Wednesday 19 August: This unprincipled U-turn devalues the results of recent A-level students

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/18/letters-unprincipled-u-turn-devalues-results-recent-a-level/

754 thoughts on “Wednesday 19 August: This unprincipled U-turn devalues the results of recent A-level students”

  2. Ofqual chief staring at sack as MP calls quango ‘absolutely useless. 19 August 2020.

    The official in charge of Ofqual is under threat of the sack after a senior MP described the quango as “bloody useless” in the wake of the A-level grades fiasco.

    Sally Collier, Ofqual’s chief regulator and chief executive, has not spoken publicly since the humiliating U-turn in which its algorithm was ditched in favour of teachers’ grades.

    Ofqual’s chairman, Roger Taylor – whose job is also now in doubt – was wheeled out to make the announcement on Monday while Ms Collier, a lifelong civil servant who earns £200,000 a year, has remained silent.

    A senior Conservative MP said: “They are bloody useless. The whole organisation is absolutely useless. Ofqual has been a shambles from beginning to end.”

    Morning everyone. Would that this only applied to Ofqual but the truth is it is pretty much across the board! Ofcom, Ofsted, PHE, NHS, MinDef, Home Office; whatever, they are all utterly useless. This is principally due, as here, to the bureaucrats running them who have been chosen for the last twenty years for their PC ideological reliability and not their management skills or leadership qualities. In the words of the song: “Things can only get worse.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/18/ofqual-chief-staring-sack-mp-calls-quango-absolutely-useless/

    2. The sad thing is that the proles blame the ministers. I understand most people don’t know how government works. They like to think that ‘Boris is running things’ because it’s easier for their minds to acknowledge, but the simple reality is there are countless legions of managers, hangers on, ‘leadership roles’ and ‘management streams’ before you even get to the ranks and ranks upon endless ranks of civil servants – some of whom are actually useful and necessary.

      Of course offqual is useless. The entire department for education could be shut down and no one would notice.

    3. Is the answer to create a temporary one to ensure they are disbanded? But what to call it – Offuck perhaps?

      Morning Minty et al.

      1. Morning Stephen. I would off them all! Why should these incompetents keep their jobs when millions of ordinary people are losing theirs?

      2. Morning Stephen. I would off them all! Why should these incompetents keep their jobs when millions of ordinary people are losing theirs?

        1. Unless the terminations are done properly within the provisions of the existing employment laws, as has been demonstrated on numerous occasions in the past, terminations can turn out to be a bit of an abortion and end up costing a fortune e.g Shoesmith.

          1. Make them redundant. sacking for incompetence is necessary, and Shoesmith was unfairly dismissed – a competency board should have been held – one not of her peers (as it’s just old boy network) but of external consultants – again, not cronies although, given the inveigling and infestation of big state finding impartial characters is difficult – in which case, I volunteer.

      3. It’ll be called OffEdRes, the office for exam results. The same people wil be hired into the same roles – with a pay hike, of course. The building might change – but that’s unlikely – more meeting rooms might be arranged as the lease is re-negotiated (to a much higher rate) and to ensure compliance with something, ten more six figure salaries will be needed and half a dozen grand a day project managers.

        Ministers will hail this a great success in improving services to the public – and… results will continue to slide and outcomes collapse ever further but, there will be vast needs for huge databases to store ever more paperwork – that no one will ever need, read or want – to justify the higher salaries and bigger budgets

    4. The same in Scotland. The chief civil servant, no doubt on a colossal salary, has begun to give evidence to the “Salmond ” enquiry which has just commenced*. It is perfectly clear that these people are no better then mediocre clerks who ticked all the HR boxes on their way up. Totally lacking in gumption her department made a complete mess of something that any manager in a commercial business would be expected to deal with swiftly, thoroughly and legally. It’s not that difficult unless you have never managed anything, as seems likely in the Scottish Government and cvil service.

      * This enquiry relates to events in the last year or so. Meanwhile the enquiry into a helicopter crash in Shetland is now underway. The crash was in 2103. No enquiry has yet been made in respect of the killing of Sheku Bayou five years ago. Clearly political reputations are the priority here…

    5. Cue the chairmen being shunted sideways into some other taxpayer funded sinecure at an enhanced salary 🙁

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    Nice red sky earlier, forecast is for Autumnal weather, well it is August after all.

        1. I’ve just looked at the one we have. It has berries but not fully ripe. It is on the other side of the low garden wall and is trying to take over the world starting with us.

          2. Horticulture isn’t my cup of tea, so I wouldn’t have known (or cared) how to spell the name of the plant.

    2. September will bring Summer again.

      In Germany I often had to have the CH on in August.

  7. The failure with the exam results wasn’t with the algorithm it was always going to be a fiasco with no exams sat and the schools all shut for 4 months and the teachers refusing to go back, the failure was in not being able to foresee what would happen and manage the whole public relations process better.

        2. Not true, BoB. I clicked on the article and the BTL comments. As I was reading them the number of BTL comments continued to rise.

          CORRECTION: Apologies, BoB. Geoff (see below) confirms that the DT did close the comments facility initially.

          2. change of shift from night to day for the moderators; the new team starts immediately after the early morning call to prayer.

      2. Sack the entire left wing brain-washing Blob, and you might get somewhere.
        Change the unfortunate figurehead at the top, whom they set up to fail, and you’re just perpetuating their system. I am disappointed, I expected better from Allison Pearson.

  8. SIR – William Sitwell (Comment, August 13) praises Nottinghamshire’s Cropwell Bishop creamery for the quality of its Stilton.

    There are Stilton makers, large and small, here in the Vale of Belvoir. Each has a somewhat partisan following. Any cheese used to depend on the quality and composition of the grazing, and the quality and make-up of the milk produced, which can vary from cow to cow. Local moulds then added the final ingredient.

    I have lived in the Vale for 50 years. For at least the last 20 years, there have been no milking cows in eight neighbouring parishes. Where does the milk come from now?

    Michael Flinton
    Aslockton, Nottinghamshire

    Doh!! Sainsburys.

    1. Lots of dairy cows, and goats, are now kept in yards and only see grass for a short while in the summer.

  9. Australia signs deal for Oxford University coronavirus vaccine. 19 August 2020.

    Australia has ordered 25 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford University in partnership with pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, the country’s Prime Minister said.

    Scott Morrison promised to make the vaccine “as mandatory as you can” in an interview with Melbourne’s 3AW radio station, before touring AstraZeneca’s laboratory in Sydney.

    He told reporters at the facility: “Today is a day of hope and Australia needs hope, the world needs hope, when it comes to this coronavirus.

    He’s ordered a vaccine that does not yet exist? Decided that it will be compulsory with no idea of its possible side effects or long term legacy?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/19/australia-signs-deal-oxford-university-coronavirus-vaccine/

    1. I suspect these deals are letters of intent supported by a dowry of sorts to help with development costs etc etc etc.

    2. Morning, Araminta.

      He’s ordered a vaccine that does not yet exist? Decided that it will be
      compulsory with no idea of its possible side effects or long term
      legacy?

      He’s a politician and he’s living up to people’s expectations of that lying, ill-informed ilk.

    3. 322746+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      He is also likely to bring in a colour coding say a white sprayed ear on a coloured ovid & a black sprayed ear on a white ovid to prove you have had the jab.
      Could very well turn out to be on reflection called the “shipman shot”
      Mass de-population,
      🎵
      Anything goes,
      Times have changed
      And we have often re-wound the clock,

    4. Untested… and Astra Zeneca have been granted product immunity. What can go wrong?

      1. I expect that Diageo will ask for retrospective immunity for thalidomide. (They took over DCL who marketed thalidomide in the UK.)
        One interesting thing is that no one knows how thalidomide actually works, yet it is still prescribed.
        “The precise mechanism of action for thalidomide is not known, although efforts to identify thalidomide’s teratogenic action generated 2,000 research papers and the proposal of 15 or 16 plausible mechanisms by the year 2000.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide

          1. Yes, as well as half the Scotch whisky industry, rum, gin and liqueurs around the world.
            They also own Justerini & Brooks, the wine merchants.

  10. SIR – We returned from France on Sunday and began a 14-day quarantine.

    We had to complete an online form before arriving at Calais Eurotunnel, giving personal information, passport details and our quarantine address (home). We were then emailed a confirmation, with a Q-code to show at UK immigration. We showed our passports and the officer asked if we had completed the online form; we said yes and were waved through. There was no request to scan the code.

    Once in England, we were free to go anywhere, even on public transport. The quarantine, though supposedly compulsory, cannot be enforced.

    Yet according to Boris Johnson and Chris Whitty, we are a mortal danger because we may have contracted Covid-19 in a country that has reported a slight rise in cases (but no increase in deaths or hospital admissions).

    This is no longer about public health. There is an agenda.

    John Booth
    Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

    3. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

      The endless opportunities for restrictions COVID brings are endless. Worse, most people will happily lap them up because they are ignorant.

    4. Ah the Canadian quarantine method, after all we believe that Canadians follow the rules and will stay home for 14 days.

      This method frequently included police being called to enforce the rule that was being completely ignored. (vehicles with Quebec license plates in an Ontario border town gives the game away, especially in March when the vehicle occupants have suntans).

      If it’s that important, follow the Australian method and take rivals to their hotel and lock them in.

      1. I thought it was typical British Summer weather Bob. The rain will stop after the forthcoming Blank Holiday Monday and the schools are back (?) next week.

      2. I thought it was typical British Summer weather Bob. The rain will stop after the forthcoming Blank Holiday Monday and the schools are back (?) next week.

    2. It’s got a fair way to go to reach me 🙂 We had a bit of rain that seemed to turn to sleet later in the afternoon.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – As someone who received A-level results in 2017, I am hugely disappointed by the Government’s unprincipled U-turn, which has made my grades and those of all recent school-leavers less meaningful.

    The rampant inflation in grades produced by teacher-prediction is not in any way reflective of the ability of this year’s cohort and makes a mockery of the hard work that students in previous years invested.

    Ofqual’s downgrading of 40 per cent of results should have been a clear enough indictment of the teacher-prediction system, given that (even with the application of the algorithm) the highest number ever of A and A* grades was awarded.

    Gavin Williamson should resign and the Government should learn how to say no to the baying mob.

    George Palmer

    Crowborough, East Sussex

    SIR – While sympathising with the students in the A-level debacle, I remembered that when my uncle was 18, he was a Chindit, fighting the Japanese in the jungle in Burma.

    Youngsters’ lives have not been ruined this year, and I wish they could find a sense of perspective … and stop whingeing.

    Margaret Ellis

    Ingleton, North Yorkshire

    SIR – What is to happen to those candidates who have accepted offers based on last week’s “results” but who now find themselves leapfrogged by those whose grades will be higher and who can accept offers made months ago? They cannot all get in, surely.

    David Crawford

    Llandudno, Conwy

    SIR – How is this fair to those children in schools which assessed fairly, compared to those in schools which over-assessed?

    Chris Reed

    Wendover, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – It was bad enough in Scotland when the government there capitulated over exam grades, but given their preference for presentation over substance, that was no surprise.

    For the UK Government to cave in as well felt disappointingly pathetic.

    Teachers and individual pupils may happily delude themselves that inflated grades are equal currency, but for the Government to preside over such a debacle is morally bankrupt.

    William Adams

    Lancaster

    SIR – The exams fiasco reminds me of the poll tax: technically plausible, a disaster in Scotland; then carry on regardless (until the U-turn).

    Where is the good judgment and decision-making in this Government?

    Michael Morrice

    Farnham, Surrey

    SIR – The 6 pm news on Radio 4 devoted 13 of its 30 minutes to the exams fiasco. I hope that this means all is well in the rest of the world.

    Carey Waite

    Chailey Green, East Sussex

    1. I hate to break it to young George, but any post-Blair A level results have no credibility anyway, including his.

    2. “I wish they could find a sense of perspective … and stop whingeing.”
      Don’t we all, Margaret.

  14. Morning again

    SIR – In current circumstances the Home Secretary may find it almost impossible to deter migrants seeking to enter the country unlawfully by making asylum claims.

    First, Britain’s benign policies and generous provisions mean that it is seen as the best country in the world in which to start a new life. We should be proud of such a reputation.

    Secondly, there are the laws and international conventions that Britain rightly observes scrupulously, even to our disadvantage. It is a fundamental requirement of the primary conventions that those who claim that they are refugees or asylum seekers must not be returned to their country of origin without having their applications assessed and decided away from the border. Given our history, no reasonable person would wish to change that.

    Prospective migrants are well briefed about this and try not to make any application in another EU country, because once they are identified they would usually be sent back to continue their application where it was made.

    The problem for all recent British governments is that, if a suggestion is made to other signatory countries that the conventions need to be revisited, this would involve discussion about asylum and refugee sharing. This would result in significant primary immigration into Britain. That may not be seen by voters as compatible with “taking back control of our borders.”

    William Fleming

    Former Senior Officer, UK Border Force

    Frimley, Surrey

    2. Well this guy is fully onboard with the Home Office Imigration Agenda. If there are many like him it’s no wonder that they are providing a Travel Service!

    3. I am grateful to that analysis coming from the other side.

      It seems that the nub of the problem lies in his sentence “Britain’s benign policies and generous provisions mean that it is seen as the best country in the world in which to start a new life. We should be proud of such a reputation.”.

      Should we be?

      P.S. As an aside, I would welcome thoughts from the punctuation police here over the correct use of the full-stop when nesting a sentence quotation within a sentence. Logic dictates to me the use of two full-stops – one for the quotation, and one for the composite sentence. Am I right here?

  15. SIR – Two weeks ago – four months after lockdown began – the county council put barriers along much of our high street, together with innumerable signs marking the road as one-way.

    Now several cafes have applied for licences from the district council and put out tables and chairs in the spaces meant for social distancing, which defeats the point of the scheme. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to sit drinking coffee within touching distance of lorries and cars.

    Despite a 20 mph speed limit, traffic is going faster. Confused drivers come to a halt at the start of the one-way system, then have to turn round, back down a narrow side road, or venture into the unknown of a diversion. This does not, of course, prevent some from driving the wrong way up the street or cyclists riding on the pavement.

    There has been no formal consultation, and one suspects that the council is using the current situation as an excuse to test out one-way and pedestrianisation schemes.

    Jane Haylock

    Hadleigh, Suffolk

  16. SIR – Julian Tope (Letters, August 13) says he has spoken to “several people” who are not being reimbursed for the extra costs of working from home.

    He clearly doesn’t know any MPs.

    Paul Gaynor

    Windermere, Cumbria

    1. A prediction.

      A vaccine of some sort will be produced, Gates (or the foundation) will be awarded the Nobel peace prize and/or the prize for medicine.

      Gates will be given all manner of Honours by various countries: knighthood, Légion d’honneur etc.

      The foundation will make vast amounts of money.

    3. Interesting graphic. It’s a bit worrying that the chief medical advisors to both teh UK and US governments get funding from the same organisation that funds vaccine production (and there are complaints on record that the Gates foundation is obsessed with vaccines as the answer to everything).

      1. The mistake made by Gates (and indeed those well-padded medical advisers who speak for our nation) is that they confuse Covid with Influenza.

        I am quite sure I got Covid back in November, before it had a name, since I have been through pretty well all the litany of symptoms, including the enduring chronic fatigue. I felt at the time that it was much more like a cold than ‘flu, but this common cold went beyond the colds I have had in the past. It was nothing like the ‘flu I went down with a couple of Christmases ago, which had the classic muscle aches and fever I know well. This virus was like a frisky goat, with all sorts of symptoms coming and going without rhyme or reason, much like a cold does.

        Influenza, which produced an antibody response, is fairly easy to control with a vaccine. The common cold, however, has long defied any attempts to keep it down with a vaccine, even though there are institutions set up to try. The body’s antibody response to the cold is weak, and so a vaccine has only limited effect. The body’s main protection is through T-cells, which do not respond to a vaccine, but might to other medications. I do believe that there has been some success with these, and we would be wise to consider these.

        President Trump may be a brazen idiot, shooting his mouth off all the time, fed by ignorance and bluster. While he might be wrong about injecting Domestos (which, however, may be an effective treatment for life itself, and worth trying on unwanted BLM/Islamist migrants), he may be on to something with the antimalarials he favours, and he might be blundering closer to the truth than Gates.

          1. I came down with this the day after we returned from N.Yorkshire on 28 December. Overwhelming evening fatigue, then three days of sore throat, fatigue, labyrinthitis, fatigue, ‘stomach problems’ chills, more fatigue and a runny nose to end all runny noses. I remember thinking that this is like ‘flu, but I knew that it wasn’t, because the day after it started I could drive off to the supermarket to shop – having been away we had scant food in the house. And once ‘flu symptoms start, that is it – one can scarcely get to the bathroom. But no cough as such we hear about, I am not someone who coughs much. The fatigue lasted for weeks.

  18. Royal Navy will send ships to Ukraine to defend itself against Russian threat. 19 August 2020.

    The Royal Navy is to send ships to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia threat in the Black Sea for the first time.

    Ben Wallace said that the new Maritime Training Initiative would be led by the UK to assist the Ukrainian Navy as it defends its “territorial integrity from Russian-backed separatists”.

    An RAF source said the UK was “showing our intent to anyone who would like to threaten states in Eastern Europe”.

    “It’s all linked to reinforcing the big brown bear.”

    This is the most dreadful mish-mash. The first sentence is an exercise in Autism and it gets worse. Russia doesn’t need its navy to threaten Ukraine. It would just cross the border the two countries share. If it did so there would be nothing that the UK with its miniscule forces could do! You will have to make your own guesses as to what the last sentence means!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/18/royal-navy-will-send-ships-ukraine-defend-against-russian-threat/

    1. Yet another instance of those-who-know-better (because they are well-paid and work in London) ignoring me.

      I pointed out years ago the division in Ukraine that is well-defined and goes back to the middle ages. They are, in effect, two nations: one is a large inland agricultural land around Kiev that was allied with Lithuania and which looks largely westwards. It was this contingent that forged this oil deal with the Germans, and it is this contingent pushing for EU and NATO membership, ever since the three formerly-Soviet Baltic nations joined up.

      The other is a two-pronged-shaped land, comprising the coastal areas around Odessa, the Crimea (which was actually gifted to Ukraine from Russia in the 1950s by Khrushchev) and crucially the Eastern provinces, whose people’s ancient name was the “Rus” and who chased off Genghis Khan, liberated Moscow and set up modern Russia. It is impossible to lever off such close fraternal bonds. The Russian Navy has long provided protection for them from prospective foes in the Muslim world with control over the Bosporus; landlocked Kiev never could.

      The only way therefore in modern times to keep Ukraine from partitioning is to make it strictly neutral, both politically and in trade. Playing both sides has in the recent past been quite profitable, if a bit exciting, for Ukraine. Nothing is good about the British prodding the bear by forcing Ukraine to take sides.

      1. I’m baffled. The Scots have generally seen the Russians as a natural ally. Over the centuries lots have Scots have gone to live in Russia. Many stayed and their names became russified. Thousands of Russians have Scottish DNA.
        Our relations with Russia have been tainted by the Communist era. We seem not to have noticed that there has been a change. Some things take time. The Tsars will not be restored for some time. We should be working with the Russians not against them. The cause of the problem is the EU pushing East with a touch of lebensraum on the brain.

      2. My paternal grandparents came from Odessa and though Jewish, certainly considered themselves Russian and definitely not Ukrainian.

  19. The case against slavery reparations. Spiked. 19 August 2020.

    To begin, who were the beneficiaries of the slave trade? The political class in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Slavery was a trade that connected the political elites from these three continents. While slaves worked in sugar plantations that developed the economies of the Americas, and created the surplus values upon which the grand European empires were built, African political elites also used the profits from slaves to build their empires. The great Ashanti empire, for instance, which is found at the heart of modern Ghana, prospered not only through the sale of gold but also from trade in slaves. Such is the economic legacy of the slave trade that many of the descendants of those historical political elites – and there are surely many of them in the Americas, Europe, and Africa today – have continued to profit from it. Given that social elites in three continents were implicated in the trade, monetary compensations would make sense only if all the contemporary beneficiaries of these legacies are identified and compelled to pay for the evils of their ancestors. Given the unimaginable complexity of peoples’ social and geographical movements over the past 200 years, attribution of responsibility would be virtually impossible.

    This is a detailed and in my opinion overly legalised refutation of the case against slavery reparations. The real case against it is that those who have committed no crime owe no debt to those who have suffered no injury. To accept the case for reparations would open up a whole list of specious and ridiculous claims for historical injuries. We for example could put in for War Crimes against the Roman Empire while China could sue the ass off Mongolia for the depredations of Genghis Khan! The real winners here would be the Lawyers and Politicians who would syphon off any cash into their own pockets!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/19/the-case-against-slavery-reparations/

    1. If you’re too scared to vote in person, you don’t deserve to have a vote. Postal voting should be restricted to the genuinely bed-ridden.

    2. “It’s now known”…Oh dear, Telegraph writer, it has been known for decades. It was all about the oil. Unfortunately the US was involved, a sure guarantee of getting it completely wrong.

    3. Yes another incredible Middle East foul up that eventually led to the Ayatollahs!

      1. Yes another incredible Middle East foul up that eventually led to the Ayatollah’s!

        To the Ayatollah’s what?

  23. Surrounded as we are by news of doom and gloom, here’s a wee story of thoughtfulness which will surely lift your spirits.

    Two days after Calum had gone missing while lifting his creels, his wife was sitting despondently in their house when there came a knock at the door. She opened it and saw the local policeman standing there.

    “Good evening, Mrs. MacLeod,” he said, “I’m sorry to say that this afternoon, we recovered Calum’s body from the sea.”

    The woman burst into tears.

    “Ah, dry your eyes,” said the bobby, “I’ve some good news and some great news as well that should cheer you up. The good news is that when we pulled him up, we found a dozen of the finest lobsters I’ve ever seen clinging to his body and we thought you, as his widow, deserved a half-share in the catch.”

    “Ochòin a Righ!” wailed the woman, “That’s your idea of good news? Whatever can the great news be?”

    “Well now, the great news is that we’ll be pulling him up again tomorrow!” smiled the constable.

    (Tha a’ ghrian air cùlaibh gach sgòthan!)
    :¬)

  25. Islamist terror attack in Germany last night; not a whiff of it in the DT as far as I can see:

    https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/un-homme-provoque-plusieurs-accidents-sur-l-autoroute-en-allemagne-un-acte-islamiste-selon-le-parquet-20200819

    A car used as a weapon on a motorway running through Berlin. Six people injured; three severely. No deaths, miraculously, particularly as the car hit motorbikes as well as cars. The police have arrested a 30-year old Iranian who shouted “Allah Akbar” when he came out of his car.

    3. Berlin motorway brought to standstill by man attacking vehicles in ‘possible terror’ act, German prosecutors say. Indy 7 Minutes ago.

      Investigators believe the crashes were caused deliberately, and attorney general Margarete Koppers would inform the German parliament’s legal committee about the findings later on Wednesday, according to Germany’s DPA press agency.

      Prosecutors have pointed to possible “religious” motivations, according to Germany’s Bild newspaper.

      Morning Caroline. Probably see some recanting of this!

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/berlin-germany-motorway-road-attack-terror-islamic-a9677106.html

      1. “Possible religious motivations” – seems that this is the first time an official body has acknowledged that some adherents of the RoP and its teachings have murderous intent.

      2. Obvious religious motivation because the killing of the enemy God was accompanied by the usual chilling cry that Allah is the greatest (of all the Gods wherever they may be at the time) and a ticket to an indulgent paradise of everlasting selfishness.

    5. Ah, you haven’t read the guidelines, Caroline. You can’t call it an “islamist terror attack” any more.

  26. I don’t claim to be very well informed about the A level fiasco but it is a good opportunity for the MSM to increase their anti-Boris and anti-government rhetoric. Although the government has undoubtedly ‘got it wrong’, it seems to me that the Labour Party, left-wing teachers and the unions have much to answer for in being at the source of all the problems with education these days. I don’t understand why exams couldn’t have taken place with appropriate Covid precautions.

    The unions (all of them left wing, of course) have far too much control in the schools. For example, I wonder how many people realize that Mr. McCluskey’s Unite union is allowed into schools to indoctrinate children.

    From Unite’s website: “Unite in Schools is a national programme run by the union which aims to teach school students about the role of trade unions in the workplace”.

    No wonder so many students lean towards Marxism these days! What a miserable future awaits them!

    1. Back to the seventies; do we choose a rusting Austin Allegro or a Delorean DMC-12 for the journey?

    2. Back to the seventies; do we choose a rusting Austin Allegro or a Delorean DMC-12 for the journey?

    3. I wonder if they’ll teach about the 80’s when those unionised industries collapsed, putting millions out of work? Or if they’ll discuss the shoddy products and inefficient practices unions encouraged?

      When I worked at a printers the union was useful – management kept fiddling an agreed upon document expecting no one to read it. Union lawyers did, flagged it and stopped it. The printers union of the 80’s was just a closed shop of layabouts.

      1. I was at an emi factory back in those days and we were given a tour of the record pressing plant.
        Instructions before going onto the shop floor were that we must not look at our watches or take any notes because that would be an excuse for the union to claim that we were doing a time and motion study – with the resultant Everyone out bruvvers?

    4. Most of the reporting in the Telegraph and Mail at present is clearly aimed at undermining the current cabinet in order to promote remainers.

        1. Good morning, Maggiebelle

          If only Nigel Farage had not capitulated so soon and had insisted that his BP candidates stood in all constituencies where the incumbent was a remainer. This would have kept the Bonking, Bumptious Buffoon over a barrel and have given a better result.

          The fact that so many ‘remainers’ – such as Slobbo Clarke – have been ‘honoured’ in Boris’s first list should be a cause of very deep concern to all Brexiters.

          5. Well, you learn something here every day King Stephen! Had to google it! Anyway! Gavin was warned!!

    1. That is just the start, Johnny. I’ve been watching on Weather Radar what’s coming my way.

  28. I’m going back to bed to finish reading my book. Final chapter, in which all will be revealed.

  29. SIR – My own bags for life continue to be a worthwhile investment, 20 years after I bought them.

    I have lived in Sweden since 2011 and I never go shopping without one of my three old bags from Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. I get a number of strange looks from local shoppers in ICA Kvantum and Willys, but my bags continue to give good service.

    Alan G Barstow
    Onslunda, Skåne County, Sweden

    What makes you think that the strange looks that you get are occasioned by your three old bags?

    2. Bit of an open goal from our Grizz. As a very experienced Nottler he should have known better. This blog is notorious. 🤣

      1. Morning, Korky and Citroen.

        If you saw the state of the average resident, here in Tomelilla, you’d know that my old bags are looked at with envy! 😉

        This part of Sweden doesn’t follow the stereotype of wall-to-wall gorgeous blondes: in fact it is the diametric opposite of that. The locals here would give the swamp-donkey Hillbillies of Georgia a run for their money.☹️

        1. Congrats on your letter; I enjoyed a remark recently by someone who complained that the supermarkets are simply trying to weasel out of providing replacement bags for life.
          Years ago I heard of a bloke with smelly feet in the 1970s who spotted an advert for some branded shoe which promised to replace the shoes if they didn’t last for a year; his feet tended to muller any footwear within three months. After a few replacements, the firm gave him several pairs and told him to never darken their floors again.

          1. A film called EARTHQUAKE was released in the (I think) early 1970s which was advertised as “you’ll never see anything like this on TV”. I kept my cinema ticket and a cutting of the ad, and wrote to the makers some 10 years later when it was screened on TV asking for my money back. They refused (naturally).

    4. If I went shopping with three old bags one of them would no doubt club me for having an affair.

  30. Morning all.
    Just a quickie……….

    I for one am really fed up with seriously sad looking pouty students being interviewed on TV and obviously feeling so determinedly sorry for themselves and acting like abused children, often emphasising their extreme plight as some sort of abuse with their repetitive use of growly Vowels.
    Get over it and get a life kids it’s the only one you have.

    This country has now been completely effed up for the foreseeable future.
    The inherent stupidity and blatantly insane determination of the moron political classes to wreck our established culture, it’s social structure has so far had a devastating effect.
    We already see how the off spring of second even third generation migrants behave. With more and more of them being squeezed in it will obviously get worse.
    These new arrivals have little or no chance of ever supporting themselves. They have no skills and experience in the work place. In fact as we are experiencing at this moment in time hundreds of thousands of established Brits are already losing their own jobs and means of income. This reduces the income tax revenue and i think this will lead to serious hardships and much desperation. The effect of this politically planned invasion will lead to a massive rise in criminal activity. Our jails are already full and the judiciary are seemingly indifferent.
    As private Fraser quite often stated “We’re doomed”!…………… Properly.

    1. 322746+ up ticks,
      RE,
      I for one did NOT vote time & again for supporting & keeping in power a guaranteed failure, treacherous, creators of orchestrated doomism, coalition party.

      This has been on the rise for four plus decades, bringing about issue’s such as mandatory injections etc,etc, keep in mind it was NEVER mandatory to kiss X a lab/lib/con
      candidate in the polling booth.

      we will wait a bloody long time to hear a politico say “no
      I am not fit to hold office”

      2. I had a similar discussion with an old friend golfing pal i popped into see yesterday.
        I had no idea but only a very short distance away from where he lives lived a tory politician, who was recently suspended after some sort of written altercation.
        I’d never heard of Conor Burns.
        It seems that as usual, we have hundreds of political people who are not and never have been on the same wave length as the vast majority of the population. Who of course are forced by law to pay their salaries and support their gold plated bombproof pensions.

    2. I think it could lead to some of the better migrants – ie the hard-working Eastern Europeans – deciding to go home.

      2. I really think they have been returning for quite a number of weeks.
        We are not a millions miles from Luton Airport and quite frequent flights can be seen heading Due east to Europe.

        1. I don’t mind those – they are invariably polite and hardworking when you meet them in restaurants etc.

          1. Maybe, but their presence made an obvious problem (the low wage economy) even worse. However, silver linings and all that: it was the East European influx that effectively gave us the EU referendum.

  32. Harry Mount
    The trendies have destroyed the National Trust
    19 August 2020, 11:44am

    And so the tragic dumbing-down of the once-great National Trust continues, at breakneck speed. In its latest dimbo announcement, it has declared its intention to ‘dial down’ its role as a big cultural institution and move away from being the custodians of the English country house.

    An internal briefing document says the Trust intends to put its collections in storage and hold fewer exhibitions at its properties to prioritise its role as the ‘gateway to the outdoors’. The ten-year strategy attacks the ‘outdated mansion experience…serving a loyal but dwindling audience’. The Trust will instead promote ‘specialised experiences’ and stop holding specialist exhibitions for ‘niche audiences’.

    In fact, the Trust has been following a similar strategy for at least the last five years. The Trust is now split into two factions. On one side, there are the Tweedies, the clever, erudite experts who know everything there is to know about art, architecture and landscape. On the other, there are the Trendies, who actively dislike the past and prefer fun over knowledge and facts.

    For decades, the Tweedies have insured the Trust was the greatest custodian of the greatest collection of country houses in the world. They kept their collections in tiptop shape and presented them to the world with scholarship and insight that were transferred to visitors of all backgrounds and ages.And now the Tweedies are being pushed out by the Trendies.

    In another recent announcement, the National Trust laid out its proposals for ‘Curation and Experience’, as part of its programme to address the £200m loss of income resulting from Covid-19. The Trust proposes removing many of the Tweedies – the lead curators in the regions and many junior curators. At a stroke, brilliant scholars of architecture, archaeology, historic gardens, paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, silver, and libraries are to be kicked out.

    Yes, the National Trust has been a roaring success in recent decades, on the verge of having six million members – something no other country in the world has got close to. But the catastrophic mistake by recent director generals, particularly former civil servants Dame Fiona Reynolds and Dame Helen Ghosh, was to think that dumbing-down increased the numbers of members.

    I am all for opening up the landscapes the Trust owns and for getting as many children and families in to the properties as possible. But you can do that at the same time as maintaining those curators and their irreplaceable scholarship.

    On a recent tour of National Trust properties, I was astonished by the illiteracy and idiocy of the public signs. Houses and gardens were plastered with error-strewn, patronising messages. At Hughenden Manor, Isaac D’Israeli, father of Benjamin Disraeli, the Victorian prime minister, was called ‘Isaace’. Guidebooks were littered with spelling mistakes: society spelt ‘soceity’; closely spelt ‘closey’.

    It isn’t just that the Tweedies have been kicked out. They have been replaced by badly educated, semi-literate employees who don’t understand Britain’s history and the extraordinary part played by our great country houses in it.

    Scholarship was replaced by madly politically correct opinion. Dame Helen Ghosh even removed furniture from the Regency library at Ickworth House in Suffolk, temporarily replacing it with beanbags. She declared there was ‘so much stuff’ in Trust houses that it put everyone apart from the middle-classes off visiting; so exhibits had to be ‘simplified’. She preferred instead to bang on about green issues, as an eco-warrior who claimed ‘extreme weather is the single largest threat to our conservation work’.

    The whole attitude is immensely patronising, implying that most people can’t understand beauty and history unless it is packaged in kiddy-sized portions.

    I remember visiting National Trust properties as a child in the 70s, when they were still beacons of knowledge and scholarship. I didn’t need to have illiterate, patronising signs to explain the magic of places like Bodiam Castle and Sissinghurst, when I was a five-year-old. Children’s minds are incredibly imaginative. I could populate Bodiam with imaginary knights. I could fill the gardens of Sissinghurst with stories of medieval derring-do.

    And when I grew up, I could then appreciate the grown-up, intellectual view of the world that the Trust used to give. Now they only give the patronising, kiddy view to the visitors.

    The Trendies have destroyed the Tweedies – and it is a national tragedy.

    Harry Mount is author of How England Made the English (Penguin)

      2. Me too. I think the writer is rather looking through rose tinted spectacles. They’ve been rotten at least since the 90s.

    2. I was looking for that clip of Simon Day’s Gideon Soames discourse on the tree. But it seems to have been removed from Youtube…

    3. The National Distrust has been becoming steadily woker and woker for years. I stopped going to Distrust properties about ten years ago.

  33. Oh dear this website is up the creek once more, a reply i was making has become embroiled in a stand off between a ‘grey pall’ over the whole message and information regarding drag and drop images which i was not trying to do. due to no progress in the matter I had to dump it.
    And it seems there is no way out of the dilemma.
    And if i try to up tick a comment i end up with the last person who did up tick, their personal page ???
    A peaceful Dog walk is on the cards.
    Slayders.

    1. I very often get those issues, and usually blame the grey pall on my elderly laptop being slow to catch up. If you wait it usually clears. The most annoying thing I often get is the comment box shooting away when I start to type and then I have to search up and down the page for it.

    2. Grey pall might be used by survey pop-up that you have to”x” to close. I’ve had that.

    1. Just because he doesn’t hear it in person – does it mean the sentence is invalid? They should make him comply, like the rest of us have to. Starve him into submission.

    2. Some heartbreaking witness testimonies there. The bastard should be made to attend. One of the replies asked “What about contempt of court?”

          3. That was a metalled mask so he couldn’t eat you.

            I watched it alone in bed late one night. Duvet poised to cut out the sight.

    5. 322746+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      Send in a few so called racist, only to have them return to the court and say, when we entered to get him he was hanging up judge.

    3. “Edmund King, the President of the AA, said the technology had the potential to make roads safer by helping to eliminate human error.”
      What could possibly go wrong?

        1. He ought to concentrate on getting the AA back to being a first class breakdown service instead of the shambles that it is now

          1. I won’t be happy until they are back saluting us members from the backs of their motorcycles, complete with the sidecar full of tools. Now, they’re just an insurance company and I think at present there’s more financial shenanigans afoot there.

          2. I deal with all the agencies as there are virtually no patrols north of Inverness and believe me the AA and RAC are the worst to deal with, the RAC are poor payers too, you have to fight for your money from them. The best organisationally are Britannia Rescue and Green Flag who incidentally are the cheapest too

          3. I went from Green Flag to Auto Aid. An identical call-out system for 60 pounds per year including spouses.

          5. Premiums will rise now as we are not allowed to carry passengers, the agency involved has to organise a taxi for them and they don’t use local taxi services but bring them from Inverness.
            A tourist had got a puncture in his hire car in Scourie 70 miles away from me, I was to recover the car to Inverness Airport, a taxi was dispatched from Inverness (80 miles). Unfortunately the guy had taken the keys with him so another taxi from Inverness to Scourie to meet me. This taxi didn’t wait and another taxi had to be dispatched from Inverness to Scourie to take him back to Inverness. The RAC had to pay for those taxis.
            Don’t get me started on the lack of spare wheels in hire cars

          7. Yes, that’s true, they do still have their patrols. I’m wrong to say they’re just an insurance company, though I’m sure they’d like to be…

          8. It’s not the travelling mechanics that are the problem Peddy it’s the controllers who dispatch them but to be fair the RAC are even worse, I’ve known victims waiting 3 days at the side of the road for help and to wait 6 or 7 hours is not uncommon

          12. Same for me – but they made a good profit on the battery. Same make and model could have been bought for just over half the price – If I could have got the car started in the first place. Trouble is – the road where I live is flat – and no one to jump start or push it. He also reprogrammed the radio, which I wouldn’t have the know-how.

    4. Wait until the first serious accident occurs involving vehicles using this new “hands-free” technology.

      Standby for the inevitable legal actions, accompanied by the unedifying sight of lawyers laughing all the way to the bank, while all the insurance companies start running for cover *.

      * Pun intended.

      1. Oh yes, the great fear when commuting into the city by car. You look in the rear view mirror and the driver in the car behind you is turned round to talk to the child in the back seat, eating breakfast out of a bowl, reading a newspaper, putting on make-up, combing hair, searching under dashboard, tuning the radio, drinking coffee, talking on a mobile phone, texting. I’m glad I don’t have to commute any more.

        1. Some years ago, on a virtually empty motorway, I was catching another car up that was in Lane 2 – and weaving a bit. As I closed and moved out to the fast lane to pass him – I realised he had an open map on the steering wheel. Pre GPS days.

          1. I once saw someone weaving down the road at 20mph reading the Sunday paper (broadsheet opened up fully) on the way back from the shops some years ago

          1. Yes. Women can multi-task you know. I wish I could. My makeup was a mess when I arrived at the office…

  38. “The Birmingham Crown Court judge agreed with a defence submission that there was no case to answer in August last year.

    He directed the jury to find the officer not guilty and PC Birch was acquitted of the racially motivated attack.

    But after West Midlands Police disagreed with the trial verdict, police

    watchdog The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) directed the

    force to hold a gross misconduct hearing against PC Birch and another

    officer”

    https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/police-officer-given-final-warning-18777524

    “Disagreed”!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So the judge dismisses the case and the Common Purpose bosses STILL go after the rank and file
    Just for calling thieving pikey scum “gypos”
    It’s a mad,mad world

  39. The case against slavery reparations. Spiked. 19 August 2020.

    To begin, who were the beneficiaries of the slave trade? The political class in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Slavery was a trade that connected the political elites from these three continents. While slaves worked in sugar plantations that developed the economies of the Americas, and created the surplus values upon which the grand European empires were built, African political elites also used the profits from slaves to build their empires. The great Ashanti empire, for instance, which is found at the heart of modern Ghana, prospered not only through the sale of gold but also from trade in slaves. Such is the economic legacy of the slave trade that many of the descendants of those historical political elites – and there are surely many of them in the Americas, Europe, and Africa today – have continued to profit from it. Given that social elites in three continents were implicated in the trade, monetary compensations would make sense only if all the contemporary beneficiaries of these legacies are identified and compelled to pay for the evils of their ancestors. Given the unimaginable complexity of peoples’ social and geographical movements over the past 200 years, attribution of responsibility would be virtually impossible.

    This is a detailed and in my opinion overly legalised refutation of the case against slavery reparations. The real case against them is that those who have committed no crime owe no debt to those who have suffered no injury. To accept the case for reparations would be to open up a whole list of specious and ridiculous claims for historical injuries. We for example could put in for War Crimes against the Roman Empire while China could sue the ass off Mongolia for the depredations of Genghis Khan! The real winners here would be the Lawyers and Politicians who would syphon off any cash into their own pockets!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/19/the-case-against-slavery-reparations/

    1. I’m still waiting for the eastward stampede of African-Americans returning to their ancestral lands.

      1. In 1930, the local District Commissioners of Kajo Kaji (Sudan) and West Nile (Uganda) delimited a ‘Provisional Administrative Boundary’ and in 1936 the colonial governments of Sudan and Uganda agreed to recognise the southern limit of the Kuku tribe as delimited by the provisional boundary.

        At the time my father was working for the British administration in the Sudan. He and the ‘linesman’ set out on a donkey to mark the border between Sudan and Uganda and they decided that Uganda could have a piece of desert scruffy land which was of no value to anyone and they marked it at random with a concrete border post.

        Many years later in the 1970’s when my father had retired and was living near Lymington in the New Forest he saw a photograph in The Times of two armies ranged against each other with a border post between them and both sides swearing that they would not surrender one inch of the sacred historical land of their revered ancestors. My father had no doubt in identifying the border post as the one that he, the linesman and the donkey had erected a few decades previously.

    3. 322746+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      Was “exemptions” the last word prior to the greeting from St Peter ?

  41. My antivirus picked up twenty trojan-laden emails from one Aisha Gaddafi within an hour. How much global warming is caused by these things overloading servers all over the world?

    1. …and how many trees have to be planted to replace the paper needed to send all of us without a smart meter repeated reminders that we need one to monitor our excessive electricity consumption?

      Post COVID-19, a Sizewell B reactor has had to be shut down through lack of demand!

      1. Just checking my spam box and I find I missed one that promised a donation of $850,000. Darn!

  44. Fine BTL comment from surprisingly the “Camden Kid”

    Radio 4 is woking the dead and Radio 3 is now a world music station.

    2. Oh why not allow them to walk cross in the tunnel and have a benefits office in place of the immigration desk. Can not be much rail traffic at the moment.

      1. There would be complaints if the immigration desk was at the other end of the tunnel and they handed out train tickets with the residency.

        These are only economy and the food is not halal!

  48. Morning, Campers.
    The exam hoohah will run its course. Employers and universities will take account of the fact that 2020 is the year when the world went mad.
    But … what gifts the Conservative government keeps giving; it lurches from one stupid, avoidable quasi-socialist measure to another. You then look at the other lot and bury your head in your hands.
    It is all too easy to see how a Man of Destiny/Steel gains power. Look at the spavined GBP meekly accepting arbitrary rulings about their social life and holiday arrangements while worshipping an inefficient Stalinist behemoth.

    1. 322746+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      I cannot get my cannister around the facts as in, what did
      the peoples expect from this proven treacherous lab/lib/con coalition fresh from being a pro eu brussels
      political rubber stamping asset for decades ?

      A change from being treacherous sinners to righteous
      Saints on the 24/6/2016 was just NOT going to happen.

      We could never have got to where we are today without the continuing input from lab/lib/con supporter / voters.

      The nasal gripping, best of the worst, party first brigade
      supporting an ex pro eu coalition is / was never on course to win a fair nation, no bloody way.

      1. Good morning, ogga

        Until NOTA (None of the Above) becomes an accepted vote and is counted and, where it wins, nobody is returned to office the only option people have is to abstain or spoil their ballot papers which will still keep the slimeballs in place.

        Like many, I suspect, I wish that UKIP had not descended into an incompetent group of malcontents just determined to have messy internal struggles with a morbid desire to self-destruct.

        1. If done properly the spoiled ballots are counted. Here is the result of a search. Note that the actual website is unavailable.
          This is the way I do it when appropriate.
          https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AwrJ7JYVDD1fcAMAiHJXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA2FhcGx3BGZyMgNzYi10b3AEZ3ByaWQDeFhQUF9jdFVUQkdGa05ZVXRKUjhwQQRuX3JzbHQDMARuX3N1Z2cDNARvcmlnaW4Dc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAzAEcXN0cmwDNDEEcXVlcnkDaG93JTIwdG8lMjB2b3RlJTIwJTIybm9uZSUyMG9mJTIwdGhlJTIwYWJvdmUlMjIlMjBpbiUyMHRoZSUyMFVLBHRfc3RtcAMxNTk3ODM2NDI5?p=how+to+vote+%22none+of+the+above%22+in+the+UK&fr2=sb-top&fr=aaplw

        2. 322746+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          As with many you refuse to recognise the fact that
          UKIP suffered an orchestrated demise & joined the
          lab/lib/con coalition party.

          It is fact proven by the court case that although losing the case the NEc treachery achieved a successful result with added input from farage in putting the real UKIP down.

          There are still many a real UKIP members out there
          that refuse unlike lab/lib/con current supporter / voters to support / vote for a proven sh!te party
          in the pretence, self convincing, it is genuine.

    2. It really is time for a new political party to come into being. How much longer can we go on with the corrupt, self-seeking incompetents we have at the moment?

  53. Latest news headline (DT): “Sudanese teenager, 16, becomes first child (sic) to die in desperate attempt to cross Channel in small boat”

    I wonder what the erstwhile leader of the Labour Party thinks of this.

    Corbyn a couple of years ago: “We demand the return of Shamima Begum to the UK at once, she was only a 16 year old immature child when she decided to join ISIS and cannot be held accountable for her actions at such a young age”

    Corbyn at the last election: “We demand that 16 year olds be given the vote in the UK, they are responsible and free-thinking young adults”

    1. They are only children when “woke” lefties say they are. Otherwise they are young adults.

    2. The Welsh ” government ” has allowed votes for 16/17 year olds next election. Lab/Plaid guarenteed.I wish that I was well enough to frunk oRf from here … hey ho.

      2. The friend who telephoned me this evening said that when she was young, she didn’t understand what her parents were going on about, but now she’s older and has been working and raised a family she does. No wonder they want to give the vote to 16 year olds, she concluded. They know nothing!

    3. I thought these illegal immigrants destroyed their papers, so they could not be returned.

      1. How do they know he was Sudanese?
      2. How do they know he was 16?
      3. Why should the UK feel guilty about the actions of an individual who has deliberately chosen to ignore many places of sanctuary/safety before getting to the Channel and setting off?

      1. If he’s been retrieved from the channel, his papers would be a bit soggy anyway and it presumably isn’t the corpse that’s claiming to be 16 and Sudanese, unless he was interviewed prior to being pushed overboard. His fellow passengers will say whatever the left wing press want to hear and the press/media will lie just as they did when little Aylan Kurdi was found dead on a Turkish beach.

        2. I must admit that my well of compassion for the male asylum seekers between “14” and 64 and economic refugees ran dry a long time ago.

        3. I don’t know if it because i have become more cynical but my first thought was that he had been pushed over the side to advance the cause.

          We had recent Vids of them hanging little ones over the side as blackmail to let then through.

          I’m disgusted that this is apparently our fault when we as a Nation have always given succour to real Asylum seekers.

          That fucking little shit Mayor Khan needs to stop with his divisiveness or more people will die unnecessarily.

          Sorry for the swearing. I’m a bit miffed.

    2. I’m having lunch at Côte in Gloucester on Tuesday – “eating out to help out” with my two old school friends.

      1. Have you seen the menu? Lobster is back. I’m tempted to go next week, but the bus service is chaotic.

        1. Yes – no lunch or early evening prices but you get the discount anyway. I might try the fish parmentier. I don’t think I could eat a whole lobster!

          1. I ate at least 5 last year, but not all at once.

            The fish parmentier is very good.

  55. Off the BBC news
    “Government considering lifting cap on medicine places”
    “Although the cap on overall student numbers has been raised, places at medical schools remain limited because the costs of training doctors far exceeds the fees paid by undergraduates.”

    No problem about the cost of putting Migrant freeloaders in hotels though. Then making us pay for their lives till they drop.

    1. Just wondering what sort of joke doctors will be populating hospitals and surgeries in 6 months time, seeing as they will be the products of lifting the cap on numbers, plus positive discrimination based on background, skin colour etc.
      Probably not that different from the current situation in which many qualifications come from abroad.

    2. The medics are having to do a lot more ‘foundation’ work these days to bring students up to the old A-level standards that are required to create competent doctors.

    3. With the significant reduction in in-patient cases over the past 6 months there has also been a significant reduction in training material…….at the end of the day exposure to a multitude of complex cases is vital for junior doctors.

  56. Mail to a Conservative MP…………

    Of course, it wasn’t only Tony Blair who forgot about his best friend, George Soros, when he wrote his autobiography… because David Cameron forgot about poor George Soros when he wrote his autobiography as well.

    Despite giving $774,000, no less, to Open Society in 2012 and despite delivering a very highly paid speech to Soros funded ”Transparency International” shortly after he retired when he was paid an estimated $125,000 for one hour of work. Despite also being handed a directorship of Soros funded One Foundation, and despite having a Soros book on his bookshelf which is likely a signed copy given to him at Davos. Despite Open Society being just 5 minutes away from Downing Street and ”leveraging” a whole range of policies with David Cameron as the Open Society mission statement admits.

    After all, what is Open Society London for exactly but to ”leverage” Downing Street?

    Yet nobody ever mentions them, least of all here where mention of Soros or Open Society is strictly prohibited and even their mission statement is off limits.

    So why did Tony Blair and David Cameron both forget Soros and Open Society?

    Because it’s a Cover Up ! They don’t want the public to know what’s been going on behind the scenery.

    No wonder your ”Bruges Group” tweeted as they did………..

    https://twitter.com/BrugesGroup/status/1181569492792598531

    Polly

  58. DM Story

    Sudanese boy, 16, who couldn’t swim was in ‘makeshift boat’ using a shovel as an oar when it capsized in Channel during desperate bid to reach Britain, reveals friend who survived – as French blame UK’s ‘lack of humanity’ for crisis

    Surely the most humane solution would be to make it so impossible for these illegal immigrants to succeed and then they would stop trying altogether?

    To quote the Stanley Holloway monologue about Albert’s visit to Blackpool Zoo: there’d be “No wrecks and nobody drownded”

    1. ” ‘makeshift boat’ using a shovel as an oar”
      Was he going to arrive in Kent, lilo for a while and actually look for a job in building? Are we sure it wasn’t the Irish Sea where it occurred?

    2. Well it must have been a damned good shovel if he got into UK waters.

      I suppose it was a shovel and not a spade, cannot be too careful.

      1. That was my first thought when I saw it. Wax he an asylum seeker to be or just someone at the seaside going for a paddle.

    2. That is shocking but not surprising. It raises rather more questions than it answers, though:

      Surely the DT should be producing a conflict of interest statement somewhere? (In the absence of Bill Thomas, do we have any other people here who know about these things?)
      I wonder where the rest of the DT’s “grants” are coming from?
      And to which other newspapers the Gates Foundation is giving money?

      1. Morning Caroline. The site is ‘down for maintenance’ at the moment, so I can’t search for other grantees. Perhaps Bill G realises that he’s been exposed by BTL commenters on the DT site. The ‘Global Health Security’ stuff they publish is propaganda, pure and simple. I’ll hazard a guess that he funds the BBC and the Grauniad, and a few other titles, I shouldn’t wonder.

      2. I’ve quickly totted up the grants made to Guardian News & Media Ltd (£9,280,359), and BBC Media Action (£38,987,065). The grant to the Telegraph pales into insignificance.

        2. Was the Daily Mail in there, or do they get a large enough income peddling utter Kardashian stories?

      3. They’re a private company, surely they do not have to answer to anyone. Readers are just mugs to be fed propaganda.

    8. Wow. And there was I naively imagining that newspapers get their income from selling copies, subscriptions and advertisements.

  60. 16 year old tragically drowns trying to cross the English Channel and enter the UK illegally.

    Cue round a round the clock guilt-a-thong at the BBC led by Fergal Keane.

    You are going to get this for at least a week – wall to wall.

      1. Curious how this is headline news but the BBC had no time to report the murder of Cannon Hinnant. Didn’t fit the agenda I suppose.

          5. I hit clicketyclick earlier this month and birthdays certainly aren’t what they used to be.

      3. I think the willingness and ability to swear out aloud helps to ameliorate the exasperation!

    5. Last sentence in the DT account of the drowned Sudanese boy:

      “Things need to change. We need a way for people’s asylum claims to be fairly heard without them having to risk their lives.”

      Things do need to change – all those who arrive in Britain illegally should be returned to the place whence they last came and NONE of them should be allowed to stay unless they have arrived by legitimate routes. In this case the illegals should be returned to France.

      it should be made impossible to stay in Britain.

      When the British were in charge in Africa Africans did not want to come to Britain to live. Now that black people rule Africa the ordinary oppressed black people want to escape.

      WHY?

      1. This is the pre-amble to what comes next.

        Hundreds of thousands of them are going to be brought here by coach in order to ‘protect’ them from crossing the channel.

        You will not hear a single voice say – actually why aren’t the French processing their claims?

        The media was waiting for this, now watch them go into an orgasm of hysteria over it.

        1. This is the Aylan Kurdi of 2020. But people are more cynical nowadays. The young man paid a great deal of money for his journey across the Channel, which he undertook of his own free will, motivated by greed, as he was already in a safe country.

          1. Don’t get me wrong – this is a tragedy and the waste of a young life.

            But his death will be used by a malign media and establishment to accelerate the colonisation of our homeland.

          2. It struck me that his death is convenient for the cause of population replacement. Was it deliberate, one wonders?

          3. Yes – it was deliberate.

            If you purposely encourage people to make such a dangerous crossing and do nothing, nothing to deter them – that’s on you.

            You can’t even blame the sea.

      2. What is wrong with the increasingly woke DT?? These “asylum seekers” could try claiming asylum in the first safe place they come to, as they should – problem of dangerous Channel crossing solved!

        1. That would require modifying the UN 1951 Convention to remove the rights for migrants to ‘asylum shop’.

  62. No animal violence: BBC series offers more calming natural world. 19 August 2020.

    The BBC’s new natural history programme will ignore the animal kingdom’s violent side and instead highlight nature’s calming elements, as part of an effort to boost mental health during the coronavirus crisis.

    Rather than focusing on the dramatic footage of life-or-death battles that has defined shows such as Planet Earth, the new series will feature footage of more tranquil animal behaviour – such as whales circling each other and elephants swimming for minutes on end.

    Welcome to BBCWorld abounding in cuddly lions and sunbathing sharks.

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/aug/18/no-animal-violence-bbc-series-offers-more-calming-natural-world-mindful-escapes

    1. 322746+ up ticks,
      AS,
      How will they get round saying ” Ow do, halal” and
      justifying the Hoc canteen menu ?

      2. Blonde?? Girl??
        This is the Al-Beeb………………..
        A hijabed black tranny perhaps……………….

          1. Actually, they turn homosexual males into females and people will undergo the transformation to avoid flying off high buildings. Apparently (I saw a doco about it some years ago), muslim countries are leaders in MTF transformations!

          3. Yes, but that’s islam for you. One of the queers undergoing treatment was asked how he felt about becoming a “woman” with all the restrictions islam places on them (this was a while ago, when people were still acknowledging the truth about the ideology!) and he said it was the only way he could be with his boyfriend without the religious police intervening. I watched it out of idle curiosity, but it was so gripping in its bizarreness it’s remained etched in my memory!

  63. Are you sitting comfortably? This is Not the Six O’Clock News. 19 August 2020.

    You probably won’t hear this anywhere else so I want to tell you that it’s safe. Safe to go to the beach, safe to have tea with your friends, safe to meet up with your family. Not absolutely 100 percent safe, of course; nothing is. Yes, the virus may come back in the winter. But for the next few weeks, Gather ye roadside punnets of strawberries and have a G&T in the pub garden while ye may!

    The broadcast media, which did such a good job of creating fear in the population, continues to be relentless in its pessimism. Just imagine what it would be like if they allowed the true picture to emerge:

    It’s the BBC Six O’Clock News and Health Editor Hugh Pym is updating Sophie Raworth on the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Sophie: So, Hugh, we’ve seen another rise in cases today?

    Hugh: Yes, Sophie, there were 1,040 reported daily cases in England and Wales.

    Sophie: Gosh, that’s quite an uptick.

    Hugh: Well, it sounds a lot, Sophie, but we have to bear in mind that we are testing a lot more people so we are going to find more evidence of infection. Over 122,000 tests were processed, the most ever in a single day – 1,000 positives out of 122,000 tests is really very small.

    Sophie: Still, it’s a major cause for concern generally?

    Hugh: Well, not really. The PCR test is not totally reliable. It’s coming up with quite a lot of false positives. What the viewers probably don’t realise is the test can detect remnants of the virus. So someone who had Covid back in July, say, could be recorded today as a positive test, but he or she is now fully recovered.

    Sophie (checking her notes): But we do have the very real threat of more local lockdowns in places like Bedford because there are these spikes in Covid cases?

    Hugh (sighs): Well, they’re not really spikes, Sophie. A lot of healthy younger people are getting Covid now and they don’t have any symptoms at all. They don’t even know they’ve been infected. But if they test positive they’re added to the list. But a positive test really only becomes a “case” when someone gets sick enough that they need to be admitted to hospital.

    Sophie: And how many cases are being admitted to hospital, Hugh?

    Hugh (looks sheepish): Not very many to be honest with you.

    Sophie: But we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic?

    Hugh: Ah, but are we? There are 141,000 hospital beds in England, Sophie. Today, just 599 of those beds are occupied by patients with Covid-19.

    Sophie: You’re kidding me!

    Hugh: No, I’m not. We have 1,257 hospitals in total so rather a large number of hospitals don’t have a single Covid case.

    Sophie: So why aren’t hospitals fully open to non-Covid patients, Hugh?

    Hugh: That’s a really good question, Sophie. Could some NHS managers be saving money by keeping wards closed? The Department of Health doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, as per usual. And, of course, a lot of doctors have been working from home in the south of France and they can’t get back because of the quarantine.

    Sophie (frantically consults notes): What about the deaths, though, Hugh? They’re really really bad.

    Hugh: Sorry to disappoint, but NHS England reported just two Covid-related hospital deaths today. Wales and Scotland haven’t had any Covid deaths for quite some time. In fact, deaths in the UK have been below average for the past seven weeks now. It’s starting to look like deaths in 2020 will be no higher than they were in 2019.

    Sophie: Then how could the Government possibly justify keeping all the social distancing measures and imposing lockdowns?

    Hugh: Er… I think they’re worried that if they tell the public the truth it will be hard to regain control.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/sitting-comfortably-not-six-oclock-news/

    1. Something very similar i tried to explain to my wife during the ITV news last evening. When we told of another 193 cases recently reported.
      That was basically all the news reader said, no further information.
      Pointless and misleading information dangled for effect.

    2. What a great way to put a stop to future Gates Foundation donations to the DT. Well done Allison!

        1. I only see her articles when they appear here – what was yesterday’s about? She doesn’t usually write drivel.

          1. I know! It was quite a surprise to hear her siding with the whimpering “it’s not fair” crybaby students? and demanding Gavin Williamsons head on a plate. It was horribly disappointing!

        2. It struck me that the satire piece has parallels with the story of the little boy who pointed out the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes…..

    3. I posted the official figures for Scotland yesterday. There are around 220 people in hospital and people 4 in intensive care. It is not clear whether the term “case” in Scotland means just a positive test, or someone going in to hospital, or being given aspirin and told to stay at home.

      Scotland has over 20,000 hospital beds and over 400 ICU.

    4. The Beeb will be glad someone still take any notice of them 🙂
      The average age of the few who do is currently 61 for men, 62 for women.

    6. The conversation they would never have.

      I’m not meeting my friends today because it’s too wet to sit outside and too dangerous to go and have lunch in a cafe.

    7. This should be sent to Hugh Pym and Sophie Raworth and both of them should be closely examined and pressed to give their honest response to it.

  64. I’ve been puzzling over the instruction to wear face-masks – not just in the UK but throughout the World. Given the information disseminated in Ms Weaver’s film about the information held on all of us by the ‘intelligence’ services including facial recognition, it occurs to me that those disobeying the instruction to wear face masks, with facial recognition technology will de facto be highlighted and recorded as being less obedient to the State and therefore worthy of more detailed scrutiny…..

    2. They would be the only ones it would recognise – good way to keep the population compliant.

    3. The most striking characteristic of the popular Japanese cartoon “Hello Kitty” is that Kitty has two eyes and a nose but no mouth. Subliminal message?

      1. I also wondered if having large numbers of folk wearing masks it would give the A I algorithms an opportunity to hone accuracy for when widespread rebellion takes place and the rebels try to hide their identity by wearing masks….

    2. A little more detail…………

      https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1295870409045184512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1295870409045184512%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dgoingpostalcomt_i%3D5266420https3A2F2Fgoing-postal.com2F3Fp3D52664t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fgoing-postal.com2F20202F082Fpoor-understanding-of-monetary-theory-leads-to-disastrous-government-policies2Ft_e%3DPoor20Understanding20of20Monetary20Theory20Leads20to20Disastrous20Government20Policiest_d%3DPoor20Understanding20of20Monetary20Theory20Leads20to20Disastrous20Government20Policiest_t%3DPoor20Understanding20of20Monetary20Theory20Leads20to20Disastrous20Government20Policiess_o%3Ddescversion%3D44742cd8863826760a96af6b1ed3cde1
      Get woke go broke I hope

  67. Fine BTL Comment:

    There are some great shirts out there… I’ve been seeing the “Make Orwell Fiction Again” shirts, that’s definitely on my short list!

    1. Wot you need is puttees, Plum. Wind them as tight as you like, just as long as the taper to the strap is on the outside and pointing backwards… 😉

  69. My Stinking Bishop has arrived. I’ve put it in the wine fridge so it doesn’t contaminate everything else in the fridge with its strong smell of sweaty socks.

      1. I can’t eat all of it in one go. But i will take some out and leave it to warm up. Also, I don’t have an airing cupboard. 🙁

        1. On top of the fridge, at the back, above the heat dissipation coil.

          No airing cupboard? How quaint! ;@)

          1. Good idea. Those wine fridges pump out so much heat my central heating doesn’t come on. Can’t be bothered to work out if i’m saving money or not.

            I live in a bungalow built in 1950. There are no cupboards !

      1. It’s one of those food items that tastes wonderful if you can ignore the stink. Like Durian.

        1. You do realise that they make it by regularly stirring the curds and whey with a real old bishop’s used sock?

          1. Of course they do.

            Actually the cheese is washed in Perry giving rise to a bacterial bloom.

          2. You didn’t read it properly, it’s bacteria *from* bloomers. I shall leave it to your imagination where they come from.

        2. I tried Durian Ice cream at our hotel in Singapore. It was a like a much stronger peach flavour.
          Carrying the fruit it is banned on their public transport.

          2. We can get durian flavour sweet wafer biscuits from the Vienamese fruit shop… I like them, family reckon I’m crazy.

    2. Those are colossal amounts of money! What is the provenance of this information, may one ask?

      4. It’s all about transferring £billions of public money into private bank accounts.
        Maggie started that back in’79.

      1. The compilations are from Going Postal,the ones I’ve cheched so far on google are spot on,see link below

    6. One of my friends telephoned me this evening and in the course of the conversation mentioned that a chap at the garage had advanced the theory that we were all being made to wear masks because so much PPE had been stockpiled and the companies had a lot of useless stock on their hands. The new regs were a way of shifting it. We thought it sounded quite plausible!

  71. “It’s a strong indication that the presence of neutralizing antibodies is associated with protection from the virus,”

    https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-outbreak-seattle-fishing-boat-insight-immunity.amp?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fus%2Fcoronavirus-outbreak-seattle-fishing-boat-insight-immunity

    Evidence keeps trickling in that a substantial proportion of the world’s population is acquiring immunity having been exposed to the COVID-19.
    It seems however, as discovered by the Swedes, that the presence of antibodies is not an explanation for such immunity – it’s more to do with T-cells.

    This revelation just shows how ignorant our scientists are about the science behind immunity from COVID-19. It makes the recently Putin approved Russian COVID-19 immunisation highly risky despite the fact that his daughter has had the treatment and is still ‘alive’?

    Here’s an article about how ignorant we are:

    At a minimum, you’d want to know antibody levels over time, T-cell response over time, and (importantly) what a protective profile looks like for both of those. We barely have insight into any of this: the large-scale data are just a snapshot of antibody levels, and that’s not enough.

    https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/07/more-on-t-cells-antibody-levels-and-our-ignorance

    1. Not downplaying the damage being done to having stores boarded up but were all the windows shattered or just being protected?

    3. Clucking Bell !!!! The looting was so bad they even robbed a bookstore!!!!!!!!!!
      Unprecedented

        1. Peaceful protesters need reading matter while they are en route to another peaceful demonstration…

  74. Pick this one apart.

    Many would agree that the examination system is still ’tilted’ too much towards university but that is not the reason for it failing one-third of pupils. The writer might consider the idea, however unacceptable in the truth-free world of today, that that one-third simply isn’t intelligent enough. After all, the CSE was introduced in the 1960s because the O-level was too difficult for a half of them.

    Nor did raising the school leaving age solve the problem of the lowest achievers; they were never going to pass an exam. In my O-level year, many pupils (mostly boys) in the lower sets were allowed to leave at Easter because they weren’t going to be entered even for the CSE.

    Our GCSE exam system is beyond repair – the wasteful system needs to be brought to an end

    A radical overhaul of GCSEs is imperative to tackle deep inequalities in the UK education system if we truly want to ‘level up’

    ROY BLATCHFORD

    Results week was not meant to be like this. But for the Coronials – the class of Covid-19 – tomorrow is a results declaration day like no other. The personal triumphs and disasters for students will be vivid, but the political and social fall-out will resonate for years to come.

    The government was elected with the promise to address social inequality and ‘level up’ opportunity across the nation. Just a glance at the political fandango of recent days points in one direction: a radical overhaul of GCSEs is imperative to tackle deep inequalities in the UK education system.

    In 1963, John Newsom and his colleagues presented to the government of the time a beautifully crafted, 300-page report titled Half Our Future.

    The landmark report painted a picture of success and positive self-esteem for 50 per cent of the nation’s 15 year-olds. It went on to identify that the other 50 per cent languished with an unsuitable curriculum resulting in poor or no qualifications. The report’s various recommendations led to the raising of the school leaving age in 1973.

    Six decades on and that 50 per cent identified by John Newsom has its current equivalent in the forgotten third.

    Every August we celebrate as a time-honoured ritual the achievements of our higher attaining students, and local newspapers picture them jumping for joy.

    But there’s another story. Every year there are many, many thousands of students who fall short of a grade 4 ‘pass’ in English and maths at age 16 – and this after 12 years of compulsory schooling. Their chances of progression are diminished in further study, future careers and, ultimately, in life.

    When we are talking about social justice it is these young people who most need our attention.

    What is perhaps not widely understood is that this rate of attrition, this forgotten third, happens year in and year out because it is built into the way our exam system works. For the Coronials, with their teachers’ predicted grades, it is little different. In the poignant words of one student: ‘it seems a third of us have to fail for two-thirds to pass’.

    Grimly surreal as it may seem to the uninitiated, this level of collateral damage is an accepted part of the process for determining the distribution of grades. In other words, we judge the success of our education system by the number of young people who don’t gain that national ‘pass’. Few other high-performing jurisdictions would think that sensible or morally acceptable.m

    The long tail of under-achievement casts a shadow over UK education today just as it did in 1963. It is not a necessity but a political choice. System change is needed – and quickly.

    To think the unthinkable, given students are in full-time education and training until 18, we may no longer need formal examinations at 16+ which would bring us in line with much of the rest of the world.

    In the meantime we require a system for assessing at age 16 that does not ‘lock in’ failure for a third of students. GCSEs were originally introduced in 1986 ‘to show what students know and can do’.

    As a matter of routine, moderated teachers’ assessment of all subjects should count for 50 per cent of a final grade, with student portfolios, online and different forms of contemporary testing making up the other 50 per cent.

    The wasteful GCSE English and maths resit industry must be brought to an end at the earliest opportunity. The success rates in schools and colleges are poor and so often a waste of students’ and teachers’ time and best energies.

    We require methods of assessment which value the everyday skills employers want. The Social Mobility Commission recently observed: Employers are using GCSE qualifications to screen applicants for entry-level roles without examining fully whether a GCSE is necessary for the role. This barrier inhibits social mobility chances and stops young people getting on in life.

    And if the ‘levelled up’ vision is to be truly realised, the whole system must tilt away from its focus on a university education as the golden route. A relevant and highly valued vocational education for tens of thousands of young people must be available in all parts of the nation.

    There was life BC – Before Coronavirus. And AC – After Coronavirus, there will be renewed life and vibrancy in a changed society, with altered values. Will they be a society and a values system that continue to willingly damage the aspirations and life chances of a third of its 16 year-olds each year? We have to plan otherwise. Results days need to be different.

    Roy Blatchford CBE, founder of http://www.blinks.education and former headteacher and HMI, is an international adviser on school systems. His new book ‘The Forgotten Third’ has just been published by John Catt Educational.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2020/08/19/gcse-exam-system-beyond-repair-wasteful-system-needs-brought/

    1. One of our school’s possibly less distinguished academic achievers started his own business. That’s Sir Tom Farmer, CVO, CBE, KC*SG, FRSE, DL.

      1. Those who are less academic are often capable of learning useful skills. But GCSE was supposed to give those people some level of achievement.

        1. If the plan was to let all children sit a single set of examinations, rather than be split into academic and non-academic groups with appropriate styles of examinations, then it clearly hasn’t worked.

    2. I remember the phrase used at the time of the GCSE launch: “An exam everyone can pass.”

    3. Try as they will – they can never “level up” people’s intelligence. If there is an average, then some will be above and some below.

      1. I will vote for you as new Education Minister. You won’t get it unfortunately as the truth is really too difficult to stomach anymore. Causes mental anguish, you know!

    4. Why not try the German model?
      Three separate kinds of school leaving exams.
      The easiest, after 9 years of school
      The middle kind, after 10 years of school, a bit harder
      The super-demanding kind, after 12 or 13 years of school.

      Get the non-academic kids out into the workplace doing a meaningful job/qualification mixture, and give the cleverest a demanding exam. You can of course always stay in education and try to get more exams if you were placed the wrong stream.
      Britain seems to try and squash all kids into the middle sector.

      1. There is also a very good work experience scheme when they’re about 15 years old. The practice in Griesheim, where I did a 5 months’ Vertretung took on girls & boys as ‘nurses’. Some were very good.

    1. You used to worship Nigel the way you worship the loser Batten today 🙂

      ETA: Former UKIP leader, former UKIP MEP, current nobody.

      1. 322746+ up ticks,
        Very old hat, you forgot far right racist.
        Your post’s have no truthful content.

        1. Back in 2014/’15 UKIP could have been contenders. Nigel and hard-line Kippers had different ideas. The rest is history.

          Cameron had the likes of you in mind with his description of UKIP supporters as “swivel-eyed loons.”
          Possibly the only time the entire electorate agreed with him.

          1. If you have come here to call people names and not join any debate, you can bu99er off!

        2. Don’t mind me ogga, I seem to be on a bit of a roll over on Breitbart so I’m chancing my arm again here on Nottl.
          You remember Breitbart? 🙂

  79. Just come back home from a food shopping trip with Moh.

    We went to Weymouth driving through low thick cloud , viewing rough sea and ghostly outlines of 10 cruiseliners, and temps of about 22 c, warm and sticky .

    Hardly the right weather situations for hands free driverless cars, up hills on bendy roads, following caravans , lorries and tractors and trailers.

    What on earth is the hands free electric car thing all about ?

    I prefer my old diesel !

    1. “We went to Weymouth driving through low thick cloud , viewing rough sea and ghostly outlines of 10 cruiseliners,”
      Hubby must have thought he was back in a chopper, Belle.

    2. Diesel do for us! I took mine over to Cirencester this afternoon – gave it a run – I haven’t filled it up since January!

  81. Visible from our road in WB. There’s more of them since the photo was taken. A horse fair was due to to take place nearby over the bank holiday weekend but it was cancelled a fortnight ago. Some of these may have turned up in anticipation. The neighbours are nervous.

    https://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/people/authorities-working-together-travellers-arrive-wellingborough-2946795
    https://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/people/bank-holiday-horse-fair-between-wollaston-and-great-doddington-cancelled-2934011

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15843ef85269f6d926e83e05e5f645bad76f25bc8e9384ee68a2e09e44527140.jpg

    1. The media ignored the fact that, as the only member of the family with a life-jacket, the father floated to safety as his wife and child drowned.

    2. It was inevitable. That anyone thought differently is daft. Now a kid has died because we encouraged these illegal invaders will the press make it clear that this has to end, or will they encourage and enforce more gimmigrants – and, of course, more deaths?

      1. He’s not a kid though. Buried in the Mail’s sob story is the inconvenient fact that he was carrying documents “suggesting” that he was over 18. The idea that he was 16 is a simple lie.
        Gosh, I wonder why they did that.

      2. It will be a case of giving them free access to the ferries, and to eurostar….. it will be made perfectly safe for them, and they will be waved through. That is how it will end. No more embarrassing bodies, can’t have that on British beaches, harrumpf, oh dearie me no.

      3. Clearly another stunt like the child on the beach. They aren’t interested in lives, merely keeping the cash flowing in.

  84. Oh well………i have to brave the rain now and drive over to Cirencester to pick up the first batch of Hedgehog calendars from the printers. I told him I was going to kill two birds with one stone as I was meeting my friends for lunch. Now I have to go just for that.

    2. That’s not a problem, Ndovu, as long as you found a good place for lunch and got Rishi’s 50% discount. You can always go back for the calendars another day.

      :-))

      1. Lunch was cancelled – too wet to sit outside and some of the ladies didn’t want to brave the crowds inside.

    1. California has had rolling black outs for many years. The intent was always to force down energy usage.

      However, that intent has failed utterly because the rich are moving away – after voting in the very people responsible for the mess. The problem is, the poorest can’t get away and are now paying the price – as always.

      1. Not sure about failing, as the rich are moving away and infesting other areas with their left wing ideas, so californiitis spreads.

  87. AP in DT:

    You probably won’t hear this anywhere else so I want to tell you that it’s safe. Safe to go to the beach, safe to have tea with your friends, safe to meet up with your family. Not absolutely 100 percent safe, of course; nothing is. Yes, the virus may come back in the winter. But for the next few weeks, Gather ye roadside punnets of strawberries and have a G&T in the pub garden while ye may!

    The broadcast media, which did such a good job of creating fear in the population, continues to be relentless in its pessimism. Just imagine what it would be like if they allowed the true picture to emerge:

    It’s the BBC Six O’Clock News and Health Editor Hugh Pym is updating Sophie Raworth on the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Sophie: So, Hugh, we’ve seen another rise in cases today?

    Hugh: Yes, Sophie, there were 1,040 reported daily cases in England and Wales.

    Sophie: Gosh, that’s quite an uptick.

    Hugh: Well, it sounds a lot, Sophie, but we have to bear in mind that we are testing a lot more people so we are going to find more evidence of infection. Over 122,000 tests were processed, the most ever in a single day – 1,000 positives out of 122,000 tests is really very small.

    Sophie: Still, it’s a major cause for concern generally?

    Hugh: Well, not really. The PCR test is not totally reliable. It’s coming up with quite a lot of false positives. What the viewers probably don’t realise is the test can detect remnants of the virus. So someone who had Covid back in July, say, could be recorded today as a positive test, but he or she is now fully recovered.

    Sophie (checking her notes): But we do have the very real threat of more local lockdowns in places like Bedford because there are these spikes in Covid cases?

    Hugh (sighs): Well, they’re not really spikes, Sophie. A lot of healthy younger people are getting Covid now and they don’t have any symptoms at all. They don’t even know they’ve been infected. But if they test positive they’re added to the list. But a positive test really only becomes a “case” when someone gets sick enough that they need to be admitted to hospital.

    Sophie: And how many cases are being admitted to hospital, Hugh?

    Hugh (looks sheepish): Not very many to be honest with you.

    Sophie: But we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic?

    Hugh: Ah, but are we? There are 141,000 hospital beds in England, Sophie. Today, just 599 of those beds are occupied by patients with Covid-19.

    Sophie: You’re kidding me!

    Hugh: No, I’m not. We have 1,257 hospitals in total so rather a large number of hospitals don’t have a single Covid case.

    Sophie: So why aren’t hospitals fully open to non-Covid patients, Hugh?

    Hugh: That’s a really good question, Sophie. Could some NHS managers be saving money by keeping wards closed? The Department of Health doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, as per usual. And, of course, a lot of doctors have been working from home in the south of France and they can’t get back because of the quarantine.

    Sophie (frantically consults notes): What about the deaths, though, Hugh? They’re really really bad.

    Hugh: Sorry to disappoint, but NHS England reported just two Covid-related hospital deaths today. Wales and Scotland haven’t had any Covid deaths for quite some time. In fact, deaths in the UK have been below average for the past seven weeks now. It’s starting to look like deaths in 2020 will be no higher than they were in 2019.

    Sophie: Then how could the Government possibly justify keeping all the social distancing measures and imposing lockdowns?

    Hugh: Er… I think they’re worried that if they tell the public the truth it will be hard to regain control.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/sitting-comfortably-not-six-oclock-news/

      1. Oh For Fuck Sake. My neighbours have been saying for the last few years…..’Please don’t make us eat this any more’……… 🙁

  89. Evening, all. It’s going to be a case of ave atque vale at the moment, because I’ve logged in, but I’m going to disappear to watch the racing I recorded while I was riding the Connemara (a nice trick if you can do it ). Hope to pop back later.

      1. I hope he doesn’t get the same treatment from our ghastly MSM as Israel Folau, but I fear he will.
        Good luck to him for standing up for his beliefs.

      2. I think they should organise a bare knuckle fight between him and Lewis Hamilton!

        Go for it Billy!

    4. Well, yes, except in some areas where the Muslims are, as there a gang of thugs is likely to surround you, attack you and kill your pet.

      All with state sanction, of course.

    1. Well he’s not wrong, is he.
      Open the Mail and there’s yet another outpouring of scare stories, plus sob stories about the “16” year old (who even their own article admits was “over 18”).
      It’s beyond a joke, I feel as though we’re through the Looking Glass. Nothing is real any more, except the agenda that is being pushed upon us sheep.

      1. -It wasn’t just Afghan against Pakistani on the migrant route. There seems to be a lots of rivalries between different nationalities of migrants that often result in conflict. The Iraqis don’t like the Iranians who don’t like the Kurds and so on…

        Is Europe prepared to deal with conflict that is brought in within the refugee/migrant populations?
        Conflicts completely alien to Europe will now be fought out on cobbled streets in European towns and cities.

        The fact that ISIS are mixing amongst the general population is troublesome. What’s also troublesome is that there is or would appear to be reluctance in the refugee/migrant community to inform of radicals.

        1. Make that the present tense. These conflicts have been fought out for some thirty or forty years already. MSM doesn’t report it that much.
          White man swears at black men in train and gets knocked out, headline news, much white-shaming.
          Muslim/Sikh conflict (for example) – gets a small paragraph if one kills the other, else nothing.

    2. Wasn’t he the chap who got into trouble for mentioning bongo bongo land whose inhabitants are now busy trying to cross the Channel with the help of the British Border Farce so that they can be put up in luxurious hotels.

  93. Good night all.

    Penne with romanesco sauce, nectarines baked with sherry for supper.

    1. Chicken Supreme with rice, peas and mushrooms, washed down with a nice New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, followed by home-made rhubarb crumble and cream. Good night, Peddy.

  94. Crikey. If even IDS can see it…

    It’s not just the migrant boats that we need to go after – Coronavirus has exposed extent of slavery in UK

    The gangs don’t just go away when the migrants land in the UK. Many are then forced into slavery.

    IAIN DUNCAN SMITH

    In the last week, the sight of boats filled with migrants trying to cross the Channel has dominated the media, as have the Home Secretary’s legitimate efforts to stop them. Of course, she is right to want to ensure the rules are upheld and that migrants ask for asylum in the first country they arrive in. That is the clear position signed up to by France and other countries. But whatever the outcome of discussions with France, we are only scratching the surface of a much deeper and more troubling problem.

    There is an enormous criminal sub-society thriving in the UK. A significant and well-organised network of gangs brings people into this country by different methods, including illegal passports.

    But the gangs don’t just go away when the migrants land in the UK. Many migrants are then forced into slavery. From exploitation and abuse to benefit fraud and prostitution, around 100,000 people are estimated to be trapped in this dark world.

    There are consequences for us all. It took a spike in Covid infections in Leicester, for example, to shine a light on the garment factories there. Factories continued to operate during lockdown to supply primarily online fashion retailers whose sales of often cheap, almost disposable, garments have increased dramatically.

    People in these factories often live in squalid conditions, with anywhere from 10 to 30 people in one house, in some cases “hot bedding” while others are working in the factories.

    Ironically, the fear of contracting Covid-19 briefly became bigger than the fear of reprisals from speaking out, and as some factory workers spoke to journalists and researchers, the scale of the problem became apparent. As the Centre for Social Justice’s special report – Parallel societies: slavery, exploitation and criminal subculture in Leicester – released today, shows, what has been created is a lawless state with corruption at every level – getting passports, immigration status, even false driving licences. Far too little has been done – and alongside these are benefit fraud, VAT evasion and money laundering, all opening the door to voter fraud.

    Leicester is not unique – such abuse, exploitation and criminal behaviour are happening elsewhere here too.

    The CSJ’s recent report, It Still Happens Here, uncovered a case in Leeds. West Yorkshire Trading Standards had begun an operation into illegal tobacco smuggling and sales. But behind the smuggling was a criminal network trafficking people. Human beings are simply another commodity for these criminals.

    This criminal network is creating one of the pull factors that bring migrants to our shores. They used to smuggle drugs and alcohol, but now smuggle and exploit vulnerable migrants – a much lower risk. After all, a journey from Vietnam, for example, would cost a migrant £10,000 to £35,000 and, managed via social media channels, these trafficked individuals end up in this sub-society, in illegal factories, the sex trade and even growing cannabis.

    We must act now. The scale of this is enormous and won’t be solved just by stopping the boats. We have to go after the criminals, no matter who they are and despite any cultural sensitivities, while rooting out corruption in official circles wherever it exists. Businesses that benefit must be held to account for their supply chains, too.

    Yet perhaps the most difficult but important thing is for us to understand where the public demand for cheaper and cheaper garments and services is leading. It shouldn’t take a surge in Covid-19 to alert us to what has been going on. From now on, ignorance must no longer be an excuse.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/14/not-just-migrant-boats-need-go-coronavirus-has-exposed-extent/

    1. We were taught about factory workers “hot bedding” in history lessons at school. I don’t think anyone seriously thought that we would see these practices again in Britain in our lifetimes.

      1. It’s been happening for decades. Not just beds, shoes as well. Do you remember ‘Tuf shoes’, guaranteed for 10 years or something? Certain communities were ensuring the shoes were shared between 2-3 people and never stopped, wearing out within the guarantee.

    2. Ian Duncan Smith is part of the problem. Why is he and his cohorts unable to do anything positive even when they run the department?

      2. Remember that IDS was a firmly against the EU until he became leader of the Conservative Party and then did a complete vote-face.

        He is no firmer than an unset jelly at a children’s party.

        Even Cameron pretended that he was eurosceptic.

        The message: NEVER TRUST THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY LEADERSHIP

        1. I think everyone is learning that message now. My fear is that it is and has been since Margaret Thatcher all part of the plan.

          Boris, Theresa, Cameron…………….all ineffectual. And paid off handsomely.

    3. As no doubt others have said – stop supporting uncontrolled illegal immigration then.

      Stand against those proposing and demanding it. Stand up and say no for once. The reason we normals oppose massive uncontrolled immigration is for reasons such as this. The Left don’t care. People are just grist for their ego.

  95. Fine BTL Comment:

    There are some great shirts out there… I’ve been seeing the “Make Orwell Fiction Again” shirts, that’s definitely on my short list!

          1. What are spots called “Polka” dots? No one calls them Tango dots, Foxtrot dots, Lindy-hop dots or Cha-cha-cha dots! How does a spot become connected to a dance?

          7. From wiki:- “It is likely that the term originated in popularity of polka dance at the time the pattern became fashionable, just as many other products and fashions of the era also adopted the “polka” name.”

          11. Sorry Sue, that’s gone over my head. ‘Spoons? Wetherspoon’s? Please explain!

          12. Yes Mr Beans! Wetherspoons! Somebody mentioned Brewers……I’ll get my coat…!

          14. Would that be the same useless Specsavers that I nearly sued three years ago for failing to diagnose my cataracts and giving me a completely wrong prescription that made my sight worse? That Specsavers?

            They were so terrified of the real threats in the letter that I sent to their HQ that they bent over backwards to give me some form of redress.

            I still told them to get stuffed and went to a proper opticians who gave me top-notch service (and got my cataracts successfully operated on, within a month, for a total cost of £30!).

            ThatSpecsavers? Specwankers more like.

          15. Their clever catchphrase ‘Should have gone to……..’ has become common parlance in the UK. It is a franchise operation with each branch paying for the privilege of using the name. Personally I wouldn’t go near them, I’d even sooner go to Boots Opticians and that’s a real stretch for me!

            I only use independent opticians, most recently an outfit in Chandlers Ford who are highly professional in all respects.

          16. The opticians that I turned to after my Specsavers’ debacle — Synsam — were the pinnacle of professionalism. So much so that I also wrote a comprehensive letter to their HQ praising them to the hilt.

            I am a compulsive and inveterate letter-writer whenever I experience exceptional or deplorable service. Invariably gracious and well-mannered (never abusive or loutish), my letters hit home.

    2. There does seem to be a coordinated global agenda to impose lockdowns, masks and trash the economy of almost every country, for a virus that is mostly asymptomatic and has a very low death rate. Why??

      1. The point of masks is to stop the infected (who may not even know it) spraying their viruses over the at risk portion of the population. One very large at risk group is comprised of people 65 and over – a significant percentage of posters here I would suggest. That’s why it went through the care homes like a very nasty dose of salts.

        Personally, I am not ready to exit stage left because some “I don’t believe in masks” type coughed all over me.

        1. But masks cannot do that. The virus is too small. We are in the middle to the end of one of the great mass hysterias of history. Fascinating but fatal.

        2. If the masks work as you imply, there is no need whatsoever for quarantine/lockdown and all the other control freakery that is being imposed.

          Just masks, and lock up those who don’t wear them.

          Perhaps in concentration camps…

        3. I’m not ready to exit yet but life at the moment has become completely joyless – and mask-wearing has added to that.

      1. I would shove a stick of gelignite up his arse and auction the right to set it off. Democratically, of course.

        1. Just the detonator for gelignite would be better – death probably nowhere near as quick and giving time for reflection!

        2. No words. Much like our Government. Don’t want to enrage the fanatics do we…………………

      2. They mention the 22 murdered but do not mention the hundred or so left with serious or life changing injuries.

        We need a strong government prepared to repeal a lot of the liberal laws enacted by Blair, Brown, Cameron/Clegg and May.

        1. “We need a strong government prepared to repeal a lot of the liberal laws enacted by Blair, Brown, Cameron/Clegg and May.”
          Dream on.

          1. What we need is not what we’ve brought down upon ourselves.

            How many years, months or days are left before Western civilisation has been completely eradicated?

        2. Yes….Why hasn’t it happened yet? They say how terrible it is and move on. It Happens again and they move on. Ad fucking Nauseum.

    2. Bring in voting at 16.

      Make the age of sexual consent 12

      But why not raise the age at which you can be given whole life imprisonment to 35?

      Even our enemies must think we are completely mad. Indeed they must think we deserve to be blown up as we have become too weak and irresolute to defend ourselves from atrocities.

    1. Repost: “It’s all about transferring £billions of public money into private bank accounts.”
      Maggie started that back in’79

      Edit: Damn keyboard.

  100. Just when you thought the Tories couldn’t sink any lower, Labour manages to trump them.

    A-levels: Algorithm at centre of grading crisis ‘unlawful’ says Labour.

    The computer-based model used by Ofqual to standardise results after exams were cancelled breached anti-discrimination legislation as well as laws requiring it to uphold standards, Labour says. “High-achieving pupils from schools in deprived areas were disproportionately affected.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53837722

    3. I liked the episode where Eric Blair had a nice Hitler Moustache then realised the Socialist side he was fighting for was the mirror of the Fascist side.

      Well,..I say i like it but then i wasn’t one of the thousands murdered…………… just yet.

  103. The woke generation will stop at nothing to find language that offends them

    From medical schools to cricket commentary boxes, words are being weaponised to promote a progressive agenda

    MICHAEL HENDERSON

    “Look at yourself”, Larry Hart wrote in one of his best songs with Richard Rodgers. “If you had a sense of humour, you would laugh to beat the band”. Glad To Be Unhappy, the song was called: the title song, it appears, of the woke generation, which wants to take on all the woes of the world because it makes them feel purer, kinder, wiser.

    Where there are no woes, they make them up. The medical school at Bristol University, for instance, wants to “decolonise” the curriculum. That’s right, the curriculum built on the shoulders of such filthy rotten rascals as Hippocrates, Pasteur, Marie Curie, Freud and Fleming. Off to the cells with them, and throw in the Nightingale woman, too. We are the masters now.

    According to Dr Joseph Hartland, who sounds a very busy bee, there is “an inherent racism in medicine”, so phrases like “turning blue” will have to go. Let’s hope nobody in Bristol gets red-faced with anger, or goes green with envy, otherwise they too will be forced to confess to their unconscious institutional bias.

    Not far away, at the University of Gloucestershire, “freshers’ week” is the bone of contention. The term has “negative connotations”. Instead of welcoming students to a college of knowledge in the spirit of intellectual inquiry, this outdated phrase indicates that a preliminary week of high jinks prepares young men and women for a life of debauchery. “Come to Cheltenham, twinned with Sodom!” So it’s sermons and soda water all round, and lights out by half ten. Good luck with that, Glosters.

    This linguistic lunacy has even infected Test Match Special, the radio programme that has been serving cricket-lovers since 1957. Two of the new female commentators, Isa Guha and Ebony Rainford-Brent, both a bit wet behind the ears, refer to batsmen as “batters” (“ba’ers”, actually, because they suffer from chronic glotalitis). The word is non-specific, and therefore won’t put female listeners off.

    “Batsman”, like “actor”, is a word that has traditionally been applied to performers of both sexes. That’s not liberated enough for these folk. In Australia, one forceful lady is pressing colleagues to rename the fielding position third man “third”. We can expect to see “Dishy Ishy” take this fight to the male-supremacist cricket establishment on behalf of the sisterhood.

    Language changes – or rather, our response to it alters according to context and circumstance. Half a century ago, “African American” was held to be an offensive term by the people it sought to describe. Now the tables have turned. “African American” has been embraced by black people, while terms such as “negro” are relegated to the past.

    But it is rarely black people who shout loudest in these modern culture wars. Dr Hartland in Bristol, like most of the protesters who rolled the statue of Edward Colston into the harbour in that city, is white. And the guilt of middle-class white men is increasingly the engine of imagined virtue.

    We don’t have to listen to their bleating, and most people – black and white – choose not to. Pretty soon, in Cheltenham and other places, the freshers of 2020 will respond to all this in their own way – perhaps by making merry over a few bottles of something or other. They may even – if we are still permitted to say such things – turn the air blue.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/19/woke-generation-will-stop-nothing-find-language-offends/

    _____________________________________________________________

    Here’s the report on the BUMS (Bristol University Medical School):

    Medical training such as watching for patients going blue ‘inherently racist’, medical school says

    Doctor warns that ‘we are teaching students how to recognise a life-or-death clinical sign largely in white people’

    Henry Bodkin, Health Correspondent

    Traditional medical training such as teaching students to watch out for patients going blue is “inherently racist”, leaders at a major medical school have said.

    The University of Bristol Medical School has announced that it is pioneering “anti-racist” methods of teaching its students in a move backed by the General Medical Council (GMC).

    Many of the reforms will be practical measures, such as emphasising the diversity of skin tones among patients and therefore the range of potential visual indicators of ill-health.

    The medical school is also seeking to “decolonise” its curriculum, recognising the historical exploitation of non-white people in medical research, and introducing unconscious bias training to help tomorrow’s doctors confront racism in practice.

    The architects of the new-look course say students pushed for reform due to concerns that gaps in their training left them ill-prepared to treat ethnic minority patients. Students at other medical schools have signed petitions calling for their courses to be made more diverse.

    It comes as officials and scientists grapple to understand why people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have suffered disproportionately from coronavirus.

    A draft report by Public Health England suggested “historic racism and poorer experiences of healthcare” could be partly to blame.

    Dr Joseph Hartland, helping to lead the changes at the University of Bristol Medical School, told the BBC: “Historically, medical education was designed and written by white middle-class men, and so there is an inherent racism in medicine that means it exists to serve white patients above all others.”

    Dr Hartland gave the example of students being taught to look out for blue tinges on the lips or fingertips to help judge how severely a patient is short of breath – signs that can present differently on darker skin.

    “Essentially we are teaching students how to recognise a life-or-death clinical sign largely in white people, and not acknowledging these differences may be dangerous,” he said.

    Dr Hartland said students often go through their entire medical school education without seeing examples of how these, and how to treat common skin conditions such as eczema, manifest in people who do not have white skin.

    Eva Larkai, who leads the black and minority ethnic medical student group at the school, said the changes would ultimately help patients have better treatment.

    She added: “If the new generation of doctors are not being equipped to adequately care for the multi-ethnic population we see here in the UK and across the world, we are doing the patients a disservice.”

    Dr Clare Owen, of the Medical Schools Council, said: “It is vital that not only should the profession represent our diverse population but it should also understand the unique health differences in our various communities.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/17/medical-training-watching-patients-going-blue-inherently-racist/

  105. 322809+up ticks,
    An hour plus of truthism on U tube will be to much for many.
    Gerard Batten / Hearts of Oak / U tube.

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