Wednesday 19 January: Dominic Cummings brings heat but no light to the No 10 drinks row

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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693 thoughts on “Wednesday 19 January: Dominic Cummings brings heat but no light to the No 10 drinks row”

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    First of today’s letters:

    SIR – Since when in Britain have we simply taken the word of an ex-aide – in this case Dominic Cummings – who has not hidden his desire for revenge and seeks to include us all in his vendetta against the Prime Minister (report, January 18)?

    Let us not forget that Mr Cummings broke the rules himself and was not sacked.

    Janet Whitehead
    Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire

    We all know someone else who broke the lockdown rules…Johnson’s cringe-making interview yesterday was conducted by none other than Beff Rigby, who was suspended for 3 months last year for the very same ‘offence’ – partying. Obviously the irony was completely lost on whoever set this up!

    1. It was Cummings who named the prime minister’s latest wife as Princess Nut Nuts. I wonder how much of the venom that Boris Johnson’s ex-aide is squirting about is aimed more at her than at her vassal Johnson?

      If Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street how long will it be before Nut Nuts leaves Bosis Johnson? Have Ladbrokes opened a book?

  5. Tory MPs openly discuss Johnson challenge as mood ‘turns dramatically’. 19 January 2022.

    With MPs plotting his demise, Johnson emerged from isolation in No 10 to defend himself against claims from Dominic Cummings, his former aide, that he lied to parliament about believing a garden party in the first lockdown was a work event.

    The prime minister said “no one warned” him that that the 20 May 2020 “bring your own booze” party he attended alongside 30-40 staff was against the rules, and confirmed he had given his account of events to Gray.

    This is pathetic! Can he not dress himself without instruction? Has he not eyes to see and brain to think for himself?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/18/boris-johnson-challenge-leadership-tory-mps

    2. Perhaps the realisation of what he’s gotten himself into has scrambled whatever passed for grey matter between his ears? He badly needs an exit strategy but still he allows Javid the Bald to push the now discredited and clearly out-of-date jab onto all and sundry, including NHS staff threatened with unemployment if they don’t bow down to the gods of Big Pharma.

  6. Good Moaning.
    For poor NOTTLers, the full text of something that we knew right from the start:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/18/wildly-incorrect-covid-modelling-caused-boris-johnson-bounce/

    ‘Wildly incorrect’ Covid modelling caused Boris Johnson to bounce into second lockdown

    Model predicting 4,000 deaths per day was leaked to the press before it could be challenged, MPs told

    18 January 2022 • 8:12pm

    “Boris Johnson was bounced into the second coronavirus lockdown after a “terrifying” and “wildly incorrect” model warning of 4,000 deaths-a-day was leaked to the press, MPs have heard.

    Speaking at a debate at Westminster Hall on the use of models in the pandemic, the MP Steve Baker described how the Prime Minister had contacted him shortly before announcing new restrictions on October 31 2020 asking for advice.

    Modelling from Cambridge University and Public Health England (PHE) had suggested that without immediate restrictions there could be 4,000 deaths per day by the end of December.

    Mr Baker said that he had told Mr Johnson to challenge the model, and Prof Tim Spector of King’s College London and Prof Carl Heneghan of Oxford University were called into Downing Street to go over the data.

    But by the time the models were shown to be inaccurate, it was too late to stop public calls for restrictions.

    Mr Baker said: “By Monday, Carl Heneghan had taken the wheels of those death projections, by which time the Prime Minister had, disgracefully, been bounced using a leak into a lockdown. This is absolutely no way to conduct public policy.

    “The reality is the Prime Minister was shown a terrifying model which was subsequently proven to be widely incorrect but he took away freedoms from tens of millions on that basis.

    “It is monstrous that millions of people were locked down, effectively under house arrest, their businesses destroyed, their children prevented from getting an education.

    “The situation is now perfectly plain that even our most basic liberties can be taken away by the stroke of a pen, if a minister has been shown sufficiently persuasive modelling that tells them there is trouble ahead.”

    Mr Baker, the MP for Wycombe, called for the establishment of an Office for Research Integrity within the Cabinet Office to challenge the data coming from modelling.

    The Westminster debate was called by Bob Seely, the MP for the Isle of Wight, who argued that the use of the modelling in the pandemic was approaching a national scandal.

    Mr Seely warned that the “doomsday public health scenarios” had been used to create a “despicable” and “unforgivable” climate of fear, based on “a sort of glorified guesswork.”

    “Never before has so much harm been done to so many, by so few based on so little questionable and potentially flawed data,” he said.

    “We had a nervous Government presented with doomsday scenarios which panicked it into a course of profound acting with shocking outcomes.

    “I believe the use of modelling is pretty much getting up there for a national scandal.”

    Mr Seely told MPs that there was a growing body of evidence suggesting that the models were flawed and the wrong assumptions made.

    “Why did we think it was in our nation’s interest to create a grotesque sense of fear to manipulate behaviour?”, he added.

    “Never again should the Government rely on dubious modelling.”

    Miriam Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said far too little attention had been paid to the collateral damage of lockdowns.

    “This wasn’t just a paper exercise,” she said. “These models and the weight they have been given has caused serious destruction to lives,

    “Who was modelling the outcomes of child abuse, of poverty, of loneliness and despair and fear?”

    Responding to the debate, Maggie Throup, the vaccines minister, said that an inquiry into modelling should form part of the official pandemic inquiry and promised that “lessons will be learned”.

    But she said the Government did not just rely on models but also looked at what was happening in the real world.

    “Modelling is helpful but it must be considered alongside what is happening to real people at home, in schools or in hospitals,” she said.

    “Comparisons between past scenarios and what actually happened should be made with caution and we’re comparing apples and pears.” “

  8. Sgt Bilko sounds rather peeved:

    SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, January 18) accuses the BBC of acting like a “Fox News of the Left” by “taking a line and incessantly promoting it” in our coverage of the “scandal” (his word) of Boris Johnson and parties.

    Let’s leave to one side that it is ITV News that has, to its credit, made the running on this story, by publishing the recording of the Prime Minister’s staff laughing about the idea of parties in Number 10, and the email in which his staff were invited to “bring your own booze” while other folk could not visit or comfort loved ones.

    Let’s focus, instead, on the BBC’s alleged crime. We have, it seems, done what The Telegraph and all other newspapers have done, and not what Lord Moore says we should do. He says newspapers have made a “great meal of the scandal and a good read it has often been”, but suggests the BBC should behave differently. We should have focused on what really mattered last week: the possibility of war in Ukraine (which we have covered widely).

    Clearly we should report the parties story – like all others – in a “calm, balanced” way, hearing from those who defend the PM and challenging them as well as those who attack him, and pointing out that this may not lead to his departure. We have done that. However, the idea that the BBC alone should play down or ignore the crisis, which has led Conservative MPs – both Brexit allies and enemies of the PM – to call on their leader to quit, is absurd.

    When, as BBC Political Editor, I reported night after night on the loans for honours scandal which damaged Tony Blair – or, as presenter of Today, on Theresa May’s fight over Brexit with her own backbenchers, or Jeremy Corbyn’s battles over anti-Semitism – I heard no call for “super-impartiality” from Lord Moore. I wonder why not.

    Nick Robinson
    Presenter, Today, BBC Radio 4
    London W1

    As I recall, the BBC’s reporting of May’s fight over Brexit with her backbenchers was not exactly impartial! The antis were heard far more than the pros. His memory must be failing him.

      1. I have always thought that naturally bald men were more trustworthy than shaven slapheads like the twerpish twins Squalid Jawdrip and Nadhim Zahawi with their beeswax polished domes. But the naturally bald Nick Robinson is making me think I ought to revise my opinion.

          1. That’s because baldness is connected to high testosterone levels (although some of it is hereditary).

  9. A good morning to all.
    The Temperature has bounced back a bit, to a rather damp 1°C with a light drizzel.

  10. I was pilloried for being a lockdown sceptic – now it’s clear I was right about quite a few things. 19 January 2022.

    Cracks are even opening up in the wonkish façade of the Behavioural Insights Team, the so-called Nudge Unit, which bears much of the responsibility for terrifying the British people into complying with measures so cruel that I predict future generations will refuse to believe we ever allowed them to happen. Simon Ruda, co-founder of the team, told Unherd: “In my mind, the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public.” Eh? It’s a bit like the kid who drops a banger in the tin of fireworks, claiming he never meant to start a fire. Honest, guv!

    That this organisation and its sister 77 Brigade actually exist tells you more about the UK than reams of MSM headlines. One is simply a government controlled Cultural Marxist propaganda outlet and the other charged with protecting its policies. They are the foundation stones of the UK Police State where the population are subjected to their activities. They would be more at home in the old USSR or modern China than in any state that claims to be democratic!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/01/18/pilloried-lockdown-sceptic-now-clear-right-quite-things/

  11. Lengthy, but well worth the effort:

    “COMMENT
    I was pilloried for being a lockdown sceptic – now it’s clear I was right about quite a few things
    How did we listen to that bonkers, ahem, advice with a straight face? I thought it was worth compiling a list of the 50 craziest measures

    ALLISON PEARSON
    18 January 2022 • 7:00pm

    At the end of the Second World War, Gaullists and Communists insisted that the majority of the French people had played a part in the Resistance. Actual figures for those who actively opposed the Nazis vary between 400,000 and 75,000. Something not entirely dissimilar is happening now as the Government prepares to lift Plan B restrictions next week, and fervent advocates of lockdown try to distance themselves from its dire consequences. Scientists whose mathematical models persuaded anxious ministers to impose drastic restrictions on human freedom not even seen during the Blitz are suddenly keen to emphasise that these were merely worst-case “scenarios”, not something on which you’d want to base actual policy.

    Did they mention that at the time, I wonder? Or has the Eddie-the-Eagle reliability of their predictions given rise to a certain hasty revisionism? Sorry, that’s unfair. Eddie the Eagle never predicted up to 6,000 Covid deaths a day this winter (actual number: 250).

    Michael Gove, the Cabinet’s most hawkish lockdown supporter, admitted last week to the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs that he was a “bedwetter” who got things badly wrong (unlike Boris) when he called for further restrictions over Christmas. Wes Streeting, the shadow Health Secretary, now says that we must never lock down again without explaining why the useless, No-opposition Opposition party not only failed to challenge any of the destructive rules, but continually called for them to be stricter.

    Cracks are even opening up in the wonkish façade of the Behavioural Insights Team, the so-called Nudge Unit, which bears much of the responsibility for terrifying the British people into complying with measures so cruel that I predict future generations will refuse to believe we ever allowed them to happen. Simon Ruda, co-founder of the team, told Unherd: “In my mind, the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public.” Eh? It’s a bit like the kid who drops a banger in the tin of fireworks, claiming he never meant to start a fire. Honest, guv!

    For those who were part of the lockdown Resistance, it is gratifying, but also oddly unbearable, to see the people who attacked us admitting that the “misinformation” we were accused of spreading 18 months ago turns out to be remarkably close to the truth. I am not a particularly rebellious person, and certainly not a brave one, but if I encounter any kind of injustice, my inner Welsh dragon starts breathing fire. I can’t help it. During the lockdowns, Idris the Pearson dragon seldom stopped fuming at the thousands of harrowing stories which readers shared with me. Like the lecturer who emailed about one of his students, a glorious young man, who fell to his death after hiding on the roof when police raided his house because a small party there breached lockdown regulations and the lad didn’t want to get into trouble. He paid with his young life for the stupid rules that were made – and repeatedly broken, as we now know – by middle-aged men in Westminster.

    When the Resistance dared to suggest that some lockdown measures were disproportionate, crazy and unsupported by science, let alone common sense, we were reviled. That is no exaggeration. I regret to say your columnist was called, in no particular order, a Covid denier (I nursed my entire family through the virus), a granny killer (I didn’t see my own mother for 18 months) and a spreader of disinformation. When I protested on social media that putting padlocks on the gates of playgrounds was a terrible idea, back came a fusillade of vicious accusations: “You want people to die!”

    To question the official narrative that nothing mattered except keeping people safe from Covid was heresy. Witches like me had to be burnt at the stake before we could spread our subversive ideas to all Sage-fearing people. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? It is now widely acknowledged that the NHS was never overwhelmed (that’s why the Nightingales were shut without being used). And even those prophets of doom at the BBC finally acknowledged this week that half of “Covid deaths” since Christmas are not actually “from” Covid but “with” Covid.

    That is not to deny that some of us came up with occasional wrong answers. I certainly did, although I will be proud for the rest of my life that my Planet Normal co-pilot, Liam Halligan, and I had the guts to keep asking the questions.

    Admittedly, the lockdown tragedy did have its moments of unintentional comedy. Who can forget the immortal exchange between Sky News’s Kay Burley and the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock?

    Burley: “How long will the ban on casual sex last?”

    Hancock [serious face]: “Sex is OK in an established relationship, but people need to be careful.”

    Careful, unless you were the Secretary of State for Health, of course, in which case sex outside your established relationship was fine and dandy because, well, it was with a colleague. What No 10 would doubtless call a “work event”.

    How did we listen to that bonkers, ahem, advice with a straight face? With the UK set to be one of the first countries to come out of the pandemic, I thought it was worth starting to compile a list of the most lunatic measures. Lest we forget.

    Some of my followers on Twitter offered these. I’m sure you will have your own.

    1. “Church yesterday. Wafer but no wine for communion. Service followed by wine and biscuits to mark the vicar’s retirement.”

    2. “The one where you could work in a control room with multiple people for 12 hours then be breaking the law if you sat on a bench drinking coffee with one of them.”

    3. “Forming a socially distanced queue at the airport before being sardined into a packed plane with the same people, two hours later.”

    4. “Swings in our local park put into quarantine or removed – even though children were barely at risk from Covid as swings were outside.”

    5. “No butterfly stroke allowed while swimming.”

    6. “Pubs with no volume on the TV.”

    7. “Not allowing people to sit on a park bench. My elderly aunt kept fit by walking her dog every day, but she needed to rest. Since that rule, she stopped going out. She went downhill and died last April.”

    8. “I got thrown out of a McDonald’s for refusing to stand on a yellow circle. I was the only customer.”

    9. “Yellow and black hazard tape across public seats and benches outdoors.”

    10. “I’m stuck in the infant in-patient ward with my nine-day-old sick baby, post C-section, unable to look after him. My husband (same household) is not allowed to be here with us. I’m having panic attacks, which is preventing me from producing milk for the baby.”

    11. “I was advised by a council worker to keep my dog on a lead because people might stop to pet her and congregate too closely.”

    12. “My bed-ridden mother-in-law with dementia in a care home where only ‘window visits’ were allowed. Mum was on the first floor. Had to wait for someone to die on the ground floor so she could be moved down there and finally seen by her family. After 12 months.”

    13. “Two people allowed to go for a walk on a golf course. If they took clubs and balls, it was a criminal offence.”

    14. “The one-way system in my local pub, which meant that to visit the loo you had to make a circular journey through the building, ensuring you passed every table.”

    15. “My dad was failing in his care home. We weren’t allowed to visit him until the doctor judged he was end-of-life care because of one positive case in the home. We had 24 hours with him before he passed.”

    16. “People falling down the escalator on the Underground because they were frightened of touching the handrails – even though you couldn’t get Covid from surfaces.”

    17. “Rule of Six. My wife and I have three children so we could meet either my wife’s mum or her dad, but not both at the same time.”

    18. “Nobody solved an airborne virus transmission with a one-way system in Tesco.”

    19. “How about not being allowed for several months – by law – to play tennis outdoors with my own wife? We’d have been further apart from each other on court than in our own home.”

    20. “On two occasions, I was stopped and questioned while taking flowers to my mother’s grave. One time, a police officer even asked for my mum’s name. No idea what he would have done with that information.”

    21. “Birmingham City Council cutting the grass in two-metre strips – so the weeds could social-distance?”

    22. “Northampton police checking supermarket baskets for non-essential items.”

    23. “All the children at school were asked to bring in a favourite book, but it had to be quarantined for two days before being ‘exposed’ to the rest of the class.”

    24. “Dr Hilary on Good Morning Britain advising people to wear masks on the beach – and that it would be a good idea to swim in the sea with one on, too.”

    25. “Gyms and exercise classes forced to close, but fast-food outlets remained open.”

    26. “They taped off every other urinal in my workplace.”

    27. “Sign on the inside of work bathroom door: close toilet lid before flushing to prevent plumes of Covid-19.”

    28. “We held our carol service in a local park, but had to send out invitations by word of mouth, rather than email, so we’d have plausible deniability if stopped by police.”

    29. “Having to wear a disposable apron and gloves while visiting my mother in a care home, while she was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling Perspex wall.”

    30. “Scotch eggs. You couldn’t drink in a pub unless you also had a ‘substantial’ meal.”

    32. “My son works in the NHS on the Covid ward and could go to the local Sainsbury’s for his lunch. But when we were ill and isolating at home, he had to isolate as well – for 10 days.”

    33. “My eight-year-old granddaughter telling me they weren’t allowed to sing Happy Birthday at school for her friend’s ninth birthday.”

    34. “It was illegal to see your parents in their back garden, but legal to meet them in a pub garden with lots of other people.”

    35. “I had to abandon my weekly choir practice – but my husband was allowed to sing as a spectator at a football match.”

    36. “They removed all the bins in Regent’s Park and Hampstead Heath.”

    37. “Having a flask of tea or coffee on a walk meant it was classified as a picnic – and thus verboten.”

    38. “Bring your own biro to a dental appointment to fill in a form declaring you do not have Covid.”

    39. “My neighbour refused to hang the washing out to dry – they thought the sheets might catch Covid and infect them.”

    40. “My 12-year-old had to sit alone at her grandfather’s funeral – her first experience of one – even though we drove there together and hugged outside. There were three officials watching us all to ensure we didn’t break the rules.”

    41. “We could only go outdoors once a day for exercise.”

    42. “In pubs, wearing a mask to get from the door to the table, and the table to the toilet – but not wearing a mask while sitting down.”

    43. “People in a Tier 3 area walking two minutes down the road for a pint in Tier 2.”

    44. “In Wales, supermarkets were allowed to stay open, but the aisles containing children’s clothing and books were taped off. Because buying a baby’s jumper is so much more perilous than picking up a pint of milk.”

    45. “The pallbearers all but threw my mother’s coffin in the grave and ran away. They had her down as a Covid death, but she died of cancer.”

    46. “The one-way systems around supermarkets that led to people being forced into parts they didn’t want to be in, making them spend more time in the shop – while Covid simply circulated over the top of the shelves.”

    47. “Children abandoned by social services and left in the clutches of terrible parents.”

    48. “Police breaking into our student house and pinning my girlfriend by the neck up against the wall. I said: ‘This is England – you’re not allowed to do that.’”

    49. “Residents of care homes forgetting who they were during the long months when family were not allowed to visit them.”

    50. “Dying alone. How many died alone? How many?”

    * * *

    And who could forget an officious copper going through shopping trolleys looking for Easter eggs as ‘non-essential items’ or the copper who booked a shopkeeper for having drawn chalk lines on the pavement outside to assist her customers with spacing? These were indeed dark days.

    1. I was pilloried for being a lockdown sceptic – now it’s clear I was right about quite a few things.

      Think how we Nottlers feel Allison! We were right about pretty much everything!

      1. Geoff should be awarded a medal for providing this platform allowing us to support each other during the Reign of Terror.

        3. Phizzee, you also deserve a medal for helping your elderly neighbour recently. I didn’t have time to post a comment, but everyone needs to be aware of issues with multiple prescriptions.
          It is a balancing act, trying to ensure that one medicine does not counteract another. Apart from Google (and AI eventually), a good person to consult would be an experienced pharmacist.

          1. Just doing what comes naturally but thanks anyway.

            I would trust a pharmacist much more than a GP.

    2. The point about most of the pointless seeming rules like buying a pint of milk but not a baby jumper was to discourage people from leaving home.

    3. Police with a tape measure to see if a slice of pizza was a substantial meal.

      It was at that point i became bellicose and non-compliant.

  12. And now for something uplifting…what a giant of a man, and from such humble beginnings:

    Major Danny West, Glaswegian who served with the SAS in global hotspots and showed the ‘highest ideals of leadership’ – obituary

    West was a committed Catholic and his humanity shone brightly in Oman when he was administering first aid and medicines to local people

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    18 January 2022 • 8:44pm

    Major Danny West, who has died aged 78, was an outstanding Special Air Service Regiment soldier and officer who was deployed over three decades in conflict zones ranging from the jungles of Borneo to Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands.

    One of five children, Aidan Neil West, known as “Danny”, was born on December 1 1943 in the Hillington area of Glasgow. His mother died before he was six and his elder sister, who was only 11 at the time, played a major role in his upbringing.

    In these difficult circumstances he was imbued from a young age with an ethic of hard work and ready acceptance of responsibility. These qualities, together with his strong Catholic faith, were to stand him in good stead throughout his life.

    An accomplished junior boxer, Danny left school at 16 and was working as a lorry driver’s helper in Sauchiehall Street, beside the Army recruiting office, when he decided to explore the options. Ten days later he was in Catterick for basic training, having enlisted into the Royal Signals as a trainee radio technician.

    His first operational deployment, at the age of 20, was to Aden, attached to the 10th Hussars whose armoured cars played a vital role in supporting the infantry and police in containing communist-backed terrorists.

    West then joined 22 SAS Regiment, initially as an attached signaller and, after becoming “badged”, as a trooper in “D” Squadron. He deployed to the jungles of Borneo in the “Konfrontasi”. Here, between 1963 and 1966, British and Commonwealth forces were heavily involved in resisting infiltration by Indonesian regular troops intent on destabilising the newly established nation of Malaysia.

    His next operational deployments, beginning in 1970, were a series of short tours in the Dhofar region of Oman, where the SAS had been committed by the British government to support, in an ultimately successful campaign, the newly installed reformist Sultan Qaboos in his fight against Omani rebels known as Adoo backed by regular troops and supplies from the nearby People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

    The SAS were involved in hundreds of contacts with the enemy, and over about five years some 20 SAS were killed and 60 wounded in action. From a total strength of just over 200 this was a heavy price.

    The regiment’s multi-skilled troopers employed, trained and led large numbers of local irregular troops, known as Firqat, to track down and engage the enemy as well as conducting a “hearts and minds” campaign which provided local tribes-people with security, medicines, and access to the outside world.

    In Oman, West became an accomplished Arabist, mastering the local Jabali dialect, was in action on numerous occasions and particularly thrived in the hearts and minds work. He loved administering first aid and medicines to the local people and his humanity shone brightly.

    Between November 1971 and March 1972 he was appointed as liaison NCO with a Firqat unit which was of such low morale and efficiency that it was considered for disbandment. Within four months he had turned it into a first-class unit.

    The citation for the British Empire Medal which West was subsequently awarded stated that he had turned down the opportunity to avail himself of “European” accommodation and facilities and “demonstrated the highest ideals of leadership regardless of the cost to his personal welfare. Under the most squalid and unhygienic circumstances he established his presence in their midst, sharing their food, their insect-infected accommodation and their primitive standards of existence.”

    West trained the men and led them on operations. The citation continues: “By the end of his tour the military situation was under control and the Firqat were established, both in their own eyes and those of the Sultan, as a loyal tribe and an effective fighting force.”

    In September 1975 West was involved in the last major action of the war at a location known as Zakir Tree, hard by the Yemeni border. Shortly after first light, an eight-man SAS patrol found themselves considerably outnumbered by Adoo and fighting for their lives.

    During the action, which at times was fought at a range of 10 metres, one SAS soldier was killed and another two severely wounded. One round passed through the rolled-up hood on West’s smock before entering the neck of his comrade and exiting his shoulder. A tracer round struck West’s neck, but did only slight damage.

    He administered a field dressing and morphine to the wounded man and busied himself returning rifle fire and 40 mm grenades from a launcher, while reporting calmly and calling in fire support by radio. One officer said of him: “Danny’s actions that day warranted the highest recognition.”

    West then served in Northern Ireland, where his straight talking, integrity and diplomatic skills were put to good use with the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch officers with whom he came into contact and also with a number of senior Army officers who were wary of the SAS and how to interact with them. One fellow soldier said of West: “There was simply no ‘side’ to [him]. What you saw was what you got.”

    In 1982 West was commissioned and about to leave for a commissioning detachment when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. “D” Squadron were immediately stood by to deploy to the South Atlantic and their OC, Major Cedric Delves (now Lt Gen Sir Cedric Delves, KBE, DSO), demanded his immediate return to become his second in command. Delves later said: “I was not going to war without Danny.”

    “D” Squadron were to play a significant part in the fighting to liberate the islands, including the raid on Pebble Island (11 enemy aircraft destroyed) and the action on Mt Kent. But their first involvement was almost 1,000 miles away, when, along with their Royal Navy and Royal Marine colleagues, they liberated the island of South Georgia.

    Once again West’s humanity was to the fore. Shortly before going ashore he reminded the men that the Argentine soldiers were just like themselves, professional soldiers doing their job, that they had mothers, girlfriends, wives and children waiting for them at home and that in accordance with the ethos of the SAS there should be appropriate restraint and no unnecessary violence.

    South Georgia was retaken without a single casualty on either side.

    On May 19 1982 the SAS suffered a serious loss: 20 men from “D” and “G” Squadrons were killed when their Sea King helicopter crashed into the South Atlantic. West played a pivotal role in maintaining morale and operational effectiveness after this grievous blow, one colleague recalling that “his fortitude was infectious”.

    After the Falklands, West spent his commissioning secondment with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment stationed in West Germany. Their adjutant at the time said of him: “Danny was loved by Second Tanks despite his insistence that everyone had to go running with him, and the officer’s mess soon filled with running shoes.”

    West then spent two years as Training Officer, followed by promotion and a staff officer appointment at MoD, responsible for research, development and procurement of new weapons for Special Forces. He was then responsible for continuation training and doctrine, before assuming his final role (1989-95) as the Officer Commanding the SAS Headquarters Squadron.

    On leaving the Army, West involved himself in work overseas, using his skills and languages to good effect as well as in charity work and looking after the interests of comrades who had suffered life-changing injuries during their service. He was a founding member of the 22 SAS Association.

    Danny West married, first, Valerie Penson. She died in 1994 and in 1998 he married Laura Nicholson; she survives him with one daughter from his first marriage and two daughters from the second.

    Major Danny West, born December 1 1943, died December 11 2021

    1. A truly amazing man, and a warmhearted and respectful obituary.
      The Oman conflict didn’t receive much publicity back in the day; interesting to compare the country with present day Yemen.
      I once heard that as a mark of gratitude, some of the troopers receive a pension from the Sultan.

      1. I’ve not been to Yemen, but I did find Oman interesting when I worked there. A LOT less horrible for a woman than other Middle Eastern countries I’ve experienced, and the Sultan being gay somewhat of an open secret.

  13. Good morning all.

    Moh and I glanced at the news headlines on the newspaper rack when we ventured out into the great Dorset Metropolis which still appears alive and thriving, Blandford . We left home in gloomy sunshine , and travelled through thick fog to higher grounds and had an enjoyable hour or so out and about .

    The press are presenting terrifying front pages of startling headlines , and the TV media have even grabbed an immigrant child to comment on the PM’s so called lack of judgment .

    Considering the mess the planet is in , this current PM needs to be clear headed and unflustered, and the UK needs to present a stiff upper lip ro the world .

    I didn’t sleep very well, I guess I was thinking about the conversation my SA sister and I had about politics , and strangely enough discussed Putin . The Russians have always created a dark shadow over us , haven’t they.

    1. Morning Belle. Russia poses no intrinsic threat to us, rather the reverse, and Vladimir Putin is a natural ally of the indigenous population of the UK.

      1. Me neither, Ndovu. Even worse the night before. The whole country is in the throes of a state of anxiety.

        Edit: Good morning, Ndovu!

        2. It must have been pretty common last night; I didn’t get to sleep very early, either, despite having taken my prescription drugs that normally knock me out in no time!

          1. Our son, who was staying over with us on his way to Newmarket said he didn’t sleep very well either, he was still awake at 3.00 am. Something in the air, perhaps? 5G?

      2. I slept like a baby, Ndovu. So a very belated “Good Day” to you and all NoTTLers. I shall now go to the “Most Recent” posts to wish you all a “Good Night”.

    3. Russia is the bogeyman government and media pull out of the cupboard when a distraction is required. At this moment a distraction is needed from the Great Unravelling. So the headlines are not surprising. Putin is not a threat to this country. The threat comes from our own Government and media.

      Edit: Good morning, Belle!

    4. I wonder if she knows any of the white SA farmers who emigrated to Russia and now ironically sell their wheat and corn to SA.

    5. You mean successive governments have used Russia to cast a dark shadow over us, don’t you?

  14. Well, yesterday I loaded 2nd half of Step-son’s settee, later dumped at Darley Dale tip, and began cleaning the fridge.
    Decided not to bother cleaning the fridge when I realised the bits of what I thought was food on the inside of the door, were, in fact, empty maggot cases! So that is going to Darley Dale too!

    On the plus side, SAHA have decided to strip & refurb the bathrooms in the complex, including Step-sons, so that is going to save me a LOT of work!!
    So, generally speaking, it’s only the kitchen to do and replacement settee, mattress & fridge to source.

    1. Good morning Bob

      You really deserve a medal for all you are doing for Step son.

      Shouldn’t he be in a care facility, where he can be supervised .

      1. He’s still in the Radbourne mental health unit, has been for a few months now, and I’m hoping SAHA get the bathroom done before he’s discharged.

          2. OH’s parents had a CPN when his mother had dementia and she was a great support and friend to his father.

      2. (Hollow laugh.)
        Proper, long term mental care was discontinued forty years ago.
        A deadly combination of ‘right on doctors’ and NHS bean counters did for the notion of asylums for those who would never be able to cope with the outside world.
        The beautiful grounds were sold off to developers.

        1. Helped by encouragement from the ‘Mind’ pressure group I recall. That farce man, Brian someone being a leading light.

    2. Good Morning! Have a look at Gumtree. People put their sofas on Gumtree when they are moving house etc as they won’t be taking the sofas. These are often free to collect. We gave our settee and armchairs to charity a couple of months ago. Our intention had been to buy a chaise longue, but these are either cheap and need very expensive reupholstering, or are not cheap.
      We came across a couple of nice sofas on Gumtree. A local couple (20 miles away)downsizing and moving. Free to collect. Phew! We had seats for the family at Xmas. The cost of collection and a donation to charity (optional) was around £100.

    4. I think Darley Dale used to be the rail head where the lorries from my grandfather’s quarries used to deliver their loads to the railway.

    5. I think Darley Dale used to be the rail head where the lorries from my grandfather’s quarries used to deliver their loads to the railway.

  15. Allison Pearson again:

    “COMMENT
    The BBC lost its way the minute Auntie turned into an aggravating know-it-all
    As a lifelong fan, it pains me to say the corporation has alienated its most loyal audience in the name of ‘diverse and inclusive content’

    ALLISON PEARSON
    19 January 2022 • 5:00am

    Why did the announcement by Nadine Dorries that the BBC licence fee will be frozen for the next two years, and possibly abolished altogether, cause so little public uproar? Stars like Gary Lineker hastened to praise a British institution that costs a mere 43p a day, but the Culture Secretary’s claim that “the BBC favours strident, very Left-wing, often hypocritical and frequently patronising views” will have struck a chord with many viewers and listeners who, devastating though this may be to BBC Tristrams, do not regard Jeremy Clarkson and the much-lamented Top Gear crew as self-evidently despicable.

    The truth is, the BBC – or Auntie, as it is affectionately known – has gradually alienated its most loyal audience. During the war, the wireless in the corner of every living room played a vital role in informing the British people and maintaining morale. Within the bomb-scarred walls of Broadcasting House, men and women toiled round the clock to combat Nazi propaganda. What you might call Upping the Auntie.

    In the post-war period, when society became less deferential, the BBC’s staff still hailed from upper- or middle-class backgrounds and they were accused by critics of telling listeners (later viewers) how they should think; an “Auntie knows best” attitude, which has only got more grating since Brexit.

    For many of us, Britain without the BBC, a cornerstone of our cultural life, is unimaginable, or has been until recently. Once a stealth weapon against Hitler, the BBC has become its own worst enemy, wasting vast sums on empire-building when it should have focused on its Reithian mission to inform and entertain.

    Dear old Auntie has morphed into an aggravating niece, the kind that comes home from uni with a nose ring and three passive-aggressive tattoos. Convinced of her own virtue, this expensively educated vegan proceeds to lecture her lovely, tolerant parents (doing their best to get to grips with kale smoothies) on dismantling structural racism and suggests they “educate themselves” on BLM before borrowing the BMW to drive to join her Extinction Rebellion mates who are busy digging up the turf of her father’s old college. In short, an insufferable, sanctimonious prig.

    Not long ago, I had a day at home and kept Radio 4 on after the Today programme. Oh, boy! (Oops… I meant “non-binary individual”!) An award-winning writer was given half an hour to bleat about this dreadful, institutionally racist country which had had made her so unwelcome that it festooned her with honours.

    Next came Woman’s Hour featuring some hapless Government minister trying to explain why, although it was regrettable that the conviction rate remained stubbornly low, not all men could be jailed for rape without, you know, due process. Chauvinist b——! No, even worse, white chauvinist Tory b——!

    Surely, I thought, they couldn’t manage to shoehorn their tedious, progressive ideas into programmes about pot plants or food or puppies? Oh, just you watch them. Hour after hour, it was like listening to a Wagnerian aria of fashionable grievances. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell compared totalitarianism to “a boot stamping on a human face – forever”. Well, daytime Radio 4 is like being hit about the head with a copy of The New Statesman – forever. Until it’s time for Front Row, it’s a wasteland. To anyone of a vaguely Right-wing disposition (at least half the country), it is barely tolerable. The product, I suspect, of an echo chamber full of young, metropolitan, Corbynist producers whom Victoria Wood once nailed as “lives in Tufnell Park / With a cat called Muriel Spark”.

    As one Telegraph reader said sadly to me: “I used to consider Radio 4 a lifelong friend. Now, I think it despises me.”

    It wouldn’t be so bad if these narrow, aggressively righteous views were confined to radio, but they have spread to BBC television, a fungus of funlessness on a well-loved face. Increasingly, there are ghettoes where the white middle-classes (the majority of viewers) can see themselves reflected (Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile). Very occasionally, a posh, educated Englishman is allowed on screen, but only as a paedophile, or in an obituary on the news.

    EastEnders, that great BBC One powerhouse, is currently experiencing its lowest ratings since it first aired in 1985. On July 31, the soap attracted just 1.7 million viewers compared with the 30 million who tuned in on Christmas Day 1986 when Den Watts told Angie he wanted a divorce. Perhaps viewers don’t want their dramas to lecture them on climate change, as EastEnders did when world leaders met in Glasgow for Cop26, with one 12-year-old character suddenly coming over all Greta Thunberg. The recently announced departure of the landlord of the Queen Vic, played by the magnificently magnetic Danny Dyer, is another disaster. Had producers asked Danny to become Daniella? Nothing would surprise me.

    Dear old Doctor Who has been ruined by hectoring storylines and clunkingly imposed diversity, to which the BBC devotes a staggering £100 million “diverse and inclusive content” budget. There were gasps when it was revealed that June Sarpong, the BBC’s director of creative diversity, earns £267,000 a year for – grab the smelling salts, Marjorie – a three-day week.

    If the BBC moves to a subscription model, I would probably continue to pay £159 a year for the joy of Strictly Come Dancing, for the elating eruditon of Sir David Attenborough, and for the pleasure of the company of Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman every teatime on Pointless. Their gentle, civilised manner, good humour and learning lightly worn are a soothing reminder of when the corporation could still unify the nation, not lecture us on how appalling we are.

    As a lifelong BBC fan, weaned on Blue Peter and thrilled as a teenager by masterpieces like I, Claudius and Edge of Darkness, it pains me to say this, but it can’t go on – the extravagance, the unapologetic political bias, the shocking contempt shown by young metropolitan producers for the opinions and preferences of ordinary people who pay their wages. When she challenges the licence fee, Nadine Dorries speaks for millions. Auntie no longer knows best.

    * * *

    This paragraph, for me, jumped off the page:

    “As one telegraph reader said sadly to me: “I used to consider Radio 4 a lifelong friend. Now, I think it despises me.” How very true.

    1. I am oddly enough a supporter of the principle of Public Service Broadcasting. That is; one that caters to minority interests and higher cultural values. It is just that I have given up on the BBC ever delivering them. It is simply so infested with woke values and people that it can never deliver these. The kindest thing (for the public not the BBC) is to shut it down completely. The loss of the licence fee should not be seen as an opportunity to finance it from general taxation.

        1. I disagree entirely. Be very careful with siren songs and those who sing them.
          Listening to a ‘woke’ Radio 4 prog the other night, I was able to spot several errors, but it was refreshing to hear a different point of view.

          1. If the BBC were not desperately biased I would agree with you. If it were not pursuing a hard Left woke mantra I might care.

            But it is biased. Blatantly so. An easy example: the BBC interviews 2 people about worker pay. The first is introduced as a member of public policy research.

            The first question put to him: “Increased minimum wage supports the ecoomy and creates jobs, doesn’t it?’

            The responder is given 5 uninterrupted minutes to speak.

            The second question to the other chap, introduced thus: ‘You’re the directory of a multinational whose products are made in Vietnam. You don’t believe people should be paid, do you?’

            He will reply and within seconds be interrupted. This will continue and be interrupted throughout.

            The interview will conclude with a final point from the ‘think tank’ along the lines of high taxes are good, aren’t they? and a final comment from the director and a snide reply such as ‘well, there we have it, paying people fair wages is a bad thing, who knew?’ and close of interview.

            The BBC calls this ‘fair’ and balanced. Of course, it ignores that the think tanker is – and never mentioned as such – a Hard Left communist unionist, perpetual Labour voter who is paid by the tax payer to promote his union through foreign aid overseas.

            The BBC cannot help itself.

      2. I’m against shutting down the bBC but think it should be moved to a subscription service, much like Sky, Netflix, Britbox et al.

        With the legions of beeboids, luvvies and politicians who have flooded social media over the past few days urging support for the bBC, I can see that they will have no trouble gleaning the number of subscriptions necessary to continue in the style to which they have become accustomed. /sarc

        I gave up the ‘pleasures’ of livestream broadcasts over four years ago as the dire viewing options of; news/current affairs programmes that needed fact-checking, pre-scripted ‘reality’ shows, updated versions of ‘Opportunity Knocks’ and dire dramas/soap operas left me viewing the occasional film.

        I support subscription as a happy medium for the bBC as I would be less than happy that, having legally avoided payment of the bBC tv tax, I was liable for their funding through general taxation.

        P.S. I know it goes against every fibre of the taxpayer-funded ethos but if, surprisingly, the beeboids, luvvies and politicians pleading their support for the bBC fail to provide enough funding, perhaps the bBC could do what any private business in such financial straits would do and downsize the number of channels and presenters.

    2. I doubt if June Sarpong “earns” anything like that sum – she may get paid that amount, but “earn” – NO!

      1. …and is she a pale pink, right-wing fascist, Bleau, this director of ‘Creative Diversity’?

        No, as I suspected, deep brown verging on black, as expected in such a diverse creature.

    3. My comment vanished over half an hour ago .

      I used to enjoy BBC radio 4.

      Why do I feel annoyed when a deep non European voice announces this that and the other , and the afternoon story seems to be aimed at a more diverse listening audience .

        1. I go to sleep with Radio Suisse, it is still on at about 4.00 am when I have to get up for a pee, and I wake up with it still playing. Plenty of Mozart on last night.

      3. ‘Morning Belle. Most of the BBC’s output, and R4 in particular, is infested with gloal warming and diversity themes. And don’t even get me started on the World Service!

        I’m tired of shouting at the radio, which is why it is rarely tuned in to the Bonkers Broadcasting Corporation any more.

    4. I haven’t watched the Bbc (I never used to listen to the radio after I left home – Forces Favourites and Dick Barton used to be required listening then) since the run up to the Hunting Bill. Their bias was so blatant they lost all credibility. Now, it’s so woke (not alone, of course; the so-called independents are just as bad) as to be unwatchable.

    2. It’s because he thought that if we couldn’t see his lips moving we might think he wasn’t lying..

  19. From the BBC.
    Mr Blinken (who he*) will seek “to reinforce the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” during his meeting with President Zelensky.
    Why is the US concerned with the Ukraine? It is nothing to do with them.

    *Secretary of State.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60048395

    2. A serious problem caused by the EU which is quite understandably keeping well away. As usual, the UK is grandstanding with forces that have been tailored to little more than running vaccination clinics.

  20. 334363+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    In my book these politico’s could not have acted treacherously worse if they were fully pissed ALL of the time.

    It works every time “Ho look over here MORE covid news & instructions
    to keep us safe”

    Reality,
    Look at the DOVER invasion beachead a steady flow of potential islamic
    troops landing daily with the political top rankers consent, these invaders certainly DO NOT HAVE YOUR SAFETY IN MIND quite the reverse.

    Wednesday 19 January: Dominic Cummings brings heat but no light to the No 10 drinks row showing the indigenous supporting / voting dangerous doughnuts what they are supporting via the polling booth.

    By the by,
    There should be banks of searchlights pointed English Channel wise
    to show the indigenous dangerous doughnuts just what they are receiving via the polling booth & their support / vote.

  21. ‘Morning All

    So the MSM have decided “BoJo must go”

    No Christmas lockdown has really riled the GloboWEF it’s time for a leader who will get back in lockstep with Trudeau,Mad Dan etc

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44cbcbd20a59d497a9d8c6996b0d066d7bf355ab0a4dcc0aece4dc3789fa8651.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87a56273eb35a7960f7402c374dc9de3e946a2855e6be9e68ce83a824915e65d.png

    https://twitter.com/AnnDis9/status/1483488077331025920?s=20

    These Psycho’s haven’t given up,the lies and hidden facts continue

    https://twitter.com/RWTaylors/status/1483460305153892353?s=20

    2. Strange how Soros and the Yanks “convince” people to get on the train, whilst in the English-speaking world, we persuade them.

  23. Meanwhile it seems there is no area of our lives the greeniacs don’t want to regulate……

    “Why our conservatories are under threat: Sun traps could be on the

    way out as new climate change rules outlaw any new-builds that would

    create ‘unwanted solar gain’

    Conservatories will soon need to show they don’t create ‘unwanted solar gain’

    Regulation being brought in from June to apply to conservatories in new-builds

    Policy part of measures to future-proof homes against predicted 40C summers”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10416599/New-climate-change-rules-outlaw-new-build-conservatories-create-unwanted-solar-gain.html
    YOU,yes you there,open that window,blow the covid away……..
    YOU,yes you there ,close that window won’t you think of the heat loss
    YOU,yes you there,open that window won’t you think of the “Solar Gain”
    I’m both getting dizzy from conflicting orders and deaf from the Virtue Shouting
    Sod Off and leave us alone!!

      3. I remember a book about school life, where the 14th June was “Radiator Day” – when the boilers were fired up and all radiators in the building were turned up high to teach the kids a lesson.

    2. Morning Nottlers

      May I humbly apologise for troubles I have caused by the Greeniacs taking up my suggesions last week that

      a. All sail driven boats to be banned, because they take away power from Industrial Statues (Wind Turbines)

      b. Sunathing is to be banned as it steals the sun from solar power farms

    3. Morning Nottlers

      May I humbly apologise for troubles I have caused by the Greeniacs taking up my suggesions last week that

      a. All sail driven boats to be banned, because they take away power from Industrial Statues (Wind Turbines)

      b. Sunathing is to be banned as it steals the sun from solar power farms

    4. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7288939289825c569361c3ad0f96240f171d17cd45910b00c1f5c2caee55774.png Desert Storm. Snow fell in the Sahara near the Algerian town of Ain Sefra for only the fifth time in 42 years this week after temperatures fell below freezing.

      We desperately need to do something positive to combat this Global Warming [sorry: “Climate Change”]. We certainly have no wish for our conservatories to be invaded by camels escaping the permafrost of the Sahara.

      1. One minute we’re being told to insulate to preserve warmth, next we’re being told the building regs amendments have new rules to prevent heat gain…..

        1. Eventually they’ll have boats big enough. Hell, our useless government is pouring the dross over.

      4. It’s Global Warming/Climate Change/The CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!/

        A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE!!!!!

        /{insert latest panic & scare mongering catch phrase here}

    5. I would have thought that we need all the solar gain we can find, given that fuel bills are heading north into second mortgage territory. While they are at it, how about outlawing those conservatories that freeze your nuts off in the winter, too??

      1. Thankfully, my new conservatory no longer freezes anybody’s nut off. It’s actually quite pleasant, even without heating – ooops! I’ve just admitted it has solar gain 🙁

        1. You are okay, new regs start in June – also just after mine is fitted with a proper, insulated roof.

          1. I’ve had the roof of mine insulated, too. It seemed a sensible thing to do as it was double glazed, but with only a thin, wooden roof.

    7. If it’s 40C outside, for goodness sake close the windows and draw the curtains on the sunny side in the middle of the day.

      We don’t need new laws to tell us that.

    8. These politicians are really clueless, they should follow my example. I plan to collect in jam jars as much solar gain in the 40c heat and slowly open them during the colder months.
      Win win I think, Greta eat your heart out baby!

  24. I noticed in Monday’s paper that HMG “cannot possibly afford the loss of £1.3 bn” by cutting VAT on fuel bills BUT CAN afford to “write off £4.3 bn stolen by crooks from the furlough fraud scheme”,

    That Fishi Rishi has something of the night about him. Wouldn’t trust him an inch.

    2. Head Boy at Winchester, too good to be true, sounds like a character from a Le Carré novel.

        1. There was a considerable amount of unpleasantness at Winchester 20 years ago when the headmaster left under a cloud after only three years in office. The poor chap had a very screwed up son who brought ruin down upon his father’s head.

          2. Not this one – I was thinking of Dr Nicholas Tate who was head between 2000 and 2003.

        2. I was a member of the Christian Union when I was at university the first time. Nothing of that sort went on that I knew about.

      3. These folks are all private school/spad|quango|charidee/safe seat/minister.

        They’re all useless.

      4. Head boys are often chosen for the wrong reasons. Was anyone on the Nottlers’ forum a head boy or a head girl at school?

        I was not even made a house prefect at Blundell’s and I was once given six strokes of the cane for being a subversive influence in the prep room. I am still in touch with my friend who was less subversive and only received three strokes – he greatly enjoys Rik’s cartoons which I send him by e-mail.

          3. Very much so. I was in some ways considered rather unconventional by some of my colleagues.

        2. I left after ‘O’ levels. Ours was the first Upper Fifth in living memory to have no half prefects (full prefects were always 6th. formers). We must have been a year of stroppy so-and-sos.

        3. I was only made a prefect in my final year. I didn’t have the right attitude for the top honours…..

        4. Nope, I was a prefect, but never got into a position of real power (fortunately, some would say!).

    3. He’s so rich personally that I doubt he has the slightest idea of the the value of money. To him a million here, a million there, is neither here nor there.

    4. The treasury sees everything we earn as its by default. It permits us to keep some.

      The entire state machine must be reminded that it serves us, not the other way around.

    5. I am no fan of Boris Johnson but I cannot think of a single leadership candidate in the cabinet who would be any better.

      If the Conservatives want to survive they need a leader from the back benches who is prepared to do the things Johnson was elected to do and has failed to do.

        1. Or Andrew Bridgen?

          Successful at business before entering politics. A strong supporter of Brexit. Disillusioned with Johnson because of his failure to do what he had promised to do. (He was on GBNews a couple of days ago)

      4. Keep Johnson on probation for a few months.
        We all know the list of things he’s failed to do, so I don’t need to list them again. Pin him down with no wriggle room.
        Any back sliding and the letters to the 1922 committee reach the magic number of 54.

      5. That is the sad thing about it all. There is NO ONE who is fit to take over and make a success of running the country. They are all as useless as each other.

      1. Fantastic investment and use of public money – just ask any of the Ministers’ Chums who “won” the contracts….

    1. It’s all so tedious and pointless. We know what’s her face was installed precisely because she wouldn’t cause problems for the state.

    2. It’s all so tedious and pointless. We know what’s her face was installed precisely because she wouldn’t cause problems for the state.

    1. According to Germany,military aircraft must request permission to use German airspace.This they failed to do.

      2. “Dresden, Dresden, this is Lancaster 243BX requesting permission to pass over the city.”

    2. Thank you for keeping an eye on such harms to the language. They irritate me too, between sleeps 😉

    3. Thank you for keeping an eye on such harms to the language. They irritate me too, between sleeps 😉

    4. Isn’t the Earth, you know, curved and thus this would be sort of the optimal flight path?

      2. What do you mean, “curved”. For the last time – it is FLAT. Just look in any atlas. Tsk…{:¬))

    5. Or, if the aircrew were flight planning using a great circle route, they will have flown to the north of Germany as they continued eastwards.

    2. Thanks for the link – I’ve been poring over his self-portrait and trying not to despair at how paltry and effort my current work in progress is compared to his genius.

      1. 334363+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        Incoming ,ALL old blighty’s defences down or supporting the lab/lib/con
        mass controlled illegal immigration.

        1. Even when (IF) the rule is scrapped, I’ll bet you half the wanqueurs will still wear them.

          3. People in Japan, China etc, with colds automatically do and have done for many years before covid.

          5. People in Japan, China etc, with colds automatically do and have done for many years before covid.

          6. People in Japan, China etc, with colds automatically do and have done for many years before covid.

      2. Optimist – in my book, they’ll make it compulsory everywhere, especially in the car and at home.

        1. There have been a few bits in the MSM here and there that make me think they’ll be letting up on a few things (useless things anyway) as a sop to the masses. It’ll be back to “You don’t have to wear a mask, but we still advise it.”

          1. They have been talking about scrapping Plan B but keeping the mask mandates. I detest the bloody things.

  33. 334363+ up ticks,

    Why not Tommy Robinson with you and R, Braine as personal advisors,
    in your hands for a year UKIP become a success story.

    The “country would take a little longer after the damage the political cretins, supporters / voters have done.

    Bear in mind Lord Pearson already has a garter maybe one to hold up the other stocking would not go amiss,

    https://gettr.com/post/pp9x4c8984

  37. This just in – the ever truthful BBC reports that SAGE has modelled over 500 letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister being sent to the 1922 committee, this is expected to double to a million by tomorrow.

  38. Eat the rich.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/19/tax-the-rich-world-economic-forum-hears-call-for-global-wealth-redistribution/

    The direct imposition of permanent annual taxes on the earnings of the world’s richest individuals could redistribute wealth and lift millions out of poverty, a report presented to the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday outlined.

    Under the globalist proposal, supranational taxation would start at a rate of two percent on wealth over $5 million and progress to five percent on wealth over $1 billion, generating $2.52 trillion. This would be in addition to – and on top of – whatever taxes are imposed at source by individual national authorities.
    That is claimed to be enough to cover the cost of two inoculations and a booster for the world’s estimated eight billion people several times over, according to analysis on 66 countries by Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam and Patriotic Millionaires.
    No recommendation was made on exactly which globalist body would collect the taxation nor who would choose to distribute it.

    EDIT My emphasis and italics.

    1. No it wouldn’t, because the money would move away from the tax thieves.

      It’s funny that these people always think of taking more, never spending less. All they’d do is pocket it.

      1. The proposal is that it is universal and ALL countries should do it. No doubt many would break ranks.
        If it ever got off the ground it would result in more people (unless the vaccinations work out badly) and poverty would increase.

        It would also make politicians etc much richer as they creamed off their share for administering it.

    2. One of the richest men in the world once said that if all the money was evenly distributed around the planet within twenty years, it would all be back where it started.
      But how much does any one really need to live a comfortable life where, what is it and who can set the limit ?

      1. I believe it might have been J Paul Getty regarding giving away his own wealth that the poor would spend it and the rich get richer.

    3. There have been musings of a tax on the value of your houses over here.

      Only one percent on properties costing over a million dollars (maybe an average semi in Toronto). Don’t worry, assessed annually but only paid when you sell.

      1. A lot of people are in favour of land taxes, particularly where rent is being received, as they regard rentiers as parasites. There is a certain logic to charging a capital gains tax on sale or “final” death if owned jointly, but the money taken would only be frittered by government.

  39. NATO is the aggressor here. Spiked. 19 january 2022.

    This is why those troops have remained close to Ukraine’s border for over nine months. Not because Russia is an aggressive, irrational imperial power – but because it is a defensive, fearful nation. The troop presence is a stop-there sign, but also a bargaining chip and a prompt for dialogue. It is clear what Russia wants now – an end to NATO expansion eastwards. And it is clear why – because it doesn’t want a military threat on its own borders.

    Not a view popular in Westminster or the MSM one imagines; which is probably an endorsement for the truth of it!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/18/nato-is-the-aggressor-here/

    1. Andrew Doyle made that point on Headliners on GB News last night. We have a world where right wing comedians make more sense than left wing politicos.

      2. I have an unfortunate tendency to then have two earworms playing at the same time, and they never sound good together 🤪

        1. What did Victoria Woods’s Freda want Barry to do to her on a hostess trolley? (Boris Johnson always enjoys a bit of crumpet)

    2. He is certainly a rover when it comes to female pirates.

      I used to love this song when I was a child and at that time I did not know that the original version was about a sailor who was given the pox by one of the ‘professional’ women with whom he fornicated.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGtqopISr90

  42. My previously 100% reliable tenants have, after 5 years, suddenly stopped paying their rent and the estate agent who manages the property seems unable to contact them. Time to sell I wonder….Shorthold lease expires in March…

    1. Perhaps they have been watching the TV programmes on tenants and landlords. And now know how difficult it can be to remove tenants who stop paying.
      Be prepared for a ‘fight’ and the legal restrictions and financial costs piled onto the landlords.
      Just sayin’ ………..

    2. Get a couple of large (muzzled) dogs and call round, all friendly like – with some large rugby playing chums – just to say you are checking all is well….

      1. Back in the early 70s in Hampstead the house opposite the owner, an eminent lawyer (now a judge) and his wife, was invaded by squatters. We, the builders were stripping it out to be refurbed into a three story rental and basement flat for their nanny. The builder rang the scaffolders and handed over some cash, job done,…………. all gone over night. Unlike the lady in London who had some Romanian decorators in to redecorate her apartment while she was on holiday and found they had all moved in when she returned. It took her about two months get rid of them.

          1. I would not. My next door neighbour is a lawyer and I would take his advice first! Originally when the payment did not appear, we assumed they were probably Nationwide customers and mixed up in their new year payment cockups, but it’s three weeks now…

  43. Really Harvey Jones.

    The State Pension already costs the Government more than £100 billion a year, up threefold since 2000. It will continue to climb due to the ageing population and cost of maintaining the triple lock, unless the Government forces everyone to work later in life.
    Are you absolutely certain that tax payers money has not been squandered on filling the country with about three million immigrants who have and will never pay in a single farthing into the whole system. And you are blaming people who have worked all their lives and paid in accordingly. And have I reality all things considered never cost the economy a penny. Unlike the political classes and the civil services whose gold plated pensions and life time expenses abound.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/state-pension-age-to-hit-70-triple-lock-could-be-scrapped-too-in-grim-news/ar-AASVmmC?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

    1. Righty, that’s 44 days of government spending. Add in police and military and you get to about mid April. What does it waste the other 5 months of tax payer funded money on?

      1. Since Blair threw the door open across Europe and the other PMs allowed hundreds of thousands to follow. Can you imagine how much money British tax payers have already spent on immigration into this country ? It cost over a grand a week to keep one illegal migrant in a 4star hotel. It’s utter lunacy. And now they are blaming people for getting older and needing a pension from the ‘pot’ they have paid into all their working lives.
        As we also know if you own a home and need full time care you have to sell it and the ‘care’ costs a lot more them the migrants are getting. Most pensioners in the UK would be better off in prison.

        1. We must get rid of them. Welfare needs absolute reform. No pay in, no pay out.

          End child benefit, end housing benefit. If you’ve not once worked in your life, you get almost no pension.

          Yes, we’re trying to protect my mother from the state selling her house from under her. She is comically in denial refusing to accept that government can, and will seize her home without her permission to pay for her healthcare.

          1. The point has been long passed where ‘kindness’ has become rather worse than self harming.
            It’s completely ruined our once fair and honest land. The public where never consulted.

    2. Alas, the money, well over £3,000 per taxpayer and probably nearer £5,000 per taxpayer when other pensioners’ benefits are included, has to come from somewhere. Today’s youngsters already have an average income less than that of pensioners and can only look enviously at pensioners’ pension and income rises. Most Pensioners have paid in less than they are getting out. In perspective most pensioners are doing comparatively well and have no cause to feel aggrieved.

      1. The basic UK male pension is around 6,800 per year.
        Most teenagers wouldn’t get out of bed for that. And most of them certainly don’t do much that is useful.
        And a lot of pensioners like my self have paid in a lot more than they are getting out. Most male pensioners in the UK worked more than 45 years (i worked full time and paid in for 53 years) and the now qualifying period for full basic pension is 30 years. I wouldn’t mind the 150 grand they still owe me.
        I also know people who have been out of the UK for over 44 years and still take home around A $6000 per year. From our tax payers.
        The basic solution to the problem is simple, the people who have moved abroad should never have been able to receive a UK pension. It does not transfer the other way. And the people who run the pensions schemes for our political classes and the civil service should have been running the pension schemes for the rest of the working population. Buy hey they didn’t want to ‘get their hands dirty’ did they ?
        Another thing you might need to refer to is, that the government i.e. the political classes and civil services produce absolutely nothing tangible or even slightly worth while, what so ever.
        But they do however eff up everything they come into contact with. As in the afore mentioned above pension schemes.

  44. Nearly 1,000 migrants have arrived in UK ALREADY this year after 168 landed in Dover on six boats yesterday including one that came perilously close to P&O ferry
    Six boats intercepted or rescued by Border Force officials in Channel on Tuesday
    One small boat carrying dozens of people came close to a P&O ferry yesterday
    Number of migrants arriving in the UK in small boats has reached nearly 1,000
    Officials have told Priti Patel that 65,000 people could cross the Channel in 2022 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10417697/Channel-migrant-crossings-168-people-arrive-Dover-Tuesday-bringing-2022-total-nearly-1-000.html

    A total of 168 migrants crossed the English Channel yesterday, bringing the number of small boat arrivals in the UK to almost 1,000 so far this year.

    Six boats were intercepted by Border Force officials and brought to the Port of Dover on Tuesday, according to the Home Office.

    One small boat carrying dozens of people, including children, came perilously close to a P&O ferry while making the dangerous journey across the Channel – the world’s busiest shipping lane.

    Meanwhile, French authorities intercepted three further crossings involving 126 people.

    And this morning 25 people were escorted into the Port of Dover on board a Border Force vessel shortly before 9am.

    The latest crossings bring the total number of migrants arriving in the UK by small boats to nearly 1,000 already this year.

    Last year saw a record 28,381 people cross the Channel in small boats. But it was not until mid-February when the number of migrant crossings reached 1,000.

    Officials have told Home Secretary Priti Patel that 65,000 people could cross the Channel in 2022 – more than double last year’s total.

    Some MPs have called for an end to the migrants crossings, which they have described as ‘incredible unsafe’, while campaigners have urged the Government to open safe channels and commit to resettle 10,000 people in the UK each year.

    It comes as ministers were yesterday warned that plans to use the Royal Navy to solve the Channel migrant crisis would result in the senior service being turned into a ‘taxi service’.

    Meanwhile plans to fly migrants to Africa were left in tatters after Ghana, one of the countries officials said to be in talks with the UK Government, said they knew nothing about it.

    Ministers were said to be drawing up proposals which would see people arriving illegally in the UK sent abroad for processing and resettlement, with the west African nation and Rwanda named.

    But in a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Accra said it did not want to get involved in what it called ‘Operation Dead Meat’ – a detraction of the Tory party’s ‘Operation Red Meat’ plan to save under fire Boris Johnson.

    This morning 25 people were escorted into the Port of Dover on board a Border Force vessel shortly before 9am. Pictured: Migrants arrive in Dover Harbour today +23

    The latest crossings bring the total number of migrants arriving in the UK by small boats to nearly 1,000 already this year. Pictured: A migrant is brought ashore at Dover Harbour today +23
    The latest crossings bring the total number of migrants arriving in the UK by small boats to nearly 1,000 already this year. Pictured: A migrant is brought ashore at Dover Harbour today

    Official figures show more than three times as many migrants have arrived in Britain so far this month than in the whole of January last year. UK authorities have intercepted more than 950 migrants so far this year – more than three times the 223 in January 2021. Last year, 28,381 people were intercepted in the Channel, compared to just 8,410 in 2020

    It comes as around 30 people including young children were seen being brought to shore onboard Border Force vessels yesterday, with two small boats landing in Dover after making the dangerous crossing from Europe in the freezing cold and dark.

    Photos taken on the approach to the Port of Dover in Kent show a group of men, women and children huddled in lifejackets as their dinghy edges towards A P&O passenger ferry, moments before they were pulled to safety by the Border Force boat.

    Yesterday Boris Johnson’s Government revealed plans to give the Royal Navy the power to carry out surveillance and intercept migrants as the crisis in the Channel continues.

    It is one of a series of populist policies the Prime Minister has announced in recent days to shore up his tottering leadership as he faces calls to resign over the ‘Partygate’ lockdown scandal.

    e
    Defence Minister James Heappey yesterday insisted that deploying Britain’s armed forces to ‘ensure that our borders are robust is indeed a perfectly appropriate use of them’ while giving evidence at the Commons Defence Select Committee.

    However, in signs of a rift between the Government and the MoD, military sources insisted that controversial ‘push-back’ tactics would not be pursued amid mounting concerns that the policy is illegal and could cause more deaths in the Channel.

    Last week, a Sudanese man, aged in his 20s, fell overboard and drowned while attempting the crossing.

    Conservative chairman Tobias Ellwood warned ‘there is a real danger of mission creep here’, while Tory former minister Sir Edward Leigh branded plans to use the Navy as a ‘taxi service’ to escort migrants to the UK an ’embarrassment’.

    And Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey claimed the Government is ‘desperate to distract attention from accusations about the Prime Minister lying and partying in Downing Street’ and ‘desperate to prop up a Home Secretary utterly failing’.

    1. The Home office is failing – in fact, I think it’s deliberate. I think the intention is to maliciously, deliberately flood the country with gimmigrants out of spite over Brexit.

    2. “Some MPs have called for an end to the migrants crossings, which they have described as ‘incredible unsafe’, while campaigners have urged the Government to open safe channels and commit to resettle 10,000 people in the UK each year”.

      If only we could limit the number to 10,000!

    3. There’s a bill in the Commons tomorrow about removing all restrictions on new hotel construction and location regulations.

    1. Someone I used to know was at Oxford with Ian Maxwell. She seemed to think he was quite a pleasant chap.

    2. His hair doesn’t look so unkempt in this photo.

      Would Johnson look any better if he bought a tin of Kiwi polish, shaved his head completely and presented the sort of shiny dome that Squalid and Nadhim, his wife’s special chums, are so proud to show off.

  47. Red Wall Tory MP Christian Wakeford defects to Labour. 19 january 2022.

    In the past few minutes Boris Johnson’s Red Wall has started to crumble in a more dramatic way than he thought possible. Christian Wakeford, the Conservative MP for Bury South, is defecting to the Labour party, having previously submitted a vote a letter calling for a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

    Wakeford has been conspicuously unhappy with the leadership of his party for some time: he famously called Owen Paterson a c*** in the voting lobbies during the attempts to help him evade the standards regime that started the turmoil around Boris Johnson.

    I’m not happy with Boris or the Tory Party but fail to see the sense in this! The only conclusion that I can draw is that he was always Labour!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/red-wall-tory-mp-christian-wakeford-defects-to-labour

      1. Spot on. Otherwise one is cheating the people who voted for you and taking the easy route to troughing away.

        Anyway, resigning the seat, having a by-election and standing for a different party would show just how popular (or otherwise) the individual is.

        My bet is that he’d lose hands down.

        So he is simply another tosser – one among 650.

        1. Sad thing is, there are some MPs who genuinely believe in serving the public. There must be. Well, we know there are (or were).

          Infuriatingly those fellows never get near office.

        2. With a majority of just 400 he has read the tea leaves and jumped ship in plenty of time.

      2. Thing is, in the UK system, you elect an individual and not a party. That means you get to vote for a person. In Norway, we vote for a party, and they choose the MP. Quite different.
        So, your MP can be a member of whatever they like, and if honourable, will stand for re-election if they change allegiance.

    1. Plenty of time between now and March 26 for a new “far deadlier than ever” Greek letter to be discovered – and the rules re-instated 150%.

    2. From next Thursday I believe. The next question is, will face nappys go before the buffoon.

      1. I am starting to believe that Boris the Twerp should stay put- at least for now. If Gove, for example, becomes PM, all the restrictions will be reinstated and possibly strengthened.
        Give people their freedom back and let them get used to it again, then if there is a change of “leadership” hopefully people will not be so compliant.

        1. A couple of points, the Conservative MPs would have to have a death wish to get Gove into the last 2 for the members to then have their say. If the parliamentary party did support him that would show us they are incapable of learning any lessons at all. The other point is the next leader will have the same MPs who demonstrated before Christmas how independently minded they can be. To follow the Johnson path is electoral suicide, for example the voter votes with their wallets, and their wallets are going to take a beating and the green nonsense of net zero will only add to it. Other examples, of not sorting out Wokeness, BLM, XR, Channel invaders, BINO to name just a few are sure fire ways to lose votes.
          I have a certain amount of sadness about the situation Johnson finds himself in, he could have become a great PM if he followed through with what he promised when he campaigned to be leader. Unfortunately for him, and us, he is just another liberal MP but he happens to wear a blue rosette. To expect any long term change from him now is just delusional.

          1. Alas, he is just another in a long line of politicians telling us what we want to hear to get our votes, often giving completely contradictory presentations to different groups.

          2. Yes, I’m afraid you are correct, and it seems they are happy to be voted out by the electorate after a term or two, they seem to know where the feeding troughs are located outside Westminster and already have a place booked.

          3. If you stay in office too long you reap the whirlwind sowed with the ballsups you made out in earlier ones.

          4. Just over 2 years seems to be too long at the moment. A great pity so much was promised yet so little delivered. Interesting that now he is fighting for his political life things are started to be done. Covid restrictions not to be renewed (perhaps), the BBC being brought to heel finally (perhaps), SAGE modelling now questioned (finally but for how long). Too little too late methinks.

          5. “now he is fighting for his political life things are started to be done”
            And it’s only his ‘political life’ that matters to him, these sudden new actions are all like the facades of towns in old western films.

          6. Many words have been and is yet to be written about Johnson. To me the phrase Trust can take a lifetime to earn but can be lost in moments sums it all up.
            Time to go, take your missus with you.

          7. Alas, he is just another in a long line of politicians telling us what we want to hear to get our votes, often giving completely contradictory presentations to different groups.

          8. Yes, I feel sorry for him.
            He has got himself into a right mugger’s buddle. The moment Marina had had enough and booted him out, he was doomed to drift.

        2. Johnson should be kept on probation – at least until the local elections in May.
          Watched like hawk and the slightest sign of Greenery Wokery to be squelched. All the No. 10 juveniles to be hoofed out.
          If Her Indoors still holds sway, then the letters go into the 1922 Committee.

    3. Canada must have a different covid to the UK, the powers are still cranking up restrictions and fear mongering over here.

      CBC (left of bbc) news last night featured a story that the next variant will be more severe than this one.

      2. It sounds as though project fear is alive and kicking in Canada.
        From what he has said, our son there thinks we will be doomed to serious risks if all the restrictions, especially masks, are removed. He is more than ok with his 4 year old having to wear a mask in JK, and that the 6 year old has had 2 jabs (just five weeks apart).

      1. Yes, “same suspect” is all we see; perhaps same and usual are synonymous.
        Of course, I may be suffering from unconscious bias.

  51. The MR was very keen to watch PMQs – poor deluded soul, she thought that BPAPM would be gone by the end of the day.

    She turned it off after 10 minutes – “disgusted”.

    I concentrated on doing the edge for the new (jokey) jigsaw!. Much more rewarding. Let us say it has a “cat” theme…!!

      1. Dunno – never go there if I can avoid it.

        We get our jigsaws at the Fakenham Church Book and Puzzle Fair – four times a year. An excellent way of raising funds. You buy half a dozen – for £1.50 a go – and return for resale the previous half dozen.

    2. A pity she switched off because she missed a historic moment when the knife was drawn and thrust into the PMs chest by a very senior Tory brexiteer backbencher.

        1. It grazed his heart I reckon … He may well be on his way to the operating theatre as I write.

      2. That wouldn’t be enough. You have to stuff his mouth with garlic and then chop his head off to be sure.

      2. I hope, that he does not go this afternoon

        I will not be able to take over the Wedneday Afternoon/Thursday Morning shift this week as we have visitors coming to stay

    4. I give in. I still haven’t worked out what the acronym BPAPM stands for. Please enlighten me.

      Edit: eg Bollox/Buffoon Posing As Prime Minister?

      1. Buffoon Posing As Prime Minister. I coined this two years ago! And your erudite post shows that you had twigged it!!

        1. Being pedantic in return, it is a set of initials that is accepted by many as an acronym, the point in dispute being how much it is pronounced as a word. For example, BBC is accepted as an acronym, so what is different about BPAPM?

    1. Yet another example of a power-crazed scumbag who is only interested in retaining power and cares not a jot about party ideology. Any member of the electorate with only a few functioning brain cells should hear the alarm bells ringing and ditch the creature immediately.

      If an MP is elected on one party’s manifesto, he should not be permitted — under any circumstances — to “cross the floor” and retain his/her/its seat.

      2. As I have said above: Reckless and Carswell resigned and sought re-election under new colours in a by election when they resigned. The woeful Woolaston didn’t.

      3. Under almost all circumstances I would agree.

        However, if sufficient Tory MPs grouped together to form a new party, with old school conservative values, to create a genuine opposition to Government left-wing/woke/green controlling policies, which are presently being supported by Labour, they might have sufficient time in the current Parliament to show that this new party would be fit to govern before the next election.

        They could then stand under their own manifesto.

        Such an approach could lead to a successful caucus to create a viable new party which could gain seats in the proper way. Properly constituted, and with well thought out policies they could even attract right of centre Labour “red wall” voters. I cannot see any other way that a new right of centre party to challenge both Labour and the Conservatives has a hope in Hell under first past the post can be established.

        1. It would be interesting to see the statistics on the Tory MPs’ backgrounds and what sort of degrees, those that have them, are. Has the time arrived when the vast majority, especially the younger ones, have been groomed through the loony left PPE education system?

      1. His change of heart should trigger a by-election. While his party’s policies have been the same as Labour’s his constituents voted for a Conservative.

        Only his vaunted ego has them voting for him.

        1. But in their, and our innocence, they assumed the party would be implementing the Conservative policies in the manifesto and kicking the silly PR ones, like zero carbon, into the long grass. Instead of which, they’ve done the reverse.

    3. Christian Wakeford was probably elected on a pledge to help get Brexit done.

      If he joins a party that wants to rejoin the EU he is betraying the electorate.

      Look at that foul woman Woolaston who changed her views on Brexit without surrendering her seat in Parliament and left the Conservative Party to form a pro-EU party along with the likes of Souberry.

      Whatever you think of Reckless and Carswell at least they presented themselves for re-election when they resigned from the Conservative Party to join UKIP.

      As I keep banging on – why did Farage give carte blanche to Johnson by not contesting Conservative held seats in the 2019 general election without getting a quid pro quo of any sort? Surely Farage should have agreed only to stand down his Brexit Party candidates in seats held by committed Conservative Brexiters. The great danger of this as far as the Boris Bodged Brexit is concerned is that the Conservative Party is still stuffed with remainers. This was a very grave error by Farage.

      1. Here are the reasons he put forward at the time, in short, if the Tories didn’t have a majority there would likely be a 2nd referendum. The key point though was Johnson had to stick by his part of the deal regarding Brexit, see last paragraph in bold.

        “Nigel Farage has said the Brexit party will not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the last general election, after Boris Johnson committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.

        Farage said his party’s climbdown came after months of trying to create a leave alliance with the Tories, but he felt it was time to put the country before his party and make a “unilateral” move.

        He will announce on Friday in which seats the Brexit party is standing. Speculation continues over where the party will stand but it is not expected to run in Northern Ireland or parts of Scotland.

        As he spelled out his general election strategy at a rally in Hartlepool, which voted 70% to leave the EU, Farage said he had concluded that if the Brexit party had stood a candidate in every seat it could split the vote and usher in dozens of Liberal Democrat MPs and, in turn, create the circumstances for a second referendum.

        He said: “The Brexit party will not contest the 317 seats the Conservatives won at the last election. We will concentrate our total effort into all the seats that are held by the Labour party, who have completely broken their manifesto pledge in 2017 to respect the result of the referendum, and we will also take on the rest of the remainer parties. We will stand up and fight them all.”

        He said this strategy was reliant on Johnson sticking to his promises on delivering Brexit, and getting Brexit party MPs into parliament to keep the pressure on him.

        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/11/brexit-party-will-not-contest-317-tory-seats-nigel-farage-says

        1. In short Farage trusted Boris Johnson far more than he should have done and got nothing in return.

          1. So it seems. I never would have trusted Johnson, he’s got previous form for checking wind direction.

          3. I don’t blame Nigel Farage for trying to make a deal, just Johnson’s duplicity, to put it politely.

    4. Given their ineffectiveness I’m surprised that it’s only one – I wouldn’t be surprised if dozens followed or ended up in ‘No-men’ Land the ill-Liberal Demonstrators

  54. It is impossible to switch off the Nord Stream 2 project as gas deliveries have not started yet, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, adding that this kind of situation has a negative impact on European consumers.
    “Russia is regularly, daily threatened by someone. The commercial international project Nord Stream 2 cannot be turned off, because it has not yet been turned on,” Peskov told reporters when asked about German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s statement on the possibility of switching off the project in case of escalation in Ukraine.

        2. Some may say we are an echo chamber on here but that isn’t entirely the case.

          Are you coming to my lunch party?

          1. Pip, many thanks for the invite.

            I wasn’t sure what you meant at first, but after a bit of sleuthing, I’ve tracked down your emails of last Nov/Dec. My inbox is more black hole than echo chamber. Many thanks for the invite. I’d love to attend, but the logistics are difficult. Sundays, I usually have to play for a 9:00 then a 10:30 service. If I was driving, I could prolly still get to Kingsclere for lunch. But I’m reliant on public transport, and June timetables aren’t yet published.

            Based on current timetables, I’d struggle to get to Basingstoke before 14:30, let alone get to Kingsclere. It’s not impossible that I could arrange cover for all of the services that morning, and set off earlier, or I could possibly persuade Dianne to come up from Devon that weekend (you did say ‘you two’)…

            Sorry not to be more definite. :-((

          2. Appreciated. Garlands and Tine are coming. Perhaps a lift could be arranged. Dianne would be most welcome.

          4. Sure.

            To secure the venue i would ideally like confirmations by the end of April. Leaving me enough time to find somewhere else if need be.

            Don’t miss out ! I’m paying for all the food and drinkies ! :@)

  57. 334363+ up ticks,

    May one ask, why are peoples via their income tax and party funding

    supporting and voting for the demolition of a once decent nation ?

    UK GOVT WARNED 65,000 ILLEGAL BOAT MIGRANTS MAY LAND THIS YEAR

    1. All agreed to in the UN migration pact. Of course, Boris will say the migration should stop but does absolutely nothing to to repulse the convoys. In fact, he has sent more effective forces to Ukraine 🇺🇦 than the Channel.

      1. But as I understand it he has appointed an Admiral of the Royal Navy to oversee the border farce! What more can you ask?! 😂😂😂

      2. 334363+ up ticks,

        Afternoon K,

        These pacts were made via politico’s grinding anti United KIngdom axes
        and as many of us realise via crime figure esculation mass rapes & abuse of children,mass murder,terrorist using the Country as a retutn home base etc,etc,we are on a war footing.

        Does the accompanying body bags = the troops sent because if the shite hits the fan we have., heavens forbid, yet another b liar issue.

        These dai;y intakes have entered the red danger zone many a week ago.

      3. 334363+ up ticks,

        Afternoon K,

        These pacts were made via politico’s grinding anti United KIngdom axes
        and as many of us realise via crime figure esculation mass rapes & abuse of children,mass murder,terrorist using the Country as a retutn home base etc,etc,we are on a war footing.

        Does the accompanying body bags = the troops sent because if the shite hits the fan we have., heavens forbid, yet another b liar issue.

      1. Russia’s correctly perceived aggressors are an expansive NATO and the EU.

        Putin has no aggressive intentions.

        The UK would be wise to stay out of this ‘confrontation’.

        It’s all Baroness Ashton’s legacy of sh!t as a former EU Commissioner …

    2. Around November, Octopus broke the news that an equivalent fixed price tariff would be around 220% more. Searching the web, few fixed deals were now available, but I did find one from British Gas (which I hate with a passion). It’s more than I was paying, but less than Octopus’ offer. And fixed for two years, so there’s some stablity baked into it.

      1. We’ve gone with a 3 year fixed deal at about 250%. We’ll see what actually happens on April Fools’ Day and either continue it if necessary (Gawd ‘elp us), or pay to change to something cheaper if things don’t become as bad as expected. No one with a cheaper deal at present on the comparison sites.

        1. Actually, mine might be 3 years as well. CBA to check. They were supposed to be fitting smart meters tomorrow (which I didn’t want – apparently they were buried in the small print). But they sent me a text massage this arvo to say they wouldn’t be coming. Unfortunately, they now owe me £30 for failing to give me 24 hrs notice of non-attendance. By 20 minutes. This could be fun…

          1. We could have got a Scottish Power deal 2 weeks ago that would have been significantly cheaper (the only one), but it was with a mandatory ‘Smart Meter’.

          2. Good luck with the refund!

            BTW I’ve seen an ad on telly by British Gas for boilers showing the thermostat set at 55 degrees. I always thought 60 degs was the minimum to avoid nasty bugs.

      2. It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

        Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

        Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

        Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

        Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

        Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

        I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

        Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

        In the name of God, go!

        1. I have the 4 volumes of ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations’ by Thomas Carlyle.
          He was, for his time, a very honourable and forward thinking man.

          1. I am about to start on my second Christmas present book: The Making of Oliver Cromwell by Ronald Hutton.

          2. I think you will enjoy it, there is a good section on military tactics of that period.
            My first book was S.R.Gardiner’s Oliver Cromwell.
            Then Gods Englishman by Christopher Hill also Our Chief of Men by Antonia Fraser.

  61. 334363+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Did this wakeford chap keep his mask on when crossing the floor we don’t want to contaminate lab in any shape or form……..

    Ho my bloody aching sides….

  62. “In the name of God go!”

    Chamberlain had to go because there was Norway that the opposition parties would support his prosecution of the war against Hitler. Unlike Sir Kier Starmer however who, recognising Boris’s leadership qualities, decided to support him in the latest round of COVID-19 measures which did not find favour amongst the PM’s own party.

    1. IMO Chamberlain has been unfairly treated. He may have waved his piece of paper to the public, but he immediately told his government to prepare for war. Furthermore, it was ironic that Norway led to his resignation and Churchill becoming PM because Churchill had been the prime advocate for action there and his plan was used.

      2. If there’s red meat on the table and the big dog ignores it because he thinks it’s a pork pie then there’s no telling what the pack is going to do!

  63. “In the name of God go!”

    Chamberlain had to go because there was Norway that the opposition parties would support his prosecution of the war against Hitler. Unlike Sir Kier Starmer however who, recognising Boris’s leadership qualities, decided to support him in the latest round of COVID-19 measures which did not find favour amongst the PM’s own party.

  64. Light travels faster than sound.

    This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

    3. Is this an official announcement Johnny? If so hoo bleediNg ray. Well past time.

      We’ve noticed for a long time that children in supermarkets give you a funny look if you smile or stop and speak to them – without wearing a mask I mean. We often feel like aliens!

      1. Just that muzzles will no longer be ‘mandatory’. The usual muppets will, of course, continue to wear them when driving alone or walking down a quiet street. Let’s see if Tesco keeps putting out the annoying, patronising tannoy messages to all wear a mask ‘to keep everyone safe.’ Mind you, judging by how watered down the ‘hand sanitiser’ is for customers, Tesco (probably others too) must surely be playing a bit of lip service to the rules.

        1. I haven’t bothered with the sanitiser since the first lockdown. The one I bought is still in the car, unused. I forget to use it after I’ve filled up with fuel – just forgot it was there. I would use it then if I think of it because the pump does make my hands smell of diesel.

          1. I can’t stand the smell of the stuff. When I had a class in the library just before lunch, there wasn’t time for all the kids to go to the loo to wash their hands. They all had little bottles of sanitizer and used that. 25+ kids all reeking of this stuff….made me light headed. Haven’t used it at all but I do wash my hands often, a relic of teaching. Little blighters;-)

          3. I’m sure the ones at shop entrances are extra harsh, non skin friendly. My hands are never so dry when I use my own sanitiser …. which I removed from the car last summer and then forgot to replace. In places where a member of staff hovers about watching customers use sanitiser before going in, I just pretend to use the muck. Our local garden centre is one such place, and they never stopped enforcing the one way route after 1st lockdown. I now only go there when I need something in a hurry. Their loss.

      2. I hate the dammed things with a passion – I don’t like being the only customer not wearing one – but I haven’t been challenged since last summer and that was by another customer.

      5. Its correct. We have never worn them and have felt concern for the slaves that have worn them when they could have opted out.as we did.

    5. Don’t believe a word of it. Even if it IS announced, I bet the spamhead slammer says that people are “advised to go on wearing them on a “voluntary” basis.

  67. Went out for lunch today at our local garden centre.

    All my friends were wearing masks, all but one kept them on till the food was served. Then we sat and chatted without them, until just before we got up to go, when they all put their masks back on again………

        1. Not wishing to be rude to you but ‘they’ did work for a Government department. It could be argued that they were safe as long as they went along with it. Don’t rock the boat.

          People whose living depends on them being able to earn a living which has been severely restricted have been damaged far worse. And in many cases their independent businesses destroyed.

          Apostrophe edit. :@(

          1. Very true – but they are all pensioners now and of course, law abiding people who always applied the rules in their working life.

            Fortunately the very hard-working lady who runs the cafe we generally go to has managed to keep her business going. She did take-aways during the lockdowns.

    4. Sounds like the Grand Old Duke of York marching his men to the top of the hill then marching them down again.

    5. I saw two young chaps in Asda yesterday; one had his mask on but not covering his nose and the other just had it round his chin. Most were unmasked though, as we always are.
      There is an Indian looking guy who works there and who normally just ponces around not doing much but looking important- we have nicknamed him Captain Peacock. He was helpful yesterday, climbing up some steps to get a box down for us. And he cracked a joke.

        2. Mostly remainers, lockdown supporters, climate change activists, BLM and assorted anarchists…and people who voted for Biden..I see a pattern.

          2. No – I think most are just compliant, law-abiding people like my friends, who just follow the dictates without thinking of the logic.

          3. With the utmost respect your friends are from a generation where the Law was respected and people generally behaved in the appropriate manner. In these days they need to wake up or they will find their liberties curtailed by a global left wing agenda.

            We have already seen this in essence where family have been forced to allow their beloved to die alone.

            Unacceptable.

          4. The only friend I know of who died during the last two years was a dear friend who died just before Christmas 2020, of kidney failure – he’d been having dialysis three times a week for several years. His wife and their children (six adults) were all able to be with him when he died. Funerals were limited to 30 people at the time but all the family were able to be there.

            I think the no visitors rule was applied or not applied in various places or ways. Jane definitely told me they were all with him.

          6. I’d been expecting it for a while – he was 85 and had had kidney failure for some years. Sad but inevitable.

          7. The only friend I know of who died during the last two years was a dear friend who died just before Christmas 2020, of kidney failure – he’d been having dialysis three times a week for several years. His wife and their children (six adults) were all able to be with him when he died. Funerals were limited to 30 people at the time but all the family were able to be there.

            I think the no visitors rule was applied or not applied in various places or ways. Jane definitely told me they were all with him.

          19. Start NOW on the ludicrous paperwork both to LEAVE the UK, to enter Kenya – to LEAVE Kenya and to return to the UK. Copy everything. Be prepared to tear it all up and start again.

            I wish you all the very best – to have a holiday abroad is now our dream. Will the elephants be masked?

          20. Done the online evisa form so far………. the health declaration form is a nightmare.

            We’ve got to have a negative PCR test (Urrggh) within 72 hours of flying and it all has to be uploaded at check-in. Not sure how to do that. Will have to take paper copies of it all as well. And the Vax QR code.

            The elephants will be mask-free.

      2. One of my old schoolfriends ( not the ones I met today) said it makes her feel safer. It’s a comfort blanket.

      3. Bill found a good use for these silly masks yesterday: ash when he is emptying the grate gets into his throat so a Covid mask may not be of any use at all for stopping virus spread but it keep out ashes and dust.

    8. Masked horrors in Aldi today.
      No wonder the government thinks it can get away with being so capricious.

    9. It’ll be interesting in Morrisons tomorrow. Will anyone think to themselves “It’ll be ok not to wear one next week so why not today?”

        2. Me too. It might have been an idea for Nottlers to visit the exact same store at the same time to see if we all recognised each other.

          1. I’m the one who looks like he has been let out for the day, and is accompanied by his young daughter…

          2. Bill Thomas is the one who looks like he has been let out for the day, and is accompanied by his young daughter. keeper…

      3. I pointed that out to our council on Monday when they were mumbling behind their masks and making the public socially distance.

        1. I think it rather depends on who makes them – our local farm shop makes some really superb ones!

          1. I’ve made them in the past but it’s a lot of work. Scotch eggs are easier to make and are nice in the summer with salad.

      2. And all the white fatty bits. I know, I know, that’s probably meant to be the tastiest bit or something.

          1. I can cook many things – but always had a block with any sort of pastry. It ALWAYS ending up looking like Playdoh!

        1. Hot pork pie, mushy peas and a couple of pints of Old Peculiar after a day on the crags. Nothing better.

      1. These your home-made pies, Grizz?
        SWMBO & Firstborn to have a go soon, with home-made pork!
        Oh, boy, am I looking forward to the result (will have to get more Branston pickle in!)

        1. So many times I remember you responding….”Ooooh Pies!” Always makes me chuckle.

          2. Well. if you lived nearer I’d make you a steak and kidney pie, or just steak if you don’t like kidneys.

  69. The Yanks are doing flying training overhead. Three aircraft. One F-15 from Lakenheath; one from “unknown” – the third – over Fulmodeston – direct from the USA…

    They must have money to burn! Now all buggered off. The two which were not F-15s were flying with 100 ft vertical separation at 350 knots.

  71. That’s me for the day. Not quite as nice as forecast. Short bike ride Very short – there was a strong westerly wind. No market tomorrow. My elder son gave me a selection of cheese and wine for my birthday. Just Morrisons and then the GP to collect tabs – and for the MR to get a referral to have a small skin lesion removed.

    Have a jolly evening. The MR is watching Henry IV pt 1. I haven’t been so bored for at least a week. Never been able to get on with the “history” plays.

    A demain. Beware whatever the spamhead slammer says. Pity D Davis hadn’t been that brutal a year ago.

      1. Have never got on with police things; detective things; Scandi things. Very simple mind. Clear story; start, beginning and end – all in 90 minutes (or less).

        I couldn’t make head nor tale of the C T W L. Though I very much enjoyed The Draughtsman’s Contract – which is never shown these days. I expect the posh family made their money in slavery…{:¬)

      1. Well, if you trust the judgement of someone who thinks we can ‘trust people’s judgement’.

        1. 334363+ up ticks,

          Evening,
          48% 52% ring a bell, you are never more that 2m away from a rodent.

      1. Loved that youyou photo of the sand container on wheels; coincidentally I own a supermarket shopping trolley, so if I were a u-tuber I could perhaps take it to a beach for a test fill.

    4. But do remember the job of the editor is to sort the wheat wheeze from the chaff cough and to print the chaff cough!

    5. But do remember the job of the editor is to sort the wheat wheeze from the chaff cough and to print the chaff cough!

      1. Splitting the vote. They didn’t need the ‘Yes, trust people’s judgement’ question. The people who really need to think wouldn’t notice that.

    7. Scraping the barrel with statistics now.

      Our beloved health Minister has just invented a survey showing that 25% of Canadians would be happy to see the unvaxxed sent to prison.

      They are getting desperate.

  74. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10418537/Macron-blames-Britain-migrant-deaths-English-Channel-demands-good-faith-fishing.html

    Well Toy Boy, if you rounded them all up and put them in “camps” for processing as genuine asylum seekers and sent the rest back to whichever pigshitistan or Democratic Republic of African Wogolia they came from, and the rest of your beloved EU did similarly, the flood would become a trickle and everyone would be better placed, including the genuine asylum seekers.

    1. Is that a per capita value, or absolute numbers – since more people are vacced than not, that would be seen in the absolute figures (if there were only 2 unvacced, and one died, then you’d have very much fewer unvacced dying, but 50% per capita…)

  77. Fred Dibnah climbing a ladder 300 feet up a church spire, no ropes no safety equipment, just his flat cap.!

    BBC4, the one they’ll close down.

    2. As he explained, once you’ve gone up past the first three ladder sections it doesn’t much matter from which point thereafter you fall because you’ll be dead!

  78. Evening, all. I suspect Dominic Cummings doesn’t see the point of shedding light on the situation; there’s not much advantage to him to do so.

  79. 334363+ up ticks,

    I will make one comment I do mean in all honest seriousnes that is
    this reset / replace is digging up some heavy shIte, we could very well see
    much gnassing of teeth and hear wails of despair when the younsters of the electorate are mandatory called up to die fighting a foreign war while their own country is being overrun.

    https://gettr.com/post/ppcqro3027

        2. How about a few SAS Assassins. Can we rustle up enough to pay them?

          Soros
          Schwab
          Gates

          You are in the firing line.

      2. What a blatherer.

        “How do we internalise these externalities?”

        Err… do we eat our own arses?

        And these people are our potential global rulers… Gawd, we deserve everything we’re about to receive.

  80. I am ashamed to call the turncoat former Tory Christian Wakeford my MP

    As a resident in Bury South, I gave him my vote to keep Labour out of power. Disregarding our wishes has made him a hypocrite

    ANGELA EPSTEIN • 19 January 2022 • 5:40pm

    Christian Wakeford owes the genesis of his parliamentary career to people like me. I live in his Bury South constituency and my vote was one of those that helped him scrape over the line with a nail-biting majority of just 402 at the last general election.

    Wakeford’s victory turned the seat blue for the first time since 1997. And although the 38-year-old MP naturally profited from the Boris boom, there was another layer to the narrative. Bury South also has one of the largest Jewish populations of any seat outside London. As such Wakeford offered political sanctuary for Jewish people like myself who feared for our country should Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour win the election.

    Yet even after Corbyn was tossed into the dustbin of history, I felt committed to my choice. Wakeford seemed to be a man of principle, keen to heal wounds and embrace the needs of his constituents (heck, he even told my daughter he was learning Hebrew to facilitate his relationship with the Jewish community).

    Meanwhile, Keir Starmer appeared to be frozen at the wheel. Reactive rather than encouraging. Platitudinous rather than inspirational. Certainly throughout the pandemic, as shroud-waving Labour agitated for more state control, there was never any reason to regret my decision to choose a Tory MP.

    All this is why Wakeford’s decision to switch sides – the first Conservative MP to defect to Labour in 15 years – is such a betrayal. Put simply, I did not vote Tory to get a Labour MP. In jumping ship – rather than, say, standing as an independent, as Ivan Lewis once did – he has betrayed all of us who gifted him our vote.

    It has also made him a hypocrite. In 2020, Wakeford backed a bill to make by-elections mandatory for MPs who change political party. Such a penchant for double standards has been further demonstrated by the fact that he has quit the Tories in rage at Boris Johnson’s lockdown behaviour only to join a party whose leader has refused to apologise for his own misdemeanour, being pictured drinking beer inside an office during the national lockdown.

    Let me be clear. If Johnson is implicated in law breaking then he has to be called to account. But the Prime Minister is also a man who presided over the victorious vaccine and booster programmes, who got Brexit done, and whose instinct to defy calls for greater restrictions has been so vital to preserving the prosperity and emotional wellbeing of this country, especially in the months since the omicron variant first emerged. If Boris Johnson detoxifies his inner circle, regains voter confidence and embarks on an ambitious, forward thinking, post pandemic recovery bonanza, there is scope to heal wounds. [Getting slightly carried away in this para, but we’ll let you off.]

    We need effective opposition. But the Labour party is a work in progress, slowly distancing itself from the one-time spectre of a quasi-Marxist Corbyn administration and grappling to find a way forward. I voted for Christian Wakeford because Labour wasn’t fit for purpose. I still don’t believe it is. In taking my Tory vote and turning it red, Wakeford has committed the ultimate betrayal. I’m ashamed to call him my MP.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/19/ashamed-call-turncoat-former-tory-christian-wakeford-mp/

    Angela Epstein is a regular Telegraph contributor.

      1. We dutifully had our two original jabs. Last one May 1. It is now Jan 19 and both my arms have the red spots on them. These appeared a month or so after the 2nd jab and are still with me- as is swollen ankle and foot. Gawd knows what was in those jabs but they can go and shove the booster where the sun don’t shine!!! Honestly Conners, I look as though I have measles:-(

        PS and we only had the jabs in case we were not allowed into shops, the pubs etc.

        1. I’m sure you look very attractive, nonetheless, Ann 🙂 The trouble is, that the people who were conned can’t go back and undo what they did, in the light of further information. I saw a friend I knew from church this morning (he hasn’t been to church for two years because of Covid). He said that the trouble was, lots of people round him hadn’t been vaccinated. I just pointed out you could still get it and pass it on, even if you had. My unvaxxed status is my own business and nobody else’s as far as I’m concerned. He wouldn’t have talked to me if he’d known, anyway!

          1. I am looking forward to spring when I can wear t-shirts again and get my arms some sunshine.
            Am an absolute stunner in my Ziggy Stardust PJs and my thick fuzzy socks;-)))

          2. You two are as bad as Plum and lacoste, you’ll give Nottle a reputation, if you’re not careful.
            }:-O

        2. Be careful when you bend over, you might get a boost where it don’t shine!

          No one that I talk to has ever complained about side effects beyond the standard sore arm or flu like symptoms for a day. We are now all bright eyed, bushy tailedand ready to go – if we are ever allowed to go anywhere that is.

        4. The spotty look is also worn by a friend who swears blind that it appeared after he was bitten by a deadly spider. He also happens to be diabetic. For the swollen ankle and foot, read up on oedema.

          1. Thanks. I am not diabetic and have not had a spider bite since I was in NC. Swollen foot only appeared after jab. But I will give it a look.

          4. That’s a bummer.
            You could have helped Bill out with trimming his trees and other ladder work.

        5. I only had the jabs because I had a trip booked and paid for. Stiff shoulder is better than it was but not right. Not having a booster.

      2. We dutifully had our two original jabs. Last one May 1. It is now Jan 19 and both my arms have the red spots on them. These appeared a month or so after the 2nd jab and are still with me- as is swollen ankle and foot. Gawd knows what was in those jabs but they can go and shove the booster where the sun don’t shine!!! Honestly Conners, I look as though I have measles:-(

        PS and we only had the jabs in case we were not allowed into shops, the pubs etc.

    2. It was all sounding pretty good until;
      “But the Prime Minister is also a man who presided over the victorious vaccine and booster programmes, who got Brexit done, and whose instinct to defy calls for greater restrictions has been so vital to preserving the prosperity and emotional wellbeing of this country, especially in the months since the omicron variant first emerged. If Boris Johnson detoxifies his inner circle, regains voter confidence and embarks on an ambitious, forward thinking, post pandemic recovery bonanza, there is scope to heal wounds.”
      As you say, William, but she’s fundamentally wrong here.

      1. Whats the point in that kind of “instinct” if you act completely the opposite? It’s all bollux, he’s an incompetent lying fascist, as are they all.

  84. Covid: Face mask rules and Covid passes to end in England

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60047438

    “The current regulations around self-isolation expire on 24 March. Mr Johnson said he expected not to renew them then – and suggested that date could be brought forward if the data allows.”

    Just do it anyway…
    _____________________________________________

    Sadiq Khan: Masks to remain on London transport despite end of Plan B

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60038741

    Time to dissolve the office…

          1. A long regime of school dinners, when we were kids, should do it! Aren’t you lucky, Mr. Khan, it’s boiled cabbage and liver again.

          9. Me neither. After I spent a couple of days on the train going to Moscow with no restaurant car, the first meal when I arrived was liver. Try as I might, I couldn’t eat it 🙁

          11. Weegie mash is as smooth and characterless as wallpaper paste/toothpaste. At least, a lump or two suggests it might have something to do with potato.

          12. I was a very skinny kid, and school ‘dinners’ were at least partially to blame. My mother’s ‘home cooking’ did the rest.

          15. Spam fritters?
            Pucks of cod’s roe.
            Boiled marrow/pumpkin.
            Ugh. Useful slot in the floorboards where I used to sit.

    3. How long will Drakeford cling on to Covid passes, I wonder. That will affect me, as Bangor racecourse (cae rasio Bangor is y coed) is over the border.

  85. Now wait for all the leopards to rush to change their spots and say they were always opposed to all the restrictions.
    Can you hear the thunder of feet?

      1. Isn’t it a bloody shambles? I have read so many books on all sorts but especially history- I do not think I have ever read anything else like the cock up this has been. And yes, there have been many but this is beyond a joke.
        Far as I am concerned- no more excuses, no more masks (not that I’ve worn one anyway.)

    2. Next time (because the bastards never give up) they’ll make sure they control the internet before they go again,this time with the internet we can crucify the lying bastards who are trying to avoid their trials,yes you morgan and you neil amid all too many others……

      2. Having proved how easy it is to just seize control of us it will be easier next time. Any old virus can “come along” and the powers they have seized under Coronavirus laws, never debated, can be used again and again. And the police and the military used if necessary.

        1. 334363+ up ticks,

          Evening VW,

          Do unto them as they are planning to do unto you, for sure.

          Boycott at every given voting opportunity

          use people power via individual MPs
          butcher,baker, plumber, lecky, etc,etc
          sorry run out, sorry booked up, sorry,sorry.

          Take a page from their book be very,very,nasty.

          1. I will never do anything this govt says ever again. They have shown their true colours and it shows that they are liars, cheats and hypocrites.
            Used to have a fridge magnet that said- “No more Ms. Nice Gal.”
            Believe it.

      3. 334363+ up ticks,

        Evening Rik,
        This was just the test prototype, strength testing,
        I would say 48% were found wanting, second round, in the trenches so to speak make sure “they” along with nige are to the front of you.

  89. Me too, just getting to the denouement of ‘Children of Ruin’ by A Tchaikovsky (Rik and Phizz will know) and trying to watch a film before I go to bed. Night.

  90. I suspect that after all that reminiscing about school dinners of yore, I might well have nightmares.

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