platform he owns, to defend Allison Pearson
    Charles Hymas Home Affairs Editor.
    Craig Simpson Arts Editor.
    Daniel Martin Deputy Political Editor
    13 November 2024 12:03pm GMT

    Elon Musk has said that investigating journalists for non-crimes ā€œneeds to stopā€ following a police visit to a Telegraph writer.

    Allison Pearson has recounted how officers from Essex Police visited her home on the morning of Remembrance Sunday to inform her she was being investigated over a year-old post on X, formerly Twitter.

    She has described being told that she was being looked into regarding a ā€œnon-crime hate incidentā€, and the ā€œKafkaesqueā€ refusal of police to disclose the contents of her offending post.

    Musk, the worldā€™s richest man and a close ally of Donald Trump, has weighed into the free speech row to support the Telegraph writer.

    Writing on X, the platform he now owns, he wrote: ā€œThis needs to stop.ā€

    Musk, who has been outspoken on the issue of free speech and the actions of British police since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, has added to the growing outrage over the policeā€™s investigation of Pearson.

    Musk branded him ā€œtwo-tier Keirā€ following widespread riots across the UK, a reference to alleged ā€œtwo-tier policingā€ which resulted in Right-wing protesters being dealt with more harshly than Left-wing demonstrators.

    Musk levelled the criticism in response to footage showing rioters hurling missiles at a pub in Birmingham, some of whom were masked and holding Palestinian flags.

    After the incident, the billionaire Space X owner asked: ā€œWhy arenā€™t all communities protected in Britain?ā€

    His comments came following a government pledge to take swift action against those involved in disorder in the wake of the Southport attack.

    Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, called on officers to stop attempts to ā€œpolice thoughtā€.

    The Conservative MP said: ā€œThe Police should not be wasting time and resources targeting journalists or the public for simply expressing opinions. Only where the criminal threshold is met should police become involved.

    ā€œI do not think officers should be policing thought – only actual crimes that meet the criminal threshold.

    ā€œFreedom of expression must be protected, even where we disagree with the views being expressed. Police should concentrate on crime. Investigating opinions that are not criminal is totally unacceptable.ā€

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/13/TELEMMGLPICT000392285644_17314991628170_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Allison Pearson has said that she was being looked into regarding a ā€œnon-crime hate incidentā€ Credit: Heathcliff O'Malley
    Former Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith shared his outrage, saying that the incident was ā€œoutrageousā€.

    He added: ā€œWhat we are seeing is the police force turning into the thought police.

    ā€œThe police have far more important things to do than following up someoneā€™s concerns about what someone wrote a year ago.

    ā€œThis is definitely George Orwellā€™s 1984; very Big Brotherish.

    ā€œI feel sorry for the police who seem to be so badly led that officers are forced into this nonsense.

    ā€œWhat the public want is for them to crack down on shoplifting, violent threats and anti-social behaviour. If you want to know what hate is, that is hate.

    ā€œThey should deal with that rather than targeting journalists whose job is to speak freely.ā€

    ā€˜Orwellian in the extremeā€™
    Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, also commented on the incident, saying: ā€œOn Remembrance Sunday of all days, when we remember those who fell for democracy and freedom of speech, it is outrageous that Allison Pearson had to face police officers on her doorstep as the result of a freely-expressed opinion.

    ā€œThis is Orwellian in the extreme. Iā€™m absolutely appalled that Allison and others like her have to live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them. People must be worried sick.

    ā€œWe are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called ā€˜victimsā€™.ā€

    In a piece for The Telegraph, Pearson described how officers called at her house at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday, writing: ā€œI was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.ā€
    Pearson wrote that the officer told her they could not disclose the contents of the allegedly offending post.

    A year prior to the visit, she had been frequently commenting on the Oct 7 massacre in Israel and the subsequent pro-Palestinian marches in London.

    Essex Police said that officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly ā€œlikely or intended to cause racial hatredā€.

    A police spokesman told The Telegraph: ā€œWeā€™re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.

    ā€œAs part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.ā€

    The police have indicated that the alleged post is being looked into as a criminal matter.

    1. 'Former Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith shared his outrage, saying that the incident was "outrageous".'

      There are times when I despairfor the future of the English language.

      2. Standard English started to go down the pan, Katy, during the early 20th century and its demise ā€“ at the altar of vapid Americanese ā€“ has accelerated during the current century.

        English used to be an evolving language. From the time of Chaucer; via the linguistic athleticism of Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, Donne and Goldsmith; ending with the exquisite prose of The Brontƫs, Austin, Dickens and Kipling.

        Since then its devolution into omnipresent slang ā€” allied to the ubiquitous grunting of obscenities ā€” marks its death throes and its complete disappearance from the vocabulary of the contemporary excuse-for-humanity.

        Even Daily Telegraph journalists and BBC correspondents speak (and write) in this idiotic new way; where the apple is now pronounced "thuh apple"; once and twice have been routinely supplanted by "one time" and "two times"; and every collective (of anything, even water) is described as a "bunch" or a "whole bunch".

        Not for me. I shall hang on to normal, proper, standard English until I squeak my last breath.

        1. I couldn’t agree more.

          I have a student whose English is advanced, and she’s now very used to me explaining the correct way to express something, then immediately grumbling that very few native speakers bother, even if they know it to begin wih, hmph hmph… šŸ¤£šŸ¤£

    2. These ridiculous ā€˜hate lawsā€™ should never have been passed in the first place. It seems anyone can take offence at anything these days and kick up a stink about it. Classic ā€˜cancel cultureā€™ behaviour.

      1. They wouldn't even tell Allison Pearson who had complained about her. Their identity was protected as he/she was classed as a victim. This is wholly subjective, politically motivated abuse of our laws.

    3. Any police officer, turning up at my door and stating that he wants to 'check my thinking' will be told, abruptly:

      "If you can read my mind then you will be in no doubt, whatsoever, that it will be in your best interests to vacate my property in double-quick time before precisely what you are reading will descend upon you personally, in rapid, unexpurgated fury."

    4. Any police officer, turning up at my door and stating that he wants to 'check my thinking' will be told, abruptly:

      "If you can read my mind then you will be in no doubt, whatsoever, that it will be in your best interests to vacate my property in double-quick time before precisely what you are reading will descend upon you personally, in rapid, unexpurgated fury."

    5. See Gov UK website, Home Office – Non Crime Hate Incidents Code of Practice for info about these nonsense laws. It includes such gems as:

      11. A non-crime hate incident (NCHI) means an incident or alleged incident which involves or is alleged to involve an act by a person (ā€˜the subjectā€™) which is perceived by a person other than the subject to be motivated – wholly or partly – by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic.

      7. Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are recorded by the police to collect information on ā€˜hate incidentsā€™ that could escalate into more serious harm or indicate heightened community tensions, but which do not constitute a criminal offence.

      14. An ā€œincidentā€ is defined in the National Standard for Incident Recording (NSIR) as ā€œa single distinct event or occurrence which disturbs an individual, group or communityā€™s quality of life or causes them concernā€. The NSIR covers all crime and non-crime incidents.

      Blooper Cooper raised community tensions by calling all the Southport protestors, 'criminals' when they hadn't even been charged yet. Pipsquawk Butler constantly raises community tensions through her anti-white abuse. Both of these individuals cause me 'concern'.

    1. UK may not still be nominally in the EU but it makes little difference as it has almost gone already.

      Who's next?

    2. You probably know this, but the circle of yellow stars was originally inspired by a statuette of the Virgin Mary seen at a church in France, possibly Paris or Strasbourg. ArsĆØne Heitz, the man who submitted the design (circa 1955) to the Council of Europe then had his creation re-worked by one of the bosses, the Belgian Paul Levy who took the credit, naturallement.

  83. An hour and a half of getting the last of the apples picked and I'm now in to do the dinner.
    Just peeling and chopping an onion before frying it and doing myself a mug of tea.

    Taken some more photos I'll be posting later.

    2. Can't they manage an old fashioned room clearing silent fart without parental and mechanical assistance?

  85. Ukrainian car bomb kills Russian navy captain in Crimea.

    The bomb exploded during morning rush hour in the city of Sevastopol, killing Captain Valery Trankovsky, a first-rank captain in Russiaā€™s Black Sea fleet.

    ā€œAs a result of the explosion, the Russian captainā€™s legs were blown off and he died of blood loss,ā€ a Ukrainian security source said.

    The source described Trankovsky as a ā€œwar criminalā€ responsible for the launch of cruise missiles from the Black Sea at civilian targets in Ukraine.

    This glorying in personalised bloodshed is a particularly Ukrainian trait

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/13/russia-ukraine-war-zelensky-putin-trump-latest-news/

  86. One for Grizz…

    Some days, I feel like I'm surrounded by idiots. Other days, I realise it's not just some days…

  87. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The absurdity of the Guardian never fails to amuse. Now the lefty newspaper has decided it is too good for one of the worldā€™s most used social media platforms and today announced it will no longer use Twitter ā€“ by posting on, er, Twitter. You couldnā€™t make it upā€¦

    Sharing a link to an article explaining ā€˜why the Guardian is no longer posting on Xā€™ on the site itself, the Grauniad editorial states rather pompously that:

    We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere. This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including the far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.

    Golly. Donā€™t hold back! The article signs off with a rather unsubtle dig at those less noble competitors choosing to remain on the platform, with the editorial concluding: ā€˜Thankfully, we can do this because our business model does not rely on viral content tailored to the whims of the social media giantsā€™ algorithms.ā€™ Pew pew!

    Itā€™s tough talk ā€“ but will the lefty lot really manage to stay away? Watch this spaceā€¦

    Steerpike
    WRITTEN BY
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. This always made me chuckle..
      Mark Zuckerberg had announced Threads at a time when Twitter users were miffed with the micro-blogging platform. And within five days of launch, Threads reportedly reached over 100 million sign-ups. 26 Jul 2023

      Followed by:
      This is a sharp decline of 52% in one week. Based on August 2023 data, Threads' user activity has decreased even more. The platform fell to just 10.3 million daily active users, down over 79% since the peak.

  89. Just had first hand confirmation of the predicted consequences of the Reeves budget.
    Mrs VVOF just had a local firm in for a quote for new flooring and the conversation touched upon when the work could be done if we decide to go ahead. They said that they had a trainee but after two minimum wage increases and the increase in employer National Insurance contributions since they took him on, they had to let him go, so it would be later than they would normally aim for.
    Well done Starmer and Reeves, the level of incompetence we expect of you and your party!

    1. Poor lad. More dreams crushed.
      I hope he gets an offer from somewhere else pretty quickly.

      1. Yes an innocent victim of Labour economic incompetence.
        You can understand the circumstances, small family firm trying to keep their heads above water, doing what is necessary to survive.

  90. Just had first hand confirmation of the predicted consequences of the Reeves budget.
    Mrs VVOF just had a local firm in for a quote for new flooring and the conversation touched upon when the work could be done if we decide to go ahead. They said that they had a trainee but after two minimum wage increases and the increase in employer National Insurance contributions since they took him on, they had to let him go, so it would be later than they would normally aim for.
    Well done Starmer and Reeves, the level of incompetence we expect of you and your party!

  91. Nine hours and 52 minutes: did Dave Strachanā€™s ambulance wait cost him his life? 13 November. 2024.

    On the evening of 15 March 2022, Lucille and Dave Strachan had supper in their north Wales home, watched their favourite TV show, Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, then went upstairs to bed. Apart from one bout of food poisoning in the 1970s, Dave had never been ill before. But at about 11.20pm he woke up and told Lucille he had chest pains and difficulty breathing.

    There is a lesson here for those wishing to learn. If you or anyone close to you becomes seriously ill. You should do your best to get them to hospital under your own power. You can apologise to the NHS later.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/13/nine-hours-52-minutes-did-dave-strachan-ambulance-wait-cost-him-his-life

    1. A taxi to A&E if you don't have a car but if the patient can't walk and is too heavy to carry, that's difficult?

      1. Afternoon Sue. Lifting people without the aid of stretcher is phenomenally difficult. I once had to help carry a drunken overweight woman. It was impossible. She was like a fourteen stone jelly. Eventually we got a kitchen chair and jammed it under her backside and carried her by the legs and chair back. They should have done the same with Mr Strachan.

    2. A woman who broke her leg falling on the pavement outside her Shropshire home was forced to lie in the street for 12 hours waiting for an ambulance.

      When Jean Frickel fell ill, her family called an ambulance so she could get the crucial life-extending help she needed.

      There used to be one per month of these stories.. now like stabbings.. only reported if it involves small children or over five people.

      1. Some good news, there aren't actually that many stabbings as a result of knife attacks.

        The bad news, any stab type injuries seen are actually the result of machete attacks.

    3. If you go by ambulance you are taken straight into A&E and see a ā€˜medicā€™. If you make your own way you are required to wait the recommended 4-5 hours.
      Not much of a choice is it.

      1. I have to say that wasn't my experience. When a friend took me to A&E I was seen fairly promptly. When I arrived by ambulance I was kept waiting on a trolley for hours.

        1. I went to A&E last week and the queue to register was out of the door and, I estimated, it would have 1.5 to 2 hours just to get in. I went to another hospital.

    4. That is certainly the lesson we have learned round here; we've had fatalities and near fatalities waiting for an ambulance to turn up.

    5. The difference is that a paramedic is trained to keep the patient alive until the ambulance driver arrives at the hospital. But a spouse would be driving the car and unable to help. I used to know someone who, very sadly, died in the car whilst being driven to hospital after having suffered a heart attack late at night.

    6. The difference is that a paramedic is trained to keep the patient alive until the ambulance driver arrives at the hospital. But a spouse would be driving the car and unable to help. I used to know someone who, very sadly, died in the car whilst being driven to hospital after having suffered a heart attack late at night.

    7. The difference is that a paramedic is trained to keep the patient alive until the ambulance driver arrives at the hospital. But a spouse would be driving the car and unable to help. I used to know someone who, very sadly, died in the car whilst being driven to hospital after having suffered a heart attack late at night.

    1. As April 27 approaches, there will also be some concerned offspring of parents with large pension pots hoping for divine intervention or a well positioned lightening strike before the new inheritance tax laws kick in..

      1. I would have hoped that those offspring would actually hope that their parent survives long enough to enjoy their pension.

    2. Ed Davey – only 31% unfavourable???? Perhaps we can remind the undecided and "favourable" of his role in the Post Office scandal, for a start!?

    1. I thought he was blaming the women of the house for the vile treatment of his daughter. What a vile animal.

      1. Iā€™ve a great idea. Letā€™s leg even more people on like him. What could possibly go wrong?

      2. One wonders how many disgusting people are hiding and creating sheer misery for the poor youngsters in the UK.

        However , one very vile creature who was a white solicitor , took his vile fantasies to other countries damaging children overseas as well as this country .

  97. Not sure if this has already been posted. If they can do this to their 10 year old daughter what are they capable of with strangers?

    The father of Sara Sharif has told jurors he ā€œtakes full responsibilityā€ for the death of his 10-year-old daughter.

    Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, made the admission under cross-examination as his wife Beinash Batool, 30, sobbed in the dock of the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

    Previously, Sharif had sought to blame Batool for killing his daughter, but in a dramatic admission, told jurors: ā€œI accept every single thing.ā€

    Sara was found dead at the family home in Woking, Surrey, on Aug 10 last year after the defendants fled to Pakistan.

    The 10-year-old suffered dozens of injuries including human bite marks and iron burns, jurors have heard.

    Sharif, Batool, and Saraā€™s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, deny Saraā€™s murder and causing or allowing her death.

    Sara Sharif was found dead at the family home last August
    Sara Sharif was found dead at the family home last August Credit: Surrey Police/PA
    Cross-examining for Batool, Caroline Carberry KC had asked Sharif about a note he left beside the body of his daughter before leaving for Pakistan.

    In it he wrote ā€œlove you Saraā€ on the first page followed by the words: ā€œWhoever see this note itā€™s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating.ā€

    Ms Carberry asked if he did indeed kill his daughter by beating and Sharif replied: ā€œYes, she died because of me.ā€

    The barrister said: ā€œIn the weeks before she died she suffered multiple fractures to her body, didnā€™t she, and it was you who inflicted those injuries?ā€

    The defendant replied: ā€œYes.ā€

    Sharif accepted causing the injuries, bar burn and bite marks, and added: ā€œI take responsibility. I take full responsibility.ā€

    He admitted causing fractures to Sara by hitting her with a cricket bat or pole.

    Asked if he broke Saraā€™s hyoid neck bone, he repeated: ā€œI can take full responsibility. I accept every single thing.ā€

    Ms Carberry went on: ā€œI suggest on the night of the 6th August you badly beat Sara.ā€

    Speaking barely above a whisper in the witness box, Sharif replied: ā€œI accept everything.ā€

    2. Entering a not guilty plea after that admission should double the sentence. Interesting to see a taxi driver has an expensive car, lives in leafy Woking and can afford to travel club class on the airlines. HMRC should have an interest too.

    3. That poor child must have suffered terribly. She was beautiful, even if she was caked with make-up. I wonder if she was destined for the uncle, and maybe she didn't like the idea.

  100. Leader of the Lib Dem council who has introduced the new four-day week for staff, said
    ā€œThe results from our four-day week trial painted a really positive picture."

    Angela Rayner set to introduce working a four-day week – whilst being paid for five for all Public sector workers.. As council tax across the country soars.

    Elon Musk.. SOS HELP!

    1. Nice work for thems that can get it. Letā€™s hope the council delivers exemplary services!

      1. Like our County, where everybody seems to be working from home, they'll have such a deficit that they'll start charging extra for any services they can get away with.

  101. Leader of the Lib Dem council who has introduced the new four-day week for staff, said
    ā€œThe results from our four-day week trial painted a really positive picture."

    Angela Rayner set to introduce working a four-day week – whilst being paid for five for all Public sector workers.. As council tax across the country soars.

    Elon Musk.. SOS HELP!

    1. Another of the institutions I grew up with turns out to have feet of clay. That's really depressing. Does nobody have any form of moral compass, a sense of right & wrong, any more?

  103. Follow on from the Allison Pearson 'Kafkaesque' investigation..

    My name is Brian Martin. I was arrested two years ago for allegedly "grossly offending" former England manager Gareth Southgate. I have been through 3 Court cases where I was not allowed to speak, have legal representation, call witnesses, give evidence or defend myself as the Prosecutor refused to cross examine me. Found "guilty" despite proving my innocence using Article 10 of the ECHR. So now to the European Court of Human Rights.

    Elon Musk.. SOS HELP!

    1. Good grief. What a world. What s man Southgate must be. His parents must be do proud of him.

      Gareth, stick it to the man, yeah.

    3. The comment must have been bad as Southgate doesn't have any protected characteristics. Maybe a remark about his choice of penalty takers was not entirely based on ability, Allegedly…

  104. Follow on from the Allison Pearson 'Kafkaesque' investigation..

    My name is Brian Martin. I was arrested two years ago for allegedly "grossly offending" former England manager Gareth Southgate. I have been through 3 Court cases where I was not allowed to speak, have legal representation, call witnesses, give evidence or defend myself as the Prosecutor refused to cross examine me. Found "guilty" despite proving my innocence using Article 10 of the ECHR. So now to the European Court of Human Rights.

    Elon Musk.. SOS HELP!

  105. Bitcoin has increased by Ā£25,000 to Ā£73,000. My small portfolio has increased by 115% in the last 30 days.

      1. I don't leave it alone. I always cream off the top when it hits new heights. Leaving some behind of course.

          4. Suggestions are it's going to keep going.

            Would you like an invitation to the country i buy to attend my coronation?

          8. Minimum age would have to be 45. Those under that are a bit needy.

            Oh ! Sorry ! Did you want me to specify all their ages?

      2. What is it they say.. No one got fired for making a profit.

        (Except those that missed the biggest bull run.. like ever).

        1. hmm zoom works on my laptop.. well over a $million.
          However, a lot before that.. next stop $168,000.. then something nasty across the board SP500 Gold etc.. coming up next year?

          1. A ha. Just clicked the image without moving it to a new tab and it worked. Of course every bubble bursts which is why i am a cautious investor.

          4. My gold will plate my coffin in the most fabulous way. Knowing my immediate family, they will attempt to kill each other to get it or dig me up.
            Not knowing me and the gold is in the Bahamas sipping cocktails.

    4. Just imagine:
      Millbrain's and the COP's net zero destroys the ability of bitcoin miners to create new coinage, because power is too expensive and intermittent.
      Does this:
      A) Bankrupt the process making Bitcoin worthless
      B) Make all the existing bitcoins even more valuable?

      Take your profits, leaving your original stake in place, and RUN

      1. I did buy one yes. I bought across five crypto currencies. In the hope at least one would take off.

  106. A preened Par Four!

    Wordle 1,243 4/6
    ā¬œā¬œā¬œā¬œšŸŸØ
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    šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©

    Entered wrong word in Line 3 – Duh!

    1. Still good. I made hard work of it!

      Wordle 1,243 6/6

      ā¬œā¬œšŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
      ā¬œā¬œšŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
      ā¬œšŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
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      šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
      šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©

    2. Unlucky, it's a real pain when you do that……..

      Again, I was in the fortunate position that, when I had my first four letters , there really was no alternative to the correct answer! Boidie!!

      Wordle 1,243 3/6

      ā¬œā¬œā¬œā¬œšŸŸØ
      ā¬œšŸŸØšŸŸ©ā¬œšŸŸØ
      šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©

      1. Good one.
        Wordle 1,243 5/6

        ā¬œā¬œā¬œšŸŸØā¬œ
        šŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œā¬œ
        šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
        šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œ
        šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©

    3. A Birdie for a welcome change.

      Wordle 1,243 3/6

      ā¬œā¬œā¬œā¬œā¬œ
      šŸŸ©šŸŸ©ā¬œā¬œšŸŸØ
      šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©šŸŸ©

  107. Kemi and Keir ā€“ The Needle Not The Knuckle-Duster For The Knockout

    It may be that sunny, smiling Kemi has found a flaw in Keirā€™s make-up. His arch-episcopal demeanour falls off quite sharply at certain points in PMQs. He becomes energised, leans in, raises a finger, refers to the Opposition as ā€˜that lot over thereā€™. The excitement is too much for his voice, it tightens up (for those old enough to remember) into a version of Peter Cookā€™s character E.L. Wisty, or even less suitably, Derek from the Derek and Clive tapes. It is almost impossible to imagine Keir Starmer reciting ā€œThe worst job I ever hadā€ from those times; the mind stops sharply at the words ā€œJayne Mansfieldā€™sā€. But his taut, twisted almost tortured voice lingers on as an impression of the mystery beneath.

    What is it about the Leader of the Opposition? Her smile, her warmth, her hair? Something about Kemi brings out the party machismo in Keir. Labour has certainly had a reputation for it since Alastair ā€˜Two-fistā€™ Campbell made his mark on the media culture. The impulse to bully young, impertinent, confident women is a general male failing but especially strong in men committed to equality, diversity and inclusion.

    With Nigel Farage, Keir is easy and affable. Partly, because he wants those Red Wall voters back but perhaps as much that they are blokes. The Reform leader, with his customary ease, suggested Keir might go some way to repairing relations with Donald Trump by proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Wouldnā€™t that be possible, now it was clear they had commissioned an assassin to kill the US President?

    Nice to see him back in the country after so long in America, the PM said to shouts of laughter from his side. Half expecting to see him in the immigration statistics, he went on. Ecstatic backbenchers. One head literally exploding, awful mess. On the matter of banning the IRG, Keir said he would consult across the House and with our allies.

    Hard to see the need for much consultation, Farageā€™s face said eloquently, but itā€™s probably more complicated than it seems. The IRG canā€™t be all bad ā€“ they really understand how to keep, young, impertinent women in their place for one thing, and for another thereā€™s the Islamophobia vote.

    Ayoub Khan (independent, who beat Labourā€™s Khalid Mahmood this year and may be the first hon. Member of 30-strong Islamic party come 2029) asked the PM to adopt the Islamic definition of Islamophobia. Keir decided not to give his own definition in case the police arrested him at the despatch box as a hate criminal.

    Why Islam shouldnā€™t be called as loathsome as Leviticus is something liberals are unable to explain, but letā€™s leave that to the police shortly to be knocking on your sketchwriterā€™s door.

    We are still at the introductory stage of Keir and Kemi. Neither has worked the other out.

    The PM is flat footed, that might be a starting point for a despatch box strategy (he isnā€™t losing badly enough on that). Kemi is famously argumentative (she isnā€™t winning enough on that).

    ā€œWe have stabilised the economyā€ is calling for a memorable, quotable rejoinder. ā€We havenā€™t touched National Insurance,ā€ needs some neat knife-work. And the idea that net zero with its multi-billion requirements will reduce energy prices is a gift to an opposition.

    Net zero is a vast iceberg which will rip apart Labourā€™s titanic ambitions for the economy. Only a tenth of it is visible at the moment, but we know the jagged parts are there and we know the ship of state is accelerating deliberately and steadfastedly, directly at it.

    LOTO might think of luring her opponent into vocalising some of the 70 impossible things hiding in the net zero plan. Thereā€™s a wealth of industry information in there waiting to be put into the public domain ā€“ the jobs, the lower prices, the energy security (energy security! Oh, my aching ribs!).

    13 November 2024 @ 16:15

      1. Indeed. Simon Carr was in the headings copied from Guido but failed to show up in the 'paste'.

    3. 396834+ up ticks,

      Evening C1,

      lest we forget, we are dealing in the main via peoples with power, criminals, so must translate to criminal rhetoric as in

      A "snow job" is an informal term used to describe a deliberate attempt to deceive or persuade someone:

    1. Its a day free viewing to celebrate their 30th anniversary of going online. Also the day they have deleted most comments on the AP article, I suspect.

  111. Senator John Thune elected as Senate majority leader.
    A good start for Trump
    Written just a day ago:

    As Congress returns to Washington, we must prepare the Senate to advance President Trumpā€™s agenda legislatively and ensure that the president-elect can hit the ground running with his appointees confirmed as soon as possible.

    1. Thune said after the vote that he's "extremely honored" to have earned the support of his fellow senators and "beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House.ā€
      ā€œThis Republican team is united behind President Trumpā€™s agenda, and our work starts today,ā€ he said.
      Thune will hold a news conference with the new Senate Republican leadership team following the Republican Conference meeting, his office said.

    1. Jerusalem looks like a scene from the Life of Brian. I expected someone to ask directions to the stoning!

    1. He should expect a custodial sentence, the judge said.

      Shame he can't be castrated and then deported; along with all those who worked so assiduously to keep him in the UK.

      1. Gosh – there's a surprise. Three months, I expect – "didn't understand the English way of life …"

  115. 'Night All
    Haven't been about much had a nasty fall Monday night smashed a table to smithereens and cut up my arm not realising how bad it was I crawled off to bed and thanks to the blasted blood thinners awoke to a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,claret everywhere
    Just about cleaned up now dressings off to let everything dry out and scab over this getting old malarkey is no fun
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea18347835ca97b87f5a3a943b1e24e0630a0a8f0a24290bc182f6b5d1df4b8f.png

      1. Superficial,very messy and painful but nothing broken in fact looking at the splintered bits of the table i got off lightly

    5. Look on the bright side.
      You've bounced back.
      Hope the scabs stay solid, my thinners seem to make them more akin to jelly than cover.

      1. Thinners are a nightmare. I gave up on mine – a simple nosebleed (which I get a couple of times a week) would last two HOURS….

        1. So far, apart from superficial bleeds, all the pills I've been prescribed seem to be OK, on the basis I'm not aware of any adverse consequences.
          Perhaps they cancel each other out, there are so many of them.

    10. Wishing you a speedy recovery Rik. I'm thinking of doing this chair exercise stuff I've seen – I tried one of the exercises that I saw and couldn't get my elbow anywhere near my knee (which is what one of the exercises was about).

      KBO!

    11. OMG,

      Rik, what a fright and equally a shock .. I do hope you have a plentiful supply of dressings everywhere .

      I am also on blood thinners, so I have plasters in the car , they are also scattered around the house, I have been on them for a few years now.

      Slightest knock or scratch, blood everywhere , my valuable type O pos.

      I used to be a blood donor , and have contributed 40 pints to the donor service in the past before problems arose!

    12. Do i speak here or by email. I have had many falls, cracked ribs and other damage.
      We can talk. I won't post that you slipped putting the fishnets on….:@)

    13. It can be messy, Rik. Ain't life grand?
      What's quite amazing is that the first thought is "What a mess I've made!", and not, "Blimey, I could have bled to death!"

    14. Ouch. I share your pain, Rik. Been there. I rather over-reached from a (quite high) kitchen bar stool in the direction of the worktop last night. Wish I hadn't paid the gravity bill.

      Acquired a black eye, and a few aches and pains. And another dead laptop. Sharing as I do Gloria Gaynor's initials, I Will Survive.

      Just to add to the fun, my landline & internet have gone down this evening. Vodafone, my ISP confirms there's a fault, and Openreach promised to fix it within the next 365 days*

      Next door has the same problem. Different provider (BT) and has been promised an engineer on Monday.

      Trouble is, the mobile signal here is rubbish. I'm on 4G at present, but – more often than not – the phone is on Wi-Fi Calling – i.e. no mobile signal. Hence ATM I'm on the brink of being offline…

      Tomorrow's new page may be late. But, if all else fails, I can take my solitary remaining functioning** laptop to Wanborough Station, and use SWR WiFi.

      *They say 48 hrs, but I refuse to build my hopes up, only to be cruelly dashed.

      **It's so old that the CMOS battery is exhausted. Hence I have to keep it on charge.

      Ho hum.

    15. Worth mentioning that warfarin can be 'cancelled' in about 30 minutes with an injection of vitamin K, whereas more modern anti-coagulants take much longer to de-activate.

  116. That's me for today. Did some useful tree-felling – well, cutting down two small dead elders! Nothing like Robert's forestry!

    Market tomorrow. And – wonder of wonders later – an appointment with a DOCTOR – only four weeks after I booked it…. Simply to get referred to the deafness clinic – I said SIMPLY TO GET……!!

    Have a jolly evening – lots about Thomas Hardy on BBC4 (for the second week running).

    A demain – if I am spared.

    1. I 'discovered' Thomas Hardy by accident. When a friend was complaining how much she hated having to study Thomas Hardy, curiosity led me to borrow one of her copies – I was hooked! Almost 50 years later, I still have my copies on the bookcase.

    2. I 'discovered' Thomas Hardy by accident. When a friend was complaining how much she hated having to study Thomas Hardy, curiosity led me to borrow one of her copies – I was hooked! Almost 50 years later, I still have my copies on the bookcase.

    1. It was my standard response to my children when they scraped a knee or similar:

      "Look on the bright side, it might have been worse, it might have been me"

      My other stock in trade to "that's not fair" was:

      "I'm not fair, life's not fair, and who told you it would be?"

    2. It was my standard response to my children when they scraped a knee or similar:

      "Look on the bright side, it might have been worse, it might have been me"

      My other stock in trade to "that's not fair" was:

      "I'm not fair, life's not fair, and who told you it would be?"

  118. Please be reminded when Starmer's Staatssicherheit turn up on your doorstep.. that one cannot be a victim of hurty words.. until proven in a court of law. Until such time they must be referred to as "claimants".

    1. However, before you start getting any ideas.. Fahir Amaaz, and his brother Muhammad Amaad really are victims.. and all charges of nose breaking must be dropped against them if and when that unlikely course of events should erroneously take place.

    2. However, before you start getting any ideas.. Fahir Amaaz, and his brother Muhammad Amaad really are victims.. and all charges of nose breaking must be dropped against them if and when that unlikely course of events should erroneously take place.

  119. Please be reminded when Starmer's Staatssicherheit turn up on your doorstep.. that one cannot be a victim of hurty words.. until proven in a court of law. Until such time they must be referred to as "claimants".

  120. Angela Rayner is trashing Britainā€™s last remaining competitive advantage

    Our flexible jobs market was all we had left and itā€™s being squandered. No wonder unemployment is shooting up

    Annabel Denham Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    13 November 2024 7:00am GMT

    Milton Friedman may never have managed to cadge a free lunch, but if you work in the public sector these days, you might get a near equivalent. Those in state employment are now set to see their pay rises overtake those in the private sector for the first time since the pandemic, even though their output has yet to recover to pre-Covid levels. In other words, public sector staff are doing less with more, and the taxpayer is rewarding them for it.

    Insofar as this can be labelled a ā€œstrategyā€, it is about as likely to plug Britainā€™s productivity shortfall as the Governmentā€™s plans to roll out French-style employment protections across our economy. Labour considers this an unalloyed good: ā€œIt does contribute to productivity, it does contribute to their resilience… their ability to stay working for their employer,ā€ burbles our new business secretary ā€“ whose main previous employment was as a political bag-carrier.

    Itā€™s not hard to see how workers might benefit: the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just revealed that remote employees sleep more and work less. Whoā€™d have thought it? They also have more time to exercise, spend less on childcare and dodge the commute. Surveys have suggested one in 10 will take a siesta on the job; four in five homebodies admit to watching daytime TV whilst ā€œworkingā€. All of this sounds rather nice for employees. It might also explain why many firms are three-line whipping their staff back into the office.

    The battle wonā€™t be easily won and some bosses ā€“ who feel flexible working patterns can boost their bottom lines ā€“ wonā€™t want to fight it. There hasnā€™t been a great post-Covid correction: 28 per cent of workers are hybrid working, and itā€™s on an upwards trend. Now, the Labour Government, Britainā€™s largest employer by some distance, wants us to go further. It introduced an Employment Rights Bill within 100 days of taking office ā€“ one promise it has actually managed to keep.

    Angela Rayner has just dropped official opposition to the introduction of a four-day working week by Liberal Democrat-run South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC), paving the way for other local authorities to do similar.

    The evidence that SCDCā€™s trial of reduced hours last year was the triumph its advocates insist looks pretty shaky. For a start, the ā€œindependentā€ report into the pilot seemingly failed to consult local residents and council taxpayers on their experience ā€“ a telling omission, a cynic might think. Even if the claims made about this experiment can be taken at face value, what does it say about an organisation and the diligence of its staff that they could be as productive in four days as five? Would you trust them to keep up even their currently leisurely pace in future?

    Enjoying taxpayer largesse on a 32-hour week with full pay and a right to WFH may be nice work if you can get it, but few stop to consider the impact on those who canā€™t. It was reported yesterday that UK unemployment has shot up to 4.3 per cent ā€“ higher than most economists were expecting. Warnings abound that our jobs market is cooling, with ONS data showing employers are reducing hiring, exactly as was predicted when Labour began proselytising about ā€œnew dealsā€ for workers. The decision to increase the national minimum wage ā€“ already one of the highest in the world ā€“ and hike employersā€™ National Insurance can only dampen it further.

    This is the reality of Labourā€™s extension of workersā€™ rights. Not some utopian future where businesses exist to enhance the wellbeing of staff, but higher levels of unemployment as companies realise they cannot afford to hire or retain workers. Our flexible jobs market is one of Britainā€™s few remaining comparative advantages: if weā€™re not careful, weā€™ll morph into France, where the worker is king and the unemployment rate is 7.3 per cent.

    There is another way bosses could circumvent these new laws: by cutting pay for flexible workers. A 2022 study found employees put the value of WFH two to three days per week at 5 per cent of their pay. In a free market, remuneration will adjust to reflect this, with staff who do show up finding pay increases over time relative to those who donā€™t. This would reflect the fact that companies who embrace remote working can choose from a wider pool of talent, rather than exclusively the expensive British managerial class.

    But in the public sector, pay structures are rigid, making it less likely. More probably theyā€™ll continue to enjoy what Jacob Rees-Mogg described as ā€œnice and comfortableā€ working conditions, even if it means taxpayers donā€™t get the services they deserve.

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

    David Peddy
    11 hrs ago
    Labour , in its current manifestation , are wrong about everything

    Stuart Reed
    10 hrs ago
    Reply to David Peddy – view message
    Not dissimilar to the last Tory governments though, the problem is rather widespread.

    Anthony Plowright
    10 hrs ago
    Reply to Stuart Reed
    The last government were not communists.

    Penny Russell-Smith
    7 hrs ago
    Reply to Anthony Plowright
    They weren't Conservatives either.

    1. Never mind "in its current manifestation", David. Labour is always wrong about everything, but particularly the economy. Witness Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair, Brown and now Starmer with Rachel Reeves Queen of Thieves.

    2. It's easy to criticise people working from home until you remember that modern offices deliberately cut down the parking spaces in order to force workers to take the bus, walk or cycle, no matter how inconvenient, cold and tiring the journey then becomes for them.

    3. Just make it illegal to dismiss anybody other than for thought and hate crimes. Then make it illegal to go bankrupt and compel people to purchase goods and services from failing businesses. The possibilities for keeping unproductive, lazy and bone idle people in employment are endless.

    1. I like WOMEN… not trafficked for elites like Clinton, Gates et al that use children for their own gratification.
      The fall of an Arch bishop should be the beginning not the end.
      These people disgust me to the bottom of my stomach.

      BTW… Nottler ladies are of the mature variety and have more interesting stories. Mostly because they weren't drugged senseless when they attended my little soirees.

  122. 396834+ up ticks,

    This is the type of issue labour was voted in for,was it not?

    Dt,

    Dia Chakravarty

    Waste Watch: Private healthcare for illegal migrants while NHS walk-in centre shuts down
    Every Wednesday in this weekly series, Waste Watch will expose the shocking ways in which taxpayer money is abused

        1. Much as I dislike the most recent outcome, the thought of parties with a tiny number of representatives holding the balance of power appals me.
          Islam by the back door.

          1. 1. Voting should be compulsory
            2. Certain people should not be given the vote even if they are allowed to stay in this country
            3. Less than required % to win, and there would have to be another election.

          3. Indeed, sorry I took that as a given. That would count against the % for a winning vote – and if it was the winning vote there would have to be a re-election anyway.

          4. 1. No, definitely not. No decent democracy would impose that. It goes against all the principles of freedom and freedom of expression. I just do not understand people who propose it.

          5. Why – you can vote for NOTA? It is compulsory to register a birth, to register a car and to keep your driving licence up to date.

          7. If compelled to cast a vote against my wishes, I would spoil the ballot paper. If that were deemed illegal, I would vote for the candidate I thought least likely to win, regardless of their ideology and campaign agenda.

          8. None of the Above should be perfectly acceptable, so I am not sure what that says against compulsion to vote?

          9. Because I want to be free to sit on my fat arse and neither visit a polling station nor post a ballot paper if I don't feel like it.

          10. Fair enough, but then don't be upset if this country is taken over by incomers whose imams or other leaders make sure that they vote. Your right to vote was won, like this country was fought for, by previous generations.

          11. It's extremely unlikely that my one vote – or absence thereof – will make an iota of difference.

          12. That is the point – if more people had voted then perhaps Labour wouldn’t have got in, or at least not with the majority they have. Each person who didn’t vote no doubt thought that their vote wouldn’t make a difference, but if enough people think like that it does make a difference – and it did.

            Anyway, we happily are able to agree to differ.

          13. 1. If you choose not to vote then you accept that others will determine the composition of the government.
            2. Previous generations fought for freedom, that includes the freedom to choose not to vote.
            3. If you believe in a democracy and freedom then you should not compel others to do something they do not want to do.
            4. In answer to your reply below, registering a car, driving licences are about living in an ordered society. They are process activities. Completely different to making it compulsory to express an opinion.

          14. That is all fair enough and in the past I would have agreed with you totally. My view is now that it is increasingly important for people to vote as we are in danger of being outvoted by people who do vote (one way or another) and who don’t have the welfare of this country at heart. I feel it is a bit more than merely expressing an opinion, it is exercising a right that we may lose in the future.

            However, we shall cordially have to agree to differ.

          15. 1. If you choose not to vote then you accept that others will determine the composition of the government.
            2. Previous generations fought for freedom, that includes the freedom to choose not to vote.
            3. If you believe in a democracy and freedom then you should not compel others to do something they do not want to do.
            4. In answer to your reply below, registering a car, driving licences are about living in an ordered society. They are process activities. Completely different to making it compulsory to express an opinion.

          16. In Spain an adult citizen can be selected (by public lottery) to attend and preside at his or her local 'electoral table'. Think of jury service, but at a polling station. Aged between 18 and 70 years old, able to read and write.

  125. Last post. While laying the table for supper, a thought struck me about Allison Pearson's "hate crime".

    She has frequently written articles exposing wokery and two-tier justice etc etc. Perhaps the Pencil Monitor and Cur Ikea want to frighten her into silence. Perhaps there was NO "crime" last year – the fuzz just made up an excuse to knock on her door……..as ordered by the PM and C Ikea.

    Wouldn't surprise me these days.

    Till tomorrow.

    2. It was easy to tar and feather Tommy Robinson.
      Now 'they' have come up with someone with a voice and connections.

      A Telegraph journalist no less. I can imagine those junior plods sent to intimidate her in to shutting up. They have no idea.

      I look forward to what Sir Mark Rowley has to say about his control of his police force !!!

      1. You'll be looking forward for a long time then, Pip. Even if Rowley does open his mouth on the subject he won't actually say anything.

        1. Thanks for posting and good on Dan for the interview and highlighting the gross miscarriages of justice that occurred in August 2024

    3. I don't know how the heck she's supposed to know what the tweet/message/WA is from a year ago, without them even showing it to her. Possibly a shot across the bows, message to other journalists UK and everywhere.

      1. "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for one fine afternoon, without him having done anything wrong, he was arrested"

        Loose translation.

        1. Ah yes, not seen it but I think based on Kafka? I was just thinking about The Trial the other day, great minds eh…love the red squirrel avatar, Sam – rarely seen now UK (I think on IoW and some in Fleetwood – blasted greys finished them off, they’re suitable for their very own Trial….

          2. Yes, good forests…there was an urban myth following WW2 a chap set off with bags of various nuts, planted them and that’s how the forests came about…heard it in R4 so must be true šŸ¤”šŸ˜

          3. Yes KJ that's a translation of the first sentence of the book.

            I chose a red squirrel as my avatar as it's symbolic of native white English people who will soon be subject to the same fate as English red squirrels.

          4. He’s unforgettable in style, must pick up with him again. Yes..moving North..what Him in the Workshop calls rising tide..I think the greys had/have a virus which they passed on. Friend sets traps for them. They breed prolifically. See you again, Kate.

  126. Evening, all. Back from a successful day at the races. I normally just look at the form, look at the horses and mark my card with the horse that I would back if I did bet. Because I took a friend who doesn't mind betting I put the Ā£5 voucher I get with my membership on a horse in the first race. He came in, beating the favourite so I spent some of my ill-gotten gains on a nice pair of merino and lambswool socks. I said I'd quit while I was ahead, but I carried on choosing the horses as I usually do. Out of 8 races, I got 4 winners, 2 seconds and 2 fourths! My neighbour thought I was a racing guru!

    Never mind about working with the abused, the next head of the CofE must be a committed Christian!

    5. My work colleague has developed sone app on this. I will have to try and remember to look it up tomorrow.

    1. I do ! I know perfectly well where my arse is. That seems to be the place you are so interested in.
      I checked your google map search !

    2. We haven't visited family over there for a while. 2017 was our last trip over.
      I remember thinking how strange there being a noticeable lack of solar panels fitted, of course pretty well wall to wall blue skies with uninterrupted sunshine did help that thought process. Possibly it was too hot for the panels, I have heard they do not perform too well in excess heat.
      We are going back in January for another visit, I will see if I can spot what if any changes has occurred in the meantime.

        1. Belle, you would like it because it is just like Swanage, Poole and Weymouth.
          Best you stay and save yourself the flight šŸ¤£šŸ¤£šŸ¤£

  130. Joy of joys

    The Republicans have retained the House.
    OK Trump,
    Time to play Hercules, and cleanse the stables.

          1. Do you ever hear from Plum?
            If you do, please send my best wishes, I know you stated she didn't want e-mails any more.

  131. Forgive me if I spit
    But what damned difference is there? They are still parasites on the taxpayers, whether on the NHS or otherwise.

    Migrants in asylum seeker hotel at centre of healthcare row WILL be getting treatment on NHS after all: Councillor sparked huge bust-up by claiming they would go private – but officials admit they will be a burden on local GPs instead

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14079227/Migrants-asylum-seeker-hotel-healthcare-row-NHS-meeting.html

    1. Meanwhile, those who have paid into the system all their working lives can't get a GP appointment.

      1. There really should be no problem getting an appointment. We have the best healthcare system in the world. Sarc button to off

        1. You are right; there really SHOULD be no problem getting an appointment. Unfortunately, the system has been completely effed up.

          2. Yes, thank you. I had a very successful time picking winners and because I had a voucher for a free bet, I actually came away with more money than I went with. I spent some of it on a pair of merino and lambswool socks – I suffer dreadfully from cold feet.

          3. I have a problem with just one foot (the left one) being cold – is merino and lambswool better than cashmere, do you know?

          4. My left foot (a movie title there) suffers more from fluid retention than the right one. Apparently itā€™s the way our circulation is organised.

          7. I don't know; I don't have any cashmere socks. I have possum and merino gloves and they are soft and warm.

          9. My left foot went cold as well. Turns out i have restricted blood flow because of a clot. You might want to get checked out.

          10. Cheers Phiz, it’s only a problem in winter in bed (currently) hence the bedsocks. If it got worse I’d probably get it checked out……

    3. Was he not just playing a game to get the asylum seekers preferential treatment? By threatening the private route?

    4. They're given free room, board, infinite heat and light and healthcare and for what? For criminally invading this country.

    1. I'm not that keen on Vance – he is possibly a bit of a technocracy cheerleader. Also an unknown quantity – we don't know how far he will go.
      Obama had form before he became president, Michelle having had highly paid sinecures when he was a Governor. It was pretty well known what both Biden and Trump respectively were like. But all we know about Vance is a few rabble-rousing soundbites and a history that shows either a remarkable talent or good connections. He came from nowhere, yet he was elected to the US Senate at a young age and had backing from Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson and Peter Thiel for the Vice President nomination. For this important role, I cannot believe that these three members of the controlled opposition would back someone who wasn't one of them.

      1. From what I’ve read so far, I think he’ll be good.
        I’m less sure about the wisdom of some of Trump’s other picks, particularly Gaetz, if the underage girls rumours are accurate

    2. His brain, as far as I can tell, is still very active, full of mischief and egotistical (I wouldn't have it any other way) as ever. I think he's our last chance, which is why I worry for his safety.

    5. I'd guess running for President takes a lot of energy, so no wonder he's looking a bit used. Not a young man, either.

      1. On the date of his inauguration he will be the oldest ever at the start of a Presidency, even beating the current senile old GOAT, (ghastliest of all time).

  134. From CNN, clear the decks before Trump's inauguration!

    Special counsel Jack Smith looking at stepping down before Trump takes office and is discussing how to end prosecutions

    Special counsel Jack Smith intends to step down before President-elect Donald Trump takes office and is discussing the mechanics of winding down the federal prosecutions against him with Justice Department leadership, a DOJ official familiar with the discussions said.

    Trump has threatened to fire Smith, but Smith expects to be gone before Trump takes office.

    The talks between Smith and DOJ leaders extend beyond Trumpā€™s criminal cases to questions about what to do with other defendants in the classified documents case as well as the special counselā€™s office and what happens to its budget and staff.

    Smith is required to produce a report on his work for Attorney General Merrick Garland. Itā€™s not clear whether the timing of Smithā€™s departure would be delayed if he has to submit his report to the intelligence community for approval, according to people briefed on the discussions.

    Smith is working to complete the report before Trump takes office, as Garland would need to approve it and decide whether to release any of it publicly, one person familiar with the discussions said.

    Trump and his allies have repeatedly threatened to fire and prosecute Smithā€™s team. In October, the president-elect said he would use presidential powers to end Smithā€™s probe and promised to fire Smith ā€œwithin two seconds.ā€

    As president, Trump benefits from protections against prosecution that he didnā€™t have as a civilian. Longstanding Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for crimes, and a ruling from the Supreme Court this summer found that Trump enjoyed ā€œabsoluteā€ immunity from prosecution for actions taken within his core constitutional powers as president.

    Before his departure, Smith will have to decide how to end the two criminal cases he brought against Trump. In Florida, Smith has appealed Judge Aileen Cannonā€™s decision to dismiss the classified documents case, ruling that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel and that the funding of his office also violated the law.

    And in Washington, DC, Smithā€™s team has been pressing forward in the criminal case alleging Trump orchestrated a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in the wake of the Supreme Courtā€™s ruling on presidential immunity.

    2. They couldn't have used a stun dart and moved it back to woodland? Frankly given the appalling attitude of some brats these days the gun would be better used on them.

    1. Evening ogga…seems very long time ago, but back in the day I’d watch Beeb political progs..the Shami invariably put in an earnest appearancešŸ¤©

  139. 2019 saw me in that position, not that I was compelled to vote, but that I wanted none of the above. Which was put down on the ballot as NOTA. Compelling people to vote is probably a waste of time, but who knows, it might encourage paid voting.

  140. Before I head off to bed, some of the photos I took earlier.
    I've talked about chopsawing sticks to fit into mushroom trays, this is the chopsaw:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e90c4ba4ae9d548d5ca98bcacb30ba25398293020bd13376f63cc84644ca6d9.jpg
    The black builders bucket behind it is used to cover it when not in use.

    A photo I put up yesterday, taken when the tree fellers started in September:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4108874b1130fce34bae617f0dc210fd0d261bb65eb8202990b4a379deb2dd1.jpg
    And one I took this morning from the same place:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/144f298b88fdcfba06b4e62aaec25c1e7fa2217f603d17f445540bdc7b592604.jpg
    This tangle is made up of gooseberries, which I want to keep, interlaced with brambles which I intend to remove.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4fee46239eb368c640dc44c9264abb45def1b782f3b8810c56a4c0bbbfee88ba.jpg

    1. I am banned from power tools beyond basic drills. I have a saw, but I'm 'monitored' while I use it.

    3. Gooseberries? The ones which make marvellous crumbles? Methinks 'tis time to visit BoB again soon and scrounge some of his crop!

      1. They didn't produce much of a crop this year I'm afraid, neither did the other bush in another part of the garden.
        Both have been allowed to grow VERY straggly, in fact I didn't realise that particular bush was there until I saw some fruit while trying to cut back some of the bramble runners.

        1. That is money that the providers of the programmes never got so their business suffered. Their costs will be borne by all those who pay up for the service. In other words, the cost of the theft is borne by those who are honest.

          2. Children are priceless and those who abuse them deserve the most severe punishment available. That doesnā€™t mean that lesser crimes such as selling devices with which to steal data deserve no punishment.

          4. You assume that every dodgy sale has displaced what would otherwise be a legitimate full-price sale. However, many of his devices may have been bought by people who would otherwise not be able to afford the full price.
            As a youth, my friends and I would borrow vinyl disks from each other and record them on cassette tape. The music industry complained that this practise was "killing music". But, as with the above, if the ability to make tapes were not available, we would never have been able to afford the vinyl disks,

          5. He was selling devices with which to stream protected data was that his was through sheer profit motive. Borrowing vinyl from friends to record them on cassette was not driven by profit. Anyone making hundreds of copies to sell was for profit and was opening themselves up to prosecution.

          7. True, and I was one or many who did it. Nevertheless, it was against the law and I recall some prosecutions for those who did it on an industrial scale to sell bootleg cassettes. I think the law has changed somewhat as iTunes and its successor ā€œrippedā€ a CD to its own library. I suspect that the music industry simply realised that they could never stop it. The video industry has managed to limit home bootlegging although not stopped it completely.

  145. I had dozed off in front of the TV. It's not difficult or unusual.
    Good night all. šŸ˜“

  146. 396834+ up ticks,

    Is this the start of the drip feed poison being administered ?

    Dt,

    Musk and Trump: How long will the love-in last?
    From hateful rants to a spectacular reconciliation and election triumph, inside the billionaire bromance (thatā€™s bound to end in tears)

  147. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/13/britain-risks-becoming-police-state-allison-pearson/

    Non crime hate incident. If it's not a crime, the police have no business getting involved. 'Hate' is a nonsense phrase invented by the Left to silence others. If someone took offence to what Alison Pearson said, that's their problem, and a demonstration of bigotry and unhinged dislike of people who think differently to them. They're not a victim, they're the aggressor. Chances are they'd find offence in everything.

    What plod should have done, in a sane world, is to tell the nasty, bitter little Lefty to bug off and grow up but because there are endless laws devoted to wasting public money and controlling us this sort of nonsense carries on.

    It's got to end – the whole charade of waste, nonsense, individualism, arrogance and green communism. It must be binned, burned and the Left thrown out with it.

      1. This foul government would be happy let out every single murderer and rapist from prison to make room for the farmers.

  149. 396834+ up ticks,

    That would be to make it more islamic favourable no doubt.

    Dt,
    Dog-free zones needed to make outdoors less racist, Welsh Government told
    Tories claim that plan to remove ā€˜barriers to the outdoorsā€™ is out of touch and ā€˜virtue signalling nonsenseā€™

    1. What a weaselly letter, blaming the Church of England for his failures. Was it not his job to lead? What an absolute let down as the representative of God.

      1. The diocesan comment wasn’t much better, to be honest. The Fish (ixthos) is rotting from the head.

    1. Sad Dick should consider the idea that it might be something other than his ethnicity which upsets people.

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