Wednesday 17 April: The West can look to Ukraine to see why appeasement of Iran won’t work

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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714 thoughts on “Wednesday 17 April: The West can look to Ukraine to see why appeasement of Iran won’t work”

  3. Quote of the day

    ‘We should not treat legally competent adults differently.’

    – Kemi Badenoch explains her stance on Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban.

  5. What do we think of what the genocide denying, far left extremist mayor did in Brussels yesterday to shutdown free speech?

    Also, what do we think of our nerdy, puritanical freak of a PM banning smoking?

    2. Apart from being depressed at the future facing my grandchildren, I feel nothing but hatred and contempt towards the grey nonentities.

    4. We will have middle aged adults being asked their age. Ridiculous, New Zealand had already repealed their version of this law. And they don’t seem to have learnt the lessons of prohibition.

  6. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story
    POETRY COMPETITION

    An Australian Poetry Competition held in the Sydney Opera House had come
    down to two finalists;

    A) The university graduate.
    B) An old aboriginal man.

    They were given a word, and then allowed two minutes to study the word
    and come up with a short four line poem that contained a particular word.

    The word they were given on this occasion was ‘ TIMBUKTU ‘.

    First to recite his poem was the university graduate. He stepped to the
    microphone and said:

    Slowly across the desert sand,
    Trekked a lonely caravan
    Men on camels two by two
    Destination – Timbuktu …

    The crowd went crazy! No way could the old aboriginal top that, they
    thought.

    The old aboriginal calmly made his way to the microphone and
    recited;

    Me and Tim a huntin’ went
    Met three whores in a pop up tent
    They were three, and we was two
    So I bucked one, and Timbuktu ..

    The aboriginal won.

  8. Good morning. Tim Stanley on good form this morning…

    An hour into the smoking debate, I confessed to a colleague: “Listening to this makes me want to light up.”

    “Never mind that,” he replied, “I’d be tempted to shoot up.” For there’s now’t more depressing than watching MPs – Left and nominally Right – compete to choke your liberties.

    We were subject to emotional blackmail, spurious philosophy and university union rhetoric. “Smoking is not a free choice,” said the SNP’s Kirsten Oswald, “it is an addiction.” So, madam, are porn and Morris dancing, but we are yet to outlaw those. “Do you also want to ban salt and sugar?” mocked the libertarians. “Do you want to legalise heroin?” retorted the authoritarians.

    As the thin edge of the straw man arguments grew thicker, Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, pleaded with us to move from the “tossing sea of theory” to the “firm ground of fact” and build “a brighter future for our children” by passing her progressive ban on smoking. But though advocates for the Bill were admirably pro-child (as am I: they make such good workers), few MPs seemed to grasp that the ban will age with them, so that even a future 35-year-old won’t be able to smoke. What are they supposed to do after sex? Talk?

    Liz Truss rose up in a magnificent red dress to complain about ‘nannying control freaks’
    Why is a Conservative government proposing this claptrap? Because, implied Liz Truss, they are not Conservative. Rising to her feet in a magnificent red dress, the ex-PM laid into the “finger wagging, nannying control freaks” on her own benches, noting that the same “health police” that wished to save children from nicotine only five minutes ago favoured prescribing pills to block puberty.

    This gets to the flabby heart of the matter: what’s legal and what’s not is a matter of elite taste. Today, the toffs are pro-sex change and anti-smoking; whereas 150 years ago, one could legally smoke opium with Queen Victoria but if I showed up at Buck Palace in a dress I’d get 10 years in Bedlam.

    Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health boss, wittily exploited the divisions on the government side, calling Atkins “comrade”, accusing her of stealing his idea and adding that it proves “our dominance in the battle of ideas”.

    Yes, but it also proves Liz’s point about the illiberal consensus. The Tories are simply the lighter option: vote Labour if you prefer your socialism unfiltered. Streeting declared that a crackdown on smoking would be “just the beginning” – he’s got his eye on you, chocolate and gin – and laughed at the news of a meeting of Conservatives that had been shut down by the police in Brussels on suspicion that they were in possession of dangerous opinions. One fears that many Lefties would approve a progressive ban on proper Conservatives speaking in public, starting at 16 and rising to the point that the care home is silent but for the sound of Midsomer Murders.

    Smoking is bad and should be discouraged, yet there is a thin line of liberty and it’s distressing to see many politicians march over it con brio. They have wrecked our economy, mucked up foreign affairs and now push us to the brink of war. It’s rubbing salt into the wound to insist that there be no smoking in the nuclear fallout zone.

    1. Whether it’s Brussels or Westminster, I loathe these totalitarian lunatics so much

        1. The thing is, these repulsive people are a minority. Not so long ago they were sidelined as freaks.

      4. There is a bizarre belief that they can legislate their way to social nirvana.

    3. Yes, it’s strange how on one hand these repugnant fasco-liberals want to stop smoking in the young and want to pretend-protect their feelings about identity – and yet on the other hand they want to conscript them and pack em all off to the meat-grinder of war. Let’s see their kids go first.

      1. I think it’s more strange how they tend to be liberal on highly destructive narcotics or dispensing puberty blockers.

    4. Prohibition always works so well. Not an alcoholic drinks to be had in the good old USA. Oh hang on!
      Seems New Zealand found the same recently.

  9. Katharine Birbalsingh questions level of legal aid for pupil who challenged prayer ban

    Head teacher makes comments after High Court ruled her school’s policy was lawful and justified

    Louisa Clarence-Smith, EDUCATION EDITOR and Dominic Penna, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    16 April 2024 • 9:58pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/04/16/TELEMMGLPICT000323241934_17132994911280_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDiDrV97xgDFjc_F6AHtCzbRpwI5Tyvvrkv0uE14LTm0.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Katharine Birbalsingh is known as ‘Britain’s strictest head teacher’ CREDIT: Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

    Katharine Birbalsingh has questioned the level of legal aid awarded to a Muslim pupil who lost a court battle over her school’s prayer ban.

    Ms Birbalsingh, known as Britain’s strictest head teacher, won a legal challenge brought by the pupil, who claimed the prayer restrictions at Michaela Community School in Brent, north-west London, were discriminatory.

    The High Court ruled that the prayer ban was lawful and justified as “a proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aims” of the school.

    Commenting on the judgment, Ms Birbalsingh said: “Can it be right for a family to receive £150,000 of taxpayer-funded legal aid to bring a case like this?”

    A spokesman for lawyers supporting the pupil said the legal aid costs were “a fraction” of the sum quoted by Ms Birbalsingh.

    Senior Tory MPs also criticised the use of legal aid to fund the pupil’s claim.

    ‘Legal aid is not there to fund lawfare’
    Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the MP for North East Somerset, said: “Legal aid is there to protect people who couldn’t otherwise get proper representation for cases that must have a seriousness threshold.

    “This is particularly important for people charged with criminal offences and for those involved in civil litigation where they are at risk of some obvious wrong.

    “Legal aid is not there to fund politics by legal means, legal aid is not there to fund lawfare. If people want to fight political battles in the courts, they should fund them themselves.”

    Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of backbench Tory MPs, said the legal aid funding for the case was an “outrage”.

    Legal aid is the system of public funding used to help meet the costs of legal advice and representation in court.

    It is administered by the Legal Aid Agency, part of the Ministry of Justice.

    Judicial review cases are typically considered to be in scope of civil legal aid services.

    Applications are considered on an individual basis, and cases must be deemed to have the potential to produce a benefit for the individual, a member of the individual’s family or the environment.

    The agency will also consider the likelihood of the success of a case and the financial eligibility of the claimant. Ministers do not see legal aid applications and have no power to either approve or block them.

    Other controversial cases that have received legal aid include almost £250,000 awarded to Shamima Begum, the former Islamic State bride.

    Michaela introduced the prayer ban in March last year after around 30 pupils began praying in the yard.

    Lawyers for the school said pupils seen praying outside contributed to a “concerted campaign” on social media over the school’s approach to religion.

    The court heard the school was targeted with death threats, abuse, “false” allegations of Islamophobia and a “bomb hoax”.

    In a ruling handed down on Tuesday, Mr Justice Linden, said the prayer ritual policy at Michaela did not “interfere” with the freedom of the pupil who brought the case to manifest her religious beliefs.

    Following the ruling, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said head teachers were “best placed to take decisions on what is permitted in their school on these matters”, including “in relation to whether and how to accommodate prayer”.

    Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, said: “Today’s judgment backs an outstanding school that is delivering a world-class education to children from all faiths in some of London’s most deprived areas.”

    ‘A victory against activists trying to subvert public institutions’
    Kemi Badenoch, the Equalities minister, said: “This ruling is a victory against activists trying to subvert our public institutions.

    “No pupil has the right to impose their views on an entire school community in this way.

    “The Equality Act is a shield, not a sword, and teachers must not be threatened into submission.”

    The Church of England said it believed school heads were best placed to address issues locally and would “uphold their right to do so”.

    Nigel Genders, the church’s chief education officer, said: “This case does not appear to be about banning prayer in schools but relates to day-to-day decisions of a particular school in its own circumstances.

    “We agree that heads and governing bodies of individual schools are best placed to address these issues locally and would uphold their right to do so.”

    The pupil said in a statement issued by law firm Simpson Millar after the ruling that the school was “very well run and generally very good at managing everything” but felt “that I did the right thing in seeking to challenge the ban”.

    Her mother said: “My daughter’s impassioned stance compelled me to support her and I stand firm in that decision.

    “Her courage in pursuing this matter fills me with pride and I’m confident she’s gained invaluable lessons from the experience.”

    Dan Rosenberg, a lawyer at Simpson Millar who represented the pupil, said: “Obviously, the result was not a result that our client wanted but given the strength of her feelings, she did not feel it was right to merely accept the situation without seeking to challenge it.

    “I respect our client’s mother for supporting her in this.”

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

    Top Comment
    naveed zafar
    8 HRS AGO
    Leaving aside the legal aid part of the case, on the larger point, the headteacher was perfectly within her rights to set the policies of her school. Those policies are known to the parents and pupils. If they dislike the policies then they are free to move to a more accommodating school. What they should not be free to do is bring frivolous cases like this.
    I am a pretty orthodox Muslim but in our day we had no thought of praying in school. We combined the prayers and performed them on returning home. The family concerned in this case really need to look at themselves and realize that they are living in a secular democracy where religion is a private affair. We have perfect freedom to worship in this country and we should not rock the boat unnecessarily like this.

    James Martinez
    8 HRS AGO
    Reply to naveed zafar
    Thank you for some common sense naveed.

    Jimmy Boy
    8 HRS AGO
    The parents could solve the problem by moving to an Islamic country where the daughter wouldn’t be banned from praying in school because she wouldn’t be allowed into the school at all.

    2. Dan Rosenberg does realise that if the child pawn and her family win in this country, he is first for the chop?
      His money won’t save him.

      1. They already have a “Family Retreat” in the Catskill mountains, just North of NYC. {:^))

    4. What this case does is to further alienate public opinion against Islam. I wonder if Muslims realise just how much resentment is building in this country (and indeed in Europe and the Western world) towards their religion. There will come a time when the straw will break the camel’s back.

    5. Let’s face the facts and be honest. Her parents are simply using her as a tool against British society.

        2. It’s a confirmation of what we are all having to pay for and put upwith every second of every day.
          I’ve never seen this written down before. It should be dustributed and posted everywhere.
          Our political idiots have committed treason.

  10. Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF. 17 April 2024.

    An influential global body has forecast Russia’s economy will grow faster than all of the world’s advanced economies, including the US, this year.

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany.

    Sanctions doing well!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68823399

    1. Sanctions are usually nothing more than the modern ‘pious’ Liberals’ virtue signalling finger wag.

  11. Good Moaning.
    A blast from Britain’s best teacher.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-michaela-court-ruling-is-a-victory-for-all-schools/#comments-container

    “The Michaela court ruling is a victory for all schools

    16 April 2024, 12:48pm

    The High Court has ruled today in favour of Michaela Community School, after it was sued by a Muslim pupil who objected to the school’s prayer ban. Below is a statement from the school’s headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh:

    A school should be free to do what is right for the pupils it serves. The court’s decision is therefore a victory for all schools. Schools should not be forced by one child and her mother to change its approach simply because they have decided they don’t like something at the school.

    At Michaela, we positively embrace ‘small c’ conservative values which millions of people, including so many of our families and pupils, also value. Those values enable extraordinary academic progress. But they also promote a way of living, where gratitude, agency and personal responsibility, refusal of identity-politics victimhood, love of country, hard work, kindness, a duty towards others, self-sacrifice for the betterment of the whole, are fundamental to who we are. Multiculturalism works at Michaela not because we’ve emptied the identity space of the school in order to accommodate difference, but because we have a clear identity which anyone can sign up to, if they are willing to compromise.

    Michaela is a school that works miracles in London’s inner city, achieving on average nearly two and a half grades higher at GCSE, with the best Progress eight score for two years running, out of all of the 4,000 secondary schools across the country.

    But our families choose Michaela not just because of the extraordinary learning and access to social mobility that we provide. They choose Michaela because they recognise that our traditional values create a school environment that is a joy to be in. Our children are happy and are friends with each other across racial and religious divides. Our 800 visitors a year can attest to this. All anyone needs to do to see this for themselves is sign up on our website for a visit.

    Ever since the idea of Michaela began in 2011, our detractors have railed against our strict rules and traditional values. Their patronising, paternalist, ‘we know what’s best for you’ progressive thinking goes like this: ethnic minority families cannot possibly know what they want and have chosen and continue to choose for their children. Those choices must be made for them. We need to have the honesty to call that out. A deep-seated progressivist racism fuels the condescending belief that ethnic minorities cannot think and choose for themselves. It is what has allowed a particular kind of bullying ty politics to take such a grip of our country.

    More than 40 per cent of our pupils are siblings. In 2014, 30 per cent of our intake was Muslim. It is now 50 per cent. We are over-subscribed. If our families did not like the school, they would not repeatedly choose to send their children to Michaela.

    At the two welcome events that all parents must attend before sending their child to Michaela, I run through everything that makes Michaela different to other schools: constant supervision, family lunch, silent corridors, no prayer room, easy ways to get detention, strict uniform etc.

    If parents do not like what Michaela is, they do not need to send their children to us.

    Can it be right for a family to receive £150,000 of taxpayer-funded legal aid to bring a case like this? The judge is clear that the child’s statements were not written by her alone. Indeed this mum intends to send her second child to Michaela, starting in September. At the same time, this mum has sent a letter to our lawyers suggesting that she may take us to court yet again over another issue at the school she doesn’t like, presumably once again at the taxpayer’s expense.

    People of all religions tell me that Michaela is more Christian, more Catholic, more Islamic, more Jewish, or more Hindu than schools they have seen elsewhere. The reason for this is because our robust yet respectful secularism is allied to those traditional values which all religions share. We all believe in the Michaela Way. In institutions where secularism has come to mean an absence of belief, often identity politics fills the vacuum. Every ‘community’ is catered for in a way which emphasises differences between people and can unwittingly encourage victimhood. Ours is very much a strong belief in ‘small c’ conservative values where we all move towards a shared goal, rejecting victimhood, together. In our ever-more diverse society we at Michaela stand for those values which save us from the worst of the divisiveness which identity politics engenders. Last year, we watched our Muslim pupils put under pressure by a tiny number of others to fast, to pray, to drop out of the choir, to wear a hijab. I watched one of my black teachers racially abused and intimidated, another teacher who had her personal home nearly broken into, and another with a brick thrown through her window. I have a duty of care to protect all of our pupils but also to my staff. There is a false narrative that some try to paint about Muslims being an oppressed minority at our school. They are, in fact, the largest group. Those who are most at risk are other minorities and Muslim children who are less observant.

    What does it mean to be the Headmistress in a school which tries to uphold our shared British values when different constituencies within our diverse society want different, sometimes opposing things, in the name of their religious commitments? It means offering what unites us – those shared values I list above – and then asking everyone to compromise for the sake of that shared communal project. To the Jehovah Witnesses: we teach Macbeth as a GCSE text, even though it has witches in it. To the Muslims: we don’t have a prayer room. To the Christians: we will offer revision classes on Sundays. To the Hindus: the plates will have been touched by eggs. We are always clear about this: our restrictive building, strict ethos and desire to see multiculturalism succeed, mean that self-sacrifice is required. Parents, knowing this, have the freedom to make informed choices. This is who we are.

    At Michaela, we expect all religions and all races to make the necessary sacrifices to enable our school to thrive. The vast majority do so without complaint. We make the sacrifice of eating vegetarian food at lunch to enable us to break bread with each other across racial and religious divides.

    For those of you who take a dim view of Muslims or multiculturalism, I would urge you to remember our hundreds of Muslim families who love our school. When we were in court, we fought to retain the media ban — because the threat of harm and the danger of violence were clearly very real. The member of the press in the courtroom who showed me the most compassion was Muslim.

    It is more of a challenge for a multicultural school to succeed. One need only look at the schools that top the Progress 8 chart: the vast majority are faith schools of one religion. Schools that are secular and multicultural must be allowed the same right that religious schools have: the right to unity, the right to reject division, the right to not have the black group, the Hindu group, the Muslim group, the LGBT group etc. Everyone is welcome in our community but our community isn’t an empty space — it has its own identity which we invite everyone to belong to. So we sing God Save the King because our country and our flag unite us. Ethnic minorities should be able to identify as British. If we are saying that being an ethnic minority and being British are incompatible, then as a nation, we are in deep trouble.

    At Michaela, we want our children to live lives of dignity, whether they end up poor or rich later in life. In 2024, we tend to believe that a school is successful according to its exam results alone: the better the results, the better the well-paying job. But a life of meaning is not about being rich. At Michaela we believe that purpose and moral character matter, that there is such a thing as moral truth. Without moral truth, all you have is evolutionary biology in a brutal world where there is no obligation for the strong to help the weak.

    When we tell our kids to be ‘top of the pyramid’, our goal for them isn’t to be the richest or the most famous or even the cleverest. It is to be someone who lives a life of moral worth shaped by self-sacrifice, filled with gratitude for what they have, and doing all they can to help those who have not.

    For 25 years I have been in school at 6.45 a.m., working 12-to-15-hour days, always with mainly brown and black kids from the inner city. Our detractors’ narrative that I hate children, that I hate Muslim children, despite more and more Muslim families choosing our school over the years and my own grandmother being Muslim, is clearly nonsensical. I could easily do something less stressful and earn more money or seek promotion elsewhere. But I have chosen to stay with the Michaela project for 13 plus years and I continue to fight to defend our way of life.

    Why? Because I believe in something bigger than myself.

    Michaela stands for values that provide us with a way of living through the good times and the bad, whether we are rich or poor, with GCSE grade nines or grade fours, whether we are white or black, tall or short. At Michaela we cherish and embrace these values for all of our pupils, whatever their race, whatever their religion.

    Strength and Honour. God save the King.”

    1. Had they got this one across then as she says, all schools would have been made to conform to the same level of intimidation. Especially true and spot on is, “not because we’ve emptied the identity space of the school in order to accommodate difference”.

      Personally I’m getting well and truly hacked off with having to kow-tow to the narcissistic tendency in Britain and the secularists.

    2. I disagree with her. They should all be made to say Christian prayers and attend divine service everyday to correct the negative influence of other religions. If muslims etc don’t like that, they should all emigrate.

    3. If the good headmistress deems that excessive praying in the playground is divisive and disruptive, then surely she writes the school rules, and if parents don’t like them, they should have the liberty to take their children to another school with different rules.

      Alternatively, perhaps Muslims could look to their own practices and the ostentation they display when praying. Yes, by all means pray five times a day, but this can be done in silence and quiet and intimate engagement with one’s maker, with nobody else aware what is going on, except God Himself, who knows everything.

    4. In 2014, 30 per cent of our intake was Muslim. It is now 50 per cent. We are over-subscribed. If our families did not like the school, they would not repeatedly choose to send their children to Michaela.

      And therein lies the problem. Soon they will be a small majority and then a large majority and then…

  14. Strip former Stonewall chief of peerage for role in ‘transgender scandal’, say campaigners

    Over 10,000 people sign petition calling for Baroness Hunt to be expelled from House of Lords over LGBT charity’s ‘deeply damaging conduct’

    Steve Bird
    16 April 2024 • 7:52pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/04/16/TELEMMGLPICT000374168043_17132914443690_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq3VPUoK1uUj4m_IXc70a6TEqDWJzjRR2yW6Dojr9TbEM.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Baroness Hunt expanded Stonewall’s mission to include transgender campaigning after key advances in lesbian and gay equality had been achieved CREDIT: JOHN PHILLIPS/GETTY IMAGES

    Campaigners are calling for the former chief executive of Stonewall to be stripped of her peerage following the Cass report.

    More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on change.org calling for Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green to be expelled from the House of Lords for her “deeply damaging conduct” in the transgender “scandal”.

    The petition, launched on Saturday, says: “Stonewall’s irresponsible, deceitful and self-interested behaviour… has caused untold havoc. We believe its chief executive at the time, Ruth Hunt, should take responsibility for her charity’s deeply damaging conduct, which played a key role in the scandal now unfolding.

    “It is deeply insulting to the families she has harmed that, instead, Hunt was awarded a peerage and now sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green, a legislator-for-life.”

    The petition refers to Stonewall’s decision to oppose a research pack sent to schools warning children identifying as trans how there were possible risks to puberty blockers and untested drugs often being used as a “medical pathway” for transition.

    The petition adds: “Stonewall Scotland told its tens of thousands of followers on Twitter: ‘We, in the strongest possible terms, denounce and condemn this [research] publication. If it lands on your desk, do the right thing: shred it.’”

    Explaining how Stonewall had branded the research pack as “dangerous”, the petition adds: “We now know beyond doubt that the opposite was true: the packs contained sound advice, and removing them was dangerous.”

    Promoting the transgender narrative
    The Cass Review warned how treatment with puberty blockers “may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development” but critically did not change a patient’s body dissatisfaction or gender dysphoria. The report called for “unhurried” care of those under-25s who think they may be transgender.

    The report, by Dr Hilary Cass, a paediatric consultant, found gender care had been largely based on “remarkably weak evidence”.

    Shortly after the review’s publication, JK Rowling criticised Stonewall for promoting the transgender narrative.

    The author wrote: “In 2018, Stonewall literally told schools to shred a research pack saying there were risks to puberty blockers. In 2022, Stonewall told the world that ‘research’ suggests two-year-olds can be trans. It advocated for nurseries – nurseries – to start teaching kids that there are more genders than boy and girl.”

    Baroness Hunt took over Stonewall in 2014 shortly after the first same-sex marriages took place. She expanded the group’s mission to include transgender campaigns, possibly in response to a feeling that a void had been created by key advances in lesbian and gay equality.

    Following a consultation with 700 transgender people, Stonewall accepted a donation to “integrate trans-specific work” into its campaigns.

    As a result, it promoted the notion of “gender identity” which might not align with sex, including the ideas that lesbians can have penises and gay men can have vulvas.

    Many lesbians and gay men vehemently opposed that ideology. Baroness Hunt was later accused of running “a militant trans agenda” by the writer Maureen Chadwick, creator of Bad Girls and Footballers’ Wives. She withdrew her support from the charity over its “trans women are women” campaign.

    In 2019, Baroness Hunt, who had previously worked for the Equality Challenge Unit advising on sexual orientation and gender identity equality, left Stonewall and accepted her peerage.

    Baroness Hunt did not respond to a request for a comment.

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

    COMMENTS CLOSED

    Scott Jegg
    10 HRS AGO
    It’s funny how these groups that claim to have been victimised turn out to be some of the nastiest pieces of work you can find.

    Martin Wonfor
    10 HRS AGO
    Another of many huge mistakes made by the awful Therese May!!

    Mary Macaulay
    10 HRS AGO
    I consider that the Wpath files and the Cass report expose the transgender baseless claims for the complete nonsense that they are. All the people who have been caught up in its promotion and taken part in the mutilation and appalling ‘treatment’ of unformed children and adolescents, should be prosecuted.

  15. This rather weird policy of banning under 15 year olds from ever being able to purchase cigarettes that will follow them through their entire lives looks to me like just another foot in the door for introducing sinister measures to enforce it.
    Wasn’t this done in New Zealand recently, then repealed. I wonder what supranational institution is behind this one, since our politicians appear incapable of coming up with any ideas of their own.
    Far too many years of following orders in the EU, I suppose.
    They’ve become institutionalised rubber stampers and not innovators and free thinkers.

  16. Frozen Russian assets ‘will help fund Ukraine’ as G7 deal nears. 17 April 2024.

    The leaders of the G7 countries are close to agreeing a plan to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, Lord Cameron has said.

    The Foreign Secretary said an “emerging consensus” existed between Western countries on how to take advantage of more than £220 billion in Russian assets that have been frozen since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    Thus prompting the largest exodus of Foreign Funds in history. The Chinese are already converting theirs to gold and one assumes this is at least equalled by the Global South. During the colonisation of India it was quite common for the natives, even during wars, to keep their assets in British Banks. This was because they were safe there from arbitrary seizure by the local Government. No one is going to deposit their money with someone who is likely to steal them at the turn of some geopolitical card.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/16/frozen-russian-assets-help-fund-ukraine-g7-deal/

    1. No one is going to deposit their money with someone who is likely to steal them at the turn of some geopolitical card.

      For the very reason you mention above, Steve Bannon, using his online programme The War Room, has been warning about this move for some time. The fear from Bannon et al. is that this move is another step along the road to crash the Dollar.

    2. Good morning from Mercia, Helicon, Audrey Hepburn and me .
      A beautiful but cold day. And I agree with the article.

    3. IMHO, there are two genders full stop.
      And then there is stupidity.
      That’s it.

        1. That’s what I meant but i didn’t want to make the inferences too obvious. 😊

    4. Good, succinct argument. Playing the victimhood card, as ‘Katie Reeves’ was described as doing can basically be categorised as emotional blackmail. As all hate crime legislation can be used as a charter of rights for emotional blackmailers it needs to be revoked. It was a well-meaning but fatally flawed idea for this reason, and anyway, it is completely impossible to remove hatred from the human heart by passing laws to prohibit it.

  18. Tony Blair trashed the constitution. Now we’re paying the enormous price

    Elected politicians cannot control the borders thanks to the power of the Left-wing legal establishment

    LIZ TRUSS
    16 April 2024 • 6:45pm

    I have become increasingly concerned that Britain’s judiciary has become a self-perpetuating oligarchy. Here is a group of similarly-minded people from similar backgrounds who have a particular worldview and are resolute in protecting their own interests. Then there is the fact that we are saddled with an increasingly Left-wing legal establishment that has successfully tied British governments up in knots through judicial reviews, challenging policies on welfare and immigration and indeed the entire Brexit process.

    Courts and lawyers had been accruing power during the 1980s and 1990s through the judicial review process – and the EU’s promotion of statute law over common law only added to the problem. But it was Tony Blair who made a bad state of affairs a whole lot worse. The policies he pursued as prime minister have made it considerably harder for elected politicians to get things done and put far more power in the hands of the unelected.

    Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor held a special constitutional position not only as a Cabinet minister but also as the head of the judiciary and Speaker of the House of Lords. These were historic duties dating back to before Magna Carta.

    In other words, he (and until my appointment as Lord Chancellor, it always had been a man) was a very powerful figure, playing a role in the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government. He sat in the Lords and was a practising judge, with many of his responsibilities involving the direct administration of the judicial system and the selection of judges. The independent judiciary maintained the common law principles of the rule of law. Ultimately, they were subordinate to the executive in Parliament.

    The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 changed this by denuding the Lord Chancellor of much of this power. One of the justifications for this act of constitutional vandalism was a desire to fit in with the rights-based philosophy of continental Europe. The UK’s ratifying of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1951 ultimately gave rise to individual petitions being accepted in the UK. This created an alternative source of power to the sovereign Parliament. Blair then incorporated the ECHR into British law in 1998 through the Human Rights Act.

    In removing the power of the executive to appoint senior judges, the Blair government created a new judicial appointments quango, and a Supreme Court in place of the Law Lords. The Lord Chancellor would still have to swear an oath to protect the independence of the judiciary, but all the associated powers were handed to the administrative bureaucracy. The net impact was to make the judiciary more of a self-appointing oligarchy and reduce levels of accountability.

    As we have seen in everything from welfare policy to immigration to legal aid, this has made it harder for governments to deliver policies the public had voted for. The legacy legislation from the Blair and Brown administrations that we have failed to repeal – including the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act – have tied up the government in yet more red tape and given more powers to the courts and lawyers. All this means a key part of the apparatus of the government has become further removed from any sense of accountability.

    We see the consequences of this most clearly in the case of illegal immigration. Time and time again, attempts to get tough on migration have been thwarted when lawyers have been able to take on immigrants’ cases, paid for through taxpayer-funded legal aid, usually after citing some article or other from the ECHR.

    I am all for the UK asserting its sovereignty and leaving the convention, but I don’t believe that alone will solve the problem. We will not be able to fully sort out our borders until we have reformed the appointments and governance process of the judiciary.

    It is vital that we restore democratic accountability to the judicial system in the UK. This means the abolition of the Supreme Court, dismantling the Judicial Appointments Commission, and restoring the Law Lords. The Lord Chancellor’s full role should be reinstated, including being head of the judiciary in England and Wales.

    These constitutional arrangements were tried, tested and successful for centuries. Hopefully, in time, the experience of the last couple of decades, following Blair’s trashing of our precious judicial system, will come to be seen as a temporary aberration.

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

    John Bloomfield
    11 HRS AGO
    Blair of course knew best. Brown thought he was clever but wasn’t. What a conceited and arrogant pair they were and still are. The damage they have done to this country and its institutions is immense. It’s a pity the Tower is no longer in use.

    A Hughes
    2 HRS AGO
    Reply to tryingtobe objective – view message
    Unherd’s most recent video about the censorship complex is deeply scary. Most scary because one of its most prominent spokes is in the UK in the form of a “company” called the global disinformation index. Created by a former WEF employee, funded by the foreign office, the German foreign office and the US government it removes advertising revenue from press sources that question trans, climate change and covid propaganda.
    https://youtu.be/ILEMV0xKGh4

    1. With so many people like our vile political classes wouldn’t be wonderful if praying actually worked.

    2. The repulsive Cherie Blair has played no small part in this. Like her husband, she meddles and gets things done but unfortunately, they both lack foresight, so they both get the wrong things done.

    4. And yet. This could have been changed at any point from 2915 onwards. Still could be.

  19. Condemnations Pour in After Orban-Farage Brussels Conference Shut Down by Police

    Prime Ministers and elected officials lined up to condemn a group of mayors who colluded to block a conservative conference on Tuesday, sending police officers to shut the venue down and blocking speakers from arriving.

    Police descended upon a Brussels conference venue on Tuesday morning on the orders of local mayor Emir Kir to prevent a political conference from taking place. Delegates and speakers who had not yet made it into the building were blocked from entering as well as catering supplies for the day. The conference is slated to feature a range of political speakers including Brexit leader Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, and other conservative thinkers and legislators.

    Belgian Prime Minister delivered a withering rebuke to the Brussels mayors who worked to prevent the National Conservatism Conference from taking place, calling their acts “unacceptable”. PM Alexander De Croo said while the regions enjoyed autonomy, nevertheless, freedom of speech is guaranteed in the national constitution and could not be overruled.

    “Banning political meetings is unconstitutional. Full stop”, he said. De Croo’s support of freedom of speech for national conservatives with whom he — as a liberal — probably has comparatively little in common politically came amid a similar expression of concern from Italian Prime Minister Giorga Meloni who said the news of police officers being sent to shut down a conference being attended by the Hungarian Prime Minister and a group of European elected politicians left her feeling “disbelief and dismay”.
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/04/16/condemnations-pour-in-after-conservative-conference-closed-by-police/

    1. Proof positive, as if Remainers ever needed it, that the EU never believed in democracy. That said, it seems our own glorious leaders are drifting much the same way too, but most of those were never ‘leavers’ in the first place.

          1. ‘Mein Kampf’ has been in the top 10 best seller lists for over a decade, in India. An not just bought by the expected suspects. India really likes the idea of some humans being superior to others. Caste system and all that, I suppose.

          2. Of course the koran tells its adherents that the kuffar is lower than cattle. If that doesn’t bolster their superiority complex nothing will.

          3. ‘Mein Kampf’ has been in the top 10 best seller lists for over a decade, in India. An not just bought by the expected suspects. India really likes the idea of some humans being superior to others. Caste system and all that, I suppose.

    3. Should we be concerned about the possibility of this action being taken as a precedent for similar actions by certain mayors here in England?

      If such a restriction on freedom of speech should happen here I’m sure that PM Sunak – not our PM – would speak up and then take no action whatsoever: that’s one thing he is good at doing.

    5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3hv9XmpQc

      Call out the instigators
      Because there’s something in the air
      We got to get together sooner or later
      Because the revolution’s here
      And you know it’s right
      And you know that it’s right
      We have got to get it together
      We have got to get it together now

      Lock up the streets and houses
      Because there’s something in the air
      We got to get together sooner or later
      Because the revolution’s here,
      And you know it’s right
      And you know that it’s right
      We have got to get it together
      We have got to get it together now

      Hand out the arms and ammo
      We’re gonna blast our way through here
      We got to get together sooner or later
      Because the revolution’s here
      And you know it’s right
      And you know that it’s right
      We have got to get it together
      We have got to get it together now

      With thanks to Thunderclap Newman.

  20. 386160+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    She could very well be the loose dangling thread that, when pulled could very well bring the whole corrupt odious political edifice down, nail one and the whole rat pack will start squealing.

    Dt,
    Rayner being investigated over multiple allegations, suggests Manchester police chief
    Stephen Watson says there are ‘a number of assertions knocking about’, and force will ‘get to the bottom’ of them

    As for,

    Wednesday 17 April: The West can look to Ukraine to see why
    appeasement of Iran won’t work

    Firstly start with, England can look deeply at the islamic internal
    problem in regards to appeasement, and then who is responsible for the the campaign being run via ” paedophilic rape & abuse are US,” a leading odious issue among a vast catalogue of other major crimes.

    In short, it surely is well out of order for a nation so bent and twisted in the political overseeing department as the United Kingdom to be calling out others to “mend their ways”

    1. I suspect Sir Keir is providing informal advice and helpful evidence pro bono to GMP in their investigation out of his duty as a concerned citizen of course…

  21. Morning, all Y’all.
    Another beautiful day, starting with clear sky and frost.

  22. Good morning it’s a sunny day but a cold 4c whereas it’s 10c in Venice .
    If there ( as much as I love my own beautiful country- England and during the spring of which I love the most in rural places amongst the trees .
    Potrei indossare la mia gonna Floaty e prendere un Caffè a St Marks Square mentre é ancora tranquillo e poi visitavo alcuni posti meravigliosi e indavavo sulle parti piu antiche di Venezia

      1. Google Translate gives: “I could wear my Floaty skirt and have a Coffee in St Marks Square while it’s still quiet and then visit some wonderful places and investigate the older parts of Venice.” which looks reasonably accurate. And no, I don’t read Italian either.

  23. ‘Actor William should have no problem acting out any bedroom scenes – he previously hinted he’d slept with 1,000 women.

    He even said his past wild behaviour led his co-stars to name him ‘C**k Roache’.

    Ken Barlowe 91 !!!

    I’m not one for gossip, but really.

    1. The actor William Roach is a practicing Druid and a Buddhist .

        1. Instant Sunshine is a splendid cabaret group composed of doctors. They were very popular in the 1980s.

          Doctors train to practise every doctor would agree
          But I would rather not have doctors practising on me.

          thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3nTjCcBGUQ

          1. Which reminds me …

            O what a tangled web we weave
            When first we practice to deceive
            But when we’ve practised quite a while
            How vastly we improve our style

            J R Pope

      2. Are those metaphysical ‘beliefs’ that get empty headed wimmin to take their kit off for a filthy old rake? Better tell Phizee. 🙂

        1. Phizee says he doesn’t wear underwear and he resembles James Hewitt and probably is the father of Harry Windsor 🙂

          1. So Phizee is Prince Harry’s father?

            If Harry is kicked out of the USA for lying on his Visa application then will Phil be offering his long-lost son sanctuary and succour?

    2. Piers Morgan is largely responsible for what is undoubtedly an inflated figure.

      In 2012 it was claimed Bill had slept with over 1,000 women and was even reportedly nicknamed ‘Cock Roache’ by his Corrie co-stars.

      However, Bill said Piers Morgan had used Ken Barlow’s colourful relationship history on Coronation Street as a way in to asking him about his personal life during his Life Stories interview.

      Bill recalled in his 2018 book Life and Soul: How to Live a Long and Healthy Life : “When Piers continued to press me for numbers and asked if it was 1,000 women, all I said was, ‘It could be. I don’t know.’ Well, it went viral – ‘Bill Roache slept with 1,000 women’. And I’d never said I had, but I took it with good humour.”

      https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/bill-roaches-life-90-bedding-26775186

    3. And every one a consenting adult, with many of them prepared to be a character witness at his trial.

      I wish I had his talent!

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    No bad out side, a bit fresh.
    Head line is a bit misleading today, it depends on the way you see the Ukraine problem and who is actually to blame for the start of it all.
    I don’t think it would be right to blame Israel for the problems in the middle east. Although they did flatten Gaza. But as was later explained hamas were hinding in tunnels under what we would know as public buildings.
    And starving ? If the nearby neighbours like Egypt helped out and opened the boarder that wouldn’t have been a problem.
    It’s the same as the other huge Arab states having room for around one million people at Mecca, but never accepting one single refugee. Refugees of course frequently ocurr because of the way ‘the adgenda’ is set up and managed to suit the all knowing book. It’s all more than a little out of date now it seems.

      1. Seems obvious now you mention it. Never mind the bunker busters smashing the entire city to bits along with its inhabitants. Plenty of seawater in the Mediterranean nearby. Once flushed out, pick off the emerging enemy and hold them in internment camps for processing and interrogation. Simples.

  25. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a0dcae03e242d40c50752459dc89d9f08e7ef000/0_0_1482_1491/master/1482.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=1fee59ef72f9410f6e9e84cfd08a896f
    Le Jardin des Plantes, Paris

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/82d253f43df03b0272bb45433e2258d62d975c91/0_376_5712_3427/master/5712.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=505271505b8d22fadaa6a09d6ed306d4
    Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/104d009d982ff1dd36e31c2ccef0250d826a5e9c/0_195_4500_2700/master/4500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=fa9fddc32d04905b8237f0ae0e79b7b8
    Lapland

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a369f2d6a6322f484048be221058f5e0b56610f9/0_302_2017_1210/master/2017.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=85e89cd7d742fbc7640877d6d90b752b
    Beagle Channel, Patagonia

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cbfd93a7a17f13bbf679b759b4aa0347605fe893/0_0_1200_1600/master/1200.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=717d3212fdbdee13b95a9770f0b14099
    Pixie’s pizza, Shrewsbury

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/15ae5e0c1934189b0fc2e7191d7c3f677bf8fb69/0_179_6000_3600/master/6000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=00e81ec9db5c7d33a787c63676f671e8
    Camogli, Italy

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6057d19ab808feda31947e1796db3f8179ba86e4/0_650_5120_3073/master/5120.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0fbe0d49a0472c0935c876aed713de08
    Whitby Abbey

    2. You simply could not make it up.
      The Victorians had the most obvious solution for lunacy. But the buildings have all been demolished for housing estates. Which ironically breed more problems.

    3. Regardless of the individual, how has the State managed to get sucked into this?

    4. So Ontario must pay for a person to be sexually self-sufficient and be able to have sexual intercourse with him/herself without the need for a partner?

    5. Whatever bits are added or subtracted, the body is whatever its DNA says it is. Isn’t there a country estate somewhere that can be adapted to house these people. Make them comfortable and look after them but keep them well away from sane society and restrict them to access to an intranet not general social media. No more death threats on X.

  29. Good morning all.
    A bit late on parade, but it’s a beautiful sunny start to the day though still not warming up! 0°C on the Yard thermometer just now and the hazy cirrus and scudding cumulous clouds appear to have dissipated. Very little wind.

    It seems that despite the recent report, some parts of the NHS are still carrying on with the Stonewall agenda:-
    https://twitter.com/LordBriRobert1/status/1780311576609800516

    1. Has everyone seen this? Petition to get Ruth Hunt removed from the House of Frauds for her roll in the gender medical scandal.
      https://chng.it/5bq99rMGbK

      But more to the point: who put her forward for appointment and why? This woman has caused untold harm and yet is rewarded with a £300 gravy train FOR LIFE and meanwhile the “Charity” she heads received millions in tax-payer funded gtants every year and there’s nothing we can do, apparently, to stop it.

  30. Will there be a flourishing era of ‘Smokeasies‘ arising from Rishi Sunak’s new Prohibition?

    1. I might be incorrect but I understand the legislation prevents the sale of tobacco to people born after 1 January 2009, not the consumption by them of such products. It’s simply an invitation to create as big a black market via parallel imports – already a big problem – as illegal narcotics. The two trades will simply merge.
      Our politicians are just morons.

      1. Every single one of them.
        Morons.
        There must be a book in the Westminster library on how to wreck a country, its culture, its well being and its social structure.
        Compulsory reading or else.

    2. I haven’t paid too much attention to this, I does it mean that nobody will be allowed to smoke in the UK ?
      Or just people under 15 years old ?

      1. It means that people born after the set date will never be allowed to buy tobacco products no matter how long they live. Those born up to the set date will be allowed to buy the same products, again, no matter how long they live, although, as time passes, and the population allowed to buy tobacco products shrinks, eventually the numbers will fall below an economically viable number such that those who remain allowed to buy them will not find any outlets selling them.

    3. The government through taxation have created a flourishing black market in cigarettes. If you want to buy knock off cigarettes at £5 a packet of 20 ask your local Turkish barber.

  31. Wordle 1,033 5/6

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

  32. Worth a read and worth subscribing to Unherd, I think. The article is about the hugely influential although ludicrously named, Orwellian, Global Disinformation Index (GDI) which acts as a blocker (particularly to advertisers), to publications/writers with more mainstream conservative views. Chimes with the kind of thing which happened to Farage in Brussels this week. Independent high-brow publications need our support. They can’t get it anywhere else. Like debanking they are being de-revenued.

    Freddie Sayers
    APRIL 17, 2024 7 MINS
    “Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti-LGBTQI+ narratives… The site authors have been called out for being anti-trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a ‘prominent gender-critical’ feminist.”

    This was part of an email sent to UnHerd at the start of January from an organisation called the Global Disinformation Index. It was their justification, handed down after a series of requests, for placing UnHerd on a so-called “dynamic exclusion list” of publications that supposedly promote “disinformation” and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers.

    They provided examples of the offending content: Kathleen Stock, whose columns are up for a National Press Award this week, Julie Bindel, a lifelong campaigner against violence against women, and Debbie Hayton, who is transgender. Apparently the GDI equates “gender-critical” beliefs, or maintaining that biological sex differences exist, with “disinformation” — despite the fact that those beliefs are specifically protected in British law and held by the majority of the population.

    The verdicts of “ratings agencies” such as the GDI, within the complex machinery that serves online ads, are a little-understood mechanism for controlling the media conversation. In UnHerd’s case, the GDI verdict means that we only received between 2% and 6% of the ad revenue normally expected for an audience of our size. Meanwhile, neatly demonstrating the arbitrariness and subjectivity of these judgements, Newsguard, a rival ratings agency, gives UnHerd a 92.5% trust rating, just ahead of the New York Times at 87.5%.

    So, what are these “ratings agencies” that could be the difference between life and death for a media company? How does their influence work? And who funds them? The answers are concerning and raise serious questions about the freedom of the press and the viability of a functioning democracy in the internet age.

    ***

    Disinformation only really became a discussion point in response to the Trump victory in 2016, and was then supercharged during the Covid era: Google Trends data shows that worldwide searches for the term quadrupled between June and December 2016, and had increased by more than 30 times by 2022. In response to the supposed crisis, corporations, technology companies and governments all had to show they were taking some form of action. This created a marketplace for enterprising start-ups and not-for-profits to claim a specialism in detecting disinformation. Today, there are hundreds of organisations who make this claim, providing all sorts of “fact-checking” services, including powerful ratings agencies such as GDI and Newsguard. These companies act as invisible gatekeepers within the vast machinery of online advertising.

    How this works is relatively straightforward: in UnHerd’s case, we contract with an advertising agency, which relies on a popular tech platform called “Grapeshot”, founded in the UK and since acquired by Larry Ellison’s Oracle, to automatically select appropriate websites for particular campaigns. Grapeshot in turn automatically uses the “Global Disinformation Index” to provide a feed of data about “brand safety” — and if GDI gives a website a poor score, very few ads will be served.

    “These companies act as invisible gatekeepers within the vast machinery of online advertising.”
    The Global Disinformation Index was founded in the UK in 2018, with the stated objective of disrupting the business model of online disinformation by starving offending publications of funding. Alongside George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the GDI receives money from the UK government (via the FCDO), the European Union, the German Foreign Office and a body called Disinfo Cloud, which was created and funded by the US State Department.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, its two founders emerged from the upper echelons of “respectable” society. First, there is Clare Melford, whose biography published by the World Economic Forum states that she had previously “led the transition of the European Council on Foreign Relations from being part of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation to independent status”. She set up the GDI with Daniel Rogers, who worked “in the US intelligence community”, before founding a company called “Terbium Labs” that used AI and machine learning to scour the internet for illicit use of sensitive data and then sold it handsomely to Deloitte.

    Together, they have spearheaded a carefully intellectualised definitional creep as to what counts as “disinformation”. Back when it was first set up in 2018, they defined the term on their website as “deliberately false content, designed to deceive”. Within these strict parameters, you can see how it might have appeared useful to have dedicated fact-checkers identifying the most egregious offenders and calling them out. But they have since broadened the definition to encompass anything that deploys an “adversarial narrative” — stories that may be factually true, but pit people against each other by attacking an individual, an institution or “the science”.

    GDI founder Clare Melford explained in an interview at the LSE in 2021 how this expanded definition was more “useful”, as it allowed them to go beyond fact-checking to targeting anything on the internet that they deem “harmful” or “divisive”:

    “A lot of disinformation is not just whether something is true or false — it escapes from the limits of fact-checking. Something can be factually accurate but still extremely harmful… [GDI] leads you to a more useful definition of disinformation… It’s not saying something is or is not disinformation, but it is saying that content on this site or this particular article is content that is anti-immigrant, content that is anti-women, content that is antisemitic…”

    Larger traffic websites are rated using humans, she explains, but most are rated using automated AI. “We actually instantiate our definition of disinformation — the adversarial narrative topics — within the technology,” explains Melford. “Each adversarial narrative is given its own machine-learning classifier, which then allows us to search for content that matches that narrative at scale… misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-black content, climate change denial, etc.”

    Melford’s team and algorithm are essentially trained to identify and defund any content she finds offensive, not disinformation. Her personal bugbears are somewhat predictable: content supporting the January 6 “insurrections”, the pernicious influence of “white men in Silicon Valley”, and anything that might undermine the global response to the “existential challenge of climate change”.

    The difficulty, however, is that most of these issues are highly contentious and require robust, uncensored discussion to find solutions. Challenges to scientific orthodoxy are particularly important, as the multiple failures of the official response to Covid-19 amply demonstrated. Indeed, one of the examples of GDI’s good work that Melford highlighted in her LSE talk was an article on a Spanish website in June 2021 about the Delta variant of Covid-19. “Official data: a third of deaths from the Delta variant in the United Kingdom were among the vaccinated,” reads the headline, next to an advertisement for Chipotle Mexican Grill. “This is clearly untrue,” she said breezily, “and Chipotle has been caught next to this ad unwittingly, and unfortunately for them have funded this highly dangerous disinformation about vaccines”.

    This was, however, far from an accurate description. The statistic being reported comes from a June 2021 Public Health England report into Covid variants that sets out the 42 known deaths from the Delta variant from January to June: 23 were unvaccinated, 7 vaccinated with one shot and 12 fully vaccinated. In other words, 29% were fully vaccinated — around a third — and 17% partially vaccinated, making a total of 45% vaccinated. The headline claiming a third were vaccinated, it turns out, was not spreading “dangerous disinformation” at all — if anything, it underplayed the story.

    Examples like this are far from rare. The GDI still hosts an uncorrected 2020 blog about the “evolution of the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory” surrounding Covid-19’s origins, which concludes that “cutting off ads to these fringe sites and their outer networks is the first action needed”. This is despite the fact that Facebook and other tech companies long ago corrected similar policies and conceded that it was a legitimate hypothesis that should never have been censored.

    ***

    In the US, a number of media organisations have started to take action against GDI’s partisan activism, prompted by a GDI report in 2022 that listed the 10 most dangerous sites in America. To many, it looked simply like a list of the country’s most-read conservative websites. It even included RealClearPolitics, a well-respected news aggregator whose polling numbers are among the most quoted in the country. The “least risk of disinformation” list was, predictably enough, populated by sites with a liberal inclination.

    In recent months, a number of American websites have launched legal challenges against GDI’s labelling system, which they claim infringes upon their First Amendment rights. In December, The Daily Wire and The Federalist teamed up with the attorney general of Texas to sue the state department for funding GDI and Newsguard. A separate initiative to prevent the Defense Department from using any advertiser that uses Newsguard, GDI or similar entities has been successful, and is now part of federal law.

    But GDI is a British company and, on this side of the Atlantic, the Conservative Government continues to fund it. A written question from MP Philip Davies last year revealed that £2.6 million was given in the period up to last year, and that there is still “frequent contact” between the GDI and the FCDO “Counter Disinformation and Media Development” unit.

    ***

    Yesterday, I was invited to give evidence to the House of Lords Communication and Digital Committee during which I outlined the extent of the threat to the free media of self-appointed ratings agencies such as the Global Disinformation Index. The reality, as I told Parliament, is that GDI is merely the tip of the iceberg. At a time when the news media is so distrusted and faces a near-broken business model, the role of government should be to prevent, not encourage, and most certainly not fund, consolidations of monopoly power around certain ideological viewpoints.

    But this isn’t simply a matter for the media. Both companies and those in the advertising sector also need to act: it cannot be good marketing for brands to target only half the population. Last year, Oracle announced it was cutting ties with GDI on free speech grounds, but as we discovered, it seems they are still collaborating via the Grapeshot plaform: is Larry Ellison aware of this?

    At its heart, the disinformation panic is becoming a textbook example of how a “solution” can do more harm than the problem it is designed to address. Educated campaigners such as Clare Melford may think they are doing the world a service, but in fact they are acting as intensifying agents, lending legitimacy to a conspiratorial world view in which governments and corporations are in cahoots to censor political expression. Unless something is done to stop them, they will continue to sow paranoia and distrust — and hasten us towards an increasingly radicalised and divided society.

    is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.

    freddiesayers

    2. Just as long as everyone knows that UnHerd is controlled opposition. It is bank-rolled by Sir Paul Marshall’s Legatum Institute.

    3. Just as long as everyone knows that UnHerd is controlled opposition. It is bank-rolled by Sir Paul Marshall’s Legatum Institute.

  33. Good morning all – and the 77th,

    Partly cloudy overhead at Castle McPhee, wind in the North-West and cool at 5℃ risng to 10℃. Should stay dry.

    A bit late to the party, Ms Truss. Where have you been all the time you have been in Parliament?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e39ced7b3caf6226d5ef444082f4083649b5406ba040102156d7d646d0447003.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/16/tony-blair-mass-migration-judges-borders/

    The Dark Lord didn’t do it on his own. He had the help of all his predecessors in 10 Downing Street since the mid 19th century. It is the Party System that has trashed the Constitution. That’s why we have a Parliament that is unable to hold the executive to account; a politically activist judiciary that is not genuinely independent despite its tendency to think it is above Parliament; a Parliament which thinks it is sovereign and not the people; a system of Royal Assent for Bills in which the Monarch does not give assent in person – although our activist King may be changing that; and an electorate which is completely unaware of the power it, in truth, holds through the Constitution because it is not told the truth about it in the schools and universities. People have no knowledge of Magna Carta 1215, The Charter of the Forest, The 1688 Bill of Rights, the 1701 Act of Settlement or the 1706 and 1707 Acts of Union. If they did, they would not put up with the shit with which we are served for one moment.

    Find out all here: https://www.commonlawconstitution.org

    3. I have never fired a Section 1 (Firearms Act 1968) firearm of any type of description.

      However, if The State ever required a new executioner to remove all its enemies from the face of the planet, I would certainly apply for training in their use!

        1. Yo, Mr Effort.

          The thought is good, however, reducing him to his component atoms in a split-second would deprive me of the right to conduct a long, extended — and very pleasurable — torture.

  34. Just listened to the Delingpod with Cathy O’Brien. Mind duly blown.
    CIA mind control research after the war centred on traumatised, poorly nourished, sleep-deprived people being easier to control. People who are traumatised as children are the easiest to control, as it lasts for their entire lives.
    my thoughts:
    Covid scare targeting children, closing schools unnecessarily; filth being taught as sx education; people constantly being surrounded by people who don’t look or speak or behave like them which is known to make people uneasy; constantly being told not to believe the evidence of your lying eyes…a lot of government policy seems coincidentally likely to cause high or low level trauma.
    Sxual abuse is apparently the most “effective” form of trauma – we have thousands of abused children, and the authorities didn’t act for years despite many people trying to report and publicise it – even now, the penalties aren’t deterring the offenders because it is still going on. Thousands of life long trauma victims. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

    3. It’s a cracker, isn”t it? That and the previous one with Doc Malik have been top banana.

      1. Haven’t heard Dr Malik yet – I follow him on Twitt though, he seems like a nice chap.

  35. Tony Blair trashed the constitution. Now we’re paying the enormous price
    Elected politicians cannot control the borders thanks to the power of the Left-wing legal establishment
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/16/tony-blair-mass-migration-judges-borders/

    This BTL comment from a chap who uses the pseudonym tryingtobe objective under the above Liz Truss DT article has garnered a mass of upvotes.

    We are in the MIDDLE of a MARXIST REVOLUTION and most can’t even see it !

    History, culture, religion, family, slow Marxist march through our institutions, taking land from farmers …… mass, immigration is a key tool as is the Marxist cultural (woke) war ……

    IT IS A CO-ORDINATED STRATEGY ….. IT IS HAPPENING IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, CANADA, USA & EUROPE ……

    They are proposing new laws to restrict any questioning of the state, look at the WHO Treaty going through parliament with will allow the WHO to shut down any critical media during a pandemic. Look at the draconian anti-free speech laws going through Ireland, Canada and likely here under Labour …… do not let the establishment define their version of ‘hate speech’

    Labour & Conservatives are traitors to this country, we want both of you out. We need a peaceful revolt at the ballot box, may the BRITISH PEOPLE come together at the ballot box and vote REFORM !!

    1. Morning Richard, following your appreciation of my keyboard skills(?) I answered with a link to one of my latest offerings

    2. We could easily control our borders. It just means repealing acres of stupid legislation that just doesn’t apply to this country.

  36. ‘Elo dere! (As they say in darkest Brixton)

    I missed it – I shall go back and check.

    1. Excellent. A marvellous arrangement

      Summertime is one of George Gershwin’s very best.

      When we were sailing around the Med we met a woman who was a professional jazz singer. She came aboard Mianda and sang the song which I accompanied with my very basic guitar arrangement. The bay fell silent as all the boats listened and then applauded. She was brilliant – me, rather less so!

      1. Sung by both Clara and Bess in the opera Porgy and Bess, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

  38. Inflation falling? To 3.2%, when expectations were it would be 3.1%.

    A 2023 month of 0.7% inflation has fallen out of the figures, to be replaced by the latest 2024 month of 0.6% inflation. month-on-month inflation of 0.6%!

    Best not to give it the BIG TRUMPET fanfare.

      1. Nor I. Petrol has just gone up again and I bought something today that used to cost 0.99p but which now costs £1.09 and is smaller in size.

  40. Does anybody remember a guitar playing singer/songwriter called Rick Keeling who used to perform in folk clubs in the Southampton area and on Radio Solent in the early 1970s?

    This cloud seeding and the weather in parts of the Arab world reminds me of the chorus of one of his songs

    >Love I need you more than ever,
    Look what you’ve done to the weather,
    Ain’t it always the same
    You want the sun and you get the rain.

  41. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4541590e9a6639374cf291a5dda9731f64b52a83a0c05765e0f412661d810777.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eef4aaece88c016a4dd7b9f03a5a36112b029ed19570741eb4e9cbe5330953aa.jpg Away from the hustle, bustle and reality of the world out there, I’m just back from a wonderful early-Spring walk — in the cold sunshine — around the flooded field that forms part of my local birdwatching ‘patch’.

    I was delighted to discover a first for me at this location. A gorgeous early spring migrant, a Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius feeding at the edge of the pond. This species is easily recognisable from the more common Ringed Plover C. hiaticula by its slightly smaller size; bright orange eye-ring; narrow white line across its forehead; greyish legs; and slenderer, darker bill.

    Also present were four pairs of my favourite grebe, the gorgeous Red-necked Grebe Podiceps grisegena, which I hope will nest, mate and produce young this year.

    My favourite time of the year without exception.

  43. The ban wagon

    SIR – I have just listened to Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, justifying the smoking ban because “people can get addicted from an early age”. The same applies to alcohol, so will the Government seek to ban that next?

    Jonathan Yardley
    Wolverhampton

    Both smoking and alcohol are haram. So yes, Mr Yardley, they will both eventually be banned. It has nothing to do with health.

    1. They won’t ban alcohol while they can purchase it at subsidised, by the tax payer, prices in the bars and restaurants of the Houses of Parliament.

      1. They will ban it for us but keep it for themselves. As with cigarettes they will just make it prohibitively more expensive. Mp’s don’t suffer from the cost of living crisis so they already consider themselves to be a special case.

    2. The answer is yes. Eventually it’ll be chocolate, sugar, until the state forces what you can and cannot eat, in rationed chunks.

      That is the end goal. You didn’t think this was Sunak’s policy, did you? It comes from higher than him.

  44. I strongly suspect that if a Christian, or more unlikely a Muslim converted to Christianity, tried a similar trick in a Muslim school they would not live to tell the tale.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13318099/muslim-prayer-ban-religion-katharine-birbalsingh-michaela-community-school.html

    Muslim groups blast school prayer ban ruling: Leaders say courts are failing to defend ‘British principle of freedom of religion’ after pupil lost legal challenge – as defiant ‘strictest headteacher’ tells parents ‘if you don’t like it, don’t come to us’

    However, I fear that it is now far too late for the UK to stand up to these people without a response of extreme violence from them.

    Damn you Blair and all you open borders zealots, damn you to Hell for all eternity.

    Edit for clarity

      1. Indeed. My use of “that” was meant to imply they would not, so I have edited for clarity.

    2. It’s a secular school with very high standards of teaching and results. They don’t allow Christian prayers either so how is it ‘discriminating’ against Muslims?

      Well done Katherine Birbalsingh for standing up to these bullies. More power to her elbow!

      1. After this affront she might want to consider returning the favour by employing the Batley Grammar school teacher in hiding.

      2. After this affront she might want to consider returning the favour by employing the Batley Grammar school teacher in hiding.

    4. Our freedom of religion has not been impinges upon at all by this ruling. All Muslims can practise it at home or at the mosque, the pupil’s religious freedom is in no way restricted. Next they’ll be saying it’s their religion to slit the throats of sheep in our streets.

    5. Blair expanded faith schools (conveniently using them to spare his children going to the local comp) so that state funding could be granted to non Christian religious schools. The family in question is therefore able to send the children to a religious school if that is what matters to them.
      This is a classic example of people who have been given an inch not only then taking a yard, but attempting to take a mile.

    6. This authoritarian overseas culture does not understand what British tolerance means. A school, club or any organisation has the freedom to set its own rules and conduct its own affairs. The freedom this imported culture does not comprehend is if they don’t like it they are free to go somewhere else, either within the UK or further afield. That is your freedom. My freedom and tolerance is not having to put up with and be subjected to the folly of others. Jog on with your hokum. But this is a subtlety and distinction that is alien.

      1. Indeed.
        It is one of many reasons why I don’t believe welcoming that particular culture and religion is a good idea here or for that matter anywhere else.

    2. Ah, The Independent, a news outlet that is anything but what the name suggests!

    3. I think the media probably understands, it’s just following the usual path of “immigrants are wonderful, all surgeons, rocket scientists etc.etc.” And because of the ridiculous “hate laws” she is deemed racist and Islamophobic. BTW, what is Islamaphobia? Because a phobia always used to mean a fear of something. Just shows how our language has been distorted and upended to support the narrative.

      1. An irrational fear?
        Fearing maniacs who desire the death of you and your culture seems very rational.
        Maybe hatred might be the more exact word.

  46. As “amount” has almost entirely replaced “number” in common speech as a noun of quantity for countable objects, and fearing that “number” will fall into disuse, I suggest that “number” replaces “amount” as a noun of quantity for uncountable objects. Who will join me in coining expressions such as “number of water”, “number of gold” and “number of salt”?

    2. Just use less. Less people, less laws, less commentators, etc. ‘Fewer’ is good for everything else. Fewer water, fewer gold, etc.

      Should be clear for everyone then.

    3. I’m up for anything that mock’s modern English usage. That includes the greengrocers apostrophe (or lack of).

    4. Irritating, isn’t it. It’s the same with lesser and fewer. Drives me and Alf mad. 😡

    5. Yanks just use ‘bunch’ for multiples of anything. We say a bunch of flowers (or firewood kindling). Yanks say: a ‘bunch’ of people, a ‘bunch’ of water, a ‘bunch’ of peanuts, a ‘bunch’ of handguns, a ‘bunch’ of everything!

      Larger quantities come in a ‘whole bunch’. I wonder if this can be broken down into a ‘half bunch’ or a ‘quarter bunch’?

      They are clearly too dim to work out that there is a massive compendium of collective nouns out there awaiting their discovery.

      2. When Dennis Moore held up The Lupin Express, he demanded the lupins behanded over “In a bunch”.

        M Python.

  47. An “amount” of people always gives me a mental image of bodies piled up. Using the wrong term is ignorance.

    1. I guess trannies can correctly be described as less people, since they have actually had bits chopped off. Fewer of them would be a blessing.

  48. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6105ac0d430c0e5c5716fab7a4918bb01dae253aa72a2e05e40fb7a59e74da04.jpg Since I moved to this address nearly 11 years ago I have seldom seen a Goldfinch in the garden. This past three weeks has seen an unbelievably massive ‘charm’ of between 80 and 100 individuals clamouring around the garden feeding cage.

    They occasionally get spooked when the resident female Sparrowhawk swoops in hoping for a snack, but they then simply decamp to the cherry tree where they sit patiently, looking like multi-coloured leaves, before returning to continue feeding once the coast is clear.

    A ‘charm’ is an understatement.

    2. Aren’t they beautiful. We have four Guardsman seed feeders, very effective against squirrels but not when parakeets and the like who come and rock the feeders so that seed falls out (drat them!), love seeing them. That’s a powerful camera you have showing them so clearly. Makes them look large!

      2. Sadly, the effect of the parakeets and magpies on our feeders was to scatter so much seed that our garden turned into Hamlyn before the Pied Piper arrived.

    3. I don’t know if they experienced a temporary drop in numbers. They were rare in my garden for about three years following a fairly good showing before that. This year they are returning. Perhaps the wet winter has helped around here?

      1. Sparrows seem to follow that pattern.
        Years without any or very few. And years with flocks of them.

        1. I would love to see some house sparrows in my garden, I get precious few of them and only every now and then. They seem to be bullied away by the far more numerous tree sparrows, which are a rarity these days in the UK.

          1. We have the Hedge jobs. Very entertaining birds that work tirelessly throughout the summer on eliminating house flies.

          2. Did you know that ‘hedge sparrows’ are not actually sparrows at all. The Dunnock Prunella modularis (to give them their proper name) is a member of the accentor family.

          3. Have just look up the comparisons and ours are actually house ones (such abysms of ignorance here!) Thanks for the heads up.

          4. Don’t worry. I was once out birdwatching with friends and I had my telescope trained upon a yellowhammer. When my friends could not locate it, I realised it was an empty crisp packet.🙄

          1. Not tried it. Still, is a single malt even a scotch, I wonder. I’m not a great whisky drinker but occasionally a thing called Shackleton is to my liking. It’s a cheap blend, I might add.

          2. 105 is cask strength that demands a little water before savouring. All Glenfarclas malts are top notch.

      1. I have other snaps taken at the same time also showing a few siskins, chaffinches and bramblings (now gone) too. I used to get redpolls too, but I’ve not had one in the garden for about seven years now.

      3. Carel Fabritius 1654. I’ve seen the original in the Mauritshuis in Den Haag.

  49. Hi, Katy.

    Did you know that you now live on the most bird-rich continent on the planet?

    1. I am sadly uninformed about birds, I’m afraid. I have ben thrilled on occasion to see a hummingbird looking totally out of place in the streets of Buenos Aires, and in one of my residences my morning reading of poetry on the roof was closely monitored by a couple of cara-caras, but apart from that I’m one of those who can’t tell one LBJ from another.

      Having said that, I am very fond of the tiny doves dotted around, and was driven bananas by the slightly off-key song of one particular rufous thrush all bloody summer…

        1. This came up in a waffle fest pack of lies by a ‘sustainability’ co-ordinator.

          They said 97% of scientists agree with climate change and I said – well, yes, but of the 9000 papers reviewed, 6000 stated no link and were discarded. The remainder which suggested a tenuous or more link and of those 33% of the remaining 34% were presented.

          That’s where the 97% comes from: deceit and treachery, which is all climate change is.

          It wasn’t a welcome truth. Truly, greeniacs are the only group who have to continually lie to keep their jobs.

  52. ‘Afternoon All

    Been busy,quick medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce736fde5f251192ef6e5c8d0d03c2e8cef7d30a05e27f57ce8ce445afc0606c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4efec6cff70ae113bd45f26a09735f289834eb9dc4e72f1897442496a4beab3.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b5bebaffdeb759d6842e0222741742f926745c385e59005be3eaab009ed442c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89f2b42b750dd6d17ae8f47eada9e1d4fb9d91bc7bd282c3888f621d465bea70.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/60492958b7379f3a3c6e596773b8195755c987e41182f0abd1ff000e82aa3c7f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/996f7e026e5a46d9cb5c2eb3c4237b44e6127e2ddf09c7c220a623264e73bf25.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bdc2f4a7ff5e9b9b8361fabe03e1ee9522c36df616d4060a744b57e6c0d065fe.jpg

          1. When I worked on the post as a student, I used to deliver to a cooperage. It was right next door to the brewery. Our ancestors knew a thing or two.

          2. When I worked on the post as a student, I used to deliver to a cooperage. It was right next door to the brewery. Our ancestors knew a thing or two.

  53. Rather similar to when the WJK, then merely The Prince of Wales, claimed we were at something like seconds to midnight in the battle to ‘save the planet.’

    1. He was born? It looks like something Frankenstein would have cobbled together from spare body parts.

      1. Do you mean Dr Jekyll? I agree, assuming he had the mother of all hangovers and had gone blind!

    2. Mirrors are a good way of dealing with the Undead. In his case the sight of his own reflection would put him into catatonic shock.

      2. He probably thinks he is a most convincing ‘she’, and wouldn’t understand how any normal red-blooded bloke wouldn’t be interested in his ‘charms.’

      1. Back in the mid sixties there were a few pub’s in North London that had drag artists singing and telling jokes. After going to such places with my mates, I use to stand a the bar until it was time to go. It’s never appealed to me.

        2. My first Encounter with drag was watching Old Mother Riley …. Saturday Morning Cinema (in Stan Laurel’s father’s theatre in North Shields, early 1950s) ….. Nobody had a TV!

      2. There was a splendid production of Charley’s Aunt on BBC TV many years ago. Danny La Rue was in the title role.

        The mere contemplation of homosexual acts is an anathema to me but I had a very good friend, whose private life I did not enquire into, who was a homosexual, and he told me that Danny La Rue was much fêted among those of his particular bent. Very sadly he contracted AIDS and died which was a great shock to us all because he was one of the early ones to go.

      4. I watched Paul Ogrady perform as Lily Savage at the Palladium once. Ascerbic, foul mouthed and very funny.

      5. Not my cup of tea, but he certainly carried off his act with style and was entertaining.

    4. I have friends who are drag queens. They aim for the pinnacle of glamour, are generally hilarious, and in absolutely no way demand to be deemed women. Most of them are appalled at the politicisation of the whole trans issue.

        1. Got the name wrong. They are called ‘The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’. Confusion arose because they dress as Nuns. :@)

      2. Imagine if you are a self-respecting drag queen, going about your lawful business and suddenly you find that you are being confused with Isla Bryson in the public mind.
        Even worse, imagine if you are a self-respecting drag queen and you commit a crime in Scotland and find that they want to send you to a women’s prison.The chagrin!

    5. Lol, rolls eyes, you are right, i cannot believe he is a woman and be is certainly not beautiful.

    6. How anyone could find it physically attractive is beyond me, even Phizzee would only think twice before turning tail, as it were, and running.

      1. I love Bosch’s paintings. He was clearly as mad as a hatter, but they’re more interesting to look at than the average religious paintings of the period.

        1. Apparently due to eating mouldy rye bread. I went to an exhibition of his in Rotterdam where some of his works were on display ( including The Haywain) along with some from Bruegel the Elder, all in a similar hallucinogenic style.

          1. The NHS might have him I suppose….Ive met one of his sort before in a hospital.

    10. Do you think there is a possibility that the original poster was being a tad, erm, sarcastic?

  55. Someone’s in a hurry.

    Sonic booms made the house shake just now and the following aircraft noise was very loud, so I presume more than one plane is out there.

      2. I believe the nearest French air force field is south of Bordeaux.
        We often get jets flying over but sonic booms are a rarity.

        1. The nearest to you would be Cazeau, but the sonic boom stuff would come from further south at Mont-de-Marsan.

          2. I used to live in Les Landes about 40kms south of Mont-de-Marsan and I well remember jumping out of our skins when a jet went right overhead and through the sonic boom. The poor dog quivered for about an hour afterwards. We were amazed it was allowed. I think they mostly stay further south though over the mountains as I see a lot of jet trails there and sometimes hear them if they are flying low, but rarely the sonic boom.

        2. Supersonic flight over land is banned in the UK unless the aircraft is going on an interception IIRC – even then permission has to be granted. maybe France has different laws.

          1. I think it’s similar.

            We very seldom get them, fewer than once a year. In the current international situation I suspect something may have been afoot/aloft.

  56. The Liz Truss book is a best seller at Amazon, good for her, she knows where the bodies are hidden

      1. She was bullied, manipulated and removed shadowy unelected people.
        She made many mistakes but she was genuine. Liz Truss is spending lots of time with Nigel Farage atm, if only she’s not have been on talking terms with him earlier, he’d given her his guidance and strength . Yes I’m impressed with Liz Truss but then again I always was. Anyone who upsets the establishment, civil servants, 1922 committee as much as she did must be doing something right . When they got rid of Liz Truss I realised how much control these unelected blobs have over this country

        1. Her analysis in the Telegraph yesterday of what needed to be done – abolition of the Supreme Court, withdrawal from the ECHR etc etc was spot on.

          1. Yes i read that and bookmarked the article, Liz Truss was spot on, of course if you read the comments they are critical but I believe the Daily Telegraph comments section has been hijacked by lefties

          3. Are you a bit of a rebel Squire, I wonder what you said to get banned 😀

          4. You don’t have to do a lot to get banned from the DT. I got banned for saying that St Jacinda should be strung up from the nearest lamp-post for her lunatic Covid policy😆

          5. As Kitty says though, there are noticeably more lefties posting now than before. The Spectator will go the same way with the new comments system I expect.

          6. There are more lefties commenting in the Spectator but enough of the more traditional readers, many of who have been commenting there for a long time, to keep them in line – so far :))

          10. If you go straight to “top comments” in the DT you will see that it hasn’t quite been colonised by lefties BTL, but the moderators certainly have been – I keep getting comments instantly removed!

          11. I would agree.

            If your BTL does not fit in with the narrative they want to push you will have your comments deleted or the up voted trimmed so that they become less visible.

      1. When he comes to write his memoirs he’ll be reduced to giving them away as Christmas presents.

    3. I’ve bought it. I don’t usually buy political biographies but I’ll make an exception for a blonde.

    1. It won’t be Ropers…..for a change. They don’t know the way to Wales.😂

      1. Unfortunately they do, here in the Far South. Every time I venture from my burrow I see more and more black-swathed figures going about their unsmiling business.

        1. They’re as rare as sunny days in Gwynedd. And Powys. Our black swathed figures are cattle and the odd sheep.

          2. A couple of weeks ago, I commented here about my first ever sighting of black letterbox creatures, accompanied by seedy-looking male controllers, in M&S in Spalding. The significant population of East Europeans in Spalding is old news and, for the most part, they really are decent and settled families. They are somewhat over-represented in driving and unlicenced tobacco goods crimes, but even that is infinitely preferable to being over-run by dangerous muzrats.

    3. Welsh fire investigators suspected the fire had been caused by the ‘record’ number of apprentices trying to grow an Accelerant Leek.

    4. I misread that as Glencoed.

      I thought, bloody hell, those damn Campbells get everywhere!

    1. Russians interrupting supply of arms and weapons to Ukies!

      BBC just reported that 50 million Ruskie soldiers have died in the futile attempt at imposing communist rule over Europe.

      That’s our job, declared the BBC.

        1. It has been the objective of the BBC since its inception – the UE was just a step in that direction.

    1. There’ll be flu-birds over
      The white cliffs of Dover
      Tomorrow with no time to flee

      There’ll be death and slaughter
      There’ll be no quarter
      Tomorrow when we start to sneeze

      1. If you really want to end it more quickly before it all kicks off then I recommend the book Cliff Jumping by Eileen Dover.

        1. Scared of heights me. I’m off to the local in 30 mins to talk with 2 angling chums. We’ll put the world to rights.

    2. You have to wonder, why would the US do that? maybe for future use against their enemies, but surely they can’t trust China? Might as well have set up the labs in North Korea, another untrustworthy rogue state.

      1. It’s for population control. These people really are clinically insane, a la Mengele.

        1. And not permitted for good reason. Very unethical to use another country, especially one as untrustworthy and dangerous as China, to carry out research that is banned in your own country.

    3. Considering the state – in most every Western country – seems dedicated to using economics to destroy their respective nations virology is the least of our worries.

  60. Dear Lord, please let this be true.
    Interfering with the climate could so easily end in catastrophe, it should be halted.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13318541/dubai-storm-cloud-seeding-caused-rain-weather-flooding.html

    Was Dubai’s apocalyptic storm SELF-INFLICTED? Claims UAE ‘flew cloud-seeding flights – which increase rainfall – the day before’ 18 months’ rain fell in 24 hours causing chaos that closed airport and sparked rush to flee the country

    1. I seem to recall reading that the deadly floods experienced in Devon a few years ago were preceded by cloud-seeding experiments in the area

      1. If there is one thing that is undisputedly anthropogenic then it’s influencing climate change by messing around with our natural weather systems.

    3. Surely they must have had a weather forecast – if so, why bother seeding clouds? (unless the weather forecast was for dry weather, and it was in fact the seeding which caused the downpour).

  61. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58e757fe2eb08806812299855ecffcbd136219c485edeef578d578d9daed263f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1143acc587e8fa5a6d4bf53478fdcb259d652befedb2a6139f5d83e91a58cac6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04ffb4c99886f71f581aef2e6e8c95497fc6cecfdb1e74b4d267cf02b73e687f.jpg In response to a comment made by vw, earlier, I keep my feeders secured in a home-made walk-in cage that is completely surrounded by a 2″ mesh sturdy plastic netting. Small birds fly in and out through the mesh as though it’s not there but predators, such as the Sparrowhawk perched on its roof, are kept out. My camera is a Nikon D500 with a Nikkor 200–500mm supertelephoto zoom lens that can be ‘pushed’ to 750mm focal length.

        1. The second one doesn’t. Maybe the camera has put on ten lbs, as we are told it does (and draw comfort from the idea) 🙂 Beautiful photos, Grizzly. Fattipuff is the English translation of “Patapouf”, as in “Patapoufs et Felifers” (Fattipuffs and Thinnifers)

          1. Many birds, when perched, sit in a squat fashion and fluff up their plumage to make themselves appear fatter. Wader species are particularly adept at that, going from long and thin to short and fat depending upon how they sit.

        2. If you ever see a sparrow hawk work a hedge-row you won’t fail to be impressed.

          2. I see that frequently. Last year I saw a similar goshawk fly low along the side of the road before turning abruptly and smashing into a black-headed gull in the adjacent field. It was breathtaking to watch.

          1. The female sparrow hawk is, honestly, larger than the male.

            But yes, I was courting trouble.

          2. I’ve noticed that in human females in Barmouth 😂

            Someone I met who used to have a business in Barmouth had moved to Criccieth. I asked him why? (Barmouth has spectacular views inland but, erm, a rather low class of visitor). He replied “The tattoos and the beer bellies became too much……and that was just the women!”

  64. I keep getting adverts coming up about luxury train tours in India – It all looks somewhat splendid but Id prefer the Orient Express through Europe ( excluding India ) not that I can afford either but I’d love to travel on the Orient Express .

      1. I’ve just looked up the prices. A grand suite on the Paris-Istanbul route is £64,000. Per person! And on top of that they want to charge extra for grand marque champagne. It does look nice…..but!

          1. Villeins disappeared shortly after the Black Death. Sadly, these days people have to be paid for their work. Outrageous. And then the Chancellor helps himself to most of what remains which makes him the biggest thief of the lot!

        2. If they’re charging that, they obviously are getting enough people to pay it. Makes you wonder what appreciation of money such people have.

    1. I started to listen and, infuriatingly, it was preceded by quite a long advertisement featuring loud rap style music. Then the music started and the violinist had not even completed the first phrase before it cut away abruptly to another ad! I may have to subscribe to YouTube to get rid of the annoying ads. I found an even less practical Morgan than my old one…..I think I’d wear a motorcycle helmet with this one for fear of stones hitting me in the face.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42994d226803a0adff4e3fbbc93a3f9ec7c0ca670565fad5d13a8ee3193eef95.jpg

      1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpkrTPXKeDs This one is much better I hope, I just watch his hands That Morgan Is enchanting and the right colour. Just perfectly impractical. It’d not fit a labrador of any size 😉 I think a leather driving hat with goggles and leather driving gloves would be spendid.

        1. After the initial annoyance, there were no more ads for the whole violin sonata! I know the piano one well as I learned it myself as a teenager many years ago.🙂

          1. I think the piano one very perfect The piano and violin blend together very well .

      4. In the mid’60s one of my cousins had a Morgan 3 wheeler, one of the later ones with side valve Ford engine instead of the V-twin.

      5. if you play them on this website by clicking the red arrow, the ads do not play.

      6. It’s intimidating to be driving a mini amongst all of the big trucks over here in Ontario, driving a Morgan would be too much.

        Two questions spring to mind. Can you get snow tyres and where would I put my golf lubs?

        1. Ha! Morgan’s are toys, my Canadian friend. If you want to do the whole English thing get an Ineos Grenadier for 90% of your life and a Morgan for those days when you are imagining yourself in the Cotswolds.😁

          1. Not so for the Morgan or my choices of car 💔. Others would be happy with that reply I suppose. There are more to those cars then the Cotswolds .

          2. What would you choose? Don’t forget the Labrador, but you can have two cars. Oh and one can be exotic if you like…..but not 500k plus.

          3. Hmm, I been to many classic car shows etc .. that’s a difficult one
            It might be a 1955 Jaguar XK140 Roadster but I shall sleep on it and think about the labrador .

      1. Deploying Phil Collins videos is against the Geneva Convention. Even Putin doesn’t go that far.

  68. “He’s very pale…”

    Brazilian police have arrested a woman who wheeled a dead man she claimed was her uncle into a bank to have him sign off on a four-figure loan in her name. Érika de Souza Vieira Nunes was detained after claiming that the dead man, named as Paulo Roberto Braga, 68, was her uncle and would sign the necessary papers despite feeling unwell.

    A video of the macabre incident, in which Ms de Souza Vieira Nunes repeatedly props up Braga’s lolling head while smiling at disconcerted bank staff, went viral in Brazil on Tuesday. Seated in a rundown wheelchair, he appears unconscious as she attempts to put a pen in his hand, resting it on a desk beside his photo ID and the paperwork for the 17,000 Brazilian Reais (£2,600) loan.

    ‘He’s very pale’
    Staff at the bank in Bangu, a middle-class suburb on the western edge of Rio de Janeiro, express their concern for Braga’s health but are waved off by Ms de Souza Vieira Nunes, who tells the corpse to stop giving her a “headache”.

    “Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign [the contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, because I can’t sign for you,” she can be heard saying in the video, which staff are reported to have begun recording after becoming suspicious.

    One of the bank employees interjects: “I don’t think this is legal. He doesn’t look well. He’s very pale.”

    Ms de Souza Vieira Nunes, who claimed to be Braga’s carer as well as his niece, responds: “But that’s how he is. He just doesn’t say anything.”
    She then addresses the dead man: “Uncle, if you’re not well, I can take you to hospital. Do you want to go back to hospital?”

    In the video, other bank customers can be seen waiting in the background, apparently unaware of the morbid drama playing out in front of them.
    Eventually, the bank staff informed Ms de Souza Vieira Nunes that Mr Braga did not appear able to knowingly consent to the loan and called an ambulance. Paramedics confirmed that he was dead and she was arrested.

    She has now been charged with attempted theft by fraud and abusing a corpse. An autopsy was being held to establish the cause of Mr Braga’s death, but police have already confirmed that he had passed away several hours before arriving at the bank.

      1. What are branches? I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think I ever saw one…

          1. Aye, but trees are about all you’ll find in your nearest high street these days!

    3. I wonder how much fraud goes on these days in the UK. Heck, 3 Bulgarians troughed away on 50 million quid of my money and the DHSS did absolutely nothing about it.

      How many others are there?

  69. A clueless Par Four!

    Wordle 1,033 4/6
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    1. I can contribute a par too.

      Wordle 1,033 4/6

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    2. 5 today, just chose the wrong first letter.

      Wordle 1,033 5/6

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      1. And worse his Missus trying to flog you her “lovingly hand made” preserves at $200 a time.

  74. Im aboout to leave to cook dinner – A Normany pork dish .

    See you later . xx

        1. I leave cream out of most recipes. It masks flavour. Bottled cider then flambéed with a glug of Calvados at the end.

    2. You’ve inspired me. I have apples so i put thick cut pork chops and cider on my Sainsbury’s order for tomorrow.

      1. Don’t forget more calvados. A glug or two after cooking dinner will soon empty the bottle.

        1. I had a 1976 bottle of Calvados. Then i invited some Navy mates round for New Year. Then i didn’t have a bottle of 1976 Calvados. Or the bottle of Armagnac i had in reserve.

          1. I have a 1966 bottle of Chateau Yquem. Not sure what to do with it tbf. It could well be undrinkable now.

          6. It’d be rather extravagant I suppose to cook with such a wine .
            I am not a wine snob but am a wine geek, I take an interest in vineyards and seeing how the grapes grow and In whatever soil and climate. As well as the storage of wine and how they age. I love reading wine labels and would like to take a tour of the vineyards of France and Italy but I’m not an expert, for me and not about the commercialism, how much a bottle Is worth but about the appreciation of wine being grown and created from a little grape to become a splendid drink .

          7. Pretty much my view on racehorses, DuMH. I love the process behind the beautiful finished product.

          9. Hello . BTW you addressed me as ‘ DuMH ‘ here at Nottl for the past 6 years they;ve known me as The Lady of The Mercians – Aethelflaed ( but they also call me by my actual name of Kitty ) Ive a smaller second account ( this one – of which I was known at the Spectator as Terpicshore or ‘ Terpsi ‘ muse of dance . Ive combined both names for here now . Im Aethelflaed to the majority, Terpsi to a few Spexciles. I don’t know much about racehorses but they are very fine creatures.

          10. I remember having lunch at the Chateau Montbazillac. As we drove up I stopped the car and stole a grape from the beautifully kept vines. It was as bitter as a sloe…..and this is a famous sweet wine. I was just perplexed!

          11. That’s the amazing thing about wine, how a humble grape can become a drink of such complexity of flavours.

          13. Well I will…..after warning my guests it may be heaven or it may be hell…..à la hotel California.

          14. “you can stab it with your steely knives but you just can’t kill the Beast”. I do enjoy that song. The chord progression is very clever.

        1. Got some Pancetta in the freezer. I also like to add French Tarragon as a garnish at the end. I think it pairs well with pork.

          1. Yes tarragon works very well, it all sounds very nice, I hope it is delicious tomorrow, find a suitable wine too .

  76. Does the Normandy pork thingy you’re cooking have apple, cider, cream and calvados in by any chance?

  78. Another job opportunity for Clare Balding…

    BBC drops Sir Steve Redgrave from Olympics rowing coverage

    Redgrave has been at every Games since winning his first gold medal in 1984 but that sequence will be broken in Paris

    Ben Rumsby
    17 April 2024 • 1:37pm

    Sir Steve Redgrave will miss the Olympics for the first time in 40 years after losing his role as a BBC pundit to Dame Katherine Grainger and the race to become British Rowing performance director to Louise Kingsley.

    Redgrave, who has been at every Games since winning the first of five consecutive gold medals in 1984, told the Daily Mail he would not be in Paris unless he received a last-gasp SOS.

    He said he had lost his role as a BBC pundit after UK Sport chair Grainger began working for the corporation alongside Sir Matthew Pinsent and it decided it did not need all three of them.

    The last Games also saw Redgrave in the job of high-performance director of China’s national rowing team.

    “I wasn’t told that I’ve been discontinued, but it’s sort of evolved,” said Redgrave, whose most recent Olympics for the BBC was in 2016. “Matt is the presenter and Katherine Grainger is the equivalent to what I was doing. The three of us worked together at the World Championships the year after Rio, but then they went, ‘Male-female, covered on Olympic medals, why have three?’. Working for China at the last Games probably didn’t help matters.”

    Redgrave also walked off set at Rio 2016 during a live broadcast after being angered by the BBC not showing the whole of the Helen Glover-Heather Stanning women’s pair semi-final live.
    *
    *

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

    John Do
    4 HRS AGO
    Makes sense – why would anyone care what the most decorated rower and one of the most decorated olympians of all time thinks and has to say if he’s a straight white male…

    Lee Bradshaw
    3 HRS AGO
    Reply to Aaron Aardvark – view message
    As soon as I read the headline I knew it was a woman that would be replacing him.

    JC Spring
    3 HRS AGO
    Reply to Lee Bradshaw
    A woman and a lesbian. That’s two boxes ticked.

          1. He’s walked off sets, been involved with China, and he’s too forthright for BBC tastes.
            I admire him and have enjoyed his commentaries over the years.
            As far as I’m concerned he was one of the best.

    1. They’re only investigating to exonerate. She’ll walk away unscathed. She’s Establishment, and so are they.

      1. It’s all for show.

        They will make a ‘thorough examination of the facts’ and then decide that she has done nothing wrong just as she and Starmer did nothing wrong at Beergate.

        1. Yes, Minister used to reference this stuff. ‘Oh, you want a *real* inquiry? I thought you wanted an inquiry.’

  80. If I complain that I am being discriminated against because I am white, I will lose, even though it may be true.

    But if I complain that somebody has complained that I am playing the race card, because I’m rejected for being white, do I win?

    No? Thought not.

    It will only benefit everyone else.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13310141/Suggesting-playing-race-card-complain-theyre-treated-racist-judge-rules.html

    Suggesting someone is ‘playing the race card’ if they complain about how they’re treated IS racist, judge rules after British Army musician successfully sued because guards didn’t believe he was a soldier

    1. Do you think his complaint was justified? Or do you think he should have just let it go?

      1. The initial complaint may have been justified, but the follow up was certainly using the race aspect to his advantage.
        If that isn’t playing the race card, what do you think it was?

        1. Well the complaint was that he wasn’t believed and so not treated as respectfully as he should have been. Why? Probably because he was a black guy. That’s what I would have thought in his position.
          Over the years and in different countries I’ve been profiled one way or another and treated less than respectfully. I’m sure many readers have. And it’s irritating when it happens, but most of us have no alternative but to let it go.
          Would you have let it go if this had happened to you?

          1. You didn’t actually answer my question.

            Probably I would have let is pass, but I would have had my revenge in a subtler fashion.

            I suspect that the guard in question would have stopped anyone he did not recognise claiming to be a guardsman in those circumstances, black, white or khaki.

            Or are you suggesting that any black man in mufti claiming to be a bandsman should be allowed to require entry without challenge, just because they are black?

          2. Oh I thought I had. Yes, of course he was using the race card.
            I remember years ago in London I my late teens many of my friends were black and at least on one occasion a friend used this tactic to defend a mate he felt had been mistreated.
            Your last paragraph I think is unfair. He wasn’t, as I understand it, demanding entry without confirming his identity, but that the process of identity check should be respectful, assuming, unless evidenced to the contrary, that he was being honest.
            His impression was that the duty officer couldn’t believe he was part of the corps because he was black. And that is somewhat offensive.
            I for my part would probably have let this go. Life is too short.
            But I understand that this kind of discrimination can be tiresome.

          3. Agreed
            The fact it went as far as it did raises questions.

            A good way to ensure one won’t fit in.

    2. As being white is considered to be a “privileged” characteristic, any discrimination against you is merely a partial redressing of the unfair advantages which your skin tone confers on you but to which you are not entitled as it is not something achieved by merit.

      1. It’s achieved by several thousand years of evolutionary biology but that doesn’t square with the egalitarian myth, itself predicated on a lust for power.

          1. No wonder I’m discriminated against:

            HG whiter than white detergent is a laundry whitener that prevents and removes this yellowing caused by sunlight and greying and discoloration from washing whites and colours together. Use HG whiter than white detergent if white textile must stay white or become white again.

            https://hg.eu/uk/products/hg-whiter-than-white-detergent#:~:text=HG%20whiter%20than%20white%20detergent%20is%20a%20laundry%20whitener%20that,white%20or%20become%20white%20again.

            HG herself notwithstanding, HG products are genuinely excellent in my experience.

  81. Another Birdie Today

    Wordle 1,033 3/6

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    1. Strange word today

      Wordle 1,033 4/6

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      1. Grr, should have got this one quicker!
        Wordle 1,033 5/6

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        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  82. The Left thinks everyone has ‘rights’ – apart from Nigel Farage

    Labour’s delight at the attempted closure of the National Conservative conference is deeply worrying for the future of free speech in the UK

    TOM HARRIS
    17 April 2024 • 12:56pm
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    Gary Limericker
    5 HRS AGO
    Norman Stanley Fletcher, you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court, and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You are an habitual criminal, a conservative whose home is not Net Zero compliant, who drives a petrol car, who didn’t kneel for BLM, didn’t demand Jews be wiped out “from the river to the sea”, who has not put their pronouns on their personal emails and who has been overheard in your own home saying trans women are men. We therefore feel constrained to commit you to the minimum term allowed for these offences: you will go to prison for 30 years.

        1. Is this Yorkshire York or Canada York? I wonder what they could tell me about the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. Probably not much.

          1. This be the Canadian university. To quote from their web site –
            York is empowered by a welcoming and diverse community with a uniquely global perspective.

          3. Yes. The Romans knew that the Philistines were the ancient enemies of the Hebrews and latinised the name as a deliberate insult.

          4. Some of their more rabid proponents do actually refer to themselves as “philistines”. Don;t suppose it has the same ring to it over here.

        2. The inhabitants of the Gaza strip are not a race. The word “Palestinian” is dubious.

    2. I shall be generous, not having seen the opposition bench’s laughter, that they are amused by anything which inconveniences Nigel Farage rather than attempts to stifle free speech, although the latter will be welcomed by some of them if it doesn’t meet with their personal approval. Some people do believe that disagreement from any other quarter is motivated by visceral hatred towards them in particular, especially if they have a “protected” characteristic not shared by the “privileged”.

      1. Wes Streeting in the HoC: “…(Braverman) couldn’t be here today because she’s currently in Brussels…with some far-right fanatics with whom she has much in common…”

        1. Malicious or banter (or bants, as some now have it)? I tend toward the latter, although I’m more than open to correction. I know little about Mr Streeting.

      2. Wes Streeting in the HoC: “…(Braverman) couldn’t be here today because she’s currently in Brussels…with some far-right fanatics with whom she has much in common…”

      1. Not this damned Spring which seems to be mostly rain and cloud here. Perhaps things are better in East Anglia?

        1. It’s been very cold today but still beautiful with a blue sky in Constable County. Snowdonia is atmospheric wild and beautiful when with heavy mists .

          1. It’s ok out of the wind but the wind is from the North and bitterly cold. I wore my warmest coat for dog walking today.

          2. Warm coats and jumpers are still needed on certain days. Harlech would be very blustery on the beach even for the dog .

        2. Here in Stevenage, about 30 miles north of London (Home Counties North according to Come Dancing regions of old, so not as far east as East Anglia), it has been a mostly sunny day but chilly with an afternoon shower.

        3. Not really. More like April showers, but prolonged and cold. About 9°C today.

    3. I have encountered these as well. The photos are usually of very attractive Far Eastern women who post anodyne comments on social media, but the scammers are generally African.

    4. Looks like I’ve picked up a few of that sort as well. I never bothered looking before.

  85. Prince Harry FINALLY cuts ties with Britain: Exiled royal lists US as his primary residence for first time amid deportation fears over past drug use

    Filings published by Companies House today for ‘Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex’ record that his ‘New Country/State Usually Resident’ is now the USA. It was previously recorded as the United Kingdom. The change comes as pressure increases on US President Joe Biden ‘s government to release Harry’s visa records after campaigners seized on comments made by the American ambassador to London that he would not be deported while the Democrat was president. The conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington DC , which has gone to court to seek the release of the file, has submitted the remarks made by Jane Hartley as part of its case.

    1. Will he be known henceforth as Henry Mountbatten Windsor. Remaining a prince of the realm is not cutting all ties.

        1. I do think Harry and William are like Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter. Although William is now bald (but still so much more handsome).

    2. When/if he takes US citizenship I believe that he has to give up all other nationalities/citizenships.
      Make him go through the full rigamarole of entry whenever he returns.

      1. You can have dual citizenship between UK and US, but he would have to give up all titles and claims to foreign thrones, though.

      2. “Make him go through the full rigamarole of entry”

        As opposed to an RNLI assisted entry.

    4. This is soooo boring. Why can’t he and his missus just fuck right off, get in a car, and fuck off some more? Who gives a flying one?

  86. I’ve eaten my dinner, done the washing up and now I’m listening to my beloved Beethoven and finishing a glass of nice white wine.

    1. How did the Norman thing go? Norman cuisine is probably my favourite. But with white wine replacing the cider.

          2. Surf ‘n turf is a dish, I doubt a terf is particularly pleasant to eat, unless of course you’re Phizzee in disguise.

      2. The Normany thing went quite well but not perfect.
        I like very much, Coquilles Saint – Jaques
        Sole á la Normande and Meadow Salted Lamb .
        I like food from Burgundy very much too .

        1. I do too, but last time I went to the burgundy region of France and spent a few weeks there I found that the richness of the food was too much after a week and I ended up eating pizza or steak most days. Foie gras, escargots etc etc were just too much after a few days. Have you experienced that too?

          1. Yes, regional foods of whatever country are very nice for a few days but in countries like France they can be too rich beyond a few days . It’s best to have something simple on alternative days .

          2. Confit de canard was another I love but couldn’t eat after the fifth serving.

          5. That put me in mind of a “quelque chose tres simple” once presented – which included a courgette flower stuffed with sweetbreads finished with a lamb’s brain sauce and topped with a gently poached pigeon’s egg. I can’t remember what other ingredients were involved, but your post made me giggle, remembering what some french chefs consider to be simple food.

          7. I had something very similar once in France which actually made me sick and I’ve never been able to face a stuffed courgette flower since!!

        2. I think you mean “salt meadow lamb”? They are the ones who feed on the grass near the coast and they are delicious.

    3. How come you had to do the washing up as well as the cooking? That sounds a bit unfair.

      1. A very good morning to you Squire, you’re probably still asleep 🙂 I don’t do the washing up all the time when cooking but do quite often but when I do, it’s done without me thinking it unfair. I wear my yellow marigolds and smile sweetly whilst making sure the wine glasses sparkle like diamonds. A cup of ☕ to wake you up 😁

  88. Ptooie !

    Surf and turf is always done wrong IMO.

    It should be a flattened lightly seared fillet steak on a slice of fried bread topped with a king scallop and a big garlic prawn to garnish. Dressed with pan jus after being flambéed with Cognac.

    Can i get that anywhere? NO. ! Except in my kitchen.

    1. Surf and turf is just wrong on every level in my view. You do know it originated in the US don’t you?

      1. They just can’t help themselves. A poster tried to imbue us with Americanisms this week and lasted less than a day. Empire risen and fallen in less than 200 years.

  89. Don’t break your heart…..Morgans are lovely but trying to use one everyday, particularly in Canada, just doesn’t work.

    1. Yes I suppose not, life is very different now from when they were created. The roads are different and other traffic.

    1. Why? You racist against white bred?

      The way i do it is to thinly spread some beef dripping on both sides then 30 seconds a side in a hot pan. Adds crispy to the dish.

      1. If I had bread with it I would have a simple crusty bit to mop up all the juices at the end.

          2. For a dish as i have described timing is everything. I wouldn’t do it for a banquet.

          3. Grizzly will be having thin slices of Melba fried bread à la Escoffier tomorrow now.

            Garnished with some home-cured bacon, home-made pork sausage, shop-bought black pudding, free-range eggs (fried, properly in lard sunny-side up), and a couple of San Marzano tomatoes.

          4. Speak of the ………..
            It was what i was trying to impart to that idiot sex obsessed Sosraboc.

      1. 1000 upvotes !
        Brunch tomorrow is field mushroom on fried bread with a poached egg on top. Finished with home made Hollandaise. While Sos is eating cold baked beans from a tin. Which is more than he deserves. :@)

        2. Actually, baked beans are delicious on fried bread, especially if the fried bread is spread with marmite or bovril

  91. I have all the ingredients in my freezer, but I think I would prefer to enjoy them separately, I no longer have an appetite for large meals !!

    1. I understand. I can no longer eat large plates of food like Sunday roasts with all the trimmings.

      My steaks are never more than 100gms. A scallop and a prawn doesn’t tip the balance.

      I also use plates just smaller than a standard size dinner plate so it doesn’t look lost.

      1. Anyone else here remember a restaurant in Beauchamp Place called “Menage a Trois”? It only did (tiny) starters and puddings and they were all delicious.

        1. No, that is a new one on me but i haven’t ranged far. Did Simpsons on the Strand. Had to tell them what they were doing wrong with the roast beef. Don’t think i’m allowed back now :@(

          1. Simpsons was very pompous. I do recall having a sublime skate wing in black butter there. The thing with the beef and that silver contraption was wonderful theatre. Haven;t visited the Big Smoke for some years, and have no intention of so doing. Last time I went it felt distinctly foreign, and not in a good way.

          2. When i arrived there was no one on reception. I could see from the foyer the staff in the restaurant with their backs to me. I waited a few minutes. Then a few more. Then in exasperation went in the restaurant and said i would like a drink. The young lady asked me if i would like to go up to the upstairs Bar. I said no. I will have it at my table. Quick scrabbling around with nonsense tech.

            They did make a very fine Vodka Martini but the roast beef had an outside coating of either chocolate or Marmite. Both of which became burnt.
            They should stick to the basics.
            Given how much i paid for the 10gms of crab as a starter i think pomposity is imperative for them to get away with daylight robbery.
            Don’t think Jay Rayner was impressed the last time he was there.
            Try Rules.

          5. Good to hear that Rules is still keeping up standards. I only ever went a couple of times so the last time would have been more than 30 years ago, but it was lovely!

        2. I do, I used to go there a lot and it was excellent. I still have an ash-tray from there, not stolen, they gave it to me!

          2. It was indeed, but it was a place to go with girl-friends, not men – the portions were too delicately small for men 😆

          3. I was a little annoyed in Rue Madeleine when i ordered liver and then the provided a side portion of chips !
            They did manage a cockroach though on the service table which i found funny.
            As i waggled my eyebrows to the Waiter he grinned and waggled his.
            Paris lost.

          5. We believe you :@)
            I was tempted by a very bijou salt and pepper pot from another restaurant. After a few glasses of nice wine i pocketed them. The next day i returned them with apologies.

          6. The truth Phizzee, I was good at (legitimately) collecting ash-trays and here’s a story for you. The first time I went to Le Gavroche when it was still in Lower Sloane Street I was taken by an out-of-town client who was in London over-night, had heard about it, wanted to go and wanted some company. Needless to say in those days they had ladies menus so I had no idea of the prices though of course I knew it wasn’t cheap. We had a lovely meal and then the bill came. My companion practically choked although a) he wasn’t poor and b) it would have been on expenses anyway! He said that obviously he wouldn’t normally do this but he thought I might be interested in seeing it – it was pretty impressive! I laughed and said that maybe it included all the china and silver. Unknown to me the waiter was standing right behind me and he said “No madame, it doesn’t, but you may have an ash-tray”. He then presented me with one and I still have that too!!

  92. EU takes legal action over sand eel fishing ban in British waters

    This is the first time the bloc has triggered the dispute mechanism in the post-Brexit trade deal

    Joe Barnes, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT • 17 April 2024 • 7:34pm

    The European Union has launched legal action against the UK over a ban on catching sand eels in British waters in a fresh post-Brexit fishing dispute.

    In January, Britain announced a ban on catching sand eels on Dogger Bank in the North Sea to protect the area’s populations of puffins and kittiwakes, which eat the fish. The move caused outrage among Danish and Swedish fishermen, whose governments lobbied Eurocrats to take action against Britain.

    Danish officials have argued the measure is discrimination against its fishermen because they take 99 per cent of the sand eels caught, which are used to produce fish oil and pig feed, and it could cost their vessels up to €18 million a year. Virginijus Sinkevičius, the EU’s fisheries commissioner, said the ban “impinges on the basic commitments” of the Brexit trade deal, as he warned ministers to drop the embargo.

    “The UK’s permanent closure of the sand eel fishery deprives EU vessels from fishing opportunities, but also impinges on basic commitments under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA),” Mr Sinkevičius said after opening dispute proceedings against Britain. “Healthy sand eel stocks are not just vital for the delicate balance of our marine ecosystems, but also for the livelihoods of our fishers.”

    Fishing has been a thorny issue between the UK and EU since Brexit, with a number of high-profile disputes in recent years. In 2021, Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, dispatched two Royal Navy vessels to protect Jersey from a planned blockade by French fishing boats in a row over fishing licences in the Channel island’s waters.

    Britain and France were locked in a similar dispute at the same time after dozens of small French fishing boats were refused permits to fish in the Channel because they couldn’t prove their historic activity in the area. The row over the sand eel ban is the first time the EU has triggered the dispute mechanism in the post-Brexit trade deal.

    The Government said its ban is fully compliant with the post-Brexit agreement, which manages cross-channel fishing opportunities, and applied to both EU and UK vessels.

    “We took the decision to close our North Sea waters to all sand eel fishing to protect seabirds. This closure is fully compliant with our obligations under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and applies equally to UK and non-UK vessels,” a spokesman said. “This was a necessary step to safeguard vulnerable seabird populations, including species like kittiwakes who are at serious risk, and builds on domestic measures already in place – the UK has not allocated any quota to fish sand eel to UK vessels in three years.”

    The demand for consultations by the EU is the first step in the dispute settlement mechanism written into the Brexit trade deal. If a deal isn’t brokered within the 30 days of talks, Brussels could request an independent arbitration panel to judge whether the measures are in line with the deal.

    Under the deal, Britain agreed to give EU vessels continued access to its waters, but is allowed to restrict access as part of conservation measures. If there is deemed to be a breach, the EU could slap punitive tariffs on UK exports to redress the changes of access.

    Kirsten Carter, head of marine policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “Ending the industrial fishing of sand eels has thrown a lifeline to the UK’s globally important seabird colonies by securing a vital food source. These populations are at the forefront of the nature and climate emergency and are in significant decline, with their resilience being pushed to the limit.”

    Charles Clover, a founder of the Blue Marine Foundation, said: “The European Commission’s decision to take Britain to the disputes panel of the Brexit treaty is a classic example of bullying which the EU dishes out to independent nations who get in its way across the world. It has no right to tell the UK what to do under the TCA for taking decisions that improve our marine environment in our own waters especially when these measures apply to all vessels, no matter where they are from.

    “The sand eel fishing ban, which applies to English and Scottish waters, can easily be demonstrated to be good for seabirds, which are in decline, and the marine ecosystem generally, as many other species from porpoises to cod depend upon it for food.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/17/eu-legal-action-sand-eel-fishing-ban-britain-post-brexit/

      2. The sand eels would be going to Denmark and Sweden “which are used to produce fish oil and pig feed“.
        FFS, this drives me to distraction!

      3. It’s like our County Council’s commitment to the climate change emergency – building on green fields to accrue more revenue takes precedence.

    2. Gawd, the effing cheek of these bastards! Trawling for sand eels, which are a prime source of food for our fish stocks, as well as our seabirds, was always a ridiculous thing to allow. The Danish and Swedish sand eel trawlers, along with any EU bureaucrats, can go fuck themselves! If whichever, government we have, caves in to them, I will happily go to the HoC and protest rather vigorously.

    3. Sand eel fishing is the marine equivalent of clear felling or strip mining, and devastates the sea bed. It should have been banned years ago.

    4. The french have been breaking the rules/laws on fishing set out by the EU for years. They have never put back undersized fish into the sea. It’s been pretty obvious and seen on the stalls of their fish markets. Their so called inspectors just turn a blind eye. Just the same as their officials look the other way when the rubber boats leave Calais. Inherent cheats and sore losers.
      It’s just another way of trying to get revenge for Agincourt, Crecy, Waterloo, Trafalgar etc.

        1. This business?

          The attack on Mers-el-Kébir (Battle of Mers-el-Kébir) on 3 July 1940, during the Second World War, was a British naval attack on neutral French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir, near Oran, on the coast of French Algeria.

          The French were offered very clear terms/options that would have avoided the eventuality of being attacked by the Royal Navy. The French refused…

          A time in history when we had a fleet and politicians and military leaders with backbone.

          1. Yes that business.
            Then we saved them from being run by the nazis and they have never able to come to terms with that. But someone one i know was in Paris a few years ago. And the local he was talking to rubbish London and its architecture. He added that the Paris architecture was far superior to London’s. But my old head teacher neighbour reminded him and said “But Paris was never bomb was it”? Nicely summed up.
            Then there was the French ban on British beef after BSE. The French government instigated it and were fined. But have never made the payment.
            And now look at the queues of vehicles to get to Europe by sea.
            The french are too busy loading the rubber boats.

    5. Tell them to eff orf; we left, they have no jurisdiction in our waters. Pity the remainiacs in Wastemonster have run our Navy down to such an extent we can’t even contemplate defending our sand eels.

    6. Before the deal was struck Lord Frost was holding firm on Northern Ireland and fishing.

      Then Johnson and Gove arrived in Brussels and Frost was forced to capitulate and the UK surrendered to the EU on both these things.

      This sand eel trouble is the fault of the pathetic weakness of Johnson, Gove and Frost.

      And of course Sunak’s Great Windsor Betrayal has ensured that Northern Ireland is lost from the UK forever by removing the Escape clause of Article 16.

  93. Since we moved here in 2022 we have been accumulating more and more ducks. Of course, this might be because they are feeding on what falls from the hanging feeders, plus, since they started turning up, we have bought duck feed from the local agricultural feed supplier. I’m looking forward to duckling season again! They are so cute!

    1. Having somewhere safe for duck families is crucial these days. You’re doing great things.

      1. No, the privilege and the joy is all ours. Those little babies make the sweetest little whistling sounds when they want to be fed. We absolutely love having them.

    1. Both her and his form are amazing. Notice how he doesn’t straighten his arm supporting her?

    3. Unbelievable and incompetence of the highest order.
      Was that St Peter’s? I avoid that place like the plague. Try to get referred to RSCH in Guildford.

  99. Got a dozen potatoes that had sprouted planted in a speculative attempt to see what comes up this morning, then had a bus trip to Matlock to pay my premium bond check into the building society.
    Worked out quite well, caught the 11:06 in and had 1¼h to pay the cheque in and do a bit of shopping and even managed a pot of tea in one of the cafes!
    Then had a meal ready for when the DT got back from work, breaded cod, oven chips and a rather nice cauliflower cheese.
    Otherwise an idle day.

  100. Dragged the rucksack out of the cupboard. It was going mouldy. In 14 years I’ve never had gear go mouldy.

    It’s easier to make the choice now. I want out of here.

  103. Hello everyone .

    Today has been hectic .

    I was given a lift early morning to an event today, a small military ceremony on a very windy promenade overlooking the sea , cold wind blowing .. elderlies gathered looking smart , berets, ties , medals , standard bearers , a small gathering of remembrance and the unveiling of a small plaque . I had been invited by another small veteran group .. by those who had served in Aden 1963–1967.

    The member who gave me a lift , an elderly man had parked his car a good distance from the sea front .. so we had a fair walk to the promenade .

    The short service was the way we remember , wholesome , warm , familiar and reflective of good values , and there we were praying the Lords prayer on the sea front in front of the padre and well dressed men with their medals shining , breeze blowing, seagulls calling and the sound of the waves gently rolling .

    When all was over , we were due to go back to a hall for a buffet and some warmth .

    The gentleman who drove me to the event , (86) decided to walk off briskly to pick up his car and give lifts to others ..

    Within 200 yds , I heard yelling and a rumpus .. guess what , an accident .. gentleman had tripped up on a double kerb , smashed his nose , blood everywhere ! He was rather stunned .. and blood was pouring from the bridge of his nose , thankfully no other damage to his face or limbs apart from grazed knees .

    We were transported to little local hospital minor accident unit , I piled more money into the ticket machine re parking and pondered on the next move .

    The wait to be seen wasn’t too bad , probably an hour , patient was examined by medic , and the bleeding was stopped , poor chap was still stunned , and amazed when the medic sealed the hole on the bridge of his nose with glue .. sterile superglue .

    After a thorough examination of head and neck etc , patient was told he was ok to go home providing some one could look in on him .

    I said , give me your car keys and I will drive back home , he was reluctant , but agreed ..

    Dear readers , I drove , up hill down dale around roundabouts , stopped at traffic lights , avoided cyclists ,zebra crossings , tractor muck on the road , corners etc etc.. the car brakes were , well just about working ..

    My passenger said he had had the car years , and had never sat in his passenger seat , and don’t worry Maggie, the car gets some getting used to, never mind .

    All’s well that ends well.

    Moh was playing golf again , so I am never missed , just only by my poor little dog!

    3. Gosh, that sounds rather stressful! I bet your lovely gentleman was so grateful to have you around, though. (And dogs generally welcome one more gratifyingly than people anyway! 🤣)

      May you have a lovely night’s sleep.

  105. Evening, all. Never mind Ukraine, a brief study of islam will show why appeasement of muslims won’t work.

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